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7
8
Yes No
Debate Score:15
Arguments:15
Total Votes:15
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 Yes (7)
 
 No (8)

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garry77777(1796) pic



Did George W Bush steal both elections (not just the 2nd)

Please refer to the following interview with Gore Vidal:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjCBR-vABMc

 

BTW i am aware that Bush had the majority of the vote against Kerry so i suppose what im really asking is; do the underhanded methods he used (e.g. despicable character assassination and bribery) to attain victory qualify as stealing?

Yes

Side Score: 7
VS.

No

Side Score: 8
1 point

In 2000 the state of Florida was too close to call but with a Bush lead, he lead by under 0.5% of votes which means by state law their has to be a recount. And so they recounted however this process was supposed to take a long time, remember about 6 million people voted in Florida in 2000 and it was hand paper recounts, not only that but protesters who did not want a recount distracted the recounters from getting their job done pretty soon this caught the attention of federal courts in Florida where secretary of state Katherine Harris began getting involved in the recount decision who was and activist for the Bush/Cheney campaign and is responsible Data Base Technologies which knocked many Democratic voters off the voting rolls which had probably lead to the hacked results in the first place! Anyway she had made recount deadlines throughout the month until eventually she had decided to stop all of the voter recounts and give Florida's 25 electoral votes to Gov. George W Bush. The Democrats went to the supreme court to give Florida permission to continue recounting votes unfortunately the members in the supreme court voted no 5-4 and forced Gore to concede. A November 11th 2001 study confirmed that had the recounts persisted Al Gore would have led in Florida! After the 2000 election President Bush signed the Help America Vote Act in 2002 which led to the problems in the next presidential election.

Side: Yes
1 point

Well, I had no idea who Gore Vidal was until I saw this video, so I decided to do some research.

Nothing on him having a degree in history. If he is a historian, I would like to know where he got his degree in history. Otherwise, he is just a guy who likes history... I like history 8l

As well, in this video he has said nothing about HOW Bush stole the election (or even the 2nd one). He just speaks on how Bush/Cheney is nothing like government before and it's all corrupt. Oh yes, how easy it is to say that Bush/Cheney is so corrupt, yet present nothing but random news clippings (that have little to do with corruption) as your evidence.

Did Bush steal the first election? Well, I believe that the electoral college is bad for Democracy, so I believe that Bush should not have won the first election. But evidence to suggest that Bush made this elaborate scheme to win the election is scarce and speculative. As well, if Bush wanted to steal the election, I think he would have made it seem that he also won the popular vote.

As for the second... the smear tactics went both ways, and the Kerry campaign not only smeared Bush (as Bush smeared Kerry), but Kerry smeared his own brothers in arms, claiming that it was just a bunch of barbaric murders, even though, as proven, those slaughters were not frequent and not a fair representation of the American Military in Vietnam.

There are far better things to criticize Bush for, this is not one of them. Making up conspiracies (be it 9/11 truth or NWO) is not going to help the Liberal cause to shed light on the bad things that Bush ACTUALLY did.

Side: No
garry77777(1796) Disputed
1 point

"Well, I had no idea who Gore Vidal was until I saw this video, so I decided to do some research.Nothing on him having a degree in history. If he is a historian, I would like to know where he got his degree in history. Otherwise, he is just a guy who likes history... I like history 8l"

Your right he doesn't have a history degree, im sorry that you think he needs one as the man is widely acknowledged as being a truly great historian, he received his education from extremely exclusive private schools and when he graduated he jloined the US army and fought in WW2. The man is a genius and the fact he didn't get a formal degree in history from a college is immaterial but you'd know that if you knew who he was.

"As well, in this video he has said nothing about HOW Bush stole the election (or even the 2nd one)."

You clearly didn't watch the video, watch from minute 3:15 onwards he talks about how Bush stole the election from Gore, then he talks on the Kerry campaign and the underhanded tactic (e.g. Bribery) used by Bush.

"He just speaks on how Bush/Cheney is nothing like government before and it's all corrupt. Oh yes, how easy it is to say that Bush/Cheney is so corrupt, yet present nothing but random news clippings (that have little to do with corruption) as your evidence."

I am sorry i didn't think i needed evidence to claim that Bush and Cheney are corrupt, i mean i don't think in the light of the evidence thats come out during and since their tenure that claiming they were corrupt would be such a controversial statement badly in need of substantiation, i mean lying to the entire american public about WMDs and Al Queda links clearly isn't enough for you, please my friend try to keep up some pretence of objectively, it does not become you, heres your evidence, i didn't include anything liek it cause i know nobody is going to read it but they may watch a 6 min youtube clip in passing but hey if it makes you feel good to criticise me go right ahead:

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/oct2004/hall-o30.shtml

http://www.unknownnews.org/logoflies.html

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/06/cheney_deregulation.html

http://rt.com/usa/news/hitler-bush-yearbook-list/

http://beinspirednowbook.com/book/section3/The-Bush-Cheney-Follies.pdf

http://rt.com/usa/news/cheney-s-death-squads-operated-in-afghanistan-and-lebanon/

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2010/12/201012851859695283.html

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2011/07/201171222523790648.html

"But evidence to suggest that Bush made this elaborate scheme to win the election is scarce and speculative."

Yes thats largely correct i was just hoping someone else may surface with something credible.

"), but Kerry smeared his own brothers in arms, claiming that it was just a bunch of barbaric murders, even though, as proven, those slaughters were not frequent and not a fair representation of the American Military in Vietnam."

Ive been to vietnam twice in my lifetime, once when i was just 10 and again last summer, both for 3 month stints, now ive traveled the length and breth of the country and ive read a great deal their history particularly the war with america and i can honestly say that your assessment above is completely and totally wrong in almost everyway possible. Kerry was hero and when he spoke out about the crimes he witnessed he was only furthering this status in my eyes, (even if not to americans who would rather keep their heads buried in the sand)., i have enoprmous respect and admiration for that man.

Now if you'll indulge me i will tell you exactly why the above claim (i.e."those slaughters were not frequent and not a fair representation of the American Military in Vietnam.") is completely and totally false.i cannot stand the perpetuationg of lies realting to that conflict, while i understand the american political establishments desire to sweep it under the rug and completely distort and downplay the history i cannot tolarate it, i have been to this country and seen how friendly and nice the peolpe there are i have witnessed with my own eyes the scars of war left on that country, and talked with mnay poeple who were directly afffected by the war, over 300,000 vietnamese are still unaccounted for, many mothers in the years proceeding the war appeared on state tv asking if anyone anywhere knows what happened to their sons or daughters, this continued right up to the 90s.

Well over 3 million people died in the vietanm war(some put it at 4 but in reality its probably closer to 3.5), amny died in cambodia and Laos also (approx. 1.5 million), most of these were civilians. The incident that typfies the way in which the amercian army conducted military operations in vietnam is the My Lai massacre, if you know anything about the war you will have heard of this. This was largely been misrepresented as an isolated incident by the americanmedia but there exists an overwhelming body of evidence that proves this was anything but an isolated incident, besides the words of every vietnamese person i have ever talked to about it many of which actually fought in the war.

The famous journalist John Pilger interviewed some of men taken part in the massacre, many of which were never charged, nearly all of them was adamant that they were told from above to " kill everyone one and everything"

Homocide was the means by which tht war was conducted, the famous US ninth division were notorious, they are credited with killing 11,000 people (mostly civilians) in a campaign known as "operation speedy express" (i.e.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Speedy_Express). The fatal flaw in the claim that this was a military operation lay in the fact that only 700 weapons were ever recovered from the area where so mnay were killed. This mass slughter was condoned and covered up at the time, they admitted they had killed at least 5000 civlivians, the actual number is far far far higher but it was all covered up by the US. Many provinces in vietnam thought to be heavily sympathetic to the veit cong were turned into "free fire zones", this is military speak for we do whatever the hell we want, a perfect example of this is Quang Ngai province, this resulted in large scale mass slaughter, the complete and total destruction of villages either by means more akin to Gengis Khan by going in killing raping and burning, or by simple dropping lots of bombs, or dropping massive amounts napalm (you know the famous picture of the naked girl who's village was bombed with napalm and is covered in it herself, it has become iconic). Then theres "agent orange" the chemical weapon used by the US military in vietnam, this chemical kills everything in its path and is still ravaging the country side is was used on today, i have been to the Saigon war museum and seen the entire wing devoted to the victims of americans agent orange campaign which has caused well over 500,000 children to be born with birth defects.

This was all supposedly done to maintain geopolitical power in the region (as was Korea) stop the spread of communism and, maintain the pro-capitalist pro-american completely undemocratic saigon-government, but this puppet government (just like most of the puppet governments america supports or maintains whether it be in south america or in the ME or asia (like those revolting against US backed oppression)) was responsible for horrible acts of brutality towards its own people (oh i think we've heard that before), in fact amnesety international compiled a reports that showed at the time (prior to the US invasion) that the south vietnamese governmnt were respionsible for half of all the cases of torture in the word. Then theres the nationlists of Ho Chi Minh, those dreaded comminists who had appealed for help from america agaisnt the french and instead got an entirely new and much more destructive reign of terror, well the real question is this, did these people have a popular mandate as the rightful rulers of vietnam, well the record is pretty clear now that he did, in fact many beleive thats one of the reason they invaded when they did as they knew he was going to take power with popular support, president Eisenhower wrote somthing in his memoirs that quite telling on this matter, this is the quote ""I have never talked or corresponded with a person knowledgeable in Indo-China affairs who did not believe that had elections been held as of the time of the fighting, possibly 80 percent of the population would have voted for the communist Ho Chi Minh as their leader rather than Chief of State Bao Dai."

Source:http://www.angelfire.com/ca3/jphuck/Book17Ch.1.html

Other quotes that are accurately characterise the nature of the war include the famous ""We had to destroy the town in order to save it." made by a US major after they admitted that they bombed villages indiscriminately in order to kill VC

Source:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Tre

The piont im making is that random killing, torture and destruction in vietnam were routine and common place, and this was th result of the orders given to the soldiers fighting there, i am currently reading a book about american history and how american high school history education and hidtory books competely distort the truth of many famous events with vietnam coming in for a lot of criticism, it more or less deatils in a much more comprehensive way than i just have how killing, torture, mass murder and slaughter, mutilation, indiscriminate and random killing, destruction of property and the landscape by shooting lachine guns and rockets from helicopters or dropping black pepper bombs (look it up) or napalm, this was commonplace, in fact it was expected from above, it was how the war was conducted and the results it produced (i.e. the compelte and total destruction of the coutnry and mass murder of a substantial portion of the population) were what expectedly followed.

If you want any further clarification or info. or sources don't hesitate.

"Making up conspiracies (be it 9/11 truth or NWO"

What conspiracies, i deal in facts, where is the conspiracy here.

BTW the book is called lies my teacher told me, the author is professor James W. Loewen and i strongly urge you to read it you are think your history education in high scholl made you knowledgeable on americans dark history think again. Also, i havent forgotten about that penn and teller video and the issue reagarding your view of Noam Chomsky.

Side: yes
ThePyg(6738) Disputed
1 point

You criticize me for using wikipedia a lot... but okay, I'll let you slide, since you ALSO used a book, which didn't even prove that murders of innocent people was a common thing from the American military. It did show that it happened, and yes, it did... i didn't deny that it happened. I denied it being something that was common. Like, ordinary. You know, "everyone's doing it". No, it wasn't like that.

I'm not denying that the Vietnam war was a bullshit operation from our government, and I'm not denying that many innocent died for a bullshit reason. What I am denying is this new, hip style of attacking the troops calling them all baby murderers just because John Kerry was involved in a massacre and decided to throw his own brothers in front of a bus to save his own ass.

Side: No