I got this today from one of the mailing lists I'm on.  My comment below, "embedded" in the text.

Can you say "Armageddon"?  I knew you could.

Date: Fri, 21 Oct 2005 10:08:58 -0400
Subject: LONGER, BROADER WAR ON ISLAM
From: The Wisdom Fund <listserve@twf.org> 


 
THE WISDOM FUND News & Views
MORE at http://www.twf.org/News/Y2005/1018-War.html


October 6, 2005
National Security Council

AMERICA HAS A CLEAR STRATEGY FOR VICTORY IN THE WAR ON TERROR

On October 6, 2005, President Bush Addressed The National Endowment For Democracy On The Nature Of The Enemy We Face And The Strategy For Victory. In this new century, freedom is once again under assault. The President outlined the ideology of the terrorists and the strategy needed to defeat this danger and see freedom's victory. . . .

The ideology known as Islamic radicalism, militant Jihadism, or Islamo-fascism - different from the religion of Islam - exploits Islam to serve a violent political vision that calls for the murder of all those who do not share it. The followers of Islamic radicalism are bound together by their shared ideology, not by any centralized command structure. Although they fight on scattered battlefields, these terrorists share a similar ideology and vision for the world openly stated in videos, audiotapes, letters, declarations, and websites. . .

*****My comment:  You could paraphrase the first sentence with perfect accuracy to say, "The ideology known as corporate radicalism, militant conservatism, or capitalo-fascism - different from the religion of capitalism - exploits capitalism to serve a violent political vision that calls for the murder of all those who do not share it."  And of course you could go on and paraphrase the rest of it in a similar vein....


The murderous ideology of the Islamic radicals is the great challenge of our century. Yet, in many ways, this fight resembles the struggle against communism in the last century. . . .


---
October 17, 2005
The New York Times

ADMINISTRATION'S TONE SIGNALS A LONGER, BROADER IRAQ WAR
President prepares U.S. for conflict with 'radical Islam' from Spain to Indonesia
By David E. Sanger


WASHINGTON, Oct. 16 - For most of the 30 months since American-led forces ousted Saddam Hussein, the Bush administration has argued that as democracy took hold in Iraq, the insurgency would lose steam because Al Qaeda and the opponents of the country's interim government had nothing to offer Iraqis or the people of the Middle East. . . .

But inside the administration, that belief provides less solace than it once did. Senior officials say the intelligence reports flowing over their desks in recent months argue that even if democratic institutions take hold, the insurgency may strengthen. And that possibility has created a quandary for an administration that desperately wants to equate democracy-building with winning the war, but so far has not been able to match the two. . . .

Mr. Bush's own way of talking about the future, in Iraq and beyond, has undergone a subtle but significant change in recent weeks. In several speeches, he has begun warning that the insurgency is already metastasizing into a far broader struggle to "establish a radical Islamic empire that spans from Spain to Indonesia." While he still predicts victory, he appears to be preparing the country for a struggle of cold war proportions.

It is a very different tone than administration officials sounded in the heady days after Saddam Hussein's fall, and then his capture.

". . . the president was concerned that we hadn't described Iraq to the American people for what it is - a struggle of ideologies that isn't going to end with one election, or one constitution, or even a string of elections."

For an administration that has recalibrated and re-explained its strategy in Iraq many times in the past 30 months, this latest turn may be a recognition of changed realities. . . .

Now administration officials are beginning to describe the insurgency as long-lasting, more akin to Communist insurgencies in Malaysia or the Philippines, but with a broader and more deadly base. . . .


---
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.

FREE BOOK: "THE WAR ON ISLAM" -- 67,909 DOWNLOADS
Get your's from http://www.twf.org/Library/woi3aL.pdf
MORE about the book at http://www.twf.org/Library/WaronIslam.html

REPLY TO <wisdom@twf.org> -- to ADD or REMOVE your name from our mailing list put "ADDtwflist" or "REMOVEtwflist" in SUBJECT line.

The Wisdom Fund
www.twf.org

 

Excerpts from Nobody Knows My Name by James Baldwin, 1961

 

 

            “Man,” said a Negro musician to me once, talking about Norman (Mailer), “the only trouble with that cat is that he’s white.”  This does not mean exactly what it says – or, rather, it does mean exactly what it says, and not what it might be taken to mean – and it is a very shrewd observation.  What my friend meant was that to become a Negro man, let alone a Negro artist, one had to make oneself up as one went along.  This had to be done in the not-at-all-metaphorical teeth of the world’s determination to destroy you.  The world had prepared no place for you, and if the world had its way, no place would ever exist.  Now, this is true for everyone, but, in the case of a Negro, this truth is absolutely naked: if he deludes himself about it, he will die.  This is not the way this truth presents itself to white men, who believe the world is theirs and who, albeit unconsciously, expect the world to help them in the achievement of their identity.  But the world does not do this – for anyone; the world is not interested in anyone’s identity.  And, therefore, the anguish which can overtake a white man comes in the middle of his life, when he must make the almost inconceivable effort to divest himself of everything he has ever expected or believed, when he must take himself apart and put himself together again, walking out of the world, into limbo, or into what certainly looks like limbo.  This cannot yet happen to any Negro of Norman’s age, for the reason that his delusions and defenses are either absolutely impenetrable by this time, or he has failed to survive them…

 

pages 182-83

 

 

            …Now I am perfectly aware that there are other slums in which white men are fighting for their lives, and mainly losing.  I know that blood is also flowing through those streets, and that the human damage there in incalculable.  People are continually pointing out to me the wretchedness of white people in order to console me for the wretchedness of blacks.  But an itemized account of the American failure does not console me, and it should not console anyone else.  That hundreds of thousands of white people are living, in effect, no better than the “niggers” is not a fact to be regarded with complacency.  The social and moral bankruptcy suggested by this fact is of the bitterest, most terrifying kind.

            The people, however, who believe that this democratic anguish has some consoling value are always pointing out that So-and-So, white, and So-and-So, black, rose from the slums into the big time.  The existence – the public existence – of, say, Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. proves to them that America is still the land of opportunity and that inequalities vanish before the determined will.  It proves nothing of the sort.  The determined will is rare – at the moment, in this country, it is unspeakably rare – and the inequalities suffered by the many are in no way justified by the rise of a few.  A few have always risen – in every country, every era, and in the teeth of regimes which can by no stretch of the imagination be thought of as free.  Not all of these people, it is worth remembering, left the world better than they found it.  The determined will is rare, but it is not invariably benevolent.  Furthermore, the American equation of success with the big time reveals an awful disrespect for human life and human achievement.  This equation has placed our cities among the most dangerous in the world and has placed our youth among the most empty and most bewildered.  The situation of our youth is not mysterious.  Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.  They must, they have no other models.  That is exactly what our children are doing.  They are imitating our immorality, our disrespect for the pain of others...

 

pages 58-59

 

 

 

Excerpt from Ambiguous Adventure by Cheikh Hamidou Kane of Senegal, 1962:

 

 

“…Work, in effect, is justified before God in strict measure as the life it preserves justifies itself before Him.  If a man believes in God, the time he takes from prayer for work is still prayer.  It is even a very beautiful prayer.”

 

[ . . . ]

 

“But if the life does not justify itself before God?” the boy asked.  “I mean to say, if the man who is working does not believe in God?”

            “Then what does it matter to him to justify his work in any other way than by the profit he gets from it?  Life in this case is not a work of piety.  Life is life, short as that may seem to you.”

            They were silent again for some time.  Then the knight spoke once more:

            “The West is in process of overturning these simple ideas, of which we are part and parcel.  They began, timidly, by relegating God to a place ‘between inverted commas.’  Then two centuries later, having acquired more assurance, they decreed, ‘God is dead.’  From that day dates the era of frenzied toil.  Nietzsche is the contemporary of the industrial revolution.  God was no longer there to measure and justify man’s activity.  Was it not industry that did that?  Industry was blind, although, finally, it was still possible to domicile all the good it produced.  But already this phase is past.  After the death of God, what they are now announcing is the death of man.”

            “I do not understand,” Samba Diallo said.

            “Life and work are no longer commensurable. In former times there existed a sort of iron law which decreed, in action, that the labor of one single life was able to provide for only one single life.  Man’s art has destroyed this law.  The work of a single being supplies nourishment for several others, for more and more persons.  But now see: the West is on the point of being able to do without man in the production of work.  There will no longer be need of more than a very little life to furnish an immense amount of labor.”

            “But it seems to me,” the boy objected, “that we ought to rejoice in this prospect instead of regretting it.”

            “No,” his father replied.  “At the same time that work gets along without human life, at that same time it ceases to make human life its final aim; it ceases to value man.  Man has never been so unhappy as at this moment when he is accumulating so much.  Nowhere is he thought so little of as in the places where this accumulation is going on.  That is why the history of the West seems to me to reveal the insufficiency of the guarantee that man offers to man.  For man’s welfare and happiness we must have the presence and the guarantee of God.”

This one is a little on the dark side, so don't read it if you're squeamish or easily upset.  This will be my second to last poem.

 

                              ENEMIES

 

 

 

               When I was twenty

               I had no enemies I could name

               Nor heart for killing.

               But my country was fighting an undeclared war,

               And the State declared to me:

                 "Our enemies are your enemies.

                  You need not know their names.

                  Here are weapons.  Go and kill.

                  You have no choice in the matter.

                  But if you kill magnificently

                  We will celebrate you

                  As a hero."

 

               When I was forty

               I had enemies I could name:

               The boss who harassed me;

               The friend who betrayed me;

               The spouse who deserted me

               And kidnapped my child;

               The corrupt officials of a system

               Which exploited and dehumanized me.

               I had weapons

               And wanted very much to kill.

               But now the State declared:

                 "Your enemies are not our enemies.

                  They are under our protection.

                  You have no choice in the matter.

                  If you kill them

                  We will execute you

                  As a criminal."

 

               And it wasn't long

               By the calendar

               Until I was too old and tired

               To fight the State's enemies

               Or my own

               Or even to care any longer

               Who they were

               Save One

               Whom I could never ignore

               But with Whom I found

               To no great surprise

               It was not difficult

               To make peace.

 

 

 

                    J.B.W.

                    copyright August, 1991

 

LIBERATION!

 

 

 

Yay!!!  i dont have to use no craftsmanship

            no more!

or correct grammar

or capitalization

or punctuation

 

my lines can be as long or as

 

short

 

as i want

 

 

and i can                                               place

my words                                             anywhere

                                    i

choose                                                 on

the                                                        page!

 

 

alliteration is still allowed

     as is assonance

          and onomatopoeia         (oof!)

 

and of course my poems should still

     MEAN something

 

but if they dont its just cuz

     U'RE dumb!!

 

 

 

                                    J.B.W.

                                    copyright 11/99

"There is no misery like a joy unshared."

Yes, it's original.  And you may quote me. 

There's no misery like a misery unshared, either, by the way.

TWO DIVORCE POEMS

 

 

 

A GAME OF CHILDREN

 

 

They met in summer, on a sparkling beach.

The sun was radiant - brightly blazed the fire

Of youthful ardor in the breast of each.

"Why wait?  Let's marry!  Hear the heavenly choir?"

 

 

Washed up in autumn, shipwrecked and embittered,

Two offspring trailed forlornly in their wakes.

Their beach with splintered hopes and dreams now littered -

 

A game of children, played for mortal stakes.

 

 

 

 

ADRIFT

 

 

Adrift, like debris disgorged from the watery grave

Of a vessel tempest-tossed and blown off course,

Prey to prevailing wind and pounding wave -

 

Such are the human flotsam of divorce.

 

 

 

           copyright J.B.W.

Have you become a new parent recently?  Expecting to become a parent in the near future?  Know anyone who is?

 

          MEDITATIONS FOR A NEW PARENT

 

 

She'll not assault your heart with soldier's stride,

But tiptoe softly, in a burglar's guise.

You'll scarcely note the moment, nor decide,

But simply wake one day to realize

She has become essential to your life.

 

If you'll but be receptive, you will find

She'll have such precious secrets to impart,

Deep truths which must, like ore, be dug, refined.

You'll guard them - golden treasures in the heart -

And see her as a teacher in your life.

 

Her virgin eyes and mind through yours will look,

Her world to see, interpret, integrate.

But more!  Your deeds and misdeeds are the book

She'll study most, observe, and imitate.

A solemn charge, this student of your life!

 

May she become at last a cherished friend,

One nurtured well, in sun and rain and snow.

And sadly sweet will be the time - an end

And a beginning - when you let her go,

No longer child, but comrade in your life.

 

 

     copyright 1984  J.B.W. / Pam Standard 

 

I wrote this some years ago about a woman I actually knew.  The scenario wouldn't apply to a majority of today's women, but it was true of an earlier generation.  And the central theme is always relevant.  See if you can find it.

Only a few more poems and I'm done.

               MISMATCHED

Alone and pensive in an unlit room

She sat at dusk.  A hard late summer rain

Beat loudly, ceaselessly.  The gathering gloom

Enshrouded her in solitude and pain.

 

Her peonies - gay greeters at her door! -

Lay bent and battered by the storm, beat down

And lifeless - mute but poignant metaphor! -

Their petals strewn about the sodden ground.

 

She sat and thought - how frequently of late

Did she sit thus, alone, and sadly muse

About the mute malevolence of fate,

The folly we so often blindly choose!

 

 

The back door banged; her rueful reverie

Was jarred as always by his ways and words:

"No supper yet?  You'll be the death of me!"

Words that wounded, pricked and pierced like swords.

 

She rose reluctantly, and dully toiled

As duty bade her, thin-lipped, stiff, and grim;

Expressionless, but inside she recoiled

In horror at the sight and sound of him.

 

They went to bed; he groped, then loudly snored,

Repulsed.  She lay awake, revulsed, and sighed,

All too aware she clung, could she but hoard

Her womanhood, to what remained of pride.

 

                copyright J.B.W. 1981, 1993

 

Moving away from firefighting, this poem has a bit of a twist to it.

 

                  KENNY

We met in a small-town thrift shop.

Leaning next to an ancient bureau -

Two drawers missing, dusty and scarred -

Was a man whom I'll never know.

 

He sported a crewcut gone to seed

And a rumpled shirt not his size,

A stubble of beard on his cheeks and chin,

And a vacant look in his eyes.

 

We regarded each other in silence.

His brooding, impassive face

Betrayed nothing with which to identify

Or define him in time and space.

 

He might have been thirty or forty-five -

He wasn't telling his age -

And his look suggested the thoughts he had

Didn't come from the printed page.

 

(I'd seen faces like his in the old tintypes

 In museum and history book -

 The penniless masses who thronged our shores

 With never a backward look,

 

 To build, in factory and mine, this land,

 With their blood and the strength of their backs.

 Today you might see them in skid row doorways

 And Appalachian shacks.)

 

He exuded an air of homelessness,

And he uttered no word to belie

My initial impression.  "There," I reflected,

"But for God, at this moment, go I....."

 

 

.....I turned the photograph over.

On its back, in a faded scrawl

Was pencilled his name by someone -

"Kenny" - and that was all.

 

"How much?" I inquired of the lady in charge.

"If you want it, it's yours," she replied.

"Now I wonder where that old thing came from,"

She muttered, and turned aside.

 

If she gave it another thought, no doubt

She questioned my sanity

For wanting a crinkled photograph

Of a man unknown to me.

 

And I, too, wondered, but felt he deserved

A home - a haven of rest

More dignified and private

Than that battered thrift-shop chest.

 

Somewhere, I'm sure, there are those who knew

And loved this man on my wall.

But he merely haunts me, and leads me to ponder

The ultimate point of it all.

 

 

                  J.B.W.

                  copyright March, 1993