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roachboy · 12-21-2005, 10:22 AM

the premise of this thread is not a legal question--it is not about the (obvious) problems the bush squad has caused for themselves by their excessively enthusiastic take on their own j.d. legal memos---it is not whether there are grounds for a formal investigation and potentially formal charges against the administration--though there are obviously grounds for an investigation and i would not be surprised to see that this ends up being the Real Mistake, the one that the administration cannot talk away....

the real premise of the thread is the question of whether the extralegal arguments are compelling--these extra-legal arguments center on the "war on terror" and its psychological correlates.
this question can be reduced to a matter of relative paranoia.
do folk on the right feel more special than the rest of us because they imagine "terrorism" is a constant direct threat to them personally--this in the face of all evidence to the contrary----what it involved with this question for conservatives?
they never---ever--address the matter, but it is crucial to every last response above that even tried to defend the bush administration.
it is the centre of this debate, such as it is.
yet no-one addresses it.
all you get is a series of various indices of the extent to which the matter operates psychologically for individual conservatives.
that's it.
it is like a "fact" in conservativeland.
what causes this sense of "terrorism" to vary with political affiliation?
what justifies it?
are certain types of information sources more likely to present "terrorism" as a constant, real menace than others?
how do these information souces line up politically?

fact is, folks, that there is nothing "objective" about your sense of this fiction called the "war on terror"---there is no agreement on what it means, this "war--no agreement on the nature of the adversary--no agreement about the danger posed to civilians by it--no agreement on causes--no agreement about anything, really.

what justifies the separation of the notion of "terrorism" from the arrangements backed by the americans internationally?
that is, on what basis does anyone, anywhere accept the argument floated by the bush people sine 9/12/2001 that "terrorism" can be understood as something other than a political response to aspects of globalizing capitalism on the one hand and american foreign policy on the other?

it would seem to me that if you want to combat "terrorism" you would have to advocate basic changes to the international capitalist order and to american foreign policy, particularly in the middle east.
which means that you would have to know what the americans are doing, and what they are blamed for.

the right seems totally uninterested in such matters, presumably as a function of a politically sanctioned type of ignorance.
yet the folk on the right wonder why others do not buy their arguments. they do not buy them because of all the extra stuff involved with even starting to take them seriously----which conservatives seem incapable of laying out and debating.

but for any of the conservative arguments to be valid at all, there has to be some kind of coherent view of the question of "terrorism"--for these arguments to hold in this kind of debate, that view of "terrorism" would have to be introduced as a major premise and defended as such--as things stand, all it is is an arbitrarily invoked bit of background information the only interest in which is its persistence across rightwing views expressed in this thread.

the right does not have a compelling claim that the bushsquad's survellance actions are legal---i have read through the various attempts above to argue this point, and i find none of them even interesting, much less compelling.
what it comes down to is a sense of whether the bush squad is justified in its actions based on raison d'etat.
period.
and so around we go.

12-21-2005, 10:22 AM	#260 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	the premise of this thread is not a legal question--it is not about the (obvious) problems the bush squad has caused for themselves by their excessively enthusiastic take on their own j.d. legal memos---it is not whether there are grounds for a formal investigation and potentially formal charges against the administration--though there are obviously grounds for an investigation and i would not be surprised to see that this ends up being the Real Mistake, the one that the administration cannot talk away.... the real premise of the thread is the question of whether the extralegal arguments are compelling--these extra-legal arguments center on the "war on terror" and its psychological correlates. this question can be reduced to a matter of relative paranoia. do folk on the right feel more special than the rest of us because they imagine "terrorism" is a constant direct threat to them personally--this in the face of all evidence to the contrary----what it involved with this question for conservatives? they never---ever--address the matter, but it is crucial to every last response above that even tried to defend the bush administration. it is the centre of this debate, such as it is. yet no-one addresses it. all you get is a series of various indices of the extent to which the matter operates psychologically for individual conservatives. that's it. it is like a "fact" in conservativeland. what causes this sense of "terrorism" to vary with political affiliation? what justifies it? are certain types of information sources more likely to present "terrorism" as a constant, real menace than others? how do these information souces line up politically? fact is, folks, that there is nothing "objective" about your sense of this fiction called the "war on terror"---there is no agreement on what it means, this "war--no agreement on the nature of the adversary--no agreement about the danger posed to civilians by it--no agreement on causes--no agreement about anything, really. what justifies the separation of the notion of "terrorism" from the arrangements backed by the americans internationally? that is, on what basis does anyone, anywhere accept the argument floated by the bush people sine 9/12/2001 that "terrorism" can be understood as something other than a political response to aspects of globalizing capitalism on the one hand and american foreign policy on the other? it would seem to me that if you want to combat "terrorism" you would have to advocate basic changes to the international capitalist order and to american foreign policy, particularly in the middle east. which means that you would have to know what the americans are doing, and what they are blamed for. the right seems totally uninterested in such matters, presumably as a function of a politically sanctioned type of ignorance. yet the folk on the right wonder why others do not buy their arguments. they do not buy them because of all the extra stuff involved with even starting to take them seriously----which conservatives seem incapable of laying out and debating. but for any of the conservative arguments to be valid at all, there has to be some kind of coherent view of the question of "terrorism"--for these arguments to hold in this kind of debate, that view of "terrorism" would have to be introduced as a major premise and defended as such--as things stand, all it is is an arbitrarily invoked bit of background information the only interest in which is its persistence across rightwing views expressed in this thread. the right does not have a compelling claim that the bushsquad's survellance actions are legal---i have read through the various attempts above to argue this point, and i find none of them even interesting, much less compelling. what it comes down to is a sense of whether the bush squad is justified in its actions based on raison d'etat. period. and so around we go. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 12-21-2005 at 10:24 AM..