WHAT’S IN A BOW?
OK, so the president of the United States made a bow to the Emperor of Japan. Yes, he also bowed to the Saudi King, even though press secretary Gibb’s nose grew about 6 inches when he offered that the president was really trying to pick something up off the floor.
I can understand the motivation for lying - hysterical kooks saying that the bow proves the president is really a Moooooslim - but really, couldn’t he have come up with something a little more imaginative? Maybe the president was trying to stretch his back - he hurt it playing basketball, you see. Or perhaps the president had a cramp and was doubled over in pain. Either one of those explanations would have been better than the invisible whatever that was on the floor that the president felt compelled to reach down and pick up just as he was greeting the Saudi King Abdullah.
Whether to the Sheikh of Araby or Hirohito’s son, I am told it doesn’t matter by my liberal friends, that this is a distraction, that it’s typical right wing hand wringing, that nobody cares, that you’re supposed to bow to the emperor, that everybody does it so what’s the big deal besides Obama never does anything wrong and is perfect….
OK - Well, I just sort of extrapolated from their argument that last bit.
One wonders if there will ever be any monumental goof this president makes that would rise above the level of “distraction” and actually be a cause for complaint. And by “monumental” I mean a serious breach of protocol. Tom Lifson at American Thinker spent many years in Japan and offers this:
I agree with Scott Johnson, Steve Gilbert, Andrew Malcom, and many others that the President of the United States should not be bowing before any head of state. But unlike these astute observers, I actually know a little something about the art of the bow in Japan, having lived in Japan four different times on a resident visa, taught East Asian Studies at Harvard, and counseled many hundreds of American, European, Middle Eastern, and Australian executives on how to work and negotiate with the Japanese — including teaching them the right way to bow.
Obama’s bow (below) violates a fundamental precept: NO TOUCHING while bowing.
Here is one of many websites that illustrates how to bow in Japan. The one thing that virtually everyone who teaches bowing etiquette stresses is under no circumstance try to combine a bow with a handshake.
The Emperor appears to smile, which is something polite Japanese are taught to do when embarrassed. Unlike just about everyone who comes into the Emperor’s presence, Obama obviously received no instruction on Imperial etiquette. (Note: The Japanese take their monarch and etiquette in general about 100 times more seriously than do the British.)
That’s fine with me. I wouldn’t like our president to receive such instructions from a foreign entity. But he obviously did not indicate to any of the American embassy staff, nor to any aides familiar with Japan that he intended to bow, and bow deeply. Anyone with about two days’ familiarity with Japan knows about bowing. The average person in Japan bows dozens of times a day. You see it everywhere.
Lifson goes on to say that the emperor’s reaction was in keeping with someone who has been embarrassed and chooses to smile broadly instead. Looking at pics of other world leaders greeting the emperor, seems to bear that out.
So is it a big deal that Obama bows to the son of Hirohito, a man who could have easily stopped the attack on Pearl Harbor but didn’t? The son of a man who acquiesced in atrocities as his army literally raped its way across Asia? The son of a man whose real war crimes would have had him hanging from a gibbet without the intercession of McArthur who needed him as a figurehead to control the post-war Japanese population?
Is it a big deal that we fought a revolution so that no American forevermore would ever have to bow to another sovereign? This isn’t just some quaint little tradition that conservatives shouldn’t get their panties in a twist over. This means something - to history, to the nature and character of Americans, to how we define ourselves as a people. No bowing - ever. That has been the standard American presidents have followed for 240 years. Why is it all of a sudden a “distraction” to point this out? Can we at least criticize the president for his doltish understanding of protocol? His towering ignorance? His arrogance in making us look like a bunch of international rubes who don’t know the first thing about greeting an ally?
Apparently, the definition of America to Obama and his snickering, simpering, ultra-cynical supporters includes not only fashioning a foreign policy that gives the appearance of groveling, but performing the actual act as well.
I wonder if he’ll kow tow to the Chinese when he visits later this week? That would be another “distraction,” I suppose. He might as well considering that the thugs in Beijing hold about $3 trillion of our debt. Maybe if he kneels and touches his head to the floor they won’t ask him how he intends to pay it back.
CORRECTION
Steve Pendlebury at AOL’s The Sphere points out that I am in error for making the sweeping statement that no president ever bowed to a monarch in our history.
“His bow is neither (1) unprecedented nor (2) a sign of cultural understanding,” an academic who knows Japanese culture well explained in a message to ABC’s Jake Tapper. In 1971, President Nixon bowed to
Emperor Hirohito and his wife and repeatedly referred to them as “Your Imperial Majesties.”Nixon got the bow right, though — a slight bend from the waist with hands at his side. “Obama’s handshake/forward lurch was … jarring and inappropriate,” according to Tapper’s friend.
Referring to a monarch by their title is fine - I have no problems with that. That, indeed, is protocol and part of the diplomatic rituals to which all presidents must adhere.
And it would satisfy my curiosity if there was anything said about that bow of Nixon’s at the time. A brief search of the New York Times archives failed to turn up anything, although the good professor didn’t mention the year of Nixon’s visit. Given the contempt the national press felt for Nixon, I wonder if any of them took the opportunity to take him to task for it.
I apologize for my error in making Obama the only president who dissed our revolution. But while we’re discussing it, why did the White House lie again about the bow, calling it “protocol?”
If that were the case, several dozen other world leaders who met the emperor and didn’t bow were breaking protocol. Obviously, the White House is once again full of it. The question is; what are they ashamed of?
When Obama bowed to the Saudi King Abdullah, why not come out and say that the president was showing respect to the Guardian of Mecca? Or when he bowed to the emperor, why not just say he was humoring an old man or something? The president has made a point to deny American exceptionalism. That is his choice. If he wants to bow to every prince and potentate on the planet, he can do so. Maybe it is a kind of “distraction.”
Except they’re lying about it. That is not a distraction, that is a question of presidential credibility. We supposedly just went through a period of 8 years where a president had no credibility because he lied all the time. Obama’s lies are becoming painful and obvious. This may be one small lie but it fits into a larger pattern that should concern even liberals. If you want honest government, you don’t excuse lies, you don’t defend lies, you call them out and shame the liars.
I still think it was wrong for the president - any president - to bow before royalty.
Surely he will deliver a grand oration to explain and justify all of these degradations of the presidency (only a small portion of his total iniquities) that he has treated us to in his first year. And it will attain accolades from his acolytes. Unfortunately BOH has more in store.
Comment by SmartyMarty — 11/15/2009 @ 12:01 pm
Wait a minute, are we done with the manufactured outrage over the KSM trial? We’re already on to a new manufactured outrage? Do you guys have a schedule or something, so we can know when one manufactured outrage expires and the next one is due to begin? I’d like to be able to plan ahead.
Obama’s in China now. I’m worried he’ll demonstrate his foolishness, unreadiness, naivete, Muslimness, communism, fascism, racism, and seething hatred of all things American by attempting to use chopsticks.
Real Americans use forks.
And really, isn’t a chopstick just a blunt version of an acupuncture needle proving that Obama will turn 1/6th of the US economy over to death panels that will kill old people with needles?
Say it with me now: No more chopsticks! No more chopsticks!
Comment by michael reynolds — 11/15/2009 @ 12:37 pm
So now The Bow has become the Zapruder film of the Obama presidency. We will see it replayed, analyzed, frame by frame. Someone will create a 3D digitized version, so we can revolve around and see it from every angle. We will have a 1,000 page tome examining the links between Kenyan Mulism culture and Japanese cermonial practices, with links made to Ho Chi Min and Karl Marx.
Wait, wasn’t that Bill Ayers standing just out of frame? Wasn’t there a tweet from Malia Obama mentioning a Secret Plan for an Imperial Order confiscating guns?
I heard that if you look carefully, you can see Obama extending 3 fingers of his right hand, while two are curled; It is clearly the secret handshake of the Illuminati; Whose members include members of the Knights of Malta, including one Okio Matshumi, who operated a steel mill in Japan during WWII, and whose son sits on the board of Toyota Motors, whose members gave campaign contributions to….Prime Minister YUKIO HATOYAMA! Who has a reported stash of films starring…Kevin Bacon!
Comment by Liberty60 — 11/15/2009 @ 1:18 pm
I have a photo on my blog of Reagan greeting Hirohito himself with a hearty handshake and another showing lesser folk greeting Akahito the same way. Check it out:
http://thepurplecenter.blogspot.com/2009/11/white-house-busted-obama-bow-to.html
Comment by John Burke — 11/15/2009 @ 1:20 pm
reynolds said (and others are thinking):
Obama’s in China now. I’m worried he’ll demonstrate his foolishness, unreadiness, naivete, Muslimness, communism, fascism, racism, and seething hatred of all things American by attempting to use chopsticks.
You can count on TOTUS to do some or all of the above or create new tricks. Why you may ask?
Because dislike for America comes from his heart, soul and core beliefs - all wonderfully articulated with the help of the handlers who will stop at nothing to turn this once great country into third world oblivion.
Comment by SmartyMarty — 11/15/2009 @ 2:02 pm
Could we care about something really important because I’m having a hard time giving a damn about this.
How about the soldiers that conservatives lurvvv so much. Try being outraged about this for a few days please.
Comment by Richard bottoms — 11/15/2009 @ 2:51 pm
Good God Rick, are you serious?
So he fu@ked up the bow by combining it with a handshake — that’s worth a giggle. I giggle when other pols screw up protocol (not that I’d do any better), so a giggle is certainly fair.
But seriously . . .
“So is it a big deal that Obama bows to the son of Hirohito, a man who could have easily stopped the attack on Pearl Harbor but didn’t? The son of a man who acquiesced in atrocities as his army literally raped its way across Asia? The son of a man whose real war crimes would have had him hanging from a gibbet without the intercession of McArthur who needed him as a figurehead to control the post-war Japanese population?”
This language seems to imply that the problem wasn’t that he combined a bow with a handshake, but that he didn’t greet the Emperor of Japan by spitting in his face and then kicking him in the nuts. What else could possibly suffice for such an evil, despicable, loathesome man?
And just to make sure . . . you don’t have a problem with the emperor, right? You’re offended because of what his dad did? Did I read that right?
What — the giggle wasn’t enough? Too little meat for the crowd?
Honestly, you torpedoed a perfectly good jab at Obama with this nonsense.
Comment by busboy33 — 11/15/2009 @ 3:04 pm
Busboy:
Dude, Exodus:
Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, and upon the children’s children, unto the third and to the fourth generation.
It’s pretty clear that not only should American presidents pee on Akihito’s shoes, but they should do the same to his sons and to their sons in turn.
Comment by michael reynolds — 11/15/2009 @ 4:27 pm
I’m outraged that we want to turn more of a health care in America over to an institution that proves itself, over and over again, as incapable of managing something on that scale. Passing health care reform doesn’t mean the Democrats get to run the mandate. It means the federal government gets to run the mandate. If your VA example tells me anything, it tells me to be ever more skeptical about having my health care options run by any wing of the federal government, Republican or Democrat.
As for the bow…meh…much ado about nothing in my opinion. I don’t think any President could be expected to know the various protocols for greeting every leader they meet with. If an aide or handler schooled him beforehand and he still gave the ol’ bow, then I’d blame him. As it is, I don’t read into it that he’s being subservient or anything of the sort. Chalk it up to ignorance or naïveté.
Comment by sota — 11/15/2009 @ 4:39 pm
Wait a minute! I thought this POTUS was to initiate “Smart Dipolmacy,” that’s what all you O’Brownosers have been telling us: this is gonna be the smartest, bestus Prez evah, when it comes to re-elevating America in the eyes of our foreign friends and foes!
Guess what O’A**hats, our foreign buddies take this kind of stuff very seriously when it comes to measuring both sophistication and future intentions in foreign relations!
So, you O’bootlickers can’t have it both ways. This is either a serious screw-up as a gaff (Zero doesn’t get it and is thus: unsophiticated, untutored or ignorant) OR worse yet, it is a signal of intent (Zero surrenders America as a supplicant and suck-up to other world powers!
Comment by Earl T — 11/15/2009 @ 4:51 pm
Really? I read the story to mean that we’d kindly like that when Republicans run the government they stop trying to make troops “Praise Jesus” and treat their frakking illnesses instead.
I am sure the doctors who had to work under Bush appointees will be quite pleased to have the money and resources to start treating PTSD with something other than snake handling and speaking in tongues and most importantly not having a political mandate to say the illness doesn’t exist in the first place.
The problem isn’t government, it’s dingbats who believe government’s job is to advance Christianity. Pray over the troops if you want to, it might just help but recognize that casting out demons is going to render poor therapeutic results.
Of course Governor Jindal would probably disagree.
Comment by Richard bottoms — 11/15/2009 @ 5:35 pm
Earl:
In the short time that Obama has been in office the US has zoomed something like 30 places in order to once again be the world’s most admired nation.
You might want to bear in mind that foreign heads of state — unlike Republicans — are not retarded and thus less likely to obsess over nonsense.
Comment by michael reynolds — 11/15/2009 @ 5:36 pm
Earl:
You’re right, of course. He should have given the emperor a shoulder massage maybe? Or just “looked into his soul”?
If this is the “chink in the armor” of Obama for y’all . . . that’s pretty sad.
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again — NOBODY said he was the second coming of Jesus except you nimrods.
Without a flaw? Of course not. Better than Bush? Now THERE was a guy that knew how to win friends and influence people!
Comment by busboy33 — 11/15/2009 @ 5:51 pm
True dat.
Comment by Richard bottoms — 11/15/2009 @ 6:25 pm
That’s totally awesome! Maybe we’ll be voted Most Likely To Succeed this year! BFF!
Having and atheist quote scripture and use it to argue a point is about as meaningful to me as steakhouse recommendations from a vegetarian.
And you think none of the ineptitude, preaching, corruption, and other “bad things” won’t infect the federal government’s handling of health care? Good luck.
Comment by sota — 11/15/2009 @ 6:32 pm
Maybe Obama was trying to make up for Bush blowing chunks on the Japanese Prime Minister in ‘92. Dee
Comment by Dee — 11/15/2009 @ 8:17 pm
Sure it will But there will no longer be a wink and a nod from the White that’s it’s okay to shove religion where it doesn’t belong.
The conservative mindset seems to be if you can’t predict perfection in the implementation of government programs best not to try to fix the problem.
Lord knows what will happen if some illegal Mexican gets a doctor visit or a “bureaucrat” is as cold hearted as Aetna in dispensing services to granny.
No, better to do nothing at all.
Comment by Richard bottoms — 11/15/2009 @ 9:38 pm
Obama is more than a little naive and a born people-pleaser, neither of which is a compliment and both on display in the photo.
With that acknowledgment, do you suppose the Japanese are freaking out about the Emperor shaking hands with the leader of the nation that used weapons of mass destruction against their country?
America is interdependent with the rest of the world and you know it. Knock off the jingoist “Americans bow to no one” horseshit. Bush the Lesser was photographed kissing Saudi royalty, the primary sponsors and funders of militant Islam. I would much rather a clumsy bow from a President than a President who has done business with and personally benefited from sucking up to sponsors of terrorism.
Comment by still liberal — 11/15/2009 @ 10:03 pm
30 places you say, in a popularity poll? WOW!
Is that like winning the NOBEL Crackerjack Piece Prize?
Do we get to be Prom Queen or captain of the debate team now ???
Drop the Jr High school/student council mentality BS and get serious!
Countries don’t have “friends”, they have interests and in international relations, it always better to be feared and respected than “liked”.
When will you leftards grow up?
Comment by Earl T — 11/15/2009 @ 10:44 pm
Countries don’t have “friends”, they have interests and in international relations, it always better to be feared and respected than “liked”.
Three countries that were feared:
1) Japanese Empire (deceased)
2) German 3rd Reich (deceased)
3) USSR (deceased)
Three countries that are liked:
1) Canada
2) Denmark
3) USA
See, the problem with repeating nostrums and truisms and the like is that as a rule they don’t hold up well to scrutiny.
People extrapolate from evolution to politics. The problem is they don’t really understand evolution, either. Predators fare rather poorly in the long run. Contrast the number of tigers to the number of bunnies.
How many empires existed 100 years ago, 500 years ago, 100 years ago, and now? See? The whole fear thing is overrated. The richest nations on Earth aren’t feared — they are trusted.
The US has never been particularly feared. It’s one of the reasons much of the world still comes to us as an honest broker. It’s one of the reasons we were able to put NATO together and stand against the Soviets — precisely because our European allies trusted us not to exploit our power to their disadvantage.
Our great strength is that we’re not assholes. See, we’re the good guys. So yes, it’s helpful when the world likes and trusts us.
Comment by michael reynolds — 11/15/2009 @ 11:38 pm
That first number should be “1000.”
Comment by michael reynolds — 11/15/2009 @ 11:52 pm
The problem isn’t the bow. The problem is that the White House operation Obama put together can’t hire a protocol expert who can find their rear with both hands. This same operation has staffed thousands of political posts, many of which you normally never hear about.
The scary part isn’t the bow. It’s the personnel operation. Obama’s inability to put together a decent protocol operation is a marker that we actually should be combing through all the deputy assistant secretaries that normally nobody gives a hoot about. They’re usually all presumed to be at least minimally competent and unlikely to blow up US policy by accident. I’m starting to think that this presumption of minimal competence might need to be suspended in this White House. That’s a real problem.
Comment by TMLutas — 11/16/2009 @ 3:26 am
Let’s hire the guy who advised George W. Bush on surprise back rubs to world leaders.
You despise Obama and if he said the sun was going to rise int he morning you’d find fault with whether he consulted with the NASA first before making the prediction.
We have two wars going on and an economy on life support.
I don’t give a goddamn about Obama’s show of courtesy. We had eight years of Yippee Kai Yay complete with bold displays of how gigantic our cajones are to the world, with dismal results.
Comment by Richard bottoms — 11/16/2009 @ 3:56 am
Simple basic protocol is apparently beyond this oh-so-sophisticated, internationalist White House.
Comment by M. Thatcher — 11/16/2009 @ 4:35 am
This is silliness. If Barack’s 5′8″ (say, Truman’s size), his bow appears much more modest. He’s tall and somewhat gangly ala Lincoln. His counterpart is short. Let’s move on.
As I recall GWB and GHWB both held hands with Saudi royalty. Can’t remember if a liplock ensued. Still Liberal @18 reminds me that they did, but it doesn’t matter. Barack overexaggerated a bow, but America remains intact. This isn’t JFK at Vienna, where Nikita sizes him up as weak.
Comment by kreiz — 11/16/2009 @ 6:53 am
Why can’t we discuss something of importance- like CC Sabathia’s oversized pants?
Comment by kreiz — 11/16/2009 @ 6:56 am
So a couple of craven bows to “royalty” of sorts gets us 30 places up the Like Us role?
President Obama the Bowmeister should bow a lot more often to both royalty and non-royalty. That would ensure our lead in the roles for the next 50 years.
That is, if such a lead means a damn to anyone of real importance. Have they polled the Mau Mau yet?
Comment by mannning — 11/16/2009 @ 10:46 am
COME ON AMERICANS DON’T THINK FOR A MINUTE THAT OBAMA DOES NOT KNOW HOW TO BOW, HE INTENTIONALLY BOWED AND SHOOK HANDS. HIS POINT BEING THAT WE AMERICANS ARE ON EQUAL FOOTING WITH THE JAPANESE EMPIRE. IF YOU REVIEW THE CLIP YOU WILL SEE THAT THE EMPEROR ALSO SHOOK HANDS WHILE GIVING A DEFINITE HEAD BOW. HATS OFF TO OUR PRESIDENT FOR BREAKING “PROTOCOL” BY FOLLOWING HIS OWN PATH !!!.
KAW
Comment by BAHAMA1KOZ — 11/16/2009 @ 12:27 pm
The bow was not the worst thing, it would have been OK, but President Obama took his eyes off the Prime Minister, thats the bad part, according to FM-1054 Proper Bowing Procedures
Comment by Rich L — 11/16/2009 @ 12:39 pm
Maybe this is a puppet and someone is working the strings?
Comment by Noel Freedman — 11/16/2009 @ 12:40 pm
Those three countries that were feared were destroyed by America’s military and financial superiority, not because of like or dislike.Denmark was not the reason we won.So M.R. stop your pontificating about nostrum etc.
This whole discussion about Obama bowing is silly as well as the subject of being liked.Being trusted is important but that is not the same as being liked.Foreigners and countries were buying our bonds and many people (including Canadians) came to America for first rate health care during the Bush years.Do you really think that someone living in a foreign country that has to have a serious operation, but has to wait too long to have it done in his country ,and can have it done in time in America is going to say, no i will not have it done in America and put his life in peril because he hates Bush.
:-)You liberal trolls are mental midgets.
Comment by MooseH — 11/16/2009 @ 12:47 pm
Heads of Government may bow to Heads of State, 1.e. a Prime Minister may bow to a King or Queen. Only subservient Heads of State bows to another Head of State…. Kings bow only to superior Kings. Obama is our Head of State as well as our Head of Government.
The President of the United States is only, only, only subservient to the American electorate….never to another Head of State or Government. It was totally improper for him to bow to the King of Saudi Arabia, or the Emperor of Japan, or any other Head of State.
The President of the United States of American isn’t supposed to be anybody’s butt-boy. You’d think he’d have learned that by now.
Comment by Dave H. — 11/16/2009 @ 1:03 pm
The bow is very simple in message - “I respect the spirit within you.” -Namaste - Look up the meaning of the word! The bowing is done rather than shaking hands. It is done in many asian cultures. How ignorant can people be? How arrogant can people be? Ugh - such idiots. No wonder we are laughed at around the world. Our education level compared to third world countries indicates so much.
Comment by Ted Elisee — 11/16/2009 @ 1:10 pm
Get a life you loser - a bow? Mabey you should start bending over more and put you head between your legs and kiss your ass.
Comment by HughGReckshun — 11/16/2009 @ 1:20 pm
MooseH:
Those three countries that were feared were destroyed by America’s military and financial superiority, not because of like or dislike.
I never implied they were destroyed because of like or dislike. The initial statement was that it’s better to be feared than loved. I countered that these were three nations that had been feared but had not done terribly well for themselves. In point of fact we weren’t talking about destruction.
So your response was off-topic.
But just to offer you some of the education you clearly did not receive in school, we did not destroy the 3rd Reich, the USSR destroyed the 3rd Reich with an assist from us and our British allies. The overwhelming majority of Wehrmacht killed were killed by the Red Army. The vast bulk of Hitler’s army was deployed in the USSR.
Part of the reason we were able to form a wide alliance — even including the Soviets — was that our allies did not fear us but trusted us.
It’s also why we were uniquely capable of building NATO and holding Soviet power in check. The Brits, French, West Germans — and even the common people in many enemy states — believed we were the model for freedom and tolerance.
We certainly did destroy the Japanese empire. No question about that.
The USSR was not spent into bankruptcy by Ronald Reagan, in fact by Reagan’s day we were spending far less as a percentage of our GDP than we had under Kennedy. Had it been possible to simply outsepnd them they’d have fallen over dead by the 1960’s.
The USSR fell because communism is a stupid system. (By the time they finally crumbled we’d been pointing that out to them for some time.) The case that communism was a stupid system was infinitely strengthened by the growth in freedom and prosperity of Western Europe. GRowth made possible by US tanks at the Fulda Gap to be sure, but also by the Marshall Plan, by our willingness to keep trade barriers low, by our enabling of capital to European countries — in particular you might want to recall, to our erstwhile enemies, Germany and Italy.
We acted generously, wisely and reliably. The Europeans knew they could trust us to position troops in their countries and that unlike more “feared” nations we would behave ourselves.
I don’t know what psychological quirk requires you to imagine that the whole world goes in fear of us, but I think that’s more about your personal needs than it is about history.
I would respond to the rest of your comment but it’s just incoherent rambling.
Comment by michael reynolds — 11/16/2009 @ 3:05 pm
Could have been a fist-bump…lol
Comment by Karen H. — 11/16/2009 @ 4:04 pm
MR
I was not implying that fear was essential to survival,so your response was off topic. You have a habit of accusing people of what you do.
The person you were responding to said it is better to be feared and respected than liked because you came up with a statistic that said we have zoomed into first place of all countries being admired since Obama came into office.In your response to him you stated that 3 countries that were feared were deceased and 3 countries that were liked have survived, implying that being liked or admired is crucial to surviving - pure nonsense.
The Russians did have a major roll in defeating the Germans helped immensely by our supplying them with reliable trucks. Europe cooperated in NATO not because they “liked” or “admired” us but because they feared Russia.We formed an alliance with Turkey during the cold war not because we “liked” or “admired” the Turks but because we could keep close surveillence of the Russians with our bases in Turkey.Throughout the ages, countries formed alliances not because of admiration but because of mutual benefit to their existence.
You sound like a teenager when you say Communism is a “stupid” system.It doesn’t convey any information and is misused, people are stupid-like you, not systems.
Comment by MooseH — 11/16/2009 @ 4:42 pm
@Karen H.
No — that would have made him a terrorist.
Comment by busboy33 — 11/16/2009 @ 4:44 pm
The U.S.A. doesn’t have a monarch to bow down to. However, members of both parties happily bow down to corporate wishes and that’s far more shameful than any president bowing down to a sovereign of any nation.
Comment by PaulinTexas — 11/16/2009 @ 6:39 pm
MooseH,
the Russians lost more than 30 million in WWII. The United States around 500,000 in both Europe and the Pacific. Go to any cemetery in Germany and you’ll see that most soldiers died on the Volga or Don. So they didn’t just ‘play a major role’. It’s also true that Stalin didn’t give a rat’s ass about his own people or anyone else but that doesn’t diminish the sacrifice of the Russian people.
Comment by funny man — 11/17/2009 @ 4:23 pm