A Note to the “Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party” January 15, 2004
My first political recollection was attending the cold but inspirational Inauguration of John F. Kennedy on my seventh birthday; as it happened, my family being working class residents of D.C. for a century or so. I remember how difficult it was to get anywhere within viewing range of the first couple as they passed by, made more poignant three years later when it was much easier to work one’s way through the crowd to watch his caisson roll by.
The first election I really began to understand, however, was in 1968 when my sophistication had matured enough to actually select a candidate I supported (even IF…. one can’t vote at fourteen….in reality) , Bobby Kennedy. The man who would have ended the loss in ‘nam by ’69, and unlike Adolph Nixon who “promised” the same; actually would have done it, like his brother planned after the ’64 election (according to a military order laid on his grave a few years ago). Besides saving the lives of HALF the folks on “the Wall”, who died for the GOP’s re-election (thanks to the “highly moral” Kiss-ass-inger’s fascist strategy), his experience and competence in International Affairs would have brought this planet much closer to the Universal Peace & Freedom that all humane beings truly desire. In fact, it seems his Assassin was deceived into the evil act by someone who said Bobby had been talking to the Israeli’s the week before, NOT pointing out that this was to balance the fact that he had been talking to the Arab side the week before THAT!
Evil works in obvious ways (being the stupid side of things).
Ever since that time, I and most logically-thinking Americans have wondered why this nation butchers so many of it’s OWN people with cowards' weapons, assault firearms (or so they seem to a wrestler like me “back in the day”). I mean these weapons unfortunately have their uses (like via re-election war abuses of power – like Putin in Chetnya or Shrub in Iraq); but to sell them across this country so that we can kill each other over a pair of tennis shoes or a bruised ego to the tune of 11,000 a year !!! – when the Civilized parts of the world simply control who has access to such and kill, say 100 in Britain or 50 in Canada – seems the height of Insanity and a perverse dereliction of duty by a government which sells it’s soul for thirty pieces of silver (or triple the profit margin of any NON-lethal commodity, in point of fact). Sadly, it seems that Mr. Dean has been a poster child of the Satanic Rifle Association & intends to maintain that position, apparently ignorant of the fact that since the 1920’s or so, the Majority of the American people no longer live in the rural areas but in URBAN or at least SUB-URBAN areas, and that this blindness to the needs & desires of most Americans and almost ALL “real democrats” brings into question his comprehension of the problems which beset the areas where MOST Americans now reside !!! His apparent insensitivity to people of color and lack of support for affirmative action in an era when the average black household has access to one-tenth the economic resources of the average white household seems more evidence of his inexperience with major urban centers which; Vermont, for better or worse has none of ! To complete this critique which I feel compelled to make by a sense of duty to what this nation and world could, would and should be, I have to point out that those who stand with the merchants of death who would so freely arm insanity like Sirhan Sirhan's are NOT the democratic wing of the Democratic party !!!!! ….as seen by this graduate of Mr. Jefferson’s University (our co-founder ).
At about the same time that the second Kennedy was Assassinated (before he was even nominated) a young veteran (who thereby had earned the right to speak his mind on the matter with credibility) became known to many progressives, John Kerry. His work with the "Vietnam Vets against the War" organization (including eloquent testimony at Congressional hearings) helped illuminate the stupidity & lack of respect for human life which the right-wing anti-intellectuals running the war were guilty of, and added pressure to end it, which all but the most radical war-mongers could not ignore. His subsequent election and work in the Congress has established a steady, competent record of struggling for the rights of all Americans through exercising the wisdom of practicing ethical foreign policy, which is necessary to avoid our country (the economic/military "Rome of the day") from becoming a curse and a byword amongst the nations. This, especially amongst the downtrodden majority; thereby avoiding our being targeted by extremist terrorists, which the shrub/chaney regime has encouraged through policies based vapidly on greed and arrogance (Mammon-like one might say).
Senator Kerry's work, especially on the Iran/Contra "Cocaine-for-Death Squads" treasons of the Bonzo-bush league '80's in which his sub-committee exposed the links between George Bush=>Claire George=>Dewey Clairidge=>John Hull Cocaine smuggling in order to deceive the American people into thinking that the Nicaraguan campesinos were funding the very death squads who killed more civilians than combatants (the Contras) should, and would have led to the impeachments and convictions of the Reagan-Bush regime if this country had still enjoyed the truths of a free press by the late '80's. The fact of the matter, dear progressives is that the pimps of the far-right G.(reed) O.(iled) P.(arty) BOUGHT the major networks after the Watergate exercise of open government in order to prevent true democracy from breaking out again , and in this they succeeded (No Frank Church house-cleaning in the eighties!). The U.S. Constitution has been a moot document since 1987 as regards Republican regimes. They illegally, immorally packed the "Supreme Court" for the next five years, which leaves the land without just-justice for half a century (along with all the other bogus judicial appointments then and since the theft of the 2000 "election"). I bring up these salients to point out that any attempt to return this nation to the "rule-of-law" rather than the "Dictatorship of feeble-minded men" which it suffers under currently is not an academic quest in pure democracy between divergent ideas on an even playing-field, but is more a constrained battle against an entrenched corruption which controls almost all the "means of INFORMATION". I have always been proud to recall my first vote for Senator George McGovern as opposed to those who are embarrassed to admit they helped vote in a liar and a CHEAT; however, if an alternative candidate (espousing most of the democratic ideals) who could have won, had been available, it might have been wiser to go that route ! (& of course the "Yippies" who protested the WRONG convention - like twit Nader - merely helped remove the potential of an RFK policy & ensured the hellish treason against the american/international people which followed, one wonders if shrub paid off Ralph like Reagan did Khomeini for withholding the hostages until election day ???).
The fact of the matter is, the media (especially the commercial sort) canNOT be expected to give anyone left of "Corporate-Right wing" a fair break, as they have not for a quarter-century. Any TV "journalist" who does his job fairly LOSES it; as demonstrated by Leslie Cochburn, formerly of CBS news (who's book "Out of Control" documents the Iran-Contra coke trading w/hundreds of references), and everyone knows that the election is determined by what appears on the "7:00 news" in this country. Therefore, the only viable candidates in this era of "panic the people into voting neo-fascist" (as demonstrated by the Christmas season high alert "crises") are those inoculated against the trite claims of "softness" on military/security matters via a background including military experience. Senator Kerry is the correct choice in this analysis since the right has been running on this canard for decades (even after that famous "pinko" Eisenhower warned the country about the Military-Industrial complex corruption). Resident shrub has absolutely NOTHING to commend him except antique (pre-Hiroshima mind set) military thinking; to respond to the terrorists, which his hypocritical support of the far-right Likud regime in Israel has helped to create (& subsequently be aimed at America). Likud, which breaks the law of Moses FOUR times over the "life-for-a-life" Limit on vengeance that would restrain any REAL Jew, like the progressive wing of the Labor Party. It seems that to "avoid doing anything at all that a Democrat has done" he stupidly IGNORED the middle east bloodshed claiming that the Palestinians would come crawling on their knees to peace after he let Sharon butcher them for a while…………..their allies came; alright, on 9-11 !!! America MUST have the intellectual COMPETENCE to conduct foreign policy such that we are seen to be a FAIR ARBITER between conflicted states ------ or as the ultimate power in the world we WILL BE BLAMED for ignoring injustice. Senator Kerry possesses the intellectual ability required and has demonstrated the talent of weighing rather complex issues in a fair manner. He is aware, I'm sure that we could kill EVERY terrorist alive in the world today, and as long as we continue to support Likud's excessive overKILL and theft of their "cousins under Abraham/Ibrahim" lands, there would be a brand new flock of suicide bombers tomorrow! As any physician/competent analyst should know, one does not cure a disease by merely treating its symptoms! Unless one goes after the CAUSE which gives rise to the EFFECT of Terroristic response to injustice against an enfeebled people, one will never eradicate the problem. It's sad to know that if Clinton had merely been half as tough on the Israelis as he was on the Palestinians, by withholding monetary/military/intelligence support until Barak offered a FAIR DEAL (like half of Jerusalem & reparations for all the homesteads destroyed in a land where people had resided for millennia, through the re-creation of Israel due to Euro-American guilt over the holocaust), the last three years of slaughter (& perhaps even 9/11) could have been avoided ! <Of course megalomaniac shrub doesn't even TRY to make peace! His comic-book mind KNOWS he's right! ..yeah, …….FAR RIGHT $$$> …………………………….& let us say Hip ! Hip ! Hip-o-crite !!
Senator Kerry thusly, is the candidate needed to give the American electorate a clear alternative to the bumbling tart of blind corporate special interest; someone they can TRUST to carry out the necessary actions required for security, but exercising the balance NOT to destroy our liberties in the process !!! (& someone with enough military common sense NOT to "hire" mercenaries to go after the real Iblis in Tora Bora , who, thanks to dimmy "Rummy" were simply offered a higher price to let Osama SIN Laden go !
One other complaint an objective observer must make regarding Howard Dean's integrity, he built his preliminary lead by castigating the "inside the beltway" crowd (i.e. those who tend to get less filtered information, by necessity) for "supporting" bush's re-election war (cheap oil =>good economy). In fact; most Democrats, & certainly Senator Kerry voted to try and RESTRAIN the cowboy's excessive exuberance for war by handcuffing his actions to the will of the UNITED NATIONS international maturity. The problem was; of course, that this administration is Republican, and like every such since Nixon, they LIE without a shred of integrity. So, please direct your criticism where it belongs, or you risk looking like a power-lustful hypocrite who belongs in the other party !!!
To consider the other candidate who would superficially fit the bill of a military background, I have to point out that we are nominating/electing a President of a very broad government/nation & that as much as I respect Gen. Clark's work as a sort of "Human Rights Enforcer" I know that experience with the other branches of government, particularly the Congress, is crucial to making the whole process truly effective. One also has to wonder about someone who talks like a republican one year, serving as a military lobbyist and suddenly becomes a Democrat for the season. One thing that the steady, proven experience of Senator Kerry brings is the surety that what one sees is what one gets because he's been "walking the walk" for more than three decades !!! (I might nominate the General for Secretary of Defense, fer sure
Steven Dwight Ferber
U.Va. B.S. Chemistry -'76 (The year of the Revolutionaries)
"A.B.D." University of Minnesota Physical Chemistry '81
<left to save the world from the "Limited Nuclear War"
envisioned by Bonzo-butt brains & Co.>
Ph.D. Candidate @ Howard University Chemistry - Currently
2116 South Second Street; Arlington, Virginia 22204
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To the ‘Righteous Wing” of the American Electorate May 7, 2004
Or
Terrorism: The Evil Slaughter, which Injustice begets
Today’s tension betwixt “East & West” or Islam & America since 9-11 is reminiscent of that extended period known to modern American history as “The Iranian Hostage Crisis” of 1979. What is perhaps telling of the situation we find ourselves in now is how each of us (of a certain maturity) reacted to that situation. Some became frozen in fear and bewilderment, some slapped on some iron & practiced maneuvers in the woods, but a more thoughtful response was perhaps to attempt to UNDERSTAND this alien culture based in an exotic religion which seemed so hostile to “the American way”.
At that time, I was a graduate student in Physical Chemistry at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Being basically bewildered by what was happening, why a group of students would kidnap an embassy of people who were ostensibly there to help, I attended a lecture on the reasons why such events were taking place. There I heard about the tender mercies of the SAVAK secret police of the Shah and other stupidities our foreign policy supported which led to such animosity. Having been awake in the 60’s and 70’s I could understand the outrage which grows out of Human Rights abuses, but there seemed to be a much deeper divide between the Islamic Student Union folks I talked with arising out of the very foundation of their culture – the religious underpinnings of the Muslim world vs. the Judeo-Christian enlightenment basis of the west. Particularly after the “crisis” dragged on until it could determine our elections (bringing the far-right wing republicans to power for over a decade) I became concerned enough about the vast chasm between these two cultures to invest some study on understanding it.
Having been trained “in the academy” to approach subjects logically and historically (and having been raised in a rather conservative Christian religion) I approached the subject from it’s earlier roots – the Septuagint and New Testament (the King James Bible – most general underpinning of western culture/literature as well). Having been disgusted by the hypocrites of the so-called “Christian” right in the Nixon years, I hadn’t muchly read such source material although, of course the very basis of our society’s ideals derive from it and so most of the ideals/concepts were quite familiar. A surprising aspect was how much of the prophets and “wisdom literature” dealt with injustice and liberation from oppression (most of the Sunday sermons I heard seemed to have missed this major emphasis). A similar theme underlies most of the Gospels concerning J’shua of Nazareth (e.g. the Good Samaritan parable) but the Romanized church and most that followed lean toward the authoritarian letters of Paul who had to “reign in” the excessive FREE WILL practitioners who took the anointed one’s emphasis on non-dogmatic belief a bit too far.
Once I acquired the basis of what grew into “Western” culture (and what was available to the Prophet Mohammad through discussions with his Christian and Jewish neighbors) I proceeded to read through the “Exhortation” or lecture (as poorly translated in my opinion), the Quran. I found it to be quite similar to much of the older testament in principles and emphasis with a more lyrical, personable presentation. One thing though, even as a lay-student of religion, I believe should be emphasized regarding all three of the Monotheistic scriptures is that some things ARE lost in translation in that one should be very cautious about interpreting “every jot & tittle” to the nth degree if one can not read the ORIGINAL language in which it was rendered. This may prove especially salient regarding the poetic parts of the Old Testament, the “hidden” meanings in the days of foreign oppression (like much of the “prophetic writings” – e.g. revelations) and of course the Islamic text which any Arabic speaker will contend can hardly be appreciated outside the lyrical original !
The most surprising aspect of the Quran I found to be the fact that it was NOT so unfamiliar ! In fact, between the three faiths I would deign to say that 85% of all beliefs and principles are exactly the same ! Of course, when dealing with absolute BELIEF the problem is not so much that everyone more or less agrees, but one tends to get hung up on the smallest differences of opinion (in this case – the devil – of schism - truly IS in the details). Thus, depending on SECONDARY sources (Sha’RIA re: the prophet’s habits in the 7th century), early history (hereditary leadership) and diverse emphasis upon this or that aspect of the scriptures we now have a major split in the Ummah (Muslim community) between Shia & Sunni, the disagreement over the divine-ness of Jesus separating Christians from Muslims and Jews and, of course, a plethora of congregations within Christianity (not to mention the orthodox/conservative/reform Judaic schism in this country). This is one problem which I believe the current pope (whom I do NOT always agree with) has put a correct emphasis upon –schism over small things tends to weaken the global consensus regarding problems which are obviously in need of attention. For example, the orthodox Serbians could NOT justify mass-murder of their Muslim neighbors simply because they attend services on a different day of the week anymore than the ostensibly Lutheran Germans were justified in the mega-slaughter of their Jewish neighbors half a century ago for a similar difference in belief.
Therefore, from a perspective of trying to understand the differences which seem to rend this world asunder so much these days, it seems short of the second (or first) coming, we will NOT all agree on “how many angels can stand on the head of a pin”, however, there is much hope to the fact that all three of the mono-theistic faiths and most others share many common ideals and principles in common - not all, but certainly most common sense values of “just justice”. Many western observers will cry that the excessive punishment meted out by Sha’RIA law puts the lie to this contention. (After all, the extremes of Arabic tribal justice in the 7th century - even if, as Mohammad mandated it be meted out to all fairly, regardless of position - is something we should surely have evolved beyond.) We will say that the MINIMUM of humane treatment of criminals/sinners requires that the punishment fit the crime (at most). That is, that by the just justice standard of the “Law of Moses” one’s payment for evil should not exceed the evil which one has inflicted upon another. An “eye for an eye”, a “life for a life” (at the MOST) but, what many these days don’t realize – this dictum is a law of RESTRAINT – that is, if one demands blood vengeance, say, for a murder, then the law restrains one from taking MORE than one life ! Quite logical and a most common sense point of view. The problem, especially for Americans these days is that WE have been sending money, arms and intelligence support to a government for three years which has been BREAKING the LAW of MOSES fourfold over (payback X 4) what any truly Jewish government (like the more progressive wing ot the labor party) would be restrained by. The Likud/Sharon regime in Israel, is what makes our protestations of outrage over Sha’RIA ring most hollow to any Muslim or fair-minded objective observer. This is, a most simple and easily understood failure of justice. As documented by Amnesty International or any other objective source, the extreme right-wing Likud policy has certainly been extracting revenge at FOUR TIMES the rate allowed by the Jewish religion. The Bush-Chaney administration has been supporting such injustice without requiring any restraint which even a simply logically even-handed sense of justice would require, nor has there been any real push for the Shalom/Salaam process which any really Christian led government would have been engaged in. (Note that Clinton’s more even-handed approach at least gave hope to the Muslim world whereas Bush’s obvious tilt towards the “Butcher of Sabra/Shatilla” refugee camp atrocities immediately upon his inauguration surely contributed to the execution of the 9/11 plan – and certainly the positive response it elicited from the Muslim world).
This point, being mostly one derived from the universal principle of justice, has, as well of course a most religious aspect to it. That is, especially for those who believe in THELORD and his justice, there is inherently a price to pay for those who act against it. This is not to justify the evil of terrorism (unjust violence against the innocent), but to point out that those responsible for driving normal, moderate folks INTO terroristic madness by their murder of innocent civilians through “rough justice” attacks against neighborhoods to take out extremists who have received no trial or by stealing their neighbor’s lands through occupation and “settlements” should look forward to God’s vengeance at Judgement. One of Jesus’ deepest disappointments was the behavior of his own (Jewish) people when they self-righteously wallowed in acts of Hypocrisy!
Terrorism is not a mindless manifestation of evil. It has, as all disease (individual or social) not just the obvious symptoms of horrible slaughter but an underlying CAUSE which must be addressed if the society is to be cured. That is why, the most efficient anti- terror system imaginable is doomed to failure unless one looks deeper into the roots of the problem. (We could kill EVERY terrorist today – and as long as we support Likud’s careless oppression of Israel’s cousins under Abraham/Ibrahim tonight – with helicopter gunships, etc. there will be a NEW flock of terrorists aimed at U.S. tomorrow !!) This is where the current administration’s policies become so incompetent they rank as treason against God & Country.
The only really justified reason to take over Iraq (undo what Bush’s father & Reagan spawned – Sadam’s empire of fear, built up in order to slaughter the simple Ayatollah’s victimized people –whose pathetic level of ignorance – matched only perhaps by our current “Leader” - took the Shah’s fascist policies out of Teheran & put them in Washington) was, of course to remove the excuse Israel’s right-wing has been using to obstruct any progress towards a just peace. A non-threatening Iraq should allow the U.S. to put real pressure on Israel to act like a Judaic state and give the Palestinians a fair deal leading to a just and lasting peace. But this past week Bush has squandered half a century of American diplomacy by throwing over any pretence of even-handedness towards the antagonists in the Middle East. When he “agreed” to Sharon’s dictum that much of the West Bank territory occupied by illegal settlements should be given to the thieves without any consultation with the owners (the Palestinians) and that the internationally recognized “right of return” guaranteed by United Nations resolutions 224 and 338 (to which we are legally bound to uphold) should be thrown out summarily he demonstrated just how pathetically ignorant, incompetent and arrogant he must be. In one fell swoop he has removed even the appearance of the U.S. as an objective arbiter in that dispute and moved the bull’s eye for terrorists from sitting mostly on Israel to being shared equally or perhaps even more intensely centered upon this country’s citizens. Is THIS what most Americans think will PROTECT the people of this land ???
This Bush, as many know is not highly regarded even by his simple-minded father as being “the sharpest tool in the shed” amongst his own siblings (who for all their money –didn’t come by it through intellectual rigor – inheritance requires NO brains), and according to Woodward’s book considers thinking people as “fancy-pants” intellectuals. He apparently slid through college receiving the “millionaire kid’s C” for mediocre coursework and has apparently become a bit ego-maniacal like some losers by “finding Christ” and claiming he’s “on a mission for god”. The fact of the Constitution is that an incompetent “leader” can be impeached for just that very reason – incompetence – since the well-being of the state depends upon him, without any blatant high crime & misdemeanor having been committed (or proved – see Nixon). This latest in a series of bungling moves however, raises a more troubling possibility. If shrub’s concept of reality is so vapid that he reads revelations more than his intelligence briefs – could we be dealing with a “Vernon Howell in the White House”? Vern, you may recall faked his name as “David Koresh” and tried to “bring the apocalypse” through his own actions. This administration’s record of unbelievable mistakes, from Tora Bora to lying about Uranium from Niger to cutting the requested troop level in half to the Carpet Bagger’s Council to the DIA run prisons (for “hearts & minds”) to this latest reminder of how UN-fair they are to the Palestinian natives begs the question as to whether they are in fact seeking peace or Armageddon!!!
Another most curious sign of “our fearless leader’s” perhaps shallow roots of belief is the statement he made to Woodward regarding the judgement of history. He sagely noted that “we’ll all be dead by then”. A most unusual perspective of someone who claims to be a believer in life after death – most Christians look forward to the time when all lies will be laid bare and the truth of their lives will come to light. But then the Bush’s aren’t much into disclosure/open government that the people can be privy to. In fact a few months ago this “loyal son” re-classified secret documents from his father’s activities in Chile when democracy was assassinated there in 1973 (just for a few more years – after all we have to keep the Soviet Union from knowing these important details – don’t we ? or why HAVE they been kept secret till after November ??? A Frank Church fan of government “for the people” can only wonder – ‘till Judgement day)
The issue of terror abatement requires another dimension of concern. The bringing of a fair peace between the Palestinians and Israelis by itself would not end all the terrorism. The authoritarian regimes we support in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and elsewhere of course also create terrorists aimed at U.S. precisely because we prop up these Oil and “friendly” (to Israel) states for economic and myopic policy purposes. In fact, the two top men in Qaida hail from these lands and were in Afghanistan because they were driven out by their governments. The fact is, when you suppress moderates they BECOME extremists. When no free press or open government of the people exists, men resort to “politics by other means” – in these cases – terrorism. I am NO apologist for such “sons of Iblis” but if one wants to prevent a problem, again one must look to the cause. The bringing of “logically humane free-will government” can not come overnight, but the hope of such through stable evolution seems required to balance the rising nations people’s hopes and expectations against the “powers that be” as they exist today.
A final concern which should be noted by any member of the “righteous” or even merely “humane” part of the American electorate regarding the current administration’s morality is the pedigree of most of it’s top decision-makers. Besides shrub, there is of course Gen. Chicken-Hawk Chaney who according to the reformed John Dean’s book may have asked his REAL masters in the Oil Industry if they were interested in easier access to Iraqi Oil in his notoriously top secret energy task force corruption meetings (One reason to keep covering them up ??). An analysis of his moral failings would double this weighty tome of an essay and prove less interesting, being a record of simple greed, based on raping the treasury for weapons that don’t work & have no mission like most G.reed O.iled P.arty hacks of the Military-Congressional-Industrial Complex Eisenhower warned us against way back when. “Rummy’s” resume (in addition to the failures already noted) seems again much like the typical prostitute of triple profit margins for the mega-death industry which has crippled this country’s creative ability to develop any products that DON’T kill, includes ignoring what little Powell has yet learned from the State department about reality outside the Pentagon and, like all anti-intellectuals (anti-TRUTH in reality) is mentally a generation or two behind the times (quite dangerous after Hiroshima changed the way we MUST think if we are to maintain “God’s Green Earth” – well what’s left of it after Kyoto’s treaty treason & so much other destruction of Nature for twenty pieces of silver).
The really insidious fact is that shrub has rewarded those who served Satanic Death Squads in El Salvador and traded Cocaine for the Contras (who killed more civilians than combatants) in order to DECEIVE the American people into thinking those campesinos funded their own murderers. Folks like Elliott Abrams, John Poindexter and the former Ambassador to Honduras John Negroponte. This last slimeball surely expedited the Cocaine ring formed by John Hull - Dewey Claridge (CIA) – Benedict Arnold NORTH – Claire George – George Bush in order to fund the contra “esquadrones de los muertes” as exposed by John Kerry’s subcommittee on Narcotics, which, if this country had still had a free press by 1987 would have led to the impeachment’s of the bonzo-bush league – but the Corporate Right had bought the major networks by then and made sure the “news” managers saw things “the RIGHT way”. (See Leslie Cochburn’s book “Out of Control” for details, hundreds of references). BTW this “statesman” is our ANTI-UN “ambassador” at the UN who will now become our Suzerain in Iraq – no corruption expected ???
As a now physical biochemist “fellow traveler with god” I also seriously question this regimes total disregard for the environmental destruction which it’s corporate masters are committing that will no doubt lead it’s grandchildren to curse their memories as they sicken in the filth from raping God’s Green Earth for (very) short term profiteering.
God Bless America ! ‘cause God knows – the Republicans won’t !!!!!
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A Note to the "Security Moms", October 27, 2004
Dear Ladies (& Gentlemen who may peruse the thoughts contained herewith),
As you make your momentous choice for whom to entrust your precious children's future to next "Choose-Day" (Brit. Pronunciation); I would hope you employ that most critical aspect of human ability, your MEMORY regarding your concerns.
Back in the last election, Bush claimed that Bill Clinton had squandered too much effort on the "Middle East Quagmire" and that HE, would cleverly avoid any such difficulty by essentially IGNORING the whole Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Well, he did just that; except, of course to give free reign to the extreme right-wing government of Likud/Sharon to IGNORE the Law of Moses RESTRAINT on vengeance and thereby slaughter their cousins (under Abraham/Ibrahim, Isaac, Ishmael) at FOUR (4) times the rate at which any Israelis died. (Tempt NOT theWRATH.)
This went on with little notice in this country until 9/11.
THEN our multi-national corporate-owned media "news" noticed that some attention should be given events outside Texas (& even the U.S. !). The action in Afghanistan was appropriate, although like his father, this bush left the job half done with Heroin war-lords ruling outside the Capitol City. (Losing Osama Sin Laden by trying to BUY off the locals, who were merely bought off at a higher price at Tora Bora, shows the incompetence of armaments prostitutes like Rumsfeld who, along with the oval office "Chicken-Hawks" dodged the draft and has NO FEEL for action on the ground, unlike combat veteran Silver Star Honoree John Kerry, who does.) But even BEFORE that action, the Oil-Company orders to deliver Iraqi reserves were discussed as the REAL priority in foreign policy, having been planned by the likes of Cheney's mafia back in 1997 (Wolfowitz, Pearl, Abrams & like "mind"-ed extremists).
The plans for an easy "liberation of Paris" scenario with absolutely NO THOUGHT as to any resistance or resentment of occupation proceeded blithely on, even after the General tasked to recommend troop strength had to be "retired away" for coming up with the (accurate) double-plus numbers actually deployed; which exceeded politically sanguine lies (pointed out by the Democrats many times before the irresponsible rush to war). The reason for so many as 1100 dead and 20,000 wounded (when fully accounted); thousands of Iraqi civilians and un-counted hundreds of TONS of high explosives lost lies in this arrogant incompetence which has deceived too many of you for too long.
The FACT of the matter is that the Terrorists are not evil "Jinn" who spring up from Hell to do the devil's bidding, the FACT is that most all of them are following the rough justice of REVENGE which replaces law where there is no recourse to such !!!
Bush (or for that matter Kerry) could Kill EVERY "Terrorist" today, and as long as we support the brutal suppression of the majority in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and, especially in Palestine there will be NEW Terrorists tomorrow !!! (When a young man sees his mother or sister rent asunder by a missile "made in America" & fired by troops supported by our money, arms & Intelligence, we have just LOST his "heart & mind", probably forever.)
Thus, the real war we wage now, to quote JFK is a "long twilight struggle" which requires; 1) COMPETENCE bred of INTELLIGENCE & EXPERIENCE in a PHYSICAL sense; and, as every Physician knows, to truly "cure a disease" via dealing with it's cause, 2) An ability to UNDERSTAND both sides of COMPLEX cultural issues necessary for JUST JUSTICE to prevail over blood feuds and finally achieve a lasting PEACE in the Middle East.
Senator Kerry is BY FAR the more QUALIFIED person (& perhaps the only one with the common sense to truly seek such) in THIS regard, protecting your family for the long run...............
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......................................................................................................................…......i.e. the REAL RUN !!
Steven Dwight Ferber U.Va. '76 Chemist
Arlington, Virginia - native