My my. Hostile, aren't we? As I said, inane pointless harping day after day, does not make something true. Provide evidence of it or quit making the assertion. As far as hostility goes, I believe you called BS and then claimed that a vote for Kerry was somehow a vote for imasculation, without basis for your assertion. I'd consider that hostile. I also consider people who make such generalizations foolish. It's not personal if I attack your actions, only if I demean your character. Playing the victim does not discredit any of my assertions, it is simply a distraction.
What statement in particular are you talking about? If you're referring to my statement about the corrupt French, Russians, or Chinese, please do us all a favor and read up on the fabled U.N. Oil For Food program. This is what we can look forward to if we abdicate our national responsibility to the U.N. as Kerry would have us do.
I've read up on the UN Oil for Food program, plenty. So far nothing is new. Saddam was a kleptocrat, we knew that. The Oil for Food program was putting money in Saddam's pocket at the expense of the Iraqi people, we knew that too. There is corruption in the world, there is corruption in Russia, if you are shocked about these facts, then I would question who has their 'Head in the Sand'.
Kofi Anan has directed that the investigations are cooperatted with and that all information is provided. Should we expose those companies and countries that undermined our resolve against Saddam during the 90's, absolutely. Is there any evidence that there was a conspiracy leading to the top of the UN to allow cronies to profit from the program? No, not yet.
This was a bad deal to begin with. There wasn't a great deal of support for it, but there weren't a lot of great choices in '96. The entire world got all weepy about how economic sanctions and Saddam's mismanagement were killing the Iraqi people, I never liked the program myself because I expected Saddam to simply steal the money anyway. Without international resolve to invade Iraq and depose Saddam, there was little to be done other than contain the problem. We were far more concerned with insuring that Saddam couldn't attack the Kurds or Shia or reconstitute his WMD programs.
I think we can see the cost of invading Iraq without international resolve today. The reason this controversy has been met with so much skepticism is because the right has a history of finding some small infraction and then claiming it's simply the tip of the iceberg and their enemies must then prove their innocence, although no evidence for their guilt or even to substantiate the charges is ever produced. Just look at Whitewater, the only convictions were the McDougals. That was a $70 million witch hunt. Other than getting a blow job in the Oval Office, no other malfeasance was ever found. The right will simply use this same tactic to smear the UN now. These people don't attack crime, they attack their enemies by searching for the crime to justify their actions. Unfortunately, they don't have a great track record for dredging up anything meaningful, so we just wind up wasting a lot of time and energy.
The GOP is hardly one to talk about cutting deals with dictators, Pinochet in Chile, Suharto in Indonesia, Iran-Contra, hell where do you think Saddam got his WMD in the first place?
If the Dems are in charge, whomever is guilty at the UN will be punished. That will be the end of it. There's no reason to pursue this any further. It's not an indictment of the UN as a whole. It's not a reason to scrap the UN as the isolationist, unilateralist factions on the right would like.
Myself, I'll wait for some evidence before reaching conclusions on this issue. You'll also need to explain that curious statement of how Kerry will " abdicate our national responsibility to the U.N.". The GOP is the one who consistently blocks payment of UN dues. Who's abdicating?
Please remind me, is this war hero of yours, John Kerry, the same guy who can't
I call B.S. Vote Democrat if you want to become a nation of thumb-twiddlers and hand-wringers. Vote for Bush if you want our nation to stick up for itself and not wait for the corrupt French, Russians, or Chinese to give us permission to actually do something about the Islamic militant threat.
I keep hearing this inane banter from the right day after day. Put up or shut up. What evidence or analysis do you have that backs up your statement? Senator Kerry has 3 purple hearts, a silver star and a bronze star. Bush can't even account for his days at the Texas Air National Refuge for Rich Boys. We're taking thousands of troops from the Korean DMZ where a real threat has 30,000 artillery pieces aimed at Seoul, S. Korea. Not to mention their nuclear capabilities and missle tech that has been CONFIRMED, not speculated on. Bush dropped Clinton's policy of containment in both Iraq and N. Korea when he got into office. On N. Korea, he said he wouldn't negotiate like his predecessor. Bush has since reversed himself and is in a much weaker negotiating position than Clinton left him with. If war breaks out on the Korean penn. one of our large trading partners will be reduced to a pile of rubble within an hour. In other words, you won't have anymore cheap electronics if the DMZ goes hot, the economy, ours and Asia's will plummet.
This is about competence, not courage. Bush is an incompetent fool, as are those who have his ear. Your inability to refute facts and analysis with any of your own just proves that you are as foolish as he is. Parroting the Faux News party line doesn't prove anything!
You forget history so quickly. When Clinton launched those missles in retaliation for the embassy bombings, the GOP and right wing attack dogs accused him of "Wagging the Dog". Had the GOP actually given a rat's ass about the safety of this country instead of it's bullshit witch hunt to depose a twice elected president, we could have effectively dealt with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
Bush ignored Clinton's warnings about Al-Qaeda and Louis Freeh was more interested in helping the GOP to attack his boss than tracking terrorists. This is all public record, go look at the facts and you'll see that the GOP has had a hand in destroying the ability of this country to maintain stability and peace in this world. Clinton was and still is loved around the world, he was able to kick the Europeans out of their little coma to deal with genocide in the Balkans, and he could have effectively dealt with Al-Qaeda as well.
In fact, the Military officials in the Pentagon kept demanding that any foreign action be treated like Gulf War I and would require.5 million troops to do anything. Clinton did what he could, numerous plots planned for the millinium were foiled. Had this country rallied behind the President after the embassy bombings like it did after 9/11, 9/11 may not have happened.
If anyone is to blame for the current situation with terrorism it's the GOP, they have worked against this country's interests at every turn for their own political gain. Kerry will bring back Clinton's policies which protected this country for 8 years. Kerry won't allow idiology take precedence over strategy. Face it, when it comes to actually dealing with problems, Bush is all talk and no action. If the goal was defeating terrorism, Iraq was a wasted effort. Rumsfeld screwed up getting Usama cause he let a bunch of N. Alliance irregulars do it instead of risking US lives. We could have gotten the bastard at Tora Bora had they actually used the military as it was intended.
Your belief that those of us that oppose this idiot Bush will cower, is ignorant. We won't cower from terrorist or Bush. We will take them both on and we will win.
Some of us *do* believe that in-vitro methods that result in dozens of unused embryos are immoral as a method of fertility therapy.
Fine, go protest fertility clinics then. I was pointing out the obvious hypocrisy of stopping a method for research while it's commonplace in another well established industry. If you think something is immoral, that's your choice. This country doesn't allow you to force your vision of morality upon anyone else. Unless you can demonstrate a state interest in preventing someone from taking a specific action, then you violate the seperation clause. In other words, keep YOUR morals off MY healthcare.
The Democratic Party would lambast a Dem president doing that, too, and they, by definition, are partisan. Your statement doesn't refute the assertion that the UCS is partisan.
The definition of partisan follows:
Devoted to or biased in support of a party, group, or cause
The term as used when referencing the GOP or Dems means alligence to one or the other. A group who takes up an issue and treats both equally over that issue is non-partisan, and that bit of knowledge is common. Stop trying to twist meanings to fit your argument. The UCS does treat both the Dems and GOP the same in regard to the issues they believe in, this would classify them as non-partisan. They are partisan about their issues, but you're just confusing the point by parsing language.
Wait, I want to get this straight.... You brought up a Washington Times story to refute an attack on a GOP administration? Are you aware the Times is operated at a loss of $1 million a week by the Moonies as a propaganda tool? It's not a credible newspaper, especially when critiquing a GOP administration. Go do some research on the Times and the Moonies, it'll make you feel like you stepped into some bizarre world.
Uhm, Greenwatch is funded by the "vast right-wing conspiracy". Scaife funded organizations call anyone to the left of Attila the Hun, radical leftists. Please try discrediting the UCS again. Media Transparency
I haven't got time to go pick apart a 20 page doc right now, but I can't say that I trust much that comes from the White House these days. And about the guy being a life-long Dem, so's Zell Miller, but he's speaking at the GOP convention.
Quit listening to right wing media, it will rot your brain.
First of all, blaming the "Bush administration" for the actions of many varied government agencies is a bit disingenous. Does anyone suppose the FDA takes daily orders from the White House? Our government just doesn't work like that.
Son, sit down and let me explain something to you....
The UCS is attacking the Bush administration, because (and the articles reference this) the Bush administration is directly telling agencies to put policy in place that ignores the scientific facts.
Second, what [these particular] scientists seem to lack is a sense of perspective. There are no solutions to real-world problems. There are only trade-offs. Sure, it would be great to have perfectly clean water, but at what point is "clean enough?" How much effort do you spend saving one endangered species?
You're so ignorant of this case it's not funny. Bush is allowing power plants to dump higher levels of mercury into water supplies for starters. The Bush administration is rolling back environmental protections anywhere and everywhere it allows some business to make a buck, especially RNC contributors. This isn't some nitpicking little lefties handwringing over some endangered swan. This is a wholesale assault on our health and safety. We're not talking about perfectly clean water, we're talking about water that causes massive increases in birth defects. And guess what, contaminated water doesn't wind up in rich neighborhoods where they can afford to take care of expensive birth defects, it happens in poor ones, where people don't know any better. And what happens when half the kids in the trailer park turn out retards cause of the mercury? You pay for it in higher taxes and social costs. Unless you want some eugenics along with your laissez faire environmental policy, it's going to wind up costing you way more to let pollution go than it does to regulate it.
The progressive movement (modern lefties, Clinton Third Way folks and all) believes in regulating business and green environmental policies because the others just hide the cost. You may think you're getting cheap stuff out of this, or the economy will do better, but it will wind up costing you more in the long run.
The only people who are being unreasonable in this situation are the people on the right. But don't believe me, go do some freaking research. Quit trying to be so non-partisan, the Bush administration have demonstrated that they are irresponsible and incompetent time and again. They don't deserve your benefit of the doubt, everytime anyone gives it to them, it turns out to be a bad idea (i.e. War in Iraq).
1) While I appreciate Minister al-Sahaf's acknowledgement that the issues around stem cells are matter of subjectivity, not a science-vs-faith issue like evolution, framing the debate in terms of "religious grounds" isn't all that much better. It's a question of ethics, like other bioethics issues.
The banned stem cell research is a matter of hypocrisy and partisan pandering at the expense of science. The banned research in question uses blastocyts (sp?) which is simply an egg fertilized in a petri dish and never embedded in a womb. Banning research using this method is inconsistent since the same practice is used at fertility clinics all over the country. If there is an ethical problem using this method for stem cell research, then it should be equally unethical to use it in fertility clinics. It isn't even a faith vs. science issue like evolution, cause this is even more bogus.
2) The Union of Concerned Scientists is a wildly partisan organization, that leans heavily on getting large numbers of scientists to sign their statements and then acting as though that represents an informed expert opinion by the signatories. That doesn't invalidate any particular point they make, of course, but I'd like to examine these accusations on a case by case basis, rather than get excited about "x scientists, including y Nobel Laureates" signing another one of their screeds.
And which issue was it that you have ever disagreed with these people on? I've been following them for a long time, and although the right likes to complain every time they say something, I've yet to see any refutation of their assertions that was worth the paper it was printed on. If you're going to up make smear attacks against an organization like this, you'll need to back it up with some references. Their board of directors has more accomplishments and standing than any of the detractors I've ever heard.
How is the UCS partisan? They'd lambast a Dem president who did what Bush is currently doing. Of course, we all know the must have just used their undercover Democratic operatives with Chinese contribution cash to go twist the arms of all these scientists so they'd sign on that the Bush administration is using real research that effects this country as political fodder. Attacking the UCS for this tactic is extremely stupid. Does consensus count for nothing now? Should we ignore majority consensus among voters for presidential candidates now? Oh, wait.....
That was my point. That things are heading in the right direction. Look at your list:
stop fighting pakistan, manage to conquer religious and social strife and promote education
We've essentially got the same list. We're in two wars, providing security for a number of other countries, have religious kooks that are trying to turn our country into a theocracy, racists and a crumbling educational infrastructure. The only suggestion I could give to you, is to remember how fragile society, especially complex industrialized ones, are. It is much easier to piss away the gains of a couple of generations that to help create those gains.
I realize that's why the BJP lost. That's why I was so excited. It was democracy at work. We tried that here and they rigged the election in Florida. Don't get me wrong, I understand India still has about 800 million people living below that middle class status, but I see hope in India and I'm seeing them make the correct choices that will lead to more prosperity for a larger number of their citizens.
At least India is willing to try. Over here, half the country thinks regulation is a bad word and only a commie would like one. We've got a bunch of people who don't believe in evolution, still think the world is full of marxists (Castro is the only one left), and hold on to amazingly stupid false dichotomies. I realize that India has it's numbers of kooks too, but at least things there are moving in the right direction. We've got a government that seems to want to feed into this irrationality and sell off the infrastructure the next generation will need to compete with countries like India.
From my perspective, I will be welcoming our new Indian overlords from the unemployment line sometime in the next 25 years.
BTW, do you have any good english sites that give an objective view of day to day news in India? I hit some of the big ones, but I don't know enough about Indian politics to tell whether or not I'm reading an objective view or not.
You should see "Fog of War" and go read some more about Robert MacNamara. He was considered a technocrat who's arrogance led to some mistakes. Many of the Italian and German fascists were also technocrats. I will entirely agree that technocrats are alluring and we should look for some of those qualities in our politicians, but there is also an arrogance in putting complete faith in technocracy.
I would say that just because someone is not arrogant when confronted by facts and figures, that does not make them a wise leader. They can be just as arrogant and blinded with facts and statistics as their justification.
Seek balance and understanding (empathy) in politicians, those qualities will let them listen to technocrats. Of course, I do want to point out the irony here on/. that technocrat is really just a modern term for bureaucrat. In fact, the modern technocracy has all of the same problems as turn of the century republics like France and Italy, where the problems were blamed on the failing of the bureaucrat.
Is it me, or does India continue to make LOGICAL political decisions?
They invested in education and social programs and created a workforce capable of doing our high-paying jobs. They then set up an economic environment where those jobs would come over, including investments in infrastructure and utilities.
Next the middle class over there starts to take off, and they make a national effort to help make sure that the benefit of the boom is extended to the less fortunate, so they can make more of the country self-sufficient.
They've managed to stay out of international conflicts and have sent peace ovetures to Pakistan. Now they're jumping all over Open Source as a way to improve their own efficiency and self-sufficiency.
All this, and I doubt India's federal gov costs anywhere near what these asshats over here who seem to actively work against us cost.
Between Colin Powell telling the Indians that there will be no attempt to curb outsourcing by American companies on the part of the Bush Administration and the following account of Tom Donohue's (CEO of US Chamber of Commerce, really good friend of Bush Administration, kind of like Ken Lay) speech in San Francisco:
Donohue acknowledged the pain for people who have lost jobs to offshoring - an estimated 250,000 a year, according to government estimates. But pockets of unemployment shouldn't lead to "anecdotal politics and policies," he said, and people affected by offshoring should "stop whining." - AP Newswire
Personally, I say we go build a freaking guillotine, cause as far as I'm concerned, he might as well have said, "let them eat cake".
Anyway good luck to India and how much to run our Federal government?
I probably should have been clearer. I think XML has it's place. If you look at SOAP vs. CORBA the inefficiency is quite stark. XML is very flexible, but I think that it's flexibility comes at an expense and that tradeoff should not always be made. XML is a great way to make data portable for batch or bulk transfers, but it's overhead is quite large for messaging. Applying gzip to XML is just putting another finger in the dam. It's a solution, but it requires extra processing and another library. In a system that is going to control the electrical system of a building, I would first think of an embedded system that worked 24/7, had a few moving parts as needed and was part of the infrastructure. XML doesn't seem to be a great fit in this type of situation. XML with gzip, less so. XML should be used infrequently, it's extensibility makes it expensive to process. If you think XML is so easy to read, try reverse engineering some SOAP packets for JMeter scripts sometime. I personally think this myth of readability that XML enjoys may be hindering development of useful visualization and editing tools for XML Schemas and DTDs.
My opinion is that XML is good for:
1) data that is stored in a document structure 2) translation between disparate systems 3) configuration files
While I'm sure even XML in an intelligent system could improve overall efficiency of a building, it just seems funny that one of the most bloated tools in the toolbox would be used to do it.
Richard Clarke, who can hardly be labelled as a Bush supporter at this point, has come out recently and publically said that he was responsible for getting the bin Laden family out of the US after 9/11, and that no one above him ordered it or even knew about it.
That was one of those much ado about nothing things that happened. I don't think Moore should have brought it up, it really is an appeal to emotion, but it hardly can be considered an indictment of the entire film. I don't think Moore should have brought up the Bush-Saud stuff. I think he should have brought up more of the Madrassas and Islamic funding. It's items like this that cause me to disagree with Moore's analysis generally. However, I don't get nearly as many people to listen to my detailed analysis as Moore does. Also, I don't get paid for it. However, my original critique of the post stands, that you can't simply sling rhetoric and have it prove anything. The amount of differing statements on this little factiod would cause me to leave it out, this doesn't destroy the entire point of Moore's film, which is that this Administration has distorted the truth and acted against best interests of the citizens of the US. Moore is accusing the Administration of incompetence. The degree of truth associated with this factiod doesn't support or destroy Moore's central point. In other words, you'll need more than this to defeat Moore's assertions.
Yasser Arafat won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994. This works as well as attacking the Nobel organization for giving Mr. Carter the prize. Who was more worthy of the award in 1994? Why was Arafat not worthy of the prize in 1994? After all, he was awarded 1/3 of the prize in conjunction with Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin. Were Yitzhak Rabin or Shimon Peres not worthy of the prize either?
Make an assertion. Don't believe you can win arguments by throwing stones over a wall.
Your point is quite correct. I think this has a lot to do with people confusing their culture or religion with the government of the US. This country has already been through one Civil War, so saying that it can't happen again is irrational.
Just about every analysis of conflicts talks about how violence started when the opposing sides quit talking. I agree that we need to be civil in our disagreements with one another. However, if you look at the issues that lead to people taking extremist points of view, you will see a pattern where they believe they are fighting for a cause greater than themselves and that the other side opposes that cause.
Look at gay marriage. Some people feel that this is counter to their culture and religion. They believe that it is therefore against their country. I had a great time this weekend talking to some people who were voting for Bush over gay-marriage and abortion. I pointed out that when their kids go to school with Muslims or Jews, they don't come home converted, so why would they come home converted to believe that gay-marriage was morally defensable. They thought that gay-marriage meant their church would have to let gay folks get married there. I asked them how many Buhddist weddings their church was forced to perform by the state. They also thought that legal gay-marriage would make it impossible for them to still believe that homosexuality was a sin. I pointed out that the Ku Klux Klan and American Nazi Party legally exist and are only prosecuted when they deny other citizens their rights. I think the irony was completely lost on these folks, but they did get the point. I also pointed out the futility of supporting Bush for this reason since his only solution has been rhetoric and a constitutional amendment which no sane person believes will pass. I mean, Dick "go F yourself" Cheney's daughter is openly gay. There's even a grassroots petition to get her to come out against the gay-marriage amendment.
After explaining why I believed in seperation of church and state and why it was important for them to protect it, in order to protect their own culture and beliefs, I think I got them to at least think about the issue more rationally.
It takes this kind of hard work and effort to stop a civil war from ever becoming a possiblity. We should keep that danger in the back of our minds though. For instance, I watched the nomination speach for the Constitutional Party (God, Family, Republic), if those people ever come to political power in this country, there will be a civil war. I feel that organizations like this are in direct opposition to the principles and law that this country was founded upon. If they were to actually begin to get their agenda to become law in this country, I would be willing to oppose them by any means necessary.
By continuing to talk to people and treat them with respect, no matter how looney they are, we will marginalize the true looneys and allow the rest of the country to progress, ultimately using the tools of reason. You can't fight a culture, but you can get along with one pretty easily if you come to a mutual understanding, even if you agree to disagree.
Like...? I don't recall this ever being the sole purpose in going to Iraq. Like the Sudan or N Korea. But WMD was the reason. This administration claimed that Iraq was reconstituting it's nuclear program and possessed stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons. They claimed that either Iraq would use these weapons against us or sell them to Al-Qaeda to use against us. The only relationship link between Al-Qaeda and Iraq that has been proven is the Bush Administration (Rumsfeld, Cheney).
(1) There is a lot of sand in Iraq, which means a lot of hiding places. If you have ever lost anything in something as small as a beach, imagine the scale involved with a "beach" that is 167,924 square miles. (2) Saddam was not above "hiding" weapons (of any sort) in cemetaries and hospitals, so the number of places that one could expect to find anything pretty-much jumped to every square inch of the region. (3) Fox News and an ABC affiliate report on the fact that the United Nations found missile engines and other parts that were suited for the purpose of making WMDs in a scrap heap in Jordan. The source of all this metal? IRAQ.
It's been over a year since we started our military occupation in Iraq. We have used every method to find the weapons, including torture. We have found no evidence to support these theories that were the basis for going to war. David Kay came back and said, no weapons, no programs. Bush has had to resort to saying they had capabilities. A kid with internet access has capabilities too, but we aren't locking up all the kids and putting them in naked man piles.
There has been no evidence of any claim made by this administration. The evidence found has pointed 180 degrees in the other direction. The evidence shows that the previous policy of containment was working just fine. This was a distraction from the real war on terror. Keep holding out hope if you want, but those of us interested in defeating terror and not having more 9/11's happen, realize that either this administration has lied to us or it's completely incompetent to pursue the war on terror. Don't tell me we went to war over a rocket engine, before it wound up in the trash, that may have been able to get 3/4's of the way to Israel rather than just 1/2 the way. Was that really worth nearly 1000 dead Americans and 2000+ disabled vets?
That's flawed reasoning. One should not condemn a nation based on the nationality of a criminal. Acting on a nation based on the actions of its Head of State is something quite different.
How about the funding of those people? How about the support of Al-Qaeda from Saudi families and organizations? How about the slow response and resistence we've had from the leadership in Saudi Arabia? The House of Saud has one concern, it's own power. Don't forget that. The Saudi's were a much more valid target, for political pressure at least, than Iraq ever was. If we went to Iraq based on support of Al-Qaeda, then we really should have gone after the Saudis first. They provided more support than anyone in Iraq ever did.
No, we'd be doing something to shut the mouths of people against drilling in the protected lands within the US. I agree that we should protect the land, so that environmental damage is minimized as much as possible, so don't think for a second that I'm in favor of drilling. By the same token, when the entire world is quite capable of watching the corporate goings-on (especially with regard to oil), I would hope that companies (like Haliburton) have the smarts to avoid doing something so blatently stupid. We all know, however, that not everyone thinks things through before acting...
Please don't be so naive that you would leave the future up to trusting Haliburton or any other corporate interest. Corporations may be good and providing a return to investors, but they will look for any government subsidy to increase this return, including lax envrionmental regulation. It's a subsidy if they cause expense to society (cleaning up th
Yeah I'm tired of all those Holocaust doco's that don't give the Nazi's a fair shake for committing genocide. Surely, we should approach the subject matter with an open mind on genocide, right? um... right? ah... anyone.... hello...
Moore labels his work as Op-Ed. The mainstream media blends Op-Ed with objective reporting and sometimes they substitute objective reporting with lazy bits of Op-Ed. I'll agree to a point with your critique of Moore, but my point was that he doesn't exist in a vaccum and that the lack of quality in mainstream media makes his idea's larger than they are truly worth. Think of how much less impact Bowling for Columbine would have had, had the mainstream media had focused on issues like gun control and jock bullying more rationally. Instead they just fought with each other over who could scoop the culprit first. Remember, it was these crazy Goth type kids to blame, then video games, then entertainment.
The oversimplification and overall pointlessness left a market for someone like Moore to be successful stating their opinion. Use the same critical methodology on the Op-Ed page of the Wall Street Journal sometime, I think you'll find Moore has cadre among his own enemy.
Honestly, I think that Moore would tell you that he's glad that you've become more politically aware, whether or not you agree with him. While I don't hold Moore to high praise, I can at least respect that.
Of course it's completely impossible that a sitting US president might take action that was counter to the actions that Mr. Carter and the Nobel Peace Prize committee have decided would promote peace.
You still fail to say how this is a mockery or somehow anything other than what the participants state it is. Criticizing the US leadership is an American tradition, not an indictment. How is it any less plausible that Mr. Carter had contributed the most to finding a peaceful resolution to the Iraq issue?
If you're going to try to prove a point, then pay attention to the proof part.
You know, I remember when Columbine happened and this site couldn't talk about anything else for a couple of months. A lot of the opinions were that the important issues had been completely distorted in the media and marginalized due to the sheer emotional tradgedy of the situation.
Bowling for Colombine was a more in depth and serious look at the causes of the Columbine tradgedy than any I saw in any of the mainstream media. Moore would not have set records with his opinionated analysis of Columbine if everybody had felt closure and resolution over the incident.
Your claim of yellow-journalism against Moore is interesting given the yellow-journalism practiced by the majority of media in this country, which gives Moore a audience for his voice. Impuning Moore's motives by citing his financial interest actually supports the very accusations that he has made against Bush. I don't think that impuning anyone's motive is constructive or a provable attack, it is one of my chief criticisms of the film, and your attack.
Why is it that I have yet to see anyone offer anything other than personal attacks on Moore here. Take on the facts and ideas. Is intellectual conservitism completely dead?
A partisan congressional committee decided there was no link between Osama and Saddam. This from a culture that created the phrase "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." Both had a larger enemy in the US than they did with each other. I'll bet there really was a connection.
A partisian committee? Both the 9/11 commission and the Senate Intelligence Committee were bi-partisian. Republicans dominate the Intelligence Committee and share equal numbers on the 9/11 commission. Why do you bet there was a connection? What about the fact that Zarquawi was sent to help the Kurds against Saddam and that Osama, who repeatedly declared his dislike for Saddam, was appearently asked to make contact with Saddam's people in an effort to placate the Sudanese? There is enough evidence to make any kind of working connection between Saddam and Osama extremely speculative.
On the other hand, an impartial judge agreed with the claims of victims of terrorism that there WAS enough evidence to link Saddam and Osama, and allowed a suit against Iraq for reparrations for the deaths of their loved ones.
Who was counsel for defense? There was no defense, the suit was won by default and Iraq was judged in absentia, which was allowed by an earlier anti terrorism law. The judge also noted that much of the evidence relied on was "classically hearsay".
Just because a congressional committee (The only creature known to man to have over 4 legs, 4 eyes, and 2 mouths, and yet have no brain) decided for political reasons there was no connection, and a Big Fat Stupid White Guy claims there was no connection, this is not enough to say "We now know that isn't true."
But then, your analysis falls below their critique.
Re:Sports writer says: ... most powerful movie ...
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Fahrenheit 9/11 Discussion
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· Score: 4, Insightful
If F911 goes on to be proven to be a propogandistic screed, it will without doubt place the Cannes Film Festival in the same league as the Nobel Peace Prize and the United Nations: institutions which soiled their reputations in order to pursue a political agenda.
Cite a factual error or gross oversimplification of the facts in 9/11. Cite how the Peace Prize and UN have been perverted by politics anymore than the GOP or the corporate dominated media. You accuse these institutions, run by fallable humans, without citing anything as damning as ignoring a real threat to the country to pursue an ideologically driven war against a hypothetical threat.
I am willing to accept mistakes, I am unwilling to accept incompetence and irresponsibility.
National defense information and work product was given to China in the 90s in exchange for campaign cash from the People's Liberation Army under Clinton's watch is acceptable behavior?
I don't think Bush's former business relationships are in the same league as this matter but Mike Moore wants you to believe that conducting legitimate business prior to taking office which is not approved of by Michael Moore is not; and Moore wants you to believe that Rich White Men(tm) have it in for democracy. Well, if that is true, then at the top of the list is Michael Moore and his films.
Where does Moore, or anyone else for that matter, come out and say that Mr. Chung or Mr. Ghandi should not have been indicted or tried? I don't remember anyone from the DNC doing anything other than returning any questionable funds, which totalled less than $500,000 out of $1 Billion in contributions for the 1996 campaign season. Ethics charges have been filed in the House against Tom DeLay (R-Texas) for campaign contribution violations. Rep. Nick Smith (R-Mich) alleges that he was promised $100,000 for his son's campaign by the RNC and threatened with marginalization if he refused to vote yes on the Medicare bill in Nov '03. Moore doesn't attribute this to Bush or his Administration directly, why do you attribute problems with the DNC fund raising arm with the Clinton Administration?
The Bush administration have shown little leadership when dealing with the Israelis or Saudis. They have been more concerned with Iraq than the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, they have faltered in pressuring real reform in Saudi Arabia. This could have been accomplished by securing Israeli concessions in the West Bank and Gaza. Clinton was much closer to securing some peace there, which most experts on the area (both Arab and Western) agree that the issue is the number one recruiting/fund-raising poster for real terrorists.
Readers should also consider what the Bush administration has done to protect the USA from further attack from terrorists and what Mike Moore has done. One element has taken pro-active and solid steps for our nations security, the other is like a yelping 300 pound chihuahua, complaining loudly about what Bush did, all the while failing to offer what he should have done.
It may not happen this year but I feel certain that F911 along with 'Bowling for Columbine' will be shown to be propoganda films, not documentaries, and the awards presented to them will be forever stained with this stigma.
Moore is simply stating that the emporer has no clothes. If you would like to state that the emporer has clothes, then you will need to back that up. Moore has claimed that his facts have all been vetted. Either point out ones that haven't or counter them with your own. Distracting the discussion with motive, or trying to discredit the ideas with guilt by association does not accomplish anything. I personally think that Moore falls into that trap sometimes in an attempt to reach a less informed audience, but you fail to even point out where he makes logical errors or overly-speculative arguments. And Moore has talked enourmously about how all of these things should have been handled. He refers to a lot of other policy wonks who actuall
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My my. Hostile, aren't we?
As I said, inane pointless harping day after day, does not make something true. Provide evidence of it or quit making the assertion. As far as hostility goes, I believe you called BS and then claimed that a vote for Kerry was somehow a vote for imasculation, without basis for your assertion. I'd consider that hostile. I also consider people who make such generalizations foolish. It's not personal if I attack your actions, only if I demean your character. Playing the victim does not discredit any of my assertions, it is simply a distraction.
What statement in particular are you talking about? If you're referring to my statement about the corrupt French, Russians, or Chinese, please do us all a favor and read up on the fabled U.N. Oil For Food program. This is what we can look forward to if we abdicate our national responsibility to the U.N. as Kerry would have us do.
I've read up on the UN Oil for Food program, plenty. So far nothing is new. Saddam was a kleptocrat, we knew that. The Oil for Food program was putting money in Saddam's pocket at the expense of the Iraqi people, we knew that too. There is corruption in the world, there is corruption in Russia, if you are shocked about these facts, then I would question who has their 'Head in the Sand'.
Kofi Anan has directed that the investigations are cooperatted with and that all information is provided. Should we expose those companies and countries that undermined our resolve against Saddam during the 90's, absolutely. Is there any evidence that there was a conspiracy leading to the top of the UN to allow cronies to profit from the program? No, not yet.
This was a bad deal to begin with. There wasn't a great deal of support for it, but there weren't a lot of great choices in '96. The entire world got all weepy about how economic sanctions and Saddam's mismanagement were killing the Iraqi people, I never liked the program myself because I expected Saddam to simply steal the money anyway. Without international resolve to invade Iraq and depose Saddam, there was little to be done other than contain the problem. We were far more concerned with insuring that Saddam couldn't attack the Kurds or Shia or reconstitute his WMD programs.
I think we can see the cost of invading Iraq without international resolve today. The reason this controversy has been met with so much skepticism is because the right has a history of finding some small infraction and then claiming it's simply the tip of the iceberg and their enemies must then prove their innocence, although no evidence for their guilt or even to substantiate the charges is ever produced. Just look at Whitewater, the only convictions were the McDougals. That was a $70 million witch hunt. Other than getting a blow job in the Oval Office, no other malfeasance was ever found. The right will simply use this same tactic to smear the UN now. These people don't attack crime, they attack their enemies by searching for the crime to justify their actions. Unfortunately, they don't have a great track record for dredging up anything meaningful, so we just wind up wasting a lot of time and energy.
The GOP is hardly one to talk about cutting deals with dictators, Pinochet in Chile, Suharto in Indonesia, Iran-Contra, hell where do you think Saddam got his WMD in the first place?
If the Dems are in charge, whomever is guilty at the UN will be punished. That will be the end of it. There's no reason to pursue this any further. It's not an indictment of the UN as a whole. It's not a reason to scrap the UN as the isolationist, unilateralist factions on the right would like.
Myself, I'll wait for some evidence before reaching conclusions on this issue. You'll also need to explain that curious statement of how Kerry will " abdicate our national responsibility to the U.N.". The GOP is the one who consistently blocks payment of UN dues. Who's abdicating?
Please remind me, is this war hero of yours, John Kerry, the same guy who can't
I call B.S. Vote Democrat if you want to become a nation of thumb-twiddlers and hand-wringers. Vote for Bush if you want our nation to stick up for itself and not wait for the corrupt French, Russians, or Chinese to give us permission to actually do something about the Islamic militant threat.
I keep hearing this inane banter from the right day after day. Put up or shut up. What evidence or analysis do you have that backs up your statement? Senator Kerry has 3 purple hearts, a silver star and a bronze star. Bush can't even account for his days at the Texas Air National Refuge for Rich Boys. We're taking thousands of troops from the Korean DMZ where a real threat has 30,000 artillery pieces aimed at Seoul, S. Korea. Not to mention their nuclear capabilities and missle tech that has been CONFIRMED, not speculated on. Bush dropped Clinton's policy of containment in both Iraq and N. Korea when he got into office. On N. Korea, he said he wouldn't negotiate like his predecessor. Bush has since reversed himself and is in a much weaker negotiating position than Clinton left him with. If war breaks out on the Korean penn. one of our large trading partners will be reduced to a pile of rubble within an hour. In other words, you won't have anymore cheap electronics if the DMZ goes hot, the economy, ours and Asia's will plummet.
This is about competence, not courage. Bush is an incompetent fool, as are those who have his ear. Your inability to refute facts and analysis with any of your own just proves that you are as foolish as he is. Parroting the Faux News party line doesn't prove anything!
You forget history so quickly. When Clinton launched those missles in retaliation for the embassy bombings, the GOP and right wing attack dogs accused him of "Wagging the Dog". Had the GOP actually given a rat's ass about the safety of this country instead of it's bullshit witch hunt to depose a twice elected president, we could have effectively dealt with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
.5 million troops to do anything. Clinton did what he could, numerous plots planned for the millinium were foiled. Had this country rallied behind the President after the embassy bombings like it did after 9/11, 9/11 may not have happened.
Bush ignored Clinton's warnings about Al-Qaeda and Louis Freeh was more interested in helping the GOP to attack his boss than tracking terrorists. This is all public record, go look at the facts and you'll see that the GOP has had a hand in destroying the ability of this country to maintain stability and peace in this world. Clinton was and still is loved around the world, he was able to kick the Europeans out of their little coma to deal with genocide in the Balkans, and he could have effectively dealt with Al-Qaeda as well.
In fact, the Military officials in the Pentagon kept demanding that any foreign action be treated like Gulf War I and would require
If anyone is to blame for the current situation with terrorism it's the GOP, they have worked against this country's interests at every turn for their own political gain. Kerry will bring back Clinton's policies which protected this country for 8 years. Kerry won't allow idiology take precedence over strategy. Face it, when it comes to actually dealing with problems, Bush is all talk and no action. If the goal was defeating terrorism, Iraq was a wasted effort. Rumsfeld screwed up getting Usama cause he let a bunch of N. Alliance irregulars do it instead of risking US lives. We could have gotten the bastard at Tora Bora had they actually used the military as it was intended.
Your belief that those of us that oppose this idiot Bush will cower, is ignorant. We won't cower from terrorist or Bush. We will take them both on and we will win.
Some of us *do* believe that in-vitro methods that result in dozens of unused embryos are immoral as a method of fertility therapy.
Fine, go protest fertility clinics then. I was pointing out the obvious hypocrisy of stopping a method for research while it's commonplace in another well established industry. If you think something is immoral, that's your choice. This country doesn't allow you to force your vision of morality upon anyone else. Unless you can demonstrate a state interest in preventing someone from taking a specific action, then you violate the seperation clause. In other words, keep YOUR morals off MY healthcare.
The Democratic Party would lambast a Dem president doing that, too, and they, by definition, are partisan. Your statement doesn't refute the assertion that the UCS is partisan.
The definition of partisan follows:
Devoted to or biased in support of a party, group, or cause
The term as used when referencing the GOP or Dems means alligence to one or the other. A group who takes up an issue and treats both equally over that issue is non-partisan, and that bit of knowledge is common. Stop trying to twist meanings to fit your argument. The UCS does treat both the Dems and GOP the same in regard to the issues they believe in, this would classify them as non-partisan. They are partisan about their issues, but you're just confusing the point by parsing language.
Wait, I want to get this straight.... You brought up a Washington Times story to refute an attack on a GOP administration?
Are you aware the Times is operated at a loss of $1 million a week by the Moonies as a propaganda tool? It's not a credible newspaper, especially when critiquing a GOP administration. Go do some research on the Times and the Moonies, it'll make you feel like you stepped into some bizarre world.
Uhm, Greenwatch is funded by the "vast right-wing conspiracy". Scaife funded organizations call anyone to the left of Attila the Hun, radical leftists. Please try discrediting the UCS again. Media Transparency
I haven't got time to go pick apart a 20 page doc right now, but I can't say that I trust much that comes from the White House these days. And about the guy being a life-long Dem, so's Zell Miller, but he's speaking at the GOP convention.
Quit listening to right wing media, it will rot your brain.
First of all, blaming the "Bush administration" for the actions of many varied government agencies is a bit disingenous. Does anyone suppose the FDA takes daily orders from the White House? Our government just doesn't work like that.
Son, sit down and let me explain something to you....
The UCS is attacking the Bush administration, because (and the articles reference this) the Bush administration is directly telling agencies to put policy in place that ignores the scientific facts.
Second, what [these particular] scientists seem to lack is a sense of perspective. There are no solutions to real-world problems. There are only trade-offs. Sure, it would be great to have perfectly clean water, but at what point is "clean enough?" How much effort do you spend saving one endangered species?
You're so ignorant of this case it's not funny. Bush is allowing power plants to dump higher levels of mercury into water supplies for starters. The Bush administration is rolling back environmental protections anywhere and everywhere it allows some business to make a buck, especially RNC contributors. This isn't some nitpicking little lefties handwringing over some endangered swan. This is a wholesale assault on our health and safety. We're not talking about perfectly clean water, we're talking about water that causes massive increases in birth defects. And guess what, contaminated water doesn't wind up in rich neighborhoods where they can afford to take care of expensive birth defects, it happens in poor ones, where people don't know any better. And what happens when half the kids in the trailer park turn out retards cause of the mercury? You pay for it in higher taxes and social costs. Unless you want some eugenics along with your laissez faire environmental policy, it's going to wind up costing you way more to let pollution go than it does to regulate it.
The progressive movement (modern lefties, Clinton Third Way folks and all) believes in regulating business and green environmental policies because the others just hide the cost. You may think you're getting cheap stuff out of this, or the economy will do better, but it will wind up costing you more in the long run.
The only people who are being unreasonable in this situation are the people on the right. But don't believe me, go do some freaking research. Quit trying to be so non-partisan, the Bush administration have demonstrated that they are irresponsible and incompetent time and again. They don't deserve your benefit of the doubt, everytime anyone gives it to them, it turns out to be a bad idea (i.e. War in Iraq).
1) While I appreciate Minister al-Sahaf's acknowledgement that the issues around stem cells are matter of subjectivity, not a science-vs-faith issue like evolution, framing the debate in terms of "religious grounds" isn't all that much better. It's a question of ethics, like other bioethics issues.
The banned stem cell research is a matter of hypocrisy and partisan pandering at the expense of science. The banned research in question uses blastocyts (sp?) which is simply an egg fertilized in a petri dish and never embedded in a womb. Banning research using this method is inconsistent since the same practice is used at fertility clinics all over the country. If there is an ethical problem using this method for stem cell research, then it should be equally unethical to use it in fertility clinics. It isn't even a faith vs. science issue like evolution, cause this is even more bogus.
2) The Union of Concerned Scientists is a wildly partisan organization, that leans heavily on getting large numbers of scientists to sign their statements and then acting as though that represents an informed expert opinion by the signatories. That doesn't invalidate any particular point they make, of course, but I'd like to examine these accusations on a case by case basis, rather than get excited about "x scientists, including y Nobel Laureates" signing another one of their screeds.
And which issue was it that you have ever disagreed with these people on? I've been following them for a long time, and although the right likes to complain every time they say something, I've yet to see any refutation of their assertions that was worth the paper it was printed on. If you're going to up make smear attacks against an organization like this, you'll need to back it up with some references. Their board of directors has more accomplishments and standing than any of the detractors I've ever heard.
How is the UCS partisan? They'd lambast a Dem president who did what Bush is currently doing. Of course, we all know the must have just used their undercover Democratic operatives with Chinese contribution cash to go twist the arms of all these scientists so they'd sign on that the Bush administration is using real research that effects this country as political fodder. Attacking the UCS for this tactic is extremely stupid. Does consensus count for nothing now? Should we ignore majority consensus among voters for presidential candidates now? Oh, wait.....
Cool... honestly I'm happier to hear you'll be voting here in Nov, but it did sound like you were still across the pond.
That was my point. That things are heading in the right direction. Look at your list:
stop fighting pakistan, manage to conquer religious and social strife and promote education
We've essentially got the same list. We're in two wars, providing security for a number of other countries, have religious kooks that are trying to turn our country into a theocracy, racists and a crumbling educational infrastructure. The only suggestion I could give to you, is to remember how fragile society, especially complex industrialized ones, are. It is much easier to piss away the gains of a couple of generations that to help create those gains.
I realize that's why the BJP lost. That's why I was so excited. It was democracy at work. We tried that here and they rigged the election in Florida. Don't get me wrong, I understand India still has about 800 million people living below that middle class status, but I see hope in India and I'm seeing them make the correct choices that will lead to more prosperity for a larger number of their citizens.
At least India is willing to try. Over here, half the country thinks regulation is a bad word and only a commie would like one. We've got a bunch of people who don't believe in evolution, still think the world is full of marxists (Castro is the only one left), and hold on to amazingly stupid false dichotomies. I realize that India has it's numbers of kooks too, but at least things there are moving in the right direction. We've got a government that seems to want to feed into this irrationality and sell off the infrastructure the next generation will need to compete with countries like India.
From my perspective, I will be welcoming our new Indian overlords from the unemployment line sometime in the next 25 years.
BTW, do you have any good english sites that give an objective view of day to day news in India? I hit some of the big ones, but I don't know enough about Indian politics to tell whether or not I'm reading an objective view or not.
You should see "Fog of War" and go read some more about Robert MacNamara. He was considered a technocrat who's arrogance led to some mistakes. Many of the Italian and German fascists were also technocrats. I will entirely agree that technocrats are alluring and we should look for some of those qualities in our politicians, but there is also an arrogance in putting complete faith in technocracy.
/. that technocrat is really just a modern term for bureaucrat. In fact, the modern technocracy has all of the same problems as turn of the century republics like France and Italy, where the problems were blamed on the failing of the bureaucrat.
.02 on your statement
I would say that just because someone is not arrogant when confronted by facts and figures, that does not make them a wise leader. They can be just as arrogant and blinded with facts and statistics as their justification.
Seek balance and understanding (empathy) in politicians, those qualities will let them listen to technocrats. Of course, I do want to point out the irony here on
Just my
Is it me, or does India continue to make LOGICAL political decisions?
They invested in education and social programs and created a workforce capable of doing our high-paying jobs. They then set up an economic environment where those jobs would come over, including investments in infrastructure and utilities.
Next the middle class over there starts to take off, and they make a national effort to help make sure that the benefit of the boom is extended to the less fortunate, so they can make more of the country self-sufficient.
They've managed to stay out of international conflicts and have sent peace ovetures to Pakistan. Now they're jumping all over Open Source as a way to improve their own efficiency and self-sufficiency.
All this, and I doubt India's federal gov costs anywhere near what these asshats over here who seem to actively work against us cost.
Between Colin Powell telling the Indians that there will be no attempt to curb outsourcing by American companies on the part of the Bush Administration and the following account of Tom Donohue's (CEO of US Chamber of Commerce, really good friend of Bush Administration, kind of like Ken Lay) speech in San Francisco:
Donohue acknowledged the pain for people who have lost jobs to offshoring - an estimated 250,000 a year, according to government estimates. But pockets of unemployment shouldn't lead to "anecdotal politics and policies," he said, and people affected by offshoring should "stop whining." - AP Newswire
Personally, I say we go build a freaking guillotine, cause as far as I'm concerned, he might as well have said, "let them eat cake".
Anyway good luck to India and how much to run our Federal government?
I probably should have been clearer. I think XML has it's place. If you look at SOAP vs. CORBA the inefficiency is quite stark. XML is very flexible, but I think that it's flexibility comes at an expense and that tradeoff should not always be made. XML is a great way to make data portable for batch or bulk transfers, but it's overhead is quite large for messaging. Applying gzip to XML is just putting another finger in the dam. It's a solution, but it requires extra processing and another library. In a system that is going to control the electrical system of a building, I would first think of an embedded system that worked 24/7, had a few moving parts as needed and was part of the infrastructure. XML doesn't seem to be a great fit in this type of situation. XML with gzip, less so. XML should be used infrequently, it's extensibility makes it expensive to process. If you think XML is so easy to read, try reverse engineering some SOAP packets for JMeter scripts sometime. I personally think this myth of readability that XML enjoys may be hindering development of useful visualization and editing tools for XML Schemas and DTDs.
My opinion is that XML is good for:
1) data that is stored in a document structure
2) translation between disparate systems
3) configuration files
While I'm sure even XML in an intelligent system could improve overall efficiency of a building, it just seems funny that one of the most bloated tools in the toolbox would be used to do it.
Richard Clarke, who can hardly be labelled as a Bush supporter at this point, has come out recently and publically said that he was responsible for getting the bin Laden family out of the US after 9/11, and that no one above him ordered it or even knew about it.
That was one of those much ado about nothing things that happened. I don't think Moore should have brought it up, it really is an appeal to emotion, but it hardly can be considered an indictment of the entire film. I don't think Moore should have brought up the Bush-Saud stuff. I think he should have brought up more of the Madrassas and Islamic funding. It's items like this that cause me to disagree with Moore's analysis generally. However, I don't get nearly as many people to listen to my detailed analysis as Moore does. Also, I don't get paid for it. However, my original critique of the post stands, that you can't simply sling rhetoric and have it prove anything. The amount of differing statements on this little factiod would cause me to leave it out, this doesn't destroy the entire point of Moore's film, which is that this Administration has distorted the truth and acted against best interests of the citizens of the US. Moore is accusing the Administration of incompetence. The degree of truth associated with this factiod doesn't support or destroy Moore's central point. In other words, you'll need more than this to defeat Moore's assertions.
Yasser Arafat won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.
This works as well as attacking the Nobel organization for giving Mr. Carter the prize. Who was more worthy of the award in 1994? Why was Arafat not worthy of the prize in 1994? After all, he was awarded 1/3 of the prize in conjunction with Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin. Were Yitzhak Rabin or Shimon Peres not worthy of the prize either?
Make an assertion. Don't believe you can win arguments by throwing stones over a wall.
Your point is quite correct. I think this has a lot to do with people confusing their culture or religion with the government of the US. This country has already been through one Civil War, so saying that it can't happen again is irrational.
Just about every analysis of conflicts talks about how violence started when the opposing sides quit talking. I agree that we need to be civil in our disagreements with one another. However, if you look at the issues that lead to people taking extremist points of view, you will see a pattern where they believe they are fighting for a cause greater than themselves and that the other side opposes that cause.
Look at gay marriage. Some people feel that this is counter to their culture and religion. They believe that it is therefore against their country. I had a great time this weekend talking to some people who were voting for Bush over gay-marriage and abortion. I pointed out that when their kids go to school with Muslims or Jews, they don't come home converted, so why would they come home converted to believe that gay-marriage was morally defensable. They thought that gay-marriage meant their church would have to let gay folks get married there. I asked them how many Buhddist weddings their church was forced to perform by the state. They also thought that legal gay-marriage would make it impossible for them to still believe that homosexuality was a sin. I pointed out that the Ku Klux Klan and American Nazi Party legally exist and are only prosecuted when they deny other citizens their rights. I think the irony was completely lost on these folks, but they did get the point. I also pointed out the futility of supporting Bush for this reason since his only solution has been rhetoric and a constitutional amendment which no sane person believes will pass. I mean, Dick "go F yourself" Cheney's daughter is openly gay. There's even a grassroots petition to get her to come out against the gay-marriage amendment.
After explaining why I believed in seperation of church and state and why it was important for them to protect it, in order to protect their own culture and beliefs, I think I got them to at least think about the issue more rationally.
It takes this kind of hard work and effort to stop a civil war from ever becoming a possiblity. We should keep that danger in the back of our minds though. For instance, I watched the nomination speach for the Constitutional Party (God, Family, Republic), if those people ever come to political power in this country, there will be a civil war. I feel that organizations like this are in direct opposition to the principles and law that this country was founded upon. If they were to actually begin to get their agenda to become law in this country, I would be willing to oppose them by any means necessary.
By continuing to talk to people and treat them with respect, no matter how looney they are, we will marginalize the true looneys and allow the rest of the country to progress, ultimately using the tools of reason. You can't fight a culture, but you can get along with one pretty easily if you come to a mutual understanding, even if you agree to disagree.
Like...? I don't recall this ever being the sole purpose in going to Iraq.
Like the Sudan or N Korea. But WMD was the reason. This administration claimed that Iraq was reconstituting it's nuclear program and possessed stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons. They claimed that either Iraq would use these weapons against us or sell them to Al-Qaeda to use against us. The only relationship link between Al-Qaeda and Iraq that has been proven is the Bush Administration (Rumsfeld, Cheney).
(1) There is a lot of sand in Iraq, which means a lot of hiding places. If you have ever lost anything in something as small as a beach, imagine the scale involved with a "beach" that is 167,924 square miles. (2) Saddam was not above "hiding" weapons (of any sort) in cemetaries and hospitals, so the number of places that one could expect to find anything pretty-much jumped to every square inch of the region. (3) Fox News and an ABC affiliate report on the fact that the United Nations found missile engines and other parts that were suited for the purpose of making WMDs in a scrap heap in Jordan. The source of all this metal? IRAQ.
It's been over a year since we started our military occupation in Iraq. We have used every method to find the weapons, including torture. We have found no evidence to support these theories that were the basis for going to war. David Kay came back and said, no weapons, no programs. Bush has had to resort to saying they had capabilities. A kid with internet access has capabilities too, but we aren't locking up all the kids and putting them in naked man piles.
There has been no evidence of any claim made by this administration. The evidence found has pointed 180 degrees in the other direction. The evidence shows that the previous policy of containment was working just fine. This was a distraction from the real war on terror. Keep holding out hope if you want, but those of us interested in defeating terror and not having more 9/11's happen, realize that either this administration has lied to us or it's completely incompetent to pursue the war on terror. Don't tell me we went to war over a rocket engine, before it wound up in the trash, that may have been able to get 3/4's of the way to Israel rather than just 1/2 the way. Was that really worth nearly 1000 dead Americans and 2000+ disabled vets?
That's flawed reasoning. One should not condemn a nation based on the nationality of a criminal. Acting on a nation based on the actions of its Head of State is something quite different.
How about the funding of those people? How about the support of Al-Qaeda from Saudi families and organizations? How about the slow response and resistence we've had from the leadership in Saudi Arabia? The House of Saud has one concern, it's own power. Don't forget that. The Saudi's were a much more valid target, for political pressure at least, than Iraq ever was. If we went to Iraq based on support of Al-Qaeda, then we really should have gone after the Saudis first. They provided more support than anyone in Iraq ever did.
No, we'd be doing something to shut the mouths of people against drilling in the protected lands within the US. I agree that we should protect the land, so that environmental damage is minimized as much as possible, so don't think for a second that I'm in favor of drilling. By the same token, when the entire world is quite capable of watching the corporate goings-on (especially with regard to oil), I would hope that companies (like Haliburton) have the smarts to avoid doing something so blatently stupid. We all know, however, that not everyone thinks things through before acting...
Please don't be so naive that you would leave the future up to trusting Haliburton or any other corporate interest. Corporations may be good and providing a return to investors, but they will look for any government subsidy to increase this return, including lax envrionmental regulation. It's a subsidy if they cause expense to society (cleaning up th
I was sarcastically illustrating the point, not opposing the view.
Yeah I'm tired of all those Holocaust doco's that don't give the Nazi's a fair shake for committing genocide. Surely, we should approach the subject matter with an open mind on genocide, right? um... right? ah... anyone.... hello...
Moore labels his work as Op-Ed. The mainstream media blends Op-Ed with objective reporting and sometimes they substitute objective reporting with lazy bits of Op-Ed. I'll agree to a point with your critique of Moore, but my point was that he doesn't exist in a vaccum and that the lack of quality in mainstream media makes his idea's larger than they are truly worth. Think of how much less impact Bowling for Columbine would have had, had the mainstream media had focused on issues like gun control and jock bullying more rationally. Instead they just fought with each other over who could scoop the culprit first. Remember, it was these crazy Goth type kids to blame, then video games, then entertainment.
The oversimplification and overall pointlessness left a market for someone like Moore to be successful stating their opinion. Use the same critical methodology on the Op-Ed page of the Wall Street Journal sometime, I think you'll find Moore has cadre among his own enemy.
Honestly, I think that Moore would tell you that he's glad that you've become more politically aware, whether or not you agree with him. While I don't hold Moore to high praise, I can at least respect that.
Of course it's completely impossible that a sitting US president might take action that was counter to the actions that Mr. Carter and the Nobel Peace Prize committee have decided would promote peace.
You still fail to say how this is a mockery or somehow anything other than what the participants state it is. Criticizing the US leadership is an American tradition, not an indictment. How is it any less plausible that Mr. Carter had contributed the most to finding a peaceful resolution to the Iraq issue?
If you're going to try to prove a point, then pay attention to the proof part.
Yeah, but who would be so evil as to do something like that?
Oh, wait a minute....
You know, I remember when Columbine happened and this site couldn't talk about anything else for a couple of months. A lot of the opinions were that the important issues had been completely distorted in the media and marginalized due to the sheer emotional tradgedy of the situation.
Bowling for Colombine was a more in depth and serious look at the causes of the Columbine tradgedy than any I saw in any of the mainstream media. Moore would not have set records with his opinionated analysis of Columbine if everybody had felt closure and resolution over the incident.
Your claim of yellow-journalism against Moore is interesting given the yellow-journalism practiced by the majority of media in this country, which gives Moore a audience for his voice. Impuning Moore's motives by citing his financial interest actually supports the very accusations that he has made against Bush. I don't think that impuning anyone's motive is constructive or a provable attack, it is one of my chief criticisms of the film, and your attack.
Why is it that I have yet to see anyone offer anything other than personal attacks on Moore here. Take on the facts and ideas. Is intellectual conservitism completely dead?
A partisan congressional committee decided there was no link between Osama and Saddam. This from a culture that created the phrase "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." Both had a larger enemy in the US than they did with each other. I'll bet there really was a connection.
A partisian committee? Both the 9/11 commission and the Senate Intelligence Committee were bi-partisian. Republicans dominate the Intelligence Committee and share equal numbers on the 9/11 commission. Why do you bet there was a connection? What about the fact that Zarquawi was sent to help the Kurds against Saddam and that Osama, who repeatedly declared his dislike for Saddam, was appearently asked to make contact with Saddam's people in an effort to placate the Sudanese? There is enough evidence to make any kind of working connection between Saddam and Osama extremely speculative.
On the other hand, an impartial judge agreed with the claims of victims of terrorism that there WAS enough evidence to link Saddam and Osama, and allowed a suit against Iraq for reparrations for the deaths of their loved ones.
Who was counsel for defense? There was no defense, the suit was won by default and Iraq was judged in absentia, which was allowed by an earlier anti terrorism law. The judge also noted that much of the evidence relied on was "classically hearsay".
Just because a congressional committee (The only creature known to man to have over 4 legs, 4 eyes, and 2 mouths, and yet have no brain) decided for political reasons there was no connection, and a Big Fat Stupid White Guy claims there was no connection, this is not enough to say "We now know that isn't true."
But then, your analysis falls below their critique.
If F911 goes on to be proven to be a propogandistic screed, it will without doubt place the Cannes Film Festival in the same league as the Nobel Peace Prize and the United Nations: institutions which soiled their reputations in order to pursue a political agenda.
Cite a factual error or gross oversimplification of the facts in 9/11. Cite how the Peace Prize and UN have been perverted by politics anymore than the GOP or the corporate dominated media. You accuse these institutions, run by fallable humans, without citing anything as damning as ignoring a real threat to the country to pursue an ideologically driven war against a hypothetical threat.
I am willing to accept mistakes, I am unwilling to accept incompetence and irresponsibility.
National defense information and work product was given to China in the 90s in exchange for campaign cash from the People's Liberation Army under Clinton's watch is acceptable behavior?
I don't think Bush's former business relationships are in the same league as this matter but Mike Moore wants you to believe that conducting legitimate business prior to taking office which is not approved of by Michael Moore is not; and Moore wants you to believe that Rich White Men(tm) have it in for democracy. Well, if that is true, then at the top of the list is Michael Moore and his films.
Where does Moore, or anyone else for that matter, come out and say that Mr. Chung or Mr. Ghandi should not have been indicted or tried? I don't remember anyone from the DNC doing anything other than returning any questionable funds, which totalled less than $500,000 out of $1 Billion in contributions for the 1996 campaign season. Ethics charges have been filed in the House against Tom DeLay (R-Texas) for campaign contribution violations. Rep. Nick Smith (R-Mich) alleges that he was promised $100,000 for his son's campaign by the RNC and threatened with marginalization if he refused to vote yes on the Medicare bill in Nov '03. Moore doesn't attribute this to Bush or his Administration directly, why do you attribute problems with the DNC fund raising arm with the Clinton Administration?
The Bush administration have shown little leadership when dealing with the Israelis or Saudis. They have been more concerned with Iraq than the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, they have faltered in pressuring real reform in Saudi Arabia. This could have been accomplished by securing Israeli concessions in the West Bank and Gaza. Clinton was much closer to securing some peace there, which most experts on the area (both Arab and Western) agree that the issue is the number one recruiting/fund-raising poster for real terrorists.
Readers should also consider what the Bush administration has done to protect the USA from further attack from terrorists and what Mike Moore has done. One element has taken pro-active and solid steps for our nations security, the other is like a yelping 300 pound chihuahua, complaining loudly about what Bush did, all the while failing to offer what he should have done.
It may not happen this year but I feel certain that F911 along with 'Bowling for Columbine' will be shown to be propoganda films, not documentaries, and the awards presented to them will be forever stained with this stigma.
Moore is simply stating that the emporer has no clothes. If you would like to state that the emporer has clothes, then you will need to back that up. Moore has claimed that his facts have all been vetted. Either point out ones that haven't or counter them with your own. Distracting the discussion with motive, or trying to discredit the ideas with guilt by association does not accomplish anything. I personally think that Moore falls into that trap sometimes in an attempt to reach a less informed audience, but you fail to even point out where he makes logical errors or overly-speculative arguments. And Moore has talked enourmously about how all of these things should have been handled. He refers to a lot of other policy wonks who actuall