Posts Made By: Brett Wylie

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20050610/cm_usatoday/remarkabletrends;_ylt=AsG1r5GEE2BuoS6ZoeWe_ris0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2ZWM0djIzBHNlYwNjbQ--
I've been saying for some time that immigration (legal and illegal)is negating the so called "baby boomer" factor in our countries
demographics, this is leveling out the ratio between the work force and retirees, making the "aging factor" a non issue.

Iraq: The Moon Is Down, Again!
April 23, 2004
William Marina



Art, films and literature often offer insights that help to explain human situations perhaps better than does history. My favorite book on the integral interaction between occupiers and those being occupied, is John Steinbeck’s The Moon Is Down (1942), shortly thereafter made into a film starring Cedric Hardwicke, Lee J. Cobb and Henry Travers. I first saw the film in the 1950s, but it is not shown these days.

It is a story about the German invasion of a small town in Norway in 1940 and the developing reactions of the inhabitants as the Nazis seek to insure that the mines nearby continue to send coal to the Third Reich’s war machine. Readers this year may be tempted to replace the term “Norway” with “Iraq,” “coal” with “oil,” and “Germany” with the phrase “Coalition.” The story even has a “fifth column” Ahmed Chalabi-like character, who sets up the town for an easy occupation, imagining he will be dearly beloved by the people.

The central confrontation of the book, however, is between Mayor Orden and the German officer in command, Col. Lanser, a Wehrmacht veteran of occupied Belgium over two decades earlier. Lanser urges cooperation rather than violence, which will lead, he warns, inevitably to more violence on the part of the Germans.

Woven through the plot are the increasingly violent acts of “the people.” Early on, Lanser’s mind wanders back to a friendly, old, gray-haired Belgian lady who killed 12 Germans with a 12 inch hat pin before she was caught and shot. He still retains the hat pin at home.

Of course, the violence begins at once, and the Germans retaliate on a much larger scale on the Norwegian people. At the same time, many of the German troops, yearning to go home and for some companionship, begin to develop various symptoms of psychological stress.

The Germans, like imperial conquerors back to the Romans and beyond, sought to legitimatize their occupation in the eyes of the people. They understood that quislings wouldn’t work in the long run. John Lukacs devoted a large part of his book, The Last European War: September, 1939-December, 1941 (1976), to demonstrating how they failed in a attempt to establish legitimacy over the nations of occupied Europe.

“Legitimacy,” to paraphrase, Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Ah, there’s the rub!” Incidentally, the movie version of the book opens with a quote from Roosevelt using the resistance of Norway to explain the meaning of W.W.II.

At the end, the quisling, having obtained authority from the Nazi command in Oslo, orders Col. Lanser to execute the old Mayor and the town doctor if the people begin to use the dynamite, dropped by parachute by British airplanes, to destroy the mine. As the explosions begin, the two are executed as the Mayor repeats an old speech he used many years before—the last words of Socrates to the Athenian people. It is clear the occupiers, despised by the people, are in for a long and bloody time ahead.

In a New York Times op-ed piece (4/11/04), “Nasty, Brutish and Short,” Thomas Friedman mentions the word “legitimacy” four times and flip-flops on whether it can be bought with cash or compelled with force before finally concluding that the U.S. cannot do so. He adds that with all of the retaliatory killing, “we have a staggering legitimacy deficit.” I wonder if legitimacy is something you can have in gradations as he suggests. Either one is an occupier, or one is not!

As reported in The London Telegraph, (4/11/2004) among our major partners in the so-called “coalition,” the British senior officers, speaking anonymously, have already expressed a growing sense of “unease and frustration,” about American tactics in the occupation. Part of the problem, a British officer said, is that Americans tend to see the Iraqis as “untermenschen,” the term for “sub-humans.”

He continued: “The U.S. troops view things in very simplistic terms. It seems hard for them to reconcile subtleties between who supports what and who doesn’t in Iraq. It’s easier for their soldiers to group all Iraqis as the bad guys. As far as they are concerned Iraq is bandit country and everybody is out to kill them.”

British rules of warfare allow troops to open fire only when attacked and to use the minimum force necessary and at identified targets-not a massive use of firepower in urban areas, as do the Israelis on the Palestinians and now American troops on the Iraqis.

In short, The Moon Is Down, again!

I'm thinking of initiating a starparty in the high White Mtns. just east and ABOVE my home here in Bishop, CA. near the Barcroft lab @ 12,500 feet elevation. If there is any interest I will speak with the local university office...or it could be held at Grandview Campsite in the White's instead @ 8,800' elevation.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20050615/tc_usatoday/motorbikerunsonhydrogenpower 8)

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050621/ap_on_bi_ge/oil_no_peak_yet

http://news.yahoo.com/s/latimests/toreplaceoilusexpertsseeamberwavesofplastic;_ylt=Aq3FlGxEadhzy82NE8IIttas0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA3ODdxdHBhBHNlYwM5NjQ-

Dear Red States,

We're ticked off at the way you've treated California, and we've
decided we're leaving. We intend to form our own country, and we're
taking the other Blue States with us. In case you aren't aware, that
includes Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan,
Illinois and all the Northeast. We believe this split will be
beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new
country of New California.

To sum up briefly:

You get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states. We get stem cell
research and the best beaches.

We get Elliot Spitzer. You get Ken Lay.

We get the Statue of Liberty. You get Wal-Mart.

We get Intel and Microsoft. You get WorldCom.

We get Harvard. You get Ole' Miss.

We get 85 percent of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs. You
get Alabama.

We get two-thirds of the tax revenue. You get to make the red states
pay their fair share.

Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the
Christian Coalition's, we get a bunch of happy families. You get a
bunch of bitter divorced moms.

Please be aware that Nuevo California will be pro-choice and
anti-war, and we're going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at
once. If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals. They have
kids they're apparently willing to send to their deaths for no
purpose, and they don't care if you don't show pictures of their
children's caskets coming home.

We do wish you success in Iraq, and hope that the WMDs turn up, but
we're not willing to spend our resources in Bush's Quagmire.

With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80 percent
of the country's fresh water, more than 90 percent of the pineapple
and lettuce, 92 percent of the nation's fresh fruit, 95 percent of
America's quality wines (you can serve French wines at state dinners)
90 percent of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most
of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and
condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools, plus Stanford, Cal
Tech and MIT.

With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88
percent of all obese Americans (and their projected health care
costs), 92 percent of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of the
tornadoes, 90 percent of the hurricanes,99 percent of all Southern
Baptists, virtually 100 percent of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh,
Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia.

We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.

Additionally, 38 percent of those in the Red states believe Jonah was
actually swallowed by a whale, 62 percent believe life is sacred
unless we're discussing the death penalty or gun laws, 44 percent say
that evolution is only a theory, 53 percent that Saddam was involved
in 9/11 and 61 percent of you crazy bastards believe you are people
with higher morals than we lefties.

By the way, we're taking the good pot, too. You can have that dirt
weed they grow in Mexico.

Ah politics!!

Thursday p.m. thru Sunday a.m., August 25th - 28th Starparty, White Mountains of California, Grandview Campground, White Mt Road, off of State Route 168. Twenty-six (one website says 36) campsites are available on a first come basis. Grandview Campground is located directly off of White Mtn. Rd., @8,800' elevation. Paved road to campsite, but it is a steep climb, isolated area..please be sure your vehicle is up to the trip. Bring all the water you will need for your stay..it is a DRY Campsite..no water provided! Other campsites are available- if enough people are interested I can reserve a group campsite situated at about 7,200' elevation. All interested parties please contact me thru Astromarts message system..or email me direct at address: [email protected]. Come one, come all..
http://www.philharrington.net/ds_ca.htm#pine

http://www.sonic.net/bristlecone/WhiteMts.html#Visiting%20&%20camping

The best views I've ever had of the night sky was in early October, at Barcroft Lab, ...but Grandview is easier to get at. One possiblity is to have one gathering near the end of the paved road..Bristlecone Parking lot..along White Mtn. Rd./or along the crest near the Schulman Grove (dirt).

Ray,
This pretty much sums up my feelings on the matter. Even with a good percentage of Iraqi's wanting us to stay..I don't feel one American kid, much less the near 2K, and the ?40K severely wounded, is worth this mess. Rumbles of a draft starting up..not with my kids are "we" going to retain our presence in Iraq. >

When I was out bicycling yesterday..I was passed by a 1 ton crew cab GMC, huge monster truck tires, of course "lifted" to the sky, a large Confederate flag decal on the rear windshield, and a "Christian" decal on the tailgate.
Sure made me laugh. This country is to much!