Different Slants

Significant Follow-up Developments Since The original Story Was written:

My story, (click on the high-lighted link below to read my original story)

The 1915 Armenian Genocide, The Turks, The Jews, America, Israel and the Only Way Out

about trying to resolve the nearly century old unresolved anger and emnity between the Armenians and the Turks, was first published fourteen months ago in October 2007.  I wrote an even-handed proposal suggesting what I felt was fair and possible to make a difference in that part of the world, but I had no real belief that anything would change.

The forces and attitudes on both sides of the historical dispute were so frozen in their positions, concerning the truth about the history of those times early in 1900, that any effort to soften all the rigidity seemed impossible for anyone to make a difference.  Then this happened:

This  difficult-to-believe story was published in The New York Times on Tuesday, December16, 2008:

Turkey: Apology for Armenian Killings

A group of about 200 prominent Turkish intellectuals issued an apology on the Internet on Monday for the World War I-era massacres of Armenians in Turkey.

The group of academics, journalists, writers and artists avoided using the contentious term “genocide,” referring to the killings of more than a million Armenians by the Ottoman Turk government from 1915 to 1918 as a “great catastrophe.”

While Turkey does not deny that many died, it has rejected the word genocide and has prosecuted people who have publicly acknowledged Turkish culpability for it.  The statement said in part:

I reject this injustice, share in the feelings and pain of my Armenian brothers, and apologize for them.”

There were no threats of legal action from the government on Monday.

(Read on …)

In June of this year, I wrote a heartfelt opinion piece about ten very specific things that Obama should do, when, not if  he’s elected, to help America be all it can be for the greatest number of its citizens.

You can click here: http://www.differentslants.com/2008/06/12/obama-a-blueprint-for-a-better-america-this-is-what-you-should-do-dont-waste-your-time-by-robert-m-katzman/ and read each item and see for yourself if you agree with me.

I knew Obama would smash through the primaries and arrive at this point today, four days before a momentous election in this country, because there is a momentum to history and sometimes, positive forces among men and women become too powerful to hold back, and a good man with wonderful qualities is put in the position to positively affect millions of lives.

We’re in a period similar to when Herbert Hoover was this country’s President during the Great Depression’s earliest years, just before FDR was swept into power by that same sort of unstoppable momentum. So much was going wrong for so many ordinary, hopeless, jobless people, that a man with energy, good will, an imagination and a first-class mind was too essential to the survival of the nation to not be given the opportunity to turn this country around.

That is the same situation we’re in now, except that in fact, Herbert Hoover was a man with good intentions and a generous heart who did much to organize and feed the starving post World War One Europeans, but was somehow not temperamentally suited to be our President. It happens. Hoover was fundamentally a decent man in the wrong executive position.

George Bush with his thieving, scheming, self-serving gang of incompetents with their blatant indifference to this nation’s terribly frightened and suffering average people whom he has surrounded himself with, is not.

The price we will pay in too many ways, long into our nation’s future because of the bottom-of-the-barrel gang of them, is a signal to the voting population that NOT voting gets you the worst common denominator. And if anyone is “common” it’s Bush. America deserve a higher level of motivation and intelligence than has been on display nationally and regrettably, internationally, for the last eight years.

There are tens of millions of wonderful, decent, caring, responsible people who believe in the Republican philosophy of governing, and I respect that. But unfortunately, Abraham Lincoln or Teddy Roosevelt are not available right now, when we need them, so vote for a man as good as either of them: Barak Obama.

God save us, we sure need the best we can get, right now. Please vote. Thank you!

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Note from the Author:

Robert M. Katzman, owner of Fighting Words Publishing Company, with four different titles currently in print and over 4,000 books sold to date, is seeking more retail outlets for his vivid and non-fiction inspirational books: 

Independent bookstores, Jewish and other religious organizations, Chicago historical societies or groups, English teachers who want a new voice in their class who was a witness to history, book clubs, high schools or museum gift shops.  I will support anyone who supports me by giving readings in the Chicago Metro area.  I have done this over 40 times, and I always sign my books, when asked.  Everyone, positively everyone, asks.  I was amazed, at first, by that.

Individuals who wish to order my books can view the four book covers and see reviews of them at www.FightingWordsPubco.com 

There are links to YouTube and podcasts, as well.  Or, anyone can call me directly at (847) 274-1474.  Googling my name will also produce all kinds of unusual results.  That other Robert M. Katzman, now deceased, whose name will also appear and who also published, was a doctor.  He actually bought one of my books!  Such a nice man.  Rest in peace, Dr. Katzman.

There will be short poems, stories and essays published in this space every two weeks by either myself or my co-blogist Richard G. Munden, or both.  If you find our postings thought provoking, moving or even amusing, please tell others to come view this site.  We will find our strength in your numbers.

 Next year, I will publish my fifth book, a collection of my best poetry and essays, called,

        I Seek the Praise of Ordinary Men

Individuals who know of independent bookstores that might be interested in a rough-hewn guy like me, who ran a chain of newsstands for 20 years in Chicago, please tell them about my books, will you?  I am partial to independent bookstores, having owned two, myself, until my last one was killed by the giant chains, in 1994. I still miss it. 

I’m also looking to find someone who would want to make a play out of some of my stories in the Chicago area, so I could go there and do some readings sometimes.  I think there’s enough honest sex, drugs and rock n’ roll to hold anyone’s interest, as well as a lot of authentic dialogue from ordinary people in extraordinary situations.  I think the plays would work anywhere, frankly, in some intimate theater with talented actors.

So, let’s say it’s a perfect world and I’m President of The United States.

Which would mean a liberal, informed, and culturally aware Democrat with green sensibilities and no overwhelming desire to invade some other country and kill thousands of civilians, while at the same time being overwhelmingly concerned about this country, its people and the condition of America’s infrastructure.

I know, I know.  A total fantasy, as of this date.

But, who knows?  Something wonderful could happen.

Among the many, many changes and improvements I’d put into action, beside what I wrote in my earlier blog (6/12/08): Obama! A Blueprint for America (Written a few months ago. Check it out.), I’d change America’s relationship with Cuba.

Cuba, a country slightly larger than Ohio, about 11,800 sq. miles, with about the same population, 11,000,000 (though most likely a lot less Amish) is so rich in so many ways, so close to us, about 90 miles, and yet we hardly notice it. At least, because of the political influence of the Cubans already here, mostly in Florida, our cultural and economic ties with that island are few.   If the average American has any sense of the place, it is mostly likely through romantic movie images such as Marlon Brando and Jean Simmons in Guys and Dolls or the 2nd Godfather movie.  Or ancient political intrigue stories involving Fidel Castro, John F. Kennedy, the Bay of Pigs invasion disaster or the “Cuban Missile Crisis” dramatic standoff and Nikita Khrushchev.  All nearly 50 years ago, at this point.

And some old car enthusiasts find it romantic to think of Cuba as some Fifties car museum where all the cars driven after the revolution in 1959 are still there, undamaged by salt and parked everywhere like some permanent Hollywood movie set.

If ever there was a tropical paradise perfectly located for tourism, development and being regionally influential, it’s Cuba. Almost equally distant from the southeastern coast of the United States, Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, the northern coast of Venezuela, Central America and within kissing distance of popular and prosperous islands of the Caribbean and the Bahamas, Cuba is a real estate investor’s dream.

Location, location, location.

I would call the president of Cuba, Raul Castro, ask how Fidel is doing and then casually suggest that we meet for lunch someplace nearby, like say…Miami, or Jamaica or maybe even Costa Rica, and talk about some things. We should keep everything light and friendly.  Because Raul might be suspicious of a president of a big industrial country that once tried to invade his little island 46 years ago in 1962, or who also contemplated killing his brother. I’d tell him to pick a place he likes and I’d be there. No big delegation of politicians or businessmen. No huge bodyguard. Just two guys.  Representing about 320,000,000 people.

(Read on …)

This is what I’d do, and I’m older than you are, so listen to me:

1…Stop funding expansion of the Interstate Highway System.  Maintain what there is, but no more widening, lengthening or any new entrances and exits.  It just beckons more cars and delays our conversion to sophisticated rail transportation.  Make cars increasingly unnecessary and make the trains run on time, like it matters.  Because it does.

2…Create and fund a National Railway Authority, some kind of public/private organization.  Hire both retired, existing RR workers and also the unemployed to create a national railroad that will rival or exceed Europe’s in efficiency and economy.  Map out and immediately begin building tracks coast to coast and into every little town on the map.  Knit the whole country together.  Make everyday travel by train inexpensive, realistic, convenient and possible by running trains everywhere.  Put a food car back in the system where the food is actually good, reasonably priced and the service is polite.  It’s possible.  Just hire people who like people. 

Build them in America.  If we don’t make trains anymore, then hire people from wherever they still do make trains and create (or recreate) a new industry right here.  Shift the national priority from individual car mode to mass, and pleasant, transit.  Stop consuming oil.  Let OPEC dry up and blow away.   Put millions of men and women to work.

3…Create the “ONE HUNDRED MPG”  prize to be given to the person or company that can invent or convert or modify a type of engine that can be mass produced NOW for a basic 5-passenger car to replace what we have now as fast as possible.  The time is right for people to change their minds.  Offer a billion dollars or whatever your administration feels would be a sufficient inducement to bring the inventors out into the sunshine and get them to thinking.  A billion dollars is about a day in the Iraq War, so let no one bitch about the cost.  We can’t afford to wait until existing major American industries deems it the right time to retool.  Their economic priorities are not in the national interest.  The “Of the people, By the people, For the people” concept should rule the day here, in the interest of helping the most people in this country as fast as possible. 

Insure honesty and fairness (to the degree such a thing is possible) by having the awards committee composed of engineers, physicists, metallurgists, chemists, materials engineers and transportation experts.  No car industry types should be allowed anywhere near that committee.  There should be no national boundaries to who gets the prize.  Anyone, from anywhere, if they have a brain…then they’re in the game.   Keep the identities of the committee members a secret so they can’t be corrupted.  Pay them enough, legitimately, so they can make decisions that are in the best interests of this country, and not for themselves.   

4…Create a new Tribal Council of Indian Affairs run by a committee of twelve qualified and committed individuals from a dozen different tribes representing all parts of the continental USA and Alaska with ten year terms and annually rotating chairmanship so nobody dominates what ought to be a joint effort to improve the lives of America’s neglected and endlessly cheated Indians.  Keep the Anglos away from it.  They’ve done enough as it is, for the past 300 years.

                                                                                                                                                                      (Read on …)

(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