By not voting at all they win.

By voting third party you poke them in the eye.

– From Seneca’s last letter to Nero

Speaking of emperors, I wrote quite a few months ago a piece which may be appropriate repeating it here in this context:

A MUSLIM’S OPEN LETTER to G.W. BUSH

Dear Mr President,

Do yourself, your family, your Country and more
importantly the World a favour. Please pick up your
phone and make an appointment with your shrink, URGENTLY !

You and your government’s actions are like the
Texan cowboy who enraged by an irritating fly
(Bin Laden) storms into a crowded room chasing it
and blowing up everything and everyone around
(Afghans, Iraqis) to smithereens. But the fact
remains, the fly is still there, somewhere,
breeding and multiplying.

Unfortunately, only God, Jesus, Buddha, Zeus, Jehovah, Jupiter, Allah,
Krishna and the many other demigods in this colourful World and YOU,
know who will be hit next.

I suspect that in your leisure you overindulge
watching action cartoons like Tweety and Pussycat,
and/or Tom and Jerry. This surely must have blurred your
ability to clearly separate Reality from Fiction.
In order to strike a balance, I recommend you devote
more time also to such readings as L. Tolstoy’s WAR AND PEACE
and TE Lawrence’s THE SEVEN PILLARS OF WISDOM.

But if you can’t handle (intellectually, i.e.)
these works, I suggest a lighter reading:
George Orwell’s ANIMAL FARM.
This is the story of a pig who firmly believed that
“All people in the World are equal,
BUT SOME ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS”.

And when the time comes and you survey
from the White House balcony the World ABLAZE,
what musical instrument will you, Emperor Bush, be playing?
The fiddle?
But if you happen to be musically illiterate, don’t worry!
Then your INANE SMIRK gracing the foreground
to this monumental tragedy WILL DO JUST FINE !

I hope you got the gist of my drift, SIR!

Yours sincerely,

Kashar Khan*

*Kashar Khan is the pen name/”nom de plume” chosen by be writer of this letter in homage to all Muslims/Arabs who have been the innocent victims of the use and abuse of military power.
In December, 1979, Afghanistan was invaded by the Soviet Union.
As a result of this war which lasted 10 years, a wave of refugees moved to the safety of neighbouring Pakistan. Among the refugees was a little girl whose picture taken by Steve McCurry in 1984 graced the front page of National Geographic in June 1985.
This picture generated worldwide interest and seventeen years later the same photographer went back to look for her. He found her, a married woman with 3 young daughters.
He learnt then that her name was Sharbat Gula, and Kashar Khan is her brother’s name.

Below is a link to the original Sharbat’s National Geographic cover picture.

http://www.stefangeens.com/000133.html

The problem is simply stated. As Gordon Brown – discussing what he perceives to be an improvement in his political fortunes – says, “an hour is a long time in politics.”(1) (It used to be a week, but everything is speeding up). To remain in office or to remain in business, decision-makers must privilege the present over the future. Discount rates ensure that investments made today are worth nothing in ten years’ time; the political cycle demands that no one looks beyond the next election.

The financial crisis is just one consequence of a system which demands that governments sacrifice long-term survival for short-term gains. Monbiot

That last sentence is what needs to change. The question is of course will it, not on this path. Do the decision-makers understand what George just wrote of course they do but are weak. Let me say that again they are weak. They come across as strong and to me the way they do that is through arrogance and belligerents and in many cases have other people do it for them but in the end weak people. If this financial crisis hasn’t showed us that nothing will.

http://www.freedemocrats.co.uk.

Each morning, each American should look in the mirror and repeat the following:

“I, Joe B…., have been fed a tissue of lies. My country is not the greatest country in the history of the world but is instead a class-riddled, militaristic, faith-crazed, right-wing rogue nation.

I, an American, am not a member of an elite race but merely a citizen of a small, mediocre country, one with only five percent of the world’s population, a country which is filled with corruption and greed and racism and inequality.

I would like to apologize to the world for the wars and killing and destruction my imperialist country has engaged in over decades and for the rapacious economic exploitation it has carried out across the world, exploitation which has brought hunger and starvation to many.

Please forgive me and my country! Hopefully we can resolve our glaring deficiencies and do better.”

http://www.dangerouscreation.com

Dear Caesar
Keep Burning, raping, killing
But please, please
Spare us your obscene poetry
And ugly music

– From Seneca’s last letter to Nero

I have seem a few of these so called leaders dance and for some reason they just don’t seem to be very good at it. Why is that. This new guy does I have my fingers crossed. It helps

There is still time but not on this path think people think.