tired

Those poor men and women....

Fred R.: I am at a little loss to understand you and people like you. You appear to be quite intelligent and well educated. You have a genuine concern about some of the tragic things in life. But what I don't understand about you and those of like mind, is how you can be at the same time so apparently totally unrealistic about the causes for all this senselessness that is war and politics. I see you as hysterically screaming about the "ghosts in the closet" when there are real enemies outside the bedroom door. You seem to fall into a "two legs bad, four legs good" chanting mode to champion some agenda that is just as culpable as those you are attacking. Somehow I get the feeling that you are not just "against war" but for "peace" of your own definition under some horribly unrealistic expectations. I get the feeling that you are more in love with "marching and protesting" than in finding a genuine solution to the problems, that you would be most unhappy if we did get a real peace and you had nothing to rant against. Fred R., what am I missing here?

Sir,
you are reading too much into this.
you are trying to find something that doesn't exist.
the battle for me is over, but not everyone can say that.
so for them I am here.
however, I write because I am a writer.
I enjoy discussion, it provides growth, stimulates brain cells.
and for some others it is a healthy way of dealing with controversial issues.
better for them to get out their issues here than out in the world.

a good discussion is like a good friend.

oddly enough that the article in entitled "TIRED"
ironic isn't, that you would take exception with something you were quite vehement
about as a youngster?
Correct?

you don't have to understand it or participate in it.

just don't "POO POO IT" for the rest of the people.

Gather is a place to connect with people who share your passions. Let your unique voice shine through

Mr Donald Hawley sir,

We expect our solders, at time of their service, to never question what they are doing.
Once they are discharged, they become citizens again, and are afforded the same rights as any other citizen in these United States.
The Constitution provides a citizen the right to speak out, when they feel their leaders are not doing the correct things.

This is what Fred R is doing here, and I congratulate him for that!

"you don't have to understand it or participate in it.

just don't "POO POO IT" for the rest of the people."
Fred R

I concur!

Keep up the good work Fred, there are many who support you!

soliders definitely do what they're supposed to do...my dad was career military.

Soldiers are citizens, too. They have just as much right to write their congressman as anyone else.

" I see you as hysterically screaming about the "ghosts in the closet" when there are real enemies outside the bedroom door. "

Your fear mongering is getting trite and banal. In fact, Iraq posed no threat and the enemies "outside my bedroom door" . . . are in Washington D.C. They simply don't seem to concern you.

Regards,
Doyle I <~~~~~

Fred R.: What was I vehement against as a youngster? I never followed the herd. I obey even when I disagree because to me without unity we "hang separately." I still voice my opinion, as you see above. I respect the right of others to disagree but I don't have to respect their motives or the substance of their views. The thing I find so discouraging and counter productive to a real solution is those who seem satisfied with the political situation (not the parties involved, not the people involved, but the system itself) and who like to be in a crowd chanting "two legs bad, four legs good." Their inane complacency is the real problem while they point fingers at the closet and the imagined "ghost in it." I try to look behind the obvious for some real problems.

I'm not chanting at anybody.
I volunteer for M.S.
I'm active in the D.N.C.
I tutor E.S.L. for hispanics.

You only see what you want to see.
Gather is a means to an end.
and you sir are bitter.

Doyle: You see. That's the problem. The "ghosts behind the door" are the "men in Washington." They are ghosts because you want to imagine them as having any power. They are puppets of the party system. You see your salvation in changing the puppets on the end of the strings, and I see the problem as the need to "cut the strings." The system ensures that only those with shallow minds and expectancies get elected and then follow the crowd, shouting "two legs bad, four legs good." The louder they shout and the more they get shouting it, the dimmer the true problem fades... until they have a free field to do whatever they want... with us.

Fred R.: I haven't even hinted that you are not sincere. I don't question you love for humanity and your personal sacrifice. I don't even question your intelligence. It's just that I think you are allowing yourself to be duped into following the "east way out" be dumping on those in power and imagining that when November comes, "things will change." You are like Sisyphus rolling a stone up a hill and hoping it won't roll down again. How many times do you have to do this before you understand that it is the "hill", stupid, not the "stone?"

Going to war in defense of our country or in defense of an ally while distatsteful is the right and honorable thing to do. But to send our troops into Iraq was nothing but imperialism in it's lowest form. Any threat Iraq posed was speculative at best. To spend our countrie's soldiers lives in such a way is an abomination and those responsible should be convicted of murder and locked away for the rest of their natural lives.

Donald,
I see in your profile you were a paratrooper. I honor your service, but many of us have served our country as well and oppossing the war in Iraq is not complacency. It's bad enough when lives have to be lost in a just cause, but to see it for the reasons team Bush gave us, it's just not acceptable.

Fred, my friend: You and I agree on so much. So, basically, here it is, (I'm summing up, I think, how we both feel, but please correct me if I miss.)

We are for strength in our nation. We are all for defending our nation. We honor those who choose to defend it by their service (years.) We do not want to see another vet, disrespected (as it was after 'Nam) when they return home to their families, jobs, lives, etc.

We are concerned about that homecoming. We want to make it right for them, those tasks that we asked them to perform FOR us...
since we can't "erase" the pain of it from their heads and hearts. We hate to hear stories of how they suffer when they perform their service. Yet it is important for us to know what they go through, went through, are going through.

We honor the soldiers here. But, we also extend that honor to "use their lives" for a worthy cause. When we think that our children are being "sent over" where-ever, and for no justifiable reason, we realize, recognize and regret the waste of all their stunted years. We mourn with their moms and dads, sibs, and children, wives and husbands.

The loss of these people pains us all--as it should. As it should.


Donald, with all due respect (sincerely) when you wrote: But what I don't understand about you and those of like mind, is how you can be at the same time so apparently totally unrealistic about the causes for all this senselessness that is war and politics."

We are concerned that our children have been sent over for profit. Killed in action, in an illegal war, for dollars. This is beyond what we want to accept. This is not how we see a good use of human life. We shouldn't sacrifice them for oil or personal agendas, etc.

Donald: your comment: I get the feeling that you are more in love with "marching and protesting" than in finding a genuine solution to the problems, that you would be most unhappy if we did get a real peace and you had nothing to rant against."

We'd rather be marching and protesting (and man, are we GOOD at it!) for education, for equity, for medical treatment for the poor, for food for starving people, for the homeless, jobless, helpless, luckless. We will still have plenty of battles to fight, and wars to win, even if (hopefully--when) we are resolved in the Middle East.

There are so many battles that need fighting, we will never feel the lack.

Donald, I honor your spirit, I've read your comments on other threads, and love how you think, and your belief system is righteous. I'm just explaining that we "liberal leftwing, wingnuts" tend to prioritize our rebel-ness.

We think the men and women who are being sent into this conflict are priority one at this moment. We can fix the economy a little later, and shore up education next semester; but, once life is lost in the theatre of war, we can't "bring home the boys."

So, we're saying "bring them home, as safe as possible, as soon as possible, and treat them better-than-well-enough" when we do. When we can.

My salute to all of you.

(Fred, did I make a mess of this?)

Blessings, Wilka

And Oh Lord, how many times have I heard that voiced over the decades. Are you really that dense and disingenuous?
Donald Hawley, Jun 19, 2008, 11:55pm EDT

correct me if I'm wrong but isn't dense kinda like stupid?
me not so good wit da engish langage as you

Donald,

" They are puppets of the party system. You see your salvation in changing the puppets on the end of the strings, and I see the problem as the need to "cut the strings." "

I would sincerely like to follow up on this comment. Would you please elaborate this point with us?

Thanks, (Always looking for better answers...)
Wilka

And, Fred, you're about as dense as a pillow. And your heart is a marshmallow, and I admire both. (((smile, buddy-dude.)))
W

I am not a king and I am not in Tartarus.
the thing I differ with you about that analogy is this
what I am doing is not futile.

The main difference between you and me?
I have hope, I will go on.
one person, one vote.

a man with a military hammer sees every problem as a nail
so said my friend.

Kathy W: OK. Here goes. The partisan political party system is what Plato (3000 years ago) aptly called "rule by cliques." It doesn't matter how many parties you have, one, two, three, hundreds... the parties get their power just like baboons do, by beating their chests, ranting and raving, and getting by intimidation as many supporters as they can. Then by sheer numbers and the loudness of their screaming they get the "most bananas." All this "give and take" by the current contenders is euphemistically a lot of chest beating and screaming, pushing and shoving, most by rhetoric. Fortunately, most people do not think beyond the fringe of an idea and can easily absorb this nonsense and bleat it back, ad nauseam. We do not have the democracy that we hypocritically proclaim. We have an oligarchy of special interests in the form of a republic. The people we elect are not the most qualified in thinking but in rhetorical chanting. They also have the money (through tacit or open promises of due "process" repayment in kind) to get a platform for their haranguing. The rest of the troop (of us baboons in the wings) keeps pacified when a banana peel is casually discarded in our direction, at which time we follow the same process as our "leaders" in getting our share of the discarded peel. Fred's hope of "one person, one vote," is good poetry perhaps but does not change the fact that his vote is swallowed up a chorus of "two legs bad, four legs good" chanting pigs.

Fred: If you are a carpenter and have a hammer, of course that is the solution. The problem is that we need to find better tools than a hammer. In partisan politics all we have is a hammer. So we are forced to use it. We can call it a feather but it is still a hammer. What you are doing, as I see it, is naively calling the hammer a feather and thinking that we can dust away our problems with the feather. We need a better, less hypocritical system of governing that can deal with "world problems" on a mutually acceptable justice system. This, unfortunately, requires a much more fundamental sociological change, bringing the world "together" religiously, which is the foundation of human belief systems regarding morals, ethics and the very notion of what we mean by "justice." You may view this (and quite reasonably, I might add) as grossly impractical and idealistic to an extreme. But I consider this a necessary prerequisite to world peace on any meaningful scale. It was Plato who also observed that the only thing that can effectively get large numbers of people to do that which they would not ordinarily do and do it voluntarily, is religion. In the meantime, you are just "whistling in the wind."

Let me add this
Not only have I carried three beautiful sons and gave birth and raise them, I have cradled in my arm a dieing 100 year old women, I was in the ER when someones beautiful college aged daughter breathed her last, watched my beloved Mother-in-law die, taken in kids from off the street, fed the hungry when I was hungry too, cried with strangers over their loss as well as their blesings. And I know this, death is only a blessing and digified when it is a natural release from pain. relief from a termial illness, or old age. Never from the taken of by another human being. I have nothing but praise for the men and women who take on the duty of protectig our great country BUt I would LOVE to see a day when War is no longer an answer it any thing !!

WAR is Proof that as a species wehaven't evoved all that much !!! GOD forgive us !

Donald, my favorite statement from those you offer above is this:
"We need a better, less hypocritical system of governing that can deal with "world problems" on a mutually acceptable justice system. This, unfortunately, requires a much more fundamental sociological change, bringing the world "together" religiously, which is the foundation of human belief systems regarding morals, ethics and the very notion of what we mean by "justice." You may view this (and quite reasonably, I might add) as grossly impractical and idealistic to an extreme. But I consider this a necessary prerequisite to world peace on any meaningful scale."

I may accidently come off as being "whistler's mother" and a die hard optomist...but hope and faith spring eternal, right? Here's the deal, could we start, perhaps within each religion, a study on world peace as beginning with respect for others, and other's faiths? Do you see that as a possible beginning point? Granted, we might not achieve it in our lifetime, but I'd love to be one that gets the ball rolling uphill.
I believe most world religions have an international or a national conference.
Do you see any possibility of getting all the heads of each religion together and having them work out a global-religion platform, where wo/men of all faiths could work together to start building this bridge between them?

And don't most religions have like a "national" study plan for their people? Where they line up the religion-plan for the year, and then pass it down to their churches all over?
I would see this as a potential peace-making possibility.
What say you, sir?

Wilka

Hold on
Hold on to yourself
for this is gonna hurt like hell
Hold on
Hold on to yourself
you know that only time will tell
What is it in me that refuses to believe
this isn't easier than the real thing
My love
you know that you're my best friend
you know I'd do anything for you
my love
let nothing come between us
my love for you is strong and true

Sarah McLachlan - Hold On

"They had me standing on the front line-.. but I'm at the back of the line when it comes to getting ahead."
(wonder)