On 2002-04-06 06:52, Jenny Genser wrote:
Change in topic. Regarding the thred core question on whether we are early in 4T or late in 3T, here is an article from today's Washington Post that describes life early in the last 4T. It combines an analysis of newly-released U.S. Census data with interviews from some surviving nonagerians.

Here is the link. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2002Apr5.html.

Here is the article.

Glimpsing Time Before Depression Took Hold
U.S. Census Opens the Book On Washington Life in 1930

Pauline Jones, 93, says she starts the newspaper each day with the comics. She recalls the Depression days when boys her age would sell newspapers on the corner.

On Euclid Street that spring, the census takers found Wellington J. Voss residing with his sisters, Mary, Irma and Anna, who had just lost their pet Airedale.

Charles L. Kessler was still on his way back with Admiral Byrd's South Pole expedition, but he was counted anyhow at his father's home on Foxhall Road. Occupation: "Explorer."

And on East Capitol Street, the census tallied Helen A. White, a clerk's wife, who had just been saved by a blood transfusion after the birth of her 12th child.

The stock market had briefly revived, and the cherry blossoms were in full bloom. A federal Prohibition agent had been murdered by rumrunners. And a "colored girl" on Wallach Place advertised for work as a maid. "Neat," she added. "References."

It was April 1930. "Is Every-bod-ee Happy?" bandleader Ted Lewis crooned.

In Washington, the U.S. Census Bureau had questions of its own -- 32, to be exact, posed in its detailed once-a-decade national head count.

Things seemed okay. A Chevy Roadster that spring cost $495. A man's suit, with trousers and knickers, $45. A five-course dinner at the Collier Inn on Columbia Road NW was $1.

You could be buried for $100.

Buck Rogers was in the comics. The planet Pluto had just been discovered. Nevada executed gambler Robert H. White in the gas chamber for murder.

On April 2, a pleasant Wednesday, the federal government dispatched 87,800 "enumerators" across the country -- 403 in Washington alone -- to conduct the 1930 Census. They were paid 4 cents for each name counted, 40 to 50 cents for each farm visited.

The tally took several weeks to complete, though the official day of record was April 1: How old were you, as of April 1? Were you employed, as of April 1? Though the general statistics would be public, the bureau assured people that their personal data would be confidential. It would remain so, by law, for 72 years.

Last week, that time was up. On Monday, officials at the National Archives snipped a red, white and blue ribbon across the huge nickel alloy doors to Room 400 and for the first time opened to the public the details of that long-ago count.

Penciled across tens of thousands of microfilmed broadsheets was a snapshot of America. Names, addresses, ages, employment, race, ethnicity, marital and employment status, military service, home value, and whether or not a family possesed that telling marker of success: a radio.

It was a portrait taken at a fascinating moment in the nation's history. The Roaring '20s had just ended, and the country, somewhat innocently, was starting to plunge into the Great Depression, and on to a global cataclysm.

Herbert Hoover was in the White House, or fishing on Virginia's Rapidan River, and Franklin D. Roosevelt that fall would be reelected governor of New York by a landslide. Prohibition was a decade old and almost out of steam.

On the phonograph that April, they were playing Duke Ellington's "Mood Indigo," Rudy Vallee's "Kansas City Kitty" and a number called "High and Dry," by Irving Mills and his Hotsy-Totsy Gang.

The Marx brothers, Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor and Ginger Rogers were in the movies. Cole Porter, George and Ira Gershwin and Irving Berlin wrote songs. And from the radio drifted "I Got Rhythm," "Puttin' on the Ritz" and, somewhat prematurely, "Happy Days Are Here Again."

The fourth decade of the 20th century was three months old. But much of the nation was still rooted in the 1800s.

Washington, like the rest of the country, was utterly segregated, and newspapers of that year carried accounts of almost monthly southern lynchings and other killings -- one black man was burned at the stake that February in Ocilla, Ga.

"It was awful," longtime black District resident Pauline Johnson Jones, 93, recalled last week. "It was a divided city, but we had our own life, our own society."

Jones and her four siblings were raised by their mother, a widowed postal worker, in a house in the 1600 block of O Street NW.

"The boys sold newspapers on the corner," she said. "Back then, there were 'extras,' and when the boys called out 'extra,' everyone would rush over to see what the latest news was." Heating and cooking were done with coal.

But there were also good times, she said. For Jones and other African American Washington residents of 1930, the good times were on the Black Broadway, as U Street between Seventh and 16th streets NW was called.

Just out of Armstrong High School, Jones dressed up and went to the Howard Theater, the Crystal Caverns and the Lincoln Theater Collonade with her friends.

"We heard Duke Ellington and all those great, great artists," she said. "And we did get dressed. People dressed in those days. We didn't have any jeans then."

Beyond the smart crowds on U Street, the census takers would find that nationwide, there were still 124,000 blacksmiths, 11,000 coopers, 111,000 draymen, teamsters and carriage drivers, and 5,000 boatmen, canalmen and lock keepers.

There were also 40,000 charwomen, 18,000 bootblacks, 19,000 icemen and 17,000 "healers."

But the 1930 Census also found clear signs that the nation was headed someplace new and exciting and mysterious. There were door-to-door salesmen and product demonstrators, along with 26,000 credit men, 67,000 elevator tenders and 6,097 aviators -- 66 of them women.

People seemed crazy for technology. Auto manufacturers were putting radios in cars, generating debate over the safety of such a move. How could one drive and listen -- or tune -- at the same time?

But people did. Harold Gray, 94, a retired Washington lobbyist, was a junior at George Washington University that spring. He recalled cruising the capital in a buddy's Model T. The city speed limit: 22 mph.

Traffic lights and stop signs were few, he said. And out in the country, one could tear along at 50 mph. "In my youthful driving experience," he said, "I got a couple of speeding tickets."

Richard Beale, also 94, of Asbury Methodist Village, in Gaithersburg, was then a 22-year-old resident of 14th Street NE. He got his first car in 1930, a four-door Ford. But he recalled that driving was done with care: "You had to watch out for the horses and wagons."

It was aviation, though, that had seized the public mind. The news was filled with airplane stunts -- barnstormer Roscoe Turner flew with his pet lion cub in the cockpit -- cross-country hops and weekly air tragedies.

The papers carried aviation weather, and some had aviation pages. The Alexandria Gazette reported that the George Washington airport, three miles south of the city, would be the American terminal for the new trans-Atlantic Zeppelin line. Service was expected in July.

That February, an actor's ashes were sprinkled from an airplane over Broadway. Two weeks later, a deaf man was killed parachuting from an airplane to try to regain his hearing. That June, the birth of Charles Lindbergh's first child made front-page headlines.

And as the enumerators went to work, Western Air Express promised to get travelers from Washington to California in the fabulous time of 49 hours.

That year, the census would estimate 122,775,046 U.S. residents -- about 108,000,000 whites, about 11,000,000 blacks and about 1,700,000 Mexican, Chinese and Native Americans. The District's population was 486,869 -- 72 percent white, 27 percent black. Maryland had about 1.6 million residents, Virginia 2.4 million.

Forty percent of the nation's families reported that they had a radio. In the capital, 54 percent of families owned radios. In Maryland and Virginia, 42.9 percent and 18.2 percent of families, respectively, owned one.

Nationally, 60 percent of males and 61 percent of females over 14 said they were married. Only 1.1 percent of males and 1.3 percent of females said they were divorced. In the District, 59 percent of males and 53 percent of females were married. In Maryland and Virginia, 59 percent of males and females were married.

Children ages 5 to 9 made up the country's largest age group, as they did Maryland's and Virginia's. Adults 20 to 24 made up Washington's largest age segment.

There were 4 million people across the country who said they were illiterate.

The stock market crash the previous fall had been gigantic. Historian T.H. Watkins has written that in five hours of trading on Oct. 29, "Black Tuesday," the modern equivalent of $95 billion vanished in a financial Armageddon.

But by April, things seemed to have recovered. The so-called "little bull market" had taken hold. "The signs of vigor and confidence are as unmistakable as the signs of spring," The Washington Post said the day before the census. "The winter of discontent is over."

It was at this moment, as the nation blithely teetered at the edge of the Depression, that the census takers left on their mission. The baseball and horse racing seasons were starting. Please, the bureau told its enumerators, "write legibly."

They tried.

As they spread through the city that month, knocking on doors, sitting at kitchen tables, chatting on doorsteps, they touched all the city's communities.

At 1524 East Capitol St., they found the White family: William, 34, his wife, Helen, 33, and their 12 children ranging in age from 11 years to 2 months. (Their census entry shows they had 6-year-old twins.)

According to a newspaper account of the time, Mrs. White had been saved by a radio station's blood drive held after she underwent postpartum surgery two days before. Her husband told the census he was an unemployed clerk, and veteran of the "WW," the World War.

On Rhode Island Avenue, near Logan Circle, the census found millionaire lawyer Walter Denegre, 50, who described himself as retired. Also resident were his wife, Bertha, 50; 10 servants; and his chauffeur's three children.

On Wallach Place NW, in the Shaw neighborhood, enumerators called on the family of James P. Kestersom, 55. Someone there had just placed a classified ad in the paper looking for work. "GIRL, colored," it said. "Neat. Wants job, pantry work or maid; references."

The enumerator recorded that Kestersom, an unemployed government laborer, lived with his wife, Lena, 50, who described herself as a working "child nurse"; their daughter, Sylvia, 12; and a "lodger," Catherine Josephs, 20. The family reported that they owned their $7,000 house and a radio.

On Euclid Street NW, the census found Wellington Voss, 33, and his sisters, who had just placed an ad seeking their lost Airedale. Voss described himself as a "newspaper writer," and his obituary 44 years later in New Hampshire noted that he had once worked for two Washington papers.

At 1600 Foxhall Rd. on April 9, Leroy P. Kessler, 53, a Navy Yard electrician, and his wife, Katherine, 48, were still awaiting the arrival of their explorer son, Charles, 25.

He would be home in June, when Adm. Richard E. Byrd returned from the expedition that had taken him on his sensational flight to the South Pole the previous November.

Some people the census just missed. The day before it began, the ashes of Dr. Clara Nicolay, a retired teacher who had lived in an apartment building on Second Street NE, had been sprinkled by friends on the Potomac River beneath the blooming cherry trees.

And some people barely made the cutoff.

On April 12, enumerator Olive C. Peters visited the home of George C. Brown, 81, charter member of the Frederick Douglass Relief Association, and his wife, Emma, 56, and recorded them both.

Brown had died April 1, according to a newspaper death notice, living just long enough, apparently, to make the census date of record.

By summer, the work was done. By then, the stock market was headed down again. In September, the Nazis made electoral gains in Germany. In November, there was a bank panic in the South. And in December a big New York bank, with $202 million in deposits, went under.

Fifteen years of war and economic depression lay ahead. But gazing back over seven decades last week, Pauline Johnson Jones said: "I feel very fortunate. I look back over those years and remember how very close we were. We had a very wonderful life."

Staff researchers Bobbye Pratt and Mary Lou White contributed to this report.


? 2002 The Washington Post Company

Sounds almost like the 'back to normal' mood of spring 2002, doesn't it? Kinda makes you wonder what fall 2002 will have in store for us?

Interesting that the Post writer would choose to write about "Washington Life in 1930" now. But I can't seem to get a bead on what her take on how the current "mood" in Washington is compared to 1930. Anyway, I am currently reading Maury Klein's Rainbow's End : The Crash of 1929 in which he argues that the Crash was strongly influenced on a "change in the national mood." He claims that by the spring of 1930 (the month of May was "pivotal) it was clear that the "New Era" of the "Roaring" twenties was over, and that a new mood of "pessimism" was felt across the entire country (even as the stock market desparately tried to recoup the losses of 1929).

I did find this quote very interesting:
Pauline Johnson Jones said: "I feel very fortunate. I look back over those years and remember how very close we were. We had a very wonderful life."

Reality? Or perhaps, nostalgia maybe? Were her parents rich or, at least, able to find work? Does unemployment even matter in a fourth turn (seeing how massive unemployment just became a fact of life in the thirties until WWII). Perhaps the poor just accept their lot and bumps during a fourth turn, and still manage to call it a "wonderful life"?

On 2002-04-06 09:35, Marc Lamb wrote:
Interesting that the Post writer would choose to write about "Washington Life in 1930" now.

Because the Census Bureau just recently released the 1930 Census. By law, Census data are confidential for 72 years. April 1930 was 72 years ago. So the confidentiality period is up and the public can access these data.

But I can't seem to get a bead on what her take on how the current "mood" in Washington is compared to 1930. Anyway, I am currently reading Maury Klein's Rainbow's End : The Crash of 1929 in which he argues that the Crash was strongly influenced on a "change in the national mood." He claims that by the spring of 1930 (the month of May was "pivotal) it was clear that the "New Era" of the "Roaring" twenties was over, and that a new mood of "pessimism" was felt across the entire country (even as the stock market desparately tried to recoup the losses of 1929).

I just wanted to print the article so that people could draw their own conclusions. If we are in a 4T that began on 9/11/01, then April 1930 is very analagous to today. If we still be in 3T, obviously, it isn't. And of course, each saeculum is quite different.

However, what I gathered from reading Only Yesterday by Frederick Allen is that there was a small Boom in the Stock Market during the spring of 1930 and many people truly believed that the worst of the crash was behind them. As the end of the Post article makes clear, events that occurred later on that year showed people that Things Had Changed, and in retrospect, April 1930 was the Indian summer period of the last 4T.

_________________
Why does it have to take a disaster to acknowledge the beauty of being alive? -- Maharaji

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Jenny Genser on 2002-04-06 09:52 ]</font>

Bob Barr (R-GA) decries the USA PATRIOT Act. But DIDN'T BOB VOTE FOR THE DAMN THING????

(For info and discussion purposes)

http://www.accessatlanta.com/ajc/epa...560a2004d.html

Panel faults restrictions imposed since Sept. 11
Joe Geshwiler - Staff
Thursday, April 4, 2002

A panel that spanned a range of opinions from U.S. Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.) to ACLU President Nadine Strossen --- with authorities on law enforcement and the media in between --- Wednesday condemned legal restrictions adopted by the Bush administration and Congress after Sept. 11.

In a forum at the Richard B. Russell Building sponsored by the Atlanta chapter of the Federal Bar Association, panelists were unanimous in saying steps taken in the name of protecting Americans from terrorists were in fact treading on cherished liberties.

Panelists directed the brunt of their criticism at the USA Patriot Act enthusiastically endorsed by President Bush and passed overwhelmingly by Congress last October. The measure greatly expands the federal law-enforcement powers, including the authority to conduct secret searches, make secret arrests and secretly scan electronic communications without a court order.

Barr said Congress acted in haste without thinking through the consequences of the measure. Many of the act's provisions are overbroad, he said, including giving quasi-federal personnel --- referring to airport security officers --- the authority to deny a person the right to interstate travel simply because "they don't like the color of his eyes."

Barr took no comfort in the fact the measure expires in four years and must be reauthorized by Congress. "Power taken by the government is rarely returned," he warned. He urged a continuing congressional review of the effects of the act to minimize the long-range impact on civil liberties.

Strossen of the American Civil Liberties Union said a broad coalition across the political spectrum is raising a crescendo of criticism against the act, and experts on law enforcement and national security --- like former FBI and CIA head William Webster --- are chiming in.

She said the Bush Justice Department's mass interrogation tactics are bound to fail as long as suspects are targeted on the basis of ethnicity. Al-Qaida, she said, is bound to respond to a miguided U.S. emphasis on screening new arrivals from the Mideast by dispatching its agents of Asian and African origin.

She complimented U.S. Magistrate Judge G. Mallon Faircloth of the Middle Georgia District for disallowing a ban "due to the national emergency" against a peaceful demonstration by protesters at what was known as the School of the Americas at Fort Benning. Faircloth's ruling was eloquent, she said, in pointing out that war neither automatically adds to the government's powers nor subtracts from the people's rights.

Another speaker, Robert Friedman, head of Georgia State University's Department of Criminal Justice, said it is just as important for the U.S. to police its freedoms as police terrorism. As an adviser to Israeli police authorities, he said that besieged country provides a good example for America, especially the recent ruling by its Supreme Court prohibiting the use of "moderate physcial pressure" against terror suspects even in emergency situations.,

Conrad Fink, journalism professor at the University of Georgia, lamented not only that the U.S. government is operating without the slightest regard for the public's right to know the way it is fighting the war on terror, here or abroad, but additionally that the public is all too complacent about being in the dark.

"The watchdogs of the press lack the muscle to lift the curtain of secrecy dropped by the Bush administration," he said. "Journalists can't say in good faith they're reporting accurately or fairly" because they've been kept at bay due to new and restrictive military regulations.

On 2002-04-06 09:51, Jenny Genser wrote:

I just wanted to print the article so that people could draw their own conclusions. If we are in a 4T that began on 9/11/01, then April 1930 is very analagous to today. If we still be in 3T, obviously, it isn't. And of course, each saeculum is quite different.

However, what I gathered from reading Only Yesterday by Frederick Allen is that there was a small Boom in the Stock Market during the spring of 1930 and many people truly believed that the worst of the crash was behind them. As the end of the Post article makes clear, events that occurred later on that year showed people that Things Had Changed, and in retrospect, April 1930 was the Indian summer period of the last 4T.

Like I said, kinda makes you wonder what fall 2002 or spring 2003 may have in store for us, or if, just maybe, this new business in the West Bank could be the equivalent of the Stock Market starting back down after the Little Boom, the Nazi gains in the Reichstag elections, and the first bank failures.

Marc Lamb wrote:
You profess to be a Marxist, of sorts, Mr. Reed. Has not the Marxist "experiment" in totalitarian dictatorship ended, yet?

Actually, I have never professed to be a Marxist. I am a capitalist opposed to corporatism. There is a difference.

The Marxist totalitarian experiment has ended. However, I don't distinguish Marxist dictatorship from the others. Dictatorship is dictatorship, and is still going on as a experiment in many parts of the world, with Zimbabwe as the most recent experiment. I

You have heard of the US Constitutional form of Republican government, of sorts, Mr. Reed. Has not Mr. Jefferson/Madison et al proven themselves as wise men?

Yes, they have. I don't understand the nature of your question.

Did these men not understand or learn "humility" well enough in your mind? Yet, Mr. Marx did learn these things? And so much so, that you would desire to follow his proven folly, and not proven wisdom of Jefferson/Madison et al?

Again, I do not understand the nature of your question. As for Mr. Marx, I am unsure as to why you keep bringing him into the conversation. The article is about the spirit of American ideals.

And as for following the ideals of Marx, this is irrelevant to the conversation because I don't follow Marx.

Why are you so bent upon learning it all over again, Mr. Reed? Is the "bloom" of a rose not what you really seek? But rather, you seek, like Mr. Marx et al, a certain kind of revenge upon thine enemy?

First of all, stop speaking in vague verse and speak in clear and logical sentences. Maybe if you expressed yourself more clearly, I would be able to answer your questions better. Am I bent on learning it over again? Yes. Sure, you can listen to the wisdom of the dead, and that's good. We should take this wisdom and use it for times like today. This wisdom is timeless. The Declaration of Independence is timeless. The Gettysburg Address is timeless. You have read the 4T. As such, you should know that the "Spirit of America" comes only once per saeculum. This spirit is not entirely transfered. Instead, it is relearned time and time again.

America is not a static nation. Instead, it is the most dynamic nation in the history of mankind. If we merely stuck to John Locke for answers, we would forever be stuck in the early 18th century. Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, and Samuel Adams had to relearn this wisdom. During the Civil War, the populace had to relearn this wisdom. During World War II, this was relearned. As such, we have to relearn it again. That's why I am doing this. To understand fully what America is, you have to go through history, and locate patterns that make it what it is. You have to learn the timeless ideals. You need to then apply these core ideals, and think of what America CAN be. Does this answer your question?

angeli wrote:
Who is this guy Robert?

Uhhh....beats me. :wink:

However, what I gathered from reading Only Yesterday by Frederick Allen is that there was a small Boom in the Stock Market during the spring of 1930 and many people truly believed that the worst of the crash was behind them.

And had they been right, it's possible the country would have slipped back into an Unraveling mindset. That America didn't was because they were wrong.


On the other hand, in later years, just prior to the "Roosevelt Recession" of 1938, when the economy did pick up (although not to its 1920s levels), what happened was a surge of labor activism in which GIs permanently transformed the American workplace.


But then again, that was much later in the 4T than 1930.

Mr. Reed writes,
"Again, I do not understand the nature of your question. As for Mr. Marx, I am unsure as to why you keep bringing him into the conversation. The article is about the spirit of American ideals."

That is precisely why I did bring Marx into the conversation, Mr. Reed.

"To secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it." --Thomas Jefferson

The very evening that you posted what sounded to you "kinda like GC material," on the "spirit of American ideals," you had also posted a rather strong message on how you saw absolutely no difference between the combatants in the Middle East; namely, the Palestinians and the Israelis, Mr. Reed.

In fact you even went so far as to lump America into the equation when you wrote,

<center>"Why not? Perhaps, should I refresh you on the activities of the CIA since the end of World War II?
Or perhaps, I should refresh you on sanctions that killed 500,000 Iraqi children?
Am I to believe that Bush is so much more moral and godly than the other presidents in the past 50 years that have participated in these "un-American" activities?"</center>

Mr. Reed, this is quite a "moral" indictment you have handed down on the America of the past fifty years! Is this the sort of stuff they teach in public schools these days?

But to have wrote such moral equivalency summation and then, just a few hours later post your "GC material" essay by Mr. Needleman??? If this is what you are really thinking Mr. Reed, no wonder you can't stand the present-day and are so looking forward to the fourth turn!

Which is, of course, why I questioned you. While I don't really expect to get through to you about the real "spirit of American ideals," Mr. Reed, I'll give it a try anyway.

<center>"The roots of the American experiment in democracy reach back thousands of years, fed by our failures as well as our successes, our crimes as well as our ideals. When at last we learn humility, our republic will bloom."</center> Jacob Needleman

While I do not wish to present a history lesson by any stretch, I would doubt that any one would argue with the Founders that the real essence of a democracy is that "moral authority" and "just powers" of government are derived from the people, said authority and power are only derived via free elections. From Washington to Madison, Adams, Franklin, Jefferson, and the other founders the competence- meaning both the authority and capacity-of the people to govern themselves is the voice of God.

Our "righteous might," Mr. Reed totally destroyed Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and the Empire of Japan. And it won the Cold War over the Soviet Union, and the right of the "free flow of oil" in 1991 as well. And because the people give government it's power, we pulled out of Vietnam.

The decisions our leaders make, from FDR to Dubya, for better or worse, are "just" and they are "moral" because they are derived from "the people," and enumerated in constitutional law.

But let us then apply this test of "moral authority" and "just powers" to the Palestinian and Israeli people. The Israeli people, too, are governed in much the same way as Americans. They have a constitution, elected officals in a parliamentary form of governement and a Prime Minister and so on. Therefore they, like the USA can maintain authority and excersise "just power" derived from the people.

Yassir Arafat, on the other hand, has seen many, many elected officals and prime ministers in Israel come and go. Why? Because he, like Saddam, is not interested in giving the people that kind of power over him.

Therefore, the Palestinian people, like all totalitarian dictarships, be they Marxist or not, are not likely to see their land "bloom" anytime soon. And even if they do, the bloom will never last because it just isn't a real flower.





<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Marc Lamb on 2002-04-06 16:19 ]</font>

Mr. Lamb, if the Israelis are the Americans are the Palestinians the injuns? Is Mr. Sharon, Andy Jackson?

Marc:


Allow me the liberty of paraphrasing your argument to Robert Reed without the gratuitous red-baiting, snide and obnoxious and arrogant remarks, and other confusing folderol with which you have polluted your post. Please correct me if I've gotten what you meant to say wrong, as is only too likely considering the pathetic job you've done of saying it.


"Mr. Reed, I think you might want to reconsider your previous statement in which you proposed a moral equivalency between the Palestinians and Israelis, or between the Palestinians and the Americans. For all its faults Israel is a democracy, as is the United States, and this is a claim the Palestinian Authority cannot make. Yasser Arafat presides over a dictatorship, and has no respect for the rights of his people. That alone makes his regime and that of Ariel Sharon or of George Bush morally inequivalent."


Note that, while one might make a reasonable response to this statement and it is not beyond question, nor is it without merit. In my opinion, it does not require obfuscation, nor does it require the use of McCarthyist tactics in its support. Indeed, such tactics do not lend support, but only make their author appear shifty-eyed and duplicitous.


I hope you will take this example and these words of friendly advice in the spirit tendered.

I add the attached as a counterpoint to Marc's argument that Israel deserves an elevated moral status as a 'democracy'. I intend no copyright violation; the original is located at The International Herald-Tribune
(The italics are my own)

A matter of conscience

JERUSALEM More than 350 combat officers and soldiers from the Israeli reserve forces recently declared that they are no longer willing to serve in the occupied territories; they will not be partners to the war crimes and atrocities that the Israeli army is carrying out there. If these reserve soldiers refuse to serve, they may be court-martialed and imprisoned. Their stand spurred a movement of citizens who support these conscientious objectors and who call on other soldiers to join them.
.
Although there have always been lone pacifists in Israel, or selective conscientious objectors unwilling to serve in the occupied territories, until now the phenomenon has been marginal and has never instigated public debate.
.
This time things are different. Because of the greater number objectors and the current context of escalating Palestinian terrorism and Israeli state terrorism in response, the soldiers' declaration has awakened wide public opposition.
.
The principal claims against the soldiers are that they are breaching legal orders of a democratic regime, and that they are not motivated by conscience but represent an ideological minority that wants to impose its desires on the majority. But these claims ignore the wider political context.
.
Today in Israel, there is no greater moral or democratic act than refusing to serve in the occupied territories. Those who claim that conscientious objection is rooted in ideological and political motivations are correct, because the military oppression of the Palestinians is at the heart of the issue. Conscientious objection is necessary to restore the democratic regime in Israel by repairing the foundations of legitimacy on which Israel is founded.
.
Since 1967 Israel has ruled directly, and since 1994 indirectly, over millions of Arab residents who lack all civil rights and the most basic human rights. As this situation has been institutionalized, Israel has ceased to be a democratic state and has become a Herrenvolk democracy - a regime in which citizens enjoy full rights and non-citizens have none. The laws of Israel have become the laws of a master people and Israeli morality the morality of lords of the land.
.
The reality is that in every matter that benefits Israel, residents of the territories are part of the state; but in every matter that does not benefit Israel, they are outside the state. Israel is a polity with a double legal system, a double rule and a double morality.
.
In this context, conscientious objection undermines all the logic of a regime that claims, in the name of democracy, the obligation of obedience to its laws in precisely the same domain in which it is clearly undemocratic.
.
The general attitude in Israel toward conscientious objection is not merely an isolated misunderstanding of the phenomenon itself but is part of the militaristic and colonial political culture. Thus there has never been a genuine peace movement in Israel which has deserved to be called such.
.
The power of the settler minority to set Israel's national agenda, and most importantly to establish seemingly irreversible facts on the ground, stems from the willingness of settlers to take personal risks by sacrificing personal and family life on an ideological altar.
.
Most "peace camp" members, however, have been armchair revolutionaries, unwilling to make personal sacrifices. This does not make their ideas less valid, but it does make them empty of power and political efficacy.
.
A striking example of this phenomenon is the extra-parliamentary working arm of the Labor and Meretz parties, the Peace Now movement. When this organization refuses to adopt the idea of conscientious objection in the name of a democracy that does not exist, and from fear of leaving the national consensus, it ceases being a peace movement and becomes a collaborator with the occupying regime, granting it a legitimacy that no political body from the right would be able to grant them.
.
The writer, a professor of sociology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, is author of "The Invention and Decline of Israeliness." He contributed this comment to the International Herald Tribune.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Justin '77 on 2002-04-06 17:31 ]</font>

On 2002-04-06 16:31, Virgil K. Saari wrote:
Mr. Lamb, if the Israelis are the Americans are the Palestinians the injuns? Is Mr. Sharon, Andy Jackson?

Andy Jackson was one mean man, however he might have saved the Cherokee people from being wiped out by murderous settlers.

On 2002-04-06 17:30, Justin '77 wrote:
I add the attached as a counterpoint to Marc's argument that Israel deserves an elevated moral status as a 'democracy'. I intend no copyright violation; the original is located at The International Herald-Tribune
(The italics are my own)

A matter of conscience

JERUSALEM More than 350 combat officers and soldiers from the Israeli reserve forces recently declared that they are no longer willing to serve in the occupied territories; they will not be partners to the war crimes and atrocities that the Israeli army is carrying out there. If these reserve soldiers refuse to serve, they may be court-martialed and imprisoned. Their stand spurred a movement of citizens who support these conscientious objectors and who call on other soldiers to join them.
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Although there have always been lone pacifists in Israel, or selective conscientious objectors unwilling to serve in the occupied territories, until now the phenomenon has been marginal and has never instigated public debate.
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This time things are different. Because of the greater number objectors and the current context of escalating Palestinian terrorism and Israeli state terrorism in response, the soldiers' declaration has awakened wide public opposition.
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The principal claims against the soldiers are that they are breaching legal orders of a democratic regime, and that they are not motivated by conscience but represent an ideological minority that wants to impose its desires on the majority. But these claims ignore the wider political context.
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Today in Israel, there is no greater moral or democratic act than refusing to serve in the occupied territories. Those who claim that conscientious objection is rooted in ideological and political motivations are correct, because the military oppression of the Palestinians is at the heart of the issue. Conscientious objection is necessary to restore the democratic regime in Israel by repairing the foundations of legitimacy on which Israel is founded.
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Since 1967 Israel has ruled directly, and since 1994 indirectly, over millions of Arab residents who lack all civil rights and the most basic human rights. As this situation has been institutionalized, Israel has ceased to be a democratic state and has become a Herrenvolk democracy - a regime in which citizens enjoy full rights and non-citizens have none. The laws of Israel have become the laws of a master people and Israeli morality the morality of lords of the land.
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The reality is that in every matter that benefits Israel, residents of the territories are part of the state; but in every matter that does not benefit Israel, they are outside the state. Israel is a polity with a double legal system, a double rule and a double morality.
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In this context, conscientious objection undermines all the logic of a regime that claims, in the name of democracy, the obligation of obedience to its laws in precisely the same domain in which it is clearly undemocratic.
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The general attitude in Israel toward conscientious objection is not merely an isolated misunderstanding of the phenomenon itself but is part of the militaristic and colonial political culture. Thus there has never been a genuine peace movement in Israel which has deserved to be called such.
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The power of the settler minority to set Israel's national agenda, and most importantly to establish seemingly irreversible facts on the ground, stems from the willingness of settlers to take personal risks by sacrificing personal and family life on an ideological altar.
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Most "peace camp" members, however, have been armchair revolutionaries, unwilling to make personal sacrifices. This does not make their ideas less valid, but it does make them empty of power and political efficacy.
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A striking example of this phenomenon is the extra-parliamentary working arm of the Labor and Meretz parties, the Peace Now movement. When this organization refuses to adopt the idea of conscientious objection in the name of a democracy that does not exist, and from fear of leaving the national consensus, it ceases being a peace movement and becomes a collaborator with the occupying regime, granting it a legitimacy that no political body from the right would be able to grant them.
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The writer, a professor of sociology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, is author of "The Invention and Decline of Israeliness." He contributed this comment to the International Herald Tribune.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Justin '77 on 2002-04-06 17:31 ]</font>

If the Israeli Peace Movement truly wishes peace, on terms acceptable to the Arabs, then let them see where else in the world would be willing to accept some 5 million Israeli refugees, and not only go there themselves, but do all they can to convince their fellow Israelis to accompany them in the one-way journey. And then hope that the Arab hatred of the Israeli people doesn't follow them, and target the new host nation for 'punishment'. The Arabs will accept no less, and may not even accept that.

Dubya sends "evil" Kim a <S>bribe</S> stipend in move of non-appeasement. America stands taller but poorer, today!

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Virgil K. Saari on 2002-04-06 17:51 ]</font>

On 2002-04-06 17:30, Justin '77 wrote:


Since 1967 Israel has ruled directly, and since 1994 indirectly, over millions of Arab residents who lack all civil rights and the most basic human rights. As this situation has been institutionalized, Israel has ceased to be a democratic state and has become a Herrenvolk democracy - a regime in which citizens enjoy full rights and non-citizens have none. The laws of Israel have become the laws of a master people and Israeli morality the morality of lords of the land.

On Justin?s article,

The Occupied territories are disputed in their ownership; Israel has no obligations to give people in those areas full civil rights. Israel has given full civil rights to Arabs living inside Israel.

Anyway it would be plain suicide if the Israel's gave full civil rights to people living inside the occupied territories. It would spell the end of Israel as a state. Remember the vast majority Arabs want Israel destroyed and the Jews driven out or at the very best living as a minority under oppressive Dhimmi.

Comprise with the Palestinians and the Arabs in general are impossible, given the current state of mind of the Arab world regarding Israel is just impossible. This sutation with Jewish/Arab conflict is quite similar to Sueten German problem in Czechoslovakia. Israel is grateful that the neighbouring Arab countries are not militarily stronger than Israel. If the Arab countries were, Israel?s fate would have been the same as Czechoslovakia in 1938/39.

Last night on Fox News there was an interview with Newt Grinrich on the Jewish/Arab conflict. He compared Arab world?s mindset similar to Nazi Germany in the 1930?s. I afraid it is Arab society which has gone off the deep end, not Israeli society.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Tristan Jones on 2002-04-06 17:50 ]</font>

I do think there a simple solution to solve once and for all the Arab/Jewish conflict and force the Arab countries to recognise Israel. Namely Israel should expel every Arab from not just Israel, however the occupied territories as well.

It is very brutal however very effective. If the Arab countries object, let them attack Israel and they will get their arses kicked. With the International outcry that would accompany such an action. I predict these people will forget about the former conflict in six months after the event mark my words.

This should be the first stage to cleansing the whole Middle East of the bad memes, which infect it. This region is a major barrier to world peace and ultimately a workable global government.

This article published in the National Review basically outlines, what I think we need to do in the Middle East foreign policy wise.

April 2, 2002, 8:20 a.m.

Who Needs the Arabs?
We can win by being winners.

By Barbara Lerner

Polls show Americans are clear about the need to strike Saddam Hussein before he attacks us with weapons of mass destruction. But when it comes to means, clarity vanishes in the fog of "conventional wisdom" endlessly recycled by Western pack journalists. That wisdom is summed up in the self-defeating non sequitur that could be heard, hourly, on every newscast in America as Vice President Cheney toured the Middle East: To make war on Iraq ? repeat after me ? "We need Arab allies." There are two main problems with this journalistic clich?: first that it isn't true, and second that it's against our interests. Pack journalists offer four reasons for it: because without Arab allies, we'd be at war with the whole Muslim world; because we need military bases in Arab lands; "stability in the Middle East"; and Arab oil. All four are false.

Take military bases. To defeat Saddam, we need secure bases in friendly countries ? close enough to Iraq to help us launch and supply our forces. Pack journalists maintain that only Arab lands can provide them. Nonsense; look at a map. There, on Iraq's northern border, sits Turkey ? as staunch a NATO ally as Britain, because when it comes to terrorism, Turkey's interests are the same as ours. Muslim terrorism comes in three main varieties, and responsible Turks hate them all. Islamic religious terrorism is a threat to everything the secular Turkish Republic stands for. Nationalist terrorism of the every-tribe-must-have-a-separate-state variety is an equal threat. In the 1990s, Turkey fought a long, tough war against the Kurdish separatists of the PKK, a terrorist group responsible for thousands of Turkish deaths. And, of course, Turkey fears Saddam's weapons of mass destruction too. That's why Turkey joined us in the Gulf War and lent us Incirlik air base. It's why she'll help again, without making us compromise our interests or our principles. She has only three reasonable requirements: this time, finish the job; make no deals with Iraqi Kurds that might reignite Kurdish separatism; and please, make this war less damaging to the Turkish economy than Gulf War I was.

Why, if this good news is true, do we hear nothing of it? Why does our press ignore Turks? Partly, it's tradition. Alleged human-rights abuses aside, the Western press has ignored Turkey for decades. Partly, it's taste. All those hard-working, increasingly well-educated, pro-Western Muslims, making economic progress and maintaining a Turkish form of democracy ? boring. Arabs, by contrast, offer a transgressive feast ? millions of illiterate, impoverished Muslim victims of Western imperialism. And then, too, there's the ever popular "peace process." Besides, Arab leaders are eager to offer dramatic sound bites about the "catastrophes" an attack on Iraq will provoke; the Turks offer nothing comparable. The Teddy Roosevelt of the Middle East, Turkey speaks softly but carries a big stick. A nation of 66 million, she has long had universal male conscription, and an officer corps selected on the basis of rigorous merit standards. Some think it is the biggest, best army in the world, next to ours ? and it will be behind us, when we're ready. Until then, Turks won't put civilian lives at risk by poking verbal sticks in Saddam's eye.

Well and good for our launch-and-supply paths from the north, you say, but don't we need another ally to give us comparable bases in the south? Yes, we do, and we have one, but it's a secret. Arab propaganda has succeeded in making it not just unmentionable, but unthinkable. Well, let's break the taboo: Israel is close enough to Iraq's southern flank to provide excellent bases for our forces. "But, but, but," conventional wisdom splutters: "We can't do that. It would turn the 'Muslim world' against us." But of course, the Arab world is not the Muslim world ? much less its rightful spokesman. And Turkey will not turn against us if Israel is in our coalition. The Turks already work closely with the Israeli military: They've been doing it for years, because the terrorists who menace Israel menace them too. Turkey has big problems with Syria and Iraq ? but she has no quarrel with Israel or America, and none with Turkish citizens who are Jews or Christians. Turks of both faiths worship freely in this overwhelmingly Muslim country, and suffer no discrimination. So, too, do millions of loyal Turkish Kurds who eschew the path of separatism.

Still, all Arab states will be outraged if we use Israeli bases, and we can't have that, can we? That would vitiate another pack journalist's clich?: our need for "Stability in the Middle East." This, too, is false, and contrary to our interests. Stability here means the maintenance of the status quo in all the corrupt, despotic Arab states that repress and impoverish their subjects. Arab despots need it; it's what keeps them in power, and they maintain it in ways that hurt us. They use their government-controlled presses to spew forth a constant stream of hate propaganda, blaming all their failures on America and Israel, and they export Arab subjects whose violence can't be controlled, even in the police states they run. Omar Abdul Rahman, the man behind the first Trade Towers attack, is one such export; Osama bin Laden is another. Yasser Arafat, too ? he and his Palestinians have been kicked out of half a dozen Arab states. And, of course, there are thousands of less famous Arab exports abroad, busily fomenting new attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and all the other "Stans," not to mention in India, Chechnya, Georgia, the Philippines, Africa, Europe, and the Americas. From an Arab despot's perspective, this makes sense: better blood in the streets of Kashmir, New York, and Jerusalem, than in Cairo, Riyadh, and Damascus. But we have no stake in helping despots avoid reform by diverting their people's rage onto us. Far better, for us, to see the Arab world destabilized than to stand helplessly by and watch Arabs destabilize the rest of the world, as they do today.

That brings us to reason four, Arab oil. What if Arab rulers retaliate by refusing to sell to us? Relax. This is 2002, not 1973. The Arab stranglehold on the oil we need is long gone. Much of our oil today comes from countries eager to sell us more, as Russia is. And when we take Iraq, we'll put a very big oil spigot in friendly hands. There could be a temporary supply disruption while we do that, but other Arab states will make up for it, like it or not. As Rich Lowry rightly insists, their need to sell oil exceeds our need to buy it. They have no other industry, and nothing else worth exporting. To get the cash they need to sustain their shaky tyrannies, they must sell their oil to somebody ? and there's nothing to stop those somebodys from reselling it to us, at a nice profit. Bottom line? A temporary spike in prices, but no lasting economic damage.

It's time to stop genuflecting to the Arabs, compromising our interests and principles on the absurd assumption that we can't do whatever we need to do ? attack Iraq, defend Israel, support freedom in Iran, and openly acknowledge the manifest superiority of the Turkish model for all Muslim nations ? without Arab blessings. Afterwards, relations may well improve since, as bin Laden himself put it, "People naturally prefer the strong horse," i.e., everybody loves a winner. We are the winners; let's act like it. We deserve to win, and so do our natural coalition partners: Muslims, Hindus, Jews, and Christians who believe in freedom, progress, and tolerance. Let's all pray together that President Bush knows it too, and will act on it, boldly, and soon.

? Lerner is a freelance writer in Chicago.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Tristan Jones on 2002-04-06 18:02 ]</font>

On 2002-04-06 17:48, Virgil K. Saari wrote:
Dubya sends "evil" Kim a <S>bribe</s> stipend in move of non-appeasement. America stands taller but poorer, today!

God, what an absolute joke of a hollow, looted shell we have become! Fraudulence, thy name is Bush. This earns a HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAH!


Mr. Saari, be sure and follow that North Korean deal back. See if the Carlyle Group turns up in there.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Stonewall Patton on 2002-04-07 05:26 ]</font>

On 2002-04-06 17:37, Tristan Jones wrote:

Andy Jackson was one mean man, however he might have saved the Cherokee people from being wiped out by murderous settlers.

Well done, Tristan. Jackson takes a lot of grief from today's analysts and perhaps he should have left the Cherokee to decide for themselves whether to move on their own or be annihilated while standing their ground. But Jackson did not act out of malice at the time. Indeed he raised an orphaned Indian boy as his own son. That is a hell of lot more than can be said for Lincoln and his relationship to the black race.

On 2002-04-06 18:01, Tristan Jones wrote:
I do think there a simple solution to solve once and for all the Arab/Jewish conflict and force the Arab countries to recognise Israel. Namely Israel should expel every Arab from not just Israel, however the occupied territories as well.

It is very brutal however very effective. If the Arab countries object, let them attack Israel and they will get their arses kicked. With the International outcry that would accompany such an action. I predict these people will forget about the former conflict in six months after the event mark my words.

This should be the first stage to cleansing the whole Middle East of the bad memes, which infect it. This region is a major barrier to world peace and ultimately a workable global government.

This article published in the National Review basically outlines, what I think we need to do in the Middle East foreign policy wise.

April 2, 2002, 8:20 a.m.

Who Needs the Arabs?
We can win by being winners.

By Barbara Lerner

Polls show Americans are clear about the need to strike Saddam Hussein before he attacks us with weapons of mass destruction. But when it comes to means, clarity vanishes in the fog of "conventional wisdom" endlessly recycled by Western pack journalists. That wisdom is summed up in the self-defeating non sequitur that could be heard, hourly, on every newscast in America as Vice President Cheney toured the Middle East: To make war on Iraq ? repeat after me ? "We need Arab allies." There are two main problems with this journalistic clich?: first that it isn't true, and second that it's against our interests. Pack journalists offer four reasons for it: because without Arab allies, we'd be at war with the whole Muslim world; because we need military bases in Arab lands; "stability in the Middle East"; and Arab oil. All four are false.

Take military bases. To defeat Saddam, we need secure bases in friendly countries ? close enough to Iraq to help us launch and supply our forces. Pack journalists maintain that only Arab lands can provide them. Nonsense; look at a map. There, on Iraq's northern border, sits Turkey ? as staunch a NATO ally as Britain, because when it comes to terrorism, Turkey's interests are the same as ours. Muslim terrorism comes in three main varieties, and responsible Turks hate them all. Islamic religious terrorism is a threat to everything the secular Turkish Republic stands for. Nationalist terrorism of the every-tribe-must-have-a-separate-state variety is an equal threat. In the 1990s, Turkey fought a long, tough war against the Kurdish separatists of the PKK, a terrorist group responsible for thousands of Turkish deaths. And, of course, Turkey fears Saddam's weapons of mass destruction too. That's why Turkey joined us in the Gulf War and lent us Incirlik air base. It's why she'll help again, without making us compromise our interests or our principles. She has only three reasonable requirements: this time, finish the job; make no deals with Iraqi Kurds that might reignite Kurdish separatism; and please, make this war less damaging to the Turkish economy than Gulf War I was.

Why, if this good news is true, do we hear nothing of it? Why does our press ignore Turks? Partly, it's tradition. Alleged human-rights abuses aside, the Western press has ignored Turkey for decades. Partly, it's taste. All those hard-working, increasingly well-educated, pro-Western Muslims, making economic progress and maintaining a Turkish form of democracy ? boring. Arabs, by contrast, offer a transgressive feast ? millions of illiterate, impoverished Muslim victims of Western imperialism. And then, too, there's the ever popular "peace process." Besides, Arab leaders are eager to offer dramatic sound bites about the "catastrophes" an attack on Iraq will provoke; the Turks offer nothing comparable. The Teddy Roosevelt of the Middle East, Turkey speaks softly but carries a big stick. A nation of 66 million, she has long had universal male conscription, and an officer corps selected on the basis of rigorous merit standards. Some think it is the biggest, best army in the world, next to ours ? and it will be behind us, when we're ready. Until then, Turks won't put civilian lives at risk by poking verbal sticks in Saddam's eye.

Well and good for our launch-and-supply paths from the north, you say, but don't we need another ally to give us comparable bases in the south? Yes, we do, and we have one, but it's a secret. Arab propaganda has succeeded in making it not just unmentionable, but unthinkable. Well, let's break the taboo: Israel is close enough to Iraq's southern flank to provide excellent bases for our forces. "But, but, but," conventional wisdom splutters: "We can't do that. It would turn the 'Muslim world' against us." But of course, the Arab world is not the Muslim world ? much less its rightful spokesman. And Turkey will not turn against us if Israel is in our coalition. The Turks already work closely with the Israeli military: They've been doing it for years, because the terrorists who menace Israel menace them too. Turkey has big problems with Syria and Iraq ? but she has no quarrel with Israel or America, and none with Turkish citizens who are Jews or Christians. Turks of both faiths worship freely in this overwhelmingly Muslim country, and suffer no discrimination. So, too, do millions of loyal Turkish Kurds who eschew the path of separatism.

Still, all Arab states will be outraged if we use Israeli bases, and we can't have that, can we? That would vitiate another pack journalist's clich?: our need for "Stability in the Middle East." This, too, is false, and contrary to our interests. Stability here means the maintenance of the status quo in all the corrupt, despotic Arab states that repress and impoverish their subjects. Arab despots need it; it's what keeps them in power, and they maintain it in ways that hurt us. They use their government-controlled presses to spew forth a constant stream of hate propaganda, blaming all their failures on America and Israel, and they export Arab subjects whose violence can't be controlled, even in the police states they run. Omar Abdul Rahman, the man behind the first Trade Towers attack, is one such export; Osama bin Laden is another. Yasser Arafat, too ? he and his Palestinians have been kicked out of half a dozen Arab states. And, of course, there are thousands of less famous Arab exports abroad, busily fomenting new attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and all the other "Stans," not to mention in India, Chechnya, Georgia, the Philippines, Africa, Europe, and the Americas. From an Arab despot's perspective, this makes sense: better blood in the streets of Kashmir, New York, and Jerusalem, than in Cairo, Riyadh, and Damascus. But we have no stake in helping despots avoid reform by diverting their people's rage onto us. Far better, for us, to see the Arab world destabilized than to stand helplessly by and watch Arabs destabilize the rest of the world, as they do today.

That brings us to reason four, Arab oil. What if Arab rulers retaliate by refusing to sell to us? Relax. This is 2002, not 1973. The Arab stranglehold on the oil we need is long gone. Much of our oil today comes from countries eager to sell us more, as Russia is. And when we take Iraq, we'll put a very big oil spigot in friendly hands. There could be a temporary supply disruption while we do that, but other Arab states will make up for it, like it or not. As Rich Lowry rightly insists, their need to sell oil exceeds our need to buy it. They have no other industry, and nothing else worth exporting. To get the cash they need to sustain their shaky tyrannies, they must sell their oil to somebody ? and there's nothing to stop those somebodys from reselling it to us, at a nice profit. Bottom line? A temporary spike in prices, but no lasting economic damage.

It's time to stop genuflecting to the Arabs, compromising our interests and principles on the absurd assumption that we can't do whatever we need to do ? attack Iraq, defend Israel, support freedom in Iran, and openly acknowledge the manifest superiority of the Turkish model for all Muslim nations ? without Arab blessings. Afterwards, relations may well improve since, as bin Laden himself put it, "People naturally prefer the strong horse," i.e., everybody loves a winner. We are the winners; let's act like it. We deserve to win, and so do our natural coalition partners: Muslims, Hindus, Jews, and Christians who believe in freedom, progress, and tolerance. Let's all pray together that President Bush knows it too, and will act on it, boldly, and soon.

? Lerner is a freelance writer in Chicago.


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Tristan Jones on 2002-04-06 18:02 ]</font>

Nice wake-up call, Tristan. Now, if only it could be loud enough to wake up our leaders and talking heads.

As for the oil angle, I'd be more than glad to buy the Russian oil, and tell the Arabs what they could do with theirs. I've felt that way for almost 30 years, too - about the Arab oil, at least. Now, an increasingly democratic, increasingly prosperous, and increasingly friendly Russia finally gives us the chance to do just that.

As for Turkey, one can hope that our past support of the Bosnian Muslims and Kosovar Albanians will pay some dividends in terms of gratitude now. If so, perhaps we could one day reward the Turks by helping them set up as the Core State of the Islamic World, and then treating them as a fellow Great Power by virtue of said status. They will have earned it.

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: jds1958xg on 2002-04-06 18:32 ]</font>

Marc Lamb wrote,
"You profess to be a Marxist, of sorts, Mr. Reed. Has not the Marxist 'experiment' in totalitarian dictatorship ended, yet?"

First of all, I did not call Mr. Reed a "commie," I did not "red-bait," Mr. Reed at all. Niether was my post "snide and obnoxious and arrogant," or wrapped in "confusing folderol" and "McCarthyist tactics."

By Mr. Reed's own test results do I suggest that he is a "Marxist, of sorts." Furthermore, he ascribes to being an anti-corporationist which by nature makes him an anti-constitutionalist, in that it denies a U.S. citizen the right of Free Assembly.

Secondly, the fact that the "Marxist 'experiment' in totalitarian dictatorship" has not ended yet, means that it still endangers the free peoples of this country and of this planet. And the fact that the roots of the New Deal are planted firmly in Marxist "class-warfare" ideology makes it fair game for debate.

Having said that, I won't deny having felt much passion when I wrote my post. Having just read Mr. Reed trash what made this country great, and compare Bush to Yassir Arafat, struck me the wrong way.

So there! :razz:

On 2002-04-06 16:13, Marc Lamb wrote:

And because the people give government it's power, we pulled out of Vietnam.

Put the bong down, Marc.

The decisions our leaders make, from FDR to Dubya, for better or worse, are "just" and they are "moral" because they are derived from "the people," and enumerated in constitutional law.

So you are now an advocate of the "living document?" This is your brain, Marc. This is your brain on drugs. Put the bong down.

God, what an absolute joke of a hollow, looted shell we have become! Fraudulence, they name is Bush. This earns a HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHA!

<FONT SIZE="-1">Stonewall Patton as Vizzini </FONT>

Strikes again!

On 2002-04-06 18:46, Marc Lamb wrote:

Secondly, the fact that the "Marxist 'experiment' in totalitarian dictatorship" has not ended yet, means that it still endangers the free peoples of this country and of this planet. And the fact that the roots of the New Deal are planted firmly in Marxist "class-warfare" ideology makes it fair game for debate.

Yes, but you just praised FDR a minute ago as a "just" and "moral" leader who ruled with the "consent of the governed" in line with enumerated powers. Is it a "living document" or does it actually mean something, Marc? Make up your mind. It might help if you put the bong down.

On 2002-04-06 18:54, Marc Lamb wrote:

HAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHA!

Stonewall Patton as Vizzini

Strikes again!

Yes, Marc. That HAHAH...HAHA was of course intended for you. I'm glad that you are not so zoned out that you missed it entirely.