Forgive me, as it was a long time ago, but in my 11th grade year I had, for some period of time a teacher named Mr. Souder (forgive the spelling too!). He was a way leftie, as I recall his area of research; how labor unions prevented a socialist revolution from happening in the United States. He was also proud of telling us that our parents and teachers have sex. For the life of me I cannot recall why this is important, but I digress - this is my blog after all.
Among many things he taught me; he would go on and on about the multi-generational impact war has on a society. It struck me at the time that this had little to do with me, I am not sure of a Tableman who has ever been in the military, for that matter anyone within a couple generations in any direction. You will find untold numbers of professionals, not much else.
Interesting question I need to ask my parents, why did my grandfathers never serve, they would be the right ages - again a digression.
War not only deprives us of financial resources, maims - mentally and physically - our citizens and the citizens of the nations we wage war against, we are deprived of the lives of those that die in the war along with all of their potential progeny. Think about this for a moment. It is as if you cut off a branch of a tree. The now detached branch will never bloom and fruit. We are potentially removing from our midst inventors, scholars, activists, hard-working-middle-class-aspiring-individuals, farmers, computer scientists, patent holders, bakers, chefs, strippers…you get the idea. But WAIT, it is not just the single individual, it is as if we lost hundreds more! In 40 year from now, we will be deprived of about 30000 people! That is the size of a medium American town.
Specialist King. From his April 2, 2007, journal entry: “People used to say to me before coming here, ‘Ryen don’t try to be a hero, just make it home safe.’ I thought to myself that there are only heroes in wars that matter, but now I’m thinking that there were heroes when wars mattered…”
We have so much to learn from this and I have so little hope we will.
Reinforcing the relative decline in U.S. power and the dissatisfaction of Europe and Japan with the system was the continuing decline of the dollar—the foundation that had underpinned the post-1945 global trading system. The Vietnam War and the refusal of the administration of U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson to pay for it and its Great Society programs through taxation resulted in an increased dollar outflow to pay for the military expenditures and rampant inflation, which led to the deterioration of the U.S. balance of trade position. In the late 1960s, the dollar was overvalued with its current trading position, while the Deutsche Mark and the yen were undervalued; and, naturally, the Germans and the Japanese had no desire to revalue and thereby make their exports more expensive, whereas the U.S. sought to maintain its international credibility by avoiding devaluation. Meanwhile, the pressure on government reserves was intensified by the new international currency markets, with their vast pools of speculative capital moving around in search of quick profits.
Let me make it clearer: Viet Nam = Iraq/GWOT, Mark = Euro, Great Society = Economic Stimulus, Shitty Dollar and declining American Esteem = Shitty Dollar and declining American Esteem
I have an RSS feed to my desktop of newly published Rand reports. I tend to read the summaries instead of the long studies, as even a student of the world doesn’t need to know the detail invovled in 700 pages treatises on a particular subject.
Information resourcefully gathered, widely shared, and wisely used can engender healthy pluralism and expand the awareness and options of individuals. It can be used to pry apart local insurgency and global jihad, improve operational decision making, and sharpen the precision and effectiveness of force. When seen and treated as a strategic asset, information power can help redefine the struggle with Islamic extremism from one of spiraling violence to one of competing truth, from a self-perpetuating war of attrition to a winnable war of cognition.
I only worry that the ideal of pluralism sponsored from information is a very “western” ideal and doesn’t jive with how Islamic societies seem to function. The need to pray 5 times a day, and in particular how the prayers come up on the TV and people drop to the ground quickly 5 times a day feels very big brother like. I have no real direct proof of this, but the homogeneity of at least subsets of Muslim peoples is driven by Islam itself, or perhaps the current rightist inclination of Islam. This translates into a lack of a desire for plurality. Think Catholic controlled medieval Europe.
Next, I hope all the neo-con idiots read this one:
The greatest weakness in the struggle with Islamic insurgency is not U.S. firepower but the ineptitude and illegitimacy of the very regimes that are meant to be the alternative to religious tyranny—the ones tagged and targeted as Western puppets by jihad. Success thus hinges on improving the performance and accountability of governments in the Muslim world.
Got it yet? Just like in Latin America, supporting the government that likes us is NEVER in our best long term interests. Supporting a government that supports the people, that certainly is.
Thank you Frederick Douglass for reminding me of this from the grave, as tiled into the side of a work center near the Port Authority Bus Terminal in NYC. I walked past this building about a week ago and have been rolling around this phrase in my head since.
Then this morning I listened to a report on NPR about the new Arabic School here in NYC. There is lots and lots of controversy around this school. You can read all about it, if you care, but I spare you the jingoism and xenophobia: people hate the school.
At this point you might be thinking what do the words of a freed slave have to do with an Arabic school in NYC…
It is simple, and 2 fold:
If we learn about “the enemy” and increase understanding of “him” we can no longer vilify “him” and the GWOT will have to be questioned, thereby upsetting the fascist US status quo.
People are idiots and inherently hate education - just watch any Fox network and you will see why they are so popular. Idiots rule this nation by their gullibility and the ease by which they can be manipulated.
I am squarely behind this school. If it spawns a couple kids to civil disobedience and question our jihad against anything non-evangelically-Christian, then there might just be a God.
Iran, Iraq, Global Warming, Technology Gap, Drugs for Kids, Suburban Despair, Lawlessness of USA, Katrina, White House as THE SEAT OF ALL EVIL, WHO WILL WE VOTE FOR? WHAT KIND OF NATION WILL BE?
I listen to a podcast called The War on Democracy and today they were talking about this movie on Google Video. You simple must see it. Now that the election cycle is drawing near, expect more “WAKE THE FUCK UP AMERICA!” type posts.
A quote from the man who made it:
“The film tells a universal story, analysing and revealing, through vivid testimony, the story of great power behind its venerable myths. It allows us to understand the true nature of the so-called war on terror”.
It is worth the watch to see successive Republican presidents shutdown!
But meanwhile billions to improve some other nation we should have left alone, billions chasing some guy in the mountains of a country we shouldn’t even speak to all to protect us from terrorism.
None of this will protect us from our own greed and ineptitude. Turbo capitalism is consuming us all.
Fossil fuels are bad for us, bad for the fish, bad for the GWOT.
We need to reduce our dependency on them.
We also have a labor/farm/immigration issue here in the US of A.
How are these related?
Well, as we need more grains and crops to make alternative fuels, we increase demand. When demand goes up you can see a rise in prices. And we are:
Bioenergies have become a key factor in the functioning of agriculture markets.
This is really perfect how well they fit together.
We will see a resurgence of farming activity in the USA as a result of a higher demand for biofuels. This means farmers can make more $ and support families and communities from farming again. Then it means we will see the labor correction which will solve immigration: wages will go up and Americans will be able to work on farms and make a living.
We simply need to keep illegals out & not make them legal out of guilt or some misplaced pandering. By letting laborers into the USA to do farm work, we remove all wage pressures and thereby hand jobs to foreigners and not our next door neighbors.
We need to stop screwing up our economy at the expense of the “little man” and let this happen.
Did you hear about this one? Where a college student created a boarding pass generator that could be used to create a boarding pass whereby you could gain entry to the secure area of the terminal. Perfect! You might be thinking, wow , that is a smart kid! Oh, if only there were new news:
Schneier highlighted the same issue…more than three years ago. U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, warned of the same security issue last year and again in April this year.
Perfect! Do even need to say it? War? Torture? Hatred? Wiretapping? Secret Prisons? And all it took was a smarty pants college kid.
“Gay American“, Liar, Cheat, Dirt bag, Slithering Snake, Politician, former governor. These are all titles that fit completely moral bankrupt Jim McGreevey. He has been all over the news lately with his new book and the news of NJ continuing on its mach as one of the most socially progressive states in this backward nation.
If I hear one more person say he is ‘tough’, or ‘wow that must have been hard’, or he must have been ’scared’, I am going to puke, scream, and shit all at once. He is a DIRTBAG who lied to his wife and kids, lied to that State, and worse yet campaigned hard AGAINST gay rights in NJ.
It does not end at this, as if more were needed: He appointed the object of his hidden desire to head up homeland security for NJ. We certainly found out what ‘land’ they were busy securing: closeted-self-loathing-liar-homo-land.
No excuse or apology makes up for ANY of this. We all make choices. Some choose, no matter the hardship, a path of attempting to “do good”. Others choose apathy and take the path of least resistance. McGreevey chose outright deceit and aggression against his own kind and put NJ at risk for his perverted lascivious desires.
I share this from the “celebration” of 4000 dead:
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