The National Forum   Donate   Your Account   On Line Opinion   Forum   Blogs   Polling   About   
The Forum - On Line Opinion's article discussion area



Syndicate
RSS/XML


RSS 2.0

Main Articles General

Sign In      Register

The Forum > Article Comments > A century of civil liberties > Comments

A century of civil liberties : Comments

By Daemon Singer, published 6/3/2013

It's only when we sit and contemplate what life was like before 9/11, that we realise the damage done by those planes.

  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. ...
  6. 7
  7. 8
  8. 9
  9. All
It is important to remember that 9/11 was an excuse for an attack on civil liberties and the free flow of information, more than the cause for this.
Don't blame the hijackers alone.
Also blame the politicians, bureaucrats and big business who used "terrorism" as an excuse to come down those who would investigate their activities; journalists, whistle blowers and other concerned members of a community.
The Meltdown was largely a fraud perpetrated on the public and "terrorism" is the other great hoax perpetrated by those running things this century.
Posted by paul walter, Wednesday, 6 March 2013 9:04:54 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Yes, and there is now no place to hide. We now live in a 24/7 surveillance state.
The moment you turn on your mobile phone the various state authorities can find you.
Every time you use a credit card your activity and where-abouts can be traced/recorded.
In one way or another everyones computer activities and emails can be traced.
Posted by Daffy Duck, Wednesday, 6 March 2013 10:34:51 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
"It's only when we sit and contemplate what life was like before, that we realise the damage done by those planes. It wasn't just about terrorism, it was about governments deciding that they had been given a perfect opportunity to manage us somewhat differently - the planes meant we could automatically be ruled by fear, and rather than paying attention to what we want, our "elected" representatives then took it upon themselves to do exactly what they want, howsoever they want, to whomever they want, whenever they want. And we, like sheep, accepted that change without so much as a whimper."

This is exactly what the government, particularly in the US planned and got.

In the US, the Constitution is polluted with corrupt legal interpretations from the Bush and Obama regimes that have turned constitutional prohibitions into executive branch rights, transforming law from a shield of the people into a weapon in the hands of government.

9/11 was the “new Pearl Harbour” that the neoconservatives declared to be necessary for their planned wars against Muslim countries. For the neoconservatives to go forward with their agenda, it was necessary for Americans to be connected to the agenda.

President George W. Bush’s first Treasury Secretary, Paul O’Neil, said that prior to 9/11 the first cabinet meeting was about the need to invade Iraq.

9/11 was initially blamed on Afghanistan, and the blame was later shifted to Iraq. Washington’s mobilization against Afghanistan was in place prior to 9/11. The George W. Bush regime’s invasion of Afghanistan (Operation Enduring Freedom) occurred on October 7, 2001, less than a month after 9/11. Every military person knows that it is not possible to have mobilization for invading a country half way around the world ready in three weeks.

The American left is the enabler of the police state, and the American right is its progenitor.

In the first decade of the 21st century Americans lost their constitutional protections and had their wallets opened to indefinite wars. The latest report is that Washington is sending US troops into 35 African countries. http://rt.com/usa/news/us-deploying-troops-order-749/print
Posted by Geoff of Perth, Wednesday, 6 March 2013 11:56:04 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
And now for our next performer - a big hand for -

ARJAY !
Posted by Loudmouth, Wednesday, 6 March 2013 1:00:42 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
This is an important article in that it highlights many of the inroads made on our civil liberties for which the events of 9/11 have provided the pretext. It is also useful zoo be reminded that as far as Labor and the Coalition are concerned on issues of "national security" they essentially sing from the same unprincipled song sheet.

Where I take issue with the article is in some of its assumptions about 9/11. It was not the planes that brought down wtc 1 and 2, much less wtc7 which was not even hit by a plane. One only needs the most basic grasp of physics to realise that the official conspiracy theory is absolute codswallop. There is now a wealth of evidence to suggest that 9/11 was engineered from within the US, not by a disparate bunch of alleged Muslim fanatics.

One of the problems is that it is almost impossible to have an intelligent discussion on this topic as the mainstream media refuse to confront the evidence, and even fora such as OLO attract a rabid, unintelligent and generally ignorant response from a number of regular commenters who seem to think that labelling someone a conspiracy theorist is an answer worthy of consideration.

As Geoff of Perth points out, the "response" to 9/11 was planned well in advance, including but not limited to the Patriot Act, the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the systematic assault on our civil liberties.

As always with these matters, the stock law enforcement question, cui bono needs to be asked and answered.
Posted by James O'Neill, Wednesday, 6 March 2013 1:58:39 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
This is one of the best posts I have read on OLO. The elephants in the room have become glaringly obvious to anyone paying even a modicum of attention.
After the fall of communism, an enemy was needed. Was it to keep us all distracted while the corporations took over our world? For one blatantly obvious reason, Islam got the nod: It sits on the world's energy sands. An easy target if ever there was one.
And the international arms bazaar - fear is so easy to peddle, so profitable, and if sales drop, set off a bomb or assassinate someone in a false flag operation. Use someone else's passport, use a sniper hiding on a rooftop - who's to know?
Habeas corpus - after how many centuries now no longer the primary check on government power over the people.
Unless I am mistaken the only person to do actual jail time in the USA over all the torture is the man who blew the whistle. Bradley Manning can look forward to joining him, and will probably spend the rest of his life behind bars. I only hope they cut him enough slack that he doesn't go utterly stark staring mad. But for those poor bastards in Baghram and Guantanamo, their lives and their families lives have been ruined. And a trial by peers? With evidence presented in a public court? All gone now.
But even more insidious is the mistrust in which we now hold our elected representatives. For those of us who can remember, maybe it's not so bad. At least we can remember when it wasn't so and can hope it will not always remain as it has become. But for the teenagers and early twenty-something's who have never known it otherwise, what irreparable damage have we done to our body politic?
We distrust, we fear and that's no way to live, no way to build a family, a future. The dogs of war have been loosed upon us, and it ain't real pretty at all.
Posted by halduell, Wednesday, 6 March 2013 5:25:14 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
So 'wag the dog' ? Ex post hoc, ergo propter hoc ?

Certainly the Yanks used the attack on New York for their own ends, but that doesn't even suggest that they engineered the whole kaboodle.

After all, if anybody is suggesting, say, that the plane that flew into the Pentagon was not a plane but a rocket, question A arises: fired from where ? Question B asks, if Colin Powell was head of the State department and therefore (?) the CIA, and the CIA did it, did he order a rocket to be fired into the Pentagon ? Question C: what would Rumsfeld have thought of that ?

Of course, the elephant in the room is the simple fact that nobody involved - and to carry out such a complex and monstrous conspiracy would have required a hell of a lot of people to be in the know - has ever spilled the beans.

And what do you reckon the relations of all those killed (or is that a myth, too ?) would do to Bush, even now, if they found out ?

No, folks, fortuitous as it may have been for some weird US agenda, al Qaida did it, bragged about it, and have carried out some 1800 terrorist attacks since then - all with THEIR OWN agenda in mind: the overthrow of Western enlightenment values, of the rule of law as man-made, dequality of the sexes, democracy, etc.

And incidentally, the obliteration of any Left, anywhere, the Dhimmis, the apologists, hoping they will be the last fruit on the tree.

So it was one tragedy that one reactionary bunch fortuitously played into the hands of another reactionary bunch.

It is another tragedy that many people on the Left, otherwise intelligent, are prepared to overlook the vile actions of one bunch of reactionaries in an attack on another, but less guilty, bunch.

Cheers,

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Wednesday, 6 March 2013 6:08:41 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Joe, two books you might like to look at for the answers to your questions are both by David Ray Griffin: The New Pearl Harbor Revisited and 9/11: Ten Years Later.

To rely on the information (and misinformation) that flowed in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and ignore the enormous body of serious research that has gone on since is equivalent to believing the Warren Commission Report and ignoring the evidence that has emerged in the 50 years since. There are parallels as Peter Dale Scott has pointed out. He coined the phrase "deep events", of which JFK; the Gulf of Tonkin; and 9/11 are but illustrations.

The issue of 9/11 is a complex one, and fairy tales about 19 Muslim hijackers is simply the cartoon version. Given the consequences the article writer, Geoff of Perth, Halduell and others have noted (and they only touch on the issues), it is far too important a matter to be left unexamined.
Posted by James O'Neill, Wednesday, 6 March 2013 6:32:03 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
"But even more insidious is the mistrust in which we now hold our elected representatives. For those of us who can remember, maybe it's not so bad. At least we can remember when it wasn't so and can hope it will not always remain as it has become. But for the teenagers and early twenty-something's who have never known it otherwise, what irreparable damage have we done to our body politic?
We distrust, we fear and that's no way to live, no way to build a family, a future. The dogs of war have been loosed upon us, and it ain't real pretty at all."

I cannot imagine returning to the pre- 9/11 world, where trust was implied among people, and treaties were signed in good faith, then honoured. All that is now gone, and as you say, we are left with what? A bunch of useless career politicians, with zero experience of anything outside the body politic.

I ask again... what have we done to ourselves, in the name of group safety?
Posted by My Murdered Son, Wednesday, 6 March 2013 6:53:41 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Hi MSS,

Yes, that's the point, even the purpose, of terrorism - to make us distrust everything about us, 'our' system, the effectiveness of democracy and democratic forms of operation, however imperfect. And it certainly didn't help to have such dumb-@rse politicians as Bush in charge of the response to terrorism.

And yes, I do believe that there is such a reactionary, backward, totalitarian ideology as that which groups like al Qaida adhere to, and are ready to die for.

Those are the lousy choices before us - imperfect and often corrupted forms of democracy, or one of the most backward forms of totalitarianism.

I come from a Left-wing background. So yes, I do believe it is possible, even likely, that someone other than, as well as, Oswald shot Kennedy. I suspect that people like Louis Farrakhan and even Muhammad Ali were involved in the murder of Malcolm X. I suspect that ex-President Arbenz of Guatemala may have been murdered, drowned, in 1966. But no, I don't believe the Moon Landing was staged in some giant movie set in Arizona.

Or that the CIA murdered 3,000 people in New York, Pennsylvania and the Pentagon.

Move on.

Cheers,

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Wednesday, 6 March 2013 7:24:19 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Joe, amongst other things you stated "......But no, I don't believe the Moon Landing was staged in some giant movie set in Arizona.

Or that the CIA murdered 3,000 people in New York, Pennsylvania and the Pentagon."

That is fine, I think what some of us here are alluding to is the scientific evidence that has been assessed by some of the world's leading scientists in their fields of expertise have clearly shown that WTC7 could not have collapsed as it did, there was the use of nano-thermite, which is very much restricted to the development and use by advanced country military forces. Coincidence, me thinks not.

Additionally, George W Bush's brother Jeb was in charge of security at the WTC, coincidence, maybe, maybe not.

Sew enough disinformation and everyone gets confused, especially early on in the piece.

Fact: In 1967 Israel intentionally attacked and tried to sink a US NSA surveillance ship the USS Liberty. The USS Saratoga attempted to provide air support but was directed to recall their aircraft, this call was made by President Johnson so that the Israeli's would not be embarrassed. When asked in the mid 1980's about the USS Liberty incident, Robert S McNamara stated "I did remember all about it then, but I know nothing about it now" seem odd to you?

No one is suggesting the CIA were responsible, the evidence however does support that some inside US Government element (rogue or not) had a very large hand in the events of 9/11. Will we ever know the truth, probably not.

Another odd thing that struck me was the complete lack of aircraft debris (no wheels, engines etc) that remained from the aircraft that crashed in the forest on 9/11, wouldn't you say that this is rather odd, most aircrashes, no matter how catastrophic, usually leave large pieces of debris?

Perhaps you should do some research and see some of the scientific evidence recently released about 9/11 by the 'Architects for 9/11 truth' you can google them if you wish.
Posted by Geoff of Perth, Wednesday, 6 March 2013 7:51:27 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Geoff,

Christ, more fruit-cakes than a local CWA table.

Twin towers: I do recall when they were being built, that there were concerns that the new form of external structure would not be strong enough to hold up the buildings. They did, of course, until the planes flew into them... and sure enough, the building that was hit lower down, but later, collapsed first. As one would expect.

We don't have to posit that the temperature didn't reach melting point - but did it reach the zone in which the structural strength of rhe building materials was compromised ? Probably.

So move on. Don't waste your lives over this.

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Wednesday, 6 March 2013 8:44:33 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Joe, either read the evidence about the WTC towers or don't say anything at all. Everything you say is factually wrong. In an earlier post I nominated two books to amend the obvious gaps in your knowledge. Read them. Geoff has also suggested a useful website. Have a look at it. The architects and engineers are concerned solely with scientific evidence. Al Qaeda is a red herring. It was and remains a creature of US Intelligence. Again the evidence is well documented and for those bothered to actually read and consider it is overwhelming.

The reason that people like Geoff and myself won't "move on" as you and others like you would wish is that the kinds of problems we are discussing; endless wars, losss of civil liberties etc have their wellspring in the events of 9/11. Exposé that for the lie that it is and we are going some way to awakening people to what is really going on and hopefully move them to do something about it.

Your approach will only lead to ever greater loss of our liberties. Maybe that is what you want. Just don't expect me and others to go along with that particular ride.
Posted by James O'Neill, Wednesday, 6 March 2013 9:02:33 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
The author adds insult to injury by claiming that:

"we were forced into a position of fear", "we argued less in favour of our Civil Liberties knowing that our government in its wisdom was looking out for us.", or "the planes meant we could automatically be ruled by fear".

Nonsense! We were never afflicted by fear in regards to the 9/11 events and we never willingly gave our liberties away in order for the government to look out for us. As far as the ordinary person in the street was concerned, too bad for the losses but life could go on as usual. What happened is that we were robbed in broad daylight - which is in the nature of what governments always do.

Then the author adds: "And we, like sheep, accepted that change without so much as a whimper." - as if we had any choice: how does the learned author expect us, helpless ordinary people, to protect ourselves from governments? by blowing up planes ourselves perhaps (as if that would help)?

About 4000 people were killed in 9/11 - since then a greater number have died only of medical complications resulting from making flying as a passenger so much tougher (including dehydration, thrombosis, exposure to radiation, heart-attacks and other stress-related conditions). These deaths however are quiet and unsensational, they are overlooked because they cannot produce dramatic media headlines.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Wednesday, 6 March 2013 11:05:39 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
From the article - "the planes meant we could automatically be ruled by fear".
One reply - "We were never afflicted by fear in regards to the 9/11 events".
Not true! Fear has become our governments sock in trade. They reach for it first. From Jerusalem to San Francisco and Sydney, we are encouraged to fear. We are exhorted to fear. Islam has been the fall guy. Cyber fear is coming.
Fear will play a part in our own coming election. Probably looming "terrorists", definitely the rise of China.
So much easier to instil fear and lock down than to instil hope and build.
The planes not only meant we could be ruled by fear, they also meant our representatives could get away with being very, very lazy.
Posted by halduell, Wednesday, 6 March 2013 11:46:25 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear Halduell,

<<Not true! Fear has become our governments sock in trade. They reach for it first. From Jerusalem to San Francisco and Sydney, we are encouraged to fear. We are exhorted to fear.>>

There is no contention that governments ("OUR governments"? I never owned one) try to encourage and exhort people to fear, but only the readers of Pravda may have been affected, or rather infected.

For the rest of us, we know very well that if there's anyone to fear, it's the government itself!

So why do you buy Pravda? http://www.russian-jokes.com/political_jokes/why_do_you_buy_pravda.shtml
Posted by Yuyutsu, Thursday, 7 March 2013 6:50:46 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Actually Yuyutsu, if you believe that governments don't rule by and keep us, in fear, to make us more manageable, you probably missed the entire point of the article. Before then, we frequently protested decisions by governments, which impacted on our Civil Liberties. Well, at least some of us did. The rest worked for those governments and likely, many still do.

Your decision to mock the author probably reflects more on an inability to fathom or respond to the political process today, rather than anything else. As has been said around the place, consider the argument, rather than have a go at the writer.

Do you believe Australians today demonstrate any interest, in the political process? Now less or more, than pre 9/11? Do you believe Australians "cop it sweet" when a new parcel of laws is passed to "protect" us, or do they rise up and say "NO WAY"?

Are you positing that Australians are not now ruled by fear? If so, state that, and the basis for saying it.

Just for the record, can you share with us, in your obviously deep wisdom on the matter, where the 9 Billion dollars, that has gone to the intelligence community has gone? That is the amount they have absorbed in protecting us from terrorism.

Back to you
Posted by My Murdered Son, Friday, 8 March 2013 4:12:25 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Dear MMS,

Disagreeing with someone does not amount to mocking them.

I believe that Australians demonstrate less because we grew bitter and cynical over the years, understanding that there's nothing we can do about the government. The Australian electoral system being a joke, we learned that screaming only gets us sore throats. I also believe that this has absolutely nothing to do with 9/11. The government was looking for a pretext for increasing its control and they just happened to find it in 9/11 - otherwise they would have found another pretext.

Yes, though it was made politically-incorrect, I still say that Australians are not ruled and were never ruled by fear of terrorism. It's something that happens in America and I don't give it a second thought, nor do my friends: when we fly, the only thing we worry about is the hardships caused by the "security" measures, perhaps a bit also about mechanical faults and bad weather.

Yes, I say that even the government does not really fear terrorism, but actually secretly consider it as an opportunity rather than a threat.

Those 9 billion dollars? obviously they went to feed the government's proteges and their families, employing them to harass the general population.

You may the ask why I bother to write at all?
- While it's hopeless and there's nothing we can do about government actions, I can at least protest against the author's attempt to accuse and implicate us of cooperating with them.

If terrorism ever became a real threat (which is not currently the case), the best way to fight it would be to completely ignore and not report it. Terrorists feed on publicity: without media-reports their actions amount to nothing.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Friday, 8 March 2013 5:09:40 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Gosh, so much manufactured panic :)

Seriously, I reckon that I have been much concerned about and aware of the meaning of freedoms, and equality, and democracy, and enlightenment values, SINCE 9/11 than I was before - MORE aware of how precious democracy is, and the notions of freedom and euality and justice and fairness are.

I certainly haven't become MORE fearful of government - certainly not of this incompetent bunch. And maybe i swasn't playing the game but I never had any fear of a klutz like Bush, or of the Americans in general: if they were stupid enough to invade Iraq, then they could cop all the consequneces of fighting two major wars at once.

Which makes me so doubtful about the usual paranoid theories about 9/11 - this is the Americans we are talking about ? The Americans, smart enough to blow up their own buildings and get away with it ?

I don't think so. And for what ? Just to scare us ?

And how did that work out ? The US now is in a far worse position, vis-a-vis anywhere else in the world, than it was in 2000-2001, militarily, politically, economically and even culturally.

Perhaps what the conspiracy theorists need is a little less respect for the Americans - they are not all-powerful, not all-knowing, they are not much more than a bunch of arrogant fools.

Just imagine that for a moment. Now hold that thought.

Too traumatic ? Do you really need an all-pervasive Devil to complement your inevitably-successful Plan ? To find out that the Devil has feet of clay is just too much ?

Cheers,

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Friday, 8 March 2013 5:18:03 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Reading the 'comments' here I had to check to see if there was a full Moon; no, just the usual pathetic 'truthers' and conspiracy nuts.

The Muslims did it just like they did every major terrorist attack since; the yanks didn't know what hit them; nor did the world; for a full rebuttal of the kool aid sippers in force here:

http://www.debunking911.com/

http://www.debunking911.com/paper.htm

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military/news/1227842?page=1
Posted by cohenite, Friday, 8 March 2013 6:56:51 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
If you think about US 'Exceptionalism' you will learn the real truth.

9/11 was an inside job, scientific proof certainly demonstrates this.

As to it all being a conspiracy, well good luck with that lunch, you are either naive or too stupid to understand the bigger US government (military-industrial complex) agenda.

The official 9/11 investigation was a complete joke. Any halfwit would realise this after reading the first 20 pages.

Many may hate Muslims, but the reality is, they were the unfortunate "Lee Harvey Oswalds", look at the grassy knoll, quick, I see some US military types..........I wonder what they were actually doing on the day?

Geoff
Posted by Geoff of Perth, Friday, 8 March 2013 8:49:06 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
"Naive", "stupid", "halfwit".

An honest self-appraisal Geoff.
Posted by cohenite, Friday, 8 March 2013 8:57:50 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Hi Geoff,

No, it's not a matter of hating Muslims, that's just a red herring - after all, it's not Muslim people of believers but IslamISTS, Salafists, reactionaries of the most backward kind, who - with 1800 terrorist attacks under their belts since 2001, a couple in Pakistan in this past week - seek to terrorise (that's what the word means, Geoff) the world into moving towards converting to their ideology, a reactionary, backward, anti-women and therefore anti-human, ideology.

How to explain.

It's a bit like the difference between poor buggers who happen to have been born Catholic, i.e. their parents are Catholics and -

- those zealots who seek to turn the entire world, by sword or otherwise, into Catholics (I'm sure there are such people).

Ordinary people, like you and me, Muslims, catholics, Buddhists - and zealots, fruit-cakes, fascists of many stripes.

It's your choice who to go into bat for.

Good luck !

Cheers,

Jo
Posted by Loudmouth, Friday, 8 March 2013 9:42:51 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Thanks Cohenite,

"Naive", "stupid", "halfwit". No not a self appraisal, but certainly more applicable to someone like you who denies climate change.

Your entire mantra of denying scientific proof in relation to climate change puts you on top of the pillar of those who still can't understand or for some very odd reason don't want to understand reality.

A recent French scientific paper has shot all of you skeptics out of the water.

For someone who is supposed to be of intelligence, your continued posting pro climate change denial is a complete conundrum to me.

I acknowledge that this is your choice, unfortunately you have built your belief system on a pillar of salt in a swimming pool, you just can't and don't want to see why.

Geoff
Posted by Geoff of Perth, Saturday, 9 March 2013 12:31:23 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Hi Geoff of Perth,

It's interesting how any disagreement can earn the term 'denier' and how the word 'denier' has become so pejorative. Perhaps it is an attempt to dog-whistle Peter or Paul or whoever, 'denying' Christ three times. I don't know, not being Christian.

Cohenite could just as easily accuse you of being a 'plateau-denier' but his fundamental decency prevents him.

But he who asserts, Geoff, must prove. It's not up to a dis-believer to have to demonstrate, chapter and verse, why he disagrees, but it is the responsibility of the asserter to 'prove' his assertions.

Unless, of course, you choose to be a 'proof-denier'.

Well, it's Saturday afternoon, there's not much on the box. Not until ABC-24 starts its coverage of the WA election. Can't wait.

Cheers,

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Saturday, 9 March 2013 12:42:40 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
"A recent French scientific paper has shot all of you skeptics out of the water."

Well Geoff, what was it, details please.
Posted by cohenite, Saturday, 9 March 2013 1:43:55 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Since when has the proof of denial been the responsibiliy of camp?

Come on Cohenite, if you know so much about climate change, as you believe you do, you should know exactly which peer reviewed French scientific paper I am referring to!

If not, it is obvious you are nowhere near close to being up to date with the most recent scientific proof that dispels climate skeptics like yourself!

Try google, thats what its for. Remember its not up to me to provide all the facts, you need to learn to do a little research, like the rest of us.
Posted by Geoff of Perth, Saturday, 9 March 2013 1:52:45 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Hi boys,

Here's what's wrong with the denial-o-sphere:

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2013/03/08/back-to-school/
Posted by Poirot, Saturday, 9 March 2013 2:07:04 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Right, so I have to Google French a paper which proves AGW?

How old are you, 10?

Produce it or be called out as a troll.

On the off chance you are talking about the one which spliced the modern instrument record to a smoothed proxy history, with the proxy record mixed with flat random noise to depress well accepted temperature levels during the MWP and Holocene and then extrapolated from a regional proxy to a global temperature, then, yeah, I do know it and it makes Mann's crap look like gold.

Poirot; in your own words tell us what Tamino said.
Posted by cohenite, Saturday, 9 March 2013 3:13:50 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
cohenite,

"Poirot, in your own words tell us what Tamino said."

And if I don't?....will you call me out as a troll?

(Little French detective shaking in boots here:)

Nah, you know what Tamino was saying. He was saying that ordinary intelligent folk sometimes think they understand what they are talking about regarding climate science....

.....even though they don't.
Posted by Poirot, Saturday, 9 March 2013 3:21:22 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Right, so I have to Google French a paper which proves AGW?

"How old are you, 10?

Produce it or be called out as a troll.

On the off chance you are talking about the one which spliced the modern instrument record to a smoothed proxy history, with the proxy record mixed with flat random noise to depress well accepted temperature levels during the MWP and Holocene and then extrapolated from a regional proxy to a global temperature, then, yeah, I do know it and it makes Mann's crap look like gold."

Sorry Cohenite, mid forties: a troll? read the next bit of your post and: no, which reference is this from, hypocrite, who's trolling now?

Geof
Posted by Geoff of Perth, Saturday, 9 March 2013 4:32:13 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Belgian ?
Posted by Loudmouth, Saturday, 9 March 2013 4:43:47 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Loudmouth,

Right you are.

: )
Posted by Poirot, Saturday, 9 March 2013 5:30:39 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Details, Poirot :)

Back to topic:

If (a) al Qaida doesn't actually exist, or

(b) al Qaida is a puppet, a creation, of the evil Americans,

then the Yanks must be playing an incredibly, devlishly cunning game, in their crazed pursuit of the destruction of all of our civil liberties, and the instilling of fear in us all -

- by SEEMING to weaken themselves in fighting a pointless war in Iraq at the same time as a more justifiable one in Afghanistan, and

- by SEEMING to support secular-democratic uprisings in the Arab world, only to watch them go down the tubes as Islamists usurp power, and

- by SEEMING to provoke Salafist/Islamist /terrorist movements in Pakistan, the Maghreb, Somalia, the Yemen, and now in Syria, movements and groups which have carried out more than 1800 bombings since 2001, mainly against people in Muslim countries, against Hazaras, Chfristians, etc., -

the Yanks have given an entirely false impression that they are actually not in control of much of what is going on in the world - that they may be able to whip up fear by creating instability (nobody mention North Korea) but they don't seem to be able to dictate to those 'puppets' that they created.

Could it be that they have a will of their own ?

and - gasp ! - could it be that they always did have ? That they came into being without any Yank hand manipulating them ?

My god. Could it be that people in various parts of the world can think for themselves ? Think evilly, fascistically, but autonomously, nevertheless.

Nah, it's too comfortable thinking that the Yanks are responsible for all of the evil in the world. At least, that way, we know who to whinge about.

Cheers,

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Saturday, 9 March 2013 6:03:31 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Cohenite: you obviously only read what you know is going to espouse opinions with which you agree. Anything that falls outside your narrow minded frame of reference is dismissed, usually with some ad hominen remark of a grab from your overfill bag of hackneyed cliches; truthers, conspiracy nuts, fruit cakes etc.

The website you cite and the Popular Mechanics book have been systematically discredited on more occasions than I can count. You seem to be incapable of evaluating anything on the basis of the scientific evidence. Your profound ignorance may comfort you and your view of the world, but it scarcely adds to the quality of the debate much less the sum of our knowledge.

Why don't you take a few weeks off and spend the time reading outside your comfort zone. Even if that is too much to ask, can you just stop inflicting your drivel on the rest of us.

Joe: it all depends on how you measure success. The people who really run the US have done very nicely indeed out of all these wars. As for failures in the Middle East? Which countries have actually changed their policies viz. viz the US? Isn't Africa now the latest playground for the US military of the neo-colonial exploitation of its people?
Posted by James O'Neill, Saturday, 9 March 2013 9:39:00 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
You’re such a dag Poirot.

Tamino shows how some poor wretch misuses statistics to achieve a 5 year cycle in the Arctic ice. Tamino is correct, there is no such cycle:

http://arctic-roos.org/observations/satellite-data/sea-ice/observation_images/ssmi_range_ice-ext.png

But like everything Tamino does there is a catch; both he and the sucker only use the satellite data, back to 1979.

Over the full 20thC there is indeed a low frequency dominant trend in the data; but that same frequency Tamino uses in the modern era to defeat the sap also shows him to be a shyster. And as Tamino says, he defers to real climate scientists:

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/10.1175/1520-0442(2003)016%3C2078%3ALIVIAM%3E2.0.CO%3B2

Polyakav et al are real scientists. They show the low frequency trend is multi-decadal and falls outside the parameters of AGW; the overall negative trend is statistically insignificant:

http://s1114.beta.photobucket.com/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/ENSO11000.gif.html#/user/Chief_Hydrologist/media/arcticice.gif.html?&_suid=136281152151206842252064810601

In short a classic piece of cherry-picking by the king of hubris, Tamino; and sucked in by the usual suckers such as you Poirot.

Geoff, I have no idea what you are talking about; the paper I was referring to is this:

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/339/6124/1198.abstract

Why don’t you put up or shut up?

And James if PM has been discredited more times than you can count [11 obviously] then you will have no trouble producing one example. Up to now the drivel has been all yours.
Posted by cohenite, Saturday, 9 March 2013 10:41:37 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Sorry, cohenite, but I've seen you taken apart enough times by "real" scientists on this forum to know you're just strutting your stuff.

I know a whole lot of people think you know what you're talking about regarding climate science...

......but I'm not one of them : )
Posted by Poirot, Saturday, 9 March 2013 11:14:36 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Governments trying to scare us with false stories about foreign terrorists ........

Governments promoting notions of imminent climatic disaster .........

Hmmmm .......

Could there possibly be some sort of indirect connection, some common intention of striking fear into our hearts ?

Or is one a genuine concern, and the other not ?

Which to choose - and on what basis ? Ideology or science ?

It's such a complicated world - it's so much easier to do the wounded goose act and divert attention from one to the other.....

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Sunday, 10 March 2013 9:53:23 AM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
I mentioned 1800 attacks by fundamentalist Islamists/Salafists/al Qaida etc. since 2001.

To which one can add, from just this weekend,

* two suicide bombings in Afghanistan, killing around twenty;

* the burning down of a hundred houses of Christians in Pakistan (well, it serves them right, doesn't it, Poirot, Christians shouldn't be IN Pakistan, even if they pre-date Muslims);

* the execution of a number of Western hostages by al-Ansar in Nigeria.

Of course, it IS possible that the CIA was behind each of these 'provocations' - that the local people don't have the wits to do these sorts of vile things themselves,

and that Islam is really a religion of peace.

Really ?

Cheers,

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Sunday, 10 March 2013 6:28:19 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
"...well it serves them right, doesn't it Poirot..."

You are a puerile and provocative little man, Loudmouth.

Cheers

: )
Posted by Poirot, Sunday, 10 March 2013 6:35:05 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Actually I'm 5ft 9in, about average height. But you've got the rest right.

Am I allowed to suggest that, from a combination of my fevered imagination and your comments, I assume you are a very attractive, feisty, brunette, with two beautiful kids ? Probably left-handed ?

Now, back to topic ......
Posted by Loudmouth, Sunday, 10 March 2013 8:12:50 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Not left-handed.

: )
Posted by Poirot, Sunday, 10 March 2013 8:59:51 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Joe,

No-one is disputing that there is an unacceptable level of carnage caused by terrorist acts. But it is not enough to point to Muslim acts of terror as if that is the beginning and end of the issue. To take three brief examples, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. In the first case there is obviously a campaign being waged by some western powers to remove the Assad regime in Syria. To that end a number of countries, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, France, the UK and the US are financing and arming jihadis, many of them foreigners. As Nafeez Ahmed among others has pointed out in a number of excellent studies, the West uses jihadi extremists when it suits them. Afghanistan, Kosovo, Chechnya are among the documented cases.

In the case of Iraq and Afghanistan, both were invaded by the US and its allies, causing enormous carnage and disruption to the civilian population. Again, extremist groups have been used to pursue western aims.

But as appalling as the deaths are they are but a tiny fraction of the deaths caused by the US in more than 50 countries since WW2. Again this has been exhaustively documented, but a useful overview is in William Blum's book, Killing Hope. The US has been responsible for the civilian deaths of more than a million people each in Iraq and Vietnam alone. It is going to take more than a century of Muslim suicide bombers to even remotely approach this level of carnage.

Decry Muslim violence by all means. But do not fall into the trap of thinking that only "they" are the terrorists and not take a long look in the mirror of western violence.
Posted by James O'Neill, Sunday, 10 March 2013 9:07:08 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Here's an interesting take from the man who symbolised the toppling of Saddam's statue.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/09/saddam-hussein-statue-kadom-al-jabourir-sledgehammer
Posted by Poirot, Sunday, 10 March 2013 9:38:25 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Hi James,

Perhaps it's a case of whether the glass is half-full or half-empty.

Yes, Islamist terrorist acts are not the complete be-all and end-all, but by Christ, they take up a lot of the space.

But I would disagree that the West is opposing Assad in Syria and supporting Salafists - that is precisly the point of the dilemma facing the West - it, especially the US,doesn't want to support EITHER Assad OR the Salafists, but - more in hope - is striving to find ways to boost the secularists and democrats, who are probably the weakest party in a three-way tussle, more's the pity.

And that's the major problem in the Arab/Muslim countries - that political struggles are usually THREE-way, not a nice, neat TWO-way tussle - they usually degenerate into brutal dictatorship vs Islamists vs democrats.

In those countries, central power is usually inherently weak, central government pulls in little revenue so can do little on behalf of the people or infrastructure or welfare of the people, so brute force has to be used to hold the country together.

This is opposed by local grievances, disempowered local forces, mainly religious, and much more weakly by secular, democracy-oriented forces, and even more weakly - and incredibly courageously - by Left-wing, secular forces.

There are some struggles which are odds-on doomed, but which people have to fight. The secular democrats, including the Left,are up against both brutal dictatorships and their armies and secret police, as well as the backward-looking Islamists.

Sometimes, I don't think we have a clue how lucky we are here, in Lotus Land.

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Sunday, 10 March 2013 10:18:48 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
I am adding this brief post in case anyone might think that my non-response to Cohenite's questions suggests that I accept his view. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is pointless responding to what he says because he clearly does not accept what Darwin said; i.e. "a fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments of both sides of each question."

For those readers who might be interested in a scientific approach to the unresolved questions of 9/11 a useful website is 911debunkers.blogspot. This is a UK website that is the epitome of Darwin's approach quoted above.

A systematic demolition of Popular Mechanics and others purveyors of misinformation can be found in David Griffin's book Debunking 9/11 Debunking.

Just for the record I do not believe that "the US government did 9/11". But equally I do not believe the official conspiracy theory that 19 Muslim hijackers did it either. To swallow either version undigested is to ignore the enormous complexity of the operation, and the wealth of data that has become available in the past 11+ years.

I draw a parallel with the Kennedy assassination. To swallow the Warren Report is again to ignore the huge amount of material declassified in the past nearly 50 years, and the findings of, inter alia, the House Select Committee on Assassinations (who said it was a conspiracy) or the Assassination Records Review Board who declassified nearly 2 million documents, including crucial medical evidence and the Lopez Report.

There are of course those who prefer to ignore evidence and cling to their naive assumptions about the world we live in. They are also the ones most likely to label people with whom they disagree "conspiracy theorists". We now know that was one of the major objectives of the CIA to deflect legitimate concern about the Warren Report. Insofar as the term regularly crops up in these pages one would have to say they have a ready audience of dupes.
Posted by James O'Neill, Monday, 11 March 2013 5:26:52 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Hi James,

Drawing parallels is one thing, connecting the dots is another thing entirely.

As it happens, I believe that Stalin ordered the murder of Kirov in 1934 and Dimitrov in the late forties - I don't have any evidence, at this distance in time and space, but that doesn't stop me suspecting.

I also believe in the Grassy Knoll Theory of Kennedy's assassination. Who actually ordered it, I wouldn't have the foggiest.

I also believe that Arafat was probably assassinated, most likely of course by SB or Mossad. And maybe King George V was knocked off by his doctors. And that Plato was involved in the murder of Socrates.

So my credentials for paranoia and conspiracy are fairly respectable. But after 1800 attacks over 11 years, I'm pretty convinced that al Qaida was responsible for the four plane hijackings and their crashing into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.

Take it on-board and move on :)

Cheers,

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Monday, 11 March 2013 6:57:41 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Joe hi,

I don't believe now, and I didn't believe then, that Plato was involved in the death of Socrates, outside of reporting it first hand, since he was in the room.

There was a lot to their relationship, outside of what was held up as the example he (Socrates) provided to the young men and boys he mentored, and for which he was tried.

I was always disappointed by the lack of coffee at the time, which would have made the discussions at least palatable IMHO, since many discussions were most dry.
Posted by My Murdered Son, Tuesday, 12 March 2013 6:14:43 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Speaking of assaults on our freedoms, let's up-date those 1800 jihadist/terrorist attacks since 2001. In the last couple of weeks, the religion of peace has carried out terrorist attacks (that's what they are, and terrorising is what their intention is):

* Kabul

* Islamabad

* northern Nigeria

* Baghdad

* God knows where in Syria,

and possibly in other places that have got lost in the noise.

Imagine if Opus Dei, or some crackpot U.S. evangelical mob, carried out atrocities like these, and at these rates: quite justifiably, we would be appalled, and even more so if useful idiots tried to defend them.

Terrorism is appalling. Let's not try to excuse it by manufacturing some government plot to limit freedoms. Speaking of which, Conroy's 'reforms' seem to be doomed, thank goodness.

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Wednesday, 20 March 2013 12:04:09 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
Just to up-date some of the atrocities committed in the name of the 'religion of peace', over the past week or so:

* execution of a French hostage in West Africa;

* bombing of a bus station in Kano, northern Nigeria;

* car-bombings and suicide bombings in Shi'ite areas of Iraq;

* release/liberation of an Australian kidnapped in 2011 in the southern Philippines by Abu Sayyaf.

There have probably been others, but we get so inured to them, don't we ?

Lucky it's a religion of peace :)

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Saturday, 23 March 2013 4:52:23 PM
Find out more about this user Recommend this comment for deletion Return to top of page Return to Forum Main Page Copy comment URL to clipboard
  1. Pages:
  2. 1
  3. 2
  4. 3
  5. ...
  6. 7
  7. 8
  8. 9
  9. All

About Us :: Search :: Discuss :: Feedback :: Legals :: Privacy