Mephisto2

Actually, I think he was quoting Colin Powell's autobiography. It was just cited in the Conason piece.

Don't tell me you think Powell is a liar and guilty of treason too now, do you?


Mr Mephisto

daswig

I'm pretty sure that every time Powell met with the enemy, he did so with the blessings of the government. So I've seen nothing to make me think he was a traitor.

host

daswig, here are some references to the atrocities committed by U.S. troops
in Viet Nam. These are the references and links at <a href="http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docid=244#">http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docid=244#</a>
If they are reliable enough for factcheck.org to cite, that's good enough
for me, and apparently, for Dick Cheney, too. It was not treasonous to
testify about this in 1971; it was about saving lives....on both sides. I've
already documented on another thread, the fact that Jane Fonda was
responsible for exposing the Nixon and Kissinger <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&safe=off&q=+bombing+the+dikes+in+Vietnam%2C+&btnG=Search">plan to bomb the dikes in North Viet Nam</a> that could have resulted in intentional flooding that would have killed several hundred thousand civilians and severely diminished the rice crop. I also documented that George HW Bush as U.N. Ambassador, denied to the world that Nixon had approved the dike destruction plan, when historic evidence now proves that Jane Fonda was correct and that she put pressure on Nixon to suspend his plan, simply by exposing it to public scrutiny. Our current president, shortly after his inauguration, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A20731-2001Oct31">signed a serious of executive orders</a> to keep Presidential papers of the past three administrations, and, presumably, his own, from reaching the eyes of the public for a much longer period than the previous restriction of ten years. George W Bush; the people's president!

Locobot

Either Daswig has never read 1984 or (s)he has no concept of what irony is.

cthulu23

So we can trust Colin Powell's assessment that My Lai wasn't an isolated incident? Maybe we shouldn't dismiss stories based on their authors rather then their ideas.

daswig

Once again, host, you've failed to cite a single example where GIs cut of heads or limbs.

Some bad things happened there. Yes, GIs poisoned enemy food supplies. They even snuck into enemy ammo dumps and replaced some of their munitions with "doctored" ammunition filled with PETN, designed to blow the weapons up when used. Corpses WERE dismembered during AIR STRIKES, just as corpses were dismembered in EVERY war where air power was used. But cut the heads off of living people? Your very, very, VERY long cut and paste didn't provide a SINGLE example of anything REMOTELY similar to that. Civilians were indeed shot, mostly in "free fire" areas, where the enemy controlled the countryside. Why? Because the enemy didn't wear uniforms (as required by international law) and all of the friendly civilians had already been evacuated.

Remember this picture? <img src="http://www.msu.edu/~daggy/cop/images/00000008.gif" img>

Did you know that what happened in that picture was NOT a war crime? That the individual executed was actually an enemy officer caught in civilian clothes after murdering the family of the shooter's subordinate, and that his summary execution was in fact LEGAL under the international protocols? Yeah, it sucked to be him, but then again, maybe, JUST maybe, he shouldn't have been doing what he was doing that led to his execution.

You talk about Jane Fonda's efforts to stop the US destruction of the North Vietnamese rice crop by destroying the dikes. Do you likewise decry the Allies destroying dams in Germany to flood industrial areas (lots of people drowned), or the program to destroy Germany's ability to grow food (lots of people starved)? How about the carpetbombing of the Ruhr? Lots of civilians died there. How about the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, or the firebombings of Tokyo, which killed more civilians than the A-bombs did?

How exactly are you supposed to fight a war against very bad people without killing their supporters? Even Lenin said (paraphrasing) you can't make an omlette without breaking some eggs.

Pacifier

Go and read the reports about the Tiger Force
http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs...y=SRTIGERFORCE
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiger_F...28commandos%29


During the rampage, the soldiers committed some of their most brutal atrocities, Army records show.

A 13-year-old girl's throat was slashed after she was sexually assaulted, and a young mother was shot to death after soldiers torched her hut.

An unarmed teenager was shot in the back after a platoon sergeant ordered the youth to leave a village, and a baby was decapitated so that a soldier could remove a necklace.

http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs...ORCE/110190168

__________________
"It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death
— Albert Einstein

Mephisto2

Once again, no one here said they did.

WRONG. Executing prisoners, and that is what he was, IS most definitely, categorically, abosolutely a war crime. Feel free to check the Geneva Conventions, especially the Geneva Convention relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. [Adopted on 12 August 1949 by the Diplomatic Conference for the Establishment of
International Conventions for the Protection of Victims of War, held in Geneva from 21 April to 12 August, 1949. Entry into force 21 October 1950]

http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/91.htm

Let me also quote from the US Military book Law at War - Vietnam 1964 to 1973

"As indigenous offenders, the Viet Cong did not technically merit prisoner of war status, although they were entitled to humane treatment under Article 3, Geneva Prisoner of War Conventions. Under Article 12, the United States retained responsibility for treatment of its captives in accordance with the Geneva Conventions even after transfer of the captives to the South Vietnamese. At the same time, the United States was concerned that Americans held captive in North and South Vietnam receive humane treatment and be accorded the full benefits and protection of prisoners of war.


Again WRONG.

He was purportedly a Viet Cong officer. They didn't wear uniforms.

The picture was actually taken on the morning of January 31, the first full day of the Tet attack. Associated Press photographer Eddie Adams and a Vietnamese TV cameraman employed by NBC were wandering around Saigon getting photos and footage of the battle damage when they noticed a small contingent of South Vietnamese troops with a captive dressed in a checked shirt. From the other direction came Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan, chief of South Vietnam’s national police. As Adams and the NBC cameraman aimed their cameras, Loan calmly raised his sidearm and shot the prisoner—a Viet Cong officer—in the head. Loan walked over to Adams and said in English: "They killed many Americans and many of my men." [REF:http://www.ashbrook.org/publicat/dia...ward-tet.html]. It is reported that he did claim POW status before he was shot.

Either way, the fact that he was a PRISONER means it was a crime.


That's like saying "maybe, just maybe, those poor GI's who are being blown to pieces by suicide bombers in Iraq shouldn't be doing what they're doing". In otherwords, it's meaningless.


And finally, on pages 76, 77 and 77 of the same book (did I mention it was published by the US Military and is on their web page), there is the following section.

http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/Vie...War/law-01.htm
Emphasis added.


So, what's my point? Only that you are, once again, making statements that are patently and verifiably false to bolster your argument.

You have a valid point of view (that you think Bush would make a better President than Kerry), but making sweeping generalizations, false statements, obfuscating the facts, abandoning arguments shown to be wrong and generally avoiding the issues at hand do not make you right. Indeed, they show a knee-jerk reactionism that is only devaluing your position.

Mr Mephisto

daswig

Kerry did.

Who said he was a prisoner of war? What exactly did he do to remove himself from the status of unlawful combatant/spy (who can be summarily executed) and put him into the status of POW? Was he wearing insignia recognizable at a distance? If not, what moved him into POW status?


Objection, relevance. Are you suggesting that the shooter was American, or in American custody? It's interesting to note, however, that the first the manual does indeed say that they were not POWs, and he was humanely treated, he was humanely shot in the head, causing almost instantaneous death. While not as humane as a lethal injection, execution by musketry is still legal in parts of the US (namely Utah), and it hasn't been ruled to be cruel or unusual punishment.

PURPORTEDLY?!??!? his widow admits he was VC. And not wearing uniforms is why they were not classified as POWS but rather as unlawful combatants.

I can claim to be the Queen of the MayDay, that doesn't make it so. I'm sure he also claimed to be innocent, like most convicts do.

No, it doesn't. People in his situation can indeed be executed, just like spies can be executed.

Yup, you sure did. You just didn't mention why a US government policy would apply to a Lt. Col of the ARVN, which was part of a sovereign nation OTHER than the US, and which was NOT under US command or the UCMJ. He was captured, interrogated, passed up the chain of command to somebody who had the legal authority to judge him (in effect, a summary courts martial) and then execute him.

daswig

BTW, mephisto, read Article 4, (A)(2)(b), (c), and (d) from http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/91.htm . The NVA didn't wear a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance, did not carry arms openly, and did not follow the rules of war. Therefore, they were NOT eligible to become POWs.

host

Thank you, Pacifier, I can't keep up with the ever growing challenge of
refuting daswigs frequently unsubstantiated statements without some help.
Will the beheading of one baby be enough for him? Will the source of your
information have enough integrity to pass muster with him ? I embrace no
hope of influencing his opinion, let alone changing it, on any misconception
which I perceive him to have. All I hope for is to influence those who Rove
has so far only toyed with, but not hypnotized. Even Rove is not responsible
for daswig; I respect him now as Rove's equal!

daswig

Pacifier and Host, I'd remind you of "Operation Tailwind", where CNN (a far more "reputable" source than the Toledo Blade) reported with a straight face that the US nerve-gassed American defectors in Cambodia. Turns out it wasn't true, it was the result of a "liberal" producer (who was on a first-name basis with Jane Fonda) who had an axe to grind, to the point that she misled and misquoted sources, and failed to check even BASIC facts, like the ability of standard army fatigues/BDUs to deflect Sarin, and the fact that none of the survivors of the operation who supposedly were gassed with sarin showed ANY signs of nerve damage. So yeah, an uncorroborated report of something like that does peg my skeptical meter.

Pacifier

A far more reputable?! the Blade got the Pulitzer Prize for that report.
the source for that reports are, like I said above, Army records what else do you need?

Do you think those army records and the testimonies of those soldiers (under oath) are false and a lie?

__________________
"It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death
— Albert Einstein

Mephisto2

Sheesh...

By DEFINITION he was a prisoner. He has his hands tied behind his back. You can read the eye-witness accounts if you wish.


If I thought you were being sarcastic here, I woudl ignore this. The sad thing is I think you are being serious and I have nothing but contempt for such an opinion as that stated above.

Whoa... hold on there Tiger. I said purportedly in case you spouted some nonesense about him being a spy in civilivan clothes. The fact that he was a VC means your original comment about him wearing civilian clothes is entirely irrelevant. And you've just proved it by your knee-jerk reaction to my attempt at a non-confrotational description of him as a "purported" VC.

Huh? He was taken prisoner. That's a fact. What are you arguing about?


Yes it does. NO prisoners can be summarily executed. If you believe so, then you don't understand the Geneva Conventions (of which the US is a signatory).

And spies can be executed after a trial (if only in a military court).

I refer you to the Nuremberg Trials when the US charged, convicted and executed German military and political leaders. One of the charges was that they illegally executed prisoners, and murdered civilians.

In other words, if you don't believe he was a prisoner of war, by definition he was therefore a civilian. Either way, his summary execution was a crime.

The second reference (to which you once again make a knee-jerk reaction) quote was not refering to this specific occurrance at all, but your repeated bleating that the US did not commit war crimes in Vietnam. You may not believe me, but I (apparently rashly) assumed you would believe the US military itself.

I wonder what it must be like to live in a world where everyone else is always wrong and you are always right...


Mr Mephisto

Mephisto2

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you mean the VC (Viet Cong) and not the NVA (North Vietnamese Army).

The NVA certainly did wear a uniform.


Mr Mephisto

roachboy

going back for a second the to 1984 analogy, remember what has been raised in passing above--that domination in orwell's text was a function of discourse.

it was a function of domination of discourse by television and of a population more than willing to submit to the logic of the medium. a population willing to adopt a short collective memory, a population willing to get their information from a single source, and to adjust their interpretive framework as the media required them.
it was a vision of a population willing to dominate itself, control itself, censor itself. that most interpretations of orwell try to align this with stalinism is only partially true--it is as much about the type of domination--or rather the modality of submission--that you see being extended in america as we sit here typing. you might remember as well that the population in 1984 was also quite sure that it was free--more than that--the population understood itself as all the more free through the total mobilization of war.

conservative discourse in power is an authoritarian discourse.
think about it.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Superbelt

I personally believe a world similar Robert Heinlein's book Starship Troopers (Originally published in 1987, long before the movie tore it up) is what we are headed towards. A world where a consolidated media is used to basically push all administration policies fervently, and the people just eat it up. A world of hyper-patriotic propaganda.

irateplatypus

it's very fashionable to be anti-establishment, listen to some faux-anarchy band, and wear a shirt from hot-topic...

but aren't you able to access any media from any source? aren't there more voices than there have ever been? can more people not vote on more issues than ever before? is the anti-establishment voice not given its proper hearing?

the feeling of disempowerment that pervades society isn't because of some external repression, it's much too easy to think of it like that... and it's a copout. there is no big brother.

as a true conservative who believes in less government and less oversight than either political party seems to want... few are more wary of a controlling government than i. it just isn't there. we've gone from fear of tyranny from the state to an actual tyranny of the individual. each person his own warden.

how many fingers do you see?

__________________
If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill

Ustwo

Well said.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

Pacifier

But what if the voice are all telling BS and lies? What if the "choice" is realy a choice beween two evil? Are you pleased by that kind of lullaby?

__________________
"It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death
— Albert Einstein

irateplatypus

of course not. if you can convince me that the truth cannot be told (not on tv, not on the radio, not on the internet etc.), then i will be the first to use the pen or the sword, whatever it takes, to set the truth free.

however, i think that the truth is just too boring, challenging, or disheartening for most. i suspect the truth is out there but people are unwilling to accept it... blaming the truth because it is not welcome or what they expected. thinking to themselves, this must not be truth... for it relegates me to a very average and minor role in life.

__________________
If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill

Ustwo

Preach on!

A lot of people don't like the truth so they assume it must be a lie. Its the arrogance of the individual who thinks they MUST be correct and is willing to shape the truth into their own image of what the truth should be which is todays enemy of truth.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

roachboy

i wonder what you are talking about when you throw around the word truth in this context. and i do not see how your critique of "todays enemies of truth" could not be applied equally to yourself. care to explain?



second thing:
one of the problems marxists ran into when trying to think about domination is that they tended to see it as shaped by a conspiracy of some kind, which was the mirror image of a corporation before the public offering of stock (1870s). this idea persisted into the 1960s (see the situationists)....but it was outmoded in the 1870s and even more in the 1960s.

so it is curious to see versions of this same idea cropping up from conservative folk, who would argue that because there is no discrete cabal running a mechanism of domination, that neither the mechanism nor the domination exist.

if the model is false (more contemporary analyses of hegemony emphasize the lack of central co-ordinating mechanisms, instead looking at things like patterns of recruitment for professional cadres and mechanisms of internal discipline/censorship)----the conclusions that follow from it are false as well (that there are neither domination nor mechanisms of domination)---in this respect, it was unfortunate that orwell chose to personify in the nebulous figure "big brother" the mechanisms for domination--but it is a novel, which is interesting in some respects, less so in others.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

irateplatypus

so if there is no mechanism for domination and no discernable coordinating mechanisms... from what would one draw the conclusion that domination is present?

if one is certain that domination is present, how do you separate domination from a more objective reality when no controls are in place to keep truth suppresed. is it not a more rational idea that the person dissatisfied with the way truth is presented while others are not is simply dissatisfied with the truth itself? i know its possible for millions to be wrong and a few right, but such circumstances are always accompanied by a repression of knowledge... something that has yet to be proven to me.

you may argue that fundamental information-dispensing institutions are themselves the dominators... making prohibitions against certain ideas and truths irrelevant. but, i think if one were to propose that, he/she would be obligated to provide:

1. proof that truth was being suppresed.
2. a model that better conveys truth (thus proving that such domination is not endemic to human communication to begin with)

__________________
If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill

almostaugust

Interesting thread. Yeah, the Newspeak stuff is very relevent. If you can control the language you can control the people. Words like 'Terror' and 'Freedom' seem to have lost all meaning. 'The war on terror' is an oxymoron isnt it?

Tralls

Again you look at this on a comparative basis. I think the exact opposite. The price to be paid for being such an open society is that we will be vulnerable to random attacks of violence. the only way to fully stop it is to become a police state. I will take the side of freedom. Freedom is not comparable, it is an absolute. You can't compare our freedom to another country. You are either free or not. Speaking of consolidation, do you not see this occuring more and more everyday. How many different companies run the media we read? Not many. The consolidation occuring here is much more hidden and effective, because the masses do not realize till it is too late.

__________________
"I pledge my grievance to the flag" - Pearl Jam

roachboy

still dont know what you mean by truth in this context--i really dont---so to an extent discussion stalls out there.

when i said that there is no conspiracy, no discrete cabal pulling the strings behind the scenes and that could be invoked in order to show or demonstrate hegemony was being exersized, i meant only that. i didnt say anything (i dont think at least) about mechanisms..only that they could neither be proven as what they are or disproven as what they are based on the presence or absence of a cabal.

it seems self-evident that television is a fundamental mechanism for opinion management, for setting and controlling the parameters of "legitimate" debate---it seems self-evident that conservatives have been much better than anyone else in reducing their viewpoints to soundbites and in thereby having disproportionate access to the various forums for pseudo-debate that work as a substitute for meaningful debate in american pseudo-democracy. it is also pretty clear that this same medium operates to exclude/trivialize opposition.
all this without a particular cabal.
for television to occupy this role, it has to lean on (and presuppose) modes of sociability--that one acquires through the various institutions that shape you as a functional subject--these modes of sociablity are what enable a cultural system in whcih individual actors dominate themselves...which is a way of saying that as much as i dislike george w bush, he in no way invented this--his adminsitration simply exploited features of it in order to legitimate itself on the basis of paranoia, and to extend authoritarian tendencies already working in a particular direction.

it is the combination of the far right in power and the far right in a position of such influence over the terms of debate that makes this situation--2004, now--one that is geared toward authoritarian rule. a curious kind of authoritarian rule, one in which is seems mandatory to talk about how free and open things are. i was in a seminar like this once, in france: it ran like a kingdom in which a royal decree required that all subject talk about direct democracy. the contradiction of form and content is easier managed than you might think.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Lebell

This turned into a pretty good thread.

I wish more were like this.

__________________
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience." – C. S. Lewis

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irateplatypus

by questioning whether or not things are true i think we mean: does our perception of our own freedom and the events reported by authority model reality?

in 1984 the citizens of Oceania (i think that was the mega-country's name anyway) were certain that they were free and that a valuable war was being waged. no one seemed to notice that the news coverage was being changed, history being replaced. except for the occasional prisoner being paraded around, the war was just something on tv even though it was the goal of nearly every one's existence.

that is the context in which truth is being discussed. the characters in the book were experiencing a life in which a hood was kept over the heads of citizens who were sure they were informed of the reality of their existence. when we (or at least, i) talk about truth in this thread, we're asking whether or not we, in our current situation, are being subjected to a similar ruse and, if so, the nature and degree of it.

__________________
If you will not fight when your victory will be sure and not too costly, you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with all the odds against you and only a precarious chance for survival. There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as slaves.

~ Winston Churchill

Willravel

Absolutely perfect thread explaination. Excelent work, irateplatypus. Yes, it was Oceania where Winston Smith lived.

The main idea is that we have to respect the power that technology brings and be wary of who wields that power. It is easy to become dazzled by the complexity and wonder of the modern world, but don't allow it's dazzle to blind you from truth.

Now obviously the situation we find ourselves in is not quite as black and white as the Big Brother vs. the Brotherhood, but it is possible that we are headed in that direction. It's good to keep this in mind as we hear political leaders like Bush say: "Let us never tolderate outrageuos conspiricy theories, concerning the attack of Spet. the 11th. Malicious lies that attempt to shift the blame away from the terrorists themselves; away from the guilty." Oddly enough, we have yet to see any evidence of Ossama Bin Laden's connection to the attack on 9/11.

It's just a matter of keeping you perspective, learning facts for yourself, and challenging those who willingly lie to their own selfish ends. IMO, of course.

powerclown

I would argue that you can and should compare the freedoms in America to the freedoms (or lackthereof) found elsewhere for a balanced picture. You say, "You are either free or not" what does this mean? What kind of freedoms do you desire that you're not getting in America? You speak of this monumental concept of Absolute Freedom, but what does this mean? Do you wish to be free to grab a woman on the street and have sex with her in the backseat of your car? Do you wish to be free to walk into a bank and ask the teller to fill up a sack of money for you? Do you wish for the right to be automatically given a six figure salary upon completion of high school? There is no such thing as absolute freedom, it is an impossible concept. People from around the world don't flock to America because they want to partake of a repressive and closed society. I ask you and others who attack America on this point: Precisely what freedoms are you being denied living in America?!?

You mentioned earlier in this thread that you are Arab-American, and that you've been hassled a bit at airports. In this post-911 time, don't you think it reasonable and justifiable to expect such scrutiny? Look what just happened to Cat Stevens, and he's a rich and famous rockstar. I myself would expect such treatment if I was an Arab-American. I wouldn't like it, but I would expect it and understand the reason for it. I understand it might be an undignified and embarrassing situation, but its a few questions and you're on your way.

Yes its true that Big Business runs media outlets. It's also true that you have a maniacal corp of overzealous journalists keeping their eye on such companies, and won't hesitate for a millisecond to call them out when they have the story (and even when they don't).

Ustwo

I've been hassled a bit at airports and I'm lilly white.

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

Tralls

No I dont expect such treatment in a "free" society. No one should. Should African Americans living in poverty not allowed to be up in arms about their dire situation because, hey, at least they aren't slaves anymore? Should women accept lower pay, because, hey, at least they are getting hired for similar opportunities. It's a known statistic, unfortunately, that more African Americans are involved, or at least jailed, for crimes proportionally to Caucasians, so should they accept racial profiling? I disagree with that logic.

You mention denial of freedom. Freedom is not the Patriot Act, freedom is not Guantanamo Bay, freedom is not attacking countries on false pretenses under the veil of freedom and getting away with it, freedom is not damning someone for being of a certain race, religion or creed, regardless of the situation...

"At least we aren't as corrupt as Russia." i dont buy it. This country is sliding in the wrong direction and while I understand your points, don't buy it when we proclaim that we are "the land of the free"

As is written in the lyrics of "Grievance" by Pearl Jam

"Break the innocent when they're proud.
Raise the stakes then bring 'em down.
If we fail to obey...if we fail to obey."

Civil Disobedience is seen as anti-American, discourse is anti-American. Liberal thinking is anti-American, Democrats are labeled Communists or Socialists. Nice words that spark emotion with the general public. This is the type of thinking being displayed more and more everyday. "Groupthink." Bush states he wants Justices on the Supreme Court who agree with him. "Groupthink". As "Groupthink" continues to pervade our society, our freedoms will lessen and that is what I believe to be occuring right under our noses.

I think ultimately you see the same thing but like to believe it isnt too bad b/c relatively we are still pretty good, but I don't care about the other countries policies. If we are to claim to be a truly sovereign nation than we must make every attempt to live up to that statement.

__________________
"I pledge my grievance to the flag" - Pearl Jam

Mephisto2

It's the new McCarthyism.

"Mr Bush, have you no decency, sir? Have you no shame?"


Mr Mephisto

cthulu23

Social reality is always a consensual hallucination. Outside of scientific constants there is no singular "truth" that humans can grasp or express without resorting to faith. Each of our environments, experiences, educations and assumptions creates a personal "reality," although social constructs ensure that there is a great deal of similarity between neighbors, countrymen, etc. As such, our own perceptions and the perceptions handed down to us by whomever we accept authority from definitely shapes "reality."

powerclown

This country has a loooong history of civil disobedience, and it prides itself on such, and I think it should. One could argue that tangible change has manifest itself through civil disobedience in America more than in any other country in the world. It also has a long history of dissident dialogue. Its not perfect, and no system is, but its been a tangible progression. Woman's suffrage and their subsequent right to vote, african americans moving from cotton fields to corporate board rooms, latin americans in the White House Cabinet. American history is unique among nations; it is a young country in the world adjusting and adapting to its growing pains. One of the central themes in the US Constitution, and the reason for its greatness today, is in its edict of civil rights and the importance placed on the individual.

Freedom of the press, freedom to assembly, freedom to bear arms, freedom of speech. For all it's warts, there is no other country in the world, now or in past history, that has offered its citizens the breadth and scope of civil rights and freedoms that America does.

Tralls

I agree 100% with you Powerclown and I dont want that to change, and would in fact like to see even more done. This country has a great past to hang its hat on, mostly, and I would like to see that continue even moreso as we and this country continue to evolve. I see warning signs of trouble through this country's actions over the last four years, that is where you and I differ. I started this thread to see where others stand on this. Pretty divided, as is normal in this country! The success in controlling the masses is to manipulate them into believing that the actions of their government are in the best interests of its people, all the while the truth is a small group of people are actually looking to instill their doctrine and dominance on the masses implicitly, in order to better retain power and control. I dont want to wait until we reach that boiling point to start speaking out. These warning signs that I see today, however small they may appear, create enough concern for me to want to speak up.

__________________
"I pledge my grievance to the flag" - Pearl Jam

roachboy

thanks, cthulu, for the last post because it explains what i was asking about with the notion of truth that was being thrown around earlier....if your position obtains, as i think it does, then the manipulation of premises that enable people to order their sense of being-in-the-world is a powerful tool for domination--if the population is largely credulous--uncritical, accepting...

it is as a function of this type of manipulation of premises that i see something authoritarian about contemporary conservative discourse in that it appears to function to seal its constituency off from a descriptive relation to the work and to short circuit modes of critique, both from those who operate outside that framework, and for those who work within it relative to the frame itself.

you can see these features clearest in two areas: the dominant conservative discourse itself, which has been deployed full-blown since 911, and in conservative philosophies of education, which seem to privlege a reverence toward a largely mythical construct of american history, conflated with a fundamentalist notion of religious faith, and thereby tries to repress possibilities for a critical relation to the world in kids who are unfortunate enough to pass through this kind of educational system.


irate:
the "suppression of truth" problem in orwell's novel is something staged by orwell himself--i think because he relayed the content of the novel from an exterior veiwpoint in a dickens-like mode. so his position--and yours as reader--can be clear, detached, etc.

which points to a limitation in using 1984 as a jump-off for any meaningful critique of what might be happening in real time---since the framework that is at issue in this thread, for example, is the same that shapes how we operate, detachment in the way orwell stages it is not possible, on the other hand, that we function within a shared frame of reference in very divergent ways politically indicates that there are possibilities for reflexivity, for thinking about the environment that shapes how we operate, and different ways of viewing what we think about--so the authoritarian tendencies i see in contemporary america is a matter of degree, something partially implemented, a tendency.

what i find unsettling in this tendency is its invisibility for significant segments of the population---lilke any effective form of domination, this one speaks a language of "common sense" using categories like "nation" to generate adherence....in tandem with the comments above about conservative discourse and educational views.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

powerclown

What you described could be the definition of the term "Government". Any government. Every government that has ever been and will ever be. It is a fascinating subject.

cthulu23

Hmm, I would interpret his statement as refering to those who have inordinate amounts of control over government, not the government itself.