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(My replies are indicated by indented paragraphs.)
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From: Arthur W. & Family <---@----.at>
Date: Thu, 5 Jul 2001 23:52:27 +0200
Subject: RE: Your website is great!
Hello again!
Thanks a lot for your very interesting reply here. Your site is fantastic and really, I am still learning myself and cannot have a big mouth about webdesign for sure. But as a surfer I can only say that your site is great and yours is not of playing around with design and such. You do not miss it either since it exactly is what it is supposed to be - delivering a message very clear. What you are using for, I mean background, font and so on is top and I would not know what could be improved.
With your site the contents count and to easily read it all down the page and that's more than well presented. Me is specially again and again using the dictionary for some of the words you are using. A very interesting vocabulary and a thrill to read if I may say so. Anyway, from what can be read on your pages one well knows you are top informed. And you are certainly right in your comment here about the Cold War times here and it really was a good thing Austria took a neutral stand in between without having been squeezed to death.
We are located one hour West of Vienna, the capital. Along the Danube River in the Wachau, a grape growing region that is. [...]
I am gonna update our site and in particular our Life page wherein I started to involve ourselves a little bit about humanity, racism and such alike. As soon as I completed that pages I would like to add your site as a link in it and hope you would not mind me doing so. If so, just let me know.
For now I hope you have the best one and take care
- Arthur, Roselyn and Junior
* * *
Hello Arthur, Roselyn and Junior!
Your letter is one of the nicest I've ever received. I appreciate your comments about my site and I feel very encouraged that you find it clear and easy to read. That is my main concern. I just want to make sure that people can easily read it and understand the message about American state terrorism, and also that they can navigate easily around the site and find whatever they're looking for.The Wachau region sounds very beautiful, especially since it's near the great Danube River. Since it's a grape growing region it must be fairly sunny and warm most of the time. I wish I could say that about where I live!
I'd be delighted if you want to put a link to my site in your political section. It's great that you would have a section of your site devoted to the serious problems for humanity, such as racism. That's a great way to use a website. Here we have an opportunity to speak to the whole world! It's really incredible. So it's best if we use that opportunity to speak out about all the serious problems in the world so we can contribute toward healing them.
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Al L. <all---@---.com>
Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2001 21:56:34 -0400
Subject: Excellent site, but...
First of all, I want to tell you that you have written up an excellent site. I have just one piece of criticism that I hope you'll think about.
Your intro page uses a lot of "shock" terminology (such as American Mafia, NATO whores, etc) that really (in my opinion) lessens the impact of the whole. When I first read the page, I thought to myself, "another crazy kid who doesn't know what he's talking about." But as I read more and more of the page, I was impressed by the depth of research. I thought your commentary on "Chronology of Terror" was very good though.
At any rate, thanks for writing up this interesting site!
* * *
Dear Mr. L.,
Thankyou for your kind words and useful criticism. I know some people are turned off by writing that uses harsh words like "mafia" and "whores." But these harsh words describe harsh political realities. What better words could I use to describe mafias and whores?I understand what you're saying though, such language can strike people as sounding immature, like some crazy kid wrote it. I don't want to sound immature, but I don't want to water down the truth either. The U.S. government is truly nothing better than a plutocratic, corporate mafia, and the NATO governments are utter whores to that mafia.
You're right that such offensive-sounding terminology lessen the impact of the message for some people. But what you call "shock terminology" I call the terminology that simply describes a truly shocking reality.
Of course, great men like Noam Chomsky, Gore Vidal and William Blum manage to write honestly about the horrific political-historical reality while using relatively calm, non-incendiary language. But I just don't have the patience to write like them. The world is truly a horror, and I feel compelled to tell it like it is with no holds barred. My greatest concern is that what I write is precisely accurate, even if it is inflammatory. If I thought the U.S. government was in no way a mafia I would never use that word when describing it. If the NATO governments were not groveling whores I wouldn't use that word either.
Nevertheless, I take your criticism seriously and I appreciate it. I just don't know how to write about the world the way it really is without sounding extreme. The world is extreme. The more I learn about this world the more bizarre I discover it is.
I'm glad you liked the Chronology of Terror commentary though, and again I thankyou for taking the time to share your thoughts. I will ponder how I can write in a way that sounds mature to decent people like you, and yet still accurately describes the shocking realities of this world.
* * *
From: Al L. <all---@---.com>
Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 15:10:28 -0400
Subject: Re: Excellent site, but...
Thanks for the kind reply, I appreciate it.
You raise valid points about the words you use on your site. In fact, now that you mention it, perhaps such inflammatory words led me to read on! Also, I can understand your point about not having the patience to write calmly. The things you write about are shocking and depressing (although it seems to me that, by writing such a site, you still hope that the world can change), and it's difficult to stand by and calmly explain how so much is wrong with the world. It's hard for me to stay calm when I see friends swept up in this macho nationalistic war-mongering spirit that's going on.
Did you happen to catch the interview with a former American ambassador to the area? (I'm sorry, I've forgotten his name.) He basically tried to argue that this was no unwarranted attack on a peace-loving people; in fact, we have been killing their people for years. Taking an aggressive stance, the reporter said something petty like, "We've never flown a plane into their civilian buildings." The fmr. ambassador looked shocked to hear this, and began to list off many of the terrorist attacks America has initiated (basically every incident listed on your site), but was cut off by the reporter, and the interview was ended.
This is what led me to your site, after doing a search for "American Terrorism." It's frightening that in a supposedly free society, only one person has been able to speak on what America has done to other people, and that he was basically shut up. I know in talking to my friends I've been called "elitist" for not buying into the media brainwashing.
Anyway, I don't think you should change anything, since I was able to see the quality behind the inflammatory words. Again, great work!
Sincerely,
Al L.
* * *
Hello Al,
Thankyou for your insights and understanding. Whoever that ambassador was, he is a former government man of exceedingly rare integrity. Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark is like that, as was Senator Wayne Morse (D. Oregon). You probably heard about the one, single person in Congress who recently had some integrity too, Barbara Lee of Oakland, California -- the only person to vote against Unpresident Bush's war-mongering bill.Contrary to the image being fabricated by the corporate mass-media, however, I'm beginning to strongly suspect that the vast majority of ordinary people in America are more like Barbara Lee, Ramsey Clark, Wayne Morse and the former ambassador than like the harem of venal corporate prostitutes that besmirch the halls of Congress.
It's time for massive, non-violent revolution. Our government cannot and will not be reformed. It has to be overthrown.
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From: Engr. Asif M. <asif89@---.pk>
Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 18:07:30 +0500
Subject: Re: [tolueislam] Fw: [OQS] America under attack
For the savage, as for the child, the world is the scene of fortuitous events none of which stands in an intelligible relationship with the other. With the growth of intellect, both awake to the presence of order in the world around them.
The first thing they notice is the sequence of certain events. Knowledge of invariable sequence helps them to make better adjustment to the world. They become conscious of the causal nexus between events. They seek to know the causes of events, because this knowledge enables them to predict the effects and also to control them. They become aware that they themselves operate as causal agents producing changes in the world.
The knowledge that all their actions have consequences gives them a sense of power as well as of responsibility. They realize that in choosing to act in a certain way, they are also choosing the consequence of their action. If the consequence is unpleasant and the human wishes to avoid it, he / she can do so only by refraining from the action which leads to it.
The Law of Requital states that every action of the human has consequences and the doer will have to bear them whether he / she likes them or not. This equally applies to the rise and fall of Nations.
Dr. M.-ul-H.
Pakistan
* * *
Dear Dr. M.,
Your points are very well stated, and there is no doubt that the American Empire will someday fall. In America, people use a simple phrase for this Law of Cause and Effect: "What goes around, comes around." Like the Roman Empire before it, and the Nazi Third Reich, the American Empire will crash and burn, sooner or later.But for the sake of the innocent civilian men, women and children of the world, may it be sooner!
The U.S. military/government is composed of savage people whose level of moral intelligence is much lower than that of normal, healthy children. America's rulers don't understand the Divine Laws at all. They will have to learn the hard way. But the world's people can help them learn. If we want to survive in freedom, all the world's people must unite against the U.S. military/government.
All the world's people have one supremely important thing in common: we're all human beings. A true human is a sacred being, because he or she is capable of caring about all other beings. Only if we unite on this basis do we have any hope of liberating ourselves from The Beast that is the U.S. military/government.
I pray that you and all the good people of Pakistan and Afghanistan will be protected from the Pentagon's bombs.
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From: Ian B. <iancgb---@---.uk>
Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 13:44 +0100 (BST)
Subject: Resources for your consideration
Hi,
Excellent site. Kudos.
You might find www.ibell.co.uk/vortex/castle an interesting...approach.
Also: an animated gif at www.ibell.co.uk/vortex/kosovo you might wanna use.
namaste
ian b - www.ibell.co.uk
* * *
Hi Ian!
Those Castle Tales are great! I enjoyed reading them and I'm going to find the right place on my site to link to that page. (Important Sites)You're right that such stories could get through some people's prejudices. If they could just see the underlying principles involved they'd see how grotesquely immoral, and indeed - medieval - the U.S. military/government's position literally is.
The human race has evolved, but our rulers' minds are still confined within medieval castle walls. That's really a perfect analogy you've made. It's high time for the people to overthrow the sheriff and his bloody knights once and for all.
That animated NATO-Swastika gif is a good one. I downloaded it, but at 148K it's too big to use on my simple pages because I'm trying to keep my site easily accessible to people with older and slower computers -- like mine for instance!
I just want to say also that your whole site is really artistically beautiful. I like the magical ambience. I look forward to exploring more of it.
* * *
From: Ian B. <iancgb---@---.uk>
Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2001 09:06 +0100 (BST)
Subject: Re: Resources for your consideration
American Terrorism website author wrote:
> In addition to medieval brutes, I see the bullying
> American tyrants in international politics as being like
> the most absurdly seedy, cutthroat characters in some
> Clint Eastwood spaghetti western. Far worse actually.
Ian B.: Bill Hicks, the greatest American comedian ever IMHO, had a good piece about US being like Jack Palance throwing a gun to a poor peasant as i think he did in one western.
"Pick up the gun."
"I don wanna, mister. You'll shoot me"
"Pick up the gun!"
- Bang - Thud -
"You all saw him. He had a gun."
namaste
ian b - www.ibell.co.uk
"He's making a list,
Checking it twice,
Gonna find out who's naughty or nice.
Santa Claus is coming to town!"
* * *
Uncle Santa! No! Put down that gun!
*********************************************
From: Andre F. <andref---@---.net>
Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2001 13:57:12 -0400
Subject: Have you considered "repackaging" your information
Have you considered "repackaging" your information to awaken the sleeping masses gently? Vinegar is a great salt substitute to enhance flavor. But, American's love the sweet taste of sugar. You can arouse them gently from the arms of Morpheus, or you can turn the bed over on them after kicking down the door. Since they have to wake up anyway, the former might be a better modus operandi.
"Certainly" you don't' want to be accused of intellectual terrorism!
* * *
Hi Andre,
I'm not worried about being accused of "intellectual terrorism." Anyone who would make such a frivolous accusation can't be taken seriously, because they don't take American state terrorism seriously. They're equivalent to German citizens not taking the Nazis seriously in the 1930s. Our government is doing its damnedest to lead us all merrily down the path to hell, Andre. It's a serious matter.It's way past time to "awaken the sleeping masses gently." You might have noticed in the last week that we are now becoming an openly fascist police state. The Constitution is out the window and Rome is burning. It's no time to fiddle. Forget "sugar for the masses." It's time to scream "FIRE!!!"
* * *
From: Andre F. <andref---@---.net>
Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2001 09:07:04 -0400
Subject: RE: Have you considered "repackaging" your information
I appreciate your sentiments and share your sensitivity to the matters at hand, buy I have learned the hard (ineffectual) way that the AVERAGE person cannot process too much excitement about something in which they have been in denial.
There is a Far Side cartoon out there somewhere set in a medieval town center. The scene is a "T" intersection. Walking across the "top" of the "T" are two guys carrying a large mirror. There are an assortment of citizens walking both along the top of the "T" and the stalk of the "T", all with various identifying indications of being vampires. One guy, clearly NOT a vampire, is running away from a couple of guys (who are walking casually), yelling, "There are vampires among us!" Those citizens who hear him look at each other as if to say, " What's he yelling about?"
Your urgency may fall on a majority of deaf or uncaring ears. Remember, denial is a choice which may not have been wholly unconscious initially. Your example of the Nazis applies here as well.
A.
* * *
Hi Andre,
That "Far Side" cartoon sounds like another great one. Gary Larson is a genius. Your serious point is very well and entertainingly illustrated with that humorous image.My point is simply that I have neither the time nor the inclination to wrestle with the dishonesty and stupidity of the average brainwashed person. I do sometimes answer emails from such people, but only for the purpose of posting them in the letters section here, so honest people can see and be entertained by the pathetic arguments these apologists of genocide try to use.
But I just can't afford to worry that my urgency falls on a majority of deaf or uncaring ears, as you put it so well. I know it does, and it always will. There's nothing I can do about that. In this Information Age most people's ignorance is truly willful. Their denial is a choice, as you said. So if they don't want to know certain things, then neither you nor I can make them, no matter what we say or do.
Therefore I'm not going to waste my time and energy trying to tailor my writing to people who don't want to know the truth. What I'm doing with this site is very simple. I'm just telling it exactly it like it is to the best of my knowledge, the best way I know how, with as much emotional honesty as I know how to express. I'm writing for those people who actually have the capacity to care deeply and strongly, but who simply lack information.
I find it helpful to understand that average people in this country are ignorant because they're apathetic, and they're apathetic because they're sick. They're too sick to care if civilian men, women and helpless children are butchered in other countries by our vicious military. Especially if the victims are a different race from their own. And they don't want to have to see it or hear about it on the nightly "news" -- because then they'd be forced to pretend as if they cared. What a bother. Uncle Sham knows this very well indeed, and his corporate McNews is carefully designed to spoon-feed these immoral people all the excuses and cover-ups they could possibly hope for. These types of Americans are actually grateful to Uncle Sham for keeping them ignorant. Their basic attitude is one of: "Do whatever you have to do to protect our comfortable lifestyles, oh Great Leaders, but just don't tell us about it."
Such people are very common in America, of course, and they're absolutely hopeless. They're total write-offs as far as I'm concerned. They'll have to learn to care about their fellow human beings the hard way, through long and lonely experience. All the most carefully chosen words in the world will never breach the fortress walls of their pre-fabricated minds nor touch their cold, sick hearts.
I'm willing to go to the trouble of making this site for people with human hearts who care -- or would care if only they knew what was actually going on in this world. Before the 1999 U.S./NATO terror campaign, I was thoroughly ignorant of what this country has been doing for the last 100 years. Other people who cared informed me via the Internet. Once I knew, I realized I had a moral duty to help inform others, just as I had been. So I made this website. As I worked on it, it quickly became apparent that the only hope I had of doing it effectively would be to simply speak in my own way to people who share a basic humanity. More than that I cannot do.
But I've got it easy. I don't have to be like those professional propagandist-politicians or crooked PR flacks who strive to tailor their deceitful messages to strategically chosen target audiences. What a miserable complication! This Internet is revolutionary because it allows people all over the world to bypass the mass of state propaganda and speak honestly to each other. But if certain types of people don't like the way I write, so be it. You can't please everybody.
All we need to do is tell the truth as best we know it. Truth has a power all its own. It's alive, and it cannot be suppressed forever. And once we do our simple duty and tell it, it's out of our hands. We can rest assured that the truth itself will find a way to get through to anybody who honestly wants to know it.
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From: MaD DoG <bolshevik80@---.com>
Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2001 16:17:11 +1000
Subject: [left blank]
Whoever you are, my friend, you are now my greatest hero.
It's so comforting to know that not all is lost, that true intellectuals like yourself still exist amidst the giant lie that is the United States of Amerikkka.
If only there was a way for us to reach and teach more people about the evils of yankee doodle imperialist crap, if only there was a way to make them see the great lie.
This is far and away the most informative and educationally beneficial website I have ever visited... well done!
******* IF YOU TREMBLE WITH INDIGNATION AT EVERY INJUSTICE, THEN YOU ARE A COMRADE OF MINE *******
* * *
Dear MaD DoG,
Thankyou for your kind and very generous comments. Such encouragement is really helpful.I sure know how you feel about wishing more people would wake up from "the giant lie that is the United States of Amerikkka." On the practical side, perhaps the most essential requirement for this awakening is that people get rid of their mind-controlling T.V. sets. If people will liberate their minds from all the corporate mass-media garbage then there truly is hope.
Of course the Internet provides an unprecedented opportunity to bypass such state propaganda apparatus. And if all the positive letters I've gotten since September 11 are any indication, then the vast majority of people in the world are not fooled by U.S. government propaganda. I think most people in the world are fairly sane, and they at least instinctively know what things are in their best interests. And Uncle Sham ain't one of them.
I feel that the best any of us can do about this whole world situation is to simply keep on living like caring human beings while telling the truth to whoever will listen. That's how it will spread, person to person, and there isn't a damned thing the inhuman ruling elites can do to stop it. They control their babbling, chanting, flashing, mass-media lie-machine, but they can't force people to give their minds away to it.
If the human race wants to be saved it will be. I think the world's people probably will choose life and freedom, and we may even live to see the day when the genocidal American Empire goes down in flames like the Nazi Third Reich. What a glorious day that will be indeed!
— Your friend and comrade.
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From: John F. <johnf@---.ie>
Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 15:46:42 +0100
Subject: Your website...
Hi there
After the recent WTC disaster, I was recommending your site to some friends of mine who know I'm familiar with some of the seedier things the US is responsible for, such as Echelon, etc... and I was shocked and outraged that the site was closed down. You listed two mirror sites, but the Yahoo mirror was also closed by the time I checked it. I hope you don't mind if I save the content of your site locally, so that if it disappears suddenly, I can mirror it myself somewhere.
Oh, and by the by, you may be just a *tad* harsh in some of your statements. America has also produced some fine people and things over the years. I think your justifiable rage should probably be tinged with regret. America *could* have been really great. Such a shame...
If it is ever to recapture the possibility of greatness it will be through the efforts of intelligent, educated, well meaning and well informed individuals not committees or corporations.
Kindest regards,
John F.
(Dublin, Ireland)
* * *
Hi John,
Thankyou for recommending my site to your friends. It is pretty outrageous that it was deleted by the humboldt1.com ISP owner. But this is just the beginning. Unless enough Americans fight back and support each other, the suppression of free speech here will get steadily worse. So it's great if you want to save the entire site locally. It may well disappear for good someday in the not too distant future -- and who knows, I might too!Yahoo/Geocities keeps shutting the mirror site down periodically because of too many hits.
You're wrong about my being too harsh in my statements on this site. In fact, the English language simply doesn't contain words harsh enough to address the outrages of American state terrorism inflicted on innocent children by homicidal psychopaths in uniform.
Nor are there words harsh enough to damn the inhuman apathy and moral corruption of the overwhelming majority of Americans who pay for all the carnage, obediently handing over their tax dollars to genocidal war criminals year after year and generation after generation.
But I think you're quite right that there is no healthy future with corporations. And I think you're fortunate to live in Ireland. Now there's a nation the Pentagon actually doesn't intend to bomb! For the time being, anyway.
*********************************************
From: Tim W. <quantum_bogodynamics@---.com>
Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 18:45:43 +0000
Subject: [left blank]
I've just had a read of your website. I'm not a US citizen, and fairly skeptical about the politicians and their agendas in general, so I was more saddened than shocked at most of what I was reading. One thing that was entirely new to me was the horrific turn-of-the-century incidents in the Philippines - from what you've said, this was an absolute atrocity, and I thank you for opening my eyes to this.
A lot of what you have described is absolutely and totally horrific. The complicity of the US government in many of these acts is nothing short of evil. So I understand your disgust for it all, and your desire to state this in no uncertain terms - when I am really angry about something I am the same way. But... think about your **overall objective** in putting time into writing for your website. Is it to vent your anger, or is it to win others over to your side? I think it is the latter.
Well actually, part of the purpose of writing my website is to express my anger, Tim! And it is not to win others over to "my" side!I don't feel that by expressing totally justifiable, honest anger I am necessarily lessening the impact of the message. And I don't want anybody to be on "my" side. I don't belong to any political party or group. All I want to do is inform people of things they will definitely want to know if they actually have a moral conscience. And I want to do it honestly, expressing clearly how I actually feel about it. I understand that expressing such emotions as anger -- even over horrific genocides -- turns certain types of people off. But no matter what you do, you can't please everybody! So you might as well just be true to yourself.
Tim W.: Somebody comes to your site, blissfully ignorant, suddenly has all of your harsh accusations and revelations, in a sense, shouted at them - how will they react? Well, maybe they will be shocked into an about-face, but speaking for myself only, I find that an evenhanded approach is the only convincing way. I much prefer to read something and to be allowed to draw my own conclusions, rather than have them thrust upon me. Now I don't know if most 50/50 possible converts to your way of thinking think like me or not, but (puffing out chest in pride) I think the people you really **want** to have on your side are those who consider the evidence and conclude by themselves whether it is right or wrong - right?
Wrong and right, Tim! I'm not looking for "possible converts to my way of thinking" or to have people "on my side."Yes, by all means, let people consider the evidence and conclude by themselves. But why should that mean I can't share with them what my own conclusions are?
This website is just the creation of one private person. I am not a candidate for political office who is trying to woo voters. This site is not a dry, academic textbook. Think of the site as an open letter from one private person to the world, or a book written by a private individual -- but which also includes a bibliography of very important books written by others, and a careful selection of valuable websites made by others. On this site I give you my straightforward opinion, and I also invite you to investigate further if you're interested in finding out more.
Tim W.: I just found it a bit tough going having your flag-with-swastika emblem appearing every couple of pages, ...
Perhaps that's because you don't think it's a legitimate symbol of the political realities of America. But that's exactly what it is. On a more mundane level, it also serves as a graphic to break up the text into visually distinct sections for easier reading.America is fast becoming an openly fascist police state, Tim. Check out some of the alternative, non-corporate news sources I've linked to on the Valuable Websites page. The U.S. flag-with-swastika emblem is an absolutely perfect symbol for what the U.S. government is really all about.
Tim W.: ...and reading your more-or-less constant hyperbole putting down the US government, e.g. "They'll stop at absolutely nothing to keep that essential oil flowing into the vast murder-machine of the U.S. military-industrial complex."
The word "hyperbole" means "extravagant exaggeration used as a figure of speech." Where is the extravagant exaggeration in the statement you gave as an example, Tim?The U.S. military-industrial complex is indeed a vast murder-machine. That is precisely true. There is not the slightest exaggeration in that statement. And history has proven that the U.S. government will indeed stop at absolutely nothing to keep that machine well oiled, including the genocide of literally millions of civilian men, women and children in Iraq.
Tim W.: You feel strongly, and fair enough too, but these things don't present new information and only increase my impression that you might be writing from accumulated anger and sourness, rather than from a careful analysis of facts.
If you have any doubt about the facts, just check out the many websites linked to on the site, and the books in the extensive bibliography. That's why I've included them. Don't take my word for anything. Do your own research and you'll find out for yourself whether anything I'm saying is true or not.
Tim W.: Same goes for praising people who agree with you - it just creates the impression of childishness, with me at least.
So does that mean whenever you praise someone who agrees with you on some point of immense importance, that I should think you're childish, Tim?I must say, you are giving me the impression that you're just not familiar with the horrific extent of the war crimes committed by the U.S. military/government.
You certainly don't sound like the type who doesn't care. It just sounds like there's a big information gap. I know how it is! Before I got an Internet connection I knew almost nothing whatsoever about any of this. I was a total fool for the corporate mass-media.
But you definitely have a lot more of a clue than I did when I first started researching American state terrorism.
Tim W.: And, while I'm on my soapbox here :) I might as well say this: one thing that grated with me was your frequent linking of capitalism to many of these atrocities.
It grates on you only because you don't understand the nature of imperialist American capitalism, Tim. Corporate capitalism, as practiced by the American plutocracy, is absolutely ruthless and inhuman.
Tim W.: I'm guessing you are socialist-leaning? I believe that both socialism and capitalism are ideas that are not evil in themselves, but which have certain weaknesses when put into practice. Quite rightly, you point out that the brutal Maoists and Stalinists only pretended to champion socialism, thereby distinguishing between the well-intentioned idea of pure socialism and two ghastly examples of its implementation. Weaknesses inherent in the idea of socialism allowed the evil of the people behind these governments to be realised. A weakness in capitalism is the immense power contained within a company that seizes a large chunk of some market early in the life of that market.
Again, this weakness is not evil in itself, but something that individual people, who are evil, may choose to make use of. So, I think that the worst that can be said about capitalism in general is that it is not practical, because of this power incentive. I happen to believe that socialism is a less practical alternative, but that is my opinion only and something I am happy to discuss and to disagree on. In your writing, the repeated linkages of capitalism to slander, murder, etc. feel like complaints, and will probably do little to sway the sympathies of capitalist-leaning readers.
That's okay with me, Tim. I'm not trying to "sway the sympathies of capitalist-leaning readers." I am trying only to present the facts as honestly and precisely as I know how. I expect most capitalist-leaning readers to be impervious to truth anyway. If they had truly human, caring instincts they would be socialist-leaning, not capitalist-leaning. Capitalism is for selfish people, Tim. Socialism is for people who care about other people. It's truly as simple as that, on an emotional level. And as you must know, the vast majority of people in the industrialized nations are basically selfish and materialistic. That is why selfish capitalism rules our nations like a political dinosaur that should have gone extinct long ago.
Tim W.: So, what am I saying here? Think about **the way you are saying what you are saying**. I agree with your sentiments on most things here!
Thanks,
Tim
Thankyou too for your thoughtful letter, Tim. Although I have disagreed with most of the statements you made, I'm very glad that at least you don't dismiss the reality of American state terrorism out of hand.I think you have the right sentiments too, but it just seems to me that you don't yet know a lot of the political-economic details about the American Empire. Perhaps you don't even think there is an American Empire. That's certainly understandable. The American corporate mass-media propaganda-machine is unparalleled in history. It's the most powerful and far reaching disinformation apparatus the world has ever seen. Once a person begins to realize that, they start searching for alternate sources of information on the Internet. And once they've done that for awhile, there's no going back to the state of brainwashed, mass-media hypnosis.
Websites like mine are not intended to be sugar-coated mass-media brainwashing productions. My website is not commercial, it's a personal communication from me to the reader, just like this email. Such democratization of communication is what makes the Internet truly revolutionary.
May the Revolution go all the way, until the whole world enjoys real democracy. Even America.
* * *
From: Tim W. <quantum_bogodynamics@---.com>
Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2001 03:13:11 +0000
Subject: Re:
[....]
I was talking about this [the relative merits of socialism vs. capitalism] with my strongly socialist friend and I thought of this analogy. Think of a nation of people of as a bucket of perishable food, and their happiness and prosperity as being the quality of the food. The sun beating down is the ever-present personal greed of the people, which will cause the food to go off if nothing is done. Capitalism is like a solar-powered cooler, that **uses** the sun's energy to keep the food cold and fresh.
What do you think?
Please let me know,
Tim
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Very interesting and creative analogy! But if the quality of the food symbolizes the happiness and prosperity of a nation's people, then what capitalism actually does, both literally and figuratively, is poison that food with pesticides and genetically modify it, because that is profitable for corporations.Then the whole capitalist system denies this food is poisoned and mutant, chanting to you night and day via T.V., radio and newspapers that no viable alternative exists to Holy Capitalism because only it can keep your food "fresh".
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From: Tim W. <quantum_bogodynamics@---.com>
Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 02:27:52 +0000
Subject: Re:
It was probably a bad idea including that food analogy, it was a bit simplistic. I'd like to hear what you think of my observations about greed being an unchangeable aspect of human nature, and my opinion that a system based on encouraging and using this greed is therefore a practical system.
Tim
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Hi Tim,
I don't think there's anything wrong with an analogy being simple, as long as it's accurate. In fact, the simpler the better. The creativity and simplicity of your food analogy was good, but it just didn't represent what capitalism is really all about.I think your general observations about greed were very good too, but I don't think that greed is an inherent or unchangeable aspect of human nature. Greed is a pathological degradation of human nature. Truly human nature is inherently generous and loving -- in it's healthy state. It is the lower, animalistic nature that is greedy, territorial, selfish and insensitive. Such qualities may be natural for animals, but when a higher being such as a human possesses them, they are merely pathological.
A system that rewards this selfish greed cannot be truly practical, especially not on an international scale. The capitalist system is merely a collective expression of pathology. It's no wonder then that capitalism has brought us two world wars, and may well destroy the human race with a third.
Capitalism is essentially unhealthy and immoral, and as such it is a system that cannot survive -- if the human race wants to survive in peace and freedom. Like the feudalism it replaced, capitalism will go the way of its fellow dinosaurs. It's just a matter of time.
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From: Brian S. <swax3030@---.com>
Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2001 15:25:54 -0400
Subject: hmmm...
first of all, congrats on having the balls to put this site up.
Thanks Brian! Isn't it interesting though, that it should have to take balls to put up a site that simply states the historical truth about our country? That itself is very telling.But I have to admit that I personally don't think it has taken any great degree of courage for me to make this site, so far. As of this writing, no FBI agents have made intimidating visits, burglarized my home or made anonymous threatening phone calls (some of their favorite tricks). Of course that could certainly change. But at least one fortunate thing is that I live in a relatively politically conscious town, so nobody locally that I know of has harassed me.
Somebody or some group did force my local ISP to delete my entire website on September 14, but I don't know who they were. In spite of that, however, a lot of people here know exactly what the U.S. government is up to, so most if not all of the content of my site is old news to them.
Mahatma Ghandi had a great saying regarding what political activists typically experience at the hands of any evil establishment:
"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."Right now I'm at the stage where they are appearing to ignore me, except for deleting my site. If this site were to get a huge amount of publicity we would move to stage 2: hostile ridicule in the corporate-controlled mass media. If I survived that, and the whole thing moved to the fight stage and I survived that too, then I could be fairly accused of having balls.
Brian S.: I'm not totally sure how much, or rather to what degree I believe all of the content as of yet. Maybe it's because of when it comes down to it, you really don't have proof either way unless you were there, ...
I wasn't in Vietnam, and yet I really think it's safe to take the word of millions of activists around the world and millions of Southeast Asians and tens of thousands of American veterans themselves, that the United States Army, Air Force, Marines, Navy and CIA committed the brutal, sadistic, racist genocide of at least 4 million men, women and children in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.The many books I've featured on this site contain a great deal of documentation also. Books such as Rogue State, Killing Hope, To Kill A Nation, What Uncle Sam Really Wants, The Phoenix Program, The Real Terror Network, The Culture of Terrorism, Derailing Democracy etc, simply contain information that is in the public record for everybody to see -- if they take the time and trouble to research it. Most people don't, however. And the U.S. government is counting on that.
But the Internet definitely worries them. Through the Internet anybody in the world can see for themselves how the U.S. government and its puppet "news" organizations routinely lie about what they are up to. All during the U.S./NATO terror campaign of 1999 millions of people around the world witnessed such coverups of brutal war crimes. It got to the point where it became quite predictable. But it was all a mind-blowing revelation to me. Before that time I knew almost nothing about what this country had done around the world for 100 years.
Brian S.: ...or maybe it's because I still have some remaining (yet dwindling) faith in human nature that makes thinking that this much shit has really been perpetrated by ANYONE tough to swallow, or maybe it's because I don't think our politicians are even smart enough to pull all this off and sweep it under the rug so effectively.
Your take on our politicians is exactly right -- they definitely are not smart enough to pull off such a massive scam.Politicians are mostly morons. They're great speech makers and actors, but usually nothing more. One of the most basic political facts of life is that the people in front of the T.V. cameras are not running the show. They are just spokespeople. The people who make the most important decisions about foreign policy, geopolitical strategy and tactics are out of the limelight. They work for institutions like the CIA, the NSA, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, the State Department, the Bilderberg group, the Pentagon, the various PR propaganda firms and the many ultra-wealthy transnational corporations.
These people actually are intelligent enough to pull off such a massive deception, but there's another essential factor involved. They know that a large percentage of the American people want to be lied to. As long as these mainstream Americans are materially comfortable, they really don't want to know what crimes against humanity our government and military commit to support America's wealth and power.
Brian S.: I will come out and admit that I am quite apathetic towards large-scale national politics. However, that apathy stems from a general feeling of helplessness and insignificance than ignorance, at least in my opinion. However, I've always seemingly taken the "anti-American" side in any debate, and not even because of evidence of a clear-cut theory that I have, but simply because common sense and rationality leads you there.
That is absolutely true. And once you're also armed with enough information via the Internet, I think you won't feel nearly as much of a sense of helplessness. Especially since you'll discover that millions of people around the world feel exactly like you do! And you sure won't be chained up with any numbing apathy either. Apathy and helplessness are what I used to feel too, and they are precisely what the corporate mass-media intentionally strive to poison people's minds and souls with.
Brian S.: Plus, any time I check on some site that's pro-american, or get into it with some patriotic people, I find that they always tend to resort to BS patriotic rhetoric, some quicker than others, but all eventually doing it. However, in the case of your site and others like it, that doesn't seem to happen...this definitely indicates something.
The "letters" section is classic stuff though, you share my affinity towards verbal bashing, and I'm all for that. It's very entertaining how quickly people resort to senseless threats and obscenities when they know that they're getting played.
Anyway, I do have one suggestion. I think your site is very well-constructed and does a good job of illustrating a point of view. I think that even people who may not totally agree with it, or even agree to the extent that I do, should see the site. That's why I think that you should maybe eliminate the burning flag and the nazi flags that appear throughout. Not that I have any problem with it (i never understood the importance of that shit, even symbolically), but a lot of people will immediately dismiss the site as some "psychotic anarchist shit" as was said by someone I sent the link to.
Normally I would say forget those people that dismiss it as such, but I have a feeling that your reasoning for constructing your site is to enlighten as many as will listen, so that's why I'm suggesting it.
Keep it up.
Thanks for taking the time to offer that suggestion, Brian. Since the WTC attack, one other reasonable and civil person has also written me about that, and several other friendly critics have said my writing style is too inflammatory and extreme. I take all such criticism seriously and appreciate it very much when it is offered in a spirit of honest friendship.Regarding the flags, you're right that I want to inform as many people as possible, and these symbols will turn a lot of people off immediately. But I think if a person has any capacity for an honest, open mind in the first place, they will not take the symbol of the American flag too seriously.
And those who revere the American flag are brainwashed morons. I'm not going to waste my time trying to get through to people like that. They're hopeless.
There's a great thing George Bernard Shaw said about the Nazis which applies perfectly to American patriots of the pro-government, flag-waving variety. Shaw said that if a person was intelligent and a Nazi, he was not decent. If he was decent and a Nazi, he was not intelligent. And if he was decent and intelligent, he was not a Nazi.
Just for pure enjoyment I'll spell out the updated version of Shaw's idea:
- If a person is decent and a pro-government, flag-waving, American patriot, he or she is not intelligent.
- If a person is intelligent and a pro-government, flag-waving, American patriot, he or she is not decent.
- And if a person is decent and intelligent, he or she is not a pro-government, flag-waving, American patriot.
Even so, putting the burning flags and the swastika-flags on the site is not intended merely to be a nose-thumbing gesture at stupid and indecent patriots. These flags are legitimate symbols of political realities.
The American-swastika flag represents the true nature of the U.S. military/government, which is steadily heading in the direction of anti-Constitutional corporate fascism. Especially since the WTC attack. The burning flag symbolizes what needs to happen to the war criminal U.S. military/government.
And it will happen.
I don't advocate physical violence toward people, but I definitely advocate the complete overthrow of the U.S. government. This is possible through massive, non-violent civil disobedience and tax-resistance.
Thanks again for your thoughtful and honest letter, and your words of encouragement. And may America's second revolution come as soon as possible, for the protection and well-being of the decent men, women and helpless children of the entire world.
More letters to this site
...and the
