Sarasota principal defends Bush from "Fahrenheit 9/11" portrayal

crazyfingers said:

How about getting more people on our side than against us and hating us?

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Do you have any proof that this would have been the case?

crazyfingers said:

Bush didn't write the "Patrior Act", it came by way of congress. And the patriot act is badly flawed when it comes to civil rights. I suspect that a netter law would have come about.

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I never said that Bush wrote the Patriot Act, but he did sponsor it along with the Attorney General. Besides, what makes you "suspect" a better law could have been written? Sounds to me like you're just making lots of wild guesses without any concrete proof.

crazyfingers said:

Why should I believe you?

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Or I you.

crazyfingers said:

It's utterly clear that the Bush war against Iraq did not help the situation at all and probably had made things worse vs terrorism given the fact, that you seem to still not recognise, that Iraq and the 9-11 terrorists were not connected.

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Again, this is hindsight.

crazyfingers said:

We need a president who can actually stay focused and not go off on wild unrelated adventures.

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I don't understand your reason for saying that. GWB is as focused as anyone could possibly be. What makes you think Kerry could do better?

Lorena said:

Do you have any proof that this would have been the case?

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I suggest that you look at European public opinion surveys beginning from the Bush admin.

I never said that Bush wrote the Patriot Act, but he did sponsor it along with the Attorney General. Besides, what makes you "suspect" a better law could have been written? Sounds to me like you're just making lots of wild guesses without any concrete proof.

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Don't tell me that you have not read about some of the abuses of civil liberties that the patriot act allows for?

I don't understand your reason for saying that. GWB is as focused as anyone could possibly be. What makes you think Kerry could do better?

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Lets see. Bush bearly finishes in Afganistan, leaves then to swing in the breeze and then get sidetracked on Iraq.

suzQ,
the reason your kidding about the panic isn't funny is that everyone has used the same impossibly lame argument that the only alternative for bush was to panic the children by leaping up and saying the sky is falling. it is such a disingenuous stance that it overrides any humor you may make of it. if you go back and read this thread, the same "what should he have done, panicked the kids?" argument is made at least four times and at least twice by you. it is not a hang out and see how the goat book turns out or stand up screaming and crying and wetting his pants either/or situation. a mature leader could have left and kept the kids calm. this argument was refuted after the first time it was made, and it has not become any more convincing in the telling.
the bush apologists on this thread are backing the man that most resembles themselves. they, too, can not admit when they have erred.

SuzQ said:

Guess what? No one did criticize him about the events of 9/11! .....Until Michael Moore's film tried to insinuate something else - amazing, isn't it?

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Not having been reared on the sanctity of freedom of speech: I find dialogue sustained in a prejudice tornado, distressing and unprofitable; reality or truth, its very possibility, is shredded.

However, even that principle of free speech, presumably, has to be qualified in seeing it consistently applied.
It seems to me, that all Suzq is about here, in exercising her freedom of speech right, is a determination to compromise MM's exercise of his: at least to the extent of blocking and confusing the signal from his.

In Europe, what SuzQ says about liberals, ad hominem I think some would term it: would see her flirt with illegality; risking being seen as engaging in hate crime, even if at its margins.

Rights are fantastic.
I often bridle at the regulated tolerance in my own country; I sometimes suffer because there is not genuine freedom of speech in the UK.
But, rights are only sustainable, where these rights are exercised responsibly.
SuzQ can legitimately attack the ideas that others suscribe to, and perhaps even so with values: but to attack people for what they are, in their general approach and judgement, is simply to be driven by blind prejudice.
However nice SuzQ; this is dangerous way to proceed.

I may be missing something, but that's how this thread looks to me.

one way to prove me wrong about the inability to admit to a mistake, suzQ.
(by the way, i think existential 1 is overboard on his evaluation of you in this thread.)
e1,
trust me, the right to free speech is sustainable even when used irresponsibly. we prove that in our country every day.

crazyfingers said:

Lets see. Bush bearly finishes in Afganistan, leaves then to swing in the breeze and then get sidetracked on Iraq.

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On the contrary, Bush has done more for Afghanistan than any five other countries combined have ever done for them.


click here for the Truth

Health

Afghanistan has improved its health care system and with a U.S commitment of $133 million planned for a three-year program, access to health services will be expanded. Successes since April 2002 include:

* Reopening Rabia Balkhi Women's Hospital in Kabul, Afghanistan, after a six- month renovation project supported by the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS) and Defense
* Vaccination of 4.3 million children against measles and treated 700,000 cases of malaria
* Revitalization of the polio eradication programs surveillance system
* Revising the national curriculum for midwives
* Completing the rebuilding of 72 hospitals, clinics and womens healthcare centers
* Planning to build or rehabilitate 550 heath care centers



Education

Afghanistan has made great strides in revitalizing the education system. Recent successes include:

* 4 million children are now enrolled in school
* Six students completed the first module of a six-month radio journalism program offered by Radio Free Europe/Radio Free Liberty in Kabul
* Eleven men and six women graduated from the University of Kabuls new Cisco Networking Academy
* Afghan staff were hired and trained to work at Radio Arman, Afghanistans new independent radio station

The U.S. is initiating a $60 million program to build or repair 1,000 schools, train 30,000 teachers, offer accelerated learning programs to 60,000 students and print 15 million textbooks for 2.9 million students, 30 percent of whom are girls.



Agriculture

Rehabilitating agriculture is key to the growth of the Afghan economy and the local farmers are working to re-establish production. The U.S. is helping by providing the following:

* $6 million to assist the Afghan people in managing the water system
* $15 million to restore irrigation systems and other essential services
* 6,100 water projects (including wells, springs, irrigation canals, urban water systems, dams, and culverts)

There have been successes in agriculture, such as, an increase of food production, an 82percent increase in wheat yields through fertilizer and improved wheat seed, the development of a crushing facility to produce and market peanut and other oils from the high-value crops, and high-value crop diversification for approximately 18,000 farmers


Infrastructure

A priority for revitalizing the economy of Afghanistan is to rebuild Afghans main transportation artery the Kabul-Kandahar-Herat road

* The U.S. has committed $180 million to the rebuilding of the road The Kabul-Kandahar portion will be completed by the end of December 2003
* The U.S. in partnership with Norway will provide $12 million to build a bridge over the river between Afghanistan and Tajikistan



Empowering Women

Afghanistan is providing renewed opportunities for women. With the support of the U.S., women are receiving education, skills and tools they need to obtain jobs and integrate into the political and public life. Programs include:

* Handicraft training
* Resource centers that includes a library, Internet room and audio visual training centers
* Widow bakeries providing bread to Afghanistans urban poor
* Educational and vocational courses



Afghan National Army

The Afghan government plans to create an army of 70,000 to defend their country. As of April 5, 2003 the ninth battalion of 716 Army recruits began basic training.

The new recruits will be trained by fellow Afghan non-commissioned officers, instead of by Coalition Partners.





.....And the Truth shall set you free.... or at least dispell biased reporting.

While defending the President's inability to act like a President for 7 minutes has it's rewards for those who just love the little guy to death, I'd like to mention that MM wasn't the first to note it. We have all discussed it a lot, long before MM enshrined it in his film. Furthermore, if you wonder what he was doing for seven minutes, please explain what the heck he was doing for SIX FULL HOURS before he addressed the nation. Please, do justify that to us.

jameseb said:

On the contrary, Bush has done more for Afghanistan than any five other countries combined have ever done for them.


click here for the Truth

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I'm supposed to accept a white house press release as unbiased and truthful? From the current administration that thrives on not telling the truth? You have GOT to be kidding.

What would concern me, would be getting to some understanding of something, that was useful: that might even, God forbid, begin to deal with old fashioned qualities, like truth, fact, data, reason, suggestion.
Where dialogue takes place in a wind tunnel of prejudice (pre-judgement not very much influenced by anything in dialogue): then sure, you may continue to do something free-speech democratically important, and that's not to be decried; but, any understanding that establishes and grows in such conditions, like a stunted tree on a wind swept barren island, will have strange misshapeness.
I have never grieved, never made closure for the events of 9/11, including GWB's appearance in that school: because the events weren't even cold, the dead not even counted; before world process, fed from all sides, took the reality of it away from me.
For me, what I saw on my TV screens, is orphaned and detached, slowly being dealt with in my personal depths: because my collective, on both sides of the Atlantic, and often elsewhere, has chosen to use it to further their myriad agendas; has failed to develop perspective that would enable us to again see the events, has failed to do what is necessary to look through the window on who we are, that is 9/11.
Post 9/11 has just been a circus of putative opinion forming, mostly done by hucksters, many of them politicians, and many of them Christian.
IMO, more crucially than with most matters, unless we detach from our prejudices fairly absolutely, as Jesus would have it incidentally; then we simply muddy waters, and place more detrius between us and understanding.
That's okay in its own way, it is what people do, and this is a circus turn: but where people, in doing these circus turns, dress up in the clothes of venerable traditions, such as reason and Christianity; then it can distress wimps like me.

Grizzly said:

Does anyone here want to address my posts? Does anyone here want to argue that Bush did the right thing by sitting in a classroom "projecting calm" instead of leaving immediately?

I'm talking in hindsight, now. Would it have been better for the president to act?

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At the time, of the parts played by GWB post 9/11: this was the only one that I could endorse; I saw a real human being, processing the inconcievable, and I could like the man.

As soon as he was again script driven, he left me cold: and my opinion of GWB has gone steadily downhill from there.

That view of his school moment has been rocked a little bit, but only in tiny degree, by conspiracy suggestion that he already knew something of unfolding events.
But that's not something I would explore. It's enough to know that he must be removed from office, on other grounds.

I've got no real interest in what MM is bringing into play here: his interviewing of a somewhat senile Charlton Heston, in a Bowling for Columbine which I could have approved of as documentary and morality play, was inhuman, and took MM of my christmas card list.

It's worrying that the world is populistically turning to MM. Not because what he considers is out of order, for it is not. But that people need others to think these thoughts for them: and cannot give them any reality, unless they see it suggested on video, and get other people saying this is great.
Until the thinking and feeling that MM represents is done by Joe public, and as a matter of course, then we remain in deep trouble.