where's harry truman when you need him?

“i wish we had a great diplomat to vote for.”

“David McCullough was on C-SPAN yesterday. I was pissed that I only caught the last 15 minutes or so.”

“I agree, baume. If we ever needed a third, or a fourth party, it's now. A lot of things wrong in politics right now would be helped out by having more competion.”

“NADER!!!”

“nader ain't #&%!$.”

“A Nader vote, is a Bush vote. Don't waste it this time around.”

“Yesterday as I was driving back from Shenandoah they were playing some of the Nixon tapes on Cspan radio. Holy cow did he know everything (except about watergate apparently). The people he was talking to would bring up some point that had nothing to do with what the call was originally about (so you know he didn't have notes about it), and he would know all the players down to the lowest level of the beauracracy, he knew what they were doing, what they were saying, who they liked and didn't like, who there girlfriends were etc... It was uncanny. And his political genius was unbelievable, people wonder how he could be so unsavory and still get elected, and then reelected in a landslide, all you have to do is listen to the tapes. He was the ultimate puppet master (except for watergate).”

“well anyone who is brave enough to even speak of legalization is ok IMO...and i also dont expect to get blasted for that comment...GO FRANCE!!!”

“we all have our priorities shep.

bison, i personally think nixon was a great man and a great president.”

“President Bush has botched the Iraq War. I am really disappointed in his leadership on this point.

John Kerry makes me recoil in disgust.

I would take Harry Truman over either.”

“my sentiments exactly bacpac.”

“baume ....sheesh! I can see acknowledging that he was a very good administrator, signed lots of environmental legislation, thought about national health care, etc., but ..... a great man? Yikes! Well, we all have our tastes. Some folks like limburger cheese too.
:)”

“i love cheese!”

“i would never argue that nixon didn't #&%!$up or that he wasn't above board on everything. i'm sure there were other things than watergate.

now where were we. we need another harry truman to try and get things straightened back out. and it isn't just the last four years that messed it all up.”

“I think of Nixon and wish that everyone running for high office should get a psychological workup.”

“Nixon getting re-elected overwhelmingly in '72 might well reflect the notion among many Americans that their country could not possibly do anything wrong.
It took another four years for people see the light.

I speak to quite a few foreign sutdents about their impression of politics in the U.S.

Most are bewildered that there are only two parties here.

And most, when asked to give it to me straight, tell me that they see U.S. politics as corrupt.

They see the U.S. government as way too controlled by business to the detriment of the public interest.”

“no doubt about it marko. the problem lies in that our whole political system is entrenched in this bs and it will take a total revolt of the population to get it changed. not just the big business aspect but the entire system. it wasn't designed to be a career choice as it has turned out to be, it was set up for people to serve their country and then get back to their life. maybe term limits in congress would help.”

“Term limits were included in the 'Contract With America,' but got lost in the shuffle, somehow.....

I don't think we have a two-party system anymore. It's more a one-party system with Right and Left wings.”

“Since we're bashing our current choices, I'll add my voice to the mix. I have extraordinarily strong ideaological differences with the Bush admin on a wide array of issues, and Kerry seems like a slimy politician in practically every sense of the word. If there were a way to vote for a third party and really have it matter, I would do it in a heartbeat.

Term limits seem like a good idea, along with serious campaign finance reform, but there is too much power and money trying to avoid those very things to ever let it happen, or so it would appear.”

“the mccullough book (truman)is big but it is a good read.”

“What a a great conversation this is.

I was talking with my wife last night about how a band(s), like "Rage Agianst the Machine" is needed nowadays. I know that they have wild left ideas, but if you look back to the 60's, there was some great music that came out of all that. There is no questioning of our Government through musical expression.

Me thinks this place (USA) needs a nice, little Revolution!



Get DOWN!”

“"I don't think we have a two-party system anymore. It's more a one-party system with Right and Left wings."

Its more like Right wing and even farther Right wing from the European view.”

“Yep.”

“They tell me that America is the bad example.”

“If there was more protest music, what radio stations would play it? Clear Channel stations would be organizing CD burning rallies... again.”

“Truman became President through Roosevelt's death and could never have been elected otherwise or with out his incumbancy. The good ones often come along that way.

Who is out there that Kerry could bring out and then he gets smashed by the giant ketchup bottle at Heinz Field?”

“CLARK!!!”

“I would to hear the words "Presidant McCain".”

“Geeeee, I never saw that coming....”

“I could be more than happy with McCain as well.”

“In a world where war criminal = war hero we could say an AWOL reservist = time management expert. McCain looks pretty spotless.”

“It would be nice to bring a person like McCain in for his shear values. The man is fair, upstanding and right phucking ON!

Too bad Bush smeared his ass so bad, or you would've had yer wish, nigal...”

“The US decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 was meant to kick-start the Cold War rather than end the Second World War, according to two nuclear historians who say they have new evidence backing the controversial theory.

Causing a fission reaction in several kilograms of uranium and plutonium and killing over 200,000 people 60 years ago was done more to impress the Soviet Union than to cow Japan, they say. And the US President who took the decision, Harry Truman, was culpable, they add.

"He knew he was beginning the process of annihilation of the species," says Peter Kuznick, director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at American University in Washington DC, US. "It was not just a war crime; it was a crime against humanity."

According to the official US version of history, an A-bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on 6 August 1945, and another on Nagasaki three days later, to force Japan to surrender. The destruction was necessary to bring a rapid end to the war without the need for a costly US invasion.

But this is disputed by Kuznick and Mark Selden, a historian from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, US. They are presenting their evidence at a meeting in London on Thursday organised by Greenpeace and others to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the bombings.

New studies of the US, Japanese and Soviet diplomatic archives suggest that Truman's main motive was to limit Soviet expansion in Asia, Kuznick claims. Japan surrendered because the Soviet Union began an invasion a few days after the Hiroshima bombing, not because of the atomic bombs themselves, he says.

According to an account by Walter Brown, assistant to then-US secretary of state James Byrnes, Truman agreed at a meeting three days before the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima that Japan was "looking for peace". Truman was told by his army generals, Douglas Macarthur and Dwight Eisenhower, and his naval chief of staff, William Leahy, that there was no military need to use the bomb.

"Impressing Russia was more important than ending the war in Japan," says Selden. Truman was also worried that he would be accused of wasting money on the Manhattan Project to build the first nuclear bombs, if the bomb was not used, he adds.

continued...”

“That was Friday's news.”

“He 'showed alright'.”

“Stoopid Fotki!
”