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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: epicure who wrote (142177)	8/8/2010 9:58:16 AM
From: Paul Smith	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 540836

I understand what you are saying. Let me explain my thoughts. Of course forgiveness is a wonderful action. Setting that aside, let's say an asian person does something bad to you and you call him a racist name. That is unacceptable, bad behavior, etc. However, it does not make you a racist. In that example, it is clear that you have negative feelings toward the person that harmed you but it is not clear that you also have negative feelings toward an entire race. Explained a different way, blacks will sometimes call another black a "ni****" and it is my assumption that they are referring to that select person and not their entire racial group. Long way of saying that names are bad but the use of a name may not by itself mean that a person is a racist. Being a racist is a very serious charge that implies very widespread feelings.

To: epicure who wrote (142177)	8/8/2010 10:29:41 AM
From: Suma	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 540836

One of my issues in even posting on a thread is to expose all of us to different ways of viewing events. Isn't it really boring when we all agree. ? I love it when we rock the boat. It elicits at least some different perspectives. That is one thing Alter net does. However, it is a progressive publication and I acknowledge it has one tact. But gee... how refreshing. For example, right now I am reading THE GOOD SOLDIERS by David Finkel. It is a story written by a reporter who embedded himself with troops in Iraq. It is one of the saddest most pathetic books that I could be reading and I ask myself why do I do this to myself. It certainly is not an uplifting book but one thing is does.. It forces one to face REALITY a word that half of our population does not even want to know. We have this political agenda as to what we should believe and what is RIGHT and Patriotic to believe and we let the true facts go the way of Glenn Beck's...and his ilk... My friends think I am crazy to read a book like THE GOOD SOLDIERS. However, I am once again given an example of what we are told by our government and what is really happening. This is not a political book. In fact it won the Pulitzer Price for 2009. BUT when reading it bit by bit one can see all the good intentions in the world that we are offered as to why we we in Iraq and Afghanistan are hog wash. We are not creating a democracy. We are not even creating any good will. Look at the way these medical persons who were there to help the Afgan people were just murdered and called spies. It make my heart break. But you know if you don't like the water don't come in. If you don't want ideas in opposition to yours don't read the post. However Paul you have seen fit to say that it breeds hate in me to have posted this. I do have hate. I have hate for a lot of things and if I even unleashed some of the hate I have in me for the boondoggle war we are in. OR for the injustices in this country. AND for the bull we are fed every day without anyone really caring to find the facts or know the truth... I am a truth seeker. Sources do matter.. Does anyone have any idea how many years our country has been at war or what it has done to our economy or how many employees the Pentagon has or why we need a war so that we produce the arms necessary to effect a war. We get a report on the dead but we don't hear about the legs, arms,body parts and the crap our soldiers have to go through because of these IEDs and Suicide bombers and how are we going to stop them. By killing them ? I am on Sunday rant for which I apologize but yes Paul I do have some hate in me. It's what keeps me going. AND behind all anger is terrible HURT. Remember that. HURT.

To: epicure who wrote (142177)	8/9/2010 10:16:53 AM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 540836

In defense of McCain (shudder), the word "gook" was almost universally used by in country GIs to describe not the Vietnamese people but rather the guys who were shooting at Americans. That's not to say that many soldiers didn't lump all Vietnamese, or maybe even all Southeast Asians, together but many didn't. I'm sure that McCain and his fellow prisoners used the term "gook" to refer to their captors but that alone does not indicate that they held racist views toward the people of an entire nation. I'm not saying it was the thing to do but you'd have had a hard time living through that experience without internalizing the shorthand language of that war. So maybe that difference in definition could explain what McCain meant. I seem to recall that he was instrumental, along with Kerry, in restoring relations with Vietnam. Most of us got past such usages but I can see that there would be times, especially from a guy who lived through what McCain did, where vivid memories would bring back old feelings and the words that went with them. Ed