L.W.M. --

@Pedinska

Just what this blog needs.

Another humorless ass.

;-)

I think J has some creative arguments, his politics are mostly acceptable, but he is that scary kind of "liberal" that even I want distance myself from. Or maybe I'm getting older and more conservative. Maybe he'll settle down if I stop teasing him.

Thank you for admitting the "teasing". I don't do that or the equivalents because as a matter of extending self-resepct, I respect others.

You may be getting older, but I think it's safe to say I'm your senior. So perhaps you should exercise a bit of caution, as you may someday find yourself at my age being a mix of conservative and left- and moderate-liberal, instead of simply being a liberal becoming "more conservative".

What I do is honestly present my views, and where I feel comfortable, and it is necessary, my background and experience as relevant thereto. One thing I don't do is play games with people -- that would be disrespectful. It also tends to result in wastes of bandwidth -- and, more important than that, irreplacable time.

quickstrategy --

RE Powell -- I've tried to cut him some slack too, but mostly out of compensation.

Thank you for doing so. It caused me to articulate that which was in the back of my mind. I do recall, as example, when Bushit, et al. sent him as Sec. of State on a mission to the Middle East -- and while he was enroute Bushit, et al. publicly cut the legs out from under him. Publicly humiliated him.

But . . . he continued after that to carry their water . . .

J

A mugging by an addict not prevented by the criminal sanction has a victim.

"The criminal sanction against mugging doesn't prevent anyone from doing it now, addict or non-addict."

Nor would the victim magically become a non-victim if the addict's dug were legal, and the mugging occurred.

"And the dealers we create by the black market in drugs are more than wealthy enough to buy you and I many times over."

And pharmaceuticals are mega-wealthy from selling with legal drugs. There's a difference somewhere?

"You seem to be buying the gummint's hype, that crime is related to drug use."

When an addict mugs someone for money to buy drugs, that crime is related to drug use.

"In the sense that the hungry will steal bread, I suppose it is."

Gee: Ben Franklin was a victim of the existence of gov't and law! Then turned around and advocated for and even -- gasp! -- participated as a "statist" in the establishing of gov't and rule of law!

"I told you he was a scary liberal."

There's no such thing as a "victimless" action, for good or ill, in a society of more than one actor. There are two ways society can/is dealing with drug addiction: medical, paid for by taxpayers, and imprisonment, paid for by taxpayers.

How many taxpayers, had they the power to choose, would choose to have their tax monies spent in either or both of those ways?

and separation of powers.

L.W.M. --

It is legal for the gummint to lie to us.

I fail to see where it is against the law. They can withold information just by classifying it. Bush can get up and say anything he damn well pleases. "Social Security is aboutto go broke and we must privatize it!" It's called "catapulting the propaganda". Has he broken the law? I do not think so.

It is against the law for them to use our tax dollars to propagandize us (lie to us) in the manner I described in a previous post, sing the "independent" media as a conduit for that propaganda without proper attribution, but the distinction between public diplomacy and propaganda is murky at best.

I recommend your comparing that view with John Dean's on findlaw.com.

L.W.M. --

J

Again: there is no such thing as a "victimless" crime -- or for that matter a "victimless" good.

-- JNagarya

"If we make looking at naked pictures of your wife a crime, we have just created another "victimless crime" that you say does not exisr."

Who is doing the "looking" as concerns whether it is "victimless"?

L.W.M. --

I wish I could get victimizedby some good

If only a winning lotto ticket would befall me.

You are not.

Glenn Greenwald seldom disappoints but his systematic documentation of the Pentagon's campaign to manipulate the national press (shocking — who would have ever suspected the Pentagon??) is exceptional even by the high standards of his usual reporting.

It seems pathetic that simply covering a story in a basic way is so exceptional but that's the degraded standard by which journalism in America is to be judged.

As is often the case, however, Greenwald's research is meticulous yet his analysis doesn't quite match the same caliber.

The Politico said that if there were Congressional hearings held, then "the networks would be hard-pressed to continue their de facto blackout." I guess we'll find out if that's true.

Is there any reason — seriously, any reason at all — to believe that the press would do anything other than maintain their silence on the subject?

The entire shipping industry just underwent a massive antiwar strike, with literally no mention in the mainstream news. In 2002 thousands upon thousands of people in every major city in America marched in protest of the Bush regime's plans to invade Iraq and were literally ignored — to the point that other writers at Salon took, 5 and 6 years later, to commenting disparagingly on the current generation's lack of activist vigor because even they — the Salon writers — apparently didn't know about the massive protests.

The organs of the mainstream press haven't changed ownership, last I checked, since the events Glenn Greenwald enumerates. The Bush administration has not, in the past few days, mysteriously lost the influence that it's maintained over the masturbatory fantasies of the DC press corps during the past 8 years.

In other words, there is no reason to take the Politico's comment with any seriousness whatsoever. Why even bother saying that we'll see if they're correct? It's like watching the news of Condaleeza Rice's latest diplomatic mission in the hopes that this time she won't have screwed it up.

When the money starts flowing in a different direction, and the career trajectories start arcing away from right wing institutions instead of toward them, then we'll see the press shift attitude — and I'm sure it will be quite sudden when it happens.

But it won't be a moment before then.