There’s been a lot of discussion over the last few weeks about whether today’s vote would signal the end of the Reagan era. That discussion had two interlinked referents – the combination of militarism and small government rhetoric (if not practice) which marked Reaganite governance and the enduring electoral pattern Reagan’s win in 1980 ushered in. It may well be that these predictions are on the money, though we’ll need a few more electoral cycles to be sure (and one very useful thing the Obama administration could do would be reform of the voting process, which might make a fair bit of difference in and of itself). Certainly the red state/blue state frozen electoral map has begun to shift – with the state level strength in the West for the Democrats now translating nationally and the South becoming more competitive (and as Cliff Shecter observes, the demographics in Texas and South Carolina are heading in the same direction):
In other words, Barack Obama and the Democrats are a national party now, while the GOP has become regionalised and fallen behind the times. What a difference a few years can make. It will now be up to Obama and other leading Democrats to solidify these gains through smart politics and smarter policy. So we can all breathe a bit easier, by putting the Bush years behind us forever.
What’s a little surprising is that in the midst of these debates, there’s been little discussion of the exact significance and dimensions of the repudiation of Bushism. As publius says at Obsidian Wings:
Any way you slice it, the 2008 election should be seen as a massive repudiation of the George W. Bush administration.
And not just in psephological terms, as the Republican right may have driven Hispanic voters away for a long time. Let’s make no mistake about it. The collision of neo-con Republicanism and reality has not been kind to the latter. Publius again:
…recent events have repeatedly proven the progressive “sphere” more correct than the conservative “sphere.” Progressives’ policy assumptions seem to jibe better with empirical reality than the fairy tale world inhabited by many in the conservative sphere. In short, in the laboratory of ideas, progressives are winning.
It is fantastic to see the end of a governing philosophy which sought to legitimise torture, wiretapping and all manner of attacks on individual liberties and rights, and whose foreign policy posture was deeply immoral, as well as hugely counter-productive. It is also fantastic to see an end to wishing away global warming in the name of big money interests and the corruption of truth that has distinguished the Bush era. It is fantastic to see an end to a callous and deeply selfish acceptance of inequality as if it were the natural order. Barack Obama’s election is unequivocally a good thing for the world. I make no apologies for being moved by his election and by his victory speech.
It would also be good if Kevin Rudd and his mob realised that the bogey of right wing hegemony is no longer looking over their shoulder, and started to show a little more courage themselves. That would be a very welcome global impact of today’s events.
End of the Bush era. All I can really say is:
Thank fuck for that.
The promise of a better world seems to be dawning. I hope.
I too make no apologies for being moved by his victory. He is easily the most inspirational and from what what we’ve seen so far, capable, politician of my generation.
While we can celebrate the end of ‘Bushism’, the immoral foreign policy, erosion of liberties comes from forces bigger than Bush and his administration. America is fighting for its survival, it’s military is the only globally dominant institution it has. Its dominance is being challenged, and for an empire in peril, oppression at home and recklessness aboard is the norm.
But I think there can be no doubt that Obama is the right man, at the right time, I look forward to seeing what he really is capable of.
Try end of the Reagan era.
Which is a bad look for GWB. He killed his hero.
Jeb bush ’12!
Oh God am I happy. I have to confess I am probably a teensy bit more happy that the Republicans are out than the Democrats are in (Obama is not the messiah, but by God he has to be better than Bush, and I’m very happy that finally America can say it’s possible for a Black man to be president – now they just need to prove a Black woman can too!)
But I just could not have lived in a world where the neocons still reigned in America for a moment longer (well… I mean I wouldn’t have had much of a choice) but it’s like when Rudd won, such a burden of misery and despair lifted off the shoulders.
Kate Bush ’12!
The Bush era was when:
1. A man with modest foreign policy goals presided over the most bellicose foreign policy in American history.
2. A man who described himself as “a market guy” nullified by government fiat more private equity than Lenin did.
3. “Compassionate conservatism” proved to be neither compassionate nor conservative.
The Bush Era ended when:
1. American militarism proved itself to be a paper tiger.
2. The American economy could not survive outside a national-socialist framework.
3. The evangelical counter-revolution failed to convince a majority of US voters.
Katz @ 7:
National-socialist? Really?
Yes, really.
The corporatist policies of Hitler and Mussolini were based on:
1. picking winners/punishing losers by government fiat.
2. Subsidising winning entities with huge government financial support.
3. government control of markets aimed at simulating private markets. For example, stock exchanges continued to operate during the Third Reich, as did private capital markets.
The difference between Bush’s economic policies and the above is simply a matter of degree.
But he’s not finished yet. So hold the epitaphs.
NYT – Bush goes on the rampage
Just wait for the pardons he issues before leaving office!
Katz,
[In 2008, this is an apt description of the Republican relationship to government and power.]
This is a fabulous article and demonstrated the corrupting influences involved with the GOP’s getting into bed with the US armaments industry and the corporate sector and just where it has ultimately led to.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-cusack/no-currency-left-to-buy-t_b_140250.html
Sheridan is a joy this morning.
“It’s farewell to our great friend Bush. IT is the final tribute to George W. Bush. In his America, allegedly awash with racism, militarism and bitter religion, the white war hero with the evangelical running mate got creamed and the black man of letters got the presidency.”
How the f**k is this a tribute to Bush?
I dunno Lloyd, but Hitchens was trying the same dodge last night as well. But seriously, you gotta love dead-enders (remember the Iraqi defence chief in 2003).
They are there to put a smile on our dials.
Re Sheridan: wow, just wow.
Greg, are you paying attention?
It wasn’t Bush’s America. It is Americans’ America. Americans didn’t need Bush’s consent nor Bush’s help to repudiate Bush’s vision of a fearful, paranoid, belligerent, theocratic, authoritarian America.
Why did Americans repudiate Bush? Because they finally got wise.
Bush is no friend of Australia. He was a friend of our own discredited Howard regime. Haward and Bush were co-conspirators in making the world and their countries worse places.
Why did Australians repudiate Howard? Because we finally got wise.
It’s a toss up between gormless Greg and planet Janet for loony of the year, but I’d go for Janet.
Shorter JA: America is racist because it voted for Obama because of the colour of his skin.
I kid you not, but if you value your sanity, I’d skip the article and just read the comments.
It fun to watch them thrash around uncomprehendingly as their hackneyed certainties gets marched out and shot by the public.
Guys, its over. The Neocons are dead. Deregulation is dead, dead as state socialism in 1991.
Move on.
Thanks Scorpio for the Huffington Post article:
This delusion is the cause IMO for much of our social ills and lack of happiness.
We have all been conned into working every hour expected in order to earn enough to buy (or pay off ‘prosperity’).
As a result our family lives and communities have suffered. How many find it difficult to organise family gatherings for social occasions working around the work commitments of all involved?
Who really has time for community activities such as sport, theatre, partipating in charity events, or even joining a group like Lions, Scouting or whatever your fancy?
Meanwhile we surround ourselves with ‘things’ to fill the resulting emptiness.
But the overblown profits of companies, and salaries of CEOs demand that we behave in exactly this manner.
Probably why Michael Costa referred to Clive Hamiltons book ‘Affluenza’ as “dangerous, lefty crap”.
End of the Reagan era? Possibly.
End of the Bush era? Well, let’s wait and see.
A popular vote of 52/47 is a clear majority, but it only takes a few million voters to drift away (or not bother voting)……
“Work” is my neverending fountain of excuses to avoid excessive contact with those i’m not inclined to insult, so if you’re hearing a lot of that, …
A popular vote of 52/47 is a clear majority, but it only takes a few million voters to drift away (or not bother voting)……
From what I understand about the US electoral system, you can lose the election even if you have the majority popular vote. (Just like over here you can Govern without the majority of the popular vote. Preferences assist in this, as do coalition Govts.)
It is all decided on the Electoral College vote. Which Obama carried resoundingly and beyond dispute.
I find it interesting that such as Chris Hitchen’s (and other right wingers) seem to be the ones putting unrealistic expectation on OBama.
Personally I do not expect him to make all my wishes come true all at once. Let’s not forget that the neocon machine is still very much alive – just out of favour. (Let’s hope Obama puts a loyal and incorruptable security detail in place.)
Obama will have to move carefully and make sure he takes the country with him. This is the best way IMO to bring about lasting change.
“We have all been conned into working every hour expected in order to earn enough to buy (or pay off ‘prosperity’).”
I do wonder though what could possibly be done to reverse this. After all, there aren’t any laws compelling us to work the number of hours that we do.
Certainly it would seem one of the great disappointments of massive growth in labour productivity over the last century that we haven’t been able to significantly reduce the number of working hours necessary to sustain the lifestyles we desire. Insisting that people should desire less seems unrealistic (and wouldn’t necessarily help – as if average consumer spending dropped significantly our wages would eventually go down too as the economy shrunk), wage and/or price controls are rarely sustainable options, substantially increasing the amount of income redistribution might help but is unlikely to get sufficient political support and unless it done more efficiently than now would drag down the economy’s productivity, and while a program of aiming to significantly boost labor productivity further is worthwhile, we’ve already seen that that on its own isn’t enough to allow people to work fewer hours. One thing that perhaps could work is an income tax system based on hours worked, whereby, say, the first 20 hours of each week worked is taxed very lightly, the next 10 more heavily, the next 10 even more so etc. etc. – this could be seen as a way of internalising some of the social costs associated with over-work, and would encourage employers to prefer more workers working fewer hours over less full or over-time workers. Does anyone know if any economist has seriously suggested such an idea?
“Work” is my neverending fountain of excuses to avoid excessive contact with those i’m not inclined to insult,
Consumer, the relief can go both ways.
Given your manner, I’m sure that it does.
Kat:
that’s partly what I was getting at. The Electoral College tends to MAGNIFY small differences. Win a few States 51/49 and “winner takes all” means you walk away not with 51% of the Electoral College votes in those States, but 100%.
That’s fine, that’s the US system.
But Obama’s 52% can drift down to 50% or 49%, and he’s gone! Enthusiasm for his victory is good, but let’s not hype up the magnitude of the win or expect the change we saw yesterday to last a LONG time. It’s so easy to be mistaken if we grab a current fact or current trend and extraolpate it into the near or medium-term future.
I do wonder though what could possibly be done to reverse this. After all, there aren’t any laws compelling us to work the number of hours that we do.
No the laws only enable things like AWAs and other unequal work contracts.
When on a salary there are no set ‘hours’, plenty of unpaid overtime though.
Or the wage is so low you need to work 50hrs plus a week to make ends meet.
Certainly it would seem one of the great disappointments of massive growth in labour productivity over the last century that we haven’t been able to significantly reduce the number of working hours necessary to sustain the lifestyles we desire. Insisting that people should desire less seems unrealistic (and wouldn’t necessarily help – as if average consumer spending dropped significantly our wages would eventually go down too as the economy shrunk), wage and/or price controls are rarely sustainable options, substantially increasing the amount of income redistribution might help but is unlikely to get sufficient political support and unless it done more efficiently than now would drag down the economy’s productivity, …
Yes despite all that growth in productivity ‘we’ (corporations) have been unable to bequeath upon workers a livable wage unless we work 50 + hours per week.
Why would they when they can pocket the profits to pay obscene executive salaries, as well as dividends to their shareholders?
What some (like Michael Costa) don’t like, is that ‘consumers’ are human beings as well. Some have decided that a rich social and community life (not to mention improved health) is more valuable than the unecessary trinkets we buy (or pay off) in order to feel ‘properous’. It is a choice thing, and what scares the pants of some economists is that more and more people may make this choice.
It amuses me that some capitalists want to have their cake and eat it too. More company profits, less paid in wages. Ultimately this must come back to bite them.
Less money in the pocket means less spending on trinkets. Less spending on trinkets means decline in consumer spending and company profits.
We aren’t even in recession and people have stopped spending as they were. Impossible to spend what you don’t have.
Giving more money to those already well off means the money is less likely to be spent. Give money to lower income earners, and they will not only be able to meet their genuine needs (food, shelter, electricity, water, clothing) but they may even have some left over for the consumerism that keeps the economy ticking.
I’m not sure your taxation idea would work. Employers may well be encouraged to employ workers less hours, but unless the wage for the 20hr week was sufficient to cover needs and some extras the workers would be no better off and nor would the economy. Less pay, less consumerism and all that.
Employers would benefit from paying less tax, while not being compelled to raise wages. Society would suffer with less money being available for health, education etc.
My solution, tax the very wealthy more (and close all the loopholes so they have to pay it). Name and shame those who use off shore tax havens and collect all tax owed – no secret cut price deals with the tax office.
The worker is expected to pay every cent due in tax, why shouldn’t they?
Make public health and education as cheap as possible, and subsidise the wwages of the underpaid and/or underemployed to ensure that everyone has aa reasonable standard of living.
This may result in benefits such as less crime, and we may even save money on prisons and police.
The solution is in resolving excessive inequality, not promoting it.
Main point of last post was that we all quote the convenient socially acceptable reasons for living the way we do, and that the reasons quoted are not necessarily the true motivators.
Commend those who challenge the idea that to survive you need to work 60 hours a week. I’m happier and healthier (including financially) now that I do a maximum of 30 hpw (going on 4 years now).
I’m clearly not a workaholic, but have the inkling that they were born that way. Not sure if it is ok to single them out to pay more. Same argument for those who pack a lot of earning into a relatively few years, and then do a lot of unpaid work (caring within the family for the old or young).
No offence intended, Kat. And I hope the RSVPs come back thick and fast for your next shindig. This time I will not forget to
Haven’t slept since yesterday?
But Obama’s 52% can drift down to 50% or 49%, and he’s gone! Enthusiasm for his victory is good, but let’s not hype up the magnitude of the win or expect the change we saw yesterday to last a LONG time. It’s so easy to be mistaken if we grab a current fact or current trend and extraolpate it into the near or medium-term future.
I don’t think I am ‘hyping’ anything. Like I said above, I don’t expect immediate and profound change overnight. I do expect real change to be long term and believe this can be achieved. Look how much Howard (and Bush) changed their respective countries. Some cheered that change, and others denounced it.
The actions of the Govt do IMO influence the behaviour of the people. Sometimes tyrants get elected (even in democratic countries) and feed off the fears and insecurities, even exacerbating these where they can.
And let’s face it unless you want to risk being charged with sedition, there is little you can really do except hope enough of your fellow citizens become wise enough to vote the perpetrators out.
I do not see Obama’s win yesterday as THE change, I see it as the catalyst for change. There is no reason this cannot occur if citizens will it.
All most people want is to be employed and enjoy a reasonable (as opposed to excessive) standard of living. Deliver this and people will support change.
Why not the supported neo-con policies while they were benefitting from them (or thought they were).
Kat said:
The shareholders increasingly being the workers themselves (via super) of course. Or retirees wanting a modest income.
Correct – it gets invested instead. Thus increasing the productivity (and wages) of workers.
Why stop there? Why not ensure everyone has a ‘high’ standard of living. By your reckoning its just a matter of rearranging a few bits of ‘wealth’ so it should be easy.
fair enough, kat; you’re not hyping. others seem to be.
I’m clearly not a workaholic, but have the inkling that they were born that way. Not sure if it is ok to single them out to pay more. Same argument for those who pack a lot of earning into a relatively few years, and then do a lot of unpaid work (caring within the family for the old or young).
Actually wage earners who are workaholics (for whatever reason desire or necessity) would be better off as they would get to keep more of their pay if the extremely rich (think Lowy, Packer, the Rudd’s, the Turnbulls etc and generally those on incomes exceeding $500 000 per annum) were made to pay their fair share.
While I can accept that there may indeed be those who work endlessly because they just love their jobs so much, I am sure there are a great many more who work long hours out of necessity.
Why shouldn’t others be able to choose the same lifestyle as you have? I’m sure many would, but due to pathetic wages are unable to.
I would challenge any of our pollies to live on even the minimum wage, as many workers are forced to.
The average wage is a dream for some. But then wages growth figures are distorted by (again) excessive CEO salaries, bonuses etc. Usually achieved by squeezing even more hours per wage out of their largely powerless workforce.
On your ‘humour’, no offense taken. To be offended I would actually have to take you seriously.
Mark – The Reagan era ended in 1992 at the very latest. Bush the First declared a New World Order (whilst sticking to his PaleoCon guns in such a ways to ensure there wasn’t one). Clinton pussy-footed around, one eye on the opinion polls, the other one probably down some poor woman’s top.
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Bush II’s at the very least extremely lazy if not outright stupid. (Accounts differ). Like Reagan he aspired to be intuitive. I s’pose he thought that, because Reagan’s unorthodox approach to foreign affairs by which ‘ignorance’ was a virtue was successful, he would duplicate the approach. Whatever the microfacts of the Reagan years his administration’s difference of approach, which contradicted the conventional diplomatic wisdom of the time, very probably accelerated the demise of the Sovs if not provided the catalyst for it.
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But good strategy at one point is dumb at another.
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I’m not sure Reagan intended to achieve the Sov demise. And the records show that, whatever his intuitive insight might’ve been, the intelligence apparatus of the US was taken comepletely by surprise when the Sovs fell over.
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This of course has become the stuff of Myth and Dubya fell in with the High Priests of it. Unfortunately the High Priests didn’t pay attention to the facts.
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Reagan’s funding boost to the military industrial complex was, ironically, kinda Keynsian. (But because military it gets the Neo-Liberal stamp of approval.) However he didn’t indulge in large scale military campaigns. He pretty much persisted with the combinations of containment, covert operation and agit-prop that featured in the early phase of the Cold War. The Sovs, in the midst of their Vietnam, couldn’t keep up the expense. And they’d stopped believing their own bullshit.
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Bush struck the same pose of American exceptionalism that Reagan did but in a caricatured and hysterical fashion. He was too dumb to realize that Arabs aren’t Russians and that that was important. In fact his bunch thought cultural ignorance a virtue! He also made all of the, til then, covert nefarities of the intelligence world overt and advocated the necessity of rolling back democracy and liberalism in the name of democracy and liberalism. The Neo-Cons, like other staunch ideologues, ended up producing a nasty anti-Utopia.
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They’ve done a lot of damage to the brand of American conservatism that waves the flag and goes walking with Bibles and guns. I can’t say I’m entirely unhappy about this
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Ultimately, tho’ I loathed Reagan as a teenager, looking at the history, at some of his rhetoric and at the evidence of his liberal inclinations I’d be very reluctant to place Bush in with him. Bush is part of the not so slow creep of Fundamentalist theocrats that infect the States these days. Reagan may have given these people a certain lip sevice but he wasn’t one of them. Hell, some of his disarmament speeches sound positively pinko.
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Still I think there’s a good chance that Reagan learned everything he knew about foreign policy from Dr Stangelove and WWII movies featuring Henry Fonda. But it worked. Then.
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What Bush II did was become a puppet of dangerous and long-lurking courtiers of Georgetown appatchniks and resource corporations. It didn’t work so well. Still considering how bad he was, it ironically provides the ideal opportunity for someone like Obama. The world is so relieved that they’ll probably bend over backwards to accomdate him.
The shareholders increasingly being the workers themselves (via super) of course. Or retirees wanting a modest income.
Oh right. The worker/shareholder is still limited in the scope of Australian businesses except in the case of superannuation. Recent events have proven how secure that is.
Besides shareholders themselves (and not just worker/shareholders) are also getting fed up with executive excesses. Also, why would worker shareholders object to lesser dividends if they got more money in their weekly paypacket?
Some of us may not even live long enough to enjoy our super, and others have already raided theirs to pay defaulting mortgages.
Correct – it gets invested instead. Thus increasing the productivity (and wages) of workers.
Where is the proof that increased productivity has lead to higher wages? It has not, not for average workers anyway (except maybe in the mining industry). Which is why even the middle class are doing it tough. Relatives of mine and their partners both moved to the UK in the last couple of years because even with both partners in well paid public service jobs, they were unable to buy homes in Brisbane (even with the first home owners grant).
Remember how annoyed Howard made people with his “Australians have never had it so good”. It was out of touch then, and is still out of touch.
Why stop there? Why not ensure everyone has a ‘high’ standard of living. By your reckoning its just a matter of rearranging a few bits of ‘wealth’ so it should be easy.
Because high standards of living are environmentally and economically unsustainable. And I think if given the choice many would prefer to work less hours for a reasonable standard of living with the added benefits as I have mentioned above.
Of course the ‘choice’ to work long hours and recieve greater remuneration would still be there. The difference is is would be real choice and not Hobson’s.
Adrien, just for the record Carter not Reagan instigated the Soviet-Afghanistan conflict in 1979.
Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski (Carter’s National Security Advisor) here.
Very telling interview, especially his comments in regards to ‘radical Islam’.
So why did we invade Afghanistan again? Oh yeah because the US told us Osama Bin Laden blew up the twin towers and we all raced to invade. No proof required or necessary.
Given their record of honesty in relation to Iraq’s WMD’s, I personally am loathe to simply accept them at their word.
Perhaps we could avoid a whole lot of further grief and destruction by learning from the Russian experience. It cost Russia dearly, and they still lost.
Personally I would still like to see actual evidence that OBL etc were responsible for 9/11. After all even the FBI have not listed this as one of OBL’s crimes on their 10 most wanted list. Or they hadn’t last time I looked.
at federal minimum wage of $14.31, 30 hours per week (3.5 days) earns $429 a week before tax. $381 after tax.
can rent a 1 br flat near ferry and train in sydney suburb of meadowbank for $180 pw http://www.domain.com.au/Public/PropertyDetails.aspx?adid=5899627
green travel pass = $43
fixed phone line = $5
power = $20
private health insurance w/ extras = $34
leaves $100 for food and anything else that costs money.
also leaves 3.5 days a week for things that don’t, or might contribute to getting into a more time-efficient way of making the basic requirement.
A partner doing the same thing with would leave an additional say $250 pw to save or spend, but even on basis of singleton, can’t see an existential problem, who doesn’t mind adding a few shifts once in a while. Admittedly, that’s very simplistic, and assumes that one is healthy.
Helps to have no car, children, drug, alcohol or texting habit.
Admittedly, that’s very simplistic, and assumes that one is healthy.
Helps to have no car, children, drug, alcohol or texting habit.
Agreed. It is simplistic and draconian.
$100 a week to cover food (checked the prices of food lately?), cleaning products, hygiene products, entertainment, clothing, shoes and internet access (or should those on minimum wages forgo this?). Not to mention occasional expenses such as doctor’s visits, flu shots, hair cuts, presents for family and friends birthdays, Christmas etc. Obviously savings would be out of the question, as are hobbies and luxuries such as life or home contents insurance.
Of course they could marginally improve their position by NOT wasting $34 a week on private health insurance. Why bother? We do have a public health system (thank God)despite the best efforts of the Coalition to dismantle it.
As for a couple their position may be slightly improved, as long as they don’t have kids, a car, a social life or hobbies.
Thank you for proving my point that the minimum wage is pathetic. It provides means for an existance NOT a life.
Why should workers be content with this while CEO’s and others make $100s of thousands (usually by screwing workers or dodgy investments), if not millions while avoiding tax whenever or wherever they can?
Wasn’t capitalism supposed to free the lower class from such a meagre existance? Not entrench inequality.
budget was derived from my choices:
doc = $0 bulk bill medical centre
flu shots, no
haircut = $0 DIY
life insurance, no
contents insurance, no, kung fu will be fine
presents = 0 zero-sum, among friends, are you kidding me? homemade only please. excess pickles or something
hobbies = 0 library card, beach, cooking
shoes = $8 pw or $300 for two pairs a year
internet = $12
yes i buy groceries. not much change in the last few years. bog rolls (not scratchy) still 50c each when you buy on special in 9 or 12 pack (which it always is every month or 2). $120 pw for two. more than that, it ends up going off.
not sure who these ‘lower class’ people are, they sound like a depressing grey bunch. don’t regard my life as a meagre existence before or after i happen to see DBs driving around in their merc with the top down.
Consumer, maybe it is just me but somehow I have a very hard time believing that your two prior contributions are actually a true indication of your lifestyle.
Seems rather odd that someone would spend almost 10% of their extremely modest net income on private health insurance, and that is where you give yourself away.
Clearly this is the ‘lifestyle’ you expect others to be content with. Why then would you have any objections to those receiving at least 21 x this amount paying their fair share (no exemptions, tax havens etc) to improve our society for everyone?
Like I said, impossible to take you seriously.
Kat – Adrien, just for the record Carter not Reagan instigated the Soviet-Afghanistan conflict in 1979.
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Yeah I know.
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In fact a lot of Reagan’s policies begin with Carter. Oh the irony.
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Brzezinski’s latest book takes a snarky snipe at the Reagan Myth and emphasizes that the fall of the Sovs was the result of policy over many administrations. He lists the achievements. When he gets to Carter he waxes quite verbose. He fails to mention anywhere of course that he was Carter’s NSA. (n’uk).
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Personally I would still like to see actual evidence that OBL etc were responsible for 9/11. After all even the FBI have not listed this as one of OBL’s crimes on their 10 most wanted list. Or they hadn’t last time I looked.
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Well Bin Laden owned up to it. That’s assuming he isn’t some sort of Wag The Dog type conglomeration of logos.
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Personally I think the 9/11 story is, at the very least, sloppy. There are many good reasons to question it not least the fact that the explanation, physically, for the way by which the WTC buildings fell is, ahem, almost a physical impossibility. But, despite the fact that no-one to date can explain how a building falls straight down when hit by a plane two thirds up, if you raise the subject with anyone who isn’t crazy they’ll call you crazy.
Adrien,
I don’t think you’re crazy, but if you think back to the day itself, he buildings did not tumble over as soon as they were hit. They stood firm. Designed to take wind gusts (and earthquakes I suppose) intheir stride so to speak. The collapses ere many many minutes later. Tonnes of aircraft fuel burning in high temperature fires inside a building acting as incinerator [I mean the walls and floors containing the fuel and hot gases to some extent]
Unusual construction of these buildings made them vulnerable after some structural elements failed under high temp stresses, we’re told. Scarcely any wind on the day; majority of forces vertically downwards; so collapse was vertical [unlike the earlier plan with the explosives in the basement, where TOPPLING was a prime objective, by trying to make one SIDE of a tower collapse].
By all means look into the details. You’re not crazy; scepticism should rule. Cheers.
Yeah I’ve heard all that. There’s two problems.
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First, as the 9/11 commission ceded: the heat produced by the planes, the fuel therein and the combustible material in the WTCs was not sufficient to melt steel. At ground zero there was molten metal that glowed orange-red. The report said this was from the fuselages of the planes. Problem: planes are made of aluminium. At that temperature aluminium glows silver-grey not orange red. Steel when melted glows orange red. How did it melt?
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We’ll never know because the steel was shipped off to China as soon as it was cool enough. No testing. How sloppy is that?
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Second problem: Take a a bit of metal wire, like a bit of coathanger. Put it in a vice so it’s vertical. Apply a flame to a spot two thirds up. See what happens. What happens obviously is that it will start to heat up. The metal will buckle at the point where the heat is applied first. It will then bend from that point. What it won’t do is heat up throughout and then fall vertically straight down.
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Of all the ‘debunking the debunking’ bits I’ve read these two questions are never sufficiently addressed. The behaviour of the buildings is consistent with controlled demolition. Add to that witness reports of explosions below the impact point in sequence and the absence of an opportunity to test the metal…
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Well if I was a cop and this was just some non-political incident I’d smell insurance scam. But no-one wants to go there because the implications are too scary.
Unusual construction of these buildings made them vulnerable after some structural elements failed under high temp stresses, we’re told. Scarcely any wind on the day; majority of forces vertically downwards; so collapse was vertical
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Yeah again I know but it doesn’t make sense.
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If the buildings collapse vertically due to the weakened pylons fine. But the columns would still be progressively stronger. So instead of a free fall collapse you’d get something that resembles a car crashing into a bus. The front of the car would be a mash but as the force slowed the impact you’d get less and less damage. The back of the car would still be intact.
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The towers fells straight down, all the way.
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And the buildings were tested. They were fine. To date no steel frame buildings have ever been brought down by fire. Add to that the freakishness of the way it happened and the fact that it happened three times on the same day. It doesn’t wash.
But it’s like JFK, we’ll never know. The solution is to put in place measure to assure that politicized crimes are thouroughly investigated separately from politics.
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Good luck.
Well Bin Laden owned up to it. That’s assuming he isn’t some sort of Wag The Dog type conglomeration of logos.
Not according to some OUTSIDE the Bush Administration. There are some who believe the Bin Laden ‘confession’ was a fake. Even if you are disinclined to believe this, it STILL does not explain why the FBI have not added this crime to his file.
Wag the Dog??? LOL. The whole fairytale that OBL & 15 SAUDI’s managed to plan and carry out the 9/11 attacks without being discovered, is a more apt comparison.
Clearly you believe in coincidence. It was clearly a coincidence that NORAD was stood down on the very morning of the attacks, right?
But I’m not going to argue with you. The info is out there. If you have already looked into it and still believe Bush & Co, then I am clearly not going to convince you.
Many ex US Military & Intelligence service personnel do not agree with you. IMO it takes a lot of courage to speak out against the Govt of the day to voice your reasonably well qualified concerns. These are people with much to lose and little to gain.
Hey Adrien I think I may have shot of my mouth too soon. Please accept my apologies. Keep thinking along those lines.
The other problem with the heat from the fire caused by the planes is that even if you do accept this, it still does not adequately address the collapse of WTC building 7.
Look I would honestly like to believe it is all above board, however due to the fact the CIA had a plan to kill civilians in the US which they would blame on the Cubans (JFK did not approve this so it never went ahead).
Then there is the issue of the JFK assasination itself (not to mention MLK and RFK assasinations). Isn’t it well a strange coincidence that in that in one decade three very prominent left wingers including the POTUS and his Senator brother were successfully assasinated and the much acclaimed US intelligence community was (once again) completely in the dark.
JFK and the CIA had a very strained relationship with Kennedy at one point vowing to ‘smash the CIA to a thousand pieces’ (not to sure if this was after the ‘kill civilians and blame the Cubans plan’ was quashed.
Despite all the evidence that the Warren Commission was a complete farce (similar to the 9/ll Commission) some references still claim that LHO acted alone and is completely responsible.
Adrien,
I’m afraid that a single piece of wire held vertical in a vice is an inadequate analogue of a fairly wide building with a complex and symmetric frame and huge loads on the lower parts of that building.
Sorry, but it’s so different that the result of your experiment is not directly transferrable to the case in point.
BTW, there were many different metals in the buildings apart from aeroplane fuselages and structural steel (e.g. filing cabinets, photocopy machines, lifts, etc etc).
cheers
I’m afraid that a single piece of wire held vertical in a vice is an inadequate analogue of a fairly wide building with a complex and symmetric frame and huge loads on the lower parts of that building.
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Bullshit.
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I’m sorry but the differences are not significant except in so far as they go further to prove my point. A wire held vertically being subjected to a flame has a much greater chance of collapsing then a steel frame building subjected to a collision with a plane.
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If you’re suggesting that the immense amount of molten metal at Ground Zero was the collective result of melted filing cabinets good luck there. Again: steel does not melt at the temperatures created by the exploding aircraft. Again: steel when melted glows orange-red in daylight. Again: aluminium (the official explanation for the molten metal) glows silver-grey.
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The metal at ground Zero was what colour?
Adrien, surely you’d have to accept that even if it were the case that there was overwhelming evidence that very high temperatures occurred during the WTO collapse that couldn’t be explained by the collision alone, it’s far more likely it was due to explosives in the plane rather than explosives in the building?
FFS – there have been numerous studies by a range of organisations on the collapse of the WTC buildings – and while there is ongoing debate/conjecture by experts about whether it was the structural impact of the jets at that speed, the effect of fire on the particular column structure of the buildings, the weight of the falling floors onto of each other or all of the above – all of the organisations have repudiated the planned demolition conspiracy theory and all other nutter theories – so you either accept the evidence and models produced by experts in this field or you believe that all of these groups and the eminent engineers involved are all frauds/involved in a cover-up.
As for the little building below – there is whole doco that the ABC screens late at night – the entire back of the building was on fire – and they talk to the NY Fire Chiefs who were there on duty all day – again – they must be all in on the conspiracy… and again this building also forms part of the above reports etc.
These are the weird groups:
National Institute of Standards and Technology; Structural Engineering Institute; American Society of Civil Engineers, Society of Fire Protection Engineers, National Fire Protection Association, American Institute of Steel Construction, Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat, and the Structural Engineers Association of New York and many other universities/engineers in the US and the UK.
What happened on 9/11 wasn’t about dumb, dumb conspiracy theories it was the total exposure of the myth of US supremacy that we all had lived with up until that moment – that is – super computers that livetime decoded ALL communications AND from space…flyboy mavericks in radar evading Raptors shooting you down as you entered US airspace, blahby blah.
The myth of the US homeland being invulnerable to attack was completely smashed on the morning on 9/11. Instead of what we thought or were led to believe would happen, there was instead complete chaos at every single command level in both military and civilian services, and principally because it was a surprise attack.
And the reason they don’t show the Pentagon footage on TV? We all saw it on that morning, it was broadcast for hours – but after it was all pulled – and why…..because how frigging embarrassing that some low rent muzzie crackpots hit the Pentagon – the frigging Pentagon!!!! …..Let’s show the world yet again the headquarters of the US military being successfully attacked….I don’t think so.
In many ways having these absurd conspiracy theories about 9/11 suits a wounded superpower – in that it undercuts the success of the mission by a low rent terror group. Al Qaeda had a successful record of destruction for a decade in the lead up to 9/11 and certainly had tons of resources on hand, but in comparison the US military – v. low rent.
Adrien, this might help:
http://www.civil.northwestern.edu/people/bazant/PDFs/Papers/466.pdf
How did this thread end up in a discussion of “truther” nonsense?
Kim,
Thought I’d have better luck talking sense into 9/11 conspiracy theorists than right-wing talking point regurgitators on the other thread. You gotta draw the line somewhere.
Thanks, Jo!
Tough life when so many people are saying wrong things on the internets!
My knowledge of demolition can be printed on the back of a postage stamp.
However I do know enough of blasting to know that if those towers were brought down by charges, PLENTY of people WOULD have noticed the preparatory work, which would have been extensive, and which would have taken quite some time (possbily weeks).
The ABC doco on the collapse of WTC 7 (the building that was supposed to have been ‘pulled’) was excellent. Pity it was on so late. The guy from “Loose Change” came across as a total arsehole.
The good thing about conspiracy theories is that all evidence against the conspiracy (such as reports by National Institute of Standards and Technology etc) can be dismissed simply as being part of the conspiracy. Since no evidence can exist to disprove the conspiracy theories, they can be held forever.
Perhaps the best known modern conspiracy theorist is Mr Mohammed al Fayed who believes that his son Dodi and Princess Diana were murdered in a conspiracy organised by the British Establishment. All evidence to the contrary (police reports etc) is just a cover up by the British Establishment.
Interestingly with 9/11 we have several variants of the conspiracy: some believe it was a CIA/Mossad operation, while others swear that Muslim schoolchildren in Brooklyn knew in advance what was going down.
Perhaps they were in all it together in an all-embracing conspiracy, like the plot from a Robert Ludlum novel.
OMG! Conspiracy theories! And to think I missed it because I’ve only been cursory in my glances at some posts after they’ve been up several days.Missed all the fun, I did!
btw, it had something to do with Darth Vader. I’m sure.
Adrien -
Seriously comrade, you must give up this WTC-7 truther nonsense.
Jo – Thanks for that. The report says that the floor was weakened – true. And that this caused a free fall of the upper section of these buildings. All the way down. The progressive collapse should however have been progressively haulted. Sure if you sever most of the support on one floor it will provide enough energy to collapse the next. Sure there will be a momentum. However as the wreckage above encounters more and more resistance requiring more and more energy.
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There’s a lot of fancy physics in that report and I’m unable to evaluate it. However there’s a lot of fancy physics in the debunking of the 9/11 Commission report as well. One of the points made by those who criticize the official physics is that the towers fell at speeds which indicated there was very little resistance. Still I can’t do the sums.
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I am able however to evaluate the report’s discursive force and strategy. Citing the collpase of the Ronan Point apartment tower is telling. That structure was shown to be deliberately flawed. Inherently flawed. And there was no structural frame in the building. And still it was a partial collapse. Likewise the Oklahoma City bombing happened from in front at the base of the building. And a section of it remained standing.
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Why cite these as precedents? Something about the rhetoric at the end likewise disturbs me. They seem to almost be pleading: Progressive collapse is not out of the question.
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Of course I can’t say. I am not, as is often said, advocating a conspiracy theory. Any of them. I am casting doubts on the quality of this report and the quality of the investigation that produced it.
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There’s no doubt a lot crazy and misinformed rhetoric. There’s no doubt information I either haven’t come across or are unable to assimilate. However I really don’t see how something that’s highly unlikely to happen happens twice on the same morning.
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And given the politicization evident in just about all the discourse about this matter it’s really hard to see it in anything like an objective light.
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Still I gotta ask – why did they ship all that metal off to China. All they had to do was test it. They should’ve tested it right? Crime scene and all. And if there were no explosives that’d be the end of the story.
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We’ll never know.
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What interests me however is that people will dig in their heels, fold their arms and argue until they’re blue in the face that what they do not know is so. And if you question the official report you’re called crazy even tho’ your objections are reasonable and those labeling you such have no idea.
Bollocks. There is more weight. The collapse would increase in speed – which it did.
And they did test it. A very cursory google search brings up this.