[Am-info] Re: Jesse James

[sturde@az.com]

In <20020423223401.71AAF29B9C@lists.essential.org>, on 04/23/02 
   at 06:34 PM, am-info-request@venice.essential.org said:

>At least Jesse mostly only stole from the rich.  gates steals from
>everyone.

Don't knock Jesse James.  He represents a powerful element of the American
psyche.  Judge Jackson called him a man with a Napoleon complex.  He, like
Bill Clinton is an ultimate narcicist, i.e. utterly self-centered.  
Clinton in Newsweek stating that he should not have pardoned the
billionaire, Rich, whose former wife he had schtuped (pardon my Yiddish),
not because it was wrong, but because it "tarnished" his reputation.  And
now we have Billie admitting that he used his monopoly power to screw
competitors.

His testifying made me think of the movie Point of Order which was about
the Army v. Joe McCarthy hearings.  The Boston Brahmin lawyer, whose name
escapes me, asking Senator McCarthy, "Have you no sense of decency?"  I
wonder if Billie's testimony might be a watershed event such as the
hearings.  

If it is such an event, I am reminded of the poet Heine.  He said he had
simple wants.  A cottage, fresh flowers, butter, bread and trees around
his cottage.  And that if God wanted to make his happiness complete, a
dozen of his worst enemies would be hanging from the trees around his
cottage.  He will forgive them from the bottom of his heart for the wrongs
they have done, as one must forgive one's enemies.  But only after they
have been hanged.

James Sturdevant

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sturde@az.com

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