a neo-political rant for the masses or at least a massive rant for the missive
setaside2
Posts: 1,084
to preface this: my friend likes to forward me highly patriotic and militarily themed emails constantly. this particular email has a link to a slide show. you may watch it if you like at: http://members.cox.net/classicweb/Heroes/heroes.htm
it's no secret that when it comes to this particular administration, I am no fan. It is also no secret that my family was heavily involved in the Columbine shootings on the otherside of the page: we knew the killers well, and my siblings and I understand (though do not condone, of course, dear god) why Eric and Dylan did what they did. What astounds me, and continues to astound me, is that the community continues to blame everyone else around them... I had hoped such things would wake them up. Anyway, this is a response to Rich's latest email to me.
Hey man.
I watched the slide show. And as you and I have always been open with each other, I'll be open with you.
I am a very poor American in that I believe that America got exactly what it deserved, what it had been screaming for so long to have done to it. Our greed and our arrogance as a nation is unheard of since the Roman empire. Not even the British, who were assholes in their day as well, come close to our basic lack of respect for the rest of modern civilization and they were right bastards, the lot of them. Ask India or the Australian Aborigines. Of course we downplay our own genocide here in the US, but you'll have to look real hard to find a Native American among us because of it.
That last bit, that quote about fighting for 200 years of freedom, was written by a guy who forgot that nobody fought for the freedom of any of our minorities in this country until 1964, when the Civil Rights Act was passed. And Kennedy was assassinated, probably in part because of this act, that he designed, in 1963. And even with that Civil Rights Act, nobody really did anything for the black man until after Vietnam ended in 1975. So, in reality, it's only been 30 years of freedom for some of us. Also, let's not forget as well that most of those quotes were written by men whose country was not free at the time of said statements. ALL OF THEM tempered their ideas by middle age and by the time the USA had been set down and formed, none of them would have stood for an attack on the country only then to watch the president go after THE WRONG MAN. Saddam Hussein has never been, and never will be linked to the attacks on the WTC. He does not have any Weapons of Mass Destruction. We went in there for OIL. It is so obvious (85% of the current Bush administration has STRONG and financial $$$ ties to the oil industry) as to not be disputed. We were going back already. When I was in Cheyenne, 3 days after W got placed into office, in January, the Air Force base up there went yellow alert and all my employees had to report for duty in double shifts. I finally said what the hell and James told me, "We're going back to the desert, man. We're going to finish what we started." This was 9 months before Sept, 11. They just needed an excuse and, in my opinion, I wouldn't put it past any of this particular administration to have allowed this little tidbit of terrorist gossip by so that they could have their war in the desert without any struggle from Congress or the US public whatsoever.
Also, let's not forget that our own government put Saddam Hussein in his position. We funded him and his anti-human rights policies for nearly 20 years. Also, we gave over 4 BILLION dollars in aid AND weapons to Osama Bin Laden and his (we then called them not terrorists but) freedom fighters. What people need to realize is that the attack on the WTC and the Pentagon (whom nobody talks about, ironically, because it happened to a military building and for some reason that's a more acceptable loss), was funded by American money. WE payed for our own lives on this one. WE bought 9/11 with our own military spending. That was our tax dollars at work. The US government forgot to tie up its loose ends and, after it got what it wanted from Desert Storm, it left it's constituents high and dry seething with anger for having been left behind. We got what we deserved. You feed the wild animal, don't be surprised if it turns around and bites your damn arm off. Blame the CIA and George Bush Sr. Clinton, too, had the ability to put a stop to Saddam and his atrocious handlings of his people and even HE didn't do shit. Blame Clinton as well. Neither party is blameless. F 'em both.
I remember Columbine High School as two kids, isolated by others more wealthy and better off though for some odd reason lacking any sort of sensitivity, walked in and took out their frustrations in the only way a community like littleton could hear. I silently cheered because I thought, maybe, now people will see that there is something wrong with our society. That there is something wrong with the way children are brought up in this nation (and it has nothing whatsoever to do with faith or prayer in schools, rich, dylan klebold, for instance was raised in a very decent christian home and prayer in schools only serves to isolate the non-christian element, which gives rise to further pain and anger from those who feel that their faiths are not being respected). And all people did while looking for someone to blame was point fingers at everyone but themselves. BASTARDS. Marilyn Manson is NOT to blame for this tragedy anymore than Snoopy is to blame for the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon. Idiots. Every other country in this world has violent video games, violent movies, hardcore music, plenty of available guns, and violent histories. Not one of them has this problem. This is an AMERICAN issue. We suck, period. I could go on for days about Columbine and what it means in our society but I won't here.
I have family and friends in the armed forces. I have a friend who lost his brother IN the WTC attack. Not one of them support our current president or his war. However, they will go to fight because it is what they are told to do, it is their job, And that is why I do thank them for going but I give them no special treatment nor special respect for doing what they do, nor do they ask for it. A soldier who dies on the battlefield is NOT more important than the little girl who gets NO press and no ink, that got kidnapped last friday. They are not more important than the single mother who dies in child labor while her baby lives wondering who will watch over it. No soldier is more than human. Anybody who makes it home to their families at night is a hero. This country's freedoms are being attacked alright, but it ain't from out there. Saddam Hussein does not make our policy decisions, neither does Osama Bin Laden, neither does anyone in the UK, France or anywhere else in the world. If we lose freedoms it is because our government takes them from us. Plain and simple. I respect these people, soldiers, doctors, photographers, kids on the jungle gym, as human beings, and that is exactly what each and everyone of us deserve: acknowledgment of ourselves as individuals with dreams and feelings and equal, EQUAL treatment of each in terms of said respect and honorability. That means gays, straights, atheists, religious, young, old, it don't matter. If you are alive you have the right to live in what manner you see fit and right as long as it is respectful to others and you are treating them in the manner with which you desire to be treated. This gay marriage ban is an excellent example of less than equal treatment. Nobody gets hurt by it, let 'em go. God forbid there be a little more love in this world. Wait, I don't think he forbids love. And if God is love, and these people love each other so much that they are willing to make that level of commitment, does anyone really think that God is going to object? I can't see the logic in an antistatement there. Love is love. Let them have theirs. Too many people go without, as it is.
I will never forget, Rich. But I will move on. History has no time for those who dwell on the past and neither, certainly, does the future. Our children are growing up in a scared and isolated version of the 1950's gone hi-tech. Parents and teachers are looking at them as the possible source for the latest threat. There is a serious lack of love. This country needs to stop supporting those who need no support and start giving back to those who support it: the middle and lower classes who are the backbones to this society. You want one thing indisputable? Kids whose parents are home and available are, in general, happier and more well adjusted. We have a society that demands two working parents. This takes the parent out of parenting. There are no parents. And because of this, kids take more and more of themselves into their own hands. And because they lack the guidance... bad shit happens. America got what it deserved and she needs to stop looking elsewhere for the answers to her problems and she needs to stop lashing out at others for her flaws and indiscretions. She needs to stop spending on war and start giving money back to the working class and start funding the american family.
Then you'll see me become a patriot.
Until then, I will die for you, Rich, for Kim, for my girlfriend Rachel, for my kids, for anyone. And it is not because I'm an "American," FUCK being an American, we are no better than anyone else. No, Rich, I would die for people because I love them as they are and because humans deserve that level of respect and that level of dream. I could careless about patriotism, but I couldn't care more for my fellow man. I could have sworn that was what it's really supposed to be all about.
Marc
it's no secret that when it comes to this particular administration, I am no fan. It is also no secret that my family was heavily involved in the Columbine shootings on the otherside of the page: we knew the killers well, and my siblings and I understand (though do not condone, of course, dear god) why Eric and Dylan did what they did. What astounds me, and continues to astound me, is that the community continues to blame everyone else around them... I had hoped such things would wake them up. Anyway, this is a response to Rich's latest email to me.
Hey man.
I watched the slide show. And as you and I have always been open with each other, I'll be open with you.
I am a very poor American in that I believe that America got exactly what it deserved, what it had been screaming for so long to have done to it. Our greed and our arrogance as a nation is unheard of since the Roman empire. Not even the British, who were assholes in their day as well, come close to our basic lack of respect for the rest of modern civilization and they were right bastards, the lot of them. Ask India or the Australian Aborigines. Of course we downplay our own genocide here in the US, but you'll have to look real hard to find a Native American among us because of it.
That last bit, that quote about fighting for 200 years of freedom, was written by a guy who forgot that nobody fought for the freedom of any of our minorities in this country until 1964, when the Civil Rights Act was passed. And Kennedy was assassinated, probably in part because of this act, that he designed, in 1963. And even with that Civil Rights Act, nobody really did anything for the black man until after Vietnam ended in 1975. So, in reality, it's only been 30 years of freedom for some of us. Also, let's not forget as well that most of those quotes were written by men whose country was not free at the time of said statements. ALL OF THEM tempered their ideas by middle age and by the time the USA had been set down and formed, none of them would have stood for an attack on the country only then to watch the president go after THE WRONG MAN. Saddam Hussein has never been, and never will be linked to the attacks on the WTC. He does not have any Weapons of Mass Destruction. We went in there for OIL. It is so obvious (85% of the current Bush administration has STRONG and financial $$$ ties to the oil industry) as to not be disputed. We were going back already. When I was in Cheyenne, 3 days after W got placed into office, in January, the Air Force base up there went yellow alert and all my employees had to report for duty in double shifts. I finally said what the hell and James told me, "We're going back to the desert, man. We're going to finish what we started." This was 9 months before Sept, 11. They just needed an excuse and, in my opinion, I wouldn't put it past any of this particular administration to have allowed this little tidbit of terrorist gossip by so that they could have their war in the desert without any struggle from Congress or the US public whatsoever.
Also, let's not forget that our own government put Saddam Hussein in his position. We funded him and his anti-human rights policies for nearly 20 years. Also, we gave over 4 BILLION dollars in aid AND weapons to Osama Bin Laden and his (we then called them not terrorists but) freedom fighters. What people need to realize is that the attack on the WTC and the Pentagon (whom nobody talks about, ironically, because it happened to a military building and for some reason that's a more acceptable loss), was funded by American money. WE payed for our own lives on this one. WE bought 9/11 with our own military spending. That was our tax dollars at work. The US government forgot to tie up its loose ends and, after it got what it wanted from Desert Storm, it left it's constituents high and dry seething with anger for having been left behind. We got what we deserved. You feed the wild animal, don't be surprised if it turns around and bites your damn arm off. Blame the CIA and George Bush Sr. Clinton, too, had the ability to put a stop to Saddam and his atrocious handlings of his people and even HE didn't do shit. Blame Clinton as well. Neither party is blameless. F 'em both.
I remember Columbine High School as two kids, isolated by others more wealthy and better off though for some odd reason lacking any sort of sensitivity, walked in and took out their frustrations in the only way a community like littleton could hear. I silently cheered because I thought, maybe, now people will see that there is something wrong with our society. That there is something wrong with the way children are brought up in this nation (and it has nothing whatsoever to do with faith or prayer in schools, rich, dylan klebold, for instance was raised in a very decent christian home and prayer in schools only serves to isolate the non-christian element, which gives rise to further pain and anger from those who feel that their faiths are not being respected). And all people did while looking for someone to blame was point fingers at everyone but themselves. BASTARDS. Marilyn Manson is NOT to blame for this tragedy anymore than Snoopy is to blame for the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon. Idiots. Every other country in this world has violent video games, violent movies, hardcore music, plenty of available guns, and violent histories. Not one of them has this problem. This is an AMERICAN issue. We suck, period. I could go on for days about Columbine and what it means in our society but I won't here.
I have family and friends in the armed forces. I have a friend who lost his brother IN the WTC attack. Not one of them support our current president or his war. However, they will go to fight because it is what they are told to do, it is their job, And that is why I do thank them for going but I give them no special treatment nor special respect for doing what they do, nor do they ask for it. A soldier who dies on the battlefield is NOT more important than the little girl who gets NO press and no ink, that got kidnapped last friday. They are not more important than the single mother who dies in child labor while her baby lives wondering who will watch over it. No soldier is more than human. Anybody who makes it home to their families at night is a hero. This country's freedoms are being attacked alright, but it ain't from out there. Saddam Hussein does not make our policy decisions, neither does Osama Bin Laden, neither does anyone in the UK, France or anywhere else in the world. If we lose freedoms it is because our government takes them from us. Plain and simple. I respect these people, soldiers, doctors, photographers, kids on the jungle gym, as human beings, and that is exactly what each and everyone of us deserve: acknowledgment of ourselves as individuals with dreams and feelings and equal, EQUAL treatment of each in terms of said respect and honorability. That means gays, straights, atheists, religious, young, old, it don't matter. If you are alive you have the right to live in what manner you see fit and right as long as it is respectful to others and you are treating them in the manner with which you desire to be treated. This gay marriage ban is an excellent example of less than equal treatment. Nobody gets hurt by it, let 'em go. God forbid there be a little more love in this world. Wait, I don't think he forbids love. And if God is love, and these people love each other so much that they are willing to make that level of commitment, does anyone really think that God is going to object? I can't see the logic in an antistatement there. Love is love. Let them have theirs. Too many people go without, as it is.
I will never forget, Rich. But I will move on. History has no time for those who dwell on the past and neither, certainly, does the future. Our children are growing up in a scared and isolated version of the 1950's gone hi-tech. Parents and teachers are looking at them as the possible source for the latest threat. There is a serious lack of love. This country needs to stop supporting those who need no support and start giving back to those who support it: the middle and lower classes who are the backbones to this society. You want one thing indisputable? Kids whose parents are home and available are, in general, happier and more well adjusted. We have a society that demands two working parents. This takes the parent out of parenting. There are no parents. And because of this, kids take more and more of themselves into their own hands. And because they lack the guidance... bad shit happens. America got what it deserved and she needs to stop looking elsewhere for the answers to her problems and she needs to stop lashing out at others for her flaws and indiscretions. She needs to stop spending on war and start giving money back to the working class and start funding the american family.
Then you'll see me become a patriot.
Until then, I will die for you, Rich, for Kim, for my girlfriend Rachel, for my kids, for anyone. And it is not because I'm an "American," FUCK being an American, we are no better than anyone else. No, Rich, I would die for people because I love them as they are and because humans deserve that level of respect and that level of dream. I could careless about patriotism, but I couldn't care more for my fellow man. I could have sworn that was what it's really supposed to be all about.
Marc
I'm stepping in front of the gushing hydrant in a hurricane. I'd like to see the traction I keep.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
You know they'll flay and flame you for telling it how it is. Fear provokes consensus and if you buck it they'll stone you out of hysteria. But I appreciate this post.
Thanks.
Fins
http://free.freespeech.org/americanstateterrorism/vietnamgenocide/Laos.html
thanks for reading...?
yeah well. I could go all weekend about columbine alone.. but some of this propaganda that is supposed to make me all weepy for a country that takes its indignance and arrogance out on the smaller weaker countries, well it pisses me off.
we'd only been bombing Iraq for what... 14 years? and then we funded and armed Iran just to see what would happen should both sides be properly fueled?
we're sick bastards the lot of us, especially in the administrative aspect.
Somebody threw a spanner and they threw him in the hole
There's rumors in the loading bay and anger in the town
Somebody blew the whistle and the walls came down
There's a meeting in the boardroom they're trying to trace the smell
There's leaking in the washroom there's sneak in personnel
Somewhere in the corridors someone was heard to sneeze
'Gooness me could this be Industrial Disease ?'
The caretaker was crucified for sleeping at his post
They're refusing to be pacified it's him they blame the most
The watchdog's got rabies the foreman's got the fleas
And everyone's concerned about Industrial Disease
There's panic on the swichboard tongues are ties in knots
Some come out in sympathy some come out in spots
Some blame the management some the employees
And everybody knows it's the Industrial Disease
The work force is disgusted downs tools and walks
Innocence is injured experience just talks
Everyone seeks damages and everyone agrees
That these are 'classic symptoms of a monetary squeeze'
On ITV and BBC they talk about the curse
Philosophy is useless; theology is worse
History boils over there's an economics freeze
Sociologists invent words that mean 'Industrial Disease'
Doctor Parkinson declared 'I'm not surprised to see you here
You've got smokers cough from smoking brewer's droop from drinking beer
I don't know how you came to get the Bette Davis knees
But worst of all young man you've got Industrial Disease'
He wrote me a prescription he said 'you are depressed
But I'm glad came came to see me to get this off your chest
Come back and see me later - next patient please
Send in another victim of Industrial Disease'
I go down to Speaker's Corner I'm thunderstruck
They got free speech, tourists, police in trucks
Two men say they're Jesus, one of them must be wrong
There's a protest singer singing a protest song - he says
'They wanna have a war to keep their factories
They wanna have a war to keep us on our knees
They wanna have a war to stop us buying Japanese
They wanna have a war to stop Industrial Disease
They're pointing out the enemy to keep you deaf and blind
They wanna sap your energy incarcerate your mind
They give you Rule Brittania, gassy beer, page three
Two weeks in Espana and Sunday striptease'
Meanwhile the first Jesus says 'I'll cure it soon
Abolish Monday mornings and Friday afternoons'
The other one's out on hunger striker he's dying by degrees
How come Jesus gets Industrial Disease?
Truth shall make way
to lead with a clear conscience
with nothing to fear
but fear itself.
"He who is without sin
shall cast the first stone."
it's strange. I have never been without sin to the best of my knowledge. I lost my innocence while breeching the cold oxygenated lands for the first time.
And yet I have cast my share of stones. I have ducked a few and I have randomly broken windows until I discovered that the sound they made was...ugly and without sense.
I can tell you that those who fear in and of itself have no life ahead of them.
Those who live beside the fears and hold them in respect but either work through them, work by them, work around them, fucking smash them to pieces, bring out the shotokan and a blade and turn their fears into so much frappe'd psychosis and neurosis left as puddles on the floor...
Those people are yet alive. And you will know them. Because it is they who have reached another plateau of humanity and one that many of us strive to reach and may take us many lives before we discover the secret to do so, though it is likely as obvious as the air we breathe.
Funny how we so often forget that we breathe.
I cast no stone here. Merely the gauntlet.
Bring it down or bring it on. Either way. I'm not leaving until the sun is far from risen.
seta