DebateGate

<<The USA is not perfect, if your standard is absolute perfection then I must admit to falling far short.>>

This is EXACTLY what I mean by your inability to face the issue squarely, your constant diversions.  WHEN was the the issue ever about "perfection?"  It's absurd to even suggest that my accusations against the USA were that it fell far short of perfection.

We are talking about the genocide of the Native Americans, the enslavement of the blacks, 100 years of segregation and lynch law, the overthrow of democratically elected governments, the support of Death Squads on Central America, the launching of wars of unprovoked aggression against Third World countries now to numerous to even count, the deaths of 2 million Vietnamese in a totally unjustifiable invasion, torture that goes unpunished . . .

Horrific abuses that you sweep away with snide comments like "nobody's perfect."  I suggest to you that very FEW countries have a record anywhere near as horrific.  Belgians over the span of your own history and despite what they did in the Congo, are SAINTS compared to Americans.

I used to know a lot about the Scottsboro boys, having read a paperback autobiography of Samuel Leibowitz, the attorney retained by the CP, I believe for the re-trials ordered by the Supreme Court.  It was such a long time ago that I had to Google the Scottsboro Boys just to retrieve Leibowitz' name, which I had forgotten.  Google reminded me once again of the courage of Matt Wann, the local sheriff who had faced down a lynch mob , proving that there were, even then, some decent white Southerners (probably one in a hundred thousand but still . . .)

The thing that I never forgot from the book was Leibowitz' arrival in the small town where the retrial was going to be held, surrounded in his hotel by a mob bearing signs that said "Kill the Jew from New York" and the hospitality shown to him by the prosecutor and his wife in their own home, to the outrage of the townsfolk.  (OK, three in a hundred thousand)

Incidentally, from Googling for Leibowitz' name, I found there's a huge amount of information easily available about the case, which even has its own web-site.  From the Wikipedia article alone, I was able to find photos of many of the participants in the case, including the two girls Ruby and Victoria, who were not exactly hothouse flowers even as teenagers.  It was pretty hard to imagine either one of them exciting the baser passions in anyone except a sailor who'd been at sea for . . . oooops, sorry, plane!

I think an attorney with experience in rape and sexual assault cases has a huge advantage over a guy like The Perv's lawyer because many times she will have had clients who DON'T have any recollection of all the facts that you required.  Many times she would have been faced with the same absurd demands for perfect recall of all the trivia of an event when all her client can recall are the salient facts - - how she came to be with the man, and what the man did to her.  And her track record seems to indicate that she knows how to surmount the attack, probably (and I'll just guess here at how she does it) by ridiculing demands for total recall that very few people are capable of providing and by throwing the demands for particulars back at the perp and his lawyer.

Anyway, Gloria's on her home turf now and The Perv's lawyer is not.  This'll be fun to watch.  My bet: that the old Hermster is going down.

<<America has been fighting the evil part of the world since day one.>>

Oh, rubbish.

<<Wasn't I making this clear?>>

What you were making clear was that you were prepared to focus on what YOU called the "evil" on the part of every nation on the face of the earth EXCEPT the U.S.A.

<<Next time you don't want a list, don't include a list in your question.>>

plane, the "list" was my mistake.  After complaining about your inability to deal squarely with the many crimes against humanity committed by the U.S.A., I then very stupidly in response to your claim that the US in the beginning was a better country than most or many, asked you WHICH countries you thought the US was better than in the beginning, and asked you specifically about countries which I KNEW were better than the USA in the beginning.  Which only gave you further opportunity to take up the challenge and create further diversions of the discussion away from all of the many crimes and atrocities of the US.  My mistake.


<<Lets just narrow it a bit .>>

Let's just forget that I ever asked such a stupid fucking question and get back to my complaint that rather than focus on ANYTHING that the US did to inflict death, pain and heartbreak on its long-suffering fellow inhabitants of the world, you seem to prefer focusing instead on the wrongs and crimes of every other fucking country on this planet.  WHY, when the question of US criminal conduct comes up, do you always divert the subject to a different issue, namely the crimes of every nation EXCEPT the USA?

<<You doubt that Belgum . . .

<< . . . [American] independance form England . . .

<<France has been pretty good . . .

<< . . . Unkle Ho thought  . . .evil  . . . >>

Really I don't know how to continue this discussion, plane.  I'm talking to you, but you are not talking to me.  Are you even aware that I have been complaining for several posts now of your reflex attempts to sidetrack and divert this discussion from any sensible consideration of what it is that America has been doing in the world during our respective lifetimes?

Thank you.  Hopefully we can all benefit from the exercise of more civility.

Uh, that wasn't XO's post you were responding to, sirs, it was mine.

Michael Tee