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1 All Perceptions Are Reality
Monday August 28, 2006
IF IT IS PRINTED IN THE NEWSPAPER,
IT MUST BE TRUE....NOT!
The spreading graffiti we see around our communities does not communicate a meaningful message; rather the message is in the form of delivery. The Taggers' socially unacceptable behariour represents nothing less than terrorism in the larval stage. When people submit letters to the editor that are full of innuendo, rumor, and diatribe sprinkled with some data and half-truths, submitted under the name "Name Supplied" or "Name Withheld," they are acting in a similar manner, no matter how cleverly worded. Their real message is in the process, not the content. Someone once said that "a half a truth is often a great lie." I can only surmise that such letters to the editor are "signed" anonymously because the authors realise that such mean spirited and often personal attacks would undermine their position in the community if the source were known. Further, for a newspaper to publish such anonymous letters is the equivalent of inviting Taggers to spray their brand of social poison on the news building walls. I give no credence whatsoever to such letters and suggest that other readers do the same. If you have something to say, at least have the guts and integrity to be responsible for your own beliefs; and if they are not your own beliefs, then you are being sadly manipulated and need to regain control of your own brain. | | | |
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Friday August 18, 2006
Ruling for the Law - New York Times August 18, 2006
Editorial
Ruling for the Law
Ever since President Bush was forced to admit that he was spying on Americans’
telephone calls and e-mail without warrants, his lawyers have fought to keep
challenges to the program out of the courts. Yesterday, that plan failed. A
federal judge in Detroit declared the eavesdropping program to be illegal and
unconstitutional. She also offered a scathing condemnation of what lies behind
the wiretapping — Mr. Bush’s attempt to expand his powers to the point that he
can place himself beyond the reach of Congress, judges or the Constitution.
“There are no hereditary kings in America and no powers not created by the
Constitution,” wrote Judge Anna Diggs Taylor of the United States District Court
in Detroit. Her decision was based on a lawsuit filed by the American Civil
Liberties Union.
She said Mr. Bush violated the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act when
he ordered the National Security Agency to spy without a warrant on
international phone calls and e-mail by Americans and foreign residents of the
United States. She noted that the surveillance law was passed to prohibit just
this sort of presidential abuse of power and provided ample flexibility for
gathering vital intelligence. She also said that the program violated the Fourth
Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches and seizures, as well as the
rights of free speech and association granted by the First Amendment.
The ruling eviscerated the absurd notion on which the administration’s arguments
have been based: that Congress authorized Mr. Bush to do whatever he thinks is
necessary when it authorized the invasion of Afghanistan.
It’s good news that this ruling exists at all. Mr. Bush’s lawyers tried to have
the entire suit thrown out on national security grounds, a tactic they have used
in an alarming number of cases. In one particularly appalling example, they
persuaded federal judges to refuse to hear a lawsuit filed by an innocent German
citizen of Lebanese birth who was snatched out of his private life, illegally
imprisoned for five months and tortured by American jailers.
In this case, the administration told Judge Taylor that merely arguing its case
would expose top secret information. Judge Taylor said she had reviewed the
secret material and concluded it was not relevant. The secrecy claim, she said,
was “disingenuous and without merit.”
No sooner had this ruling been issued than Mr. Bush’s loyalists in Congress, who
have been searching for ways to give legal cover to an illegal spying program,
began calling for new laws to overcome Judge Taylor’s objections. Republicans
quickly pointed out that Judge Taylor was appointed by President Jimmy Carter
and that some of the many precedents she cited were written by liberal judges.
These efforts to undermine Judge Taylor’s arguments will undoubtedly continue
while the White House appeals the decision, and the outcome in the conservative
Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals is uncertain.
But for now, with a careful, thoroughly grounded opinion, one judge in Michigan
has done what 535 members of Congress have so abysmally failed to do. She has
reasserted the rule of law over a lawless administration and shown why issues of
this kind belong within the constitutional process created more than two
centuries ago to handle them.
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Monday July 24, 2006
CORPORASAURUS REX
Evolution of the Most Dangerous Critter to Ever Roam the Earth
The Corporation, as a form of organisation, has evolved from humble and good intentions to become the most powerful living force on the planet! This is a radical sounding assertion, but completely valid once the “critters” are examined in the context of the social and ecological impact they wreak.
“Critters”? Yes, they are living entities made up of herds, swarms, colonies, packs, flocks, ..... you pick a collective descriptor.... of human beings that not only exist as a collective organism, but, unlike collective groups of animals, they have been legally recognised as such and given the additional status of rights under law that are even greater than those of the individual citizen.
Black’s Law Dictionary defines a corporation as follows: “an artificial person or legal entity created by or under the authority of the laws of a state or nation...ordinarily consisting of an association of numerous individuals. Such entity.... is regarded in law as having a personality and existence distinct from that of its several members...vested with the capacity of continuous succession irrespective of changes in its membership, either in perpetuity or for a limited term of years”....WOW ! Even potentially immortal!
Once upon a time, corporations were conceived as collective associations designed to attract people and resources to accomplish desirable social purposes that were beyond the capabilities of any one individual. Endowed by government with detailed prescribed rights and responsibilities, corporations were operated in a very open and transparent manner, had a natural lifetime specified and were punished by revocation of charter if found operating outside of intended purpose or in a manner detrimental to society.
This form of organisation was given a huge boost in acceptance and numbers by the huge expansion of “Western Civilisation” during the 16th and 17th centuries. And, government officials quickly grasped the corporate instrument as a means of insulating themselves from personal liability and responsibility for risk almost unlimited opportunity for gain in “plundering” newly acquired territories around the world.... it was a short leap from government plunder to private plunder through corporate actions.
The first US corporation-for-profit was created in New York in 1811, and other states soon followed this lead. The Civil War fueled further government support of corporations as instruments for achieving necessary societal purposes, hence spurring the liberalisation of restrictions and controls on them. Such liberalisation has continued ever more since that time, with the focus gravitating away from government and society more exclusively toward the interests of shareholders and management.
In 1885, the Supreme Court quietly ruled that a corporation is a person within the meaning of the Bill of Rights. Then in 1938 a Supreme Court case granted corporations the rights of human beings under the 14th Amendment. However, Justice Hugo Black dissented, noting that since the Amendment’s adoption more than 50.0% the cases brought under it sought to extend rights to corporations while less than .5% involved the protection of the Negro race.
“In the beginning, no one dreamed that small aggregations of wealth and power legalized in the form of corporations to achieve social purposes would persistently grind away social and legislative mandates that controlled purpose, restricted its territory, confined its growth, and curbed its behavior. But they did. No one dreamed that, in addition to other rights and power, they would demand and receive the rights of human beings, but they did.”
“The for-profit, monetized, shareholder form of corporation has demanded and received perpetual life. It has demanded and received the right to define its own purpose and act solely for self-interest. It has demanded and received release from the revocation of its charter for inept or antisocial acts. It has demanded and received ever more protection and privilege from government. The roles of giant, transnational corporations and government have slowly reversed. For all practical purposes, government is now more an instrument of monetized corporatism than such corporatism is an instrument of government. They are no longer, not even indirectly, an instrument of the societies they affect, but an instrument of the few who control the ever-increasing power and wealth they command....... (the commercial corporation) has steadily become an instrument of those with surplus money (capital) and those with surplus power (management) to reward themselves at the expense of the community, the biosphere, and the many without surplus wealth or power, commonly called ‘consumers’ and ‘human resources’.... thus, ‘human resources’... (are used), worn out and discarded with little more consideration on the part of monetary stockholders and management than they might give to a load of ore or a pile of lumber.” (Hock, pp.136-137)
Corporasaurus Rex now roams from continent to continent, nation-state to nation-state seeking the juiciest resources for consumption. They are beyond the reach of any nation-state and have an implicit sovereignty over people throughout the world as they hold governments to ransom by bargaining one against the other for the alleged economic benefits of their mere presence while evading responsibilities for the social and ecological costs that are inevitably incurred.
Corporasaurus Rex is an amazingly efficient “eating machine” that devours energy and resources more rapidly than they can be replaced, turning such into rich nutriments for itself (capitalised gain), while excreting back into society the unpleasant long term effects (socialisation of costs). For examples of such, no one is more eloquent or explicit than Dee Hock:
“When a corporation ‘downsizes’ workers, abandons a community, or pays less than a living wage; when it creates and dumps waste..... when it receives a subsidy, guarantee, or relief from taxation by government, it has socialized a cost and capitalized a gain."
“When a corporation utilizes highways, railroads, airlines, postal departments or other public infrastructure at less than their full cost; when it uses the military, the CIA, or any other government instrumentality to protect its interests; when it diminishes topsoil, depletes the water table, or pollutes and poisons any biological system on which life depends, it has socialized a loss and capitalized the gain."
“When a corporation engages in unsound lending, or currency speculation and looks to government, the World Bank, or the International Monetary Fund to bail out its customers, public or private, in order that they may repay their debt; when a corporation is awarded scarce portions of the electromagnetic spectrum to market its ideology and wares, it has socialized a cost and capitalized the gain.” (Hock, pp.140-141)
And sadly, the ravages of Corporasaurus Rex are not limited to the current generation. Liability for these socialised costs is passed on to yet unborn generations in the forms of government guarantees, long-term debt, and depletion of natural resources that require centuries (if ever) for regeneration.
All of this builds up in the form of government guarantees and debt with interest that ironically is paid to the same people who are for most part the proud owners of Corporasaurus Rex. And these same people rationalise, with an ends justifies the means mentality, that unbounded pursuit of self-interest will result in the greatest good for the greatest number and that only the lazy will fail to have their “boats” lifted by the “rising tide.”
It is way past time to take a good look at Corporasaurus Rex and recognise that it has evolved from a controllable little lizard, useful for catching economic flies, to an all-consuming monster. We are beyond the point of containment of the monster and now must consider altering its behaviour by examining and altering diet, DNA and perhaps even some brain surgery.
Hopefully some of the court cases resulting from recent scandals will precipitate a look at some of the laws and processes that have allowed such excesses to occur. The leaders of such organisations, if they care at all about the future of the planet for their grandchildren and their grandchildren’s grandchildren, must acknowledge what has become of the Corporate entity and work for its transformation back to pursuit of a superordinate purpose.....
.... a PURPOSE that includes improving, or at least as a minimum, doing no harm to the health and well-being of the Earth and its inhabitants.... transformation back to taking a responsible role in local, regional, national and global community. We need corporate leadership that is socially and ecologically enlightened and that embodies the spirits of Franz Kafka, Mother Teresa and Jim Henson..... transforming Corporasarus Rex into a warmer, fuzzier, kinder, self-less creator of a better world for all.
This “essay” contains information excerpted, paraphrased and quoted from One From Many by Dee Hock, Berrett-Kohler Publishers, Inc., San Francisco, 2005.
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Sunday July 2, 2006
A basic principle is that one cannot have a mutually successful dialogue with another who is violently angry. Likewise, it is next to impossible to build a dialogue based on mutual trust when one side is programmed from birth to hate and fear and to believe God only loves them and hates infidels, and that all rewards come only after death, increasingly so if they commit suicide in the pursuit of God-condoned murder of infidels. Good luck to any opposing debate team!
The war on terrorism cannot be won or even settled by armistice, unless the world recognises the problem for what it really is. Islam is NOT one of the world’s great religions and in fact, could be considered to not even be a legitimate religion at all if compared to the underlying basic tenants of the other major faiths. Instead, it is more like a Machiavellian and chauvinistic political system designed to control people through perpetuation of poverty and an insidious substitution of a mean and uncivilised set of values in place of a legitimate education in which people are taught to use their brains to actually think.
The programming of the minds of the masses with increasingly distorted values dressed up as the “word of God” based on promises of love and honour in exchange for hatred, intolerance and murder of innocent people, to include the very suicide of the murderers themselves, has got to be stopped. Unless the Mullahs and the terrorist warlords distorting and using so called religion, as their basis for rule and control are willing to voluntarily stop such brainwashing, there can be no reasoned settlement of differences. Voluntarily???? Right! The fact is that this has been going on for centuries and they themselves would willingly die to prevent the end of such programming. But increased threat comes as the distortion of the values has intensified to become a strategic tool used by the fanatic element of Islam to control and motivate more and more people to become self-sacrificing terrorists.
What is making it worse is the rapid spread of Muslim immigrants across Europe and other parts of the world into democratised countries that are making a huge Chamberlain type mistake in thinking they can integrate such brainwashed immigrants into their societies and appease fanatic terrorists with reason. Because they do not agree with American foreign policy at this time, they are allowing themselves to become infested with a cancer that is certain to grow and cause severe pain as suicide terrorism organises itself from within their own boundaries. Spain and the Philippines have already succumbed and France, which is already 20+% Muslim, will likely be next in terms of letting terrorist actions curb their support for freedom and democracy. Muslims represent about 25% of the world’s population and are infiltrating non-Muslim societies at an alarming rate. Further, the 2nd generation of Muslim born to emigrants in such countries is not being assimilated into the culture as one might expect and represent an even more insidious threat as witnessed in the London transit system bombings and the recently uncovered plot in Canada.
We are at a most tragic fork in the road regarding the future of a democratic and free thinking world community of human beings. We can try to stamp out the terrorists themselves which will be a task of geometrically increasing difficulty as more and more Muslim youth are brainwashed with distorted interpretations of the Koran, and as the increasing number of terrorists becomes more and more dispersed and embedded in their target countries around the world, united by purpose, principles and technology. Eliminating or controlling terrorists will also become more and more difficult as the Islamic society as a whole becomes more alienated toward the rest of the world due to increasing collateral damage caused both intentionally by their own kind and unintentionally by anti-terrorist actions.
Or, another choice we could make would be to work on ending the programming of such aberrant and barbaric values underlying and motivating the supporters of these medieval minded barbarians. This means wiping out the process of value formation and education of each generation of Muslims based on promulgation of God as loving you and honouring you and your family if you murder everyone who does not blindly believe in your faith… and especially by if you do so by killing yourself in the process. Such values do not fit with any other version of religion in the world’s history; no culture ever developed a socially, legally, ethically acceptable “religion” that condoned the murder of innocent people (except perhaps some of the “ancient” tribal “religions” involving human sacrifice... and even these did not include suicide of the murderers as a process for killing others). So which fork in the road should we take? The answer must be: Both!
The more difficult question becomes, how does one stamp out such brainwashing, such vicious programming of minds... The answer is neither simple nor likely to be politically or secularly popular – the critical first step is to wage a broad and long “educational campaign” to debunk Islam as a legitimate basis for governance. Familiarise the world with the true sources and contents of the Koran and how it became a substitute for legitimate governance of people and their lives. It was written by men in a medieval- minded tribal society to serve their needs and justify their behaviours. Jihad is nothing more than the equivalent of a NATO type pact to enlist one’s neighbours’ aide in times of attack. It is not a God issued license to kill everyone who is not a “member of the tribe.” A large part of the Koran amounts to a group of essays written by different men to legitimise and justify their rights to behave badly – why it is, for example, OK for them to have sex with many different women, but should a woman have an affair, she should be imprisoned or stoned to death? Eighty percent of the women in prison in Pakistan are there for fornication.
Once there is a wide understanding of the use of the Koran as a bunch of rules to keep women as men’s servants; rules to keep people in uneducated poverty under control by harsh laws supposedly unchallengeable because they were “God’s words” and not amenable by mere humans; rules that suppress the human spirit so badly that the basic joys of existence, of being alive, ironically could only come after death; and most of this ultimately serving the sexual and sadistic needs of the most base male nature.
Putting aside the hypocrisy of “political correctness,” it is easy to make a credible case for Islam being merely a mean and unjust set of rules for political manipulation of masses, rather than a morally acceptable religion. As a basis for governance, the Koran amounts to nothing more than a handbook for perpetuation of a sick and depraved bad-boys club predicated on the assertion that it is Allah’s will. The terrorist leadership obviously does not actually believe in the Koran or else has no respect whatsoever for Allah’s will because they have twisted interpretations of some parts to serve their own agendas, while at the same time totally ignoring other parts that are repetitively and explicitly clear about burning in the fires of hell for justifying the murder of innocents, particularly by suicide, in God’s name.
Of course wide spread exposure of the malicious side of Islam could leave literally billions of believers in a rather untenable position unless somehow there is a simultaneous metamorphosis of the kinder and more practical tenants of Islam into a sort of “reformed faith” much the same as “Reform Judaism” has evolved from strict “Hasidic Judaism.” Is such a thing really possible? The Baha’i Faith, founded in Iran by the Muslim religious leader Baha’u’llah, based on principles of universal brotherhood and social equality back in the 19th century has survived its metamorphosis from Islam and is active today. The Baha’i Faith professes that the “earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens” … and that “the emancipation of women, the achievement of full equality between the sexes, is one of the most important though less acknowledged prerequisites of peace.” (Baha’u’llah)
The promulgation of such beliefs would not be at serious odds with moderate Islam today and undoubtedly find strong support by at least half the believers – the female half. Certainly to do this it will take the willing and prominent participation of highly respected Islamic leaders, educators, enlightened Mullahs, news media etcetera. How to enlist such support is a challenge of epic proportions and needs open and broad discussion. But in spite of the difficulties involved, it is critical to never lose sight of the fact that the best possible weapon that can be used against fanatical terrorism is to remove the basis by which they motivate others to such heinous and humanly immoral actions.
The timing of such an effort is critical before the fanatic Islamists succeed in further polarising the Muslim world into a belief that their only choice is to side with the fanatics. This means starting to do something immediately. No time can be wasted as there is an alarming increase in coordinated terrorist acts that are based on twisted interpretations of Jihad and self-sacrifice based on distorted values and beliefs. The situation as of mid 2006 is only the beginning of a much wider spread chaos building like a snowball headed down a mountain. The world can begin dealing with it by stopping the infiltration of societies by immigration while at the same time maximising efforts to improve the flow of information and economic support into existing Muslim societies. We must foster the replacement the brainwashing process with a sustainable educational process that is founded on truth, equality and humanity.
Islam as a foundation for education and governance has in every case in history resulted in cruelty, poverty, slavery and inhumane treatment of people in general and women and children in particular while the various militant powerbrokers fight and murder among themselves and their constituents for control of the masses. There has not been one single example of a Muslim based national government that has produced anything of an uplifting social nature or contributed any developments that have improved the general well being of the human species.
Much of what has been stated here almost sounds fascist in nature as I read it back to myself. And yet, based on my education, knowledge of the role of values and beliefs in driving human behaviour, knowledge of what’s in the Koran, knowledge of history itself, I am hard pressed to conceive of other options. I am not a religious person by nature, and so the discussion of “good” and “evil” has a rather phoney ring to it in my mind. Nevertheless, I can see some very dark times coming for the human species and the “evil” propelling it is like a double edged sword – the first edge being the programming of forth coming Muslim generations’ minds with hatred and false promises of God’s love, honour and provision of a sensuous and pleasurable after-death existence... all attained by killing others and in the process causing one’s own death. And, the second edge to the sword is the naiveté and acquiescence of non-Muslim people who can’t conceive of thinking that way. Add to this the unchallenged violence against a helpless, non-compliant Muslim society by their own internal terrorist rulers, and you are set to witness the rise of a diffuse and deadly world movement that will make World War II look like a mere rowdy soccer match brawl. Hitler’s subjugation of Germany and Austria to his will serves as an excellent role model and process for the fanatic Islamic leadership.
Immediate action is needed. One does not try to reason with, bribe with economics, or otherwise change the will of a pouncing tiger. And once the tiger has decided to pounce you have lost the moment, the opportunity for defanging and declawing him. The free world’s leadership either did not know or did not act (likely a combination of both) when they could have prevented (defanged and declawed) the terrorist “tiger” that threatens civilisation today. In fact the situation is quite the opposite in terms of having armed and supported people like Osama Bin Laden, the Saudis and Saddam Hussein at various times in the past. Now it is too late. The tiger is sharpening its claws and growing new ones every day. Kind, loving, thinking humans everywhere need to realise that the driving force and organisation of the increasingly coordinated terrorist movement in the world today is indeed, nothing less than a tiger about to pounce.
The immediate task at hand is to keep terrorist actions under control as much as possible, but most importantly the most critical strategic task is to bring about change in the process that is poisoning the minds of generation after generation of Muslim masses world wide. To not do so, to continue thinking that we can capture or kill a few terrorist leaders and live with the basic problem still in place, is to set up a scenario that will present some real doomsday choices in the next few years. The Muslim terrorists will not hesitate to use weapons of mass destruction as soon as they possibly can, and that will force the rest of free society into either submission OR action to immediately prevent further use which means no more poking around in caves looking for them, but rather, wiping them out quickly – i.e., retaliation with mass destruction.
The world did not arrive at this situation over night and the so-called “war on terrorism” is likely to be the longest war in human history. It will take generations for twisted values and beliefs to die out and be replaced by more humanistic moral values and desires AND THAT CAN ONLY START TO HAPPEN IF/WHEN THERE IS A CHANGE IN THE PROGRAMMING OF THE MUSLIM MIND. This has got to be our single most important task and focus.
Added thoughts:
An epilogue or after-thought is necessary here .... none of the above is intended to be saying that all Muslims in the world today have the same twisted misunderstandings and interpretations of the Koran and the Islamic faith, that are being promulgated by the fanatic Islamic religious leaders and the terrorist leadership. However, the lack of existence or attendance of an honest educational system in the Islamic based nations and Muslim communities within other nations results in mind programming by default by the Mullahs as “religion,” with the Koran as the single textbook, becomes the surrogate educational system for the emerging Muslim generations. Lacking the ability to escape their environment, moderate Muslims are increasingly being put into a position of “with us or against us” by the fanatic elements of their societies. Further, the strategy of the terrorist leadership is to commit more and more atrocities in the name of Islam in order to bring about a polarisation of non-Islamic society to associate the “war” with Islam and Muslims in general to such a degree that it will force otherwise moderate Muslims to increasingly side with the terrorist elements out of pure safety and self-defence. The strategy is well thought out and working!
Sadly, history is on the terrorists’ side as in every war the combatants drift more and more into generalisations about the enemy, stereotyping all people of a particular “persuasion” to be included as “the enemy”... the Japs, the Gerrys, the Nips, the Slopes, the Gooks, the Huns, the White Devils, the Wops, the Red Heathens, the Barbarians, the Kikes, the Towelheads, the Infidels, the Crusaders, the... well there are probably hundreds, or thousands, of such rude, hateful slang terms by which good people have come to know their enemies and used to stereotype all like peoples into such categories. It has happened in every war in every country in all of history. This is now starting to happen with Muslims in general, as evidenced by sentiments voiced in the United States regarding the beheading of a kidnapped American truck driver.... and that is exactly what the terrorist leadership is seeking.... a polarisation of feelings that will develop into a distrust and hatred of Muslims in general, thereby driving them to side with the terrorists in self-defence.
Obviously there are millions of good people in the world today who are Muslims; but sadly, the terrorists are succeeding in increasing distrust and developing a “guilt by association” mind set in the non-Muslim world just as sure as they are programming the minds of the young Muslims through intensive “religious” teachings (one estimate of the number of such Mullah run “schools” in Pakistan alone is 9,000 separate such operations). The intent is nothing less than to enlarge and perpetuate a scenario of hatred that will drag millions of Muslims into a global Jihad that will almost certainly result in huge numbers of otherwise innocent Muslims dying along with the “infidel enemy”... but hey, according to the fanatics, that’s perfectly acceptable since women and children don’t matter anyway and for men such martyrdom is a desirable path to an afterlife of virgin love, honour and pleasure as a reward for following Allah’s will.... perhaps every now and then such martyred men can get together and share heavenly good times with the WWII Kamikaze Pilots who also went on to their greater rewards in the name of serving the desires of a "Devine Emperor". It is possible that some folks in the US government have figured out this global strategy already, war-gamed it on computers, and hence, the new low-key focus on development of newer, more sophisticated tactical nuclear weaponry. The implications of such are very scary!
The world is truly at a crisis point and sadly, the US may be the only hope it has, and then only if we can regain the respect and support of the rest of free society. I wish we had smarter, more ethical, more rational leadership available. If we have to bet the future of the human species, and that is in fact what is at stake here, on George W. Bush’s intelligence, morals and ethics we had best party-hearty while we can. The United States needs help badly and is losing ground daily. One train bombing in Spain brought that country into submission to the terrorists will. The Philippines has been beaten by terrorists holding a single truck driver hostage with threat of beheading. Kenya has knuckled under to terrorist threats. I believe it is just a matter of a couple of years or less before France implodes in response to terrorist acts and threats that put its Muslim infused citizenry into a quandary of internal debate, back-biting and self-imposed impotence. Countries are being intimidated daily and each such incident only serves to ratify the enemy’s strategy and strengthen their resolve.
The US needs help but is being isolated from assistance by one country after another. Tony Blair in England is fighting daily to prevent that country from backing down and hopefully the recent attack on the transit system in London by home grown terrorists has only strengthened the British will to stand up to the threat. After their success in influencing Spain’s latest election, it will be interesting to see what the enemy attempts before forthcoming elections in the US.... sadly it is basically a lose/lose situation because, if we can catch them and prevent whatever it is they may attempt, that will only make us more complacent and hence, vulnerable in the long run.
It is a nasty situation and going to take a lot of will power and hard decisions and probably some currently “unthinkable” actions to survive. It was a horrendously difficult decision for Truman to approve the use of nuclear weapons on Japan for the greater long term good of both nations and I’m afraid we are going to have to face equally tough decisions very soon in the future if we cannot muster an effective alternative immediately. We won’t have the resolve to do either if we cannot create unity through a commonly held understanding of what we are really up against.
PS…. The Palestinians and the Iranians also present genuine dilemmas that must soon be faced, not to mention North Korea. We are going to need unity at home plus all the help we can get from the rest of the free world! | | | |
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Friday June 30, 2006
I am not a religious person. Nor am I an atheist; maybe agnostic with a little good-natured cynicism and humor thrown in for good measure. I was once accused of being "anti-Christian" because of my views. As I explained to my accusers, they had it wrong; I am not anti-Christian, I am anti-religion. I'm an equal opportunity type of guy and as such I hate all religions equally.
I feel that more terrible things have been done to humankind in the name of religion than any other process or phenomenon in the entire history of human existence. But,do I hate religious people? No, of course not; people are entitled to their beliefs and if such beliefs serve to provide needed moral and emotional support, then that's fine.... as long as it does not lead to the denigration or detriment of the well being of others.
Do I believe in a "higher intelligence", whatever that means? The arrival of our first visitors from space would put this concept in it's place, but so far we can only try to rationalize about such possibilities. Rather than acquiesce to some "unknowable higher power" I choose to believe that over time humans can continue to increase their knowledge and wisdom about the universe, but that there will always be that which is beyond our capability. However, just because something is unknown does not mean that it is unknowable... in fact that is what constitutes my growing belief that the possible "purpose of life" is to continue to expand knowledge.
The old saying that "two heads are better than one" is certainly true, and with evolving technology we are finding new ways and increasing efficiencies in linking together the combined mind power of many individuals. That combined mind power of groups of people could start to be the meaning of "higher intelligence".... this is what works for me and I don't even ask that anyone else believe in it.
Maybe I'm wrong though. If I should one day bump up against "God," I suspect that he/she/whatever will have high self-esteem and a good sense of humor and not be offended by my use of my free will... otherwise why would I be allowed to have these thoughts?!
So with all of that in mind, please don't take me to task on those occasions when I either poke fun at religion or focus on it as a causal factor in the evolutionary demise of the human species.
Now then: let's see how well you can handle it.
ON RELIGION IN AMERICA
Bush is my shepherd; I dwell in want.
He maketh logs to be cut down in national forests.
He leadeth trucks into the still wilderness.
He restoreth my fears.
He leadeth me in the paths of international disgrace for his ego's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of pollution and war, I will find no exit, for thou art in office.
Thy tax cuts for the rich and thy media control, they discomfort me.
Thou preparest an agenda of deception in the presence of thy religion.
Thou anointest my head with foreign oil.
My health insurance runneth out.
Surely megalomania and false patriotism shall follow me all the days of thy term,
And my jobless child shall dwell in my basement forever
(author unknown; if anyone knows, please advise so I can give proper credit)
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