Posted on 02/28/2003 4:11:51 PM PST by LaBelleDameSansMerci
"....We the People of the United States, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish the Constitution for the United Sates of America............
Is he here?
Well, at this solemn juncture we must put aside petty, passing anger, musn't we?( Is that wife of his with him?)
Death by "blah, blah, blah."
Yes I believe that is what is written on the death certificate.
Ah yes. The Village People.
Don't say this too loudly here at the wake, but rumor has it that the Village People were bending over the remains at the very last incanting something that sounded like: "Making the world safe for democracy."
Yes, the "Old" rants are so old, aren't they? I guess it's the atmosphere of a wake. It beings out the most tasteless sentimentality.
...In the youth-worshipping American mind there is a far reaching identification between "old" and 'rotten'...."-------Kuehnelt-Leddihn
TimesOnline
UK
PRESIDENT BUSH has been told to muzzle Donald Rumsfeld, his provocative Defence Secretary, if he wants to ease European misgivings about war with Iraq. José María Aznar, the Spanish Prime Minister, spoke for many European diplomats and officials, including the British, when he delivered the message while staying at Mr Bush’s Texas ranch last weekend.
“I did tell the President that we need a lot of Powell and not much of Rumsfeld,” said Señor Aznar, referring to Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State. “Ministers of Defence should talk less, shouldn’t they? The more Powell speaks and the less Rumsfeld speaks, that wouldn’t be a bad thing altogether.”
Señor Aznar is the first leader to voice publicly what many Europeans supportive of confronting Baghdad feel strongly in private: that Mr Rumsfeld has made their diplomatic work much harder.
The Spanish leader is thought to have been particularly perturbed by Mr Rumsfeld’s recent comparison of Germany’s “do nothing” approach to Saddam Hussein with that of Libya and Cuba, two countries on the US State Department’s list of sponsors of state terrorism. European officials blame Mr Rumsfeld’s acerbic goading and confrontational style for deepening splits between Washington, Paris and Berlin that could have been resolved without either side losing face.
At the critical diplomatic juncture over Iraq in recent weeks, Mr Rumsfeld angered France and Germany by dismissing them as “old Europe”. “He’s deepened suspicions overseas and made it much harder to get people on side,” one diplomat said.
The Chinese!!
Goodness, gracious, sakes alive. This IS going to be a crowded affair isn't it? They are such great, good friends of ours.
Oh dear, oh dear. Has the family laid on enough booze? What do the Chinese like to drink, anyway?
Perhaps they just had too much time on their hands. Maybe we should sue the descendants of slaves for reparations.....
I suppose trite ranting could be considered a type of 'sentimentallity'.
Down the Hobbit Hole with a discussion of the full text of President Bush's address to the Nation on Iraq.
Perhaps a discussion of Ms. Garafalo's cellulite would have been more newsworthy......
Congrats .. I think you now hold the record for the longest, one man thread.
All the more reason, I believe, that the US government should be encouraging, not discouraging as is current practice, small business or at least smallER business. A friend told me that he was forbidden to keep using his Macintosh at his federal government job, since the agency head had decided to "standardize" on Microsoft. So the US gov't gives MS billions of dollars a year in sales and destroys their competition within gov't IT installations (while at the same time the DOJ spends much money on investigations of MS's alleged monopolistic practices only to end with meaningless "punishments"). Then, as we see from the quoted article, MS is out-sourcing jobs to many low-salary Asian countries, whereas its no-longer-existing competitors might have kept more jobs here.
Me thinks your agenda is showing.
One man? The place is crowded with men (far greater and more interesting than I could ever aspire to be.).
"The Soul selects her own Society"
The Soul selects her own Society--
Then--shuts the Door--
To her divine Majority--
Present no more--
Unmoved--she notes the Chariots--passing--
At her low Gate--
Unmoved--an Emperor be kneeling
Upon her mat--
I've known her--from an ample nation--
Choose One--
Then--close the Valve of her attention--
Like Stone--
---Emily Dickinson
".....But should someone ask me whether I would indicate the West such as it is today as a model to my country, frankly I would have to answer negatively. No, I could not recommend your society in its present state as an ideal for the transformation of ours. Through intense suffering our country has now achieved a spiritual development of such intensity that the Western system in its present state of spiritual exhaustion does not look attractive. Even those characteristics of your life which I have just mentioned are extremely saddening.
A fact which cannot be disputed is the weakening of human beings in the West while in the East they are becoming firmer and stronger. Six decades for our people and three decades for the people of Eastern Europe; during that time we have been through a spiritual training far in advance of Western experience. Life's complexity and mortal weight have produced stronger, deeper and more interesting characters than those produced by standardized Western well-being. Therefore if our society were to be transformed into yours, it would mean an improvement in certain aspects, but also a change for the worse on some particularly significant scores. It is true, no doubt, that a society cannot remain in an abyss of lawlessness, as is the case in our country. But it is also demeaning for it to elect such mechanical legalistic smoothness as you have. After the suffering of decades of violence and oppression, the human soul longs for things higher, warmer and purer than those offered by today's mass living habits, introduced by the revolting invasion of publicity, by TV stupor and by intolerable music.
All this is visible to observers from all the worlds of our planet. The Western way of life is less and less likely to become the leading model.
There are meaningful warnings that history gives a threatened or perishing society. Such are, for instance, the decadence of art, or a lack of great statesmen. There are open and evident warnings, too. The center of your democracy and of your culture is left without electric power for a few hours only, and all of a sudden crowds of American citizens start looting and creating havoc. The smooth surface film must be very thin, then, the social system quite unstable and unhealthy.
But the fight for our planet, physical and spiritual, a fight of cosmic proportions, is not a vague matter of the future; it has already started. The forces of Evil have begun their decisive offensive, you can feel their pressure, and yet your screens and publications are full of prescribed smiles and raised glasses. What is the joy about?..."
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