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Listening to Barak Obama mentioning Ghandi and MLK Jr. and then championing the state's right and rightness to use force to enforce the peace.
Remember, MLK's words:
"My third reason moves to an even deeper level of awareness, for it grows out of my experience in the ghettoes of the North over the last three years -- especially the last three summers. As I have walked among the desperate, rejected and angry young men I have told them that Molotov cocktails and rifles would not solve their problems. I have tried to offer them my deepest compassion while maintaining my conviction that social change comes most meaningfully through nonviolent action. But they asked -- and rightly so -- what about Vietnam? They asked if our own nation wasn't using massive doses of violence to solve its problems, to bring about the changes it wanted. Their questions hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today -- my own government. "
Obama'a speech validates the use of force, and a governments ability to claim a rightness of cause. He also claims that the use of American force has been a counter to a force of evil in the world, rather than an instrument to open unwilling markets and foreign lands to extraction of resources. He claims a false history, one that denies Mossedegh, Allende, Lumumba and many more. He denies, "War is a Racket" as told by Smedley Butler.
Now, I am not quite so naive as to argue that Ghandi's non-violence would have defeated the Nazis. But as Nietzche observed:
Be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one.
One might be reminded of Tom Lerher's reaction when Henry the K won the Nobel Peace prize.
It's enough to make one's head spin. And as the Grateful Dead once observed, "The faster you go, the rounder you get!"
War Inc. is a satire movie on how discombobulated life is in the Middle East. If living in the Middle East wasn't so frightening, you could have a few laughs watching this movie. The movie was not what I thought it would be.
RE: Global warming. I think people need to start to open their eyes to what the promotion of Sarah Palin is really all about. It's her views on energy and global warming that are the reasons she's the next Manchurian Candidate. We all laugh at the idea of her being President, with good reason. But we should not underestimate the ability of those behind the scenes promoting her to sell the American public on her. They sold the country on Bush twice. She represents for them the chance to stall action on global warming for four, or maybe even eight years more as Bush did. People need to start seeing what they're really up to, what the hidden agenda behind her promotion is really about. It's a repeat of the 2000 election except this time Obama is the big threat instead of Gore.
I have absolutely nothing against someone coming to this country, even illegally, simply to want to make a better life for themselves and their family. That's human nature. It's the employers we should be nailing. That said, we often heard in the past that illegal immigrants were doing jobs no one else wanted to. So does anyone think that's true when there's double digit unemployment? Wouldn't many Americans be glad to do some jobs now that they might now have considered before. But they can't because there's millions of people here illegally doing those jobs. Most notably, have you driven by any road crews doing the infrastructure work under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.? Typically, all the workers are Hispanic, and I'm guessing many are here illegally, and only the crew bosses, and some heavy equipment operators are not. So who's getting any of the jobs that are being created?
The whole system is beginning to seem more and more like a huge, pervasive scheme to concentrate wealth. Be it speculation driving the price of oil and gasoline up, insurance companies raising premiums while convincing consumers to raise deductibles and pay more out of pocket (eventually, premiums become pure profit) or the stock market. How many little folks have invested in the stock market only to lose everything they put in, while some wealthy folks may millions, or even billions. They get us to do it because of what I'd call the lottery syndrome - working folks looking to strike it rich in the market - that's the carrot they dangle. Then I truly believe some folks with huge assets can literally influence the price of stock by buying and selling, regardless of what a company is or isn't doing. They get a stock's price to rise by buying when it's low, get us little folks to jump in hoping catch a rising star, only to sell off and take their profits at some point, driving the stock down again. Little folks panic and try to cut their losses and sell off the stock at a lower price perhaps than they bought it, and the cycle starts all over again. And people on Wall Street get bonuses that are more than some make in a lifetime on Main Street. Even the housing market is like that. Right now, people with a lot of money could be gobbling up properties for pennies on the dollar, only to flip them later for huge profits.
Zero G, I have placed Chris Hedges' speech at UC Santa Barbara on my favorites column list. I will hear when I have some time.
Zero G, thank you for the information!
I wish to share with you, posters, some information. On George Noory's show, "Coast to Coast," he discussed the psychiatrist from Fort Hood who killed thirteen people. The FBI was trying to train him to be a double agent. I do not know how true this information is. But, there is a lot going on that we do not know.
My son and I watched from a disc, "The Killing Room." This was a location where American agents trained persons to kill another person and enjoy the killing experience.
Tonight, we will be watching, "War Inc." I cannot say much about it at this time. I will leave it at that for now. There is a lot of covert operations going on in our country. Be alert and do not believe everything our government says!
Zero G.,
Me, too. :)
Yep.
ps I thought the plot was really weak, but I'm a sucker for the subject...
Zero G.,
Are you talking about Dan Brown's book, The Lost Symbol?
DRichards and Quark,
Dan Brown's latest novel includes an experiment to determine if a soul has a measurable weight.
At a particle level, Feynmann diagrams are equally valid with the time arrow in either direction. Perhaps it is only conciousiness which is dependant on undirectional time.
Brian, it appears though that trying to fix campaign finance reform through Congress is asking cancer to heal itself.
DRichards,
I am very open to the idea of some form of existence after death. I have had a number of death-related and near-death experiences and "memories" (too long to go into here.) The matter-energy relationship (and quantum physics) is what I "hang my hat on." I just wonder if our freed energy/matter could have any sense of "self." I have doubts about this, though, again, I am open...
Gerald, you might wish to check out Chris Hedges' book, "War is a Force Which Gives Us Meaning."
we need to push for campaign finance reform. end the bribery in Washington. when corporation give politicians money it is nothing but bribery.
I am sharing with you some information that I have recently heard. If you have heard the same information, please let us know.
Karzai (sp), Afghanistan’s president, has said that he wants the U. S. troops to be in Afghanistan for twenty more years until the year 2029. The projected cost for such an operation is $150 billion per year or $3 trillion for twenty years. This figure is the upfront cost of our occupation. The hidden costs in caring for our maimed soldiers with the VA’s help and the reconstruction of Afghanistan for another twenty years to the year 2049 may be another $3 trillion.
Maybe by the year 2050 we will be able to rebuild our country. But, there is a serious problem. By 2050 we will have a deficit of $40 trillion and that is the low end of the deficit. What our government may do is to create a depression and not pay off the deficit and start with a clean slate. To move out of this depression may take another forty years and so by 2090 we may be able to start our reconstruction.
I am serious and sincere in asking for help and input. There are some issues that I can understand and discuss with some knowledge and understanding. There are some issues that require your help and input.
Thom has frequently stated that his listeners and callers are some of the sharpest people he knows. If a person needs help, he or she will seek their help.
I am not overjoyed in sharing with you a fact. I am not the sharpest tool in the toolbox and so I seek your help and input. Please try to help me!
Here is where I need help. I have heard that fifty-seven percent of Americans favor wars, especially the Afghanistan war. In wars human beings will be killed. This is a fact. The conservatives or neocons and many progressives oppose the killing of human life inside the woman’s womb. I, too, oppose such killings. Yet, when it comes to the killing outside the woman’s womb, fifty-seven percent of Americans favor wars and with wars come the killing of human beings.
Please try to share with me your thoughts and ideas why the killing of human life is opposed inside the woman’s womb but the killing of human life outside the woman’s womb is acceptable.
If you can shed light on this form of thinking, I may be able to go from a dull tool to somewhat of a less than a dull tool inside the toolbox.
Your comments in clarifying these issues will be deeply appreciated by me.
As a side note, Thom has had a discussion on health care and how Medicare for someone 55 years and older will create and help small businesses. Why have the conservatives or neocons and many conservative Democrats been opposing health care reform? These are politicians who are supposed to be pro-life.
the insurance companies are behind this new medicare plan and the republicans and the fiscal corporate republicans and dems will love it. they will make medicare more costly on purpose because of a smaller pool of policy payers. then they will jack rates again like they have already done on my parents 60%. then the rest of the people are mandated to buy private crap insurance and even if they are required to use 90% of the money for care there will be a loophole some place as well as the fact that they will just jack rates. if you have a health related issue aka: a condition they will charge so much money for the coverage that only the very wealthy will be able to buy the coverage. everything comes down to class and the ruling class loves it. wall street to k street to capital hill. sorry but i have zero faith in a govt that is corrupted and justified. as far as jobs.....hello nafta, cafta, wto not in the discussions. the to big to fail...banks are out of control and what will change their? not sure but doubtful that there will be much.
@ZeroG: I agree . . . Higgins woulda stuffed Schrödinger into the box and we'd be speculating whether or not he was killed by the radioactive isotope.
I do have to agree with Gainor . . . Obama does not care about jobs . . . He is all about shielding and pumping up corporate profit.
Dan Gainor, again . . . My soul lies whimpering. I am not in the mood for idiots who believe that opposite day is for really-reals every farging day.
I just imagined Erwin Schrödinger trying to get Hiqqens into the box...
This was reprinted today on Common Dreams, maybe it will be of some interest:
Liberals, I Do Despise
by Adolph Reed
First Published in The Village Voice, Nov. 12, 1996
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/12/09-7
DRichards,
Does the universe bifurcate everytime the "state vector" collapses into a measurable quantity? aka the Everitt Wheeler Graham model.
Hell, I don't know - but maybe then in an alternative universe Gary Webb still lives:
Why Journalist Gary Webb Died
By Robert Parry (A Special Report)
December 9, 2009
Five years ago, a tragedy occurred in American journalism: Investigative reporter Gary Webb – who had been ostracized by his own colleagues for forcing a spotlight back onto an ugly government scandal they wanted to ignore – was driven to commit suicide. But the tragedy had a deeper meaning. from: http://consortiumnews.com/2009/120909.html