BillyDkid
02-07-2008, 08:12 AM
Hi guys, I made some additions and revisions to that one letter I wrote. I'm not sure it's good for anything. It is mostly a therapeudic exercise for myself, but I post it here in hopes that some of you might enjoy reading it. Jim Ostrowski was kind enough to post an earlier version on his blog. I thank him for that. I am also working on an open letter to the GOP, the media and the American people and hope to get that put out somewhere where some people can read it. I don't think I have ever written anything without any mistakes in it and I suspect this is no exception. If you see any obvious ones, please point them out. My best, BDK
ps. it ain't over. I'm never giving up and I expect you not to also. I am still proud to be associated with all of you.
To the editor:
So, here we go again with another Presidential election and again it looks like we will have a choice between two candidates most people detest – a relentless cycle which never ends. And who do we have to thank for it? We have the media and their preordained candidates and their agenda to marginalize anyone who talks to the substance of the issues which should truly concern Americans. On the one hand we have McCain and his philosophy of perpetual war, authoritarian government and perpetual debt and on the other we have Hillary who is at best a modulated version of McCain and with a slightly different agenda for her authoritarian government and perpetual debt. They both believe that the roll of the government is to control its citizens. One wants to make for a just society by redistributing the fruits of our labors to those she thinks are more deserving than you while the other’s brand of social engineering involves redistribution of those fruits to his corporate handlers through no bid contracts and thousand dollar toilet seats. Either way you and I get screwed. Neither of these candidates has even a marginal understanding of the single most critical issue facing Americans – the collapsing economy, the role of the federal reserve and the crushing effect on the middle class of the continual devaluation of the dollar and unfathomable debt laid at the doorstep of each and every American for generations to come. Societies live and die by their economies and we are going down the same empire maintaining road that destroyed the Soviets and every other empire in the history of the world.
I have to congratulate the media on their coordinated effort to silence and marginalize the voices of those who might offer us a way out and hope for the future and for preventing American citizens from really hearing any message of which the power brokers and the owners of this country do not approve. I am speaking specifically of Ron Paul. I realize that the mass media is well beyond any sense of shame and decency. I have come to expect that. They have showed their true colors too many times to expect otherwise. The run up to the Iraq war and the way the media served as nothing more than an outlet for administration war propaganda is a perfect illustration. Cowardice and venality are the hallmarks of the American media and they have never failed to let the American people down. The 4th estate my ass.
I am most disappointed in the American people themselves – the way they allow themselves to be led by the nose by the supposed pundits and by their apparent unwillingness to think for themselves. The media ordains certain candidates – regardless of their actual popular support or the substance and sanity of their positions – and does their best to prop these people up and present them as the “real” candidates while incessantly planting in people’s minds the notion that any candidate they don’t approve of is not worth considering because they are marginal and “fringe” – and the American people eat it up like candy. The founders would be ashamed of us. The truth is, apparently, that the American people do not really believe in peace or liberty or justice for all. As long as they have their cell phones and their American Idol they’re happy. They are either too stupid or too apathetic to even see how they have been had. They like it that way. As long the people who actually own this country let them have the scraps from the table, well, that’s good enough. But the collapse is coming. It may not happen in our life times, but it probably will in our children’s. I suspect our children will look back on this generation with shame for the way we let the promise that was America turn into dust.
I never expected the media to give a candidate like Ron Paul or his supporters a fair shake, but I did halfway expect the American people to have it in them selves to begin to see how far astray we have gone. In the last GOP debate as I write this the candidates were all asked if the Iraq war was worth it. All but one – Dr. Paul – said yes. They gave their lame rationalizations. How did we ever reach a point in this country where the invasion and occupation of a foreign country which was no threat to us (and all the historic revisionism doesn’t change that anyone with any sense knew as much) and without a declaration of war by Congress become acceptable? Oh that’s right, there was Vietnam! You might have thought we would have learned something from that.
So now we have created this nightmare in Iraq and we have created vastly more hatred for the US in Muslim nations and inspired the creation of a generation of new aspiring terrorists who otherwise could not have cared less about us and we have thrown away a trillion dollars rebuilding a country which we destroyed – all money borrowed from China and the Saudis and other nations and built a mountain of debt we can barely pay the interest on, we have lost 4000 thousand Americans who would otherwise be alive as well as many thousands more who are maimed for life, not to mention the hundreds of thousand of Iraqis who have died and the millions who have lost everything – and some idiot has the gall to ask “Was it worth it?” as a serious question? What’s more, some “serious” candidates for President argue with a straight face that it was – well, at least we got rid of Saddam. The President merely blurts some inanity like “They hate us for our freedom!” or “Islamofacist extremists!” or “We fight them there so we don’t have to fight them over here!” and Americans swallow it like they swallow their Red Bull and McDonalds hamburgers. It is like living in the twilight zone.
You tell me this – was removing Saddam Hussein from power worth the life of even one American citizen? Let alone thousands? Was it worth the lives of a couple hundred thousand Iraqis? Was it worth the hundreds of billions of dollars in debt that our children will be paying off for generations? If you think so, I’ve got a nice bridge to nowhere I’d like to sell you.
And none of this takes into account the fairly terrifying loss of liberty we have seen with the executive branch being granted unprecedented and virtually unchecked power to spy on and detain American citizens without trial. Do you know that the President can decide at his discretion that you are an enemy of the state and arrest and detain you indefinitely at his discretion? Did you even know that? Funny, that sounds a lot like those “dictatorships” we all grew up feeling horrified at. And, of course, now there is the push for national ID cards which essentially amount to “papers” - as in East Germany during the cold war. Now we are all going to need to show our “papers”. Don’t you remember being told what a horror is was to live in a country where you had to have your papers???
And many talk about erecting our own “iron curtain” on our southern border. Remember that as a kid – all the talk about the “iron curtain” and how it sent shivers up your spine? Of course the argument is that our wall is to keep people out and not to keep people in, but that is what the eastern block claimed too – the wall was to keep corrupting foreign influence out. And we are now a country that tacitly endorses torture. You tell me, what is it that is supposed to distinguish us from those awful places we grew being told to despise? Those places obsessed with secrecy and security and controlling their citizens and restricting their right to travel freely. Safety at all costs, right? And it was all about “safety” with the Soviets and the Nazis and every other repressive regime that has ever existed. Whatever happened to “Give me liberty or give me death!” Oh, but that was before we all turned into a nation of sheep and cowards.
I expect this kind of insanity and Orwellian mentality from the media, but, honestly, I thought, when it came down to it, there was still some sanity in the American people and some sense of justice and decency and some small respect for the truth. Someone once said that the genius of the American political system lay in its ability to induce its citizens to vote consistently against their own best interests. And, apparently, we are all set to prove them right again with this election cycle. I would be ashamed of the media if I did not already know they are fundamentally corrupt and the tools of the owners of this country. But I will be deeply ashamed of the American people if they go along with this charade again considering that for the first time in my life time we actually have the option to make a better choice. I pray that enough of us take the wax out of our ears and the blinders off to make a difference before it is too late. And it nearly is already. But what does it matter what I think. I am just a lowly American citizen and a tax payer.
Douglas Carkuff
Mount Upton, NY
1/29/08
ps. it ain't over. I'm never giving up and I expect you not to also. I am still proud to be associated with all of you.
To the editor:
So, here we go again with another Presidential election and again it looks like we will have a choice between two candidates most people detest – a relentless cycle which never ends. And who do we have to thank for it? We have the media and their preordained candidates and their agenda to marginalize anyone who talks to the substance of the issues which should truly concern Americans. On the one hand we have McCain and his philosophy of perpetual war, authoritarian government and perpetual debt and on the other we have Hillary who is at best a modulated version of McCain and with a slightly different agenda for her authoritarian government and perpetual debt. They both believe that the roll of the government is to control its citizens. One wants to make for a just society by redistributing the fruits of our labors to those she thinks are more deserving than you while the other’s brand of social engineering involves redistribution of those fruits to his corporate handlers through no bid contracts and thousand dollar toilet seats. Either way you and I get screwed. Neither of these candidates has even a marginal understanding of the single most critical issue facing Americans – the collapsing economy, the role of the federal reserve and the crushing effect on the middle class of the continual devaluation of the dollar and unfathomable debt laid at the doorstep of each and every American for generations to come. Societies live and die by their economies and we are going down the same empire maintaining road that destroyed the Soviets and every other empire in the history of the world.
I have to congratulate the media on their coordinated effort to silence and marginalize the voices of those who might offer us a way out and hope for the future and for preventing American citizens from really hearing any message of which the power brokers and the owners of this country do not approve. I am speaking specifically of Ron Paul. I realize that the mass media is well beyond any sense of shame and decency. I have come to expect that. They have showed their true colors too many times to expect otherwise. The run up to the Iraq war and the way the media served as nothing more than an outlet for administration war propaganda is a perfect illustration. Cowardice and venality are the hallmarks of the American media and they have never failed to let the American people down. The 4th estate my ass.
I am most disappointed in the American people themselves – the way they allow themselves to be led by the nose by the supposed pundits and by their apparent unwillingness to think for themselves. The media ordains certain candidates – regardless of their actual popular support or the substance and sanity of their positions – and does their best to prop these people up and present them as the “real” candidates while incessantly planting in people’s minds the notion that any candidate they don’t approve of is not worth considering because they are marginal and “fringe” – and the American people eat it up like candy. The founders would be ashamed of us. The truth is, apparently, that the American people do not really believe in peace or liberty or justice for all. As long as they have their cell phones and their American Idol they’re happy. They are either too stupid or too apathetic to even see how they have been had. They like it that way. As long the people who actually own this country let them have the scraps from the table, well, that’s good enough. But the collapse is coming. It may not happen in our life times, but it probably will in our children’s. I suspect our children will look back on this generation with shame for the way we let the promise that was America turn into dust.
I never expected the media to give a candidate like Ron Paul or his supporters a fair shake, but I did halfway expect the American people to have it in them selves to begin to see how far astray we have gone. In the last GOP debate as I write this the candidates were all asked if the Iraq war was worth it. All but one – Dr. Paul – said yes. They gave their lame rationalizations. How did we ever reach a point in this country where the invasion and occupation of a foreign country which was no threat to us (and all the historic revisionism doesn’t change that anyone with any sense knew as much) and without a declaration of war by Congress become acceptable? Oh that’s right, there was Vietnam! You might have thought we would have learned something from that.
So now we have created this nightmare in Iraq and we have created vastly more hatred for the US in Muslim nations and inspired the creation of a generation of new aspiring terrorists who otherwise could not have cared less about us and we have thrown away a trillion dollars rebuilding a country which we destroyed – all money borrowed from China and the Saudis and other nations and built a mountain of debt we can barely pay the interest on, we have lost 4000 thousand Americans who would otherwise be alive as well as many thousands more who are maimed for life, not to mention the hundreds of thousand of Iraqis who have died and the millions who have lost everything – and some idiot has the gall to ask “Was it worth it?” as a serious question? What’s more, some “serious” candidates for President argue with a straight face that it was – well, at least we got rid of Saddam. The President merely blurts some inanity like “They hate us for our freedom!” or “Islamofacist extremists!” or “We fight them there so we don’t have to fight them over here!” and Americans swallow it like they swallow their Red Bull and McDonalds hamburgers. It is like living in the twilight zone.
You tell me this – was removing Saddam Hussein from power worth the life of even one American citizen? Let alone thousands? Was it worth the lives of a couple hundred thousand Iraqis? Was it worth the hundreds of billions of dollars in debt that our children will be paying off for generations? If you think so, I’ve got a nice bridge to nowhere I’d like to sell you.
And none of this takes into account the fairly terrifying loss of liberty we have seen with the executive branch being granted unprecedented and virtually unchecked power to spy on and detain American citizens without trial. Do you know that the President can decide at his discretion that you are an enemy of the state and arrest and detain you indefinitely at his discretion? Did you even know that? Funny, that sounds a lot like those “dictatorships” we all grew up feeling horrified at. And, of course, now there is the push for national ID cards which essentially amount to “papers” - as in East Germany during the cold war. Now we are all going to need to show our “papers”. Don’t you remember being told what a horror is was to live in a country where you had to have your papers???
And many talk about erecting our own “iron curtain” on our southern border. Remember that as a kid – all the talk about the “iron curtain” and how it sent shivers up your spine? Of course the argument is that our wall is to keep people out and not to keep people in, but that is what the eastern block claimed too – the wall was to keep corrupting foreign influence out. And we are now a country that tacitly endorses torture. You tell me, what is it that is supposed to distinguish us from those awful places we grew being told to despise? Those places obsessed with secrecy and security and controlling their citizens and restricting their right to travel freely. Safety at all costs, right? And it was all about “safety” with the Soviets and the Nazis and every other repressive regime that has ever existed. Whatever happened to “Give me liberty or give me death!” Oh, but that was before we all turned into a nation of sheep and cowards.
I expect this kind of insanity and Orwellian mentality from the media, but, honestly, I thought, when it came down to it, there was still some sanity in the American people and some sense of justice and decency and some small respect for the truth. Someone once said that the genius of the American political system lay in its ability to induce its citizens to vote consistently against their own best interests. And, apparently, we are all set to prove them right again with this election cycle. I would be ashamed of the media if I did not already know they are fundamentally corrupt and the tools of the owners of this country. But I will be deeply ashamed of the American people if they go along with this charade again considering that for the first time in my life time we actually have the option to make a better choice. I pray that enough of us take the wax out of our ears and the blinders off to make a difference before it is too late. And it nearly is already. But what does it matter what I think. I am just a lowly American citizen and a tax payer.
Douglas Carkuff
Mount Upton, NY
1/29/08