BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'

Subject: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: CarolC
Date: 28 Sep 07 - 01:01 AM

"I think nothing has higher priority than averting an attack on Iran, which I think will be accompanied by a further change in our way of governing here that in effect will convert us into what I would call a police state.

If there's another 9/11 under this regime … it means that they switch on full extent all the apparatus of a police state that has been patiently constructed, largely secretly at first but eventually leaked out and known and accepted by the Democratic people in Congress, by the Republicans and so forth.

Will there be anything left for NSA to increase its surveillance of us? … They may be to the limit of their technical capability now, or they may not. But if they're not now they will be after another 9/11.

And I would say after the Iranian retaliation to an American attack on Iran, you will then see an increased attack on Iran – an escalation – which will be also accompanied by a total suppression of dissent in this country, including detention camps..."

More here... http://www.consortiumnews.com/2007/092607a.html


I find myself in agreement with his overall position.


Some information on Daniel Ellsberg...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Ellsberg

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: Barry Finn
Date: 28 Sep 07 - 01:23 AM

Hopefully he's wrong but he's been right all along up till now, scary. I would agree with his position that come another 9/11 style tragedy that we would see a police state, we're not all that far from it now, only one horrific disaster away. At least while this present administration is still in office. Hopefully come 2008 a more intellegant, logical thinking, peacefull crowd will come into being, I won't bve holding my breath though. I do believe some Neo-Cons would go all out to see this type on scenario played out before Bush leaves & their best chances go with him. One of the many reasons why impeachment is so important.

What the persent day anti-war movement needs is more young Ellsbergs & others of his ilk.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: Wolfgang
Date: 28 Sep 07 - 06:20 AM

Ah, Ellsberg, asking about his paradox is always a good way to find out if someone has really grasped probabilities, but I digress...

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: GUEST,number 6
Date: 28 Sep 07 - 08:04 AM

Something of 'somewhat' interest to add here ... one of the forgotten candidates now running for leadership for the Democratic Party, Mike Gavel, played a key role in getting the Pentagon Papers released to the public.

biLL

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: pdq
Date: 28 Sep 07 - 09:55 AM

Senator Mike Gravel, with the help of Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn, put the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record where everyone could find them if they tried.

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: katlaughing
Date: 28 Sep 07 - 10:28 AM

I could go through a list going back before this century to Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus in the Civil War, and before that the Alien and Sedition Acts in the 18th century. I think that none of those presidents were in fact what I would call quite precisely the current administration: domestic enemies of the Constitution.

That's exactly what the shrub and co. are, domestic enemies od the Constitution.

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: CarolC
Date: 28 Sep 07 - 09:03 PM

This seems rather fitting. It's a complex of barracks at a US navy base in California, as seen from above...

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/47/143053448_01c0320dcd.jpg


There's also a swastika on the front of the Rockefeller Center, to the right of the door. I wonder if I'm the only person whose noticed that.

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: CarolC
Date: 28 Sep 07 - 09:03 PM

*who's noticed that

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: Donuel
Date: 28 Sep 07 - 11:12 PM

The similarities of the PNAC America to the German 3rd Reich that *I have personally noticed* are few yet profoundly importent.

Here are 8 off the top of my head:

The national unification over the destruction of a famous building.

The abundance of private armies, in Germany it was the SA otherwise known as the brown shirts under the direction of Roeme. They were not part of the official German army but at one point outnumbered the army. THe US has over 132 private military entities in Iraq.
SOme you know like KBR Halliurton CACI TITAN Blackwater and some you kn't know such as Custer Battles who was sued by an FBI agent in US court for stealing $7 million in goverment money by overbilling. IT was overturned since private armies in Iraq are not bound by US laws but by the Iraqi intermim goverment ---yet Condi Rice claims that Blackwater can not be charged by the Iraqi goverment either...
but let me not digress into the full range of war profiteering.

The suspension of various parts of the Constituion as well as the Constituion as a whole.

The engineering of elections by tricks murder and propoganda.

The politics of Invasion.

The scape goating of certain segments of the population. In the US it is more gays than jews while in the 3rd R it was more jews than gays however the SAS leadership was known to be mostly gay so they were murdered by the young Nazi party.

The wierd use of mysticism and religion by the 3rd R is well known and shows an attempt to create a new religion.
In the US the Republican base relies on the Evangelicals which is a new religion with its farthest roots going back to England 100 years ago. The mysticism of the Bush administration is a secret affair. It is not the skull and bones conspiracy which we have all heard about. The Yale group is just training for young ruling class initiates to welcome the blood letting that they will be called upon to do. No the real Bush mysticism is based in bible codes created by Jewish experts who created a matrix of Saddam war and victory out of 11 by 11 characters arranged from the old testament. This is something they can never own up to in the real world.

The total police state US domestic spying program is way beyond anything the 3rd R could have dreamed.

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Sep 07 - 01:22 AM

Yes, well, they have far more sophisticated technology at their disposal...and far more sophisticated weapons too.

Looks to me like Prescott Bush's dreams are finally coming true.

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: GUEST,Hitlary '08
Date: 29 Sep 07 - 09:40 AM

That's what Ellsberg is talking about--the ability to pull off a total clampdown on freedom. I'm REALLY glad one of the icons of the left-wing spoke out about that.

Hitlary Clinton has said she's in favor of endless war, so where's the diff between Bush and Clinton? Bush # 1 hand-picked Bill Clinton as his successor, and Bush # 2 is now preparing the way for Hitlary.

Problem with all the new "laws" is that they're unconstitutional. Search warrants need to be signed by a judge, for example. No warrant, no passage through the front door. Only criminals would break into your house. Would you let a crackhead in through the front door? No? Then why would you let a federal agent who doesn't have a warrant in? And how far will you go to protect yourself, your family and the constitution? I think Ellsberg hasn't factored in 100 million American gun owners.

I'm just glad Ellsberg spoke out.

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: Peace
Date: 29 Sep 07 - 07:47 PM

"I think Ellsberg hasn't factored in 100 million American gun owners."

Half of whom will support the coup.

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Sep 07 - 07:55 PM

Yes, that is exactly the problem in a nutshell. Excellent point, Peace. It's exactly what I think every time I hear about all those proud American gun owners. Half of them would be glad to shoot "traitors" and "terrorists" on the government's behalf if the government asked them to.

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: Peace
Date: 29 Sep 07 - 07:56 PM

Nice to know that Ellsberg agrees with us, eh, LH?

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Sep 07 - 08:32 PM

Yeah, it's somewhat comforting... ;-)

You know what? "Freedom" is a relative thing. Those who talk on and on about "freedom" incessantly are often quite happy, I notice, to take someone else's freedom away so that they can be free themselves to do something which is not in that other person's interest. They are quite happy to devastate another country and enforce their ideas and their military and civil authority upon that country's populace, whether or not that populace likes it one bit. Local collaborators and opportunists can always be found to help out. When the foreign invaders are eventually thrown out (as usually happens in a while) the local collaborators and opportunists flee for their lives...if they can find a helicopter to cling to.

Everyone in history has fought for the freedom to do what HE wants to do, what his COUNTRY wants to do, what his political PARTY or FACTION wants to do, but not necessarily for freedom in the higher sense, the true sense of the word (meaning: equal freedom for all people everywhere to live peacefully in the manner in which they would freely wish to live, if given the choice).

Remember how the American West was "won"...with a gun, a bayonet, a torch, a broken treaty or two, a bottle of whisky, and a Bible. And its people, what was left of them, were then put in little prison camps called reservations. So much for "freedom".

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: Mickey191
Date: 29 Sep 07 - 08:45 PM

Does this mean Rosie just may have been right???

Guest: Hitlary Clinton has said she's in favor of endless war, so where's the diff between Bush and Clinton? Bush # 1 hand-picked Bill Clinton as his successor, and Bush # 2 is now preparing the way for Hitlary.


May I know your source for your 3 assertions?
Thank you in advance.

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: Ebbie
Date: 29 Sep 07 - 10:23 PM

If you make a lie big enough and repeat it often enough, Mickey, eventually you don't need no stinkin' proof.

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: Don Firth
Date: 29 Sep 07 - 10:25 PM

I recognize the rhetoric. "GUEST,Hitlary" is our old friend "GUEST,froth" (and any of about eleventy-fourteen other names), our resident conspiracy-theory lover.

Source for "Hitlary's" information? Some cockamammie blog somewhere. Give it all the attention you figure it deserves.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: Mickey191
Date: 29 Sep 07 - 11:39 PM

Thanks Ebbie & Don.

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: CarolC
Date: 29 Sep 07 - 11:52 PM

Oh, for pete's sake. This thread is not about other people who post here in the Mudcat. This thread is about some stuff that Daniel Ellsburg had to say. Don't you people ever get tired of bitching about one another?

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Sep 07 - 12:04 AM

Passive-aggressive types on longterm personal vendettas would almost rather bitch about one another's various shortcomings than breathe or eat... ;-)

This is the number one thing I've learned from 6 or 7 years on Mudcat, and it's the absolute worst thing about the place. It's disgraceful, but it's inevitable in any forum where 50 or more people are all talking AT one another day after day and developing personal hatreds in the process. There is so much venting of spleens here that I bet it could power a small town if put to a constructive use.

Anyway, yes, it's about what Daniel Ellsberg had to say. So why not focus on that, as Carol says?

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: CarolC
Date: 30 Sep 07 - 12:22 AM

Well, if people would talk about the actual subject matter of the threads, instead of each other, some interesting discussions might actually take place, instead of the endless haranguing that goes on here day after day after day after day after day...

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Sep 07 - 12:32 AM

Yup.

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: CarolC
Date: 30 Sep 07 - 12:35 AM

I should add that I don't mean to short shrift those who have actually discussed the topic in this thread. I very much appreciate their thoughtful and intelligent contributions. I just really hate to see this one devolve into yet another puerile feeding frenzy, as happens so often.

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: GUEST,Hitlary '08
Date: 30 Sep 07 - 01:28 PM

Well, I'm glad Ellsberg spoke out. I think he's a bit naive, though. Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton...300 million Americans and that's the best we can come up with? It's a rigged game. We're under gangster control. This isn't the good ol' days when Tricky Dick and a handful of miscreants were the fly in the ointment of the republic...we're now in the clutches of bona fide mass-murdering psychopaths who've pooled their resources. They're moving out of the U.S. and stripping the country of all assets, getting us ready for the fire sale. The 'next administration' has already had a hand in setting up this nightmare, and whoever comes next is going to make full use of the unconstitutional 'laws' that have been enacted under the 2 Bushes and a Clinton. There won't be any stinking rollbacks and return of civil liberties. Once you seize power you never let go.

You folks need to buy guns and educate yourselves in how to use them. Canadians don't have this option, so they poo poo it, but if you're an American, it is your duty to defend the Republic. It is under attack by the federal bureaucracy. Buy a gun and learn how to use it, then buy lots of ammo and more guns, to hand out to the neighbors who are not preparing themselves. When the 'military caregivers' start kicking in doors at the end of your block and dragging people to the bus for the ride to the FEMA camp, hand out the guns to your neighbors, and open fire. Better to die that way than in the gulag.

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: Peace
Date: 30 Sep 07 - 01:30 PM

Pat Paulsen had an idea like that. He suggested that the fastest way to end skyjackings was to give everyone a gun as they boarded the plane.

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Sep 07 - 04:03 PM

You're mistaken about one thing, Guest. Canadians DO have that option (to buy guns), and there are plenty of gun owners in this country, although not nearly as many per capita as in the USA. The reasons for that are cultural, not legal or procedural.

You have to take and pass a safety course in the handling of firearms here in order to buy a gun, just as you do in order to drive a car. Once you've passed the appropriate course (it's not too difficult, I've taken it), you can buy guns. No problemo. The course will already have educated you in how to use them (in a general sense of loading, unloading, and handling). If you want to practice your shooting, you can join a local gun club...they aren't hard to find.

Anyone in Canada who seriously wants to own guns can do it, but fewer people want to here, as it happens, probably because this is a far less fearful society than what you have in the USA, and one with a far more peaceful domestic tradition in the last two hundred years.

We also have a historical tradition of local militias being raised in time of war to defend the country, bearing their own weapons. That was done in 1812-14 when the USA attempted to invade Canada, and it was done very successfully.

As Americans, you do not have a monopoly in the world on such things as freedom, liberty, independence, or the ability and willingness to defend yourselves, despite your apparent assumptions to the contrary.

Those assumptions seems to have arisen out of your popular mythology, and they've been perpetuated in your movies and other entertainment. They are not realistic or accurate assumptions.

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: Peace
Date: 30 Sep 07 - 04:08 PM

From Canada's Justice Department

Canada
Low Range Estimates
= 2,400,000 firearms owners

= 7,200,000 firearms

Medium Range Estimates
= 3,100,000 firearms owners

= 9,000,000 firearms

High Range Estimates
= 3,800,000 firearms owners

= 11,000,000 firearms

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Sep 07 - 04:08 PM

As for Pat Paulsen's idea...well, it would save the hijackers the necessity of buying their own firearms! ;-) Very generous. It would also place guns in the possibly quite unwilling hands of a number of people who didn't want them and had no idea how to use them, plus endangering passengers by possibly placing guns in the hands of unstable or incompetent people who might discharge them accidentally or deliberately, thus creating a serious potential problem other than hijackers to worry about when flying. Heh!

I'm being humorous, of course, but then, so was Pat Paulsen.

You know what? Life will never be perfectly safe, and there's not a damn thing you can do about that.

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: Peace
Date: 30 Sep 07 - 04:10 PM

Yeah there is. Eat lots of fruit and fibre . . . .

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: Don Firth
Date: 30 Sep 07 - 04:19 PM

Carol and Little Hawk, simmer down. It appears to me that the discussion was proceding perfectly well until GUEST,Hitlary stuck his/her/its oar in and tried to divert it onto another conspiracy theory. When I said, "Give it all the attention you figure it deserves," I meant "ignore it and get back to the serious discussion at hand," which I am following, even if I haven't commented much yet.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: pdq
Date: 30 Sep 07 - 04:24 PM

Pat Paulsen also said "Guns don't kill, bullets do. So, my plan is to ban bullets".

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: Peace
Date: 30 Sep 07 - 04:29 PM

Pat Paulsen said, when he was running for the Presidency: "If I'm nominated I will not run, and if I'm elected I will not serve."

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Sep 07 - 05:08 PM

You could ban bullets. People would then use their guns as clubs. It might be an improvement of sorts, I guess.

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: Peace
Date: 30 Sep 07 - 05:22 PM

All the problems we face in the United States today can be traced to an unenlightened immigration policy on the part of the American Indian.


Pat Paulsen

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: CarolC
Date: 30 Sep 07 - 05:49 PM

Don, that person, the one who is in this thread posting as Guest,Hitlary08 is not the one who is hijacking this thread. He/she is offering an opinion, just like the rest of us. And he/she has as much right to do so as you. It's people like you who are hijacking this thread. Just like they (you) do on numerous other threads, by making it about another poster instead of about the subject of the thread.

If you disagree with his/her opinions, go ahead and offer your own as an alternative. Or even tell us why you think his/her opinions are wrong. Offer some documentation to back up your assertions. But when you make it about another poster, rather than what he/she has said, like this...

"GUEST,Hitlary" is our old friend "GUEST,froth" (and any of about eleventy-fourteen other names), our resident conspiracy-theory lover.

Source for "Hitlary's" information? Some cockamammie blog somewhere

...that's how the thread gets hijacked, and that's how it goes all to shit.

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: Don Firth
Date: 30 Sep 07 - 06:22 PM

Okay, Carol. If that's what you think, then I won't "hijack" your thread any further. I'll let "GUEST,Hitlary" do that.

You're on your own. I'm outta here.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Sep 07 - 06:47 PM

Bye, bye.

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: bobad
Date: 30 Sep 07 - 07:17 PM

Feeding the nameless f#@king trolls is what hijacks threads, not Don's postings.

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: CarolC
Date: 30 Sep 07 - 07:22 PM

Cool, Don. Thanks.

bobad, feeding the trolls is precisely what Don was doing, if, in fact, Guest, Hitlary08 is a troll. Not feeding trolls means not responding to them.

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: bobad
Date: 30 Sep 07 - 07:30 PM

I should have said LETTING nameless f@#king trolls post is what hijacks threads.

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: CarolC
Date: 30 Sep 07 - 09:21 PM

No it doesn't bobad. They're easy enough to ignore, which is how we're supposed to deal with them.

What hijacks threads is people constantly sniping at other posters rather than discussing the subject of the thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Sep 07 - 09:22 PM

Sometimes it does. But I think what more often hijacks threads around here is people's personal feuds with other people, including their feuds with Guest posters as well as members.

Anyway, the point is that Ellsberg says that the American government has been taken over by a coup, and that the coup is anti-constitutional and essentially unamerican in the extreme. I agree with that.

The ironical part is, though, that the architects of the coup are probably under the impression that they are quintessentially American and are doing what's right for America...such aggressive patriotism being as has been said "the last refuge to which a scoundrel clings"... ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: CarolC
Date: 30 Sep 07 - 09:31 PM

On the subject of Hillary, however, I am of the opinion that she would be just as likely to keep us in Iraq, and just as likely to attack Iran as any of the Republican candidates. I'll be voting for Kucinich. He's the only candidate who both voted against the war, and voted against funding the war, and he's the only one who is unequivocal about not attacking Iran.

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: CarolC
Date: 30 Sep 07 - 09:31 PM

...with the exception of Gravel, I think.

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Sep 07 - 09:37 PM

I share your view of Hillary's likely policies in the Middle East, Carol.

My 9:22 post was a reply to bobad.

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: CarolC
Date: 30 Sep 07 - 09:43 PM

I know, LH. We crossposted. My post about Hillary was just me talking about the subject of the thread. I didn't see your post until after I posted that.   ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: GUEST,Hitlary '08
Date: 01 Oct 07 - 12:12 AM

Well, I'm bringing all the attention I can to the Clinton campaign.

Regarding Ellsberg, again I think he's being naive when he says the perpetrators of the coup are misguided patriots, or whatever. They aren't even American. They're multi-nationalists. Dick Cheney has sold off all his dollar holdings and is building a palace in the middle east. He already moved Halliburton there. The Bushes have a chalet in Switzerland, just bought a hundred square miles in...where was that...Paraguay? These people aren't American anymore than they're Balinese. They've hijacked the American government and military to further goals that aren't in American interests or in the interest of ANY human. They're using America to create the turmoil that will lead to WW3, which will be so ugly that people will WANT a world government, to prevent future wars. The problem is, the people who created the situation will be the ones who offer the fix. Either Ellsberg is being naive, or he's misdirecting, trying to paint the perps as incompetent.

And Little Hawk, you may have the 'option' to own guns in Canada, but in the US we have the 'right.' Big difference.

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Oct 07 - 01:23 AM

The option and the "right" to do something amount to exactly the same thing as far as I'm concerned. The rest is just rhetoric, and the USA has always been big on rhetoric when it comes to concepts like "liberty", "freedom", and the "right to bear arms", as if they invented all those things brand new for the very first time in 1776. They did not. I noticed when I moved to the USA at the age of 10...from a country that is just as free as the USA, if not a little more so...that the schools there were hammering it into all the kids 5 days a week that they were living in the one country in the world that had invented and apparently copyrighted things like freedom, liberty, and the right to bear arms. What total nonsense! But American kids are taught to believe it from Grade 1 on...so of course they believe it. It just isn't true. The reason I noticed it and it was so blatant to me was simple...I hadn't been born in the USA. I'd already seen an alternative.

Your constitution, however, is a pretty brilliant document and it's totally worth defending. No doubt about that. A great many other countries have used it as the inspiration to write their own constitutions.

"They've hijacked the American government and military to further goals that aren't in American interests or in the interest of ANY human."

Agreed! But it is still entirely possible that they fully believe they are doing what is "best" and that it IS in the interest of many human beings. It's my experience that such autocrats as these always imagine they are doing what is "best"...for the world, for the people in the world who really "matter" (meaning them and their friends and key associates)...and best for the future of the planet! I kid you not. I'd be amazed if they don't believe that to their core.

They're completely deluded if they think that...but I'm sure it is what they think. Very, very few people are consciously evil (they always think it's the other guy who is)...and even if they ARE consciously evil then they have convinced themselves that THAT is the "right" way to be...by some strange leap of faith all their own (this would be true in the case of a few people who are consciously serving, say, a so-called Satanic deity or some such obviously negative concept as that). They can always justify what they do in their own minds. They always imagine it serves some ultimate higher purpose that is justified.

That is true of Satanists, it was true of Nazis, it was true of Maoists, it was true of Pol Pot, it was true of the Spanish Inquistion, and I bet it's true of the neocons as well. I bet they think they are doing "the right thing". They wouldn't do it if they didn't think so.

Subject: RE: BS: Daniel Ellsberg: 'A Coup Has Occurred'
From: CarolC
Date: 01 Oct 07 - 11:11 AM

I have a problem with the "misguided patriots" thing, myself. I don't know how anyone can possibly misconstrue the words in their oaths to "protect and defend the constitution of the United States". That wording really isn't open to interpretation. If they are undermining the constitution, they cannot possibly be patriots. They are traitors to their country.

From Websters...

Traitor

1. one who betrays another's trust or is false to an obligation or duty