I'MMA LET YOU FINISH
"Why hold a self-proclaimed polemicist to a higher standard than you hold the president of the United States?" - Krugman
"Are you talking to me? Are YOU talking to ME?" - Nick Kristof
Krugman gets it. Why doesn't the rest of the main stream media?
Notice how Richard Cohen said the movie was so juvenile he felt sorry for Bush. He never mentioned Lila Lipscombe, pr the dead babies, or the soldier who said he lost a piece of his soul in this war. But, what would you expect from a man who supported the war, and said:
"...while war is bad -- very, very bad -- sometimes peace is no better"
Funny, I read the Krugman piece a while ago, and I had the same thought.
Atrios (almost) always gets it right.
That's why he's #1
..
By the way, where will you take your
ambassadorship?
I refuse to create an account for the NY Times, so I guess I won't be able to read this article.........
Why not? I guess I'm just another paranoid immigrant. I just don't trust it!
Why is Krugman so awesome? Every single article I read by this man is flawless. He uses those rare things called "facts" to make his points, both forcefully and eloquently.
But why does he hate America?
TIP: use gorevidal for both spaces and it should let you in.
Excellent viewpoint and well said. Thank God for Krugman!
Saw the movie yesterday and appreciated every point that he made. (Although I confess my feeble liberalness cringed at his harassment of the congressmen to sign their children up in the military.)
We need Michael Moore and his type now more than ever. However blustery and over the top he may be at times, he hits hard and right in the soft spots. Facts (unlike Rush and Bill) are his friends.
So thank God for Moore, too!
Great column...Krugman knows he doesn't have to share every belief or assertion of Moore's to ride in the same posse and save the townspeople from the Bush gang...
"Why hold a self-proclaimed polemicist to a higher standard than you hold the president of the United States?"
Because the President of the United States is held (by his own supporters) to the standards of Saddam Hussein and members of Al-Quaeda. He usually does well in these comparisons. ("Saddam Hussein wouldn't be here apologizing for torturing anybody!")
It is entirely consistent to hold a polemicist to a higher standard than the president of the United States if the president only neets to meed the same standard as tinpot dictators and terrorists.
Now watch this drive.
Amazing how an economist gets it. Influence in America is all about money.
More Cohen rot from the same article on March 11, 2003:
"Some of the arguments raised against war are daunting. But some of them are just plain insulting. Where were the peace marchers when Hussein was using poison gas against the Kurds?"
You mean the poison gas Don Rumsfeld sold them? And the attacks the Reagan administration denied?
"Where were they when he slaughtered the Shiites?"
You mean with the use of helicopter gunships in the no fly zone that had to be and were approved by Schwartzkopf and Bush I, because, as Brent Scowcroft said, we didn't want to leave a power vacuum for Iran?
"Where were they when he invaded Iran and then Kuwait?"
You mean in his war with Iran that Reagan supported and armed him for? You mean the invasion of Kuwait that followed April Glaspie's comment that Bush I had no concern with inter Arab disputes?
"Why don't those so-called human shields in Baghdad find Hussein's torture chambers and chain themselves to the gates?"
You mean the torture chambers at Abu Ghraib that we found oh so suitable for, well, torture?
http://www.parallaxonline.org/
fw...fwhenpeace.html
a perfect encapsulation of the zeitgeist.
"These people see the film to learn true stories they should have heard elsewhere, but didn't. Mr. Moore may not be considered respectable, but his film is a hit because the respectable media haven't been doing their job."
amazingly simple, succinct and true.
pjm: www.bugmenot.com!
Krugman is the only sane columnist in America today. Time and time again he nails the issue right on the head.
Thanks, tomato observer!
I'll try your home page.
Hope it's not a food site........
Good for Krugman. I hope to see the movie over the weekend.
It would be a better movie if it didn't promote a few unproven conspiracy theories, but those theories aren't the reason why millions of people who aren't die-hard Bush-haters are flocking to see it. These people see the film to learn true stories they should have heard elsewhere, but didn't. Mr. Moore may not be considered respectable, but his film is a hit because the respectable media haven't been doing their job.
That's the important part.
But the worst part was Ashcroft singing: I kept thinking I will barf soon, how much longer will this go on!! That was just cruel to make us watch that! Blarrggggghhh!!!!!
Michael Moore was on Charlie Rose tonight. He was quite good. Charlie said he taped 1 hour with Moore and the second half hour of the interview runs on Charlie Rose tomorrow (Fri) night.
There has been much tut-tutting by pundits who complain that the movie, though it has yet to be caught in any major factual errors, uses association and innuendo to create false impressions. Many of these same pundits consider it bad form to make a big fuss about the Bush administration's use of association and innuendo to link the Iraq war to 9/11.
Krugman's looking at YOU, Kristof.
"Mr. Bush's carefully constructed persona is that of an all-American regular guy — not like his suspiciously cosmopolitan opponent, with his patrician air. The news media have cheerfully gone along with the pretense... But the reality, revealed by Mr. Moore, is that Mr. Bush has always lived in a bubble of privilege."
I think this is an obvious point, but I'm surprised more people haven't made it. More to the point, though, is that Moore shows Bush's persona to be false because Bush is a essentially an actor playing the part of President. Which is easy to say, but is more powerful when shown in a movie like this one. Because when you go to the movies you expect to see actors on the screen. Seeing the leader of the free world as an actor is jarring to say the least.
Anyway, I wrote more about this in my review (forgive the shameless plug):
For some reason, the link didn't work. Here's it is:
http://
hereswhatsleft.typepad.co...nheit_911_.html
Y'know, just how many times can ya rave about PK without sounding like some horrendous ass-kisser, but there is no doubt the man speaks with clarity, damn.....
Krugman:
Mr. Moore may not be considered respectable, but his film is a hit because the respectable media haven't been doing their job.
In other words, Moore-on is an unprincipled propagandizing liar, but what he does is justifiable because Big Media isn't doing enough to insinuate a bunch of irresponsible bullshit that will politically benefit the Left.
What a ration(alization) of shit.
let the troll starve
I can see the foam on your lips all the way from here, Toby.
Damn. I fed him. Sorry.
PJM, um, you do know that you can lie like a Republican on the NY Times registration page?
mailinator works on many of these registration sites.
mailinator@mailinator.com for sites that ask for email
mailinator for ID/Password
no longer works at WaPo
Toby, is that you on the cover of Internet Tough Guy magazine?
lol Chris!
When other columnists read Krugman -- and I hope they do -- what can they possibly think of their own pitiful efforts?
here's what's left: nice piece. It sometimes descends a little bit into IFC-speak, but I've not seen anyone talk seriously so far about the structure and motifs of the film -- the idea of it being bracketed by the off-camera feeds, especially.
(I wish that Moore had shown the entire film from that Sarasota school, rather than editing it down. The extant five minutes -- out of what we believe was a longer sequence -- would have been both brave and unbearable. No-one has dared show that entire video on national television. How could they?)
There's a parallelism, too, between the traditional curses of the Iraqi woman -- may Allah tear down your houses -- and the theme track of the invading troops. The latter is integrated into the filmic world; the former is not. In that sense, Moore's saying, to some extent, 'if this is a crafted, edited movie narrative, is it really that different from the crafted, edited march to war? Except that my movie hasn't killed anyone.'
I actually disagree with Krugman about the Unocal pipeline bit, mostly because there are other facts that support Moore's take on it that he didn't present in the movie. The "we can either shower you with gold, or shower you with bombs" promise/threat made to the Taliban by the US in June 2001, for starters, and the fact that war plans for Afghanistan landed on Bush's desk on 9/10. These omitted facts make Moore's take on Unocal look much less like a half-baked conspiracy theory.
My major criticism of the movie is that so much more could have been brought out, all of it supported by facts that have been widely reported in the past several years. Of course, as I told the friend who I went to see F 9/11 with, who was disappointed that the fist-pumping "feels good" footage wasn't included, there's no way you could possibly cover the many crimes of this administration in only 2 short hours.
Where were the peace marchers when Hussein was using poison gas against the Kurds?"
Don't know about Cohen, but THIS peace marcher was begging his senators to pass the "Prevention of Genocide Act," which would've defunded and disarmed Saddam pretty much completely. And which the Republicans fucking well killed DEAD.
I guess asking a columnist to go back twenty goddamn years is asking WAY too much.
Starve the Putz.
Newscrap.com (uh, newsmax, but I am sure you already knew to whom I was referring, is quoting Dick Morris as saying Kerry has offered VP to Hillary.
Yeah, right!
Philalethes: don't forget the attempt by the Pentagon to spin Halabja as an Iranian attack, either.
Umm....
hey anonymous in nyc -- thanks, i agree about the scripted, staged nature of the "march to war." someone who's smarter than me should write a long book about it; a long book that no one will read, and which will be ignored by the mainstream media. *sigh*
Toby Petzold
by The Odester 7/02/04
Toby got a Flowbee, a Flowbee , a Flowbee
Toby got a Flowbee he use to cut his hair
Toby don't like Moby, like Moby, like Moby
Toby don't like Moby 'cause he prefers clean air
Toby don't like Zogby, like Zogby, like Zogby
Toby don't like Zogby because his polls are fair
Tobay don't like no-bud-day but Tobay!
Yeah!
Krugman gets it. Why doesn't the rest of the main stream media?
Because he's not a Bush asskisser and, thus, he's not threatened by Moore.
He's not the typical journalist. He has tenure at Princeton. His livlihood doesn't depend upon "access" and he could care fuck all if he gets invited to the right parties in DC.
Hmm. Had been kind of getting on myself for not updating my blog more often... then I check my sitemeter stats, and find no one's looked at it in three days anyway.
Depressing and yet convenient.
I refuse to create an account for the NY Times, so I guess I won't be able to read this article.........
Why not? I guess I'm just another paranoid immigrant. I just don't trust it!
It will probably be on commondreams.org sometime tomorrow. No registration required. No guarantees, either, but they might pick this one up.
Newscrap.com (uh, newsmax, but I am sure you already knew to whom I was referring, is quoting Dick Morris as saying Kerry has offered VP to Hillary.
Yeah, right!
Newsmax and Dick Morris?
Why are you skeptical?
And, finally, on-topic: finishing that column, I thought of the last words of the accused witch in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail":
"It's a fair cop."
> wish that Moore had shown the entire film from that Sarasota school, rather than editing it down...
What's the story with the school footage? Memory hole says there is, roughly, five minutes of footage. I thought there was about 10 minutes of reading/talking to the kids, then about 4 minutes of a photo op. with teachers. Does Moore show the photo op?
Just so we all understand:
lies, distortions, misleading people via deliberate omission and smearing people by innuendo are A-OK as long as these things are done by your side of politics.
lies, distortions, misleading people via deliberate omission and smearing people by innuendo are A-OK as long as these things are done by your side of politics.
And failing to give plausible examples is OK, too, as long as you can serve up a little supercilious outrage.
Where were the peace marchers when Hussein was using poison gas against the Kurds?"
The ones in their early 20s were probably playing Super Mario Brothers or watching Barney the Dinosaur on TV.
The one's 35 and up were probably marching against Contra Aid.
But none of them were funding Saddam to weaken the Iranians.
If there's a God, he certainly had a hand in creating Krugman. What he said.
I can't believe how hard it is to decipher whether or not Moore's a propagandist, whether or not he "edited" to make things look worse than they are, or what. I mean, like Krugman said, not a fact has been disputed...
Frankly, with all this shit in the air, it's getting hard to see. *sighs*
I haven't seen the movie yet though, so I'm waiting til I do. Hopefully with a clear critical eye not influenced by denying liberals or fuming cons, or gushing from anyone. I just want to see it as it is.
At the very least, it'll be cathartic, IMHO. Like listening to Randy Rhodes, only not free.
Do you guys not have the quicktime movie from the school with pretty much the full video? gimme a sec, I'll post it on my site (24MB ish)
lies, distortions, misleading people via deliberate omission and smearing people by innuendo are A-OK as long as these things are done by your side of politics.
They're never OK but a bit less frightening when whoever's doing it isn't the Commander in Chief of the US military.
Lies: claiming that the average family got a $1500 tax break.
Misleading: continuing to claim an Iraq-al quaeda connection where none existed, via deliberate omission of the many, many investigations that have failed to show a connection.
Smearing by innuendo: Insinuating that a critic who reveals information unflattering to your regime is gay (Richard Clarke) or that he has partisan motives (Joe Wilson) rather than the country's best interests at heart.
That pretty well covers it, eh, hat? Of course, we could offer multiple examples of each.
My, my, nothing brings out the trolls quite like Moore's movie.
He must have done something right.
That pretty well covers it, eh, hat?
How about scaring the crap out of Paul O'Neill?
With an almost orgasmic glee I e-mail that article to everyone on my mailing list...
"e-mailed"
Trying to avoid the grammar cops...
if only the rest of the media were as principled.
I've seen the raw video but it's about a quarter of the 'normal' screen size and it's compressed so it's hard to see the expression on Chimpy's face.
lies, distortions, misleading people via deliberate omission and smearing people by innuendo are A-OK as long as these things are done by your side of politics.
hat
Yep, that's how the fright-wing does business, hat. Glad we can agree on something.
lies, distortions, misleading people via deliberate omission and smearing people by innuendo are A-OK as long as these things are done by your side of politics.
He's seen the light!
He has finally realized that Nero repeatedly lied to him.
There may be hope for them yet. 
Hmm, to correct my previous statement, it looks like taht video only shows 2 minutes of Bush post-second tower hit. I could've sworn it had more. I posted it anyway, for anyone interested.
I wonder where it was I saw Bush doing photos after the minutes sitting with the kids reading the book... I know I saw video of that.
Gassing the Kurds.
http://tinyurl.com/2hpvs
http://tinyurl.com/36rpa
http://tinyurl.com/3e4g2
http://tinyurl.com/3ag46
pjm, you should bookmark the Unofficial Paul Krugman Web Page. They list all of Krugman's columns from the Times and have much of his other work as well. The column that Atrios linked tonight has already been posted there. No registration required.
What's the story with the school footage? Memory hole says there is, roughly, five minutes of footage.
Memory Hole believes there might be a full recording of Bush that isn't cut off after five minutes of 'My Pet Goat', and quotes a conservative writer reporting that even afterwards, 'He was taking his good old time. ... Bush lingered until the press was gone.'
Moore cuts the five minutes down to about a minute, with the time in the corner of the screen. As I said, had he shown the whole, excrutiating five minutes, especially with a timecode in the corner (one showing fractions of seconds?) I don't know what the reaction would have been, but I have a few guesses.
If there's a god, Krugman should get the pulitzer for opinion this year.
Oh course there isn't one so he won't.
Column was brilliant. I hope it gives chimpy an ulcer the size of a grapefruit.
Just so you guys know, you can always find fresh PK columns online at pkarchive.org. This particular one is here.
If there's a god, Krugman should get the pulitzer for opinion this year.
And what does it mean if Kristof gets it for his reporting on the sex slave trade?
Completely OT: Do you remember getting the "Bush Tax Refund Thingie" back in 2000? Each fambily got $500 or whatever? Remember that?
The fukkin' funniest thing to me was, all I got was a note from "The Man" telling me I had $500 less to pay them back.
No lie.
Crack me up.
There you go.
It is rather amusing to see the wingnuts so intent on keeping others from seeing the movie they won't themselves see (as was attempted in this town until the sheriffs were called in and the cowardly cretins backed off.)
Since they aren't themselves seeing the movie-- let alone discouraging others of their lowly ilk from doing so-- their perfect little minds (Much like Barb the Bitch Bush Sr's) are unsullied by fact and they can spew their insipid and insidious nonsense where they will.
As I wrote to Cohen today, the world again is rapidly spiraling away from pseudointellectual hacks like him as it did during Clintonmania.
As you can tell from the hysteria of the rats that couldn't find their way off of the sinking ship, Bush's total incompetence can no longer be hidden behind the persiflage of the losers of the press.
I just came from seeing Farenheit. Wow, still taking it all in. One thing I got from this and from Bowling for Columbine: Michael Moore's movies have a way of telling and showing me things that I already knew (being an informed and progressive person) in a way that makes me still learn something new from it, or be shocked (when I thought I was all out of outrage) or see it from a perspective I hadn't thought of.
The Ox: how dare you steal my post even before I posted it? I'm outraged...
It is rather amusing to see the wingnuts so intent on keeping others from seeing the movie they won't themselves see (as was attempted in this town until the sheriffs were called in and the cowardly cretins backed off.)
Since they aren't themselves seeing the movie-- let alone discouraging others of their lowly ilk from doing so-- their perfect little minds (Much like Barb the Bitch Bush Sr's) are unsullied by fact and they can spew their insipid and insidious nonsense where they will.
As I wrote to Cohen today, the world again is rapidly spiraling away from pseudointellectual hacks like him as it did during Clintonmania.
As you can tell from the hysteria of the rats that couldn't find their way off of the sinking ship, Bush's total incompetence can no longer be hidden behind the persiflage of the losers of the press.
Moore cuts the five minutes down to about a minute, with the time in the corner of the screen. As I said, had he shown the whole, excrutiating five minutes, especially with a timecode in the corner (one showing fractions of seconds?) I don't know what the reaction would have been, but I have a few guesses.
I thought I had read somewhere that the film showed all seven minutes side-by-side split-screen with people jumping from the building. Maybe I misunderstood. Maybe that was an early cut of the film...
For those who want Krugman without the times, try this site:
http://www.pkarchive.org/
It's a bit unfriendly in its navigation, but it does have all of the K-man's columns. Just click on the columns link in the left corner, and you'll get them all, latest at the top.
OT:
I feel that this forum is nice enough to indulge my thoughts on current events, in a "stream of consciousness," kind of way...
Here goes.
Incredibly horrible as it seems, someday in the future a major metropolitan area will be destroyed by terrorists, killing tens, and if not hundreds of thousands of people.
Why do I believe this?
Inevitability. Why is that? Because if America doesn’t change its image (e.g. foreign and trade policy) it is and will always be the world’s bull’s eye for everyone with legitimate and illegitimate complaints.
the video of bush's 7 minutes juxtaposed with the towers is here
http://www.takebackthemedia.com/...om/
true911.html
Incredibly horrible as it seems, someday in the future a major metropolitan area will be destroyed by terrorists, killing tens, and if not hundreds of thousands of people.
Warren Buffet agrees.
Insurance companies offering terrorism cover will almost certainly face massive claims that could put them out of business, the billionaire investment guru Warren Buffett has warned.
Sooner or later, the US would suffer a terrorist attack that would dwarf the losses caused by 11 September, he predicted.
"Many insurance companies are exposed to ruin," he said.
"We're going to have something of a major nuclear event in this country," Mr Buffet said following the annual general meeting of his company Berkshire Hathaway.
Krugman is the best, all I can say is WOW !!!!!
Incredibly horrible as it seems, someday in the future a major metropolitan area will be destroyed by terrorists, killing tens, and if not hundreds of thousands of people.
Warren Buffet agrees.
Insurance companies offering terrorism cover will almost certainly face massive claims that could put them out of business, the billionaire investment guru Warren Buffett has warned.
Sooner or later, the US would suffer a terrorist attack that would dwarf the losses caused by 11 September, he predicted.
"Many insurance companies are exposed to ruin," he said.
"We're going to have something of a major nuclear event in this country," Mr Buffet said following the annual general meeting of his company Berkshire Hathaway.
I haven't seen F/911 yet, but it is my understanding that there is no mention at all of the
activities of a group called "PNAC"
http://www.newamericancentury.org/
It was this group that was the intellectual driving force in invading Iraq, and want to escalate the attack to include Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia.
Many of the members of this group are in high-ranking positions in the Bush Administration, such as "Scooter" Libby, Paul Wolfowicz, and Don Rumsfeld.
I know that the film is only about 111 minutes long and in that time it is hard to nail down Bush on all of his *lies*, but it seems to me that we should take into account everyone who was involved in this fiasco.
F9/11 = required viewing.
Krugman = required reading.
Trolls in comments = required ignoring.
Errrrmm. If I recall correctly, most of the "Goat Footage" was recorded by one of the teachers who had a camera and who apparently turned the camera off during boring parts that day, not realizing that she might have been the only one making a record of the day...
the film talks a lot about Unocal's plans for a pipeline across Afghanistan, which I doubt had much impact on the course of the Afghan war Horseshit!
Concerning the Afghan pipeline,didnt Enron have a contract with India to provide natural gas and Cheney had to intercede to smooth things over between the two parties.My memory is a bit murky on the details,but I believe Enron was counting on the pipeline to fulfill its contract.Any help on this would be appreciated.
Moore cuts the five minutes down to about a minute, with the time in the corner of the screen. As I said, had he shown the whole, excrutiating five minutes, especially with a timecode in the corner (one showing fractions of seconds?) I don't know what the reaction would have been, but I have a few guesses.
I kept thinking Moore needed to let the clock run in the corner, and switch back and forth from the bump on the log listening to my Pet Goat to the mayhem taking place at that moment in NYC, any video footage available of the time. But then, I have a problem with being over-the-top sometimes...
Horseshit!
Paging "Smarty Jones".
>the video of bush's 7 minutes juxtaposed with the towers is here
Umm, no. That's not the footage. It's interesting but that's not it. MM only shows a minute. Memory Hole doesn't have the whole thing...
WTF is the whole however many minutes of film?
I remember seeing video of Bush standing with a teacher, getting pictures taken with her, and it's supposed to be after they finished with the book, before he gave his speech.
where the bloody hell did I see that, is the question? Hmm.
Completely OT: Do you remember getting the "Bush Tax Refund Thingie" back in 2000? Each fambily got $500 or whatever? Remember that?
The fukkin' funniest thing to me was, all I got was a note from "The Man" telling me I had $500 less to pay them back.
Notice that you had to pay back that Tax Credit thingie you got last August, too?
Thanks for nothing, Bush. I coulda just waited until April 15 for that one.
LJ: Ah yes, the famous tax advance. "Let's just loan everyone part of their refund now, so they'll spend what they think is free money, and be screwed when real refund time happens!" Do you know how much that advance cost in administrative (and marketing) expenses? Millions!
Kind of like how even if privatizing Social Security turned out the megaprofits that these guys always preach (which it wouldn't- with their track record, everyone'd go straight to $0 with it), the vast vast cost of changing the program over would neturalize a few decades' worth of gains. And since when has ANYTHING held steady for decades in US policy? Idiocy...
I didn't think Moore was "promoting" any conspiracy theories; just pointing out that all these tie-ins lead to either a set of remarkable coincidences or .... something else. I'm not sure what that something is, but I don't believe in that many coincidences.
OT, but a metaphor to this old Marshal of what is wrong with the media's coverage. I'll try to be clear and concise:
One of the 'big three' 6:30 newscasts, (probably all of them, but I only saw one) did a report on the new port security implementations around the country that went into effect yesterday (July 1).
The reporter spouted the administration line, with them crowing about the new security measures. Now, basically, the reporter explained that new security plans must be in effect by today (at the time of the TV report) July 1, 2004, and had a soundbite of a Coast Guard fellow saying they've even brought in 500 reservists to help. Reporter then mentioned some figures, with the help of a chyron, explaining how many ports and ships we're dealing with. End of piece.
However, as this link http://tinyurl.com/2gksd to The Daily Mislead clearly shows (it was linked to in an earlier Atrios haloscan discussion), there is much more to the story.
Of particular interest is Mislead's source number 2: Substantial Work Remains To Translate New Planning Requirements into Effective Port Security, a report put out by the GAO on June 30.
The study basically says that things are not as they seem, and will cost a hell of a lot of money.
Okay, so what is my point about this stuff that any of us conscientious surfers would find on our own?
The point is that Mrs. Urp works at one of the network news departments, and she told me that there is no way that said reporter, or, in particular said reporter's newcast's EP, didn't know about the GAO report. There are people at network who's job it is to specifically read and inform of such government reports. She said that she believes that the ommission of any mention of the GAO report must have been purposeful, perhaps even politically biased. I was shocked at how strongly she felt about this.
Thank goodness for Krugman and Moore.
I didn't think Moore was "promoting" any conspiracy theories; just pointing out that all these tie-ins lead to either a set of remarkable coincidences or .... something else. I'm not sure what that something is, but I don't believe in that many coincidences.
The pipeline through Afghanistan theory makes very little sense when you consider how:
1.) They haven't built it.
2.) Bush and Rumsfeld never really wanted to be in Afghanistan. They considered it a distraction from Iraq.
3.) They've made no effort even to secure Afghanistan.
"Incredibly horrible as it seems, someday in the future a major metropolitan area will be destroyed by terrorists, killing tens, and if not hundreds of thousands of people.
Warren Buffet agrees.
SWR"
I wish that everyone would read Robert McNamara's piece on the policy of "preemptive attack". It was published in the LA Times, among other outlets.
I ain't really that worried about "terrorists" getting their hands on a measly bomb of some sort. This is much harder to do than most of us imagine.
What scares the bejezzus out of me is if the powers that be in Washington decide to "preemptively" attack a nuclear-armed country, only to have the "pre-empted" become the "pre-emptor."
That's the gist of McNamara's article. NYC, Boston, Washington, and other major cities don't come out too well.
We need to abandon this talk of "pre-emptive" attack altogether.
In a world where George W. Bush is often called a "straight talker", it is hilarious to hear Michael Moore called a liar.
God bless Michael Moore, and Paul Krugman too!
I don't get the significance of those infamous seven minutes. If Bush had leapt to his feet and started hustling everyone towards the door, you chickenshits would be calling him a spastic basketcase who was freaking out.
Instead, Bush demonstrated ---in the very first moments of the recognition of something horrible--- just how he was going to be handling the New Paradigm: calmly, resolutely, and unapologetically.
Now, what is it that you people are suggesting? That he knew about the attacks in advance and decided to just sit there because there was nothing more he was assigned to do? That those seven minutes were all the difference between sparing the Pentagon and letting it go up in flames?
At the end of each of your delusional agitations is the plain fact that none of them make sense. Ordinarily, people who are faced with dozens upon dozens of refutations of their lies have the strength of character to admit that they are wrong. But not you wankers. Your hatred of the President is the only passion left in your lives. It's almost tragic: no love for what you would affirm if you had principles, no defense against your obsession with the thing you hate most. How do you live with yourselves?
What scares the bejezzus out of me is if the powers that be in Washington decide to "preemptively" attack a nuclear-armed country, only to have the "pre-empted" become the "pre-emptor."
How can the North Koreans or Pakistanis (or Iranians) deliver the bomb (assuming that's who it would be)?
What's frightening me right now is all the noise the pro-Israeli crowd in the US is making about Iran.
If the Israelis pre-emptively attack Iran's nuclear program and the Iranians move troops to the Iraqi border, all hell could break loose.
TIN FOIL WARNING
was this Leahy the same guy that got the verbal bird on the floor of Congress by Big-Time?
the Ames strain of anthrax used in the attacks against Sens. Leahy and Daschle was produced by CIA programs coordinated through Fort Detrick, the Batelle Memorial Institute and the Dugway Proving Ground. [Source: NBC; CNN; www.tetrahedron.org, www.judicialwatch.org]
I kept thinking Moore needed to let the clock run in the corner, and switch back and forth from the bump on the log listening to my Pet Goat to the mayhem taking place at that moment in NYC, any video footage available of the time. But then, I have a problem with being over-the-top sometimes...
I think that would be the obvious juxtaposition, and not a bad one, but it'd also be a bit 24-ish. He's already 'shown' 9/11 in a number of ways -- we know that footage, and a few small motifs can restore a lot of memories without needing to see it again. But to then switch to Bush, and show, full screen, five minutes of uninterrupted Bush -- no cross-cuts, no split-screen, taken from a fixed position. Less is more. It's like how a silence of more than two seconds on radio or TV is excruciating.
Jake: yes, I've seen footage of those post-reading photo-op minutes, but not, I think, online, and not in a long time.
If a troll farts in the woods, does it make any noise?
I wasn't referring specifically to the Afghan pipeline, just the whole Bush/Bin Laden family /James Bath /Carlyle Group/ Unocal phenomenon. Maybe Afghanistan didn't go as planned, but I don't think there's any doubt that talks/plans with the Taleban took place regarding a pipeline to be built through Afghanistan. The companies that stood to profit from that don't care about politics or foreign policy, just money. They don't care how you make it happen, so long as it happens & they profit.
Shorter Krugman:
Moore is smart when he agrees with me and dumb when he disagrees with me.
Shorter Atrios:
I'm cooler than thou because I rage against mainstream media without straying too far from it.
Shorter me:
Y'all are lame and I'm probably lamer.
I don't get the significance of those infamous seven minutes. If Bush had leapt to his feet and started hustling everyone towards the door, you chickenshits would be calling him a spastic basketcase who was freaking out.
1.) I already thought Bush was a "spastic basketcase."
2.) 7 minutes is a lot of time when you're dealing with airliners that might have to be shot down. Who was making the decisions during those 7 minutes.
3.) It's obvious you were nowhere near the WTC on 9/11 or you wouldn't be talking about how 7 minutes means nothing. It meant life or death for quite a few people.
4.) I'm not "chickenshit." I'm a "moonbat," a "pussy dem," an "idiotarian" and an "Islamofacist appeaser." Get it right.
How do you live with yourselves?
Toby Petzold | Email | Homepage | 07.02.04 - 2:09 am | #
Simple answer--we console ourselves with the knowledge that we're not you.
So the only alternatives in your eyes were: 1) jumping out of the chair "like Russel Crowe" and 2) well... doing what he actually did.
He's already 'shown' 9/11 in a number of ways -- we know that footage,
I thought the blank screen with the sounds of 9/11 was quite powerful. A lot of others leaving the theatre were commenting on how they'd become desensitized to the images, but how was quite jarring.
My recollection was that the unedited My Pet Goat footage was thought to exist at one time, but has since been lost. An edited version was broadcast on a public affairs or public access channel or something like that, and that's the version that's been making the rounds. I could be wrong about that.
My interpretation of Moore's use of Unocal and the Taliban was that it wasn't so much that Moore was trying to say that the attack on the Taliban was motivated by oil interests, but that guys like Bush has no qualms about dealing with shady characters like the Taliban if there's money to be made and then turning around and using said shadiness to justify an attack to the American people.
Totally OT:
I nominate the following sentence for a Noonan:
"I can never remember the names of flowers, but the ones I'm seeing are white and yellow and rose-colored and pink and deep red. and tall and stately or short and rough looking or kind of peeping up and looking brave. They are just gorgeous."
(by Peggy Noonan. Of course.)
How is it possible for somebody to be so scatter-brained and deeply creepy at the same time?
...and another OOT thing, why were no conclusions jumped to or wild speculation concerning the D.C. sniper nightmare (that took place during the "debate"/"run-up" to the Iraq war)
In a world where George W. Bush is often called a "straight talker", it is hilarious to hear Michael Moore called a liar.
Read Eric Alterman's article about the Moore-bashing. His take:
Moore lied? Nobody died
Bush lied... well you know how that one ends.
More Noonan. I just can't help myself:
"But let me share a thought I've been having that is not so jolly. It has to do with Mr. Bush's re-election prospects and a worry I have. History has been too dramatic the past 3 1/2 years. It has been too exciting. Economic recession, 9/11, war, Afghanistan, Iraq, fighting with Europe. fighting with the U.N., boys going off to fight, Pat Tillman, beheadings. It has been so exciting."
Exciting? Which, the beheadings or the economic recession? Or Pat Tillman, maybe? Yeah, that must be it.
Forgive me, the rest of you... but Putzold: there were SAM launchers on the roof of Bush's hotel in Florida the night before. We know that the Secret Service picked up Cheney and dragged him to his bunker at the same time that Andy Card told Bush about the second plane. We know that there was a successful assassination attempt on Masoud, the Afghan resistance leader, earlier that day.
You, Putzold, are the one offering up theories and explanations. We're just puzzled; as much as we dislike Bush's policies, he was a potential fucking target, and we would really like the President to be protected, and to protect himself, in times of danger.
How is it possible for somebody to be so scatter-brained and deeply creepy at the same time?
Nooner is the Evil Rickie Lee Jones.
Economic recession, 9/11, war, Afghanistan, Iraq, fighting with Europe. fighting with the U.N., boys going off to fight, Pat Tillman, beheadings. It has been so exciting.
(Hysteria: See also, Freud, Sigmund.)
Are you talking about Noonan or W?
Are you talking about Noonan or W?
The one who never got enough attention from daddy.
SWR, you assume that our air traffic controllers knew where the planes were or how many there were that were bound to ram those targets and a dozen other things. All of them wrongly.
Besides, if Bush had ordered those plane shot down, there's no doubt in my mind what you'd be bitching about now.
No troll feeding! It just makes them regurgitate more foul-smelling bile.
Besides, if Bush had ordered those plane shot down, there's no doubt in my mind what you'd be bitching about now.
I'd be bitching about it but 3000 people would still be alive.
SWR, you assume that our air traffic controllers knew where the planes were or how many there were that were bound to ram those targets and a dozen other things. All of them wrongly.
And you're assuming that Bush knew at the time that they didn't know and, thus, justifiably sat on his ass.
Noonan discusses world literature:
I can never remember the names of books but the ones I'm looking at now are red and green and gold and black and purple and blue and yellow and brown and long and short and some have big words and some don't even have pictures and the one I love the most is called the Bible.
OT - interesting article at CJR
How Chalabi Played the Press
http://tinyurl.com/2yxzq
-
"Now comes the Hitler analogy, and I'll be damned if I am going to apologize for it: Just as Hitler struck a chord deep in the German unconscious, Bush is touching something within the American unconscious. Whether he is a manifestation of our national mental state, or whether we are unwitting agents of his could be argued. It certainly seems symbiotic."
[snip]
"Bush has charisma to those who believe the world is a mean place and that subtler considerations only get in the way. Especially fearful conservatives, always operating from the politics of scarcity, fearful of losing what they have gained materially, those being the core operating values of standard conservatism. Neo-conservatives, of course, are willing to kill you to get it in the first place."
No troll feeding! It just makes them regurgitate more foul-smelling bile.
My day isn't complete until I've been called a moonbat, idiotarian, pussy Dhimocrat at least once a day. I'm going for my fix.
I can never remember the names of penises but the ones I'm looking at now are red and green and gold and black and purple and blue and yellow and brown and long and short and the one I love the most is called the son of W.
Noonan on penises.
I can never remember the names of various stages of rigor mortis and decay but the ones I'm looking at now are red and green and gold and black and purple and blue and yellow and brown and long and short and the one I love the most is called Ronald Reagan.
(Noonan on Reagan)
SWR:
moonbat, idiotarian, pussy Dhimocrat
all better?
No videos (1 split screen picture) but Cooperative Research's timeline of Bush's "Interesting Day" is a must-have 9/11 link for those who are interested. The written account of that day, with all the referrences and links, is really well done.
Anonymous:
and we would really like the President to be protected, and to protect himself, in times of danger.
Why do you assume that the President wasn't safe where he was? The President is always surrounded by a security perimeter ---seen and unseen--- at all times. All the same, he got into the air soon enough and made his manuevers and misdirections. At no point was he not in touch with everyone whom he needed to be. So what's the problem?
About the five/seven minutes Bush just sat there, picture any other president doing that. Ford? Nixon? Bush I? Clinton? Carter? Teddy Roosevelt?
There weren't just two choices 1)run shrieking towards the door flapping hands in hysterics 2)sit like a gray lump of porridge listening to a child reading.
How about 3) excusing himself with a calm explanation that presidential things have come up and walking purposefully towards the door 4) quietly standing up and nodding to the class, leaving the room 4)leaving and then calmly returning with a brief thanks and a wave, then leaving again.
How about Bush showing some sort of indignation, astonishment, resolve, focus, or intelligence. The Bush I saw hunched slightly forwards...as if crouching down to hide.
BTW, do you want to know my guess about why exactly Bush sat on his ass during the attacks?
There's no big conspiracy involved.
In the 1980s, Reagan slept though a couple of Libyan planes being shot down. I forget the exact incident but the lesson the Reagan asskissing press drew was that Reagan showed "calm resolve" by not being directly involved.
Bush, being a follower and not a "doer" simply did what he thought Reagan would have done.
We know that there was a successful assassination attempt on Masoud, the Afghan resistance leader, earlier that day.
actually it (masoud's death) was several days before, around the time of the Durbin conference and the flap over zionist wording in the final statement.
oh yeah, didnt come to nitpick, just show something you probably saw already, the Army and Air Force may soon be seeing F911:
The Army and Air Force Exchange Service is pursuing prints through one of the film’s distributors, Lions Gate Films, said Judd Anstey, a spokesman at AAFES headquarters in Dallas.
Whether AAFES pursues a movie depends entirely on its popularity in the United States.
“AAFES’ motion picture policy is to screen films that are popular in the private sector,” AAFES Vice President of Food and Theater Richard Sheff responded via e-mail. “AAFES’ position will not change based on a single feature. If Fahrenheit 9/11 proves popular in the private sector and prints are available, the movie will be shown.”
So what's the problem?
He wasn't in control. He was being handled.
Alterman's article is fine, but he let's the news media off way too easy. Fahrenheit 9/11 is more accurate than The Washington Post, The NY Times, and CNN are, even today! The criticism of Moore and his film is so rabid and so far off the mark that it's FUNNY.
sorry, link
http://www.estripes.com/article....4&
article=23070
ORGANIZED LIES AND THE LIARS
picked up a fascinating book yesterday entitled THE FLOURIDE DECEPTION. just published by 7 stories press. authored by chris bryson. isbn: 1583225269.
i recommend that you read it. whenever someone raises saddam to the pinnacle of criminality, respond by citing this record of the USG and its lackeys[includes the press] poisoning the citizens of the united states. to an extent that surpasses any chemical warfare ever employed by saddam hussein...anywhere, anytime.
i embrace the "clean hands" doctrine. and the unitedstates of amerika ain't got the clean hands.
as some of us recognize, it wasn't saddam hussein who made most of us "downwinders". the real gangsters, the most monstrous homicidal maniacs, are our brethren. ensconced in washington DC and other industrial capitals of this country.
i suppose, though, that there are many who will say that for the bounties of this country one should be willing to be murdered by the state.
after all, as they used to say in the usmc, "why do you think you will live forever".
ave caesar, morturi te salutamis, i suppose is the real motto of the usofamerika.
some say to me, if you hate this country so much why don't you go somewhere else?
my answer: family, language, groceries.
but france looks better with each passing day.
"Why do you assume that the President wasn't safe where he was?"
Yeah, what the fuck? I'll bet some of those little kids would have worked pretty good as involuntary human shields ... at the very least they would have caught some of the shrapnel intended for Dubya!
SWR:
moonbat, idiotarian, pussy Dhimocrat
all better?
Hmm. Maybe the addiction is getting worse. I feel strangely empty that I haven't been accused of hating America.
Why do so many assumedly decent, normal Americans support insane actions such as the Iraq War, strange off-shore wire cage prisons in Cuba, the government's own admission of a dozen secret prisons around the world... "Doesn't anyone find these things strange?" "....The whole crew gives international law, the Geneva Conventions and civil liberties the same sneer."
Alterman's article is fine, but he let's the news media off way too easy. Fahrenheit 9/11 is more accurate than The Washington Post, The NY Times, and CNN are, even today! The criticism of Moore and his film is so rabid and so far off the mark that it's FUNNY.
ellroon, you forgot 5) wishing to God you had a drink then repeating the 12 steps in your head then wondering if the shit hits the fan if in the confusion, you could sneak off and get that drink
Alterman's article is fine, but he let's the news media off way too easy. Fahrenheit 9/11 is more accurate than The Washington Post, The NY Times, and CNN are, even today! The criticism of Moore and his film is so rabid and so far off the mark that it's FUNNY.
at the very least they would have caught some of the shrapnel intended for Dubya!
No wait. Do not insult MY President.
Had Bush been in charge on 9/11, had Cheney let him, I'm sure he would have flown right to New York on 9/11 and started giving people first aid at Ground Zero.
I mean, that's just the man he is. When duty called in Vietnam, I'm sure that, had he been an adult (and not just like in his mid-20s) and had his daddy let him, he would have joined our brave boys in fighting Communism.
The man's a straight shooter and a real action hero after all.
Three, five, seven, eleven, fifteen minutes? Damn.
Based on a few reviews of 911, I assumed Moore showed the whole business.
The footage is _lost_? No one has a copy?
Actually, No. 3 Pencil, Bush is STILL in that classroom (he's wants to find out how "My Pet Goat" ends)
some say to me, if you hate this country so much why don't you go somewhere else?
I'm still hoping for a shot at taking Britney Spears' virginity.
Had Bush been in charge on 9/11, had Cheney let him, I'm sure he would have flown right to New York on 9/11 and started giving people first aid at Ground Zero.
Now there's a scary thought, GWB giving first aid to seriously injured people. It's a good thing Cheney didn't let him go help. It would only have resulted in MORE fatalities.
Had Bush been in charge on 9/11, had Cheney let him, I'm sure he would have flown right to New York on 9/11 and started giving people first aid at Ground Zero.
Now there's a scary thought, GWB giving first aid to seriously injured people. It's a good thing Cheney didn't let him go help. It would only have resulted in MORE fatalities.
Dubya on 9-11 (co-written with Noonan:
I can never remember the names of all the things that happened on 9-11 but the ones I'm looking at now are red and green and gold and black and purple and blue and yellow and brown and long and short and the one I love the most is called "My Pet Goat".
SWR:
McNamara isn't talking about North Korea or Iran. He's talking about other countries who do have nuclear weapons and do have the means to deliver them.
I tried to link to the piece, but the link was too long to make it on Haloscan, and I'm not sufficiently adept at this internet stuff to make a short link, although I know it's possible. Maybe somebody else will.
McNamara is no stranger to war or to the ethos which promotes it. He has seen all this before, and knows where it leads.
Had Bush been in charge on 9/11, had Cheney let him, I'm sure he would have flown right to New York on 9/11 and started giving people first aid at Ground Zero.
Now there's a scary thought, GWB giving first aid to seriously injured people. It's a good thing Cheney didn't let him go help. It would only have resulted in MORE fatalities.
Yayyy Krugmeister. Yayyy Atrios. Boooo trolls.
Now there's a scary thought, GWB giving first aid to seriously injured people. It's a good thing Cheney didn't let him go help. It would only have resulted in MORE fatalities.
Nah. Guiliani would have assigned some friendly EMS tech to lead him around.
Bush would have got to wear the hat and ride in the ambulance and maybe even got to pick up one of those New York fireman's axes.
Peggy Noonan would have come multiple times just looking at the photos.
"Now there's a scary thought, GWB giving first aid to seriously injured people."
Dammit, Jim, I'm an idiot not a doctor!
Another generally excellent Krugman piece, though one line at the end reminds me that, before the 2000 political campaign, I was no great fan of Paul Krugman: "Someday, when the crisis of American democracy is over, I'll probably find myself berating Mr. Moore, who supported Ralph Nader in 2000, for his simplistic antiglobalization views."
Before he had candidate Bush -- and then the Bush administration -- to play off of, Krugman was often a more sophisticated version of Tom Friedman, cheerleading for corporate globalization, often without having the facts on his side, as in a fairly infamous column on cashews, Mozambique, and the World Bank.
Someday when the crisis of American democracy is over, I'll probably find myself berating Paul Krugman, who wholeheartedly supported the WTO, for his simplistic neo-liberal views of the international economy.
Wow! I triple posted! Must have been having a Dubya moment
some say to me, if you hate this country so much why don't you go somewhere else?
James Hogan--Go to www.tinyurl.com
It's quite handy
Sorry--what I wanted to post was...
"some say to me, if you hate this country so much why don't you go somewhere else?"
Best comeback ever, from Barry Crimmins: "Because I'm scared of our foreign policy!"
Besides, if Bush had ordered those plane shot down, there's no doubt in my mind what you'd be bitching about now.
I'd be bitching about it but 3000 people would still be alive.
Your chronology is off, to say the least. Do you recall how many people in the second tower either did not exit after the first tower was hit or began to leave, but returned? Do you recall how FUCKING UNBELIEVABLE THE WHOLE THING WAS, INCLUDING THE POSSIBILITY THAT THOSE BUILDINGS COULD EVEN DISINTEGRATE AS THEY DID, KILLING HUNDREDS OF RESCUERS?!
Sick. Of. Bull. Shit.
See? What'd I tell you about feeding nasty trollses?
This sums it up for me, couresty of Pierce writing in to Altercation:
"And we must never lose sight of the film's real value -- it kicks over and dances upon the phony anesthetic consensus -- Call it The Big Russ Effect -- that has replaced vigorous skepticism and has infantilized energetic self-government through media lassitude and our own connivance. Don't seek to learn anything from Michael Moore unless you learn that. In fact, the most heartbreaking thing about F 9/11 is that we are now engaged in the national argument over a film that we should have had about going to war."
OT--
The City of Oakland is preparing to tell Ashcroft and the DEA to go fuck themselves.
Your chronology is off, to say the least. Do you recall how many people in the second tower either did not exit after the first tower was hit or began to leave, but returned?
Do you recall that George Bush wasn't an office worker in a burning building but the President of the United States with all of the military intelligence in the country at his fingertips?
Do you recall how a Commander in Chief is supposed to act differently than a secretary or office worker because he has more resources at his control?
sick.of.idiot.freeper.trolls
Toby ...
... your president is a pussy, just face it and admit you'll vote for him anyways because he's killing all the people you want killed anyways.
... But he is a pussy ... a yank, blueblood, connecticut-raised, drunken, stoned, fratboy, cheerleading pussy.
And after the complete bullshit you and your white-trash media put Clinton through ... well, your pussy-in-chief deserves some heat for his lies and his ineptitude.
Disclaimer: I like pussies, cheerleaders, and most yanks. Just not this particular one.
See? What'd I tell you about feeding nasty trollses?
As soon as he tells me I hate Amurrrica I'll stop. I promise.
Computers: garbage in, garbage out
Trolls: garbage out, garbage out, garbage out, garbage out, ...
"2.) 7 minutes is a lot of time when you're dealing with airliners that might have to be shot down. Who was making the decisions during those 7 minutes. "
Exactly. Dumbass sat there while a 767 at 20,000 feet could have travelled over sixty miles.
Hey Toby: nice try trolling. Bush sat there not doing a thing while any and all remaining hijacked airliners travelled over sixty miles toward their targets.
actually it (masoud's death) was several days before, around the time of the Durbin conference and the flap over zionist wording in the final statement.
Ah, yes, I stand corrected. Sorta. The suicide bombing was on the 9th, and he actually died within minutes, but news reports were confused as to whether he was still alive right up to the 15th September. And even then, it was said that he'd been in a coma until the 15th, which turned out much later to have been a cover story.
Trolls: garbage out, garbage out, garbage out, garbage out, ...
I disagree. Toby is doing a valuable service for his country by fighting against all of us America hating liberals.
He fighting the exact same fight that our boys in Iraq are fighting. Remember, the war against the Fifth Column of Pussy Dhimocrats, Idiotarians, and Unbalanced Bush Hating Moonbats is just as important as fighting against (whoever the fuck we're supposed to be fighting) in Iraq.
Toby is a patriot and a good American and I will not have him insulted.
Praising Toby? SWR, why do you hate Amurrrica?
SWR, why do you hate Amurrrica?
Because prayer isn't allowed in schools and the liberal press is allowed to insult my president.
Because every day, millions of little babies are murdered by women turned into demonic anti-Christian harridans by feminism and the elite leftist universities.
Because Michael Moore is allowed to mock good, Christian, working class people like me.
Isn't it the Repugs who hate the country the way it is?
SWR, you don't by any chance recall the "Anti-Idiotarian Manifesto" from, oh, late 2001, early 2002? By Eric Raymond?
Raymond and his warblogging cronies actually had a clause describing how tapping away at the keyboard was a Brave and Noble Contribution to the War on Terror ...
Google it if you haven't seen it ... it's hilarious.
Sick. Of. Bull. Shit.
Toby Petzold
Toby, you're fat. You're lazy. And you look like a potato.
Raymond and his warblogging cronies actually had a clause describing how tapping away at the keyboard was a Brave and Noble Contribution to the War on Terror ...
How dare you forget the brave, heroic men and women who go to anti-war rallies with videocams and hassle middle-aged hippies!!!
How dare you forget those concerned citizens who sent pizzas to the IDF after Rachel Corrie got squashed by the bulldozer. I mean, for the love of God, if it wasn't for those brave patriots, my 60 year old mother would be travelling to Gaza at this moment to join Hamas.
And how dare you forget all of those great American patriots who stopped CBS from showing a scandalously anti-Reagan movie last Spring. True, that just got flattened by the bulldozer that is Michael Moore, but they stood there and at least tried.
Toby is a patriot in my book and if it weren't for him, anonymous leftists posting crap on the internet about George Bush would end democracy as we know it.
For SWR:
Here's a link to an article that I wrote about earlier in this thread.
http://tinyurl.com/2a4zd
I'm not sure if this is the same one that was printed in the LA Times, but it is close.
(Thanks to rorschach for the tip.)
8. THAT Saddam Hussein poses a particularly clear and present danger in combination with them, a danger demonstrated by his known efforts to develop nuclear weapons, his use of chemical weapons even on his own population, his demonstrated willingness to commit aggression against peaceful neighbors, and his known links to the Islamic terror network in Palestine and elsewhere.
Note. He never said "imminent danger."
Ot, As some here know I try to follow all things on the FBI translater Sibel Edmonds here is the lastest interview (that I know of) w/her
I might have to add for the reality-impaired:
An F-16 can scramble at 1500 m.p.h., and it's missiles fly at over 2.5 Mach - about 1900 miles per hour over a maximum range of 30 miles.
A 767 or 757 has a maximum speed at (gulp) Twin Towers altitude of about 500 m.p.h. We have no excuse for not intercepting one or more of these aircraft. The inaction of the preznit could be a chief reason that the Pentagon was hit in the first place, claiming dozens more lives than if the aircraft had been destroyed mid-air.
What world would we live in today if the Boy king had scrambled his fighters at the first hint of an attack- when the first plane hit the tower?
"WE SHALL SHED the moral cowards and the appeasers and the apologists; and we shall fight the barbarians and fanatics, and we shall defeat them. We shall defeat them in war, crushing their dream of dominion; and we shall defeat them in peace, using our wealth and freedoms [and our Wolfenstein v7.3 patches] to seduce their women and children to civilized ways, and ultimately wiping their diseased and virulent culture from the face of the Earth."
Is this the pipeline in question? Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan pipeline. Hope this doesn't blow out Haloscan. How the hell do you do the tiny urls?
www.adb.org/Documents/News/Prm/2003/
prm_200304.pdf
WE SHALL SHED the moral cowards and the appeasers and the apologists; and we shall fight the barbarians and fanatics, and we shall defeat them.
Don't you mean "shun?"
We shall defeat them in war, crushing their dream of dominion;
This sounds a bit like Clyde Frazier announcing a Knicks game.
and we shall defeat them in peace, using our wealth and freedoms to seduce their women and children to civilized ways, and ultimately wiping their diseased and virulent ideologies from the face of the Earth.
Did Kristof sign it?
Toonscribe: www.tinyurl.com
On topic (oddly enough), I just checked The Progressive, and found that the review there is the perfect example of the sort of thing Krugman is talking about, as far as "the nervous liberals rushing to disassociate themselves from Michael Moore" is concerned.
Very disappointing, really. Especially given that I saw a glowing review of the film by a self-described "ultraconservative" earlier today.
Speaking of war crimes (I know, we weren't) but... here's a headline for tomorrow - from Reuters:
"The U.S. military is pulling troops out of two U.N. peacekeeping operations in Kosovo and Africa because they are no longer exempt from prosecution in the International Criminal Court, the Pentagon (news - web sites) said on Thursday. "
Now, why the hell do we have to be exempt from prosecution anyway? why should the U.S. have any immunity if we commit atrocities around the world. Could someone please explain how we can even justify this position? Because we ARE war criminals and cannot be held to the standards we expect in others? We are a laughingstock.
So we show our true colors by picking up our toys and going home. I think they can really use the help in Kosovo and Africa. This is disgusting.
*
Jenny--Yes, there is no justification at all. It is simply a raw power play, and since Bush didn't get his way, he's doing exactly as you suggest, and quitting.
Such children. And with such big, destructive toys.
troll feeding: At no point was he not in touch with everyone whom he needed to be. So what's the problem?
then why did DICK have to give the shoot down orders? communication problems on air force 1? maybe chimpy mcflight suit was in the can puking his scared little guts out. "oh shit, i'm president, what do i do"?
of course we may never know the whole truth, because our lying, incompetent press, is unwilling to expose our lying, incompetent administration.
R -
sickening. this administration is without shame. ...........grrr.
*
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maybe chimpy mcflight suit was in the can puking his scared little guts out. "oh shit, i'm president, what do i do"?
It really is a Mel Brooks movie.
Bush: Mel Brooks as idiot leader.
Cheney: Harvey Korman as idiot leader's evil, duplicitous second in command.
Jenny: you don't want to know. Really.
others: the assassination attempt on Masoud happened on 9/9, he died on 9/10, IIRC.
If we were no longer exempt from prosecution in the International Criminal Court, that would limit the amount of our future foreign military involvement. That's why Kofi Annan at the UN has been pushing for it. But the Pentagon likes its ability to act without constraints anywhere and anytime.
If a troll farts in the woods, does it make any noise?.
Depends on the fart.
Wait a minute. Is Eric Raymond the anti-idiotarian manifesto guy the same as Eric Raymond the linux guru guy?
If a tree falls in the forest, and nobody's around, do the other trees laugh at it?
re: Anti-Idiotarian Manifesto
Your link didn't work, but I found it via Google. Wow! I never would have guessed that Eric Raymond is such a fucking asshole!
OMFG. It is the same Eric Raymond.
I never would have guessed that Eric Raymond is such a fucking asshole!
Richard Stallman on the other hand is circulating Naders petition to impeach Bush.
"Pentagon likes its ability to act without constraints anywhere and anytime."
Right. And thus we acknowledge that our free-flowing aggression is inherently accompanied by crimes against humanity - we must have immunity to get the job done.
Hey, on the bright side this could be the first honest statement we've made so far.. They must despise us. I wish the UN would get some balls and tell us to Cheney off.
P.S. I have a fantasy that when F911 gets a wide release internationally there will be so much pressure on other governments (by their citizens) to stand up to the U.S. that there may be a complete withdrawal of support for this administration - that they will actually aid us in getting rid of Bush by completely stonewalling his lame initiatives and pleas to bail him out of his mess.
*
I'm practicing a tinyurl. It's the same pipeline link I had above. I may be slow, but I try to learn. Oh -- and thanks, Rorschach.
http://tinyurl.com/35223
OMFG. It is the same Eric Raymond.
So sad.
Perhaps he can call his autobiography "The Cathedral and the Bizarre"
No problem, Toonscribe. And here's a brief HTML lesson for those interested: To embed links, do this:
(a href="http://www.whatever.com")whatever words you want people to click on(/a)
Except, instead of (), use < and >
And I'll now use that very technique to report some bad news for Europe.
So sad.
Perhaps he can call his autobiography "The Cathedral and the Bizarre"
I'm beginning to agree with Steve Gilliard's constant arguments that programmers (and geeks in general) tend to be assholes.
The point of the Afghan pipeline isn't that it was pre-test for taking out the Taliban, but that BushCo. had ZERO problems trying to climb in bed with the Taliban, who was Usama bin Laden's benefactor and host... and was in and of itself a creation of the ISI.
BushCo's eyes were were full of $s and fossil fuel extraction access and could give less than a shit about real security.
If BushCo gave a shit about security, we would have already bought up the loose nuke material from the former USSR under the CTR treaty.
We would have the funding for and be well on our way to secure ports.
Afghanistan was touching the bases on the way round the diamond so BuchCo could get to Iraq.
Iraq had to be taken out for 3 reasons:
1) If inspections were really done, sanctions would be lifted which meant...
2) Iraq crude floods the market via European contracts and would be...
3) traded in Euros not dollars.
BushCo/Saudi crude is devalued, OPEC is undercut because Iraq is trading in petroeuros not petrodollars.
This would be a disaster not only because their Saudi biz would take a serious beating, but if oil starts trading in Euros, the bottom falls out of the dollar in capital markets which is the only thing floating our trade deficits and our budgetary deficits and keeping the economy's head above water.
If the Euro becomes "the" currency for capital markets and the petro-trade... goodbye US economy.
Your link didn't work, but I found it via Google. Wow! I never would have guessed that Eric Raymond is such a fucking asshole!
synykyl
I left a comment for Eric...
F9/11 really is a good movie. At times it's deliberately silly. That's called pacing. It goes too far, draws back, goes again, draws back, then deals with something else. At the end it hammers it home: we owe it to our soldiers, who lay their lives down for us, not to do this to them. And oddly ends with W's "can't be fooled again". This time with feeling.
It deserved the Golden Palm.
Question. I've been out of high-school for awhile but looking at the writings of the 101st Fighting Keyboarders makes me wonder.
Do hippies beat up geeks in the ninth grade?
I mean, does listening to Phish records and smoking too much pot while knitting quilts lead one to occasional yet ferocious outbursts of aggression against pimply faced virgins?
It's weird. I know plenty of good liberal coders... lots and lots.
Then there's a large contingent of total right-wing assholes. Most high-profile ones tend to be of the asshole variety, I tend to think there's a causal relationship involved in them being egotistical bastards that claw their way up, but you never know.
Though the right-wing coders tend to be pretty evenly split between admitted Republicans and declared libertarians... of the latter, about half actually are, the others are about as libertarian as our dear friend Professor Reynolds.
I'm beginning to agree with Steve Gilliard's constant arguments that programmers (and geeks in general) tend to be assholes.
Hey! I resemble that remark!
I think that may be true, but only because: programmers tend to be people, and people tend to be assholes.
I think that may be true, but only because: programmers tend to be people, and people tend to be assholes.
Did you get beaten up by hippies in high-school?
It deserved the Golden Palm.
bad Jim
It's going to sweep the Oscars this fall, too.
"I don't get the significance of those infamous seven minutes. If Bush had leapt to his feet and started hustling everyone towards the door, you chickenshits would be calling him a spastic basketcase who was freaking out."
False dilemma asshole.
First he had no business even being in the classroom to begin with, he already knew that one plane hit the WTC and they knew 3 were highjacked before he even set foot in the classroom. Presidents have canceled photo-ops for far less...
Second, when told of the second hit at the WTC, he could have calmly said "Excuse me boys and girls, I need to go and take care of some bad problem that just came up, but I promise to come back another day and we can finish going over your great reading lessons, and I want to encourage you all to study hard, keep reading and stay in school, gotta go now, god bless you all" and then calmly walk out the door. 15 seconds tops.
So with that... I defer to your VP's wise words.. go fuck yourself.... ah that does make me feel better and it certainly needed to be said.
Did you get beaten up by hippies in high-school?
Just by the girl hippies
Just by the girl hippies
They came and kicked you in the shins when they got bored in their arts and crafts classes?
SWR | Email | Homepage | 07.02.04 - 3:21 am | #
That is satire right?
SWR | Email | Homepage | 07.02.04 - 3:21 am | #
That is satire right?
Jesus loves you. Why don't you love him?
Join General JC Christian in praying for Cheney
Should be interesting to see which movie garners more Oscars. Will it be The Passion or Fahrenheit 9/11.
Stay tuned...
They came and kicked you in the shins when they got bored in their arts and crafts classes?
Yes, and they beat me with their macrame handbags too. It was horrible.
It's only now, 30 years later, that I can listen to The Grateful Dead without having a panic attack.
SWR | Email | Homepage | 07.02.04 - 4:29 am | #
So you were not posting satire?
Wow.
Hadn't you heard, Incognito, The Passion and F911 are basically the same.
I think Hollywood is going to give F911 every award it can wring out of a documentary. Passion goes away empty.
*
When does conspiracy theory become fact? They continue to press on with the pipeline across Afghanistan. India is coming onboard.
http://tinyurl.com/2wcxy
I think Hollywood is going to give F911 every award it can wring out of a documentary. Passion goes away empty.
*
Jenny from the Blog
I concur. You know how those liberal elitist Hollywood liberals are....
9:25am, first planes scrammbled.
8:20am FAA calls Washington about at least three known hijackings.
WTF? Hippies and geeks?
In my high school (class of '6 hippies and geeks were the same people. At my 30th reunion I was mostly reminded why I was in such a hurry back then to escape to college (Berkeley, in my case). Most of my classmates didn't, and I got the feeling that they also didn't grow up.
I was the only techie in the place. Back at work, everyone was technical. Manufacturing. Engineering. Sales & Marketing. Normal stuff.
At the reunion, the two who got top honors then are now a teacher and a surgeon. Friends, perhaps, and doing well, but no longer people I could talk to.
Better get back to Tennessee, synykyl.
Incognito - see you on Oscar night. It might be one to watch!
'night.
*
My friends have always been of the hippie/geek variety, but rarely of the techie type. In fact, now, half my friends are English profs and grad students and the other half are lesbian karate-jocks and football players. Strange world.
I meant to do that
"fighter" planes scrammbled, F-15's I think. Either way Bush should have never ever gone into that school. That smirky just so happened to be in Jeb-Land smells funny to boot.
I, geek, mostly hung out with social-science types; was supposed by one roommate to be an English major, because of my reading habits; took fencing for two quarters, and wound up on top of the final round-robin match due to a forfeit. Life's like that, particularly when you're young.
It's been a while since I've been able to stick a sword in somebody and say touché. Mostly they run away from me.
Better get back to Tennessee, synykyl.
Actually, I better get to bed.
I've got to get up for work in a couple of hours. If that doesn't kill me, my hippie wife will
Good night to all, even the troll.
I was surprised to see film of Bush saying "He tried to kill my dad." But then, for any foe of Bush, putting his puss on the screen only furthers the purpose. Look! Look at what we've got! Is this our president?
Notice how after Enron collapsed and then Bush ate a pretzel and collapsed and the pipeline deal collapsed they started going public with the Iraq invasion plans?
It's been a while since I've been able to stick a sword in somebody and say touché. Mostly they run away from me.
You bastard! I need to go to bed, but I couldn't let a reference to fencing go without a reply
I started fencing when I was a sopohmore in high school ('6, and I was still competing until about 5 years ago.
Did you do any fencing other than in your gym class?
Fencing is such a liberal elitist sport.
Fencing is such a liberal elitist sport
I only took it up so I could defend myself against the girl hippies.
Sibel Edmonds FBI translator who blew the whistle on the 9/11 coverup
"Edmonds's story has been almost uniformly ignored in the U.S. daily press," wrote Jefferson Morley in the Washington Post, at the same time that it has been widely reported in foreign news media.She has since been gagged and had her Info retroactively classifyied could she be refering to President Bush's uncle Jonathan Bush and the Riggs Bank $25 million fine for a "willful, systemic" violation of anti-money-laundering laws? Nah, of course not.(sarcasm) But if you wanna take her advice Follow the Money The Riggs Bank info dovetails with Sibel Edmonds' allegations very nicely. I think the problem is that almost EVERYONE would be implicated. It's like a mutually assured destruction arrangement, with everybody having something devastating on everyone else.If you're familiar with BCCI,(links above) it was a similar deal...both parties, bigshots from all over the place...everybody who was anybody, just about, was in bed with those folks.Good ol' Senator Lurch Kerry had to work his ass off to get that investigation going, and although his final report was admirable it never led to anything much on the legal front.And wasn't the m.a.d. thesis straight out of the President Reagan era? But she can't tell us, and the congressmen she has turned to are cowards...
I only took it up so I could defend myself against the girl hippies.
synykyl
Fencing always made me nervous because it always seemed that you could easily put someone's eye out.
OT. but anyone know of any free photo/image hosting sites that are any good? I have a ton of photos I need to store somewhere. Thanks
Mom gave me a phobia about putting eyes out. I couldn't even run around as a kid without her saying, "stop running before you put someone's eye out."
"> Here is the lastest interview with Sibel edmonds(that I know of) w/her, anybody else got anymore?
Sorry for the redundancy, but I find this quite important...
Fencing always made me nervous because it always seemed that you could easily put someone's eye out.
That's why I only fence with Republicans (and girl hippies).
Seriously, in the 30 years I competed I only saw one minor "blade related" injury, though I do know of people who had reasonably serious injuries, including a Russian who was killed.
All in all I'd say fencing is safer that football or ice hockey.
My favorite sport in high school was dodge ball.
With dodge ball, I was good at not getting eliminated. I had the Samurai moves of contorting my body to just avoiding the ball.
Sorry to be so slow about replying. Fencing since college - no, not really. I have a set of foils and masks, gifts of my brother, and I did try them out, hence my comment about "no one wants to play with me." Give me a blade and I'm insanely aggressive, and that's how I chased off my nephews.
When I was a kid my brothers and I played with wooden stakes (common in developing southern California in the 60's). I guess we were careful - we took risks then which may be inconceivable now. Both my parents worked and we tended to wander off.
Fencing, since we no longer prize scars (the German saber tradition) is done with screened masks and is quite safe. The college classes to which I alluded were only epee -- lunge and stick -- and scored with any impact. In practice I was just the quickest to prick wrists and arms - the French tradition.
Wow, I agree. Great column. Someone tell Jeff Jarvis about this, alright?
Clinton on helping the blacks
...I'll never forget reading one black student's exam paper with a mixture of disbelief and anger. I knew he had studied like a demon and understood the material, but his exam didn't show it. The right answers were in there, but finding them required digging through piles of misspelled words, bad grammar, and poor sentence construction. An A's worth of knowledge was hidden in the bushes of an F presentation, flawed by things he hadn't learned going all the way back to elementary school. I gave him a B-...
Wow, long thread and it is only 7AM eastern. Atrios on Krugman on Moore.
Powerful combination.
All those pundits who are screaming that Moore lied have yet to prove a single untruth. The problem they have with Moore is that he portrays Bush in the worst light possible. That isn't lying, it's cinema. Those in the media should know.
I'm glad Krugman wrote his column and i agree with most of what he wrote. HOWEVER, can't a single journalist give Moore's movie 2 thumbs without calling it "flawed" (how so?) or "shrill!" or a polemic? OY! I've yet to see a single serious challenge to any facts Moore puts forth.
The wheel of our ship of state
Must be pried from the cold hands of hate.
The Repukelican horde
Should be chucked overboard,
Where those magical dolphins await.
1) If inspections were really done, sanctions would be lifted which meant...
2) Iraq crude floods the market via European contracts and would be...
3) traded in Euros not dollars.
BushCo/Saudi crude is devalued, OPEC is undercut because Iraq is trading in petroeuros not petrodollars.
This would be a disaster not only because their Saudi biz would take a serious beating, but if oil starts trading in Euros, the bottom falls out of the dollar in capital markets which is the only thing floating our trade deficits and our budgetary deficits and keeping the economy's head above water.
If the Euro becomes "the" currency for capital markets and the petro-trade... goodbye US economy.
Mitchell Gore | Email | Homepage | 07.02.04 - 4:08 am | #
You nailed it, it's why Cheneyburton was so involved in Kosovo to block a pieline to Europe which was also a threat to Saudis and OPEC.
MEDIA-ELITE
that's all they are.
Rich people's good-looking kids (STFU pumpkin-head - how much do you make a year?!)
Thank-you Michael Moore!
and for you Krugman - if globalization is soo good - why do MOST of the world's unions protest globalization summit, world bank and IMF? The race to the bottom (stolen from gephardt) is the end of society...and you don't see it!
http://www.medienanalyse-interna...e/
3seconds.html
Best link for a timeline was so just weeks after 9-11 with multiple network references and it has since been changed as many networks stripped the stories referenced for damage control.
As for Krugman, he was an apologist too, to the point I deleted his bookmarks over it.
Is that the John Bush about to come onto CSPAN Washington Journal?
Moore's movie disturbs people who've put away their idealism to build their careers, make their money and acquire tangible assets like SUV's and a bigger house.
I remember growing up in a working class home where there was a healthy skepticism about govt. I grew up watching Walter Cronkite and Vietnam death tallies on the evening news.
As many people get older, they begin to push those doubts to the back of their brains and hope that their enthusiasm for craven men like Bush will reward them. They start to listen to hate-mongers like Rush and O'Liely because their venom and hate-speech makes them, white males, feel better blaming others.
The amazing part of the movie was that the mother in Flint bought into so much of the mythology of the Republicans--all one has to do to get ahead is to work hard--her going back to school through a retraining program allowed her to become the head of the retraining program. She finally began to understand the relationship between power and class after losing her 19 year old son in Iraq; as the father of a 20 year old, this part of the movie was the most difficult for me. The anger I felt when Moore talked to the lily-white, privileged Congressmen about not having children in harm's way brought out a visceral hatred towards these fops.
Moore's movie didn't go far enough for my tastes, but, if he made the movie that would truly represent my POV, it would never see the light of day.
He asks questions, gets some people to think, and if he can bring over some independent voters, maybe, just maybe Bush won't be able to steal the '04 election.
I'm happy people are going to the movie and here's hoping that by seeing the movie, they'll begin to think a bit more critically.
Another review, more indepth than K-man's. You may not agree with the politics of the site (Socialist), but give the review a try:
http://www.wsws.org/articles/200...4/911-
j30.shtml
I think audiences are responding as well to the irreverent tone of the movie, especially in an atmosphere of questionin the president being tantamount to hating america.
Krugman better be careful not to nibble too hard at the hand of his employer-they'll have Michiko Kakutani review his next book.
Payroll's out: 112k...
Payroll employment increased by 112,000
in June, following larger gains in the prior 3 months.
The bleating of the rightwing to being stuck in it's fat ass by Moore's movie "F 9/11" is so typical of these hypocritical fascists.
They dominate the US government as a result of vote fraud in Florida and a partisan five members of the USSC.
They dominate all media with Hate Talk Radio/TV and Newspapers editorials that favor the Goopers more often than not.
So now that an Anti-Bushboy messenger breaks through in the movie medium to actually give the people another POV on what Bushboy & the Goopers have been doing, the rightwing squeels with cries that Moore's movie is "unfair and not balanced!"
FAUX NEWS anyone?
http://bls.gov/news.release/emps.../
empsit.nr0.htm
Have You Seen My Bush Boom? Part XLIX: Hiring Slump.
The pace of U.S. hiring slumped sharply in June after several months of robust gains, the government reported on Friday as employers added fewer than half the number of payroll jobs forecast and hours of work shrunk.
The Labor Department said only 112,000 jobs were created last month, far fewer than the 250,000 that Wall Street analysts had anticipated. April and May new-job totals were revised down, to 324,000 and 235,000 respectively, from 346,000 and 248.000
Continuing the OT, I've posted some deconstruction of the BLS numbers [blogwhore].
Krugman gets it. Why doesn't the rest of the main stream media?
"It is difficult to make a person understand a thing when his salary depends on his not understanding it." Upton Sinclair (who would be deeply ashamed of 99% of most US journos today).
Moore never states his "conspiracy theories" as facts. He has the good sense to pose his speculations -- after laying out facts that have not been disproven -- in the interrogative ("Was it possible that...?"). Compare with Bushco ("There is no doubt," "We know for a fact," etc). And Krugman is absolutely right to say that had the mainstream media done its job, F-911 would have merely been redundant, and thus unnecessary.
The Labor Department said only 112,000 jobs were created last month, far fewer than the 250,000 that Wall Street analysts had anticipated. April and May new-job totals were revised down, to 324,000 and 235,000 respectively, from 346,000 and 248.000
Holden Caulfield - 8:51 am
If we set up a pool each month to see who can guess the revised figure, would we spotlight "good news" bias?
Completely and thoroughly OT, but this is interesting. In an
http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/ns/n..._WAS7\">article about the Bush campaigns attempt to canvass churches, we find this:
But the Rev. Richard Land, who deals with ethics and religious liberty issues for the Southern Baptist Convention, a key Bush constituency, said he was "appalled."
"First of all, I would not want my church directories being used that way," he told Reuters in an interview, predicting failure for the Bush plan.
The conservative Protestant denomination, whose 16 million members strongly backed Bush in 2000, held regular drives that encouraged church-goers to "vote their values," said Land.
"But it's one thing for us to do that. It's a totally different thing for a partisan campaign to come in and try to organize a church. A lot of pastors are going to say: 'Wait a minute, bub'," he added.
Oops. But wait, there's more (no pun intended):
The Bush campaign has also been spending heavily on television ads, only to see the president's approval ratings slump to new lows.
Stanzel said the campaign ended the month of June with $64 million on hand. He had no figures on how much Bush has raised in June. At the end of May, Bush had raised $213.4 million and spent all but $63 million.
So, $150 million dollars later, it's still a dead heat? $150 million dollars, and he's got nothin'?
Somebody put the champagne on ice!
"Happy days are here again...!"
Is "journalism" dead in the USA?
Except for that part of the press that doesn't depend on commercial support, I think we can deliver the eulogy to the American mass media.
Except for a few blinking lights of truth (which might go out for lack of funding) like THE NATION, THE PROGRESSIVE, THE AMERICAN PROSPECT and TV shows like Democracynow and NOW with Bill Moyers and the nascent radio of AirAmerica, there is precious little real news getting out to the American people.
The carnage in Iraq should be on screen each day just as Vietnam was. Bushboy & the Goopers have learned the lesson of showing that ugly truth and have invoked Orwellian controls to suppress it.
The American "free press" is a ludicrous oxymoron.
Lucky Ducky report!
U.S. companies added 112,000 workers to payrolls in June, less than half the median forecast, and factory jobs fell for the first time in five months, suggesting businesses were turning more cautious entering the year's second half.
Less than half the forecast. I think they've been seeing stuff that aint there.
But here's the kicker:
Job gains in the previous two months also were revised downward by a total of 35,000, to 235,000 in May and 324,000.
Damned.
Broke Haloscan.
That link was supposed to embed. Obviously, I still need to be in bed.
My apologies.
NTodd -
Love the Cheney image.
And, as you said, the employment report bodes ill for the Bush Boy, which even the Times article I linked to had to admit.
Hey, here's some more data from Bloomberg!
"Average weekly hours worked for all employees dropped to 33.6 from 33.8 the prior month. Economists had expected hours would hold at 33.8 hours. Last month's funeral for former President Ronald Reagan caused some offices to close and may have contributed to the decline in hours, some economists said."
It IS all Reagan's fault.
"Workers' average hourly earnings rose 0.1 percent, or 2 cents, after a 0.3 percent increase the previous month. Economists had expected a 0.3 percent increase in hourly wages. Average weekly earnings fell to $525.84 from $528.29 in May."
So the average American is not doing better, financially.
Oh, and here's something else embedded in the statistics:
Among blacks, the unemployment rate rose to 10.1 percent from 9.9 percent in May. The jobless rate for Hispanics decreased to 6.7 percent from 7 percent and for whites held at 5 percent for a second month.
(a href="http://www.whatever.com")whatever words you want people to click on(/a)
(a href="http:www.pacificnet.net?~spectre?Temple.com"
)here(/a)
This is a test; I'm really trying to learn how to do this. Please excuse!
rorschach,
Clearly, I'm in need of a remedial lesson; embedding for dummies or something.
Sorry!
Just saw the movie last night in a sold out theatre in very Republican DuPage County, IL. I believe that the county has never not gone for a Republican president.
I am as much as a political news junkie as anyone, and there was very little in the movie that I did not actually know about so I was NOT suprised at the content, but it was a powerful, powerful compilation of just some of the evilness of Bush and his family, cronies, and those who support him.
Flawed, yes. But the folks I saw the movie with were alternately silent, laughing with derision, shaking their heads, and making comments about the disgusting images that showed Bush in all of his buffoonery, laziness, and dissembling on the war. The role that the "liberal" press, and the complicit congress played throughout the theft of the election to the war itself was revealed in all of it's glory.
I, a hardened Bush hater, came away depressed and ashamed at how close we have come to losing our democracy forever, starting with Nixon and his criminals Cheney and Rumsfeld continuing Republican reign of terror on our nation. I am ashamed and depressed that the Bush family's ties to the Saudis has been glossed over by the "liberal" media, and so many deaths and horrible suffering were for nothing.
Go see this powerful attack on the Bush administration as you will be shocked, saddened, but also relieved that someone has finally spoken out about the criminality of the Bush administration.
i really loved the film. The details may not be exactly dead on, but the main thrust of the story is solid. This is a war founded on a pile of bullshit being fought by the poor for the benefit of the rich. My Republican aunt saw the film - she was only marginally political, but she was feeling anxious about Bush. She cried when the wounded and crippled soldiers told their stories, she cried when Lila Lipscomb talked about her son, she cried when she remebered the tragedy of 911, she cried when the Iraqi lady pleaded to God to destroy our house.
At the end, she sat silent - with this look of anger and disgust. She turned to me and said - this is what you've been saying for months. i said, yeah - this is why I hate that fucker. She said, he disgusts me - he is a total fake. How could I ever have belived in them.
She could not stop talking about it on the way home. She was seething by the middle of the movie, and the anger was not quelled. she seemed like she would be willing to storm the Whitehouse. I really have never seen her looking as though she had such abject disgust in anything. She is a hardcore Christian - and she kept on saying - he's no Christian. it is all a lie. It is all a lie.
She called me this morning and apologized for the way she acted during the run up to the war. We got in several heated arguments about it - but she still wanted to trust Bush. Now, she wants him in jail.
That movie - for all its flaws - shows the human cost of these craven fucker's war. If you watch this movie with just one iota of an open mind - you will leave uynderstanding why so many people truly hate that motherfucking cocksore.
Sorry to cuss, but I don't think those fuckers deserve language any more grandiose than the diriest words imaginable. I hate those people with an unabiding passion. i don't just want them out of the whitehouse, I want them at the end of a noose.
Note to secret service: The above screed is not a threat. I, unlike that fucker you defend, don't believe in capital punishment.
1. Krugman is consistently brilliant. Buy his book, it's great.
2. I think Moore should have done the split screen thing with the towers burning and run it next to Bush sitting for the full 7 minutes...but that's just me.
3. I also think he should have tried to get the video of Ari Fleisher in the classroom waving and mouthing to Bush not to say anything yet...maybe video of this does not exist?
In the back of the room, Press Secretary Ari Fleischer caught Bush's eye and held up a pad of paper for him to see, with "DON'T SAY ANYTHING YET" written on it in big block letters. [Washington Times, 10/7/02]
Finally seeing this today, about time.
testing
FYI and OT
Larry Flynt's book has been released for July 4. available at larryflynt.com or at amazon. Should be a hoot! Title is Sex, Lies and Politics: The Naked Truth
Three, five, seven, eleven, fifteen minutes?
Seven minutes. For those of you too patriotic to consider seeing comrade moore's pinko americahating screed, what he does is show Dear Leader protecting those precious children with a number on the screen indicating the time elapsed after he knew the islamofascist, liberal-loving hordes had struck the godless of New York City, My city.
the number says "3", then "5" then "7". Seven minutes.
keep me away from those tags!
Excellent, one step closer to mastering this haloscan thingie.
Hecate, greater than/less than symbols, not parentheses.
Toby Petzold: "I don't get the significance of those infamous seven minutes. If Bush had leapt to his feet and started hustling everyone towards the door, you chickenshits would be calling him a spastic basketcase who was freaking out."
As others have pointed out, this is a false dichotomy. I'd just add that kids are used to having their teachers called out of the room; it's very unlikely it would have upset them, beyond maybe being disappointed that the president had to leave early.
"Instead, Bush demonstrated ---in the very first moments of the recognition of something horrible--- just how he was going to be handling the New Paradigm: calmly, resolutely, and unapologetically."
Demonstrated to whom? A class of third-graders?
What the Cheney is "resolute" and "unapologetic" about not taking immediate command when the country you lead is under attack?
"Now, what is it that you people are suggesting? That he knew about the attacks in advance and decided to just sit there because there was nothing more he was assigned to do? That those seven minutes were all the difference between sparing the Pentagon and letting it go up in flames?"
Straw men. At that point, nobody knew what was really going on or what was going to happen next. Bush's appearance at the school had been well publicized, so for all anybody knew, the school might be the next target. Even beyond that, he should have been with his aides who were gathering information, so he could hear it immediately in case whatever was going on required him to make a split-second decision about how to respond.
Again, *nobody knew what was going to happen next*. Certainly Bush had no idea. At the very *least*, he should have excused himself to consult with his aides. If they and he felt his aides could handle everything until the classroom session were over, he could have gone back and finished it.
But he COULDN'T MAKE THAT DETERMINATION, that it would be OK for him to finish the session, as long as he was sitting there like a lump. For all he knew, seconds could have made a difference.
As we know now, there wasn't much he could have done. But HE didn't know that at the time.
It really isn't rocket science. The Bushies' excuses for his behavior are just pathetic.
On the other hand, it's just incredible to me that it apparently didn't occur to anyone that the *first* plane might be an attack. It certainly should have, given what we know now about the information that was then available concerning various previous terrorist plans to crash planes into buildings.
Had that possibility been considered, it's possible at least some lives could have been saved in the second tower. Bush could have had an evacuation order issued as soon as he learned of the first plane, well before he arrived at the school.
And of course if they had thought there were a possibility the first plane was an attack, Bush should never have gone to the school in the first pla
I apologize for possibly feeding the troll, but, regarding the 7 minutes and the goat, everyone seems to be missing the point, especially Toby. And that point was in Krugman's column. The important thing about that footage was THE FACT THAT YOU FINALLY SEE IT IN THE MOVIE. Your reaction to Bush in those minutes says more about you than it does about Bush. If you're Toby P., it gives you a hard-on because you imagine Bush was being resolute and calm in the face of danger. Fine. If you're me, it looks like Bush had no idea what to do in that situation, and was in over his head. But, again, the point is that Moore shows you what no one in the media showed you before. Was it because they were afraid too many people would have my reaction, as opposed to Toby's, and that would poke holes in their fairy tale about our brave president? I don't know. Maybe.
Troll Toby- You obviously haven't seen the footage of Bush after he was told of the WTC attack. Tell me he doesn't look absolutely clueless.
Son, you have been duped, and the longer it takes you to realize it, the more foolish you look.
"Viewers may come away from Mr. Moore's movie believing some things that probably aren't true. For example, the film talks a lot about Unocal's plans for a pipeline across Afghanistan, which I doubt had much impact on the course of the Afghan war."
I don't agree with Krugman on this. While it may not have had much impact on the COURSE of the Afghan war, I think it sure had something to do with the war period. Krugman acts as though that pipeline really wasn't all that important. I think he's wrong.
tin foil mad hatter,
Thanks for the great report. I think what happened to your aunt is happening all over the country. It must hurt like hell to have one's illusions Cheneyed so brutally.
I hope your aunt will share her grief and rage with others.
Oh, and Let Krugman Reign!
Peace all,
-Speedy
In his screed Hitchens says that Richard Clarke has said he and he alone authorized the Saudi flights. Clarkes testimony at the 9/11 comission is that he refused the request.
Who is lying ? Did Clarke perjure himself ?
(a href="http://www.whatever.com")whatever words you want people to click on(/a)
here
Thanks, BlakNo1. I hate being such a Luddite. Here's a second test.
On 9/11, the CBC had a clip of Bush being told by Andy Card about the 2nd plane hitting the towers. I haven't seen F911 yet (they're finally bringing it to WV and it opens this morning!) and am curious if the clip being used in the movie is the same one I saw on the Canadian BC. Regardless, I watched that clip on CBC very closely and Bush looked like a lost child waiting for Mammy Condi or someone to tell him what to do. Any reasonable person would come to the same conclusion. He didn't look manly, or in charge, he looked like he was about to wet his pants. The deer in the headlight look. And no amount of spin from rightwing freaks is going to change that. But we know they are experts at telling folks that what they perceive, what they see, what they know is WRONG. "Bush was manly. Bush was in charge." Ha.
And those 7 minutes don't include Bush having a press conference and photo op afterwards. Just how much time did he waste?
"Bush looked like a lost child"
I've known a few alcoholics in my time and he looked to me like nothing so much as an alcoholic desparately trying to figure out where and how he could get a drink.
Also, as far as I could tell from the movie, he wasn't reading to the children. It sounded like the children and their teacher were doing some kind of oral reading off camera. Bush wasn't paying attention to what they were doing, nor was he reading My Pet Goat to the children. He picked the book up and kind of aimlessly flipped through it, as if to distract himself.
I've expressed my outrage before that he took all freakin day to get back to DC, and I've always believed that he got that drink he was wishing for in the classroom (and several more) and that Cheney et al. told the SS to fly him around the country and let him sober up before they got him back to DC.
I drank that day too, in the only restaurant we could find open in DC, but I'm not the president.
Just my two or three cents.
Here is a like for some film at the school:
http://www.whatreallyhappened.co...om/
bushbook.mov
Raimondo, at Antiwar.com, has a much better take than Krugman.
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?a...?
articleid=2891
Hold on! The thing that bush could have done with those seven minutes wasn't necessarily to order the shoot-down of the airliners. Bush could have used his information to order everyone out of the Towers! Heck he could have given them a paid holiday.
The real tragedy of 9-11 was, of course, not turning all the chatter and information into increased security at the airports.
From today's Augusta (GA) Chronicle:
"[S]ince so many other journalists have done such a thorough job of picking apart the film's half-truths and inconsistencies, we wouldn't want to be accused of duplicating services.
Instead, examine the man behind the camera, director Michael Moore. While our troops are battling hate-filled extremists half a world away, America gets an extremist just as dangerous on the home front."
Oh no! Michael Moore is a tairrist!
From today's Augusta (GA) Chronicle:
"[S]ince so many other journalists have done such a thorough job of picking apart the film's half-truths and inconsistencies, we wouldn't want to be accused of duplicating services.
Instead, examine the man behind the camera, director Michael Moore. While our troops are battling hate-filled extremists half a world away, America gets an extremist just as dangerous on the home front."
Oh no! Michael Moore is a tairrist!
Somebody upthread asked about a survey of the media run-up to the war. Well, someone is getting started on the project. This is what they've got so far.
Bush being "calm and resolute in the face of danger?" Puh-leeze. His actions immediately after the attacks puts the lie to that little claim. He ran away and hid. He and Cheney couldn't run away fast enough. They left the Mayor of New York City behind them, holding the bag, to reassure the Nation at large. Guilani was doing the job Bush was supposed to be doing.
The classroom footage Moore shows in F911 is devastating in no small part because of the deer-caught-in-the-headlights expression on Bush's stupid chimp face. "Calm and resolute", my fat ass. The only impressive thing about Bush & Cheney's conduct on that terrible day was the twin trails of urine they left behind them as they fled, screaming and shitting their pants.
I think that Moore's biggest contribution is allowing people to see hey! there's other people who have doubts about the official story line,too! For the last 18 mos. I've noticed when people criticise bush or the neo-con program, they lower their voice and look back over their shoulder, as if a KGB informer might be listening. Just the experience of being in a theater with a couple hundred people who have doubts about the narrative presented by Fox et al must be tremendously empowering to those who do not follow events on the internet or in the foriegn press.
When the audience applauds for minutes after the film, they are not so much applauding Moore as they are applauding each other.
"[S]ince so many other journalists have done such a thorough job of picking apart the film's half-truths and inconsistencies...
They have? This is news to me.
Raimondo's cool some of the time but he has to get in his requisite shots at the left or he's not happy. I still read him often though.
Bravo Mr. Krugman and Mr. Moore!
How is the movie "flawed"?
Moores nevers says we went into Aghanistan because of the UNICOL deal. He only laid out the facts that Bush was willing to deal with the Taliban for a deal, and when the Taliban was gone, the deal continued with Aghan officials with ties to UNICOL.
But Krugman repeats the message I got and posted about yesterday. The movie is about the two classes in the US.
Krugman nails the media beautifully and it's well deserved.
Since our take on the NYT is just "abandon that unmitigated unstirred human shit", and our calls for "boycott" (more like growing out of a discredited habit) are answered with "but they have Krugman!", it is sad that out impression of Krugman is not that he's that uniquely good but that he's alright.
It's like being asked to be impressed that someone didn't just completely lie with every breath.
God dammit,
you fucking people!
Those kids had to be proctected, I tell ya! Just think of the emotional devastation that would have ravaged their young minds if the president had to excuse himself!
So all of you, go fuck yourselves!
And fuck the families of those who were killed and who are seeking answers!
A conservative this morning on the Diane Rehm show positively shuddered at the suggestion that Michael Moore is much less of an "extremist" than Rush Limbaugh. Rush? He's never wrong, never extreme...
But I think Paul Krugman (a saint in my religion) may turn out to be wrong only in the sense that he pulls his punches a bit.
I think we're going to find out a lot more about Unocal and oil oligopolies and all the sub-businesses which are tied to oil exploration and marketing, not to mention the Saudis and other oil-rich countries in coming years (maybe even months, now). We're also wising up about the uses and unleashed nature of private contractors in the military, communications, and intelligence.
In essence, what I think Moore is exposing over time is how much democracy has been lost, how much power has moved from us to Them, and the extent to which the Bush administration and some of its precedessors have worked actively to reduce the political power of the voter, to transfer it to profiteers -- with the assistance of a corrupted legislature.
Here is the link to the NYT article so it won't expire when it goes to archive.
"Just the experience of being in a theater with a couple hundred people who have doubts about the narrative presented by Fox et al must be tremendously empowering to those who do not follow events on the internet or in the foriegn press"
Mooser,
I heard the same thing said by a number of people following the March for Women's Lives in April. "Wow! It felt great to find out that I'm not the only one who feels this way!" It is empowering and even if all MM does is energize the base, I think it's very worthwhile. I suspect, however, that many Republicans and Independents are seeing it, if only to see what all the fuss is about. And I suspect it's changing a number of their minds. Which is probably why the Republicans are willing to give MM free publicity in an effort to discredit him.
BTW, Focus on the Family, which released MM's home address, is again open for business. Their toll free number is 1-800-232-6459. Call and ask the nice person who answers for his or her full name and home address.
"The movie is about the two classes in the US." - Handover Fist
That's part of the point about the whole seens of BushCO putting on their make up, isn't it? They may attack Dem. politicians for their $100+ haircuts, but the Republicans are just as much, if not more image conscious. In fact, BushCO is even worse as they pretend to be "common" when they are really out of touch.
In this regard, I think the whole thing with Wolfowitz is very interesting ... in a sense, Moore is showing how Wolfowitz is really not one of the blue-bloods --- he doesn't have someone else to do his hair, etc. --- he needs to use his own spit because he doesn't have fancy hair-stylists, etc. Was Moore subtly making the point that some of us make not so subtly? That people like Wolfowitz are essentially "house slaves" for the ruling classes? Their job is to just come up with intellectual cover for the rich to obtain obscene profit, and as much as people like Wolfowitz might get a good portion of the money, they will never really fit in with the aristocracy and will always just be Stepin' Fetchits?
Certainly, Moore made sure we knew this was what the film was about, though, when he closed with the idea that we should be very careful what we ask the military to do considering that it is not the ruling classes who are doing the fighting. Interestingly, Moore included himself in the "we who ask the military" rather than in the working class. No-one in their right mind can accuse Moore of being a hypocrite in the class-wars ... a traitor to the class to which he has risen because he does not forget his roots, but not a hypocrite. Moore makes no excuses for his success - he only asks that those who are successful remember that not everyone is rich.
"The real tragedy of 9-11 was, of course, not turning all the chatter and information into increased security at the airports." - Mooser
My dad believes that BushCO knew 9/11 was gonna happen exactly as it did. While he does not believe they conspired with the terrorists, he believes they knew even some of the details. Why? Because, even in the pre-9/11 security environment, how were people able to bring box-cutters on a plane without arousing any suspicions?
*
I don't see what is all the fuss about with respect to Michael Moore's film. Is it edited? Yes - it's a Cheneyin' film for Wotan's sake! and a reasonably artistically done one at that - of course it's edited and tells things in a not so chronological order for effect. It is one sided? Of course - Moore is trying to tell a specific side of the story. Wingnuts - if you have another side, why don't you tell it? Oh yes - Faux News, et al., tell that other side of the story, such as it is a coherent side at all and not just cheerleading for the Cheerleader in Chief, all the time! What journalistic sin has Moore committed that Faux News and others who actually claim to be journalists have not committed ten times over?
What Krugman said about the double standard between the film and the President is spot on. Although we should hold Moore to a higher standard than the President: because Moore is smart and the President is a venal idiot. Of course, we should do everything we can to make sure our President is not a venal idiot. The frightening thing, though, is that there are people who rather explicitly prefer a venal idiot (who isn't some "fancy pants pansy elitist liberal" or something or other) to someone who is competent to be President - ideally the SCLM Goreing of Kerry wouldn't matter: what is wrong with having Lurch as a president? But that it does matter is a sure sign that many Americans need their heads examined!
As Greg Palast points out: it isn't just big business whose venality is ruining our country ... the honest to goodness true blue red state Americans really aren't helping!
"Wow! It felt great to find out that I'm not the only one who feels this way!"
Good point - but Michael Moore's movie does something else too - it shows the media conglomerates that there is money to be made from liberals. Big media worships only one god - money! When they realize that liberals are a major market share, they will start getting fair and balanced real fast!
BTW: I was at the March - my favorite thing was the "Lick Bush" signs carried by lesbian types: as a liberal, heterosexual male, this is a sentiment with which I full-heartedly agree!
Most of the attacks we have seen for F911 are stupid. There was even an imbicile angry at it--he was calling Moore a "craven coward"--for not mentioning Israel. Then they erect this straw man of Moore the Warmonger and Police State Advocate-at a time when people who might know something go free and people who know nothing are imprisoned wrongly. Moore isn't asking for race arrrests, but they are happening, and it would be kind of nice if amid the rabid anti-Arab gulagging we could just gather some intel properly from people who really are close to Bin Laden. Similarly, he raises the deeply suspicious Saudi questions because they need to be answered, not as conspiracy theory (nowhere in the film or his books does he posit conspiracy theories, yet this is the first thing brought up in every critique of Moore). It is cute to read Raimondo get angry about anti-Arab imagery projected into Moore's flick, when the Arabs in question are dictators and terrorists and deserve hatred. Was Moore spreading Arab hate with his picturing of a distraught woman standing in the rubble of her bopmbed house, which incidentally you will never see in propaganda channels? Look Raimondites, this thing is not the old fashioned documentary leading the choir in recitations, it's for popular comsumption, it's already shocking enough. Why oh why isn't every relevant fact referenced and end and footnoted properly on a billboard? Because it's a fucking billboard. And it's still better than the "real" media.
If you think that's good, you should check out my take: http://ageoffreedom.blogspot.com
Judith, as I've been telling you Bush-haters, you have two insoluble problems:
1) Either Bush is a stupid chimp, or he is a diabolical genius. Either he doesn't know anything and is in over his head, or he is in constant collusion with his Jew puppet-masters (or is it his Saudi pupper-masters?) to funnel untold billions into secret coffers with which he and they control the world. These conflicting views of the same subject are what college boys call cognitive dissonance. I think.
2) You have endowed your enemy with the false possession of omniscience and omnipotence, which inidicates that you are either incredibly naive or irredeemably insane. Politicians are human beings, like you and me. The only difference between them and us is ambition. They do whatever they can to climb the political ladder. It is ego unhindered by ignorance. It is noblesse oblige and it is venality. They do not know all, nor can they control all. It is only paranoiacs and partisans who believe all of these conspiracies like Moore-on is passing off. In the end, you just sound like a kook.
Bush is a "diabolical genius"? Where? The only story we've ever heard is that he's the stupid puppet of Cheney et al. Great consistency there. Or were you talking about the pro-Bush media?
Mike Moore is as honest as any journalist, and more honest than almost all politicians.
He's not "far left" by any reasonable criteria. He is funny and irreverent, and he knows how to get the public's attention.
It's the "public attention" thing that really bugs the right wingers and the so-called journalists.
Toby:
Bush is a stupid, dirty sock puppet with diabolical fucktards pulling his strings.
-A Kinder, Gentler Democrat.
Not.
..."Why oh why isn't every relevant fact referenced and end and footnoted properly on a billboard? Because it's a fucking billboard. And it's still better than the "real" media."
this entire post is brilliant. nails the issue precisely.
*
You're an imbecile, "Toby".
Toby,
Ad hominen attacks aside, your simplistic views of how people view Bush speaks volumes.
No one but you said that Bush was a diabolical genius. Bush's lack of intellect coupled with appalling ignorance is not even denied by the right.
One does not have to be a genius to be a dangerous cancer on America.
Bush has always been surrounded by men of real intellect, the most powerfully corrupt cronies that control the right wing today, and Saudi money that bought them all.
The power structure sees to it that no matter how stupid Bush really is, they get their cut of everything.
And their only interest is in keeping that power and with that power they control the money and those that control the money control everything else... Even my youngest kid got that concept at age 4.
What ties them all together is their core beliefs, their sense of entitlement at any cost, and their lust for power. Even the most stupid person can lust for power and can implement anti-democrat policies when he is surrounded by those who agree with him and will not only finance him, but will reap the spoils of their wars.
I know that they don't let Bush out of his sock very long and that he makes few decisions on his own, but don't forget for one minute that even a stupid man can think he is on a mission from God and will use his stolen power to destroy our nation and then the world. Bush certainly knows he is the most powerful man in the free world, but he sure didn't get there because he was smart or worked hard. Access to Bush means access to the power, and as we all know it is the power behind the throne that counts.
>those 7 minutes don't include Bush having a press conference and photo op afterwards...
Right. So, it's not 7 minutes. It's more like 13 minutes. WTF is the _complete_ video?
I wonder what happened to Philly G.
The scene with Moore intercepting members of Congress about recruiting their children for the war -- which some complain about as one of his cheesy tendentious schticks -- nicely contrasts with the Marine recruiters in the Flint mall parking lot.
If he could have filmed the Marines in the Capitol parking lot doing their thing, that would have been perfect; but not a chance they would go there, is there?
Clown Prince Dubya perfectly illustrates why the Founding Fathers were so opposed to the aristocratic principle.
Toby Petzold, go fuck yourself.
Just read this story about a German documentary filmmaker who made a film about the holocaust. She logically refutes the right's comparison of Moore to Nazi propagandists:
http://tinyurl.com/3gk44
In his screed Hitchens says that Richard Clarke has said he and he alone authorized the Saudi flights. Clarkes testimony at the 9/11 comission is that he refused the request.
Who is lying ? Did Clarke perjure himself ?
Clarke's testimony was that he received the request, and consulted with the FBI to determine what they wanted to do about it. He says the FBI cleared it, and he subsequently approved the request.
Hitchens is lying.
Toby Petzold: "Judith, as I've been telling you Bush-haters, you have two insoluble problems:"
Translation: Gee, I can't think of any good way to refute her points, so I'll just engage in ad hominem/non sequitur/straw man and any other rhetorical fallacies I can come up with instead, and maybe nobody will notice that I don't have a single intelligent thing to say.
Krugman missed a point about the "Unocal" pipeline across Afghanistan, which was (as I recall) intended to feed an Enron refinery in India. Does it make more sense now?
maybe the afghan/unocal stuff is a bit disjointed, but Randi Rhodes's guess is that there was a Taliban representative at Cheney's secret energy meetings. Makes sense, if they were planning a pipeline, they'd have to consult with the Afghan gov't, which was the Taliban. Of course, this was after we knew that osama was behind the Cole and Kenya/Tanzania bombings and that he was being sheltered in Afghanistan, but hey, the business of America is business.
Cheney could disprove this theory by releasing the names of the attendees. Or prove it, more likely; hence the stonewall.
I also read Cohen's column on F 9/11 yesterday. Geez, I thought he had more brains than that.
I would have preferred something more serious myself... the antiwar angle first and the antiBush angle second. But, I didn't make the movie.
Re Unocal: A valid issue, with a big caveat.
Let's not forget who was president in 1998. If Clinton has the Taliban/Afghanistan under terror watch, that meeting doesn't happen, at least not on U.S. soil.
Likewise, let's not forget the original Halliburton privatization contract, for quartermaster supplies, was signed into law by Clinton.
But, that too would have lessened its value as an antiBush movie, even if perhaps increaseing its value as an anti-Iraq war, or anti-oil war, flick.
The same with Moore's asking Congressmen if they would send their kids to Iraq. What did Democrats who voted for the war say, if Moore talked to any of them?
Would Democrats be any more likely to have taken serious action against Saudi Arabia, for that matter, than Bush?
In these ways, Moore's dot-connecting is not bipartisan enough.
For an incisive review wondering why Moore didn't go further in some ways,
Flatulus, Clinton let the Taliban come here in 1998.
A lot of this stuff Moore covers has a bipartisan tinge to it.
Remember, the Slickster signed the original Halliburton privatization contract.
I also read Cohen's column on F 9/11 yesterday. Geez, I thought he had more brains than that.
I would have preferred something more serious myself... the antiwar angle first and the antiBush angle second. But, I didn't make the movie.
Re Unocal: A valid issue, with a big caveat.
Let's not forget who was president in 1998. If Clinton has the Taliban/Afghanistan under terror watch, that meeting doesn't happen, at least not on U.S. soil.
Likewise, let's not forget the original Halliburton privatization contract, for quartermaster supplies, was signed into law by Clinton.
But, that too would have lessened its value as an antiBush movie, even if perhaps increaseing its value as an anti-Iraq war, or anti-oil war, flick.
The same with Moore's asking Congressmen if they would send their kids to Iraq. What did Democrats who voted for the war say, if Moore talked to any of them?
Would Democrats be any more likely to have taken serious action against Saudi Arabia, for that matter, than Bush?
In these ways, Moore's dot-connecting is not bipartisan enough.
For an incisive review wondering why Moore didn't go further in some ways,
The "not far enough" Moore review link, if this will let me post the damned thing in HTML, is:
Joseph Cannon has more.
Steve - Bill Clinton was also to some degree in the pocket of Big Energy (though not so much as the Bushes) ... consider Bill Clinton's interference in Pakistan that paved the way for the Mussharif coup.
Greg Palast documents Bill Clinton's energy connections very well and also describes the difference between what Bill Clinton did against Al Qaeda and what GWB did pre-9/11 ("go slowly" vs. "stop"). It might not be black and white enough to make for a good film, but it's good reading.
BTW - I wish Clinton would be a little bit more honest about how he handled the terrorist threat and admin he did what he did best (no, not that you pervs ): triangulate. Maybe that would put a rest to the "law enforcement approach used by Bill Clinton didn't stop terrorism, that's why we have to start shooting up random countries we claim have connections to terrorists" meme? Of course, now such a confession would be too much too late ... but it would have been nice pre-Iraq invasion.
I like that article by Conason ... one interesting thing:
Osama's ultimate goal -- which many on both the left and the right tend to forget -- is dynasty change in the Islamic holy land. This simple, all-important fact undermines the oft-heard charge that Saudi Arabia funded the 9/11 terrorists -- a misperception which may afflict some of Moore's viewers.
This is true ... however, remember the Saudi royal family is big and factious. Not all the money given to Bin Ladin is "go be a terrorist somewhere else" money. Some of it may very well be "go be a terrorist here - so long as it hurts my half-brother more than me" money.
This isn't as far fetched as it seems. For hundreds of years, Europe was in a rather frequent state of settling family disputes (between the interrelated royals) by war - i.e. paying people to kill each other over family squabbles. I wouldn't be at all surprised if a little funding of Osama Bin Ladin occured with that idea in mind.
Seraphiel: "Clarke's testimony was that he received the request, and consulted with the FBI to determine what they wanted to do about it. He says the FBI cleared it, and he subsequently approved the request."
Clarke's March testimony: "The request came to me and I refused to approve it. I suggested that it be routed to the FBI and that the FBI look at the names of the individuals who were going to be on the passenger manifest and that they approve it or not. I spoke with the at that time the number-two person in the FBI, Dale Watson, and asked him to deal with this issue. The FBI then approved -- after some period of time, and I can't tell you how long -- approved the flight....
“I believe after the FBI came back and said it was all right with them, we ran it through the decision process for all these decisions that we were making in those hours, which was the interagency Crisis Management Group on the video conference,” Clarke testified. “I was making or coordinating a lot of the decisions on 9-11 in the days immediately after...."
Then in a May interview with The Hill, Clarke is quoted as saying, “I take responsibility for it. I don’t think it was a mistake, and I’d do it again.”
It's a little murky, but obviously when he said he "refused to approve" the request, he meant he refused to authorize it until the FBI OK'd it. He seems a bit foggy about who gave the final approval, but apparently the decision was made by a group he was involved with, and he *takes responsibility* for it.
Cheney could disprove this theory by releasing the names of the attendees. Or prove it, more likely; hence the stonewall. -- flatulus
Indeed, I can understand why some idea of executive privalege can be used to prevent release of the full minutes of the meetings even if national security is not at stake. For instance, an executive formulating energy policy ought to know how much oil reserves we have while the companies might not want to admit this sort of thing honestly in public (they have to admit this sort of thing - but given how much they have to "revise" figures, who knows if they are being honest). If the executive knew that everything s/he says is going to be public record, s/he might not be willing to tell the executive all the executive needs to know to formulate policy. So there is a valid argument for not releasing full minutes.
OTOH - the situation is like attorney/client privelege. We make that relationship a priveleged one so that clients can feel free to tell damaging info to their attorney so that the attorney can do his/her job in representing the client. But when an attorney invokes privelege, you know who the client is and have an idea in general of what was discussed.
Similarly, it is fine for the VP to prevent the release of all communications he had in formulating his energy policy. However, he must (be compelled to) release the names of all people at the meetings. He also ought to release a summary of what was discussed or even redacted minutes / a redacted version of his report on the meeting.
At the very least, every American should be asking the "Mommy" question of Tricky Dick Cheney: "if you're keeping a secret, what do you have to hide?"
Any lawyers out there? Am I correct about how/why priveleged relationships work? Don't you generally get to know who was party to the priveleged communication even if you don't get to know (for good reasons) exactly what was communicated?
Three, five, seven, eleven, fifteen minutes?
Seven minutes. For those of you too patriotic to consider seeing comrade moore's pinko americahating screed, what he does is show Dear Leader protecting those precious children with a number on the screen indicating the time elapsed after he knew the islamofascist, liberal-loving hordes had struck the godless of New York City, My city.
the number says "3", then "5" then "7". Seven minutes.
flatulus | Email |
The officcial time was seven of nine"> minutes?
As for Farenheit and applause, we did applaud one another who were were looking at every news item.
Eight young (20ish -teen) college-sih guys sat in front of us as a group- not a single one of them could say a word they were floored by the facts.
Perents taking their kids to see it- the first movie aside from a cartoon they would ever remeber seeing probably...
Thomas Paine's efforts were not in vain, nor will ours be.
Judith - the media has, in trying to show that Clarke (who by virtue of criticizing Dear Leader must at least be a suspect liberal if not a terrorist himself) was the one who authorized the flights - i.e. that Bush-hating Clarke rather than BushCO was the one who let the bad guys get away, been counting on us forgetting the details of what he actually said.
Clarke essentially has said not that he authorized the flights directly, but that he was responsible: i.e. I delegated my authority, but as the person in charge I am ultimately responsible if things go wrong. This is called leadership. Clarke is taking whatever responsibility he ought to. I would hope BushCO, rather than continuing to bash Clarke, would learn a lesson in leadership from him.
It's a little murky, but obviously when he said he "refused to approve" the request, he meant he refused to authorize it until the FBI OK'd it. He seems a bit foggy about who gave the final approval, but apparently the decision was made by a group he was involved with, and he *takes responsibility* for it.
Yes, and that makes sense. He approved the request, after consulting with the FBI. That was his job: to coordinate the response and make sure each agency got what it needed. I don't think Clarke himself did anything inappropriate, since he cleared this request with the FBI.
The question is, why did the FBI allow it?
DAS: "This is called leadership. Clarke is taking whatever responsibility he ought to. I would hope BushCO, rather than continuing to bash Clarke, would learn a lesson in leadership from him."
We could hope, sure. Let's not bet the farm, though.
Seraphiel: "I don't think Clarke himself did anything inappropriate, since he cleared this request with the FBI. The question is, why did the FBI allow it?"
Indeed. It's also still murky who submitted the request in the first place. Clark doesn't remember, apparently.
Tangentially, speaking of leadership, Matt Yglesias just made a good point about the 7 minutes: Bush's aides, it would seem, didn't have a whole lot of faith in his ability to take charge right away. Better for him to sit in the classroom out of their way while they did the heavy lifting. Once they figured out what to do next, they'd let him know.
So they delegate Ari Fleischer to hold up a "Don't say anything!" sign.
And this was just fine by Bush.
Appalling.
Yes, and that makes sense. He approved the request, after consulting with the FBI. That was his job: to coordinate the response and make sure each agency got what it needed. I don't think Clarke himself did anything inappropriate, since he cleared this request with the FBI.
The question is, why did the FBI allow it?
Seraphiel
Just to quibble one bit. As I recall from his book, Clarke really didn't even coordinate this with the FBI. Instead, he said the requester had to get FBI approval. So instead of let me check with the FBI, it was get the approval of the FBI and I'll sign off.
The whole deal seemed, appropriately, not to be a big concern of his.
This is similar to the approval of the shoot down order. Clarke, who was in contact with the Cheney team, said that one of the immediate things that needed to be done was to get a shoot down order from the prez. They shortly came back to Clarke and said that they got a shoot down order from the prez.
However, 9/11 commission staff are said to believe that the prez never gave that order.
Steve,
The Taliban visited Sugarland, Tx in December 1997.
In August 1998 the Clinton Administration bombed suspected AQ bases in Afghanistan in retaliation for the Embassy bombings.
I'm not sure that the Taliban would have been allowed in after 8/7/1998.
carl.
Colin Powell Sings Village People Song
Powell danced alongside five other U.S. officials dressed in fancy dress and blasted out a version of the 1970s disco classic to the delight of foreign ministers from across the Asia-Pacific and Europe.
*
Powell singing Village = Bob Dole appropriating the song "Soul Man" without permission (as "Dole Man", in the '96 campaign), but not in terms of legal actionability.
I think Krugman's article is, as they say, spot on.
I saw the movie the other night. My sister, who had the foresight to buy our tickets on-line, was as surprised as I to find the Ritz mobbed and signs posted on the windows informing patrons that the evening's and the next day's shows were sold out.
I liked the movie a lot. It isn't perfect; there were some sequences in the middle, just before the Iraq footage, that I found less than riveting. It meanders, even drifts in spots, and some meanders aren't as compelling as others. But there are many more hits than misses.
I'm aggravated and offended by the pervasive tendency of reviewers and non-professional commentators to nitpick and fault Moore's style. For whatever reason, I drifted over to "Rotten Tomatoes" to check out reviews rather than risk my gag reflex by investigating what the political pundits (a la Gwen Ifill) had to say.
I was disappointed, and eventually pissed off, to find that even "friendly" reviewers seemed to find it necessary to adopt a very knowing, supercilious stance, invariably distancing themselves from the message and content in the film to offer a repetitious litany of pejorative pseudo-insights: "manipulative," "preaching to the choir," "vindictive, "dishonest."
Richard Cohen, for instance, wrote a denunciatory piece the other day (not worth the trouble to link) in which he seemed possessed by the Ghost of Dutch Reagan, hissing "There you go again!" Richard was so appalled by Moore's supposedly shoddy and malicious guerrilla theater techniques that he couldn't believe what he was seeing. What a purblind poser!
I've said it before, I'll say it again: Michael Moore is a genius in the Prankster tradition, with an ego to match his corpus, which is to say oversized. He's not an Ofra Bikel, who has produced so many trenchant "Frontline" episodes. In a way, F9/11 reminds me more of works like Dylan's song "Hurricane": incandescent, coruscating swirls of truth emerge despite seeming distortions or dishonesty the work's fabric.
Fortunately, I don't think that the cumulative dismissive verdicts of the commentators and critics will succeed in stifling or smothering the spark Moore has struck from his trusty Flint.
He approved the request, after consulting with the FBI . . . . he cleared this request with the FBI.
The question is, why did the FBI allow it?
Seraphiel
Another question is: if the FBI cleared the request, and Clarke approved the request, who made the request?
Flatulus et al.
Not to belabor the point but his sworn testimony is that,
" The FBI then approved...the flight"
I don't see where he signed off on anything. It sounds like this was not within his authority at all and Hitchens statement that "he and he alone (clarke) approved the flight" is by any analysis a lie.
I'm just trying to figure out if Kevin Drum has been reading too much Krugman, Krugman too much Drum, both reading each other, or if it's just a synchronicity or "perfect liberal storm" that they nail some of the same brilliant points about how the legitimate criticisms of Moore are nearly identical to the legitimate criticisms of Bush and his crew.
Kevin Drum's review of Fahrenheit 9/11, over at the Washington Monthly.
Just saw the movie. Good, but could have been better. He ;eft a lot of stuff out. Maybe there was a time problem.
I hope someone can do another before November to fill in the gaps.
Just saw the movie. Good, but could have been better. He ;eft a lot of stuff out. Maybe there was a time problem.
I hope someone can do another before November to fill in the gaps.
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