How many times have you heard someone say they just love---(you fill in the blank) pizza, a certain movie, a color for example?
Used in the classic sense love is defined as the willingness to lay down your life for someone. Contrasted with today’s common use the word seems way out of place and there’s nothing of equal value to replace it.
The word as used today the word has become synonomous with “ really like.” In that sense I suppose it is possible to love popcorn---but it would have to be really good popcorn! But I wouldn’t be willing to die for it no matter how good. This begs the question---How are you defining “love?”
Liberal is equally mis-cast in today’s vernacular.
When our founders fought to stand-up our republic the decision to do so wasn’t just liberal---it was counter-culture, non-conformist and malcontented radical ---not to mention revolutionary.
In the mid to late 18th Century (1776) Western Civilization was less than two centuries emerged from the Dark Ages and embracing the Renaisannce or the Age of Enlightenment. Notwithstanding this progressive movement at that time “monarchs” were still all the rage as were religious clerics.
People I suppose just need someone to tell them what to do. It worked for Jim Jones and David Koresh didn’t it?
It’s difficult to comprehend that less than two-hundred years ago let alone today anyone would buy the notion that monarchs came by their right to rule by virtue of their relation to gods. Royalty? Really? Royalty by relation to Zeus, Jupiter? God? This is the mentality that gave rise to brutal, psychotic megalomaniacs---the people the founders loathed. You really don’t need a degree in psychology or psychiatry to figure out we’ve had at least one at the helm in recent memory.
Many of today’s elected representatives act as if they, too, believe they are godly. They are not. With rare exception our elected representatives are where they are by virtue of their willingness to be the lapdogs of the oligarchs---obligingly carrying out their master’s will. It’s either that or go find a real job.
Kings were tyrants. Religious clerics were every bit as disingenuous and tyrannical. Both offered little, if any, tolerance, mercy or fairness. The coin of the realm was intolerance. There was no freedom of the press, religion, speech or freedom of anything else for that matter. There has been little of that over the course of the millions of years or humanity’s existence. Even Rome’s republic lacked the tolerance the founders of this republic sought to put in place.
Of course, this too, was equally twisted, tortured and tormented when you consider that even as the founders sought to put these wonderful freedoms in place they were commiting genocidal atrocities against the indigenous peoples of this hemisphere while pressing into service those brought unwillingly from the dark continent wearing the chains of slavery. (Let’s put that thought on hold for the time being)
Leading was more ruling. Rulers offered little in the way of freedom. Because monarchs ruled with iron fists and rules they made up so there was little to fear from the masses. If a king declared that someone was an enemy of the state---it was so. No witnesses to the act that caused one to be accused of being an enemy of the state were necessary.
If the monarch accused someone---then by decree they were simply guilty. This is similar to what “w” and President Obama after him have done with the men at Guantanamo.
Nay you say! Those men at Guantanamo are “terrists” “enemy combatants!” How do we know? Says who?
One of the interesting facts of this “war on terror” is that we as a people by way of our elected representative’s, misinformation and at best questionable “facts” were led into launching a preemptive military assault on a sovereign nation by way of an ideology. Military assault was launched as if on a nation-state that had dared assault us. That was clearly not the case.
Those putting up resistance in Iraq and Afghanistan are not “terrists” they are natives of those nations resisting outside intervention and what they perceive as invaders and occupiers.
“Terrists” aren’t confined to one nation-state, religion, political party or region of the world. Those labelled “terrists” by us often view themselves as freedom fighters. Terrists don’t wear uniforms. Terrists aren’t easily identifiable. They are fighting what they perceive as occupiers. What would we do? What did we do 234 years ago?
These “terrists” freedom fighters by another name wage unconventional war because it is all they have available. Their efforts are driven by ideology and not a nation-state nationalism. That means their military resistance will be per force “unconventional” or guerrilla-style. They don’t have airframes, tanks or a large standing army.
Even in the case of “state-sponsored” terrorism” the accusation is at best hypocritical. Nations, large and small, powerful and not work throught unconventional means or beit “terrists” every day, all day long to accomplish by other means what those nations could never do above board and out in the open. There isn’t a nation on the planet that doesn’t do that. No? What do you think the CIA does all day long? Who do you think is out to kill an American who is somewhere in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region?
Consider this---how do we know US citizen Anwar al-Awlaki is a “terrist?” Isn’t that what due process is all about? If it’s okay to hunt this man down on the word of a president or an agency how is that different from allowing a monarch, king, megalomaniac to make an both an indictment and death sentence based on that monarchs’s king’s megalomaniac’s accusation alone?
It’s what we’ve done to 100’s of men over the past decade. Most, if not all, have never had a writ of habeas corpus hearing to determine just what evidence there is for holding them. So how do we know what they did?
Are we so frightened that demanding the most basic of human rights is out of the question?
These are “terrists” you say! How do you know?
Additionally hypocritical is the notion that these fighters are “terrists” because they use what they have at hand to fight off empirial forces, IED (improvised electronic devices) and suicide bombers even as we kill scores of civilians we term collateral damage inside nations with whom we are not at war by means of joystick enabled pilots closeted half a world away in Nevada.
What made the founders liberal was their belief that those who govern do so by the consent of those governed---not because those governing are related to gods.
“We confide in our strength, without boasting of it; we respect that of others, without fearing it.”
– Thomas Jefferson
Treaty of Tripoli
Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion;
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/treaty_tripoli.html
Wouldn’t it be cool to have leaders such as that today? That is strength. That is liberal---not being afraid to share. Not being ever at the ready to deny freedom, rights and opportunity.
More to follow.
Hasta Siempre,
More:
Bexar County: Elections 2010 Another election, Tea Party notwithstanding, just more bootlickers
http://www.examiner.com/bexar-county-elections-2010-in-san-antonio/bexar-county-elections-2010-another-election-tea-party-notwithstanding-just-more-bootlickers
ONE PERSON'S TERRORIST IS ANOTHER PERSON'S FREEDOM FIGHTER
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8oqZ6o0-xI4
Illusions of Justice, Lennox S. Hinds
http://www.amazon.com/Illusions-Justice-Rights-Violations-United/dp/0934936005
Age of Enlightenment
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment
Thomas Jefferson Quotes
http://quotations.about.com/cs/inspirationquotes/a/Respect1.htm
One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vx0-e4HgsU0&has_verified=1
Tony Judt: An intellectual hero
And so Judt became an astute and critical observer of why the era and its politics not only failed to bring about revolutionary change in Europe and the US, but produced a conservative backlash that is largely responsible for the slow destruction of the welfare states that had enabled unprecedented prosperity in the West in the decades after the second world war.
http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2010/08/201081084238516548.html
Why? (See next Bexar County Public Policy blog)
Liberal groups push to exploit Target backlash
ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) -- Protesters have been rallying outside Target Corp. or its stores almost daily since the retailer angered gay rights supporters and progressives by giving money to help a conservative Republican gubernatorial candidate in Minnesota. Liberal groups are pushing to make an example of the company, hoping its woes will deter other businesses from putting their corporate funds into elections.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Liberal-groups-push-to-apf-2321043209.html?x=0
Lady Gaga Is Sen. Frank Lautenberg's Kind of Entertainer
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/08/13/lady-gaga-is-sen-frank-lautenbergs-kind-of-entertainer/?icid=main
htmlws-main-ndl1link6http%3A%2F%2Fwww.politicsdaily.com%2F2010%2F08%2F13%2Flady-gaga-is-sen-frank-lautenbergs-kind-of-entertainer%2F
Rep. Dennis Kucinich Seeks to Ban Assassinations of US Citizens
Lawyers for US citizen Anwar al-Awlaki, who has reportedly been targeted for assassination by the CIA and Joint Special Operations Command, had to fight the US government to have the right to represent him. On Wednesday, following a lawsuit by the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Treasury Department issued a license to the pro-bono lawyers. Now the battle for due process begins. In a statement, al-Awlaki's new lawyers said the license would "allow us to pursue our litigation relating to the government’s asserted authority to engage in targeted killings of American civilians without due process."
http://www.thenation.com/blog/153899/rep-dennis-kucinich-seeks-ban-assassinations-us-citizens
Prop 8: Gay-Marriage Opponents May Be Unable to Appeal
If same-sex weddings resume in California next Thursday, the happy couples may have more names to add to their thank-you lists than that of U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker, the San Francisco jurist who last week struck down the 2008 voter-approved constitutional amendment that made gay marriage illegal. They may have to address new cards to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and California attorney general Jerry Brown.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20100813/us_time/08599201037700
Jim Jones
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Jones
David Koresh
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Koresh
Scientific Revolutions - Stephen Gould 1941 - 2002
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orkkwJue8B8
Gould on Evolution part 2. Who was the Naturalist on Board The Beagle? (1/2)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yt9YO07Jy6E
Leonard Cohen - Democracy [OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OETwbVBPI1U
No Escape
For Mexicans fleeing violence, the United States offers no refuge
http://www.texasobserver.org/cover-story/no-escape
Abortion agony in the PhilippinesAccording to the US-based Centre for Reproductive Rights, more than half a million women risk their lives annually by undergoing backstreet abortions.
Out of them, about 1,000 die each year.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2010/08/20108342154727162.html
Lessons of our exported “democracy”
Iraqis don't expect political impasse to be resolved by fall
BAGHDAD -- Nearly five months after disputed parliamentary elections, leading Iraqi politicians say they have all but abandoned hope of resolving an impasse over forming a new government before fall.
The protracted stalemate is a scenario U.S. officials have long dreaded. By the end of August, the United States will declare the end of its combat mission in Iraq -- and reduce troop strength to 50,000 -- amid a deepening political crisis.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/31/AR2010073103057.html?wpisrc=nl_headline
Dutch become 1st NATO member to quit Afghanistan
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100801/ap_on_re_as/as_afghanistan
George Washington
"As Mankind becomes more liberal, they will be more apt to allow that all those who conduct themselves as worthy members of the community are equally entitled to the protections of civil government. I hope ever to see America among the foremost nations of justice and liberality." - George Washingon
http://www.quotedb.com/quotes/1274
Making Gaza a 'European ghetto'
While most Israeli leaders are resistant to fully lifting the blockade of Gaza, Avigdor Lieberman, the right-wing foreign minister, is advocating that Israel abandon the Strip to international monitoring and economic rehabilitation.
The proposal, recently leaked to the Israeli press, does not amount to freeing Gaza but rather to placing it under European sea and land inspections and a reconstruction plan.
If implemented, it will permanently sever the Gaza Strip from the West Bank, transforming the Strip into an internationally supervised ghetto - with the dual purpose of ensuring Israeli security and reigning in the Palestinian population.
http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2010/07/2010728133548536702.html
Taliban Spins Time's Cover Photo The Taliban vs. Time
Responding to a recent cover story, the Taliban lectures America on journalistic ethics and its women's rights problem.
http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/08/taliban-press-release-spin-time-cover-photo-aisha-women-rights
No comments:
Post a Comment