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Politics : The Left Wing Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: E who wrote (5185)	8/28/2001 12:37:06 PM
From: Solon	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 6089

Thanks for posting that, E. In order to save rehashing old ground, "http://www.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=16269126". Your example highlights the legitimate concerns that all of us need to keep in front of us as regards injustice and abuse of the law. If this is abuse, I still do not believe that THAT fact should affect the philosophical validity of the "principle". Abuse, and the justice system, are old bedfellows with a long and incestuous relationship. Abuse is everywhere. Essentially, it does not argue for or against any particular legislation; unless it is found that it invites an intolerable level of error--this might argue for amendments. If, however, it is not error or abuse but rather a reflection of ill conceived legislation (in the particulars of this particular state), then hopefully, "we, the people" will see that it gets fixed. I am not at all unsympathetic to Christopher's concerns. However, I believe that highlighting crimes committed by "hate groups" makes sense in consideration of human history and experience. It also creates community expectations of standards. I know this works. I have been amazed at some of the wonderful tolerance shown by children today compared to when I grew up. As a whole, they are much more accepting of racial differences than were their parents. At least that is my experience. And I suppose one must attribute this to the educational system. Colour, ethnicity, and religion, are the particular excuses which continue to constitute the gravest dangers to human peace and safety. If a country wished to lead the world into a higher order of civilization, some toothful laws, with the potential to abate the incidence of these crimes, would seem to constitute an essential component of such an effort. As I said in my post to Chris, people who harm or kill because of religion or colour, do not stand for the constitutional Rights of the Republic. They are a whole nother country (some would say a whole nother species). It is important that the legislation be clearly and unequivocally capable of remarking the difference between these utterly reprehensible people and alien people--and normal everyday bigots who have no serious objections to woman voting in elections below the state level! ;) Pretty much all the killings in history were racially and faith motivated--although it is true that robbery was often disguised as a hate crime. Hate crimes against individuals (when it is a TRUE "hate crime") are always crimes against the group. If we could keep crime down to people killing people instead of people wiping out groups based on religion or race--why there would hardly be any crime left in the world! :)

To: E who wrote (5185)	10/6/2001 1:21:45 PM
From: ecommerceman	Respond to of 6089

THE MEDIA COVER-UP OF THE GORE VICTORY! By David Podvin According to a source whose previous information has proven to be accurate, the Consortium of news organizations that recounted the presidential votes in the 2000 Florida election was shocked to find that former Vice President Al Gore decisively won the state, and it is now concealing the news of Gore’s victory from the American people. The source is a former media executive who previously revealed information that the Bush administration was lying about Clinton staffers having vandalized the White House. That information led me to accuse Karl Rove of manufacturing the “crime”. My accusation appeared in an article that was posted by Buzzflash.com on January 28, 2001, and it was confirmed by a General Accounting Office investigative report several months later. Having previously established credibility as a well-informed and accurate conduit of information, the executive now claims the Consortium is deliberately hiding the results of its recount because Gore was the indisputable winner. Originally, the Consortium believed that there were three potential outcomes of the recount, any of which would have been acceptable to the participating news conglomerates. The first was a Bush win, which would have resolved the issue. The second was a dead heat/inconclusive result, which would have maintained the status quo. The third was a narrow Gore victory, which would have given die hard Democrats a debate point, but would have simply been another photo finish recount that most Americans would have disregarded as being currently irrelevant. The Consortium was stunned to discover that the recount revealed Gore won a clear victory. Even after casting aside the controversial butterfly ballots and discarding ballots that were “iffy”, Gore decisively won the recount. While the precise numbers are still unavailable, a New York Times journalist who was involved in the project told one of his former companions that Gore won by a sufficient margin to create “major trouble for the Bush presidency if this ever gets out”. Gore’s victory was large enough that it became apparent he would win prior to the Consortium recount being fully completed. And contrary to a recent claim by the New York Times, the terrorism of September 11 was not the crucial factor that determined whether to release the results to the American people. Prior to that time, the de facto majority shareholders in the publicly traded New York Times Company reportedly intervened on the side of quashing the recount results and convinced the other participants to shelve the story. The executive claims that the most important decisions at the Times are made by the influential money center banks that exercise actual voting control of a majority of stock. These banks are extremely pro-Bush. In addition to their control of the Times, they have substantial financial clout with the Washington Post Company, Dow Jones and Company, and the Tribune Company. As a result, the banks exert tremendous influence on a majority of the Consortium. The story of Gore’s victory has been spiked at the highest levels of the media conglomerates that are involved, rather than at the cosmetic steering committee level of the recount project. The Consortium reportedly has received intense pressure from members of the Bush inner circle both in and out of government, but has not been lobbied by representatives of Gore. The huge disparity between the original recount and the Consortium recount stems from the G.O.P. tactics in Florida. Their strategy was to aggressively contest every pro-Gore ballot, even the obviously valid ones. The Republicans then accused the vote counters of being biased because most of the challenges were resolved in favor of Gore. By using this approach, the Bush partisans successfully intimidated the counters into bending over backwards to show “fairness”, resulting in thousands of legitimate Gore votes being disqualified or relegated to a pile of disputed ballots. “It was the old baseball manager’s trick of crying about every call in order to pressure the umpire to give you more than your fair share,” said the executive. “And it worked in Florida. However, in the relative calm of the Consortium recount - absent the pressure tactics - the Bush total remained basically consistent with the original count, while the Gore total shot way up.” As for what will happen next, the executive said, “Once the dominant pro-Gore trend became apparent, the Consortium was never going to release the results; the pressure from the big money boys was too great. Terrorism just provided a better excuse for withholding the information than the ‘technical difficulties’ stalling tactic that was otherwise going to be used. The Consortium is determined to make sure that the original results of their recount will never see the light of day.”