h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Autist,there's a song by Midnight Oil about that, which goes (far as I can remember - a e.g., of clustering, I was just telling Jimmy about it last night our time

"Gough was tough/til he hit the rough
Uncle Sam and John were quite enough
Blackjack in Pine Gap
Everyone a Big Mac
Nobody goes out/bang that's that"

The song's called "The Power and the Passion" (I think it came out around '82 or maybe '83)

Well, Perium, let's see if I can get the distinction clear in my own head - and convey what I mean to you...
I guess, with yr daughter (in the future, obviously) fighting off a rapist, the reason I consider that acceptable is because it's up close and personal! She's defending her bodily integrity and her power to choose, and she's facing the guy and kneeing him in the nasties her very own self. None of this string pulling and puppet manipulating that's going on, with the Yoo Ess using the so-called Northern Alliance to kill-or-be-killed.
Also,like many people here, I have a problem with the level of, or even existence of any proof tying OBL to the offence.
Last but not least,the Afghani people who lives are being stolen, have NO responsibility for Sept 11th or anything else of the sort!

Hi,Lentilla,thanks for your definitions... I am reminded of what I was reading last night, in a old (Oct 8th) issue of a certain red-bordered American weekly news-magazine. (I had a posting hidden for mentioning a specific publication, so I'm being careful).
This ish had a poll, asking people what actions they'd support after Sept 11th, scary stuff. 49% of respondents support having Arab (or Arab-looking?) Americans carry Federal I.D., cards. Over 60% favour having detention without trial for "suspicious" characters. 33% of people have, since Sept 11th, spied on suspicious looking or acting people in their communities.

A guy in New York said that it ought to be possible to arrest and hold people for "anti-American sentiments" As defined by whom, I wonder?

ZAGREB.




Well, yes of course he can.Or someone else in government can, and put the blame on Bush.Perhaps even the oil industry or anyone else backing Bush and who would benefit from it.In that league possibilities are legio.World history proves that.


T´mershi Duween.

We're all a little worried, frankly. Americans as a group want some changes made, but they don't want to give up their individual liberties.

They think the president should be allowed to make executive changes to the Constitution in wartime, but they don't want foreigners tried in secret military proceedings. And 80% said they wanted the president to make changes to the criminal justice system in consultation with Congress, not by executive order as has been done recently.

Basically, we want to be safe, but we don't want to give any freedoms up to do so.

I don't want to see Arab-Americans or Arabic-looking individuals being forced to carry ID's. That would be ridiculous - especially here in Texas, where we have a lot of Hispanics. There's been a lot of dumb ideas like that floating around - all inspired by fear. Fear makes people act very ugly.

Just read another article recently about Bush giving a speech to the newest graduates at the Citadel. He's talking about updating our spy network, building new unmanned spy planes and high-tech weapons, and that dang missile defense system he keeps going on about. I was just saying the other day that we should be past all this spy s**t by now, but Bush is his father's son, after all. Ol' George used to work as the head of the CIA, didn't he? Now the son is carrying on the family cold-war tradition of paranoia.

Evidently they do have an incriminating tape of Osama, but have been afraid to release it because they feared that it would contain some message to his friends and allies. You'd think they were smoking weed or something!

Oh - it occurred to me as I mentioned the missile defense system that we do have a meteor heading toward the Earth, and it should impact in about twenty years - unless we get lucky. I believe that Bush is marketing the system in entirely the wrong way. What we need to do is invent the system, and then sell it to everyone, making sure that it's capable of destroying any object from space. We're very vulnerable to climate changes and utterly dependent upon growing food for a living, so if we've got the technology to protect us from space debris, then we need to take the steps and use it.

Zagreb - Yeah, absolutely - that's what i was getting at. Personally i don't think that Marx is illiberal throughout his work, but the end adopted by Lenin, largely was - his war communisim - which he saw as a necissary evil leading up to a more Liberal communism. But states don't work like that.

Marx himself found himself falling line with the Libertarian Communists (Anarchists) in his analyses of the Paris Commune for example, where he concluded that the dictator ship of the protetariat was not necissary for the withering away of the state (the point at which individual freedoms become absolute).

Marx's co-respondences with Bakunin, and with Proudhon, show the flaws in his thinking very clearly, and also that many of those arround him had thought about the practicalities of communism far more than he. Marx discussed the cnditions leading to revolution at great length, and the need for revolution, but never really described what a communist state might look like, or how it might function.

Della: Are you talking about our part time singer/part time politician/full time idiot Peter Garrett? If their social conciense ever rose above the almighty dollar, someone might take them serious. The music's ok, but the politics stink, they preach a very divisive message.

Rod

I disagree. But you knew that already.

It is my opinion that it is hard to get more up close and personal to the American public than to run airplanes into buildings in New York, without systematicaly visiting each and every American and doing them harm. While the danger to Americans is not as up close, it is very personal to all of us.

So while I understand what you are trying to get at here, I think you are missing just how deeply this has effected us. In my lifetime(short though it may be) I have never, ever, seen the country come together in the way that it has. It is only to be expected that other countries would feel nervous at this kind of unity.

But as to the fact or fiction of Osama's guilt.....I for one believe he did it. Circumstantial though the evidence may be I believe that it is more than enough to bind him to the crime.

As for the Afghani people whose lives are being stolen......no they might not have responsiblity for the attack, but their late government was guilty for harboring those that are. They were warned, they did not cooperate, now they no longer have a country to run. Seems to me that it would be worth every life lost just to have a new government in which the people (which is their hope I'm sure) can live peacefully.

In my opinion, the Revolutionary aspect was the problem. Revolution sweeps away everything that stood before and the only thing preventing the leaders of the revolution from holding absolute power is their own conciences and the desire of their people to let them. Also, most modern revolutions happened in states surrounded by powerful enemies hostile to the revolution and the new government could install dictatorship to "defend" the revolution. It seems to me the only way it seems certain things can be achieved is by *evolution* ie gradual change, then there is always a safeguard against tyranny. The United States revolution was largely successful, but it had the advantage of few local enemies once they had seen off the British, which meant there was less paranoia and the post-revolution governments had less excuses for draconian laws and legislation (although late 18th century America was not free of these entirely).

O.K, Perium, I just want to put my view forward here.

I'm in favour of the war and it's aims, I've already pointed that out. But I am not in favour of the way some of it has been orchestrated. The bombing, for instance.

"That's stupid, you have to bomb to fight a war"

This is fairly true. What has not been mentioned on the news much is the tactic the US uses in bombing. It flies it's aircraft at enormous height to drop the bombs. This means hitting targets precicely is almost impossible, so many miss and hit villages, red cross depots, you name it.

The reason the US does this is because it makes it safer for it's own pilots. My logic goes like this:

The lives of several volunteer airforce personelle carrying out the mission are *not* to be considered more important than the lives of non-combatants on the ground below.

In other words, US pilots lives should be risked to save civilian lives on the ground.

It's that simple. I won't try and dress that fairly hard-to-digest message up with fancy "of courses" and "I'm not saying that" rhetoric to disguise what I'm trying to say. It's not a very nice message, but war's are not very nice things.

Incidentally, current American military thinking is:

Civilian lives, possibly hundreds, should be sacrificed to save the lives of a handful of air force personelle.

Now, I think my version of an ugly truth is better. If the US air force was made up of conscripts, then it would be a different story. As it is, these people volunteered for the job and they are, I'm sure, brave people. They shouldn't be wrapped up in cotton wool and made safe-as-houses when civilian lives are at stake.

Zagreb

Zagreb,

I agree with this. I don't think I've ever agreed with the way they've fought this war. A soldier is a professional whose purpose is the defense of America even though it cost him his life. Autist and I talked about this way back in this thread.

My idea from the begining was to send in a SEAL team(or SAS seeing as how they could be seen as an uninvolved 3rd party. In addition to the fact that they are the best in the world. Everyone uses their training doctrine.). Snatch him from the country, and be on our merry way.


But Bush didn't ask me.

Perium,

The strange thing is, I think this is how the war was fought to some extent initially. US Special Forces, SAS and also I think French Special Forces were on the ground in Afghanistan before the regular armies of the allied powers arrived. The US military didn't quite seem to know what it was doing to some extent.

"meteor heading toward the Earth, and it should impact in about twenty years - unless we get lucky."
Lentilla - has everyone heard of this year meteor but me? As we were reading this, I got to the bit about the meteor and said "There is"? and Jimmy said contemptuously "Of course there is".
You're right about putting Dubya's missile defence system to some practical use.
Re the videotape, we saw it on the TV news the other night, and we agreed that it looks very suss. Grainy, inaudible words - we heard on radio that 'they' didn't want to release it in case people thought it was faked. Thing is, it looks faked, and they've already put the possibility out there.. maybe they thought, "if we say that first"...

"As for the Afghani people whose lives are being stolen......no they might not have responsiblity for the attack, but their late government was guilty for harboring those that are. They were warned, they did not cooperate, now they no longer have a country to run. Seems to me that it would be worth every life lost just to have a new government in which the people (which is their hope I'm sure) can live peacefully. "

Ooh, man, did you expect me to let that pass? In your dreams! They offered to hand bin Laden over to a neutral power for trial (Germany was suggested) and Dubya said no. A big self righteous no, as I recall. Was that reported in the Yoo Ess? It was here. If Martians came and started taking Yoo Ess lives, over a real or imagined grievance, and you heard the Chief Martian say that all the dead would consider it worthwhile to get a good government (in Martian terms) would you see why yr statement comes off as a tad arrogant? It may be what's good for business is good for Amerika (as a president said) but it's not true that what's good for Amerika is good for the world.
Suddenly humourless Della.

<>

Didn't ask anyone it seems.

Arrogant or not, it is the truth. I don't think that anyone but the United States has the right to try him for his crimes. Those crimes have been committed against the United States. Why would America concede to anything less than an American trial?

And even if I am wrong about the Afghani people, I've said before that the way the war has been fought so far was not the right way to fight it so I'm not even going to begin to try and justify that which while I comphrehend the thinking, do not necessarily agree with.

Since you're given to allegory, imagine you're beloved kiwi state. A war exists between the idigenous maori, resident polynesians, and the settlers. Your country has been ravaged by war for generations. But for the last 50 yrs the government controlling you're country has been extremely hard line requiring certain things in the name of religion, indoctrinating your young men from an early age with their propoganda, excepting your women to behave at sub-human standards, and the list goes on and on. Given all of these things, would it not be worth just about anything to escape the hell you've lived in? Wouldn't the idea of democracy even if it is forced on you (which I don't really think it will be, but I know you'll insist it is) be worth it? Even if I viewed American democracy as evil(misguided is more like it but then......) it still would have to be better than the way of life my people have faced up until this point.

Yet, I'm not advocating a puppet nation in Afghanistan, even if I thought it was possible. In all honesty I think we'll find ourselves facing this 'Northern Alliance' on another battlefield someday. I don't really care what government they elect/decide/force upon themselves so long as the men who did this to my country are defeated. In my opinion, they can rule their government however they want because it's their country. I would like to see some semblance of democracy there, I think the people have suffered enough at the hands of warlords and the like, but it is for them to decide what they want to do with their lives not my wishes. So to answer your last shot across the bow there about business being good for America, I don't see how that even matters here. What's good for America is to prosecute/punish/defeat the men behind the bombing on Sept. 11. That last point was just my opinion worth about as much as a pile of leaves, because I'm an American and I can only guess at the mindset of an Afghan.

I had thought that the war was going to be fought with the special forces only. It certainly looked that way from the begining. But then I hear about the bombings, consistantly pounding the ground from afar, and that's no way to execute a manhunt(or menhunt as the case may be).

I was disappointed. We spend our taxdollars for their training, and then they don't let these men do what they're paid/trained to do.

Actually, it's not the first time we've seen bombs falling where they are not supposed to. The Kosovo cases were not really publicised.

I'm wondering about something else though. Do you believe that tape?
Ksantipa

Perium two points.

1/ America supported the Taliban against the Soviets. Moral of story - you reap what you sow or you pay your money and take your chances.

2/ Maori are not indigenous to New Zealand. They settled there about 800 years ago. Moral of story - all New Zealanders (in common with most peoples) are immigrants.

Loony

1/ I'm all to aware that we supported the Taliban against the Soviets. Which is why I said I think that we'll, in a likewise fashion, wind up facing the Northern Alliance someday. But that is another topic for another forum.

2/Maori were there before the settlers from Europe. That's why I tend to think of them as native. In some fundamental sense all people are immigrants from somwhere else, particularly if you believe that all people came from one place. But maybe idigenous was the wrong word. Maybe I should have used native.