Tuesday:

> That's extreme.

That is my point. It is extreme to believe that somehow people have the right to own a weapon that could kill somebody. But then, a handgun is acceptable, but not an automatic assault rifle. I suppose killing 1 person with a handgun is an acceptable risk, but killing 100 with a machine gun is not.

In the World there are more guns than people. I think that is extreme too. Nobody wants to accept the truth. People kill people, and guns just make it easier to do so.

"In sharp contrast to most other developed nations, firearms laws in the United States are permissive and private gun ownership is common, with about 40% of households containing at least one firearm. In fact, there are more privately owned firearms in the United States than in any other nation, both per capita and in total."

Now, just based on pure statistics, if you live in the USA, 4 out of every 10 houses in your neighborhood probably has a firearm. 40% is a big number. If 0.01 % of the population has some mental defect, there are enough firearms to make sure that a lot of people will get killed.

Then we look at the problems of Mexico and Central America with gun running, drug traficking and organized crime. Violence is being fuelled by easy availability.

If manufacturing and selling guns were illegal, who would make the guns? Criminals would have to resort to the old cloak and dagger. It is a lot harder to kill 10 people with a knife. But then, guns are OK.

Mélusine:

> Anyway, I could take the sickle for my garden and easily kill someone with it !

A person could take a chopstick out of a Chinese restaurant and kill somebody with it.

Violence is more complex than people think. Sometimes violence is carried out by individuals (such as serial killers), sometimes by social groups (such as terrorists, armies, etc.) Sometimes violence is unjustified (such as a serial killer murdering an innocent person) and sometimes we justify it (for example, self-defense, or some higher ideological principle.)

Why do people buy guns?

- Hunting: in the past it may have been a necessity, in this day and age it is mostly as a "sport", something done for entertainment

- Fear: people don't feel safe, so they buy a gun for self-protection. Sometimes the fear is justified, sometimes it is psychological (paranoia)

- Violent tendencies: some people buy guns as a means to prove to themselves or others that they are tough. For example, military wannabes who wear camouflage and carry weapons, even though they are not in the military.

- Criminal intent: people buy guns with the express purpose of committing a crime

- Entertainment: some people buy guns as a toy, then they head off to the firing range on weekends to play with their toy. They will never hunt, or be in the military, or commit a crime. They are merely playing with a dangerous toy.

- Stupidity: some people buy a gun and they don't even know why. Then they are really surprised when somebody gets hurt with their gun.

- Psycopathy: some people buy guns because they enjoy killing others. Their predatory instincts lead them to kill other human beings.

Ther are others reasons for sure. Of all these I listed, I don't see much justification, except for self-defense.

Hunting might be a sport, but wouldn't going out to play baseball be better? There are cases where controlling the population of an animal might be necessary since its natural predators are gone, or the animal was introduced from elsewhere (such as rabbits and cats in Australia). Hunting as a sport might be thrilling and fun, until some "accident" happens (such as Dick Cheney shooting his friend, or some animal being hunted to extinction). I have a friend who killed his son in a hunting accident. After 30 years he is still a psychological mess. I suppose there is such as thing as responsible hunting. Still, there is plenty of beef in the supermarket!

Some people truly fear for their life. They are under threat from somebody else. Self-defense is justified, but only when the threat is true. If the fear is very general (such as fear that some day a criminal might come into my upper middle class neighborhood), then it is likely more paranoia than justified fear.

People who buy guns to show off, or to have a "cool toy" are just plain stupid. That is the kind of people who treat weapons without giving them the respect and responsibility they deserve.

Criminals and psycophaths belong behind bars. It is those people who ruin everything for everybody else.

Guns don't kill people. People kill people.

Automatic assault rifles don't kill people. People kill people.

TNT doesn't kill people. People kill people.

Warplanes don't kill people. People kill people.

Bacteriological and viral agents don't kill people. People kill people.

Nuclear bombs don't kill people. People kill people.

I don't want some antidemocratic, fascist big government telling me whether I can own a gun or not.

Just as I don't want some antidemocratic, fascist big government telling me whether I can own ANY weapons or not.

But then, it is perfectly OK for a good Christian to defend the right of people to buy and own guns. Good Christians support and join the NRA.

Tuesday:

> Hold the person accountable for their actions, not the means they chose to utilize

Then why restrict any weapons at all? We hold the person accountable, but not the automatic assault rifle, or the company that makes a profit manufacturing it, or the retailer that makes a profit selling it.

By your logic, people should be free to buy fully automatic machine guns. A person should be able to buy an Uzi at Walmart, then it is OK, because it is not the gun the problem, but the killer behind the gun.

Not only that, but a person should be able to buy dynamite freely, because it is not dynamite the problem, but the insane idiot who buys it.

If that is the case, a person should be able to buy a nuclear bomb. If a person blows up a city, it is not nuclear weapons the problem, but the insane idiots who use them.

So a person should be free to open a business and sell machine guns, explosives and even WMDs. The logic is that the problem is not the availability of weapons, but the people who use them.

> Bush Memoir Sells 2 Million Copies in 2 Months

I suppose that really takes away the fact that the Bush admnistration manufactured intelligence to justify a war that ultimately plunged a country into sectarian violence. I wonder if Haliburton will give back the $90 billion in profits they made thanks to the war.

Bernice:

> Poor security systems that are in place. .... god help my great grand kids.

I think a lot of people don't realize the extent of government secrecy, and what it holds for the future. Today everything is computerized, and computers are very good at collecting, sorting and storing data. Every time you buy something with a bank card, credit card or debit card, it is catalogued. Credit card companies (and their ugly cousins, the credit reporting bureaus) know EVERYTHING of our financial comings and goings. Every time we make a phone call it is processed through speech recognition systems. The telephone companies know EVERY person we have ever called. Banks know EVERYTHING we have bought using their bank accounts. When we walk anywhere with digital; cameras, our faces and bodies are potentially scanned for anatomical features that can identify us individually. Every medical procedure we ever had is now computerized.

Our governments have access to all that data, plus all the other data they collect themselves, like fingerprints, social insurance numbers, taxation data and even DNA.

At the present, nobody cares, but the day will come when governments will see political opponents as a threat. Anybody who does not agree with the system is a potential target. And we have given our goverments the rights to act in SECRECY under the guise of NATIONAL SECURITY.

I am not paranoid, but those people who fear big government should think twice before continuing to support the kind of power that computerized systems have placed in the reach of governments and the power-hungry men that run them.

Our grandkids will be scrutinized even more. I might not entirely agree with Wikileaks, but anything that starts dismantling the power apparatus that the new BIG BROTHERS have can only help to ensure that our grandkids will not be emprisoned in a digital gulag that controls every aspect of their life, from where they spend money to who they talk to on the phone. We have written laws that give our governments that kind of power (take the Patriot Act), we should set about dismantling those laws and ending the culture of secrecy that threatens everybody's freedom.

What Wikileaks did is probably the tip of the iceberg. I think that in the future there will be even more leaks, and bigger than this. One of these days somebody will release encryption keys for the Pentagon, the CIA, MI5, etc. Then entire networks will be compromised. All it takes is somebody who does not agree with the system. Going after the Wikileaks people will probably just make it worse. Now people will see the system as oppressive and controlling. It might just make things worse.

Artful Dodger

> No one said anything about executions.

>> The only thing the extremist muslims need is a bullet to the head. Kill them all is possible. they are all evil and all deserve immediate death. No battlefield caputres and this trial nonsense.

>> The US needs to execute by fireing squad any US citizens that leak classified docs.

>> I'd have had a CIA operative take him out months ago. And a few of his colleagues would taste the bullet as well.

I hate to hammer the same nail twice. It sounds to me that if a combatant is captured alive, the only way there are NO battlefield captures is if they are summarily executed. The other two comments speak for themselves.

What perhaps does it for me is that you claim to be a good Christian, yet you have no problem saying that it is OK to kill another human being for political reasons or to protect state secrets. You say I am a "dishonest" left winger. Is it worse than being a dishonest Christian? Or did Jesus preach killing others, even one's enemies? I won't make generalizations about the American religious right, but I do hope your comments do not reflect their beliefs.

Well, we as human beings are full of contradictions. All I can say is that politics and religion should NEVER mix (even if the Tea Party faithful disagree). It is in those instances that the best of us throw our most precious beliefs to the wind in exchange for political views. The reason why we claim to be better than extremists is precisely because we do not do summary executions, or have a take-no-prisoners attitude, or have a kill-all-traitors attitude. We should leave those to fascists, terrorists and extremists.

Artful Dodger:

> And that is a great example of left wing dishonesty.

Dishonesty? I am not the one who wrote those comments. I merely regurgitated them back, and pointed out to the fact that the language is highly reminescent of how some führers used to talk, not about Moslems, but about Jews and Communists.

But then, I am just dishonest. I suppose better dishonest than fascist!

The truth hurts?

> The only thing the extremist muslims need is a bullet to the head. Kill them all is possible. they are all evil and all deserve immediate death. No battlefield caputres and this trial nonsense.

> The US needs to execute by fireing squad any US citizens that leak classified docs.

> I'd have had a CIA operative take him out months ago. And a few of his colleagues would taste the bullet as well.


Take no prisoners. Summary executions. Kill anybody who opposes you. Protect big brother at all costs. Sounds like something spoken by a true right wing fascist.

Servant:

> The US think that the bad guys outnumber the few good guys on a global scale

To be more accurate, the US (and most other western countries) think that the bad guys outnumber the good guys. However, the bad guys are acceptable when it is easy to make money from them. So a bad guy is really just a guy that does not allow western monopolies to make money at their expense.

I can give some good examples:

Saudi Arabia is an autocratic, dictatorial kingdom that does not even allow women to fully participoate in the electoral process. However, they are an ally because they have a lot of cheap oil to sell. It is immaterial that most of Al Qaida and its funding originate here. They are still a good ally.

China is run by totalitarian communists, but they are not a bad guy because they have a lot of cheap manufactured goods to sell. It does not matter that Tibetans are oppressed, they are still a good guy and America's biggest trading partner and money lender.

In contrast:

Iran is a dictatorial islamic republic. They are a bad guy because their oil pipelines compete with Western-owned pipelines in the region, and they refuse to give their oil away to foregin monopolies. In fact, they kicked out western monopolies and nationalized their oil industry. That is truly evil and against capitalism.

North Korea is run by totalitarian communists. Unlike China or dictatorships in the Middle East, North Korea has no cheap goods and no oil to sell. So North Korea is a bad guy, even though they are as communist as China is.

Of course, western society can NEVER do wrong because it truly upholds Christian values emobodied in capitalist doctrine and representative democracy. Our WMDs are good, while those of the North Koreans and Iranians are evil. It is IDEOLOGY and not actions that make people good or evil.

Artful Dodger:

> I wouldn't want the US spying on a friend and then releasing the info.

Isn't that one of the things that the American goverment was furious about? They were spying on "friends", then relaying the information back through diplomatic channels. It was okay until somebody spilled the beans. Now the guy is a traitor, for exposing the hypocrysy. All of that was about saving face. I can understand national security, but spying on the royal family, or Angela Merkel?

> nothing hypocritical about it at all. If a U.S. citizen leaks secret U.S. information, it is by law, treason. If a not U.S. citizen does it is by law, espionage, period.

Then when North Koreans accuse a citizen of breaking the law and they throw them in jail, it is OK. After all, if the law of that country says that it is espionage, then it is, and the opinion of other countries does not count. When Americans complain about dissidents being jailed, by North Korean law definitions they are criminals, then North Korea is justified in its actions. Free speech is meaningless then when the law says that something is espionage.

> I live in the USA. Why should I care if the secrets of China are exposed?

That is precisely my point. The only reason why Wikileaks is being prosecuted is because they exposed western interests. If they had exposed somebody else's interests, the American government would not care. Wikileaks has committed a crime by exposing information that Americans consider secret and dangerous.

What about defectors from North Korea or Iran then? I guess it is justified to defend them. It is a nice, hypocritical double standard. Like the standard that says that it is OK for western powers to have the biggest arsenals of WMDs while giving smaller countries a hard time for pursuing the same WMDs that western powers refuse to give up.

What we call national security and "the law" then reduces itself to hypocritical double standards. We can spy on others, but others cannot spy on us. We can expose the secrets of others, but others cannot expose our own. We can have WMDs, but others can't. We can carry preeemptive attacks on others, but others cannot carry them against us. We can drop bombs with drone planes on others, but others cannot do it to us. We give ourselves all these rights, but refuse to accept that other could do the same. Our enemies have criminal spies, we have heroic spies. We are ALWAYS right, they are always wrong. Those who expose us as being otherwise are nothing but criminals and spies.

Artful Dodger:

> I coujldn't care less if it happened to an emeny of the US. That is hardly the point here.

Very convenient. If these people had exposed secrets in China or North Korea, should they be executed? It is so nice to have a double standard. But then, that is the essence of selfishness. What is good for me (or US) is what matters. What is good for others is immaterial. Personally, I think EVERY document should be public. But then, if you government kept secret documents on you, would it matter? All that this shows is the hypocrysy of western governments, nothing else.

(V):

> Villagers sell deadly uranium to the US army at $3 a barrel

The question is: what will the US military do with that uranium? I doubt that they will just dump it to the bottom of the ocean, or donate it to the boyscouts. Most likely they will refine it, enrich it and use it to make more nukes, or to make depleted uranium anti-tank shells.

I suppose it is OK for superpowers to have WMDs. Maintaining a monopoly of military might is more important than accepting the hypocritical nature of "non-proliferation" of WMDs. When superpowers (or their dubious allies) make WMDs, who imposes sanctions on them?

Artful Dodger:

> There's a huge difference between an individual or an organization reporting abuses in government or business one at a time and the same people stealing enough classified material to run a spy agency.

At what point does it become "reporting" or "spying"? The truth is that western governments have lived in a culture of secrecy for decades. The Cold War was used as an excuse to give broad powers to spy agencies. Governments got used to run just about everything as a secret. National security became an excuse for doing anything they wanted.

Once exposed, politicians now cry foul and try to hide their embarrassing crap behind "national security". If they could, governments would remain secretive, spy on people, abuse their power, and the voting public would be none the wiser.

Wikileaks is far from a spy agency. They simply put out government secrets in the public eye. The Obama administration can go and say that people's lives will be put at risk. What is put at risk is the government's ability to save face. Embassy personnel give recounts of their impressions of other powerful foreigners. Those people are being exposed for who they are. The American government does not want to appear to be spying on the rich and the powerful among their allies. Yet that is what they did, and now they call Wikileaks a spy agency? There is no free speech in this case, only Big Brother trying to tell others what they can and cannot report.

If governments don't want to be embarrassed, maybe they should start by giving up their culture of secrecy and their paranoia.

To add to this, if instead of American files, they had released 250,000 classified files from the Communist Party of the People's Republic of China, would people make such a fuss about it? If that were the case, the American government would probably be giving them a medal and massive funding for their projects!

Artful Dodger:

> Most American feel that in this economy, all tax levels should remain the same.

I think that makes sense, not just in the USA, but in Canada and western Europe. Lowering taxes will just add to a bad deficit (something George W. Bush completely refused to admit in spit4e of the ever increasing costs of the war). Raising taxes will solve the deficit, but take money away from consumers. Obama seems to understand that, but he is too weak to stand up to those Republicans who want tax breaks. At this point in time, it is irresponsible to engage in tax breaks. It was irresponsible of the Bush administration to do it, and it is still irresponsible considering the deficit problem. The government needs to trim the fat, and that means no more bailouts and reducing military spending. Well, the realities of healthcare costs and increasing pressures on the pension system will eventually catch up to our governments. At some point it will be impossible to keep giving free rides to the big monopolies, keep throwing away money in wars, AND provide essential services to those in need. The public will force politicians to chose. Stimulating the economy with tax breaks sounds great and it is always a popular move, but can the government really afford it?

rod03801:

All I can say is this: Do you make over $250K a year? If you do, I can understand defending a tax break for the rich, because you will directly benefit from it. If you make under $250K a year, then a tax break for the rich is of no direct benefit to you. I suppose defending the political and economic interests of the wealthy elite really, really helps the lower middle calss.

Artful Dodger:

> "Chemical weapons, especially, did not vanish from the Iraqi battlefield. Remnants of Saddam's toxic arsenal, largely destroyed after the Gulf War, remained. Jihadists, insurgents and foreign (possibly Iranian) agitators turned to these stockpiles during the Iraq conflict -- and may have brewed up their own deadly agents"

If that were true, there would be not a few thousand dead soldiers, but hundreds of thousands. I think these analysts have their heads right up their keisters. It takes no genius to figure out that if Iraq had WMDs, and the insurgents had inherited those, then the Coalition would be in serious trouble. Why use suicide bombing when you can release a toxin that could wipe out an entire army base? It is illogical!

Even after all these years people are trying to make excuses for the simple fact that Tony Blair and George W. Bush manufactured intelligence and lied to the public to justify a war whose final aim was to make billions of dollars for Haliburton, Exxon and other big oil companies. Why winge on about WMDs? They should just be honest and admit the truth.

rod03801:

> many people aren't able to think enough to realize that it is these people "earning $250,000 and higher"
> are the ones who create the jobs that everyone needs and if they are taxed even more, the unemployment
> situation is only going to get worse.

The truth is that the rich ALREADY have massive tax breaks that others don't enjoy. When it comes to "job creation tax breaks" nothing beats the "capital gains tax exemption". In Canada (I am not sure of the rates in the USA, but taxation law is not that different across the border) a person can declare income as capital gains. The exemption allows a person to pay NO TAXES on the first $250,000 of capital gains. This lifetime exemption was actually lowered from $500,000 because the government was losing billions of dollars in "exempt" income. Not only that, but when capital gains are declared, the taxation rate is 15%. That is less than half of the average 32% that the middle class pays.

Let's add to that exemptions based on "capital expenditures". If you are the owner of a business, you can take your income and invest it in upgrading infrastructure or buying equipment. That means that you can offset most of the taxes paid if you declare buying property as a "capital expense". I know rich people who declare everythingas a capital expense. Their car is a "company car". Their food is a "business meal". Their dentist is a "medical benefit" payed to an employee. I know this guy who bought himself a luxury sports car, and had the cheek to declare it as a business investment, and he got away with it.

Then we come to who actually creates the jobs. The answer is that consumers of products and services create the jobs. A rich man can open a clothing store, but if nobody buys clothes, the store fails. It is simple economics. Then who are the "consumers" in society. It is the working class, who make up the majority of the population. With no "capital tax breaks", it is the working class that carries the burden of paying taxes and sustaining the government. I wonder how many millionaires go to Walmart or MacDonalds and consume all those goods and all that food that makes the rich richer.

The idea that tax breaks for the rich stimulates the economy is the excuse that those on the right use to give tax breaks to themselves. Interestingly, those people who vote for them are dumb enough to buy the ideological crap, without actually looking at how the rich make their money and how they get away with paying less taxes.

When it comes to CIA trained and protected terrorists, nobody beats Cuban-born Luis Posada Carriles:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Posada_Carriles

He is wanted in Cuba and Venezuela for bombing an airplane and killing 73 people. He also carried out bombings of hotels and tourist facilities in Cuba in order to disrupt the tourist trade in the island.

His partner in crime and terrorism is Orlando Bosch, another CIA agent who became both a terrorist and criminal who carried out bombings in Cuba as well as against an American airline that wanted to resume flights to Cuba.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orlando_Bosch

Of course, somebody who cimmits an act of terrorism in the name of Western Democracy is a hero. Somebody who does it against Western Democracy is a criminal and a terrorist. Men like Posada Carriles and Bosch have now become an embarrassment and a liability to the American government, even though they were heros during the Cold War. Osama Bin Laden and the Moujahadeen are the smae. Dubious allies during the Cold War, terrorist enemies now.

Artful Dodger:

I know. It is unfair in the sense that the focus is on her, and she did it in Fox News. As with George W. Bush and other previous presidents, the president's gaffes are mostly ignored by the media. As the potential Republican presidential candidate, she will be scrutinized by all those who oppose her (both in the Democrat and Republican parties). Sarah Palin has made a few comments that have put in question her experience in foreign policy. Doubtlessly her oponents will milk this to the extreme. Politics is a dirty game. Her strength as a politician will be shown in her ability to come out of things like this without being brought down by her opponents.

Just as an additional to my last post, the real king of political gaffes was Dan Quayle!

All politicians suffer from foot-in-mouth disease. Take a last name, say Clinton. Now add -ism at the end: Clintonism. Now do a search in Google. The search Reaganism, Nixonism, Bushism, Obamaism, Palinism. You will come with hundreds of very amusing bloopers, stupid speeches, misread cues, etc. Sarah Palin made one more this week. Now she is a member of the club!

Servant:

> Islam is as much a political view as it is a religious view

All religions (I am trying hard to think of an exception) have been used as political tools at some point.

The Greeks used religion, as did the Persians, the Romans and even the Mongols. In China the Tang dynasty almost broke apart due to infighting between Buddhists, Taoists and Confucians. So the emperor declared all three as state religions in order to stop the empire from falling apart. In India the Hindus nearly exterminated the Buddhists. The Islam rose, destroyed Buddhism in Afghanistan and Pakistan, went to war over the Holy Land, and built several huge caliphates that were later destroyed by Christianity. Christians went onto exterminate 60 million natives in the Americas, along with their cultures and religions. Then Christians turned on themselves and pitted Catholics against Reformers.

Today we have fundamentalist Islam as a political movement, and people in the Tea Party preaching that "Christian" principles should be enshrined in the constitution. Some Tea party members go so far as to say that the separation of church and state is wrong and invented by "communists". Then we have Al Quaida, the Taliban, radical Zionism, Fundamentalist Christian cults, TV preachers, etc. The fun never ends.

Religion is a tool in the hands of unscrupulous people who want to cement their wealth and power. They abuse people's need for spiritual guidance and use people's religious beliefs as a conduit for political and economic beliefs. Our western society is not immune, as the influence of religion on politicians shows.

Artful Dodger:

> Some out of guilt, others out of joy.

Joy in what sense? I just gave something to somebody in need, and the joy I feel comes from knowing I did something "good". In essence, the joy comes from knowing that I am a "good" person. Let's say for a moment that I decided that being selfish is better. I turn into a Mr. Scrooge and give nothing away, not even a penny. Then the joy is gone. I am not so good any more.

My sense of ethics tells me that giving is good, and being selfish is bad. Perhaps my posts sounds harsh "launder one's conscience, guilt, etc." Notice that I did not say anything about guilt being good or bad. I merely point out the "psychological" motivation behind giving.

In capitalism the rich are constantly trying to prove how good they are. So much so, that they even sold to people Adam Smith's "invisible hand". The rich are good, really. They even created a job for you. Now you can feed your family thanks to them. So what if they make a profit at your expense? You should still be grateful that the invisible hand has made them so nice to you.

Then somebody points out at the fact that the rich exploit the poor. They pursue monopolies and use their wealth to acquire political power. Suddenly the rich don't look so nice any more. Their image has to be restored and giving to charity buys the best PR around. Now Mr. Scrooge is not some mean callous exploiter, but a nice man, reformed from his selfish ways. Suddenly the eye of the needle got bigger, and Mr. Scrooge actually fits through.

My big criticism of "giving" is that it is politicized. Governments and politicians use aid as a means to leverage political and economic advantage. They will give aid to countries only when it is politically and economically convenient.

I know very well that a lot of people give out of the goodness of their hearts. They do it with kindness and joy. It is those people that remind me that humanity is more than a bunch of selfish, consuming, abusive, bellicose, murdering apes. People that give are the ones that show that humanity can strive for better. That much is true.

rod03801:

> I'm assuming you didn't TRULY intend to make such a broad generalization?

I sure did intend to make that generalization. What is "social conscience"? It is middle class guilt. If I give to the poor, then I am a good man. If I don't, then I am selfish, and I feel guilty about it. So I give to the poor, to prove to myself that I am good so I won't feel guilty about being bad.

Then we come to the definition of "good person". For a Christian, a good person is typically somebody who follows what they interpret the Bible to say. "Faith, hope and charity. Of all these charity being the greatest." "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven." Hence somebody with money, knowing that the rich cannot enter the kingdom of heaven, must make ammends to prove they deserve to be good Christians and be accepted into heaven. So they launder their conscience by giving to the poor. "If I give to the poor, i am not the kind of rich guy who is compared to a camel, but the kind of rich guy who is welcome in Heaven."

Of course, many donations are tax deductible. So a rich man can buy himself a good reputation while at the same time getting himself a nice tax break. In fact, the more money I can afford to give, the more PR I can squeeze out of it, and the more of a nice guy I look. The artifice is so good, that I can literally get rid of my bourgeois sense of guilt, and even be a good Christian (or a good Moslem or whatever religion I might like).

Ultimately, everyone wants to convince themselves that they are good. Yet nobody wants to admit the truth. The poor of the world don't need charity. What they need is social justice. They don't need petty bourgeois guilt. What they need is the fair and equal distribution of wealth. But then, it is the evil godless communists who preached that. Charity is good, because as long as there is charity there is no need for real social change or revolution.

> Is that why you give to charity? WOW. It's not why I do.

Why do you give then? I give as much as I can out of guilt. I am honest. I know very well that the money I give to charity is for the most part wasted because it will never ellicit any real social change. It merely eases my guilt so I can sleep better at night. I am an atheist, so God does not play in my sense of guilt. Mine is mere middle class guilt. But then, if people don't give out of guilt, why do they give? Are they trying to prove something to themselves, or to the world? Even if they give anonymously, what is the psychological motivation behind giving?

Artful Dodger:

> Plymouth Colony upon communist principles

Two details: First, Communism did not exist in 1620, not as an ideology. It is something that was born in the early 19th century. Second, we should eliminate Thanksgiving as a holiday because it was invented by Communists! Since all of these pilgirms were Christians, I suppose Christians can be communist too.

Let's face it. The reason why Communism failed while individualism and capitalism won is because people are in essence greedy and selfish. It is interesting that the pilgims hated work when it was for everybody else's benefit, but had no problems with it when it was for their own individual benefit. That hasn't changed. People still think of only what is good for themselves. When they do something for others (like give money to charity) it is either out of guilt, fear of hell, or to cash in a nice tax break.

Artful Dodger:

> All, I repeat "ALL", terrorist attacks in America have been committed by Middle Eastern men between the ages of 18 and 40.

Except for that Mexican guy with the dirty bombs. I think he is called Jose Padilla, aka Abdullah al Muhajir.

Oh, and the English Jamaican shoe bomber. Richard Reid, aka Abdul Rahim.

There are a few others here and there!

Artful Dodger:

> "Cut this PC nonsense and go after the bad guys. PROFILE!"

I think the biggest problem with profiling is not so much making assertions about somebody based on external appearances, but rather what the "profile" says about an individual and how that information is used.

According to the profile, I am a Hispanic male with tattoos on his forearms. That means there is a big likelyhood that I am a member of gang and possibly involved in drug trafficking and other illegal activities. That profile has cost me dearly every time I travel. It goes without fail that at every airport I get stopped and get my luggage searched. I get questioned and harrassed. The funny thing is, I am more like a "white middle class" man. I don't drink, I don't smoke, I have never committed a crime. The hardest drug I ever took was Tylenol with codeine, and that was because of an elbow operation. I am not some homie from the hood, but a university educated chemist. The profile fails in this case. I found it insulting and deameaning.

The other day I was in a mall. I saw these two young African girls. They were wearing hijabs (head dress). By their features I could tell that they were possibly Moslems from Somalia. What were they? Terrorists? Oppressed Moslem women? Generally xenophobic Moslems? Not at all. I figured out what they were about when their conversation focused on how one of their friends got into trouble for being "too horny". It is likely they would not have that conversation at home in front of their parents, but it made me question my views based on a profile based on looks.

Sometimes profiling works. Most of the time it fails. It is the simple truth. I see a white guy, about 200 lbs overweight. What is he? A MacDonalds addict? A Walmart customer? Some redneck? No, he is diabetic, having a difficult time regulating his blood sugar and thyroid function. He is a teacher in a school, a father and a good man. Throwing a profile at him is insulting, just because of the way he looks.

Profiling and and his ugly cousin stereotyping go too closely together. Sometimes people go too far in the name of political correctness, but I would rather have that than ignore potential stereotyping and racism.

Artful Dodger:

Until recently I had considered taking my son to Disneyland in the USA. I figured that it would have been a great family trip for all of us to go there and give my son a trip he could treasure once he grew up.

However, considering the current stance that the USA has taken with regards to travellers and visitors, I felt that the USA has become the least inviting country to visit.

Why would I want to subject my family to either x-ray machines that see through our clothes, or some goddamn paranoid xenophobic customs agent copping a cheap feel in the name of national security.

As I see it, even the North Koreans don't do that. Americans have no conception of how this is viewed around the world. Every day the USA is drifting more and more towards paranoid xenophobia. Americans can tell themselves that it is being done for "national security", but in reality it is all about control. The USA even wants personal information from people who travel through its air space, even though they will never even land in the USA. It is all a big brother scenario.

We used to travel through the USA in our way to Latin America. Then we decided that taking Mexicana and travelling to Mexico was better than subjecting ourselves to the hassle of going through the USA, even though travelling through Mexico is more expensive.

I am Canadian, a citizen of one of the countries that is the most friendly towards the USA. I can only imagine how less friendly countries see all this. All I can say is that the USA lost my tourist dollars, but then, I doubt anybody in the USA cares about that.

Artful Dodger:

> We have a serious problem when the leader of the free world carries no weight.

The question is: what would Sarah Palin (or another Republican) do? Can Republicans do better on international trade, and if so, how?

Or is this symptomatic of a long term trend in the World economy? Has the United States "run its course" and now finds itself in the unavoidable decline of its power? After all, all empires (even unwilling ones like the US) eventually come to an end.

Let's say that a church (Christian, for example) decides to give charity to poor people somewhere, say Afghanistan. Then they send missionaries to convert the locals to Chistianity. Is it acceptable to give help on the understanding that those being helped by the church will convert to the Christianity?

Now, let's say that a Moslem organization decides to help homeless people somewhere closer to home, let's say Detroit. Then that Moslem organization sends their Imam among the homeless to try to convert them to Islam. Is it acceptable to give help on the understanding that those being helped will covert to Islam?

Does religion have a place in charity when those being helped are expected to convert?

I say it because in many develkoping countries aid organizations work that way. "We will help you, but only if you come to our church." What if the religion was other than Christianity? Would it be acceptable?

Are there poor people who abuse the welfare system to get money? For sure.

Just as there are bankers who abuse the financial system to get rich. (I recall a certain former president bailing out banks as his last act in the presidency.)

Just as there are politicians who abuse donations and lobbying to fatten their pockets with money. (I recall a certain vicepresidential hopeful getting thousands of dollars in clothing and travel expenses. Let alone congressmen and senators having their palms greased by lobbyists.)

Just as there are businessmen who abuse the government "outsourcing" system to ensure their companies get lucrative contracts. (I recall a certain vicepresident ensuring that Hali-something got overpaid in Iraq.)

As long as there is easy moeny to be made, there will be people who abuse some system or another. It is all a matter of scale. A poor devil on welfare takes thousands, a rich devil in office takes millions, an even richer devil in business takes billions.

Mélusine:

> My government pays nothing : every month a part is taken from my wage.

This is true everywhere. Here in Canada most essential medical services are "free" meaning that the government "pays" for them. In reality it is tax dollars that pays for the services. I pay income tax every month, and that tax pays for everything that the government does.

If people have private health insurance, ultimately it is really the same thing. People pay either taxes, or a private company. The difference is in who makes a profit. If one pays private companies to cover healthcare costs, those companies operate by making a profit. If one pays the government, the government operates without making a profit.

Different countries range from purely private healthcare systems to systems run completely by the government. In reality both systems are needed. Countries where the government has little or no involvement in the healthcare system are usually the worst to live in in the world. Those where the government (tax dollars) pays for everything often have problems with very high costs and high taxation rates.

No system is purely capitalist or purely socialist. Much of it has to do with preception. What to one person looks like socialism, to another looks like capitalism.

As I understand it, the current problems in France arose from policy decisions made in the early 1990s. Back in 1991-1992 the world experienced a massive recession (brought about by Reaganomics and the end fo the Cold War). Back then France experience two problems: high unemployment and a decreasing birth rate. In order to counteract those two problems, the French government decided to enact laws that would allow for lower unemployment and a growth in the population (seen as necessary to maintain economic growth):

1. Increasing maternity leave, paternity leave and other parental benefits when a couple has a child. France brought in what is one of the most generous parenting leave systems in the world.

2. Stimulate population and econmic growth through an increase in immigration. This saw an influx of immigrants from former French-speaking colonies, particularly from Africa.

3. A decrease in the retirement age so that yonger workers would have greater opportunities to find work, while the aging population would enjoy the benefits of an earlier retirement.

4. A decrease in the statutory working hours (a shorter work week) in order to help increase the number of available jobs per capita. France could afford to do this because France has the highest productivity per hour of all G8 nations.

These solutions worked well to some extent. France achieved what no other Western European country had been able to do. France increased its birth rate and saw a healthy growth in its population. In fact, since 2003 France's population growth has accounted for all "natural" population growth in the European Union. While other European Union countries have negative population growth, France achieved a positive population growth.

As the population has grown, a recession has taken hold in the European Union. This has meant that the employment rate has decreased and as unemployment rose, marginalized segments of the population saw themselves experiencing high unemployment. If any of you recalls, this led to rioting among North African immigrants.

The recession has also meant that the government has experienced a shortfall in taxation revenue. In order to account for the deficit, the govenment has tried to mdify some of the benefits that the population has received. The government has tried unsuccessfully to increase the working hours per week, and to raise the retirement age. In backtracking from policies of the past, the government has alienated the population and this has led to the strikes that we saw in the last few months.

To say that France is a "total disaster" is a reflection of a lack of understanding of the French economy. After all, France still is the 5th largest economy in the world. France is also the smallest emitter of carbon dioxide among industrialized nations. About 80% of France's electricity is generated by nuclear plants. France is one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world. Like any other country, it has its problems, but it is far from being a disaster.

Artful Dodger:

> He had very limited political experience. So no, that stuff doesn't count.

I suppose 7 years as state senator and 3 years as US senator does not count. But then, nothing Obama could do is right or good. To admit that Obama could have any redeeming qualities is next to impossible.

Artful Dodger:

> Yeah, like Obama.

Let's see. Obama ... Harvard Law School... Juris Doctor magna cum laude... Professor of Law at the University of Chicago Law School ... As senator, member of the Foreign Relations Committee, Veterans Affairs Committee, Chairman of the European Affairs Subcommittee ... As member of the Foreign Relations Committee he made official diplomatic trips to Eastern Europe, the Middle East, Eastern and Central Asia, and Africa.

I suppose all those things don't count at all since he did them all BEFORE becoming president.

Earlier this week Brazil elected Dilma Rousseff as its president. This is the first time that Brazil has elected a woman to be president. Rousseff is a former Marxist-Leninist guerrilla fighter, and she is the protege of outgoing president Ignacio Lula DaSilva.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101101/wl_afp/brazilvote
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilma_Rousseff

Dilma Rousseff garnered 56% of the vote. The outgoing Ignacio Lula DaSilva had an 80% approval rating, but was barred by the constitution from running again for president.

In the 1970s Dilma Rousseff had been imprisoned and tortured by the CIA-backed dictatorship of General Emilio Garrastazu Medici. After her release from prison, she took a less radical political stance and joined the Brazilian Democratic Labour Party (social democrats) and slowly climbed the ladder of power until becoming Lula DaSilva's chief of staff in 2005.

Dilma Rousseff is inheriting a booming economy and an overvalued currency. She will have to implement austerity measures to curb inflation and lobby with China and the US to stop artificially lowering their currencies to stimulate their own economies.

It will be interesting to see how the Americanj overnment deals with the increasing influence of the left wing in Latin America. Democratically elected left wing governments will put their own national interests ahead of those of foreign powers and corporations. The US and Europe will have to work with these presidents for improved relations and greater trade while accepting the increasing shift to the left in Latin America.

Bwild:
Like I said, it would be foolish to underestimate Sarah Palin. She is a lot smarter than people give her credit for. If she has a weakness in politics, it is her lack of experience in foreign policy and running an economy on a national scale. If she can convince the public that she has qualities that overcome her lack of experience, then she will be a serious threat to Obama. However, if she fails to do that, she will lose the election. I think it is why Obama has to chose Hilary Clinton as his running mate. Another factor will also be who becomes Sarah Palin's running mate. She has to chose somebody that makes her look good in the voter's eyes.

The Col:

Some of the quotes I posted are from Yahoo News, which they probably got from Reuters. One things is true. Both Democrats and established Republicans capitalized on previous statements or relatively minor wrongdoings of Tea Party candidates. As always, there was a lot of negative advertising and character assassination. On the other hand, having a "news commentator" like Sarah Palin support individual candidates is really a conflict of interest. After all, the media and political parties are supposed to be independent of each other (now I can hear everyone going "Really?!").

Well, representative democracy is not about electing capable individuals or intelligent individuals. Representative democracy is a pseudo-popularity contest in which individuals are elected based on how much media exposure they can buy for themselves. and how much negative media bias their opponents can raise against them. To some people some of the things that Tea Party candidates might do or say might seem too far to the right, but obviously a large portion of the American public does agree with them. Otherwise, why would they vote for these candidates?

If Sarah Palin runs for the presidency, it is likely that she will face a fate similar to that of Christine O'Donnell, Sharon Angle and Ken Buck. I think that Sarah Palin attracts a lot of people and reflects their values, but ultimately established Republicans and the public at large will question her ability to be president.

The next Republican elected into office will set about to repealing the Healthcare Reform Act of 2010. That president will also be responsible for undoing the financial nightmare that started with the Bush administration and was aggravated by Obama's bank bailouts. That person will have to raise interest rates while at the same time dumping billions of dollars of treasury bonds that the Federal Reserve has been buying back in order to prop up unemployment below 10%. That person will also be responsible for continuing the War on Terror, the War on Drugs, keep Communist expansion in check, and deal with left-wing Latin American governments, which continue to be unbeatable in Latin American elections. That president will have to deal with the increasing power of the People's Republic of China, techonologically more advanced and nuclearly-armed North Korea and Iran, plus the never-ending mess in Israel-Palestine.

It will be a huge job and the question is, can Sarah Palin do it? It would be unwise to underestimate her. She is a lot more intelligent than she is given credit for, but she lacks experience in foreign policy and managing the national economy. She will also face a Congress and Senate that are incapable of changing and constantly mired in bipartisan politics and lobbying.

If Democrats can capitalize on her lack of experience, while making Joe Biden retire while Hilary Clinton becomes the vice-presidential running mate, it is quite likely that Obama will be reelected. Obama has two years to improve his image, and at this point he has nothing to lose be being more aggressive in his policies. In fact, the more aggressive he becomes, the more it will look like the failure of the government to achieve anything is due to Republicans blocking important bills. Having a minority now might actually be advantageous to the Democrats at the next election because now they can blame Republicans for failing to cooperate in congress.

It wil be interesting in two years time. In the meantime, while the American government is busy with infighting, hard left-wing governments are winning elections by landslides in Latin America. Democracy is a funny thing. People vote, and they rarely get what they really want!

In the race for the Senate, Democrats won 51 seats. Republicans won 46 seats. 3 seats are still open. With 51 seats the Democrats have a majority in the Senate. Some Republicans are accusing Tea Party candiadates for losing the Senate race:

In Nevada:
"Republicans originally backed former state party chairwoman Sue Lowden for the race, but Angle beat her this summer in a surprise primary win. Angle ran a conservative campaign that caused many detractors to characterize her as an extremist -- and Reid used this image to his advantage. Reid labeled Angle "crazy," "dangerous," and "extreme" in his ads, and by his own account, the strategy of persistently pushing Angle's image as a fringe figure worked."

Senate majority leader Reid was re-elected in this one. I suppose that the rather extreme right wing views of Sharon Angle disenchanted many voters who opted for Reid. Angle suggested that the US should withdraw from the United Nations. The US should ban same-sex marriage. Abortion should be illegal, even in cases of rape and incest because those children are part of God's plan. She opposes the separation of church and state in the US Constitution. She believes that healthcare should be completely privatized and supported a bill that would exempt insusrers for paying for mammograms and colonoscopies. She believes that the Social Security system should be "transitioned out". She does not believe in Global Warming and completely rejects the belief that man-made pollution is a cause for any climatic shanges. She wanted to repeal regulations that ban offshore drilling and drilling in Alaska, including the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Sharon Angle wants the border with Canada clamped down citing that it was through Canada that the 9-11 terrorists entered the US, this in spite of the fact that both the FBI and the CIA have rpoven that none of the terrorists came through Canada but directly from third countires with visas issued by American embassies.

Her views were a bit too much for many people, and it is not surprising that Reid would win in spite of his being unpopular. I suppose it was better to vote for an unpopular man than for somebody with extreme right-wing views.

In Delaware:
"... to the detriment of the GOP's fortunes in the general election. Republicans wanted former Rep. Mike Castle, an established statewide GOP leader, to vie for the open Senate seat. But tea party candidate Christine O'Donnell took the primary in an upset and went on to lose handily in Tuesday's election."

O'Donnell's case was something else too. Things and comments she did during her youth really hurt her chances. As a young girl she dabbled in "witchcraft" and her opponents seized on that to try to shatter her image as a good Christian. Her comments on masturbation were held to riducule and many of her views were rather extreme, as was the case of Sharon Angle. For example, O'Donnell proposed bringing biblical principles into law-making and government policy, thereby ending the separation of church and state. She opposed abortion and sex education in schools. She also opposed teaching the Theory of Evolution in schools and replacing it with creationism. Her oponents also used her financial troubles and misuse of campaign funds against her. According to polls, in July of this year she was ahead of Chirs Coons by 41 to 39%. By August she was trailing by 10 points, and by September she was trailing by 15 points. The final result favored Coon with 57% of the vote while O'Donnell had 40% of the vote. I suppose her opponents capitalized on her past and some of her extreme views. In this case Coons was clearly the more popular of the two candidates, even though O'Donnell seemed to have more media attention focused on her.

In Colorado Ken Buck lost. He called global warming a hoax, took a homophobic stance and opposed abortion even in cases of rape and incest. Mr. Buck also made sexist remarks that later allienated women Republican voters. Democrat Michael Bennet won that race.

Alaska seems to be still up in the air. The election was too close to call. Joe Miller (Tea Party favorite) was leading the polls until mid-October when his staff detained and handcuffed a journalist illegally. The journalist asked Miller about his being disciplined while working as a lawyer for the Fairbanks North Star Borough (county). Miller's supporters and security guards detained the journalist and handcuffed him. Miller refused to address publicly the issue of his problems with the Fairbanks North Star Borough and that probably hurt him. Miller also held some extreme views such as eliminating the federal minimum wage, unemployment benefits and farm subsidies. He also said that the Berlin Wall was an example of how a nation could deal effectively with problems of illegal immigration. Another Republican, Lisa Murkowski, mounted a write-in campaign. At this point it seems that Murkowski might be ahead with 41% of the vote, Miller with 34% and McAdams (Democrat) with 24%. Hnad-counting of the ballots will start on Nov. 18, so it might be a while before official results come out.

The race for the House of Representatives was entirely a different matter. Republicans have officially won 240 seats (218 required for a majority). Democratx have officially won 184 seats. 21 seats are still under review. It is here where the Republicans won big and where the Democrats will have a hard time passing laws. Many laws will probably go to the Senate, and Obam's administration will have a really difficult time getting anything done now.

In the governor races the Republicans won 28 governor seats, the Democrats 15, 1 independent and 6 still under review. Probably 3 more states will have Democrat governors, and 2 more will have Republican governors. The Republicans won big in here too.

In seeing this, I suspect that there will be finger pointing and some Republicans will probably blame Tea Party candidates for splitting the vote in the Senate race. It seems that people did reject the more notorious far right-wing candidates. This is interesting for Sarah Palin because those were some of the people that she supported publicly. It will give her a hint of how to chose a better strategy for the 2012 presidential election.

(V):

> No they don't.. not all. The UK government certainly doesn't, and many European governments have spoken out against the ghetto's that are the Palestinians homelands.

I think the real problem is not whether our governments speak out or not against what Israel or the Palestinians do. Speaking out againts it accomplishes little if the condemnation is not backed up by real action.

The last time Israel invaded Lebanon 1,191 Lebanese civilians were killed, as opposed to 44 Israeli civilians. Israel acted with extreme brutality over the 1 month that the hostilities lasted. Most countries spoke out against Israel, but in reality did little to stop Israel from killing all those civilians. Canada, the UK and the US supported Israel fully and the US provided Israel with precision guided missiles during the cinflict. Most western nations gave full support to Israel and in the end it was pressure from Russia which forced the US Security Council to pass a resolution to force Israel to stop hostilities.

After hostilies ceased, nobody helped the Lebanese rebuild their destroyed towns except for Iran. Today the president of Iran is there and he is being welcomed as a hero.

If western countries had taken an impartial stance from the start, hostilies would have ended sooner and instead of further pushing the local population towards extremism, they would have shown the Lebanese and Palestinian people that the west is committed to lasting peace in the area. Instead people are lining the streets and welcoming the Iranian president because he was the only one to show any support for the local civilians affected in the conflict.

The UN imposed cease fire had little effect on Israel. The only way these people are going to stop fighting and create a lasting peace will be when all external countries act impartially and fairly. Unfortunately our western governments talk and condemn, but they don't back their talk with sanctions or with a halt of military aid.

The Col:

> nor the distrust many countries have of the Palestinians

I suppose Israel is so trustworthy that they deserve billions of dollars in war planes. Yet Palestinians are so untrustworthy that they don't deserve even a boat loaded with medicines and food.


> You can't erase decades of terrorism my friend.

Neither can we erase decades of oppression, imprisonment, bulldozing people's homes, expelling people from their own country, etc.

The point is made by you. Our governments trust and support Israel implicitly. Yet they deplore Palestinians and view them with distrust. So we use that distrust to justify unfair foreign policies and to justify giving Israel aid while Palestinians live in misery.

We keep making excuses for Israel. "It is the threat from Hamas and Hezbollah and Al Qaida. It is Iran and the moslems bent on destroying Israel." Now that we have made an excuse, let's justify letting Israel have WMDs, war planes, tanks, etc. After all, a Palestinian with a bomb strapped to his chest is much more deadly than 30 F15s!

In the end, our governments are hypocrites. Why can't they just say the simple truth. "We support Israel because of its strategic military position in the Middle East."

The Col:

> not acknowledge even once in your post the many years of terrorism towards Israel by the PLO

I am well aware of the PLO, suicide bombings, home-made rockets, etc.

What I am getting at is the completely lopsided approach that western powers take in the whole issue.

As an example, today in the radio (CBC) they were talking about how the Canadian government instigated Lockheed-Martin to provide Israel with 30 state of the art F15 fighters. The F15 is the most sophisticated fighter jet in history. Each fighter comes at a price of about US $150 million and an estimated $300 million in maintenance costs over the lifetime of the plane. These fighter jets are expected to be delivered to Israel within the next 2 years.

Contrast this with the fact that since March of 2006 the Canadian government suspended all aid to Palestinians, not that they were giving much to begin with.

Such a one-sided approach only aggravates the situation. Western governments want Palestinians to abandon all territorial claims and to be content with whatever scraps of desert Israel feels Palestinians deserve. Israel has undergone a population explosion since the end of the Cold War. Jews have emigrated from Russia and other countries by the thousands and that means that to house them it is necessary to displace Palestinians. Western countries have given Israel carte blanche to do whatever they want and rather than pressuring Israel to change its stance, they are giving Israel more weapons to counteract the rising threat from Iran.

The current approach is obviously not working. Any aid given to israel should be matched as aid given to Palestinians. As long as there is injustice there, things will not get better and the current approach to foreign aid is failing.

Sadly, the UN Security Council has always played a one-sided game that favours Israel over the Palestinian people. From its creation after WW II to the present, Israel has enjoyed the favour of most superpowers. Things in Israel will never improve as long as external powers intercede to defend Israel every time Israel does something that contravenes UN resolutions and tries to extend its official territorial boundaries.

If Israel is to be recognized as a Jewish state, then other religious states would deserve the same priviledge. Mullahs in Iraq and Afghanistan want those countries to be recognized as Islamic states. The Taliban (however despicable its social policies might be) would have a point in saying that its existence as a state structure is justified on religious grounds.

Thus western powers play an inconsistent game that favous Israel. They pretend to deplore the conditions under which Palestinians live, but at the same time they give Israel billions of dollars in economic and military aid. They carry out trade and commerce with Israel, but do little to help the Palestinian economy. It comes as no surprise then that Israel has the resources to build one of the largest armies in the World, equipped with war planes, tanks, battle ships and even nuclear weapons; while Palestinians have to fight back with rocks and home-made bombs.

It is a one-sided game with the UN pretending to care but doing nothing to change anything. The Security council is blind and refuses to pass any resolutions or trade embargoes that would force both Israel and Palestine to make a lasting peace and recognize each other's right to exist.

If western powers wanted peace in the Middle East, they would start by using economic weapons in the same way that they have used them with Iran and North Korea. They would halt all military aid and declare a trade embargo in armaments and military technologies. They would impose banking restrictions and they would stop trading in anything that could be used as a weapon or to give either side an advantage in a war. As it is, that situation already exists with the Palestinians, but not with the Israelis. Any move to curtail trade and impose embargoes would affect mostly Israel because Palestinians are already at a huge disadvantage. The only way to move forward is to end the one-sided game, and nobody wants that. Not our western powers and least of all Israel.

Last night a meteorite landed somewhere in Mongolia.

Some Mongolian shepherd said:

"It was liberals who ..."

Obama and his liberals are to blame for EVERYTHING that has gone wrong EVERYWHERE.

Artful Dodger:

> that he experienced an ‘‘awakening” when he watched former Vice President Al Gore’s environmental documentary ‘‘An Inconvenient Truth.”

That documentary must be just like "The Catcher in the Rye". Environmentalists are going postal because of it.

GTCharlie:

> How many did McCarthy execute? or send to the Gulag? oh.. did he ruin their careers? awww poor Hollywood. Again please answer, what is the ratio of defectors? how many got shot escaping into East Germany? I dare say one side ... was a heck of a lot worse than the other.Again.. how does eastern europe feel? During the Cold War NOBODY was good. are you serious??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????


How many people were killed in Vietnam by carpet bombing, napalm, agent orange, etc.?

How many people wre killed in Korea by the allies?

And when the CIA propped up dictators in Latin America and Africa, and those dictators went onto kill thousands upon thousands, who did they do it for? What for?

Both sides were equally rotten. Just because Americans enjoyed a good life while the developing world got screwed, it does not mean that the comfortable life of the North American middle class was enjoyed by all. Capitalism brought as much misery and death as communism did. Capitalism succeded in stopping communism, at a very high price. The only way that price can be justified is if capitalism claims some form of ideological and moral superiority. Without that self-superiority, the actions of capitalist countries during the Cold War are reduced to mere exercises in oppression and brutality, as bad as what the communists inflicted.

> how does eastern europe feel?

Then, how does Latin America feel? Why do you think Latin Americans are electing left wing governments? Is it Cuba "infecting" their minds? Or is it the fact that after all the killing and brutality, capitalism failed to improve the lives of common people? 20 years after the end of the Cold War, people are as poor and living in injustice as much as they did before. In many places people are as disillusioned with capitalism as Eastern Europeans are with communism.

We live in a world out of balance, always stuck in ideological extremes. Each ideology claims moral superiority and is incapable of accepting its wrongdoings. Communists were wrong. Capitalists were wrong too. Both sides were wrong and both sides did terrible things. Neither side was good in the end.

GTCharlie:

> Cold war adversaries were the same
> fraud and hypocrisy

That is exactly my point. During the Cold War NOBODY was good.

The US can claim moral superiority but the reality is that the USA (through the CIA) promoted fascism and dictatorship in many countries. The USA (as well as the UK, Canada, and other western governments) subverted democracies when the governments elected were not ideologically aligned with American expectations. Governments were toppled only to be replaced by military dictatorships whose function was to exterminate left wing groups, unions and anyone opposed to the economic interests of big corporations. The USA declared war on countries both openly and subvertly. Millions of people were killed in the name of ideology (freedom and democracy) with the end result being big capitalist corporations making billions in profits. Capitalists are incapable of acknowledging that in order to keep capitalism alive they readily dispatched millions of people to their deaths, including anyone who dissented from the capitalist system. When those nice dictators sent left wingers to their deaths, they were killing dissidents, not some foreign element external to the system. What were the McCarthy era witch hunts if not the pursuit of people who dissented from capitalism?

Of course, everyone knows what Stalin did, or what Mao did? Power-hungry men will do anything to acquire even greater power. People on the other side of the Iron Curtain suffered too much. Millions were also killed and even more millions oppressed. Equality of all workers, revolution, the end of capitalist exploitation. They all have a nice ring to them, and they were the excuses used by Communists to exert power and brutality.

People are defined by their actions and in the end ideology is just empty talk. In any system all that we have to do is look at who acquired wealth and power. In communism it was the communist party elite. In capitalism it was the corporate elite. Everything else was (and still is) nothing but empty ideology. Higher principles have always been swept aside when it has become politically and economically convenient.