Slashdot Mirror

"Clinton is well known for having pardoned many cocaine traffickers before leaving office. One of the first things Bush did when getting into office was block a congressional investigation into it." - by megamerican (1073936) on Monday October 27, @05:43PM (#25533911)

Heh, that's easy, as to why (on the latter portion especially) - BUSH is a coke head, see here:

Bush Jr.'s Skeleton Closet:

http://www.realchange.org/bushjr.htm#cocaine

PERTINENT QUOTES:

-----

"Three independent sources close to the Bush family report that Governor Bush was arrested in 1972 for cocaine possession, and taken to Harris County Jail, but avoided jail or formal charges through an informal diversion plan involving community service with Project P.U.L.L., an inner city Houston program for troubled youths at the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center in Houston's dirt-poor Third Ward"

&

"Bush has essentially admitted that he used cocaine in his Clintonesque, carefully worded partial denials. He won't deny using cocaine or marijuana, though under persistent questioning he said that he hadn't used cocaine in the last 7 years. Most newspapers report that he denies using cocaine since 1974, but that's not exactly true.

That is the most favorable interpretation of what Bush said, but since Bush and his campaign have already made Clintonesque denials on other issues, we need to look at his words carefully.

What Bush actually said was "I could have passed the [FBI] background check on the standards applied on the most stringent conditions when my dad was president of the United States - a 15-year period," Mr. Bush said. This is ambiguous because background forms ask slightly different questions, depending on the position. Drug questions can go back one year, seven years or 10 years. Bush Jr. didn't have any formal position in his father's administration, so which one applies is unclear. And 15-years is not one of the choices.

Since Bush Sr.'s presidency began in January 1989, reporters assumed that Jr. was denying drug use for 15 years before that, to 1974. But that is not at all clear. His only direct statement was for seven years before today. He could easily have been denying drug use only for 15 years before today, based on 7 or 10 years dating back from the END of his dad's term. 10 years before 1993, the end of Bush Sr.'s term, is pretty close to 15 years before today.

The Clinton administration actually has a stricter standard than Bush did -- the FBI now asks about any drug use after age 18. But Governor Bush has refused to say whether he would pass that standard, even though that is what he will be asked if he wins. Bush also has refused to answer whether he could have passed the FBI test when his father was vice president, during the 8 years from 1981-1989.

As for the arrest and diversion charge, Governor Bush admits working at the center in 1972. When asked for comment, Bush's campaign spokesman reportedly said "Oh shit... no comment." McLellan denies saying that.

Bush's father, ex-president George Bush, denies the cocaine arrest charge, and in yet another carefully worded denial, Bush said ""It's totally ridiculous what he suggested and it's not true."

-----

Make some sense now? I think so, & so will anyone else reading those words (if not the rest of what is on that website in the URL link above).

... but on the "races" bit, yes, for the same offense, blacks more often get jail time while whites walk. Justice might be blind, but it ain't colour-blind when it comes to sentencing.

Did it ever occur to you that there were circumstances, such as prior history, that could affect the sentence? The claim that blacks are being unfairly punished is a totally bogus one.

George W. Bush does coke, gets arrested, gets a new drivers' license number "000000005" to hide the arrest, gets a bunch more DUIs ... and hasn't done any jail time yet.

If he were black?

Uh - Yes.

Everything you state is contradicted by other sources. For instance:
http://www.realchange.org/mccain.htm

Pay attention now - actual *sources* for their assertions are given, whereas your refutation contains none.

One of the honest criminal considered himself a straight-talking guy http://www.realchange.org/bushjr.htm

There is absolutely nothing wrong with making a mix cd. However if the RIAA is gonna go on a crusade of lawsuits against copyright infringing people and this action is the same as what brought the other suits then the twins should be prosecuted just like anyone else. It is the job of the president to lead by example. If they can get away with this then every other infringement lawsuit from the RIAA should be dropped as well.

I know this is like shooting fish in a barrel these days...

But when exactly was this guy concerned with leading by example?

And if he is leading by example, I think I can safely say that we're all *really* screwed.

But some jobs demand more scrutiny than others.

Apparently, the POTUS isn't one of them.

Who do you think the police will be stopping more often?
a. Fat, ugly, old women
b. Attractive young women

Your point is good (and also creepy), but I think there's a more general case. It's probably this way in other places too, but in the US, law enforcement generally falls hardest on the lower classes.

For example, who's more likely to get convicted of drug offenses: an inner-city black man, or a rich white kid?

Excellent point. But the point can be taken further:

Countries, like companies, tend to talk toughest when they're in decline. The U.S. government has invaded 24 countries since the Second World War, killing people and destroying their property.

If you look around, it is more than a few organizations in decline. We are experiencing a wholesale cultural breakdown.

It is also good to remember that Forbes Magazine is owned by Steve Forbes, and Steve Forbes is a socially backward man with the past you would expect of someone whose father was rich. Here is the second Google link to a search on "Steve Forbes": Steve Forbes' Skeleton Closet

Here is the first Google search result: Steve Forbes. Remember, he ran for president of the United States.

What is written in Forbes Magazine is valuable because it is an example of how rich people think. The only thing that matters to them is their own unbalanced ideas. When I say "rich people", I'm not talking about the condition of having a lot of money. I'm talking about the condition of being psychologically unbalanced by a lot of money.

This particular Forbes article is an example of the stream of consciousness of the kind of people who have almost no inner principles except that money is important, and of the kind of people who work for them and who have adopted their view of life.

The author of the article, Parmy Olson, is "an Assistant News Editor at Forbes.com", it says.

Since when does America control the Internet?

building a larger stadium on land siezed under eminent domain? http://espn.go.com/mlb/bush/saturday.html

He also made money another way:

Deal #1: The Oil Business: Rewarded for Losing Money

Like his dad, Junior struck out in Texas and founded an oil company, Arbusto Energy, Inc., with $20,000 of his own money. (Arbusto is the Spanish word for bush.) The company foundered in the early 1980s when oil prices dropped (and his dad was Vice President.)

The 50 investors, who were "mainly friends of my uncle" in Junior's own words, put in $4.7 million and lost most of it. Junior claims that investors "did pretty good," but Bush family friend Russell Reynolds told the Dallas Morning News: "The bottom line was there were problems, and it didn't work out very well. I think we got maybe 20 cents on the dollar."

As Arbusto neared collapse, Spectrum 7 Energy Corporation bought it in September 1984. Despite his poor track record, the owners made Bush, Jr. the president and gave him 13.6% of the parent company's stock.

Spectrum 7 was a small oil firm owned by two staunch Reagan/Bush Sr. supporters -- William DeWitt and Mercer Reynolds. These two were also owners of the Texas Rangers and allowed Bush Jr. to purchase a chunk of the team cheaply; he later sold it for over 24 times what he paid.

Within two years of purchasing Arbusto and making Bush Jr. president, Spectrum 7 was itself in trouble; it lost $400,000 in its last 6 months of operation. That ended in 1986, when Harken Energy Corporation bought Spectrum 7's 180-well operation.

Junior got $227,000 worth of Harken stock, and a lot more. He was named to the board of directors, made $80,000 to $100,000 a year well into the 1990s as a "consultant" to Harken, and was allowed to buy Harken stock at 40% below face value.

He also borrowed $180,375 from Harken at very low rates; the company's 1989 and 1990 SEC filings said it "forgave" $341,000 in loans to unspecified executives.

So what did Junior do for all this money? It's hard to say exactly, but things happened for Harken after Junior came on board:
it got a $25 million stock offering from an unusual bank with CIA ties,
it won a surprise exclusive drilling contract with Bahrain, a small Mideast country, and
an Arab member of its Board of Directors was invited to White House policy meetings with President George Bush and National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft.

Why not? It's been done before.

Have you actually read up on Nader? Or have you just listened to his own propaganda about himself?

"His organizations allow no public input, intimidate foes and journalists, bust unions, hide almost all details of their finances (to the point of breaking laws), and have amassed millions of dollars - all under Nader's direct and autocratic control. Meanwhile, Ralph has gotten rich off of investments in stock; in other words, by owning and profiting off the very corporations he is attacking."

And yes, there are sources provided, in the form of webpages, newspapers and books.

from memory Al Gore thought they spoke Latin in Latin America

It may play well in Finland and other former communist countries, but here in the United States, we don't find it too funny.

It made me giggle and I'm an American in Colorado.

Not because it isn't true

It is true if you'd been paying attention:

"If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier...just as long as I'm the dictator..."
--Washington, DC, Dec 18, 2000, during his first trip to Washington as President-Elect

Are you really happy to have such a dishonest, vile, slimy power-hungry creature hold the most powerful office in the world?

Anyway, I'm sorry that you don't have a sense of humor and your NeoConservative indoctrination doesn't allow you to make fun of the monkey upstairs. Get well soon. With a bit of luck your Furher is removed from power at the end of his term, don't cry too hard.

With love,

- The Voting Majority Of The United States.

This guy is an expert in messing up stuff.

Funny thing, I thought Forbes was part of the people in charge...
Steve Forbes, President, CEO and Editor-in-Chief of Forbes, happens to be one of the people behind the 'Project for the New American Century', being a co-signee of it's Statement of Principles along with, among others, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and Jeb Bush.

Roadmap for War on Iraq and the New American Empire brought to by:

Elliott Abrams , Gary Bauer
William J. Bennett, Jeb Bush
Dick Cheney , Eliot A. Cohen
Midge Decter, Paula Dobriansky
Steve Forbes , Aaron Friedberg
Francis Fukuyama, Frank Gaffney
Fred C. Ikle, Donald Kagan
Zalmay Khalilzad, I. Lewis Libby
Norman Podhoretz, Dan Quayle
Peter W. Rodman, Stephen P. Rosen, Henry S. Rowen
Donald Rumsfeld , Vin Weber, George Weigel, Paul Wolfowitz

xyzzyxyzzyxyzzyxyzzyxyzzyxyzzyxyzzyxyzzyxyzzy

Well, clearly we should not be electing them president.... (link)

...is politics in general. As many people,so tritely, observe... people who want power are usually very self-centered and have no concern for the betterment of their fellow man. This is, sadly, completely out of alignment with what politics were originally intended to be. Let's take a look at the official definition of politics and break it down:

The science of government; that part of ethics which has to do with the regulation and government of a nation or state, the preservation of its safety, peace, and prosperity, the defense of its existence and rights against foreign control or conquest, the augmentation of its strength and resources, and the protection of its citizens in their rights, with the preservation and improvement of their morals.

Let's also consider that politics is considered a science, where "science" is taken to mean:

Any branch or department of systematized knowledge considered as a distinct field of investigation or object of study.

By this definition, a politician should have a great body of knowledge regarding ethics, citizens and their rights and proper morals. If you apply that branch of logic to the politicians of the last few decades, we find that there is something that has slowly gone seriously wrong. Our politicians tend to be anything but knowledgable, ethical, moral or have any concern for citizen's rights!

We will start with our current administration. The polls say that G.W. Bush has had anywhere from a 49% approval rating at lowest and as high as his post Sept. 11th rating of 93%. While this speaks well of him, it completely obscures many well known facts regarding his knowledge (quite lacking), ethics, morality and feelings on citizen's rights. If we delve deeper, we find that he, in fact, has very little knowledge about the system. Further evidenced by the fact that he is a poor speaker and his father's former cabinet appears to be running the entire show. He is just a mouthpiece.

Regarding ethics, I would question any politician's ethics who would have other men in thir cabinet involved in scandal. Especially in a position so close to the power seat as vice-president Cheney. Mr. Cheney's desire to conceal the connections between Enron and the current administration are very disheartening. Even the staunchest conservative must admit that this was not one of the finer moments in conservative history. (The liberal-controlled media argument doesn't wash here either as the news sources that reported negatively on this story tend to be just as far right as you can get.)

While Mr. Bush professes to being a good christian. He hasn't always been that way. His morals are not exactly what one would call "good". It's very well known the George W. Bush, was quite the party down, rich kid. As he grew away from his "youthful errors", he became quite the shady businessman. I would have to say that his morals are questionable at best.

Citizen's rights and the current administration are at odds with each other. This has been an ever increasing problem since Sept. 11th. As most Americans blindly wave their flags, their ability to do much of anything else to affect their own well being is being erroded by things like "The Patriot Act". In the name of security, the man in the white house and his staff are trying to convince us that it's good to lose your freedoms sometimes. This is quite damning evidence that he does not understand or care about the citizen's of this country's rights.

Seeing that all of this is true, it appears that George W. Bush fails to live up to the definition of what a politician should be, as do many of his cabinet.

The last administration has it's blemishes on many counts as well. Analyzing Mr. Clinton in the same way, we find that his knowledge of the governmental system was stronger than Mr. Bush's. (If anyone can provide links that prove otherwise please do so, I couldn't find any.)

Where ethics are concerned, Bill Clinton had his share of gaffes. Not to mention the more serious allegations regarding his time as Governor of Arkansas. No... Sadly, we can't say that Mr. Clinton has shiny repution either.

Everyone knows about his moral problems since they've been beaten to death. Like him or not, Bill Clinton was not a man of morals by strict definition.

As geeks, we all know that it was his administration that passed the DMCA which has potential to seriously impinge on citizen's rights. Not just your ability to "swap songs", but you ability to write code freely!

So, by the same analysis, Bill Clinton fails the test of what a good politician is. As do most other politicians. Why is this? Because we are humans. We have imperfections that prevent us from being able to truly hold to the ideals of what how politics should work. Some do better than others, but in general the lot of them are corrupt.

Most politicians are only interested in politics due to their hunger for power. Just that alone is damning as it points to a deep seated greed and selfishness that is almost required to be a politician. So how is it that our system even works? In reality, it doesn't.

Most of what the operations of the government and the way they affect us are almost 100% happily incidental. Ocassionally one person somewhere deep in the system does one thing right. Another one somewhere else in the system does something else right. And so on... There are the few people here or there who intentionally or unintentionally (They're human, remember?) do something wrong. But the aggregate result is something that more or les resembles a system that works. This illusion trickles upward toward the leaders (Senators, congressmen, governors, and ultimately the president) and makes them look good. (It works this way in any large organization) So... for now we are stuck with a system that appears to work, but is solely based on chance. Or looking at it another way, real politics (as opposed to the ideal defined above) is just another form of gambling.

In closing, I'll offer you this joke about politics:

Son: Dad, I have a special report for school. Can I ask you a question?

Dad: Sure son, what's the question?

Son: What is politics?

Dad: Well son, let's take our home for example. I am the wage earner, so let's call me the management. Your mother is the administrator of the money, so let's call her the government. We take care of you and your needs, so let's call you the people. We'll call the maid the working class and your baby brother the future. Understand?

Son: I'm not really sure dad, I'll have to think about it.

That night, the boy is awakened by his baby brother's crying, so he went to see what was wrong. Discovering that the baby had a heavily soiled nappy, the boy went to his parent's room and found his mother fast asleep. He than went to the maid's room, where, peeking through the keyhole, he saw his father in bed with the maid. The boy's knocking went totally unheard. The boy went back to his room and went to sleep.

The next morning...

Son: Dad, I think I understand politics.

Dad: That's great son, explain it to me in your own words.

Son: While the management is screwing the working class, the government is fast asleep, the people are being completely ignored and the future is full of shit.

---Whew! All that work just to post this---

-I am a Windows user

-I am also a f4g0rt

-All Windows users are f4g0rtz

-Bill Gates loves men

-Linux is the sux0rz

-BSD is dying

-Stephen King loved goatse.cx before he died

-75% of people in the US make up 3/4 of the US population

-Adolph Hitroll is my bitch

-RecipeTroll loves the cock too

-Natalie Portman is naked and petrified

-I poured hot gritz down my pants and all I got was this lousy T-shirt

-R.M.S. is a commie

-Linus Torvalds is keeping his brotha down. Free him!

-Looser = Loser and vice-versa. Stop complaining and learn New English

-Imagine a Beowulf cluster of trolls

-The CowboyNeal jokes are old

-X is unstable, let's get rid of it

-KDE is the sux0rz, GNOME rules

-Real men use TWM

-vi is better then emacs (no it's not, emacs is better than vi)=Tastes great/Less Filling

-Ford sucks

-Chevy sucks

-Capitalism is dying

-Linux on the desktop is dead

-IE won the browser war, give it up Mozilla. (No. The war's not over yet M$)

-MySQL is robust and scalable

-PostgreSQL is better than MySQL. Nyah!

-So you like your pages W I D E N E D?

-I 4m 1337. giv3 m3 w4r3z d00dz.

-w00t!

-In other news...

-1. Steal concept from open sores 2. ??? 3. Profit!!!

-RMS is a dirty hippie

-Moderation sucks

-UNIX will never be as secure as VMS

-GayPee is not a hacker, he's a dork

-General strike!! Now!!!!!!

-ESR is a homo

-Grok THIS you GIMP!

-Corporations are evil

-Corporations are good

-Quake is the sux0rz, give me Unreal Tourney! (You Canadian f4g0rt, UT sucks, Quake 0wnz j00)

-Canadians are gay

-Americans are stupid

-Brits are assholes

-For hot gulrz see: http://www.bakla.net

-~the fux0rz has spoken~-

...is politics in general. As many people,so tritely, observe... people who want power are usually very self-centered and have no concern for the betterment of their fellow man. This is, sadly, completely out of alignment with what politics were originally intended to be. Let's take a look at the official definition of politics and break it down:

The science of government; that part of ethics which has to do with the regulation and government of a nation or state, the preservation of its safety, peace, and prosperity, the defense of its existence and rights against foreign control or conquest, the augmentation of its strength and resources, and the protection of its citizens in their rights, with the preservation and improvement of their morals.

Let's also consider that politics is considered a science, where "science" is taken to mean:

Any branch or department of systematized knowledge considered as a distinct field of investigation or object of study.

By this definition, a politician should have a great body of knowledge regarding ethics, citizens and their rights and proper morals. If you apply that branch of logic to the politicians of the last few decades, we find that there is something that has slowly gone seriously wrong. Our politicians tend to be anything but knowledgable, ethical, moral or have any concern for citizen's rights!

We will start with our current administration. The polls say that G.W. Bush has had anywhere from a 49% approval rating at lowest and as high as his post Sept. 11th rating of 93%. While this speaks well of him, it completely obscures many well known facts regarding his knowledge (quite lacking), ethics, morality and feelings on citizen's rights. If we delve deeper, we find that he, in fact, has very little knowledge about the system. Further evidenced by the fact that he is a poor speaker and his father's former cabinet appears to be running the entire show. He is just a mouthpiece.

Regarding ethics, I would question any politician's ethics who would have other men in thir cabinet involved in scandal. Especially in a position so close to the power seat as vice-president Cheney. Mr. Cheney's desire to conceal the connections between Enron and the current administration are very disheartening. Even the staunchest conservative must admit that this was not one of the finer moments in conservative history. (The liberal-controlled media argument doesn't wash here either as the news sources that reported negatively on this story tend to be just as far right as you can get.)

While Mr. Bush professes to being a good christian. He hasn't always been that way. His morals are not exactly what one would call "good". It's very well known the George W. Bush, was quite the party down, rich kid. As he grew away from his "youthful errors", he became quite the shady businessman. I would have to say that his morals are questionable at best.

Citizen's rights and the current administration are at odds with each other. This has been an ever increasing problem since Sept. 11th. As most Americans blindly wave their flags, their ability to do much of anything else to affect their own well being is being erroded by things like "The Patriot Act". In the name of security, the man in the white house and his staff are trying to convince us that it's good to lose your freedoms sometimes. This is quite damning evidence that he does not understand or care about the citizen's of this country's rights.

Seeing that all of this is true, it appears that George W. Bush fails to live up to the definition of what a politician should be, as do many of his cabinet.

The last administration has it's blemishes on many counts as well. Analyzing Mr. Clinton in the same way, we find that his knowledge of the governmental system was stronger than Mr. Bush's. (If anyone can provide links that prove otherwise please do so, I couldn't find any.)

Where ethics are concerned, Bill Clinton had his share of gaffes. Not to mention the more serious allegations regarding his time as Governor of Arkansas. No... Sadly, we can't say that Mr. Clinton has shiny repution either.

Everyone knows about his moral problems since they've been beaten to death. Like him or not, Bill Clinton was not a man of morals by strict definition.

As geeks, we all know that it was his administration that passed the DMCA which has potential to seriously impinge on citizen's rights. Not just your ability to "swap songs", but you ability to write code freely!

So, by the same analysis, Bill Clinton fails the test of what a good politician is. As do most other politicians. Why is this? Because we are humans. We have imperfections that prevent us from being able to truly hold to the ideals of what how politics should work. Some do better than others, but in general the lot of them are corrupt.

Most politicians are only interested in politics due to their hunger for power. Just that alone is damning as it points to a deep seated greed and selfishness that is almost required to be a politician. So how is it that our system even works? In reality, it doesn't.

Most of what the operations of the government and the way they affect us are almost 100% happily incidental. Ocassionally one person somewhere deep in the system does one thing right. Another one somewhere else in the system does something else right. And so on... There are the few people here or there who intentionally or unintentionally (They're human, remember?) do something wrong. But the aggregate result is something that more or les resembles a system that works. This illusion trickles upward toward the leaders (Senators, congressmen, governors, and ultimately the president) and makes them look good. (It works this way in any large organization) So... for now we are stuck with a system that appears to work, but is solely based on chance. Or looking at it another way, real politics (as opposed to the ideal defined above) is just another form of gambling.

In closing, I'll offer you this joke about politics:

Son: Dad, I have a special report for school. Can I ask you a question?

Dad: Sure son, what's the question?

Son: What is politics?

Dad: Well son, let's take our home for example. I am the wage earner, so let's call me the management. Your mother is the administrator of the money, so let's call her the government. We take care of you and your needs, so let's call you the people. We'll call the maid the working class and your baby brother the future. Understand?

Son: I'm not really sure dad, I'll have to think about it.

That night, the boy is awakened by his baby brother's crying, so he went to see what was wrong. Discovering that the baby had a heavily soiled nappy, the boy went to his parent's room and found his mother fast asleep. He than went to the maid's room, where, peeking through the keyhole, he saw his father in bed with the maid. The boy's knocking went totally unheard. The boy went back to his room and went to sleep.

The next morning...

Son: Dad, I think I understand politics.

Dad: That's great son, explain it to me in your own words.

Son: While the management is screwing the working class, the government is fast asleep, the people are being completely ignored and the future is full of shit.

---Whew! All that work just to post this---

-I am a Windows user

-I am also a f4g0rt

-All Windows users are f4g0rtz

-Bill Gates loves men

-Linux is the sux0rz

-BSD is dying

-Stephen King loved goatse.cx before he died

-75% of people in the US make up 3/4 of the US population

-Adolph Hitroll is my bitch

-RecipeTroll loves the cock too

-Natalie Portman is naked and petrified

-I poured hot gritz down my pants and all I got was this lousy T-shirt

-R.M.S. is a commie

-Linus Torvalds is keeping his brotha down. Free him!

-Looser = Loser and vice-versa. Stop complaining and learn New English

-Imagine a Beowulf cluster of trolls

-The CowboyNeal jokes are old

-X is unstable, let's get rid of it

-KDE is the sux0rz, GNOME rules

-Real men use TWM

-vi is better then emacs (no it's not, emacs is better than vi)=Tastes great/Less Filling

-Ford sucks

-Chevy sucks

-Capitalism is dying

-Linux on the desktop is dead

-IE won the browser war, give it up Mozilla. (No. The war's not over yet M$)

-MySQL is robust and scalable

-PostgreSQL is better than MySQL. Nyah!

-So you like your pages W I D E N E D?

-I 4m 1337. giv3 m3 w4r3z d00dz.

-w00t!

-In other news...

-1. Steal concept from open sores 2. ??? 3. Profit!!!

-RMS is a dirty hippie

-Moderation sucks

-UNIX will never be as secure as VMS

-GayPee is not a hacker, he's a dork

-General strike!! Now!!!!!!

-ESR is a homo

-Grok THIS you GIMP!

-Corporations are evil

-Corporations are good

-Quake is the sux0rz, give me Unreal Tourney! (You Canadian f4g0rt, UT sucks, Quake 0wnz j00)

-Canadians are gay

-Americans are stupid

-Brits are assholes

-For hot gulrz see: http://www.bakla.net

-~the fux0rz has spoken~-

...is politics in general. As many people,so tritely, observe... people who want power are usually very self-centered and have no concern for the betterment of their fellow man. This is, sadly, completely out of alignment with what politics were originally intended to be. Let's take a look at the official definition of politics and break it down:

The science of government; that part of ethics which has to do with the regulation and government of a nation or state, the preservation of its safety, peace, and prosperity, the defense of its existence and rights against foreign control or conquest, the augmentation of its strength and resources, and the protection of its citizens in their rights, with the preservation and improvement of their morals.

First, let's start with the fact the politics is considered a science, where "science" is taken to mean:

Any branch or department of systematized knowledge considered as a distinct field of investigation or object of study.

By this definition, a politician should have a great body of knowledge regarding ethics, citizens and their rights and proper morals. If you apply that branch of logic to the politicians of the last few decades, we find that there is something that has slowly gone seriously wrong. Our politicians tend to be anything but knowledgable, ethical, moral or have any concern for citizen's rights!

We will start with our current administration. While the polls say that G.W. Bush has had anywhere from a 49% approval rating at lowest and as high as his post Sept. 11th rating of 93%. While this speaks well of him, it completely obscures many well known facts regarding his knowledge (quite lacking), ethics, morality and feelings on citizen's rights. If we delve deeper, we find that he, in fact, has very little knowledge about the system. Further evidenced by the fact that he is a poor speaker and his father's former cabinet appears to be running the entire show. He is just a mouthpiece.

Regarding ethics, I would question any politician's ethics who would have other men in thir cabinet involved in scandal. Especially in a position so close to the power seat as vice-president Cheney. Mr. Cheney's desire to conceal the connections between Enron and the current administration are very disheartening. Even the staunchest conservative must admit that this was not one of the finer moments in conservative history. (The liberal-controlled media argument doesn't wash here either as the news sources that reported negatively on this story tend to be just as far right as you can get.)

While Mr. Bush professes to being a good christian. He hasn't always been that way. His morals are not exactly what one would call "good". It's very well known the George W. Bush, was quite the party down, rich kid. As he grew away from his "youthful errors", he became quite the shady businessman. I would have to say that his morals are questionable at best.

Civil rights and the current administration are at odds with each other. This has been an ever increasing problem since Sept. 11th. As most Americans blindly wave their flags, their ability to do much of anything else to affect their own well being is being erroded by things like "The Patriot Act". In the name of security, the man in the white house and his staff are trying to convince us that it's good to lose your freedoms sometimes. This is quite damning evidence that he does not understand or care about the citizen's of this country's rights.

Seeing that all of this is true, it appears that George W. Bush fails to live up to the definition of what a politician should be, as do many of his cabinet.

The last administration has it's blemishes on many counts as well. Analyzing Mr. Clinton in the same way, we find that his knowledge of the governmental system was stronger than Mr. Bush's. (If anyone can provide links to examples please do so, I couldn't find any.)

Where ethics are concerned, Bill Clinton had his share of gaffes. Not to mention the more serious allegations regarding his time as Governor of Arkansas. No... Sadly, we can't say that Mr. Clinton has shiny repution either.

Everyone knows about his moral problems since they've been beaten to death. Like him or not, Bill Clinton was not a man of morals by strict definition.

As geeks, we all know that it was his administration that passed the DMCA which has potential to seriously impinge on citizen's rights. Not just your ability to "swap songs", but you ability to write code freely!

So, by the same analysis, Bill Clinton fails the test of what a good politician is. As do most other politicians. Why is this? Because we are humans. We have imperfections that prevent us from being able to truly hold to the ideals of what how politics should work. Some do better than others, but in general the lot of them are corrupt.

Most politicians are only interested in politics due to their hunger for power. Just that alone is damning as it points to a deep seated greed and selfishness that is almost required to be a politician. So how is it that our system even works? In reality, it doesn't.

Most of what the operations of the government and the way they affect us are almost 100% happily incidental. Ocassionally one person somewhere deep in the system does one thing right. Another one somewhere else in the system does something else right. And so on... There are the few people here or there who intentionally or unintentionally (They're human, remember?) do something wrong. But the aggregate result is something that more or les resembles a system that works. This illusion trickles upward toward the leaders (Senators, congressmen, governors, and ultimately the president) and makes them look good. (It works this way in any large organization) So... for now we are stuck with a system that appears to work, but is solely based on chance. Or looking at it another way, real politics (as opposed to the ideal defined above) is just another form of gambling.

In closing, I'll offer you this joke about politics:

Son: Dad, I have a special report for school. Can I ask you a question?

Dad: Sure son, what's the question?

Son: What is politics?

Dad: Well son, let's take our home for example. I am the wage earner, so let's call me the management. Your mother is the administrator of the money, so let's call her the government. We take care of you and your needs, so let's call you the people. We'll call the maid the working class and your baby brother the future. Understand?

Son: I'm not really sure dad, I'll have to think about it.

That night, the boy is awakened by his baby brother's crying, so he went to see what was wrong. Discovering that the baby had a heavily soiled nappy, the boy went to his parent's room and found his mother fast asleep. He than went to the maid's room, where, peeking through the keyhole, he saw his father in bed with the maid. The boy's knocking went totally unheard. The boy went back to his room and went to sleep.

The next morning...

Son: Dad, I think I understand politics.

Dad: That's great son, explain it to me in your own words.

Son: While the management is screwing the working class, the government is fast asleep, the people are being completely ignored and the future is full of shit.

---Whew! All that work just to post this---


-I am a Windows user
-I am also a f4g0rt
-All Windows users are f4g0rtz
-Bill Gates loves men
-Linux is the sux0rz
-BSD is dying
-Stephen King loved goatse.cx before he died
-75% of people in the US make up 3/4 of the US population
-Adolph Hitroll is my bitch
-RecipeTroll loves the cock too
-Natalie Portman is naked and petrified
-I poured hot gritz down my pants and all I got was this lousy T-shirt
-R.M.S. is a commie
-Linus Torvalds is keeping his brotha down. Free him!
-Looser = Loser and vice-versa. Stop complaining and learn New English
-Imagine a Beowulf cluster of trolls
-The CowboyNeal jokes are old
-X is unstable, let's get rid of it
-KDE is the sux0rz, GNOME rules
-Real men use TWM
-vi is better then emacs (no it's not, emacs is better than vi)=Tastes great/Less Filling
-Ford sucks
-Chevy sucks
-Capitalism is dying
-Linux on the desktop is dead
-IE won the browser war, give it up Mozilla. (No. The war's not over yet M$)
-MySQL is robust and scalable
-PostgreSQL is better than MySQL. Nyah!
-So you like your pages W I D E N E D?
-I 4m 1337. giv3 m3 w4r3z d00dz.
-w00t!
-In other news...
-1. Steal concept from open sores 2. ??? 3. Profit!!!
-RMS is a dirty hippie
-Moderation sucks
-UNIX will never be as secure as VMS
-GayPee is not a hacker, he's a dork
-General strike!! Now!!!!!!
-ESR is a homo
-Grok THIS you GIMP!
-Corporations are evil
-Corporations are good
-Quake is the sux0rz, give me Unreal Tourney! (You Canadian f4g0rt, UT sucks, Quake 0wnz j00)
-Canadians are gay
-Americans are stupid
-Brits are assholes
-For hot gulrz see: http://www.bakla.net

-~the fux0rz has spoken~-

...is politics in general. As many people,so tritely, observe... people who want power are usually very self-centered and have no concern for the betterment of their fellow man. This is, sadly, completely out of alignment with what politics were originally intended to be. Let's take a look at the official definition of politics and break it down:

The science of government; that part of ethics which has to do with the regulation and government of a nation or state, the preservation of its safety, peace, and prosperity, the defense of its existence and rights against foreign control or conquest, the augmentation of its strength and resources, and the protection of its citizens in their rights, with the preservation and improvement of their morals.

First, let's start with the fact the politics is considered a science, where "science" is taken to mean:

Any branch or department of systematized knowledge considered as a distinct field of investigation or object of study.

By this definition, a politician should have a great body of knowledge regarding ethics, citizens and their rights and proper morals. If you apply that branch of logic to the politicians of the last few decades, we find that there is something that has slowly gone seriously wrong. Our politicians tend to be anything but knowledgable, ethical, moral or have any concern for citizen's rights!

We will start with our current administration. While the polls say that G.W. Bush has had anywhere from a 49% approval rating at lowest and as high as his post Sept. 11th rating of 93%. While this speaks well of him, it completely obscures many well known facts regarding his knowledge (quite lacking), ethics, morality and feelings on citizen's rights. If we delve deeper, we find that he, in fact, has very little knowledge about the system. Further evidenced by the fact that he is a poor speaker and his father's former cabinet appears to be running the entire show. He is just a mouthpiece.

Regarding ethics, I would question any politician's ethics who would have other men in thir cabinet involved in scandal. Especially in a position so close to the power seat as vice-president Cheney. Mr. Cheney's desire to conceal the connections between Enron and the current administration are very disheartening. Even the staunchest conservative must admit that this was not one of the finer moments in conservative history. (The liberal-controlled media argument doesn't wash here either as the news sources that reported negatively on this story tend to be just as far right as you can get.)

While Mr. Bush professes to being a good christian. He hasn't always been that way. His morals are not exactly what one would call "good". It's very well known the George W. Bush, was quite the party down, rich kid. As he grew away from his "youthful errors", he became quite the shady businessman. I would have to say that his morals are questionable at best.

Civil rights and the current administration are at odds with each other. This has been an ever increasing problem since Sept. 11th. As most Americans blindly wave their flags, their ability to do much of anything else to affect their own well being is being erroded by things like "The Patriot Act". In the name of security, the man in the white house and his staff are trying to convince us that it's good to lose your freedoms sometimes. This is quite damning evidence that he does not understand or care about the citizen's of this country's rights.

Seeing that all of this is true, it appears that George W. Bush fails to live up to the definition of what a politician should be, as do many of his cabinet.

The last administration has it's blemishes on many counts as well. Analyzing Mr. Clinton in the same way, we find that his knowledge of the governmental system was stronger than Mr. Bush's. (If anyone can provide links to examples please do so, I couldn't find any.)

Where ethics are concerned, Bill Clinton had his share of gaffes. Not to mention the more serious allegations regarding his time as Governor of Arkansas. No... Sadly, we can't say that Mr. Clinton has shiny repution either.

Everyone knows about his moral problems since they've been beaten to death. Like him or not, Bill Clinton was not a man of morals by strict definition.

As geeks, we all know that it was his administration that passed the DMCA which has potential to seriously impinge on citizen's rights. Not just your ability to "swap songs", but you ability to write code freely!

So, by the same analysis, Bill Clinton fails the test of what a good politician is. As do most other politicians. Why is this? Because we are humans. We have imperfections that prevent us from being able to truly hold to the ideals of what how politics should work. Some do better than others, but in general the lot of them are corrupt.

Most politicians are only interested in politics due to their hunger for power. Just that alone is damning as it points to a deep seated greed and selfishness that is almost required to be a politician. So how is it that our system even works? In reality, it doesn't.

Most of what the operations of the government and the way they affect us are almost 100% happily incidental. Ocassionally one person somewhere deep in the system does one thing right. Another one somewhere else in the system does something else right. And so on... There are the few people here or there who intentionally or unintentionally (They're human, remember?) do something wrong. But the aggregate result is something that more or les resembles a system that works. This illusion trickles upward toward the leaders (Senators, congressmen, governors, and ultimately the president) and makes them look good. (It works this way in any large organization) So... for now we are stuck with a system that appears to work, but is solely based on chance. Or looking at it another way, real politics (as opposed to the ideal defined above) is just another form of gambling.

In closing, I'll offer you this joke about politics:

Son: Dad, I have a special report for school. Can I ask you a question?

Dad: Sure son, what's the question?

Son: What is politics?

Dad: Well son, let's take our home for example. I am the wage earner, so let's call me the management. Your mother is the administrator of the money, so let's call her the government. We take care of you and your needs, so let's call you the people. We'll call the maid the working class and your baby brother the future. Understand?

Son: I'm not really sure dad, I'll have to think about it.

That night, the boy is awakened by his baby brother's crying, so he went to see what was wrong. Discovering that the baby had a heavily soiled nappy, the boy went to his parent's room and found his mother fast asleep. He than went to the maid's room, where, peeking through the keyhole, he saw his father in bed with the maid. The boy's knocking went totally unheard. The boy went back to his room and went to sleep.

The next morning...

Son: Dad, I think I understand politics.

Dad: That's great son, explain it to me in your own words.

Son: While the management is screwing the working class, the government is fast asleep, the people are being completely ignored and the future is full of shit.

---Whew! All that work just to post this---


-I am a Windows user
-I am also a f4g0rt
-All Windows users are f4g0rtz
-Bill Gates loves men
-Linux is the sux0rz
-BSD is dying
-Stephen King loved goatse.cx before he died
-75% of people in the US make up 3/4 of the US population
-Adolph Hitroll is my bitch
-RecipeTroll loves the cock too
-Natalie Portman is naked and petrified
-I poured hot gritz down my pants and all I got was this lousy T-shirt
-R.M.S. is a commie
-Linus Torvalds is keeping his brotha down. Free him!
-Looser = Loser and vice-versa. Stop complaining and learn New English
-Imagine a Beowulf cluster of trolls
-The CowboyNeal jokes are old
-X is unstable, let's get rid of it
-KDE is the sux0rz, GNOME rules
-Real men use TWM
-vi is better then emacs (no it's not, emacs is better than vi)=Tastes great/Less Filling
-Ford sucks
-Chevy sucks
-Capitalism is dying
-Linux on the desktop is dead
-IE won the browser war, give it up Mozilla. (No. The war's not over yet M$)
-MySQL is robust and scalable
-PostgreSQL is better than MySQL. Nyah!
-So you like your pages W I D E N E D?
-I 4m 1337. giv3 m3 w4r3z d00dz.
-w00t!
-In other news...
-1. Steal concept from open sores 2. ??? 3. Profit!!!
-RMS is a dirty hippie
-Moderation sucks
-UNIX will never be as secure as VMS
-GayPee is not a hacker, he's a dork
-General strike!! Now!!!!!!
-ESR is a homo
-Grok THIS you GIMP!
-Corporations are evil
-Corporations are good
-Quake is the sux0rz, give me Unreal Tourney! (You Canadian f4g0rt, UT sucks, Quake 0wnz j00)
-Canadians are gay
-Americans are stupid
-Brits are assholes
-For hot gulrz see: http://www.bakla.net

-~the fux0rz has spoken~-

getting all the pleasure I need from my wife.

Check this link: skeletons

It contains many of Gore's whoppers, including his hearing as a baby a labor union song lullaby that had not been invented yet. The Skeletons web site is non-partisan, it doesn't care what the party is when it comes to political liars. (Read their scathing sections on Bush, and on Saint Ralph)

Gore must be above the truth. Remember all the times he claimed to be above the law (no legal authority controls him)?

Ralph Nader - Skeleton Closet http://www.realchange.org/nader.htm Wake up and smell the Corporate Monarchy.
You are just a disposable commodity.

It's no coincidence that the Left always resorts to personal attacks, smear tactics, and "digging up dirt" on their political adversaries. They can't win any other way.

Three words: conservative talk radio.

<sarcasm>
I'm sure that such respectful, well-known conservative members of the media, such as Rush Limbaugh, have never stooped to character assassination. Why, it would be ridiculous to insinuate that their entire media empires are based off of namecalling and pigeonholing people into a nebulous, evil group known as "liberals" who can have their views safely dismissed as irrelevant for belonging to this group. They're just the nicest people who always stick to the issues and argue their points elloquently without rhetoric and blustering. In fact, they'd never stoop so low as to run comedy segments with people impersonating well-known Democrats and making fools of them.
</sarcasm>

Oh, and how about Attorney General John Ashcroft's character assassination attempts?

You know, it's surprising to hear a conservative willing to call GWB's drug experimentation in 1972 "alleged" when it's clearly on record and to dismiss it as unimportant since it happened so long ago. Where was all this sympathy for experimentation when Bill Clinton admitted to trying pot in the height of the hippie era? You didn't see much sympathy from Democrats about Bill Clinton's sexual misconduct, about the Whitewater affair, or about his pot comment. Republicans were howling for blood. Oh, but now that a Republican is in office, they seem pretty quiet about his lying under oath, his stock fraud, and his excessive seizure of private property for real estate profitteering.

What? You haven't heard about all this? Maybe the Left Wing just isn't as serious about muckraking as you say they are.

There's a difference between personal attacks and revealing that a person has a history of corruption and bad leadership. Facts are facts. His record clearly shows that he is not the man to be leading the war on drugs. This info's all out there. It took me only about 15 minutes with Altavista to find this information. If this is all so clearly out there, why isn't the vast "Left Wing Mudslinging Conspiracy" promoting it more, like the Republicans did with Clinton's shady record?

Your argument is false. Republican's have been far more prone to the use of lies and character assassination than Democrats for as far back as I can remember (the Reagan years).

Has he done some good for this country? Yes, but not as much as people would like to believe. Now most of what he does is use his consumer advocacy groups to amass wealth and power for hiimself. Did you realize that he has opposed and fought against such horrible things as whole milk, Volkswagen cars, fluorinated water, and the Elvis stamp!?! He routinely mistreats his own workers, and lies to cover his tracks at every corner.

So PLEASE will people stop supposrting this man and giving him more power that he certainly doesn't deserve.

For more info, PLEASE visit www.realchange.org/nader.htm. i didn't like nader much before I read the site, but after I read that page, even Pat Buchanan was higher on my list of politicians than Nader.

Well, aside from the usual comments, Nader is a posey wannabe greener.

As long as there are career politicians running the government they'll have a gimp to lobby to. Who it is won't really matter.

Sure it will. Check out this link. Bush is known for his big oil contributors, he will stop all forms of advancement in the alternative energy fuels when given the word of big oil. They say "jump" and Bush replies: "How fucking high?"

There was not only a grain of salt implicit in the fact that a 'major' figure was expressing political opinion, but there was an explicit salt-lick provided in the form of a disclaimer that this was:

1. a private missive
2. a first-draft, firewall-blowing escapade into the author's intemperate outrage surrounding what he felt was a miscommunication of the highest order
3. an opinion piece

I'm no fan of GWB (part of the 'Dick and Bush' party), or of Gore/Liebermann (the Tipper and 'censor Hollywood' party)
Note to those without a sense of humor: those statements are made with tongue lodged firmly in cheek.

There is only one solution: educate yourselves. Do not be fooled by the media. In an age such as this where there is simply too much information from too many sources to be gathered by ourselves; opinion and bias abound. Cross-corralate information, seek other sources, and seek to come up with your own opinion.

Lord knows you're not going to be happy with anyone else's.

I've used resources such as realchange.org in my own research.
My opinion will be expressed with many (fewer than should be) Americans on election day. Until then, pax.

But, this philosophy has maligned itself in the recent decades with misguided politics. The people we elected to promote these ideals have, themselves, become corrupt and self-serving.

This is the Green Party reasoning for voting Nader.

Clipper Chip - Designed to allow Law Enforcement to read encrypted transmissions through the Key Escrow Initiative. Failed miserably - thankfully.

Skipjack - Designed by the NSA for Clipper. It never received public review to determine if it was secure or contained any backdoors or trapdoors.

"The Greens in the European Parliament are accusing the big political parties in Parliament of obstructing the inquiry on Echelon."

How about failed promises --- HealthCare reform lead by Hillary Clinton. It failed miserably. As a result of this "reform", our Seniors are stuck in HMOs that provide worse benefits than they started off with. That issue has been raised again under the guise of Perscription Plan reform.

You hit the nail on the head. There was no reform passed. HMOs arose as a (non-health care) corporate backlash to the health care industry raising prices (profits) far faster than reason should allow. Rather than corporations and politicians, we should be listening to doctors and patients. Quoting from Nader's website: We find persuasive a plan based on the "Physicians' Proposal" for a national health program published by Physicians for a National Health Program in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1989, and their proposal for a national long-term care program published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1991."

A viable answer has existed for some time. Neither the Democrats, nor Republicans seem moved to change the status quo. Nadar's plan would increase coverage, not cost.

I'm not saying the Republicans are much better -- but they are are concerned more with building this country (and their wallets) rather than countries that really don't want us there. Tax breaks may help the rich, but lower taxes for everybody has got to be a good thing. And, if the wealthiest 1% are paying 34% of the taxes, then there is obviously something wrong with our tax structure...Don't you think?

For a perspective on income and fair taxation, take a look at The L-Curve. Check the numbers and draw your own conclusions.

Economic policies generally take 8-12 years to take effect. What boon we are experienced is because of the previous administrations policies. What we are experiencing now (i.e the slump in NASDAQ and DOW) is the result of Clinton/Gore politics. Don't believe me? Read your history.

{Huge grain of salt.} Does that mean the Eisenhower years can be credited to Roosevelt and Truman, the Carter years to Nixon, the latter Reagan years to Carter? I think we can agree there is more to economics than politics, and certainly more than any president can control by himself.

If you don't want to vote Republican, then at least vote for a party leader who knows the difference between right and wrong.

Again, I agree. As a natural cynic, I feel compelled to point out Skeleton Closet. And yes, Nader's there too.

Real Change has some interesting dirt on all of the candidates -- here's what they have on Nader:

Authoritarian hypocrite, secret luxury house, owned by the trial lawyers' lobby, just another politician, busted a union among his workers, abuses workers, amassing millions of dollars and playing the stock market with it, secrecy and stonewalling, vindictive toward critics, forced contributions to his college PIRG groups.

Ralph Nader's Skeleton Closet

Si

Real Change has some interesting dirt on all of the candidates -- here's what they have on Nader:

Authoritarian hypocrite, secret luxury house, owned by the trial lawyers' lobby, just another politician, busted a union among his workers, abuses workers, amassing millions of dollars and playing the stock market with it, secrecy and stonewalling, vindictive toward critics, forced contributions to his college PIRG groups.

Ralph Nader's Skeleton Closet

Si

• RealChange on NAder.
  
• Boston.com talks about campaign finance and mentions Ralph.
  
• And you can search at Salon, lots of Nader articles.
  

How about a dose of anti-Bush jr. propaganda.

--

USA citizens: If you weren't going to bother voting, (and i know that's most of you) vote Nader.

Hmmm...
You might want to read about Nader here if anyone out there was seriously considering that as an option.

Simon

Agreed, and here's another one to consider for attention. If I want dirt on a candidate, ANY candidate :^) it's where I go first.

Yes, they have a Gore section, but they don't spare anybody over at the Skeleton Closet. (I have nothing to do with them, I speak only for myself.)
JMR

Agreed, and here's another one to consider for attention. If I want dirt on a candidate, ANY candidate :^) it's where I go first.

Yes, they have a Gore section, but they don't spare anybody over at the Skeleton Closet. (I have nothing to do with them, I speak only for myself.)
JMR

I found some links to articles on this... Lycos News.. And also here. There was some discussion on Lycos' message boards. Then there is some info on one of the anti-Bush sites. He must not have succeeded. The most famous site is still up and now linked to a number of anti-bush sites.

A page of critical content: http://www.realchange.org/bushjr.htm

Also has some amusing quotes:
"There ought to be limits to freedom." (regarding freedom of speech for his critics, not Billy's "freedom to innovate")

I see your point about "xxxsucks" being a rather childish name, but the content is more important than the label. There's at least one well-researched universal "sucks" site ( The Skeleton Closet), and probably others.

He may be our asshole (and no worse than any other), but he's still an asshole. (See the Skeleton Closet for more info. I don't necessarily agree with them; they're just convenient.)

Chomsky's OK though (and he's right more often than we would want him to be).