Nightwatch Lives

[colonyearth]

Originally posted by cruiser
The irony is thick when you consider that Nixon modified the welfare program turning it into the monster it became. And a democrat ends it the same year he puts 150,000 more law enforcement officers on the streets with the same act that took away many of our personal rights\protections in interacting with law enforcement officers. "Agents. They are everyone and they are no one."

A democrat signed away our rights and a republican gave away our money.

Interesting adaptation...somehow it lacks for me in this instance, though.

As for the above portion I quoted, I'm not certain which Democrat you are referring to. I know that Clinton put more officers on the streets. But Bush has removed more rights than any President in history with the Patriot Act. What rights were signed away by a Democrat? Especially compared to what the Bush administration has done? And for all Bush's rhetoric of more protection and more money to enforce that protection, I know here and in most other states, funding for law enforcement has had to be cut due to the economic strain placed on states, counties and cities by the cuts in and utter lack of federal funding by Bush and his croonies.

Here in Memphis, the county has now had to cut sheriff's duputies because they can no longer afford them.

If you want a good indication of how Bush and Co. are really doing, talk to your state and local politicians...let them tell you how hard Bush has made their jobs. Look at how much federal funding to federally mandated programs has been cut, leaving states and local governments to suddenly pick up the full tab on programs they're told they have to have.

Ask your boards of education how they're going to pay the bills and they'll tell you they honestly don't know...how are they going to pay for what No Child Left Behind has forced them to pay for when the money simply isn't there? Here, we're about to lay off a lot of our teachers and keep antiquated text books...and that's just a small part of the painful and dramatic cuts we're having to make.

You really wanna know how badly Bush has done? Look at the details, folks...look at the details.

CE

[bakana]

Look at the details, folks...look at the details.

The Devil is in the Details...

[Dr Maturin]

<<But Bush has removed more rights than any President in history with the Patriot Act.>>

Strange...I thought the Patriot Act also involved Congress.

[cruiser]

The dem. I am referring to is indeed Clinton. Police officers no longer have to identify themselves as such even when asked directly. Officers undercover are moving in with, having sex with and doing many other things with suspected dealers, thiefs, excetera. They get the evidence they need one way or the other. At least that's the way it works here in rural Illinois. Many years ago(not a thousand) during a raid on a whorehouse, the undercover agent almost (pardon me) blew the bust because the raiding parties timing was off and took too long to bust in. Both of these incidents are a matter of court record. That difference is terrifying to me. Sex as a weapon. When combined with the Patriot Act...well the scenarios are endless. We do indeed live in interesting times.

As was mentioned, you do have to remember that the Patriot Act was passed by Congress AND signed by Bush. And given a thorough going over by the Supreme Court I do believe.

Our country needs to be rescued. But Kerry isn't the answer. In the end, if his policies reflect the policies of the last 2 democratic administrations, he definitely is not the answer. I don't think Bush is the answer either. The answer lies elsewhere. But we probably wont ever find it. Of the 2 candidates with a chance to win I believe Kerry will be the one victorious. But he still wont get my vote.

I think the system is rotten from stem to stern. Any stalwarts of rightousness get ground down eventually and end up conforming to the corrupt system. It is only the power of the voter, the common voter that can solve this problem. The first well organized and led alternative has a good chance of success. Especially in this information age. Work within the system to change the system. Cut out the cancer so to say. Expel it from the system.

I have heard that Georgia has done well by it's education system. It is financed by their lottery. Atlanta may be an exception as Georgia seems to be the exception nationwide. I don't know.

And as for how well dubbya has done. Well he thinks the economy is just peachy for all us little folk. I take great exception to that. But it was going to go in the toilet no matter who was in office. The stage was already set. With the help of the internet, the stock market bubble inflated to quickly. It was already sputtering when 911 came along and poked a hole in it. The cost of petroleum has a ripple effect in the cost of almost everything. And we all know how much gas costs. It has escalated the stress on the economy. If business is scared to spend money... well let's just call it the Trickle Down Theory in it's true form. Jobs go. Overtime goes. And expenses go up. I saw it in the 70's and this is almost a carbon copy. Except we didn't invade Iran.

To sum up. The world sucks, B5 RULES and any hope we have lies within ourselves.

[Radhil]

Originally posted by bakana
The Devil is in the Details...

Creepy bit is, I've also heard that saying as "God is in the details."

It really is interchangable. *shudder*

[bakana]

The stage was already set. With the help of the internet, the stock market bubble inflated to quickly.

That was thanks to the idiots in Congress (of BOTH Parties) who "Deregulated" the stock market.

The way Dot Com companies were traded and financed was the same type of speculative, fraudulent horse trading that caused the 1929 Crash and helped usher in the Great Depression.
(That wasn't the Only cause, it was just the straw that broke the camel's back in the US.)

Many of the ways Dot Com deals were put together were made Illegal in the 1930s.
In the 1980s, Congress and the SEC decided It Could Never Happen Again and removed a whole slew of financial safeguards.
Nothing like a lot of Corporate Campaign Donations making things more "business friendly" to grease the skids ...

Now, there are people talking about BioTech & NanoTEch as the Next Big Things.
And ready to make the Same Mistakes: Give Billions of dollars to a bunch of Snake Oil Salesmen...

[I love Lyta]

OK, so THIS seems to be the right thread for something I first posted in the B5 forum earlier today.

Am I the only person who thinks "Homeland Security" smells like "Nightwatch"?

When I read this thread's subject and some of the posts herein I think I'm NOT the only one.

[colonyearth]

Originally posted by I love Lyta
OK, so THIS seems to be the right thread for something I first posted in the B5 forum earlier today.

Am I the only person who thinks "Homeland Security" smells like "Nightwatch"?

When I read this thread's subject and some of the posts herein I think I'm NOT the only one.

Homeland Security is mainly a joke at this point. The Patriot Act is sets up actions closer to Nightwatch than HS.

CE

[bakana]

Nightwatch is an Incremental danger.

All such organizations start out looking innocuous.

It's a Stealth approach to totalitarian rule.
First, you invoke Patriotism for some little unimportant thing.
Then, after people stop looking, you take just a Tiny bit more.
And then, a little more.

Then, when someone notices, Attack his Patriotism.
Maybe find some way to smear him.
Definitely Ridicule him.

Then, grab a bit more just to see if the intiidation worked.

If the howling is too loud, claim someone "exceeded" his authority.
But, don't undo the Wrong.

Eventually, little by little, people get Used to the abuses and the news media stop paying attention because it's Old News.

And it you've got 90% of the media controlled by people like Rupert Murdoch, who Agree with the crackdown, you might not hear about any of the abuses.

Until someone knocks on Your door in the middle of the night.

[bakana]

Lets see: What's happening lately...

Link to Act For Change

Just Say "No" to No-Bid Contract for Company Involved in Abu Ghraib Abuse

The images of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, abused and humiliated at the hands of American service men and women, will not soon be forgotten.
However, the Department of Defense seems to have no bounds to its arrogance.
Even as uniformed soldiers were being court martialed for their misconduct at Abu Ghraib, the U.S. Army announced that it had awarded a no-bid contract worth up to $23 million to CACI International Inc., a private contractor that employed an interrogator cited for involvement in the sexual humiliation of Iraqis at the notorious prison.
The purpose of the contract -û to provide private interrogators in Iraq!

Armed Cops Questioning Voters

FDLE Accused Of Intimidating Black Voters

Associated Press

July 17, 2004

ORLANDO -- A voter rights group is accusing state investigators of intimidating elderly black voters while looking into possible ballot fraud in the disputed Orlando mayor's race.

Buddy Dyer's re-election on March 9 has been dogged by accusations of fraud.

The Voter Protection Coalition said Florida Department of Law Enforcement agents, while contacting people whose absentee ballots are under question, revealed their sidearms, spokeswoman Alma Gonzalez said Friday.

"You can't do that to old black people who fought hard for the right to vote and, in fact, have seen law enforcement utilized in this kind of intimidating and harassing way through the Civil Rights movement," Gonzalez said.

[bakana]

Not so Free Speech

CAGING FREE SPEECH

Attention Americans. You have the right to free speech. You have the right to assemble. You have the right to protest. To exercise any or all of these rights, please report to the officially-designated "protest pen," conveniently provided by the authorities.

Holy Thomas Paine! Holy Sam Adams! What would the rebels of 1776 say about the autocratic, anti-democratic move by today's Powers That Be to force dissenters into fenced-off, out-of-the-way cages if they want to express any disagreements with government and corporate policies? The founders fought a revolution so that all of America could be open to free speech, not just a few square yards that they imperiously now dub, "Free Speech Zones."

George W is the one who pioneered this insult to democracy back when he was governor of Texas, but it's now standard police procedure to shove American protesters out of sight and out of mind. I saw it at the Democratic party's recent convention in Boston ûû a town that, ironically, considers itself the birthplace of liberty.

Everyone from anti-war activists to anti-choice demonstrators were to be shunted into a narrow, dank half-block strip of asphalt under an abandoned elevated train track. Enmeshed in cyclone fencing topped with razor wire, and enclosed with concrete bunkers, this dismal space was not within shouting distance of the convention. A federal judge described the protest zone as "an internment camp," and called it "an affront to the idea of free expression." Yet, incredibly, he refused to outlaw it.

Further down in that same column is something that isn't Nightwatch, but is just as despicable.

FLEECING AMERICA'S SOLDIERS

It's been said that you don't know what hell is until you've had an insurance salesman in your living room, prattling on eternally about term life annuities.

But I've recently learned about a deeper level of hell reserved for insurance company hucksters who -- get this -- are ripping off America's young soldiers who are headed into the dread of the Iraqi war.
Companies such as American Amicable Life Insurance have weaseled their way to our basic-training bases, where they pose as semi-official military agents.
Then gather boot-camp grunts into so-called ôclassesö where the unscrupulous agents proceed to pick the pockets of underpaid soldiers.

The fleecing is presented by the insurance companies and the military as a compulsory "briefing" on personal finances.
With superior officers in the room, the agents talk of "investments" and walk the unsuspecting troops through pages of paperwork, getting them to sign blind authorizations to deduct money from their meager monthly paychecks.

The briefings don't mention that the 19- and 20-year-old soldiers are not really buying investments, but life insurance.
Nor is it pointed out that they will pay far more in costly premiums than they'll ever draw out.
Also, the insurance is unnecessary, since nearly every soldier is covered by a low-cost military policy that pays 10 times what these private scams do.

It's bad enough that our young men and women are thrust into a war of lies in Iraq, but it's a moral abomination that insurance gougers are allowed to prey on them at home.
Yet, not only does the Pentagon turn a blind eye to this sleazy scam, but so does Congress: the lobbying front for the companies, the American Council of Life Insurers, has used its campaign donations to get lawmakers to block any effort to stop the corporate thievery.

These companies, lobbyists, congress critters, and military officials are participating in crass war profiteering -- and they deserve a special place in hell.

"Insurers Rely on Congress to Keep Access to G.I.'s," The New York Times, July 21, 2004.

"Fleecing American Soldiers," The New York Times, July 21, 2004.

"Going Off to War, Vulnerable to the Pitches of Salesmen," The New York Times, July 21, 2004.

[Shadow-Sentient]

I have been an Independent since halfway through the Clinton Administration. I began voting for Nader because the Democrats and the Republicans to me, seemed very much the same animal.

The comparison of the Night Watch & the "Ministry of Peace" which strikes a similar chord to words that mean the opposite of what they are called in the Bush camp, is frightening and something that should not be ignored. Especially by people who are intelligent enough to see past political party lines and look into the heart of the issues.

There are many reasons that I have decided to cast a vote for Kerry this election. But the most poigniant are the following:

1. Bush's failure to capture Bin Laden.
The President had my full support after 9/11. Party lines did not mean a thing to me. At that moment the only definition I had for myself was "American". He promised to get those responsible for the worst terrorist attack on our country ever. He, to date, has failed to capture a man who is on dialysis and instead diverted us into a war that is a continuation of a war that was left unfinished when his father was in office due to 'unpopularity in the polls.'
Many people ignore the previous war and make no connection to the new one because of the clever sophistry of people like Karl Rove and the many faces of the Adminstration who said the right words to make a connection between Al Queida and Iraq that didn't exist ... seem like it did. Yet, after all of this time, Bin Laden's name is scarcely mentioned and the administration is relying on the short-term memory of American citizens to keep it that way.

2. Lies about Weapons of Mass destruction.
The repurcussions of my next statement are unavoidable but I have no remorse in saying this: Anyone who still believes in the WMD B.S. reason for war, is fooling themselves. If at this point, the realization that it was a not-so-cleverly concocted justification for war isn't apparent to you, then you are being ignorant without being charming. Furthermore, the tertiary arguments were just as weak:

a. They are torturing people over there:
Yeah and they are torturing people in China, Korea, SAUDI ARABIA, Vietnam, and many other parts of the world. But the torture they were talking about and the "gassing of the Kurds" happened when Bush Sr. was in office. To quote Bill Maher "He was so upset about it, he almost interupted his golf game."

b. We know where the weapons are:
Um ... yeah ... that's why we found them ... and why the Adminstration later made many contradictory statements as to their existence or non-existence or their "supposed" existence.

c. They are moving the weapons around and blocking the inspectors from finding them ...
again what's this based on? Hans Blix felt taht he was moving along fine.

d. Saddam Hussein has been building his army and outfitting them with chemical and biological weapons.
Sorry but this is BS too. Iraq, long devastated by our last field trip, was still recovering poorly especially under the guise of economic sanctions that served to cripple their economy.
Their potential to create Weapons of Mass Destruction was vastly over-estimated.

3. Prolonged "War Without End"
Our soldiers/Troops who I very much support are still in Iraq. There is no exit strategy. We are trying to force Democracy on a people who don't want it. How can Democracy come about under force?????????? People have to want Democracy. The British didn't make us a Democracy ... We wanted Democracy and WE FOUGHT FOR IT.
I won't even get into attacking a sovereign nation for the first time in our history without provocation but as a "pre-emptive" strike ... I'm sure you can come to your own conclusions on that one. Furthermore, we have managed to piss off the entire world community with regard to our nation. Wasn't everyone on board with us after 9/11? How come they saw through the BS and we didn't?

4. "You're With Us or Against Us"
Statements like this that are riddled with fallacious reason abound in this administration. The dilemma of 'false alternatives' a. or b.
Coke or Pepsi.
Democrat or Republican.
You always have a choice Londo.
Nothing incenses me more than being told that because I don't agree with the President, that I don't support our troops or that I am a traitor to this Country. And I HAVE been called that by 'fellow citizens' for voicing my oppostion.
I support the San Francisco 49ers ... but could care less about their Manager. I support our troops but could give two figs about the President.

5. Wanton Disregard for OUR Nation:
Without getting into intricate detail, if you take the magnifying glass off of the war in Iraq and point it this way:

a. Under this President more legislation to protect our environment has been overturned opening wildlife refuges, forests, and sanctuaries to oil drilling than during any other Administration. If the reason behind this isn't apparent then you aren't paying attention to Bush & Cheney's backgrounds. Let alone, Mercury in the drinking water, clear skies that aren't, relaxed emissions controls for big business, ad nauseum.

b. More freedoms have been removed by this President through bills drafted by Republicans and endorsed by both parties for fear of looking unPatriotic in NOT going along with them. the President then SIGNED THESE BILLS INTO LAW ... don't forget that is he was so good, he still has the power of VETO.

c. Many Children left behind. 'nuff said.

d. Direct attack on the farming industry especially farms owned by African Americans who had Administration supported lawyers dogging them at the ratio of five lawyers to every farm!

e. A record deficit that paints this President as the least fiscally conservative Republican we've ever had in office. Then a tax break to the wealthiest Americans during WAR TIME. UNprecedented and fically reckless.

f. An employment record that harkens back to Hoover and the Great Depression (though admittedly the post earlier about the Dot com bubble has some merit.)

g. A criminal history of drug abuse and drunk driving, reckless irresponsibility up to being AWOL for his post duties while in the National Guard.

In my opinion he is AWOL from the Presidency and things are spinning out of control

Why Kerry? Well, he's not Bush for one. He can win. He served in Vietnam and won several medals. Regardless of swift boat smear tactics ... show me one medal Bush won except maybe a medal of shame for his cowardice ... then there was that honor student award he got ... oh no ... that's right he went to Harvard despite being a C student.

Kerry tolerates Free Speech. Recently Bush supporters arrived at one of his speeches carrying banners and chanting chanting "Viva Bush!". He admonished the crowd to tolerate them and allow them to publicly demonstrate as "WAS THEIR RIGHT"

On the other hand ... here is how the Bush administration handles dissenting voices anywhere near their speeches:

Loyalty Pledges

There is no way on God's green earth I would vote for GWB. Kerry is just a better man.

[nanorc]

Ugly long face for prez? Hes a bonified flip flopper.

From 'nam to the Iraqui War, he can't make up his mind! Is this the kind of guy we want making major policy decisions?????

[Dr Maturin]

Wow, Shadow-Sensient and nanorc, both of you have displayed immense skill...

...at showing you know how to use some talking points.

Independent indeed.

Have I ever said how I like liberals more than independents? At least liberals admit what they are. There is nothing worse than a fence-straddler, a mugwump.

I think the deciding factor in this election is how energized the two parties are for their respective candidate. And here in "Berlin" (liberal city in conservative section of liberal state) the bumper sticker count I have been doing since March is 15-3 in favor of Bush. Far from scientific, I know, but highly indicative of the feelings (or lack thereof) that Democrats have for Senator Kerry.

EDIT: Quotes to Berlin.

[nanorc]

(A mugwump!? Did he just call me a mugwump!?)

My, Zebra Defecater, I must commend you for parading your petulant, discriminating, contradictory viewpoints in full view of the public.

A mugwump am I? What, pray tell, do you base this on? Nowhere in my last post do I state my political affiliation, be it conservative, independent or otherwise. Nor would I consider myself to be a lesser person if I did fit into a category you didn't particularly like.

I admit, none of the arguments I presented could be described as original or well thought out. Nor were they meant to be. But the next time someone as derogatory and simple minded as yourself condemns a ''lesser'' PoV, at least have the decency to do better than drawing conclusions from bumperstickers.

::insert canned laughter here::