Looks like Bush

He will certainly tell Bush where to get off

"I aint calling him f**king sir, f**king ponce, who does 'e think 'e is?, He aint my pal and 'e aint ever gonna be. F**king w**nker d**ckhead he is worse that Maggie the f**king fat cow"

I think that kind of honesty would be good for Dubya

 

I think what Julian is advocating is commonly known as 'compassionate conservatism'. Something very familiar about that...

Paul

 

Quite. And this evenings final installment of the excellent "The Power of Nightmares" documentary pretty much proved the point.

It also proved, as if proof were needed, what a bunch of crackpots (Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld & Wolfowitz) have just been re-elected.

Michael.

 

You're quite right Robbo. Unfortunately, with the current job I'm in, I don't really have any realistic alternative. I would say, in my defence, that those planes would still be flying and putting out the same amount CO2 whether I was on them or not

Michael.

 

Running the world...
Hardest job in the world, mate.

 

Ho bloody hum, Michael. I refer the Honourable Gentleman to the response I made earlier.

I agree that it was an interesting programme that made some good points. It talked a load of bollocks, too.

Now, tonight's Newsnight, that was superb - worth the licence fee alone. One of the contributors was Ali Campbell, who was giving the normally erudite Michael Portillo the total runaround. Ali's comment, I think particularly about the hysteria surrounding the Neo-Cons, was that Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitch are not in reality these Svengali-like figures governing Bush's every move and thought and that it is a huge error to assume that Bush is stupid or a moron. Bush is an extremely intelligent political leader. We underestimate him at our peril.

My own view is that this point will be demonstrated over the next few months when both Cheney and Rumsfeld will be replaced by younger models.

Oh, and incidentally Michael, tonight's dish of congealed propoganda (The Power of Nightmares) emphatically did not PROVE anything.

 

For example? (I didn't see it, btw, but I'd be interested to hear what was wrong with it.)

-- Ian

 

Michael,

I totally understand your concerns in this area and also the point made by someone earlier (I'm really sorry, I can't find it now and it's getting too late for me to try) that being religious should disbar anyone from being a politician (paraphrasing).

Personally, I believe that there's a difference between religion and spirituality and that anyone claiming that any book or document is the 'word of God' should be hung, drawn and quartered. I do believe in God in a sort of 'the mind of the universe' sort of way but not in the 'word of God'. I also believe that the practice of some orthodox religions can be expedient in that it can lead to family and other values that can result in greater overall happiness. Nevertheless, in my book, truth outranks expedience, so I reject such religious practices.

But that's just me.

It seems to me that the liberal values that we all subscribe to (I think), do not of themselves result in a higher morality or higher ethical standards. I realize that Michael (michaelab), and others, have their socialism to plug this gap but that works no better for the rest of us than Roman Catholicism (or whatever).

Clearly from the viewpoint of a Muslim, Christian or Jewish fundamentalist Western society is empty of much real meaning and, looking at the crime rates, drug addiction and rates of unwanted pregnancy, etc., perhaps we can agree that they have a point.

I don't pretend to know what the answer is but I would just like to finish this lengthy (sorry) post by raising one of the questions relevant to your fears about Bush and the Christian right - abortion and stem-cell research (which they feel, I believe wrongly, are the same issue).

You and I have probably been brought up to believe that abortion is a woman's right - her body, her decision, etc., etc. At the same time, we have seen premature babies, some of 24 weeks' term, being delivered and kept alive.

My question is, what if you believe that the aborted foetus has a life and that, therefore, abortion is murder? If that was your belief, would you be out of order to try to make abortion illegal?

I guess Michael, that what I'm attempting to say is that your point about 'moral values suggetsing a religeous bias' may not be as scary as it seems.

Goodnight all.

 

Ian,

For example, the 'Svengali' point that I made earlier that Alistair Campbell raised on Newsnight.

But really, to read critiques of the programme from people who know one hell of a lot more than I do about the subject, you could read some of the many Blogs that we now have all over the web. Start with Melanie Phillips (the 'right wing' newspaper columnist) and follow her links. It's the article near the end of the page entitled "Goebbels grotto".

 

I've read a fair few critiques over the past few weeks, pretty thin stuff mostly. People with agendas of their own criticising the programme for in turn having an agenda. I'm not surprised someone writing for the National Review takes the view he does, but, having read two or three of Richard Pipes' books on the history of the Soviet Union I certainly wouldn't describe him as "perhaps the world's leading expert on Kremlin ideology" I'm afraid.

No doubt many points of detail are debatable, after all, everything in politics is, but the general argument of the one episode of the program I saw seemed entirely reasonable. As for Melanie Phillips, her attempt to suggest criticism of neo-cons is anti-semitic, as evidenced by her comment about "sinister neo-cons, aka Jews" and "Jewish conspiracy" is, frankly, risible. There also doesn't appear to be a single factually-based rebuttal of the program anywhere in her Goebbels grotto piece.

-- Ian

 

I'd agree totally that moral values are an essential part of any modern civilisation. Having said that, who dictates what these values should be?

My point was that the church goers of America have put their faith in a President who has a string of brushes with the law, a history of rebelion and disregard for authority, and a record in office that would appall many devotees of the Bible as much as the Islamists would appall the majority of Muslims.

Bush and his party politicised the Religeous people of America by playing to their fears without showing any evidence that non radical Christian ideals played any part in their policy making outside of a few key votewinners or abroard. 80% of them voted Bush! My guess would be that many more innocent human lives will be lost through the implementation of US foreign policy over the next four years than lives saved by halting abortion. How does that equate with Christian values I ask?

 

I agree. Doesn't mean his political vision isn't repugnant though. Adolf Hitler was an extremely intelligent political leader too, but that doesn't make what he did any more palatable.

I quite agree. The idea to me is quite laughable. I first read this suggestion on a similar thread over on PFM and couldn't believe that anyone could seriously entertain such rubbish.

Michael.

 

Bush is not an intelligent person. He never was one neither at school, nor in military, neither in the different companies which he went in to.
He wouldn't have been in politics without the relation his father had and the visions of a democrate (I don't remember his name) who saw in Bush a great potential to become the president.
At the end of the 90' he didn't even see himself becoming president: the people in his staff (and other democrates) were convinced that he could become presidend after having a meeting with him and convinced him that he could make it. Bush is mainly an ignorant but what de does very well is to listen to his very knowlageble consultants before he takes any decision. To put it in other (superficial) words: Bush is "manipulated" by a team of people. Without the power, relations and the money behind these people, I wouldn't be surprised that Bush would have been a nobody.

The analogy with Hitler's time is IMO not out of place.

 

I'm afraid my impression of Bush is just like Titian's.

 

For the record, I do not go along with Bush's political (or moral) vision. I dislike the man and his policies intensely. I merely said that we underestimate him at our peril.

Nor does my pointing Ian in the direction of Melanie Phillips' column imply that I agree with what she says. He asked for my critique of the programme. I replied that I thought that Bush was too intelligent to be merely a puppet of the neo-con masters and that also he could read the views of people who are much better informed than I am, eg. Melanie Phillips.

FWIW, there is certainly growing anti-semitism in Western Europe at this time. The Arab states make no distinction between Jews and the policies of the Israeli government and Islamic extremists preach that both Jews and Israelis should be murdered equally. These current issues make Jews particularly sensitive to any possible anti-semitism.

My own response when first watching the programme and seeing how many Jews were involved in the neo-con movement was concern, followed by relief that their political nemesis, Henry Kissinger, was equally Jewish. However, these were visceral reactions and I do not equate anti-neo-conservatism with anti-semitism.

Also FWIW, the 'bookmarks' list on my browser contains many political sites from Al Jazeera, The Melbourne Age, Pravda, The Jordan Times and the BBC to the Washington Post, CNN, The Guardian, Ha'aretz (Israeli) and 'Little Green Footballs' (a right wing Blog). Inclusion in the list does not imply my agreement with their policies but I find it useful to read views from all sides so I can determine what it is that I do believe.

As a result of all this, I no longer take anything I read or see in the field of news and current affairs merely at face value. So, when watching the BBC I wear my BBC-bias filter and hence my comments on 'The Power of Nightmares'.

Talking of which there was an amusing aside on yesterday's Newsnight (which was excellent). They were discussing the Guardian's amusing but ill-considered plan to attempt to influence the US electorate. In an unguarded moment, Paxman let it slip that he had tried to dissuade the editor from following this policy.

Does anyone believe that our Jeremy has the same relationship or influence with the editor of The Telegraph?

 

Wise words.

However, I couldn't help snorting when Tony Blair described Bush as one of the most intelligent men he had ever met. Thinking about it, the snort was probably because it said more about Blair than Bush.

I haven't been watching the Power of Nightmares, so I can't comment on its content. But the BBC have pumped out plenty of terrorist doomsday-scenario programmes since 9/11, so the series struck me as providing a welcome counterpoint to these.

As for Jeremy Paxman and the Guardian. So? BBC journalists and presenters have links to all sorts of newpapers. Wasn't Andrew Gilligan involved with the Times?

And here's a thought. It has began to occur to me that perhaps the Iraq war was devised as a diversion, not for the people of America, but for the Islamist extremists. Why bother trying to target US soil when you can have a go at their troops in Iraq? As I say, just a thought.

 

Of course, but the column you pointed me to contains no informed rebuttal of the programme at all. Which is par for the course for Melanie Phillips.

No question, which is why it's so invidious for the right to equate criticisms of neo-cons with anti-semitism, they're playing on fears with their name-calling, not addressing real issues.

Hopefully no intelligent adult takes what they see on TV at face value. But the right's fury at Curtis's documentary is predictable and, so far, poorly articulated. The basic premise of the programme - that the neo-cons have found their perfect enemy in Islamism, are playing on the fears of the populace post 9/11 to push through a variety of thoroughly anti-libertarian measures, and are the architects of a foolish and dangerously aggressive foreign policy - seems entirely correct to me.

-- Ian

 

Ian,

Thinking about it, you are absolutely right. Little can do more to play into the hands of the true Jew-haters than to make false accusations of anti-semitism.

It certainly now looks as if the Iraq adventure was ill-conceived and ill executed. I hope that the elections take place in January and that things can move forward. However, even if they do, the price has been high.

Following the events of 9/11, the invasion of Afghanistan and overthrow of the Taliban seems to me to be more justifiable. How much this is due to the relative success of the military campaign compared to Iraq, I don't know.

Of course we have Iran to come. The USA and Israel in particular will not tolerate their development of nuclear weaponry. The only question is how it can be prevented. I see difficulties ahead.

 

Just this morning Dick Cheney was quoted as saying the Bush administration now has the mandate to push forward a "radical conservative" agenda at home and abroad.

 

Yes, I agree, Iran will be the next problem but I believe America will be this time alone.