From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V12 #55 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Sunday, February 16 2003 Volume 12 : Number 055 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: media hysteria ["matt sewell" ] Ya govor'yu Te Reo Maori ochen plokho [grutness@surf4nix.com (James Digna] Re: Ya govor'yu Te Reo Maori ochen plokho [Christopher Gross ] I also wish that I was just paranoid [Barbara Soutar ] Re: apropos of nothing ["Michael E. Kupietz, wearing a pointy hat" ] Re: apropos of nothing [Capuchin ] Re: I also wish that I was just paranoid ["Stewart C. Russell" ] gnatmaniax:Valentine's Day with Interpol ["Natalie Jane" ] RE: apropos of nothing ["Brian Huddell" ] Re: apropos of nothing [Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 15 Feb 2003 10:24:53 +0000 From: "matt sewell" Subject: Re: media hysteria Bloody hell, Ross You had to mention them shoelaces, didn't you? I'd managed to blank the image from my mind, but now I'll spend all day worrying about what the hell is happening to the world...! A yard long, you say? Oh god... Matt >From: rosso@videotron.ca >Never mind that; it's just talk. Don't you folks care about yard- >long shoelaces? A freakin' yard long, I'm not kidding you! This >guy's gonna die of shoelace entanglement. > >You Yanks are so self-absorbed. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Overloaded with spam? With MSN 8 you can filter it out ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 15 Feb 2003 11:38:04 +1300 From: grutness@surf4nix.com (James Dignan) Subject: Ya govor'yu Te Reo Maori ochen plokho >> nah. That would be: "Parizh ne nyebesni, Amstyerdam ne nyebesni, Kyohl'n ne >> nyebesni. Nyebo, eto Tikhii Okeanh - i kogda Robyn Hitchcock >> navesashchataet k Novoi Zelandiye?" Very similar. > >in russian, 'rangi' means ranks, 'korono' means crown, 'kiwa' means >swarming and 'te' means those. just the first words i recognized because >of their russian counterparts. fair enough - didn't know rangi or kiwa were Russian words (Heaven or sky, and dark or sad respectively in Maori). I'm afraid it's an automatic assumption in this part of the world that high numbers of vowels and a limited set of consonants will mean a Pacific Basin language (be it Japanese, Maori, Hawaiian, or Indonesian). With Russian and other Slavic languages I look out for Ks, Vs, and Zs. James James Dignan, Dunedin, New Zealand. =-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= .-=-.-=-.-=-.- .-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-. -.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-= You talk to me as if from a distance =-.-=-. And I reply with impressions chosen from another time -=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=-.-=- (Brian Eno - "By this River") ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 15 Feb 2003 07:37:36 -0500 (EST) From: Christopher Gross Subject: Re: Ya govor'yu Te Reo Maori ochen plokho > >in russian, 'rangi' means ranks, 'korono' means crown, 'kiwa' means > >swarming and 'te' means those. just the first words i recognized because > >of their russian counterparts. > > fair enough - didn't know rangi or kiwa were Russian words (Heaven or sky, > and dark or sad respectively in Maori). If I may quibble (again), "kiwa" is not a Russia word, and in fact the letter W doesn't exist in Russian. I suspect someone is thinking of the verb kishet', to be swarming with, or a derivative; the Russian letter SH looks kind of like our W. Also, ochen' has a soft sign and govoryu does not. (Okay, I admit I had to look kishet' up. What Russian I remember is more on the "Seichas idyot snyeg" level.) Mnye nravitsya Robin Gichkok, Chris ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 15 Feb 2003 10:48:54 -0700 From: "Marc Holden" Subject: London Hey there-- Back in November, British Airways ran a fare special to London. My mother didn't want to travel alone, so for Christmas, she gave me a ticket to go along with her. I went home and started checking the internet for concerts in the London area--I always check these things, usually before purchasing a ticket, to maximize the chance of catching a good show. In the past, I've made it to Live-Aid (Wembley), Knebworth '90, and Pink Floyd in Bordeaux ('94). Anyway, hoping to catch a Soft Boys show, I checked the Hitchcock Museum and found out that while we were going to miss those shows, we would be in town for Robyn's 50th birthday party. I bought tickets right away and got some really nice seats (4th row). Since my mother took me to my first couple of concerts, a LONG time ago, I thought I'd repay her with her first Hitchcock show. Are there any other shows (anyone, not just Hitchcock related) that I should be aware of in the London area in the days before and after this show? I'm going to miss the Residents by just a few days. I'm posting this to the Fegmaniax group, Vegetablefriends, and the RobynHitchcockClub, so maybe we can have a multi-group link up before the show. What's in the works so far? As if this wasn't enough, a couple of weeks ago, Robyn announced solo shows in Phoenix, AZ and Hollywood. He hadn't played here in my area for nearly 10 years, and so I was extremely surprised to find that he'd be here for a one-off show with very little advanced notice. I called my friend Kimber who owns Stinkweeds Records to let her know about it, since she has helped keep an eye open for cool Hitchcock/Soft Boys items. She asked if I thought Robyn might do an in-store appearance at her place. I helped her get some information, and things worked out very well. A friend of mine put the handbill for the in-store together, and I printed them up. When I was dropping the handbills off, Kimber was on the phone with Robyn. The in-store had been moved from 3 pm to 2:30 pm., so we had to correct the handbills that had been printed so far. I'll be forgoing my usual California/Hitchcock trip this time, getting in some extra work hours before my London trip (being self-employed, I have flexible work hours but no vacation benefits). I'm still in a bit of a state of disbelief over how things have gone together on all this. Maybe I'll see you at a show, Marc I think the mistake a lot of us make is thinking the state-appointed psychiatrist is our "friend." Jack Handey ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 15 Feb 2003 11:36:19 -0800 From: Barbara Soutar Subject: I also wish that I was just paranoid Hi, Reading all this talk about war mongering, I thought I'd share something with you all. This happened about 10 years ago, around 1994. I was watching TV with my little daughter in the afternoon and it happened to be on an American station coming from Seattle. Since it was an American holiday of some kind (maybe Thanksgiving?) there was an "Out of School Special". I noted that it was funded by a government agency, forget which one but I wish I had paid more attention. It turned out to be virulent anti-Arab propaganda in cartoon form. I remember it was around the end of Ronald Reagan's term of office, and I felt it was his final offering to the nation. They showed two cartoons. One was Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, and the other was Alladin and His Magic Lamp. This choice baffled me, as Disney had just come out with their Alladin movie which I had seen. Both cartoons were packed with disgusting caricatures of arabs, either downright evil or just unshaven and leering. In contrast, the Disney movie had only one evil arab and he was the Visier, the villian. I wondered, why is the American government promoting an anti-arab stance to this generation of children? Could it have something to do with the oil? Now I'm having all my premonitions come true. I should add that I was already wary. My husband used to work as a technician in Solar Energy research. His whole department at the National Research Council in Ottawa was cancelled in 1984 (scary year) when a right-wing government was elected here in Canada. I believe wind energy research was also cancelled. We both agreed that it looked like the oil industry was to blame for crushing the alternate energy research divisions. I have since been looking out for evidence along these lines, being a suspicious sort. And this leads to the wish that I was just paranoid. Oh, on a musical note: I'm onto Nick Drake because of Robyn's reference to him in a song. I've downloaded lots of beautiful songs on KaZaA. That's what I like about this list, one thing leads to another. Barbara Soutar Victoria, B.C. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 15 Feb 2003 14:57:19 -0800 From: Tom Clark Subject: Re: I also wish that I was just paranoid On 2/15/03 11:36 AM, "Barbara Soutar" wrote: > We both agreed that it looked like > the oil industry was to blame for crushing the alternate energy research > divisions. I have since been looking out for evidence along these lines, > being a suspicious sort. And this leads to the wish that I was just > paranoid. > Some would dismiss this as unfounded conspiracy theory, most everyone else accepts it as fact. I fall into the latter category. But one must wonder, if these oil company execs are so savvy, why haven't they taken over the alternative energy sectors as well? You'd think Shell and Exxon-Mobil would have the photo-voltaic market cornered by now... > Oh, on a musical note: I'm onto Nick Drake because of Robyn's reference > to him in a song. I've downloaded lots of beautiful songs on KaZaA. > That's what I like about this list, one thing leads to another. Just bite the bullet and buy the "Fruit Tree" box set. It'll become a family heirloom. - -tc ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 15 Feb 2003 15:12:21 -0800 From: "Michael E. Kupietz, wearing a pointy hat" Subject: Re: apropos of nothing At 10:48 PM -0600 2/13/03, those funny voices I hear when no one else is around called themselves "Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey" and whispered:>In other homeland insecurity news, this article may explain a few things: >http://tinyurl.com/5qkz The second picture in that article made my day. - -- ======== We need love, expression, and truth. We must not allow ourselves to believe that we can fill the round hole of our spirit with the square peg of objective rationale. - Paul Eppinger At non effugies meos iambos - Gaius Valerius Catallus ("...but you won't get away from my poems.") "Moderation in all things, except Wild Turkey." - Evel Knievel ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 15 Feb 2003 18:14:57 -0500 From: rosso@videotron.ca Subject: Re: media hysteria On 15 Feb 2003 at 10:24, matt sewell wrote: > Bloody hell, Ross I can see you're a sensitive guy, Matt. I won't burden you with what I know about pants since last week. ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 15 Feb 2003 15:19:52 -0800 From: Tom Clark Subject: Re: I also wish that I was just paranoid On 2/15/03 2:57 PM, some asshole called "Tom Clark" wrote: > You'd think Shell and Exxon-Mobil would > have the photo-voltaic market cornered by now... Well, as a matter of fact I was just now doing some research into pv solar panels and I learned that Shell is actually a major player in this technology. I guess some of these companies are looking to the future after all. - -tc ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 15 Feb 2003 16:38:14 -0800 (PST) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: apropos of nothing I keep walking away from my feglist emails only to discover them a day later half-written and unsent... On Fri, 14 Feb 2003, Christopher Gross wrote: > On Thu, 13 Feb 2003, Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey wrote: > > > "Among other things, this body would launch secret operations aimed at > > 'stimulating reactions' among terrorists and states possessing weapons of > > mass destruction - that is, for instance, prodding terrorist cells into > > action and exposing themselves to 'quick-response' attacks by U.S. forces." > > If I can quibble, this doesn't mean that US forces would "stage" a > terrorist attack, as you said earlier (or at least as some of us thought > you meant). Rather it means that they would try to provoke real > terrorists, ones who would attack us anyway, into acting now, so that > the US forces could find and attack them. Well, setting the stage is kind of "staging". It certainly means that he would work to expediate the killing of innocent people and work to force merely angry, frustrated people into becoming violent criminals to satisfy his sense of justice. Provoking an attack absolutely does NOT mean that the attack would have happened eventually otherwise. It's like going into a bar and acting like a dick until someone punches you and then having that guy arrested for assault. And a "pre-emptive strike" is just going into a bar and hitting the biggest guy you see as hard and fast as possible because he's clearly a threat. > This would, of course, put Americans at risk, but apparently the > planners figured the risk of that is less than the risk of letting the > terrorists attack in their own good time. It's better for PR and budget if they provoke the attack because they know WHO is being provoked and actually have some idea of who might have carried off the attack. Then they can do some raids and kill some people and look like they're doing some good (when, in fact, both acts are evil and both the direct result of the Pentagon's actions). > Bad idea, perhaps, but still very different from Rumsfeld saying that we > should launch our own fake terrorist attacks against ourselves. Perhaps? You won't concede that it IS a bad idea? By the way, McNamara had absolutely no problem with the idea of launching attacks against Americans in order to provoke pro-war sentiment in the United States back when he was Secretary of Defense. Declassified documents show his signature on many contingency plans that included destroying cruise liners and such full of Americans in order to justify an invasion of Cuba. There is, at least, precedent. > Of course now there's no need for special ops spooks to provoke > terrorist attacks; the war in Iraq will do that quite nicely.... War is a "special op". And "spooks" are just army drones who KNOW they're doing evil. > So even if we just stick to the policies that Rumsfeld *really* > advocates, he still comes out pretty badly. Are you implying that Rumsfeld doesn't *really* advocate killing Americans to carry his agenda forward? Perhaps you mean to use the word *openly*. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 15 Feb 2003 20:11:55 -0500 From: "Stewart C. Russell" Subject: Re: I also wish that I was just paranoid Tom Clark wrote: > > I learned that Shell is actually a major player in this > technology. BP, too. ISTR that both of these companies bought-in their solar divisions. > I guess some of these companies are looking to the future after > all. or want to control the roll-out of renewable technologies to suit themselves. Glad to see other companies in the industry, too: Sharp, Kyocera, etc. All such wondrous conspiracies are discussed in Home Power, , probably my favourite magazine ever. Stewart (who, along with 80-100,000 other people today, got cold on a peace march in Toronto. Hey, it got up to -60C, which felt warm.) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 15 Feb 2003 21:04:00 -0500 (EST) From: Christopher Gross Subject: Re: I also wish that I was just paranoid On Sat, 15 Feb 2003, Barbara Soutar wrote: > Reading all this talk about war mongering, I thought I'd share something > with you all. This happened about 10 years ago, around 1994. I was > watching TV with my little daughter in the afternoon and it happened to > be on an American station coming from Seattle. Since it was an American > holiday of some kind (maybe Thanksgiving?) there was an "Out of School > Special". I noted that it was funded by a government agency, forget > which one but I wish I had paid more attention. It turned out to be > virulent anti-Arab propaganda in cartoon form. I remember it was around > the end of Ronald Reagan's term of office, and I felt it was his final > offering to the nation. If I can engage in petty quibbling for the third time in two days ... Ronald Reagan returned to private life on 20 January 1989. In 1994 we had already endured a term of Bush Sr. and were well into the Clinton era. Are you sure this show was funded by "a government agency"? This would be very unusual in the US. Although PBS is partially funded by the feds, otherwise the government generally stays out of the TV biz. (We red-blooded Americans can't have socialized TV any more than socialized medicine!) Could it possibly have been sponsored by some private body with a vaguely governmental-sounding name, like the National Committee for Ethnic Stereotyping? > They showed two cartoons. One was Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, and > the other was Alladin and His Magic Lamp. This choice baffled me, as > Disney had just come out with their Alladin movie which I had seen. I wonder if these could have been old "classic" cartoons. I've heard that a lot of viciously racist cartoons were made by the Looney Toons people and their contemporaries back in the '40s, only to be quietly retired from syndication in the '60s. Did Bugs Bunny or Daffy Duck appear at any point? Just curious.... - --Chris ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 15 Feb 2003 22:00:46 -0500 (EST) From: Christopher Gross Subject: Re: apropos of nothing On Sat, 15 Feb 2003, Capuchin wrote: Oh, great. > > If I can quibble, this doesn't mean that US forces would "stage" a > > terrorist attack, as you said earlier (or at least as some of us thought > > you meant). Rather it means that they would try to provoke real > > terrorists, ones who would attack us anyway, into acting now, so that > > the US forces could find and attack them. > > Well, setting the stage is kind of "staging". Yeah, kind of, but that's not the way the term "staging" was being used in this thread up til now. If you look at the earlier posts in this thread and read them as the average person would understand them, instead of playing with semantics, you will see that the posters were clearly thinking of fake terrorist attacks, carried out by the US government against Americans and then blamed on foreign terrorists. I was just pointing out that this is NOT the plan that the LA Times article talked about. The real plan discussed might also be considered "staging" a terrorist attack, but only in a very different sense of the word staging. > It certainly means that he > would work to expediate the killing of innocent people and work to force > merely angry, frustrated people into becoming violent criminals to satisfy > his sense of justice. Now this is sheer speculation with the word "certainly" tacked on to make it look like proven fact. How do you know that Rummy's motive was the above, and not, say, the desire to better fight real terrorist groups that really plan to attack Americans? > Provoking an attack absolutely does NOT mean that the attack would have > happened eventually otherwise. Doesn't mean it wouldn't have, either. We can't judge one way or the other until we know more about the suspected terrorists being provoked. (Unless we make the a priori assumption that there are no terrorists anywhere who would attack Americans without Rummy's agents-provacateurs prodding them into action. I submit that that would be a dubious assumption.) > > Bad idea, perhaps, but still very different from Rumsfeld saying that we > > should launch our own fake terrorist attacks against ourselves. > > Perhaps? You won't concede that it IS a bad idea? Sorry. I hereby withdraw the word "perhaps." Okay? > By the way, McNamara had absolutely no problem with the idea of launching > attacks against Americans in order to provoke pro-war sentiment in the > United States back when he was Secretary of Defense. Declassified > documents show his signature on many contingency plans that included > destroying cruise liners and such full of Americans in order to justify an > invasion of Cuba. > > There is, at least, precedent. Well, there's also precedent for terrorist groups killing people on their own initiative, without the Pentagon masterminding the whole thing; but I guess some precedents are meaningful and others aren't.... BTW, we should remember that this whole thing is just one idea that Rumsfeld's study tossed out, and that it has not apparently been implemented (just as McNamara's above-mentioned contingency plans were never carried out). Nor does the article tell us exactly what "stimulating reactions" among terrorists and rogue states would entail. we're *assuming* that Rumsfeld would be willing to risk having a terrorist attack succeed in killing Americans, but even that is just an assumption. They could well have planned to only provoke reactions that they knew they could stop before they reached the killing stage. We just don't know. So why are we assuming the worst? There are plenty of policies Rumsfeld is *definitely* pushing that are worth opposing; but that doesn't mean he's automatically guilty of the worst possible interpretation we can read or twist into every word his office puts out. > > Of course now there's no need for special ops spooks to provoke > > terrorist attacks; the war in Iraq will do that quite nicely.... > > War is a "special op". And "spooks" are just army drones who KNOW they're > doing evil. More fun word games, this time without even addressing the substance of my post. And in the sentence where I remind you that I oppose the war in Iraq, yet. > > So even if we just stick to the policies that Rumsfeld *really* > > advocates, he still comes out pretty badly. > > Are you implying that Rumsfeld doesn't *really* advocate killing Americans > to carry his agenda forward? Are you implying that it's an established, verifiable fact that he does? If so, how did you establish this fact? As they used to say on exams, please show all your work.... - --Chris np: Bongwater, "Nick Cave Dolls" ______________________________________________________________________ Christopher Gross On the Internet, nobody knows I'm a dog. chrisg@gwu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 15 Feb 2003 19:19:54 -0800 From: "Natalie Jane" Subject: gnatmaniax:Valentine's Day with Interpol I know some of y'all like these smartly-dressed New Yorkers, so here is a review for you. Before the show, there was an autograph session at a nearby record store. I expected a lot of people but there weren't that many, and it was all pretty low-key. The ubiquitous Portland scenester DJ Gregarious played XTC and Television, which pleased me. I had made tinfoil satyrs (in honor of Valentine's Day) for the band, who were just as well-dressed as I expected them to be, in dark pinstripe suits and ties, except for the lead singer, Paul Banks, who wore a short-sleeve sweater over a button-down shirt. Paul Banks, I may add, is an incredibly beautiful young man, blond and fey with big blue eyes, and the others weren't too bad-looking, either, even Carlos De, the bassist with the silly comb-over. I distributed the satyrs to them - - the guitarist said they were "amazing" - and then I said to Carlos, "You don't get one." He pouted cutely, so I gave him one. I wondered aloud why they didn't have a white-out pen to sign their mostly-black album cover, and the drummer said dryly, "They probably think we don't like white." A girl took a picture of Carlos playing with his satyr - I asked for a copy and she said snottily, "It's not my camera." Whatever. Anyway, they were a very nice bunch of guys. The girl after me asked if they got groupies and the drummer said, "Groupies? What's that?" If they don't get groupies now, I'm sure they will soon. Berbati's Pan was sold out, so the place was totally packed. We arrived in the middle of the opening band, Calla, who were OK - sort of dark broody stuff that reminded me of the Cure. During their set, I went to the bathroom and another girl assisted me in sticking a paper towel over the little advertising Orwellian video screen by the stalls. Then I pushed my way through the crowd to a position where I could at least see Paul Banks (if no-one else). The band came on - still smartly-dressed, I may add - along with a keyboard player who was off in the shadows to the far right. The guitarist, surprisingly, was playing a Rickenbacker, a guitar I usually associate with Beatlesque jangle. Paul alternately clung to the microphone, Ian Curtis style, and played his Les Paul. It was bizarre to witness that scary deep voice coming out of his pretty face - almost like watching a ventriloquist's act. I entertained the idea that he was lip-synching, but straining tendons in his throat told me otherwise. I couldn't see much of the rest of the band, just an occasional glimpse of the drummer pounding out his complex rhythms, and Carlos's bad haircut. The band basically sounded exactly like they do on the record, except louder and more intense, and played most of the songs from the record along with a couple of new ones, which were really good. I did my best to dance in the crowd. Paul mumbled into the microphone a few times between songs but I couldn't really understand what he was saying. One high point was when a disco ball lit up during "NYC" and I could see a distinct "What the fuck??" look on Paul's face. The last song was for Valentine's Day, presumably - the one that goes "Love is in the kitchen with a culinary eye." Good stuff. I have to say that, unlike certain of their NYC peers, these guys definitely deserve at least some of the hype they've been getting - they may not be too original, but they write great songs and deliver them with power and intensity. And, of course, they are very, very smartly dressed. Go Interpol! Incidentally, I'm not going to go into how fucking awful the crowd was - noisy, rude, and generally stupid. I will say that the next person who blocks my view of Paul Banks by repeatedly raising his fist in a salute, will wake one morning with all his internal organs turned to tinfoil. My last impression of the crowd, as I left with relief, was a guy clinging to a pillar and puking into his beer cup. Bleah. n. (still not re-subscribed) _________________________________________________________________ Protect your PC - get McAfee.com VirusScan Online http://clinic.mcafee.com/clinic/ibuy/campaign.asp?cid=3963 ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 15 Feb 2003 19:27:15 -0800 From: Eb Subject: Re: gnatmaniax:Valentine's Day with Interpol >n. (still not re-subscribed) Just call her NYAAHatlie. ;) Eb ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 15 Feb 2003 21:47:50 -0600 From: "Brian Huddell" Subject: RE: apropos of nothing Chris, why in the world are you even bothering to create a "better light" in which to cast this possible strategy of Rumsfeld's? Let's grant all of your more favorable interpretations. Let's just assume that he would absolutely oppose any measures that would provoke a response that proves harmful to US citizens. Let's further assume that, in your words, "they could well have planned to only provoke reactions that they knew they could stop before they reached the killing stage." Does anyone really believe that such a fantasy is attainable? We can't even predict the long-term effects of the actions of our *own* military, let alone those of a rogue state or terrorist entity. Is it that hard to grant that any strategy designed to *provoke* attacks, on *anyone*, is sick, impossible to control, and unsupportable? +brian in New Orleans ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 16 Feb 2003 01:30:27 -0600 From: Jeffrey with 2 Fs Jeffrey Subject: Re: apropos of nothing Quoting Christopher Gross : > Yeah, kind of, but that's not the way the term "staging" was being used > in > this thread up til now. If you look at the earlier posts in this thread > and read them as the average person would understand them, instead of > playing with semantics, you will see that the posters were clearly > thinking of fake terrorist attacks, carried out by the US government > against Americans and then blamed on foreign terrorists. I was just > pointing out that this is NOT the plan that the LA Times article talked > about. The real plan discussed might also be considered "staging" a > terrorist attack, but only in a very different sense of the word > staging. I think the "posters" were only you and I, and I clarified to you, in a private e-mail, that I'd misremembered the specifics of Rumsfeld's policy. However, what exactly is "fake" about a "terrorist attack carried out by the US government against Americans"? Do you suppose the victims - whether fatalities, injuries, or merely shock and fright, will feel all better once they (excluding the fatalities, and including those people's friends and relatives) hear that it was "only" the government? > How do you know that Rummy's motive was the > above, and not, say, the desire to better fight real terrorist groups > that > really plan to attack Americans? Motivations matter little to the dead. The policy would, almost inevitably, lead to dead people if implemented. Even if I grant that the Bushies are acting from good motives (I don't), that doesn't excuse the ill results. > > Provoking an attack absolutely does NOT mean that the attack would > have > > happened eventually otherwise. > > Doesn't mean it wouldn't have, either. No, but the point is that provoking it would, uh, provoke it. A provoked attack is an attack that, in some senses, is caused by the provocation. Otherwise it's not a provoked attack (at least not provoked by the specific actions). > > > Bad idea, perhaps, but still very different from Rumsfeld saying that > we > > > should launch our own fake terrorist attacks against ourselves. Not by much, not judged by results. If I hand you a loaded gun, tell you it's not loaded, and encourage you to pull the trigger, am I not as guilty of murder (ethically) if I had pulled the trigger myself? Especially if you've displayed inclinations toward shooting yourself anyway - as terrorists have displayed inclinations to kill people. (I'm "provoking" you to pull the trigger yourself, rather than doing it myself.) > > There is, at least, precedent. > > Well, there's also precedent for terrorist groups killing people on > their > own initiative, without the Pentagon masterminding the whole thing; but > I > guess some precedents are meaningful and others aren't... That is correct: the meaningful precedents are the ones we can (or should be able to) control (U.S. policy), not the ones we can't. We can try to prevent terrorist attacks, and try to protect people from them. But when we slide over into *provoking* them, for whatever means, that's clearly a line being crossed. The precedent here has to do with the likelihood of Rumsfeld's ideas being (a) actually having been proposed and (b) implemented. I can't quite see your counter-"precedent" as anything but a non sequitur. > BTW, we should remember that this whole thing is just one idea that > Rumsfeld's study tossed out, and that it has not apparently been > implemented (just as McNamara's above-mentioned contingency plans were > never carried out). Nor does the article tell us exactly what > "stimulating reactions" among terrorists and rogue states would entail. > we're *assuming* that Rumsfeld would be willing to risk having a > terrorist > attack succeed in killing Americans, but even that is just an > assumption. > They could well have planned to only provoke reactions that they knew > they > could stop before they reached the killing stage. This is impossible; actions - particularly of people whose motivations and psychology seem alien to most of us - are not so predictable. > So why are we assuming the worst? If we are, it's because of the "precedent" above. But even if we're not, the point is to suggest that the Bushies do *not* have the best interests of most Americans at heart, or most people period. I mean, c'mon: if a policy paper like this were found in Saddam's desk drawer, Bush et al. would be salivating wildly. And the U.N. would probably be likelier to go along with him than they are with the "evidence" he's presented so far. > > Are you implying that Rumsfeld doesn't *really* advocate killing > Americans > > to carry his agenda forward? > > Are you implying that it's an established, verifiable fact that he does? The policy pretty clearly accepts such deaths as a necessary contingency - since it's impossible to completely prevent them. I may not *intend* to kill anyone by driving my car through the schoolyard at 75 mph at noon, but I don't think my saying so would clear me. - --Jeff J e f f r e y N o r m a n The Architectural Dance Society www.uwm.edu/~jenor/ADS.html :: PLEASE! You are sending cheese information to me. I don't want it. :: I have no goats or cows or any other milk producing animal! :: --"raus" ps: fegmaniax are *not* average! ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V12 #55 *******************************