www.caasf.org/PDFs/Q%20&%20As.pdf - Aug 22, 2003
different opinion

Posted by: t at August 23, 2003 03:20 PM

Fighting 'The Big One'

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

In the wake of the bombing of the U.N. office in Baghdad, some "terrorism experts" (By the way, how do you get to be a terrorism expert? Can you get a B.A. in terrorism or do you just have to appear on Fox News?) have argued that the U.S. invasion of Iraq is a failure because all it's doing is attracting terrorists to Iraq and generating more hatred toward America.
I have no doubt that the U.S. presence in Iraq is attracting all sorts of terrorists and Islamists to oppose the U.S. I also have no doubt that politicians and intellectuals in the nearby Arab states are rooting against America in Iraq because they want Arabs and the world to believe that the corrupt autocracies that have so long dominated Arab life, and failed to deliver for their people, are the best anyone can hope for.
But I totally disagree that this is a sign that everything is going wrong in Iraq. The truth is exactly the opposite.
We are attracting all these opponents to Iraq because they understand this war is The Big One. They don't believe their own propaganda. They know this is not a war for oil. They know this is a war over ideas and values and governance. They know this war is about Western powers, helped by the U.N., coming into the heart of their world to promote more decent, open, tolerant, women-friendly, pluralistic governments by starting with Iraq — a country that contains all the main strands of the region: Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds.
You'd think from listening to America's European and Arab critics that we'd upset some bucolic native culture and natural harmony in Iraq, as if the Baath Party were some colorful local tribe out of National Geographic. Alas, our opponents in Iraq, and their fellow travelers, know otherwise. They know they represent various forms of clan and gang rule, and various forms of religious and secular totalitarianism — from Talibanism to Baathism. And they know that they need external enemies to thrive and justify imposing their demented visions.
In short, America's opponents know just what's at stake in the postwar struggle for Iraq, which is why they flock there: beat America's ideas in Iraq and you beat them out of the whole region; lose to America there, lose everywhere.
One of the most interesting conversations I had in Baghdad was with Muhammed A. al-Da'mi, a literature professor at Baghdad University and author of "Arabian Mirrors and Western Soothsayers." He has spent a lifetime studying the interactions between East and West.
"Cultures can't be closed on themselves for long without paying a price," he explained. "But ours has been a vestigial and closed culture for many years now. The West needed us in the past and now we need it. This is the circle of history. Essentially [what you are seeing here] is a cultural collision. . . . I am optimistic insofar as I believe that my country — and I am a pan-Arab nationalist — is going to benefit from this encounter with the more advanced society, and we are going pay at the same time. . . . Your experience in Iraq is going to create two reactions: one is hypersensitivity, led by the Islamists, and the other is welcoming, led by the secularists. [But you have to understand] that what you are doing is a penetration of one culture into another. If you succeed here, Iraq could change the habits and customs of the people in the whole area."
So, the terrorists get it. Iraqi liberals get it. The Bush team talks as if it gets it, but it doesn't act like it. The Bush team tells us, rightly, that this nation-building project is the equivalent of Germany in 1945, and yet, so far, it has approached the postwar in Iraq as if it's Grenada in 1982.
We may fail, but not because we have attracted terrorists who understand what's at stake in Iraq. We may fail because of the utter incompetence with which the Pentagon leadership has handled the postwar. (We don't even have enough translators there, let alone M.P.'s, and the media network we've set up there to talk to Iraqis is so bad we'd be better off buying ads on Al Jazeera.) We may fail because the Bush team thinks it can fight The Big One in the Middle East — while cutting taxes at home, shrinking the U.S. Army, changing the tax code to encourage Americans to buy gas-guzzling cars that make us more dependent on Mideast oil and by gratuitously alienating allies.
We may fail because to win The Big One, we need an American public, and allies, ready to pay any price and bear any burden, but we have a president unable or unwilling to summon either.  

Posted by: t at August 23, 2003 06:41 PM

Two things I would like to respond to you on:

1-You talk of the "private company was hired to bring in hundreds of employees to gather signatures" and proceed to lambaste this process. Need I remind you that thousands of Californians signed this petition? This is democracy at work. Again you mention " the very fact that a private company essentially made it happen." No no no the people of California made it happen by signing the petition. You sound very pissed off about this privated company gathering signatures when you should be pissed off about how ol' Gray has run the state into the ground. But no no no let's not admit that.

2-Jesse Jackson. He has duped you as well Mr. Pitcher. Might I recommend you reading the book "Shakedown: Exposing the Real Jesse Jackson" before attaching any more links to his mindless drivel. Jackson lines his own pockets and those of his friends and family in the name of racial diversity, economic opportunity, and other buzzwords popular with income redistribution leftists. He doesn't do anything he can't get paid for, to include NOT speaking up in favor of minority groups who have sought his assistance in the past but didn't have the money to pay his fee! Jackson is not a "crusader for civil rights". He is a "shakedown" artist. Jackson has literally spent his entire career finding new ways to shake down his victims. He's in the business to make money, not to promote the civil rights of minorities in the United States!

Posted by: niobe at August 25, 2003 01:55 PM

All in all, I disagree with the view that our involvement with the Middle East has nothing to do with oil. There are a lot of other places in the world that could benefit from a regime change yet we don't meddle. There are also a lot of places in the world that have been irreparably damaged from Western influence.

I do agree that this is a Big One of biblical (and Koran?) implications and scale. It just has to mean something that an area lauded as the birthplace of human civilization now contains the natural resources that drive (to the brink?) our current civilization.......and it's all fossils. Finding who's at fault is looking more and more like a puppy chasing it's own tail. I would laugh at it if I could. It's The Big One alright, but I personally feel that it's one that a young country like America would be served well to leave alone.

Niobe, it's interesting to me that you have become such an expert on Jesse Jackson from reading one book titled: "Shakedown: Exposing the Real Jesse Jackson". I dunno, it just sounds a little biased is all.

Posted by: Trex at August 26, 2003 10:38 AM

let me also point out, that i was not writing my thoughts about jesse jackson. much of what you say niobe may be valid, but in my opinion, it has no bearing whatsoever on prop 54. i feel that prop 54 is wrong, and if passed will have a detrimental effect on the advancements made by people of color since the sixties. whether or not his character is to be lauded or criticized, is beside the point in this instance. with regard to the process of democracy, i feel that you are 100% incorrect. frankly, if there is any corporate backing in political processes, the very fabric of democracy begins to unravel. you neglect to take into account the malleability, and general lack of knowledge the 'masses' have about the internal workings of our government. as for mr. davis, he may have indeed been a rather poor governor, but i disagree completely with the recall and how it has been handled. economically speaking, the amount of money being spent on the recall itself, could have a rather profound impact on the state. you of course my dear sir, are entitled to disagree with me. i will not carry on and on. with regard to the situation in the middle east, it is most certainly 'monolithic' on many levels. i don't even know where to begin. i disagree greatly with the united states' imperialistic notions and utter disregard for the opinions of the internatinal body politic. i find your opinions to be rather close-minded and seemingly uninformed. frankly, preemptive war is unacceptablein my opinion. i would refer you to a wonderful book by susan buck-morss {a professor of government and history of art and visual studies at cornell university} titled thinking past terror: islamism and critical theory on the left. t, what you post from thomas friedman is quite an interesting read...a perspective with much depth. i'd love to read more. and work calls~

cheers folks.....
may we keep the dialogue alive

Posted by: jeff pitcher at August 26, 2003 11:16 AM

Pitcher, your strong feelings that our unilateral approach and ".....imperialistic notions and utter disregard for the opinions of the internatinal body politic" are fairly stock arguments for those against our current involvement in the Middle East. And, I might add, what I also subscribe to in regards to our CURRENT predicament. However, I think your bravest comment was "I don't know where to begin".
Though thoroughly agnostic, I feel it is important to have a basic understanding of the origins of Christianity, Islam and Judaism to place the ongoing conflicts in the middle east in perspective. Ironically, and I'm sure you're well aware, all 3 consider themselves as Abraham's spiritual offspring.
To ponder if a young country may be in over it's head in an area whose conflicts stretch thousands of years and whose struggles are directly tied in with their religious backgrounds is neither close-minded nor misinformed. After all, it's that type of propaganda that zealots use to convert more people to their cause. I also find it curious how there's a tie in with the fossils of a long ago species that ruled the world.

Posted by: Trex at August 26, 2003 02:16 PM

YOU SPOILED ROTTEN MOTHERFUCKER. Here I sit looking up an old aquantence and this is what I find?! THere you sit embraced in your warm blanket of the blood spilled by generations of our forefathers and you complain about evil corparate juggernauts. You fuckin pansy. If I show up and start kickin the shit out of you what are you going to do? sit there? I would expect you would fight back isn't that a war? Or maybe you would call in the U.N. Jefferson I'd tell you to get some balls but I think the brains are more important. Oh and the fact that all these spineless wonders fawn over you or that you rode your bike to San Diego(Republican central in Cali)
shows athat you surround yourself with ...spinelesss wonders. Christ, I haven't had someone get me this worked up in a while. Now shut your fuckin mouth and go work hard and produce something of value.

Posted by: John Rensing at August 26, 2003 07:16 PM

Dear John:

I'm sure I'm not alone in saying that your statement is far and away the least intelligent post ever placed here. If you have an argument, I can't find it. All I find is anger and vitriol. Do you have something to add to this discussion or did you merely want to call someone a motherfucker and this is the first opportunity you had?

Who is fighting back against whom? Last I heard Iraq hadn't attacked the U.S. and yet we have invaded and now occupy that geographical region. But alas I digress. What, sir, is your point?

Christian

Posted by: Christian Kiefer at August 26, 2003 09:54 PM

FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT! Kick him in the nuts! Tear off his ears! Claw his goddamn eyeballs out!!!!!!

NYYYAAAHHHHGGGGGGARRRRRRRGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!

Posted by: oy at August 27, 2003 11:50 AM

Why are we fighting when we should be birdies fluttering in the skies above, consuming Jefferson's every word like sweet berry nectar?

Come come Pitcher, toss forth a morsel of juiciness. Make it a doosey!

Posted by: Ernest at August 27, 2003 04:22 PM

Why are we fighting when we should be birdies fluttering in the skies above, consuming Jefferson's every word like sweet berry nectar?

Come come Pitcher, toss forth a morsel of juiciness. Make it a doosey!

Posted by: Ernest Frank at August 27, 2003 04:23 PM

Rensing you big ignorant pussy. Fighting corporations IS fighting the good fight. Sure it's a bit touchy feely, but I always take note when Granny D speaks - a real tough nut who's been walking this line for decades.

A Small Group of Dedicated People Might Actually Do Something

By Granny D

The following is from a speech Granny D gave in Hood River, Oregon on Aug. 16, 2003.

Well, you've heard that wonderful Margaret Mead quote about how you should never doubt that a small group of dedicated people can change the world, and that, indeed, it's the only thing that ever has. Well, I think it's time we stopped repeating that quotation and came to some agreement about what we happy few might do over the next five years or so. That is the purpose of my remarks today.

You know, there are two kinds of politics in the world: the politics of love and the politics of fear. Love is about cooperation, sharing and inclusion. It is about the elevation of each individual to a life neither supressed nor exploited, but instead nourished to rise to its full potential – a life for its own sake and so that we may all benefit by the gift of that life. Fear and the politics of fear is about narrow ideologies that separate us, militarize us, imprison us, exploit us, control us, overcharge us, demean us, bury us alive in debt and anxiety and then bury us dead in cancers and wars. The politics of love and the politics of fear are now pitted against each other in a naked struggle that will define not only the 21st century but centuries to come.

This struggle is real. A very close friend of mine, a college student, spent this summer in Guatemala to help small communities prosper in ways that support their local environments. Those villagers and their environments are under siege by international big business, using a captured U.S. government to push through damaging treaties such as the proposed Central America Free Trade Agreement and the hemisphere-wide Free Trade Area of the Americas. The villagers of Guatemala want global fair trade, but the corporations and their captive governments want free trade. If fair trade wins, a global middle class will rise, as farmers and craftsmen are paid fairly for their work, and as they gain a voice in their governance and their environments are protected for their future generations. If free trade wins, it is colonial exploitation, torture and murder written in blood across another century.

Or do you wonder if it is really an honest difference of opinion as to which policies are best for the people? On July 24, three armed gunmen broke into the home where my young friend was staying in Guatemala, dragging her and another young woman to the ground, covering their heads with blankets. These young women began to count their lives in seconds. For three-quarters of an hour, the gunmen went through the biodiversity files in the home. Big business interests in Guatemala, in league with elements of the military, are trying to push through the passage of free trade agreements and to do it they must supress all dissent. Their partner and blood brother is the U.S. government. Not the U.S. government that we see, but the U.S. government that much of the rest of the world sees: a world of CIA treachery, the training of death squad leaders in our own Army facilities within the U.S., and a big business-friendly White House that winks and nods as great injustices continue.

The two women survived, but tens of thousands have not, because they are in the way of big business. It is not an honest difference of opinion; it is a global struggle of people versus a global crime syndicate that counts taken-over governments and multinational corporations among its members.

There is a term now in common use in Latin America that is confusing to us Americans. It is called neoliberalism and it is a very dirty word indeed among the brave pro-democracy and fair trade groups throughout the Americas. "Neoliberal" sounds like the happy return of the Kennedys, but it is not. Nor is it about some resurgence of the liberal values of the Square Deal or the New Deal or the War on Poverty or any of those great moments when we called upon our best instincts to cooperatively address our largest needs as a free and self-governing people. The liberation that we meant then when we used the word "liberal" was the liberation from poverty, despair and ignorance, the liberation of the mind through public education, the liberation of the citizen through universal voting, equal rights and equal opportunity, and the freedom to prosper from the fruits of our labors. But that is not the liberal that is meant by neoliberal. It means newly free to rampage. It means free of government constraint. It means free trade over fair trade.

"Neoliberalism" refers to the liberation of a giant beast that we, the ordinary people of America – the farmers, the townsmen and townswomen, the trade unionists – tied down to the earth early in the 20th century and it is that beast that has now gotten himself loose again to do great damage to us all. The deadly meanderings of this beast are most apparent in the most labor-intensive regions of the world, but the beast is here, too, and he has brought misery and suffering into your life and mine, stealing our water, blowing up our mountains, fouling our air and seas, and stealing our lives and our future at every turn. Neoliberalism is the colonialism department of neoconservatism.

How did we handle this evil giant before? The Teddy Roosevelt progressives, and the William Jennings Bryan populists before him, were part of a successful effort to tie down the giant. After the Civil War, at the high point of the Industrial Age – the age of railroads, oil and steel – great corporations and trusts were created that towered high over the human-scaled businesses of America's Main Streets and cast dark shadows over human liberty and happiness. These monstrosities treated humans as slaves. They robbed the public wealth and were properly called the robber barons of that Gilded Age. These giants freely stalked, destroying the economics of family farms and family businesses, corrupting our governments with great bribes and corrupt deals, and polluting our food, our land, water and air. They tore our families apart and dragged us into the hardest of hard times, as they have been liberated to do once more.

I am not talking about all corporations or all big business. Corporations of reasonable size are but groups of people. Beyond some point, however, the humanity falls away from an organization and all that is left is the will to power and profit. They care not that our seas and atmosphere are rapidly changing in ways that may lead to disaster and famine of unimaginable scale. They care not because they are not human and they have moved beyond human values. They do not need the fresh air or the water or the mountains or the birds. They are a kind of virus or a cancer, all prettied up with a nice logo and television commercials to tell us the most outrageous lies, one after the other. For in reality, they crush us under their boots and they pay off our political leaders with campaign contributions and other bribes. They trample on diversity of all kinds, including human personality, as fewer and fewer kinds of people can prosper in the world they are casting, and more and more of us are marginalized.

The big corporate empires would be powerless if they were not in league with crooked politicians. I do not mean that the politicians necessarily know what they are doing. The corruption is so immense that they cannot even see it, even when it pays their spouse and finances their reelection. These, the happily blind, populate Capitol Hill and our state capitols like vermin who have been for generations in deep caves where they gradually lose their vision and there other senses, too.

Well, two and a quarter centuries was a good run for this democracy, but a rebirth is long overdue, and it is indeed necessary if we are to save our freedoms and our human values here and abroad, and if we are to protect the beauty and sustaining graces of nature, including the positive sides of human nature.

What that Republican Teddy Roosevelt understood at the beginning of the 20th century was that, if the rights and fortunes of the human scale are to be protected, if the rights and fortunes of average Americans, small businesses, family farms and Main Street are to be protected from the ravages of overscaled business giants, then government must grow in size and power to protect us all. The big business wing of the Republican Party, under Taft, defeated the family business wing of the Republican and their leader, Teddy Roosevelt. It would take another Roosevelt and of another party to turn the Square Deal into the New Deal, under which government greatly expanded to protect the people.

That has not been altogether a happy strategy, as large government has its own costs to us and its own abuses. The Libertarians are our new and brave allies in the defending of the Bill of Rights from Bush's anti-American attacks through his henchmen Ashcroft and Ridge. But our friends the Libertarians would have us do away with most all of our government. Anyone who has paid too many taxes or dealt with too many rude and overly powerful bureaucrats understands the Libertarian's feelings, but I ask at least the intellectually honest Libertarians – and there are many of them – to wisely see that government, which is indeed a system of restraint – must be matched in strength and scale to the corporate monstrosities that now have the ability and the willingness to destroy us – to blow up the entire Appalachian Range for the profits of coal, for example, as is now happening – or to steal for profit the water supply of whole regions, or to enslave whole regions at low wages rather than allow fair trade. Or to move every one of our good jobs overseas. These inhuman and inhumane organizations are stealing our lives and all nature around us.

Only government is large enough and powerful enough to reign in the corporations whose cold heartedness trades lives for profits all over the world. Republican Teddy Roosevelt began the buildup of big government solely to protect us from overlarge corporations so that they might not overwhelm us human beings. In doing so, he created a split in the Republican Party, and big business interests won. Perhaps the rational solution is to scale them both back – corporations and government – and let individual enterprise and individual freedom, and its many middle class treasures and blessings, blossom in the old battlefield. But there is no leadership for that, and governments are being stripped of all regulatory powers by the false religion of a new deity, the unfettered, liberated market. So, no longer protected by governments, we must fight the battle that is before us: human beings versus monstrous corporations and their bodysnatched government puppets. It is a battle of human scale versus monstrous scale, love versus fear.

What is happening now, of course, is that the neos in the Bush Administration (you can call them neoliberals or neoconservatives, though they are neo nothing except perhaps colonial and lithic) are starving government very much on purpose, and they tell us as much in their writing.

Huge military commitments, huge tax cuts to the wealthiest individuals and corporations, and huge budget deficits leave no money for the old New Deal programs like Social Security or newer programs such as Medicare. No money for schools, hospitals, police, fire, veterans – no money for anything but the front lines of a corporatized military and a militarized corporatocracy.

A starved government – once our government – has no ability to restrain the liberated giant or to investigate his abuses or prosecute his crimes. And so, two years after Enron, but one person is behind bars. It is not for lack of villains, and, as all California cries, it is not for lack of victims. All right. When did this monster get untied? He did so in the era of corporate raiding, permitted and smiled upon by the Reagan Administration. Reagan admired those cowboy businessmen of the 1980s – the corporate raiders who engineered hostile corporate takeovers. But those takeovers, allowed by hamstrung regulators, caused all large and mid-sized American corporations to go on a rampage of streamlining, outsourcing, wage-cutting, plant closings and job exporting. They did so to make themselves takeover-proof. It was no longer respectable to make a respectable profit and to serve your community with good jobs and fairly-priced goods and services.

The new mentality of profit maximization and unlimited mergers and no government control, was the untying of the monster and it was no accident. The ropes were further loosened in the greedy and morally corrupt Clinton and Bush administrations, until we find ourselves now with a government of, by and for the corporations. The new model CEO was the ruthless costcutter and dealmaker. CEO salaries went unbelievably high, where they have stayed. For every $100 that the average American worker makes, these top CEOs make $50,000. It is a moral outrage in the land of so many homeless and struggling and worried people.

A century ago, the ordinary people of America joined together to tie down the giant. The antitrust laws and environmental laws and the rights of workers to organize and collectively bargain for wages and benefits all joined to nurture the restoration of a great middle class – always the bedrock of democracy. The robber barons, the great giants, remained tied down, no longer free, liberated, to do as they pleased in crushing us with their great wealth and political power. And so it was for a time.

And now, loosed again, these giants have taken over our television networks and most of our newspapers, turning them against our interests and against the truth itself. These giants send our young people off to fight their commercial wars – great profitable ventures.

How free are we now, friends? Check your bills and your bank account. How much time and leisure do you have to enjoy your life and friends? How is your place in your community as a free and equal citizen? Or are we drones that go to work, go to bed to rest for more work, go to the stores to spend all that we earn and more, and watch television to receive our instructions what to buy the next day, if we have jobs at all? Is that freedom by some other name? It is not freedom by any name and it is nothing to push on the rest of the world in the name of freedom.

These corporations steal our time with their computerized telephone switchboards and their long waiting lines and few employees. They steal our jobs and our benefits and our pensions. They use fear at every turn to sell us a little protection, and a little more. And they steal our senators and congressmen just when they might have earned their keep protecting our democracy.

What shall we do, my fellows, about these corporate giants stalking our earth freely? How shall we get our children home from their wars and ourselves free from their captivities?

We the people, acting together in the new ways made possible by electronic communication, must become the large counterbalance to these powers – the counterbalance that our government no longer provides. By communicating and acting in concert, we can reward the good companies and thereby keep our money clear of the worst. We can make our demand for fair trade products and provide the shift in market share that will change the practices of those businesses that now exploit our brothers and sisters here and around the world. We can agree together which television news channel is the least objectionable, and agree to watch only that – for our watching and buying habits are votes for the kind of world we will live in.

By nudging market share, our small group of dedicated people can influence great changes. We have the tools now to do this now. It will not be an easy task, but we have no real alternative if we are to save the world, and that is what we must decide to do.

Tell your favorite coffee house that, as of Earth Day 2004, you will only buy fair trade coffee. Let us give a "fair warning for fair trade" in this and other areas of products and services. Let us develop the best information about who is doing what, and let us use our new tools of electronic democracy to come to consensus regarding which companies deserve our support – a reverse boycott on a global scale.

I will try to put information on my website about who is helping in this new effort, and I will put some printable cards there you can print to give a fair warning for fair trade to your favorite shops and other companies. And let us use each subsequent Earth Day to push for more improvement on every front, giving our fair warnings to move progress along. Let Americans and other people of the earth join us or not. But let them decide and know for themselves which side they are on.

Yes, let's continue our efforts to reform our government, most especially with campaign finance reform. But, with revolutionary new tools, we are capable of redefining democracy at a critical moment. Let us not be shy about it for time is short. We stand for love and fairness in the world. That is not gentle work, nor is it painless or bloodless, as so many people around the world know.

This is, after all, our world and our lives. Do you remember those few weeks after the 9/11 attacks when we, as an automatic antidote to the inhumanity of those attacks, sought to reassert our humanity again in a million little ways? For that moment we came out of the hypnosis we have come to live under and we saw the Eden of human love and cooperation. We must not fall back under that hypnosis again, as it is a waste of our life. The forces of life and death are in struggle, for those are the other names for love and fear. Let us choose life and love, and happily use ourselves up in loving service to one another.

Thank you.

Posted by: Trex at August 28, 2003 09:05 AM

Way to go Trex. Take the high road and call him a 'big ignorant pussy'.

I just have to wonder who makes up these evil corporations. Are they run by terrorists, Nazis, Stalinists? I was under the impression they were run by Americans. I was under the impression they employed Americans. People that went to work and fed their families and yes, made decisions in boardrooms and offices. Oh the sterile offices! Why don't we free them from their bondage and put everyone out of work. Then our economy can collapse and we can split into a hundred broken fractions and have our very own Chechnya (probably Texas).
Of course, according to pitcher most of us are too stupid to understand what is happening so we need the apple thief to tell us right from worng ('you neglect to take into account the malleability, and general lack of knowledge the 'masses' have about the internal workings of our government.')
The 'masses'? Where are these masses. I always hear about them, especially from self important blowhards who have no respect for anyone with a different opnion, but I have never met them. Though I do meet people every day who are well read and intelligent and respect the opinions of others. Maybe I need to watch more daytime tv to find these ignorant beasts. Maybe they need better schools. But then again there is no money for improving our schools in the budget and you can forget about any money from Pepsi going to buy books and fix the flourescents. That's blood money. Lord knows kids never drink Pepsi. That inorganic stuff will make you stoopid, turn you into the 'masses.'

Posted by: t at August 28, 2003 12:12 PM

Hey T- If our hands were'nt so heavy, we'd lift them and bitch-slap your ass. Face it. You just don't BELONG here.

Posted by: Yo at August 28, 2003 01:03 PM

poor little t, he seems to bitch-slap his own self everytime he opens his mouth. It'd be nice if you'd read the piece before forming your rebuttals. At this rate, I'd have to explain what's written here before we even get to the meat of her argument. I apologize for it being so long, that was rude.

Posted by: Trex at August 28, 2003 01:36 PM

Indeed Trex I did read the article but I was not rebutting it but rather what pitcher had said in previous entries. My response to you was simply that you were rather crude in your reply to rensing and were crude again in your reply to me.
As for fear mongering, I believe the article you posted above creates more fear in the average heart than anything I have read in a long time. She says, 'They care not because they are not human and they have moved beyond human values.' Not human! Holy shit! What are they? Have we been invaded? I knew those crop circles meant something.
And she does love her hyperbole. How about this doozy, ' to blow up the entire Appalachian Range for the profits of coal, for example, as is now happening'. Am I really supposed to believe that coal companies are blowing up the ENTIRE APPALACHIAN RANGE. Please appeal to my intellect granny, stop these scare tactics.
She was right about one thing though. T. Roosevelt was a great man. I recomment the book Theodore Rex.
Oh and Yo, where do I belong?

Posted by: t at August 28, 2003 03:50 PM

"I am not talking about all corporations or all big business. Corporations of reasonable size are but groups of people. Beyond some point, however, the humanity falls away from an organization and all that is left is the will to power and profit." - Granny D

You're right t, she does love her hyperbole, and she's very vague on how or at which point humanity erodes.

As I've stated before, it's fairly touchy feely by which I mean a bit fluffy. But perhaps if the company you work for has ever been part of a corporate takeover or merger you may understand the gist of what she's getting at. And by picking on these obvious smaller parts perhaps you agree with the message on the whole?

Posted by: Trex at August 28, 2003 04:07 PM

After much internal debate I've broken down. Fuck ( vitriol and anger). Yes its me the big ignorant pussy full of the above. Granny D forgot about the politics of dancing but I digress.
Fouling air, stealing water these are the things that make evil men rich. Granny D suffers from senility. I gotta take up rap. MY point?
We (Americans)Live in paradise. Find me an American that wants for anything and I'll show you someone whos lazy. Ok, so mow they start to bring up the mentally ill and all that crap. We take care of our own. what percentage of people in this country suffer. Americans work harder than any other country on Earth. We earn what we have. I haven't stolen what I have (well, we all make misjudgements at one time or another). It's easy to sit and point fingers at evil politicians and "corporate juggernauts" but then you drive your cars to see freinds play in some cafe, live in your wooden houses, e-mail each other using your computers and some msn product. Fuckin peices of shit. You make me sick get some balls and live to your principals. Go live in a cave, naked (no Gap clothing). This is what you will end up with. fuckers. Oh, Christian (the Irony) I had a smile on my face the whole time I typed that. Chow.

Posted by: John Rensing at August 28, 2003 06:43 PM

Rensing, you're a big, ignorant pussy full of anger and vitriol. And I love you.

Posted by: Trex at August 29, 2003 09:05 AM

What a tity villiage of idiots this is.

Posted by: SacFree at August 29, 2003 10:04 AM

Thanks Sacless, but I prefer CyberHole

Posted by: Trex at August 29, 2003 10:07 AM

Everybody loves me once they get to know me.

Posted by: John Rensing at August 29, 2003 11:54 AM

hyperbole, and other such embellishments are often the small beauties of great oration. those small fictions are the unimportant part of her speech. i find the critcisms of that aspect of her words to be silly, and superfluous. i thank you trex, for i find that collection of words by granny d, to be one of the most compelling, and all encompassing {in that it is not 500 pages long} assesments of our post-modern world. she brings to mind the powerful eloquence of gore vidal. one of the difficult things for me, is to focus on the positive elements of change, and the possibility of a small percentage to make such a vast difference. i believe it is entirely possible, but often find myself so overwhelmed by the gravity of the situation, that i feel grim. as i drove around yesterday listening to kpfa, they were broadcasting speeches from martin luther king jr. as the famed march on washington happened on august 28th, 1963. good god, if only we had a leader like him today to organize those of us fighting for change. perhaps we do, and those leaders are just more dispersed throughout culture, as our world becomes both more disjunct and homogenous with the proliferation of our global culture. i feel that whether one agrees with granny d, or mr. rensing, it is completely impossible to validly argue that the united states is not an imperialistic hegemony. sad sad. those forefathers you speak of john, were so terribly, {perhaps immeasurably, incomparably so} different from the people in power today in the USA. i will not adress the bulk of your words john, as there isn't much of an agrument there as christian says, but your suggestion that those of us fighting 'corporate america' should move into caves, is tired and completely absurd. essentially, we are arguing that corporate america has become far too powerful, not that technology and society should be destroyed or ignored. but then both of those are different discussions. as for your words directed at our beloved christian kiefer, i find him to be without question one of the most well read, well informed, intelligent, and articulate people i have ever met in my life. i wish thee luck in your debate. which, might i again state is beautiful...may we continue sharing our disparate opinions~ and now i am off to the mountains and the lakes and the wonder of a volcano~ perhaps i'll even find a cave there!!may the fire rage on~

Posted by: jeff pitcher at August 29, 2003 11:55 AM

WHat power do these corporate juggernauts have over you? Me? I don't believe they are impinging on my rights, freedoms, liberties. I enjoy the culture that we have created in this country. I think that it is beautiful.
Imperialistic hegemony? What is YOUR point?
You act as if these corporations are not comprised of men. Men that have worked hard for years to create something of value. Perhaps you and yours are envious of these men and their ability. I am. I want to work hard and create for myself and my family a life of beauty.
Tired and absurd? I see only sunset for your future.
Remember Howard Roark
Remember Hard Work
Remember how to Roar

Posted by: John Rensing at August 29, 2003 12:30 PM

No Trex, I do not agree with the bulk of her argument. But I do not dismiss it out of hand either. Let me just make one comparison.
Take Microsoft (and I would rather you did as I am a Linux user). Here is what surely would be defind by Granny as a non-human behemoth. They are massive, the epitome of what can happen when corporations run free, being sued on multiple continents as we speak. At the head of this entity, the most non-human, is Bill Gates. Bill Gates has amassed the largest fortune on the planet. I'm sure you all hate him for this hubris. But Gates has a foundation he set up with his wife. And this foundation donates over a Billion dollars a year to charitable organizations. A Billion. Currently, a portion of this money is being used to subsidize AIDS drug treatments for people suffering from the virus in Africa. Unable to afford the drugs on their own, Gates is paying for their treeatment and saving lives or at least making people's struggle more tolerable. This is a great thing. Let us also not forget that without the computer generation that he spawned there would not be the technology to create these drugs or organize their delivery systems. This is to say nothing of computers mapping the human genome.
Then, just for a contrast, let's use our host Mr. Pitcher. Now Pitcher has stated in previous entries that he has never made more than $13K in a calendar year. Which means that he has essentially never paid taxes (check your tax laws for the exact percentage). Which means he has really never supported the community in which he lives. He doesn't pay for road repair, he doesn't contribute to public transportation or the arts, he doesn't help the homeless. He does play the guitar well, but few people outside of this website know that fact. So who pays for all of these services? That's correct, all those non-human corporate drones. Now, please, tell me what kind of society we will have if you tear all of these people down. We will be rudderless, sick and in the dark. Which one has made a contribution Trex, which one?

Posted by: t at August 29, 2003 01:07 PM

Wow T, you're right. I stand corrected. Large corporations really ARE our kindly fathers. Thank you for leading me back to the herd. I feel so much safer again. Warm.
I'm on far too many watchdog sites and environmental organizations to ever agree with this simple explanation. Thanks for not dismissin her article outright, however. I believe that as a community, and hopefully we'll overcome just taking care of our nucleic family and look beyond in the future, we can make a difference by what we purchase and how we choose to spend our taxable, or otherwise, dollars.
Rensing! You're a big loveable ignorant pussy full of anger and vitriol! And your muscle shirt is beginning to look more and more like a mock turtleneck with every post.

Posted by: Trex at August 29, 2003 01:22 PM

Rightious, rightious words flow from T's hole. I honestly couln't have said this better myself.

Posted by: SacFree at August 29, 2003 01:53 PM

Trex, a friend once told me that I was the most contrary person he had ever met, I believe he still thinks this. I hold this as one of the greatest compliments I have ever recieved.
I am possibly the most conservative person you have ever conversed with. If I had to choose my favorite band, U2 rises to the top, Isreal kamakawiwo'ole is a favorite also. Both entities are/ were (Iz is dead) considerably liberal in their thinking but I still respect their talent. What does this have to do with anything? Just insight into lovable me. I look for beauty in mans accomplishments, it looks as if Pitcher and his ilk look for the evil. I don't see our gov't or "corporate juggernauts" as evil, though I believe evil exists and that individuals can be evil. Gosh more hyperbole, shame on me. I constantly strive to understand the liberal mindset. Do they honestly believe (granny D for instance) that these large corprorations want to poison our water, air, land, kill our senior citizens and children and eventually enslave us?
My "living in a cave" remark is real and applies to this thinking. Most liberals (all?) are technophobes. They are afraid of fossil fuels, nuclear energy, hydroelectric damns, and any other option available at present. Oh, wait solar.
WAIT, stop, I'm starting to beat my head. You know what I hate about liberals the most?
Their elitist attitudes, bitching about everyone else and assuming that they are better than others. How many young rich girls do I know that are vegetarians, pardon me, Vegan, and they fuckin do this to hold it over others heads. Hyperbole is the language of artists. I can understand ignorant anger and vitriol but pussy?
I'm pretty much the only person here that has posted his real name when bashing pitcher. My e-mail is fake but thats just cause I want to keep it in here. Anyone that wants to call me, Pitcher can get my number from source and give it to you I'm sure.

Posted by: john Rensing at August 29, 2003 03:31 PM

Actually Trex the problem is with your assumption that they are our fathers. That is a victim's attitude. We are not their children we are their equals. Once you realize this then you are one step closer to freedom from the propaganda from left or right. All I am trying to establish here is that blind idealogy will get you nowhere. Most people dismiss these posts out of hand without actually thinking about what has been said. They have their warm blankets of belief and they dare not stray from the herd. What you said, 'we can make a difference by what we purchase and how we choose to spend our taxable, or otherwise, dollars.' is exactly right. That is the beauty of capitalism. You have CHOICE.
It's not a perfect system but so far it's the only one that works. (If you disagree I recommend reading what Martin Amis has to say about communism.)
Now, where has Rensing gone? This is turning into a lovefest.

Posted by: t at August 29, 2003 03:39 PM

Hey I'm FULL of love.

Posted by: John Rensing at August 29, 2003 03:48 PM

Now Rensing it looks as if you your email says something about your anus. Are you that contrary? As for my email address it is real and you are all welcome to drop me a line. By the way John, nice work on the How to Roar/Howard Roark tip.
For those of you who do not recognize the Roark name I recommend a trip to Green Apple (certainly not Borders, right?) and pick up a copy of The Fountainhead. Pitcher himself gave this book to me and changed my life. Just don't try to buy it at City Lights as they don't carry Ayn Rand. You can only be so open minded, I guess.

Posted by: Jeff Conlon at August 29, 2003 03:50 PM

Mazltov!!!! I'm going to be smiling for the rest of the night. Oi.

Just for the edification of all
varanus, genus of family varanidae, of which the komodo dragon is a member- varanus komodoensis.
I never cease to amaze and enthrall.

Posted by: John Rensing at August 29, 2003 03:55 PM

Rensing:

I understand where you're coming from in terms of the bitching of the political left, is frankly every bit as insufferable and ridiculous as the bitching of the political right.

In America we (in theory) have the opportunity to create whatever we want. That's what freedom is about, yes? Unfortunately, this freedom has been built around the idea of capitalism. Why unfortunate? Because if unchecked capitalism ends in the octopus (see Frank Norris): hugely powerful men who own (or run) hugely powerful corporations.

Here's the situation as I see it: You get a hamburger in Sacramento. Then you drive east on I-80 for 1100 miles until you reach Cheyenne, Wyoming. There you buy another hamburger. It is exactly EXACTLY like the first hamburger. Even the number on the menu is the same. Yes you can still supersize it.

Some call this progress.

What corporations do for America is they make everything the same. Not only that, but they make everything the same for the masses--meaning that everything ends up safe, packaged, and essentailly artless. Hence corporate radio, t.v., Hollywood movies, fast food, strip malls, etc.

Mr. Rensing, I'm certainly not saying that I want to live in a cave. I enjoy my middle class life. I enjoy driving my Saturn station wagon and working my middle class job (teaching middle class students how to write middle class essays about their middle class ideals). But I sure would like America to have the kind of distinctly regional areas that it once had (and, in some cases, still does).

It feels like the American dream--and its inherent complimentary idea that everyone can be middle class--has taken precidence over all other issues: be them tangible environmental concepts or intangibles like our "quality of life."

Mr. Rensing, I just want America to have more poetry. That's all.

Because I view the lack of poetry in American life as being in large part tied into the corporatization of America, I try to avoid corporations whenever possible. I'm not fanatical about it (although at times I wish I were) but I am trying to make change through my power as a consumer. This is working (McDonalds, for one, posted its first EVER loss last year--and yes I did that singlehandedly).

There must be some kind of common ground here. I love this country. That's why I think it can be better.

Christian

Posted by: Christian Kiefer at September 1, 2003 03:28 PM

Mr. Kiefer,
Well typed, I could not agree with you more.
I think that the homogeneity occuring in our country is an obvious point to make. I would rather not see Mcdonalds take a loss, rather that other burger joints (not institutions) make more of a profit and there by cause mickey d's to increase their quality, Capitalism at its finest.
I think you are understaing your desires when you say that you ONLY want America to have more poetry, of course you could be speaking metaphorically...
My Anger\vitriol is subjected to those that blindly view (is this possible) corporations as evil and producing nothing of value. It is because of the large corporations that we can purchase things so cheaply, now comes the slave labor in foreign countries arguement, read this months national geographic for more info...
Mr. Kiefer you are welcome to join me for a glass of wine anytime. I grew up listening to the Riders of the purple sage and know some of the band members personally, Buck Page gave my brother his first guitar. Look at me, shamelessly name dropping. Of course I think you might be the only person posting here that has an inkling of who these guys are. Look forward to more posts.

Posted by: John Rensing at September 1, 2003 04:09 PM

John:

Well, yeah, I'm with you on all accounts there, but look, man, when you come onto someone's board and start calling people motherfuckers, spineless, etc. you're sounding EXACTLY like one of the people you despise--i.e. an ignorant, ranting idiot.

You are correct that the issue of corporate America is more complicated than most of its naysayers will admit. I think it's acceptable to be uncomfortable with the understanding that your middle class is based on someone else's lower wage labor. It's not exactly rocket science to understand that the economic system is based on a pyramid, with a wide middle class being supported by an even wider lower class. In the 1930s, that lower class arrived on the front page as the migrant dust bowl refugees. Today, we have brilliantly moved those workers to Mexico by way of NAFTA. Hail capitalism.

I am completely and totally opposed to the idea of economic globalization, but having said that I also feel that it is completely inevitable. It is inevitable because we middle class people LIKE being middle class goddammit and no one is going to take that away from us. The only way to keep up that standard of living is to pave the planet.

Recall the damming of the Yang Tze River in China (forgive me if my geography is off), a project which took the relocating of thousands of rural villagers--in fact whole villages were moved into what are essentially block apartments (the kind that the UK punk rockers in the 1970s grew up in). The villagers were interviewed and said that they enjoyed having running water. But what was lost there? In the name of getting electricity to city-dwellers.

I feel the essential issue is an examination of what we mean by "progress." You're right, John, in that I'm being a bit meek when I state that all I want is more poetry--even if metaphorically. What I really want is for people to wake up and see that "progress" as the middle class defines it (as I and WE define it) isn't always really progressive, if that makes sense. But I'm also a depressed pragmatist and know that that realization will never take place. So, like a good liberal, I shop at Trader Joe's--as if that can somehow hold back the rush of time.

Wine is accepted, but only if you apologize to Pitcher on this board. Your initial comments here were, in this reader's opinion, rude and unduly angry and frankly I think you owe an apology--not perhaps for your sentiment but for the way your phrased yourself.

Then, let's get shit faced and talk trash. Where are you located, anyhow?

Christian

Posted by: Christian Kiefer at September 1, 2003 11:26 PM

AND: Buck Page rules--even more so because he's still out kicking musical ass even as a cranky old fuck. Hail Gene Autry and that whole golden age of cheeseball singing cowboys. I love every one of them.

Posted by: Christian Kiefer at September 1, 2003 11:29 PM

Very interesting. It seems to me that most people here in this chat have fairly coalesced around some intrinsic values, and though some were affronted by the dogmatic nature of Granny D's speech, I'd say we're pretty much arguing the same ideas and beliefs. Shoot, I even heard Bush talking about the notion of fair trade in response to the huge loss of manufacturing jobs in ohio.
I would have to say that one concern not brought out is the idea of the shrinking of the middle class. T, as for viewing corporations as equals and not fathers, I couldn't agree with you more. I'm a businessman and have been for the majority of my adult life so I understand the need to look execs. and heads of companies dead in the eye. And I actually love a lot about it. That being said, I've seen my fair share of abuse in the system as I'm sure many of us have. If you have not, then you have no idea how other things can take a back seat to profit. The infuriating and suffocating dogma of left or right politics aside, I've always deep in my heart felt more comfortable with what I hear and see from the left - TRUE left, not your in college stint dabbling. And I hope to stay a hard line liberal for the rest of my days.

Posted by: Trex at September 2, 2003 10:11 AM

Christian:
I understand what you are trying to say about the base of lower class to middle to upper but it is a clumsy analogy. The middle class does not ride the backs of the lower class, is not dependent upon the lower class. I do believe that the upper class has dependency upon the middle class because they (middle class)are the consumers,(this is all obvious I'm sure). Poor people are not created by the greed of the middle class or rich. They just exist. They have existed in every society and always will. I do not believe that the paving of our planet is necessary to continue our standard of living but progress is. As technology grows we use what we have more efficiently.
Damning of the Yang Tze river has led to the damning of the Ynag Tze river dam. Some day I want to build a house out in the desert of Arizona. Should I consider what will be lost?
Lizards, insects, rodents and birds will be displaced, plants will be destroyed. Actually with my design most of the area will be kept intact. Granted these are not people or culture but some people might argue that I'm being selfish. As for the Yang Tze, land was submerged, animals displaced or killed, people moved and their standard of living arguably increased. This last point I won't back vehemently since I haven't seen exactly what these people lost. I don't like Americans supporting foreign ways of life either, I've seen to many People from this country trying to convince poor people in other nations that they are going to lose everything if this corporate juggernaut moves in, such conceit, and the natives look around and ask "Lose what?" Having said that I do appreciate other ways of living.
Depressed pragmatist? Don't bother, I think theres more to you than that. Have confidence in mans ability to rise up and produce beauty. Hell in some ways your obliged to as an artist.
As for apologizing to Pitcher, not now, not ever. I see Pitcher on a slippery slope of narcissism (thank you papito). I think it would be good for him to get a job at the Oakland docks for awhile. I know enough about him to know that he has never worked hard in his life. As for problems he's faced, I don't care, we have all faced problems, he talks about his entirely too much.

See I percieve myself as an honorable cowboy. I accept the consequences of my actions and meant what I said. My feelings can't be hurt so easily, call me what you will. I think I would suprise you. Spoiled rotten mother fucker. Fuckin pansy. Spineless wonders. The spineless wonder comment was generalized to some, not all, mostly from earlier posts I had read where people were shamelessly fawning over Jeff. It was\is quite pitiful. Jeff acts through his writing as if he sees the demise of people, culture,society. Look at the diversity that exists in this country. If you have problems with homogenizing culture then couldn't I take from that that you would have a problem homogenizing people? No interacial marriages then. I have no problems with it. Destruction and creation, one and the same.
Get rid of one and life ceases to exist.
I live in Davis. I have enjoyed your music in person a number of times and even shaken your hand. Looking forward to more.

John

Posted by: John Rensing at September 2, 2003 11:56 AM

John:

I must disagree with you on several accounts. First, I believe that the middle class does, in fact, ride on the back of the lower class. The fact that we get products for cheap is in large part due to someone else's low wage labor--i.e. the working poor. That's why Fender guitars are made in Mexico and that's why Fender guitars are cheap (and that's also why Fender guitars suck ass these days).

Surely you can't claim that poor people "just exist." Such a claim is essentailly claiming ignorance of the way in which our current global economy functions. Certainly, there are some geographic regions which are inherently more prosperous than others but just as you state that there has always been a lower / middle / and upper class and always will be (correct on that account) there has also always been an economic hierarchy which places these economic groups in a particular context--i.e. a symbiotic relationship of sorts where one is feeding on the next. Marx understood how much power is ultimately inherent in the position of the working class (and incidentally, so does Chuck Palahuik in Fight Club). What it means though, in a globalized system, is that certain geographic areas end up being labor-enslaved to other, more prosperous areas.

You state that you "do not believe that the paving of our planet is necessary to continue our standard of living but progress is." My fear is that many understand that progress and pavement are essentially the same.

Certainly we humans are animals and are a part of the environment. Building a house in the desert would indeed displace and change the environment. Damming the Yang Tze, though, has caused massive MASSIVE environmental change. This is what happens when "progress" becomes the uber-motive of any economic system.

Sorry this is disjointed but I'm working and it's difficult to concentrate, what with my air conditioner, comfortable chair, and a good meal in my middle class belly.

As for Pitcher, I think you're being an asshole but it doesn't look like I'm going to convince you of that.

Best,

Christian

Posted by: Christian Kiefer at September 2, 2003 01:35 PM

Just a couple of quick facts on the Three Gorges Damn on the Yangtze River. These quotes are pulled from the New York Times Magazine, 8/31/03.

Since the end of imperial rule nearly a century ago, Chinese leaders of all kinds -- democrats and dictators, Nationalists and Communists, technocrats and dreamers -- have shared a single, colossal engineering ambition: to dam the mighty Yangtze River. In June, 84 years after Sun Yat-sen, the Chinese Nationalist leader, first proposed locating the dam downstream of the scenic Three Gorges, sluice gates closed and the silt-laden waters of the world's third-longest river began filling the cavernous gap between a series of sheer cliffs to form the biggest reservoir in the world.

If it works as advertised, the dam could restrain the summer swells that regularly inundate the cities and towns along the lower Yangtze, potentially saving tens of thousands of lives. Yet the costs are also enormous, even beyond the $25 billion price tag. The reservoir now stretches for about 400 miles, roughly the length of Lake Superior. It has submerged scores of cities and towns, some of which were thriving centers of commerce and culture more than 2,000 years ago. At least 1.3 million people will have to abandon their homes.

Authorities hurried to move to safety the most important cultural relics, like the tomb of Liu Bei, king of the Shu state, and the temple of the Han Dynasty general Zhang Fei.

it is hard not to be stunned by the sheer visual transformation that it has brought to the region. Hardscrabble towns that had been left to rot in the decadelong wait for the dam have been quietly buried by the rising tide. The ''placid lake'' promised in a poem by Mao Zedong has replaced muddy rapids. The river's banks were once stripped of vegetation; now its waters lap forested highlands.

James Whitlow Delano, a freelance photographer based in Tokyo, made a photographic record of the area before and after the waters rose. The experience, he says, left him with conflicting emotions. New towns along the river lack the vigor of the port cities they have replaced. But at the same time, he says, he was struck by the tranquillity of the new landscape.

take from this what you will but it's difficult to wrap an 84 year old plan that was supported in poetry form by Mao as a globalization byproduct.

Posted by: t at September 2, 2003 02:09 PM

Yes I'm being an asshole.
What is pitcher being?
Can you sit and read his finger dribble and agree with him? He doesn't strike you as spineless?
As I type these questions I'm asking myself, "why are you asking these questions?"
I am doing myself the disservice of not getting specific. Long posts are boring. Lower, upper, mediocre, we as Americans have the ability to become anything we want.
It's the complaining of Pitcher and his ilk that I find so hard to swallow. Feelings are wonderful but you can't build a bridge with them. If we stop building bridges we die. I don't want to die just yet, so I fight, all living things,ALL, fight. They all battle with other living things. War, inevitable, beautiful, ugly. What is Pitchers goal, to enlighten me or get laid by some cyber groupie? Find me an asshole and I'll show you someone that shook things up a bit. It is easy to call me close minded or insinuate it. I suggest any of the liberals here start a small business and employ some people, do it all legally and get back to me. This world is tougher than us. I love nature and all that it has to offer. I don't like seeing it poisoned. I accept the balance of my life. Does pitcher or does he live with some hidden shame and guilt. Do You.
By my actions I am a man. I am proud that I earn more money every year. I take care of myself at no one else expense, whether my nieghbors or Phuc at the textile mill in the phillipines. ( yes Phuc is Vietnamese, look into it). Pitcher is the intolerant one, he says so. I am a bit ashamed at myself for finding this all so entertaining. Pitcher thinks its ok for the Pres. to get a blow job while on duty, does he see any problem with this? Obviously his morals, ethics and honor are lacking. His friends need to take him aside and tell him he's crazy. I am well aware of my craziness (trying to lighten things up). blah blah blah blah blah.
John Rensing aka Hunter John

Posted by: John Rensing at September 2, 2003 02:22 PM

John:

The difference, though, is that this is Jeff Pitcher's board, not yours.

Christian

Posted by: Christian Kiefer at September 2, 2003 02:39 PM

I think this is John's board now. Pitcher is nowhere to be seen.

Posted by: Yo at September 2, 2003 02:42 PM

Pitcher doesn't like to get involved in these discussions. In a way I appreciate that. On the other hand, I'd have to bitch slap people from time to time were this my board. (You'll note that my own board at www.christiankiefer.com doesn't allow people to post comments. How's that for free speech and frank political discussion?)

Posted by: Christian Kiefer at September 2, 2003 02:49 PM

I'm moving in for good and I'd like to hear from all of you. I'm going to be making some improvements with the web site over time and would appreciate any suggestions from each and every one of you. I'd especially like suggestions on a new name for the site, I was thinking something along the lines of "Above the angry orange vitriol infested pussy willow."

Posted by: John Rensing at September 2, 2003 03:01 PM

Asshole.

Posted by: Christian Kiefer at September 2, 2003 11:09 PM

;-)

Posted by: Christian Kiefer at September 2, 2003 11:10 PM

But you see the problem is that this discussion has stalled at 47. For some reason I feel like it needs to crest 50. Don't you?

Posted by: Christian Kiefer at September 4, 2003 09:14 AM

Manatees are good eatin'.

Posted by: ChinRingDingO at September 4, 2003 09:31 AM

Yes on prop. 54 yes yes yes. People should not be judged by the color of their skin but the content of their heart, gosh I wonder who said that.

Posted by: John Rensing at September 4, 2003 09:56 AM

50 it is and so I shall make it 51 because, in the spirit of Richard Brautigan, I believe that this long segment must end with the word

MAYONNAISE

.

Posted by: Christian Kiefer at September 4, 2003 01:07 PM

ahhh, my man richard .......anyone up for some trout fishing?

Posted by: silent_no_more at September 4, 2003 06:57 PM

Communism has nothing to do with love. Communism is an excellent hammer which we use to destroy our enemy.

Posted by: Stafford Ted at June 2, 2004 08:08 PM