Life in OUR America, The Livyjr Files Options

[Livyjr]

I was recently involved in a series of back and forth e-mails with a Harvard history professor over matters involving John Kerry's military service in Viet Nam.

This history professor informed me that history was not "democratic"!

The history professor told me this because of what is called a paradigm placed on history by whoever can do that and then get others to endorse it, I guess, this arbitrary and likely capricious "paradigm" of theirs.

Anyway, the Viet Nam paradigm now, according to this Harvard history person, is that Viet Nam was really a grand and glorious undertaking by the United States, so that if people like me, who were there, have a contrary opinion, because of having been there, then, because of the "paradigm", we don't have an opinion!

If I went to Viet Nam, say, and I saw a village full of women and children burned to the ground, and I then said I saw a village full of women and children in Viet Nam burned to the ground in defense of a position taken by John Kerry that such conduct was indeed occurring in Viet Nam; then, because the paradigm says that such things never happened, then, I don't have anything valid to say, and I am dismissed as having a point-of-view, an eye-witness account eliminated because it messes up the model being used by academe, at least at Harvard, that describes Viet Nam as grand and glorious!

Thus, the Viet Nam war statistics are being purged, the history is being re-written, and in the course of that, people like me who went to Viet Nam and came back with contrary opinions on the matter are simply being expunged from the public record.

And so!

Now, I am in here, now writing history myself.

By-passing the filter of the Harvard history man who next year will interpret for me what I know I experienced right now, today!

For I strongly disagree with this Harvard man, myself!

To me, an American, history is each and every one of us, each and every day of our lives!

This is my mark in here today; you, I know, have left yours as well.

Thus, the public record is written, and tomarrow, that is the history of OUR times which is the title of this thread.

And its a monologue when only one person is talking.

Its a monologue until someone else says something, and then it becomes a conversation.

All in good time!

Good day all!

My name if Livyjr, and I am a recent arrival here from the former John Kerry forum, which I thought revolutionized communications between ordinary citizens in America, in ways unseen or likely unheard of since the Forum of Rome, back in the days of my namesake, Titus Livius, or plain Livy, some two thousand years in the Republic of Rome, and then in the ensuing Empire under Augustus, son of Julius Caesar.

Why Livy?

Well, for the context, mainly.

And who was Livy?

While a short biography of Livy follows, the fact is that Livy was around at the end of the Roman Republic, the time when Julius Caesar was killed, or assassinated, depending on your point of view, and Livy talked about or chronicled that time for us in the future to read about, and I am of a similar bent, only in here, talking about these days of our Republic of America, rather than the Forum of Rome.

What is history?

History is what we are doing in here right now, and what we are doing each and every minute of our collective days.

That is history!

We are history!

In Livy's day, 59 BC to 17 AD, simple people in Rome and Italy, for that matter, did not get to write history, and even come into the record by name.

The lives of the common man and woman of that era are largely lost to us two thousand years later in 2004.

Not so with us today, however, at least as long as these computer forums continue to exist, and a record continues to be made of the days of our passing, here in our America.

On the John Kerry Forum, we had many people dropping by from European countries, and probably many other places in the world as well, to read about our daily lives, because the world is a very large place, and it is very difficult for any of us to know much of what is happening around us just ten miles down the road, anymore, let alone across the great nation of America, which is over 3,000 miles from coast to coast, or across the world, for that matter.

When peoples of other nations can hear our own thoughts directly, without any filters imposed, then they learn about us as people, rather than a perceived ideology, and they see that in many ways, we are just like them.

This is good, because it serves to promote peace and harmony throughout the world in ways that our established governments seem totally unable to do.

Never before have we been able to have such a speedy dialogue across such great distances.

In 1969, for example, I was in Viet Nam, as a soldier, and then, it took over a week for any news from home to reach me, so that what I was reading was already old news!

If someone had been sick, or had died, it was long since over by the time that I read about it over there.

Now, 30 years later, I am communicating almost instantaneously with people across America and around the world.

To an older American like me, who was born into an era in America where there still were no telephones and televisions in many or most rural American homes, this instant internet communications is like a miracle!

So then the question is how to use the miracle and keep it as such!

Hence this thread!

As an older American, and I have said this before, so, please bear with me, here, for a moment; I find this internet thing, and especially this Common Grounds Common Sense forum to be something of a miracle!

In the past, and here I go back in my own life just a matter of years, there has been so much "wrong" going on in this great nation of ours, BECAUSE it was just plain out of sight, like this business above with this mining dispute in the area where I live!

For all of what went into the newspapers, up until fairly recently, a literal ton of stuff was left out, for varying reasons.

The result of all of that is a state of relative ignorance that now seems to pervade life in OUR America, and by ignorance, I don't mean "dullness", or "stupidity"; I mean ignorance in the sense of a lack of knowledge as to what is happening here in OUR America, and sometimes, just down the road!

I know that I personally am overwhelmed each day, when I come in here, as to what to really talk about, not because I am at a loss for what to say, BUT BECAUSE THERE JUST IS TOO MUCH THAT NEEDS SAYING!

TOO MUCH!

BUT .....

I endeavor to persevere!

And with that said, here is a short excerpt of remarks that Mr. Bill Moyers made on National Public Radio, about "US", and what we really are doing in here, and I think that he has really hit a nail on the head here, and a necessary nail at that, so without further ado, "HERE'S BILL":

"I think the internet, the blogging, is the closest we've come in a long time to the history of the American media IN THE BEGINNING!"

"You know, in the 1820s, the 1830s, all you needed to be a journalist was to buy a press."

"That's why they called them ink-stained wretches: because they operated their own hand presses."

"For a little bit of money, like Tom Paine and others, you could have your own press."

"After the Revolution, independent journalists - printers, they called themselves - sprung up all over the country."

"THEY WERE PARTISAN BY THE WAY, VOCIFEROUSLY!"

"They attacked the others' politics, BUT IT WAS A HEALTHY PERIOD OF BOMBAST IN AMERICA IN WHICH PEOPLE COULD SORT OUT THE INFORMATION."

"I think the bloggers, then the websites, come closest TO THE SPIRIT OF CACOPHONY, TO THAT DEMOCRATIC EXPRESSION, THAT WE HAD IN THE EARLY PART OF THIS COUNTRY'S HISTORY!"

- Bill Moyers, in an interview on National Public Radio's Fresh Air

SO?

Do you wish democracy?

HERE IS WHERE IT STARTS!

With us!

Or it never will exist, but as a hope and dream, which it always has been anyways!

Without us who actualize that hope and dream, and here, I mean ALL OF YOU out there, that dream dies!

And what a shame that would be, indeed!

[Livyjr]

Maybe we should change it a little:

"OUR COUNTRY! LET'S WORK TOGETHER TO MAKE IT ALWAYS BE RIGHT!"

The American people know right from wrong, and if not, we are all in BIG trouble.

jeffmoskin, I'm with you!

Thanks for this "revision"!

It says what needs to be said, while I was venting, I guess, on what I object to in this present "COP-OUT" version, this "my country, right or wrong" business.

I don't know how many times I have had that spat right in my face, by the "righteous" crowd, such as this Mr. William Lobdell above here, the "BORN AGINS" who now seem to be much more "TRUE AMERICAN" than mere commoners like me can ever hope to be; along with this "love it or leave it" crap that always seems to follow right on the heels of that "right or wrong" business, and so, I am operating from the emotional level here, while you are up a notch or two into the "objective", where I crave to be, but don't always hit that mark.

And it is about working together, which sometimes is just not easy to do, especially when a big-time politician, right in front of you, has just accepted an offer of money, say $80,000, from a "special-interest" group, to "remove" you permanently from your position of oversight, over them!

Being somewhat younger than you, and therefore lacking in all the experience that I am yet to get in life down here on earth, I am somewhat at a loss to this day as to how to reconcile this, and go back in there and work together with these "boys" to separate the "right" of this matter from the "wrong" of it, especially when what is "right" is determined by the weight of the sack of gold put on those scales that blind justice is always seen to be holding in those quintessentially American depictions of "justice" that you see in courthouses and such places as that.

Up here, in the corrupt Empire State, the wags all say that blind justice holds those scales because "justice" really is blind to injustice, or just does not care, and so has the scales to determine who is right or wrong.

The side of the scales that goes down, which has the bigger bag of gold placed upon it, therefore tells "justice" on whose side it should be!

And when it is that way, and it is, let us not kid ourselves here, then people like me will always be the losers, at least as far as getting a chance at justice down here on this earth of ours, or that portion of it that lies within the geographical boundaries of the corrupt Empire State of New York.

But with that said, jeffmoskin, I am still with you with regard to your statement above!

It should be the hope and the goal, and therefore, it is the journey towards that "shining city" that really counts, and hence this thread, so that older Americans like you CAN COME IN HERE, and point out that path to sometimes discouraged younger Americans such as me!

SO!

Please!

Keep it up, jeffmoskin!

And thank you again!

[Livyjr]

BUT .....

I endeavor to persevere!

And with that said, here is a short excerpt of remarks that Mr. Bill Moyers made on National Public Radio, about "US", and what we really are doing in here, and I think that he has really hit a nail on the head here, and a necessary nail at that, so without further ado, "HERE'S BILL":

"I think the internet, the blogging, is the closest we've come in a long time to the history of the American media IN THE BEGINNING!"

"You know, in the 1820s, the 1830s, all you needed to be a journalist was to buy a press."

"That's why they called them ink-stained wretches: because they operated their own hand presses."

"For a little bit of money, like Tom Paine and others, you could have your own press."

"After the Revolution, independent journalists - printers, they called themselves - sprung up all over the country."

"THEY WERE PARTISAN BY THE WAY, VOCIFEROUSLY!"

"They attacked the others' politics, BUT IT WAS A HEALTHY PERIOD OF BOMBAST IN AMERICA IN WHICH PEOPLE COULD SORT OUT THE INFORMATION."

"I think the bloggers, then the websites, come closest TO THE SPIRIT OF CACOPHONY, TO THAT DEMOCRATIC EXPRESSION, THAT WE HAD IN THE EARLY PART OF THIS COUNTRY'S HISTORY!"

- Bill Moyers, in an interview on National Public Radio's Fresh Air

SO?

Do you wish democracy?

HERE IS WHERE IT STARTS!

With us!

Or it never will exist, but as a hope and dream, which it always has been anyways!

Without us who actualize that hope and dream, and here, I mean ALL OF YOU out there, that dream dies!

And what a shame that would be, indeed!

And while we are on this subject of "true democracy" in action here, we have this following timely piece on that exact subject!

How coincidental!

Or maybe it's just that old JUNGIAN SYNCHRONICITY still operating down here in our earthly realm!

You decide!

After all, that is part of what democracy is really all about, despite "blind justice" and its scales to weigh bags of money on, to see who it shall "favor" that particular day, anyway:

"Web suited for the opinionated eager to get their words out there"

Albany, New York Times Union
First published: Friday, January 14, 2005

Correction: The name of Ben Smith's Web log was misspelled in an earlier version of this story.

Politics in Albany has long been a spectator sport, with call-in radio talk shows and letters to newspapers the main avenues for most citizens to air their opinions.

But thanks to the Internet -- and specifically Web logs -- anyone with a computer and a point of view can be a pundit.

Getting published digitally is the easy part.

Finding an audience, however, seems to be another matter.

Take the case of PoliticsNY.com, touted by its creator to be "New York's hottest new political Web site" when it was launched four years ago with a bit of mystery (the site's operator went under the pseudonym Enos Throop, a 19th-century New York governor).

But with it's lead story now a bit old -- Day 2 of last summer's Democratic convention -- it seems to have cooled, if not frozen.

It might be due in part to having more zeal than staff.

The man who registered the Web site in New York also registered in New Hampshire and New Jersey.

Those sites, too, have met the same fate.

But do not despair, political junkies.

There's a virtual cottage industry of online writers opining on all levels of politics.

Republicans have blogs, Democrats have blogs -- even interns have blogs.

The latest in Albany is Albany Eye ( http://www.albanyeye.blogspot.com ), which chronicles media and politics.

The mystery creator told Inside Politics that he expected it would only take a few weeks to lose interest in posting, but three months later he's hooked.

The New York Observer officially launched its own blog this week, The Politicker ( http://www.nyobserver.com/thepoliticker/politicker.html ), written by one of its staff writers, Ben Smith.

The column focuses primarily on city politics, and readers can respond to Smith's items, adding their own two cents about all things political.

"Really, in New York City, there's a large world of people who read blogs," said Smith.

Yet despite the large number of political reporters, no blog had filled the city political niche.

The weekly paper's Web site, http://www.nyobserver.com/thepoliticker/politicker.html, links to the blog.

So maybe you want to start your own blog, to let the world know what you think about the state of the state, city or national government.

Blogger ( http://www.blogger.com ) guides novices through the process of creating an online diary, and you can have your own blog address in about three minutes.

Now all you need is an audience.

Inside Politics runs Fridays and was compiled this week by staff writer Erin Duggan. Staff writers Rick Karlin and James M. Odato contributed to this column.

[Sandra]

Please find Volume 2 here
http://www.commongroundcommonsense.org/for...showtopic=19049
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Thanks!