Re: Bush desperately needs the terrorists. They are his last frail hope for political survival.


"Horatio Fudruckerton" <none> wrote in message
news:qk61e25oicujrdvjjr6odv7ohtg1t3n38f@xxxxxxxxxx

Poor, delusional liberals. It must be awful to live in a constant
state of hysterics and conspiracy madness. They really should
get a life. The loony bins are full of such people.

Are you sure "liberals" is what you mean?

Political liberalism is, according to

Merriam-Webster: a political philosophy based on belief in progress, the
essential goodness of the human race, and the autonomy of the individual and
standing for the protection of political and civil liberties.

Dictionary.com: a political theory founded on the natural goodness of humans
and the autonomy of the individual and favoring civil and political
liberties, government by law with the consent of the governed, and
protection from arbitrary authority.

Cambridge: believing in or allowing more personal freedom and a development
towards a fairer sharing of wealth and power within society.

MSN Encarta: a political ideology with its beginnings in western Europe that
rejects authoritarian government and defends freedom of speech, association,
and religion, and the right to own property.

Matti P.









On Mon, 14 Aug 2006 11:00:02 GMT, Thaddeus Stevens
<fr_e_n_saf_@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

AlterNet Bush's Political Survival Depends on Terror Threats
By William Greider, TheNation.com
Posted on August 14, 2006, Printed on August 14, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/40280/

An evil symbiosis does exist between Muslim terrorists and American
politicians, but it is not
the one Republicans describe. The jihadists need George W. Bush to sustain
their cause. His
bloody crusade in the Middle East bolsters their accusation that America
is out to destroy
Islam. The president has unwittingly made himself the lead recruiter of
willing young martyrs.

More to the point, it is equally true that Bush desperately needs the
terrorists. They are his
last frail hope for political survival. They divert public attention, at
least momentarily,
from his disastrous war in Iraq and his shameful abuses of the
Constitution. The "news" of
terror -- whether real or fantasized -- reduces American politics to its
most primitive
impulses, the realm of fear-and-smear where George Bush is at his best.

So, once again in the run-up to a national election, we are visited with
alarming news. A
monstrous plot, red alert, high drama playing on all channels and extreme
measures taken to
tighten security.

The White House men wear grave faces, but they cannot hide their delight.
It's another chance
for Bush to protect us from those aliens with funny names, another
opportunity to accuse
Democrats of aiding and abetting the enemy.

This has worked twice before. It could work again this fall unless
gullible Americans snap out
of it. Wake up, folks, and recognize how stupid and wimpish you look. I
wrote the following
two years ago during a similar episode of red alerts: "Bush's 'war on
terrorism' is a
political slogan -- not a coherent strategy for national defense -- and it
succeeds brillantly
only as politics. For everything else, it is quite illogical."

Where is the famous American skepticism? The loose-jointed ability to
laugh at ourselves in
anxious moments? Can't people see the campy joke in this docudrama called
"Terror in the Sky"?
The joke is on them. I have a suspicion that a lot of Americans actually
enjoy the occasional
fright since they know the alarm bell does actually not toll for them.
It's a good, scary
movie, but it's a slapstick war.

The other day at the airport in Burlington, Vermont, security guards
confiscated liquid
containers from two adolescent sisters returning home from vacation. The
substance was labeled
"Pure Maple Syrup." I am reminded of the Amish pretzel factory that was
put on Pennsylvania's
list of targets. Mothers with babes in arms are now told they must take a
swiq of their baby
formula before they can board the plane. I already feel safer.

The latest plot uncovered by British authorities may be real. Or maybe
not. We do not yet know
enough to be certain. The early reporting does not reassure or settle
anything (though the
Brits do sound more convincing than former Attorney General John Ashcroft,
who gave "terror
alerts" such a bad reputation). Tony Blair is no more trustworthy on these
matters than Bush
and Cheney. British investigators are as anxious as their American
counterparts to prove their
vigilance (and support their leaders). The close collaboration with
Pakistani authorities
doesn't exactly add credibility.

One question to ask is: Why now? The police have had a "mole" inside this
operation since late
2005, but have yet to explain why they felt the need to swoop down and
arest alleged plotters
at this moment (two days after the Connecticut primary produced a triumph
for anti-war politics).

The early claim that a massive takedown of a dozen airliners was set for
August 16 is
"rubbish," according to London authorities. So who decided this case was
ripe for its public
rollout? Blair consulted Cheney: What did they decide? American economist
Jamie Galbraith was
on a ten-hour flight from Manchester, England, to Boston on the day the
story broke, and has
wittily reflected on other weak points in the official story line.

The point is, Americans are not entirely defenseless pawns. They can keep
their wits and
reserve judgment. They can voice loudly the skepticism that Bush and
company have earned by
politicizing of the so-called "war" from the very start. Leading Democrats
are toughening up.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid uses plain English to explain what the
Republicans up to --
using genuine concerns of national security "as a political wedge issue.
It is disgusting, but
not surprising."

Instead of cowering in silence, the opposition party should start
explaining this sick joke.
Political confusion starts with the ill-conceived definition of a "war"
that's best fought by
police work, not heavy brigades on a battlefield. Forget the hype, call
for common sense and
stout hearts.

All we know, for sure, is that Bush and his handlers are not going to back
off the
fear-and-smear strategy until it loses an election for them. Maybe this
will be the year.

William Greider is the author of, most recently, "The Soul of Capitalism"
(Simon & Schuster).

View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/40280/


-------------------------------------------------------------
The idea that there is any sense in which the American public could be
said not
to know what we do is finally not credible. Are we dupes of propaganda?
It's not as
if the network news folks are eager to help us put together a diagnosis of
our
imperial objectives and methods. But the weightier answer is that we
operate under a
New Censorship which functions by making everything known and naked to a
paralyzing
degree. Is there anyone who doesn't understand that the Sudanese
pharmaceutical lab
that Clinton blew up with eighty cruise missiles was producing . . .
pharmaceuticals?
Is there anyone who doesn't understand that this was an act of state
terrorism and a
violation of every principle of international law? . . Clinton emerged
unscathed from
this crime against the people of the Sudan because of a) racism (the
unspoken
assumption being that it's okay to bomb little brown people-it happens so
often they
ought to be use to it by now; it's rather like the weather for them), b)
the
unacknowledged understanding that American military activities really do
support our
privileges stateside, such as those privileges are, and c) the stupefying
effects of
the New Censorship.
The New Censorship does not work by keeping things secret. Are our
leaders liars
and criminals: is the government run by wealthy corporations and political
elites? Are
we all being slowly poisoned? The answer is yes to all of the above, and
there's
hardly a soul on these shores who doesn't know it. The reign of George II
practically
revels in this perverse transparency. Oil policy created in backrooms with
lobbyists
from Enron and Exxon-Mobil. Naked pandering to the electricity industry in
rolling
back clean-air mandates. Accounting firms like Arthur Andersen buying
even "watchdog"
liberal senators such as Christopher Dodd. Elections rigged with brother
Jeb's
connivance in Florida. All of these details are utterly public, reported
in
newspapers, television newscasts, and books, yet it's perfectly safe for
this stuff to
be known. The genius of the New Censorship is that it works through the
obscenity of
absolute openness. Iraq-gate wasn't a secret. The real secret is that it
wasn't a
secret, and certainly wasn't a scandal. It was business as usual. The
betrayal of
public trust is a daily story manipulated by the media within the
narrative confines
of "scandal," when in fact it's all a part of the daily routine and
everyone knows it.
The media makes pornography of the collective guilt of our politicians and
business
leaders. They make a yummy fetish of betrayed trust. We then consume it,
mostly
passively, because it is indistinguishable from our 'entertainment' and
because we
suspect in some dim way that, bad as it surely is, it is working in our
interests in
the long run. What genius to have a system that allows you to behave
badly, be exposed
for it, and then have the sin recouped by the system as sellable
commodity! I mean,
you have to admire the sheer, recuperative balls of it!
~ from "The Middle Mind, Why Americans don't Think for Themselves" by
Curtis White

------------------------------------------------------------
"Fearful people are more dependent, more easily manipulated and
controlled, more
susceptible to deceptively simple, strong, tough measures and hard-line
postures. ...
They may accept and even welcome repression if it promises to relieve
their
insecurities." ~ George Gerbner ~ Annenberg School for Communication
|--------------------------------------|
| ~ Thaddeus Stevens ~ |
|--------------------------------------|
--- In some ways she was far more acute than Winston, and far less
susceptible to
Party propaganda. Once when he happened in some connection to mention the
war against
Eurasia, she startled him by saying casually that in her opinion the war
was not
happening. The rocket bombs which fell daily on London were probably
fired by the
Government of Oceania itself, "Just to keep the People frightened."
-- George Orwell, 1984, 127
----------------------------------------------------------
"Let me give you a word of the philosophy of reform. The whole history of
the progress
of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims,
have been
born of earnest struggle. The conflict has been exciting, agitating,
all-absorbing,
and for the time being, putting all other tumults to silence. It must do
this or it
does nothing. If there is no struggle there is no progress. Those who
profess to favor
freedom and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without
plowing up the
ground, they want rain without thunder and lightening.They want the ocean
without the
awful roar of its many waters."
"This struggle may be a moral one, or it may be a physical one, and it
may be both
moral and physical, but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing
without a
demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what any people will
quietly
submit to and you have found out the exact measure of injustice and wrong
which will
be imposed upon them, and these will continue till they are resisted with
either words
or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the
endurance of those
whom they oppress."
~ Frederick Douglass, 1857
------------------------------------------------------------
A reasonably just and well-ordered democratic society might be possible,
and . . . justice as fairness should have a special place among the
political
conceptions in its political and social world. . . [M]any are prepared to
accept the
conclusion that a just and well-ordered democratic society is not
possible, and even
regard it as obvious. Isn't admitting it part of growing up, part of the
inevitable
loss of innocence? But is this conclusion one we can so easily accept?
The answer we give to the question of whether a just democratic
society is
possible and can be stable for the right reasons affects our background
thoughts and
attitudes about the world as a whole. And it affects these thoughts and
attitudes
before we come to actual politics, and limits or inspires how we take part
in it. . .
If we take for granted as common knowledge that a just and well-ordered
democratic
society is impossible, then the quality and tone of those attitudes will
reflect that
knowledge. A cause of the fall of Weimar's constitutional regime was that
none of the
traditional elites of Germany supported its constitution or were willing
to cooperate
to make it work. They no longer believed a decent liberal parliamentary
regime was
possible. Its time had past.
The regime fell first to a series of authoritarian cabinet governments
from 1930 to
1932. When these were increasingly weakened by their lack of popular
support,
President Hindenburg was finally persuaded to turn to Hitler, who had such
support and
whom conservatives thought they could control.
~ John Rawls "Political Liberalism" pg. lx
----------------------------------------------------------------------
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is
distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest
in receiving the included information for research and educational
purposes. This author has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator
of this article nor is this author endorsed or sponsored by the
originator.)













There are only two kinds of liberals:

Traitors and losers.

Liberal motto: Screw America, we want power.



Liberal stupidity is the 8th wonder of the world.



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