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#1
07-01-2006, 07:33 PM
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Librarians, Keepers of the Liberty
On this 4th of July, let us not forget the librarians and the ALA, protectors of those that inquire. My heros. Keepers of our liberty.
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0701-25.htm 
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#2
07-01-2006, 09:02 PM
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Here's to them all, especially my favorite librarian...Rupert Giles!
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#3
07-01-2006, 09:11 PM
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No complaints about librarians ...
... but the ALA management is a cesspool of commie-pinko-leftist-America-hating traitors.
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#4
07-01-2006, 09:48 PM
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#5
07-02-2006, 01:35 PM
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And our rights are being defended ... and very well I might add ... against the vicious people who would gladly murder all of us ... including the members of this forum. We're all safe and free at our keyboards right now because of the efforts and dedication of our armed services and police forces. Bush has been president for 5.5 years ... and not one American has had his or her basic liberties stripped away ... so your attempt at creating hysteria is meaningless.
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#6
07-02-2006, 02:42 PM
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Believe whatever you want to...you have that right. However, if i can be reported for checking out books at my library as per the "Patriot Act"..I respectfully disagree. Basic liberties have indeed been stripped away. DTS
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#7
07-02-2006, 06:07 PM
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Look. I'm not afraid of a bunch of terrorists. I am afraid of a bunch of terrified, short-sighted and well-intentioned American citizens handing over every liberty we have in the name of defending our country when someone engages in some clever rhetorical fear-mongering. That's letting the terrorists win. Muzzle the press, delegitimize and stifle dissent, alienate sympathetic allies, and you wind up with a place that may be "safe" but that is so much less than the great nation we're supposed to be. Not in my name, thanks.
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#8
07-02-2006, 08:32 PM
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#9
07-02-2006, 08:35 PM
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__________________
 Seek respect, not attention.
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#10
07-02-2006, 10:26 PM
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... so how do you conclude that "basic liberties have been stripped away" ... when your entire premise is a fantasy?
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#11
07-02-2006, 10:33 PM
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Scores of millions of Americans who were once dirt poor ... for example, my family ... are now quite wealthy ... because they took advantage of the opportunities available to them in this wonderful country. The "rich" whom you refer to ... also were once poor ... as virtually no one came to this country already wealthy. America is the land of incredible opportunity ... and only losers and bums bemoan their fate here.
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#12
07-02-2006, 10:39 PM
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... because at this very moment ... as we sit in safety and comfort at our keyboards ... dedicated members of our armed forces and police forces are on the job protecting us from the savages who would murder us all. Because you live in this cocoon of protection provided by your fellow Americans ... you're full of bravado ... but honestly ask yourself this ... ... how "unafraid" would you be if a dozen armed, hooded al Qaeda terrorists broke into your home right now ... and started slashing the throats of your loved ones?
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#13
07-02-2006, 10:40 PM
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#14
07-02-2006, 10:44 PM
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You're either deluded yourself ... or trying to convince others to be deluded. Sorry ... that leftist propaganda tactic never has worked and never will work ... not in this brave and decent country.
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#15
07-03-2006, 09:37 AM
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Evidence on alienating our allies (note that even Britain is having problems with us now, something I can definitely affirm from being here):
POLITICS: U.S. Image Abroad Takes a New Turn South Jim Lobe WASHINGTON, Jun 13 (IPS) - Three years after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, the image of the United States in Europe and the Islamic world has resumed its post-war slide, according to the latest in a series of surveys of public opinion in 14 countries released here Tuesday by the Pew Global Attitudes Project (PGAP). Support for Washington's "global war on terror" has also declined, according to the survey of nearly 17,000 people, and confidence in the leadership of President George W. Bush, is at its lowest ebb, as it is in the United States, as well. And in 12 of the 14 foreign countries surveyed, strong pluralities of 44 percent (Russia and China) to majorities of up to 76 (France) percent said the Iraq war had made the world "more dangerous". The only exceptions were India and Nigeria where pluralities of 41 percent of respondents said the world had been made "safer". In addition to those two countries, the survey, which was conducted in April and May this year, included four western countries -- Britain, France, Germany and Spain; five predominantly Islamic countries -- Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan, Jordan, and Turkey; Russia, Japan, and China, as well as the United States itself. The survey, which covered a range of issues, including attitudes toward global warming, avian flu, Iran, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, was the fourth in an annual series carried out by Pew since 2002 -- just after the U.S.-led ouster of the Taliban in Afghanistan and just before the Iraq invasion. Shortly after the invasion, the survey showed a stunning drop in favourable attitudes toward Bush and the United States, particularly among Washington's European allies and in the Islamic world. In France, for example, the percentage of respondents with a favourable opinion of the U.S. fell from 63 percent in 2002 to 43 percent in 2003; in Indonesia, it fell from 61 percent to 15 percent; in Jordan, from 25 percent to just one percent. In a few countries, the decline continued through early 2004. But in many others, Washington's image appeared to recover slightly by the middle of that year, and even more by the spring of 2005. By then, for example, the percentage of Russians with a favourable opinion of the U.S. had grown from 36 percent immediately after the war to 52 percent; in Indonesia, it climbed back up to 38 percent; and in Jordan, to 21 percent. The latest poll, however, shows a new deterioration in foreign attitudes towards the U.S. despite explicit efforts by the administration, especially Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, to emphasise multilateral diplomacy over unilateral action. Declines were particularly pronounced in Spain where the percentage or respondents with a favourable view of the U.S. fell from 41 percent last year to 23 percent; in Russia, where it fell from 52 percent to 43 percent; in Indonesia, from 38 percent to 30 percent; in Jordan, from 21 percent to 15 percent; in Turkey, from 23 percent to 12 percent; and in India, from 71 percent to 56 percent -- an especially surprising finding given the recent breakthrough nuclear agreement between the two countries. The only countries in which Washington's image appears to have continued its rebound were China (from 42 percent favourable last year to 47 percent) and Pakistan (from 23 percent to 27 percent), where the improvement was no doubt helped by Washington's high-profile rescue and relief operations after last year's earthquake in Kashmir. The U.S. image in Indonesia had also improved markedly as a result of its relief efforts following the December 2004 tsunami, only to resume its decline, however, over the year that followed. That the resumption of Washington's decline was due primarily to opposition to the Iraq war and the more-general "war on terror" was made clear not only by the large pluralities and majorities (in 10 of the 14 countries) who said the world had been rendered "more dangerous" by the U.S. invasion, but also by the belief in all but two countries -- Germany and Japan -- that the "American presence in Iraq" constituted a greater danger to world peace than the presumed nuclear ambitions of Iran or North Korea. Even in Washington's closest ally, Britain, respondents rated the U.S. in Iraq as a greater danger than Iran by a 41-34 percent margin; among the predominantly Islamic countries, respondents rated Washington's presence in Iraq from three times (Jordan) to seven times (Pakistan) more dangerous than Iran.
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#16
07-03-2006, 09:54 AM
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Sorry to post all this stuff, but BB wanted some examples. I'll stop in a minute. Thanks for humoring me.
Freedom of the press: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reporte..._freedom_index Not good to be ranked 44th for press freedom, in my opinion. In 2004, we were 24th: Published on Tuesday, May 3, 2005 by the Inter Press Service World Press Freedom Day Secrecy, Propaganda Seen Sweeping US by William Fisher NEW YORK -- Freedom of the press is in decline in the United States amid increased government secrecy and propaganda, say media veterans, analysts, and advocates. Contrary to the conventional wisdom here that U.S. media are the freest in the world, the United States has suffered ''notable setbacks'' in press freedom and has slipped among countries tracked by the New York-based rights group Freedom House. This is a government with absolutely no respect for the role of the press in a democracy. Charles Davis University of Missouri School of Journalism The organization, in an annual survey released in advance of Tuesday's commemoration of World Press Freedom Day, said media in Finland, Iceland, and Sweden faced the fewest fetters in 2004 while the most restrictions were slapped on journalists in North Korea, Burma (also known as Myanmar), Cuba, and Turkmenistan. The United States was tied with Barbados, Canada, Dominica, Estonia, and Latvia at 24th place out of 194 countries covered in the survey. Countries were scored based on three broad categories: the legal environment in which media operate, political influences on reporting and access to information, and economic pressures on content and the dissemination of news. Freedom House said the U.S. score declined in part because of ''a number of legal cases in which prosecutors sought to compel journalists to reveal sources or turn over notes or other material they had gathered in the course of investigations.'' Judith Miller of the New York Times and Matthew Cooper of Time Magazine, for example, face prison sentences for refusing to reveal their sources in a case in which the name of a Central Intelligence Agency covert agent was publicly revealed. Neither Miller nor Cooper wrote articles about the case. Chicago Sun Times syndicated columnist, Robert Novak, named the agent in print. But the government is demanding that Miller and Cooper turn over any information they have. The journalists have lost their appeals in lower courts and will now take their case to the Supreme Court. Doubts about official influence over media were fanned by revelations that the administration of President George W. Bush was paying journalists to espouse administration positions without identifying their government sponsors. In one case, the administration -- seeking to build support among black families for its education policies -- paid a prominent African-American pundit, Armstrong Williams, 240,000 dollars to promote the ''No Child Left Behind'' law on his nationally syndicated television show and through his newspaper column, and to urge other black journalists to do the same. Other nationally known journalists have admitted accepting thousands of dollars to endorse government programs. ''Paying journalists to write positive stories is part of a pattern of secrecy and manipulating the public that undermines our safety and our democracy,'' Steven Aftergood, who runs a project on government secrecy for the Federation of American Scientists, told IPS. Government agencies also have produced video news releases, or pro-government propaganda made to resemble independent news, and distributed them to local television stations across the country. The stations frequently fail to identify the government as the source, thus encouraging viewers to believe they are watching genuine news, Freedom House said. The Government Accountability Office (GAO), the Congressional watchdog agency, has called the videos a form of ''covert propaganda.'' More than 20 federal agencies have used taxpayer funds to produce such television segments. Bush has defended the practice and has said he plans to continue it. But Martin Kaplan of the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication told IPS, ''The consequence of their injecting fake news into the media mainstream may be even worse than poisoning public debate on specific issues. It corrodes the ability of real journalism to do its job.'' Charles Davis, executive director of the University of Missouri School of Journalism's freedom of information center, added, ''Press freedom in the U.S. is experiencing some dark days as government at all levels seems content to turn its back on cherished freedoms in favor of administrative expediency, executive privilege and propaganda. Its embrace of secrecy to the point of caricature is but a symptom of the broader disease. This is a government with absolutely no respect for the role of the press in a democracy.'' US News and World Report magazine recently complained that the Bush administration has ''quietly but efficiently dropped a shroud of secrecy across many critical operations of the federal government -- cloaking its own affairs from scrutiny and removing from the public domain important information on health, safety, and environmental matters. The result has been a reversal of a decades-long trend of openness in government.'' White House spokespersons routinely counter such assertions by saying that the administration's policy toward the media is honest and transparent. Even so, Jack Behrman, a former assistant secretary of commerce, accused the administration of hypocrisy. ''Our government avowedly promotes freedom abroad but has sought successfully to limit it in the U.S. through secrecy and manipulation of the media,'' Behrman told IPS. Copyright © 2005 IPS-Inter Press Service
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#18
07-03-2006, 10:09 AM
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Librarians? Is this a joke. Librarians are like dinosaurs. They serve little use today.
The people that deserve thanks are the people that risked their lives, many who lost their lives so we could have liberty. Was George Washington a librarian? LOL.
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#19
07-03-2006, 10:17 AM
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#20
07-03-2006, 10:22 AM
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So ... what we have as "proof" for leftist propaganda talking points ... are ...
... are even more leftist propaganda talking points. You have not ... and cannot ... cite a single example of liberties being stripped away ... or media being muzzled ... or allies being alienated. The truest way to evaluate how foreigners regard another country ... is not to listen to leftists regurgitating their talking points ... but to watch the feet of ordinary people. And right now ... as always ... the feet of the people throughout the world are stampeding toward the United States ... not away from it. Nearly everyone wants to get in ... and virtually no one ... including the leftists who compose the anti-American propaganda ... wants to get out. Regurgitating talking points is not "thought" ... it's mindless toadyism.
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