I propose a DU Dean/Clark (or Clark/Dean) truce

I think our 2 candidates are the 2 best out there. I love Clark and have considered supporting him but I just like Dean too much. I would be deleriously happy with either a Dean/Clark or Clark/Dean ticket. I move that we don't attack each other's candidates for the remainder of the primary season. The only out would be if they attack each other in an ad or at a debate. Thoughts?

but I don't see it happening anytime soon. :(

Whoever is leading in the poles the other side will be sore about and start spewing.

and Clark doesn't either. Howard has tried to recycle the tired "Clark wasn't really anti war", and "Clark supported Republicans" bits against him with disturbing regularity in my opinion but others have done worse.

I like them both. I think they'd make a most excellent team and lead our nation out of this mess. I also don't think either would be afraid to address Parliament . ;-)

and so are Clarkies. I agree completely with the sentiment. 100% agreed. Never have attacked Dean. But I have been attacked, and so has Clark. Dean continues to go after Clark every chance he gets, with this "Clark supported the war" nonsense. And not really a democrat stuff too. So, if you could kindly pass the word to Dean, that would really be helpful! And yes, at a campaign function, a Deanie wents nuts on us Clarkies! (i know not every person represents the best of each candidate) but she was working for him at a table and a couple walked up and simply asked her why she supported Dean. Well, instead of informing this nice democrat about her candidate, this 60-something year-old women started ranting about Clark, "he's not a 'real' democrat!, he wasn't against the war!", screaming, and shaking. Our table was adjacent to hers and we were dumbfoubded and didn't say word. No point, since the women was out of control and red in the face. Btw, that couple signed up with us a few days later. I'm sure Dean people may have encountered incidents as well, but this was just my experience. Again, agree with the sentiment though.
:grouphug:

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

Use to be a huge supporter until Wes came on the scene. I would be thrilled to have the 2 men as a ticket in 2004. Truce? Sounds good to me.

I've been preaching a non-aggression pact for months now, and all I get is spill the blood, let it flow, we'll bandage up after the primaries-you know?

Gee, I'm a poet.

Seriously, you have as much chance as getting Bush to show up for a Planned Parenthood meeting.

Interesting how it is always the Dean supporters who propose these truces. Obviously Dean is losing ground fast. :)

I attack Dean because he deserves to be attacked, not because I like Clark. If I was undecided, I'd attack Dean. If I was a supporter of Kucinich, I'd attack Dean. If I was a supporter of CMB, I'd attack Dean. If I was apolitical, I'd attack Dean. Sorry, I simply despise liars and charlatans, and particularly despise them when they come in the same package.

But I genuinely appreciate your sentiment.

and I never thought Clark people attacked Dean because they were Clark people.

I also find myself moving into the Clark camp. But I never liked Dean for the reasons you stated.

I attack Clark because he deserves to be attacked, not because I like Dean. If I was undecided, I'd attack Clark. If I was a supporter of Kucinich, I'd attack Clark. If I was a supporter of CMB, I'd attack Clark. If I was apolitical, I'd attack Clark. Sorry, I simply despise war criminals, liars, and war profiteers, and particularly despise them when they come in the same package.

But I genuinely appreciate your sentiment.




"And I'm very glad we've got the great team in office, men like Colin Powell, Don Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice... people I know very well - our president George W. Bush. We need them there."


"We were really helped when President Ronald Reagan came in. I remember non-commissioned officers who were going to retire and they re-enlisted because they believed in President Reagan."

"That's the kind of President Ronald Reagan was. He helped our country win the Cold War. He put it behind us in a way no one ever believed would be possible. He was truly a great American leader. And those of us in the Armed Forces loved him, respected him, and tremendously admired him for his great leadership."

"President George Bush had the courage and the vision... and we will always be grateful to President George Bush for that tremendous leadership and statesmanship."

Clark has said and done.

For christ's sake the man said it is OK to murder journalists.

Extra! July/August 1999 Legitimate Targets? How U.S. Media Supported War Crimes in Yugoslavia - By Jim Naureckas
NATO justified the bombing of the Belgrade TV station, saying it was a legitimate military target. "We've struck at his TV stations and transmitters because they're as much a part of his military machine prolonging and promoting this conflict as his army and security forces," U.S. General Wesley Clark explained--"his," of course, referring to Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic. It wasn't Milosevic, however, who was killed when the Belgrade studios were bombed on April 23, but rather 20 journalists, technicians and other civilians.


If Dean came out and said he felt it was OK to murder journalists... there would be a freakin shit storm.

If Lieberman had worked as a lobbyist for defense contractors... he'd be out on his ass.

If Kerry had said that he felt Reagan and Bush Sr. were truly great leaders as a republican fundraiser, his career would be over.

Yet Clark gets a free pass for these things because of those shiny stars on his shoulder that so many have been duped into thinking are the only way to win the whitehouse.

Rice... in the beginning. I also liked Colin. Hey he probably would be the first repug I vote for. I gotta support the BRUVA.

There are DUers here who have voted REPUG and I don't look down at them.

You need to get off your high horse if we are ever gonna win this election.

Either DEAN will have to move to the center and piss his base of or he'll stay left and lose. Any way you slice it you're all gonna be disapointed if you don't wakeup and get with the program.

"I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks. We can't beat George Bush unless we appeal to a broad cross-section of Democrats.":shrug:

n/t

Only one candidate can win the primaries, and the first one is only a month and half away. That doesn't mean we can't be civil with one another, but the differences can and must be emphasized for the primaries to have meaning.

but I guess you'll just be delerious, not delicious!

I've always been a proponent of remembering who the enemy is, and it ain't Dean! (my dad would kill me if he heard me say ain't)

Dean doesn't do a whole lot for me, but if he gets the nomination, I'll back him in any way I can, and I'll hope he kicks ass in the General Election... I mean I hope he kicks that ass right out of the White House... well, whatever.

So, count me in. I don't think we accomplish anything by slamming the other candidates. Reasoned discussion of the issues is great, but there are some people in particular who leap into every conversation, spewing the same old crap, regardless of what is being discussed. That is SO counter-productive - it derails any real discussion (which may be the point), and tends to alienate lots of folks.

One of the things I love about Clark is that he does not focus his guns on the other democrats... and I try to live by that, as well.

I have thought about posting something to this effect myself (although I would extend it to an Everybody/Everybody truce, but you have to start somewhere). Dean is my favorite candidate, with Clark running a very close second. I would be very proud to call either one of these men my president, and I've been very sorry about all the harsh words I've seen coming from BOTH camps for the others. I believe that intelligent, reasoned, discussion of the differences between the candidates is absolutely healthy and normal, but unfortuantely I've just been seeing too much defensiveness, rage, and baseless attacks, again, from BOTH sides. We need to get past this silly bullshit, NOW.

I have never posted a candidate-bashing thread, and I have posted a couple of pleas for civility in a couple of instances, but they have largely fallen on deaf ears, at least it seems that way to me. In any case, you certainly have my support in this effort, and I hope others will follow suit and join us. No matter who wins the nomination, even if it's neither one of these two, I plan to donate money, time, and resources tirelessly working to get them elected, and it would be a shame if all the arguing and bitterness resulted in candidate emerging with the nomination but with enough accumulated bitterness that everyone is not willing to get on board. I fear that we're getting perilously close to that point.

Anyway, this is a great idea. Count me in.

I don't trust him and he's too politically inexperienced to help Dean as VP. He'd be an albatross around Dean's neck.

Hahahahaha! Ya, all that foreign relations experience would be a very heavy burden for Dean. :eyes:

or the expereicne speaking at the school of the americas?


Or maybe you mean CLark;s expereince murering journalists?


Or maybe his experience war profiteering and selling his influence after he was kicked out of the military?


Maybe Clark can show Dean how to drop 20,000 bombs and take out 13 tanks?

or only the ones who prop up neo fascist governments?

Civilians die in every war, true. Innocent civilians die even in the most justifiable wars. War is tragic even when war is right, and while war is rarely right, rarely is not the same as never.

No civilians would have died in a bombing of a Belgrade TV station if the tyrant running it wasn't conducting a campaign of ethnic cleansing of civilian Kosovo Albanians. Ethnic cleansing by the way does not mean racially selective bathing, it usually involves, as it did there, the wholesale murder of thousands of civilians. The TV station that was bombed in Belgrade was not the glorious "Free Press" as we know it. Not even Fox News or anything close. That station pumped out nationalistic propaganda to justify ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. That same station previously pumped out propaganda saying there were no rape camps or wholesale slaughter of civilians in Bosnia either. Slobadan Milosevic controlled the programming at that TV station, the same Milosevic who now stands trial in the Hague as a war criminal. Repeat, internationally recognized War Criminal.

Hitler had his journalists too, they were directed by Joseph Goebbels if I recall. He defended ethnic cleansing also in state sponsered broadcasts. The massacre in Rwanda was fueled by hate broadcasts played over state controlled media after the government there had fallen into the hands of extremeists. I am tired of reading Milosevic revisionist apologist crap.

Remember the siege of Sarajevo? The snipers shooting at civilians who had to leave their homes to get drinking water? That was an earlier manifestation of Milosevic's nationalist agenda to seize and consolidate power by creating and feeding into an ethnic Serbian nationalist fervor. He created a crisis in Kosovo to further his own fascist agenda. Kosovo was an autonomous region within Serbia and Milosevic stripped the overwhelming muslim population of that autonomy and put it back under Belgrades direct near total control. He was out to build a Greater Serbia and was willing to murder and dislocate millions in order to do so.

I agree with Clark. The TV station was a legitimate target. Extensive and prolonged legitimate attempts at diplomacy had failed. Milosevic had already unleashed his death squads and militias in Kosovo. Much as I would have preferred it to be otherwise, he wasn't about to be deterred by some symbolic precision strike bombing of a Serbain flag flying in a some deserted field. Clark is a hero to the Muslims in Kosovo now, and Serbia is free of Milosevic. His defeat in Kosovo was the beginning of the end for him, and the Serbaian people are much better off without him.

"No civilians would have died in a bombing of a Belgrade TV station if the tyrant running it wasn't conducting a campaign of ethnic cleansing of civilian Kosovo Albanians."

No, no civilians would have died if the NATO forces commaded by CLark had not targeted and bombed them. The action taken by the Serbs did not blow up those people, the NATO bombs did.



" Ethnic cleansing by the way does not mean racially selective bathing, it usually involves, as it did there, the wholesale murder of thousands of civilians."

At the time of the start of the NATO bombing campaign, about 2000 civilains had been murdered by the Serbs. The Nato bombing campaign killed 1500 civilians according to NATO's own numbers. So basicaly following that logic, had Slobo just murdered 500 fewer civilians, he'd have been a hero, like Clark?


"The TV station that was bombed in Belgrade was not the glorious "Free Press" as we know it. Not even Fox News or anything close. That station pumped out nationalistic propaganda to justify ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. That same station previously pumped out propaganda saying there were no rape camps or wholesale slaughter of civilians in Bosnia either. Slobadan Milosevic controlled the programming at that TV station, the same Milosevic who now stands trial in the Hague as a war criminal. Repeat, internationally recognized War Criminal."


SO what... the content of the journalists' broadcasts, propaganda or not, is irrelevant to the status of those individuals as non-combatants. They were not armed, and they were not able to defend themselves. Their murder was a war crime, every bit as wrong as Slobo's crimes.


"Hitler had his journalists too, they were directed by Joseph Goebbels if I recall."

And murdering them would have been just as wrong. Journalists, even if you do not like the story they are telling, are off limits. Those are the rules of war, you do not target the journalists, and you do not target civilians or civilians infrastructure.

Clark bombed hospitals, schools, civilians... they even bombed a fucking market place. All of it having almost no effect at all on the Serbs, but rather on the civilians of kosovo.


" He defended ethnic cleansing also in state sponsered broadcasts. The massacre in Rwanda was fueled by hate broadcasts played over state controlled media after the government there had fallen into the hands of extremeists. I am tired of reading Milosevic revisionist apologist crap. "

"Remember the siege of Sarajevo? The snipers shooting at civilians who had to leave their homes to get drinking water? That was an earlier manifestation of Milosevic's nationalist agenda to seize and consolidate power by creating and feeding into an ethnic Serbian nationalist fervor. He created a crisis in Kosovo to further his own fascist agenda. Kosovo was an autonomous region within Serbia and Milosevic stripped the overwhelming muslim population of that autonomy and put it back under Belgrades direct near total control. He was out to build a Greater Serbia and was willing to murder and dislocate millions in order to do so."


Nobody is saying that Milosevic wasn't a bad guy doing bad things who needed to be stopped. What I'm saying is that Clark did a lot of fucked up things that did nothing to stop Milosevic, and killed almost as many civilians as Slobo had killed at the point when international action was demanded to halt the genocide.

If Slobo killing 2000 civilians is genocide so serious it demands international action to halt the slaughter, why is clark killing 1500 more civilians heroic?


"I agree with Clark. The TV station was a legitimate target."

Then you support a war crime. Your support for the act, or lack of support, does not change the nature of the act. And bombing non-combatants is a war crime.

"Extensive and prolonged legitimate attempts at diplomacy had failed. Milosevic had already unleashed his death squads and militias in Kosovo. Much as I would have preferred it to be otherwise, he wasn't about to be deterred by some symbolic precision strike bombing of a Serbain flag flying in a some deserted field."

How about targeting Serb forces, instead of civilians and civilian infrastructure?

Clark's attacks did not stop Slobo, they didn't even slow him down. The killing was not halted by the attacks and the serbs killed another 8000 during the bombing campaign. Clark dropped 20,000 bombs and took out only 13 serb tanks and a shitload of decoys, some microwaves, and 1500 civilians.

"Clark is a hero to the Muslims in Kosovo now, and Serbia is free of Milosevic. His defeat in Kosovo was the beginning of the end for him, and the Serbaian people are much better off without him. "

Milosevic was voted out by the people after the russians pulled their support... that is what ended him, not Clark slaughtering civilians and showering kosovo with DU rounds. And Clark almost fucked that up with his order for the brits to confront the russians over that airfield.



http://www.guardian.co.uk/Kosovo/Story/0,2763,208056,00.html

A month later, with Nato getting increasingly frustrated about Milosevic's refusal to buckle, Mary Robinson, the UN human rights commissioner, said Nato's bombing campaign had lost its "moral purpose". Referring to the cluster bomb attack on residential areas and market in the Serbian town of Nis, she described Nato's range of targets as "very broad" and "almost unfocused". There were too many mistakes; the bombing of the Serbian television station in Belgrade - which killed a make-up woman, among others - was "not acceptable".

Nato, which soon stopped apologising for mistakes which by its own estimates killed 1,500 civilians and injured 10,000, said that "collateral damage" was inevitable, and the small number of "mistakes" remarkable, given the unprecedented onslaught of more than 20,000 bombs.

Yet once Nato - for political reasons, dictated largely by the US - insisted on sticking to high-altitude bombing, with no evidence that it was succeeding in destroying Serb forces committing atrocities against ethnic Albanians, the risk of civilian casualties increased, in Kosovo and throughout Serbia. Faced with an increasingly uncertain public opinion at home, Nato governments chose more and more targets in urban areas, and experimented with new types of bombs directed at Serbia's civilian economy, partly to save face. By Nato's own figures, of the 10,000 Kosovans massacred by Serb forces, 8,000 were killed after the bombing campaign started.

Nato does not dispute the Serb claim that just 13 of its tanks were destroyed in Kosovo - a figure which gives an altogether different meaning to the concept of proportionality. Nato fought a military campaign from the air which failed to achieve its stated objectives.

Clark wanted the option to use ground forces against Serbian forces in Kosovo. Clark also insisted that attack helicopters capable of flying in low and targetting Serbian troop concentrations be made available to NATO forces. Reluctantly the Pentagon sent them, but then refused to authorize Clark using them. Clark was fighting against the mind set of the Pentagon that wanted no American soldiers put at risk and instead insisted on high altitude bombing. Without a strategic green light to directly engage Serbian forces on the ground or fly low altitude missions against them, options were limited, too limited, and undoubtably that cost additional civilian lives. Clark is attacked for getting "fired" from his NATO command after the war, which was a by product of his above disputes with the Pentagon during it. Then he is also attacked for fighting with the strategy the Pentagon insisted on.

Clark wanted to fight that war differently and it would have been best had he been allowed to do so. I come down on the side though that it was better fought the way it was then not fought at all, and it seems you strongly disagree. I was horrified by the slaughter of innocents in Bosnia by right wing militias, and I believe had NATO turned a blind eye to Milosic's intentions in Kosovo, many magnitudes of additional civilian deaths would have occurred. Perhaps we disagree on that also. As President, Clark would have control over the Pentagon, not the other way around. That seemingly is not reassuring to you, but it is to me.

As to Russia withdrawing its support, that was a factor in Milosevic loosing power, but more important was his loss of support among Serbians in Serbia who grew tired of his militaristic ways further impoverishing the nation, and keeping Serbia an outcast in western Europe, with serious economic consequences. Once Slobo was at war with NATO the handwriting was on the wall for all to see. The route to future Prosperity ran through the EU, and Slobo was at war with most of its member nations. As for Russia, once the die was cast and NATO went to war with Serbia, it became increasingly more difficult for Russia to have their cake and eat it too. Serbia was a traditional ally of Russia, and Russia wanted good ties with the West. Without NATO's war on Serbia I doubt Russia would have broke with Milosevic.

At the end of the war even militant Kosovo Albanians, who were dead set on full independence rather than a resumption of autonomy, cooperated with disarming their militias, to a large extent out of respect for the U.S. role in the intervention. It seems they, at least, had no doubt that they would have suffered far worse had etnic cleansing continued unchecked then they did through the Serbian efforts to rachet up the rate of cleansing during the first few weeks of the war.

Look, you raise some valid points for discussion in this last post, but I find it more than annoying when you boil the entire drama down to your "Clark was a butcher of civilians" sound bite like you usually do, with no context given or recognition that Clark stood for confronting the neo fascists emerging in force in Europe for the first time since Hitler.

I have given up on partisan sniping.

TRUCE.

But It will not happen.

I'd gladly support him, but there's simply no way the rest of America is going to go for him. He's even too shrill and politicianesque for me! Imagine how everyone else will take him.

therefore, I support Clark with every spare second I've got. If Dean wins the nomination, I will hold my nose and vote for him, but I'll be done campaigning and fill my time with "Draft Clark" for my hometown's mayoral race:)

Wes Clark would be the nominee already if he had entered the race in the Spring. All of you Deanies would be Clarkies. I know it's hard to give it up....but come on! We need help beating bush!

"but there's simply no way the rest of America is going to go for him."

The fundraising numbers prove you wrong. The meetup numbers prove you wrong. Dean has far more support than Clark. In fact Dean has so much more support than Clark that Clark won't even try in Iowa and NH because he knows how bad he'll get beat and how bad it would look.


"All of you Deanies would be Clarkies. I know it's hard to give it up....but come on! We need help beating bush!"

If we have to elect a war profiteering war criminal to beat the current war profiteering war criminal, then we lose no matter who wins.

I can not beleive that anybody who calls themselves a democrat is considering voting for a man who was a f-ing lobbyist until about a week before he suddenly decided he wanted to run for president on the dem ticket.

eom

the other Dems have even a LOWER chance of beating bush*, or actually, ZERO chance, as they will have LOST?

Sorry to be logical...

I will vote for either candidate that makes it out of the primary, but I urge both camps to continue to attack prez whistleass instead of each other.

to allow it to be taken over by a Trojan horse.

Dean or Clark?

Don't read my posts much, eh? ;-)

HOWARD BRUSH DEAN, III - The R Stands for Republican

And he's taken the high road in all the democrat dogpiles on Dean.

So I don't attack him.

They would make a well-balanced ticket.

because everyone on this board is determined to say that their candidate is the best, despite some proof otherwise....

And, to the best of my memory, I have never criticized him here. I've even started positive threads about Dean. He's a quality guy.

I think our time could be better spent.

This thread points out, however, how MOST of the supporters of both candidates are reasonable adults. My compliments to those particular Dean supporters for representing your candidate with class.

Gee, that makes too much sense. DU used to have intelligent discussion; now it is merely a spam board for fluctuating polls and "my candidate is awesome/your candidate sucks" posts.

The Busheviks.

Anyone who is going the route of Party Non-violence here had best GIVE UP on any of the vitriolic partisans toeing any lines.

The liberals MUST eat each other. It's the law. No one will admit to their "Guardian Angel's" feet of clay, and I refuse to start listing them on any other candidate now.

My truce is personal. I won't piss on another Democratic Candidate.

I WILL however scream TRIPE at any "true believer" whenever TRIPE is served.

I'm not going to name any names, but I have seen posts by plenty of people for whom any kind of truce is a lost cause. I guess I can always put them on "ignore", but I guess on some level I feel like I'm doing myself a disservice by filtering out the people whose posts I find abrasive --- you can't have the ocean without its roar, as they say.

"The liberals MUST eat each other. It's the law."

Truer words were never spoken. I get the impression that this phenomenon just isn't as widespread on the right. I could be wrong of course, but I have seen a lot more of this kind of thing on our side than theirs. Maybe my desire to elevate the dialog is simply an invitation for me to start banging my head against the wall even harder.

I guess the best I can do is try to make sure my behavior here is emblematic of what I'd like to see in others.

processor power. These resources could be better spent elsewhere.

Clark and Dean merge to form Megacandidate HOWSLEY CLEAN!!!

So all you other Democrats just shut up and quit, because our candidate will wipe up the floor with you, then Bush!! You can't stop us!! We have raised more money, made more speeches, and have a way cooler blog!!

It is INEVITABLE that Clean will get the nomination and WIN WIN WIN!!!

Don't "BASH" Clean!! We want TOTAL conformity and mobthink!! We don't like dissent, debate, or satire!! We want our democracy sanitized and pre-packaged!! Remember, it's only "bashing" when YOU do it to us! It's "the truth" when WE do it to you! :D

But if you say anything not even 110% praiseworthy of Clean, we will BASH you into the ground and put you on ignore, but still bring you up in other threads!

"Bashing" is not good for the Democrats!! I have read history and have marvelled at how the Democrats have NEVER been split like this, and ALWAYS won their elections!!

VOTE CLEAN!!!

Where are the genetic engineers when we need them? :)

Howsley Clean is a potsmoking war criminal who spent the better of part of the 60s skiing through the jungles of Viet Nam, bravely taking a round of BEER for his country before he went crazy and bombed a twenty zillion, jillion very-very-young albanian refugees and then he hired some guy to assassinate Dick Snelling, vying for office of governor of Vermont as a member of the Supersecret Exclusive Fascist Party for Army Guys Only, though he unfortunately forgot that Snelling had a successor in the audacious and charming Whoozit Dean and now he is out for blood on behalf of the Young Republicans of West Point Community College. yes sir, the only thing clean about Howsley Clean is Howsley Clean's surname!

to Howsley Clean.

Clean house with Howsley in 2004

but a lot of what I've seen goes WAY beyond dissent, debate, or satire. I'm a Dean supporter, and in one thread I was in last week he was compared, in all seriousness, to Stalin, and all of his supporters were compared to the people who looked the other way during the purges. Maybe it's just me, but I'd have to say that went a little beyond dissent and into Ann Coulter territory. I can't speak for mrgorth, who originally proposed this truce that we're all chatting about here so enjoyably, but I'm assuming it's in response to that sort of thing.

I have seen some stuff here about Clark that sounds like it was composed in a fucking mental hospital, and it very often was from someone with a Dean avatar, I'm sorry to say. As a "Deanie-bopper" I've tried to make friendly overtures to people who support other candidates, in the hope that it might help disabuse some people of the notion that we Dean supporters are cult members (I get that one a lot too, by the way). No such luck. Hence, a more formal declaration of good intent between camps is probably necessary. I don't think a plea for more civility is really comparable to "mobthink".

EDIT: By the way, your post was very, very funny.

:-)

that was a hoot!

on here already have an unspoken truce.

no Dean against Clark against Dean attacks. I do herebey sign it.

I'm a Dean guy who likes Clark and would love a Dean/Clark Clark/Dean ticket. Let us continue to leave the other canidates in the dust.

And I'll take that ticket in either order - I think it would be a winner. And between Dean and Clark think of all the Dem "sneakers on the ground" we'd have working to send AWOL back to Crawford.

Not with all of these BFEE type "accidents" conveniently happening!

<eom>

I support Dean, but am liking Clark more all the time.

I've checked here for certain names but .......... ;)