Swans
Contents
"The only kinds of fights worth fighting are those you are going to lose, because somebody has to fight them and lose and lose and lose until someday, somebody who believes as you do wins. In order for somebody to win an important, major fight 100 years hence, a lot of other people have got to be willing -- for the sheer fun and joy of it -- to go right ahead and fight, knowing you're going to lose. You mustn't feel like a martyr. You've got to enjoy it."
--I.F. Stone
"If you can't get water, it's a more serious problem than not getting oil. There are substitutes for oil, but no substitutes for water."
--Sung Wong Sohn (economist)
"The most incorrigible vice is that of an ignorance which fancies it knows everything and therefore claims for itself the 'right to kill.'"
--Albert Camus
![[Pic: Richard Macintosh]](./portrait/rmac.jpg)
Richard Macintosh, was born in 1933 and grew up in Los Angeles,
California. He received a bachelor's degree in history from Stanford
University in 1956. He earned two graduate degrees: a master's degree in
Liberal Studies from Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, and
an Ed. D., in Educational Leadership from Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah.
Richard Macintosh was a teacher/educator for over thirty-five years, in
the State of California. Once semi-retired, he wrote, enjoyed boating
and worked part-time as a personnel consultant for school districts and
business organizations. Richard and his wife, Jacqueline, were at home in Blaine, Washington,
thirty-four miles south of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
Macintosh contributed a regular column to Swans from March 2003 to May 2005. In December 2003, Richard suffered a near-fatal heart attack and had to suspend his work for a few months. He rejoined the fray as soon as his health permitted and in spite of many health complications. Richard Macintosh died of heart failure on June 7, 2005. You can read tributes to him from old friends like Alma Hromic and Deck Deckert, as well as Gilles d'Aymery. Richard's personal page on Swans will remain in memoriam. He is sorely missed. His columns, essays, and poems include:
• "Un-American" Questions (May 2005): The hypocrisy of empire, in which corporations act in a way contrary to how individuals are supposed to act.
• Making Meaning (April 2005): On owning and directing our own destiny and making meaning of our actions in the struggle for liberty and intellectual truth.
• Courage IV (April 2005): Finding the courage to speak truth to power and stand true to our principles, as did court-martialed Staff Sergeant Camillo Mejia, who refused to return to the illegal war in Iraq.
• Neidermeyer Nation (March 2005): Animal House's Doug Neidermeyer - the schoolyard bully/wannabe tough guy as metaphor for prisoner torturers power-hungry leaders.
• Killing People (Nov. 2004): The best killer, with support of the true believers, won the 2004 US presidential election.
• Singin' The Blues With Vichy On My Mind (Oct. 2004): America's puppet du jour, Ayad Allawi, brings images of Vichy in Iraq.
• Tragedy (Sept. 2004): George W. Bush's self-interested America and her 'New World Order' share striking similarities to Hitler and his National Socialists.
• Courage III (Aug. 2004): We cannot run away from the Winds of Challenge and Change. We have to take History and ride with it. Progressives, wake up!
• Courage II (Aug. 2004): Three lone (female) voices of dissent in the US House of Representatives, distanced by their own (Democrat) Party that has sold out to corporate and military interests.
• Courage (July 2004): A country at risk: The USA is fast descending into authoritarianism.
• Rubicon 9/11 (July 2004): The Rubicon has been crossed. Can the usurpers be expelled from the city?
• Fragile (June 2004): It is madness to think America can fashion a new world by fiat, ignoring five thousand years of Western History.
• Rot (June 2004): Empires rot when the people no longer believe in them: what will be the impact of the rot in the US ruling class?
• Walking Wounded (May 2004): Recipe to create our own US home-grown terrorists.
• Journalists And Pretenders (Dec. 2003): Where are the real journalists when you need them?
• Tea Leaves (Dec. 2003): The misinformed American populace and their presidential counterpart -- the results are predictable.
• A Moment Of Truth (Nov. 2003): The US culture of violence and pretense, from football to war.
• Virtue In The Margin (Nov. 2003): Fighting to bring truth to the government/corporate media lies fed to the mainstream masses.
• Recognition (Oct. 2003): Standing for ones' own beliefs, not those spun by misguided cultural icons.
• Doubt And Essential Lies (Oct. 2003): Taking a stance for personal conviction and moving beyond cultural artifacts, long-held beliefs and the voice of authority.
• Delusions (Sept. 2003): America's false sense of democracy, from that it proclaims to that it imposes.
• Mean (Sept. 2003): America's mean times, from WWII's Japanese internment camps to today's anti-Muslim crusade.
• The Tweedle Brothers (Aug. 2003): Signs of decline in support for George W. Bush -- but then what?
• Pumpkin Pine (Aug. 2003): The modern throwaway society and its disconnect from the value of goods and their producers.
• Smoke, Mirrors And Red Herrings (July 2003): American imperialism disguised as spreading democracy and keeping the world safe.
• Perception (July 2003): The key to political change is in getting to the minds of those who disagree with you.
• The Circus (June 2003): The blurred line between real and faux in a sound-bite culture.
• The Time's Plague (June 2003): Duck-and-cover from the bizarro world of American foreign and domestic policies.
• Courage And Cowardice (May 2003): Wonderful and/or horrible America: hope for a better future.
• The New America (May 2003): The author, and the world, puts an end to the misplaced devotion to the USA.
• Morons And Madness (April 2003): Who are the morons, and who are the mad? A poem on the madness of war.
• Hidden Hearts And Blood-Flecked Minds (April 2003): A poem about War, destruction and barbarity: A vision for the future?
• Heresy! (April 2003): Free-market capitalism and democracy: both are doomed to fail.
• A Geopolitical Tsunami (March 2003): The new alliance of Germany, Russia and France formed in response to the US drive to conquer Iraq and dominate the Middle East.