For those Involved in the School Siege in Russia

[*DAMN Bondo]

Makes me think of Fahrenheit 451. There is one line where it talks about how things keep repeating...but each time a few more people learn and eventually we might have enough to avoid repeating it. I'm hopeful that eventually humans will have evolved to a point that sort of thing could be avoided. The technology of communications seems more important than the technology of being able to destroy the whole world in turning the tide toward peace. And frankly, the more we can have a diplomatic venue, like the UN, that also increases the chances of peace.

I suppose that is why the neo-conservative strategy of shunning the UN is dangerous and regressive IMO. The neo-con type mindset overestimated the Soviet threat, is overestimating the Islamic threat (fear suits their purposes, but not the purposes of peace) and in some ways looks to be building up well in advance for the Chinese threat.

You are hitting onto something about optimism vs. pragmatism though, I'm nothing if not a bit idealistic.

[Cossack]

It is good to be idealistic, or else nothing great will happen.

[Abe 2.0]

So I take it your're voting for Bush Abe?

Yup, right after I deep-fry my balls and eat them in an ice cream cone. HELL NO. I'm opposed to Bush more because of his domestic politics ("I'm a uniter not a divider", the whole bit about spending tomorrow's tax money today and the schizophrenia when it comes to free trade) than over foreign policy issues, which won't be handled much differently under Kerry.
By the way, sorry for misquoting you Bondo....my bad.

[*DAMN Bondo]

You are forgiven  

You have a very refreshing attitude that must be very scary indeed to Mr. Rove. He expects so many Americans to buy his argument that the war on terrorism is the only thing that matters in this election and that Bush is completely different than Kerry there for the better. And sadly many Americans seem to buy this argument and ignore his other policies.

I really hope Kerry gets his act together and bitchslaps Bush on other issues and hopefully can shine the light on other issues rather than playing into Bush's hands by just battling the leadership in war aspect.

[seth]

i'm getting more and more a bad feeling about november's election. I'm still wondering where does Bush get this kind of popularity, Iraq's a catastrophe, the US has a record 422 billion deficit, economy and jobs are still weak, and the guy has a 10 points advance in polls !
The only turning point would be during the debate between Kerry and Bush. Any idea when that's supposed to happen ?

[*DAMN Bondo]

Apparently the debates are going to be bunched at the end of this month and beginning of October. Unfortunately, the Republican strategy of trying to show fear by wanting as few debates as possible in order to make people buy into the falsehood that Bush is a bad debater, while meanwhile praising his opponent in order to establish impossible expectations of Bush getting his ass handed to him, have already begun. So we'll go in, people will expect Kerry to throttle Bush, and when it doesn't happen as bad as they expect they'll announce Bush the winner of the debate...all because they bought pre-debate hype.

As for why Bush has such support...all I can say is that Republicans have a habit of prefering lies to truth. Poll on Iraq Details

[seth]

 Poll on Iraq Details

that is unbelievable, yet kinda scaring too.

[BFG]

Scares me shitless reading that, that there are that many americans who are, well basically totall brainwashed,


I wonder what this reflects about the American Media - or to be precise it says a lot about the state and quality of your news networks!

I find it increadable how totally clueless these guys are - this was shocking:

Also unsurprisingly, 72% of people who believe that experts "Mostly agree Iraq was providing substantial support to al Qaeda" are voting for Bush, whereas 74% of those who believe (accurately, we might add) that experts "Mostly agree Iraq was not providing substantial support to al Qaeda" are voting for Kerry

For those planning on voting for bush... please for the love of god open your eyes, rather than accepting the dribbling bullshit that is fed to you by the whitehouse!!

[*DAMN Bondo]

There was another version of that poll, featured in the documentary "Outfoxed" that asked those same questions but broke it down by people who get news from Fox compared to people who get their news from PBS/NPR. It was even more dramatic. Fox News watchers believed the untruth 10-20 times as much as those who used public supported TV/Radio.

The liberal media bias claim really is one of the most dangerous falsehoods in the country right now. The result is that journalists are scared of doing investigative journalism if it will expose something bad about the right because they feel it will draw them accusations of bias. Now giving each side equal time regardless of accuracy is more important than giving the truth the most time.

Fox actually won a appeal in Florida last year because the Appeal Court found that there is no law agaist lying or falsifying news reports. Project Censored: Media Lying

[BFG]

The result is that journalists are scared of doing investigative journalism if it will expose something bad about the right because they feel it will draw them accusations of bias.

that or heaven forbid.... Unpatriotic!  


I find that thing regarding Fox news unbelivable - over here if someone is found out to have not told the entire truth in the media all hell brakes loose - Hell when the BBC got involved in a row over a report by a BBC Journelist Andrew Gilligan on BBC Radio 4 about Iraq and the hunt for weapons (much more complex but i won't go into it)  - well it esculated into goverment officials quitting, half of the board of the BBC going not to mention MPs and reports flying..

then again we do care to make sure we're hearing the truth... rather than just lapping up  what the goverment wants us to belive.......

[seth]

I wonder what this reflects about the American Media - or to be precise it says a lot about the state and quality of your news networks!
!!

i'm wondering if its either the White House doing a really good job, the American Media doing a really bad job. In either scenario, the american people are way too trusty on what they're fed with.

[BFG]

i'm wondering if its either the White House doing a really good job, the American Media doing a really bad job. In either scenario, the american people are way too trusty on what they're fed with.

Well one of those options must be inpossible: with bush in power the only thing the white house is comady errors in speaches from bush like "more and more of our inports come from abroad", and, "nigeria is a very inportant continant", and " id like to welcome my wife and the other astraunauts", and so it goes on...

so either biased lying and corrupt american media, or a population filled with armies of stupid dribbling numpties...