Letters to the Editor
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Paul R @ Trolls
It's not convictions that are lacking. It's the courage of those convictions.
"Convictions" in the absence of courage, aren't "convictions" at all. Perhaps they are more like "positions", which can be fairly easily abandoned and/or re-occupied, as political winds change.
Regarding 'security state' issues, european terrorism clearly shows that the greatest source of terrorist activity in Europe are indigenous citizens, not folks smuggled in from Pakistan or Saudi Arabia. I would be very surprised if our own homeland security strategies were not the same (all rhetoric about securing the borders aside)--that is, focused primarily on our own Muslim population, be they citizens or not. All the evidence points this way--from treatment of people who are "flying while Muslim", to the most recent 'triumph' of breaking the nefarious terror cell aimed at the destruction of Fort Dix, New Jersey.
It is because our security strategy is actually focused mostly on our internal Muslim population that all these civil liberty evils are being committed, imo.
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Everybody:
If an American citizen, by virtue of being here in America because of war, and her bloodline is traced to an American soldier (not me), in a village near My Lai, guide her carefully away from a couple crooked lawyers.
The Laundromat can be rented and a tricky two-deed $210,000 con, who is "friend," (go-ahead-'hit') who gets a 'to-good-to' be true deceitful arrangement, from my fried and her family of four. I helped sponsor with no government assistance. She was dumped in East Saint Louis.
Her and her husband rented property that boasted a Section-8 payment plan, and 4-apartments. No keys were given on closing day, she had no way to collect back rent (magistrates are no help), and it took an additional $55,000 of hard-earned money that was needed to fix a slum dwelling and make it habitable.
The seller lawyer is a "friends" of a solicitor for the Waynesboro Pa, seller-lawyer, and also the Republican States Attorney General wrote the most confusing real estate "papers". An additional 45,000 went to the 'go ahead' sales predator who already was renting the Laundromat. My friend kept saying "NO" for months, but a dinner with the seller-lawyer eventually snookered Kim real good. I haled the asbestos after Kim and Hai gutted much of the slum. Don't call Peter Anglos and waste much time. Grief!
Also: The Laundry rental-predator was married to (Kim was not friends and had no associations before the months of deceptive sales-pitch) a American/Vietnamese who he beat. He, the rental-friend of the lawyer-seller ran an unlicensed business that boasted he had State Department and embassy connections. "Want to bring the entire extended families of immigrants to America?" NO believe it. I knew none of these people and after it all was realized a fiasco, Kim comes by to say, "help me?"
I know this won't be clear to others. I just felt in a ugh mood and am unburdening my memories. Thanks. We need a shoulder to lean on...Merci upon the neck, a French gentleman may ask? too...
Don't e-mail the Attorney Generals White Collar Investigation Division. Don't question why the FBI interview and a Pennsylvania Criminal Investigation was swept under the rug. Don't respond to invites from female voices or you may be stabbed 30ish times up near Chambersburg Pa. if you are a black lawyer out in the neck of the wods leaving Baltimore. Don't get anon-e-mail treats and phone call threat to 'shad up' quite frequently...Gads.
My mind went blank. Best to get da' into a lettuce patch, chop-chop on Thomas Jefferson's favorite bib lettuce. Be calm, and roll in the bib green lettuce and a good, a getting, a all dirtied up. Dirty...That's where I belong. It's less agravation.
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Balancing Act
Ironclad:
Because no one really has figured out how to fight a non governmental organization that can do damage equivalent to the military capabilities of most 3rd world states.
Please explain how my giving up the right to habeas corpus helps in this fight which, as you state, nobody actually knows how to wage.
you can't yell fire in a theater and claim freedom of speech.
Sure you can. You'll even get the chance to defend yourself in court-- or, at least that used to be the case.
The first thing I thought of was when Lincoln did exactly that during the Civil War- by suspending Habeas Corpus AND ignoring the Supreme Court when they ruled it invalid.
I keep hearing about Lincoln and how he led the way in this brilliant strategy, but no one ever mentions how this worked out for him-- did his suspension of habeas corpus do any good? Did it save lives or win the war? Or has it merely lived on in infamy as some convenient excuse for poor judgment?
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The Cats of Mirikitani
Judy last night I watched The Cats of Mirikitani a moving documentary on PBS's Independent Lens. It's about Jimmy Mirikitani, a Japanese-American artist (born in Sacramento and raised in Japan) whose life was torn asunder when his family was interned during World War II. In 2001 he is homeless and bitter, living on the streets of New York City doing nothing but creating art -- much of it "internment art" about his three-and-half years in the wretched internment camps. After the 9/11 attacks, a stranger takes him into his home and a new journey begins ...
Highly recommended! Besides being a wonderful personal tale, it shows how the mentality behind the MCA has destroyed people, families, and lives.
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/catsofmirikitani/
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The world we live in
I, personally, am ready to see America fall, to bottom out, to reap what we have sown. I am beginning to think that only then can we get back on our feet and become what were founded to be, what were were, and what we can be again. -- saltmeat
I appreciate you sentiment, but I think it has already happened. The reason most Americans do not see it is because of the way in which they measure the "rightness" of things. The majority of Americans are hopelessly addicted to their "stuff" and would be happy to live in a fascist state as long as it looked and behaved pretty much the way it looks and behaves now. You can live in a free and open democracy and still have the stock market crash, a world war and all sorts of various and sundry crises. You can live in a corporate capitalist oligarcy and have a nice house, a new car and cable TV.
The next election may turn, not on the rights of citizens, but on mortgage interest rates, gas prices, unemployment and health care costs.
It is important that we not be distracted by economic circumstances (i.e., the vagaries of the market), but keep our eye on the prize. The prize is the restoration of the rights of man (and women and children) as described by the Constitution and international law. Everything we do we must do with that in mind. And we cannot wait for things to get worse. We are forced of necessity to resist the continuance of the "conservative" madness today and every day for the rest of our lives.
In some ways it really sucks, because I have a lot of other things I would rather be doing. But I guess that's just how it is.