6-24-13 CONCLUDING REMARKS
Posted by Vincente E. Woodward on Monday, June 24, 2013
"BE THE CHANGE
YOU WANT TO SEE
IN THIS WORLD"
Before wrapping up,
regarding the matter of Michael Hastings,
I want to make some clarifications,
for the record.
Please do not lose sight of the fact
that I am writing,
primarily, to entertain.
If I can prick your conscience,
or get you to think more for yourself,
or to realize why
you do not even want
the appearance of impropriety,
then all the better,
so far as I am concerned.
If I have to shock you,
or surprise you,
or upset you,
in order to obtain my objectives,
then I will probably do so.
I want to emphasize,
in this regard,
that I do not pretend to have
any actual idea of what happened.
While I was on the scene,
a man walked by,
who remarked that Michael
had probably just been driving too fast
and lost control
and crashed.
I agreed that this was,
most definitely,
one possibility.
But that perhaps
one should not so quickly
jump on board
without looking
at other possibilities,
also.
That is to say,
one should wait until
all of the evidence is in
before coming to
even a tentative conclusion.
I know that I sound
as if I am convinced
of this or that.
But, I am not.
My mind is open.
Yet my frustration
must be palpable.
One simply cannot trust
that an unbiased investigation
will take place,
first of all.
And even if it does,
one cannot be sure
that facts will not be covered up
or squelched,
no matter what evidence
truly does exist.
One could have
the most compelling evidence,
and yet the fix will be in,
for any of a number of reasons,
some good,
and some bad.
My issue is not with
whether someone killed someone
or not,
or whether the person killed themself,
or was driven to kill themself.
These are to me,
simply matters of what we term
SOP,
as in standard operating procedures.
That is not where my concern lies,
having long ago realized
that I live in a far from perfect world
and that lots of ugly things
are going on all around me
at any given moment.
In case you have not yet figured it out,
my gripe is with
the lies
and deceptions,
which make it impossible
to identify a problem
and then to treat the problem.
In addition,
I see no reason
to take any statement at face value,
given the culture of lies
and opacity
and deception,
which has become more and more
evident as time has passed on.
In the present case
I am doing nothing more
than making educated guesses,
and trying to show
how one would arrive
at such conclusions,
using reason and logic,
alone.
I am far more concerned
with the methods of
"thinking for oneself"
than I am anything else.
That and the morality
and military honor
which I so often can be heard
harping about.
When I was a young person,
the thought of our President
lying to us
was simply uncacceptable.
It was just something
which was not supposed
to happen.
One of Jimmy Carter's
campaign pledges
was that he would never lie
to the American people.
I think he tried pretty hard
to keep that promise,
or at least kept up
the appearance of such.
Ronald Reagan
was basically considered
to be above reproach
as regards such matters.
I will never forget
how shocked I was
to hear him say that the Navy ships
were not headed to Grenada,
when in fact they were.
But, look how much things
have changed since that time.
President Nixon was impeached
on the grounds of
lying to the people.
Today that is not even grounds
for reprimand,
much less impeachment.
Is that a good thing?
I don't think so.
It is a definite trend
and we are reaping the fruits of it
at this very moment.
In actuality
we are all losing together.
We are seeing the American dream
become just that,
a dream.
While the practitioners of realpolitik
must make mockery of
this bunch of utopians
who believe in such palpable nonsense,
knowing that they would all be killed
in one afternoon
if all actions were taken
according to their far overly idealistic
way of seeing things.
While I cannot entirely disagree,
I can say this.
Lying is bad.
And persons who are supposed
to be working in the public interest
and with the trust of the public
should not be lying
any more than a trustee of a trust
should be lying
to the beneficiaries of the trust.
Or a CEO of a corporation
should be lying
to his shareholders.
Just because they can get away with it
and make up some excuse
to justify their actions
(only this one time,
but of course)
it does not make it into behavior
which should be condoned
or made all too common.
That is the very problem
which I am dealing with here.
It is that no one is reliable
such that they can be said
to be above reproach.
If a terrible crime has taken place
such as I have posited,
then it does not help
for the good street cop
and the detectives
to gather all of the evidence together
just to have the police chief
and mayor
quash all of the evidence
for some less than worthy purpose.
That is the problem with the lie.
And it becomes very evident
when one looks at this case.
That is to say,
will we ever know
with any degree of certainty
what really happened here?
Can we even know?
How would we even know
whether or not we do truly know?
When dishonesty
and outright lying
have become
standard operating procedure,
we all lose.
It reminds me of
what I was talking with one fellow
about the other day
on that meridian
by that palm tree.
I told him
that our main problem
is that we lack
meaningful representation.
That we need
to repeal the statutory amendment
making it so that
we only have 435 representatives
(The Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929;
see also
Article 1, section 2, clause 3
of U.S. Constitution
and relevant history of same
for historical context;
also The Reapportionment Act of 1911)
Especially so
as the stakes get
higher and higher.
But, what if all of these
new representatives
are dishonest as the day is long
and immoral as can be?
Then are we any better off,
just because we have more?
And what if the entire population
is scrupulously honest?
Then does it even matter
what kind of government we have,
to begin with?
And there it is.
At the end of the day
it is all about morality,
or a lack thereof.
If we, as a people,
lack basic morality,
it will not matter
what kind of government
we have.
It we have morality,
then it matters even less so.
There simply is no way
of getting around this.
If we are all going
to lie to one another,
then we all lose,
and have no ability to solve problems
which are mutually destructive.
If we will only be ruthlessly honest
with one another,
then,
at least we can get
our different viewpoints
out on the table
and deal with reality,
instead of some ridiculous fantasy.
It is 2:41 a.m.
and I am falling asleep,
while typing,
yet again.
Time to go lay down.
w/love to all
vw
2:42 a.m.
Monday
6-24-13
Ventura, California, USA
YOU WANT TO SEE
IN THIS WORLD"
Before wrapping up,
regarding the matter of Michael Hastings,
I want to make some clarifications,
for the record.
Please do not lose sight of the fact
that I am writing,
primarily, to entertain.
If I can prick your conscience,
or get you to think more for yourself,
or to realize why
you do not even want
the appearance of impropriety,
then all the better,
so far as I am concerned.
If I have to shock you,
or surprise you,
or upset you,
in order to obtain my objectives,
then I will probably do so.
I want to emphasize,
in this regard,
that I do not pretend to have
any actual idea of what happened.
While I was on the scene,
a man walked by,
who remarked that Michael
had probably just been driving too fast
and lost control
and crashed.
I agreed that this was,
most definitely,
one possibility.
But that perhaps
one should not so quickly
jump on board
without looking
at other possibilities,
also.
That is to say,
one should wait until
all of the evidence is in
before coming to
even a tentative conclusion.
I know that I sound
as if I am convinced
of this or that.
But, I am not.
My mind is open.
Yet my frustration
must be palpable.
One simply cannot trust
that an unbiased investigation
will take place,
first of all.
And even if it does,
one cannot be sure
that facts will not be covered up
or squelched,
no matter what evidence
truly does exist.
One could have
the most compelling evidence,
and yet the fix will be in,
for any of a number of reasons,
some good,
and some bad.
My issue is not with
whether someone killed someone
or not,
or whether the person killed themself,
or was driven to kill themself.
These are to me,
simply matters of what we term
SOP,
as in standard operating procedures.
That is not where my concern lies,
having long ago realized
that I live in a far from perfect world
and that lots of ugly things
are going on all around me
at any given moment.
In case you have not yet figured it out,
my gripe is with
the lies
and deceptions,
which make it impossible
to identify a problem
and then to treat the problem.
In addition,
I see no reason
to take any statement at face value,
given the culture of lies
and opacity
and deception,
which has become more and more
evident as time has passed on.
In the present case
I am doing nothing more
than making educated guesses,
and trying to show
how one would arrive
at such conclusions,
using reason and logic,
alone.
I am far more concerned
with the methods of
"thinking for oneself"
than I am anything else.
That and the morality
and military honor
which I so often can be heard
harping about.
When I was a young person,
the thought of our President
lying to us
was simply uncacceptable.
It was just something
which was not supposed
to happen.
One of Jimmy Carter's
campaign pledges
was that he would never lie
to the American people.
I think he tried pretty hard
to keep that promise,
or at least kept up
the appearance of such.
Ronald Reagan
was basically considered
to be above reproach
as regards such matters.
I will never forget
how shocked I was
to hear him say that the Navy ships
were not headed to Grenada,
when in fact they were.
But, look how much things
have changed since that time.
President Nixon was impeached
on the grounds of
lying to the people.
Today that is not even grounds
for reprimand,
much less impeachment.
Is that a good thing?
I don't think so.
It is a definite trend
and we are reaping the fruits of it
at this very moment.
In actuality
we are all losing together.
We are seeing the American dream
become just that,
a dream.
While the practitioners of realpolitik
must make mockery of
this bunch of utopians
who believe in such palpable nonsense,
knowing that they would all be killed
in one afternoon
if all actions were taken
according to their far overly idealistic
way of seeing things.
While I cannot entirely disagree,
I can say this.
Lying is bad.
And persons who are supposed
to be working in the public interest
and with the trust of the public
should not be lying
any more than a trustee of a trust
should be lying
to the beneficiaries of the trust.
Or a CEO of a corporation
should be lying
to his shareholders.
Just because they can get away with it
and make up some excuse
to justify their actions
(only this one time,
but of course)
it does not make it into behavior
which should be condoned
or made all too common.
That is the very problem
which I am dealing with here.
It is that no one is reliable
such that they can be said
to be above reproach.
If a terrible crime has taken place
such as I have posited,
then it does not help
for the good street cop
and the detectives
to gather all of the evidence together
just to have the police chief
and mayor
quash all of the evidence
for some less than worthy purpose.
That is the problem with the lie.
And it becomes very evident
when one looks at this case.
That is to say,
will we ever know
with any degree of certainty
what really happened here?
Can we even know?
How would we even know
whether or not we do truly know?
When dishonesty
and outright lying
have become
standard operating procedure,
we all lose.
It reminds me of
what I was talking with one fellow
about the other day
on that meridian
by that palm tree.
I told him
that our main problem
is that we lack
meaningful representation.
That we need
to repeal the statutory amendment
making it so that
we only have 435 representatives
(The Permanent Apportionment Act of 1929;
see also
Article 1, section 2, clause 3
of U.S. Constitution
and relevant history of same
for historical context;
also The Reapportionment Act of 1911)
Especially so
as the stakes get
higher and higher.
But, what if all of these
new representatives
are dishonest as the day is long
and immoral as can be?
Then are we any better off,
just because we have more?
And what if the entire population
is scrupulously honest?
Then does it even matter
what kind of government we have,
to begin with?
And there it is.
At the end of the day
it is all about morality,
or a lack thereof.
If we, as a people,
lack basic morality,
it will not matter
what kind of government
we have.
It we have morality,
then it matters even less so.
There simply is no way
of getting around this.
If we are all going
to lie to one another,
then we all lose,
and have no ability to solve problems
which are mutually destructive.
If we will only be ruthlessly honest
with one another,
then,
at least we can get
our different viewpoints
out on the table
and deal with reality,
instead of some ridiculous fantasy.
It is 2:41 a.m.
and I am falling asleep,
while typing,
yet again.
Time to go lay down.
w/love to all
vw
2:42 a.m.
Monday
6-24-13
Ventura, California, USA
