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Politics : Sharks in the Septic Tank -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: gao seng who wrote (30650)	10/1/2001 10:24:05 PM
From: gao seng	Respond to of 82486

So You Want to be an Activist [BSNN.net today released its 6th annual "America's Best Universities" rankings on its Web site. BSNN named Activist University in Seattle, Washington as the best national university. The following is a special paid advertising section for Activist U, written by BSNN correspondent Richard Venn. ] Pledge week is always lots of fun at Activist U. Are you bored? Looking for meaning to your existence? Are you an insignificant fish in the great ocean of life? Then do today what thousands of others have already done and enroll at Activist University! Yes, at Activist University you will receive the training to become the uninformed, emotional antagonist you have always wanted to be, while elevating yourself above the humanity you will come to despise. Activist U trains its students in the fine art of fault-finding and victimization. Our AU grads crusade for pet causes that heighten the self-image and pay handsome financial dividends! Located in Seattle, Washington, where brethren alumni recently took up the fight against the evil WTO, our campus is easy to find. Take the Ralph Nader Expressway from the center of town, then a hard left onto Greenpeace Way, and you're there! Students enjoy beautiful and environmentally friendly surroundings safe from the intrusions of the military-industrial complex. Our animal friends are free to roam about the grounds (don't worry, the number of fatal attacks has dropped in recent years!). Dress warm! We burn no fossil fuels on campus. You like science? The Al Gore College of Junk Science is for you! We offer intensive studies in Global Cooling/Warming; My Friend the Tree; and the Bad, Bad History of the Internal Combustion Engine. Does the classical scientific method bore you? Good, because we ignore it! At AU we teach you the fine art of back-filling data and outcome manipulation guaranteed to support your favorite agenda. You will learn to present your results in a hysterical manner sure to garner you oodles of research money and make you the hit of the talk-show circuit. Students can hone their math skills at the Paul Ehrlich Center for Math and Statistics. You will study how worst-case scenarios become dire predictions and why any risk (risk related to human activity, that is) is unacceptable. Dr. Ehrlich himself lectures on his 15-50 method of forecasting (make events occur 15 to 50 years into the future--soon enough to scare people, yet distant enough to forget when they don't come to pass). You will learn to attach fictional causes to statistically insignificant changes -- a rise in E. coli deaths, for example -- while you declare the latest national emergency. An aspiring news reporter? Our Geraldo Rivera School of Journalism is for you. We've kicked out dinosaurs Edward R. Murrow and David Brinkley, with their antiquated notions of careful, sober analysis, and replaced them with the free-wheeling, agenda-setting style you have come to expect. Learn to shape public opinion by the stories you carry -- and those you ignore -- by peppering your write-ups with irrelevant characterizations, and by playing tough with subjects you dislike while being a conduit to those more agreeable to your way of thinking. AU graduates can be found in news organizations across the country quashing critical thinking and educating the unwashed masses in their own world view. Many AU grads go on to law school, attending our Peter Angelos Campus nearby. Mr. Angelos, who purchased the Baltimore Orioles with attorney fees from asbestos litigation, donated the land after he received another windfall from the tobacco industry settlements. We cleared some redwoods, tossed out the homeless living there and erected a beautiful marble building in his honor. In its hallowed halls, dedicated researchers are hard at work concocting new injustices, while students prepare for life-long battles against the most horrible aspects of human society, like manger scenes. Caught the acting bug? Come visit the Meryl Streep Center for the Performing Arts near Martin Sheen Square! Our program will carefully insulate you from the workings of the real world, and fill you with the highest sense of self-importance. Your aura will grow! Your minions will hang on to every your word as you pursue the most recent Cause-of-the-Month. Polish those thespian skills, for your next Oscar nomination will give you more credibility than a nuclear physicist! We offer other curriculums as well. Seminary students can dabble in New Age mysticism. Business students? Unfortunately, we have no business courses of any kind. We used to offer Economics 101, but its principles flew in the face of everything else we were trying to teach. AU Students come out strong to support their team in the homecoming parade. Our students love the AU grading philosophy. We don't give any! That's right! As an activist you will never be expected to actually accomplish anything, so why would we burden you with artificial measures of achievement? Simply feeling compassion about the subject is good enough for us! And what about extracurricular activities? We have plenty! Do you like football? Congratulations, you just made the team! Want to play quarterback? Sure, you can do that, too! Everyone will have equal time doing anything they like! We never discriminate. We may not win many games, but we sure feel good about ourselves once the season is over. AU also offers a full range of placement, medical, and counseling services. Feeling happy, self-assured, motivated? Don't worry! A session or two with our fine counselors will have you back as a brooding malcontent in no time! And do you know what the best thing is about Activist University? Tuition is absolutely free! Our institution is totally tax supported. We wouldn't have it any other way! bsnn.net

To: gao seng who wrote (30650)	10/1/2001 10:42:37 PM
From: St_Bill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 82486

I am and will always be ambivalent about Clinton. And I'm none too sure about Bush II either. We'll see. And that's great. Unless we're being hoodwinked by unseen powers in this government, those that are really in control with their fleet of black helicopters, it still seems that we have the power to junk a leader. This is fabulous, altogether unappreciated power the we the people still seem to possess. And about McCarthy: As right as he was about the evils communism (and here I will always have questions -- Marx did have some good ideas, so were the evils of communism just perversions of communism? Democracy (or should I say 'capitalism'?), too, has had its perversions which have created a certain amount of enmity toward western democratic governments, some of it not entirely undeserved? It's complicated. One thing I've learned: don't put good ideas into the hands of people; they're sure to fuck them up. <-- Boy is that cynical. I really don't mean it) What I do really mean is that McCarthy's ends, however noble they may have been, did not justify the means he used -- which often flew in the face of the very Constitution he swore to protect. But what was scary was that so many jumped on this particular bandwagon, happily, waving the flag and pooping on the constitution as they rolled merrily along, trashing lives. Look at Ollie North, serving his president at the expense of his own oaths. Some people wanted him to run for President for crying out loud. And so back we go again, worrying about rights and the Constitution in our efforts to deal carefully with the powerful patriots among us, a very few of them only so-called.