Michael Moore's 9/11 banned @ Schools?

[Douglas]

Keep in mind also that they wont be showing it during school - afterwards at about 7:00pm. The school would just be acting as a theatre. But still, even though it's very bias, I would like to see it.

Mo-Man, should boy scouts be banned from schools after hours?

[Douglas]

(just 'cause youre a republican...)FLIP FLOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!AAAAA YOU FLIPFLOPPER!

Please enlighten me.

[Diedra Moose]

(just 'cause youre a republican...)FLIP FLOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!AAAAA YOU FLIPFLOPPER!

 

Got 'im!

[Diedra Moose]

Mo-Man, should boy scouts be banned from schools after hours?

 

acutally, the Boy Scouts are banned from meeting at schools. After the Supreme court upheld thier right to discriminate gays, Boy Scout troops are no longer allowed to meet in buildings designated as "non-discriminatory zones" (or something to that effect.

[Douglas]

acutally, the Boy Scouts are banned from meeting at schools. After the Supreme court upheld thier right to discriminate gays, Boy Scout troops are no longer allowed to meet in buildings designated as "non-discriminatory zones" (or something to that effect.

 

ACLU says...

SUPREME COURT SAYS HATE AND DISCRIMINATION

ESSENTIAL TO BOY SCOUT MISSION

ACLU of San Diego Renews Call

for City to End Its Subsidy to Scouts

 

 

 

from the October 20, 2004 edition CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR

 

A WIN: Boy Scouts cheer a model car race at a Missouri school. Proposed regulations would expand their access to public schools.

 

Wider openings for Boy Scouts

 

By Randy Dotinga | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor

 

Three years after the federal government ordered public schools to keep their doors open to the Boy Scouts of America, the US Department of Education is poised to revisit its rules regarding "patriotic youth groups" - a move likely to grant the Boy Scouts even more access rights

 

Congress in 2001 voted to cut federal funding from any school that banned the Boy Scouts or any similar group from "open forum" access.

 

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1020/p12s01-legn.html

[r1dermon]

ahh hypocracy...

[MolecularMan14]

Mo-Man, should boy scouts be banned from schools after hours?

Excuse me? What are you insisting? All im saying is that the school wouldnt be enforcing this as manditory, or even promoting this to a great extent. The boy scouts are the same! It's not a class, or a mandate for the curriculum, its outside of school. They could easily do it in a theatre, but the advertisements in the school would still be banned.

[Pangloss]

The result of BSA v Dale was that the BSA was ruled a private organization, and therefore had the right to discriminate in its membership (the same position that allows, for example, the Augusta National to prohibit female members).

 

Because of that decision, a number of local governments have taken the step of prohibiting the use of public facilities by the scouts, which allows these governments to protect themselves from discrimination lawsuits. That sounds like bad news for the scouts, but it's actually no big deal -- most troops are based on church grounds anyway. Troops that use public buildings have always been an rare oddity.

 

Scouting has always been a religious organization. It's not ABOUT religion, and there's never been any serious indoctrination in their work. It's actually about building personal character. But religion is an important part of their process, and that does rub a lot of people the wrong way. Especially the avowed secular, anti-religious crowd.

 

There is some logic in the prohibition against gay scoutmasters, given the trusting nature of children and the fact that the benefit of the doubt should go to THEIR safety, not an adult's rights. But I beleive some compromise could have been reached, and I'm disappointed the BSA was unable to work something out in the Dale case. Nevertheless, I respect their stance.

 

Of course, I'm biased in this, being not only a member of that organization since 1976, but an Eagle Scout as well.

 

I was a scout for a while at an inner-city, 99.9% black church, and I saw what a strong influence it had on young boys from that housing project. There was no religious indoctrination going on. That was about keeping kids off the street and off the drugs. And it WORKED. That was one of the highlights of my youth, and a big part of why MLK is one of my heros, and so forth. So when I see Scouting taking a beating over what amounts to trivial nit-picking, it bothers me a great deal.

 

On the other hand, some of that criticism is justified. Some of the stories I've heard about other, predominently rural and suburban troops, dovetail very well with my own experiences in scout troops in those environments, where religion is sometimes a more important aspect of the program.

 

So you might say I'm a bit conflicted about it.

 

In the end, though, I believe Scouting has been extremely beneficial to society, and opposition to it is largely a matter of far-left ideology.

[Douglas]

Excuse me? What are you insisting? All im saying is that the school wouldnt be enforcing this as manditory, or even promoting this to a great extent. The boy scouts are the same! It's not a class, or a mandate for the curriculum, its outside of school. They could easily do it in a theatre, but the advertisements in the school would still be banned.

Mo-man14, I wasn't implying anything. I was asking a simple question. Since you didn't see a reason why F-9/11 should not be showed at a school (I agree), then I wondered if you felt the same about the boy scouts.

[Tetrahedrite]

As an outsider looking in, I find it quite funny that people will brand F9/11 liberal propoganda (even people who haven't seen the documentary), but don't realise that 90% of the drivel fed to you by the major US media outlets is equally biased conservative propaganda. Also, most Australians can see how much of a dangerous man G.W. Bush is to the world, we are not caught up with the stupidity of over zelous patriotism that seems to blind so many people. How can anyone seriously be considering voting for that idiot of a man who has made your home (and ours unfortunatately) more of a target for terrorists. Anyone with even half a brain can see that invading Iraq has made the world a much less secure place.

[Pangloss]

I've seen the documentary, I'm voting for John Kerry, and I'm quite comfortable labelling Farenheit 9/11 as "liberal propaganda".

 

Are you still laughing?

[JohnB]

Mind you, some of us Australians also realise that no matter who is the US President, we are targets. We are the "Crusading Australians" Bin Laden referred to. We helped East Timor, that was a large enough crime in the eyes of terrs, to make us a bigger target.

 

Some Aussies unfortunately seem to believe that if we do nothing then we will never be attacked. This is a false hope. The whole point of religious extremist terrorists is to convert the entire world to their way of thinking. What a nation does or does not do merely moves them up or down the hit list.

 

Only be complete surrender can you be removed from the list. We did not surrender to the Japanese 60 years ago, we will not surrender today. I found this on a Submariner Website.

 

THE SPIRIT OF OZ

 

You hurt us bombing Bali, but we can take the pain,

But if you think you'll beat us you can think a-bloody-gain

We battled at Gallipoli and we fought the bloody hun

Of all the arseholes we've had to face you're just another one

 

You won't get your hands dirty, you won't fire a gun

Whenever danger threatens you just pack your gear and run

You brainwash innocent children to do your evil deeds

Careful not to let them know just where it really leads

 

You get them to believe all your bigotry and lying

Until they cannot see that there's no glory in their dying

Now we'd like to pose a question, answer if you can

Where does your holy book tell you to kill your fellow man?

 

Now listen hard and listen well, we're giving you the word

You're never gonna beat us you spineless bloody turd

You'd never face us personally you haven't got the guts

You know that if you ever did we'd have your bloody nuts

 

Our spirit is unbroken, and our heads are still unbowed

We sure as hell aren't scared of you and your gutless crowd

So get your act together -- you'll never win because

What you're really up against is the spirit that is OZ.

 

Author unknown

[Ophiolite]

I've seen the documentary' date=' I'm voting for John Kerry, and I'm quite comfortable labelling Farenheit 9/11 as "liberal propaganda".

 

Are you still laughing?[/quote']Delightfully multi-dimensional and non-conformist as always. And I've just started laughing, in a comradely sort of a way.

[MolecularMan14]

Mo-man14, I wasn't implying anything. I was asking a simple question. Since you didn't see a reason why F-9/11 should not be showed at a school (I agree), then I wondered if you felt the same about the boy scouts.

lol, sry. I guess i misinterpreted that one . Anyway, no, I dont have any opposition to after school scouts. It would be the same as if it were at a community center, or something. The school is not actively promoting scouts, let alone mandate it.

[Tetrahedrite]

Mind you' date=' some of us Australians also realise that no matter who is the US President, we are targets. We are the "Crusading Australians" Bin Laden referred to. We helped East Timor, that was a large enough crime in the eyes of terrs, to make us a bigger target.

 

Some Aussies unfortunately seem to believe that if we do nothing then we will never be attacked. This is a false hope. The whole point of religious extremist terrorists is to convert the entire world to their way of thinking. What a nation does or does not do merely moves them up or down the hit list.

 

[/quote']

 

This is what annoys me the most, people who seem to believe that invading iraq actually had something to do with the "war on terror". People have been brainwashed! A poll taken in the US not long ago showed that more than 50% of the population believe that Saddam actually had something to do with S9/11.

Wake up people! The US just wants the oil! If they were serious about making the world safe from terrorists and WMD's (the main reason given by Bush, Blair and Howard for invading Iraq) they would invade Iran and North Korea, who brag about having nuclear weapons and are prepared to use them.

And furthermore, you can't seriously believe that the combine intelligence capability of the CIA, MI6 and ASIO didn't know that Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction. And what of the arguement (used later when the leaders changed tune) that Saddam was a bad man and the civilians would be better off without him? Well around 4 times as many civilians are being killed now in "democratic" Iraq than under Saddam!

When you stop listening to the spin and start using your head you realise the shear incompetence and dishonesty of the people in charge. On top of this, I take the view that Saddam, Bush, Blair and Howard are all war criminals for invading sovereign countries and should be charged as such.

[Pangloss]

Wake up people! The US just wants the oil!

 

This particular mistaken belief never ceases to amuse.

 

Oil is actually a commodity item. It's bought and sold on various exchanges around the world, just like oranges and acorns. It's not like the old days when the oil companies bought "consessions" which granted them ownership of the land and the resources under it. Countries posess their resources now, and typically sell oil through nationalized companies that sell oil to companies like ExxonMobil, which are now just distributors, more or less.

 

So there's no free lunch here. We're going to pay the same price for gasoline whether it comes from a hole in Texas or a hole in some arabian desert. It simply makes no difference.

 

In terms of what *businesses* benefit, of course, that's another issue. One can certainly make a case that American businesses benefit from our invasion, just as French and Russian companies were benefitting from the Saddam regime.

 

 

The US produces about 9 million barrels per day, but it consumes over 20. So it imports the rest from overseas. WHERE that oil comes from, however, is really not a great concern. As OPEC learned in 1973, there's no benefit to cutting off oil to the US, for example, because the companies that distribute the oil are not beholden to the nationalized companies that sell them the oil. Again, everything is bought on the commodity market. There are no contracts to negotiate or deals to cut. A gallon is a gallon is a gallon.

 

 

Bit of trivia: The first oil consession ever granted in the entire world was Mosul, to the French, by the Ottoman Grand Vizier. That same day, Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated. After the war the Ottoman Empire no longer existed, and none of the League countries were interested in the Middle East except for France and Great Britain. France traded the Mosul consession to Britain in exchange for Transjordan (the entire country), and the two nations set about drawing lines on a map, creating virtually every country in that region except for Kuwait.

 

Oil has always played a role in middle-eastern politics. This is nothing new.

[Pangloss]

By the way, anybody who's interested in learning more about the oil industry should read the definitive work on the subject, which is Daniel Yergin's "The Prize". It was first published in 1991, right at the time of the first gulf war, so it's a little dated now, but it really is the seminal work (it won a Pulitzer). It's incredibly well written and just fascinating to read. It doesn't have a whole lot about the current structure of the oil industry, but it's great background material.

 

I would even go as far as to say that few people can really understand the history of 20th century western civilization without a thorough understanding of the history of the oil industry.

 

(In American history, there is only one commodity that has been more important than oil.)

[Tetrahedrite]

We're going to pay the same price for gasoline whether it comes from a hole in Texas or a hole in some arabian desert. It simply makes no difference.

 

 

This is not correct. The price of oil and therefore petrolium is governed by supply and demand. For example when there is a riot in Venezuela and supply is threatened, the oil price goes up. It is true OPEC does have some control over supply. However, when no oil is coming out of one of the biggest oil fields in the world (Iraq) this puts upward pressure on supply and therefore the oil price. So, when the US controls this oil field (which it does through the puppet government it has installed) it is able to better influence the world oil price. A stable oil price means a stable economy. Influencing the oil producing countries in the Middle East allows it to stabilising its own economy. I'm not stupid enough to think that the US companies just take the oil and sell it

[Pangloss]

Of course it's determined by supply and demand. And yes, when there are interruptions in supply, the price goes up. But these issues are beside the point.

 

Whether you believe the US controls a puppet regime in Iraq is a political matter. Of course, you're right, if that's the case, then yes, they control the supply of oil from that country. But that's a temporary situation. Bush isn't a dictator, he's a president, and even if he wins tomorrow he's gone in 2008. So these kinds of tin-foil-hat descriptions of the US's intentions in Iraq really don't accomplish anything at all, except to scare people who don't know any better.

 

What's amazing is that people like yourself don't know what the US is *actually* doing to manipulate and control the world economy. Because when you hear about those issues, they don't excite and thrill you the way something like oil does (mostly because they are, for the most part, legitimate things that ALL governments are doing), so you need to make up something more interesting. That's unfortunate, because it's exactly how the neo-cons and their ilk win these popularity contests -- by making extremist positions look like the ONLY other positions, and they look moderate in comparison.

 

Hence my personal crusade for moderacy.

 

But I digress.

 

As I said, whether it comes from a hole in the ground in Texas, or a hole in the ground in Kuwait, it makes no difference in the final price. TANSTAAFL.

[Tetrahedrite]

As I have said in another thread, it is obvious I don't know why the decision was made to invade Iraq. Can someone please enlighten me because I am at a loss to see how so many people can support a man I see as a tyrrant.

[Sayonara]

Bush isn't a dictator, he's a president, and even if he wins tomorrow he's gone in 2008. So these kinds of tin-foil-hat descriptions of the US's intentions in Iraq really don't accomplish anything at all, except to scare people who don't know any better.

Whether we believe it is happening or not, 4-6 years is easily long enough for Daddy's oil company to benefit hugely from the situation.

 

I would not go so far as to assume that people who have dealt in that market for decades have no means or desire to quietly (or in this case with explosions and such) manipulate it to their advantage, just because I know how the market reached its current state.

[JohnB]

Wake up people! The US just wants the oil! If they were serious about making the world safe from terrorists and WMD's (the main reason given by Bush' date=' Blair and Howard for invading Iraq) they would invade Iran and North Korea, who brag about having nuclear weapons and are prepared to use them.

[/quote']

 

Firstly, Iran does not have nukes, nor do they brag of having them. Secondly, only a fool would suggest military action in Korea as this would almost certainly result in some sort of nuclear exchange. The idea is to (hopefully) free the people without giving everybody not wearing 3000+ sunblock a really bad day.

 

I always find it interesting that those who talk about the civillian casualties were generally demanding a year ago that sanctions be given more time to work. They didn't seem too concerned for the Iraqis that the sanctions had killed.

http://www.un-ngls.org/documents/text/roundup/61hrsc.txt

 

From the document."The paper says the sanctions on Iraq have produced "a humanitarian disaster comparable to the worst catastrophes of the past decades." The estimated deaths directly attributable to sanctions range from half a million to a million and a half, the majority children. It notes that in

1999 the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) concluded that in the heavily-populated southern and central parts of the country, children under five were dying at more than twice the rate they were ten years ago."

 

And that my friend, was why I supported the war, not WMD, not terrorists.

 

Also, it was well known and widely publicised prior to the war what a vicious murdering regime Saddam ran, this did not come out later when leaders "changed their tune". Hell, the biggest complaint by Iraqis in Australia was that they couldn't get anyone to believe them about how bad it was.

 

As was noted at the time, how come no Iraqis spoke at anti war rallies?

[Tetrahedrite]

As I have said in another thread, it is obvious I don't know why the decision was made to invade Iraq. Can someone please enlighten me because I am at a loss to see how so many people can support a man I see as a tyrrant.

 

Still waiting for someone to enlighten me.

 

I think the fact is that no one will be able to give a reasonable answer because there isn't one. People know deep down inside themselves that there really was no justification.

 

Whether or not you support the war is not relevant. Was there any justification in the first place?

[Phi for All]

Still waiting for someone to enlighten me.

There was no one reason. It was a combination of need, greed and opportunity, as most modern warfare usually is. Some probable reasons:

1. Saddam Hussein's oppressive, murdering regime.

2. A visible lack of closure for 9/11.

3. The possibility of nuclear weapons in the hands of an uncontrollable Middle East leader.

4. The need for a smokescreen to deflect attention away from:

a. the fact that Osama bin Laden had not been captured.

b. Bush gave away his chance to capture bin Laden to Afghan warlords.

c. Unocal was taking over construction of the Trans-Afghani pipeline.

5. We did not spend enough money on the war in Afghanistan and defense contractors wanted us to use more expensive ordinance.

6. The American public did not feel safe enough from terrorist threats.

7. The chance to declare a democracy in a region that could use some decent representative government.

8. A boost for a sagging economy.

 

Just wait until tomorrow or Thursday and I'm sure you will see a major offensive in Iraq since no damage can come to the elections from heavy casualties or lack of results. I pray for our troops.