Subject: Comment on Show1
I wanted to comment on the show you had with Matt Welch talking about the Arizona shootings.
I think you need to go further back in history than 2004 or 2001. I think you need to review the French revolution and also World War I and II.
According to historian Stephen Ambrose, World War I was an uprising of the lower classes and that embitterment carried over into World War II. The same for the French Revolution where the lower classes rose up and overthrew the ruling dynasty.
We have (if you just listen to the other videos on reason.tv) the government in bed with large corporations and the rich (the ruling dynasty) getting more power and the underclass getting weaker. Eventually things are going to explode. The rhetoric is simply echoing the truth. You can't blame the rhetoric (which you didn't) but I disagree that the guy was "crazy". There is no sign from anywhere, especially from Obama, that things are going to change. There is more evidence that the new batch of tea party members are going to fold than there is evidence that they are going to stand.
I do think it was clearly going to happen. We saw the same sort of rage in Austin with the guy crashing his plane into the IRS building. And I would be surprised if it did not continue to happen. But its not because of the rhetoric. Its because of the government. They continue to remove rights. They continue to hype fear and terrorism. They continue to take from the poor. They continue to give to the rich. They continue to disobey the laws they were sworn to uphold.
When is the last time you saw a powerful person actually go to jail and do hard time? That, to me, is one of the things that the O. J. Simpson trail proved. Rich and powerful people do not go to jail. The country has become "color-blind" as far as black and white but not green. It was only after Simpson had all his money stripped from him from civil law suites that he finally went to jail. The people from Enron should be in jail. The people from AIG, Countrywide Mortgage, Goldman Sachs should be, at least, prosecuted. These people are not even being prosecuted. Do you believe that the general public isn't howling about that? The media and its rhetoric isn't creating the heat. It is just reporting it (although in a very shameful way).
Perry Smith
1: MATT WELCH DISCUSSES THE ARIZONA SHOOTING ON RED EYE
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Fear of Speaking
Writing in this blog is hard for me because I have fears that it will trigger some government agency to start watching me. Perhaps they will even concoct false accusations and charges against me.
True... that is just arrogance on my part. I doubt if anyone in the government cares what I say. But it does point to a general feeling that others have expressed to me. We are being silenced. Not by laws directly attacking our free speech but by other laws hemming us in tighter and tighter.
Take for example, the effective laws of political correctness. I have to be careful what I say at work or it might get labeled as sexist or racist and I'll get fired. As long as I've been at work where I work now, there have been stories of people getting fired for "inappropriate remarks" even when they did not offend the person they were made to.
Texas has laws against photography (see section 21.15) which seems to me would be against the first amendment and also arbitrarily vague since it talks about "intent" to arouse "any" person. Yet, there it sits on the books and being prosecuted in various cases.
How am I to know when this law is going to be applied to my photography? And even if I beat the charge, I still have lost huge amounts of time and probably money fighting against the legal system.
Remember the case in New Mexico where a couple declined to photograph a gay wedding and where eventually fined $6,637.94 for not doing something. (For reference, Google: new mexico wedding photography case). and... that something was against their personal beliefs. It seems we can not even act (or not act) according to our own beliefs or we will get punished.
Where are we now? It is like a friend sketched out to me recently. We are huddled inside our homes in fear. The image he referenced is that of pre World War II Germany where most of the people lived in fear of their own government. Their response was to huddle inside their homes and not speak out.
With this in mind, I am going to go ahead and post my next open letter although I have some trepidations about doing so.
True... that is just arrogance on my part. I doubt if anyone in the government cares what I say. But it does point to a general feeling that others have expressed to me. We are being silenced. Not by laws directly attacking our free speech but by other laws hemming us in tighter and tighter.
Take for example, the effective laws of political correctness. I have to be careful what I say at work or it might get labeled as sexist or racist and I'll get fired. As long as I've been at work where I work now, there have been stories of people getting fired for "inappropriate remarks" even when they did not offend the person they were made to.
Texas has laws against photography (see section 21.15) which seems to me would be against the first amendment and also arbitrarily vague since it talks about "intent" to arouse "any" person. Yet, there it sits on the books and being prosecuted in various cases.
How am I to know when this law is going to be applied to my photography? And even if I beat the charge, I still have lost huge amounts of time and probably money fighting against the legal system.
Remember the case in New Mexico where a couple declined to photograph a gay wedding and where eventually fined $6,637.94 for not doing something. (For reference, Google: new mexico wedding photography case). and... that something was against their personal beliefs. It seems we can not even act (or not act) according to our own beliefs or we will get punished.
Where are we now? It is like a friend sketched out to me recently. We are huddled inside our homes in fear. The image he referenced is that of pre World War II Germany where most of the people lived in fear of their own government. Their response was to huddle inside their homes and not speak out.
With this in mind, I am going to go ahead and post my next open letter although I have some trepidations about doing so.
Monday, January 10, 2011
email to Organic Consumers dot Org
In response to this email that I received, I replied via their web site:
Subject: "Fair Trade" as a trademark
I told you guys years ago that you need to start getting trademarks. For example, get a trade mark of "True Organic" and then YOU can set the standards of what "True Organic" means. You could have gotten the "Fair Trade" trademark and then YOU could define who could use it and as such you could define what it means.
You need to take a lesson from the Free Software Foundation and Richard Stallman. He uses copyright law to ensure that the open software remains open. Its not that hard to do
Get off your ass and do something beside just bitch.
Subject: "Fair Trade" as a trademark
I told you guys years ago that you need to start getting trademarks. For example, get a trade mark of "True Organic" and then YOU can set the standards of what "True Organic" means. You could have gotten the "Fair Trade" trademark and then YOU could define who could use it and as such you could define what it means.
You need to take a lesson from the Free Software Foundation and Richard Stallman. He uses copyright law to ensure that the open software remains open. Its not that hard to do
Get off your ass and do something beside just bitch.
Purpose
The purpose of this blog is to record and make public letters that I send to various organizations. Almost all the time, the letters go without response. Consumer groups, Congressmen, PBS, NPR, the list is endless and I decided I should start putting them out for the public to see. I will post any replies that I received.
It isn't just congress that ignores us!
It isn't just congress that ignores us!
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