This XML file does not appear to have any style information associated with it. The document tree is shown below.
<livejournal>
<entry>
<itemid>20766</itemid>
<eventtime>2007-02-07 23:08:00</eventtime>
<logtime>2007-02-08 04:08:36</logtime>
<subject>Enron, Smartest Guys in the Room</subject>
<event>
Need to see <i>Fahrenheit 9/11</i> now. The so-called-trashing of these documentaries as having a 'liberal' agenda, over time looks more and more ridiculous. I have friends who still argue with me about Global Warming. The more facts come out over time about the issues that these people have been hiding, the more I come to understand where people I talk to get their information, and what sources of information are actually reliable. The one thing that this documentary taught me more than anything (since I read the news often and already knew the facts on a high level that they outlined) was just how blatantly a conspiracy or diabolical behavior can take place right in front of our eyes, and we let it happen. The film quite clearly links a direct correlation between the Bush Family, Governor Swatzinagor and this corporation. I quite clearly remember my friends telling me that California's problems were a result of excess regulation and not a deliberate manipulation of free markets by people in Enron. So you'll pardon me if I suddenly wake up and realize that the John McCain I saw in 2000, isn't the same guy. People change, and sometimes not for the better. Any time someone says to me, "Trust Me" and engages in secret operations by hiding their internal figures and books is up to something. I don't care who they are. The more secret you act, the more you have something to hide, and there is no one with more secrets and more cloak and dagger operations than Bush. He isn't popular right now because of the War in Iraq, but most republicans are STILL unwilling to believe that he is engaged in the type of conspiracies like the guys in Enron are. I get recycled rumors about Nancy Pelosi and her 'corporate jet' or all kinds of back channel emails from members of my own ward (who are not supposed to use the email I gave them for church purposes for political propaganda btw) who show where all of this rumor-lying-spinning comes from. Quite frankly, they don't want to know the truth. Feeling you are holier than others is a powerful high...why would you ever want to question that? They know what they're doing and have nothing whatsoever to hide. Just like Skilling and Ken Lay. You'll pardon me if I'm not trying to be balanced any more. Sure, there are some screwed up democratic/liberal issues that I certainly don't agree with, but it just doesn't hold a candle to what the conservative side is doing in terms of deluding themselves...and the truth of the matter is, aside from some minor word changes in speeches, most of them are saying and thinking exactly the same thing they were before.
</event>
<security>public</security>
<allowmask>0</allowmask>
<current_music/>
<current_mood/>
</entry>
<entry>
<itemid>21062</itemid>
<eventtime>2007-02-08 23:22:00</eventtime>
<logtime>2007-02-09 04:39:55</logtime>
<subject>An ephinany</subject>
<event>
So I was going to be posting today about Hugo Chavez. Hugo Chavez is the poster child about what happens when one goes too far in the 'liberal' direction. He is turning a nation that had enough problems, and that is rich and florishing with oil, into another Zimbabwe. <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/64a6dd80-b7a7-11db-bfb3-0000779e2340.html">This</a> is what happens when the government messes around with the economy too much. Summary: People start starving to death. This is why the Soviet Union lost the cold war. Quite frankly, it is true. Rampant cold ruthless capitalism that crushes the livelihood and dreams of millions for the benefit of a few still through private industry still beats the same thing but under the hands of the state. Adam Smith actually did have a good idea when he talked about the invisible hand. More over, I have learned recently that he never advocated unregulated monopolies. Think I need to read <i>The Wealth of Nations</i>. Having said that....I still couldn't figure it out. How could the conservative friends I have espouse virtues that were essentially...well...quite frankly monstrous. On the surface they might point to Chavez that the alternative is worse, but Europe has more socialized medicine and is doing OK. It is true, the economy is floundering in France right now because it is impossible to fire someone, but that's not quite the same thing as people starving to death and becoming homeless because they couldn't pay their medical bills. I have one friend in particular who is a pure abstract social darwinist. He is a benevolent compassionate individual to his friends, but when I ask about even rudimentary government provided health care, he says that 'some people are too stupid to live'. These people know in abstract that their policy of ambivalence toward their leaders is that people are having their lives ruined, that they are dying and that they are suffering incredible pain, but that 'is the price we pay for freedom. We can't help everyone.' OK....look. Sometimes the government is a worse solution. Yes, the health care system in England is somewhat bad, because there are long lines and someone frequently has to wait a long time to get the operation they need. What...as compared to someone with no health insurance not even being able to get antibiotics? The truth of the matter is that most people simply don't care if it isn't someone they know. Jennifer made the observation that many times with these people, the more alike they are to the conservative individual, the more compassionate they are, but those who are different racially and culturally are much easier to dehumanize. So I think the reason that Liberalism is starting to attract my attention is because, as a whole, liberals are more honestly charitable. Conservatives spout religious values, and they exhibit demonstratably charitable acts, but many times it is either to someone who shares the same religious faith or ethnic centrality that they do, or it is an attempt to advocate their particular perspective. Liberals do it because they honestly believe in doing the right thing to other people. I almost have to wonder if being secular makes it EASIER to do good for the right reason, because one is never tempted to do it for brownie points for God or the rest of the congregation. There are, of course, many compassionate conserviatives. They do honestly exist, but by and large the ones that still support Bush seem to be willing to bend over backward to find any excuse to dismiss obvious evidence of crimes of inaction and inhumanity. I am often asked, 'What crime has president Bush committed?' They agree that the War in Iraq has been poorly managed, but they don't pay much attention to things like his complete failure to act to help the citizens of New Orleans after Katrina ("all government is incompotent, including the democratic mayor of New Orleans (who they reelected"), or his failure to ensure that 'the decider' is getting the funds congress sent them to help rebuild (they don't have an answer to that one, except I can tell you what my one extreme Social Darwinist friend would say, 'It's not his job. They haven't tried to get the money through the beuracracy hard enough.') They ignore the fact that he basically sat on his hands while California was being raped by Enron, because President Bush wanted to protect free markets. Look...one coincidence is possible...The Bush Family is friends with the Bin Laden family. Two coincidences is suspicious but ensures plausible deniability...the Bush Family is in like flint with Ken Lay and Enron.... Three concidences and you're starting to be an idiot if you don't pay attention to them...like Bush's brother being governor in the state that got him the election... Four...like the fact that Kerry and Bush were both members of the same secret society... Just how many coincidences like the rolling blackouts in California do we have to see before we wake up and realize that these aren't just coinicdences anymore but another Enron in the White House. They're hiding things like mad. And conservatives will do whatever it takes to defend him. They have finally gotten to the point where they will grumble about the Iraq war, but that's it....they won't question anything else. Even if the light is shown on the Bush White House...honestly? Most of them won't change their minds about anything. The conservative spin doctors will send rumors and counter arguments through back channel chain emails with flags, and pictures of mexican immigrants putting a mexican flag over the US flag at a US high school and they will go on believing what they want to believe. Because all they need is just enough evidence to give them a reason to believe it...because they want to.
</event>
<security>public</security>
<allowmask>0</allowmask>
<current_music/>
<current_mood/>
</entry>
<entry>
<itemid>21485</itemid>
<eventtime>2007-02-13 23:42:00</eventtime>
<logtime>2007-02-14 04:43:31</logtime>
<subject>Well....</subject>
<event>
I for one do not hesitate in saying that 3000 lives spent on a war for personal revenge was 'wasted'...and further more I must wonder about the spine of anyone who is so afraid of his own words that he can't say the truth without apologizing for it the next day. <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/02/13/obama.apology.ap/index.html">Obama apologizes for something he doesn't need to apologize for</a> Not a 'I am now writing him off' step, but it is a 'Yellow Alert: Politician acting like a politician instead of a real person' flag. Yellow Flag.
</event>
<security>public</security>
<allowmask>0</allowmask>
<current_music/>
<current_mood/>
</entry>
<entry>
<itemid>21720</itemid>
<eventtime>2007-02-25 23:00:00</eventtime>
<logtime>2007-02-26 04:24:18</logtime>
<subject>Forgiveness vs Justice</subject>
<event>
How far do you persue justice? <lj-cut>I read a lot of news. I've been particularly watching the governments of Thailand, Zimbabwe and Venezuela. Zimbabwe is basically distingrating from within and, despite numerous attempts by the government to protest it as a "vast western conspiracy" the fact is that their most productive agricultural land was effectively stolen from white farmers (who stole it from others before them) and that the people put on the land were political cronies of the President of Zimbabwe and who had essentially no qualifications as to being a farmer except that they agreed with Mugabe (the president of Zimbabwe). The pretext for taking this land was that their ancestors had the land stolen from them by the white farmers several generations ago. While it does appear that some collusion to disrupt their economy IS actually taking place, no one can blame the farm situation on anything but themselves. So is the cost of this justice the starvation of everyone in the country? Venezuela, a nation close to my heart because of the time I spent there, is starting to go the same way. Reports are starting to hit the mainstream media of massive shortages. The government blames 'greedy capitalists' who are hoarding the vital commodities because of Government mandates on prices. Sometimes price regulation is a necessary thing, as is the case of Enron in this country..if private industry is not held in check, then it will rape and pillage the common man simply because it can. Convserly, when the rights of private property are not preserved, then the rule of Law breaks down and thus does most any advanced economy. What person is going to raise and sell crops at below the cost of making them simply so the government can steal it? Venezuela had corrupt and incompotent leaders who ruled and pillaged the country's oil wealth for decades, and were never held to account for it. Thus, the masses of impoverished Veneuzelans are outraged, and demand justice. They are getting many beneficial social programs, for free, from Hugo Chavez, who is empowered by the vast majority of his people to seek this justice that they feel that they are desperately owed...but where does it stop? They have rewritten the constitution twice, and now all voices of dissent are being silenced. Justice is being used as a pretext to destroy their society. Tailand is at the tip of the slide of Venezuela or Zimbabwe, only with a much more conservative government. The 'elite' felt their power being taken by the masses, and have destroyed democracy in a coup de etat, only to show in recent months that they are utterly incompotent. Foreign investors are already leaving in droves, and they have threatened the press on multiple occasions. Both sides are demanding 'justice' at the expense of the common man. I notice two powerful men who achieved true and lasting social change...Ghandi and Martin Luther King. Neither initiated violent protests, nor were they politically naive. They ran extremely sophisticated non violent organizations and achieved far more change than many others who wanted to demand 'Justice' by taking blood from a pound of flesh. 'Justice' only accomplishes something if there is a corresponding mercy. At some point, for a society or an individual to change, you have to 'let it go'. And yet, conversely if the opression continues over centuries, is there not a difference between 'letting it go' and 'giving up'? At what point does one end and the other begin? I don't have all the answers, but of particular concern has been my thoughts on President Bush. Is it really the right thing to wait the 40-50 years it will take to prosecute the man? Does anyone really think that it was a good idea to forgive the Nazi war criminals that were hunted until they were 80-90 years old? Do their crimes transend their deaths and go to their descendants? Coorporations are certainly being asked to account for the blood money that they earned in WWII...and many leaders are asking the same for companies that benefited during slavery as a result. One man's justice is another mans blood thirsty witch hunt? And another thing....is a deliberate gaming of the system in the belief that people will forget about one's crimes a higher mandate? At what point does my calling as a Christian demand that I forgive vs my understanding as a rational being that to fail to persue justice in most cases will encourage the next man to break the law? What of dictators like Pinnochet, who committed horrific attrocities in his administration, yet stepped aside voluntarily? How many dictators have gone into exile in a chance to offer their country a chance to heal? Many people say that if the Batthists had been forgiven when we invaded Iraq, then we would not have the civil war we currently see happening there.....and a sane person can see the difference between the average Bath party member and Saddam Hussain and his inner circle...then again...how 'inner' does that circle have to be? I think generally speaking, the best way to judge where the line is is on a case by case basis....I think another important qualification is the truth behind why one is seeking justice...is it being done in a professional, caring manner, with room for forgiveness of the innocent or is it done with pitchforks and torches demanding blood in the streets? I don't have all the answers. I really don't. But I do know in my heart that there is a time where you have to let it go. Forgiveness is the ultimate and only way to move forward as a society.....so to me at least I guess the question is.....the question in the line is three fold 1)To what degree do you think prosecutation of the crime will deter others from taking action in the future? 2)At what point are you more concerned about your future than your past, for until you resolve the past, you cannot focus on the future? 3)Who is your justice really serving, and...most important of all, will that be the end of it? Are you truly capable of stopping at some point and letting the rest go? I do know this....Justice must be served....to simply shrug the duty of an intelligent and caring person by letting those who have committed greiveous and willful acts against society go free is simply...wrong, on a level that I cannot explain at the moment with well founded by rational words. There must be justice. But I also know that there must be forgiveness. And I know that ultimately, despite the necessity of some justice to enable the soveriegnty of the present and the dignity of the past, the true power lies in the future. Societies that embrace the future embrace power. While there is grace in the moment, and wonder in the past, those who look with hope to a better tomorrow and work for it today are those societies that rise above their problems and find solutions, as compared to those who rot and wither in the vines of bitter stagnation. Forgiveness really is divine, at least divinity as I see it. It is creation, not destruction. It is hope, not despair. Too much forgiveness, and even forgiveness becomes meaningless, but too much Justice and all you will be is blind and toothless. May we all have the wisdom to know when and how to forgive, and let the justice of the matter find its own way. I will forgive many, I believe, as many as the Lord asks of me, which is all, but I think in my heart of hearts, that that justice which I persue shall be of those who know of their guilt and believe that they can escape it because they are better than other men....I don't have all of the answers, but I will not allow those who have used the good hearts and minds of this nation by deception and doublethink to sneak through the cracks of justice. Not if I have anything to say about it. Not that I do, actually, have much to say about it. I am learning, I am growing, and I am still finding answers to set my soul free. Someday I will have those answers, though I have a few now. Time will tell. Time is the great arbiter of truth and perspective, and it is refining my vision with each passing day. Hopefully it will help others to do so as well.</lj-cut>
</event>
<security>public</security>
<allowmask>0</allowmask>
<current_music/>
<current_mood/>
</entry>
</livejournal>
No comments:
Post a Comment