McGovern Visits/War&Sense/Poem/Abbey

(P1) Political

George McGovern Makes Sense In Sebastopol

If only he'd beaten Nixon! Oh well, he's still a wonderfully caring and intelligent man. That George McGovern loves kids, he demonstrated speaking to the students at Analy H.S. in Sebastopol (Sonoma County) California March 16th.

McGovern, who now serves as the United Nations' global ambassador on world hunger caught my attention by pointing out that it would take a mere $5 billion a year to fund a global school lunch program which would double school enrollment in poor countries, boost academic perfomance and help cut birth rates in half (presumably those issuing from teenage pregnancies). The war in Iraq costs close to that much each month!

McGovern who was a bomber pilot in World War II, added that Iraq was "not the slightest threat to the United States," and were he president, he would bring the troops home over the next 5 weeks.

This makes me mindful of the thought-provoking documentary "Why We Fight" which features Dwight David Eisenhower and his warning against "the military-industrial complex." Stop and think: Our government is reluctant to participate in real health and anti-poverty programs because avowedly "there ain't enough money," yet that same government will spend billions and eventually trillions on armaments to feed the insatiable arms industry. Note: I will not refer to it as "defense" industry, because I challenge you to show me how any of our wars (with the possible exceptions of WWII and the Civil War) have anything to do with "defense" of this nation.

Bravo, George McGovern!


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(P2) Philosophical

About War

"War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious." - Major General Smedley Butler


"Oh, no, we're not going to have any casualties." - George W. Bush, prior to the invasion of Iraq


"I cannot help but wonder what it will be like for the young men and women wounded in Iraq...For us, in 1968, it was the Bronx veterans hospital paraplegic ward, overcrowded, understaffed, rats on the ward,...urine bags overflowing...Paralyzed men lying in their own excrement...wondering how our government could spend so much money on the most lethal...advanced weaponry to kill and maim human beings but not be able to take care of its own wounded when they came home...Has any of it changed?" --Ron Kovic (recall "Born On the Fourth of July")


"No matter that patriotism is too often the refuge of scoundrels. dissent, rebellion, and all-around hell-raising remain the true duty of patriots." - Barbara Ehrenreich


"If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace." -John Lennon


"In war, there are no unwounded soldiers." -Jose Narosky


(Quotations are from The Sun Magazine)

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(P3) Poetical


A Single Step


The path branches

immeasurably.

Your choice

becomes yr history.


(Richard Krech)



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Answer to the Last "Trivia" Question

Who said: "Anarchism is not a romantic fable but the hardheaded realization, based on five thousand years of experience, that we cannot entrust the management of our lives to kings, priests, politicians, generals, and county commissioners."?

Answer: Edward Abbey "When Edward Abbey died in 1989 at the age of sixty-two, the American West lost one of its most eloquent and passionate advocates. Through his novels, essays, letters and speeches, Edward Abbey consistently voiced the belief that the West was in danger of being developed to death, and that the only solution lay in the preservation of wilderness. Abbey authored twenty-one books in his lifetime, including Desert Solitaire, The Monkey Wrench Gang, The Brave Cowboy, and The Fool's Progress. His comic novel The Monkey Wrench Gang helped inspire a whole generation of environmental activism. A writer in the mold of Twain and Thoreau, Abbey was a larger-than-life figure as big as the West itself."
-- cover text from the Edward Abbey Video

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