This was also good.



"Mill, at odds with Coleridge all down the intellectual and political line, nevertheless urged all liberals to become acquainted with this powerful conservative mind. He said that the prayer of every true partisan of liberalism should be, "Lord, enlighten thou our enemies...; sharpen their wits, give acuteness to their perceptions and consecutiveness and clearness to their reasoning powers. We are in danger from their folly, not from their wisdom: their weakness is what fills us with apprehension, not their strength."

Steve Barrera '66 wrote

"Hanson's column suggests that America's individualist qualities would limit the power of any "FDR"'s who came along."

One might consider another take on the former "gray champion" and "How he, already an Elk, Odd Fellow, 32nd degree Mason and joiner of a score more clubs and societies, joined the Improved Order of Red Man and the Tall Cedars of Lebanon in 1930, the American Philatelic Society and the Academie Diplomatique Internationale in 1931, etc. etc., the Maccabees last week."

More at...
http://www.time.com/time/special/moy/thirties.html

Year One
We didn't change, after all.
by Charles Krauthammer
The Weekly Standard
09/09/2002, Volume 007, Issue 48


WE DIDN'T CHANGE after all. Things changed, yes. Flags waved. A president emerged. The economy slid. The enemy scattered. Politics cooled. The allies rallied. The allies chafed. Politics returned.

But we didn't change. We thought we would. After the shock of the bolt from the blue, it was said that we would never be the same. That it was the end of irony. That the pose of knowing detachment with which we went to bed September 10 was gone for good.

Not so. Before the first year was out, it was back, all of it. Irony. Triviality. Vulgarity. Frivolousness. Whimsy. Farce. All the things no healthy society can live without.

We returned to normality. No, not the "new normality," that state of suspended apprehension that followed the first weeks of shock and fear. The new normality dissipated into the ether with amazing speed. During its brief few months of existence, it seemed reasonable to deputize the postman and the milkman and the cable guy to snoop around your house looking for suspicious characters. Today that TIPS program seems slightly loony, as it should to true normality.

True normality. Can you doubt it is back when the culture king of 2002 is Ozzy Osbourne, now locked with Anna Nicole Smith in a race to the cultural bottom? It's all back: reality TV, Geraldo on the scene, "Sex and the City," and every sequel known to man: "Austin Powers," "Stuart Little," "Men in Black," and Yoda, flying no less.

Last year's summer tizzy was shark attacks. After September 11, it seemed absurdly, self-indulgently trivial. After a real catastrophe, we'd not succumb again to media-manufactured scares. We wouldn't? This summer it is the child kidnapping epidemic, an invention of insatiable 24-hour cable news (there has been no increase in incidence, just coverage) catering to our perennial need for a fright-of-the-season.

As for irony, it is back by the shovelful. Of course, there was the decent interval during which Jay Leno would look plaintively at the audience after a gag that fell flat and say, "What do you expect? I can't do any 'stupid Bush' jokes anymore." Now, not a night goes by without a "stupid Bush" joke. Reverence for a sitting president is unnatural, abnormal. It couldn't last. It shouldn't. It didn't.

Perhaps we should have known a year ago. After all, no one speaks of the American character having been changed by Pearl Harbor. True, the war changed America, catalyzing technological advance, internal migration, and the emancipation of women and minorities. But those were the products of four years of war, not of one day of infamy. They were the residue of exertion, not of shock.

National character does not change in a day. September 11 did not alter the American character, it merely revealed it. It allowed--it forced--the emergence of a bedrock America of courage, resolve, resourcefulness, and, above all, resilience. What the enemy did not know (nor at that time did we, fully) was that beneath the shallowness and the triviality, the outward normality of America in post-Cold War repose, lay the sleeping giant that Admiral Yamamoto knew he had awakened on December 7, 1941, and that Osama bin Laden had no inkling he had awakened on September 11, 2001.

The world then witnessed an astonishing demonstration of resilience, the kind only a nation of continental size and prodigious productivity, of successful self-government and self-conscious spirituality could summon. The financial system, a target of the September 11 attack, was up and running within six days. The Pentagon never even shut down. An army of volunteers working 24 hours a day had ground zero ready for remembrance and reconstruction months before anyone expected. After anthrax, and the inevitable initial confusion, we were turning out antibodies against the new warfare as remorselessly as we turned out Liberty ships in World War II: mountains of antibiotics, tens of millions of doses of smallpox vaccine, new protocols, new training, new surveillance.

Most impressively, within weeks we had invented a new kind of warfare. A man on horseback guides bombs from a B-2 flying in from (and returning to) Missouri. The enemy--hardened and ready, girded and gloating, eager to bleed us in the fabled graveyard of empires--runs for his life, shattered.

The real story of the year since September 11 is the shoe that never dropped. At home and abroad, everyone thought it would. In the first weeks after the attack, people were afraid to fly, to move. Yet the second blow never came. That does not mean it never will. But how many predicted that we would go a year unscathed? How many thought that sheer resolve, fearsome technology, heightened vigilance, brute force, and a dragnet stretching from Yemen to the Philippines would make the jihadists the hunted and give us a year of respite?

The respite will not last if we simply look back with satisfaction on our initial resilience. The respite will not last if we see September 11 as just the anniversary of a tragedy, a remembrance of the fallen, a celebration of a day of courage. It was all that, of course. But it was much more. It was the opening salvo of the Great War of the 21st century, against an enemy as barbaric as any faced during the 20th.

This September 11 marks not just a day of infamy, but the close of Year One of that war. And to win it we will need to demonstrate--as we did in the other great wars of necessity--patience, endurance, determination, and a willingness to bear any burden.

That is a solemn calling, but it need not elicit grim solemnity. Success will require that both sides of the American character--the visible fluff and the (once) buried steel--remain in play. Last September 11, we thought that the one must banish the other. The great lesson, the great triumph, of Year One is that fury and grit did not drive out lightness and laughter. And a good thing too. To prevail in this long twilight struggle, we will need them all.

3T or 4T? Palmer Raids or something more serious?


http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/...643aug27.story

(For education and discussion purposes only)


Ashcroft Seeks to Abuse Use of 'Secret Court'

By Jonathan Turley
Jonathan Turley teaches constitutional law at George Washington University. This is from the Los Angeles Times.

August 27, 2002

For many citizens, the notion of an American "secret court" would appear a striking contradiction in terms. Until last week's disclosures by Congress, few Americans were aware that our government routinely used such a court to conduct searches of its own citizens for foreign intelligence gathering, searches that would be denied as unconstitutional by any conventional court. But this little-known court released to Congress a rare public opinion chastising Attorney General John Ashcroft and disclosing dozens of secret violations by the Justice Department.

Most alarming is the disclosure of a plan by Ashcroft to change the role of the court in spying on citizens. Not only would the court no longer have foreign intelligence gathering as its primary purpose, but Ashcroft's prosecutors would be in direct control of the use and dissemination of information gathered on citizens.

The opinion released Thursday details more than 75 cases in which the Justice Department supplied false information to the court to carry out secret searches. These are only the cases that the Justice Department itself has located and admitted. Moreover, the court rejected Ashcroft's effort to change its role in a way that would allow him to effectively circumvent the Fourth Amendment in future searches of citizens. The plan would allow a greater array of cases to bypass the federal courts, be exempted from basic constitutional requirements and then be handled in total secrecy.

The plan would create a one-stop convenience store for searches, avoiding the nasty constitutional traffic created by the nation's framers in requirements of probable cause and meaningful judicial review.

Perhaps the most chilling aspect of this opinion is not its disclosures but its source. This court has never rejected an application for surveillance despite more than 1,000 such applications each year. It has all the trappings and little of the substance of a real court. There is even a secret appellate court, which, until now, has never considered a challenge.

During my brief stint at the National Security Agency, I had occasion to appear before the secret court - known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, court.

My first reaction was that it appeared like a bad set for a "Get Smart" episode, with a series of doors and secret codes. The room that is sometimes portrayed as America's star chamber would make most traffic courts look grand in comparison. I'm not sure if it was the gravity of the actions taken by the court or the casual atmosphere that most disturbed me.

Ironically, FISA was enacted as a reform in the wake of the Watergate scandal.Richard Nixon previously asserted the right to conduct unilateral searches in the name of national security, and Congress sought a compromise to create some form of legal process and review. It was a compromise that many would come to regret. While the framers required the government to satisfy probable cause in any search or seizure, FISA allows secret searches of citizens without meeting that standard.

That was not the only change.

Under federal law, a citizen who is subject to a government wiretap is eventually notified of the intrusion. This creates a certain deterrent of government abuse.

Under FISA, a team can enter your home, quickly scrub your computer, wire your house, install a device to record every keystroke on your computer and rifle your files. There is little deterrent of abusive action because the victims are unaware that their privacy has been invaded.

It is not surprising that FISA has become the destination of choice for investigators with a hankering for a search but a paucity of evidence. While these searches were meant to be the exception rather than the rule, FISA eavesdropping orders now outnumber conventional ones.

In its opinion, the court acknowledges that "many hundreds of citizens" have been searched under its secret orders. Yet even this court could not stomach what Ashcroft demanded in secret papers.

Ashcroft went to the secret court to declare that, among other changes, it would now "be used primarily for a law-enforcement purpose" and not its original foreign intelligence-gathering purpose. The court refused to sign on to such an interpretation and refused to allow the expanded use of FISA material. Undeterred, Ashcroft is now appealing to the secret appellate court (once anyone can remember where it is or who is on it).

Abandoning its past custom of absolute secrecy, the court released this opinion as a warning to citizens. We should not expect the luxury of a second shot across the bow.

A column on the brutal treatment of those protesting Junior's visit to Portland:


The Constitution and political protests

By Carla Binion
Online Journal Contributing Editor

http://www.onlinejournal.com/Comment...ion082902.html



Here are some pictures. Does it look to you like anybody is threatening to breach the barricades? No, yet an old lady is getting manhandled for holding a sign and a bunch of other people are getting gassed for just being there. You simply are not allowed to protest the Fuehrer and that is the sum of it. After all, an observer might actually be reminded that the Emperor has no clothes.

Originally Posted by Marc Lamb

Yeah, forgive all my mispellings, but, yes, we live "in a libertarian age, and perhaps at the high-water mark of conservative thought..." And, yes, this must imply "that a New Liberalism is lurking behind a corner." Gag me with a spoon, a fork, a nuke or whatever!

Lot's of laughs, Mr. Patton hasn't a clue, but it doesn't get any better than this "present-day" for his kind. Funny how that sort of "wisdom" shall bring on the opposite, huh?

How did I get in the middle of this? It looks like the standard personally abusive doggerel, only it is measurably more incoherent this time. No doubt "Captain Morgan" has run aground on the reef again. Unfortunately, the tide will carry him out in the morning so that he might ram the reef again tomorrow night...and the next...and the next...and the next....

I cannot decide which chantey you might be singing over your grog as you ride the reef toward oblivion. Here are two possibilities:


Ride, captain ride
Upon your mystery ship,
Be amazed at the friends
You have here on your trip.
Ride captain ride
Upon your mystery ship,
On your way to a world
That others might have missed.


Or this one is probably more like it. Yeah, this one really captures your mood: :lol::


The Derelict
(Fifteen Men on Dead Man's Chest)

Fifteen men on a dead mans chest.
Yo ho ho and a bottle of Rum
Drink and the devil had done for the rest
Yo ho ho and a bottle of Rum.

The Mate was fixed by the bosun's pike,
The bosun brained with a marlin spike
And cookie's throat was marked be like
It had been gripped by fingers ten
And there they lay all good dead men.
Like break of day in a boozing cay,
Yo ho ho and a bottle of Rum.

Fifteen men of a whole ships List,
Yo ho ho and a bottle of Rum.
Dead and be damned and the rest gone with
Yo ho ho and a bottle of Rum.

The skipper lay with his knobbing gall,
Where the scallions axe his check had shaw,
And the Scallion he was stabbed times four,
And there they lay in the soggy sties,
Dripped all day long in up staring eyes,
And lurks unsaid in the foul sun rise
Yo ho ho and a bottle of Rum.

Fifteen men of them stiff and stark,
Yo ho ho and a bottle of Rum.
Ten of the crew had the murder mark
Yo ho ho and a bottle of Rum.

T'was cutlass swipe or an ounce of lead,
Or a yawing hole in a battered head,
And the scuppers blood with a rotting red,
And there they lay, I damn me eyes,
All look outs clapped on parrot eyes,
All Souls bound just contrary wise
Yo ho ho and a bottle of Rum.

Fifteen men of them good and true
Yo ho ho and a bottle of Rum.
Every man-jack gonna sail with ole Pew
Yo ho ho and a bottle of Rum.

There was chest on chest full of Spanish Gold,
With a ton of plate in the middle hold,
And the Cabins riled of loot untold
And they lay there that had took the plum,
With Sightless glare and their lips struck dumb,
While we shared all by the rule of thumb.
Yo ho ho and a bottle of Rum.


More was seen through the Stern Light screen
Yo ho ho and a bottle of Rum.
Charting no doubt where a woman had been
Yo ho ho and a bottle of Rum.

A flimsy Shift on a bunker cot
With a thindered slot in the bosom spot
And the lace did dry in a purplish blot.
Or was she wench some shuddering maid
That dared the knife and took the blade,
By god she was stuck for a plucky Jade.

Fifteen men on a dead mans chest.
Yo ho ho and a bottle of Rum
Drink and the devil had done for the rest
Yo ho ho and a bottle of Rum.

We wrapped then all in a main sail tight
With twice ten turns of a hausers bite
And we heaved them over and out of site
With a Yo heave ho and fare the well
On a solemn plug in a southern swell

10 fathoms deep on the road to hell
Yo ho ho and a bottle of Rum

Originally Posted by Tristan Jones

Year One
We didn't change, after all.
by Charles Krauthammer
The Weekly Standard
09/09/2002, Volume 007, Issue 48

WE DIDN'T CHANGE after all. Things changed, yes. Flags waved. A president emerged. The economy slid. The enemy scattered. Politics cooled. The allies rallied. The allies chafed. Politics returned.

But we didn't change. We thought we would. After the shock of the bolt from the blue, it was said that we would never be the same. That it was the end of irony. That the pose of knowing detachment with which we went to bed September 10 was gone for good.

Thanks for the Krauthhammer piece, Tristan. Krauthhammer is one of my favorite barometers of elder Boomeritus infinitum, and reading this piece reminds me of one of my most cherished posts in the wake of the September 11th attacks:

Originally Posted by Marc Lamb

War or Military Action?

Mr. Charles Krauthammer observes, "Secretary of State Colin Powell's first reaction to the day of infamy was to pledge to "bring those responsible to justice."

He notes, "This is exactly wrong."

Why? Krauthammer continues with a observation of historic truth, "Franklin Roosevelt did not respond to Pearl Harbor by pledging to bring the commander of Japanese naval aviation to justice. He pledged to bring Japan to its knees."

Krauthhammer concludes, "You bring criminals to justice; you rain destruction on combatants."

And Marc Lamb concludes: The Silent generation reigns. Not Baby Boomers.

This action, though completely justifiable and required, is nevertheless a Silent-led conflict.

History creates generations. Generations create history.

Evidence of a continued 3T in the UK? This is pretty funny:

Originally Posted by UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL

Rue Britannia: Diana's death tops poll
By Peter Almond

LONDON ? Britain's reputation as a land steeped in an appreciation of history has taken a hit with the publication of an opinion poll on what its masses consider the most important events of the past 100 years.

The top of the list of momentous events in British history excluded both World Wars, the collapse of the British Empire and the rise of the Beatles to stardom.
Instead, Britons said the death of Princess Diana ? five years ago today ? was the most significant event.
"This is a pretty shocking result," said Nick Barrett, historian and consultant to the UK History Channel, a British offshoot of the U.S. cable TV channel, which commissioned the poll.

Originally Posted by Marc Lamb

David Gelernter said, "I hate to put it in such bald terms. But right-wingers are just smarter than left-wingers. A lot of people didn't feel that they could say it."

Gelernter is a nerd... I think of him as brilliant, much as I view myself.

We, Gelernter and I, are on the very same page (Much to the shagrin of Mr. Saari).

?

??I am not in the least chagrined Mr. Lamb, as you and I (and perhaps the emotive Mr. Gelernter) belong to what Mill properly defined as-; well let him speak for himself:

?
In 1861, John Stuart Mill in Considerations of Representative Government described conservatives as "being by law of their existence the stupidestparty."


That we consider ourselves as "brilliant" at times is a matter of Pride and hardly ever Reality... do fish "know" of water; do the stupid "know" of brilliance? HTH

Originally Posted by Marc Lamb

Gelernter is a nerd... I think of him as brilliant, much as I view myself.

You forgot to add in the :-? face on my quote, Mr. Saari.

And "shagrined"? Yes, I must've been drunk on "rum" as was alluded to so eloquently. 8)

But on this "pride", John Stuart Mill, and Gelernter thing: You might recall that I brought this subject matter up once before... remember?




You do remember the "Lost World of the Future" don't you, Mr. Saari? Lots of laughs, huh?



Yes, we "conservatives" are the "stupid" ones... all the while thinking ourselves wise. While looking backwards for wisdom we always seem to find ourselves unable to look forward, as it were. :wink:

Lots of laughs, huh, Mr. Saari?



p.s. Please forgive my misspellings, I'm drunk, you see. :lol:

Excellent analysis by Charley Reese. If this proper perception gets through the White House and major media propaganda, then such a war will do the administration little good even if they do go through with it. However I see no clear signs yet of a regeneracy candidate in 2004.


reese.king-online.com/Reese_20020902/index.php

(For education and discussion purposes only)


Truth Is The Best Argument

by Charley Reese
Monday, September 2, 2002


I don't think President Bush will succeed in persuading America to go to war with Iraq until he and his minions start telling the truth. There might be sound reasons for making war, but the Bush administration is keeping them secret, if they exist at all.

Vice President Dick Cheney said the other day in his war-call speech that Iraq represents a mortal threat to the United States. This is an example of falsehoods being peddled.

Think for yourself. Iraq is a small, Third World country of 20 million people. Its economy has been wrecked by 10 years of sanctions. It has a small, practically worthless air force, no intercontinental missiles and no nuclear warheads. It might have some quantities of chemical or biological weapons, but no means of delivering them and certainly not enough of them to wipe out the United States.

Just exactly what could Saddam Hussein do to the United States? Not much. That might be why the CIA says that it has no evidence of Iraqi involvement with terrorism for the past 10 years. It might be why for the past 10 years, Iraq has not attacked anyone. It might be why Saddam's neighbors contradict George Bush and say they don't feel threatened or menaced by Iraq.

And don't forget that while Saddam was not attacking anyone, we were attacking and making war on two nations ? Yugoslavia and Afghanistan ? not to mention periodically bombing Iraq. The facts show that the United States is a greater threat to its global neighbors than Iraq is to its regional neighbors.

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that the administration's worst-case scenario comes true. Somehow an impoverished and embargoed Iraq acquires two or three primitive nuclear warheads. Somehow Iraq manages to smuggle them into the United States. So, there are three nuclear explosions.

Those would certainly knock the Sept. 11 attack off the news agenda, but they would not come near to destroying the United States, which is, after all, a nation of 270 million people and about 3 million square miles. They would, however, assure the sudden disappearance of a nation called Iraq.

Knowledgeable people in Europe, Asia and the Middle East do not see Iraq as a threat, much less a mortal peril, to anybody. After all, at the height of its power, Iraq failed to defeat Iran and was easily kicked out of Kuwait. Comparisons between Saddam and Hitler are just stupid.

If the Bush administration wishes to persuade the American people to support a war, it should stop insulting their intelligence. The administration should answer this basic question: If deterrence worked on the Soviet Union, which had tens of thousands of nuclear warheads and the means of delivering them, not to mention hundreds of thousands of chemical and biological materials, why will deterrence not work on Iraq, a little country laughably weak in comparison with most of its neighbors, let alone the United States?

Mr. Bush's obsession with Saddam Hussein reeks of mental imbalance or at least some secret explanation for his otherwise irrational fixation on an aging dictator lacking the power to cause any serious harm to the United States. Mortal threat my foot.

Was "The Lost World of the Future", the occasion on which I sadly trod upon the progressive Little Flower, who you had, in your delirium, taken for a Mighty Conservative Oak?


It was stupid of me not to see the forest for the, well, violas.

This is a very worrisome trend.


Poll shows free speech support down
By AMBER McDOWELL, Associated Press
Published 5:13 p.m. PDT Thursday, August 29, 2002
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) - Support for the First Amendment has eroded significantly since Sept. 11 and nearly half of Americans now think the constitutional amendment on free speech goes too far in the rights it guarantees, says a poll released Thursday.

The sentiment that the First Amendment goes too far was already on the rise before the terrorist attacks a year ago, doubling to four in 10 between 2000 and 2001.

The poll found that 49 percent think the First Amendment goes too far, a total about 10 points higher than in 2001.

"Many Americans view these fundamental freedoms as possible obstacles in the war on terrorism," said Ken Paulson, executive director of the First Amendment Center, based in Arlington, Va., which commissioned the survey. Almost half also said the media has been too aggressive in asking the government questions about the war on terrorism.

The center, which also has offices in Nashville, asked the University of Connecticut's Center for Survey Research and Analysis to measure views about the First Amendment.

The poll of 1,000 adults was taken between June 12 and July 5, and has an error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

The researchers said they designed this year's survey, in part, to test the "public's willingness to tolerate restrictions on the First Amendment liberties during what they perceive to be wartime."

They found that 48 percent of respondents agreed the government should have the freedom to monitor religious groups in the interest of national security - even if that means infringing upon the religious freedom of the group's members. Forty-two percent said the government should have more authority to monitor Muslims.

The survey also found a significant dip in the number of people who believe newspapers should freely criticize the U.S. military about its strategy and performance. Fifty-seven percent were supportive this year, compared to 69 percent in 2001.

Seven in 10 respondents agreed newspapers should publish freely, a slight drop from 2001. Those less likely to support newspaper rights included people without a college education, Republicans, and evangelicals, the survey found.

Republican respondents also were more likely than Democrats or Independents to see the news media as too aggressive in seeking war information from government officials.

Among other poll findings:

- About four in 10 favored restrictions on the academic freedom of professors to criticize government military policy during war. Twenty-two percent strongly supported such restrictions.

- While 75 percent considered the right to speak freely as "essential," almost half, 46 percent, supported amending the Constitution to prohibit flag burning.

- Sixty-three percent rated the job the American educational system does in teaching students about First Amendment freedoms as either "fair" or "poor." Five percent rated the educational system's job in this area as excellent.

[quote="Virgil K. Saari"]

Originally Posted by Marc Lamb

In 1861, John Stuart Mill in Considerations of Representative Government described [color=red]conservatives as "being by law of

Mill was speaking of "classic conservatives", of course.

If Mill were alive today, he might consider what U.S. politics calls "liberals" to be conservatives, and vice versa.

Yes, it's more complicated than that, but it's still worth pointing out. Many "conservative" causes actually would represent radical change if actually implemented, and "liberals" are often in the position of defending the current order of things.

It's DEFINITELY more complicated than this, of course.

[quote="Sanford"]

Originally Posted by Virgil K. Saari

Originally Posted by Marc Lamb

In 1861, John Stuart Mill in Considerations of Representative Government described [color=red]conservatives as "being by law of

Mill was speaking of "classic conservatives", of course.

If Mill were alive today, he might consider what U.S. politics calls "liberals" to be conservatives, and vice versa.

Yes, it's more complicated than that, but it's still worth pointing out. Many "conservative" causes actually would represent radical change if actually implemented, and "liberals" are often in the position of defending the current order of things.

It's DEFINITELY more complicated than this, of course.

Agreed. Between FDR's New Deal and LBJ's Great Society the GI Generation bought into the idea that Big Government could solve Big Problems. This was the mid 20th Century's version of liberalism, but every era has its own issues and its own set of values. FDR empowered big government and the military industrial complex. He made us a superpower. He created a government designed to shape societies and nations.

As the GIs faded from the scene, conservatives were able to attack tax and spend policies, push for smaller government, and change the thrust from empowering the poor to serving the special interests of the military industrial complex. Somehow, the conservatives on the economic front adopted borrow and spend, while the democrats at least pretend at cut-the-deficit responsibility. Prior to E2K I saw the democrats as favoring active interference in world affairs when governments broke down, as in Somalia, the Balkans and East Timor. The Republicans were leaning to neo-isolationism, advocating use of force only when our vital interests were threatened. Since 9.11, the Republican neo-isolationism turned into a domino effect policy, of fighting a series of small wars against 'terrorist' nations, with a tacit assumption that after one opponent falls, we should look to who is next.

Policies morph. From election to election, each party will quietly twist its positions. While at any given time, there might be a party considered 'progressive' and another 'conservative,' the positions and issues change considerably. As just one more example, Lincoln's Radical Republicans started as the party of the North, advocating freedom for slaves and economic policies that favored industrial development. The Republicans were definitely the progressive party at that point, with the democrats advocating stricter adherence to the original Constitution - which favored the loose alliance of agricultural states and less power to tax and develop infrastructure. Somehow, over the years, most blacks seeking civil rights found themselves voting with the Democrats, the Democrats came to be considered liberals backing civil rights, and the Republicans became the conservative party wishing to limit the powers of government.

In a crisis, those who benefit most from the status quo resist change, while a progressive faction attempts to remake the culture to reflect a new reality. As a rule, the progressives win. The society is remade. Still, the conservatives have an important part to play in preserving the best of the old society.

Alas, Dubya still seems to personify the current crisis's conservative position. He is setting up the United States, the nation that benefits most from the status quo, to maintain the status quo. He is working to maintain the current world order, to maintain the power and wealth of those who had power and wealth under the old structure. To the extent this holds, Dubya quite well deserves the word 'conservative.'

I still await his opposite, a Gray Champion, one who can declare a new vision. The Gray Champion is of necessity a progressive, one with a vision of a different future, who sees the current situation as flawed, who advocates change. It is not certain the Gray Champion will come, or that he will be an American. In crisis, one expects a war. One expects the establishment faction to defend it's place and privilege. One should also expect the establishment faction to lose. As technology changes, societies grow obsolete. Clinging to the old is futile. In crisis, it is always time to move on.

What's the mood like in the UK? This article clearly speaks for itself:
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2002410055,00.htm

:oops:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/08.28A.cheney.war.htm


(*Editors Note | Understand two things, Truthout reader: 1) When the administration rolls Dick Cheney out
from whatever rock he has been hiding under to avoid subpoenas related to Halliburton, it means the
administration is both nervous and is acting with deadly intent. 2) Mr. Kamel, mentioned by Cheney as
absolute proof of Hussein's nuclear capabilities, is a questionable source in the extreme. A defector who
ran to the CIA, Kamel was accused by another defector, Khidre Hamza, of having a brain tumor and of
being unstable. Hamza, himself, is also not to be trusted. Wheels within wheels are the way of things in
Iraq, and in George W. Bush's Washington. One thing is certain, however - these fellows mean to make
war, and that soon. -- wrp)

Go To Original

Cheney Says Peril of a Nuclear Iraq Justifies Attack
By Elisabeth Bumiller and James Dao
The New York Times

Monday, 26 August, 2002

Vice President Dick Cheney today presented the administration's most forceful and comprehensive
rationale yet for attacking Iraq, warning that Saddam Hussein would ``fairly soon'' have nuclear weapons.

Mr. Cheney said a nuclear-armed Mr. Hussein would ``seek domination of the entire Middle East, take
control of a great portion of the world's energy supplies, directly threaten America's friends throughout the
region and subject the United States or any other nation to nuclear blackmail.''

The vice president's remarks, to a Nashville convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, came as White
House advisers said they were increasingly concerned about the news accounts and the growing debate in
Congress and among former high-ranking foreign policy officials over the administration's plans for Iraq.

Mr. Cheney's speech, which his advisers said he was still writing on Sunday, appeared intended to quell
the confusion and present the administration as united behind the central idea that Mr. Hussein must be
ousted, sooner rather than later.

``What he wants is time, and more time to husband his resources to invest in his ongoing chemical and
biological weapons program, and to gain possession of nuclear weapons,'' Mr. Cheney said.

The risks of inaction, he said, ``are far greater than the risk of action.''

Administration officials said Mr. Cheney's views mirrored those of President Bush, and were part of an
ongoing effort to convince the allies, Congress and the American public of the need for what the
administration calls regime change in Iraq.

The officials said Mr. Bush was expected to discuss Iraq in a speech to the United Nations General
Assembly on Sept. 12, although they said the extent and nature of Mr. Bush's remarks on Iraq were still
under discussion.

The speech by Mr. Cheney was the most prominent of several steps taken today by the administration
to build a public case for going to war against Iraq.

At the State Department, officials said they planned to begin a four-day program on Tuesday to train 17
Iraqi expatriates in publicizing the brutality of Mr. Hussein's rule. Last week, the State Department also
used one of its Middle Eastern radio services to broadcast remarks by the third-ranking Pentagon official
calling for the Iraqi people to overthrow Mr. Hussein.

In Crawford, Tex., an administration spokesman said White House lawyers had concluded that the
administration did not need Congressional approval to attack Iraq. The spokesman, Ari Fleischer, asserted
that previous Congressional resolutions, as well as the president's power as commander in chief, already
gave him that authority.

Mr. Fleischer said Mr. Bush would ``consult'' with Congress about Iraq, although he pointedly refused to
say whether the president would ask Congress to support an invasion through a vote, as his father did
before the Persian Gulf War in 1991. The White House position that it does not need Congressional
approval was first reported by The Washington Post and The Associated Press.

Republicans said Mr. Cheney's speech, planned since early August, was intended to lay out the most
serious and complete case for an attack on Iraq.

The speech appeared intended in particular to answer critics who say the administration lacks
intelligence data on Iraq's nuclear abilities.

While Mr. Cheney argued that the administration could never know with precision the extent and type of
Mr. Hussein's programs to develop weapons of mass destruction, he said it would be perilous to
underestimate ``a dictator who has already shown his willingness to use such weapons.''

``There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction,'' Mr. Cheney said.
``There is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies and against us.''

He cited as his sources Iraqi defectors, among them Mr. Hussein's son-in-law, Maj. Gen. Hussein
Kamel, who Mr. Cheney said ``was subsequently murdered at Saddam's direction.''

General Kamel defected in 1995, was debriefed by the Central Intelligence Agency, returned to Iraq the
next year and was then killed in a gun battle by family members. Mr. Cheney also said it would be a
useless, if not a dangerous delay, to seek a United Nations resolution requiring that Iraq submit to weapons
inspectors, as the man who served as secretary of state for the first President Bush, James A. Baker III,
argued in an opinion article in The New York Times on Sunday.

``Saddam has perfected the game of shoot and retreat, and is very skilled in the art of denial and
deception,'' Mr. Cheney said. ``A return of inspectors would provide no assurance whatsoever.''

Mr. Cheney concluded that Mr. Hussein's threat made pre-emptive action against Iraq imperative, and
noted that former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger had made the same argument in a recent opinion
article in The Washington Post. He also appeared to try to counter those who have cautioned against war
with Iraq, like Brent Scowcroft, the national security adviser to the first President Bush.

``What we must not do in the face of a mortal threat is to give in to wishful thinking or willful blindness,''
Mr. Cheney said. ``We will not simply look away, hope for the best, and leave the matter for some future
administration to resolve. As President Bush has said, `Time is not on our side.'''

Republicans who favor war with Iraq welcomed Mr. Cheney's speech, calling it a direct and clear-headed
opening shot in a public relations campaign that many said had seemed to veer out of White House control
for much of August.

``When Cheney talks, it's Bush,'' said William Kristol, editor of The Weekly Standard and a hard-liner on
Iraq. ``I think the debate in the administration is over, and this is the beginning of the serious public
campaign.''

But other Republicans who caution against war with Iraq said Mr. Cheney's speech was another
confusing signal from an administration whose debate over going to war has been uncharacteristically
public.

``You've got the vice president making this detailed speech about why we should go to war,'' said
Senator Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican who has been a frequent critic of the administration on Iraq.
``The president is not saying anything.''

The administration's message is confusing, Mr. Hagel said, adding that if the president wanted to go to
war, ``then he is going to have to step forward himself and make the case.''

Members of the Senate and House said today that they expected Mr. Bush to ultimately seek
Congressional approval, and some Republicans criticized the administration for asserting that it was not
required.

``It's a matter for the Congress to decide,'' said Senator Arlen Specter, a Republican from Pennsylvania.
``The president as commander in chief can act in an emergency without authority from Congress, but we
have enough time to debate, deliberate and decide.''

Other lawmakers said the administration's recent attempts to round up support for ousting Mr. Hussein
had been been disjointed and sometimes contradictory.

``I do feel that generally the administration has not handled this well in recent months,'' said Senator
Joseph I. Lieberman, a Democrat from Connecticut who is a leading Congressional proponent of invading
Iraq. ``They've been stuck in a grey area, a vacuum, in which opponents of military action and people who
are just plain puzzled or anxious have begun to dominate the debate.''

Last week, in a radio interview that was broadcast into Iraq from Kuwait, Douglas Feith, the under
secretary of defense for policy, called for the Iraqi people to overthrow Mr. Hussein. ``The future that we see
from Iraq is a future that would be based on the Iraqi people freeing themselves from the oppression they
are now suffering,'' he said.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who
have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational
purposes.)





Cheney Made Millions Off Oil Deals with Hussein
by Martin A. Lee
San Francisco Bay Guardian

November 13, 2000

Here's a whopper of a story you may have missed amid the cacophony of campaign ads and stump
speeches in the run- up to the elections.

During former defense secretary Richard Cheney's five-year tenure as chief executive of Halliburton, Inc.,
his oil services firm raked in big bucks from dubious commercial dealings with Iraq. Cheney left Halliburton
with a $34 million retirement package last July when he became the GOP's vice-presidential candidate.

Of course, U.S. firms aren't generally supposed to do business with Saddam Hussein. But thanks to
legal loopholes large enough to steer an oil tanker through, Halliburton profited big-time from deals with the
Iraqi dictatorship. Conducted discreetly through several Halliburton subsidiaries in Europe, these greasy
transactions helped Saddam Hussein retain his grip on power while lining the pockets of Cheney and
company.

According to the Financial Times of London, between September 1998 and last winter, Cheney, as CEO
of Halliburton, oversaw $23.8 million of business contracts for the sale of oil-industry equipment and
services to Iraq through two of its subsidiaries, Dresser Rand and Ingersoll-Dresser Pump, which helped
rebuild Iraq's war-damaged petroleum-production infrastructure. The combined value of these contracts
exceeded those of any other U.S. company doing business with Baghdad.

Halliburton was among more than a dozen American firms that supplied Iraq's petroleum industry with
spare parts and retooled its oil rigs when U.N. sanctions were eased in 1998. Cheney's company utilized
subsidiaries in France, Italy, Germany, and Austria so as not to draw undue attention to controversial
business arrangements that might embarrass Washington and jeopardize lucrative ties to Iraq, which will
pump $24 billion of petrol under the U.N.-administered oil-for-food program this year. Assisted by
Halliburton, Hussein's government will earn another $1 billion by illegally exporting oil through black-market
channels.

With Cheney at the helm since 1995, Halliburton quickly grew into America's number-one oil-services
company, the fifth-largest military contractor, and the biggest nonunion employer in the nation. Although
Cheney claimed that the U.S. government "had absolutely nothing to do" with his firm's meteoric financial
success, State Department documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times indicate that U.S. officials
helped Halliburton secure major contracts in Asia and Africa. Halliburton now does business in 130
countries and employs more than 100,000 workers worldwide.

Its 1999 income was a cool $15 billion.

In addition to Iraq, Halliburton counts among its business partners several brutal dictatorships that have
committed egregious human rights abuses, including the hated military regime in Burma (Myanmar).

EarthRights, a Washington, D.C.-based human rights watchdog, condemned Halliburton for two
energy-pipeline projects in Burma that led to the forced relocation of villages, rape, murder, indentured
labor, and other crimes against humanity.

A full report (this is a 45 page pdf file - there is also a brief summary) on the Burma connection,
"Halliburton's Destructive Engagement," can be accessed on EarthRights' Web site

Human rights activists have also criticized Cheney's company for its questionable role in Algeria,
Angola, Bosnia, Croatia, Haiti, Rwanda, Somalia, Indonesia, and other volatile trouble spots. In Russia,
Halliburton's partner, Tyumen Oil, has been accused of committing massive fraud to gain control of a
Siberian oil field.

And in oil-rich Nigeria, Halliburton worked with Shell and Chevron, which were implicated in gross
human rights violations and environmental calamities in that country. Indeed, Cheney's firm increased its
involvement in the Niger Delta after the military government executed several ecology activists and crushed
popular protests against the oil industry.

Halliburton also had business dealings in Iran and Libya, which remain on the State Department's list of
terrorist states. Brown and Root, a Halliburton subsidiary, was fined $3.8 million for reexporting U.S. goods
to Libya in violation of U.S. sanctions.

But in terms of sheer hypocrisy, Halliburton's relationship with Saddam Hussein is hard to top. What's
more, Cheney lied about his company's activities in Iraq when journalists fleetingly raised the issue during
the campaign.

Questioned by Sam Donaldson on ABC's This Week program in August, Cheney bluntly asserted that
Halliburton had no dealings with the Iraqi regime while he was on board.

Donaldson: I'm told, and correct me if I'm wrong, that Halliburton, through subsidiaries, was actually
trying to do business in Iraq?

Cheney: No. No. I had a firm policy that I wouldn't do anything in Iraq even arrangements that were
supposedly legal.

And that was it! ABC News and the other U.S. networks dropped the issue like a hot potato. As
damning information about Halliburton surfaced in the European press, American reporters stuck to old
routines and took their cues on how to cover the campaign from the two main political parties, both of which
had very little to say about official U.S. support for abusive corporate policies at home and abroad.

But why, in this instance, didn't the Democrats stomp and scream about Cheney's Iraq connection? The
Gore campaign undoubtedly knew of Halliburton's smarmy business dealings from the get-go.

Gore and Lieberman could have made hay about how the wannabe GOP veep had been in cahoots with
Saddam. Such explosive revelations may well have swayed voters and boosted Gore's chances in what
was shaping up to be a close electoral contest.

The Democratic standard-bearers dropped the ball in part because Halliburton's conduct was generally
in accordance with the foreign policy of the Clinton administration. Cheney is certainly not the only
Washington mover and shaker to have been affiliated with a company trading in Iraq. Former CIA Director
John Deutsch, who served in a Democratic administration, is a member of the board of directors of
Schlumberger, the second-largest U.S. oil-services company, which also does business through
subsidiaries in Iraq.

Despite occasional rhetorical skirmishes, a bipartisan foreign-policy consensus prevails on Capital Hill,
where the commitment to human rights, with a few notable exceptions, is about as deep as an oil slick.

Truth be told, trading with the enemy is a time-honored American corporate practice or perhaps
"malpractice" would be a more appropriate description of big-business ties to repressive regimes.

Given that Saddam Hussein, the pariah du jour, has often been compared to Hitler, it's worth pointing
out that several blue-chip U.S. firms profited from extensive commercial dealings with Nazi Germany.

Shockingly, some American companies =96 including Standard Oil, Ford, ITT, GM, and General
Electric secretly kept trading with the Nazi enemy while American soldiers fought and died during World
War II.

Today General Electric is among the companies that are back in business with Saddam Hussein, even
as American jets and battleships attack Iraq on a weekly basis using weapons made by G.E. But the
United Nations sanctions committee, dominated by U.S. officials, has routinely blocked medicines and
other essential items from being delivered to Iraq through the oil-for-food program, claiming they have a
potential military "dual use." These sanctions have taken a terrible toll on ordinary Iraqis, and on children in
particular, while the likes of Halliburton and G.E. continue to lubricate their coffers.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who
have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational
purposes.)

Print This Story E-mail This Story

Are the culture wars finally beginning to wind down?

http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centr...n/3977402.htm?

Originally Posted by madscientist

Are the culture wars finally beginning to wind down?

http://www.centredaily.com/mld/centr...n/3977402.htm?

Well, Ms. Coulter's book is still a hot seller, so there definitely is an audience for her particular brand of conservatism.

I did attempt to read her book. I got through about the first two or three chapters and skimmed the rest except for the last chapter. IMHO, the book is basically one long rant and is a fine example of the kind of behavior it is condemning.

I learned one comforting thing from it: the "religious right" is not some huge monster threatening to take over the American political system. Nice to know. :-)

Coulter's reputation is actually pretty bad on both the left and the right. The only difference is, the right sometimes thinks she has a good point now and then, interspersed in a lot of extreme venom.

I couldn't imagine reading an entire book by her. Skimming a column now and then is about as much of her I can take.

With her, I can't help getting the impression that it's mainly an act. She hit the big time with a formula, and is milking it for all it's worth. I could be wrong, though. Maybe she really is that extreme.

Sort of like the Right's version of Noam Chomsky.

Originally Posted by Sanford

With her, I can't help getting the impression that it's mainly an act. She hit the big time with a formula, and is milking it for all it's worth. I could be wrong, though. Maybe she really is that extreme.

I feel the same way too. She might have entered the scene a little too late, just as the 3T is ending. I, too, am not totally convinced that she is serious. Her selling point is not her ideology. There are conservatives far more intelligent than she seems to be. She survives only by (non) virtue of her ability to say shocking things.

Since she longs so much for the "good old days", perhaps she should contribute by embarking on an alum diet.

Originally Posted by madscientist

I feel the same way too. She [Ann Coulter] might have entered the scene a little too late, just as the 3T is ending. I, too, am not totally convinced that she is serious. Her selling point is not her ideology. There are conservatives far more intelligent than she seems to be. She survives only by (non) virtue of her ability to say shocking things.

Robert, it is very simple: Ann Coulter is bursting-at-the-seams full of Sierra Hotel India Tango. I halfway expect her to explode like that purple girl in the Willa Wonka and the Chocolate Factory any time now!

I posted this to another thread a while ago but I will do it again here:


http://www.townhall.com/columnists/a...20010111.shtml

Ann Coulter

January 11, 2001

Two weeks till indictment!

Among the people in cheery anticipation of independent counsel Robert Ray's pending indictment of William Jefferson Clinton are those who: demonstrated for George Bush in Florida; chanted "Get out of Dick Cheney's house!" outside the vice presidential residence in Washington; made possible George Bush's historic victory against an incumbent in peacetime and a booming economy -- and whom Bush is going to need when the left tries to "bork" his various nominees....


Here Coulter is absolutely certain that Robert Ray will indict Clinton and indeed the media leaks at the time indicated that he probably would. But this is the culmination of long-standing, very vehement anti-Clinton crusade on Coulter's part, and her earlier columns can be accessed here if one needs to get the flavor of it:

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/a.../archive.shtml

But right after the above column came out, the media leaks indicated that the Bush administration was determined to stop Ray's impending indictment of Clinton. Indeed Junior and his people met with Ray just before or after the inauguration and it was then announced that there would be no indictment. Note that it was specifically the Bush administration who halted the indictment of Clinton.

Since Coulter had been carrying on for so long, one would think that she would have been absolutely furious. Certainly she would never have another good word to say about the Bush administration. Go to that archive link and look for yourself. Week after week after week went by and Coulter never did once mention the Bush administration's intervention to get Clinton off the hook. In fact she continued to be overly ecstatic about the administration at a time when they were doing absolutely nothing to please "conservatives"! It was as if she immediately developed amnesia and had no recollection at all of all her years of hitting Clinton hard. Hell, it was as if she no longer knew who Clinton was!

It is all right there at the archive link. Ann Coulter is a monumental fraud, packed with Sierra Hotel India Tango under tight compression. If the Bush administration nationalized health care or waged a War on Poverty tomorrow, she would be ecstatic simply because the Bush administration is doing it. Why Kool-Aid drinkers continue to buy into her shuck and jive is beyond me.

Thanks for the article. 8)

Now this is the stuff of a fourth turn, folks!



Sickest ever TV gameshow
By EMILY SMITH,
Deputy Bizarre Editor

TV bosses are making the sickest reality show ? with contestants trying to get as many illnesses as possible.
In Sick Day, three lads will live in the same house for two months and try to catch ailments like nits, lice, flu, venereal diseases and warts.

It is being made as a pilot for digital channel E4 by Princess Productions, which also makes breakfast show RI:SE.

Teacher Ray Downing, 23, from North London, auditioned for the show and said: ?I was shocked when they told me what it was about.

?It?s up to contestants to find ways to catch the disease, but they talked about snorkelling in sewage.?



Shoot, and to think those half million American souls that died during the Great Influenza outbreak of 1919 could of been TV stars! Dang it all, born in the wrong second turn. 8)

You want to laugh when reading this, but then you consider that the Bush administration is sending real bodies to play the role and it is suddenly not so funny anymore. This details how this retired Marine general beat the "world's only superpower" as Saddam Hussein in a wargame.


Wake-up call

If the US and Iraq do go to war, there can only be one winner, can't there? Maybe not. This summer, in a huge rehearsal of just such a conflict - and with retired Lieutenant General Paul Van Riper playing Saddam - the US lost. Julian Borger asks the former marine how he did it

Julian Borger
Friday September 6, 2002
The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0...786992,00.html