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The ghost story (Boston Globe - "national security is bogus")
Boston Globe ^ | 2/25/08 | James Carroll

Posted on 02/25/2008 5:21:34 AM PST by jstassis

(last paragraph) When that consensus assumes, for example, that World War II was "good," or that the United States arms build-up "won" the Cold War, it protects the militarized economy, the status of the military-industrial elite, the iron lock of incumbents on office. Any reinterpretation of this salvation history, it is feared, would undermine the economy, disempower the elite, unsettle politics - and deprive the citizenry of meaning in an otherwise meaningless world. Voters may want change, but not change at this level. Yet "national security" is bogus - part ghost story with which the nation scares itself at bedtime, part nightly prayer with which it then goes to sleep.

(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...


TOPICS: News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: antiamericanism; carroll; ghost; notapeacemovement; thebostonglob; usefulidiot
I've never been able to understand this guy. If I did, I bet I wouldn't agree with him.
1 posted on 02/25/2008 5:21:37 AM PST by jstassis
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To: jstassis

Where do they find these idiots?


2 posted on 02/25/2008 5:26:24 AM PST by Maceman
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To: jstassis

Probably just as well. The author thinks that national security threats, like the Cold War, are invented to keep politicians in power and money flowing to Defense. It’s the old moonbat mantra...


3 posted on 02/25/2008 5:29:31 AM PST by Thrownatbirth (.....Iraq Invasion fan since '91.)
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To: jstassis

the Boston Post and the rest of Leftist America are a bunch of (plural/Female body part)


4 posted on 02/25/2008 5:30:56 AM PST by Vaquero (" an armed society is a polite society" Heinlein "MOLON LABE!" Leonidas of Sparta)
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To: Maceman
Where do they find these idiots?

In Boston, they grow on trees.

5 posted on 02/25/2008 5:30:58 AM PST by Izzy Dunne (Hello, I'm a TAGLINE virus. Please help me spread by copying me into YOUR tag line.)
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To: Izzy Dunne

“...In Boston, they grow on trees.”

AND, elect drunk felons and lying fake patriots to the senate.


6 posted on 02/25/2008 5:32:49 AM PST by Da Coyote
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To: jstassis

What an asshat.


7 posted on 02/25/2008 5:33:09 AM PST by RoadKingSE (How do you know that the light at the end of the tunnel isn't a muzzle flash?)
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To: jstassis
...Military power, that is, functions in America the way state religion has functioned in other societies.... This crazy talk but it is own by the New York Times!
8 posted on 02/25/2008 5:33:19 AM PST by ricks_place
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To: jstassis

Well then....let’s just remove all of the Homeland Security dollars from Boston Harbor.

We can put that money into some really redundant social programs or pour it into the ‘global warming industrial complex’.


9 posted on 02/25/2008 5:34:37 AM PST by penelopesire ("The only CHANGE you will get with the Democrats is the CHANGE left in your pocket")
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To: jstassis

Okay, I can go along with his reasoning, to a point. Foreign threats certainly serve as a mechanism of unity within our nation, and politicians use it as a vehicle to increase their power. (The Patriot Act is a prime example. Do you really want that law in place with Obama in charge?)

But when he applies it to the Presidential race, he leaves a gaping hole wide open- a hole as wide as our southern border. Neither Obama nor McCain has any intention of fixing that hole, so the whole debate over national security is hollow anyway.


10 posted on 02/25/2008 5:35:47 AM PST by ovrtaxt (Member of the irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of men.)
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To: jstassis

James Carroll is a fool.

But the bigger fools are those who pay him to write this stuff.

Shame on them all.


11 posted on 02/25/2008 5:38:25 AM PST by DB
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To: jstassis

The Cold War was fought against the Soviet Union. Let’s examine the “national security ghost story” with respect to the Soviet Union.

The Soviets

o Were as totalitarian a state as they come.

o Had a huge conventional army, substantially larger than the NATO countries combined.

o Had a huge nuclear arsenal.

o Espoused eventual world control and worked diligently towards that goal with many examples possible.

o Killed tens of millions of the peoples under their control.

And yet this was a “ghost story” that we shouldn’t have worried about!?

This author is a complete idiot.


12 posted on 02/25/2008 5:40:50 AM PST by FreedomPoster (Guns themselves are fairly robust; their chief enemies are rust and politicians) (NRA)
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To: Izzy Dunne

Maybe there’s a reason the 2 flights that went into the WTC were out of Boston.


13 posted on 02/25/2008 5:43:43 AM PST by EDINVA (Proud American for 23,062 days.... and counting!)
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To: Maceman
Where do they find these idiots?

Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Columbia....

14 posted on 02/25/2008 5:45:38 AM PST by Lurking in Kansas (Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience.)
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To: DB
James Carroll is a fool.

But the bigger fools are those who pay him to write this stuff.

Yeah. Sixty years ago fools like him would be locked-up in a state Insane Asylum. But now days they're given $100K a year jobs writing for newspapers.

15 posted on 02/25/2008 5:48:44 AM PST by Lurking in Kansas (Never argue with an idiot. They drag you down to their level, then beat you with experience.)
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To: jstassis
Do you remember the pictures of people in the streets of New York, covered in ashes, so they looked like ghosts as they ran from the collapsing World Trade Centers? My wife was one of those people.

She was not running from a ghost of national security. She was running from the real thing.

This writer is full of sh*t. The editor who published this drivel is a fool. And anyone who takes this seriously is a geo-political moron, or a student or professor at Harvard. Ah, but I repeat myself.

Congressman Billybob

Latest article, "Swiftboating" the Swiftboaters

A Freeper in Congress? Now's the time.

16 posted on 02/25/2008 5:59:36 AM PST by Congressman Billybob (www.ArmorforCongress.com)
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To: Maceman

The problem is that, since we won the Cold War, morons like this (who never sacrificed anything in their lives) can make suppositions that the whole thing was unnecessary and a huge waste of time. Of course, common sense dictates otherwise, but you can’t prove it. And meanwhile it sounds great to all those potential clients for prescription drugs or whatever.


17 posted on 02/25/2008 6:07:20 AM PST by rbg81 (DRAIN THE SWAMP!!)
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To: jstassis

One of the qualifications for a job in the lib world is “Am I dumb enough”.

I think they have struck gold.


18 posted on 02/25/2008 6:18:46 AM PST by freekitty (Give me back my conservative vote.)
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To: jstassis

“In this era, humans have been cut loose from ancient moorings of meaning and purpose. “

Translation: Christianity is dead. But the religious have now replaced God with “military worship” (a.k.a. Fascism)

_________________________________________________________

“...when they unanimously promise to strengthen military readiness, they together reinforce the dominant American myth - that an extravagant social investment of treasure and talent in armed power of the group offers members of the group escape from the existential dread that comes with life on a dangerous planet.”

Translation: There are no threats to America, Americans, or even American foreign interests. I use the word myth because I believe these threats are a fairy tale.

________________________________________________________

“Preachers warn of hellfire to offer rescue from it, which is available to those who submit.”

Translation: The only reason you are religious is because you fear Hell. That your perspective on life leads you to believe that it is actually true could never be ther reason why you participate in organized religion.

_________________________________________________________

“Barack Obama, in character as a liberal Democrat, manifests a certain skepticism toward the cult of military power...”

Translation: Although Obama believes in the cult of marxism and human-driven global warming, at least he doesn’t believe in “Peace through Strength”.

_________________________________________________________

“Any reinterpretation of this salvation history, it is feared, would undermine the economy, disempower the elite, unsettle politics - and deprive the citizenry of meaning in an otherwise meaningless world.”

Translation: I don’t like this kind of salvation history, but I do love any salvation history that involves class warfare, demogoguing the wealth earned by acheivers, and ...well...the overcoming of free market capitalism.


19 posted on 02/25/2008 6:24:18 AM PST by Bishop_Malachi (Liberal Socialism - A philosophy which advocates spreading a low standard of living equally.)
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To: Congressman Billybob
James Carroll is a lapsed Catholic priest who detests the American military and owns an academic resume that includes Harvard's Kennedy School of Government (a/k/a "Camelot High"). He has a weekly column in the Boston Globe where he labors to exorcise the demons of his childhood (his father having been an Air Force intelligence officer) by denigrating those whose service ensures his freedom to continue verbally abusing them.
20 posted on 02/25/2008 6:32:39 AM PST by andy58-in-nh (Kill the terrorists, secure the borders, and give me back my freedom.)
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To: Maceman
Where do they find these idiots?

Journalism schools destroy their minds and turn them out by the gross.
21 posted on 02/25/2008 7:15:35 AM PST by Cheburashka (Liberalism: a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.)
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To: jstassis

So 9/11 was a Hollywood effects shot and the WTC is still there?


22 posted on 02/25/2008 7:17:29 AM PST by newzjunkey (Why McCain now? Clintons hated, dismantled the military; Obama is worse!)
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To: jstassis

National security is “bogus” but global warming is a real threat requiring immediate action and vast transfers of wealth from the private sector to the political sector, and from the US to the rest of the world. And vast transfers of national sovereignty to the United Nations.


23 posted on 02/25/2008 7:18:54 AM PST by Maceman
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To: jstassis

Hey Mr. Carroll, try substituting “defense” for “national security” and it will all become clear. It has little to do with how secure one feels and a lot to do with responding to an actual attack.


24 posted on 02/25/2008 7:25:02 AM PST by JmyBryan
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To: jstassis

We just need one sub off shore to keep us safe.

LMAO


25 posted on 02/25/2008 7:52:54 AM PST by NoLibZone (If the Clinton years were so great for the libs why is Obama doing so well?)
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To: jstassis

26 posted on 02/25/2008 7:58:07 AM PST by VeniVidiVici (Benedict Arnold was against the Terrorist Surveillance Program)
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