GWBush demo

A few questions for Jo Sharp:

Do you think kittens are cute?

Do you think its good to be nice to old ladies?

Matthew

Also a pointer for Wiltshire Jo, cos I think I know where you're coming from in
that you're mixing up streotype neat answers with confusion ? Please check (it's
on Public record - at last) how many long-term, unbelievably experienced and
therefore irreplacable (in the short term) British Service people resigned and
left ASAP after the Falklands War ? These people voted with their feet, as they
did when they initially joined up, or maybe you have other ideas on the subject
that don't fit into those neat comfortable solutions you seem fond of.

Fritz Von Sunreader˛

Graham Ricketts

If there were any easy answers then we could all just discuss growing daffs or something, but there ain't, so we should all express our personal feelings - pro war - anti-war - without resorting to having a pop at each other......donchathink?

Rasher - feeling very grown up for a moment.

ps. If you feel the need to flame someone, use Domf...everyone else seems to....poor sod.

BTW,

I don't know how it looked over there, but from what I have seen in the news and read in the paper, the Bush trip looks to have gone pretty damned well. From my angle, the protests have been pretty minimal and muted. Certainly MUCH less so than those that took place in the lead-up to and just after the beggining of the war in Iraq.

I suppose it is possible that the news media on this side has decided to mute the reality of the protests over there. But, on second thought I find this unlikely. CNN, ABC, NBC and CBS are not ussually ones to gloss over anti-war protests (maybe Fox and Sky). Even the BBC has been relatively quite.

Is it possible that the visit went over better than expected? Is it possible the the British public is starting to soften?

No insinuations. Real, honest to goodness question.

Judd

Please do not think that the loud mouthed plebs who rant and rave here are typical of the British public. That rabble are the noisey minority who will protest against anything because it makes them feel superior.

The majoritory of us recognise that force was the only way to remove Saddam who would have lied and cheated to remain in power. Force is a last resort and Saddam was given plenty of chances.

You have every reason to be proud of your country and if the protesors don't like it ...then tough.

Regards

Mick

Mick,
talking of loud mouthed plebs who rant and rave to feel superior.
After your fairly recent climb down on the mana forum I was under the impresion that you had decided to keep quiet from now on . I see that it didn't last long, pity!!
Oldie.

I do keep quiet, I don't yell and bawl in the streets, achieving bugger all in the process.

Do you really think gives a tinkers cuss what they think.

Regards

Mick

Mick,
in short, yes, I do think what "they" think matters,its what we call dmocracy,where
people have the right to protest against what "they" and a large number of the British people think is wrong, without being insulted for their beliefs. I also beleive that "they" have already achieved, for want of a better phrase a "greatdeal" . It would be very wrong for the American people to be led to believe that everybody here in Britain is prepared to follow blindly behind the Bush/ Blair partnership.Everybody knows that Saddam was a monster, thats not in question, but if Bush and Blair had not funded, armed and suported him we may not have been in this position.
oldie.

You cannot have your cake and eat it.

Saddam played games with the UN for years and in the meantime thousands of people had no liberty and feared death just for looking in the wrong direction.

If we had not gone in, the same would be happening today.

It was a simple choice, go in and depose him or let him continue. This was one instance where diplomacey had been tried and exhausted.

I think summed it up better than me.

Regards

Mick

Fritz,

I was in the UK Forces during the Falklands War - and I'm still in now......

I was also in Bosnia during the time of the Srebrenica massacre when the Dutch UN force sat on their arses and let the Serbs murder several thousand.

The UN force of which I was a part was not allowed to act - another UN cock up. Very frustrating. So I completely understand that if the UN will not sanction the use of force against immoral murdering regimes, then some nations will have to go it alone. Pity we didn't more often in the past.

Jo

A placard in Sedgewick read:

"A small town somewhere in Texas is missing their village idiot"

Well it made me smile.

Mike

Tom,
I'm not arguing with Mick, I'm to old, wise, tired and to cap it all, I've been there many times before. I have spent most of my life arguing against self important, self opinionated people that are totaly blind to anybody elses point of veiw,and have no idea what is going on around them [ remember the Orville/ pinko elephants episode. I just believe that everybody has the right to protest against what they believe to be injustice, with out being insulted by the likes of Mick, at least they are standing up for their ideals.Again, I reiterate if "we" hadn't given Saddam, the support, arms and cash when it was thought by our "masters" to be politically expedient, tens of thousends if not millions of people may not of died as a result. The West, ie America and Britain has in it's actions in the not so distant past a lot to answer for.But as they say there's non so blind as those who do not wish to see.

oldie.

Bristol was brought to an halt yesterday by hundreds of yobs who wanted a day out causing disruption to other inocent citizens.

The protest achieved nothing and they knew it would achieve nothing so what was the point.

Mick

Sadam's Rack,

I suppose that it's common knowledge that "Sadam Hussein" is a poorly disguised anagram for "His Mana's Used". In contrast, Dubya uses sparkly new Fraim. I hope the implications with re: peace on earth are clear.

BEC

A German friend commented last night amusingly on "Mr President's" lunch menu, doon at pub yesterdee ? in particular "Mushy Peas" because as all you edjewkatid brwvight sparks out there will know that in Germisch "Mushy" is slang for Pussy, Fanny, minge, etc, etc, whatever ? innit.

Fritz:

Piss: Jo, I wasn't being personal as such, and I said I knew where you're coming from for that very reason, Civilians & Service personell have very different views on the World, as I'm sure you're well aware, Cheers.

Graham Ricketts

Mick,
a white stick and labrador is obvious needed or perhaps a place down here in St. Dunstans.
I'm now away for the weekend so I'll have to leave you to work it out for yourself!!

War and Peace (not the original serious version)

Bush is a prat, but presumably not a dictator
He barely won his election
I presume his party has a sensible majority
I presume his party sets the agenda and provides Bush with the script
His delivery style of the script tries to be simple
The key (simple) points that remain in my mind include
I am the President, I can do what I want, and I don't have to answer questions
It is not in America's interest to sign up to the world environment deal, so we won't
It is in my interest to extract more oil from Alaska, so I will
It should be a free world and this means MacDonalds can set up shop anywhere, but nobody can set up shop in the USA if this might upset American interests

Then 9/11 came along

9/11 was not justified under any circumstances whatsoever and its perpetrators and supporters should be hunted down and condemned to the worst fate known to mankind. (This will take a long time and a lot of patience. If tackled properly, it could see Bush and Blair re-elected time and time again.)

Then Saddam decided to buck the system and defy the UN

The situation lacked absolute clarity (as always)
It wasn't helped by the UN, Hans Blix or the French
On balance, I consider it was right to deal with Saddam and his threat to regional instability
On balance, and with hindsight, I still consider this to be the case
It would be better if the French would now grow up and help Iraq to get itself re-established

When time and resources permit we should tackle other hate regimes
Preferably by diplomacy and through the UN, but that seems like wishful thinking these days
Magabee would be first on my list

Claire Short should be put back in charge of world aid and told she has six months to sort out world poverty, pestilence and thereby avoid the need for any further conflict. Or at least shut up.

Cheers

Don

Oh Don,

so clever, so clever

Judd

The Shrub is a total embarassment to many of us in the states. I have to thank Blair and others for standing by us, but even I disagree with his policies. Gore Vidal in a recent interview ended with two questions:
Q Is Bush the worst presedint we'ver ever had?
A Well, nobody has ever wrecked the bill of Rights as he has. Other presedents have dodged around it, but no preident before this one has so put the bill of Rights at risk. No one has proposed preemptive war before. And two countries in a row that have done no harm to us have been bombed.
Q How do you think the current war in Iraq is going to play out?
A I think we will go down the tubes right with it. With each action Bush ever more enrages the Muslims. And there are a billion of them. And sooner or later they will have a Saladin wo will pull them together, and the will come after us. And it won't be pretty.

Well said and i'm glad we have people like Gore that go after the bad guys. Bush has so wrecked our previously good economy and indebted us to such a horrendous debt, even greater than Reagan and his own father. I truly hope the other democratic candidate can beat him in the poles. However it will be an overwhelming sack of problems for that president.

glenn

Life is analogue

Justin
Met police put London protest at 110,000, the organisers claim nearer 200,000. Somewhere in the middle is probably true and as any of these figures make it the biggest weekday demo in London ever, I think it's fair to say that anti-Bush feelings have softened little. I was working up in the City last week and the mood of most people where I was, was anti-Bush and were it not for work commitments, many of them would have joined the demo.

The whole visit was managed so that Bush heard and saw nothing, save a few heavily vetted and briefed "locals" in Durham, subtly clad in Stars & Stripes t-shirts. Nothing in this visit changed minds either way which is irrelevant as it's just an opp to generate some footage for the electoral campaign.

The suggestion that anyone who took part in these demos were yobs is laughable and the reaction of a closeted simpleton. My train home to leafy Hampshire was packed full of people who had been on the march. They were all ages and classes, all of them intelligent and lucid and I spotted not a yob amongst them. Considering the many rights that have been won and deeply unpopular governments and government measures that have been overturned by public protest I think anyone who thinks that demonstrating for something that you believe in is futile is too comfortable by half and deeply pathetic.

BTW my wife is currently over the pond and caught the demos and the toppling of the Bush statue on CBS and ABC. Apparently Fox is so consumed with the real news i.e. Michael Jackson, that they failed to cover the marches. What a surprise?

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

--John Stuart Mill

How many of the multitudes would have also come out against the war in ganistan? How many were against the first gulf war? How many would support ANY war for ANY cause?

Blah.

Judd

Errr, nice post. Are you arguing against yourself now? The Gulf war, Afghanistan etc. drew minor protests in the West, mostly from passivists stating that terror is no antidote to terror; mind you, when you look at what has actually resolved many long-running disputes, there is some truth to this. Apart from Vietnam and Nixon, no other conflict and unpopular president has brought such a huge number and wide range of protesters onto the street. The global populace realises that the reasons given for this attack lay somewhere between hugely suspect and completely bogus. They remember the Bush administration and Blair stating categorically that we were under imminent threat from nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. This was not true and we are now discovering tha

Errr, nice post. Are you arguing against yourself now? The Gulf war, Afghanistan etc. drew minor protests in the West, mostly from pacifists stating that terror is no antidote to terror; mind you, when you look at what has actually resolved many long-running disputes, there is some truth to this. Apart from Vietnam and Nixon, no other conflict and unpopular president has brought such a huge number and wide range of protesters onto the street. The global populace realises that the reasons given for this attack lay somewhere between hugely suspect and completely bogus. They remember the Bush administration and Blair stating categorically that we were under imminent threat from nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. This was not true and we are now discovering that the administration knew this.

Back on thread, whether you or others like it or not, these protests were huge, some of the biggest our country has seen; not yobs but a massive cross-section who having reflected on the facts and sensing that there was much wrong with this attack, the way the aftermath has been handled and this president, decided that they simply had to voice their concerns, rather than sitting on their fat, self-satisfied arses thinking "well my hifi setup seems to be delivering beyond my expectations PRAT and I can drive to the off licence and back, so I guess all is right with the world". Contrary to what you and some of the sad geriatrics think, protest is not, by it’s nature, a bad thing, driven by fanatics and composed of Neanderthals. The welcome ousting of Shevardnadze was brought about as a result of huge protests outside his building. All networks, US and UK reported the protests as a massive uprising; in the region of 100,000 protesters apparently. If the same people were protesting against the visit of Bush, you and your ilk would consider them a small rabble. I wonder if there was some elderly gent in a large car in downtown Tbilisi, castigating the protesters for blocking the roads and calling them yobs.

Finally, I’d be more careful who you quote. Mills was a great advocate of Imperialism and selective intervention where it suited the needs of the Empire. Mills lamented about how good, how noble, how selfless British foreign policy had been, and was, by its very nature. He was aware that the rest of the world failed to appreciate this unalloyed philanthropy and suspected Britain's motives. He maintained that the British couldn’t treat, what he classed as “civilized” and “barbarous” nations, alike, These barbarians may need good government imposed on them from outside. And what of people fighting for freedom against a native despotism? Well, that's tricky, Mill admits; one would have to decide these things on a case by case basis depending on how it fitted with British policy. Witness, Rumsfeld doing deals and drinking tea with Saddam at the end of the last century and then, a couple of years later, claiming that he is the biggest threat to world peace with a cupboard full of WMDs. Human rights abuses and UN resolutions broken in China, Burma, Israel, Saudi etc. and no uniform response from the US. Colin Powell claiming in 2001 that Iraq had no programmes or significant weapons and yet in 2002…..well you know the rest. Notions of liberation and freedom from human rights abuse may be a welcome consequence of any actions taken but don’t delude yourself that any moves are anything other than the right move, at the right time, in the right place for the good of the empire.

Mill's final conclusion was that a nobly-intentioned intervention, with England assumed to be nobly-minded, on moral and libertarian grounds, which presumably England alone might interpret, is justifiable if, on weighing the consequences, it appears likely to be successful and beneficial.

It all sounds eerily familiar and given how much the Bush administration are straining to deny claims of Imperialism and a unilateral interpretation of morality and law, I am glad that you brought this quote from Mills into the fray as it brings the attitude and motives of the administration and perhaps, of people like yourself, into sharp focus.

[This message was edited by bigmick on MONDAY 24 November 2003 at 11:47.]

quote:

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Originally posted by Matthew Robinson:
not being able to give anyone a good "cockshafting" and now you are moaning about your boss doing the exact same to you.

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If you saw my boss (who IS female), well, you'd not want that to be literally either (it isn't - thank GOD). And as for the other, well, that's been taken care of too but least said about that the better...

And no, no-one forces people to go to uni. However, ever been disabled and tried to get a job? No, well until you are, I'd suggest "being forced" to go to uni would be a fairly accurate description for people like me, since the only jobs us "plebs" can get otherwise frankly aren't worth getting out of bed for.

And I'd LOVE to be a hippie believe you me - but what happens when you walk out of a job and then the payment protection on your loans (SLC or otherwise) become null and void? (sorry for the thread hijack - this is actually a serious question???) I mean, if I can be sacked for anything other than gross negligence they'd kick in then - so how do you get sacked without, err, getting sacked??

Anyway - what's wrong with whingeing - I'm British after all!

__________________________
Make your choice, adventurous Stranger;
Strike the bell and bide the danger
Or wonder, till it drives you mad,
What would have followed if you had.