Masochists may use this link to return to the politics sub basement
We are America. We are one nation. We like to pretend we are not...one of our parts says to another part "America, love it or leave it"; and another part says to yet another part "America, change it or lose it". Ain't nobody leaving, at least not enough to make a difference. Ain't nobody changing... at least not enough to make a difference. This is us
We're the Universal Soldiers
And we really are to blame
Our orders come from far away no more
They come from you, and you, and me
And brothers don't you see
This is not the way we put an end to war*
We invaded Iraq based on a pack of lies. Most of us did not know that then. We believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, that he was a clear and present danger to the world, that he was part of the international terrorist cabal. We gave our soldiers chemical protection suits, and we sent them in fearing that they might suffer huge causalities facing the fiercely loyal Republican Guard. While Saddam was still in charge of Iraq, we lost 139 soldiers to hostile action. Since Bagdad fell and Saddam disappeared, we have had over 800 men and women killed in combat, over 7,000 wounded, all in the same geographical area Saddam once ruled.
We declared war on terror on September 11, 2001. Our State Department listed 9 terrorists events in 2000; 19 in 2001; 42 in 2002; 45 in 2003, and we now live with the daily knowledge and fear that we might be caught up in the 2004 terrorist statistics. I am not joining in the cacoesthes of trying to explain what everybody in the world seems to know but us. Weigh the information for yourself.
There is only one vital decision we have to make next Tuesday. Are we going to stand beside our leaders as one? Are we going to join hands with Bush and Cheney and say to the world we are the moral high ground, we did the right thing, and we would do it again? Are you going to vote to accept your personal responsibility and support for the invasion of Iraq, for Abu Ghraib, for those unknown souls listed in the collateral damage column, for touching each flag draped casket and saying "it was worth it", for looking in the tortured eyes of the flood of damaged bodies and minds that will return to us, and say "I chose this for you"?
I believe we know that is the decision we are making. Something sure has our attention, we are registering to vote in record numbers. Yet despite the increase in voter registrations and interest in the election, the race remains neck and neck. Contrary to the prevailing view, those conditions are not indications that we are a vibrant, healthy democracy. Rather, they are a warning sign of potential disaster. The more we learn about Chaos Theory, the more we recognize its patterns in ourselves, not just in the physical world, or the mathematical world, but in our every day lives. For example, we tend to measure our heart in terms of beats per minute. A good old steady 70 beats per minute is considered ideal. But hidden in that minute of time is a very complex pattern of intervals, the fluctuations of the interval between heart beats exhibits chaotic behavior. The variability of the intervals is essential to allow the heart to respond rapidly to changing conditions, such as when we start to run. As we begin to run our heart rate may increase in a fairly steady rate from 70 to 100 beats per minute. Yet hidden within those 100 beats is the same fluctuating variability of intervals. Many things, aging, onset of disease can reduce the variability of these intervals. Scientists have found that preceding a heart attack the variability of the heart beat progresses toward a monotonic rhythm. The elements that cause the heart to speed up (sympathetic cells) and the elements that cause the heart to slow down (parasympathetic cells), seem to cancel each other out. There is in fact a mathematical formula to measure these steps from controlled chaos to uncontrolled chaos, which can result in heart attacks and possibly death.
Metaphorically, American has only one heart. We are all part of it. In simple terms, we can imagine liberal forces and conservative forces determining the output of our national heart. In times past the interaction between these opposing viewpoints could guide our nation first in one direction then another. We had the ability to adapt rapidly, albeit not without grumbling by the forces pushing in opposite directions. The Cuban missile crisis, and the civil rights movement are examples of significant, rapid responses in a specific direction. They changed things- drastically. One change was in response to external forces, the other in response to internal forces.
We know something must change, and so we gather in great numbers to vote, driven largely by fear. The greatest external conditions we now face are directly tied to the Iraq war and the growth of terrorism, and those are the issues that determine our future. And though it may come as a shock, the rest of the world cares little about how we handle our domestic issues. Every domestic decision we make must pass through the filter of our military actions. The economy ? There is no economic policy, none, that would put more into our economy than the Iraq war is draining away, and the only things we are getting for our investment in war is more senseless deaths, and more danger to our world. There is not a successful corporation in the world that would not fire its CEO and the entire management team if they used the poor judgement our leaders did post 9/11 and in Iraq. The first thing we must do to avoid disaster is to get rid of the lying idiots that got us into this mess. That is the only way we can begin to recover from this monotonic frenzy to act, but only in counterbalancing directions. Right now the only opportunity to change is to vote George Bush out of office. By default that will put John Kerry in the CEO position. That's hardly an ideal choice, but he will make and acceptable interim president who will remain fairly harmless and docile while we decide what to do next. So do vote on Tuesday, but that is only a token gesture to announce that we are putting ourselves back in charge of our country, we can't start that job until at least Wednesday. We cannot survive as the strongest nation on earth while we march in place, using a lot of energy and accomplishing nothing. If we decide we really want to take over the world then let's do that (or try, we will fail, but that's another story). But if we can't break this frenzied deadlock, real chaos is just around the corner. Meanwhile may God 'n Jesus, and/or Allah 'n Mohammed, and/or Yahwe 'n Abraham bless us all, and keep us safe from harm. Especially from ourselves.
*Thanks Buffy Sainte-Marie for your words, I hope you don't mind me using them without asking first.
We're the Universal Soldiers
And we really are to blame
Our orders come from far away no more
They come from you, and you, and me
And brothers don't you see
This is not the way we put an end to war*
We invaded Iraq based on a pack of lies. Most of us did not know that then. We believed that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction, that he was a clear and present danger to the world, that he was part of the international terrorist cabal. We gave our soldiers chemical protection suits, and we sent them in fearing that they might suffer huge causalities facing the fiercely loyal Republican Guard. While Saddam was still in charge of Iraq, we lost 139 soldiers to hostile action. Since Bagdad fell and Saddam disappeared, we have had over 800 men and women killed in combat, over 7,000 wounded, all in the same geographical area Saddam once ruled.
We declared war on terror on September 11, 2001. Our State Department listed 9 terrorists events in 2000; 19 in 2001; 42 in 2002; 45 in 2003, and we now live with the daily knowledge and fear that we might be caught up in the 2004 terrorist statistics. I am not joining in the cacoesthes of trying to explain what everybody in the world seems to know but us. Weigh the information for yourself.
There is only one vital decision we have to make next Tuesday. Are we going to stand beside our leaders as one? Are we going to join hands with Bush and Cheney and say to the world we are the moral high ground, we did the right thing, and we would do it again? Are you going to vote to accept your personal responsibility and support for the invasion of Iraq, for Abu Ghraib, for those unknown souls listed in the collateral damage column, for touching each flag draped casket and saying "it was worth it", for looking in the tortured eyes of the flood of damaged bodies and minds that will return to us, and say "I chose this for you"?
I believe we know that is the decision we are making. Something sure has our attention, we are registering to vote in record numbers. Yet despite the increase in voter registrations and interest in the election, the race remains neck and neck. Contrary to the prevailing view, those conditions are not indications that we are a vibrant, healthy democracy. Rather, they are a warning sign of potential disaster. The more we learn about Chaos Theory, the more we recognize its patterns in ourselves, not just in the physical world, or the mathematical world, but in our every day lives. For example, we tend to measure our heart in terms of beats per minute. A good old steady 70 beats per minute is considered ideal. But hidden in that minute of time is a very complex pattern of intervals, the fluctuations of the interval between heart beats exhibits chaotic behavior. The variability of the intervals is essential to allow the heart to respond rapidly to changing conditions, such as when we start to run. As we begin to run our heart rate may increase in a fairly steady rate from 70 to 100 beats per minute. Yet hidden within those 100 beats is the same fluctuating variability of intervals. Many things, aging, onset of disease can reduce the variability of these intervals. Scientists have found that preceding a heart attack the variability of the heart beat progresses toward a monotonic rhythm. The elements that cause the heart to speed up (sympathetic cells) and the elements that cause the heart to slow down (parasympathetic cells), seem to cancel each other out. There is in fact a mathematical formula to measure these steps from controlled chaos to uncontrolled chaos, which can result in heart attacks and possibly death.
Metaphorically, American has only one heart. We are all part of it. In simple terms, we can imagine liberal forces and conservative forces determining the output of our national heart. In times past the interaction between these opposing viewpoints could guide our nation first in one direction then another. We had the ability to adapt rapidly, albeit not without grumbling by the forces pushing in opposite directions. The Cuban missile crisis, and the civil rights movement are examples of significant, rapid responses in a specific direction. They changed things- drastically. One change was in response to external forces, the other in response to internal forces.
We know something must change, and so we gather in great numbers to vote, driven largely by fear. The greatest external conditions we now face are directly tied to the Iraq war and the growth of terrorism, and those are the issues that determine our future. And though it may come as a shock, the rest of the world cares little about how we handle our domestic issues. Every domestic decision we make must pass through the filter of our military actions. The economy ? There is no economic policy, none, that would put more into our economy than the Iraq war is draining away, and the only things we are getting for our investment in war is more senseless deaths, and more danger to our world. There is not a successful corporation in the world that would not fire its CEO and the entire management team if they used the poor judgement our leaders did post 9/11 and in Iraq. The first thing we must do to avoid disaster is to get rid of the lying idiots that got us into this mess. That is the only way we can begin to recover from this monotonic frenzy to act, but only in counterbalancing directions. Right now the only opportunity to change is to vote George Bush out of office. By default that will put John Kerry in the CEO position. That's hardly an ideal choice, but he will make and acceptable interim president who will remain fairly harmless and docile while we decide what to do next. So do vote on Tuesday, but that is only a token gesture to announce that we are putting ourselves back in charge of our country, we can't start that job until at least Wednesday. We cannot survive as the strongest nation on earth while we march in place, using a lot of energy and accomplishing nothing. If we decide we really want to take over the world then let's do that (or try, we will fail, but that's another story). But if we can't break this frenzied deadlock, real chaos is just around the corner. Meanwhile may God 'n Jesus, and/or Allah 'n Mohammed, and/or Yahwe 'n Abraham bless us all, and keep us safe from harm. Especially from ourselves.
*Thanks Buffy Sainte-Marie for your words, I hope you don't mind me using them without asking first.
