Okay, besides Sarah Palin and me, how many of you don't know what the Bush Doctrine is?
I know that I'm not an expert on politics, nor do I intend to become one, but this is an election year and maybe we should pay more attention. When Sarah Palin was asked what her opinion of the Bush Doctrine was, she was caught off guard about what it might be. I think that she knew about the philosophies that Bush advocated, but she simply didn't know that they were called a “Doctrine.”
The bush doctrine is:
...first articulated in 2002, which holds that the United States government should depose foreign regimes that represent a threat to the security of the United States, even if such threats are not immediate and no attack is imminent.
Okay, most of the people that come to this blog are more than reasonably intelligent people, and most have given us some very good opinions. It is difficult to know when one country should engage in war against another country, but I’m sure that all but the most rabid pacifist would, at some point, agree that war is a reasonable response to agression. We just don’t agree on what that point should be. Bush thinks we should attack any country that “represent a threat to the security of the United States”.
When the terrorist flew their planes into the Twin Towers, I felt that there was a need to retaliate. Most people of the United States agreed with me. We went after the Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, and by extension we went after the government of Afghanistan, because “You are either for us, or against us”.
All of the above is straightforward, and is understood by most people. When it gets fuzzy is when we went into Iraq, and after Saddam Hussein. We went into Iraq because they “represented a threat to the security of the united States”. But indeed, Iraq was found to be a “Hot-bed of Al Quada” and the skirmish there attracted more Al Qaeda to follow our troops. Here is some dicussion on the beating that they took at the hands of the free world troops: the demise of Al Qaeda in Iraq
And here is some more references on a couple of the main players if you like:
Osama Bin Laden
Saddam Hussein
We all desire peace and tranquility, and “the price of peace is eternal vigilance.”
We know that Appeasement didn’t work with Hitler, and two nuclear bombs turned Japan into one of our best ally’s.
With out getting into the rhetoric of who’s the best candidate and why, I would like to know what your “Personal Doctrine” would be if you were President. To be fair, I’m not sure what mine would be. This is one of those times when I would recommend that you post “anonymously” Unless you are particularly proud of your “Doctrine“. I really would like to see peace in the world, and I would like to see some good ideas from people like “us” on how to achieve it.
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I received this as an e-mail, but it fits this topic so well that I asked the person who wrote it if I could reprint it here. He, like me, is pretty generic politically, but is a staunch supporter of American ideals. I will keep his name anonymous, and let his words stand on their own, as most anons like to advocate.
Quote:
I'm trying not to bother you with political stuff so much anymore, but the news today reminds me far too much of my time in the military, and the horror I, along with many other men and women, had to face.
Russia has some of its technologically superior strategic bombers in Venezuela now. (If you've forgotten where Venezuela is, it's fronts the Caribbean.) And Russia is in the process of moving some of their ships into the Caribbean, for what they call "joint exercises" with Hugo Chavez. Shades of the Cold War (which wasn't as "cold" as you might have been led to believe) and shades of the Cuban Missile Crisis.
What did Pres. John F. Kennedy say, during the crisis of my time? These are his words:
"My fellow citizens: let no one doubt that this is a difficult and dangerous effort on which we have set out. No one can see precisely what course it will take or what costs or casualties will be incurred. Many months of sacrifice and self-discipline lie ahead–months in which our patience and our will be tested–months in which many threats and denunciations will keep us aware of our dangers. But the greatest danger of all would be to do nothing.
"The path we have chosen for the present is full of hazards, as all paths are–but it is the one most consistent with our character and courage as a nation and our commitments around the world. The cost of freedom is always high–and Americans have always paid it. And one path we shall never choose, and that is the path of surrender or submission.
"Our goal is not the victory of might, but the vindication of right- -not peace at the expense of freedom, but both peace and freedom, here in this hemisphere, and, we hope, around the world. God willing, that goal will be achieved." – President John F. Kennedy - October 22, 1962
Many of you weren't even alive during that time, but that was the time of my military service, and it was a horrible time, a time I'm not even allowed to talk about.
Another speech, addressing a world crisis, was made just a few months before I was born by another great president. These are the words of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Feb. 23, 1942:
"Those Americans who believed that we could live under the illusion of isolationism wanted the American eagle to imitate the tactics of the ostrich. Now, many of those same people, afraid that we may be sticking our necks out, want our national bird to be turned into a turtle.
"But we prefer to retain the eagle as it is — flying high and striking hard.
"I know (that) I speak for the mass of the American people when I say that we reject the turtle policy and will continue increasingly the policy of carrying the war to the enemy in distant lands and distant waters — as far away as possible from our own home grounds." FDR 2/23/42
It's time to get scared. It's time to get mad. It's time — with enemies all around us, all wanting to put an end to us — to realize our future is not written yet, and that the next President of the United States could be presiding over the end of this country, if we don't have the courage of our forefathers.
As they knew, there were things important enough to draw a strong reaction. And there are things worth dying for, to protect.
There is no magic wand sitting next to the gavel in congress. There are no space aliens coming down to save us from our foolishness. There is no black hole into another dimension, where we can escape like Kirk and Spock, when things became too difficult.
If the U.S. falls, where else is there to go? Certainly not Europe. Today, Great Britain announced their courts would be implementing sharia law -- Islamic law! -- in some of their cases. Europe is collapsing like a bad soufflé.
If we believe one person can make a difference, now is the time to get off our butts and get busy and stop taking what this country provides for granted.
Dumbed-down citizens are allowing the media and the politicians, from both sides of the race for president, to degrade the process, to make it about things as trivial as what Obama meant by "lipstick", or what kind of hair style Palin wears.
This country's life is in danger, and the danger comes from a large number of fronts. Billions of people want to see the U.S. vanish! Those are the issues we should demand the candidates to address. Never in history have we needed to turn off the fiction, take off the rose-colored glasses, and hear and heed the truth.
It took a Roosevelt and a Kennedy to get us out of trouble the last times. Will our people, will our leadership, have as much courage again?
Thanks for reading this. Sorry it was so long
There are several interpretations of the "Bush Doctrine" - so it is fair to respond to a question like Gibson's by asking him in what regard he means it - but most people who hate Bush will define it as attacking before we are attacked, or they will say for no reason.
***
If you're interested - there are some sites with the FULL transcripts of Sarah Palin's interview, and what gets edited out may be more interesting than what was kept. Here's one.
In fact, many PR people are now advising anyone who goes into a TV interview should take their own video camera and make sure they have their own record of what transpires. To guard against malicious editing, and quotes taken out of context. This is particularly necessary if you are a Republican candidate.
The Weisse (White) Rose has been co-opted by a number of unworthy benefactors of the bravery of a small group of people who lived -- and died -- as German citizens who quietly spread leaflets in opposition to Hitler and the SS.
I have stood in front of the university, where, embedded in the curves of the cobbles, lies a simple memorial to those brave people, who were willing to give their lives for the idea that evil is evil, and stopping evil is a cause worth dying for. And I cried.
Now, I ask you this: do you know the story of Jan Palach? Here was a talent Czech boy who was was dying for freedom during the same time people in the U.S. were burning flags.
You should know his story, if for no other reason than to be certain the world is not completely populated by cowards.
My “Personal Doctrine” - There is more than one way to peace.
Bowing down to murderous extremists will not bring peace, at least not any kind of peace that resembles the world we want to live in.
For what it may be worth, I think your anonymous friend is correct. It is best to remember at times like these that there have always been times like these. The difference being that America needs the resolve to act (or not) without agonizing over the decision. That's why we need the right temperament and judgment in our next president.
I think most locals know who I plan to vote for, but whoever prevails has to put the country's interests first and political interests last. Even if that results in a one-term presidency.
I will go back even further than your friend's example, to the Civil War ... Lincoln was under enormous pressure to end the war because the carnage and horrors were getting to be too much for the country to bear. Yet he kept his resolve to keep the country together AND end slavery. This was no small task and took a large toll on Lincoln's health and popularity.
We continue to live in dangerous times. Let us hope that the lessons of 9/11 don't escape us, and that we back those actions that the US will inevitably have to take to protect our citizens from outside threats, be they from Iran, Russia or terrorists.
Caligula, yes, I remember Jan Palach Our patriotism pales in comparison to people like him. He died for what he believed in by burning himself to death to make a point. He did make a very dramatic point and he was greatly honored for his actions.
Unfortunately he removed a very passionate voice for the cause of freedom. Though he made his point, it was his final point, and I in no way advocate someone doing that. I hope to live to fight for freedom, to fight yet another day. To kill oneself is to give in to the enemy. In spite of all the fine things that they say about Gandhi, his peaceful tactics only work against civilized people.
You are right about which White Rose that I was talking about. Even though they knew that they were facing almost certain death, they pursued their cause, but they still tried to live to fight another day.
Thank-you Rose, I wonder why they call them the news service. I guess there is more than one way to be “serviced”. I would much rather watch the whole interview than to have someone decide for me what “context” I might be interested in.
It was interesting to hear today that the Pentagon sent a message to Palin to not get political in her speech at a military base because they want the military to appear neutral when it comes to elections. Because the military knows that no matter who gets elected, they have to provide them with credible information and they want to be taken seriously.
So who are Al Caida really? They are Islamic Fundmentalists. They believe that anyone who does not believe what they believe is satan and they will go straight to heaven if they kill satan. Who are the Christian Fundamentalists? They believe that anyone who does not believe what they believe is Satan and they will go straight to heaven if they kill satan. Even Crusader Rabbit knows that this battle has been waged for thousands of years now. So we know who the Islamic Fundamentalists are, all Billion? of them. So it seems pretty simple to me. If you want war and because all four candidates are Christian, vote for the ones you think are most fundamental and if you want peace vote for the ones who have the most common sense.
In other words, the ones who will listen to the military, the United Nations, and all the information available at the time and who are intelligent enough to make the right choice after careful consideration of all the choices that will save Billions? of lives.
Unfortunately, there seems to be nothing we can do about the wars we've already fought. You can take the man out of the war but you can't take the war out of the man. Even his kids who weren't even born can tell you what his war was like.
The Bush Doctrine as articulated in 2002 broke conventions that guide civilized countries in modern times. Iraq was not Nazi Germany. It posed no threat to the security of the United States much less to it's neighbors - other than some miner fluctuations in the price of oil on the world market. The American backed sanctions posed by the U.N. were about to expire and Saddam was negotiating oil concessions with Russia and France while snubbing the accepted currency in world oil markets - the American dollar. There was no hot bed of of Arab fundamentalist terrorism in Iraq while Saddam Hussein was in power. The Bush Doctrine has caused some unintended (or maybe intended) consequences when Iran began developing it's nuclear capabilities. Whether to supply energy to it's Country or provide fissile material for nuclear weapons is the distinction everyone is hung up on. I do recall Osama Bin Laden's plan. He said he would destroy the U.S. economy and bring this Country to it's knees. If he had only waited, Wall street would have done it for him - or so it seems. The Bush CIA tried to overthrow Hugo Chavez and failed. Meanwhile soaring oil prices have made Venezuela and Russia, both blessed with large oil reserves, wealthy. Nazi Germany gave the United States a bad case of the jitters from which it still suffers. The United States is an empire. Todays empires need client states. Client states substitute for countries taken by military conquest and for colonization of newly discovered continents - the model for older empires. Today, empire is transforming itself once more as it goes global, shopping cheap labor in Communist China and developing Countries rich in resources accompanied by soaring debt. In South and Central America, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez has restructured the debt burden of those countries of that region with low rate loans, which previously suffered with poor economies that had been cannibalized by the American directed World Bank.
Some will argue that The Bush Doctrine and his Homeland Security measures have kept us safe from another 9/11 style terrorist attack. It is hard to prove a negative. But now that we have empowered those countries that we once considered our enemies - Russia and China - while destroying our own economy and spending billions shooting our self in the ass in Iraq - the future looks bleak.
Others disagree.
I’m always amazed at what thoughtful intelligent people are out there. Anon, I would have trouble disagreeing with your every thought, but I cant help but think that you skipped by too fast the fact that we have most-serious enemies deeply imbedded in the Iraqi landscape. Like we will never know if our policies have prevented further terrorism on our soils, we can never really know if our enemies were there before we came, or if they came to Iraq to fight us there.
But then, we have enemies in Syria, and Iran, and North Korea, and I’m sure that there are other countries. How much of the “Axis of evil” can we handle by ourselves without world support? Is there any future in the option to let them take us over and hope for the best? I just wish that we hadn’t given our economy away under the guise that “It’s a world economy now”, while our CEOs made millions.
"We went into Iraq because they “represented a threat to the security of the united States”. But indeed, Iraq was found to be a “Hot-bed of Al Quada” and the skirmish there attracted more Al Qaeda to follow our troops."
Just bullshit Ernie! There you go again, quit watching Fox news. We opened the door with the so called war and they all came flowing in. The word War has too much dignity for our invasion and occupation. A war is between 2 countries.
And you say "Skirmish"? The thousands of our men and women and the many more thousands of innocent people in Iraq equals a lot more than a skirmish. I was always told to admit when I was wrong. Republicans with facts in front of them will still talk the party line. You may be an independent put you're really a republican.
I loved you two nights ago taking about physics and I love you period but man you make me angry sometimes. I may have to stop coming here for about 50 days (~;
the first time i ever went fishing, gt took me up the creek in back of the old stinson ranch. gt was the grandson of george turner marsh. gt marsh was an austrailian who lived in japan for several years before moving with his family to san francisco. he had an import/export business at the palace hotel in san francisco. he is responsible for recreating a japanese tea garden for the worlds fair in san francisco and in san diego celebrating the opening of the panama canal. he is partly responsible for the japanese tea garden in golden gate park as well as others throughout california.
gt marsh wrote a book called "citizenship for nations" in which he described a global peace keeping force much like the united nations which would keep sovereign countries from invading each other. he considered civil wars as domestic matters but the key issue was respect for all nations. he thought of using the battleships of the day as rescue ships for catastrophes at sea rather than just let them sit at anchor. this was pretty much before the airplane. he wanted all school kids to take international relations in school so that they would learn about other cultures and races and learn to respect each other as global citizens. he pretty much predicted the war with japan way before it happened because he knew that the samurai were pissed at the free traders for westernizing japan because they were a very proud people and respect for their traditional way of life was very important to them.
also, i've come to know an organization called the world business academy which among other things has a goal of keeping business accountable for its actions in terms of polluting the environment and in the treatment of its employees. this type of organization is needed to police the growing number of international corporations. and i've been a worker all my life. a decent minimum wage, universal health care, pension plans for everyone and mandatory employment.
in mexico they have people sweeping the sand at the beach for the tourists in front of the hotel, in england they have bathroom attendants that keep the public restrooms clean. and whatever other jobs we can think of that can give people the self respect that any work inspires. for example, a hurricane task force that would go in prepared to deal with the consequences of a hurricane.
i would also develope an independent governmental organiztion to develope alternative sources of energy that could invent things like the water celled engines that could potentially make oil and any imported energy obsolete in the interests of national security. i would set a goal that by 2020 we would be totally energy self-sufficient. finally, i would encourage the now totally publically financed schools and colleges to promote youth soccer so that the united states wins the world cup almost every time just so the rest of the world will have to respect us for one thing in case they can't think of any other reason or because of what we may have done to them in the past.
Thank you for your kind response, Ernie.
My understanding is that once we armed and financed the Iraqi Sunnis they drove the Arab terrorists out of the country. Saddam Hussein kept a lid on Sunni/Shiite tensions in part because he was ruthless. I would not want to live in any of those Middle Eastern countries. Saudi Arabia will have you beheaded in the town square for what would be considered a routine crime punishable by fine in our country.
I think that terrorist acts are used not as a means of conquest, but as a way to get people to change fundamentally the way they see the world. Fear being the motivating factor.
This world economy has been foisted upon middle class working families by forces that are truly operating outside this Country's sphere of legal influence. Yet, they influence our elected to weaken laws that protect us and to write laws that weaken the sovereignty of our Country. They have by influence weakened government oversight and have greedily and foolishly gambled with our money and livelihoods. Do you have a garden and some chickens, Ernie? 9/11 was real bad, but this ever worsening economy is terror that is bringing more and more people closer to financial ruin.
Since the Second World War, the United States has had economic and military dominance over the rest of the world. Our economic dominance over Latin America has often been ruthless. Will we be treated with more respect by Communist China to whom we have become a debtor nation?
Fear is a component of our inherited survival gear. Maybe skepticism would protect us better. And right now I'm skeptical of the current administration, it's foolish entanglement in Iraq, and this untethered, wild west, free market, teeth shattering, gut busting bronco ride, that some call an "economy".
Thanks for letting me get that off my chest.
*Church and state*
Is there not a Constitutional provision in your country demanding the separation of Church and State? The candidates are trying to be elected to the presidency, not the pulpit. ALL of them say they pray to God. From that point, the arguments all boil down to a matter of degree.
Why should people care what goes on in people’s churches? Or bedrooms, for that matter? That is, so long as these practices are not carried over onto the floors of your congress or the couches of the White House.
The judgemental should be cautions about accusations that entwine someone’s church, personal, or sex life with their politics, and how that relates to the capacity to govern. After all, the last U.S. political saviour had sex in the Oval Office, and, well . . . for a time, at least, mixed sex and state. Naughty Americans! Ah, but you should see the French!
*The Bush Doctrines*
Your columnist, Charles Krauthammer, first coined the term "Bush Doctrine," in the 4 June 2001, publication called the Weekly Standard The article is entitled, "The Bush Doctrine: ABM, Kyoto, and the New American Unilateralism."
That was the first time it was used.
The same man who coined the term "Bush Doctrine" published a column two days ago in the Washington Post, stating that there have been, indeed, three subsequent "Bush Doctrines," all different from the first, for a total of four.
That fact might cause intelligent person to pause, if asked about it (them), because, as any university student who was studying America here in Europe would know, there have only been two official Presidential Doctrines in your country's history: the Monroe Doctrine and the Truman Doctrine. Other "doctrines" are ersatz.
(Nice word, ersatz, yes? Perhaps you know it. It's a word we loaned you.)
The problem, for some time, is not a collision of church and state, nor is it the definition of doctrines. It is the problems of the transmutation of personal politics into a sort of personal religion, and the creation of an inviolable territory, a blurry non-place where facts are disfigured by faith, myths, and misguided expectations.
The rest of scheming humanity has little to fear from the direction of California. Everyone there appears to be quite satisfied with talking (or writing), but no one is seriously putting large enough quantities of ointment upon the multiple wounds and disfigurements of this hate-filled world, a hatred that has evolved for as long as humans have, thousands and thousands of years of one hatred stacked upon another. Is anyone there preparing for the war that will come? It would seem not.
At least some of you write as though you are the very first people to build where you have, or "your" land. Virgin land, first penetrated by you. A strange concept here, where we have layer upon layer of conquests and wars and castles and cruelties, with most of them in plain view. There are 64 castles/fortresses in one area of the River Rhine alone! remembrances of aeons of hatred.
In Germany, you can hardly begin a public works project without stabbing a 2,000-year-old Roman ruin. But first, you have to claw your way through the 11th Century, and the 15th Century, and the 18th Century, and the bloodies of them all the 20th Century.
From those things I have read here, you all are quite nicely proving theory of the evolution of hatred, for it appears that, in such a small, insignificant area as your own, there is an over-abundance of significant social rifts that have resulted in what psychologists might characterize as downright anger and even hatred. Some of you seem smug because you think Americans have been inoculated against the disease of human nature. You can hate.
Europeans believe you are indifferent to the rest of the world, that you are sadly uninformed about it. I have argued otherwise, but I can now see why some of them have come to their conclusions.
Even so, if every one of you suddenly joined together to actually do something, there are seven billion other people in the world who are anxious to get in your way.
The poor verbally-bludgeoned moderator of this Website should tell his poor, misguided friend he quoted that he/she did get at least one thing right: about half of the seven billion are, indeed, out to kill you. You might think about preparing for that contingency.
Many learned people I am fortunate to know say that a certain segment of the world has six to nine months, perhaps less, before some major Scheiße hits a major world fan. But you don't have to take my word for it. All you have to do is wait.
Before I leave, I, too, must pit myself against the interlocutor. Mr. Ernie, do not let yourself be convince that the memory of Jan Palach might have been preserved better, or that he could have served a better purpose if he lived. No one can know that with certainty. No one. But, to the Czechs and the Slovaks, surrounded by 50,000 Soviet tanks, the time of absolute terror and shame, his light burned brightly. The night before, he had been with other students who drew straws to determine who would die for freedom. In the dark, he pulled the shortest straw from the hand of a friend.
No voice could have been louder, nor could have lived longer than this young man,not a politician or reformer, but an art student.
He died the next day. Soon, the streets were filled with thousands who were honoring his name, a name that is mention in other countries every time a champion of freedom in needed. Even in Tiananmen Square, in 1989, they looked to Jan Palach for courage.
This year, for the very first time my Czech and German relatives and I were able to cross the border from Germany without showing passports, without guards glaring at us, prodding us, and pointing guns; and without disappearing my now-dead cousin for a year, only to return home a broken man.
Not since the statues of Patton, your great general, were placed in parks in Czechoslovakia, after liberation from the Nazis, has there been a more significant memorial of freedom. Across the street from the university in Prague, in Wenceslaus Square, is a simple memorial, somewhat like that of the White Rose, in München, at the place Palach died. I have stood there, too, and cried.
Americans have forgotten what it to be free because they have no memory of every being captive. In much of Europe, our freedoms, the freedoms of millions, is less than 20 years old.
The next time you are attacked by a hive of bees, tell them to go away. That is the lesson of negotiation with brutal enemies.
Viel Glueck von Deutchland, meine Mitmenschen. Und, Auf Wiedersehen. Good luck from Germany, my fellow humans. And good-bye. Ich schreibe nicht hier wieder.
I have read every word of this post and commentary. Excellent discussion, Ernie.
A distillation of the Bush Doctrine is easy: Pre-emptive War. It is easy to imagine someone from a small isolated town too busy to notice even such historic events, but a candidate for vice-president who does not recognize the term used to describe why her sons and daughters may be dispatched to die without military provocation? An amazing comment on the state of American politics.
Until 2003, the United States of America stood proud and strong in defense of her people, and when necessary, of people elsewhere. Historically isolated from her enemies by the Pacific and Atlantic,America's
"conservatives" used to champion peace through strength and a defensive military.
Praying is a start. I don't mind it when politicians invoke God, because at least there is some chance they are sincere and it indicates they know they can't control everything. They could show a little humility by simply admitting this, but in the US the concept of prayer is acceptable in public life.
Chris, Rose, and Ernie: I suggest you change your party registration to Democrat and get involved. At least when the Democrats make a decison you know somewhere someone has taken a vote on the issue. As messy and divided as the Democratic Party seems at times, it beats the self-destructive delusions of Dubya & Co.
We do not face Republican problems and Democratic problems. It's all a lot bigger than party politics; it's about truth and lies. What a world. Keep writing.
Bunny, the questions were presented as “The Bush Doctrine”. I too agonized over what to call the “war”. Everybody has a different opinion of what it is called. Some call it a police action, but what ever it’s called, it makes some people angry.
The lines; “represented a threat to the security of the united States”. and “Hot-bed of Al Quada” were in quotation marks because they were used as the reason to enter Iraq. Not my ideas! I said that was “when it gets fuzzy”. See, I was right!
Did you read the demise of Al Quada in Iraq? That was more food for though. It contains a lot of what you call “bullshit” ( And to think, you kissed your Mama with that mouth) and the Government calls “disinformation,” and most people call “lies‘. It contains a whole bunch of information that as Americans we want to believe, but do we dare. Remember, we’ve been bullshitted before.
I hope you come back before “Fifty days” You add a lot of food for thought. If you let me piss you off you must be having a bad day already. (I know that you are pissed off when you start calling people closet Republicans. And besides, the chicks on Fox news are cute ) [That’s good for two more paragraphs on feminism.]
Boy this place has become very long winded. Just one point. If Bin Laden had shown his face in Iraq when Saddam was boss he would have been dead or wished he was in very short order. The "Bush Doctrine" is a lot like Bush League. Amateurish but a lot more dangerous.
Caligula, If you think that I’m “verbally bludgeoned” in English, you shouldn’t check my Deutsch.
Caligula's father was Germanicus.
My grandfather was German, so I know three or four words. Your closing statement, without your translation, if I am correct, was; “I write not here again” which is okay if you just think that we are not worth writing to, ( I hope) but the other implication (Nice word implication) is that YOU will not be here, which arouses some rather chilling thoughts in my rather simple brain. (Compared to yours)
I may be verbally challenged, but I am deeply perceptive, and I have a deep reverence for human life, especially people with a highly educated, and thoughtful, mind like yours. I have appreciated you comments, and we have all learned more from you than you can ever imagine!
You have knowledge of the world like none other. I appreciate the candle of your mind like none other, and it would be a deep loss to the whole world to be without your thoughts. Please write and tell me that my chilling thoughts are all wrong! You have more to give than take away.
I do not wish to have a personal doctrine. I would like to see the Monroe Doctrine scrapped. Under it's guise of American security in the western hemisphere the U.S.A. has intervened in democratic elections of sovereign nations by funneling money to opposition groups to candidates that the US opposes. Whenever American foreign policy is being discussed, American interests are always the point of the conversation. American interests are American 'business' interests - in other words, the interests of American multinational corporations. It is for these interests that our CIA operates covertly on the foreign soil of sovereign nations. It is why a Panamanian President died in a plane crash when he would not agree to use American engineering and construction firms to build a new canal large enough to handle super tankers and the larger container ships of today. He was about to sign contracts with Japanese engineering and construction firms. Such a threat to "American Security" cost that democratically elected "peoples'" President his life. Numerous examples of American Hegemony in Latin America can be told. It is their history. Do you know that the CIA covertly overthrew the democratically elected leader of Iran back in '52 or '53. He was a student of Jeffersonian democratic principles. Those principles would have guided his Presidency. But he nationalized the British and American Petroleum Company because it wouldn't negotiate a fair price for Iranian petroleum - the money for which he planned to use to build the infrastructure that would educate his people and modernize his Country. It was Teddy Roosevelt's grandson that headed this covert operation.
Anyway, I believe that in order to understand American Domestic Policy one must take the time to understand American Foreign Policy. You can't get that kind of education by watching CNN, FNC, or MSNBC. Unfortunate when you think about it. How can we make informed decisions when it is time to take the responsibility to elect the leaders and law makers of the most powerful country the earth has ever known? Do you suppose there is a reason for this?
wow, who let the dogs out. or wow, who let the bees out. i went to europe once. back in 85 during the reagan days. most people thought i was canadian, lucky me, because half of them absolutely loved americans and the other half didn't have the foggiest as to what the old borax soap salesman was up to. but they sure as hell thought that i was the one who elected him so i deserved to listen to their "higher truth".
i just pretended to be more canadian, in fact i think i even said i had relatives in vancouver.
then when i would go home from school back in the 60's, the main guy i would hear it from was uncle joe downey. it didn't matter that all i was doing up there was going to the beach and surf, he would blame me for every protest march and all the riots at san francisco state and berkeley. it didn't matter that i went to the jesuit laden catholic usf. but they wouldn't let me go to san francisco state, my mother's alma mater, because of all the riots there over freedom of speech and the viet nam war. so they sent me to the university of san francisco which is located 4 blocks from haight street in 1965 to save me from the communists. heck, my bank was on haight street, i used to get hair cuts for rotc on haight street. we used to ride skate boards down haight street before there were any hippies there. what does it matter to someone who already knows everything. they believe what they want to believe. there are lots of soap operas out there, not just 20 mule team borax. since we are talking about race and since you thought the boss would appease the so called liberals out there. well, my grandmother's family on my dad's side was from leipzig, east germany and grandma nye had an old star of david ring that she left to my daughter. simmerly was probably zimmerly at one time. after all, they sold meat to the miners, they were cattle ranchers in marysville, they weren't looking for gold like everyone else. but like my friend paul meer says, nobody likes the jews.
he is from the bronx and by the way is a jew for jesus now. so the simmerlys never told anyone they were jews and they never told anyone that they had any indian relatives. sounds pretty smart to me so far. so when you try to tell me that bruce springsteen is a liberal, come on. i didn't understand a word that song said. does that mean i'm an old fogey.
who was that bald dude. did all of bono's hair fall out or something while i wasn't paying attention. it's real simple guys, if you want to blame everyone else for your problems and be self righteous, please just go in a corner and cry and quit trying to find ways to be self righteous and justify your wanting to hate others by telling me that they deserve it. a real man or women is here for their kids, for future generations, seven generations is a nice round number, and they take full responsibility for their actions and what kind of crap they put out in the world. the black panthers put it best. "if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem." ...baby.
every day i hear about russian women meeting american men on the internet and hooking up. i don't care into how many slices you want to divide it, from outer space the aliens still call us planet earth. and by the way, anyplace could be the most significant place in the world. even here smack dab in the beautiful redwood infested, emerald triangle.
I’ve tried to think what my “Personal Doctrine” might be. I’ve come up with a lot of thoughts, but most of them don’t work for some reason or another. I think that the reason that none of our great ideas work is the fact that nobody really listens to other peoples thoughts or ideas. For the most part, we get set in our ways, and we really don’t try to change much. I include myself in that description, just so you will know that I’m guilty of not trying to follow other peoples ideas as well as I should.
The only thing that I know for certain, without any reservation, the solutions to the worlds problems lie with our children. I have had the opportunity to see many young people sent around the world, to many countries, as foreign exchange students. Not one of them has ever home with anything but love for their “New Country”. They seem to be able to set aside any preconceptions that they had about the people that they went to visit, and as they become fluent in their “New Language”, they open many doors of friendship. It would be difficult for them to engage in any form of aggression toward their “New Friends.”
When I was in high school, my Junior year (1962) we had a young lady from Cambodia at South high school. As you might know we bombed Cambodia during the Vietnam War. I had many sleepless nights wondering what might have happened to her, and what she might be thinking about her new American friends, that were sitting by and doing nothing to help her. I don’t know what ever happened to her, and to this day I wonder, every time I here the word “Cambodia”.
I know that we as “Old People” don’t have it in our hearts to care what happens to other old war dogs from other countries. But I know that the young people want war stopped, and only they can achieve that goal.
There are some places in the world that we don’t dare send civilized children, and they raise their children to be filled with hatred. It is sad that they can’t get to know our children, because I know that they would love them as much as we do. But, that is the flaw in my plan, we can’t sent our young ambassadors to the countries that they most need to be in.
I know this is off-topic, but think it deserves some conversation.
I can think of few other situations that demonstrate the mass duplicity of our own citizenry than the prevailing ho-hum indifference to the breach of Gov. Sarah Palin’s personal email account. I would say the same thing if it were Barak Obama who suffered this crime. No matter where you position yourself in the political spectrum, this crime is cause for grave concern by all of us, and the perpetration of the crime should be met with unrepentant outrage, not with the ravenous glee I see coming from so many places.
Here’s why: Because that could have been you or me. It could be our lives’ modest secrets and confidentialities, now spread across the vast reach of cyberspace — accessible to everyone! Even accessible now to media, who are, to my mind, complicit, not only because of their lack of outrage, but also because of their eagerness to pour through the contents of messages and publish them. These communications were not obtained by journalism, but were stolen, just as surely as if your car had been driven out of your garage and to an LA chop shop.
The media seems to be more concerned with any alleged, unfounded possibility of untoward activity in the emails than they are the reality of the clear, and present nature of the offense of the stealing a family’s private life. “Invasion” is part of a war, and this is a real INVASION of privacy, a war on all of us.
So we need to get mad.
I can tell you with certainty that if your private email account was compromised and its contents posted in some extremely public place, you would be furious, and you would also have to spend a great deal of time worrying about what you might have innocently written to someone, and the prospect that the contents might show up later.
We ought to be mad as hell — Democrat, Republican, or independent — about what’s happened to Gov. Palin. This should act as a catalyst for better laws and broader protections of our private lives from the invasion of snoops who are no better than terrorist. Because this is a form of terrorism.
Why is your email mailbox any less inviolable than your mailbox on your house? I don’t get it. Millions of people use email as a primary form of communication. Why aren’t people more outraged by what happened?
I remember reading George Orwell’s book, “1984,” when I was young, and thinking, ‘Could there be a society in which everyone’s private life was examined by a government that used the information to control its people.’ The book, and people subsequent reactions to it, may have prevented 1984 in some countries, though Big Brother — the KGB, the Stassi, and prior to that, the SS and Gestapo — existed, in Nazism and Communism.
Who would ever have suspected that the Big Brother of our privacy-seeking society would turn out to be individuals. The video from the spy cameras that damage people’s lives by glaring up from public bathrooms toilet bowl or hidden recesses of dorm rooms where students are unwittingly caught doing private things, are, without conscience, put up on YouTube, the default throne of the Unrestrained Populist Voyeur Kingdom. Stolen photos and communication are put up on websites run by unprincipled people, such as the website were Palin’s mail was posted.
More often now, it is private citizens — not the the NSA or the CIA — who hack into email accounts or monitor cellphone calls, or who gaze at the private records, emails, photos, and videos of unsuspecting people.
The surveillance that is intended to keep us safe, to keep us from being killed, is hotly debated and despised because the ‘GOVERNMENT’ is doing it. Yes, we’re actually fire-walled from the government by laws. If the government ever published, without judicial approval, the contents of a private citizen’s email, or transcripts of cell or land-line phone conversations, an unending flow of furore and condemnation would roll across the land for years to come.
It turns out, however, that the government has made laws to protect us from them. So it’s absolutely absurd when anyone to complains about government spying, remains silent about far damaging breeches of personal security, enacted by private citizens.
I believe that the contents of an email box should be just as sacred as the post office, and that there should be strong enforcement of stricter laws, if they are violated by hackers, WIFI “wardrivers,” cell-phone eavesdroppers, and the camera voyeurs.
Could Orwell have ever imagined that private citizens, not government, would pose the greatest threat to our privacy and put us all under a vile, uncontrollable microscope? Despite his pessimism about government, I believe Orwell wrote optimistically about the behavior of individuals.
He was wrong.
We have felt the breath of Big Brother on our necks, and when we turn to see who it is, there stands one of us.
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