James Kilbourne

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About James Kilbourne

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    Opera, symphony, philosophy, politics, economics, New York Yankees
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    James Kilbourne
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    The Prevailing Wisdom versus the Truth The Meaning of Heroes Immigration - Will the Republican Party Self Destruct? Facing the Final Music The Glory of Being Human

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  1. The 2008 Presidential Elections By James Kilbourne “You can tell when a famine is over in China when the price of baby flesh drops below the price of rice.” The year was 1966, and I was listening to this drivel from my professor of Far East studies, who had just finished telling us that Mao's China was morally superior to modern America's crassly materialistic world view. I stood up and left the class never to return, but much wiser for having had the experience of seeing the twisted “logic” of a 60's leftist. Whenever I have difficulty finding the correct priorities in a given situation, I think of this worm of a man and this statement, delivered almost gleefully to a bunch of 20-year-olds who snickered nervously, trying to comprehend the incomprehensible. I was the only one who stood up and left the class that day, and I frequently feel the same indignation and loneliness when I listen to the current political discourse. My first realization in establishing the priorities needed to make a solid decision on how I will vote in 2008 is that it would be extremely difficult for me to vote for a Democrat, particularly for President, in any election since the nomination of George McGovern in 1972. The reason is that since that time the nature of the party has ignored ideology in favor of a practical effort of achieving 50% plus one vote by stitching together a quilt of disparate interest groups through promising special favors these groups would find unobtainable in the market place. This is a formula that has created the most dishonest political campaigns in our history, and has lead to the elevation of the least principled and most underhanded characters to the highest positions in the party. Barack Obama is a brilliant, complex, and difficult man to understand on many levels, and his election in itself would be a victory of the truth of the American process in its essence, but leaving him aside, is there any doubt about the honesty and depth of a Joe Biden or a John Kerry or a Jonathan Edwards, to name the other national candidates in the last two elections? I realize that it is seldom that the very finest statesmen rise to the positions of Speaker of the House and Majority Leader of the Senate, but who among us can listen to a Reid or Pelosi speech after a good meal and be capable of retaining the nutrients gained for more than a moment? My second prioritizer comes from my understanding that, since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the essential intellectual battle has gone from freedom versus tyranny to the American Revolution versus the French Revolution. It is “freedom, individualism, capitalism” versus “liberte, fraternite, egalite”. It is the difference between inalienable individual rights and the right to pursue your goals freely in the marketplace versus the “freedom” to come to a already moralistically-decided brotherhood; freedom at the starting line of a race versus equality at the finish line. This is an easy choice for me. My decision on what I will do on November 4th this year was finalized this morning when I heard the last 5 minutes of a campaign speech from Toledo, Ohio, by Sarah Palin, on energy policy. First, a word on Obama and Palin. Certainly, they are the two most interesting candidates in this election. Although I have not completely decided on the character of Obama, I knew I could not vote for him under any condition. Obama is the French Revolution and a Democrat. There are many honest people who hold his worldview, but I am certainly not one of them, even though I am much closer to him as a “social liberal” than I am to many of the Republican positions ( abortion rights and gay marriage, to name just two). While I understand that politics is an effort to win a majority of votes through compromising actions with various interest groups, continuing revelations of past Obama speeches dissuade me from the possibility that he might not be a doctrinaire leftist, and that he might be convinced by results to follow a more positive economic path after a few years in office, as Bill Clinton did when confronted by the Gingrich revolution in 1994. Like much of the American and European left, liberalism is more a religion than a search for what is politically most fruitful, and I now believe that an Obama presidency will keep the faith over saving the economy. I am sad that I can't vote for him on a few levels; he is one of the most steady and intelligent men I have seen in a long time in politics, and watching the clueless John McCain flailing around from one absurd reaction to another through the events of the last several months makes one long for an intelligent and long-range perspective. Obama's speech on race, given as an answer to the Rev. Wright problem during the campaign was very flawed, but in its beginning, it presented a clear picture of the general history of the problem and what was necessary for all races to do to start a meaningful effort to put this problem behind us. There were also some brilliant moments of understanding in his Berlin address and other incidents where he has shown a real overview and a glimpse of ways to make progress among people of different races and backgrounds. Although I don't believe ANYTHING said by ALMOST ANYONE in the media on either side these days, the general consensus is that Obama will win next week. I will not be happy if he does, but I will take a few moments to feel the warmth of further certainty that the American method of defining rights as outlined by Adams in thought and Jefferson in words in the Declaration of Independence is continuing to control the development of human freedom. What a shame that the left will need to deny this, but deny it they will, for anything American is evil to them. Look at the pathetic writings of Bill Ayers if you want to find a good example of this “thinking”. No sense in wasting any time on Joe Biden. If one smile from him doesn't reveal his depth and motives to you, spend your own time on him, but “insincere lightweight” is offered as a description for those who might be searching for words to describe him. Now to the Palin case. The vitriol thrown her way was the first reason I was given to take a look at her. I haven't seen such raw hatred towards a person since the times I would bring up the name of Ayn Rand to the left in the 1960's. I learned that the hatred came from a fear that their real motives were in danger of being exposed by Rand that caused the frothing around the mouth that occurred when her name was mentioned. I don't mean to compare Palin with Rand as intellectuals, but her speech on energy and the direction the country would take under the Obama and McCain alternatives showed a superb understanding of the differences offered by the American Revolution versus the French Revolution approach. I urge you to listen to it, if you still have an open mind. I will vote for McCain /Palin with a conviction that he will at least be generally given clear and sound advice on the problems of the day, even though I remain unconvinced that he is bright enough to consistently understand and follow it. Regardless of the November 4th outcome, we can all relax. A Republican victory could lead to a slow path forward, a Democratic victory to a slow regression, but neither will be the end of the United States, as the panic-stricken believers on both sides scream at anyone still willing to listen. As pointed out by Obama in Chicago in 2001, the Constitution is a flawed document, but it certainly will not be corrected by the smug arrogance of those on the left who have “better ideas”. Thanks primarily to Washington, Adams, Madison, and Jefferson, the method for its correction is built into the amendment process. It is a slow and painful way to correct it, but therein lies its brilliance. Great men know how to lead, but America has a document that allows us to survive even its fools.
  2. My thanks to you and Rich for your kind thoughts above. I have been thinking about the meaning of greatly extended lifespans under the influence of Ray Kurzweil's book "The Singularity is Near", which I read earlier this year. I think Kurzweil may be wildly optimistic to talk of the capacity for a limitless life span being achievable for baby boomers, but this man is certainly a respected scientist and not some nutcase, so I think it is possible that greater advances in longevity are on the horizon than we would have thought reasonable to contemplate a decade ot two ago. However, it is the quality of life that I find much more interesting than its length.
  3. It was a quiet, slow weekday evening. My partner Sergio was leaving to attend a meeting. I felt a little tired and, for no conscious reason, a little sad. I didn’t have anything that I really wanted to do. I thought I might watch the news and maybe a rerun of “Will and Grace” and “Frazier”, and wait for Sergio to come home. As I sat down to watch TV, I glanced down at my coffee table and saw a DVD of “Cyrano de Bergerac” which I had recently purchased. We all know the great 1897 Rostand play and many of us recall a movie version, starring Jose Ferrer in the 1950’s or Gerard Depardieu in the 1990’s. However, this DVD is of a recent revival of a 1936 opera by Franco Alfano, presently only known to the world as the man who completed “Turandot”, which Puccini had not completed when he died in 1924. Although now it is fashionable to like the 2002 darker ending penned by Luciano Berio in 2002 (it is tremendously daring and thought-provoking), all but the most hopelessly modern will admit that the Alfano effort, which premiered under the baton of Arturo Toscanini in 1926, is stunningly effective. It would be difficult, after hearing the Puccini/ Alfano “Turandot”, not to skip out into the night filled with the glory of being human. During the last century, many a composer has withered in the shade cast by Giacomo Puccini, the greatest opera composer since Wagner and Verdi. In my opinion, he is the greatest opera composer of them all. The combination of the Alfano’s brave and successful work on “Turandot”, and my love of “Cyrano de Bergerac” inspired me to purchase the DVD. I had thought to save it to share with special friends, but I needed something that night, and I decided to put it on for a few minutes, just to get a taste of what I could expect. Two and a half hours later I looked up, bleary-eyed, to see Sergio looking knowingly down at me, aware that he had caught me lost in another profound musical experience. Alfano did not have Puccini’s sublime capacity to write profound and memorable melodies. What he did possess is an understanding of how “big” life can be, combined with a great romantic heart. With his considerable musical talents and originality, he also possessed great courage, a virtue much needed to attempt as daunting a challenge as bringing Cyrano musically to life. Alfano was more than equal to this challenge. What a magnificent opera! Music is the perfect medium to communicate this play’s profound insights! Alfano is not a watered down Puccini. His music doesn’t sound like anyone else’s. I do not understand why this score has sat disintegrating in some forgotten library for almost 70 years. Every child born into society receives a precious gift, an inheritance greater than any financial gift, that no dedication to work can earn. Every child receives the accumulated wisdom and unconquered spirit of the greatest men and women who came before him. Geniuses of philosophy, politics, and social theory discovered the institutions and laws that allowed the child to be born into a thriving civilization instead of a cave. He is surrounded by the masterworks of creative geniuses, works that give meaning and depth to his greatest thoughts and most profound understandings. They enrich our lives and remind us that we are not alone in our insights and our longing for the joyful fulfillment of our potential. We owe it to the memory of these great people- and to that potential in us that is so glorious- to put down our remotes and cell phones now and then, to stop chatting and browsing and surfing, and to revel in the treasures that are our birthright. At this moment, my thoughts are with Edmund Rostand, who created the character of Cyrano de Bergerac, and with Franco Alfano who, inspired by that great creation, brought Cyrano’s beauty to us in a powerfully direct and majestic manner. I love Cyrano. No character better shows us the uncompromised romantic heart. For me, no fictional character surpasses his power to demonstrate what it means to love life. We are told all our lives that we are flawed, that we are “only human.” Yet no fictional character is more human than Cyrano, and it is the Cyrano in my soul, struggling to his feet to confront death, that reminds me that glory can be my destiny as it was his destiny. After all, I am “only human”, too.
  4. Facing the Final Music by James Kilbourne Reading Barbara's article on aging, I realized how much thought I have been giving this topic of late. Having decided to retire, at 62, from running my own company, I am involved in a rather rigorous and extended reassessment of my life, so it is a good opportunity to organize my own thoughts on this subject. First, a few observations. Either nobody explains aging very well to younger people, or younger people can’t hear very well when they are told about it. I believe that nobody explains it very well. There is a paucity of transferred knowledge on aging from old to young, either of the shallow or the profound variety. As Barbara points out, no one told her that she would still feel 18 when she was 77. In my case, I have the dual feeling of being 7 and being 50, but I have had that feeling since I was…7 or so. However, of one thing I am certain; I never feel 62. It always requires an act of focus to remember that I am 62 (and at 62 sometimes it is a little hard to focus on anything). When I am asked my age, a decidedly embarrassing time can elapse before the answer gets to my tongue. I first remember thinking what it would be like to be old when I was 3 or 4. I noticed that there were brown spots on my grandmother’s hands. She explained that they were “age spots”. If grandma had ‘em, they were okay with me, but I thought my hands looked better than hers, even if they weren’t nearly as soft. I remember my uncle Mac giving my aunt Peg a bottle of Serutan when she turned 35. (For those of you born yesterday, I should explain that Serutan -- Natures spelled backwards -- was a laxative). This gave me my first clue that things might not work so well when I got older. When I was in my teens, I read in a Steinbeck novel (I think it was “East of Eden”) his description of old men: “Strawberries don’t taste like they used to, and the thighs of women have lost their clutch.” This thought has stayed with me since I first read it. The reason, I am sure, is that to a teenager the “thighs of women” sounded pretty exciting, even to one predisposed toward his own sex, but time has proven that strawberries and everything else from the garden sure don’t taste like they used to. I am happy to say that the aforementioned “clutch”, whoever is doing the clutching, still has its same appeal. The difference between young and old in contemplating the future is that the old have less future to contemplate. If futurist Ray Kurzweil is correct, mankind stands on the brink of eternal life. He thinks that baby boomers will be the first to achieve it, and in his fifties now, he is working to keep himself in shape so that he might be one of the first to live forever. The baby boomer generation began in 1946, and I was born in 1944. Being so close to the cut off date gives me the feeling that everyone else is standing on a mountaintop, except for few of us who are sliding down its side into a dark abyss..… I do believe that life spans will greatly increase in this century. Scientific knowledge is increasing exponentially. Within the next generation, it is probable that there will be a doubling of life expectancy, and within the next century, it is very possible that we will conquer aging as we know it. I have profound confidence that man will do a much better job of handling change than evolution has done, but if eternal life is in the cards (non-fatalistically speaking, that is), I think it will take close to eternity to discover how to get there. Certainly the design of living beings leaves much to be desired. No one can pretend to enjoy the gradual erosion of his physical and mental capacities. My brother once defined old as “rotted to a visible degree”. Admittedly, he was much younger when he came up with that one, but as with many of his definitions, there is some truth to it. I am frightened of being incapacitated. I have no fear of death. The knowledge that death is the absence of life and consciousness, and therefore not something I will ever experience, means there is nothing of which to be frightened. The fear of death has caused men to invent fantastic myths to keep from facing it. I don’t care to spend a moment of my life thinking in such a manner. However, how I face death is important to me. I love the magic of Cyrano de Bergerac running his sword through death, but I hope to approach it in my usual way of coping with problems- with music. In my early twenties, I found two pieces of music that express my thoughts about dying. At the age of 86, Richard Strauss wrote his “Four Last Songs”. The are “Spring”, “September”, “Time to Sleep”, and “At Dusk”. He and his wife were ill, and would survive but a few months after he completed this music. These songs sum up a lifetime. And in the final song Strauss and his life’s companion, hand in hand, say goodbye to life. With a profound but reassuringly gentle touch, the music fades into… nothingness. At Dusk Here both in need and gladness we wandered, hand in hand now let us pause at last before the silent land Dusk comes the vales exploring The darkling air grows still Above two skylarks soaring In songs their dreams fulfill Draw close and leave them singing Soon will be time to sleep How lost our way’s beginning! This solitude, how deep! Oh, beauty, rest desired! We sense the night’s soft breath Now we become so tired! Can this perhaps be death? The other piece of music, wistful and haunting, is the last song in Gustav Mahler’s “Das Lied von der Erde” ( The Song of the Earth). The title is “Das Abschied” (The Farewell). It describes the frustrating helplessness that one sometimes feels fearing he will no longer be able to experience the glories of life. The music that accompanies the last words is simple, like nature itself, and indescribably beautiful. I feel as if I am now standing firmly on that mountaintop, experiencing all that a glorious day on earth can offer. This song is the longing for eternity. The singer tells of traveling by horseback into the mountains to say goodbye to his good friend. “Oh, my friend. Fortune was not kind to me in this world! “Where am I going? I shall wander in the mountains. I am seeking rest for my lonely heart. “I shall wander to my native land, to my home. I shall never roam abroad. Still is my heart, it is awaiting its hour. “Everywhere the lovely earth blossoms forth in spring and grows green anew! “Everywhere, forever, horizons are blue and bright! Forever and ever…forever and ever…forever and ever…forever and ever…” When my time comes, I will have these two recordings by my side. I don’t know which piece I will choose to play last. That will depend on how my song ends.
  5. And with my silver hair (what there is of it), I have become William Boyd....
  6. Aaron, I bow to your integrity, if not your judgment.
  7. Charles, Thank you for your kind words about my writing. I have certainly enjoyed your posts here, and think you express yourself with art and great clarity, something not all that common these days.. Although you have never been an opera fan, I see by the fact that you were 5 years old in 1952 that this is completely understandable-you are still just a kid (you see, I was 8 in 1952). There is still time to repent. Luckily, you have an obviously brilliant wife (who does love opera), so your recovery program and salvation are all but assured, if you also continue to read my humble operatic articles as well, of course. I, too, fell in love with history as a child (right after the Hopalong Cassidy and Roy Rogers era), falling for ancient Egyptian history first, then Rome, then Greece (I was chronologically challenged, I guess), before settling on the American Revolution as a lifetime passion. I see George Washington as history's greatest statesman/politician, with none being close. What a crime that he is basically unknown these days. A crime, but not a surprise. He spent his life developing his character and his reputation (which, in his definition of it, is a much higher goal than what we currently think of with that word). Character and reputation are sorely missing in our culture, although the strongest examples of it in modern history are surely Reagan and GWB. (How GWB sprung from GHWB, yet emulated RWR will be a best selling book someday). Following Washington, the power of a great author to bring his subject alive is the reason that I consider John Adams at least on a level with Thomas Jefferson. The author is David McCullough and his book "John Adams" is an awesome accomplishment. I, too, expect that I will have funded a James G. Kilbourne Memorial Wing on some Amazon warehouse someday.
  8. There has been a constant drumbeat that Bush lied, Cheney lied, Rumsfeld lied..THAT is the big lie perpetrated by the Democrats and other leftist groups. This is the most competent and honest administration in my lifetime; competent and honest, not infalable.
  9. Charles R. Anderson has responded as I would have, only with better writing and much more patience. Let me just add one thing; Iraq was singled out because of the Bush administration's remarkable competence and understanding of recent history. After 9/11, it was essential that America respond consistently, decisively, and with justification to the islamic fundamentalist threat. It picked Iraq because its recent history of atrocities made it obvious to all (except those willing to twist themselves into pretzels in order to attack Bush) that it was a criminal nation. I won't restate the UN resolutions, acts of war against others and horrors perpetrated on its own citzens of which Iraq was guilty. You all know them. America needs to consistently show that it will not sit back and take terrorist attacks. When the next one occurs ( and it will), I hope we have someone in the White House that understands this as well as GWB.
  10. Charles What a pleasure to read your critique of my hasty article, which is on the money, for the most part (the critique, that is). Your quality of your writing far surpasses that of the article; in particular, I appreciated your elephant and donkey summations. I do think Bush has many flaws, but since the tsunami of evalutions concerning his presidency is negative, I thought it non-essential to spend much time on them. One thing I do want to say in his defense re: his medicare presciption plan: We are all in agreement that the federal government should not be in the health business. However, it is, and anyone in charge of the government who is not blinded by ideology would recognize that he has an obligation to help make things work as well as possible, even if he is in philosophical disagreement with the establishment of a given program. This, I think, is where GWB found himself re: presciption drugs. It is obvious that the use of prescription medicine has greatly improved the health of people by helping to prevent numerous complications of many illnesses. The presciption drug program addresses that reality, and the surprise element of his program is that it introduces some market elements that are already proving to be money savers compared to the normal statist approaches. Perhaps (and it it a big "perhaps"), it may lead to further market solutions in health care in the future. I realize that many free market people stress the need to be pure in philosophy to the point where society is made to suffer the consequences of every statist action. I am not of that school, however, because it causes real misery and real death to real people to make theoretical points. Fix the problem; make the point later. GWB is much better at the fixes; it is up to us, therefore to later make the points. I believe that if the 21st century goes in our direction, it will be incremental in its improvements, just as the 20th century was incremental in the decline of the free market solutions. Those who are waiting for a libertarian cultural epiphany to occur on some slow newsday next week need their own epiphany concerning democratic evolution.
  11. On the subject of taxes and public services, there are lots of reports claiming both sides of the issue. In truth, because they are illegal, no one knows. However, illegal aliens generally use fake social security numbers, so they only contribute from their paychecks and never receive the benefits for social security and Medicare. They are probably less likely to seek services for fear of being discovered as illegal, although, again, I am not sure how one would get reliable info here. As to whether they contribute more to the economy, I base that mostly on the fact that they will do work that Americans won't do for the money offered. This enriches all who receive the services, although I do understand that the poorest in America can have an issue that their pay is lowered by the willingness of illegal aliens to work for wages they wouldn't accept. As far as why we are enriched when we receive services for less, obviously if a year's vegetables cost $500 instead of $750 due to lower labor costs, that leaves us with $250 to spend on other things. I don't know of anyone who suggests that most illegal aliens aren't working, so they are making all of us richer each day they work for less.
  12. I wish Bush had Reagan's ease with the public, but more often than not he looks terribly uncomfortable and sounds worse. The Democrat's "he lied to us" is rubbish. He did something much more heinous to them; he disagreed. I hope he is able to salvage something from his second term's agenda, starting with the Immigration bill this spring.
  13. The Prevailing Wisdom versus the Truth We have been hearing a great deal about the incompetence of the Bush administration of late. Part of it is the normal carping found in all democracies. The opposition party needs to constantly redefine the differences it has with the party in power in order to redefine its own platform and become the party in power. It usually achieves this by applying incessant Monday morning quarterbacking to every minor blip that occurs in the flow of world events. With the current crop of Democrats, there is no hesitation caused by principles in claiming how different things would be if only they had been in charge. Unchecked by a vitriolic media, the prevailing wisdom seems to be that anyone but Bush would have done things perfectly. In foreign and domestic policy, this is the most successful administration since the Reagan administration, and although there are three more years to go, I still believe it will go down as one of the greatest in American history. From current perspective, it looks like we will have to wait for several years for this opinion to prevail, just as we did with Reagan. When I say “we” here, I mean the small percentage of us who really understood what Reagan was trying to do and fought the pathetic band of 1980’s elite who thought everything he was doing would lead to the end of humanity. I remind you all that this later view was the prevailing view of the political intellectuals at that time, although it is now hard to find any of them that remember this. Someday, when I have the stomach for it, I will revisit the eighties, point out the issues, and name the names of those political analysts who still are getting it wrong on a daily basis and are still making seven figure incomes. Just as a teaser, since Time Magazine just came in the mail today, let me remind you of its summation of the 1980’s at the end of that decade; they named Gorbachev the “Man of the Decade”. Just like Gorbachev, Time, then and now, had the wrong analysis of the problem and opposed the giants of the era who truly understood what was broken and how to fix it. Gorbachev thought he was saving Communism, and from recent comments I have heard him make, it appears to me that he still isn’t quite sure just exactly what did happen. We are all glad that he was in charge of the Soviet Union back then, as his basic human decency helped to make the collapse of the Soviet system essentially bloodless, but to say that he was the pre-eminent shaper of the 1980’s world was a preposterous call. It is akin to naming the Titanic the victor over the iceberg. My reaction at the time that they announced it was to burst out laughing, quickly followed by a depressing feeling of how hopelessly unaware of the truth that the people who are supposed to know what is going on really are. In viewing the cognoscenti’s current analysis of the world I have the same depressing feeling, but age has given me the comfort of knowing that stupidity is a passing phase, while truth is everlasting. I will continue to take my vitamins so I can be around long enough to hear the pundits tell us how they always knew that George W. Bush was a great man. Although I have written before about how much respect I have for the Bush team, friends frequently ask me if it is possible that I am still so deluded. So, as Reagan might say, “There he goes again.” Not wanting to turn this into a book let me cover only the two main topics of foreign affairs and economic policy and put forth my case for the Bush administration in the broadest of terms. What was the state of the world when George W. Bush took office, what did he learn from the events of his time, and what will be the results of his policy decisions? In January 2001, a decade had passed since the fall of communism, but America’s policy of mutually assured destruction (MAD) with the Soviet Union was still in place. Do you remember the prophecies of doom from the all-knowing class when he scrapped that anachronism and proceeded to align the policies of the United States with the reality of her new position in the world? Thankfully, the agonized cries of the omniscient only lasted for about a week or so. The nature of America’s place in the world and her true enemies in the 21st century were true on September 10, 2001, but for most of us, it took 9/11/2001 to understand them. And to a large degree we came to understand them thanks to the brilliant analysis and effective actions of the President of the United States, who understood them immediately and had worked out a lasting and effective response to them within days of that event.. Thanks to him, we put in place the necessary changes that will lead to a freer and more peaceful world over time. Just as importantly, he has had the courage to see his policies through a period when most of us have forgotten what our real choices are. To reiterate the steps Bush took after 9/ll: Foreign policy He grasped the fact that Islamic fundamentalism represented an entirely new kind of enemy for the United States, and that it would require a completely new set of rules to effectively fight it. He understood immediately that this was a war, not isolated criminal actions by individuals. This has allowed him to take the necessary actions to defend our country, and not get tied up in the criminal courts. This war would be protracted, and fought with few major confrontations, but rather persistent military pursuit of the perpetrators, vastly improved intelligence, and collaboration across many borders.Those who harbor terrorist are as guilty as the terrorists, and must be dealt with in a similar manner. Constant pressure needed to be applied against those who finance terrorism. Technology had changed our options. We could no longer afford to wait for terrorists to commit a crime, as the consequences now would not be a handful of dead people, but, perhaps, hundreds of thousands. Defense would need, in some cases, to be “preemptive”. The entire Middle East and its stunted political and moral growth was the long-range problem. This required several new approaches: a. Democracy needed our help to develop, as it is the only political system that encourages tolerance and peace. Democratic examples needed to be created, and this would help create other democracies throughout the entire region. b. The past efforts with Arafat were futile, and he would no longer deal with him. He would back Israel and wait for the Palestinians to offer a serious peace effort. As usual, with the Palestinians, we are still waiting. c. The United Nations was feckless. A “coalition of the willing” – those willing to see the political realities and take the necessary actions, was needed in its place. Economic policy America was in a shallow recession when George W. Bush took office. Before 9/11, he instituted a tax cut that took effect just in time to allow a slow but real rate of growth to come back to American within a few months of 9/ll, despite anthrax scares and a complete burst of the tech bubble. Even with the bankruptcies of companies like WorldCom and Enron, and other ethical atrocities by several business organizations, he was able to get through a greatly more effective tax cut in 2003, which has resulted in the United States, once again, leading the world economy into a booming recovery. By taking a longe range view of helping China and India develop their economies and encouraging free trade everywhere, he has resisted the efforts of economic know nothings like Senators Schumer and Grahm to create another world recession through tariff idiocy, just as Senators Smoot and Hartley were able to do in the 1930’s. Should we have sent in more troops to Iraq in the beginning? Have we made many mistakes in the execution of the war? Undoubtedly, but that is always the case. If I had told you on September 12, 2001, that in the next five years America would liberate over 56 million people living under unspeakable barbarism, and form a beachhead on the shores of that portion of the world living under religious fundamentalism and totalitarianism known as the middle east, while staving off all attempts for terror attacks on her own shores, while managing to lose less soldiers in this five year war than civilians lost on that one tragic day in September, would you call the man who achieved this miracle a “miserable failure”, to generally summarize the Bush views of most of the press and the opposition party? Would you demand the resignation of the Defense Secretary who presided over this amazing accomplishment while modernizing the entire military bureaucracy at the same time? But the professional whiners hate Bush and Rumsfeld even more than they hated Reagan. There is no one on the left who can see any good in anything they do. The level of blind hatred is greater for Bush than for any mainstream politician in my lifetime. If you were a true feminist, would you not cheer the man who freed millions of the most brutalized women in history, and who had put in charge of the foreign policy of the most influential nation in human history an African American woman of such remarkable ability that no one seriously considers her “just a token black woman”? Of course you would cheer, but…silence. Obviously, the loss of one American life is tragic and particularly that of a soldier, as they are our most courageous citizens. However, that can’t allow us to lose the bigger picture. If ANY war is justifiable, we need to understand that we will have losses; over 600,000 in our Civil War, 500,000 in WWII, 57,000 in Vietnam, approaching 2,500 in Iraq. The question is, what is the price of not taking action? If you want to give yourself a real chill, imagine for a moment turning on your television on 9/12/01 to hear President Gore outline America’s response. He probably would have sounded pretty tough that day. But shortly, Bin Laden would have been right. America would have been the most cowardly nation on earth within a few months. Eventually, the American people would have realized their mistake, but at the cost of tens of thousands of lives and almost an unlimited fortune. The price President Bush has paid for his vision and actions, particularly in Iraq, has probably cost him an effective domestic program in his second term. However, he will outline the truth about Social Security, Medicare, our ineffective tax system, and other major items that are sure to be a large part of the work future presidents will need to take on. The structures of social programs such as Social Security in the last century were collectively based and economically unsound. A move to a private sector fix for these programs is inevitable. More and more, you will hear how much easier things would be today, economically, if we had only listened to this man in the first decade of this century. Americans will have come to realize how much easier the war on terror was because of his swift, accurate actions and his principled steady course despite an outcry from the myopic majority. No matter what happens between now and January 2009, his prescient courage in response to 9/11/01 will secure his place among America’s greatest presidents.
  14. I knew that THE BELIEVERS were airbrushing the Branden's out of existence, but when you see it all listed together it just makes you sick. It will take Rand 100 years to recover her reputation completely, thanks to her "followers".
  15. I am currently writing about spirituality in the context of music ( specifically, I am thinking a great deal about the impact of Puccini's music on me). I feel as if the concept of spirituality is one that I have kind of glossed over recently ( recently meaning the last few decades). Anyway, this discussion is helpful. If I come up with anything original ( at least, to me) I will share it with you.