t r u t h o u t || Another Bloodbath in Iraq

t r u t h o u t || Another Bloodbath in Iraq: "I try to imagine what the psychological reaction here in America would be if there were bombings every day, if dozens and sometimes hundreds of Americans were blasted to bits each day shopping at Wal-Mart or trying to sign up for the Marines. We are still recovering from one attack - albeit an attack of epic proportions - and I can only guess where we'd be if such a thing were a daily occurrence"

from "left, right, & wrong" by Garret Keizer

I read a surprisingly fresh article in March/April 2005 Mother Jones and I'm going to record some of the insights here:

Some time after election day, I receive a call from a woman in my community...the woman is speaking of what she sees with her own two eyes on her own dirt road. Most of all, she is speaking of her struggle to protect what she values, which is partly her community and partly its youth and absolutely her teenage son.

If there is anything the left fails to appreciate, and that politicians on the right exploit with unerring tact, it is the nature of that woman's struggle. I mean the class nature no less than the moral nature. You may call it universal if you wish, because it is common to parents everywhere and, in fact, to anyone who loves anything at all, but the struggle to preserve what you cherish becomes especially acute when you live in poverty, or close to poverty, when your well-kept prefab sits on its half-acre a quarter mile up the road from the shack with all the dogs. Or, tougher still, when you live in the shack with all the dogs and try to teach your kids not to treat animals like the little sadists up in the prefab house. Sophisticated people of independent means can afford to be disdainful of lower-class attempts at "respectability," chalking it up to religious prejudice or provincial narrowness, but when their own kids come anywhere within the smell of social dysfunction, they have the private-school applications in the mail...

...To be honest, I have begun to lose patience with "compassion," be it the conservative version that sees poverty as a moral disease to be cured with a benevolent dose of 19th-century rectitude, or the liberal version that views poverty as an exotic culture to be scrutinized through the kindly lens of tolerance. Poverty is not a culture to be understood; it is a condition to be eradicated. The only people who think otherwise have never sat down in the places where I've sat down, including the house with all the dogs (and the mold and the burns and the bruises and the blank-eyed toddlers and the interminable cough.)

But "compassionate conservatism" is now the ascendant and thus the more insidious form. Like other kinds of demagoguery, it is based on a partial truth: the idea that individuals and civic groups can meet needs that no government can. This is a claim guaranteed to resonate in any place where the fire department is staffed by volunteers.

But none of us lives entirely in a small town (no more than a city dweller lives exclusively in Chicago or New York.) We live as beneficiaries of a society that is complex, affluent, centralized, and-when it operates as intended--democratic. This is the level on which compassionate consercatism becomes completely disingenuous...

...Revolutionary politics...have always been tied to a dogged willingness to teach...

...Democrats seem prepared to subordinate every value to that of winning, failing to realize that they can never win--especially in a time of international terror and domestic disarray--until they subordinate winning to conviction. This is where jabs at George W. Bush's intellect prove to be every bit as lame as their target. Nobody thinks Bush has a brain. They think he has a backbone.

...The main point, which is always the main point, is this: What do you) know for sure?

..The right is right when it says that certain social problems cannot be addressed by what we on the left like to call "systemic change." The right is right when it says that certain social problems can be addressed only by a change in our cultural values.

Where the right is wrong is in trying to impose a single set of cultural values on a pluralistic society. Whre the right is also wrong is in failing to keep faith with its own professed values...

The one thing more insufferable than a pretense of moral superiority is a pretense of superiority to morals, as if the task of an "evolving" woman or man is to stand above the struggle instead of on the right side.

...So what am I saying?...

Should we continue in Iraq?

Should we continue in Iraq?

Fahreed Zakaria says yes. Our best successes are Germany and Japan, where we stayed.
Faiza and her children say NO. Leave. We can't do anything until the U.S. is gone. Stop the destruction.
GWBush assured us that we have no permanent plans for U.S. presence in Iraq. He lied again. The U.S. is building between four and fourteen permanent bases (depending on how you define "permanent") in Iraq. Haliburton and Kellog Whoever are still scooping up the cash to do the work.
My beloved pastor is fervent in proclaiming the parish's support of the military. Says he.

Here's a letter written by one set of military parents, and endorsed by local parents:

Our son recently joined the U.S. Navy and we feel pretty much the same as the author, Mr. Kamileqicz  below.  Thought you would like to know our feelings and our question about where your children are...

James and Carla McMillin
40206

 
Published on Monday, February 14, 2005 by the Portland Press Herald (Portland, Maine)


How Dare Some Say, 'Support our Troops'?
by Dexter J. Kamilewicz

Someone recently informed me that they didn't know that my son was being deployed to Iraq and asked why I hadn't told them. I really didn't have an answer.

That is when I began to be annoyed by those ever-present, good-intentioned but mindless ribbons stuck on the back of cars and SUVs exhorting, "Support Our Troops."

I find those magnetic messages to be offensive when I think of parents and friends of National Guard soldiers who purchased expensive Kevlar armor for their soldiers while Donald Rumsfeld said they didn't have any in stock.

Those marketing messages seem so empty when soldiers are told to "up-armor" their Humvees because the Department of Defense had not asked the manufacturers if more could be done.

I am saddened when veterans wait over a year for appointments at veterans' hospitals and soldiers in Iraq, Afghanistan and places like Walter Reed Hospital are required to pay for phone calls and emails home. I bet Rumsfeld doesn't have to pay for calls and e-mails back home, and I find it unbelievable and unacceptable that Rumsfeld has not been fired while the troops have been treated so poorly. Support our troops?

I accept that there are justifications for going to war. However, I cannot find anyone who can give me a solid reason to justify our going to and continuing the war in Iraq.

Seeking Reasons

There seems to be no question in America more avoided, particularly by elected officials, than a discussion of the war in Iraq. I asked Maine's members of Congress those questions.

U.S. Rep. Tom Allen said the war was not justified, but to abandon Iraq and its people now would be a mistake. Sen. Susan Collins said that going to war in Iraq was a problem of faulty intelligence, but the chaos in Iraq required us to stay.

Sen. Olympia Snowe blamed Saddam Hussein as the revised apparent rationale for invading Iraq, and she focused on the need for global support for the U.S efforts in Iraq. U.S. Rep. Michael Michaud agreed with Snowe.

Those answers translate that we got there by mistake, and we are staying there by mistake. There is no plan, there is no discussion and there is no leadership. Didn't we go into Iraq to protect ourselves from weapons of mass destruction and because of Iraq's connections with the terrorists, reasons that have been found to be utterly in error? Support our troops?

The pointless death and maiming of this war is pure insanity and probably even criminal. In this war, many times those who died in the World Trade Center have been wounded or killed. Over 1,400 American soldiers are dead, over 10,000 soldiers are physically wounded while uncounted others are psychologically wounded, and, by some estimates, over 100,000 Iraqis have been killed and maimed.

How can the killing be justified? Are we going to destroy a nation and kill its people to save it? We tried that once before. Support our troops?

I am afraid for my son. I certainly worry about his being killed, but I am also worried about his being placed in the position of killing, too. Most of all, I am angry that we are sending our soldiers to a war that nobody can justify.

Most Americans, especially members of Congress, do not have to worry about a loved one in the middle of this war, and they duck the tough questions.

Why do we permit a defacto back-door draft of the National Guard and recycle them, too? We were lied to once before, and we must avoid being lied to again. Will President Bush be this generation's Robert McNamara? I hope not. Will the Congress have the courage to ask the relevant questions? I hope so. Support our troops?

Please Don't Ask

Now you know why I didn't go out of my way to tell people that my son is being deployed to Iraq, and please don't ask about him if you really don't want to know.

Instead, please know that you will be in my shoes or his shoes unless you ask questions and demand answers of those in power. In the meantime, please excuse me if I have a painful lump in my throat or tears brimming in my eyes and that I am so angry with this damned war and the people who declared it.

Support our troops. Ask tough questions. Bring them home now.

Dexter J. Kamilewicz is a resident of Orr's Island, Maine.(dexkam@aol.com)
\xA9 2005 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.

Beat the Devil: Ward Churchill and the MAd Dogs of the Right

Beat the Devil: Ward Churchill and the MAd Dogs of the Right: "At this point Churchill could have specifically mentioned the infamous bombing of the Amariya civilian shelter in Baghdad in January 1991, with 400 deaths, almost all women and children, all subsequently identified and named by the Iraqis. To this day the US government says it was an OK target."

Book Review: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens

From a review:

Book Review: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens: "“The Ghosts of 9-1-1,” originally published in a shorter form directly after 9-1-1,1 caused quite a stir amongst some American leftists. Intent on categorizing themselves and their loved ones as “innocents” in the wake of the attack, they flinched at Churchill’s description of the majority of those who died from the 9-1-1 attack as “little Eichmanns.” Whining “But Eichmann was a nazi!” – as though Churchill was unaware of that – those who use “nazi” to describe most everything they dislike are perhaps unable to comprehend how someone could use the same term with very specific intent.

Churchill uses “little Eichmanns” to describe that “cadre of faceless bureaucrats and technical experts who had willingly (and profitably) harnessed themselves to the task of making America’s genocidal world order hum with maximal efficiency...”  Eichmann, Churchill notes,

was a mere mid-level officer in the SS, by all accounts a good husband and devoted father, apparently quite mild-mannered, and never accused of having personally murdered anyone at all. His crime was to have sat at several steps remove from the holocaustal blood and gore, behind a desk, in the sterility of an office building, organizing the logistics – train and “cargo” schedules, mainly – without which the “industrial killing” aspect of the nazi Judeocide could not have occurred. His most striking characteristic, if it may be called that, was his sheer “unexceptionality” (that is, the extent to which he had to be seen as “everyman”: an ordinary,” “average” or “normal” member of his society. (“The Ghosts of 9-1-1,” note 131)

Although it is easy to see why many of us might wish to self-define ourselves out of this category, the fact remains that in the eyes of the world, today’s Good Americans are ultimately just as responsible for the state terror perpetrated in their name as were yesterday’s Good Germans. Then, with Americans cheering the loudest, the entire German people were convicted for “never attempting to meet the legal/moral obligation of holding their government to even the most rudimentary standards of human decency.” (7) Do American’s have less responsibility today then the Germans did then?"

Iraq Dispatches: What They’re Not Telling You About the “Election”

Iraq Dispatches: What They’re Not Telling You About the “Election”: "As Vice President Dick Cheney's Defense Policy Guidance report explained back in 1992, 'Our overall objective is to remain the predominant outside power in the [Middle East] region and preserve U.S. and Western access to the region's oil.'"

Heidelberg recordings

As my journal shows, I spent the last three days of my trip to Heidelberg in a beautiful, medieval church. Singing. (No surprise there.) Many thanks to the folks at the JesuitenKirche, who graciously allowed me to do this.

The reverberance in the church is very long, and I spent most of my time experimenting with this question: What does it take to sing the chant so that Word, the text, is foremost?

It became clear to me that in order to make this happen, many long tones must be held really long, letting the sounds catch up with themselves. Many other connecting tones must be sung very lightly, sometimes fast, so that they do not obscure the main tone, but decorate it, or stretch it, or amplify it, or harmonize with it.

I'm posting two files. One, Pater, si non potest is almost well-done. I can't hear the "s" in transire, but otherwise, ok.

The second, Ascendit Deus," is out of my league. I don't have the vocal skill that it takes to pull it off well. But, my daughter heard the recording and was fascinated by it. She didn't think it was a chant, but just "Mom playing around with the echoes in the church." And she likes it enough to learn it herself, which is good, because she IS a good vocalist.

This is the piece I was so excited about elsewhere in this blog (you can search for 'Ascendit Deus' if you want to read more.) It's expressive to the point of being medieval movie music, with God swooping up thru the clouds and trumpet calls playing in the distance.

Anyway, I'm putting this here so I can access it if I need to, but I hope some of you excellent vocalists will tackle the piece and record your own. I want to hear it.

Haight silencing feeds theologians’ fears

Haight silencing feeds theologians’ fears:

Oh, my. Human beings. Can't live with them, can't live without them.

"Reports that Jesuit Fr. Roger Haight, a professor of systematic theology at Weston Jesuit [School of Theology], has been barred from teaching while the Vatican scrutinizes his views made headlines recently around the country. Haight, in fact, has been on leave from teaching at Weston for the entire academic year, while he responds to questions about his newest book.


The investigation was prompted by Haight’s book, Jesus, Symbol of God. Winner of the top prize in theology from the Catholic Press Association, it was published in 1999 by Orbis Books.


The Vatican’s criticism turns on Haight’s attempts to separate Christology from Greek philosophical concepts, on which many of the traditional doctrines on the role and nature of Christ depend. Specifically, the problems relate to formulation of the mystery of the Trinity, an interpretation of Christ’s divinity and the role of Jesus in salvation.


The investigation by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was reported in the Aug. 11, 2000, issue of NCR, but did not gain wide publicity until an article appeared a week ago in the April 24 issue of The Boston Globe.


In response to the recent news reports, Jesuit Fr. Robert Manning, Weston’s president, released a written statement saying Haight was on leave at the request of Archbishop Zenon Grocholewski of the Congregation for Catholic Education.


Haight has not responded to inquiries from the press. In July, he told NCR, “I want to handle this like Jacques Dupuis did and not comment.”


Dupuis is a Jesuit who taught at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome until the fall of 1998, when he came under Vatican investigation for his book Toward a Christian Theology of Religious Pluralism. Dupuis was later cleared.


Franciscan Fr. Kenneth Himes, a professor at Washington Theological Union and president of the Catholic Theological Society of America, said he found the sudden storm of publicity about Haight’s silencing to be curious, given that the Vatican intervention had happened months before. The silencing is unfortunate, he said, because it is “a preemptive strike that short circuits the give and take of theological conversation.”"

Google Search: "Envisioning Past Musical Cultures"

Google Search: "Envisioning Past Musical Cultures" : "... Peter Jeffery’s Re- Envisioning Past Musical Cultures investigates ethnomusicological
parallels for the formation of the medieval sacred repertory. ...
journals.cambridge.org/article_S0961137101210122"

JSTOR: Could Not Retrieve Article

JSTOR: Could Not Retrieve Article: "[Letter from Peter Jeffery]

Peter Jeffery
Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 49, No. 1 (Spring, 1996) , pp. 175-179"

Project MUSE

Project MUSE: "Snyder, John L. 1950- 'Aspects of Orality and Formularity in Gregorian Chant (review)'
Notes - Volume 58, Number 3, March 2002, pp. 560-562
Music Library Association

Excerpt


Gregorian chant has long been a focus of musicological research, and recent decades have seen new research paradigms, reinterpretations of established data, and the development of new views concerning the origins, transmission, and notation of this vast repertoire. Representative works include Leo Treitler, 'Homer and Gregory: The Transmission of Epic Poetry and Plainsong' (Musical Quarterly 60 [1974]: 333-72); Kenneth Levy, 'On Gregorian Orality' (Journal of the American Musicological Society 43 [1990]: 185-227); and Peter Jeffries, Re-envisioning Past Musical Cultures: Ethnomusicology in the Study of Gregorian Chant (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992). The present offering is thus of exquisite timeliness.

The book 'revolves about three themes: (1) the role of orality in the transmission of chant ca. 700-1400, (2) the role of the formula in the construction of chant, and (3) the varying degrees of stability or instability in the transmission of chant' (p. ix). Karp explores these themes individually and in various combinations over the course of the book. The methodologies employed range from traditional source studies (especially collations of multiple sources), to psychological theories of memory (both constructive and abstractive processes are considered), to 'folkloristic' studies of the transmission of various oral literatures (Homeric, the Hindu Veda, and synagogue practices, inter alia). The transmission of Gregorian chant, initially oral and later via notation, is thus placed in context with other literatures that have to varying degrees undergone similar processes and transformations.

The book comprises an introduction..."

Robert C. Provine: Publications

Robert C. Provine: Publications: "Review of Peter Jeffery, Re-Envisioning Past Musical Cultures, in Early Medieval Europe, 2, 2 (1993), 174-176."

A Response to Younkin's "Sing We and Chant It: Revisiting Some Musical Terminology"

A Response to Younkin's "Sing We and Chant It: Revisiting Some Musical Terminology": "In his work Man, Magic, and Musical Occasions, Charles Boilès describes this power as 'extra-normal forces' and elucidates the phenomenon as follows:
...words by themselves have little magical force, but when combined in special ways, when spoken or sung in unique contexts, these words of chants, spells, carmens, litanies, and invocations set in motion those extra-normal forces reckoned within the magical universe of the culture in question.4




Boilès's use of 'extra-normal forces' includes a broad range of musical repertories as well as many that some would consider non-musical. To illustrate his point Boilès turns to sports chant sung by the public or perhaps sideline cheerleaders at sporting events. According to Boilès, 'since there is nothing in the music that physiologically abets the team, it must be assumed that at least this music is partly for magical purposes if not completely so.'5 This magical purpose evokes the power of extra-normal forces, in this case team 'spirit,' to favor the home side over its competitors."

A Response to Younkin's "Sing We and Chant It: Revisiting Some Musical Terminology"

A Response to Younkin's "Sing We and Chant It: Revisiting Some Musical Terminology": "Younkin describes the numerous definitions of chant as falling into two general categories: a) chant as a style and b) chant as an act-in other words, 'chant' as a noun and 'chant' as a verb. An important point here is her clarification of the two. According to Younkin, chant, as a style, is an abstract concept that focuses on musical sound rather than contextual significance. She turns to several uses of 'chant' and 'song' in the literature, namely articles by George List, Andrew Strathern, and Helen Roberts, for illustration.2"

t r u t h o u t - Kelpie Wilson | Al Gore, Global Warming and Moral Leadership

t r u t h o u t - Kelpie Wilson | Al Gore, Global Warming and Moral Leadership: " To speak of market (read: economic growth) solutions to a problem caused by markets (economic growth) may not be as contradictory as it seems. It all comes down to how one defines growth. It is possible to envision a growth economy that is not based on material growth but rather on cultural and spiritual growth. Services are as much a part of the economy as goods, and a cleaner environment is the most valuable service of all"

anthonymcwatt.co.uk : Pirsig's annotations on Copleston

anthonymcwatt.co.uk : Pirsig's annotations on Copleston:

Coleridge and [Pirsig]:

"The ultimate principle is to be sought in the identity of subject and object. [This is strikingly similar to the MOQ.]



Where is this identity to be found? [At this point Coleridge is at the same door that Phaedrus was at, but he doesn’t have the key of Quality with him.]  So he answers: 'Only in the selfconsciousness of a spirit is there the required identity of object and of representation.' [What in the world is selfconsciousness of a spirit?] But if the spirit is originally the identity of subject and object, it must in some sense dissolve this identity in order to become conscious of itself as object. [Ridiculous]. Self-consciousness, therefore, cannot arise except through an act of will, [How did will get in here?] and 'freedom [How did freedom get in here?] must be assumed as a ground of philosophy, and can never be deduced from it'. The spirit becomes a subject knowing itself as object only through 'the act of constructing itself objectively to itself'.  [This is the sort of nonsense that has inspired logical positivism."]

I think "will" refers to the human function of following a DQ event with a conscious action at the biological/inorganic level.
I think "freedom" refers to the human function of following a DQ event with a conscious action at the social/biological level.

That's how they got there.

The"spirit" is the DQ event registering in intellect. "Identity" refers to the intellectual pattern that results, which, once conscious, creates a social pattern of value within one person's mind (its web of social pov's). It is only manifest to others, though, as "freedom" or "will."

Note: the sentence above would be too unwieldy to include this, but I must make a concession to the word "conscious." Without changing the meaning of the rest, realize that that particular interaction could be just as well with the somatic (unconscious) cognitive forms of perception and storage.

What word to use? Recognized? interacted with? aaaah..

Verstand (empirical knowledge) & Vernunft (reasoned knowledge)

Interesting that the definition of these two German words splits the world thus:

empirical (conclusions drawn from observation of action)
and
reasoned (conclusions drawn from observation of those conclusions).

the roots of the words are:
"stand" = booth, class, estate, frame, profession, rank, stall, stand, standing, state, station in life, status

"nun" = now

Looking at the roots, you would expect the two words each to refer to a level higher, ie. 'verstand' should be static understandings of the world in accordance to the observation of the conclusions of social empiricism (intellect reacting with social), and 'vernunft' should be the new divisions being made in the immediate present (Dynamic Quality reacting with intellect).

Where is Raed ?

A memorable quote on the headline of an informative blog:

Where is Raed ?:

"----------'the West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do.'----------
Samuel P. Huntington"

Iraq Diaries: Salam Pax - News from the ground #2

Iraq Diaries: Salam Pax - News from the ground #2:

[This is old news, I guess. From a 2003 photo/narrative journal of a civilian. This is not a government-sponsored effort, just some Iraqi's using their education to investigate and get the information out to the world. But who listened? Thank you to the Jarrar family and their friends for providing me a window on their world.]

"The Shamia medical center saw 44 civilian deaths in one single night. All making the mistake of getting near the Shamia checkpoint on a day when the US army was having a bit of a mood. The people who live there told us that it was one of the sandstorm days. Everything that approached the checkpoint was shot without any discrimination. One of the cars was carrying the casket of a dead woman to the cemetery. All four passengers died. "

poem: For Our World

 

"We need to stop
Just stop
Stop for a moment
Before anybody
Says or does anything
That may hurt anyone else... ...

--Mattie J.T. Stepanek















   


   








 

 
"

Diversity Pledge

Quoted on Peace Love & Candlewax:

"Tolerance is a personal decision that comes from a belief that every person is a treasure. I believe that America's diversity is its strength. I also recognize that ignorance, insensitivity and bigotry can turn that diversity into a source of prejudice and discrimination.

To help keep diversity a wellspring of strength and make America a better place for all, I pledge to have respect for people whose abilities, beliefs, culture, race, sexual identity or other characteristics are different from my own."

--We Are Family Foundation

Salt Lake Tribune - Health & Science

Salt Lake Tribune - Health & Science
: "Adair, like most music thanatologists, draws from a repertoire of ancient, Gregorian chants and lullabies when she plays. Familiar music might trigger an unhappy memory,   she says.
   'We use lullaby because it has a rocking, three-quarter time that is so soothing to everyone,' says Adair. And Gregorian chant is 'exquisitely beautiful and meter-less. I can take Gregorian chant and because it doesn't have a beat, I flow the music to the patient.'
"

t r u t h o u t - Apocalypse Now: How Mankind Is Sleepwalking to the End of the Earth

t r u t h o u t - Apocalypse Now: How Mankind Is Sleepwalking to the End of the Earth: "    The experts at Exeter were virtually unanimous about the danger, mirroring the attitude of the climate science community as a whole: humanity is to blame. There were a few skeptics at Exeter, including Andrei Illarionov, an adviser to Russia's President Putin, who last year called the Kyoto Protocol 'an interstate Auschwitz'. But in truth it is much easier to find skeptics among media pundits in London or neo-cons in Washington than among climate scientists"

Amy, What you Gonna Do?

On radio today I heard "Amy, what you want to do?" And as I listened to the verses, they were simple chant, with exactly the types of ornamentation you find in the Triplex, IF you interpret it the way I do, with many of the square notes intended to be ornamentation.

When you look at it from the other direction, St. Gall notation is EXACTLY what a singer needs if he/she wants to record the nuances in a pop vocalist's renditions--the ornamentations that the simple shape of the melody can't convey, the part that (if you try to notate it in standard notation) comes out looking like unbelievable rhythmic complexity.

But it's not really complex. Any child can sing it, if it's learned orally.

USATODAY.com - What got so many counties to shift from blue to red?

USATODAY.com - What got so many counties to shift from blue to red?

Environmental issues--are they "domestic issues"?

Sometimes I see "Environmental Issues" labeled as "Domestic Issues," as if they are some kind of small-change backburner problem.

Don't people realize that a huge factor of the grief in the Middle East, (esp. Iraq and Afghanistan) is caused by the United States' uncontrolled race to suck up all the available oil in the world?

Don't they realize that the wildly out-of-balance money flow created by this so-called "U.S. interest" corrupts government after government in the Mideast, while the people who live above that oil live in poverty and frustration?

Don't they realize that quick homebased fixes to our energy problems, such as jumping headlong into nuclear power, pose huge dangers to us and our children? Any mistake is catastrophic, and do we know any organization that doesn't make a mistake or two? C'mon. Murphy's Law happens.

Don't they realize that permitting energy drilling in the last natural wildernesses destroys those ecosystems? Pristine ecosystems hold the keys for people who are going to be living in a world that has no more fossil fuel. In tomorrow's world, they will be the wealth. If we are destroying these ecosystems for a few weeks' or a few months' supply of fuel, can't we understand that this is not for America's good, but mostly to line a few pockets with more money?

Do people realize that in our grandchildren's lifetimes, people are going to look back at our greed and see it for what it is? Why can't we all see it now?

We really need to wake up. The sooner the better.