Article: Confessions of a "Mad Blogger"

By John E. Carey
October 29, 2006

I always considered "Bloggers" the catfish of the internet: bottom dwellers that fed on just about anything near the bottom.

On July 4, 2006, I decided to join them. When North Korea's Half-Crazy "Dear Leader," Kim Jong-Il decided to launch missiles in defiance of the United Nations, the United States and the world community, I felt it was time to speak out.

And I felt I had something valuable to add to the international dialogue. I am a recognized expert in Missile Defense, the science of Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI).

I am a conserbatine. Even so I have contributed 50 or more articles to OpEdNews.com. I believe we need to dialogue and then unite our nation. We are at war.

On July 4, 2006, ironically, my wife and I saw published in The Washington Times a commentary we wrote about the new Communist Government in Vietnam, titled "Vietnam's New Found Hopes."

We dedcided that our "blogs" should bring closer together the mainstream media and the internet readers. We are uniters and not dividers. But we have firm commitments that cannot be shaken. And we decided to use our own names, not "screen names."

By the end of the day on the 4th of July, we had three blogs going: advocating for missile defense, a better understanding of our ageing population, an understanding of Communist Vietnam, the American Civil War, and other issues.

We chose, as a name for our Flagship: "Peace and Freedom." All our blogs are on "google's" blogger system.

We found that postings to Free Republic were impossible from the blogger addresses so we started another Peace and Freedom out let at: http://johnib.wordpress.com/.

By July 14, we were continuing to annoy Pyongyang with an essay in the Taipei Times about Missile Defense and North Korea. This essay, "Unity vital to counter N Korean aggression," appeared Friday, July 14, 2006, on Page 8 of the Taipei Times.

We proudly associated ourselves with Liz McCausland and Robert Ende, daughter and brother-in-law of Mrs. "Cuc" Foshee as soon as we knew about Mrs. Foshee's wrongful imprisonment in Vietnam. This precipitated the essays in The Washington Times: "Vietnam Prisoner Release Imperative" on September 24, 2006 and "Vietnam Miracle?" on October 27, 2006.

We have been proud of our commitments and our contributions. We have also written about other important issues including the troubles of Alzheimer's. Our complete OpEdNews list of postings is at:
http://www.opednews.com/author/author2131.html

On Saturday, October 28, 2006, one of the more conservative web sites for discussion of world events revoked my ability to post on ther site. The total and only message to me from Free Republic was this: "Your posting privilege has been revoked. Reason:
troll"

Next time some conservative tells you he is a big supporter of free speech: remind him of this story or send it to him by email.

We hope you have, in some small way, found benefit in our work. Even though many of us will not agree on all the issues. I favor civil discussion. Not hostility, anger and door slamming. That leads to divorce in families and disaster for nations waging war.

"Vietnam's New Found Hopes" http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20060703-102900-2045r.htm

"Vietnam Prisoner Release Imperative" on September 24, 2006
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20060923-084007-3324r.htm

"Vietnam Miracle?" on October 27, 2006
http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20061026-090538-2780r.htm

"Unity vital to counter N Korean aggression," appeared Friday, July 14, 2006, on Page 8 of the Taipei Times.
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2006/07/14/2003318758