[burritomama]

from Neal Gabler's essay: "George W. Bush's Medieval Presidency" in this Sunday's LA Times (10/5/03)

"The administration seems indifferent to data, impervious to competing viewpoints and ideas. Policy is not adjusted to facts; facts are adjusted to policy. The result is what may be the nation's first medieval presidency - one in which reality is ignored for the administration's own prevailing vision. And just as in medieval days, this willful ignorance can lead to terrible consequences."

check it out: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedi...nes-suncomment

 

[burritomama]

and this:

"In actively denying or changing [the facts], they are changing the basis on which government has traditionally been conducted: rationality. There is no respect for facts because there is no respect for empiricism. Instead, the Bush ideologues came to power smug in the worldview, part of which, frankly, seems to be the belief that it would be soft and unmanly to let facts alter their preconceptions."

He's getting at something here.

 

[Marlena]

I was beginning to wonder if, for example, anyone found it utterly breathtaking that Bush would cite the recent report showing that Saddam had essentially NO arms program as shoring up proof that Iraq posed a real threat and the war in Iraq was justified. When I read that story over the weekend, my mouth was just opening and shutting, with no words coming out.

These people need to be forcibly removed from office. Why is not everyone SO SHOCKED that they don't go immediately to Washington, bodily pick up each and every member of the present Administration, and summarily boot them from the White House???

 

[AmyB]

Quote:

Originally posted by Marlena These people need to be forcibly removed from office. Why is not everyone SO SHOCKED that they don't go immediately to Washington, bodily pick up each and every member of the present Administration, and summarily boot them from the White House???

Some of us are hoping that the democratic process in this country still functions well enough so that a free and fair election in 2004 will bring about a bloodless regime change. I am trying hard to have faith that the American people will do the right thing and vote against Bush's "Great Unraveling".

However, rumors are flying that the Bushies are planning to steal the next election by using skewed electronic voting machines that leave no paper trail (no paper, no recount)

Perhaps instead of storming D.C. we citizens ought to be begging for ouside observers to monitor the 2004 elections.

--AmyB

 

[Joyce in the mts.]

Interestingly enough:

I pleaded with the all the UN delegations for observers to come and make sure that the last elections (2002 midterm elections) were on the up and up...(the silence was deafening).

I DO think that it would be wise to begin a movement to request observers for the 2004 elections- That is, if the powers that be can't cook up a reason to cancel elections altogether.

Joyce in the mts.

 

[Marlena]

Quote:

Originally posted by AmyB Some of us are hoping that the democratic process in this country still functions well enough so that a free and fair election in 2004 will bring about a bloodless regime change. I am trying hard to have faith that the American people will do the right thing and vote against Bush's "Great Unraveling".

Others of us have become too cynical to believe this. But I'd love to be surprised!



Quote:

However, rumors are flying that the Bushies are planning to steal the next election by using skewed electronic voting machines that leave no paper trail (no paper, no recount) Perhaps instead of storming D.C. we citizens ought to be begging for ouside observers to monitor the 2004 elections.

Given my ignorance of the technical issues involved, how would monitors be helpful in ensuring free and fair elections if skewed electronic voting machines that left no paper trail were used? Would the monitors need to check the code on each and every machine to ensure that they weren't rigged? Does anyone know?