Greetings and Salutations...

On Mon, 23 Aug 2004 06:17:33 GMT, "Mike Hide"
wrote:



Well, perhaps if you had spent time as a POW being tortured to sign a
confession admitting to war crimes and then had John Kerry do that for
free
in front of the Senate, maybe you'd have a bit of an axe to grind too.
Seems like these guys aren't so much for Bush, but wanting people to know
what they are getting if they pick Kerry.


I like the part where a picture of John Kerry appears in the Vietnamese
museum honoring him for his assistance in helping them win the war against
America. mjh

Wow! amazing how political discussions in the USA can
deteriorate to name-calling and innuendo faster than a politician
sneaking a new tax or pay raise through!
Just a couple of thoughts here...First off...as for this
reference, a quick google search brings us this snopes reference:
http://www.snopes.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=60;t=000672;p=1
It appears that while there IS a picture, it has nothing
to do with Kerry's protests helping North Vietnam win.

I lived through that era, and, I have to say that the
ever increasing betrayal of the public trust by the Federal
Government, the nightly body counts, the film of the atrocities
of war, and the insane limits placed on our troops by those same
politicians had more to do with the loss of support for the war
than any testemony before a Congressional Committee.
If Kerry supported the enemy by publickly expressing his
concerns over the way the war was being waged, and the ramifications
of it, then, I, my older sister, and tens of thousand of OTHER
AMericans were also guilty of the same crimes because WE participated
in public protests against the war, those protests were televised,
and, were probably used for propoganda purposes.
Once again, America's strength and what has made it great is
the freedom to hold and express contradictory views about *anything*.
It is through public discourse that we can, with luck, find the
"best" course of action.
I agree with Mr. Self in his concerns over giving up freedom
for security. I will not quote B. Franklin again...but will mention
it to remind us that this was one old white guy that had a VERY clear
picture of reality.
Fear will cause people to do terribly irrational things. No
matter what one feels about M. Moore's movie Fahrenheit 9/11, it
raised a very good point about the current actions of the Feds. One
of the Congressmen interviewed was discussing how many of the actions
taken by the government appear to be designed more to keep a continual
undercurrent of fear in the citizens, than to reassure us. As was
pointed out, the color code will likely never go to blue...and
definately will never go to green, but, will continue to fluctuate
from yellow through orange and red. I also find some of the timing
of some of the escalations a tad suspicious. Some of them have come
JUST at a time when Dubya's popularity has dropped, or, some
potentially embarressing questions were raised. Amazingly enough,
those situations seemed to change when the fear rose!
The fact that more and more bits of information are coming
out that show that the Federal Government, as a whole, knew enough
about the events of 9/11 well before hand that it likely could have
been avoided does not do much for my confidence that giving the Feds
MORE power and limiting the rights of the citizenry more will improve
the situation.
Now...The Feds are talking about reworking the intelligence
agencies in the government into a single body, to do the job better.
What...are we going to call it the "MORE Central Intelligence Agency"?
And...what was the NSA (The NATIONAL Security Agency) doing to earn
their salt?
The Soviets believed in a huge, bureaucratic government, with
everything subservient to that central authority. Look how well that
worked, both for the citizens and the government.
It seems to me that the biggest problem with the so-called
intelligence community before 9/11 was that they were more interested
in building their own power base than they were in protecting the
USA. Combining that with an overwhelming enthusiasm for gadgets over
good, old-fashioned Man In The Street work, meant that not only was
it far too easy for vital information to get lost in the shuffle, but
that it was far too easy for vital information to never get picked
up at all.
I have been wrestling with this problem of the events of 9/11
and the subsequent reactions of AMerica and the world, and, I have
come to the conclusion that the best thing to do is "Ignore it". By
this, I mean that while we should never forget 9/11, instead of
allowing it to flake us out and push us, though fear, into doing
exactly what the terrorists want - Destroy America - we should
rather turn our attentions towards rebuilding our reputation in
the world. THe fact that, as I have mentioned elsewhere, have
decades of two-faced dealing with the world has left some serious
problems, and have made many folks distrustful of us. We need
to pick a side and stick to it, and not be QUITE so enthusiastic
to pump in support to petty dictators who claim they will be
our good buddies - yet - oppress and mistreat their citizens.
If we really wanted to make America a stronger place
that would be harder for terrorists to attack, perhaps we
should require that all high-school graduates go into the military
for two years. I suspect that the training and discipline would
be good for them, and, having a country full of folks that
have at least a rudimentary knowledge of defense and the skills
necessary to use a firearm would improve life a lot, and likely
would help clarify some of the 2d Amendment discussions that go on.
There are no easy answers, though...I do know that the
more freedoms we give up, the more freedoms we will be asked
to give up. Given enough steps, the worlds of Orwell or "Brazil"
will no longer be worrisome fantasy, but, reality.
Regards
Dave Mundt