copyright ? 2008 Betsy L. Angert
Days ago, our Commander-In-Chief reminded us of the need to remain vigilant. He admonished anyone who might think to talk with those who politically, philosophically, or perhaps physically have the potential to oppose "us." The President of the world's superpower 'wisely' proclaimed ""Some seem to believe we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along." America's leader addressed Israeli lawmakers and said, "We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history." As a protective parent might alert an easily frighten child, the President of the United States forewarns his citizens. "Do not speak to strangers." It matters not that statistically, evidence shows those we know may be more dangerous. Close associates can harm "us." Those we have yet to encounter in our daily lives are not scary; they are unfamiliar.
Nevertheless, people whose names, faces, customs, cultures, and skin color differs from "ours" are classified as aliens. Those who we do not speak with are considered adversaries, for "we" have not taken the time to become acquainted. "We" assume the people who are foreign to "us" are antagonistic. Americans, seem willing to dismiss the accepted wisdom; friendships are formed. Foes are those we do not know, and thus, fear.
That said, the defensive stance adopted by the paternalistic President presumes that "we" just as little children, are less learned. Therefore, we will give all our toys to another tot, or to the big-bad-boogie-man, he vehemently told "us" not to play with. The word "appeasement," as referenced in Mister Bush's speech does not speak to diplomacy, a skillful communication between countries; it connotes the giving of gifts.
Britain and France pursued a policy of appeasement in the hope that Hitler would not drag Europe into another world war. Appeasement expressed the widespread British desire to heal the wounds of World War I and to correct what many British officials regarded as the injustices of the Versailles Treaty.
This treaty held Germany solemnly responsible for WWI. Germany was forced to pay reparations totaling 132,000,000,000 in gold marks, they lost 1/8 of its land, all of its colonies, all overseas financial assets, a new map of Europe was carved out of Germany, and the German military was basically non-existent. To the German people they were being ruthlessly punished for a war not only were not responsible for but had to fight. The main terms of the
Versailles Treaty were:(1) the surrender of all German colonies as League of Nations mandates
(2) the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France
(3) cession of Eupen-Malmedy to Belgium, Memel to Lithuania, the Hultschin district to Czechoslovakia, Poznania, parts of East Prussia and Upper Silesia to Poland
(4) Danzig to become a free city
(5) plebiscites to be held in northern Schleswig to settle the Danish-German frontier
(6) occupation and special status for the Saar under French control
(7) demilitarization and a fifteen-year occupation of the Rhineland
(8) German reparations of ?6,600 million
(9) a ban on the union of Germany and Austria
(10) an acceptance of Germany's guilt in causing the war
(11) provision for the trial of the former Kaiser and other war leaders
(12) limitation of Germany's army to 100,000 men with no conscription, no tanks, no heavy artillery, no poison-gas supplies, no aircraft, and no airships
(13) the limitation of the German Navy to vessels under 100,000 tons, with no submarinesGermany signed the Versailles Treaty under protest. The USA Congress refused to ratify the treaty. Many people in France and Britain were angry that there was no trial of the Kaiser or the other war leaders.
The treaty devastated Germany politically and economically. Because of the treaty, many Germans were desperate to find a new leader to get them out of the Great Depression, which they blamed on the extravagant reparations they had to pay to the Allies.
Notwithstanding, the veracity that talk can educate and place a distressed child at ease, country or diplomat, Americans are asked to avoid discussion with those our "leaders" deemed dictators or terrorists. "We," the people are expected to forget, as George W. Bush expressed not too long ago. On February 13, 2006, just over two years earlier, Commander-In-Chief Bush avowed his desire to resolve disagreements with Iran in an irenic manner. The President of the United States proclaimed the potential nuclear crisis need not be a cause for confrontation. After talks in Washington with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the decisive Mister Bush said the allied leaders agreed; the issue must be solved "diplomatically by working together." However, as is evident, for persons who dominate, the definitions for "diplomacy" and "peaceful" are fluid, as is the description of democracy. Merriam-Webster offers . . .
de?moc?ra?cy
1 a: government by the people; especially: rule of the majority
b: a government in which the supreme power is vested in the people and exercised by them directly or indirectly through a system of representation usually involving periodically held free elections
2: a political unit that has a democratic government
3. capitalized: the principles and policies of the Democratic Party in the United States (from emancipation Republicanism to New Deal Democracy- C. M. Roberts)
4. the common people especially when constituting the source of political authority
5. the absence of hereditary or arbitrary class distinctions or privileges
Might we also muse of the contradiction? In a country of equals the race, religion, or social rank of an individual might reduce the presumed significance of a fellow citizen. Here in America, too often one neighbor is the nemesis of another. How could that be? We might ponder another paradox. If every individual is worthy, one of no more value than any other, why are there privileged people who have power over the populace? We may know not why; nonetheless, we are aware those in authority tell average Americans, 'Diplomacy would be pernicious.' The incongruity of the situation does not escape observant historians.
Academics who study the democratic system note Americans have less social equality than we like to think we do. Citizens of this country are as those in a family where retaliatory parents rule. The word "family" connotes a connection. Yet, when guardians are not caregivers and are instead castigators. "family' is but the facade.
Yet, just as in a dysfunctional home where the relatives wish to believe all is well, in this "progressive" nation, we may wish to believe the system works. Americans firmly assert the present is far better than the past was, and the future will bring greater improvements. We reassure ourselves with charts and graphs. We watch market reports and read research that validates what we wish to hold as truth.
Admittedly, the average American accepts that in this affluent and democratic nation problems persist. Income inequity has always been a constant; it remains pervasive in the States. Here, in the richest country in the world, in a nation where people are taught to believe everyone is equal, opportunities are not. Most dismiss the imbalance as temporary. Certainly, the prospect for change is plausible. Shortcomings are the effect of economic growth. Corrections will come, sooner or later. Perhaps tomorrow will bring a better day. Of course, it will. Americans know how to grow an economy. With expansion, earnings increase. People prosper, equally.
Most of "us" believe that democracy has survived each trial and tribulation, and a government of the people, as we presume ours to be, will continue to thrive. Yet; perchance, we have been persuaded to have faith as we do. Democracy is best. Nothing functions better.
This is a powerful assumption. It may be tested by reflecting upon the fact that, despite American progress, the society has been forced to endure sundry movements of protest. In our effort to address the inconvenient topic of protest, our need to be intellectually consistent -- while thinking within the framework of continuous progress -- has produced a number of explanations about the nature of dissent in America. Closely followed, these arguments are not really explanations at all, but rather the assertion of more presumptions that have the effect of defending the basic intuition about progress itself. The most common of these explanations rests upon what is perceived to be a temporary malfunction of the economic order: people protest when "times are hard." When times stop being "hard," people stop protesting and things return to "normal" -- that is to say, progress is resumed.Unfortunately, history does not support the notion that mass protest movements develop because of hard times. Depressed economies or exploitive arrangements of power and privilege may produce lean years or even lean lifetimes for millions of people, but the historical evidence is conclusive that they do not produce mass political insurgency. The simple fact of the matter is that, in ways that affect mind and body, times have been "hard" for most humans throughout human history and for most of that period people have not been in rebellion. Indeed, traditionalists in a number of societies have often pointed in glee to this passivity, choosing to call it "apathy" and citing it as a justification for maintaining things as they are.
This apparent absence of popular vigor is traceable, however, not to apathy but to the very raw materials of history -- that complex of rules, manners, power relationships, and memories that collectively comprise what is called culture. "The masses" do not rebel in instinctive response to hard times and exploitation because they have been culturally organized by their societies not to rebel. They have, instead, been instructed in deference. Needless to say, this is the kind of social circumstance that is not readily apparent to the millions who live within it.
The lack of visible mass political activity on the part of modern industrial populations is a function of how these societies have been shaped by the various economic or political elites who fashioned them. In fundamental ways, this shaping process (which is now quite mature in America) bears directly not only upon our ability to grasp the meaning of American Populism, but our ability to understand protest generally and, most important of all, on our ability to comprehend the prerequisites for democracy itself.
In other territories, protest may not have been trained out of the populace. Perchance, residents in other regions were not appeased with material goods meant to buy love and obedience? We cannot be certain for there is so little that Americans are allowed to know of the persons our power elite wish to remain estranged from "us."
Nonetheless, it seems apparent from accounts, in other parts of the globe, dissent is not defined as terrorism. Discontent is not considered destructive. The voice of the people is not pernicious. Possibly, in some places governments are not as powerful as prohibitive parents might be. Oh, those who reign may try to exert absolute rule; however, the people are less easily "appeased" or patronized.
Many a Persian person may describe a situation different from Americans trust to be true in the Middle East. Numerous would share, in Iran, were it not for America's invasive input the inhabitants may have eliminated what the United States considers evil. Indeed, Iranians were working to end the reign of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. However, American intervened, and all changed, for the worse.
The follies of Bush's Iran policy
By Shirin Ebadi and Muhammad Sahimi
International Herald Tribune
Wednesday, May 30, 2007The confrontation between Iran and the West has developed a new dimension over the detention of several Iranian scholars, journalists and political activists who have been living in the West for years and have recently traveled to their homeland.
What is the root cause of these events? Part of it is the deep unpopularity of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Internal opposition to his government is becoming increasingly louder as Iranians are recognizing the danger in his foreign policy and his failure to improve the economy.
In December, university students forced him to stop his speech by shouting "death to the dictator." Iran's Parliament has severely criticized him. In recent municipal elections, candidates backed by Ahmadinejad received only 4 percent of the vote.
The conservatives who rule Iran are also badly fractured. The radical faction led by Ahmadinejad is bitterly opposed to the more moderate, pragmatic faction led by former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who advocates accommodation with the West.
The recent arrests should be seen partly as a reaction to these events. Unable to address Iran's mountain of social, economical and political problems, the hard-liners are trying to create a new crisis with the West in order to distract attention from their problems.
Engineer, and Author David Brin may have said it best, "It is said that power corrupts, but actually it's more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power." Control is a costly endeavor. Perhaps, the price is too high for the average reasonable American, or possibly those who no longer view protest as wise, do not realize the expense is not only imprudent, it is counterproductive and detrimental to our own "Homeland Security."
Some of the $75 million has been devoted to the U.S.-funded Radio Farda, Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, as well as to VOA satellite TV, which are beaming Persian programs into Iran. Other portions have been given secretly to exiled Iranian groups, political figures, and nongovernmental organizations to establish contacts with Iranian opposition groups.But Iranian reformists believe that democracy can't be imported. It must be indigenous. They believe that the best Washington can do for democracy in Iran is to leave them alone. The fact is, no truly nationalist and democratic group will accept such funds.
According to the Algiers Accord that the United States signed with Iran in 1981 to end the hostage crisis, noninterference in Iran's domestic affairs is one of Washington's legal obligations . . .
Thus, Washington's policy of "helping" the cause of democracy in Iran has backfired. It has made it more difficult for the more moderate factions within Iran's power hierarchy to argue for an accommodation with the West . . .
The Bush administration should put an end to its misguided policy and immediately declare which organizations and public figures have received funds from the $75 million. This will make it clear that the scholars, journalists and other figures who travel to Iran have nothing to do with Bush's policy on Iran.
If the United States government continues to aggressively assault our "enemies' as an abusive parent might if they perceive the "stranger" as a threat, then we can expect to be attacked. Should the powers-that-be in the States invoke embargos, again the risk is, this reactive behavior will incite attack. "Appeasement" will not bring bliss. Gifts given to lessen the weight of guilt will not gratify or garner good graces. We cannot buy love; nor can we grow fondness when engaged in a feud.
Thus far, "we" the people have seen what occurs when "our' government does not act in best interests of the people here or abroad. The Iranians who seek to enrich society are correct. A democratic system cannot be instigated from the outside. Fairness grows from within. Equanimity must evolve naturally if it is to be real, effective, and everlasting.
Might Americans work to cultivate the principles we espouse and yet have never established before we attempt to shift the paradigm elsewhere. Let us find a way to make democracy doable here at home. Perchance, diplomacy will build a bridge. If only Americans talked among themselves and to each other. We must speak to "strangers." Perhaps we will discover similarities. "We" the people cannot allow ourselves to be treated as children. We must acknowledge the people who claim to protect us are our abusers. The power-elite have the authority "we," the little people give them. America, it is time to stand up. Let us not fear the foreigner. With eyes wide open, let us consider those that cause us great harm live in our house.
Democracy Described and Defined . . .
Add to del.icio.us
Digg this
Post to Furl
Add to reddit
Add to myYahoo!Guest post by ScanFrom their 1970 debut album, here’s Funkadelic with "I Got a Thing, You Got a Thing, Everybody’s Got a Thing". Most famous for their One Nation Under a Groove era, not everyone knows that Funkadelic sounded this raw and[...]
Read The Full Article:
http://www.taylormarsh.com/archives_view.php?id=27712
Add to del.icio.us
Digg this
Post to Furl
Add to reddit
Add to myYahoo! Download | Play Download | Play (h/t Bill W)Bill Moyers looks at the parallels between the rhetoric ramping up to the invasion and occupation of Iraq and the aggressive posturing of the White House and their minions against Iran today.BILL MOYERS: A final update. Last month Victor Navasky of the COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REVIEW told us about how all [...]
Read The Full Article:
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/05/17/bill-moyers-journal-bombing-iran-everyth
ing-old-is-new-again/
Add to del.icio.us
Digg this
Post to Furl
Add to reddit
Add to myYahoo!Here's an update on the Nevada add-on, from Inside Nevada Politics, who's at the State Convention:
Still to come tonight is a floor vote on the add-on delegate, which could go for either Obama or Clinton. Word is the campaigns are trying to find a truly neutral candidate to make the process easier. If the two campaigns don't agree, then it's a floor fight.Update:
...
Convention chair Chris Wicker is intent on finishing the agenda business tonight, but it's shaping up to be a long one.
Rusty McAllister, with the International Association of Firefighters, has been elected as the add-on, unpledged delegate to the national convention. The move basically makes McAllister the newest superdelegate from Nevada. He was elected by promising both campaigns that he is completely neutral in the presidential race, not having made up his mind between U.S. Sen. Barack Obama and U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton.
McAllister originally supported Chris Dodd, who was endorsed by the IAFF before dropping out of the presidential race. When he showed up to caucus on Jan. 19, however, McAllister said he was told to choose a side and picked Obama. Since caucusing, he said he changed his mind about supporting Obama. He viewed his neutrality as the best avenue to the national convention. And he said the IAFF is asking its members to try to be elected to the national convention. The IAFF has stayed neutral in the presidential race since Dodd dropped out. If the IAFF succeeds in getting enough of their neutral members to the national convention, it stands to reason they could potentially act as a power broker. McAllister said the union's focus is more on the general election. - Inside Nevada Politics
Add to del.icio.us
Digg this
Post to Furl
Add to reddit
Add to myYahoo!More background on this race can be found in my previous diaries here or at the Iowa progressive community blog Bleeding Heartland. A little more than two weeks before the Democratic primary in Iowa's third Congressional district, Ed Fallon has[...]
Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/mydd/~3/292543449/464
Add to del.icio.us
Digg this
Post to Furl
Add to reddit
Add to myYahoo!And now a scientist says so, so that proves it.
According to University of Oslo zoologist Petter Böckman, about 1,500 animal species are known to practice same-sex coupling, including bears, gorillas, flamingos, owls, salmon and many others.
If homosexuality is natural in the animal kingdom, then there is the question of why evolution hasn’t eliminated this trait from the gene pool, since it doesn’t lead to reproduction. It may simply be for pleasure.
“Not every sexual act has a reproductive function,” said Janet Mann, a biologist at Georgetown University who studies dolphins (homosexual behavior is very common in these marine mammals). “That’s true of humans and non-humans.”
…One thing that does seem to be exclusive to humans is homophobia.
“It’s a very interesting question as to why anybody ever cares,” Mann said. “There are different theories about why people find it threatening. Some think it disrupts male bonds, like you’re not playing for the right team. The funny thing is that people say homosexuality is unnatural, that non-humans don’t engage in homosexual behavior, but that’s not true. Then they’ll say it’s base and animalistic.”
Well, as we progressives know, there are some arguments you can?t win. If it?s not one thing, it?s another.
I?m going to get away from this computer and enjoy the day. The squirrels are bustling in the trees, the birds are singing. Who knows what they?re up to?
Add to del.icio.us
Digg this
Post to Furl
Add to reddit
Add to myYahoo!Coming Up on Sunday Kos ....
- DarkSyde will review Microcosm: E. coli and the New Science of Life, a fascinating new book from best-selling science writer Carl Zimmer about lifestyles of the slimy and infectious.
- brownsox will conduct an autopsy on the vaunted Permanent Republican Majority, now reduced to a regional minority.
- DHinMI will suggest a candidate to be Barack Obama's running mate.
- Devilstower will explain why your prejudice is worse than my prejudice: race, sex, and the presidency.
- DavidNYC will ask, "Could Barack Obama really win... Mississippi?" The answer may surprise you.
Add to del.icio.us
Digg this
Post to Furl
Add to reddit
Add to myYahoo!A new report from the Justice Department’s inspector general concluded that “no agents for the Federal Bureau of Investigation took part in the military?s rough interrogations” in Guantánamo Bay, Iraq and Afghanistan. The report, however, also states that agents were too slow to respond to misgivings about questioning tactics. Some agents said the “torture tactics” they witnessed “yielded little actual intelligence“:
F.B.I. agents complained to superiors beginning in 2002 that the tactics they had seen yielded little actual intelligence, prevented them from establishing a rapport with detainees through more traditional means of questioning and might violate F.B.I. policy or American law.
One F.B.I. memorandum spoke of ?torture techniques? used by military interrogators. Agents described seeing things like inmates handcuffed in a fetal position for up to 24 hours, left to defecate on themselves, intimidated by dogs, made to wear women?s underwear and subjected to strobe lights and extreme heat and cold.
Add to del.icio.us
Digg this
Post to Furl
Add to reddit
Add to myYahoo!As the Representative for the First Congressional District, Roger Wicker posted one of the most abysmal voting records on file. In particular his stance against the working man is what irks me the most. You would think a man from the blue collar town of Tupelo ,with Southern Baptist roots, would have the best interests of the working man in mind when he cast his vote in Washington, DC. Well meet Rubber Stamp Roger, no friend of the working man.
Has Roger ever stood up to the Republican powers that be and cast an important vote outside of the party mainstream? Whatever comes down from the GOP establishment or K Street is Roger's marching orders. GovTrack, a non-partisan website that tracks each bill and compiles statistics for every member of Congress has Wicker labeled as "Radical Republican", the most extreme ranking possible. By their chart he is the GOP equivalent of Henry Waxman or Ted Kennedy.
How out of touch with the working folks of Mississippi? Just last year he voted against the Fair Minimum Wage Act, which raised the minimum wage from $5.15to $7.25. With the large number of working poor in Mississippi, you would think Roger would vote in the best interests of his constituency. Nope. Roger voted for the K Street lobbyists and the money hungry corporations who think it fair to pay somebody for a 40 hour week and still leave them well below the poverty line. Their god is the free market and they don't care who gets sacrificed at the alter of unrestrained capitalism. Survival of the fittest.
Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/GsAJ/~3/292678076/roger-wicker-and-workin
g-man.html
Add to del.icio.us
Digg this
Post to Furl
Add to reddit
Add to myYahoo!As the Representative for the First Congressional District, Roger Wicker posted one of the most abysmal voting records on file. In particular his stance against the working man is what irks me the most. You would think a man from the blue collar town of Tupelo ,with Southern Baptist roots, would have the best interests of the working man in mind when he cast his vote in Washington, DC. Well meet Rubber Stamp Roger, no friend of the working man.
Has Roger ever stood up to the Republican powers that be and cast an important vote outside of the party mainstream? Whatever comes down from the GOP establishment or K Street is Roger's marching orders. GovTrack, a non-partisan website that tracks each bill and compiles statistics for every member of Congress has Wicker labeled as "Radical Republican", the most extreme ranking possible. By their chart he is the GOP equivalent of Henry Waxman or Ted Kennedy.
How out of touch with the working folks of Mississippi? Just last year he voted against the Fair Minimum Wage Act, which raised the minimum wage from $5.15to $7.25. With the large number of working poor in Mississippi, you would think Roger would vote in the best interests of his constituency. Nope. Roger voted for the K Street lobbyists and the money hungry corporations who think it fair to pay somebody for a 40 hour week and still leave them well below the poverty line. Their god is the free market and they don't care who gets sacrificed at the alter of unrestrained capitalism. Survival of the fittest.
Let's keep Roger in North Mississippi. As of a month ago, Wicker had raised 3 million dollars to Musgrove's half of a million. Ronnie is going to need our help.
Read The Full Article:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/blogspot/GsAJ/~3/292678076/roger-wicker-and-workin
g-man.html
Add to del.icio.us
Digg this
Post to Furl
Add to reddit
Add to myYahoo!
Powered by blogdig.net