And here I am coming back from Mr. A.B.'s thread above, and with me, I have brought over that article that Mr. A.B. references above, as I have learned that people coming in here who are not registered cannot navigate around very easily, since the search engine feature and member's post feature to short-cut getting from thread "A" to thread "B" do not work for them.

I learned this the other night when I was trying to direct, over the phone, a friend to Mr. A.B.'s "Religion and Politics" thread to read the discussion going on over there.

Finally, we just had to give it up, as he could not find "Religion and Politics", and without seeing what he was looking at on his computer, and without him being able to use the "member's post" feature, there was just no way to get him to "home"!

"Don't use FDR to undermine Social Security"
By James Roosevelt Jr. | January 31, 2005

IN HIS inaugural address, President George W. Bush invoked the name of my grandfather, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, as part of his campaign to privatize Social Security.

Similarly, a political organization supporting that drastic change recently ran a television commercial using a newsreel clip showing President Roosevelt signing the Social Security Act into law.

The implication that FDR would support privatization of America's greatest national program is an attempt to deceive the American people and an outrage.

President Roosevelt founded Social Security for very basic but important reasons.

He believed that the only enemy that could ever defeat the United States was fear itself.

He and my grandmother, Eleanor, looked at America and found fear of want -- particularly after retirement or loss of a parent.

Today, thanks in large part to Social Security, the number of older Americans below the poverty line has dropped from almost 50 percent to only 8 percent.

FDR believed that Social Security should be simple, guaranteed, fair, earned, and available to all Americans.

President Roosevelt was adamant that Social Security was an insurance program to provide basic needs in retirement.

As a former Wall Street lawyer, my grandfather fully supported the opportunity of every American to have fair investment opportunities.

But Social Security was -- and is -- something different.

It was -- and is -- the guaranteed basis of a secure retirement.

The risk is that future retired Americans will lose that assurance if the guaranteed benefit is eliminated.

Drastic changes that divert the payroll tax to privatization will almost certainly eliminate that guaranteed benefit by crippling the ability to pay benefits, imposing trillions of dollars of new costs on the government and creating massive federal debt.

Privatization threatens to bring about the collapse of the entire Social Security system.

FDR was realistic about the need to adapt Social Security as the workforce evolved.

In my office I have his original handwritten note to my father outlining the principles I've just discussed.

By the time the program was enacted in 1935, the details were quite different.

But the principles remained the same.

Throughout the six successful decades of Social Security, it has been adjusted in both benefits and revenues.

But it has continued to observe FDR's principles of a secure, guaranteed retirement income provided by an insurance system that all workers pay for.

Then, as now, the key to taking the fear out of the Social Security debate is speaking truthfully.

Instead, the proponents of privatization have not only misused the name and image of my grandfather, they have mischaracterized undisputed facts to create a phony impetus for abandonment of the program.

Those who are seeking immediate, drastic change should recognize that even the Social Security trustees appointed by the president agree that Social Security with no changes could pay full benefits until 2042, even under pessimistic assumptions about economic growth.

They should recognize that the Congressional Budget Office says that Social Security with no changes could pay full benefits until 2052.

They should recognize that even then benefits would be cut only about 25 percent if there were no changes, not nearly as drastically as most private account proposals would cut them.

The lies and half-truths from the proponents of privatization must stop.

Most of all, the creation of fear by the unjustified use of words like "crisis" and "bankruptcy" is destructive of a reasonable debate about what adjustments to Social Security will ensure the payment of full benefits throughout the 21st century.

Every honest person knows that there is no crisis, there is no threat of bankruptcy, and that what is needed are adjustments, not drastic measures like privatization.

Just as bad is the use of terms like "worthless IOUs" to describe US Treasury bonds held by the trust fund.

These are scare tactics designed to create fear.

These attempts to divide grandparents, parents, and children are an attack on the most successful program this country has ever had.

Social Security unites the interests of my parents' generation, my contemporaries, and my children's generation.

It can be strengthened with incremental changes.

To achieve that, the Congress and the White House must work together -- without ideological agendas.

FDR's goal of freedom from fear can be preserved by truthful, reasonable negotiation that is free of false implications and misrepresentation.

James Roosevelt Jr. is a lawyer and former associate commissioner of Social Security.

The lies and half-truths from the proponents of privatization must stop!

And yes, they must!

But can they?

That is one of the foremost questions of OUR times, here in OUR America these days: CAN GEORGE W. BUSH EVER STOP LYING?

And I would say, no, he cannot!

I don't think he actually knows how, to be truthful!

It is what I believe is called "pathological" lying with him, and it is a part of who he just seems to be!

NOW ...

I am ready to admit that I might be wrong here, that the lying is not so much pathological as it is a cold, calculated thing, an intentional will to deceive, and how will we ever really know, because it is a sure thing that nobody of any consequence in the psychological field, or psychiatric field, will ever get a chance to tell us the truth of the matter, and so, right now, all we know is that the single truth we will get from George W. Bush, IS THAT WE WILL GET NO TRUTH AT ALL!

And that, folks, IS life in OUR America today!

U.S. National - Reuters

"U.S. Probing ChoicePoint Over Data Theft"
Fri Mar 4,10:27 AM ET

By Aleksandrs Rozens

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Federal authorities are investigating the theft of more than 100,000 consumer profiles in databases of ChoicePoint Inc. as well as trading in its stock by top executives, the company said on Friday.

ChoicePoint, which maintains personal profiles of nearly every U.S. consumer, said the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has opened an informal inquiry and the Federal Trade Commission has begun a separate inquiry.

The company, which sells its data to employers, landlords, marketing companies and about 35 U.S. government agencies, also said it was halting the sale of many information products that contain sensitive consumer data, including social security and driver's license numbers.

It said, however, that exceptions would be made where there is a specific consumer-driven transaction or benefit, or where the products support federal, state or local government and criminal justice purposes.

The company said the SEC is looking into the circumstances surrounding the theft of the profiles and recent trading in ChoicePoint stock by its chief executive officer, Derek Smith, and chief operating officer and president, Doug Curling.

The FTC, meanwhile, is conducting an inquiry into ChoicePoint's compliance with federal consumer information security laws.

ChoicePoint shares fell 3.6 percent in early trading.

A company spokesman was not available to comment about the SEC investigation into trading by ChoicePoint executives.

Last month, ChoicePoint announced that criminals gained access to a database of personal records after they posed as legitimate businesses.

These thieves got at profiles of consumers that include Social Security numbers, credit histories, criminal records and other sensitive material,

The identity thieves set up roughly 50 fraudulent business accounts to gain access to the consumer data.

ChoicePoint's databases contain 19 billion public records, including driving records, sex-offender lists and FBI lists of wanted criminals and suspected terrorists.

The company, based in Alpharetta, Georgia, said its move to halt the sale of some data containing sensitive consumer data will reduce 2005 core revenues by $15 million to $20 million and will be dilutive to earnings by 10 to 12 cents a share.

ChoicePoint said it will continue to serve most of its core markets and customers, but its latest move will likely impact the availability of information to certain customers, especially small businesses.

The move to limit the consumer data is expected to be completed within 90 days, the company said, adding that its has strengthened its customer credentialing process.

In California, the only state that requires companies to disclose security breaches, ChoicePoint sent warning letters to 30,000 to 35,000 consumers advising them to check their credit reports.

U.S. investigators notified the company of the breach in October, but ChoicePoint did not send out the consumer warnings until last week.

Jones said it took a while for the company to determine which consumer records were affected.

ChoicePoint shares fell $1.45 to $38.83 on the New York Stock Exchange in Friday morning trading.

Just last week, Bank of America Corp. said it lost data tapes containing information on 1.2 million federal employee credit cards, among them U.S. senators.

Those tapes were lost in December, but bank officials were not allowed to notify cardholders until they received permission from federal law enforcement authorities.

SO!

What exactly are we, the serfs and commoners, the weak, the disenfranchised, etc., here in OUR America to think about all of this above?

Especially about this company having access to FBI records, and other "sensitive" data about us, which includes just about everything under the sun, ABOUT US?

SO THAT THEY CAN THEN SELL IT, FOR MILLIONS!

How did they get it in the first place?

How did THEY get OUR social security numbers, for example?

It had to be from the government, did it not?

Or was it one of us, here in OUR America?

Did one of you people out there, owning as every American does, a Cray supercomputer, loaded right at the factory with all of this stuff, did one of you naughty folks, you tricky devils you, did YOU sell this information to this Choicepoint crowd, with it CLOSE REPUBLICAN TIES, so that it could then re-sell the information, FOR MILLIONS OF DOLLARS, and to thieves, to boot, which is generally the only "CLASS" in OUR America these days with any real money to toss around like this, BECAUSE for them, the thieves, to get this information, ON US, this "sensitive" information that has now been "sold" to them, as though we were nothing but cattle in a feed-lot, and these were merely "breeding records", or something like that, THESE THIEVES NEEDED MONEY IN THE FIRST PLACE WITH WHICH TO BUY THIS SENSITIVE INFORMATION, about us!

SO!

What is the real deal, here?

And am I the only one who thinks it stinks, to high heaven?

Are people in OUR America these days just so used to the lying, the endless lying, that goes on at the corporate and government levels here in OUR America, that this is just another big "HO-HUM"?

"Oh, Livyjr, you simple sap, you; don't you know nothing at all?"

"Don't you know, Livyjr, that the word 'America' is just another euphemism for lying and stealing and dishonesty?"

Well!

Hmmmm.

I think I do now!

Well, Livyjr, I just do not understand how you can be so "UNPATRIOTIC. "

Tsk. Tsk.

I have decided on an appropriate punishment for you.

You are to be locked in a room for 24 hours with a tape player or DVD playing John Philip Sousa music very loudly.

That will straighten you out.

Just in case there is one soul reading this, who is taking my comments seriously,
please be advised that this is said in jest. I happen to agree with Livyjr 100%

A.B.

Bushspeak, a close cousin of Newspeak, as described by George Orwell in "1984."

WAR IS PEACE!
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY!
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH!

Orwell was way ahead of his time.

Here's a big laugh -

I actually HAVE IN MY POSESSION the original, dog-eared Social Security Card I received in 1959. It says on the front of it,

For Social Security Purposes Only

NOT TO BE USED FOR IDENTIFICATION

And here I do have to say that I am, well, p***ed right off about this whole concept of what this Choicepoint story really represents to us as citizens, here in OUR America, and especially this bit about this company having and selling FBI records, which just may be about us!

What, for example, is this business about this "REPUBLICAN BID-NESS" having FBI records about "SUSPECTED TAY-RISTS" FOR SALE?

And to whom?

Who is Choicepoint's "MARKET" for this kind of information?

And whose names are on those lists?

Is yours?

And how would you know?

Has anyone out there ever tried to find out if YOU have an FBI file on YOU?

I have, and I do, BUT .....

I CANNOT HAVE ACCESS TO IT!

Yes, that is right.

My file, at last count, was hundreds and hundreds of pages long, and while I did get about 230 pages of it, the rest is sealed, so that I cannot know what is in there, or how it got there, or what it says, and what that might mean to me, here in OUR America, about my own future!

And why do I have an FBI file?

Am I a criminal?

Am I a tay-rist?

NO, and NO!

Or at least I know that I am not either of those things, BUT ....

I don't know what either the FBI, OR Choicepoint are saying about the matter, and I DON'T KNOW WHAT Choicepoint is SELLING, about me!

And do any of you?

As for why I have an FBI file, or why part of that file exists, the only part that I was able to get, and have to this day, is because I gave evidence to the FBI, in 1989, about government corruption where I live.

That part of my file is about 230 pages long, and it is quite interesting to read, in fact, for it details how an FBI "investigation" really works, and it is not at all re-assuring, to be very truthful, not because the FBI does not "investigate", BUT BECAUSE THE OFFICE OF THE LOCAL U.S. ATTORNEY HAS OVERALL CONTROL OF HOW THE INVESTIGATION PROCEEDS, and so, has the power to cut off the investigation, and then bury not only the "fruits" of the investigation, BUT THE SAP OF A CITIZEN WHO GAVE THE EVIDENCE, which in this case was me!

Yes, folks, I must admit it!

I am one great big damn fool!

And because of that, I walked right into a trap, and am now paying for that, IN SPADES!

Evidence that I gave to the FBI simply disappeared, and the investigation was closed, and then, it took me years and years to finally get these records that I did get.

In the meantime, down the hammer came, right on top of me!

And without that "LOST" evidence, and without access to my FBI records, I was completely and totally unable to get out from under that hammer, which, of course, is the purpose of the exercise, AS THE U.S. ATTORNEYS WHERE I LIVE ARE "POLITICALS", with an interest themselves in "getting ahead" in what is a very political BID-NESS, that being the BID-NESS of GUMMINT up there in the corrupt Empire State of NEW YORK!

The FBI agent that I was "dealing" with actually came to me, and said, "Livyjr, my advice to you is to just get clear out of town for a while, or forever, because you have pissed off people above me, and they are coming after you, and I cannot, and will not put myself in jeopardy to do a thing for you!"

"It just is not worth it!"

And so it was.

Interestingly, sometime after that, I noticed in the newspapers a little article that mentioned that the U.S. Attorney who had "shut off" the investigation was being "recommended" for a federal judgeship.

In the meantime, I have "records" about me that I know nothing about, other than they exist, and that is that!

BUT ...

This CHOICEPOINT actually may, and they can then "SELL" those records to whomever, for whatever, so long as THEY, Choicepoint, get their money for doing so, selling these "FBI records", that is!

Life in OUR America!

What a crock, BECAUSE IT IS NOT OURS!

No more than a feed-lot full of cattle is theirs!

And have no doubts about it, folks, feed-lot cattle is US!

Unless, of course, you have a lot of money, and connections to the Republican National Committee, in which case, you are not a cow in a feed-lot, you are probably an economic slave to them, instead, which, I guess, is a step uwards from being merely an animal, here in OUR America!

SO!

MOOOOO!

And I, jeffmoskin, have mine, also "dog-eared" by now, from about that same period of time, and mine has that same legend on it, and many, many times, I have looked at that legend, and thought about it, and I have even talked to a number of other "oldsters" here in OUR America about that and we all think the way you do - WHY IS OUR SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBER NOW BEING USED AS AN IDENTITY DEVICE TO TRACK OUR MOVEMENTS, here in OUR America.

And how the hell did this Choicepoint company get access to that information SO THAT IT CAN TRACK US, and then SELL that information, ON US, to thieves?

When I went in the Army in 1968, I was issued an Army "service number" which I can still recite, AND THEN, sometime in 1968, or maybe early 1969, all of a sudden, OUR social security numbers became our service numbers, so that after that date, those entering service did not have a "service number", as I did.

And after that, once I got back from Viet Nam, anyway, it seemed that more and more, people, especially in banks, began to DEMAND our social security numbers, especially if you were cashing a check.

Then stores began asking for social security numbers, and all the time, that legend on the Social Security card kept saying "NOT FOR IDENTIFICATION"!

If you did not "SURRENDER" this information, the person requesting it, who was nothing more than a store clerk, or a bank teller, often younger than I was, would get quite snippy, to say the least.

AND THEN, ALONG CAME IDENTITY THEFT, here in OUR America, which is now a "BIG BID-NESS" in and of itself, that is fueling a lot of the economic growth, here in OUR America, that George W. Bush likes to tout as being HIS accomplishment, when he tells us why we are so lucky to have him as OUR President.

TWO AND TWO=FOUR, here?

Or maybe he had prescient vision, but was just not able to exactly "pin" the year, according to OUR calender, as can be the case with prescient vision!

You know what will be, but not quite exactly when!

And so he picked "1984" as a date, which is really pretty close, when you think about the "run-up" required to actually get George W. Bush into this high office, which might just have started way back in the 1930's, and the "BEGINNINGS" of the Bush Co. "DYNASTY" here on OUR earth, because it sure includes a lot more than just America now, and by plan, is my thought.

And with Gabrielle's words above in mind, I include this next "story" because it is right close to home, for me, who has this same "condition" as a result of RPG-7 warheads going off right next to my head, not once, but twice, in Viet Nam.

And why I come in here to "communicate" with people, where I don't have to "talk", because that mode if difficult, as this story will demonstrate.

And here, I want to say that we who suffer this "condition" are treated as freaks and objects of derision by the PERFECT PEOPLE OVER HERE, who point at their own heads and then us, as they call us "F***ING MORONS" and such like, which, of course PROVES THEIR SUPERIORITY TO US, who are, of course, way down beneath them, because we got "HIT IN THE HEAD, and being PERFECT PEOPLE, they, of course, did not!

Top Stories - USATODAY.com

"Key Iraq wound: Brain trauma"

Fri Mar 4, 6:13 AM ET

By Gregg Zoroya, USA TODAY

A growing number of U.S. troops whose body armor helped them survive bomb and rocket attacks are suffering brain damage as a result of the blasts.

It's a type of injury some military doctors say has become the signature wound of the Iraq war.

Known as traumatic brain injury, or TBI, the wound is of the sort that many soldiers in previous wars never lived long enough to suffer.

The explosions often cause brain damage similar to "shaken-baby syndrome," says Warren Lux, a neurologist at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington.

"You've got great body armor on, and you don't die," says Louis French, a neuropsychologist at Walter Reed.

"But there's a whole other set of possible consequences."

"It's sort of like when they started putting airbags in cars and started seeing all these orthopedic injuries."

The injury is often hard to recognize - for doctors, for families and for the troops themselves.

Months after being hurt, many soldiers may look fully recovered, but their brain functions remain labored.

"They struggle much more than you think just from talking to them, so there is that sort of hidden quality to it," Lux says.

To identify cases of TBI, doctors at Walter Reed screened every arriving servicemember wounded in an explosion, along with those hurt in Iraq or Afghanistan in a vehicle accident or fall, or by a gunshot wound to the face, neck or head.

They found TBI in about 60% of the cases.

The largest group was 21-year-olds.

From January 2003 to this January, 437 cases of TBI were diagnosed among wounded soldiers at the Army hospital, Lux says.

Slightly more than half had permanent brain damage.

Similar TBI screening began in August at National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., near Washington.

It showed 83% - or 97 wounded Marines and sailors - with temporary or permanent brain damage.

Forty-seven cases of moderate to severe TBI were identified earlier in the year.

The wound may come to characterize this war, much the way illnesses from Agent Orange typified the Vietnam War, doctors say.

"The numbers make it a serious problem," Lux says.

An explosion can cause the brain to move violently inside the skull.

The shock wave from the blast can also damage brain tissue, Lux says.

"The good news is that those people would have been dead" in earlier wars, says Deborah Warden, national director of the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center.

"But now they're alive."

"And we need to help them."

Symptoms of TBI vary.

They include headaches, sensitivity to light or noise, behavioral changes, impaired memory and a loss in problem-solving abilities.

In severe cases, victims must relearn how to walk and talk.

"It's like being born again, literally," says Sgt. Edward "Ted" Wade, 27, a soldier with the 82nd Airborne Division who lost his right arm and suffered TBI in an explosion last year near Fallujah.

Today, he sometimes struggles to formulate a thought, and his eyes blink repeatedly as he concentrates.

And with this article posted above, here is a companion article that came to me over the "VETERANS' GRAPEVINE" that is worth reading, as it too deals with the "costs" to us of this Bush Co. war in Iraq, a war that does not benefit us, that does not make us "safe", that does not really do anything for us, BUT DOES MAKE THE BUSH CO. faction quite rich, for which riches they bear no cost whatsoever, ONLY PROFITS:

Dear Military Families:

46 town meetings across the state of Vermont passed resolutions this week calling for the withdrawal of the U.S. military from Iraq and calling on the Vermont Legislature to set up a commission to study the impacts of National Guard deployments on soldiers, families, communities and the state.

Military Families Speak Out members in Vermont -- including many with loved ones in the Vermont National Guard -- have been at the center of the campaign to get these resolutions passed.

The process involved many discussions and speaking engagements at a very local level -- talking about everything from the lack of firefighters and police in local communities because they were deployed with their Guard units to Iraq; to the problem of post-traumatic stress disorder in returning soldiers; to impacts on families and children from long deployments; to the declining enlistment rate and what that means in years to come if there are not enough Vermont National Guard soldiers to help with future emergencies and natural disasters that may befall the state.

ABC's Nightline is devoting tonight's show to this topic. (Thursday, March 3, 2005)

Generally Nightline is on after the late local ABC news.

Check local listings for exact time.

Below is Nightline's press release on tonight's program.

In peace and solidarity
Military Families Speak Out
http://www.mfso.org

Nightline's press release about the program reads:

ABC NEWS “NIGHTLINE” FOR THURSDAY, MARCH 3, 2005

Of the fifty states, Vermont has the highest death toll per capita in Iraq, while nearly half of its National Guard has been deployed there.

Out of fifty-two town meetings held across the state this week, a majority voted to pass resolutions that support the withdrawal of American troops from Iraq.

On Thursday, March 3, 2005 at 11:35 p.m. (ET), ABC News “Nightline” will take a look at the Vermont National Guard, the unit at the center of this debate, and how the effort to withdraw troops from Iraq is being addressed on a local level.

But you CAN have access under the Freedom of Information Act to your FBI file. My wife was able to get a copy of her father's (deceased) as his daughter. I've seen it - It is about an inch thick - and it is full of the most USELESS and generally WRONG information (and I use that word verrrryy loosely) you could imagine.

These FBI guys must have an IQ of 65. And they will take a whole page to describe the comings and goings of an individual, which means absolutely nothing, and then draw sweeping conclusions about it all.

Pure fantasy.

Here's Another True story:

Two friends of mine own a flying school out here in L.A. After 9/11, the FBI came calling to look at their records. The two were maybe 19 years old, wearing cheap JC Penney suits, white socks, black shoes.

Right off the funny pages.

And they were clueless. My friends, eager to help, had to show them what they needed to see and tell them what they had to ask. They were very grateful.

Three days later, a DIFFERENT pair of FBI agents arrived. Same costume, same age, same IQ. This time, my friends said, hey, "your guys have already been here." Didn't phase 'em. They went through the same drill.

A week later... you guessed it. This time, my friends were starting to wonder if ANYBODY knew what the hell was going on at HQ, assuming that there really is an HQ.

Makes you understand about the Minnesota and Phoenix FBI memos that were IGNORED regarding Hani Hanjour and Zacharias Moussawi.

Dear Livyjr.,
Thanks for the head's up. I'm glad you shared a few of your experiences with traumatic brain injury during combat here. I can't imagine how difficult it must be for you to read about these young men coming home with blast and shrapnel related neurological injuries. It seems to me you must understand better than anyone what life is going to be like for these men and their families. I'm so sorry to hear of your cruel experiences with the "perfect people." I can understand how you would think this way but, of course, I do not agree that they're perfect. They sound cruel, superficial, ignorant, disrespectful, etc. You got hit in the head because you were a combat soldier, Livy. Not because you were or are bad or imperfect.

Whenever I meet very wise people I frequently find a history of suffering. I would have never known that verbal communication was difficult for you. And I would have never known, or even suspected, that you'd had two brain injuries. You posts are always such a delight to read. So eloquent, so centered, so full of meaning and nuance and humanity.

Sometimes seeing a newspaper article or the television news can set off a cascade of bad memories. Flashbacks can be quite common in combat veterans - years after their traumatic experiences - while sitting at home watching the news about soldiers who are currently in a war zone. Sometimes it's necessary to take a sabbatical from that particular news story for a while, if it gets to be too much.

A couple of personal thoughts. Sometimes I think it's easy to forget why we're here. We can get to chatting about this or that as we attempt to mentally flee the tragedies and horrors we hear about many times each day. And then a particular story will bring the whole mountain crushing back down on us - reviving our understanding of just how awful this all is. We remember why we come here to fight the horror.

We remember that spark in ourselves that cannot be extinguished, that refuses to "go gently into that good night," that has been given a reprive, to continue our path here on earth, because our work is not yet finished. You have contributed so much to this forum, Livyjr. I can't tell you how many times a day I now think of the words "OUR America." "Life in OUR America" or "A.B.'s Corner" with that wonderful potbellied stove. I wanted so much to pop into A.B.'s corner last night and ask you and Jeff and A.B. and the others there some questions about how you felt/how you coped with the knowledge that our government/corporate elites were so incestuously linked and crooked when you first found out.

What do you think it is in you that keeps fighting to make "Our America" a better place, Livyjr.? What personal quality do you think will most benefit these men who have suffered brain injuries in Iraq? What activities do you think will help them the most. What is the best way that others can help these men and women as they are forced to relearn so many basics of communication and movement, etc.? Well, I have about 10,000 more questions like this but I will try to restrain myself.

BTW, Livyjr., I have always considered you a very articulate, kind, wise, and sensitive man. An old-fashioned gentleman with the courage to look for the truth.

Thank you for writing these words, Gabrielle, My eyes are teary; your thoughts penetrate into my soul.

I come here every day.

Without fail.

We ARE a community; it is a strange one - we have never met face to face. And yet, I feel we know eachother very well. Livyjr and I travelled parallel paths; we are nearly the same age. He is a soldier; I am not. A.B. is a soldier, although as I gather not a combatant.

We all have our points of view, our individual observances of the world, our world, BUSHWORLD.

I'm glad we have this forum.

It truly makes my day.

And as a P.S. -

Thank you Livyjr, for starting this thread.

And for having SURVIVED the Viet Nam war.

Alive.

And still fighting.

Jeff, I'm glad we have this forum, too! This forum is really part of my "community" now. I see the same people here day after day and it makes me feel good just to see what everybody is talking about. Some days people are all giggly. Some days super-sensitive. Some days worn down. Some days fired up. Each person with their own unique outlook, skills, pet peeves, etc. It's a wonderful experience!

And you are "typical" of what Tom Brokenjaw referred to as "The Greatest Generation." My father-in-law was a B-24 Gunner in the Pacific, and the family has had to literally pry information out of him. And he has really only been willing to talk about it in the past few years!

Yep, from 1945 until 1995: not a peep.

In looking back, and having had no personal experience with war, I suppose that there were (are) a lot of things he preferred not to think about. I suspect it is that way with you and with Livyjy as well.

But I hope that MANY PEOPLE are reading this thread. Every now and then one of you will post a fragment of that part of your life. It is important to debunk the John Wayne mythology about war if we are EVER to be rid of it.

Lord knows, we have taken a giant step backward with these fools in Washington.

BUMP!


The Mods are cleaning house.

Slow down, for God's sake!

A.B.,
I feel so honored that you have also shared some of your stories of the South Pacific with the forum. It is difficult for those of us who have never been in combat to understand just how terrifying it can be. I am continually amazed at how brave, how couragous you and the other veterans are. And I feel very fortunate to be able to consider you my friend.

I find it very interesting that you say it's not true "there are no athiests in foxholes." I can see that men would curse God or turn their backs on him, or refuse to turn to belief in God during such a horrible experience. I might lose all faith in God, too, under the same circumstances. Seeing human suffering has been one of the greatest challenges to my faith.

It sounds awful to have been on that island, having Japan saying they could take your base at any time. And then to get bombed daily. I'm assuming that you lived through months and months of believing that at any moment you could be fatally injured by a bomb. Hearing bombs going off all the time must have been very unnerving, to say the least. I can see why men and women would have nervous breakdowns under such circumstances.

I'm glad you are here, A.B.! I'm glad you are sharing your wisdom and experiences with us. As Jeff says, I'm glad you are "Alive. And still fighting."

I think we need to remember that we're dealing with very volatile, very painful memories. Discussing these memories on a public forum without a real life support system to fall back on, should things get rough, worries me.

But it don't worry me, Gabrielle, and that is all that counts.

I say this forum is a miracle because it is a miracle.

Now, for most people, that may be or sound like hyperbole, and "gushing" or something like that, but for me, it is a miracle, something that just shouldn't be, but is!

This is the most incredibly therapeutic thing that there ever could be for someone like me, OR ALL THESE other veterans as well.

PLUNGE THROUGH is what I would say to these other veterans so situated as me, and here, Gabrielle, I would refer you to the other, OR ANOTHER, side or dimension of this same conversation over in Mr. A.B.'s "Religion and Politics" thread, which for you people not registered, is arrived at by going down to the bottom of the page, and clicking on the "TOPICS", and then scrolling down until you come to "Issues of Importance in OUR Lives", or words to that effect, and click on that, which will take you to a new screen, where, if you scroll down, you will find "Religion and Politics", and when you click on that, up will come the threads, where you will scroll down and find "George W. Bush v. The Holy Bible"!

And I am now no longer without a "support system", Gabrielle, for what I have in here is a great one, and I also do have one around me where I am, BECAUSE for people like me, GOD really does provide!

Anyone who doubts that, of course, can certainly come up with another way, then, to explain this FORUM, AND THIS THREAD, and Mr. A.B., who, as an old man just decided to become computer-literate, and jeffmoskin, with his wonderful broad range of knowledge, especially of "comparative religion", which he so willingly shares with us, and then, of course, there is Gabrielle, with her wonderful insight into the inner working of the "human being", and ........... BUT .....

Livyjr - You continue to be an inspiration.

One of the simple lessons in life - We all need people.

Barbra Streisand had a a hit song many years ago. The lyrics went something like this:

" People who need people are the luckiest people in the world. "

A.B.

And here, as "ONE" of the "head-injury" combat veterans, which gives me a certain "viewpoint", I suppose it is, as to what it is to be one, I would say that someone "OUT THERE", as Gabrielle is, to a "head-injury" veteran, would have good reason to be concerned, AS SHE IS EXACTLY RIGHT, these are very volatile, very painful memories, and let there be no mistake about that, BUT ......

What is "volatile", such as these "memories", is only dangerous IF CONTAINED, and the miracle of this FORUM, and this thread, IS THAT FOR ME, THE CONTAINMENT of the last thirty years is finally BREACHED, and so, "pressure" immediately dissipates, and so, I spend a lot of time talking about the miracle of this FORUM as a "tool of therapy" to a lot of people, including one psychologist with a lot of experience working with combat veterans like me.

After all, WHO BETTER KNOWS WHAT IS GOOD FOR A DISABLED VETERAN, than the veteran him or herself?

Of course, ten years ago, or twenty years ago, or thirty years ago, or even last year, I really had no idea such a thing as this could even exist, and so, I had no way to even imagine how such a thing could transform my own life, as this forum has done.

And that is just since November 4th of last year!

SO?

What is that?

Four months?

Transformation!

Of course, again, the only one who can know that is me, and so, for the first time in 35 years, I can express myself like a "normal" person, which means after 35 years, I can even explore what that might really mean, and there is where Gabrielle needs to do some re-considering, because for her, and I believe that she will know exactly what I mean, the "conversation" has been somewhat "one-sided" or "lop-sided" for while she has the capacity to understand, the veteran, without this computer system, has lacked the capacity to adequately express what is really "going on" in there, and I imagine that Gabrielle has seen some or many "OUTBURSTS" due to sheer frustration that have perhaps come across as "RAGE", which then cause the veteran to be labeled, or branded, which is a very real phenomena, here in OUR America, especially since the advent of "HATE RADIO" talk shows, here in OUR America, and the George W. Bush/Dick Cheney/Karl Rove ACTIVE HATE CAMPAIGN in this last several years which has served to not only isolate people like me, but to further make us into objects of derision in the community!

In fact, when I first "came on" the computer, in April of last year, it was to say: STOP THE HATE!

And I kept saying that, and saying that, and saying that, and seemingly to no avail, for it has not abated!

And were it not for this forum, I would have no outlet to continue to do that, say STOP THE HATE!

People like me are "trash of war", especially to other veterans, who see us as "embarassments"!

YES!

That is true!

In fact just the other day I chastised a veteran on the internet for making disparaging remarks about PTSD veterans, as though they were merely "trash"!

Veterans involved with politics do not want us around!

They want us out of sight, and America does too, although "PEOPLE" in OUR America, REAL PEOPLE, individuals here and there, are not that way, and so, I have learned over the years to manuver myself around, practicing strategic "avoidance" to try and get through the days as best I can, although that ends up with people like me as "non-participants" in "life" a lot of time, UNTIL THE ADVENT OF THIS FORUM, which is a miracle to me, and hopefully will be, as well, for this new crop of disabled veterans that the GREED of George W. Bush and his "FAT BOTTOM WAR-MONGER BOYS" crowd is creating for the common folk in OUR America, and especially the families of these "disabled" veterans, who, admittedly, are going to have their hands very full when their loved ones come home to them as "HEAD CASES"!

I would say that having to deal with me when I came back from Viet Nam killed my mother, and I have to live with that the rest of my life!

You raise a child and then, WHAT DO YOU GET BACK?

And you know what, GEORGE W. BUSH, and DICK CHENEY and THAT WHOLE CROWD OF HIS DO NOT GIVE ONE DAMN ABOUT THAT ANSWER!

They care that the trough is always full, of swill, FOR THEM TO STICK THEIR SNOUTS IN, and they care that they are getting richer and richer, which of course, translates into POWER, for them.

If they have to stack destroyed human bodies up in a huge pile to do that, THEY DON'T CARE!

Because it won't be them, or theirs, that is in that pile, and that pile of bodies translates out as more and more money FOR THEM, and so ......

And if they don't like me saying that, THE TRUTH AS I SEE IT, then let them come and club me down, BUT UNTIL THEN ....

This thread will continue, until there is no longer a need to say these things!

And America, the candid WORLD, thank you for listening!

And let me say that many times in here, tears are also brought to my eyes, but better there than in my heart!

Thanks for being there, Mr. A.B., as an inspiration right back!

Especially your light-heartedness and continuing joy at just being alive, and then taking of your time to come in here to share that on a daily basis with the rest of us who just might have to live a whole 'nother "lifetime" just to get to where you are now standing, or, well, okay, maybe sitting .......

And that is something now, isn't it, how this all works out!

Why, it all makes you think that there just might be a compassionate god "out there" somewhere, after all, despite the awful damage that George W. Bush has done to that "image" over these last four years with all of his wanton killing in the name of what he would have us believe is HIS compassionate god, the "one" who he would have us all believe set him right down hard, not only on the throne of all America, and ALL Americans, but of the world, the moon, the stars, the sun, and well, EVERYTHING!

And don't forget to give yourself a round of applause for STARTING THIS THREAD.

Three cheers for Livyjr.

I'm always cautious, jeffmoskin, of breaking my arm!

But thank you ........

Spiritual cultivation is a daily activity!

No matter how much we achieve one day, we must continue the next.

Progress is often so subtle that we may feel the effort futile, and it is hard to get up each morning and try again with the same enthusiasm.

YET THIS IS PECISELY WHAT WE MUST DO!

If we have the benefit of guidance, talent, and the proper circumstances, then the bulk of our attention has to be paid to such a simple day-to-day effort.

NO PERSON EVER LEAPT TO HEAVEN IN ONE BOUND!

Spirituality is achieved by steady climbing, like a difficult journey to a mountain temple.

The number of steps is in the thousands; the way is steep!

It takes a long time to get there, and we must content ourselves with the panorama along the way and think that the view at the summit will be best of all.

If we fall, we must pick ourselves up and get back on the trail again.

Success in spiritual life is measured not by spectacular events, but daily devotions.

THIS IRON WILL, THIS DEEP SINCERITY, MAINTAINS OUR ASCENT!

- Deng, Ming-Dao

And as my final post in here this day, I want to "reprint" this post that I originally made back on Mother's Day of 2004, on the John Kerry Forum, and I want to dedicate this post to all those out there with loved ones in harm's way this day, as it very accurately reflects my thoughts on "WAR" and what it can and does do to OUR American families, now and for the future!

It was originally in response to a post by the daughter of a WWII veteran who had found out, when her father had died, that when he came home from "war", he had taken all his stuff, including his medals, and burned them, something she just could not understand!

WHY WOULD SOMEONE WHO EARNED "MEDALS" IN WAR BURN THEM, and everything else from that "war" as well, and never tell their own children that they were "heros"?

DEAR MOTHERS OF AMERICA, WHAT FOLLOWS IS FROM WE, YOUR CHILDREN IN AMERICA, WITH OUR HEARTS AFFLICTED BY THE HORRORS OF WAR; DELIVER US FINALLY FROM THIS EVIL, WE PRAY YOU!

"Old soldiers never die; they just fade away"

Words from a song in the days of my youth, if ever I really had one!

One of those people that I most admired in my life was an older, unprepossessing, unassuming man that I would have coffee with quite regularly, and we would chat back and forth on this or that, and sometimes we would talk in a quiet way about war and such, for this man, then in his 80's, had been drafted for one year's military service about exactly one year before Pearl Harbor, so that the day before he was to be discharged, Pearl Harbor happened, and well, you know, that was the end of his discharge.

He, like many others of that generation, because of that one day, was in for the duration, and long that was for them to be.

Being a smaller man, one day, he was singled out of his unit with a bunch of other smaller men, and they were then all taken away to a new base, where they found out that they were to be part of a brand new military concept back then, which was the "paratroop" corp that we now take so for granted.

At that time, airplanes had not been around all that long, and so parachuting into combat was an untried concept.

It was originally thought back then, because of inexperience with the concept, that men over a certain height and weight could not survive the impact of the landing, so originally, all of those "drafted" as the new paratroop army were small men like this man.

"Shrimps" and "midgets" he jokingly called them, as they were also apparently called by those around them who were not so small, especially the British in North Africa, he would say, who mocked them for their apparent lack of physical stature.

I have listened to hours of this quiet man talking to me about those experiences of learning to be a paratrooper in the early days of WWII, an airborne trooper or "sky soldier" as we Viet Nam veterans would call them, the elite of our nation's fighting forces back then.

After learning to be a paratroop, this old man, then young, of course, was made a part of the 82nd Division, now called "airborne", but at that time just emerging with a new identity from being a "straight leg", as we non-airborne "grunts" were called, infantry division.

This man was sent first to North Africa, where the battle for supremacy of the desert against Rommel and the Africa Corps of the German Army was being waged, and from there to an airborne landing in Sicily, then the D-day jump into Normandy, and then on to Berlin, and the eventual end of the war.

As a Viet Nam combat veteran, I would listen raptly as this man recounted his experiences of "his war" as he called it.

"My war" and "your war" this man would say to differentiate Viet Nam and WWII.

It is hard for me, who has 2 Purple hearts and a Silver Star from Viet Nam, to even conceive of what this man went through.

I know from personal experience that when you are under fire, that funny things happen to the passage of time, so that a day in combat can seem like a year, and a year can seem like an eternity, and this man endured the experience not for months or a year like we did in Viet Nam, but for years on end, in all kinds of places, like the desert of North Africa, to the snows and cold of Europe in the winter months, and this old man endured all of that somehow, and either never became bitter, or got over it before I met him, so that I would not even be tempted to utter a word about Viet Nam, which thank God, never got that awful cold.

Now, I know that this old man was wounded twice, because such things from war time service cannot be hidden from another veteran, and I know this man engaged in acts of heroism in that struggle that again are just about inconceivable to most of us, myself included, Silver Star and Purple Hearts notwithstanding, and yet he would never really talk about them as being anything more than what you do when you believe in something dearly enough to fight and perhaps die for it.

What really are these medals, anyway?

What, for example, is a Silver Star?

Does anyone know or really care?

I have one and it sits in a drawer, because like that old man, for me, the war is over and we are home.

It is better to look forward, rather than backwards, so the Silver Stars tarnish, and the Purple Hearts themselves too lay neglected in a drawer, although the wounds which caused them are not so kind as to simply go away and hide.

I didn't burn my medals when I came home from Viet Nam, although with all of the anger that filled me at that time, I can certainly understand the feelings of those who did, like your father in the war before mine.

There is a saying "To those who fight for it, freedom has a feeling the unprotected never learn to know" or words to that effect, and like the old man above, and perhaps your father too, to me, those words ring all too true.

What is it that we combat veterans know from this experience, and why is it we burn our medals and never say why?

I, like my friend, am now getting old, or older anyway, and after all these years, I still don't have an answer, nor for all his wisdom, did this old man I talk about.

I know from talking to this old man that I am one of the very few people that he has ever uttered a word to about his experiences in WWII, and that his own children knew none of these things about his experiences because when you have children after experiences like those, and this I do know, you just cannot bring yourself to tell your own children exactly how bad, how very ugly, the world and the people in it can be at times, and here I include us as well, because when you got off those helicopters in Viet Nam, it was not to give out hugs and kisses, I can tell you; it was to make some poor fool on the ground wish to God that you had never been born, and that of all other things, that you had never gotten on that helicopter that day in the first place, and it gets ugly from there in the recounting.

So who wants to tell their children and families afterwards that this is who their father really was, this person who could do these kinds of things and not be so sick in his soul afterwards that he would just shrivel up and die of shame on the spot?

Who wants to know that they are the off-spring of these people?

Be thankful that you knew your father for the man he was in your own life afterwards, and not who he might have been the day before, is what I would say to you as one of those like your father who will wrestle with these feelings until the day I die, and then get put away in the earth some place with my deeds in war hopefully unsung and unheralded.

There is where hope for the future springs from, from the standpoint of this combat veteran and that old man I talk about as well; not what we did as soldiers, but what instead we as soldiers hope never to see done ever again in the world, especially by our own children, even though we know in our heart of hearts that human nature don't change much, so that the cycle is likely to repeat over and over again.

Be thankful every day of your life that your father was who he was and didn't bother to talk about it.

After war, humility is not a bad thing to have.

God bless and live in peace, because I think that is really what your father would wish your memories of him to be, a man who came home and raised a family and not a man who went to war.

signed, one who thinks he might have a glimmer of knowledge as to your father's thoughts on the matter

THANK YOU, MOTHERS OF AMERICA FOR BEING THERE IN OUR TIME OF NEED. OUR BLESSINGS AND KIND THOUGHTS TO YOU ON THIS YOUR DAY!

Livyjr. & A.B.,
I'm sorry if I have offended you two today. That was not my intention. I agree you all know what is best for you - much better than me. And despite my keen interest in your conversation about your combat experiences, I will not be able to participate in the conversation. This is a judgment call on my part and it has been a difficult call to make. I have thought about you guys all day. I feel bad for not living up to your expectations. I feel bad for letting you both down.

From where I sit, I think you have offended no one. Keep on reading, posting, caring. Everything will be fine.

Thanks Jeff. I've been worried about this all day. It makes me feel so good that you posted this. Now I can finally get some rest. You guys are great on these threads. See you tomorrow...

Night night. Pleasant dreams.

Quote - Gabrielle

Livyjr. & A.B.,

I'm sorry if I have offended you two today. That was not my intention. I agree you all know what is best for you - much better than me. And despite my keen interest in your conversation about your combat experiences, I will not be able to participate in the conversation. This is a judgment call on my part and it has been a difficult call to make. I have thought about you guys all day. I feel bad for not living up to your expectations. I feel bad for letting you both down.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gabrielle ----- I do not have the any idea why you would think you have offended me. I cannot speak for Livyjr although I believe I have a pretty good idea what he will say when he rolls out of bed, has his coffee and donut and gets himself awake.

As I mentioned to you yesterday, I kave learned from your writings that you are sensitive to other people's feelings, which is in my opinion, an uncommon and very positive attribute.
The danger is that you may read into a situation something that is not really there.
Please --- just stay the way you are.

I was not just beating my gums when I said you add a new dimension to this thread.

I sincerely hope you are not saying that you have decided to stay away from this thread when you say you will not be able to participate in the conversation.

I sort of think I am speaking for Livyjr and jeffmoskin as well as myself when I tell you this thread is immeasurably better with you on it. We need your perspective, your intelligent comments, and most of all your caring.

So please do not go away.

A.B.

Well, Gabrielle, it appears from your words above that I certainly AM NOT the "Great Communicator" here, if you have been left with any kind of impression that you have either offended me, or let me down IN ANY WAY AT ALL!

You have not!

And I am sincere about that!

And it is not about "combat experiences" AT ALL!

In an ideal world, those of us who saw combat would never ever think of it again, or talk about it, ever, because by OUR efforts, there never should have been another generation having to go to war.

BUT ...

That is the ideal, fanciful world, I guess, and here my old friend that I talk about would openly mock and deride the world wars as wars to end anything at all, as they were touted and advertised to be.

To the contrary, Gabrielle, for us, it is about returning home and getting beyond those experiences, and becoming a productive citizen; which you, through your own work with veterans, seem to know something about, and that makes you a part of this "dialogue", however removed from it you choose to be at any given time, for your own reasons.

But sometimes, Gabrielle, citizenship places demands on us as people, and well, then the conversation sometimes has to deal with where we are, as opposed to where we would really want to be, and that is why we have "Mr. A.B.'s Corner", with your wonderful stove, to counter-balance this thread, and its occasional "harshness".

I guess in a lot of ways, this is where we come or go to "do our work" when we are not over there next to the stove in Mr. A.B.'s Corner, relaxing our minds, and "taking a load off", for a moment, anyway.

I will say, Gabrielle, that your words do provide a "perspective" in here that is valuable to have, just as jeffmoskin's do, because neither you nor he "went to war", and so, your viewpoint comes from a totally different place than mine, or Mr. A.B.'s, and you don't know how important that is for me and all of us here in OUR America to have.

I work with a psychologist WHO IS NOT A VETERAN, at all, although he is associated with the V.A., and I am always telling him that his greatest strength as a psychologist working with combat veterans is that HE IS NOT ONE OF THEM!

I met this man when he was younger, and just out of school, and his worry in those days was that as a non-veteran, he would not be able to "relate" to us, since he knew nothing of combat.

My answer was that what in hell would I want someone who knew about combat to be talking to!

I already knew more than I ever wanted to know about that, and the last thing I needed was to be stuck in a room with somebody else like me.

I wanted someone who knew about life OUTSIDE of combat, BECAUSE WE WERE TRYING TO GET BACK TO SOMETHING, not stay stuck in something!

And now, he understands!

And I think you do, as well, Gabrielle!

SO!

Make up your own mind, of course, as to what you will do in the future, but please, do not leave because you think you might have offended me or let me down, because, IT JUST NEVER HAPPENED THAT WAY, and I think I might be one of the first to know!

Well, I have rolled out of bed, I am having my coffee, and after making my last post, to Gabrielle, I have now come to this one, by Mr. A.B., and well, I think, Mr. A.B. that we are on the same page here, so how about that!

And all I can say, one more time, Gabrielle, is that IF it really is to be OUR America, then the word "OURS" has to be an all-inclusive term, or not at all, and there is the heart of the matter facing all of us today, this division that exists right now in OUR America that only seems to be getting worse, instead of better, which is why the intensity of the conversation in here might seem to be increasing.

Gabrielle, ALL each of us knows, is what we know, which in the end, is really pretty limited, so that if someone like you, with your own unique view on life, were to be left out, or excluded, then something that could have been bigger and better is, well, somehow just kind of smaller, and therefore diminshed, because of that.

And here I am going to "recommend" a book that keeps coming to mind when you come in here, Gabrielle, and it is a book maybe everyone in America should read, for the "mountain values" that are in there, possessed by an old woman of the mountains who just could be your own grandmother, and that book is entitled "Wish You Well".

I can't recall the author right now, but he was not an unknown, and with the name of the title, the book can likely be tracked down easily enough, as it is only a few years old, and it has a lot of things to "think on" packed into, as it really shows some of the "conflicts" between values and "cultures" that are actually facing us right now, here in OUR America, that cause it to be otherwise, which mean that it is not OURS at all, which is why we have this thread, to bring it back to being, "OURS"!

And if I was going to try and summarize what this particular thread was really all about, well, I don't think I could have said it any better than Gabrielle has done, above here, and so, I am not even going to try!

I'll just borrow her words and repeat them as if they were mine, which we can do in here, as it saves a lot of time sometimes to simply say, "ME, TOO; I'm with her on this one!"

CAN WE HIDE?

SHOULD WE HIDE?

AND ....

What happens to everything that we hold near and dear, IF WE DO?

Certainly, the thought of hiding away, not having to "face reality", does have a certain degree of comfort to it, on first glance, maybe, BUT .....

DOES IT?

In Viet Nam, one night, we, that being me, and a helicopter crew that I was assigned to as an aerial sniper, got an emergency call to proceed to such-and-such grid coordinates, that a "fire fight" was in progress, there were casualties, and another helicopter sent in to give assistance had just been shot down, and so ....

Off we went, just like the "Light Brigade" in the poem or story from somewhere in my school days, and the rest of course, is simply history.

The point is that sometimes, LIFE MAKES DEMANDS on us, rather than we making demands on it, and then, WHAT DO WE DO?

As for me, that answer then and now, is really quite simple: WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE!

And there is where it starts to get complicated, doesn't it?

Then, of course, for me, it actually was quite simple; there were people wounded and in trouble, and I was not, so .....

Now, it is more complex, because we are talking about citizenship, and values, and a nation and the world, and, and and .....

BUT .....

If we hide away, and wait for it to be over, WILL IT EVER BE?

I, for one, don't think so, and hence, this thread!

LIFE, in OUR AMERICA!

For richer, for poorer, for better, for worse ......

by David Baldacci

here is Amazon link:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detai...=glance&s=books

This post, perhaps your best (and there are so many it is hard to pick just one) brought tears to my eyes.

We have always wondered, we who have never experienced the horror of war, and war is nothing if not horror, why the "Greatest Generation" came home, bought a house in the burbs, raised a family, and NEVER SPOKE A WORD about the war.

Now I understand. Thanks to you.

It reminded me of a similar situation with survivors of The Holocost. They married, had kids, went on with their lives. NEVER TALKED ABOUT THE CONCENTRATION CAMPS. They would have taken those stories to their graves were it not for one Steven Spielberg (yes, that one) who started "the Shoah Project"

He rounded up as many survivors as he could, rolled the cameras, and let them tell their stories. Thousands, no tens of thousands of stories are thus preserved, never to be lost to the grave. And yet, these survivors told their stories with the understanding that they would not be around when those stories would be heard.

I think this might be a good idea for soldiers, too, Livyjr and Mr A.B.

Livyjr, A.B.,
I'm very relieved to hear all is well. Seems I may have suffered a bout of loss of confidence. Thank you for continuing to be yourselves. For continuing to be supportive.

I like how you put this Livyjr. Life does make demands on us and sometimes it gets tricky. Sometimes hiding away does seem like a good idea although it usually is not.

A few days ago I started painting my house not realizing what a HUGE JOB this is! That's why my posts are lagging. I thought of you guys ALL DAY yesterday. I will post more later. Got to get back to work while the light is still good. Was painting in the half dark last night and boy can you tell in the morning!

And here, before I get into anything else, I want to post this following story, and then talk about it for a few moments, from my perspective as a combat veteran, and what I think some of this story's impacts might be on us, THE CITIZEN POLITY, or "BODY POLITIC", here in OUR America, but before I do that, I want to relate a story I heard on ABC Radio News this morning concerning an order, or DIRECTIVE, or MANIFESTO issued by George W. Bush, allegedly, which allegedly directs the CIA to take people to SYRIA, so that the CIA can then torture them, there, where torture is allegedly both a legal as well as, an on-going practice, which George W. Bush has apparently chosen to capitalize on, so that he can allegedly have his own "enemies" tortured; perhaps for nothing more than "SPORT"!

SYRIA!

NOW?

Where, oh where, have we heard the name "SYRIA" before?

And in connection with what?

Human rights violations, wasn't it?

Isn't the Bush Co. making a real big noise about HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS in SYRIA, these days, likely to deflect attention from what it, the BUSH CO. REGIME, is doing in Iraq?

And now, it turns out that the Bush Co. allegedly is using those human rights violations alleged to be on-going in SYRIA as an excuse to have the CIA bring other people there so they can be tortured as well.

Plus Egypt, but the Bush Co. isn't making noise about Egypt; only about SYRIA.

What absolute and transparent hypocrisy!

DE-MOCKERY is George W. Bush!

International News

Francesco Toiati / AP

The coffin of Italian security agent Nicola Calipari is carried Sunday inside the Vittoriano Tomb of the Unknown Soldier monument in Rome, where it will lie in state. Calipari died when U.S. troops opened fire on the car he was traveling in with the freed Italian hostage Giuliana Sgrena.

March 6: The Italian journalist held captive in Iraq, then shot by U.S. forces after her release, tells her side of the story.

"Wounded Italian reporter recalls ordeal - Sgrena sharply disputes U.S. version of events"

The Associated Press
Updated: 11:52 a.m. ET March 6, 2005

ROME - The Italian journalist wounded by American troops in Iraq after her release by insurgents rejected the U.S. military’s account of the shooting and declined Sunday to rule out the possibility she was deliberately targeted.

The White House said it was a “horrific accident” and promised a full investigation.

Meanwhile, an autopsy performed on the agent who died trying to save Giuliana Sgrena reportedly showed he was struck in the temple by a single round and died instantly as the car carrying Sgrena sped to the Baghdad airport.

Friday’s shooting that wounded the 56-year-old journalist and killed Italian intelligence officer Nicola Calipari as they were celebrating her freedom has fueled anti-American sentiment in a country where people are deeply opposed to U.S. policy in Iraq.

Italian reaction

But government officials indicated the shootings would not affect the decision by Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi — a strong U.S. ally — to maintain 3,000 troops in Iraq to help secure peace in the country.

“The military mission must carry on because it consolidates democracy and liberty in Iraq,” Communications Minister Maurizio Gasparri was quoted as saying by the ANSA news agency.

“On the other hand, we must control — but not block — the presence of civilians and journalists, who must observe rules and behavior to reduce the risks.”

Sgrena, who works for the communist daily Il Manifesto, did not rule out that she was targeted, saying the United States likely disapproved of Italy’s methods to secure her release, although she did not elaborate.

“The fact that the Americans don’t want negotiations to free the hostages is known,” Sgrena told Sky TG24 television by telephone, her voice hoarse and shaky.

“The fact that they do everything to prevent the adoption of this practice to save the lives of people held hostages, everybody knows that."

"So I don’t see why I should rule out that I could have been the target.”

Italian officials have not provided details about the negotiations leading to Sgrena’s release Friday after a month in captivity, but Agriculture Minister Giovanni Alemanno was quoted as saying it was “very likely” a ransom was paid.

U.S. officials object to ransoms, saying it encourages further kidnappings.

White House counselor Dan Bartlett said Sunday the shootings were a “horrific accident” and pointed out that President Bush had called Berlusconi to offer condolences and promise a full investigation.

“As you know, in a situation where there is a live combat zone, particularly this road to the airport, has been a notorious area for car bombs, that people are making split-second decisions, and it’s critically important that we get the facts before we make judgments,” Bartlett said on CNN’s “Late Edition.”

The U.S. military has said the car Sgrena was riding in was speeding, and Americans used hand and arm signals, flashing white lights and warning shots to get it to stop at the roadblock.

But in an interview with Italian La 7 TV, Sgrena said, “There was no bright light, no signal.”

She also said the car was traveling at “regular speed.”

Sgrena also recalled how Calipari, who led negotiations for her release, died after throwing himself over her when the shooting broke out as they were celebrating her freedom on the way to the airport.

'I felt his last breath'

“I remember only fire,” she wrote in Il Manifesto, which fiercely opposed the war in Iraq.

“At that point a rain of fire and bullets came at us, forever silencing the happy voices from a few minutes earlier.”

Sgrena said the driver began shouting that they were Italian, then “Nicola Calipari dove on top of me to protect me and immediately, and I mean immediately, I felt his last breath as he died on me.”

Suddenly, she said, she remembered her captors’ words, when they warned her “to be careful because the Americans don’t want you to return.”

Sgrena wrote that her captors warned her as she was about to be released not to signal her presence to anyone, because “the Americans might intervene.”

She said her captors blindfolded her and drove her to a location where she was turned over to agents and they set off for the airport.

'Aggressive' investigation promised

Calipari’s body was returned to Italy late Saturday, and Berlusconi and President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi joined Calipari’s wife, mother and two children at Rome’s Ciampino Airport to receive it.

An autopsy was performed Sunday, and ANSA quoted doctors as saying Calipari was struck in the temple by a single round and died instantly.

The body lay in state at Rome’s Vittoriano monument and a state funeral was planned for Monday.

Calipari was to be awarded the gold medal of valor for his heroism.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld called Italy’s defense minister, Antonio Martino, “to express the sorrow of the American administration, and his own personal sorrow for the death of Nicola Calipari,” Italy’s Defense Ministry said in a statement.

The U.S. military has promised an “aggressive” investigation.

Italian military officials said two other agents were wounded, but U.S. officials said it was only one.

Iraqi politician Younadem Kana told Belgian state TV Saturday evening that he had “nonofficial” information that a $1 million ransom was paid for Sgrena’s release, the Apcom news agency reported from Brussels.

The report could not be confirmed.

Sgrena told Sky TG24 she had no intention of returning to Iraq.

Her captors, she said, made it clear that “they do not want witnesses and we are all perceived as possible spies.”

Sgrena was abducted Feb. 4 by gunmen who blocked her car outside Baghdad University.

She was later shown in a video pleading for her life and demanding that all foreign troops — including Italian forces — leave Iraq.

I first heard this story the other day, and I didn't do a thing with it right away, due to the press of other things that were going on at the time, BUT ..

Most certainly, I caught the news, and it set me to wondering .......

WHAT, exactly, is going on, over in Iraq, and WHY ARE WE THERE, COMMITTING APPARENT MURDERS?

WHAT IS GOING ON, HERE?

What policy is this that has OUR military murdering people in IRAQ, WITH IMPUNITY?

WHAT HAS GEORGE W. BUSH UNLEASHED ON THE WORLD?

For, make no mistake about it, GEORGE W. BUSH IS THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, and so, this blood is on his hands, IF this is HIS policy being carried out, which it certainly appears to be!

AND FOR WHAT?

Somebody please tell me, for I really want to know!

WHY ARE AMERICAN MILITARY TROOPS MURDERING PEOPLE IN IRAQ?

WHAT HAS GEORGE W. BUSH UNLEASHED ON THE WORLD?

WHAT EVIL DOES THIS MAN DO?

AND WHY?

What follows here is the first of series of letters written by John Dickinson in 1767-8.

In them, he attacks British policy towards the American colonies.

Nine years later, based in part on this series of letters, the Declaration of Independence was signed, and the words above by Thomas Paine were penned, AND NOW WE ARE HERE!

And but for the difference in time between when this letter was actually written, and now, some 238 years, this letter in many ways could be one that was being by one of us in OUR America today!

I post it to show from whence we have come, as American citizens, from those times to these that we are now in, and especially, from whence has come this thing of "LIBERTY" that we do talk of in here, these days.

It is said that those who fail to learn from history are destined to experience its pitfalls, over and over, and these days, with the tyrant George W. Bush in power in OUR world, I wonder if that will be us.

Read on and form you own opinions, then:

My DEAR COUNTRYMEN,

I am a farmer, settled after a variety of fortunes near the banks of the river Delaware, in the province of Pennsylvania.

I received a liberal education and have been engaged in the busy scenes of life, but am now convinced, that a man may be as happy without bustle as with it.

My farm is small, my servants are few and good, I have a little money at interest, I wish for no more, my employment in my own affairs is easy, and with a contented, grateful mind, undisturbed by worldly hopes or fears relating to myself, I am completing the number of days allotted to me by divine goodness.

Being generally master of my time, I spend a good deal of it in a library, which I think the most valuable part of my small estate; and being acquainted with two or three gentlemen of abilities and learning who honour me with their friendship, I have acquired, I believe, a greater knowledge in history and the laws and constitution of my country, than is generally attained by men of my class, many of them not being so fortunate as I have been in the opportunities of getting information.

From my infancy I was taught to love humanity and liberty.

Enquiry and experience have since confirmed my reverence for the lessons then given me, by convincing me more fully of, their truth and excellence.

Benevolence towards mankind excites wishes for their welfare, and such wishes endear the means of fulfilling them.

These can be found in liberty only, and therefore her sacred cause ought to be espoused by every man on every occasion, to the utmost of his power.

As a charitable but poor person does not withhold his mite because he cannot relieve all the distresses of the miserable, so should not any honest man suppress his sentiments concerning freedom, however small their influence is likely to be.

Perhaps he may touch some wheel that will have an effect greater than he could reasonably expect.

These being my sentiments, I am encouraged to offer to you, my countrymen, my thoughts on some late transactions that appear to me to be of the utmost importance to you.

Conscious of my own defects, I have waited some time, in expectation of seeing the subject treated by persons much better qualified for the task; but being therein disappointed, and apprehensive that longer delays will be injurious, I venture at length to request the attention of the public, praying that these lines may be read with the same zeal for the happiness of British America, with which they were wrote.

With a good deal of surprize I have observed that little notice has been taken of an Act of Parliament, as injurious in its principle to the liberties of these colonies, as the Stamp Act was: I mean the act for suspending the legislation of New York.

[N.B. This refers to the Quartering Act of 1765 (5 Geo. III, C. 33) which required colonial local authorities to provide the king's troops with barracks or billets, and to furnish them gratis with candles, firing, bedding, cooking utensils, salt and vinegar, and five pints of small beer or cider, or a gill of rum per man, per diem.

The New York Assembly, on 3 July 1766, voted to fulfil all these requirements, save the salt, vinegar, and liquor, for about eleven hundred men.

This was deemed insufficient by the Lords of Trade, and, as the Assembly refused to incur an additional "ruinous and insupportable" expense, Parliament, by 7 Geo.III, c. 59, declared all Acts, &c., of the New York Assembly to be null and void until it should comply in full with the Quartering Act.

The Assembly of 1769 gave in.]

The Assembly of that Government complied with a former Act of Parliament, requiring certain provisions to be made for the troops in America, in every particular, I think, except the articles of salt, pepper, and vinegar.

In my opinion they acted imprudently, considering all circumstances, in not complying so far as would have given satisfaction, as several colonies did.

But my dislike of their conduct in that instance has not blinded me so much that I cannot Plainly perceive that they have been punished in a manner pernicious to American freedom, and justly alarming to all the colonies.

If the British Parliament has a legal authority to issue an order that we shall furnish a single article for the troops here, and to compel obedience to that order, they have the same right to issue an order for us to supply those troops with arms, cloths, and every necessary; and to compel obedience to that order also; in short, to lay any burthens they please upon us.

What is this but taxing us at a certain sum, and leaving to us only the manner of raising it?

How is this mode more tolerable than the Stamp Act?

Would that Act have appeared more pleasing to Americans, if being ordered thereby to raise the sum total of the taxes, the mighty privilege had been left to them, of saying how much should be paid for an instrument of writing on paper, and how much for another on parchment?

An Act of Parliament commanding us to do a certain thing, if it has any validity, is a tax upon us for the expence that accrues in complying with it; and for this reason, I believe, every colony on the continent, that chose to give a mark of their respect for Great Britain in complying with the Act relating to the troops, cautiously avoided the mention of that Act, lest their conduct should be attributed to its supposed obligation.

The matter being thus stated, the Assembly of New York either had, or had not a right to refuse submission to that Act.

If they had, and I imagine no American will say they had not, then the Parliament had no right to compel them to execute it.

If they had not that right they had no right to punish them for not executing it; and therefore no right to attempts as a mutual inattention to the interests of each other.

To divide and thus to destroy is the first political maxim in attacking those who are powerful by their union.

He certainly is not a wise man who folds his arms and reposes himself at home, viewing with unconcern the flames that have invaded his neighbour's house, without using any endeavours to extinguish them.

When Mr. Hampden's ship money cause for three shillings and fourpence was tried, all the people of England, with anxious expectations, interested themselves in the important decision; and when the slightest point touching the freedom of one colony is agitated, I earnestly wish that all the rest may with equal ardour support their sister.

Very much may be said on this subject; but I hope more at present is unnecessary.

With concern I have observed that two Assemblies of this Province have sat and adjourned, without taking any notice of this Act.

It may perhaps be asked, what would have been proper for them to do?

I am by no means fond of inflammatory measures; I detest them.

I should be sorry that any thing should be done which might justly displease our sovereign or our mother country.

But a firm, modest exertion of a free spirit should never be wanting on public occasions.

It appears to me that it would have been sufficient for the Assembly to have ordered our agents to represent to the King's ministers, their sense of the Suspending Act, and to pray for its repeal.

Thus we should have borne our testimony against it; and might therefore reasonably expect that, on a like occasion, we might receive the same assistance from the other colonies

Concordia res parva cres"expletive deleted".
Small things grow great by concord.

A FARMER.

And before my next "discussion", I want to post this second post with respect to where OUR concept of "LIBERTY" in OUR America has come from:

Cato's Letters
Cato's Letters in the news

http://www.worldhistory.com/wiki/C/Cato's-Letters.htm

The essays called Cato's Letters were written by two Englishmen, concealing their identities with the honored ancient Roman name of Cato.

They are considered a seminal work in the tradition of the Commonwealthmen.

Later their identities were revealed as John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon.

Their 144 essays were published from 1720 to 1723, originally in the London Journal, later in the British Journal.

These newspaper essays condemning tyranny and advancing principles of freedom of conscience and freedom of speech, were a main vehicle for spreading the concepts that had been developed by John Locke.

The Letters were collected and printed as Essays on Liberty, Civil and Religious.

A measure of their influence is attested by six editions printed by 1755.

A generation later their arguments immensely influenced American colonists, where it is estimated that half the private libraries in the American Colonies held bound volumes of Cato's Letters on their shelves.

The prototypical 'Cato' was Cato the Younger (95 - 46 BC), the implacable foe of Julius Caesar and a famously stubborn champion of republican principles.

SO!

1720!

And what is that, now, some 265 years ago, that these two Englishmen, the so-called "Commonwealthmen", or maybe even "radical Whigs", wrote this series of essays, much in a manner similar to that which is occurring in here, in this Forum; a series of essays ON THE ROOTS AND ORIGINS OF OUR PRESENT-DAY LIBERTIES, that were to figure so prominently in the events surrounding OUR break from tyrannical England in 1776 which leads us right on down to OUR present times, where the subject under discussion once again in OUR America is OUR LIBERTY, and whether George W. Bush can act in any way against us to curtail that LIBERTY, or to remove it from us completely, as he argues he can do in this case where he has had this American citizen held for some years now in a Navy Brig on no charges whatsoever, OTHER THAN GEORGE W. BUSH WANTS IT TO BE SO!

In another thread, "Mr. A.B.'s Corner" to be exact, Callicles talks of learning about the Constitution of OUR America in one of his school classes, and he remarks how dry the history of that document was, when taught to him in the manner that it was, where he went to school, which I believe was in the mid-west, which was not really involved in what occurred during the American Revolution, as areas west of say, Pittsburgh, were not to become settled and part of the United States for some time after the American Revolution!

Because of that, I think for many people west of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, the subject of Revolutionary American History is somewhat of a different subject, in terms of living history, than it is to ME, who lives right in the heart of where a lot of it actually took place, including where the Acts of the New York State legislature were actually suspended by the English Parliament, in what was called the "Suspending Act" in the Farmer's Letter, above.

I am where the strains of "Yankee Doodle" were first heard in OUR America, being shrilled on fifes, to muster the Continental troops on the banks of Hudson's River, near Fort Crailo in present-day Rensselaer, New York.

I grew up, from my earliest years, with Cato's letters, and the Suspending Act, and the Farmer's Letters, as very real things, living things, IN MY OWN AMERICAN HERITAGE, and, I presumed, perhaps wrongfully, in the heritage of every American, which just might not be so, BECAUSE of regional differences in what history actually occurred, here and there in OUR America, which then leads to regional differences in how local history is taught in OUR America, which is as a result of OUR America being such a big place, with so many different versions of what "local history" is really all about!

Which all serves to raise some questions here:

Where does LIBERTY come from, and HOW LONG has the concept of LIBERTY been a part of OUR political heritage?

Forever, I would say, or certainly as far back as 1720, when the "Commonwealthmen" were writing "Cato's Letters"!

SO!

What does any of this mean, to any of us?

Well, to me, it is OUR political heritage, for one, that is at stake here, especially right now, where George W. Bush and his pack of Republicans appear to be dead-set on greatly altering OUR traditional form of government in a manner which suits him and them gaining and holding much more power over us, than OUR Constitution affords him the right to do, as was just pointed out once more again to him, and his, by a Federal District Court Justice in a post which I made in here a few days back!

More and more, people are noticing a similar thing to what I am noticing; that under George W. Bush, we have actually cycled right back to the time of OUR nation's own founding, where tyranny was rampant, and where LIBERTY, traditional LIBERTY, was at stake, as it is again, right now, as I am writing these words, here in OUR America.

And it seems that in ALL OF OUR CONGRESS, which is supposed to be representing OUR interests, and not those of a small and exclusive group that constitutes the core of the Republican Party, ONLY ONE OLD MAN IN OUR CONGRESS, Senator Robert Byrd, seems to have any inkling at all of what is going on with this Bush Co. regime, and the absolute threat that this Bush Co. regime represents TO OUR TRADITIONAL LIBERTIES!

ONE OLD MAN!

And then, of course, there is us!

Hence, this thread!

Life, in OUR America!

And how much longer will it be, before it no longer is?

Stay tuned!

Developments as they happen!

Live!

Here in OUR America!

CATO'S LETTERS

http://www.skidmore.edu/~tkuroda/gh322/onl322.htm

No. 15 Of Freedom of Speech: That the same is inseparable from Publick Liberty

SIR, Without Freedom of Thought, there can be no such Thing as Wisdom!

And no such Thing as publick Liberty, without Freedom of Speech!

Which is the Right of every Man, as far as by it he does not hurt and controul the Right of another; and this is the only Check which it ought to suffer, the only Bounds which it ought to know.

This sacred Privilege is so essential to free Government, that the Security of Property; and the Freedom of Speech, always go together; and in those wretched Countries where a Man cannot call his Tongue his own, he can scarce call any Thing else his own.

Whoever would overthrow the Liberty of the Nation, must begin by subduing the Freedom of Speech; a Thing terrible to publick Traytors.

This Secret was so well known to the Court of King Charles I that his wicked Ministry procured a Proclamation to forbid the People to talk of Parliaments, which those Traytors had laid aside.

To assert the undoubted Right of the Subject, and defend his Majesty's Legal Prerogative, was called Disaffection, and punished as Sedition.

Nay, people were forbid to talk of Religion in their Families: For the Priests had combined with the Ministers to cook up Tyranny, and suppress Truth and the Law.

While the late King James, when Duke of York, went avowedly to Mass; Men were fined, imprisoned, and undone, for saying that he was a Papist: And, that King Charles II, might live more securely a Papist, there was an Act of Parliament made, declaring it Treason to say that he was one.

That Men ought to speak well of their Governors is true, while their Governors deserve to be well spoken of; but to do publick Mischief, without hearing of it, is only the Prerogative and Felicity of Tyranny!

A free People will be shewing that they are so, by their Freedom of Speech.

The Administration of Government is nothing else, but the Attendance of the Trustees of the People upon the Interest and Affairs of the People.

And as it is the Part and Business of the People, for whose Sake alone all publick Matters are, or ought to be, transacted, to see whether they be well or ill transacted; so it is the Interest, and ought to be the Ambition, of all honest Magistrates, to have their Deeds openly examined, and publickly scanned:

Only the wicked Governors of Men dread what is said of them; ....

Freedom of Speech is ever the Symptom, as well as the Effect, of good Government.

In old Rome, all was left to the Judgment and Pleasure of the People; who examined the publick Proceedings with such Discretion, and censured those who administered them with such Equity and Mildness, that in the Space of Three Hundred Years, not Five publick Ministers suffered unjustly.

Indeed, whenever the Commons proceeded to Violence, the Great Ones had been the Aggressors ....

The best Princes have ever encouraged and promoted Freedom of Speech; they knew that upright Measures would defend themselves, and that all upright Men would defend them.

Tacitus, speaking of the Reign of some of the Princes above mention'd, says with Extasy, Rara temporum felicitate, ubi sentire quae velis, & quae sentias dicere liceat:

A blessed Time, when you might think what you would, and speak what you thought! ...

I doubt not but old Spencer and his Son, who were the chief Ministers and Betrayers of Edward II would have been very glad to have stopped the Mouths of all the honest Men in England.

They dreaded to be called Traytors, because they were Traytors.

And I dare say, Queen Elizabeth's Walsingham, who deserved no Reproaches, feared none.

Misrepresentation of public Measures is easily overthrown by representing publick Measures truly!

When they are honest, they ought to be publickly known, that they may be publickly commended!

But if they be knavish or pernicious, they ought to be publickly exposed, in order to be publickly detested.

To assert, that King James was a Papist and a Tyrant, was only so far hurtful to him, as it was true of him; and if the Earl of Stafford had not deserved to be impeached, he need not have feared a Bill of Attainder.

If our Directors and their Confederates be not such Knaves as the World thinks then, let them prove to all the world, that the World thinks wrong, and that they are guilty of none of those Villainies which all the World lays to their Charge.

Others too, who would be thought to have no Part of their Guilt, must, before they are thought innocent, shew that they did all that was in their Power to prevent that Guilt, and to check their Proceedings.

Freedom of Speech is the great Bulwark of Liberty; they prosper and die together: And it is the Terror of Traytors and Oppressors, and a barrier against them.

It produces excellent Writers, and encourages Men of fine Genius.

Tacitus tells us, that the Roman Commonwealth bred great and numerous Authors, who writ with equal Boldness and Eloquence:

But when it was enslaved, those great Wits were no more. - ....

Tyranny had usurped the Place of Equality, which is the Soul of Liberty, and destroyed publick Courage.

The Minds of Men, terrified by unjust Power, degenerated into all the Vilenes[s] and Methods of Servitude:

Abject Sycophancy and blind Submission grew the only means of Preferment, and indeed of Safety;

Men durst not open their Mouths, but to flatter ....

All Ministers, therefore, who were Oppressors, or intended to be Oppressors, have been loud in their Complaints against Freedom of Speech, and the License of the Press; and always restrained, or endeavoured to restrain, both.

In consequence of this, they have brow-beaten Writers, punished them violently, and against Law, and burnt their Works.

By all which they shewed how much Truth alarmed them, and how much they were at Enmity with Truth.

There is a famous instance of this in Tacitus.

He tells us, that Cremutius Cordus, having in his Annals praised Brutus and Cassius, gave Offence to Sejanus, First Minister, and to some inferior Sycophants in the Court of Tiberius; who, conscious of their own Characters, took the Praise bestowed on every worthy Roman, to be so many Reproaches pointed at themselves:

They therefore complain of the Book to the Senate; which, being now only the Machine of Tyranny, condemned it to be burnt.

But this did not prevent its spreading. - Libros cremandos censuere Patres; sed manserunt occutati & editi:

Being censured, it was the more sought after.

From hence, says Tacitus, we may wonder at the Stupidity of those Statesmen, who hope to extinguish, by the Terror of their Power, the Memory of their Actions; for quite otherwise, the Punishment of good Writers gains Credit to their Writings:

Nam contra, punitis ingeniis, gliscit auctoritas.

Nor did ever any Government, who practised impolitick Severity, get any thing by it, but Infamy to themselves, and Renown to those who suffered under it.

This also is an Observation of Tacitus: ....

Freedom of Speech, therefore, being of such infinite Importance to the Preservation of Liberty, every one who loves Liberty ought to encourage Freedom of Speech.

Hence it is that I, living in a country of Liberty, and under the best Prince upon Earth, shall take this very favourable Opportunity of serving Mankind, by warning them of the hideous Mischiefs that they will suffer, if every corrupt and wicked Men shall hereafter get Possession of any State, and the Power of betraying their Master ....

Valerius Maximus tells us, that Lentulus Marcellinus, the Roman Consul, having complained, in a popular Assembly, of the overgrown Power of Pompey; the whole People answered him with a Shout of Approbation: Upon which the Consul told them, Shout on, Gentlemen, shout on, and use those bold Signs of Liberty while you may; for I do not know long they will be allowed you.

God be thanked, we Englishmen have neither lost our Liberties, nor are in Danger of losing them.

Let us always cherish this matchless Blessing, almost peculiar to ourselves; that our Posterity may, many Ages hence, ascribe their Freedom to our Zeal.

The Defence of Liberty is a noble, a heavenly Office; which can only be performed where Liberty is:

For, as the same Valerius Maximus observes, Quid ergo Libertas sine Catone?

Non magnis quam Cato sine Libertate.

February 4, 1720

1. George W. Bush is there to control the oil. And to kill anyone who intereferes with that mission.

2. Refer to item #1.

As for me, Gabrielle, I was taught from my very earliest days that they always likely were so, incestuously linked, that is, and right on back at least to the days of Rome, itself, so that they always likely WOULD BE SO, and that it was MY DUTY as an American citizen to act, and responsibly, and knowledgably, so as to have it NOT BE SO, in my lifetime, at which time, the time of my passing, whenever that was to be, then it would be the responsibility of the succeeding generation, who my generation had an obligation to, in terms of teaching by way of example, just as the generation before me, had a responsibility to me, to make sure that I knew not only what liberty was, but where it came from, and how, and why, and that it was my responsibility as an American citizen to do my own utmost to preserve it, for those succeeding generations which were to come after me and mine!

The price of liberty is eternal vigilence, indeed; and "eternal" is actually quite a bit longer than five or ten minutes!

"DO NOT ASK WHAT YOUR COUNTRY CAN DO FOR YOU!"

"Ask, rather, what you can do for your country!"

Words of President John F. Kennedy which I heard with my own ears, and words which never had to be explained, to me, at least, because in some form or other, I had been hearing similar all of my life, short as it may have been at that time!

Responsibility!

Each of us was to have it, in equal measure, and none of us were to shirk it, which of course, I believed in, but naively so, perhaps, as Cato's Letters bring out above!

It is OUR tendency, as human beings, to think good of OUR neighbors, until such time as they no longer deserve such good thoughts, and it is OUR further nature to think that such a time will never come, and if we are blessed in OUR neighbors, such will be the case.

BUT .....

It always goes back to POWER!

And as a child, you are already observing that, as you observe the people around you, and their relationships with each other, in your presence.

POWER will always act, and it always does, or attempts to, usurp the perogatives of LIBERTY!

Power, to grow, must extinguish liberty as it does, and hence, we have OUR American Constitutional concept of "separation of powers", with its emphasis on "checks and balances", which, of course, IS OURS TO ENFORCE, on OUR government, 24/7!

That is why the image of that pot-bellied stove and those men around it over in "A.B.'s Corner" is such a powerful metaphor to older Americans like me, because as a boy, I was first exposed to AMERICAN politics, by the old men who sat around such stoves and discussed life, here in OUR America.

When I was young, and likely you as well, Gabrielle, the "old folks" sitting around those public stoves dated back to the late-1800's, and the time before radio, or television or phones, and so, to me, anyway, their minds had been developed in a manner much different than that of people of today, and I always think that made them in many ways "sharper" than people of today really are, where so much of our "thinking" is done for us by machines, such as these computers, and of course, the ubiquitous television, which is to me almost a running sewer anymore that I refuse to have "outfall" into the sanctity of my home, to possibly pollute it forever with the hateful and baleful "bad energy" that lurks therein in such large measure these days in OUR America.

We like to complement ourselves on being so educated today, especially the young generations, but I wonder, are we really, especially when compared to the authors of Cato's Letters, the "Commonwealthmen" who were in some large part the source of OUR notions of liberty in this nation at the time of its founding!

We don't seem to have "original" political thought these days!

Instead, it seems more pandering to special interests, and the mass of the "body politic" seems to not care!

Hence we have the continuing recurrence of this phenomena that you ask about above, which is not at all new, this linkage of our government/corporate "elites" that seems and often is, quite crooked, as it has been since the days of Rome!

And who is to blame when it occurs?

I for one, would say that we are!

YES!

In a Republic such as OURS is, where the government is representative of the people, corruption in government would seem to have to be a reflection of corruption in the body politic itself, and so, we have only ourselves to blame, for what we have, in terms of this incestuous relationship that you ask about, above.

Those are my thoughts, anyway, on the subject, for what they are worth.

And is that ever getting to be more and more apparent, with each day that passes, and each new revelation about the abuses of power of this despotic, tyrannical regime that comes to light each day, such as this double-standard with respect to SYRIA, where George W. Bush and Condomenleeza Rice publicly berate them for alleged human rights violations, but privately appear to rely upon them, because of these same human rights violations, as a safe haven for George W. Bush to be able to openly torture his political enemies, which one day soon, just might be all of us in here, if he continues to have his way with the continued repression and revocation of liberty here in this America of OURS, and this world, as well!

Time to start a RECALL GEORGE W. BUSH campaign, here in OUR America, as was the case with getting Millhouse "Tricky Dick" Nixxon and Spiro "Spiggy" Agnew and John Mitchell and that crowd out of office back in the "Watergate Scandal" days!

RECALL GEORGE W. BUSH!

He is un-American, un-patriotic, and a grave danger to OUR American way of life!

Pass it on!

"Officials defend shadowy program - Bush administration says safeguards are in place to prevent torture of terror suspects sent to foreign prisons by CIA, but ex-detainees say they were brutalized; rights groups concerned"

By DOUGLAS JEHL and DAVID JOHNSTON, New York Times
First published: Sunday, March 6, 2005

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration's secret program to transfer scores of suspected terrorists to foreign countries to be imprisoned and interrogated has been carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency, under broad authority that has allowed the agency to act without case-by-case approval from the White House or the State or Justice departments, according to current and former government officials.

The unusually expansive authority for the CIA to operate independently since the September 2001 attacks was provided by the White House under a still-classified directive signed by President Bush within days of the attacks at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the officials said.

The process, known as rendition, has been central in the government's efforts to disrupt terrorism, but has been bitterly criticized by human rights groups on grounds that the practice has violated the Bush administration's public pledge to provide safeguards against torture.

In providing a detailed description of the program, a senior U.S. official said it had been aimed only at those suspected of having knowledge of terrorist operations, and emphasized that the CIA has gone to great lengths to ensure that they are detained under humane conditions and not subjected to torture.

The official would not discuss any legal directive under which the agency operates, but said that the "CIA has existing authorities to lawfully conduct these operations."

The official declined to be named but agreed to discuss the program to rebut the assertions that the United States uses the program to secretly send people to other countries for the purpose of torture.

The transfers were portrayed as an alternative to what American officials have said is the costly, manpower-intensive process of housing them in the United States or in American-run facilities in other countries.

In recent weeks, several former detainees have described being subjected to coercive interrogation techniques and brutal treatment during months spent in detention under the program in Egypt and other countries.

The official would not discuss specific cases, but did not dispute that there had been instances in which prisoners were mistreated.

The official said none had died.

The official said the CIA's inspector general was reviewing the rendition program as one of at least a half-dozen inquiries under way within the agency of possible misconduct involving the detention, interrogation and rendition of suspected terrorists.

In public, the Bush administration has refused to confirm that the rendition program exists, saying only in response to questions about it that the United States did not hand over people to face torture.

The official refused to say how many prisoners had been transferred as part of the program.

But former government officials say that the CIA has flown 100 to 150 suspected terrorists to other countries since the Sept. 11 attacks, including Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Pakistan.

Each of those countries has been identified by the State Department as habitually using torture in its prisons.

But the official said that guidelines enforced within the CIA require that no transfer take place before the receiving country provides assurances that the prisoner will be treated humanely, and that U.S. personnel are assigned to monitor compliance with those promises.

"We get assurances, we check on those assurances, and we double-check on these assurances to make sure that people are being handled properly in respect to human rights," the official said.

The official said that compliance had been "very high" but added, "Nothing is 100 percent unless we're sitting there staring at them 24 hours a day."

It has long been known that the CIA has held a small group of high-ranking al-Qaida leaders in secret sites overseas, and that the U.S. military continues to detain hundreds of suspected terrorists in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and in Afghanistan.

The rendition program was intended to augment those operations, according to former government officials, by allowing the United States to gain intelligence from the interrogations of the prisoners, most of whom were sent to their countries of birth or citizenship.

Before Sept. 11, the CIA had been authorized by presidential directives to carry out renditions, but under rules much more restrictive than those now in place.

In most instances in the past, the transfers of individual prisoners required review and approval by interagency groups led by the White House, and were usually authorized to bring prisoners to the United States or to other countries to face criminal charges.

As part of its broad new latitude, current and former government officials say, the CIA has been authorized to transfer prisoners to other countries solely for the purpose of detention and interrogation.

The covert transfers by the CIA have faced sharp criticism, in part because of the accounts provided by former prisoners who say they were beaten, shackled, humiliated, subjected to electric shocks, and otherwise mistreated during their long detention in foreign prisons before being released without being charged.

Among the accounts that have contributed to the concern are cases like the following:

Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian, who was detained at Kennedy Airport two weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks and transported to Syria, where he said he was subjected to beatings.

A year later he was released without being charged with any crime.

Khaled el-Masri, a Lebanese-born German who was pulled from a bus on the Serbia-Macedonia border in December 2003 and flown to Afghanistan, where he said he was beaten and drugged.

He was released five months later without being charged with a crime.

Mamdouh Habib, an Egyptian-born Australian who was arrested in Pakistan several weeks after the 2001 attacks.

He was moved to Egypt, Afghanistan and finally Guantanamo.

During his detention, Habib said he was beaten, humiliated and subjected to electric shocks.

He was released after 40 months without being charged with a crime.

In the most explicit statement of the administration's policies, Alberto R. Gonzales, then the White House counsel, said in written congressional testimony in January that "the policy of the United States is not to transfer individuals to countries where we believe they likely will be tortured."

Gonzales said at the time that he was "not aware of anyone in the executive branch authorizing any transfer of a detainee in violation with that policy."

Administration officials have said that approach is consistent with American obligations under the Convention Against Torture, the international agreement that bars signatories from engaging in extreme interrogation techniques.

But in interviews, a half-dozen current and former government officials said they believed that, in practice, the administration's approach may have involved turning a blind eye to torture.

One former senior government official who was assured that no one was being mistreated said the number of abuse accounts was disturbing.

"I really wonder what they were doing, and I am no longer sure what I believe," said the official, who was briefed periodically about the rendition program.

In congressional testimony last month, the director of central intelligence, Porter J. Goss, acknowledged that the United States had only a limited capacity to enforce promises that detainees would be treated humanely.

"We have a responsibility of trying to ensure that they are properly treated, and we try and do the best we can to guarantee that," Goss said of the prisoners that the United States has transferred to the custody of other countries.

"But of course once they're out of our control, there's only so much we can do."

"But we do have an accountability program for those situations."

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Don't look now, Senator Robert Byrd, but I think the Nazis are back, and your warnings about them are not only falling on deaf ears, in heads with blind eyes in them, but they are just too late, as well!