AMERICAN WAYS

Posted on February 6th, 2006 in Uncategorized | Comments Off

“THE AMERICAN WAY” is possibly the catchiest tried and true maxim of all American clichés. It is most often used by Americans in fond reference to matters which make them proud, and there are many. When these same words are spoken by non Americans, their meaning occasionally takes on a different twist, one which was not intended by the fathers of American lexicology.

There are some implied suggestions in the use of this expression which may carry many secondary meanings, such as: “This is the way we do things in these parts”, or “Doing things our way is how we got here in the first place and we are not about to change.” or simply, “Don’t tell us what to do.”

Too often, “The American Way” becomes confused with an equally popular saying “The American Dream”, which in reality is what The “American Way” was intended to provide in the first place. We must then narrow the distinction between those two catchphrases and a third, “The American Way of Life”, the provider of philosophical balance in this equation.

The world moves too quickly today to spend time trying to understand the “American Way of Life”, since in that particular life cycle there is a suggestion of having attained a level where contentment overpowers additional greed and ambition. The American Dream, somehow appears to be a mythical goal often based on the realities of the more fortunate than ourselves.

Americans prefer things to be “Bigger Than Life”, and that appears to be a major area easily identified with the watchword the “American Way”, and merits our first honorable mention. No other nation in this world is in the running for this honor, and we can only ask ourselves how all those other countries could be so much out of step.

Cars are a case in point. Everyone knows that large cars are the exclusive carriers of important political figures. How can anyone, therefore, feel important in a car designed to reduce the use of gasoline, a dead give-away that your American Dream has not arrived. Of course, no society can survive without trucks that can block the width of a football field, limos that can provide for the simultaneous weddings of triplets, and utility vehicles that can escalate glaciers.

While all European countries such as England, Germany, Italy France Russia as well as South American states such as Mexico, Brazil, Venezuela, in fact most countries of the world, have adopted sports that are best played by athletes of normal corpulence. American sports thrive on the coverage of activities such as Basketball, Football and Pro. Wrestling, whose mammoth sized participants appear to have descended from the elusive Incredible Hulk.

While the immortal artist sculptors of Greece and Italy were content to whittle away large blocks of marble, in America they immortalized a few Presidents by carving up a mountain, and are in the process of repeating this honor for the venerable warrior, Crazy Horse.

This fascination with size, whether or not it is exclusive to the “American Way” should not of itself disturb anyone’s sleep, unless we throw in a second “American Way” fetish, the “Very Large” number of weapons stored in homes within easy reach of young people, a right and tradition however heartily endorsed by these words from David Koresh “That’s just the American Way”.

There is, however, a third “American Way” mania, which interplays, and that is the American love-in with TV and movie violence. Surely no one will argue that it is omnipresent, but defenders of entertainment violence argue that there is no solid proof that it begets real time violence. It should perhaps be pointed out that advertisers nationally are not reluctant to spend millions of their dollars for a few moments of influence on behalf of their product, and yet they would have us believe that the accompanying 45 minutes of uninhibited violence has no influence on their viewers?

“Live and let live” is how author Catherine Marshall summarizes all “American Ways” and that seems to cover a wide range, but Senator Lieberman favors “Litigation” as the favorite “Way” of Americans, and George W. Bush, when asked, added that “High energy consumption” in his view is an important aspect of the “American Way”. Polls of average Americans suggest that in the public mind and to their credit, the response to this question is simply: “Freedom”

The American Constitution was written by brilliant wise men who sought to create a civil document for all times, and at the outset, that, was the “American Way”. They could not anticipate that ultimately their fine work would be restructured through many subjective amendments and twisted relentlessly in its interpretation for ideological and political considerations.

A recent addition to the gamut of “American Ways” is this Administration’s license to bend reality and laws where it suits their needs, and make it sound righteous. Consider that they went to war against the Government of Afghanistan, their partners-in-arms in their repulsion of a Soviet invasion, they declared war on Iraq, and are in a constant ongoing war against terrorism. All the administration officials and supporters refer endlessly to the word war, war, war. They take prisoners and twist truth to its very foundation by postulating that there is no war, therefore there are no prisoners that merit the protection of the Geneva accord, they are in reality “Enemy Combatants” and will be placed in modern day dungeons. To the rest of the world, this unfortunately is their impression of the new “American Way”.

This view is further exemplified by the reluctance of the administration to recognize the reality of civilian casualties. These are, to the disgust of the majority of Americans, referred to as “Collateral Damage”, a coined phrase which in the minds of Donald Rumsfelt and his fellow world conquerors, makes all the dead children disappear.

The political system in the U.S. was originally conceived to provide checks and balances between the representatives of the people, the Administration, and the judicial. That was the original “American Way”. Somewhere along the road, this became less of a priority, and the Representative factions, Congress and the Senate, which the original founders had intended to be the dominant force, became rubber stamps to Presidents from their own parties. This has overboiled into the judicial appointment process so that the “American Way” checks and balances that the founding fathers had thoughtfully put in place are now ripped to shreds by the pervasive self-indulgence of subjective ideological interests.

The “American Way” and the American dollar are never too far apart, and nowhere is that more evident than in U.S. politics, before elections or afterwards. Parts of this problem are currently front-page news, but we have been reassured, that this time, the foxes will definitely punish those among them that ate the chickens.

The cause of freedom is the stock American answer when the “American Way” is being challenged, and that is of course a worthy cause, but how free is the American vision of freedom? Is it really freedom when people are not free to choose which freedoms they would sacrifice? Americans tend to equate freedom with Democracy, but is Democracy freedom when it is compelled?

There will always be a distinct “American Way” as there will always be a distinct “Muslim Way”, “Christian Way”, “Chinese way”, and the list goes on. Is it even remotely possible however that lasting peace could logically be expected while dogmatists continue trying to impose their “Ways” on other Nations? Cultures? Tribes? Religions?

Paul Forest

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GEORGE THE BRASH HEARTED

Posted on November 4th, 2005 in Uncategorized | Comments Off

Brashness from the powerful can be devastating, but to many of America’s young and active people, it has become a desirable attribute and a quality they look for in their heroes and role models. It follows that many public personalities assume brash characteristics for the express purpose of enhancing their image with the emerging generation without having to try very hard.
 Dictionaries are merciless in their definition of this word. Hasty, impetuous, presumptuously forward, lacking in sensitivity and, are some of the few terms of reference that we were able to unearth, despite our honest effort at finding a positive uplifting meaning to this simple term.
The borrowers of brash characteristics have a distinct advantage over the true and honest exponents of brash behavior. The naturals have orientations which tend to sink to the depths of ultra brashness and provide the image of an uningratiating persona, the kind most of us try to avoid at gatherings, but who always seem to find us wherever we may be hiding.

The facsimile brashers on the other hand are capable of creating a brash image to suit their individual tastes and likings, as well as adopt the image, which in their view is most suitable for their current environment, or has a greater potential for their own desired result

Frank Sinatra as a young frail and apprehensive singer in his very first film appearance, sang a song called ” Saturday night is the loneliest night of the week” in a soft, subdued, almost timid manner, which we must assume was his natural personality at the time. Needless to say that his later style and personality evolved by design into the Chairman of the Board that he became and that we remember.

Calculated brashness must have been his catalyst of choice to achieve such a transformation.Brashness, however, is more than an appearance characteristic. It is also and perhaps foremost, a state of mind, which can influence every act, thought, and decision that people make on a daily basis, and as a natural personality attribute, it is present for the duration.

A naturally brash person is inevitably also a rash person and will tend to jump to a conclusion on matters needing decisions or conclusions, and inversely, will brashly dismiss viewpoints and ideas in conflict with his own.

Some outstanding examples of brash actions come to mind:

* The commander of a nuclear submarine carrying political guests, and while wishing to impress them with a rapid ascent, sinking a boatload of Japanese student/tourists.

* The many incidents of friendly fire, by young warriors too anxious to be heroes.

* The shooting of a South-American student in London, when presumed to be a terrorist,

* The recent shooting of a plain clothed policeman by a uniformed officer, in a crowd control situation.

These are all terrible, unfortunate circumstances that would not have occurred had the responsible parties been capable of more reflection, and less impulsive behavior. Fortunately those parties responsible for these incidents were limited to their immediate surroundings in their capacity to create disasters.

That is not the case with George W. Bush. He has been able to reach into the depths of brash decision-making and the results have shaken the world to its liquid core. He has a mind set typically devoid of the ability to reflect, to ponder, to analyze, and is set on a course of action, the ultimate militant conservative cause, which he will allow to ferment into whatever toxic brew his doctrinaire course can force a gullible public to swallow.

Brash people do not engage in deliberations, they tend to arrive at conclusions without wasting precious time, and so are too often guided by hunches and prejudices. The war in Iraq is a disaster of a magnitude, which may well at some point in time be recognized as the beginning of the end of America’s political, economical, and even military dominance on this planet. The reign will have been short lived.

This deeply imbedded fundamental personal flaw of George W. Bush has caused him throughout his public life to make brash decisions, and the same condition coupled with irrepressible self-esteem, prohibits him from acknowledging errors or the need for additional reflection.

It is believed that the invasion of Iraq was carried in the mind of George W. Bush well before his unfortunate ascent to the Presidency. More than five years later, he is still able to wisk aside on a daily basis, all counter opinions which so dramatically prove him wrong.

He can expulse from his mind all thoughts of personal responsibility concerning the daily announcements of US military casualties. The hardships and substantial losses of life suffered by the innocents of Iraq are even more easily set aside, when in fact, despite the pretence of having initiated a war to liberate Iraqis from a Killer President, recent statistics indicate that the actions of Occupying President Bush have caused the death of more Iraqis on a per day average basis than did his predecessor Sadam Hussein.

Having brashly rejected the Kyoto accord and unable to rethink any of his unmeditated decisions, he is not about to let a few vagrant wild ladies named Katrina And Rita change the course of his decision.

For lack of any in-depth knowledge of the Arabic people, he brashly concluded that the liberated Iraqis would embrace western culture and political structures, when in truth, it appears that he may have accommodated the creation a new Islamic State.

He brashly “tells it like it is not”, to Americans and the World, and will continue to do so indefinitely, since that is the method of action he has adopted, and admittedly, it has served him well, till now. He and his mentors, however, must surely be dismayed of late by the fact that the persistent repetition of his errant messages is perplexing even to ranking conservatives.

Notwithstanding the numerous other hidden agendas attributed to George W. Bush, the brash and unreflective Iraq invasion may have had as a major contributing factor his hell-bent determination to open the floodgates of military spending, and thereby fulfill his and his fellow Hawks’ perennial yearning for an all-powerful Military Industrial Complex.

Many people who have high aspirations often select a successful role model, and openly follow in his footsteps. It is unlikely however that there could be anyone that George W. Bush would have selected, that could have inspired him to be the person that he later became.

He should possibly have selected Dwight D. Eisenhower as a role model. This would have been consistent with his conservative leanings and he might also have admired Eisenhower’s terse style and quickness of thought. Had he done so, he very likely would have been aware that when it came time for President Dwight D. Eisenhower to retire, after a lifetime of military experience and the Presidency, he left public life in 1961 with these incredibly wise and profound thoughts:

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

Paul Forest

PolForest@aol.com

THE WARRING OF GEORGE W. BUSH

Posted on August 14th, 2005 in Uncategorized | Comments Off

The message of World War II was not lost on the US Presidents that subsequently took office, as they appear for the most part to have recognized the extent of the horrors that war produces, such as the extensive loss of conscious human life, the obliteration of cities, the racial atrocities, the resulting poverty, and avoidance of conflicts appears to have oriented their diplomatic strategies in the second half of the last century.

Such a blanket statement however ignores the serious engagements in Korea and Vietnam that occurred under the Presidencies of Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, since these wars were undertaken with one laudable objective in mind, to arrest the spreading of dictatorial communism fomented by China, in an area covered with small vulnerable countries.

Richard Nixon will be remembered for the wrong reasons but if due credit were to be awarded where merited, history will note that he understood that his country had no business defending democracy militarily in that area, and he therefore gradually terminated that unfortunate Vietnam adventure. He also initiated a personal rapport with the Soviet Union leader of that time, which was instrumental in initiating a background that paved a roadway towards an eventual satisfactory conclusion of the cold war.

In the mid-eighties Ronald Reagan theorized that he might avoid a war with the Soviet Union by increasing U.S. military spending to a level that their economy would struggle to maintain. With a cooperating Senate and Congress, he played his hand in 1985, and spent $486.5 billion on military procurement, a record that withstood the test of time for 20 years. This flexing of muscles may have significantly contributed to a resolution of the cold war. He had rationalized that the Soviet Union, being limited to spending but a fraction of that amount as a counter measure, and realizing that this situation would reoccur yearly for the foreseeable future, would recognize that peace and prosperity should be the option of choice for everyone.

George Bush I, was involved in a number of “tactical wars” which were highly successful, with limited loss of life, and one “covert war” also successful even though its cover-up defied the rules of credibility. In each case inclusive of Panama and the Gulf War, American forces under his orders, ended their incursions successfully and returned home.

Eventually President Bill Clinton, having no war to worry about and to needlessly spend money on, and striving to attain that political illusion, a balanced budget, caused the pace of military spending to regress and diminish to the consternation of the Generals the appointed administrators of wars, whose military potential is severely hampered by peace. The entire system of war cannot survive without a strong back-up of Defense Contractors, and a policy of Military Preparedness. By 1999 U.S. military spending had been reduced to a mere $261 billion, still 3 times that of China, and 8 times that of Russia, but perhaps too close for comfort for followers of the Reagan doctrine.

Enter George W. Bush. There was a need to capture and punish those responsible for 9/11 and few people would dispute the justification of the Afghanistan invasion, though most political observers regret that the job was terminated ahead of being finished.

The military establishment found in George W. Bush, a ready partner in the fulfilling of their frustrated ideology of recreating the glory days of excessive military supremacy. However they and he, believed that congress was overly preoccupied with such matters as job creation social reform and the economy, and were unlikely to view favorably unneeded military spending in a time of relative peace.

There is nothing like a war to justify bolstering military strength, so they had to find one. The War in Iraq is unlike all previous major military interventions of the U.S. including the Gulf War, since all those previous wars were considered to have had their base of justification, on unselfish and altruistic motives.

The unprovoked and unreflective Iraq invasion, notwithstanding the numerous other hidden agendas attributed to George W. Bush, may have had as a major contributing factor his natural leaning towards opening the floodgates of military spending, and thereby fulfilling the U.S. military establishment’s perennial yearning for a strong Defense Industry.

Since the cold war reversal had turned America ’s mortal enemies, Russia and China, into U.S. friends and collaborators, the reasons that provided President Reagan with a true excuse to raise military spending, was no longer part of current logic. George W.

Bush and advisors needed the real thing, a war, to rescue the military establishment and the Defense Industry, and proceeded against Iraq, after shamelessly duping Congress, the Senate, and the public. The White House together with the Pentagon, shielded behind the well-deserved U.S. reputation for selfless intervention, as proven in four major international conflicts, concocted the now legendary stories that they would now like everyone to forget, to justify a war whose primary purpose may have been to have congress provide a blank check for the restocking the military arsenal and thereby give new life to the defense industry.

To the military, the price paid in fatalities, casualties and a severely wounded economy, may have appeared to be a minor factor to them and a small price to pay, for a critical resurgence of US military power. In 2006 U.S. Defense spending, including non-budgeted items is expected to approximate $525 billion, which hopefully should be sufficient to offset the total spending of the CIA’s recently categorized “Potential Enemy Nations” of the U.S., whose combined military budgets are expected to surge to $19 billion.

The perception that the Iraq disaster may have had its roots in the future well-being of the U.S. military apparatus, adds a new dimension of horror to a conflict whose perpetrators themselves now wish that more intelligence would have lined their military strategy. To the civilized world, this scenario could only have been created in the minds of souls severely lacking in humanity and could only have been implemented by members of an extreme political right group.

The radical right philosophy by its nature is quite simple and consists of the dominance of the few over the many, in this case within the confines of the political U.S.A. Their struggle should not be confused with the hidden agenda of the neo-conservatives, a movement created by Irving Krystol in the 1950s and whose stalwart proponents today include Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Frank Gaffney, and everyone’s friend, John Bolton. Their motivation for getting up in the morning is to create an all-powerful USA capable of dominating the world militarily and thereby able to assist selected friendly countries and cultures.

George W. Bush has invited these radicals to assist him in his enterprise and has provided them with an open road for their own narrow objectives. Together they have failed miserably and only succeeded in bankrupting the federal budget, alienating traditional friends of the U.S. and creating a gamut of new enemies. Despite these results, they have now talked themselves into positions where they could now infiltrate and infect the World Bank and United Nations organizations, and continue their single-track interferences, with little true regard for the well being of American citizens.

G.W. Bush has a mindset totally oriented towards the concept of war with little sobering thought reserved for conciliation. He is a person who in his personal life and the country’s affairs sees only friends and enemies. If you are not with him, you are against him and therefore an enemy.. His total resources as well as those of his office and his country can in his mind be justifiably applied to defeat proponents of opposite views, within and without. He does not have the capacity to understand that two voices who do not agree may from their own perspective, both be right.

The Guantanamo situation provides significant insight into his true moral values, or absence thereof. He attacks Afghanistan and the Taliban Government, allies of the US in their War against Russia, and he gathers prisoners. To avoid the Internationally recognized moral obligations of the Geneva convention concerning prisoners, he coins a phrase, “Enemy Combatants” and ships the prisoners to Guantanamo, to further avoid US laws which would apply in the treatment of prisoners on US soil. This set the stage for what appears to be the planned mistreatment of these prisoners. Meanwhile reference continues to be made to the “War” in Afghanistan, a term which embodies the coexistent term “Prisoner”.

These prisoners it should be noted, for the most part were not mercenaries nor were they terrorists or “radical extremists”, to use his most recently coined verbalization. Citizens or not they were army soldiers of the Internationally recognized Government of a sovereign state, and they were repulsing the Army of an invading menace, much as they did against Russia, and they were responding to the orders of the official Government of that time, and they merited full prisoner status.

No one contests nor should they, the necessity of overturning a Government that provided safe heaven to the Sheik of Terrorism, and abused its own people. It is unfortunate that the well-earned reputation of the US in previous times of War should have been soiled by a President who lowers himself to the level of the enemies he despises.

He confronts or ignores some countries and their people, Iraq, Cuba, France, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Palestine, Canada, and most Muslim countries, all of which for the most simplistic and self-serving of reasons he has categorized as enemies. He favors others that he has identified as friends, China, Russia, Australia, Saudi Arabia, India, Pakistan, England, Israel, Mexico, countries that he sees as his allies in his own petty personal wars, and countries that have not wasted the potential advantages that this could provide. With his limited understanding, one group can do no wrong and the other cannot do anything right. With him, objectivity lies in the shadow of his own subjective prejudices.

George W. Bush is not a neo-conservative. He surrounded himself with these sycophants in the hope that their agenda of dominance through power would prove valuable in the pursuit of his own silent wish which is to help perpetuate a wealth based elite class of families, companies and individuals of which he believes himself and his family to be major players.

His natural tendency domestically consists of allying himself with the powerful in all ways possible and since the formula entails the semblance of a war against the lesser classes, so be it. At every turn, every opportunity he has proposed legislation and taken decision with that orientation as a constant. His roots are from a family firmly embedded in old money going back generations, and involved in some war financings ably described in the movie Fahrenheit 911.

He chose a Vice-President whose lifetime occupation has been the accumulation of wealth, and whose social life is closely intertwined with wealthy individuals and companies. He, and his crew, designed a taxation system favoring the wealthy, while depriving the country of sufficient revenues to maintain a stable economy and divesting its average people of a lifestyle in keeping with their lifelong expectations.

He stands by while American companies seeking to lower their costs on the back of organized labor, outsource jobs to countries he has categorized as friendly.

He reduced provisions of the budget designed to monitor and prevent illegal immigration, surely with the thought in mind that he will thereby help to lower working class costs and favor employers as a class, whoever they are.

He created the reasons for a war that in a few years inflicted a direct cost to the economy, therefore to everyone, of more than $400 billion, most of which will find its way to benefit the few, the defense contractors and their controlling interests.

He proposed a Social Security scheme and in our analysis we are fascinated by the probable reasons for this project. Could it be that privatizing Social Security even partially, would create a massive amount of revenues for his friends and elites in the Financial sector: Insurance Companies, Investment Dealers and other Financial Institutions in the act of providing Annuities, Stocks and Bonds, and charging unregulated commissions for these transactions. Additional revenues would accrue to them from hidden costs, such as Safekeeping and Administrative charges, Bond spreads, New Issues, and the perennial Stockbroker inducements to trade.

It is clear that even this project presented as a Godsend for the young, who they say would otherwise suffer the agonies of an impoverished retirement, even that, is in reality a nefarious scam designed to enable his powerful friends to get richer on the backs of the ordinary citizen.

George W. Bush was never endowed with a faculty that provides most of us with an understanding of humanity, and appreciation for the equality of all who qualify as human beings. The existence of various social classes in more ancient societies to him truly represents a natural universal order which in his instinctive mind may be nature’s own order, perhaps even God’s

Paul Forest

PolForest@aol.com

BEYOND THE BUSH AGENDA

Posted on June 16th, 2005 in Uncategorized | Comments Off

During pre-computer days, politicians, commentators, news writers, and business leaders could easily circumvent the absolute truth on the subject of their choice, without the fear of inflaming hordes of offended truth mongers. Computers and its offspring, the Internet, has seriously dampened this potential for seasoning the truth.

The Internet and its simplistic universal access to anyone with minimum dexterity, has compelled perpetrators of slanted thought to resort to spinning their thoughts, a less obvious manner of relaying what are reasonably accepted facts, but with sufficient orientation added or deleted to have those facts fall where the speaker or writer intends. At the top of our own hidden agenda list, is our intellectually perverted belief that most people seldom reveal the whole truth about their reasons for their actions and statements, and this makes for an interesting game of adult hide and seek, which occurs daily during politician interview time on TV.

Needless to say the recent presidential election had kept us very busy and provided a wealth of real and potential unseen agendas for agile minds to enjoy. Though we reserve our “exposé” of major serious hidden agendas for the body of this article, these are an on-going daily part of our lives, and we accept their presence as we do breathing and eating.
It is perhaps an unfortunate fact of modern times that we so easily accept that hidden agendas are now widely tolerated in the political arena displacing the trusted old saying of the Walter Cronkites of this world:” Telling it like it is ” and replacing it with ” Buyer beware”. Since politicians are capable of any ploy to garnish votes, most citizen/voters have long ago reduced their expectations of integrity in politics to that which exists today.

The national media professionals and the games they play in trying to help the side which they agree with without being overtly obvious, are perhaps the hidden agenda exponents where our expectations of ethical conduct are the highest, and oddly enough we are not generally disappointed. This does not mean that sides are not adopted. It underlines the fact that both the National Print and the National TV media, allow their bias to occasionally manifest itself when it exists, and when they opt for deceit, they use frequency rather than passion, thereby avoiding self-evident attestations of duplicity.

Politics, at the highest level, is where we find the most serious deviations from the straight and narrow, though politicians at the lower levels do not waste those early years as they hone their art in anticipation of greater opportunities. The war in Iraq has reinvented the words hidden agenda but we would like to look beyond the many popular reasons, which are said to have provided the true motivation for this war. For the record, however, it is thought that G.W. Bush “would have wanted to improve on his father’s performance, or “wished to complete his Dad’s unfinished business”, or “wanted to secure a piece of the Arabic Oil patch”, or “preemptively protect the U.S. friends in the area, Saudi Arabia and Israel”. No one really believed the official Government guaranteed reasons and they of course merit little attention.

The U.S. military is continuously at war in a manner that escapes public attention, since it generates few explosions on color TV screens. The details of its theatre of war are a closely guarded secret to all but the highest echelons of government hierarchy and we speak of no less than the U.S. Government spending paradise, the Defense budget. In the mid-eighties Ronald Reagan theorized that he could scare the Soviet Union out of their foxholes by increasing the U.S. military spending. He assumed that by spending $486.5 billion on military requisites, as he did in 1985, the Soviet thinkers who possess a sufficient grasp of mathematics to have been first to occupy space, would surely realize that since they were spending only a minor fraction of that as a counter measure, there would be no place for them to hide. Obviously, as with Federal elections, whoever spends the most money wins, right?

Eventually, President Bill Clinton, having no war to needlessly spend money on, and striving to attain that political illusion, a balanced budget, caused the pace of military spending to regress and diminish to the consternation of the generals, the appointed administrators of wars, whose military potential can be severely hampered by peace. The considerations of the military establishment are not limited to military strength and involvement. The entire system of war cannot survive without a strong back-up structure commonly known as the league of Defense Contractors, and a made to order philosophy called Military Preparedness. By 1999 U.S. military spending had shrunk to a mere $261 billion, barely 3 times that of China, and 8 times that of Russia, perhaps too close for comfort for followers of the Reagan doctrine.

Enter George W. Bush, the savior of the military and a man who believes that hidden agen-das are what governing is all about. The U.S. will be saved whether they like it or not. There is nothing like a war to bolster military strength, and he found one. The point to be appreci-ated here is that the War in Iraq is more likely to have been initiated by the U.S. military es-tablishment’s need for a strong Defense Industry, than any other hidden agenda being attrib-uted to captain G.W. Bush and his band of pirates.

It is probable that to the military establishment, the price paid in fatalities and casualties, as well as a severely wounded economy at a time when China, India, and Europe are making giant international strides, were believed to be a small price to pay, for a critical resurgence of US military power. In 2006 U.S. Defense spending, including non-budgeted items, is ex-pected to approximate $525 billion, which hopefully should be sufficient to offset the total spending of the categorized “Potential Enemy Nations” of the U.S. whose total military budgets are expected to surge to $19 billion.

The perception that the Iraq disaster may possibly have had as its roots the future well-being of the U.S. military apparatus, must surely offend a great number of people. The worst is still ahead however, the war premise being but a part of a more grandiose hidden agenda which the far right reserves for an unsuspecting America.

When the fiery legend of Quebec politics, Rene Levesque, originally an extreme left socialist, was asked how far he was prepared to go towards communism, he answered: “I am a socialist with a direction. It is up to my opponents to stop me.” When William Zeckendorf elaborated plans to add size to New York city, he was also asked how far he intended to go, and his answer was: “The ultimate maximum”. Would these answers not serve George W. Bush if asked the question: “How far to the right would you take the United States of America if given the opportunity?

The radical right philosophy by its nature is quite simple and consists of the dominance of the few over the many, within the confines of the political U.S.A. Their struggle should not be confused with the hidden agenda of the neo-conservatives, a movement created by Irving Krystol in the 1950s and whose stalwart proponents today include Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Frank Gaffney, and the charming John Bolton. Their motivation for getting up in the morning is to create an all-powerful USA capable of dominating the world and therefore be able to assist their friends who are equally to the right of right and may need assistance to fulfill their agendas.

George W. Bush has invited these specialists to assist him in his enterprise and has provided them with an open road for their own narrow objectives. Together they have failed miserably and only succeeded in bankrupting the federal budget, alienating traditional friends of the U.S. and creating a gamut of new enemies. Despite these results, they have now talked themselves into positions where they could now infiltrate and infect the World Bank and United Nations organizations, and continue their mindless interferences, with little true regard for the well being of the real people of the U.S. For anyone wishing to fully understand the neocons and their true agenda, a good place to start is by clicking on their pictures on the Christian Science Monitor site: “Empire Builders”. (csmonitor.com/specials/neocon/)

George W. Bush is not a neo-conservative. He surrounded himself with these parasites in the hope that their agenda of dominance through power would be invaluable in the pursuit of his own prized goal which is: To help perpetuate a wealth based aristocratic class of families, companies and individuals of which he believes himself to be part. His program he assumes could be achieved by favoring the powerful in all ways possible and since the formula entails disadvantaging the lesser classes, so be it. At every turn, every opportunity he has proposed legislation and taken decision with that orientation as a constant. Since it is apparent that this stratagem in a free society cannot be realized in only two Presidential tenures, effort is being made to extend its influence beyond the hidden agendas for current implementation. His Social Security reform package is the ultimate reflection of that effort.

His roots are from a family deeply embedded in old money going back generations, and involved in ungodly financings ably described in the movie Fahrenheit 911, which details some of his family’s international financial involvments.

He chose a Vice-President whose sole interest is the accumulation of wealth, and whose life is intertwined with wealthy individuals and companies.

He, and his likes, designed a taxation system favoring the wealthy, while depriving the country and its average people of sufficient revenues to maintain a stable economy.

He stood by while American companies outsourced jobs to developing countries thereby encouraging this process, and at the same time eroding labor union powers, an important hidden sub-agenda.

He reduced the budget designed to monitor and prevent illegal immigration, surely with the thought in mind that he will thereby, help to lower working class costs and favor employers.

He created the reasons for a war that in a few years inflicted a direct cost to the economy, therefore to everyone, of more than $400 billion, most of which will find its way to benefit the few, the defense contractors and their controlling interests. As we have previously noted, under President Clinton, this spending was severely constrained and the war industry overlords in their view, were deprived of anywhere from one half to one trillion dollars of revenues during those eight years, and the Bush administration wasted no time in initiating the process for making that up.

The proposed Social Security Reform is receiving little public support and, if anyone wishes to know why that is, a good place to start is on the Century Foundation site: (www.socsec.org/), and they should read the article “The Point of No Return”, among others. We are in our analysis more interested in the reasons for this project, in the light of the G.W. Bush agenda for the furtherance of a society class based on status through wealth. We note that the White House’s promotion of this Social Security reform is based on a potential crisis that would occur by the year 2017. Does this not remind us of another crisis? Does Weapons of Mass Destruction ring a bell?

Why is this project so important to the ultimate right wing proponents? Could it be that privatizing Social Security even partially, would create a massive amount of revenues for the controlling interests of Insurance Companies, Investment Dealers and other Financial Institutions in the act of providing Annuities, Stocks and Bonds, and charging unregulated commissions for these transactions. Additional revenues would accrue from hidden costs, such as Safekeeping and Administrative charges, Bond spreads, New Issues, and the perennial Stockbroker inducements to trade? It is clear that even this project presented as a Godsend for the young who would otherwise suffer the agonies of a moneyless retirement, even that is in reality a nefarious scam designed to enable the powerful to get richer on the backs of the deprived.

Meanwhile, in the background looms a formidable adversary who was deeply admired as a first lady and who is now a respected Senator from the State of New York. To them, she stands as tall as the Statue of Liberty as a future deterrent to their social revolution. Nowhere does the horizon provide us from either side with any other public figure who could enter the next presidential nomination or election contest against her and seriously expect to win. It is not a wild assumption to believe that her agenda must surely involve matters, orientations that are in serious conflict with the Radical Right and the Neo Conservative’s master plan for a docile society.

All our attention for the coming years should be riveted on the intrigues which they will undoubtedly unleash to perpetuate their designs on a society which they repudiate, since it is a society based on the principles of equality. Our question therefore should be: They who display so little social morality and do not enforce laws that are inconvenient to them, how far will their basic instincts lead them to perpetuate their ultimate hidden agenda?

Paul Forest


PolForest@aol.com

THE REAL HOAX OF GEORGE W. BUSH

Posted on June 4th, 2005 in Uncategorized | Comments Off

The U.S. military is well defended by history both as to the justification of its involvements as well as the capabilities and conduct of its combatants, the historical quality of which far outweighs recent events. The decisions to participate in events of war, are of course taken by the highest echelons of Government and the major U.S. interventions of the last century such as were the two World Wars, were motivated by unselfish concerns for European countries and their citizens. The U.S. managed to limit its own casualties in these wars, their losses being considerably less than that of their allied partners, but the material aid provided by the U.S. probably was the determining factor that led to victory. In the Vietnam and Korean wars the altruistic behavior of the U.S. was based in large measure on the political necessity of arresting the expansion of the communist movement in Asia, as well as helping a friend.

That was then, and this is now, but the lesson was learned that massive military hardware wins wars, when there are wars to be won. In the mid-eighties Ronald Reagan theorized that he could avoid a war with the Soviet Union by increasing the U.S. military spending. By spending $486.5 billion on military requisites, as he did in 1985, President Reagan rationalized that the Soviet Union, would surely realize that since they were spending only a minor fraction of that amount as a counter measure, there would be no place for them to hide. Obviously, he thought, as with Federal elections, whoever spends the most money wins, right?


Eventually, President Bill Clinton, having no war to needlessly spend money on, and striving to attain that political illusion, a balanced budget, caused the pace of military spending to regress and diminish to the consternation of the Generals, the appointed administrators of wars, whose military potential can be severely hampered by peace. The considerations of the military establishment are not limited to military strength and involvement. The entire system of war cannot survive without a strong back-up structure known as the league of Defense Contractors, and a made to order philosophy called Military Preparedness. By 1999 U.S. military spending had shrunk to a mere $261 billion, barely 3 times that of China, and 8 times that of Russia, perhaps too close for comfort for followers of the Reagan doctrine.

Enter George W. Bush, the savior of the military and a man who believes that hidden agen-das are what governing is all about. The U.S. will be saved whether they like it or not. There is nothing like a war to bolster military strength, and he found one. The point to be appreci-ated here is that the War in Iraq is more likely to have been initiated by the U.S. military es-tablishment’s need for a strong Defense Industry, than any other hidden agenda. The White House together with the Pentagon, hiding behind the well-deserved U.S. reputation for selfless intervention, concocted the now legendary stories that we know, to justify a war whose real purpose was to have congress approve the restocking of the military arsenal.

It is probable that to the military establishment, the price paid in fatalities and casualties, as well as a severely wounded economy at a time when China, India, and Europe are making giant international strides, were believed to be a small price to pay, for a critical resurgence of US military power. In 2006 U.S. Defense spending, including non-budgeted items is expected to approximate $525 billion, which hopefully should be sufficient to offset the total spending of the CIA categorized “Potential Enemy Nations” of the U.S. whose total military budgets are expected to surge to $19 billion.

The perception that the Iraq disaster may possibly have had as its roots the future well-being of the U.S. military apparatus, must surely offend a great number of people. The worst is still ahead however, the war premise being but a part of a more grandiose hidden agenda which the far right reserves for an unsuspecting America.

When the fiery legend of Canadian politics, Rene Levesque, originally an extreme left socialist, was asked how far he was prepared to go towards communism, he answered: “I am a socialist with a direction. It is up to my opponents to stop me.” When William Zeckendorf elaborated plans to add size to New York city, he was also asked how far he intended to go, and his answer was: “The ultimate maximum”. Would these answers not serve George W. Bush if asked the question: “How far to the right would you take the United States of America if given the opportunity?

The radical right philosophy by its nature is quite simple and consists of the dominance of the few over the many, within the confines of the political U.S.A. Their struggle should not be confused with the hidden agenda of the neo-conservatives, a movement created by Irving Krystol in the 1950s and whose stalwart proponents today include Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Frank Gaffney, and the charming John Bolton. Their motivation for getting up in the morning is to create an all-powerful USA capable of dominating the world militarily and thereby able to assist selected friendly societies.

George W. Bush has invited these specialists to assist him in his enterprise and has provided them with an open road for their own narrow objectives. Together they have failed miserably and only succeeded in bankrupting the federal budget, alienating traditional friends of the U.S. and creating a gamut of new enemies. Despite these results, they have now talked themselves into positions where they could now infiltrate and infect the World Bank and United Nations organizations, and continue their mindless interferences, with little true regard for the well being of the real people of the U.S. For anyone wishing to fully understand the neocons and their true agenda, a good place to start is by clicking on their pictures on the Christian Science Monitor site: “Empire Builders”. (csmonitor.com/specials/neocon/)

George W. Bush is not a neo-conservative. He surrounded himself with these vultures in the hope that their agenda of dominance through power would be invaluable in the pursuit of his own prized goal and that is: To help perpetuate a wealth based aristocratic class of families, companies and individuals of which he believes himself to be part. His program he assumes could be achieved by favoring the powerful in all ways possible and since the formula entails disadvantaging the lesser classes, so be it. At every turn, every opportunity he has proposed legislation and taken decision with that orientation as a constant. Since it is apparent that this stratagem in a free society cannot be realized in only two Presidential tenures, effort is being made to extend its influence beyond the hidden agendas for current implementation. His Social Security reform package is the ultimate reflection of that effort.

His roots are from a family deeply embedded in old money going back generations, and involved in ungodly financings ably described in the movie Fahrenheit 911, which details some of his family’s international financial dealings.

He chose a Vice-President whose sole interest is the accumulation of wealth, and whose life is intertwined with wealthy individuals and companies.

He, and his likes, designed a taxation system favoring the wealthy, while depriving the country and its average people of sufficient revenues to maintain a stable economy.

He stood by while American companies outsourced jobs to developing countries thereby en-couraging this process, and at the same time eroding labor union powers, an important hid-den sub-agenda.

He reduced the budget designed to monitor and prevent illegal immigration, surely with the thought in mind that he will thereby, help to lower working class costs and favor employers.

He created the reasons for a war that in a few years inflicted a direct cost to the economy, therefore to everyone, of more than $400 billion, most of which will find its way to benefit the few, the defense contractors and their controlling interests. As we have previously noted, under President Clinton, this spending was severely constrained and the war industry overlords in their view, were deprived of anywhere from one half to one trillion dollars of revenues during those eight years, and the Bush administration wasted no time in initiating the process for making that up.

The proposed Social Security Reform is receiving little public support and, if anyone wishes to know why that is, a good place to start is on the Century Foundation site: (www.socsec.org/), and they should read the article “The Point of No Return”, among others. We are in our analysis more interested in the reasons for this project, in the light of the G.W. Bush agenda for the furtherance of a society class based on status through wealth. We note that the White House’s promotion of this Social Security reform is based on a potential crisis that would occur by the year 2017. Does this not remind us of another crisis? Does Weapons of Mass Destruction ring a bell?

Why is this project so important to the ultimate right wing proponents? Could it be that privatizing Social Security even partially, would create a massive amount of revenues for the controlling interests of Insurance Companies, Investment Dealers and other Financial Institutions in the act of providing Annuities, Stocks and Bonds, and charging unregulated commissions for these transactions. Additional revenues would accrue from hidden costs, such as Safekeeping and Administrative charges, Bond spreads, New Issues, and the perennial Stockbroker inducements to trade? It is clear that even this project presented as a Godsend for the young who would otherwise suffer the agonies of a moneyless retirement, even that is in reality a nefarious scam designed to enable the powerful to get richer on the backs of the deprived.

Meanwhile, in the background looms a formidable adversary who was deeply admired as a first lady and who is now a respected Senator from the State of New York. To them, she stands as tall as the Statue of Liberty as a future deterrent to their social revolution. Nowhere does the horizon provide us from either side with any other public figure who could enter the next presidential nomination or election contest against her, and seriously expect to win.

It is not a wild assumption to believe that her agenda must surely involve matters, orientations that are in serious conflict with the Radical Right and the Neo Conservative’s master plan for a docile society. All our attention for the coming years will be riveted on the intrigues which the White House will undoubtedly unleash to perpetuate their designs on a society which they repudiate, since it is a society based on the principles of equality.

Paul Forest


PolForest@aol.com

A POPE FOR LIFE

Posted on April 25th, 2005 in Uncategorized | Comments Off

The passing of a Pope is not envisioned to generate a universal response such as we have witnessed recently, and this suggests to us that Pope John Paul II was a person for all people, and not the exclusive domain of Catholics. His numerous travels over a 25-year span to places difficult to locate on maps, but also to most seats of civilization, created strong sensitive bonds between he, the leader of the largest Christian community, and people of other religions and faiths. We must however reserve judgment as to this love-in having been transmitted to the Catholic Church as a whole.

 

Without diminishing the importance of the remarkable conquest of human minds and hearts by this frail elderly gentleman, we must nevertheless recognize that during his tenure as the principal voice of morality in the world, not enough was achieved in the settling of the political climate in Palestine, the most sacred of the world’s geography, the backyard of the Christ himself. No dissuasive rapport prevented George the Warrior Bush from decimating the people of Afghanistan and Iraq on a vendetta, and Serbian Catholics until stopped militarily were bent on the extinction of the Kosovo Muslims. Priests, not many but too many, who celebrated Mass every morning and heard peoples’ confessions, perpetrated degenerate sins, and many hundreds of thousands of African children continued to perish from hunger and diseases.

What could the Pope have done? Very little but perhaps more than he did. He most certainly could have realigned his and the Church’s priorities. To give this a Catholic spin, since he believed as does the Church, that unbaptized children cannot go to heaven, how much more could he have done with the Church’s vast material wealth to help save those African children? How much more influence could he have exercised worldwide by using the hammer of excommunication against unrepentant and persistent Catholic perpetrators of criminality, in an attempt to reduce their influence in their own closeted surroundings? As the world morality leader how much more public insistence should he have exibited in his disapproval of the American warring activities and their catalytic support of Palestine’s unrest? Could his timidity in these areas have had political ramifications, and if so, were these considered to be more important than their moral alternatives?

While all this was happening, the Church was intent on holding the line on abortions and the use of condoms. Could it not occur to them that, not only would the use of condoms help to negate the need for abortions in wealthier societies, but still looking at it from their own religious perspective, could it not curb the creation of more children destined to perish unbaptized, as well as millions of A.I.D. victims also doomed to unbaptized death?

The Catholic Church is well intentioned and in the annals of history, no other organization has been more beneficial to human kind. They are a large slow moving organization, and in a modern world, many of their own constituents are induced by the forces within society, to accept concepts and solutions which are not on the Church’s agenda for further review. We are reminded that this is a religion that is still struggling to determine whether the lesser sin is to murder or to divorce. Finally, they continue to stipulate that women would have needed to be born as men to be considered for equal status.

Popes are absolute rulers, and are democratically selected for as long as they manage to stay alive. They are, as we all are, subject to the afflictions and incapacities that nature reserves for the elderly, who too often believe that the past is the sole guardian of wisdom. Christ himself, died as a young man, but his ecclesiastic descendants judge that people of a younger age than themselves are not sufficiently mature to understand the values of Christianity. Perhaps if Christ were to offer his wisdom today, he might well disagree, and encourage Popes and Cardinals to take an early retirement, when it is clearly evident that their capacities have eroded, and his interests would best be served by someone in the prime of life, not unlike his own selections to serve as Apostles.

Paul Forest

polforest@aol.com

WHERE REASONS FAIL.

Posted on December 5th, 2004 in Uncategorized | Comments Off

George W. Bush’s first choice as a Secretary of state was a General, a real brainstorm if you are planning a war. Perhaps following a similar line of logic, he selected Condaleeza Rice for this term, and we are, therefore, inclined to suspect that his plan for the future is to confound the world with thought provoking interpretations of misrepresentations.

Condaleeza Rice is the latest cabinet member to flow out of the Texas oil spill. She is an obvious choice as Secretary of State, since President Bush is thoroughly disenchanted with Gen. Powell, who finds it impossible to express the words of the White House spin barons, and continue to maintain the appearance of integrity as expected of him.

Obviously an extremely articulate illusionist, at the time of the Iraq justification period, Dr.Rice took on all proponents of factuality and, gave a good account of herself, considering the lame contentions she was expected to defend. Of her many quotable quotes, one stands out : “Whoever’s fault it is, it is certainly not mine, unless you think it’s the President’s, in which case, it’s mine.” While maintaining her loyalty to her President and longstanding benefactor, she will continue to find new meanings to old words, in her efforts to explain the unexplainable, and while trying to outdo herself, she will preside over the destitution of what remains of U.S. integrity.

Few people would doubt, that if this administration’s sole objective were to surgically remove Saddam Hussein, as Dr. Rice asserted, the Iraq war would have received tangible support from the majority of Arab states. The appearance is, however, that despite the U.S. air strike success in Kosovo, the Bush Administration nurtured a hidden agenda that required massive intervention by ground forces, and the establishment of a loyal and friendly new controlling block in Iraq. This machination was conceived as a manner of controlling a sufficient amount of world oil reserves, for the U.S. to be a significant factor in the world price for oil.

In modern history, as well as present times, there are numerous examples of dominant powers and individuals, venting their anger on the innocent, when the true culprits are beyond their reach. The U.S. Military and the current Administration at some point, must have decided that, using a surgical knife is not time effective when seeking to carve out for itself a sizable niche in the world’s most desirable geography.

Recent barbarous acts in a prison, and more recently, in a Mosque, continue to traumatize much of the world community of Arab/Muslim nations, which are now firmly convinced that the President’s “war of vindictiveness” may have been intended to dislodge Saddam Hussein and his regime, but, as much thought went into humanitarian concerns for the population as in the immediate governance of a post war Iraq, very little.

How else to explain the destruction of water services, telephone and other forms of communication, electric power grids and many installations dedicated to the care of citizens. These are services which innocent civilians cannot do without, but trained military insurgents have little need of. Yet, these Demolition Generals thought nothing of doing precisely that, first in Baghdad, now in Fallujah, despite the numerous prior claims by the U.S. army of possessing state of the art surgical weaponry. In so doing, they openly professed their unconcern for Arabs and Muslims everywhere, and offended all Muslims and Arabs. To whom will these Generals and their equally insensitive leader be compared to in history?

The US Administration and its military geniuses have however been remarkably consistent in one area and that is their unblemished record in estimating matters of costs and time. They have obviously designed a formula for massive underestimating and applied it rigorously wherever applicable. The real total costs of this war it is now expected will erode the country’s economic heath, and the time expectation for estimating political and social recovery and its economic side effects, with the Arab/Muslin nations, now transcends exemples from modern times. Perhaps some helpful reference can be found in the history of Arab people, the old Testament.

At some point, George W. Bush and his …group, may realize that the formula applied in the mid-twentieth century, when Germany and Japan were defeated, then immediately aided in developing strong industialized economies, this formula will not succeed in this case since the people now involved simply do not want the American system in their lives, or the “culture” which is the penalty for accepting.

The shortsighted view is that terrorism may once again strike U.S. soil, and recent utterances by the Sultan of Terror confirm that this is in fact their intent. Should a disastrous terrorist act again occur on U.S. soil, the fear mongers in the White House will then feel vindicated by the tangible validation of their long held views, and they will point fingers at their detractors. These, in turn, might angrily reply that a more conciliatory attitude by the Administration towards the Arab/Muslim people, replacing the current crusading course of action, might well have prevented that which, by then, will have taken place.

The longer-term implications, however, are that Arab investments in the U.S., which are now valued near 2 trillion dollars, will dry up, and may in fact be downsized in favor of investments in the growing, potentially friendly and peace loving European Community, whose currency appears destined to supplant the Dollar as the principle world currency. THE U.S. treasury and financial markets have been surviving on a steady inflow of outside capital, and will be caught in a war of financial attrition which they are not in a position to win.

There has always been, and there continues to be, an unwritten rule among journalists in the US, that you must not make a connection between the US total support of Israel, and relate that support to acts of terrorism by Muslims, or for that matter, to the historically low esteem of the US and its citizens in all countries, particularly Arab/Muslim nations. Yet, disavowing the culture gap excuse, it is clearly obvious that the lingering one sided position of the US in the Arab/Israel ancestral family dispute, is the sole reason for the current situation, and it is being fanned by a similarly one sided US national media, whose Israel descendants by talent or design, surpass by far their 2% national representation.

True friends of Israel, should use this influence, become “America First” citizens, and demonstrate to Israel’s fanatic right, that the citizens of the world other than North-Americans, have not been conditioned by their National Media to readily endure the economic, human and traumatic sacrifices that the U.S experience clearly indicates are to be expected, when fully committed to the exclusive support of Israel, in the relentless pursuit of its goals.

The economic and military support freely given to Israel by the U.S. is the breath of life that is keeping the Middle East conflict alive and well. Israel’s well-being is directly linked to American benevolence and the Israel Government may discover the need to have a greater array of able and willing supporters.

The dire overall consequences previously described have stealthily begun, and may be experienced by anyone approaching a Foreign Exchange counter. Graver concerns may occur sooner than we might normally expect, at the current rate of irresponsible deficit spending, gargantuan trade deficits, progressively increasing labor outsourcing, and tax gifts to the wealthy, unless a total policy reversal is implemented.

For starters, the U.S. could surely find a way to express their support for Israel, without openly exhibiting hostility towards the Arab/Muslim community, their culture, and their leaders. To that end, Israel, whose only real benefit in the Middle East conflict has been the ephemeral inflow of U.S. capital and military resources should join the U.S. in this resolve.

Israel’s position could possibly be likened to an individual who purchases a professional sports team for hundreds of millions of dollars, knowing that on operations he will loose money for years, but expects to recover his losses and a substantial profit upon disposing of the team. Israel should realize that this is not going to happen.

No one can now reverse the momentum of militant intervention by Muslim terrorists, without a complete agreement between warring parties in Israel and Palestine. Any potential solution to this basic Middle East conflict should take the form of an agreement acceptable to the Palestinians, of their own free will. For this to happen, perhaps new lines must be drawn in the sand, which would provide a restated Palestine with a significant Mediterranean shoreline, a united West Bank and Gaza and all Palestine lands south of the West Bank.

This could possibly create conditions for a lasting peace in the area, and perhaps engender a commercial and political union between Jordan and Palestine. It is also possible that Saudi Arabia, which would benefit greatly from an access to the Mediterranean Sea, might complete that alliance. Good commerce has been known to provide good peace. At the height of optimism, It should be possible to visualize a peaceful Israel, clearly separated from the equally peaceful states of Palestine, Syria and Lebanon, not by a wall, but by a highway, perhaps to be appropriately known as the “Jerusalem International Highway”, under the watchful supervision of the U.N. or a coalition.

George W. Bush, the borderline President, has professed that his inspiration is found in Christianity, and yet, his actions appear to reflect the exact opposite of the dogma that Jesus Christ extolled for three years. If Jesus Christ were a decision maker in the present Government, would he have sent his army of angels across the world to chastise a whole country for crimes he knew they did not commit? If George W. Bush is truly imbued with the Christian spirit, and therefore, believes in the after life, should he not worry on the subject of his final destination, where he is unlikely to find his professed savior?

The truth is, George W. Bush has yet to exhibit any capacity for reversing himself on important matters before him, and unless he suddenly becomes appreciative of the values represented by common sense, we must regrettably accept that this developing crisis will degenerate into the colossal disaster that his inviolable instincts have unwittingly charted for the future.

Paul Forest


polforest@aol.com

LOOMING DISASTER

Posted on October 10th, 2004 in Uncategorized | Comments Off

George Bush I, was involved in a number of “tactical wars” which were highly successful, with limited loss of life, and one “covert war” also successful even though its cover-up defied the rules of credibility.
George Bush II, not to be outdone, opted for the “all-out war”, and would prefer to believe that history will compare his war to the “great wars” of the 20th century. Given that George Bush II has stimulated a conflict that his father might well have concluded in his own timely fashion, and that the present disenchantment with the U.S. by Muslims has an indeterminate end, he may have exceeded his objective. His tenure may be remembered as a combination of, the siege of Troy, the Crusades, and the 100-year war.

Few people doubt that this administration’s claimed sole objective of surgically removing Saddam Hussein, would have received ample support from the majority of Arab states. It seems self-evident however, that despite the U.S. air strike success in Kosovo, the Bush administration nurtured a hidden agenda that required massive intervention by ground forces, and the establishment of a loyal and friendly new controlling block in Iraq. This machination was conceived as a manner of controlling a sufficient amount of world oil reserves, to be a significant factor in the world price for oil.


It has been established that American technology can guide a bomb down a chimney, and a car can be destroyed from a nearby flying drone. We could, therefore, infer that the destruction of Baghdad’s water, power, and communication services, as well as the unfortunate killing of civilians, may well have been the result of spontaneous malicious anger.

In modern history, as well as present times, there are numerous examples of dominant powers and individuals, venting their anger on the innocent when the true culprits are beyond their reach. The U.S. military and the current administration at some point, must have decided to scrap the surgical knife, in favor of a cleaver.

These acts have considerably traumatized much of the world Arab community that is reasonably convinced that the President’s “war of vindictiveness”, may have been directed at the regime of Saddam Hussein, but little if any regard was reserved for the Arab population.

The shortsighted view is that terrorism will once again strike U.S. soil, and the fear mongers in the White House may then feel vindicated by the apparent validation of their long held position, and they will point fingers at their detractors.

The longer-term implications however are that Arab investments in the U.S., which are now valued near 2 trillion dollars will dry up, and may in fact be downsized in favor of investments in the growing, potentially friendly and peaceful European Community, whose currency appears destined to supplant the Dollar as the principle world currency.

The U.S. treasury and financial markets that have been surviving on a steady inflow of outside capital, will be caught in a war of financial attrition which they are not in a position to win. These consequences may occur within a few years at the current rate of deficit spending, unless a total policy reversal is implemented.

It is clear that the U.S. must find a way to satisfy their support for Israel, without, as a first step, openly exhibiting hostility towards the Arab/Muslin community and their leaders. To that end, Israel, whose only derived benefit in the Middle East conflict has been the ephemeral inflow of U.S. capital and military resources must join the U.S. in this resolve.

Any potential solution to this conflict must take the form of an agreement acceptable to the Palestinians of their own free will. For this to happen, perhaps new lines must be drawn in the sand, possibly providing Palestinians with a significant Mediterranean shoreline, uniting the West Bank with Gaza and ceding to Palestine the lands south of the West bank.

Since George Bush II does not appear able to reverse himself on any matter before him, it is a logical assumption that if he is reelected, the crisis will, as a cumulative effect, degenerate into the major disaster that it appears headed for.

Paul Forest

PolForest@aol.com

GEORGE W. BUSH - THE CHRISTIAN APPRENTICE

Posted on September 29th, 2004 in Uncategorized | Comments Off

George Bush II has encouraged the world to consider him as a Born Again Christian and we should respect that and encourage him to become a better person for it. In time, he may even realize that his savior Jesus Christ can help him to grasp the meaning of truth.

Hopefully he will pursue the reading of the Bible, and eventually enter the revealing world of the New Testament. Currently, he appears to have stalled at an ancient law of Babylonian retributive justice:”lex talionis” commonly referred to today as “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”.

It is possible that his busy schedule has not allowed him the leisure of delving more deeply into this area, and discover that the interpretation of this law according to the Torah is to minimize retribution as in: “no more than an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”, in effect, a limitation of response. This would have been refined in further readings of the Oral law of Judaism in the Hebrew Bible, as a “retribution of a financial kind”, which translates today to: Sue him.

Perhaps this whole question may be put to rest with a quote from none other than a humble truthful man, Mahatma Gandhi: “An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind”. How did he know that Bush’s war in Iraq would be such a mess?

Had George Bush II persisted in his efforts to understand Jesus Christ, he may have stumbled on some fairly well known quotes from his savior in the New Testament, ” If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also” and “Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you.”

Of course, these words were from another time, when there were no uzzis, grenades and AK40s, and the back of someone’s hand was the most that the other cheek would have to endure. In today’s world Jesus might well have added these solicitous words familiar to adepts of pugilism:” Protect thyselves at all times”.

There is however a serious shortage of justification for a born again Christian to cross the line from “turn the other cheek” to ” a hundred eyes for an eye, and a hundred teeth for a tooth.
If Jesus Christ were a decision maker in the present Government, would he have sent his army of angels across the world to chastise a whole country for crimes he knew they did not commit?

Upon reflection, does it not appear that this Born Again President is severely criticizing Senator Kerry’s agenda for peace, which in his limited view too closely resembles that which Jesus Christ might have adopted today?

One thing we know for sure. George W Bush has serious flaws as Jesus Christ’s apprentice, and he will be fired, if not now, then by him, …later.

Paul Forest


PolForest@aol.com

THE ARABIAN KNIGHTS

Posted on August 16th, 2004 in Uncategorized | Comments Off

Americans are friendly people, strong believers in freedom for individuals, respectful of minority rights, generally God driven, and endowed with the ability to generate material progress. They were largely instrumental 60 years ago, in arresting the progress of two rogue nations in their attempt to control the destiny of their area of the world. Having achieved this, they proceeded to help those same nations join the ranks of the free and peaceful, all the while maintaining their own material dominance over the nations of the world.

You would think that we are referring to one of the world’s truly mature nations, one that has developed over millenniums and progressively established its dominance, but no, this is one of the world’s youngest countries, and it is isolated from all but a few other nations.
This physical isolation has not prevented it from developing strong bonds with most countries, even, including today, countries that were, in the past, adherents of social and political philosophies totally counter to their own.

We are, however, faced with a situation where people of one nation, the followers of Islamic doctrine, Muslims, mainly people of Arab descendance, have developed individually and collectively, an abhorrence of Americans, which is not justified by events and occurrences involving them directly with Americans or the United States of America. This hatred of anything and anyone American has increased measurably in very recent years.

Such strong emotions are not created overnight, but what occurred was an overflow, the last straw, the last inch of rain that bursts the levee, the spark that ignites the fuel. The invasion of Iraq was not that spark; there was even a certain acceptance of it being a necessity, a job that needed to be done. It is the manner in which it was carried out that made it unacceptable.

The U.S. military did not make the separation between the Iraq military, and Iraqi civilians. They proceeded indiscriminately to destroy installations that in their narrow view might be useful to the Iraq military. By then, Iraqi soldiers had hidden their weapons, disappeared into their civilian communities, and had become indistinguishable from innocent civilians. The U.S. military, the well intentioned Knights in Arabia, nevertheless destroyed water services, telephone and other forms of communication, electric power grids, many installations dedicated to the care of citizens, and even indiscriminately bombed civilian gatherings. In so doing, they openly professed their unconcern for Arabs and Muslims everywhere, and offended all Muslims and Arabs. That spark ignited fuel, which had been forming like dry wood for many years.

Americans like to think of themselves as the land of free speech and for the most part it is true, unless you suggest that there is a correlation between terrorism and America’s strong position in favor of one side in the Palestinian conflict. This was well illustrated by the intervention of Rudolph Giuliani, a man known to be intellectually spontaneous, when a member of the Saudi elite offered 12 million dollars to the 9/11 Fund. The then mayor of New York refused the gift, since the donor had voiced such an opinion. This insulting act alone carried significant meaning for the whole of the Arab people.

Criticism or even expressed concern regarding America’s unconditional and total support of Israel is a subject that the National media in the United States considers to be an unacceptable media topic. American free speech traditions do not apply.

This is where reality and expectations fail to converge for the Arab people. Their hope is that the U.S. government would some day demonstrate a middle of the road attitude, apply equal pressure on both sides, and provide an acceptable plan. The U.S. government has done the exact opposite in recent years. They have promised greater military might to Israel, expressed greater disaproval of the Palestinian leadership, and blamed Palestinians for each conflict.

Can there be hope? Yes, hope springs eternal and out of hope can occur positive changes. What need to change are the narrow emotional constraints of Arab people towards Americans and of Americans for Arab people. If no possibility exists to induce changes in Arab people, the senior citizens of this equation, then the changes must come from the American people and be designed to stimulate in return, desirable voluntary changes from the Arab people.

There is an old saying that you cannot capture a bear with vinegar but you can with honey. The U.S. government must realize that their recent policy of intimidation has not and will never contribute to progress. They must undertake to deal with Arabs with compassion, and they must be prepared to be objective

That National news media itself must somehow exercise self-discipline, in the realization that their unidirectional influence has not benefited either the United States nor Israel. As true Americans, they should now participate in the solution and that solution is not based on the availability of American might. The world is changing rapidly, and America’s influence is waning. America’s economy is dependant on foreign capital to offset trade deficits, is therefore financially overextended, and may in the foreseeable future be unable to support Israel as in the past. Israel’s hardliners must be made to realize by their friends in the U.S. that conditions are not likely to improve for them in the future.

At present, Arab terrorist organizations are achieving their objectives. They are terrorists, and their aim is to terrorize. They are currently doing this very successfully with special thanks to the director of homeland security. They have succeeded in having many Americans worry on a daily basis for their own safety and that of their children, family, friends and country. If that is not successful terrorism, what is?

Any potential solution to this conflict must take the form of an agreement acceptable to the Palestinians of their own free will. For this to happen, perhaps new lines must be drawn in the sand, possibly providing Palestinians with a significant Mediterranean shoreline, uniting the West Bank with Gaza and ceding to Palestine the lands south of the West bank.

This could possibly create conditions for a lasting peace in the area, and perhaps engender a commercial and political union between Jordan and Palestine. It is also possible that Saudi Arabia, which would benefit greatly from an access to the Mediterranean Sea, might complete that alliance. Good commerce has been known to provide good peace. At the height of optimism, It should be possible to visualize a peaceful Israel, clearly separated from the equally peaceful states of Palestine, Syria and Lebanon, not by a wall, but by a multilane highway, perhaps to be appropriately known as the “Jerusalem International Highway”, under the watchful supervision of the U.N.

Time might not be as plentiful as some far reaching thinkers in the U.S. government might believe. Though there is no indication that anything such as this is about to occur, America’s new and powerful friend from Europe’s far north, may also have its eyes set on improving its tainted image with the Arab world. To that end, what could be more productive, than to extend the hand of friendship and assistance to the people of Gaza?

Who will do it first?

Paul Forest


polforest@aol.com

 

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