Dear Mr. Ben, I do believe you have misinterpreted what Andrew meant by his article, I reread it just to make sure and I do believe Andrew was saying not that "we should not fight terrorism" but instead that it should be expected, After 911 there were so many stupid people running around with stupid deer in the head light looks on their faces while I sat back relaxed expecting it. If your going to have a country as free as ours shit is going to happen, this is a realization that people must come to. Then stupid people go from being frightened to angry, but not just any anger but the worst kind, uninformed naive anger, the kind that fuels racism and most European households. We are far to comfortable here where we are, with helpless Canada above, economically challenged Mexico below, and ocean on either side. But the world is becoming a smaller place, and our beliefs on warfare HAVE to change if we are to survive. ?An attack on America, my god? is what most people would have said, but honestly if you think about it, everyone hates us and we let everyone in, I expected it and hope you did too.
I do not agree with Gross at all. Just because terrorism is worse in other places, we should not fight it? If I was a terrorist, I would attack America before any other nation. It is the "Great Satan," the representitive in the Western World, security is much looser than places where terror is prevelant, like Israel, and people here are very easily frightened. If a bus blew up here, it would be the top news story for a month, and the bus companies would shut down because people would be so frightened. If you do not stop terrorists right now, or give in to them and negotiate, they will believe their tactics worked, use them again, and increase their operation in size. If you don't believe that the U.S. is being targeted by Al Qaeda terrorists, look to World Trade Center 93', the Khobar Towers bombing, the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, the U.S.S. Cole, and 9/11/01. These are just large operations in which scores of Americans died. There have also been numerous attacks on other nationalities by Al Qaeda in the last year, such as the Bali bombing in which nearly 200 people died, the takeover of a Moscow theater that led to the deaths of over 100 hostages, and the attacks on Israeli targets in Kenya. If the U.S. gives in to Al Qaeda, they will just get stronger and use stronger means to carry out their operations, such as chemicals, gas, and nukes. Terrorism is a virus, and if we don't destroy it, it will destroy us. As for the great manipulation taking place brought up by Gross, I do not think that the working man will benifit from having to fear each time he takes the bus to work. I do not see how fighting Osama Bin Laden benifits the rich only. It is because of men like him that the Arab world has not recieved messages of democracy, and freedoms which we take for granted. Defeating the terrorist bigots will not only benefit the American establishment, but will benefit all Americans, as well as Arabs who have been denied freedoms because of the fanaticism and mid-evil mentality that the terrorists live by.
As we begin a New Year, the war begun nearly a year and a half ago by nineteen suicidal madmen is still continuing. I fear that those in power may destroy its meaning for their own political advancement, but we must never forget what this war is about. America is, without doubt, the most powerful country in the world. With that power comes great responisibility. The United States must fight this fight with morality in mind. The United States continues to negotiate with corrupt, dictatorial regimes in the Middle East who consider the U.S. their enemy, yet still reap the benefits of the United States' friendship. Saudi Arabia, a corrupt monarchy, gets billions of dollars yearly in U.S. aid, yet still funds, extremist Wahabi Islam, an Islamic sect that spreads anti-semetic and anti-american messages from Europe, to Pakistan, and beyond. 15 of the 19 hijackers during September 11 were Saudi, all hijackers were radicalized in Saudi funded Wahabi institutions IN EUROPE, and Saudi money pays for most of Bin Laden's operations. This is bad enough without mentioning the fact that in Saudi Arabia, there is no freedom of speech, no freedom of religion, and that religious police enforce strict Taliban-like Islamic law in that country. Saudi Arabia has harmed the U.S. much more than Saddam Hussein, yet, they still get U.S. aid and sell America oil. If the U.S. wants to improve its image, fighting terrorism is not the problem, the problem is the hypocracy that it uses to fight it. If the U.S. truly wants to support democracy and freedom around the world, they must remember what America stands for as they fight terrorism. Let the Saudi princes eat oil!
My mind was recently wandering and I thought to myself that I should not have been so suprised that America was attacked through terrorism because if one looks at the rest of the world terrorism and sucide bombings are a daily fear. In almost every single country in this world the citizens have to worry about the cafe or bus they are currently occupying blowing up at any instance. I belevied when the attack first happened that this was the wourst thing that was happening in the world, and that all the other countries actually were concerned with the terrorism in America . . . naivity. Terrorism is far severer in most of the other countries in the world and me thinking that the terrorism in America was so much worse than any other countries is a great example of how we are manipulated by our news and our country. This manipulation, that we as Americans say doesn't exsist in America, has been present from the very founding of America (getting the lower class to fight a rebellion that would only benefit the upper class), and has continued with our country throught the ages (Cold War . . .). Also in America we always tell ourselves that we are the most powerful country in the world, while at the same time most of the wealthy countries in the world think they are the most powerful country in the world, which means that only one can be right, and no longer do I believe that America is that. The fact isn't that I hate America, far from it, but what it comes down to is that I used to support America because I thought it didn't try to manipulate its citizens and brain wash them, but it is unfortuantelty true. And I don't hate America I have just lost a lot of respect for it.
For once I agree with you Donat. The school does seem to spend its money on absurd things that I'm sure we could do without. The school got a new outdoor field for football/soccer etc. this year. Seeing as those are extracurricular activities, I'm sure that money could have been spent elseware. As for those new desks...the jewelry class is part of the Art Department. According to the teachers, the art department has had the same funding for the past eight or nine years (hence, the 10 dollar fees for all the classes). So those 5 or 6 new desks they got probably were not payed for with "new" money. Also, are you sure it is 80%? If so I would like to pose the question "Who is stealing the other 78%?" Seriously. Is it you Donat? IS IT?!
The school doesn't need more money; it needs to spend the money it has well. For one thing if the school doesn't have enough money how could it afford to replace all the iMacs in the school with the crappy new lamps (they didn?t even bother selling the computers because they were scared some kid was going to get some important document or something so they recycled them all), and are planning on putting a fire place in the lunch room. The jewelry department got brand new desks, and the tech department new chairs all of which they more than likely paid too much money for. Our schools are still over funded, they just don't know how to use money wisely, and I believe it's something near 80% of the states budget goes to education. That is far too much. Not just that but our teachers are some of the highest paid in the United States, making upwards of 60 thousand a year, and yet they complain that they don't have enough money. I have a 5 person family and we live just fucking fine on $30,000 a year. Also I know for a fact that the superintendent makes upwards of $130,000 a year. If the school could buy more previously used things just imagine how much they could save, "Why buy new when slightly used will do?" It?s like a slap in the face when they ask for more money. The problem is they don't care, it's not their money, they have a never ending flow of tax payer money and when Ventura pointed this out they felt threatened. The school system is like a little girl who always gets what she wants. I say for once tell the little girl to shut the hell up and slap her.
Oh, and Paul Welstone was a communist
It's hard for me to believe that you brought up Ventura, when a much, MUCH better example would have been Paul Wellstone. I mean come on. He ALWAYS voted his opinions, even to some degree the only senator to dissent from the other 99 senators. In fact, Ventura was a terrible example. His policies were unknown to practically everbody who voted for him. Furthermore, he never did anything about them once he was in office(Gross went into great detail, so it's pretty pointless for me to). And as far as the Strom Thurman issue goes, it wasn't just Gore that took notice of the racist overtones regarding Lott's statements. Besides the fact that this wasn't the first time Lott made statements about Thurman's 1948 presidential campaign; he made similar statements in the 80's. Oh, and also Jesse; LAY OFF GORE! Whenever you have a complaint about something political and you conceive a possibility of Gore being involved you relentlessly attack, despite the actual level of his involvement.
The first reason that Ventura even got into office because of a fluke that involved the ballot that he exploited. He got all the people (hicks) that have never been to a voting booth in their life to vote for him because he established that he was anti-gun control. But yet he did nothing in all four years even concerning gun control. Heck he never even spoke on the topic. And what about legalized marijuana and what about legalized prostitution? Those are another two issues that he said he supported and said he would pass when he became governor, but neither of those ever happened. No bills that he supported about these two issues even appeared in the Senate or the House.
Next he decided to screw over the public education and especially the U by not giving them the funding that they recquired. The U has been having to cut its programs and sports teams like mad, and they still don't have a football stadium on campus. And to funding on a high school level - he didn't actually cut out any money as you were so enthused about, but instead he mandated that all schools would have x amount of funding and that would be the same for all schools based on population of the school. Which obviosly doesn't work because certain schools have higher needs than others and also some schools had been running at higher expenses so they couldn't just give up cold turkey the programs that costed money after they had been installed.
Lastly how can you support school funding cuts, you benefit more than most people in our school with the amount of money the school has approipriated from the city in that you are taking all those classes in the tech department. Which if Ventura would have had is way would not have been there and if they would have been there they would have been 20x lousier than they are right now. And next Jesse, when you go off to college and if you stay instate you can thank Ventura that you can't find any scholarships because the state colleges will still not have recovered to the beating he put on them. Ventura wore the same mask that all politician's wear and that is one of lies and deciet, he was no better than any other politician in that regard and he was worse to most politictians in the fact that his office had and will continue to have determental effects on this state.
He Dropped school funding and took his every waking hour to insult the media, this is the work of a great man. He has said him self that the media is completely controled by the Democrats, which is true. He helped bring trade with China to Minnesota and he hosted the XFL, what more do you want from a govenor, he got things done.
Jesse was just as much of a hypocrite than any other politicians and even more so because if you take a look at him all of his bull shit with the media and how he had himself portrayed was nothing similar to the laws that he made or that he didn't make that he promised to make. "I hunt men" need i really say more, he talks big but he never follows through with his big talk and that was why he was a bad governor. If Jesse would have held tight to some of his liberatarian views and tried to actuallly accomplish something besides his ego while he was governor than I would be praising him much more than I am right now.
