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Bush has always been this way. He always thinks that his words make reality, that they constitute it, that the facts that they rest of us know are simply reality-based (yes, that term is now an insult).

Reminds me of the great Ron Suskind article from 2004 in the NY Times:

faith, certainty and the presidency of george w. bush

an excerpt wrote:
In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''

The path of this administration has been to not only operate outside the law, but to operate outside reality, outside facts, outside the dictionary. They have made faith malevolent ( maybe it always has been? ), by taking a deranged ' instrument of God' ( Bush ) and making a fascist democracy- destroying weapon out of the complete idiot. They took Chauncey Gardener and made him go on a killing spree.

jayryan wrote:i haven't done anything else that i know of. i don't recall going to any CIA-owned flight schools, or being a radical muslim or anything.

wait, no wait, no wait, no shit, I can't decide on an emoticon for this story.

Black helicopters, man, I'm tellin' you.

jayryan wrote:i made two anti-bush posters and ended up on that list, too.

What this points out ( not that it needs to be ) is that either:

Federal employees are operating outside the phony 'tight boundaries' of the Patriot Act to compile dossiers on citizens for their activism.

There is a network of snitches in society who are received with open arms by the government when they call with their pussy rat outs.

Probably both.

A friend of mine said something very insightful that I'll never forget: "If you end up on a watch-list, you know you're doing something right."

clocker bob wrote:They took Chauncey Gardener and made him go on a killing spree.

Yes.

I would totally go see a band that utilized Hostile Intent technology, but I would not go see a band called Hostile Intent because I would expect them to sound like Disturbed.

Homeland Security Developing ‘Hostile Intent’ Technology
April 13, 2007

The United States Department of Homeland Security announced in April that it is developing human factors technology able to screen people at borders for hostile intent. The tool will help screeners identify people who should not be allowed to enter the country,

The novel program, named “Hostile Intent,” is geared towards detecting and gauging physiological and behavioral indications of deception and bad intentions. These include signs of nervousness, such as body head, perspiration and certain facial movements.

??

Some 400 million people cross the US border every year, according to the Department, and most of them have no hostile intent whatsoever. Because it is non-invasive, the technology is expected to be able to screen travelers without slowing down traffic or inconveniencing them

“It’s a game-changer,” says Sharla Rausch, division director for human factors at the at the department’s Science and Technology Directorate, which is developing the program. It “would help us get at the unknown threat without inconveniencing the good guy.”

Source: Department of Homeland Security

Will it work on these guys? They look ready to cap somebody.

Minotaur029 wrote:This sort of stuff used to fill me with rage...I'd point it out to people, and they'd argue with it (badly...but somehow they always just kept hammering away).

It's hard to see the point of pointing out how openly evil the Bush Administration is anymore...I'd say more but just thinking about the insanity makes me flustered right now.

This stuff still fills me with rage. But so do a lot of things. Like most commercials, or people who get on the escalator in front of me and just stand there instead of walking up the thing. But those are really my personal issues that have little bearing on Bush and his crew.

The really frustrating thing is that now, even with the mainstream media turning on Bush (now that it's safe for them to do so with the general concensus running that way) some people are still willing to think what he's doing is okay, is necessary for ensuring national security, and presents reasonable compromises of our civil liberties to ensure that security.

I guess the only explanation is that they're buying into this kind of philosophy being applicable our leaders: "this is what we are, men who take what we need, who should never be seen to have any kind of inhibition." Let them be above the law, the ends justify the means. Though I can't say that even the ends are just.

clocker bob wrote:Quote:
Bush has always been this way. He always thinks that his words make reality, that they constitute it, that the facts that they rest of us know are simply reality-based (yes, that term is now an insult).


Reminds me of the great Ron Suskind article from 2004 in the NY Times:

faith, certainty and the presidency of george w. bush

an excerpt wrote:


In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''


The path of this administration has been to not only operate outside the law, but to operate outside reality, outside facts, outside the dictionary. They have made faith malevolent ( maybe it always has been? ), by taking a deranged ' instrument of God' ( Bush ) and making a fascist democracy- destroying weapon out of the complete idiot. They took Chauncey Gardener and made him go on a killing spree.

Suskind's story reminds me of the time my college roommate and I accidentally rushed a frat and got bids there(In my case it was definitely an accident, they just kept inviting my freshman self to parties with free liquor and I just kept going, having no legal recourse of my own to indulge in drunkenness. My roommate might have been a little intentional, I recently heard that he still appreciates my convincing him not to accept his bid). After going to a few of their parties, to one at a sorority behind there house, having to watch them play volleyball against another frat, and being invited to a potential initiate dinner (that they held on Valentine's Day and I didn't attend because I felt my at-the-time-girlfriend deserved my attention more than a bunch of frat dudes), we turned down their bids. A few days later two of them came by our dorm room and pressured us on our decision a bit, trying to intimidate us into joining their idiot organization. They didn't question or belittle our views on reality or anything, the similarity ends at the use of intimidation tactics to coerce others into seeing things your way and be team players. But I mean, even though Bush was a cheerleader, he was also a frat boy, so it fits.

jayryan wrote:i made two anti-bush posters and ended up on that list, too.

Wow.

Have you checked to see if your brushes have been tapped yet?

jayryan wrote:yes, really.

Fucking hell, Jay!

How long have you been on the list, do you know? As I recall, those posters are a few years old, yeah?