A recent letter from Kevin (Hoop):
jt
A handful of brilliant Somali Pirates were in the process of attempting to hijack a commercial ship when, much to their surprise, they realized they were attacking a French Naval Vessel. Instead of training a cannon on the little piece of shit skiff that these ocean going geniuses were mounting their campaign from, the French Sailors hit them with a spot light and bull-horned out the message that they were all under arrest.
Obviously, in such a situation, the French Navy had several options to choose from. With their honor, pride and nobility in place, and a great opportunity to express a willingness to conduct worldly business with a sense of humanitarianism, The French Captain made the decision to take Skipper Skinny and his skiff full of Somali Gilligans into custody.The photo op was great. Several poor Somalis, and some wearing nothing more that pants, being held against their will (photos #1 & #2)* for allegedly attempting to overpower a huge naval vessel with their little out board motor boat. (photos #3 & #4)*.
Shit like this goes over well at the UN. Considering that the ACLU has very little weight with respect to the International Community, pieces of splintered wood and the floating remains of those skinny ass sons of bitches would have made for good pictures as well. Actually, the pirates shouldn't get any press. We should quietly blast them all out of the water.
"But they have hostages" you might say. If they kill their hostages they'll have nothing to negotiate with(and you know how they love to say negotiate) so maybe they'll do one or two. If we blow up pirates, we'll eventually run out of pirates. Sounds like a win/win to me. Our Government can't seriously be concerned about the death of hostages. That would fall into the category of collateral damage.
Considering the Afghan Theater, every time we send up a Predator, fitted with ordnance, the probability for collateral damaged exists yet we continue to fly. In other words, if (you) don't have an issue with the continuing overseas contingency, blowing up pirates should be a walk in the park never mind a turkey shoot.
- hoop , (* photos are not yet posted)
Hoop,
Your letter is remarkably energetic; displaying that singular talent of yours for observing a perimeter of sympathetic detail for each opposing side of a situation, leaving no doubt in the surprise finale whose head must coldly roll into the basket. I cannot argue with the greater majority of your frustration. Every attempt by humanitarian groups to squeeze the "Somalian Pirate Engagement" into a biblical perspective appears on the surface to ignore the true lesson of David the Jew's defeat of Goliath the over-sized Philistine. The French, it would appear are evil by virtue of their overwhelming advantage. The proper thing for any reasonable Naval vessel to do under the circumstances would have been to simply pass the hat and lower a basket of joy to the tiny, angry little pirates below. This would serve as a lesson for all time to the world that France is a humanitarian superstar and further, that the aggressive techniques of Somalian fisherman-turned-thugs are not only condoned but rewarded.
The French ship decided to prevent these men from simply moving on to softer booty by arresting them. You are also implying the attached photographs have been used by humanitarian organizations to exploit the suffering of the disadvantaged under the whip of the evil West. "Several poor Somalis and some wearing little more than pants, being held against their will. . . " is how you painted it. Very moving.
To prevent the relentless travesty and exploitation of "sound justice" by the evil U.N., you suggest reducing the entire incident to an event measured by the time it takes for the thick black cloud of cannon fire to dissolve into the quiet sky above a faggot of wood splinters spread thin across the rolling sea. How antiseptic. How romantic. And no photos. Very clean.
I am reminded of the ticket I got one morning as I drove to a job site on Center Island, an exclusive community of exceeding wealth in a region of exceedingly wealthy communities just outside New York City. This place makes Greenwich, CT look like Wyandanch, Long Island. I worked here for a while as a scaffolder on a twenty-five thousand square foot, four story, Portuguese limestone mansion being built by some guy as a gift for his useless, unemployed coke-head son. Being of such privileged location and grand scale, this house can be seen from Connecticut, fifteen miles across the Sound. I drove a twenty year old Volvo. It looked every day of twenty years old.
There was only one road onto Center Island where a tiny, private Police station stood sentry. Every morning I would pass the windows of this small house wondering who was watching me from behind the half-closed blinds. I guess it never occurred to me that my presence in this community would irritate so many otherwise invisible neighbors. I was eventually pulled over and questioned for over a half hour. Where do I work? Why do I have so many coffee cups on the front seat of my car? How long am I staying? Don't I own a razor? and the one that hit the spot: "so you drive this piece of shit to our beautiful community without a valid Inspection sticker?"
The cost of this ticket only delayed my ability to have my car inspected. My personal investment portfolio at this juncture was vulnerable, you might even suggest it was weak, you see. I needed the work. So I did what any desperate, imaginative guy, a little down on his luck, with a dollar and a dream would do in my situation. I forged an Inspection sticker, kept the job and eventually got the real sticker.
The moral? Desperate times reach into a man's soul and squeeze the world into an alternate, semi-workable configuration. Some would call it survival and be done with it. Others would judge it against some code of ethics and denounce it. Better I suppose for my family to have a husband and father maintain his honor, quit his job and file for State aid. I was wrong, yes. Am I sorry for it? No. . . . .
After the collapse of the Siad Barre government in 1991, numerous Somali Warlords subsequently filled the power vacuum, fighting one another for control of the country ever since. I suppose this isn't really news. People over "there" can't get anything right. If they're not killing and raping their neighbors, they simply kill and rape each other. News from Africa never seems to change. Kenya, Uganda, Somalia, Ethiopia. . . its all pretty much the same story. Who can keep track anymore? Who cares?
When a nation of 9 million people find themselves starving, suddenly trying to make it inside a collapsed, decentralized economy, the resulting shortage of food and other resources should come as little surprise. The fisherman along the ample coastline were now the engines of small, community sized economys. The fish they brought home supplied food, the trade supplied jobs and the jobs represented some semblence of what we here in the West would call an economy. So the Warlords fought over the principles while Joe the Plumber fished. Sounds like heaven, right?
Not far enough away, however, some large unscrupulous institutions in Europe, like certain hospitals and factories, making everything from electronics to automobiles, huge companies with garbage to hide began smelling blood in the waters off Africa's horn. At around the same time, International Fishing corporations, having overworked their own waters, sailed to the same region uninvited, to do a bit of "market research" of their own. The nation of Somalia, with its two thousand mile coastline was no longer protected by a national Navy or Coast guard. Who would notice or care? Like stealing candy from a baby.
Well, in reference to the garbage dumping, its called "Toxic Colonialism" (coined by Gerd Leipold, Executive Director of Greenpeace) and is banned by a treaty signed in 1995 by 172 countries. Inspired by the "Khian Sea" incident where Haiti found itself the target of dumping by a corporation from Philadelphia; and the 8000 barrels of hazardous waste from Italy which made a small farmer from Koko, Nigeria a landlord to the tune of $100 a month rent. Known as the Basel Convention, these rules outline the processes wherein predatory industrial nations prey on fragile developing nations, desperate for cash, and agree to "ban" them. For the record, there are no rules of enforcement. Sounds like Prostitution to me. In the case of Somalia they didn't even leave a dime on the nightstand. Sounds more like rape to me.
After the collapse of the Siad Barre government, a grass roots network of loosely affiliated municipal courts organized posses to clean the streets as best they could. Their efforts helped reduce robberies and drug traffic among other crimes. With the support of the general public, based largely on results, the seperate courts formed a coalition called the Islamic Courts Union in 1999. Militias were organized to patrol the roads which were then infested by desperate thieves who robbed travelers for "toll" money. Eretria was an important supplier of weapons to the ICU. Unfortunate for the ICU was its Muslim association with Al Shabab, an organization on the United States Terrorist list. In 2006, a push by the ICU to take back control of a whole Somalia was defeated when forces from Ethiopia, backed by the Bush Administration in the name of the United States, invaded with superior force. Heh, heh. Take that you Islamical terrorist Evil Doers! . . heh
Now lets take a look at the progression of the situation on the coast. You're a poor guy from a broken country. The waters you learned to fish, that your father fished, the fish that fed your family, these waters have become both stripped of fish by fleets from uninvited foreign seafood corporations and toxic from illegal, foreign dumping. The women in the village are no longer interested in a broken fisherman. There is however, a group of ragged men with young ladies showing particular attention. Want to make it in this town? Go say hello.
The money from the pirating follows a traditional pattern. The first assaults on foreign vessels were by angry fisherman defending their turf. The money was considered a fine, a toll, payment; maybe even scare these guys off. Yeah, right. The money was nice. The attacks spread to include nonfishing vessels and waters a bit futher off the coast. Now we're talking real pirates! The business became very lucrative. We're now talking the kind of money needed to buy real firepower. One Supertanker could net $30 million in ransome. We're talking rockets! So the illegal gun trade took off. With the guns came power. This is not an easy thing to let go of. Power needs money. This is the root of the modern Somalian Pirate trade.
Its just a shame the U.S. had to crush the ICU back in '06. The escalation of illegal gun trading would not have been tolerated by an organized militia or National police force for that matter. Without an easy gun market, the pirating might been less feverish and better managed from the mainland, where contemporary efforts by an embarrassed and "concerned" International community have finally focused.
It has been suggested that Obama makes the Industrialized West look weak by using restraint in the issue of Piracy off the African Horn. More force, Mr. Newt Gingrich implores, will teach these savages a lesson about messing with the "civilized" world. Your letter to me suggests that more damage is done to our noble cause, to wipe piracy from the books of modern nautical lore, by humanitarian groups with digital cameras than we can continue to bear. "Collateral Damage" is the anticeptic coin we in the West use to describe brown skinned civilians holding their unsubscripted dead. Thank GOD we're spared the obnoxious wailing! Let's just save these whining bastards some film. Wait . . . those new cameras don't use film, do they? . . .My bad! lol
Piracy is wrong and pirates should be arrested. I do not argue this point. Illegal fishing in foreign seas is equally wrong. Toxic dumping is worse. Pirates take booty. Illegal fishing by large, well equipped commercial ships ruins entire villages. Toxic dumping is obscene on a global scale. I merely suggest an effort of equivilant substance and might be employed to address the grievances of the Somali people that has been focused on their most desperate sons.
- Giov
and from David Debrocke:
Piracy is going as strong as it was in the Golden Age. The only difference now is that the game has changed quite a bit. Instead of Galleons and sloops, pirates are equipping themselves with fast speed boats and instead of swords and cannons they are using assault weapons.With the latest attack on the French naval vessel, that just goes to show the world that they are dealing with not the sharpest tools in the shed, compared to such pirates as Blackbeard or Captain Kidd. This is a serious problem throughout the world it has been estimated that pirates are responsible for millions of dollars lost in goods through shipping for a course of one year. So what could be the answer to being rid of these scourages of the oceans? Hoop has a point about just blowing them out of the water, but who's shoulders does that responsibility fall upon? For most of these countries they do not even have a police force, much less than a government, or even a Navy. There has been stated accounts of pirates attacking a vessel,then the next day officials show up and ask the Captain and crew could you Identify these pirates that attacked you? They would say yes and then point at the police officers and say that it was them! How insane is that! So many times it is the actual people that are suppose to defend there countries waterways that are doing the actual act of piracy. Many of these shipping companies have thought about providing an armed escorts through these waters where piracy is abundant, but that cost is enormous and that would only be kicked back to us the consumers. On top of that Maritime law is not clear on who has the legal right to defend these ships. Most vessels are usually registered in other countries that differ from there home ports.So where does the responsibility lie ??? Personally I think this is a huge problem and should be addressed before it really gets out of hand.I think the only way to really do that is by rewriting Maritime law and bring it into the future. So Jeff and Hoop I hope you enjoy a little different insight. Oh by the way I am David, Karen's husband.Hope everything is well on your guys end! Have a wonderful day! Sorry still trying to figure out this whole computer thing! - David
David,
It is late. I have read your letter three times. Thank you for opening the subject to include questions outside the original debate. Solutions similar to Kevin's suggestion of terminal force need to survive a well reasoned challenge before they are condoned. I simply began my exercise by asking whether a man is born into crime or driven to crime. Victor Hugo eloquently addressed this many years ago in the classic, Les Miserables. I believe the corrupting influence of profit without sacrifice is stronger than any society's ability to act within the sctrictest confines of their principles. We all seem to know what is right, yet live self-righteously compromised by collateral conditions. These extraneous details, referred to as "extenuating circumstances" are acknowledged factors of our own American judicial system, employed to reconfigure a series of events into a more favorable context, creating the dynamics or tensions so frequently exploited in our entertainment productions, most prevelantly by our television dramas.
Rising from this snake pit of America's lowest cultural denominator back to the practical, brick and mortar reality of the law, our personal protection under these same principles exposes the shameful disconnect within a society whose better interests lie in acknowledging the damage done when denying these same libertys to our neighbors, yet opts to withhold them regardless. The illegal dumping of toxic waste will not be addressed by declaring open season on the pirates. The same applies to the collateral effects of zero-tolerance piracy laws on the enforcement of illegal fishing practices. It is simply difficult for the comfortable citizen of the industrialized West to accept an equation for harmony any more complex than hitting the gopher with a nine iron.
As I said, it is late. This is not the way I would like to reply to you. I'm tired and you deserve some real, engaging feedback. Please let me know if you would mind having your letter posted on the blog. Few read it outside a few friends and family, but it keeps a few of us both inspired and de-stressed. Thanks again, -jt
Merry Meet Jeff,
After talking with our friend Hoop on the phone. He thought I should give you my take on Piracy. I don't think all pirates are bad. Take Jack Sparrow, he was a priate in the caribbean. His ship being the Black Pearl was stolen from him by Barbarosa. Jack just wanted his ship back. He did not rape anyone or steal from anyone.. He like his rum and seem to be very friendly.. ( and very cute too.) Now even though Barbarsoa did steal the Black Pearl from Jack. He did turn his life around and help Jack get it back. On that note... you see not all pirates are bad. and they do have the ability to change and be better pirates. That is my take on Piracy.
karen &n bsp;
© Jeff Thomas 2009
jt
A handful of brilliant Somali Pirates were in the process of attempting to hijack a commercial ship when, much to their surprise, they realized they were attacking a French Naval Vessel. Instead of training a cannon on the little piece of shit skiff that these ocean going geniuses were mounting their campaign from, the French Sailors hit them with a spot light and bull-horned out the message that they were all under arrest.
Obviously, in such a situation, the French Navy had several options to choose from. With their honor, pride and nobility in place, and a great opportunity to express a willingness to conduct worldly business with a sense of humanitarianism, The French Captain made the decision to take Skipper Skinny and his skiff full of Somali Gilligans into custody.The photo op was great. Several poor Somalis, and some wearing nothing more that pants, being held against their will (photos #1 & #2)* for allegedly attempting to overpower a huge naval vessel with their little out board motor boat. (photos #3 & #4)*.
Shit like this goes over well at the UN. Considering that the ACLU has very little weight with respect to the International Community, pieces of splintered wood and the floating remains of those skinny ass sons of bitches would have made for good pictures as well. Actually, the pirates shouldn't get any press. We should quietly blast them all out of the water.
"But they have hostages" you might say. If they kill their hostages they'll have nothing to negotiate with(and you know how they love to say negotiate) so maybe they'll do one or two. If we blow up pirates, we'll eventually run out of pirates. Sounds like a win/win to me. Our Government can't seriously be concerned about the death of hostages. That would fall into the category of collateral damage.
Considering the Afghan Theater, every time we send up a Predator, fitted with ordnance, the probability for collateral damaged exists yet we continue to fly. In other words, if (you) don't have an issue with the continuing overseas contingency, blowing up pirates should be a walk in the park never mind a turkey shoot.
- hoop , (* photos are not yet posted)
Hoop,
Your letter is remarkably energetic; displaying that singular talent of yours for observing a perimeter of sympathetic detail for each opposing side of a situation, leaving no doubt in the surprise finale whose head must coldly roll into the basket. I cannot argue with the greater majority of your frustration. Every attempt by humanitarian groups to squeeze the "Somalian Pirate Engagement" into a biblical perspective appears on the surface to ignore the true lesson of David the Jew's defeat of Goliath the over-sized Philistine. The French, it would appear are evil by virtue of their overwhelming advantage. The proper thing for any reasonable Naval vessel to do under the circumstances would have been to simply pass the hat and lower a basket of joy to the tiny, angry little pirates below. This would serve as a lesson for all time to the world that France is a humanitarian superstar and further, that the aggressive techniques of Somalian fisherman-turned-thugs are not only condoned but rewarded.
The French ship decided to prevent these men from simply moving on to softer booty by arresting them. You are also implying the attached photographs have been used by humanitarian organizations to exploit the suffering of the disadvantaged under the whip of the evil West. "Several poor Somalis and some wearing little more than pants, being held against their will. . . " is how you painted it. Very moving.
To prevent the relentless travesty and exploitation of "sound justice" by the evil U.N., you suggest reducing the entire incident to an event measured by the time it takes for the thick black cloud of cannon fire to dissolve into the quiet sky above a faggot of wood splinters spread thin across the rolling sea. How antiseptic. How romantic. And no photos. Very clean.
I am reminded of the ticket I got one morning as I drove to a job site on Center Island, an exclusive community of exceeding wealth in a region of exceedingly wealthy communities just outside New York City. This place makes Greenwich, CT look like Wyandanch, Long Island. I worked here for a while as a scaffolder on a twenty-five thousand square foot, four story, Portuguese limestone mansion being built by some guy as a gift for his useless, unemployed coke-head son. Being of such privileged location and grand scale, this house can be seen from Connecticut, fifteen miles across the Sound. I drove a twenty year old Volvo. It looked every day of twenty years old.
There was only one road onto Center Island where a tiny, private Police station stood sentry. Every morning I would pass the windows of this small house wondering who was watching me from behind the half-closed blinds. I guess it never occurred to me that my presence in this community would irritate so many otherwise invisible neighbors. I was eventually pulled over and questioned for over a half hour. Where do I work? Why do I have so many coffee cups on the front seat of my car? How long am I staying? Don't I own a razor? and the one that hit the spot: "so you drive this piece of shit to our beautiful community without a valid Inspection sticker?"
The cost of this ticket only delayed my ability to have my car inspected. My personal investment portfolio at this juncture was vulnerable, you might even suggest it was weak, you see. I needed the work. So I did what any desperate, imaginative guy, a little down on his luck, with a dollar and a dream would do in my situation. I forged an Inspection sticker, kept the job and eventually got the real sticker.
The moral? Desperate times reach into a man's soul and squeeze the world into an alternate, semi-workable configuration. Some would call it survival and be done with it. Others would judge it against some code of ethics and denounce it. Better I suppose for my family to have a husband and father maintain his honor, quit his job and file for State aid. I was wrong, yes. Am I sorry for it? No. . . . .
After the collapse of the Siad Barre government in 1991, numerous Somali Warlords subsequently filled the power vacuum, fighting one another for control of the country ever since. I suppose this isn't really news. People over "there" can't get anything right. If they're not killing and raping their neighbors, they simply kill and rape each other. News from Africa never seems to change. Kenya, Uganda, Somalia, Ethiopia. . . its all pretty much the same story. Who can keep track anymore? Who cares?
When a nation of 9 million people find themselves starving, suddenly trying to make it inside a collapsed, decentralized economy, the resulting shortage of food and other resources should come as little surprise. The fisherman along the ample coastline were now the engines of small, community sized economys. The fish they brought home supplied food, the trade supplied jobs and the jobs represented some semblence of what we here in the West would call an economy. So the Warlords fought over the principles while Joe the Plumber fished. Sounds like heaven, right?
Not far enough away, however, some large unscrupulous institutions in Europe, like certain hospitals and factories, making everything from electronics to automobiles, huge companies with garbage to hide began smelling blood in the waters off Africa's horn. At around the same time, International Fishing corporations, having overworked their own waters, sailed to the same region uninvited, to do a bit of "market research" of their own. The nation of Somalia, with its two thousand mile coastline was no longer protected by a national Navy or Coast guard. Who would notice or care? Like stealing candy from a baby.
Well, in reference to the garbage dumping, its called "Toxic Colonialism" (coined by Gerd Leipold, Executive Director of Greenpeace) and is banned by a treaty signed in 1995 by 172 countries. Inspired by the "Khian Sea" incident where Haiti found itself the target of dumping by a corporation from Philadelphia; and the 8000 barrels of hazardous waste from Italy which made a small farmer from Koko, Nigeria a landlord to the tune of $100 a month rent. Known as the Basel Convention, these rules outline the processes wherein predatory industrial nations prey on fragile developing nations, desperate for cash, and agree to "ban" them. For the record, there are no rules of enforcement. Sounds like Prostitution to me. In the case of Somalia they didn't even leave a dime on the nightstand. Sounds more like rape to me.
After the collapse of the Siad Barre government, a grass roots network of loosely affiliated municipal courts organized posses to clean the streets as best they could. Their efforts helped reduce robberies and drug traffic among other crimes. With the support of the general public, based largely on results, the seperate courts formed a coalition called the Islamic Courts Union in 1999. Militias were organized to patrol the roads which were then infested by desperate thieves who robbed travelers for "toll" money. Eretria was an important supplier of weapons to the ICU. Unfortunate for the ICU was its Muslim association with Al Shabab, an organization on the United States Terrorist list. In 2006, a push by the ICU to take back control of a whole Somalia was defeated when forces from Ethiopia, backed by the Bush Administration in the name of the United States, invaded with superior force. Heh, heh. Take that you Islamical terrorist Evil Doers! . . heh
Now lets take a look at the progression of the situation on the coast. You're a poor guy from a broken country. The waters you learned to fish, that your father fished, the fish that fed your family, these waters have become both stripped of fish by fleets from uninvited foreign seafood corporations and toxic from illegal, foreign dumping. The women in the village are no longer interested in a broken fisherman. There is however, a group of ragged men with young ladies showing particular attention. Want to make it in this town? Go say hello.
The money from the pirating follows a traditional pattern. The first assaults on foreign vessels were by angry fisherman defending their turf. The money was considered a fine, a toll, payment; maybe even scare these guys off. Yeah, right. The money was nice. The attacks spread to include nonfishing vessels and waters a bit futher off the coast. Now we're talking real pirates! The business became very lucrative. We're now talking the kind of money needed to buy real firepower. One Supertanker could net $30 million in ransome. We're talking rockets! So the illegal gun trade took off. With the guns came power. This is not an easy thing to let go of. Power needs money. This is the root of the modern Somalian Pirate trade.
Its just a shame the U.S. had to crush the ICU back in '06. The escalation of illegal gun trading would not have been tolerated by an organized militia or National police force for that matter. Without an easy gun market, the pirating might been less feverish and better managed from the mainland, where contemporary efforts by an embarrassed and "concerned" International community have finally focused.
It has been suggested that Obama makes the Industrialized West look weak by using restraint in the issue of Piracy off the African Horn. More force, Mr. Newt Gingrich implores, will teach these savages a lesson about messing with the "civilized" world. Your letter to me suggests that more damage is done to our noble cause, to wipe piracy from the books of modern nautical lore, by humanitarian groups with digital cameras than we can continue to bear. "Collateral Damage" is the anticeptic coin we in the West use to describe brown skinned civilians holding their unsubscripted dead. Thank GOD we're spared the obnoxious wailing! Let's just save these whining bastards some film. Wait . . . those new cameras don't use film, do they? . . .My bad! lol
Piracy is wrong and pirates should be arrested. I do not argue this point. Illegal fishing in foreign seas is equally wrong. Toxic dumping is worse. Pirates take booty. Illegal fishing by large, well equipped commercial ships ruins entire villages. Toxic dumping is obscene on a global scale. I merely suggest an effort of equivilant substance and might be employed to address the grievances of the Somali people that has been focused on their most desperate sons.
- Giov
and from David Debrocke:
Piracy is going as strong as it was in the Golden Age. The only difference now is that the game has changed quite a bit. Instead of Galleons and sloops, pirates are equipping themselves with fast speed boats and instead of swords and cannons they are using assault weapons.With the latest attack on the French naval vessel, that just goes to show the world that they are dealing with not the sharpest tools in the shed, compared to such pirates as Blackbeard or Captain Kidd. This is a serious problem throughout the world it has been estimated that pirates are responsible for millions of dollars lost in goods through shipping for a course of one year. So what could be the answer to being rid of these scourages of the oceans? Hoop has a point about just blowing them out of the water, but who's shoulders does that responsibility fall upon? For most of these countries they do not even have a police force, much less than a government, or even a Navy. There has been stated accounts of pirates attacking a vessel,then the next day officials show up and ask the Captain and crew could you Identify these pirates that attacked you? They would say yes and then point at the police officers and say that it was them! How insane is that! So many times it is the actual people that are suppose to defend there countries waterways that are doing the actual act of piracy. Many of these shipping companies have thought about providing an armed escorts through these waters where piracy is abundant, but that cost is enormous and that would only be kicked back to us the consumers. On top of that Maritime law is not clear on who has the legal right to defend these ships. Most vessels are usually registered in other countries that differ from there home ports.So where does the responsibility lie ??? Personally I think this is a huge problem and should be addressed before it really gets out of hand.I think the only way to really do that is by rewriting Maritime law and bring it into the future. So Jeff and Hoop I hope you enjoy a little different insight. Oh by the way I am David, Karen's husband.Hope everything is well on your guys end! Have a wonderful day! Sorry still trying to figure out this whole computer thing! - David
David,
It is late. I have read your letter three times. Thank you for opening the subject to include questions outside the original debate. Solutions similar to Kevin's suggestion of terminal force need to survive a well reasoned challenge before they are condoned. I simply began my exercise by asking whether a man is born into crime or driven to crime. Victor Hugo eloquently addressed this many years ago in the classic, Les Miserables. I believe the corrupting influence of profit without sacrifice is stronger than any society's ability to act within the sctrictest confines of their principles. We all seem to know what is right, yet live self-righteously compromised by collateral conditions. These extraneous details, referred to as "extenuating circumstances" are acknowledged factors of our own American judicial system, employed to reconfigure a series of events into a more favorable context, creating the dynamics or tensions so frequently exploited in our entertainment productions, most prevelantly by our television dramas.
Rising from this snake pit of America's lowest cultural denominator back to the practical, brick and mortar reality of the law, our personal protection under these same principles exposes the shameful disconnect within a society whose better interests lie in acknowledging the damage done when denying these same libertys to our neighbors, yet opts to withhold them regardless. The illegal dumping of toxic waste will not be addressed by declaring open season on the pirates. The same applies to the collateral effects of zero-tolerance piracy laws on the enforcement of illegal fishing practices. It is simply difficult for the comfortable citizen of the industrialized West to accept an equation for harmony any more complex than hitting the gopher with a nine iron.
As I said, it is late. This is not the way I would like to reply to you. I'm tired and you deserve some real, engaging feedback. Please let me know if you would mind having your letter posted on the blog. Few read it outside a few friends and family, but it keeps a few of us both inspired and de-stressed. Thanks again, -jt
Merry Meet Jeff,
After talking with our friend Hoop on the phone. He thought I should give you my take on Piracy. I don't think all pirates are bad. Take Jack Sparrow, he was a priate in the caribbean. His ship being the Black Pearl was stolen from him by Barbarosa. Jack just wanted his ship back. He did not rape anyone or steal from anyone.. He like his rum and seem to be very friendly.. ( and very cute too.) Now even though Barbarsoa did steal the Black Pearl from Jack. He did turn his life around and help Jack get it back. On that note... you see not all pirates are bad. and they do have the ability to change and be better pirates. That is my take on Piracy.
karen &n bsp;
© Jeff Thomas 2009
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