Tobey Talk
Sunday, March 20, 2005
I'm speculating on the future value of Burst.com. My impression, based on having first heard of the company an hour ago, is that the $60 million is part license fee, part settlement, part vindication but, and most mainly, a significant precedent which irrevocably stipulates that Burst.com is for real. This is a company that just got what amounts to a $60 million settlement on suing Microsoft for patent infringement and theft of intellectual property.
In the securities markets, perception is everything. Some of us make big or little stabs at due diligence in hopes of clarifying or justifying or, before we lose our shirts (again), disabusing our perceptions. Our perceptions may be based on reality or not.I'd be lying to myself if I didn't say my emotions play a good part in my investing strategy. As one who considers lying to oneself a crime second only to murder in seriousness (I don't murder either) .... now I'm getting off track...
It would be a fine thing to see Burst.com become big as well as real, especially if my own little piece of it were to compensate for ignoring my better judgment in the late 90's and buying the junk the Wall Street Crooks were pitching.If the good folk (folks?) at Burst.com is smart, he (they?) will figure out how to make licenses and sub-licenses into revenue streams rather than one-shot lumps of money.
What is clearly evident to this short-attention-span diligence, is that Mr. Lang is damn smart. More to the point, he's got guts and persistence. Will obligations to stockholders be honored? My bet is yes. Brains, guts, and persistence in the face of the kind of superpower opposition Richard Lang has apparently dealt with are exactly the qualities I hope to promote and encourage in the human race - even if it sometimes costs me...And, doing some more research, I see my take resembled by a read in Tech News: (www.technewsworld.com/story/legal/microsoft-burst-streaming-settlement-24004223265901446.html)
In fact, I like it enough to risk a few precious bucks of my war-on-personal-poverty money... Will it go to $40? I'll be happy with $5, but I'm sure I'll be happier with $50. I'm resolved never again to buy anything for more than 10 times earnings unless I know something others don't or unless....
Tobey
Thursday, January 01, 2004
Dear Mr. Zakaria,
I read you avidly, look for you on T. V., and fondly hope your influence completely replaces that of the hyphenated Americans of split allegiance whose ideologies now drive American foreign policy.
Today I want to address two points you make. On page 51 of the 12/29 Newsweek issue you say, "Many of those against that [Viet Nam] war were against all war," and, "Arguing against it [the current undeclared Iraq war] is re-fighting history rather than presenting a vision for the future."
Working the quotes in reverse, the principles misguiding the current invasion of Iraq must be dragged, spitting and kicking with all their pseudo-Republican venom, from beneath the layers of pretext and prejudice into a bright new daylight. Only by vigorous discussion and debate can they be exposed and rendered now and forever powerless to bamboozle well-meaning peoples everywhere aspiring to a civil existence - America in particular!
First, of course, we must dispatch the issue of Saddam's violent propensities. Abhorrence of torture and Ashcroft-style secret prosecutions is the primary bait that has hooked American public opinion into supporting Saddam's overthrow. But, mild mannered leaders have never succeeded ruling the Babylonian cradle of civilization. The violence of the dislike directed at the American occupation and the usurping puppets illustrates why. Had a Saddam-like figure not been in place for the decades when America supported or tolerated Hussein, the Sunnis and Shiites, whom Winston Churchill glommed artificially together into one country with the unrelated Kurds after World War I, may well have extended their fierce old feuds into a religious blood-bath. It would unavoidably draw into the maelstrom Iran, Syria, Egypt, Jordan, and the nuclear bomb-bristling instigator Israel. Libya, Turkey, Greece, the former Yugoslavia, Russia, and the United States would not be far behind, in one order or another. Nuke bearing Pakistan and India would be hard-pressed to stay out. Even if the chain of escalation were interrupted before every country with an army or a bomb had them committed to one side of the jihad or the other, a population many times in size the quarter million of his detractors that Saddam tortured and killed would have been gone from the earth. Who will keep the lid on the pot now?
As every un-neo-conned literate human knows, neither terror nor WMD were factors in the Cheney-Rumsfeld determination to exploit to the maximum the undertaking begun, perhaps with the gambit of April Glaspie, US ambassador in Baghdad, who told Saddam Hussein, on July 25 of 1990, "the President [Bush] personally wants to expand and deepen the relationship with Iraq ... We don't have much to say about your Arab-Arab differences, like your border differences with Kuwait... Secretary [of State James] Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction, ... that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America." Saddam's invasion of Kuwait, with its American green light, created justification for the first American invasion of Iraq.
"Brother's-Keeperism" also played an insidious part in promoting the present military blunder. Aging right-wing religious do-gooders fell over one-another to cheer from safe sidelines while the children of others would kill and be killed as proxy for the old fundamentalist passion of Crusadacost. Nothing about the current war relates to American values of truth, justice, or rule of law, or religious and spiritual freedom. Nothing about it advances any moral, strategic, or even casual American interest. It merely gratifies the tragic vanity and rancor of highly placed American officials.
Moving on, most Americans who opposed this and other undeclared wars are not pacifists. Whether by resignation or by moral indignation, these real patriots exemplify the common sense and opposition to tyranny that until so very lately made America history's greatest beacon of hope and freedom.
Yes, we need to move on. The United Nations and NATO should have major roles in the clean-up. Is it not duty of every sensible intellect and every defender of the American Constitution, to the extent personal safety allows, to be heard with voice and vote, in this increasingly dangerous time?
Sincerely,
Tobey
Saturday, December 27, 2003
Judith-
Though it’s off topic, I was very glad up brought up the matter of Howard Dean. It gives me an opportunity to try to correct the record. I am bypassing the humor group because, as you note, this is not funny.
We are all victims when corporate media slurs the tellers of truth.
As a former Peace Corps Volunteer whose service to his country did not involve a uniform, I think Dean’s response was well within the province of supplying potentially useful information to the poll taker - going beyond what was asked for. Howard Dean makes it very clear in his auto-biography that neither he nor his family know why his brother was listed by the American military forces as MIA-POW. His brother and a friend were taken prisoner and, according to witnesses, executed a few months later. Howard says they have speculated that his brother could have been doing work for the CIA, but that they have no specific knowledge about it. The military has kept a close eye on the effort to find the brother and also kept the Dean family informed of developments, which I presume has been the case of MIA-POW persons in whom our government has had more than casual interest. It is the Pentagon who implied Howard’s brother was serving by its assignment of the military-like status to a person, certainly not in uniform and certainly not "a living relative".
As a political candidate, Howard Dean stands head and shoulders above any we have been used to. He is truthful and he does what he says he will do. He would make an excellent President. Our country desperately needs leaders who use thought rather than ideology and put the interests of the citizens above those of their crony’s portfolios. It is a little hard to criticize Bush, since he seems to believe the lies he parrots. Bush is a "born-again" former drunk and, some say, coke-head. One can appreciate his achievement of staying off the booze and away from the dope, but his sense of reality is clearly far from intact.
Saddam Hussein, a former American CIA beneficiary, was unappreciative when he rejected the Cheney-Rumsfeld proposal of a pipeline deal about 15 years ago, during the time he was gassing the Kurds with American supplied chemicals. Neither Cheney or Rumsfeld have forgotten the snub. Later he invaded Kuwait AFTER getting a tacit go-ahead from the American State Department. The invasion gave the USA an anticipated excuse to start the long planned invasion. Saddam was left in place, since he kept the lid on the animosity between the Sunnis and the Shiites. Saddam’s unrealistic dreams of leading the Moslem world into modern importance led him to continued defiance of what he foolishly expected to be an honorable American administration. His first mistake was turning down the pipeline deal. His second was supposing the CIA wouldn’t figure out he had no WMD. Perhaps they did.
Howard Dean, whose record for good government as a Governor, has been well supported by Republicans and Democrats alike, was one of many reasonably informed Americans who have not been fooled. He is one of the few in public life who has presented the facts, available to anyone who cares to check them out.
I truly hope you will devote some of your own time to discovering the truth and, only on having done so, become politically active in a helpful way.
Sincerely,
Tobey
From: Judith
To: rude_toons4u@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, December 25, 2003 1:45 PM
Subject: [rude_toons4u] Howard Dean lies again - This is not funny
Dean Rebuked for Statement Implying Brother Served in Military
New York Times
23 Dec 2003
Howard Dean came under criticism from an Iowa newspaper last weekend for an
answer to a questionnaire in which he implied that his brother was serving
in the military when he disappeared in Laos 29 years ago. His brother had
been traveling in Southeast Asia as a tourist.
Asked by The Quad-City Times, which is based in Davenport, Iowa, to
complete the sentence "My closest living relative in the armed services
is," Dr. Dean wrote in August, "My brother is a POW/MIA in Laos, but is
almost certainly dead."
The brother, 23-year-old Charles Dean, whose apparent remains were
recovered by a military search team last month in Laos, was classified as
missing in action, along with other civilians captured or killed in the
area during the Vietnam War. But Charles Dean never wore a uniform, and
while some family members at times suspected that he was working as a spy,
Dr. Dean said he never believed that.
(additional excerpts...)
Mark Ridolfi, editor of the paper's editorial page, noted that the question
had specifically asked about the armed services and said of Dr. Dean's
reply, "It certainly is not an accurate response."
Mr. Ridolfi said the question, one of 20 that the candidates answered in
writing in August, was intended to get at candidates' personal connections
to the military. "When you have a family member currently involved in the
military," he said, "you think of things differently."
After hearing Dr. Dean's explanation during a meeting at the newspaper's
office on Friday, Mr. Ridolfi ran an editorial in Sunday's editions
describing Dr. Dean's original answer as "unusually revealing."
"Charlie Dean's capture and death in Southeast Asia certainly shaped his
brother's opinion about the American military," read the editorial, which
pointed out that the younger Dean opposed the Vietnam War, worked on George
McGovern's 1972 presidential campaign and visited Laos during a yearlong
trip around the world.
"Knowing that story tells us something about the candidate," it continued.
"So does inaccurately implying a direct family connection to the armed
services for the 72,000 Quad Citians who received Sunday's newspaper."
(Dean is another Clinton in his anti-war anti-military views)
Thursday, December 25, 2003
Correspondent -
Talking it over with my spiritual guide, I find myself thinking the head-on approach would probably not be the most effective. The security guard who sounded the alarm when he found a bomb at the Atlanta Olympics was hounded by the FBI for months. The "person of interest" relating to the Anthrax scares has had his professional life destroyed.
The great moral catastrophe that has engulfed the United States is the acceptance by the general public of the idea that there is such a thing as a disposable person. Every human who has achieve any spiritual stature in history will without hesitation affirm this is a serious error. One should never make this error with reference to oneself or to anyone else. That such an idea can be entertained, gives the lie to those who claim to have democratic ideals.
The willingness of American government officials to send troops and bombs to kill Iraqi civilians, as well as sending American kids to do it.
As I write the author of "The Da Vinci Code" is speaking on C-SPAN. It looks like I'll have to read the book!
Tobey
Republicans, Democrats, Greens, Independents –
Had enough terror yet? Are you poor enough yet?
Are enough freedoms millions died for gone yet?
Check out Howard Dean for President, and
Do your part to Save your country!
Friends:
A while back [we circulated a mailer] ... about depleted uranium. Here is a link a report on what it is like to be on the receiving end of American ordinance. Get ready for some stuff way more gross than [the usual cartoony distractions], and quite without humor.
Spelled out: http://www.einswine.com/atrocities/du/
In recent talks Sri Harold Klemp has given a lot of attention to special people in times ancient and recent who worked to raise the prevailing levels of spiritual freedom in their countries and the world. Of course, the Kal must maintain a zero sum, and the more ECK, Divine Spirit, channeled in, the more negativity is needed to balance, lest the lower worlds won’t float off the God Worlds chart. Still, for me seeing the United States once again respected as a deserving feature in the civilized world.
Not only was Saddam not a threat to the U.S.A., he may have served a Tito-like role, keeping feuding factions in line, the Sunnis and the Shiites. After Tito died we had the major bloodbaths of the former Yugoslavia. By killing and torturing quarter million detractors he may have prevented a war between Shiites and Sunnis, which Iran would certainly have joined, then Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, and, with nuclear weaponed Israel in the crossfire, who knows what horrors could have ensued. It was not without thought that the first Golf war stopped short of taking him out.
There are presently two excellent presidential candidates to replace Bush, Howard Dean, former governor of Vermont, and General Clark. I’ve been following the debates and the campaign very closely, and these two stand head and shoulders above all the others. I’m active in the Dean campaign, having collected petition signatures to have him on the New York ballot and also for delegates. He has way more grass roots support than any of the old, now quite jealous, pols.
As I write I’m listening to a fascinating C-Span program with Major General Ray Smith about the recent invasion of Baghdad and how very different it was anything expected. As the marines approached, Iraqi officers would slink away leaving the troops. Then, the troops would take off their uniforms and walk home. Since some prisoners were needed, marines would say, “Come here buddy,� to someone picked at random from the numbers of walkers. These would become prisoners.
Hope you find this interesting!
Tobey
Republicans, Democrats, Greens, Independents –
Had enough terror yet? Are you poor enough yet?
Are enough freedoms millions died for gone yet?
Check out Howard Dean for President, and
Do your part to Save your country!
Each moment a new tale is shouting to be told in silence..
Rumi
Monday, December 22, 2003
Will the New York Times print this?
Subject: Survivor Buyoff - Liability Insurance for Bush!
Dear Editor,
American ability to convert anything - even grief - to money reaches new heights with the Victim Compensation Fund. Police and firefighters knowingly risked their lives to save others, and ultimate service merits compensation. But, the many Americans who were killed that same awful month by drunk drivers, drive-by-shooters, hospital errors, and other "actionable" mishaps, did nothing more or less than most of the terrorist victims to merit mega-compensation. They were killed in the wrong place! The airlines had no reason to suspect the 19 travelers were terrorists, and suits against Airlines could be summarily dismissed - with stipulation that lessons be learned - for the good of the industry and the traveling public.
Could the real reason for a government deadline and survivor signoff pressure be to shield President Bush from suits for doing nothing with advance warning of the attacks?
Tobey Talker
Saturday, December 20, 2003
I’ve been calling on neighbors with petitions for Howard Dean and New York primary ballots. This morning, as I cooked the family pancakes, I watched General Clark do the same on C-Span. He too looks very good. I think both Presidential candidates stand head and shoulders above the competition for competence, intelligence, ability, common sense, vision, and honesty – all things, except for competence, the present administration lacks! (With Bushies’ competence in the service of greed, bigotry, and vanity war, one could wish they had less!)
The parenthesis above may need clarification. We love to wring our hands about the quarter million of his detractors Saddam killed and otherwise discouraged by applying extreme pain. We don’t even think of the millions alive today (except for the thousands we killed, orphaned or maimed with bombs and midnight house raids) – alive today because Saddam’s régime blocked for 40 years the tradition of mutual slaughter between Shia’s and Sunnis over who succeeded their successor-less prophet. The death of Tito signaled the start of a bloodbath in the former Yugoslavia. Time will show what calamities befall from the costly removal of a non-threat to the United States and its real friends. Without the United Nations stamp of approval, the USA had no legal basis or jurisdiction for “police” action in Iraq. A billion dollars is $4.00 for every American man, woman and child. Do the math! We have gone in two years from beacon of hope to the free world to pariah among civilized people everywhere - except regimes parasitic to taxpayer handouts like Egypt, Israel, and now the band of puppet-thieves pillaging Iraq.
Well, it’s not all bad. My position is that God created these worlds and their troubles so we’d have the opportunity to learn about love – by practicing it in everything we do – and then move on to more spiritually “adult” missions. We’re in a sort of kindergarten whose only function is to be just that.
NPR’s “All Things Considered” had wonderful interview with Bart Ehrman about his new book, Lost Christianities: The Battle for Scripture and the Faiths We Never Knew. He sheds much needed scholarly light on Marcion and Christian views closer to the original than any seen in millennia. The Allah of the Saddam’s of the world is the Old Testament Jehovah who rules by terror and false promise. Jehovah is also worshiped by “Christians” with Crusader mentalities and "Zionists" bent usurping Palestinian land. The only God I love and worship (known to Rumi, St. Paul, and Apollonius of Tyana and Zadoc of Solomn's temple and some Cabalists, to name a few) gives love to all and knows each will eventually be drawn back to It when the games of greed and religio-ethnocentric killing have lost their fascination. This will never happen to any large segment of any population, but it eventually happens with each and every Soul - whether in this life or some other. Allah-Jehovah, meanwhile, must maintain a balance of good and evil so his dominions don’t disappear. Such evil as current American terrorism and support of terrorism by proxy creates much opportunity for the best of the American spirit to un-king another George. I, for one, with life, fortune, and sacred honor, am in!
Tobey Talker
Footnotes:
Marcion
(mär´shen, mär´seen) , c.85-c.160, early Christian bishop, founder of the Marcionites, one of the first great Christian heresies to rival Catholic Christianity. He was born in Sinope. He taught in Asia Minor, then went (c.135) to Rome, where he perfected his theory. In 144 he was excommunicated from the church. He then formed a church of his own, which became widespread and powerful. Marcion taught that there were two gods, proclaiming that the stern, lawgiving, creator God of the Old Testament, and the good, merciful God of the New Testament were different. He considered the creator god the inferior of the two. Marcion also rejected the real incarnation of Christ, claiming that he was a manifestation of the Father. Though generally seen as one of the most important leaders of the somewhat loosely defined movement known as Gnosticism, he did not share some of the main premises of other Gnostic sects. He believed in salvation by faith rather than by gnosis; he rejected the Gnostic emanation theory; and he sought truth in his own truncated version of the New Testament, which included only 10 of the so-called Pauline Epistles and an edited version of St. Luke. He completely rejected the Old Testament. He explained in his Antitheses that since Jewish law was often opposed to St. Paul, all passages in the Bible that suggested the Jewish foundation of Christianity should be suppressed, even including such statements by St. Paul (see antinomianism ). Marcionism emphasized asceticism and influenced the developments of Manichaeism , by which it was later absorbed. Its effect on orthodox Christianity was to cause a canonical New Testament to be assembled and promulgated and the fulfillment of the Old Law in the New Law to be clearly enounced. Back to letter...
Source: http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/M/Marcion.asp
Tuesday, December 16, 2003
Mark Anderson wrote in The American Sentimentalist to which this replies....
Hey, Mark, just because mankind thinks a certain way for 40,000 years - gosh, that's only 14,610,000 days! - it doesn't mean mankind must think that way for 14,610,001! In fact, it seems there are, de facto, 14,610,000 reasons for trying something else. And that's only going back to one of the 6 cute daughters of Eve.
But seriously, we are each individuals. We like to think of the amorphous mass of humanity with its infinitely myriad webs of collective consciousnesses (group-thinks) as something to which we are hopelessly tied and responsible for. If we choose it, its a self-fulfilling prophesy. Better, I think, is to partake of the world's better offerings as utility strikes and be its benefactor as time and talent allow. The existentialists buy the illusion that there is no reality beyond what their lower senses sense and the vanity of their ultimately drab thoughts. Were they right, they would not be able to choose their own tedious outlook or any other. Essence and existence are just words. Both are symbols of abstractions, the first without useful definition and the second only dimly understood. Life is about purposeful play. It is about using the creative imagination. It is all about love - but not the selfish kind. There are rules.
What would be the point of a game whose outcome you could predict? As our game improves, we seek more challenging fields, higher mountains, greater causes. If we think the point is to save the world from war, greed, and bad T. V., we are in for some very rude awakenings. Yet our power to shape our personal states of being is without limit. If we do it right, a better world is a side-effect - one soon undone by the myriad webs.
And we get better at it - if we work at it. We take a few steps forward and then some backward. We repeat the same lessons enough times until we learn from them. Eventually we pass on to other spheres of activity, leaving the world to some beginning where began and others stuck in the ruts of their negative philosophies, their quests for power, or their dreams of utopia. They are no different from ourselves...
TobeyTalker
Wednesday, December 10, 2003
12/11/2003
Wise men have said good and evil in the world is always in a zero sum balance. What a good thing it is to sit comfortably and reflect upon the good-evil interplay! The trick is to reflect in a way that helps others get above good and evil with a spiritual viewpoint. It is not that good is bad; one person's idea of good may often be another's idea of bad. Is it always? Viewing from detached spiritual freedom, one can love participating in the drama.
Doing PC housekeeping while CSPAN brings the best TV I've seen yet. It is odd that it's taken me so long to discover it, since it's now been on for 25 years. Jeran Prendergast, Undersecretary-General for Political Affairs at the U.N. is holding a press review. How sane his views are when contrasted with the greedy outlaw cowboys from the American government warring on once friendly countries. What has the world come to when the simple demonstration of sanity from a TV talking head seems remarkable!
Cat Mystie jumps in my lap. Her purrs are quite loud for a smallish domestic tabby. She can purr and lick my hand at the same time. She's unconcerned whether I can type while she does it. Of our five cats, she's the only mouser.
Democratic Senators are saying wonderful things they would do and problems they would solve if and when they become president. My question for them is, since you, Sir/Madam, are a United States Senator, why haven't you been a lot more forceful in bringing about the wonderful solutions and advances in your present capacity, which is among the most powerful on the planet?
Saw parts of the debate last night. Howard Dean stood head and shoulders above the rest. The whining, the jealousy, the bickering, and the resentment of the lesser candidates, over Gore's support for Bush has begun. All would now be better choices, thinks this former Republican, than George Bush, But many good comments were made by almost all candidates about what to do about Iraq now that we have made such a mess. Tax-paying middle class citizens whose hard earned donations brought Dean to the notice mainstream pols should not go unmentioned.
Al Gore's Dean support speech made many important points not otherwise generally made. Dean saw and expressed the truth about the war in Iraq well ahead of anyone else in the political field. Dean has many years of excellent performance in an executive position and has earned the trust of those he served and his fellow governors in both parties.
The Bush administration continues to crank out foolishness. One wonders how much rope this gang of felons needs before they hang themselves. Now only "American" companies will be on the Carpet Bag Gravy Train. I wonder about the extent to which these "American" companies are owned by Saudis and Israelis - the ones whose mutual animosity was the real trigger for the war, though Bush crony greed is the motive.
Now a Whitehouse press secretary is spinning the lastest expression of Bush crony favoritism to the heard of corporate reporters who could probably serve the world better by not giving him airtime.
Friday, December 05, 2003
Just added this byline for search purposes. Webmasters are invited to use it for linking pages to Tobey Talk.
Promotes spiritual freedom, touches life, love, world events, and politics seen by an American Constitution advocate and defender who loves life and disapproves of tyranny in all forms including political, social and especially religious.
Tobey
Thursday, December 04, 2003
Bean-
You should start one of these. Be careful about including actual names. You will recognize any persons mentioned. Copied copy is expurgated.
We’ll never know whether Al Gore would have been worse than Bush. It’s safe to say he has no more sense of the obvious (as in causes of 9/11) than Bush. Clinton was pretending to fight terror when bombed a pharmaceutical company, killing people, destroying a family business, and dis-employing the surviving workers. He did this just when the heat for the Monica affair demanded the most distraction I had no big problem with his private sex escapades – Hillary’s problem, not mine - but lying before the grand jury about his habitual abuse of women (the “bimbo alerts” as his staff called the frequently surfacing allegations of victims) was a serious crime.
Hillary’s reply to my admonition to oppose the bombing of innocents in Iraq before it happened – when it was a good bet Saddam was not a threat to the U.S. – was “The world would be a better place without Saddam Hussein.”
Thousands think the would be a better place without the Clintons, Hillary in particular. They are spooked by such a bright and gutsy woman with so much power. But, have they less right to apply their criteria for winnowing humanity than does Hillary? The idea that some people are better than others and have a natural right to kill the ones they are better than is certainly alive and well. The idea is implicit in our growing our supply of weapons of mass destruction while demanding that others, on pain of being bombed, don’t even think of acquiring them. I reject the belief of some I won’t name that Hillary was behind the apparent suicide of the lawyer the Clintons brought with them to Washington. I recently saw Linda Trip on Larry King Live. I was amazed at how my view of her had been so formed by the press without my even knowing. She had for months made it plain to Monica, her colleague, that she, Trip, a career public servant, duty bound to expose corruption, would not participate in lying to prosecutors about events that had become routine in the Whitehouse. The titillating nature of the least significant part of the testimony completely masked the significance of the actual crimes committed. Remember, Clinton “did not have sex with that woman,” and he “did not order anyone to lie...” Had the tape not been replayed, I’d have totally forgotten the REALLY IMPORTANT thing he “did not” do!
Much of the wrong done by the U.S.A. for which the 9/11 attack was “payback”, intended to dissuade and curtail, happened under Clinton’s watch. Of course he had only been in charge for 8 of the 25 or so years during which the pressures were building, but a lot could have been done to reverse the POLICY of paying off terrorists, thereby inducing them to keep upping the ante, that became the great gusher of tax dollars started by Jimmy Democrat Carter at Camp David.
Peoples get the leaders they deserve. Except in extraordinary times, (the Roosevelt era and World War II?) the leaders represent the common character denominators of the people who by following choose them. The only other qualities needed to propels a social leader to the top of the greasy pole are the ruthlessness to eliminate enemies and charm fool the smart. Bush, and Saddam have had it all. Clinton was smart enough not to need ruthlessness. That his flaws were so crippling is true tragedy. Gore, of course, would transparently lie even when the truth would have been to his advantage! That he was so popular is telling about the electorate. Gore’s time came and went when he declined to replace Clinton at the impeachment. I hope we, the electorate, are wiser now....!
The mix of greed, arrogance, and anti-anything not Judeo-Christian that induces so many to subscribe to the mass hysteria of “War on Terror,” pumped out in a steady stream of propaganda from Washington, is characteristic of the American People. Where it not, the Bushies would have been long gone. It is very convenient for the rest of the “free, civilized” world to think they would be more bound by the rule of international law, had they such power, but the facts of history get in the way. A country with much more power than its neighbors has never been inclined to restraint. All statecraft from Waterloo to the time of Vietnam was based on the quest for “a balance of power.” The mutually assured destruction of the cold war, it is now pretty clear, was the only thing that kept Washington in check. After World War II one high American official considered Stalin – and the quality of Zionism, and thought to his dismay we had sided with the wrong dictator. He was quickly sidelined and, according to one surviving witness, assassinated. The bomb challenged countries have to get used to hegemony; sad but true!
Oh. I didn’t vote for Bush. I voted for the integrity and common sense he skillfully aped. I knew it was a long shot, but I was way off about how long.
Dad
"Seek the highest, and the rest of life will fall into place."
Thank you daddy! That's what I do. I'm a political activist. Although, in general, I focus more on causes (people and human-rights oriented causes) than on the people representing those causes. I think, though, in this election, I'll be much more person-oriented. (And if Hilary ever ran I'd be on her campaign in a second. She's done so much good for this country. She's done so much good for human rights. I do think it's disappointing that she signed the bill for the war. I'd like to try to understand why she did that. However, I feel that she is not a person motivated by personal material greed and so I feel that, even if she was wrong, perhaps she felt it was right at the time. I'd like to know more about it. Maybe she was duped. And also, everyone makes mistakes. My own father, clever and kind fellow that he is, actually voted for Bush! The impressive thing, daddy, is how you turned around.) I didn't really believe that Bush had a chance of winning last time. I don't want to let that happen again. Did you know that at the last election, I participated in regestering voters? I'd definitely like to do that again. I'm trying to find out as much about Dean as I can (as well as the others). I like him. And I think he's got a good chance of winning. Yes, I'll look into it more.
I've got to go. My application . . . is due today and I haven't finished.
I love you daddy! I had such a wonderful time at Thanksgiving! Thanks very much.
love,
--bean
Sunday, November 30, 2003
In a letter to the U. S. Congress:
Bush believes himself right, but noone now who isn't a moral psychotic agrees with him. When the thug Saddam ruled the people who elected him, the world was safe from the evil of any but fundamentalist religious criminals. Yes, the derilection of police and intelligence agencies had allowed the 9/11 catastrophe, but apart from the results of failed police work, Bush propaganda notwithstanding, the world was safe. Who would have thought a few American businessmen with a little dis-information would be able to use all the resources at the command of the U.S. Congress, the Pentagon, and the Whitehouse for their own profit? Not many Anerican youth are amoung the thousands of innocents dead.
What exactly do you intend to do about it?
A constituent.
Sunday, November 23, 2003
Dear A.
Thanks for the feedback!
I'm looking for ways to get more involved in supporting Howard Dean.
We could look for flaws in his platform and write him with suggestions.
I like him because:
1 I think he's honest.
2 He opposed the war from the start, for good reasons,
seeing it for what it was, not because he's some kind of peacenik.
Gotta run.
Tobey
"Seek the highest, and the rest of life will fall into place."
Tuesday, November 18, 2003
More and more Americans are mad too.
Dear River,
Last night Cheney was in our town speaking at a restaurant, charging $1000 a plate to raise money to advertise for the Bush Cheney reelection. A week before I joined the Democratic party to vote for Howard Dean in the primary. I had joined the Republican party for the last election to vote for John McCain in that primary. I haven't been so politically minded since the Viet Nam War - an equally criminal act against people even less threatening to any legitimate American interest than was Saddam. I don't deny that Saddam was a thug, but this made him predictable and therefore less un-useful than some in the mix of boobs, fanatics, and opportunists it seems we've replaced him with - apologies to any who may be sincere!
The draw of Cheney, I hear, sold 300 dinners. I choose to interpret it as his administration's anticipation of what it will take to avoid regime change in the next election. Personally I hope it's not nearly enough, and that whatever enough is, they fall way short of it. Protesters stood outside and chanted, "My country is not for sale." Buying it back will take a lot more than money....
But the people outside are made of the same stuff that built the country so lately the hope to freedom lovers around the world. Some are descended from the ones who created the first democratic government not authorized by a pre-existing power. Then they threw out the minions of a tyrant an ocean away. They can handle a few arrogant despots in Washington - who would have wilted from a glance from the real Washington! They just need to wake up a little more. Complacency is eroding.
I can't tell you enough, you are not alone and your ever faithful reporting is much appreciated!
Tobey
Each moment a new tale is shouting to be told in silence..
Rumi
Monday, November 17, 2003
I'm a liberal conservative. Many would call this oxymoronic. I'm liberal in that I believe in giving and practicing spiritual freedom, conservative in believing in personal responsibility, the rule of law, telling the truth, doing what I say, and not infringing on the persons and property of others. I submit that I could not practise my liberal way of life were it not predicated on the conservative framework.
If my position appears contradictory, it's because both words, liberal and conservative, have lost their real meaning during their history of becoming slurs. To the pseudo-conservative, a liberal is a thief, seeking to rob anyone but himself to buy any vote for sale. While there may be many people who fit the profile, I say they should be called pseudo-liberals; not liberals. To the pseudo-liberal, a conservative is a bigotted liar and possibly a religious fanatic to boot. I call such people pseudo-conservatives and neo-cons. Neither type of pseudo believes in his heart there is really such a thing as an honest man and immediately tries to discredit any they encouhter. Even if honest people seem comparatively rare, I submit it is ultimately part of everyone's mission on earth to become one, however long that may take, if he is not one already. (I can see my ex sharpening her feminist claws--women, yes, can and should develop honesty too! An honest woman is no less of God's greatest work than an honest man...!)
