Life in OUR America, Volume 5, the Livyjr Files Options

[Livyjr]

The guts of his argument:

President Bush met Nemesis in the form of Hamas, whose election victory in Palestine last week makes clear that democracy can empower the war party as well as the peace party

But we here in OUR America already knew that, my good friend Snuffysmith .....

Look back to 2004, and OUR own elections ...

Where the "WAR PARTY" here in OUR own America was certainly "empowered" ....

And actually, throughout history, this same end result has been demonstrated many times over ...

Xerxes, for example ....

Or Rome and the Mithridatic War ....

Where Crassus the Triumvir met his death at the willing hands of the Parthians in or around what is now modern IRAQINAM, after plotting and intriguing while Consul of Rome to have himself put in charge of Rome's forces fighting to put down King Mithridates ....

And you go back to the Greeks ...

And their city states ..

The Spartans ...

The Argives ....

The Athenians ....

And the story is always the same ..

And while the end results might vary, generally, it is not for the good of the people, themselves ...

Which point most, if not all, of OUR nation's founders were well aware of, since they did not have television and video games back then to load their heads up with so much crap that their eyes would turn brown and they would be unable to think coherently for themselves .....

And that is why these founders then structured OUR federal government the way that they did ...

With two houses in the Legislative branch instead of one ...

And an executive who was answerable to the PEOPLE through the laws set in place IN THE LAND by the the elected REPRESENTATIVES of those people ....

All of which has or is going by the boards, right here in OUR own nation ..

Which is no longer a NATION OF LAWS, if it ever was ....

To truly "kill a dictator", Snuffysmith, what I would say is that you would have to kill the concept itself ...

And that has never yet been done, so far as I can see, anyway ...

And the testament to that can be found right here in OUR own alleged "democracy", where we in fact have a dictator in power, no matter how "benevolent" he might appear to be, which to me, is not very, at all ...

Look at Rome and SULLA, for an example ...

Was SULLA good for Rome?

Was he bad for Rome?

Or was he just there?

As for me, I would say that the times in Rome produced SULLA, and that was that ....

And the people of Rome accepted SULLA, just as they later accepted POMPEY THE GREAT as a dictator in or around 52 B.C.E., when public unrest in Rome prevented the scheduled consular elections from taking place as scheduled ....

And POMPEY did not use his dictatorship to start any wars ....

To the contrary, he restored "law and order" in Rome, and then voluntarily and willingly relinquished TO THE PEOPLE OF ROME the power given to him by the people of Rome to be dictator for a period ....

And this is all real history ...

If we believe it to be so, anyway ....

And this all serves to refute this theory above about "killing dictators" .....

As to George W. Bush himself, I seriously doubt that he really has a clue as to what has gone on in the world before his ASCENSION to power here as OUR MESSIAH, our alleged "DELIVERER", and I say that based upon comments made in posts before this one by George W. Bush's own people ...

"WE DO NOT NEED TO STUDY HISTORY ..."

"WE WRITE THE HISTORY THAT OTHERS WILL STUDY WHEN WE ARE GONE ..."

Well ...

Okay, George .....

And that is really a good part of what we are doing here in this thread, Snuffysmith ....

Through your efforts, and those of jeffmoskin, and others ...

We are watching this "HISTORY" scroll by this little viewing window in here, real-time as it were, and sometimes we comment on it, but more often, simply report upon it as it happens, and there we are ....

No more right or wrong than were Suetonius, or Juvenal, or Sallust, or even Livy when they "reported" on what was transpiring in Rome in their own times .....

And the main difference likely is only with the "immediacy" of OUR reportage, versus theirs ....

We can have our thoughts posted in here in a heartbeat, sometimes within minutes of the events themselves transpiring, where the Romans were at a little farther remove .....

And that is about all, so far as I can see ....

My dead Roman friend Marcus Aurelius is always saying that if you live for thirty years or maybe forty, you will have seen all that has ever been seen by humankind before, and I think with respect to politics, and relations between nations, that he is largely correct ....

THE DANCE ....

Someone has taken George W. Bush and they have scripted him, and dressed him up in various costumes, and they have given him a good hairdresser, and now he is dancing around out there on the world stage, just as have countless others before him ..

And so it goes ....

And it affects OUR lives to the degree that we allow it to, is my thought, anyway ....

Just as the snow and ice outside my window today affects my life ...

To the degree that I allow it to ...

And maybe that is a part of the exercise in here as well ...

TO WHAT DEGREE SHALL THAT COLLECTIVELY BE?

Or is there never a "collective", which is to say, "common ground" .....

And so ...

[Snuffysmith]

http://www.fff.org/comment/com0602a.asp

Democracy, Hypocrisy, and U.S. Foreign Policy
by Jacob G. Hornberger, February 1, 2006

After singing the praises of democracy all over the world, not to mention bombing, killing, and maiming people in the name of spreading it, the overwhelming win in Palestinian elections by Hamas, which U.S. officials have labeled a terrorist organization, is reminding U.S. officials that democracy sometimes produces results that are not very satisfactory from their own perspective.

There’s also, of course, Iraq, where voters rejected the CIA and Pentagon puppets, Iyad Allawi and Ahmed Chalabi, that President Bush and Vice-President Cheney had hoped they could install to replace Saddam Hussein, who had declined the U.S. puppet position despite having received significant amounts of U.S. aid. Instead, “democracy in Iraq” has produced a radical, brutal, torturous, Iran-aligned, Islamic Shi’ite regime that is now using U.S. forces to kill its enemies.

In my January 23 blog, I pointed out that U.S. officials were pumping a couple of million dollars of U.S. taxpayer-funded handouts into the campaign of Hamas’s opponent, the Fatah Party, headed by Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas. Talk about foreign-aid blowback! I wonder how many Palestinians voted for Hamas simply because they found out that the U.S. government was helping the other side. After all, don’t forget how reluctant Abbas himself was to claim credit for the U.S.-provided trees, schoolroom additions, street cleaning, computers, and other U.S. federal freebies.

It is truly fascinating that U.S. officials are simply oblivious to how much they are disliked around the world. They seem to have this quaint notion that they are loved everywhere or that the problem is simply a PR one, which they think they can cure if they can just “get their message out.” They don’t realize that the more they get their message out, they more they are disliked by people everywhere.

Of course, the Iraqi and Palestinian elections are not the only recent example of what appears to be democratic blowback against the U.S. government. Chilean voters recently elected a socialist, which ought to be of some concern to the new Chilean president, given that the last time Chilean voters elected a socialist (and communist) — Salvador Allende, the U.S. government encouraged a coup and, in the process, even played a role in the murder of a young American journalist. The coup ended up getting Allende killed and replaced by an unelected military dictator, Augusto Pinochet, whose military and intelligence agency (DINA) engaged in many of the same tactics against prisoners that President Bush’s military and intelligence agency (CIA) are engaging in — kidnapping, torture, sex abuse, rape, and murder.

And there’s also Bolivia, where voters recently elected a man who has threatened to legalize the coca industry, much to the chagrin of U.S. officials, for whom the drug war is a tremendous boon in terms of money and power notwithstanding the fact that it has produced so much death and destruction in Latin America.

And there’s also Venezuela, whose president, Hugh Chavez, continues to thumb his nose at U.S. officials, which many believe has caused Chavez to be added to the list of potential U.S. assassination targets and Venezuela to be added to the list of potential invasion targets by the U.S. government.

In fact, any country in which the voters fail to use democracy in a “correct and responsible” way should be concerned. Don’t forget what U.S. officials did to Iran and Guatemala after voters voted the “wrong” way in those countries.

In fact, it is truly amazing that U.S. officials are still unable to figure out why the Iranian people still dislike and distrust the U.S. government so much. After all, the way U.S. officials figure it is, What’s the big deal of using the CIA to oust people’s popular and democractically elected prime minister and replacing him with a brutal CIA-approved puppet, the Shah of Iran, for the next several decades?

And then U.S. officials scratch their heads in bewilderment over why people dislike the U.S. government so much. They even hire PR people to “get their message out,” teaching foreigners that U.S. officials really do mean well and that foreigners would simply be better off accepting their U.S-imposed fate and submitting to the inevitable.

President Bush might now be hoping that his fantasy that his invasion of Iraq will engender genuine democracy in the Middle East never comes to fruition. After all, who can doubt that voters in such countries as Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan would sweep out of office the brutal and corrupt pro-U.S. regimes that rule over them and replace them with radical anti-U.S. Islamic regimes? (Of course, this would benefit U.S. taxpayers because U.S. officials would undoubtedly cut off U.S. foreign aid to the new regimes, as they are now threatening to do to the Palestianians in the wake of the Hamas victory.)

The problem, which all too many Americans fail to recognize, is that people all over the world, especially in Latin America and the Middle East, don’t like the U.S. government and its foreign policy. Equally important, what all too many Americans fail or refuse to recognize is that such dislike is well-founded and justified.

Unlike Americans, foreigners have had first-hand experience with the arrogance, obnoxiousness, and hypocrisy that characterize U.S. foreign policy.

Unlike Americans, foreigners know that U.S. officials show no reluctance to support brutal regimes that do their bidding, no matter how tyrannical they are to their own people (Iraq under Saddam, Iran under the shah, and Pakistan come to mind).

Unlike Americans, foreigners know that U.S. officials show no reluctance to squeeze foreign citizenries as a way to punish their ruler (i.e., sanctions in Iraq and Cuba) and no reluctance or remorse about invading a country that has never attacked the United States (Iraq, Grenada, Panama, and Haiti) for the purpose of regime change, even when the action kills and maims tens of thousands of innocent people.

Unlike Americans, foreigners clearly understand the hypocrisy reflected by the following two U.S. proclamations: “We love you and, therefore, are willing to liberate you with bombs and missiles” and “Don’t even think of emigrating to the United States because we will jail you or repatriate you if we catch you.”

Does foreign dislike for our government and its policies mean that foreigners hate America? On the contrary! This is where U.S. officials just don't get it. Foreigners love Americans and they love the principles and values for which our nation stands. They just don’t like our government and its policies. It’s that simple.

Therefore, U.S. officials, from President Bush on down, have it all wrong. The solution is not to continue unleashing U.S. government power overseas, even while increasingly isolating the American people from the rest of the world with trade barriers, immigration and visa controls, and walls along our borders. The solution is instead to (1) rein in the federal government by dismantling its overseas diplomatic and military empire, ending all foreign aid and bringing all U.S. overseas troops home, discharging them into the private sector, and (2) unleash our nation’s greatest diplomats — businessmen, tourists, cultural groups, and everyone else in the private sector — to freely interact once again with the people of the world. There is no other solution to the foreign-policy/terrorism woes that continue to bedevil our country.

Jacob Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom Foundation.

[Snuffysmith]

February 1, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist

Didn't See It Coming, Again

By MAUREEN DOWD
Washington

The White House should hire an anthropologist.

Corporations have begun hiring anthropologists to help them improve product designs and interpret markets. And clearly, the Bush foreign policy team doesn't understand any of the markets where it is barging around ineptly trying to sell America and democracy.

The brand value of America has been in steady decline. The state of the union is sour but the state of the world is chilling, thanks to a hideously ham-handed Bush foreign policy crew that was once billed as a seasoned "dream team."

The more the White House tries to force-feed democracy to tempestuous parts of the world, the more it discovers that you may be able to spin and scare voters in the U.S., but the Middle East is not so easy to manipulate. W. believes in self-determination only if he's doing the determining. Fundamentalists in America like to vote for Mr. Bush, but elsewhere they're violently opposing him.

It's stunning that nearly four decades after Vietnam, our government could be even more culturally illiterate and pigheaded. The Bushies are more obsessed with snooping on Americans than fathoming how other cultures think and react.

One smart anthropologist reinforcing the idea that "mirroring" — assuming other cultures think like us — doesn't work would be a lot more helpful than all of the discredited intelligence agencies that are costing $30 billion a year to miss everything from the breakup of the Soviet Union to 9/11 to no W.M.D. to Osama's hiding place to the Hamas victory.

Bush officials keep claiming they couldn't have anticipated disasters — from the terrorist attacks to Katrina — even when they got specific warnings beforehand. Busy building up the fake nuclear threat in Iraq, they misplayed the real ones in Iran and North Korea. In London Sunday, Condi Rice admitted that all of our diplomats and spies were caught off guard by the Hamas win. "I've asked why nobody saw it coming," she said. "It does say something about us not having a good enough pulse."

Instead of paying the Lincoln Group millions to plant fake newspaper stories in Iraq, the Bush team might try reading real newspaper stories here. Instead of simply believing any fact that makes him feel self-important, the president might try reading history.

Like many other presidential candidates I've interviewed, W. said he liked Winston Churchill. But if he really had read Churchill, he would at least have understood that the Middle East never turns out the way you expect. Churchill, who called Iraq "an ungrateful volcano," would not have been surprised by the new WorldPublicOpinion.org poll showing that close to half of Iraqis approve of attacks on American forces.

The State of the Union is a non-event. But Bob Woodruff and his cameraman, Doug Vogt, being blown up by a roadside bomb has forced the media to focus on what the Bushies try to hide — all the injured and maimed coming home from Iraq.

Mark Landler's Times piece noted that the ABC journalists came to the hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, "on a military transport plane carrying 31 wounded soldiers — about a normal daily influx for this hospital."

As Denise Grady wrote in The Times, the survival rate in Iraq is higher than in other wars, but the wounds are multiple and awful: "combinations of damaged brains and spinal cords, vision and hearing loss, disfigured faces, burns, amputations, mangled limbs, and psychological ills like depression and post-traumatic stress."

The Oilman in Chief lecturing us last night, after five oblivious years, about being drunk on oil, now that Halliburton and Exxon are swimming in profits — Exxon's revenues were bigger than the gross domestic product of either Saudi Arabia or Indonesia — was rich.

A more honest TV moment was Christiane Amanpour labeling Iraq "a black hole." The "spiraling security disaster," she told Larry King, had robbed Iraqis of hope, "and by any indication whether you take the number of journalists killed or wounded, whether you take the number of American soldiers killed or wounded, whether you take the number of Iraqi soldiers killed and wounded, contractors, people working there, it just gets worse and worse."

But, hey, how could the Bushies have known that occupying a Middle East country — and flipping the balance of power from one sect to another — without enough troops to secure it could go wrong? Who on earth could predict the inevitable?

http://select.nytimes.com/2006/02/01/opini...1&hp&oref=login

[Livyjr]

THE DANCE ....

Someone has taken George W. Bush and they have scripted him, and dressed him up in various costumes, and they have given him a good hairdresser, and now he is dancing around out there on the world stage, just as have countless others before him ..

And so it goes ....

And so it goes indeed ....

Saturday morning, I was someplace where there was a TV going and CNN was on, I believe it was ...

Anyway, they were doing a story about George W. Bush and Tony Blair being unlikely allies in something or other, and as they were doing the story, out come George and Tony and George is decked out in this leather jacket that makes him look like some crusty old sea captain whose carrier took a few rounds during the battle of Coral Sea in W2, but it didn't faze old Cap'n George not one bit ....

And I am looking at him, and wondering just what on earth has been done to that poor man to make him look the way he did ...

Which was very oddly proportioned, indeed ....

And then I realized what it was ....

The Deputy Dog look, I think you would call it ...

Small hips flaring upwards to a deep chest and huge shoulders ....

And I was wondering exactly how they got that look on George ...

Whether it was duct tape, or what ....

I remember that one general who was thinking of running for president talking about how his aides would use duct tape to have his uniform appear thus and so ..

And I wondered if maybe George's handlers caught wind of that and started using duct tape on him ...

Because they heard that that was what a real general did to make himself look like a real general on television ...

Whatever, it made George look like a damn fool so far as I could see, anyway .......

"Bush Urges Confidence in His Leadership"

By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer

12 minutes ago

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - President Bush said Wednesday he understands why the nation he has led for five years has become more anxious, and he urged people to have confidence in him.

Bush maintained his optimistic message in a lengthy speech at the Grand Ole Opry House that was designed to build momentum from the previous night's State of the Union address.

But in a rare acknowledgment of the troubled times on his watch, he tried to show empathy with the public's worries.

"People are uncertain, in spite of our strong union, because of war, and I understand that," Bush said.

Democrats are trying to capitalize at the ballot box this year on uncertainty about Bush's leadership and about ethics scandals in Congress.

Bush said he is leading a strong nation that is protecting itself and spreading freedom.

He said the economy is "roaring," despite concerns that people have after being forced to change jobs in the face of competition from China, India and elsewhere.

"My worry is that people see that uncertainty and decide to adopt isolationist policies or protectionist policies," Bush said.

"In other words, in uncertain times it's easy for people to lose confidence in the capacity of this country to lead and to shape our future."

Bush said America's challenge is to stay ahead of competition without withdrawing from the world.

He planned to expand his thoughts on the issue in a tour to Minnesota, New Mexico and Texas on Thursday and Friday.

Bush's laid out his entire agenda in the 57-minute speech, going even beyond his State of the Union address.

He touched on everything from war and education to technology in the automobile industry and medical malpractice suits.

The friendly audience at the packed Grand Ole Opry House frequently interrupted the president with applause and laughter.

Among the crowd were several country music stars, including Barbara Mandrell, Larry Gatlin, Lee Greenwood, Lorrie Morgan and the Oak Ridge Boys.

Bush joked that he should have given the State of the Union at the hall.

"How cool would it be to give a State of the Union address in a Porter Wagoner outfit?" he said, referencing the flashy singer who frequently played host on the stage.

Outside, more than 100 protesters held up their own signs that said "No Confidence" and "No warrant, no wiretap, no W."

That was a reference to Bush's much-debated secret program of eavesdropping on phone calls and e-mails in an attempt to sniff out terrorist plots, which he vigorously defended in his State of the Union address and inside the concert hall.

"Let me put it to you in Texan: If al-Qaida is calling into the United States, we want to know," Bush said.

___

On the Net:

White House: http://whitehouse.gov

Grand Ole Opry: http://www.opry.com/

[Livyjr]

"Time after time, observers have questioned whether this country, or that people, or this group, are 'ready' for democracy -- as if freedom were a prize you win for meeting our own Western standards of progress."

-- George W. Bush, Nov. 6, 2003

"The beginnings of reform and democracy in the Palestinian territories are now showing the power of freedom to break old patterns of violence and failure."

-- George W. Bush, State of the Union, 2005

"The effect of liberty to individuals is, that they may do what they please; we ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations."

-- Edmund Burke

[Livyjr]

AOL Poll taken after George W. Bush's speech last night ....

How convincing was Bush's speech?

Not at all 50%

Very 39%

Somewhat 11%

How would you rate the state of the union?

Poor 41%

Excellent 29%

Good 16%

Fair 13%

Total Votes: 107,688

[jeffmoskin]

VOLUME FIVE?????


DO WE REALY POST THAT MUCH???


WE NEED TO GET A LIFE.

IN OUR AMERICA.

[jeffmoskin]

Snuffy mentions "Why we Fight," a new film by Jsutin Raimondo on the war and on American Imperialism

It turns out that Frank Capra made the original for WWII, and every entering GI saw it as a requirement.

http://history.acusd.edu/gen/Filmnotes/whywefight.html

I still like Ben Franklin's comment: "There is no such thing as a good war or a bad peace."

[Snuffysmith]

February 2, 2006
Going Old School on al-Qaeda
High tech no substitute for
human intelligence
Charles Peña
Most of the controversy surrounding the White House policy of warrantless telephone and e-mail eavesdropping has centered on whether President Bush has overstepped his authority under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, which was created in 1978. The provisions of FISA allow the president to authorize electronic surveillance without a court order for up to a year provided it is only for foreign intelligence information, targeted against foreign powers or their agents, and that there is no substantial likelihood that the surveillance will involve any communications of a U.S. citizen. Alternatively, the government can obtain a court order to conduct surveillance from a secret FISA court. Moreover, the government has up to 72 hours after initiating surveillance to get FISA court approval, so there's really no excuse for not getting a warrant.

Sadly, most of the debate has been over working within the guidelines of FISA and not about the constitutional and civil liberties issues of FISA itself. Sadder yet, a mid-January ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 51 percent of Americans thought it was acceptable to conduct warrantless monitoring of telephone calls and e-mails, 65 percent thought it was more important to investigate possible terrorist threats than to respect privacy, and 48 percent thought that President Bush would not go far enough to investigate terrorism because of concerns about constitutional rights. But beyond these important constitutional and civil liberties concerns, the administration's domestic spying program also demonstrates the government's unhealthy infatuation with technology as a solution to the problem of terrorism.

For example, consider the misguided program proposal Total Information Awareness, or TIA, which was developed under the auspices of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and claimed "to protect U.S. citizens by detecting and defeating foreign terrorist threats before an attack" – the same claim President Bush makes defending his use of warrantless wiretaps and e-mail monitoring.

The premise behind TIA was to build a database of public and private records to be analyzed for patterns indicative of terrorist activities. TIA essentially depended on the law of large numbers or what marketing companies call "data mining," which develops profiles of people who should be good customers for a particular product or service. A large pool of people who fit the profile is targeted, knowing that only a small fraction will actually be customers. TIA would use the same concept, but instead of potential customers, the profiles would be for aspiring terrorists. The problem is that, like commercial data mining, only a small fraction of the pool of people who fit the profile of a terrorist will, in fact, be actual terrorists.

A "back of the envelope" Bayesian statistical analysis demonstrates that TIA was bad math. Assume a U.S. population of 240 million adults (i.e., children are not would-be terrorist candidates). Assume we believe there are 5,000 terrorists lurking among us. Assume a 99.9 percent probability (i.e., near perfect and very highly unlikely) of correctly identifying a suspect as an actual terrorist – that is, if you suspect someone is a terrorist, he is actually a terrorist. And assume a 99.9 percent probability (again, highly unlikely) of correctly identifying a suspect as an innocent person. The results would be:


244,299 people will be identified as suspected terrorists (and remember that this is with near-perfect accuracy of being able to correctly identify terrorists and innocent people).
239,995 innocent people will be misidentified as terrorists.
The probability of finding a real terrorist is 2 percent.
Even if the number of people subjected to TIA was reduced, the results would not necessarily be any better. For example, assume we were looking for 19 hijackers among 3.6 million U.S. male Muslims. And assume the same near-perfect 99.9 percent accuracy as in the above example. How hard would it have been to find the hijackers and potentially avert 9/11?


3,619 people would have been identified as suspected terrorists.
3,600 innocent people would have been misidentified as terrorists.
The probability of finding a real hijacker would have been about one-half of one percent.
Technology may give U.S. military forces superiority on the battlefield, but – as TIA demonstrates – we have to be careful about pinning our hopes on technology as the way to catch terrorists. In Tony Scott's 2001 movie Spy Game, CIA case officer Nathan Muir (Robert Redford) says he is "old school," meaning he relies more on the tricks of spy tradecraft rather than being dependent on high-tech gadgetry. We would do well to follow that lead and focus more on human intelligence, i.e., spies on the ground inside al-Qaeda and the larger radical Islamic movement, rather than an over-reliance on technical intelligence-gathering.

In a strange twist, the United States actually has a model for penetrating al-Qaeda: John Walker Lindh. Born in Washington, D.C., and raised in affluent Marin County, California, Lindh was the "American Taliban" captured by U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan in November 2001. As shocking as it is that an American would be a soldier for the Taliban regime fighting against U.S. forces, even more remarkable is that someone like Lindh – white and middle class – would be taken in and trusted by radical Islamists. In 1997, Lindh converted to Islam when he was 16 years old. A year later, he traveled to Yemen for nine months. After returning home to California, Lindh went back to Yemen and then to Pakistan in 2000. There he enrolled in a madrassa and became interested in the Muslim fight in Kashmir. Lindh first joined the Harakat-ul Mujahedeen al-Almi (HUM) – a militant Islamic group that operates in Kashmir – but then decided he wanted to join the Taliban. But because he was not a native of Afghanistan and did not speak the local languages, Lindh was directed to the "Afghan Arabs," or al-Qaeda. Beginning in June 2001, Lindh spent seven weeks at an al-Qaeda training camp near Kandahar and even met with Osama bin Laden. So if someone described as a "sweet kid" from a "Birkenstock family" of Irish Catholic descent living in a community sometimes lampooned as a "hot tub haven" can join the ranks of al-Qaeda, certainly America's intelligence agencies can also find a way – but domestic spying is not the answer.

President Bush has vigorously defended his domestic spying program as "vital and critical" to "saving American lives" and protecting the country against another terrorist attack. But – constitutional and civil liberties concerns notwithstanding – monitoring phone calls and e-mails in the United States is a last-ditch defense, the equivalent of a Hail Mary pass. There is also the question of whether any of the conversations or e-mails being monitored are real or disinformation deliberately intended to mislead us (after all, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld has admitted that the terrorists "jerk us around").

In his State of the Union address, President Bush claimed that "the terrorist surveillance program has helped prevent attacks" (but did not cite any specifics) and that "it remains essential to the security of America." But instead of defending the unconstitutional use of warrantless spying on Americans (the president claims such authority has been given to him by the Constitution and by statute, but only the latter is true), U.S. security would be better served if President Bush spent as much time and energy on a spy program to infiltrate al-Qaeda. Old school.

SIDEBAR

In touting the accomplishments of the US-VISIT (Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology) program – which was originally promoted as "part of a comprehensive program to ensure that our borders remain open to visitors but closed to terrorists" – the government claims that more than 600 criminals and illegal aliens have been apprehended as a result of the program – but not one terrorist. Perhaps that's why President Bush is so adamant about the need to spy on people in the United States.

[Livyjr]

February 2, 2006 

"Going Old School on al-Qaeda - High tech no substitute for human intelligence"
 
Charles Peña

Technology may give U.S. military forces superiority on the battlefield, but .....

And in the end, technology does not even really do that .....

Give our military any real superiority on the battlefield ....

And to think so is self-defeating ....

For technology is merely an aid ...

True, it might be a tireless one ...

But it is far from a perfect one ...

And you use technology as a crutch when you are too weak to walk yourself ...

But too arrogant and cock-sure to admit that, or have it be known ....

By your enemies ....

If I had to fight an enemy, I would much rather fight one that was technology dependent, than not ....

Now, obviously, if it was a matter of the technology-dependent enemy merely scorching from a long distance away, all of the earth where I could possibly be, it is possible that they could win, and since I might by then be dead, so what?

But if it came down to an invasion, where with patience, I could have this technology-dependent enemy right in among me and mine, where we could neutralize the effects of that technology, oh well ...

America has become fairly good at killing its enemies from a distance, perhaps, although even that is debatable, but America cannot really use that same technology to win the hearts and minds of anyone, and ultimately, unless you do scorch the earth, in the end all those gizmos do not much at all for you, and so ....

"Wars", however big or small, are won when there is no one shooting back at you ..

For more than a few days running ...

And that is something to do with the human factor ....

Not technology ....

[Livyjr]

VOLUME FIVE?????

DO WE REALY POST THAT MUCH???

WE NEED TO GET A LIFE.

IN OUR AMERICA.

Yes, jeffmoskin ....

Here we are once again .....

Back to page one all over again .....

And talk about getting a life ...

I really felt an absence in my life when my computer was down with that CONSERVATIVE PROFILE which had it flashing its lights and making a lot of noise, but disconnected from its higher intelligence ......

An actual emptiness ....

Do you think ....

Could this be ....

OH NO ....

I'm addicted to a computer forum ......

Oh, well ....

[Livyjr]

And I am not really addicted to this forum ...

But it certainly has become a part of my life that I do look forward to on a day to day basis ....

For it is kind of nice in here, actually ...

There is a lot of freedom ....

Elbow-room kind of freedom, I mean ....

We are not all crowded in here together ....

Room to spread out ....

So that if you don't like what is going on in this room ...

Well, you can just slide on down the hall to the next ...

And that is one of the best features of this forum to me ...

That ability to browse around at your leisure ....

What you don't like, you simply disregard ...

Don't read it ...

Move on ...

It is that simple ...

And here I would really like to take a moment to THANK all of you out there who have stopped by in here during the life of this thread, which thanks to all of you is now on its fifth volume ...

Without all of you, this never would or could have happened ....

And so ...

[jeffmoskin]

The Same.

[Snuffysmith]

[quote=Livyjr,Feb 2 2006, 02:21 PM]
And in the end, technology does not even really do that .....

Give our military any real superiority on the battlefield ....

And to think so is self-defeating ....

For technology is merely an aid ...

True, it might be a tireless one ...

But it is far from a perfect one ...

And you use technology as a crutch when you are too weak to walk yourself ...

But too arrogant and cock-sure to admit that, or have it be known ....

By your enemies ....

If I had to fight an enemy, I would much rather fight one that was technology dependent, than not ....


But this argument Liv leads to resurrecting the old SDI (Star Wars Program). And I'm not sure that's where you want to go with this. Curiously, the Soviets well understood that heading down that road would accelerate their bankruptcy. I'm not sure the US has learned this lesson yet.

[Snuffysmith]

February 3, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist
State of Delusion
By PAUL KRUGMAN
So President Bush's plan to reduce imports of Middle East oil turns out to be no more substantial than his plan — floated two years ago, then flushed down the memory hole — to send humans to Mars.

But what did you expect? After five years in power, the Bush administration is still — perhaps more than ever — run by Mayberry Machiavellis, who don't take the business of governing seriously.

Here's the story on oil: In the State of the Union address Mr. Bush suggested that "cutting-edge methods of producing ethanol" and other technologies would allow us "to replace more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East."

But the next day, officials explained that he didn't really mean what he said. "This was purely an example," said Samuel Bodman, the energy secretary. And the administration has actually been scaling back the very research that Mr. Bush hyped Tuesday night: the National Renewable Energy Laboratory is about to lay off staff because of budget cuts. "A veteran researcher," reports The New York Times, "said the staff had been told that the cuts would be concentrated among researchers in wind and biomass, which includes ethanol."

Why announce impressive sounding goals when you have no plan to achieve them? The best guess is that the energy "plan" was hastily thrown together to give Mr. Bush something positive to say.

For weeks administration sources told reporters that the State of the Union address would focus on health care. But at the last minute the White House might have realized that its health care proposals, based on the idea that Americans have too much insurance, would suffer the same political fate as its attempt to privatize Social Security. ("Congress," Mr. Bush said, "did not act last year on my proposal to save Social Security." Democrats responded with a standing ovation.)

So Mr. Bush's speechwriters were told to replace the health care proposals with fine words about energy independence, words not backed by any actual policy.

What about the rest of the speech? The State of the Union is normally an occasion for boasting about an administration's achievements. But what's a speechwriter to do when there are no achievements?

One answer is to pretend that the bad stuff never happened. The Medicare drug benefit is Mr. Bush's largest domestic initiative to date. It's also a disaster: at enormous cost, the administration has managed to make millions of elderly Americans worse off. So drugs went unmentioned in the State of the Union.

Another answer is to rely on evasive language. In Iraq, said Mr. Bush, we've "changed our approach to reconstruction."

In fact, reconstruction has failed. Almost three years after the war began, oil production is well below prewar levels, Baghdad is getting only an average of 3.2 hours of electricity a day, and more than 60 percent of water and sanitation projects have been canceled.

So now, having squandered billions in Iraqi oil revenue as well as U.S. taxpayer dollars, we've told the Iraqis that from now on it's their problem. America's would-be Marshall Plan in Iraq, reports The Los Angeles Times, "is drawing to a close this year with much of its promise unmet and no plans to extend its funding." I guess you can call that a change in approach.

There's a common theme underlying the botched reconstruction of Iraq, the botched response to Katrina (which Mr. Bush never mentioned), the botched drug program, and the nonexistent energy program. John DiIulio, the former White House head of faith-based policy, explained it more than three years ago. He told the reporter Ron Suskind how this administration operates: "There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus. ... I heard many, many staff discussions but not three meaningful, substantive policy discussions. There were no actual policy white papers on domestic issues."

In other words, this administration is all politics and no policy. It knows how to attain power, but has no idea how to govern. That's why the administration was caught unaware when Katrina hit, and why it was totally unprepared for the predictable problems with its drug plan. It's why Mr. Bush announced an energy plan with no substance behind it. And it's why the state of the union — the thing itself, not the speech — is so grim.



Copyright 2006The New York Times Company

[Livyjr]

And in the end, technology does not even really do that .....

Give our military any real superiority on the battlefield ....

And to think so is self-defeating ....

For technology is merely an aid ...

True, it might be a tireless one ...

But it is far from a perfect one ...

And you use technology as a crutch when you are too weak to walk yourself ...

But too arrogant and cock-sure to admit that, or have it be known ....

By your enemies ....

If I had to fight an enemy, I would much rather fight one that was technology dependent, than not ....

But this argument Liv leads to resurrecting the old SDI (Star Wars Program).

And I'm not sure that's where you want to go with this.

Curiously, the Soviets well understood that heading down that road would accelerate their bankruptcy.

I'm not sure the US has learned this lesson yet.

Oh ....

Not at all, Snuffysmith ...

And here, of course, I am talking as a "warrior", or one who would actually go to where the "fighting" was to actually be, as opposed to someone killing from a long distance away, such as George W. Bush ....

And I am looking at this from the perspective of one who is continually pondering human nature through the vehicle of reading history ..

Which to me is a story of human nature .....

As well as events .....

I don't know about any other nation out there on the face of the earth, but America is definitely technology-dependent ....

And is thus militarily weak as a nation ....

Because technology is an illusion of safety ....

And not safety itself ...

Technology is unreliable ...

And it fails right when you need it ..

A corollary of Murphy's Law ....

Right when you need it most is when it won't work ....

I went into real combat, real enough to get wounded twice, anyway, and I wore a green pair of pants made of a rip-stop material, a green shirt made of the same, a pair of boots, a pair of socks, a green canvas web belt around my waist loaded with canteens of water, a claymore bag with twenty magazines for an M-16 in there, a towel around my neck to hold in the palm of my left hand in a prolonged fire fight to keep it from being burned ....

And that was about it ....

No real technology at all, except for the M-16, and that thing was a piece of **** .....

And from what I hear coming back from IRAQINAM, it still is ....

And if I had to do it all over again today, that is how I would still do it ...

Absent the M-16, in all likelihood .....

But I have experience of it, and so ...

America on the other hand is stuck in LA-LA LAND, or CLOUD-CUCKOO LAND, perhaps, and I don't think it knows doodly-squat ....

And that starts with George ...

And Dick is in there with him ...

And RUMHEAD, too ....

They know how to spend a lot of money on toys and GIZ-MATICS and such ....

And they know how to run their mouths and talk real big ...

BUT ...

In the world of non-America, where people live in hardship, and thus are hard, themselves, watching a couple of fat-bottoms patting themselves on the back as to how tough they are because they can kill women and children from ten thousand miles away, without even having to get up from their easy chairs does not impress ....

Not at all ...

I know it does not impress me, anyway ....

And so ....

[Livyjr]

February 3, 2006
Op-Ed Columnist

State of Delusion

By PAUL KRUGMAN

In other words, this administration is all politics and no policy.

It knows how to attain power, but has no idea how to govern.

That's why the administration was caught unaware when Katrina hit, and why it was totally unprepared for the predictable problems with its drug plan.

It's why Mr. Bush announced an energy plan with no substance behind it.

And it's why the state of the union — the thing itself, not the speech — is so grim.

And if I went back over some of this guy's previous writings, I think I would find him to generally be PRO-BUSH ....

Which is not to knock him at all ...

But rather to make the point that that is how transparent this whole farce really is .....

And this is one of the most concise synopses of the waste of OUR time that this administration of George W. Bush has been that I have seen come down the pike in a while ....

To me, right from the get-go, and this goes back to 1998, or 1999, the goal of the REPUBLICANS was to capture power in Washington, D.C. .....

And not only Washington, D.C., but America as well ...

But Washington was certainly the key ...

And George W. Bush emerged as the magical elixer ....

A means to an end ...

The boy born on third base who thought he had hit a triple ....

What made George W. Bush "presidential" back then was name-recognition ....

And that was his "selling point" ....

You know ...

"Big George's boy, young George ..."

"OH, yes, you're right ..."

I still remember those REPUBLICAN debates over who their candidate would be, and it came down to who could win, and not who could govern ....

I never remember the REPUBLICANS talking about governing, in fact ...

But I do remember a lot of talk about CONTROL ....

As if it were the same ....

Which to the REPUBLICANS ...

IT IS .....

And I don't think that sinks in to the "harnies" of people here in OUR America ....

This very real difference between REPUBLICANS and everybody else in that regard .....

The REPUBLICANS are truly the party of DRED SCOTT ...

But most people in America don't understand that, either, and so ...

We are a nation of slaves ....

And the REPUBLICANS hold the keys to the shackles .....

And that is the purpose of the exercise .....

[Livyjr]

We are a nation of slaves ....

And the REPUBLICANS hold the keys to the shackles .....

And that is the purpose of the exercise .....

When I was young here in what should be OUR America, people used to talk about going out to CONK an N-word ....

Like it was a kind of sport ...

Which it was ....

Take a baseball bat, or a two-by-four, and get beered up, and go down the road in your buddy's '57 Chevrolet, and look for N-words walking along the road ...

And when you would see one, well, you would lean out the passenger side window, and CONK the N-word right in the head ...

And the word CONK apparently came from the sound the baseball bat or two-by-four made when it hit the N-word's head .....

AND THERE WAS PEACE IN THE LAND ...

A place for everybody ...

And everbody in their place ...

The crew-cutted young "WHITE BOYS" laughing it up in a roadside dive or honky-tonk afterwards ...

And the N-word in a ditch with a busted head ....

The way GOD intended it to be ....

And for those not necessarily interested in CONKING N-words, there was always GAY-BASHING, or ROLLING Q-words .....

One of the heros would go in some place where a Q-word was likely to be found, and that hero would lure the Q-word outside, where more heros were waiting, and they would essentially kidnap the Q-word and take him someplace where these heros could beat him up at their leisure ...

AND THERE WAS PEACE IN THE LAND ....

GOD WAS IN HIS HEAVEN ..

AND ALL WAS RIGHT HERE ON EARTH ...

AND GOD BLESS THE REPUBLICAN PARTY FOR THAT ...

And then ....

Along came GODLESS COMMIE-NIZM .....

Yes, America ...

THE SCOURGE ....

And these GODLESS COMMIES, well, first, they went to the N-words, and they got the N-words all riled up about getting CONKED ....

CONKING, which used to be a GOOD THING here in OUR America, was made out by these GODLESS COMMIES to be bad instead ...

And so ..

The N-words got all kinds of uppity ..

And so ..

CONKING kind of fell by the wayside ....

For a bit, anyway ....

And then, these GODLESS COMMIES got the Q-words all riled up about getting rolled ....

And the Q-words started acting up and making a fuss ...

AND GOD'S NATURAL ORDER DOWN HERE ON EARTH WAS DESTROYED ....

Just like that ...

And almost overnight ....

Which was also the time of ascension of DEMOCRATS, here in OUR America ....

Weak, spineless "women-men" who were too squeamish to CONK an N-word "real good", or to roll a Q-word till he was bleeding out of his ears and eyes at the same time .....

AND SO ...

We had a crisis here in OUR America ....

AMERICA THE VERY MIGHTY was made weak by these "women-men" Democrats and these COMMIES, who really are the same thing, although being devious, they use two different names so as to confuse GOOD AMERICANS into thinking there is a difference .....

N-words were walking down the road, NO LONGER IN FEAR ....

And Q-words were coming out of hiding, NO LONGER IN FEAR ...

And America was dying ...

Or so said the CONSERVATIVES, anyway ....

And so ...

HOW TO DO GOD'S WORK ...

WHEN GOD HIM OR HERSELF NO LONGER APPEARED TO BE CAPABLE OF DOING IT HIM OR HERSELF ....

After all, why on earth would GOD have ever invented the No. 32 Louisville SLUGGER baseball bat with the nice fat end on it unless he wanted that nice fat end laid just and so up against the back of some N-word's head at about thirty miles an hour vehicle speed, plus the speed of the swing of the bat itself just before impact .....

And the ANSWER, of course, was to find a CHAMPION ....

Someone man enough to fight on GOD'S behalf .....

And that turned out to be George W. Bush .....

"PUT THE TEXICAN STOMP ON THEM, GEORGE ..."

Put them N-words back in the ditch where they belong ....

Put them Q-words back into the closet ....

Turn abortion back into the back-street butchery that it was in the days of my youth ....

GET GOD'S NATURAL ORDER BACK ON TRACK, HERE IN OUR AMERICA ......

And so ....

American History 101 ....

It is as simple as that .....

[Livyjr]

"PUT THE TEXICAN STOMP ON THEM, GEORGE ..."

Put them N-words back in the ditch where they belong ....

Put them Q-words back into the closet ....

Turn abortion back into the back-street butchery that it was in the days of my youth ....

GET GOD'S NATURAL ORDER BACK ON TRACK, HERE IN OUR AMERICA ......

And so ....

It is as simple as that .....

And speaking of REAL AMERICAN HEROS ....

And GOD'S NATURAL ORDER ....

And the TEXICAN STOMP, which is RIGHTEOUS AND AMERICAN, of course ....

And a town in Massachusetts that appears to be FULL OF GODLESS COMMIES, including its Police force .....

And thus needs to be invaded and taken back from these GODLESS COMMIES by GOOD AMERICANS, for the GOOD OF AMERICA ....

We have .....

ZEIG HEIL ...

"Police Hunt for Suspect in Gay Bar Attack"

By RAY HENRY, Associated Press Writer

1 hour, 6 minutes ago

NEW BEDFORD, Mass. - The attack on three patrons at a gay bar was a crime against the entire city, the mayor said at a candlelight vigil outside the nightspot.

Mayor Scott Lang joined about 150 people Thursday night outside Puzzles Lounge, where a young man dressed all in black went on a rampage with a hatchet and a gun earlier in the day, wounding three patrons, including one critically.

Police said the attack appeared to be a hate crime.

Authorities searched for 18-year-old Jacob D. Robida, who was wanted on charges of attempted murder, assault and civil-rights violations.

He was still at large early Friday, police said.

Under heavy police presence, community members and local politicians denounced the attack at the vigil.

Gays have the right to gather in safety and without fear of violence, said Andrew Pollock, president of the Marriage Equality Coalition of the South Seacoast.

"When you take the rights away from one group, you are dehumanizing that group and making them more vulnerable to violence," he said.

According to court papers, Robida's mother told police that he briefly stopped by the house less than an hour after the brawl and was bleeding from the head.

Officers found Nazi regalia in Robida's bedroom and anti-Semitic writings on the wall.

"Obviously we have a man who's dangerous, who's not rational, and he has weapons," prosecutor Paul Walsh Jr. said.

A bartender said it was around midnight when a teen wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and black pants walked into Puzzles, a gay nightspot in this historic seaport city of 94,000 people about 50 miles from Boston.

He flashed an apparently fake ID and ordered a drink, then asked if the place was a gay bar and was told it was, said the bartender, who asked to be identified only by his first name, Phillip, because of fear for his safety.

The bartender said the teen finished his drink and walked back to where two men were playing pool.

He shoved one of them to the ground, then pulled a hatchet from his sweatshirt and began swinging at the man's head, cutting him, Phillip said.

Other patrons tackled the man, sending the hatchet sliding across the floor, the bartender said.

Then the attacker pulled a gun, shot a man, and then fired another bullet into the chest of a patron who was leaving the bathroom, the bartender said.

He then ran off into the night.

Police recovered the hatchet and found a knife outside.

The knife was not apparently used in the attack.

Authorities identified the injured men as Robert Perry, Alex Taylor and Luis Rosado.

One has a gunshot wound to the chest, another a gunshot wound to the back and severe cuts to his face, and a third suffered multiple cuts, police said.

They would not specify which man suffered which injuries.

All three victims remained hospitalized.

Police said one was in critical condition, but would not say which man.

A family friend who answered the door at Robida's home said his mother had no comment.

Some patrons said there has been occasional low-level harassment at the bar over the years.

Puzzles has been egged, cars parked outside have had windows smashed and teenagers have thrown rocks and bricks at the building's facade for years, said Dan Sheteron, 51, who lives upstairs.

Anti-gay graffiti often defaces the building.

"This doesn't surprise me," Sheteron said of the attack.

"It was either going to be this or a firebomb through the front window."

[Livyjr]

And speaking of REAL AMERICAN HEROS ....

And GOD'S NATURAL ORDER ....

And the TEXICAN STOMP, which is RIGHTEOUS AND AMERICAN, of course ....

And a town in Massachusetts that appears to be FULL OF GODLESS COMMIES, including its Police force .....

And thus needs to be invaded and taken back from these GODLESS COMMIES by GOOD AMERICANS, for the GOOD OF AMERICA ....

We have .....

THE STATE OF OUR UNION .....

IS STRONG ....

"Bloody attack on Mass. gay bar stuns region"

By David Ortiz

2 hours, 5 minutes ago

NEW BEDFORD, Massachusetts (Reuters) - An attack by a neo-Nazi teenager, accused of shooting two people and bludgeoning a third with a hatchet in a Massachusetts gay bar before fleeing, has stunned gays in the region and sparked fears that the assailant could strike again.

A manhunt was under way on Friday for an 18-year-old whom police say walked into Puzzles Lounge in the city of New Bedford late on Wednesday, ordered two drinks and then went on a rampage after asking a bartender "is this a gay bar?"

Jacob Robida faces about a dozen charges, including three counts of attempted murder and civil rights violations for the attack that left three men seriously wounded, police said.

"It's a vicious and ugly reminder of anti-gay prejudice," David Smith, head of policy and strategy at the Human Rights Campaign, a national gay rights group, said.

"What is unique about hate crimes is that they terrorize the whole community."

When told he was in a gay bar, Robida walked into a back area where several men played pool, reached into his coat and pulled out a hatchet, police said.

He lunged at several men, striking two in the face with the hatchet before several of the bar's 18 patrons attempted to restrain him.

He then drew a gun and began firing in the pink-walled venue, according to police and witnesses.

About 150 people, including New Bedford's mayor and several of the city's politicians, held a candlelight vigil late on Thursday on the street outside of the bar about 58 miles (93 km) south of Boston, the state's capital.

"We think he could strike again."

"We don't know what he will do, especially if he gets desperate," Paul Walsh, Bristol Dist. Attorney, told Reuters.

"He's armed and extremely dangerous."

"We also cannot rule out that he could be suicidal."

Police across the Northeast U.S. coast are on alert for Robida, who was last seen by his mother when he returned home early on Thursday bleeding from a head wound and then leaving his house in a green Pontiac car, Walsh said.

NEO-NAZI LITERATURE

A search of Robida's bedroom turned up neo-Nazi literature and posters slurring gays, Jews and African-Americans, Walsh said.

He also appears on a Web site posing with Nazi flags.

"I've had friends jumped before, but it wasn't with weapons and nothing on this scale," said Jeffrey Robbins, 33, a gay resident of New Bedford.

He said his friends were concerned for their safety and feared a copy-cat attack.

"We're all just going to be more observant, walking each other to our cars with keys in our hands if we have to defend ourselves," he said.

Rep. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, called on Washington to pass a bill that would extend the federal law on hate crimes to cover offenses targeting people because of sexual orientation.

Massachusetts has hate crime laws that cover sexual orientation but 29 states do not.

"This tragic incident underlines the problem of anti-gay violence in this country," Frank, who is gay and whose district includes New Bedford, said in a statement.

"I will continue to press for amendments to existing federal hate crimes laws to cover this sort of horrible crime."

The crime stunned residents in the blue-collar city.

"It's crazy that it happened in this day and age," said Craig Paiva, a 29-year-old New Bedford resident who lives two blocks from Robida's home.

"You wonder how someone could hate a group of people so badly at the age of 18."

(Additional reporting by Jason Szep in Boston)

Just out of curiosity ....

I wonder how many hours a week this Robida listens to Rush Limbaugh ....