Osama Bin Laden DEAD- Killed By U.S. Forces

[The Good Michael]

Derrick,

I agree with that completely. A nomadic lifestyle kept the brirthrate down and forced people to share the burden. There were most assuredly alpha males and females, but I think folks were genuinely happier then. Now everyone barricades themselves in their homes and worries about the stuff they've accumulated. I am travelling the world and teaching and accumlating nothing but a savings account for when I can no longer do what I do. I loan stuff to people and don't care if I get it back, because it's just stuff and there's always more of it. I am so much happier than when I worked in the corporate world or when I was in the military. I have no desire to be a boss, but I often find that I am in charge of stuff. For me being in charge means getting the work done and not giving it to others. Let's blame religion and 'stuff' for losing that lifestyle. Yet, I kind of got it back.

Mike

[Natalie Severn]

I sometimes wonder though how everybody 'got on' back in those days;its nice to think we all sat round a log fire and sang songs and enjoyed each other -'grooming' each other after a long day's foraging in the forest in our animal skins.Mind I have seen some very moving programmes on tv about gorilla communities which work extremely well -that is until a rival gang show up then the fur certainly flew--and a few teeth.There may even have been a bit of prejudice going on about the red headed orangutangs by the gorillas---

[Bob Hinton]

There was no controlling ownership of land because people kept moving around from one place to another, nomadically following animals and foraging on the available vegetables and fruit.

Derrick

Unfortunately Derrick does not live in the real world but in a fantasy. Nomadic existence relied on destruction of flora and fauna. Nomads would settle in an area, strip it completely and then move to the next site.

Survival relied upon not returning to the ground you had ruined until nature had taken its course and repaired the damage.

The American Indians, long held to be masters of living with nature, practiced this type of life. They fouled the streams, killed the bison, damaged the grass and then moved on. The problem arose when more people started to encroach on the lands that they were damaging.

You can see exactly the same thing happening in Africa today. The tribes move to an area, destroy it and then move on, unfortunately with more and more people trying to live off the same bit of land this no longer works. That is why they are hit the hardest in times of drought and famine – they have no back up.

There was an advert on TV some time ago showing an African herdsman with his goats. The goats had actually climbed a tree and were eating the topmost leaves. Very amusing until you realised with the goats eating the leaves and the people cutting branches for wood the tree dies. When that happens the roots die, the soil loosens and soon the fertile topsoil is blown away with the first strong wind, as happened in the Midwest of America in the twenties.

No soil, no crops, no crops no food, no food no people.

That is why nomadic life came to end ten thousand years ago when people stopped being hunter gatherers and started becoming farmers in the Euphrates Valley. They stopped just taking from the land and started looking after it.

[caz]

Hi Caz

I think it's rather eccentric to compare capital punishment to witch-burning and sending boys up chimneys.

Are you now telling me that liberals are dishonest? You are saying that a liberal jury member will refuse to convict a defendant, even though the jury member is convinced of the defendant's guilt, simply because the jury member disapproves of capital punishment. Is that not against the oath of a jury member?

In any case, those whose consciences will not permit them to bring in a guilty verdict on a murder trial, could always apply for exemption before the trial starts - though that might create a sudden deluge of "liberals" all desperate to dodge jury service.

As for emotion, well of course we want the juries to reach a decision on the evidence. But emotion works both ways. I can just see what would happen if we ever did get a referendum on capital punishment : the dear old BBC would suddenly decide to show "Yield To The Night." Plus of course, the Archbishop of Canterbury would pop up with heart-rending appeals for "compassion" blah blah blah. This is emotionalism too.

Hi Robert,

Well you've outlined here, far better than I could, just a few of the reasons why bringing back the death penalty in the UK (via a referendum or any other means) would almost certainly not have the desired result. Like you, I see chaos in the courts, with jury service dodgers being indistinguishable from the conscientious objectors. I just don’t think it could work in today’s society, whether we like it or not. Our views on the rights and wrongs of it are neither here nor there.

I was merely comparing capital punishment to witch-burning and sending boys up chimneys in the sense that none of them are coming back in the UK anytime soon. It may not be eccentric to wish it were otherwise (in the case of capital punishment, I mean), but I do think it's eccentric to imagine it could work again in practice.

Love,

Caz
X

[Robert]

Hi Caz

You conjure up images of a strike by the liberals. We might see liberals refusing to serve on juries, liberal judges refusing to try cases, liberal vote counters refusing to count the referendum votes in case the "wrong" result is chosen. In fact, the liberals might withdraw from public life altogether.

You may say I'm a dreamer....

[Errata]

Anyway I notice some comments about dreamers. Sorry to disillusion you we do not need dreamers – we need doers. I remember seeing Rudy Giuliani being interviewed and the interviewer asked him why he had changed from being a Democrat to being a Republican. He replied that the Democrats were always talking about how things could get better – the Republicans actually made sure they did. Whenever I hear a politician banging on about visions for the future I remember that interview!

I admit I am a flaming liberal. I was raised that way. I was politically active by the time I was 14, and since then I have not run into anything to change my mind on this.

I will never say we don't need doers. But we do need dreamers. We need both in equal measure. We don't have that, but if we did, well oh the places we'll go!

But I am a dreamer. And I am a doer. And I pick my battles carefully. And I have been known to bow out when the personal sacrifice got too high. I believe universal health care would be a magnificent thing. But I don't know how to do it, so I don't shout about it. I believe that there should never be another abortion in this country without dire medical need. Not because I think it's a sin and should be illegal, but because the prevention of pregnancy should be as easy and as ingrained as taking asprin for a headache. THAT I know how to do. THAT I throw my effort in.

I am the first generation who essentially views throwing trash out your car window the same as using a racial slur. Not much you can do about it once it's happened, but you tell the person "What is wrong with you?? That is NOT okay!! What are you a sociopath?" I have cousins a few years older who don't throw stuff out the window because they don't want to get yelled at. I actually just cant do it. I'm not a hippie, I don't recycle, and in the list of my battles saving the planet is not high on the list. But when I was a kid, the education I received on not littering stuck. hard. This we can replicate.

Giuliani can make as many flip arguments as he likes about Democrats and Republicans. Most people do. Another favorite is "Anyone who is a Republican before 30 doesn't have a heart, and anyone who is a Democrat after 30 doesn't have a brain". Giuliani's reasons for switching are his own. Many people do. I can however guarantee you that he did not feel he was not getting enough done as a Democrat. He was working for the US attorney's office at the time, and the only impact his political party would make was whether or not higher ups would take him on to bigger and better things. And I don't know if that's why he switched, or if that helped or hurt him, but I do know that's the only time it matters in a State's Attorney's Office. Otherwise he spent his time as a working prosecutor.

It's not simple one was or the other. If we have doers and no dreamers, then all the doers are doing is what was done before. And nothing gets better. All dreamers and we have a lot of very frustrated people and nothing gets better. People have the right to want a better life. They have the right to work for it. They have the right to try. If you don't want anything better than you have, for yourself or society that's okay too. But I will tell you something... No one who knows me says I am a dreamer. They say I am a fighter. And I lose sometimes, but I'm not afraid of the battle.

[Natalie Severn]

Good thoughts Errata.......and as Shelley said,"Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the World".
Martin Luther King had a dream and lots of it has come true.Did he ever dream about America electing a black president?

[Jonathan H]

As far as the United States goes, it was liberals -- to use the word broadly as it includes progressive Republicans such as Theodore Roosevelt -- who pushed for reforms, eg. the graduated income tax system, industrial safety laws, the Wagner Act, Civil Rights, and so on, which were resisted, often fiercely, by conservatives -- again using the word broadly.

In days gone by, Jesus was a Democrat, as exemplified by the career of William Jennings Bryan, who opposed the teaching of evolution because he feared that it's survival-of-the-fittest ethos would play into the hands of ruthless corporations.

Today the Christian Right is an oblivious fig-leaf for corporate greed.

It was liberals in the 30's who were itching to fight Hitler, when it was conservatives who were prepared to let England go down the gurgler. Yet in the Cold War the same America-Firster reactionaries wanted to fight Communism anywhere and everywhere, but mostly as a stick with which to beat liberals back home as fellow-travelers.

Of course there were Soviet spies (like Alger Hiss) but that's a police matter. And yes, there were sensible, conservative centrists like Ike, who had to justify the building of the super-highway system as a matter of 'national security' (to try and be fair, Richard M. Nixon was an internationalist too who helped bring down Joe McCarthy, whilst the latter was a family friend of the Kennedy's).

In Australia and Britain the modern two-party system was built by doers; the trade union movement, which created our respective Labour (in my country it's spelt without the u) parties to redress the class injustices in society, and provide opportunities for the proletariat and small farmers which would never have existed without pushing for it via strike action and the ballot box.

[Natalie Severn]

Thanks Jonathan.A great summary.

[jason_c]

As far as the United States goes, it was liberals -- to use the word broadly as it includes progressive Republicans such as Theodore Roosevelt -- who pushed for reforms, eg. the graduated income tax system, industrial safety laws, the Wagner Act, Civil Rights, and so on, which were resisted, often fiercely, by conservatives -- again using the word broadly.

In days gone by, Jesus was a Democrat, as exemplified by the career of William Jennings Bryan, who opposed the teaching of evolution because he feared that it's survival-of-the-fittest ethos would play into the hands of ruthless corporations.

Today the Christian Right is an oblivious fig-leaf for corporate greed.

It was liberals in the 30's who were itching to fight Hitler, when it was conservatives who were prepared to let England go down the gurgler. Yet in the Cold War the same America-Firster reactionaries wanted to fight Communism anywhere and everywhere, but mostly as a stick with which to beat liberals back home as fellow-travelers.

Of course there were Soviet spies (like Alger Hiss) but that's a police matter. And yes, there were sensible, conservative centrists like Ike, who had to justify the building of the super-highway system as a matter of 'national security' (to try and be fair, Richard M. Nixon was an internationalist too who helped bring down Joe McCarthy, whilst the latter was a family friend of the Kennedy's).

In Australia and Britain the modern two-party system was built by doers; the trade union movement, which created our respective Labour (in my country it's spelt without the u) parties to redress the class injustices in society, and provide opportunities for the proletariat and small farmers which would never have existed without pushing for it via strike action and the ballot box.

And vice versa. It was these same liberals who were often softer on Communism than they had been on Fascism during the war. The same liberal Roosevelt who had a gaping blind spot for Joe Stalin. There are too many liberals who did become fellow travellers - Joseph E Davies, Lillian Hellman, Walter Durranty. All these and many many more denied an ongoing holocaust. We had just as many of these apologists in the UK. So please dont suggest a moral supremacy to liberals in morality contest.

And Alger Hiss was just the tip of a very nasty iceberg. McCarthy was mostly a decade too late. If McCarthy knew what we know now im sure he would feel fully vindicated(this isnt to agree with his methods). The 1930's and 40's was the high point of Soviet espionage. An espionage carried out by the left to aid a totalitarian regime. Again, dont claim any moral high ground please.

[Phil H]

Jonathan wrote:to use the word broadly as it includes progressive Republicans such as Theodore Roosevelt --

Jason C wrote: The same liberal Roosevelt who had a gaping blind spot for Joe Stalin.

I may be misreading the thread, but if Jason's remark about the "same" Roosevelt refers to Jonathan's post, then he has the wrong man!

Theodore Roosevelt was US President before WWI and thus before the Russian revolution of 1917.

Franklin D Roosevelt was President 1933-44 and met Stalin at various wartime conferences.

Phil

[jason_c]

Jonathan wrote:to use the word broadly as it includes progressive Republicans such as Theodore Roosevelt --

Jason C wrote: The same liberal Roosevelt who had a gaping blind spot for Joe Stalin.

I may be misreading the thread, but if Jason's remark about the "same" Roosevelt refers to Jonathan's post, then he has the wrong man!

Theodore Roosevelt was US President before WWI and thus before the Russian revolution of 1917.

Franklin D Roosevelt was President 1933-44 and met Stalin at various wartime conferences.

Phil

Phil

Sorry, I wasnt directly replying to Jonathan's mention of Teddy Roosevelt.

I deliberately mentioned FDR. He was the high priest of American liberalism for decades. Roosevelt turned a blind eye to all sorts of humanitarian abuses in the USSR(I could name countless other liberals who did the same). Yet Jonathan attempted to claim a moral superiority of liberals in foreign affairs during this time.

Anyone who still stands by this liberal superiority in foreign affairs need only google Joseph E Davies.

[Phil H]

Thanks for the clarification, Jason.

Phil

[Derrick]

That is why nomadic life came to end ten thousand years ago when people stopped being hunter gatherers and started becoming farmers in the Euphrates Valley. They stopped just taking from the land and started looking after it.

Priceless....

After all of the agricultural disasters, wars and displacement of peoples onto vast pollution of the planet....

Our prehistoric ancestors must have left the planet in such a piss poor state for us now to have recovered to the state of man made climate change. Not that I believe that for a minute me old short arsed friend.

Well done for pointing out that we are now at least looking after the land Bob

Derrick

[Bob Hinton]

Really?

Priceless....

After all of the agricultural disasters, wars and displacement of peoples onto vast pollution of the planet....

Our prehistoric ancestors must have left the planet in such a piss poor state for us now to have recovered to the state of man made climate change. Not that I believe that for a minute me old short arsed friend.

Well done for pointing out that we are now at least looking after the land Bob

Derrick

Well that's all I can expect from someone as obviously as ignorant as you are. Yes we are looking after the land, that's why we can actually harvest crops now instead of just hoping to find some.

I would suggest if you cannot find anything more relevant to post that that nonsense you not bother - oh and by the way you would never, ever be my friend!