The most recent 20 comments posted to Electrolite by cleek:

The ugliness and bad press I referred to was the establishment reaction -- I think we are pretty much in agreement about what went on on the street TomB.

Total disagreement about the results. Look what's happened in international negotiations over various trade agreements since then. Look at the entrance into the discussion of people like Stiglitz. The rethinking by Krugman, etc. Seattle played a big role both in promoting advocates' activities outside the US, and in questioning government action within the US. I think Lula's success in taking office had some roots in Seattle. Maybe I'm just starry-eyed, but what looked then like a classic law-n-order smackdown of whackos looks now like a decent starting off point for many things that have happened since. More has to be done, but when will that not be true.

Off-shoring is a tangential issue.

I'd like to say that the violence in Seattle has not obviously lessened the weight given to "anti-globalization" or whatever it's being called. Seattle, despite the ugliness and the bad press it generated, does seem to have focused attention, generated debate, and even won some points. So Burke's limited account of protests seems pretty thin.

That said, you're right on NYC. no chance of that sort of protest taking hold by November, and the immediate backlash could very well screw us all.

Claude, I certainly agree that any Bush speech or public statement is a mish-mash of stock phrases.

All he and his handlers want to do is drop enough well tested stock evangelical phrases in to catch the ears of one target group

Well, yeah. That's what I've been trying to say.

and Claude, if you look at the, umm, rest of the paragraph, you'll see that Bush brings up religion, not phsychology:

...We've got to do everything we can here at home. And there's no doubt in my mind that, with the Almighty's blessings and hard work, that we will succeed in our mission.

and, it's not the first time he's used the "no soul" phrase in a religious context.

come on, do you seriously think Bush is trying to use psychological references to communicate with his constituency and not religious ones ? it's a safe bet that Bush's audience hears "soul" and thinks of the religious one, not the psychological one: as the religious connotation is much stronger than the other.

about that "soul" = "conscience" thing...

Not a chance. Look at the context of the speeches in which he uses the "no soul" phrase: they're full of religion ("the Almighty", "the Lord", "God", "blessed", etc). In that context, "soul" means the thing we're supposed to save for god. If Bush was filling his speeches with references to psychology or artificial intelligence and not religion, maybe we could interpret "soul" as "conscience". But he's not. It's not The Soul Of a New Machine, it's the immortal soul that each one of us is supposed to carry around - unless we're "sub-human" beasts, of course.

Bush is too stupid. There is a great deal of evidence to support this claim. There is no need to pretend he isn't. I'm still worried, almost paranoid and convinced, that he'll win, even though he is unelectable. But if we're going to have the word stupid in our vocabulary, "what's the difference" after being asked about weapons of mass destruction v. weapons of mass destruction programs ought to qualify. I know others who've met Bush and say he does work a room, and that runs counter to my own television experience of him -- he really pisses me off viscerally, before I know anything of what he says. So your point may still stand. But Bush is stupid, and to claim that he isn't in the same way that Dean isn't angry, Kerry isn't wooden, or Gore isn't a liar, is bullshit.

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