What's the Magician's Other Hand Doing While we're All Watching the War?
 

Difficult as it may seem, news is continuing to happen in places other than Iraq and Washington. (I'm actually particularly concerned about what's going on in N. Korea while the world's attention is on the Middle East, but that's not what I'm going to talk about here ...)

In response to Bush's Monday Speech, an eco-"activitist" (my own term would be terrorist, incidentally) issued his own statement.

The key information is contained in his "call to action" which is near the end of the piece.

I hope that no one listens to Craig Rosebrough this time. (he, and his organization Earth Liberation Front, have in the past,been implicated in exhorting others to commit arson and other acts of property destruction) People will die in one or more of these "actions." It doesn't matter whether it's protestors or defenders.

This is absolutely the wrong shit to be publishing post 9-11 with TIA and Homeland Security in full effect. Of course it doesn't matter if anyone gets killed doing this, they're American. This is absolute bullshit. This is the same fucked up reasoning used by extremists in the US to bomb abortion clinics and kill the workers there in order to save lives.

I've had a problem with this kind of nonsense since the early days of the save the trees folks pounding spikes into trees in hopes of causing chainsaw chains to break and injure loggers.

I know that at some level it's wrong to do so, but I can't help but laugh my head off every time one of the treesitters falls off his/her perch.

ELF are fucking nuts.
So is logging old growth forests.

This is such a bunch of shit it makes me sick to think that people will try anything to get attention. I believe these people can be given 2 options in those situations:
1. Laeve this country!!!!
2. Stand up on a wall and get shot.
Freedom of speech is fine and dandy but then you go and spit out basically do riots and violent act but shy away strike hard,fast and run and most importantly do not get caught the average idiot will think yay that won't happen to me so I will do more than what was said. This guy is giving all those punks out there an excuse to do what ever they damn well please because it might help stop a war. I have to quit writing now for I am getting so mad that soon my writing will not make sense.....

He's basically right. The "anti-war" movement is completely ineffectual, and massive direct action would be effective (though with obvious side effects), if only because it would force the US to turn its military upon itself. But it won't happen.

Oh yeah...this guy is just begging to have the FBI kick his door in and have a nice "talk" with him.

Came across this the other day - and I've researched it, the quote was made... rather timeless with orange alerts, Homeland Secutiry, and Bush...
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And here are words of warning: Though they were never intended as such, they ought to remind us of the perils we face not only from enemies who would destroy us but from leaders who would destroy our enemies.

<b>“Why of course the people don’t want war. ... That is understood. But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship ...Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”</b>
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Kinda chilling, isn't it?
Who said that? Hitler’s accomplice, Hermann Goering (commander of the German Air Force and president of the Reichstag), at the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals in 1946.

Same reason why the military intentionally put so many key assets in the National Guard and Reserves. So that people would think twice before letting leaders hype the country into a war - a war with no smoking gun. VietNam was suppose to be the lesson that too many today did not learn. If one did not read the Pentagon Papers or equivalent texts, then one only set himself up to become a pawn, again, or a corrupt leadership.

Military's plan did not work. We got ourselves into wars we had no business being into - Somolia and Iraq. Using reasoning of the current administration, we will attack Sierra Leon, Liberia, Niger, Zimbawbe, Pakistan, India, North Korea, Indonesia, Columiba, and maybe even Philippines. Too many still get hyped by the excitement of war rather than learn lessons even taught in the game called "Risk".

One need not read a quote from Goering. We have examples in our own history specific to how one gets into war for the wrong reasons. It was called VietNam.

"Tin soldiers and Nixon's coming; We're finally on our own; This summer I hear the calling; Four dead in O..Hio. Four dead in Ohio. " If this song does not bring a chill down your back, then you probably did not learn the lessons of VietNam. About every 30 years we are doomed to repeat the mistakes of history because youngsters (those less than 30) didn't learn from history. It is easy to make a war monger. Hype him on explosive weapons and righteousness rather than the realities in non-fiction. We are at war in Iraq for the same reasons we attacked VietNam. Number one reason in that list - preemption. The need to attack another before he can be a threat. Just as the Nazis did. Same reason we got into VietNam.

Famous book - "Making of a Quagmire". Another - "Ugly American". Still apply today.

I have 4-Way Street on vinyl.

My aging hippy musician friends and I often play "Ohio" in our frequent 'we know some part of a whole lot of songs' sessions.

warch trumps you all. She went to KSU.

Pulling out the Bible card
 

What scares me the most is that in ALL the prophecies of the Bible not one of them mentions the United States Or any country like the United States. Wich would indicate that at some point The States get De-World Powered and I Think this war is the start of it.

Re: Pulling out the Bible card
 

Yeah, but Nostradamus said stuff about us, and his prophecies are more recent than the biblical ones. His are the update edition.

Hmmm. Might be time to reread those Hopi prophesies, though. We have time yet. The Mayan Calendar doesn't end it's current cycle until 12/21/2012.

Re: Pulling out the Bible card
 

Since the bible does not mention Capt Kirk or Starship Enterprise, then you know the bible is flawed.

Well, we could be the Whore of Babylon.

BUT...

This all might be better served in the perpetual religion thread. Religion is very important, and not to be lightly cast aside with snide remarks. Ask Salman Rushdie about religion. When you ask a scientist about what ocurred before Planck time, and how the universe will end, they get vary starry-eyed and speak of faith.

Umm last I looked you have to be over thirty to be a member of Congress and over 45 to be President. As for the lessons learned I feel that Bush learned them rather well: The poor and the non-white go die. What better way to lower the unemployment rate. Its not like his kids (or those of anybody he is connected to) are going to be put in harms way.

So I'm thinking I'm going to start a pool to see which countries are next... My bet is Iran, Syria, Cuba, N. Korea...

Quite honestly I think if Saddam can hold out a month he may save the world. I figure thats about how long it going to take for people to really start to feel some sort of loss close to home and realize that this version of reality tv is really real for that kid down the street who used to cut through thier yard everyday on the way to school. If that doesn't happen and this is over next week there will still be enough flag wavers out there to make Bush think he can keep doing this over and over for the next six years.

As far as the ELF is concerned, the FBI has paid that guy (too lazy to figure out his name) a couple two three visists. But there is nothing that they can do! There is no organization to take down. He just posts this shit on is website and sits back to watch the fires burn. Basically the activists are falling for the same shit they are protesting about the rest of the time. Dumb.

As for the biblical and other references to the end of the world, I'm sure we can always find another one to ruin...

It's 35 to be President, last I checked.

(Incidentally, it's 25 to be a member of the United States House of Representatives and 30 to be a member of the United States Senate. The former requires seven years of citizenship; the latter, nine. Both require residency in the state for which you are elected.)

And if I'm not mistaken, you have to be native-born to be President. Hmmm...I wonder how that applies to PR, VI, etc.

Our youngest president was 43. But thats beside the point. My point was the ones who are creating the situations that we find ourselves in today are not the ones who were not alive for the last quagmire, but rather the ones that lived through that time. Its cyclical, everybody screws thier children.

Actually, I'd say that the people who are getting us into this current quagmire both dodged the previous one (King George II dodged the draft during Vietnam, as opposed to Al Gore, who did serve), and were wealthy enough to not be horribly affected by the last budget disaster (the Bushes were rich as hell during the Reagan budget woes, and so seemed to benefit from them).

Funny, isn't it: we need another Tax-and-Spend Liberal (booga! booga! booga!) to balance the budget (a la Clinton) that the Fiscally Responsible Conservatives have blown out of the water (a la Reagan, King George I, and King George II).

And that's a fact, Jack,
Z

It is? Perhaps you'll show me where that's proven?

The world today is a different place than it was for much of the 90's. The recession had already started by the time Clinton left office, and then our military budget suddenly grew one day in September.

You cannot prove the influence of X on Y unless you have observed Y in the absence of X. We haven't observed the "world after 9/11" without Bush as president, so we really don't know how it would be different without him. Was the tax cut doomed from the start? We'll never really have any idea, because the world changed.

Pretty simple, really. Follow me, if you would.

Fact: under Clinton, the US ran consistent budget surpluses.

Fact: Bush won selection in 2000.

Fact: After taking office, one of Bush's first priorities was to propose dramatic tax cuts, especially geared towards the wealthy.

Fact: Those budgets changed the budget from being in surplus to being considerably in deficit long before 9/11.

Conclusion: blaming the war on terror and on Saddam (the two are not one and the same) for the deficits is entirely and demonstrably false.

Check,
Z

Fact...
 

All budgets and monetary adjustements DO not take affect, And/or no affect can be "felt" untill Time passes. There Is a delayd reaction.
How much of a delay depends on how big of a change was made, In the case where The United states had a surplus under Clinton was all leftovers From The previous President. As far as i Know (and i'm not that politicaly savy) I don't think Clinton did to much with the budget.







<i>----------------------------------------------------------------------
Just talking out my ass on subjects i know little about</i>

The US budget deficit is due to causes too complex to blame on *any* single entity, including GWB. His tax cuts alone cannot possibly be held liable for the current deficit. The general downturn in the economy is mainly responsible as unemployment creates greater need for public assistance and fewer incoming taxes to our coffers. Low interest rates and poor stock market performance result in less money moving around and therefore less money being taxed.

I will concede that GWB probably could have picked a better time to propose tax cuts, but then it is the Republican party line that tax cuts put more money into the hands of those most likely to invest it and benefit the economy overall.

I'll believe it when I see it. Right now, the war itself is the biggest threat to the economy as it is draining off billions that could be spent on things right here (and yes, I know that American contractors in certain sectors are making out like bandits, but others are suffering...and so it goes).

I dare you to back this up.

You can't, because it simply isn't true. We had a surplus in '99 and '00, and <b>that was it</b>. This is reported by the Congressional Budget Office, and I have the following numbers from them: a deficit of $255 Billion in '93, a deficit of $203 Billion in '94, a deficit of $164 Billion in '95, a deficit of $107 Billion in '96, a deficit of $23 Billion in '97 and a deficit of $29 Billion in '98.

If by "consistent" you mean "it happened a total of two times over his eight years in office, for a total of 25% of those years, during which the dot-com era was at its height and therefore boatloads of cash was flowing into the government via taxes and it therefore would have been pretty fucking hard to run a deficit", well then yes, the US ran consistent budget surpluses under Clinton.

That is stunning, considering that it isn't the challenge I posed. I also never said anything about Saddam, so I'm not sure why you're bringing it up in our discussion, as if I had implied that the two <b>were</b> one and the same.

What I'm asking is where it's proven that, to have a balanced budget, we <b>need</b> a "Tax-and-Spend Liberal".

My contention is that we can't entirely blame Bush for the current clusterfuck because a lot of other shit happened too.

That's my way of poking fun at the way that Clinton, the tax-and-spend liberal (booga! booga! booga!) was able to balance a few budgets while the three fiscally-responsible conservatives before and after him were not even to come even close to submitting a single one which was either balanced or even less in the red than the one before it. Hence my suggestion that perhaps tax-and-spend liberals are better at balancing budgets than fiscally-responsible conservatives.

I thought it was pretty insanely obvious,
Z

I have to agree with Dave, here. It is difficult to underestimate the impact that the dotcom boom had on this country, nor to overestimate the resultant plunge upon its demise.

Everyone thought they had something, but it was smoke and mirrors. People spent money like it was water and then found out there was nothing (and I mean *nothing*) there to support it all.

Imagine yourself going out and spending thousands of dollars because you'd been promised a big raise, and instead you lost your job. That's what happened to the whole damn country.

Clinton just happened to be sitting (or something) in the Oval Office when it occurred. This is not a defacto cause and effect based on his presidency.

Insane? Maybe. Obvious? No.

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;On the subject of things that happened, remember OPEC? It was towards the election time that they began restricting sales to drive up prices. My memory is a little fuzzy on the details but I remember maybe four or five economists on NPR saying that every time oil prices have shot up it's hurt the economy greatly. I remember gas prices hitting $1.70 or so per gallon of regular around here not long after that. I think I even heard Alan Greenspan giving warnings of this nature. Yet, that's the one thing I never heard Bush making a lot of noise about. I've heard 9/11 blamed a lot, and a few other things, but not the oil situation. Am I the only one that thinks it's odd that these guy's say the economy is going to tank, give a reason for it, it does tank and nobody on the Hill seems to notice they said anything? Did I miss it?
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Also I understand the opposite is true, cheap oil gives immediate boosts to our economy. I've said elsewhere that the cheap oil we get from Iraq after the war will do wonders for the economy. And I think Bush will credit his tax breaks. Am I running with conspiracy theory of the week or does this make sense?

Clinton did several things that improved the economy and extended the boom.

- He did not enact a large tax increase.
- He did not enact a large spending increase.
- He led the passage of NAFTA.
- He led the passage of welfare reform.

Adam's idea that you need to elect a tax -n- spend libbrul to improve the economy is spot-on. The reason is that only a tax -n- spend libbrul is politically incapable of taxing and spending. Clinton tried it in his first year, wanting to federalize health care, but the voters gave him a harsh smack in return in 1994 by electing a Republican House. Similarly, only Bush 41 could increase the size of government the way he did, spending like the wind, something 43 looks to duplicate for some unknown reason.

Thus, electing a big-gov D may be the only way to guarantee that the next administration truly cuts spending. Bush 41 could never have gotten NAFTA or welfare reform through. On the other hand, only a Republican can end the drug war. Strange, isn't it?

And who controlled Congress for 6 of those 8 years, including those in which the budget was balanced?

Presidents get way too much credit and/or blame for the economy.

It makers perfect sense. Indeed, I've had a similar theory for quite a while. To wit:

The political memory of the American public goes back roughly 2 years- that is, if something happened more than 2 years ago, voters don't usually consider it at the polling place.

King George I made the mistake of not getting the bad economic news over with early in his term, and having the war end more than 2 years before the '92 election. Hence, when the election came, peoples' political memories said nothing about the war victory (during and after the war, Bush I's approval rating was through the roof), but lots about the current recession.

King George II is trying to follow precisely the opposite strategy that his father followed. He's hoping that this economic bust ends before the election, and that the war is fresh in voters' minds.

Of course, if he doesn't like the election results, he'll just ask the Supreme Court to help again,
Z

What you seem to be saying, Tony, is that "gridlock works". I agree. (note to Republicans in Harrisburg: Stall Rendell's tax increases until doomsday if necessary)

Reducing the price of oil should also work. Which should be accomplished by the completion of this war.

If, by "more than two years", you mean "one year, eight months and one day"...

I'll agree that it's a good rule of thumb, but I'd shorten the timeframe. Maybe to 18 months. But I think I'd give probably 75% influence to the last year in office.

True enough, the GOP was in controll of Congress for 6/8 years... just as they have been for the entire Bush II administration. If your implied argument- that the GOP Congress was largely responsible for the balanced budgets- is to hold water, then surely you would expect at least a single balanced budget to come from a combination of GOP controll of both Houses of Congress and the Executive Branch.

But, FWIW, I agree that Presidents- and Congress- get too much credit for the vagaries of the business cycle. However, policies can tweak the cycle so as to enhance it in one direction or the other.

Your ball,
Z

Historical fact: the President who increased the size of the Federal government the most was that demigod of conservatism, Richard Nixon.

Trick Dick himself,
Z

(For the record, I think the tax cut was a bad idea. It really *was* geared toward the rich. The government should be taking that surplus and using it to create jobs or <b>something</b>.)

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Ok, I'm in on the idea that we need a President of a different party than the Congressional Majority. Just 'cause I'm trying to keep track of all this, does anyone disagree on this point? I have trouble believing that we all agree on anything...

I wouldn't say that we need the President and Congress to be under the control of different parties per se, but I would definitely agree that this situation is much more conducive towards creating the kinds of checks and balances which the founders explicitly wanted in the Federal government which they were designing.

As opposed to "It's good to be the King,"
Z

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Sorry, your right. My phrasing sucked. Still, this seems to be a commonly held belief around here. I think your right about the checks and balance system though.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I've been saying that now is a good time for a third party to get somewhere. I wonder how it would effect said system if a third party did come in and take, even a modest portion, of the Congressional seats?

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Hey, it better be good to be the king, it has to suck to be president. Have you seen the physical changes the last couple of guys have gone through while in office???

That's not my argument at all. Hell, I'd love to give Bill all the credit for it, since I'm not much of a fan of the Republicans. But of course, that would be unfair.

Whit, I was noticing the other day that Dubya has gotten noticeably grayer since taking office. I wonder how white Reagan's hair would have been had it not been dyed?

[joke] It wasnt dyed, it was an ape hair toupe [/joke]

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Ronnie the Ray-Gun is an interesting case. Did the job contribute to his mental decline? If so, when? How much did Nancy decline during his presidency? If it was considerable do we assume it had nothing to do with who was in charge?

I think the LACK of the job was probably a greater contributor to his decline ...

I wonder if Ray-Gun ever did the job. I always had the feeling he was a talking head. Maybe it was a subconscious hope that someone....anyone else was really running the show.

Dave -- that's exactly how you create jobs. You stop siphoning money out of the economy to fund the less-creative public sector. Even if 100 cents on the dollar of funds allocated to "create jobs or something" were used by a government agency to "CJOS," it still wouldn't be as good at it if the money were just left in businessmen's pockets in the first place. Keep in mind that trickledown works for one transcendent reason: it is the rich who hire, thus creating jobs. Poor people never hire anybody. They can't afford it.

Taxation amounts to parasitic drag on an economy. A powerful economy can tolerate quite a lot of taxation, but the less taxation is around, the more powerful the economy is, and instantly so. Taxation really only exists to handle things that an economy agrees are needed, but which no one has actually managed to generate wealth from -- basically, these things are going to involve the protection of wealth, and of wealth generation. It's rather like antlers on a deer -- they have a metabolic cost to the deer to generate them, but one of their functions is to keep pumas from killing them. I know this is a secondary function -- the primary one is to make for a sexy deer ("Mildred, check out the rack on that one! Yoo-hoo, big boy -- over here!"), but it nonethless makes quite a difference to the deer who chases a puma away rather than getting eaten. The profit from all that expenditure, which is not down in where the deer lives as it were, is indirect, but present. Where the art of it comes in is not to fall into the temptation of having the government become the one-stop shopping for all goods and services. Soviet Russia fell into that one, and we all know what a roaring success that was. Ordinary Americans may experience this without traveling to North Korea or the People's Republic of China by signing on with the military for a hitch or two -- that was the exact path I took and it taught me a lesson. I've been up in the deer's antlers, and I've been in the deer's sinews. I do more good in the latter place.

I close by remarking that too much taxation is very bad: when the lamprey gets bigger than the fish, the fish dies. Not right away, but soon. If too much taxation is bad, then next to no taxation is a good thing, right? Dave, I think you are now ready to start studying economics. I recommend trying some libertarian texts on taxes -- they think a lot about this kind of thing, more than the Mommy Party or the Daddy Party. Probably the most accessible economics text is H. Hazlitt's slim volume Economics In One Lesson.

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I'm with you on taxation being a drag on the economy. This being said I think Dave was right is saying that particular tax cut was a bad idea. The trickledown theory doesn't work when people can't afford to buy any new products. The business men will just hold onto the cash untill a better day. That's why the economy still sucks. It'll get better in response to all the oil that's about to start coming out of Iraq.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;In a time like this, when a lot of jobs are being lost and the Dow is dropping more often than not it would be better to start at the ground up. If the poor had a little bit more then they would buy more. More purchaces equals more jobs.
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;I'd like to back this up with the fact that the job market got worse, not better after the cuts were made.

The reason that the government had a surplus in 99 was that the dot com boom was raging and taxes generated more money than they knew what to do with. The Office of Management and Budget predicted that the conditions would stick around the for a while, and they didn't. It didn't really have much to do with Clinton.

I wish there was a successful third party, but I feel that the only way they could do that would be by draining voters from one of the two major parties, giving victory to the other major party.

I'm talking about people here, not companies. I fail to see how those in the top 1% taking back something like 36% of the tax cut (whereas they only pay something like 25% of taxes - meaning that they <b>took back more, proportionally, than they paid</b>) really helps me out. Okay, so people making a few million a year are taxed less. They buy a nicer car and some guy at Mercedes-Benz sleeps easy knowing that he's not getting laid off this week. Whoop-ty-do.