Nevertheless . . . Jeff

What Cost a Billion 11/08/08

2008-11-08T18:27:00.000-08:00

What Cost a Billion 11/08/08

700 Billion Dollars !. . Hmmm . . Seven hundred billion dollars! That’s the bail-out package. Just how much is 700 Hundred Billion? Well I recall, that at the time of Hurricane Katrina some number like 20 or 30 billion was offered by the president to pick up the pieces. Twenty billion to save a whole city! Well I might be off, but somehow that was the number I recall. I think that was also the number put forth to help out after 9/11. That’s a city and world history level terrorist event; 20 billion! Wasn’t 30 billion the number for the Iraq war? No maybe that was 300 Hundred Billion . . I think! Well even that represents a figure for a several year long war on the other side of the planet! But this in essence isn’t very tangible like those events have been. Seven Hundred Billion Dollars! I think the only number that comes to mind that tops that is the several TRILLION dollars of the US debt. But then that’s a number for the entire US economy, which only exceeds the 700 billion by a factor of 5 or 6. Seven Hundred Billion Dollars; I just can’t get over the enormity of that number. How in the world did an industry get to the point that the only thing that will help is a dollar amount of 700 Hundred Billion Dollars! Gosh, what is the combined wealth of the oil companies of our nation, I wonder? Seven Hundred Billion Dollars for what . . . “A PAPER CHASE!!” . . . Wouldn’t a cool 10 million, 100 million, 500 million, 1 billion .. even 10 billion help? No they need SEVEN HUNDRED ((( B ))) ILLION dollars to help them .. . . and IMMEDIATELY! . . . Wow!

I was listening to a local radio station, and several callers to the program brought up another plan. Though their math was off, they suggested giving that sum of money divided up to every tax paying person in our nation. My math says that would be roughly 700 billion divided up by 100 million or approximately $7000 each. Seven thousand dollars each to one hundred million people; that alone gives a sense of just how much money that is! Even to calculate that number I had to use the exponential key on my calculator; something I thought I had forgotten how to use. Wow . . Seven Hundred Billion Dollars . . That number speaks for itself!

Barrack Obama and the liberals 11/8/08

2008-11-08T06:20:00.001-08:00

Barrack Obama and the liberals 11/8/08

Oh no, not the liberals? I like the comment I heard on the local progressive radio station: words to the effect, . . . “that’s it, the liberal democrat is in and now we’re all going to lose our guns, our god and be gay”! I think I’ve changed my own stance on whether I think the Republican Party “just has to get in”, for the sake of the Christian Right, to save the definition of marriage and the Right to Life. Thanks to George Bush who championed those positions while virtually running our nation and its perception around the world into the ground, I no longer look to Washington to legislate morality. We need a president for all groups, and let God work out the issues of conscience. We need a president with depth of character and intelligence, not someone who guarantees that a couple of pet issues are supported “OUR” way. It takes guts to allow God to be God!

Listening, “as well” to a local Christian radio station, I was put off by the general opinion that the broadcasting Christian leaders were despairing that they just couldn’t vote in favor of a so-called African American candidate, as much as they celebrate the notion that such is an achievement for our nation, because Barrack is liberal and stands counter to the Christian agenda. I say have some courage! Our God is much much bigger than that! Again, we need a president for all groups! They shouldn’t have been praying that the conservative Republican gets in, rather that they work harder to raise awareness to the issues of conscience. The debate of the unborn and the perspective of what it is to be married have ecclesiastical connotation, and government doesn’t legislate morality, it only ensures that all groups are allowed representation as long as individual rights are not demeaned. Our nation allows groups to worship satan, hate blacks and exalt Hitler, as long as certain lines of civility are not crossed. The Christian right needs more faith in what they espouse by showing that they’re not overly dependent on politicians to champion their cause. Church history in a sense is repeating itself again, as the debate as to whether Christians should be active and aggressively involved in politics is an old one, that’s brought about a split in the church and new denominations a time ago. Take heart I say, that a seemingly intelligent articulate al-be-it liberal candidate has won over the Conservative Right’s fear-based extremism. The morality issues will not go away, and ultimately if they do, God can deal with that as well. Remember Sodom and Gomorah!

“I have no use for religion!” 9/24/08

2008-09-24T06:33:00.000-07:00

“I have no use for religion!” Part (a) 9/24/08

{Taking up the topic of the irreligious or those proclaiming “I have no use for God!”}

First off, what is meant or typically meant when someone says they have no use for religion. We have to first consider what type of individual or from what perspective is someone speaking when they offer up the view of “I have no use for religion”. I think they would fit the following profile:

1) They’ve been exposed to some level of organized religion before, and determined that it was either a man orchestrated set of rules under the guise of so-called religion, and/or that those involved were emotionally driven and prone to seek mental/emotional crutches to cope with life.

2) They’ve lived their own life adequately enough (in their own mind) with out what they might deem as some sort of ethereal realm and have concluded what possibly could such a practice add. Indeed they believe that the practice of religion as they understand it would actually take away from their focus and efforts of how they want to navigate their lives.

3) They blame those proclaiming religious injunctions as perpetrating unnecessary and unrealistic judgments on the populous and actually are holding a stance in reaction to such “religious”.

In summary, such individuals who proclaim “I have no use for religion” likely decry organized religion as infectious and believe in essence it’s de-stabilizing individuals, work functions and institutions, from what common sense and the acquisition of knowledge would otherwise direct.

Thus in order to address the pronouncement “I have no use for religion” the previously stated indictments of so-called religion would need to be debated. Indeed the antagonist of religion might even break in here, and suggest that to attempt to counter the criticisms of religion, somewhat already suggests that something is amuck, I.e. If God is and is only available through religious practice, that’s not a God they would want to know or believe exists. There is a sense that those who hold to a view that they have no use for religion may actually also be appealing on some level to an understated notion that if God is, he’s bigger than “man made” institutions attempting to discover him. They might like to think that they’re doing their thing and just trust that all fits together predictably without invoking an improvable idea of how a God could be viewing us let alone interacting with us.

Maybe in actuality the latter argument could be added to the other three above, restated as:

4) Those pronouncing “I have no use for religion”, are offering an agnostic perspective. God is unknowable and thus I need to just get back to living.

In Part (b). . . all the previous is addressed

Unitarian Universilism

2008-09-10T06:42:00.000-07:00

Unitarian Universilism 1st draft 8/3/2003, appended Sept. '08

Attending the Uniterian Church

Some pre-dispositions . .

At a surface level, I like the thought of "my" perceived idea of what the Uniterian Universalists uphold. I.e. Acceptance and tolerance, and in general, I’m somewhat tired of the repetitive worship style / program in Christian churches. Thus I thought I would check out this progressive church movement. Certainly from an apologetic position I have some underlying questions.

I think that the Unitarians or Universalists, lets call them 2Us believe in inclusivism, (inclusive of all other religious groups). Hmm… I really wonder what that means in reality or practice? Does that mean Satanic groups? Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and say that it includes all groups who hold some kind of reverence for God. So the question beckons … “does that mean, secular humanists are excluded?” I suspect not. Though I believe it welcomes so-called Christians, I wonder how it can do that and maintain its belief system. Indeed does not the 2U church decry belief systems and certainly sacred writings. Hmmm . . . Since most Christian theology suggests exclusivism, i.e. that Christ is the only way and all others are lost, and by default heading toward damnation, how could the 2U inclusive belief system accept and co-exist with the exclusivism of Christians and their theology? For example: The 2U's don't believe there's a hell. So then I ask who the 2U's are? They are not the Christians they include, unless they are Christians who don't believe there's a hell. But then what would "these" Christians be. Seems paradoxical to suggest 2U's doctrine, but denounce doctrines held by their members.

Today’s message at a local 2U church will be on bringing 2U beliefs and values into the community. This ought to be good!

......

Fast forward: (After the service)

......

. . . so from the 2U's church gathering I attended, I think the salient point from the minister was the declaration of what 2U's believe. Indeed one of their tenets is, the pursuit of truth. Hmmm . . . "Really?" Are they holding regular meetings with members of other faiths, which are included in their body, to discuss varying faith beliefs? Are they coming to some conclusions? I think that's nice rhetoric, but what is that in reality? Pervasive in the 2U's church is open homo-sexuality. If the tenets of the 2U's is mutual respect / love of all people, and some of it's "included" members were of faiths that disagreed with homosexuality as an alternative lifestyle, just what would that "mutual respect / love" look like.

Then's there's the "worship" part of the service. Worship what? Since the members come from different faiths, and again a 2U tenet refers to God as a label of some higher force, being, or concept. What can all its members "sing" about? For example, if I had a friend with red hair, and told another friend about him, who knew him, that I thought his red hair was cool and he said, well I like him too, but his hair isn't red, it's auburn; but we both thought this mutual friend's hair was cool. What would we know and "mutually" appreciate about our common friend? Thus it is with the 2U's. Everyone singing praises about a being, force or concept, that they can't agree on. So the hymnal's have to have watered down, least common denominator lyrics, so that no one is offended, or at the very least that everyone can "tolerate"!

I submit, that the 2U's church is a confused body with confused conflictual doctrines. Of course they don't espouse doctrines. So what do you do at a 2U gathering, beside sharing donuts and coffee and suggest how the world could be better, with out a true base-line?

Some references
CRI (Christian Research Institute) Paper / STATEMENT DG035
NEOTHEISM: The Dangers of Making God in Our Image by Norman L. Geisler

How is man enlightened?

2008-09-10T06:12:00.000-07:00

How is man enlightened? written 4/20/2003

This piece is inspired by a recent conversation on the Larry King Live program, with a panel of significant religious / philosophical leaders representing Christianity, Islam, Catholicism, Judaism, Hinduism (or enlightened / intuitive thought). This program raised a discussion on the meaning and movement of life, from the differing religious perspectives. As the conversation progressed it became clear that there was much disagreement from amongst the respective authorities present. Notable angst revolved around attempts to appreciate how a good god judges and acts. Differing ideas about the concept of Hell was discussed, the hope for mankind (i.e. root questions about man’s intrinsic nature), the person of Jesus in biblical scripture and in the Koran.
Some other salient arguments were raised about the validity of biblical scripture and what language was it written in. Various philosophical ideas were raised and judged against the religious traditions.

The following is the Larry King website description of the program.

--------------------------------------------
Sunday, April 20What roles do religion and faith play in times of war? Larry talks with a panel of spiritual leaders, experts and other guests. Larry is joined by Dr. Deepak Chopra; Rabbi Harold Kushner; the Rev. Michael Manning; Dr. Hamid Al-Bayati, representative of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq; and Dr. Maher Hathout, Muslim scholar and the senior advisor of the Muslim Public Affairs Council. -------------------------------------------------

Some questions and or pithe comments that were made, were in regards to war and conflict in general. Notably from Chepok, where he raised the idea that man only resorts to evil when his basic needs are not met. The idea that under such stresses, more basil drives become charged. Later in the program, calls were taken from the viewing audience, which further aroused some of the tension in beliefs present amongst the panel. Most questions came from obvious Christian viewers, which probably would not be surprising, given a sense of those who would tend to watch Larry King. For me as I listened thinking how amazing this program was in general, that such a discussion would be made manifest, given present day news, i.e. the Iraqi Freedom operation. I kept struggling to take the opportunity to search for what I would deem to be a most important question. Alas what I came up with is twofold.

First, it seemed to me that what was really on trial in this debate was "how is mankind enlightened" and secondly "what does he do with the enlightenment he receives". To this end, it became apparent the discussion tended to get bogged down in disagreement because, as I would offer, doctrinal ideas were being offered as primary, when in fact they should have been qualified as secondary to seeking mutual respect and, if you will, love for one another. What I mean by this is, that the panel members were each espousing a belief system and that an expression of their hearts was being held captive to their own egos / arrogance (al-be-it masked by educated and eloquent grace in their demeanors). I can’t help but think if Jesus himself were sitting at the panel discussion, he might have either started to scribble something on a piece of paper in front of him, as he did in the dirt before he spoke to those looking to stone the prostitute, (in biblical scripture) or he might have spoken up with but a few words, saying something like, "the least you do to your brother you do to me".

So I come back, attempting to transcend the discussion, by offering what might have been a better discussion angle, given the backgrounds of the distinguished panel; “how does mankind gain enlightenment, and what should he do with it?” Had this been the question basic to the discussion, idle / experiential wisdom might have been held checked in favor of a search for where belief systems originate. One of the most basic questions of religious curiosity is who Jesus was/is and what was his mission. If we dismiss Jesus as only a wise teacher amongst others, we are left with much opportunity to interpret life thru our own and other's experiences. If Jesus is God incarnate, then it seems critical to apprehend his mission.

Thus, we have the question of the ages, . . . not whether there is a heaven and a hell, and whether we are good enough, but whether Jesus was who he said he was? From such all other wisdom, falls out or can be derived.

Improving the game of Baseball Sept. '08

2008-09-08T16:10:00.000-07:00

Improving the game of Baseball Sept. '08 (Part 1)

No don't do it, not baseball! What's wrong with baseball? Please . . . ! Allow me to go there. The Sacred Cow of American sports. Let's see . . in football we now have an arena league, with fewer downs, fewer players and a physically smaller playing field. In basketball, we have street leagues gaining momentum. Hockey for better or worse has added some major rule changes, most notably "shoot-outs". Ok, in baseball we've added inter-league play, and the DH has been around now for a while, which is fairly significant. But I'm speaking of revolutionary changes.

Come along with me on a journey and consider the following: What are the most exciting plays in baseball? Conversely what are the most dragging elements of the game? I submit that the most exciting elements are the long hits (of course the home-run), the plays in the field and on the bags (of course at home plate) and aspects of pitching challenges / duels. Let's stay with pitching for a moment. It has always disturbed me when a pitcher is glorified for getting a so-called "no-hitter". In my estimation, quite a curious label. "No-hitter"? It's considered a no-hitter, when no player reaches base, for the entirety of the game less he walks, gets hit by a pitch and a few other curious ways, but without any field played ball getting past. It's still a no-hitter if the other team's players hit flies out to the warning track and are caught. It's still a no-hitter if there's a pulled liner to the third baseman that's caught. It's still a no-hitter if there's a play in the field that the fielder happens to look like an Olympian to catch. But in the end the "pitcher" is credited, indeed virtually glorified that he gave up no hits. Hmmmm . . It's often mused that the hardest thing to do in sports is hit a pro-pitched baseball. Yet any of the contact swings made as mentioned, which certainly qualify as "getting good wood on the ball", are all credited to the pitcher, ultimately in retrospect, when they're caught, as "he" didn't give up a hit. Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Something's wrong with that reality.

Ok, I was intending to offer up improvements to the game. I contend that the "batters" are not given nearly enough credit when they "get good wood on the ball". I want to change that, and I want to see more throws to the bases to see who can beat out a hit or not. I want to see more of those so-called "guns or canons" for arms, we hear of, that some players supposedly have. Here's how. I don't have all the details worked out, but I think that caught balls should not necessarily end a play or cause an out. How about, every time the ball gets hit, the hitter has to be thrown out at a base. Every hit would be much more exciting. Maybe there's more outs required to end an inning. You get one for catching the ball, but another "if" you can throw the same hitter out at the bases. I contend that a batter who's able to hit a Nolan Ryan fastball, a Roger Clemens change-up, or a Greg Maddux curve for example to deep center field (i.e., the warning track), but who has the ball caught (on the fly) should be given more credit than just recording an out. Wouldn't it be much more exciting if we could witness the catch and yet still a necessary throw. Obviously I'm not just talking about sacrifice flies.

Let's see how this might play out. Ok, a batter is up . . how about say Josh Hamilton, and he just hit a deep fly in the ninth inning of a tied game, with one out, off Roy Haliday. The play is routinely caught, but the hitter is still allowed to run the bases to see how far he can get before being "thrown" out on a base. An out is recorded from the catch, but we still get to see a "throw". Don't we just love seeing those rocket throws and those close plays on the bags. Instead of a humdrum out, we get to see secondary action. Imagine, if there's a man on base preceding the play, and he doesn't have to wait to "tag up". We could have plays on multiple bags. The bottom-line is more action! No-hitter . . . "pa-leaze"! I want to see more fielding action, wouldn't anyone.

Now that you're inspired, help catch the fever and think about how this could be set in place. Let's work out the details, how many outs would we need in an inning etc. Oh, by the way let's take another look at the debate about whether to have a DH rule or not. The "purist" thinks every position player should have to bat and having designated batters who don't play in the field is ridiculous, and opponents to that sense, say a pitcher is an almost guaranteed out, that you really don't care to see hit (or hack away). I have a permutation that's as revolutionary as the DH, but in the opposite direction. Instead of a DH, the pitcher's slot is eliminated from the batting rotation. Sorry, Jim Thome and Frank Thomas, et. al. I loved your game, but just relegated to hitting, is not baseball playing. What does that make me? Alternately, what if the pitcher, if his hitters role was retained, was allowed more strikes, to make his "hitting" role less an automatic downer.

C'mon people catch the fever!

In Part 2, I want to talk about "Instant Replay" . . . I can't wait!

Evolution and God . . . and Faith (Part I) Sept. ‘08

2008-09-08T13:05:00.000-07:00

Evolution and God . . . and Faith (Part I) Sept. ‘08

So what is “evolution”? . . Natural selection over time. . . Survival of the fittest.

It’s much a given these days, especially by the so-called scientifically / intellectually informed that evolutionary processes are understood to be the known proven truth. Examples are sited of changing colored moths, fish existing in dark caves without eyes, and experiments with genetic crossings creating flies with multiple and swapped appendages. Is this really evidence of the possibility and likelihood of evolution? For me to buy into evolution two “common sense” barriers have to be surmounted.

1) The notion of irreducible complexity . . and
2) Answering what’s “pushing” changes in the complexity of organisms

1) Irreducible complexity

The classic example is the human eye. As the realization goes, the eye only acts as an eye if the many constituent biological substructures all work in harmony. The question is, for natural selection to be at the root of evolutionary processes, the human eye and its substructures would have to have had evolutionary pre-cursors, i.e., elements of the eye that were not fully formed or served as something less structurally complex. After all, the beginning of evolution has as its basis that everything started ultimately from chemicals mixing together and eventually coming to form complex compounds and proteins. So what were the substructures or pre-cursors of the elements of the human eye?

2) What's pushing changes in complexity

Staying with the last example, even if we could identify elemental pre-cursors, what in nature or natural selection, is “pushing” change toward greater or even just different complexity? How did elements of the human eye expect to come together to create the sensation of vision? How in nature would organisms through natural selection “stumble” on the addition of a complex function like vision, and be left with a physical reality that they’ve arrived (or completed the process). Maybe vision is not even the natural selection evolutionary end-all. Maybe there’s some greater level of a biological sensation yet to come. What’s pushing complex structures to become more complex, or just change complexity?

Is there a master designer or god being orchestrating this all?

Follow this logic for a minute, all-be-it reverse logic, that I myself am a curious reporter of. There are those about, labeled as atheist. The atheist believes there is no god. And in their defense, it’s convenient that we don’t have so-called physical evidence that such a being exists. We have our trusty laws of physics and biological sciences and conclude that what we don’t know now may be known tomorrow. There’s solace in observing and hearing that we’re learning more and more, that we can trust and will ultimately put an end to conjecture about God; if it hasn’t already, that we need no god to explain all that we see. We don’t have happenings that defy physical laws, and those who would purport the existence of a god or God, have peace that the realm of such a being is labeled as spiritual. Wouldn't it be just like a god or God to hide himself to only the worthy or chosen in a “faith” realm. There’s certainly a kind of elitism for the faith believer to think that their connection to this god is held in their own perceived ethereal realm. I place myself in this family of faith, and I have enough pride upon self-examination to embrace a so-called spiritual realm, to in essence hang on to a notion that I’m part of the “chosen”. Thus I would be inclined to "not" want to have clear “physical” evidence of a creator / designer, if in fact, I was only deluding myself. If I’m honest I like thinking I have something only a few “get”! Yet, we have “apparently” physical evidence of the possibility of a creator, in that we're unable to apply evolutionary principles to the examination of developmental biological processes. The atheist once enjoyed using the argument that because all will prove to be explainable and those of the church / faith are operating in emotion driven mysticism, there's no need to appeal to the “concept” of a God. Enlightenment will shut the case. Yet enlightenment is proving, “in my estimation”, the opposite. We truly are baffled as to how natural selection would account for complexity. We’re left again, with the alternative, only a god could make it happen. And I’m personally called into accountability to that reality. I.e., the idea of a previously held notion that there’s a God and I’m in with him, which can’t be proved, is not so ethereal. The inverse (not the absence) of physical evidence is still physical evidence. I'm attempting to define a term or notion, that the "inverse of physical evidence" is the lack of evidence that a creator / designer does "not" exist. Said simply, what's the "proof" that there is no God. Doesn't the burden of proof fall both ways?

Personally, I don’t need evolution to be shown to be faulty, to hang on to “my” God, but the fact that the presuppositions of evolution / natural selection have failed – “thus far”, puts the spiritual realm in greater focus. If we’re honest we can’t rule out a creator / designer as still a plausible if not likely alternative to the understanding of how organisms came to be and came to be more complex.

In Part 2, I take up other forms of evidence for the existence of God and then what do we do with him.

US Iraq War (written 3/6/2003)

2008-09-08T05:56:00.000-07:00

US Iraq War (written 3/6/2003)

What started my curiosity was the sense that I was getting that what seemed to be inevitably coming forth, i.e. “War” was some how not feeling like a war, however wars feel like. War I thought was something that kind of came upon you without you really wanting it, but that if you didn’t engage in it you’d be sorry you hadn’t. Is that what we have here? In this situation we’ve almost been given a program guide to take us through what is to come about. It has seemed to me that what we really have is a nation accommodated police action, yet without all the appropriate reasons put in place. That is to say the “world” seems to collectively agree that Saddam Hussein is bad, but we’re not really sure what good is or better how we might attain good. So we have one nation obsessed with the idea that we should all be agreeing that we know we have a bad, so let’s all support the removal of it, yet our neighbors won’t go along. And now “we’re” looking or sounding . .. bad!

This reminds me of the time where as a child, being a year older than the rest of the kids on my block, I felt I had some responsibility to both be the coolest and the fairest. This all came to greater awareness, when a “new” kid moved onto our block. He was perceived and perhaps truly was tougher than any of us, and we had more than a little resistance to letting him play with us. Of course my own self-perceived aggrandizement was challenged, and I felt threatened. Somehow I came up with the idea one day that this menace had to be dealt with. I goaded a couple of other kids to wait in front of our apartment house, while I would go meet up with this new kid and coax him to come over to where the rest of our little group was and collectively, we would all proceed to beat him up. Well the plan seemed to be going well, when the new kid and I arrived back in front of our house, but the other kids were either gone or not willing to carry out the dirty work. Now I was up against it, and though later in life I became acutely aware of my dislike or fear of fighting, in this case I guess the fear of looking stupid was greater, so I literally closed my eyes and started swinging at this kid. In a very short time, I only but heard his crying, and I opened my eyes to see him gone. I’ve never had peace about that incident. Well is President Bush in the position now to start the swinging while the other nations have run off? And do we really need to start swinging? Somehow these seem very similar choices. At the very least, perhaps this is an example of how a current news event sparks thoughts for each of us individually of how we perceive justice or the lack of it.

There’s another parallel in all this. The briefings by Collen Powell utilizing intelligence photos and audiotapes remind me of my attempts to convince the other kids that this whole conflict is necessary. Both sets of reasons were pitiful. I feel bad for Collen Powell who seemingly has gained an immeasurable amount of respect, given his humble well-chosen word style communication, dating back to the gulf war of ’91. Is that the best the CIA could equip him? It has seemed to me that George Bush set him up! And sadly even Collen Powell himself has allowed himself to get caught up in this reactionary avalanche. What did we expect . . . . from the world when we present a picture from thousands of miles in the sky and claim it’s a truck with chemical or biological weapons on board? Or we offer up an audio tape, of what could have been anyone, and plead to other nations to assume we’ve caught them red handed; “You must see what we see!” How sad, and how sad we look. Saddam Hussein proclaimed in documentaries is portrayed as a clever power hungry thug. Thanks to our nation's stupidity, Saddam Hussein has not had to be clever, only patient, for we’ve ensured his longevity. I can’t imagine that we will actually go to war, . . now .. . at least not in any rational way. We’ve already lost the war from a public opinion standpoint. Now we’ll likely have to assume a major burden of lives and money lost and worst perhaps of all continued targeting from distorted justifiable religious zealot terrorism. I believe the bible speaks of the end times and a surprise initiation. Is this the surprise? I know I’m at least ashamed of the manner we’ve engaged this challenge.

Getting back to the idea of War vs. what I would call a police action. It seems we could have taken a number of different paths, though I do believe the presence of our forces in the gulf region has brought some necessary actions to bear. We should have downplayed the labeling of this whole affair as a war. For the UN to be empowered (save its own face) it needed to have the appropriate labels for its actions to be supportive. Member nations of the UN were not likely to be supportive of a war, especially given the obvious gains the US would assume from it. Rather the US should have been working to change the rhetoric to a world police action, and raised human rights charges against Saddam Hussein. I’d even go so far as to say that we might have brought about the indictment of so-called dictatorships themselves in the modern era.

Consider this with me. What if we had been lobbying already for a time to the UN that the role of a dictator in ANY country in the present age is inappropriate and counterproductive to world socio-economic causes? Had such a course been travailed, we might have had grounds for charges against Saddam Hussein, whereby his entire mode of operation might have come under scrutiny and indictment. He might then be tried for crimes against humanity. Instead we have now, the perceived idea around the world and within the US, that in reality, this is about George Bush attempting to vindicate his family’s name, and perhaps worse is the perception that this all is an imperialist show of power!

I find it curious that since at present we already have inspectors in place within Iraq, with a measure of compliance from them, how an attack is justified. Again why not carry forth a more police oriented sense to its conclusion. If it’s regime change then again, put Saddam Hussein up for charges against humanity, and declare that a UN force will be taking the country over and if no resistance is met, no so-called war will transpire. Appeal to the people of Iraq, that a regime change will be forth coming, sanctioned by the UN, and only resistance will be cause for bloodshed. Such would put the onus on the Iraqi’s.

So what if war is avoided? How can we back out now and save face? If we have more intelligence, it needs to come forth . . fast. Otherwise we need to free Collen Powell from the shackles of tagging along with Bush into an impossible stance. We need to back down, and respond to the call of the people. If later a terrorist attack is shown to come from Iraq equipping some extremist group, well then we will have the onus again. But for now we’ve lost it, … though we didn’t have to. President Bush’s need to appear strong for our nation, in some sort of Truman / Roosevelt-like order, is going to bring about some complexity. We can’t back down well, but we can back down, for at least a later date. And we need to! Alternately pray that we can do whatever we think we’re going to do cleanly and swiftly!

The Presidential Campaign 2008

2008-09-07T17:45:00.000-07:00

The Presidential Campaign 2008

I guess I understand the driving force behind the “rhetoric” in presidential campaigns, but I certainly don’t agree with it. Why not more measured responses? Are issues in any historical period so simple to fix that in retrospect one could easily look back and know what the correct tact should have been, and that if those choices were not made it’s right and good to blast those who made them? As much as I have a problem with Bush’s stances in recent years, it seems to me that in blasting the former president, the “office of the presidency” is lessened. Wouldn’t it be better, or at the very least look better (especially to the other nations) if the words expressed when speaking of the past presidency, were to the effect that the former president faced some difficult choices during his tenure and he made the best decisions he “thought” to make.
Don’t we look a little stupid if we more than suggest that the president took our nation to war wrongly? What message does that send to Iraq, Iran and the nations that committed troops for “our” cause? Was every decision and tact that Bush took clearly wrong? Wouldn’t such an assessment, bring into question our whole form of government? Are we so confident in or proud of our constitution and form of democracy that we believe there are no consequences by demeaning the “efforts” of those previously elected to make what choices that they might have made? Were there no checks and balances in place, no requisite number of advisors and confidants to insure that an American president could not run the country into the ground?
I submit the only criticism that’s appropriate when looking back at a former president, is to question the effectiveness of the “choices” made, not attacking the person and certainly not judging the President “alone”, as responsible for a seeming undesirable outcome. Bush didn’t take us to war, our system did. Going to war perhaps can not be judged to be an absolute wrong choice and tagged only on the president, if we used what information we had, and consider well all who had a hand in the determination process, and if we further also consider well if we had handled the aftermath “better”. Mistakes were probably made, but they were not made in a vacuum. Perhaps Bush’s score card of effectiveness in retrospect will be considered to be poor, in comparison to former and future leaders, but our system still carried the burden.
I would love to hear presidential candidates speak of our nation as progressing, even if it’s evident that a previous president was less effective. Is not our nation and “how” it moves forward more important? I would love to hear words, not, “We can’t have 4 more years of the Bush legacy!”, but words to the effect of, “Let’s learn from the previous administration’s efforts and make some adjustments!” That would respect the President and the office! That’s bringing the parties together, and respecting all who did the best that they could and hoped! Let’s let our political national conventions show the world that we respect our own and are willing to learn. Where’s the humility and the pointed yet reserved intelligence expressed of the larger picture, which would seek to foster thoughtful reflection of the issues and their complexity; respecting those of the past and their efforts, rather than speaking in a manner that just gets the convention masses charged up to an altered emotional state, for a fleeting and often times regrettable moment, as history can attest!