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Re: Bullshit politics



> > I'll stop short of accusing the administration of complicity in the
> > attack, but the smooth way they're operating to rechannel the money
> > suggests it strongly.  It's all about the economy.
> > 
> > I'm a little old to be throwing rocks and spraying peace signs on
> the walls of the recruitment office, but I'm damn sure emailing my
> > Congressmen.
> 
> I apologize ahead of time for what may seem to be an ad hominem
> attack. But it isn't, it's a logical and objective observation: what
an idiotic formulation you're making (or failing to justify) here.
> 
> Explain to us how you connect our involvement in Vietnam and the
flimsy reasons we went there to what just happened and is motivating us
here now.  If you could, then what you just said makes sense. But you
cannot. I predict it. I'll bet $1000 to anyone here that you cannot.

Okay, here's the deal.  Yesterday $40 billion dollars changed hands in
the US Congress.  Bush has invoked the War Powers Act which gives the
president greatly broadened powers over what he normally has to make or
overturn laws and to declare war.  I've already heard a member of
Congress decline to give information on the proceedings based on
national security and the "need to know" i.e. the government is engaged
in activity that it intends to keep secret from the press and the
citizenry.  

It's quite possible that Congress has retained full rights to revoke
this state under the War Powers Act, and also the current state of
"national emergency."  In this case, any views or projections based on
these events might be considered overly alarmist, but the fact that the
"war" Bush is talking about is completely open-ended.  The state of
emergency and his need for broader powers might well extend through to
the end of his term of office.

Motivations of the people and the government can be two quite different
things.  The citizenry seem to be focused very heavily on the media
reports of the NYC and WDC tragedies, and intent on (short term)
retaliation and redress.  It's quite possible that the administration
has different goals.  The alarmist view is that the President has now
secured increased power to institute a draft, to suspend certain
rights, to overturn laws protecting the environment, to facilitate the
use of natural resources, and to grant special dispensations to
industries deemed essential to the war effort.  This is a conservative
viewpoint.  For an expansion of possibilities, check around the
internet for more radical interpretations.   

Connecting this to previous states of war: It's true that the Viet Nam
War did not begin exactly this way.  The Viet Nam War began with troops
sent out in an "advisory" capacity, and gradually escalated into a
conflict where the advisors were carrying the war effort, all without
going though the technicalities of a formal Declaration of War. 
However, there are already looming similarities in the undefined and
open-ended quality of this proposed conflict--rather than hunt
guerrillas through the jungle, we may now expect to be hunting them
through the desert.  Invocation of the War Powers Act indicates that
the Bush administration means to move forward with plans for it without
consulting the citizenry on the fine points.  For a somewhat closer
parallel, the Korean War began this way.

In addition, references to Pearl Harbor have raised the spectre of DAY
OF DECEIT a book compiled by Robert B. Stinnett with aid of the Freedom
of Information Act.  This work points to the complicity of FDR and his
administration in the losses at Pearl Harbor as a means to mobilize the
US population for entry into WWII.  It's not completely impossible that
the current administration may have refrained from acting on
indications of a terrorist attack in order to meet goals that it did
not bring before the American people.

I'm not saying that any of this is true, but it is a possible and
logical projection of current events.  Agreed? 

     
> "I'm a little old to be throwing rocks and spraying peace signs on
> the walls of the recruitment office, but I'm damn sure emailing my
> Congressmen."
> 
> This is pretty typical 60's stupidity BTW. 

This was a figurative statement.


LB



=====
Don't meddle in the affairs of dragons, because you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup.

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