I received an email from a rightwing relative as follows:
This is excellent food for thought. Sometimes we have to see it all in order to discover what life is truly all about...like Ben did!
We never know who will see the light and when they will see it.
Blessings!
Subject: Ben Steins' Last Column
Excellent article by Ben Stein - his last column (a must read)
For many years Ben Stein has written a biweekly column called "Monday Night At Morton's." (Morton's is a famous chain of Steakhouses known to be frequented by movie stars and famous people from around the globe.) Now, Ben is terminating the column to move on to other things in his life. Reading his final column is worth a few minutes of your time.
and then "Ben Stein's Last Column" was reprinted. It talks about the "real stars"
A real star is the soldier of the 4th Infantry Division who poked his head into a hole on a farm near Tikrit, Iraq. He could have been met by a bomb or a hail of AK-47 bullets. Instead, he faced an abject Saddam Hussein and the gratitude of all of the decent people of the world.
A real star, the kind who haunts my memory night and day, is the U.S. soldier in Baghdad who saw a little girl playing with a piece of unexploded ordnance on a street near where he was guarding a station. He pushed her aside and threw himself on it just as it exploded. He left a family desolate in California and a little girl alive in Baghdad.
The stars who deserve media attention are not the ones who have lavish weddings on TV but the ones who patrol the streets of Mosul even after two of their buddies were murdered and their bodies battered and stripped for the sin of trying to protect Iraqis from terrorists.
snip...
This was the only point at which my life touched the lives of the soldiers in Iraq or the firefighters in New York. I came to realize that life lived to help others is the only one that matters and that it is my duty, in return for the lavish life God has devolved upon me, to help others He has placed in my path. This is my highest and best use as a human.
Faith is not believing that God can. It is knowing that God will.
By Ben Stein
Then there was a photo of a young man in uniform, whose arm was replaced with a hook and who is missing one eye, hugging an older soldier.
Particularly sick of the constant propaganda this week, a week in which the rightwing media managed to use the all-Republican Abramoff scandal to smear Democrats (!), I wrote this response:
"We never know who will see the light"? Seems to me that this is right up his alley, completely consistent in fact, with his entire career. He used to be a speechwriter for Nixon. Please tell me that Nixon hasn't become one of your heroes too?
So he pens a syrupy column about his newfound distaste for Hollywood stars and his admiration for "new" heroes. Big deal. Does he say anything about giving up his own insane luxury? Did he give up his Beverly Hills 90210 residence, or his house in Malibu? When he puts his money where his mouth is, then it will be noteworthy.
These little anecdotal stories about nameless soldiers saving little girls are ideal for distracting the citizenry from nagging doubts about the war and continued bombing. As a speechwriter for Nixon, Mr Stein is very experienced at prettying up a pig.
Do you think Ben Stein really cares about the soldiers in Mosul? What's he done for them lately? Helped them
get better body armor? Insisted that his government stop shipping their bodies home as cargo
as cargo?
Friend, I'm sorry to tell you, but most of these Internet emails going around like this are cynical strategic ploys to shore up public opinion. Do you know who Michael Scanlon is? He was Tom Delay's and Jack Abramoff's strategy guy. Here's a window into the cynical mindset behind the politicos that are so fond of such emails --
per Michael Scanlon: "The wacko's get their information through the Christian right, Christian radio, mail, the internet and telephone trees. ... Simply put, we want to bring out the wacko's to vote against something and make sure the rest of the public lets the whole thing slip past them." You can see the full context on page 119 in
a set of documents about one of the Abramoff scandals. Now, I'm pretty sure that you are a member of the Christian right, which means that it ought to make you mad.
They are moneychangers in the temple. They are using -- misusing -- other people's religion and other people's patriotism to further their own agendas. And in this case, the agenda is ensuring world domination through the 21st century, not for the benefit of ordinary Americans, but for the benefit of a handful of people, like the owners of the Carlyle Group, and to satisfy a few people with fanatical and extreme ideological ambitions.
Half of America is hoping the other half will see the light. The other half is praying that the first half will wake up and smell the coffee, that it will stop being hypnotized by the smoke and mirrors of a gang of professional con-men.
Arrgghh! Meanwhile on DemocracyNow! yesterday I heard reports about the cozy relationship Bush has with the Uzbek president, and the renditions to Uzbekistan, where prisoners are sent to death camps and tortured in unspeakable ways. Any chance my relative has heard
that story through the sappy email chains?? What a dangerous fantasy world these folks are living in. Really, I don't know how to get through the bubble. And we MUST get through.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
