“Beta O’Rourke May Benefit From an Unlikely Support Group: White Evangelical Women”, Elisabeth Dias, New York Times, 2018-10-09
This shift is that these women are seeing O’Rourke as a “stark moral contrast to Mr. Trump.” They are seeing other moral values that Trump does not have; values that are just as important as opposing abortion.
The problem with abortion as a political issue is that it ignores many problems that are not controlled by an “unwilling” mother.
Shall a teen-age girl be responsible for a child fathered by force, whether by a known or unknown male?
Shall a woman of any age be forced to bear a child whose birth will kill her? What would that do to any previous children she had?
We really cannot make any sweeping pronouncements about abortion without knowing all facts in each individual case.
If we make all abortions illegal, who will be punished? Will it be the unwilling mother? Will it be the “back alley abortionist”? Will it be the not present father?
Ironically, some of these “value” voters are supporting a party that is quite willing to cause unwanted abortions in other countries. How many pregnant women are killed in wars? How many of these pregnant women even support the wars in their countries? And some of these politicians with the “big buttons” are quite willing to obliterate large numbers of women and children.
Showing posts with label war. Show all posts
Showing posts with label war. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 09, 2018
Thursday, September 28, 2017
Wisdom about war from "The Lord of the Rings"
I am rereading J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings many years after my last reading. At the front of the copy, on 11 Jan 2002 I wrote:
“Do we Orc-hestrate our wars? We are the Fellowship and our enemies are the Orcs. We slaughter hundreds of them without qualm and bury with great honor the few of us who suffer more than scratches. See p. 58.”
On p. 58 I bracketed:
‘Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends...'
Gandolf gave this response to Frodo’s condemnation of Gollum who is “as bad as an Orc, and just an enemy. He deserves death.”
“Do we Orc-hestrate our wars? We are the Fellowship and our enemies are the Orcs. We slaughter hundreds of them without qualm and bury with great honor the few of us who suffer more than scratches. See p. 58.”
On p. 58 I bracketed:
‘Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends...'
Gandolf gave this response to Frodo’s condemnation of Gollum who is “as bad as an Orc, and just an enemy. He deserves death.”
Sunday, April 02, 2017
Religious Americans who believe war is murder shouldn’t be forced to fund it
This my counter to “Religious Americans who believe abortion is murder shouldn’t be forced to fund it”, one of the opinions in “Should the new Congress defund Planned Parenthood”, Duluth News Tribune, 2017-04-02.
It boggles my mind that those who want to ban abortion seem to have no qualms of supporting a party that is all to willing to go to war wherever they think “American interests” are at stake. War causes many unwanted abortions, abortions the victimized mothers would not want if they had survived the bombing or gunfire. Even if the mothers had survived, would the stress of war caused spontaneous abortions in some of them.
These anti-abortion, pro-war “religious” seem to forget “Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. - Matthew 5:9. They also seem to have ignored “Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble.” Peter I 3:8.
It boggles my mind that those who want to ban abortion seem to have no qualms of supporting a party that is all to willing to go to war wherever they think “American interests” are at stake. War causes many unwanted abortions, abortions the victimized mothers would not want if they had survived the bombing or gunfire. Even if the mothers had survived, would the stress of war caused spontaneous abortions in some of them.
These anti-abortion, pro-war “religious” seem to forget “Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. - Matthew 5:9. They also seem to have ignored “Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love as brothers, be compassionate and humble.” Peter I 3:8.
Friday, March 03, 2017
Iran: A Cultural Lesson for Americans
The Iranian movie “A Separation” is really about interpersonal clashes that can occur in any country. However, it is a glimpse into the lives of people in different classes and their hopes and concerns.
The take away for anybody with an open mind is that we are not at war with people in many countries. People in other countries have their hopes and dreams, jobs and responsibilities, and can care for one another as well as get into unreasonable disputes.
The take away for anybody with an open mind is that we are not at war with people in many countries. People in other countries have their hopes and dreams, jobs and responsibilities, and can care for one another as well as get into unreasonable disputes.
Thursday, October 20, 2016
War: When Will We Ever Learn
This entry was inspired by the work of The White Helmets written by Raed Saleh. It is a heart-breaking story of carnage caused by those who only seek their own power, not that of the people. See
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/21/opinion/we-have-tried-every-kind-of-death-possible.html
Where have all the flowers gone? Gone by scorched earth warfare.
Where have all the young girls gone? Bombed under rubble like the girl pictured in the article.
Where have all the young men gone? Shot or bombed by somebody who doesn't like the side to which these young men have gone, often enticed by glory rather than defense of their homes. Often killed by someone in the sky enticed by those who don't like the people that enticed the young men to war. Someone who probably goes to a safe barracks with a good warm dinner.
Where have all the graves gone? Buried under more rubble, certainly not to flowers.
When will we ever learn?
Not very soon:(
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/21/opinion/we-have-tried-every-kind-of-death-possible.html
Where have all the flowers gone? Gone by scorched earth warfare.
Where have all the young girls gone? Bombed under rubble like the girl pictured in the article.
Where have all the young men gone? Shot or bombed by somebody who doesn't like the side to which these young men have gone, often enticed by glory rather than defense of their homes. Often killed by someone in the sky enticed by those who don't like the people that enticed the young men to war. Someone who probably goes to a safe barracks with a good warm dinner.
Where have all the graves gone? Buried under more rubble, certainly not to flowers.
When will we ever learn?
Not very soon:(
Wednesday, July 20, 2016
Is Donald Trump the ISIS candidate?
No, I don't mean that Donald Trump is a supporter of ISIS. But he is certainly doing just what ISIS wants. His attacks on Muslims bolsters ISIS's claim that the West is at war with Islam. The more Trump rails against Muslims in general, he helps recruit disillusioned or disaffected Muslims to join ISIS or to carry out attacks in the West. The more attacks, the more people like Donald Trump will over-react. The more over-reaction, the more recruits and the more attacks.
The only counter to a vicious cycle is a virtuous cycle. Probably the best tactic is to out-Qur'an ISIS, especially considering some of their camps don't even have copies of the Qur-an. Consider that few in ISIS even know "...and you should forgive and overlook: Do you not like God to forgive you?” (Qur’an: Surah 24, v. 22)
Monday, July 04, 2016
What true patriotism is
I’m sitting at my computer listening to all the fireworks, both public at the Bayfront Festival Park and private. We can see some of the Bayfront fireworks if we look out our front upstairs window at the right angle. But is enjoying fireworks patriotism? People all over the world enjoy fireworks.
Is patriotism pledging allegiance to the flag or singing the Star-Spangled Banner. Anybody can do these as a rote exercise. In fact, it seems that the more flags behind a political candidate, the more “patriotic” they are.
Is patriotism “supporting our troops” wherever they are fighting at the behest of our politicians? Many of those wars have led to further wars.
Maybe patriotism is saying that a war is immoral and unwinnable. Remember also that those on the other side think they are being patriotic to their country or cause.
True patriotism is obeying the laws, paying taxes, voting, and speaking your mind about how government is acting. Given these guidelines anybody can be a patriot whether they are Republican or Democrat, “conservative” or “liberal”, or none of the above.
Is patriotism pledging allegiance to the flag or singing the Star-Spangled Banner. Anybody can do these as a rote exercise. In fact, it seems that the more flags behind a political candidate, the more “patriotic” they are.
Is patriotism “supporting our troops” wherever they are fighting at the behest of our politicians? Many of those wars have led to further wars.
Maybe patriotism is saying that a war is immoral and unwinnable. Remember also that those on the other side think they are being patriotic to their country or cause.
True patriotism is obeying the laws, paying taxes, voting, and speaking your mind about how government is acting. Given these guidelines anybody can be a patriot whether they are Republican or Democrat, “conservative” or “liberal”, or none of the above.
Thursday, December 10, 2015
Bombs away!
No, I don’t mean drop bombs from an airplane. I mean bombs go away, bombs never to be used again. Let’s get rid of nuclear weapons, drone bombers, conventional bombs, cannons, and all other weapons that indiscriminately kill bad people as well as good people.
Unfortunately, the answer is not blowing in the wind from the mouths of politicians around the world. They blow out phrases like “defense”, “saving jobs”, and “gun rights”.
We should ask “defense of what”? Defense of the right to tell other people how to live? Defense from dictators? Strange, we are allies with lots of dictators, like Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Oh, but they are “our” dictators, not “their” dictators. Defense from Communism? Communism as a label is all but dead. “Communism” in China is just a label for another dictatorship that is withering away. “Communism” in North Korea is a name for a paranoid dictatorship. Our “defense” against North Korea only serves to feed the paranoia.
Another paranoid quasi-dictatorship is Russia. But consider the historical reason for its paranoia. The Mongols invaded, the French invaded, the Germans invaded twice, and now the alliance that was built as defense against the Soviet Union keeps expanding, feeding the paranoia of not only Vladimir Putin, but many ordinary Russians. Of course, it doesn’t help the alliance that Putin’s given name contains the Russian words for lord and world.
If we are so interested in “saving jobs”, we should never have instituted Prohibition. Think of how many bartenders, servers, distillers, and brewers lost their jobs. Prohibition did help the gun industry, guns for both the bootleggers and for the police.
Do we want to “save jobs” at the cost of lives far, far away? How many wedding guests should die because somebody up in the sky decided the guests were “terrorists”? How many hospitals must be destroyed because enemy combatants were believed to be hiding there? Interesting, the “enemy combatants” live in the country; the bombers are from a country far, far away.
I didn’t know guns had “rights”. As far as protection in case of a terrorist attack, would more people die because some of the target group had weapons? John pulls out a gun to shoot the terrorists. Mary sees John with a gun in his hand and thinking he is a terrorist, shoots him. Even the police have a hard time shooting the terrorists. And the police get wounded and killed. Major Hassan at Fort Hood wounded and downed a police officer who had excellent scores in marksmanship. Her partner managed to wound Hassan enough to get him to stop shooting.
Maybe the better idea is to keep military-style weapons in armories and not make them easily available to the general public. Many seem to have forgotten that we had armories to keep the more deadly weapons away from the general public but available to the militia in case of insurrection.
Another better idea is to use propaganda instead of bombs.
Instead of attacking Israel, Palestinian protesters should fly children’s balloons over Israel. Each balloon would carry a slip of paper with the words of Hillel in Hebrew: “Do not unto your neighbor what you would not have him do unto you; this is the whole Law; the rest is commentary.”
Instead of burying Daesh terrorists in bomb debris, bury them in pamphlets: “...and you should forgive and overlook: Do you not like God to forgive you? And Allah is The Merciful Forgiving.” _ Qur’an (Surah 24, “The Light”, v. 22)
And of course, the “bomb them back to the Stone Age” bloviators who claim to be “Christian” should receive letters from their constituents: “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.” – Jesus of Nazareth, Matthew 7:12
I am surprised that Iran didn’t use this latter quotation with those negotiating to stop Iran’s nuclear capacity. All the nuclear-armed negotiators except the Chinese purport to be Christians. If the negotiating countries didn’t want Iran to have nuclear weapons, shouldn’t Iran have proposed some schedule for these “nuclear powers” to eliminate their nuclear weapons?
Maybe the only answer is for a peace coalition to be formed in the United Nations. It could start with countries without militaries, like Iceland and Costa Rica. This coalition could offer a time table for the elimination of nuclear weapons, then of massive navies, then of bombs, then of armies.
Impossible? Improbable? Maybe! Consider that Europe had a very vicious war, with many, many civilian deaths on both sides, seventy years ago. The Cold War ended twenty-four years ago. And a country divided by that war is now a major player on the world stage.
The answer my friend is blowing in your votes!
Yes, ’n’ how many times must the cannonballs flyFrom Bob Dylan’s web site at http://www.bobdylan.com/us/songs/blowin-wind
Before they’re forever banned?
Yes, ’n’ how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
Unfortunately, the answer is not blowing in the wind from the mouths of politicians around the world. They blow out phrases like “defense”, “saving jobs”, and “gun rights”.
We should ask “defense of what”? Defense of the right to tell other people how to live? Defense from dictators? Strange, we are allies with lots of dictators, like Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Oh, but they are “our” dictators, not “their” dictators. Defense from Communism? Communism as a label is all but dead. “Communism” in China is just a label for another dictatorship that is withering away. “Communism” in North Korea is a name for a paranoid dictatorship. Our “defense” against North Korea only serves to feed the paranoia.
Another paranoid quasi-dictatorship is Russia. But consider the historical reason for its paranoia. The Mongols invaded, the French invaded, the Germans invaded twice, and now the alliance that was built as defense against the Soviet Union keeps expanding, feeding the paranoia of not only Vladimir Putin, but many ordinary Russians. Of course, it doesn’t help the alliance that Putin’s given name contains the Russian words for lord and world.
If we are so interested in “saving jobs”, we should never have instituted Prohibition. Think of how many bartenders, servers, distillers, and brewers lost their jobs. Prohibition did help the gun industry, guns for both the bootleggers and for the police.
Do we want to “save jobs” at the cost of lives far, far away? How many wedding guests should die because somebody up in the sky decided the guests were “terrorists”? How many hospitals must be destroyed because enemy combatants were believed to be hiding there? Interesting, the “enemy combatants” live in the country; the bombers are from a country far, far away.
I didn’t know guns had “rights”. As far as protection in case of a terrorist attack, would more people die because some of the target group had weapons? John pulls out a gun to shoot the terrorists. Mary sees John with a gun in his hand and thinking he is a terrorist, shoots him. Even the police have a hard time shooting the terrorists. And the police get wounded and killed. Major Hassan at Fort Hood wounded and downed a police officer who had excellent scores in marksmanship. Her partner managed to wound Hassan enough to get him to stop shooting.
Maybe the better idea is to keep military-style weapons in armories and not make them easily available to the general public. Many seem to have forgotten that we had armories to keep the more deadly weapons away from the general public but available to the militia in case of insurrection.
Another better idea is to use propaganda instead of bombs.
Instead of attacking Israel, Palestinian protesters should fly children’s balloons over Israel. Each balloon would carry a slip of paper with the words of Hillel in Hebrew: “Do not unto your neighbor what you would not have him do unto you; this is the whole Law; the rest is commentary.”
Instead of burying Daesh terrorists in bomb debris, bury them in pamphlets: “...and you should forgive and overlook: Do you not like God to forgive you? And Allah is The Merciful Forgiving.” _ Qur’an (Surah 24, “The Light”, v. 22)
And of course, the “bomb them back to the Stone Age” bloviators who claim to be “Christian” should receive letters from their constituents: “Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.” – Jesus of Nazareth, Matthew 7:12
I am surprised that Iran didn’t use this latter quotation with those negotiating to stop Iran’s nuclear capacity. All the nuclear-armed negotiators except the Chinese purport to be Christians. If the negotiating countries didn’t want Iran to have nuclear weapons, shouldn’t Iran have proposed some schedule for these “nuclear powers” to eliminate their nuclear weapons?
Maybe the only answer is for a peace coalition to be formed in the United Nations. It could start with countries without militaries, like Iceland and Costa Rica. This coalition could offer a time table for the elimination of nuclear weapons, then of massive navies, then of bombs, then of armies.
Impossible? Improbable? Maybe! Consider that Europe had a very vicious war, with many, many civilian deaths on both sides, seventy years ago. The Cold War ended twenty-four years ago. And a country divided by that war is now a major player on the world stage.
The answer my friend is blowing in your votes!
Thursday, March 05, 2015
George Washington: Ignored Father of his Country
The United States Senate reads “George Washington’s Farewell Address” every year, alternating between the two parties. It was read by John Hoeven, R-ND on February 23, 2015. The House of Representatives last read it publicly in 1984. You can find a copy at http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/resources/pdf/WashFarewell.pdf.
Whether Congress listens to the reading or not, I think they often forget what George Washington wrote, maybe within hours of the reading.
Washington warned again and again about faction. One example is:
“[The obstructions of constituted authorities] serve to organize faction; to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common councils and modified by mutual interests.” [page 14]
He went on about how unprincipled men could actually take over the government, subverting the will of the people.
In the same month that a Republican Senator read “Washington’s Farewell Address”, the Republicans went right back to factionalism, finding all kinds of fault with President Obama and pushing a corporate agenda.
As General of the Continental Army, Washington provided lessons that we have not learned about wars but “insurgents” in many countries know only to well.
Washington and the Continental Army knew the country; the British did not. Boxed in several times, Washington managed to escape with his army. For example, he was in Manhattan and Brooklyn when the British invaded Long Island. He commandeered every boat he could and took all his men, cannon, horses, and more to Manhattan on a foggy night and then on to White Plains..
"I am well convinced myself, that the enemy long ere this, are perfectly satisfied that the possession of our towns while we have an army in the field will avail them little.” Think Baghdad, Kabul.
He predated by almost two centuries Mao Zedong: “enemy advances, we retreat; enemy retreats, we pursue.”
George Washington also stuck to the task from 1775 until the British surrender at Yorktown in 1781. What is the average tour of duty of a general in Iraq or Afghanistan? And of course, every general has a different idea of what to do. Oh, yes! Washington would let himself be outvoted by his officers.
As President, George Washington was for efficient government, not necessarily for limited government: “for the efficient management of your common interests in a country so extensive as ours, a government of as much vigor as is consistent with the perfect security of liberty is indispensable… It is indeed little else than a name, where the government is too feeble to withstand the enterprises of faction, to confine each member of the society within the limits prescribed by the laws, and to maintain all in the secure and tranquil enjoyment of the rights of person and property.” [pages 15-16]
“[The spirit of party] opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions.” [pages 17-18] Does this apply to the Congressional invitation for the prime minister of Israel to speak before it?
“And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.” [page 20] Note that he doesn’t specify what religion, one of the numerous Christian sects or one of the many non-Christian sects.
Washington wrote a section on the need for public credit and to use it sparingly by “cultivating peace”. If war is necessary, the burden should not be put on future generations. “[Y]ou should practically bear in mind that towards the payment of debts there must be revenue; that to have revenue there must be taxes…” He followed this with a discourse about the problem of selecting what to tax. I wonder what he would think of all the highways that we demand, the degree of safety oversight we want, and the research we want.
He wrote a couple pages about the necessity of treating all nations the same. “The nation which indulges toward another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, in is some degree a slave.” What would Washington say about our relations with Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Israel, Saudi Arabia, or Egypt? All of them manipulate us more than we manipulate them. George Washington considered those who resist these entanglements as the “real patriots”.
He also extended this view to commerce: “our commercial policy should hold an equal hand: neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences…” [page 28]
As much as we have put Washington on a pedestal, he is more modest: “I am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many errors.”
He looked forward to enjoying “the benign influence of good laws under a free government…”
Sorry, Mr. President, but fools have rushed in where heroes fear to tread. We have many bad laws under a bought government.
Mel votes in almost every election, mostly in the hope of avoiding really bad laws.
Also published in the Reader Weekly, 2015-03-05 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/03/04/4899_george_washington_ignored_father_of_his_country
Whether Congress listens to the reading or not, I think they often forget what George Washington wrote, maybe within hours of the reading.
Washington warned again and again about faction. One example is:
“[The obstructions of constituted authorities] serve to organize faction; to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put in the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community; and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make the public administration the mirror of the ill concerted and incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent and wholesome plans digested by common councils and modified by mutual interests.” [page 14]
He went on about how unprincipled men could actually take over the government, subverting the will of the people.
In the same month that a Republican Senator read “Washington’s Farewell Address”, the Republicans went right back to factionalism, finding all kinds of fault with President Obama and pushing a corporate agenda.
As General of the Continental Army, Washington provided lessons that we have not learned about wars but “insurgents” in many countries know only to well.
Washington and the Continental Army knew the country; the British did not. Boxed in several times, Washington managed to escape with his army. For example, he was in Manhattan and Brooklyn when the British invaded Long Island. He commandeered every boat he could and took all his men, cannon, horses, and more to Manhattan on a foggy night and then on to White Plains..
"I am well convinced myself, that the enemy long ere this, are perfectly satisfied that the possession of our towns while we have an army in the field will avail them little.” Think Baghdad, Kabul.
He predated by almost two centuries Mao Zedong: “enemy advances, we retreat; enemy retreats, we pursue.”
George Washington also stuck to the task from 1775 until the British surrender at Yorktown in 1781. What is the average tour of duty of a general in Iraq or Afghanistan? And of course, every general has a different idea of what to do. Oh, yes! Washington would let himself be outvoted by his officers.
As President, George Washington was for efficient government, not necessarily for limited government: “for the efficient management of your common interests in a country so extensive as ours, a government of as much vigor as is consistent with the perfect security of liberty is indispensable… It is indeed little else than a name, where the government is too feeble to withstand the enterprises of faction, to confine each member of the society within the limits prescribed by the laws, and to maintain all in the secure and tranquil enjoyment of the rights of person and property.” [pages 15-16]
“[The spirit of party] opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which find a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions.” [pages 17-18] Does this apply to the Congressional invitation for the prime minister of Israel to speak before it?
“And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.” [page 20] Note that he doesn’t specify what religion, one of the numerous Christian sects or one of the many non-Christian sects.
Washington wrote a section on the need for public credit and to use it sparingly by “cultivating peace”. If war is necessary, the burden should not be put on future generations. “[Y]ou should practically bear in mind that towards the payment of debts there must be revenue; that to have revenue there must be taxes…” He followed this with a discourse about the problem of selecting what to tax. I wonder what he would think of all the highways that we demand, the degree of safety oversight we want, and the research we want.
He wrote a couple pages about the necessity of treating all nations the same. “The nation which indulges toward another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, in is some degree a slave.” What would Washington say about our relations with Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Israel, Saudi Arabia, or Egypt? All of them manipulate us more than we manipulate them. George Washington considered those who resist these entanglements as the “real patriots”.
He also extended this view to commerce: “our commercial policy should hold an equal hand: neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences…” [page 28]
As much as we have put Washington on a pedestal, he is more modest: “I am nevertheless too sensible of my defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many errors.”
He looked forward to enjoying “the benign influence of good laws under a free government…”
Sorry, Mr. President, but fools have rushed in where heroes fear to tread. We have many bad laws under a bought government.
Mel votes in almost every election, mostly in the hope of avoiding really bad laws.
Also published in the Reader Weekly, 2015-03-05 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2015/03/04/4899_george_washington_ignored_father_of_his_country
Tuesday, February 17, 2015
The crime of war
"That’s because war — no matter how justified or unjustified, noble or ignoble — is always a crime."
David Brooks, "The Moral Injury", New York Times, 2015-02-17
The victims of war are not only those who are killed or maimed, but those who were put in a position of killing.
David Brooks, "The Moral Injury", New York Times, 2015-02-17
The victims of war are not only those who are killed or maimed, but those who were put in a position of killing.
Thursday, December 11, 2014
Augustine predicted Cheney, Putin, the Taliban, and too many others
“Thus it is that all men want peace in their own society, and they all want it on their own terms. When they go to war, what they want is to make, if they can, their enemies their own, and to impose on them the victor’s will, and call it a peace.…Sinful man hates the equality of all men under God, and, as though he were God, loves to impose his own sovereignty upon his fellow men.”
Augustine as quoted by Elaine Pagels in “Adam, Eve, and the Serpent.
Augustine as quoted by Elaine Pagels in “Adam, Eve, and the Serpent.
Friday, July 25, 2014
When the big boys play, the little kids get hurt
I’m not talking about playgrounds but battle grounds. And too many big boys want to make everywhere a battle ground.
Does anyone really know what Vladimir Putin’s game is with Ukraine and other countries bordering Russia? Is he on a power trip or is he concerned that the West is encroaching on Russia and is a threat to the existence of Russia?
If it is strictly a power trip, then he is following in the steps of the Tsars and Stalin. The Tsars and Stalin used their populations as cannon fodder for their own ends. How many people are going to die before Putin’s goals are met. Will the shooting down of Malaysia Air 17 give him pause in his power trip.
If he is concerned with the West encroaching on Russia, maybe he should join the West in providing a parliamentary and economic framework for all of Europe. Major threats to Russia have all but disappeared. Napoleon is dead and today’s France has no interest in attacking Moscow. The Kaiser and Hitler are both dead and today’s Germany has no interest in attacking Leningrad or Stalingrad.
Whatever Putin’s game is with Ukraine, let’s hope that he takes to heart that his big boy play has really hurt lots of “little kids” who have nothing to do with his game.
Israel is a parliamentary state with many political parties. No party ever seems to gain a majority of seats. In order to govern, parties have to form coalitions. Too often these coalitions include some religious party that believes that God gave Israel to the Jews about 3,000 years ago. About 2,000 years ago the Romans destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem and Jews fled to Europe and Africa. Others moved in and eventually became today’s Arabs.
About eighty years ago Hitler with his big boy games decided that Jews were not part of these games and started executing them in obscene numbers. Those Jews who could fled the areas Hitler controlled, some of them fleeing to Palestine.
To simplify history, all hell broke loose when the big boys of the European and American powers declared through the U.N. that a certain part of Palestine would become the new state of Israel. Now another set of big boys is playing various games that never seem to end. The latest games are kidnapping and killing teenagers for no other reason that they were of the “other”. Now that game has escalated with all the “little kids” in Gaza wondering where they can flee to escape the violence of the game..
Nicholas Kristoff wrote a good column on how the intransigence of both sides perpetuates the problem. See “Who’s Right and Wrong in the Middle East?”, New York Times Sunday Review, July 20, 2014.
Mosaddegh was the duly elected prime minister of Iran. He decided that Iran wasn’t getting enough marbles from the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and nationalized it. The big boys in Whitehall and Foggy Bottom arranged to have Mosaddegh overthrown and have Reza Pahlavi reinstated as Shah. Among other things the Shah did was have his secret service, Savak, take out the little kids that didn’t play the Shah’s way.
Savak’s dirty tricks were no secret. In fact, a colleague who was supporting a Univac computer in Tehran asked me to join him. No way did I want to move from Sweden to a country like Iran. In fact, in the last year I was in Sweden (1974), Iranian students were demonstrating in Stockholm against the Shah.
By 1979 Ayotollah Khomeni had overthrown the Shah and set up a new set of big boy rules; many of these rules were not to the little kids’ benefit.
But the big boys in Washington were not happy with the overthrow of the Shah, especially when the U.S. Embassy was taken over and diplomats held prisoner.
And matters got worse. First, the U.S. supported Saddam Hussein in his war with Iran, even when he used poison gas on Iranian troops. Second when the U.S. decided Saddam was not to its liking and went to war against him, the U.S. shot down an Iranian airliner with over 200 “little kids” on board, few if any who were part of the big boy games.
And still the games go on, although in a more civilized manner than for the last two decades. Iran is negotiating with the U.S. and others about how much nuclear capability Iran should have. But the big boys like the U.S. and the U.K. aren’t offering to reduce their nuclear capability, a capability that some hawks wouldn’t hesitate using to flatten Iran, including all the “little kids” who have nothing to do with Iran’s nuclear capability or intentions.
Another big boy game going on is China’s assertion of sovereignty over offshore islands. I recently read an article by a Chinese or Vietnamese author who said that China really has more to gain by playing nice than by throwing its weight around. It is ironic that China is still holding a grudge about another nation that threw its weight around to gain supremacy in the Western Pacific: Japan.
The “little kids” sing, “When will they ever learn” and the big boys never do.
This was also published in the Reader Weekly of Duluth, July 24, 2014 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2014/07/24/3781_when_the_big_boys_play_the_little_kids_get_hurt.
Does anyone really know what Vladimir Putin’s game is with Ukraine and other countries bordering Russia? Is he on a power trip or is he concerned that the West is encroaching on Russia and is a threat to the existence of Russia?
If it is strictly a power trip, then he is following in the steps of the Tsars and Stalin. The Tsars and Stalin used their populations as cannon fodder for their own ends. How many people are going to die before Putin’s goals are met. Will the shooting down of Malaysia Air 17 give him pause in his power trip.
If he is concerned with the West encroaching on Russia, maybe he should join the West in providing a parliamentary and economic framework for all of Europe. Major threats to Russia have all but disappeared. Napoleon is dead and today’s France has no interest in attacking Moscow. The Kaiser and Hitler are both dead and today’s Germany has no interest in attacking Leningrad or Stalingrad.
Whatever Putin’s game is with Ukraine, let’s hope that he takes to heart that his big boy play has really hurt lots of “little kids” who have nothing to do with his game.
Israel is a parliamentary state with many political parties. No party ever seems to gain a majority of seats. In order to govern, parties have to form coalitions. Too often these coalitions include some religious party that believes that God gave Israel to the Jews about 3,000 years ago. About 2,000 years ago the Romans destroyed the Temple in Jerusalem and Jews fled to Europe and Africa. Others moved in and eventually became today’s Arabs.
About eighty years ago Hitler with his big boy games decided that Jews were not part of these games and started executing them in obscene numbers. Those Jews who could fled the areas Hitler controlled, some of them fleeing to Palestine.
To simplify history, all hell broke loose when the big boys of the European and American powers declared through the U.N. that a certain part of Palestine would become the new state of Israel. Now another set of big boys is playing various games that never seem to end. The latest games are kidnapping and killing teenagers for no other reason that they were of the “other”. Now that game has escalated with all the “little kids” in Gaza wondering where they can flee to escape the violence of the game..
Nicholas Kristoff wrote a good column on how the intransigence of both sides perpetuates the problem. See “Who’s Right and Wrong in the Middle East?”, New York Times Sunday Review, July 20, 2014.
Mosaddegh was the duly elected prime minister of Iran. He decided that Iran wasn’t getting enough marbles from the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and nationalized it. The big boys in Whitehall and Foggy Bottom arranged to have Mosaddegh overthrown and have Reza Pahlavi reinstated as Shah. Among other things the Shah did was have his secret service, Savak, take out the little kids that didn’t play the Shah’s way.
Savak’s dirty tricks were no secret. In fact, a colleague who was supporting a Univac computer in Tehran asked me to join him. No way did I want to move from Sweden to a country like Iran. In fact, in the last year I was in Sweden (1974), Iranian students were demonstrating in Stockholm against the Shah.
By 1979 Ayotollah Khomeni had overthrown the Shah and set up a new set of big boy rules; many of these rules were not to the little kids’ benefit.
But the big boys in Washington were not happy with the overthrow of the Shah, especially when the U.S. Embassy was taken over and diplomats held prisoner.
And matters got worse. First, the U.S. supported Saddam Hussein in his war with Iran, even when he used poison gas on Iranian troops. Second when the U.S. decided Saddam was not to its liking and went to war against him, the U.S. shot down an Iranian airliner with over 200 “little kids” on board, few if any who were part of the big boy games.
And still the games go on, although in a more civilized manner than for the last two decades. Iran is negotiating with the U.S. and others about how much nuclear capability Iran should have. But the big boys like the U.S. and the U.K. aren’t offering to reduce their nuclear capability, a capability that some hawks wouldn’t hesitate using to flatten Iran, including all the “little kids” who have nothing to do with Iran’s nuclear capability or intentions.
Another big boy game going on is China’s assertion of sovereignty over offshore islands. I recently read an article by a Chinese or Vietnamese author who said that China really has more to gain by playing nice than by throwing its weight around. It is ironic that China is still holding a grudge about another nation that threw its weight around to gain supremacy in the Western Pacific: Japan.
The “little kids” sing, “When will they ever learn” and the big boys never do.
This was also published in the Reader Weekly of Duluth, July 24, 2014 at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2014/07/24/3781_when_the_big_boys_play_the_little_kids_get_hurt.
Monday, January 27, 2014
Let's you and him fight!
“There are people who would love to see America fight their war for them,” Kerry said. “But that is not their choice.”
– "U.S. coming under fire from Mideast allies, who see retrenchment", Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times, 2014-01-24.
Finally, the U.S. is recognizing that it is not the world's policeman and it cannot stop every "bad guy" from harming the "good guys". Generally when we fight the "bad guys", many of the "good guys" resent the U.S. coming in and disrupting their country.
I often wonder why the U.S. has to "train" a government's soldiers and police in counter-insurgency or whatever. It seems the ragtag bad guys do quite well with AK-47s and IEDs than the government does with it more powerful weapons. Could it be that the soldiers and police are in it only because it is a job, they can extort people, and they really don't have much faith in the government?
I often wonder why we don't say to corrupt or ineffective leaders "Shape up or we ship out!"
– "U.S. coming under fire from Mideast allies, who see retrenchment", Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times, 2014-01-24.
Finally, the U.S. is recognizing that it is not the world's policeman and it cannot stop every "bad guy" from harming the "good guys". Generally when we fight the "bad guys", many of the "good guys" resent the U.S. coming in and disrupting their country.
I often wonder why the U.S. has to "train" a government's soldiers and police in counter-insurgency or whatever. It seems the ragtag bad guys do quite well with AK-47s and IEDs than the government does with it more powerful weapons. Could it be that the soldiers and police are in it only because it is a job, they can extort people, and they really don't have much faith in the government?
I often wonder why we don't say to corrupt or ineffective leaders "Shape up or we ship out!"
Saturday, November 16, 2013
Whither America? Idealism or Ideology?
The following was published in the Reader Weekly of Duluth on 2013-11-14 and can be found at http://duluthreader.com/articles/2013/11/14/2433_party_of_one_whither_america_idealism_or_ideology
Idealism is a set of goals; ideology is a set of rules. Idealism is a guide to how you act; ideology is a set of rules on how you and everybody else must act. Idealism takes into account reality; ideology creates its own “reality”. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.” This is attributed to Karl Rove or Dick Cheney. They ignore to our detriment Newton's third law of motion: "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." If you create your own reality, then others will create their own reality. Overwhelming force meets roadside bomb.
The Alworth Center for the Study of Peace and Justice had two recent speakers who addressed these issues. Robert J. Art, author of “A Grand Strategy for America”, cautiously leaned toward ideology. Andrew J. Bacevich, author of “The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism” and “Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War”, is fed up with the “Imperial Presidency” and the “Wise Men” who are getting us deeper and deeper into problems, thus creating even more problems.
Art states that we must strike a balance between isolationism and being the world’s policeman. Isolationism often means withdrawing from most of the world’s affairs. This is rather difficult given how intertwined the world economy has become. We have already seen how often being the world’s policeman causes more problems than it solves.
Art says we have six important interests:
1) Protect the homeland and prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction
2) Keep deep peace among Eurasian great powers
3) Assure assets (oil) for market
4) International economic openness
5) Democracy’s spread and observance of human rights
6) Avert severe climate change
To support these interests, Art gives eight grand strategies, including dominion, isolationism, and selective engagement. Dominion just won’t work; it will get us into deeper and deeper military involvement. The U.S. has tried it on various scales for over a century, and our politicians still haven’t learned. Isolationism has many aspects, but if the U.S. isolates itself from the rest of the world, will the rest of the world help if the U.S. needs help?
Art prefers selective engagement. Selective engagement is based on fundamental goals, it concentrates on those “regions of most consequence to the United States”, “it maintains a forward-based defense posture”, “it prescribes a set of judicious rules for when to wage wars”, and “it calls for American leadership.”
But the devil is in the details. It seems to me that this selective engagement has been going on for decades. President after president, Republican or Democrat, has had a set of fundamental goals, has thought that region after region was consequential, has had “defensive” forces all over the world, has thought his rules for war were correct, and of course, has insisted on being first among “equals”.
In both “The Limits of Power” and “Washington Rules”, Bacevich examines the consequences of strategies like Art proposes. We have moved to an imperial presidency where the President not only does his best to ignore Congress in “power projection” but ignores the military and diplomatic departments and huddles with his “Wise Men”. Kennedy did it in the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Bush did it with Afghanistan and Iraq. Obama is doing it with drones in Pakistan and Afghanistan. And often the President doesn’t understand that he, the unelected “leader of the free world” is being manipulated by his “Wise Men”–McNamara, Cheney, and so on. Bacevich writes about Kennedy’s team, "With the certainty of men unacquainted with the actual use of power, they did not doubt their ability to compel war to do their bidding." This could apply to just about every inner circle since.
Bacevich sees U.S. leaders having a credo backed up by a “sacred trinity”.
Credo: “The United States—and the United States alone—to lead, save, liberate, and ultimately transform the world.”
Sacred trinity: "an abiding conviction that the minimum essentials of international peace and order require the United States to maintain a global military presence, to configure its forces for global power projection, and to counter existing or anticipated threats by relying on a policy of global interventionism”.
Bacevich suggests an alternate credo: “America's purpose is to be America, striving to fulfill the aspirations expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as reinterpreted with the passage of time and in light of hard-earned experience.”
He proposes a new trinity:
“First, the purpose of the U.S. military is not to combat evil or remake the world, but to defend the United States and its most vital interests.”
“Second, the primary duty station of the American soldier is in America.”
“Third, consistent with the Just War tradition, the United States should employ force only as a last resort and only in self-defense.”
Bacevich quotes Reinhold Niebuhr frequently:
“[H]e warned that what he called ‘our dreams of managing history’–born of a peculiar combination of arrogance and narcissism–posed a potentially mortal threat to the United States.” “The Irony of American History”, 1952
Niebuhr predates Pete Seeger who said it more simply, “When will they ever learn, when will they ever learn.”
Idealism is a set of goals; ideology is a set of rules. Idealism is a guide to how you act; ideology is a set of rules on how you and everybody else must act. Idealism takes into account reality; ideology creates its own “reality”. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.” This is attributed to Karl Rove or Dick Cheney. They ignore to our detriment Newton's third law of motion: "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." If you create your own reality, then others will create their own reality. Overwhelming force meets roadside bomb.
The Alworth Center for the Study of Peace and Justice had two recent speakers who addressed these issues. Robert J. Art, author of “A Grand Strategy for America”, cautiously leaned toward ideology. Andrew J. Bacevich, author of “The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism” and “Washington Rules: America’s Path to Permanent War”, is fed up with the “Imperial Presidency” and the “Wise Men” who are getting us deeper and deeper into problems, thus creating even more problems.
Art states that we must strike a balance between isolationism and being the world’s policeman. Isolationism often means withdrawing from most of the world’s affairs. This is rather difficult given how intertwined the world economy has become. We have already seen how often being the world’s policeman causes more problems than it solves.
Art says we have six important interests:
1) Protect the homeland and prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction
2) Keep deep peace among Eurasian great powers
3) Assure assets (oil) for market
4) International economic openness
5) Democracy’s spread and observance of human rights
6) Avert severe climate change
To support these interests, Art gives eight grand strategies, including dominion, isolationism, and selective engagement. Dominion just won’t work; it will get us into deeper and deeper military involvement. The U.S. has tried it on various scales for over a century, and our politicians still haven’t learned. Isolationism has many aspects, but if the U.S. isolates itself from the rest of the world, will the rest of the world help if the U.S. needs help?
Art prefers selective engagement. Selective engagement is based on fundamental goals, it concentrates on those “regions of most consequence to the United States”, “it maintains a forward-based defense posture”, “it prescribes a set of judicious rules for when to wage wars”, and “it calls for American leadership.”
But the devil is in the details. It seems to me that this selective engagement has been going on for decades. President after president, Republican or Democrat, has had a set of fundamental goals, has thought that region after region was consequential, has had “defensive” forces all over the world, has thought his rules for war were correct, and of course, has insisted on being first among “equals”.
In both “The Limits of Power” and “Washington Rules”, Bacevich examines the consequences of strategies like Art proposes. We have moved to an imperial presidency where the President not only does his best to ignore Congress in “power projection” but ignores the military and diplomatic departments and huddles with his “Wise Men”. Kennedy did it in the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Bush did it with Afghanistan and Iraq. Obama is doing it with drones in Pakistan and Afghanistan. And often the President doesn’t understand that he, the unelected “leader of the free world” is being manipulated by his “Wise Men”–McNamara, Cheney, and so on. Bacevich writes about Kennedy’s team, "With the certainty of men unacquainted with the actual use of power, they did not doubt their ability to compel war to do their bidding." This could apply to just about every inner circle since.
Bacevich sees U.S. leaders having a credo backed up by a “sacred trinity”.
Credo: “The United States—and the United States alone—to lead, save, liberate, and ultimately transform the world.”
Sacred trinity: "an abiding conviction that the minimum essentials of international peace and order require the United States to maintain a global military presence, to configure its forces for global power projection, and to counter existing or anticipated threats by relying on a policy of global interventionism”.
Bacevich suggests an alternate credo: “America's purpose is to be America, striving to fulfill the aspirations expressed in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as reinterpreted with the passage of time and in light of hard-earned experience.”
He proposes a new trinity:
“First, the purpose of the U.S. military is not to combat evil or remake the world, but to defend the United States and its most vital interests.”
“Second, the primary duty station of the American soldier is in America.”
“Third, consistent with the Just War tradition, the United States should employ force only as a last resort and only in self-defense.”
Bacevich quotes Reinhold Niebuhr frequently:
“[H]e warned that what he called ‘our dreams of managing history’–born of a peculiar combination of arrogance and narcissism–posed a potentially mortal threat to the United States.” “The Irony of American History”, 1952
Niebuhr predates Pete Seeger who said it more simply, “When will they ever learn, when will they ever learn.”
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, and violence
"But we must ask a question only Muslims can answer: What is going on in your community that a critical number of your youth believes that every American military action in the Middle East is intolerable and justifies a violent response, and everything Muslim extremists do to other Muslims is ignorable and calls for mostly silence?"
- Thomas Friedman, "Judgment not included", New York Times, 2013-04-27
But violence against others is not a Muslim "franchise". People of all kinds of religious persuasions have turned to violence to promote certain distorted ends.
Christians practiced violence. The Roman Catholic Church burned people at the stake for supposedly not conforming to the prescribed beliefs. Torquemada of Spain had many torture devices to get people to admit to being Jewish. Hitler was never ex-communicated from the Catholic Church. Catholic Irish who planted bombs were considered heroes by many. Michael Servetus was "burnt at the stake as a heretic by order of the Protestant Geneva governing council."
Jews have been killing more Arabs than Arabs have been killing Jews: since 2000, 6617 Palestinians vs 1,097 Israelis (including 1,447 vs 129 children). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab%E2%80%93Israeli_conflict#Cost_of_conflict
Buddhists, supposedly a peaceful group, are attacking Muslims in Burma (Myanmar). The recent riots of Buddhists against Muslims is only a part of centuries-long list of anti-Muslim events.
And all these perpetrators of violence seem to forget that a tenet of their religions is "to do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
- Thomas Friedman, "Judgment not included", New York Times, 2013-04-27
But violence against others is not a Muslim "franchise". People of all kinds of religious persuasions have turned to violence to promote certain distorted ends.
Christians practiced violence. The Roman Catholic Church burned people at the stake for supposedly not conforming to the prescribed beliefs. Torquemada of Spain had many torture devices to get people to admit to being Jewish. Hitler was never ex-communicated from the Catholic Church. Catholic Irish who planted bombs were considered heroes by many. Michael Servetus was "burnt at the stake as a heretic by order of the Protestant Geneva governing council."
Jews have been killing more Arabs than Arabs have been killing Jews: since 2000, 6617 Palestinians vs 1,097 Israelis (including 1,447 vs 129 children). See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab%E2%80%93Israeli_conflict#Cost_of_conflict
Buddhists, supposedly a peaceful group, are attacking Muslims in Burma (Myanmar). The recent riots of Buddhists against Muslims is only a part of centuries-long list of anti-Muslim events.
And all these perpetrators of violence seem to forget that a tenet of their religions is "to do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
Tuesday, March 26, 2013
Nanny state or bully state
Have you noticed that many who complain about the U.S. becoming a nanny state seem to want the U.S. to be a bully state?
They complain about seat belt and helmet laws, want to do away with food safety regulations, and feel their rights have been trampled when they are stopped for a traffic violation.
On the other hand, some of these same people want every one to support any war the U.S. engages in, including having others do the actual fighting; they support the death penalty without any consideration of the fairness of the trial; and they want long prison terms for those who do things they don't like.
They complain about seat belt and helmet laws, want to do away with food safety regulations, and feel their rights have been trampled when they are stopped for a traffic violation.
On the other hand, some of these same people want every one to support any war the U.S. engages in, including having others do the actual fighting; they support the death penalty without any consideration of the fairness of the trial; and they want long prison terms for those who do things they don't like.
Tuesday, February 05, 2013
Just who is "The Media"?
I was in a University for Senior class on Social Justice this morning. In one discussion, several people complained about "the media" not reporting many aspects of the news, for example, the number of civilian deaths in Iraq.
From my iPad, I searched the New York Times for "iraq civilian death" and received a list of over 31,000 articles. I told the class this number and read the five headlines that appeared on my screen:
"A Grim Portrait of Civilian Deaths in Iraq", 2010-10-22
"W.H.O. Says Iraq Civilian Death Toll Higher Than Cited", 2008-01-10
"Civilian Death Toll Reaches New High in Iraq, U.N. Says", 2008-11-23
"Civilian toll in Iraq increased in November"
"Civilian deaths in Iraq decrease significantly in one month"
The text shown for the last gives the lower figure as 922!
I did the same search for the Duluth News Tribune; nothing was shown from its entire archive. If I searched for "Iraq death" I received 17 items. One of these from 2006-11-10 gave an Iraqi Health Ministry estimate of 150,000 civilian war deaths.
But we shouldn't fault the DNT too much for this lack; it is not a national paper like the NYT and focuses more of its news on local and state events.
Many of these critics probably watch TV news a lot. TV news has the burden of limited time; the news given on a half-hour broadcast (oops! 22 minutes excluding commercials) is about as much as you can read in a newspaper in five minutes or less. If your "the media" is TV; is it any wonder that you miss a lot of in-depth coverage?
From my iPad, I searched the New York Times for "iraq civilian death" and received a list of over 31,000 articles. I told the class this number and read the five headlines that appeared on my screen:
"A Grim Portrait of Civilian Deaths in Iraq", 2010-10-22
"W.H.O. Says Iraq Civilian Death Toll Higher Than Cited", 2008-01-10
"Civilian Death Toll Reaches New High in Iraq, U.N. Says", 2008-11-23
"Civilian toll in Iraq increased in November"
"Civilian deaths in Iraq decrease significantly in one month"
The text shown for the last gives the lower figure as 922!
I did the same search for the Duluth News Tribune; nothing was shown from its entire archive. If I searched for "Iraq death" I received 17 items. One of these from 2006-11-10 gave an Iraqi Health Ministry estimate of 150,000 civilian war deaths.
But we shouldn't fault the DNT too much for this lack; it is not a national paper like the NYT and focuses more of its news on local and state events.
Many of these critics probably watch TV news a lot. TV news has the burden of limited time; the news given on a half-hour broadcast (oops! 22 minutes excluding commercials) is about as much as you can read in a newspaper in five minutes or less. If your "the media" is TV; is it any wonder that you miss a lot of in-depth coverage?
Sunday, November 04, 2012
Citizens or soldiers, which do we want?
Many talk about the National Guard being citizen soldiers. Unfortunately, many consider those who become soldiers to no longer be citizens. That is, once a person becomes a soldier that person is to become an automaton, blindly following orders without dissent.
However, if we are to be a democracy, all must question authority, whether in the military or not.
Our history is full of incidents questioning the decisions of those above in the chain of command, from the Revolution to the Philipines takeover to Bradley Manning. Sometimes it is only because a higher officer has ignored custom; sometimes it is because the generals or the politicians are lying about the purposes or results of a war.
These situations can also show the fallacy of casting issues as conservative or liberal.
See "Revolt in the Ranks: Dissent in the armed forces is a patriotic tradition", Chris Bray, The American Conservative, 2012-06-12, republished in Utne Reader, Nov.-Dec 2012
However, if we are to be a democracy, all must question authority, whether in the military or not.
Our history is full of incidents questioning the decisions of those above in the chain of command, from the Revolution to the Philipines takeover to Bradley Manning. Sometimes it is only because a higher officer has ignored custom; sometimes it is because the generals or the politicians are lying about the purposes or results of a war.
These situations can also show the fallacy of casting issues as conservative or liberal.
See "Revolt in the Ranks: Dissent in the armed forces is a patriotic tradition", Chris Bray, The American Conservative, 2012-06-12, republished in Utne Reader, Nov.-Dec 2012
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Debates? What debates?
According to the newspapers, Mitt Romney and Barack Obama had their third and final debate last night, supposedly on foreign policy. As with the previous two, I didn't bother watching. What for? See What do the debates prove?
http://magree.blogspot.com/2012/10/what-do-debates-prove.html and Netflix disappointed me
http://magree.blogspot.com/2012/10/netflix-disappointed-me.html
From what little I read in newspapers, I didn't think it was worth watching. I think the debates were summed up by two snippets from "Sparring Over Foreign Policy, Obama Goes on the Offense
", Peter Baker and Helene Cooper, New York Times, 2012-10-22.
"For all its fireworks, the debate broke little new ground and underscored that the differences between the two men on foreign policy rest more on tone, style and their sense of leadership than on particular policies. Mr. Obama and Mr. Romney seemed to align on matters like withdrawal from Afghanistan, the perils of intervening in Syria and the use of drones to battle terrorists."
"Mr. Romney pinned the cascading crises around the world on Mr. Obama’s shoulders, saying the president had failed to live up to his promises from his 2008 campaign and left the country in a weaker position."
Baker and Cooper seem to say that whoever wins the election will follow essentially the same policies. Maybe, maybe not. However, I think the second quote is quite telling of Romney's attitude that the President of the U.S. should be emperor of the world and bring all these hot spots in line with U.S. "interests". My usual question is who elected the President as "the leader of the free world"? It certainly wasn't the people of Canada, Latin America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. How can you claim to be for freedom and democracy if you anoint yourself as "the leader of the free world"? Napoleon crowned himself as Emperor of France, and look what happened to him. Look what's happening to our economy as we spend all this money on weapons and war without raising the taxes to pay for them.
http://magree.blogspot.com/2012/10/what-do-debates-prove.html and Netflix disappointed me
http://magree.blogspot.com/2012/10/netflix-disappointed-me.html
From what little I read in newspapers, I didn't think it was worth watching. I think the debates were summed up by two snippets from "Sparring Over Foreign Policy, Obama Goes on the Offense
", Peter Baker and Helene Cooper, New York Times, 2012-10-22.
"For all its fireworks, the debate broke little new ground and underscored that the differences between the two men on foreign policy rest more on tone, style and their sense of leadership than on particular policies. Mr. Obama and Mr. Romney seemed to align on matters like withdrawal from Afghanistan, the perils of intervening in Syria and the use of drones to battle terrorists."
"Mr. Romney pinned the cascading crises around the world on Mr. Obama’s shoulders, saying the president had failed to live up to his promises from his 2008 campaign and left the country in a weaker position."
Baker and Cooper seem to say that whoever wins the election will follow essentially the same policies. Maybe, maybe not. However, I think the second quote is quite telling of Romney's attitude that the President of the U.S. should be emperor of the world and bring all these hot spots in line with U.S. "interests". My usual question is who elected the President as "the leader of the free world"? It certainly wasn't the people of Canada, Latin America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. How can you claim to be for freedom and democracy if you anoint yourself as "the leader of the free world"? Napoleon crowned himself as Emperor of France, and look what happened to him. Look what's happening to our economy as we spend all this money on weapons and war without raising the taxes to pay for them.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
One speech worth listening to again and again
You can listen to Charlie Chaplin's speech from "The Great Dictator" at http://www.upworthy.com/the-one-speech-every-human-being-on-earth-should-hear.
It includes many visuals to back up his words.
I'm a bit pessimistic about it's effectiveness. Chaplin made the movie in 1940 as a counter to Hitler, and Hitler got worse. Let's hope at least a few no-shows have their minds changed by this speech and show up at election time.
It includes many visuals to back up his words.
I'm a bit pessimistic about it's effectiveness. Chaplin made the movie in 1940 as a counter to Hitler, and Hitler got worse. Let's hope at least a few no-shows have their minds changed by this speech and show up at election time.
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