# Why We Fight by Eugene Jarecki



## Makalakumu (Nov 9, 2006)

This movie is probably one of the best I've seen in a long time.  It was everything Michael Moore wished he could make and I think that this one has broad bi-partisen appeal.  Watch this if you have time...it is well worth it!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3787578650617448322&q=Iraq+fighting



> The film describes the rise and maintenance of the United States _military-industrial complex_ while concentrating on wars led by the United States of the last fifty years and in particular on the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. It alleges that every decade since World War II, the American public has been told a lie to bring it into war to fuel the military-economic machine, which in turn maintains American dominance in the world. It includes interviews with John McCain, Chalmers Johnson, Richard Perle, William Kristol, Gore Vidal and Joseph Cirincione. The film also incorporates the stories of a Vietnam War veteran whose son died in the September 11, 2001 attacks and then had his son's name written on a bomb dropped on Iraq, a 23-year old New York man who enlists in the United States Army citing his financial troubles after his only family member died, and a former Vietnamese refugee who now develops explosives for the American military.


 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_We_Fight_(2005_film)


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## Cryozombie (Nov 9, 2006)

I counter this with a request you watch the episode of "Band of Brothers" entitled "Why We Fight". 

Sure... its "entertainment"... but IMO still reasonably true.​


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## Makalakumu (Nov 9, 2006)

Cryozombie said:


> I counter this with a request you watch the episode of "Band of Brothers" entitled "Why We Fight".​
> 
> Sure... its "entertainment"... but IMO still reasonably true.​


 
I've already seen it.  I grew up with that stuff...

And from what I've seen and from what I've been told, much of it is just propaganda.

The reality is that Eisenhower lived this stuff and HE was the one who warned us about our present situation.  This movie is inspired by him...a Republican.


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## Cryozombie (Nov 9, 2006)

upnorthkyosa said:


> And from what I've seen and from what I've been told, much of it is just propaganda.



Ohhhh... So we DIDN'T free the Jews in Europe.  Thats just propaganda.  My bad.

The politcal ********, propoganda, spin on reasons, etc aside... WHY WE FIGHT is that when we do somthing like liberate a Nazi concentration camp, or destroy a rape house or whatever else we do...  Not the ******** reasons we are given.  I wont defend our "leaders" reasons for taking us into stupid wars in the first place... but when they do somthing like that it reminds us of the REAL Reasons we need to fight.


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## Cryozombie (Nov 9, 2006)

Oh, and I dont care if it was insipred by a republican, a democrat or a Liberatarian...

They are all lying sacks of politics and deceit.​


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## Makalakumu (Nov 9, 2006)

Cryozombie said:


> Ohhhh... So we DIDN'T free the Jews in Europe. Thats just propaganda. My bad.
> 
> The politcal ********, propoganda, spin on reasons, etc aside... WHY WE FIGHT is that when we do somthing like liberate a Nazi concentration camp, or destroy a rape house or whatever else we do... Not the ******** reasons we are given. I wont defend our "leaders" reasons for taking us into stupid wars in the first place... but when they do somthing like that it reminds us of the REAL Reasons we need to fight.


 
That isn't what I was talking about.  Some things are worth fighting for.  Most aren't.  Check the movie out and let me know what you think.

BTW - Roosevelt knew about the Holocaust and he didn't get us into the war because of that.  Not that stopping that was a bad thing mind you...


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## Makalakumu (Nov 10, 2006)

After taking a little break from this CZ, I see your point.  However, I'm hoping that you can see mine.  

I think we have to take the good with the bad whenever looking at stuff like this.  For example, we need to remember that as we went out to liberate these concentration camps, we constructed and threw people in concentration camps of our own making.  

Films like the one you cited are meant to show the US in the most positive light.  The sole purpose of this is to increase our nationalistic fervor.  In the entire history of nations, this has never been a good thing.

Anyway, if you get a chance, watch the movie I posted.  It truly is profound and you will have no doubt why it won so many awards when you are done.


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## Cryozombie (Nov 10, 2006)

Ok, let me restate my meaning, maybe a little more clearly.

I dont care for the BS that the government does, its resonings, or any of the ******** it so called leaders do.  But when, in the course of those actions, we do things like liberate the Jews, Destroy the rape houses etc... it gives validation to why we fight, DESPITE the political bull.  There was one of those propaganda emails floating around at one time about a father asking his son what he would do if saddam was killing his neighbors and he said he would shut the curtains and not watch... then he openes the curtains and saddam is on his porch and there is no one left to help him... and I'd buy that.  Not specifically about saddam, but in general.

Thats MY take on why we fight.  I dont care for the politics behind it, I care for the results we get.  And yes, I believe there have been and are conflicts we did not beliong in...   
​


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## crushing (Nov 10, 2006)

upnorthkyosa said:


> This movie is probably one of the best I've seen in a long time. It was everything Michael Moore wished he could make and I think that this one has broad bi-partisen appeal. Watch this if you have time...it is well worth it!
> 
> http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3787578650617448322&q=Iraq+fighting
> 
> ...


 
I saw this movie in the theater.  I agree that it was well worth it.  I think I've mentioned this movie on MT previously.  However, I disagree that it is a movie that Michael Moore wished he could make.  Michael Moore could have made a film like this, but chose not to.

EDIT:  Here is the reference to the film in an earlier discussion.  http://www.martialtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?p=532895


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## Blotan Hunka (Nov 11, 2006)

Eisenhower was a political soldier not a warrior. He commanded a training unit in WWI after West Point and went right to the top. He was very good at what he did and WAS instrumental in winning the War. I mean no disrespect to the man but he was never "in the trenches" so to speak. He was a bureaucrat and his politics reflect accordingly. Read any bio on Patton to find that out. MacArthur, Bradley and Patton are better sources to go to for "why men fight". Ike may have authority to speak on "why we (as nations) go to War". "Why we fight" is about being a soldier. Theyre two different things. Some people will never understand that.


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## Blotan Hunka (Nov 11, 2006)

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,211214,00.html



> We did not come here for democracy; we did not come here for oil. We came here for each other. If you cannot understand that, I am sorry, but I can explain it no further.


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## Makalakumu (Nov 11, 2006)

Blotan Hunka said:


> It should be titled "why we go to War". "Why we fight" is about being a soldier. Theyre two different things. Aparently some people will never understand that.


 
I think that they are part of the same system.  There are no self-evident truths.  Even the "will to serve" can be abused.  The desire to do good and give something back to the country has been perverted by the abrogation of the ability to determine the enemy.  Thus, the military industrial complex saddles the goodwill of men to the will of the war machine.

Eisenhower called this the strapping of humanity to a cross of iron.


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## Blotan Hunka (Nov 11, 2006)

You dont understand what being a soldier is..thats obvious.


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## Blotan Hunka (Nov 11, 2006)

http://www.afa.org/magazine/oct2004/1004keeper.asp



> President Dwight D. Eisenhower would be amazed at the way in which his term &#8220;military-industrial complex&#8221; has been abused. For example, Bill Moyers recently contended on his PBS show that the military-industrial complex was made up of those who &#8220;call for war ... and then turn around and feed on the corpse of war.&#8221;
> 
> Ike coined the term in his 1961 farewell address to the nation, but with a very different purpose. He warned about the potential influence of a large complex, but his larger point&#8212;elaborated below&#8212;was that America was &#8220;compelled&#8221; to maintain an extensive, effective standing armaments industry. Critics forget that part.
> 
> The address was short&#8212;only 1,900 words&#8212;but Eisenhower made two explicit points: The Cold War was caused by communist aggression, not the greed of US defense contractors, and the existence of the military-industrial complex was vital, not insidious.


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## Blotan Hunka (Nov 11, 2006)

http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1974/sep-oct/bause.html



> accusations against the MIC
> 
> It seems that to explore the MIC adequately we must consider those characteristics of the complex that most of its critics ascribe to it. To do this we must deal with the idea of conspiracy, the element of secrecy, the subject of preparation as confrontation, the level of defense spending, war profiteering, military retirees in industry, the size of the complex, the lack of control over it, and the evaluation of the MIC as &#8220;institutionally rigid.&#8221;
> 
> ...


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## Blotan Hunka (Nov 11, 2006)

And seeing your such an Ike Fan

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/1106/boot.php3


> FOR A RETIRED Army general, Eisenhower pursued a remarkably misguided defense policy. Generations of liberals have celebrated his warning against the "military-industrial complex," but they ignore how he reduced defense expenditures: by cutting the size and readiness of costly conventional forces while expanding the relatively cheap nuclear arsenal in the expectation that threats of "massive retaliation" would solve all our defense needs. It didn't work out that way. The existence of U.S. nukes did nothing to avert the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu and the rise of a communist North Vietnam bent on conquering its southern neighbor.
> 
> 
> Eisenhower was unfairly accused of presiding over bomber and missile "gaps" with the Soviet Union. What he really did was just as bad &#8212; he left the armed forces ill-prepared to fight non-nuclear wars, especially a counterinsurgency of the kind they would face in Vietnam. His infatuation with atomic power also led him to set up the "atoms for peace" program to promote the use of nuclear energy across the world. "No other U.S. policy, no commercial initiative, no theft of technology has done more to accelerate and expand the global spread of nuclear bombs," writes arms control expert Fred Ikle.
> ...


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## Makalakumu (Nov 11, 2006)

Blotan Hunka said:


> You dont understand what being a soldier is..thats obvious.


 
What don't I understand?  Do I not understand what it's like to serve my country?  Do I not understand the comradery that soldiers feel for each other?  Do I not understand the "band of brothers" mentality all soldiers feel?  Am I incapable of understanding the fact that many of the soldiers in Iraq went to Iraq, even though they disagreed with the war, for the simple reason that they wanted to do their part so that their buddies could come home safe?

I think you "misunderestimate" me.

Claiming that I don't understand these things is like claiming that I don't understand what its like to be human.  We ALL understand this stuff.  Some of us, however, are aware that these good intentions are being abused.

Let me tell you another story...

When my father was a child, his father would tell him that America was the greatest place on Earth and that, if the bugle sounded, it was God-given duty to serve this country...even die for it, because he owed every freedom he had to it.

This belief was strongly rooted in faith that proclaimed that our system was good, we were the good guys, and that we could trust the system.  To people like my grandfather, at the time when my father was a child, there were certain untouchables...people in which whom you could implicitly trust above all else...and the President of the United States was one of them.

According to my Grandparents, during the late 50s and early 60s, there was alot of hope.  Despite the fear of the Soviets, the thought that America was good and true and that it would prevail over everything predominated.  This utopian faith was one of the grounding principles of those days.  The fact that even blue collar average janes and joes like my grandparents shared it shows just how pervasive it was.

When Kennedy was assassinated, this belief began to face some challenges.  Johnson took office.  He told us of the "Gulf of Tonkin incident" and soon things escalated in Veitnam.  At the same time, the civil rights movement really came to the forefront of everyone's minds.  For the first time, it became commonly known that there was an entire class of people who had been disenfranchised from the utopian vision that was commonly held.  Deep resounding cracks began to appear in the facade and the true divisions in our country reared their heads.  

On top of all of this, Vietnam continued.  Body bags and the atrocities of war were broadcast into the living rooms of the American people all across the country.  People wondered what the hell we were fighting for.  When the Pentagon Papers were leaked, the dirty secrets of the war became commonly known...including the lies that got us in the mess in the first place.  This, combined with Watergate, eroded the "untouchable" image our Presidency and it caused many people in my parents and grandparents generation to question whether or not we could trust our government.

Thus, the decision to serve in the military, to abrogate your ability to distinguish the enemy and to trust that your leaders would use your good intentions in good faith, was eroded.

The "all volunteer" army was formed largely in response to all of this.  People, as a group, couldn't be counted on to "answer the bugle's call" anymore.  Thus, the government had to find people that would.  The current model of our military functions largely because of its PR campaign.  The ideal of serving your country and all of the good intentions behind that ideal have become a product that is sold to a certain segment of our population.  

Thus we see exactly what Eisenhower predicted, humanity strapped to a cross of iron.  The military industrial complex feeds on the good intentions of those who serve it.  It warps the good that all humans want to do for each other and points it at whatever target our country's leaders desire.

You cannot trust these people to do what is good.  And I think it is wrong to believe that just because your intention in serving is good that you will end up doing good.  That is not at all self-evident.


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## Makalakumu (Nov 11, 2006)

Blotan Hunka said:


> And seeing your such an Ike Fan
> 
> http://www.jewishworldreview.com/1106/boot.php3


 
Have you watched the movie?  It's interesting to see this POV, but just know that other POVs are out there.

BTW - I think that the inclusion of the interstate highway system in the Defense budget was a revolutionary way to think about actual defense of this country.


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## Marginal (Nov 11, 2006)

Blotan Hunka said:


> And seeing your such an Ike Fan
> 
> http://www.jewishworldreview.com/1106/boot.php3


 
So Ike sucked at the whole millitary thinggie because he didn't anticipate tons of US soldiers being tossed into a pointless meat-grinder?


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## Blotan Hunka (Nov 13, 2006)

Dude..grandpa and his stories dont give you any more understanding about being a soldier than reading black belt magazine gives you clout to talk about being a ninja. Sell it elsewhere im not buying.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military-industrial_complex


> The American television series The X-Files displayed a nameless conspiracy of the American government, dominated by the Military-industrial complex's sinister machinations. This conspiracy included everything from tobacco lobbyists to extraterrestrials. Not surprisingly, some conspiracy theorists felt the show was created to disenfranchise their distrust and hide the real conspiracy. In the third season episode of the series, "Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'" series lead David Duchovny satirizes this reaction amongst conspiracy-thinkers when he calls a writer's search for the truth regarding a bizarre alien abduction as an effort made for "the military-industrial-entertainment complex." It was also the basis of the documentary "Why We Fight."



Funny how everything can be brought around to the x-files. Perhaps we should start a "6 degrees of separation from the x-files" contest for some of these Study threads?


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## Blotan Hunka (Nov 13, 2006)

BTW Vietnam was what, 30-40 years ago? Things have CHANGED man. :uhyeah:


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## Makalakumu (Nov 13, 2006)

Blotan Hunka said:


> Dude..grandpa and his stories dont give you any more understanding about being a soldier than reading black belt magazine gives you clout to talk about being a ninja.


 
Right.  I suppose my grandfathers', my fathers, and many others in my families' observations don't count.

Come on, BH.  

We just have different views of what this place is all about.  Being a soldier has little to do with this.  

I think that Ike had a point.  The unwarrented influence of the Military Industrial Complex is something we need to be aware of.  And, IMHO, I think we are seeing exactly what Ike warned us against, all those years ago.


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## Makalakumu (Nov 13, 2006)

Blotan Hunka said:


> BTW Vietnam was what, 30-40 years ago? Things have CHANGED man. :uhyeah:


 
They certainly have.  Patriotism is now a product that is sold in the form of volunteer service to the military.

I think this is really sad.  We should all love our country and want to serve.  However, many of us have learned that you can't TRUST it enough to want to do that.

That is the lesson of the Veitnam era.


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## qizmoduis (Nov 14, 2006)

upnorthkyosa said:


> Right.  I suppose my grandfathers', my fathers, and many others in my families' observations don't count.
> 
> Come on, BH.
> 
> ...



The problem that you're dealing with, Upnorth, is one of extreme romanticization of warfare and "The Patriotic Warrior".  The Republicans have been progagandizing themselves as the party of patriotic warriors for so long that there is now a subculture on the right that worships the soldier as an icon of American patriotism.  

Viewpoints of non-soldiers don't count, and if you are a soldier but don't adhere to the iconic stereotype marketed by the likes of Rush Limbaugh and the conservative idiocracy, then you are written off as a traitor or a flip-flopper or a coward or as padding your political resume.

These people don't hear the cries of the wounded and dying; they don't see the tears of those left behind.  They don't smell the stench of rotting flesh and voided bowels and clotted blood, and they don't want to know about the children whose fathers (and sometimes mothers) will never come home again.  Or the ones who do come home, having left pieces of themselves, physical and mental, on the battlefields.  The ones who are thrown in the gutter and forgotten by the administration because wounded soldiers are no longer romantic enough for them.

These people remember soldiering as Sly Stallone invading Afghanistan and taking on the Soviet invaders single-handedly, or as Chuck Norris invading Vietnam and (again single-handedly) taking on the entire Vietnamese army.

I'm not a soldier either, and never have been.  But my father was.  He was a medic (OK, Air Force, so technically not a soldier, but you get the idea) during the Korean war, and he can tell you about the wailing, and the stench, and the rot, and the blood, and the missing pieces.

My wife is a refugee from Vietnam, and she can tell you about the bombs, and the screams of other kids dying because someone attacked a full movie theater that she just missed getting into.

Soldiering is not a noble profession.  It is ugly, nasty, horrifying, and dehumanizing.  Sometimes it is necessary, and those who do server need and deserve our support and respect.  But the sheer mountainous arrogance of the cabal that is in charge of our current administration who view people's lives, soldiers' and foreign civilian's lives, as more tools to be thrown away so they can pretend to be little kids playing in the sandboxes of nation-building is beyond breathtaking.  They selfishly and stupidly squander the lives of kids who volunteered (for all sorts of reasons, not necessarily the politically corrent one) to serve, just to satisfy their own desires.  To top that off, they then cyncally use their deaths as a political tool to gain and maintain power.  

Over the past twelve years and especially since 2001, Republicans in general and the right-wing part in particular have proven themselves to be unqualified to lead this country.  It will take us decades to undo the damage they have done, both internal and external.

One thing for sure, though, is the soldier-worship has to stop, and be replaced by true respect.  That won't happen until and unless Republicans are completely removed from power.  We're off to a good start with the past election cycle.  Let's hope we can take care of the rest of them in 2008.


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## crushing (Nov 14, 2006)

qizmoduis,

Thank you for that very graphic and sobering post.

With both major parties rationalizing their own wars and various military strikes when their respective party is in power, how do you see the Democratic Party doing much different, especially considering how militaristic the 1990s were.  I can see the Libertarian and Green parties being different, but not so much with Democratic party.

It seems, independent of the party to which he belongs, each president feels the need to have his own personal Hitler to defeat and one party's Hussein is another parties Milosevic.  One party's Afghanistan is the other party's Vietnam.  Maybe they are compelled to have their 'Hitler' for the reasons expressed in the film "Why We Fight", and not the WMD or humanitarian line we are being fed.

Additionally, the romantization the you spoke of worked very well against the Republicans in the recent election as the Democratic party did a great job of recruiting war vets to run against Republicans.  Does this not also feed the romanization?  How about the noble war Vietnam hero Sen. John Kerry v. the AWOL coward Mr. Bush and the whole Republican 'chickenhawk' meme.



Also, because I am a Gulf War veteran, you should put more stock in what I am saying about these issues.  Just kidding, of course.


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## Makalakumu (Nov 15, 2006)

The last two posts were wonderful!  Soldier Worship is a symptom of the Military Industrial Complex.  It is nothing but a marketing scheme.  Beat the drums.  Beat the drums.

Crushing, your point about the dems is very pointed.  Despite the fact that they have a large "peace wing" they support the system just as much as the republicans.

I think we'll see some more evidence of this now that they some power in the government.


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## qizmoduis (Nov 15, 2006)

crushing said:


> qizmoduis,
> 
> Thank you for that very graphic and sobering post.
> 
> ...



We'll have to wait and see how things go with the Dems in power now and hopefully more so after 2008.  I voted for Democrats and am a registered Democrat because the party in general supports issues I believe in strongly: Civil rights, personal freedom, social equality (or at least less government supported stratification), environment, etc.  I am what the media calls a "values" voter, but who then failed to understand that "values" aren't defined by the nutbar right-wing power-brokers.  For me, the Iraq debacle was just the tip of an OBVIOUS iceberg of nastiness and incompetence.  Personally, I find it very sad that it took Iraq for a majority of voters in this country to finally see it.  And I find it sad that still so many Republicans won their elections.

I'm hoping the current crop of Democrats remains mostly uncorrupted for at least a decade or two.  That's not really long enough, but these things go in cycles, excepting of course the Republican takeover in 1992, which started out corrupt and went downhill from there.



> Also, because I am a Gulf War veteran, you should put more stock in what I am saying about these issues.  Just kidding, of course.



I worship the very ground you walk on! :rofl:


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## Cryozombie (Nov 15, 2006)

How many more times can you say Military industrial Complex?  

You sound like a parrot.​


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## crushing (Nov 15, 2006)

qizmoduis said:


> We'll have to wait and see how things go with the Dems in power now and hopefully more so after 2008. I voted for Democrats and am a registered Democrat because the party in general supports issues *I believe in strongly: Civil rights, personal freedom, social equality* (or at least less government supported stratification)*, environment,* etc. I am what the media calls a "values" voter, but who then failed to understand that "values" aren't defined by the nutbar right-wing power-brokers. For me, the Iraq debacle was just the tip of an OBVIOUS iceberg of nastiness and incompetence. Personally, I find it very sad that it took Iraq for a majority of voters in this country to finally see it. And I find it sad that still so many Republicans won their elections.


 
Those are the same reasons I chose to remain independent from the parties.  I feel that the major parties pinch us from each side when it comes to our rights.



qizmoduis said:


> I'm hoping the current crop of Democrats remains mostly uncorrupted for at least a decade or two. That's not really long enough, but these things go in cycles, excepting of course the Republican takeover in 1992, which started out corrupt and went downhill from there.


 
It was 1994 and like the Democratic Party takeover this year, I don't think the Republican takeover started out corrupt.  But, the cyclical nature you mention does have to the tendency of that power to corrupt.




qizmoduis said:


> I worship the very ground you walk on! :rofl:


 
The ground is definately more worthy than I.


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## qizmoduis (Nov 17, 2006)

crushing said:


> It was 1994 and like the Democratic Party takeover this year, I don't think the Republican takeover started out corrupt.



Heh.  Yeah, I always get 1992 and 1994 confused with that "Contract with America" idiocy.  I'll get it right eventually.  I think I just have a tendency to wrap things around decade starts and go downhill from there.


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