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If you live here in the U.S., you probably know that the Iowa Caucuses (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iowa_caucus) take place tonight at 6:30 pm.
It's all over the news.  Especially if you live here in Iowa like I do.
We've been bombarded with political ads every day for months now.
It has become so crazy, you literally cannot go one TV commercial break without seeing at least one ad.

And if you're like me, you probably have, or had, no idea what actually happens at a caucus.
I've voted in two previous presidential elections but never actually attended a caucus before.
I always assumed it was a gathering of people in support of a particular candidate and they all got together to vote.
Boy was I way off!
So I did some research and discovered exactly what happens at a caucus.

---------------------------------------

Here's what happens:

First, you have to find out where to go. 
There are 1784 caucus locations in Iowa and based on where you live, you go to the specific location for your district or precinct.
You can't just show up at the wrong precinct location.
(as far as I know you can't)

After you arrive, you are required to sign in.
Once you're signed in, you find all the other people in the room who support the same candidate you do and stand with them.
The person running the show then has you stand in one part of the room with other supporters of your chosen candidate.
For example: All Hillary Clinton supporters will be in one corner of the room while all the John Edwards supporters will be in another corner and so on.
Then caucus director will then count the number of people supporting each candidate.

Now, if there are supporters of a different candidate who is not viable because that candidate does not have 15% support of the total attendance at that precinct, they must choose a second candidate and go stand with that candidate's group.
This process is called "realignment".
(Example:  Let's say I support Joe Biden, but there aren't enough people in the room to make up 15% who support him...then I'd have to choose a second candidate and go stand with them.)

After realignment is complete, the number of supporters for each candidate is counted again and delegates are assigned.

Another example:
I support Barack Obama.
The more supporters Obama has inside each caucus, the more delegates he will win.
If Obama has the most delegates at the end of the night, he wins the Iowa Caucus.

So you see, it's pretty basic stuff.    :smile:

------------------------------------------

I plan to attend tonight's caucus in full support of Barack Obama.
And the cool thing is, the gathering place for my precinct is one block away from where I live.
So I'm just gonna walk over there and get my virgin caucus cherry popped!    :teddyr:

There's more...
I want you all to see what it's actually like to participate in a caucus so I'm bringing my video camera along with me to record the event.  (I don't think they'll have any problem with me doing that...I can't see why they would)
It's supposed to last no longer than an hour so I'm going to have to edit the video a bit so I can post it up on Youtube.
When it's finished, I'll post it here for you all to watch.
This presidential election will be one of the most closely watched races in history and I want you to have a front row seat when it all officially begins tonight.   :smile:

Here's more info:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/ia_caucus_center/

What do you think?

 I think it's a groovy idea.

 What I wanna know is-are you going to ask questions of the various people around you?
As in...how do they drape their toilet paper-over or under?  :tongueout:

 Seriously...it sounds very interesting!  :thumbup:

Extremely interesting Ash.  I love politics and find most every piece of the process fascinating. 

Also good to see you support Obama.  I'm not trying to start anything political on here.  I'm behind both him and Ron Paul at this point.  My political leanings move more towards Paul's side but I know he doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of actually getting the vote.  I'd be more than happy to be able to vote for Obama though.  From what I've seen with the polls and all, he is leading.

Sounds like it would be a lot more fun if they served beer  :smile:

I'm a big Ron Paul supporter and live in Boston which is close to new hampshire.  I was thinking abuot going up there but I don't know what I would do.  I gues that's what google is for!

I think the Iowa Caucus is screwed, making you support a second candidate if a candidate doesn't have 15% in a certain polling place. That not going to give you a accurate count statewide. So the results are meaningless. Do they do that in the general election too? And New Hampshire is no better as you don't even have to live in NH to vote there, no residencies, no proof of who you are and you could in theory vote in more than one precinct. How these 2 states with their screwy polling rules got to be THE STATES to run it is beyond me. We IMHO should go back to the primary be held in every state on the same day like it use to be.

Anyway I won't get to what a think of the candidates, I will say only I do not support a entitlement, tuck tail and run, socialist, no experience, candidate.  Kinda narrows it down a bit doesn't it?

Not to bash others' political views, but karma for you, CheezeFlixz.

I personally prefer less government to more government.

war is the health of the state and not "tucking tail and running" MEANS big government:  massive military spending,  dollar debased to pay for it, enhanced government power to spy and imprison, suspensin of habeous corpus.  elective war is socialism writ large.

all spending is liberal. 

With all that moving around the room, are you sure there's not some square dancing involved.

None of these bozos on either side interest me a helluva lot.

Wow!  That's crazy!  I've never seen the caucus in action.  I live in New Hampshire and have voted in the primaries since 2000 and it's just like voting on the real voting day.  You go into the booth and cast your ballot.

Also, karma for Obama support.

^agree.  I'm not a democrat, but Obama is far better than Hillary or Jimmy carter with an attitude Edwards.   Do america a favor and nominate this guy you lefties

I really have lost faith in politicians since my junior year in highschool. It just seems that 99% of politicians left or right wing they just care more about their precious reputations rather then their country. As John F. Kennedy said "It is not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." It seems that most modern politicians and citizens have forgoten this saying.

From what I've seen in various news reports, caucusing on the Republican side is more streamlined. More or less voting by paper ballot, then deciding if you want to stick around for some minor party business.

It is bad that so much emphasis is placed on Iowa and New Hampshire since they come first, but I think it's worse that so many primaries have been moved up meaning that the candidates will be decided sooner. Thereby drawing out the actual election campaign even longer, and giving the voters more time to get burned out and disgusted as the campaigns get uglier and uglier, driving down voter turnout as a result. If the parties are going to stick with moving the primaries so far forward, then they should at the very least abolish the now utterly meaningless conventions.

Hey, Ash, hat's off to you for participating in the system.

No matter what candidate you support, more power to you if you vote your heart and not your pocket book.

You gotta admit, it's much more fun to not live in a monarchy....    :cheers:    :teddyr: :teddyr:

I don't know about that.  All this caucus nonsense seems kinda kooky for folks like me who live in a 'Constitutional Monarchy'.  Makes it a hell of a lot easier to vote though...  None of this standing around nonsense.  :teddyr:

Hi Dean,

Actually I was not thinking of you posting when I typed that, but Good Welcome to the "Other Side."   :teddyr

To you, our system must seem kinda funny.  But what I REALLY want to know is about the sailing, snorlkeling and diving there.....especially on the East Coast.   :bouncegiggle:

Well, I finally went to my first caucus last night and it was a bit different than I had thought it would be.
I think the turnout was somewhere around 123-125 people which was a good thing, because when I got home and turned on the news, they had news reporters at mega caucuses where 500-1000+ people turned out.
That must've been a madhouse.

(Click on the thumbnails to see larger pics)
(http://img113.imageshack.us/img113/6291/dsc003412vq4.th.jpg) (http://img113.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc003412vq4.jpg)
At the sign up table

They held the caucus at my precinct at a local building one block away from my place.
Most of the people there seemed very nice...

(http://img113.imageshack.us/img113/2121/dsc003421ux7.th.jpg) (http://img113.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc003421ux7.jpg)
Waiting in line

That is except for some of the Clinton supporters.
They kept cheering for Hillary at all the wrong times, sometimes interrupting the guy running the show.
And several of the women on the Clinton side were downright loopy.
(I think I say that out loud in the video at one point)   :smile:
I heard one woman snapping on one of the other candidate's supporters and then she stalked off towards her table.  (I never did find out what it was all about.)
And the guy in the blue shirt with the white beard and black stocking cap on the Clinton side (you can see him in the video) had a huge wet stain on the seat of his pants.  I don't know if he fell on his ass in the snow before he got there or if he soiled himself.  Either way, you could hear people talking about it under their breath to their friends or people sitting near them.
And he was elected as a delegate!

Other than a few wacky people showing up, it went pretty much by the numbers.
The people running it all seemed organized and did the best they could.

And Obama won!   :cheers:

(http://img113.imageshack.us/img113/8426/dsc003351xd1.th.jpg) (http://img113.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc003351xd1.jpg)
The Obama precinct captain and his assistant

At our precinct, it ended up being 2 delegates for Obama.
Two delegates for Clinton and one for Edwards.
Three people did show up to support Chris Dodd and one guy came to support Kucinich but during the realignment phase, three were absorbed into the Clinton side and the Kucinich guy came over to the Obama tables.
I think there was a ouple of Biden supporters but I disn't pay attention to what tables they went to.
I was expecting that part of the caucus to take at least a half hour but all it took was about 5 minutes. 

(http://img113.imageshack.us/img113/7434/dsc003432uc9.th.jpg) (http://img113.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dsc003432uc9.jpg)
More people waiting in line


We then wrapped it up about 20-30 minutes later and everyone except the precinct captains left.

I shot about 45 minutes worth of footage while there.
Since videos on Youtube cannot be longer than ten minutes, I had to first chop it in half and then trim up quite a bit with my editing software.
I tried to trim it down as best I could without it being boring and focus on the major events that took place there.
Also, you'll notice that it sometimes goes black for a second or two, that's just the fader effect.
I kept fiddling with the fader, wipe and dissolve features while shooting but didn't put them in any kind of order.
Sometimes there isn't a transition effect...it just cuts to the next scene.
I never really planned out how I was gonna shoot it, I just went and shot it on the fly.
The intro and outro by me were planned.   :wink:

Each video is roughly about 9 minutes long and there are two parts.
(Part 1 and Part 2)

If you really want to see what it's like to participate in a caucus, take 15-20 minutes and check out the videos below.

Enjoy!   :smile:

Attending an Iowa Caucus: Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcLMkZc1Das

---------------------------------

Part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3JUbAe4NTU

-----------------------

What do you think?

Karma for attending/participating and the video.

Dang, that precinct captain's assistant looks sweet.

I can't watch Youtube videos on my computer (I think it's got little squirrels running on a wheel for a CPU), but it sounds like an interesting time.  The Obama precinct captain looks exactly like I'd expect an Obama precinct captain to look like.  Funny to hear about the obnoxious Clinton supporters, that too is exactly as I would have expected  :teddyr:  Even though I disagree with your political choices, I hope you have a good time getting involved in all this stuff.

Funny thing about her...
Her name is Katherine and she had this really sexy Hispanic accent.
When I told her I was going to post the videos on Youtube, she asked if I'd e-mail her the link to the videos.
I said sure and gave her a notecard to write it down on.
Not only did she write it down, she left her phone number on it too!   :twirl:

So maybe I'll give her a call.   :wink:

 :buggedout:


 :cheers: :thumbup:

I think Obama is the best the democrat's have to offer, but so far he hasn't been asked any hard questions and when he hits the stage were he doesn't get a bunch of soft ball questions you'll see the chinks in his armor. Seems like a nice guy I just don't think he has the experience needed to run the nation. He makes great speeches but speeches does not make a leader. He seem to struggle at debates were he is not scripted in all fairness the democratic debates so far have been powder puff, with no real hard questions and no real clear answers. On the national stage I'm afraid he'll be weighed, measured and found lacking.
And for the record I'm not that impressed with the republican winner, Huckabee either. I've got some real questions about some of his actions as Governor. A leopard doesn't change his spots.

As I said previously Ash, fascinating stuff.  Also, congrats on getting the chick's # - very cool.

I watched the caucuses on CNN last night for about two or three hours straight.  I actually thought that Clinton was going to pull ahead of Obama before the caucuses started.  I didn't think there was even much support for Edwards, so I was surprised as hell when Edwards initially took the lead over both Clinton and Obama.  It was great to see Obama win this caucus, and I hope that it just a sign of things to come. 

As for someone saying that Obama hasn't really faced any hard questions yet, I do believe you are right on that point.  That being said though, take a look at Bush, a man who is notorious for handpicking the people who show up to this speeches and who's people script out softball questions to be asked at his Q n As.  You ever watch some of those down home style speeches he does on occasion?  It's sickening.

As for Hucakbee's side.....I don't want the guy to be president.  I fully believe in separation of church and state, and I feel that holds true to the president as well.  Huckabee is an ordained Southern Baptist minister and I've seen him use that point numerous times to pull votes.  I'm one who believes that one's religion should not be a staple of their run for office, but sadly that is not the case.

Well, you can bet Obama will be using his race as a staple of his run for office.

So when did the enact the separation of race and state?  ;)

Bush isn't running for president. Who, what, when, where, why questions really are moot as they well not effect the 2008 out come.

The current Republican field like them or not they've already faced "real" questions where as the democrats have ducked and dodge any real questioning and only appeared on softball shows. I'd be happy to consider any canidate on either side of the aisle IF and ONLY IF I hear real answers (i.e. not sound bite and talking points) from real questions and not powder puff venues like Oprah.

Karma to Ash for helping derail the Hillary Express!!!  (That woman scares me! :buggedout:)

I'm not on fire for any of the Republican candidates, but I am prepared to like Huckabee based on what I have seen and heard so far . . . yes, parts of his record as governor trouble me, but there is SOMETHING troubling about all of them.

As far as the church/state separation issue, of the 39 delegates who became signers of the Constitution, over 20 had degrees in divinity . . . President Rutherford Hayes was an ordained minister, and several Presidents have been Pastor's sons.  Baptists have positions on public issues, true, but we also strongly believe in the separation of church and state - Roger Williams, the guy who came up with that whole concept, also built the first Baptist church in America.

Anyway, here's to freedom of choice, and freedom of speech! :cheers:

Oh yes Freedom of Speech, I gotta weigh in here,RUTHERFORD B. HAYES may be overlookable, not to suggest he was inadequate or less than great, but in relation to our forefathers, even of the 20th century, RUTHERFORD is not so nearly outstanding and the least likely to be surprising as an "ordained minister."  Separation of church and state indeed!   :smile:   :thumbup: karma to Indianasmith. 

Gotta give you karma, my friend, you've said it the way I see it.   :thumbup:

Poor old Hayes was one of those overlooked Presidents who might have done very well in another time.  He was elected in a tainted contest in 1876 and his opponents never let him live it down.  They called him "RutherFRAUD Hayes" and "His Fraudulency" his whole presidency . . . . I guess the politics of personal destruction is nothing new.

In this situation, religion and race are used in precisely the same manner and for precisely the same purpose:  To enact laws which are not the result of a careful examination of what is best for the country as a whole, but simply to pander to one special interest group or another.  If we don't hold both sides to the same standards, we're just left with the usual situation in which people criticize politicians for doing something yet defend other politicians for doing the exact same thing.  That's just verbal jousting and accomplishes nothing of any value except to see who has the best online debating skills.

ALL the presidents stink.  I have no idea why we have developed this president-centric view of history.  I have this book that rates the presidents.  the number one guys are the ones that killed the most people in wars and screwed up the economy and centralized the most power for the state. lincoln, FDR, WIlson.

the best president = none of them


the worst = all of them

I'm not pro or anti Huckabee, I have no problem with him being a preacher, I have no problem with Romney being a Morman. What religion or degree there of the President has has little effect on the laws of the land short of who they nominate for the supreme court, which still has to have Senate ratification. There is very little the President can do unilaterally without congressional approval. Yes, there are things the president can do without congress but in the big picture it not that much if you spread it out across all 3 branches of government. Pretty much everything the President does has to at some point have congressional approval.
It not like a religious President is going to take office and say "OK, everybody MUST go to church!" or "You will convert to Mormonism ... or die!" and it is so. It's just silly to think that. While I'm not a very religious person myself I like the fact that a President believes they have someone or something much higher then themselves to answer too at the end of the day or the end of their life. Otherwise you get a leader in there that think they are the ultimate power and there is at least one canidate running in this election that believes that.

I am personally baffled by the animosity towards Rmoenys mormanism.  I saw a focus grou on C Span, tht's how bored I was that afternoon, and the people were saying catagorically they would NOT vote for a mormon.  I think there is a real misunderstanding as to what the job of president actually entails.  or perhaps it has become what it was not SUPPOSED to entail.


   Also,  virtually all politicians are church goers because they have so much sinning to repent for!!  seriously  used car salesman are some of the biggest born again christians out there

I more or less agree with you CheezeFlixz.  What I was getting at was that people on the other side of the issue have a lot of concerns about religion in politics, but at the same time seem to dismiss any concerns that racial politics may pose, ostensibly because they endorse that side.

Lester, that is one of the most idiotic statements I have ever heard.  The idea that all our Presidents are somehow "the worst" is ignorant and frankly proves the oft-stated point on this board that your political views are so extreme as to have no merit whatsoever. 

The FACT is that there have been some insignificant Presidents (Hayes, Garfield, Tyler) and some truly awful Presidents (Harding, Andrew Johnson, Buchanan, and Pierce) - but there have also been some Presidents who were deeply noble and idealistic human beings whose accomplishments delivered mankind from horrendous evils (Lincoln, Washington, FDR, and Truman).  Some of them were good, almost saintly men (Lincoln, Cleveland, McKinley) in their personal lives, some were Machiavellian schemers (FDR and Nixon), and some were just plain folks who did the best they could in the world's most difficult job (Truman, Reagan, and Eisenhower). 

As far as your comments about war go - war is always an evil, but it is sometimes a necessary evil.  War can be a cathartic, cleansing agent that wipes tyranny from the landscape and promotes liberty and democracy - or it can just be armed robbery writ large.  Trying to lump all wars into the same category makes about as much sense as trying to lump all presidents into the same category.

All you did in this post was to show your monumental ignorance once more.

indiana smith calls me an idiot and ignorant, but I get negative karma and he probably will get positive karma.  such is the fascist thought police, twilight zone karma system unfortunately adopted by this forum. 



insianasmith-  i don't think harding was awful.  during his tenor he didn't start any avoidable wars, didn't screw up the economy and didn't beef up the power of the central government.  That's all I personally want for a president so I'm cool with Warren G.

lincoln delivered mankind from horrendous evils?  lol  really?  not for the 600,000 people who died in the civil war.  slavery was ended peacefully everywhere else in the war.  LIncoln himself wanted to end all the slaves "back to africa" a la the klan.  no, the true motive was to stop the south from leaving the union which they had every right to do under the constitution.  because of his actions we got to have george bush and other texan politicians ruining our country.  thanks alot abe. 

washington was good.  I'll give you that.  that was the only war i support, the revolutionary war.  and the souths right to sucede.

FDR sent my grandfather to bomb innocent german people.  he drank himself to death from the horror of what he'd done.  yes, at a certain point we had to fight, but it was his statecraft that got us to that point and the versailles treaty after world war one that caused the hyperinflation in germany that made a maniac like Hitler seem attractive to german voters.


I don't think war can be any sort of cathartic agent of anything.  it's people with guns shooting at each other and killing each other in a way that would be criminal otherwise. 

wars are for GOVERNMENTS.  people seldom hate another people enugh to go kill them en masse.

A friend of mine used to say, "No one should be President if they want to be."

A lot of wisdom, that.  Was it Thomas Jefferson who said it first?

Lester, I have tried to respect your opinions.  Honestly, I have.  But the stuff you spout is just so . . . WRONG that I can't help myself.  I don't know why I persist in this debate except that, well, I keep hoping maybe some sense will seep into your  head.

First of all, Warren G. Harding was an IMBECILE.  The man himself commented repeatedly that he was simply mentally unable to make the decisions that the Presidency required of him. his syntax was even worse than Bush's - try reading some of his inane speeches!   Harding was woefully ignorant on matters of public policy - he did not understand basic math, taxes, economics, law, or anything else.  His administration was filled with crooks and scoundrels, and their crimes literally worried poor Warren into a fatal heart attack . . . not to mention the fact that he was having an affair with a 17 year old when he was in his 50's!

Your comments about Lincoln are inexcusable.  First of all, secession was illegal and utterly unjustified.  The South said they would desert the Union if a Republican won the election, then deliberately split the Democratic party so that a Republican would win.  And what was the cause of their leaving?  Don't tell me you believe the "State's rights" argument that Jefferson Davis wrote in his old age.  Read the Ordinances of Secession passed by every Southern legislature, and what is there? Slavery.  The South was willing to destroy a nation and launch a disastrous war (and yes, THEY fired the first shots!) in order to continue selling little children at the auction block, work grown men in the field until they died of exhaustion, and rape black women at night so that mulatto children would be born on every year on every plantation.  Lincoln stopped that.  Yes, he did favor "colonization" at first, as many educated Americans did, because he feared that blacks and whites could never live together in peace.  The abominable treatment blacks suffered in the South for 100 years after emancipation makes you think he had a point, perhaps.  But Lincoln abandoned colonization at the behest of BLACK leaders who informed him that America was their country too.  He listened to the people involved and changed his mind.  What a concept!  He did not ask for the war, nor did he start it.  But he would accept war rather than let the nation perish.  No leader ever felt more keenly, or with greater mental anguish, the suffering of the soldiers of both sides on the battlefield.  But with incredible moral strength he persisted in doing right, because it was right, and he deserves better than to have his memory shat upon by the likes of you.

As for FDR, he was a far less likeable character.  But he saved the world by taking a stand against fascism.  Yes, innocent German civilians were immolated in German cities set afire by American bombers.  But those same German civilians turned a blind eye while Hitler killed 14 MILLION innocent civilians in the concentration camps!  The Nazis, and the Japanese had to be stopped.  FDR did it, and the physical and emotional toll of it all was so great that it killed him.  He wasn't a particularly nice man.  But he was a great president, and part of his legacy is that self-righteous libertarian prigs are now free to denigrate his memory instead of being jailed and gassed for daring to speak opposing opinions.

As far as the Board's karma system goes, it is democracy pure and simple.  People who don't like what you say will click one button, those who do will click the other.  Maybe if your opinions made more sense, more people would agree with you!

  The child HARDING sired was born in a house in Asbury Park, NJ that a friend of mine used to own...

   :bouncegiggle:  Well said. 
  :thumbup: More karma for you, Indiana. 

I don't care for the haughty tone that often appears in Lester's posts.  Sometimes I agree with some of Lester's comments, but I never click either button for him.  Having been pointlessly insulted by Les in a thread he started about the film THE OTHER, I decided not to bother with attempting to communicate with him.

When you spout stuff like your earlier post:

And don't provide any back up arguments what do you expect. Personally I think later guys like Lydon B. Johnson expanded the central government with stunts like the gulf of tonkin incident. But I'd be lying if I didn't admit that FDR increased the power of the executive branch.

And to Indiana I think the only reason garfield didn't do much was because he died. I would have really liked to see what would have happened if he had lived. If I recall correctly he was supposed to be a rather honest politician in an age of corruption.

That is true, Flackbait.  Actually, most of the Presidents of the Gilded Age were personally honest men . . . and the one who had been a corrupt spoilsman cleaned up his act when he ascended to the Presidency (Chester A. Arthur).  But the Presidency in that era was a pretty powerless office, and personally honest executives did little to curb the rampant corruption in the Legislative Branch.

Indiana and Lester...
You kids play nice!   :tongueout:

You'll notice that when I wrote this thread, all I did was state who I was supporting.
I knew that if I went any further than that, it could possibly flare into a political flame war.
And it has to some extent.
There's absolutely nothing wrong with a good political debate, but please keep it nice and friendly.

To lighten the mood, I thought I'd post this funny video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qU4yM7mzQdE

(Pouting)  "He started it!!!!"  :hot:

 :bouncegiggle:  OK, OK, I'll be nice.  Lester and I have a bit of a history that's developed, sadly.

indiana smith and all hallows day both attacked me first, indiana in this thrad and flackbait in the thread about the Other. I defy anyone to prove otherwise.  and continue to attack me


so what?  he didn't send anyone to die in the desert , enact bizarre central economic planning of the sort the soviets practiced, and he didn't imprison / spy on his enemies like Bush, FDR, and john Adams and Nixon repsctively.  better an imbecile tha a murderous tyrant.


 i say it was legal and entirely ustified.  hard to believe tow people on the internet would have two totally different opinions on historical issues!


do you think the south wanted to take over the north?  of course not.   It wasn't really even a civil war.  it was a war for southern independence. 

you should read a book called "complicity".  the north sold the cotton that was grown in the south.  they were, as the title says, complicit in slavery and certainily had no moral hih ground to jusge the south on.  in britain they simply bought all thee slaves and freed them then outlawed slavery.  no one died for "humanity" there or anywhere else but here where 600,000 people virtually none of whom had anything at all to do with slavery or the slave trade, died.    slavery was on it's way out.



like I said, ww2 became unavoidable but it wasn't just "evil" and us fighting it.  there was all sorts of statecraft, most obviously the treaty of versailles, that led to it, as well as a bizarre trend towards huge government a la mussolini, stalin, hitler and , yes, FDR that was doomed to end badly. 

I don't know that 14 million died in the camps .  I know 6 million jews died  but I don't think there were 8 million others.  I 'm not trying to downplay the friggin holocaust for godsake just not sure on that figure.  tons of people died fighting the war too.  one of my favorite books is "the man outside" by wolfgang borchert.  he was 26 when he wrote it and had served 2 tours in hitlers army very much against his will.  he nearly froze to death shooting at russians in the snows of siberia.   

and i believe one group of officers DID try to kill hitler didn't they?

anyway, you wouldn't have had Hitler if you hadn't had the hyperinflation of post ww1.

Must . . . not . . . . engage . . . .  Lester!


AAARRRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 :hot: :hot: :hot: :hot: :hot: :hot:

:question:  Y'know there's a species of troll that types whatever comes to mind, even if its mind is wandering and it makes no sense, because all such nuggets must be pure gold.     :smile:

To anyone else reading, I am of the opinion that disagreements make for interesting exchanges, but we should always avoid personal "attacks".  Anyone interested in THE OTHER thread:
http://www.badmovies.org/forum/index.php/topic,115927.0.html  (http://www.badmovies.org/forum/index.php/topic,115927.0.html)

Yes, Indiana, good advice.   :bouncegiggle:

Yes, it is good advice, All Hallows, but dangit!!! I just can't help myself!  :hatred:

OK, Lester, I am, respectfully and politely, going to tell you where I think your previous observations were historically and ideologically incorrect.  In so doing, I will try to avoid all personal references to your intelligence and character.  Fair enough?  :cheers:

First of all, about Harding - going to war, or using the powers of government to deal with sweeping national emergencies, does not make one a tyrant.  Spying on one's foreign enemies - even on domestic enemies, if they are prone to violence - is simply common sense.  "Know thy enemy" is the first rule of smart warfare.  The fact is that Harding was incompetent, and very limited in his ability.  He deserves his historical ranking at the bottom of the Presidential heap.

On secession - You say it was legal and justified.  WHY was it justified?  NO state's right was jeapordized by the election of Abraham Lincoln.  All he proposed to do was limit the spread of slavery into the Western Territories.  The fact is that the South stormed out of the Union because of a PERCEIVED threat to slavery, in the form of a Presidential election that did not go their way.  Their behavior was not unlike that of spoiled children.  And if secession was legal, why was there no Constitutional provision for it?  The South's actions were irrational and indefensible, and led to the destruction of the institution they fought to defend, as Texas Governor Sam Houston predicted in 1861 - "These fire-eaters are going to start a war to defend slavery, but the first shots they fire will be slavery's death knell!"

Also, you said - "In britain they simply bought all the slaves and freed them then outlawed slavery.  No one died for "humanity" there or anywhere else but here where 600,000 people, virtually none of whom had anything at all to do with slavery or the slave trade, died.    Slavery was on it's way out. "

Were ALL British slaveowners compensated for their slaves?  I would be surprised if that were truly the case.  Slavery was NOT on its way out in the South, however.  Look at the U. S. census every decade from 1790 until 1860.  Every decade the slave population increased, and the price of slaves increased.  The South was becoming more dependent on slavery with each passing year, not only economically but socially. Slavery and racism were the tools by which the Planter class divided and ruled the 70% of Southerners who did NOT own slaves.  The South would never have voluntarily relinquished slavery, except perhaps to replace it with an apartheid style system that left blacks deprived of all liberty and justice as permanent second class citizens . . . oh, wait, that's what they did as soon as the Northern troops went home.  Yes, there were some in the North who profited off of slave labor.  It was unavoidable in a national economy.  Does that mean NO ONE in the North had any moral ground on which to condemn slavery?  If that is the case, no one in the world is entitled to moral judgements about ANYTHING.  Yes, the Civil War killed many who had nothing to do with slavery or abolitionism.  Wars do that.  But the war was brought on by the South's unwillingness to compromise and their irrational need to hang onto slavery at all costs.  Lincoln led the country with brilliance, compassion, and humility through its greatest crisis.  Had he lived, perhaps he could have achieved a measure of racial justice - one thing guaranteed, he would not have mucked up Reconstruction as badly as Andrew Johnson did.

As far as World War II goes, yes, you are right, the failed diplomacy that led to the Treaty of Versailles was responsible for Hitler being able to seize power in Germany (you will notice that Woodrow Wilson is one President I DON'T defend!).  But, once Hitler seized power and became bent on conquering all of Europe and Asia, America had to rise up and stand against him, or he would have won.  The same can be said for Japan's muderous attempt to take over the entire Far East. Sometimes tyranny must be opposed, and force is the only language tyrants understand.  Neville Chamberlain proved that of Hitler.  The only thing America could do for the freedom of the world  was to utterly crush both the Nazis and the Japanese, and the world is a better place because we did so.  While no war is absolutely black and white, World War II comes closer to that than any other struggle in the history of the world.

Yes, there were several attempts to kill Hitler by a conspiracy of German officers during the War.  They all failed, and the conspirators died in horrible agony.  The German people did NOT rise up and support them.

RE My numbers on the Holocaust - I have seen the figures given between 12 and 14 million, totalled.  The 6 million Jews are very well-documented; at least 1 million German dissidents and protestors died in the camps, over 1 million Gypsies, about 1 million Poles, and at least 2 million Russians.  The remainder was made up of dissidents, Resistance leaders, labor union organizers, pastors,  intellectuals, homosexuals, and any one  else who might conceivably lead any form of military or intellectual resistance to Naziism.  Because many of the records were destroyed, and several million of those deaths occurred during the first eight years of Hitler's rule, before the "Death Camps" were fully established, the precise number is hard to pin down.  But it was enormous.


OK, there, I gave you my opinions and my reasonings, and I did not once insult you.  I don't know that it did any good, but I feel better!  :lookingup:

Sooooo, Ash, have you called up that assistant yet?

Surprised you don't mention the "...shooting at russians in the snows of siberia" bit...  :lookingup:

allhallows day -  from the thread you linked   

that was the start of the kerfuffle.  which ended with you, not I, getting huffy and stalking off in a ....huff

indian  -  I can see you know your version of the civl war era quite well.  I don't think you are a bad operson for believing it.  why is it that when I have a different view i am ignorant and ridiculous?  I'm not ALLOWED to have a different view?  i 'm not making things up.  I tend to "follow the money" and come to different conclusions than some who believe in national greatness and the grand scope of history and so forth.  I'm cynical.

I don't believe the civl war was about slavery.  you and probably most people do.  I am not a hundred percent sure of how britain went abuot eliminating slavery so I'll have to get back to you on that.  but I'm pretty sure they didn't murder completely innocent citizens who the day before were doing nothing that had anything to do with slavery and would probably have preferred to stay part of their families and communities rather than making the job of cartographers easier by remaing one nation coerced by a new central government. 

there is much historical evidence that shows that lincolns prime motivation was to preserve the union.  to me, that is not a good enough reason to die.  My guess is the fact that the south had control of the cotton supply and wall street needed cotton had a lot to do with it.  as was the souths option of simply selling the stuff to the world without going through said NYC famous marketplace.

I am not against us being in ww2, though I think if we had not intervened at operation Barbossa the russians and the nazis may well have fought it out to the end. a debilitated USSR could obviously have been good for us and the world. 

Also,  we had a responsisblity to take in jewish refugees and did not.  if we had, i'm sure other countries would have followed.  the idea that we turned people away and sent them back to the camps is sickening.  again, politics got in the way of common sense.


also, hitler didn't seize power he was elected, which helps your point not mine!





edit:  if anyone is intersted in revisionist views of mr Abraham Lincoln here is a collection of them (http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig2/lincoln-arch.html)  just don't tell your history teacher

I don't mean this as a criticism, but the problem with this statement is that there is a way things happened. Historians are objective scholars who seek to uncover the "what."  This is not belief; when a given hypothesis is asserted, it must be backed up with FACTS, not beliefs or ideologies.

The other side of the coin is that the victor in any armed conflict does, to some point anyway, get to write at least the immediate history of what happened.  However, history in the modern era is much more backed by scientific study than merely "what he said."

For my part, I think that for ANY armed conflct (such as the Civil War), the causes are complex and multi-layered.  I don't think it is as simple as saying "it was about slavery" or "it was about State's rights."  The reality is, if we are truly objective, it was both.

I'll depart from Indiana on this one point: who cares if there is a Constitutional provision for secession?  The Constitution was to delineate the powers of the Federal government, not to grant powers to the States.

Tenth Amendment:


Now, it seems to me that it can be argued that that encompasses secession.  The 10th is arguably THE most important of the Bill of Rights within the grander scope of designing the government I believe the Founders envisioned.  True, I'll admit that the 10th has largely been gutted, and this gutting had already started by 1860.  But, there is no doubt (in my mind) that the Union's winning the Civil War was the death nell for the 10th Amendment to the US Constitution.

Do I wish the South had won?  In some ways, yes; those have to do with preserving the union within the scope of the 10th Amendment.  However, I KNOW the Southern plantation economy depended on slavery, which I cannot morally defend.  I recently visited Middleton Plantation in Charleston, SC, and it was eye opening (even for one who thought he already understood much of the southern culture prior to the Civil War).  There were FAR more black slaves population wise than white aristocrats, at least in the areas of the SC rice plantations.  To cast this into a modern context, does this not smell a bit of apartheid?

On a note MAYBE of interest, I'm writing a book on field trips along the SC coast for homeschoolers.  One of the points I am including is the site of the Stono Rebellion, one of the largest slave revolts of the colonial period (the largest prior to the big one in NY).  An interesting piece of history there.  This site is about midway between Charleston and Beaufort.

on a lighter note

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2008/1/6/25723/26527/751/431492


^not a site I normally visit but great analysis of the last GOP debate by a 9 year old kid

My comments were not personal.  However, Les, your response was personal:

As you wrote to Indiana: "why is it that when I have a different view i am ignorant and ridiculous?" 

You are also disingenuous...
SMOKE! 
Ugh, I'm actually responding to you, a troll's dream come true.  How distasteful.   :tongueout:  However, as I wrote in THE OTHER thread which you ignored: PEACE. 

Dang...I thought I was about to read a thread on Iowa Caucuses lol.

You should Ash. It will make walking down the street a little warmer.  :bouncegiggle:

Enjoyed your video by the way and seeing Ashthecat live and in person again on Youtube. All the way from Iowa.  :thumbup: