This is disturbing

[Artguy]

I have just lost all respect for Mr. Obama...http://news.sympatico.cbc.ca/world/anal ... y/8c1d9fc7

[Steve Plonk]

Artguy, Sounds like a US government agency needs to pay that Carriles guy a visit and take him to the "hoosegow". I heard about that guy in back channels, too.

The drones planes have been scouring out various renegade US citizens, ie. traitors, for years. One was recently found in Portugal. He was brought out alive. The secret bombings of accused, yet unindicted, in civilian courts, is
disturbing to me, also. The military courts handle the jurisdiction of traitors and
always have. Back in the old days, a traitor was summarily executed by hanging
or firing squad by military tribunals.

I still respect Obama regardless of the drones which are flying about. We
need secret weapons to hunt down traitors. If traitors are left in place,
they may do even more damage to national security. Not everyone needs
to know, nor understands the above executive jurisdiction when it comes down to brass tacks. Besides, I think every government in the world has their secret operations including your own Canada. Sure, no one would like it when
other countries go on our soil and eliminate bad guys of their own choosing.
But, this has happened before in the USA and will happen again...Look at
what the drug cartels are doing here.

War is hell and we are fighting two wars on paper. We are also fighting terrorists across the world in various "black ops". Interpol is working with us
and even Red China is working with us. These pirates and terrorists across
the world are threats to their own countries and are dangerous to world peace
and prosperity. Our county, nowadays, tries to enlist as much help from NATO
and other alliances & treaty organizations as possible. I remember when the
Organization of American States was quite powerful as well as SEATO, in Asia.
The world, itself, even the United Nations itself, may benefit from the elimination
of international criminals and so on.

[Artguy]

Life is more valuable than state. To paraphrase Plato...man has just created the worst thing possible, state.

[mnaz]

i'm to the point where i feel we'll never make any progress if we choose to continue repeating the state's propaganda as imperative wisdom and fact.

[Steve Plonk]

Artguy, I'm not certain if I seem to be playing the "devil's advocate" here or not...Sure, individual lives are important. Reaching back thousands of years to quote an elitist, like Plato, to "refute" facts in a real situation is for the birds.

Mnaz, I think buccaneers need to be dealt with as well as pirates when the political situation changes. However, perhaps the US intelligence community has a trade off with this feller in getting revenge for the failed "Bay of Pigs" ops.
Buccaneers were nation-sanctioned "pirates" in various times in history.
The US marines used pirates tactics when they fought the quasi-war back in
the late 1790s and early 1800s. All I'm saying, is that these things happen...

I support the protestors on Wall St. against the corporate machine. However,
Obama has tried to mitigate the situation and I still support him, also.

Anarchism and Libertarianism are poor substitutes for a central government.
Our respective nations are important and they are agents for the people, not
like in Libya or Egypt. I support our form of government and want to change
what is needed to change about it. I think we (USA) need to have national health care like in Canada and other places. I support many socialist ideas but still argue for a "mixed economy".

Capitalism is basically an unfair economic practice. I support more bank regulation and regulation of "hedge funds". Rich folks should pay more taxes
along with the huge corporations whose greed has been well established...
I think that "on-line trading" should only be allowed during certain hours of the day. Folks have lost millions gambling with on-line trading. I think that
CEOs make too much money and that workers need a livable guaranteed wage.
Many more workers could be kept on their jobs if CEOs salaries were cut in half.

I am concerned that some folks jokingly refer to Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid as a "ponzi scheme". In order to keep the above
entitlements fully funded, we need to require everyone, including the rich,
to pay into it. The rich seem to be getting richer while the middle class is squeezed into poverty. The poor are getting even poorer. We've seen
a huge increase in homelessness and malnourishment in this country...

[Artguy]

Reaching back thousands of years to quote an elitist, like Plato, to "refute" facts in a real situation is for the birds.

Hi Steve, I find this refute as I have quoted unsuitable, it doesn't belong in intelligent discussion. That aside yes Plato is worth quoting as much as any contemporary, I will at times quote Jesus Christ, the Buddha, as well as Martin Luther King Jr., Patti Smith and Jack Kerouac, and no I do not believe that the existence of state is favourable to the enlightened evolution of humanity. It creates reason to defend with weaponry without due process of the laws that the state has instituted. It also creates an illness of ego called patriotism. As far as Mr. Obama goes, let me clarify. I have lost respect for him because he has turned on himself by catering to the forces he clearly admonished in his inauguration speech. If he stuck to his rhetorical guns your foreign policy would be inline with the possibility of a policy that puts humanity, compassion and respect before something as shallow as patriotism.

[Steve Plonk]

Some folks on both sides of our borders are deeply patriotic and are
worried about some developments, which should give us both pause, including testimony by David Harris, formerly of the CSIS: See below:

"Well before 9/11, I testified before a congressional subcommittee concerned about the Canadian Security Intelligence Service’s 1998 warning that more terror groups were in Canada than in any other country, except perhaps the U.S. Imagine American officials’ discomfort with today’s Canadian security problems.

Canadian-based Sikh extremists caused the world’s biggest pre-9/11 aviation-terror disaster, the 1985 Air India bombing. Today, India’s security officials privately regard Canada – not India – as a font of international Sikh extremism.

CSIS director Richard Fadden warned of illicit foreign-influence operations in Canada. One or two provincial cabinets could be penetrated, he said, as might local governments. Yet MPs shy away from asking whether Canada’s politico bureaucratic system is infiltrated.

American congressional leaders recently stopped Chinese telecom giant Huawei’s plan to buy into the U.S. market. Huawei denies links with Beijing, but the company partnered with sensitive Canadian telecom systems and got a $6.5 million Ontario grant without debate. Now Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird dubs America’s strategic Chinese foe an “ally” and declares unreconstructed Beijing the political equal of democratic post-war Germany and post-Soviet Russia.

Canada’s growing Islamist threat is becoming an export, and American security sources say they know it. Convicted in Chicago, Pakistani-born Canadian Tahawwur Hussain Rana plotted against Danish publishers of Muhammad cartoons.

Canadians reportedly kill for al-Shabab in Somalia. Federal computer software consultant, Momin Khawaja, was a transnational jihadi.
Fateh Kamel’s Canadian group ran international operations. Meanwhile, a 2007 Environics poll found 12 per cent of Canadian Muslims – up to 119,000 people – could sympathize with a Toronto 18-type mass-casualty plot."

From: See link: http://www.israpundit.com/archives/39431

[Artguy]

I don't know which disturbs me more the paranoia caused by patriotism or the nationhood that gives birth to patriotism...my patriotism, (if we want to use that term very roughly) exists in the twisted jack pine not in some twisted political belief.

[Steve Plonk]

My "patriotism" also resides in your "twisted jack pine" as an icon of nature.
I care deeply about what happens to the environment & our society which
settles in or around it. The land itself is sacred in and of its own existence.

I am not caught up in the "politics of fear", but I respect the vigilance of both our governments in trying to quell the tide of extremism when it threatens our
public citizens. So, perhaps we are not very far apart at all in our belief system. With a good group effort, we can change the minds of folks who
might want to harm us. However, during war, we have to protect ourselves.
To a pacifist, heading for the hills might be more appropriate. But if someone
comes for my neighbor, I might need to worry about someone coming for me.
As Ken Kesey was fond of saying: "We are all bozos on this bus"...