Re: OT: Food for Thoughts 5 (Longish)

[glenn <glenn234@pacbell.net>]

this part looked good:


on 9/14/01 8:20 PM, Kevin Mulvihill at kmulvihill@mediaone.net wrote:

> we
> need to find better ways of hearing and acting on these concerns so that
> folks don't feel the need for such extreme action.

so thought to  add this:


                    Not missing the forest.


 No one here has or is condoning what went down. It is not unamerican to 
say
"i love my country, but", in fact the contrary may be the case. There may 
be
no long term solution but to consider our role in the world and the impact
it has on others, of whom there is a long line of replacements and much 
much
more hianous(sp?) acts possible(don't forget chemical and don't believe 
they
weren't used in the Gulf War, I was there in the US Army when they were
used). Look into the radioactive rounds we used and what it's done to the
children of that country. Blame it on saddam? If you know anything about 
the
middle east then you have to know the history of our puppet gov't of iran 
in
the shah, Mosadeq' overthrow and the CIA's retaking withing weeks, the shah
trying to actually act for the welfare of his people and long term self
sufficiency for when the oil ran out, when he suggested opec raise prices
and cut prduction and began talks with the soviets on an alternate source 
of
defense equipemnt-in addition to the clamor the CIA ran iranian secret
police had raised on human rights violations, the the US actually brokered
in Khomeini and then being mad that he then said "guess what i said i'd 
work
with you but i lied", that the us in embarrasment and anger froze iranian
assets including dozens of paid in advance f-15s(or was it 14's?) which
arent cheap, tanks, and other equip-all their stuff came from the u
 s, they were a puppet imperialist holding of the us.  Some people took 
some
people hostage and then Ronald Reagan while placating the public with talk,
arranged with ollie north to provide iran with resupply of badly needed
parts through israel, paid for by a slush fund from nicarauguan drug sales.
The reason the parts were so needed is that Saddam Hussein, who had tried 
to
attack Iran plenty of times before but was underequipped and slapped down
each time, was massively built up by the US to punish Iran for mistakes in
US foreign policy. Some of the guys directly involved in the blunder and
everything that came after:  Warren Christopher, Zbigniew Bryaenski, Cyrus
Vance. So we gave 15 BILLION dollars to Iraq to kill Iranians and between
1980 and 1988 that's exactly what he did, using conventional, chemical and
biological weapons he attacked and killed 600,000 iranians(for reference
that's 60 times the number of people they project were killed last week.
600,000 dead and 1.5 million wounded, despite what people sometimes think
these were actual real human beings with pictures of their families in 
their
wallets(I was working in a record store for 2.35 per hour here and my taxes
went to saddam and he kille my uncle there, a civil engineer). Some of the
cannisters used to disperse the chemicals had us markings right on the
drums. Did anyone in the us care about that?  1.5 million, oh they were 
just
insert racist expletives here (did they even know, anymore than the average
"well educated" person here knows what's going on now?)
So in Iraq there is a massive monument shaped and colored like a giant 
blood
drop and the entire roof of the inside is lined with the heads of iranians
they killed. NONE of that is the fault of the Iraqi people who are as
powerless and decent and lied to as we are here. IT is the us that made him
more than just a petty tyrant. That war broke Iran which was, thanks to the
vision of the growing a conscience shah, on the road to total self
dependence not reliant on oil. we fixed that, broke them by building up an
aggresive amoral saddam and then in came the IMF with "Hey, uh, i hear
you're in a little money trouble, friend. Hopefully you know something 
about
how that tune goes as it's been sung so often in so many different
languages, but it's all just business, right?

bad US foreign policy. bad world leadership. bad karma

Then we shot down an iranian passenger plane killing all two hundred people
on board. Firs they said it was sending the wrong transponder signal, then
they said it was in international waters. The us was tried and convicted in
international court and made to pay something like 50 thousand for each
breadwinning life, and like 9 thousand for each non-bread winning life.
Gee and here i thought a human body was only worth 5 dollars for the raw
materials? You could get more for selling your body organs, which is just
what some of the mothers in iraq have had to do to get normal inexpensive
(here) medicines and treament and even food for their starving children
because of the us. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

So both of the claims were proven false: the transponder was showing
civilian airliner and they were on their normal flight path well inside of
iranian air space. The us was tried and convicted of terrorism in
international court. Only here, the way it went down was when they got back
to the US they were given a ticker tape parade and lauded as heroes. The
commander and crew of the Vicennes were called "heroes" and were soon given
medals and promotions and that was that.

Since then the CIA has been running a little operation out of Iraq billed 
as
a dissendent group: run and staffed by the CIA under the name of Mujadeen
Khalq. They make incursions into Iran, into markets and blow up bombs.
Regularly.

The wealthy white folks who screwed up royally with what they did with 
their
puppet gone real king are still pissed and racist to this day and still
trying to take it out on the iranian people, who have it hard enough. (Yes
their government sucks in lots of ways, but for right now I'm going to
consider that a side issue.) They built up saddam on the left
side(physically of Iran and allowed and helped Pakistan build up the 
Taliban
on the right, with the same philosphy, including one Osama bin laden.

Iran has helped Ahmed massoud shah, the most respected leader in fighting
badck the russian army there, who now only holds about 5 percent of
afganistan in the north. The taliban are well armed with about everything
pakistand has(hopefully except their nukes) and everything the US did to
build them up, which was alot. The innocent people of that country have
sufferec beyond our ability to comprehend, are in a 4 year drought, and
under the oppresion of the regime WE built up there. Incidentally, this 
last
Sunday Ahmed Massoud went to talk to the press and two Taliban suicide
bombers with a TV camera full of explosives blew themselves up, 
assasinating
Ahmed Massoud. The explosions around Kabul were the former Ahmed massoud's
forces from the 5 percent of the north they still hold, striking back at 
the
Pakistani armed Taliban for assasisinating their leader. This is the same
Taliban that assasinated Iranian diplomats and Un workers there not long
ago.

Bad foreign policy, see the theme?



Israel recieves 13.5 billion in US taxpayer dollars each year. They have
tanks, fighter jets, artillery, and every kind of modern weaponry you could
imagine. When they captured that land from the palestinians they killed 
well
over 20,000 people and took their  beachfront land. The israeli people
should have a state in their ancestral home. So should the palestinians,
only they are treated like dogs(I mean by the government/army and some
non-representative bad people, there are LOTS of totally decent, good,,
caring and moral jewish people in Israel and here and for that matter, in
Iran) in an apartheid state which is at war with it's second class 
citizens.
One side has NBC weapons, tanks fighterjets, helicopter gunships, etc. the
other side has to make to with stick and rocks, a few guns, grenades and
molotov cocktails. plus some estes-like rockets. American bombs from
american weopons killing their babies. Of course they are going to be 
pissed
at us. Though like the Israelis, the one's doing the bad stuff don't define
the race/culture/religion. There are decent, good, caring an moral people,
but you won't see them on your news channel this week, you just see the 
ones
that tried to fight back, you just see the kids with the flags and candy.
How many palestinians killed today?...to "root out terror" in "response" to
the "guerillas". Anyone seen this approach which bush is suggesting we take
on, actually reduce terrorism in that part of the world? Okay, now how 
about
increase?

Lets not forget US disarming the Muslims in Bosnia and Yugoslavia, then
standing by as the serbs lined them up and robbed, raped, killed them and
buried them in mass graves.

Countless shit in South America, Africa, elsewhere.
We knew about the genocide in Rowanda and did NOTHING, the quote starbucks
armchair political experts like to parrot the newsreader that paint the
canvas of their political awareness was "We don't have a 'Vital economic
interest' there". "F" that, man those were human being and we didn't help
because the wealthy white men and their pathetic colin powerl in washington
who call the shots decide that we really DON"T have "vital corporate
interests" and the people won't like or vote for them if some of their kids
die to save some blacks from genocide. If it were england or they had Oil 
or
Gum trees we'd be there, but it's africa and they were black and we didn't.

In ethiopia/eritria what did we do to stop the killing of the 15 million
people who died in that protracted civil war. You better believe we sold us
some weapons, boy.

in the duty free zones our corporate lobbies have created, workers are
treated like replacable commodities: unsafe conditions, inhuman hours, no
benefits, if they get sick or pregnant, they are simply replaced. If they
should try to organize, they are dissapeared. but it gets us cheap goods
with high margins, baby.

How would you feel if you'd been born there?

What about the price of a head of lettuce here? Illegal workers are
"allowed" to work for subhuman wages while living in subhuman unsanitary
conditions, with no healthcare or benefits of any kind under threat of
deportation in the event of a problem. All so we can have a cheaper head of
lettuce and look down at them as they walk past in some jacked up car while
we're having some nice sanitary meal in a restaurant.

People here living in the streets, the plight of the mentally ill, the
homeless, the elderly, the disabled. It's a national disgrace. How about 40
billion for them?

Capitalism can be translated to "everyman(and woman) for his(and her) 
self",
which is great if you're on top, not so great if you're not. Opportunity.

Only the gap is widening. The cost of basic things is rising up to build a
wall between the haves and have nots. I for one would not be surprise to 
see
a headline in the the next few years like "Patronage: rethinking indentured
servancy".

have you ever been hungry? It is violence whose scars don't go away when 
you
can finally get a meal. Imagine working your 40-60 hours and then all of a
sudden you are told you will be paid half as much. That's the kind of power
the IMF has over societies whom they have floated a "load" in times of
need(which they may or may not have had a hand in creating).

Even with our faults, we take so much for granted here that others don't
ever get to know. I can tell you after living in the sand for 9 months in
the Gulf war, living on a cot in a tent without a floor and eating shitty
bag meals that i am stil grateful for every meal i am able to get, every
soft place i have to sleep, every comfort and moment of peace to reflect.
But I'm still a spoiled bastard compared to what much of the world knows as
life.

Is it really such a secret that so much of our comfort has come/comes at
someone else's cost? Like in Thomas dolby's classic tune "Budapest By
Blimp":
Over pillars and palaces I'll hold your hand
Until the fog has lifted
May be better you hold me close than understand
How are away I've drifted
In the face of a tragedy too bleak to know
The death of some grand illusion
All the treasure we pilloried, splendour we stole
They never taught you that in school...

Here's a map and a diagram, a shrivelled page
Ripped from the book of history
see the priceless antiquity frozen in time
Built on the ashes of the Jews
And for your curiosity, beauty sublime
Signed in the blood of Zulus

Is it really so hard to handle the truth, in a country built by genocide 
and
"rooting out and handling the 'terror' of it's previous inhabitants, the
american indians. An empire in decay, built on the backs of african 
american
and black slaves, of the poor by the rich, until the companies had to turn
outside our borders to get cheap labor without workers rights to maximize
profits and give us cheap goods. Those who are still disenfranchised we 
tell
to work within the system. Some have died working within the system. Some
have advocated freedom by any means necessary. Killing others is NEVER
right, but does that mean we have to close our eyes to the legacy we've 
been
creating in the world? What kind of solution is that?

And for those who still want blood in revenge for last week, since people
who do things like this have already decided that it's worth it to them to
cash in their own life for some principle they believe in that's bigger 
than
themself, erring as they do in dehumanizing their victims, what good will
executing them do?

Timothy mcVeigh knew he was trading his life for a cause he believed in
before during and after doing it, even though it was wrong to kill innocent
and even not innocent people, playing god and killing him(also without a
fair trial cause we already KNEW he was guilty). This is not cowardice, it
it mass murder from good intentions gone astray, which is still mass 
murder,
but from where the mind of the people doing this are coming from, it is an
act of total courage and commitment, not cowardice.
In case you need this emphasize to be clear I am not condoning anything
anyone's done to hurt anyone ever. Simple as that.
But instead of the blood lust, first for someone middle eastern, then for
timothy mcviegh, why wasn't anyone asking why he felt so strongly about
that?

Was the killing of innocent civilians who might worship somewhat 
differently
from the way most people do at Waco really just a source of water cooler
jokes? The charges the whole raid were made on, the whole premise, were
proven unsubstantiated? Have you seen the whole footage of the 
attack/murder
of those people, including the footage of the ATF agents shooting/their own
people? of the residents being shot in cold blood, of them asking for 
media,
of the thermal images of where the kids were and the fire being inserted
into the building and tanks running back and forth over the bunker where 
the
kids were known to be hiding until it collapsed on them.

Since when is knowingly killing innocent children okay?

But two wrongs don't make a right, and that's why Timothy McViegh acted no
more Christian than those hijackers were Muslim, than we all are decent
human beings-if we, like them, emulate our oppresors, go for two wrongs
because Bush sees an opportunity to take the focus off what's happenned to
the country/world since he took office, because congressmen and senators
want to get kickbacks from PAC lobbyist for contracts that will result from
a fat defense budget that will come out of my and your social security,
because the media newsreaders(who struggle not to laugh) each want to be 
the
next household newsreader name and jerk their heads up and down with
suggestive nodding while they lull you to sleep with half truths and the
irrelevant.

Two people in a firebird tried to run me over/hit at high speed me while i
was in the middle of a crosswalk during my morning run the other day,they
veered toward the direction i moved in then and were glaring right at me 
and
hollaring out some things too stupid to write as they sped off laughing.

No problem, I've been beaten and discriminated against by bigots who got
that way because they let themselved slip into projecting hate on easy
targets when trying to deal with emotions they didn't have a lot of
experience with, which i can empathize with.

Even if my fellow citizens of California do us like they did the Japanese
it'll be fine: I'm already really poor so the living arrangements wont be
much different, althogh it would be harder to lose the piano than my rights
as a citizen:), it'd be all expenses paid and then afteward who knows, 
maybe
a cash settlement. Sky's the limit babe. Norm Mineta, our current secretary
of transportation, was interned by his fellow californians as a young
Japanese american after pearl harbor, and look where he made it to.
On second thought, hate away!!!:):):) just kidding.

the thing is people are slipping into hate. Middle easter and muslim 
centers
are being attacke with firebombs in some parts of the country. A man 
stabbed
a middle eastern gas station attendant with a two foot machete. An elderly
man chased a muslim woman with his car and followed her into a shop and
stabbed her. A mob of people carrying american flags and chanting
"USA,USA,USA" bum rushed a mosque and beat people up and chased them out.
Cab drivers are being pulled out of their cars and beaten. Little girls are
being cruelly harassed about their scarf by other children, who learned it
from their parents. It's just not neccesary. You like to think that we've
become more civilized, more spiritually evoloved, enlightened. But the
opposite is true.

There are a hundred ways to try to defend and rationalize it but hate is
still hate. the enemy is within. two wrongs don't make a right.

Peace, love and understanding for ourselves and others may sound cliche, 
but
it's important. We can also look at how we've behaved and try to be better.
That can't hurt.

I thank God that these guys really were trying, while homicidally, to only
make a largely symbolic act, if a murderous and unforgivable one only made
possible because they were stupidly amoral enough to dehumanize the people
who would get killed by their mission so they didn't have to think of what
they were doing as wrong. Because it could have been worse: if they wanted
to kill americans, per se, they could have taken a plane or planes into a
nuclear reactor or two, and that would have killed and injured several
states worth of people and no way to clean it up.
Or they could have used chemical weapons.
Making people eat with forks and spoons in airports is nice but mostly to
make people think that it's all safe now, but a person could carry a gas
which they had taken the antidote for in a hair spray can, a perfume 
bottle,
a snickers bar and knock everybody out, including an "air marshall". i 
don't
like to think about it either. Once every couple of years i save up enough
money to fly to disneyland, which i consider close to heaven and this stuff
scares the shit out of me, but if we're going to focus on it, let's be 
real.

They could cross a border or paddle in on a wooden boat that wouldn't show
up on radar with a tennis ball can with enough chemical agent to hurt alot
of people. It doesn't take much imagination to imagine worse, our water, 
our
air, etc.

I'd say as horrible as it sounds, that we were lucky.
And that rather than going with President Kill's hate parade, in the long
run, a world that really runs on trust and trust in human nature would be a
safer place for all of us if we tried to be more trustworthy in the world,
tried to get our corporations to be more ethical, stopped supporting 
despots
and messing with other countries politics and economies and playing god, 
but
that's just an opinion from a concerned citizen.

Not that the greed inherant in capitalism would ever let that happen as 
long
as that's the kind of country we are, but just so say that there's a chance
that understanding and trying to be good and lead by example could work in
the long run.