Where that our money goes...

<squeak squeak>

JL
funny bugger

 

Righto this is as close as I'm going to get to spare time before mid
Nov. I simply don't have time to pull apart everything there, so I'm
simply going to address as many as I can in the various postings, I
don't have time to do research for you to then not read and/or
selectively quote. Deal with it.

Right, bias first. Everyone has filters through which they view the
world and values against which they consider their behaviour and
everyone else's. Behaviour is a function of values and environment,
change the environment and people will behave differently, change their
values (quite difficult) and people will behave differently in the same
environment.

For some people being economical with the facts, changing course
constantly at the drop of a hat or or doing "whatever it takes" to gain
an outcome is acceptable. For other people it isn't acceptable. It is
this values clash that leads me to consider our PM a lying rodent and
unfit for the job.

To be specific about the values I consider important that are relevant
to the behaviour of the PM:

- The codes of conduct of public officials known as the Westminster
system. I consider these to be the underpinnings of parliamentary
democracy as practised in the UK, Canada, NZ and OZ (and others
probably). Fact: Our PM has failed to follow those principles on
numerous occasions despite stating that he would be setting the bar
higher than his predecessors when he first elected. Numerous examples
available, in short inappropriate ministerial behaviour (in particular
creating an environment which encourages ignorance of inappropriate
departmental behaviour) remain unpunished. Ruddock in particular should
have been sin binned at least once.

- The rule of law is paramount, the judicial system should be seperate
and independent of the govt. this is in the constitution and is what
seperates us from corrupt dictatorships and fascists. The govt. should
have no power to coerce or detain citizens without cognizance of a court
and appropriate, transparent due process. This was mostly thrown in the
bin with the previous set of "terror laws" and what few checks and
balances were in the previous laws are being proposed to be ditched in
the current set.

- The populace should have freedom of speech and movement, and the
freedom to choose to partake in activities which do not harm others
unencumbered by restriction. This is a value set that used to be an
important part of the Liberal philosophy, this also has been ditched for
the nanny state mentality I found abhorrent in Labour. "Libertarian"
is the definition the Yanks use if that helps. In particular the
restrictions on freedom of speech movement and association put in place
by the "anti terror" bills. Particular concern is the American who got
deported last month for no stated reason, who was not considered a
danger in any form by even the Americans (as paranoid as they are at the
moment). While not an Aussie this is an action I find extremely disturbing.

Now, without picking at particular details, your basic line of argument
has two points a) he didn't say X specifically, he said Y and b) times
change.

The definition of lying is something along the lines of "the deliberate
act of deviating from the truth" (first def'n that came up on google) -
this has a couple of key components - deliberate choice or
intent,knowing it to be untrue.

Howard tries to protect himself from the accusation by setting it up so
he can have some deniability about whether he really knew. This is
mendacious and inappropriate action by a PM - it's his job to make
informed decisions and any half decent leader has a really good bullshit
meter. Hence he can protest "I wasn't told" till the cows come home,
it's a piss weak excuse, he's either lying or he's failing at his
job.Either way, unacceptable.

Now to address your points, I don't accept argument a) at all, as per
the above paragraph, and as per Westminster rules, weasel words should
never get you off the hook.

Argument b) has *some* merit and hence you'll rarely find me kicking
very hard about things that fit in that category, hence if he states up
front why the rules have changed, and what he proposes to do about it,
and allows sufficient public discussion (ie not just ram legislation
through parliament in a couple of weeks under his majority) then sure
I'll accept that - I think the GST fits under this category - he went to
the polls with it as policy, I have no major problem with that. However
it IS a lie because he made the statement with the full intent of
getting it back on the table at the first possible opportunity - it's
been one of his primary goals since he entered parliament, along with
the anti-union legislation and some other stuff - there was a good
article a couple of months ago that dredged up the past 30 years of his
very consistent comments on a handful of things - his position has never
changed.

On the other hand "I wasn't told children weren't thrown overboard" is
an outright deliberate lie on the evidence available (a number of
credible witnesses with strong documented details stating the opposite
of the PM). That one alone should have seen him stand down.

War in Iraq - as pretty well covered already, the supposed existence of
WMDs in Iraq was one of the primary excuses for that war. Your version
of the UN security council history is flat wrong* in several places and
missing some stuff, but quite frankly my care factor in pulling it apart
is near zero. It doesn't really matter, we all know why we were really
there, and the fact that better than 70% of the population objected to
us going pretty much states my real objection. In some ways I object to
this lie less than some of his others because nobody EVER believed it,
except a small number of his cheer squad who were always going to
believe everything they were told anyway.


Lastly we have the simile you're trying to draw between my statements
and actions and those of JWH, this falls down on multiple fronts,
firstly (as already stated) the standard of accuracy *I* apply to my
statements made on ausmoto is generally that I would apply to statements
made in a pub - to the best of my knowledge and belief I tell the truth
but I'm not going to go to great effort to ensure that all facts are
verified. I expect the PM in any public pronouncement to be in full
possession of any relevant facts that could be reasonably gathered and
that he should be appropriately briefed by all relevant department's - I
didn't know is a piss poor excuse if he could have known.

Secondly, I'm not accountable to anyone on ausmoto for any statements I
make about my intention to perform an act that has no direct impact on
anyone here. If I made a promise to do something for you then you would
have reasonable grounds to complain, even that that wasn't the case. On
the other hand the PM is accountable to justify his decisions and
actions to the populace, and again, under westminster that isn't just at
election time. This has been the basis we've built our governance on.
And yes, that does include "crackpot conspiracy theorists". This concept
the govt. doesn't have to explain it's actions "because it's for your
own good" I find repugnant (see above def'n re libertarian).

OK, that's the 25mins I allocated, I could say more but again I doubt
you'd read it. Well done if you got this far.

Oh just one last thing, the reason other than being time poor I'm not
going to spoon feed you about Fahrenheit 9/11 is because people learn
best by doing - if you started practising skepticism of all news sources
and stopped just believing what fits with your preconceptions I'd like
to think we'd have very different conversations. In an era where we get
too much data that is difficult to trust, the skill of being able to
piece together reasonably accurate depictions of events from multiple
biased sources(**) is very important

JL
*Ie the bit about Blix for a start, prior to the war Blix had made
statements that he was pretty sure there was bugger all, if anything
left and given another couple of months the job would have been
finsihed- google up some reporting on what he had to say now, and post
invasion. They cut him short because they were scared he'd be able to
throw reasonable doubt on their primary excuse.
**And they're all biased, by definition, see above - everyone has
filters and values that influence their perceptions

 

<shrug> Decide which claim came first, I could rebut that on the grounds
that Toosmoky made the initial claim that everything about 9/11 was
incorrect (yes he gave an url but the obvious statement is - right wing
conspiracy site give me something credible).

Setting that aside - the primary reason I said the above was I don't
have time or inclination, the second reason was that getting Doug to
start considering a wider range sources would, IMNSHO, allow us to move
beyond black is white arguments. The problem here isn't about facts,
it's about ability to synthesis a balanced view based on wide ranging
sources. You can't spoon feed that, you have to learn it by doing

JL
(and yes you can call me an arrogant fucker for that if you want <shrug
again>)

 

Well, I'm not voting for you then!

(Personally, I'm a little annoyed at Moore, because if he'd tried
to make a less spectacular case more thoroughly, he might have
convinced more people who weren't already convinced, if you see
what I mean. On the other hand, it probably wouldn't have sold as
well.)

So, anyone ridden any good roads lately?

-----sharks

 

Sorry, John, This is usenet, and there is no place for that sort of
logic here. PLease add at least a fair measure of hyperbole, and get
rid fo some of the logical structures.

A little hysteria would help.

Please try harder next time

Moike

 

No. Why do you think I'm so bloody grumpy at the moment !! :-(

JL

 

:-( Do I at least get a pass conceded ? I don't want to have to redo the
subject !!

JL

 

Sorry, I don't do "PC"

Moike

 

<quote> Copout. </quote>

Nev..
'03 ZX12R

 

Bugger ! Looks like I'll have to come back and redo "ausmoto rants 101"
next year.

JL
(nice pun on PC btw)

 

You have sand in your vagina?

HTH

Hammo

 

Just got back from a quick sprint through Christmas Hills, to Narbethong
and back via Kinglake

Nev..
'03 ZX12R

 

Getting to know the neighbourhood, eh? Clemmo, gNatalie and bill_h
should appear here about 6pm tonight, if Clem hasn't run out of petrol
or something.

-----sharks

 

No second prizes, Nev...

 

There's the problem John (thought about changing that name?...)
You automatically regard it as right-wing and therefore worthless. I've
checked out the links, searched for original sources and even perused
Moore's own "Factual Backup" of his deceits in Fahrenheit.

Moore is a bullshit artist.

Pot. Kettle. Black.

I prefer black *and* white arguments.

Sounds like a Black is White argument to me...

Littlerodent suits you better... ; )

Let's just look at the first two deceits in a little more detail. If you
wanna argue any more points, just raise 'em. I'll be buggered if I'm
gunna provide a full analysis (due to the sheer length required) in one
hit but if you wanna bring up any points of the movie you reckon are
fair dinkum, I'd be happy to hear them.

1. Was it all just a dream?...

Michael Moore's wet dream apparently. The movie starts with footage of
Fireworks, celebrations obviously. Next we see a sign saying "Florida
Victory". Underneath that sign Al Gore, accompanied by his wife,
punching the air in front of a sea of supporters waving flags and
cheering, says "God bless you Florida. Thank You." We see him with Ben
Affleck, Robert de Niro, Stevie Wonder all apparently celebrating Al
Gore's victory in Florida.

The footage was of a rally that took place in the early hours of
election day, before polls had even opened. Gore did campaign in Florida
on election day, but went home to Tennessee to await the results. The
"Florida Victory" sign reflected Gore’s hopes, not any actual election
results.

From http://tinyurl.com/djn52 (Google cached)

"An exultant and exhausted Al Gore greeted Election Day in the embrace
of celebrity admirers and under a midnight sky lit by fireworks."
"From Miami, Gore headed to pre-dawn stops in Tampa at a cancer center
and to rally campaign workers on their way to ``get out the vote''
before heading home to cast his own vote at a small school in Carthage,
Tenn."


2. The Fox News Channel

The film shows CBS and CNN calling Florida for Al Gore. Then Moore's
voiceover says, "Then, something called the Fox News Channel called the
election in favor of the other guy! All of a sudden the other networks
said, "Hey, if Fox said it, it must be true." We then see NBC anchor Tom
Brokaw stating, "All of us at the network made a mistake and projected
Florida in the Al Gore column. It was our mistake." *Moore thus creates
a false impression that the networks withdrew their claim about Gore
winning Florida when they heard that Fox said that Bush won Florida*...

At http://tinyurl.com/bsvyn "CBS NEWS COVERAGE OF ELECTION NIGHT 2000 -
Investigation, Analysis, Recommendations"
On page 11 and 12, "The Networks’ Calls on Election Night 2000", we see
a table with the following information;

ON-AIR NETWORK AND VNS CALLS, PRESIDENTIAL RACE, NOVEMBER 7/8, 2000
Closing State CBS ABC NBC FOX VNS Winner
7:00PM Florida 7:50PM 8:02PM 7:49PM 7:52PM 7:52PM Gore
* 10:00PM 10:16PM Retr#*
2:17AM 2:20AM 2:17AM 2:16AM Bush
3:57AM 4:00AM 4:02AM 4:05AM Retr#

Retr# = Retraction

Moore never mentioned that CBS and VMS retracted their calls for Gore
over four hours before Fox called for Bush. Instead he leads us to
believe that CBS and VNS changed their call from Gore to Bush in
response to Fox calling the election for Bush. Why does he not mention
the retractions? Because they don't fit the story he wants to tell.

Must've been Karl Rove using the power of the dark side on the other
networks. Or maybe just an old Jedi mind trick, eh? "These are the
results you're looking for..."

Given that Fox has no power over what other networks put to air, the man
in charge of the decision desk at Fox that night, the man who called it
for Bush, although he is George W. Bush's cousin, is inconsequential.

Now if you can prove that that celebratory footage *was* an Al Gore
victory celebration or that somehow Fox duped the other networks into
following their lead, go for it.

 

Got proof?

But no proof.

Don't provide evidence then, your word is good enough...

It doesn't really matter, we all know why we were really

70% of the population enjoy Big Macs and Seinfeld. What's that prove?

Like the members of the UN Security Council, Hans Blix, Richard Butler,
etc...no-one important.

Hey don't thank me, thank caffeine.

You'd never dismiss a site as a "right-wing conspiracy site" without
checking it out then? Especially if the author worked for Gore in 2000...

January 27th 2003. "Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine
acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament which was demanded of
it." - Hans Blix

 

Toosmoky wrote:
snip.. Lotsa stuff.

Sorry dude, like I said, I've run out of time - we can finish the
argument in a couple of weeks if ya like. At a quick glance it looks
like you've got lots of ammo, I'm sure it'll still be good condition
when I can return fire.

JL

 

Ha ha, the hippies and dole bludgers and new-age dreamers were there well
before him!

Gary (he can piss off to Lucas Heights

 

Bush's speeches. I still shudder when I think of "the haves and the have-
mores". Now, after Katrina, the poor, the aged, the black, the disabled, the
sick, the mentally ill, the prisoners, they know what he means. Will anyone
else wake up in time?

Gary

 

BUZZZ! Wrong.

The transcript for the dinner is here. http://tinyurl.com/7jgyj

Media reports of the dinner can be found here; http://tinyurl.com/dw3rj

And here; http://tinyurl.com/4exl9

Here too; http://tinyurl.com/dve8s

The full video of the event is out there, I've seen it but couldn't find
it this time. I'll keep looking.

Near the end of the movie, Bush speaks to a tuxedoed audience. He says,
"I call you the haves and the have-mores. Some call you the elite; I
call you my base." As far the movie audience can tell, Bush is speaking
to some unknown group of rich people. The speech comes from the October
19, 2000, Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, which raises money
for Catholic hospital charities in New York. In an election year, it is
tradition for the Presidential candidates to be the co-guests of honor
at the event, *where speakers traditionally make fun of themselves.*

Some highlights:

Gore: The vice president suggested Smith had run on a platform of
building "a bridge to the 1930s." He said he was glad to see that Bush
had "adopted the same agenda this year."

Bush: "The story of Al Smith's historic run for the presidency is truly
inspiring. It gives me hope that, in America, it's still not possible
for a fellow named Al to be commander in chief."

Gore: Surveying the $800-a-plate white-tie crowd: "This is a
fund-raiser, isn't it? Whenever I see everybody dressed the same way, my
antenna goes straight up," referring to his 1996 fund-raiser at a
Buddhist temple in California.

Bush: "This is an impressive crowd: the haves and the have-mores ...
Some people call you the elites. I call you my base."

Gore: "I never exaggerate. You can ask Tipper or any one of our 11
daughters."

Bush: On advice from his wife Laura: "Don't try to be witty, charming or
debonaire. Just be yourself."

Bush: "There's really no place like New York, especially for baseball
fans like me and Mrs. Clinton." Mrs. Clinton surprised some when she
pronounced herself a New York Yankees fan.

Gore: Said he did not "get to use some of my best zingers" in the three
debates. Here's one, he said: "Governor, there I go again."

Gore: Suggested he wanted to connect his program with real people, and
that there was a woman he hoped to get out of public housing. "Hillary
Clinton I want to fight for you."

Bush: Noted that fellow Yale graduate and conservative commentator
William F. Buckley was in the audience. "We have a lot in common. Bill
wrote a book at Yale. I read one."

Bush: Making fun of his difficulty in pronouncing names of foreign
leaders: "Do you know what this world really needs? It needs more
leaders named Al Smith."

Gore: Poking fun at his audible sighs during the first debate: "I may
not be the funniest president. But I will never sigh to you."

Gore: Kidded his running mate, Joseph Lieberman, for his outspoken
devotion to his Jewish faith. "Joe Lieberman will get 20 seconds to
rebut grace."

Gore: Joked about a Democratic "mole" in the Bush campaign headquarters
in Austin, saying the spy had faxed him all of Bush's jokes for the
dinner -- and that he had used them. "That's why you're on your own,
governor."

Bush: Responded to Gore's criticism that the top 1 percent of taxpayers
would benefit the most from his tax-cut plan. He said Gore hadn't heard
his latest plan: "The bottom 99 percent will do well when they get to
split Dick Cheney's stock options."

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