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Thread: Is the 911 Attack Triggering A Fourth Turning? - Page 94







Post#2326 at 08-02-2002 08:39 AM by Mikebert [at Kalamazoo MI joined Jul 2001 #posts 4,502]
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On 2002-08-01 20:24, Marc Lamb wrote:
Well, I don't think Reagan's veracity was as much an issue as his ideology was. And with that, everybody at least knew where Reagan stood and intended to do once elected.
Are you kidding? For decades the GOP had stood for fiscal conservatism. It was the Democrats with their embrace of Keynesian stimulus that believed deficit spending was sometimes justifiable.

Reagan intended to move the GOP to fiscal liberalism and lied about his intentions. To get over opposition to his tax plan from fiscal conservatives, Reagan used "voodoo economics" to argue that cutting taxes would increase revenues enough to balance the budget.

In other words he said that the GOP could cut taxes and still be the party of fiscal conservatism. This was another lie, in reality the budget deficit got much worse under Reagan as common sense said it would have to.

Now it turned out that Reagan's plan to move the GOP to fiscal liberalism woked like a charm in the 1980's and all was forgiven. But he did lie and deliberately mislead GOP voters.

After GOP shift to fiscal liberalism under Reagan the Democrats became fiscal conservatives, by default. Of course their party was full of old style liberals who had been fiscal liberals for decades. These liberals were branded as "tax and spend liberals". Many either lost their seats to Republicans or fiscally conservative "New Democrats", or changed into fiscal conservatives.

Clinton was a New Democrat, meaning he was not an old-style fiscal liberal (i.e. Mondale or Dukakis). A New Democrat presidency meant shrinking deficts while a GOP presidency meant continued big deficits. Clinton promised a "middle class" tax cut in the election. But this promise was against the new Democratic plank of fiscal conservativism. It was logical to assume that this promise would be abandoned to the larger goal of a balanced budget.

So Reagan's lies were much more misleading than Clinton's lies.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Mike Alexander '59 on 2002-08-02 06:46 ]</font>







Post#2327 at 08-02-2002 08:55 AM by Mikebert [at Kalamazoo MI joined Jul 2001 #posts 4,502]
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On 2002-08-01 20:45, Marc Lamb wrote:

I clearly recall the Drug industry coming under a strong attack by the Clinton administration in 1993, Mike. Do you favor the federal government taking over this industry as Hillary was itching to do? Just curious.
The drug companies come under attack during all the recessions. They are now too. It's a good time to buy their stock (as I have recently). There was no concern at my company (then Upjohn) about the Clinton health plan.

Of course I don't favor a Federal takeover of the drug industry. But I don't recall anyone at my company talking about a Federal takeover of the drug industry ten years ago. I'm sure I would remember that. Where did you get this idea that the Federal government was planning to nationalize the pharmaceutical industry?







Post#2328 at 08-02-2002 09:08 AM by The Wonkette [at Arlington, VA 1956 joined Jul 2002 #posts 9,209]
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On 2002-08-01 18:11, Mike Alexander '59 wrote:
On 2002-08-01 16:00, Marc Lamb wrote:
The main issue in 1992 was that Clinton was a liar. He claimed to be a "new Democrat" and came out promising middle class tax cuts and all. He was lying of course.
The main issue in 1980 was that Reagan was a liar. He claimed to be fiscally responsible and came out promising to balance the budget and all. He was lying of course.
To be fair, Reagan wanted to cut government spending. However, it didn't happen -- hence the huge deficits.

For that reason, I don't know if Reagan was lying or engaging in wishful thinking.
I want people to know that peace is possible even in this stupid day and age. Prem Rawat, June 8, 2008







Post#2329 at 08-02-2002 09:08 AM by The Wonkette [at Arlington, VA 1956 joined Jul 2002 #posts 9,209]
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On 2002-08-01 18:11, Mike Alexander '59 wrote:
On 2002-08-01 16:00, Marc Lamb wrote:
The main issue in 1992 was that Clinton was a liar. He claimed to be a "new Democrat" and came out promising middle class tax cuts and all. He was lying of course.
The main issue in 1980 was that Reagan was a liar. He claimed to be fiscally responsible and came out promising to balance the budget and all. He was lying of course.
To be fair, Reagan wanted to cut government spending. However, it didn't happen -- hence the huge deficits.

For that reason, I don't know if Reagan was lying or engaging in wishful thinking.
I want people to know that peace is possible even in this stupid day and age. Prem Rawat, June 8, 2008







Post#2330 at 08-02-2002 09:11 AM by The Wonkette [at Arlington, VA 1956 joined Jul 2002 #posts 9,209]
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On 2002-08-01 16:00, Marc Lamb wrote:
The main issue in 1992 was that Clinton was a liar. He claimed to be a "new Democrat" and came out promising middle class tax cuts and all. He was lying of course.
When Clinton was campaigning, the country was widely perceived to be in recession, a time when tax cuts are an appropriate fiscal stimulus (actually, the recession ended a bit earlier, but unemployment usually lags and was still high during Campaign 92). By the time he took office and began putting out his budget, the economy was clearly recovering. So there were solid fiscal grounds for abandoning a tax cut.
I want people to know that peace is possible even in this stupid day and age. Prem Rawat, June 8, 2008







Post#2331 at 08-02-2002 09:30 AM by Marx & Lennon [at '47 cohort still lost in Falwelland joined Sep 2001 #posts 16,709]
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Marc,

The <u>Office of Independent Council</u> was designed to be immune to political pressure, but the method of selecting prosecutors almost guarantees parisanship. Just look at the process.

The prosecutors are appointed by a <u>Special Division of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia</u>, and that "division" is appointed by one man - the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

You can argue that Rehnquist is not partisan, but he is absolutely a staunch ideologue. His <u>Special Division</u> appointments have been consistent in choosing very conservative judges, and there is no requirement that they ever be replaced. Rehnquist's predecessor was Burger: less ideological but plenty partisan. They are the only two to hold that august position since the statute was enacted.

Anyone with a few operatinal neurons can draw reasonable conclusions, but I leave it to you to research this to the bottom of the barrel. I'm just not that interested.
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.







Post#2332 at 08-02-2002 09:47 AM by DOC 62 [at Western Kentucky joined Sep 2001 #posts 85]
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If I am not mistaken, it was a Democratic congress under Reagan which increased spending causing a deficit, and a Republican congress under Clinton which passed the first balanced budget in decades.







Post#2333 at 08-02-2002 10:07 AM by Marx & Lennon [at '47 cohort still lost in Falwelland joined Sep 2001 #posts 16,709]
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On 2002-08-02 07:47, DOC 62 wrote:

If I am not mistaken, it was a Democratic congress under Reagan which increased spending causing a deficit, and a Republican congress under Clinton which passed the first balanced budget in decades.


Been listening to Rush again, I see. Well, even a cursory look at the US political system shows that Congressional power has been on the wane since the mid-nineteenth century. Today, it would take a Congress with overwhelming majorities by one party in both houses for the Congress to lead on anything.


For good or ill, we live in a Presidential Republic. At most, the Congress can obstruct - shutting-down the government, for instance, but that's another story. What gets enacted is one version of the President's program or another, unless the President is a wimp, of course.
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.







Post#2334 at 08-02-2002 10:30 AM by Stonewall Patton [at joined Sep 2001 #posts 3,857]
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On 2002-08-02 06:39, Mike Alexander '59 wrote:
On 2002-08-01 20:24, Marc Lamb wrote:
Well, I don't think Reagan's veracity was as much an issue as his ideology was. And with that, everybody at least knew where Reagan stood and intended to do once elected.
Are you kidding? For decades the GOP had stood for fiscal conservatism. It was the Democrats with their embrace of Keynesian stimulus that believed deficit spending was sometimes justifiable.

Reagan intended to move the GOP to fiscal liberalism and lied about his intentions. To get over opposition to his tax plan from fiscal conservatives, Reagan used "voodoo economics" to argue that cutting taxes would increase revenues enough to balance the budget.
Mike, Reagan's tax cuts DID increase tax revenues, and substantially at that. However the increased revenues did not cover the even more substantial increases in budget expenditures. I don't know that it is fair to say that Reagan lied about balancing the budget. Yes, he failed to fulfill that promise but that does not mean that he knew from the beginning that his tax changes would not cover all expenditures at any time.








Post#2335 at 08-02-2002 11:20 AM by Mikebert [at Kalamazoo MI joined Jul 2001 #posts 4,502]
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On 2002-08-01 16:00, Marc Lamb wrote:
You all said that character "didn't matter". And of course it hasn't until now. Now Bush is "corrupt" and all that.

How come character matters now anyway?
Corruption in Bush's case isn't a character issue. An example of a character issue would be drug use. More hay was made about Clinton's marijuana use than Bush's cocaine use and alcoholism, but in the end neither of them mattered.

The kind of corruption associated with Bush has to do with his worldview, his paradigm, not with any failing in his personal morality. The absence of any negative consequences from his irresponsibility as a younger man and the way he made his money has corrupted his worldview. Its like the way lax parenting can "spoil" a child.

Bush simply cannot perceive conflicts of interest as a problem. His paradigm prevents him from doing so. It has nothing to do with whether he is morally upright or not.

You show some of this same pardigm by your opinion that lying by businessmen is no different than lying by government officials. It's like the parents who cannot see their spoiled child's behavior for what it is--although everybody else can!

There is a HUGE difference between personal immorality like Clinton's lying and corruption. The financial markets can percieve this difference! Compare how the markets responded to Clinton's perjury compared to accounting lies. There was no harm done to innocent bystanders by Clinton's perjury. This was not the case with accounting lies which cost thousands of innocent bystanders their savings and/or their jobs.

Dealing with the unpleasant consequences of the corrupt paradigm will be one of the major tasks of the 4T. It's what turnings are all about IMO.







Post#2336 at 08-02-2002 02:43 PM by Mikebert [at Kalamazoo MI joined Jul 2001 #posts 4,502]
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On 2002-08-02 08:30, Stonewall Patton wrote:
Mike, Reagan's tax cuts DID increase tax revenues, and substantially at that. However the increased revenues did not cover the even more substantial increases in budget expenditures. I don't know that it is fair to say that Reagan lied about balancing the budget. Yes, he failed to fulfill that promise but that does not mean that he knew from the beginning that his tax changes would not cover all expenditures at any time.
Revenue fell after the tax cuts and did not return to where they had been for five years.



Reagan did know that the tax cuts would produce huge deficits. His budget director Stockman made that clear. He went ahead with them anyways because it was his intent to produce huge deficits.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Mike Alexander '59 on 2002-08-02 12:46 ]</font>







Post#2337 at 08-02-2002 02:55 PM by Mikebert [at Kalamazoo MI joined Jul 2001 #posts 4,502]
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On 2002-08-02 07:47, DOC 62 wrote:
If I am not mistaken, it was a Democratic congress under Reagan which increased spending causing a deficit, and a Republican congress under Clinton which passed the first balanced budget in decades.
It was a split Congress from 1981-87, GOP Senate and Democratic House. Congress was Democratic from 1987-95 and Republican from 1995-2001. Since 2001 it was been split again, this time a Democratic Senate and a GOP House.







Post#2338 at 08-02-2002 03:02 PM by Marx & Lennon [at '47 cohort still lost in Falwelland joined Sep 2001 #posts 16,709]
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Mike,

I agree completely with your premise that the deficits were intentional.

Much is made of the Kennedy tax cut as a predictor of the Reagan cuts. In fact, this was the core argument for them. Of course, Kennedy atarted with extremely high marginal rates (~90%, if memory serves). If there is a Laffer Curve, it certainly applies to 90% rates. Of course, Reagan didn';t have 90% rates to cut; he started from much lower levels.

The actual results were easily predicable by any fool, and Stockman was no fool. He knew that the treasury would be bare, but that was OK. It kept the Democrats from spending on social programs, an overall "good" in the conservative playbook. Reagan had to be on-board with that thinking, or he was asleep at the wheel from day one.

Of course a sleeping Reagan is a possibility.
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.







Post#2339 at 08-02-2002 03:11 PM by Stonewall Patton [at joined Sep 2001 #posts 3,857]
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On 2002-08-02 12:43, Mike Alexander '59 wrote:

Revenue fell after the tax cuts and did not return to where they had been for five years.
As your chart demonstrates, revenue fell for the next year or two until we came out of the recession in 1983, at which point it continued to increase through the duration of Reagan's term and on into the first Bush administration. There is a delay between the time of passage of any tax cut and any resulting spur in the economy. As soon as the economy turned around, so did revenues.








Post#2340 at 08-02-2002 04:34 PM by Virgil K. Saari [at '49er, north of the Mesabi Mountains joined Jun 2001 #posts 7,835]
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On 2002-08-02 13:11, Stonewall Patton wrote:
On 2002-08-02 12:43, Mike Alexander '59 wrote:

Revenue fell after the tax cuts and did not return to where they had been for five years.
As your chart demonstrates, revenue fell for the next year or two until we came out of the recession in 1983, at which point it continued to increase through the duration of Reagan's term and on into the first Bush administration. There is a delay between the time of passage of any tax cut and any resulting spur in the economy. As soon as the economy turned around, so did revenues.

The cuts also kicked in in yearly increments for three years...it seems that people who could wait, will wait to get the greater reduction in Mr. Alexander's graph and the greater volume of assets converted and taxed lead to an upswing.







Post#2341 at 08-03-2002 12:43 AM by R. Gregory '67 [at Arizona joined Sep 2001 #posts 114]
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Post#2342 at 08-03-2002 01:54 AM by alias [at joined Jul 2002 #posts 82]
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Reagan RAISED payroll taxes with passage of the Social Security Reform Act of 1983.




<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: alias on 2002-08-03 00:33 ]</font>







Post#2343 at 08-05-2002 12:40 PM by Marx & Lennon [at '47 cohort still lost in Falwelland joined Sep 2001 #posts 16,709]
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On 2002-08-02 23:54, alias wrote:

Reagan RAISED payroll taxes with passage of the Social Security Reform Act of 1983.
... and used the money as general revenue. Not only did he give to rich, he stole from the poor. He was the GOP's very own Robbing Hood. What a sweetheart.

Question: is the ability to pull-of a ruse like this unique to an early 3T? After all, Reagan's most vehement supporters were working-class white males with highschool or less education. Why they would find it desirable to subsidize upper-class white males with degrees from Ivy League schools is a mystery to me Maybe its the white-male thing.
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.







Post#2344 at 08-05-2002 12:52 PM by Stonewall Patton [at joined Sep 2001 #posts 3,857]
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On 2002-08-05 10:40, David '47 wrote:

... and used the money as general revenue. Not only did he give to rich, he stole from the poor. He was the GOP's very own Robbing Hood. What a sweetheart.
Interesting comparison. The real life Robin Hood did not steal from the rich to give to the poor. He stole from a criminal government in order to return the money to the tax payers. Reagan might be regarded as a true Robin Hood and not the mythical one which is a result of socialists twisting the facts.

Question: is the ability to pull-of a ruse like this unique to an early 3T? After all, Reagan's most vehement supporters were working-class white males with highschool or less education.
I would say that they were middle class white males. The upper class is more partial to the Rockefeller-Bush flavor of mercantilistic consolidation of power and control, and the lower class typically goes for the Democrats. Reagan united elements of the lower class with middle class capitalists in opposition to upper class mercantilists. I would say that is quite an achievement and something we desperately need to see again.








Post#2345 at 08-05-2002 03:03 PM by Marx & Lennon [at '47 cohort still lost in Falwelland joined Sep 2001 #posts 16,709]
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On 2002-08-05 10:52, Stonewall Patton wrote:
On 2002-08-05 10:40, David '47 wrote:

... and used the money as general revenue. Not only did he give to rich, he stole from the poor. He was the GOP's very own Robbing Hood. What a sweetheart.
Interesting comparison. The real life Robin Hood did not steal from the rich to give to the poor. He stole from a criminal government in order to return the money to the tax payers. Reagan might be regarded as a true Robin Hood and not the mythical one which is a result of socialists twisting the facts.

Regardless of your opinion of Reagan as a leader, you cannot deny that he reduced taxes on the most well-to-do, and replaced them with the most regressive "tax" collected by any government in the US. And once the Payroll Tax became less a retirement/disability program and more a general funding source, the justification for it began to wane. I'm sure this was also on the Reagan platter. I'll be interested to see whether the Reaganites still like the ideaq when they find the Social Securtiy cupboard is bare. Maybe they'll blame Clinton.


Question: is the ability to pull-off a ruse like this unique to an early 3T? After all, Reagan's most vehement supporters were working-class white males with highschool or less education.
I would say that they were middle class white males. The upper class is more partial to the Rockefeller-Bush flavor of mercantilistic consolidation of power and control, and the lower class typically goes for the Democrats. Reagan united elements of the lower class with middle class capitalists in opposition to upper class mercantilists. I would say that is quite an achievement and something we desperately need to see again.
I fail to see the revolution you describe. Yes, Reagan lured the lower-middle class - mainly by divisive tactics. Get the have-nots and have-lesses to blame each other, and make "common cause" with the most useful half.


I didn't see the upperclasses opposing any of this, though. It was right up their alley. It's similar to the old Baptist preachers the coal companies paid to accuse the unionists of being godless. A good salesman can sell any brand of snake oil if he knows his customer.
Marx: Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.
Lennon: You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.







Post#2346 at 08-05-2002 07:30 PM by Stonewall Patton [at joined Sep 2001 #posts 3,857]
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On 2002-08-05 13:03, David '47 wrote:

I fail to see the revolution you describe.
I did not and would not call it a revolution because it was never completed...thanks to the likes of Bushes Sr. and Jr.

Yes, Reagan lured the lower-middle class - mainly by divisive tactics. Get the have-nots and have-lesses to blame each other, and make "common cause" with the most useful half.


I didn't see the upperclasses opposing any of this, though. It was right up their alley. It's similar to the old Baptist preachers the coal companies paid to accuse the unionists of being godless. A good salesman can sell any brand of snake oil if he knows his customer.
In fact, the upper classes never could stand Reagan...or Goldwater. If you recall '64, the Rockefeller-supporting upper class types abandoned Goldwater and were quite open in their contempt. Similarly, they had no use for Reagan either and he had to fight like hell to overcome the power of the Republican establishment, first in '76 and finally in '80. "I paid for this microphone!" He had to fight like hell even to be heard over all the establishment empty suits like Bush Sr.

The Republican Party in this saeculum has never been the monolithic force it is seen as on the Left. In fact, it has been an uneasy marriage of more libertarian middle class capitalists and more authoritarian upper class mercantilists. But for the Cold War, the two factions would have had nothing to do with each other. Since the end of the Cold War, the Party has been splintering, fracturing, and shrinking, with the Bush-type mercantilist empty suits consolidating absolute control over the party apparatus. Today we see the bizarre spectacle of more libertarian middle class capitalist types supporting in Bush Jr. the empty-suited mercantilists whom they historically could not stand, merely out of fear that the Democrats might take control. But the Republican Party still is not a monolithic force. In fact it is held together today by weaker bonds than at any other time in this saeculum.

Leftists who assert that Reagan was just like the Bushes and Rockefellers and that the upper classes loved him show the same faulty perception as Rightists who assert that Clinton was a liberal. Of course Clinton was nothing of the kind. He was in fact nothing at all and would be a conservative tomorrow if the votes went that way. Fortunately, I think people on both sides are now starting to see the fine -- and not so fine -- distinctions in the opposing side and this facilitates realignment. The Republican Party never has been any more monolothic than the Democratic Party in this saeculum.








Post#2347 at 08-06-2002 09:02 AM by [at joined #posts ]
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<FONT SIZE="+1">"Marc, you're irrationally obsessed. Really."</FONT> --Brian Rush (2001-11-30 16:50)

Mr. Rushbo's response to a story I posted back in November:

Posted: 2001-11-30 15:42 (Financial Crisis thread)

So I guess we can blame 911 on those "[un]HOSTILE Republicans/Democrats in Congress" who didn't "keep tabs on" our former Coward in Chief:

Clinton Has No Clothes
What 9/11 revealed about the ex-president.

<center>

"On Monday, the Pew Research Center released a poll finding that the media has lost favor with the American public and is now down to pre-September 11th levels when it comes to respect and credibility. On the very same day, Time magazine comes up with this silly "useful idiot" story that the Clinton administration had an Al-Qaeda elimination plan all set to go and the Bush administration ignored it, leading to the September 11th attacks. Clearly this Time magazine piece is the result of the ongoing Clinton legacy rebuilding effort.

The Bush people deny this is true, but we'll have to spend the next few days refuting this - just as we did that hit piece on Cheney and Halliburton. To believe this Time piece, you'd have to believe that Clinton kept silent about this for 11 months, when we know he'd have released it on September 12th to defend himself against charges he failed to deal with bin Laden. You'd have to believe that at the same time Bill Clinton was immersed in the Marc Rich pardon, he was equally immersed in getting rid of Osama bin Laden.

You'd have to believe that Sandy Berger and all the other Clinton people who scream whenever Bush wants to drop a bomb, were the meanest, toughest hawks ever when they ran the show. You'd have to believe that Clinton - who refused to take custody of bin Laden two times when the Sudanese offered him and who never even bothered to visit the World Trade Center site (he only got as far as New Jersey) after the first bombing - understood the gravity of the threat these thugs presented. You'd have to believe that, as the piece notes, the same administration that weakened our ability to infiltrate Al-Qaeda by doing things like banning the CIA from hiring unsavory characters, had a real commitment to national security.</center>

<center>

We rolled audio of Clinton from DC's WJLA TV about the corporate scandals his corruption laid the groundwork for, and it's clear that he does not sit on this kind of stuff. He still responds right out of the box in his psycho style. Clinton said that if he's responsible for the accounting scandals, then Bush 41 is responsible for what happened in Black Hawk Down. Forget for a second that only the Maha Rushie has talked about that movie lately; remember instead how the elder Bush started that as a peacekeeping mission, and Clinton turned it into nation building.

Clinton's Al-Qaeda plan, even if it did exist which it didn't, was a "rollback" plan, anyway. The Bush Doctrine is a plan to defeat their ass. Clinton has to be at the center of everything. Just look how Bush went to Pennsylvania to meet those nine miners. Clinton would have been on hand upstaging everyone. He would have jumped off the machine when the first miner came up, shoved the man's wife out of the way and said, "I did this for you because I care." Our new president waited until it was all over with, the family reunions have taken place and the media attention has died down before he visits. There was no attempt to capitalize on this politically.

People say we can't let Clinton go, but you Can't Avoid Clinton - it's a CAC day again! I mean, does it sound like Clinton had a plan and Bush didn't, and when Bush was given the plan, he said, "The hell with it." We did some substantive analysis of this Time magazine piece, which you can hear in the audio links below. A snide, sniveling liberal listener named Diedrick challenged me to do just that, showing his idiocy because I'd already done it. Asking me not to share his full name because all of you are "rabid," he now has the chance to hear the truth - do you think he'll have the courage to believe it?

Don't believe for a second that our disgraced former president handed off the perfect plan to the incoming Bush administration and the Bush administration dropped the ball. Clinton ignored a federal report that he received telling him about Al-Qaeda's plan discovered by Philippine cops in 1995. He only met with his CIA director twice in eight years. He had no interest in international affairs at all - which is why I smell a liberal rat in this story." --Rush Limbaugh</center>


December 5, 2001 LA Times story
<FONT SIZE="+2">Clinton Let Bin Laden Slip Away and Metastasize</FONT>

By MANSOOR IJAZ
President Clinton and his national security team ignored several opportunities to capture Osama bin Laden and his terrorist associates, including one as late as last year.

I know because I negotiated more than one of the opportunities.

From 1996 to 1998, I opened unofficial channels between Sudan and the Clinton administration. I met with officials in both countries, including Clinton, U.S. National Security Advisor Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger and Sudan's president and intelligence chief. President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir, who wanted terrorism sanctions against Sudan lifted, offered the arrest and extradition of Bin Laden and detailed intelligence data about the global networks constructed by Egypt's Islamic Jihad, Iran's Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas.

Among those in the networks were the two hijackers who piloted commercial airliners into the World Trade Center.


More...




<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Marc Lamb on 2002-08-06 07:03 ]</font>







Post#2348 at 08-06-2002 09:09 AM by Marx & Lennon [at '47 cohort still lost in Falwelland joined Sep 2001 #posts 16,709]
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On 2002-08-05 13:03, David '47 wrote:

I fail to see the revolution you describe.
... to which Stonewall Patton replied:

I did not and would not call it a revolution because it was never completed...thanks to the likes of Bushes Sr. and Jr.

To be honest, I'm not at all upset by that. It's not that the Corporatist Right is to my liking, but Reagan's plan looked remarkabley like the Hollywood version of Russian Roulette

Yes, Reagan lured the lower-middle class - mainly by divisive tactics. Get the have-nots and have-lesses to blame each other, and make "common cause" with the most useful half.


I didn't see the upperclasses opposing any of this, though. It was right up their alley. It's similar to the old Baptist preachers the coal companies paid to accuse the unionists of being godless. A good salesman can sell any brand of snake oil if he knows his customer.
In fact, the upper classes never could stand Reagan...or Goldwater. If you recall '64, the Rockefeller-supporting upper class types abandoned Goldwater and were quite open in their contempt. Similarly, they had no use for Reagan either and he had to fight like hell to overcome the power of the Republican establishment, first in '76 and finally in '80. "I paid for this microphone!" He had to fight like hell even to be heard over all the establishment empty suits like Bush Sr.

I hope you don't expect me to disagree with this. Of course the Rockefeller Republicans were initially opposed - they always prefer a lap dog to an attack dog, but any dog will do in a storm.

The Republican Party in this saeculum has never been the monolithic force it is seen as on the Left. In fact, it has been an uneasy marriage of more libertarian middle class capitalists and more authoritarian upper class mercantilists. But for the Cold War, the two factions would have had nothing to do with each other...

Perhaps, but I refer you to the thirty odd years of almost monolithic Republican voting in the House and Senate. There were very few Republican mavericks. That was no less true under the Republican Revolution crowd as it was earlier under the Rocky GOPs. The only fracture I see now is the more sane moving away from the actions of the ridiculous leadership, like Armey and De Lay. That's an improvement, in my book.

Since the end of the Cold War, the Party has been splintering, fracturing, and shrinking, with the Bush-type mercantilist empty suits consolidating absolute control over the party apparatus. Today we see the bizarre spectacle of more libertarian middle class capitalist types supporting in Bush Jr. the empty-suited mercantilists whom they historically could not stand, merely out of fear that the Democrats might take control...

Does this include the likes of De Lay and Armey? I don't think of them as anything even similar to the old Rockefeller wing. They're Cowboy GOPs, and you can claim them or not - your choice.

But the Republican Party still is not a monolithic force. In fact it is held together today by weaker bonds than at any other time in this saeculum...

I await the fracture with bated breath. So far, they've acted pretty monolithic - witness the Clinton impeachment debacle. In fact, the impeachment may be the first indication that the Democrats are learning that same bad habit.

Leftists who assert that Reagan was just like the Bushes and Rockefellers and that the upper classes loved him show the same faulty perception as Rightists who assert that Clinton was a liberal. Of course Clinton was nothing of the kind. He was in fact nothing at all and would be a conservative tomorrow if the votes went that way. Fortunately, I think people on both sides are now starting to see the fine -- and not so fine -- distinctions in the opposing side and this facilitates realignment. The Republican Party never has been any more monolothic than the Democratic Party in this saeculum.

I agree that Reagan was a lot of things, but a Rockefeller Republican is not one of them. I don't find that to be a plus ... or a minus either. Reagan was dangerous in a short term explosive way. The Rockfellers are more insideous. Is that a Hobson's choice, or what?

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Intelligence is not knowledge and knowledge is not wisdom, but they all play well together :wink:

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: David '47 on 2002-08-06 07:16 ]</font>







Post#2349 at 08-06-2002 09:13 AM by Marx & Lennon [at '47 cohort still lost in Falwelland joined Sep 2001 #posts 16,709]
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08-06-2002, 09:13 AM #2349
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<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: David '47 on 2002-08-06 07:14 ]</font>







Post#2350 at 08-06-2002 09:33 AM by [at joined #posts ]
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08-06-2002, 09:33 AM #2350
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On 2002-08-05 13:03, David '47 wrote:

I fail to see the revolution you describe.

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... to which Stonewall Patton replied:

I did not and would not call it a revolution because it was never completed...thanks to the likes of Bushes Sr. and Jr.


Didn't Reagan pick Sr. as his VP... twice? Didn't Reagan freely hang his mantle upon Sr. at the end of his seceond term? Didn't the GOP freely nominate both Sr. and Jr. for the office of President three times?

Let us restate that Patton quote, shall we:
I did not and would not call it a revolution because it was never completed...thanks to the desire of the American people.

Hey folks, this ain't rocket science but at least try and get the facts in order, k? :smile:



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