How could a once-admired, great nation fall into such a quagmire of killing, immorality and lawlessness? – George McGovern

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/04/AR2008010404308.html

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Dear radio opensource,

From the moment I started listening to radio opensource podcasts I enjoyed them immensely. So this is hard to say and not meant to you personally in any way. But is has to be said.

It just finished listening to your 6-part series ‘they got it right’ on a group of people that foresaw some of the disastrous effects of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. As is most often the case the interviewees were smart, thoughtful and reasonably well-informed. But something as bugging me all the time and now that I have discovered what is is I feel I have to share.

Shame.

Shame on the interviewer and the interviewees.

Not a word. Not one word in 6 talks about the 1.2 million Iraqi citizens (30+% of them children) that are dead. Not apology, no regret. Not even a word of sympathy. How can this be? Has even the top 1% of US intellectuals gone utterly insane? They did nothing to you. They were innocent. And you complain about the fact you’ve been lied to by your government? You think you have a problem? Every day you allow your government to stay in power you a condoning genocide.

Why should the rest of the world care what happens to the US if its citizens are unable to take basic responsibility for what has been done (and is being done) in their name? Ask ‘Why do they hate us?’ This is one of your answers.

Why are you sitting behind your computer? Why are you not in the streets by the millions taking back what is left of your country?

The dollar is falling apart, your military is unable to even occupy a single city in a third world country. You’re so far in debt the rest of the planet will soon have no choice but to pull the plug on your $800 billion trade deficit and your $3 trillion housing bubble. Your problem is not about the messed-up 2 party system or your messed-up media system it’s how you will import enough fuel to survive next winter after the dollar goes down the tube. You will need friends and navel gazing and intellectualizing about your internal politics quite frankly does not cut it anymore if your government is overseeing the largest genocide since Pol Pot.

Are you still here? Get up! Get out! Do something! Show the rest of the world that you are willing to take personal risks to end genocide financed by your taxes!

Saddened and flabbergasted but still a subscriber.

Arjen

Amsterdam, the Netherlands

Zeitgeist – The spirit of the

time; general trend of thought or feeling characteristic of a particular period of time.

http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/

All of the following questions were NEVER ANSWERED by you. The list is incomplete. I will post part 2 of 2 this Friday. Your words in italics.

One. This is a key question.

I would be interested in listening to you go into further detail on ‘why you think some people stay in the military for life and what you think accounts for the difference between those families who lose loved ones, while remaining loyal to their country, and those who have a change of heart and speak out against it’?

Two. I can only assume that when Benjamin Franklin said: “Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.” did so because he had seen it happen before and/or he anticipated it could happen in the future”.

Why not? However, the part you DO NOT UNDERSTAND is the difference between talk of war to come, talk of war after the war from the past, and talk of war DURING the war IN THE PRESENT TENSE! I have reiterated in many ways on this thread the differences between theory and practice: how DURING war the choices available to the people being attacked are, in the most blatant and obvious way, critically limited especially when the enemy does not play by the same rules! In order to survive, the playing field must be leveled. The CONTEXT is not the same as it is during peacetime, in a classroom or a think-tank. The language and the context of the Law in this situation are also quite complex, but like I said, I do not discuss anything seminal on the internet. (Suffice it to say that President Bush’s legacy of saving the country, along with his grace under pressure, and patriotism, will be protected well into the distant future)!

One context is theoretical and/or ideological and a priori in nature, and the other is the practice of the theory of and/or non ideological and a posteriori in nature.

And so the question arises: are you ‘able’ to see a difference between the two contexts?

If you answer ‘yes’ to this question, it does not mean that “therefore” you are admitting to some other pretext I may or may not have in mind. I simply wish to know if you are ‘able’ to see the difference. An honest answer to this question would clarify a few things for me.

Three. In reference to “Billy”, our fictitious mugger. Do I have the right to defend my life under the circumstances in the example I gave?

Four. As a citizen, what can you not do now that you could do before 911 and the Patriot Act?

Five. What are the specific circumstances in which you feel a war between America and any other country would be justified? What are the specific reasons and circumstances in which you would fight for America?

Six. My point is that is you attack liberals for not respecting people’s experiences – experiences that, in the end, are all we really have, and from which each of us form our opinions.

This is incorrect. Experiences are NOT “the only way” people accumulate knowledge.

Do you agree that this claim is a mistake?

Seven. About 911. How about a little reverse engineering? Would you invite the terrorists back to kill more people? Can we start with that question? Or is the answer “too complicated” because I don’t accept your brand of [ROS far left] Cosmic Poetry? Maybe Palestine or the Jews or Original Sin have something to do with it? You think? Could it be the FACT, the TRUTH about how the Jews suffered under Roman rule during The Second Temple Period has anything to do with the way you view (what is he nuts) contemporary reality? The FACT that because the political reality of that time was intentionally kept out of the New Testament – shall we say, has *interfered* with your ability to weigh up the truth about who the real terrorists are? Perhaps you feel that we (America) were correct in chasing down the terrorists wherever they may be, but would rather not admit it in public. I am sure that the claim will be made that I am completely wrong about all this. I am willing to be wrong, but only under one condition. That you provide an answer to the following question!

What would you have done shortly thereafter 911 about the 3,000 lives that were snuffed out by the murderers?

Eight. John Locke on Of Political Power and the preservation of property, “…Employing the force of the community …in the defense of the commonwealth from foreign injury, and all this for the public good”. On September 14, 2007, congress passed a joint resolution: “The President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.” Terrorism is defined by what happened on 911 when almost 3,000 American people were murdered in cold blood. Terrorism is also defined by the 25k Saddam Hussein sent to the families of homicide bombers in Israel back in the early part of the current decade.

Do you agree with the unanimous congressional approval (except for the lone congresswoman, Barbara Lee) to invade Afghanistan on October 7, 2001 as a response to the murders of almost 3,000 American citizens on 911?

……

Revisiting some of your comments.

How would I have ever known that you were raised in the inner-city?

I already answered this one, but I should have added that you did not know. Yet you chose to assume that I had “no experience”. Where did you ever get the idea that I must first live as a minority does, to “understand” what they go through? And secondly, isn’t observing, or just knowing about their lifestyle – the crime, the cockroaches, deadbeat dads, welfare, prostitution, low literacy, and the various other minutiae of hereditary incompetence – enough to “understand” (a priori), that I do not desire to ‘be’ like them? Did you EVER consider the possibility that I am well enough equipped to avoid these misfortunes in the first place?

And is it possible that you might have given the same answers had you lived/experienced their life?

You just don’t know how to stop being so presumptuous! I answered this question as well – but I must reiterate a resounding NO. The reason why my answer is no is not only because I’ve lived in a Black neighborhood for over a year, but because I have experience with Black people going much further back than that. In case you forgot I went to public school here in New York. I was not, as you assumed incorrectly, raised in the inner city, but I have been living close enough to them for most of my life. I know them well enough both personally and academically to know that I DO NOT WANT TO BE LIKE THEM, AND THAT I DO NOT AGREE WITH THE WAY THEY LIVE, AND THINK. Can you respect that? Is that OK with you? Or what?

At what point would you say our government’s interpretation of the Constitution is infringing upon the rights/freedoms of the people it claims to protect?

When you say “Claims to protect”, you make it sound as if you doubt the fact that they protect us? This is condescending and unnecessarily cynical, but I will answer you anyway.

Would you agree that the bureaucracy in our country moves slowly? I think most people would. Now follow me on this. There are three modes of human behavior: thought, speech, and action. Right now I don’t see anything on the “thought horizon” threatening our way of life except the forthcoming and possibly inevitable alliance with Canada and Mexico, while losing the Southwest to the latter. I also see China and Russia vying for control in the Middle East – causing trouble there and in various other locations around the globe. If you see the planet as one big happy family – which I would not argue against that it may turn out that way ‘some’ day (but obviously not today) – then the human garbage you are looking for now is in Moscow, not Washington. As of this posting, there is a crackdown on democratic reform in Russia with many arrests and people thrown in jail. Will we hear a word from ROS concerning this or, say, Chinese influence and mass murder in Darfur? Perhaps we will – but unfortunately I am all to positive that we will hear much more in the way of Bush Bashing, and other self righteous and counterintuitive appraisals of the hand that feeds us.

Our ‘perception’ is different than it was before 911 because we know that the government is watching, and that alone puts a whole new perspective on reality. Considering human nature and what people will attempt to get away with if given the opportunity, I think it is a good thing that big brother is watching. Our freedom to speak out and move around the country at will is still the same. Nothing has changed – except that the Leprechauns in your head come out of the Pope’s basement from time to time, and they have to be cut down to size. Other than that and long lines at the airport, nothing has changed.

According to your Cosmic Poetry who protects us? Putin? The Mafia? The Pope? Leprechauns? Jesus? Who? SOMEBODY must be doing it, OBVIOUSLY! So tell me who? Aliens from another planet? Black people? LOL, they wouldn’t do it. They COULDN’T do it! They can barely feed themselves and keep track of who belongs to whom in their communities. Cut me some slack here and tell me … who watches over the people in America? Who preserves their sweet innocence and their freedom to dream?

Are you now suggesting that it’s flawed reasoning for someone to be flexible when it comes to the environment and multiculturalism while simultaneously showing a lack of flexibility regarding the Constitution?

No. What I am saying is that there is an air of opportunism about it. All of a sudden Al Gore becomes a strict constructionist? According to classic political and legal theories one may expect that ‘Bush’ would act in this fashion, but certainly not Mr. Globalization himself. I think the difference between them is most striking when we make a not so difficult attempt to realize that the political and legal theories between these two men switches places in times of crises, i.e. that Gore talks a good game and would no doubt perform better on domestic issues such as health care, and by putting some economic life back in to the middle class, whereas Bush is more decisive and keen to act when it comes to threats on property, and life and limb such as 911.

Thanks.

Got mirror?

Less actual rudeness (not imagined and accused) might help to encourage uncomfortable lurkers to post here again, as they did in the golden olden days of ROS.