In a message dated 3/6/2003 8:05:11 AM Eastern Standard Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:


> I don't need to read details on the stink, I'd
> rather read details on their greatness.

Stink and greatness often go together and to immortalize folk based solely on
their greatness makes for completely biased and lopsided history.  Hey the
womanized of folks like MLK, JFK, Billy Clinton or the chronic lying of Nixon
- does it impact some of the things they did as a leader - yes and no, but
does it give you better perspective of who they are as men - definitely.   I
often find it hard to take seriously folks like Clinton,  Jesse Jackson, etc.
who conjure up moral righteousness for their causes when the same man likes
to cheat on his wife all the time.  Hard to read that icons and legends are
often mere mortals with all the human fixins!

You are a teacher and to bury your head in the sand to avoid the stink is a
scary thing.   That means kids get all the sunshine and not the rain (unless
its PC rain). Today, an understanding of the stink folks around the world
smell of America - a true and very definite stink - one we Americans bury our
heads in the sand about - does not allow better understand of roads forward
in foreign policy.   We fight for Freedom and Liberty in America dont we!
How to you explain $1.3 Billion in Foreign aid to Egypt, or places like the
Soviet Republics, Saudi Arabia, or even our large military support of Saddam
himself in the 1980s when he was happily fighting Iran and gases his own
people.   Not very democratic freedom loving liberty aspiring places.  Think
of the lack of religious freedoms in such places, yet all your tax money
flows to them.  Rose color glasses are great for a reprieve but dangerous to
wear as permanent fixtures.

Tom McMahon

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