The Liberals’ Creed
- Thread starter Gonz
- Start date
I solemnly promise not to offer corrections unless the current wording is such that it offers the opposite meaning of that intended.
That out of the way--
I am a moderate. I view extremists at both ends of the spectrum with equal suspicion. And I hate it when someone thinks I am stupid enough to swallow a lie just because the President said or implied that something was true, particularly when later he admits it WAS a lie.
Bush and his administration, for the most part, appear to think that the American public is stupid. Tax cuts that have wiped out all the surplus the previous administration had been building and then put us even further in debt than we were beforehand is NOT a stimulus to the economy. Tax sharing revenue no longer reaching state programs has led our state to have to increase property and sales taxes MORE than the "savings" offered via our allegedly lowered income taxes. Fine thing to have a tax "break" that ends up costing me even more money to support on the home front.
And I see what the education programs put into place by this administration do--they increase paperwork for special education (Bush promised to "streamline" paperwork, but in the end it is even worse than it was before), it has damaged work done on individualizing educational programs to allow for differences in individual learning modalities and skills, it has cut funds to those schools that need them most, it has increased the burden on both classroom teachers and special education teachers and consultants, and generally it has caused progress in education to take a backseat to the idea that if you test, somehow all students will be able to perform the same on a single testing instrument when this is just so much hooey.
So, you want to cut out public education? Then you feel that private schools are always better than public ones? You obviously haven't seen some of the private schools I have or you wouldn't say that. Nor have you seen some of the superb public schools I have seen.
No question there are some awful public schools--have had to work in a few of them; but the excellent ones are far superior to any of the private schools I've seen except two. And when I see private schools made vehicles for teaching silliness such as "Creation Science" and trying to indicate that religion and science are somehow at odds with one another, I want to puke.
That out of the way--
I am a moderate. I view extremists at both ends of the spectrum with equal suspicion. And I hate it when someone thinks I am stupid enough to swallow a lie just because the President said or implied that something was true, particularly when later he admits it WAS a lie.
Bush and his administration, for the most part, appear to think that the American public is stupid. Tax cuts that have wiped out all the surplus the previous administration had been building and then put us even further in debt than we were beforehand is NOT a stimulus to the economy. Tax sharing revenue no longer reaching state programs has led our state to have to increase property and sales taxes MORE than the "savings" offered via our allegedly lowered income taxes. Fine thing to have a tax "break" that ends up costing me even more money to support on the home front.
And I see what the education programs put into place by this administration do--they increase paperwork for special education (Bush promised to "streamline" paperwork, but in the end it is even worse than it was before), it has damaged work done on individualizing educational programs to allow for differences in individual learning modalities and skills, it has cut funds to those schools that need them most, it has increased the burden on both classroom teachers and special education teachers and consultants, and generally it has caused progress in education to take a backseat to the idea that if you test, somehow all students will be able to perform the same on a single testing instrument when this is just so much hooey.
So, you want to cut out public education? Then you feel that private schools are always better than public ones? You obviously haven't seen some of the private schools I have or you wouldn't say that. Nor have you seen some of the superb public schools I have seen.
No question there are some awful public schools--have had to work in a few of them; but the excellent ones are far superior to any of the private schools I've seen except two. And when I see private schools made vehicles for teaching silliness such as "Creation Science" and trying to indicate that religion and science are somehow at odds with one another, I want to puke.
ResearchMonkey
Well-Known Member
My daughters all attend public school, but they learn at home.
Of my school aged daughters, 3 of the 4 have been wonderful students ahead of the pack. Not because the PS has done a wonderful job. Because we work with our children at home, they are our responsibility.
We give them that edge that makes most of the PS curriculum just more practice of what they already learned at home.
Of my school aged daughters, 3 of the 4 have been wonderful students ahead of the pack. Not because the PS has done a wonderful job. Because we work with our children at home, they are our responsibility.
We give them that edge that makes most of the PS curriculum just more practice of what they already learned at home.
Winky
Well-Known Member
The Liberals’ Screed
I have spent six figures to send my Son to private schools.
He will be a senior at this states leading college preparatory
school this fall.
He has already had two full ride offers for college.
He placed in the 99 percentile in his PSAT testing
and we are awaiting the results of his SAT test he took on the fifth of June.
He believes he actually aced the reading portion
of the test and did well on the mathematics section.
He stated that if he receives at least a 1530 he will just move on to the other tests,
SAT II etcetera.
Public education is a catastrophe of epic magnitude.
The NEA should be made to compete like any other business in a free market economy.
Like the USPS losing billions of dollars every year there isn’t any incentive to improve.
Thankfully Hillary's attempt at socializing medicine in this country was thwarted.
I can only imagine a day when the Liberals seek to outlaw private education.
Yes there will always be those at the top of the heap.
It is the way of the world.
No amount of crying and whining from those at the bottom
will make any difference.
The bottom line is parents are solely responsible for their children’s education. If they choose to abdicate the responsibility then complaining when the union workers of the NEA louse up the job will make not one wit of difference. But the children WILL end up being good little leftists at the bottom of the heap!
I have spent six figures to send my Son to private schools.
He will be a senior at this states leading college preparatory
school this fall.
He has already had two full ride offers for college.
He placed in the 99 percentile in his PSAT testing
and we are awaiting the results of his SAT test he took on the fifth of June.
He believes he actually aced the reading portion
of the test and did well on the mathematics section.
He stated that if he receives at least a 1530 he will just move on to the other tests,
SAT II etcetera.
Public education is a catastrophe of epic magnitude.
The NEA should be made to compete like any other business in a free market economy.
Like the USPS losing billions of dollars every year there isn’t any incentive to improve.
Thankfully Hillary's attempt at socializing medicine in this country was thwarted.
I can only imagine a day when the Liberals seek to outlaw private education.
Yes there will always be those at the top of the heap.
It is the way of the world.
No amount of crying and whining from those at the bottom
will make any difference.
The bottom line is parents are solely responsible for their children’s education. If they choose to abdicate the responsibility then complaining when the union workers of the NEA louse up the job will make not one wit of difference. But the children WILL end up being good little leftists at the bottom of the heap!
Gato_Solo
Out-freaking-standing OTC member
Larner said:
Nice to see a new 'face' here, but I am a bit more skeptical of the left than of the right.
I've been too many places to see what damage can be done by people who 'mean well', but don't have the heart to make a real change because it'll distract them from their latte for too long. As for sweeping generalizations, the right doesn't have a lock on them. (Yes, I left that there intentionally) 
The left can be patonizing as well. My whole take on any matter is to err on the side of caution. Altruism is nice, but it's not a code to live ones life by. As for the war on Iraq...I'm closer to the matter than anyone else in this forum, and, while I agree with the sentiment that the Iraqi's had nothing to do with 9-11 (that was stated by the administration as well), they most certainly did back terrorists and terrorist organizations. As for the missing WMD's, I can say this much. Take a teaspoon into a grassy area that's 20 feet by 20 feet, and try to find pieces of a broken coke bottle. While you're at that little task, ponder this...the military has been attacked with a chemical shell...we've found some stuff left over from the Iran-Iraq war buried, and it still doesn't amount to the 80 tons of chemical/biologica weaponry that Saddam Hussein couldn't account for before this war.
ResearchMonkey
Well-Known Member
I have to ask the same question gonz did.
What lies? You demand proof of the truth, where is your proof of the lies?
-thats the 'merican way
What lies? You demand proof of the truth, where is your proof of the lies?
-thats the 'merican way
Do you wish to explain how moderate is a codeword for liberal? And would you like to explain how "liberal" has gone from meaning "freehanded" and "willing to share" to being a replacement for "pinko commie"?
I am NOT a liberal--I am a fiscal conservative, but for social programs prefer the policies suggested by liberals as they are more attuned to the needs of society than the surety I see from the far right that those who are in dire straits are always somehow responsible for what is happening to them and deserve every bit of misery they face.
The Republican party was the party of the moderates for years, which is why I always considered myself a Republican--until the far-right-wingers took it over and have tried to tie it to fundamentalist Christianity and apparently want to force a level of conformity onto our populace that I find repugnant.
As for specific lies--for months we were told that the government of Iraq had "weapons of mass destruction" (again the term that is ONLY used against Iraq) which could be turned on us within a forty-five minute period. But so far all that's turned up has been a nuclear facility that we already knew Israel bombed years ago with a storage unit for spent nuclear waste that OUR folk opened improperly that we were told was proof of their weapons program till someone pointed out we already knew about it and it was non-functional.
Okay, so that one was dropped--but they they found the mobile labs--again, proferred as proof of a chemical weapons program--till it was shown these labs were properly purchased from the British government for agricultural purposes, and WE had okayed the purchase, and no proof or records or findings of chemicals inappropriate for the unit was found. So, that one was dropped.
Powell stood there with all these satellite photos purporting to show the long-range missiles and so on--except that the same satellites fail to show those purported missiles being loaded into anything at the appropriate times, there were no trucks from the alleged facility going elsewhere at the appropriate times, and so on; and he later admitted that the situation had been overstated.
Tell you what--this kind of tactic, plus the information that Bush had insisted he be given all reports that would support the contention that Iraq was the fount of all evil, no matter how poorly they were supported by facts and documents and the known lack of veracity of their sources, indicates to me that Bush WANTED this war no matter what, and was willing to manipulate information to get it.
So, now we have it, it was supposed to be an in-and-out war which is still on-going; it was supposed to not cost us much in the way of forces, but our kids as well as innocent Iraqis are dying and being maimed; and we are increasingly causing Moslems and Arabic folk to see us as hypocritical aggressors--particularly when it has come out that we have been as vicious in our treatment of prisoners as Saddam's folks, and that guards who tried to insist on respectful treatment of prisoners were removed from duty.
Sorry, this administration is as dirty as any I've seen in any third-world nation.
I am NOT a liberal--I am a fiscal conservative, but for social programs prefer the policies suggested by liberals as they are more attuned to the needs of society than the surety I see from the far right that those who are in dire straits are always somehow responsible for what is happening to them and deserve every bit of misery they face.
The Republican party was the party of the moderates for years, which is why I always considered myself a Republican--until the far-right-wingers took it over and have tried to tie it to fundamentalist Christianity and apparently want to force a level of conformity onto our populace that I find repugnant.
As for specific lies--for months we were told that the government of Iraq had "weapons of mass destruction" (again the term that is ONLY used against Iraq) which could be turned on us within a forty-five minute period. But so far all that's turned up has been a nuclear facility that we already knew Israel bombed years ago with a storage unit for spent nuclear waste that OUR folk opened improperly that we were told was proof of their weapons program till someone pointed out we already knew about it and it was non-functional.
Okay, so that one was dropped--but they they found the mobile labs--again, proferred as proof of a chemical weapons program--till it was shown these labs were properly purchased from the British government for agricultural purposes, and WE had okayed the purchase, and no proof or records or findings of chemicals inappropriate for the unit was found. So, that one was dropped.
Powell stood there with all these satellite photos purporting to show the long-range missiles and so on--except that the same satellites fail to show those purported missiles being loaded into anything at the appropriate times, there were no trucks from the alleged facility going elsewhere at the appropriate times, and so on; and he later admitted that the situation had been overstated.
Tell you what--this kind of tactic, plus the information that Bush had insisted he be given all reports that would support the contention that Iraq was the fount of all evil, no matter how poorly they were supported by facts and documents and the known lack of veracity of their sources, indicates to me that Bush WANTED this war no matter what, and was willing to manipulate information to get it.
So, now we have it, it was supposed to be an in-and-out war which is still on-going; it was supposed to not cost us much in the way of forces, but our kids as well as innocent Iraqis are dying and being maimed; and we are increasingly causing Moslems and Arabic folk to see us as hypocritical aggressors--particularly when it has come out that we have been as vicious in our treatment of prisoners as Saddam's folks, and that guards who tried to insist on respectful treatment of prisoners were removed from duty.
Sorry, this administration is as dirty as any I've seen in any third-world nation.
Hi, Winky. I think you'll find The Kid will admit he was given as much chance and encouragement to learn on the home front as your son, as was I by my parents, and my parents by theirs. But many of the kids I work with don't have our advantages. Many are from neighborhoods where poverty is rampant. Many were born to teenage mothers who were encouraged to have the children and to keep them, but who never received encouragement to learn parenting skills and who receive no support from family and friends in raising their children. Many have been abused--critically abused--by family, by friends of family, by neighbors, and in some few cases by strangers. Many have been used by emotionally unstable parents as pawns to manipulate family and exes. Many are born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome and other drug-related conditions going back to drug abuse before the child was born. Many have biochemical disorders that keep them from learning in a "normal" manner, or from behaving in a "normal" manner or demonstrating their learning in a "normal" manner.
If we continue to deprive public schools of funding and insisting that all are equally bad (which is not true), we will set up a self-fulfilling prophecy. Private schools can exclude anyone they want for any reason they want--public schools cannot. So, all the unwanteds will remain in the public schools, and again the teachers will be blamed for the "failure" of the public school system.
I work now in an excellent district, and I'm sick and tired of seeing all districts and schools tarred with the same brush. It simply isn't true.
If we continue to deprive public schools of funding and insisting that all are equally bad (which is not true), we will set up a self-fulfilling prophecy. Private schools can exclude anyone they want for any reason they want--public schools cannot. So, all the unwanteds will remain in the public schools, and again the teachers will be blamed for the "failure" of the public school system.
I work now in an excellent district, and I'm sick and tired of seeing all districts and schools tarred with the same brush. It simply isn't true.
Larner said:
That is how moderate is construed to be code for liberal. Ever since the malaise of Jiminy Carter & the "we just aren't what we used to be" ooglings of the left, in which our beloved & recently deceased Dutch showed us was completely & utterly false, the word liberal has taken on dirty word status in the US. Even Howard Dean, the current King of the liberals has a little trouble speaking that word aloud. Moderate has multiple meanings, all starting with I can't tell where I stand until the wind blows.
Fiscal conservative means not spending money for things unless specifically enumerated in the Constitution. If you'd care to look, you'll not find a single sentence boistering public education. Thus, it becomes a state issue. Same with helping feed those without a job. Look at my sig lines for confirmation of that mistake.
Larner said:
Find, quote & source the exact speech por favor. (ps-it doesn't exist)
Gato_Solo
Out-freaking-standing OTC member
Larner said:
Source, please?
Larner said:
I didn't hear that. Source on that, too, please. Also...as a side note...did you know that most household insecticides contain nerve agent?
Larner said:
So how did some of those same missile engines wind up in Jordan ?
Once again...source?
Larner said:
So far, let's look at this in terms of length of the war, casualties of the war through direct action (traffic accidents don't count, and at least 140 of US military deaths were from traffic 'mishaps'), and Iraqi's killed by coalition forces, and you'll see the 'big' picture. Most of the deaths caused to innocent Iraqi citizens is through Iraqi insurgents. They can't seem to kill as many coalition members as they'd like, so they've turned to killing Iraqi's as well. As for the Iraqi prison scandal, I've pointed out before that this problem started long before the pictures came out, and 6 soldiers were under investigation on January 15, 2004...the investigation ordered by Donald Rumsfeld himself. Of course, with no pictures, I guess it just wasn't newsworthy at the time, was it? Why did the press wait for over 2 months to put this on page one?
One more thing...the press never mentioned that the person who "blew the whistle" was, himself, a guard at that very prison.
Now about those 'murders' that took place...
Found that tidbit buried in here
Larner said:
Kind of takes most of the wind out of your sail, doesn't it?
RoyalWickedness
New Member
ResearchMonkey said:
Well, I'll start you off with just the Top Ten:
THE LIST:
After I finished writing a 300-page book detailing a wide assortment of George W. Bush lies—scores of deceptions, if not many more (I haven’t counted)—my publisher requested that I produce a top-ten list of Bush lies. It would be good for marketing, I was told. In my mind, the "top" lies numbered far more than ten. And after all, the book has fourteen chapters. A list of ten would have to leave out entire swaths of this work, including sections on such important subjects as global warming, missile defense, environmental standards, Bush’s failed energy plan, and Afghanistan reconstruction. It also would have to rely upon a false equivalency in order to provide a full flavor of the book. One could easily argue that the ten most significant lies of the Bush presidency all related to his campaign for war in Iraq. But such a list would not be much good from a sales perspective, for the point of The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception is to show that Bush has lied his way through most serious policy matters (as well as through his bid for the presidency). Thus, I’m forced, as I brutally boil down 120,000 words to ten bullet items, to rely upon lies that represent larger body of lies. So here is a painfully constructed list—arranged in quasi-chronological order--that demonstrates the severity and range of Bush’s serial lying but that only skims the surface. For the complete picture—as well as for all the details that support the below accusations—please read the book.
10. "I have been very candid about my past." Bush said this during a press conference a few days before Election Day 2000. He was then in the middle of media firestorm that followed the revelation that he had once been arrested for drunken driving. Of course, this statement was untrue. He uttered it while he was trying to explain why he had not been "candid" about his arrest record. And during the campaign, he had not been "candid" about other significant matters, including what seemed to be a missing year in his National Guard service (which did not jibe with what he wrote about his service in his autobiography) and his apparent (though unacknowledged) shift from supporting abortion rights in the late-1970s to opposing them in the 1990s. He also was not "candid" about the tax plans he had pushed while governor of Texas. He always referred to them as "tax cuts" and did not mention that his major tax proposal included both tax cuts for property owners and an increase in the sales tax and the creation of a new business tax.
9. "I’m a uniter not a divider." This was a Bush catchphrase, a mantra. It was shorthand for his claim that he engaged in positive, not negative, politics and could heal a political culture ripped apart by the bitter ideological and partisan combat of the Clinton years. Yet during the 2000 presidential campaign and the Florida fracas, Bush and his lieutenants engaged in down-and-dirty and divisive political maneuvers. Just ask Senator John McCain, Bush’s main Republican opponent, whose record on veterans affairs was falsely attacked by a Bush surrogate and who was accused falsely by the Bush campaign of opposing research for breast cancer. As president-elect, Bush nominated one of the most divisive ideologues in Washington, former Senator John Ashcroft, to be attorney general. During a pre-inauguration interview, Bush acknowledged that he expected Ashcroft to be a lightning rod. But would-be uniters-not-dividers do not shove lightning rods up the backsides of their opponents. Another example: during the 2002 congressional campaign, Bush accused Democrats—who differed with him on employment rules for the new Department of Homeland Security—of sacrificing national security for their own petty purposes. He did this to help elect Republicans to office. Such a move was well within his rights as a political player, but not the action of a fellow who cares more about uniting than dividing.
8. "My plan unlocks the door to the middle class of millions of hard-working Americans." All the available slots of this top-ten list could be filled by statements Bush made to sell his tax cuts at various points—on the campaign trail, in 2001 (for the first major tax-cuts battle), and in 2003 (for the second major tax-cuts battle). But I chose an assertion from 2001 that echoed statements from the campaign trail, that would be reprised in 2003, and that represented the best-sounding argument for his tax cuts. Bush frequently claimed his tax cuts would help low- and middle-income Americans, and in 2000 and 2001 he often spoke of a mythical single-mom waitress, making $22,000 or so, who would be guided into the middle-class by his tax cuts. The point was to make it seem as if he truly cared for hard-pressed Americans and that his tax cuts did indeed embody his promise of "compassionate conservatism." (By the way, I am not placing on this list Bush’s claim that he is a "compassionate conservative." That’s a rather relative term more suitable for judgment than truth-based evaluation.) But when the accounting firm of Deloitte & Touche reviewed his tax plan for Time magazine during the 2000 campaign, it found that his beloved waitress would receive no reduction in her taxes. Zippo. In 2001, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that this waitress might gain $200 from Bush’s tax cuts if she managed to pull in $25,000 a year. But such a sum would not place her on the highway to the middle class. In fact, about 12 million low- and moderate-income families received no tax relief from Bush’s 2001 tax cuts (and millions of families were left out of his 2003 package). His plan unlocked few doors. Instead, about 45 percent of the 2001 package was slated to go to the top 1 percent of income earners. In 2003, Citizens for Tax Justice calculated that individuals earning between $16,000 and $29,000 would net about $99 from Bush’s proposed tax cuts. Again, not an amount that would cover the entrance fee for a middle-class life.
7. "This allows us to explore the promise and potential of stem cell research." That was what Bush said during an August 9, 2001, speech, announcing his decision to permit the federal funding of stem cell research that only used stem cells lines that existed before his speech. Bush was presenting his policy as a Solomon-like compromise. Religious right leaders and the Catholic Church were opposed to all stem cell research because it uses cells extracted from five-day old blastocysts (or embryos) in a process that destroys the embryos. (These embryos usually are leftovers created by in vitro fertilization at fertility clinics and no longer needed by the couples for which they were produced). But many prominent Republican donors and patient advocacy groups supported stem cell research, noting that scientists believed that studying stem cells (which have the potential to grow into any one of the more than 200 different types of human cells) could lead to treatments for Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s and other terrible diseases. In his speech, Bush said that 60 stem cell lines already existed—"where the life and death decision has already been made"--and that these lines could support a vital and vibrant research effort. Consequently, he said, federally funding could be limited to underwriting research that employed only these lines. Bush was trying to have it both ways. He could appease his social conservative supporters by saying no to any federal support for new stem cell lines, and he could claim to support research that might potentially help millions of people. There was one problem. The 60 pre-existing lines did not exist. The number was closer to a dozen—if that—an amount that experts in the field did not consider sufficient for research purposes. And when scientists and media reports convincingly discredited Bush’s count—which Bush might have initially assumed to be correct—the Bush administration kept repeating its untruthful position. Sticking to the 60-lines fantasy (or lie) permitted Bush to avoid making an explicit decision to curtail stem cell research. But in effect that was what he had done without admitting it.
6. "We must uncover every detail and learn every lesson of September the 11th." Bush said this in November 2002, as he appointed Henry Kissinger to be chairman of an independent 9/11 commission that Bush had orignially opposed. (Kissinger lasted two weeks in the job.) But Bush has not encouraged the uncovering of every detail. His administration did not turn over information to the congressional 9/11 inquiry about intelligence warnings the White House reviewed before 9/11. The administration also refused to say whether certain pre-9/11 intelligence warnings—including a July 2001 report noting that Osama bin Laden was poised to launch a "spectacular" attack "designed to inflict mass casualties against U.S. facilities or interests"—were shared with Bush and what he did in response, if he had received them. Moreover, the administration claimed that Bush’s awareness of these warnings (not the warnings themselves) was classified information—an argument unprecedented in the modern history of national security secrets. Bush also refused to let the congressional inquiry release the portion of its final report that concerned connections between the 9/11 hijackers and Saudi citizens or officials. By resorting to such secrecy—which happened to keep hidden information that might be embarrassing or inconvenient for the Bush administration--Bush made it impossible for investigators to "uncover every detail" and for the nation to "learn every lesson."
5. "[We are] taking every possible step to protect our country from danger." Bush said that a month after 9/11, and he has repeated that vow several times since then, including at the start of his recent month-long vacation at his Texas ranch. Every possible step? A reassuring line, but it is not true. Two years after the attacks, there still is no plan for enhanced security at the nation’s thousands of chemical plants. (Over a hundred of them handle chemicals that if released could threaten a million or so Americans.) According to the General Accounting Office, the Bush administration has not even "comprehensively assessed the chemical industry’s vulnerabilities to terrorist attacks." In October 2002, Tom Ridge, Bush’s chief homeland security official, said that voluntary regulations for the chemical industry would not suffice, but that is the policy the administration has been slowly pursuing. And less-than-everything has been the approach in other critical areas. A recent report from a Council on Foreign Relations task force—headed up by former Republican Senator Warren Rudman—says that not enough has been done to improve the abilities of first responders and that their basic needs will be underfunded by $100 billion over the next five years. The nation’s ports have asked for $1 billion to beef up security; the Bush administration has announced grants of $300 million. Various reports note that the federal government has not done all that is necessary to improve its biodefense capabilities. The administration has opposed efforts to mandate the screening of commercial cargo carried by passenger aircraft. (Most of this sort of cargo is not currently screened—creating one large security loophole.) So "every possible step" has not been taken.
4. "I first got to know Ken [Lay in 1994]." As the Enron scandal reached the White House in early 2002, Bush uttered this remark, claiming he had nothing to do with Lay until after winning the 1994 Texas gubernatorial election. It was an apparent and clumsy effort to diminish his relationship with the now-disgraced Enron chief. But in1994, Lay and Enron had been leading contributors to Bush’s campaign. And Lay—long a patron of Bush’s father—had worked with Bush in political settings prior to 1994. In a pre-scandal interview, Lay noted he had been "very close to George W." for years before1994. (In the mid-1980s, Bush’s oil venture was in a partnership with Enron.) Bush also claimed that his administration had been of absolutely no help to Enron. That might have been true during the scam-based company’s final days. But in the months preceding that, the Bush administration had assisted Enron in a variety of ways. This included appointing individuals recommended by Lay as top energy regulators and opposing wholesale price caps on electricity during the California energy crisis, a move that came after Lay (whose electricity-selling company was using manipulative tactics to gouge California) urged the White House to block price caps.
3. "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." And, "[Saddam Hussein is] a threat because he is dealing with al Qaeda." These two Bush remarks go hand in hand, even though the first was said on March 17, 2003, two days before Bush launched the invasion of Iraq, and the other came during a November 7, 2002, press conference. Together they represented his argument for war: Hussein possessed actual weapons of mass destruction and at any moment could hand them to his supposed partners in al Qaeda. That is why Hussein was an immediate threat to the United States and had to be taken out quickly. But neither of these assertions were truthful. There has been much media debate over all this. But the postwar statements of Richard Kerr, a former deputy director of the CIA, provide the most compelling proof. He has been conducting a review of the prewar intelligence, and he has told reporters that the intelligence on Hussein’s WMDs was full of caveats and qualifiers and based mostly on inferential or circumstantial evidence. In other words, it was not no-doubt material. He also has said that prewar intelligence reports did not contain evidence of links between Hussein and al Qaeda. The best information to date indicates that the prewar intelligence did not leave "no doubt" about WMDs and did not support Bush’s claim that Hussein was in cahoots with al Qaeda. Bush’s primary reason for war was founded on falsehoods
2. "We found the weapons of mass destruction." Bush issued this triumphant remark in late May 2003, while being interviewed by a Polish television reporter. He was referring to two tractor-trailers obtained by U.S. forces in Iraq. The CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency had concluded these vehicles were mobile bio-weapons plants. Yet they had found not a trace of biological agents on either. (And no bio-weapon facility could be scrubbed completely clean.) In subsequent weeks, it turned out that State Department analysts and even DIA engineering experts—as well as outside experts—did not accept the CIA and DIA conclusion, and some of these doubters believed the explanation of Iraqis who claimed the trucks were built to produce hydrogen for weather balloons. Whichever side might be ultimately right about the trailers, this all-important piece of evidence was hotly contested. It was hardly solid enough to support Bush’s we-found-them declaration or to justify a war.
1. "It’s time to restore honor and dignity to the White House." Bush said that many a time during the 2000 presidential campaign, and in at least one ad pledged to "return honor and integrity" to the Oval Office. See above--and read the book.
PowerballWinner
New Member
Re: The Liberals’ Creed
Why the mine ban treaty must be signed.
Problems with mines:
1. They're hard to keep track of.
2. They divert explosives away from personnel that need them to be fired out of guns, and they also divert metals needed to make weapons that could be used to stop those that would do acts of terrorism.
3. They cost 10 times more to remove than to deploy (thus they're NOT economically suitable for war).
4. They obstruct development.
5. Many do random killings of friendly troops.
6. They can be swept around by flooding, tornadoes, hurricanes, etc. I remember during one of the floods here in the U.S., 50 pound tombstones were swept around by flooding, so it's reasonable to believe a 1 pound landmine could be moved by flooding.
7. Mostly, innocent people, animals, and plants are killed by landmines instead of opposing soldiers. Also, opposing soldiers have been known to kidnap innocent people and foce them to walk through minefields to explode them ahead of those soldiers-- we don't want TERRORISTS kidnapping American citizens or other innocent people, so it's best to get rid of the landmines.
8. They can get hijacked by opposing forces and used against the U.S. and/or others. This happened very much in the Vietnamese War. I mean we don't want TERRORISTS to be hijacking landmines and using them against us.
http://www.icbl.org/youth/yaw/signtreaty.html
Why the mine ban treaty must be signed.
Problems with mines:
1. They're hard to keep track of.
2. They divert explosives away from personnel that need them to be fired out of guns, and they also divert metals needed to make weapons that could be used to stop those that would do acts of terrorism.
3. They cost 10 times more to remove than to deploy (thus they're NOT economically suitable for war).
4. They obstruct development.
5. Many do random killings of friendly troops.
6. They can be swept around by flooding, tornadoes, hurricanes, etc. I remember during one of the floods here in the U.S., 50 pound tombstones were swept around by flooding, so it's reasonable to believe a 1 pound landmine could be moved by flooding.
7. Mostly, innocent people, animals, and plants are killed by landmines instead of opposing soldiers. Also, opposing soldiers have been known to kidnap innocent people and foce them to walk through minefields to explode them ahead of those soldiers-- we don't want TERRORISTS kidnapping American citizens or other innocent people, so it's best to get rid of the landmines.
8. They can get hijacked by opposing forces and used against the U.S. and/or others. This happened very much in the Vietnamese War. I mean we don't want TERRORISTS to be hijacking landmines and using them against us.
http://www.icbl.org/youth/yaw/signtreaty.html
