White House: No Kerry Supporters at IATC Meeting

An anonymous reader writes "Time Magazine is reporting that the Bush Administration is removing U.S. delegates from the Inter-American Telephone Commission because they gave money to John Kerry in last year's election. A Bush spokesman admits it's true: 'We wanted people who would represent the Administration positively, and--call us nutty--it seemed like those who wanted to kick this Administration out of town last November would have some difficulty doing that,' says White House spokesman Trent Duffy. Employees of Qualcomm and Nokia are among those who have been removed from the commission."

Comments

Send in the Clones!

[ackthpt]

call us nutty

I'd rather call them transparently corrupt. How about a rubberstamp government, like those we lately seem to be suggesting oughta respect democratic principles, etc. (so long as they represent the right democratic principles, unlike all those heathen socialists in South America.)

I'm one of those old enough to remember quite a few of Richard M. Nixon's shenanigans and I'm absolutely amazed how much dirtier this administration is and profoundly disappointed that people just don't seem to care. Heck, if Nixon were still around he'd probably get a Presidential Medal of Freedom for spying on americans and his groundbreaking work on coverups. Small wonder Cheney's threatening to get tough with dems in the Senate, they see what's going on and the priorities of the administration.

On the way in this morning I heard a blurb about an upcoming film Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room and it got me thinking about what a hatchet job was done on California Governor Gray Davis (while I'm not a particularly huge fan of his) apparently to lay the foundation for a republican challenger to replace a disgraced democrat, while the Dept of Energy and the president sat on their hands.

Where is the sense of outrage? I dunno, pass me another beer.

Re:Send in the Clones!

[Anonymous Coward]

George Washington knew what he was talking about when he advised against political parties in his farewell address.

Re:Send in the Clones!

[Monkelectric]

I was a newborn when Nixon was doing his thing, but I have read my history. The difference between NIXON and Bush is that NIXON knew what he was doing was wrong. Bush seems to think anything he *CAN* do is fair. The republicans are drunk on power right now and are creating the circumstances from which the instrument of their downfall will arise -- corruption beyond imagination.

I am reminded of a famous investigator (whose name I've forgotten) who cracked the CIA selling drugs in LA thing in the 80s I think?. He said, "People get lazy when they think they are playing in a fixed game." And tahts what is happening here -- they aren't even BOTHERING to hide their corruption -- because they think nobody can do anything about it.

Re:Send in the Clones!

[cplusplus]

I'm one of those old enough to remember quite a few of Richard M. Nixon's shenanigans and I'm absolutely amazed how much dirtier this administration is and profoundly disappointed that people just don't seem to care.

People don't care because Dubya is known as "a good Christian man." I'm quoting a lady who actually told me not to badmouth him for that reason. I was completely floored by such blind faith in a fallable human. I guess most people aren't. Sad.

Re:Send in the Clones!

[MightyMartian]

Mod this one up! It's a goddamn pity that the United States has forgotten the brilliance of its Founding Fathers, and is rapidly turning into an even uglier pack of self-serving, corrupted aristocrats than those atrocious Whigs and Tories of 18th and early 19th century England. Washington only had to look across the Atlantic to see what Britain's early party system was doing there.

Re:Send in the Clones!

[bflong]

Well... lets come full circle, shall we? What happend the last time the people of north america felt like they were being oppressed by their government? Simple. They got their guns and took it out. That's what the 2nd amendment is for, remember?

"A well-regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

It's not there so people can protect their property from criminals. It's not there so we can all hunt with them. It's there so the citizens can protect themselves from their own oppressive government. Thats the last resort of our system of checks and balances.

Re:Send in the Clones!

[clean_stoner]

There's no room for dissent beyond the approved dissent

It seems to me that this is blatantly trampling on the basic right to support whichever candidate you choose. Once people start being punished by officials in any way for who they supported in the election then our society can no longer be considered free, as we no longer have the freedom to support a candidate without fear of repercussions from the winner should our candidate lose. This is the first step on the move to a one-party "democracy." It seems that the "approved dissent" as you put it has been reduced from choosing between Democrats and Republicans to choosing between Moderate and Conservative Republicans.

Got anything harder than beer?

Re:Send in the Clones!

[MrAnnoyanceToYou]

More the framework than either of those. Really, the problem seems to be one of scaling to me. (as a computer person) We've got a system that was designed to elegantly run with approximately 10^ 7 or 10^8 users, and we're at 10^9 users + now. Thus our processes are all scaling badly. We're having problems with overload on certain portions, and underwork in others. When you get a system as big and complex as ours is, and resources are no longer as abundant as they were in the beginning, management of the processes and rules aligning said system becomes much more complex. This would not be that much of a problem if we were training people to be effective at designing and managing infrastructure and then electing them to office based upon the criteria of, "How good are you at making our society work well." Instead our criteria are rather.... skewed. I don't give a damn whether someone was a crackhead when they were 25. Can they make good decisions? Generally, the answer is 'No, but they have a good face for focus groups.'

And if you really look at American politics, the only people willing to take the mudwar that is a modern campaign are the most driven and focused upon a single goal. This is not necessarily the best trait in a leader of 200 million people, let alone 'the free world,' a title our President has made obsolete.

I'm so angry at the way our politics work I can't even think about it.

Re:Send in the Clones!

[Adrilla]

Where is the sense of outrage? I dunno, pass me another beer.

I think one of the problems is that so many different groups are yelling about so many little things (prayer in school, janet jackson's nipple, peta, abortion, etc.) that they drown each other out. This makes them easily ignored since you can't answer all of their calls, so you needn't answer many of the calls at all. Especially one directed against the powers that be, they'll conveniently decide not to hear those calls that are being voiced against them. When protest really worked is when large groups screamed about few topics (Suffrage, Racial Inequality, the Vietnam War).

Now too many people are worried about their smaller causes that it's impossible for the "little people" to gather up a big enough roar, which leaves the big dogs to have all the say and bulldoze their way into having these ways that are considered blatantly corrupt.

Re:Send in the Clones!

[MrAnnoyanceToYou]

This was also in the time when we lacked a standing army. At this point, any militia is so badly outgunned that it would be a joke. If the National Guard got pissed off enough about Iraq they could..... lobby for more funding to start buying helmets so they could attempt to throw over the government.

Re:Send in the Clones!

[Anonymous Coward]

The economic crash thats coming to the US will sort the politics out. But it'll be painfull for the whole damn world, not just the US.

Re:Send in the Clones!

[snorklewacker]

It'd be nice if these supporters of the second amendment weren't also the same fellers who'd like to take up arms to return our country to the "traditional values" they espouse. Something makes me think that as an Educated Liberal Elite, I'd be one of the first against the wall in their happy little revolution, based on the typical rhetoric I usually hear coming out of the NRA.

Just another form of tyranny, really.

Re:Send in the Clones!

[2short]

Actually, I think that's exactly what they had in mind. They'd just done it a few years earlier, so they probably didn't consider armed rebellion to be automatically a bad thing. They didn't expect the government wouldn't try to stop an armed rebellion. They just wanted to ensure that if most of the citizens were part of an armed rebellion, the government wouldn't be able to stop them.
I beleive they realized that military power ultimately trumps any other kind. That the only way to garauntee the government would not become opressive was to ensure that ordinary citizens, if they acted collectively, would be the dominant military force in the country. In their day, that could be acheived (and was, by them a few years earlier) so long as those citizens had access to weapons.
These days, citizens can not become the dominant military force in the country. Unless we have the right to bear nuclear weapons. Which the second ammendment pretty clearly grants. If I'm part of a well regulated militia, my right to bear arms shall not be infringed. Saying, yes, but not those arms is obvuiously infringing. Since that would obviously be insane, we've engaged in all sorts of legal contortions to reduce the second to more sane levels. It would make much more sense to amend the constitution to drop the second, and admit that we have lost that garauntee against oppressive government, so we'd better pay attention. But the Bill of Rights has atained such a sacrosanct status, that that will never happen. So the NRA will keep playing their stupid game of opposing all gun regulation, no matter how sensible in the guise of defending our constitutional right to bear arms. And no politician is going to commit the heresy of admiting that the rights the founders intended to grant in the second amendment are already gone, and nobody sane would want them to still be around anyway.

Re:Send in the Clones!

[Anonymous Coward]

I think he'd actually be pleasantly surprised at how long America has gone without a revolution.

He'd be horrified.

Re:Send in the Clones!

[Rimbo]

"I think he'd actually be pleasantly surprised at how long America has gone without a revolution."

Now, you are taking into account that little event that happened sometime in the mid-to-late 1800's, aren't you?

Re:Send in the Clones!

[Anonymous Coward]

An intelligent analysis. Rare enough on Slashdot, but I have to respectfully disagree.

I think if 100 million Americans, armed with guns, ever decided to revolt, lack of nuclear weapons and tanks wouldn't particularly matter.

So the 2nd Amendment still matters, even though the points you make are very valid.

Re:Send in the Clones!

[demaria]

It has been shown throughout history that a weaker force can win and overthrow a dominating military power. The American revolution itself was a ragged bunch of men and women fighting against the strongest army and navy in the world. If the US has an armed rebellion again, you're making the faulty assumption that the entire US military would willingly turn on its own countrymen.

Re:Send in the Clones!

[maxpublic]

If you think the whole of the U.S. army would slaughter American citizens without question then you are a fool. If you're willing to entrust your liberty to the kind-heartedness of the people already in power then you're a damned fool.

Just don't damn the rest of us along with you.

Max

Re:Send in the Clones!

[tota]

Although I agree with the parent statement (political parties do not help democracy),
we tend to forget that some of these same Founding Fathers had slaves. Just because they were quite clued up for their time, does not mean that everything they ever said or done was perfect and does not need to evolve with time..

My point is that we should look ahead, not fall back on the bible or the founding fathers everytime something difficult comes up.

"Twelve owned or managed slave-operated plantations or large farms:..."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Founding_ Fathers_of_t he_United_States

Re:Send in the Clones!

[learn fast]

Who would we kill? The people who voted for the other guy?

In America, we aren't oppressed by people using force of arms. We are oppressed by people skilled in manipulating other people. Well, what are you going to do, kill them? They've got a lot of people willing to defend them.

Re:Send in the Clones!

[Anonymous Coward]

People don't care because Dubya is known as "a good Christian man."

The way I see it, Bush is to Christians what Hitler is to Germans.

In the short term Hitler made a lot of simple-minded Germans believe that they were somehow better than everyone else and that being better entitled them to order everyone else around.

In the long term Hitler has been a source of major embarrassment to all but the most brain dead Germans.

Re:Send in the Clones!

[SubtleNuance]

Its an even greater goddamn pitty that American's believe that the brilliance of its founding fathers is the soul province of its founding fathers.

it is not a secret that american founding fathers were implementing theory and practice by french and english thinkers.

an even greater pity is american's disengagment from constructive political discourse. instead of deciding a future, you have enshrined your past leaders as gods in your cult-of-america religion.

stop daydreaming about manifest destiney and inherent infallability and look around you. your 'democracy' is a fucking laughable shambles.

corrupt dosnt begin to describe your problems.

Re:Send in the Clones!

[smagruder]

If a movie would be made about the current state of the U.S. economy, where we're becoming consumers instead of producers, running up huge debts, and shipping high-end white-collar and tech jobs overseas, it would be called Something's Gotta Give.

Re:Send in the Clones!

[MightyMartian]

Jefferson's republic didn't survive the Civil War.

Re:Send in the Clones!

[saltydogdesign]

a) Any revolution as widespread as you describe wouldn't need weapons to achieve success. 1/3 of the population is more than voted for George Bush.

b) If you honestly think that a guerrilla army of 5 million could form in the United States without drawing the attention of the government, you're an idiot. Assuming, of course, that it didn't form overnight, a la "Red Dawn." and if you assume that, you're worse than an idiot -- you're Patrick Swayze.

c) You throw around phrases like "well-funded guerrilla army," but that has nothing to do with the 2nd amendment. If you've got the funds for a guerrilla army capable of fighting inside the United States, the lack of 2nd amendment protections would hardly be a hindrance.

I'm not a hardliner when it comes to the 2nd amendment. I think there are plenty of good reasons for bearing arms, and I don't care to see it circumscribed.

The notion, however, that it can be defended on the grounds that we might have to resort to bloody revolution is just patently ridiculous. As long as America remains a democracy, the power of a large, well-organized political force is enough. If it ceases to be a democracy, you damn well better count on fighting the U.S. Armed Forces, and no ragtag Idaho militia is going to go toe-to-toe with even one company of regular troops.

Simply having weapons doesn't give anyone the moral authority to use them. That's why we call Timothy McVeigh a nut instead of a revolutionary.

Re:Send in the Clones!

[danheskett]

As long as America remains a democracy, the power of a large, well-organized political force is enough. If it ceases to be a democracy, you damn well better count on fighting the U.S. Armed Forces, and no ragtag Idaho militia is going to go toe-to-toe with even one company of regular troops.
Yes, of course it can go toe to toe! That's the whole point of guerilla fighting. A company, let's say a full company, of what, 10,000 troops? Against a guerilla army of 1,000,000? Of 500,000? Of even 50,000? Or even 5,000?

You throw around phrases like "well-funded guerrilla army," but that has nothing to do with the 2nd amendment. If you've got the funds for a guerrilla army capable of fighting inside the United States, the lack of 2nd amendment protections would hardly be a hindrance.
Well funded is crucial. Not for arms! But for other supplies. Food. Shelter. Transport. Bribery. The second amendment is more important because it establishes gun ownership as a right. Meaning, members of the militia can blend into the regular populace. In other nations undergoing violent revolt, gun ownership = rebel and/or death. In a US revolution, the availability of guns to all citizens provides something most rebels will kill for: plausible deniability. That is, truly, essential. Rebels have to blend back and forth into the general population at will. An outright ban on arms will make that, largely, impossible.

Any revolution as widespread as you describe wouldn't need weapons to achieve success. 1/3 of the population is more than voted for George Bush.
There may be a time when voting for president isn't pacification enough. I don't endore armed revolt, however, if you objectively analyze the difference between any of the two candidates who may win presidenacy, you will see that on a point by point basis, they are virtually identical. The variances they have are in degrees of gray. One supports this policy, this one supports it only tepidly. This one supports that status quo, this one only a bit more. Fundamentally, they are very similiar. On the big issues, there is a bi-partisan consensus. If, at some point in the future, this consensus runs contrary to what the people really need or want, watch out. Example: fiscal policy. The US fiscal policy is deeply, deeply anti-democratic. Just when things look like it may crash big and hard, a fix is found. In the most recent cycle of boom/bust, the answer was cheap money. Low intrest rates took capital out of hiding and spread it around. In the early days of the country, inflation ran wild, and there were very serious signs of a major revolution against the early American government. Foreclosure of mortgages was the cause. Something like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac collapsing would be (1) more than any bailout could fix and (2) likely to affect about 50% of all home owners. More info: link, link, link.

b) If you honestly think that a guerrilla army of 5 million could form in the United States without drawing the attention of the government, you're an idiot. Assuming, of course, that it didn't form overnight, a la "Red Dawn." and if you assume that, you're worse than an idiot -- you're Patrick Swayze.
I am not an idiot. A militia of that size could form, and would be legal! That's why the second amendment is important. This army could form publically, advertise, cache arms/supplies and train. They could hold induction drives, and do just about anything the army can do. That's the great thing about the 2nd amendment. Sure, the FBI/whoever will infilitrate it. But if the unrest is real, a militia will form, and the government will uake with terror. At a time when the middle-east was white hot, yet, Clinton and the DOJ declared that anti-government right-wing militias were the #1 threat to the US. Depending on acco

Re:Send in the Clones!

[soft_guy]

That's a great quote. Unfortunately, most americans think it reads: "My country, right or wrong" and they stop there thinking it means "My country is always right and can do no wrong."

Re:Send in the Clones!

[saltydogdesign]

This is such a fantasy I don't even know where to begin. Rebels in various industries? Kill a few high profile Congress people? A general strike? Who is going to set all this up? The Antichrist?

This isn't even an argument. It's a film script. Your numbers are just pulled out of thin air (here's a hint for you: a company is not even in the vicinity of 10,000 troops). What history of armed revolt within democratic nations do you have to draw on? Even stipulating (which I will gladly do) that the U.S. is not as democratic as it used to be, where does any of this lunacy come from other than your own mind?

Your so-called "tactical plan" reads like one of those /. joke business plans: 1) Eat a lot of donuts, 2) ???, 3) Profit! I mean, really, "Destroy civilian participation in government." Just like that, huh? An established army of insurgents with military training hasn't been able to do that in lawless Iraq, and you dash it off like it's comparable to going to the store and buying a loaf of bread.

And citing a colonial revolution against a monarchy on the other side of the ocean 200 years ago as a precedent for the ridiculous scenario you paint here... really, it makes me wonder why I am still participating in this thread. I have real work to do.

I'm not going to say anything about the logistics or administration of your 5,000,000 man army (that would be one of the largest armies currently on Earth). I'm not even going to argue with the blatant falsehoods that inform your thinking (though I will point out that neither Clinton nor the DOJ ever said any such thing). But I will say this: Politcal power has very little to do with guns, and if you don't understand the significance of the popular support of 1/3 of the people of this country in any terms other than Democrat vs. Republican (or in terms of how many people they can shoot), well, you need to branch out your reading list somewhat.

Re:Send in the Clones!

[L.Bob.Rife]

The government -- the armed forces -- have the ability to mobilize so quickly and so efficiently that any significant, gathered attempt to resist could be quashed with incredible speed.

Which is exactly the reason why armed resistance was crushed so quickly and thoroughly in Iraq and no longer exists.

Re:Send in the Clones!

[not-enough-info]

#The first time the rebels went to an army town and took out a couple dozen military family homes the army would crumble faster than you can imagine. Collateral damage is supposed to be for the enemy, not for the soliders families.

# The first time the soliders bank accounts went into overdraw because payroll is disrupted and/or checks bounce the ranks would be decimated. Both from financial constraints and from morale issues.

I can't speak for the army, but as a former US Marine, I can tell you that there is no quicker way to get yourself annihilated. Killing families is just going to incite anger. Marines fight for Marines, no one else. I imagine soldiers are similar.

Disrupt paychecks? FYI, paychecks for junior grade servicemembers are for booze, hookers, and playstation games. All you are going to get is a lot of pissed off men with rifles. How about instead you try to disrupt the logistics train; oh wait, that'd take a hell of a lot more effort.

# The first time a unit is actually ordered and purposefully told to attack a rioting/rebellious crowd. Nothing kills morale more than taking out the people you are sworn to protect - not by accident, or lack of training, but by explicit command. All the laws and procedures setup now would be chucked out the window in a full style reveloutionary counter-action. Picking sides will halve, or quarter, the ranks.

You might have something with this. US Servicemembers are men (and women) of honor. However, It'd have to escalate quite a bit before lethal force would be required. Actually, faced with the situation I'd find it rather funny watching the crowd on their asses in super-slime engulfed in CS gas. Where's your gas mask?

The problem with your analysis is that you define a soldier as a version of you with a rifle. This is not the case. Today's military is an all volunteer force. Men and women take the titles of Soldier, Sailor, Airman, and Marine because they are motivated to action. You're not dealing with conscripts or mercenaries.

To quote my Drill Instructor from boot camp, "The Marine Corps is a dictatorship designed to defend a democracy." Even in today's connected world, a military is a military. Servicemembers have a drastically different set of social obligations than the average citizen. Don't underestimate the mind-control, those helmets aren't made of tinfoil.

Re:Send in the Clones!

[Anonymous Coward]

It isn't that bad for you. A lot of you yanks seem totally oblivious to the horrors that has been perpetrated in your name the last hundred years or so.

Every time there has been hope for the poor and opressed in South America, the US have moved swiftly and propped up some pro-capitalist, pro-genocide dictator or other. Any democratically elected socialist that dared to work for their people instead of US corporate interests have either got a bullet in their head or been violently overthrown by US aided guerillas. So much for 'spreading democracy and freedom'.

The US really is that bad. And that's just South America. And you whiners run around screaming "They hate us for our freedom". You are a bunch of brainwashed fucking morons, and so were your parents and obviously their parents. Did you ever wonder why no serious school of philosophy ever came from the US? Oh, unless you want to count objectivism or pragmatism.. That's the laughable intellectual output of the "greatest nation on earth" the last two hundred years. Unlike engineering advances, philosophical advances isn't fuelled by wanton materialism and egoism. Oh, I forgot.. that's the foundation for 'objectivism'.

Your country had one thing going for it. It was founded on some of the best ideas to come out of the enlightenment. Too bad not a single yank since then has had the capacity for anything but extreme egoism and profound ignorance. The US is the single largest source of despair and human suffering in the world right now, and you stupid fucks are proud of it?

Re:Send in the Clones!

[VdG]

The problem we're seeing in the UK general Election at the moment is that parties become more and more similar not as a result of acheiving power but as a MEANS of acheiving power.

The Labour and Conservative parties are almost indistinguishable. Their campaigns struggle and generally fail to highlight any significant differences between them. Even the Liberal Democrats - our third party: not to be confused with US Liberals and/or Democrats - are falling into step.

The three main parties - just like your Republicans and Democrats - are using sophisticated databases to identify floating voters, (by name!), and those are the ONLY voters they're targetting. It's inevitable that they end up sounding the same because they're all targeting the same people.

There's an argument that you've got to be in power in order to do anything, so taking whatever steps are necessary to get elected is legitimate. But if you're only going to end up the same as the other parties what's the point?

Re:Send in the Clones!

[Saint Fnordius]

Number One has never worked like that. Please get this into your head: nevernevernever. Strategic Bombing against civilian targets only incites revenge and makes it easier for the opponent to wrap themselves in "victim's sanctity". See Sherman's March to the Sea, Gettysburg, Battle of Britain, Dresden...

Attacking a soldier's pay isn't going to have the desired effect either, since most soldiers are going to beleive that the pay thing will get straightened out eventually.

Your last point is valid, but admittedly untested. Most likely when ordered to shoot, most will deliberately aim low (aiming high means the bullet comes down somewhere else), but the panic that the shots create will be the real cause of bloodbath. Consider also the example of Tianmen Square and Kent State. In a prolonged conflict you may see mass desertion, but before that a lot of innocents will be killed.

Armed revolution is messy, barbaric, and causes years of trauma. Do not dupe yourself into thinking that it can be easy.

Re:Send in the Clones!

[crawling_chaos]

Unless said person wasn't white or lacked a penis, at which point they were considered "property." Oh, and to vote in most states you had to be wealthy enough to pay the poll tax, which means poor folks didn't have a say in who represented them either. Not to mention that Senators were appointed, not elected. You might try actually studying the men and their times, rather than the hagiographic portrayals that we tend to get in school. They accomplished many great things, but they were fully as venal and self-centered as most politicians today. They were just smart enough to recognize that, and to create a system that assumed its participants would be self-centered and venal.

The real problem with today's Republican Party is that they have stopped recognizing that very fact and claim moral superiority. They find themselves frustrated by the checks and balances erected in the system to prevent the power-hungry from accomplishing too much and wish to rip out the foundations of government that have served this country well for centuries. That ain't conservative, folks. It's as radical as Stalin or Robebspierre and will lead inevitably to the same result.

Re:Send in the Clones!

[Anonymous Coward]

After over 1,000 replies, Everthing above and below this comment is off-topic. Most of it is bashing of the current political party rather than talking about the subject at hand. Is it any wonder they blocked them out? Good call I say. Stop the whining...sheesh. 1 Democrat in 25 years should tell you something about what the people really want yet all we hear on the media and on here is whining by the other party. 95% of everything whined about or blamed on Bush isn't even his call (take Howard Stern for example blaming FCC coming down on him on Bush...hahaha!).

Re:Send in the Clones!

[Anonymous Coward]

"your 'democracy' is a fucking laughable shambles."

It's also not now, nor ever was, a democracy. The part where you vote is democracy-like, but our goernment is really an attempt to take the three basic kinds of government that were known to work at the time, and blanace them against each other so the worst effects of any one would be offset by the other two: dictatorship (executive), oligarchy (judicial), and republic (representative).

While the relative power of one or the other branch has waxed or wained depending on circumstance, it hasn't changed drastically. What we've seen lately is ideologues taking over the electoral base, and thus taking over over all the branches of government. Some might attribute this to government propaganda (i.e., using columnists and media personalities as paid shills, amongst other things), but the simple fact is that the people got the government they voted for.

If you don't like that, the solution is to fix the voting public. Other solutions won't work.

Re:Send in the Clones!

[Elshar]

Time to turn off the sigs, dude. You didn't get enough of the free sigs already?

And, who cares about their sig? Its some dumbass half-whit line they probably yanked from some hilariously funny webpage. Just let it go.

Is anyone surprised by this? Anyone?

[Skyshadow]

This just in: Bush Jr. engages in petty retribution. Film at 11.

Seriously, these are the same folks who were willing to commit an act of treason to get back at someone who dared speak the truth concerning the blatent lies the President used to lead us into this mess in Iraq. Why should anything these people do surprise us anymore?

Everyplace you look in Bush's record, you'll see a constant pattern of lies, deception, stupidity, selfishness and tribalism. Bush Jr. has never, ever been about what's best for the United States or its people. Americans will be paying for this particular mistake for decades to come -- anyone who thinks that the seeds of anti-Americanism and economic ruin that these arrogant, short-sighted little men have planted won't come back to haunt us is a fool.

Re:Is anyone surprised by this? Anyone?

[cryptoluddite]

Americans will be paying for this particular mistake for decades to come

Well duh. Bush failed at absolutely everything he did until his 40's when his father became president; I don't consider winning the fraternaty bong contest a glowing success, although some might. Then he accepted gifts and help from people wanting to get close to his dad. So why on earth would anybody think a failure until age 40 and drug addict would do well as president? I guess if you want a figurehead who's easy to manipulate he might be a good choice.

And now look where the country is: the military can't even recruit poor blacks anymore, the deficit and debt are at ridiculously high levels, the world hates us, gas is expensive (partially due to less oil as a result of the iraq war), the constitution is ripped all the hell, the schools are failing mostly because of "no child left behind." And maybe our very democracy is at the brink of failure.

It's totally predictable based on the man's track record -- I mean jesus christ if you have a visa or family overseas then get out while you have a chance.

Shock and Bah

[American AC in Paris]

How can this come as a surprise to anybody even remotely attuned to American politics? How does this differ from how they've been running everything else?

The current administration values loyalty over all else.
The current administration brooks no dissent.
The current administration carefully scripts, stages and choreographs virtually every major public event.
The current administration is unwavering in their conviction and utterly unapologetic for their actions.

This is par for the course, folks. If you want a seat at the table, you're going to toe the line, period.

Re:Shock and Bah

[Locke2005]

This thread must be finished, 'cause it sure sounds like you're describing Nazi Germany to me...

Re:Shock and Bah

[gnuman99]

• The current administration values loyalty over all else.
• The current administration brooks no dissent.
• The current administration carefully scripts, stages and choreographs virtually every major public event.
• The current administration is unwavering in their conviction and utterly unapologetic for their actions

I *will* be modded as troll, flaimbait or whatever, but there are other governments that fit this criteria,

• Nazis
• Stalin and other "communists" (see China or North Korea)
• Iran's Theocracy
• Saddam's gov't in Iraq.

All of these were/are totalitarian regimes. How is it that in US people still call their goventment a "democracy"? I mean, if there is no dissent, there is no democracy. Period.

And now rebublicans want to change rules because a handful of judges (less than 1 or 2% percent of appointments made by Bush) are not getting though the senate!! Over the last two or three decades, there were over 30 judges filibustered/vetoed, 80% by the republicans...

But, I guess, as long as Americans can have their assult rifles for "home protection" they will be happy....

Re:Shock and Bah

[Anonymous Coward]

> > The current administration carefully scripts, stages and choreographs virtually every major public event.

> So? The former administration wrote the book on this one. Wouldn't you agree it would be foolish not to do this?

You're wrong. The former administration did not do this. Bush rallies required a loyalty pledge to attend. As far as I know, that has never before happened in American politics.

> Unwavering conviction is called integrity, and being unapologetic coincides with firm belief in your cause.

Unwavering conviction in maintaining your promises and values is called integrity.

Unwavering conviction that you made exactly the right decisions at every time past is called failing to learn from your mistakes and being dissociated from reality.

See the difference?

Re:Shock and Bah

[Andrew Cady]

How can this come as a surprise to anybody even remotely attuned to American politics? How does this differ from how they've been running everything else?

While this is not unique in its anti-democratic character, it is certainly a new tactic, and one that could be very potent.

A successful GOP strategy of discouraging corporate funding for the Democrats would be sufficient to keep them out of the White House perpetually.

This is also novel because it quite clearly proves that the ACLU right about the abuse potential of the new campaign finance reforms. (I never really believed them myself until now).

Re:Shock and Bah

[NatteringNabob]

>The current administration carefully scripts, stages and choreographs virtually every major public event. This is the one that bothers me more than anything else when coupled with the fact that virtually every single major news media reports these events as if they were newsworthy and actually meant something instead of presenting for what they are: propaganda events. I'll lose points for making a comparison to Nazi's, but if there is a difference between Bush's Town Meetings with the screened, sympathetic, demographically correct audience lobbing scripted (or pre-screened) softball questions, and Joseph Goebel's use of 'ordinary citizens' to wander through the crowd muttering 'He's right, you know', I can't see what it is. The technology is more impressive, but the objective is the same; to persuade the voters that if they believe something other than what the Bush Administration is selling, they (the dissenters) must be deluded. I would dearly love for the US to adopt the British tradition (or is it law?) and have the President come to Congress once a week and have to defend his administration under hostile questioning. Whatever you think about Tony Blair, it is obvious that he is clever, well informed, and articulate. GWB wouldn't last through one such grilling without his army of handlers, flacks, speech writers, and PR consultants. The fact of the matter is that to survive, the Bushites have to eliminate all dissenting voices. It is an administartion where virtually all policy is based on 'big lies' some of which are so grotesque that they can only survive with continual repetition and perfect mimicry. Fortunately, they have a slavish media to dote on their every word.

Re:Shock and Bah

[mrbrown1602]

All of those totalitarian regimes didn't allow ANY dissent, didn't allow any other parties (the only legal political party in the Soviet Union was the Communist Party!), and seeing as how the President makes appointments to the executive branch, and seeing as how this commission is made up of appointees from the executive branch, why would any President in his/her right mind appoint somebody that didn't represent their views? The legislative branch is still entact, and still has representation from the Democratic party, which isn't outlawed, and couldn't be outlawed.

And as for the judges, internal polling suggests that only 34% of Senate Republicans support the "nuclear option". That's not exactly a majority, eh?

Re:Shock and Bah

[jafac]

How is it that in US people still call their goventment a "democracy"?

They don't.
They call it a "republic". Or sometimes, a "democratic-republic".

But, I guess, as long as Americans can have their assult rifles for "home protection" they will be happy....

I think it's not just the gun-nuts who will be needing them soon.

Re:Shock and Bah

[DeltaSigma]

"... why would any President in his/her right mind appoint somebody that didn't represent their views?

Well, maybe if the President wished to fulfill their role as servant to, and representative of, the American people. In that case, you'd kind of want your appointees to represent the varied opinions of the American people. But what do I know?

Re:Shock and Bah

[Halo-]

Rather than burn a mod point, I'm going to respond to your comment.

...why would any President in his/her right mind appoint somebody that didn't represent their views?

And what views does the President have on signalling protocols? Do you honestly think the things discussed at these meetings have anything to do with Republican or Democratic views? Do you really think Bush (or Kerry) could even follow the discussion, much less have meaningful views?

If you're doing something scientific, you don't kick the best scientists out because they voted for the wrong party. That sort of action is counterproductive and shortsighted. (And I'll remind you a lot of our best scientists, such as lot of the brains in WWII became "ours" because their countries acted similiarly)

All of those totalitarian regimes didn't allow ANY dissent, didn't allow any other parties (the only legal political party in the Soviet Union was the Communist Party!)

Well gee, I guess since we don't flat out outlaw a party, we're okay then. I mean, it's not like there is a slippery slope here... Maybe we should let all the soldiers who voted for Kerry go home because they voted wrong.

Winning an election means you get the office, it doesn't mean you get to piss all over the losers. Bush won the election by a narrow margin. Good for him, but now he is in charge of representing the best interests of the entire country, not just the people that voted for him. No other president has been so petty, so vindictive. Anyone who wants the title of President of the United States of America needs to put aside this sort of childish crap.

Re:Shock and Bah

[elbobo]

Totalitarian regimes usually get to power with the peoples' approval. What you're seeing in the US is par for course for the introduction of totalitarianism. Hilter was democratically elected, communism in Russia and China was brought about by peoples' revolutions.

But sure, Bush isn't likely to cancel elections and claim America no longer a democracy, so the stupidity only need go on until the next election.

What next?

[lordkuri]

Ya know... I don't get into political stuff much, but this shit has. got. to. stop.

It really *does* seem as if we're becoming more Facist every day (look it up, it's not a troll)

Re:What next?

[linguae]

Flamebait? Troll? No, the parent post is really serious.

Wikipedia defines fascism as "exalts nation and sometimes race above the individual, uses violence and modern techniques of propaganda and censorship to forcibly suppress political opposition, engages in severe economic and social regimentation, engages in corporatism, implements totalitarianism"

So far, over the last so many decades (no, this didn't start out with Bush), I noticed that the country:

1. is using "patriotism" and buzzwords such as "anti-terrorism" in order to pass restrictive laws (such as the PATRIOT Act)
2. uses propaganda in order to get the people to comply to such legislation
3. favors corporations over its citizens (look at the DMCA, the copyright extension acts, our patent laws, etc.)
4. implements a light form of totalitarianism (in various forms ranging from anti-"violent" video game, anti-gay marriage and anti-abortion laws passed in some locales to the PATRIOT Act)

Not all of the features of fascism are getting implemented, but I do notice that this place seems to be getting more and more like an Orwellian novel every coming year. I'm kind of getting a bit scared here.

Re:What next?

[Temporal]

The problem is that he is using his powers not to help the country, but to punish his opponents. This telecommunications conference has nothing to do with partisan politics. His actions make no sense in that respect. It seems much more like he is trying to punish people who donated to Kerry's campaign, perhaps in an effort to scare them away from donating in the future.

Simply put, it is NOT OK to punish people based on their political donations.

Re:What next?

[Boronx]

There hasn't been much violence (directed inward, at least), but the nose of the Camel in that regard was the "spontaneus" riot that stopped a recount in one Florida county in 2000. Turns out the rioters were all GOP staffers and the riot was planned.

In other words, light-weight brownshirts.

Re:What next?

[HappyDrgn]

Now, I may be labeled Troll/Flamebait for this... It's wonderful to see some, however few, realizing the bigger picture. The loss of freedoms to the American people certainly crosses party lines over the course of decades, and I'm not going to let Bush take sole credit. Republicans and Democrats are responsible for the slow deterioration of our freedoms, furthermore *we the people* are also responsible out of our own inaction. Our society *is* becoming more Orwellian, and has been moving that direction for some time. This is not new. In fact it was expected to come by our founding fathers.

I'm kind of getting a bit scared here.

I think you win the understatement of the year award, or at least get runner up. I've got another few decades in my life, I wonder what liberties I'll have left?

Re:What next?

[pudge]

Wikipedia defines fascism as "exalts nation and sometimes race above the individual, uses violence and modern techniques of propaganda and censorship to forcibly suppress political opposition, engages in severe economic and social regimentation, engages in corporatism, implements totalitarianism"

First, I thought the GOP sucked because they put the individual over the group? Make up your mind!

Second, no political opposition is being forcibly suppressed. There is no evidence of this whatsoever.

Third, wtf does "engages in severe economic and social regimentation" mean? Certainly not what the actual words mean, because "regimentation" simple means systematic, order, and "severe economic and social order" doesn't have any serious meaning.

Fourth, corporatism is an element of fascism? Only in the same sense breathing is, unless you're a communist.

Fifth, in no sense is the U.S. remotely totalitarian, unless, similarly to point four, you're an anarchist.

Last, using a Wikipedia definition to prove your point means you automatically lose. Not that you had a chance to win with this stupid argument in the first place. Come on, being against gay marriage is totalitarian? That's taking neither marriage nor totalitarianism silly.

I have a suggestion: go to meet some political prisoners in Cuba and tell them that America is fascist and totalitarian because they disallow gay marriage. Go ahead.

I do notice that this place seems to be getting more and more like an Orwellian novel every coming year. I'm kind of getting a bit scared here.

I submit that if you actually read and understood Orwell, you'd have a much more realistic perspective, and be a lot less scared.

Biting the hand that feeds

[Vicissidude]

Sounds like Nokia isn't putting up with this. Their VP is totally correct- an international meeting on telecom is not a partisan matter.

Bush is biting the hand that feeds him and the Republican party. He will change his mind once the telecom companies start threatening to close their pocketbooks. If not, this will only help the Democrats in the future.

Re:Biting the hand that feeds

[Total_Wimp]

Quite correct -- essentially what the Bush adminstration is telling these telecom companies is that they won't be allowed to send a representative to a conference UNTIL there is a Democratic president!

Well, that's one way of putting it. Another way would be, "essentiall what the Bush administtration is telling these telecom companies is that they won't be allowed to send a representative to a conference UNTIL they stop giving money to Democrats and start giving money to Republicans!"

See, they don't have to wait at all. Everything's right with the world. If you donate money to the right party then you are able to participate in designing the telecommunications infrastructure. Or, to put it even more precisely, people who don't give money to Republicans put any chance of participating in government at risk. Darn, I still haven't got it right. How about this: "Legaly bribe your elected officials and you get to play. Everyone else goes home." Yeah, that's about right.

TW

The sad part is...

[Anonymous Coward]

this isn't even surprising.

Re:Anyone going to tell me....

[1010011010]

He would have had the FBI investigate them first, if he behaved like the last Democratic-Party president.

Re:Anyone going to tell me....

[TykeClone]

No - but they would have said that it was Kerry sticking it to those evil campaign-contributing corporations.

It's the president's prerogative

[hanshotfirst]

He didn't keep on Clinton's cabinet members when he was first elected either. He's not appointing any judges that fundamentally disagree with him. Before you rant on in the lastest bash-Bush thread, ask yourself honestly: is this any different?

Would Kerry have kept Bush supporters on the same panel? I have to think not likely.

Re:I'm not up on US politics

[antifoidulus]

It's not really all that new, but this is on a scale that I haven't witnessed firsthand before. I mean you cannot tell me straight faced that Clinton didn't make any politically motivated appointments, but he stuck to mainly well political offices. The people removed in this case were clearly experts in the field and their knowledge and experience could have actually helped the committee make useful decisions instead of the usual monkey at a dartboard ones they will inevitably end up making.....

In other news . . .

[Thunderstruck]

The Cardinals reject non-Catholic candidates for the Papacy.

Consider the alternative - Send people who dislike the president out to do diplomatic work? Remember the media fiasco when Powell and President Bush merely made conflicting statements? It is simply not a good idea to look divided on issues when speaking on the international stage.

Re:In other news . . .

[OWJones]

Consider the alternative - Send people who dislike the president out to do diplomatic work?

Or you could just send the best people to do the job.

Remember the media fiasco when Powell and President Bush merely made conflicting statements?

Yes, because they were discussing whether or not the country was going to !@$@!# go to war!

It is simply not a good idea to look divided on issues when speaking on the international stage.

From the article:

The Inter-American Telecommunication Commission meets three times a year in various cities across the Americas to discuss such dry but important issues as telecommunications standards and spectrum regulations.
[...]
One nixed participant, who has been to many of these telecom meetings and who wants to remain anonymous, gave just $250 to the Democratic Party.

Yes, because if you give a paltry $250 to a Presidential campaign, you're going to create an international fiasco when you say that VoIP should have access to traditional 911 systems, or something like that. The President isn't going to be making any pronouncements from on high about these issues, so let's not get all breathless.

Let's call this for what it is: an administration that values loyalty first and actual job performance second, and has the time and energy to be really childish and petty about the issue.

Another word for that? "Pathetic"

-jdm

Re:In other news . . .

[Mr.Progressive]

You can't seriously be suggesting that organized religion and political government should work the same way. The two ought to work differently. The former is based on dogma; the latter, ideally, on reasoned dissent. And I would think this would apply at all levels.

Re:In other news . . .

[Vellmont]

So the president needs to have people that support his administration at every level of governement, no matter how non-partisan it is? Your comparisons to Powell and the Pope are ridiculous. Is Bush so paranoid and partisan that he believes that the inter-operability of networks is a neo-con issue?

I thought Bush was a uniter, not a divider. If he can't even let a few people who didn't support him into something as esoteric as radio communications, then this man doesn't understand what it means to be a leader at all.

Re:In other news . . .

[AK Marc]

The Cardinals reject non-Catholic candidates for the Papacy.

Do they go back and excommunicate all the Cardinals who did not vote for the winning Pope? If so, then you'd have an analogy.

RTFA

[Andrew Cady]

The State Department has traditionally put together a list of industry representatives for these meetings, and anyone in the U.S. telecom industry who had the requisite expertise and wanted to go was generally given a slot, say past participants. Only after the start of Bush's second term did a political litmus test emerge, industry sources say.

Re:Anyone going to tell me....

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe he would have, maybe he wouldn't have - we can't know. Even if Kerry would have had the entire IATC lined up and shot, it hardly makes this administration's actions okay.

Re:I'm not up on US politics

[MillionthMonkey]

I'm not up on US politics, is this a usual thing done by most parties when in government or is this something strange?

Yes, this is a very strange thing to be happening in the United States.

It is a direct violation of the First Amendment, as it seeks to punish individuals in their professions in a direct retaliation for participating in a political process.

This will lead directly to employers checking your history of political donations before they hire you. If you can't attend telecom standards meetings, we'll just hire someone who can.

Re:Anyone going to tell me....

[American AC in Paris]

Anyone going to tell me that Kerry wouldn't have done the same?

...what, would that make it somehow less sleazy in your mind?

Re:Anyone going to tell me....

[VidEdit]

"That Kerry wouldn't have done the same? "

There is no reason to think Kerry would bump technical experts from a telecom delegation because of party affiliation. Bush is the man know for valuing loyalty above competence not Kerry. Just look at Bush's nomination of John Bolton as UN Ambassador, or elevating Condi Rice to Secretary of State...etc, ad nauseam.

This is just another example of the Bush administration's partisan extremism. It is really, really hard to believe Bush hasn't been taken to task to live up to his "I'm a uniter not a divider" claim. While the parent can debate if Kerry might have done the same thing to the delegation, one point is not debatable: This was clearly not a move to "unite" the US.

Slashdot presents a good argument in favor

[SuperKendall]

Just reading Slashdot presents an excellent argument for doing exactly what Bush has done. Why should the US send people that have such a bitter hatred for the president? Such inherant negativity can only be detremental to productive meetings.

Mind you, I don't know if the people removed were quite at that point but it's not hard to imagine. The poision runs deep here on Slashdot.

I'm more of a libertarian myself so don't even start in on me. I'm just calling it like I see it, and have seen first hand what bitter negativity can do in a group. For something like this the people need to be on the same page.

Re:Slashdot presents a good argument in favor

[frank_adrian314159]

I'm just calling it like I see it, and have seen first hand what bitter negativity can do in a group.

Yes. And thank you for demonstrating what smarmy self-rightousness can do for an individual, too!

Re:Slashdot presents a good argument in favor

[Dragonfly]

Why should the US send people that have such a bitter hatred for the president?

Campaign contributions != bitter hatred. And besides, WTF do your politics have to do with telecommunications tech? I daresay that telecom companies would be trying to accomplish the same things regardless of who was sitting in the Oval Office.

Re:Slashdot presents a good argument in favor

[rnxrx]

So does this mean they should be judging the qualification of scientists up for technical jobs based not on their published works, education or experience but rather by who they voted for last time through? The precedent set here isn't a good one. Perhaps we can move to the point where only Bush *contributors* are tapped for this kind of thing. Kinda neat being able to buy one's way into regulatory positions, eh?

Traditionally speaking these kinds of relatively low-level technical spots -have- been filled without a whole lot of view toward political affiliation. Clinton appointed plenty of Republicans to positions like this. Bush Sr. appointed plenty of Democrats, and so on. This isn't a function of poison, it's a function of pettiness.

I don't think it matters what side of the spectrum you call home. This isn't good for America.

Re:Slashdot presents a good argument in favor

[Anonymous Coward]

These days, a libertarian is a conservative who votes Republican but can't defend them.

Judges/Advisors != Engineers

[doormat]

America needs to pick the most qualified, most brilliant engineers it can to represent at these meetings. You can be the most qualified person in the nation on telecom, but if you supported Kerry, you dont belong according to the WH. It not even like this group manages aid or something, they fucking design specifications.

Politics is beyond ugly, its now officially fugly.

There was a word for that sort of behavior

[rscrawford]

Back in my day, there was a word for governments which would do things like prevent opposing viewpoints from being heard at inernational conventions, or preventing opposing government officials from having substantial say in government affairs. Seems to me the US spent a lot of time making sure folks like that stayed on their side of the Iron Curtain.

Gosh, what was that word again?

Gotta tell you, between this sort of thing and nutjobs like Frist and DeLay, I've never felt more disenfranchised from my own nation. I used to be proud of America, even under other Republican presidents; the current administration has turned our nation into a joke of democracy.

Re:What a silly thing to get upset about.

[Skyshadow]

Golly, the president doesn't want his rivals representing him. Oh, for shame.

The shame is that the President is removing the people who *should* have input into this sort of thing based on personal retribution.

This isn't an area where partisan politics should play any role whatsoever. The message being sent here is that if your company wants to remain "in the game" with the competition, you'd better fall in line and support the President and vote GOP. It's nothing less than the use of the executive power that We the People entrusted the President with to force compliance with the GOP party line. This isn't how democracy operates.

The sad thing is that you can't seem to see this.

facist

[h311sp0n7]

Not to sound redundant but I'm surprised GW doesn't have a little military outfit he totes around in. Hat, tiny dog, and all. What's next the Texas goose-step. Facism in its finest form. We're not publically executing those representatives or our own citizens yet, but I doubt that's far behind.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Anyone going to tell me....

[PocketPick]

Anyone going to tell me That Kerry wouldn't have done the same?

Rather stupid generalization if you ask me. 'Because Bush would do it, of course Kerry would do it too'. Not likely. It's Bush and Co. that have the history of weeding out individuals that it deems 'unfit' for discussion of public matters. Just look at thier Social Security 'TownHall' meetings.

Is that what these meetings are really about?

[BlabberMouth]

Is this diplomatic work? I think you are stretching this quite a bit. These individuals actually represent the companies they work for, i.e. Nokia, Qualcomm, and not the "United States" at these meetings. No fair minded person thinks these individuals speak for the U.S. Government. It is one thing to reward those that support you, but it is another to punish those that do not. That is not a democratic process.

Re:Anyone going to tell me....

[marick]

RTFA:

"anyone in the U.S. telecom industry who had the requisite expertise and wanted to go was generally given a slot, say past participants. Only after the start of Bush's second term did a political litmus test emerge, industry sources say."

Sounds like an unprecedented abuse of power. Somehow, I suspect Kerry would have been a bit more of a pushover about the whole thing and left things as they were before.

No it isn't.

[Dragonfly]

Before you rant on in the lastest bash-Bush thread, ask yourself honestly: is this any different?

It is, and here is why: Members of the Cabinet, Ambassadors, Judges, etc. are all offices that the President is given the power to fill by the Consitution (provided the Senate gives its consent).

Deciding who is allowed to attend a non-political, non-partisan industry event based on their history of campaign contributions is not a power given to anyone by any law of the United States. In fact, the opposite is true: this violates amendment one of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees U.S. citizens the freedom of speech.

President Bush can certainly appoint whom he likes to those offices which the law allows him to, but he cannot "punish" people who supported his political opponents by denying them access to events for no other reason.

Re:You're right, it's just whining

[Qzukk]

So then you're totally alright with the Republican administration's plan to start removing (the majority are Republican-appointed) federal judges because they're not Neo-con enough for the current Republican party too?

If their guy had been elected, a similar purge would occur going the other way.

Congratulations, your party is just as shitty as the other. Aren't you just so proud?

I'd like to believe that someone could start a third party that was somewhat sane, open to compromise, and totally honest, but it'd be like throwing people to sharks in today's climate, and even if that party could launch a candidate that was competitive enough, the media would kill it because it breaks their head-to-head competition ideals and they'd have to come up with new debate formats to deal with it.

Wonks versus hacks

[ibn_khaldun]

This general problem -- making everything subject to a political litmus test -- has been referred to elsewhere as the triumph of the hacks over the wonks.

The wonks are the people who actually know how to make policy -- know what options are on the table, which of them might actually work, which have been tried before and didn't work, and so forth. In immense detail. If you read /., you are probably a wonk (or at least could be a wonk -- if you have a life, you aren't a wonk).

Hacks know one thing and one thing only -- politics -- and they do it 24/7. They are the kids who spent high school impeaching each other on the student council, and then got into college and did the same thing in student government. Now they have a real government to play with, and play they will. Nothing else matters to them. If you know someone who merely claims to read /., they are a hack.

The hacks have triumphed because of the "permanent campaign" that was brought about by C-SPAN and the cable news channels. If a politician thinks that it is vital to respond to everything within a single news cycle, they by necessity surround themselves with hacks -- wonks actually have to spend time learning things and thinking things through! Can't have that now, can we?

Re:Kerry would've done the same thing

[Dragonfly]

Mr. Clanton was referring to the possibility of taking legal action against Sinclair for violating campaign advertising laws (the reasoning was that Sinclair's "documentary" could be construed as an in-kind donation to the Bush campaign, and therefore illegal).

The Bush administration, on the other hand, is punishing U.S. citizens for exercising their first amendment rights.

It is called payback

[John Seminal]

America needs to pick the most qualified, most brilliant engineers it can to represent at these meetings. You can be the most qualified person in the nation on telecom, but if you supported Kerry, you dont belong according to the WH. It not even like this group manages aid or something, they fucking design specifications.

First, it is not like the USA has one genius engineer and 50 dumb ones. Chances are in the pool of all engineers, you will find republicans and democrats. All things being equal, are you suprised a republican president would not reward his supporters and shaft his detractors?

Someone could argue the Attorney General of the United States should be the best qualified lawyer available, but it is always political. Where is the line when you stop making a decision based on party affiliation?? Should it stop with the Department of Homeland Security?

I might be wrong, but I would have guessed before Clinton the highest office was a political reward, and the career beurocratic jobs were staffed with the best available. I think since Clinton, even those mid level jobs have become a reward/punishment.

Re:What a silly thing to get upset about.

[BLAG-blast]

Golly, the president doesn't want his rivals representing him. Oh, for shame.

So you saying, that if a party is elected (by what ever means) to power, it is OK for them to systemmaticlly remove any non-party members for all boards (FCC, FAA, DOE, DOD, etc.) and positions they feel like.

What precentage of America do you beleive Bush is representing?

Have you read "1984"?

Not a valid goal

[Elwood P Dowd]

"We wanted people who would represent the Administration positively, and--call us nutty--it seemed like those who wanted to kick this Administration out of town last November would have some difficulty doing that"

He's right, they wouldn't. Thing is, "representing the administration positively" isn't a valid goal in selecting delegates for this non-partisan commission. This reminds me of all that AdCouncil PR for the Dept. of Homeland Security that prominently featured the smiling, sturdy face of Tom Ridge.

Yes, perhaps important to get certain Homeland Security information out to the public. No, not important to increase the celebrity of Tom Ridge. Not a valid goal.

These twisted motherfuckers just keep getting more brazen.

Re:Doesn't Bush have the right to pick his team?

[AK Marc]

If they are staging and scripting Bush, they are doing a horrible job of it.

They are doing a good job of scripting him, but he seem to think that he is actually capable of thinking on his feet (since at least the previous 4 presidents were all capapble of it). It isn't that the shaging and script aren't set, it's that Bush screws it up.

Re:Well duh.

[Soko]

What are you smoking, dude?

This is the administration barring *individuals* based on thier polital past - it has nothing to do with thier competence with respect to a technical comittee.

Mayhap the Administration is ensuring that this "International" comittee is going to choose "standards" that are biased to favour Corporate America? Naw, couldn't be...

Soko

Re:unfortunately...

[Qrlx]

it's a matter of degrees... and bush's needle is pegged in the red zone.

it wasn't always this way, just a few years ago our political parties actually had conventions that weren't foregone conclusions.

you are right that the trend is towards more consolidation and homogenization of "the message" but i do personally feel that bush takes it to the next level. with clinton you didn't see things like the jeff gannon incident or the armstrong williams incident. bush went so far as to have the public sign sworns statements that they were going to vote for bush in 2004 or they wouldn't be allowed in to his political rallies, something that has never before happened.

so don't tell me it's just business as usual.

Slashdot dept actually meaningful for a change

[jmorris42]

Thye filed this story from the "politics as usual dept" for a good reason. Because it IS the usual. Perhaps it shouldn't be, but it is. Postings made by the political class are handed out for political reasons. Doesn't always make sense but expecting political animals to hand out plums to declared enemies makes even less sense.

There was a time when it was understood that politics stopped at the border, but that time has long since passed. Both parties can share the blame for it, although personally I'd give it at leat 60/40 to the Democrats because a) they have been the party out of executive power for more of the last couple of decades and b) it really ramped up post 9/11.

If you want to just be an apolitical technologist then keep your damned checkbook closed. (Or at least stay under the reporting threshold) Money IS speech even if the 'campaign finance reformers' keep saying it isn't. You can't give a candidate thousands of dollars and then say you aren't involved in politics when they lose.

A uniter, not a divider

[Random BedHead Ed]

This must be what the president meant when he said that he would be a uniter, not a divider. The usual message: don't pay attention to what I'm saying because it's really just fluff for the media. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next Democrat-controlled administration. Will the tactics be the same, or will we really get a uniter?

Well, looks like we'll get conservative telecom representation for the time being. Whatever that means.

My question...

[MarkusQ]

My question is, what exactly do they have to do to get an exception to Goodwin's law passed? I mean, so far we've got documented evidence of:

1. Internal travel documents/no fly lists ("Transportation safety")
2. Spying on your neighbor programs ("Information Awareness")
3. Arresting people and holding them with due process ("The War on Terror")
4. ...and occasionally torturing them (ditto)
5. ...that sometimes leading to them dying (oops)
6. Supression of dissent ("Free Speech Zones")
7. Orwellean double-speak (see above)
8. Supression of opposition (Locking the opposition out of the legislature)
9. Arresting opposing party candidates weeks before the election (Clark & Badnarik)
10. Manipulation of the media (including paying analysts to "support" their policies)
11. Fibing to start wars

Ask yourself this: do you suppose the average Hanz Six-pack circa 1940 thought his country was anything like the country we now can't discuss without invoking Goodwin's law?

Personally, I think they've earned an exemption...

--MarkusQ

Re:My question...

[ackthpt]

Ask yourself this: do you suppose the average Hanz Six-pack circa 1940 thought his country was anything like the country we now can't discuss without invoking Goodwin's law? Personally, I think they've earned an exemption...

It isn't that country and that party I keep hearing compared to the present situation, but the Empire of Rome as it began to crumble. Spin a globe about 180 degrees and look at a rising economic giant. The US is mired in debt and a stagnating economy while it looks for more ways to exacerbate both situations.

It has been said that one of the straws that broke the back of the Soviet Union was the cost of the arms race (while Reagan blew huge $ on space-based weapons), bankrupting them. The russians ended up with an $80 billion national debt. Meanwhile, here's the US with, what $7 trillion in the red and borrowing heavily already from China while their momentum builds. In probably 5 years they'll be the big dog and have squat for debt. Where's that leave the US?

Complacency is expensive. Ask any roman.

Re:unfortunately...

[AK Marc]

Unfortunately, all of these apply to any of the previous administrations that I can think of. Insert "The Clinton Administration" in there if you want. It all remains valid. Or Reagan.

How is this flamebait moderators?? Please try to remember that "flamebait" doesn't mean something disagrees with your personal political viewpoint.

It is flaimbait because it is inflamitory, as well as incorrect. Who coined the term "vodoo economics" in regards to Reagan's "trickle down" theories? I'll give you a hint. They later gave him a job as the Vice President of the United States. They didn't have the "toe the line or you are fired" stance. They respected opinions they didn't agree with and could overlook differences of opinion.

Also, posting an opinion with no supporting evidence that is nothing other than "you are wrong because I think so" is flaimbait. A valid discussion requires examples - I presented of a policy disagreement that was tolerated, where was the troll's example? Oh, they didn't support their postition because they know it is wrong, but they don't like the opinion they were responding to, so they attacked it.

Kerry

[iswm]

Who cares what Kerry would've done? Point is, Bush _IS_ doing it. Everything is so damn partisan these days.

When did the US forget?

[Chuck Chunder]

Why should the US send people that have such a bitter hatred for the president?

The President is supposed to serve the people, not the other way round. And he's supposed to serve all people, not just those who support him.

Bush has Backbone!

[Anonymous Coward]

The Clintons fired White House staff who'd worked there under both Democrat and Republican administrations since LBJ, just so they could replace them with cronies from Arkansas. If that's OK, and few liberals complained back in 1993, then this is certainly OK.

These aren't ordinary hard-working people getting tossed on the street by a callous Bill and Hill. They are well-heeled high-tech execs who're discovering that if you try to buy influence by giving money to one candidate, you may lose influence with his relected opponent. Politics isn't a Sunday school picnic. Steve Jobs might take note. Gore's presence on Apple's board makes no sense othet than as a political payoff. The self-proclaimed inventor of the Internet knows nothing about either technology or business.

It's alway refreshing to see Republicans display backbone. For too long they've allowed themselves to be bullied by self-righteous Democrats. Let's hope Senate Republicans show enough guts to end the fillibuster of judicial nominations. When I was little, Democrats used the filibuster to block anti-lynching legislation. (That's why the critical civil rights legislation of 1964 had more Republican supporters than Democrats.) Now Democrats use it to keep in power judges who want to keep lynching legal up to birth.

As they say, "The more things change, the more they remain the same.

--Mike Perry, Seattle, author: Untangling Tolkien

Re:Bush has Backbone!

[multiplexo]

Bush has a backbone? This is the guy who used his daddy's connections to get him into the Texas Air National Guard (he had a 25 percent score on his pilot aptitude test) to stay out of Vietnam and then weaseled out of flight duty so he could go to Arkansas and work on a political campaign? Bush is a fucking pussy! So are the Bush supporters on /. who post as AC.

Re:You're right, it's just whining

[Dimensio]

Wow. You really didn't RTFA, or you're just a shameless liar.

People are being purged from a completely non-partisan position. This is for a technical conference. There are no politics involved here. Whether or not someone likes Bush has no bearing on their ability to serve competently at this conference. NO OTHER PRESIDENT HAS EVER DONE ANYTHING THIS EXTREME.

This isn't a good thing. Bush supporters should not be cheering this, it makes them look like brainless automotons who don't analyze a single aspect of the administration's polities yet stand behind them 100%.

+2 Interesting on the MQR standard

[MarkusQ]

I have no mod points, but that is indeed an interesting point. Not only to they exclude people who should have access to venues (e.g. the article at the top of this thread), they let people go places they have no business going--and all, as far as I can see, based only on how much they like them.

I always thought of that being something that only two-bit bannana republics did.

--MarkusQ

This is very disturbing

[JahToasted]

Yeah partisan politics is nothing new. But this is a little different. These people are being sent to discuss standards not their views on the administration. So why remove the democrat supporters? There's no real immediate gain. In fact this move makes the administration look pretty bad.

This indicates two things: 1) That the republicans can do whatever they want, no matter how immoral or how illegal, and they can get away with it. 2) Partisan politics is being institutionalised. They are willing to take a short term loss (bad press about this story) to put long term pressure on supporters of their opponents. Their goal is to create a work environment where, to get anywhere you will have to be a member of the republican party.

Usually political parties only think forward to the next election. This shows tha the republicans have the goal of making it so they are the only party in america.

Re:This is very disturbing

[Adam.Steinbaugh]

So why remove the democrat supporters? There's no real immediate gain.

Not immediate, no, but what happens in the next election cycle? Those people won't contribute to the opposition party, so the party in power is more likely to STAY in power. No, it's not the One thing that will keep them in power, but, drip, drip, drip...

And when the Democrats finally take power again, they'll use this tool, as well, unless they offer up a very strong reformist candidate who has the Congress on his/her leash (unlikely). Once one disappointing political maneuver is used in Washington, it will be used by whomever is in power. This is why the current debate on eliminating the filibuster is so potent -- they're not simply changing the rules in the manner in which rules are officially changed in the Senate. They're going to declare the Democrats and their filibusters out of order, a move that requires a simple majority vote (which is likely to be a tie, with the President of the Senate, Dick Cheney, breaking it in favor of the GOP). It's very likely that Democrats might use a similar maneuver to block Republican initiatives in the future.

Somewhere we seem to have forgotten that sometimes the minority needs to overrule the majority, and that differing political opinions to not negate your professional or intellectual capability.

If you thought the two-party system was bad, wait until it's a one-party system.

Re:This is very disturbing

[Anonymous Coward]

Back in my former home country (=Soviet Union), they would not let "politically unreliable" (say, jewish and usually non-commie) scientists go to science conferences. We're talking SCIENCE conferences here even - not even policy meetings. US sure seems to be becoming much like the good ol' USSR these days...

is this a joke?

[Anonymous Coward]

"call us nutty" is right! Someone expresses their opinon in a fair election and then is openly blacklisted from professional confrences.

That's something to think about when the political tide swings the other way -- it won't be pretty.

Apologists need to look in the *&$%ing mirror

[Elwood P Dowd]

I just started browsing through this discussion at -1, to see if insightful conservatives with valid viewpoints were being squashed by slashdot groupthink.

They aren't.

If you can honestly defend this action, you have less critical thinking skills than a Jonestown suicide victim. It's not that big a deal, as I don't think it's going to kill too many people just because a few engineers couldn't make it to the meeting, but it is plainly and completely wrong.

If you can bring yourself to think that it is right, then you must correct your thinking. I am sure that I have similar backwards notions in other areas, and I would welcome such corrections from the right source. Some guy on slashdot is clearly not that source, so I'm not asking you to give me the benefit of the doubt. But please, consider that you might be wrong. Double check, just this once.

Attack, no compromise

[Enrique1218]

This is nothing new in regards rewarding loyalty and punishing dissent. But, it does illustrate the adminstration approach to dissent. Basically, it prefers to attack rather than to compromise

.

Examples:

CIA agent reports no link between Sadamn and Nigerian uranium; reveal the agent's identity.

Need Iraq's oil but you don't want to deal with Sadamn; Invade Iraq.

Hate Democratic Senators filibustering your appointments; Remove the filibuster.

Don't like courts making decision on gay marriage; institute an admendment banning gay marriage.

When dissent is finally quashed, we can finally live in peace under Republican rule. Don't feel too bad though, I hear that an one-party dictatorship has worked well in China

Re:Bush, Stalin... blah blah blah...

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right! It's crazy. How can this be called a democracy!?

My God people, this president received the largest amount of votes anyone has ever received. Ever. Period.

So did Hitler.

Should political donations be secret?

[TimFreeman]

If political donations were secret, then Bush wouldn't have enough information to know who to discriminate against. Secret political donations seem very analogous to secret balloting, which is commonly accepted as a good thing.

Re:Kerry would've done the same thing

[ted_rust]

Egads! Another person on /. making a poor analogy. I'm so surprised.

Sinclair was attempting to violate a campaign law using a thinly veiled categorization of their ad as a "documentary." It was illegal. They knew it. Others knew it. They got called on it. End of story.

No one was threatening them for supporting Bush; they were threatening them for being loose with the law.

I'm so tired of hearing people say things like, "<sarcasm>Oh, it's Bush so it must be evil!</sarcasm>" Yes, as it turns out, a lot of the things that Bush and his administration have done are evil. Sorry if that hurts your feelings, but it is very plain and undeniable. Some people are just afraid to admit it, because it will make them look like an ass for supporting him in the first place.

Re:Apologists need to look in the *&$%ing mirr

[Elwood P Dowd]

No, not a troll.

You're right, I didn't describe why the action was wrong. Many other comments on this story have done that perfectly well. Go point me to some effective refutations and I'll shut the hell up. I went looking and didn't find any.

I'm really just trying to call your attention to the possibility that your thinking may be completely wrong on this issue. If you can figure out why, then it may help you correct your thinking in other venues as well.

This issue is a convenient litmus test: If you don't see the problem with the administration's actions here, there is a problem with your eyes. No, that doesn't mean you're wrong about everything, and no, honestly, it doesn't mean you'd drink cyanide coolaid. That was hyperbole.

But it does mean that you're wrong right now.

Re:You're right, it's just whining

[Dimensio]

Sorry. I didn't know how to clarify that I meant specifically "Republican vs. Democrat".

There might be politics involved, but if the politics involved are based upon political affiliation, then the people assigned to the task are incompetent in the first place, regardless of who they support.

Death to Goodwin's law

[coyote-san]

Goodwin's Law used to be productive, but making Fascism a bogeyman is dangerous because it prevents legitimate discussion.

The world has seen many fascist regimes, Nazi Germany was only one instance. But even that extreme case had western defenders up to the war - King George, Henry Ford (iirc), the Kennedy father or grandfather (when ambassador to the UK), and more.

A few years ago Free Inquiry published a summary of 14 characteristics of fascist regimes. One copy here. I think you can make a defensible case for 13 of the 14 points, with the final item a false negative.

I suggest reading the full article for details, but for the impatient here's the keynotes:

• Powerful and Continuing Nationalism
• Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights
• Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause
• Supremacy of the Military
• Rampant Sexism
• Controlled Mass Media
• Obsession with National Security
• Religion and Government are Intertwined
• Corporate Power is Protected
• Labor Power is Suppressed
• Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts
• Obsession with Crime and Punishment
• Rampant Cronyism and Corruption
• Fraudulent Elections

The main exception I see is the supremacy of the military. This administration talks them up, but its actual treatment of our troops is contemptable. We've all heard of soldiers injured, discharged, then told to repay their enlistment bonus since they didn't complete their term of service. Or told to pay hospital fees while recooperating from loss of limbs. (The argument was that they shouldn't have gotten a food and housing stipend while living on hospital grounds but not in a hospital room, or something equally lame.)

Most disgusting has to be the recent bankruptcy bill. Somebody noticed that it did not include an exception for servicemen forced into bankruptcy as a consequence of being called to duty. N.B., under current law creditors are supposed to forego collections of any national guard troop called up. But the Republicans in control of Congress had some petty rule that they wouldn't accept any amendments to this bill and they gave the shaft to our servicemen.

(P.S., I know that the sexism point is debatable. We have Condi Rice.... but she's from the oil industry. A supertanker is named after her!!! Some people see covert sexism in the policy on birth control, abortions, even the refusal to accept court rulings on Terri Schiavo's desire to avoid a persistent vegetative state.)

incomplete comparison != invalid

[No Such Agency]

(P.S., I know that the sexism point is debatable. We have Condi Rice.... but she's from the oil industry. A supertanker is named after her!!! Some people see covert sexism in the policy on birth control, abortions, even the refusal to accept court rulings on Terri Schiavo's desire to avoid a persistent vegetative state.)

Just because a few points don't line up perfectly doesn't mean your point isn't valid. And the US military does get a lot of money, and a lot of use killing foreign people the government blames for its problems. The little guys in the military (regular soldiers) get shafted but that is completely in line with other government policies.

Anyway, most of the Christian fundamentalists who support the current Executive are crypto-sexists at best - they believe the Bible mandates a woman's place below her husband, even if they don't come right out and say it in so many words. And things like restricting access to birth control, sexual health information and abortion are all policies of that administration, and all are more detrimental to women than men.

Re:incomplete comparison != invalid

[johansalk]

I've posted this in a previous topic relevant to the practices of the Bush administration and I'll post it here since it's relevant yet again despite those, apparently, Bush supporters with mod points who marked my previous post a flamebait or a troll.

" I don't care who he is; if he compared Bush to Hitler as reported he's right on this, and he's not being inventive and this isn't new; it is widely known by anyone in the know. Anyone who knows enough about History and Political Philosophy knows for sure that Bush is comparable to Hitler as both are on the same side of History, same side of ideology, and same side of conduct, and the GOP ideologues are not shy about this; they have not hidden their admiration of the chilean fascist economics model, they have not hidden their cultish affiliation around Leo Strauss the protege of Carl Schmitt the prime Nazi ideologue, and they have not hidden their originalist and essentialist fixation on the relevant thought of Aristotle and Plato. Yes, it goes that far back in History, to Ancient Greece; Bush and Hitler, and the Nazi party and the GOP, are upholders of Sparta, the violent rural oligarchic dictatorship, they are not upholders of Athens, the peaceful cosmopolitan liberal democracy.

He's right.

Both Hitler and Bush were ultra-nationalist simpletons who exploited the Nation-Under-Attack anxieties and the 'patriotic' impulses of the simple, blood-and-soil masses and enlisted the interests of a corrupt, racketeering cadre of industrialists and financiers that foresaw in their domestic, social restructuring projects at home and warmongering, imperialist ambitions abroad ample profit opportunities. Both Hitler and Bush were messianic men with a passionate 'vision' and a sense of 'mission' who were obsessed with their personal safety and paranoid about the risk of assassination and their parties (Nazi, GOP) were suspicious and intolerant of disagreement and dissent to the extent of using the "treason" label (treason, un-Patriotic, un-American, hates America, and so on) against those who don't tow the party line. Both the parties of Hitler and Bush scapegoated minorities as political devices to forewarn of calamitious dangers to the original integrity of a good and glorious nation, most prominent of whom in Hitler's Germany were the Jews, and in Bush's USA were the Gays. Both parties pushed for legislation that suspended civil liberties and human rights in the name of national security, in Hitler's case it was the Enabling Act, and in Bush's it was the Patriot Act, which presence served to intimidate many ordinary citizens for fear of being suspected of "treason" and being persecuted on mere suspicion without due process, and both leaders and parties maintained an atmosphere of terror, applauded military armament and endorsed doctrines of preemptive war, with which they invaded other countries. Furthermore, Bush is supported by the same wealthy elements that tried to erect a fascist government in the US in the 1933 after the election of a populist president, Franklin D Roosevelt; the businessmen and bankers who admired European Fascism at the time and its heavy-handed stance against communists in its countries, and intensely disliked Roosevelt's "communist" reforms that entailed heavier taxes on the wealthy, concessions to labor rights movements, relief for the unemployed, controls over corporations, a social security program, a legal right for the government to regulate the economy, and so on, and conspired with Major General Smedley Butler to erect a Fascist government in the US. Butler exposed the attempt, and Roosevelt went on to enact his populist reforms, then later on he went to war against European fascism and went on to defeat Hitler in WWII, and several decades later here we have a leader in the US akin to Hitler, widely compared to Hitler, supported by the same those who tried to erect a fascist government in the US, who is at war domestically with Roosevelt's legacy and is disassembling the Roosevelt reforms one by one, from tax cu

Re:Science is not starndards

[0x20]

Think about what you're saying. You're saying that the US should present a unified position... which happens to be EXACTLY THE SAME as the position Bush wants to present - because he just gets rid of anyone who doesn't agree with him.

"It's about people on a standards committee." exactly. Not a REPUBLICAN standards committee, you will note. That's what "standards" means. It's about representing the people, not the president, of the US.

The madness must end!

[Luscious868]

This administration never ceases to amaze me. What kind of administration would actually stoop to the level of sending only supporters to advocate its position at an international conference? I mean, what's next, the president appointing supporters and like minded individuals to cabinet level positions? Oh, the horror! When will this madness end?

Re:Anyone going to tell me....

[sheldon]

You know. I'm frankly getting sick and tired of moral relativists claiming that it's ok for Bush or the Republicans to be corrupt because Democrats might be corrupt to if they were in power.

What's wrong is wrong. There are no shades of grey here, not it's ok if someone else did it.

Your excusing bad behavior does not help encourage good behavior.

It isn't like that.

[khasim]

Politics is very much like religion.

Most people believe the same things their parents believed and will have children who believe it also.

It's the same with religion and politics. Mostly because politics comes down to "values" about what is "good" and "bad".

Most people I know who voted for Bush did NOT vote for him because they wanted massive debt, never ending wars and a polluted environment.

They voted for Bush because Kerry would make everything worse. Or because Kerry lied about Vietnam. Or because Kerry wasn't a good Christian. Or because Kerry was a liberal. Or because Kerry was a friend of Jane Fonda. etc.

In other words, they looked for some reason (however non-substantial) to "justify" their voting for Bush.

Bush's message is very simple. He's strong and good. The US is strong and good. Those who oppose him/the US are weak and evil. He will protect you. You need his protection. The bad guys are coming. They're coming real soon. THEY'RE HERE! TERROR ALERT ORANGE! They're gone now. But they'll be back. Maybe with nukes. Bush needs your support to protect you. He is willing to pay any price to protect you from the evil men out there.

Don't laugh. Read through the transcripts of the speeches over the years. Look at how often the "Terror Alert" went up at politically opportunistic times. Yet when was the last time you saw the "Terror Alert" go up?

It's all about fear and religion. The religion of fear. No matter how safe you think you are, you aren't safe enough.

And that message sells.

Even back in WWII it was practiced. Just keep telling the people that the bad guys are coming and that anyone who says differently is a fool who will get you killed or a traitor and supporter of those evil men.

That goes back to the witch trials. Satan has allies. People that look just like you and me. Any actions we take against them are "good". Even if we accidentally torture and kill an innocent person. Because we cannot risk losing this battle.

Re:Well duh.

[TopSpin]

This is the administration barring *individuals* based on thier polital (sic) past

Yep, that's pretty damn bad. How will their careers be affected now that they aren't being permitted to participate in international standards collaboration?

Watching Slashdot flip out over this is rather funny. As if this is somehow new or unique to "teh eBil Bush Nazi!!11". This sort of slapdash political chicanery is commonplace, planet-wide. It's times like these when Ralph Nader has a lot of appeal.

What I find surprising is the raw honesty of this deputy press secretary, Trent Duffy. The man clearly has no future in public life.

...biased to favour Corporate America? Naw, couldn't be...

As opposed to the well paid bias of any other nation-state and it's corporate favorites? Please.

The American Left has failed miserably. Until they figure out how articulate something without alienating vast swaths of the electorate, people like Bush will continue to get elected. I'm begging you, please, find a credible candidate that doesn't radiate BAF.

Disclaimer: All references to Hitler, Nazis, etc. contained within parody; Godwin does not apply.

Gasp!

[ta bu shi da yu]

They disagreed? We can't have that in this day and age! Won't someone think of the children being killed by terrorists?

Re:Gasp!

[mbrod]

This is something I thought about quite often during the campaigning of the last election. When Bush would not allow any non-supporters at his rallies. Heck, they wouldn't even allow anyone wearing a t-shirt they disagreed with.

Think about what our country would be today if they didn't let the people who disagreed with each other take part in the discussion while creating it.

Re:Gasp!

[ccarson]

I sometimes wonder if Bush is clueless about what the public thinks, not because he's so unconnected or just plain stupid, but because he never sees anything indicating that there's actually an opinion other than his.

Didn't he win the last election? Doesn't that mean the majority of the public who voted agree with his views?

Re:I like Bush

[SubtleNuance]

what do you like best about him?

the unpunished institutional torture? mixing of church and state? his functional illiteracy? his lying and disinformation campaign to invade foreign nations? his subverting separation of branches of government by trying to appoint agenda-driven radical judges? his stage-managing public events? his refusal to hold press conferences? his pandering to religious-reformation advocates?

or is it something else? tell us, what does mr. bush do that impresses you?

Could someone please tell the Bush Administration

[Solandri]

That this is why the vote of an individual in an election is anonymous.

Google does it

[Hao Wu]

"This is a very frightening aspect of it- a donation to Kerry can hurt your chances of employment in the tech sector later on."

Are you also freightened that Google won't hire Republicans?

SAN FRANCISCO -- As it claws for greater power, the Democratic Party has found a newly rich ally in one of the fastest-growing U.S. companies: Google.

Google employees gave $207,650 to federal candidates for last year's elections, up from just $250 in 2000 when it was still a start-up. And 98% went to Democrats, the biggest share among top tech donors, a new USA TODAY campaign finance analysis shows.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/technolog y/2005-02-13-google-give-usat_x.htm

Re:Debt is okay if you have the means to pay it of

[Garabito]

Two ways to end the war: (1) Kill all terrorists. (2) Convert to Islam. Unfortunately, diplomacy is not a part of either

That's the dumbest sig I've ever read.

Ah, yes. All conservatives are SHEEP.

[Windcatcher]

Yes, yes, yes -- the same arrogant argument. "We leftists are educated, enlightened, intelligent, and, above all, rational, while those who support conservatives are easily-frightened, easily-duped, emotional, hyper-religious SHEEP who bought the propaganda, drank the Kool-Aid, (insert your favorite cliche here)."

Translation: "liberals are SMART and conservatives are STUPID".

Well, please allow me to enlighten you. Believe it or not, many of us Bush supporters are highly educated, quite intelligent, scholarly, and are capable of recognizing propaganda for what it is. Maybe some of us recognized that the terror link to Saddam was just that, propaganda, but because we agree with GWB on most other issues we decided to let it go. Maybe some of us really do think that the Christian right are extremists, but we would rather talk to them and rein them in a touch rather than accept the alternative -- a totally secular, moral relativist society with no social norms whatsoever. That's not to say we all agree with him on everything -- far from it -- but by and large we take the good with the bad, and with him we largely feel there is more good than bad.

And maybe -- just maybe -- we know what Socialism is, what damage it has done throughout the world, and we collectively decided that we would fall on our proverbial swords rather than let it gain a foothold here. Just maybe we support Conservatives (and welcome the alliance of the religious right) because we face a common enemy (in most cases, enemies) on idelogical grounds -- Socialism, and the social and moral consequences it produces. Maybe we support GWB because we actually agree with him on ideological grounds.

Understand that for people like us, no amount of repackaging Socialism, secular humanism, or Communism-lite will work. We know them for what they are, we actively oppose them, and many of us dedicate ourselves toward rooting such efforts out and exposing them to the light of day. A great many of us voted for GWB because WE DON'T WANT SUCH THINGS. We are not going to wake up one day and say, "Wow, that (leftist politician) is really making some sense! Socialized medicine/income redistribution/high-taxes/other Socialist program is the way to go! All he had to do was say it in a way that I could understand!" Sorry, Charlie. We're smarter than that. We vote such things down because we disagree with them on grounds of principle, not because people like GWB "scare" us into it. You should go read some conservative forums -- Bush gets slammed pretty regularly, usually because he has taken some stand or made some statement that flies in the face of conservative (here it comes) principles.

Re:Ah, yes. All conservatives are SHEEP.

[Teflik]

I find it terribly interesting how "either/or" or posting is.

but we would rather talk to them and rein them in a touch rather than accept the alternative -- a totally secular, moral relativist society with no social norms whatsoever.

ie, If we don't vote Bush, then we will have no social norms whatsoever. There's nothing in-between.

Understand that for people like us, no amount of repackaging Socialism, secular humanism, or Communism-lite will work.

You seem to suggest that going slightly left is tantamount to communism or socialism. There's no in-between for you.

With Bush, you "largely feel there is more good than bad." You "agree with him on ideological grounds." You vote against things because you "disagree with them on grounds of principle." (emphasis mine)

But nowhere do you mention making your votes based on logic or empirical evidence.

Re:Ah, yes. All conservatives are SHEEP.

[geminidomino]

Your entire post does more to prove that which you are trying to disprove than I could hope to, but this one sentence is completely repugnant:

Maybe some of us recognized that the terror link to Saddam was just that, propaganda, but because we agree with GWB on most other issues we decided to lt it go

Wow, just... wow. I'm not on either side of your little artificial turf war between "conservative" and "liberal", but if that statement is representative of the "conservative mindset", then not only do I think that there might be something to that "arrogant liberal argument," but you all have to be the most morally bankrupt, soulless sons of bitches on the face of this gods-forsaken rock. "We realized it was bullshit, but we decided that a few thousand corpses was a small price to pay for supporting our candidate, even if some of those corpses were our guys."

Holy shit. I may be a bit jingoistic at times, but that just blows my mind.

Someone PLEASE tell me this guy is just some raving nutjob and that 51% of this country doesn't think like that.

Re:Ah, yes. All conservatives are SHEEP.

[Qrlx]

I take it then that you're against Social Security, and would prefer to go back to a time when the leading causes of death for the elderly were malnutrition and hypothermia, and most of the elderly lived in poverty?

Name three evils of Socialism. Seriously. I'm curious to know what they are.

Explain why the US spends more (at least 2.5x more) per capita on health care than any other industrialized country (all of which practice some degree of national health care) but does not have the highest life expectancy, best child mortality (and don't take that as your queue to start talking about abortion) or healthiest population. You call that a good investment?

You wrote no amount of repackaging Socialism, secular humanism, or Communism-lite will work.

This leaves me wondering what does work? How about public education, is that socialism? Libraries? The fire department? How about a political system in which one political party controls everything? Subsidies for farmers? Corporate welfare? Protectionist tarriffs? NAFTA? The largest expansion of the Federal government since FDR? American citizens in prison indefinitely with no access to a lawyer and no charges brought against them?

In your position statement I see a lot of words and passion, but I don't see substance. Terms like "liberal" and "conservative" merely stand in opposition to one another and don't convey much about what you, personally, (morally, I dare say) believe in.

I'd also like to see these conservative forums you speak of where Bush gets slammed, because my account at freerepublic was banned after two posts.

a nebulous, often changing enemy

[guet]

The second amendment is more important because it establishes gun ownership as a right. Meaning, members of the militia can blend into the regular populace. In other nations undergoing violent revolt, gun ownership = rebel and/or death. In a US revolution, the availability of guns to all citizens provides something most rebels will kill for: plausible deniability. That is, truly, essential. Rebels have to blend back and forth into the general population at will. An outright ban on arms will make that, largely, impossible...I am not an idiot. A militia of that size could form, and would be legal

You're being totally unrealistic here. The moment there is a hint of armed revolt, the 2nd ammendment, and any other protections, would evaporate and be replace by tight repression. You would have precisely zero rights, let alone the right to carry an arm. After the first weapons amnesty where upstanding citizens could prove they were not terrorists your arm would be a liability.

In a state of civil war citizens rights are no longer sacrosanct. Hell, the US citizenry has given away most of their rights already, and said thank you afterwards, all in the name of perpetual war with a nebulous, often changing enemy.

A widespread revolt would eventually topple the government in the US, but not via the means you mention. The mechanism of government would simply fail if enough people went on strike/marches and refused to co-operate with law-enforcement.

Quite apart from all of that, would you like the kind of government/civil war your proposed scenario would install any better than Bush/Cheney et al? Almost *every* violent revolution in the world's history has installed a dictatorship - the previous US one was a notable, and noble exception.

NOT Guns brought East Germany down!

[Anonymous Coward]

While I really enjoy reading all the discussion, let me raise this point for you all US citizens, your right to own a gun doesn't mean a lot, you are by far overexagerating its impact, especially in days we are in.

Remember how East Germany was brought down, when the people realized they are not represented by their own government, and they stated "we are the people!".

You US citizens are in sleep, you are stressed with paying bills, watching TV or otherwise consume your emptyness away; and slowly you realize how degenerated your society slowly becomes, you have incompetent leaders, money driven political agendas, morality and ethics has become a christian fundamental trademark when morality is just an excuse to apply narrow minded and infant thinking, and ethics nothing than bent political and economical constraints.

the land of the free

[zpok]

You have to be prepared to make offers in order to live in the land of the Free, right?

You have the best democracy (two parties invited only, paid by companies) and with over two million people in prison you're definitely going places.

Now, if a president wants to punish you for your votes and further restricts your rights, isn't that a small price to pay for liberty?

What I personally find hilarious is that so many people voted Bush for "moral" reasons. It would be even funnier if the consequences for the have not's weren't so dire.

Re:In Communist Russia!

[plumby]

And in Communist Russia (or China), political parties really were banned.

Huh? What do you think the Communist Party is then? Opposition parties are banned (or at least very strongly controlled). This is almost exactly the opposite from what's being talked about here. Mainstream political policy/thought/discussion in China is controlled by what the Communist Party leadership decide. In a system without parties, a group of individuals (who you vote for based on their individual policies) would be able to reach their own conclusions to each issue rather than being ordered by their party (on the promise of later rewards, or the threat of punishment) on how to vote. Or at least that would be the theory - I've seen it work at local level where our local council had been run pretty much entirely by Tories for many years, but has for the past 20 years been almost entirely run by independents - with a wide range of political views. Over this time, individual councilors have come and gone, but the people still regularly keep voting for independents over politically aligned candidates.

Re:Actually no

[indifferent children]

I am one of those weird liberals who like Walmart. If you are poor in America, Walmart is your best friend (ok, maybe unless you work for them?) If you think that Walmart should sell fewer Chinese products, then convince your Congress critters to set trade quotas. If you think that Walmart should pay its workers more, increase the minimum wage. If you think that Walmart should provide free health insurance to its workers, either mandate that all employers offer free health insurance, or create a Universal health insurance program. Why should Walmart not follow supply and demand in its business dealings? Why should Walmart be forced to sell more expensive (domestic) goods Target, or pay its employees more than Target? Walmart is a corporation that should strive to maximize shareholder value. The Government should create regulations to protect workers and citizens. I don't blame Walmart.

silencing the voice of opposition

[blueberry(4*atan(1))]

"Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear." --Harry S. Truman

Re:the land of the free, to punish

[Blitzenn]

"Now, if a president wants to punish you for your votes and further restricts your rights, isn't that a small price to pay for liberty?"

Can your choices actually be considered as 'free' any more when there are punishments/consequences attached to one or more of those two choices? How can one be told they are free to make the choices with the knowledge that they will lose their job if they choose something other than what their leader has. Isn't this an ultimate punishment? Take away your economic power to provide food and shelter for your family if you choose other than the directive? Are we blind to what is going on? Can't anyone see this is driving our 'democracy' into something monsteraous and that serves the purpose of only those who agree with the president, all others will be punished? The side of the fence that disagrees with Bush is getting smaller and smaller. Why? Because the price is to steep to stand against him. Where did my rights go? Why can't I disagree and not be persecuted for it? Is this the kind of America we really want? I certainly don't.

Re:Prejudice?

[east coast]

Why (in this instance) shouldn't this be directly tied to voting confidentiality?

Not at all. With both of the big two parties crying about contributions and the reform of contributions I think it's important for the public to see exactly who's getting what money from where. An informed public is better than a public that is excepting, in blind faith, that these reforms are being done "in their best interest".

Their using personal politics *against* people. Thats not even remotely American and it goes against everything we've based our system on.

That's a fairly gray area. Are you right to a point? Sure. But supporting the people who support you is also a mainstay of the entire political process and that is another reason for public disclosure of contributions. Should something be done to rectify this situation? Sure. But it's not illegal. Left handed, but not illegal. So an informed public should take this into consideration when voting the next time around. The question really becomes if republicans get the boot for this and the democrats do the same time are you going to switch sides? For the most part most people find things politically acceptable/inacceptable based on party. Don't think that this is the first time that political contributions have lead to favoritism. Don't think that it's only the republicans either. Perhaps this is the most blantent display we've seen but does it make it any better when it happens in the back rooms of the DNC?

I will once again rant that without a serious third party threat the other two parties are pretty much free to do as they will. Who's going to stop them? The party lines are already drawn and neither hell nor high water is going to sway the core of these parties. Perhaps they'll lose a bit of ground from time to time but in the end they know they'll always be in the black.

And I won't bullshit you, I'm a pretty conservative guy, but I don't like what's going on. I normally vote third party for the reasons that they better represent my ideals and the fact that I know serious reform within the current system is as likely as me hitting the lottery, and I don't even play the lottery.

Re:Anyone going to tell me....

[Valdrax]

There is a difference between politics and policy, and it is one that this administration has forgotten. Policy is a bottum-up decision making process based on unbiased facts. Politics is a top-down decision making process based on domga and belief. This President cares nothing for policy, only politics, which is evident in his inability to ever, EVER admit a mistake unless he can pin it on a subordinate.

This tactic is essentially parallel to Tom DeLay's intimidation tactics used against lobbyists. This is dirty politics at its worst. This is intended to make it hard for the opposition party to have any power by cutting off all of the richest funding through belligerent threats.

This is not just. People who truly respect freedom try to compromise with their opponents and not bury them without giving them a voice. The Republicans' naked greed for power is just disgusting.

Re:I'm not up on US politics

[Guppy06]

"Since these are not offices created by the Constitution or by the Senate,"

OK, this bit right here shows me two things:

1. You either didn't comprehend part of the constitutional quote I provided in my last post (specifically the "not herein otherwise provided for" part), or you plain didn't read it.
2. You're using the words "Senate" and "Congress" interchangably, apparently confusing what the Senate can do alone and what both chambers of Congress are required for.

These two things tell me that you're too far gone in your "understanding" of the Constitution of the United States for me to be able to salvage anything here.

I would reccomend sitting down and reading the entire Constitution of the United States some time. It's not that long (the original fit on four pages, IIRC) and shouldn't take you more than a few minutes of your time. Even if you've already read it, even if you think you understand it already, it couldn't hurt anything to read it again. I admit the language is a little dated but I find that it comes smothely after the first few paragraphs. Don't worry about the amendments yet, just focus for the time being on the structure of the government.

Beyond that, I wash my hands of this thread. Feel free to assume victory on your part.

Re:Yes, scary

[MyLongNickName]

Yup. Move out. Because the United States has absolutely no mechanism in place to let individuals make a difference.

You see, we are not free to organize people to from PACs to help influence politics. We don't have the right to vote. We don't have the freedom to give our money and time to organizations that are working to clean up our system.

Seriously: If the US goes in the tubes, it will be proof that democracy/representative governement is a failure. We have the most freedoms to change things politically of any major government in the history of the world. If we can't keep things going, there is no mysterious governement official to blame, we have only ourselves to blame.

Take a look at how divided this county was only 100 years ago. Look at some of the VERY crooked political elections right after the civil war. Some brave folks decided to work to improve this country, and they have. We still have problems along race lines, but NOTHING like what existed when my great grandparents were young.

But if you choose to move. Fine. We need more people working for change (even those I disagree with), and less whiners.

Don't let the door smack you on the way out.

This is how it Works

[SwimsWithTheFishes]

People you get these appointed positions owe the appointer. If Pres. Clinton appointed these folks, then of course they support values and ideals that Clinton (and then Kerry) are likely to support.

BECAUSE THEY WERE PICKED TO SUPPORT THOSE IDEALS.

Now these guys/gals are under Pres. Bush's appointment authority, and they obviously do not agree with him. In fact they publically opposed him and his ideals. So as an *authority* figure, he removed them.

THIS IS HOW IT WORKS. Not just politics but real life too. You are in fact beholding to whoever is your *authority* figure.

Let's assume your boss is your *authority* figure. Now try disagreeing with your boss publicly. Do it once and you're in trouble. Do it three times and unless your boss is a moron you will be gone.

If you run your own company, and some one of your people start disagreeing with you, you'll be concerned and rightfully so. Is this person loyal? Will they follow your policies and rules? Will they steal from you and try to date your daughter?

If that person persists in his disagreemnt, it will eventually become insubordination - and out they go. If you are a Saint, they might last a while longer, but even God cast out Lucifer.

Don't get on his back because Pres. Bush is replacing these guys. Any leader, Pres. Clinton, Pres whoever, GOD it doens't matter - they want supportive people around them.

If you feel the need to disagree with your boss, do it privately and assure him/her you will respect and support their decision(s) even if you do disagree. And before you disagree, decide if you want to die in that ditch first, cause even one disagree can lead to an "unappointment".

Now feel free to heap scorn and disagreement with Pres. Bush, but he might be watching you! **Deploys tin-foil body suit**.