What is the Opposite of Greed?

I was executive vice-president of an investment firm dealing in strategic metals back in the 80's. `Strue. I took home so much money I had a car and a motorcycle and my monthly bills only took 3 of my 4 weekly checks. The boss laundered money for a bogus client, and I bailed on what was, at the time, my biggest ever income.

It's not so hard to walk away from small money. Walking away from big money is harder. But walking away from HUGE money, and into serious peril, is a miracle.

Regardless of the rightness or wrongness of going to war in Afghanistan to get oil and, maybe, UBL, when Pat Tillman had a personal conviction far greater than the Almighty Dollar, and beat the odds to become an Army Ranger, he walked away from millions and into the valley of the shadow of death.

The love of money is so huge these days (and I have a good dose of it my own self) that to find a man who has priorities above and beyond bucks is just very cool, to me.

I admire Pat Tillman, and wish even 1 in 100 Americans had the character and conviction he had. And I wish I was one of that 1%. Not talking about what he chose to do, but what he chose to leave for something he felt was of greater value. He said about his decision that he wanted to give something back for the comfortable life he had enjoyed. How many people really feel like that, and even act on it?

When you look up "generosity" in the dictionary, I hope you see Mr. Tillman's picture.

That's all the salute I can think of, and it's weak, but I wanted to write SOMEthing.

Sound-Bite Scurvy

A dear friend told me he was, frankly, too lazy to read any report from the 9-11 Commission, so he thought airing out the testimonies in public was good for him. He only has time, he says, for sound-bites.

I mentioned a few people I considered to be stupid or foolish, but after I heard them at some length, and in context (such as in the 9-11 hearings I followed by satellite radio), I discovered that selected short-quotes could not accurately convey the actual breadth and depth of a public figure's thought. So, I submitted to my friend, that if he made his "Monumental Decisions" on how to vote, etc., based on edited and spun nibbles of information, his decisions are based on scraps from the table of knowledge. It takes time to feast and there is some discomfort later from being so full ... but decision making from a "starved" table of information is socio-political anorexia. It leads to "scrawny" policies, "skinny" political character, and a lot of skeletons scattered around the world.

Reality-Vision

The term "reality TV" to refer to back-stabbing "game shows" like "Survivor" is more media bullshit. Nothing "real" about it. "Cops" is REALITY television.

"Fear Factor" is a game show.

So-called "reality" TV bores the crap out of me and represents the WORST elements of American television. It demands little or no creativity on the part of the producers and participants. Then again, traditional game shows don't require very much either ... just "research" to come up with all the questions and answers and tests, etc. I can understand people watching it. These are the sort of folks who (a) tend to be very empathetic and really "get into" seeing "real people" competing, even in such contrived circumstances, and/or (b) enjoy gawking at car wreck scenes.

"Talent" shows, like "American Idol" have some basis for interest if you find the participants ("Oh, look how nice she looks in those tight Partici pants!") or in "industry" to be fascinating. There could/should be similar shows to "Idol" but where singing is not the "test" ... like a show where a bunch of digital graphic artists come up with a series of artwork or animations and every week the public votes on who doesn't advance forward to the end. Using 3D technology, there could be an architectural contest, too.

Calling these shows "reality" TV is just the lowest of media spin-hype.

Theocracy

I was raised liberal Democrat. Save the UN and all hail the spotted owl. Then I got "borned a-grin" and went conservative ... but I STILL believed that gummint had no bidness in religion. If a local community wants a nativity scene (or a freakin menorah!) on the courthouse lawn ... none of the gummint's bidness. If the local community wants NO SCENE on the lawn ... ditto. Government is not supposed to ignore, avoid, quash or oppose religion ... just keep out of it.

Having said all of that, even when I was religious, I did not believe Washington had any business making law from religion (like an amendment against gay marriage). Wrong, wrong, wrong.

I Rack

I am not a particularly aggressive, violent person. I have some of the genes that cause me to enjoy good action or war movies, and I am crazy about video arcade games of shooting (Time Crisis 3, anyone?) and even martial arts brawling (Soul Caliber!). But in REAL life I find violence to be, at best, a shameful necessity in the final event.

Having said all of that: LOCK AND LOAD!

It is frustrating beyond description to be the "only one" who seems to recall Vietnam in the "detail" of one who was sweating the draft, personally, and dealing with it as a subject in many classes in high school.

Iraq is similar to Vietnam in too many ways. Among those ways, the military is being used to impose a political agenda on a people who resist that agenda ... and because of this, the military is being directed (read "hamstrung") by political whims and maneuvers at home.

"In country," the military is trained and equipped to kick ass. At home the people want to see "our boys" as Boy Scouts handing chocolates to kiddies. Then we wonder why we hear about so many soldiers dying "over there" and wring our hands and want to bring them safely home and let those nasty "sand niggers" just rot. Such ingratitude from those silly, ignorant savages!

Makes me want to puke. They didn't ASK us to come over, but we went anyway, and now we're there. Vietnam is still a third world heap. Kosovo is not pacified. Korea is a divided pile of dynamite waiting for a spark ... and possibly a nuclear one. Now we have gone to bring the blessed light of Democracy! (tm) to the trodden-down Iraqis ... and they're murdering foreign civilians and soldiers in response.

In Vietnam the military was reviled for using force that injured civilians, and were given unrealistic "boundaries" as if it were some sporting event. This is happening again in Iraq.

When America was in danger of invasion, the attitude of the public was, generally, "Fight them wherever they are and use whatever means to stop them from getting to us and damaging us." "The Greatest Generation" carpet-bombed Berlin (predominantly occupied by civilians) and nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But in "police actions" that had nothing to do with actual, domestic security from a foreign military, we treat it like, well, a POLICE action. We want the other side to be Mirandized and our troops to make sure they don't bump their heads (to protect against later lawsuits) when they get in the squad car.

That's not what the military is for. Never was. The military purpose is to KILL anyone who tries to kill us. That sounds ugly, and it is. Losing sight of this raw reality has caused our civilian government, weighed down by civilian constituents, to try to redefine the military as cops-in-green. Sadly, the rest of the world sees the military as dangerous elements, like the fangs of a tiger or the claws of a bear, and to be avoided, or destroyed, on sight. Our twisted, television-sanitized view of the military as a Saturday morning cartoon "Peace Patrol" has caused us to send these young men and women into harms way anywhere and anytime we feel like we can afford it. Utter madness.

So, regardless of whether or not we ever SHOULD have gone over to "liberate" Iraq (at bayonet point), we ARE there now, and the military needs to be allowed and COMMANDED to do their horrible, primary and primal duty, which is to kill quickly, effectively, and unstoppably ... until resistance is over. And if we don't have the stomach for that, we have no business sending these bright young people to a foreign land in the first place.

If you send them, USE them, and use them correctly. Then bring them the hell home to recover from having been an instrument of political aims, killing others so that we might win elections, gain monopoly business contracts, and secure relatively cheap oil.

Similarly, Americans got embarrassed about the unsportsmanlike Spy Game of our CIA and decided that it was "WRONG" to sneak around and steal and murder other spies and things overseas. What right did we have to send these legalized criminals to foreign lands and "meddle" in their affairs. Why, that's the job of Presidents using the military, isn't it?

So we lost our advanced intelligence-gathering (and pre-emptive foreign operations) industry because we felt like it was immoral. NOW we need our once-superior intel community to inform our military where and when to strike, but we don't have those assets anymore.

And Americans wonder why other nations see us as dangerous clowns and babies. We dismiss the (relatively) hundreds of spies who made it impossible for others to get far enough ahead of us that they might conquer us ... then we send the tens of thousands of soldiers to take up the slack. Typical inefficiency ... using tens of thousands of soldiers to do what hundreds of agents once did. AND to tell these soldiers to "play nice."

HELL no. Kick them in the balls. Light their hair on fire. Shoot them in the kneecaps and elbows and stomachs until they tell you where the leaders are. Use bullets and knives and bombs until they no longer offer serious resistance ... THEN play nice and help them rebuild what we destroyed.

And if Americans REALLY can't handle being such "meanies" to act this way ... stop sending the military to screw with other countries. If you touch the stove, you get burned. Grow up and deal with it.