On the
other hand
"One can know a man from his laugh, and if you like a man's laugh
before you know anything of him, you may confidently say that he is a good
man." (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
Neither Bush nor Clinton pass the "laugh test".
arthur
-----Original Message-----Harry,
From: Keith Hudson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Wednesday, December 3, 2003 9:26 AM
To: Harry Pollard
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Bush the confidence trickster (was RE: [Futurework] Blair's curious illnesses
At 12:33 02/12/2003 -0800, you wrote:
Keith,
The part that bothers me about your post is:
"Yet I think Bush is intellectually stunted and is a confidence trickster through and through. And he's vengeful, so some of his former contacts say."
What evidence to have that he is intellectually stunted?
Harry, once again, I'm trusting the evidence of my own eyes and ears, having seen Bush on TV often enough and knowing the context from which he comes.
I remember that when Bush came to office, he was unpracticed in the art of speaking. This evinced jeers and catcalls from the not so loyal opposition. He is a quick learner and he has adapted to his new position. His London speech was excellent, delivered without a slip from his notes rather than from reading a Teleprompter.
Why do you say he is a confidence trickster?
Because he's told lies. And we've found out about several of them. His track record is now such that you would have to be very naive to believe anything that Bush says without thinking carefully of why he might be saying them.
We can certainly argue that the WMD didn't materialize. Yet, both Bush and Blair were more than confident they existed. Indeed, most of the people concerned with Iraq, including the inspectors, were sure they existed. If they were moved, where did they go? There were some early reports that they were buried in Syria.
No! With the present sort of satellite photography (down to 6 inches visual resolution) and many years of satellites going overhead, the CIA would know the whereabouts of every single piece of fixed military or industrial technology in the whole country. Not only visual methods, but infra red, X-ray and so forth mean that any sort of significant underground installations would also be a doddle to discover.
When the presence of 100,000 troops at his borders persuaded Saddam that he had better provide greater (if unenthusiastic) cooperation with the UN inspectors, it could well be that any remaining WMD would be better off elsewhere.
What evidence shows that he is vengeful, other than the words of former contacts -- whatever that means? One of the problems of thinking about these matters is that every movement, every gesture, every decision, is analyzed and overanalyzed by people who do not really know. They are guessing. Authoritative guesswork is now well-paid, so there is no shortage of guessers and guesses.
I think that Bush has accepted a Herculean task. He may not be up to it, but one must wonder who is? If the situation in Iraq comes off the boil, if Syria mends its ways, if Saudi Arabia takes the necessary antiterrorist action, if Iran continues the policy (that may have already started) of rapprochement with the US, Bush will become the president of the 21st-century.
Lots of "ifs", but at least they are positive "ifs" -- a little different from the constant prognostications of doom and disaster.
I really don't know how to express myself after reading the above paragraphs! So I won't.
Keith
Harry
********************************************
Henry George School of Social Science
of Los Angeles
Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042
Tel: 818 352-4141 -- Fax: 818 353-2242
http://haledward.home.comcast.net
********************************************
From: Keith Hudson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Tuesday, December 02, 2003 1:16 AM
To: Harry Pollard
Subject: RE: [Futurework] Blair's curious illnesses
Harry,
At 16:47 01/12/2003 -0800, you wrote:
Keith,
Long before Iraq, Gwen and I used to be amused by Presidential
hair color transitions. Hair that came in black, goes out gray.
Gray heads become white. The job is not an easy one.
I remember a science fiction yarn about the future Presidency.
There were actually three Presidents - each with a specific area
to cover - to handle the complexities.
Maybe there should be several prime Ministers.
That's precisely what I think is going to happen in the longer term future. We'll need (democratic) forums in each policy area.
I only see Blair in action at Question Time and Press
Conferences. He seems to handle things well in those arenas.
He's a very good perfomer. And that's all he is. He's intelligent but he has no intellectual depth. Two opposition leaders ago, William Hague used to best him at Question Time three times out of five. Hague is an intellectual (he is writing a biography of William Pitt at present and learning to play the piano) though he doesn't seem it because he has a broad Yorkshire accent. (He was the chap who spoke at the Conservative Party Conference when he was 14! Remember?) This, plus the fact that he is still young, and bald, ditched him as leader of the Tories. He resigned very gracefully without hanging on too long. In 5 - 10 years' time with a good book behind him he'll go straight into the Tory leadership again. The main thing that bothers me about Hague is that his ideas (a year ago, anyway) don't seem to have changed since he was 14. But maybe they will as he writes about English history in depth. He doesn't seem to be enmeshed at all with big business (thgough I'm sure he has a few directorships) and keeps away from the London scene, living an idyllic life (it would seem) in his constituency in Yorkshire with his lovely wife Fiona (an intellectual who was one of the brightest fast-track civil servants. She taught Welsh to Hague when he was Secretary of State for Wales and she was his senior civil servant).
I must say, your usually excellent analyses seem to falter when
you cover Bush (and perhaps Blair).
Come on Harry! I'm now 68. I've knocked around with people from all classes -- in the army , shop floor workers (at two factories for some years), several Peers of the Realm and several politicians of all three parties of entirely different abilities and motivations. I've negotiated with civil servants at the highest level. If I can't judge the calibre of politicians from their speech, gestures and bearing after a sufficient number of viewings on TV (and, moreover that my estimation fits in with those of other observers I have time for) then I'm ready for the knacker's yard. I'm not prejudiced against Bush. My general ragbag of policies is slightly more stocked with Republican policies than with Democratic policies. Yet I think Bush is intellectually stunted and is a confidence trickster through and through. And he's vengeful, so some of his former contacts say.
Note the Economist about
Blair:
" . . . he became blind to any evidence or arguments that might
have forced him to think twice."
Harry Junior's reaction to the Presidential Thanksgiving trip was
"it showed class".
Could that be a reasonable reaction to it?
It was a disaster. But Bush got his photos with the Queen. That's what the trip was planned for 18 months ago long before the invasion was planned and that's what he got. The rest was humiliation, but Bush is so thankful that Blair -- his only friend in the non-American world -- is supporting him that he was prepared to be humiliated as no-one has ever been before.
Are you saying the Economist doesn't have a "party line".
Isn't that good?
It doesn't have a party line, which is good -- it has too many bright people on the staff. But its leaders chop and change about too much in recent years under the present editor. You really cannot be certain what it's general line is going to be on new issues. It's so often quixotic. As I wrote before, the Economist is extremely good at gleaning the informational world and grabbing the latest idea before most other publications, and that's why I buy it.
Best wishes,
Keith
Harry
********************************************
Henry George School of Social Science
of Los Angeles
Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042
Tel: 818 352-4141 -- Fax: 818 353-2242
http://haledward.home.comcast.net
********************************************
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Keith
Hudson
Sent: Saturday, November 29, 2003 11:46 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [Futurework] Blair's curious illnesses
Harry,
This is especially for you. Here's the Economist going back on
itself
(again!) concerning Iraq. The view below is the safer one, I
think, because The World in 2004 has got to last, unlike
ephemeral editorials.
-------
Waiting for Lord Hanson's Report on his Enquiry into the reasons
for Dr David Kelly's suicide, promised for this month, is as
interminable as waiting for Godot. Unless I've missed some news
there are only two days left in which it can be published --
Monday or Tuesday next (today being Saturday).
It is just a little odd that the Hanson Report is being left to
the last moment. One wonders, ever so gently, whether someone has
been trying to postpone its publication. One can only admire the
rigour with which Lord Hanson has conducted his enquiry and, to
the surprise of most people, the cornucopia of textual evidence,
e-mails and all, that he's extracted from the Ministry of
Defence, 10 Downing Street and other high-flown places --
information which would normally be regarded as sancrosanct for
at least the next 50 years. And then, too, there was the curious
incident when Lord Hanson suddenly decided to extend the enquiry
by a further day in order to call the Permanent Secretary of the
Ministry of Defence to give evidence.
To my surprise, this mandarin unequivocally contradicted the
statement given previously by the prime minister that he'd had no
hand in deciding that Dr Kelly should be named. But, according to
the civil servant, the decision was taken at a meeting at 10
Downing Street, and chaired by the prime minister. Curious.
Curioser and curioser, there has been a succession of doctors
visiting 10 Downing Street (going through the front door three
times in the last month if I remember rightly), twice for stomach
troubles, and once for heart palpitations -- the sort that every
middle-aged man gets from time to time.
Then his much publicised his visit to the hospital to have some
checks.
They've all been trivial complaints. What's curious is not that
Blair might be suffering from a variety of stress-linked
complaints, but why have we been told about them? This is quite
unlike what normally happens when prime ministers or presidents
are ill. They don't wish to be thought weak or vulnerable. But
here we have a prime minister, while saying that he's raring to
lead his party into the next general election, is allowing the
whole world to know. Is he preparing us for news of a more
serious complaint, and grounds for medical retirement when Lord
Hanson's report is published? I don;t know and I don't intend to
guess, but it's very curious all the same.
A recent editorial in the Economist was quite in favour of
Blair's support of Bush and adduced all sorts of reasons for the
invasion of Iraq. Here, though, the political editor of the
Economist takes a different line. I've extracted just two
paragraphs from his recent article in The World in 2004 which is
punished by the Economist.
Keith Hudson
<<<<
WHEN TRUST IS GOING, THE GOING GETS TOUGH
Matthew Symonds
In 2003 Tony Blair gambled his reputation on leading his country
into a war with Iraq. He did so in opposition to public opinion
and despite the deep discomfort of most of his own MPs. Although
the war itself went as well as even the most fervent optimist
could have hoped, nearly everything associated with it has since
gone pretty badly. The long failure to unearth weapons of mass
destruction, the fragile security situation in Iraq and the
bitterly slow progress in healing the war's diplomatic wounds
have combined to make the successful military campaign look
increasingly like a strategic blunder. The fallout will cast its
shadow over 2004.
The prime minister's collapsing ratings for "trust" are an
indication that almost everyone, even supporters of the war,
suspects him of having exaggerated the case for military action.
Not in the sense, as his more extreme critics claim, of having
cynically deceived both Parliament and people. The more
substantive charge against Mr Blair is that, having made up his
mind about what was the right thing to do, he became blind to any
evidence or arguments that might have forced him to think twice.
The World in 2004 (The Economist)
>>>>
Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>
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