Hi, I'm calling from the Dem.... NO CARRIER

April 26, 2005 6:14 AM

CITEL, an entity of the Organization of American States, is the main forum in the hemisphere in which the governments and the private sector meet to coordinate regional efforts to develop the Global Information Society according to the mandates of the General Assembly of the Organization and the mandates entrusted to it by Heads of State and Government at the Summits of the Americas.

No Democrats allowed.
posted by bashos_frog (44 comments total)

Says Nokia vice president Bill Plummer: "We do not view sending experts to international meetings on telecom issues to be a partisan matter. We would welcome clarification from the White House."
posted by bashos_frog at 6:17 AM on April 26, 2005

Well, the Bushbots will claim "business as usual", and they would largely be right. However, rewarding those who have are the best for you given you monetary support versus encouraging what's best for the country, which I believe is their oath sworn to god God and all, could (and should) bite them in the ass. Lets hope the lazy press, shunned corporations, and neutered dems take appropriate action.
posted by rzklkng at 6:25 AM on April 26, 2005

Here's your list of North American CITEL members. Here is who the Communications and Electronics Industry has given campaign contributions. And you can certainly see why this is a sector that's getting a message. Here in Philadelphia, we have a little problem with this...it's called "pay-for-play". I wouldn't expect anyone inside Bush's Washington to investigate...
posted by rzklkng at 6:34 AM on April 26, 2005

Yep, they are nutty. I mean seriously, IT WAS AN ELECTION. It wasn't like they were trying to stage a hostile takeover. They were you know, exercising their democratic right to choose their administration.
posted by gaspode at 6:41 AM on April 26, 2005

Let's hope that people get the message: if you want to play, you have to join the right team. A few more years of this and we will have the same type of single-party government that's been so succesful in other parts of the world.
posted by Slothrup at 6:51 AM on April 26, 2005

I admire the Bush Regime for their cold, unyielding ruthlessness.
posted by Kwantsar at 7:05 AM on April 26, 2005

What I want to hear is someone defending this action. Anyone?
posted by leftcoastbob at 7:12 AM on April 26, 2005

At first glance, I was ready to go ballistic on gaspode. I read "It was an election" and the brain processed "Get over it", which is the defacto Bushbot response, aka "to the victor goes the spoils". Thankfully, a re-read sent me straight.
posted by rzklkng at 7:15 AM on April 26, 2005

Let's hope that people get the message
At least four of the two dozen or so U.S. delegates selected for the meeting, sources tell TIME, have been bumped by the White House because they supported John Kerry's 2004 campaign.
For those that can't read, it says no Kerry supporters allowed. Big Difference since Republicans voted for Kerry too.
Sheesh, this is how our foreign friends receive false news about teh USA.
Dear Meta-filter; you are slipping since this was a highly seen link yesterday.
posted by thomcatspike at 7:17 AM on April 26, 2005

What's so bad about this? Political power is always used as a lever to extract money. All the Bush Administration has done is to make the relationship of cause and effect more clear.

You're either with them or you're against them. if you're with them, you get rewarded. If you're against them, you get punished. What's so surprising about that? Unless you cling to some naive view that government is supposed to ensure equal access to all parties, and anything is "apolitical". Nothing is apolitical: not your job, not your church, not your children. The State must involve itself wherever there is even potentially a threat to the State; the State must involve itself wherever there is the opportunity to instruct its citizens in loyalty.

It's no different than what goes on in China or Brazil today, or what went on in the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, or the Keppler Circle.

So STFU naive do-gooders!
posted by orthogonality at 7:18 AM on April 26, 2005

What I want to hear is someone defending this action.
Here you go; "We wanted people who would represent the Administration positively, and--call us nutty--it seemed like those who wanted to kick this Administration out of town last November would have some difficulty doing that," says White House spokesman Trent Duffy.
posted by thomcatspike at 7:18 AM on April 26, 2005

Why not get to the point? Eliminate the filibuster, then pass a law requiring "reeducation" of all congressional Democrats. Then they could wall Democratic sectors of the country into "ghettoes" and start...oh shit. Almost pulled a Godwin. Sorry.
posted by fungible at 7:21 AM on April 26, 2005

I, for one, welcome our new fear-mongering overlords.
posted by warbaby at 7:22 AM on April 26, 2005

The Time’s article could have better itself showing this to question's Bush's commitment about partisan walls and both sides working together.
posted by thomcatspike at 7:32 AM on April 26, 2005

thomcatspike, did you mean on metafilter or on the interweb?
posted by rzklkng at 7:39 AM on April 26, 2005

people who would represent the Administration positively

The private sector representatives to CITEL are there to represent the private sector, not the administration.

I really don't care about this. It's hopeless. They win. One day, all this will build up to a point where I can't just shrug it off anymore, and I'll kill some of them, and I'll go to jail or the chair, guilty.

It will be my fault. Because I let them get to me?

No. Because I let them get away with this.
posted by breezeway at 7:40 AM on April 26, 2005

on the interweb
posted by thomcatspike at 7:52 AM on April 26, 2005

I guess this also puts their defacto censorship and move to the nanny-state into context as well. Also explains the "war" on lawyers, unions, and education.
posted by rzklkng at 7:52 AM on April 26, 2005

Would Bill Clinton accept a blowjob from a Republican? Probably. And that's why he was a great president.
posted by bardic at 8:24 AM on April 26, 2005

Fuck it. My outrage meter is pegged.

I've been wrestling with this for a while, but I think this tips it for me: the Bush presidency is even worse than Dick Nixon's.
posted by orthogonality at 8:36 AM on April 26, 2005

Well since the Demoncrats are pure evil and are in direct opposition to all good Christians in America (Senate Majority Leader Frist said so), it's no surprise they don't get any invitations to the good parties anymore.
They need to just go hug a tree or sodomize someone of their own gender or something else just as evil and get over it.
Sore losermans!
[/snark]
posted by nofundy at 8:58 AM on April 26, 2005

All of you saying “Democrats” are as bad as Bush. For reason, read my first comment above for pancaking yourselves;P
posted by thomcatspike at 9:17 AM on April 26, 2005

Does anyone still not know that this administration is strictly pay-for-play?
posted by clevershark at 9:27 AM on April 26, 2005

Good. I hope this will convince telecom to fight harder for the Dems next time around. I mean, the Dems are good ol' machine, back-office politickers, who care more about the dough than the people. The Republicans care more about the power than the people. Let's hope that business gets back to supporting those who want to make money.
posted by klangklangston at 9:43 AM on April 26, 2005

thomcatspike has made an important observation: they aren't banninating just members of the democratic party, they're doing it to kerry supporters, and not all kerry supporters are democrats.

the fucked-up-edness of this administration is reaching truly epic and legendary proportions.

i'm sure the talking points are being distributed even as we speak, and the usual suspects should be showing up with a defense of this action any moment now....
posted by lord_wolf at 9:45 AM on April 26, 2005

Scientists and professors and those of an artistic bent are mainly the definition of 'liberal'.
When civilization advanced it was alongside the advancement of architecture, science and learning.
When those aspects of society were derided and put on the backburner for warfare at it's own sake, the dark ages arrived.
Look to Greece's own dark ages
posted by mk1gti at 9:52 AM on April 26, 2005

If you say "No Democrats Allowed" like it came from "Snoopy, Come Home" it ain't so bad.
posted by Cyrano at 10:43 AM on April 26, 2005

Applying a political test is not only pointless, it suggests a meanness of spirit and weakens the U.S. internationally. I have no doubt this decision was made at a low level and hope those in the White House with a broader perspective will ensure it does not happen again. - Scott Harris

It's a stupid mistake, but they will likely get away with it again. And we wonder why so many people give up on "politics" ...
posted by mrgrimm at 11:13 AM on April 26, 2005

Well, at least this "you didn't vote for me so you don't get to go to the party" is open and upfront. As opposed to, say, Cheney's energy task force.

This still stinks.
posted by ilsa at 11:15 AM on April 26, 2005

I've been wrestling with this for a while, but I think this tips it for me: the Bush presidency is even worse than Dick Nixon's.

I just tried to post this as an new link for today, but I already did my one...So here it is on my site. The full source articles are below.

Cliffs: Read this about Nixon, Cheney, and Rumsfeld and the Office of Equal Opportunity and then go read this about Ford, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Anton Scalia and the Freedom of Information Act. Bush != Hitler. Bush = Nixon. I'm just waiting for them to either weigh down someone's conscience with their evil or piss someone off enough for this administration to get a "Deepthroat".
posted by rzklkng at 11:18 AM on April 26, 2005

Bush != Hitler. Bush = Nixon

Thanks for the sources.

What's depressing about that when you think about it is that Bush probably doesn't mind the comparison, after the way Tricky Dick's record has been whitewashed in the media for the past 20 years.

Aside from Watergate, what's he most famous for now? Opening relations with China, forming the EPA, and launching the bizarrely still popular war on drugs. Who remembers the milk-price scandal or his improper suggestions that the IRS should investigate "the rich Jews"? (That Harry Barber story in the OC Register is a trip, btw.)
posted by mrgrimm at 11:49 AM on April 26, 2005

I agree my outrage meter got has maxed out and I don't care anymore, too easy to get burned.

this is a simple extension of the K Street Project They've already purged lobbyists, now they're moving to the rest of corporate america.

It's interesting, watching the creation of a single sided corporo-theocratic republican client state.
posted by stratastar at 12:06 PM on April 26, 2005

Bush makes Nixon look like Tinkerbell . . .
Nixon didn't bring about the Patriot Act, the Department of Homeland Security, an endless 'War on Terrorism', *succeeding* in rigging an election, extraditing U.S. citizens to foreign countries to be tortured, intimidation of opponents *worse* than McCarthyism, vilifying opponents to such a degree never before seen in this countrie's history, robbing the poor and middle class to enrich the rich while cutting education, social services and funds to state and local governments, placing this country's elections in the hands of known right-wingers who have a very clear agenda to take local, state and national elections at all costs, why, I could type all day about the nonsense and duplicity these ass-clowns have perpetuated against 'The Land of the Free and The Home of The Brave', now just 'The Land of The Lost'.
posted by mk1gti at 12:12 PM on April 26, 2005

Assclowns is a funny word.

Using it to describe these greedy liars is unfair to funny words.

These guys are assholes, and they belong rotting in hell.
posted by breezeway at 12:48 PM on April 26, 2005

Nixon didn't have 'free speech' zones (*bullshit*), Nixon didn't have FOX news lying to the public about the true state of their corrupt government, Nixon didn't have a Department of Homeland Security to use against the american population to intimidate them in the airports or to put on 'no fly' lists or to otherwise harm and intimidate americans from exercising their basic rights of freedom, justice and liberty in their persons or affairs. Nixon didn't have a Republican Senate and Congress who taxed and spent far worse than any democrats have ever done before. Nixon never joined the Air National Guard only to go AWOL. Nixon didn't have a gay male prostitute running around The White House doing who knows what with whom. Nixon was not involved in Iran-Contra, the Savings and Loan scandal, *two* stolen national elections and alienating the rest of the civilized world against this one like no other U.S. president has done. Nixon didn't kill any kittens in a pillowsack down by the river . . .
posted by mk1gti at 2:19 PM on April 26, 2005

you people are funny
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 5:33 PM on April 26, 2005

Dang, you make Nixon sound like a great fellow!
posted by ilsa at 5:50 PM on April 26, 2005

Nixon 08!!
posted by Balisong at 7:44 PM on April 26, 2005

Steve_at_Linnwood writes "you people are funny"

Yes, Steve, we are. Now that you've hacked up your standard ad hominem loogie, how about trying for a real honest-to-god opinion?

Simple answer, Steve: do you agree with excluding technically qualified industry representatives from a technical conference because of their private political contributions?

(My guess is that Steve will simply duck out of answering this at all, because even Steve realizes this can't be defended. If Steve had had a real argument, he wouldn't have had to resort to his pointless derail.)
posted by orthogonality at 9:29 PM on April 26, 2005

Nixon's (and Kissenger's) body count is still way higher. Just mentioning...
posted by dopeypanda at 12:32 AM on April 27, 2005

Argh! Kissinger. Sorry.
posted by dopeypanda at 12:33 AM on April 27, 2005

you people are funny

Well someone has to be.
posted by inpHilltr8r at 1:11 AM on April 27, 2005

Well, I don't personally recall any of Nixon's presidency, being an infant, but I'd say this administration is worse. Maybe it's just nostalgia, or the weird effect of time passed and passions diluted, but I honest-to-goodness believe that Nixon had a better sense of what was good for the country than Bush II.
That's not a whitewash of his record, just an observation from someone who's witnessed Bush, but only read/heard of Nixon's offenses. My point is, Nixon wrangled and governed. Bush issues edicts, and demands obeisance.

I'd like to see a bill passed which forbade the federal government from retaliating against people who contributed to their opposition's campaigns. Pre-Patriot Act, I'd've dreamed of a bill forbidding its investigation, even.
How are Libertarians in line with an administration that uses tax-payer money to mine and massage data on people in this manner, when the result is anything but productive?

In early 2001, the press was musing about how Bush was essentially surrounding himself with 'Yes' men, delegating duty to others, insulating his responsibility. In early 2005, we're hearing about how the Yes mens' lackeys' are being replaced with Yes men, even if they were in agreement on the policy their duties pertained to. Can someone explain how the word conservative can be applied to this situation?
posted by Busithoth at 9:02 PM on April 27, 2005

How are Libertarians in line with an administration that uses tax-payer money to mine and massage data on people in this manner, when the result is anything but productive?

Most people who call themselves "Libertarian" are really small-government Conservatives. Which, of course, just begs the question...

To paraphrase somebody smart: Just keep them asking the wrong questions, and you're golden.
posted by lodurr at 10:50 AM on April 28, 2005