Get Positive

Can we improve our lives by changing our perspective and learning new ways of thinking and seeing the world? I think the evidence suggests we can.


Can we begin to create a different reality by understanding the limitations of the present moment? Can we begin to reinvent the modern world? Are we victims of our own thinking? Yes.

We are living in the future. We have new information before us. We've suddenly got these wacky movies like "The Secret" showing on Oprah. Movies that question our accepted ways of seeing, movies like "What the Bleep Do We Know," are available at the nearest video store. What happens if we start to fill our minds with the best information out there? I think it can make us feel happier and healthier.

I like the fact that quantum physics tells us we are all connected. It breaks us down even deeper than the truth that we are one human race, existing on a tiny planet in one universe in a whole lot of space. This is the apex of human intelligence. We have the information, but at least speaking for myself, it is difficult to conceptualize it and make it mean anything concrete. Our culture is still pretty stuck in old modes of thinking which don't necessarily fit with the new information available to us. As a society we often unconsciously restrict our potential by acting and responding to life with habituated ways of thinking that are not in our best interest.

One form of new psychology out there sheds some light on why it seems so difficult for us to see and understand our shortcomings. System Justification Theory first emerged in 1994, and was developed by John Jost and Mahzarin Banaji. Jost is a professor of psychology at NYU, Banaji is a professor of psychology at Harvard. System Justification Theory explains why we are psychologically programmed to protect and defend the modern reality even though it is damaging, to us as human beings, to our planet, and to our emotional, physical, spiritual, and actual resources. I think it is possible that if we become conscious of our programming then we can begin to reprogram our minds. The following is an excerpt from John Jost's NYU faculty website at www.psych.nyu.edu/jost/:

There are two major goals of system justification theory, and much of my experimental and survey research has addressed one or both of these goals. The first goal is to understand how and why people provide cognitive and ideological support for the status quo, even when their support appears to conflict with personal and group interests. The second is to analyze the social and psychological consequences of supporting the status quo, especially for members of disadvantaged groups.

System justification theory addresses the holding of attitudes that are often contrary to one's own self-interest and therefore contrary to what one would expect on the basis of theories of self-enhancement or rational self-interest. Thus, our research focuses on counter-intuitive outcomes, such as the internalization of unfavorable stereotypes about one's own group, nonconscious biases that perpetuate inequality, attitudinal ambivalence directed at fellow ingroup members who challenge the system, opposition to equality among members of disadvantaged groups, rationalization of anticipated social and political outcomes, and tendencies among members of powerless groups to subjectively enhance the legitimacy of their powerlessness and, in some cases, to show greater support for the system than do members of powerful groups.

Current research interests include the study of complementary stereotypes in which members of high and low status groups are seen as possessing distinct sets of advantages and disadvantages. Gender stereotypes, which stress that women are communal but not agentic, whereas men are agentic but not communal, represent one important example of complementary stereotypes that may serve to preserve support for the status quo. Other examples that we have explored include "poor but happy," "rich but miserable," "poor but honest," and "rich but dishonest" stereotypes.

Finally, I am interested in the underlying cognitive and motivational differences between liberals and conservatives. In other words, my collaborators and I are exploring the psychological basis of political ideology. In particular, we are carrying out studies to determine whether certain epistemic and existential variables (such as uncertainty avoidance, need for cognitive closure, and death anxiety) are associated more with conservative or right-wing political orientations than with other political orientations. One focus is on whether certain situational factors (such as those pertaining to stability and threat) are capable of bringing about change in the endorsement of political attitudes.

I think understanding where we are now can help us imagine our way out of it.

If we can start identifying primarily as a human race, which could really do a better job functioning as a species, dependent on each other for health, happiness, and survival, we might be able to start materializing these possibilities.

Either way, check out "What the Bleep Do We Know," if you haven't already seen it.

Ipod Nightmares and the Corporate Machine

I'm only 27 years old, but I can remember the good old days, when the customer was always right. I keep being reminded that in the world of today, that's just not true anymore. I keep coming into contact with these corporations, and despite their human representatives, I am continually reminded, by these "corporate interactions," that I am not a man. I am a dollar.

I own an ipod and a PC, and it's the ipod I have to thank for getting me out to see the Apple machine at work. I was in New York a few days and have now visited a couple of the legendary Apple Stores, the mid-town store, which is a big fancy glass square, with underground shopping, bright white lit, hip 24-hours a day, and the down-town store, in center of cool SOHO, at 103 Spring.

What a crock this company is. They have suavely branded themselves so successfully, as the hip, indy, thing to be, that they have an army of zombies out there, who you can spot by our uniforms, often dressed in thrift/retro t-shirts, colorful shoes, overcoats, and scarves, with little white earbuds, we all think we are SO anti-establishment, so independant, and so in-the-know. We have "I"-pods, little symbols branded cool. White. And i'm just another Zombie, trudging the streets of New York trying to find the Apple store so I can get my damn ipod replaced because the headphone jack just stopped working one day, about 6 months into my new, utterly over expensive (it's gotten a bit cheaper since I bought it, but still $300 for something smaller than your hand...) 60 gig gadget. The ipod, in fact most Apple stuff, is big money gear, no matter how indy you think you are. I wonder how many folks have an ipod in Darfur? Somehow I don't think that's Apple's target demographic.

Now don't get me wrong, I think the ipod is awesome. I can carry around over 6000 songs in my pocket. It has made one of my life-long dreams ( of walking around with a soundtrack for my life) come true. I'm lucky enough to be able to afford one. This ipod is actually my second. So I guess I'm a loyal customer. I just want to talk about the deplorable fact that such a supposedly "cool" company treats it's customers (in this case me) not like a human being, but rather like another soulless dollar, falling, like an automaton, into their greedy little fingers. It made me feel sick. And it took my time, 4 days in New York City to get my ipod replaced, even while it was still under warranty. First the big mid-town store gave me the solid shaft. No appointments. I mean, I don't know how they can call their little support centers "genius bars," because all the lines of people with all their faulty equipment seem to indicate that Apple is the only genius in the room. I mean what makes us such faithful customers? I think it's that we are blinded by this genius brand. We think that Apple=Cool.

But they aren't cool at all. They are a corporate monster. They make products that break, and then you go into their cool ass stores and it's almost impossible to get out without buying something more. It makes sense, in this sick business way. Make an imperfect product that people think is perfect, and have your repair center (genius bar) inside your store, that way you keep the people who are most likely to buy from you (because they've bought from you before) right where you want them (in your store where they are most likely to buy from you again). That is Genius. I can almost imagine them brainstorming it out in a meeting at corporate headquarters. It does make "business sense." But it doesn't make people sense.

Now it could just be a coincidence that they got me into their stores 3 times, in as many days, just because my ipod headphone jack stopped working one day. I don't know, it could be. But when it comes to business there are so rarely coincidences. Most decisions are made with the bottom line in mind. What is the bottom line? We all know this now. It's not the well-being of humanity, or even the individual, or even the sales clerk, no. The bottom line is the profitability of the machine. It's not about OUR wellness. It's about "corporate wellness."

All I know is that once I made my appointment, made my way downtown to the trendy SOHO Apple center, got in line, checked in, got seated on a bench with 20 other waiting geniuses, waited 10 minutes to get in front of an Apple "genius," talked to this character and listened to him tell me why the best bet for me getting my supposedly under warranty ipod replaced was to pay 60 something dollars, and I'd get a possibly used ipod replacement with an extended warranty. hmm. I thought they would have just checked to see if my less-than-year old ipod really was broken, not by my own hand, and then they would give me a new one. Not quite. Not in the world of the Geniuses I guess. Nope. Instead, he just kept asking me questions, told me that the way it worked was that even though it's under warranty for 1 year, after 6 months it starts costing me for replacements... huh, then I'm just like "OK, no big deal, I'll do the 60 dollar thing, just give me my replacement." Then we two geniuses sat across from each other for 10 more minutes, while mr. Apple typed away I don't know what all into the computer, and then he told me there were no replacement ipods.

NO REPLACEMENT IPODS!! So I had made an appointment online, told them online the day before that I needed a replacement ipod, then next day went all the way down there, stood in line, did my thing, and then they tell me they don't have any ipods!! And listen folks! "I'm in the Apple store!!," down the stairs from the genius bar there is a display with every ipod known to man, people are buying them one after another. There are ipods in this building and the genius behind the bar knows it. We look at each other. I give him my George Bush smirk. He laughs uncomfortably, anticipating my next words, and says "I know, I know, we do have ipods here, but they are a different inventory... I can't give you a new ipod, even though we have bundles." Can they send me my new (used) replacement ipod? No. I need to go back to the store to pick it up. hmm. Strange. I must return to the store. Genius.

So I get the call a day later that my replacement ipod is in, I can come pick it up, pay a thirty dollar replacement fee, (60 dollars if I want another year of warranty), and aren't I lucky. So I go. I want a working ipod, and i'm willing to pay for it. The sad thing is that if they told me I had to buy a new one, I probably would have. (I am Zombie.) So I go, and I've told this story a couple times by this point, trying to process this scary information, and bouncing it off my friends and fellows, and I just go ahead and get in line with the other geniuses. I Wait my turn to sign in, they tell me to sit down, wait and I will be called in the order I was received. I finally get in front of a person. We go through the process. Keyboard keys are punched, numbers into the system, get my email (again), telephone (again), making sure they can find me should they ever run out of customers and need to remind me how cool they are and how much I need them. I tell the guy how these weird business practices seem kinda non-sensish to me. I tell this man the story. I've been here 3 times, I bought this ipod with the understanding that there was no "replacement" fee. I tell him that I thought 1 year warranty meant 1 year warranty, not "6 months then the fees start." I tell him my story. And here's this Apple trained guy, a worker, a cog in the Apple Machine, and what i'm saying makes sense to him. I got out my debit card to pay my fee, and with a smile he told me: "don't worry about it." He took his human initiative and waived the fee.

I couldn't believe it. I was actually right in my crazy thinking, and this guy actually heard me and agreed. Here we were, two human beings, and even though he worked for the machine, he still saw the reality of the wacky bottom line. He actually looked at me as a person, and not as a dollar sign. We were rebels then, and the scariest thing is that this actual customer service experience felt foreign to me. But man did it ever feel nice. REAL genius happened that moment at the genius bar. One human being looking out for the well-being of another. When the corporation beat me down, there was a man there to pick me up. So there is hope. "Every culture has the seeds of its destruction and the seeds of its redemtion." (MH. Scott, 1991)

Feeling happy, after my free replacement ipod, a gift from the real genius, having saved $ 60.00 dollars that would have been in Apple's fat pocket, I was feeling generous. I walked over to the goods department and bought a new pair of headphones and a new computer cable. Total: $75.00. I am zombie.

Back to Ward

If you don't know the story, (Bill O'Reilly seems to have mostly forgotten about this little former passion of his), the University of Colorado at Boulder is still trying to fire one of their long standing, and most prolific professors, Ward Churchill. The big attention started, from the Governor of Colorado calling for his dismissal, to the main-stream media picking up the story and painting him as this terrorist loving, maniac communist, cop-killing, threat to the social order, because of a small article he wrote (not in a scholarly publication, nor speaking for the University, simply giving his opinion), in which he likened the members of the corporate elite (who do help pay for a good deal of our governments actions), who died in the 9/11 attacks, to "little Eichmann's."

Eichmann was a Nazi. He wasn't a soldier, he didn't work at a concentration camp, he probably never saw anyone die. He arranged train schedules. He was a cog in the terrible and hideous process of committing genocide. He was tried for War Crimes, and rightly, found guilty. Ward was making a point. The people who work for the companies in the World Trade Center, many of their jobs do, somewhere down the line, cause someone, somewhere, some distress. LITTLE would be the key word in Ward's statement about the likeness between Eichmann and participants in a capitalist system which does do a lot of damage around the world.

All of us who live in modern society, who are the benificiaries of the present social order, are on some level committing genocides, at least directly against a number of species, (please see any number of reports on Global Warming, pollution, habitat destruction, etc.). So let's just give him the benefit of the doubt to begin with, and assume that Ward was trying to provide a context for deeper thought. I don't have to agree with him, but I can at least admit that the article was well thought out, and the comment taken out of context, and blown out of proportion by an obsessive, uptight media. Ward Churchill's ideas fundamentally threaten the present American image of itself, they question our legitimacy, they force us to look at ourselves from a different perspective, and the system under threat does draw strong reactions.

Many academics around the country are speaking out against Ward's dismissal, arguing that it is an attack on academic freedom and intellectual thought. As a published scholarly author, free thinker, tenured professor, and activist, Ward has a lot of people who support him. I just want to join the ranks and offer my personal experience as his student to the argument against his dismissal.

I want to come to the defense of my former professor. He was probably the most influential teacher of my college career. He helped open my mind and wrap myself around some far out ideas. Professors like Ward Churchill helped change the way I think.

Here's a guy (me) with a few things going against his intellectual career. I was a pretty conservative kinda guy once, (certainly not the type who'd be defending Ward Churchill, or admiring of him, or both.) There were a few years when I used to sleep with a gun under my pillow. I was basically a republican with liberal tendencies; I guess I was a closet liberal. According to at least one interesting study, there are actual differences in some of the common habits of the types of people who end up liberals or conservatives. Like a good liberal, I'd always liked having a lot of colors around. I was always a touch messy (I still can't keep a room neat), I had always been curious about other cultures. I had always identified more with the global community than with my core family, religious, or national identity. I took solace in a multitude of different spiritual belief systems. I always reading some out there book about some distant, foreign religion. I danced a lot, often alone. I was actually a pretty fair mix between my mother, a hippie type, and my grandparents, historically conservative, who I went back and forth between (continent to continent) my first few years of life, finally settling with the grandparents in Colorado till they sent me to boarding school when I was 12. It was a lot like going back and forth between red states and blue states. A fair mix I may have been, but a conflicted one. It's hard to be a conservative (generally this means believing in the defense of the status quo) and also believe that all human beings are equal, and deserve to be taken care of.

Anyways, my mother was this far out lady, who's had her share of gurus and traveled the world seeking the spiritual walk. My grandparents, on the other hand: Houstonians, Oil on one side, and a Scotch Presbeterian Doctor on the other. Good, Loyal, Republicans. The only fly in the mix was that my grandma turned feminist, and divorced my granddad after 40 years of marriage when I was twelve. But somehow I came out of it rooting for the underdog. The two of them oppressed each other so much over the years, I can't really say which of them wore the pants. Maybe they both thought they did.

The point is that I was what you might call unconsciously conflicted in a number of ways for a number of years. I didn't really know what I believed, but I always believed strongly and outspokenly, and in retrospect, I can see that most of my beliefs were conflicting. I believed I was connected to the world, but I also believed WE were better than everyone else.
When I walked into Ward's classroom the first time, in the fall of 2002, I had just been realizing
and enjoying a new liberal potentiality which I had only first discovered having landed comfortably in the liberal arts in 1999. I guess it might have started earlier; maybe in my first class at the University of Colorado at Boulder: Political Science 1101, Summer, 1998, fresh before my senior year of high school. My teacher was an out-spoken Communist and prairie dog advocate who regularly put herself in the line of fire to get hunters to stop shooting her cute little friends. I think she got through to me somehow, but I didn't quite understand what it meant yet.

I still wanted to believe that all the Republicans around (my whole family except for mom) actually knew what they were talking about. To interject here! I just want to give a shout out to Republicans, who are dedicated believers, and understandably so. I think it was Ward who told the story about an Indian who once said that Reagan's Trickle Down Economics felt eerily like getting pissed on; but it does feel good to pee.

I'm just going to reluctantly and humbly admit that when I started college in 1999, I was an ardent Clinton criticizer and I voted for Bush. I used to blab away about why Clinton wouldn't have been elected if it wasn't for his Chinese connections, and blah blah blah. I couldn't stand Al Gore, I thought he was boring, and I was a gun owner type. I thought the world was a dangerous place. When 9/11 happened I was damn pissed off, I thought it was all "their" fault, and I was glad that we had a "decider" like Bush as President who would do something about "those people in the Middle East." Today I have a hard time believing that I ever believed those things, it's like looking in a mirror and not recognizing the person you were.

American Studies, Women's Studies, Sociology, and Churchill style Native American Studies really helped adjust my perspectives and beliefs. Thinking about how much people pay to go to retreats to have their personality adjusted, sometimes 50,000 dollars for a month, makes me laugh at how cheap an in-state liberal arts education is in terms of it's life-changing potential. To think I could have ended up in Economics for my education, sitting in an office today making too much money to make too much money for some corporation instead of sitting here contemplating the meaning of life. I owe that change to professors like Ward Churchill, who choose to go to work day after day, not getting paid what they probably deserve, saying the same thing over and over again, year after year, just to get through to a dumb kid like me every once in awhile.

Bill O'Reilly once said about Ward Churchill, in a phone conversation with Governor Owens, that "...he's making 100,000 dollars, or close to it... Of taxpayer money," as if it were an outrage that he was making so much money... How much does Bill O'Reilly make to talk his nonsense, (much of which is most certainly as much nonsense as the most non-sense that Ward has ever spoken)? How much do CEO's get paid to work to better-less the world than Ward works in his sleep to try and better it? I can't put a price on the value of the work that Ward does to open closed minds like mine. It's about education, about big, heavy, in your face ideas, which don't fit with the way we are trained to see reality, which often make us feel sick, uncomfortable, and guilty; they make us feel like there is something wrong with the picture, they make us question why we are not doing something to stop the train.

Ward always taught us as students, first and foremost, that if we want to talk, we better be ready to substantiate our argument. That guy had the most ridiculous foot-notes in his books. He backed up his talk. And if you didn't want him to make you look like a damn fool in front of the rest of the class (he never hesitated to make this mostly white, mostly well-off, bunch of us uncomfortable), you learned real quickly to know what you were trying to say, and you had better be ready to defend it against the strongest, fastest, most blunt, intimidating, fact-filled, straight talk, logic, I've ever seen. The guy does a good job. There is no greater service to the minds of all of us, than to be expanded. The Ward Churchill's of the world are invaluable. We do not need to agree with everything they say, but we have the great opportunity to let them inspire us to at least think about what they are saying.

It took some true believers like Ward Churchill to help me figure out who I am, and what I believe. I just want to paint him in that true light right now. He is a teacher. And he is the best damn teacher the University of Colorado has. Bill O'Reilly should be spanked for how much trash he has talked about Ward and the Governor of Colorado should be forced to wear an "I'll promise to try and learn something new today" hat for a year. Ward has won teaching award after teaching award, and he is a student favorite. I took three of his classes and used to go talk to him in his office hours because it made my brain expand. He made me angry, he inspired me to react, he just made me think. I always went looking for that guy, even though he is the gruffest, tuffest, often grumpiest old intimidating guy I know. That's just Ward.

Would you expect a guy who everyday writes, lectures, and thinks about the inequality and wrongdoing his government has perpetrated, and perpetrates, at home and abroad, economically, militarily, and environmentally, to have a rosy character? Would you expect him not to try as hard as possible to identify with a non Patriotic-American identity (The Cherokee Nation), which is certainly a group which does far less damage as an entity than the United States of America, and is therefore probably a healthier identity to participate in as a group member?

As an alumni of the University of Colorado at Boulder, I want to call on my school to do whatever it can to keep him as a professor. He deserves an apology. The Regents and the Dean should have been behind him all the way, defending him and reminding people that he is a beloved and celebrated member of the faculty. The students have honored him again and again. If the University of Colorado leadership believes in their choice of students at that University, then they should be trying as hard as possible to keep Ward around. CU wouldn't be the same without him, and his absence would be a tragic loss. He makes people think. He makes his students think. Everyone is allowed to disagree, but at least Ward Churchill forces people to ask themselves questions they are generally conditioned not to ask. We are only too-lucky to have him. I could have left his class in total disagreement with him. There were plenty of students who never took to his style or radical beliefs. Professors like Ward help young minds figure themselves out. I'm totally comfortable in my shoes today, as an ardent and out-of-the-closet liberal who believes some serious changes would make the world a better place. (Let's just start with Gore/Obama ticket in 2008, if another Red president wins I'll cry.)

I will close with this. Ward didn't teach me to think like him, (he probably hates Al Gore more than he hates Bush or vegans. Ward likes guns, his right to smoke wherever he pleases, and he likes to wear sunglasses indoors.) I'm not a little Ward, I'm probably still more of a little Eichmann when it comes right down to it. Ward isn't a danger to students, his absence is a danger to students. He helps people figure out how to think for themselves. He is a de-programmer, and he deserves his job.

Anyone for LCD?

We used to get high when we got high. I remember a time, before I ever had a cell phone, before there was such a thing as high definition, before 9/11, back when reality TV was new and interesting and not gross. I remember those days, and I remember taking drugs to get high. I took drugs to warp my bored mind. Now I am afraid to take anything, lest things get any weirder. I noticed a big sign today advertising some new special flat screen television, as a man stood next to me talking on a flip cell phone, which was ultra thin, with a clear plastic flip top, and I thought to myself, I've never seen anything so mind warping as this modern moment on even the strongest Acid. It was a moment which was both awe inspiring and sad.

Things are moving so darn fast now in modernity. We don't just have electricity ( a pretty strange thing to begin with), which has led to these things called phones, computers, the internet, and lights at night, but we have wireless phones, wireless internet, super high definition televisions, everything we even conceive of seems to materialize by our hands. It might sound like i'm on acid right now, but is anyone noticing that we have planes flying through the air with us on them? We have submarines, deep beneath the surface of the sea. We have fish farms, cow farms, we have big, strong guns. We have tasers, tear gas, laughing gas, prosac, and valium to mellow it out. We don't sell LSD over the counter, but we do sell a pretty altered sense of reality. THIS REALITY.


Look around. We are being sold, and we are selling, this altered perception of reality, this modernity. As if it were real, we are selling it and buying it all the time. We make it real with our perception. We are raised in it, and as we are raised in it, it seems like the norm. It takes a few years to catch up to us that things aren't quite as they were.

I took flying for granted as a kid. I didn't really think, "wow!! I'm getting on a big piece of metal, and it's going to fly me through the air." I just assumed that it was normal, just like phones, cars, gas ovens, microwaves, skyscrapers, nuclear weaponry and power, and the myriad other oddities that were just there from my first breaths, and therefore, like the sky being blue, like the fact that bears shit in the woods and Popes are Catholic, even before you learn what a bear is, or a Pope is, they just are, and it doesn't seem weird. Then the cell phones landed, the internet landed, wireless landed, and suddenly the newness of it all, the Brand Spanking Newness, just whacked me.

When I think about it, I am forced to acknowledge that nothing is real but what we make real. The ever-changing nature of reality forces me to believe this. We are talking about the earth going from round to flat, from flat to round. We are talking about the possibility that human perception is truly the creation of realities. And these realities actually affect human beings, their lives, their experiences, and therefore, their perceptions, which in turn affect the perceptions of their off-spring. We are reality creating machines.

What does a cell phone mean? Maybe it simply means that I can talk to another human being who is on another continent, at the same moment, in a different "time zone," without any wires connecting us. But what does that mean?

If we were alive 20 years ago, and were having a conversation, and I told you that you could go stand alone in a pasture in China while I went and stood alone in a pasture in Wisconsin, and then we could put these plastic, battery powered devices up to our heads, and we could talk to each other as if there were only a curtain between us, you would have told me I was wrong, and you probably would have thought I was crazy; and you would have been right. But when I tell you that it's true today, you just say "yep, I know, it's just reality?" What does that mean?

It suggests, I think, that the world is more than flat or round, or inhabited by people who speak different languages, who are black, white, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Catholic, Christian, who are Americans, French, Iraqi, or in any and all other assorted ways "different" in terms of perception....



It suggests, I propose, that we don't have a clue what is really going on. It suggests that the greatest thinkers at any one moment are most certainly as blinded by their preconceived notions of reality as those contemporaries of Columbus who "knew," by way of fact, that the world was flat.

So my friend. What does that mean?

Bush's Best Beans

I watched a little piece of our 43rd President's history tonight. It was the most complex, detailed, articulate speech of his Presidency. It was a mighty good try. Whoever wrote it was gifted, with a fine intellect, an attention to detail, and a definite capacity for complex thought. The President read it well. Indeed it may have been his finest reading. It was his opus of spoken language.

I can only imagine the high fives he got from Cheney, Rice, Rove, (maybe a guest appearance by Rummy?), and whatever other members of the Steam Team were waiting for him behind the red curtain to congratulate him on the job well done.

He didn't stumble, bumble, jumble, or crumble, the President and his words were one. He sounded like Anderson Cooper, but the steam he spoke, though he didn't go and choke, is still bound for poop scoopers. I was impressed.

But let's get down to the core issues.

He admitted, or at least the speech-writer did for him, that the responsibility for mistakes is his own. Nice.

He's gonna have soldiers knocking on doors throughout Baghdad. That's gonna go over nice, everybody loves a knock on the door, machine guns invited in for coffee and tearing the place apart looking for WMD's (an AK47 or two??) in the dusty Whirlpool Dishwasher.

He's not going to talk to Iran, Syria, he's not going to do that whole diplomacy thing, he's buttering us up to Attack them, telling us how much all the bad stuff in Iraq is their fault. Hmm, come on, I don't really need to say anything here do I?

He's going to send in more troops, gonna kick it up a notch, but only to numbers we've had in there before, but somehow he thinks that's going to be enough, even though it wasn't before. OK sounds like a good plan. Same Same. But different. More of the same, but it sounds like changing something. Great idea.

He says we've got to "advance liberty," but we are going to do it by increasing our troop numbers in a country where the majority of citizens don't even want us. Right.

He said "Al Queda" in that Texan drawl. OK, NEWSFLASH!! PGWB It's not working anymore.

He's listened to the advice of everybody around, lots of generals, senators, former president's, and he hears what they are saying but he's just gonna GO HIS OWN WAY. Oh wait, does it sound like he's listening to someone? Wait, wait, who's that I hear in the background? I hear their cackle whispers coming out from behind his ear bud reciever. AHAH! There they are again. It's the Neo-cons. They're like the 87 Raiders, they're mean, and dumb, and I see them on bumper stickers everywhere.

He's listening to somebody, and they put together a good speech for him to read, and boy he must have been practicing. But it's not looking good. It doesn't add up. This war doesn't add up. Beware Middle East!! They are waiting for you to blow something up in America! Hey Iran! Those boats off your shores aren't there to fish. Beans and steam, beans and steam, beans and steam. Great speech. Too bad it stunk.

Justice and Memory

I remember the first Iraq war. I was about 10 years old, and I was a big sharp shooter with my 22 caliber rifle. Somebody bought me a whole bundle of targets with Saddams face on them. So I've shot at this man before. Back in those days, I guess I bought the whole "this man is the enemy" thing as much as a 10 year old can buy anything.

I think the first President Bush made a good decision not pushing onto Baghdad and toppling Saddam 16 years ago. In part, he said it was because there was no viable exit strategy. We are now in a position to feel what that's like. We are about to send 10's of thousands more of our soldiers into a country in chaos, and we've been in there for more than three years. If we want to be honest with ourselves, we are forced to admit that three years post Saddam, the country is a whole lot worse off than when he was it's leader.

I'm not saying that we should praise Saddam, or not hold him accountable for his crimes as a leader. I'm not saying that he was a "good guy." I'm just saying that when we look at the facts we might admit that the American government is responsible for as many Iraqi deaths as he was, maybe more. Someone might respond: "well Andrew, wait, he was an oppressive leader, who kept most Shiite Muslims out of the political elite. He crushed would-be opponents, he did not allow free elections, he violently kept the Kurds from separating into their own nation-state." I would be forced to respond: "you bet. That's all true." But he also kept the country at peace for more years than it was at war. He was a leader who protected a Sunni minority who would have been oppressed more under Shiite leadership than the Shiite majority were oppressed under his leadership. Baghdad was a bustling metropolis, with a beautiful museum, nice restaurants, shopping districts, and electricity 24 hours a day. Their weren't curfews, you could go shopping without fear of a suicide bomb exploding you into a million different pieces, Al Quaida was not a welcome entity. In fact, Saddam considered fundamentalist religious/terrorist organizations as enemies to his regime, and did not allow them to exist under his watch.

He came to power from humble beginnings, born into a family of shepherds. He fought his way up, educated himself, with the help of the CIA, studied law in Egypt observed by US and Egyptian intel during an exile there, returned to Iraq, and there helped repair a country in tatters. He did terrible things, ruled as a tyrant, but it would seem in retrospect, he did it, not only in his own benefit, but also that of the country. Under the Arab Socialists, (of which he was a part), Iraq came to have free health care for all citizens, free education up to the highest levels, he helped modernize Iraq's economy, worked with many of the world governments, meeting with the highest officials of France and the US, for example, on many occasions. He did more for women's freedoms than maybe any other Arab leader.

Should he be hanged for his crimes. Maybe. But as we, America, are now experiencing, Iraq is no easy place to get under control. How are we now trying to impose order in Iraq? With violence and killing even more drastic than that used by Saddam himself. Why aren't our leaders going to hang? Figuratively I think they should, but literally, probably not. People do make mistakes.

As Ghandi said: an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.

US State Capitals

Show me an American kid this age who can rock this knowledge! I bet there are a lot of Americans who could list the whole Mcdonalds menu though. Bad sign. How many Americans can even name one region in India? All i'm saying is we should spend a bit more time branching out and learning more about the rest of the world and a little bit less time celebrating our fictitious superiority.

Why Virgil is the Anti-American One

"WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 — In a letter sent to hundreds of voters this month, Representative Virgil H. Goode Jr., Republican of Virginia, warned that the recent election of the first Muslim to Congress posed a serious threat..." This fella Goode is a damn fool, and no damn good! Americans are afraid that we are a terrorist target for Muslim extremists. Yes we are! Bombing the Middle East, I can promise you, is the last thing that will remove us from their bulls eye; but pressure from moderate Muslims will, in the end, be the only thing that ends the violence, and prevents more terrorist attacks on American soil.

Goode said: “I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped,” and he vowed to use the Bible when taking his own oath of office. I fear that people like Mr. Goode, with their prejudiced attitute, are risking my own, and other Americans lives by inciting the hatred, against us at home and abroad, of people who have a right to believe what they choose to believe. The more Muslims we have in our country, and the more we welcome them and treat them with the respect they deserve as human beings, the less of a terrorist target we will be. Our Country was built upon a foundation of freedom of religion, the right to practice one's own faith and not to be persecuted for it. If we were to live up that foundation, and not allow fanatics like Goode to get away politically unscathed when they subvert the American way with hateful rhetoric, we would also be protecting ourselves from future terrorism. We should remember that Thomas Jefferson, one of our celebrated founding fathers, kept a heavily read copy of the Koran, and studied it. If we as Americans showed more interest in the Koran, and were more welcoming to the Muslim community, we would be doing a great service to ourselves by demontrating that we might not be deserving of the wrath the extremist Muslims are hell bent on incuring against us.

The more American troops who are killed in Iraq, the more of an outcry there is at home to end the war. Nobody likes to see "their own" under fire and dying. While I subscribe to the belief that all humans are brothers and sisters, that there is no "us and them," I am well aware that this is not a prevelent view-point in practice. Generally we separate ourselves on customs, social values, religion, or color, but across the board people generally don't like to be blown up, shot, gassed, or chopped. I'm certainly not a big fan of living in fear of being murdered because somebody thinks i'm different.

America should embrace Muslim people, if we elected a Muslim president, I can almost guarantee that extremist Muslim terrorists would have a much harder time garnering support for their terrorist operations against us. If the majority of Muslims felt like we, as Americans, (and we should remember the great number of American Muslims who ARE AMERICANS) were not against "them" and their way of life, they would be far friendlier towards us, and the extremists in their midst would have little support for their murderous ways. The fastest way to bring about that change is to actually be welcoming to the Muslim people, to do the opposite of this idiotic Representative, and show them that we are not their enemy, instead of giving them evidence that we are.

The Wrong Color to be in Iraq

White. Of the 14 people captured in the recent raid on a convoy in Iraq, only the white ones were "kidnapped," 4 Americans and an Austrian; the 9 Asian drivers were released. Seems that we are getting a taste of our own medicine. Arabs in our country have to beware, and in our dealings with them in their own country (in this case Iraq) they are even more subject to terror. They can be taken and held indefinitely without probable cause. They can be stopped and searched in airports just because they look a certain way. I think it is a tragedy that these American contractors in Iraq have been captured, and that they may die when they were only over there trying to make a buck, and maybe even thinking that they were doing some good. But they were in Iraq profiting off an illegitimate war, and we are at home and abroad treating free human beings with no regard for the laws of men [and women]. This is another case where we must first find fault with our own ways. To just jump to blaming the Iraqis who have kidnapped these men, is to ignore our own role in their behavior. Maybe they are trying to show us something. They released all the contractors but the white ones. I wonder how many white American prisoners there are in Guantanamo? I'm not saying the kidnappers are right, they aren't, but neither are we. WE ARE MANIFESTING NEGATIVE OUTCOMES WITH NEGATIVE ACTION. That whole reap what you sow thing comes to mind....

Is president Bush an idiot?

Can you believe this was on MSNBC? WOW... Can't really imagine this on FOX news, but it's entertaining, that's for sure. Entertaining like a horror movie.

Here are members of the New Life Church in Colorado Springs this morning, praying during a service in which the founder of their church, who had just been fired, admitted, from the pulpit, that he was guilty of sexual immorality, and that he was a "deciever and a liar." So he's human. What a surprise?

If I had never seen the inside of a church before, or seen how people behave in there, I might look at this picture and think these people are on drugs. I've seen people behaving more "normally" at raves and Grateful Dead concerts. I'm not saying that people should act "normal" in life, I mean all the touching and singing and holding the hands up and stuff is probably the best thing about church, if you ask me. The bummer part is that these human beings end up fighting against themselves needlessly. This guy Ted Haggard was the head pastor, and also, it seems, a part time Meth-head and fan of gay sex. The poor guy describes his other life though, as "so repulsive and dark that I've been warring against it all of my adult life." Poor guy. What a waste of energy. (Well OK resisting doing drugs which are made from household cleaning products and over-the-counter cough medicine is probably time well spent), but man, there is nothing wrong with being gay. Yet, according to a Denver Post article, the head of the oversight commitee, a pastor Larry Stockstill, said "he is confident Haggard would regard homosexuality not as a predisposition, but as a temptation to be fought." JESUS! Then he went on to say that "Haggard is not in touch with truth and reality." So this pastor, who thinks that one's "god-given" (if you will) sexual tastes are sinful and should be fought against, especially such simple proclivities as adult, consensual, homosexual sex, which has been observed in numerous animal species, and in other mammals also, this guy is in touch with reality? I don't think so. Whatever this God is, if It is all powerful, then I think if It didn't want homosexual sex to happen, it probably wouldn't. These are the problems one starts running into when they take a book likethe Bible as "scripture." We have to remember that it was just people who wrote that book, people just like Ted Haggard, people who had plenty of misconceptions about what was right and wrong, but plenty of them were probably having a little gay sex on the side as well, and probably feeling guilty about it. I mean come on people let's move on.

I feel bad for Ted. I think he probably chose the wrong profession. But i'd venture to bet that the poor guy was raised to feel guilty about his "urges." Maybe he thought that if he really just kept praying, stayed close to the church, and preached "God's word," then he'd get "better." Doesn't seem to have worked out that way. He just ended up looking like a hypocrite, which he is. As are most of the people in the picture up top I bet. Some of them are probably gay, mostly in the closet probably, some probably do drugs, (that guy standing a few rows back with his arms in the big V, I'm thinking he's smoked a little bit of the funny stuff), most of them probably masturbate and are either having or looking forward to having pre-marital sex. I say right on. Sex is great. In fact that big church is probably a great place to meet girls, if the people on the pulpit weren't so consistently (as Pastor Larry Stockhill would put it) "not in touch with truth and reality," I'd probably go there to meet some. Maybe when they toss the Bibles in the bin, a little bit of balance and reality can begin.

Another fine day on google news

Today is an especially down day in the world of news. It all started this morning at my German Girlfriends house. She has cable. Which means CNN and FOX News (in English). CNN is nothing great, but it's not nothing, nor is it as entertaining, or addictive as FOX. Watching FOX News is like looking at a horribly disfigured, leg-less, wheel-chair bound, cross-eyed, stump-armed, burn victim. It makes you cringe, feel shame, get a sickly ache in your stomach, doesn't compute, and yet you can't look away; then you look away, but seconds later you sneak another look, seconds later you're changing the channel back to the torture chamber that is FOX news. So this was the start of my day. Listening to John Kerry clips over and over and over again. As if showing John Kerry saying something stupid is going to keep the republicans from losing the House, and maybe even the Senate. Not likely. Then they show clips of Bush trying to fumble out a criticism of Kerry's speach. As Bush lumbers forward, he is just able to articulate that: "words are important." Thanks buddy.

On FOX they just keep talking, but then you try to remember what they were saying, and you realize that they don't really say anything. They had some guy on to talk about the same old line, Democrats are weak on defence. Blah Blah Blah. I can't stop watching this stuff. And I totally disagree with all of it. I'm not sure if there are like subliminal pictures of paradise being broadcast beneath the facade of meaningless right-wing blather. The newscasters all seem like middle-aged kindergartners, whenever they try to articulate their own ideas, it comes out jumbled and sort-of dumb, almost as if they are all trying to emulate the President's speech. Then when they get something out without a hitch, they have that Bush smile, which says proudly: "that's right, I can talk."

Well that was all depressing, and then on, to news.google.com when I arrived home to the internet connection. OH MY GOD. It's almost as if the Economist and Business Week articles i've been reading the last two weeks have been filtering up. The economy is slowing. America is in trouble. I predict that the two articles in last weeks Economist and International Herald Tribune will come along as well, by tomorrow tops on google news the masses will be reading how London is the new financial capital of the world. The Federal Government has taken too many bites out of the Big Apple. Too many regulations. International business leaders have a difficult time even entering the United States through our handicapped TSA run airports. Who wants to fly in a country where you can't bring a damn bottle of wine on the plane anyway? Let alone invest in that country. Welcome to news.google.com, welcome to America. Bad news, more bad news, and politics, yucky politics. But some good stories to look into are the story about Diebold, the maker of the paper trail lacking, hackable voting machines which about a third of Americans will be using this year to vote in the mid-term elections. There is also a fantastic opinion letter by Karen Finley: http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20061102/cm_huffpost/033060

AMERICA WAKE UP

We went into Iraq 3 years ago, and we wanted to look like tough guys. But we went into the only country in Bush's "axis of evil" which posed no real threat. While we were busy "shocking and aweing" the world with our bombing of Baghdad, Iran and North Korea may have actually questioned their nuclear intentions; but then they watched as our Iraq mission went terribly wrong (in addition to watching us go into a country they both knew didn't have nuclear capabilities, while we didn't do anything other than call them evil axis members). They have looked on as we have become bogged down in a big mess with no end in sight. They have watched as the nations of the world have become more and more united in their hatred of the USA. The last few years they have put their feelers out, threatening more and more nuclear objectives, scorning inspections, and basically giving us the old nani-nani boo boo. They have watched as we have done relatively little to stop them. Bush has made us liars. He said the United States would stop any of his defined "axis" powers from developing nuclear weapons. We have stood by and watched, offered weak threats and now North Korea has the big one (or something damn close).

Not only did we not stop them, the fact is that we may have pushed them into a corner where their only option was to develope "the bomb." Humans are a resourceful bunch, and that includes North Korean humans. We have been starving them with sanctions, and now we are threatening more. Condi Rice has basically made clear that America is not really considering a military option. We bluffed, they called and raised, and we folded. Now we are telling them that they will be punished and feel the might of American consequences (i'm paraphrasing here). Only all we are doing is promising more of the same: more sanctions, which have been the very things driving their nuclear ambitions. Now we're scurrying around the world, trying to make friends with everyone again, so they will all impose the sanctions we tell them to. But much of North Korea's income comes from the black market anyway. The whole world can sanction them, but Kim Jong Il will still have income and power, while the poor of North Korea will suffer the great blunt of our pathetic and foolish retaliation.

A little history helps us understand the present situation. The fact is, four days after North Korea signed a denucleariztion agreement with the United States, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea on September 19th, 2005, the United States imposed huge sanctions against North Korea which were designed to cut off their access to the international banking system. We imposed these sanctions because we branded them a "criminal state" which was guilty of money laundering, counterfeiting, and trading in "weapons of mass destruction." But when we entered into that denuclearization agreement with them four days earlier, we agreed (according to Newsweek) that the United States and North Korea would "respect each other's sovereignty, exist peacefully together and take steps to normalize their relations." So we were acknowledging them as a sovereign state with a right to exist, they entered into the agreement with us; and then we imposed sanctions because we suddenly decided that we'd deny their right to exist. We backed out of our part of the denuclearization agreement, in which Pyongyang promised to "abandon all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs," thereby terminating the agreement itself, and giving them the right (at least as far as we were concerned) to continue developing nuclear weapons, which they have now done.

It almost seems like we didn't want to stop them in the first place. And what will we do now? We'll impose more sanctions even though we know that they depend on lucrative black market dealings including trading in weapons. We want to take all of their legitimate money making capabilities away through sanctions. What are they left with then? Kim Jung Il doesn't seem like a man to fold, on the contrary, he seems determined to stay in power. I'm sure they have noticed, like me and the rest of the world, that we are not going to stop them from producing nuclear weapons, except through worthless threats and through sanctions and more sanctions, many of which we have already been imposing on them.. It seems to me that they have little option but to really start pumping up their nuclear weapons production and including them in their weapons trade. When you starve a man, he'll eat what he can. When Al Qaida gets their hands on a big nuclear war-head, and maybe a rocket to fire it with, we'll only have ourselves to blame.

Come on Condi! WAKE UP! USA WAKE UP!! North Korea is a real threat. We know it, they have told us, demonstrated it, and we know they are a criminal state who will sell deadly weapons for the sake of profit. Putting them in more economic need seems like about the worst idea possible. Would anyone like another cup of crazy? The war we got into is one that is needless and criminal, it is the one that looked easy: Iraq. There is such thing as a just war, but Iraq was far from it. If North Korea will sell nuclear weapons to the highest bidder, then they are an imminent threat, and should be dealt with as such. But that does not necessarily mean that we must go to war with them, although we must acknowledge that it is an option, and one we take seriously.

The Vice Foreign Minister Kim Gye Gwan said in discussions with Selig S. Harrison, as reported in the October 16th issue of Newsweek, that they "...really want to coexist with the United States peacefully... we are definitely prepared to carry out the Sept. 19th agrement, step by step, but we won't completely and finally dismantle our nuclear weapons program until our relations with the United States are fully normalized..."

I want to know why my government officials aren't having the conversations with North Korea that a Newsweek reporter is having. This reporter, Mr. Harrison, sat down with the chief North Korean negotiator for 6 hours of talks, including two personal dinners, according to the Newsweek article. The North Koreans are clearly willing to talk and they seem quite honest; they say they have a nuclear weapon, and then they test it to show that they do. I have no reason to believe that they are lying if they say they are willing to give those weapons up in return for certain demands.

According to Harrison:

"Kim Gye Gwan spelled out what Pyongyang has in mind, calling for bilateral negotiations without preconditions leading to a package deal that would be followed by the resumptions of the six-party talks. For example, he indicated, the U.S. would lift some or all of the sanctions in return for North Korean concessions such as a cessation of plutonium production at the Yongbyon reactor; a missile-test moratorium, or a commitment not to transfer nuclear weapons or fissile materials to third parties..."

Sounds a lot better than a nuclear weapon in the hands of a stateless terrorist, someone who mutually assured destruction, that special nuclear war deterrent, doesn't exist for. If we do all we can peacefully, and North Korea doesn't desist from its nuclear program, then we have to get a coalition together and stop them by any means necessary. The consequences of nuclear arms in fundamentalist terrorist hands are too great to ignore. I'm normally a peacenik. Most things can be done peacefully. But we are peacefully driving North Korea into a role as a global nuclear arms provider for enemies of the so called "free-world." This is unacceptable.

WE NEED TO WAKE UP and smell the plutonium.

Just One Minute Men [and women]

On Thursday night, the 5th of October 2006, a group of liberal Columbia students stormed the stage while the founder of The Minuteman Civil Defense Corps was speaking as an invited guest of the College Republicans, another student group. The disrupters stopped the speech, prevented a question and answer session, and chanted "si se pudo, si se pudo" ("yes we could") over and over again. "Could what?" I might ask. They had unrolled a banner onstage which said in English and Arabic "No One is Illegal." I agree that no one is illegal, but doesn't the founder of the Minuteman group deserve the same status, even though we might not agree with him? As a free, "non-illegal person" (by the broad definition given by the protesters themselves), he should have been allowed to speak.

There is a way to organize a protest and there is a way in which a group can undermine itself with behavior that does not serve its cause. What on earth was happening at Columbia University this past Thursday? People with one point of view brought a group to speak at their University. All were welcome to attend. It was a public forum. While I don't agree with the ideas of the Minute Men, or think that their tactics or intentions are very American, it is only my opinion. At such an open forum, people with other viewpoints are brought, and we are free to question them, and to try and change their mind. But how can we engage them in discussion if we don't hear what they have to say? If we want them to listen to our argument, then we should listen to theirs. Columbia University is supposed to attract and admit the best and the brightest students. But what were these students thinking? (Or were they just not thinking?)Organizing a protest is as American as Washington D.C. cherry blossoms in spring. Showing up and making sure that your alternative perspective is represented is totally appropriate. But if we show up at an organized event where an alternative viewpoint is meant to be heard, then it is our civic duty as a citizen of a free society to sit down and listen if we wish to be represented there. If we want to bring a big sign that says "I think so and so and my opinions differ from yours," then I am all for it. Why sit in a group of peers who think the same as we do, and talk about the ills of the world as we agreeably see them? We aren't changing much by doing that. We need to be out mixing with the folks who hold the alternative opinions we see as being so destructive to the happier societies we envision. We need to be there to remind them that they might be wrong, just like they are there to remind us that we might be.

If we act like monkeys and chant something they probably don't understand, if we take their voice away, if we attack them and make them feel unwelcome, yelling and screaming in their faces, they will not listen to us. They will think that we are as crazy as they think we are, and they will think that we are as wrong as they think we are. If we act like we don't know how to act in a free society, by welcoming alternative viewpoints, hearing them out, and presenting our different opinions in a civilized way, then the people who observe us will be forced to consider us uncivilized. They will see us as less than respectable monkeys.

It's no way to get the point across. It is also making the same mistake we so often criticize the Bush Administration for making. It is to act like a child and not talk or listen to people who disagree with us. It is to tell them that they don't have a right to exist. I am reminded of why we are so hated in the Middle East. Our leaders have told people that they are with us or against us. They have told them that their way is wrong. It is this mentality and behavior which is the reason the current US Administration is at war. It is why they think they have a right to torture, to silence, to imprison without trial, and now to try these prisoners without fair representation or disclosure of evidence.

It is liberals who usually defend the oppressed, whose voices are being shut down with violence, whose rights are being violated, whose freedom is at stake. But when liberals act like the very Administration and persons who they criticize, the validity of their arguments is undermined. Their actions and their ideas are devalued in the eyes of those whose minds they need to change, and also to those in the center, who may now veer Right to avoid obnoxious monkeys. Those of us with disagreements, if we think we have a better way and want others to see things differently, would do well to listen to the arguments of those we disagree with; it might tempt them to listen to us. The least we can do is tell them they have a right to think and speak their own truth. If we don't want to give them that right, then we aren't fighting for freedom; and we probably aren't worth listening to.

A

Monday Mexico sent a letter requesting that Bush veto new legislation just passed by the senate which would allow 700 miles of fence to be put up between our countries. With the Iraq mess and the repeat button stuck on the "terrorist threat" message, I , maybe like many Americans, have been distracted enough to have missed this immense moment in American (or un-American) history. Today Bush signed the bill.

Torture and the American Way

I highly recommend this letter.

www.thenation.com/doc/20061009/moral_compass

a side note

Maybe my stay the course attitute in my last post is partly a result of my own media biases. Upon further reading I found that according to a poll taken in September 2006, 80 percent of Iraqi's favor a full US withdrawel within a year, 65% favoring an immediate pullout, with 77 percent suspicious that the US wants to establish permanent bases in Iraq. Is is right for us to keep bases there, will we try? I think we should prove them wrong on that one. Is Iraq a central and sensible location to have US military bases. Militarily, especially depending on military objectives, yes. But does that mean we should? No.

I just want to admit that while in my last blog I criticized the left wing voices who are calling for a withdrawel now, they may be right. They really might be right. If the people of Iraq want us out, and if we as Americans really believe in Democracy, then we should leave, and leave them to their free will's fate. Democracy in Iraq does not mean having a government who lets us do what we want there, it means having a government representative of the people. Not our people, their people.

A

We Can't Go on Like This- But We Can't Leave

I often consider how much money America spends on "defence." Our defence bill this year far exceeds 400 billion dollars. By 2010 it is set to exceed 500 billion dollars. Some of the rise in spending is a pay increase for soldiers. This is a good thing. That number will rise to about 100 billion dollars. But when you think about the fact that we have almost 1.5 million active troops, the average pay would be around $70,000 per soldier. But the highest pay of course goes to the military personel who are least at risk. Most soldiers are sold short. For example, a private in the Army, one of our boys on the front lines, typically makes less than 17,000 dollars per year to risk his or her life. The Airforce gets the biggest chunk of change (excluding personel pay), getting an increase from 108 billion dollars up to almost 114 billion. This is where the planes, carriers, big-guns, big-bullets and bombs come in. That's where the big money to be made is for the private corporations who have the big lobby power. This is war-making and not peace keeping money.

Many of our soldiers are still underequipped, still driving around under-armoured Humvees, even while their ammo bags are full and the planes flying overhead are overloaded with overly expensive weapons, with all too much killing power. The way we are carrying out this "war" puts our troops in harms way far too often because far too often their missions end up demonizing them in the eyes of the people.

Lets look at what happened yesterday for example. A house in Baquebah, 35 miles north of Baghdad, was entered by troops, and then they called in an airstrike. 8 civilians were killed. 4 men and 4 women. Witnesses said the attack was unprovoked. A mother was making breakfast. Suddenly people started getting shot. The soldiers were looking for insurgents, but is this the right way to do it? To make the Iraq people feel fear all the time, to enter their sovereign homes, and sometimes kill them, even innocent women and children, how can it make the Iraq people feel any other way about us than that we are the enemy, be they insurgents or not. This is war-making not peace keeping.

We need to completely change the policy in Iraq, stop looking at it as a war between us and them, between America and the "terrorists" we seem to be inviting there every day to fight us. We can learn a lesson from Hizbullah, which is right now in the midst of a huge propaganda campaign all over Lebanon. It is doing vigorous PR work. They are a humanitarian force in Lebanon, they help with education, health-care, food, protection. They are trying to minimize their "terrorist" aspect.

We can do more of this in Iraq. We have to face the fact that to many in the Middle East, we are the terrorists. We must make ourselves useful. We should have more of our qualified military personel out there in the field making sure the people of Iraq have electricity 24 hours a day, making sure that they have running water, plenty to eat, our troops need to patrol the markets, protect the Sunni's from the Shia insurgents, and vice-versa. We have so many resources to help the country rebuild its infrastructure. We need to get that place up and running. If our soldiers need to fight, then we can fight. But we need to be doing more to foster friendship between Sunni and Shia, and between ourselves and both of these groups. We probably need more soldiers not less. But we need to start protecting them by making them more of a peace-keeping force. We need more diplomats as well; Arabic speaking people and a good PR firm. We have to understand that in the Middle East we aren't in Kansas anymore. But some rules still remain true. A little bit of honey smooths a wound a lot better than a gun in the face.

We need to end the "war on terror" as it exists now. It's not working any more than the "war on drugs." This is a war of ideas, and we need to put far more energy into fostering a new image for ourselves. As it is now, we are empowering the "terrorists" by frequently making ourselves look like the bad guy. We give them the high ground, and it comes back to them in the form of heightened power and control. We are in Iraq now, and we need to help sort things out there. I don't think we can just pull out and abandon the country to the insane state it is in: a state we helped put it in, albeit unintentionally. It scares me when the left starts talking about just abandoning the Iraq mission. We should have done that 4 years ago, but it's too late now. We need to change course there, yes, but we need to stay there.

The way to beat the insurgents is to take their friends away. Take away their support, help turn people against them, the Shiite community against the Mahdi Army, and the Sunni's against the Sunni killing teams. Many Sunni's are already turning away from them because they are so careless with the lives of Iraq civilians. People are growing tired of the suicide bombings, and they are seeing that things are not getting better. When we blow houses up and kill civilians or people that we don't absolutely know are terrorists, we do not help ourselves nor the people of Iraq. We need to do more to protect the people. Knocking on doors looking for weapons is foolish. A terrorist behind a door is no threat. He is a threat when he leaves his house, and this is where we should be looking for him. If we want the tables to turn on our image, people must feel safe in their homes, at least not threatened by us there. Little acts go a long way.

I really believe that by doing more to help the Iraq people get back to normal life, which means making sure they have electricity, water, and safe places to shop for food, with more emphasis on communication, with a clear plan and clear intentions, we can help stem the the tide of hatred which is washing over us. We need more Arabic speaking soldiers to do be doing friendly communication and PR with the Iraqi citizens. And we need to use the violence and brutality of the insurgents against them. Which means a war of information. We don't need to lower ourselves to their level. We can take the higher ground and show the people (presently 47% of the Iraq population and up to 88% of the Sunni Arab minority think military attacks on Coalition forces are legitimate resistance to what they often see as an occupying force) that we are friends to them more than the insurgency are.

(this might seem a bit optimistic, but we have to start making changes. If what is going now is not working, just a little change might open up a whole new view to us, and suddenly things can get better. My point is that we must come up with something, some plan, and then start moving. We can't expect things to get better if we keep doing the same things that have not worked and that we have been doing as things have deteriorated.)

More to come.
a

Fox news

This is an addition. I just want to say that though I thought that Clinton did a good job in the interview, the fact that he went on the aggresive allowed him to get his point across, I just wanted to say that he was no angel as president. And I'm not talking about the Monica affair, if anything that made me feel for the guy. I don't think it's good to cheat on your wife, but even though he did it in his office, that was private business between him and Hillary, and of course the young impressionable Monica. But anyway, the way that Fox responded in this editorial on its website shows a level of childishness not seen since the last Disney cartoon. Wow. I just thought i would post it for everyone's perusing, just in case you don't already watch Fox news, or read their website (which I don't recommend, but do find entertaining in a comedic sort of way). Does this seem as biased to anyone else as it does to me? I am not a conspiracy theorist who thinks that Bush planned 9/11, and i really don't think it was his fault. I think there really were "intelligence" problems which caused the plot to be overlooked. Anyway, to blame Clinton for 9/11 (as the article does), is to ask us to subject this news outlet to the highest scrutiny. And I think we may come to the conclusion that they are well into National Inquirer territory. This is nonsense and should be labeled as such. Fox is all too happy to let the Bush White House off the hook. But they want to blame a man who was in office almost a year before. If they want us to think that Bush didn't know what was going on, how on earth can they be so bold as to tell us that his predecesor knew? A little cup of CRAZY anyone?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,215607,00.html

Bill Clinton does a fine job defending himself in this video

I haven't done any fact checking, but I think it is interesting. And he gives a good whack to the Fox styling.