No More Moore!

[Bradylama]

IF anything Anarchism is ultimate-freedom ultimate-capitalism. In a world where anybody can do aything they want, capitalists would set up businesses and do whatever they damn well pleased. Why would Orwell support this kind of movement?

...

Dude, before you post such a Bloody Stupid comment on a political movement you clearly don't have the faintest idea about, do some research on it, m'kay?

Hint: "Search" function.

Perhaps you should explain to me exactly what Anarchism does, since I obviously know so little about it.

 

[welsh]

I think Wooz has provided links on this. Did you check them?

 

[Bradylama]

I saw a bunch of links for things that say Orwell was an anarchist, but nothing about what anarchism is about, per se.

All I'm asking for is a summary on anarchist ideals, since the destruction of government and the freedom of the individual is obviously not what anarchism is about.

 

[Wooz]

*slap*

The trick is to *read* what's in the links

No, Anarchism isn't about making a big mess and letting everyone do everything "for the sake of freedom"

EDIT: The hell, I had a big argument with a few people a few months ago, there's a whole, biig thread on the subject, use the Search function.

 

[Bradylama]

Anarchists may agree on the basic principles of anarchism but no overall theory exists, and there are 7-8 different ideas about how an anarchist society should be organised.

Sounds a lot more messy than the actual state of anarchy. =/

The word anarchy comes from the Greek anarchos, meaning "without ruler". Anarchism is against any form of authority no matter at which level it may be found. Anarchists are against the State because the State is the biggest authority in a society. They want people to decide over their own lives. Normally you hear that not all people are so good that they can control their own lives; therefore they need some administrative body, e.g. a government, to do this for them. To this the anarchist response is that if people are so bad that they have to be governed by others, then how can some people be so good that they can do this? However, anarchists are not against organisation as such; they are only against organisation based on authority, i.e. a hierarchical form of organisation.

Two other concepts mentioned by Woodcock are freedom and the individual. Anarchists demand the freedom of the individual. No one should prevent a person from doing what he wants as long as he himself does not prevent others from doing what they want.

That's essentially exactly what I said. Freedom of the individual includes the freedom of business, since businesses are run by individuals.

 

[Wooz]

...

No, it isn't "essentialy what you said".

Absolute freedom in business leads to huge, 19th century-capitalist, corporate exploatation of people.

Read the part about organization not being in conflict with anarchist ideals, and what do anarchist stand against.

 

[Bradylama]

And how is that interfering with what people want to do? Just because business is exploiting people doesn't mean that they have no opportunity, or a lack of free will.

The idea that people can do whatever they want as long as it doesn't interfere with what another person wants is contradictory. If that were the case, then nobody could do anything, since no matter what you do, it will affect someone. Libertarians, however, believe that people should do what they want as long as they don't interfere with the free will of others.

Anarchism is more authoritarian than Libertarianism and socialism. If that's the case you're presenting.

 

[TheDiscipleJohn]

I would like to add that all reported anarchies have led to dictatorships.

 

[Bradylama]

That's because the power vacuum allows charismatic or powerful individuals to rise to the top due to the lack of an impeding organization.

Looking at things in that light, democracies and republics are more about protecting their citizens from totalitarianism than from themselves. (e.g. The United States's constitutional republic)

 

[John Uskglass]

That's the republican line. Of course a few years as governor of Texas was a lot of experience for GB. The business of the Senate is compromise and negotiation to make legislation. If you haven't noticed many bills come as amalgamations of a variety of other legislation that get linked by compromise.

So, if Kerry seems to waffle, perhaps we need to look at the legislation a bit more and get a little reality about what the business of the Senate really is.

That said, if Bush is a non-flexible "war president" who looks after his business colleagues interests and who gets the voters because he knows he's good with God- I am not sure if that's such a good thing. The business of statecraft is often one of flexibility, not rigid ideological inflexibility to a neo-con position.

But hey, GB can dress up in a military uniform and be "the war president." Odd though that he's got no personal experience in war but is perfectly happy sending others to fight for him.

Yeah. Jumping to the left of Jane Fonda sure proves you have combat expiriance.

Let's play that old Classic Kerry quotes one more time, can we?



"The Reagan Administration has no rational plan for our military. Instead, it acts on misinformed assumptions about the strength of the Soviet military and a presumed ‘window of vulnerability,’ which we now know not to exist."

"(W)e need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime. We all know the litany of his offenses. He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation. ...And now he is miscalculating America’s response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction. That is why the world, through the United Nations Security Council, has spoken with one voice, demanding that Iraq disclose its weapons programs and disarm. So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real, but it is not new. It has been with us since the end of the Persian Gulf War." -- John Kerry, 1/23/03



U.S. Military and Intelligence “[W]hy it is that our vast intelligence apparatus, built to sustain America in the long twilight struggle of the Cold War continues to grow at an exponential rate? Now that that struggle is over, why is it that our vast intelligence apparatus continues to grow even as government resources for new and essential priorities fall far short of what is necessary? Why is it that our vast intelligence apparatus continues to roll on even as every other government bureaucracy is subject to increasing scrutiny and, indeed, to reinvention?” -- Kerry on the Record: Attacking U.S. Intelligence, Dave Eberhart, NewsMax.com Thursday, Feb. 19, 2004

Well, not blindsided. I mean, when I voted for the war, I voted for what I thought was best for the country. Did I expect Howard Dean to go off to the left and say, "I'm against everything"? Sure. Did I expect George Bush to fu@# it up as badly as he did? I don't think anybody did.

Face it Welsh, when North Vietnam recognizes you as one of it's heroes, you have a problem with security.

So you are denial that Cheney pressured the intelligence agencies to support the war? Are you saying Cheney's appeal as VP was his experience? Are you saying that politicans don't leave office for cushy jobs in the private sector or as well paid consultants?

Cheyney was SIGNFIGANTLY more expiriancd then Edwards, and he brough a much bigger bump in the polls then Edwards has.

He did'nt pressue intellegence agencies. Read Woodward.

The "if you can't beat them, join them" answer. Saudi Arabia is important because they sit on so much oil, but if a new government were to come to office would they still have to sell the oil? Are you saying that the world's most powerful country has no power over the Saudi's?

Really, the problem here is not that we don't have power, we do. The problem is that the Saudi's influence that power. And there lies the problem. The problem with the Bush family is that they have vested interests. We expect our leaders to be fiduciaries to the people of the US, not the interests that give them money.

You completely lack understanding of the situation. We do have power over the Saudis, but we cannot go in there militarily, or press it to hard, lest it fall.

Remember that 9/11 was on the grounds that America put troops in Saudi Arabia. We can't do shit but keep it up and hope for the best.

Actually it hasn't. It has also been the business of presidents to commemorate the war dead, but this administration prefers to avoid that kind of thing. Bad press photos that open the questions.

"So.... what are we doing in Iraq? What did you tell us was the reason?'

"Hey, you know those WMDs.... Where are they?"

You know, maybe it's actually respectful to keep the dead soldiers out of the hands of people who actively work to make thier deaths vane.

I think most of the guys who went to Vietnam served honorably.

That said, denying that bad shit happened in Vietnam is nor only a case of selective memory, but it also means you are failing to heed the lessons of the past and are likely to repeat those mistakes.

And so we get a prison scandal.

"I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say that several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command...."

"They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country."

"We are also here to ask, and we are here to ask vehemently, where are the leaders of our country? Where is the leadership? We are here to ask where are McNamara, Rostow, Bundy, Gilpatric, and so many others. Where are they now that we, the men whom they sent off to war, have returned? These are commanders who have deserted their troops, and there is no more serious crime in the law of war. The Army says they never leave their wounded. The Marines say they never leave even their dead. These men have left all the casualties and retreated behind a pious shield of public rectitude. They have left the real stuff of their reputations bleaching begin them in the sun in this country...."

Are you telling an army in which few people speak the language of the land they occupy doesn't make mistakes. How many innocent people did get killed or continue to get killed. I don't know because the government doesn't keep those numbers. Why? Too many questions maybe?

Do mistakes happen- yes. When you're getting shot at on a regular basis you don't take many risks.

The impression I got wasn't that he was blaming these guys. They are a bunch of late teenager or young adults abroad and in a dangerous place for the first time, and many are scared. Are they human and capable of doing things we might think immoral, of course. I have read no accounts of any war when the soldiers were always the "white knights" you seem to expect.

But yes, there were americans who were serving or will serve that were being moral. Or did you ignore those pictures too.

Bad things WILL happen. But Moore used footage of what thought was an actually pretty well handeled arrest (I guess he wants us to belive that we'll trust the mother before the intel we got on him), and tried to compare this to Abu Gharib.

Yes, but you're an ideologue with a bias against Islam, so it's not great surprise there.

Do people the upper classes fight? Not as many. Middle class sends it's kids to fight as well. But mostly it's poor kids who go because there are fewer opportunities.

Bias against Islam? What, you think I'm some kind of serial killer? "MUST....KILL........MUSLIMS".

You're right, I'm not sure it's a bad thing though.

The Republican party used to have that reputation. But then in the 1960s when Johnson was making doing the Great Society thing and pushing for the enfranchisements of Blacks, the republican party so an opportunity with the Dixicrats who wanted more state's rights (which means more racial division).

Since the 1970s the Republicans have been making moves to the SOuth, selling state's rights and the dangers of big government (= social equality) but that they are the "party of christian values" (in a country where church and state are supposed to be seperate).

This is not the same party as Lincoln or even Teddy (Trust-Buster) Roosevelt.

It is the same party.

I'm afraid of alot of things happening in it, but many Republicans in NYC, in my own area, or in California, are following in the same tradition.

To link US slavery with current US corporations is silly and I am surprised you are making that here.

That US corporations hire ridiculously cheap labor abroad is true. That's why manufacturing jobs have gone abroad- lower overhead costs.

As for the NAACP- yes they could improve. But considering their role in the enfranchisement of blacks, I would rather have them than not.

I did'nt equate it; Jesse "Admiral Ackbar" JAckson did. Forgotten Reperations, have we?

No I am against government being owned by independent oil companies, as well as the energy and oil lobbies.

Not happening. Dems have thier supporters, we have ours. That's just the way it works.

The buck stops at the President's office, even if it's the VP who is putting pressure on Congress.

Woodward never said that happened. Nor the 9/11 commision. Just Clarke. Suspicious, huh? Maybe the Nazis that live in the center of the earth did that!!!!!!

I really can't believe you are white-washing the entire intelligence failure and giving all the blame to the CIA. YOu do know that the CIA is supposed to protect the office of the president, right?

I'm just doing what the 9/11 commision did.

Between fishing and golf swings. Yes, it was his father's way of having personal relationships. Of course, working at the office would require that he would have to read, and Bush likes to watch TV or have things told to him.

Yeah, maybe we should administer an IQ test to our presidents! Then we could administer an IQ test to the general populace, and sterlize the ones under 130! SOUNDS LIKE FUN!

That's patronizing bullshit. You don't have to be able to construct a supercollider with toothpicks to be a good president.

I would think so since you like to wallow in it.

Okay, smacktalk on my part was both bad and immature. You're right, alot are low paying, but it's still some damned impressive growth.

Speculation? CC, sometimes I think you read the news that pads your limited way of thinking about things. While I can understand this makes you feel good, it's not very rational.

The economy is doing well right now. Face it. And it would'nt under MR. Raise Taxes.

In muslim countries especially, and Americans are not very popular elsewhere either.

Cause it was safe in 1999 for non Muslims to go to Iraq and Saudi Arabia, dont'cha know.

which makes you wonder why so much Islamic fundamentalism now? Could it be that the fundamentalists are tired of bad regimes that the US has a history of supporting and see the US as the power behind these regimes?

That was called indirect imperialism. You control the land by controlling the government. Iran is a good case for this- as we supported the Shah. Ditto Iraq. Yet when indirect imperialism fails and you still require the strategic resources- then you invade and your imperialism becomes very direct.

"You"? What is this "You"? Last I checked, every president did this.

This is off topic anyway.

No, I have said elsewhere that the blame for that policy falls on the head of Osama Bin Laden, the current replacement for "where's waldo" whom this President can't seem to find.

Are we safer? No terrorists episodes are on the increase. So we seem to be losing the war against terrorism.

We have two footholds in the Muslim world then we started, Libya has given up it's WMD, and half of North Africa is having elections. It's mixed, certainly, but that's as much the fault of the rise of Fundiesm then the failures of Bush.

 

[welsh]

CC- this conversation is getting boring. You seem dedicated to having the last word even if much of what you are saying is pretty shallow.

That's the republican line. Of course a few years

Yeah. Jumping to the left of Jane Fonda sure proves you have combat expiriance.

Let's play that old Classic Kerry quotes one more time, can we?

What, a guy goes to Vietnam, serves with distinction in a patrol boat and can’t protest the war for being illegitimate or badly run when he gets home?

I would think the guy deserves the right to be critical. Or does serving your country make you an automaton?

"The Reagan Administration has no rational plan for our military. Instead, it acts on misinformed assumptions about the strength of the Soviet military and a presumed ‘window of vulnerability,’ which we now know not to exist."

Oh yes, the Reagan War fighting strategy that called not just for vertical escalation but horizontal, who decided on the Reagan Corollary to the Carter Doctrine, even if we didn’t have troops for that commitment, who escalated the Cold War with the notion of a winnable nuclear war when both sides had enough nukes to wipe out themselves and the rest of the world a few times over. Reagan’s strategy was called “bluff” – especially with SDI- a project that existed only in paper (hmmm….I wonder where all that money went) and without substance.

So no, and it was the irrationality of Reagan’s military strategy that was one of the points that pushed the Soviets to compromise. Not only are they facing economic ruin, but they are being pushed to escalate when they lack the money and the American President just might do it.

"(W)e need to disarm Saddam Hussein. He is a brutal, murderous dictator, leading an oppressive regime. We all know the litany of his offenses. He presents a particularly grievous threat because he is so consistently prone to miscalculation. ...And now he is miscalculating America’s response to his continued deceit and his consistent grasp for weapons of mass destruction. That is why the world, through the United Nations Security Council, has spoken with one voice, demanding that Iraq disclose its weapons programs and disarm. So the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real, but it is not new. It has been with us since the end of the Persian Gulf War." -- John Kerry, 1/23/03

Well considering the intelligence that the Bush administration is using- borrowed from the Brits even after Ambassador Kelly told him it was bogus. But then the entire country believed that Saddam had the weapons. The evidence suggests that there was no program, but that Saddam was planning to restart the program when sanctions ended.

But I have argued here, elsewhere, was that the real issue (in addition to stable oil prices) that the administration had was: (1) sustain sanctions that were causing a humanitarian problem, (2) end the sanctions and let Saddam go, or (3) remove Saddam.

U.S. Military and Intelligence “[W]hy it is that our vast intelligence apparatus, built to sustain America in the long twilight struggle of the Cold War continues to grow at an exponential rate? Now that that struggle is over, why is it that our vast intelligence apparatus continues to grow even as government resources for new and essential priorities fall far short of what is necessary? Why is it that our vast intelligence apparatus continues to roll on even as every other government bureaucracy is subject to increasing scrutiny and, indeed, to reinvention?” -- Kerry on the Record: Attacking U.S. Intelligence, Dave Eberhart, NewsMax.com Thursday, Feb. 19, 2004

So you are supporting a security state now? With the end of the Cold War, why keep a Cold War security infrastructure? Did we have the resources to keep an eye on terrorism but let it slip. Well that’s what Richard Clarke is telling us. And let’s not forget that the Republicans voted against funding for terrorism.

Until 9/11 the question was “what do we do with the CIA.” One answer was to use it for business ventures abroad- doing financial and business intelligence, even corporate spying and sabotage. Oh, a wise use of an intelligence agency.

Well, not blindsided. I mean, when I voted for the war, I voted for what I thought was best for the country. Did I expect Howard Dean to go off to the left and say, "I'm against everything"? Sure. Did I expect George Bush to fu@# it up as badly as he did? I don't think anybody did.

Hey, when it came for the war, I thought it was a good idea too, even if I didn’t buy the WMD argument- an argument used to explain why the old Bush administration didn’t go into Iraq, ironically.

I don’t think anyone thought Bush would fuck it up as badly as he did. But then, when you think about his business experience running companies into the ground, perhaps we shouldn’t have been surprised that he would do that to the country as well.

Face it Welsh, when North Vietnam recognizes you as one of it's heroes, you have a problem with security.

Using North Vietnamese propaganda to support your cause now? So…. the North Vietnamese liked most anti-war protestors. Does that mean that the anti-war protestors were wrong? Personally I thought some of the anti-war protestors overstepped the line, but the explanation for why the US went into Vietnam has always been dubious. Much like it is in Iraq.

So you are denial that Cheney pressured the intelligence agencies to support the war? Are you saying Cheney's appeal as VP was his experience? Are you saying that politicans don't leave office for cushy jobs in the private sector or as well paid consultants?

Cheyney was SIGNFIGANTLY more expiriancd then Edwards, and he brough a much bigger bump in the polls then Edwards has.

Yes, but Cheney was considered to be the experience pro that would make sure Bush wouldn’t muck it up.

Since then Cheney is seen more like the troll of the white house, a person with suspicious interests and goals, who likes to keep secrets and avoids transparency when possible.

Note

Europe Intelligence Wire, June 5, 2003 pNA
Cheney visited CIA repeatedly to view intelligence on Iraq: report.
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2003 Financial Times Information Ltd.
(From Agence France Presse)
Vice President Dick Cheney went to the US Central Intelligence Agency repeatedly in the last year to question analysts on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction.
The visits created an environment in which some analysts felt they were being pressured to produce assessments that supported the White House's policy objectives in Iraq, unnamed senior intelligence officials told The Washington Post.
The revelation is sure to add fuel to the ongoing controversy on whether US intelligence reports exaggerated data about Iraq's illegal weapons to provide justification for the US-led war on Iraq in March.
Both the CIA and the Pentagon have strongly denied manipulating reports on Iraq. Top committees in the US Congress are to soon hold an inquiry into the matter, which has also affected key US ally British Prime Minister Tony Blair, with a British parliamentary committee to hold its own investigation.
Cheney, who was a key advocate for launching a military strike to disarm Iraq, made numerous trips to CIA headquarters with his chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, the Post said.
Their visits, one senior CIA official told the daily, "sent signals, intended or otherwise, that a certain output was desired from here."
While not unprecedented, visits to the CIA by a vice president are unusual, said intelligence officials who were unable to quantify Cheney's visits, although one official described them as "multiple."
A spokeswoman for the vice president refused to discuss the matter.
"The vice president values the hard work of the intelligence community but his office has a practice of declining to comment on the specifics of his intelligence briefings," Cheney's public affairs director, Cathie Martin, told the daily.

The "if you can't beat them, join them" answer. Saudi Arabia is important because they sit on so much oil, but if a new government were to come to office would they still have to sell the oil? Are you saying that the world's most powerful country has no power over the Saudi's?

Really, the problem here is not that we don't have power, we do. The problem is that the Saudi's influence that power. And there lies the problem. The problem with the Bush family is that they have vested interests. We expect our leaders to be fiduciaries to the people of the US, not the interests that give them money.

You completely lack understanding of the situation. We do have power over the Saudis, but we cannot go in there militarily, or press it to hard, lest it fall.

Coming from you, I will think that’s more comic than rude.

I would think that the problem of foreign influence on the personal lives of political leaders who are supposed to represent the public is an easy thing to figure out. Or do you believe that leaders should use their connections and influence to reward those that favor them financially? You don’t think there’s something wrong with that?

Considering that much of Saudi Arabia’s population is concentrated, I would think it would be geographically easier to invade Saudi Arabia. The problem would be one of politics.

But it’s very republican and conservative of you to leap to the “war option” for the answer of all life’s problems of international relations. Perhaps what is needed is a more sophisticated approach?

Remember that 9/11 was on the grounds that America put troops in Saudi Arabia. We can't do shit but keep it up and hope for the best.

Which reflects you naïve understanding of Saudi Arabia. The US has had a military commitment to the Persian Gulf since before the fall of the Shah of Iran. It was the intervention of the Soviet Union into Afghanistan that got Carter to create the Rapid Deployment Force and to begin the practice of creating forward bases in Gulf States. The basic plan there was that if the Soviets invaded through Iran to seize the Gulf, the US would deploy rapid reaction forces (primarily airborne) as a tripwire backed by navel vessels- re-commissioned battleships armed with nuclear cruise missiles or naval carriers with nuclear weapons. This RDF later became CENTCOM, which is the military command for the middle east. More regular practice began with the reflagging of Kuwaiti tankers to protect them from Iranian mines during the Iran-Iraq War. More substantial basing came after the first Gulf War when the US deployed forces to protect both the Kurds and the Gulf States.

You know, maybe it's actually respectful to keep the dead soldiers out of the hands of people who actively work to make thier deaths vane.

Yes, like Veterans for Peace? http://www.veteransforpeace.org/Arlington_west_121003.htm

Of course, to show those caskets coming home, or even to interview causalities at Vets hospitals might raise interesting questions.

But then, the first amendment says free speech and free press. Or is that free speech and free press only when it is politically appropriate to the current administration.

If the American people want to pay for the costs of war, perhaps they should see the costs of war too, no? But at least we can trust their judgment to make an informed and sometimes emotional decision.

Or can’t we respect the right of people to make their own opinions.

I think most of the guys who went to Vietnam served honorably.

That said, denying that bad shit happened in Vietnam is nor only a case of selective memory, but it also means you are failing to heed the lessons of the past and are likely to repeat those mistakes.

And so we get a prison scandal.

"I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say that several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command...."

"They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country."

"We are also here to ask, and we are here to ask vehemently, where are the leaders of our country? Where is the leadership? We are here to ask where are McNamara, Rostow, Bundy, Gilpatric, and so many others. Where are they now that we, the men whom they sent off to war, have returned? These are commanders who have deserted their troops, and there is no more serious crime in the law of war. The Army says they never leave their wounded. The Marines say they never leave even their dead. These men have left all the casualties and retreated behind a pious shield of public rectitude. They have left the real stuff of their reputations bleaching begin them in the sun in this country...."

And this is why we need to explore these things, no?

If the US wants to play a leadership role it must take into consideration both it’s virtues and it’s vices. I have argued this on the Saddam thread that Europeans have not done this enough and that’s why the “blame the US on everything” movement is too popular. It’s a pussy thing for them to do, but it’s more shameful for us.

Sherman- “War is Hell.” Perhaps we need to think about that more before we go and do it.

The Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld team saw war through the prism of an sanitary air-war. Powell, who had actually been a ground soldier, knew it would get ugly. Perhaps that’s why the Woodward books points out the difference in opinion between the two different factions. One has experience, the other does not.

Are you telling an army in which few people speak the language of the land they occupy doesn't make mistakes. How many innocent people did get killed or continue to get killed. I don't know because the government doesn't keep those numbers. Why? Too many questions maybe?

Do mistakes happen- yes. When you're getting shot at on a regular basis you don't take many risks.

The impression I got wasn't that he was blaming these guys. They are a bunch of late teenager or young adults abroad and in a dangerous place for the first time, and many are scared. Are they human and capable of doing things we might think immoral, of course. I have read no accounts of any war when the soldiers were always the "white knights" you seem to expect.

But yes, there were americans who were serving or will serve that were being moral. Or did you ignore those pictures too.

Bad things WILL happen. But Moore used footage of what thought was an actually pretty well handeled arrest (I guess he wants us to belive that we'll trust the mother before the intel we got on him), and tried to compare this to Abu Gharib.

And you don’t think this happens on a regular basis. To be honest I was expecting more.

In the piece I posted before, it became customary for US troops to hose down cars that didn’t stop at their warnings, although prior to this the orders were to fire only when they saw weapons. So there were many cars shot out because the Iraqis were afraid to stop. Moore didn’t talk about that at all.

Elsewhere we have heard reports of Bradly and M1 tanks plowing over cars that were in the way- no word on that.

He didn’t talk about the fact that our guys let the Museum of Baghdad get pillaged while they were protecting the oil wells.

As time goes on, and the longer we stay there the more stories will come out about the war. To be honest, I came away from that thinking we weren’t doing half as bad as I expected we would.

Yes, but you're an ideologue with a bias against Islam, so it's not great surprise there.

Do people the upper classes fight? Not as many. Middle class sends it's kids to fight as well. But mostly it's poor kids who go because there are fewer opportunities.

Bias against Islam? What, you think I'm some kind of serial killer? "MUST....KILL........MUSLIMS".

You're right, I'm not sure it's a bad thing though.

Actually I used to think you were secretly a Nazi, but I don’t think that anymore. Ironically I know someone else who shares your fears of Muslims, and get this, she used to be a Maoist in the 70s. People are funny.

The Republican party used to have that reputation. But then in the 1960s when Johnson was making doing the Great Society thing and pushing for the enfranchisements of Blacks, the republican party so an opportunity with the Dixicrats who wanted more state's rights (which means more racial division).

Since the 1970s the Republicans have been making moves to the SOuth, selling state's rights and the dangers of big government (= social equality) but that they are the "party of christian values" (in a country where church and state are supposed to be seperate).

This is not the same party as Lincoln or even Teddy (Trust-Buster) Roosevelt.

It is the same party.

Afraid not. Remember Lincoln was about a stronger union and the democrats were about state’s rights. While the republicans were big business, they were also trust busters and supported some of labor reforms. When was the last anti-trust activity initiated by Bush? But he was friends with Ken Lay of Enron? Oh yeah….

I'm afraid of alot of things happening in it, but many Republicans in NYC, in my own area, or in California, are following in the same tradition.

People are voting party affiliations. But you’re right, the elections of Republicans in California- though Arnie is more a moderate republican, and Pataki- who got in on the death penalty thing that Cuomo would not compromise on. Gulliani was a good replacement for Dinkins, in my opinion.

(You see, sometimes I vote Republican).

To link US slavery with current US corporations is silly and I am surprised you are making that here.

That US corporations hire ridiculously cheap labor abroad is true. That's why manufacturing jobs have gone abroad- lower overhead costs.

As for the NAACP- yes they could improve. But considering their role in the enfranchisement of blacks, I would rather have them than not.

No I am against government being owned by independent oil companies, as well as the energy and oil lobbies.

Not happening. Dems have thier supporters, we have ours. That's just the way it works.

Prove it. There has been little to suggest that the government has been free of the influence of business thus far. It’s a stigma that is important to them for this election, yet so little is done.

Woodward never said that happened. Nor the 9/11 commision. Just Clarke. Suspicious, huh? Maybe the Nazis that live in the center of the earth did that!!!!!!

So what did Woodward find out- Well for those who don’t have time to read the book or don’t trust you’re take on things-

From CBS news. (Hot bed for the radical left!)

Woodward Shares War Secrets
April 18, 2004


Journalist Bob Woodward calls his new book, “Plan of Attack,” the first detailed, behind-the-scenes account of how and why the president decided to wage war in Iraq.

It’s an insider’s account written after Woodward spoke with 75 of the key decision makers, including President Bush himself.

The president permitted Woodward to quote him directly. Others spoke on the condition that Woodward not identify them as sources.

Woodward discusses the secret details of the White House's plans to attack Iraq for the first time on television with Correspondent Mike Wallace.

Woodward permitted 60 Minutes to listen to tapes he recorded of his most important interviews, to read the transcripts, and to verify that the quotes he uses are based on recollections from participants in the key meetings. Both CBS News and Simon & Schuster, the publisher of Woodward's book, are units of Viacom.

Woodward says that many of the quotes came directly from the president: “When I interviewed him for the first time several months ago up in the residence of the White House, he just kind of out of the blue said, ‘It's the story of the 21st Century,’ his decision to undertake this war and start a preemptive attack on another country."

Woodward reports that just five days after Sept. 11, President Bush indicated to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice that while he had to do Afghanistan first, he was also determined to do something about Saddam Hussein.

”There's some pressure to go after Saddam Hussein. Don Rumsfeld has said, ‘This is an opportunity to take out Saddam Hussein, perhaps. We should consider it.’ And the president says to Condi Rice meeting head to head, ‘We won't do Iraq now.’ But it is a question we're gonna have to return to,’” says Woodward.

“And there's this low boil on Iraq until the day before Thanksgiving, Nov. 21, 2001. This is 72 days after 9/11. This is part of this secret history. President Bush, after a National Security Council meeting, takes Don Rumsfeld aside, collars him physically, and takes him into a little cubbyhole room and closes the door and says, ‘What have you got in terms of plans for Iraq? What is the status of the war plan? I want you to get on it. I want you to keep it secret.’"

Woodward says immediately after that, Rumsfeld told Gen. Tommy Franks to develop a war plan to invade Iraq and remove Saddam - and that Rumsfeld gave Franks a blank check.

”Rumsfeld and Franks work out a deal essentially where Franks can spend any money he needs. And so he starts building runways and pipelines and doing all the preparations in Kuwait, specifically to make war possible,” says Woodward.

“Gets to a point where in July, the end of July 2002, they need $700 million, a large amount of money for all these tasks. And the president approves it. But Congress doesn't know and it is done. They get the money from a supplemental appropriation for the Afghan War, which Congress has approved. …Some people are gonna look at a document called the Constitution which says that no money will be drawn from the Treasury unless appropriated by Congress. Congress was totally in the dark on this."

Woodward says there was a lot happening that only key Bush people knew about.

”A year before the war started, three things are going on. Franks is secretly developing this war plan that he's briefing the president in detail on,” says Woodward. “Franks simultaneously is publicly denying that he's ever been asked to do any plan.”

For example, here's Gen. Franks’ response to a question about invading Iraq, in May 2002, after he's been working on war plans for five months: “That’s a great question and one for which I don’t have an answer, because my boss has not yet asked me to put together a plan to do that.”

But according to Woodward, the general had been perfecting his war plan, and Vice President Dick Cheney knew all about it. Woodward reports that Cheney was the driving force in the White House to get Saddam. Cheney had been Secretary of Defense during the first Gulf War, and to him, Saddam was unfinished business – and a threat to the United States.

In his book, Woodward describes Cheney as a "powerful, steamrolling force obsessed with Saddam and taking him out."

"Colin Powell, the secretary of state, saw this in Cheney to such an extent, he, Powell, told colleagues that ‘Cheney has a fever. It is an absolute fever. It’s almost as if nothing else exists,’” says Woodward, who adds that Cheney had plenty of opportunities to convince the president.

”He’s just down the hall in the West Wing from the president. President says, ‘I meet with him all the time.’ Cheney's back in the corner or sitting on the couch at nearly all of these meetings.”

The president had hoped Saddam could be removed in some way short of war. But early in 2002, Woodward reports, the CIA concluded they could not overthrow Saddam. That word came from the CIA's head of Iraq operations, a man known simply as “Saul.”

"Saul gets together a briefing and who does he give it to first? Dick Cheney. He said, ‘I can count the number of sources, human sources, spies we have in Iraq on one hand,’” says Woodward. “I asked the president, ‘What was your reaction that the CIA couldn't overthrow Saddam? And the president said one word. 'Darn.'"

The vice president led the way on declaring that Saddam Hussein definitely had weapons of mass destruction. Before that, the president had said only that Saddam “desires them.”

But ten days later, the vice president said Saddam already had weapons of mass destruction. And 12 days after that, the president too had apparently been persuaded: “A lot of people understand he holds weapons of mass destruction.”

Three months later, on Dec. 21, 2002, Woodward says CIA Director George Tenet brought his deputy, John McLaughlin, to the oval office to show the president and the vice president their best evidence that Saddam really had weapons of mass destruction.

”McLaughlin has access to all the satellite photos, and he goes in and he has flip charts in the oval office. The president listens to all of this and McLaughlin's done. And, and the president kind of, as he's inclined to do, says ‘Nice try, but that isn't gonna sell Joe Public. That isn't gonna convince Joe Public,’” says Woodward.

In his book, Woodward writes: "The presentation was a flop. The photos were not gripping. The intercepts were less than compelling. And then George Bush turns to George Tenet and says, 'This is the best we've got?'"

Says Woodward: “George Tenet's sitting on the couch, stands up, and says, ‘Don't worry, it's a slam dunk case.’" And the president challenges him again and Tenet says, ‘The case, it's a slam dunk.’ ...I asked the president about this and he said it was very important to have the CIA director – ‘Slam-dunk is as I interpreted is a sure thing, guaranteed. No possibility it won't go through the hoop.’ Others present, Cheney, very impressed.”

What did Woodward think of Tenet’s statement? “It’s a mistake,” he says. “Now the significance of that mistake - that was the key rationale for war.”

It was just two weeks later when the president decided to go to war.

“That decision was first conveyed to Condi Rice in early January 2003 when he said, ‘We're gonna have to go. It's war.’ He was frustrated with the weapons inspections. He had promised the United Nations and the world and the country that either the UN would disarm Saddam or he, George Bush, would do it and do it alone if necessary,” says Woodward. “So he told Condi Rice. He told Rumsfeld. He knew Cheney wanted to do this. And they realized they haven’t told Colin Powell, the Secretary of State.”

“So Condi Rice said, ‘You better call Colin in and tell him.’ So, I think probably one of the most interesting meetings in this whole story. He calls Colin Powell in alone, sitting in those two famous chairs in the Oval Office and the president said, ‘Looks like war. I'm gonna have to do this,’” adds Woodward.

“And then Powell says to him, somewhat in a chilly way, ‘Are you aware of the consequences?’ Because he'd been pounding for months on the president, on everyone - and Powell directly says, ‘You know, you're gonna be owning this place.’ And the president says, ‘I understand that.’ The president knows that Powell is the one who doesn't want to go to war. He says, ‘Will you be with me?’ And Powell, the soldier, 35 years in the army, the president has decided and he says, ‘I'll do my best. Yes, Mr. President. I'll be with you.’” And then, the president says, ‘Time to put your war uniform on.’"

Woodward says he described Powell as semi-despondent “because he knew that this was a war that might have been avoided. That’s why he spent so much time at the United Nations.”

But, it turns out, two days before the president told Powell, Cheney and Rumsfeld had already briefed Prince Bandar, the Saudi ambassador.

”Saturday, Jan. 11, with the president's permission, Cheney and Rumsfeld call Bandar to Cheney's West Wing office, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Myers, is there with a top-secret map of the war plan. And it says, ‘Top secret. No foreign.’ No foreign means no foreigners are supposed to see this,” says Woodward.

“They describe in detail the war plan for Bandar. And so Bandar, who's skeptical because he knows in the first Gulf War we didn't get Saddam out, so he says to Cheney and Rumsfeld, ‘So Saddam this time is gonna be out, period?’ And Cheney - who has said nothing - says the following: ‘Prince Bandar, once we start, Saddam is toast.’"

After Bandar left, according to Woodward, Cheney said, “I wanted him to know that this is for real. We're really doing it."

But this wasn’t enough for Prince Bandar, who Woodward says wanted confirmation from the president. “Then, two days later, Bandar is called to meet with the president and the president says, ‘Their message is my message,’” says Woodward.

Prince Bandar enjoys easy access to the Oval Office. His family and the Bush family are close. And Woodward told 60 Minutes that Bandar has promised the president that Saudi Arabia will lower oil prices in the months before the election - to ensure the U.S. economy is strong on election day.

Woodward says that Bandar understood that economic conditions were key before a presidential election: “They’re [oil prices] high. And they could go down very quickly. That's the Saudi pledge. Certainly over the summer, or as we get closer to the election, they could increase production several million barrels a day and the price would drop significantly.”

For his book, Woodward interviewed 75 top military and Bush administration officials, including two long interviews with the president himself. Mr. Bush spoke on the record, but others talked to Woodward on condition that he not reveal their identities.

60 Minutes won’t name those Woodward interviewed, but we've listened to the tapes and read the transcripts of his key interviews to verify that his accounts are based on recollections from people who took part in the meetings he describes, including a historic meeting on March 19, when Bush gives the order to go to war.

He’s with the National Security Council, in the situation room. Says Woodward: “They have all these TV monitors. Gen. Franks, the commander, is up on one of them. And all nine commanders, and the president asks each one of them, ‘Are you ready? Do you have what you need? Are you satisfied?’ And they all say, ‘Yes, sir.’ and ‘We're ready.’”

Then the president saluted and he rose suddenly from his chair. “People who were there said there were tears in his eyes, not coming down his cheeks but in his eyes,” says Woodward. “And just kind of marched out of the room.”

Having given the order, the president walked alone around the circle behind the White House. Months later, he told Woodward: “As I walked around the circle, I prayed that our troops be safe, be protected by the Almighty. Going into this period, I was praying for strength to do the Lord's will. I'm surely not going to justify war based upon God. Understand that. Nevertheless, in my case, I pray that I be as good a messenger of his will as possible. And then, of course, I pray for forgiveness."

Did Mr. Bush ask his father for any advice? “I asked the president about this. And President Bush said, ‘Well, no,’ and then he got defensive about it,” says Woodward. “Then he said something that really struck me. He said of his father, ‘He is the wrong father to appeal to for advice. The wrong father to go to, to appeal to in terms of strength.’ And then he said, ‘There's a higher Father that I appeal to.’"

Beyond not asking his father about going to war, Woodward was startled to learn that the president did not ask key cabinet members either.

”The president, in making the decision to go to war, did not ask his secretary of defense for an overall recommendation, did not ask his secretary of state, Colin Powell, for his recommendation,” says Woodward.

But the president did ask Rice, his national security adviser, and Karen Hughes, his political communications adviser. Woodward says both supported going to war. And in the run-up to war, Woodward reveals the CIA hired the leaders of a Muslim religious sect at odds with Saddam, but nonetheless with numerous members highly placed in Saddam's security services. The CIA's code name for them: the Rock Stars.

"Before the war, they recruit 87 of them all throughout the country and they give them satellite phones. And they report in regularly on secret things that are going on,” says Woodward.

And it turns out, reports from the Rock Stars led to the first bombing attack, on March 19, to try to kill Saddam – at a place called Dora Farm, a farm south of Baghdad that Saddam’s wife used.

"And Saddam went there at least once a year with his two sons. The security person at Dora Farm was a CIA spy, a Rock Star, and had a telephone, a satellite phone, in which he was reporting what he was seeing."

Other Rock Stars are apparently there too, so Rumsfeld and Tenet rush to the oval office to tell the president what the spies are seeing.

"They’ve seen the son. There is communications equipment coming in that would show that Saddam is going there. They get overhead satellite photos that show dozens of security vehicles parked under palm trees. And they say, ‘Holy Moses, this is for real.’ And they start getting better and more detailed reports that they think Saddam is coming. And the question is, do we take them out,’” says Woodward.

“The president asks everyone, and they all recommend doing it. And then he kicks everyone out, except Cheney. And he says, ‘Dick, what do you think?’ And Cheney says, ‘I think we ought to do it, and at minimum, it will rattle Saddam's cage.’ ...They start getting intelligence that maybe they hit Saddam."

But Woodward says that Tenet was wrong. Again. And to this day, Woodward reports, the CIA still doesn’t know if the information from the Rock Stars was reliable, or if Saddam was really there that night. “Again, we have the fog of war, the fog of intelligence,” says Woodward.

Although Saddam has finally been captured, Woodward says that so far, interrogators are learning very little from him.

”What people have told me is that he he's kind of out of it. Unreliable,” says Woodward. “That he, at some moments, thinks he's still president. He's not in touch with reality, to the point where they can find what he says is reliable.”

And in the wake of the war, according to Woodward, there's a deep rift between Powell and Cheney.

”The relationship between Cheney and Powell is essentially broken down. They can't talk. They don't communicate,” says Woodward. “Powell feels that Cheney drove the decision to go to war in Iraq. And Cheney feels that Powell has not been sufficiently supportive of the president in the war or in the aftermath.”

Which of the two was more prescient about how Iraq would turn out? “All of Powell's warnings think of the consequences, Pottery Barn rules: If you break it, you own it. And that's exactly what has happened in Iraq. We own it. In a way, they've had victory without success,” says Woodward.

“Dick Cheney’s view is that in a way, it doesn't matter how long the aftermath is... What matters is the ultimate outcome... Whether there’s stability and democracy.”

Are there post-war plans? “There were innumerable briefings to the president about currency about oil. And on the real issue of security and possible violence, they did not see it coming,” says Woodward.

Did the administration really believe that they were going to get flowers and kisses? “Some of the exiles told them that,” says Woodward. “I think the president was skeptical of that. I think people like Cheney believed it more.”

Today, while most doubt that Saddam still possessed any weapons of mass destruction, the president told Woodward he has no doubts at all about going to war.

”The president still believes with some conviction, that this was absolutely the right thing, that he has the duty to free people, to liberate people. And this was his moment,” says Woodward.

But who gave President Bush the duty to free people around the world? “That's a really good question. The Constitution doesn't say that's part of the commander in chief's duties,” says Woodward. “That’s his stated purpose. It is far-reaching, and ambitious, and I think will cause many people to tremble.”

How deep a man is President George W. Bush? “He’s not an intellectual. He is not what I guess would be called a deep thinker,” says Woodward. “He chastised me at one point because I said people were concerned about the failure to find weapons of mass destruction. And he said, ‘Well you travel in elite circles.’ I think he feels there is an intellectual world and he's indicated he's not a part of it … the fancy pants intellectual world. What he calls the elite.”

How does the president think history will judge him for going to war in Iraq?

“After the second interview with him on Dec. 11, we got up and walked over to one of the doors. There are all of these doors in the Oval Office that lead outside. And he had his hands in his pocket, and I just asked, ‘Well, how is history likely to judge your Iraq war,’” says Woodward.

“And he said, ‘History,’ and then he took his hands out of his pocket and kind of shrugged and extended his hands as if this is a way off. And then he said, ‘History, we don’t know. We’ll all be dead.’”

Prior to publication, the contents of Woodward's book were closely guarded to prevent any leaks, and 60 Minutes agreed not to interview anyone else for this report.

Hmmm… to be honest, I think I would have had more faith in him if he did ask his father for advice and not “the higher father.”

And Cheney- pressed for war?

Between fishing and golf swings. Yes, it was his father's way of having personal relationships. Of course, working at the office would require that he would have to read, and Bush likes to watch TV or have things told to him.

Yeah, maybe we should administer an IQ test to our presidents! Then we could administer an IQ test to the general populace, and sterlize the ones under 130! SOUNDS LIKE FUN!

WTF Chuck? Eugenics? Sounds more like a Republican thing. After all they are the ones that want to ignore the poor and feed the rich.

That's patronizing bullshit. You don't have to be able to construct a supercollider with toothpicks to be a good president.

That would be asking a lot. But a president who actually consults his cabinet before deciding to go to war would be a good thing, no?

The economy is doing well right now. Face it. And it would'nt under MR. Raise Taxes.

Doing well for who though? Every government represents certain interests more than others. Who is benefiting the most from this administration?

And Clinton raised taxes and it was good for the government.

Cause it was safe in 1999 for non Muslims to go to Iraq and Saudi Arabia, dont'cha know.

Not sure about going to Iraq or Saudi Arabia. I know expats weren’t getting bombed or threatened in Saudi Arabia like they are now. I am talking about the question of general receptiveness by Americans everywhere. From what I hear, it’s going down. Americans, for the wrong reasons, seem to be a hell of lot less popular then they used to be.

No, I have said elsewhere that the blame for that policy falls on the head of Osama Bin Laden, the current replacement for "where's waldo" whom this President can't seem to find.

Are we safer? No terrorists episodes are on the increase. So we seem to be losing the war against terrorism.

We have two footholds in the Muslim world then we started, Libya has given up it's WMD, and half of North Africa is having elections. It's mixed, certainly, but that's as much the fault of the rise of Fundiesm then the failures of Bush.

But did Qaddafi give up the weapons because of the US or because of years of sanctions? The Bush administration is claiming a success, but why. From what I have been reading the years of sanctions put the hurt on him and he wanted to make peace with the US so he could start making real money again. This plays into the US because of cheaper oil.

As for half of North Africa having elections- much of Africa had elections since the 1990s, but those countries are still in bad shape. So it’s a trend. I doubt if Bush made much of a difference.

And the fundamentalists? Where are they these days? Still in the mosques, still making trouble. Still in Sudan and the US pressured for peace. Why? Oil. The peace deal was necessary for a pipeline that went from South (non-muslim) to north (muslim) areas but there was this nasty war. So what happened- peace- so that the government could rearm and launch the war again. And behind this policy – oil.

There are two types of fundamentalists- the ones that the US could work with- as the Taliban used to be, and the ones we can’t. What distinguishes them is the US need for maintaining cheap oil.

 

[John Uskglass]

CC- this conversation is getting boring. You seem dedicated to having the last word even if much of what you are saying is pretty shallow.

And vice versa. Then again, I don't like boring arguments that much, and frankly I've reached the conclusion that on almost everything here there's no way either of us can convince the other.

 

[slunk3AM]

Hey!!! Saddam Hussein never called ME an asshole!!! So... where's the beach?

Elephant.

 

[Shevek]

I respect Moore. The so-called 'dishonest portrayals' in 'Bowling' is mostly a bunch of wacko right wing talk and nitpicking (I saw one site try t hammer the film because the scene with the dog was a recreation - and I thought that was obvious). Only the interview with Heston (which as unfair) and the cartoon (which was too extreme) didnt sit well with me. The rest of the film was both powerful and dead on.

Fahrenheit 9/11 was even better. It was a much more restrained and factual film. Having read several moderate takes on our countries little adventure in Iraq (most notably Plan of Attack - nice read), I can say the movie is factually dead on and does not misrepresent the facts. It is clear when he is editorializing (which he keeps to a minimum) and when he is just presenting fact - which is something you dont always get from folks like O'Reilly or, especially, Limbaugh.

Also, in a time when the media was too timid to even show us the facts, its nice someone has the stones to show us these images of those representatives getting gavelled into silence, eggs getting tossed at Bush's limo, Bush sitting with a stupid look on his face for 7 minutes possibly endangering the lives of a room full of children at a photo-op while the country needed his leadership, and so on. These are images our media should be giving us. Moores right, they played cheerleader which is why they blasted him and which is why so many think he is extreme (trust me, there are people far far left of Moore). Maybe now they will step up.


PS: For added fun, see some O'Reilly hi-jinks here (its funny when he doesnt control the mic):

http://www.booktv.org/misc/BookExpo_053103.asp

Now that O'Reilly...that guy is a slime ball.

 

[Sander]

I hate having to link to this site again and again and again:

http://www.hardylaw.net/Truth_About_Bowling.html
There you go. The Truth about Bowling for Columbine. Simply put: the movie is basically a lying sucky movie. All of the facts on that page are well-documented.
And, in case you hadn't noticed, I am in no way shape or form a right wing nut.

 

[quietfanatic]

IF anything Anarchism is ultimate-freedom ultimate-capitalism. In a world where anybody can do aything they want, capitalists would set up businesses and do whatever they damn well pleased. Why would Orwell support this kind of movement?

...

Dude, before you post such a Bloody Stupid comment on a political movement you clearly don't have the faintest idea about, do some research on it, m'kay?

Lets see if I can help.

First lots of my random notes about the Spanish Anarchists.

_________________________________________________
Communism

'For Marx, whose concept of freedom is vitiated by preconditions and abstractions, the immediate goal of revolution is to seize political power and replace the bourgeois state by a highly centralized "proletarian" dictatorship. The proletariat must thus organize a mass centralized political party and use every means, including parliamentary and electoral methods, to enlarge its control over the society.'

Anarchism

It is hard to define and therefore here are some features of an influential philosophers ideologies which also influenced Fanelli and the CNT or majority Anarchist movement in Spain.

'For Bakunin, on the other hand, the immediate goal of revolution is to extend the individual's control over his or her own life; hence revolution must be directed not toward the the "seizure of power", but its dissolution.'..complete conformity must exist between its means and ends, between form and context.'

'a revolutionary organization is a community of personally involved brothers and sisters, not an apparatus based on bureaucracy, hierarchy, and programmatic agreement.'

Bakuknin radical collectivism confirmed admirably to the Spanish sense of patriae chica, your place of origin, specifically your roots at a microcosm level.

As opposed to Communism, the work you do is rewarded individually with material reward according to the quality of one's individual labour, although not with property. No one was to have power over others or exploit them, although you could argue that people could try to make a profit if they wanted to. They merely did not want any restriction. This seems contradictory but the Spanish character enabled this system to work on a small scale, although the extent of this is in hot dispute amongst historians.

‘Many Anarchists did not smoke, drink, or go to prostitutes, but lived a sober, exemplary life in a stable free union with a companera (defacto 'wife').’

CNT

In 1936 the C.N.T had over a million members but only one of them was paid. The Anarchist movement was able to gain influence through the success of the trade union movements, starting with industrial disputes and eventually aiming for revolution. It was a ‘plastic’ movement that could quickly re-emerge as not all members were die hard Anarchists, although they sympathized with the ideology. To be more correct, the CNT was increasingly dominated by militant Anarchosyndicalists, trade union based Anarchists. The goal of a Syndicalist is the elimination of capitalism, not merely the amelioration of the workers’ immediate economic problems and conditions. i.e. revolutionary

Unions and labour councils form the basis of a future libertarian society with no property and no authority. The structure being democratic and highly individualistic, in which people were encouraged to show initiative.

The guiding and most important principle of syndicalism is that the management of production occurs at the base of society, not at its summit, and decisions flow from below to above. Hence, syndicalism is anti-authoritarian. The democratic, federalist, and decentralized economic organs of the proletariat replace the political agencies of the state. Authority that is currently vested in political organs us turned over to the economic units of society and the actual producers who operate them.

Enterprises administered by elected working councils, who send delegates to represent them as part of the local labour council. At an industry-wide basis they are represented through the workers’ associations, or trade unions. (trade unions unnecessary after revolution) Each sindcato unico could comprise of a whole village which democratically made contact with the people at a larger level via their representatives and local committees. The diction making process was not parliamentary, but still very democratic. More than the usual forced polls of most of the Spanish ‘elections’ of the time before the Civil War.

Unions became sindicato unico’s based on geographical location as opposed to even industry or trade, although subdivisions within each sindicatos could deal with any problems. This ensured that the organization was totally organic, although the national committee still existed, and that most groups were autonomous. Individuals are given the real power. It opposes political action, political parties, and any participation in political elections. Methodology to bring about the desired change involves direct action - strikes, sabotage, obstruction, and most importantly, the revolutionary general strike.

Org. CNT > regional confederation > comarcal (district) > sindicatos (individual unions) local and trade federations

The General Secretary of the National Committee was paid as were those of the Regional Committees. Committees were administrative, acting on information and addressing the complaints of those from below in the society.

The Anarchist congresses were highly democratic, 1 being held every three months. The philosophy they held was simple. ‘Obedience to the wishes of the membership was a cardinal rule.’ All decisions were totally voluntary, the unfortunate side affects of this independence were chain reactions of ineffectual revolts.

In contrast to the socialist equivalents, the CNT shunned any manifestation of bureaucracy or centralization. Instead wanted people to act on their own initiative. Violent revolution, not piecemeal reforms, became the main aim to keep the militancy alive, motivated by the employers.

In June 1920, Angel Pestana went to the Second Congress of the Comintern. ‘In Moscow he was courted by Zinoviev and Losovsky, but he soon began to sense the enormous gap that existed between the libertarian ideals of his movement and the authoritarian practices of the Bolsheviks.’ Brutal suppression of the Kronstadt sailors uprising and suppression of Anarchists ‘alienated the libertarian movement throughout the world’ Consequently, the CNT joined the International Workingman’s Association in Germany, almost completely isolating them from the Marxists in Russia.

Regional groups splintered into the ‘pure’ Anarchist group of the Federacion Anarquista Iberica (FAI), which was not happy with the ‘soft’ approach of the CNT, (if assassination and general strike could be seen as soft.)

Socialists in the UGT were divided over the Russian revolution, with a large proportion veering to the left and pledging their allegiance to the Comintern.

The 1920 Alliance between UGT and the Anarchosyndicalist CNT was merely practical against a common enemy, the employer and the conservative oppressor. “We, the declared enemies of bourgeoisie society constitute ourselves as the defenders of its laws.” A similar alliance occurred in the Spanish Civil War.
_________________________________________________

*bitch-slap*

Anarchist, boy, anarchist. Who else would fight besides the FAI and CNT in 1936?

Orwell did not fight for the Anarchists of the CNT, but with the Semi-Trotskyist, Obrera de Unificacion Marxista (Workers ‘ of Marxist Unification or POUM), which was decidedly not Anarchistic, but Socialist, heavily influenced by Trotsky. They were all fighting against the common enemy of Fascism, threat to the workers as they saw it. The CNT, POUM, UGT (more Commies) and FAI had all previously engaged in minor conflicts over tensions due to the differences in their ideologies, although these scuffles were not too serious, but they were united against Fraco, for a while at least.

However, just because he fought for the Socialists and identified himself as a Socialist did not mean that he was one, in the Trotskyist sense of the word. He was completely confused about who was who, and merely wanted to join 'the militia' and get to the front to fight for liberty as quickly as possible. Furthermore, he was allot closer to the Anarchists than his Socialist Comrades, disliking the authoritarian and ruthless methods of the Communists, and particularly the Stalinists. He was caught in the crossfire so to speak, when the Trotsky sympathizers were vilified and became Fascist traitors, all because the Stalinists were taking control of the Civil War. Still note that this was even though the Anarchists of the CNT were in the far majority and doing the bulk of the fighting at the front.

He would have probably preferred to have joined the CNT according to his ideology, from what I read in Homage to Catalonia, but by chance, he was directed by the International Foreign Labor Organization to fight for the POUM, which would be destroyed later by the Stalinists.

The fairest thing to say was that he was an idealistic and naive British Socialist who wished to see a free, libertarian society, but he was still more of an Anarchist, than the Socialist at the time of the Civil War.

To get an idea of his idealistic, romantic view of his first impression of 'socialism' in Barcelona, read this extract. This was before he experienced the infighting, complexity and betrayal among the left camp in the Spanish Civil War.

I had come to Spain with some notion of writing newspaper articles, but I had joined the militia almost immediately, because at that time and in that atmosphere it seemed the only conceivable thing to do. The Anarchists were still in virtual control of Catalonia and the revolution was still in full swing. To anyone who had been there since the beginning it probably seemed even in December or January that the revolutionary period was ending; but when one came straight from England the aspect of Barcelona was something startling and overwhelming. It was the first time that I had ever been in a town where the working class was in the saddle. Practically every building of any size had been seized by the workers and was draped with red flags or with the red and black flag of the Anarchists; every wall was scrawled with the hammer and sickle and with the initials of the revolutionary parties; almost every church had been gutted and its images burnt. Churches here and there were being systematically demolished by gangs of workmen. Every shop and cafe had an inscription saying that it had been collectivized; even the bootblacks had been collectivized and their boxes painted red and black. Waiters and shop-walkers looked you in the face and treated you as an equal. Servile and even ceremonial forms of speech had temporarily disappeared. Nobody said 'Senior' or 'Don' or even 'Usted'; everyone called everyone else 'Comrade' and 'Thou', and said 'Salud!' instead of 'Buenos dias'. Tipping was forbidden by law; almost my first experience was receiving a lecture from a hotel manager for trying to tip a lift-boy. There were no private motor-cars, they had all been commandeered, and all the trams and taxis and much of the other transport were painted red and black. The revolutionary posters were everywhere, flaming from the walls in clean reds and blues that made the few remaining advertisements look like daubs of mud. Down the Ramblas, the wide central artery of the town where crowds of people streamed constantly to and fro, the loudspeakers were bellowing revolutionary songs all day and far into the night. And it was the aspect of the crowds that was the queerest thing of all. In outward appearance it was a town in which the wealthy classes had practically ceased to exist. Except for a small number of women and foreigners there were no 'well-dressed' people at all. Practically everyone wore rough working-class clothes, or blue overalls, or some variant of the militia uniform. All this was queer and moving. There was much in it that I did not understand, in some ways I did not even like it, but I recognized it immediately as a state of affairs worth fighting for. Also I believed that things were as they appeared, that this was really a workers' State and that the entire bourgeoisie had either fled, been killed, or voluntarily come over to the workers' side; I did not realize that great numbers of well-to-do bourgeois were simply lying low and disguising themselves as proletarians for the time being.
…….
Yet the militias held the line, though God knows they won very few victories, and even individual desertions were not common. In four or five months in the P.O.U.M. militia I only heard of four men deserting, and two of those were fairly certainly spies who had enlisted to obtain information. At the beginning the apparent chaos, the general lack of training, the fact that you often had to argue for five minutes before you could get an order obeyed, appalled and infuriated me. I had British Army ideas, and certainly the Spanish militias were very unlike the British Army. But considering the circumstances they were better troops than one had any right to expect.
……..
The P.O.U.M. and P.S.U.C. flags were red, those of the Anarchists red and black; the Fascists generally flew the monarchist flag (red-yellow-red), but occasionally they flew the flag of the Republic (red-yellow-purple).

Does that clear things up abit?

 

[Ashmo]

On Socialism:

The problem with the traditional communist/fascist, left-wing/right-wing patterns is that they do not apply anymore.

I like to call myself socialist, or democratic socialist, because it's what my oppinions are commonly understood to be.
For one, I don't like discrimination against any group of living things in general. I think it is neccessary to keep up certain levels of speciecism for sanity, but that's about it. Discriminating any living thing of the same species (i.e. humans) based on genetical traits is cow dung.
I do not believe democracy (note: the US is a republic, I can't think of any democracy which still exists) is the perfect system, but I think with some improvements a democratic system could work quite well.
Communism is a flavor of Utopianism and therefore doesn't work, at least not with today's people. It has never been attempted either (or at least I don't know of any example -- neither before nor after the term was coined).
All socialism means to me is that you should be allowed to do what you wish as long as it doesn't mean any harm to anybody else (see UN human rights) and that you should try to support others rather than do nothing unless it requires an outstanding sacrifice, in which case nobody can ask you to.
That I'm against legal distribution of firearms, death penalty, monopolies and punishment of abortion may be canonical with the fact I'm a Socialist, but it is not related to it.

Political parties may decide to chose names which reflect parts of their political orientation and ideals or only the ideals they want to be understood to represent, but that doesn't say jack shit about what they do and what they will do once in charge.
The National Socialists ("nazis") of the 1930s called their party a National Socialist Labor Party, yet they neither helped the labor force, nor were they socialists.


On Moore:

Moore is American. Furthermore, Moore is a very pissed-off American. Also, Moore is capable of writing and using a camera.
I like Moore because of his sarcasm and cynism. I don't like Moore, however, because he is not capable of drawing a line between opinion and fact.
Moore's movies are enjoyable if you don't take them serious and aren't close-minded pro- or even anti-American. As with everything, his work can be understood as propaganda. To an extent, it is.
He presents a couple of facts filtered with a biased viewpoint and mixed with his opinion in a way which makes it look reasonable. However, that's no different from political statements of politicians (except for the cases in which inaccuracies are very likely to backfire), it's how you get undecided people to agree with you.
Nowadays, even a lot of "documentaries" and even more books are done that way. Religious fundamentalists with half a brain did that for ages.

A demagogue is someone who wants to use that technique not only to get the majority to agree with him, but also to use them in order to archieve political power or lead a war.

Moore is note a demagogue because he IS that close-minded (he has always been -- even before Dubya's presidency) and thus only states his opinion, he is only popular because people like his biased viewpoint and like not to have to think.

Bush isn't a demagogue either. He sucks at holding speeches. He also lacks the charisma. And lastly, many people aren't even sure whether he knows what he's talking about at all.

The correct approach is to respect Moore for producing works which are capable of convincing a sound close-minded group that their opinion is correct. If you're a bit more open-minded however, you will not take everything as a fact just because someone said it on TV or in a movie. You will search for other sources and evaluate it.
You may think of Moore what you want, but although his works are far from objective (even in his books it's impossible to distinguish factual data from sarcastic remarks and exaggerations), they are successful entertainment. It's no more a documentary than JackAss -- heck, JackAss is more of a documentary because what is shown is just raw data which has not been modified for any half-sane ideas at all.

When did you ever see a factual documentation on a cinema screen? Cinema movies are meant to be entertaining. No factual documentation can have sarcastic remarks.


On Anarchy:

Anarchy is the absence of any government or controling force. Anarchy can be the "natural situation" described by ancient philosophers: the only hierarchy present would be an implied one based on the food chain and Darwin's law (survival of the fittest). Anarchy only means that there isn't anything ruling any number of individuals -- neither actual people (no monarch, no council), nor a fictional power (eg. the people) or even abstract ideas (eg. laws or codes).
Anarchy is a flavor of Utopianism because humans tend to form groups, one way or another. No truely anarchic society ever existed -- correct me if I'm wrong (I don't think the Spanish example was truely anarchic, but I don't know enough about it to be able to judge it).

Any artificial structure calling itself anarchy violates the principle implied by the term.


On this post:

I hope I made any sense. I hate writing long posts in a small message window and I made the mistake of doing it again.
Usually it eventually leads to the argumentation being inconsistent and me making little sense in general.
I would also like to mention that our educational system spoiled my style of writing.

 

[Wooz]

Whoa. Nice post, Quietfanatic.

 

[welsh]

Nice posts all around. Posts we should keep around. Bradylama and CCR, your response?

Ok, more on Moore though-

Could this be why the GOP worked so hard to keep this movie from being releases, advertised, or shown?

'Fahrenheit 9/11' Making GOP Nervous
By Mike Glover
The Associated Press

Thursday 22 July 2004

Des Moines, Iowa - Republicans initially dismissed "Fahrenheit 9/11" as a cinematic screed that would play mostly to inveterate Bush bashers. Four weeks and $94 million later, the film is still pulling in moviegoers at 2,000 theaters around the country, making Republicans nervous as it settles into the American mainstream.

"I'm not sure if it moves voters," GOP consultant Scott Reed said, "but if it moves 3 or 4 percent it's been a success."

Two senior Republicans closely tied to the White House said the movie from director Michael Moore is seen as a political headache because it has reached beyond the Democratic base. Independents and GOP-leaning voters are likely to be found sitting beside those set to revel in its depiction of a clueless president with questionable ties to the oil industry.

"If you are a naive, uncommitted voter and wander into a theater, you aren't going to come away with a good impression of the president," Republican operative Joe Gaylord said. "It's a problem only if a lot of people see it."

Based on a record-breaking gross of $94 million through last weekend, theaters already have sold an estimated 12 million tickets to "Fahrenheit 9/11." A Gallup survey conducted July 8-11 said 8 percent of American adults had seen the film at that time, but that 18 percent still planned to see it at a theater and another 30 percent plan to see it on video.

More than a third of Republicans and nearly two-thirds of independents told Gallup they had seen or expected to see the film at theaters or on video.

"Fahrenheit 9/11" opened in June mainly in locally owned arts theaters that specialize in obscure films and tiny audiences. Drawn in part by the buzz surrounding the film, people packed the theaters and formed long lines for tickets. Within a week, it was appearing in chain-owned theaters along with "Spider-Man 2," "The Notebook" and other big summer attractions.

When he sat down to watch the film at the Varsity Theater in Des Moines last weekend, Rob Sheesley didn't harbor anti-Bush feelings. Two hours later, he left with conflicted emotions.

"You want to respect the president," Sheesley said. "It raised a lot of questions."

Bush's leadership in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks had impressed retired teacher Lavone Mann, another Des Moines moviegoer. After watching the film, Mann wanted to know more about its claims.

"I guess that I think it makes me want to pursue how much of it is accurate and not just get carried away with one film," she said. "I don't hear Bush and (Vice President Dick) Cheney saying that this is incorrect."

Retired college professor Dennis O'Brien, a Bush voter in 2000 and a movie buff who has seen other Moore films, said "Fahrenheit 9/11" hasn't changed his view of Bush but may well serve a larger purpose by sparking debate.

"Moore forces you to think about the role of oil in the politics of American life," O'Brien said. "This goes back a long way."

In GOP-strong Columbia, S.C., watching the movie last week at the Columbiana Grande tipped 26-year-old David Wood's support more to the left.

"I don't consider myself a Republican or a Democrat. I just vote for whoever is right for the job," the University of South Carolina student said. "I think most people don't bother to really research, and all they need is something popular to sway them."

Others at the screening in Columbia were put off by what they saw as the film's biased approach to examining Bush and the reasons he took the country to war. For Scott Campbell, 19, the movie reinforced his apathy toward politics.

"We didn't even stay to see the whole thing," Campbell said. "It was one-sided."

Former Iowa Republican Chairman Michael Mahaffey said the movie's impact could be dulled over time. "It's July," he said. "Conventional wisdom will change completely every four or five weeks."

Still, "Fahrenheit 9/11" is likely to gain an even wider audience when it's released on home video in the weeks before Election Day. The Gallup survey found that nearly half of the Republicans and independents who expect to see the film said they were likely to view it on video.

"In all honesty, in a very close election, who knows what will sway the public?" Mahaffey said.

 

[John Uskglass]

Now this is what I'm scared of more then BLOOD FOR OIL semiinsane consipricy theroies; fat demegouges deciding the election with half-truths, shaky facts and outright lies.