Benedict@Large

"This country is founded on the principles of Christianity, not the principles of Buddhism, not the principles of Judaism...I don't believe the developers of the Constitution would want us to compromise our Christian values....I want to know the applicants' spiritual makeup....It tells me a lot about a person. I think a judge should be God-fearing."

From the Commonweal Institute.

Al-Qaeda has issued a chilling new call to arms to recruits who remain undetected by security agencies. In a terrorist manual published on the internet, Osama bin Laden says: "After Iraq and Afghanistan will come the Crusader invasion of Saudi Arabia. All fighters all over the world must be ready." ...

It is directed at new volunteers who are 'below the radar' of counter-terrorist authorities and who cannot break cover to undergo formal training in terrorist techniques. Like bin Laden, Zawahiri is quoted in the publication, called 'The Base of the Vanguard'. Other writers encourage the use of weapons of mass destruction.

"That's certainly not something Wal-Mart would condone."

We need to get this jerk out of the White House and Ashcroft out of Justice. They simply will not accept responsibility for their inactions.

Max also thinks it is crazy that a few people – maybe even only Paul Wolfowitz – with only a few impoverished thinktanks behind them (AEI, PNAC, the Olin, Bradley and Smith-Richardson Foundations) can create and control American foreign policy. He says neocons have been "relatively influential" only because their arguments are so good, not their connections. That’s probably why Dick Cheney placed so many previously connected thinktank guys in key positions at the Pentagon, within his own office, and in parts of the State Department so as to more easily roll those who weren’t convinced of the wisdom of those good neo-con arguments. ...

Max also denies that neocons are unilateralists, or Manichean simpletons who cherish the idea of noble lies and the stealthy practice of electoral politics by other means. Well, of course they aren’t unilateralist or Manichean–if you are with them, then you are certainly not against them.

"The Plan is for the United States to rule the world. The overt theme is unilateralism, but it is ultimately a story of domination. It calls for the United States to maintain its overwhelming military superiority and prevent new rivals from rising up to challenge it on the world stage. It calls for dominion over friends and enemies alike. It says not that the United States must be more powerful, or most powerful, but that it must be absolutely powerful."

David Armstrong takes a detailed look at the history of this document from its origins in the early 90's through to its current implementation in the form of the pre-emptive Iraq War. In fact, this shouldn't be called the "Bush doctrine" at all. It should be called the "Cheney doctrine" because it was his brainchild and it has never left his side.

Must reading for anyone interested in the Neocon revolution. (In fact, that all of this has long been known makes one wonder what the Paul O'Neill fuss was all about. Of course the administration was discussing this from Day One. O'Neill had actually walked in near the tail end of a ten year private conversation.)

There was good reason why this original document was discredited. Among its most outlandish provisions was a call for the development of "genotype-specific bioweapons", or what I refer to as "genocide in a bottle". Wolfowitz was calling even back then for US development of biological weapons (WMDs) that would produce casualties only within a targeted race. There is no polite way to say this: Wolfowitz was calling for the development of the ultimate weapon of genocide.

I mention this here for a specific reason. It was about 8 months back that I noticed an article in the New York Times saying that the US had funded the development of five additional bioweapons development labs. Naturally, any work done at these new labs will be classified, but we must note that Paul Wolfowitz is once again back at the controls.

It is also perhaps worth noting that I mentioned the New York Times twice above; first as the newspaper that discredited the original document, and second as reporting the funding of new bio-labs. How far they have come in 11 years. Their own reporters can't even look at their own data archives and see this obvious connection.

Article link provided by m prophet at American Samizdat.

Anyways, if you blog and don't have stats, mine are free and you can put them on your blog just by moving through my stats site. Check it out if you are interested.

Welcome the divides that I knew would come. The Bush administration was pasted together from wildly different coalitions. The only question left is whether this coalition will fracture sufficiently before the election. If it does, Bush is gone.

That said, we must remember the "chads" and Florida, 2000. Paper is hardly infallible, and it's fallibility is hardly restricted to hanging chads. I side with those who Lynn has mentioned who want machine produced paper ballots that then become the actual vote itself. This would remove entirely the need for an audit of any voting machines that were actually used by voters. If an error occurred on that paper ballot, it could simply be torn up, and the voter could vote again. If a similar problem occurred on that same voting machine, local offficials would be immediately aware of it, and could simply disable that machine. All of this would be fully observable by poll watches from any party that chose to have one present.

But on to my objections.

Let's start with billionaire George Soros, the Democrats anointed billionaire savior. They should get to know him better. According to voting rights activists, Soros is a proponent of Internet voting, the most insecure voting technology on face of the planet. He's also a disciple for Direct Democracy (i.e., the initiative process). Think about that. For anyone who wants to control a government, the combination of the Internet voting and Direct Democracy is a fascist's dream-team. Through control of vote-counting technology, not only could "someone" pick our legislators, they could also pass their own legislation. They could be a true Wizard of Oz.

In this speech, Soros skewers the Bush administration for its decision to invade Iraq, and indeed, it may be almost solely for this action that he wishes to see Bush defeated in the coming election:

Underlying the Bush doctrine is the belief that international relations are relations of power not law, and that international law merely serves to ratify what the use of power has wrought.

This dogma can be very appealing especially when you are powerful, but it contradicts the values that have made America great. And the rest of the world cannot possibly accept it.

andThe invasion of Iraq was the first practical application of the Bush doctrine and the rest of the world had an allergic reaction to it. Nobody had a good word to say about Saddam Hussein yet the overwhelming majority of the people and governments of the world opposed the invasion because we did it unilaterally, indulging in pre-emptive military action.andIf we reelect Bush in 2004 we endorse the Bush doctrine and we will have to live with the consequences. We shall be regarded with widespread hostility and terrorists will be able to count on many sympathizers around the world. We are liable to be trapped in a vicious circle of violence, ... 2004 is not an ordinary election; it is a referendum on the Bush doctrine. The future of the world hangs in the balance.

Perhaps I am more sensitive to the dangers than most Americans because of my background. I was born in Hungary and I am Jewish. The Nazis occupied Hungary and the Jews were deported. I would have perished if my father had not had the foresight to procure false identities for his family. Then Hungary was occupied by the Soviet Union and my life could have been wasted if I had not emigrated. So I learnt at a very early age how important it is what kind of social system prevails. I chose freedom, first in England and then in America.

As a student I was greatly influenced by Karl Popper, the philosopher. He showed that there was something common to both the Nazis and the Communists. They believed they had the final answers. But the ultimate truth is not within our reach. So the final answers can be imposed only by force or repression. He advocated a different approach: A social system based on the recognition that nobody is in possession of the ultimate truth and might is not necessarily right.

Few outside of those who have studied philosophy have heard of Karl Popper, but that is also true of most philosophers. Great philosophical works are hardly bedtime reading. One must "eat" these works with intensity, much as one approaches a Thanksgiving feast. Popper has written two such works, both direct descendents of Immanuel Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason" (1781), in which Kant demonstrated that for human beings, captive to their own limited senses, absolute knowledge is impossible.

If this was so, thought Popper, what to make of science? Could it be that science does not prove anything, and if this is the case, what good is science? Popper's answer comes in "The Logic of Scientific Discovery" (1935), in which he argued that it is not the role of science to prove anything, but rather to establish theories in such a manner that they can be proven false ("falsifiablity"). When a scientific theory is established in this manner (and all real scientific theories are; "creation science" is a theory, but it is not a scientific theory because it is not stated in a falsifiable manner), they are either proven false or become accepted as "the current state of science". This acceptance is not proof that the theory is correct; merely that no one has yet proven it false. But it remains as "science" until someone can.

In fact, argued Popper, this explains exactly how scientific discoveries gradually replace each other, earlier ones being approximations, and later ones being simply refinements of those approximations. Just as Newtonian physics was "the answer" for hundreds of years until being superceded by the physics of Einstein, so also with all of science. Of course, this was not the work of Popper's to which Soros was referring, but it important to understand, as it is at the core of what becomes Popper's later masterpiece (and the one to which Soros referred), "The Open Society and Its Enemies" (1945).

At the time "The Open Society" was written, many were arguing that democracy was "inefficient"; that the overhead of educating voters created a drag on changes to government (i.e., law) that might be necessary. The American system was successful merely because of the great natural resources they possessed, but, all other things being equal, an aristocratic form of government could certainly implement needed reforms far more quickly and therefore more efficiently. (This coincides with the Platonic philosphy (embraced by Strauss and his heirs, the Neocons) that a "gifted elite" was the best form of government.)

No, argued Popper, in perhaps the most brilliant re-write of a philosophical work ever. Whatever the current form of government, that is merely today's approximation of the best government. But since human beings can never have absolute knowledge of anything, that government must also be falsifiable. It must be open to examination to anyone who can prove it to be "wrong". And the only system of governing that Popper saw that allowed for this is democracy. Popper had simply looked at the "efficiency" of "scientific discovery", and he applied it to governments. The "open society" of science, in which anyone can prove a theory to be wrong, was identical to governments. They are merely a "best approximation" of what a government should be, and only democracy allowed for the successive refinements needed to advance it in the exact same manner in which scientific discovery advances.

And this is what George Soros believes. It is also why Lynn Landes is way of base in this criticism. One cannot be merely "influenced" by Popper. One either "gets it", or one does not. George Soros gets it.

The plan was simple. Rather than spend money on a Madison Ave ad campaign, MoveOn would simply appeal to their many members. Certainly there were a few that would be able to come up with quality 30 second issue ads for them to air. And indeed there were. Quite a few, in fact. The winning ad was "Child's Pay" [about 4Megs, and you need QuickTime], and the plan was to run it during the Super Bowl. Oops!

It seems that CBS, owned by media giant Viacom and the network airing the Super Bowl, has declined MoveOn's request to air that ad during the Super Bowl. A single 30-second ad on the Super Bowl costs a record $2.25 million, but CBS doesn't want it? [Advertisers already signed up include Procter & Gamble, PepsiCo and Philip Morris, the tobacco giant. Several Hollywood studios have also pre-booked slots to promote forthcoming movies. The British drug giant GlaxoSmithKline is using the event to launch Levitra, a rival to anti-impotence drug Viagra. Sex is OK for the Super Bowl, but issues are not.]

In announcing their decision however, CBS went much further; they will never air any MoveOn ad due to their "longstanding policy of not airing issue ads". Oh, really? The anti-national healthcare "issue ads" you ran back in 1993? Come on, CBS. Get real. You are bowing down before the threat of Karl Rove's punishment. After all, you are the network that caved about playing the Reagan docu-drama, aren't you?

Of course, this is just the beginning. Watch for NBC (owned by GE), ABC (owned by Disney), and naturally (the Rupert Murdoch-owned) FOX to quickly fall in line. In other words, MoveOn has $7.5 million to spend on ads, and none of the networks want it. Suddenly, all of these networks have found some "higher morality" as they devote their coverage to helicopters following Michael Jackson's limosine.

Cheney devoted the (Los Angeles World Affairs Council) speech to a frightening characterization of the war on terrorism and the new kind of mobilization he said it demanded. He sounded the alarm about the increasing prospects of a major new terrorist attack and the extraordinary responses that are required. While many of his remarks echoed past comments by the president and senior officials, Cheney struck a surprisingly dour note and suggested only an administration of proven ability could manage the dramatic overhaul necessary for the nation's security apparatus. ...

He also said the administration was planning to expand the military into even more overseas bases so the United States could wage war quickly around the globe.

Strong growth has also begun to bring down the unemployment rate -- and that is a critical objective ...

Our administration and Congress have also addressed other urgent needs in domestic policy -- among them ... reforms in the forest management to help prevent the kind of catastrophic wildfires you have seen here in Southern California this past year.

Starting in on foreign policy:

Then ... came the announcement by Libya's Colonel Muammar Ghadafi that his regime would voluntarily reveal and dismantle its nuclear and chemical weapons programs, as well as its longer range missiles and biological weapons-related efforts ... the welcome commitments from Colonel Ghadafi, will bring greater security to the American people, and to our friends and allies.

But then he really starts to kick it:

Yet especially in moments of success, we need to remember the long-term nature of the struggle we are in, and the serious dangers that still exist.

On the very night this nation was attacked, President Bush declared that the United States would make no distinction between terrorists and those who support them. This principle, it's come to be known as the Bush doctrine ...

Saddam Hussein had a lengthy history of reckless and sudden aggression. His regime cultivated ties to terror, including the al Qaeda network, ... Year after year, the U.N. Security Council demanded that he account for those weapons and that he comply with all the terms of the 1991 Gulf War cease-fire. Year after year, he refused.

We have, today, more than 125,000 Americans serving in Iraq. They are confronting terrorists every day in that country, so that we do not one day meet the same enemies on the streets of our own cities. At the same time, American and coalition forces are treating Iraqi citizens with compassion, ...

The use of military force is, for the United States, always the last option in defending ourselves and our interests. But sometimes the last resort must be taken.

As President Bush has said, America seeks the "global expansion of democracy, and the hope and progress it brings, ..."

And as the world has witnessed in ... Afghanistan, people liberated from dictatorship welcome the arrival of freedom, welcome the chance for a better life, welcome the responsibilities of governing their own country.

But now we're on to the Q&A:

Illegal immigration: There's no question it's a serious problem. The President last week announced a new initiative ... where they, in effect, come in when they know there is a job there, a job that an American will not fill, to regularize that flow. ... It's also a humane measure, as well, at the same time.

Israel/Palestine: The difficulty we have -- and it is a continuing problem -- is that after years of effort, it's become clear that as long as Yasser Arafat is the interlocutor on behalf of the Palestinians, as long as he is in control, we think any serious progress is virtually impossible.

Department of Defense: I think if I had to speculate that we'll see -- one of the legacies of this administration will be some of the most sweeping changes in our military, and our national security strategy as it relates to the military, and force structure, and how we're based, and how we used it in the last 50 or 60 years, probably since World War II. I think the changes are that dramatic.

But remember, these are just small snippets from a 30 minute appearance during which Cheney spent the majority of his time telling us that we would be at war for generations. You could carve out your own set of quotes from this and trash this idiot savant even more.

But the point is: Is this guy serious? If he is, then he is a very sick man, ... and we ain't talkin' pacemakers here.

And the right-wing's imperial Presidency fantasy is once again alive and kicking:

Not inaccurately, the Bush presidency has been called imperial ... The evidence? Its "preemptive" and "preventive" military policy, its contentions that it can go to war regardless of whether Congress approves, its policies calling for American world domination, and its unprecedented blending of national security policy and domestic law enforcement. In my view, these policies and positions not only easily establish the Bush presidency as imperial, they also rank it beyond anything in the annals of the modern American presidency. This may be the most imperial Presidency our history has yet seen. ...

The fact that five cases currently before the Supreme Court address the question of presidential powers -- and whether or not the Bush presidency has exceeded them -- speaks for itself. Bush has had almost twice as many such cases before the Court as Nixon had, in half the time.

Dean himself offers no analyses on these cases, but clearly, the Cheney case could prove to be the most threatening to the administration itself. The detainee cases, if lost by the administration, would simply invovle the implementation of procedural changes regarding its detention policies. The Cheney case however is more similar to the Watergate tapes case in that if lost it would provide an open window into the secret workings of the administration. The damage of course would then depend on what was then viewed through that window, and this could be disasterous. We would almost certainly see that the vice president was dividing up the spoils of an Iraq war a full six months before 9/11. Worse still, we might see that Cheney was also doing this for Afghanistan, something my research shows to be a high probability. If this were to prove to be the case, the only question left then would be whom to impeach.

President Bush said it all when a television reporter asked him whether Saddam actually had weapons of mass destruction, or whether there was only the possibility that he might acquire them. President Bush answered, "So what's the difference?" The difference, Mr. President, is whether you go to war or not.

No President of the United States should employ misguided ideology and distortion of the truth to take the nation to war. In doing so, the President broke the basic bond of trust between government and the people. If Congress and the American people knew the whole truth, America would never have gone to war.

To remain silent when we feel so strongly would be irresponsible. It would betray the fundamental ideals for which our troops are sacrificing their lives on battlefields half a world away. No President who does that to this land we love deserves to be re-elected.

The quiz goes like this: 20 questions, each with 4 quotations as answers. The challenge is to pick the one quote from each question that George did not say during the past year. Forget how many you get right. If you can even read all of these quotes without have your brain turn into bubble gum, you deserve an award.

Most political reporting on the Democratic race, it seems to me, has gotten it wrong. Some journalists do, of course, insist on trivializing the whole thing: what I dread most, in the event of an upset in Iowa, is the return of reporting about the political significance of John Kerry's hair.

But even those who refrain from turning political reporting into gossip have used the wrong categories. Again and again, one reads that it's about the left wing of the Democratic party versus the centrists; but Mr. Dean was a very centrist governor, and his policy proposals are not obviously more liberal than those of his rivals.

The real division in the race for the Democratic nomination is between those who are willing to question not just the policies but also the honesty and the motives of the people running our country, and those who aren't.

It's all out in the open now. The fact that the president of the United States and his top advisers deliberately concocted a false case for an illegal and unnecessary war -- in plain terms, that they committed cold-blooded, premeditated mass murder -- was confirmed last week by the most impeccable mainstream sources: George W. Bush's own Cabinet officials, speaking for the record in America's major media.

Remarkably, the "extremist views" and "paranoia" of the "lunatic fringe" -- those "Bush-bashers" who for months proclaimed that the Regime's lust to conquer Iraq was part of a long-planned scheme of looting and dominance that had nothing to do with September 11, 2001 or defending America from terror -- are now issuing from the mouths of the Regime's inner circle.

In this, his newest article, he suggests that we got Bush II because we failed to fully prosecute all the crimes of Republican operatives from Nixon on forward. I'm not sure if Jim is right, but he is in at least one sense: we didn't prosecute these bastards when we had them nailed. And look at the crimes they are commiting now, feeling quite sure that they can now do so with impunity.

Clinton's idea was quite simple. If we could gradually pay down our debt, then when the baby-boomers retired, we could gradually run it up again to pay for our obligations to them without a fuss. No severe problem; just a cycle of using debt when needed and obliged, and paying that debt down as we did not need it. I guess one has to be a Rhodes Schollar to figure that out.

The problem is that we are once again in deficits, and this "meme" whereby the press reported the real deficit before the excess funds fron Social Security made it look like less is no longer reported.

Slate exposes what our real debt is before he administrtion subtracts our stolen retirement contributions from it. And it's a lot more than the media is reporting.

And Slate doesn't even tie in Iraq. That entire war is off-budget; it's not even recorded as a part of our deficit. That last $87 billion? It's not included. The entire $200 billion? That's not included either.

The Constitution of the United States, for instance, is a marvelous document for self-government by the Christian people. But the minute you turn the document into the hands of non-Christian people and atheistic people, they can use it to destroy the very foundation of our society. And that's what's been happening.