First this American, then you?

[Ron Whitfield]

3/4 of a year to go before we can finally get rid of this way out of control President and VP, and hopefully start to repair the massive damage to our country.

Meanwhile, this should shiver yer timbers a bit - www.truthout.org/article/us-residents-military-brigs-government-says-its-war (http://www.truthout.org/article/us-residents-military-brigs-government-says-its-war)

Funny how the mainstream medias just never seem to find time for the truly important news.
If they were doing thier jobs the last 10 years we wouldn't be in this mess.

[TuNnL]

THANK GOD for the mainstream media you criticize, Ron. After all it was the mainstream media (namely the Associated Press) who published the article you just posted. :rolleyes:

[Ron Whitfield]

OK, that may be one. Got more?
I've got an endless list of examples where the media have given this administration a total pass on matters of utmost urgency. They have failed us miserably!
The Washington Press Corp. are afraid of saying anything 'out of line' during press conferences because they will loose thier hard to get seats to ask anything due to the intense vindictive actions of Bush/Cheney attack dogs at all levels.

[Jim75]

I totally get your point, but . . . that guy looks like a terrorist!:eek:

[Frankie's Market]

I totally get your point, but . . . that guy looks like a terrorist!:eek:

Hopefully, your post was meant as a joke. And even if it was, it doesn't come off as being funny.

After Pearl Harbor was bombed, there was a time when every Japanese-American looked like a potential spy and saboteur.

http://bss.sfsu.edu/internment/posterjapanesetype.html

Let's not repeat the mistakes this country made more than 60 years ago.

[Jim75]

Hopefully, your post was meant as a joke. And even if it was, it doesn't come off as being funny.

After Pearl Harbor was bombed, there was a time when every Japanese-American looked like a potential spy and saboteur.

http://bss.sfsu.edu/internment/posterjapanesetype.html

Let's not repeat the mistakes this country made more than 60 years ago.
Lighten up. Of course it was a joke. And I think it was funny. Not super funny, but still funny. I was referring to the wild, intense look in his eyes.

[Ron Whitfield]

Getting dragged off to some unknown prison by 'authorities' who have no interest in being decent in your handling, jailed without end, and without any hope of the slightest justices this country is founded upon tends to do that to you.
If he wasn't a terrorist before, I wouldn't blame him if he became the worst after this experience.

And this is a mild example of what has been happening the last 7 years to those in US control, many of which are totally innocent people.

[salmoned]

OK, that may be one. Got more?
I've got an endless list of examples where the media have given this administration a total pass on matters of utmost urgency. They have failed us miserably!
The Washington Press Corp. are afraid of saying anything 'out of line' during press conferences because they will loose thier hard to get seats to ask anything due to the intense vindictive actions of Bush/Cheney attack dogs at all levels.

Sorry Ron, there can only be one matter of utmost urgency, by definition. Since that particular matter doesn't change very often, if at all, I seriously doubt your claim of having an endless list. ;)

[sinjin]

I agree that he's entitled to due process. But if one wants to avoid this sort of treatment, best to avoid activities like:

"When investigators looked through his computer files, they found information on industrial chemical suppliers, sermons by bin Laden, how-to guides for making hydrogen cyanide and information about chemicals labeled "immediately dangerous to life or health," according to Rapp's court filing. Phone calls and e-mails linked al-Marri to senior al-Qaida leaders."

[Ron Whitfield]

Correct per the proper definition, Salmoned, and no I personally don't have a list, and I used to be able to point people in the direction of www.truthout.org (http://www.truthout.org) to start the viewing of atrocities over the last 7 years in our names, but they went and changed the page format to where it's not anywhere as user friendly as before. But, it's still there in the archives, and after a years worth of your reading enjoyment with plenty more to cry about that even they didn't cover, I think you'll have to agree it's at least nearly endless.

sinjin, highly suspicious, and stupid if he did even half that, but it's still a slippery slope of razor blades once you start down and we've been getting grated to bits for far too long. There are much better ways to handle these things that don't rape ourselves.

[sinjin]

sinjin, highly suspicious, and stupid if he did even half that, but it's still a slippery slope of razor blades once you start down and we've been getting grated to bits for far too long. There are much better ways to handle these things that don't rape ourselves.Agreed. I also think Gitmo shouldn't exist.

[SusieMisajon]

Well, there are always those Halliburton Holiday Camps to look foreward to.

[salmoned]

I guess I just don't understand why you single out 'this administration', as if a better one is sure to follow. It's not the individuals who are broken, it's the system itself which tolerates such abuses. A proper system should be able to effectively and efficiently identify and nullify 'a few bad apples' anywhere in the chain, top to bottom. We don't have such a system and I don't imagine any new administration will do much to fix the system itself since the embedded inertia is so enormous.

[Jim75]

Getting dragged off to some unknown prison by 'authorities' who have no interest in being decent in your handling, jailed without end, and without any hope of the slightest justices this country is founded upon tends to do that to you.Well . . . maybe. You appear to be making the assumption that his countenance in that photo is the result of savage treatment. While that may be true, it may also be false. That may be a perfectly accurate reflection of what he was like the day before they took him into custody.

He should have his day in court with legal representation. If it can be proven that he was indeed engaging in the items listed, then I don't really want him out floating around.

Believe me, I've been against Bush and his administration since way before he took office the first time. I am in no way in favor of the gradual whittling away of our privacy, rights, and freedoms that is currently underway. Nor am I in favor of imprisoning innocent people.

I guess I just don't understand why you single out 'this administration', as if a better one is sure to follow. It's not the individuals who are broken, it's the system itself which tolerates such abuses. A proper system should be able to effectively and efficiently identify and nullify 'a few bad apples' anywhere in the chain, top to bottom. We don't have such a system and I don't imagine any new administration will do much to fix the system itself since the embedded inertia is so enormous.I think this administration is likely more destructive than other possible administrations. They may all be flawed, but not equally. Or at least not equally in the same ways.


I also think a number of the individual players are seriously out of order, "bad apples" as you say. Snakes in the grass waiting for any opportunity to do their dirty work. It's in all of us. Some of us have learned to control it better than others.:mad:

I think the system has the ability to function effectively, but it's operators (the people of the US) are not requiring it to. Inertia is 'the' factor. It seems to me a general complacency has set in. Most people in the US, a large enough percentage anyway, have had it quite comfortable for a fairly long time (as compared to other possible conditions people around the world experience). When our founders became uncomfortable enough and had the means to do it effectively, they revolted. Since the revolution, a new set of powers has settled in over time, gradually becoming more and more corrupt, again (since the people have not been constantly vigilant).

The comfort created the complacency which caused us (some of us) to abandon the vigilance. Powers, in general, seek to perpetuate themselves. They can create a balance that can keep the existing seat of power in place for a very long time, even gaining more power. Take away people's freedoms, restrict access to information, take away their ability to act against the corruption, create an atmosphere of fear, and you can hold 'em down for a long time.

We're on our way down that road right now, but not to the point of no return. We could still pull out of this tail-spin. Electing Bush for one term was foolish. The fact that he was elected to a second term is surreal, but Bush and his crowd are just part of a longer succession. The ground we've lost will be very hard to get back, if it can be gotten back. Even when we get a new administration, they're not going to give us back what we've lost. It all takes place gradually enough that it becomes part of 'the way things are'. People get used to it. People who are born into it don't have the opportunity even to recall what it was like before.

[Ron Whitfield]

I didn't take the photo in the article into anything, as I couldn't care less about what he or any other American citizen looks like, unless your talking about someone like Barbie Benton... It was the printed word that had my attention.

This Bush administation has taken everything bad possible to extreme heights above anything ever done or concieved of by anyone else, no comparison.
Yes, the system is broken, but Bush has chosen to forgo any kind of honest repairs with a total redesign and replacement of American values with nothing but unAmerican crap to insure a no-return policy.

And for anyone, as they are of course now doing, to say hindsight is 20-20 and that everybody was in line with Bush's views is total BS.
I and millions of others clearly saw what was going to happen, was happening, has happened, is happening, and will happen.
They sure ain't done yet.

As yet another example - www.truthout.org/article/internet-attacked-tool-terror (http://www.truthout.org/article/internet-attacked-tool-terror)
Thanx to good ol' traitor Joe. He's the only good reason that Gore lost the election.