Nick wrote:
Off-Topic: This post discusses what's in an already
identified 'OT' thread.

Chapman billy wrote in
message news:MPG.1942c1cb1c37583e9896e2@news.
In article 20030528172953.01703.00000469@mb-
m05.aol.com, Mark Houlsby -remove)- says...
(snipped)

I have not seen Nick admit that he set out to
deliberately provoke in the
matter of the Vincennes. We all have blind spots, he may
genuinely not have
realised the reaction that would ensue; he is a welcome
regular contributor
to this group and has avowed, as yet, no such ulterior motivation.

'If we go back to the beginning we shall always find that
ignorance and fear
have created gods; fancy, enthusiasm, or deceit has
adorned or disfigured them;
weakness worships them; credulity preserves them in life;
custom regards them
and tyranny supports them in order to make the blindness
of men serve its own
ends.'
--Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach (1723-89)

'Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but
his judgement; and
he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to
your opinion.'
--Edmund Burke (22 March 1775)

Simon,

Thanks very much for writing that I am 'a welcome regular
contributor to this
group'. I appreciate your sincerity, as I hope you do mine.

When, in response to StanB's post denouncing the
Ukrainians for shooting down
an Israeli airliner, I wrote my post on the 1988 American
shoot-down of an
Iranian airliner, my intention was to remind people who
live in glass houses
not to be too hasty in throwing stones at others; I did
not expect what ensued.

When Salman Rushdie, who had grown up among Muslims, wrote
'The Satanic Verses',
he did not set out to provoke a fatwa condemning him to
death. In retrospect,
his 'blind spot' loomed large. I did not grow up among
extreme right-wing
jingoistic Americans. Notwithstanding any 'blind spots'
of mine about them,
my post on the American shoot-down did not aim to
'provoke' anyone. And I
doubt that it *did* seriously 'provoke' many, if any,
readers here beyond
a solitary extreme right-wing American politician, Tim
Hanke, and his hard
core of political followers. Hanke distorted my post in
order to execute a
baseless political ad hominem attack on me. Then he
suddenly fell silent
when he was unable to support his accusations against me.

In this thread (1 June 2003), Louis Blair, who has
reviewed all the evidence,
wrote: "As far as I could see, Timothy Hanke did *not*
back up his 'fell flat'
claim when Nick complained."

I have to say that I was disappointed that you seemed to
have given Tim Hanke's
baseless accusations against me more credence than they
ever deserved, at least
to the extent of appearing to have been unduly influenced
by his making them.

Perhaps you were unaware that Tim Hanke is held in deep
disdain by many RGCM
(not to mention RGCP) readers. I have read quite a few
posts expressing the
conviction (albeit sometimes in more euphemistic terms)
that Tim Hanke is
a pathological liar as well as a racist or a bigot.
Evidently, Tim Hanke
already had deeply offended many people and made many
lasting enemies here
*before* I ever wrote anything at all here.

'It is a general popular error to suppose the loudest
complainers for the
public to be the most anxious for its welfare.'
--Edmund Burke (1775)

I have no desire to engage in flame wars, even if others do.
Evisceration by insult rarely has the apparently desired
effect of moderating
behaviour and attitudes, I have found patient cajoling a
much better approach.

'Men can resist the remonstrances that wound them, and so
irritate them, better
than they can those gentle appeals that rouse no anger,
but soften the whole
heart.'
--Charles Reade (Griffith Gaunt)

Do you admire the Fabian Society's historical strategy of
'permeating' local
governments in Britain, the 'inevitability of gradualness'? :-)

However, I have been called far worse things than that. I
have even received
telephone calls at home delivering the same message. All
for making what
turned out to be 100% accurate forecasts that were out of
kilter with the
nostrums of the day.

Like Cassandra, alas, a prophet tends to proceed without
honour (and honours)
in one's own country.

Abneos : Yes. We must make a war-song.
Demokos: Very proper. A war requires a war-song.
Paris : We have done without one up to now.
Hecuba : War itself sings quite loud enough.
Abneos : We have done without one because up to now we
were fighting only
barbarians....
--Jean Giraudoux (La Guerre de Troie n'aura pas lieu)
--Christopher Fry (translated into English as 'Tiger at the Gates')

In short, unless Hanke *denounces* these ignorant,
offensive, racist idiots
he will, by implication, be agreeing with them... he
certainly cannot deny
that StanB is one of his most ardent adherents...

Since Mark Houlsby wrote that, it has become evident that
Tim Hanke does align
himself with the racist statements of his friends, StanB
and Briarroot.
Please read their comments about my alleged 'eating pygmy'
(cannibalism), as
quoted in my earlier post in this thread, or as they were
originally written
in the ancestral thread, 'A new enemy of Lev Khariton'.

Your conclusion does not follow from your premise. If it
were otherwise then
you are asserting that the "silent majority" support what
has been written,
which I, for one, do not accept.

'Speech is often barren; but silence also does not
necessarily brood over a
full nest.'
--George Eliot (Felix Holt the Radical)

'Qui tacet consentit' (Who remains silent gives consent)
is the maxim in law.
In many cases, however, I am disinclined to make any
definite inference on
what the 'silent majority' believes.

'There are cases in which silence implies other things than consent.'
--Walter Scott (Redgauntlet)

My two cents: the reasons *not* to give the present
administration the
benefit of the doubt about *anything at all* are too
numerous to list here,
but some of the main ones a
1) it was not democratically elected.

Suppose by some legal manoeuvre that Gore had forced a
rerun of the election,
how can you be so certain that there would not have been
a Winchester effect?

Now there's the rub: no one today can be *certain* of what
should have been
the outcome of the 2000 United States presidential
election *if* everyone were
able to agree that its procedures had been observed fairly and fully.

You seem to imply that since Bush *might* have won a rerun
of the disputed
election, he *should* have won (or been declared the
official winner of, as
he was) the original election.

In my view, any democracy has suffered a major (perhaps
sometimes approaching
a fatal) loss of public confidence whenever perhaps about
half of its citizens
believe that their national leader was not elected fairly.

Here's the recent opinion of one United States citizen:

"...During the Korean War, I was with the 1st Marine
Division in North Korea
at the Chosin Resevoir, where we were surrounded by
Chinese troops, who General
MacArthur had assured us would not enter the war.

I wonder how a nation whose federal government is not
democratic can manage to
accomplish 'the spread of democracy'. If the United
States were a democracy,
then George Bush would not be president, we would not be
fighting in Iraq, and
most of the world would not hate us. Rather than
spreading democracy around
the world, let us repair things at home."

--Charles H. Anderson (letter to Harper's magazine, June 2003)

And here's an article, 'Give us back our democracy', by an
eminent American
scholar, Edward Said, in 'The Observer' (20 April 2003):

http://www.observer.co.uk/comment/st...940123,00.html

'Nevertheless, Americans have been cheated, Iraqis have
suffered impossibly, and
Bush looks like a cowboy. On matters of the gravest
importance, constitutional
principles have been violated and the electorate lied to.
We are the ones
who must have our democracy back.'
--Edward Said (20 April 2003, The Observer)

2) the president may have an IQ lower than any of his
predecessors, and is
at least arguably *worse* than Warren Harding, who was
the previous holder
of the distinction "worst ever US president"

Bush hasn't been in power long enough to assess his presidency.

Helen Thomas, the doyenne of the White House press corps,
agrees substantially
with Mark Houlsby about President George W. Bush.

"Eighty-two years old, Helen Thomas has been covering
White House briefings
and presidential press conferences since the heady days of
President Kennedy.
For nearly 40 years, Thomas was White House correspondent
for U.P.I....her
persistent, frank questioning has made her a pest to
presidents and their
minders....None, however, has expressed his annoyance more
nakedly than Bush
the Son....

Thomas committed a greater act of blasphemy when she told
an interviewer that
*George Bush was the worst president in American history*,
a remark she
partially recanted, saying it was too early to render a
complete verdict since
there's always the hope of 'redemption'. It was too
little, too late; her
anti-Bush quote had been duly noted in the building, put
on her permanent
record, and filed with the principal....The president's
petty snub was followed
by an ugly pile-on whose purpose was to kick Thomas to the
curb permanently
as if she were a bag lady who had slipped past security."

--James Wolcott ("Round up the Cattle!", from "Vanity
Fair", June 2003)

Has Bush really 'been in power long enough to assess his presidency'?

That depends on one's perspective and purpose. It's too
early for a historian
to write a definitive political biography. But President
Bush already has
'been in power long enough' to have begun his campaign for
reelection in 2004.
Why would you suppose that it's still premature for
Americans to 'assess his
presidency' when soon they will be expected to decide
whether or not to vote
for him?


Indeed. My having written about GWB that he is: "...at least arguably
*worse* than Warren Harding..." was intended, specifically, to imply
that *notwithstanding* his having held the office of President for less
than a term he is *already* a contender for worst ever (which is quite a
negative achievement).

snip
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