Real World Event Discussions

THERE...ARE....FOUR....LIGHTS!

POSTED BY: WULFENSTAR
UPDATED: Friday, June 1, 2012 16:18
VIEWED: 7910
PAGE 6 of 7

NIKI2

Wednesday, May 30, 2012 11:00 PM

There is certainly bias and spin enough to go around on both sides, but it takes someone totally insane, after all that's been proven, to think FauxNews is an actual NEWS station.

So, just for the fun of it:

Quote:
Shortly after 6 p.m. two waves of exit polls from the Voter News Service (a consortium set up by the major TV networks and Associated Press) showed the Florida vote going for Democratic candidate Al Gore. John Ellis received a call from the Bush campaign in Austin and told them the bad news. At 7:52 p.m. the major networks, including Fox, called Florida for Gore http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/nov2000/fox-n17.shtml

You wanna learn about how they rigged THAT one, try the article at the website.

As to poor Rather, he was royally screwed--as he should have been for broadcasting material that hadn't been properly checked out. That doesn't change what really happened, which many have investigated and one has to choose whether to believe or disbelieve that particular "conspiracy theory". You have to make up your own mind on that one.

Quote:
It turned out that George W. Bush, at the time a senior staff member in his father's campaign, had served in the same Houston unit as Lloyd Bentsen III and was recruited the same year by the same man, Colonel Walter "Buck" Staudt. That unit, the 147th Fighter Interceptor Group, tasked with defending the Gulf Coast, was well-known as a "champagne unit" because it housed not only Bentsen and Bush but a number of other sons of the Texas elite, such as John Connally III, son of the former Texas governor and Nixon treasury secretary; Al Hill, the grandson of oil tycoon H.L. Hunt; and several members of the Dallas Cowboys.

(T)the timing and circumstances of Bush's entry into the Guard were enough to raise eyebrows. In February 1968, three months before Bush graduated from Yale, the Tet offensive left more than five hundred U.S. soldiers dead in a single week. That same month, Walter Cronkite famously declared the Vietnam War "mired in stalemate" just as President Lyndon Johnson canceled draft deferments for most graduate students. Days before he would become subject to the draft, Bush, whose father was then a U.S. congressman from Houston, won a coveted slot as a pilot in the 147th.

Bush maintains he simply interviewed with Staudt and was accepted on the spot. That may be true, but it would be hard to argue that there weren't more-qualified candidates: Bush received the lowest acceptable score on his pilot aptitude test.

In 1988 Staudt, by most accounts a bullying, cigar-chomping autocrat, told reporters that there had been no "hanky-panky" involved in getting Bush and Bentsen into the Guard, and he repeated that defense in 2000. But suspicion was not unwarranted. There was a long list of men trying to get into the Texas National Guard. And several months after Bush entered, Staudt paid a visit to Washington, D.C., and lobbied the elder Bush for funding for Ellington Air Force Base, in Houston, making sure to update him on how well his son was doing.

(T)he man who would sit at the center of the Guard story, Ben Barnes, then the Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, has said he regularly fielded requests for entry into the National Guard, and after assessing the trade-in value of the favor, he would pass them on to Rose to sign off on. It was on Rather's infamous 60 Minutes segment, in 2004, that Barnes first publicly recounted how he had called General Rose on behalf of George W. Bush in the spring of 1968. Barnes claimed he had received a call from Sid Adger, an oilman in Houston who was a close friend of the elder Bush's. As it happened, both of Adger's sons were also in the Air National Guard in Houston, under Staudt's command. Barnes told me that in the late seventies, while he and Adger served on the board of Texas International Airlines, Adger personally thanked him for help

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BYTEMITE

Wednesday, May 30, 2012 11:02 PM

Ah. Fair enough then.

RIONAEIRE

Thursday, May 31, 2012 5:01 AM

Man, now I feel dumb, I could have sworn that there was something very like that in the 1984 movie. I guess I need to go back and watch it again, or maybe read the book. I love TNG too, so I feel dumb for not remembering that, once someone said it I recalled it.

I'm the type of person who wouldn't last well under torture, there are as many lights as you want, I'll give in on that score to save my energy for holding out against the big things. Yes I know its about gradualness, but there are things I hope never to move on so I'll give in on the little things if need be. But hopefully that won't happen to me, but you just never know with the way the world is going today. My dad waterboarded himself in the bathtub once, it scared the crap out of him and he had a new appreciation for how hard it would be to not give in when being tortured.

I assume you're my pal until you let me know otherwise.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya.

1KIKI

Thursday, May 31, 2012 5:37 AM

"... but there are things I hope never to move on .."

You should read "Prisoner Without a Name, Cell Without a Number" or watch "A Dry White Season", or perhaps "Brazil" - knee vs electric drill, tho I have to warn you "I had a complication of my complication" will probably be the thing that sticks in your head.

MAGONSDAUGHTER

Thursday, May 31, 2012 6:55 AM

Quote:
from Goldstein's book] "In accordance to the principles of Doublethink, it does not matter if the war is not real, or when it is, that victory is not possible. The war is not meant to be won. It is meant to be continuous. The essential act of modern warfare is the destruction of the produce of human labor. A hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance. In principle, the war effort is always planned to keep society on the brink of starvation. The war is waged by the ruling group against its own subjects. And its object is not victory over Eurasia or Eastasia, but to keep the very structure of society intact.

Sound familiar?

Here's another

Quote:
"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought?… Has it ever occurred to your, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as we are having now?…The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact, there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking—not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness." - Syme

RIONAEIRE

Thursday, May 31, 2012 5:46 PM

New Speak = texting, I avoid engaging in shortened talking like that, mainly because of 1984 honestly. You'd be surprised, or maybe you wouldn't, how many people think text speak is acceptable as a communication medium in non texting situations. Grrrrrrrrr.

I assume you're my pal until you let me know otherwise.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya.

BYTEMITE

Thursday, May 31, 2012 6:16 PM

! 71nk2 +eh n€†s]D33k z 4vv]^16}{t, ]<1dd132 90+5 2 ]-[a|=s 7}{ey]? <0])32()|2. 1984 \^/u§ a]30t n1n]a 3d1t2 + 106!< ph41l.

((Translation: Good sirmadam, it is not the netspeak which diminishes us, but dishonesty of thought.))

CUDA77

Thursday, May 31, 2012 8:01 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by BYTEMITE:
Whoa now. I'll grant you the historical accuracy of the movie was dubious, but let's not be mocking the Scottish Struggle for Independence in front of someone from Clan Chattan.

Apologies Byte. Wasn't meaning to insinuate anything negative historical wise with my example. Just was touching on Niki's point about Wulf's habit posting up heroic-sounding soundbytes and buzzwords without actually bothering to take a second and actually think about the context and/or results that followed the rousing speech. Braveheart was just the one I gleaned onto because I know Wulf's posted it before and even without seeing the film, I know what the end result is. Had I actually taken the time to dive into the archives, I'm sure I could have found a dozen or so other examples that proved my point.

Socialist and unashamed.

RIONAEIRE

Thursday, May 31, 2012 8:23 PM

Historically accurate or not I love Braveheart. and even though no one was using blue paint by that time ... wow, I approve most behemently. :)

I assume you're my pal until you let me know otherwise.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya.

BYTEMITE

Thursday, May 31, 2012 8:28 PM

Well. It's true that there's a somewhat unfortunate context in that the rousing speech in Braveheart about "they can take our lives but they can never take our freedom" ends with William Wallace being captured and executed (took both his life AND his freedom).

The actual battle was less about Hollywood military tactics and honour and valour and more about the Scottish tendency to fight a bit dirty. See, there was this bridge (which was nowhere in the film), and the English expected that the Scots would politely let them cross before commencing battle. Instead, the Scots waited for the British to start crossing and then started killing them when their army was split into manageable chunks.

But, there's a broader picture there too, in that the resistance of that time actually managed to keep Scotland sovereign for a couple centuries until the 1600s, when the Scottish pet king James took the throne and united the three nations. And Longshanks WAS a genocidal bastard, you should see what he did to Wales.