Exactly right the only question is who added it. If the government creates the fiction and sells it to you it apparently it becomes fact. Anyone challenges the official government line, in this case the deeply flawed Warren Commission, you immediately write them off as conspiracy nuts. You, and all those like you, are god's gift to totalitarian government. They can tell you anything and as long as they tell it to you long and hard enough you are going to fall for it. This tool of governance is called the "Big Lie".
At this point all I'll say again I don't know who killed JFK or why, and I don't know if there was a conspiracy behind the assassination of JFK, RFK and MLK. One thing I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt is its not a sign of wisdom on your part to pretend that you do know. You simply don't. If you want good government you stand a better chance of getting it by challenging everything it says and does. You might be wrong some or most of the time, but you make up for by the times you are right. Woodward and Bernstein could have believed the BS coming out of the Nixon white house and dropped the whole thing. Instead they chose not to, they were right and they exposed massive corruption that had compromised the fabric of our constitution.
"Wikipedia has the right basic structure but they need..."
Like the original article and most posts here everyone says Wikipedia has "the right basic structure" but we need to change it in a really fundamental way so it completely stops being what it is. Wikipedia is inherently "Antielitism" and it should stay that way. If you want it to be written and edited by vetted experts in their field, tell you what, READ AN ENCYCLOPEDIA, instead of trying to make Wikipedia something its not. Wikipedia is a people's encyclopedia written by people, with all the brilliance and flaws you find in people. It is a creation of the collective web consciousness of all the people that choose to contribute to it and fight over it.
As soon as you put a bunch of "expert" editors in charge of it chances are the only people who are going to contribute to it, or at least get their contributions included, are the "expert" editors. Amazingly enough they probably all have agendas too and a bunch of them are going to troll if anyone challenges their "expert" opinions.
Knowledge is unfortunately subjective, in most arenas there is no absolute truth. There are nuggets of pretty much absolute truth embedded in it like when an historical event occured, but all the interesting stuff around the edges is not so cut and dried. Wikipedia is a collection of views of what is true which tend to be be different which each set of beholder's eyes. It is interesting precisely because it is a collection of eclectic views by ordinary people. Wikipedia is one collective view of truth, so is Britannica, so is Encarta, so is most of the propaganda nation states put out as their history and news. If you are a good researcher, tell you what, read them all and form your own opinion on what is "right". One thing don't do, don't try to homogenize all information sources so they tell the same story, and all of the alternative views are silenced.
If you want a wikipedia with "expert" editors please fork it and see if you can make it fly. Not sure you will because there is already Encarta and Britannica in that niche. JUST LEAVE WIKIPEDIA ALONE.
Just curious, if someone forced you to pose naked in a position where it appeared you were about to engage in homosexual acts, and took pictures and threatened to show the pictures to your friends and family would you take offense. Might you call that "sexual torture"?
You see you got hung up on the "rape" part exclusively and the article's title was "Rape and SEXUAL TORTURE". Whether rape occurred at Abu Ghraib is open to debate, you dismiss it out of hand though you don't know. What would it take to prove to you rape happened at Abu Ghraib? Well video tapes but video tapes aren't proof either, they tend to just look like porn and its not likely someone would be stupid enough to actually rape someone in front of a camera anyway. Is anecdotal evidence good enough, well that is mostly what you have that Saddam used rape as tool, and that is mostly what you have that it occurred at Abu Ghraib. As in most cases of political propaganda you have anecdotal evidence that you choose to believe(against Saddam) and anecdotal evidence you choose to disregard(against Abu Ghraib) because you predetermined which you wanted to believe.
The rape issue aside, there is a mountain of photo and video evidence of sexual abuse and torture at Abu Ghraib, but you seem to be trying to brush it under the rug because it doesn't conform to what you want to believe.
If you weren't pushing a political agenda here you should have probably added the link to Saddam's use of torture, and not tried to purge the Abu Ghraib link. Abu Ghraib is an undeniable instance of sexual torture, occuring in a U.S. military prison, with indisputable graphic evidence on a scale which is rare. You choose to try to make Abu Ghraib go away because it doesn't conform to what you thought the U.S. stands for. Well the U.S. unfortunately has fallen pretty far from the lofty ideal you seem to think it adheres to. You trying to pretend otherwise isn't going to change it. If you feel bad about it you should hold the Bush administration and the Army responsible for failing to insure humane treatment of prisoners of war.
As for state sponsorship of all this, well that is a tough one. Unfortunately the organization that conducted the investigation was the same organization that perpetrated the offense, the Army. It is an unspoken truth about most militaries that, if they can they will blame everthing on the little fish, the enlisted men, and protect their officer corp and chain of command. It appears they may have done just that at Abu Ghraib so far. Its pretty much undeniable military intelligence officers and the CIA were endorsing the "softening up" that was occuring at Abu Ghraib, though maybe the people doing it got carried away. There have been far to many leaks of of information showing that officers and the civilian leadership in the Bush administration has been sanctioning degrees of torture as a matter of policy. Unfortunately when you santion a little torture you run a pretty high risk of it becoming rampant and abusive as it did at Abu Ghraib. This is a place the U.S. just simply should have never gone. It should have strictly adhered to the Geneva conventions in treatment of all prisoners instead of finding legal justifications in the White House for why people in these wars aren't worthy of this most basic humane treatment. You strictly adhere to the Geneva conventions, if for no other reason, than to help insure your soldiers will get the same humane treatment if they are taken prisoner. It is no assurance of that treatment but at this point the U.S. has no ground to stand on in demanding humane treatment of its POW's because it has chosen to unilaterally withdraw from the Geneva conventions using legalistic hair splitting.
Well see you are doing the same thing you are criticizing, stating a misguided opinion as fact, when you say Gore LOST. You are wrong and the facts don't support you.
Here is a good link on wikipedia to the outcome of the NORC report which was the biggest and most comprehensive study on the Florida recount. As I read it Gore won using 4 possible recount criteria, Bush won 3 and of course he won the certified count.
The Miami Herald's study described in the book "Democracy Held Hostage" found the same thing. The winner was determined entirely by the criteria you used on hanging chads
For all intents and purposes the Florida race was a statistical tie and there was no winner.
Of course then there is the little detail that Jeb Bushes state election apparatus, and many local governments went to some considerable lengths to disenfranchise minority voters. If that hadn't happened its a certainty Gore would have won going away.
Don't let the facts get in the way of your little rant though:)
Most of us little people don't know much about the CIA today, its a secret. The CIA does have a long and well documented history of interference in sovereign governments pretty much since World War II, its birth and America assuming the role of superpower and acquiring the license to meddle in the affairs of other nations, Chile, Argentina, Iran, Haiti, VIetnam, Dominican Republic are just a few off the top of the head and most of those ended badly.
The CIA was mostly probably reigned in by the Church commission in the early 70's. If you want to "know" of the CIA just read its reports. I think you can find the one on plots to assassinate foreign heads of state here It is fact and its not pretty. The Rockefeller Commission Report is a good read too.
The right wingers in the Republican party, the Bush family in particular, have been massively pissed over the fact the CIA was exposed and reigned in by these commissions.
Some of those constraints were loosened by Reagan, remember Iran Contra for instance. All the constraints are no doubt gone since George W. came to town and especially since 9/11. I'm pretty sure the CIA has a blank check now to do whatever it takes to further the interests of the U.S. at the expense of the rest of the world. We can only hope they are rusty and incompetent at it these days. I believe the last constraints on the CIA blocking it from spying on Americans in America again probably went with the Nation Intelligence "Reform" act that was rushed through recently.
I have a pretty high confidence all the nastiness uncovered by the Church Commission is child's play compared to what we are going to see from the new, gigantic, unified and massively funded American intelligence apparatus we have now, especually using 9/11 as the excuse and justification.
"I know who killed all 3. The names of the men are a matter of public record. As is who else was (and more importantly was NOT) involved. It is well known."
Forgot to answer this silliness. All you know is the names of the three patsies that whitewash investigations by the establishment blamed for it.
I doubt the members of the Warren Commission were involved in some grand conspiracy but if there was a conspiracy involving people from the CIA or the military, even if they were rogues, they had zero incentive to root it out. If it came out CIA agents, even rogues had conspired to assassinate Kennedy it would have shaken America to its very roots, because it mean the assassination was a coup and America's great Democracy never has coups. The Warren commission was composed of good establishment lakies who did their job and quietly brushed it under the rug instead of rocking the boat.
The only catch was someone named Zapruder was filming Kennedy when the assassination occurred and its a near impossibility Oswald's gun created all the carnage in that short a period of time or that the kill shot would have pushed Kennedy's head back if it came from the direction Oswald was shooting. Chances are just unavoidably high there were two or three snipers involved and Oswald was the "nut" setup to be the patsy and take the fall as the lone gunmen. All indications are it was a conspiracy and we will probably never know who was behind it because the establishment didn't want to know or want us to know.
What is it inside your head that makes you so desperate to believe everything your government tells you. Does it make it easier to live your life if you can pretend America is a land of sugar and honey and everything is noble and wonderful and that bad things don't happen in America and that America's government never goes bad? Well there is always a danger any government can go bad, because they are made up of people and people go bad. Me personly I want to know if people took it upon themselves to use violence to overrule the will of the American people. I'm not a big fan of sticking my head in the sand and pretending that will make everything OK as you seem to be fond of doing.
"If Hoover assassinated everyone he spied on, it is a wonder anyone survived the 1960s! I'm sorry, your case looks rather weak on this one. FBI spying != FBI assassination."
Heh, your funny. You seem to have moved the discussion to a place where as long as the American government isn't assassinating people its a bastion of a freedom and democracy. You seem to be glossing over the fact that the state police was engaging in a massive spying campaign on peaceful political dissidents who are just exercising their right to free speech. If in the process of spying on them they found enough dirt to smear or arrest them thats cool too.
I hate to break it to you but the period when Nixon and Hoover were spying on everyone who opposed them was one of the darker hours for Democracy. That was the whole point you are missing. The U.S. has routinely used its power to persecute dissidents just like Cuba and China. I have a pretty high confidence they are doing the same thing today, it just isn't making the headlines and there aren't many dissidents because most people are afraid of the American government today. These are characteristics of a police state, not an enlightened democracy.
"By bringing Nader and the Chicago 7 into it, you are providing evidence contrary to that idea: they were persecuted long before (as you described) but have free reign now."
You fail to understand the point. In 1968 the Chicago 7 openly and publicly challenged the American government. Thanks to Daly and his police riot they helped shake America's confidence in the people who were running the government. How did the government respond. It put them on trial and made them fight for their lives through most of 1969-1970. You were saying America doesn't persecute its political dissidents, well it obviously does. Back then we still had the concept of due process and a fair trial and they prevailed. If the same thing happened today they might well be arrested and held indefinitely, on terrorism charges, without trail because the current administration has suspended the gaurantee of due process and a fair and speedy trial. I doubt you will see the Chicago Seven today because everyone today is afraid they would be arrested, would disappear from the face of the Earth and might face varying gradations of torture, because the U.S. government at the highest levels has endorsed the use of torture.
You didn't see any real protests at the conventions this year though there is massive rage at the current government, why because everyone is afraid of the current government.
The fact that the U.S. is denying people, including American citizens due process and the right to protest(remember the razor wire free speech zones at the conventions?) is the characteristic of a police state not an enlightened democracy.
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I don't think I was singing praises of the Soviet system. As I said it was badly flawed but they came a long way from where they were. It would have been interesting to see where it had gone if Stalin hadn't seized power. You are passing judgement on what Stalin wrought and he was just a ruthless dictator, nothing more nothing less, like most Castro, Batista, Papa Doc, Pinochet, etc. etc. At least he moved them forward compared to Nicholas who was a dictator too, just an incompetent, inbred one, that left Russia far worse than when he started.
"Imagine waiting in line for hours just to buy a loaf of bread for your family."
Hate to break it to you but most of the Russian people were starving under the pre soviet system too. And most of the Russian people were starving when the Nazi's were rolling through the wheatfields in the Ukraine and half of their country was laid ruin, a fate the U.S. has never suffered. The U.S. came to be a superpower by an accident of geography, it was the one major industrial nation that wasn't devastated by World War II because it was protected by two oceans. It has nothing to do with the America's delusions about the superiority of its system.
"Russians have historically been very good at everything except governing themselves, at which they're terrible."
After watching the last 4-5 years I hate to break it to you but Americans are equally bad at it. Elections are turning in to a farce, swung by brainless attack ads and a clueless electorate, Congress is writing legislation in back rooms and shoving it through before anyone has a chance to read it, lobbyists and special interests are outright buying politicians and legislation (reference Medicare "reform"), government spending and deficits are completely out of control, the entire nation was rushed in to a bloody and probably never ending quagmire under false pretenses or maybe outright lies. Oh and I forgot a right wing House tried to impeach a President because he lied about sex and drug the entire nation through the mud for no reason other than they were trying to destroy a centrist Democratic President and insure they won the White House in 2000 which they did.
What exactly is it about American government that you think qualifies it as a shining example of good government. I just don't see it.
You have no more of a clue who really killed them than I do. The fact you think its an open an shut case is more than a little naive. If they were conspiracies you are just proof that they were good ones and they worked.
Step one in the assassination handbook is to setup a "nut" as a patsy to take the fall because people stop asking questions once the patsy takes the fall, or in the JFK assassination when the patsy is in turn assassinated.
MLK in particular was under a massive assault from J. Edgar Hoover when he was alive, there is no conspiracy theory needed, its a known fact. He massively chapped the establishment's ass because he was against the war in Vietnam(especially because it was disproportionately drafting and killing blacks) and was upsetting the social order which was keeping blacks oppressed and suppressed.
General Motors attempted a ruthless private investigation and smear campaign against Ralph Nader, trying to brand him as a homosexual in particular, which is what I was refering to. All because he had the nerve to point out their cars were death traps and could be made less so by something called seat belts. Unfortunately they tried it against a guy who was squeaky clean and had no skeletons in his closet, if he had they would have destroyed him and he would be a nobody today. Instead they had to apologize for trying to smear him and give him a nice settlement. He triumped but most people would have been destroyed. At this point he is completely marginalized and his campaigns are just stunts mostly used for entertainment value by the media.
Maybe you should learn. They went to Chicago in 1968 to protest the Vietnam War at the Democratic convention. They were tried for conspiracy to incite a riot when most unbiased accounts suggest that the Chicago police and Mayor Daily were the ones that incited the riot, it is called a "police riot". The late sixties and the early seventies were the last time the American people challenged a government that was in the wrong successfully. If you were to young to remember it you should study it, the Pentagon papers, Watergate, the Chicago Seven, etc. It was a time when America's government turned decidely evil, and it looks a lot like the one we have today, only there is no Chicago Seven today.
"I ask you to find one study that shows"
Dont need to. All I need to do is point out Bush is still in office. If the message Moore had tried to convey had worked he wouldn't be, because he painted a distinctly distubring portrait of the Bush family. Some of it was a stretch but at heart he nailed what the Bush clan is all about, money, power and contempt for Democracy and the little people, eagerness to send other people to die in an insane war the politicians and their children all duck.
"The Soviet Union fell apart because it did not work"
You may not remember but Russia was a complete basket case before 1917, it couldn't fight a war, was humiliated by the Japanese Navy in 1905 and lost every campaign in World War I. Its economy was a basket case, most of its people illiterate and dirt poor, health care nonexistent. In 20 years it became a global superpower and carried the brunt of the war against Nazi Germany while America was sitting on the sidelines. It was devastated in World War II but rose again to be a global superpower and challenged the U.S. quite successfully for another 40 years. It still has an extremely well educated and capable population.
It was a deeply flawed system but so is America's. Unfortunately people are people, they are corrupt, lust for power and wealth and that seems to corrupt most governments, capitalist or socialist, especially when they get to be big and powerful and start calling themselves superpowers.
All in all I think the world would be a healthier place with two superpowers keeping each other in check, if they would refrain from fighting bloody proxy wars in the third world and propping up despotic governments just to keep the other guy from doing the same. Its proving to be pretty dangerous to the world having one superpower who seems to think they can rule the world by dictate from the bow of an aircraft carrier.
You also miss the point that none of the people you listed changed anything. The person they spoke out against is still in power, even more so. All of those people are also rich and famous enough they aren't really at the mercy of the system. You also forgot to mention Maher was in fact fired by ABC for speaking out in a controversial way, he is just articulate, funny and controversial enough he was still a ratings draw for HBO.
The powers that be in America ignore people criticizing them as long as they don't threaten the root of their power. Daniel Ellsberg, Martin Luther King Jr., the Chicago Seven, JFK, RFK and Ralph Nader are better example of people who challenged the powers that be and suffered various forms of retribution. There aren't really many people any more who challenge the system like they did, because most American's are thoroughly cowed and or lazy.
In fact I think the Republican's delighted in all the criticism from the people you listed since they just used it to unify their base, and the not so bright bible thumpers in rural America. The people you listed just just tickled the cognitive dissonance that is so strong in America's new right. I think they ended up being used by the people they hate and did more harm than good to their cause.
I should point out Fahrenheit 911 was pushed off pay per view before the election in a not so subtle form of censorship while a documentary openly slamming Kerry was pushed by a major media conglomerate on to prime time on major broadcast networks in most of the country right before the election(though they muted it somewhat in the face of cratering stock price) .
"You are describing exactly what happened when Lenin overthrow a democratic government and seized control of old Russia."
Uh, Russia was coming out of centuries of rule by a monarchy, and an aristocracy that owned everything, all the land in particular, in the end under the incompetent Czar Nicholas, It was a constitutional monarchy and maybe you could stretch it to call it a democracy but it was a big stretch when the country was ruled by a monarchy and an aristocracy.
Or maybe you are refering to the government of Kerensky which was in place for all of 6 months after Nicholas absicated and before it was overthrown. Russia was in turmoil for all of those six months. He was a socialist too, who had moved to the center to try to hold power and succeeded in alienating just about everyone. In particular he persisted in trying to fight World War I, launched a disasterous campaign in 1917, which finished him with the rank and file of the military who helped topple him. Kerensky also balked at land reform which is another key reason he was overthrown.
"Russia is a lot better off now."
Not sure what point you are trying to make. Putin has erased democracy for all practical purposes. He's returned to one party, dictatorial rule with a sham democracy on top. So if you are trying to say Russia is better now because its a democracy well it isn't. It never really was. It just went from a period where the communist bureaucrats looted the country to one where plutocrats and criminals looted it and is heading back to a new dictatorship under Putin.
"Then you blame the oppression on the US. I have news for you: the lack of human rights in Cuba is a policy engineered in Havana, not Washington. "
Dont think I would say I'm blaming it on the US. I'd say its a mutual effort. If Cuba stopped all the repression and threw open the doors the capitalists would quickly topple the current government and turn it back in to the cess pool it was before Castro toppled Batista. You may not remember but Cuba wasn't exactly a great democracy before Castro came to power either. It was run by Batista and he was a dictator too, just a U.S. friendly so that was OK. I don't think you have a leg to stand on acting like America is the champion of Democracy for Cuba. America was totally cool with having a dictator there in Batista as long as he did what the U.S. told him to and Americans were making money there. Among other things Batista let the American Mafia turn Cuba in to an off shore Las Vegas with all the corruption that brings.
"This is not so."
Yes it is. All dictatorships repress to maintain power. Batista did, Saddam did it, Castro does it, the U.S. has backed repressive dictatorships all over the world especially in the Western Hemisphere, and is A-OK with them as long as they are pro American.
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"That is why Russia is the sole remaining super power..."
A key reason the U.S. is the sole remaining superpower of the two is because the U.S.S.R got bogged down in a 10 year quagmire in Afghanistan fighting the people who later became the Taliban and Al Qaeda (who were liberally funded, armed and trained by Ronald Reagan and the CIA by the way). Fighting that bloody insurgency decimated the Soviet military and created an entire generation openly disillusioned with the Soviet Union's government. It had a lot in common with Vietnam and today's Iraq. If Iraq continues another ten years and continues to escalate in its savagery the U.S. could easily suffer a similar fate. Making a conventional military fight an insurgency for a decare, where you can't tell friend from foe or insurgent from civilian has devastating effects on soldiers. Some become blood thirsty, indiscriminate killers, and others are eaten up inside by the killing of innocent women and children.
And of course Gorbachev rising to power had a lot to do with it. It will be interesting to discover when documents become declassified if he was just an enlightened leader who brought change, or a CIA mole.
All in all I doubt American "superiority" had a lot to do with it except in the minds of American's who like to think the world revolves around them. Hubris is a wicked mistress. America could fall from its pedestal sometime soon and hubris will be standing behind America giving it a shove when it happens.
The U.S. could easily be shoved aside soon by the EU or China in the very near future. Sure they can't match the U.S. militarily yet but they are also not squandering all their treasure on an oversized, overextended military. If America continues to gut its economy, in particular, by shipping it wholesale to China, a day will come when it can't pay for its overside military, and China can pay for new one, and whats more will have the industrial and technical ability to build one, why because the U.S. is currently engaged in a wholesale transfer of its capital, IP and technical knowledge to China.
Nice propaganda but no it doesn't have a lot to do with the USSR other thank a lot of Cubans went there to get their educations out of obvious necessity in the '60's and '70s. I'm pretty sure Cuba's excellent health care and education systems are self sustaining now.
Cuba and Venezuela place a massive emphasis on education and health care, both are universally available free of charge but universal health care doesn't really have anything to do with freedom. Most developed countries whether it be Canada or Cuba considering it a basic human right and necessity so they make it universally available. America is increasingly an exception among developed nations in not offering universal health care. America values profit over health, so you can get great health care if you can afford it, if you can't you don't. Coincidentally the American drug and health care industries are some of its most profitable, and are both inflating at a rate dramaticly higher than every other sector of the economy and are bleeding the U.S. economy white, the drug industry in particular. The skyrocketing cost of health benefits alone is driving either outsourcing or dropping insurance for employees, both bad.
Cuba's education system is by all outward appearances also superior. If you want to be a teacher you can be and its a thoroughly respected profession. By contrast, in America if you are a teacher you are underpaid and undervalued, so its not a field that draws the best people.
If you have the ability to be a doctor you can get the education to be a first class doctor in Cuba, while by contrast in America to do it you either have to:
- Work every waking hour on menial jobs to pay for it and wreck your focus on your education - Come from a rich family - Land scholarships and full ride which is hard to do - Borrow yourself in to a really huge, deep hole early in life.
In Cuba as long as you have the ability and the drive to make the grades you can be a doctor.
All in all you just wish places like Cuba and Venezuela could keep all the good parts of Socialism without the repression. Unfortunately when you are under constant attack from places like the U.S. and people internally who want to topple your government, and loot and pillage to get rich, the government does have to repress to keep from being overthrown. The U.S. has tried to topple both governments numerous times.
You need to look no further than the U.S.S.R to see what happens when freedom breaks out. A handful of plutocrats and organized criminals pretty much looted all the assets of the country, made themselves billionaires and devastated the countries economy in the process of lining their pockets, meanwhile most ordinary people were pushed in to poverty. The Yuko's auction is fallout from these plutocrats who used an incompetent, corrupt, and alcoholic Yeltsin to loot the country when the U.S.S.R fell. Capitalism is very good at some things but it has a really nasty dark side, that most American's choose to overlook.
"In democratic societies nobody tries to shove shit down your throat by issuing decrees."
Instead they shove shit down your throw with:
- Monopolies - Laws(Decrees and Laws are really the same thing) - Financial pressure - Political pressure
If you actually want to put FOSS in place in most governments there almost has to be a "decree" of some kind. Otherwise an army of software salesmen from places like Microsoft are going to work over, pressure or bribe the people making the purchasing decision to buy their crap. After all civil servents aren't wasting their money they are wasting tax dollars and they could care less if they pass on the low cost option and waste money on Microsoft's software especially if they are being bribed. FOSS doesn't have the army of salesmen which are the free markets "decree" enforcers.
Assuming you are American, and live in a country that is the home of the Patriot Act, the DMCA, software patents, monopolies and cartels(Microsoft, RIAA, MPAA, etc), a government that is almost completely owned by lobbyists, corporations and special interest money, that is arresting and holding people without due process, is promoting the use of torture around the world, routinely toppling sovereign governments and replacing them with two bit dictators, you don't really have a leg to stand on to preach to the rest of the world about "democratic societies". The U.S. only vaguely knows what they are and its increasingly not what you have in the U.S.
Fact is places like China and Cuba have a lot more in common with the U.S. than they differ. The tools for controlling people are just somewhat more subtle, though they seem to be getting less subtle with each passing year under the new regime. And of course most American companies seem to be quite fond having all their work done in China by workforce under repression so increasingly if you it comes down to be "free" in America and unemployed or "repressed" in China and have a job though under generally bad conditions.
In China or Cuba they throw you in jail just for being a dissident. In America if you don't go along with the system you run a substantial risk of unemployment, homelessness, death on the streets, or being thrown in prison via things like the "War on Drugs" or by the IRS.
I point out the IRS because it abuse of tax records was a favorite tool of Nixon's to attack his political opponents and someone attempted to renable abusing tax records for political purposes in the recent intelligence reform bill. It was caught only at the very last second when someone actually speed read the bill before it was passed. Actually reading legislation before its passed is increasingly rare in the Congress which is also undemocratic. The new regime often writes it behind closed doors and then tries to rush it through before anyone can read it, let alone understand it.
Also, in case you haven't looked lately the U.S. has one of the highest per capita prison populations of any country in the world.
No argument it was a death trap and past its usable life span but I'm pretty sure the Russians would have much preferred doing Mir2 than getting involved in the ISS quagmire if they could have scraped together the funding for it. The Russian core of ISS is basicly Mir2.
See above. Skylab's longest mission was 90 days and it was 30 years ago. It was a shame it wasn't used to its potential but it wasn't. America's track record on space stations since has been pathetic. Skylab was kind of pathetic because it was so underutilized.
As I've said elsewhere the ability of NASA and Boeing to squander money doesn't prove much other than they had it to waste. Obviously Russia's space program needed the cash and they might not have fielded the Mir successor without it, but then again they might have eventually managed it and probably would have been happier than with the current quagmire that is ISS. The U.S. got a pretty sweet deal using all that experienced Russian engineering talent and a proven design at bargain basement prices. It was an early example of "outsourcing".
If you look at the current ISS design it is quite obviously a Mir2 core with the US strapping a bunch of trusses and solar panels on it.
"And previous to that, the US had a space station called Skylab that flew for a little over six years. So while the Mir was certainly an important achievement, it is not an entirely unique one."
Skylab "flew" for six years, it was occupied for a total of 6 months, not six years. The longest mission was 90 days. They U.S. record pales compared to Russia's. Russia routinely racked up 1 year missions and they kept Mir going inhabitated for years. By contrast Skylab was 30 years ago, crutching off the remnants of Apollo and the U.S. has completely failed at every space station design since at huge expense.
"How much of that really comes down to O'Keefe? Sure, leadership is important. But in a position such as O'Keefe's, I would have to question how much leeway one has."
I might not have said much until I heard him talk when he resigned. He was obviously completely paralyzed by the Columbia distaster. He had reached the point he pretty much wanted to abandon the manned space program if there was any chance more astronauts would get killed. He appears to have so constrained the shuttle that iis useless for anything but missions to the ISS and back and at the same time he is saying the ISS is a deadend, which means so is the shuttle. I can imagine its a real morale booster for all the people working on ISS to Shuttle to know they are working on dead end projects one of which isn't even closed to finished.
It appears he almost singlehandedly decided to first abandon Hubble, and then try to salvage it with a goofy robotic mission which everyone who knows says is going to cost a fortune, take forever and still have a high chance for failure.
I think its a bit of a stretch on your part to blame Moscow for that. No one knows who did it and the options range from organized crime, Ukraine secret service, political opponents, Moscow or the the CIA.
In case its lost on you the poisoning was used as a political tool to insure Yushenko's victory in the last round both by Yushenko's party and the West, for example he visit to Italy right before the election so they could announce to the world he had been poisoned by Dioxin. Look at poor Yushenko, he was poisoned by the thugs in power, you have to vote for him because of it. It probably worked too. The poisoning probably insured that he won the last round, so talk about mixed blessing.
Re:You were buying security, not spacecraft
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US to Pay to go to ISS
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· Score: 5, Insightful
I imagine that was a factor but I think you are really underestimating the experience the Russians brought to the project. They have a couple decades of hands on experience with long duration space station construction and operation. The Zarya and Zvedza modules they built are the heart of the ISS. The U.S. had no space station experience other than then the short duration Skylab flights 30 years ago which were mostly stunts to get rid of the rest of the Apollo rockets.
It was pretty obvious the U.S. has since lost "the right stuff" to do a space station. First sign... one failed space station design after another at huge expense over twenty years, with nothing flown.
I think the "keeping Russian space scientists" employed was little more than saving face. In reality I think the U.S. and Boeing came to the conclusion that using the experienced Russian engineers was the only way to get actually get a working space station off the ground. They in fact paid them to build a Mir2 and it became the heart of ISS. The U.S. sure did love to rant that the Russian modules were behind schedule and over budget. Well this convieniently glosses over the fact that those were two of the most complex and challenging modules in the station, and that the U.S. and Boeing had flailed for nearly 20 years, squandered billlions and billions of dollars, and hadn't managed to build ANYTHING. More than a little hypocrisy there.
I've seen more than a few people point out how the U.S. pays for everything on ISS. Well this is for damn sure if you count the nearly 100 billion the U.S. wasted in those awful years when they didn't building anything, and the billion dollar a pop Shuttle flights versus the tens of millions for a Soyuz or Progress flight, and it probably costs 20-50 times as much to employ Boeing engineers to build a component as it does Russian engineers. All in all I don't think the total dollars squandered really counts for much other than to prove that nobody squanders money like NASA and Boeing. The Russians have launched and run multiple successful long duration space stations for a tiny fraction of what NASA and Boeing have wasted on ISS. I think they deserve a lot more kudos for their frugality and their ability to get bang for the buck, versus the NASA/Boeing aptitude for wasting billions of dollars.
I certainly wouldn't be surprised if Russia didn't lob this little missile at the U.S. at this particular component because Putin is royally pissed at the outcome of the elections in Ukraine. It appears the Moscow backed thugs that were in power were thoroughly bad but I'm not sure the new government is exactly going to be a pillar of Democracy. Putin was equally unhappy about Serbia, and Star Wars(Russia is building new warheads to defeat it) and in general that the U.S. and Europe is trying slowly suffocate Russia on the world stage.
A couple of days ago at a Collin Powell press conference Powell was talking about how important it was Ukraine get a democraticly elected government without outside interference. The reporter being especially smart, informed and ballsy pointed out the U.S. was funding Yuschenko's party through the National Endowment for Democracy and was in fact interfering in the election just as much as Moscow was. It wouldn't be suprising if the CIA was helping fuel the uprising after the previous election too, they do that sort of thing, all the time. You see "National Endowment for Democracy" is one of those big brotherisms. They don't actually promote democracy where people in a country pick the leader of their choice, they work to bend and twist countries so that only governments friendly to U.S. win, even if that outcome runs counter to the actual democratic will of the people that live there.
It will be interesting to see how deeply the relationship between the U.S. and Russia fractures. It appears poised for a really deep schism that could lead to a new cold war. I'm wondering what will happen to ISS if the U.S. and Russia return to a true adverserial relationship. I'm pretty sure the Russians could with some work, undock the pieces they built and have a functional space station core they could use to build a new MIR while the rest of ISS eventually ends up in cinders.
Maybe there is a bit of having NASA over a barrel in it.
But its also a fact that the Russian's have been completely carrying the ISS since Columbia mostly at their own expense and while NASA still wants to dictate how ISS though it hasn't shouldered any of the burden for nearly 2 years and probably 3 before the shuttle resumes any useful role. For example they tried to stop Russia from taking tourists to the ISS to raise cash and the Russian's gave them the finger.
Its also more than a little sickening to hear NASA and its minions talk about how they are "on schedule" to return to flight next year. Well they aren't even remotely "on schedule". After the accident report they said they were going to return to flight in March 11, 2004. NASA return to flight window doesn't even open until May of 2005 now and chances are slim they will stay on that schedule based on track record. I don't think this flight actually does anything other than fly to the ISS, inspect it for booboos and fly back again. Hopefully they will carry a few loaves of bread and bottles of water to the crew.
Here is a picture of which countries were supposed to supply what though many pieces on this picture will probably never make it in to space. Most of the important Russians parts did.
I assure you the Russians built the heart of the station that is there now, the Zarya Control Module and the Zvezda crew quarters. Zarya is called a U.S. component only because the U.S. paid for it through Boeing but it was built in Russia.
The U.S. was supposed to build the Crew Return Vehicle which would have allowed it to be fully manned but that was long ago cancelled. When it was the U.S. killed any prospect of the seven man crew which pretty much killed the ISS as ever being useful. The current crew can barely maintain it and don't do much research, not like its any good for any zero G research anyway.
The U.S. is building a lot of solar panels many of which are probably never going to fly and aren't the most challenging part of the station.
Russia had a full functional space station for like a decade called Mir. Most of their expertise is at the heart of the current ISS core. Not sure NASA could have successfully flown anything without them. If you recall during the years Russia was in Mir, NASA and Boeing was churning out one failed ISS design after another, none of which flew and all of which just filled Boeing's pork filled belly.
I imagine Russia is regretting they deorbited Mir as a condition of joining ISS. It was past its prime and on its last legs but at least it was all theirs. ISS is all shiny and new and flush with squandered U.S. tax dollars but its probably going to end being pathetic and doing anything useful. Russia was getting a whole lot more done with a whole lot less with Mir. I think the modules now forming the core of ISS would have gone in to Mir2 if they could have scraped together the cash for it. I imagine they have been a lot happier and got more done if they weren't bogged down in the political morasse that is ISS.
Maybe the shuttle will fly again and the ISS will get kind of on track again but I really doubt it. Its probably never going to get much beyond where it is today, and Russia will most probably have to keep it alive while NASA's manned space program finishes cratering. Maybe thing will improve at NASA with O'Keefe gone but I doubt it. Its pretty obvious his head was completely bent by the Columbia disaster and he was totally paralyzed at the prospect of... gasp... risking anyone's left on space exploration. He clearly should have been booted years ago. Fact is space exploration is dangerous, do your best to make it less so but don't give up just because you can't make it 100% safe. Astronauts aren't astronauts if they can't accept the risk they might get killed.
"In other words, I don't think that anti-missile technology from the 1950s (or even present-day technology, for that matter) is going to save us"
Damn straight. If a recent test is any indication its not a certainty "present-day technology" can even make it out of the silo or if it does hit anything(though asteroids are probably a little easier to target than a ballistic missile warhead).
Despite the fact they haven't successfully launched one of the new ABM's in two years, and when they did their track record was poor in tightly controlled tests President Bush is still going to declare the system operational soon. Its apparently lost on him that for a defense system to be a creditable deterant your potential foes have to believe that it works. North Korea if they were to go insane and a launch a few missiles at the U.S. with nukes on board could deduce they probably have a better than 50% chance of success with one missile against this system and with 3 or 4 a near certainty of success. Then the U.S. would probably blow them back in to the stone age.
I really do appreciate all the stupid things my government squanders my tax dollars on while they fail miserably at dealing with the greenhouse effect or an asteroid strike that would wipe life and or civilization off the face of the plant, or a broken education and health care system. That said I'm I'm not sure it would be a bad thing if something did wipe out civilization and leave a smattering of life to start over(preferably without the genetic traits or upbringing that produce politicians).
"You mean like the 170+ sods at my place with "permanent" jobs that just got kicked in the butt when their jobs went off to India last week?"
Yes like those. Being a salaried employee at places like IBM used to mean something. There was mutual loyalty between employer and employee and it was less common to discard employees at a whim. As long as you kept your nose clean and worked hard you could stay in one place for life and have a good retirement.
Some say its necessary for efficiency and it obviously coerces productivity if you work at a company with annual layoffs which seems to be most places these. But it also leads to employees who have no motivation to do a good job or build a strong company. It cheapens everyone and America is increasingly a cheapened, careless place. And of course when the market is hot employees have zero loyalty too and job shop far more than is healthy for them or their employers.
Today being salaried seems to have no up side and a lot of downside, until and unless you cross the great divide in to upper management.
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"A lot of fiction has been added,"
Exactly right the only question is who added it. If the government creates the fiction and sells it to you it apparently it becomes fact. Anyone challenges the official government line, in this case the deeply flawed Warren Commission, you immediately write them off as conspiracy nuts. You, and all those like you, are god's gift to totalitarian government. They can tell you anything and as long as they tell it to you long and hard enough you are going to fall for it. This tool of governance is called the "Big Lie".
At this point all I'll say again I don't know who killed JFK or why, and I don't know if there was a conspiracy behind the assassination of JFK, RFK and MLK. One thing I can say beyond a shadow of a doubt is its not a sign of wisdom on your part to pretend that you do know. You simply don't. If you want good government you stand a better chance of getting it by challenging everything it says and does. You might be wrong some or most of the time, but you make up for by the times you are right. Woodward and Bernstein could have believed the BS coming out of the Nixon white house and dropped the whole thing. Instead they chose not to, they were right and they exposed massive corruption that had compromised the fabric of our constitution.
"Wikipedia has the right basic structure but they need..."
Like the original article and most posts here everyone says Wikipedia has "the right basic structure" but we need to change it in a really fundamental way so it completely stops being what it is. Wikipedia is inherently "Antielitism" and it should stay that way. If you want it to be written and edited by vetted experts in their field, tell you what, READ AN ENCYCLOPEDIA, instead of trying to make Wikipedia something its not. Wikipedia is a people's encyclopedia written by people, with all the brilliance and flaws you find in people. It is a creation of the collective web consciousness of all the people that choose to contribute to it and fight over it.
As soon as you put a bunch of "expert" editors in charge of it chances are the only people who are going to contribute to it, or at least get their contributions included, are the "expert" editors. Amazingly enough they probably all have agendas too and a bunch of them are going to troll if anyone challenges their "expert" opinions.
Knowledge is unfortunately subjective, in most arenas there is no absolute truth. There are nuggets of pretty much absolute truth embedded in it like when an historical event occured, but all the interesting stuff around the edges is not so cut and dried. Wikipedia is a collection of views of what is true which tend to be be different which each set of beholder's eyes. It is interesting precisely because it is a collection of eclectic views by ordinary people. Wikipedia is one collective view of truth, so is Britannica, so is Encarta, so is most of the propaganda nation states put out as their history and news. If you are a good researcher, tell you what, read them all and form your own opinion on what is "right". One thing don't do, don't try to homogenize all information sources so they tell the same story, and all of the alternative views are silenced.
If you want a wikipedia with "expert" editors please fork it and see if you can make it fly. Not sure you will because there is already Encarta and Britannica in that niche. JUST LEAVE WIKIPEDIA ALONE.
Just curious, if someone forced you to pose naked in a position where it appeared you were about to engage in homosexual acts, and took pictures and threatened to show the pictures to your friends and family would you take offense. Might you call that "sexual torture"?
You see you got hung up on the "rape" part exclusively and the article's title was "Rape and SEXUAL TORTURE". Whether rape occurred at Abu Ghraib is open to debate, you dismiss it out of hand though you don't know. What would it take to prove to you rape happened at Abu Ghraib? Well video tapes but video tapes aren't proof either, they tend to just look like porn and its not likely someone would be stupid enough to actually rape someone in front of a camera anyway. Is anecdotal evidence good enough, well that is mostly what you have that Saddam used rape as tool, and that is mostly what you have that it occurred at Abu Ghraib. As in most cases of political propaganda you have anecdotal evidence that you choose to believe(against Saddam) and anecdotal evidence you choose to disregard(against Abu Ghraib) because you predetermined which you wanted to believe.
The rape issue aside, there is a mountain of photo and video evidence of sexual abuse and torture at Abu Ghraib, but you seem to be trying to brush it under the rug because it doesn't conform to what you want to believe.
If you weren't pushing a political agenda here you should have probably added the link to Saddam's use of torture, and not tried to purge the Abu Ghraib link. Abu Ghraib is an undeniable instance of sexual torture, occuring in a U.S. military prison, with indisputable graphic evidence on a scale which is rare. You choose to try to make Abu Ghraib go away because it doesn't conform to what you thought the U.S. stands for. Well the U.S. unfortunately has fallen pretty far from the lofty ideal you seem to think it adheres to. You trying to pretend otherwise isn't going to change it. If you feel bad about it you should hold the Bush administration and the Army responsible for failing to insure humane treatment of prisoners of war.
As for state sponsorship of all this, well that is a tough one. Unfortunately the organization that conducted the investigation was the same organization that perpetrated the offense, the Army. It is an unspoken truth about most militaries that, if they can they will blame everthing on the little fish, the enlisted men, and protect their officer corp and chain of command. It appears they may have done just that at Abu Ghraib so far. Its pretty much undeniable military intelligence officers and the CIA were endorsing the "softening up" that was occuring at Abu Ghraib, though maybe the people doing it got carried away. There have been far to many leaks of of information showing that officers and the civilian leadership in the Bush administration has been sanctioning degrees of torture as a matter of policy. Unfortunately when you santion a little torture you run a pretty high risk of it becoming rampant and abusive as it did at Abu Ghraib. This is a place the U.S. just simply should have never gone. It should have strictly adhered to the Geneva conventions in treatment of all prisoners instead of finding legal justifications in the White House for why people in these wars aren't worthy of this most basic humane treatment. You strictly adhere to the Geneva conventions, if for no other reason, than to help insure your soldiers will get the same humane treatment if they are taken prisoner. It is no assurance of that treatment but at this point the U.S. has no ground to stand on in demanding humane treatment of its POW's because it has chosen to unilaterally withdraw from the Geneva conventions using legalistic hair splitting.
Well see you are doing the same thing you are criticizing, stating a misguided opinion as fact, when you say Gore LOST. You are wrong and the facts don't support you.
:)
Here is a good link on wikipedia to the outcome of the NORC report which was the biggest and most comprehensive study on the Florida recount. As I read it Gore won using 4 possible recount criteria, Bush won 3 and of course he won the certified count.
The Miami Herald's study described in the book "Democracy Held Hostage" found the same thing. The winner was determined entirely by the criteria you used on hanging chads
For all intents and purposes the Florida race was a statistical tie and there was no winner.
Of course then there is the little detail that Jeb Bushes state election apparatus, and many local governments went to some considerable lengths to disenfranchise minority voters. If that hadn't happened its a certainty Gore would have won going away.
Don't let the facts get in the way of your little rant though
Most of us little people don't know much about the CIA today, its a secret. The CIA does have a long and well documented history of interference in sovereign governments pretty much since World War II, its birth and America assuming the role of superpower and acquiring the license to meddle in the affairs of other nations, Chile, Argentina, Iran, Haiti, VIetnam, Dominican Republic are just a few off the top of the head and most of those ended badly.
The CIA was mostly probably reigned in by the Church commission in the early 70's. If you want to "know" of the CIA just read its reports. I think you can find the one on plots to assassinate foreign heads of state here It is fact and its not pretty. The Rockefeller Commission Report is a good read too.
The right wingers in the Republican party, the Bush family in particular, have been massively pissed over the fact the CIA was exposed and reigned in by these commissions.
Some of those constraints were loosened by Reagan, remember Iran Contra for instance. All the constraints are no doubt gone since George W. came to town and especially since 9/11. I'm pretty sure the CIA has a blank check now to do whatever it takes to further the interests of the U.S. at the expense of the rest of the world. We can only hope they are rusty and incompetent at it these days. I believe the last constraints on the CIA blocking it from spying on Americans in America again probably went with the Nation Intelligence "Reform" act that was rushed through recently.
I have a pretty high confidence all the nastiness uncovered by the Church Commission is child's play compared to what we are going to see from the new, gigantic, unified and massively funded American intelligence apparatus we have now, especually using 9/11 as the excuse and justification.
"I know who killed all 3. The names of the men are a matter of public record. As is who else was (and more importantly was NOT) involved. It is well known."
Forgot to answer this silliness. All you know is the names of the three patsies that whitewash investigations by the establishment blamed for it.
I doubt the members of the Warren Commission were involved in some grand conspiracy but if there was a conspiracy involving people from the CIA or the military, even if they were rogues, they had zero incentive to root it out. If it came out CIA agents, even rogues had conspired to assassinate Kennedy it would have shaken America to its very roots, because it mean the assassination was a coup and America's great Democracy never has coups. The Warren commission was composed of good establishment lakies who did their job and quietly brushed it under the rug instead of rocking the boat.
The only catch was someone named Zapruder was filming Kennedy when the assassination occurred and its a near impossibility Oswald's gun created all the carnage in that short a period of time or that the kill shot would have pushed Kennedy's head back if it came from the direction Oswald was shooting. Chances are just unavoidably high there were two or three snipers involved and Oswald was the "nut" setup to be the patsy and take the fall as the lone gunmen. All indications are it was a conspiracy and we will probably never know who was behind it because the establishment didn't want to know or want us to know.
What is it inside your head that makes you so desperate to believe everything your government tells you. Does it make it easier to live your life if you can pretend America is a land of sugar and honey and everything is noble and wonderful and that bad things don't happen in America and that America's government never goes bad? Well there is always a danger any government can go bad, because they are made up of people and people go bad. Me personly I want to know if people took it upon themselves to use violence to overrule the will of the American people. I'm not a big fan of sticking my head in the sand and pretending that will make everything OK as you seem to be fond of doing.
"If Hoover assassinated everyone he spied on, it is a wonder anyone survived the 1960s! I'm sorry, your case looks rather weak on this one. FBI spying != FBI assassination."
Heh, your funny. You seem to have moved the discussion to a place where as long as the American government isn't assassinating people its a bastion of a freedom and democracy. You seem to be glossing over the fact that the state police was engaging in a massive spying campaign on peaceful political dissidents who are just exercising their right to free speech. If in the process of spying on them they found enough dirt to smear or arrest them thats cool too.
I hate to break it to you but the period when Nixon and Hoover were spying on everyone who opposed them was one of the darker hours for Democracy. That was the whole point you are missing. The U.S. has routinely used its power to persecute dissidents just like Cuba and China. I have a pretty high confidence they are doing the same thing today, it just isn't making the headlines and there aren't many dissidents because most people are afraid of the American government today. These are characteristics of a police state, not an enlightened democracy.
"By bringing Nader and the Chicago 7 into it, you are providing evidence contrary to that idea: they were persecuted long before (as you described) but have free reign now."
You fail to understand the point. In 1968 the Chicago 7 openly and publicly challenged the American government. Thanks to Daly and his police riot they helped shake America's confidence in the people who were running the government. How did the government respond. It put them on trial and made them fight for their lives through most of 1969-1970. You were saying America doesn't persecute its political dissidents, well it obviously does. Back then we still had the concept of due process and a fair trial and they prevailed. If the same thing happened today they might well be arrested and held indefinitely, on terrorism charges, without trail because the current administration has suspended the gaurantee of due process and a fair and speedy trial. I doubt you will see the Chicago Seven today because everyone today is afraid they would be arrested, would disappear from the face of the Earth and might face varying gradations of torture, because the U.S. government at the highest levels has endorsed the use of torture.
You didn't see any real protests at the conventions this year though there is massive rage at the current government, why because everyone is afraid of the current government.
The fact that the U.S. is denying people, including American citizens due process and the right to protest(remember the razor wire free speech zones at the conventions?) is the characteristic of a police state not an enlightened democracy.
I don't think I was singing praises of the Soviet system. As I said it was badly flawed but they came a long way from where they were. It would have been interesting to see where it had gone if Stalin hadn't seized power. You are passing judgement on what Stalin wrought and he was just a ruthless dictator, nothing more nothing less, like most Castro, Batista, Papa Doc, Pinochet, etc. etc. At least he moved them forward compared to Nicholas who was a dictator too, just an incompetent, inbred one, that left Russia far worse than when he started.
"Imagine waiting in line for hours just to buy a loaf of bread for your family."
Hate to break it to you but most of the Russian people were starving under the pre soviet system too. And most of the Russian people were starving when the Nazi's were rolling through the wheatfields in the Ukraine and half of their country was laid ruin, a fate the U.S. has never suffered. The U.S. came to be a superpower by an accident of geography, it was the one major industrial nation that wasn't devastated by World War II because it was protected by two oceans. It has nothing to do with the America's delusions about the superiority of its system.
"Russians have historically been very good at everything except governing themselves, at which they're terrible."
After watching the last 4-5 years I hate to break it to you but Americans are equally bad at it. Elections are turning in to a farce, swung by brainless attack ads and a clueless electorate, Congress is writing legislation in back rooms and shoving it through before anyone has a chance to read it, lobbyists and special interests are outright buying politicians and legislation (reference Medicare "reform"), government spending and deficits are completely out of control, the entire nation was rushed in to a bloody and probably never ending quagmire under false pretenses or maybe outright lies. Oh and I forgot a right wing House tried to impeach a President because he lied about sex and drug the entire nation through the mud for no reason other than they were trying to destroy a centrist Democratic President and insure they won the White House in 2000 which they did.
What exactly is it about American government that you think qualifies it as a shining example of good government. I just don't see it.
"JFK, RFK, and MLK were killed by nuts"
You have no more of a clue who really killed them than I do. The fact you think its an open an shut case is more than a little naive. If they were conspiracies you are just proof that they were good ones and they worked.
Step one in the assassination handbook is to setup a "nut" as a patsy to take the fall because people stop asking questions once the patsy takes the fall, or in the JFK assassination when the patsy is in turn assassinated.
MLK in particular was under a massive assault from J. Edgar Hoover when he was alive, there is no conspiracy theory needed, its a known fact. He massively chapped the establishment's ass because he was against the war in Vietnam(especially because it was disproportionately drafting and killing blacks) and was upsetting the social order which was keeping blacks oppressed and suppressed.
General Motors attempted a ruthless private investigation and smear campaign against Ralph Nader, trying to brand him as a homosexual in particular, which is what I was refering to. All because he had the nerve to point out their cars were death traps and could be made less so by something called seat belts. Unfortunately they tried it against a guy who was squeaky clean and had no skeletons in his closet, if he had they would have destroyed him and he would be a nobody today. Instead they had to apologize for trying to smear him and give him a nice settlement. He triumped but most people would have been destroyed. At this point he is completely marginalized and his campaigns are just stunts mostly used for entertainment value by the media.
Maybe you should learn. They went to Chicago in 1968 to protest the Vietnam War at the Democratic convention. They were tried for conspiracy to incite a riot when most unbiased accounts suggest that the Chicago police and Mayor Daily were the ones that incited the riot, it is called a "police riot". The late sixties and the early seventies were the last time the American people challenged a government that was in the wrong successfully. If you were to young to remember it you should study it, the Pentagon papers, Watergate, the Chicago Seven, etc. It was a time when America's government turned decidely evil, and it looks a lot like the one we have today, only there is no Chicago Seven today.
"I ask you to find one study that shows"
Dont need to. All I need to do is point out Bush is still in office. If the message Moore had tried to convey had worked he wouldn't be, because he painted a distinctly distubring portrait of the Bush family. Some of it was a stretch but at heart he nailed what the Bush clan is all about, money, power and contempt for Democracy and the little people, eagerness to send other people to die in an insane war the politicians and their children all duck.
"The Soviet Union fell apart because it did not work"
You may not remember but Russia was a complete basket case before 1917, it couldn't fight a war, was humiliated by the Japanese Navy in 1905 and lost every campaign in World War I. Its economy was a basket case, most of its people illiterate and dirt poor, health care nonexistent. In 20 years it became a global superpower and carried the brunt of the war against Nazi Germany while America was sitting on the sidelines. It was devastated in World War II but rose again to be a global superpower and challenged the U.S. quite successfully for another 40 years. It still has an extremely well educated and capable population.
It was a deeply flawed system but so is America's. Unfortunately people are people, they are corrupt, lust for power and wealth and that seems to corrupt most governments, capitalist or socialist, especially when they get to be big and powerful and start calling themselves superpowers.
All in all I think the world would be a healthier place with two superpowers keeping each other in check, if they would refrain from fighting bloody proxy wars in the third world and propping up despotic governments just to keep the other guy from doing the same. Its proving to be pretty dangerous to the world having one superpower who seems to think they can rule the world by dictate from the bow of an aircraft carrier.
You also miss the point that none of the people you listed changed anything. The person they spoke out against is still in power, even more so. All of those people are also rich and famous enough they aren't really at the mercy of the system. You also forgot to mention Maher was in fact fired by ABC for speaking out in a controversial way, he is just articulate, funny and controversial enough he was still a ratings draw for HBO.
The powers that be in America ignore people criticizing them as long as they don't threaten the root of their power. Daniel Ellsberg, Martin Luther King Jr., the Chicago Seven, JFK, RFK and Ralph Nader are better example of people who challenged the powers that be and suffered various forms of retribution. There aren't really many people any more who challenge the system like they did, because most American's are thoroughly cowed and or lazy.
In fact I think the Republican's delighted in all the criticism from the people you listed since they just used it to unify their base, and the not so bright bible thumpers in rural America. The people you listed just just tickled the cognitive dissonance that is so strong in America's new right. I think they ended up being used by the people they hate and did more harm than good to their cause.
I should point out Fahrenheit 911 was pushed off pay per view before the election in a not so subtle form of censorship while a documentary openly slamming Kerry was pushed by a major media conglomerate on to prime time on major broadcast networks in most of the country right before the election(though they muted it somewhat in the face of cratering stock price) .
"You are describing exactly what happened when Lenin overthrow a democratic government and seized control of old Russia."
Uh, Russia was coming out of centuries of rule by a monarchy, and an aristocracy that owned everything, all the land in particular, in the end under the incompetent Czar Nicholas, It was a constitutional monarchy and maybe you could stretch it to call it a democracy but it was a big stretch when the country was ruled by a monarchy and an aristocracy.
Or maybe you are refering to the government of Kerensky which was in place for all of 6 months after Nicholas absicated and before it was overthrown. Russia was in turmoil for all of those six months. He was a socialist too, who had moved to the center to try to hold power and succeeded in alienating just about everyone. In particular he persisted in trying to fight World War I, launched a disasterous campaign in 1917, which finished him with the rank and file of the military who helped topple him. Kerensky also balked at land reform which is another key reason he was overthrown.
"Russia is a lot better off now."
Not sure what point you are trying to make. Putin has erased democracy for all practical purposes. He's returned to one party, dictatorial rule with a sham democracy on top. So if you are trying to say Russia is better now because its a democracy well it isn't. It never really was. It just went from a period where the communist bureaucrats looted the country to one where plutocrats and criminals looted it and is heading back to a new dictatorship under Putin.
"Then you blame the oppression on the US. I have news for you: the lack of human rights in Cuba is a policy engineered in Havana, not Washington. "
Dont think I would say I'm blaming it on the US. I'd say its a mutual effort. If Cuba stopped all the repression and threw open the doors the capitalists would quickly topple the current government and turn it back in to the cess pool it was before Castro toppled Batista. You may not remember but Cuba wasn't exactly a great democracy before Castro came to power either. It was run by Batista and he was a dictator too, just a U.S. friendly so that was OK. I don't think you have a leg to stand on acting like America is the champion of Democracy for Cuba. America was totally cool with having a dictator there in Batista as long as he did what the U.S. told him to and Americans were making money there. Among other things Batista let the American Mafia turn Cuba in to an off shore Las Vegas with all the corruption that brings.
"This is not so."
Yes it is. All dictatorships repress to maintain power. Batista did, Saddam did it, Castro does it, the U.S. has backed repressive dictatorships all over the world especially in the Western Hemisphere, and is A-OK with them as long as they are pro American.
"That is why Russia is the sole remaining super power..."
A key reason the U.S. is the sole remaining superpower of the two is because the U.S.S.R got bogged down in a 10 year quagmire in Afghanistan fighting the people who later became the Taliban and Al Qaeda (who were liberally funded, armed and trained by Ronald Reagan and the CIA by the way). Fighting that bloody insurgency decimated the Soviet military and created an entire generation openly disillusioned with the Soviet Union's government. It had a lot in common with Vietnam and today's Iraq. If Iraq continues another ten years and continues to escalate in its savagery the U.S. could easily suffer a similar fate. Making a conventional military fight an insurgency for a decare, where you can't tell friend from foe or insurgent from civilian has devastating effects on soldiers. Some become blood thirsty, indiscriminate killers, and others are eaten up inside by the killing of innocent women and children.
And of course Gorbachev rising to power had a lot to do with it. It will be interesting to discover when documents become declassified if he was just an enlightened leader who brought change, or a CIA mole.
All in all I doubt American "superiority" had a lot to do with it except in the minds of American's who like to think the world revolves around them. Hubris is a wicked mistress. America could fall from its pedestal sometime soon and hubris will be standing behind America giving it a shove when it happens.
The U.S. could easily be shoved aside soon by the EU or China in the very near future. Sure they can't match the U.S. militarily yet but they are also not squandering all their treasure on an oversized, overextended military. If America continues to gut its economy, in particular, by shipping it wholesale to China, a day will come when it can't pay for its overside military, and China can pay for new one, and whats more will have the industrial and technical ability to build one, why because the U.S. is currently engaged in a wholesale transfer of its capital, IP and technical knowledge to China.
Nice propaganda but no it doesn't have a lot to do with the USSR other thank a lot of Cubans went there to get their educations out of obvious necessity in the '60's and '70s. I'm pretty sure Cuba's excellent health care and education systems are self sustaining now.
Cuba and Venezuela place a massive emphasis on education and health care, both are universally available free of charge but universal health care doesn't really have anything to do with freedom. Most developed countries whether it be Canada or Cuba considering it a basic human right and necessity so they make it universally available. America is increasingly an exception among developed nations in not offering universal health care. America values profit over health, so you can get great health care if you can afford it, if you can't you don't. Coincidentally the American drug and health care industries are some of its most profitable, and are both inflating at a rate dramaticly higher than every other sector of the economy and are bleeding the U.S. economy white, the drug industry in particular. The skyrocketing cost of health benefits alone is driving either outsourcing or dropping insurance for employees, both bad.
Cuba's education system is by all outward appearances also superior. If you want to be a teacher you can be and its a thoroughly respected profession. By contrast, in America if you are a teacher you are underpaid and undervalued, so its not a field that draws the best people.
If you have the ability to be a doctor you can get the education to be a first class doctor in Cuba, while by contrast in America to do it you either have to:
- Work every waking hour on menial jobs to pay for it and wreck your focus on your education
- Come from a rich family
- Land scholarships and full ride which is hard to do
- Borrow yourself in to a really huge, deep hole early in life.
In Cuba as long as you have the ability and the drive to make the grades you can be a doctor.
All in all you just wish places like Cuba and Venezuela could keep all the good parts of Socialism without the repression. Unfortunately when you are under constant attack from places like the U.S. and people internally who want to topple your government, and loot and pillage to get rich, the government does have to repress to keep from being overthrown. The U.S. has tried to topple both governments numerous times.
You need to look no further than the U.S.S.R to see what happens when freedom breaks out. A handful of plutocrats and organized criminals pretty much looted all the assets of the country, made themselves billionaires and devastated the countries economy in the process of lining their pockets, meanwhile most ordinary people were pushed in to poverty. The Yuko's auction is fallout from these plutocrats who used an incompetent, corrupt, and alcoholic Yeltsin to loot the country when the U.S.S.R fell. Capitalism is very good at some things but it has a really nasty dark side, that most American's choose to overlook.
"In democratic societies nobody tries to shove shit down your throat by issuing decrees."
Instead they shove shit down your throw with:
- Monopolies
- Laws(Decrees and Laws are really the same thing)
- Financial pressure
- Political pressure
If you actually want to put FOSS in place in most governments there almost has to be a "decree" of some kind. Otherwise an army of software salesmen from places like Microsoft are going to work over, pressure or bribe the people making the purchasing decision to buy their crap. After all civil servents aren't wasting their money they are wasting tax dollars and they could care less if they pass on the low cost option and waste money on Microsoft's software especially if they are being bribed. FOSS doesn't have the army of salesmen which are the free markets "decree" enforcers.
Assuming you are American, and live in a country that is the home of the Patriot Act, the DMCA, software patents, monopolies and cartels(Microsoft, RIAA, MPAA, etc), a government that is almost completely owned by lobbyists, corporations and special interest money, that is arresting and holding people without due process, is promoting the use of torture around the world, routinely toppling sovereign governments and replacing them with two bit dictators, you don't really have a leg to stand on to preach to the rest of the world about "democratic societies". The U.S. only vaguely knows what they are and its increasingly not what you have in the U.S.
Fact is places like China and Cuba have a lot more in common with the U.S. than they differ. The tools for controlling people are just somewhat more subtle, though they seem to be getting less subtle with each passing year under the new regime. And of course most American companies seem to be quite fond having all their work done in China by workforce under repression so increasingly if you it comes down to be "free" in America and unemployed or "repressed" in China and have a job though under generally bad conditions.
In China or Cuba they throw you in jail just for being a dissident. In America if you don't go along with the system you run a substantial risk of unemployment, homelessness, death on the streets, or being thrown in prison via things like the "War on Drugs" or by the IRS.
I point out the IRS because it abuse of tax records was a favorite tool of Nixon's to attack his political opponents and someone attempted to renable abusing tax records for political purposes in the recent intelligence reform bill. It was caught only at the very last second when someone actually speed read the bill before it was passed. Actually reading legislation before its passed is increasingly rare in the Congress which is also undemocratic. The new regime often writes it behind closed doors and then tries to rush it through before anyone can read it, let alone understand it.
Also, in case you haven't looked lately the U.S. has one of the highest per capita prison populations of any country in the world.
No argument it was a death trap and past its usable life span but I'm pretty sure the Russians would have much preferred doing Mir2 than getting involved in the ISS quagmire if they could have scraped together the funding for it. The Russian core of ISS is basicly Mir2.
See above. Skylab's longest mission was 90 days and it was 30 years ago. It was a shame it wasn't used to its potential but it wasn't. America's track record on space stations since has been pathetic. Skylab was kind of pathetic because it was so underutilized.
"the US did pay for it."
As I've said elsewhere the ability of NASA and Boeing to squander money doesn't prove much other than they had it to waste. Obviously Russia's space program needed the cash and they might not have fielded the Mir successor without it, but then again they might have eventually managed it and probably would have been happier than with the current quagmire that is ISS. The U.S. got a pretty sweet deal using all that experienced Russian engineering talent and a proven design at bargain basement prices. It was an early example of "outsourcing".
If you look at the current ISS design it is quite obviously a Mir2 core with the US strapping a bunch of trusses and solar panels on it.
"And previous to that, the US had a space station called Skylab that flew for a little over six years. So while the Mir was certainly an important achievement, it is not an entirely unique one."
Skylab "flew" for six years, it was occupied for a total of 6 months, not six years. The longest mission was 90 days. They U.S. record pales compared to Russia's. Russia routinely racked up 1 year missions and they kept Mir going inhabitated for years. By contrast Skylab was 30 years ago, crutching off the remnants of Apollo and the U.S. has completely failed at every space station design since at huge expense.
"How much of that really comes down to O'Keefe? Sure, leadership is important. But in a position such as O'Keefe's, I would have to question how much leeway one has."
I might not have said much until I heard him talk when he resigned. He was obviously completely paralyzed by the Columbia distaster. He had reached the point he pretty much wanted to abandon the manned space program if there was any chance more astronauts would get killed. He appears to have so constrained the shuttle that iis useless for anything but missions to the ISS and back and at the same time he is saying the ISS is a deadend, which means so is the shuttle. I can imagine its a real morale booster for all the people working on ISS to Shuttle to know they are working on dead end projects one of which isn't even closed to finished.
It appears he almost singlehandedly decided to first abandon Hubble, and then try to salvage it with a goofy robotic mission which everyone who knows says is going to cost a fortune, take forever and still have a high chance for failure.
I think its a bit of a stretch on your part to blame Moscow for that. No one knows who did it and the options range from organized crime, Ukraine secret service, political opponents, Moscow or the the CIA.
In case its lost on you the poisoning was used as a political tool to insure Yushenko's victory in the last round both by Yushenko's party and the West, for example he visit to Italy right before the election so they could announce to the world he had been poisoned by Dioxin. Look at poor Yushenko, he was poisoned by the thugs in power, you have to vote for him because of it. It probably worked too. The poisoning probably insured that he won the last round, so talk about mixed blessing.
I imagine that was a factor but I think you are really underestimating the experience the Russians brought to the project. They have a couple decades of hands on experience with long duration space station construction and operation. The Zarya and Zvedza modules they built are the heart of the ISS. The U.S. had no space station experience other than then the short duration Skylab flights 30 years ago which were mostly stunts to get rid of the rest of the Apollo rockets.
... one failed space station design after another at huge expense over twenty years, with nothing flown.
It was pretty obvious the U.S. has since lost "the right stuff" to do a space station. First sign
I think the "keeping Russian space scientists" employed was little more than saving face. In reality I think the U.S. and Boeing came to the conclusion that using the experienced Russian engineers was the only way to get actually get a working space station off the ground. They in fact paid them to build a Mir2 and it became the heart of ISS. The U.S. sure did love to rant that the Russian modules were behind schedule and over budget. Well this convieniently glosses over the fact that those were two of the most complex and challenging modules in the station, and that the U.S. and Boeing had flailed for nearly 20 years, squandered billlions and billions of dollars, and hadn't managed to build ANYTHING. More than a little hypocrisy there.
I've seen more than a few people point out how the U.S. pays for everything on ISS. Well this is for damn sure if you count the nearly 100 billion the U.S. wasted in those awful years when they didn't building anything, and the billion dollar a pop Shuttle flights versus the tens of millions for a Soyuz or Progress flight, and it probably costs 20-50 times as much to employ Boeing engineers to build a component as it does Russian engineers. All in all I don't think the total dollars squandered really counts for much other than to prove that nobody squanders money like NASA and Boeing. The Russians have launched and run multiple successful long duration space stations for a tiny fraction of what NASA and Boeing have wasted on ISS. I think they deserve a lot more kudos for their frugality and their ability to get bang for the buck, versus the NASA/Boeing aptitude for wasting billions of dollars.
I certainly wouldn't be surprised if Russia didn't lob this little missile at the U.S. at this particular component because Putin is royally pissed at the outcome of the elections in Ukraine. It appears the Moscow backed thugs that were in power were thoroughly bad but I'm not sure the new government is exactly going to be a pillar of Democracy. Putin was equally unhappy about Serbia, and Star Wars(Russia is building new warheads to defeat it) and in general that the U.S. and Europe is trying slowly suffocate Russia on the world stage.
A couple of days ago at a Collin Powell press conference Powell was talking about how important it was Ukraine get a democraticly elected government without outside interference. The reporter being especially smart, informed and ballsy pointed out the U.S. was funding Yuschenko's party through the National Endowment for Democracy and was in fact interfering in the election just as much as Moscow was. It wouldn't be suprising if the CIA was helping fuel the uprising after the previous election too, they do that sort of thing, all the time. You see "National Endowment for Democracy" is one of those big brotherisms. They don't actually promote democracy where people in a country pick the leader of their choice, they work to bend and twist countries so that only governments friendly to U.S. win, even if that outcome runs counter to the actual democratic will of the people that live there.
It will be interesting to see how deeply the relationship between the U.S. and Russia fractures. It appears poised for a really deep schism that could lead to a new cold war. I'm wondering what will happen to ISS if the U.S. and Russia return to a true adverserial relationship. I'm pretty sure the Russians could with some work, undock the pieces they built and have a functional space station core they could use to build a new MIR while the rest of ISS eventually ends up in cinders.
Maybe there is a bit of having NASA over a barrel in it.
But its also a fact that the Russian's have been completely carrying the ISS since Columbia mostly at their own expense and while NASA still wants to dictate how ISS though it hasn't shouldered any of the burden for nearly 2 years and probably 3 before the shuttle resumes any useful role. For example they tried to stop Russia from taking tourists to the ISS to raise cash and the Russian's gave them the finger.
Its also more than a little sickening to hear NASA and its minions talk about how they are "on schedule" to return to flight next year. Well they aren't even remotely "on schedule". After the accident report they said they were going to return to flight in March 11, 2004. NASA return to flight window doesn't even open until May of 2005 now and chances are slim they will stay on that schedule based on track record. I don't think this flight actually does anything other than fly to the ISS, inspect it for booboos and fly back again. Hopefully they will carry a few loaves of bread and bottles of water to the crew.
Here is a picture of which countries were supposed to supply what though many pieces on this picture will probably never make it in to space. Most of the important Russians parts did.
... gasp ... risking anyone's left on space exploration. He clearly should have been booted years ago. Fact is space exploration is dangerous, do your best to make it less so but don't give up just because you can't make it 100% safe. Astronauts aren't astronauts if they can't accept the risk they might get killed.
I assure you the Russians built the heart of the station that is there now, the Zarya Control Module and the Zvezda crew quarters. Zarya is called a U.S. component only because the U.S. paid for it through Boeing but it was built in Russia.
The U.S. was supposed to build the Crew Return Vehicle which would have allowed it to be fully manned but that was long ago cancelled. When it was the U.S. killed any prospect of the seven man crew which pretty much killed the ISS as ever being useful. The current crew can barely maintain it and don't do much research, not like its any good for any zero G research anyway.
The U.S. is building a lot of solar panels many of which are probably never going to fly and aren't the most challenging part of the station.
Russia had a full functional space station for like a decade called Mir. Most of their expertise is at the heart of the current ISS core. Not sure NASA could have successfully flown anything without them. If you recall during the years Russia was in Mir, NASA and Boeing was churning out one failed ISS design after another, none of which flew and all of which just filled Boeing's pork filled belly.
I imagine Russia is regretting they deorbited Mir as a condition of joining ISS. It was past its prime and on its last legs but at least it was all theirs. ISS is all shiny and new and flush with squandered U.S. tax dollars but its probably going to end being pathetic and doing anything useful. Russia was getting a whole lot more done with a whole lot less with Mir. I think the modules now forming the core of ISS would have gone in to Mir2 if they could have scraped together the cash for it. I imagine they have been a lot happier and got more done if they weren't bogged down in the political morasse that is ISS.
Maybe the shuttle will fly again and the ISS will get kind of on track again but I really doubt it. Its probably never going to get much beyond where it is today, and Russia will most probably have to keep it alive while NASA's manned space program finishes cratering. Maybe thing will improve at NASA with O'Keefe gone but I doubt it. Its pretty obvious his head was completely bent by the Columbia disaster and he was totally paralyzed at the prospect of
"In other words, I don't think that anti-missile technology from the 1950s (or even present-day technology, for that matter) is going to save us"
Damn straight. If a recent test is any indication its not a certainty "present-day technology" can even make it out of the silo or if it does hit anything(though asteroids are probably a little easier to target than a ballistic missile warhead).
Despite the fact they haven't successfully launched one of the new ABM's in two years, and when they did their track record was poor in tightly controlled tests President Bush is still going to declare the system operational soon. Its apparently lost on him that for a defense system to be a creditable deterant your potential foes have to believe that it works. North Korea if they were to go insane and a launch a few missiles at the U.S. with nukes on board could deduce they probably have a better than 50% chance of success with one missile against this system and with 3 or 4 a near certainty of success. Then the U.S. would probably blow them back in to the stone age.
I really do appreciate all the stupid things my government squanders my tax dollars on while they fail miserably at dealing with the greenhouse effect or an asteroid strike that would wipe life and or civilization off the face of the plant, or a broken education and health care system. That said I'm I'm not sure it would be a bad thing if something did wipe out civilization and leave a smattering of life to start over(preferably without the genetic traits or upbringing that produce politicians).
"You mean like the 170+ sods at my place with "permanent" jobs that just got kicked in the butt when their jobs went off to India last week?"
Yes like those. Being a salaried employee at places like IBM used to mean something. There was mutual loyalty between employer and employee and it was less common to discard employees at a whim. As long as you kept your nose clean and worked hard you could stay in one place for life and have a good retirement.
Some say its necessary for efficiency and it obviously coerces productivity if you work at a company with annual layoffs which seems to be most places these. But it also leads to employees who have no motivation to do a good job or build a strong company. It cheapens everyone and America is increasingly a cheapened, careless place. And of course when the market is hot employees have zero loyalty too and job shop far more than is healthy for them or their employers.
Today being salaried seems to have no up side and a lot of downside, until and unless you cross the great divide in to upper management.