Politics, Everyday, All day... morning, noon and night....

[cowboyangel]

Bush had tears in his eyes upon commenting on the death of Union-Busting, StarWars-Contra Drug Lord Reagan.....you gotta ask youself where are these tears for the more than 800 US service people killed in Iraq?

[jody]

"My fellow Americans, I am pleased to tell you I just signed legislation which outlaws Russia forever. The bombing begins in five minutes." - 1984


Ronald Reagan
1911 - 2004






I am Emperor Ronald Reagan
Born again with fascist cravings
Still, you made me president
- Dead Kennedys

[cowboyangel]

This the best Reagan redux I've come across. This guy was a public relations president and a true bastard...read on'....... oh ee cummings is so totally cool check his stuff out..if he were alive he'd be a burner, hands down.

Planet Reagan
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Monday 07 June 2004

Buffalo Bill's
defunct
who used to
ride a watersmooth-silver
stallion
and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat
Jesus
he was a handsome man
and what i want to know is
how do you like your blueeyed boy
Mister Death

- e.e. cummings, "Buffalo Bill's Defunct"

Ronald Reagan is dead now, and everyone is being nice to him. In every aspect, this is appropriate. He was a husband and a father, a beloved member of a family, and he will be missed by those he was close to. His death was long, slow and agonizing because of the Alzheimer's Disease which ruined him, one drop of lucidity at a time. My grandmother died ten years ago almost to the day because of this disease, and this disease took ten years to do its dirty, filthy, wretched work on her.

The dignity and candor of Reagan's farewell letter to the American people was as magnificent a departure from public life as any that has been seen in our history, but the ugly truth of his illness was that he lived on, and on, and on. His family and friends watched as he faded from the world of the real, as the simple dignity afforded to all life collapsed like loose sand behind his ever more vacant eyes. Only those who have seen Alzheimer's Disease invade a mind can know the truth of this. It is a cursed way to die.

In this mourning space, however, there must be room made for the truth. Writer Edward Abbey once said, "The sneakiest form of literary subtlety, in a corrupt society, is to speak the plain truth. The critics will not understand you; the public will not believe you; your fellow writers will shake their heads."

The truth is straightforward: Virtually every significant problem facing the American people today can be traced back to the policies and people that came from the Reagan administration. It is a laundry list of ills, woes and disasters that has all of us, once again, staring apocalypse in the eye.

How can this be? The television says Ronald Reagan was one of the most beloved Presidents of the 20th century. He won two national elections, the second by a margin so overwhelming that all future landslides will be judged by the high-water mark he achieved against Walter Mondale. How can a man so universally respected have played a hand in the evils which corrupt our days?

The answer lies in the reality of the corrupt society Abbey spoke of. Our corruption is the absolute triumph of image over reality, of flash over substance, of the pervasive need within most Americans to believe in a happy-face version of the nation they call home, and to spurn the reality of our estate as unpatriotic. Ronald Reagan was, and will always be, the undisputed heavyweight champion of salesmen in this regard.

Reagan was able, by virtue of his towering talents in this arena, to sell to the American people a flood of poisonous policies. He made Americans feel good about acting against their own best interests. He sold the American people a lemon, and they drive it to this day as if it was a Cadillac. It isn't the lies that kill us, but the myths, and Ronald Reagan was the greatest myth-maker we are ever likely to see.

Mainstream media journalism today is a shameful joke because of Reagan's deregulation policies. Once upon a time, the Fairness Doctrine ensured that the information we receive - information vital to the ability of the people to govern in the manner intended - came from a wide variety of sources and perspectives. Reagan's policies annihilated the Fairness Doctrine, opening the door for a few mega-corporations to gather journalism unto themselves. Today, Reagan's old bosses at General Electric own three of the most-watched news channels. This company profits from every war we fight, but somehow is trusted to tell the truths of war. Thus, the myths are sold to us.

The deregulation policies of Ronald Reagan did not just deliver journalism to these massive corporations, but handed virtually every facet of our lives into the hands of this privileged few. The air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat are all tainted because Reagan battered down every environmental regulation he came across so corporations could improve their bottom line. Our leaders are wholly-owned subsidiaries of the corporations that were made all-powerful by Reagan's deregulation craze. The Savings and Loan scandal of Reagan's time, which cost the American people hundreds of billions of dollars, is but one example of Reagan's decision that the foxes would be fine guards in the henhouse.

Ronald Reagan believed in small government, despite the fact that he grew government massively during his time. Social programs which protected the weakest of our citizens were gutted by Reagan's policies, delivering millions into despair. Reagan was able to do this by caricaturing the "welfare queen," who punched out babies by the barnload, who drove the flashy car bought with your tax dollars, who refused to work because she didn't have to. This was a vicious, racist lie, one result of which was the decimation of a generation by crack cocaine. The urban poor were left to rot because Ronald Reagan believed in 'self-sufficiency.'

Because Ronald Reagan could not be bothered to fund research into 'gay cancer,' the AIDS virus was allowed to carve out a comfortable home in America. The aftershocks from this callous disregard for people whose homosexuality was deemed evil by religious conservatives cannot be overstated. Beyond the graves of those who died from a disease which was allowed to burn unchecked, there are generations of Americans today living with the subconscious idea that sex equals death.

The veneer of honor and respect painted across the legacy of Ronald Reagan is itself a myth of biblical proportions. The coverage proffered today of the Reagan legacy seldom mentions impropriety until the Iran/Contra scandal appears on the administration timeline. This sin of omission is vast. By the end of his term in office, some 138 Reagan administration officials had been convicted, indicted or investigated for misconduct and/or criminal activities.

Some of the names on this disgraceful roll-call: Oliver North, John Poindexter, Richard Secord, Casper Weinberger, Elliott Abrams, Robert C. McFarlane, Michael Deaver, E. Bob Wallach, James Watt, Alan D. Fiers, Clair George, Duane R. Clarridge, Anne Gorscuh Burford, Rita Lavelle, Richard Allen, Richard Beggs, Guy Flake, Louis Glutfrida, Edwin Gray, Max Hugel, Carlos Campbell, John Fedders, Arthur Hayes, J. Lynn Helms, Marjory Mecklenburg, Robert Nimmo, J. William Petro, Thomas C. Reed, Emanuel Savas, Charles Wick. Many of these names are lost to history, but more than a few of them are still with us today, 'rehabilitated' by the administration of George W. Bush.

Ronald Reagan actively supported the regimes of the worst people ever to walk the earth. Names like Marcos, Duarte, Rios Mont and Duvalier reek of blood and corruption, yet were embraced by the Reagan administration with passionate intensity. The ground of many nations is salted with the bones of those murdered by brutal rulers who called Reagan a friend. Who can forget his support of those in South Africa who believed apartheid was the proper way to run a civilized society?

One dictator in particular looms large across our landscape. Saddam Hussein was a creation of Ronald Reagan. The Reagan administration supported the Hussein regime despite his incredible record of atrocity. The Reagan administration gave Hussein intelligence information which helped the Iraqi military use their chemical weapons on the battlefield against Iran to great effect. The deadly bacterial agents sent to Iraq during the Reagan administration are a laundry list of horrors.

The Reagan administration sent an emissary named Donald Rumsfeld to Iraq to shake Saddam Hussein's hand and assure him that, despite public American condemnation of the use of those chemical weapons, the Reagan administration still considered him a welcome friend and ally. This happened while the Reagan administration was selling weapons to Iran, a nation notorious for its support of international terrorism, in secret and in violation of scores of laws.

Another name on Ronald Reagan's roll call is that of Osama bin Laden. The Reagan administration believed it a bully idea to organize an army of Islamic fundamentalists in Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Union. bin Laden became the spiritual leader of this action. Throughout the entirety of Reagan's term, bin Laden and his people were armed, funded and trained by the United States. Reagan helped teach Osama bin Laden the lesson he lives by today, that it is possible to bring a superpower to its knees. bin Laden believes this because he has done it once before, thanks to the dedicated help of Ronald Reagan.

In 1998, two American embassies in Africa were blasted into rubble by Osama bin Laden, who used the Semtex sent to Afghanistan by the Reagan administration to do the job. In 2001, Osama bin Laden thrust a dagger into the heart of the United States, using men who became skilled at the art of terrorism with the help of Ronald Reagan. Today, there are 827 American soldiers and over 10,000 civilians who have died in the invasion and occupation of Iraq, a war that came to be because Reagan helped manufacture both Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.

How much of this can be truthfully laid at the feet of Ronald Reagan? It depends on who you ask. Those who worship Reagan see him as the man in charge, the man who defeated Soviet communism, the man whose vision and charisma made Americans feel good about themselves after Vietnam and the malaise of the 1970s. Those who despise Reagan see him as nothing more than a pitch-man for corporate raiders, the man who allowed greed to become a virtue, the man who smiled vapidly while allowing his officials to run the government for him.

In the final analysis, however, the legacy of Ronald Reagan - whether he had an active hand in its formulation, or was merely along for the ride - is beyond dispute. His famous question, "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" is easy to answer. We are not better off than we were four years ago, or eight years ago, or twelve, or twenty. We are a badly damaged state, ruled today by a man who subsists off Reagan's most corrosive final gift to us all: It is the image that matters, and be damned to the truth.

William Rivers Pitt is the senior editor and lead writer for t r u t h o u t. He is a New York Times and international bestselling author of two books - 'War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know' and 'The Greatest Sedition is Silence.'

-------

[G.W.B.]

poor ronnie... I'm sure everyone in Central America is weeping I know the rest of the world must be...
Surely Saddam is... after all, Iraq was taken off the US list of terrorist states in 1982 just so we could give them military aid... Wasn't that thoughtful of us? :chainsaw:

[Jus Say Ventura]

You have to have a lot of respect for guy.

He made Iran release the american hostages by forcing weapons on them

breaking an international trade embargo, make some alot money on the deal and illegally used it to fund illegal covert operations in Nigaragua.

The biggest budget cuts in american history is his.

Economically defeated the Russian commies by out spending them on atomic weapons.

Attacked Haiti after a sucessful grassroot revolution and installed an american regressive puppet dictatorship.

Made billionaires out of millionaires during a depression.

And got the poor to pay for it all.

now that's a great american!

Sadly the chimp he worked with in film s is now the president!

[Lilly Flower]

Let us not forget another great thing Mr. Reagan Graced this beautiful planet with,
the wonderful world of Crack.
Oh my!

[cowboyangel]

it's hard for me to tell who has the bigger IQ, dead Reagan or GWB (that's not our BM poster)......at least we won't have to build a GWB library......

[Simply Joel]

it's hard for me to tell who has the bigger IQ, dead Reagan or GWB (that's not our BM poster)......at least we won't have to build a GWB library......

Never say never.

[Last Real Burner]

They would build one but somehow the coloring book got missplace.


mr smith

[Simply Joel]

This the best Reagan redux I've come across. This guy was a public relations president and a true bastard...read on'....... oh ee cummings is so totally cool check his stuff out..if he were alive he'd be a burner, hands down.

Planet Reagan
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Monday 07 June 2004

Buffalo Bill's
defunct
who used to
ride a watersmooth-silver
stallion
and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat
Jesus
he was a handsome man
and what i want to know is
how do you like your blueeyed boy
Mister Death

- e.e. cummings, "Buffalo Bill's Defunct"

Ronald Reagan is dead now, and everyone is being nice to him. In every aspect, this is appropriate. He was a husband and a father, a beloved member of a family, and he will be missed by those he was close to. His death was long, slow and agonizing because of the Alzheimer's Disease which ruined him, one drop of lucidity at a time. My grandmother died ten years ago almost to the day because of this disease, and this disease took ten years to do its dirty, filthy, wretched work on her.

The dignity and candor of Reagan's farewell letter to the American people was as magnificent a departure from public life as any that has been seen in our history, but the ugly truth of his illness was that he lived on, and on, and on. His family and friends watched as he faded from the world of the real, as the simple dignity afforded to all life collapsed like loose sand behind his ever more vacant eyes. Only those who have seen Alzheimer's Disease invade a mind can know the truth of this. It is a cursed way to die.

In this mourning space, however, there must be room made for the truth. Writer Edward Abbey once said, "The sneakiest form of literary subtlety, in a corrupt society, is to speak the plain truth. The critics will not understand you; the public will not believe you; your fellow writers will shake their heads."

The truth is straightforward: Virtually every significant problem facing the American people today can be traced back to the policies and people that came from the Reagan administration. It is a laundry list of ills, woes and disasters that has all of us, once again, staring apocalypse in the eye.

How can this be? The television says Ronald Reagan was one of the most beloved Presidents of the 20th century. He won two national elections, the second by a margin so overwhelming that all future landslides will be judged by the high-water mark he achieved against Walter Mondale. How can a man so universally respected have played a hand in the evils which corrupt our days?

The answer lies in the reality of the corrupt society Abbey spoke of. Our corruption is the absolute triumph of image over reality, of flash over substance, of the pervasive need within most Americans to believe in a happy-face version of the nation they call home, and to spurn the reality of our estate as unpatriotic. Ronald Reagan was, and will always be, the undisputed heavyweight champion of salesmen in this regard.

Reagan was able, by virtue of his towering talents in this arena, to sell to the American people a flood of poisonous policies. He made Americans feel good about acting against their own best interests. He sold the American people a lemon, and they drive it to this day as if it was a Cadillac. It isn't the lies that kill us, but the myths, and Ronald Reagan was the greatest myth-maker we are ever likely to see.

Mainstream media journalism today is a shameful joke because of Reagan's deregulation policies. Once upon a time, the Fairness Doctrine ensured that the information we receive - information vital to the ability of the people to govern in the manner intended - came from a wide variety of sources and perspectives. Reagan's policies annihilated the Fairness Doctrine, opening the door for a few mega-corporations to gather journalism unto themselves. Today, Reagan's old bosses at General Electric own three of the most-watched news channels. This company profits from every war we fight, but somehow is trusted to tell the truths of war. Thus, the myths are sold to us.

The deregulation policies of Ronald Reagan did not just deliver journalism to these massive corporations, but handed virtually every facet of our lives into the hands of this privileged few. The air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat are all tainted because Reagan battered down every environmental regulation he came across so corporations could improve their bottom line. Our leaders are wholly-owned subsidiaries of the corporations that were made all-powerful by Reagan's deregulation craze. The Savings and Loan scandal of Reagan's time, which cost the American people hundreds of billions of dollars, is but one example of Reagan's decision that the foxes would be fine guards in the henhouse.

Ronald Reagan believed in small government, despite the fact that he grew government massively during his time. Social programs which protected the weakest of our citizens were gutted by Reagan's policies, delivering millions into despair. Reagan was able to do this by caricaturing the "welfare queen," who punched out babies by the barnload, who drove the flashy car bought with your tax dollars, who refused to work because she didn't have to. This was a vicious, racist lie, one result of which was the decimation of a generation by crack cocaine. The urban poor were left to rot because Ronald Reagan believed in 'self-sufficiency.'

Because Ronald Reagan could not be bothered to fund research into 'gay cancer,' the AIDS virus was allowed to carve out a comfortable home in America. The aftershocks from this callous disregard for people whose homosexuality was deemed evil by religious conservatives cannot be overstated. Beyond the graves of those who died from a disease which was allowed to burn unchecked, there are generations of Americans today living with the subconscious idea that sex equals death.

The veneer of honor and respect painted across the legacy of Ronald Reagan is itself a myth of biblical proportions. The coverage proffered today of the Reagan legacy seldom mentions impropriety until the Iran/Contra scandal appears on the administration timeline. This sin of omission is vast. By the end of his term in office, some 138 Reagan administration officials had been convicted, indicted or investigated for misconduct and/or criminal activities.

Some of the names on this disgraceful roll-call: Oliver North, John Poindexter, Richard Secord, Casper Weinberger, Elliott Abrams, Robert C. McFarlane, Michael Deaver, E. Bob Wallach, James Watt, Alan D. Fiers, Clair George, Duane R. Clarridge, Anne Gorscuh Burford, Rita Lavelle, Richard Allen, Richard Beggs, Guy Flake, Louis Glutfrida, Edwin Gray, Max Hugel, Carlos Campbell, John Fedders, Arthur Hayes, J. Lynn Helms, Marjory Mecklenburg, Robert Nimmo, J. William Petro, Thomas C. Reed, Emanuel Savas, Charles Wick. Many of these names are lost to history, but more than a few of them are still with us today, 'rehabilitated' by the administration of George W. Bush.

Ronald Reagan actively supported the regimes of the worst people ever to walk the earth. Names like Marcos, Duarte, Rios Mont and Duvalier reek of blood and corruption, yet were embraced by the Reagan administration with passionate intensity. The ground of many nations is salted with the bones of those murdered by brutal rulers who called Reagan a friend. Who can forget his support of those in South Africa who believed apartheid was the proper way to run a civilized society?

One dictator in particular looms large across our landscape. Saddam Hussein was a creation of Ronald Reagan. The Reagan administration supported the Hussein regime despite his incredible record of atrocity. The Reagan administration gave Hussein intelligence information which helped the Iraqi military use their chemical weapons on the battlefield against Iran to great effect. The deadly bacterial agents sent to Iraq during the Reagan administration are a laundry list of horrors.

The Reagan administration sent an emissary named Donald Rumsfeld to Iraq to shake Saddam Hussein's hand and assure him that, despite public American condemnation of the use of those chemical weapons, the Reagan administration still considered him a welcome friend and ally. This happened while the Reagan administration was selling weapons to Iran, a nation notorious for its support of international terrorism, in secret and in violation of scores of laws.

Another name on Ronald Reagan's roll call is that of Osama bin Laden. The Reagan administration believed it a bully idea to organize an army of Islamic fundamentalists in Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Union. bin Laden became the spiritual leader of this action. Throughout the entirety of Reagan's term, bin Laden and his people were armed, funded and trained by the United States. Reagan helped teach Osama bin Laden the lesson he lives by today, that it is possible to bring a superpower to its knees. bin Laden believes this because he has done it once before, thanks to the dedicated help of Ronald Reagan.

In 1998, two American embassies in Africa were blasted into rubble by Osama bin Laden, who used the Semtex sent to Afghanistan by the Reagan administration to do the job. In 2001, Osama bin Laden thrust a dagger into the heart of the United States, using men who became skilled at the art of terrorism with the help of Ronald Reagan. Today, there are 827 American soldiers and over 10,000 civilians who have died in the invasion and occupation of Iraq, a war that came to be because Reagan helped manufacture both Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.

How much of this can be truthfully laid at the feet of Ronald Reagan? It depends on who you ask. Those who worship Reagan see him as the man in charge, the man who defeated Soviet communism, the man whose vision and charisma made Americans feel good about themselves after Vietnam and the malaise of the 1970s. Those who despise Reagan see him as nothing more than a pitch-man for corporate raiders, the man who allowed greed to become a virtue, the man who smiled vapidly while allowing his officials to run the government for him.

In the final analysis, however, the legacy of Ronald Reagan - whether he had an active hand in its formulation, or was merely along for the ride - is beyond dispute. His famous question, "Are you better off now than you were four years ago?" is easy to answer. We are not better off than we were four years ago, or eight years ago, or twelve, or twenty. We are a badly damaged state, ruled today by a man who subsists off Reagan's most corrosive final gift to us all: It is the image that matters, and be damned to the truth.

William Rivers Pitt is the senior editor and lead writer for t r u t h o u t. He is a New York Times and international bestselling author of two books - 'War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know' and 'The Greatest Sedition is Silence.'

-------

Yeah, that's right.... blame it all on the national father figure...

Personally, I reject the notion that one person is to blame for all our societal ills. We are all responsible for making it better or worse.

[Lilly Flower]

"The ambassador and the general were briefing me on the — the vast majority of Iraqis want to live in a peaceful, free world. And we will find these people and we will bring them to justice."


George W. Bush, Washington, D.C., Oct. 27, 2003

[Apollonaris Zeus]

They would build one but somehow the coloring book got missplace.


mr smith

nice!

A II Z

[cowboyangel]

Yeah, that's right.... blame it all on the national father figure...

Personally, I reject the notion that one person is to blame for all our societal ills. We are all responsible for making it better or worse.

well I never voted for the guy and I think you tend to minimize the responsibilities of elected offials Joel......we do live in a republic (sort of) so sure we all at least have the respnsibility to vote and stay informed (kind of a joke these days) The president does still wield incredible power, war powers etc. Reagan caused the death of many innocents during his years, mainly in Central America. The Soviet Union mostly desroyed itself with corruption and poorly engineered social policy, ( this from quite a few of my "ex-Soviet" friends living in Ukraine. The US will destroy itself with its obscenely bloated military budget...wait and see.......

[Simply Joel]

Yeah, that's right.... blame it all on the national father figure...

Personally, I reject the notion that one person is to blame for all our societal ills. We are all responsible for making it better or worse.

well I never voted for the guy and I think you tend to minimize the responsibilities of elected offials Joel.

and on the same token... most of the postings here minimize the responsibilities of the electorate.

hey, i am not here to defend an all too powerful executive branch... i am actually here trying drum up support for a stronger, more representative legislative branch....

of course, i keep in mind... make sure you know what you are asking for... you may actually get it.

[cowboyangel]

Has anybody thought to tell Dr. Rice to look at FOXNEWS?

By TOM RAUM, Associated Press Writer

SEA ISLAND, Ga. - President Bush (news - web sites)'s national security adviser accused Arabic-language broadcaster Al-Jazeera on Monday of "purely inaccurate" reporting, suggesting the Qatar-based satellite station was presenting a biased account of developments in the Middle East.


Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites)'s complaint came as she and other administration officials defended the Arab-world guest list for this week's international economic summit here.

Many key players in the region — including Egypt and Saudi Arabia — will not be attending, even though efforts to promote democracy in the Middle East are a key theme of this year's Group of Eight summit of wealthy democracies.

[cowboyangel]

Hey Joel...this thread is closing in on "Fuck" you're half way there

[Lilly Flower]

And Joel started this thread long after both "Fuck" threads.



My goodness.


Great job Joel.




Wonderful!

[Simply Joel]

June 6, 2004
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Think Global, Act Local
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

The Wall Street Journal had a front-page story last Wednesday that caught my eye. It was about how the antiglobalization movement seemed to be losing steam, with police not expecting the sort of violent protesters of the late 1990's to show up at the G-8 summit in Sea Island, Ga., this week. If you want to understand why the antiglobalization movement — which was always a mishmash of groups and ideologies — has lost its edge, you should study the recent Indian elections. And if the antiglobalizers want to understand how they could again become relevant, they should study those elections as well.

To everyone's surprise, India's elections ended with the rightist Hindu nationalist B.J.P. alliance being thrown out and replaced by the left-leaning Congress Party alliance. Of course, no sooner did the B.J.P. — which ran on a platform of taking credit for India's high-tech revolution — go down than the usual suspects from the antiglobalization movement declared this was a grass-roots rejection of India's globalization strategy. They got it exactly wrong. What Indian voters were saying was not: "Stop the globalization train, we want to get off." It was, "Slow down the globalization train, and build me a better step-stool, because I want to get on."

"Every time an Indian villager watches the community TV and sees an ad for soap or shampoo, what they notice are not the soap and shampoo but the lifestyle of the people using them, the kind of motorbikes they ride, their dress and their homes," says Nayan Chanda, the Indian-born editor of the invaluable YaleGlobal online magazine. "They see a world they want access to. This election was about envy, anger and aspirations. It was a classic case of revolutions happening when things are getting better but not fast enough for many people."

Indeed, Indian villagers and farmers are just like all other consumers today — better informed. And they seemed to know, at a gut level, exactly why the B.J.P.'s stress on information technology was not delivering for them. It was because local governments in India have become so eaten away by corruption and mismanagement they cannot deliver for the poor the schools and infrastructure they need to get a fair share of the pie. The Indian masses didn't vote for an antiglobalization strategy, they voted for (among other things) an effective globalization strategy. Sonia Gandhi, the Congress Party leader, seemed to understand this when she chose as prime minister Manmohan Singh, the former Congress finance minister, who first put the Indian economy onto a globalization track in the 1990's. His task now is to make globalization work for more Indians by making government work for more Indians.

"Both the Congress and its left allies would be risking India's future if they draw the wrong conclusion from this election," said Pratap Bhanu Mehta, an Indian professor of government, writing in The Hindu. "The revolt against holders of power is not a revolt of the poor against the rich: ordinary people are far less prone to resent other people's success, than intellectuals suppose. It is rather an expression of the fact that the reform of the state has not gone far enough." Gurcharan Das, the former head of Procter & Gamble in India, wrote in The Times of India that this election was about better local governance: "What matters to the rickshawala [scooter driver] is that the cops not take away a sixth of his daily earnings. The farmer wants a clear title to his land without having to bribe the patwari [village accountant]. The sick villager wants the doctor to be there when she visits the primary health center. The housewife doesn't want the water tap to go dry while she is washing."

My own recent travels to India have left me convinced that the most important forces combating poverty there today are those activists who are fighting for better local governance. The world doesn't need the antiglobalization movement to go away now — it just needs for the movement to grow up. It had a lot of energy and a lot of mobilizing capacity. What it lacked was a real agenda for helping the poor. Here's what its agenda should be: Helping the poor by improving governance — accountability, transparency, education and the rule of law — at the local level, by using the Internet and other tools to spotlight corruption, mismanagement and tax avoidance. It may not be as sexy as protesting against world leaders on CNN, but it is a lot more important. Ask any Indian villager.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[cowboyangel]

check out Joseph Stiglit'z ( Nobel prize in economics in 2001)
"Globilization and Its Discontents" for a thourough analysis of the World Bank, the IMF, and the gross bungling that goes on in these institutions.

[Force]

Yeah yeah, another dead guy with good hair. Wake me when all that is over.

The signal for the beginning of the end of this particular circus element of the bread and circuses program will be the Reagan commemorative plate advertisements.

But back to some meaningful conversation....

I still would like Joel to either;

a) continue to parrot other people's ideas

or

b) explain his assertions re;

Why exactly he desires us to unite behind the only president we've got- is that so that we can invade another country that has done nothing to us, see more of our friends and brothers and fathers killed? Or so that we can encourage more tax cuts for the rich?

What benefit accrues to me or my fellowman from "uniting behind" this retarded drunken cowboy cokehead? And what the hell exactly does "uniting behind" mean anyway- rahrahing our government when I disagree with most of their actions to date, or just keeping my mouth shut so as not to face persecution? Doesn't sound too democratic to me.

If nothing else so that I can firmly establish whether or not I'm having a conversation. If Joel chooses to basically churn out more electronic flyers without responding to valid questions about his positions, that's actually good for me because then I can just permanently file him into the same category as anti-(or pro)abortion bandwagon-type protesters who don't think for themselves, and go have the same degree of meaningful discourse with the more aesthetically pleasing wall next door.

[Simply Joel]

definition: parrot

verb: repeat mindlessly


Allow me to set the record straight... I don't do anything mindlessly.

I repeat... if you didn't get the message the first time...
I don't do anything mindlessly.

Secondly... what you quoted aren't my assertions.

thirdly, we are not conversing.

and finally... "don't noun me" 'cause I don't noun you.

[Simply Joel]

June 9, 2004
OP-ED COLUMNIST
The Resolution's Weakness
By WILLIAM SAFIRE

In his eagerness for the approval of the Shiite religious leader — and driven by desperation to get yesterday's unanimous U.N. resolution in time for the G-8 meeting — President Bush may be double-crossing the Kurds, our most loyal friends in Iraq.

Not a single U.S. soldier has been killed in the area of northern Iraq patrolled by the pesh merga, the army of Kurdish Iraqis who have brought order to their region. Savaged by Saddam's poison-gas attacks in the 80's, Kurdistan was abandoned by the first President Bush to Saddam's vengeance after the first gulf war. When our conscience made us provide air cover in the 90's, the Kurds amazed the Middle East by creating a free, democratic mini-state within despotic Iraq.

These Kurdish Sunni Muslims — an ancient ethnic group, neither Arab nor Turk — are one-fifth of Iraq's population. They cheered our arrival and set aside old dreams of independence, asking for reasonable autonomy in return for participating enthusiastically in the formation of the new Iraq.

In February, the Iraqi Governing Council, which included all religious and ethnic groups, hammered out its only memorable work: a Transitional Administrative Law, which laid the groundwork for a constitution to be adopted later by elected officials in a sovereign state. Most important for Kurds, who have long been oppressed by an Arab majority, it established minority rights within a federal state — the essence of a stable democracy.

But as the U.N. resolution supporting that state was nearing completion, the Shiite grand ayatollah, Ali al-Sistani, suddenly intervened. He denounced the agreed-upon law as "legislated by an unelected council in the shadow of occupation." He decreed that mentioning it in the U.N. resolution would be "a harbinger of grave consequences."

The U.S. promptly caved. Stunned Kurds protested in a letter to President Bush that "the people of Kurdistan will no longer accept second-class citizenship in Iraq." If the law guaranteeing minority rights was abrogated, Kurds would "have no choice but to refrain from participating in the central government, not to take part in the national elections, and to bar representatives of the central government from Kurdistan."

Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani, the Kurdish leaders, appealed to Bush's sense of loyalty: "We will be loyal friends to America even if our support is not always reciprocated. . . . If the forces of freedom [do not] prevail elsewhere in Iraq, we know that, because of our alliance with the United States, we will be marked for vengeance."

I ran this pained appeal past John Negroponte, who will move from his post as our U.N. representative to be our ambassador to the new Iraq, at his farewell lunch yesterday. He pointed to a line in the preamble to the U.N. resolution welcoming an unspecified commitment "to work towards a federal, democratic, pluralist and unified Iraq, in which there is full respect for political and human rights."

Fine "preambular" words, but outside the action section of the resolution. That eviscerates the protective law, just as Sistani demanded.

Why do we take our proven allies for granted? The conventional White House wisdom holds that the Iraqi Kurds have no place else to go. It's an article of faith that if the Kurds tried to break away and set up an independent Kurdistan, with oil-rich Kirkuk as its traditional capital, Turkey, on its border, would never permit it — lest murderous separatists among its own Kurdish population of 12 million get a new lease on death.

Iraqi Kurds blundered last year in letting old grudges prevent Ankara from sending 10,000 troops south to help the coalition police Iraq. But since then, Kurdish leaders have gone all-out to establish economic and political relations with "our friends to the north."

A Turkish construction company is building a $40 million airport in Sulaimaniya, and Kurds have been steering contracts to Turkish engineers to study sports stadiums and tunnels through the mountains. Despite grumbling from some anti-Kurdish generals, Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has been responsive. The influential Ilnur Cevik of the Turkish Daily News urges "more attention to Iraqi Kurdish sensitivities" and asks: "Do the Arabs realize what they are getting into?"

Our Kurdish allies will do their bit to hold Iraq together. But in appeasing the south, don't push the north too far.

Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company

[Simply Joel]

Just to clarify... Force, you copied your own thoughts (or lask thereof) and then attempted to assert that those comments were mine.

Please make more effort to "get it right (correct)" if it involved me.

References are made to the president constantly, but why aren't "we" holding our congressmen/women accountable as well?

In my humble opinion, the legislative branch of our government is remiss in its duties...

yeah, the current president isn't pleasing me with his performance... yet as Molly Ivans wrote "we must unite behind the only President we've got, as Lyndon used to remind us."

And why exactly MUST we unite behind the only president we've got, so that we can invade another country that has done nothing to us, see more of our friends and brothers and fathers killed? So that we can encourage more tax cuts for the rich?

Please enlighten me here. What benefit accrues to me or my fellowman from "uniting behind" this retarded drunken cowboy cokehead? And what the hell exactly does "uniting behind" mean anyway- rahrahing our government when I disagree with most of their actions to date, or just keeping my mouth shut so as not to face persecution? Doesn't sound too democratic to me.

As for why we aren't holding our congressmen/women accountable as well, we are now suffering under the bootheel of the tyranny of the stupid/easily swayed who either do not have the time or the desire to read everything they would need to to make informed decisions.

The solution; talk to the stupid, email them, call in to radio shows (even comedy radio shows, ridiculing our dysfunctional government in a pithy soundbitable way can be VERY effective, ala "Bringing Down a Dictator"- wonderful documentary) whatever. I know it's not all that pleasureable sometimes, but it's your patriotic duty.

Beats having to take up arms against a dictatorship, doesn't it? So quitcher whining and just do it.

[Simply Joel]

Paris Goes After SUVs

PARIS (Reuters) - Bulky four-by-fours could be banned from clogging up the chic streets of Paris after a top official in the capital's left-wing government described them as a polluting "caricature of a car" unsuited to city life.

An anti-sports utility vehicle (SUV) resolution passed by the city council could lead to a ban on the popular vehicles in about 18 months if it is included in an overall project to improve traffic flow in the city, Deputy Mayor Denis Baupin said Wednesday.

"You have to wonder why people want to drive around in SUVs," Baupin, a Greens party member, said on Europe 1 radio.

"We have no interest in having SUVs in the city. They're dangerous to others and take up too much space."

The city council voted Tuesday to urge Socialist Mayor Bertrand Delanoe to consider banning SUVs, which have become popular in recent years and now make up about five percent of the French car market -- just below the western Europe average.

Baupin said Paris, which has been setting aside more lanes for buses and bicycles since a Socialist and Greens coalition took over City Hall in 2001, could not legally ban SUVs outright.

"Our idea is to limit the circulation of the most polluting vehicles," he said. "That means SUVs and lots of other vehicles that don't meet European pollution standards."

Baupin, who often cycles around Paris to promote more environmentally friendly transport, called SUVs a caricature of a car and said they were not adapted for use in a city.

"It's made for a family on vacation ... and usually they only have one person in them," he said.

"Let's be logical and only allow into the city cars that are adapted to it."

[cowboyangel]

Hey they wreck MacDonald's, and ban SUVs...they gotta be doing something right....give me some more freedom fries!

[cowboyangel]

I was gonna let the forum cool off for awhile then somebody sent me this,... interestin......


The Misunderestimated Man...
How Bush Chose Stupidity.


By Jacob Weisberg



Adapted from the introduction to The Deluxe Election-Edition Bushisms, published by Fireside Books/Simon & Schuster. Reprinted with permission; © 2004 Jacob Weisberg.

The question I am most frequently asked about Bushisms is, "Do you really think The president of the United States is dumb?"

The short answer is yes.

The long answer is yes and no.

Quotations collected over the years in Slate may leave the impression that George W. Bush is a dimwit. Let's face it: A man who cannot talk about education without making a humiliating grammatical mistake ("The illiteracy level of our children are appalling"); who cannot keep straight the three branches of government ("It's the executive branch's job to interpret law"); who coins ridiculous words ("Hispanos," "arbolist," "subliminable," "resignate," "transformationed"); who habitually says the opposite of what he intends ("the death tax is good for people from all walks of life!") sounds like a grade-A imbecile.

And if you don't care to pursue the matter any further, that view will
suffice. George W. Bush has governed, for the most part, the way any airhead might, undermining the fiscal condition of the nation, squandering the goodwill of the world after Sept. 11, and allowing huge problems (global warming, entitlement spending, AIDS) to metastasize toward catastrophe through a combination of ideology, incomprehension, and indifference. If Bush isn't exactly the moron he sounds, his synaptic misfirings offer a plausible proxy for the idiocy of his presidency.

In reality, however, there's more to it. Bush's assorted malapropisms, solecisms, gaffes, spoonerisms, and truisms tend to imply that his lack of fluency in English is tantamount to an absence of intelligence. But as we all know, the inarticulate can be shrewd, the fluent fatuous. In Bush's case, the symptoms point to a specific malady-some kind of linguistic deficit akin to dyslexia-that does not indicate a lack of mental capacity per se.

Bush also compensates with his non-verbal acumen. As he notes, "Smart comes in all kinds of different ways." The president's way is an aptitude for connecting to people through banter and physicality. He has a powerful memory for names, details, and figures that truly matter to him, such as batting averages from the 1950s. Bush also has a keen political sense, sharpened under the tutelage of Karl Rove.

What's more, calling the president a cretin absolves him of responsibility. Like Reagan, Bush avoids blame for all manner of contradictions, implausible assertions, and outright lies by appearing an amiable dunce. If he knows not what he does, blame goes to the three puppeteers, Cheney, Rove, and Rumsfeld. It also breeds sympathy. We wouldn't laugh at FDR because he couldn't walk. Is it less cruel to laugh at GWB because he can't talk? The soft bigotry of low expectations means Bush is seen to outperform by merely getting by. Finally, elitist condescension, however merited, helps cement Bush's bond to the masses.

But if "numskull" is an imprecise description of the president, it is not altogether inaccurate. Bush may not have been born stupid, but he has achieved stupidity, and now he wears it as a badge of honor. What makes mocking this president fair as well as funny is that Bush is, or at least once was, capable of learning, reading, and thinking. We know he has discipline and can work hard (at least when the goal is reducing his time for a three-mile run). Instead he chose to coast, for most of his life, on name, charm, good looks, and the easy access to capital afforded by family connections.

The most obvious expression of Bush's choice of ignorance is that, at the age of 57, he knows nothing about policy or history. After years of working as his dad's spear-chucker in Washington, he didn't understand the difference between Medicare and Medicaid, the second- and third-largest federal programs. Well into his plans for invading Iraq, Bush still couldn't get down the distinction between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, the key religious divide in a country he was about to occupy. Though he sometimes carries books for show, he either does not read them or doesn't absorb anything from them. Bush's ignorance is so transparent that many of his intimates do not bother to dispute it even in public. Consider thetestimony of several who know him well.

Richard Perle, foreign policy adviser: "The first time I met Bush 43 . two things became clear. One, he didn't know very much. The other was that he had the confidence to ask questions that revealed he didn't know very much."

David Frum, former speechwriter: "Bush had a poor memory for facts and figures. . Fire a question at him about the specifics of his administration's policies, and he often appeared uncertain. Nobody would ever enroll him in a quiz show."

Laura Bush, spouse: "George is not an overly introspective person. He has good instincts, and he goes with them. He doesn't need to evaluate and reevaluate a decision. He doesn't try to overthink. He likes action."

Paul O'Neill, former treasury secretary: "The only way I can describe it is that, well, the President is like a blind man in a roomful of deaf
people. There is no discernible connection."

A second, more damning aspect of Bush's mind-set is that he doesn't want to know anything in detail, however important. Since college, he has spilled with contempt for knowledge, equating learning with snobbery and making a joke of his own anti-intellectualism. ("[William F. Buckley] wrote a book at Yale; I read one," he quipped at a black-tie event.) By O'Neill's account, Bush could sit through an hourlong presentation about the state of the economy without asking a single question. ("I was bored as hell," the president shot back, ostensibly in jest.)

Closely related to this aggressive ignorance is a third feature of Bush's mentality: laziness. Again, this is a lifelong trait. Bush's college grades were mostly Cs (including a 73 in Introduction to the American Political System). At the start of one term, the star of the Yale football team spotted him in the back row during the shopping period for courses. "Hey! George Bush is in this class!" Calvin Hill shouted to his teammates. "This is the one for us!" As governor of Texas, Bush would take a long break in the middle of his short workday for a run followed by a stretch of video golf or computer solitaire.

A fourth and final quality of Bush's mind is that it does not think. The President can't tolerate debate about issues. Offered an option, he makes up his mind quickly and never reconsiders. At an elementary school, a child once asked him whether it was hard to make decisions as President. "Most of the decisions come pretty easily for me, to be frank with you." By leaping to conclusions based on what he "believes," Bush avoids contemplating even the most obvious basic contradictions: between his policy of tax cuts and reducing the deficit; between his call for a humble foreign policy based on alliances and his unilateral assertion of American power; between his support for in-vitro fertilization (which destroys embryos) and his opposition to fetal stem-cell research (because it
destroys embryos).

Why would someone capable of being smart choose to be stupid? To understand, you have to look at W.'s relationship with father. This filial bond involves more tension than meets the eye. Dad was away for much of his oldest son's childhood. Little George grew up closer to his acid-tongued mother and acted out against the absent parent-through adolescent misbehavior, academic failure, dissipation, and basically not accomplishing anything at all until well into his 40s.

Dubya's youthful screw-ups and smart-aleck attitude reflect some combination of protest, plea for attention, and flailing attempt to compete. Until a decade ago, his résumé read like a send-up of his dad's. Bush senior was a star student at Andover and Phi Beta Kappa at Yale, where he was also captain of the baseball team; Junior struggled through with gentleman's C's and, though he loved baseball, couldn't make the college lineup. Père was a bomber pilot in the Pacific; fils sat out 'Nam in the Texas Air National Guard, where he lost flying privileges by not showing up. Dad drove to Texas in 1947 to get rich in the oil business and actually did; Son tried the same in 1975 and drilled dry holes for a decade. Bush the elder got elected to Congress in 1966; Shrub ran in 1978, didn't know what he was talking about, and got clobbered.

Through all this incompetent emulation runs an undercurrent of hostility. In an oft-told anecdote circa 1973, GWB-after getting wasted at a party and driving over a neighbor's trash can in Houston-challenged his dad. "I hear you're lookin' for me," W. told the chairman of the Republican National Committee. "You want to go mano a mano right here?" Some years later at a state dinner, he told the Queen of England he was being seated far away because he was the black sheep of the family.

After half a lifetime of this kind of frustration, Bush decided to straighten up. Nursing a hangover at a 40th-birthday weekend, he gave up Wild Turkey, cold turkey. With the help of Billy Graham, he put himself in the hands of a higher power and began going to church. He became obsessed with punctuality and developed a rigid routine. Thus did Prince Hal molt into an evangelical King Henry. And it worked! Putting together a deal to buy the Texas Rangers, the ne'er-do-well finally tasted success. With success, he grew closer to his father, taking on the role of family avenger. This culminated in his 1994 challenge to Texas Gov. Ann Richards, who had twitted dad at the 1992 Democratic convention.

Curiously, this late arrival at adulthood did not involve Bush becoming in any way thoughtful. Having chosen stupidity as rebellion, he stuck with it out of conformity. The promise-keeper, reformed-alkie path he chose not only drastically curtailed personal choices he no longer wanted, it also supplied an all-encompassing order, offered guidance on policy, and prevented the need for much actual information. Bush's old answer to hard questions was, "I don't know and, who cares." His new answer was, "Wait a second while I check with Jesus."

A remaining bit of poignancy was his unresolved struggle with his father. "All I ask," he implored a reporter while running for governor in 1994, "is that for once you guys stop seeing me as the son of George Bush." In his campaigns, W. has kept his dad offstage. (In an exceptional appearance on the eve of the 2000 New Hampshire primary, 41 came onstage and called his son "this boy.") While some describe the second Bush presidency as a restoration, it is in at least equal measure a repudiation. The son's harder-edged conservatism explicitly rejects the old man's approach to such issues as abortion, taxes, and relations with Israel.

This Oedipally induced ignorance expresses itself most dangerously in Bush's handling of the war in Iraq. Dubya polished off his old man's greatest enemy, Saddam, but only by lampooning 41's accomplishment of coalition-building in the first Gulf War. Bush led the country to war on false pretenses and neglected to plan the occupation that would inevitably follow. A more knowledgeable and engaged president might have questioned the quality of the evidence about Iraq's supposed weapons programs. One who preferred to be intelligent might have asked about the possibility of an unfriendly reception. Instead, Bush rolled the dice. His budget-busting tax cuts exemplify a similar phenomenon, driven by an alternate set of ideologues.

As the president says, we misunderestimate him. He was not born stupid. He chose stupidity. Bush may look like a well-meaning dolt. On consideration, he's something far more dangerous: a dedicated fool.

[Force]

Ok, Joel the megaphone/flyer protester, apparently you missed the point of my post, which was to ask if you had any good rationalization for what I took you to be saying.

The quote was a quick way of not having to retype my questions (especially since I expected you to do what you did, namely, avoid answering any point that might weaken your position.).

I didn't want to have to cut and paste an overlong post just to ask you something, but if you're going to play the pussy-ass game of weaseling out of answering points that show weaknesses in what you're saying, then all to the good, I can dismiss you now as someone who just wants attention. If you can cut and paste comments you've made that would illuminate what I'm asking about, fine- but I doubt you'll do that.

Your pattern is pretty clear.

Those comments are mine, and they're not attributed to you, though you've chosen to attack the point that they could be misinterpreted that way (albeit only by someone very simple) and say nothing to answer the questions themselves. Interesting what you've chosen to react to and taken the time to rebut.

You're obviously not interested in an intelligent discourse. Great. I have better things to do.

For those who missed it;

Just to clarify... Force, you copied your own thoughts (or lask thereof)

(nice bit of meaningless and pointless aggression there, gives me even more of a clue of where you're coming from)

and then attempted to assert that those comments were mine.

I don't see your name near the quote. In fact, I was trying to separate my words from yours and I didn't bother taking the time to put my name in there, because I figured even the dimmest of bulbs could understand that no one would say;

And why exactly MUST we unite behind the only president we've got, so that we can invade another country that has done nothing to us, see more of our friends and brothers and fathers killed? So that we can encourage more tax cuts for the rich?

Please enlighten me here. What benefit accrues to me or my fellowman from "uniting behind" this retarded drunken cowboy cokehead? And what the hell exactly does "uniting behind" mean anyway- rahrahing our government when I disagree with most of their actions to date, or just keeping my mouth shut so as not to face persecution? Doesn't sound too democratic to me.

and expect people to agree with the points made therein when phrased this way, or believe that you said them since they're obviously contradictory and show the foolishness of our own government and our present situation. No one (except perhaps a fool) points out the stupidity of what he's saying and expects people to agree with it.

Maybe you feel you are that much of a fool or are perceived as such and therefore feel people might have attributed those comments to you? I don't know.

I do know it's futile to try and have a conversation with you. You won't answer any questions asked of you, but try and make the questioner seem stupid for asking for clarification of your nonsensical doublespeak.

Nice try.

I know you won't respond to this in any meaningful way, but for myself, and I'm sure others reading this thread, any credibility you might have will be determined by your response (or lack thereof) to this post and other questions put to you.

[Apollonaris Zeus]

Here's some fun;


http://www.dtriptv.com/


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[cowboyangel]

Thanks Zeus! I'm for puttin humor on the front burner anytime......

[Apollonaris Zeus]

We can all use a little humor, eh cowboy


"To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public." U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt (1918).






It's always darkest just before the burn.





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