I created a link to the ups site so I could check this from my phone. Am I obsessing much? Perhaps.
Day: March 25, 2003
Delirium, the youngest of The Endless, you are the
keeper of insanity, delusion and everything
else that’s just plain crazy. You make about as
much sense as fish and telephone flavored ice
cream. You are truly your own person, and the
fact that your eyes don’t match, your hair is
three different colors, and you have a floating
fish following you doesn’t bother you any. You
have a truly unique perspective on the world,
and no one else knows what to think about it.
Which Endless are you?
brought to you by Quizilla
Shrooms.
Star light,
star bright,
what images will I see tonite?
Which drug should you be hooked on? [now with pictures]
brought to you by Quizilla
A rebuttal to this (since
First off, I wasn’t trying to foster a discussion in my earlier post… I was posting my opinion. Many people I know who have done this on blogs or journals have disabled the ability to respond to the post when they did so. I did not take that step, as I felt people probably would have thoughts on what I think. Do not confuse my opinions with some sort of preaching to be heard and obeyed… I could care less if everyone just skimmed it, or noone even bothered to do that.
That out of the way, I’ll continue with your laundry list you are brining me to task for:
The history of the word war is central to part of the _statement_ I was making. No, Liverwurst is not central, nor am I vying for mental superiority. My _point_ is showing how the word evolved, and why I will not use it to describe the current conflict. What you label as preaching is just me expressing myself. I have innumerable contemplations like this that never get published to anyone… I decided to publish this one, so cut it with the guru allegory.
When I said Iraq was not our enemy, I meant it in the sense before the hostilities started. We are now their enemies by virtue of our invasion.
What I was posting were opinions, as I said… the entire post, fuck all, my entire journal is a mishmash of fact and opinion, useless links, and poetry/songs. You know just as well as I the dangers which can be created when words become THE WORD. The facts were the parts taken from the dictionary.
Opinion: Doing business with someone suggests a relationship which generally precludes open hostility. We sold them what they have for the most part, unless they were savvy enough to wheedle some things out of the Russians, or anyone else willing to peddle manifestations of ideas that simply have no place in our world.
We are, quite clearly, the aggressors in this conflict… that cannot be denied. When Iraq invaded Kuwait, we were defending our interests in Kuwait, and protecting our other interests from possible chain-of-events takeover. Now, we are just going in because Dubya wants justice, Cheney wants Oil, and Rummy likes the idea of being able to expand his spidery touch even further under wartime conditions; when the no contemplative of the nation will blindly follow “for the good of our boys over there”.
Note: I said BLINDLY and NONCONTEMPLATVE. If someone weighs all this and still thinks we are doing the right thing; bully for them! I have no beef if they put some thought into it… the amount of people who don’t though is what keeps me up at night sometimes.
The few items I cited about Saddam personally are what I “know” for circulation. I stated that I really have no interest in hanging out with him, and that he probably is a bad man.
However, in my book, there is a big difference between a bad man, and an enemy. A bad man can be dealt with to meet certain ends. An enemy is worthy of no break, no reprieve, and deserves nothing but the worst. May seem like intellectual hair-splitting, but it isn’t. Mussolini was a bad man, so was Stalin… didn’t stop the US from playing ball with them once they “saw the light”.
Hitler had no interest in changing his position on things… that made him an enemy. Who is to say that if the Brits hadn’t fallen that we wouldn’t have been working along with the man with the funny moustache to rid the world of communism forever? Who is to say if they would have needed our help?
It is within these bounds that I am labeling Saddam a non-enemy. He may have enough anthrax to take out the 48 continental states and Alaska, but if he isn’t _doing_ anything, he’s not an enemy… not yet. Wait, watch, do not commit the way we have, especially when others have been through and said “y’know, we aren’t really sure yet, but we don’t think he has enough anthrax to do even that…”
Saddam’s Arab support is good for him, but in terms of “winning” the conflict we have brought to him, it will do nothing other than irritate and prolong the eventual process.
I did not claim that the government planned September 11. I said they knew about it. Several branches did, with more than enough time that they could have implemented a silly color warning system before planes were taken over.
But wait, without ground zero, and a big hole in the Pentagon, who was going to vote to use all the $ needed, and the oversights on the Bill of Rights, and the Constitution?
I am not saying that the US government necessarily had a postit note or Outlook schedule detailing the exact plans that the terrorists were going to take.
I am suggesting that it is in their best interest to make sure they happened… looking at the last two years; I’d say 9/11 was like a happy steroid shot for federal executive power.
I’m suggesting there is a possibility that US funds were involved in the development of these people, and their organization. I did not even state it as fact.
My angst over this conflict is that we are not on a Crusade. We are out to take what we want, under the premise of international security; despite an overwhelming expression against the action by that international community. My angst is that one man can get before one of the most powerful empires in the history of the world (that we know of) and drop idealistic turds on the microphone, justifying what is clearly a grab for dough.
I am glad we see eye to eye on the POW’s though… and the fact that all this horse caca means spit in the ocean when all things come down to it.
I do not seek your respect in what I see as the best possibilities for humans, as a species, to attain harmony within itself, and with the environment. I have looked at the world, and tried to find scenarios for a “positive” method. What I find is corporate corruption, international oppression, terrorism, plague, starvation, near-slave labor, torture, rape, and unjust imprisonment and execution, in the name of “Freedom”.
You see my desire for the wanton destruction of what is as a negative solution. From a species point of view, the best thing that happened to us, ever, was the comet that wiped out the dinosaurs. Our legacy is built on the bones of our predecessors, which, after ages, are what we are going to war over.
I mock those who think that there is a way to save the world the same way I would mock someone who took sugar pills to cure aids. It is a nice hope, and it may create a sense of peace and well-being, but it is not a cure to the disease. Lessening the symptoms does not stop the enevitable breakdown. If you want peace and well being,and a symptom free world, go for it. I don’t… I want to see a cure, even if the treatment has a chance of killing the patient.
I find it distasteful that you see my attitude as apathetic or mentally/ethically lethargic. I have looked, read, soul searched, hunted, and searched again. Perhaps I am too pragmatic to pursue worldly philosophy in a way which jives with your way of looking at things. I don’t know…
LUKE 6:47-49 (KJV)
47 Whosoever cometh to me, and heareth my sayings, and doeth them, I will shew you to whom he is like:
48 He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep,and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock.
49 But he that heareth, and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built an house upon the earth; against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell; and the ruin of that house was great.
What I’m saying, is that I agee with whoever attributed this quote to JC, on a metaphorical level. I believe there is some rock in our species… but each successive generation after we turned into an agrarian society has been a layer of silt, sand, and earth. Anything we could build from what is, is going to be on that foundation. I think that to have any chance, we need to get back to the stone, or the flood which we are not at the helm of will ensure our ruin is great.
I am not saying that there will magically be a wonderful harmony between man and man and man and nature if things regress back to our formal fight for survival. I’m saying at least under those circumstances, there is a _chance_ for it. In the current tumorous state of our species, I see none, so I will waste no energy in developing and marketing sugar pills.
zelda is in kentucky… I’m not gonna see this mofo until Thursday, at best. Now the battle to not go buy it in the store….
In the world I see — you’re stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. You will wear leather clothes that last you the rest of your life. You will climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Tower. You will see tiny figures pounding corn and laying-strips of venison on the empty car pool lane of the ruins of a superhighway.
Everyone else is doing it… why shouldn’t I?
Except, I won’t call it a “war”.
Middle English warre, from Old North French werre, of Germanic origin. See wers- in Indo-European Roots.
Word History: The chaos of war is reflected in the semantic history of the word war. War can be traced back to the Indo-European root *wers-, to confuse, mix up. In the Germanic family of the Indo-European languages, this root gave rise to several words having to do with confusion or mixture of various kinds. One was the noun *werza-, confusion, which in a later form *werra- was borrowed into Old French, probably from Frankish, a largely unrecorded Germanic language that contributed about 200 words to the vocabulary of Old French. From the Germanic stem came both the form werre in Old North French, the form borrowed into English in the 12th century, and guerre (the source of guerrilla) in the rest of the Old French-speaking area. Both forms meant war. Meanwhile another form derived from the same Indo-European root had developed into a word denoting a more benign kind of mixture, Old High German wurst, meaning sausage. Modern German Wurst was borrowed into English in the 19th century, first by itself (recorded in 1855) and then as part of the word liverwurst (1869), the liver being a translation of German Leber in Leberwurst.
Where was I?
n 1: the waging of armed conflict against an enemy; “thousands of people were killed in the war” [syn: warfare] 2: a legal state created by a declaration of war and ended by official declaration during which the international rules of war apply; “war was declared in November but actual fighting did not begin until the following spring” [syn: state of war] [ant: peace] 3: an active struggle between competing entities; “a price war”; “a war of wits”; “diplomatic warfare” [syn: warfare] 4: a concerted campaign to end something that is injurious; “the war on poverty”; “the war against crime” v : make or wage war [ant: make peace]
Right, so anyhow… the invasion of Iraq.
Now, I refuse to label this as a war for the following reasons:
Iraq is not our enemy… we did business with them less than a generation ago. In fact, the only reason that we know they have “weapons of mass destruction” is because we kept the reciept on what we sold them! Those were only supposed to be used agains the enemies of our soverign nation though, never agianst us directly.
It is an armed conflict, but we are the agressors…
It is not a legal war, by the laws we helped establish after the last just war we fought in.
It is not a struggle between competing enteties… Saddam is not looking to outmuscle Detroit steel, sweep away our product trade with China, create a profitable tech sector…
He supposedly has huge stores of pure evil t his disposal. Why the hell isin’t he using them, if he has them?
Iraq is not injurious, not to Americans. MYOB America… let the world sort out its own problems. People love to cite the September 11th attacks as a repercussion of what happens when America “minds its own business”.
Bullshit. The government knew about the attacks, fuck all, they probably funded and fascilitated them. Our foreign policy 50 years ago is what started that fire burning anyhow.
Oh, but the Iraqis have oil. We want to have oil….especially now that we can’t torch our arctic refuge to get it!
Yup, they invaded Kuwait.
Yup, they did bad things to the Kurds.
Nope, I don’t think I’d like to spend time at length with Saddam… he’s probably not that nice a guy.
Yup, he is the head of a non-democratic nation.
So, for the last 11 years, what has he been doing? Is this like the reconstruction of germany post ww1? Why not bomb Japan again for working around thier naval restrictions by having a “sea security force”?
This is about money.
If Daddy Bush had felt threatened by Saddam’s deth threats, then he would have taken care of things last gulf war.
Bush jr. seems to think that threatneing daddy is just cause.
He thinks that the duct-tape links to the “terrah” organizations of the world are a just cause.
The Iraqui people, and thier precious oil must be liberated! Right, if they can live through the liberation process.
Howabout Cuba?
Howabout N. Korea?
Did we miss all the poor Tibetans?
Ooh, and lets not forget everything between the Panama Canal and tha Antarctic….
Bloody selective Cursades make me mad.
::sigh::
I’m ranting here, not at all being constructive.
I get so frustrated whenever I start thinking about this at length. That spills over any chance of consturctive thought.
Everyone is _appaled_ that they put POW’s on TV. Dit it occur to noone that the frezy the media pirahnnahs are having over this has piped the images of those POW’s into more pairs of eyes than if they had just lef the whole thing alone? I mean, really, how much of an audience does Iraqi TV have? Certainly not as big an audience as CNN, FOX, NBC, ABC, and CSPAN. Fucking MTV is doing war specials for christ’s sake!
So yeah, its bad that they filmed POW’s, its against the “Geneva Convention”. When I heard Rumsfeld giving that little speech, I nearly lost my lunch. How much better is it than the US media blazing pics of the “super Al-Queda agent” they nabbed a few weeks ago. I mean, if the war on terror is actually a war, as per the rules Bush is playing with, isin’t that making public the disgrace of a POW?
So yeah, nice coincidence that they film our soldiers, and that it ends up in every home in America as a “shocking tragedy”.
I hate hate HATE the war, I hate the media blitz about it. I hate the people who started it, and I hate the system that supports it.
I hate that anyone thinks that thier opinion is going to make a lick of difference. I don’t care if daddy fought in Vietnam, or Uncle Joe died when a cop got too weighty with a baton at a peace rally. This monster is going to jugernaut until we hit a wall, or establish our emperial way of thinking worldwide, bringing pupped democracies to all the countries whose dictators are unwilling to be puppets themselves.
The quote I opened with: there was a reason for it. I hope that Saddam has all kinds of shit, and is waiting until we get to Bagdhad to use them. I hope North Korea takes the ball and starts world war three. I hope we get nuked back to the stone age. That is, as I see it, the big hope, for our species, to find again the lsot synch we once had with our world. Not good odds on humanity…a pretty slim one indeed.
The apple is rotten… turn it in to sauce.
…left seattle WA at 6:04 am this morning. I should have just bought it at the damn store, but I am a sucker for good online promotions.
Soon, the precious will be here… soon.