Nice theory except that China has a nearly bottomless labor pool compared to the rest of the world.
They also have a sufficiently repressive government that they can prevent workers from organizing. If an individual started to complain openly I'm sure they would be dealt with.
The combination of a huge labor pool, currency manipulation, repressive government and no unions means it will be a long time before their labor is priced out of the bottom of the labor market. A recent study of Chinese workers producing goods for WalMart estimated the average wage was in the $0.21-0.35 range. There is a minimum wage, I think its arounf $0.30, but it apparently can be freely ignored by local authorities and adjusted for local conditions, which is as good as no minimum wage at all.
Your naivete is breathtaking or your assuming mine is. That's nice feel good wording that no doubt helped some Congressmen vote for the act. He said to himself, "I must not be shredding the Constitution by voting for this act because it says I'm not in section 215". Well the only problem is its unlikely any FBI agent is ever going to be prosecuted for stepping over that line. It was probably mentioned in the training they were given on the law and it will never cross most of their minds again.
Its pretty obvious nearly every use of the Patriot Act is predicated on the target being Muslim. The Oregon Lawyer that was locked up for two weeks due to the misidentified fingerprint in the Madrid bombing was rushed to judgment precisely because he was a Muslim convert and had defended Muslims.
The FBI agent can say to himself I'm not targeting this guy because he's Muslim so I'm not breaking Section 215. It just happens EVERYONE I'm investigating IS Muslim and DOES read the Koran and if someone is Muslim and reads the Koran it insures they will move up on the list for my special attention. What a coinkydink.
I'll say this again. I am not a Democrat, this is not a Democrat or Republican issue. Its a democracy issue with a little 'd'.
Anytime the Republicans do something bad it is lame beyond belief and not a valid argument to just say "if the democrats had done it" I wouldn't be complaining, so it must OK for the Republican's to do it. When the Democrats have done the same thing in the past it is equally wrong and if they do it again I'll complain just as loud.
Lobbyists and campaign contributors bribe all politicians. It is never right. The U.S. desperately needs to shorten its campaign cycle and dramatically reduce the money being spent on TV ads. When the presidential candidates are spending a half a billion dollars on one election there is massive room for corruption.
Its also never right to use patriotism as a weapons and fear mongering to coerce people in to doing things that are fundamentally unwise which is what's happening here.
If you look at the track record you will find both parties block judicial nominations. The Republicans were just as bad about it under Clinton though they had the luxury to use different tactics during the times they controlled the Senate.
These two examples are from opposite polls. One is the minority party in the Senate using Senate rules that are designed to let the minority restrain unwise action on the part of the majority. They other is the majority abusing its power to insure it always wins.
The Senate is designed to restrain the executive from making extremist appointments. The filibuster or the threat of it is there precisely for this reason, to prevent a party from gaining a thin majority and being able to run rough shod over the minority or the people they represent. If you want the Republicans to have the ability to rule by dictate, and appoint any extremist they want, you need to either get 60+ seats in the senate or they need to change the Senate rules and basically throw out the underpinnings of restraint on American Democracy. I'm willing to bet one or the other will happen within a year. Either the Republicans will win landslides in a bunch of senate races with the help of electronic voting in November or concoct a rational for neutering the Senate filibuster soon thereafter. They've already been threatening it this year everytime the blocked judicial appointments have been debated.
"Oh yeah, like the Iraqi people were able to band together and send us a letter saying "Save Us!" Or maybe Saddam would let them start a petition?"
If you recall recent history, right after the first gulf war, the U.S. goaded the Kurds and Shias in to revolting against Saddam in the hopes they would overthrow him. They fell for it, did it, and put up a giant sign saying "Save Us!" when Saddam started massacring them for armed revolt. George W.'s father and Dick Cheney, then looked the other way. Its odd that Saddam is facing charges for the brutally in putting down an armed revolt. I'm inclined to say George W's father and Dick Cheney are the two most responsible for those two massacres. Either they shouldn't have provoked the revolts in the first place or they should have given them air support when they did.
Well I'm just remembering the comments of various Congressman, over the last couple of years, who have served in the house for extended periods. Within their long tenure they've seen Congress deteriorate dramatically, in their view. Some of these comments were from people retiring from Congress because they didn't like working there anymore. Obviously it might have been worse during other periods in American history that live only in the history books and this is subjective.
The comment I've heard most often was that even though there were sharp political divides congressman could still treat one another cordially and with respect after hours. Now the hatred is so sharp that the two parties seem to revile each other on a personal level. You don't have to look much further than the Dick Cheney hurling profanity at a Democratic Senator, on the Senate floor, and then telling Fox later he felt good about saying it.
I don't think Slashdot has a unified conscience or intellect to reply to your challenge.
For myself I can say I don't care if they keep the vote open an extra 15 minutes. But I do care if they keep the vote open for as long as is necessary to coerce just enough people to get the outcome they want.
If I recall the Medicare vote was kept open half the night while lobbyists for the drug and healthcare industry worked the Capitol building lobby bribing and threatening representatives. A famous case was a politician who was retiring so he couldn't be easily pressured so instead they offered him big contributions for his son's campaign instead.
I can say for myself that if the Democrats did this same BS yes I would care just as much. Perhaps they did do it but I didn't have CSPAN when the Democrats had power. I've watched the Senate and House proceedings, off and on, in the last year or two and what is happening today is deeply, deeply disturbing to anyone who thinks the U.S. is a representative democracy, because it isn't. If you haven't watched CSPAN you should during debate on one of these especially controversial bills. It is an eye opener.
You can ask most of the people in Congress and they will tell you its turned in to a bitter, rancorous, partisan, uncivilized body, that is bending every rule to the breaking point, to an extent no one would have dreamed possible a few years ago.
Excellent point. You need look no further than China. Certainly their government isn't as repressive as it was when U.S politicians considered them to be sitting on the right hand of the devil.
But since then they've mostly just adjusted their economic policies to respect private property and business. Now wealthy Americans and multinationals can own capitol there, and can make a killing on the cheap labor and artificially undervalued currency and... what... suddenly they seem to have no problem with China. Though China still has no "Freedom and Democracy", they spy on their people, they repress dissidents and religious groups, now the Republicans are as happy as can be with them now and get furious if anyone criticizes them.
It probably hasn't occurred to them that China, having deduced they couldn't beat the U.S. militarily or idealogically are exploiting America's greatest weakness in their new war, that weakness being greed. They are luring wealthy American's and multinationals in to transferring all of America's manufacturing base, capitol, jobs and intellectual property to China, voluntarily, with the lure of making a nice profit next quarter.
One day America will wake up and realize the U.S. can no longer function without Chinese container ships pulling in to its harbor, all of its wealth has migrated their thanks to trade and budget deficits, and the U.S. lost a war it didn't know it was fighting until it was to late.
Of course by complaining about it to your government you will be branded unPATRIOTic and scheduled for further scrutiny. What have you been reading lately, obviously something you shouldn't have been, something you were ashamed for reading, or you wouldn't be so upset about this simple benevolence on the part of your omnipotent government which is just looking after your physical and mental well being.
I'll trust you on the rules but its become a disturbing trend on the part of the Republicans that when they really want something to pass they just hold open the vote until they can threaten or bribe enough people in to supporting their position. The second they have it they hold the vote before they lose someone.
Believe it or not we elect representatives to vote their conscience, intellect and judgement, which suggests they should vote the way they see fit and not they way the party in power pressures them to vote. It is a leading indicator of totalitarian government when elected representatives become rubber stamps for whatever the people in power want. By holding open the vote until they get the answer they want that is what the Republican's are doing, totalitarianism.
In this case and not having RTFA it sounds as though perhaps they should have separated the issues. I can see anonymous use of public computers, in a library or anywhere being a concern, so are pay phones. But that issue should have nothing to do with giving the government power to secretly monitor what you read. The government simply shouldn't have that power nor should they be placing book store owners and librarians in the position that they have to rat out their patrons or and to be at resk that they are breaking the law if they violate the gag and don't keep this intrusion secret from everyone.
This law creates a disturbing pressure that you shouldn't read anything that the government might find subversive, criminal or obscene and what's worse you don't know what the government's standards are. The obvious best example, is anyone who reads the Koran going to be instantly placed on a watch list. That is a violation of the most basic right to religious freedom in this country.
You certainly hit a new low in this thread, Twirp. Now you are engaged in rampant stereotyping bordering on racism.
Any army engaged in an extended occupation should be training its soldiers in basic cultural etiquette unless their goal is to tick off and alienate the locals.
I hate to break it to you but you shot down your own screed when you agreed special forces should have this kind of training, but for some bizarre reason not regular Army. Those regular Army soldiers are walking patrols in the streets, trying to establish ties with locals and especially to inquire intelligence. Their likelihood of success dramatically improves if they know social customs, how to communicate politely and how to refrain from being insulting.
An even better justification for this kind of training for Arab cultures comes when soldiers break in to homes at night looking for insurgents and weapons. If they are culturally aware they will refrain from touching women in the house unless they have to. If they are cultural morons they will manhandle them and they will most likely spawn a vendetta among all the men in the house which will lead to new recruits for the insurgency, which means potentially more American casualties.
If you want to insure you lose a war against an insurgency send in a bunch of American teenagers who insult and infuriate everyone they come in to contact with.
I'm thinking the two Senators and the two Congressman that drew up this statement should be be introduced to the losing end of the ballot box at their next bid for reelection for failing to defend the Constitution and the democracy that was their charge when they took their oath of office.
There is a bill sitting in the House with 140 co-sponsers to require a paper trail for evoting this November. Its apparently being held up in the House Administration committee by Robert Ney (R-Ohio). He's from Diebold's home state though not sure they are in his district. He is one of the principal authors of the bill that funded the evoting mess in the first place, HAVA.
Here is his contact info especially if he is your congressman and you want to adjust his attitude.
Here is his statement on why he opposes the bill and is apparently going to be able to kill it. Its signed by Mitch McConnell, another Republican I wouldn't trust democracy to, but there are two Dem's as well Christopher Dodd and Steny Hoyer.
It contains some disturbing statements, this one in particular:
"Most importantly, the proposals requiring a voter-verified paper record would force voters with disabilities to go back to using ballots that provide neither privacy nor independence, thereby subverting a hallmark of the HAVA legislation. There must be voter confidence in the accuracy of an electronic tally. However, the current proposals would do nothing to ensure greater trust in vote tabulations"
Not sure how they can claim a recountable paper trail, "would do nothing to ensure greater trust in vote tabulations".
They also want the same agency that is apparently responsible for the current mess to have plenty of time to create a new one so they want no audit trail in time for this election:
"Questions regarding voting systems security, as well as many others, need to be examined by the entity responsible for doing so under existing law, the Election Assistance Commission, before Congress begins imposing new requirements, just months before the 2004 presidential and congressional elections, that have not been fully considered. The security of voting technology is a non-partisan issue. We encourage you to allow HAVA to be implemented as enacted and provide those who are charged with ensuring the security of voting systems the time and flexibility needed to get the job done effectively. "
"This also shows why as soon as they are in power, they invent a war in order to provide more government money to their big contractor buddies (Halliburton, KBR, Enron, etc.). Sure, the webserver expenditures are only a small part of it, but it shows how completely the GOP has been bought and paid for by large corporations."
I doubt Enron has been profiteering in Iraq. I certainly haven't seen any news suggesting that. Bechtel would be a better example.
Its interesting to note that the CPA has actually spent a small fraction, 2 percent, of the $18+ billion Congress allocated to rebuild Iraq. A link. I imagine Halliburton and KBR are raking in lots of money from the military's budget which is separate from this $18 billion reconstruction fund so your statement of "more government money for their big contractor buddies" is still true. KBR cashes in on every American war and have since at least Vietnam when KBR was Brown and Root.
As far as Iraq's reconstruction it appears the U.S. has instead been spending or locking in Iraq's current and future oil revenue. Before the U.S. transfered power they'd spent or locked in $19 billion out of $20 billion dollars in Iraq's oil fund.
The CPA argues that they are just slow to spend the U.S. tax dollars, ramp up time, security problems....blah....blah...blah and it will gain momentum but Iraqis have noticed that the CPA has been spending their oil revenue unfettered by these problem.
I imagine American's take this news with mixed emotions. On the plus side I imagine most American's would rather Iraq rebuild itself using its oil wealth instead of American tax dollars.
Then again the Bush administration has had big rhetoric about its commitment to rebuilding Iraq and in critical areas like electricity, security, sanitation and health care its proving to be somewhat empty rhetoric. Lengthy blackouts are still routine more than a year after the invasion. The rhetoric was similar in Afghanistan and was largely not matched by actual money or rebuilding.
Assuming Iraq's oil revenue is largely going in to the pockets of American contractors like Halliburton this suggests, though I'm not saying proves, that the U.S. did in fact steal Iraq's oil revenues which is also something Bush adminstration rhetoric said it would not do.
Maybe its just me but I think the U.S. should be spending U.S. tax dollars on contracts to U.S. companies in Iraq, and Iraqi's should be spending Iraq's oil revenue on Iraqi companies and making sure their people are employed which would be the single biggest stabilizer possible there. No country with 30% unemployment is going to be happy or stable, especially when those unemployed people see American contractors running all over their country, taking most of the work, and raking in six figure salaries.
Thats a pretty insightful argument you have there Mr. Anonymous Coward. Maybe next time you should try actually arguing a position so I can return the favor.
I don't think I said the U.S. is worse. China is much more openly repressive than the U.S. is at the moment. But the U.S. is much more oppressive than it was in 2000 and if the current trend continues the two could achieve parity in the not to distant future, especially if there are more attacks in the U.S.
I find it so odd that all the Republican business and political types who placed China at the right hand of the devil a few years ago, when they couldn't make a profit there now seem to think its a fine country. The only difference being now they can make a profit, a big profit, in exchange for moving all of America's capital, jobs and IP there.
China is a little less repressive, especially economically, but its not like its fundamental politics have really changed at all. Rather than disastrous internal economic programs they just figured out they could sucker capitalists from around the world in to building their economy for them much faster than they could do it on there own. Unlike the U.S. they've figured out trade surpluses are good and trade deficits are bad.
"we'll always have China to remind us that the good old USA still remains the land of the free."
Excepting the U.S. is becoming completely dependent on China for just about everything. Imagine if they shut off their imports how empty the shelves will be in your local stores, especially WalMart.
Today the U.S. might weather it but at the rate multinational corporations are rushing to move everything to China the U.S. will be totally at its mercy in a few years. Is America a sovereign nation and bastion of freedom when all its jobs are in China and all its dollars go to China and China can destroy the U.S. by stopping all the container ships from leaving its ports.
Its my conjecture China a decade or two ago deduced it couldn't beat the U.S. idealogically or militarily so its opting to beat the U.S. by exploiting its greatest weakness, its greed, and beat the U.S. economically.
They manipulate their currency to make China a great place for foreigners to invest and there good ridiculously cheap on foreign markets. They have a huge, subservient, labor pool which will be unlikely to ever see pressure for higher wages. They dangle that in front of greedy American execs who don't think past the end of the quarter and the U.S. guts its own economy and moves all its capital and intellectual property to China. One day the U.S. wakes up and realizes that the trade deficits have destroyed it, it doesn't make anything any more and China will has taken control of all the capital and IP. Some of the multinationals, and there execs, might survive and make a killing, but America's as a country is finished.
Last week figures came out on foreign investment in various countries. The U.S. was passed for the first time in recent history by China and it was by a lot. China had $50 billion in foreign investment versus $40 billion in the U.S.
Do you think you any ordinary American is going to change the Patriot act by writing letters or running for any office short of Senator or President which requires million of dollars to... buy... errr... win.
A concerted letter writing campaign is more likely to get you additional scrutiny from the PATRIOT act.
If you try to run for office based on this platform you are going to be branded unPATRIOTic. Why do you think they picked that name, to discourage anyone from criticizing it. You will be painted as either soft on terrorists if not one yourself and I assure you those kinds of charges play very well with at least half of America's less than smart voters.
If you look at Kerry he was stumping against the Patriot Act only in the Democratic primaries which is where most of the American against the Patriot act are, excepting a few true conservatives, like me, that hate it too along with all big government. In the general election I doubt Kerry will mention it, and if he is elected he probably wont support doing anything about it, except fine tuning it which will probably end making it worse, not better. He is a former prosecutor and probably has a fond spot in his heart for tools that make prosecuting people easier.
I'll probably get slammed for it but multinational execs probably love China's repression of its people and America's repression of its own. Most corporations deep down really want quiet subservient people who go to work every day, keep secrets, keep their mouth shut, don't complain and don't organize to get better wages and benefits. Multinational execs in China might get upset with China's rules if they interfere with their SMS traffic but I wager China is being selective and not putting this filtering on foreign executives phones.
In this case the Medicare administrator was intentionally concealing the known cost and threatening his employees to keep them from divulging it. It had been made clear that it wouldn't pass if over $400 billion so thats what he said it cost. As soon as it was passed the Bush administration announced the real cost. They ate a little crow, but it was passed and all their friends in the drug, insurance and managed care industry had pork for dinner.
There must be something good about him. The Republicans are furious that a Democrat got the job. Billy Tauzin, the thouroughly corrupt Republican who rammed through the Medicare "reform" bill had the first offer but declined. Last I heard he was taking a lucrative job with the drug/health lobby that are the huge beneficiaries of his Medicare "reform" bill. Another revolving door corrupting government and costing tax payers billions. This is the bill that was sold to everyone at $400 billion because the head of Medicare was concealing the $500 plus price tag to get it passed. He was also negotiating a multimillion dollar private sector job, with White approval, while he was working on a tax payer bonanza for his future employers. More revolving door corruption. This bill also precludes Medicare from negotiating for fair prices on drugs like every other country in the world does.
Glickman is in trouble because he is a lobbyist and the party in power, the Republican's, decided it was their god given right to have a good Republican in this job, so he may finds doors closed to him. Valenti was a Johnson Democrat. If they get a good Republican in this job they can dominate one more part of American life, and put an end to all the un-christian and anti-American movies(like Fahrenheit 911). OK, I may be exaggerating a little but only a little.
I wager the MPAA will cave to pressure from the right and a extremist Republican will replace him.
"At some point you just have to stop for a minute and think that maybe the problem here isn't US foreign policy, but rather terrorism itself."
Maybe you should stop trying to paint everything in black and white Twirp. The world is shades of grey. Maybe the problem is US foreign policy and Islamic extremists. Its pretty likely Al Qaeda danced a jig when Bush invaded Iraq, and when the U.S. soldiers humiliated and tortured Arabs. He knew he won a huge victory for his cause. He knew he won a whole bunch more recruits around the world, because he could say, see the U.S. is waging a war against Arabs and Islam, and humiliating us.
You refuse to admit it I know but the place to fight Al Qaeda was Afghanistan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia first, and Iraq was near the tail end of the list. If the U.S. had stayed focused and fought harder in Afghanistan, where the world was behind the U.S. and pressured Pakistan to clean up the tribal regions, and pressured Saudi Arabia in to really fighting Al Qaeda three years ago then it would have been winning the war on Al Qaeda. As the original poster said the jury is still out but there is a great chance that Iraq was the worst thing the U.S. could have done if it was really trying to beat Al Qaeda.
"The bottom line here is this: you can't slap the label "propaganda" on any message that you don't like, or any message on a subject that you don't like. Calling something "propaganda" when it really isn't is... well, it's propaganda."
I agree with Twirp on this. In the future try to do what he does. Slap the label "lie" on any message you don't like and call the person saying it a liar and a traitor. Its much more succinct.
Botched the URL for the records of interest. Tryhere
341 248 All of the capital stock of the Union Banking Corporation and all rights of the Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart and the August Thyssen Bank in the debts of said corporation.
Its not proof of a major Nazi conspiracy just that Prescott Bush was a principal in Union Banking and Union Banking was banking for people in Nazi Germany, the wealthy Thyssen family, and Fritz Thyssen funded Hitler, and encouraged many wealthy industrialists to back him a ta pivotal point in his rise, before they realized what a mistake it was, but at that point it was to late.
"The "boys" have worked long and hard to erase all that stuff from public and government records.
If you repeat it you are Un-American! Heil."
Well actually in one case their is a record. The records for all of the property seized under the trading with the enemy act, and there was a lot of it, because its was trendy in the 20's and 30's for America's moneyed class to invest in Germany and then Nazi Germany, was recently declassified. You can view them at the national archives or order copies. The main one is the one above. The archives in general are at:
http://www.archives.gov/index.html
The doc is not especially interesting though it does list Prescott Bush as a share holder in Union Banking which was seized by the Roosevelt administration. I wonder if that fueled the family hatred of the democrats.
The Harrriman family owned the lion's share of the stock but apparently the Harriman's gave the relatively poor Bush family buckets of money and they did the leg work. One of the Harriman's and Prescott were fellow Skull and Bones men at Yale.
I wonder if Prescott Bush, George W. Bush's grandfather, was registered as a Foreign Agent in 1938. He was the U.S. banker for Fritz Thiessen, one of Germany's wealthiest men and a key money man who helped put Adolph Hitler in power. Fritz wrote a rather dull book about it called, "I Paid Hitler". When Union Banking, of which Prescott was a principal, was seized in 1941 for trading with the enemy, it was something of an embarrassment to the Bush family.
Slashdot Mirror
Nice theory except that China has a nearly bottomless labor pool compared to the rest of the world.
They also have a sufficiently repressive government that they can prevent workers from organizing. If an individual started to complain openly I'm sure they would be dealt with.
The combination of a huge labor pool, currency manipulation, repressive government and no unions means it will be a long time before their labor is priced out of the bottom of the labor market. A recent study of Chinese workers producing goods for WalMart estimated the average wage was in the $0.21-0.35 range. There is a minimum wage, I think its arounf $0.30, but it apparently can be freely ignored by local authorities and adjusted for local conditions, which is as good as no minimum wage at all.
Your naivete is breathtaking or your assuming mine is. That's nice feel good wording that no doubt helped some Congressmen vote for the act. He said to himself, "I must not be shredding the Constitution by voting for this act because it says I'm not in section 215". Well the only problem is its unlikely any FBI agent is ever going to be prosecuted for stepping over that line. It was probably mentioned in the training they were given on the law and it will never cross most of their minds again.
Its pretty obvious nearly every use of the Patriot Act is predicated on the target being Muslim. The Oregon Lawyer that was locked up for two weeks due to the misidentified fingerprint in the Madrid bombing was rushed to judgment precisely because he was a Muslim convert and had defended Muslims.
The FBI agent can say to himself I'm not targeting this guy because he's Muslim so I'm not breaking Section 215. It just happens EVERYONE I'm investigating IS Muslim and DOES read the Koran and if someone is Muslim and reads the Koran it insures they will move up on the list for my special attention. What a coinkydink.
I'll say this again. I am not a Democrat, this is not a Democrat or Republican issue. Its a democracy issue with a little 'd'.
Anytime the Republicans do something bad it is lame beyond belief and not a valid argument to just say "if the democrats had done it" I wouldn't be complaining, so it must OK for the Republican's to do it. When the Democrats have done the same thing in the past it is equally wrong and if they do it again I'll complain just as loud.
Lobbyists and campaign contributors bribe all politicians. It is never right. The U.S. desperately needs to shorten its campaign cycle and dramatically reduce the money being spent on TV ads. When the presidential candidates are spending a half a billion dollars on one election there is massive room for corruption.
Its also never right to use patriotism as a weapons and fear mongering to coerce people in to doing things that are fundamentally unwise which is what's happening here.
If you look at the track record you will find both parties block judicial nominations. The Republicans were just as bad about it under Clinton though they had the luxury to use different tactics during the times they controlled the Senate.
These two examples are from opposite polls. One is the minority party in the Senate using Senate rules that are designed to let the minority restrain unwise action on the part of the majority. They other is the majority abusing its power to insure it always wins.
The Senate is designed to restrain the executive from making extremist appointments. The filibuster or the threat of it is there precisely for this reason, to prevent a party from gaining a thin majority and being able to run rough shod over the minority or the people they represent. If you want the Republicans to have the ability to rule by dictate, and appoint any extremist they want, you need to either get 60+ seats in the senate or they need to change the Senate rules and basically throw out the underpinnings of restraint on American Democracy. I'm willing to bet one or the other will happen within a year. Either the Republicans will win landslides in a bunch of senate races with the help of electronic voting in November or concoct a rational for neutering the Senate filibuster soon thereafter. They've already been threatening it this year everytime the blocked judicial appointments have been debated.
"Oh yeah, like the Iraqi people were able to band together and send us a letter saying "Save Us!" Or maybe Saddam would let them start a petition?"
If you recall recent history, right after the first gulf war, the U.S. goaded the Kurds and Shias in to revolting against Saddam in the hopes they would overthrow him. They fell for it, did it, and put up a giant sign saying "Save Us!" when Saddam started massacring them for armed revolt. George W.'s father and Dick Cheney, then looked the other way. Its odd that Saddam is facing charges for the brutally in putting down an armed revolt. I'm inclined to say George W's father and Dick Cheney are the two most responsible for those two massacres. Either they shouldn't have provoked the revolts in the first place or they should have given them air support when they did.
Well I'm just remembering the comments of various Congressman, over the last couple of years, who have served in the house for extended periods. Within their long tenure they've seen Congress deteriorate dramatically, in their view. Some of these comments were from people retiring from Congress because they didn't like working there anymore. Obviously it might have been worse during other periods in American history that live only in the history books and this is subjective.
The comment I've heard most often was that even though there were sharp political divides congressman could still treat one another cordially and with respect after hours. Now the hatred is so sharp that the two parties seem to revile each other on a personal level. You don't have to look much further than the Dick Cheney hurling profanity at a Democratic Senator, on the Senate floor, and then telling Fox later he felt good about saying it.
I don't think Slashdot has a unified conscience or intellect to reply to your challenge.
For myself I can say I don't care if they keep the vote open an extra 15 minutes. But I do care if they keep the vote open for as long as is necessary to coerce just enough people to get the outcome they want.
If I recall the Medicare vote was kept open half the night while lobbyists for the drug and healthcare industry worked the Capitol building lobby bribing and threatening representatives. A famous case was a politician who was retiring so he couldn't be easily pressured so instead they offered him big contributions for his son's campaign instead.
I can say for myself that if the Democrats did this same BS yes I would care just as much. Perhaps they did do it but I didn't have CSPAN when the Democrats had power. I've watched the Senate and House proceedings, off and on, in the last year or two and what is happening today is deeply, deeply disturbing to anyone who thinks the U.S. is a representative democracy, because it isn't. If you haven't watched CSPAN you should during debate on one of these especially controversial bills. It is an eye opener.
You can ask most of the people in Congress and they will tell you its turned in to a bitter, rancorous, partisan, uncivilized body, that is bending every rule to the breaking point, to an extent no one would have dreamed possible a few years ago.
Excellent point. You need look no further than China. Certainly their government isn't as repressive as it was when U.S politicians considered them to be sitting on the right hand of the devil.
... suddenly they seem to have no problem with China. Though China still has no "Freedom and Democracy", they spy on their people, they repress dissidents and religious groups, now the Republicans are as happy as can be with them now and get furious if anyone criticizes them.
But since then they've mostly just adjusted their economic policies to respect private property and business. Now wealthy Americans and multinationals can own capitol there, and can make a killing on the cheap labor and artificially undervalued currency and... what
It probably hasn't occurred to them that China, having deduced they couldn't beat the U.S. militarily or idealogically are exploiting America's greatest weakness in their new war, that weakness being greed. They are luring wealthy American's and multinationals in to transferring all of America's manufacturing base, capitol, jobs and intellectual property to China, voluntarily, with the lure of making a nice profit next quarter.
One day America will wake up and realize the U.S. can no longer function without Chinese container ships pulling in to its harbor, all of its wealth has migrated their thanks to trade and budget deficits, and the U.S. lost a war it didn't know it was fighting until it was to late.
Of course by complaining about it to your government you will be branded unPATRIOTic and scheduled for further scrutiny. What have you been reading lately, obviously something you shouldn't have been, something you were ashamed for reading, or you wouldn't be so upset about this simple benevolence on the part of your omnipotent government which is just looking after your physical and mental well being.
You haven't been reading Fahrenheit 451 have you?
I'll trust you on the rules but its become a disturbing trend on the part of the Republicans that when they really want something to pass they just hold open the vote until they can threaten or bribe enough people in to supporting their position. The second they have it they hold the vote before they lose someone.
Believe it or not we elect representatives to vote their conscience, intellect and judgement, which suggests they should vote the way they see fit and not they way the party in power pressures them to vote. It is a leading indicator of totalitarian government when elected representatives become rubber stamps for whatever the people in power want. By holding open the vote until they get the answer they want that is what the Republican's are doing, totalitarianism.
In this case and not having RTFA it sounds as though perhaps they should have separated the issues. I can see anonymous use of public computers, in a library or anywhere being a concern, so are pay phones. But that issue should have nothing to do with giving the government power to secretly monitor what you read. The government simply shouldn't have that power nor should they be placing book store owners and librarians in the position that they have to rat out their patrons or and to be at resk that they are breaking the law if they violate the gag and don't keep this intrusion secret from everyone.
This law creates a disturbing pressure that you shouldn't read anything that the government might find subversive, criminal or obscene and what's worse you don't know what the government's standards are. The obvious best example, is anyone who reads the Koran going to be instantly placed on a watch list. That is a violation of the most basic right to religious freedom in this country.
You certainly hit a new low in this thread, Twirp. Now you are engaged in rampant stereotyping bordering on racism.
Any army engaged in an extended occupation should be training its soldiers in basic cultural etiquette unless their goal is to tick off and alienate the locals.
I hate to break it to you but you shot down your own screed when you agreed special forces should have this kind of training, but for some bizarre reason not regular Army. Those regular Army soldiers are walking patrols in the streets, trying to establish ties with locals and especially to inquire intelligence. Their likelihood of success dramatically improves if they know social customs, how to communicate politely and how to refrain from being insulting.
An even better justification for this kind of training for Arab cultures comes when soldiers break in to homes at night looking for insurgents and weapons. If they are culturally aware they will refrain from touching women in the house unless they have to. If they are cultural morons they will manhandle them and they will most likely spawn a vendetta among all the men in the house which will lead to new recruits for the insurgency, which means potentially more American casualties.
If you want to insure you lose a war against an insurgency send in a bunch of American teenagers who insult and infuriate everyone they come in to contact with.
Good information.
I'm thinking the two Senators and the two Congressman that drew up this statement should be be introduced to the losing end of the ballot box at their next bid for reelection for failing to defend the Constitution and the democracy that was their charge when they took their oath of office.
There is a bill sitting in the House with 140 co-sponsers to require a paper trail for evoting this November. Its apparently being held up in the House Administration committee by Robert Ney (R-Ohio). He's from Diebold's home state though not sure they are in his district. He is one of the principal authors of the bill that funded the evoting mess in the first place, HAVA.
Here is his contact info especially if he is your congressman and you want to adjust his attitude.
Here is his statement on why he opposes the bill and is apparently going to be able to kill it. Its signed by Mitch McConnell, another Republican I wouldn't trust democracy to, but there are two Dem's as well Christopher Dodd and Steny Hoyer.
It contains some disturbing statements, this one in particular:
"Most importantly, the proposals requiring a voter-verified paper record would force voters with disabilities to go back to using ballots that provide neither privacy nor independence, thereby subverting a hallmark of the HAVA legislation. There must be voter confidence in the accuracy of an electronic tally. However, the current proposals would do nothing to ensure greater trust in vote tabulations"
Not sure how they can claim a recountable paper trail, "would do nothing to ensure greater trust in vote tabulations".
They also want the same agency that is apparently responsible for the current mess to have plenty of time to create a new one so they want no audit trail in time for this election:
"Questions regarding voting systems security, as well as many others, need to be examined by the entity responsible for doing so under existing law, the Election Assistance Commission, before Congress begins imposing new requirements, just months before the 2004 presidential and congressional elections, that have not been fully considered. The security of voting technology is a non-partisan issue. We encourage you to allow HAVA to be implemented as enacted and provide those who are charged with ensuring the security of voting systems the time and flexibility needed to get the job done effectively. "
"This also shows why as soon as they are in power, they invent a war in order to provide more government money to their big contractor buddies (Halliburton, KBR, Enron, etc.). Sure, the webserver expenditures are only a small part of it, but it shows how completely the GOP has been bought and paid for by large corporations."
....blah....blah...blah and it will gain momentum but Iraqis have noticed that the CPA has been spending their oil revenue unfettered by these problem.
I doubt Enron has been profiteering in Iraq. I certainly haven't seen any news suggesting that. Bechtel would be a better example.
Its interesting to note that the CPA has actually spent a small fraction, 2 percent, of the $18+ billion Congress allocated to rebuild Iraq. A link.
I imagine Halliburton and KBR are raking in lots of money from the military's budget which is separate from this $18 billion reconstruction fund so your statement of "more government money for their big contractor buddies" is still true. KBR cashes in on every American war and have since at least Vietnam when KBR was Brown and Root.
As far as Iraq's reconstruction it appears the U.S. has instead been spending or locking in Iraq's current and future oil revenue. Before the U.S. transfered power they'd spent or locked in $19 billion out of $20 billion dollars in Iraq's oil fund.
The CPA argues that they are just slow to spend the U.S. tax dollars, ramp up time, security problems
I imagine American's take this news with mixed emotions. On the plus side I imagine most American's would rather Iraq rebuild itself using its oil wealth instead of American tax dollars.
Then again the Bush administration has had big rhetoric about its commitment to rebuilding Iraq and in critical areas like electricity, security, sanitation and health care its proving to be somewhat empty rhetoric. Lengthy blackouts are still routine more than a year after the invasion. The rhetoric was similar in Afghanistan and was largely not matched by actual money or rebuilding.
Assuming Iraq's oil revenue is largely going in to the pockets of American contractors like Halliburton this suggests, though I'm not saying proves, that the U.S. did in fact steal Iraq's oil revenues which is also something Bush adminstration rhetoric said it would not do.
Maybe its just me but I think the U.S. should be spending U.S. tax dollars on contracts to U.S. companies in Iraq, and Iraqi's should be spending Iraq's oil revenue on Iraqi companies and making sure their people are employed which would be the single biggest stabilizer possible there. No country with 30% unemployment is going to be happy or stable, especially when those unemployed people see American contractors running all over their country, taking most of the work, and raking in six figure salaries.
Thats a pretty insightful argument you have there Mr. Anonymous Coward. Maybe next time you should try actually arguing a position so I can return the favor.
I don't think I said the U.S. is worse. China is much more openly repressive than the U.S. is at the moment. But the U.S. is much more oppressive than it was in 2000 and if the current trend continues the two could achieve parity in the not to distant future, especially if there are more attacks in the U.S.
I find it so odd that all the Republican business and political types who placed China at the right hand of the devil a few years ago, when they couldn't make a profit there now seem to think its a fine country. The only difference being now they can make a profit, a big profit, in exchange for moving all of America's capital, jobs and IP there.
China is a little less repressive, especially economically, but its not like its fundamental politics have really changed at all. Rather than disastrous internal economic programs they just figured out they could sucker capitalists from around the world in to building their economy for them much faster than they could do it on there own. Unlike the U.S. they've figured out trade surpluses are good and trade deficits are bad.
"we'll always have China to remind us that the good old USA still remains the land of the free."
Excepting the U.S. is becoming completely dependent on China for just about everything. Imagine if they shut off their imports how empty the shelves will be in your local stores, especially WalMart.
Today the U.S. might weather it but at the rate multinational corporations are rushing to move everything to China the U.S. will be totally at its mercy in a few years. Is America a sovereign nation and bastion of freedom when all its jobs are in China and all its dollars go to China and China can destroy the U.S. by stopping all the container ships from leaving its ports.
Its my conjecture China a decade or two ago deduced it couldn't beat the U.S. idealogically or militarily so its opting to beat the U.S. by exploiting its greatest weakness, its greed, and beat the U.S. economically.
They manipulate their currency to make China a great place for foreigners to invest and there good ridiculously cheap on foreign markets. They have a huge, subservient, labor pool which will be unlikely to ever see pressure for higher wages. They dangle that in front of greedy American execs who don't think past the end of the quarter and the U.S. guts its own economy and moves all its capital and intellectual property to China. One day the U.S. wakes up and realizes that the trade deficits have destroyed it, it doesn't make anything any more and China will has taken control of all the capital and IP. Some of the multinationals, and there execs, might survive and make a killing, but America's as a country is finished.
Last week figures came out on foreign investment in various countries. The U.S. was passed for the first time in recent history by China and it was by a lot. China had $50 billion in foreign investment versus $40 billion in the U.S.
Do you think you any ordinary American is going to change the Patriot act by writing letters or running for any office short of Senator or President which requires million of dollars to ... buy ... errr ... win.
A concerted letter writing campaign is more likely to get you additional scrutiny from the PATRIOT act.
If you try to run for office based on this platform you are going to be branded unPATRIOTic. Why do you think they picked that name, to discourage anyone from criticizing it. You will be painted as either soft on terrorists if not one yourself and I assure you those kinds of charges play very well with at least half of America's less than smart voters.
If you look at Kerry he was stumping against the Patriot Act only in the Democratic primaries which is where most of the American against the Patriot act are, excepting a few true conservatives, like me, that hate it too along with all big government. In the general election I doubt Kerry will mention it, and if he is elected he probably wont support doing anything about it, except fine tuning it which will probably end making it worse, not better. He is a former prosecutor and probably has a fond spot in his heart for tools that make prosecuting people easier.
I'll probably get slammed for it but multinational execs probably love China's repression of its people and America's repression of its own. Most corporations deep down really want quiet subservient people who go to work every day, keep secrets, keep their mouth shut, don't complain and don't organize to get better wages and benefits. Multinational execs in China might get upset with China's rules if they interfere with their SMS traffic but I wager China is being selective and not putting this filtering on foreign executives phones.
In this case the Medicare administrator was intentionally concealing the known cost and threatening his employees to keep them from divulging it. It had been made clear that it wouldn't pass if over $400 billion so thats what he said it cost. As soon as it was passed the Bush administration announced the real cost. They ate a little crow, but it was passed and all their friends in the drug, insurance and managed care industry had pork for dinner.
There must be something good about him. The Republicans are furious that a Democrat got the job. Billy Tauzin, the thouroughly corrupt Republican who rammed through the Medicare "reform" bill had the first offer but declined. Last I heard he was taking a lucrative job with the drug/health lobby that are the huge beneficiaries of his Medicare "reform" bill. Another revolving door corrupting government and costing tax payers billions. This is the bill that was sold to everyone at $400 billion because the head of Medicare was concealing the $500 plus price tag to get it passed. He was also negotiating a multimillion dollar private sector job, with White approval, while he was working on a tax payer bonanza for his future employers. More revolving door corruption. This bill also precludes Medicare from negotiating for fair prices on drugs like every other country in the world does.
Glickman is in trouble because he is a lobbyist and the party in power, the Republican's, decided it was their god given right to have a good Republican in this job, so he may finds doors closed to him. Valenti was a Johnson Democrat. If they get a good Republican in this job they can dominate one more part of American life, and put an end to all the un-christian and anti-American movies(like Fahrenheit 911). OK, I may be exaggerating a little but only a little.
I wager the MPAA will cave to pressure from the right and a extremist Republican will replace him.
"At some point you just have to stop for a minute and think that maybe the problem here isn't US foreign policy, but rather terrorism itself."
Maybe you should stop trying to paint everything in black and white Twirp. The world is shades of grey. Maybe the problem is US foreign policy and Islamic extremists. Its pretty likely Al Qaeda danced a jig when Bush invaded Iraq, and when the U.S. soldiers humiliated and tortured Arabs. He knew he won a huge victory for his cause. He knew he won a whole bunch more recruits around the world, because he could say, see the U.S. is waging a war against Arabs and Islam, and humiliating us.
You refuse to admit it I know but the place to fight Al Qaeda was Afghanistan, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia first, and Iraq was near the tail end of the list. If the U.S. had stayed focused and fought harder in Afghanistan, where the world was behind the U.S. and pressured Pakistan to clean up the tribal regions, and pressured Saudi Arabia in to really fighting Al Qaeda three years ago then it would have been winning the war on Al Qaeda. As the original poster said the jury is still out but there is a great chance that Iraq was the worst thing the U.S. could have done if it was really trying to beat Al Qaeda.
"The bottom line here is this: you can't slap the label "propaganda" on any message that you don't like, or any message on a subject that you don't like. Calling something "propaganda" when it really isn't is... well, it's propaganda."
I agree with Twirp on this. In the future try to do what he does. Slap the label "lie" on any message you don't like and call the person saying it a liar and a traitor. Its much more succinct.
Botched the URL for the records of interest.
Tryhere
341 248
All of the capital stock of the Union Banking Corporation and all rights of the Bank voor Handel en Scheepvaart and the August Thyssen Bank in the debts of said corporation.
Its not proof of a major Nazi conspiracy just that Prescott Bush was a principal in Union Banking and Union Banking was banking for people in Nazi Germany, the wealthy Thyssen family, and Fritz Thyssen funded Hitler, and encouraged many wealthy industrialists to back him a ta pivotal point in his rise, before they realized what a mistake it was, but at that point it was to late.
"The "boys" have worked long and hard to erase all that stuff from public and government records.
If you repeat it you are Un-American! Heil."
Well actually in one case their is a record. The records for all of the property seized under the trading with the enemy act, and there was a lot of it, because its was trendy in the 20's and 30's for America's moneyed class to invest in Germany and then Nazi Germany, was recently declassified. You can view them at the national archives or order copies. The main one is the one above. The archives in general are at:
http://www.archives.gov/index.html
The doc is not especially interesting though it does list Prescott Bush as a share holder in Union Banking which was seized by the Roosevelt administration. I wonder if that fueled the family hatred of the democrats.
The Harrriman family owned the lion's share of the stock but apparently the Harriman's gave the relatively poor Bush family buckets of money and they did the leg work. One of the Harriman's and Prescott were fellow Skull and Bones men at Yale.
I wonder if Prescott Bush, George W. Bush's grandfather, was registered as a Foreign Agent in 1938. He was the U.S. banker for Fritz Thiessen, one of Germany's wealthiest men and a key money man who helped put Adolph Hitler in power. Fritz wrote a rather dull book about it called, "I Paid Hitler". When Union Banking, of which Prescott was a principal, was seized in 1941 for trading with the enemy, it was something of an embarrassment to the Bush family.