Panzerfaust

From Robert Longley of about.com US Government Information, Sept 29, 2004.

"The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) reports that a hate music company with links to neo-Nazi and skinhead groups plans to distribute 100,000 "sampler CDs" at schools across the United States in the coming weeks, in an effort to attract young people to the music and ideology of neo-Nazi bands.

"The ADL, which tracks the activities of extremists and reports its findings to law enforcement and the public, has been alerting school districts across the country to the planned CD distribution effort, dubbed "Operation Schoolyard USA" by its organizers.

"Spearheaded by Panzerfaust Records, a neo-Nazi music label based in Newport, Minnesota, the distribution campaign will target schools with sampler CDs of songs by various white power bands whose music is filled with racist and anti-Semitic themes. The record company plans to draw on a network of "volunteers" from various white supremacist groups to help distribute the CDs at schools across the country. The target audience, according to Panzerfaust, is middle and high school children ages 13 to 19."

My personal feeling about hate groups is that they enjoy too much freedom. The whole concept of freedom is based on a mutual respect between people. This cannot exist simultaneously with groups that hate each other. Thus, one fundamental requirement for freedom must be tolerance.

One way to enforce this tolerance is to take away freedom from group that express hate. For example, Panzerfaust would like to publish the doctrine of hate. One response is to take away right to privacy. The government should publish the name of all associated with this group on the internet.

The names of those who support this group financially should be given extra emphasis. Any government official who takes donations from these people should be required to publish this fact. Any newpaper that employs these people should be required to publish this fact. No government contract chould be awarded to companies to employ these people.

The names of the those who are simply members of the group should be published annually. Companies that do not employ and universities that do not teach these individuals should be given tax incentives.

The freedoms of these hate mongers should be taken away before they commit the crimes. It is too dangerous to allow these people to live along side those they hate. They are truly second class citizens - a step below those who are tolerant.

This shouldn't turn into a witch hunt. I support the allowance of immaturity. Kids will be kids. However, each individual should be required to publish a detraction of the policies of hate before their name is cleared. It should be easy to remove your name from the "black" list. Your privacy should be protected as long as you have stated that all people deserve the same freedoms you want, and stopped supporting the groups and policies of hate.

The Case against W Bush

The case against George is strong. All questions of intelligence and incompetence aside, actions are the best way to judge a man. The decisions of this administration are unconscionable when considered from the view point of one human being.

Bush's campaigning is simply dirty. His attack on John McCain, veteran and candidate for Republican party nomination for President in 2000, included standing beside a discredited Green Beret who claimed McCain "stabbed veterans in the back" by voting for a bill. McCain's position on the latest attack by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ad, is that it is dishonest and dishonorable. Bush has denied supporting the ad, and signed the McCain Feingold Bill to reform campaign finance - but he does not address the fundamental issue. Bush should not take a position allowing a group to attack his competitor and simultaneously avoid responsibility for that attack.

Bush's policy on the environment is avoid, reduce, and eliminate industry restrictions. His "Healthy Forest Initiative" eliminates the restriction of logging in areas that don't have roads - and by doing so clearly underscores his lack of concern for the environment. Why would anyone log an area of the forest so far from civilization that it is not near any road, and then claim they are doing it to protect people from forest fires. The Forest Service itself has claimed they want to log areas to help protect the California Spotted Owl habitat from forest fires, when studies have shown that the birds do not show any preference for living in burned/unburned areas. California logging has increased over a factor of three in these past four years. One of the first National Parks to be taken off the No-Roads protection list is Alaska's Tongass NP. This park was commisioned by Roosevlet and alone accounts for over 8% of the total National Forest. His policy also includes removing wild horses from national parks and allowing further snowmobile activity in area against scientific recommendations to the contrary.

Hie economic policies are deplorable. He instituted a tariff on steel when the steel industry complained about "unfair" practices. The intent was to protect the steel industry from countries that would lower the price of steel below cost. However, this was proven not to be true. The damage to the US economy was universally criticized - even by the steel industry as it turns out. His tax cuts for the rich are well known, and particularly despicable when we are currently in a four decade trend of the wealthy improving their position relative to the poor. He has even said that he believes a sales tax would be "intriguing."

His position on abortion has been well established. He currently supports the Pro-Lifers by nominated federal judges with anti-abortion leanings. John Ashcroft opposes abortion even in the case of rape.

His position on Gay Rights is well established with the recommendation for a Consititutional Amendment defining marriage to be a union between a man and a woman. How's that for a compasionate conservative?

But the crowning achievement of his policies is his fumbling of the war on terrorism. The most critical action he could have taken prioir to September 11th would have been to track down the terrorists responsible for the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen. That effort got no support, and it wasn't until September 11th that there was any progress in that area.

September 11th happenned and the response was to attack Afghanistan. War comes at a cost, and many Afghani citizens were killed in the struggle. However, there will not be many tears cried for the Taliban. The international community could barely tolerate their corrupt system. What needs to occur now, is the support of the new democracy. At all costs!

The main complaint against the war in Afghanistan comes in our diplomacy with Pakistan. This country countered every effort to find Osama bin Laden before September 11th. We asked, even pleaded to Musharaf, to help us. This country had ties with the Taliban and could have applied pressure, but there is no evidence that anything was done. Pakistan's choice in our time of need needs to be remembered. And the choice of the government of Pakistan was not to help us. It was only after September 11th that any action occured - under the threat of military response - that Pakistan took a more concilatory tone with the US.

The War in Iraq is a disaster for counterterrorism. We cannot win any battles against terrorism in a country that did not have any terrorists before we came. Iraq's only fault - and this is the current reason Bush uses for our war - was throwing out the UN weapons inspectors. The other side of the story, corrobrated by independent news organizations, is that the UN weapon's inspectors were spying on Iraq's conventional weapons abilities. The UN weapon's inspectors were undermining Iraq's ability to defend itself in any type of war with the West.

To be certain, some elements in Iraq were funding terrorist organizations - not al Qeada, however. But this situation is no different when judging the US. Some elements within our own country fund terrorist organizations.

This war has been sliding out of focus from the beginning. First and foremost it was a war on terrorism. Then it became a war against the Taliban, not a major change in focus, but the Taliban were not terrorists. The Taliban was an organization that supported terrorists. So now we have a battle against all organizations that support terrorists, thus the phrase "You are either with us, or against us". This dilutes our ability to win the war. The next major loss of focus occured when we claimed that all nations that support WMD programs were part of an "axis of evil." This is a major loss in the political war. There was now no major distinction between the axis of evil and the US and its allies. Further, this axis of evil designation blurred our ability to look at terrorism as the main culprit. Somehow we forgot that the biggest attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor did not employ WMDs.

So with the concern of WMDs on the horizon, we boldly charged into Iraq - now we were claiming Iraqi Freedom the mission. The loss of focus is a systematic error. Our major goal in this war is to install a functioning Democracy as the government of Iraq. What the hell does this have to do with terrorism?

George W Bush has failed and has tarnished the reputation of this country. Worse yet, he has endangered the lives of the innocent by setting alight the burning fires of fundamentalist hatred.

How do we answer the charges that Geroge W Bush is no better the Saddam Hussein? Saddam Hussein killed many defenseless Iraqis, the estimate is many tens of thousands killed after the war with Iran. Yet the US has sponsored a war on Iraqi soil, this time also leading to the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians. Where is the human accountability to these policies?

Democracy is a beautiful system, and a powerful ally in any war against terrorism. Yet how have we done justice to democracy? How can any population support an institution that causes so much death? How do we know that democracy is right for a people that have lived so long without it? Democracy begins with, and is founded upon, internal public support. I don't understand how it can be enforced.

And still, democracy is not the issue of importance. How has this war on terrorism been effectively conducted with these battles in Iraq?

One major front in the battle is being fought in the courts. The US must answer to its position on prisoners. The Bush administration has denied the rights given under the Geneva convention to its prisoners at Guantanamo, Cuba. Prisoners have been tortured with "approved methods" of extracting information at various known and secret locations around the world. The photos of torture at Abu Ghrain are used a recruiting posters by anti-US groups everywhere. This issue requires US response now! It is now almost four years since the USS Cole bombing and we have not learned the lesson of required response. We had to respond to the USS Cole and we did not, just like we have to respond to the charges of abuse.

Meanwhile, Iranian Defense minister has threatened a preemptive attack on the US. There can be no justisfication for these remarks, especially from a country that undisputably has ties to terrorist organizations. A response to these threats must be given. And somehow I don't know if there can be any political support for this response. It is clearly political suicide for Bush to threaten war on Iran. In truth he has mortgaged our political power in the international scene by demonstrating a lack of focus. So further aggression by the US cannot be tolerated easily. We have been caught in a regrettable situation where our President has no political power to defend our country's interests against another country that is clearly sponsoring terrorism.

There can be no excuse.

Let me think, the thug on the right or the left?

"An Oxford International poll taken in February for ABC News and several networks from other countries found a higher level of optimism than more recent polling taken after months of bombings and other violence. Still, only a quarter of those polled by Oxford said they had confidence in coalition forces to meet their needs, far behind Iraqi religious leaders, police, and soldiers. "

I think if I were an Iraqi, I would also have to side with the group of people that hasn't had a history of coming into the country and kicking my ass. I think when I would go through my checklist of people I chose to protect me, I would look seriously at their history of bombing me. Whatever may be said about the Iraqi religious leaders, police, and soldiers, I don't think the Iraqi have fear of them blockading their own country (Not only has the US blockaded Iraq, but it has chosen to blockade itself in the past!)

Give me a break. Who thought the results would be different? I think a more competitive question is whether or not the average Iraqi trusts the Baath party more than the coalition. If I were an Iraqi I would be torn between which group of people should lead when both have already proven it can kill many people.

If we want the average Iraqi to support the US intervention, we need to merit that support. Recent events do not show that merit. How many have died already for this new democratic government that does not yet exist let alone the fact that it has yet to help anyone? What happens when Iraq's democrcy is no more successful than the democracies of the poor Latin American countries? Ok fine fine, not all these countries have a significant source of export. But let's take Venzuela, because these have oil too. Are they doing all that well? Don't they have a democracy?

The US doesn't have all the answers and it is arrogant to think that we do, just because things are going well for us.

Pat Tillman - friendly fire

Pat Tillman - the true war hero and one of those who fight for freedom. Here's a man who walked away from a 3.6 million dollar contract and was paid less than $20,000 for his life. This man believed in the good in the United States.

He was killed by another American. By so called blue on blue or friendly fire. I learned something today. Friendly fire has accounted for 30 percent of all American losses throughout history.

"Retired Navy Admiral Winston Copeland told KCBS reporter Matt Bigler that historically thirty percent of U.S. military losses can be attributed to friendly fire.

Most Americans sadly don't realize the number is that high, but if you go back to World War II and wars gone by, it has been that high, Copeland said."

Holy crap. When the US goes to war, the army suffers about 1/3 of its losses due to people that they are standing next to. Can there be a more frightening statistic that testifies to the weakness of the human/American in "action"?

And the worst part is that there probably is no true fix for this type of problem, except to end all war. People get into the heat of battle and they just start firing their weapons. What a ridiculous state of affairs! ... the _glory_ of battle ...

Legacy?

Why does history favor some people and not others? Surely, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, as they say. And the same is said of history - the victors rewrite history. But how does one know if they've won?

Let's take Ronald Reagan for example. Sure he contributed to our history. But why do we give him so much praise (take for example all those visiting his casket)? Why has history smiled on this man? At what point did we conclude that his contributions were more positive than negative?

Let's take some negatives. He was divorced, he sided with the conservatives during the period of McCarthyism and the "Red Scare" of the 50s, his black/white view of the world led to suspect decisions in supporting religious fundamentalism in an effort to overthrow Communism. We are certainly feeling the backlash of these political decisions. His economic decisions, Reaganomics, are questioned by few today because of the positive results - but on paper they do not look so nice. In a time of need, he cut taxes in order to give money to the rich.

Let's take some of the positives. Since I brought up the divorce I should mention his marriage to Nancy lasted over 50 years, his unwavering anticommunism helped support the success of democracy in the world (for which he does not deserve full credit - please! This does not stop the many conservative pundits from saying so... it's a little silly to think that Communism failed because of Reagan). His economic decisions did reinvigorate the US economy - fine.

Granted he wasn't a bad president. But I have to say that never during his administration did I feel inspired by the guy. There is nothing that he did that I felt proud of. But that's just me. I'm willing to admit the validity of other's opinions.

I just wonder why people suggest that his face should be carved along side of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Roosevelt. There is no comparison to the founders of our nation, or the man who led our nation through the civil war, and the nobel peace prize laureate!

Certainly these comments may be judged as poorly timed criticisms. And I do think that we should honor any former president of our nation appropriately. For this service I am grateful to him. I only intend to draw attention to the fickle nature of history, and the uncertainties of public opinion.

US Military "Might"

Let's face it folks - the world has changed from 100 years ago. Back then the international struggles were won and lost by military might. What we have today is a demonstration of the impotence of military might. No one cares that we can destroy the world hundreds of times over. There are plenty of other nations with the same capabilities. Wars will be won or lost from now on through political power.

Take the war against terrorism or the war against drugs for example. These are wars that America is losing because we do not have the political power necessary to win them. It's difficult to justify saving people who are not all that interested in being saved! And this is what both wars have degenerated into. People are dying and things are not getting better.

We need to get buy in from the people we are trying to save that they in fact do want us to save them. For the war on drugs, we need people to stop buying the drugs, this alone would be sufficient to eliminate the problem. This is a minimum requirement! People who are addicted cannot help themselves, no can they really allow us to help them (because they support the organizations that we are trying to stop)

I'm not trying to really compare Iraqis to people with addiction. I don't think Iraqis are addicted to terrorism. But I do think that they are not really helping us out in our efforts to give them democracy. They need to acknowledge our help, or we need to go away.

As far as democracy goes, they can take or leave it as far as I am concerned. I want them to be happy either way. But you cannot "liberate" the unwilling! It is really as simple as that. I don't really want to walk out of Iraq and leave it in a mess, so I think that this means that we need to come to better agreements about what they want from us - and we should not try to dictate what form of government they need.

Certainly, the news organizations and the political propaganda is attempting to say that this is indeed occurring. But I have no proof. The media talk about the June 30th handoff in positive language. "We are giving Iraq a gift" they say.

I do not buy this prediction. It is way too simple minded. My gut tells me that Iraq does not want democracy, and they will collapse catastrophically in the future near or far. And when this collapse occurs, the US will be blamed without exception. I do not believe the UN will take any responsibility - why should they? They did not want us to invade in the first place. We have the responsibility to make Iraq suceed, and in order to face up to that responsibility we should allow them to have what they want.

Of course, I make blanket statements and it is difficult to determine how to put this into practice. Some will think that the current US policy is the best way to achieving Iraq future success. But be that as it may, we do not have consensus because we have not discussed these issues. For example, the Shiites and the Kurds and the Sunnis are not exactly the type of bunch that gets along with each other nicely. Why should we expect that they would get along in a democracy? A monarchy maybe, but why would they put aside their differences to work together in a democratic fashion. This is too optimistic.

One possibile solution is to split Iraq into smaller nations. With smaller nations, there can be more hegemony and harmony among the people. I suspect that his solution would have a better opportunity for success. But certainly, this is not the only way nor is it a simple solution. There may be problems in splitting the resources fairly among the smaller nations.

What other ways can we create this nation(s) so that the Iraqi people have future success? Certainly the possibilities are not exhausted by suggesting we create one democractic government or many. There must be other ways!

Intolerance

I gotta say, I don't know any other evil as powerful as intolerance. 9/11 was intolerance in action. Murders of abortion clinic doctors and nurses is intolerance in action. KKK is intolerance. Nazis were/are intolerant.

I read some tripe on how "Gays" are trying to convert our kids into homosexuals. This comic "tract" basically went on to say that "Gays" are controlled by demons and are going to hell according to the Bible.

How do people fall into this mess? When do they start believing that the world's problems are less important than stopping gay people from marrying each other? Why?

My personal feelings are along these lines, I can be friends with gay people, I can accept them into my home for dinner, I could accept my brother and sisters if they decided they were gay, I could go out and help raise funds for gay awareness intiatives. I could accept myself if I was gay. I don't know how to accept someone who thinks it is their business to tell me or anyone else how I/they must live life.

Diversity is a strength. We are all different people. We all have our own ways. It is important to the strength of our world to root out those differences and expose them, but never to correct them. Simply knowing that people are different from what you expect helps justify exploration of ourselves for difference that we were previously unaware of.

Knowing that we are different from each other is a beginning of sorts. Once you have found these difference, you can try to exploit them for mutual benefit. If this sounds abstract, think of it in terms of what we know. A city is comprised of people with different strengths. Some are good at banking/finance, some are good at construction, some are good at medicine, etc. You get the point. These differences are used for the benefit of the whole. Understanding our differences is an important first step in improving how we interact with each other.

The intolerant do not understand this point of view. They think they know enough to state without reservation that your way of life is not acceptable to them. The only basis they have for such a claim in my mind is on condition that your way of life obstructs theirs. And it is clear that gay people do not obstruct my way of life. If they marry each other, it does not hurt me. If black people live next door, I can invite them over for a beer. If Iraq wants to have a religious government, I can still vote for who will be president in the US. My way of life is only obstructed by the intolerant.