BS: everyone should read this

Subject: RE: BS: everyone should read this
From: GUEST,Terilu
Date: 22 Sep 02 - 12:09 AM

Here's another goodie - not from a newspaper, but from the cdi.org (center for defense information) http://www.cdi.org/terrorism/generalsview.cfm

Subject: RE: BS: everyone should read this
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 21 Sep 02 - 08:08 PM

re: the Blue Angels. I know that most air shows charge admission. Isn't the Air Force (or is it the Navy?) compensated for their appearances?

Subject: RE: BS: everyone should read this
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Sep 02 - 07:15 PM

Which bastards and which island?

Subject: RE: BS: everyone should read this
From: Dipsodeb
Date: 21 Sep 02 - 07:13 PM

Let the Bastards kill each other on one island and leave the rest of the world alone to live in PEACE

Subject: RE: BS: everyone should read this
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Sep 02 - 04:45 PM

So, Doug, I take it from your comments about the Project for the New American Century having an ax to grind that inducates you don''t think too much of this report they published.

I just hope your man in the White House feels the same way about it.

Subject: RE: BS: everyone should read this
From: DougR
Date: 21 Sep 02 - 02:16 PM

Agreed, L.H. but when they are held up as providing the "last word" on a subject, it's a bit different, in my opinion.

Kat: Arghhhhhhhhh! I agree with you! I think sending either the Thunderbirds or the Blue Angels around the country to do air shows is a waste of money and that money could be better used.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: everyone should read this
From: Little Hawk
Date: 21 Sep 02 - 12:16 PM

First, Kat, ALL the enemies of democracy have to be destroyed, before we receive the "peace dividend" (remember that?)...and THEN we will all get the great reward that lies at the end of the rainbow...ha, ha, ha...

Doug - Well, it's danged hard to find someone without an ax to grind in this world! I may have met one or two such people, though...and they were not involved in politics in any way whatsoever.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: everyone should read this
From: Bobert
Date: 21 Sep 02 - 10:41 AM

Patience, patience, patience, Kat. You can trust that the corporate ruling class is working on it, Jus gotta get a few good wars under their belts first. Plus, right now we're paying out astronomicall sums to the greedy folks for HMO's and PPO's that can be canceled if we actually, fir Heaven's sake, need them. You know, like get sick...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: everyone should read this
From: katlaughing
Date: 20 Sep 02 - 01:37 PM

A little bit of thread drift if ya'll don't mind, maybe we could include it under the military spending heading. A local boy did good, went into the Air Force and is now a tech for the Blue Angels, crack AF flight team which goes around putting on air shows. Quite spectacular and good PR.

While the tv newsperson was interviewing the local boy, he mentioned that his was a big responsibility, being in charge of 54 million dollar's worth of spare parts and tools to keep those puppies (I think there are 16 of them) in the air. I love to watch these flyboys, but it seems completely obscene to me that we spend that kind of money yet cannot have universal healthcare, decent school buildings, etc., etc.

I am sure it is justified in some minds as the way to keep patriotism going, etc. Phaw!

Thanks for listening,

kat

Subject: RE: BS: everyone should read this
From: DougR
Date: 20 Sep 02 - 01:25 PM

Thanks for that link, McGrath, there are several interesting looking articles there I want to read.

Amos: and the person/organization who went to considerable expense had no axe to grind, right?

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: everyone should read this
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Sep 02 - 07:25 AM

The good thing about the Internet is that you don't have to depend on the newspaper reports. The actual document is there to see. Just check it out. Here isnthe site that linked to it - not in any way an opposition type site.

How important it is is the relevant question. Is this something which has authority, and reflects the thinking of the administration and so forth? It certainly seems consistent with the public rhetoric of Bush's closest people.

Subject: RE: BS: everyone should read this
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Sep 02 - 10:25 PM

And to think LH, that these same folks chased Bill Clinton around the table for 8 years 'cause he lost $20,000 and happened to get laid in the White House.

Man, those were the good old days.

BObert

Subject: RE: BS: everyone should read this
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Sep 02 - 10:09 PM

Hmmmm...

Nothing terribly surprising in that article. Ever since the Soviet Union went bankrupt America has been eyeing the world with the giddy regard of a drunken robber baron who has just produced four aces and cleared the table of chips, and has also just received news that the crosstown gang has been gunned down and their mansion burned to the ground, and he is now wondering how best to start banking and allocating the spoils.

Let's see now...got a lot of new jurisdiction to exploit and protect from other potential robber barons who might arise, given half a chance. Better find ways to do that, and preserve total supremacy in firepower at the same time.

Let's see...don't really need social services much anymore, since there's no real competitors out there for the hearts and minds of the public, so we'll just start privatizing everything and phase them out. We'll build more jails to house the ones who fall through the cracks...those who don't conveniently die, that is. We'll hire any killer willing to obey orders to keep the rest in line.

Let's see...we've already got total military supremacy on Earth, might as well extend it into space...the next potential battlefield. There must ALWAYS be a battlefield, because life IS a battle, not a cooperative effort toward some higher purpose. Winning is the only real purpose in life.

And so on.

Big Brother has well and truly arrived, spreading the dictatorship of wealth, militarism, and excess while preaching the gospel of democracy and freedom (from responsibility...). Freedom, in fact, for almost no one, except the Bosses.

Nope. Not surprised a bit.

Be glad your thoughts cannot be seen, people, and be glad that a little of your money is still in the form of actual currency...permitting private transactions to be made between individuals.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: everyone should read this
From: bob jr
Date: 19 Sep 02 - 09:42 PM

I don't know if any of you watched the Tv series called "the cold war". Basically it ran down various scenarios between 47 (it started with greece and italy) right through to the 80's (Angola,Central America). While much of it was enlightening what was ultimatly disturbing to me was the former ambassodors/CIA agents who gave very very revealing interviews. It went something like this ...Vietnam...(we knew what we were doing...we knew it was wrong...we did it anyway) Iran (see Vietnam) Chile (see iran) Guatamela(see chile) etc etc....21 years after the fact it all comes out in the wash. Remeber the Pentagon papers? I believe this position paper to be totally legit based on the evidence given in past instances.

Subject: RE: BS: everyone should read this
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Sep 02 - 09:30 PM

"You thinking back there, Johnnie?"

"No, Mrs. Williams, I have a tooth ache."

"Well, that good. I thought you were thinking."

Yeah, give my poor ol' Wes Ginny butt a break. We're gonna have an entire populice of Epsilons marching to Junior's assembly lines and goosestepping to his wars.

Danged

Subject: RE: BS: everyone should read this
From: MAG
Date: 19 Sep 02 - 09:13 PM

The fact that Dubya is saying, right now, on the radio, that to protect the peace you have to have the power to use force, is an interesting piece of doublespeak.

Another side to the Bush agenda which is overshadowed now is his plan to industrialize education. I am afraid this may slip in unnoticed while the war drums are beating. The Bush family has been best buddies with the McGraws of McGraw-Hill for three generations, and every so-called panel of experts his team has put together, from Texas to D.C., has been packed with McGraw people. They just happen to always recommend as "scientifically based" McGraw-Hill products. Workbooks, phonics drills, and such. Critical thinking skills in public schools will fall by the wayside. Reading for pleasure will make way (is making way) for reading to answer questions (ie, follow basic directions in an unskilled labor force). And don't even get me started on the reward-the-schools-which-improve scheme.

ergh!

Subject: RE: BS: everyone should read this
From: artbrooks
Date: 19 Sep 02 - 08:05 PM

Well, let's see...the Chairman of The Project For the New American Century was Dan Quayle's Chief of Staff...

Subject: RE: BS: everyone should read this
From: Amos
Date: 19 Sep 02 - 07:52 PM

Doug:

This was not a comment on a newspaper, silly. It was a comment on the whitepaper to which McGrath provided a link, a paper that someone went to considerable expense to produce.

A

Subject: RE: BS: everyone should read this
From: DougR
Date: 19 Sep 02 - 07:39 PM

We have similar newspapers. Try the "National Enquirer," for example. An excellent source for reliable information, right?

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: everyone should read this
From: Amos
Date: 19 Sep 02 - 12:01 PM

The report itself is predicated on a vision of a Pax Americana, a unipolar doominance in which the Empire Americana proudly protects the planet from any self-determination which exceeds certain bounded limits. To do this, one of the goals the paper calls for is to prevent the emergence of any comparable major power, such as China. It also calls for the capability of the United States to fight major theaters simultaneously. To support this it requires (natch!) a major increase in levels of funding for DoD expansion and development from the then-average of 3%, which has surely increased since 2000 for obvious reasons. They want to raise defense spending to 3.8%, which would increase it -- get this -- by $15-20 billion dollars per annum US.

It is an interesting slip that while the body of the paper articulates the goal of being able to fight multiple simultaneous wars, ("Second, the United States must retain sufficient forces able to rapidly deploy and win multiple simultaneous large-scale wars")the Executive Summary on page 11 cites the "Core Mission" as "fight and decisively win multiple simultaneous major theater wars". Leads one to wonder which goal the Administration is actually pursuing, eh?

Interesting paper -- the Worldview of the Hawk. I would really like to see a paper of comparable effort on the American investment in promoting civil and human rights and the social mechanisms designed to ensure they are preserved. If we spent a billion dollars a year on genuine goodwill efforts and PR campaigns designed to bring amenable mindsets about on the part of the leaders and populations of other nations, we would probably do much more good.

What this paper overlooks or leaves out of its scope is that establishing might without the gurantee of justice scares the bejesus out of poeple and people who are scared of you to that extent may cooperate, but they don't make good allies and they don't promote your goals; they start renegotiating in a thousand covert ways. THis is one of those lessons that only experience brings.

I am all for a competent premiere defense department. But it hould never be the centerpiece of our foreign relations strategy, let alone the totality of it! That's is both stupid and wasteful.

A

Subject: RE: BS: everyone should read this
From: Bobert
Date: 19 Sep 02 - 10:31 AM

The problem with "half truths" is the compilment: *half lies*.

And in busy America, with moms and dads racing to keep up paying for the trappings of the "American dream* (which is more of a nightmare concocted and rammed down the throats by slick corporate PR folk...)it's no wonder that these moms and dads don't have time to delve into the real isssues. The *media* is peddled my the same ad-men that fuel Amica's overworked labor force with *fast foods*.

Its no wonder that so many folks, if a pollster can slow them down for a minute to answer some questions, would say that Iraq needs to be attacked!

Yeah, the boss man has really stacked the deck. He owns the means of production, he really owns much of the assests that the working class *things* they own by as collaterialized loans and between the two of these he pretty much owns the labor force. Now, top that with owning the propaganda machine, i.e. 99.99% of the media, and it can be argued that now he not only owns the means of production, the assests of his working class, the souls who man his assembly lines, but now looks very much on he's closing in on owning the thoughts of the working class.

My hat's off to Junior and Co. That a lot of stuff to own.

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: everyone should read this
From: catspaw49
Date: 19 Sep 02 - 10:29 AM

Uh-huh..........

Anything new that I missed? No....I didn't think so..........

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: everyone should read this
From: GUEST,Taliesn
Date: 19 Sep 02 - 09:57 AM

(quote) "I decline to believe that the "proof" of ANYTHING can be found within the pages of ANY newspaper....." and so on.

I wish it were as simple as that other fantasy of just destroying one's T.V. It really is as case of deduction cross-referencing between various "non-fiction" sources to get at what's really gong on . Newspapers can manufacture *motives* and idenitfy the *players*, but selective half-truths means you've got to find thew other puzzle pieces the other won't mention elsewhere. That's why I have been a staunch "independnet" for 20 years. Newspapers do as much *pandrering* to the "designer slant" of news as their target readers *want* to pay to read , but half-turths still contain salvagable nuggets worth refining.

Subject: RE: BS: everyone should read this
From: artbrooks
Date: 19 Sep 02 - 08:23 AM

While I'm not a George W. fan, I decline to believe that the "proof" of ANYTHING can be found within the pages of ANY newspaper. Or from the mouths of ANY polititian, regardless of political persuasion or national origin, but that's another issue.

Subject: RE: BS: everyone should read this
From: GUEST,Taliesn
Date: 19 Sep 02 - 06:56 AM

While this PNAC is a new one on me , the article published in the Scottish Sunday Herald does *not* prove anything and I find the lead sentence of " A SECRET ( their capitals) blueprint for US global domination reveals......" rather suspect to say the least. I ' ll comment on the basic nugget of the article's premise , but first some *independent* observations about the newspaper itself.

To lead in with a sensationalzed keynote *conclusion* before making its case is smells not a little like a garden variety tabloid journalist's ploy.

A little further reading of the headlines in the left-hand column shows another article worth reading : " A statement by the editor on the sale of the Sunday Herald ". http://www.sundayherald.com/27736

Some telling lines include :

(quote) "Our paper (as with the other two) currently operates under strict editorial independence. That means that the paper you read is wholly based on the editorial policy set by the journalists of this paper, rather than the political or commercial agenda of an owner with their hired henchmen. We trade in independent journalism you can trust."....

"Secondly, we are convinced that the best journalism flourishes under a condition of editorial independence where the editor and his team set the paper's agenda and policy."

One must 1st atleast consider what the nature of that editorial *agenda* is. Like the editorial board of the Wall St. Journal whose free-market conservatism is worn on their sleeves so truth in labeling is consistant and one knows how many grains of salt to have ready before reading their clearly marked & separate "Editorial Pages".

It's no secret to me that *a* selling point of the Scottish Sunday herald is promoting *Scottishness* which is healthy , but that kind of cultural *tribalism* doth have a double-edge to it and temptations to pander to their readers' sense of the "plots for world domination" of *outsiders* is one of them. We have it in the states too. A lot quote the the economic philosophies of Scotland's own Malthus as the driving ideology behind a plot for "manipulated shortages" for the plot of world economic domination by the Trilaterals and the Bilderburgers and ..shall I go on ?

So there are definite reasons for lining up some grains of salt here as well.

All that said , it's no secret that G. Dubya has been *managed* by the neo-conservatives and "supply-sider/free-trader" ideologues of which a good portion are *retreads* from the Reagan/Bush decade of the 80's. Yeah , I *do* agree that that fact alone *is* reason enough for vigilant pause.

This new wave of "right wing" re-militarism under a Dubya/Cheney admin was no surprise to me since before the election so it's hardly a secret.

The neo-cons had been howling at the moon over the down-sizing of the our military started expressly becuase of the obscene $billion$ of pure warhogs-at-the-hogtrough largesse and waste.

The neo-cons have made a pariah of the term "nation-building" as if part of Clintonian plot and yet they are in it full swing in regards to Afghanistan and *have* to be or a 2nd Bush admin will be acussed of blowing it in Afgahnistan *again*.

The neo-cons that were perfectly willing to blow the national budget to deficit in astronomical proportions in support of a militarist economy are just at it again only this time there's a *corrected* economy with less revenue tp pay for all this new spending while the military spending is ginned-up.

This is what's truly scary to me. The potential for hog-tying our national economy so thoroughly with national debt as to trigger *emergency powers* ; the kind that good ol' Ollie North, as Artful Dodger to CIA Chief Willaim Casey's Fagan, helped draft before their directinvolvement in the Iran-Contra scandal blew it sky high.

In conclusion , the Neo-cons can draft all of the so-called "secret blueprints" they want , but the equally so-called "New World Order" couldn't happen anyway as a purely unilateral *Amercian* agenda. It would require the direct participation ,and thus arch-complicity , of an equally remilitarized EU. The continuous dream of a central *empire* , Euro-style , is hardly a secret either. So much of Euro's millenia have had their culture built ,and slaughtered each other for supremacys, in its agreesive pursuit.

Why should the 21st Century be any different? If anything the pan-Euro agenda has its best oppurtunity yet with the technologies of central organization. Only the blessing of Euro-sclerosis has kept those harboring that *predilection for empire* in check.

China is even more aggressively engaged in this kind of *supreme centralization* , I call it Beijingitis , made possible with this century's high-tech integration which both the American *and* the European contracters are falling all over themselves to sell them. Some here may not be aware that *all* of China , which covers several times zones , is synchronized to Beijing time and it's enforced.

It should ,by now ,be no secret that the world of Islam has it's well-funded dreamers of a pan-Islamic Empire as well and much harm can come from just the effort however doomed it is to fail.

So thus, to promote this political science fiction of fear-mongering over a purely *Pax Americana* is what makes this *purely* Scottish Sunday Herald editorial position appear more than a wee conviniently provincial at best.

Subject: RE: BS: everyone should read this
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)
Date: 19 Sep 02 - 06:28 AM

If you click on the links Katlaughing and McGrath provided, you'll see it would be a pretty elaborate hoax. I'm not surprised, but I'm saddened and very afraid.

Subject: RE: BS: everyone should read this
From: GUEST,Boab
Date: 19 Sep 02 - 02:48 AM

Many newspapers are hoodwinked into publishing false material. There is a ----very remote---- possibility that the Sunday herald has been "sold a pup" in this case---but I don't for one second believe that this DAMN' GOOD newspaper has ever deliberately lied.

Subject: RE: BS: everyone should read this
From: DougR
Date: 18 Sep 02 - 09:39 PM

Horse pucky I say. Where is the beef (proof?) Balderdash!

Saddam teaches Bible at the First Baptist Church of Baghdad. You believe that? It was in a newspaper, I'm pretty sure, so it must be right. :>)

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: everyone should read this
From: michaelr
Date: 18 Sep 02 - 09:15 PM

What I said! I'm extremely worried. DougR, on the other hand, is sure there's no problem at all, at all.

Michael

Subject: RE: BS: everyone should read this
From: allanwill
Date: 18 Sep 02 - 02:58 PM

I've just had a brief look at the document so far, but - WOW, there is some scary stuff in there. I know it's not a good idea to quote just one statement, but "This report proceeds from the belief that America should seek to preserve and extend its position of global leadership by maintaining the preeminence of US military forces."

I'm afwaid, I'm vewy, vewy afwaid.

Allan

Subject: RE: BS: everyone should read this
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Sep 02 - 01:51 PM

There's no question about the existence of this document. How important it is is the question that needs to be addressed.

Here is a link to it Since there are 90 pages of it (which maybe goes against the idea that Bush has actually read it), I don't think copying it into the Mudcat would be sensible. (And it's easier to read in the original.

My whole take on the Iraq business is that the administration has seen September 11 as a wonderful opportunity to try to get the go ahead for all kinds of things that were on its shopping list anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: everyone should read this
From: wysiwyg
Date: 18 Sep 02 - 12:31 PM

What's improbable to me is that anyone wold find this startling, or expect others around here to be surprised by it all.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: everyone should read this
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 18 Sep 02 - 12:31 PM

Very disturbing! How do you know it's real? It's hard to know if anything in the papers is "real?" Too often it's just presented to further a particular agenda. If Bush can do it, so can his detractors... (me being one of them... I think that he is a very dangerous man.

Jerry

Subject: RE: everyone should read this
From: Bobert
Date: 18 Sep 02 - 12:26 PM

I mentioned this on another thread which another catter dismissed by saying there are posotion papers on just about nay subject.

I think what makes this one stand out from the others is that it was prepared *for* Jeb Bush and Donald Rumsfield.

The more that I see of the ways things are unfolding with the Bush Administration, the greater fears that I have that, "We ain't seen nothing yet!" This stuff just plays out as overlapping nightmares anbd bad scripts after another. The manner in which they *react* to situations is pretty darned scarey.

Oh sure, it's real easy to say, "Well, if you're not a terrorist, then you don't have to worry about you civil liberties being enfringed upon. But, just knowing that everything we say here on the web is now archieved, scrutanized for content, opens up a door for something not unlike the McCarthy days. Sure, if the governemnt suspects someone of a crime, then fine, wire tap or get some teenager to hack into his computer but to monitor citizens exercizing constitutional rights of descent and discussion which are the cornerstones of democracy is going too far. Just the talk of it, as we have heard from members of the Bush administration, sends out a very clear message to "shut up". Hmmmmmmmm?

At least in the past, with the exception of some of the country's saddest chapters (Japanese enternment, McCarthy, the Civil War, etc.), the other side was willing to argue back. This one, nah. Just "shut up", or we'll demonize you and if we gotta we'll put your butt in jain without due process and you can just stay there.

Yeah, this may sound like paranoid thinking, but it ain't paranoia if they rerally are out to get ya'. Ask Tom Dascle, who was brutally labeled a demon by the Bush regime. He's now goosesteeping.

Bush must go either thru impeachment or the in 2004, but he is a very dangerous man who represents some folks who would just like to call off Jefferson's little expiement.

And democracy must be resurrected.

Bobert

Subject: RE: everyone should read this
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 18 Sep 02 - 12:20 PM

Here it is as a clickable link: Bush planned Iraq regime change before becoming president What's the improbable bit, Jed? Surely such thinking is par for the course for Cheney, Rumsfeld & Co.

Subject: RE: everyone should read this
From: katlaughing
Date: 18 Sep 02 - 12:12 PM

Thank you, terilu. Even more interesting reading over at the Plan for New American Century (PNAC) site.

Subject: RE: everyone should read this
From: JedMarum
Date: 18 Sep 02 - 11:46 AM

ah, there's another one born every minute!

Subject: RE: everyone should read this
From: greg stephens
Date: 18 Sep 02 - 11:19 AM

OK I have

Subject: RE: everyone should read this
From: wysiwyg
Date: 18 Sep 02 - 11:10 AM

Thank God that place has its own forum where people can react to this one-- there is a link to it at the bottom of the article.

~Susan

Subject: everyone should read this
From: GUEST,terilu
Date: 18 Sep 02 - 10:55 AM

Sorry to inject this into a music forum, but this is vitally important to know since we seem to be on the brink of war - perhaps it will incite some direct peace action from readers - please look this up - http://www.sundayherald.com/27735 - it's an article from the Scottish Sunday Herald proving that Bush and his cronies orchestrated this whole thing before he was president, and it's for real! peace, Terilu