About Supporting the Troops, Canadian Style

I just read a headline in today's newspaper "Taliban Smell Victory". I think they could smell victory quite a while ago, or they would not have been able to recruit so many people to run around blowing themselves up and planting land mines.

The point where I realized that the war in Afghanistan was going nowhere was at a CIGI talk given by the Canadian Brigadier General Denis Thompson, April 15, 2008 in Waterloo. He gave a presentation of all the methods Canadian forces were going to employ to pacify Afghanistan. Afterwards was a question and answer, where one person asked "Since the Soviet Union lost in Afghanistan, what makes you think Canada can win?"

The Brigadier General answered "Because we were invited there." I knew right away he had made a slip up, because the Russians had been invited too. However, the Q&A was not a debating forum, you simply asked your question and the speaker replied and then on to the next questioner.

http://www.cigionline.org/events/archive/35?page=4

I'm sure if any Taliban were sitting in the room at CIGI with us, they could have smelled victory right there, too.

I do not particularly like being accused of "Not supporting the troops" when I say we are not going to win this one. In order to win, you need to know what you're up against. We lost it a long ago when we allowed the Christian Fundamentalists to make this into a Holy War against Islam. We lost it when we admitted that we could not stop the torturing of detainees. We lost it when we started thinking that we were going to advance the cause of women's liberation in Afghanistan. We lost it when the U.S. decided to pull out and go fight Saddam for the oil, instead of hunting Bin Laden. The fighting itself is now just window dressing. You can't win a war if you can't think, and we cannot think while we have our heads full of ridiculous propaganda.

But when it comes to supporting the troops, I am right there. Recently, a friend of mine died, and I went to a reception after the funeral. The reception was held at the local Royal Canadian Legion. I had no sooner walked in than somebody hissed at me that I was dishonouring the dead and I needed to remove my hat. Apparently the dead he was referring to were the war dead. Later I found out that every branch of the Legion has the same inflexible rule. Hats off to honour the dead. No headgear of any kind. I took my hat off. I want to support the troops after all.

But last week, there was a Halloween party at the Royal Canadian Legion in Campbellford, and somebody dishonoured the dead by wearing a hat. Did somebody tell him to remove it? NO. He was given a prize for his costume. Was there any talk of dishonouring the dead? Apparently not. It sounds like a double standard to me. I cannot wear a baseball cap that says "Canada" on it, but this guy can wear a Ku Klux Klan hood, and carry a noose draped around the neck of a pretend black guy, and wins a prize.

Not one article or comment I have seen about this has anything to say about the "no hats rule". I don't want to get into a ridiculous argument of whether or not this was bad taste. But apparently I'm the only one who remembered that wearing any hat at the Legion hall dishonours the dead, let alone a KKK hood. Next time, you sanctimonious hat haters, how about reminding the racists to remove their hoods, too.

I just want to follow up with the comment that if people at the Legion, presumably with some military sensibilities, cannot figure out whether this KKK guy should be kicked out immediately, then we really have no chance winning a war in Afghanistan, because winning requires some cultural smarts as well as air strikes. If we are going to be idiots, we should stay home and be idiots.

Here are the links to the rule, that requires anyone entering a Canadian Legion (an Armed Forces veterans’ association) premises to remove their hat.

http://www.aroundtaber.com/Default.aspx?alias=www.aroundtaber.com/tleg
www.openschool.bc.ca/features/samples/law12_sample.pdf

And about Sikh Turbans in the Legion???
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/moan-zone/93334-hat-etiquette.html
http://www.williamgairdner.com/poppies-trump-turbans/

Considering all the controversy about wearing headgear of any kind, how come the KKK guy gets a free pass and a prize to dishonour our war dead?

Picture: Bikers supporting troops, from this website. http://westerncanada-un-nato-veterans.blogspot.com/2009_06_01_archive.html

Newt Gingrich's Comments on Obama Make More Sense Turned Around

Recently there was a blatantly racist comment on Obama by Newt Gingrich. Check this website "obamareleaseyourrecords.com" Gingrich described Obama's behaviour as Kenyan. Racist theory says that having one drop of black blood in you will make you an inferior being, and hamper your ability to think rationally. Racists believe only pure white blood will make you a rational intelligent human.

OK that's all I want to say about why his remarks are racist. Now to get down to my purpose here, which is to show how it makes more sense to turn around this propaganda against the people Gingrich supports.

Here is his quote:

“What if [Obama] is so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand Kenyan, anti-colonial behavior, can you begin to piece together [his actions]?” Gingrich asks. “That is the most accurate, predictive model for his behavior.”

The statement makes no sense, because Obama was raised by white grandparents, and was not taught about anti-colonial ideas by his father. Here is the reverse, where the assumption is that Obama is rational, and it is the Republicans who are batsh*t crazy:

“What if [The Republicans] are so outside our comprehension, that only if you understand southern Slave-owning Racists behavior, can you begin to piece together [their actions]? That is the most accurate, predictive model for their behavior.”

Second quote:

“I think he worked very hard at being a person who is normal, reasonable, moderate, bipartisan, transparent, accommodating — none of which was true,” Gingrich continues. “In the Alinksy tradition, he was being the person he needed to be in order to achieve the position he needed to achieve . . . He was authentically dishonest.”

And reversed:

“I think [the Republicans] worked very hard at being a party that is normal, reasonable, moderate, bipartisan, transparent, accommodating — none of which was true, In the Nixon tradition, they were being the party they needed to be in order to achieve the position they needed to achieve . . . they were authentically dishonest.”

Notice first how easy it is to turn it around, and how it even ends up making more sense that way.

Picture: From the same website. "Obamareleaseyourrecords" By the way, it's not really about where he was born, and everybody should know it. The Republicans are just not allowed to say it's because he is partly black, because racism is unpopular with undecided voters.

Queers Against Israeli Apartheid Back in the Pride parade

Recently, I was sent a copy of an email by an activist friend of mine, which was critical of the group "Queers Against Israeli Apartheid". I had no interest in it initially, but on second thought I decided to look into this unusual development.

This group was going to be banned from participating in the upcoming Toronto Gay Pride parade, which has become a major event. But after some protests, the ban was overturned.

My question is why are the gays, lesbians and transsexuals supporting Palestinians, while Palestinians themselves apparently discriminate against homosexuality? At the same time, my understanding is that Israelis were very tolerant.

After I read a bit on this web page, explaining the origin of this group

http://queersagainstapartheid.org/who/

more questions arise and some answers.

The Israeli treatment of Palestinians is probably worse in many ways than the Palestinian discrimination against homosexuals. Not being a homosexual or a Palestinian myself, I am not an expert on these issues, and I may not fully understand the discrimination each one faces. And furthermore, maybe I'm using the incorrect terms such as "queer" instead of LGBT. In which case I apologize, but I am not anti-gay/lesbian/bisexual/transsexual/queer. I am simply for universal human rights and freedom.

Homosexuals, even in Islamic countries, do not have their rights taken away unless they are "discovered", and even then, their entire families are not punished by having their houses bulldozed. Homosexuals are not marked from birth to be denied housing and free access to jobs. Homosexual leaders are not regularly targeted by missile attacks in densely populated areas.

On the other hand, I am told that homosexuality is something that has been around a long time, and apparently homosexuals exist all over the world, and throughout history, in many antagonistic cultures.

I find it interesting that a homosexual group such as this would take the trouble to speak out in support of other people (like the Palestinians) who have been denied their rights, even though most Palestinians may not be queer themselves, and may discriminate against homosexuals.

Meanwhile Israel has apparently been the only country in the middle East to openly tolerate homosexuals, while gays are persecuted in the Islamic Arab countries.

Here is Wikipedia on Israel, Palestine and homosexuals
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Israel

Meanwhile, this right wing web page calls gay marriage in Israel "Worse then the holocaust" and "far worse to allow the homosexualization of the Holy Land than to give back land to the Arabs" I guess Rabbi Levin thinks it is better to give the Holy Land back to the Arabs than to allow homosexuality.

http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/nov/06112107.html

Also, homosexuals can still be (illegally) murdered in Israel, presumably by Orthodox Jews:

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1914391,00.html

Then, in a weird turnaround, Israeli settlers plan "Jewish Pride" parades through Arab neighbourhoods in retaliation for "Gay Pride" parades in Israel.

http://www.alternet.org/world/140934/right-wing_israeli_extremists_using_gay_rights_to_justify_incursions_into_arab_villages/

And a long article about the politicization of homosexuality, and how it is affected by the occupation of Palestine.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/oct/02/israel.gayrights

And furthermore, a documentary on the Iranian practice of forcing sex change operations on homosexuals.

http://current.com/news-and-politics/76312142_transsexuality-in-iran.htm

It's hard for me to draw any conclusions, but still, I find it interesting that Gays, who have plenty of problems of their own, are not so self absorbed that they can't also express support for fellow human beings who are suffering from discrimination for a different reason.


Picture: Israeli gay pride parade

Lessons Learned from the Nazis

If you Google "lessons learned from the Nazis" you will see only 5 hits, and one of those is this blog. In all the billions of web pages out there on every topic possible, maybe this indicates that we have not learned a lot. (BTW "Lessons learned from Vietnam: 20,700 hits, "Lessons learned from the depression": 109,000. If you check this and I am wrong, please leave a comment, but remember that Google does change slightly with time)

What did we learn from the Nazis? Let's do it like a Letterman top ten list, start with the least important. I have actually 11.

11 - We need an international institution where the nations of the world can come together and discuss their differences, and solutions to war. That's why the UN was set up, and almost every country in the world participates.

10- Dictatorships tend to declare war with a lot less justification than true liberal democracies. But even having a democracy is no guarantee against being a warlike country. In fact some democracies are actually fake, where people are killed if they vote for the opposition. Or ballots are not fairly counted.

9- Every country in the world claims to be acting only in self defense, including the Nazis. Hitler frequently declared he was a man of peace. So words of peace alone are not a reliable indicator of peaceful intentions.

8- Arms buildups are not wrong all by themselves, but the size and intensity may be an indication of future trouble.

7- Nobody is allowed to use the legal defence "I was only following orders" when they are torturing and killing civilians.

6- Torturing people is wrong, that's why we have the Geneva convention.

5- Group punishments, and reprisals against innocent civilians for sabotage and terrorism are wrong.

4- Invading a foreign sovereign state is wrong. No excuses are permitted such as "They were mistreating their people" or "they attacked us first". The only acceptable way to invade a foreign country today would be with the full support of the rest of the international community, such as the UN, for example.

3- Hate propaganda against weak ethnic/religious groups is wrong, although this must be balanced against freedom of speech. At the very least, the ethnic/religious group should be given equal air time or print pages to respond to hate propaganda. And it is not only about the Jews, hate propaganda could be about any weak, minority group.

2- Gassing civilians to death based on religion/race/politics is wrong. Also wrong to do it based on intelligence. And not just gassing alone, any form of mass killing that you might ever invent in the future would still be wrong.

And finally, number one, numero uno, in all caps because it deserves it: NOBODY IS THE MASTER RACE

These are the lessons we should have learned from the Nazis. But in the sixty or so years since WW2 ended, we did not seem to really understand these lessons. We still can justify our own Nazi-like actions. And we are still reluctant to find out the truth about what is really going on right under our noses.

No matter how bloodthirsty and warlike we are, we always manage to compare ourselves to the Jews under Hitler, and compare our enemies to the Nazis. So it seems we have not really learned that much.

The most ironic example of ignoring the lessons from the Nazis is the Jews themselves, who are now occupying a country they invaded 40 years ago, and are still moving Jewish settlers into this occupied land, putting up barriers and military checkpoints up for Muslims, disallowing Muslims the freedom of housing, travel, or commerce. And of course they still compare themselves to the poor downtrodden Jews under Hitler all in the name of "Israel has the right to defend herself". Or maybe they did learn some lessons, but all the wrong ones.

The Debate on Health Care for Palestinians

Today I came across a news article in the Jerusalem Post about a conference in England about health care for Palestinians under occupation of Israel. It was titled "Oxford U. blames Israel for poor Palestinian healthcare". In this article, several issues came up, that may not have been well known before, and perhaps merit some attention.

First, a little background. Since 1967, Israel has occupied the Palestinian territories. The living conditions of Palestinians have been a concern to many people around the world. Even those who are not Palestinian themselves have this feeling, fuelled by news reports from some sources. Is there any truth these allegations that Palestinians receive poor health care? This article in the Jerusalem Post could shed some light on the matter.

Just to clarify one point, and this comment was also made on this website, it was not actually Oxford University that hosted the conference, it was the "Society for Medicine".

So on with the facts. The conference, "Healthcare Under Siege", described itself this way

“In this conference, the speakers will draw on their personal experiences in the occupied Palestinian territories to expose the devastating effect of crippling economic blockades and military attacks on civilian health and access to medical care in Gaza,”

You can already tell there is going to be Israeli-bashing in this conference, from the words "devastating effect" "crippling blockades" "military attacks on civilian". And the Jerusalem Post also points out that George Galloway will be attending, a British politician who is famous for bringing relief supplies to Palestinians, and is very outspoken in his criticism of Israel and the USA.

But because the article is actually in a Jewish newspaper, naturally there are also some nice things to be said about the medical care Palestinians receive from Israel. Although I do not think these statements were made at this conference. I will try to summarize them here anyway.

Lord Leslie Turnberg, former president of the Royal College of Physicians, and has visited two hospitals in Israel, made these comments for the Jerusalem Post

• “At Safra Children’s Hospital [Tel Hashomer] at any one time, there are 30-40 children from Gaza with their families receiving specialist care such as cardiac surgery or bone marrow transplantation"
• "More than half of [Safra Children's Hospital] cardiac surgery patients are from Gaza."
• "At the Schneider Children’s Hospital [in Petah Tikva] we saw many Palestinian children being cared for"
• "A pediatrician from Gaza spent 18 months training in pediatric oncology" [At Schneider]
• "There are many such interactions, but they remain largely unpublished, in part at least because of the fear of Hamas,”

Also quoted in this article, is David Katz, professor of Immunology at University College London, speaking about the "Health Care Under Siege" conference. Although he was not quoted about the actual health care of Palestinians, he was quoted about the credibility of the panel.

“Unfortunately, this panel does not inspire confidence and suggests a propaganda publicity stunt. Surely an eminent epidemiologist like Sir Iain should be circumspect about associating with George Galloway, or indeed with Dr. Horton, whose poor track record of judgment on the MMR [Measles, mumps and rubella] vaccine saga speaks for itself.”

Finally, Stuart Stanton, professor emeritus at St George’s Hospital Medical School, London, and chairman of Hadassah UK (Hadassah I think is an Israeli hospital.) Was quoted as saying

• "Israeli hospitals don’t discriminate."
• “Hadassah, and other hospitals in Israel, brings first-class medical attention to the Palestinian population,”
• “Hadassah in Jerusalem saved the lives of Palestinian suicide bombers injured while killing hundreds of Israelis." (I paraphrased this a bit, just left out a little bit of rhetoric, that's all. You can check the original article if you don't believe me.)
• "we save lives of Palestinian babies with severe heart defects."
• "we conduct dozens of collaborative research and clinical projects with Palestinian physicians in a variety of medical and health areas.”

How can we interpret these pro-Israeli comments? Well for one thing, we seem to be missing all the anti Israeli facts, if there were any presented at this conference. Such as what is the relative survival rate for infants, and all the other yardsticks by which we usually measure health care. Not being there myself, I cannot even know if these Palestinians in Israeli hospitals were getting their health care for free or if they were paying for it. I know that in Canada, we make Americans pay.

It may be true that Israeli Hospitals don't discriminate, but it is also true that Palestinians get discriminated against at checkpoints on the way to the hospitals. I would like to know if an Israeli checkpoint would ever let a Palestinian ambulance through in an emergency.

Hadassah hospital is supposed to have saved the life of a suicide bomber who killed hundreds of Israelis.  Obviously, if a suicide bomber is still alive, the Israelis are going to try to save his life for security reasons, so that they can interrogate him, and get valuable information to prevent it from happening again.  This is not really a humanitarian issue, and says nothing about the general health care of Palestinians.  It's more of a reminder that any Palestinian may also be a suicide bomber.

I would have to say, that in the balance I found this article quite unconvincing in presenting a case for Palestinians getting "first class medical attention", although I can well imagine that if a Palestinian could get into a Jewish hospital, they would be taken care of as human beings, and not made to suffer. Just like me in an American hospital.

Picture: Palestinian Ambulance being checked out by Israeli soldiers. Problem? There may be a bomb on board, which sadly is a possibility with all Palestinian ambulances. One of the many actual problems of health care for Palestinians.

Left NOT Angry with Obama's Nuclear Non-Proliferation

Last weekend at our family get-together, someone mentioned that Barack Obama was "A very controversial president". This is the equivalent of "Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy" entry about the subject of planet Earth. All it said was "Mostly harmless".

Sometimes we are mislead by simplifications. Yes, Obama is a controversial president, but it is not because of his policies or anything he has done. The controversy comes because he is "black", and to millions of racist Americans, he is the AntiChrist. So the real controversy is not that Obama is radical, but that millions of Americans are racists and are looking for any excuse to stop him.

Obama's latest initiative proves that he has learned a lot from trying to debate health care with southern conservatives. The health care debate dragged on for over a year, and was nearly sunk by trying to discuss "Death Panels" and socialism. Now Obama realizes that trying to discuss anything with conservatives is like trying to discuss which end of the bus that African-Americans should sit in. i.e. no debate is possible, as too many of these people are nutters like Glenn Beck.

So this morning I heard that Obama had launched an anti-nuclear proliferation initiative. The way it was presented on TV was that "Obama has angered the right wing militarists and the left wing pacifists with this program". Wait a minute, that is pure propaganda. It seems like the news writer was trying to make it sound like left winger nut jobs will not be happy with anything less than total, unconditional, dismantling of all American nuclear weapons, without waiting for anyone else. This is absolutely not true. As a left wing nut job, I am very happy with Obama's initiative. It is the smart thing to do. It was the general approach to non-proliferation that has been around for at least fifty years. Basically, a pledge to not attack non-nuclear nations with atomic weapons.

So why is the TV station harping on about lefties being upset with it? Well actually, I guess the Toronto Star reported there was one guy who said that he didn't like the fact that Obama increased the budget for maintaining their existing nuclear arsenal. That is an entirely separate issue. The Los Alamos Study Group seems to be focused on keeping the budget for nuclear weapons low. They do not seem to be experts in foreign policy nor do they seem to be very knowledgeable about how to diplomatically persuade other countries to go the non-nuclear route.

So as far as I'm concerned, there are NO legitimate "lefties" who are angry at Obama about this. I say thumbs up to Barack Obama, and yet another reason why the Nobel committee was prescient in awarding the Peace prize to Obama. Too bad he couldn't win two in a row.

Picture: The Enola Gay, restored in 2003, the plane that dropped the first atomic bomb in anger.

Ann Counter Fails to Prove Canada Suppresses Free Speech

Several Canadians have expressed concern about the stifling of Ann Coulter by the University of Ottawa.

"The costs of free speech may be high, but the costs of doing without it are even higher to our democracy."

From the Toronto Star
Nathalie Des Rosiers
General Counsel, Canadian Civil Liberties Association

---------------------------------

"Was it her potential message that Canada found unpalatable? If so, what are the RWB[*] approved messages that might lead other nations to a high press-freedom rating like Canada's?"

Rob Brandreth-Gibbs North Vancouver
Vancouver Sun *Found it strange that Reporters Without Borders rated press freedom higher in Canada than in the USA

And I'm sure there was a lot of similar hand wringing from coast to coast. Relax, people, let me explain. First let's take a measure of the intellectual level of what is being said here. I'm going to go with just one example. Ann Coulter says Arab students should be barred from flying on any airplanes due to the danger they pose. An Arab student asks what alternative they have. Ann Coulter says "Take a camel".

I could go on for hundreds of examples if I cared to take the time, but this would not be the first time that someone is judged by one isolated statement. And, actually, this statement is fairly representative of the type of statements that made Ann Coulter famous and even loved by the racists in the USA and Canada.

Only a Nazi would say that Hitler's call for the gassing of the Jews was a "contentious view". To Jews it goes far beyond contentious, all the way to threatening extermination. Calling a black man a "Nigger" is not a contentious statement, in my opinion, it is a racial slur. Ann Coulter's camel statement is not really a "contentious view" either. It is an ignorant and racist insult designed to threaten and provoke rage. It belongs on Fox News, or on an American Hate Radio program. If the University of Ottawa had not invited Ann Coulter to speak, their students would have been none the dumber for it. On the other hand, by inviting her and finding out how they got played for suckers by the racists, I hope those U of O people learned a valuable lesson. Don't play with fire unless you have asbestos underwear.

We do not need the presence of Ann Coulter in Canada to prove that we have free speech. So by logical extension:
If it does not deny free speech to NOT invite her, it is not suppressing free speech when the affair is cancelled.

Now to deal with the question of who has the greater freedom of the press: Canada or the USA? I will explain this with a simple parable, without mentioning any names. Please do not try to fill in the names for me, because this is a logic exercise only to prove a point. Just keep an open mind and follow the logic.

There once was a country filled with hate, run by one party, the party of hate. All peace loving, tolerant reporters were fired, only the hateful reporters kept their jobs, and they are monitored constantly to make sure they continue to spew hate against the oppressed minorities. Nearby, there was another country of peaceful, tolerant people, who never fired a reporter for their views, even if that reporter sometimes said hateful things. That's because that country was "tolerant" and valued freedom of the press.

One day, at a university in the peaceful country, it was decided to invite a reporter from the hate filled country to give a speech, the better to understand their hate-filled neighbours. A protest was staged, and the speech was cancelled.

So, logically, does that mean the tolerant peaceful country has no more freedom of the press than the country of hate?

The answer is no. Because freedom of the press involves much more than people sitting quietly and listening to hate speeches. And freedom of the press should never be mutually exclusive to freedom of public protest.

I am not trying to make a point about either Iran or Canada. Simply that "Freedom of the press" is not necessarily at stake with one protested speech by a guest reporter. Freedom of the press is a measure of how many reporters fear for their jobs in a given country, based on their views. Or how much pressure is put on reporters to stick with a "party line" in that country, on the average. It is also a measure of whether or not one party line had predominance over the other.

I think the Reporters without Borders probably believed that in Canada, there was less of a tendency to force reporters to conform to one side or another of a political discussion. And there was less tendency for reporters to be fired for disagreeing with their bosses. I'm not sure they would even factor in the Ann Coulter controversy in this measure, as she is not a Canadian reporter and does not normally report on Canadian affairs. Recently there have been several right wing pundits fired for not being right wing enough in the USA. Just last week it was David Frum. I remember during the last political campaign it was right winger Christopher Buckley, son of William F Buckley who came under fire.

And naturally, when you suggest taking away the rights of certain groups of citizens, you may expect them to protest, and not sit quietly and listen to you. The freedom to protest without fear for your life is a part of free speech, and that seems to be doing well in Ottawa.

Ann Coulter and Ottawa

I feel saddened to hear that Ann Coulter was invited to the University of Ottawa and paid $10,000 to speak. It would be OK in a certain context, let's say that she was invited to a closed laboratory and asked to speak in front of experts on mental illness, so that they could do some research on how to stop the spread of Ann Coulter's disease. But not to invite her to speak in front of a crowd of undergraduates including Arabs. That is nothing more than than a setup for the type of freak show that is Ann's bread and butter.

Making things worse, the Provost of the University sent her a letter ahead of time warning her of Canada's hate laws. A better way to handle this would have been to let Ann deal with the laws herself. Or just not invite anyone who needed to be warned. Just imagine the U of O inviting Hitler to speak and sending him a message beforehand saying "Be careful of Canada's hate laws, you could get locked up". The reason you invite Hitler is because of his hate speech, and only because of his hate speech. Without the hate, Hitler is just another Austrian kid that nobody cares about.

The most important thing to understand is that Ann Coulter is not suitable for a University setting. She is not logical, she does not make sense. Instead of paying her money to insult people's religion and race, just get a panel of experts to debate her impact on American society. That would be educational.

I wonder how her next engagement at the University of Alberta will go down. Alberta probably has more Ann Coulter sympathizers than any other place in Canada, I'm guessing.

Picture: T-shirt commemorating Ann's response to Muslim student asking how she would be able to travel with Ann's call to ban Muslims from all airplanes.

Coincidentally, there is a CBC show on TV tonight "Love Hate and Propaganda" about WW2.

Mythbusting for Haiti

It is pretty overwhelming to see what is going on in Haiti. But absolutely revolting to see the heartless attitudes some people take toward this tragedy. I especially despise Rush Limbaugh saying that nobody should give a penny to the Haitians. 

I saw some comment like:
"What do they expect, they live in little tin roof shacks, of course they are going to be killed in an earthquake"

Fact: You are actually far less likely to die in an earthquake when you live in a miserable shack held up by broomsticks and twine, than you are to be killed when a larger multi story cement structure, probably built during the American occupation, collapses on your head.

Pat Robertson made a lot of errors in his condemnation of Haiti. The "Pact with the devil" they made to get free from France? I have gone over the pact with the devil contract before, it does not hold up to any scrutiny. I don't expect any truth from someone who believes in Adam and Eve anyway. But please, they were not fighting to be free of France. They at first wanted to remain a colony of France, and only to be free of slavery. Toussaint Louverture, their early and successful leader, wanted to negotiate for the end of slavery and remain a colony of France. But he was captured at the official negotiation, by the French, and sent to France where he died of disease in captivity. He was actually lucky, almost every other leader who stood up to the French was burned alive or tortured to death upon capture. It was only after these talks broke down, that the Haitians were forced to choose new leaders and decided to fight again for complete independence, against the treacherous French.

Another big question Pat raised, why are Haitians so poor, when right next door in Dominican Republic people are wealthy and happy? He reasons it's all about the "pact with the devil" which I actually find an improvement over many of the racist slurs other people make to explain the poverty.

Why is Haiti poor? After Haiti's independence, the French refused to trade with Haiti, and no other country would or could trade with them either. Either for revenge, or because of the so-called pact with the devil, of for pure racism. Anyway, no trade, no money. After a number of years of near mass starvation, the Haitians negotiated with the French, who were also hurting a little by this time, as Haiti had been a major source of wealth for them. The French offered a deal, take it or leave it, that the Haitians would have to repay France for every bit of land they took (the entire island of Hispaniola), and the full market price for every slave on the island who was freed by the rebellion, (almost the entire population) and all damages cause by either side in the rebellion. Ask yourself how this compares to the terms England gave to America after the war of independence. You may have to read up on that history again, but I'm sure you will not find reparations or trade embargoes. The Haitians were saddled with paying off a staggering debt, including extremely high interest rates from 1826 to 1879. So don't make disparaging comments about Haitian poverty if you don't know anything about their history.

Is there more? Of course. The entire Island of Hispaniola, for a time was under one government, but in 1844 considering the burdensome deal made with France, half the island split away, leaving the people in the Western half of the island (today Haiti) to pay the entire war reparations to France without the help of the Eastern half, now called Dominican Republic. That's the "wealthy" part that Pat Robertson compares to Haiti to "prove" there was a pact with the devil. Apparently, in Pat Robertson's eyes, poverty proves you have a pact with the devil, even when people are taking money from you unfairly. And by the way, the Dominican Republic is not actually paradise on earth either.

Another myth to dispel is this: That the people of Haiti are congenitally incapable of running a decent country. Either through stupidity, or pacts with the devil or whatever, the myth is, the Haitians just can't do it. Well just read up on their history, and you will find there was a period of time (approximately 1867 to 1911) when the Haitians actually were turning their little country into a nice place to live, even with with a growing intellectual class, arts and literature. Peace and stability were the norm. But after about forty years of this, the Germans thought Haiti might be a possible colony in about 1911, and the Americans retaliated by invading and brutally occupying the Haiti. Since then it has been either outright American control, or American puppet dictators, more or less steadily. Later in this dictatorship phase (especially in the last 20 years), many of the most wealthy and educated Haitians emigrated to Canada or the USA, leaving the rest to deal with it. Not the best of conditions to try to run a good country.

Then this earthquake, and all of a sudden racists pop out of the woodwork with their opinions that do nothing but show their own ignorance and lack of either education or heart.

Now I see a video on CBC News  of a Canadian teenage girl in Haiti crying. Why? Because she and a group from her church were in Haiti during the earthquake, on one of these volunteer trips, doing some humanitarian work while visiting a developing country. She was crying, overcome with emotion of seeing all the dead bodies, hearing the screaming people trapped in the buildings, and yet in the middle of all this, their Haitians hosts were still doing their very best to make sure the Canadian guests were safe and taken care of.

How about if we just give these people a break for once?

Top picture: Haiti, taken from a travel blog here:

http://jeffandlauratravel.wordpress.com/category/travel/haiti/

Are Liberal Universities Brainwashing Students?

Most American universities are accused by the right wing conservatives of being too liberal. Certainly, polls of professors etc. substantiate the opinion. For example, only 5% of scientists claim to be Republican while about 40% claim to be Democrat. Similarly, fundamental religious groups feel excluded from power at Universities, where most professors, if they are religious at all, are not usually evangelical. The Christian religious fundamentalists have lately been strongly supporting the right wing agenda politically.

Extreme statements have been made about liberal universities brainwashing students, and not just in normal classroom lectures. As first year students arrive, orientation programs have been set up that also provide a liberal bias. "Affirmative Action Offices" are there to enforce liberal attitudes such as tolerance of non-Christian religions, and to prevent racial harassment.

There is a controversy about the non profit group "Foundation for Individual Rights in Education" or "FIRE". I first heard of FIRE in connection with two cases. The first case was at the University of Delaware. Freshman students were being subjected to an indoctrination program that promoted multiculturalism. FIRE tried to stop the program, citing in particular a sentence in the workbook stating "All white people in America are racists." and "Black people cannot be racist". The second case at Purdue in Indiana, where a student was reading a book about the KKK in a janitorial lunch room, and was accused of racism. An apology was made by the University after it was learned that the book was not racist, and actually came from the Purdue University library, and of course after FIRE (and the ACLU) defended the student.

After viewing the two videos about these cases, without knowing anything about FIRE, I simply concluded that FIRE was a right wing organization defending white students, Christians, or Republicans against harassment charges from minority groups, feminists, or liberals. Well it turned out to be far more complicated than that. So either they are hiding their agenda extremely well, or they are in fact an even handed and balanced organization.

(Delaware video) I have to comment on the slick propaganda in this production. Using the phrase "diversity" of opinion to attack multiculturalism and it's "Diversity" of cultures is clever word transposing. And you would never imagine Delaware has a very low 5% black student population, from the random campus shot at 3:11. It's also offensive to have the students chuckling at 3:17 while discussing black women and "All the oppression". Maybe those students really needed this program in order to have their eyes opened.

(Purdue video) Keith is portrayed as the sweetest guy in the world. It is never really explained in the video why an illiterate black woman on the janitorial staff would have taken offense at his book.

Is FIRE a front organization set up to appear as neutral and independent while it actually is carrying out a right wing racist agenda?

FIRE has vigorously defended it's status as an independent organization whose only interest is to protect students exercising their freedom of speech. They point out that they have also defended Prof. Ward Churchill, who made derogatory statements about Jews. (He still got fired, though, but for plagiarism, not Jew hating) They were founded by, and still have as CEO, Harvey A. Silvergate, who defended students for protesting the Vietnam war back in the sixties. Some of FIRE's top people claim to be Democrats, and "classical liberals".

But the reality seems to be that FIRE is attracting a lot of support from the right. They say it is not their fault. Most of the universities are very liberal, so naturally most cases of students (and faculty) being reprimanded, will probably be for expressing points of view that are conservative, racist, homophobic, or Christian. Apparently students are rarely reprimanded for making anti-Republican, anti-Christian, or anti-white race comments. Although FIRE claims to have defended a student newspaper for printing a story with the headline "Fuck Bush".

FIRE's logic actually kind of makes sense, but mostly as good propaganda. Because I am a liberal myself, I see universities as being the natural place of liberal values. Any university that encourages freedom of thought is naturally going to be liberal, is going to favour broad mindedness over narrow patriotism, should favour multiculturalism over white privilege. A university is of course going to question stories like Noah, and Adam and Eve, and support the Theory of Evolution against Christian creationism. Some American freshmen arrive at university unaware that their country was stolen from the Indians, don't know the world is billions of years old, are not aware that America still has racism, believe America singlehandedly saved the world at least three times, in some cases don't even know that George Washington was the first president, and some can't find America on a world map.

So to millions of patriotic, racist and fundamentalist Americans, first year at university can be an experience like being "brainwashed" into hating their country. And some of these students are naturally going to complain, especially if organizations like FIRE are offering $5000 scholarships for any videos of them having their "freedom of speech" curbed.

The jury is still out on whether "Foundation for Individual Rights in Education" is a front group for the right wing or not. I think the larger point is that as American culture becomes more right wing in general, led by anti-intellectual organizations like Fox News, there is going to be a bigger disconnect between places of higher learning, and the general American public. FIRE's supporting donations are increasingly going to come from conservatives. And as that happens, I believe it is inevitable that FIRE will increasingly defend conservative students against liberal university values, while trying to maintain the cover of neutrality as long as they can.

Here is a typical (I guess) FIRE case being discussed in a blog, how the University of Minnesota is brainwashing K-12 teachers into hating America. All the people commenting seem to be conservative, and the rhetoric is all at a typical Fox News anti-intellectual level, including the original blog and the readers comments. Unfortunately, those are the people most likely to donate to FIRE. I sure wouldn't.

Picture: I photoshopped (Actually using Gimp in Linux, I just use photoshop as a generic word) a girl's head with soap in the hair to represent brainwashing on to a "property of liberal university" T-shirt. Too subtle?

Propaganda: The Connection between Socialism and Racism

Many people find it strange that Obama is criticised for Socialism, because according to the normal world definition of Socialism, he is not a socialist.

Now, some liberals are suggesting that socialist is not so much referring to economic theories, that it is a racist code word for black.

It is time to investigate the truth of these conflicting claims about Socialism.

The technical meaning of socialist in the rest of the world is "government ownership of industry", and by extension, "a society characterized by equal access to resources for all individuals with a method of compensation based on the amount of labor expended." As a political ideology, Communism is usually considered to be a branch of socialism. So Communist and Socialist can be used interchangeably in some contexts. But the word "Communist" had an even more emotional meaning between 1945 and 1990, when the communist "Soviet Union" was America's most feared military enemy.

Socialism, even as a theory, was not popular with whites in the Southern US. It was a direct threat to their traditional economic system where black people did all the dirty, heavy work for the whites, and received little or no compensation for it.

The white segregationists of the south accused communists of inspiring the Negroes to rebel against the white masters in the 1950's to 1970's. Because of the alleged support that that the African Americans got from it, Socialism came to mean "racial integration and removal of class distinctions between black and white". In Apartheid South Africa, Communism was regularly cited as being the inspiration behind the black revolt, and this helped gain a fair amount of support for the Apartheid government from the conservatives in the USA.

Throughout the Civil Rights struggle, the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People), which promoted equality, was accused by white southerners as being inspired by and supported by the Communists.

This book "The Ugly Truth About the NAACP" written in 1955, can be found online here at the University of Southern Mississippi Digital Library.

A Quote from Page 3:

"... the subversive designs behind the current crusade of the misnamed NAACP and its fellow travelling fronts to force upon the South the Communist-inspired doctrine of racial integration and amalgamation."

Of course, back in the sixties, Communism was far scarier than socialism. But since the fall of the Soviet Union, invoking "Communism" sounds outmoded. This means a necessary reversion to the word Socialism to describe racial equality and wealth sharing.

Socialism also has the fearful Nazi tie-in as the word Nazi evolved from "National Socialism", a fact that almost every conservative southerner could probably tell you, even though apparently 75% of Oklahoma high school students don't know who George Washington was. It is also a fact that the Nazis were socialists in name only, but this second fact is not well known in the USA.

Picture of protest signs saying "Race mixing is Communism" from the days of integration protests in the sixties. You might have to click on the image to see the word "Communist" on the protests signs.

What is Racism Really

With several recent cases in the US, it has become obvious that many people no longer understand what the term racist means, especially as applied to themselves.

One case was Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, Louisiana, says it is his experience that most interracial marriages do not last long.

Read more at Huffington Post

So he refuses to marry an interracial couple, but still claims to not be a racist. His definition of racist is that you hate another race, which he claims he does not.

I think it's time that people were forced to admit to their racism, because until you admit you are sick, you can't get better.

In the Bardwell case, let's start with logic. His defense is that he is not opposed to black people marrying each other, he just will not deal with a mixed marriage because (A) they don't last and (B) The children suffer.

If we go by logic, I could point out that Barack Obama is the president of the USA, and he is mixed race. So by any objective measure he is an example of a mixed race child who is not suffering.

What about the point that mixed race marriages don't last? That would be a generalization, based on race, that takes away the freedom of a person based on their skin colour. In other words, this Justice of the Peace believes your right to be married is based on your skin colour.

Since the "black" man who is marrying the white woman, could be mixed race already, (my picture is from another couple) this Justice of the Peace is setting up a situation where he could not marry a black woman either. That would also be a mixed race marriage. So just who could he marry? If you do not allow someone to marry that is not "equal" treatment.

The real problem is not about logic, it is with Bardwell's incorrect definition of racism. You cannot define it only as "hating the other race". That is a weak definition that lets almost anyone who is a good liar pretend to not be racist. It allows people who are in denial to convince themselves they are not racist. For an example you only need to listen to fundamental Christians, who claim to "love Palestinians" but support moves to eradicate them because they threatened God's chosen people in Israel. Apparently it is possible to profess love while simultaneously calling for extermination. I'm not going to call this attitude hypocritical, but it is a psychological reality we have to deal with.

It was also pretty easy for the slave owners to flog their slaves to death on suspicion of petty offenses, while claiming to love their slaves. So the definition of racism being "hate" has got to go.

A better definition of racism is believing that your race is superior. When you believe your race is superior, you don't want to see any mixed children, because now you don't know whether they are superior or not, and they threaten your entire racist world view.

Spreading hate about a race is also racism. This way, at least you cannot deny something in your heart, you can be judged on what you say about the other race. That's why Rush Limbaugh recently was denied ownership of an NFL club, not because of what he felt hidden in his heart, but what he openly said on television and radio. So spreading hate is a better definition of racism than feeling it in your heart, because it is based on behaviour and evidence. And even Rush thinks he is not a racist in spite of all his comments, I guess he also uses Bardwell's definition.

Just to clarify some of this stuff, lets have some examples. For example, Rush Limbaugh declaring that black kids are beating up white kids in schools. Or Christians sending around emails declaring that Moslems are taking over the world by higher birth rates. Both of those spread hate, whether the statements are true or not. In propaganda you can always find an isolated example or twist the definitions and statistics to sound scary. The act of spreading hate is racist.

If you simply make a statement of a fact that does not normally stimulate hatred in other people, you are not really acting as a racist. For example if you say that black people are generally over represented in prisons, that could be simply a fact and does not necessarily spread hate. If you note that Canadian First Nations people have a genetic trait that makes it hard for them to purge alcohol from the blood stream, that is a scientific fact that does not promote hate, it actually helps understanding of a problem.

The new term "Playing the race card" is an interesting replacement for the word "racism". The phrase suggests that racism is a hidden card that you can play to gain a winning hand. It implies that when it comes out then both side are permitted to use it. I don't think this phrase is very helpful in understanding racial problems. But it would be good if we could come up with a definition that makes sense before we try to eliminate racism.

Making Sense of Racist Regimes

As far as I know, there have only been three democracies that developed racist "apartheid" type regimes. The Southern USA, South Africa, and Israel. I am against racism, and I consider it to be evil. I believe all citizens born in a given country must have equal rights under the law regardless of parentage. This is the law in Canada, and also now in the USA and since 1991 in South Africa. But the racist system has not yet been abolished in Israel.

As the International Criminal Court phrases it, apartheid is “the systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime.”

If you wish to read more about international law and apartheid and whether or not it applies to Israel, here is a web page.

In any racist society, there is "domination by one racial group over another". There are always some people who will proudly accept their racial status (such as Black, Jew, Aryan, White) but there are many in between types who desperately want to be "certified" as part of the dominant group. So there has to be some official way of keeping up the barrier of separation.

Palestinians are officially defined by the state of Israel meaning they can never "convert" or become like the rest of the full citizens who have rights, due to their birth, and because of their official classification by Israel. The classification is based on keeping records of parentage to ensure that no one can officially move from the subordinate class to the dominant class without authorization. A racist society always has a bureaucracy to accept or reject applicants who wish to be declared as part of the dominant class. "White" (USA, South Africa) or "Jewish"(Israel) or "Aryan"(Nazi Germany) as the case may be. This government body has the power to remove the rights from any person they deem to be from the "inferior" race.

A typical racist society has armed men of the dominant race (and sometimes the inferior race employed by the dominant race), continually checking people's documents. Those documents may be racial certificates or permits to travel. Dead- end racists even demand to see Obama's birth documents, or stand as close as possible to him with loaded assault rifles, even though he is President of the United States. The habits of racism do not die quickly.

In the old days, in the southern USA, a person was deemed black (and could be enslaved or segregated) if just one great-grandparent was black, even though the other 7 great grandparents were fully white. However that person (called an octoroon) could conceive a child with a white person of the opposite sex, (same sex marriages don't work in this case) and the child would be considered white.

In Nazi Germany, to be declared Aryan, you needed a certificate based on birth certificates of grandparents. Hitler personally issued thousands of certificates to mixed race German Jews. The important thing in Nazi Germany was to get this certificate. Without it you were no better than an animal.

"People born from marriages of Aryans with non-Aryans were called in Reich "mischlinge". The 1935 racial laws distinguished "mischlinge" of first level (one of parents was a Jew) and that of the second level (grandmother or grandfather was a Jew). Despite the juridical "imperfectness" of people with Jewish genes, dozens of thousands of "mischlinge" were called up to Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe and German Navy."

http://www.jewukr.org/observer/jo19_38/p0103_e.html

"Hitler's Jewish Soldiers" Bryan Rigg

Check out this page discussing the question if German/Jewishness.

In Israel, the racial rule is that your mother must be fully Jewish in order to be considered a Jew and get all the rights of Jews. There is a well defined conversion process you can go through, but as you could imagine very few Palestinians ever qualify for this process. Strangely enough, many German ex-Nazis could qualify as Jews under the existing laws of Israel.

Slavery and Race War

I am fairly sure there is connection between slavery and the support for war in the middle east and that it is important to understand it.

Looking at the electoral map of the USA, it is easy to see geographically the support for the Republicans who favour war is based in the south, especially the old slave owning states. And politically they are supported by the right wing Christians, especially the large Southern Baptists church. Coincidentally the Southern Baptist church was formed to promote slavery.

Maybe these are just coincidences so far, but there is more.

Slavery and the war in Iraq are both racist. The war is not against Moslems, in which case it would be a Holy War. This is more of a "Race War" against Arabs. There are several non-Arab, but Moslem countries in Africa and Asia that are not generally targetted by the pro-war faction, and happen to have little or no oil. Racism worked well in the days of slavery, it was impossible for black slaves to escape - even if they made it to Canada, they still faced life-long racism of a more subtle kind. To be fair, not all slavery is racist, but the type in the southern USA definitely ended up being overtly racist. No whites were ever owned by blacks.

The second similarity is the economic underpinning of slavery and middle east war. Imported slaves were needed to do the work to make America wealthy, because manpower was in short supply. Slavery was doomed from the moment that slaves could be replaced by industrial machinery. The machinery now needs oil which is getting to be in short supply. The oil has to be imported from the middle east, where there are a lot of Arabs. Slavery in 1800 was the way to get work done, and oil in 2009 is the way to get work done.

The third element to consider is cruelty. Slavery was cruel, not by accident, but by American law. No mercy was permitted to the slaves. This element is present in today's race/oil war, where torture of prisoners is the debate of the day. Pro-war people generally approve - especially the southern conservatives and formerly pro-slavery churches. And I guess it's not too surprising that General Petraeus has come out against torture. But he is from New York, with a Dutch-American background. And by the way, for southern Christians still arguing that waterboarding is not torture, the US government executed Japanese soldiers for war crimes where they were waterboarding US soldiers, and it was called torture.

Canada is not really free of the pro race war propaganda. Our very own Mark Steyn, who no longer lives here, has written another piece in MacLeans Magazine, called (if I remember "What Price Empathy") in which he argues that we cannot know for sure that most Moslem mother don't want their sons to grow up to be suicide bombers. This comment by Mark was to refute Condoleeza Rice's statement that most Arab mothers want their sons to get a University education. Although this may be a stupid argument from Mark, as usual it's hard to prove he's wrong. Well I'm going to give my support to Condoleeza for once. That's right, I think that Moslem mothers want their sons get an education rather than to be blown up. On this very question may rest the fate of world peace.

Cartoon by Steve Bell
Guardian
19 July 2005
http://www.guardian.co.uk

Giving Slavery a Bad Name

Right now, a battle is going on in the Swat Valley of Pakistan that has important ramifications for the rest of the world. Pakistan is a democratic country which contains within it a large Islamic fundamentalist faction. Both are struggling for control of the country, and as Pakistan now has a nuclear arsenal, the stakes are high not only within Pakistan, but for the rest of the world.

But Pakistan is not the only country to worry about. Very few commentators on US affairs spend much time analyzing the racist/fundamentalists in the USA, or wondering what is going on in between the former confederate slave states that support the Republican party, and the former free states of the union that support the Democratic Party. Is there a battle for control similar to Pakistan? Maybe not outright fighting yet, but politically, the US is boiling.

I am going to try to explain how the legacy of slavery still has an influence on policy in the USA. And why that is important to the fate of not only the USA but the rest of the world.

Slavery in the USA was violent and perverted. I know you might think violent slavery is redundant, but it is not. Racism existed before slavery in the USA, and slavery existed before the slave states of America. However, there was something about the southern USA that brought racism and slavery together and produced something that had not been seen before, and it's unfortunate that we don't really have a word for it.

The old definition of slavery is simply a person being forced to work without wages, and that person's labour can be bought or sold as economic conditions change. Although not necessarily part of the definition, physical coercion is often required. Hence the stereotypical galley slave and the guy with the whip walking up and down the gangplank making sure nobody is getting a free ride.

Slavery existed all over the world, often involving prisoners of war. The Bible accepts slavery as a fact of life. Almost every race on earth did some of it.

But there were some subtle and not so subtle changes that occurred in the southern USA where slavery mutated to a new and perverted level.

What were some of the mitigating factors of old style Biblical slavery? For one thing, there was a way out. Usually there was a time limit, or a generational limit. If you were a slave, you, or your children could be free one day. Although you had to work as a slave, you could go home and plant a vegetable garden. If you had life long slavery, you were still permitted to marry and have children and raise those children. You still had the possibility of human interaction where you could earn the respect of your master. Say, for example that a slave saved his master's life through some act of bravery. Although still a slave, you could see there might be some human gratitude and respect. These things are important. And if conditions became too unbearable you could run away or commit suicide or abort your babies.

What types of things happened in the Southern USA that turned nice Biblical slavery into sick and perverted slavery. Well there were a few simple things. First we need to remember that southern slavery evolved into a combination of racism and slavery. While it was theoretically possible for blacks to own whites, in practice this did not happen.

Here is one seemingly little thing. Slave owners in the south were required by law to punish their slaves for certain offences, and I don't mean a fine of a few dollars, which they didn't have anyway. Mandated punishments included mutilation and whipping. If you think about the ramifications of this for a few minutes, you will realize that no matter what kind of rapport might be built up on a human level between master and slave, it was utterly destroyed by this external requirement of brutality. Not only was mercy rare, it was not even permitted.

Here is another seemingly little thing, which was degrading both to the slave and the slave owner. The child of a female slave had to also be a slave. Two things here. First, it meant slavery was unending, even to the children of the children. But far worse, it allowed slave masters to breed with their female slaves without concern about illegitimate offspring. Rape was common. And contributing to the inhumanity, was that the slave master's own children were born into perpetual slavery.

The people in the southern USA justified their sick and twisted form of slavery by pointing to the Bible, and reminding people that the Bible condoned slavery. Yes, it did, you sick perverts, but not that kind of slavery.

Also, the slave states of the southern USA also pointed the finger at Africa, where they said the black people were involved in slavery themselves. Yes, they did have slavery, but not your kind of slavery.

Unfortunately there has never been a real distinction made between different types of slavery. And Douglas Blackmon argued that the "neoslavery" following the Civil War was even worse than the "slavery" before emancipation. And this carried on until the civil rights era, where northern liberals finally put an end to segregation in the south.

http://www.radioopensource.org/douglas-blackmon-neo-slavery-in-our-times/

What made this all the more devastating to the world was the context of this perversion of classic slavery took place in the first important democratic country of modern times, and was done on such a devastatingly large scale.

This problem has not gone away, we still have the United States of America approximately divided along slave states/free states lines, with the corresponding different world view with respect to violence and to people of other skin colour. One example of this is the controversy about torture, and treatment of prisoners. Also a major difference on the idea of war - JFK, a northern liberal, said "America will never start a war", but the conservative former slave owners add "unless we feel threatened". And at this point, everyone needs to understand there are two very different ideas of civilization still competing for control of a military machine that can lay waste to the rest of the world.