Like I always say, "Kill one person and they call you murderer, kill 10 people and they call you monster, kill a million people and they call you President."

Has Bush learned lessons from the justice wrought on the Nazis?

'Fighting for Freedom'? Freedom to torture? Freedom for the U.S. to do whatever it wants? I guess that is why Bush asks God to (only) bless America!

When pundits speak of a thinky veiled military dictatorship; it reminds me of post war and war time Germany, with many turning the other way, as long as its not them being arrested, charged and locked away without due process.

Give me the Cold War over this!

If I recall Bush was the guy who decided the US folks wouldn't be subjected to theworld Courts for Crimes committed while attached to the military.

George is looking after George and his gangs of thugs.

This story is only a small part of the real scandal. The whole story cuts at the heart of the war on terror, and what it has done to the movement for international human rights.

Specifically, the history of the development of the international criminal court tells a lot. Backed by virtually all democratic states, the US obstructed it; then Clinton symbolically signed it but did not ratify it; and then Bush withdrew the signature as soon as he could.

The government passed a law saying the U.S. could attack any country that tried to try an American for war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide. It has since become known as "the Hague Invasion Act". When the ICC came into being, there was a little-reported protest in Holland with protesters putting up sandbag barriers on the beach to repel a hypothetical US invasion.

Worst of all, since this time the U.S. has been signing agreements with scores of countries saying they will never accuse an American of crimes covered by the ICC (and the only crimes the court administers are war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide).

And finally, the US has made military and humanitarian aid for those countries contingent upon signing these agreements.

It is absolutely sickening and exposes the lie behing Bush's propoganda claim that they are fighting for "human rights". More than any other country, they have promoted the ongoing history of impunity that allowed dictators like Saddam Hussein in the first place.

A MOVEMENT TO STOP OUR TAXES FROM GOING TO THE WAR MACHINE ASAP!
LIKE THE CANADIAN ARMY BOOT CAMP SARG SAID ON TV LAST NIGHT "NO MORE MR NICE GUY"?
Huh? let's get rid of S(atan) Dictator Harper..
http://coat.openconcept.ca/cpp/

Let's see: domestic spying, torture and illegal invasions and occupations. And for what? To "protect us from those who hate liberty."

If this breathtaking hypocrisy isn't actually fascism it's pretty damn close.

The beatings will continue until moral improves.

All hail the king!

George Bush is an embarassment to all thinking conservatives.

But on a tangential note, this article from 'Open Democracy' hits the bull's eye:

The Left and the Jihad
http://www.opendemocracy.net/globalization/left_jihad_3886.jsp

You call that tangential nightbloom?

It's not a tangent for you my friend; your only reason for being here is to prosecute a virtual war with progressive and left wing thinking. Hardly surprising that you'd pick a spokesman, Fred Halliday, who is busy chanting the same mantra. Is that where you got your diatribe about Hugo Chavez last week?

When it comes to corruption and confused thinking, the right wing provides all kinds of models - ones far more corrupt and purblind that the few examples from the 'democratically elected' left. People like Chavez who have actually survived and made a difference for the ‘underclass’ in their natal countries – where they were democratically elected – instead of, like Bush, bringing death, ruin and disaster down on virtually every situation the confront. If you’ve been following the news lately, it now appears evident, given Bush’s ‘impressions’ of his own national security update, that he can’t even read – let alone reason. Embarrassment is a ‘compliment’ for him and his administration. Is there anyone left in the States (apart from the ‘Christianist’ fringe) who hasn’t taken the switch to Rumsfeld yet?

Just for once it would be nice if you actually addressed an important neocon embarrassment with more than this:
George Bush is an embarrassment (sic) to all thinking conservatives.

Comparing the 'embarassment' (sic) of the left with the utter disaster of what Bush has wrought since 2001 is a time-worn tactic that might work on a neocon website - here it's just plain laughable.

You always save your best writing for me - I'm touched ;-)

Canada is not much better. We (Canadians) have elected a federal government that supports American Foreign Policy. If we don't approve of George Bush and his bullying tactics then we should voice our displeasure by electing a government that stands up to the American Administration and represents Canadian interests.

Good grief...like the Liberals?

:: wretch ::

They're the ones who placed us on this trajectory. It's out of the Canadian voters' hands now. Everyone in the civilized world is waiting for the new White House - any White House - as long as it's different from the current one.

Canadians got exactly what they voted for. Harper has been true to his platform, and has stuck to his priorities with little or now gratuitous embellishment. I still predict that this time next year he will be comfortably ensconced in Ottawa with a majority. Then we'll really see whether all the anti-Harper rhetoric has any truth to it or if it's just liberal-Left partisan hype and contrarian demonization.

I don't remember getting Canada into a war was part of Harper's platform? We were on a peace keeping/nation rebuilding mission before Harper took over. Now our soldier's are coming home in body bags. I wonder how many Conservative MP's have children fighting in Afghanistan?

Watch'a talkin' about Willis??

The Canadian deployment to Afghanistan began under the Liberals. Our current involvement there is an outgrowth of that.

Ah yes nightbloom, the Liberals were taken in by the US promise of billions of dollars of reconstruction and new infrastructure - women in school, new schools, alternatives to the poppy trade, relaxation in tariff barriers for Afghani goods, blah, blah, blah - not a bloody penny of which was forthcoming when the GOP House and Senate got hold of it.

Martin should have bowed out then because the situation was inevitably going to end up where it has in consequence of 'that' policy change.

As for what our soldiers are dying as part of now: It's completely dishonest to pretend that this is the same project. This is a NATO bailout of the US and we're dying for the Americans and not the Afghanis and you know it. So does pee wee Rambo and Peter the Prostrate.

What you say is all true Alci,but you gloss over the event that sent bombers over Afghanistan in the first place....yes, boringly enough....we're back at 9/11.

nightbloom,

Did you actually just defend the Harpo??? His platform was to back out of the Kyoto Argeement, for a made-in-Alberta environment and global warming plan, to turn Canada into a warring country? I remember when sovreignty was actually one of his campaign issues, for not against BTW.

I think the ONLY reason he got elected was because Canada got sick of the Liberals and aside from the Green Party , who won the popular vote(our voting system SUX!), Harpoon was the only other choice. I would also hasten to bet that not many took the time to read his whole platform and i didn't see highlighted anywhere his intention to become a warmonger, BushW's best bud, and to change Canada's peaceful reputation into one that is mirroring the US.

Can't change it?!? So we're just gonna sit back and let it happen?!? I don't F*&kin think so!!!

'Stand Up for Canada' my a**!! What Canada would that be??

nightbloom says,

Alright, somebody put me outta me goddamn misery. I actually agree with something from the nightbloomer.

Enough to make a fella sick to his stomach.

And let's be totally honest while we're at it. The NDP is suddenly doing some dirty dancing about being opposed to "the mission", but it said sweet precious little back at the beginning and even now, is prevaricating and still doin' back-bend fellatio appeasement all over the place. Still trying to be all things to all people, and satisfying nobody.

They're all in on it.

Pull the troops out NOW. Let the US Empire fight its own foreign wars. Let Afghanistan, like Iraq, resolve its own problems. Enough equivocating.

Besides maybe that will help expose the bloom as the agent de provocateur he is, on this issue. :-)

Right on Coyote,since there is a long tradition of left gate keepers, why would the NDP not be riddled with moles. Besides, how could the NDP possibly object to our troops in Afghanistan when all those people died on 9/11....remember? Given the climate back then, there was no way they could object to Canada's commitment through NATO.

Given what we know about 9/11 now, I think it is time to shout it from the rooftops so that the public understands that the mission can't possibley be about reconstructing Afghanistan. Hell, the military agrees with us there.

Afghanis picked up by Canadians are turned over to the Americans....for torture?

It doesn't fit with the picture we have of ourselves

Welcome back, Coyote, I missed you. And like you, I too agree (for once) with Nightgloom)

I agree that he is finishing(continuing would the more appropriate term) what the Liberals started, but where oh where in his platform did it state that he wanted it to escalate and that Canada needs to be more warlike so as not to appear wimpy???

I recall comments regarding increased military spending but the purpose was to reestablish our much trampled-on Artic Circle sovreignty.

Harpo's attitude is to keep up the the war part of our mission and appears to place little importance on the reason the Liberals put us there in the first pace. Which, of course, as Nana noted noted earlier puts us back at the 9/11 and the lies in which perpetrated the whole mess in the forst place.

Oh what a vicious web we weave when we practice to deceive!

I meant first. oops

'Can't see the forst for the trees'...some of us have big picture issues. ;-)

This is all a good reason to keep Camp X-Ray available for occupancy by the Bush Cabal.

I hear the weather is pretty good at Gitmo, after the hurricanes go by.

gkam, Bush is going to be waterboarded? Made to get into naked pyramids with Rummy and Dick before having his testicles cooked with a surge of freedom power?? How do I get to be a guard at camp X-ray?

Imagine all the lives that were lost, the suffering that occurred, in the most horrible of ways that inked the words of Article 3 of The Geneva Convention...

The tampering with Article 3 is the ugliest kind of perversity as far as I'm concerned...it spits in the face of all that it means to be human.

And it tells you exactly what Bush Amerika has become....and who exactly we are dealing with.

What should one say?
Not too much
Give this portion of history it's share of time.
This too will pass
(soon I hope)

Nana; you claim that Afghanis are being picked up by Canadians and turned over to the Americans for torture.
Do you have any proof of this? I mean it seems strange to me that with so many countries involved in this UN/NATO supported mission that this would be the case.
Can you enlighten us?

No, let me clarfy that. If Afghanis are picked up by Canadians or who ever, when turned over to the Americans...who still run the show, they can be tortured.

Well that's one hell of a clarification there Nana. Thanks for pointing out where the far left is coming from.
Torture by listening to Ted Kennedy vs. dressing up in women's clothing?
I would slip on the dress rather than the alternative.

Besides maybe that will help expose the bloom as the agent de provocateur he is, on this issue. :-)

Don't everyone fall off your chairs at once, but I will reciprocate the favour and agree with Coyote. The deployment should not be renewed.

AND it's high time for Canada to start coordinating with other 'middle powers' (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Denmark) to start turning up the heat and oblige the U.S. to provide some legitimate justification for the damage it has been (and is currently) wreaking upon the international system.

Finally. Put a mark on the wall - let the bells ring out an the banners fly - it's too good to be true.

Nightbloom has actually awakened, can we start calling you daybloom now?

Ron, on the other hand, seems as confused as ever.

The International System " as defined by who? That's a question. What is this?
What damage? Oh, how these positions confuse you. UFO's are not as bad as flies.

http://www.billblaikie.ca/updir/dynamicPDFcache/BE-Description-SEC4203a2e60c208-Canadas_military_mis-1159507683.pdf

Dear IMAC
The above url should convince you that Canada has turned Afghan prisoners over to the Americans.

What damage Ron? Damage to the idea that there is cooperation and common cause among nations.
Damage to the notion that one can rely on a country's leaders to tell the truth.

Damage to the idea that no civilized nation, and especially no nation like Canada and/or the United States ought to deport citizens to another country to be tortured.

Damage to the understanding that torture and mistreatment of prisoners is barbaric and unworthy of a decent country and an equitable society.

Damage to the concept of truth in government.

Damage to the idea that governments are meant to be the servants of their citizens and not the other way around.

DO you want more - I have plenty?

We've got a pair of defence contractors in the whitehouse. In fact, the white house is full of them. Has been for some time... Bush and Cheney are nothing but a bunch of war mongering war profiteers... ugly, isn't it?

But hey... we all know war is necessary... and we need the bomb... so Bush and Cheney are really just filling important roles, like IAMC says. Yes, peace can't work. Lets give war a chance!!!

Congress just approved another 458 billion plus another 70 billion for Iraq. Gotta deplete the resources, make room for newer, better... They sure like to print money... can't have affordable healthcare, though. That would hurt those hard time U.S. insurance companies...

Greed run amuck. Welcome to the U.S.A.

They're really stepping up to the plate on this. When you think about it, there's no other institutional voice in the West capable of looking radical Islam in the face and taking this on - not governments, not the gawd-awful professoriat, nor the jealous and bickering protestant sects, and certainly not the spokemen/marketeers of "new age" spirituality or soft-core yuppy-buddhism:

By ANNA DOLGOV
Associated Press Writer

UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The Vatican's foreign minister said Wednesday that misunderstanding between cultures is breeding a "new barbarism" and expressed hope that reason and dialogue would stop those who use their faith as a pretext for attacks.

In a speech on the closing day of the U.N. General Assembly's ministerial meeting, Giovanni Lajolo said extremists are far from devout and undermine the very religion they claim to defend.

"Violent reactions are always a falsification of true religion," Lajolo said in a passage devoted to the pope's Sept. 12 speech at Regensburg University in Germany.

Benedict XVI quoted words attributed to a 14th century Byzantine emperor: "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

Muslims angered by the remarks took to the streets in Indonesia, Turkey and Syria. Churches were attacked in the West Bank; an effigy of the pope was burned in Iraq; and a nun was shot dead in Somalia in an apparently related attack.

Lajolo reiterated the Vatican's view that Benedict's remarks were misinterpreted. He said the pope has sought only to promote rational dialogue and understanding.

Benedict has expressed regret for offending Muslims and said they did not reflect his personal views, but he has not offered a complete apology as some had sought.

Lajolo suggested that the anger may also lie in the lack of understanding between religions, and a schism between reason and faith.

cont'd...

"It falls to all interested parties - to civil society as well as to states - to promote religious freedom and a sane, social tolerance that will disarm extremists even before they can begin to corrupt others with their hatred of life and liberty," he said.

Lajolo referred to the story of the Tower of Babel, saying the "confusion of tongues" in the Biblical city was a symbol of fracturing and hostilities in the contemporary world.

"Human pride hampers the acknowledgment of one's neighbor and the recognition of his or her needs and even more makes people distrusting," he said.

"Today, that same negative fundamental attitude has given rise to a new barbarism that threatens world peace," the Vatican minister said.

Terrorists bent on "rejecting the best achievements of our civilization" are one example, Lajolo said.

Major powers, in their attempt to make the world more fair, may also occasionally slide into believing that this can only be achieved by force, he said.

"It can go so far as to regard the possession of nuclear weapons as an element of national pride," he said.

...........................

Here's what Mathew Fox has to say about the Rat. It's worth reading the whole thing.

http://www.matthewfox.org/sys-tmpl/theemperporhasnoclothes/

A bully does not listen and does not learn. He uses power-over in preference to power-with. He is afraid to meet one to one with his critics but instead has to rely on outside threats and power-over tactics. The Ratzinger I know is a bully.

Now we are told—and Muslims are being told—to come to the pope and have a dialog. One Muslim scholar of great stature, Ahmed Al- Tayyib, the president of Al-Azhar University and a former mufti of Egypt, call this invitation “extremely weird.” He says: "It is extremely weird to see someone who insulted you asking for a delegation to go to him to explain reasons behind his insults." A Vatican proposal to invite Pope Benedict to Cairo to deliver a speech on Islam was also rejected by Al-Azhar. I couldn’t agree more with Al-Tayyib—a pope who spent twenty-five years attacking viciously theologians of his own faith hardly seems well grounded for “dialog” between faiths, much less between faith and science. Just to imagine such a situation is “extremely weird.” Why does it take a Muslim to teach Catholics these obvious truths? Ratzinger has made a career of insulting Catholic theologians, women, homosexuals, Protestants, and any one to the left of Hitler. Why should anyone expect a “dialog” with a Chief Inquisitor with a track record like this ones? By choice, Ratzinger is as ignorant of Christian theology as he is of Muslim theology. A truly dangerous religious figure.

In response to yesterday's meeting, one of the Muslim participants who represented the Italian Muslim community declared: "We were invited for a dialog but it was a monologue." Welcome to the world of the Inquisitor-in-chief. I know of no instance in which Ratzinger has ever had anything but a monologue with any theologian from his own tradition, much less a Muslim one.

2.History will remember Cardinal Ratzinger for one thing: He brought the Inquisition back (now, with his ridiculous speech in Germany, he seems to want to bring the Crusades back and may have succeeded). Operating out of the exact office in the Vatican that was called for centuries the “Office of the Holy Inquisition” and changed its name to the Office of the Sacred Congregation of the Faith in 1968, Ratzinger and a band of petty and ignorant theological minds killed theological thought in Catholicism and indeed killed theologians themselves.

Nana, never heard of this Mathew Fox, but at first glance his commentary is a nutty and off-base rehash of debunked innuendo, non-credible arguments and misleading half-truths. I checked out the website you linked and some of his other material looks pretty ignorant too, even to this non-specialist dilettante in these matters.

One of the downsides of everyone having their own website now is that there's no quality control in what people can put out there. Based on what little I just read from this guy, I just can't take him at face value.

Part of the problem which compromises the foreign and military policies of this country, and despoils our view of ourselves and our relationship with the vast majority of the world's people, I would suggest, has precisely been this "co-ordinated" and "collaborationist" relationship with not only the new imperialist power of Empire Amerika, but also those old imperialist powers of Europe who have still not let go of the ambition. And toward which Nightbloom still feels the need to genuflect.

At least Great Britain is somewhat more honest about its desire to be a part of the re-domination of the brown-skin world at the US Empire's right hand. These other "old imperial powers" are still hanging onto the US Empire peripheral coat-tails too though, like we, serving them, for example, in Afghanistan and others as the policing force for the US dominated UN in Lebanon.

Better, in my view, that we move away entirely from this still US Empire dominated alignment around NATO and such as still seek to dominate the brown-skin world, and kiss US ass in the Middle East. Better we join with such more truly non-aligned states, which doesn't mean chickenshit neutral either , but partisan to truley smaller and middle states' interests around the world, regardless of skin colour, arising from the old "victim" nations of imperialism, such as Venezuala, the other states of Latin America and the Middle East,in the process still of attempting to liberate themselves from US domination, yes, such as including Iran.

This country has its own serious territorial, economic and political sovereignty issues with the US Empire. Better we should align ourselves with precisely those states who share our problem in this regard, and are demonstrably more prepared to struggle against their victimization-, than even we have shown the cojones for-, thus far. (Or maracas, in the case of the feminine. :-)

If this country is finally ready to assert itself, on the world stage, or even toying with the notion of finally reaching for national adulthood, then let's do so-, without continuing to hang onto this bullshitt NATO (and NORAD) crutch any longer. Which still remains the main US controlled and manipulated alliance, even ahead of the UN, in its world domination quest. We will look more convincing to others and ourselves.

That said, I am not yet convinced that we do actually have either the national cojones or the maracas. :-) More likely there is some distance there to go yet. Though life can come up with its pleasant surprises too. But we still very much seem, to me, in the pre-pubescent stage of our national life.

As Tyee itself slides further down the road of self-effacing, ritualistically mutiliating adolescent and cute "young modern" affluent road itself. A politically sexually neutered rag it is fast becoming, not?

8-D LOL.

Well, as a self confessed non-specialist dilletante maybe you should read up on one of the formost American theologians of out time.

"Dr Matthew Fox is an American theologian, an ex Dominican, an ex Roman Catholic priest, and now (1995) an Episcopalian priest in San Francisco Diocese.

He holds MA's in Philosophy and Theology and is a Doctor of Spirituality (Instiut Catholique, Paris).

He founded the University of Creation Spirituality at Holy Names College, Oakland, California.

In 1988 he was 'silenced' by the Vatican, and six years later he was dismissed from the Dominicans for refusing an order ( to relocate to Chicago). He writes, teaches, and lectures."

The above is for NightbloomBelow for the topic.
http://empireburlesquenow.blogspot.com/2005/03/death-wish-presidential-prerogative-of.html

"Tuesday, March 01, 2005
Death Wish: The Presidential Prerogative of Murder
First published in The Moscow Times on Nov. 2, 2001. Yes, that's how long Bush has claimed the absolute power of life and death over every single person on earth.

The president of the United States has now assumed the power to order the murder of anyone on earth.

It's no joke. The Washington Post reports this week that George W. Bush has signed an executive order giving himself the right to issue death warrants for any individual he deems a terrorist or terrorist supporter. These people will be killed in secret by the CIA, without any pretense of due process, without defense or appeal."

That was only an executive order.
Alex jones has a number of article on the bill which passed the Senate last night after already passing in Congrss.

It is terrifying in its implications. During the hearings on the bill, it became apparent that there was nothing to protect the children of detainees from being sexually tortured in order to break the parent(s).

I don't think any news has brought me down so low for a long time. There have to be ramifications for Canadians given the rapidity with which the countries are being amalgamated.
see:
http://prisonplanet.com/articles/september2006/290906sexuallytorture.htm
http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060927_molly_ivins_habeas_corpus/

Well, GWB and his Republican clowns did it: Habeas Corpus, R.I.P. (1215 - 2006)

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060927_molly_ivins_habeas_corpus/

With the help of 12 spineless democrats too. Worried about being labeled "soft" on security, no doubt.

America is looking more like the pre-invasion Iraq everyday. The terrorists have won. How pathetic.

Nana - Sounds like another malcontent with an axe to grind. His ideas don't even sound Catholic at all. I'm all for diversity, but if you can't carry the brand, you shouldn't wear the uniform. Clerics are not social workers. The Dominicans are very orthodox - they take Catholic identity very seriously - His dissent may have been more acceptable among the Jesuits, who declared long ago that they serve the Church "as it will be" in the future. But this fellow should know better - he's deliberately falsifying Joseph Ratzinger's record as gatekeep of orthodox doctrine. I also find it revealing that he made a home for himself among the Episcopalians in the San Francisco diocese. Something tells me his alienation from his RC profession goes beyond simply refusing to observe his friar's vow of obedience. The Sexual Revolution changed a lot of things very quickly, and the priesthood is one institution that has found the transition in values very, very difficult on its members. The realities upon which they had constructed their lives seemingly became obsolete virtually overnight. That's gotta hurt. But that pendulum is swinging back around.

In any case, Ratzinger's role was definitely a controversial one - not ceremonial by any stretch - it was his job to be the hard ass that gets on everyone's case. A lot of people who got carried away with the reforms of Vatican Council II got caught in the housecleaning when the shit finally came down. There's a generally consensus that something was starting to unravel with the watering down of the liturgy, the introduction of rock music in the choir, and the "protestantization" of the Mass that quickly insinuated itself from the Council through to the start of JP2's pontificate. Too much change too fast - people didn't recognize their own religion anymore. An Anglican High Mass is still authentic to the traditional Roman Catholic Mass than the version promulgated by the Vatican Council reforms. Religion and ritual exist to provide very definitive comforts, and the modernizers were effectively robbing the people of their religion - replacing the religion of the people with the religion of the professors and the social experimenters.

So that's why Ratzinger had to do what he did in his former role under the JP2 papacy.

Ratzinger is just nasty. Fox goes back to Francis of Assisi and the mystical tradition of the church. Ratzinger is stuck in the power game as befits someone who volunteered for Hitler Youth. (the Rat lies too, by saying he was forced into it)
He's probably the last or next to last Pope.

Sounds like you've got your own axe to grind, Nana. That's fine. Btw, your assertion that he volunteered is counter-factual. That part of his life is fairly well-documented. Incidentally, his family was ostracized for his father's public anti-Nazi stand, and the family suffered loss of employment & livelihood as a result. Again, this is all documented and has been re-hashed in the media and on these threads, so I don't know why you seem so stuck on that stuff. It's always the same.

You can make up fantasies about him, and call him names, if it suits you. But it demonstrates a certain dishonesty and reluctance to tolerate facts which challenge your own preconceptions and prejudices.

Hitler Youth was a voluntary organization. Ratzinger became a member.

You brought him up...it's a diversion from the topic at hand.

I wonder what the legal ramifications are for Canadians, or anybody in the world of the bill just past.

But speaking of the Nazis, when was it that they took over Austria? I can imagine that I feel as an Austrian felt....what year was it...34-36?

I though Ratsi was one of the hierarchy which crushed the Liberation Theology Movement, which has far more significance for me than rock masses or "protsetantizing " (whatever that is supposed to mean). If this is the case the Rat reverted to the Churche's old role of siding with the rich and powerful against working people - as they did so well in Spain in 1936, Quebec until the Quite Revolution, etc.

Nana said, "Fox goes back to Francis of Assisi and the mystical tradition of the church. "

Very true, having read Eckhart and St John of the Cross (and attempted Hildegard) as well as Fox, I can say that he fits in the tradition of genuine mysticism, though of course in contemporary garb. Ratso on the other hand represents the dogmatic and bullying side of it. We also must remember that the mystics were always in trouble with the hierarchy - just like Fox and suspected of heresy.(No independent thought, no independent visions!) Like Bush and B-liar, history will not be kind to the Rat.

No it wasn't. Policies varied. Check your facts, Nana.

There's nothing Franciscan in his vitriolic, personalized and grossly inaccurate diatribe against the Pope. Francis was profoundly respectful of the Church, and sought to be a living example. Remember, Francis felt himself unworthy to be ordained a Priest, and was humble in all things - all he left us was his living example. And he didn't post tedious self-serving polemics on the internet!...Or expound them in the town square. This man, Fox, is no mystic - he clearly has unresolved bitterness which he is working out in opposition to the Church he once served. It's a peculiar psychological dynamic among some ex-priests of his generation. I'm all for dissent, but he is stating some pretty bald falsehoods here, which immediately leads me to question whatever else he has to say.

Here is a dissenter I respect, who has also locked horns with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith under Cardinal Ratzinger, but who manifests no bitterness or animosity towards his old friend and nemesis, while not blunting his firmly articulated but highly civil criticism:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Kung

So...Kung is a nicer person than either the Fox or the Rat! But the biggest difference between the latter two is Fox does not endanger world safety by spouting what he knows will be insulting to any follower of Islam. I happen to think most of the stunts pulled in the west have had Islamic patseys...they've all been the product of the intelligence services of many counties. But the Rat doesn't know that.

He is deliberately stirring the pot...and he is supposed to be an emissary of Christ.

Stangely it was an Eastern, not R.C. prelate he was quoting. There's an interesting stretch if you are looking to promulgate ill will.

Sorry, I should have clarified that... of course the Rat knows it is the inteligence agencies doing false flag terrorism. He's looking to get nun's killed so we can all be outraged.

"There's nothing Franciscan in his vitriolic, personalized and grossly inaccurate diatribe against the Pope."

I have only read one of his theological books - written while he was still in the Church, so keep that in mind. Nightbloom, in reference to my previous posting. (Though I don't blame him for his anger, but like you say, it isn't a very mystical sentiment.)

Oh, Nana, come off it. That's nutty.

My whole point with Kung is that there's a principled way to 'radically' disagree with someone without totally dehumanizing them or employing ad hominem falsehoods, which is what you (and Fox) are doing.

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/september2006/290906torturebill.htm

I'm a lot more worried about the above Nightbloom,than my having insulted and maligned the Pope. As least he doesn't have the power to arrest and disappear me.

And here, from David Horowitz, is a lovely apologia for 'waterboarding':
Waterboarding is fleeting in duration with the actual discomfort lasting seldom more than a couple of minutes. And since a man can be safely deprived of oxygen for at least twice as long, there is almost no risk of long-term harm. The possibility of injury is further reduced by the fact that the procedure calls for no direct physical contact between the subject and his interrogators. Not even as much as pushing or chest slapping is required at any time, making waterboarding one of the safest and least confrontational among interrogation methods. Involving the lowest risk of long-term harm and the least amount of cumulative discomfort, it is also the most humane.

How low can they go?

Nana; The Pope isn't a Nazi. Just because he is German, doesn't mean he's a Nazi.
The Nazi were against Jews. The Pope is trying to help Jews.
The Pontiff has made a statement that we all have to get along. Any use of force used to advance religious views of any kind is dangerous.
Let all of us refrain from using violence as a method of advancing a cause.
But to call the Pope a rat is stupid. He was only trying to diffuse a war of societies, one that is constantly advanced on this site.
Hugo Chavez isn't a very good example for you leftists either. He is destined to lose based on your own environmental standards.

Yeah, I caught Horowitz's apologia for torture. Unfortunately, the man has a screw loose but it just clever enough to make some people buy into his schtick. He's the journalistic version of a hired thug.

Not to underwhelm you, but here's the video-clip of Hillary's speech in the Senate denouncing torture:

http://time.blogs.com/daily_dish/2006/09/hillarys_breakt.html

I'm not sure I want to start my day with hillary clinton, thanks nightbloom - I'll hold it in abeyance.

IAMC/ROn Erwin:
The Pope is trying to 'help' Jews? Details, please.

Hugo Chavez is destined to 'lose' on environmental standards? You mean the same way Albertans are losing as they create two thirds of the greenhouse gases from Canada.

Details, Ron, where are your details?

Horowitz is unfortunately setting the standard for a lot of the far-right arguments these days. Ron undoubtedly reads him, or at least sounds like he does.

Dear IAMC; Your thinking fascinates me. You have this way of miscategorizing things as though categories were the only source of definition available to you.

It's like you don't know what to think about anything until you can get it safely slotted into one set of predetermined characterizations or another. Anything that expresses as social planning or environmental concern or humanist thinking gets to be "left", and that set of prethought conclusions applies for you.

Likewise anything financial, or governance related, or behavioralistic is "right", so you know what to think about that. You just seem to be reaching into one file or another based on keywords you apply to whatever comes along.

Nevertheless, I think I see occasional bursts of analytical thought peeping out from under this heavy blanket of prejudgement.

Please try an experiment. For the next few days, refuse to think of anything in the categories you are used to using. Nothing is "right or "left", "socialist" or "capitalist", even "smart" or "stupid". Whatever you use.

Just for a few days try a more integrated style of thinking, and argue cases on their actual merits. I know it's harder and quite scary till you get accustomed to it, but I think you might be able to pull it off, if you have the courage to try.

Afterward you can go back if you really want to, but I think you owe it to yourself to try.

Bush offers himself amnesty from "War Crimes against Humanity"?
He knows he's a despicable example of a human being along with the rest of his administration!
Saddam Hussein Was Also a Dictator He Should Claim the Same Rights!

Yes this is an awesome site!
http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/metallurgy/index.html

"Although virtually all of the structural steel from the Twin Towers and Building 7 was removed and destroyed/recycled, preventing forensic analysis"
This is the biggest clue to the conspiracy factor involving "The New World Order"
They murdered/slaughtered close to 3000 people in the three WTC implosions just to start a war on a sovereign nation that was Iraq!
These persons, and we all know who they are and their house of cards are beginning to show cracks and one day very soon the whole truth will come out!
Stolen elections and all the Corporations involved in the corruption of the once proud United States of America but now the world looks at them as aggressors and warmongers!
Not Canadians but Harper is Bush's little puppy dog wagging his tail hoping for a seat in the "The New World Order".
"We the People of the World Will Have To Stand up for Our Democratic Rights For Our Future and Our Children's Future"
Thank you I feel much better now! lol

Bush offers himself amnesty from "War Crimes against Humanity"?
He knows he's a despicable example of a human being along with the rest of his administration!
Saddam Hussein Was Also a Dictator He Should Claim the Same Rights!

Yes this is an awesome site!
http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/metallurgy/index.html

"Although virtually all of the structural steel from the Twin Towers and Building 7 was removed and destroyed/recycled, preventing forensic analysis"
This is the biggest clue to the conspiracy factor involving "The New World Order"
They murdered/slaughtered close to 3000 people in the three WTC implosions just to start a war on a sovereign nation that was Iraq! WMD bull.
These persons, and we all know who they are and their house of cards are beginning to show cracks and one day very soon the whole truth will come out!
Stolen elections and all the Corporations involved in the corruption of the once proud United States of America but now the world looks at them as aggressors and warmongers!
Not Canadians but Harper is Bush's little puppy dog wagging his tail hoping for a seat in the "The New World Order".
"We the People of the World Will Have To Stand up for Our Democratic Rights For Our Future and Our Children's Future"
Thank you I feel much better now! lol

Bailey wrote, "Please try an experiment. For the next few days, refuse to think of anything in the categories you are used to using. Nothing is "right or "left", "socialist" or "capitalist", even "smart" or "stupid". Whatever you use."

I think it too much for clowns like Clueless/Ron to do that. It takes a certain level of intelligence, experience and sensitivity to realize that truth is beyond the narrow categories of ideology - or more simply put, truth is beyond ideology.

Actually, Horowitz is the mirror image of the hard-Left ideologues he despises. He employs the very techniques which they have showcased so effectively over the past few decades. Remember, it is conservatives who have been systematically branded, hounded and weeded out of academic appointments, not the other way around. I suspect he merely sees himself as someone who "turns the tables" on the Left....but it's pretty clear that he's motivated by the psychological drama implicit in having been raised by activist Leftist parents, becoming a Leftist activist himself, and then experiencing some sort of traumatic re-birth as a Rightist firebrand. I'm not familiar enough with his background to hazard a guess about what happened, but I'm pretty sure it blew him off his feet. No one makes those kinds of deep-seated about-faces lightly.

In any case, I can barely stand to read him anymore, and haven't really been able to stomach him since Clinton's second term (I think it was Horowitz's jumping on the bandwagon following the Lewinsky "bimbo eruption" that turned me off initially...his commentary on the matter was totally uncouth). I crossed off quite a few conservative commentators around that time - David Frum is another example.

Gwest - on the Pope & the Jews, we've already hashed that one out. You know full well that Ratzinger is responsible for the reciprocity we observed during the JP2 Papacy. He's critical of Israeli policy, but he's put to rest a lot of doctrinal bugbears that have haunted inter-faith relations for generations (millennia, actually). Declaring the Hebrew Covenant sufficient unto itself was a huge step for devout Catholics....then systematically debunking the collective guilt myth surrounding Christ's judicial murder was another one (many have tried since the Middle Ages, but it's Ratzinger's efforts that have finally stuck). I could go on, but you get the idea. The man's been pretty consistent and determined in this regard.

I want to see that movie where bush gets blown away!
I'm going to rent it and play the scene over and over and over......

Nightbloom
Horowitz is a Neocon and their origin was with Trotskyists. Totalitarians think alike. It's not about ideology so much as about being superior and in control. They could all see the writing on the wall as far as the Soviets were concerned...so they just switched funders. The path to power has been much smother on the right, hasn't it.

Bailey,

Really, really good piece to IAMC/Ron/Clueless. :-)

By the by brothers and sisters, none of my posts to Free Columbians Group seem to be arriving. Working on problem. :-)

Ooooooo. [I]They[/I] are onto me. 8-D LOL.

But you see, it really doesn't matter if the Neoconazi Bush is providing himself with a war crimes amnesty, or any of the lot of them. First of all, it's what the attempt to do-, create the aura of legal untouchability.

But on the Nuremberg Day of Judgement, it will matter not. It will all be cut through as all so much chimera legalistic mumbo jumbo such as will simply be case aside. It didn't work for their Nazi mentors either.

When this has all matured and run its course, and the mighty US Empire has fallen anyway, as is already underway, we will get them. All in due course and in its own good time. ;-) And those amongst us as well, who have collaborated with them.

Shaved heads, shaming and justice all around.

We are now seeing the implementation of a long-standing neoconservative ambition: the imposition of a world order—in effect, an American Empire, with Washington, D.C., at its center. The infiltration and co-opting of the conservative movement by the Marxist right and its transformation into an instrument of an ideology that is statist, globalist, and militantly expansionist was the first step on the road to empire. Once the Marxist right had seized control of the think tanks, magazines, and activist organizations of the American right, they moved to exert control over the Republican Party.

Both the ideology and the methods of the Marxist left have been imported into the conservative movement. Ideologically, the so-called third-camp socialism of Shachtman and his followers has been transmuted into the worship of “Democracy” as the be-all and end-all of human development. The neocons have simply stood the old Trotskyism on its head and said that the American system—like the old Soviet system—cannot stand alone and isolated but must spread itself over the earth or face defeat at the hands of its enemies.

The ideological framework of neoconservative ideology is deeply rooted in the Marxist tradition. Francis Fukuyama, the boy wonder of the neocons, even came up with an application of the Hegelian dialectic as the ultimate rationale for American global hegemony in his famous article on “The End of History.” The Marxists, too, saw themselves as agents of History, and they constantly evoked images of modernity to justify their innumerable crimes against humanity. They came as “liberators”—a favorite word of Red Army propagandists, and one that our own Pentagon has since taken up with alacrity.

http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/Chronicles/January2004/0104Raimondo.html

When this has all matured and run its course, and the mighty US Empire has fallen anyway, as is already underway, we will get them. All in due course and in its own good time. ;-) And those amongst us as well, who have collaborated with them. Coyote

Amen to that.

As Gandhi said ( and I'm paraphrasing now ) "there have always been tyrants throughout history and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall -- think of it, ALWAYS."

"Remember, it is conservatives who have been systematically branded, hounded and weeded out of academic appointments, not the other way around. "

Evidence please, Nightbloom. I have studied quite a long list of American conservative academics over the years and all of them are quite happily ensconced in academia, as they should be. Mind you, they are actual thinkers, not intellectual thugs, so maybe these are the types the Moonbat King (Horowitz) is going to bat for.

Anarcho - the truth of it is so widely acknowledged even by fair-minded ideological liberals that your demand for proof is naive. Use Google, talk to an unbiased professor who's been around for the last 20 years, attend a university with your ears open, read the mountain of books, critical commentary and newspaper & magazine articles that have been written on the subject, or participate in the actual hiring process of an Arts or Social Sciences professor. You'll see exactly what I mean.

It depends a lot which university you happen to frequent; and which department - as you well know nightbloom.

Anarcho's point is well taken. Just like the ‘supposed’ left-wing bias of the media, proving the case about poor disrespected conservative types is not so easy. I'm not surprised you'd dodge the challenge.

Especially considering Horowitz's latest effort to 'out' left wing academics and stone them in public…with assistance from his aide-de-camp Daniel Pipes.

One thing the conservatives never shy away from - blatant and one-sided self-promotion.

Nay - in the Humanities it's pretty much an across-the-board phenomenon. Liberals have been pretty militant and often under-handed about it. It's actually too bad, because a lot of professionals identified as "conservative" by the liberal camp are simply "non-aligned" non-conformist individualists of one stripe or another. It becomes a self-reinforcing cycle after a while, in which "non-aligned" grad students find it hard to find mentors and academic patrons in some disciplines, and anyone with a whiff of original thinking is pegged by one camp or the other as "one of them". It sounds stupid (and it is) but it's the way the environment works. There's a lot of clannishness, paranoia and jealousy in academia.

I think it is legitimate for me to ask, Nightbloom. It may well be a common theme of right wing propaganda, but I have yet to see anything solid. There are a number of criteria for hiring academics and perhaps, in certain departments, say history or the social sciences, right wingers do not meet those criteria. In my own studies, certainly the best of the conservative academics, say Paul Gottleib, for example, are true scholars, but most of the run-of-the-mill types are nothing but propagandists and hacks. That a department might not want such people should not be surprising.

Following from above - Then there is the problem of what is real scholarship and and what is not. Should, for example, a Holocaust denier be given tenure? Or how about someone whose career (such as it is) is based around claiming that Stalin was innocent of his crimes? I don't think you would wish to hire such people. Lately we have had a run of right-wing “scholars” who have been making similar historical revisions, that Germany WAS guilty for WW1, that imperialism was a good thing and we need more of it, and that Louis Riel was a traitor, deserved his fate and the Metis had no rights to their land. Sadly for the right wing, or more correctly, the dogmatic right wing, history and the social sciences in general tend to validate much of what their “progressive” enemies believe. (This is in fact why I am a (non-dogmatic) leftist, if history and social science had proved the contrary I would be on the right)

Amen to that. Nightbloom is caught again with his intellectual bias drawers down.

Which is really quite irrelevant anyway. Most of what goes on in academe is only of importance to those of the hallowed halls themselves. Real power is not there in any case.

It's first economic power that is of the greatest importance, and flowing out of that, control of the instruments of the state to shore up that same economic power.

Academe is really little more that an over glorified "servant class" strata, at best, expert counsel to this real ruling class power, where they are even chosen to be listened to. And because ruling class power does need to be aware of "objective reality", if it is to well serve its own privileged class interests, a mix of expert counsel opinion is likely desirable and useful.

During this particular period "liberal" opinion may actually dominate academe, and be replaced at another more conservative time by a predominance of "rightist" thinkers. The same academic individuals, who are not unlike politicians, often as well seek out and follow the line of least resistance lead me on, being "liberals" at one period and "transformed liberals become conservative" with the shifting of the sands.

In either case, academe is of much marginal usefulness, most of the time, to the lives of most of us. Though to us, "liberal" opinion is of generally more "usefulness" and preferred, of course, to such outright reactionary obscurantist opinion as nightbloom espouses.

Most of it is all just relative horsepoop, in any case. (The physical sciences are of course quite another matter, though not as much as we might be inclined to think. :-)

I'm not sure it does though - liberal thought I mean. I'd sugget that some departments or faculties tend to be more liberal, others more conservative.

I'd wager it all pretty much balances out in the end - or tips slightly toward 'conservative' bias. I imagine in the hard sciences and business faculties there are not very many Marxist-Leninists. Not that nightbloom will acknowledge it Coyote.

Particularly in the States, where there are so many funded chairs in the big important universities, I expect the neocons are doing very well. Same applies, I'll bet in the Schulich and Munck departments too.

You gets what you pays for and them with the wherewithal are not leftists.

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=9779

Just Some Dirty Rotten Facts!
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Korten/WhenCorpsRuleWorld_Korten.html

http://www.bilderberg.org/

http://www.polarisinstitute.org/polaris_project/corp_campaigns/corp_campaigns_pusher.html

http://www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.asp?Ind=A02

Bush has now even lost the support of his former hagiographer - Bob Woodward, whose new book says the POTUS is hopeless.

I can only wonder what's taken him so long.

Anyone who's interested in another chuckle should check out the review of Eddie Goldenberg's book on Chretien in the G&M of the 30th. Interesting little item therein about Bush's admission (inadvertent no doubt) about torture at Gitmo.

No wonder he wants protection.

if you think that's bad then I suggest this site!
http://www.canadianactionparty.ca/temp/articles/Say_NO_to_Bill_C-16.asp

Much ado about nothing BC Dude. Relax - nothing wrong with fixed election dates - read the bill...if the govt is defeated in the house on a confidence motion - Bam!

You've still got an election.

Here's the discussion prepared by the Parliamentary Library. It's not quite nothing.

http://www.parl.gc.ca/common/bills_ls.asp?lang=E&ls=c16&source=library_prb&Parl=39&Ses=1

Not quite, but almost.

I really don't mind the idea of fixed elections. I just see them being brought in in a particularly dangerous time.

The bill has had second reading. It would probably be passed this year. The Libs and Conservatives are on the same page as far as continental integration goes, so without an election we will slip right into it,with one we might be able to bring it all up and at least have an open debate.

I find it rather sinister that the Liberals have waited and will wait so long to come up with a leader,

Goodbye sovereignty