Analysis: CIA Tape Case Evokes Watergate
Administration officials refuse to shed light on whether White House lawyers talked to the CIA about whether to destroy interrogation videotapes of two terrorism suspects but bristle at questions into the affair and complain about news coverage. That puts the White House in an awkward position. The very vision of White House officials sitting around a table talking about such an inflammatory course of action evokes echoes of Nixon and Watergate.
The secret destruction of the CIA tapes in late 2005 has drawn fire from both a federal judge and from Congress. The tapes purportedly documented harsh interrogation techniques approved by the White House, including waterboarding, which simulates drowning.
The revelations generated the second controversy over U.S. intelligence-gathering in as many weeks. It followed a National Intelligence Estimate that Iran had halted its nuclear-weapons program. That drew criticism of the agency from conservatives, while the tape destruction drew outrage mostly from congressional Democrats - and spawned a round of congressional hearings into why lawmakers were kept in the dark.
Destruction of the tapes was “totally improper behavior that smacks of efforts by past administrations to destroy evidence as quickly as possible,” said Paul C. Light, professor of public policy at New York University. “Even if it didn’t violate specific law, it violates the spirit of transparency.”
“It brings up the schooling that the Nixon administration received regarding the destruction of the secret White House tapes,” Light said, referring to published reports that senior White House lawyers were involved in back-and-forth discussions with the CIA between 2003 and 2005 over whether to destroy the tapes.
Of course, in the matter of the incriminating audio tapes secretly made in the White House more than three decades ago, those tapes were ultimately saved for posterity and not destroyed or erased - other than perhaps for the famous 18 1/2-minute gap on one tape.
White House press secretary Dana Perino says President Bush “has no recollection” of hearing about either the CIA tapes’ existence or their destruction before being briefed about it last Thursday by CIA Director Michael Hayden. She won’t say whether other White House officials played a role, citing an investigation under way by the Justice Department and the CIA.
Yet Perino told reporters on Wednesday, “Some of the questions are legitimate questions - that the public has and that the attorney general and General Hayden have. ” Among these, she said, is “Who knew what when?”
Another echo of Watergate, that response recalled the repeated questions of Sen. Howard Baker, R-Tenn, at the nationally televised Watergate hearings in 1973: “What did the president know and when did he know it?”
The New York Times in Wednesday’s editions said that White House officials who discussed the videotapes with the CIA before their destruction included: Alberto Gonzales, who served as White House counsel until early 2005; Harriet Miers, who succeeded him as White House counsel; David S. Addington, the counsel to Vice President Dick Cheney and now his chief of staff; and John B. Bellinger III, senior lawyer at the White House National Security Council until early 2005.
The article did not say what positions each of the four officials may have advocated.
The White House would not comment on the story but took the unusual step of issuing a statement on Wednesday saying that the newspaper’s “inference that there is an effort to mislead in this matter is pernicious and troubling.”
U.S. District Judge Henry H. Kennedy on Tuesday ordered Justice Department lawyers to appear before him Friday to discuss whether destroying the tapes, which showed two al-Qaida suspects being questioned, violated his 2005 order to preserve evidence in a lawsuit brought on behalf of 16 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
That ups the ante, said Marc Rosenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center. “There is a presumption against the destruction of records involving potential or alleged government misconduct. But when there is a judicial preservation order in place, the destruction of such records raises far-reaching concerns.”
Former Reagan administration national security officer Robert F. Turner, now associate director of the University of Virginia’s Center for National Security Law, said the destruction of the tapes may not have been an illegal act by itself. “But if a judge told them not to destroy evidence, then you’ve got a problem of who was involved in the decision.”
“Did the people who knew of the judge’s order say, `No, we can’t do that?’ If people who knew - or should have known - of the judge’s order were involved in the decision and did not bring that to the attention of others, you’ve got a problem,” Turner said.
Meanwhile, The Democratic-run Congress pledged to investigate the destruction of the tapes despite the Justice Department’s assertion that it could hamper its own investigation. And in a direct challenge to Bush, the House Intelligence Committee said Wednesday it has prepared subpoenas to force CIA officials to testify about the destruction of the interrogation videotapes.
Tom Raum has covered national and international affairs for The Associated Press since 1973.
© 2007 Associated Press
1. Firing district attorneys 2. Knowledge of destruction of the CIA interrogation tapes 3. Misleading the country and manipulating information to illegally occupy another country 4. Authorizing the establishment of secret torture camps globally
What the hell else do we need to indict Bush, Cheney, Rice, and other members of the Bush Administration for high crimes (my list above is 4 of 27 violations I am listing)? I am finishing the final draft of my legal complaint, which I will file against the Bush Administration, requesting that its members be tried for high crimes against humanity.
Nothing will happen.
The dems will just wait for Bush to go and try to recapture the White House.
I hate the Republicans but I want the Democrats to lose again because they are losers through and through. They either support Bush or they are cowards(but they throw money to block third candidates). They deserve as much punishment as they can get.
Yep - Impeachment has been so obvious for so long that it ought to be obvious by now…
about the dems…
who know about the repubs…but they keep on sticking don’t they???
SNAFU
What is the Third Estate? Everything. What has it been up to now in the political order? Nothing. What does it demand? To become something herein. - Abbé Sieyès, Jan 1789.
http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/historical/biography/abbe_sieyes.html
If anyone is curious about just how willing Hillary Clinton would be to defend our Constitutional rights as president. try going to the following link.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/122007H.shtml
That’s all we need for president is another amoral political animal.
Bush and Cheney could commit murder in broad daylight on the sidewalk in front of the white house with 1000 witnesses, and the dems would STILL be too chicken$hit to impeach.
BeForKids - it seems to me that these families are NOT for the kids
they are only for themselves…their selfish selves…as if they are somehow superior…
I sent the above link to every one I know. the more I think about it, the more I feel outraged. The Clintons have set up the destruction of our democracy with their political games - which got them =nowhere - and they haven’t learned anything from it. I wonder if Obama is as amoral as Hillary. It’s too bad that politics attracts such sleazy people. I used to think Bill Clinton was smart Except when he was doing his thinking below the waist.. Not any more. I see Hillary and Nancy Pelosi making the same political decisions he did. And they have nothing to do with what is in the public interest. These people are so disgusting.
I’m sick of hearing Daniel David telling us the Democrats will save us if we just elect enough of them. And on another post, he even said third parties should be made illegal. He’s beginning to sound like another corporate whore. And when I complained about party leaders meddling in local primary political campaigns, he said it doesn’t matter what Democrats get elected as long as it’s a Democrat. That contradicts his story about “working” to get progressives elected but fits his idea that all we have to do is elect Democrats and then “scream” at them to act progressive. Bullshit.
Bush and Cheney make Nixon look like democracy’s guardian angel. As for the Dems and the next election - I’m writing in Amy Goodman for Pres.
I imagine the “missing tapes” only disappeared after Bush and his gang viewed them at smoker or stag party, using them for the entertainment value the lost evidence provided them.
This is the stuff they like. The tormentors watching the suffering of the tormented.
I honest to God believe this.
I’ve watched the little smirk that appears on No. 43’s face when he discusses this topic.
..he enjoys it.
When will it all end?! Not until this miserable admistration runs out of time in January 2008. The third paragraph in this story sums it up: “it followed a NIE that Iran had halted its nuclear-weapons program. That drew criticism of the agency from conservatives. While the tape destruction drew outrage mostly from congressional Democrats…”. Yes, I know the dems have a backbone problem, and I won’t try to defend the indefensible. But the Republicans who were so very eager to impeach a president who lied about having sex, stand behind a president who has as an unstated goal the dismantling of our Constitution. Do they care about that? Why do the Dems not call them out on it. We are in the right, so why don’t the dems start acting like it!
Impeachment is getting closer. See www.WexlerWantsHearings.com for another place to sign on to the get the hearings going. There is a 9 pm live blog radio cast also tonight with Rep Wexler, David Swanson of Afterdowningstreet.org. Details at Wexler’s site. Impeach for Peace.
Watergate again?!! I really hope I am dead wrong here, but everything that has happened so far tells me nothing will come of this. Maybe a few in the White House and CIA will be thrown under the bus (think Scooter Libby), but I don’t think this will touch Bush, Chaney, or any of the other key thugs. When I was in graduate school, many of my professors and peers babbled incessantly about how the lack of governmental transparency and accountability in the Third World contributed to political “underdevelopment.” To me, the political pathologies they claimed existed in the Third World seemed also to apply, no more or no less, to the United States. This country continues to use political aid abroad in an attempt to promote “democracy, transparency, rule of law, and accountability” while all of these things erode at home. I really wish some country would set up a counterpart to the US Agency for International Development or the National Endowment for Democracy and send some political aid for government reform. Goodness know we need it!
Meanwhile, earlier today, the gutless John Conyers made it clear that there will be no impeachment hearings, regardless of the calls by Wexler, Kucinich and company.
killyt,
Don’t you mean another country that has the stones to investigate the United States??
One thing to keep in mind is how the Bush Administration blamed faulty intelligence for the whole WMD in Iraq fiasco. And the destroyed tapes might be payback.
I agree CLAUDIUS, they also must be very concerned about the entire mess with the Bush/Cheney administration and want it to come to a halt. This ‘may’ be the beginning of the end.
Some of the CIA lawyers were on C-Span today answering quetions about torture and the destroyed tapes, at a Congressional hearing chaired by Conyers, and they were sticking it to the administration. ___ We’ll see if it keeps up.
Hi Kem Patrick,
Thanks for the info. Hopefully the CIA lawyers will keep up the heat.
The questions are: Have we got anyone in Washington today who will investigate? And, is the US population sufficiently educated and concerned about the abuses of power and abuses of the constitution to demand that their congressional representatives follow through? Television coverage was hours each day with Watergate and the hearings and the testimony of John Dean, Erlichman, Haldemann, Butterfield, etc, etc. Our corporate (not necessarily the) “news” is concerned with advertising income and profitability, not necessarily the news. Coverage of complex stories that might take days (weeks? months?) to unravel, and that might require research and background information is rarely deemed worthy of resources (unless it’s the kidnapping/murder/sexual assault of a pretty white female). That most Americans get their information from the corporate media makes it a virtual certainty that the masses will remain largely uninformed, distracted by the drivel that passes as “news” (did you know that Britney Spears has a younger sister named Jamie Lynn who is 16 and pregnant and she’s keeping the baby and she is in a show on Nickolodeon and . . .?) I don’t know why I should have to know the life and trials of the Spears family, but the “news” chooses to inform me of this, and not to any similar degree about the issues at play around the destoyed CIA torture videos, nor the NIE data which was probably known to Bush/Cheney a year ago, nor — oh, never mind . . . .
Hi claudius,
Yeah, a country that has the stones to investigate would be wonderful. After all, the US sees fit to “monitor” elections, governmental corruption, and government performance everywhere else. Why can’t others do the same to the US? Oh I forget! Only imperial powers have the means and declare the right to intervene and override the sovereignty of other states. Too damn bad!
“…Meanwhile, The Democratic-run Congress pledged to investigate the destruction of the tapes…”
Ha ha ha ha ….. These Dems? These Bush-enablers? These Israeli agents?????? Ha ha ha ha…
Did anybody see the story about the fire in Cheney’s chambers?
I wonder what the significance of that will turn out to be?
Right now we are in the dark but I’ll bet it distroyed some IMPORTANT documents.
Even if it didn’t, they can claim it did!
Did all of you see Bush’s press conference today? He not only looks tired (and possibly hungover) but worried. He tried to unsuccessfully camouflage it, but his demeanor is unmistakably clear: he looks like someone who is about to get busted for breaking the law!
“I’m sick of hearing Daniel David telling us the Democrats will save us if we just elect enough of them.”
what life would he have outside of coming here and proclaiming the virtues of the democrats??
a WANNABE murdoch lackey perhaps???
.
Yeah I bet Bush has no recollection! He is our President! Who else is supposed to remember their job title? This guy who SOME people voted for, cant remember, just like Reagan?!?! Reagan slept, Bush has no excuse! Execute this prick! Trial by fire!
Conyers was a sad case on Democracy Now! this morning. He made the same tired argument about not having the votes.
If hearings were commenced on articles of impeachment the evidence would be overwhelming and the corporate media would be forced to cover it.
But then I think of the brain dead young woman who waited on me at the pharmacy yesterday and wonder if there is any hope at all. Perhaps Conyers is right. The American people are brainwashed and there is no hope of them getting off their Kentucky Fried butts.
Conyers thinks the corporate media would use the impeachment hearings to somehow screw the Democrats so they would lose the next election.
He does not seem to realize that doing nothing will discourage so many voters that the low turnout will make victory possible for the Republicans.
Why is this the most common phrase from politicians after Reagan? “I have no recollection.” You would never hear it from any one with self respect in a court of law unless they were crying.
Same old bunch, poking their fingers in the air and doing nothing else. Who of you has the balls to step forward and get something started. We old folks are just waiting.
But you are just all talk.
Hi NM BILL, yes that fire in Cheney’s office was big news yesterday, but I saw nothing about it today. It was not his ‘working’ office they reported. The last TV newscast I saw, the DC fire chief said the investigation of the fire would be conducted entirely by ‘governnment agents’.
Now that should make us all feel better, if it was arson, or someone attempting to cover up something, “we’ll all soon hear it”.
I wonder if people who murder someone and are the prime suspect, shouldn’t be permitted to have ‘only’ their family or close friends conduct any investigations?
How is it that the Bushies could remember all of the weapons of mass destruction and their exact location in Iraq so well? They cannot seem to recall any of hundreds of events that they were involved in that were illegal and unconstitutional. I suppose it was just a coincidence it worked out that way because they were so busy protecting the American people! They could not remember what happened to that planeload of hundred dollar bills that went to Iraq either, they were just too busy.
But seriously folks…
With all this evidence mounting and virtually stinking up everything in a 50 mile radius, what is the REAL reason that impeachment is off the table? There’s gotta be a better explanation than a simple lack of stones. For example, John Conyers before he was chairman of the JC was gung ho about impeaching, if his rhetoric was to be taken seriously.
So why now is he acting like impeachment is a dirty word? Does any of this have to do with the warrantless wiretapping that we still don’t know the full extent of? To my way of thinking, the White House must have dug up some really big secrets on some of these people (Pelosi, Conyers,etc.)
If the telecom company that wouldn’t play along with the warrantless wiretapping in the beginning (I think it was Qwest (sp?) Communications) said that they were approached in April 2001 (well before 9/11) about wiretapping people, what was that all about? Remember that the reason given for tapping phones was to identify potential terrorists after 9/11.
What is the real dirt that TPTB have on the people that would otherwise have started impeachment hearings as soon as they had the power to? Is it murder, down low lifestyles, embezzlement, devil worship, what? What is it that TPTB found out about their political foes during all this wiretapping that has paralyzed them from genuinely holding people accountable?
BOOKSENSE, I honestly beieve it is sexully related. I do believe they have enough dirt on many of our Congress, to fill in the Super Dome, and any in DC know what a sex scandle can do to a political career. No matter who controls the press, they’ll cover sex and recover it. Blackmail is a nasty and effective tool.
Too much mewling from the lemmings in this country about “impeachment”, OOoooOO!! To hell with impeach! Unless it’s followed VERY closely by freezing their entire fortunes, turning em over to the world court, prosecute, then execute. They are responsible for lying U.S. drones into attacking and murdering over 1,000,000 human beings, stealing the idiots of this country blind, smearing feces on our bill of rights and constitution…..and I still hear the sheeple chirp about impeachment.
paschn,
I have been saying all along that we are way beyond impeachment. As you point out, these crooks need to be tried in a court of law for treason and sentenced to prison or death.
Conyers and Pelosi must be afraid for their lives and for the lives of their family. This is the Mafia.
could it have been a fire of convenience,in the executive office ?nothing left to worry about now,boys………
they are torturers, liars, and murderers… yes, they must have something on different people in Congress… Dennis K’s brother was just found dead… I also just found out that a prominent scientist was brutally murdered in 2004 because he was working on cold fusion technology that will still come to fruition but which challenges the oil companies billions… hence, they stoop to anything to get what they want, lie, steal, murder… and people are afraid of them… in the end, they will have to answer to a higher power, true justice, kind of a cosmic joke, don’t you think, for all their b.s. about Jeeesus and God… facing that god in the sky… we need divine intervention…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andy-borowitz/attempting-to-destroy-cia_b_77554.html
cheney burns down the white house trying to destroy the tapes…
Just an observation but I can’t think of many governments around the world that aren’t shitting on their citizens.
Is it time to think about a new paradigm?
In the Watergate era, the opposition party didn’t take impeachment “off the table.”
yes, well read this travesty, we are NOT living in the Watergate era anymore… we are now living in a Christian nation … which means if you are Muslim, Jewish, agnostic, atheist, Buddhist, Zen, Hindu or anything else, and you say something against a Christian you are persecuting them and can be sent to jail or worse.. and if this doesn’t cover it, then the other laws they are passing will… time to get outta dodge quick… or revolt big time…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tom-gregory/they-still-deliver-my-mai_b_77654.html
busterkikki,
you are obviously a part of the problem. “We old folks are just waiting” Waiting for what? For the youngsters to clean up the mess that your generation has made? To do what your generation should have done 20+ years ago. Get off your old ass and show the youngens what needs to be done. Oh that’s right, you don’t know what to do. Haven’t known in the whole of your life. But by god the youngens ought to know what to do. Why should they know? You’re the ones that taught them how to behave, and now you lament that they aren’t willing to figure out how to save your sorry old tired ass? Go learn about Granny D and her work over these past years, then pop some geritol and get to work. The kids didn’t create this mess. You and I did. Instead of passing the buck, let’s get the hell out there and clean up our own damn mess so that we can pass on a democracy worth having to our children and grandchildren.
sheesh
CLAUDIUS I was wrong there, it was not CIA lawyers. I watched it again last night. It was an ex White House lawyer and two top level legal scholars, they were discussing the CIA lawyers and the destruction of the water boarding tapes. It was a Congressional hearing to gain legal opinions on Constitutional law for the coming Congressional investigation with the CIA.
I believe it is going to become very interesting in the coming days. Consider the CIA would have the scoop on the entire administration and the administration did serious harm to many of their operatives, Valerie Plame for just one. Never screw with a woman. It’s spelled WO-MAN. There are a lot of people in DC who know how to play the game besides Cheney and Rove. They can prod Karma to come around and I do believe they are heating the prods.
But you see 1/3 of the Senate and the House are fund raising from corporations for Christmas. Britney’s sister has been out slutting big sister. The press also has those Santa stories.
By the time the elected politicians get back to work a month from now the only video they care about is the cute Christmas they had with their grandchildren or their trophy wife’s kids.
LESS THAN NOTHING WILL HAPPEN. MAYBE THEY WILL VOTE TO CONSOLIDATE THE MEDIA. The local buyer’s guide hasn’t been bought by corporations yet.
It’s so weird living alone an isolated in a foreign country when there’s so much bizarre and crazy crap going on in the country whose name is stamped on your passport. I gotta be honest, sometimes while reading comments on CD, it feels like it’s all so removed from my life now, just a dark comedy to watch and try not to become sick with disgust as the blows come.
So, I want to ask CDers here a dastardly deep question: can America be saved? Is there anything the ex-pat community can do aside from casting our most-likely-discarded absentee ballots? Think about this, will ya? We’re ex-pats, but that doesn’t meant we don’t care.
WONDERING YOU, It required hundreds of years for the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. I’m afraid it will take less than one more year for the fall of the United States. ___ I do hope that I am wrong.
Even if we manage to evade a depression this coming spring, even if we don’t attack Iran, even if there is an election next November and the Democrats take full control of the presidency and Congress, we will still be mired in the mud in Iraq and Afganastan and that disaster was the final straw.
Never in the recorded history of our planet, has a government as corrupt as ours is now, survived. Ten to twelve percent of honest Statesmen in DC are not enough to hold up the falling walls. In addition, our once valued Constitution, is now just as Predident Bush stated, “nothing but a G-damn piece of paper”. That alone should have had him impeached, for a man in his position, saying that and then insuring it ___ is treason.
Kem, your last statement made me feel sad. I was raised to value our Constitution, but what do you expect from a president who was raised by a bunch of Nazis? The whole family has a fascist mentality.
Wonderingyou, is it lonely being in a foreign land? Does it leave you feeling unconnected? I wonder about that. Sometimes I feel torn about getting out or staying and fighting for the life I want here. Of course, the cards (money) are stacked against us. And almost the entire country appears to be on Thorazine. There is one thing that gets people’s attention, however, and that’s when they notice that their pocket is getting picked. And they’re beginning to notice.
The problem is that the public, like Daniel David, will just vote for Democrats, who have joined the enemy. But in his case, I’m suspecting that he has also joined the enemy, especially after reading his more recent posts. He may be a stooge, but not stupid. I’ve noticed that he selectively ignores questions from posters he doesn’t want to answer. So in this go around, the public will turn to the Democrats, only to learn that things won’t get better. I can see why Daniel David wants to make third parties illegal, because eventually the public will turn away from both parties. Hopefully we won’t be a fascist dictatorship by then. There’s always hope.
For Patnval:
Well, you gave me a good chewing out, but that is nothing new. You can blame us old timers for dropping the ball. That is easy to do and let’s you off the hook. Is that it?
I am an old fart, but I spent more than 13 years in the service in two hitches, was a Precinct Committeeman, have written over fifty Letters to the Editor, more than a majority of which have been published, and have lost friends because they say I am too excited and worried about the trends I see in our country. I bitch a lot, too.
What do YOU do beside bitch? I have, using my cane, knocked on doors at election time, worked the telephones, delivered signs for people to put in their lawns — all the while watching the “flower” of our youth call us “dispensable” and “behind the times.”
Why don’t you organize a “Dissenters” Club, produce a weekly or monthly paper that keeps a written tally of what the traitors Bush, Cheney and Republicans in general have done to us lately, and deliver them to all the neighborhoods around you? Does rejection bother you? If so, you are worthless. Action is what is wanted.
You waste your time calling for Bush or Cheney’s impeachment. It’s not the Democrat’s fault. There aren’t enough of them to approve an impeachment. Get active. Support Independents and Democrats who will change things.
In other words, DO WHAT YOU CAN! and don’t blame it on us old-timers who have been trying but have failed. There is no disgrace in that. But the way you guys bitch is completely non-constructive. Good luck. And no hard feelings.
Old fart.
Does anyone recall the proud coverage in the press shortly after the U.S. started taking prisoners? They bragged how our people were using creative methods to interrogate the prisoners. Well, what did you think that meant?? We needed information, and they did what was considered necessary at the time. Perhaps this was wrong, but no one complained then.
The ‘creative’ measures were not explained then.
Not good enough Kem. Anyone willing to face reality can guess what “creative measures” means when coercing people to talk. And the CIA has a long documented history of “creative measures” - especially in Central and South America. We also know what the School of the Americas has been up to.
pocketknife, not perhaps it was wrong. It was wrong, and some have complained, but it was the media going along with it, and the majority of the American public wasn’t and isn’t paying attention. It still shocks me that they go on shopping and acting as if people aren’t being killed and mangled by us for their oil.
_ T O R T U R E _ M U S T _ B E _ K N O W N _ O F _
TORTURE isn’t (wasn’t) a secret because that knowledge of torture is part of the gov’t PSYOPS plan to manipulate us, because we continue to think of ourselves as “good” people (which is continually reinforced through propaganda).
Cognitive dissonance is a familiar PSYOPS technique,
1. Good American people are not terrorists.
2. Terrorists break laws that will kill more Americans because they ‘hate our freedoms’.
3. The USA must break with the Geneva Convention and laws that prevent torture to save lives.
4. But since I know I am a good person, my reason why it’s okay to violate anti-torture laws is (insert something absurd).
The fascinating thing about cognitive dissonance is that it’s immune to intelligence. No matter how smart you are, you can’t think your way out of it. Once your actions and your self image get out of sync, the result is an absurd rationalization.
Namaste … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … Mahatma Gandhi … … … … … … … … … …
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Hi BeForKids. You knew, but I’d wadger not one person in a hundred knew a lot of things in 2001 thru 2006 that they know now. I blame that primarily because of the restrictions placed upon investigative reporters and the fact that our media is controlled by the same ones who control everything.
The average American is not aware of Common Dreams or other websites that give us the truth. Personally, until last year, I never dreampt our government would ever allow any type of torture and or allow peope to be imprisoned wiith no charges filed against them, the refusal of a fair trial etc.
What I mean is, terms such as ‘creative measures’ were spoken, but who heard them? Just like today, the news we get on TV and in the newspapers is mostly nothing of real importance.
From Page 21 for Ken Patrick.
Your response to my defense of what I have done actively to make a change whilc confessing to being old: “old fart.” That sort of ignorance is precisely the type of a response I would expect from a mouth spieler who doesn’t know his ass from a hole in the ground, instead of commenting on my suggestions. Good work. You are the Problem, not the old farts.
I apologize, I’m 72 myself and I was joking with you. I totally agreed with all you had posted, except I do know where my ass is beause at times I stuff my head in it.
You’re exactly right, nspire. This whole country is in a state of cognitive dissonance. That was a great post you did.
“The fascinating thing about cognitive dissonance is that it’s immune to intelligence. No matter how smart you are, you can’t think your way out of it. Once your actions and your self image get out of sync, the result is an absurd rationalization.”
I had to repeat that line for emphasis. You put it better than I could have. This country is suffering from a sickness, and it has occurred to me more than once that people don’t want to face what we are doing because they don’t want to admit that our actions contribute to the US lavish lifestyle.
Kem, I began my journey when Lyndon Baines Johnson (remember him?) promised to get out of Vietnam and then started bombing Hanoi instead. It just felt wrong, but I was ignorant and I started searching for information, and was horrified by what I learned. But I had to search for it, it wasn’t lying around for me to just trip over. I was young then, 22 years old and until then, a traditional Democrat. I quit the Democratic party and joined the Peace and Freedom party, even persuading my family, including my aged apolitical grandmother to join (don’t know how I managed that!). Was it only last year that you hard of The School of the Americas (now renamed Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation to avoid bad associations with the former name, but unchanged)?
To Kem Patrick. Now I am the one who feels badly. I blame all the disappointments and illegal activities, secrecy and impeachable behavior that has been our lot with the present government for the criminal acts done to our people, and it just makes me sick. Nevertheless, I apologize to you for taking my anger out on you and ask your forgiveness. When you finally reach my age, maybe you will be as mean as I am, but you have quite a journey before you get there. It is the young men and women I feel sorry for, and so many of them aren’t really aware of what is happening to them. Keep well, and if you would like, keep in touch. Maybe between us we can come up with something sensational.
Nice post, busterkikki. We really are on the same side here. Most of us anyway.
You didn’t write anything to be forgiven for BUSTER, I agreed with you. Sometimes my ‘humor’ isn’t funny to anyone else. __I like you, you are Okay.
No BeForKids, until last year I was one of the sheep. In fact it was primarily your posts here at CD that woke me up. I Thank you too.
Hey,___ have a good week and have fun.
Hey, Kem, the important thing is you woke up. You wouldn’t seriously vote for Hillary would you? and you have a great week too (check out the link I posted on “Big Oil’s Profit and Plunder” by Ralph Nader - my hero).
Nope, I’m writing in Keith Olberman.
BE FOR KIDS — I liked that part a lot as well, about “being immune to intelligence”, so much so that I copied from one those web sites I posted above in that googling URL.
In this environment, of cut/paste/post, I almost always use is my own words, but above I got sloppy to make a stronger point,
I am sorry for the missing attribution, but it wasn’t either mis-direction nor mis-information. Kind of shot myself in the foot of credibility while taking aim at the biggest LIAR ever incorporated