Has anyone here read Cats Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut? Because i am getting flashbacks from that book right now listening about a leader who claims to represent the good and fight the evil, and then letting the "evil" one get away again and again. its almost like he doesent want to catch him...

susceptor: exactly!! i've been getting that feeling more or less since i first read the book, but the bush/ bin laden thing really makes vonnegut look spookily like a prophet.

"nice, nice, very nice. so many people in the same device."

anyone remember that song? lyrics by kurt vonnegut. song by ambrosia.

He could have easily struck at the main leadership, but chose NOT to under some cochamamie excuse. For some reason he wants to keep this terror thing going during the time of his whole administrations. He made himself a "war president" (ha) for the power it bestowed upon him. Why end a good thing?

"Haw haw! Except for Saddam Hussein! We mowed right into his country, destroyed every civil institution and trashed the infrastructure! All on false intel! Haw haw! Tens of thousands of people DIED when we did that! HAW HAW. Thirty-five hundred of our OWN CITIZENS have died so far! HAW HAW HAW! BOMBING, KILLING, MAIMING, RAPING, TORTURING... IT'S ALL SO DAMN HILARIOUS! HAW HAW!!!"

Whoops, just had a little perspective there for a minute. Excuse me.

sounds like an audience with Colbert on the brain. i've heard rove and bush say similar stuff before without any reaction. glad to see people just laugh in rove's face now. shame about the carnage though. and, you know, all the other heinous fucking shit these scumbags have wrought on the world in their tenure.

shame about the carnage though.

Yeah. A shame. Tsk tsk tsk.

I really don't get what they're laughing at... Acts like that makes USA lose all legitimacy and respect because the message the world reads is that the US doesn't give a crap about anyone lives but American's (almost). Is this the way they are convincing a 20 year old unemployed guy in Morocco (cannon fodder for AlQaeda) that the United States of America is a respectful and civilized country? If the US keeps fighting terrorism this way, it is going to lose the fight in the long term. For every penny AlQaeda spends attacking America, America responds spending much more of it's citizens money, rights and patience and forgets that a) AlQaeda has nothing to lose and b) it is pissing off thousands of fucked up people already at the verge of joining AlQaeda with every invasion.

Rove, Chenney and the rest are pure evil. There is no other way to explain the lack of…I don't know, the lack of a soul in their beings. There is so much crap every day about this administration…illegal stuff at the Justice Dept., failed strategies, the VP making his own rules, Bush pardoning a guy who lied under oath, etc. etc. etc. It has gotten to the point that they can even give an interview or give a speech without contradicting themselves. The worst is that they don't even care because they know that the American people are more concerned with Paris Hilton walking out of jail then with them going to jail. Argh!!!!!!!!

I meant that they can't even give a speech or an interview without contradicting themselves. Sorry.

I want Rove fat, deluded noggin on silver platter, served up to the frothing masses on the steps of a newly stormed White House! The type of anger people like this create is almost unexplainable. Rove, Bush, Chaney, Libby, and all the rest, actually make me want to work toward true violent revolution in this country. After all, it seems nothing else will work. Americans have become too fat, rich, and lazy to do anything but watch so-called reality shows and opinionated news - otherwise known as propaganda - on television.

ARGGGGGGGG!

(1) Pakistan is in the nuclear club, and (2) it's supposedly an ally.

In the context of not sending in special forces to take out key terrorists, no politician would mention (1), since it reaffirms the incentive for "rogue states" to go nuclear, and no one in the Bush administration would mention (2) in this context, because it begs the question, "Well, with allies like Pakistan, what kind of crappy coalition do we have here?"

So Rove gave a BS answer. Not unlike every other public statement these guys make. Politicians just don't discuss things seriously in the public eye. The entire thing is usually rehearsed and always disingenuous at best.

MSNBC just furthers this disingenousness by focusing on the hypocrisy of statements by turd blossom without mentioning the relevance of (1) and (2).

Leave it to our elites in government and the media to show such flippant disrespect for the real sacrifices made by our military. I don't know why anyone would enlist these days.

And guess what? They aren't:

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

I wonder what will happen when kids refuse to enlist in even greater numbers. That's what I would call substantive protest.

"Don't raise your fist, just don't enlist!"

Saw open Bush's skull.

Lo!

The "humor"ous homunculus, Karl Rove. Saw open Karl Rove's skull. Behold yet another (humorous homunculus), looks like,...

No!:

Is it...

W?

No!

The Eyes have it. Believe your own. (You saw it.)

Wow, I don't think I've heard such a cogent statement of Bush foreign policy: We must respect sovereigns, unless they are Saddam Hussein.

I find Karl's candor refreshing.

Conservatives don't have their hearts in liberation, intervention yes, liberations ... that's something the Left is supposed to champion.

quaternion, i fail to see how msnbc including that info would lessen the hypocrisy on display here. i agree with your reasons for why an invasion of pakistan wouldnt be a good idea, but iraq had many many valid reasons to avoid invasion too, as you may remember. i dont see what youre complaining about.

nelgom, i dont really believe in the existence of evil, as everything that exists is natural. the term i prefer to use to describe these people is "war criminal". or perhaps "sociopath" but thats not quite as specific. also "tyrant" would work (in that they have not upheld due process or habeas corpus, and they feel they are literally unnaccountable to anyone).

war criminals and tyrants are really the only people i feel ok hating.

...i dont really believe in the existence of evil, as everything that exists is natural.

has someone tried to claim that evil isn't natural? i must have missed that.

i've noticed, for instance, that c. hitchens doesn't have any problem referring to his ideological opponents as "wicked". and i haven't seen a single poster here object. including me.

well that depends on how you define it. its always had a religious/supernatural connotation in my mind. do you define it as just "very bad"? or perhaps its used as a synonym for malicious?

if its the first, then id say thats inadequate, and 'evil' seems to be less relativistic than 'bad' is. its supposed to be an ultimate value, not just an opinion. i do not believe mayonnaise is evil, for example.

if its the second, im not sure whether or not the bush administration is actually malicious. certainly they dont care about whether or not they harm others, but i dunno if they go around looking to cause suffering. take katrina for example, i doubt they looked at that disaster and thought to themselves "hmm, how can we maximize the suffering these people will have to endure?". it seems more like they just didnt care, like it didnt even occur to them that perhaps they should do something.

but really, i dont care if you call them evil. its a term i generally dont like, but that was more a pretext for calling the president and his friends war criminals and tyrants, not a real criticism of nelgom's post. i agree whole-heartedly with nelgom.

by the way, i like this essay, if youre interested:on evil

thanks for the article. very well written, if confused and rambling (hey, some of my best friends are confused and rambling). it also contains many patently false assertions, like this one:

Evil rarely feels so confident that it will risk appearing naked and without the tailless unhoofed look of the good

look, evil is like justice. no one can define it, but everyone knows it when they see it. it's natural according to the religious (god created it for us to overcome, thereby earning our reward, etc.) and its natural for the humanists too (man has certain tendancies, evolved over generations, etc.) so whats the problem? evil isn't in cars or cigarettes, as the author rebuts in a straw man argument, but in human choices. i thought everyone knew that. and if you haven't come across it, well i wish for you that you never do.

thanks for the article. very well written, if confused and rambling (hey, some of my best friends are confused and rambling). it also contains many patently false assertions, like this one:

Evil rarely feels so confident that it will risk appearing naked and without the tailless unhoofed look of the good

look, evil is like justice. no one can define it, but everyone knows it when they see it. it's natural according to the religious (god created it for us to overcome, thereby earning our reward, etc.) and its natural for the humanists too (man has certain tendancies, evolved over generations, etc.) so whats the problem? evil isn't in cars or cigarettes, as the author rebuts in a straw man argument, but in human choices. i thought everyone knew that. and if you haven't come across it, well i wish for you that you never do.

quaternion, i fail to see how msnbc including that info would lessen the hypocrisy on display here.

It wouldn't. Just like explaining why someone lies doesn't lessen the lie. However, if you know why someone would lie and you then act surprised when they do, then it's disingenuous.

i agree with your reasons for why an invasion of pakistan wouldnt be a good idea, but iraq had many many valid reasons to avoid invasion too, as you may remember.

I agree (my "attack Iraq? No" bumper sticker from early 2003 becomes only more poignant). But in the eyes of the Bush administration, Iraq was different: not nuclear, not an ally (of course, they lied about the nuclear bit to sell the war, but that lie was as transparent then as it is now). (That is, the views expressed by them are not my own).

i dont see what youre complaining about.

I'm complaining that we're apparently acting surprised by the hypocrisy. Just like I complained in 2003 about the media criticizing Bush's pronunciation of the word "nuclear" (instead of the fact that most sentences containing that word were fabrications): we're missing the real issues when we get excited about these things.

quaternion, thats a fair point. im never gonna argue against context in news reports. the only thing i found surprising in that clip was how bad karl rove is at lying (seriously, hes at like a tony snow level of lying). the hypocrisy is nothing new, and i doubt any here were surprised either.

jonathan, i just started re-reading that essay, but i have to go so i cant finish now. id just say first that the statement you quoted i believe is true (though i didnt see it in context). people that are often cited as examples of evil are almost always seen as good by themself or others. george bush is a crusader fighting against an evil-axis like he was luke skywalker fighting against the empire. evil in the undiluted non-relativistic, ultimate, sense (which i believe is the more common usage) appears in comics and holy books but little else. real life is never that simple.

perhaps you are using "evil" as a synonym for "immoral"? if so i dont wish to have a semantic debate. i agree morality exists, and can be violated. evil is unnecessary to explain immorality though.

also, thats not a straw-man argument hes employing, hes just exploring the nature and limits of evil.

its actually a subject im interested in so id be happy to say more later, but i must leave now.

akljsakj, death metal. bikers. backward masking. marylin manson. just kidding.

but seriously, how about war? or child porn? or snuff films? i dont' think those things are trying to pretend to be anything other than what they are, but a whole lot of people seem to love them. and i don't think "immoral" quite covers it.

uhm... evil... defined...

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1) - Cite This Source e·vil /ˈivəl/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[ee-vuhl] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation –adjective 1. morally wrong or bad; immoral; wicked: evil deeds; an evil life.
2. harmful; injurious: evil laws.
3. characterized or accompanied by misfortune or suffering; unfortunate; disastrous: to be fallen on evil days.
4. due to actual or imputed bad conduct or character: an evil reputation.
5. marked by anger, irritability, irascibility, etc.: He is known for his evil disposition.
–noun 6. that which is evil; evil quality, intention, or conduct: to choose the lesser of two evils.
7. the force in nature that governs and gives rise to wickedness and sin.
8. the wicked or immoral part of someone or something: The evil in his nature has destroyed the good.
9. harm; mischief; misfortune: to wish one evil.
10. anything causing injury or harm: Tobacco is considered by some to be an evil.
11. a harmful aspect, effect, or consequence: the evils of alcohol.
12. a disease, as king's evil.
–adverb 13. in an evil manner; badly; ill: It went evil with him.
—Idiom14. the evil one, the devil; Satan.

[Origin: bef. 900; ME evel, evil, OE yfel; c. Goth ubils, OHG ubil, G übel, OFris, MD evel]

—Related forms e·vil·ly, adverb e·vil·ness, noun

seems pretty "natural" to me. the general link in those is suffering. ergo the causation of suffering = evil.

err and harm... harm is generally in most of those too.

perhaps what you mean is you dont' believe in the devil, i.e. the religious explanations of the origins of evil. but then, i assume you don't believe in the religious explanations of the origins of anything, so...

and drudwy: my goodness, i hope you didn't have to type that out yourself! but thank you.

(Brand-of-Scotch)Tapeworm* :

When I wear my backward mask, my face is so symmetric that no one even notices.

Is it tone, never now, the cure, hit or miss, or, see, suffer, I'm exam-ed raw, cabby, I'm re-wee, I'm new!

Easy, see?

(say "yes".)

.

. *digital editing worm?

Evil, Lovey.

1. the force in nature that governs and gives rise to wickedness and sin.
2. the wicked or immoral part of someone or something: The evil in his nature has destroyed the good.

i dont believe either of those things exist. i believe harm exists, immorality exists, suffering exsits, sadism exists, and malice exists. there are better words for all of those things. "evil" is dismissive and simplistic.