I was born in the beautiful State of Hawai`i, in a Small Town on the Big Island. But then I moved away. Then I moved back. Then away. Then back. Then away and I'm still away, though I do get back to visit family and friends almost every year. There's no place better than Hawaii, at least when you don't have to support a family, buy a home or pay for gas. At least you can't drive too far.
You may wonder about my name. It's pronounced ah-HOLE-eh in Hawaiian, though some have called me by the colloquial English pronunciation, being haole and all. The word haole means "foreigner" in Hawaiian, though most people now use it primarily for white people in Hawaii.
By the way, you can trust what I say to be true. I have a reputation of honesty, integrity and loyalty to those I love and who are my friends. My inner voice, or muse, on the other hand, isn't so credible. For that I'm sorry. You'll see I'm sorry a lot. Since I'm disclosing these powerful apologies of my conscience, you can rest assured that I'm accurately transcribing what rants inside my skull.
Many people will want to know what credentials I have to support my views. The suggestion is that only certain people can be entrusted to have reasonable opinions. I believe that being an observer rather than an expert is what allows me to have radical views that embrace freedom over tyranny. Politicians have no guts and deserve no glory, since they regularly follow the party line even with overwhelming evidence showing the line should be dropped.
With that, though, I can say that I went to a Catholic high school and have received both a BS and MS degree. My wife says I excel at the BS part more than the MS part.
On with the story of life in the United States of America in Spring 2004 from the perspective of a mad apologist living in the great northwest. After the infamous apology from Richard Clark at the 9/11 hearings, followed by the outrage among Republicans party liners that such an apology was inappropriate, I figured the world would be a lot nicer if people took responsibility for their deeds and apologized when things didn't turn out quite right. So, on behalf of Mr. Clark, I apologize that he apologized because he knew big government is slow, bungling, misguided and quick to blame everyone else for whatever goes wrong while taking credit for whatever goes right.
Mostly, the good and bad are caused by the economic activity and the vagaries of the marketplace driven by millions of good, hard-working Americans, Tongans and other nationalities. But I can't speak for the rest of the world since they are wise to live their own lives and visit and trade with us as they desire. The U.S. governments generally hurt the economy by putting up barriers to individual choice and tastes and responsibility. They can help mostly by getting out of the way and letting Americans do what we do best: invest and invent, create and innovate, share and help out, work and buy the things we need and like. Do you suppose Mother Teresa was only looking for a tax break or sat around waiting for a government to help her cause? Good is good, and doing good while doing well is okay, but doing good for a tax break is just bad tax policy, and waiting for a government to fix your problems is unreasonable.
For those who think I'm just writing this to blast Georgie Bush Jr., the puppet in front of the Great Oz Cheney, then perhaps you're on to something, but note that Bush neither created the economic woes and mass job layoffs that resulted after 9/11 and the stock market bubble burst of 2000, nor has he created the jobs or slow recovery that always occurs after such collapses. That's the marketplace as it teeters between choice and the myriad laws that unfortunately affect those choices.
Politically speaking, I've voted Republican more often than not, and I've voted Libertarian more than I've voted Democratic. I've just deluded myself into thinking that Republicans really where for a smaller, less intrusive government, but recent history shows Republicans love to meddle elsewhere and spend more of our hard-earned dollars than ever before.
Bush gives a tax break while spending $1 billion per week on his personal Iraqi struggle, his Mess-O-Potamia as Jon Stewart would say, without any consideration for our economy. But the marketplace is more stable when there's less tinkering with how it works, in which we trust that most people are good, most people want to be happy and to succeed in life, most people love their families, most people want to contribute and make their communities better, and most people know what they like and don't need someone else to make up their minds for them under the heavy hand of the law.
Unfortunately, neither Bush, Kerry nor any member of Congress appears to be willing to consider new ideas. We must stay the course, they tell us, even if we're way off course and shouldn't be where we are today. Go figure that logic, but then most are men, and men generally fear asking for directions.
If you feel the need to contact me, just send an email to madman@myeastside.com. I get a lot of email, so I may not be able to answer you personally, but I'll try to keep interesting comments and my responses posted here.
Thanks for your website, I'll just quote just one of the good passages there, For those who think I'm just writing this to blast Georgie Bush Jr., the puppet in front of the Great Oz Cheney, then perhaps you're on to something, but note that Bush neither created the economic woes and mass job layoffs that resulted after 9/11 and the stock market bubble burst of 2000, nor has he created the jobs or slow recovery that always occurs after such collapses. That's the marketplace as it teeters between choice and the myriad laws that unfortunately affect those choices. Politically speaking, I've voted Republican more often than not, and I've voted Libertarian more than I've voted Democratic. I've just deluded myself into thinking that Republicans really where for a smaller, less intrusive government, but recent history shows Republicans love to meddle elsewhere and spend more of our hard-earned dollars than ever before. Bush gives a tax break while spending $1 billion per week on his personal Iraqi struggle, his Mess-O-Potamia as Jon Stewart would say, without any consideration for our economy. But the marketplace is more stable when there's less tinkering with how it works, in which we trust that most people are good, most people want to be happy and to succeed in life, most people love their families, most people want to contribute and make their communities better, and most people know what they like and don't need someone else to make up their minds for them under the heavy hand of the law. Clearly you're a person who I don't need to write lengthy explanations. a. you said the downturn in 2000 was already underway before Bush took office. But you neglected to mention that capital markets anticipated the segments of the economy that would be disadvantaged under Bush regime, and the corresponding winners (computers, Internet, and individual, decentralized things generally screwed; media companies and top-down central control industries like Microsoft, winners. ) (government sector increased, particularly military; personal consumption, travel, restaurants, etc. inhibited) (government services harmed, medical and services infrastructures redirected to the wealthy. etc.etc. too many things to mention) I think Bush bears partial responsibility for the downturn --but the downturn includes tens of millions of jobs and activites lost on the social, environmental and cultural sectors and nines of millions regained, in military personnel, arms manufacturing, homeland security, prisons and all kinds of SICK domination bullshit from these christian corporate fascist elites. It is the tens of millions of jobs, and the associated services lost, that people need to focus on. b. You're absolutely right, in that nobody like Kerry etc. should be running the economy as a command economy. The market alas, is the boss. And the biggest development is that foreign workers and nations have learned how to manufacture pretty good products. And their workers flat out DESERVE the jobs, and they will then get the money from sales, and they will consume those products. If the US Worker wants to play in the marketplace they will have to tighten their belts to the emerging, world price of manufacturing labor. This is the unpleasant truth that many of us downsized people instinctively KNOW, and we don't expect Kerry or the Democrats to succeed in defying gravity. All they will do is create a different group of privilged elites no better than the Bush elites. There is no denying: The World deserves to do the manufacturing since they are collectively, doing it much much lower prices and as a result they are also going to end up with the purchasing power. WE should be cheering their achievements and modernization --not fearing it or waging war on the world. And the DEMOCRATS should tell us the truth about what can be done, and what cannot be done, about manufacturing jobs. And the REPUBLICANS should all be taken out and hanged, for stealing the wealth of the country in their relentless, cynical and selfish, zero-sum games! :-) Bare, market economics never existed in nature for 2 seconds before being corrupted by whoever was most powerful to set the rules. The only question therefore, is WHAT shall be the regulation of market economics, not WHETHER market economics should be regulated. Todd Todd Boyle - Kirkland WA - 425-827-3107 some stuff I do: home , http://refusenik.org . P2P commerce http://www.ledgerism.net/ . member, http://www.epjc.net . cofounder, http://www.watir.org/ . member,. http://vfp92.org/ .