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Missile Defense

Russian military leaders have expressed concern about US plans for a national missile defense system. Will defense technology be limited by possibilities for a strategic imbalance? Is this just SDI all over again?

rshowalter - 11:42am Jul 6, 2001 EST (#6669 of 6676)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

The responses by gisterme since MD6431 rshowalter 7/2/01 7:21pm have provided very strong and revealing detail making it harder and harder to doubt that the NMD program being set out by the administration is fraudulent.

That can be shown in more and more detail, the more work one chooses to do, and to attend to.

I believe that both gisterme's content since, and his style, support the view that he doesn't know how to build a working missile defense system, and doesn't have any valid reason to believe that one can be built. But he does believe that "big lie" tactics can be relied on. Too often, he's been right.

Red Tide Rising by PAUL KRUGMAN http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/06/opinion/06KRUG.html

" During the debate over George W. Bush's tax cut, administration officials told wavering supporters not to worry. The Congressional Budget Office, they insisted, was underestimating future surpluses; in fact there would be plenty of money, even after the tax cut, for other priorities.

" Whoops.

rshowalter - 11:44am Jul 6, 2001 EST (#6670 of 6676)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

MD5976 rshowalter 6/24/01 8:50pm :

Bertotdt Brecht's essay, WRITING THE TRUTH, FIVE DIFFICULTIES is in my version of his play, GALILEO , set into English by Charles Laughton.

It includes this:

" It takes courage to say that the good were defeated not because they were good, but because they were weak."

When the truth is too weak, we have to ask why? Was it indeed the truth? Or were there systematic barriers to the propagation of the truth -- chain breakers?

Fear is a problem, and a deeply embedded one, all through the system, for journalists, for members of the government, and for people who depend on the government (that is, all of us.)
MD5977 rshowalter 6/24/01 8:52pm . . . MD5978 rshowalter 6/24/01 9:00pm

I think some may enjoy Chain Breakers: http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee79f4e/618 and might perhaps enjoy it more in terms of the information linked to MD6613 rshowalter 7/4/01 11:46pm

rshowalter - 11:47am Jul 6, 2001 EST (#6671 of 6676)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

Exposition matters. Attention to detail matters.

There's a phrase that I read once. Three words.

" Hitler went unchecked.

Hitler subverted an entire society based on nonsense and lies, many ornately detailed, and destroyed much of the world in doing so. He hoped, in the senses that matter to most of us, to destroy the whole world. In the ways that mattered, he wasn't effectively checked at the level of ideas.

markk46b "Science in the News" 8/23/00 2:44am ... rshowalt "Science in the News" 8/23/00 7:31am

The connections of the Bush family, and the right wing of the Republican Party, to NAZI roots ought to be remembered from time to time (search "NAZI", "big lie" this thread) when the behavior of the Bush administration is being considered.

Republicans, most of all, should be concerned about this, and wish to fix it.

rshowalter - 11:51am Jul 6, 2001 EST (#6672 of 6676)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

The web is not very actively checked for accuracy, so some may question whether this site represents credible data and reasonable interpretation.

I believe that it may, and that people who know how selection processes in organizations occur in the United States may find the information here, in its interconnections, worth considering when the issue of unconditional trust of the Bush administration arises.

George W Bush went Awol and he is still getting away with it. http://awol.gq.nu/

Staffs can check things of this nature, in a way individuals cannot, when they choose to do so.

With the questions that have been raised about the sanity and honesty of the present US missile defense initiative, I feel that the issue may merit attention. I found it interesting, and possibly helpful, if a view of circumstances that account for all the credible data on human survival is to be crafted.

rshowalter - 12:05pm Jul 6, 2001 EST (#6673 of 6676)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

The level of feel for propriety exemplified in http://www.nytimes.com/2001/03/05/politics/05CARL.html -- would indicate a "culture" where thoughts of accountability, for either facts or money, would be almost futile, wouldn't you think?

I wonder how many enlisted men (and there are plenty of literate ones) could read "Elder Bush in Big GOP Cast Toiling for Top Equity Firm" by LESLIE WAYNE without being ashamed?

MD6583 rshowalter 7/4/01 9:20pm suggests searches.

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