To me Buddhism is like the old TV series "Truth or Consequences." Do we go with the frauds or the real thing? Anyone who remembers the series will remember how difficult the choice could be in the days before we had internet and multichannel TV. It is still dificult. Can we see through the acting to the real deal, or in some cases, or in some cases, is the actor preferable to the real person? Truth or consequences. Truth or lies, both have consequences.
I listen to stories about the alleged private shennanigans of a famous person, like our President, or Steven Segal, Whitney Houston, Anna Nichol Smith, or Congressman Foley. The hypocrisy, arrogance, stupidity, cupidity and deviousness of these public figures is more than a deep embarrassment. Truth has consequences. Lies have consequences too.
Will the real Tom Foley stand up? Oh, sorry, he did. And Hastart covered up, the FBI wasn't told until recently, and everyone seems to have known -- and done nothing. Tell the truth? No, make excuses.
Disgusting.
Imagine how Joe Walsh must feel. He's been played by a con man fronting for a con party. We are being asked to give up our rights for and by people like Congressman Foley. Do you think they really have the best interests of children in mind? They've been marching in lockstep, that should have clued you to which drum they are marching. Now we see. Congressman Hastart was warned, he decided to "take care of it." He and the rest of the Republican Congress all wanted to stay on the same page. Literally in the case of Foley, figuratively (for now) in the case of the rest of us, who have just seen the Congress conspire with the Administration to legalize torture and deny the tortured due process. Who is going to stay on the same page now that Foley is gone? If they get away with it we all, figuratively (and sometimes literally) will be in the same boat as those pages.
When the government encourages and covers up for the criminals, then we get a corrupt Congress. When we have a corrupt government we get government sponsored theft, manufactured wars, and the reformers and democrats become the "enemy." Ever since the 1915's, demonstrate again and again with McCarthy, Nixon, we've been warned by actions that those who claim to be all about "strict law enforcement" are usually hypocrites whose strictness is devoted to creating, maintaining and oppressing an underclass. In the teens they/we made drugs illegal -- and went after doctors for prescribing them. In the twenties they/we made alcohol illegal, and made such a corrupt mess of the entire country to the point where they had to withdraw. We seek security at the price of security.
In the process we have destroyed our Constitution. And this week, while Foley resigned for writing Emails apparantly trying to seduce a page, Congress passed laws making our lives less secure and more likely to be disrupted by a Government given license to define who is an "enemy combatant" so loosely it may one day soon come after all of us. So the "Foley" types behind these laws can have their way with us in sound insulated dungeons where nobody can hear our screams. Congress has the power, under the constitution to suspend habeus corpus in time of war. Do you think the Executive won't interpret it that way? Do you think the Supreme Court will or can stand up to them?
Meanwhile the administration is busy lying about everything:
Iraq
Condi about 9/11:
'Former CIA director George Tenet told the 9/11 Commission that he had warned of an imminent threat from al-Qaeda in a July 2001 meeting with Condoleezza Rice, adding that he believed Rice took the warning seriously, according to a transcript of the interview and the recollection of a commissioner who was there."
"It was "incomprehensible" that she would have ignored such explicit intelligence from senior CIA officials and that she received no warning at the meeting of an attack within the United States."
She says "incomprehensible." And the State Department confirmed she is lying (or technically 'parsing' since she claimed no recollection). I was more or less working for the military (as a civilian contractor) up til 2000. I switched jobs from working with a Navy Contract to a civilian contract. We knew we were targetted by Al Qaeda. The barriers constructed around the White House and other streets, the reconstruction of security at the Pentagon, were all meant to stop truck bombs (a la McVeigh). I used to look up in the sky and watch the planes landing at Reagan National and wonder when they'd give it a try. The only thing that suprised me was that our Air Defenses failed to respond -- and that may only be true about New York City. We knew something was coming.
Their not taking action is not incomprehensible. A "Pearl Harbor" type event was just what the Neo-Cons needed to con us into giving up our rights and starting wars all over the earth. And it worked, and now we get to see the results; corruption, arbitrary arrests, fear-mongering, and a war against our rights as citizens. I didn't believe that theory, and even now I wish it were a false theory. But they were waiting and hoping. I don't think they were craven enough to actually manufacture the attack, but I can't think of any other explaination for their behavior other than incompetance. That will do too.
Vote Democratic in November, it's our last chance. These bums have got to go, but then I was saying that before Foley revealed his real face. Now even George Will agrees with me, scary.
Chris
Posted by cholte at October 3, 2006 12:55 PMMark Foley?
Posted by: robin at October 4, 2006 04:11 AMRep. Dan Crane (R-Ill.) and Rep. Gerry Studds (D-Mass.)
rane, who subsequently apologized for his transgression, lost his bid for reelection in 1984.
Studds, however, stood by the facts of the case and refused to apologize for his behavior, and even turned his back and ignored the censure being read to him. He called a press conference with the former page, in which both stated that the young man, who was 17, consented. Studds had taken the adolescent to Morocco to engage in sexual activity, and therefore did not break any U.S. laws in what he called a "private relationship." He continued to be reelected until his retirement in 1996.
Posted by: robin at October 4, 2006 04:12 AMTheir not taking action is not incomprehensible. A "Pearl Harbor" type event was just what the Neo-Cons needed to con us into giving up our rights and starting wars all over the earth
This lie has been told so many times that you actually believe it.
Posted by: robin at October 4, 2006 06:54 AMNice to have you back Robin. Too bad all that spin has been overcome by events. It is pretty patently obvious that either the administration was patently incompetant, or looking for a Pearl Harbor type event to happen. Take your pick on which. I don't care, but the facts demonstrate that its one of the other.
Posted by: chris at October 4, 2006 12:45 PMThen the same must be said about the Embassies.
I told my wife in 1998 that it would take an attack like Pearl Harbor to wake people up to the threat. I also predicted if it happened, then there would be conspiracy theories. This was the view at the RNC too. It was not rocket science.
To jump from that to claim a Pearl Harbor event was manufactured or intentionally allowed to happen is illogical and ugly. Of course there was awareness of a threat. But that is not the same as specific 9-11 intel.
Posted by: robin at October 4, 2006 08:30 PMWell, there was a general warning that something big was about to happen. You are right that, even had they kept the alert level at the level it was, not moved terrorism down the list of priorities, and taken some of the other steps being suggested at the time, 9/11 might still have happened.
One reason Clinton was unable to stop terrorism on his watch was that he was unable to get the Republican party to back him on efforts to get the laws and funding in place to do so.
The US would have needed an Israeli style Airline Security policy to do so and the Airlines and the Republicans balked at the cost. Those changes required a 9/11 style disaster to get the Republican congress to take those issues seriously and stop blocking funding. Congress is still not spending sufficient money in all the places it needs to spend it.
However, the Administration denies that it did anything wrong, or could have done anything more and that is just not true.
Chris
Posted by: Chris at October 5, 2006 01:51 PMWow, you mean you still don't believe the planes were remote controlled by Dick Cheney and the bulidings were wired with demolitions to fall. Incredible, next you'll tell me we live in a representational democracy and not a totalatarian dictarship. Read a newspaper. When you get your news from republican sources realize it's all lies and spin. As far as voting goes, a vote for anyone is a vote for fascism thank's to the good people at Diebold.
clown hidden
I know these things didn't happen because I work close enough to these people to know what they have time to do and what they don't. They aren't organized enough to launch an attack on the US and blame it on an "enemy." There are groups that could. Some of them masquerading as "peace groups" right now. Far Right ideologues and far left ideologues could do it, but not Dick Cheney or George Bush. They aren't imaginative enough.
To put all the paranoia in perspective, while William Krystol could author (or edit) a document talking about a "Pearl Harbor" type event, it doesn't follow that he could actually engineer that event.
These guys are capable of anticipating the benefits of instigating terrorism, and seeing the value of letting an event happen and then blaming it on their predecessors. But I think the result was actually a result of moral blindness, laziness, and lobbying by the President's Arab friends.
No evidence suggests any other reality, and I was onhand when the Pentagon was attacked so I know something occured and an airliner did crash. The attacks on the World Trade Center included prior stories alleging Israeli or CIA orchestration and many people witnessed them and even acquaintances died in them.
I also know the intense fear that official Washington had that day once they realized what was happening. Those attacks were real, and really done by Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda is proud of itself. The CIA and Saudi Baby has grown up into its own independent operation. Mess with religious fanatics and that is what you get.
Now the Airliner may have crashed in a mode different from the official story, or it could have been shot down prior to being intentionally crashed. But in the absence of unclassified facts one has to keep ones speculations within confidence levels.
This would be such a fantastic story that I doubt it could be kept secret very long. The US has not been able to shoot down planes that got near the White House or the Pentagon in the past. Had they been able to shoot down the airplane they'd have been so proud of the fact they'd have advertized it.
What I don't doubt is that the administration knew something was about to happen, had some idea of the possible form, and decided they had other priorities. All the facts bear that out.
In fighting any war, or terrorism for that matter, we have to assume (even in the face of evidence to the contrary) that the enemy is as smart as we are. With the right training and education they can match wits with us and any advantage, no matter how closely guarded the secret, will eventually leak out to them. War is "rock paper scissors." We try to stop planes (scissors) and they'll use rock (bombs in briefcases). We use a rock on the country (invasion) they use paper on us (insurrection). We use scissors (attack the nuke station) and they build a rock (hardened facilities protected by anti-aircraft)....etceteras...
We've been playing these war-games since before we were human. Ask the Chimps.
Posted by: Chris at October 11, 2006 08:26 AM