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07/22/2004 12:07:24 PM · #1076 |
Originally posted by GeneralE:
Originally posted by RonB:
Originally posted by gingerbaker:
Why do people continue to disbelieve that the Bush administration are inveterate liars, despite overwhelming evidence of their widespread dishonesty? |
Well, I, for one, continue to disbelieve it because, to date, NO ONE has produced evidence showing that anyone in the Bush administration LIED. A LIE, remember, is a statement that was known to be false when it was made.
Ron |
"I'm anxious to see it. I've always said this was an important commission." (emphasis added)
George W. Bush, commenting on the release of the 911 Commission report, 7/21/2004.
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Perhaps thinking it was "important" to quash the Commission's formation qualifies as making this "not a lie," but the actions and the words seem to be quite clearly contradictory to me. |
The White House ( Bush & Co. ) did not try to "quash" the Commission's formation. They merely wanted to insure that it would be a fair, bi-partisan group. As explained in an article in "TruthOut.org" ( a left-leaning web-site ):
"The main sticking points continue to be provisions governing the commission's subpoena power and leadership, which the White House fears could lead to partisan squabbling and finger-pointing. Bush objects to a provision that would allow five members of the 10-person commission, split evenly between Democrats and Republicans, to issue a subpoena. The administration also wants its only member on the commission to be the sole chairperson, instead of being co-chair with a Democratic appointee.
"Unfortunately there still are some members (of Congress) who do not share the view that this commission should be truly bipartisan," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said. "We hope these members will reconsider."
They did ( reconsider ) and the White House announced its agreement to formation of the independent commission. At the announcement, President Bush said, "We must uncover every detail and learn every lesson of September the 11th.". That leads me to believe that he DID think its work was "important".
Ron |
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07/22/2004 02:31:33 PM · #1077 |
I'm sure the republicans on the commission just snuck out all the documents that were damning to Bush and destroyed it...
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07/22/2004 02:50:03 PM · #1078 |
Originally posted by RonB:
Originally posted by gingerbaker:
Why do people continue to disbelieve that the Bush administration are inveterate liars, despite overwhelming evidence of their widespread dishonesty? |
Well, I, for one, continue to disbelieve it because, to date, NO ONE has produced evidence showing that anyone in the Bush administration LIED. A LIE, remember, is a statement that was known to be false when it was made.
Ron |
Oh, for example: "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Monica Lewinsky". Now that's a lie. Unless Mr. Clinton wants to claim he was drunk at the time.... |
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07/22/2004 04:05:06 PM · #1079 |
Originally posted by ScottK:
Oh, for example: "I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Monica Lewinsky". Now that's a lie. Unless Mr. Clinton wants to claim he was drunk at the time.... |
Sometimes its not that easy to catch them in a lie. These guys are professionals at "misrepresenting" with out accually lying, so it is difficult. Had Bush gone into the 911 commission BY HIMSELF and had it been televised and recorded just like almost everyone else’s testimony, there’s a good chance he could have been caught in a lie. |
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07/22/2004 04:23:27 PM · #1080 |
I personally have had to talk to newspaper reporters, government regulators, and law enforcement officers. I also have worked for 20 years in treatment programs for substance-abusers.
I am intimately familiar on both a theoretical and practical basis with methods of concealing the truth without telling a lie, from both sides of the expository transaction.
I presume that government officials' statements are screened by their lawyers to assure that that do not contain "lies" as SOP. That government officials routinely misrepresent and conceal the truth seems equally obvious.
I seem to remember someone making a pretty flat-out statement that "Iraq continues to possess WMD" which was, at best, based on intelligence known or suspected of being faulty. To have phrased it declaratively like that, and not couched in the usual hedging terms (e.g. "we believe that Iraq has a high probability of ...") makes it a "lie" to me.
"I'm a uniter" and "some call you the elite -- I call you my base" seem mutually exclusive concepts as well, and I highly doubt he didn't realize the "elite" were his "base" at the very time he claimed to stand for all the people united. Maybe he meant united in one big household, his "base" in the mansion, and the rest of us in the servants' barracks. |
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07/23/2004 01:53:53 PM · #1081 |
Originally posted by MadMordegon:
Sometimes its not that easy to catch them in a lie. These guys are professionals at "misrepresenting" with out accually lying, so it is difficult. |
Ah, yeah, statements like "...it depends what the definition of 'is' is..." do make it difficult. :)
Originally posted by MadMordegon:
Had Bush gone into the 911 commission BY HIMSELF and had it been televised and recorded just like almost everyone else’s testimony, there’s a good chance he could have been caught in a lie. |
So, suppositions, assumptions and prejudices (and highly biased ones at that) that he might have lied in a given situation are the basis for declaring someone a liar? C'mon, you can do better than that. |
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07/23/2004 02:26:59 PM · #1082 |
Originally posted by GeneralE:
"I'm a uniter" and "some call you the elite -- I call you my base" seem mutually exclusive concepts as well, and I highly doubt he didn't realize the "elite" were his "base" at the very time he claimed to stand for all the people united. Maybe he meant united in one big household, his "base" in the mansion, and the rest of us in the servants' barracks. |
Maybe you can explain how either of those statements relate, let alone indicate a lie.
Lets accept for the moment that Bush considered his base to be, or include (after all, the base can include more than one group, just as the Democratic base might be considered labor and blacks and hispanics and left-wing consipiracy mongers), a group of people whom others have described as "elite" ("some call you elite..."), but by inference GW perhaps didn't consider elite, or at least didn't consider that their defining characteristic. Lets even assume for the moment that this group really is the elite, the upper class snobs that you presume anyone with money to be (like Kerry and Edwards, for example), and that they alone are his base of support - emotional, financial, inspirational, whatever. Lets accept, for the sake of arguement all your class envy inferences, no matter how tenuous.
It seems a bit prejudicial, as well as elitist (in a "the lower and/or middle classes are ethically, morally and intelectually superior to the wealthy for no other reason than they don't have money" sort of way), as well as a total and senseless leap of logic, to presume that simply identifying with this group of people means that he can not be equally desirous of uniting people from all backgrounds, races, creeds, wealth groups, etc., etc., etc. There's no logical basis for saying "you hang out with rich people therefore you can't care about poor people". At best its an opinion, but there's no fact you can possibly provide to support it. You may have your own feelings, based on your class prejudices, but there's no truth to it, and no basis for relating those two statements as lies, or even as being incongruous. |
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07/23/2004 02:31:10 PM · #1083 |
Originally posted by GeneralE:
"some call you the elite -- I call you my base" |
Can't anyone take a joke? |
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07/23/2004 03:15:44 PM · #1084 |
Originally posted by thelsel:
Originally posted by GeneralE:
"some call you the elite -- I call you my base" |
Can't anyone take a joke? |
"This is an impressive crowd of the haves and have mores," he said. "Some people call you the elite, I call you my base."
Doesn't sound exactly like a joke to me ... and after this many years he can't even come up with new material? At least he remembered his line ...
Message edited by author 2004-07-23 15:16:00. |
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07/23/2004 03:38:59 PM · #1085 |
Originally posted by ScottK:
There's no logical basis for saying "you hang out with rich people therefore you can't care about poor people". |
There is every logical basis for saying that. There is a reason most rich people vote republican. |
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07/23/2004 03:52:35 PM · #1086 |
Originally posted by MadMordegon:
Originally posted by ScottK:
There's no logical basis for saying "you hang out with rich people therefore you can't care about poor people". |
There is every logical basis for saying that ... |
8000 years of recorded economic history has shown that it takes between 100 and 1000 "poor" people to support each rich person.
The truth: "In America, anybody can become rich."
The myth: "In America, everybody can become rich."
It can't happen, and the rich (especially in America) have shown an unreasoning tenacity in not only retaining but acquiring ever-greater wealth, all the while trying to claim they are annointed by the God of Christ to morally lead the "free world."
The world has perhaps never known greater hypocrisy.
Message edited by author 2004-07-23 15:53:17. |
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07/23/2004 03:55:45 PM · #1087 |
| Could it be they are RICH because they are smarter or work harder than average Democrat? Just maybe? |
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07/23/2004 04:29:38 PM · #1088 |
Originally posted by David Ey:
Could it be they are RICH because they are smarter or work harder than average Democrat? Just maybe? |
That has nothing to do with the topic at hand. |
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07/23/2004 05:19:42 PM · #1089 |
| Isn't Kerry stinking rich? |
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07/23/2004 06:41:55 PM · #1090 |
No, it has to do with your last statement, which was...."There is every logical basis for saying that. There is a reason most rich people vote republican."
Originally posted by MadMordegon:
Originally posted by David Ey:
Could it be they are RICH because they are smarter or work harder than average Democrat? Just maybe? |
That has nothing to do with the topic at hand. |
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07/23/2004 06:52:49 PM · #1091 |
Originally posted by louddog:
Isn't Kerry stinking rich? |
Ya he married a sugar mama, lucky bastard. |
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07/23/2004 06:57:09 PM · #1092 |
Originally posted by David Ey:
No, it has to do with your last statement, which was...."There is every logical basis for saying that. There is a reason most rich people vote republican."
Originally posted by MadMordegon:
Originally posted by David Ey:
Could it be they are RICH because they are smarter or work harder than average Democrat? Just maybe? |
That has nothing to do with the topic at hand. |
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Well, that would be one hell of a coincidence.
More likely, its because most the republican ways suit the rich. |
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07/23/2004 08:35:57 PM · #1093 |
Originally posted by David Ey:
Could it be they are RICH because they are smarter or work harder than average Democrat? Just maybe? |
Here's an exerpt from this interview with someone who was "born rich" and has seen the "right" from the inside. I actually have an even more specific quotation from another interview, but no time right now to type it in ...
HESS: No. I still believe in the same' things I've always believed in.
PLOWBOY: Which are?
HESS: Individualism. Self-reliance. Decentralization. Individual responsibility.
PLOWBOY: Those seem to be rather strange commodities to expect from the left.
HESS: Maybe so. But I'm no doctrinaire liberal. I don't now believe in the welfare state any more than I once really believed in the warfare state. I'm still holding out for the same old values I always supported the only difference is that I've changed my mind about the identity of the good guys and the bad guys. The New Left now seems to me to be espousing the causes that the Old Right once stood up for: individual responsibility and self-determination.
PLOWBOY: And you no longer feel that the right ran deliver such values?
HESS: No. Not since it was captured by corporate capitalism. The right still talks about self-reliance and free enterprise and individualism, you know, but it delivers something else entirely. It delivers bureaucracy and collectivism.
Corporate capitalism, in fact, is the worst enemy that free enterprise currently has in this country. To be quite blunt about it, the big guys are very deliberately using our "free enterprise" system to stamp out the little guys. But don't take my word for it, look at the statistics: There are fewer and fewer independently owned businesses--per capita-here in the United States every day.
PLOWBOY: Is there any similarity between this pressure being exerted by America's big businesses and, say, the collectivism of Soviet Russia?
HESS: Certainly. They're much the same. In the Soviet Union, the economy is developed under the ownership of a bureaucracy which shot its way to power, while in the United States exactly the same pattern exists except that our collectivists just buy their way to power. In either instance, the final result is the same: You owe your loyalty to the collective unit the corporation or the state, as the case may be. You're subordinated to its plans and processes.
There's no essential difference in the kind of world that either the large corporations of the U.S. or the collectives of the U.S.S.R. would impose on us. Back in the thirties, in fact, Jim Burnham wrote a book, The Managerial Revolution, in which he said that a DuPont bureaucrat could join a planning commission in the Soviet Union and never even know he'd changed jobs!
PLOWBOY: And the point is ?
HESS: The point is that bigness just doesn't work in business, government, or any other kind of organization. Capitalist or communist. Bureaucracy always screws the little guy it always makes his life worse instead of better. And it always gets in its own way. |
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07/23/2004 09:32:04 PM · #1094 |
From:
this interview
"PLOWBOY: Then despite your distaste for Big Government and Big Business, despite your sadness at the way we've raped the natural resources of this continent and the rest of the world, despite your differences with the Internal Revenue Service, and despite having your nose rubbed in the lethargy, crime, misuse of power, and other ills of our society despite all this, you're still optimistic about the future of the United States?
HESS: Yes. By and large, this is still a healthy country. Healthy because of the people who live here. Oh, we've got a few bad apples crooked politicians, people corrupted by the welfare system, and rich parasites who are loafers and high livers-but they're still not the majority. Go to any small town in America and you'll find that most of the people there are generous, trusting, honest, and hardworking they still have the virtues of their grandparents. "
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As I recall the Democrats (Gore) carried few of the small town type voters. His electoral votes came from highly populated metro areas full of special interest groups and welfare recepients.
Actually it makes little diference which party is elected. I had rather there be a fool as president than one who thinks we are fool enough to believe his bs.
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07/25/2004 02:39:02 PM · #1095 |
Full article here.
The "Demonstration Zone" at the Democratic National Convention:
An "Irretrievably Sad" Affront to the First Amendment
By Michael Avery
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Sunday 25 July 2004
Demonstrators who want to be within sight and sound of the delegates entering and leaving the Democratic National Convention at the Fleet Center in Boston this coming week will be forced to protest in a special "demonstration zone" adjacent to the terminal where buses carrying the delegates will arrive. The zone is large enough only for 1000 persons to safely congregate and is bounded by two chain link fences separated by concrete highway barriers. The outermost fence is covered with black mesh that is designed to repel liquids. Much of the area is under an abandoned elevated train line. The zone is covered by another black net which is topped by razor wire. There will be no sanitary facilities in the zone and tables and chairs will not be permitted. There is no way for the demonstrators to pass written materials to the convention delegates.
The federal judge who heard a challenge to the demonstration zone by protest groups on July 22d stated in open court, "I, at first, thought before taking the view [of the site] that the characterizations of the space as being like an internment camp were litigation hyperbole. I now believe that it's an understatement. One cannot conceive of what other elements you would put in place to make a space more of an affront to the idea of free expression ..." Despite that, the judge denied the groups' challenge to the conditions and ruled that they were justified by concerns about the safety of the convention delegates. The hearing on the case and the judge's ruling contain important lessons about what has happened to freedom of speech during the War on Terror.
Following the lead of Attorney General Ashcroft, law enforcement officials in the United States have taken two steps that have been devastating to the exercise of free speech rights. First, principles and tactics that arguably, but only arguably, may sometimes be appropriate with respect to the conduct of war or the prevention of terrorism are now routinely employed with respect to ordinary law enforcement. Second, the focus has shifted from the punishment of people who have committed crimes to a strategy that pretends to be able to prevent crime. Taken together these steps have the consequence that not only those who have committed crimes are subject to control by law enforcement. Those who fall into general categories of people who are suspected of having the potential to commit criminal acts may also be monitored, physically controlled and in certain cases, detained, by law enforcement. |
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07/25/2004 02:52:46 PM · #1096 |
Ya I saw that General. I also saw an article on cnn recently talking about 2 people who were removed from a Bush speech because they were wearing anti bush t-shirts. They were standing along with the other people, listening quietly when security came and arrested them. They later were released from the police and the department apologized to them.
2nd amendment? But what about terrorists?!
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07/25/2004 03:10:05 PM · #1097 |
Because of few terrorists we are restricting many freedoms to 260 mil people,this is going too far !
They should educate citizens to become a part of the national defense,to watch,listen and report, but restricting freedom to protest or to photograph is ridiculous ! |
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07/25/2004 03:12:56 PM · #1098 |
| hey I agree with you Pitsaman: But think a moment: These few could render us history. |
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07/25/2004 03:15:45 PM · #1099 |
Originally posted by pitsaman:
Because of few terrorists we are restricting many freedoms to 260 mil people,this is going too far !
They should educate citizens to become a part of the national defense,to watch,listen and report, but restricting freedom to protest or to photograph is ridiculous ! |
I kinda see what you are saying......however a few terrorists can kill thousands of people...thats a fact.
If people were taken out and jailed because they had anti-Bush tee shirts...thats just silly. |
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07/25/2004 03:16:03 PM · #1100 |
Originally posted by graphicfunk:
hey I agree with you Pitsaman: But think a moment: These few could render us history. |
Then dig a bunker in your yard,stuffed it with food and water and live there !
USA used to be example of freedom in the world,any change will be self-destructive ! |
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