On being a liberal

Town Musician

I am a liberal, whatever that means. I have always liked the sound of it. Being a liberal is being free to think. It is a state of mind that allows you to bandy about all kinds of thought.

My mind seems to wander to Iraq again. I have the liberal mind to do so. My credo is "think and let think" within the limits of logic. Can anyone tell me why nobody but me talks about the fact that we had a problem already before blundering into Iraq? And how can anyone forget that about 35 years ago the Iraqis started to have their problem? They actually believed that the birds that fell from the sky were heaven-sent to satisfy their hunger for a square meal. Heaven never sends dead birds. Why did these birds fall from the sky? They fell from the sky because they were mercury-poisoned. What poisoned the birds? The birds were poisoned by pink seed grain that had originated in Mexico, Sweden and the United States, where the treated grains had been outlawed. In Iraq the hunger was so great that the people baked pink bread from the grain. Mothers watched their children fall ill. The old folks died and the babies were often born dead or blind or retarded. The remaining grain was dumped, thrown to the win. Birds picked at the seeds and up they flew only to drop dead in their flight? Heaven-sent? Who sent the bad seed?

I am a liberal but I believe that it was wrong, sending something we can't use to another country even though we knew it was poison. Does anyone reading this know the consequences of mercury poisoning? Mercury poisoned people become, among other things, very aggressive, irrationally so. It's called erethism. That's why we have a problem in Iraq, and no amount of soldiers will be able to fight the war that should never have been started.