Did Bush lie? It doesn't matter any more.
POSTED BY: Geezer
UPDATED: Tuesday, July 11, 2023 18:35
VIEWED: 11007
PAGE 7 of 11
Quote:Kerry is taking legal action, but not for slander.
Originally posted by SheWolf:
Is the whole swift boat ordeal a lie, I would like to know. If it's not why doesn't he sue those men for slander, defamation of character or something.
Kerry takes legal action against Vietnam critics
Friday, Aug. 20
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20040820/ts_alt_afp/us_vo
te_kerry_vietnam_040820214246
Kerry's campaign announced it had "filed a legal complaint against Swift Boat Veterans for Truth before the Federal Election Commission for violating the law with inaccurate ads that are illegally coordinated with the Bush-Cheney presidential campaign.
The New York Times on Friday reported that there is a "web of connections" between the Swift Boat group and the "Bush family, high-profile Texas political figures and President Bush's chief political aide, Karl Rove."
"Gott kann dich nicht vor mir beschuetzen, weil ich nicht boese bin."
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Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
Geezer,
For capitalism to exist as we understand it, there has to be a formal monetary economy and ownership rules, and a government that regulates and enforces them. Another (inexplicit) aspect of capitalism is that one person (or corporation) owns the ‘means of production’ but does NOT provide the labor. The labor comes from those who don’t own the means of production and who depend on selling their labor for survival (the ‘wage slaves’).
Yep. Need a form of money everyone agrees on, and need a government that keeps things stable enough to make investment not too risky. I don't think that everyone 'depends' on selling their labor to the capitalist for survival. Many choose to use their own capital and labor and go into business for themselves. Others opt out entirely and go live on that subsistance farm. It's not that monolithic a system. People who don't want to work for "The Man" cand find alternatives.
Quote:
Even today there are economies that don’t use (or understand) money, though they do barter. I propose they are not capitalist. Additionally, those societies where one "owns" the digging stick, bow and arrow, net, canoe etc, but also provides the labor are not capitalist. To have put in effort to get extra fish, and then to have used those extra fish to trade for cloth doesn’t make the means of survival capitalist. The person is merely exchanging some of the benefits of their labor (which they wholly own) for another thing they think will also benefit them. And finally, currently a minimum of 1 billion people do not live under systems that can be considered capitalist.
and a large proportion of them live right at subsistance level, where a drought, or a bad hunt, or an empty net is a life-threatening event. I'll pass on that, if you please.
Quote:
Historically there have been societies (not every society, but some) where a ruling elite claims the right to both resources and labor. The Egyptians, Aztecs, Chinese Empires, Romans, and even the recent European feudal system (serfs were specifically part of the land) did that. However, these systems were religious in authority, not economic.
Authoritarian societies may co-opt religion, or marxism, or some other belief as a basis for their rule, but the sword is the authority, not the word. The authoritarian models admittedly don't work to good for anybody but the authorities. Democracies seem to provide better for more folk.
Quote:
One can only speculate about very early human groups, and further back to the proto-humans. But I think you will agree that if chimpanzees, orangutans and gorillas survive without capitalism, then in the vast interlude of millions of years between common ancestors and now, capitalism probably did not contribute to animal survival.
Probably didn't, but I don't choose to live my life like a gorilla.
Quote:
...And let's also casually look at Africa, since it's come up already. Angola used to be self-sufficient for food - they met the 'survival' standard you propose. As happens in many African countries, small remote villages were stable. In the war (which the US fomented BTW specifically to ruin the economy and drive out the socialist government) men either joined the forces, fled or were killed. That left the old people, women and children in the remote villages vulnerable to attack. Most sought safety in the cities. Suddenly these self-sufficient people who didn't need either capitalists or government became dependent. (In England large land-holders threw tenants off the farms. These tenants ended up in cities where they became a captive labor force for industry. That was in the good old heyday of raw unregulated capitalism, work-houses and brutal poverty for most of England.)
What would it take to restore Angolan self-sufficiency? Demining and a stable potable water supply (Jimmy Carter and former Treasury Secretary O'Neill both concluded that). These two infrastructure requirements don't need large capital investments, thoNOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
Quote:Some people do 'find' alternatives within a limited range of choices, but people haven't (yet) restructured society to change the choices. It's still about finding a higher perch in the cage, or a more remote perch, or a more comfortable perch, but it's still a perch in the cage, and the cage is not under your control.
It's not that monolithic a system.
Quote:You are either evading the point or in error. My statement
and a large proportion of them live right at subsistence level
Quote:Your reply
they keep 100% of the fruits of their efforts, not merely a portion.
Quote:The point is that people can realize the full value of their work, and don't have to be deprived of a portion of its value by their status as 'labor'. (as compared to say sneakers made for Nike at less than $1/pr, sold for $60-120.)
Nope. Even if they're just subsistence farming, they have to use some of the fruits of their efforts to by new implements to farm with.
But to address your point which you seem to have made in error:
Quote:you are confusing the benefits of technology with capitalism. Even the most rudimentary economic and historic models distinguish the two. (most recently Jared Diamond "Guns, Germs and Steel")
and a large proportion of them live right at subsistence level
Quote:There is way too much scrambled together that doesn't belong. Capitalism DOES enforce its rule with the sword, the bomber, missile, machine gun etc.
Authoritarian societies ... or Marxism ... but the sword is the authority. The authoritarian models admittedly don't work too good for anybody but the authorities.
As to which systems 'work' better, when the USSR broke up and countries became capitalist, male lifespan across the board dropped by a third. Infant mortality more than doubled.
Countries with highly socialist governments (even at lower, and much lower technology levels) have longer average lifespans and lower infant mortality than the US. (You'll have to take my word on this. I did the study, but with a few exceptions the urls are no longer active; and the 100+ page reports won't fit on this website.) In some simple illustrations: China's life expectancy is significantly higher than India's (69.4yrs/62.9 and 72.8/63.9) and its infant mortality roughly half that of India's (39 per thousand/68). http://www.unescap.org/esid/psis/population/journal/1999/v14n4a2.htm
Kerala, a highly socialist state in India has an infant mortality rate of 16, literacy rates of M94/F88%, and a life expectancy of 68 years. http://www.expert-eyes.org/kerala.html
China of course is communist, while India is capitalist. Kerala as mentioned is highly socialist.
The schemes you claim don't work do seem to work well for people where it counts - which is life and death.
Quote:This is another example of confusion between technology and economic system. The rest of the post rests on the false conflation of technology and capitalism.
The United Kingdom, on the other hand, is 244 people per square kilometer. They need the infrastructure that is best supported by a capitalist free-market system to live.
Finally, the fact that YOU are personally comfortable, or that I am personally comfortable is not a valid measure of capitalism's 'success'.
Africa is the other face of capitalism. We do well because others starve.
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Shewolf,
Quote:
Did Bush lie? That's a good question, my opinion is that he was mislead.
Gosh, I thought no one was going to bring this up.
On another thread I had started on the first of what was to have been a series of postings showing Bush and his entire administration DID knowingly, intentionally - lie.
My points were, and were to have been, referenced to extended contextual quotes from credible sources: the White House website, Senate Committee Report, 9/11 report etc.
I does take a lot of time getting this up on the board. Some documents (Senate Committee) can't be manipulated with standard PDF tools. If you have an interest, I'll repost the original here, and continue posting my research at about 1/week.
Rue
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Oh what the heck, here it is anyway.
This was part of an ongoing debate, so the tone is brisk. The other postings can be more relaxed:
I'm going to make a number of assumptions to speed things up. I'm going to assume you're familiar with or have access to the text of Bush's 2003 State of the Union address, comments by Bush, Rice, Rumsfeld, Cheney et al regarding Iraq's WMD, Colin Powell's UN address, David Kay's final report (his final report, not 'the' final report), the Senate report and the 9/11 Commission report. I'm also going to assume you have sufficient memory of, or access to, news reporting from that time frame.
A 'yes' answer will also speed things up, a 'no' answer will take more of your time.
----------
1) Do you agree that the DIA, Office of Special Plans and the Counter Terrorism Evaluation Group answer to Rumsfeld?
Yes
No
If 'no', please explain why not. A 'no' explanation also requires references to ORIGINAL documents only, with links. I'm not going to spend time addressing some flack's 'interpretations'.
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From the Senate Armed Services Committee
Quote:
MR. KAY: Senator Warner ... I believe that the effort that has been directed to this point has been sufficiently intense that it is highly unlikely that there were large stockpiles of deployed militarized chemical and biological weapons there..
Quote:
SEN. LEVIN: Dr. Kay, on the question of stockpiles, you have stated, I believe, that in your opinion Iraq did not have large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons in 2002. Is that correct?
MR. KAY: That's correct, Senator.
SEN. LEVIN: Do you have any evidence that they had any stockpiles,
large or small, in 2002?
MR. KAY: Simply have no evidence, Senator.
SEN. LEVIN: You have not uncovered any evidence of small stockpiles?
MR. KAY: We have not uncovered any small stockpiles, that's correct.
2) Do you accept David Kay's conclusion that Iraq had no large or small biological or chemical weapons stockpiles?
Yes
No
If 'no', please explain why not, with links to original documents.
Since Iraq did not have existing nuclear weapons, the question was one of nuclear weapons programs rather than stockpiles.
Quote:
SEN. LEVIN: -- in your judgment, had Iraq reconstituted its nuclear weapon program, in the way you understand the word "reconstitute"?
MR. KAY: It was in the early stages of renovating the program,
building new buildings. It was not a reconstituted, full-blown nuclear program.
Quote:
SEN. ALLARD: Did they use the aluminum tubes at that point in time to enrich their uranium? Do we know --
MR. KAY: No, they did not. They relied on different processes.
3) Do you accept David Kay's conclusion that Iraq had no nuclear programs?
Yes
No
If 'no', please explain why not, with links to original documents.
----------
Quote:
On October 4,2002, the NSC (Condoleezza Rice) sent a draft of a speech they were preparing for the President to deliver in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was draft six of the speech and contained the line, “and the regime has been caught attempting to purchase up to 500 metric tons of uranium oxide from Africa -an essential ingredient in the enrichment process.”
On October 5,2002, the ADDI .. asked the analysts to bring forward any issues that they thought should be addressed with the NSC. The ADDI said an Iraq nuclear analyst raised concerns about the sourcing and some of the facts of the Niger reporting, specifically that the control of the mines in Niger would have made it very difficult to get yellowcake to Iraq.
Based on the analyst’s comments, the ADDI drafted a memo for the NSC outlining the facts that the CIA believed needed to be changed, and faxed it to the Deputy National Security Advisor and the speech writers. Referring to the sentence on uranium from Africa the CIA said, “remove the sentence because the amount is in dispute and it is debatable whether it can be acquired from the source. We told Congress that the Brits have exaggerated this issue. Finally, the Iraqis already have 550 metric tons of uraNOTIFY: N | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME
In other words- Bush lied. But please continue. I'm interested in where this is going. I don't have the time to do the detailed research that you do, so I'd like to hear what you have to say.
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Geezer- You seem uncertain as to whether African, Latin American, Indian, etc. poverty is mainly related to socialism:
"it's because his government nationalized the mine,... or authoritarianism:
".... set his wages below a living wage, and jail or kill him if he protests."
"The authoritarian models admittedly don't work to good for anybody but the authorities. Democracies seem to provide better for more folk."
But quite confident that democracy and capitalsim create prosperity.
Using the same human develpoment index that you reference http://hdr.undp.org/statistics/indices/#1
if you look at impoverished nations, you'll see that far from being "nationalized", international corporations operate there. Out of many examples, I pick Shell in Nigeria (#151), a number of UK, USA, Chinese and other international companies extracting Congolese (#144) coltran (see UN report www.un.org/Docs/journal/asp/ws.asp?m=S/2003/1027) Unocal in Burma, Nike in Indonesia, TotalFinaElf-BP in Peru (#85) etc.
Again, citing the same UN development index there are also examples of declines in living standards when essential services and industries were privatized in Russia and Zambia. Other sources provide the basic economic history:
www.zic.org.zm/IPA_Information.asp?hdnGroupID=2&hdnLevelID=1
Now, these nations also had formal elections and contain the intersection of both "capitalism" and "democracy". Clearly, neither capitalism by itself nor a combination of capitalism and democracy is "sufficient" to guarantee prosperity.
I can also point to nations that are more properous than the USA that are socialist democracies (Sweden #1, Denmark #2) and nations that are socialist authoritarian regimes (Cuba, China) that are relatively properous when compared to their capitalist counterparts. In fact, Cuba outranks Latin America with the exceptions of Costa Rica* and Chile. So it seems that "capitalism + democracy" is neither necessary nor sufficient for prosperity.
Do you agree?
-------------------------------------
Enough for now.
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Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
(I said)"It's not that monolithic a system."
(You replied)Some people do 'find' alternatives within a limited range of choices, but people haven't (yet) restructured society to change the choices. It's still about finding a higher perch in the cage, or a more remote perch, or a more comfortable perch, but it's still a perch in the cage, and the cage is not under your control.
Even if you're the independent subsistance farmer, the cage isn't under your control. It's the cage of nature, of drought, of crop disease, of locusts, of injury. You can invest 100% of your labor and get all the return that's available and still starve to death if any of a dozen thing go wrong. Unfortunately, this happens all the time.
Quote:
(I said)"and a large proportion of them live right at subsistence level"
(You replied)But to address your point which you seem to have made in error...you are confusing the benefits of technology with capitalism. Even the most rudimentary economic and historic models distinguish the two. (most recently Jared Diamond "Guns, Germs and Steel")
I am aware of the difference between technology and capitalism. My point is that capitalism, specifically capitalist democracies, supports the advancement of technology most effectively. Capitalist democracies are generally the most technologically advanced countries.
Quote:
Capitalism DOES enforce its rule with the sword, the bomber, missile, machine gun etc.
Can't deny that this has happened. I'd say to a lesser extent than in non-capitalist non-democracies. China and the former Soviet Union come to mind.
Quote:
As to which systems 'work' better, when the USSR broke up and countries became capitalist, male lifespan across the board dropped by a third. Infant mortality more than doubled.
I would disagree that the former USSR has become capitalist. They're still having a difficult time transitioning to true democracy. They are in a rough transition phase right now as they move from one system to another. They may not even settle on a capitalist model.
Quote:
Countries with highly socialist governments (even at lower, and much lower technology levels) have longer average lifespans and lower infant mortality than the US. China's life expectancy is significantly higher than India's (69.4yrs/62.9 and 72.8/63.9) and its infant mortality roughly half that of India's (39 per thousand/68). Kerala, a highly socialist state in India has an infant mortality rate of 16, literacy rates of M94/F88%, and a life expectancy of 68 years. China of course is communist, while India is capitalist. Kerala as mentioned is highly socialist...The schemes you claim don't work do seem to work well for people where it counts - which is life and death.
But lets look at this overall, instead of picking one country or area. Here's a link to a nice map of life expectancy by country.
http://www.worldpolicy.org/globalrights/econrights/maps-life.html
And the overall winners are (gasp) the capitalist, or at least free market, democracies.
Quote:
This is another example of confusion between technology and economic system. The rest of the post rests on the false conflation of technology and capitalism.
I don't consider this a false conflation. I believe that capitalist democracies tend to support the development of technology better than any other system.
Quote:
Finally, the fact that YOU are personally comfortable, or that I am personally comfortable is not a valid measure of capitalism's 'success'.
Africa is the other face of capitalism. We do well because others starve.
I'd be interested in your definition of "success".
Africa's problems are generated by a combination of things. I'll agree that exploitation is one of them, along with the legacy of colonialism, tribal and factional strife, corrupt government, AIDS, etc. To blame it all on capitalism, or more specifically capitalist democracies,is a gross oversimplificatio
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Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:
Now, these nations also had formal elections and contain the intersection of both "capitalism" and "democracy". Clearly, neither capitalism by itself nor a combination of capitalism and democracy is "sufficient" to guarantee prosperity.
Capitalism and Democracy are not a guarantee of prosperity. Note that in my previous posts I tend to use words and phrases like "generally" "more likely". My contention is that overall, capitalist democracies are more successful.
I'm also not sure that the countries of the former soviet union have yet reached either stable democracies or stable echonomic systems.
Quote:
I can also point to nations that are more properous than the USA that are socialist democracies (Sweden #1, Denmark #2) and nations that are socialist authoritarian regimes (Cuba, China) that are relatively properous when compared to their capitalist counterparts. In fact, Cuba outranks Latin America with the exceptions of Costa Rica* and Chile. So it seems that "capitalism + democracy" is neither necessary nor sufficient for prosperity.
Do you agree?
Enough for now.
The CIA factbook (no plot, just the first source I googled) calls Sweden a Constitutional Monarchy, and a "mixed system of high-tech capitalism and extensive welfare benefits." so not pure socialism by any stretch. Norway is also a Constitutional Monarchy. "The Norwegian economy is a prosperous bastion of welfare capitalism, featuring a combination of free market activity and government intervention." http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/
And I am aware that there are some socialist (actually more communist in the cases of Cuba and China) authoritarian regimes that are better off than some capitalist democracies, but in general this is not the case. And besides, would you really rather live under an authoritarian regime?
"Keep the Shiny side up"
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It's a tennet of science that you can never prove a hypothesis, only disprove it. So if your hypothesis doesn't work in all cases, it must be modified.
If you look at the poorest nations, you will also see that they are generally capitalist and often have elections as well.
I propose a different hypothesis. I believe that I can show, both historically and geographically, that the introduction of capitalism invariably leads to greater disparity in wealth, which occurs both nationally and internationally. The USA, being the sole world superpower, has managed to export its poverty to other nations (like Peru, Nigeria, and Nicaragua) and therefor capitalism cannot serve as a basis for worldwide prosperity, only for localized prosperity.
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