Charles: Regardless of the outcome, it is important to fight the fight. Resistance to tyranny is all that keeps hope alive, whereas capitulation, apathy and indifference assure its continuation, and seals our fate as a people and as a nation.
It is important for people to know that individuals can, and must, resist injustice. Resistance to wrong-doing makes justice possible. Without it there is no hope, no possibility of change, and the descent into fascism will be swift and complete.
Ordinary people fighting back was how civil rights were won. There must be a willingness to step outside of the system, to disobey unjust laws, and to undermine illegitimate government. That is what brought about the merciful end to the Viet Nam War.
It is a country's dissidents that make a nation great, not its obedient conformists who always play it safe and obey authority. A stubborn refusal to follow the crowd, coupled with the ability to think for oneself, to question authority, and to challenge its very premise is the underpinning of any just civil society. Without these you have a nation of obedient sheep, mere automatons who have given up their humanity and sold their souls. Who would want to exist in such a place?
Mediocrity in government is always preceded by mediocrity in citizenship. Conversely, good government is the direct result of good citizenship. It is simply cause and effect. Output is proportional to input.
Angie: With the United States continuing its illegal, immoral, and unjustified occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan, and threatening other nations; i.e. Iran, Syria, North Korea, I am somewhat overwhelmed by the monumental double standards we see/read about, the rhetoric loud, constant, and mendacious. Young men and women are being sent to kill, and be killed, in distant lands whilst the craven excuses for humanity who send them are safely out of harm's way. The US has always operated in an imperialistic foreign policy mode, but in recent years, it has been virtually unstoppable with death, torture, destruction the only game being played. What is behind this war everlasting? Who is profiting from it, and, in the same breath, let me ask you how can its global terrorist onslaught be halted before the world, as we know it, is eradicated?
Charles: The impetus behind current U.S. foreign policy is the same as it has always been, only it is becoming more overt. That impetus is, of course, privatized profit and insensate greed. Capitalists care about one thing - capital. And they do not care who they have to kill to get it. They did not hesitate to kill thousands of American workers in the strikes of the 1800-1900s. So why would they think twice about sending our soldiers to die in the Middle East or anywhere else?
Militarism is the iron fist of capitalism. You can think of our Middle East policies as a way of socializing costs and privatizing profits because that is exactly what they do. The socialized cost is born by those who fight and die, while those who lobby for war - the chicken hawks and their corporate brethren - are raking in billions. I guess that makes the dead the cost of doing business.
In essence, war is the most insidious form of corporate welfare ever devised by the human imagination. As General Smedley Butler said in the 1930s, "War is a racket." Also I think there is a racist element to current Middle East policy and perhaps an ideological one as well. I know no other way of explaining the torture and humiliation of other human beings. I see it as a continuation of the same Manifest Destiny that resulted in the ethnic cleansing of the American Indian. Either the world will unite and put a stop to this madness or the planet will soon be rendered almost uninhabitable.
The real terrorists are in the White House, in Congress, and the corporate boardrooms of America.
Angie: Much has been said and written recently about the Jewish lobby in America and its influence on American foreign policy; and, in fact, its domestic policy. When we look at US politicians we are left with the unpleasant impression that House and Congress alike are quicker to profess allegiance to the terrorist state of Israel than to their own constituents and to their own country. A week or so ago, for instance, former Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was in New York telling an audience that Bush is "preparing to ditch the United Nations to take on Iran alone and that American politicians of all parties would do well to stop squabbling about Iraq and join the president in focusing on threat from Tehran". [2] It boggles the mind that a foreign politician would be in the United States telling your government what to do. I've begun calling your country the United States of Israel. Are the American people aware of this unprecedented interference in your government's foreign policy?
Charles: I doubt whether they are. The people know all about American Idol, but nothing of governmental policy. Clearly there is a strong Zionist element influencing U.S. foreign policy, especially in the Middle East. There are Zionists in high places in the government. It is no coincidence that the United States and Israel are the two greatest terrorist states on earth. Both nations have histories of genocide and ethnic cleansing.
Benjamin Netanyahu and George Bush are war criminals and some day they will be tried as such. Those who carry out their policies must take care not to implicate themselves in the war crimes initiated by their leaders. However, I believe that it is important to make a distinction between a government and the people. This government does not represent the interest of the people, and the same may be true of the Israeli government. How could it be in the public interest to carry out such criminal and atrocious policies?
Angie: US policies today are hardly in the public interests of the American people; in fact, the only country benefiting from US policies is the terrorist state of Israel. People, and not just those in the US, are propagandized to the point where they are incapable of independent thought. Thus, it's quite easy to hoodwink them into believing what governments want them to believe and to keep them living in a constant state of fear, all the more easy to manipulate them. And, of course, you have the corporate media dutifully pushing the government's agenda as "news". Do you see a "search for the truth" movement emerging wherein governments will be held accountable by those who they purport to represent?
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