Hallo D., Historians, like intel analysts, should observe and report without viewing the events through the lens of their own preconceived notions, cherished beliefs, political and religious bias and be absolutely impartial but that isn't what happens which is why we have historical revisionists not to mention a political office in the pentagon which sifts through the intel and takes whatever supports their position regardless of whether the intel is good or flawed.
I believe this happens because we are not taught how to properly think and reason impartially. This happens with even the most well educated of us. Folks learn/believe something and it becomes almost holy to them. "My side is the good and yours is the evil." type of thing. A couple of examples spring immediately to mind but the one which I will use comes from this forum and that would be the thread about science versus traditional/alternative medicine. On the one hand we have the folks holding that only that which has been investigated and "proven" by scientific principles is worthy of use and on the other we have the traditionalists who hold that their methods work and go on to use a different vocabulary to explain why if they even know why. It is interesting that those on the scientific side do not seem to understand that the more we learn the more we ought to realize how very little we really know and on the traditional side how quick we are to dismiss things because they come from modern science. Where is the middle path? Tuesday, 28 November, 2006, 02:05:49, you wrote: DM> Hi Leo, DM> Right on! History as written in books is largely either incomplete or DM> wrong, sometimes DM> intentionally so. I wonder how two historians, one leaning to the right and DM> the other leaning to the DM> left, will record the history of the Bush/Cheney administration. DM> Peace, D. Mindock DM> ----- Original Message ----- DM> From: leo bunyan DM> To: biofuel@sustainablelists.org DM> Sent: Monday, November 27, 2006 6:45 PM DM> Subject: Re: [Biofuel] The Great Thanksgiving Hoax DM> I'm still here D DM> Funny how history repeats itself or stays the same DM> Really it's a bit pointless teaching history in schools DM> as nobody seems to learn from it!!!! DM> Leo DM> "D. Mindock" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: DM> Thanks Bob. Good input!!! I put that hoax article out there to see what the DM> reponse would be. DM> I hope Leo gets your comeback. I don't want him to suffer from DM> spinmeisterism. DM> Peace, D. Mindock DM> ----- Original Message ----- DM> From: Bob Molloy DM> To: biofuel@sustainablelists.org DM> Sent: Sunday, November 26, 2006 3:22 PM DM> Subject: Re: [Biofuel] The Great Thanksgiving Hoax DM> Hi All, DM> Hoax indeed. This revisionist version of the Pilgrims Progress is DM> pure unadulterated neo-con spin. Our masters continually rewrite history to DM> make it fit their political ambitions. As always, the aim is to blind the DM> Great Unwashed and line them up behind whatever their current scheme is to DM> a) stay on top, b) hog all the goodies, and c) keep the peasants in line. DM> We don't need to know any facts at all about the first colonists except the DM> obvious that starving people are desperate. They will even stoop to working DM> in the fields if necessary just to stay alive, which would suggest that DM> political orientation is much lower on the individual's hierachy of needs. DM> Yes, some did die in the first years. How many of inherited diseases, poor DM> housing, worse diet and plain homesickness is just a guess. What we can be DM> sure of is that crop failure would be a likely outcome under alien DM> conditions. We also know that the Founding Fathers learned quickly and soon DM> adapted. DM> However, if an assessment of socialism as a working concept is needed let DM> us - instead of making assumptions about the outcome of socialism in the DM> first colony - take a look at how it actually works out in practice in DM> modern states. See below for a re-run of the recent Scientific American DM> article. DM> On the question of efficient production and use of resources, how about this DM> fact (taken from "Freedom Next Time", John Pilger's latest book: "The US DM> military budget for one year is the equivalent of $30,000 an hour for every DM> hour since Christ was born." DM> Bob. DM> From: DM> <http://www.sciam.com/print_version.cfm?articleID=000AF3D5-6DC9-152E-A DM> 9F183414B7F0000>Scientific American, Oct. 16, 2006 DM> <http://www.precaution.org/lib/06/prn_nordic_economies_work.061016.htm DM> >[Printer-friendly version] DM> The Social Welfare State, Beyond Ideology DM> Are higher taxes and strong social "safety nets" antagonistic to a DM> prosperous market economy? The evidence is now in. DM> By <http://www.powells.com/biblio/17-1594200459-8>Jeffrey D. Sachs DM> One of the great challenges of sustainable development is to combine DM> society's desires for economic prosperity and social security. For DM> decades economists and politicians have debated how to reconcile the DM> undoubted power of markets with the reassuring protections of social DM> insurance. America's supply-siders claim that the best way to achieve DM> well-being for America's poor is by spurring rapid economic growth DM> and that the higher taxes needed to fund high levels of social DM> insurance would cripple prosperity. Austrian-born free-market DM> economist <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Hayek>Friedrich August DM> von Hayek suggested in the 1940s that high taxation would be a "road DM> to serfdom," a threat to freedom itself. DM> Most of the debate in the U.S. is clouded by vested interests and by DM> ideology. Yet there is by now a rich empirical record to judge these DM> issues scientifically. The evidence may be found by comparing a group DM> of relatively free-market economies that have low to moderate rates DM> of taxation and social outlays with a group of social-welfare states DM> that have high rates of taxation and social outlays. DM> Not coincidentally, the low-tax, high-income countries are mostly DM> English-speaking ones that share a direct historical lineage with DM> 19th-century Britain and its theories of DM> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laissez-faire_economics>economic DM> laissez-faire. These countries include Australia, Canada, Ireland, DM> New Zealand, the U.K. and the U.S. The high-tax, high-income states DM> are the <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nordic_countries>Nordic social DM> democracies, notably Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden, which have DM> been governed by left-of-center social democratic parties for much or DM> all of the post-World War II era. They combine a healthy respect for DM> market forces with a strong commitment to antipoverty programs. DM> Budgetary outlays for social purposes average around 27 percent of DM> gross domestic product (GDP) in the Nordic countries and just 17 DM> percent of GDP in the English-speaking countries. DM> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Hayek>Friedrich Von Hayek was wrong DM> On average, the Nordic countries outperform the Anglo-Saxon ones on DM> most measures of economic performance. Poverty rates are much lower DM> there, and national income per working-age population is on average DM> higher. Unemployment rates are roughly the same in both groups, just DM> slightly higher in the Nordic countries. The budget situation is DM> stronger in the Nordic group, with larger surpluses as a share of GDP. DM> The Nordic countries maintain their dynamism despite high taxation in DM> several ways. Most important, they spend lavishly on research and DM> development and higher education. All of them, but especially Sweden DM> and Finland, have taken to the sweeping revolution in information and DM> communications technology and leveraged it to gain global DM> competitiveness. Sweden now spends nearly 4 percent of GDP on R&D, DM> the highest ratio in the world today. On average, the Nordic nations DM> spend 3 percent of GDP on R&D, compared with around 2 percent in the DM> English-speaking nations. DM> The Nordic states have also worked to keep social expenditures DM> compatible with an open, competitive, market-based economic system. DM> Tax rates on capital are relatively low. Labor market policies pay DM> low-skilled and otherwise difficult-to-employ individuals to work in DM> the service sector, in key quality-of-life areas such as child care, DM> health, and support for the elderly and disabled. DM> The results for the households at the bottom of the income DM> distribution are astoundingly good, especially in contrast to the DM> mean-spirited neglect that now passes for American social policy. The DM> U.S. spends less than almost all rich countries on social services DM> for the poor and disabled, and it gets what it pays for: the highest DM> poverty rate among the rich countries and an exploding prison DM> population. Actually, by shunning public spending on health, the U.S. DM> gets much less than it pays for, because its dependence on private DM> health care has led to a ramshackle system that yields mediocre DM> results at very high costs. DM> Von Hayek was wrong. In strong and vibrant democracies, a generous DM> social-welfare state is not a road to serfdom but rather to fairness, DM> economic equality and international competitiveness. DM> //// -- Je mehr wir haben, desto mehr fordert Gott von uns. ******** We can't change the winds but we can adjust our sails. ******** The safest road to Hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts. C. S. Lewis, "The Screwtape Letters" ******** Es gibt Wahrheiten, die so sehr auf der Straße liegen, daß sie gerade deshalb von der gewöhnlichen Welt nicht gesehen oder wenigstens nicht erkannt werden. ******** Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music. George Carlin ******** The best portion of a good man's life - His little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love. William Wordsworth _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
