blatham wrote: There is no way you guys are going to be able to pull this out of the fire unless you understand that the rules have changed. These folks want PERMANENT POWER AND CONTROL. They are bold enough to say it (see Norquist, and others). A second party is of use to them only as a scapegoat, to deflect negatives away and to maintain the necessary illusion of representative democracy.
The model to watch is not Fascist Europe ( a favorite on A2K) but 19th century Britain and the Gilded Age of the late 19th century US. updated with the latest in the technology of control. The people grasping for the brass ring of supremacy are not unwilling to tolerate a bit of opposition, as long as it does not seriously threaten their position, both economic and social. Also they are willing to prosecute corruption, as long as it does not seriously threaten their hold on the levers of finance. Criminal excess is becoming redefined as lack of public discretion and overreach.
Acquiunk
Acquiunk, a very astute observation.
Corporate control of our government scares me more than the three branches of government, who have ceeded control to the now multi-national corporations.
I no longer think the Supreme Court branch can save us from the danger of corporate greed.
BBB
and they are a changin'....and a hard rains gonna fall....
yup.
Masters Of War (dylan)
Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks
You that never done nothin'
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it's your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly
Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain
You fasten the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud
You've thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain't worth the blood
That runs in your veins
How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I'm young
You might say I'm unlearned
But there's one thing I know
Though I'm younger than you
Even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do
Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul
And I hope that you die
And your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand o'er your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead
Acquink: how do you live with the horror? a horror that must certainly be made worse by the posturing and political advantage our president draws from that infamous day. You are so right, there were warnings. Clinton's administration handed them to the Bush team, and they ignored them.
After 9/11, some Republicans and all right-wing newspapers were quick to blame former President Clinton for de-emphasizing the militery and thereby making the events of 9/11 more possible.
In fact, Clinton focused more on terrorism than any previous president. A month before Clinton left office, he was praised by two former Reagan counter-terrorism officials. "Overall, I give them very high marks", Robert Oakley (former ambassador for counter-terrorism in the Reagan State Dept.) told the Wash. Post. "The only criticism I have", he continued, "is his (Clinton's) obsession with Osama". Oakley's successor, Paul Bremer (currently the civilain administrator in Iraq), disagreed somewhat; he told the Post he believed the Clinton administration had correctly focused on bin Laden .
Here are some actual facts to ponder.
Reagan:
Reagaon's anti0terrorism record was a disaster. Radical Islamic terrorists killed more Americans under Reagan than under any president before him, and more than would die under Bush Sr. and Clinton combined. (Beirut 1983 Marine barracks and US embassy bombing, Pan Am flight 103.) Reagon's only response was a single bombing run against Libya in 1986. (Of course, two days after the Marine bombing in Beirut, Reagaon did invade Granada, sending a clear message to violent Muslim extremists: if you attack us, we'll invade Club Med!)
Reagan also supplied arms to violent Muslim extremists among the Afghani Mujahadeen, as well as to "friends" in Iran and Iraq, and did nothing to ppose the terrorist death squads in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua.
Bush Sr.:
The Bush Sr. administration continued arming violent Muslim extremists in Afghanistan until, in 1989, the Soviet Union withdrew at which time Bush Sr. abandoned Afghanistan allowing it to become a breeding ground for anti-US terrorists training camps. In his four state of the Union addresses, Bush Sr. used the word "terrorist" only once. ("envoronmental terrorism")
Clinton:
Thirty-eight days after taking office, when the World Trade Center was attacked for the forst time, Clinton initiated via directive an operation that resulted in the capture, trial, conviction and imprisonment of Ramsi Yousef, Abdul Hakim Murad, and Wali Khan Shah, all proven to be responsible for the attack.
Clinton's administration was able to thwart several planned terrorist attacks. They were aware of and able to thwart plots to kill the pope, blow up twelve US jetliners, attack the UN headquarters, the FBI building, the Israeli embassy in Washington, the US embassy in Albania, the LA and Boston airports, the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels, and the George Washington Bridge.
How was Clinton able to do all this ?
He tripled the counter-terrorism budget for the FBI.
He doubled counter-terrorism funding overall.
He rolled up al Quaeda cells in more than twenty countries.
He created a top level national security post to coordinate all federal counter-terrorism activity.
His first and second crime bills contained stringent anti-terrorism legislation.
His administration sponsored a series of simulations to see how local, state, and federal officials should respond to terrorist attacks.
He created a national stockpile of drugs and vaccines including40 mil doses of smallpox vaccine.
He collaborated passionately but respectfully with foreign leaders to join the fight internationally.
"By any measure, Clinton left office having given greater priority to terrorism than any president before him." Bernard Gellman, Washington Post (very conservative).
[ You would think that Clinton, in order to get any of this done, would have to have had the support of the Republican Congress. In fact, the Republican Congress fought Clinton bitterly on counter-terrorism spending. When Clinton asked for more money for anti-terrorism spending in 1996, Irrin Hatch objected: "This administration would be wise to utilize the resourses Congress has already provided." The year before, after the horrific Oklahoma City bombing, the Republicans rejected Clinton's proposed expansion of the intelligence agencies' wiretap authority in order to combat terrorism.
Immediately after the embassy bombings, Clinton issues a presidential directive authorizing the assasination of Osama bin Laden. (Curiously, Sean Hannity (IMO, the ultimate hypocrite), has spent much time on and off air criticizing Clinton for not having the balls to do exactly this ! Hey, why let the FACTS ever get in the way of your agenda?)
The final al Quaeda attack of the Clinton era came on October 12th, 2000, against the USS Cole. Clinton took his anti0terrorism policy to the highest level possible. Instead of funding and arming them (like Reagon) or ignoring them (like Bush Sr.), he decided to destroy them. He put Richard Clarke in charge of devising a comprehensive plan to take out al Quaeda. Clark worked furiously to produce a atrategy paper which he put into the hands of Sandy Berger on December 20, 2000. The plan was ambitious: break up all Quaeda cells and arrest their personnel, attack their financial supporters, freeze all assets, give immediate aid to countries strugglin internally against al Quaeda (especially Uzbekistan, The Phillipines, and Yemen), and scale up covert action in Afghanistan to eliminate the training camps and reach bin Laden himself.
-----------------------------
George W. Bush
Clinton's plan to eliminate al Quaeda was completed only a few weeks before Bush's inauguration. If it had been implemented at that time by the Clinton administration, "we would have been handing them a war" a former Clinton aide told TIME. Instead, Clinton decided to turn over the plan to the Bush administration. Remembering how little help the previous Bush administration had provided to his team, Sandy Berger arranged and attended (several of ) ten briefings for his successor, Condoleeza Rice, indicating to her the serious threat of terrorism in general and al Quaeda specifically. (Rice later denied receiving this specific warning but was quoted in TIME referencing the warning. She lied.)
After Berger left, Richard Clarke took over and laid out the whole plan for Rice. She was so impressed by Clarke that she asked him to stay on as counter-terrorism Chief. In February, Clarke repeated the briefings for vice-president Cheney. In spite of all these briefings, however, Bush administration officials basically ignored the urgency of Clarke's information. Clarke became increasingly frustrated. Also in February, Senators Hart (Gary) and Rudman (Warren) issued their third report on national security, warning that "mass-casualty terrorism directed against the US homeland was of serious concern", and that "America was wpefully unprepared for a catastrophic domestic terrorism attack". The Hart-Rudman commission urged the immediate creation of a Department of Homeland Security. The report generated a great deal of media attention, and in Congress a bill was intriduced to establish a National Homeland Security Agency, but astonishingly, over at the White House, President Bush, vice-president Cheney, Attorney General Ashcroft, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, basically ignored the entire situation. (Al Franken dubs this reaction "Operation Ignore".
April 30th, Clarke presented a new version of the plan to Cheney's staff re al Quaeda, Pakistan and indo-Pakistan. No action of implementaion of any kind.
July10th, Phoenix FBI agent Ken Williams sent a memo to FBI headquarters regarding middle eastern students taking flight lessons. The memo was dismissed. Had Clarke's plan been in place, heightening security awareness, the memo would not have been dismissed.
Clarke and George Tenet (CIA Director) became more and more frustrated. In mid-July, Tenet briefed Condoleeza Rice and told her there was going to be a major attack. An official told TIME. (documented)
July 16th, it was finally determined that Clarke's plan would be mplemented. Since Cheney and Bush were "re-charging their batteries" in August, the long-overdue integration meeting could not be scheduled in August, and was scheduled for September 4th.
August 6th, Tenet delivered a report to Bush entitled "bin Laden Determined to Strike in US". The report warned that al Quaeda might be planning to hijack airplanes. Bush did nothing to follow up on this memo. He was photographed golfing and dealing with landscaping issues on his property.
August 15th, the INS arrested Zacharias Moussaoui, a flight school student who had generated interest with agents because he seemed to have no interest in learning to land planes. Again, the information was not shared or analyzed. No plan in place yet.
August 25th, Bush, still on the ranch, discussed his dogs with reporters.
August, Thomas J. Pickard, acting FBI director, studied a comprehensive review of counter-terrorism programs and information, and became alarmed by the mounting terrorism threat. He immediately met with AG Ashcroft to request $58 million from the Justice Department to hire hundreds of new field agents and translators.
September 4th, Clarke's plan finally reached the administration principals committee. Rice, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Powell decided to advise Bush to adopt the plan.
September 9th, Congress proposed $600 billion to fund this plan. The money was to come from Rumsfeld's "beloved" missle-defense program estimated at $158 - $ 238 billion. Congress proposed to shift $ .6 billion over to the counter-terrorism programs. Rumsfeld was furious and threatened a presidential veto.
September 10th, Pickard received an official letter from Ashcroft denying his request. )
September 11th, the unfathomable cost of Operation Ignore becomes a reality
.
(all facts above from Al Franken's book: "Lies, and the Lying Liars who tell Them", where they are heavily documented.)
Don't mess with Angie!!!!!!!
Thank you for the accurate Dylan transcription. I'll have to sing it a few times now with feelin'.
And thank you Angie for the very complete synopsis.
Will the smart people outnumber the morons? (And morans)?
Time will tell.
7 pages and no-one mentioned the archetype... "Archie Bunker".
The malapropisms, the ignorance, the gullibility, the egocentricity, the isolationism, the antipathy toward anything that hints at non-conformity, the camouflaged hostility...
and the buffoonery.
But Archie was, at the core, ok, he really was. He was a product of a closed, non-diverse background, but usually when Edith brought enough light into his closed world/mind, he tended to respond as a decent human being.
Not these Bushies. They are idealogues at their very worst. They are narrow and closed and entrenched in bigotry. They plant seeds of fear and divisiveness, and use the harvest to create more fear and divisiveness. The ends always justify the means for them, and their ends include arrogant pre-emptive world domination abroad, and extremist, fundamentalist, undemocratic domination here at home.
It would truly be an insult to Archie to describe him as a typical Bush backer.
The chronology I listed above is, as I stated, from an excellent, well-written, extremely well documented book by Al Franken. The Clinton administration HANDED the Bushies so much vital information. If only they had paid attention. What were they doing that was so important that they couldn't give this information the attention it deserved?
Oh, yes, I forgot, they were already planning the invasion of Iraq.
Angie, in the course of the "All In The Family" series, Archie underwent a transformation and a reformation... in which he became more self-aware.
But in the FIRST year of the series, he was an UNQUESTIONING Nixon supporter, who despised all "negroes, pawta reekins, commies, pinkoes and forriners".
You're right.
BUt, don't you think he was meant to hold a mirror up to society. I mean, America found him so funny, ...... but not really. America was looking at, and laughing at, itself, and then, after the laugh, came the reflective pause.....
You're joking, right? You don't really rely on comedians as reliable and expert sources of foreign policy? Al Franken and Archie Bunker ???? LOL.
Earlier, I was wondering how incompetent Kerry must be to allow his campaign to end up in such shambles. Now I'm beginning to wonder if he used the sources (Franken - a Harvard Lampoon reject - and Bunker LOL) of some on A2K and maybe that's why no one can figure out just where he stands on the issues.
JMHO.
JW... you realize that this thread isn't really intended to shape foreign policy or anything... right?
The thread's purpose is to provide people with an opportunity to describe what they see as typical "Bushites" (note: the "e"").
Natch, it is also an opportunity for aggrieved Bushites to defend themselves.
After all the rhetoric disparaging "the liberals", I think a little tit-for-tat is not out-of-place.
Of course, if the Bushites choose to make a point of displaying a common lack of sportsmanship... we'll all note how SOME "can dish it out BUT... "
I really don't see the point of arguing Democrat vs. Republican any more. If they didn't come with name tags, of party, only the extreme would stand out, who no one likes anyway.
I think it is unfair to say that because of anyone's choice of vote that they must be some stereotype, which is rejected with any other form of society. Not politics!
No one that follows any particular party, with vote, is all that much different than you at all. We want the same things, but differ on how to obtain very difficult issues. That's it!
PDiddie wrote:
Morans. Everywhere.
Everywhere? I've only known one Moran. That was Bob Moran. He was a Project Engineer on the 5th floor at the old Gulf Refinery I worked at back in the 80s.
Archie would have been a Bushie...........don't you think he would? He may have been loveable.......but that was in spite of himself. Still, you may be right. He did have too much humanity, too much goodness to be a true, cold blooded Bushite.
angie wrote:Acquink: how do you live with the horror? a horror that must certainly be made worse by the posturing and political advantage our president draws from that infamous day. You are so right, there were warnings. Clinton's administration handed them to the Bush team, and they ignored them.
After 9/11, some Republicans and all right-wing newspapers were quick to blame former President Clinton for de-emphasizing the militery and thereby making the events of 9/11 more possible.
In fact, Clinton focused more on terrorism than any previous president. A month before Clinton left office, he was praised by two former Reagan counter-terrorism officials. "Overall, I give them very high marks", Robert Oakley (former ambassador for counter-terrorism in the Reagan State Dept.) told the Wash. Post. "The only criticism I have", he continued, "is his (Clinton's) obsession with Osama". Oakley's successor, Paul Bremer (currently the civilain administrator in Iraq), disagreed somewhat; he told the Post he believed the Clinton administration had correctly focused on bin Laden .
Here are some actual facts to ponder.
Reagan:
Reagaon's anti0terrorism record was a disaster. Radical Islamic terrorists killed more Americans under Reagan than under any president before him, and more than would die under Bush Sr. and Clinton combined. (Beirut 1983 Marine barracks and US embassy bombing, Pan Am flight 103.) Reagon's only response was a single bombing run against Libya in 1986. (Of course, two days after the Marine bombing in Beirut, Reagaon did invade Granada, sending a clear message to violent Muslim extremists: if you attack us, we'll invade Club Med!)
Reagan also supplied arms to violent Muslim extremists among the Afghani Mujahadeen, as well as to "friends" in Iran and Iraq, and did nothing to ppose the terrorist death squads in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua.
Bush Sr.:
The Bush Sr. administration continued arming violent Muslim extremists in Afghanistan until, in 1989, the Soviet Union withdrew at which time Bush Sr. abandoned Afghanistan allowing it to become a breeding ground for anti-US terrorists training camps. In his four state of the Union addresses, Bush Sr. used the word "terrorist" only once. ("envoronmental terrorism")
Clinton:
Thirty-eight days after taking office, when the World Trade Center was attacked for the forst time, Clinton initiated via directive an operation that resulted in the capture, trial, conviction and imprisonment of Ramsi Yousef, Abdul Hakim Murad, and Wali Khan Shah, all proven to be responsible for the attack.
Clinton's administration was able to thwart several planned terrorist attacks. They were aware of and able to thwart plots to kill the pope, blow up twelve US jetliners, attack the UN headquarters, the FBI building, the Israeli embassy in Washington, the US embassy in Albania, the LA and Boston airports, the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels, and the George Washington Bridge.
How was Clinton able to do all this ?
He tripled the counter-terrorism budget for the FBI.
He doubled counter-terrorism funding overall.
He rolled up al Quaeda cells in more than twenty countries.
He created a top level national security post to coordinate all federal counter-terrorism activity.
His first and second crime bills contained stringent anti-terrorism legislation.
His administration sponsored a series of simulations to see how local, state, and federal officials should respond to terrorist attacks.
He created a national stockpile of drugs and vaccines including40 mil doses of smallpox vaccine.
He collaborated passionately but respectfully with foreign leaders to join the fight internationally.
"By any measure, Clinton left office having given greater priority to terrorism than any president before him." Bernard Gellman, Washington Post (very conservative).
[ You would think that Clinton, in order to get any of this done, would have to have had the support of the Republican Congress. In fact, the Republican Congress fought Clinton bitterly on counter-terrorism spending. When Clinton asked for more money for anti-terrorism spending in 1996, Irrin Hatch objected: "This administration would be wise to utilize the resourses Congress has already provided." The year before, after the horrific Oklahoma City bombing, the Republicans rejected Clinton's proposed expansion of the intelligence agencies' wiretap authority in order to combat terrorism.
Immediately after the embassy bombings, Clinton issues a presidential directive authorizing the assasination of Osama bin Laden. (Curiously, Sean Hannity (IMO, the ultimate hypocrite), has spent much time on and off air criticizing Clinton for not having the balls to do exactly this ! Hey, why let the FACTS ever get in the way of your agenda?)
The final al Quaeda attack of the Clinton era came on October 12th, 2000, against the USS Cole. Clinton took his anti0terrorism policy to the highest level possible. Instead of funding and arming them (like Reagon) or ignoring them (like Bush Sr.), he decided to destroy them. He put Richard Clarke in charge of devising a comprehensive plan to take out al Quaeda. Clark worked furiously to produce a atrategy paper which he put into the hands of Sandy Berger on December 20, 2000. The plan was ambitious: break up all Quaeda cells and arrest their personnel, attack their financial supporters, freeze all assets, give immediate aid to countries strugglin internally against al Quaeda (especially Uzbekistan, The Phillipines, and Yemen), and scale up covert action in Afghanistan to eliminate the training camps and reach bin Laden himself.
-----------------------------
George W. Bush
Clinton's plan to eliminate al Quaeda was completed only a few weeks before Bush's inauguration. If it had been implemented at that time by the Clinton administration, "we would have been handing them a war" a former Clinton aide told TIME. Instead, Clinton decided to turn over the plan to the Bush administration. Remembering how little help the previous Bush administration had provided to his team, Sandy Berger arranged and attended (several of ) ten briefings for his successor, Condoleeza Rice, indicating to her the serious threat of terrorism in general and al Quaeda specifically. (Rice later denied receiving this specific warning but was quoted in TIME referencing the warning. She lied.)
After Berger left, Richard Clarke took over and laid out the whole plan for Rice. She was so impressed by Clarke that she asked him to stay on as counter-terrorism Chief. In February, Clarke repeated the briefings for vice-president Cheney. In spite of all these briefings, however, Bush administration officials basically ignored the urgency of Clarke's information. Clarke became increasingly frustrated. Also in February, Senators Hart (Gary) and Rudman (Warren) issued their third report on national security, warning that "mass-casualty terrorism directed against the US homeland was of serious concern", and that "America was wpefully unprepared for a catastrophic domestic terrorism attack". The Hart-Rudman commission urged the immediate creation of a Department of Homeland Security. The report generated a great deal of media attention, and in Congress a bill was intriduced to establish a National Homeland Security Agency, but astonishingly, over at the White House, President Bush, vice-president Cheney, Attorney General Ashcroft, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, basically ignored the entire situation. (Al Franken dubs this reaction "Operation Ignore".
April 30th, Clarke presented a new version of the plan to Cheney's staff re al Quaeda, Pakistan and indo-Pakistan. No action of implementaion of any kind.
July10th, Phoenix FBI agent Ken Williams sent a memo to FBI headquarters regarding middle eastern students taking flight lessons. The memo was dismissed. Had Clarke's plan been in place, heightening security awareness, the memo would not have been dismissed.
Clarke and George Tenet (CIA Director) became more and more frustrated. In mid-July, Tenet briefed Condoleeza Rice and told her there was going to be a major attack. An official told TIME. (documented)
July 16th, it was finally determined that Clarke's plan would be mplemented. Since Cheney and Bush were "re-charging their batteries" in August, the long-overdue integration meeting could not be scheduled in August, and was scheduled for September 4th.
August 6th, Tenet delivered a report to Bush entitled "bin Laden Determined to Strike in US". The report warned that al Quaeda might be planning to hijack airplanes. Bush did nothing to follow up on this memo. He was photographed golfing and dealing with landscaping issues on his property.
August 15th, the INS arrested Zacharias Moussaoui, a flight school student who had generated interest with agents because he seemed to have no interest in learning to land planes. Again, the information was not shared or analyzed. No plan in place yet.
August 25th, Bush, still on the ranch, discussed his dogs with reporters.
August, Thomas J. Pickard, acting FBI director, studied a comprehensive review of counter-terrorism programs and information, and became alarmed by the mounting terrorism threat. He immediately met with AG Ashcroft to request $58 million from the Justice Department to hire hundreds of new field agents and translators.
September 4th, Clarke's plan finally reached the administration principals committee. Rice, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Powell decided to advise Bush to adopt the plan.
September 9th, Congress proposed $600 billion to fund this plan. The money was to come from Rumsfeld's "beloved" missle-defense program estimated at $158 - $ 238 billion. Congress proposed to shift $ .6 billion over to the counter-terrorism programs. Rumsfeld was furious and threatened a presidential veto.
September 10th, Pickard received an official letter from Ashcroft denying his request. )
September 11th, the unfathomable cost of Operation Ignore becomes a reality
.
(all facts above from Al Franken's book: "Lies, and the Lying Liars who tell Them", where they are heavily documented.)
Magus - I don't think the above was meant purely as a display of "typical Bushites", but to each his own.
I won't get into a shouting match with you over it, but your phrase "all the rhetoric disparaging "the liberals"? I'd guess on this particular forum it's probaby the other way around.
I can't even count the times I've read about the "Lying Liars" on this forum and so I felt compelled to state my own opinion of the author (which is pretty low). If this thread is meant for democrats only to praise Franken's pathetic piece of fiction, then please pardon my intrusion.
you are excused, JustWonders, dear
you just have to forgive Lola justwonders, she forgives easily, go with the flow you know and take it where you can get it.
