Different Slants

In his comments to my previous post, a good friend, Don Larson, got me thinking about the changing nature of war and about how the use of the word itself has been broadened. Wikipedia has much interesting material on war.

When I was young (and Rome was invading Carthage), war seemed a simple concept and when one heard the word its meaning was generally understood. Now it can mean so many things. Lets look at a few.

Conventional war. Like World War II, conventional war is fought by nation states. Each has a military. In (Read on …)

The U.S. wars in Iraq and Viet Nam bear little resemblance in my opinion. The North Vietnamese were fighting for reunification and were supported by two world powers, China and the Soviet Union. The Iraqis seem to be fighting to settle old scores. But since President Bush made the analogy, lets think about it.

Why were these wars started?

In the case of Viet Nam, the war was started by the French to protect French economic interests and taken over by the U.S. for idealogical reasons, to fight the spread of communism. In the case of Iraq, the reasons given keep changing. The only one not mentioned, to protect U.S. oil supplies, seems the most likely. We may never know the real reasons behind this war.

How were the wars sold to the American public? (Read on …)

I got a call yesterday from the DNC asking for a contribution. I said no and explained why.

Nearly every communication I have receive from the Democratic party since the last election has begun by reminding me how bad the Republicans are. Half of what the Democrats are doing in Congress, it seems, is only an exercise in making the Republicans look bad. I think the Republicans are doing a fine job of making themselves look bad. They don’t need any help from the Democrats.

This is 2007. It may be hard to tell but, it is not an election year. It is time to stop campaigning and start solving the nations problems. We still have to find a way out of Iraq. Our educational system is not competitive. Health care is broken. Social Security is headed for a train wreck. Both parties, and part of the problem is we effectively have only two, need to stop their bickering and get to work.

Since the one thing both parties seem to pay the most attention to is campaign money, I am withholding my contributions to the DNC until I see the party start to live up to their promise of changing the tone in Congress. I have always withheld money from the Republicans so I can’t really change do much there.

The highest priority role of the U.S. federal government should be defense. We could have a very long debate indeed on the difference between defense and military adventurism but, we won’t. Not here. Not now. Maybe later.

The second highest priority should be education. In the U.S., the job of education falls to the states. Thats a good idea except it is not working for most of the nation. Some of the states have created good universities but, we have to look to other countries to find students qualified to attend them. Although we still have many of the top universities in the world, our K-12 educational system is continuing it long decline.

So why is this important? (Read on …)

On June 25th, 2007, the US Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 that a key portion of the McCain-Feingold law had been unconstitutionally applied to the Wisconsin Right to Life group. The ruling is regarded as opening the door to political ads that circumvent campaign finance restrictions.

This is not a surprising outcome. Any attempt to limit election campaign funding is liable to be view as a restriction of free speech. The reformation of our electoral campaign system requires more free speech, not less. That is to say, the root of the problem is the high cost of free speech.

(Read on …)

So Rick Munden (RGM), the Den Mother of this blog, bitching and moaning, asks me why I don’t have any more opinions to express about whatever bothers me, since all that I’ve posted recently have concerned, let’s see……An anti-war poem encouraging resistance in the streets to the current monstrously evil mob of self-serving, lying, greedy bastards that stole the election that put them there in the first place……Another more muted poem about being technologically overwhelmed by non-stop change in how everything I know how to do to communicate is passe,` and how other people mostly much younger than 57 think it’s comical that I can’t keep up with all all of it……A story about a wild rabbit who was nearly consumed by my three pet dogs, to the distress of my young daughter…….A story about why the US Capitol ought to be shifted 1,500 miles west to Lincoln, Nebraska and why at least 50% of the Congress should be composed of women…….Another (brilliant, in my opinion) story on how to resolve the Israel/everybody else in the world problem. I know I’m right about my proposals even if no one else currently living on this planet seems to embrace my vision of how good, how civilized, things could be if people were willing.

So after attempting to tell Rick that I had no more opinions about anything of significance, I spent the next half an hour telling him all those other things I had no opinion about, except for this and that and so on.

Rick is very patient, or perhaps he fell asleep while I was talking—it wouldn’t be the first time that happened–but when I finally ran out of steam, I concluded that he wanted me to write down more of my assorted and atypical thoughts.

And I will.

Soon.

So………..watch this space, or you might miss something good.

Shalom, Curious People.

Bob