Re: OT: why USA is a regime

From: JF Mezei (jfmezei.spamnot_at_teksavvy.com)
Date: 10/25/04 

Date: Mon, 25 Oct 2004 03:31:27 -0400

Bill Todd wrote:
> Indeed. But if one just gives up and stops refuting the bull***, that's
> even less likely to change: our media certainly have proved that they're
> not about to do the job.

However, if such discussions only result in further pushing one's head in the
sand, perhaps no discussion at all might make it easier for the person to
eventually take a peek outside of the sand when nobody is looking and then
realising on his own that he was really wrong before.

> The active (and often enthusiastic) complicity of our media explains a lot
> of that (at least if you assume that most Americans aren't paying very close
> attention anyway).

One has to wonder why CNN and et all decided to take such a pro-bush stance.
Was this politically driven, or was it just an issue of trying to capture the
most viewers by slanting coverage to match what polls are saying people think
? In the past, the media often drove the agenda by uncovering problems and
asking politicians what they thought should be done etc. But since 9-11, the
media has simply acted as white house press release outlets, instead of having
real investigative reporting.

For instance, did any of the US media bring up anthrax during this election
campaign ? I find it really odd that the democrats didn't bring this topic up,
and it woudl be interesting for the USA media to bring this up, or at least
analyse why Anthrax isn't being discussed.

> Our Supreme Court is supposed to be one such check, and it failed abysmally
> in this

I was told that your Supreme Court only handles complaints filed by others and
cannot initiate proceedings on their own. The ACLU did file some complaints,
and already parts of Patriot Act were rules unconstitutional. But the
democrats should have filed plenty of complaints. If course, since most
democrats blindly voted for patriot act without reading it, it doesn't look
too good on them.

> Our Congress, of course, failed even more abysmally (and more actively by
> rubber-stamping Bush's activities rather than actively opposing them).

Aren't both houses controlled by republicans right now ?

> Kerry is on record as wanting to work with allies to achieve almost
> precisely the same international goals that Bush has

In fact, Bush went out of his way during first month in office to insult
allies and that really re-enforced the notion that he was totally inept in
international affairs. If Kerry starts on the right foot with former allies
and listens with an open ear, this may go a long way towards shaping a more
moderate foreign policy.

The big difference between the two is that the Bush puppet handlers had a
specific agenda they wanted to implement. The decision to invade Iraq was made
in 1998 by Rumsfeld/Cheney/Wolfowitz (so was the decision to stop oil
shipments to North Korea and get north korea to restart it nuclear programme
so it could be painted as axis of evil).

I don't know who Kerry intends to put in the cabinet, but younger people tend
not to have motivations to re-assert the military as the ultimate power
because they know military power is something from a bygone era.

> I'm less worried about our public image throughout the world than about what
> we actually *do*. You should be as well.

Britain will no longer be able to blindly help US military endeavours. And the
USA would have to provide really credible evidence next time around to
convince anyone of the propriety of some USA-led action.

Nobody outside the USA actually believed the evidence provided by Powell on
Feb 5. I saw intelligence analysts from France take each picture and sound
recording to shreds bit by bit showing how it was not valid evidence, and what
information would normally have been included when two intelligence agencies
exchnaged evidence to ensure the evidence can be verified. The stuff shown on
Feb 5 lacked much of that info. The USA media took that evodence as bible and
nevber questioned its validity and relevancy.

Next time around, the foreign diplomatic corps may not be so diplonatic if the
USA presents such dismal evidence.

> If Kerry manages to sell American
> imperialism better than Bush has, it may make you feel better about us for a
> while but the eventual outcome could be even worse than if you're confronted
> by an evil you can more easily recognize.

Fair point. However, Kerry (if elected) will be straddled with very bad debts
in the USA, fixing up the mess in Iraq with the USA military tied up in Iraq,
so I suspect that there won't be that many international initatives, except
for the diplomatic efforts in North Korea and palestine/israel. Kerry will
porbably just re-instate the former treaty that had been reached in 1998
(opposed by Rumsfeld/Cheney/Wolfowitz).

Iran will be interesting. Will Kerry outsource that problem to
France/Britain/Germany as Bush had done, but this time stop the rethoric that
forced Iran to tape defensive stance ? Or will the USA increase direct
involvement and create taller wall between USA and Iran ?

Iran simply wants to be able to mine its own uranium and process it to feed it
power generating plants, something which nations are allowed to do. The USA
wants Iran to only buy ready-made uranium fuel from western world (becoming
dependant on such supplies).

> If Kerry is elected, you should be doing exactly the same thing - until such
> time as he proves that his words during the past few months do *not* reflect
> his real intent (which is the best one can hope for if indeed he wins).

The big question if Keerry is elected is whether the media will continue to
blind americans to reality or whether the media will retake their very
important critical reporting of what goes on. This is such an important
aspect. If media are critical of a government, then so are the population,
which is reflected in polls which politicians gauge constantly to guide them.

For instance, had the media actually read the patriot act and outlined on
american TV the large civil righst issues in that law, public opinion wouldn't
have been so kind to that act, and democrats may have then found it expedient
to actually read the thing and also criticise it.

When the media doesn't question the government, then neither does the population.

> And reelecting Blair is something you'd consider to be a *good* thing?

No. Bliar deserved to be thrown out and be told why he was being thrown out.
Unfortunatly, because the current opposition lacks the credibility to beat
Bliar, Bliar will likely be re-elected. This is what happened to howard in
australia. Even though majority fo Australians are very against the Iraq war
(and australia's contribution which have costed it 2 terrorist acts (Bali and
Jakarta), they still re-elected the idiot because the opposition just didn't
cut it.

What I really do not understand is why Bliar was just an obedient puppet of
Bush for this. He knew the evidence didn't exist, and yet worked very hard to
produce that sexed up dossier with exagerated conclusions based on what had
happened in the 1980s. (I had read that dossier BTW and it was not convincing
at all it could be summed up in:
        We know Hussein did bad things in the 1980s.
        We know Hussein has played hide and seek with UN
        Therefore we conclude he has staches of WMds ready to be launched in 45 minutes,
        Nuclear bombs, missiles etc.

There was no current evidence.

> Whereas Kerry has not (yet) demonstrated that he is unacceptable
> internationally, but has stated that he would continue almost exactly the
> same unacceptable policies.

The whole "global test" thing is what is reassuring. If he can present
convinding evidence that requires action X and allies agree and security
council votes on it, then it is fine by me.

If he tries to convince allies of X but just doesn't have enough evidence, and
then abandons the issue, that is fine by me.

It could also be that once the spectre of Bush is gone, kerry might have a
more moderate foreign policy. Right now, i get the feeling he wants to appear
stronger than he really is simply due to Bush and the polls.

> Not too bad an analogy, save that what will happen if Bush loses will be
> that the infection will actively continue under the skin and explode later
> with potentially even worse consequences.

If by that, you mean that Kerry's changes in foreign policy won't be dramatic
enough to really fix them in the long term, I agree. But stopping the
excesses of the Bush regime will be a great start.

It would take a great *leader* in the United States to be able to convince the
US population and congress/senate that it is in the interest of americans to
become neutral in the world and let the UN do its job. If Kerry were to say
that today, Bush woudl have a field day calling him weak and breaking up the
USA status as "superpower".

In fact, the USA would greatly benefit from losing its military superpower
status and instead focusing on the well being and success of its own citizens,
and providing humanitarian aid to the rest of the world. Success in the USA
would also give it economic superpower status which is far more important
today than military one. (information superpower will also become important).

> Whereas letting it pop now (I
> assume you meant 'zit') and applying appropriate antiseptics will allow an
> actual healing process to begin.

But that would require quite a leader which just doesn't exist right now.
Perhaps Dean might have had the guts to adopt such a "radical" foreign policy
of peace, but I am not sure he could have convinced the population it was in
their own interest. The USA population might not be ready for such an
admission that it should not be military superpower.

And what is really needed is debate inside the USA on the taboo subject of
USA's blind support for anything Israel does, and continued use of its veto at
the UN to prevent any criticism of Israel's actions. Neutrality in that
conflict would go a long long way towards resolving a lot of problems in the
middle east and a lot of anger direct by arabs at the USA. But it seems tt
this is an even bigger taboo than abortion.

> And you're poorly informed if you think that electing Kerry will.

Rumsfeld,Cheney,Wolfowitz would not stay in office if Kerry is elected.

And Kerry seems to be smart enough compared to Bush to actually understand
what is going on and be involved in decisions, instead of justy being told by
his aids what the decision is and what to say in a speech. As a result, I
don't expect he would easily be manipulated by people behind him who have an agenda.

> I suspect that the significant rejection of their party (by failing to
> prevail against even an abomination such as Bush) might give them a clue
> that their earlier stances weren't being received very well. So they'd have
> considerable motivation to try changing them.

No. I see it the other way: the democrats might decide that the american
public actually support bush and trying to impeache the idiot would result in
loss of votes. Remember that republicans lost votes when they tried to impeach
Clinton because he got a blowjob in the oval office.

One aspect though is that if Kerry loses, he then becomes a private citizen
without even a senator/congress job, right ? Someone else might step in as
defacto leader for the next 4 years and such a person could then mount the
attack Kerry was unable to mount.