Thom Hartmann writes here about how George W. Bush and Dick Cheney cynically used the attacks of 9/11 to get us into America’s longest war. They wanted to go to war. I can’t help but think that if 537 votes in Florida had gone a different way, the world would be a different place today. It was those 537 votes that made Bush the President, not Al Gore. Remember that: Every vote counts.
Hartmann writes:
America has been lied into too many wars. It’s cost us too much in money, credibility, and blood. We must remember the lies, and tell our children about them so that memory isn’t lost…
Today is 9/11, the event that first brought America together and then was cynically exploited by George W. Bush and Dick Cheney to have a war against Iraq, followed by their illegal invasion of Afghanistan just a bit more than a year earlier.
Yet the media today (so far, anyway) is curiously silent about Bush and Cheney’s lies.
Given the costs of both these wars — and the current possibility of our being drawn deeper into conflict in both Ukraine and Taiwan — it’s an important moment to discuss our history of wars, both illegal and unnecessary, and those that are arguably essential to the survival of democracy in the world.
To be clear, I support US involvement — and even an expanded US involvement — in the defense of the Ukrainian democracy against Putin’s Hitler-grabs-Poland-like attack and mass slaughter of Ukrainian civilians. Had the world mobilized to stop Hitler when he invaded Poland in 1939 there almost certainly wouldn’t have been either the Holocaust or WWII, which is why Europe is so united in this effort.
If Putin succeeds in taking Ukraine, his administration has already suggested that both Poland and Moldova are next, with the Baltic states (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia) also on the menu. That would almost certainly lead to war in Europe.
And China is watching: a Putin victory in Ukraine will encourage Xi to try to take Taiwan. Between the two — war in both Europe and the Pacific — we could find ourselves in the middle of World War III if Putin isn’t stopped now.
That said, essentially defensive military involvement like with Ukraine or in World War II have been the exception rather than the rule in American history. We’ve been far more likely to have presidents lie us into wars for their own personal and political gain than to defend ourselves or other democracies.
For example, after 9/11 in 2001 the Taliban that then ran Afghanistan offered to arrest Bin Laden, but Bush turned them down because he wanted to be a “wartime president” to have a “successful presidency.”
The Washington Post headline weeks after 9/11 put it succinctly: “Bush Rejects Taliban Offer On Bin Laden.” With that decision not to arrest and try Bin Laden for his crime but instead to go to war, George W. Bush set the US and Afghanistan on a direct path to disaster (but simultaneously set himself up for re-election in 2004 as a “wartime president”).
To further complicate things for Bush and Cheney, the 9/11 attacks were not planned, hatched, developed, practiced, expanded, worked out, or otherwise devised in Afghanistan or by even one single citizen of Afghanistan.
That country and its leadership in 2001, in fact, had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11, as I detailed in depth here on August 15th of last year. The actual planning and management of the operation was done out of Pakistan and Germany, mostly by Khalid Sheik Mohammed.
The Taliban were bad guys, trashing the rights of women and running a tinpot dictatorship, but they represented no threat whatsoever to America or our allies.
Almost two decades later, though, then-President Trump and Mike Pompeo gave the Taliban everything they wanted — power, legitimacy, shutting down 9 of the 10 US air bases in that country to screw incoming President Joe Biden, and the release of 5000 of Afghanistan’s worst Taliban war criminals — all over the strong objections of the democratically elected Afghan government in 2019.
Trump did this so could falsely claim, heading into the 2020 election, that he’d “negotiated peace” in Afghanistan, when in fact he’d set up the debacle that happened around President Biden’s withdrawal from that country.
”The relationship I have with the Mullah is very good,” Trump proclaimed — after ordering the mullah who then named himself President of Afghanistan — freed from prison over the furious objection of Afghan’s government, which Trump had cut out of the negotiations.
Following that betrayal of both Afghanistan and America, Trump and the GOP scrubbed the record of their embrace of the Taliban from their websites, as noted here and here.
And the conservative Boris Johnson administration in the UK came right out and said that Trump’s “rushed” deal with the Taliban — without involvement of the Afghan government or the international community — set up the difficulties Biden faced.
“The die was cast,” Defense Minister Ben Wallace told the BBC, “when the deal was done by Donald Trump, if you want my observation.”
So, Republican George W. Bush lied us into both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, and then Donald Trump tried to lie us out of at least one of them.
But this was far from the first time a president has lied us into a war.
— Vietnam wasn’t the first time an American president and his buddies in the media lied us into a war when Defense Secretary Robert McNamara falsely claimed that an American warship had come under attack in the Gulf of Tonkin and LBJ went along with the lie.
— Neither was President William McKinley lying us into the Spanish-American war in 1898 by falsely claiming that the USS Maine had been blown up in Havana harbor (it caught fire all by itself).
— The first time we were lied into a major war by a president was probably the Mexican-American war of 1846 when President James Polk lied that we’d been invaded by Mexico. Even Abraham Lincoln, then a congressman from Illinois, called him out on that lie.
— You could also argue that when President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act in 1830 leading to the Trail of Tears slaughter and forced relocation of the Cherokee under President Buchanan (among other atrocities) it was all based on a series of lies.
Bush’s lies that took us into Afghanistan and, a bit over a year later into Iraq, are particularly egregious, however, given his and Cheney’s reasons for those lies.
In 1999, when George W. Bush decided he was going to run for president in the 2000 election, his family hired Mickey Herskowitz to write the first draft of Bush’s autobiography, A Charge To Keep.
Although Bush had gone AWOL for about a year during the Vietnam war and was thus apparently no fan of combat, he’d concluded (from watching his father’s “little 3- day war” with Iraq) that being a “wartime president” was the most consistently surefire way to get reelected (if you did it right) and have a two-term presidency.
“I’ll tell you, he was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999,” Herskowitz told reporter Russ Baker in 2004.
“One of the things [Bush] said to me,” Herskowitz said, “is: ‘One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief. My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of (Kuwait) and he wasted it.
“[Bush] said, ‘If I have a chance to invade Iraq, if I had that much capital, I’m not going to waste it. I’m going to get everything passed I want to get passed and I’m going to have a successful presidency.’”
The attack on 9/11 gave Bush his first chance to “be seen as a commander-in-chief” when our guy Osama Bin Laden, who the Reagan/Bush administration had spent $3 billion building up in Afghanistan, engineered an attack on New York and DC.
The crime was planned in Germany and Florida and on 9/11 Bin Laden was, according to CBS News, not even in Afghanistan:
“CBS Evening News has been told that the night before the Sept. 11 terrorists attack, Osama bin Laden was in Pakistan. He was getting medical treatment with the support of the very military that days later pledged its backing for the U.S. war on terror in Afghanistan.”
When the Obama administration finally caught and killed Bin Laden, he was back in Pakistan, the home base for the Taliban.
But attacking our ally Pakistan in 2001 would have been impossible for Bush, and, besides, nearby Afghanistan was an easier target, being at that time the second-poorest country in the world with an average annual per-capita income of $700 a year. Bin Laden had run terrorist training camps there — unrelated to 9/11 — but they made a fine excuse for Bush’s first chance to “be seen as a commander-in-chief” and get some leadership cred.
Cheney, meanwhile, was in a world of trouble because of a huge bet he’d made as CEO of Halliburton in 1998. Dresser Industries was big into asbestos and about to fall into bankruptcy because of asbestos lawsuits that the company was fighting through the court system.
Cheney bet Dresser would ultimately win the suits and had Halliburton buy the company on the cheap, but a year later, in 1999, Dresser got turned down by the courts and Haliburton’s stock went into freefall, crashing 68 percent in a matter of months.
Bush had asked Cheney — who’d worked in his father’s White House as Secretary of Defense — to help him find a suitable candidate for VP.
Cheney, as his company was collapsing, recommended himself for the job. In July of 2000, Cheney walked away with $30 million from the troubled company and the year after that, as VP, Halliburton subsidiary KBR received one of the first no-bid no-ceiling (no accountability and no limit on how much they could receive) multi-billion-dollar military contracts.
Bush and Cheney both had good reason to want to invade Afghanistan in October 2001. Bush was seen as an illegitimate president at the time because his father’s corrupt appointee on the Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas, had cast the deciding vote in the Bush v Gore lawsuit that made him president; a war that gave him legitimacy and the aura of leadership.
Cheney’s company was in a crisis, and Afghanistan War no-bid contracts helped turn around Halliburton from the edge of bankruptcy into one of the world’s largest defense contractors today.
Even Trump had to get into the “let’s lie about Afghanistan” game, in his case to have bragging rights that he’d “ended the war in Afghanistan.”
In 2019, Trump went around the Afghan government (to their outrage: he even invited the Taliban to Camp David in a move that disgusted the world) to cut a so-called “peace deal” that sent thousands of newly-empowered Taliban fighters back into the field, and then drew down our troops to the point where today’s chaos in that country was absolutely predictable.
Trump’s deal was the signal to the 300,000+ Afghan army recruits we’d put together and paid that America no longer had their back and if the Taliban showed up they should just run away. Which, of course, is what happened on Trump’s watch. As Susannah George of The Washington Post noted:
“The Taliban capitalized on the uncertainty caused by the [Trump] February 2020 agreement reached in Doha, Qatar, between the militant group and the United States calling for a full American withdrawal from Afghanistan. Some Afghan forces realized they would soon no longer be able to count on American air power and other crucial battlefield support and grew receptive to the Taliban’s approaches.”
Jon Perr’s article at Daily Kos did a great summary, with the title: “Trump put 5,000 Taliban fighters back in battle and tied Biden’s hands in Afghanistan.”
Trump schemed and lied to help his own reelection efforts, and the people who worked with our military and the US-backed Afghan government paid a terrible price for it.
As President Biden told America:
“When I came to office, I inherited a deal cut by my predecessor—which he invited the Taliban to discuss at Camp David on the eve of 9/11 of 2019—that left the Taliban in the strongest position militarily since 2001 and imposed a May 1, 2021 deadline on U.S. Forces. Shortly before he left office, he also drew U.S. Forces down to a bare minimum of 2,500.
“Therefore, when I became President, I faced a choice—follow through on the deal, with a brief extension to get our Forces and our allies’ Forces out safely, or ramp up our presence and send more American troops to fight once again in another country’s civil conflict. I was the fourth President to preside over an American troop presence in Afghanistan—two Republicans, two Democrats. I would not, and will not, pass this war onto a fifth.”
America has been lied into too many wars. It’s cost us too much in money, credibility, and blood. We must remember the lies, and tell our children about them so that memory isn’t lost.
When President Ford withdrew US forces from Vietnam (I remember it well), there was barely a mention of McNamara’s and LBJ’s lies that got us into that war.
Similarly, today’s reporting on the chaos in Afghanistan and the war to seize the Iraqi oil fields almost never mention Bush’s and Cheney’s lies and ulterior motives in getting us into those wars in the first place.
George Santayana famously noted, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
We can’t afford to let these lies go down the memory hole, like we have the other wars we were lied into that I mentioned earlier. Sadly, it’s clear now that neither Bush nor Cheney will be held accountable for their lies or for the American, Afghan, and Iraqi blood and treasure they cost.
But both should be subject to a clear and public airing of the crimes they committed in office and required — at the very least — to apologize to the thousands of American families destroyed by the loss of their soldier children, parents, and spouses, as well as to the people of both Afghanistan and Iraq.
If the media refuses to mention the Bush/Cheney lies on this anniversary of 9/11, it’s all the more important that the rest of us use this opportunity to do so. Pass it on.
I can’t even. You’ve been supporting a president lying us into war for a year and a half now!
Dienne,
Read what Thom Hartmann writes about Ukraine, the victim of an invasion by a ruthless dictator.
“To be clear, I support US involvement — and even an expanded US involvement — in the defense of the Ukrainian democracy against Putin’s Hitler-grabs-Poland-like attack and mass slaughter of Ukrainian civilians. Had the world mobilized to stop Hitler when he invaded Poland in 1939 there almost certainly wouldn’t have been either the Holocaust or WWII, which is why Europe is so united in this effort.”
If Putin succeeds in taking Ukraine, his administration has already suggested that both Poland and Moldova are next, with the Baltic states (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia) also on the menu. That would almost certainly lead to war in Europe.
And China is watching: a Putin victory in Ukraine will encourage Xi to try to take Taiwan. Between the two — war in both Europe and the Pacific — we could find ourselves in the middle of World War III if Putin isn’t stopped now.
You’re proving my point, Diane. You’re falling for the same kinds of government lies that got us into Iraq. We lost badly in that one – what do you think will happen when we rattle the cage of the second most powerful nuclear armed country on the planet?
Just like with Iraq, the contradictory information is out there, it’s just that the government has become more skilled at keeping people away from it. Always ask, cui bono? Who benefits from you believing that Russia is the ultimate source of threat and evil on this planet rather than that both sides have political, economic and geo-strategic reasons for what they do?
BTW, everything in here is just a re-hash of the old “domino theory” that should have died after Vietnam.
Do you doubt that Hitler took one country after another after invading Poland? You clearly think that Putin has “no territorial ambitions” even though he said that he does. Your faith in Putin is not touching. It’s repulsive.
The fundamental principle on which international law and the United Nations is based is the inviolability of the sovereign territory of a UN member state. There are very strict rules governing this. For example, a state can, upon UN approval, stage a limited intervention against another to stop an ongoing genocide.
So, consider two types of intervention: Type 1 is illustrated by the US intervention in Iraq in the First Iraq War. In this case, Iraq had illegally invaded Kuwait, and the US, under international law and with UN approval, drove Iraq out of that country. We stopped there and did not take Iraq itself.
Type 2 is illustrated by the intervention in Iraq in the Second Iraq War. In this case, the US illegally, in violation of the sovereign territory of another UN member state (Iraq) invaded that state and conducted its invasion in such a way as to do severe and unlawful damage to civilians, cultural monuments, and civilian infrastructure.
Our assistance to Ukraine is a Type 1 situation. Dienne bizarrely writes about it as though it were a Type 2. Our assistance to Ukraine UPHOLDS international law (the nonviolability of the sovereign territory of UN member states) against a criminal state, Russia, that has violated that law. And the guy who ordered the invasion of Ukraine has now been indicted by the UN for war crimes and crimes against humanity resulting from his illegal war.
Russia illegally, in violation of the sovereign territory of another UN member state (Ukraine) invaded that state and has conducted its invasion in such a way as to do severe and unlawful damage to civilians, cultural monuments, and civilian infrastructure.
Evil. This is PRECISELY what international law exists to prevent.
Dienne,
Please read Bob Shepherd’s comment here.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine violated international law and the UN charter.
I will not engage further with you because I frankly don’t understand your devotion to an international criminal, convicted by the International Criminal Court for kidnapping Ukrainian children.
https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/situation-ukraine-icc-judges-issue-arrest-warrants-against-vladimir-vladimirovich-putin-and
An arrest warrant is not a conviction. I think you understand that, Diane. Anyway, it’s ironic for the U.S. to be trumpeting the ICC in this case considering the U.S. does not recognize the ICC’s jurisdiction for itself.
cx: are based
The U.S. illegally invaded Iraq based on much less provocation than Russia had to invade Ukraine, resulting in many times more civilian deaths. Once the U.S. has held itself to account for that and paid reparations to atone, we can talk about Putin and Ukraine.
Dienne: “The U.S. illegally invaded Iraq based on much less provocation than Russia had to invade Ukraine, resulting in many times more civilian deaths. Once the U.S. has held itself to account for that and paid reparations to atone, we can talk about Putin and Ukraine.”
See what I mean? Exactly what I said. She is CLUELESS about the difference under international law of the First (legal) and Second (illegal) Iraq Wars, but trying to explain anything to her is like trying to convince a cat to take a bath.
I was specifically talking about the second, which you admit was illegal. As soon as Bush & Co. are held accountable for that, I’m willing to talk about holding Putin accountable.
BTW, talking about me in the third person lowers you to the level of NYCPSP.
We are in entire agreement about that, Dienne. It was an illegal war, and Bush and his gang are all war criminals. They should be standing in the dock at the International Court of Criminal Justice, charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Your point about using the third person is well made, Dienne. My apologies.
It’s a shame that the Libertarians are so batpoop insane on economic and social issues, because they’re among the few that actually understand foreign policy issues. This article is an excellent summation of how we find ourselves at this point on the world stage: https://www.fff.org/explore-freedom/article/a-pox-on-many-houses-in-ukraine/
Dienne, The US is aiding a country that was attacked; we are not “in a war.”
And, ofc, in a case where an aggressor invades without UN sanction the sovereign territory of a UN member state, it is perfectly legal to assist the invaded to state in throwing out the invader, and the UN has so voted–to condemn what Russia did as illegal.
Dear Diane Ravitch, Everyone,
Killing people seems to be good business. Especially for governments.
As of 2014, In Tucson, Arizona, the top employer is a company called Raytheon Missile Systems. In fact, three of the top ten employers in Tucson are in the war business. The others are Davis Monthan Air Force Base and United States Army Intelligence Center and Fort Huachuca.
It just makes you wonder how many people would be out of jobs if we didn’t have wars? If we didn’t kill each other?
The casualties don’t start in the battlefield. It starts with our leaders.
These are the first casualties. It isn’t just about owning or protecting our properties. It’s vital that we invest and enrich our human properties. That we nurture ourselves and our mental ecosystem. Our physical ecosystem.
A leader truly must understand their own mind and their own self first.
Far too often people that get into politics get in for the wrong reasons. It wasn’t really to help or serve others. Moreso that they were longing for an emotional feeling. To be liked. Often that sense of entitlement or power and control will bring about this false sense of worthiness. It’s very common that once the person gets into power that they still end up not feeling worthy nor happy.
We have seen this repeatedly, as with Presidents in the United States for example. We had a President (1961-1963) that cheated on his wife. He wasn’t the only one. We had another case (1992-2000) that did it as well.
You would think that a person of this stature would be happy and comfortable in their own skin. But they weren’t. They still didn’t understand right from wrong. They were still dealing with very deep personal emotional issues, including a lack of self-awareness.
In parliament, how often do we see each party acting like little children fighting in a sandbox?
What does entitlement mean? Typically, entitlements are based on concepts of principles (“rights”) which are themselves based on concepts of social equality or enfranchisement.
Did Adolf Hitler (USA’s Time Magazine “Man of the Year” for 1938) understand or think that all people were equal? Do other countless leaders of this world (and past) that bring their countries into war think the same?
Intimidation fear tactics. Leaders master propaganda techniques, creating catastrophic reality. Human beings are manipulated on how to think. Adolf Hitler sold a message and people bought into it. He preyed on their weaknesses. Hunger. Joblessness. Hopelessness. Ignorance breeds fear. Fear breeds hate. So much F.E.A.R- false evidence appearing real.
Most leaders use this method for their own personal greed or their country’s greed to capture another countries’ resources.
These holy wars. These oil wars. These greedy wars. These religious wars.
These wars. These leaders make us all losers.
These so-called leaders wouldn’t need ‘bling’, money, cars or real estate to feed their egos or to feel empowered, liked or respected. That void would be filled with proper parenting skills of nurturing and praise. It all starts there.
Adults need to understand themselves and teach their children a proper, healthy existence. Not one where we conform to many of society’s undoing’s, like false advertising. False lifestyle presentations of what it is like living with excess: ‘bling’.
First, adults need to understand themselves and then teach their children the powerful attraction that marketing can have. They have to learn to differentiate between what they want and what they truly need. There is no poetry in advertising. It is a form of war. To break us down. Distorted visions placed upon us to lock us in and dehumanize us. And in the end, they dehumanize themselves. It’s the perfect platform of disillusion.
“…And you look down upon me? Take another look. You, with your endless debt of mortgages, cars and credit card payments. Anxiety and fears. You, my friend, are really me. Only just dressed up in a suit or skirt,” said the panhandler.
Can you imagine a world without greed and jealousy? Since people wouldn’t be trying to outdo their fellow person, they would feel better about themselves and content with what they had.
From a mouth. From a tablet. From a laptop. From a computer. Transferred to a server, to a satellite phone, the words: “I like you.” It doesn’t matter how it is done, each one of us long for those three words.
Isolation. Despair. Loneliness. Teenagers. The elderly. From rotary dial to fiber optics. One looks out to the horizon, with a necklace of bricks, drowning in an ocean of tears, an ocean of darkness. Like our forefathers, looking, searching and crying out: “like me, like me.”
World leaders, all peoples, none of us are immune. We all long to be liked.
Everything we do in our lives, comes back to this principle. Please “like me.”
“The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his,” said George S. Patton. Often people laugh at that quote. Laugh? This is human life. We are all scared. It is ugly and harmful that we destroy human life and our lands. Have we lost the address to humanity? Do we have love for humankind? Are we all lost and need to kill just to feel?
Let’s raise a white flag to all our nations and divorce ourselves from all the tactics perpetrated upon us. Let us not continue using oxymoronic terms like: “Military intelligence” or “friendly fire,” but be peaceful warriors and use our human intelligence.
Understanding our path is acceptance.
When you show a positive demeanor, even with a simple smile with a direct look into the beholders’ eye and a response (or not), this gives us a connection. This connection is one of acceptance to a fellow human, an acceptance into your presence, your space, your life and theirs. This basic connection can convey all the necessary love and encouragement needed for a response. This is when the ears that are tuned in to hear will lead us towards this positive interaction.
Status. Status quo. It is common in today’s society for people to admire someone else. How often do we hear people talking about this and that of another person’s life? Sad, isn’t it? We don’t even know these people. The time that we waste talking about matters like this and the time that we take away from developing our own mental ecosystem is a travesty.
Transferring from external validation to internal self-validation. Freedom doesn’t mean doing whatever you want. Freedom means knowing who you are.
The transformation point does exist where we can learn from both our pains and our pleasures.
This transformation point occurs when one starts understanding their own brain. “Why I did what I did.” “Why I do what I do.” When you can answer these questions, well my friend, that is the first day of the rest of your life. You start getting comfortable in your own skin. Things that once seemed important that really aren’t fade away and energies spent on others will seem foolish as you enter into a new light. One thing that you start understanding is that we are all equal. What we can’t lose sight of is our importance to this world. That each of us are remarkable pieces of it.
Age. American architect Frank Lloyd Wright did a massive amount of his work in his 80s, right up until his death at the age of 91. I say this as a reference to age. It’s simply a number.
We can become prisoners of ourselves. One must dig tunnels to escape one’s own mind. We get just this one life. We have to stop doing time. We must live out our lives like we planned in our youth. No matter where we are or how old, we can always reach for our dreams.
If you don’t conform to society and you don’t lose that child-like spirit, then oh my God, each one of us can accomplish a remarkable number of things.
Have no limits.
Results are joyful. When one creates his or hers best there is the most wonderful feeling that comes from it. You’ve created a result that no one can take away from you. It has been said: “It is better to execute than to be executed.”
An automatic weapon is a firearm capable of firing multiple rounds with one pull of the trigger. A simple smile, hug, or ‘I love you’ can deliver such an amazing positive shift to one’s life and circumstances that it can truly transform the spirit. Today, let’s kill people with kindness. Today, let’s show people our true colors. Let’s imprint positiveness upon the hearts of all others. Let us protect each other with our human arms and not our firearms.
Love,
Miles Patrick Yohnke
Your thinking is very Quaker-ish. I wish more people would think this way. I think the question “Why?” is ignored far too often….it is the first and most important question anyone should ask.
Dear LisaM, everyone,
Thank you for your time reading. If everyone embraced it there wouldn’t be war, World Peace would prevail. Each and every one would be healthy and happy. Indeed, LisaM your right, ‘why” is the most important word that should be consuming our daily thoughts. I’ve written a 1-minute article on it, If you’re interested, you can click here:
Why:
https://salmonstudio.wixsite.com/yohnke/post/__why
“Be up-beat, not beat-up!”
– Miles Patrick yohnke
As always, love is the way,
Miles Patrick Yohnke
When I took an abnormal psych class, my instructor made a big deal about the “Why” people do what they do. He said that “Why” was the most important question or reason for anyone’s behavior whether or not they were mentally ill or sane.
Goddamned old hippies and their attempts to raise consciousness. (end sarcasm)
Well stated, MPY! Thanks for taking the time to write!
Dear Duane,
I am so very grateful not only for your reply, but obviously you went to my website and I’m so honored by that action. Time is all we have. I learned after my dad was tragically killed, he was 39, I was 5 years and 6 days old that time is all we have. And to use every single second in a positive matter. Duane, for you to take time to visit my website – I wish I could look you in the eye and hug you and thank you.
Oct. 17th will mark 55 years since my dad departed. He’s always been the fuel to ignite my spark. To write like I do. To look like I do as I approach my 60th birthday.
Duane, everyone, if you’re interested in learning more about my dad, below are two stories, but dad is just the vehicle to tell other stories which comes back to the original letter, reply I wrote.
Soul Mining:
https://salmonstudio.wixsite.com/yohnke/post/soul-mining
Mother of Strength (this appears first) Make Me an Instrument of Thy Peace:
https://salmonstudio.wixsite.com/yohnke/post/strength
Duane, everyone, THANK YOU FOR YOUR LIVES – THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME!
As always, love is the way,
Miles Patrick Yohnke
All the Bush haters like to complain about Florida in 2000. Everything from Bush stole the election, to the Supreme Court stole the election, to if 537 votes would have just gone the other way. What they always fail to mention is that if Gore would have simply won his home state of Tennessee, Florida would not have mattered. Like the article says, every vote counts.
But it all came down to Florida. 537 votes in Florida determined the winner.
Choose the creature with the lowest cognitive ability:
a. A louse
b. Donald Trump
c. George Bush, Jr.
d. About equal, all of them
Can’t be “d” as a louse has more intelligence than the other two mentioned.
Reads like a standardized test question to me, what with no correct answer!
The thing I did not like about the 2000 election was that neither Democrats nor Republicans saw this as a constitutional crisis to be dealt with. I suppose their view was that it was not in their own best interests. But it certainly would be in the best interests of the country.
There are numerous ways to do tie breakers. People who want fairness always find ways to agree on how to break a tie. But the two major parties did not even make a pass at a tie breaker deciding how to deal with close races.
Many have pointed out that Gore did not win Tennessee, suggesting that this was a sign he was a weak candidate. This ignores the reality that Tennessee had, by the time Gore consented to be Clinton’s VP, become solidly Republican, no doubt one of the reasons he decided to accept the VP. Tennessee in 2000 was not the same state that elected two senators who opposed the Dixiecrat walkout .
It did, only because Gore lost Tennessee on election night. Had he won Tennessee, Florida would not have mattered. Gore would have been elected President on election night. No one would have demanded a recount, nothing would have gone to the Supreme court
Gore would have won if he had carried any other state.
But the election was contested in Florida over 537 votes. I stayed up all night watching the count. The Supreme Court handed the election to Bush. It all came down to 537 votes in Florida.
I remember it well. I also stayed up all night. You can disagree with the outcome, but the Supreme Court followed the law. They rejected the use of different standards of vote counting in different counties. Does anyone disagree with that?
They also rejected a proposed state wide recount based on Title 3 of US Code (the same justification used by the Florida Supreme Court). Multiple media organizations later did their own recounts of selected districts (that the Gore people wanted) and found that Bush would still have won.
“They also rejected a proposed state wide recount…”
Which is why the DEFINITIVE studies showed that no one could say for certain which candidate won Florida if there was a statewide recount. Gore didn’t request it because the right wing propagandized the media into believing there was something untoward in asking for a full recount, and Gore tried to minimize the extreme backlash by focusing on a few counties. Gore stupidly assumed that the Supreme Court was ethical, and believed in democracy, and wouldn’t simply ban any and all recounts period, and declare Bush the winner.
In 2020, Trump asked Wisconsin to ONLY recount the ballots in two counties. And Trump got that recount. Because there was nothing patently illegal about asking for recounts in only two counties – in 2000, the Supreme Court was simply looking for a reason to disallow any recount to help the Democrat, but certainly no one has ever said that Trump’s campaign acted in an unconstitutional manner and illegally got a recount in only 2 counties.
And Gore didn’t lose 2020 because of Tennessee. He lost because of a butterfly ballot that was never used again.
A number of serious analyses have proven that – most notably this one:
https://www.gsb.stanford.edu/faculty-research/publications/butterfly-did-it-aberrant-vote-buchanan-palm-beach-county-florida
“We show that the butterfly ballot used in Palm Beach County, Florida, in the 2000 presidential election caused more than 2,000 Democratic voters to vote by mistake for Reform candidate Pat Buchanan, a number larger than George W. Bush’s certified margin of victory in Florida. We use multiple methods and several kinds of data to rule out alternative explanations for the votes Buchanan received in Palm Beach County. Among 3,053 U.S. counties where Buchanan was on the ballot, Palm Beach County has the most anomalous excess of votes for him. In Palm Beach County, Buchanan’s proportion of the vote on election-day ballots is four times larger than his proportion on absentee (nonbutterfly) ballots, but Buchanan’s proportion does not differ significantly between election-day and absentee ballots in any other Florida county. Unlike other Reform candidates in Palm Beach County, Buchanan tended to receive election-day votes in Democratic precincts and from individuals who voted for the Democratic U.S. Senate candidate. Robust estimation of overdispersed binomial regression models underpins much of the analysis.”
Gore didn’t ask his followers to violently storm the capitol to stop Bush from being president. However, the Bush campaign did send violent protesters to successfully stop the recount of ballots in one of the closest elections ever. (see Brooks Brothers riot)
It’s hard to continue democracy when one side believes in fair play, and the other side believes might makes right.
The Gore campaign never asked for the butterfly ballots to be recounted. I believe that was because in those days, people would cast votes on some computerized system with no paper trail!! The one good thing is that we now have a paper trail and ballots can be hand counted. Vote by mail is a GOOD thing. I don’t think any state still has a system where a voter casts a vote on a computer screen and there is no record anywhere. In NYC, your ballot is scanned, but then you put your ballot into a locked box in case there are any questions. There are many simple ways to insure everyone’s vote counts and everyone gets a chance to vote without undue hardship. Only one party – the Democrats – trusts that they can win without disenfranchising voters from the other party. Dems want ALL citizens to vote, Republicans only want all citizens likely to vote Republicans to vote.
Michael, it’s been a long time, but my recollection is the same.
https://www.cnn.com/2015/10/31/politics/bush-gore-2000-election-results-studies/index.html
“Taken as a whole, the recount studies show Bush would have most likely won the Florida statewide hand recount of all undervotes. Undervotes are ballots that did not register a vote in the presidential race.
This goes against the belief that the U.S. Supreme Court handed the presidency to Bush, or took it away from Gore.
The studies also show that Gore likely would have won a statewide recount of all undervotes and overvotes, which are ballots that included multiple votes for president and were thus not counted at all. However, his legal team never pursued this action.”
I wish the Supreme Court had stayed out of that entirely, regardless of the law (I think there were plausible arguments on both sides). It really started the long-term tanking of the Court’s reputation.
FYI, the The Annenberg Public Policy Center is generally considered a more reliable source than a CNN article. The Annenberg Center goes to great lengths to cite sources. I try to be accurate when I post:
https://www.factcheck.org/2008/01/the-florida-recount-of-2000/
“According to a massive months-long study commissioned by eight news organizations in 2001, George W. Bush probably still would have won even if the U.S. Supreme Court had allowed a limited statewide recount to go forward as ordered by Florida’s highest court.
Bush also probably would have won had the state conducted the limited recount of only four heavily Democratic counties that Al Gore asked for, the study found.
On the other hand, the study also found that Gore probably would have won, by a range of 42 to 171 votes out of 6 million cast, had there been a broad recount of all disputed ballots statewide. However, Gore never asked for such a recount. The Florida Supreme Court ordered only a recount of so-called “undervotes,” about 62,000 ballots where voting machines didn’t detect any vote for a presidential candidate.
None of these findings are certain. County officials were unable to deliver as many as 2,200 problem ballots to the investigators that news organizations hired to conduct the recount. There were also small but measurable differences in the way that the “neutral” investigators counted certain types of ballots, an indication that different counters might have come up with slightly different numbers. So it is possible that either candidate might have emerged the winner of an official recount, and nobody can say with exact certainty what the “true” Florida vote really was.”
“IT IS POSSIBLE THAT EITHER CANDIDATE MIGHT HAVE EMERGED THE WINNER OF AN OFFICIAL RECOUNT, AND NOBODY CAN SAY WITH EXACT CERTAINTY WHAT THE ‘TRUE’ FLORIDA VOTE REALLY WAS.”
I have no idea why one side just can’t acknowledge that we won’t ever know what the outcome of a properly conducted full recount of Florida in 2000 would have been. We don’t know. All we know is that the Republicans were DESPERATE to prevent recounts and the media bought into the ridiculous right wing narrative that SPEED was much more important than accuracy. And the courts bowed down to the right wing pressure that doing recounts when a Republican wins by the slimmest margins is improper.
The Democrats in 2020 modeled how a party who believes in democracy acts. There were recounts in states where the margin of victory was 2,000X larger than in Florida.
The Dems didn’t hire people to wear suits and riot to prevent recounts in states where they were worried a recount might reverse their victory.
One party believes in democracy, the other party believes might makes right. And treating both sides equally bodes very poorly for democracy.
Lol weren’t you told a few hours ago to not respond to my comments? So that’s over already?
^The Gore campaign never objected to a full recount. They welcomed it. However, Florida had a law requiring votes to be certified in a very short time frame, which meant asking for all counties to hand count their votes would certainly have been rejected by the Florida court.
The reason for the Brooks Brothers riot was to prevent even the first legally mandated recount to happen before the certifications. There were other Florida counties that simply spurned the law requiring a machine recount, knowing that there wasn’t enough time before the certification deadline for them to get caught. But the Brooks Brothers riot was for the legally mandated recount in a county where the Republicans believed the Democrats might pick up votes, and it worked. The riot prevented the legally mandated recount in that country. FYI, very involved in that Brooks Brothers riot was Roger Stone.
Roger Stone learned that he could use the media to normalize even the worst excesses to thwart democracy. The Brooks Brothers riot was the precursor to Jan. 6 insurrection.
In 2000, the Gore campaign was between a rock and a hard place. The media was shouting about how time was of the essence, and it was clear that if the campaign tried to litigate the MANY anomalies in that 7 day window, they would get nothing. So they asked for what was a perfectly reasonable ask — to manually count a couple counties just like 20 years later Trump would ask for ONLY a recount in a couple of Wisconsin counties. The big difference is that the media treated Gore’s ask as if it was unethical, and Trump’s ask as if it was normal and right.
Here is an easy to understand bottom line:
“On December 8, the Florida Supreme Court, by a 4–3 vote, ordered a statewide manual recount of undervotes.”
The Republicans were desperate not to allow any statewide manual recounts and got the Supreme Court to ban them, period, so Bush could win.
No one can say for sure what that statewide manual recount of undervotes in Florida would have shown, which is the point of the factcheck.org article. There was all kinds of funny business. But what is undisputed is that the Republicans did not want to play fair. Roger Stone learned in 2000 that he didn’t have to. And it is quite likely that if Mike Pence had not found some hidden integrity – helped by some conservative lawyers who believed democracy was worth preserving – democracy would already be dead.
Diane, the record shows that I replied to Michael nearly an hour before flerp! inserted him/herself here, and I am continuing to reply to Michael. Can you please ask flerp! to stop inserting him/herself into threads where I carefully avoided responding to him/her?
And I hope you will note the gratuitously nasty tone of flerp!’s comment to me. And I hope you note that despite that nasty tone, I am not responding by hurling epithets about how flerp! is a despicable person and a raving lunatic. Because that is not appropriate. I don’t use tone-policing as an excuse to launch insults, and I have noticed that no one treats folks like dienne77 as a deserving punching bag for gratuitous personal insults because her “tone” wasn’t nice enough. They reply to the content of her posts.
“the Supreme Court followed the law.”
Actually, dude, the conservatives on the Supreme Court decided the 2000 election based on their own narrow interpretation of the law when no other federal court saw a need to take the case.
The Supreme Court is the only federal court that can choose whether it takes cases. And Bush made an emergency appeal directly to SCOTUS.
To the universe and certainly to no one in particular: I made a mistake by assuming that a comment that denigrated the quality of CNN as a source, posted immediately after I posted something using CNN as a source, was a comment on my comment. Obviously I was off base.
Your thought, which is true is not liked around here.
What a disastrous loss for the country this was. We got the horror of NCLB and the disastrous, criminal, genocidal Second Iraq War, not to mention a president who was so ignorant that he made us a laughingstock around the world.
Sad day, Bush and Cheney can go to hell for allowing this to happen. The explosions inside the building are too obvious, 3 buildings collapsed with 2 planes. This was the start taking our rights away with the patriot act and going to war for oil. Ukraine the most corrupt place on earth, yet when you listen to lies and mainstream you act as if 200 billion aid for them is in good use. President you support now blew up Nordstream pipeline and is bringing us closer to ww3, blame trump!
https://www.ae911truth.org/
Do you believe this stuff?
It’s not “stuff”. Have you read the architects’ and engineers’ analysis? Read their rebuttal to the NIST report, see what you think.
And, yes I believe their analysis is far better than the NIST report and what most people think what happened that fateful day.
Read this: https://www.ae911truth.org/images/BeyondMisinfo/Beyond-Misinformation-2015.pdf
Duane,
This is interesting and I can see where it might possibly apply to WTC 7, the building that wasn’t hit by the plane and collapsed after everyone had evacuated.
But it’s unconvincing when it tries to make that argument for WTC 1 and 2. It’s impossible to compare a jet plane flying into a 110 floor building with any accidental severe high rise fire or a controlled demolition.
Flight 11 took off from Boston to LA at 7:59am for a 6 hr. and 20 minute trip, and hit the north tower at 8:46am, 47 minutes minute later, having completed approx. 12% of the expected flying time.
Flight 175 was doing the same route from Boston, took off at 8:15, and hit the South tower at 9:03, 48 minutes later, having completed approx. 12% of the expected flying time.
That means this wasn’t a fire, but a massive jet-fueled explosion that none of the comparison buildings experienced. Those jets fuel tanks were nearly full.
Also, the South tower collapsed first, even though it was hit second. There is no explanation for why the mysterious people able to get into the WTC to create a “controlled demolition” would have decided to take down the second building hit first.
Is your theory that Bin Laden was able to convince a group of men to hijack planes and fly them into buildings and another group of terrorists to plant explosives throughout 110 floors of two high rises which they would set off after the planes flew into the buildings?
If that is the case, why bother with the airplanes at all? A lot of things had to go right for the hijackers to get away with what they did. The people who were able to plant explosions could just set off the explosions.
And why would the government want to cover this up? Who were Bush and Cheney protecting? If someone was going to all that trouble, why not just have the hijackers be Iraqi? Why set up Saudi Arabia or Egypt instead of Iraq?
No, it’s not unconvincing referring to WTC 1 & 2. Read what the architects and engineers have to say about the NIST Report and what the evidence says.
I have no answers to your last questions. That is not my purpose, nor the A&Es. It is strictly an architectural and engineering analysis.
Read the reports for that analysis. It has nothing to do with “conspiracy theories” which serve to only cloud the issue of building safety which is what the A&Es are examining.
Oh, dear god, Duane.
I knew that I would get that kind of response. Have you perused their site? It is run by architects and engineers, many of whom have designed and worked on steel framed high rise buildings.
I suggest that you read what those who are most knowledgeable about the subject of building safety, building standards, building construction have to say about the events of the three buildings that collapsed symmetrically into their own footprints. Read the NIST report, and read their rebuttal to that hogwash report in order to see exactly how disingenuous the government’s (NIST’S) report is.
It is not a “conspiracy theory” site at all. They do not speculate as to who was behind the attacks, they look only at how the buildings collapsed the way that they did in a proper scientific and engineering fashion.
Learn a little today, go read their reports.
Duane, please go peddle this conspiracy tripe elsewhere.
You can read about AE911truth here:
“Richard Gage is a prominent 9/11 conspiracy theorist and architect who promotes the claim that the World Trade Center was destroyed in a controlled demolition and that the 9/11 attacks were an ‘inside job.’ ”
“Gage is the founder and CEO of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth (AE911Truth), a 9/11 conspiracy theory group. The organization claims to represent more than 3,000 architects and engineers who want a ‘real investigation’ into the 9/11 attacks.”
https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/richard-gage-and-911-conspiracy-theories
You can read about more conspiracy theories at the site linked below.
“Some conspiracy theories are harmless. It doesn’t really matter if people believe that the Apollo moon landings were shot on a Hollywood backlot. But the conspiracy theories that circulate about the 9/11 attacks are anything but harmless. They help to delegitimize democratic government. They demonize innocent groups that are falsely blamed. And they shift attention away from the real causes and perpetrators.”
https://www.cfr.org/blog/seven-resources-debunking-911-conspiracy-theories
“Duane, please go peddle this conspiracy tripe elsewhere.” To that I say please sukinzeeggs!
Debunk the A&E’s analysis (and they have over 3,000 A&Es who agree with them). It is not “conspiracy theory”. You can’t because they are the ones on truth’s side in this.
I guess you can’t handle discussions that deal in truths. Your insinuation that Gage is a nutcase is way off. He didn’t know about WTC 7 until 5-6 years after it occurred. When he saw what happened, he started to look into it and realized that the governments explanation was not right and set about to analyze, with others the architectural and engineering aspects of what occurred that day.
“But the conspiracy theories that circulate about the 9/11 attacks are anything but harmless. They help to delegitimize democratic government.” Since the work of the A&Es is not conspiracy theory that little statement doesn’t do anything to debunk the A&Es.
Tis sad that you prefer to remain ignorant.
Dear Democracy (would you entertain the idea of disclosing your full name like Duane, Diane, and myself?), Duane, Diane, everyone of this blog,
It absolutely breaks my heart reading most of these replies. The infighting are wars themselves. Everyone wanting to be right. Everyone trying to be in control. When we do this, we give away our power. Our power is to empower all people.
And I return to the contents of my original post and beg for you all to not only read it but take some real time to reflect on the many layers within it. Don’t attack it or make a pleasant response. Just reflect. Go quiet for a while. No more posts. Each of you are amazing. I sure love you and I mean this. Again, It just breaks my heart with this infighting. Each of us weren’t placed here, weren’t given life for this.
And we revisit my original reply:
Killing people seems to be good business. Especially for governments.
As of 2014, In Tucson, Arizona, the top employer is a company called Raytheon Missile Systems. In fact, three of the top ten employers in Tucson are in the war business. The others are Davis Monthan Air Force Base and United States Army Intelligence Center and Fort Huachuca.
It just makes you wonder how many people would be out of jobs if we didn’t have wars? If we didn’t kill each other?
The casualties don’t start in the battlefield. It starts with our leaders.
These are the first casualties. It isn’t just about owning or protecting our properties. It’s vital that we invest and enrich our human properties. That we nurture ourselves and our mental ecosystem. Our physical ecosystem.
A leader truly must understand their own mind and their own self first.
Far too often people that get into politics get in for the wrong reasons. It wasn’t really to help or serve others. Moreso that they were longing for an emotional feeling. To be liked. Often that sense of entitlement or power and control will bring about this false sense of worthiness. It’s very common that once the person gets into power that they still end up not feeling worthy nor happy.
We have seen this repeatedly, as with Presidents in the United States for example. We had a President (1961-1963) that cheated on his wife. He wasn’t the only one. We had another case (1992-2000) that did it as well.
You would think that a person of this stature would be happy and comfortable in their own skin. But they weren’t. They still didn’t understand right from wrong. They were still dealing with very deep personal emotional issues, including a lack of self-awareness.
In parliament, how often do we see each party acting like little children fighting in a sandbox?
What does entitlement mean? Typically, entitlements are based on concepts of principles (“rights”) which are themselves based on concepts of social equality or enfranchisement.
Did Adolf Hitler (USA’s Time Magazine “Man of the Year” for 1938) understand or think that all people were equal? Do other countless leaders of this world (and past) that bring their countries into war think the same?
Intimidation fear tactics. Leaders master propaganda techniques, creating catastrophic reality. Human beings are manipulated on how to think. Adolf Hitler sold a message and people bought into it. He preyed on their weaknesses. Hunger. Joblessness. Hopelessness. Ignorance breeds fear. Fear breeds hate. So much F.E.A.R- false evidence appearing real.
Most leaders use this method for their own personal greed or their country’s greed to capture another countries’ resources.
These holy wars. These oil wars. These greedy wars. These religious wars.
These wars. These leaders make us all losers.
These so-called leaders wouldn’t need ‘bling’, money, cars or real estate to feed their egos or to feel empowered, liked or respected. That void would be filled with proper parenting skills of nurturing and praise. It all starts there.
Adults need to understand themselves and teach their children a proper, healthy existence. Not one where we conform to many of society’s undoing’s, like false advertising. False lifestyle presentations of what it is like living with excess: ‘bling’.
First, adults need to understand themselves and then teach their children the powerful attraction that marketing can have. They have to learn to differentiate between what they want and what they truly need. There is no poetry in advertising. It is a form of war. To break us down. Distorted visions placed upon us to lock us in and dehumanize us. And in the end, they dehumanize themselves. It’s the perfect platform of disillusion.
“…And you look down upon me? Take another look. You, with your endless debt of mortgages, cars and credit card payments. Anxiety and fears. You, my friend, are really me. Only just dressed up in a suit or skirt,” said the panhandler.
Can you imagine a world without greed and jealousy? Since people wouldn’t be trying to outdo their fellow person, they would feel better about themselves and content with what they had.
From a mouth. From a tablet. From a laptop. From a computer. Transferred to a server, to a satellite phone, the words: “I like you.” It doesn’t matter how it is done, each one of us long for those three words.
Isolation. Despair. Loneliness. Teenagers. The elderly. From rotary dial to fiber optics. One looks out to the horizon, with a necklace of bricks, drowning in an ocean of tears, an ocean of darkness. Like our forefathers, looking, searching and crying out: “like me, like me.”
World leaders, all peoples, none of us are immune. We all long to be liked.
Everything we do in our lives, comes back to this principle. Please “like me.”
“The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his,” said George S. Patton. Often people laugh at that quote. Laugh? This is human life. We are all scared. It is ugly and harmful that we destroy human life and our lands. Have we lost the address to humanity? Do we have love for humankind? Are we all lost and need to kill just to feel?
Let’s raise a white flag to all our nations and divorce ourselves from all the tactics perpetrated upon us. Let us not continue using oxymoronic terms like: “Military intelligence” or “friendly fire,” but be peaceful warriors and use our human intelligence.
Understanding our path is acceptance.
When you show a positive demeanor, even with a simple smile with a direct look into the beholders’ eye and a response (or not), this gives us a connection. This connection is one of acceptance to a fellow human, an acceptance into your presence, your space, your life and theirs. This basic connection can convey all the necessary love and encouragement needed for a response. This is when the ears that are tuned in to hear will lead us towards this positive interaction.
Status. Status quo. It is common in today’s society for people to admire someone else. How often do we hear people talking about this and that of another person’s life? Sad, isn’t it? We don’t even know these people. The time that we waste talking about matters like this and the time that we take away from developing our own mental ecosystem is a travesty.
Transferring from external validation to internal self-validation. Freedom doesn’t mean doing whatever you want. Freedom means knowing who you are.
The transformation point does exist where we can learn from both our pains and our pleasures.
This transformation point occurs when one starts understanding their own brain. “Why I did what I did.” “Why I do what I do.” When you can answer these questions, well my friend, that is the first day of the rest of your life. You start getting comfortable in your own skin. Things that once seemed important that really aren’t fade away and energies spent on others will seem foolish as you enter into a new light. One thing that you start understanding is that we are all equal. What we can’t lose sight of is our importance to this world. That each of us are remarkable pieces of it.
Age. American architect Frank Lloyd Wright did a massive amount of his work in his 80s, right up until his death at the age of 91. I say this as a reference to age. It’s simply a number.
We can become prisoners of ourselves. One must dig tunnels to escape one’s own mind. We get just this one life. We have to stop doing time. We must live out our lives like we planned in our youth. No matter where we are or how old, we can always reach for our dreams.
If you don’t conform to society and you don’t lose that child-like spirit, then oh my God, each one of us can accomplish a remarkable number of things.
Have no limits.
Results are joyful. When one creates his or hers best there is the most wonderful feeling that comes from it. You’ve created a result that no one can take away from you. It has been said: “It is better to execute than to be executed.”
An automatic weapon is a firearm capable of firing multiple rounds with one pull of the trigger. A simple smile, hug, or ‘I love you’ can deliver such an amazing positive shift to one’s life and circumstances that it can truly transform the spirit. Today, let’s kill people with kindness. Today, let’s show people our true colours. Let’s imprint positiveness upon the hearts of all others. Let us protect each other with our human arms and not our firearms.
“Be up-beat, don’t beat-up!”
– Miles Patrick Yohnke
As always, love is the way,
Miles Patrick Yohnke
Miles,
I have no problem with others disagreeing with me. Back and forth dialogue is a good thing. I do resist when people tell me to take my thoughts and shove them as democracy did in this thread. But that’s okay to as I can and will come right back at them.
“Everyone wanting to be right. Everyone trying to be in control. When we do this, we give away our power. Our power is to empower all people.”
Yes, I have a need to “be correctt” (although ask my life-long friends and they might laugh at the thought of me “being right”) I don’t see it as “trying to be control”. I’ve circled the sun enough times to realize what an insanity that is.
I have no control over people and can’t empower them to do anything. I can only put my thoughts out for discussion and people will take them for what they are worth and decide to do whatever with them.
I do agree with you about names. It’s sad that people hide behind a screen name, although I understand why in some cases.
To each his/her/its own.
Duane says “No, it’s not unconvincing referring to WTC 1 & 2. Read what the architects and engineers have to say about the NIST Report and what the evidence says.”
I did read what the architects said. And nowhere did they compare a massive passenger jet, nearly completely full of burning jet fuel, crashing into a high rise.
Instead, they keep repeating the mantra that the WTC Towers are the only known
cases of total structural collapse in high-rise buildings where fire played a role.
But the WTC are ALSO the only known cases of total structural collapse in high rise buildings with a massive jet filled with jet fuel exploded in the building! So why do they spend so much time proving what isn’t at issue — that high rise buildings “where fire played a role” but did NOT have a massive jet filled with fuel explode in its’ center didn’t collapse in the same way?
In a sense, the study is right that there needed to be more than “fire”, but the WTC 1 & 2 was more than “fire” – the jet fuel was an explosive it itself. I thought it was interesting that there was an attempt to figure out why WTC 3 collapsed, but that happened much later in the day, when it had already been cleared of people. It’s possible there was an intentional controlled blast at that point to make it safer to control the fire, but why would anyone cover that up? Investigators were trying to figure out why it collapsed, so they had lots of theories, but who knows? But if terrorists set off the explosives, why wait hours later? Set explosives being covered up for an unknown reason seems a not very likely explanation for trying to figure out the reactions of buildings to a unique, unprecedented massive event to which comparisons to high rise fires are irrelevant.
If anything, what I could imagine being covered up was the fact that these buildings weren’t built to withstand jet airplane crashes into them, and weren’t as safe as people thought.
NYCPSP,
Thank you for your sensible response. Yes, huge airplanes loaded with jet fuel crashed into the Twin Towers and caused them to collapse. Yes, a jet crashed into the Pentagon. Yes, a fourth jet crashed into a field in Pennsylvania because of the heroism of the passengers. The CIA didn’t do it. The Israelis didn’t do it. All of the hijackers were identified. Bin Laden planned the mission. Khalid Sheik Mohammad was a key figure. Why build elaborate conspiracy theories when the facts are clear? Occam’s Razor.
Yes, they addressed the plane issues that you bring up. Keep reading
In light of current events, it is interesting that it was Clarence Thomas that cast the deciding vote that turned the 2000 election over to Bush and the GOP kleptocrats. It has only gotten worse since then with the Citizen’s United ruling that gives the kleptocrats access to unlimited dark money.
I think it was later shown that Gore won that election. Courts had stopped the counting in Florida. I remember how angry I was that nothing was done about it. And to think of how the world would have been different!
If I were a betting man, I’d bet that Gore would have done the same as Georgie the Least after 9/11.
Certainly re: Afghanistan. Re: Iraq, I’m not so sure. Bush really had himself surrounded by ardent regime change fans.
Chapter titles:
Chapter 1: War Is A Racket
Chapter 2: Who Makes The Profits?
Chapter 3: Who Pays The Bills?
Chapter 4: How To Smash This Racket!
Chapter 5: To Hell With War!
What did Smedley think of war with Hitler?
I don’t know. He died on June 21, 1940.
I do know that Prescott Bush and his fascist banker buddies and other businessmen wanted Butler to lead a fascist coup against FDR in 1934. Butler refused.
Love me some Smedley!
Replacing the French and Vietnam in the 1950s was a political move but we didn’t start sending in huge numbers of troops until after President LBJ lied about the Tonkin Gulf Incident that never happened and used that lie as an excuse to send hundreds of thousands of troops to Vietnam starting a war that would last about 20 years. Five presidents were involved in fighting that war from Truman to Nixon.
There is plenty to legitimately criticize about the Bush administration’s policies toward Iraq and Afghanistan, but this author is way too partisan in this essay. American military actions in Afghanistan were almost unanimously approved by Congress. That long-term war may have been unwise, but it was entirely legal under U.S. law.
Then there is this section: “Had the world mobilized to stop Hitler when he invaded Poland in 1939 there almost certainly wouldn’t have been either the Holocaust or WWII…” Where does this guy get his history? On September 3, 1939 Great Britain and France declared war on Germany, two days after the invasion of Poland. On August 23, 1939 Hitler and Stalin had agreed to a non-aggression pact that carved up Poland; at that time Germany and the Soviet Union were not formal adversaries – more like de facto allies – so no way would Stalin have allowed Soviet military action against Germany. And the U.S. was deep into isolationism at that time. Moreover, the U.S. military was pathetically weak at that time, in no position to prevent the German onslaught into western Europe.
World War II could have been stopped, but not in September, 1939. The stopping could have occurred in 1935 if the then militarily stronger British and French had resisted Hitler’s incursion into the Rhineland, or if those western powers had resisted Hitler’s invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1938. There is the appeasement policy and the domino theory come to life. Winston Churchill made many mistakes during his long life in politics, but he will forever be immortalized for his prescience about Hitler and then leading his country to hold out long enough for the combined power of the U.S. (as of December, 1941) and of the Soviet Union (as of June, 1941) to eventually crush the Nazi regime.
Jack, what do you think of our withdrawal from Afghanistan? I think that it was a great horror from a humanitarian perspective.
Bob,
The way the U.S. withdrew from Afghanistan was disgraceful. Being war weary is understandable, but presidential leadership requires telling the public that further sacrifices are sometimes needed.
Thank you, Jack. Totally agreed.
Amen! But we’ve also been lied into the war in Ukraine. Our State Department and others–including Sen. McCain–helped drag us into a war for control of Ukraine. If you doubt this, ask why Russia–side-by-side with Ukraine–did not invade before 2014? It was only after we began moving east militarily, and finally after we helped overthrow the duly elected government there that Russia acted. Again, how would we react to a Russian military alliance with Mexico, Canada, and Cuba? With their missiles being placed in those countries and war games on our borders? And even this imaginary example does not pose the same imagined threat: In that example, we would still have our whole East and West Coasts for transport of goods and military maneuvers. The Black Sea offers Russia it’s only consistently open, warm-water port. Then there’s the matter of our invasion of Russia in 1914, from the east and west. How easy would we rest if they had invaded us at Boston and San Diego in 1914? These thoughts are based on my studies of Russian foreign policy with people who had been to Russia and on the definitive works of George Kennan and David Dallin.
A sad fact is that on Sept 11, 2011, Israeli planes had locked pilot cabins. US airlines chose not to spend money to install locks. Wonder how much money they saved cf to being grounded for days after 9/11?
I think John Locke wrote about all of this in his Second Treatise of Government. It was also depicted clearly in The Lord of the Flies.
Locke put it this way:
“The state of nature is governed by a law that creates obligations for everyone. And reason, which is that law, teaches anyone who takes the trouble to consult it, that because we are all equal and independent, no-one ought to harm anyone else in his life, health, liberty, or possessions.”
Reason. Rational, critical thinking.
As we know, and as history informs us well, there are lots of people who cannot or will not “consult” reason.
Locke points out all the problems of societies without government and concludes that people are “naturally free, equal, and independent,
no-one can be deprived of this freedom etc. and subjected to the political power of someone else, without his own consent. The only way anyone can strip off his natural liberty and clothe himself in the bonds of civil society is for him to agree with other men to unite into a community, so as to live together comfortably, safely, and peaceably, in a secure enjoyment of their properties…”
As Locke pointed out earlier, “every individual man has a property in his own person; this is something that nobody else has any right to. The labour of his body and the work of his hands, we may say, are strictly his.”
Thus, as Locke notes, “the great and chief purpose of men’s uniting into
commonwealths and putting themselves under government is the preservation of their property.”
The preservation, first, of their persons.
In The Lord of the Flies, in the confrontation between Jack and Ralph, it goes like this:
“The rules!” shouted Ralph, “you’re breaking the rules!”
“Who cares?”
“Ralph summoned his wits….’Because the rules are the only thing we’ve got.'”
State laws, Federal laws. The Constitution. International law.
It’d be nice if everyone was a living embodiment of the music and the message at the link. Until then, the rule of law is important to protect and defend.
Speaking of 9/11 and US wars, I find it a bit disappointing that no one here has mentioned that September 11 also marks the fiftieth anniversary of the US backed military coup that overthrew the democratically elected Salvador Allende, President of the Republic of Chile. War criminal Henry Kissinger was instrumental in this role, which ushered in decades of terror under the dictator Agusto Pinochet.
Allende’s election was the response of Chile’s people to enormous economic disparities and concentration of wealth into fewer and fewer hands. In the aftermath of the coup, universities were shuttered and professors and students kidnapped by state forces and never seen again. Public education was privatized, carrying out the vision of Milton Friedman and the Chicago boys, who advised Pinochet. Not for nothing were Proud Boys and Oath Keepers seen wearing t-shirts depicting bodies being thrown from helicopters, a tactic employed by the dictatorship to dispose of its political prisoners.
History may not repeat, but it echoes. We should remain mindful.
Thank you, Christine!!!! Awesome post.
Thank you, Bob. Sometimes our nation’s navel gazing could benefit from a little outward look.