The Demonization of the Opposition

POSTED BY: SoupCatcher
UPDATED: Sunday, August 1, 2004 20:50
VIEWED: 35830
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SIGNYM

Saturday, July 17, 2004 1:10 AM

Hey "I just call them as I see them".

Sound familiar?

You've accused me of whining, snideness, word games, indecision, psuedo-intellectualism, calling YOU paranoid, and a bunch of other things so I figured- why not use your tactics? Since you seem to knock people upside the head with a 2X4, I thought maybe you'd understand your own style better! Did it work?

You haven't answered my questions. Nowhere have you unearthed a post where I called your concerns paranoid. You have not shown how Cheney, Rumsfeld or anyone else has made us measureably more secure by their actions. I could point out the errors in your previous post (the total amount of electricity being produced in Iraq is slightly LESS than under Saddam, the amount going to Bagdhad is much less- these are CPA and contractor figures not mine) and you know what you'd do?

You'd shift the argument, just like you're trying to do now. You'd accuse me of something-or-other, like you just did, and come up with untrue information- like you just did. You'd refuse to respond DIRECTLY to anything I posted (in your up/down world, the one thing you can't seem to do is come up with a straight answer) and then re-post the same opinions that we heard in the previous couple of dozen posts.

Drakon, redeem yourself. Did I, or did I not, call your concerns "paranoid"? If you can't answer that simple question with either a yes or a no and provide evidence if the answer is "yes", then what in god's name is happening inside your head?

DRAKON

Saturday, July 17, 2004 1:23 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Proportional is a valid concept in 'the real world'.

True enough. Some things are more important than others. Some things, not so much. I think you are confusing the process with the end product here, Which is probably a valid point.

But again, I don't see the utility of your "shades of grey approach. Did I miss that rebuttal, or was all this talk of potentometers it?

Quote:
(When DOES a human individual come into existance, Drakon?)

You put me in a bit of a bind here, since you already chastised me for repeating myself. As I have stated before, in this very thread, from Wednesday, July 07, 2004 - 02:30

Quote:
The purpose of a law against murder is that serves as a means of protecting folks against murder. We have exceptions, such as self defense. And we also recognize legally death as a result of unintended consequences, and call that "Manslaughter". But to the victim, it does not matter. They are still dead.

I don't know when life begins. You are killing something. It does not have the characteristics of a tumor, a frog, or any other living entity. It will someday, if everything goes normally become a infant human. When is that magic dividing line between life and not life, between human and not human, I don't really know.

One side says at conception, the other says at birth. If the latter is wrong, then abortion is murder. If the former is wrong, then it still becomes a baby, a human, later in life. So again, to err on the side of caution seems prudent.

Quote:
So I'm back to my original assessment of you. This is not an 'oops' kind of thing, you deliberately disable honest discussion.

Let me see if I get this right. Because I do not respond to each and every point in a timely fashion, as you desire, you judge me dishonest. You see that as the only possible conclusion. You chastise me for repeating myself and then demand an answer to a question that I have already answered. While it is apparent that you missed that answer, I am going to refuse to return the favor and mirror your judgement.

Now, lets talk about purpose. You see, you have to ask yourself what are you trying to do here. Is it to convince me of the correctness of your views? To play to the audience? In either case, I think you will find calling your opponent dishonest, in the manner you have chosen is not going to work.

Quote:
As far as I'm concerned, you and I have nothing to discuss.

Then why bother?

"Wash, where is my damn spaceship?"

RUE

Saturday, July 17, 2004 2:04 AM

edited b/c computer glitch

DRAKON

Saturday, July 17, 2004 8:36 AM

Yeah sorry about that. Fixed now.

"Wash, where is my damn spaceship?"

RUE

Sunday, July 18, 2004 12:07 AM

bump

SOUPCATCHER

Sunday, July 18, 2004 1:07 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier
What came to mind were hate and naivete. The lefties are nothing if not kind and gentle and compassionate, aren't they? And if you call a conservative naive, he'll just laugh and blow smoke in your face, right?

After 9/11 the left really pushed their own agressive rage way way down, and projected it on the right. I think that fueled a lot of the whole, "We deserved it" rhetoric that was flying around before a lot of the families in New York even knew if their loved ones were still alive. It was spooky. So I think a lot of formerly left leaning folk out there kinda moved away from the left. They felt their rage and owned it instead of burrying it and a lot of them supported the "War on Terror" because it spoke to them.

What I keep hearing very loudly and often from the right is that liberals "LIVE IN A FANTASY WORLD!!!" But at the same time, and to a larger and larger degree it seems, the right live in the imagination of their President. If Bush says it, it must be true. Period. I don't hear a lot of rightwing skepticism about the right. Even Denise Miller, snarkiest man on Planet Earth, doesn't have a mean thing to say about George! But without skepticism we lose our ability to discern truth from illusion and are likely to swallow anything our trusted source hands us.

So we get liberals who are full of rage and painfully naive conservatives. Hijinks ensue...

I read your post, HK, and got really excited because you introduced a new element into the discussion of demonization: projection. Then the dualism debate was quickly brought back online and there hasn't seemed to be a response. You raise a valid point: that we tend to hate in others what is part of our own personality but that we don't want to acknowledge. And this is probably a component reason for the increase in demonization. But I'm not convinced that this is the predominant reason. (Of course, I'm not convinced that there is a dominant reason. I lean more towards the explanation that there are a variety of reasons with varying levels of importance - just like most real world problems - which is why I was hoping for a large number of possible explanations rather than the three we have come up with).

I shaved off my beard for you, devil woman!

RUE

Sunday, July 18, 2004 2:19 AM

I used to have an intimate knowledge of Canadian politics. I don't know how things are today. Back then it was civil and respectful, even when hotly contested. One example is during Canada's annual conventions to "bring the Constitution home". Up until 1982 Canada's Constitution was the British North America Act which had been passed by the British Parliament (in 1867?). Anyway, for Canada to have its own home-grown constitution, they needed to ammend, vote on, and pass it. Which they tried to do every year for I don't know how long. In 1982 Alberta (tar sands, oil) wanted ammendments about provincial control of resources. And Quebec wanted to separate from Canada (still does I think). There were some other provincial disputes which I don't recall. No unanimous agreement could be reached. I still remember hearing Trudeau's 'deep divisions' speech at the end of the convention. But he wanted to leave a political legacy, and rather than sign the bill on a unanimous vote (as was thought should be done), he signed it on a majority vote. It stunned the hell out of everyone. But it got the Constitution home.

Something like that would rip the US apart.

In Britain, they might still even use the phrase 'loyal opposition' to describe the party(ies) not currently in power.

I do seriously think the US has a system which leads to two (and only two) major parties, and feedback that's so delayed it doesn't count. And that, I still think, leads to a level of struggle not seen in other places, and therefore demonization. IMHO.

Or, maybe it's just a US cultural quirk.

SIGNYM

Sunday, July 18, 2004 1:23 PM

"Demonization" occurs pretty frequently in politics- unfortunately often as a prelude to war or coup. Hutus demonized the Tutsis, Nazis demonized the Jews, and USA demonized the Germans in WWI ("Huns", barbarians, "Fritz") and Bismarck deomonized the French, Italians, and Austrians.

What I observe is that demonization is not usually a spontaneous occurence but is driven by the ruling elite to further their agenda. The demonization is picked up and magnified by a fearful population. (Gulf of Tonkin attack, Iraq WMD, "drug running" in Panama)

Unfortunately demonization WORKS. It's an effective tool in a population that is panicked and economically unsettled and poorly educated about the world and its own elite. Nothing causes a band of baboons to clump together faster than tha call of "leopard!"

I find that the right-wing is doing most of the demonizing and that the left-wing has been very slow to respond. "The Federalist" and Max Boot and other right-wing publications are replete with rhetorical tricks- I could fill page after page of examples that should turn everyone's stomach on sheer sleaze. If you really want to see some typical examples I'll post them a bit later. The left wing, and the ex-generals, ex-Cabinet members, ex-ambassadors, ex-intelligence agents who criticize the Bush admin feel they have to prove their contentions, so they bring 19,000 pages of documents leaked secret memos and direct observation and videotapes and pictures and just get blown off. (See, that's not enough proof.)

SIGNYM

Sunday, July 18, 2004 1:45 PM

Drakon, I see that your post isn't here. I'm going to assume that your rhetoric is driven by honest panic and not cold-blooded manipulation. Take a deep breath, come back and let's talk.

HKCAVALIER

Sunday, July 18, 2004 6:00 PM

Thank you Signy for making the connection between demonization and wartime pathology. War is of course the ultimate expression of political demonization: the enemy deserves death. The enemy has "abdicated its humanity."

Demonization is central to the training of any army. The soldier mustn't see her enemy as human, she mustn't identify with their suffering. That's why Michael Moore showing children flying kites in Baghdad is considered propaganda by the Bushites. It undermines the demonization necessary for us to tolerate a war. Same with the demonized prisoners at Abu Ghraib. They were all terrorists deserving of the worst, right? Well, no, many were simply taken off the street "more or less at random." Whenever this discrepancy is brought to the attention of the Bushites, they fall silent.

The secret evil in teaching our troops and our civilians to demonize the enemy is that it works both ways: not only does it help us to tolerate the destruction of the enemy, but it helps us to tolerate the destruction of our own troops. Convince us that the enemy is evil and dangerous enough and we will dutifully offer up our sons and daughters for years at a time. I think it was Orwell who said that war is perpetrated by the governing elite upon its own people.

Demonization also insures that abuses like the rapes and murders that we are hearing about at Abu Ghraib will happen. It is a natural, almost mechanical consequence of denial and projection: you will become what you hate.

There is a saying in therapeutic circles: what we don't forgive, we will repeat. If my father was abusive to me and I grow up hating him for it, then when I become a father I will find myself with the same unexamined fury and desperation as he; to my certain horror, I will have no tools to keep me from repeating my father's violence upon my own children. But if I do the work of grieving the pain and loss of my own childhood and grow to understand the doubtless painful and ungrieved circumstances of my father's upbringing, I can come to genuinely forgive him and actually learn from his mistakes and end the cycle of violence.

Forgiveness cannot happen over night, or by a simple act of will. We must go through the pain and chaos of grief first. It was perhaps innevitable that we would go to war immediately after 9/11, as a race, we're still pretty unconscious and full of denial, but the desire for vengence fades. We are beginning, I think, to awaken to our own loss of life and humanity over there and we, as a people, want out.

The best definition of evil that I've been able to come up with is simply this: the denial of one's own rage and hate. The same work is done when we ascribe our hatred to God. Saying it is Gods will that we slaughter the enemy is another form of denial. To the degree that we deny our personal darkness, even our capability to commit evil, we are able to perpetrate the most horrendous crimes, because we keep their criminality secret even from ourselves.

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

RUE

Sunday, July 18, 2004 9:29 PM

BOING !!!!

Light bulb goes on.

THANKS !!! SignyM

Maybe two subtly different ideas were confounded here: demonization and personalization. Many people think Bush and cohorts are pure evil, but that is personalization. What distinguishes personalization from demonization is personalization is, well, personal, and based on experience with the individual. A person does certain negative things over and over, and so one makes negative character assumptions about the person. Demonization is the opposite, in the sense that it seeks, in contradiction-to - or in the absence of - experience, to strip individuality as well as humanity from its target(s). It creates faceless groups of non-humans. (Serbs and other groups lived side by side in the same villages for at least a century. In the run-up to war, there was generalized demonization of the non-Serbs. I think I remember reading an article about that in Newsweek, of all places. In fact, the author said that war was GOING to occur, as evidenced by the propaganda. And they provided some telling interviews of non-Serbs, who were saying - we've always lived side by side and never had a problem, but now with all this going on, we don't feel safe. And so a cycle of hatred and fear was created. In fact, the author was prescient by about 8 months.)

And of course demonization is propaganda. And propaganda is of necessity a tool of the controllers.

I too noticed that Drakon hasn't responded. Good luck to you both.

RUE

Sunday, July 18, 2004 9:36 PM

HKCavalier,

I read somewhere that 9 out of 10 children will repeat an abusive pattern, but 1 out of 10 will decide early on to do better, because of the negative example. The 'Horse Whisperer' (the real person) was a '1 out of 10'. I don't know quite how this fits in with acknowledgement vs denial, so if you can put your thinking cap on and help me out, I'd be TRULY much obliged.

RUE

Sunday, July 18, 2004 10:04 PM

I love to learn, and I've already learned a lot from people on this board. So thank you SignyM, HKCavalier, and others.

SIGNYM

Sunday, July 18, 2004 10:26 PM

HK Cavalier- beautifully said. I believe that the opposite of denial would be called consciousness or awareness. It's a life-long work to become aware not only of your most basic assumptions (which are the hardest to see) but also of your physical state and your ugliest motivations- as well as your best.

If anyone can tell me how to get there from here, be my guest!

Rue- Demonization. The scary thing is how frightfully EASY it is to do- a few months of newspaper and TV bias can undo a lifetime of direct experience. I don't know how it is that a German who had known penniless Mrs Goldstein for years can suddenly turn around a believe in the Jewish banking conspiracy.

RUE

Sunday, July 18, 2004 10:57 PM

Sorry, no help available from me on the consciousness (awareness) thing. I have yet to even find a single personal basic assumption, let alone get past one.

It's a work in progress, I guess.

Out of curiosity, have you found a basic assumption of your own? If yes, how did you do that?

PS I read in a science fiction story about a traveller who'd gone a few days without food. At the end of the trip, he was eating in a cafeteria, sitting next a stranger who was carping about something or other. The story went that the traveller was listening to the whining, but the 'hind part' of his brain was saying 'Food now. Food good.' and so just blew it off. In another book, I read "I was young, and fed, and was allowed to sleep, and so I had hope." I think the authors had some insight into the effect of physical state on thought (a biophysical rendition of Maslow's (?) hierarchy).

It's knowledge about the world AND insights like that, about basic assumptions, effect of physical state etc, that come from others, that I appreciate.

So thanks again to the many who've enriched my life.

SOUPCATCHER

Sunday, July 18, 2004 11:05 PM

There's multiple types of demonization that serve different purposes. There's wartime demonization of the citizens of countries who we are fighting, such as what Signym talks about, the purpose of which is to help us get behind the destruction of our enemy. But there's also demonization of people who are within our own borders, the purpose of which is to marginalize. Something they both share is to turn people from individuals into faceless groups and to change opponents into enemies so that any means used against those groups become acceptable. Sometimes demonization spills over across these categories. [warning: painting with the broad brush].

In California, we have a history of demonization. During the gold rush there was an influx of people from around the world. Too many people competing for the same resources led to groups demonizing each other. One of the results being legislation to give groups an edge: foreign miner taxes and anti-Chinese-immigration being two examples. The unfortunate result of this was that people who were basically murderers and bandits were elevated to heroic status by those being demonized (the legend of Murieta and the factual Vasquez). There were parallels to this in the border states after the Civil War with groups such as the Jesse James gang (who my relatives from Missouri still insist did more good than harm much in the same way that my relatives from Arkansas talk about the good things the Klan did). Another example from the depression would be more in line with the demonization that Drakon talks about: poor farmers demonizing the banks and bankers who foreclosed on them rallying behind bank robbers like Pretty Boy Floyd in Oklahoma and Bonnie and Clyde in Texas.

The migrants from the Dust Bowl who showed up in California were routinely lumped together and the epithet of "Okie" still had power for my parents generation ("Well you know she married an Okie," said in such a tone that you expected a spit in the dirt to follow. Or, "Bakersfield is the armpit of California, that's where all the Okies ended up."). The "boat people" who followed in the seventies for different reasons fell into the same category. As did the Latin American illegal immigrants who started coming in greater numbers in the eighties but were still being mis-labeled as Mexican, who had been illegally immigrating all along.

The sub-humanizing of the Japanese during WWII spilled over to Americans of Japanese ancestry and led to the forceable incarceration of tens of thousands. In a classic move of pitting two marginalized communities against each other, property confiscated from Japanese-Americans was often given to Mexican-Americans.

There is also demonization against homosexuals. Just listening to some of our elected representatives will show that to you.

So I'm not sure where I'm going with this. I kind of just ran out of steam after talking off the top of my head for a while .

I shaved off my beard for you, devil woman!

RUE

Sunday, July 18, 2004 11:17 PM

Talk away!

RUE

Sunday, July 18, 2004 11:40 PM

There've been some interesting recent studies on whom do people recognize as 'human.' Since I think they were done on Westerners, this might qualify the results.

Generally, one recognizes as 'human' and has empathy for, a person who resembles those you grew up with. So middle class white kids growing up in a middle class white family in a middle class white neighborhood will include someone from that category as as 'like them' - human. That may make it possible for middle class white people to pass-by the homeless, the demented, the poor, the darker-skinned, etc and not flinch at the pain.

The photographer who took the picture of the man in the suit going down headfirst out of a Twin Tower said - people cringed because they thought 'it could be me'. (And in fact the photographer compared that reaction to the lookey-loo reaction to other death photos, like those of John Kennendy, Robert Kennedy etc. They weren't 'like us'; they were rich and famous; and so people didn't flinch.)

On the other hand, I have a strong belief that people in a society become what society tells them 'people' are. (Otherwise how could you have gotten the Aztecs to sacrifice tens of thousands of their neighbors to ensure the return of the sun?) In the US people are competitors. There isn't a strong ethic of thinking of others as brethren.

As to how this fits into the process of 'demonization', I'm not sure.

RAZZA

Monday, July 19, 2004 1:43 AM

Wow! What an intersting thread between some obviously smart folks. A person could spend hours going through all the information here. I must say for the record that I lean toward Drakon's point of view in this discussion, but have to say those of you on the other side of the issue are giving him a run for his money. It amazes me how civil things on this board remain even in such heated debates. While that has been some squabbling and name calling, both sides have shown remarkable restraint, something you don't see a lot of in other discussion boards. I thought I would chime in to the discussion with a response to CAPNHARBATKIN's challenge to Drakon about the prison scandals:

Drakon's Assertion:
"Second, again we are talking about bad guys, folks who have gassed Kurds, killed both civilian Iraqis and US troops, terrorists and thugs. "

My offered evidence that this is not true:

" Many of the prisoners abused at the Abu Ghraib prison were innocent Iraqis picked up at random by US troops, and incarcerated by under-qualified intelligence officers, a former US interrogator from the notorious jail told the Guardian."
( http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1211374,00.html)

"Military officials said 70% to 90% of the Iraqis swept up for interrogation were arrested by mistake, the International Committee of the Red Cross reported."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2004-06-09-our-view_x.
htm

I have to say it is very difficult to defend this assertion, but I will take a stab at it. Firstly, you quote the Manchester Guardian, not exactly an unbiased source, having said that, Torin Nelson mentioned in the piece sounds like a credible witness and doesn't appear to particularly bias, but even he states in the article "...So, in theory it is in fact very possible that purely innocent Iraqis could be placed in an environment where they could be brutalised, abused, "softened up" or even killed." Notice that he did not state categorically that he had any knowledge of innocent people being submitted to the problems at Abu Ghraib, only that in theory it is a possiblilty. I would say that in theory it is possible that no innocents were abused as well.

Drakon's Assertion:
"...this was all being handled by the military courts long before we ever heard about it, or saw one picture"

My offered evidence that this is not true:

"Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, also shares in the shame. Myers asked “60 Minutes II” to hold off reporting news of the scandal because it could put U.S. troops at risk. But when the report was aired, a week later, Myers still hadn’t read Taguba’s report, which had been completed in March. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld also failed to read the report until after the scandal broke in the media"

http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-2903288.php

(BTW: Gotta love that as a source!)

"Secretary Rumsfeld has clung so blindly to his own vision that even after the media began to publicize the atrocities at Abu Ghraib, he said last week that he had not yet read an official Army report on the Abu Ghraib abuses --- a report that had been completed in March."
http://www.rochester-citynews.com/gbase/Gyrosite/Content?oid=oid%3A260
5

Here Drakon's position is easier to defend. You yourself say that a the army's report (also called the Taguba Report, see it here - http://www.agonist.org/annex/taguba.htm) was completed in March. Since 60 minutes aired the stories in early May Drakon's assertion that the military was already investigating and pursuing the matter through proper channels before any pictures were seen seems obvious. I like your comment about the Army Times source btw. I also find it ironic that an OpEd piece from on of the military's own newspapers would tend to refute the position of many on this thread that our civil liberties are being eroded on a daily basis. Open criticism of the top military brass in a military paper, hardly an indication of a country on the rapid track to a police state.

SOUPCATCHER

Monday, July 19, 2004 7:54 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Razza
Wow! What an intersting thread between some obviously smart folks. A person could spend hours going through all the information here. I must say for the record that I lean toward Drakon's point of view in this discussion, but have to say those of you on the other side of the issue are giving him a run for his money. It amazes me how civil things on this board remain even in such heated debates. While that has been some squabbling and name calling, both sides have shown remarkable restraint, something you don't see a lot of in other discussion boards. I thought I would chime in to the discussion with a response to CAPNHARBATKIN's challenge to Drakon about the prison scandals:

Hi Razza. I haven't been following the prison scandals in enough detail to feel informed enough to comment on the particular details you bring up but I wanted to welcome you to the discussion. I, too, have been heartened by the overall tone of this conversation and those of others on this particular board. It only took me a few minutes reading the yahoo message boards to realize how civil things are here. It might be because we all, no matter what our political beliefs, are fans of firefly and so there is at least some commonality. At least I'd like to think so.

Quote:
Originally posted by Razza
The subject of this discussion thread is a very pertinent one to our current political climate. I find it very unsettling that forces on both sides find it necessary to denigrate their colleagues in the opposition. It is not necessary to view your political opponent as a cursed enemy, and for the most part I do not believe most politicians hold this view. Election years have a way of bringing out the worst in everyone in our very american desire to win, unfortunately. Hopefully the vitriol will not be so great that we fall in to the trap of destroying ourselves as Lincoln predicted:

Yeah. I'm worried about the next few months. In the past I have operated under the assumption that no matter how my views differ from others politically we all still want what is best for the country, we just have different ways of going about it. The strategy is similar if the tactics are different. But the demonization appears to be growing and I sincerely hope wounds are not opened that can't be healed, no matter what the November outcome.

I shaved off my beard for you, devil woman!

SIGNYM

Monday, July 19, 2004 12:20 PM

YOu can find an editorial by Max Boot, a noted right-wing editorialist here: / www.cfr.org/pub6857/max_boot/the_fringe_fires_at_bush_on_iraq.php

The topic is Lt Colonel Karen Kwaitkowski's statements that the Bush administration set up the Office of Special Plans (OSP) to funnel specious pro-war information, mostly from Chalabi, around the CIA and other intelligence organizations directly to the Office of the VP. (The CIA had already dtermined that Chalabi was unreliable.)

Lt. Colonel Kwaitkowski was assigned to the OSP but was troubled by its mission. What she said was:

Quote:
It wasn't intelligence -- it was propaganda ... they'd take a little bit of intelligence, cherry-pick it, make it sound much more exciting, usually by taking it out of context, usually by juxtaposition of two pieces of information that don't belong together.

Read this editorial carefully. I challenge you to find a substantive discussion whether her statements are true or false.

The entire editorial consists of name-calling and personal attacks, not only on Lt. Colonel Kwaitkowski but also on Joseph Wilson and retired CIA officers. Nowhere does Max address their statements- that the war was based on a lie, that intelligence was deliberately subverted, and that the neocons had taken over foreign policy. Their "crimes" are that they publish their views in non-mainstream outlets- you know, like FF fans. Here are a few tidbits:

Quote:
Since her retirement in March 2003, she has become a prolific contributor to isolationist publications like the American Conservative, Pat Buchanan's magazine, and lewrockwell.com, an ultra-libertarian website. Pretty much all her work is devoted to uncovering "neoconservative warmongers" who have supposedly taken over U.S. foreign policy.

No discussion about whether the neoconservatives HAVE taken over policy... personally, I think they're the ones who got us into this mess. BTW, you Libertarins can tell me if the site he points to really is ultra-libertarian or if he's mischaracterized it.

Quote:
The best-known example is Joseph C. Wilson IV, the former ambassador who has accused the administration of spreading misinformation about Iraqi attempts to acquire uranium and of deliberately outing his wife, Valerie Plame, as an undercover CIA operative.

All of this is true, so he avoids the topic strenuously and settles for name-calling....

Quote:
Wilson is ...a world-class publicity hound who makes Paris Hilton look meek by comparison...
Wilson is motivated by more than a desire for fame and fortune. He's also an ideologue. (And Max isn't?)

Quote:
Equally biased are the former CIA officers who call themselves Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity ...have many decades of intelligence experience among them... What is seldom mentioned is where the VIPS-ters publish most of their anti-Bush screeds: on Counterpunch.org, a conspiracy-mongering website run by Nation columnist Alexander Cockburn.

This is just one example of hundreds. Now, how does one heal the rift after this kind of demonization? I'm not sure that it's possible or even desireable. What Republicans voters might want to consider is that some people within the administration don't represent the majority Republican view.

BTW, there is a SERIOUS internal power struggle going on withing the ranks. I've mentioned this before, I'll mention it again: career diplomats, military officers, and intelligence agents are livid with the Bush administration. They think that Cheney, Rumsfeld, Perle and Feith got us into a mess against both State Department and CIA recommendations, chose the wrong political startegy (de-Baathification) and hung the troops out to dry with insufficient forces and supplies- and no exit strategy.

SIGNYM

Monday, July 19, 2004 2:23 PM

I know the previous post may have seemed off-topic. The point is that I find this kind of dirty politics to be sourced mainly in the right wing of the Republican Party who, when challenged with a dissenting view, shift the topic, accuse the dissenters of being "publicity hounds", "unpatriotic", "extreme", and bring up "information" that is patently false.

That isn't indicative of wanting an honest discussion. The Administration has to be especially careful if it truly wants an exchange of views because they have the military, police force and intelligence agencies behind them... and now they have the legal right to "dispapear" citizens, at least for awhile. It doesn't matter whether the Administration is Republican or Democrat- during the Vietnam War we had the National Guard kill demonstrators and satellites tracking Jane Fonda.

When an Administration only intends to shut down the opposition, you're not in a mode of "politics as usual" and I don't think it's possible to reach an accomodation with that kind of mind-set and you will probably negotiate away too much of your position if you try.

RAZZA

Monday, July 19, 2004 4:32 PM

==================================================

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
I know the previous post may have seemed off-topic. The point is that I find this kind of dirty politics to be sourced mainly in the right wing of the Republican Party who, when challenged with a dissenting view, shift the topic, accuse the dissenters of being "publicity hounds", "unpatriotic", "extreme", and bring up "information" that is patently false.
==================================================

SignyM, you cannot be serious? You only see demonization as coming from the right? You accuse Drakon of being "..too close to his own viewpoint to be able to think about it. A little distance is a good thing." (Post dated 7/14/04 on this thread) That is good advice I think.

If you truly believe that the demonization is one-sided then how do you explain Moveon.org's ads which equated Bush with Hitler, the recent Hollywood fundraising bash for the Kerry Campaign, or Michael Moore's Bush bashing film "Farenhiet 9/11"? These are only a few examples of the left's efforts to demonize the current administration.

I refuse to delude myself into believing that those who hold an opposite view than myself are the sole purveyors of demonization. I recognize that both sides are equally responsible and am abhored by it. I do not see this as a good thing in any way shape or form. I see real hatred in our political discourse today, whether it be rabid Anti-Clinton conservatives or angy Bush Bashing liberals is beside the point.

==================================================
"Keep Flying"

RUE

Monday, July 19, 2004 5:04 PM

bump

Quote:
SIGNYM
Friday, July 16, 2004 - 03:22
Drakon ... Show me a single post where I blew you off as paranoid.

SIGNYM
Friday, July 16, 2004 - 04:59
... I expect to see that post by Sunday noon Zulu time. Without that post, by your own black and white extreme way of looking at things, you either lied or you're incompetent to judge reality.

SIGNYM
Friday, July 16, 2004 - 15:10
Drakon, redeem yourself. Did I, or did I not, call your concerns "paranoid"?

RUE

Monday, July 19, 2004 6:25 PM

Demonization ... turning people into a faceless non-humans, that are to be thought of with revulsion. A two-part response - depersonalization of others AND creation of hate-response?

You can't demonize if you don't depersonalize.

And depersonalization happens naturally in the US. Perhaps demonization serves a specific psychological purpose. In stratified and uber-competitive US society, most people view most others as inhuman and have very little social empathy for them. (That also goes for the very wealthy - like Bush and Cheney - looking down on the rest of everyone. They really DON'T view nearly all people as human.) But everyone experiences physical pain. And except for the born-sociopaths, people learn to fear and avoid it, and recognize it in others. And so most people probably have some empathy for others' physical pain. It may take the installation of loathing to reliably make people take the initiative to personally inflict pain on another. (As opposed to the Milgram experiment where 70% inflicted 'pain' at the specific direction of an authority. http://home.swbell.net/revscat/perilsOfObedience.html)

It might seem like I went past HK's posting, I didn't. Better minds than mine will need to put this all together.

And personalization (assigment of motivations to another based on experience) followed by revulsion - can it be a rational response to an attacker? Or can one defend against an attacker without hating them as an enemy?

Demonization IS obviously propaganda. By its nature it must be untrue. It is the first step in seeking to obliterate an 'enemy', however defined, whether it is the Hatfields or the dissidents.

I see demonization coming from Repulicans - logical fallacies, ad hominem attacks, evading issues etc. As SignyM points out, everyone else documents their case.
........
My understading was that the military didn't start investigating until a soldier sent letters and a videotape home. That was after the torture at Abu Ghraib was brought up to superiors many times and simply buried. It was sheer luck that the letters and videotape didn't hit the media BEFORE the investigation. If I am wrong, direct me to reliable sources. (with urls - too many people make claims that aren't true).

........
A military campaign - a war - is a special type of social effort for obliteration. War is only fought when one side thinks it might win. And it is started during uncertain times. These are two necessary conditions.

SIGNYM

Monday, July 19, 2004 7:23 PM

Quote:
SignyM, you cannot be serious? You only see demonization as coming from the right? You accuse Drakon of being "..too close to his own viewpoint to be able to think about it. A little distance is a good thing." (Post dated 7/14/04 on this thread) That is good advice I think.

Was I turning Drakon into a "faceless being" ready to be hauled away? No, I was responding directly to HIM, personally, and what I said was that he lacks objectivity. I still think it's true and frankly I consider it to be a useful observation (useful for Drakon, not me). How is that "demonization"?

OTOH, Drakon dodged, wove, called me a lot of names and repeatedly tacked a number of opinions onto me that aren't mine. Now, I'm not sure that I'm ready to call THAT demonization, but it sure isn't an attempt at two-way conversation!

Quote:
If you truly believe that the demonization is one-sided then how do you explain Moveon.org's ads which equated Bush with Hitler, the recent Hollywood fundraising bash for the Kerry Campaign, or Michael Moore's Bush bashing film "Farenhiet 9/11"?

It wasn't MoveOn.org's ad. I don't know why they posted it in the first place; maybe they didn't screen the submissions before posting them- but they pulled it within hours.

'Fraid I don't know about the Hollywood bash- you'll have to explain it to me.

As far as F911- Have you even seen the film? Go see it first before you tell me about it.

Quote:
I refuse to delude myself into believing that those who hold an opposite view than myself are the sole purveyors of demonization. I recognize that both sides are equally responsible and am abhored by it. I do not see this as a good thing in any way shape or form. I see real hatred in our political discourse today, whether it be rabid Anti-Clinton conservatives or angy Bush Bashing liberals is beside the point.

IF I were to call Pol Pot a tyrant, is that demonization? The problem Razz, is that it's only demonization if it isn't true. Now, I realize that both sides in the USA believe fervently that they hold the truth. But what I find is that the right-wing conistently refuses to engage in dialogue about the facts. THis administration has a particular history of witholding information- on everything from the cost to Social Security for drug coverage to the makeup of Cheney's energy commission to identitees of detainees to reconstruction fund exepnditures to Presidential papers.

The left-wing, OTOH, generally tries to back up its assertions. O'Neill brought 19,000 pages of documents. Lt Colonel Kwiatkowski brought her presonal obervations. Ambassador Wilson really did write a report which turned out to be true- and his wife Victoria Plame really was outed. Videotapes and photos came from Abu Ghraib. There really was a memo that said that torture was legal. The Administration really did have a court case where they were contending the right to hold detainees- even US citizens- indefinitely, without cahrge, without legal recourse, and without notice. So, bringing this up really isn't "demonization" because it happens to be fact.

SIGNYM

Monday, July 19, 2004 7:41 PM

Now HERE'S a typical demonizing political statement:

"If they don't have the guts to come up here in front of you and say, 'I don't want to represent you, I want to represent those special interests, the unions, the trial lawyers ... if they don't have the guts, I call them girlie men," Schwarzenegger said to the cheering crowd at a mall food court in Ontario.

The first sentence is a straw man argument- attaching a indefensible position to the oposition.

The second is an ad-hominem argument- attacking the opposition personally, in a way that has nothing to do with the point under discussion.

DRAKON

Tuesday, July 20, 2004 9:27 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
I do seriously think the US has a system which leads to two (and only two) major parties, and feedback that's so delayed it doesn't count. And that, I still think, leads to a level of struggle not seen in other places, and therefore demonization. IMHO.

Or, maybe it's just a US cultural quirk.

Possibly. But I think you are missing something here.

The two party system is a result of the voters, rather than the parties themselves. They want to be in power and have to offer something (policies, programs) that the voters want, that the voters think will work, and in general that appeal to the voters. It is because of those voters that you end up with just two major political parties.

Some have remarked favorably on various concepts of portional representation, but I think have failed to make their case effectively. The fact this comes mostly from parties that cannot appeal to enough voters to become even a contender is problematic for them and their case. But the bigger hurdle is they need to explain how including voices that have already been voted against, how they will not end up with political power incommensurate with their demographic appeal.

One worry is that under such a system, a government ends up with no majority. So in order to get a majority, one of the majority parties forms a coalition with a minor party, thereby giving it far more power than the voters had agreed to in the first place. That does not have a lot of appeal.

"Wash, where is my damn spaceship?"

DRAKON

Tuesday, July 20, 2004 9:30 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Drakon, I see that your post isn't here. I'm going to assume that your rhetoric is driven by honest panic and not cold-blooded manipulation. Take a deep breath, come back and let's talk.

My post was not there, because I had other things to do over the weekend. Besides which, your style and tone does not lead me to even suspect you are interested in what I have to say. Even now, you blow it off as "honest panic" rather than any thinking or rationality.

"Wash, where is my damn spaceship?"

DRAKON

Tuesday, July 20, 2004 9:57 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by HKCavalier:
That's why Michael Moore showing children flying kites in Baghdad is considered propaganda by the Bushites.

This is false. The reason why MM scenes of kite flying is seen as propaganda is that is leaves the audience with a completely false impression of Saddam's government. It ignores the plastics shredder, the torture, the offical sanction of terror to impose Saddam's rule.

It ignores the circumstances under which the "no fly zones" and economic sanctions were initiated, the fact that Saddam invaded Kuwait, warred with Iran, and threatened the region. That he gassed the Kurds or filled the mass graves. It also dodges completely whether we were at war with Saddam, or the Iraqi people.

Its a classic "dropping context" style of argument designed to give viewers a false impression. And thus it is dismissed as propaganda.

Quote:
Forgiveness cannot happen over night, or by a simple act of will. We must go through the pain and chaos of grief first. It was perhaps innevitable that we would go to war immediately after 9/11, as a race, we're still pretty unconscious and full of denial, but the desire for vengence fades. We are beginning, I think, to awaken to our own loss of life and humanity over there and we, as a people, want out.

It has nothing to do with vengence. Pretending that there do not exist folks who want to kill you is not a successful strategy for surviving. Especially when they demostrate time and time again just how far they are willing to go to kill you. You either stop them, or end up dead. Considering their use of suicide tactics, its pretty hard to deter them, so you have to undermine their desire first, if you want them to stop, and you do not want to simply kill all of them.

War is about political objectives. In this case its not payback. Its to get them to stop it. Stop trying to kill us.

Quote:
The best definition of evil that I've been able to come up with is simply this: the denial of one's own rage and hate.

To me, evil is the willful and unwarrented destruction of human life. Granted there is a lot of that in warfare, but sometimes warfare is the only way we have of fixing problems and systems that are not functioning. And in warfare, at least with smart commanders, any destruction that does occur, is purposeful, and warrented, especially in light of the alternative, such as death for yourself, or your way of life.

Saddam wanted to stay in power, even increase his power over the Middle East (note invasion of Kuwait and Iran). He did not want to end up tried for crimes against the Iraqi people. And he was willing to fight for his beliefs. Despite the objections and disagreement amongst others. We wanted him out of power, not out of jealousy or anything so trivial, but simply he was a danger. To his own people, to the people of the region, and to the US as well. Not an imminent threat, but one that would just get worse as time moved on.

Pacifism is all well and good, but only amongst pacifists. Once it encounters more aggresive ideologies and philosophies, it either dies out, becomes enslaved or has to garner the support of one such mental framework for its very survival.

"Wash, where is my damn spaceship?"

DRAKON

Tuesday, July 20, 2004 10:12 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SoupCatcher:
There's multiple types of demonization that serve different purposes. There's wartime demonization of the citizens of countries who we are fighting, such as what Signym talks about, the purpose of which is to help us get behind the destruction of our enemy. But there's also demonization of people who are within our own borders, the purpose of which is to marginalize. Something they both share is to turn people from individuals into faceless groups and to change opponents into enemies so that any means used against those groups become acceptable. Sometimes demonization spills over across these categories. [warning: painting with the broad brush].

Or to put it another way, to discredit the message by discrediting the messenger.

But sometimes when you charge your opponent with something, when you say he is a liar, or a flip flopper, those terms have meaning and the charge itself has meaning. Sometimes you have evidence which supports the conclusion, the label. And that has got to be dealt with.

Otherwise, you end up without the ability to label, classify or distinquish between candidates, ideas and policies. While that serves the interests of those who want to see everything as a shade of grey, or all political parties as identical, I don't see it as too useful.

Sometimes demonization ain't demonization. And unless you look at the underlying charges and cases made to support the characterization, you get locked into indecision.

"Wash, where is my damn spaceship?"

DRAKON

Tuesday, July 20, 2004 10:27 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Was I turning Drakon into a "faceless being" ready to be hauled away? No, I was responding directly to HIM, personally, and what I said was that he lacks objectivity. I still think it's true and frankly I consider it to be a useful observation (useful for Drakon, not me). How is that "demonization"?

OTOH, Drakon dodged, wove, called me a lot of names and repeatedly tacked a number of opinions onto me that aren't mine. Now, I'm not sure that I'm ready to call THAT demonization, but it sure isn't an attempt at two-way conversation!

That is not the way I saw it. What you were doing was not to disappear me, or to set me up to get hauled away. It was simply to get others to stop listening. Not argue my points, but to ignore them. The effect is the same, even if the means change.

You took issue with my characterization of your views of me, as paranoid. I stand by that assessment. No, you did not use that specific word, but it is implicit in your posts, especially when you talk about my "fear". The belittling and uncivil manner you have consistently behaved in this discussion indicate that it is you that do not want any kind of rational discourse. Your 'demands' and threats don't give me reason to change that assessment either.

And since you are not taking your own advice, I see little point in continuing with you. I don't act the way you want, or think the way you would like. So you chalk it up to "panic" or some other reason.

The irony is, you fail to see you are doing just what you are accusing the Republicans of doing.

"Wash, where is my damn spaceship?"

DRAKON

Tuesday, July 20, 2004 10:40 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Ambassador Wilson really did write a report which turned out to be true- and his wife Victoria Plame really was outed.

Context dropping again.

First off, in Wilson's own report, he noted that Iraq had sent emisaries to Niger during the 90's to try and buy uranium yellow cake. He says they did not succeed, but again, the basis of his confidence is his pool side tea sipping with certain government officals in that country. By his own admission.

Second, whether Plame was outed is a crime or not, is still under investigation. It was offered to Novak as an explaination of why someone who apparently had no interrogation or investigative experience, would be given such a sensitive mission. The explaination was that his wife got him the job. It is still possible that whatever undercover or covert status she had was unknown to the leaker.

To put it another way, the charge was nepotism at the CIA. But that got all muddied up because of Plame's covert status.

It should be pointed out that at this late stage, bringing up the Wilson affair is not a good idea for your side. Wilson said it "defies logic" to think that his wife got him the job. We now find out that there are memos with her signature, recommending him. Wilson says his wife did not get the job, later investigations shows she did.

And that has wrecked Wilson's credibility. Not the leak of his wife's status at the CIA, but the context in which that leak came about. Which is pretty inconvenient in such discussions. Unless you think nepotism is prefectly okay, or okay solely in the CIA. It makes it difficult for you to defend any future whistleblowing, even if it would help your side.

"Wash, where is my damn spaceship?"

SIGNYM

Tuesday, July 20, 2004 1:37 PM

Drakon, fear/panic is not the same as paranoia. To use your phrase, look it up in any dictionary. However, to help you out (in my snide a belittling way) paranoia is when you're convinced that someone is out to get you- and it's not true. Panic is when someone IS out to get you, and it frightens you so much you can't think clearly about it. The difference is in one case the danger is imaginary, in the other case it's real.

Now, I have said repeatedly that terrorists are a real problem. I'm not dismissing your concern as baseless. What I AM saying is that your fear is twisting your thinking.

I have responded to your points. I (and others!) have pointed out factual, logical, and semantic errors in your posts and you haven't responded directly to any of those comments. However, if you feel that I haven't responded, tell me which points you'd like to be discussed and we'll have another go at it. Feel free to cut and paste- it sure saves typing! But try to keep it short because if you put too many things into one post I can't adequately respond to all of them- my time here is pretty short, I can get in maybe fifteen minutes to a half-hour at a time.

RAZZA

Tuesday, July 20, 2004 5:11 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SygnM 7/19/04Was I turning Drakon into a "faceless being" ready to be hauled away? No, I was responding directly to HIM, personally, and what I said was that he lacks objectivity.."

Okay, I have to admit I'm a little confused here, not sure where I accused you specifically of demonizing anyone, if you interpreted my statements as such I apologize, certainly not my intent.

I just wanted to make a quick observation about your posts here on the thread, and I stipulate that this is solely how I percieve things, and do not speak for others. To me, you come across as a little abrasive, and the tone of your statements seem to lean more at irritating the person you are addressing rather than actually wanting to hear what they have to say. I hope that is not your intent, but that is how it comes across IMHO. Now, please do not come back at me with a response about how I am ignoring your arguements and trying to demonize you because my arguements are faulty. I'll try to address your points now.

Quote:
It wasn't MoveOn.org's ad. I don't know why they posted it in the first place; maybe they didn't screen the submissions before posting them- but they pulled it within hours.

Yes, you are correct, they were not Moveon.org's ads (it was actually two ads; see here http://www.thememoryhole.org/pol/bush-hitler-ads.htm), rather they were ads solicited by Moveon.org in a contest designed to portray the Bush administration in a bad light. I'm not sure how that makes it better, the net result was that the ads were published by Moveon.org and sanctioned by them until they pulled them due to the negative publicity they received for them.

Quote:
'Fraid I don't know about the Hollywood bash- you'll have to explain it to me.

This is the now infamous Whoopi Goldberg tirade of anti-Bush insults which made innuendos about our President's last name and certain female body parts. I cannot actually find the quote because all news services have refused to post it due to its vulgarity (I hate censorship!). I'm afraid I'm at a loss to what was actually said since I wasn't there and can find nothing except vague references to it.

Quote:
As far as F911- Have you even seen the film? Go see it first before you tell me about it.

Here again I think you are assuming some things about the person your are addressing. Your powers of perception are truly amazing if you can tell about the movie watching habits of someone simply by reading two posts on an internet discussion thread. As it happens, I have seen the film, and was not amused to say the least. I'll let Christopher Hitchens speak for me on this issue (see here http://slate.msn.com/id/2102723/#ContinueArticle).

Quote:
IF I were to call Pol Pot a tyrant, is that demonization? The problem Razz, is that it's only demonization if it isn't true. Now, I realize that both sides in the USA believe fervently that they hold the truth. But what I find is that the right-wing conistently refuses to engage in dialogue about the facts. THis administration has a particular history of witholding information- on everything from the cost to Social Security for drug coverage to the makeup of Cheney's energy commission to identitees of detainees to reconstruction fund exepnditures to Presidential papers.

Okay, here are some links to the White House's website where you can find out how much we will be spending on Social Security, Drug Coverage, and Reconstruction ( http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2005/sheets/24_12.xls). Are you saying that posting these figures on a publicly accessible website constitutes witholding information?

The makeup of Cheney's Energy Commission is a whole nother story that could take up an entirely new discussion thread. But let's equate it to Hillary's Healthcare Task Force and the Clinton administration's witholding of that information. Conservatives back then had shouldn't have asked for that information just as Liberals today shouldn't have to ask for this information.

Okay

SIGNYM

Tuesday, July 20, 2004 5:24 PM

Yes, I'm snide and irritating. I admit and apologize.

As far as the costs to Social Security, a staffer an actuary whose name I forget (I'll have to look it up again) calculated the costs of drug coverage and found it to be much higher than what was being touted by the Administration. He was threatened by his boss with being fired if he gave the info to Congress, which was just about to vote on the bill. Many many months later the estimate came to light when another staffer- a Congresional aide, I believe- was looking into the matter of costs and got an anonymous fax with the higher estimates. The figures put out by the Bush administration were phony. I'll have to google up the info. There was a recent court ruling on this matter that said that while threatening the actuary with dismissal and withholding information from Congress was unethical, it WAS within legal bounds.

My time's up. TTUL

---------------------------
Edited to add-The actuary was the Chief Medicare actuary, his name is Richard Foster, the Congressional aide is Cybele Bjorklund, and the person who threatened Foster is Thomas Scully.
www.ourfuture.org/issues_and_campaigns/medicare/national_news/nyt3_18_
04.cfm

SIGNYM

Tuesday, July 20, 2004 7:47 PM

Quote:
The makeup of Cheney's Energy Commission is a whole nother story that could take up an entirely new discussion thread. But let's equate it to Hillary's Healthcare Task Force and the Clinton administration's witholding of that information. Conservatives back then had shouldn't have asked for that information just as Liberals today shouldn't have to ask for this information

Frankly, I think the whole idea of "executive privilge" is hogwash. Everyone should be able to find out who is advising their government.

But Cheney didn't claim executive privilege, and since his group contained members outside of the government (as did Hillary's) it's clear to me that both "task forces" failed to comply with the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA), a LAW that was written to make advisory- committe dealings open to the public.

In point of fact, the Health Care Task Force submitted to a ruling by the DC Appeals Court and opened their records in 1994, while Cheney named the DC Appeals Court as a litigant (!) and still refuses to open the records, in apparent violation of FACA.

SOUPCATCHER

Tuesday, July 20, 2004 8:20 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Razza
Okay, here are some links to the White House's website where you can find out how much we will be spending on Social Security, Drug Coverage, and Reconstruction ( http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2005/sheets/24_12.xls). Are you saying that posting these figures on a publicly accessible website constitutes witholding information?

This is the whole Richard Foster thing. I’m linking to the San Jose Mercury News just because it’s the newspaper I read on a regular basis but any Googling on Richard Foster and Medicare will turn up tons of newspaper links (this is to forestall the “that’s a biased source” distraction).

Thirteen House Republicans had drawn a line in the sand on the cost of the proposed Medicare legislation (They would not vote for it if it cost more than $400 million). The White House assured them that the cost would be $395 million. Even with that assurance, the vote had to be held open for hours instead of the customary 15 minutes for the whip to get enough votes for the legislation to pass by one vote. Richard Foster was the chief cost analyst for the Medicare administrator. His analysis predicted that the bill would cost between $500 and $600 million. His boss, Thomas Scully, ordered him not to report those numbers to Congress. Here is the timeline: June 2003 – House passes by one vote. June to October 2003 – Scully blocks Foster from providing analysis to Congress. November 2003 – House/Senate compromise passes by 5 votes. January 2004 - Administration acknowledges that the bill probably would cost $534 billion, not $395 billion. July 2004 – “Former Medicare administrator Thomas Scully broke no law when he repeatedly directed his chief cost analyst to withhold information that members of Congress sought about the cost of the Medicare prescription-drug bill, a report released Tuesday concludes.”

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/world/9096028.htm?1c
(editted to add: I just realized that this link only works if you are a subscriber. So I'm including a link to another paper)

http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/news/politics/9096227.htm?
1c

I shaved off my beard for you, devil woman!

SOUPCATCHER

Tuesday, July 20, 2004 9:02 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Razza
Yes, you are correct, they were not Moveon.org's ads (it was actually two ads; see here http://www.thememoryhole.org/pol/bush-hitler-ads.htm), rather they were ads solicited by Moveon.org in a contest designed to portray the Bush administration in a bad light. I'm not sure how that makes it better, the net result was that the ads were published by Moveon.org and sanctioned by them until they pulled them due to the negative publicity they received for them.

What is interesting to me is that the Republican party has gotten a lot of mileage out of these two ads. Back in January, the text was copied and posted on the gop web site. In June they were incorporated into a short video clip by the Bush/Cheney campaign and featured prominently on their website as well as being e-mailed to tens of thousands of individuals. Here's the timeline: December 2003 - MoveOn sponsors contest. December 2003/January 2004 (I haven't been able to determine an exact date) - ads posted to contest website. January 2004 - GOP demands apology; ads are removed; MoveOn apologizes. June 2004 - ads incorporated into video ad for Bush campaign and distributed.

But saying these ads are from MoveOn is like saying anything posted on this site is from Haken. In retrospect, MoveOn should have been more proactive in setting up screening procedures. But it's interesting that market forces doomed the ads to failure since they didn't make the voting cut. So, in my opinion, we have two independent fringe ad makers who made a product that was not successful. The voters for the contest made the statement that these ads were not good enough to be considered as finalists by not voting for them. Then we have a political party adopting these ads and presenting them as evidence of the views of the majority of their opposition. So the ads were not successful with their intended audience but extremely successful with another audience and used as evidence that the intended audience shared the viewpoint of the ad-makers.

This, to me, is an example of demonization. Effective demonization has some element of truth that is then extrapolated out to include a broader set of people. There are people out there that believe Bush is a modern day Hitler. That's a fact. These people are on the fringe and most others ignore them. The GOP and the Bush campaign use the work of the fringe to portray all those involved with MoveOn as having the same beliefs. And then, in a surreal twist, open themselves up to the same criticism by interspersing images of Hitler from those ads with images of Kerry, Gore, Dean, Gephardt, and other prominent Democrats speaking with emotion.

(editted to add: That link you provided to the Memory Hole web page was very informative. Thank you. I was surprised that I had never heard about any of the remarks from elected officials comparing the previous President to Hitler. When two unknown fringe ad-makers compare Bush to Hitler it is all over the news and the Republican party is outraged. When three elected Republicans compared Clinton to Hitler, not so much. All of these are protected free speech. All of these are hyperbole. All of these are attacks. Some of these were made by unknown people while the rest were made by elected officials. I just find the expressed outrage silly, forced, and hypocritical).

I shaved off my beard for you, devil woman!

SIGNYM

Wednesday, July 21, 2004 1:35 AM

I also read the Hitchens commentary, and have discussed it in a previous posting. There are too many points to discuss completely in one post, so I'll pick two for now.

The first six points of his commentary:

Quote:
1) The Bin Laden family (if not exactly Osama himself) had a close if convoluted business relationship with the Bush family, through the Carlyle Group.
2) Saudi capital in general is a very large element of foreign investment in the United States.
3) The Unocal company in Texas had been willing to discuss a gas pipeline across Afghanistan with the Taliban, as had other vested interests.
4) The Bush administration sent far too few ground troops to Afghanistan and thus allowed far too many Taliban and al-Qaida members to escape.
5) The Afghan government, in supporting the coalition in Iraq, was purely risible in that its non-army was purely American.
6) The American lives lost in Afghanistan have been wasted. (This I divine from the fact that this supposedly "antiwar" film is dedicated ruefully to all those killed there, as well as in Iraq.)

Points (1-5) are all proveably true. What is Hitchen's problem with them? (1) and (2) can be found by looking up any general reference, (3) I found on the Unocal website a few years back when negotiations were underway (they were competing with an Argentinian company called Bridas, which got the bid- not that it did them any good), (4)- well Osama is till at large isn't he? (5) If you look up the "coalition of the willing" you'll find what I found- although listed in the coalition, Agfghanistan had NO troops in Iraq. (6) It is still too early to tell whether the troops have been "wasted", but this point is "divined" by Hitchens.

The second point is the Saudi's supposed influence over US foreign policy, and Hitchens makes quite a deal about it.

Quote:
Either the Saudis run U.S. policy (through family ties or overwhelming economic interest), or they do not. As allies and patrons of the Taliban regime, they either opposed Bush's removal of it, or they did not. (They opposed the removal, all right: They wouldn't even let Tony Blair land his own plane on their soil at the time of the operation.)...why did Moore's evil Saudis not join "the Coalition of the Willing"? Why instead did they force the United States to switch its regional military headquarters to Qatar? If the Bush family and the al-Saud dynasty live in each other's pockets, as is alleged in a sort of vulgar sub-Brechtian scene with Arab headdresses replacing top hats, then how come the most reactionary regime in the region has been powerless to stop Bush from demolishing its clone in Kabul and its buffer regime in Baghdad?

oh drats... later

RAZZA

Wednesday, July 21, 2004 3:42 AM

Quote:
Posted by SygnyM 7/20/04 Points (1-5) are all proveably true. What is Hitchen's problem with them? (1) and (2) can be found by looking up any general reference, (3) I found on the Unocal website a few years back when negotiations were underway (they were competing with an Argentinian company called Bridas, which got the bid- not that it did them any good), (4)- well Osama is till at large isn't he? (5) If you look up the "coalition of the willing" you'll find what I found- although listed in the coalition, Agfghanistan had NO troops in Iraq. (6) It is still too early to tell whether the troops have been "wasted", but this point is "divined" by Hitchens.

Well, how about posting his comments right after he lists these 6 items? Then you may have some insight into Hitchen's problems with them. Here they are in thier entirety btw:

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It must be evident to anyone, despite the rapid-fire way in which Moore's direction eases the audience hastily past the contradictions, that these discrepant scatter shots do not cohere at any point. Either the Saudis run U.S. policy (through family ties or overwhelming economic interest), or they do not. As allies and patrons of the Taliban regime, they either opposed Bush's removal of it, or they did not. (They opposed the removal, all right: They wouldn't even let Tony Blair land his own plane on their soil at the time of the operation.) Either we sent too many troops, or were wrong to send any at all—the latter was Moore's view as late as 2002—or we sent too few. If we were going to make sure no Taliban or al-Qaida forces survived or escaped, we would have had to be more ruthless than I suspect that Mr. Moore is really recommending. And these are simply observations on what is "in" the film. If we turn to the facts that are deliberately left out, we discover that there is an emerging Afghan army, that the country is now a joint NATO responsibility and thus under the protection of the broadest military alliance in history, that it has a new constitution and is preparing against hellish odds to hold a general election, and that at least a million and a half of its former refugees have opted to return. I don't think a pipeline is being constructed yet, not that Afghanistan couldn't do with a pipeline. But a highway from Kabul to Kandahar—an insurance against warlordism and a condition of nation-building—is nearing completion with infinite labor and risk. We also discover that the parties of the Afghan secular left—like the parties of the Iraqi secular left—are strongly in favor of the regime change. But this is not the sort of irony in which Moore chooses to deal.

"Keep Flying"

SOUPCATCHER

Wednesday, July 21, 2004 9:11 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Drakon
Or to put it another way, to discredit the message by discrediting the messenger.

But sometimes when you charge your opponent with something, when you say he is a liar, or a flip flopper, those terms have meaning and the charge itself has meaning. Sometimes you have evidence which supports the conclusion, the label. And that has got to be dealt with.

I see this as combining the two categories that Rue talked about: personalization and demonization. Charging a single opponent with flip-flopping or lying would be personalization and might very well have some truth behind it. For example, John Kerry has changed his opinion on his vote as a senator in regards to the Iraq war (at least I think he has). So the charge of flip-flopping is leveled. Is the charge justified? I'll leave that for another discussion. George Bush, on camera, said that Hussein did not allow UN inspectors into his country. So the charge of lying is leveled. Is the charge justified? Once again, I'll leave that to another discussion. This, to me, is personalization. There is some element of truth to the two charges: Kerry did change his mind, Bush did say something that was wrong.

Demonization, in my mind, is when you label an entire group of people. The best demonizations have some kernel of truth in them but are incorrectly applied to a larger population. For example, I have personally heard some liberals say that we deserved 9/11. This viewpoint is NOT held by all, or even the majority, of liberals (my viewpoint). I have also heard some conservatives say that liberals (in the general sense of the term) think that this country deserved 9/11 and are therefore traitors. This is a demonization. For another example, I have personally heard some conservatives say that a homosexual dying of AIDS is God's justice for their evil ways. This viewpoint is NOT held by all, or even the majority, of conservatives (my viewpoint). I have also heard some liberals say that conservatives (in the general sense of the term) think that homosexuals deserve to die because they sin against God. This is once again demonization.

Now I've purposefully tried to give examples from both the conservative and liberal side in an effort to be balanced. But from my personal experience I see a lot more demonization coming from prominent conservatives than I do from prominent liberals. Does that make the demonization more wrong? No. Demonization as a form of argument is weak and a cop out for whoever uses it. It is, however, a highly effective strategy.

I shaved off my beard for you, devil woman!

DRAKON

Wednesday, July 21, 2004 10:33 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Now, I have said repeatedly that terrorists are a real problem. I'm not dismissing your concern as baseless. What I AM saying is that your fear is twisting your thinking.

Since you have already dismissed my thinking, there is no point in responding.

"Wash, where is my damn spaceship?"

DRAKON

Wednesday, July 21, 2004 11:38 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SoupCatcher:
I see this as combining the two categories that Rue talked about: personalization and demonization. Charging a single opponent with flip-flopping or lying would be personalization and might very well have some truth behind it. For example, John Kerry has changed his opinion on his vote as a senator in regards to the Iraq war (at least I think he has). So the charge of flip-flopping is leveled. Is the charge justified? I'll leave that for another discussion. George Bush, on camera, said that Hussein did not allow UN inspectors into his country. So the charge of lying is leveled. Is the charge justified? Once again, I'll leave that to another discussion. This, to me, is personalization. There is some element of truth to the two charges: Kerry did change his mind, Bush did say something that was wrong.

I think your Bush example is flawed. I don't think that is what Bush said. But again that is another issue, altogether.

Lying I would consider unique. There is a difference between saying something wrong, a mistake of the tongue, using the wrong words, what have you. But lying is by implication, by definition, the willful telling of an untruth. You have to show that the defendent not only said the wrong thing. But also knew it was wrong when he said it.

While both are issues of, or revealing of the underlying character of the individual, one (flip flopping) is objectively provable. Look at his votes. The other requires a bit more research and probably mind reading. You have to show not only the statement, but prior knowledge that the statement known to the defendent as false when he made it.

But there is a more troubling aspect to this. Well several. The same people who are telling us Bush lied, told us not 6 years ago that lying was okay, when it involved their guy. So there is a problem of inconsistency here.

But even more important to me, is the implied argument that it poses. Since Bush lied about his reasons for invading Iraq, the entire operation is a bad idea. And that, I just can't buy.

I understand that especially in wartime, and it might be even more valid in this war, that secrets need to be kept. Even from the American people, like you and me, because we live in an age of communication satellites and CNN. There is no way to keep a secret amongst "just us Americans". You don't want the enemy to know enough to do us harm, unfortunately that means keeping secrets even from the American public.

Saddam was a bad guy, and was in violation of 17 UN resolutions. He also sits on one of the largest known oil supplies on the planet, in the heart of the middle east. But more importantly, he was one of many corrupt thugocracies in that region that was the root cause of terrorism in the first place.

Part of the purpose of the Iraq campaign was to start the transformation of the Middle East, to allow it to evolve into a more free, prosperous and thereby, less dangerous area of the world. To show Muslims that, Zarqiwi is wrong. Islam can be democratic, that they are not incompatible concepts.

But, saying so prior to the war would have scared the heck out of the other states in the region. None of them particularly liked Saddam, he'd been a hazard in the region long enough to Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait. But if it were widely known that Saddam was simply the beginning of a policy that would lead to job loss amongst Iranian mullahs, Saud princes, or Syrian despots, it is likely they would have helped out a fellow Muslim, as loathsome as they may find him, to prevent another "infidel crusade". Instead of facing one army, we might have had face maybe 4, maybe more. More death on both sides.

Unless one can argue that keeping Saddam in power was a good thing, how we got rid of him, what was said by who to convince folks to do the right thing, I don't think it matters a whole lot. But it does point to an apparent difference between the political left and right, at least as far as rhetoric goes.

For the left, it appears that intentions determ

SIGNYM

Wednesday, July 21, 2004 1:17 PM

Drakon, all I can say is "You started it". Yes, I know it's a three-year-old response, but I (and many others, especially Rue) tried bringing facts with multiple links to the discussion, I've tried questioning you intensely to get you to start at your basic assumptions and explain step by step how you got to a point, I've tried showing you what I thought were logical fallacies in your thinking, and you basically didn't respond. It was literally a conscious decision on my part to try using your tactics to see what would happen. If you look through my posts to you, you'll see a sudden tone shift about five posts ago.

You want people to argue with you using your definitions, your assumptions, your binary choices, your priorities, your facts. And you know what? IF we were to do all that we'd probably agree with you! But we DON'T share a lot of the same definitions, assumptions, etc. That's why we have a differences of opinion. And in order to have a discussion, we need to pinpoint where and why we disagree, then hash out whether one of us has better information, more durable assumptions, clearer definitions, better predictive capability etc. If this sounds condescending then I apologize, but this is has been my experience with deep heavy-duty discussions.

If we want to continue- and I sure don't mind- let's stop the rhetorical bs. Let's agree to stop name-calling, straw-man arguments, generalizing etc. Let's agree to address each other's points DIRECTLY, and stay on-topic until the point is either resolved or at least the fundamental differences are laid out. I really can't respond to long multi-point posts because I only get a few minutes here and there.

If this were a real debate, we'd have a moderator- but I can't see anyone voluntarily stepping in between us! We'll just have to resolve our differences on our own.

Is this something you can agree to? I can if you can. If so, let's begin!

RUE

Wednesday, July 21, 2004 7:13 PM

Quote:
"Saddam was a bad guy, and was in violation of 17 UN resolutions."

And that is one of the issues of this topic. Most countries did NOT think he was in violation - and that is why the UN didn't support the invasion. To assert that he was is to mistake an opinion for a fact.

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"he was one of many corrupt thugocracies in that region that was the root cause of terrorism in the first place"

You will find that the 9/11 Commisions refutes Hussein's connection with terrorism.

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"Part of the purpose of the Iraq campaign was to start the transformation of the Middle East, to allow it to evolve into a more free, prosperous and thereby, less dangerous area of the world."

A post facto reason, not made before the invasion.

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"But, saying so prior to the war would have scared the heck out of the other states in the region."

Bush lied?

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"Unless one can argue that keeping Saddam in power was a good thing, how we got rid of him, what was said by who to convince folks to do the right thing, I don't think it matters a whole lot."

But it does, not as a moral issue, but a practical one. To have defanged Hussein using ongoing inspections WITH world support would have lent a tremendous boost to global anti-terrorism coordination.

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I see altruism as a con game.

Reproduction is altruistic in the biological sense (they're still trying to figure out how it works, mathematically speaking). And for humans (due to dependent offspring - they don't swim away fast as their little tails can go), it is altruistic in the psychological sense. The fact one can cognate 'altruism' indicates a internal altruism mechanism.

SOUPCATCHER

Wednesday, July 21, 2004 10:05 PM

This response is an experiment on my part. There are two assumptions I will make. The first is that you are a supporter of Bush. The second is that you are a supporter of the Republican party.

Quote:
Originally posted by Drakon
I think your Bush example is flawed. I don't think that is what Bush said. But again that is another issue, altogether.

So what I did was set up a comparison between an attack made against Kerry and an attack made against Bush. The first thing you did was invalidate the comparison by saying that you didn't think Bush said that. So let's address that first point. The following link is from the White House web site:

Quote:

The larger point is, and the fundamental question is, did Saddam Hussein have a weapons program? And the answer is, absolutely. And we gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in. And, therefore, after a reasonable request, we decided to remove him from power, along with other nations, so as to make sure he was not a threat to the United States and our friends and allies in the region. I firmly believe the decisions we made will make America more secure and the world more peaceful.
George Bush - 14 July 2003

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/07/20030714-3.html
Now here is what I said in my post, "George Bush, on camera, said that Hussein did not allow UN inspectors into his country." From my point of view I have provided clear evidence that Bush did indeed say what I attributed to him. An interesting side note: Bush made these statements with Kofi Annan at his side. Annan does not correct what Bush is saying. I found that intriguing.

The next point you make is to define what lying is:

Quote:
Originally posted by Drakon
Lying I would consider unique. There is a difference between saying something wrong, a mistake of the tongue, using the wrong words, what have you. But lying is by implication, by definition, the willful telling of an untruth. You have to show that the defendant not only said the wrong thing. But also knew it was wrong when he said it.

This is the often used defense for those who support Bush: to categorize what he says as misstatements, rather than lies, because he either does not intend to mislead or he does not know the statement he is making is false. Bush's statement is clearly wrong. The UN inspectors were in Iraq. They left before we invaded. We did not invade because Hussein did not allow the inspectors in. So the first test is: Did Bush know the statement he was making was false? Well, he made the following statement four months earlier as part of his ultimatum to Hussein:

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Since then, the world has engaged in 12 years of diplomacy. We have passed more than a dozen resolutions in the United Nations Security Council. We have sent hundreds of weapons inspectors to oversee the disarmament of Iraq. Our good faith has not been returned.
George Bush - 17 March 2003

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030317-7.html
So two possibilities arise: either he remembered what he had said four months earlier or he did not. Neither option is flattering. To go from "hundreds of weapons inspectors" to "And we gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in" in four months time is pretty remarkable. Now if he forgot what he had said four months earlier (and had been saying for months before that) then he is incompetent. If he remembered what he had said four months earlier then he knew that his new statement was wrong, and he used it anyway, and used it as justification for the invasion, and that is a lie.

Quote:
Originally posted by Drakon
While both are issues of, or revealing of the underlying character of the individual, one (flip flopping) is objectively provable. Look at his votes. The other requires a bit more research and probably mind reading. You have to show not only the statement, but prior knowledge that the statement known to the defendant as false when h

SIGNYM

Thursday, July 22, 2004 4:57 AM

very interesting

DRAKON

Thursday, July 22, 2004 10:50 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Quote:
"Saddam was a bad guy, and was in violation of 17 UN resolutions."

And that is one of the issues of this topic. Most countries did NOT think he was in violation - and that is why the UN didn't support the invasion. To assert that he was is to mistake an opinion for a fact.

I have to strongly disagree. That is why the last resolution was passed unanimously, which demanded compliance or else. If he had been found in compliance, no further resolution demanding compliance would be made, let alone voted on.

But this is getting into process versus product again, which I think is a central difference you and I have.

Quote:
Quote:
"he was one of many corrupt thugocracies in that region that was the root cause of terrorism in the first place"

You will find that the 9/11 Commisions refutes Hussein's connection with terrorism.

From what I have seen, there is no refutation of Saddam connection with terrorism. His bounty for the families of Palestinian suicide bombers is proof. He was not connected in any provable way to the 9-11 attacks, which is a different and separate issue. (And still leaves the Chezch intel report of Atta's meeting in Prague an open question.)

His ties with Ansur al-Islam, Abu Nidal finding a home in Baghdad, (until his odd death, shortly before the war) and the head of the Achille Lauro hijackers being captured in Baghdad, all show things differently.

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Bush lied?

Sigh.

My defense is that Bush did not lie. Did not knowingly make a false statement. That is the first part of my defense. The second part is even if Bush did lie, there are very good, justifiable reasons for that. If you want to call this a lie of omission, fine. But think about it for a second.

Would openly declaring a desire to transform the Middle East, removing the autocratic and failed regimes of the region had made the probability of success more likely or less so? Would you have supported that as a reason for war? Or would it have made no difference to the popular support here at home, and resulted in stronger opposition in the combat zone, killing more of our and their people?

Quote:
Quote:
"Unless one can argue that keeping Saddam in power was a good thing, how we got rid of him, what was said by who to convince folks to do the right thing, I don't think it matters a whole lot."
But it does, not as a moral issue, but a practical one. To have defanged Hussein using ongoing inspections WITH world support would have lent a tremendous boost to global anti-terrorism coordination.

But the trouble was there was no support, either prior to, or after 9-11. The inspections were continually being thwarted, even Blix could not even bring himself to declaring Saddam in compliance with the inspections.

Russia, France and others were trying to get the sanctions lifted, which had been cheated on for some time. The UN is presently trying to figure out what happened to about 10 billion dollars in "Oil for Food" money, that appears to have been paid out in bribes.

As a practical proposal, it wasn't working. And that is a large reason why something else was tried.

Quote:
Quote:
I see altruism as a con game.

Reproduction is altruistic in the biological sense (they're still trying to figure out how it works, mathematically speaking). And for humans (due to dependent offspring - they don't swim away fast as their little tails can go), it is altruistic in the psychological sense. The fact one can cognate 'altruism' indicates a internal altruism mechanism.

We may be talking about two different things here. Altruism as a moral ideal, versus altruism as a result of action, regardless of the ideal or intent.

People reproduce, lets face it, not from altruistic ideals of continuing the human race. Sex is fun, its enjoyable. Sex is mostly, (and I would say especially these days) about self fulfillment, enjoyment, spiritual connection, what have you. The commonality in all these is how sex benefits

SIGNYM

Thursday, July 22, 2004 12:30 PM

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Either the Saudis run U.S. policy (through family ties or overwhelming economic interest), or they do not

That's a false choice on two different levels. For one thing, I don't think any nation can be said to completely "run" it's OWN foreign policy, much less run another nation's. Even the USA has to make compromises and adjustments from time to time. The second problem is that he speaks of "the Saudis" as if they all shared the same interests. There is the Saudi royal family, the Wahhabis (Salafi Da'wa), and the other families of Saudi Arabia and as far as I can tell, they're going in different directions.

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Either we sent too many troops, or were wrong to send any at all—the latter was Moore's view as late as 2002—or we sent too few. If we were going to make sure no Taliban or al-Qaida forces survived or escaped, we would have had to be more ruthless than I suspect that Mr. Moore is really recommending

This is actually just a re-statement of part of the Powell Doctrine, which says that IF we are to undertake a military operation, we go in with overwhelming force or none at all- in other words, the the concept of "proportionality" goes out the window. It IS possible to point out problems in the execution of a military operation without supporting the operation itself.

I'm not quite sure what to make of these statements, I didn't think of them as being particularly insightful so maybe you could tell me what the significance is.

DRAKON

Thursday, July 22, 2004 2:04 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by SoupCatcher:
This response is an experiment on my part. There are two assumptions I will make. The first is that you are a supporter of Bush. The second is that you are a supporter of the Republican party.

Guilty on both counts. Although Bush has done some thing, some policies that I disagree with, on the whole, I think he is doing a good job, and considering what he is dealing with, a better job than I had expected. Not perfect, not excellent, but still pretty good.

As for being a Republican, part of that is genetic. Grandpa was in the Florida legislator back in the early 70's late 60 time frame, representing Orlando. And helping Disney World get set up, which has proven a boon to the local economy.

But partly, looking around at the other parties, well, I don't see myself fitting into the Democrats, not with my views and opinions. A lot of the left is far too autocratic in vision and sure of themselves for my taste. Libertarians have a lot of attractive features, a lot of attractive policy ideas, but some that I just don't see as workable. And the ones that appear most workable, have already been co-opted by Republicans anyway.

I find Republicans and conservative in general to be better at debate. But your milage may vary.

Now, if I may, I assume that you are in the opposition. Does my party allegence automatically invalidate my views?

Quote:
So two possibilities arise: either he remembered what he had said four months earlier or he did not. Neither option is flattering. To go from "hundreds of weapons inspectors" to "And we gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn't let them in" in four months time is pretty remarkable. Now if he forgot what he had said four months earlier (and had been saying for months before that) then he is incompetent. If he remembered what he had said four months earlier then he knew that his new statement was wrong, and he used it anyway, and used it as justification for the invasion, and that is a lie.

First off, do you disagree with my definition of lying? Do you see making an accidental misstatement as equally immoral as knowingly making a false statement?

Second. Allowing inspectors to enter Iraq is hardly "letting them in." Lets face it, if the justification for the war were solely about WMDs, Hans Blix could have declared Iraq free of WMDs and signed off on it. He did not. He could not do so honestly. He noted numerous problems with cooperation with Saddam's regime. In short, Saddam was not cooperating with the inspections he was required to do so, by those UN resolutions.

So, if you are saying that letting inspectors to stand around on Iraqi soil, not letting them do their job marks "letting them in". I think I got to disagree there. Now as to why Kofi Annan did not correct Bush, I really can't say. I do offer the possibility that Bush was not wrong in his statement, that Kofi understood what he was saying, and agreed. Because that reflected what was actually going on at the time.

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I will continue to argue that the statements he made in the lead up to the war, and the indisputable fact that there were inspectors in Iraq, make his later statement that Hussein would not allow inspectors into Iraq a lie. In the end it's a judgement call but I feel that the evidence supports my position and that only belief supports your position.

Well thank you for honestly dismissing what I am about to say before I say it.

I understand what Bush meant in both statements. You look at time frames, and even prior to the kicking out of inspectors in 1998, technically that is true. We have had hundreds of inspectors in Iraq, but again, it is also true that if Saddam had been cooperative, Hans Blix could have signed off on that cooperation and he did not.

That is the biggest problem with this latest incarnation of the Bush lied gambit. Blix did not declare Saddam in compliance. That lack of declaration is the basis for my belief that Saddam did not let the inspectors in in any me

RUE

Thursday, July 22, 2004 7:42 PM

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even Blix could not even bring himself to declaring Saddam in compliance with the inspections

Actually, what Blix said was there was not enough information either way, and two to three months of inspections would settle the issue conclusively.

Quote:
even prior to the kicking out of inspectors in 1998

The UN withdrew the inspectors because US and British bombing and missile-fire (not just on no-fly zones but even into Baghdad) made Iraq an unsafe country to work in.

SOUPCATCHER

Friday, July 23, 2004 12:36 AM

I stated my assumptions up front because it has been my experience that there are people who are Republicans who do not support Bush, there are people who are not Republicans who support Bush, there are people who are Republicans who support Bush, and there are people who are not Republicans who do not support Bush. I assumed that you were a Republican who supports Bush and I stated those assumptions as a check. If I was wrong I hoped you would correct me. The reason why I felt it was important to make that distinction is that I have had many conversations with people in all four of those categories and I have noticed trends and I wanted to make sure that my observations concerning you were placed in the appropriate category. This is, of course, leaving aside what it means to support Bush although I do have a simplified rubric (If you disagree with anything that Bush has said or done in the war on terrorism than according to his "with us or against us" line you are classified by him as not supporting him so you might as well embrace that distinction - I purposefully use the word anything to highlight the universality of Bush's challenge). For myself, I am in the not Republican who do not support Bush category. To add needless complexity , I am in the not Democrat not Republican who do not support Bush group.

I labeled my previous response to you as an experiment because I wanted to test some other observations. One pattern I have seen you engage in is to re-frame what is being discussed, and then generate a large number of points on this new topic. I liken it to shooting with a shotgun. This is highly effective and takes more of the "go broad" approach. My personal preference is to stick with one point and in detail state my position. I liken it to shooting with a rifle. This is highly efficient and takes more of the "go deep" approach. My motivation is to clearly define the area of discussion, present my position, listen to the position of others and the evidence they bring to bear, and decide if there is a reason to re-evaluate my position based on the new information. So I have been at a bit of a loss in how to interpret your remarks because I am not used to dealing with the sheer unsupported amount of information coming my way. I guess another way to put is: when someone asks what is water giving them a glass of distilled, purified H2O versus giving someone a lake.

This particular topic, why demonization, has gone all over the map. And there have been a number of times I have found myself addressing points that have completely diverged from the original topic and operating away from my preferences. At these times I have tried to return back to the topic. But I was curious what would happen if I instead tried to embrace the meandering path and address your post point by point. I wanted to see if there would be convergence or divergence. In my post before my previous post I attempted to distinguish between personalization and demonization using four examples: two of personalization and two of demonization. I purposefully chose examples of both conservative and liberal, Republican and Democrat. In your response, you attempted to do two things: point up an area in my definition of demonization that you felt needed to be clarified and challenge the validity of one of my examples (that of Bush lied). In challenging the validity of the Bush example you first stated that you didn't think Bush made the statement, then asserted that it is impossible to prove Bush lied because of the definition of lying, then stated that it was an inconsistent position because people were okay with Clinton lying, and then went off on a tangent about the problems with the implications of the Bush lied personalization.

In my next post I attempted to address both of your two main points. For the first I took the approach of working on each of the four sub-points. I provided a quote that shows Bush said what you think he didn't say. I next provided an earlier quote that contradicted the first quote. I l

RUE

Friday, July 23, 2004 1:28 AM

There are added functions for demonization: it can serve to gauge the level of support for an agenda. And when backed by powerful people, it can create a self-sustaining public opinion.

It's exemplified by: "When Hitler attacked the Jews I was not a Jew, therefore I was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the Catholics, I was not a Catholic, and therefore, I was not concerned. ..." (The history is off, Hitler started with the Communists, the unions and the gypsies.)

First an idea is floated - Jewish conspiracy. What level of authority seems to be generating this? What are other people saying? If there is high-level approval, few dissent. And some people voice agreement. Others don't want to stand out, so they add their endorsement. And before you know it, an agenda is launched. On the flip side, a lack of dissent can invite strengthening the agenda even more.

It's an interactive process of mutual testing.

SIGNYM

Friday, July 23, 2004 2:10 AM

Huh. I was wondering what the experiment was.

As far as demonization is concerned, I think it's beign used as an overly broad category. My view is that demonization is intended to make the destruction of a group of people acceptable by painting them as threatening and dangerous.

It would overlap with prejudice when the pre-judgements focus on fearsome qualities (as opposed to cute, disgusting, or dimishing prejudices )

Another way to make the destruction of a group of people acceptable is through desensitization. An example would be the fact that we might not respond to the sight of starving African blacks quite the same way that we would respond to the sight of starving African-Amercians because the former is relatively common. However, desensitization prevents assistance, while demonization promotes active hostility.

The fourth category- to make people "not listen" to a speaker- is really rhetoric. It MAY involve demonization, but can also include logical fallacies and semantic tricks, and could even include simply exposing a relevant truth. (Sometimes, the speaker being ignored should be ignored.)

My take is that prejudice, demonization, and desensitization all rely on dehumanization. (The fourth example doesn't belong to the same category.) Sorry for the not=too-well thoughtout comment- my usual 15 minutes is up!

RUE

Friday, July 23, 2004 3:50 AM

My understanding so far -
personalization - assigning negative traits to a person based on limited observation.
levels of personalization:
that person is driving dangerously (neutral)
that person is a dangerous driver (unwarranted generalization)
a-hole! what a jerk! (also dehumanization?)

dehumanization - not recognizing or acknowledging humanity of others identical to one's own
It seems to happen naturally in the US, and maybe elsewhere; it is necessary (but not sufficient) for demonization.
And this is my example: you may pass by the 'crazy drunk' without strong concern in any direction, due to dehumanization. But it won't impel you to get out your boots and teach the worthless bum a lesson next time you see him or his worthless buddies. Demonization seems necessary for people to volunteer harm (in general, except the people who like to).

I don't know if there is a category for describing a person individually and accurately based on good knowledge. 'Ever since I've known him, you can't trust what he says. Sometimes he tells the truth, but you can never be sure.' Might accurately categorizing someone fall in this realm? "He's a liar".

Demonization - of individuals or groups, with truth or falsehoods, by the powerful or powerless, and is it psychological or political?
It is an existing psychological mechanism, or it wouldn't be there to be exploited. Whether or not it serves a useful individual purpose, I couldn't say. As a group practice, I think it is essentially based on lies. (Otherwise it is merely an accurate reflection of the world.) It places groups of people into a 'dangerous and inhuman' category. Demonization by groups is all about adverse action: you identify 'enemies', gather allies, motivate to strike, rationalize harm etc, whether the action is merely a distant possibility, or imminent.

And that's as far as I got.

LTNOWIS

Friday, July 23, 2004 6:48 AM

Quote:
We removed Saddam from power because it will make America, as well as the rest of the world, and that includes the Iraqis, safer from the combination of terrorists and WMDs. That is the central point in all of this. The rest is a means to that end.

Didn't you say freeing the Iraqis from terrible dictatorship was another reason?

Also, I don't/didn't think that the war was a good idea because I don't think we'll be any safer from terrorists or WMDs. If we spend all of money on this, than we can't spend it on more productive counterterror solutions and WMD containment projects. And now that everyone hates us more, they'll be less sympathetic to our struggle and more inclined to kill us. The 900 US soldiers killed, other soldiers killed, and all the Iraqi soldiers, civilians, and insurgents killed certainly won't be safer. So while Bush's intentions may have been good, I really think this whole war was counterproductive and misguided. If I had believed good would come of this war, than I might have supported it, but I thought it was a bad idea, and sadly I appear to be right.

PS: sorry for jumping in on this debate. I read most of the previous stuff.

DRAKON

Friday, July 23, 2004 7:56 AM

Quote:
Actually, what Blix said was there was not enough information either way, and two to three months of inspections would settle the issue conclusively.

That is kind of the point. Saddam was required to comply 12 years ago, after the first Gulf war. Not in another 2 or 3 months, but right after the first war, 12 years ago.

There was not enough information, because Saddam was not complying. And that alone is a violation of the UN resolutions. There should have been no need for inspectors in 2003, or even 1998 to be evacuated. They should have had, and could have had, their job done in a few months at any time if only Saddam had complied.

"Wash, where is my damn spaceship?"

LTNOWIS

Friday, July 23, 2004 8:02 AM

Sorry for responding to Drakon's very old post, but I really disagree with him and would like to talk about it.
Originally posted by Drakon:

Quote:
The same World Court, headed by a Chinese judge that declared Israel's security barrier (the Wall) illegal and not justified as a means of self defense? A country whose major tourist attraction is a centuries old wall built for exactly that purpose, and fails to even see the irony in that statement

Are you referring to the West Wall? Because I thought that used to be part of the Jerusalem temple, not a defense structure in any way. And they've also got Jesus's birthplace and the Dome of the Rock, which are also big tourist draws.

Now on to the bigger, ideological confrontation. These quotes were responses to earlier arguments, so they're sort of out of context. But they make declarations I'd like to dispute.

Quote:
Um... You have several problems with this line of attack. First off, as unlawful combantants, the Geneva convention does not apply. Since the enemy does not recognize the Geneva Convention, it does not apply. So all this talk about the Geneva Convention, you might want to read up on it first.
................................................

The law is not an end unto itself. Its not some magic wand that makes everything all right if you simply comply with it. Actions have consequences, and very few of them are legal. And since you are stuck in this legality mode, again, I have to point out that you are not bound by the Convention if the other party refuses to comply. THAT IS ITS ENFORCEMENT MECHANISM!

It is built on the principle of reciprocity. Because there are plenty of actions that can be very effective in warfare, and yet crimes under the Geneva convention. (Use of chemical weapons is a good example) Without that principle or reciprocity, that puts those who stick to it, despite the failure of the opposition to do so, at a disadvantage. It lets the bad guys win.

Basically you're saying that those who give up their human rights don't deserve them, right?

So could you ever support systematic rape, genocide, torture, etc. as a realistic method of winning wars, if the enemy was doing it too? If the enemy starts beheading our guys, like they did, should we also resort to terror beheadings? Human rights, i believe, are things that make you better than the enemy. I believe that shoving a flashlight up someone's ass, like in Abu Gharib, is just plain wrong, no matter what the context. I believe that torture's wrong, even if it's just minor stuff. So's sleep or food deprivation to soften people up. If you lose because of your beliefs, so be it, go down shooting. The Jews who didn't believe in fighting on the Sabbath didn't resist when the Romans came in their cave to kill them. They valued their beliefs even more than their own lives.

DRAKON

Friday, July 23, 2004 8:57 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SoupCatcher:
I labeled my previous response to you as an experiment because I wanted to test some other observations. One pattern I have seen you engage in is to re-frame what is being discussed, and then generate a large number of points on this new topic. I liken it to shooting with a shotgun. This is highly effective and takes more of the "go broad" approach. My personal preference is to stick with one point and in detail state my position. I liken it to shooting with a rifle. This is highly efficient and takes more of the "go deep" approach. My motivation is to clearly define the area of discussion, present my position, listen to the position of others and the evidence they bring to bear, and decide if there is a reason to re-evaluate my position based on the new information. So I have been at a bit of a loss in how to interpret your remarks because I am not used to dealing with the sheer unsupported amount of information coming my way. I guess another way to put is: when someone asks what is water giving them a glass of distilled, purified H2O versus giving someone a lake.

I am long winded. I have to plead guilty to that. One might blame Den Beste's influence, as I read him alot, but I was probably long winded long before then as well.

And even as long winded as I am, I still get "Well what about this?" or "You forgot that." kind of comments. So brevity does not seem to be an answer anyway.

No, I don't footnote and reference each and every declarative in my postings. That would take too much time, and I see it as more a distraction, than anything useful. But I do see my positions as parts of a cohesive whole, and trying to explain that whole means sometimes going back to first principles and such, which tend to make my posts long anyway. Besides, I don't think I have posted anything that is not readily available on the net.

But more importantly, And this gets to your back to the central point of this thread. I mentioned earlier that perhaps this was a perception problem, between a charge with a case, and a charge without a case.

When we are talking about demonization, what we are in fact talking about is making charges about a person, to effectively discrediting him. To get folks not to listen to him, and listen to us instead. We know our case against the other guy. But usually we are left with only the sound bite charges from the opposition. They may know their case very well. Or possibly, we've heard their case, and rebutted them already. The key point is a lack of communication. Part of this is brought about by the nature of demonization in the first place. Even if it is partially effective, that can prevents any rebuttal or defense, and quite often the cases, from getting listened to.

Quote:
At this point in reading your response I came to the conclusion that we were only going to further diverge if I kept responding to you point by point.

But I think you had demostrated the point very clearly. After making your case for the "Bush lied" meme, you went on to give a very spirited and I must say, descent defense of Kerry against the charge of "flip flopping". You apparently still reject my defense, and to be honest, I am not certain I would accept your defense either. Its not that neither of us is listening to the other, its just that we each find the other's case weak, compared to our own.

Quote:
So I'm back to the topic of demonization. I agree with you that one goal of demonization is to marginalize. But I think there's other reasons for demonization. Another reason to demonize is that then, no matter what happens to those people, it is justified. Those who are not in power demonize those in power so that they will lose power. Those in power demonize those who are not in power so that they may remain in power. Those who buy into demonization buy into the belief that only one group of people should hold power. In my mind that's a dangerous belief to hold.

I see where your concern is, and I admit that it can be a p

DRAKON

Friday, July 23, 2004 9:33 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by LtNOWIS:
Didn't you say freeing the Iraqis from terrible dictatorship was another reason?

There are many reasons for removing Saddam. But in the end, ultimately it comes down, to, well like any actions you take, it comes down to two purposes. Life and Happiness. Your life, and your happiness primarily.

I can't feel your pain. I can empathize, I can simpathize, I can recall similar incidents in my own experience that resulted in similar pains, and I can even use my imagination to think how I would feel in your circumstances. But none of these would match, (or really even come close) to feeling what you feel.

Or to put it another way, You are stuck inside your skull alone. Yes you can mingle with other souls in a physical universe and such, but you can't read their minds, and cannot feel what they are feeling. Or know everything they know, or think what they are thinking. Each individual is unique with its own life experiences, memories, thought processes, etc. And this tends to make folks kind of selfish.

So we do thing that we think will improve our lives and our happiness. Each of us individually.

So on the one hand, we remove a terrible dictator from power, shut down his plastics shredders and rape rooms. We liberate the Iraqi people. This is good for the Iraqis, but it also serves our interests as well. Democracies are more peaceful, for a number of reasons. First off, it allows the populace to become participants in the political life of their nation, instead of chattle or bystanders. And that prevents the disaffected from becoming too violent, as they have a means of making changes where it matters, rather than attacking an external scape goat.

There are a number of reasons for removing Saddam, WMDs, his links with terrorists, his past history of invading other countries, a debt of honor we owed the Iraqis who rose up after the first Gulf war and were slaughtered, removing Saddam so we no longer have to contain him, and thereby free those troops up for other operations later on, all the way to "swamp draining" and "fly paper". The first attacks the 'root cause' of terrorism, dictatoral autocrats ineffectively ruling their populations. The second provide a battleground for terrorists, one of our choosing, and one not on US soil. By invading Iraq, even though we gave bin ladan something he demanded (troops out of Saudi Arabia) we did it in a fashion that must oppose and fight. Instead of spending those resources on attacks against Americans here at home.

So by helping the Iraqi people, we help ourselves. This is one of the most counter intuitive things I have discovered in life, that sometimes being selfish helps more people and makes their lives better in addition to your own.

Quote:
Also, I don't/didn't think that the war was a good idea because I don't think we'll be any safer from terrorists or WMDs. If we spend all of money on this, than we can't spend it on more productive counterterror solutions and WMD containment projects. And now that everyone hates us more, they'll be less sympathetic to our struggle and more inclined to kill us. The 900 US soldiers killed, other soldiers killed, and all the Iraqi soldiers, civilians, and insurgents killed certainly won't be safer. So while Bush's intentions may have been good, I really think this whole war was counterproductive and misguided. If I had believed good would come of this war, than I might have supported it, but I thought it was a bad idea, and sadly I appear to be right.

Well I disagree, but like that is a surprise?

If you have an alternative, I would love to hear about it. I don't think border control, or becoming the kind of police state that would be necessary to prevent another 9-11 would be workable, even if there was the political will to do it. Letting the terrorist attack us time and again, and "getting used to it" is not an option either. You have to destroy it at its source.

There is a disagreement about what is the "root causes" of terrorism are. Why does

DRAKON

Friday, July 23, 2004 10:25 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by LtNOWIS:
Are you referring to the West Wall? Because I thought that used to be part of the Jerusalem temple, not a defense structure in any way. And they've also got Jesus's birthplace and the Dome of the Rock, which are also big tourist draws.

I am referring to the recent World Court ruling that Israel's security barrier is illegal. And noting the irony that one of the judges, who argued that such a wall is not justified as a means of self defense, has as a major tourist attraction in his home nation, exactly that kind of wall, built for exactly that purpose.

The Great Wall of China was built to keep the Mongol from terrorizing the rest of China. Israel is trying the same approach, and yet that is wrong.

Quote:
Basically you're saying that those who give up their human rights don't deserve them, right?

Its called the principle or reciprocity.

Look, you and I want to live on the same planet. You are very interested in this abstract idea called "your rights" You don't want to be killed, robbed, whatever. Whether I want to do those things or not, you need to find some means of getting me to agree to respect your rights.

So you offer me a carrot. You don't kill me, I won't kill you. But if you try, I will try right back and I just might be a better shot than you are. As long as neither of us tries to kill the other, everything is cool.

What the framers of the Geneva convention recognized is that their rules for warfare were unenforcable by themselves. I am sure that several different mechanisms were thought up, and rejected as unworkable. You ain't going to find policemen on the battlefield, arresting violators.

So what they built into it is this principle of reciprocity. You play by these rules of warfare, and your opponent will do the same. The war may still be bloody and all that, but your injured and those taken prisoner won't be summarily executed, or tortured or whatnot.

IF YOU REFUSE to play by those rules, then the opposition is no longer bound to them either. You kill their prisoners, they'll kill yours. That is the only means the Geneva convention has for enforcement. So as a LEGAL issue, the Geneva convention is moot. They are unlawful combatants, who do not abide by the Convention in the first place. And therefore we are not subject to those restrictions.

At one point it talks about sites of cultural importance, like mosques. Such sites are to be protected as much as humanly possible in wartime. However, if you set up a command post or a firing position in such a site, it loses its protected status and the opposition can attack and destroy it, without it being a war crime. Essentially the first side to break the agreement commits the war crime. The other side does not, even if it would be a war crime otherwise.

That is the legal issue. It has nothing to do with rights, morality or anything else. And that is what I was addressing in this area.

Quote:
If you lose because of your beliefs, so be it, go down shooting.

I would submit that losing because of your beliefs, proves your beliefs wrong. And I don't care so much about beliefs as I do about living, and winning.

It goes back to the whole purpose of having beliefs in the first place. I submit that it is to further our own lives and our own happiness. We believe in order to live, rather than the reverse. And if another set of beliefs is out to destroy you, and yours, what better serves your beliefs? Fighting for them, or letting those who would destroy them, win.

I do think that too much is made of the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal. It was a bad thing, not only morally, (which appears your concern) but also tactically and strategically (which is my primary focus). Its bad for morale, and makes it harder for others to trust us. It weakens support at home. But again, the military stated back in January that they got wind of the incidents, were investigating it, the unit that was there was replaced, and those responsible are facing court marshall as we speak

SIGNYM

Friday, July 23, 2004 1:57 PM

You know I hate to be an *ss... but I'm going to be one anyway.

Drakon, I tested you and you failed. I never implied that you were "paranoid". Rather than admit you were WRONG WRONG WRONG you went off in a huff.

Now, I could do this a couple dozen times over with various parts of your posts but you would NEVER admit that you're wrong. You'd do what you've been doing ever since you started posting- shift topics, accuse others, bring incorrect "facts" to the table, CHANGE DEFINTIIONS, and when all else fails, you'll go off in a huff.

The two possibilities that I mentioned was that you are either lying or incompetent to judge reality.

Over and out.

SIGNYM

Friday, July 23, 2004 4:27 PM

Soupcatcher- maybe I didn't catch it the first time, but why are you so interested in demonization?

Quote:
But I’ve seen more and more rhetoric demonizing those who are from a different party. I get the feeling that people think it would be the end of the world if the other political party gained power. Those who support the other party are traitors. They should all be shot or, at the very least, forced to leave the country. I’ve seen these statements made with higher frequency over the past few years.

I believe that this is happening because people feel that more is at stake. 9-11 really shook people up. And Cheney globalized the issue, literally, to the point where some people believe that the issue is "ultimate survival".

On the flip side, Cheney, Ashcroft and Rumsfeld quickly instituted some pretty heavy-duty changes to rights vis a vis dentention and privacy. The Patriot Act was already waiting in the wings for an incident like 9-11, leaving the oppostion to believe that much of this was pre-planned. They may not be as afraid for their personal safety as they are afraid of the USA changing from a democracy to something else.

Both of these are significant concerns that play on people's deepest fears and will naturally cause polarization.

However one categorizes the response (polarization, demonization, prejudice, dehumanization) amybe the quesiton should be- what cna we do about it, if anything?

LTNOWIS

Friday, July 23, 2004 5:59 PM

Quote:
I am referring to the recent World Court ruling that Israel's security barrier is illegal. And noting the irony that one of the judges, who argued that such a wall is not justified as a means of self defense, has as a major tourist attraction in his home nation, exactly that kind of wall, built for exactly that purpose.

My bad. I misunderstood you. I guess I shouldn't go online after midnight.

Quote:

Quote:
If you lose because of your beliefs, so be it, go down shooting.

I would submit that losing because of your beliefs, proves your beliefs wrong. And I don't care so much about beliefs as I do about living, and winning.

It goes back to the whole purpose of having beliefs in the first place. I submit that it is to further our own lives and our own happiness. We believe in order to live, rather than the reverse. And if another set of beliefs is out to destroy you, and yours, what better serves your beliefs? Fighting for them, or letting those who would destroy them, win.

I disagree. We don't believe in things to further our own lives, we believe in them because from our perspective, they appear to be true. If you have a faction claiming the sky is red defeating a "sky is blue" faction just because they have nukes, than the sky won't magically be red. The nazis would have still been wrong if they had won. The Independents didn't have as much in the way of equipment and support, and lost, but that doesn't mean Mal's wrong in his beliefs. The good guys don't always win in the real world. Might doesn't make right. Likewise, look at Christianity. You don't convert to improve your life. You convert because you want to serve the true god, or die trying. All those Christian martyrs certainly didn't have their beliefs help out their lives any.

LTNOWIS

Friday, July 23, 2004 6:04 PM

Quote:
IF YOU REFUSE to play by those rules, then the opposition is no longer bound to them either. You kill their prisoners, they'll kill yours. That is the only means the Geneva convention has for enforcement. So as a LEGAL issue, the Geneva convention is moot. They are unlawful combatants, who do not abide by the Convention in the first place.

Ok, I agree that the Guantanamo guys and the insurgents technically can be abused as much as we like. But don't you have to draw the line somewhere morally? Just because their atrocities work, does that mean that we should commit them. If beheading some bad Iraqi would safen Americans and help us win, would you be in favor? Where do you say "Dang, they're really fighting dirty. Hopefully we can still win despite that." If Saddam had used chemical weapons on us, would you have wanted us to do the same? Two wrongs don't make a right.

LTNOWIS

Friday, July 23, 2004 6:18 PM

Quote:
Another poster compared this to My Lai, and failed to recognize the progress in the last 40 years. Instead of ~300 innocent Veitnamese civilians murdered, we had a few dozen HVT, i.e. terrorists, Ba'athists, people killing our guys, being scared and embarrassed, but left alive.

Ok, My Lai was definitely worse. But many, if not most of the abused weren't bad guys at all, just common criminals with no useful knowledge. Also, there was a lot of sexual and physical abuse. If I had a leg wound, I certainly wouldn't want someone beating on it with a baseball bat. I'm pretty sure I also read that all of the photographed abuse was done for fun, not for any interrogation purposes. It's the psychological truth that many people become sadists if you give them complete control over the well-being of others. Just look at the fox corporation.

RUE

Friday, July 23, 2004 10:51 PM

Just to clear up mis-statements about the Geneva Conventions: (there are four, and there are two additional protocols)

any signatory to the Conventions is bound to follow them whether or not the other side does

as long as there is military action, the Conventions must followed, whether the war is declared or undeclared, or if the signatory is an occupier

spies or saboteurs who are caught in the act (or under some equally strong suspicion) may be held incommunicado, but must be given their other Convention rights (humane treatment, fair trial)

the Conventions forbid not only torture but degrading or morally objectionable treatment, as well as human experimentation

RUE

Friday, July 23, 2004 11:08 PM

SignyM,

Had your fill of Drakon, eh? I personally will point out his factual errors as time permits (I hate to see them stand without note) but will no longer debate. I suspect that by now most people who've kept up don't give him much credit.

RUE

Friday, July 23, 2004 11:11 PM

SignyM, Soupcatcher,

I must enjoy a certain level of pain, I'm looking forward to more postings.

Last round I was ready to say ... steam .. venting .... gears ...... grinding .......... must ............ stop ................ thinking ..

SIGNYM

Friday, July 23, 2004 11:21 PM

Yeah, had my fill. But I agree, I hate to see mis-statements stand too, so I'll correct but not debate Drakon.

As far as further postings... I'm looking forward to some rational discussion!

DRAKON

Saturday, July 24, 2004 9:47 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by LtNOWIS:
I disagree. We don't believe in things to further our own lives, we believe in them because from our perspective, they appear to be true. If you have a faction claiming the sky is red defeating a "sky is blue" faction just because they have nukes, than the sky won't magically be red. The nazis would have still been wrong if they had won. The Independents didn't have as much in the way of equipment and support, and lost, but that doesn't mean Mal's wrong in his beliefs. The good guys don't always win in the real world. Might doesn't make right. Likewise, look at Christianity. You don't convert to improve your life. You convert because you want to serve the true god, or die trying. All those Christian martyrs certainly didn't have their beliefs help out their lives any.

I agree that Might does not make Right. But I will argue the reverse is true. Right makes Might.

This is easiest to see in combat. The side with the better intellegence on opposition forces, deployment, logistics, positions, morale, etc., as well as his own, has a tactical advantage. The better you understand your opponent, the easier it is to defeat him.

The more accurate your theories of physics are, the more capable you become, the more things you can invent and build, to accomplish whatever goals you might have. The better your technology becomes.

Physics is a good stepping off point here for me to clarify what I mean here. We don't respond to the world "as it is" and this lack of perfect understanding has tripped up philosophers from the earliest days. Sometimes our perceptions of reality are wrong. We look around and we construct mental models of reality, and base our actions on those models.

This mental modeling is advantagous. Suppose you wanted to attach a rocket to the roof of your car. Think about it for a second, perhaps even Google the urban legend about a guy who actually did it. And got smeared all over the landscape as a result. Now, you can take this possibility, apply it to your own project and you might figure out that it would be a bad idea, and I probably should move on to something else. All without getting smeared all over the landscape yourself.

Now, whether you would, or would not, is secondary. If you think you might, if you figure the risk is too high, you won't do it. (In this case, whether you are right or wrong about the question becomes irrelevant since you ain't doing it.) Or alternately, you might rig up a remote control system to test it out, to get some more actual data, before climbing into the driver's seat. In any event, your decision is based on your internal model, rather than experience.

That is a good thing, because sometimes that experience can be being smeared all over the landscape. Its better to figure that out before hand, rather than, well, after its too late.

I've talked about the decision loop before, and here is where truth matters. The more accurate and true your model is, the more the consequences of your actions will concur with what you expect. And the fewer unexpected or unintended consequences will result.

Its not that the good guys have to win ALL the time. But I do think they win far more often than they lose. That the good are good because they are right, and that gives them an edge over the bad guys. Like I have said many times before, not all ideas are created equal.

There is another aspect at work here in that beliefs, like theories, ideas, opinions, and even memories, are memes. Memes cannot exist outside of a mind. That is their environment, and without which, they do not exist. (The very least you can say is that such ideas are separated from this physical shared reality with all the other humans on this rock.) So, unless the idea aids in supporting the mind it exists in, it ends up getting itself killed off. It dies when the brain dies.

Yes, we can transmit our ideas, via text, pictures and other forms of communications. But even such transmission requires a mind to understand it, decode it, that k

DRAKON

Saturday, July 24, 2004 9:57 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by LtNOWIS:
Ok, I agree that the Guantanamo guys and the insurgents technically can be abused as much as we like. But don't you have to draw the line somewhere morally? Just because their atrocities work, does that mean that we should commit them. If beheading some bad Iraqi would safen Americans and help us win, would you be in favor? Where do you say "Dang, they're really fighting dirty. Hopefully we can still win despite that." If Saddam had used chemical weapons on us, would you have wanted us to do the same? Two wrongs don't make a right.

There is a question of whether the atrocites work or not. I don'tthink they do. I am seeing in the Iraqi blogs that Nick Berg's murder is backfiring on Zarqiwi, that he is losing support amongst Iraqis at least. Just as Abu Ghaib has hurt support for our efforts amongst the Arab nations in the region.

Again, I was addressing the legal issue. Morality and legality are not the same thing. Hopefully they are connected, but still, you can't throw the Geneva convention up in all this, because it does not apply.

If beheading a bad Iraqi would make us safer, yes. Go for it. I would insist that be certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was the bad guy, but that is more an epistemological issue than anything else.

And one of the points I have attempted to make is that this is why Iraq has to succeed. Biological entities will fight for their survival and use every means available. We have nukes. We can get rid of the problem once and for all, like the Romans did to Carthage. I would prefer not to do that, to not have to write off that many people. Which is why we are doing what we are in Iraq.

I would prefer to live and let live. But that requires others do so as well. It goes back to reciprocity again. If they want to kill us, we have to kill them right back, or die. Death is not a viable option, but I leave the choice in their hands, knowing we are more capable of dealing it than they are.

"Wash, where is my damn spaceship?"

DRAKON

Saturday, July 24, 2004 10:28 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by LtNOWIS:
Ok, My Lai was definitely worse. But many, if not most of the abused weren't bad guys at all, just common criminals with no useful knowledge. Also, there was a lot of sexual and physical abuse. If I had a leg wound, I certainly wouldn't want someone beating on it with a baseball bat. I'm pretty sure I also read that all of the photographed abuse was done for fun, not for any interrogation purposes. It's the psychological truth that many people become sadists if you give them complete control over the well-being of others. Just look at the fox corporation.

That is not what I have been reading. I read the charges in the report, cut to that section immediately. And I will note a couple of things.

[Note: A copy of it is here: http://sources.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Army_15-6_Report_of_Abuse_of_Pris
oners_in_Iraq#ASSESSMENT_OF_DoD_COUNTER-TERRORISM_INTERROGATION_AND_DETENTION_OPERATIONS_IN_IRAQ_.28MG_MILLER.E2.80.99S_ASSESSMENT.29

1) soldier is accused of, or admitting to, having sex with a female prisoner. NOT RAPE, having sex. If the prisoner did not consent, then he would have been charged with rape, rather than having sex with an inmate.

2) The charges of sodomizing with a caylume lightstick (not flashlight) and broomhandle are made by a prisoner. While Major Tuguba finds their statement credible, I am willing to let a court marshall decide.

3) One prisoner had the words "I am a rapest" (sic) scrawled on him after the prisoner raped another prisoner. Yes there was a rape that happened, but it was one prisoner raping another. There is no evidence, according to the report, of guards raping prisoners, male or female.

4) While suspects of petty criminal offenses had been picked up and housed at the same prison, it is not clear that any of them were subjected to the abuse. In the report, it indicates that it was done to soften up the detainees for intelligence interrogations. And that would exclude the petty criminals.

There is a lot of sound and fury regarding this case. Again, it is difficult for me to get worked up about it. Those responsible are being tried and will get punished. This has started long before you or I ever heard about it, the investigation and punishment.

It does not reflect a 'standard of practice', it was and will be, a minor thing in the history of this war.

"Wash, where is my damn spaceship?"

LTNOWIS

Sunday, July 25, 2004 3:36 AM

Quote:
I agree that Might does not make Right. But I will argue the reverse is true. Right makes Might.

If you're talking about factual rightness, than yes, as your sensible arguments demonstrate. If you don't believe in phsysics, than you won't be very good at modern warfare. But you can't scientifically prove something like "There's only one god, and HE AIN'T NAMED ALLAH!!" or some such thing. I also think that believing in the real god wouldn't neccesarily help you win wars, though the Old Testament would disagree with me. Likewise, the moral decision to not use dirty weapons, or not to fight at all, certainly wouldn't help you, but does that make it wrong? There certainly aren't any more Jews who don't fight on Saturday, but I still think that true beliefs and effective ones aren't the same.

Quote:
If your beliefs end up getting you killed, then I don't see that as helpful, especially if what does the killing is, well, a far worse ideology. They win, and you are dead. And your ideas, your beliefs go with you.

Again, I don't think people believe things just because it'll help them live. Look at Jesus. He died, but his beliefs are more popular than ever. That's why you gotta write them down. That's why I often respect martyrs. They die with the hope of furthering their beliefs.

Quote:
Morality and legality are not the same thing. Hopefully they are connected, but still, you can't throw the Geneva convention up in all this, because it does not apply.

If beheading a bad Iraqi would make us safer, yes. Go for it. I would insist that be certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was the bad guy, but that is more an epistemological issue than anything else.

First of all, I never argued the Convention was being violated, the others were, as they think it does. I only argued on a moral ground, and as you said, they're not the same. I tend to agree with Mal, that morality's more important. I would also behead an Iraqi if he was a bad person and it would make us safer. Only I define "bad" in this case as meaning "immoral" not "having the guts to fight for his country." I guess it's a moot point, though, because it would almost never be worth it support-wise.

Quote:
Biological entities will fight for their survival and use every means available

Not quite true. They value some things more than life. Certainly wild animals will protect their young over their own lives. Likewise, male chimps and baboons will die to protect their genetically-similar clans, as will many humans. Likewise, humans will die for abstract ideological ideas, like religion. I think it's better to die than be tortured to death, or having to commit atrocities. Also, if their was a good enough cause, I'd die to advance it. Many Japanese soldiers thought it was better to die than surrender. It may not have one them the war, but it helped somewhat.

Quote:
One prisoner had the words "I am a rapest" (sic) scrawled on him after the prisoner raped another prisoner. Yes there was a rape that happened, but it was one prisoner raping another. There is no evidence, according to the report, of guards raping prisoners, male or female.

I also don't think I accused any guards of rape. Only sexual abuse, which definitely happened.

SIGNYM

Sunday, July 25, 2004 5:44 PM

Razza, I just wanted to continue with the question of Hitchen's review of the movie, in which the central tennet (I think) is the role of the Saudis in George W Bush's foreign policy.

It's clear to me that the Saudis do not "determine" US foreign policy, however, they may influence it in areas of vital interest (to them).

So I guess the first thing to look at is- which Saudis is Bush in contact with and what are their vital interests?

Obviously, the point of contact is the Royal Family which controls all the oil. Their vital interests are to stay in power, to keep revenues flowing into their coffers, and to grow the value of their investments.

Without having specifically researched Saudi politics, my understanding is that the whole thing is complicated by the presence of the Wahhabis in Mecca and Medina. The Saudi Royal Family and the Wahhabis are going in opposite directions. The Wahhabi version of Islam promotes a religion of austerity, a fierce desire to convert or destroy the unfaithful, military control of the territory, and the sacredness of Mecca.

Ever since the Royal Family took control of the peninsula, they have been keeping the Wahhabis at bay by a combination of intermarriage, payoffs, and license to operate in other countries. Over the years, the Wahhabis have gotten stronger because they've used the money to set up madrasses throughout the Mideast and eastern and northern Africa. AT this point, I think the Royal Family realizes that they have a tiger by the tail.

The point is that the House of Saud didn't see Taliban as a "clone". The Taliban was a creation of Pakistan, not Saudi Arabia. Nor did they see al Qaida as a good thing, although they were willing to tolerate is as long as it restricted its activities to foreign countries (i.e the USA, Kenya, Afghanistan etc.) However, the presence of foreign (i.e. USA) troops in Saudi Arabia is a huge problem for the Royal Family and it may cause them to fall from power. Their chief interest at this point is to get all foreign troops out of Saudi Arabia and keep them out. Their refusal to allow our troops into Saudi Arabia was not so much support for Afghanistan and Iraq as it was fear of a politically unstable situation at home.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/2984547.stm

Another part of their equation is not to lose their investment value. I believe the price of oil is still pegged to the US dollar, although the Saudis were talking about pegging it to the Euro instead. As long as oil is prices in dollars, and as long as the House of Saud has a large portion of its revenues and investments in US dollars, the Royal Family has no interest in pulling the rug out from under the US economy. We saw that once before during the rumor that the Saudis were going to peg their oil to gold and/or a "market basket" of currencies. Gold went up to $800/oz, the dollar plumetted, and the Saudis kind of took in on the chin. In other words, it would be very unwise for them to use the economic threat because that is a two-edged sword. I would be more concerned if I saw the Saudis undertake a gradual shift away from dependence on the US economy.

I'm not sure how the House of Saud views Iraq. Although Saddam and Saudi Arabia nominally shared religions (Sunni Islam) Iraq itself launched SCUD missiles against Saudi Arabia in 1991. It's possible that the Royal Family welcomed the invasion of Iraq (as long as they kept their own hands clean) knowing that US troops would be "around" if their own country became unstable without having to tolerate actual troop presence in their own countny. It's also possible that they didn't necessarily fear that the invasion would create a stable Iraq with increased oil exports- likely they had a more realistic view of what would happen afterwards (as opposed to the American view that we would be viewed as liberators and showered with rose petals). In fact, the House of Saud probably would have had more to fear, competition-wise, from the Russian and French contracts with Saddam that were about

SOUPCATCHER

Monday, July 26, 2004 8:33 AM

Hey all. Finally got more than a few minutes of time for myself this weekend.

Drakon, for the most part I agree with the sentiment of your post. Just wanted to clarify a few details. (Also, on an unrelated note, would you mind splitting up the link you posted in one of your responses to ltnowis? It’s so long that it has changed the margins of the entire thread.)

Quote:
Originally posted by Drakon
But I think you had demonstrated the point very clearly. After making your case for the "Bush lied" meme, you went on to give a very spirited and I must say, descent defense of Kerry against the charge of "flip flopping". You apparently still reject my defense, and to be honest, I am not certain I would accept your defense either. Its not that neither of us is listening to the other, its just that we each find the other's case weak, compared to our own.

Actually my intent was not to explicitly defend Kerry on the charge of flip-flopping. My intent was more to outline problems I saw with the charge of flip-flopping in general. I see a parallel with the charge of lying. They are easy labels to throw around, and do get thrown around because they make good sound bites, but I rarely see the charges presented with enough background information to allow for an informed decision. I put some blame on the shoulders of the media who, for the most part in my opinion, have stopped being journalists. I do a lot of what should be their work myself (researching old quotes, or statements, or voting records) to determine whether a charge of lying or flip-flopping is justified in my opinion (And that’s just the first step because then I want to know “why?”). And even then it’s only my opinion, albeit an informed one, and a judgment call based on the sum of the evidence because I can’t get inside the politicians head. It’s rare, in my experience, for a politician to confirm that they did lie, or flip-flop.

It’s even rarer for some supporters of particular politicians to agree to a charge. I remember being frustrated to no end talking to die-hard Clinton supporters because they just would not admit that he lied. If we could’ve only gotten past that, then we could’ve judged the lie on importance and relevance and whether or not it was a big deal. I feel that same frustration in talking to some die-hard Bush supporters today (off-topic: I really don’t personally know any die-hard Kerry supporters. That’s probably a function of incumbency. During the 2000 election I didn’t know any die-hard Gore or Bush supporters. During the 1992 election I didn’t know any die-hard Clinton supporters. During the 1996 election I didn’t know any die-hard Dole supporters. But then again, I do know people who were at one time die-hard Perot, Nader, or Dean supporters. I define “die-hard” to be a person with a very binary view of the world: “my candidate is always right and the best thing since sliced bread” kind of a person).

Politicians lie and they change their vote. I’m more interested in why they lie, what they hope to accomplish with the lie, or why they changed their vote. In the specific case of lying, I’ve found a good indicator to be the repetition of very specific phrases. If a politician is questioned and keeps giving the exact same response then I’ve found they are usually skating a very thin line. They’re not technically lying but they are shading the truth. I’m reminded of the whole “imminent threat” brouhaha a while back. Politicians claimed they never used that phrase to describe Hussein, and they were right. But they used words like urgent and immediate and dangerous and other words that give a similar impression. If you look at what they were trying to accomplish with their statements whether they used immediate or imminent or urgent or another word was unimportant. But they are technically correct when they later claimed that they never used the word imminent to describe the threat posed by Hussein to this country. So whenever I hear the exact same phrase from people during interviews my anten

SOUPCATCHER

Monday, July 26, 2004 10:03 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by Signym
Soupcatcher- maybe I didn't catch it the first time, but why are you so interested in demonization?

So this is going to be long and rambling. But you asked

To fully explain why I’m interested in this topic I’m going to have to go into a little background detail on my interest in politics in general. But before I do that I wanted to comment on the rest of your post.

Quote:
Originally posted by Signym
I believe that this is happening because people feel that more is at stake. 9-11 really shook people up. And Cheney globalized the issue, literally, to the point where some people believe that the issue is "ultimate survival".

On the flip side, Cheney, Ashcroft and Rumsfeld quickly instituted some pretty heavy-duty changes to rights vis a vis dentention and privacy. The Patriot Act was already waiting in the wings for an incident like 9-11, leaving the oppostion to believe that much of this was pre-planned. They may not be as afraid for their personal safety as they are afraid of the USA changing from a democracy to something else.

Both of these are significant concerns that play on people's deepest fears and will naturally cause polarization.

However one categorizes the response (polarization, demonization, prejudice, dehumanization) amybe the quesiton should be- what cna we do about it, if anything?

The stakes definitely feel like they have gone up since 9-11. I think you are right that fear feeding into anger is behind the polarization, demonization, etc. I fall into the second category you mentioned, I’m more afraid of making fundamental changes to our country, in an effort to make ourselves feel safer, than I am afraid of terrorists. We would be extremely safe in a state of permanent martial law. But that’s not the U.S. I love. Frankly, we just have too much inertia for anyone from the outside to destroy us as a country. The only way that would happen would be through occupation and we’re just too big militarily and geographically for any one country to take us on. Granted, terrorists are not representing countries. It’s a completely asymmetric threat. But the only successful terrorist attack on our home soil by a terrorist group that wasn’t from this country took tremendous resources (time and money and personnel). How many terrorist groups have billionaires backing them? Cut off the money and all these groups can do is jump around and scream at us and threaten all they want. But they’ll be doing it from halfway around the world. That’s why I was so pissed that we diverted from the effort in Afghanistan of rooting out Osama and went into Iraq. But I’ll try not to rant

.

I agree that the bigger question is: what can be done about demonization? The least that I can do is not engage in the practice. The next level up from that would be to identify demonization and call people on it on an individual case by case conversational basis. Aside from that, I’m not sure where to go.

So that said, why is this topic important to me…

Up until fairly recently I considered myself apolitical. I vote in every election I am eligible because it’s important to me but I am not affiliated with any party and I really don’t pay attention to platforms. I research all the measures and candidates and vote with my gut based on some general guidelines but I never thought about the big picture: what are the advantages and disadvantages of our system of government and stuff like that. Two things have changed that.
The first is 9-11. I see this as a test for our country. We will get through this crisis. But how we respond to this crisis will weigh on how our country is seen by the future. If we take the path of “well, it’s been a good 225+ year run, but we really can’t face this threat without making significant changes to our founding principles” then I feel that we will have failed this test.

The second is due to my interest in science fiction. I love time travel/alternate history stories – specifically where

SIGNYM

Monday, July 26, 2004 11:54 AM

You bring up a lot of intersting points. I LOVE the idea of having logicians in the background identifying flaws!

I have just a few minutes ofr a couple of ideas, but I'll have to finish this up later.

The basis of demonization, and one of our species' great strenghts (and fatal flaws) is the ability to find greater meaning in a word than the totality of our individual experience. We can talk about "the Jewish banking conspiracy" and give it greater weight than our life's experience with Jews. Even a physically integrated mix can be goaded to look on each other with suspicion within months, given a steady stream of propaganda.

Words alone can raise our pulse and blood pressure, cause us to fight to the death, make us cry. Given that they are so powerful, you'd think that rhetoric and logic would be a REQUIRED part of the school curriculum. Instead, they teach "history". (It's a little like the current approach to science. Along with teaching "How many molecules in a mole" science teachers should teach the scientific method.)

So I think an important part of reducing "demonization" would be to change the school curriculum.

The other point that you bring up in trust in the opposition, and the strength of opposing parties.

I think what you're saying is that systems with two opposing drivers are more stable than systems with only one driver - for example, heating and cooling something at the same time achieves better temperature regulation than just heating (or cooling) alone.

That might work with single variable (temperature). However, in a multi-variable society, where fiscal, foreign, and domestic policy don't line up neatly (I am fiscally conservative but socially liberal) you may need more than two parties to adequately represent most views.

But w/out getting hung up in the number of parties, I think what you are saying is that people need to trust the PROCESS of opposition, and not respond to opposition as a threat that needs to be eliminated.

Hmmm... I'm falling alseep at the keyboard. Later.

SOUPCATCHER

Tuesday, July 27, 2004 8:08 AM

Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
I think what you're saying is that systems with two opposing drivers are more stable than systems with only one driver - for example, heating and cooling something at the same time achieves better temperature regulation than just heating (or cooling) alone.

That might work with single variable (temperature). However, in a multi-variable society, where fiscal, foreign, and domestic policy don't line up neatly (I am fiscally conservative but socially liberal) you may need more than two parties to adequately represent most views.

But w/out getting hung up in the number of parties, I think what you are saying is that people need to trust the PROCESS of opposition, and not respond to opposition as a threat that needs to be eliminated.

Yeah, that is basically what I'm saying in regards to the process of opposition. I like your temperature control example. I have a tendency to reverse-anthropomorphosize human problems and think in terms of technical solutions. I have to constantly remind myself that there are no realistic control volumes that can be drawn around most problems involving humans (damn those pesky people

). A good solution would be to have more than two viable political parties in this country. Most people I talk to on a regular basis do not fit well into either party. But there is a lot of inertia against third, fourth, etc. parties gaining national acceptance. So I try to focus more on working within the structure that we currently have.

Getting too tired to type...

I shaved off my beard for you, devil woman!

RUE

Wednesday, July 28, 2004 2:48 AM

Just a quick few comments;

In my experience, temperature control is not that simple. There's rate decrease as set temperature is approached (from either side), overshoot, damping etc. Additional inputs are needed, and they have to be right. Without them at one extreme the temperature is never reached (b/c it is approached more and more and more slowly); at the other, the system goes into severe oscillations.

Or, to take a biological example where balanced opposing mechanisms are life's basis, immune systems must be kept between being unreactive and indiscriminate to be viable.

I'm not trying to draw the analogy too far, but I don't think reliance on a single simple mechanism, in this case the eventual balancing of opposed political factions, is THE answer to long-term viability of the US political system. Even supposedly simple systems with only one variable need extra inputs. And extensive systems need exquisitely complicated balancing mechanisms to adjust without self-destruction.

I do think there are other factors involved. I hate to sound like a broken record, but I think if the US had a political system that had timely feedback (ie a parliamentary system), a lot of these instabilities would be resolved, rather than go on to generate wild oscillations or bi-stable states. IMHO.

ARAWAEN

Wednesday, July 28, 2004 4:17 PM

Signym wrote

Quote:
I am fiscally conservative but socially liberal

At least you have small third parties that you could support and foster. Try being, socially conserative but fiscally liberal. It feels like political solitary confinement.

Arawaen

Um, I'm lost. Uh, I'm Angry. And I'm Armed.

SIGNYM

Wednesday, July 28, 2004 5:39 PM

Jumping around a little bit.

I think it all boils down to a problem of fear. People are not going to tolerate the presence of "opposition" if they truly believe it's a life and death matter. The mechanisms to resolve opposing viewpoints (debate, voting, compromise) aren't dramatic enough to satisfy panic. The person who believes that we have to do something extreme RIGHT NOW won't wait for discussion.

I think the media shoulders a very large portion of blame. Instead of educating viewers they push fear. Fear and horror keep people tuned in almost as much as sex and food, which make advertisers happy. ("What's Wrong With American TV?")

The Republican Party also shares a a large poriton of blame. They're running on a platform of fear.

What I see is an interesting asymmetry of fear. Bush supporters are terribly afraid of "terrorism". Without any intermediate steps, they automatically translate that to being afraid of a John Kerry win. If you were to ask them why they're so against Kerry, I'm not sure they could say explicitly... they might say something about Kerry being "soft on terrorism" but I'm not sure they could tell you what they think he might DO that is so terribly dangerous.

However, those who are against Bush are against BUSH. They are concerned about Bush's record along various lines- environmental, civil rights. unilateralism etc.

What SOME people are afraid of is that Bush will subvert the democratic resolution process itself. The fear isn't entirely unfounded. When I read posts like Drakon's, what I see (and I could be wrong) is a person who will tolerate ANYTHING (vote roll manipulation, Administration lies, secret detentions, secret policy-making, "delayed" elections) just to make the fear go away. Basically, there is a portion of our population who will tolerate fascism in order to feel safe, and the Republican Party is playing to that fear.

While we should tolerate opposition, the one thing we must NOT tolerate is people screwing with the democratic process itself, the free expression of dissenting opinions, and manipulation by the media. In order to be able to accept oppostion, we must be assured that the resolution process is unbroken.

RUE

Wednesday, July 28, 2004 8:02 PM

This will be rambling but:

There are several topics going here. A few are: the notion of politically opposed parties, the generation of 'oppostion' between opposed parties, demonization of opposition, and power balance.

I think what Soupcatcher was trying to say was 'two heads are better than one' - just b/c other others think differently doesn't mean they think wrong, and from the contest of approaches an optimum solution will be reached.

But what I think is that the system set-up determines the outcome, and the one in the US makes for an inimical situation.

Soome things I've been thinking about -

What things may happen in a non-competitive system? Under that system you can have the multiplication of ideas (or any human-based resource) this way: I have one idea, you have one idea. We exchange ideas. Now you have two and I have two. But from my idea (and background) and your idea now in my head, I come up with more ideas. You do the same. Maybe some of our ideas are similar, but ultimately the result is de novo creation of multiple new ideas; or, another way, the simple exchange of ideas is more than additive. The history of human knowledge and invention is like that (and the patent/copyright/IP system of ownership is threatening to strangle it.) A different system leads to different outcomes, such as the 'prisoner's dilemna' game. The optimum solution for that set-up is (as far as I know) still 'tit-for-tat'.

Or in this example, there is the US political system. I believe the US system inevitably leads to two opposing forces (in a zero-sum condition). What can happen? One may completely vanquish the other, then change the system so that a reversal doen't happen. The two may oscillate. Or they may come to an intermediate equilibrium. How it turns out in real life is the result of the original system set-up - the number of other inputs, the feedback etc. US politics have often been stormy and unstable, in some respects self-destructive. (Obviously not as chaotic as other countries, but not as stable or civil as most of the rest of the first world.) So this inimical relationship between parties is the natural result of the set-up. IMHO.

Now that doesn't mean there isn't real destructive intent. Demonization is only demonization if it isn't true. I think Bush & Co. are probably fascist. I don't see the Democrats as eager to secretly disappear people ad infinitum as the republicans are. In this case, I don't think it's demonization.

SPLIBERTARIAN

Wednesday, July 28, 2004 10:54 PM

Quote:
SoupCatcher wrote:
One of the points of view of the author that really resonated with me is that the amendments to our constitution outline rights, not restrictions. The right to free speech, the right to bear arms, the right to vote, the right to representation. The time that we tried to introduce restrictions into the amendments, prohibition, we failed miserably.

Small nit-pick here...

The Bill of Rights does indeed outline restrictions, however, they are all restrictions of the government. They took care to not grant those rights to the people, because that which the government could granteth, the government could taketh away...Hence the preexisting "right of the people"..."shall not be infringed."

If you look at the federalist and anti-federalist papers from the time, there was much debate over including the Bill of Rights at all for fear that if the people's rights were enumerated they would thus be limited to only those mentioned.

RUE

Thursday, July 29, 2004 1:19 AM

Not being a historian or keen observer of politics - it seems to me that by NOT enumerating those rights, the Federal government did cede them to be taken away by states or corporations. If they had been enumerated in the Constitution as being possessed by the citizens, perhaps the states and private interests would have a harder time restricting them.

SIGNYM

Thursday, July 29, 2004 4:57 AM

Arawaen: HAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!

SIGNYM

Friday, July 30, 2004 1:14 AM

SPEAKING OF FEAR:

"Fear of Death Wins Minds and Votes, Study Finds"
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters)

In the first study...

Quote:
... students who thought about death were much more likely to choose the charismatic leader... Only four out of about 100 chose that imaginary leader when thinking about exams, but 30 did after thinking about death.

A charismatic leader is "a person who declared our country to be great and the people in it to be special". The other tested leadership styles were task-oriented (focusing on the job to be done) and relationship-oriented ("let's get it done together")

In second study...

Quote:
"... we asked half the people to think about the September 11 attacks, or to think about watching TV... What we found was staggering."

When asked to think about television, the 100 or so volunteers did not approve of Bush or his policies in Iraq. But when asked to think about Sept. 11 first and then asked about their attitudes to Bush, another 100 volunteers had very different reactions.

In a third study

Quote:
The volunteers were aged from 18 into their 50s and described themselves as ranging from liberal to deeply conservative. No matter what a person's political conviction, thinking about death made them tend to favor Bush. Otherwise, they preferred Kerry.

"I think this should concern anybody," the author said. "If I was speaking lightly, I would say that people in their, quote, right minds, unquote, don't care much for President Bush and his policies in Iraq."

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=615&ncid=696&e=3&u=/nm
/20040729/pl_nm/campaign_fear_dc

So I think I was correct in pegging the support for Bush as being rooted primarily in fear.

RUE

Friday, July 30, 2004 2:43 AM

No doubt he will amp it up every time it's useful.

RUE

Friday, July 30, 2004 2:52 AM

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/print.asp?page=story_10-7-2004_pg1_8
The magazine article claims that Pakistani security officials have been told they must produce these high-value targets (HVTs) by the election.

http://wilsonhellie.typepad.com/for_the_record/2004/07/we_interrupt_th
.html
Bush and gang are pressuring Pakistan to capture OBL, Mullah Omar, or Zawahiri preferably during the first three days of the Democratic convention; if not that, during the last ten days of July; but definitely before the election.

And ....

TA DAAAA !!!
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/asiapcf/07/29/pakistan.alqaeda.capture/i
ndex.html
Pakistan captures high-level al Qaeda operative

SOUPCATCHER

Friday, July 30, 2004 4:08 AM

SPLibertarian:
Thank you for that clarification. I have only lately come to an interest in the Bill of Rights and I appreciate any and all help in my ongoing quest for understanding. So I'm guessing that article 9 and probably article 10 were a response to that debate that you mentioned? On a side note: I have come to realize that my high school education was very incomplete.

Signym:
Interesting link. I'm not sure if I would draw the conclusion that you did because it's very difficult for me to tell anything about the validity of the study based on the write-up. In the past I've been very disappointed in how the press presents original research so I'm usually pretty leery. Since Psychology is not my discipline, I'll withhold judgement until I see these studies presented in a peer-reviewed journal.

On the other hand, this passes my "intuitive test" in that the results aren't surprising. In my opinion, whether or not the studies have shown the relationships they claim is not important. What is important is that it appears this administration believes they must maintain a state of fear to stay in power.

Rue:
John B. Judis, Spencer Ackerman & Massoud Ansari writing for The New Republic originally broke this story a few weeks ago. Here's a link to the article (they've since added an intro about the capture):
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040719&s=aaj071904
My feelings on this are mixed. I'm very glad that another Al Qaeda operative has been captured. Hopefully we can get him into our custody and try him for the embassy bombings. On the other hand, I'm irritated with both Pakistan and the Bush administration. Why didn't we apply this pressure back in 2001, 2002, or 2003? And why did it take the pressure and the incentives for Pakistan to act?

When I first read The New Republic article a few weeks ago I dismissed it as being almost conspiracy theorish. But then we have the capture. And come to find out they have had him since Sunday. And the capture is announced at midnight local Pakistan time (which just happens to be close to prime time on the east coast). Coincidental?

Kevin Drum over at the Washington Monthly was one of the bloggers tracking this. He has a nice couple of links and some thoughts on the delay between the capture and the announcement:
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_07/004416.ph
p

I shaved off my beard for you, devil woman!

RUE

Friday, July 30, 2004 6:28 PM

Soupcatcher - do you spend a LOT of time researching and keeping up with the news?

I ran across the item a while ago, sent it on to a few people but didn't bookmark or save it. So when the new announcement was made I had to go with what I could scrape up on a quick search.

Thanks for the link. We seem to access different sources.

RUE

Friday, July 30, 2004 6:33 PM

USA Today had the good sense to spike it, but speaking of demonization:

Quote:
Put The Speakers In A Cage (Ann Coulter's Spiked Article)
USA Today Put The Speakers In A Cage July 26, 2004

Here at the Spawn of Satan convention in Boston, conservatives are deploying a series of covert signals to identify one another, much like gay men do.

This is literally demonization.

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Saturday, July 31, 2004 3:15 PM

It is true that people will almost always choose security over other concerns. This is well documented.

Fact: almost 3000 people were killed on 9-11 by a terrorist attack against the US

Fact: The terrorists who instigated that attack have been involved in attacking the US for the at least the last 10 years. Including a half dozens attacks on US personal and interest (including one on mainland US soil) during the Clinton Administration, all of which went basically unanswered.

Fact: Kerry’s voting record in the US Congress has systematically failed to support any military defense spending. While his Purplehearts might suggest that he is a hero on the battle field, he has certainly done little to support the security of this nation since then.

Fact: Since 2001 there have been no terrorist attacks against US interest or personal outside of war zones specifically declared by the US, and indeed no terrorist attacks on US soil.

There are lots of reasons to vote for Bush in ’04, security is only one of them. Low taxes is certainly a big winner for me. Kerry will raise taxes on the middle class as soon as he is in office. It is the only way he can support his socialist dreams. But only a fool marginalizes the importance of security of this country. Pretending that the Bush Administration is proselytizing fear for its own purpose is moot. The fact is the danger is real and only a fool ignores it.

In Kerry’s ridiculous speech the other day, he made a bullshit comment about families needing to take up a collection for their military son’s and daughter’s body armor. Kerry refused to vote for the money that was needed to support our troops and he has the audacity to make this bullshit comment? If Kerry had had his way, our troops would probably need to scavenge the land for their own food. Now he takes credit for what other senators did. There are lots of reasons not to vote for Kerry, as well.

Kerry simply has failed to define himself. He arrogantly proclaims that he will get international support for the war. But international support is already there. And the Bush Administration spent almost a year in negotiations to secure what international support was available. Now Kerry pops up out of no where, seemingly, and decides that he’s got it all figured out. Well, if that were the case, then where was he when all this going on in the first place? Either he doesn’t have a clue, or he’s working against US defense, as his voting record suggests.

Demonizing Bush as a tyrant using fear to motivate people is ridiculous.

3000 people died on 9-11 because we, as a nation, did not take our defense seriously enough. That’s not fear-mongering. It’s a fact. If you have any questions about that, consult the 9-11 committee; that was their conclusion. Both Democrats and Republicans are to blame; indeed, all of us are to blame. But in general, the only people I see, today, marginalizing the defense of this country are Liberal Democrats, particularly those who want to get Kerry in office.

If you have to pretend that the current and real terrorism against this country is nothing more then the fear-mongering fantasies in order to get Kerry elected, then it may be a serious danger to this country for Kerry to be in office right now.

HKCAVALIER

Saturday, July 31, 2004 4:21 PM

Hey Finn, please take this to another thread. This thread is very long and most people with dial up will not read it. Most of us who are still reading it are not here to talk about Kerry's fitness for office. Your sentiments would fit very nicely into the "Fantastic Speech" thread about Kerry's speech at the DNC.

That said, I really gotta comment on your closing remarks. They seem to reflect a very shallow reading of the issues discussed in this thread and a very simplistic black and white assessment of the current political situation that is specifically critiqued in many of the posts here.

Quote:
Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
If you have to pretend that the current and real terrorism against this country is nothing more then the fear-mongering fantasies in order to get Kerry elected, then it may be a serious danger to this country for Kerry to be in office right now.

You seem to think that Bush cannot be a fear-mongerer if the threat of terrorism is real. Since the threat of terrorism is real, then people who think Bush is a fear-mongerer are dangerously deluded.

But I think a lot of very sensible people would say that the threat of terrorism is real AND that Bush is a fear-mongerer. Many of us see his war in Iraq to be a ruinously expensive tangent in a real war on terror. Fear-mongering fantasy #1: Saddam has WMD's and intends to use them against the U.S. Fear-mongering fantasy #2: Saddam Hussein was behind the 9/11 attacks. Fear-mongering fantasy #3: If you do not support Bush's policies whole-sale, then you are putting guns in the hands of terrorist.

There are different ways to fight terrorism. Just because a method can be defined as successful, doesn't make it the right method. If my hand itches I can cut it off and it won't itch anymore, but maybe there would have been other less destructive ways for me to deal with the itch.

Drakon above has stated that he can imagine a situation where killing "every living thing from Marocco to the Indian border" would be necessary to insure our security. He hopes it won't come to that, but if we have to commit de facto genocide, he's saying he'd go along in the interest of our survival.

You see, without a more complex awareness of our needs as human beings, mere logic and the need for security can lead to madness and genocide.

I see Bush's policies speeding toward that kind of future when we need to be pulling back.

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

RUE

Sunday, August 1, 2004 8:50 PM

Hi HKCavalier,

I too am still following this thread. But since I've said pretty much everything I have to say, I'm waiting for some other input to get me cogitating again.

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