I am writing to ask if you would put our link to www.dumpbush.info on your site. We are attempting to spread a vital message as rapidly as possible. (Please note that the Nader vote split the anti-Bush forces in 2000, enabling Bush to seize power.) I am working with a printer who is willing to reduce rates to distributors.

Please contact Dan at eveningsky@hotmail.com, and go to www.dumpbush.info, which is self explanatory.

The modern hero, the modern individual who dares to heed the call and seek the mansion of that presence with whom it is our whole destiny to be atoned, cannot, indeed must not, wait for his community cast off its slough of pride, fear, rationalized avarice, and sanctified misunderstanding. "Live," Nietzsche says, "as thought the day were here." It is not society that is to guide and save the creative hero, but precisely the reverse. And so every one of us shares the supreme ordeal – carries the cross of the redeemer – not in the bright moments of his tribe’s great victories, but in the silences of his personal despair. (Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, 391).

Those words mark the end of Joseph Campbell’s landmark book, The Hero with a Thousand Faces. First published in 1948, it forever became Campbell’s legacy, returning again and again throughout his life and now after his death, as increasingly people turn to the Campbell monomyth to justify the ego’s heroic journeys. But I’m convinced that few people ever read the last chapter of that book, or if they do, they skim over its contents, ignoring the multiplicity of Campbell’s ideas in favor of a single, reduced image. The reason this seems so to me is that in all the discussion of the hero’s journey that goes on, there rarely seems to be a discussion of The Return.

The idea of The Return is filling my mind these days. Perhaps this has to do with my return home to Connecticut earlier this month to visit family and attend James Hillman’s conference entitled: Soul in the World: An Exploration of Psychological Activism. Returning to the place of my birth had tremendous psychology and mythological significance to me as I began to see that I am still connected to that place, that landscape, even though I moved away 30 years ago. Perhaps this idea of The Return was further fostered by Hillman’s own emphasis on the idea of polis, the Greek city-state from which our notion of "politics" arises and his insistence that the moving of psychology back into politics to become what he calls "psychological activism", is a necessity.

Up until about 100 years ago, the notion of heroic individualism was derived from the culture - from one's attachment to their community, Hillman argued. The polis was founded - not by the individual hero who was at its center, but rather by a community collective who invent the hero as a collective representation of the city. The communal soul was epitomized as a single dead hero, the daimon of the city. Each person in the community gained strength from the communal soul. With the psychological movements of the past 100 years, this emphasis on communal soul has been lost and in its place has arisen the idea of individualism and the individual hero, which resists seeing a social context. The fixed center around which we now revolve is the individualized, unmovable center popularized in psychology as the *self*.

I struggled with Hillman’s argument, understanding that he was not presenting solutions for society, but rather intellectual arguments for discourse and deepening. I asked myself, "What is my responsibility to community and what, in fact does community mean to me?" As I meditated on answers, I began to think again of Campbell’s work on the hero’s journey and most importantly on The Return.

The singular notion of the hero is incomplete without an understanding of The Return. Campbell’s first discussion in his book, is not about the Return, but about the refusal to return after the quest has been completed - a refusal to return to community with the wisdom and attainments of the journey. This is because the Return may be the most difficult part of the hero's journey. Campbell writes poignantly:

The first problem of the returning hero is to accept as real, after an experience of the soul-satisfying vision of fulfillment, the passing joys and sorrows, banalities and noisy obscenities of life. Why re-enter such a world? Why attempt to make plausible, or even interesting, to men and women consumed with passion, the experience of transcendental bliss? As dreams that were momentous by night may seem simply silly in the light of day, so the poet and the prophet can discover themselves playing the idiot before a jury of sober eyes. The easy thing is to commit the whole community to the devil and retire again into the heavenly rock-dwelling, close the door, and make it fast. (218)

It is easy to want to stay in that vision of bliss and not reenter the world. Why return to family and community in order to bring a wisdom that no one seems to really want? The dangers of the Return, are despair and rejection, boredom and the dullness of routine, practicality and reasonableness. How do we return safely from our journeys, to find our place once more in community? How do we hold onto wisdoms found and bring them back into a daily routine? How do we deal with the profundity that has forever changed us when all around we are faced with monotony and hopelessness? This is the great question of the hero’s journey.

This is not a philosophical question to me, but a question of my real life, being lived right now in the real world. How do I live? How do I keep my vision alive? How can I participate once more in the community? The trip to the inner world of the gods seems easy in comparison to the endless days of the return home. I think that great literature holds all the answers. Voltaire writes about this brilliantly in Candide. Candide returns to dreary home life after his adventures with his now old and ugly wife and with an old woman who has endured unspeakable torments. The old woman plaintively asks:

"I would be glad to know which is worst, to be ravished a hundred times by Negro pirates, to have one buttock cut off, to run the gauntlet among the Bulgarians, to be whipped and hanged at an auto-da-fe, to be dissected, to be chained to an oar in a galley; and, in short, to experience all the miseries through which every one of us hath passed, or to remain here doing nothing?"
"This," said Candide, "is a grand question."
So, what is the grand answer to that grand question? Voltaire tells us again as Candide observes: "Let us cultivate our garden."

Those words are becoming my guide to the Return. An agricultural myth enacted by a hunter mythologist in a union of polarities that seems necessary right now. Ultimately, all that is left is to cultivate our gardens in whichever way we can, to keep the vision alive by planting, tending and growing in an enduring cycle of work. My garden is my writings and my websites. I spend a great deal of my time clearing, planting, tending, growing, venturing out into the forest of my unconscious on dark-lit nights to hunt. Sometimes the harvest is abundant and sometimes the harvest is meager, but I keep focused on what is really important to me and I sustain myself through lean times with a vision of community that transcends my despair.

"The community today is the planet," writes Campbell (388). I agree. Somewhere out in the world, which has now become woven into an inter-net, people meet and share dreams and visions, stories and poems, experiencing the translucent nature of symbols. Somewhere in here, in this inner community of my own psyche, I am.

"Dear Israel,

Stop it. Every person you kill causes someone else to want to kill one of yours. Break the cycle on your end, and they will stop it on theirs."

You got that one way out of whack, basically totally wrong. The Islamics want to totally destroy and remove Israel. This is NOT a tit for tat game, total destruction is the Arab goal. They have clearly stated this many, many times. They do NOT want a land area compromising 1/10 of 1 % of the Middle East to be populated by Jews. And especially, they do NOT want the Jewish Temple to ever be rebuilt.

If you were a Christian or Jew, you would realize that Israel (Canaan) was promised to the Jews for all eternity. That is quite clearly stated in the Bible.

Anyway, didn't read all your web site, but that one sure did catch my eye!

February 20, 2003

Welcome to the Machine

Glitch Wins by a Landslide

by BEN TRIPP

Source: http://www.counterpunch.org/tripp02202003.html

This nation is not a Super Slurpee, Mr. President. With that said, let's pretend there isn't an American attack on a sovereign nation in the offing, that Europe is still among America's allies, and global warming is just a paranoid speculation by all those diaper-butt scientists. Let's pretend the space shuttle touched down in the usual manner, Al Qaeda isn't gearing up for another urban planning project, and North Korea is very, very sorry about all those naughty threats it made and even as we speak they're hammering their swords into ploughshares--although what they could possibly want with ploughshares when nothing grows in their country, I cannot surmise. In other words, let's pretend -and we will be pretending so hard the veins will stand out like whipcords in our necks--that all is well with the rest of the world. That still leaves some shall we call them difficulties? Difficulties here at home. And they're not going to go away until we pry open Pandora's Black Box: the voting machines.

Because the American Experiment, as it is known, ended on November 4, 2002. Not much has been made of this, but it seems like a noteworthy subject. Until that day, this country had a pretty simple system for choosing its leaders: candidates ran against each other for public office, and then the voters would come out in very small droves to vote for the candidate with the most money. There were anomalies that tested the efficacy of the system once in a while, if efficacy is the word I want. It might be defecation. I'll have to look it up. But in general the arrangement was unsatisfactory to everyone, and so we kept it. Then a strange thing happened. During a race for the presidency, the loser won.

This had happened before: there's a thing called the Electoral College, and it's how the Electoral College votes that actually determines who shall be president. It's a peculiar system and isn't mentioned anywhere in the Constitution, but the premise is that each state has a bunch of electors who get together and vote, and these votes are sent on to Washington. Ideally this college, which doesn't offer diplomas or student loans, takes a bead on who the voters voted for, and votes for same. But way back in 1824 and 1876, there wasn't a clear winner--in the first case because nobody got a majority, and in the second case because there was so much fraud in the South they sort of drew straws and chose Rutherford B. Hayes. The more things change, the more they don't. But the real kicker was in 1888, when one candidate got the most popular votes (votes from humans) but the other candidate got the most votes from the Electoral College. It was all perfectly legal, and not nearly as boring as I make it sound. In the year 2000, the presidency was won by the loser again (and what a loser this time). But this time it wasn't just an anomaly. The Supreme Court jiggered the election, the Electoral College's votes were skewed, and a guy named Hanging Chad declared George W. Bush the president.

This proved to be a terrible mistake, and to ensure such an arschficken never occurred again, lots of clever boots got together and decided to install digital voting machines in place of the old-fashioned steam-powered ones in common use throughout the country. But because America is currently in the grip of Capitalism as extreme as Communism was back in the good old days, we couldn't have a government agency take care of this. That might involve new bureaucracies and public spending, and besides launching the trifling $40,000,000,000 Homeland Security Department, this administration opposes that sort of thing.

So instead of 'open source' software to tabulate the votes as they are entered into the machines, private companies got to write private code for the purpose. ('Open source' software is any program whose code is publicly available, so that ordinary people may fail to understand it, not just computer experts). Now Australia has computerized voting, and the source code is readily available (it can be found at http://www.elections.act.gov.au/EVACS.html, if you're that much of a geek). I've looked at it and it's so short and simple a monkey could understand it. My monkey has looked at it too, and he assures me this is the case. But the American code is not only secret, it's also 200,000 lines long, which makes it 'spaghetti code', so called because it's impossibly tangled and complex, or because it's made of pasta.

Not only is the American voting code secretly held by private companies (naturally for copyright reasons; the Dollar trumps Democracy every time), but private companies manufacture the voting machines. And those companies are owned, predominantly, by Republican interests. Including Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, who won by a landslide on machines made by Election Systems and Software (ES&S), a company he owned a considerable interest in. And he wasn't the only one.

Computerized voting machines in the 2002 election did all kinds of weird things: if you pressed the Democrat's name in some counties in Texas, for example, the Republican's name was chosen. And in Cormal County, Texas, three Republican candidates won by exactly 18,181 votes apiece. There's the kind of coincidence the FBI loves. But it gets even more amazing: in two other races elsewhere in this great nation, Republicans won by--wait for it--18,181 votes. The odds of this are similar to the odds of waking up on the surface of Mars with your underwear on your head and a bowling trophy gripped between your knees. These results were eventually 'adjusted', proving it was all just a wacky coincidence. But how can we know? Because there is no physical evidence of how a vote was cast. No punch card, no paper ballot, no twig with notches in it. And they stopped doing exit polling in 2002 (apparently the results weren't coming out right-- I see what they mean) so we can't even get an objective comparison of the digital results with the voter's intentions by asking them how they voted as they leave the polling place, bilious and sickened. Kind of makes you feel all scared and crampy, doesn't it? But yes, gentle reader, it does get worse.

There is a complex connection between the companies that make voting software and machines and the GOP, as mentioned above. But it's not some remote connection that only folks with tinfoil beanies and radios in their fillings could understand. These are partnerships, blind trusts, corporate ownership kind of connections. Who's pals with whom. Connections that make sense of some of the most astonishing outcomes of 2002, where vast majorities of black voters voted for anti-black candidates, for example, or where Republican votes skyrocked and Democratic numbers plummeted, reversing historic trends, or machines tallied more votes than were actually cast (according to a Florida official a 10% margin of error is acceptable--that would be over ten million votes nationwide). In Alabama, Democrat Don Siegelman won the election for governor and went home. The next morning, 6,300 of his votes were gone, and Republican Bob Riley took the job instead. Don't worry: ES&S is looking into the problem. Not the government, not an independent commission. Golly.

Need more? There's lots more. ES&S shows up in many of the problem areas, but they're not the only ones. 'Computer Glitches' accounted for the loss of hundreds of thousands of votes nationwide, and the irregularities everywhere are both mystifying and highly suggestive, considering the system was supposed to smooth the way for fair and glitch-free elections in America. Could be just glitches, or it could be a concerted effort to steal the vote.

So when 2004 comes along and we see historic Republican victories across the country, landslides in every territory, and you feel like there's no reason to try any more, remember this: yes, the Republicans have the system rigged. But so did a certain German chancellor in the 1930's. He predicted a Thousand Year Reich. It lasted half a decade. Then again, they didn't have computers back then, so maybe I'd better not sound an optimistic note. After all, there's an inescapable conclusion about the fundaments of American democracy here, which is that the vote--the single most vital instrument of democracy--has been tampered with on an unprecedented scale. And like falling off a thousand-foot cliff, just because you haven't hit the ground doesn't mean you're not dead. In the year 2002, Americans lost the right to vote. One could argue it was all just bugs in the system. But where there are that many bugs, there's an infestation.

Ben Tripp is a screenwriter and cartoonist. He can be reached at: credel@earthlink.net

I am writing to ask you to demand that the current Administration maintain the ban on developing new low-yield nuclear weapons, also known as "mini-nukes."

The Senate's FY 04 defense authorization bill repeals the 1993 Spratt-Furse provision. Spratt-Furse bans the development of these weapons while permitting research. Maintaining the ban serves US and world interests overall.

As you may know, the United States has already developed and tested low-yield nuclear weapons, and does not need to develop new ones.  Some argue that the ban impedes the development of new nuclear weapons designed to attack deep underground targets and destroy chemical and biological agents. However, technical analysis conducted by nuclear weapon scientists shows that low-yield weapons would not be effective for these tasks.

Other advocates of mini-nukes push them as more useable than larger nuclear weapons. As the world's preeminent military power, however, the United States should work to decrease rather than increase the potential for nuclear use. Breaking the taboo on the use of nuclear weapons can only harm US interests.  Any nuclear weapon, of any size, is a destructive force that must never again be released.

Finally, new mini-nukes put at risk international efforts to halt the spread of nuclear weapons. The US pursuit of new nuclear weapons legitimizes their development by other countries. It is also an incentive for countries concerned that they may be a target of such weapons to develop their own nuclear weapons as a deterrent,  i.e. North Korea and Iran.

As your constituent, I strongly believe that you should improve US national security by voting to preserve the Spratt-Furse provision.

The cost of Operation Iraqi Freedom should be entirely funded by the corporations that sold Iraq the technology and supplies to arm Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction.

As tobacco corporations were sued, so can other corporations be sued for causing harm.

While it is legal to own weapons, chemicals, nuke parts and such, there must be a responsibility as to whom they are sold. A gun dealer cannot sell a gun to a known felon and neither should a known mass murdering dictator be sold weapons of mass destruction or the parts and technology to make them.

It would be wrong to try to recoup the cost of the war from the oil fields of Iraq. That would only amount to the plundering of Iraq and stealing from the citizens that we are trying to free. A more readily available source of payback would be to freeze and seize the assets of those offending corporations.

As well as the people harmed and killed in this war, the aggrieved parties are you and I, who pay taxes. Would there be a lawyer out there willing to take on such a suit in behalf of the American taxpayer?
Mark Lemmon, Ocean Shores

I do not believe that the United States has the right to make decisions about who should control other countries. Our responsibility, as you use the word, ends at our borders. In my opinion, unqualified as it might be, the United Nations was formed in the first place to be a legislative system with the responsibility to settle border disputes between countries, and to assist people of member nations to handle situations of human rights abuses. That the UN has trouble doing this is another argument entirely. I simply object to a single country or coalition of countries from taking the law into their own hands and making the decision without the UN. I have no problem with the US being called upon to use our military and economic power to solve a bad situation, but unless called upon by the UN or NATO or some other group of countries, we do not have the right.

Now that the Bush and Blair team have started this war, it has thrown the entire balance of power out the window. Suddenly, pre-emptive strikes are established as a legitimate way of solving problems where the charges being made against a country are circumstantial or unproven. India can say that Pakistan has plans to attack them, or North Korea can (is) saying that the US has plans to attack them (we probably do), and they can strike first and use the US/UK vs. Iraq War of 2003 as their example and justification.

All we are doing is escalating an already bad situation. I heard on the BBC radio the other day that some people in the Arab world are thanking us for doing this. Not because they agree with it, but because it gives them the ability to unite the entire Arab world. I've seen maps of the Indian ocean going back to the Ottoman Empire, and that empire controlled most if not all of the area currently considered the Arab world. This included a major portion of Africa, and most of India. If we want this kind of empire to be re-established, then we are doing a great job.

Another thing I've heard about is Iraqi dissidents, people who fled the tyranny of Saddam Hussein, returning to the country to fight. But they're not returning to help the coalition forces to free the country, but instead to help the Iraqi army oust the Invaders. Syria is sending night vision goggles and other equipment to the Iraqi side to help them in the war. These are signals to me that we've bitten off more than we can chew, and that we're in for the long haul. Sure, we're the best army on the planet. We've been fighting wars for 227 years, and we're virtually undefeated when we can really get our blood boiling. A Japanese Admiral objected to the plan of bombing Pearl Harbor because he felt it would awaken a sleeping tiger, and he was right. I have no doubts that we have the capability to defeat the Iraqi army. And then we'll be able to go after Iran. And then North Korea, Syria, and whoever stands in our way, or presents a perceived threat. And in the process of this great buildup to war, our economy could boom with the great production requirements of the war machine, taking our unemployment rate down to where it should be and increasing our technology levels to help this effort, giving the population of the United States all the side benefits of these new technologies, etc. Sounds like Germany in the 1930's.

But I have also heard analysis from people talking on the BBC that say the people in the region of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers have been fighting wars for 8,000 years, and that their way of life has not really changed throughout that entire time. That region saw the beginnings of civilization, writing and laws when Britain was still in the stone age. When the British came to Iraq in the early 1900's, they came in not as conquerors, but as liberators. So they've heard that tune before.

The US system stands for several things when it comes to human rights. There are many versions of these rights, but the three that seem to dominate can be stated like this: Everyone has the right to their material needs (food, water, shelter), self-improvement through education, and the right to self-government. The question is the priority among these three. And the answer depends on whom you ask. My opinion is that material needs come first. Get the people what they need in terms of food, fresh water, shelter from storms, and protection from disease and they will understand that you are a friend. Then give them an understanding of their world, and how to develop all of these things for themselves without tromping on their neighbors. The technology exists to be able to turn the Mesopotamia region into a land of plenty, a land overflowing with milk and honey. Instead, we're firing cluster bombs at them.

You are right about one thing. I'm an idealist. I think in simple terms, not because I don't have enough information to make an informed decision, but because all the information I have read and gathered has not changed my basic, fundamental views about what is right and what is wrong. In this case, I do not believe that the end justifies the means. Bush and Blair have a plan to bring Iraq into the community of peaceful democratic nations. I hope it works. I'm willing to help rebuild after the damage has been done. I just wish that we would have found another way.

A WARMONGER EXPLAINS WAR TO A PEACENIK

By Anonymous

PeaceNik: Why did you say we are we invading Iraq?

WarMonger: We are invading Iraq because it is in violation of security council resolution 1441. A country cannot be allowed to violate security council resolutions.

PN: But I thought many of our allies, including Israel, were in violation of more security council resolutions than Iraq.

WM: It's not just about UN resolutions. The main point is that Iraq could have weapons of mass destruction, and the first sign of a smoking gun could well be a mushroom cloud over NY.

PN: Mushroom cloud? But I thought the weapons inspectors said Iraq had no nuclear weapons.

WM: Yes, but biological and chemical weapons are the issue.

PN: But I thought Iraq did not have any long range missiles for attacking us or our allies with such weapons.

WM: The risk is not Iraq directly attacking us, but rather terrorists networks that Iraq could sell the weapons to.

PN: But couldn't virtually any country sell chemical or biological materials? We sold quite a bit to Iraq in the eighties ourselves, didn't we?

WM: That's ancient history. Look, Saddam Hussein is an evil man that has an undeniable track record of repressing his own people since the early eighties. He gasses his enemies. Everyone agrees that he is a power-hungry lunatic murderer.

PN: We sold chemical and biological materials to a power-hungry lunatic murderer?

WM: ...The issue is not what we sold, but rather what Saddam did. He is the one that launched a pre-emptive first strike on Kuwait.

PN: A pre-emptive first strike does sound bad. But didn't our ambassador to Iraq, April Gillespie, know about and green-light the invasion of Kuwait?

WM: Let's deal with the present, shall we? As of today, Iraq could sell its biological and chemical weapons to Al Quaida. Osama BinLaden himself released an audio tape calling on Iraqis to suicide-attack us, proving a partnership between the two.

PN: Osama Bin Laden? Wasn't the point of invading Afghanistan to kill him?

WM:Actually, it's not 100% certain that it's really Osama Bin Laden on the tapes. But the lesson from the tape is the same: there could easily be a partnership between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein unless we act.

PN: Is this the same audio tape where Osama Bin Laden labels Saddam a secular infidel?

WM: You're missing the point by just focusing on the tape. Powell presented a strong case against Iraq.

PN: He did?

WM: Yes, he showed satellite pictures of an Al Quaeda poison factory in Iraq.

PN: But didn't that turn out to be a harmless shack in the part of Iraq controlled by the Kurdish opposition?

WM: And a British intelligence report...

PN: Didn't that turn out to be copied from an out-of-date graduate student paper?

WM: And reports of mobile weapons labs...

PN: Weren't those just artistic renderings?

WM:And reports of Iraqis scuttling and hiding evidence from inspectors...

PN: Wasn't that evidence contradicted by the chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix?

WM: Yes, but there is plenty of other hard evidence that cannot be revealed because it would compromise our security.

PN: So there is no publicly available evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?

WM: The inspectors are not detectives, it's not their JOB to find evidence. You're missing the point.

PN: So what is the point?

WM: The main point is that we are invading Iraq because resolution 1441 threatened "severe consequences." If we do not act, the security council will become an irrelevant debating society.

PN: So the main point is to uphold the rulings of the security council?

WM: Absolutely. ...unless it rules against us.

PN: And what if it does rule against us?

WM: In that case, we must lead a coalition of the willing to invade Iraq.

PN: Coalition of the willing? Who's that?

WM: Britain, Turkey, Bulgaria, Spain, and Italy, for starters.

PN: I thought Turkey refused to help us unless we gave them tens of billions of dollars.

WM: Nevertheless, they may now be willing.

PN: I thought public opinion in all those countries was against war.

WM: Current public opinion is irrelevant. The majority expresses its will by electing leaders to make decisions.

PN: So it's the decisions of leaders elected by the majority that is important?

WM: Yes.

PN: But George W. Bush wasn't elected by voters. He was selected by the U.S. Supreme Court...

WM: I mean, we must support the decisions of our leaders, however they were elected, because they are acting in our best interest. This is about being a patriot. That's the bottom line.

PN: So if we do not support the decisions of the president, we are not patriotic?

WM: I never said that.

PN: So what are you saying? Why are we invading Iraq?

WM: As I said, because there is a chance that they have weapons of mass destruction that threaten us and our allies.

PN: But the inspectors have not been able to find any such weapons.

WM: Iraq is obviously hiding them.

PN: You know this? How?

WM: Because we know they had the weapons ten years ago, and they are still unaccounted for.

PN: The weapons we sold them, you mean?

WM: Precisely.

PN: But I thought those biological and chemical weapons would degrade to an unusable state over ten years.

WM: But there is a chance that some have not degraded.

PN: So as long as there is even a small chance that such weapons exist, we must invade?

WM: Exactly.

PN: But North Korea actually has large amounts of usable chemical, biological, AND nuclear weapons, AND long range missiles that can reach the west coast AND it has expelled nuclear weapons inspectors, AND threatened to turn America into a sea of fire.

WM: That's a diplomatic issue.

PN: So why are we invading Iraq instead of using diplomacy?

WM: Aren't you listening? We are invading Iraq because we cannot allow the inspections to drag on indefinitely. Iraq has been delaying, deceiving, and denying for over ten years, and inspections cost us tens of millions.

PN: But I thought war would cost us tens of billions.

WM: Yes, but this is not about money. This is about security.

PN: But wouldn't a pre-emptive war against Iraq ignite radical Muslim sentiments against us, and decrease our security?

WM: Possibly, but we must not allow the terrorists to change the way we live. Once we do that, the terrorists have already won.

PN: So what is the purpose of the Department of Homeland Security, color-coded terror alerts, and the Patriot Act? Don't these change the way we live?

WM: I thought you had questions about Iraq.

PN: I do. Why are we invading Iraq?

WM: For the last time, we are invading Iraq because the world has called on Saddam Hussein to disarm, and he has failed to do so. He must now face the consequences.

PN: So, likewise, if the world called on us to do something, such as find a peaceful solution, we would have an obligation to listen?

WM: By "world", I meant the United Nations.

PN: So, we have an obligation to listen to the United Nations?

WM: By "United Nations" I meant the Security Council.

PN: So, we have an obligation to listen to the Security Council?

WM: I meant the majority of the Security Council.

PN: So, we have an obligation to listen to the majority of the Security Council?

WM: Well... there could be an unreasonable veto.

PN: In which case?

WM: In which case, we have an obligation to ignore the veto.

PN: And if the majority of the Security Council does not support us at all?

WM: Then we have an obligation to ignore the Security Council.

PN: That makes no sense.

WM: If you love Iraq so much, you should move there!! Or maybe France, with all the other cheese-eating surrender monkeys. It's time to boycott their wine and cheese, no doubt about that!! FREEDOM FRIES!!!!

PN: I give up!

We're told by Pagan teaching time after time that 'as above, so below'. I'm beginning to believe that... theory? distate? belief system? ...reaches a lot farther than even our 'elders' give it credit for.

What if the visible spectrum of colours is just one of an endless system of spectrums? If everything, existence itself, falls in a range of ...everything? Behavior, intelligence, spirit/soul perception, health ... everything is part of a wider matrix.

After reading the article several times, I have to respond. And I have to respond with my opinion, because I only have my opinions based on what I've learned, read and experienced. It seems to me that every statement that is quoted in this article is also an assumption, judgment or opinion from the people quoted, because that is what they were writing. There is no such thing as a 'fact' in this context because we are not speaking about scientific principles. We are speaking of people's thoughts and feelings, and the words that came out of their heads and hearts as a result of those thoughts and feelings. You and I are no different. 

Every writer has a political slant or preconceived idea. The selections they make in what sentences to include or not to include betray those slants, and the only way to avoid it is not to write in the first place. The author of the message you sent to me is deliberately not going into exactly what those changes were in the Supreme Court in 1947. To do so would have caused the other side of the argument to be presented in a light that would have illuminated weaknesses in his own arguments. It is up to us to research those changes and bring the two sides to a balance in our own minds before making a decision one way or the other. 

According to a little Internet research, the Supreme Court's 1947 Everson decision — forbidding New Jersey to spend state education funds for religious education — is where Justice Hugo Black cited the phrase "wall of separation between Church & State," from Jefferson's Jan.  1 1802 letter to a group of Baptists in Massachusetts. There have been some opinions published, specifically one by American University professor Daniel Dreisbach, that say Jefferson never intended it to be the iron curtain of today, which instead was built on anti-Catholic legal views in the 1940s. 

I am not an expert in history. My opinions come more from my own experiences than anything else. My grandparents never insisted that I attend church, and my mother was rather against it. However, I do know the basic principles of the Christian religion, as published in the Bible as the words of Jesus. "Love thy neighbor as thy self. ""Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. ""Love one another. ""Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. ""Put your sword back into its place; for those who live by the sword, die by the sword. ""Stop judging by mere appearances, and make a right judgment. "Those are the core values that were taught to me, and never have I seen or heard anything that would cause me to question them. 

The Founding Fathers of our country were Christians. There is no doubt of that, nor should there be. The quotes in the article you sent me were proper statements made by community leaders in the late 1700's, who were educated at religious schools in England and New England. In fact, one of the names their particular religious preference has been given is Deists. 

http://www. positivedeism. com/deistdoc. html

While all of the 55 delegates/framers (39 stayed and signed) of the U. S.  Constitution were raised in a social culture that heavily emphasized traditional Christian church membership because there was no freedom of religion until they established it, we know that all of the influential leaders made strong Deistic statements in their writings.  The Constitution contains the terms of freedom of religion, and the Declaration of Independence uses the very Deistic words Creator and Nature's God.  There is no specific Biblical or Christian language or foundation.  The Deists include Gouverneur Morris who is credited with compiling and writing the Constitution, George Washington the presiding officer of the Constitutional Convention, James Madison the Father of the Constitution for his input and authorship of the Bill of Rights (the first ten amendments), and signers Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, James Wilson, and Hugh Williamson.  Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, and John Adams were absent from the convention, but they contributed input from their state government writings. 

John Adams said, "The government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion. "

By Christian, he was probably not referring to the overall definition in use today. To the people of his day, Christian was different than Catholic, which was different than Quaker. I don't know exactly which church he was referring to. But I don't believe that he was differentiating between Christian and Buddhist, or Hindu, or Islam. He probably knew that those religions existed, but I doubt that he had any experience with them. But the writers of the Constitution wanted the United States to be a place where anyone could be welcomed. And in the society that they lived in, this was a radical idea, and before its time. 

Consider the words of Abraham Lincoln in the Gettysburg Address:

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.  It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us.  .  . that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion.  .  .  that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.  .  .  that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom.  .  .  and that government of the people.  .  . by the people.  .  . for the people.  .  .  shall not perish from the earth.  

That "new birth of freedom" was referring partially to the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared that slaves held in states that were actively armed against the Union, and therefore challenging the stability of that Union, were henceforth free. But this passage is also referring to the Constitution's 9th Amendment, "the enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. "This is the amendment that defines the Constitution as a living document, and that changes in the fabric of society shall enable adjustments in the interpretation of the words of the Constitution and the laws written under it. This enables us, in any generation, to look back and decide which path we would have followed given similar circumstances, and maybe decide we would have chosen a different path had we been given the chance to do so. 

Given what we know and believe now, would we have launched the Crusades to ‘defend the Holy Land’?  Would we have kidnapped African villagers and brought them bound in the bellies of ships to work in our farms? And would we have declared the Native American tribes ‘savages’ and driven them off their ancestral lands to be able to sell that land to immigrant colonists? History has many lessons to teach, and many different paths that we could have taken. It is up to us, now, to look back and determine which decisions left the legacy that we are proud to have. 

We are given a choice in life. That choice is the kind of legacy we will leave to history. Each of us must follow our convictions, or change them when new information comes to us that makes us question the ways we are familiar with. A war cry to defend our country from an aggressor is one thing. But that aggressor must be upon us and the danger evident and unmistakable. I don't have a TV. I don't listen to President Bush's speeches on a regular basis, because I hear him saying the same things over and over. I do read the newswires over the Internet from CNN International, the BBC and several other international news sources. I keep up with the Inspectors in Iraq and see what they have found. And what I have read so far leads me to believe that whatever weapons Iraq has are no threat to the United States. They may be a threat to Israel but not to us, unless of course we go to them and try and cause trouble. Their marches today proclaimed that their swords were unsheathed and that they were ready to do battle. But we have to go to them to make that happen, and I don't see a legitimate reason for doing so. And in fact, I see lots of reasons not to do so.   

And so, I choose to lend my voice and feet to the march in Seattle today. Probably 50,000 people gathered at the Seattle Center to hear speeches about the INS, and Iraq, and moral obligation. A Native American spoke about the irony of the US prepared to go to war against another country because they broke treaties. A union representative of Mexican and other immigrant janitors spoke about the oppression of the people in the unions by local businesses, and that the unions of the late 19th century and early 20th century were about foreign workers trying to get a livable wage for honest work, and that they are struggling trying to establish the same precedent here at the beginning of the 21st century. The march was in general anti-war, but specifically to protest the erosion of civil rights that have occurred as a result of the war on terrorism. Jim McDermott spoke about the same things I've heard him speak about before. 147 people are listed as having died during the first Gulf War. But if you look at the medical records of every soldier who served during that war and fought on the ground or in the air, that number has grown to over 10,000 due to the Gulf War Syndrome that is in all likelihood due to the fact that we used 300 tons of Depleted Uranium during that military action. And in spite of what might be thought of him for going to Iraq last year, he has met with the people and visited hospitals in Iraq where people are being treated for increased rates of cancer, leukemia and fetus deformities. He mentioned something I had not realized before, that 46% of the population of Iraq was under the age of 14. I did some additional searches for information like this, and discovered that only 44% of the population of Iraq has access to safe water. That the unemployment rate is estimated being above 50%. That basic vaccines for childhood diseases are prevented from entering the country because they technically could be used to make biological weapons. 

As Americans, we must stand up to defend our country. Saddam Hussein should not be in charge of a country. But the current plan is to drop a number of bombs on the city of Baghdad in the first two days equal to the entire amount used in the first Gulf War. For what purpose will we do that? If it is to impress upon them that they cannot win against us, then we have long ago succeeded. They know they cannot win a war against the US. But they are willing to fight and die in the bleak deserts of their country, not because they think they will win, but because they are willing to die to defend themselves against what they consider to be terrorism of the worst kind, an aggressor that is perceived as trying to take over their country. 

I spent 6 years in the Navy. I’m only ashamed of one thing over those 6 years, and that is I didn’t stay focused enough to do the best job I could have. I was distracted by a lot of things, the most important of those being the personal attacks I was subjected to by my own family from a personal choice. But it’s a choice that I do not regret, and in fact was essential to bring me to the place I am now. My relationship with Debi is made stronger because of my past, and my friends know me most for knowing what I believed and sticking to it under fire. I can’t ask to change any of your opinions. But I have to try and get you to understand mine, including where they come from and why I hold them so strongly. I know that the current administration is following the wrong path. I am beyond doubt of that. And I am following my convictions and ethical standards by standing up to declare what I see that is wrong, and being willing to include my voice in the protests and debate that will shape the legacy that we leave for the future. I don’t want Shea growing up in a world where most of the countries of the world will think ill of him because of the country that he was born in. I also don’t want that world to be a dangerous one, with terrorists working hard to undermine the fabric of our society in retaliation of our undermining of the fabric of their society in the Middle East and elsewhere. If this war goes forward, we will win nothing but the hatred of hundreds of thousands of the followers of Islam, who will go forward with their plans with a hundred fold increase in volunteers to do their work. Terrorism is a plague in our world. But instead of fighting the symptoms of that plague in each victim, shouldn’t we be trying to find the source of the disease? If Osama Bin Laden and his group are a tumor, shouldn’t we be trying to fight the cancer that created them? I believe in my heart that it is lack of education, health-care and economic stability that is the cause of most of the worlds ills. And going to war to kill and control will do nothing but increase the infection. 

It seems that my reply has turned into much more than I intended. I don’t want to lose your respect, and we could debate historical quotes forever, as well as justifications whether to go to war or not. I’d rather not. But I’m not going to let my opinions be a sore subject between us, because they are all that I have to keep my head and heart on track. We grew up in different worlds, and those differences certainly show in our values and convictions. But I am proud to have you as my friend. You are always willing to, as you put it, read and re-read. 

Chad

-----Original Message-----
From: 
Sent: Friday, February 14, 2003 8:18 AM
To: Chad Lupkes; Lupkes, Chad
Subject: FW: FORSAKEN ROOTS

Chad,

I read what you wrote about the pledge of allegiance, then I read it
again. It seems to be full of judgments and opinions, and somewhat
contradictory. I am well aware of the history of the Pledge and what it
has come to be. You are right that things like rites take on the
meanings we give them. Consider the National anthem and its history.  
What would your very wordy message in reply to the Pepsi e-mail say if
you eliminated all assumptions, judgments and opinions? 
I forward the following to you for you to ponder, you do not need to
reply. Think about it for a while, then read it again. I like to read
historical articles. I do not claim to be a researcher, but I feel I
have read enough to be able to tell when the writer has a political
slant or preconceived idea.  
I wonder what history will say about the roots and history of the
American Civil Liberties Union. Who were the people that created it,
why, who are the people that use it now and what is their intention,
their agenda. 

-----Original Message-----
From: Sent: Friday, December 20, 2002 7:46 AM
To: Undisclosed-Recipient:;
Subject: Fw: FORSAKEN ROOTS

Everyone have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I can say that can't I. . . 

----- Original Message -----
From: 
To: <Undisclosed-Recipient:;>
Sent: Wednesday, December 18, 2002 9:45 AM
Subject: FORSAKEN ROOTS

When you read this, I think you may get a different perception of what may be going on in our nation. 

FORSAKEN ROOTS

Did you know that 52 of the 55 signers of the Declaration of Independence were orthodox, deeply committed Christians?  The other three all believed in the Bible as the divine truth, the God of scripture, and His personal intervention. 

It is the same Congress that formed the American Bible Society.  Immediately after creating the Declaration of Independence, the Continental Congress voted to purchase and import 20,000 copies of scripture for the people of this nation. 

Patrick Henry, who is called the firebrand of the American Revolution, is still remembered for his words, "Give me liberty or give me death. "

But in current textbooks the context of these words is deleted.  Here is what he said: "An appeal to arms and the God of hosts is all that is left us.  But we shall not fight our battle alone.  There is a just God that presides over the destinies of nations.  The battle sir, is not to the strong alone.  Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?  Forbid it almighty God.  I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death. "

These sentences have been erased from our textbooks.  Was Patrick Henry a Christian?  The following year, 1776, he wrote this "It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great Nation was founded not by religionists, but by Christians; not on religious, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  For that reason alone, people of other faiths have been afforded freedom of worship here. "

Consider these words that Thomas Jefferson wrote on the front of his well-worn Bible: "I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple of the doctrines of Jesus.  I have little doubt that our whole country will soon be rallied to the unity of our Creator and, I hope, to the pure doctrine of Jesus also. "

Consider these words from George Washington, the Father of our Nation, in his farewell speech on September 19, 1796: "It is impossible to govern the world without God and the Bible.  Of all the dispositions and habits that lead to political prosperity, our religion and morality are the indispensable supporters.  Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion.  Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that our national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle. "

Was George Washington a Christian?  Consider these words from his personal prayer book: "Oh, eternal and everlasting God, direct my thoughts, words and work.  Wash away my sins in the immaculate blood of the lamb and purge my heart by thy Holy Spirit.  Daily, frame me more and more in the likeness of thy son, Jesus Christ, that living in thy fear, and dying in thy favor, I may in thy appointed time obtain the resurrection of the justified unto eternal life.  Bless, O Lord, the whole race of mankind and let the world be filled with the knowledge of thee and thy son, Jesus Christ. "

Consider these words by John Adams, our second president, who also served as chairman of the American Bible Society.  In an address to military leaders he said, "We have no government armed with the power capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and true religion. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people.  It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other. "

How about our first Supreme Court Justice, John Jay?  He stated that when we select our national leaders, if we are to preserve our Nation, we must select Christians.  "Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers, and it is the duty as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian Nation to select and prefer Christians for their rulers. " John Quincy Adams, son of John Adams, was the sixth U. S.  President.  He was also the chairman of the American Bible Society, which he considered his highest and most important role.  On July 4, 1821, President Adams said, "The highest glory of the American Revolution was this: it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity. "

Calvin Coolidge, our 30th President of the United States reaffirmed this truth when he wrote, "The foundations of our society and our government rest so much on the teachings of the Bible that it would be difficult to support them if faith in these teachings would cease to be practically universal in our country. "

In 1782, the United States Congress voted this resolution: "The Congress of the United States recommends and approves the Holy Bible for use in all schools. "

William Holmes McGuffey is the author of the McGuffey Reader, which was used for over 100 years in our public schools with over 125 million copies sold until it was stopped in 1963.  President Lincoln called him the schoolmaster of the Nation.  Listen to these words of Mr.  McGuffey: "The Christian religion is the religion of our country.  

"From it are derived our notions on the character of God, on the great moral Governor of the universe.  On its doctrines are founded the peculiarities of our free institutions.  From no source has the author drawn more conspicuously than from the sacred Scriptures.  From all these extracts from the Bible I make no apology. "

Of the first 108 universities founded in America, 106 were distinctly Christian, including the first, Harvard University, chartered in 1636. In the original Harvard Student Handbook, rule number 1 was that students seeking entrance must know Latin and Greek so that they could study the scriptures:

"Let every student be plainly instructed and earnestly pressed to consider well, the main end of his life and studies is, to know God and Jesus Christ, which is eternal life, John 17:3; and therefore to lay Jesus Christ as the only foundation of all sound knowledge and learning.  And seeing the Lord only giveth wisdom, let every oneseriously set himself by prayer in secret to seek it of him (Proverbs 2:3). "

For over 100 years, more than 50% of all Harvard graduates were pastors!  It is clear from history that the Bible and the Christian faith, were foundational to our educational and judicial system.  However, in 1947, there was a radical change of direction for the Supreme Court.  It required ignoring every precedent of Supreme Court ruling for the past 160 years.  The Supreme Court ruled in a limited way to affirm a wall of separation between church and State in the public classroom.  In the coming years, this led to removing prayer from public schools in 1962.  Here is the prayer that was banished:"Almighty God, we acknowledge our dependence on Thee. We beg Thy blessings upon us and our parents and our teachers and our country.  Amen. "

In 1963, the Supreme Court ruled that Bible reading was outlawed as unconstitutional in the public school system.  The court offered this justification: "If portions of the New Testament were read without explanation, they could and have been psychologically harmful to children. "

Bible reading was now unconstitutional, though the Bible was quoted 94 percent of the time by those who wrote our Constitution and shaped our Nation and its system of education and justice and government. 

In 1965, the Courts denied as unconstitutional the right of a student in the public school cafeteria to bow his head and pray audibly for his food.  In 1980, Stone vs.  Graham outlawed the Ten Commandments in our public schools. 

The Supreme Court said this: "If the posted copies of the Ten Commandments were to have any effect at all, it would be to induce school children to read them.  And if they read them, meditated upon them, and perhaps venerated and obeyed them, this is not a permissible objective. "

Is it not a permissible objective to allow our children to follow the moral principles of the Ten Commandments?  James Madison, the primary author of the Constitution of the United States, said this: "We have staked the whole future of our new nation, not upon the power of government; far from it. We have staked the future of all our political constitutions upon the capacity of each of ourselves to govern ourselves according to the moral principles of the Ten Commandments. "

Today, we are asking God to bless America.  But, how can He bless a Nation that has departed so far from Him?  Prior to September 11, He was not welcome in America.  Most of what you read in this article has been erased from our textbooks.  Revisionists have rewritten history to remove the truth about our country's Christian roots. 

This is a list of links on the Internet that I find interesting.  It's going to become a very long list...

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/

http://www.rense.com/

http://www.upi.com/

http://fairvote.net/washington/