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US Government Restricting Research Libraries
An anonymous reader writes: "In a move that has been termed 'positively Orwellian' by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility Executive Director Jeff Ruch, George W. Bush is ending public access to research materials at EPA regional libraries without Congressional consent. This all-out effort to impede research and public access is a [loosely] covert operation to close down 26 technical libraries under the guise of budgetary constraint. Scientists are protesting, but at least 15 of the libraries will be closed by Sept. 30, 2006."
Has any other US president ever done as much damage to the US as Bush has?
I believe the article and editorialization need to be marked (-1, Troll)
Cliff Claven
K.E.G. Party Chairman
Founding Leader of: Koncerned for Egalitarin Governance
even though Liberals do their own part to misrepresent science, the overwhelming lions share of open distortion percieved by the overwhelming majority of scientists has been unfortunately solidly Republican
Ah, but that doesn't matter in today's politics. All you have to do is find a single instance of someone from the other side doing something similar to what you're doing, and that makes it magically okay for you to continue doing it.
There are no ethics anymore. Instead of people striving to be ethical, they just strive to find other people being unethical so they can excuse their own unethical behavior.
1. Scan news for "Bush"
2. Figure out how to write/re-write article to ensure that Bush looks as evil as possible
3. Leave out any actual facts in favor of baseless speculation, particularly facts that might help to explain Bush's actions in a reasonable way
4. Comment on the demise of society, blaming it all on Bush
5. For an extra bit of irony, mention/imply that only Republicans are responsible for dividing this country
6. Sell news bits for profit
No "Step 2: ???" necessary.
This is getting really old, too. This marks about the sixth time I've seen someone trying to compare Bush's presidency to Carter's. There is NO comparison. Carter was a nauseatingly honest individual who was elected largely in response to the nauseatingly dishonest Nixon administration. He entered the political game playing it straight at a time when the opposition was patently playing it crooked, and inherited (as another poster has mentioned) a terrible situation at a terrible time. What he didn't do was leave a huge mess for future generations to clean up -- most of the situations of Carter's presidency that people didn't like were strictly temporary.
On the other hand, Bush has destroyed a huge budget surplus and left trillions in debt to my kids. His deliberate neglect has more or less wiped one whole American city right off the map. He has ruined America's standing as the leader of the free world with his farrago of lies on Iraq, and he has opened a gaping crack in the Middle East which seems destined to consume innocent lives for decades to come. He has fundamentally damaged the conscience of the nation by actively condoning torture, and actively assaulting our cherished civil liberties -- the one aspect of America that truly makes us American. He has starved the middle class and pushed millions into poverty with his patently worker-unfriendly policies (better known as his "Ownership Society" initiative). He has contributed to the further decline of public education, ensuring that millions can't compete in a modern job market, through his unfunded No Child Left Behind. He has bitterly divided America with his lies and hateful, cynical rhetoric. He has flaunted his authority recklessly and led with all the gravitas of a 21-year old fraternity prankster. In a simple character evaluation of Jimmy Carter versus George W. Bush, there is no question who I'd rather have in charge.
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I am no Bush apologist (please read that again before modding me flamebait), but I was more than a little perturbed by the editorial tone of the article. So, I Googled the subject and I can find dozens of blogs and opinion pieces dating back to around March or so on this, but nothing from a traditional news source (I gave up after about 5 pages of search results).
I would like to read an objectively written fact based story behind this and not just a lot of reactionary Bush bashing.
What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it's all about?
Doesn't anybody bother to look at the source data before flaming? Or is this news "too good to check"?
This is the EPA engaging in political tactics. To begin with, they haven't yet been asked to cut their budget, and they may never be. The closing of libraries is not Bush's idea--it's EPA bureaucrats saying "Look what you made us do!"
The proposed budget cut constitutes a fraction of of a percent of the EPA's budget, and it could be achieved with a minor reduction in the EPA's bloated administrative costs.
This is a standard tactic in every government in the world. Faced with budget cuts, the bureaucrats respond by threatening to terminate one of the few things they do that actually provides a service. The mystery is that they often get away with it.
The special irony in this item is that the EPA isn't planning to cut the service—just the way it's delivered.
I'm a Programmer. That's one level above Software Engineer and one level below Engineer.
2. Figure out how to write/re-write article to ensure that Bush looks as evil as possible
most of the time thats not entirely necessary, the actions speak for themselves. unconstitutional actions, obvious power grabs, dumbing down the education system, its all pretty clear. bush is trying to gather as much power as possible for himself/his office.
3. Leave out any actual facts in favor of baseless speculation, particularly facts that might help to explain Bush's actions in a reasonable way
because nobody pro-bush would EVER do that. shock, horror. especially bush himself. more shock, horror.
4. Comment on the demise of society, blaming it all on Bush
strike bush, replace with democrats, and its the basis for a solid republican "talking point"
5. For an extra bit of irony, mention/imply that only Republicans are responsible for dividing this country
slow down. rumsfeld YESTERDAY claimed youre with us, or youre appeasing the fascists. par for the course of rovian politics, if youve been paying attention.
im not a republican, im not a democrat. id just like a little sensibility in our government.
turn up the jukebox and tell me a lie
Am I wrong?
Yes.
Clinton got bashed back in his day. The reason it seems we bitch more about Bush than we did Clinton is because Bush is a big fuck-up.
Bush supporters get a little tetchy about criticism of this administration, forgetting that all administrations are taken to task when watchful (and slightly paranoid) people catch them with their hands inside the cookie jar of liberty. The Bush administration just happens to be raiding it a lot more than previous administrations, and a lot more blatantly.
As has been pointed out by others, this story is potentially misleading. I'd write that off to many of us being a bit jumpy around Bush. When the school bully tends to walk up behind you and smack you on the head, you start jerking your head around at the oddest moments. It might look silly when the bully isn't behind you, but it might just save you a few headaches.
But, had Clinton tried doing this, he would have received much the same treatment.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
I think this is an extremely important thing to realize. People have been able to justify things way too easily nowadays. When a politician lies they say "well they all lie" and just accept it as part of the territory. Instead of striving toward excellence and taking exception at the failures of striving toward this ideal, the American public seems to like just putting up with mediocrity by thinking that everyone is corrupt liars who steal and the crook you know is better than the one you don't so why even bother punishing them for it. It's a ridiculous mindset. Unethical is unethical, it's the adult equivalent of the "Well Jimmy's dad said he could" argument.
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
I've been to China. Any notion that the Chinese Government controls all those people is strictly illusory. As soon as the government's eye is not on them, they go on and do whatever it is they need to. And especially during the period in question, there was almost no real contact between the people who ruled from the Forbidden City, and the people who were ruled over. When you contrast that to Bush's stage-managed presidency wherein he has rarely if ever come into contact with someone who was not a carefully screened supporter or piece of harmless hugmeat, the parallels become unpleasant. Furthermore, the kinds of advances that used to take decades now happen in weeks. We are already being left behind by other nations. I've also been to South Korea. Their adoption of technology and modern lifestyle has happened at a seriously breakneck pace. I talked to people who were younger than me (and I'm merely a GenX-er) who had grown up in thatched-roof houses. They now have something like 90% of the country wired for broadband.
The Bush Admin's open hostility to science is no secret. This isn't an isolated incident; it's part of a total trend of deliberately ignoring information which is inconvenient. And to suggest that we could possibly petition this Congress to do something about it is absurd.
Finally, we are reading an article that is obviously skewed in the direction of an environmentalist PAC. Perhaps we should hear both sides of the story---or is the witch hunt too far underway to surrender to reason?
As I've noted already in this thread, we've been getting our news for the last several years from networks who think that fake JonBenet Killer news stories are worth our 24-hour-a-day attention. And if this news story is somehow not factually true I'm sure evidence to that effect will surface, but in the meantime we don't need to balance our news consumption with fiction.
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Yes, President Carter. Double-didgit inflation, taxes so high that they broke the econom, etc.
I remember this period well.
Note that legally there is not much effective that a President himself can do about inflation, as the most critical factor involved is the money supply, which is controlled by the Federal Reserve. In addition, the economy was still reeling from the impact of high energy prices on entrenched energy inefficiencies. The result was stagflation: a brutal combination of economic stagnation and inflation.
There's not much you can do to make an economy energy efficient overnight, but what Carter did about this was appoint Paul Volcker as Fed chairman, who proceeded to change the one variable that could be changed quickly: the money supply. Volcker who took office in August of 1979, proceeded to attack inflatoin vigorously, at tremendous political cost to Carter.
Check out these graphs: prime rate, Consumer Price Index, and unemployment.
This is the story they tell. Roughly in the middle of his term, Carter hires Paul Volcker as Fed Chairman, with the job of stopping inflation. Volcker starts the cut off the money supply in order to break the back of inflation. Immediately, the rate of inflation starts to drop, economic growth stalls, and unemployment begins to rise.
Right around the time of the 1980 election, the prime rate is approaching it's historical high of 21.5. This continues to strangle economic growth and drive rising unemployement.
But inflation IS responding to Volcker's shock treatment. Carter gets no political boost from this, becuase he's only succeeded thus far to change the second derivative of prices. Which is to say that prices aren't dropping, they are continuing to rise at historically high rates. But the inflation rate is moving rapidly in the right direction, something that is only apparent when looking at data graphs, not when you go to purchase a quart of milk. What ordinary people see is high prices that continue to increase at a high rate, reduced economic growth, and decreased job security. This experience of economic insecurity creates a new class of voters: the Reagan Democrat. Ronald Reagan successfully argues that Carter has mismanaged the economy, and the voters buy it because everywhere they look, they see pain.
In the first half of Reagan's term, far too early for his economic policies to have had such a dramatic effect, inflation returns to its approximate historical average. Immediately the Fed release their death grip on interest rates, and economic growth ensues. Unemployment continues to rise for a short time as weak companies shed workers, but overall in the context of an economy poised to resume growth, this is a good thing.
Unemployment hits its peak in 1983. By this time, Reagan's fiscal policies are having an effect as well. The biggest thing he can influence strongly is federal spending, and he has embarked on a program of unusually high levels of peacetime deficit spending. Wikipedia does not have a nice graph but you can look it up from the CBO: The last Ford budget had a deficit of 4.1%; Carter's budgets had deficits of 2.7,2.7, 1.6, 2.7 and 2.5%. Reagan's first term budgets had deficits of 3.7, 5.6, 4.7, and 5.1%. An economy is primed for rapid growth responds rapidly to the stimulative effects of federal spending unchecked by offsetting taxes. When the 1984 election rolls around, Reagan looks like an economic genius: inflation under control, economic growth back on track, unemployment rapidly dropping.
Carter of course looks like an economic idiot even though arguably Carter's fiscal restraint and Volcker's severe anti-inflation policies made the strong recover of the 80s possible. Reagan's spending policies would have be
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Technically
We've had Reagan talk about "The War on Drugs" and Bush talk about "The War on Terror" and the media LOVES to talk about "The War in Iraq", but none of these are "Wars"
In some ways I think his current actions with the libraries and Iraq are good examples of Bush's presidency. Using Executive action and Executive order to create sweeping changes in the way things are done.
The framers of the Constitution wanted the ability for centralized control in times of crisis (instead of relying on congress to do anything rapidly), but feared centralizing too much power. Bush has been running roughshod over the Checks and Balances that are supposed to be in place to govern these sort of actions, when there ISN'T a crisis (and not every day after 9/11 is a crisis).
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Much to my surprise, most Americans don't equate Iran Contra with the hostage crisis even though they are one in the same. President Elect Ron Reagan should shoulder a significant amount of the blame for the length of the hostage crisis.
After being elected in November, he opened back channel negotiations with the Ayatollah. The gist is Reagan offered to supply Iran with arms on the condition that Iran held our hostages until he took the oath. That's two months those innocent people had to live in captivity so Reagan could score political points.
The only justice in the whole thing is that Reagan is forever stained by Iran-Contra. That's little consolation to the hostages, I'm sure, but it's something.
Carter worked tirelessly in the months before leaving office to secure their release. There was little he could do outside of ordering an invasion of Iran. I think we can agree that would not have been a good thing.