-------------------------------------------------------- From: Evelyn Date: Mon, 5 Jul 2004 10:56:56 EDT Subject: Re: Beware the Liberal War On Terror To: •••@••.••• O.K. Now I am really confused. You mix the good guys in with the bad guys, and where do we go from here? I agree with your premise that the "war on terror" is as phoney as a three dollar bill, but we do want to get rid of the Bush administration. Are you saying that the Democrats are part of the orchestration of the perpetuation of the "War on Terror"? So, how do we break the cycle? Who would you choose to elect now? If not Kerry, who is the obvious frontrunner, then, who? Nader? At the moment, he is just the "spoiler". Of course, you and I know that this war on terror is phoney, but how do you sell that to the American people and the world? Do you suppose that it will ever come out that this administration caused the 9-11 debacle? Will people ever accept that? So, what is the answer, now that you have stated the problem? I am ready to just plain give up. I don't have that many years left, and I have neglected my family to spend time trying to open people's eyes----to the voting fraud, and to the fraud of 9-11, and maybe it is time to throw up my hands and get on with my own personal life. Or-------(???!!!) Incidentally, have you seen or heard about Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9-11? It is making ripples, to say the least. "nuff for now. Evelyn --------------- Dear Evelyn Many thanks for your excellent questions! You have been paying attention! My postings are never random selections, but are attempts to get us all to re-think our ideas and question our assumptions. Let me respond to your concerns in reverse order. Yes I've read many reviews of Fahrenheit 9-11. The ones that impressed me the most are the reports from America's conservative heartland, where audiences have been transformed. One woman in Wal-Mart land got up at the end and said, "Let's have a meeting!". Other such audiences have been difficult to clear from the theater because everyone wanted to stay and talk about what they had seen. Michael has pioneered a whole new paradigm of public awakening. His combination of boldness, accuracy, and lack of pretension gives him a special ability to reach hearts. God bless him. You say, "I am ready to just plain give up." That is indeed a place of discouragement, but it also a place that can give birth to new insights and initiatives--it can be a creative place. It isn't necessary for everyone to accept the truth of 9/11. For those who are prepared to accept it, that can be an important radicalizing turning point for them. For others, there may be other turning points, perhaps based on an acknowledgement of environmental collapse, or whatever. Opening eyes to the truth--expanding awareness--is always a help, directly or indirectly. I do think voting makes a difference--if Bush got a landslide that would give legitimacy to extreme policies that a Kerry landslide would discourage. Those aren't identical outcomes. But at the same time, I believe we need to acknowledge that a Kerry election will do nothing to change the disastrous course civilization is following--it might slow it down a bit, but that's all. As long as Wall Street rules the economy, political leaders have very little latitude. And Kerry is certainly not talking about fundamental economic reforms--he is in no way an FDR. Personally, I make the choice not to send in an absentee ballot. I'd rather protest the charade of democracy than exercise my little difference against Bush. But I respect those whose logic pushes them into electoral seriousness. And I must admit to inconsistency: I do vote here in Ireland because it seems more real in a smaller society. But I must admit the system is fundamentally the same or even worse here--all control is centralized in Dublin, including the police force. Whatever our choice with respect to election participation, I think we need to be thinking about how to change the whole system and achieve real democracy. Just because the problem is formidable does not mean it's not worth working on. If you assume there is no possible way, then that is one way of 'just plain giving up'. But why should we assume that? The Democrats have definitely been part of the orchestration of the War on Terror. To their credit, many of them were compelled by the emotion of 9/11 to follow on cue from the White House, regardless of their possible private misgivings. But as the Kerry campaign typifies, there has been no significant attempt to counter the Patriot Act or propose its repudiation. The most hopeful thing we got was from the recent Supreme Court decision, and as several of you pointed out, there is a huge dark lining on that silver cloud--'enemy combatants' (that could be any of us) are still vulnerable to arbitrary detention, ie., the equivalent of concentration camps. Furthermore, there was nothing in the decision to compel the CIA to reveal its many secret prisons and torture centers, or to bring them into any kind of compliance. You feel that I "mix the good guys in with the bad guys". I see it this way: we need to acknowledge that the good cop and the bad cop are conspiring to exploit us. We might still thank the good cop for a cigarette, ie. vote for him, but we needn't be taken in and belive he's really out to help us. thanks again, rkm http://cyberjournal.org
