Carter Blasts Israeli Oppression

[sirs]

I disagree, sirs, no surprise there.  I don't really remember much about Carter's administration but I know so much more about his work since leaving office. 

Yet the point of my comments are specific to him and his adminstration, not afterwards

When the last book is writ on Jimmy Carter, it will be of praise and recognition.

Depends on what the book is being written on.  His Presidency or his post-presidency?  If the latter, then you may be right

[_JS]

- An economy so bad, unemployment so high, inflation rate thru the roof, that the "Misery Index" had its highest ever record applied to a President at 21.98%  (currently it's 5.71% as of October 2006, under Bush, just in case you were wondering)

Unemployment and inflation were worldwide problems at the time (look at Britain's economy) and the interest rates under Carter were extremely high because he and Volcker applied a monetarist theory to money supply, just like Thatcher and Reagan.

- Facilitated the skyrocketing price of gas, with long gas lines and rationing gas as determined by your license plate #.

Tough. He didn't bend US foreign policy to OPEC's will. We had a gas shortage under Nixon as well.

- Sent hundreds of millions of our taxpayer dollars to North Korea on the promise that they wouldn't build atomic weapons and missiles to deliver them.  And history has demonstrated how well that went

Nice try. North Korea became a nuclear power under your president. For once take some personal responsiblity.

- He personally waged international financial war against South Africa and helped establish a regime with Nelson Mandela, a socialist who was a buddy of Libya's terrorist head of state, Muhmmar Quadafi, that has destroyed the economy there

Nelson Mandela was in prison the entire time Jimmy Carter was president. South Africa deserved everything it got and more. The fact that you are arguing in support of the aprtheid regime in South Africa is morally disgusting. Do you even understand what went on during apartheid?

- Forced young Olympian athletes to forget all their years of training in support of his political policy because the Olympics were to be held in the Soviet Union

Whinge a little more for us. He opposed the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

- Pardoned all the draft dodgers from the Vietnam conflict and restored them to full US citizenship

It had to be done to reconcile the divisions from Vietnam. Lets not forget that the wealthy were able to dodge the draft without fleeing to Canada.

- Responsible for the fall of the Shah of Iran to the Ayatoilet Cockamamie and the establishment of that insane Moslem dictatorship

An amazingly poor understanding of what was going on in Iran and the history of that revolution. The Shah was on his way out before Carter pulled the plug. I guess now we can add the SAVAK to the South African apartheid on your list of heroic champions of freedom.

- Did more to aid the cause of radical fundamentalist Islam than any other president, first by not helping the Shah of Iran when Khomeni deposed him; second by doing nothing during the hostage crisis, which perhaps was the epitome of his failure as a President.

The hostages were released and Carter worked everyday to get them released. There were hostages under Reagan's tenure in Lebanon that were held captive far longer.

I could go on, and on, and on, and on.  suffice to say, Bush has a hopelessly long way to go to ever reach the subteranean levels of failure, that Carter achieved as President

Not really.

I'm not even a fan of Jimmy Carter, the difference is that I don't have to resort to pathetic revisionism and support of SAVAK and apartheid to attack him.

[sirs]

snip

I guess we can add Js to the rationalization bandwagon

[_JS]

Ah. Given up on rational debate altogether have you?

I know quite a bit about the history of the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and Apartheid South Africa. I'm willing to discuss both of those, are you?

[Plane]

Carter was a great President and history will forever complement and connect him with Ronald Reagan in their combined roles as they destroyed the Soviet Union (aka Evil Empire).


  How could you argue that any American was responsible for more Soviet Soldier Death than Carter?


   Sure Zebignew and Wilson were instrumental , but the buck stops here.

[_JS]

Listen, it doesn't really matter how history views Carter or Bush. In fact, the argument over which was a worse president is rather bizarre.

As John Maynard Keynes famously said, "in the long-run we're all dead." George W Bush and Jimmy Carter won't live to see their real legacies and the parties they led will be far different from what they are now.

What I find amazing is the lengths some people will go to villify someone. Or perhaps to show what they really believe. In this case, Sirs made the following statement:

He personally waged international financial war against South Africa and helped establish a regime with Nelson Mandela, a socialist who was a buddy of Libya's terrorist head of state, Muhmmar Quadafi, that has destroyed the economy there

It is historically inaccurate (extremely so) and also asks us to accept the arguments that eventually even Thatcher and Reagan came to deny (though it took some time).

In another few sentences we are told how the Shah of Iran was a virtual savior of his people - completely untrue and lacks any similarity with reality. The people loathed the Shah. Was that Carter's fault? No.

Now was Carter a great president? I don't think so. Monetarism (and I'm surprised no one here paid a huge tribute to Milton Friedman) was a load of rubbish. Zero-based budgeting is crap and a gimmick at best, totally unworkable in the real world of public finance. Deregulation of the airlines has been an unmitigated disaster and I could go on. I'm willing to argue on any of those points and without rewriting history in the process.

[sirs]

Ah. Given up on rational debate altogether have you?  I know quite a bit about the history of the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and Apartheid South Africa. I'm willing to discuss both of those, are you?

Well, considering this topic and my comments are specific to the failures of the Carter administration, I'm not exactly sure what debating the other 2 subjects would accomplish.  The rationalization efforts were just an added observation on my part.  Taking each failure and rationalizing why it really wasn't so much a failure, or how it supposedly couldn't have been Carter's responsibility.  The best was the NK nuke issue.  You realize that NK's nuke program got it's kick start from Carter, right?  There'd likely be no nukes "under this President", had Carter demonstrated ANY kind of fortitude & leadership, under his Presidency.

[_JS]

Anyone can make a list. I wasn't rationalizing, I was pointing out were your list was clearly wrong. The two issues I mentioned specifically was where I not only disagreed, but where you clearly lack any knowledge of the history of the specific situations.

A regime with Mandela? You do realize that South Africa was under apartheid until the early 1990's, don't you?

[Xavier_Onassis]

Whatever you "Bush-stole-the election" say, Xo     

He did indeed steal it, and we would all be better off if he had not done so, f*ck you very much.

But whatever Carter did and did not do in the 1970's has nothing-NOTHING whatever to do with the fact that what he said about the Israeli's disgusting, shameful and despicable treatment of the Palestinians is entirely and indisputably true.

The US will not be respected as anything but a bully in the Middle East for so long as the Palestinians are not given a real homeland and are not being looted, abused and shoved around by the Israelis.

It is simply outrageous for Juniorbush to say how much he supports the Cedar Revolution of Lebanon, when he deliberately armed the Israelis to bomb the living crap out of the Lebanese, killing including a lot of civilians. That is like Al Qaeda declaring their support for Juniorbush's Social Security reform.

 

[Plane]

He did indeed steal it, and we would all be better off if he had not done so,...

Two articles of faith.

Bush stole the election , no proof nor indication but lots of faith.

Gore would have been a adequate president , no proof or indication but lots of faith.

[Michael Tee]

<<Two articles of faith.

<<Bush stole the election , no proof nor indication but lots of faith.>>

Vanity Fair ran an excellent investigative article which proved in detail HOW the election was stolen in Florida and how the Supreme court divided straight down partisan lines to throw the result to Bush.  The conservatives had to depart from their previous judicial philosophy of allowing the states to decide their own procedural problems in order to deprive the Florida state courts of jurisdiction so there is no question that they were acting out of pure partisanship.

When I referred to the print issue of Vanity Fair, Lanya took the trouble to find the on-line version of the article and post it here.  DESPITE the article, the lie is still published that the allegations are without proof.  The election WAS stolen, there IS proof but the Democrats do not have the balls to take on the issue.

<<Gore would have been a adequate president , no proof or indication but lots of faith.>>

No indication?  I would say his public pronouncements, his defence of the environment, his condemnation of torture, these surely are SOME indications.  How adequate, I admit we don't know.  Just as Bush gave every indication of being a lousy president, just we didn't know HOW lousy the guy was till he actually got his hands on the wheel.

[Brassmask]

He did indeed steal it, and we would all be better off if he had not done so,...

Two articles of faith.

Bush stole the election , no proof nor indication but lots of faith.

Gore would have been a adequate president , no proof or indication but lots of faith.

Now look.  You can get away with saying there is no proof, I can abide that for the most part.  But there is no way in hell you can look at the activities of Katherine Harris in Florida in regards to the voter rolls and say there is no "indication".  That's just pure stupidity.  And who can know that Harris was the Florida campaign manager for Bush AND the Election Commissioner (or whatever her title was) and not be the slightest bit suspicious?

Those are clear indicators for sure.  Not proof, I will give you that.  But it would be enough for anyone who was so inclined and empowered to start a real investigation into the election of 2000 in Florida.

Be honest, Plane at the very least, be honest.

[_JS]

I don't know if it qualifies as "stealing" but the Supreme Court, an institution known for following tradition, precedent, and procedure acted in a truly bizarre fashion in Bush v. Gore.

In fact there have been good books and article, some written by conservative legal experts, who have commented on the oddities and peculiarites of that decision.

Just one example, it was the first Supreme Court case where the 14th amendment equal protection clause was argued and won - without a specific victim being named.

The court strayed completely from the principle of stare decisis.

There were other oddities involved and it certainly made for a peculiar court case. As I said, I don't know that it amounts to "stealing" - but it was certainly a strange moment in history.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Carter was a great President and history will forever complement and connect him with Ronald Reagan in their combined roles as they destroyed the Soviet Union (aka Evil Empire).

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Oh, come off it. Neither Carter nor Reagan had nearly so much to do with the end of the USSR as technology did. They could not proceed without computerizing their economy, and they could not trust the number of citizens required to computerize the economy without ending the thousands of restrictions they placed on the economy.

The leaders of the PRC have apparently managed to do this, but China is a far more unitary state than the USSR ever was. Cuba is barely getting by, and the North Koreans are essentially in the Stone Age with regard to informational technology.
 
The War in Afghanistan and trying to outspend the US "Star Wars" fiasco (it seems they believed this thing was actually possible, which it clearly wasn't) also had a hand in the fall of the USSR.

Probably the single most important factor was Mikhail Gorbachev becoming head of the USSR.

The USSR was NOT brought down by Reagan hollering "Tear down this Wall!" That was hype, ably performed by an actor,. but nonetheless, just hype.

[_JS]

Leonid Brezhnev.

Without a doubt he helped set the Soviet Union on a path to its ultimate destruction, or at least exacerbated the fall.

Andropov and Gorbachev certainly did their part as well. One thing Gorbachev failed to comprehend was the nationalism of many of the Soviet states.

Interestingly, this many years after the fall of communism, some of the Eastern European nations have yet to match the GDP they had under "communist" regimes. Parts of Russia and the former USSR struggle to reach 40% of their former standard of living.