I went for a long walk this afternoon.. I was/am upset; I'm worried as hell; and I'm tired. There's anguish all around me.. and my pain amounts to squat compared to the other folks I know, and that somehow makes me feel even worse.
They found a friend of mine at ground zero the other day.. Just his legs. His wife said to me last night "He didn't want to be cremated... we've already had the memorial service... now what do I do??..."
Kinda like a usual day here lately in the shadow of the Big Apple.
Here on this BBS we all tend to get comfy with sterotypes and labels. I'm as guilty or more so than the next guy.. I was under the impression this is a place to blow off some steam, maybe get a laff, maybe make a point, spread some light; help somebody open a closed door in their minds.
It should not be the place where friends become enemys.
I often wonder and marvel at the power of the
demos[/b].. that barking mob of society, the enraged knee-jerk social voice that reacts so visciously to that which it cannot grasp or understand.
So, I'll try one time myself to put aside my social indoctrination, my sterotypical gladhanding and grandstanding and just say what I feel.
I'm not a nazi, a jew hater, a bigot or a commie. I'm not even a democrat, or a republican, or a christian or a muslim.
I'm an American.
I can read, write, (but spell poorly) formulate opinions, check facts, obfuscate data I don't like, spotlight the stuff I do, make my points based on insight, imagery or imagination... feel pride in my fellow americans, feel pain for them; laugh at them, holler for their heads when they diddly up.
I can and do understand that I am rarely right, grumpily wrong; stubbon prideful and pigheaded..
Just like most of you.
I count most of you as friends, all of you as virtual neighbors; yer here in my virtual livingroom now, as we spar and parry ideas and inuendo...
Right now; this very minute, the fate of this lil world rests in hands no more competent or capable than all of yours and mine. There really ain't that much room left anymore for raw hatred for a race or sub-type, or religious faction or geographical group. Yet the hate is growing; labels are being slung like stones, dreams are dying, and folks are preparing to slaughter their neighbors..
Yes, I believe that Israel has contributed greatly to the current mideast crisis.. it elected what amounts to a hardline government with an agenda that includes an about face on the Camp David Accords and has stymied commerce and peace with its neighbors. Belligerance does not broker peace.
Yes, I've seen my government do some pretty dumb toejam itself... selling arms to Iraq, abandoning people it vowed to protect, nations it promised to support.. again and again.
No, I do not believe mrfish is a nazi. I believe he has identified a key point tho... we all respond to how we are treated, and we respond with respect to those who treat us with respect.
America and Americans are no less 'racist' than Japan or Israel or China or Pakistan or India or Libya or France or Saudi Arabia... or Russia.
So.. I guess i'm just trying to see thru the roadkill sterotypes now, and looking at what needs to be done..
"End terror and terrorist regimes, by any and all means expedient." Thats still job ONE, issue ONE.
In order for that to be possible in our still ideological racist world, we need to get to an accord amongst ourselves, a calm whereby ALL Americans and ALL nations regardless of religion, race or creed loudly and with definite indignation demand a stop to Israel's state sponsored violence in Palestine... a stop to Palestines state sponsored violence in Israel.
I am not placing blame on either set of players in the middle east... when a fire starts; you don't affix blame. You put out the fire. Or it spreads...
mrfish.. the demos tried and convicted Socrates for speaking the truth. Don't take the hemlock cure pal. after he was gone, the truth was still there, but Socrates wasn't.
