HAPPY NEW YEAR to all our family and friends.
Our wish for this coming year is that the Muslim world learns the Biblical lesson that to save a single life is to save the whole world.
When the Arabs decide to equate the value of life as they see it with the value of life as the Jews see it, the conflict between the two worlds will end. The opposite world view and actions emanating from those opposing beliefs have caused such catastrophic harm to the Muslim populations of their warring nations that it is hard to reconcile Muslim leadership with the meaning of the word, "leadership."
The bigotry and intolerance of the Islamic religion will remain a bloody blot on the Imams, the "Judges," of the Arab world. Their calls and "Fatwas" for death for writers and cartoonists, for Jews and Americans, for believers in other religions and non-believers in Islam, masks a bubbling cauldron of hatred that inflames the Arab world to mass suicide. And like lemmings, the uneducated primitive believers in a faith devoid of ethics and ethical behavior, plunges head-first over the cliffs surrounding them into an acidic abyss of raging ignorance.
Appealing to the meanest level of behavior in the world of Islam and in all the most primitive societies, one may observe the beheading, the obscene rape of defenseless women, the tearing limb from limb of living children, and the explosive carnage of Islamic savages claiming their right to enter holy heaven and its virgins in exchange for their excruciating acts of "honor" and "belief."
Where will their "leaders" lead them? How will this end?
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Monday, December 29, 2008
TARGET OF VIOLENCE
So long as Israel is a target of violence as it has been since its founding in 1948, Israel must alone determine its defensive posture.
The ruling government of Gaza, Hamas, an Islaamist fundamentalist terror group, has been lobbing deadly rockets on to Israeli soil since it took over the "Gaza Strip" in June of 2007. It has allowed Islaamic Jihad and other Islaamist terror groups to fire rockets at will across the border aimed at civilian populations. It has captured an Israeli soldier and it has allowed and enabled snipers to shoot over the border at Israeli targets. Hamas has ammassed war materielle smuggled from Egypt through tunnels dug under their common border. Hamas is in total control of the Gaza Strip and its population. It is beloved by the Arab population and is almost totally supported in it's aim to destroy Israel.
To the chagrin of many in the Islaamic world, Hamas entered a truce agreement with Israel a little over six months ago. Although rockets continued to rain down on Israel, Hamas itself ceased these deadly acts. Then, after a clear decision not renew that truce and a tremendous increase in deadly fire, Israel, acting in self-defense, began bombing Hamas targets on December 27, 2008.
The Arab world and their anti-Israel allies began to cry.
Zionism was founded in the late 1800’s as an ideology with a material goal, the establishment of a homeland for the Jewish people. Though questions arose over many years about the place of that home, there was never a question about the establishment of a geographical entity, a nation by definition that Jews from any place in the world could live without question and without restrictions.
The biblical land of the Jews that became the State of Israel in 1948 was in a territory modernly called Palestine. The land was predominantly occupied by Arabs. Jews, most of whom were religious, lived there from biblical times in ancient towns and cities.
World Jewry contributed money over the decades from the beginning of the Zionist Organization to purchase land and to establish towns and cities and settlements of various kinds to create that homeland for Jews who came to live there as pioneers or religionists. Zionism called for Jews in the Diaspora to come to Israel to live or to support the establishment of the state through prayer, money, political activity in their home countries, by sending their children to learn or live in Israel, and by any means that could be found, be themselves part of that movement to establish the homeland for the Jewish people in the land of Israel that became the State of Israel.
Religious, ethnic, and territorial conflicts arose almost immediately after the Zionist Organization and other Jewish Zionist movements influenced Jews to settle in Palestine. Although Jews lived there for many centuries, even millennia, they were caluminified as intruders if they came as Zionists rather than Jewish religionists. Arabs attacked Jewish agricultural settlements and murdered Jewish settlers and travelers throughout Palestine. Riots against Jewish landholders broke out and more Jews were killed by Arabs in the hope and belief that such attacks would prevent more Jews from coming to Palestine.
After World War I and the League of Nations approval of the Balfour Declaration that stated that the Jewish People had the right to establish a homeland in Palestine and up through May of 1948, after the United Nations voted to approve the Partition Plan that allocated portions of Palestine to the Jews and the Arabs, Jewish settlements were under intermittent small scale attacks by Palestinian Arabs. When the British government withdrew its army after more than two decades of occupation of the “Palestine Mandate,” the Jewish population declared the establishment of the State of Israel. Within days, five Arab armies attacked the new nation. After a year of warfare, a truce agreement was signed. Israel survived. Since then, Israel has fought five wars with its Arab neighbors. Egypt and Jordan have signed peace treaties with Israel.
Jews living in the countries of the Arab world left their homes under threat of violence after the 1948 war. Palestinian Arabs fled from their homes during that war out of fear of violence and at the exhortations of the invading Arab countries to remove themselves from the lines of fire and with the promise of acquiring the homes and lands of the Jews who would be thrown into the sea by the invading Arab armies. The fates of the two groups of refugees are markedly different. A substantial number of Jews fled to Israel which worked to absorb them. Others fled to countries around the world that allowed them to immigrate. The vast majority of Palestinian refugees remained refugees in camps in the surrounding Arab countries.
Israel remains a target of Arab violence to this day.
The ruling government of Gaza, Hamas, an Islaamist fundamentalist terror group, has been lobbing deadly rockets on to Israeli soil since it took over the "Gaza Strip" in June of 2007. It has allowed Islaamic Jihad and other Islaamist terror groups to fire rockets at will across the border aimed at civilian populations. It has captured an Israeli soldier and it has allowed and enabled snipers to shoot over the border at Israeli targets. Hamas has ammassed war materielle smuggled from Egypt through tunnels dug under their common border. Hamas is in total control of the Gaza Strip and its population. It is beloved by the Arab population and is almost totally supported in it's aim to destroy Israel.
To the chagrin of many in the Islaamic world, Hamas entered a truce agreement with Israel a little over six months ago. Although rockets continued to rain down on Israel, Hamas itself ceased these deadly acts. Then, after a clear decision not renew that truce and a tremendous increase in deadly fire, Israel, acting in self-defense, began bombing Hamas targets on December 27, 2008.
The Arab world and their anti-Israel allies began to cry.
Zionism was founded in the late 1800’s as an ideology with a material goal, the establishment of a homeland for the Jewish people. Though questions arose over many years about the place of that home, there was never a question about the establishment of a geographical entity, a nation by definition that Jews from any place in the world could live without question and without restrictions.
The biblical land of the Jews that became the State of Israel in 1948 was in a territory modernly called Palestine. The land was predominantly occupied by Arabs. Jews, most of whom were religious, lived there from biblical times in ancient towns and cities.
World Jewry contributed money over the decades from the beginning of the Zionist Organization to purchase land and to establish towns and cities and settlements of various kinds to create that homeland for Jews who came to live there as pioneers or religionists. Zionism called for Jews in the Diaspora to come to Israel to live or to support the establishment of the state through prayer, money, political activity in their home countries, by sending their children to learn or live in Israel, and by any means that could be found, be themselves part of that movement to establish the homeland for the Jewish people in the land of Israel that became the State of Israel.
Religious, ethnic, and territorial conflicts arose almost immediately after the Zionist Organization and other Jewish Zionist movements influenced Jews to settle in Palestine. Although Jews lived there for many centuries, even millennia, they were caluminified as intruders if they came as Zionists rather than Jewish religionists. Arabs attacked Jewish agricultural settlements and murdered Jewish settlers and travelers throughout Palestine. Riots against Jewish landholders broke out and more Jews were killed by Arabs in the hope and belief that such attacks would prevent more Jews from coming to Palestine.
After World War I and the League of Nations approval of the Balfour Declaration that stated that the Jewish People had the right to establish a homeland in Palestine and up through May of 1948, after the United Nations voted to approve the Partition Plan that allocated portions of Palestine to the Jews and the Arabs, Jewish settlements were under intermittent small scale attacks by Palestinian Arabs. When the British government withdrew its army after more than two decades of occupation of the “Palestine Mandate,” the Jewish population declared the establishment of the State of Israel. Within days, five Arab armies attacked the new nation. After a year of warfare, a truce agreement was signed. Israel survived. Since then, Israel has fought five wars with its Arab neighbors. Egypt and Jordan have signed peace treaties with Israel.
Jews living in the countries of the Arab world left their homes under threat of violence after the 1948 war. Palestinian Arabs fled from their homes during that war out of fear of violence and at the exhortations of the invading Arab countries to remove themselves from the lines of fire and with the promise of acquiring the homes and lands of the Jews who would be thrown into the sea by the invading Arab armies. The fates of the two groups of refugees are markedly different. A substantial number of Jews fled to Israel which worked to absorb them. Others fled to countries around the world that allowed them to immigrate. The vast majority of Palestinian refugees remained refugees in camps in the surrounding Arab countries.
Israel remains a target of Arab violence to this day.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
ZIONISM - A MISTAKE?
It is my belief is that Zionism, the ideology that brought the establishment of a Jewish homeland, a Jewish State, is a plus rather than a minus for the Jews and the world. However much peace between Israel and the Arab world has eluded fruition and whoever bears what weight of guilt for this lack of peace, the creation of a modern state for the Jewish people was and is a positive step for humanity. I believe this to be so despite the iniquities of Israel and the Jews toward the indigenous Arab population of what was the territory of Palestine.
The lot of the Palestinian Arabs over the past sixty years since the State of Israel came into being, could have been and should have been very different, independent of what the Jews did and are doing to them. Even today, their horrible existence could be turned around completely regardless of the history between the two Peoples. To search for the solution to their existential problems in the removal of the Zionist enterprise is a sad trap into which they and their mentors have fallen.
For those Jews who believe that peace lies in the removal of Israel or in the reduction of the defense capability of Israel in the face of the reality of Arab aggression and the clearly stated goal of wiping out Israel and the Jewish People by Muslim nations and their allies, the sad picture of Jewish history must be shown again and again.
Asking Israel to act peacefully and humanely in the face of that continued aggression and blaming Israel for that continued aggression is simply naive. We personally would not act that way in the face of continued attacks on our children. Why should we ask the nation to act that way?
The Palestinians and their brethren bear collective responsibility for this state of affairs certainly no less than Israel and its supporters. The simple truth is, based on the actions of both sides over the years since the Zionist movement came into being, that the first blood shed was always the blood of Jews.
Finally, through the millennia of history, war has changed the face of geography and the fate of nations. It will continue to do so. The Balfour Declaration went away. Our "bi-national state" went away. The Partition Plan of the United Nations went away. Only the detritus of war has remained. The return of Jews to Israel could have and should have brought an elevation in the lives of Palestinian and Israeli Arabs. The movement was a peaceful one. Yet it could not succeed without wars brought to it by Muslim nations. It is not Israel's choice to find peace in the grave if the Jewish People is to continue to exist.
The lot of the Palestinian Arabs over the past sixty years since the State of Israel came into being, could have been and should have been very different, independent of what the Jews did and are doing to them. Even today, their horrible existence could be turned around completely regardless of the history between the two Peoples. To search for the solution to their existential problems in the removal of the Zionist enterprise is a sad trap into which they and their mentors have fallen.
For those Jews who believe that peace lies in the removal of Israel or in the reduction of the defense capability of Israel in the face of the reality of Arab aggression and the clearly stated goal of wiping out Israel and the Jewish People by Muslim nations and their allies, the sad picture of Jewish history must be shown again and again.
Asking Israel to act peacefully and humanely in the face of that continued aggression and blaming Israel for that continued aggression is simply naive. We personally would not act that way in the face of continued attacks on our children. Why should we ask the nation to act that way?
The Palestinians and their brethren bear collective responsibility for this state of affairs certainly no less than Israel and its supporters. The simple truth is, based on the actions of both sides over the years since the Zionist movement came into being, that the first blood shed was always the blood of Jews.
Finally, through the millennia of history, war has changed the face of geography and the fate of nations. It will continue to do so. The Balfour Declaration went away. Our "bi-national state" went away. The Partition Plan of the United Nations went away. Only the detritus of war has remained. The return of Jews to Israel could have and should have brought an elevation in the lives of Palestinian and Israeli Arabs. The movement was a peaceful one. Yet it could not succeed without wars brought to it by Muslim nations. It is not Israel's choice to find peace in the grave if the Jewish People is to continue to exist.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
CAN ISRAEL AS ISRAEL SURVIVE?
The State of Israel established on May 15, 1948 as a homeland for the Jewish People, has faced decades of attempts to destroy it by the surrounding Arab states as well as its rejection by a variety of Jewish entities within the state, religious, communist, and peacenik, intent on demoting it from that high defensive posture for the Jews alone and reconfiguring it into a Middle East State for Jews, Arabs, and anyone else seeking citizenship of a country resembling in miniature the admixture of peoples in the United States of America. The variety of people from nations, religions, ethnicities and cultures, plus Native Americans, blended to form the nation of the United States without dominance by a single ethnic or religious entity, is an achievement worthy of emulation by ALL nations of the earth.
However, in the United States, apart from threats by some Nazi loonies, no ethnic group has been threatened with annihilation as have the Jewish People and the Jews in Israel. In response to the eons of world-wide anti-Semitic persecution and the more recent Nazi holocaust, Israel’s founders vowed to establish a safe-land for the Jewish People in its ancient biblical geographic homeland. FROM THE VERY FIRST DAY OF ISRAEL’S CREATION IN 1948, THE JEWS AND THEIR STATE HAVE BEEN THREATENED WITH ANNIHILATION BY THEIR ARAB NEIGHBORS. THAT THREAT CONTINUES TO THIS VERY DAY!
A substantial number of Jewish peace groups have called on Israel to mend its ways in treating its Arab citizens and Arab refugees from the wars inflicted on it by the surrounding Arab states. Israel has been called on, as a gesture of peace, to return captured lands from those wars to enable the Arabs to establish a Palestinian State in the surrounding territories. Israel has not acquiesced to that demand absent clear disarmament measures. The peace groups, the United Nations (in which fifty-four Moslem states automatically vote against Israel on every issue,) Amnesty International that calls for Israel to lay down its arms and be nicer to the Arab war refugees than their Arab brethren, the surrounding oligarchic Arab nations, and a variety of other large nations with huge monetary motivations, have all called on Israel to make peace with the surrounding Arab nations, that, together with Iran, keep shooting at Israel and are all intent on wiping it off the face of the earth.
Are they all nuts?
When the Moslem world stops shooting and declares that Israel is a fellow state in the Middle East and that they will defend its right to exist against all comers and they will assist Israel to defend that right against any and all attackers, Israel will then sit down at the peace table to realistic negotiations that can lead to peace.
However, in the United States, apart from threats by some Nazi loonies, no ethnic group has been threatened with annihilation as have the Jewish People and the Jews in Israel. In response to the eons of world-wide anti-Semitic persecution and the more recent Nazi holocaust, Israel’s founders vowed to establish a safe-land for the Jewish People in its ancient biblical geographic homeland. FROM THE VERY FIRST DAY OF ISRAEL’S CREATION IN 1948, THE JEWS AND THEIR STATE HAVE BEEN THREATENED WITH ANNIHILATION BY THEIR ARAB NEIGHBORS. THAT THREAT CONTINUES TO THIS VERY DAY!
A substantial number of Jewish peace groups have called on Israel to mend its ways in treating its Arab citizens and Arab refugees from the wars inflicted on it by the surrounding Arab states. Israel has been called on, as a gesture of peace, to return captured lands from those wars to enable the Arabs to establish a Palestinian State in the surrounding territories. Israel has not acquiesced to that demand absent clear disarmament measures. The peace groups, the United Nations (in which fifty-four Moslem states automatically vote against Israel on every issue,) Amnesty International that calls for Israel to lay down its arms and be nicer to the Arab war refugees than their Arab brethren, the surrounding oligarchic Arab nations, and a variety of other large nations with huge monetary motivations, have all called on Israel to make peace with the surrounding Arab nations, that, together with Iran, keep shooting at Israel and are all intent on wiping it off the face of the earth.
Are they all nuts?
When the Moslem world stops shooting and declares that Israel is a fellow state in the Middle East and that they will defend its right to exist against all comers and they will assist Israel to defend that right against any and all attackers, Israel will then sit down at the peace table to realistic negotiations that can lead to peace.
Friday, December 19, 2008
ISRAELI PALESTINIAN PEACE
For my own sense of what is needed to achieve peace between Israel and the Arab world, and especially with the Palestinians who are in the camps and the West Bank, these are my thoughts at the end of 2008.
Recently, a number of high school graduates in Israel, in reaction to Israel's treatment of Palestinians and as conscientious objectors, have refused to enter the armed forces. Army service in Israel is considered to be a necessity of life, entry to adulthood, and a high calling. This refusal is viewed by the Israeli peace movement as a sign of acceptance of Israel's guilt for not allowing peace to move forward.
Many peaceniks, in and out of Israel, almost all of whom are Jewish, appear to believe that achieving peace is in the hands of Israel alone. That is simply not the case. More important, those of us who truly believe in peace and believe it is attainable, realize that the Arab world and the large majority of Palestinians (0ver 85%)do not want peace with Israel. They do want to do anything and everything possible to destroy Israel, up to and including signing peace agreements that by their very terms will mandate Israel's destruction. Peace agreements are put forward that the border states do not intend to honor any more than they have honored existing agreements such as the truce agreements with Lebanon or Hamas in Gaza.
The seeds of peace lie in educating both populations to peace. School textbooks in the Arab world educate students of all ages towards war with Israel and its destruction. Children dressed as suicide bombers are hailed by Arab leaders as role models for their peers. No peace will be attainable so long as this indoctrination continues.
A simple manifestation that Arab leadership is intent on peace mandates cessation of acts of war. Israel continues to be subjected to a variety of such deadly acts.
Maintenance of "refugee" camps and their sustenance by the United Nations since 1948 continues to show the intent of the bordering Arab states to use these sad people to maintain their conflict with Israel.
I am a dedicated peacenik. I am also a realistic peacenik. Israel has made many egregious errors in its dealings with the Palestinians over the years since 1948. However, aside from the two treaties with Egypt and Jordan, no iota of meaningful effort has been made by any Arab state or any Arab person of stature to bring realistic acts and ideas to the peace tables in the past.
An "Arab Peace Initiative" agreed to by fifty-seven Arab and Muslim countries appeared in the New York Times of December 19, 2008, that to the uninitiated and unknowledgeable reads like a good beginning to a negotiated peace with Israel. See U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194 that calls for, among other hits on Israel, a huge area including and surrounding Jerusalem to be internationalized and no longer to the capital of Israel, and the free return to their homes of all prior Arab residents of "Palestine" who fled the 1948 fighting at the insistence of the five invading Arab armies, who have been kept in refugee camps for sixty years by their Arab "brethren" and who now number over 3,000,000 persons. Those sections plus other nails in Israel's coffin are in that resolution. However, if the Arab Peace Initiative was agreed to by Israel, it would cease to exist as a nation in short order.
May Conscientious Objectors continue their actions in Israel. They are clear and good indicators of Israel's willingness to espouse peace. May such people appear safely in the near future in ANY Arab country. Then a serious peace dialogue may be opened with the leadership of that country. When the rockets stop falling from Gaza, an opportunity for peace discussions may open. When suicide bombers cease their attempts to explode themselves in Israel, the roads and checkpoints in Arab territory will be opened as will the possibility of dialogue.
Peace is a multi-sided affair. That fact must be recognized by all who claim they wish for peace in the Middle East between Israel and its neighbors.
Recently, a number of high school graduates in Israel, in reaction to Israel's treatment of Palestinians and as conscientious objectors, have refused to enter the armed forces. Army service in Israel is considered to be a necessity of life, entry to adulthood, and a high calling. This refusal is viewed by the Israeli peace movement as a sign of acceptance of Israel's guilt for not allowing peace to move forward.
Many peaceniks, in and out of Israel, almost all of whom are Jewish, appear to believe that achieving peace is in the hands of Israel alone. That is simply not the case. More important, those of us who truly believe in peace and believe it is attainable, realize that the Arab world and the large majority of Palestinians (0ver 85%)do not want peace with Israel. They do want to do anything and everything possible to destroy Israel, up to and including signing peace agreements that by their very terms will mandate Israel's destruction. Peace agreements are put forward that the border states do not intend to honor any more than they have honored existing agreements such as the truce agreements with Lebanon or Hamas in Gaza.
The seeds of peace lie in educating both populations to peace. School textbooks in the Arab world educate students of all ages towards war with Israel and its destruction. Children dressed as suicide bombers are hailed by Arab leaders as role models for their peers. No peace will be attainable so long as this indoctrination continues.
A simple manifestation that Arab leadership is intent on peace mandates cessation of acts of war. Israel continues to be subjected to a variety of such deadly acts.
Maintenance of "refugee" camps and their sustenance by the United Nations since 1948 continues to show the intent of the bordering Arab states to use these sad people to maintain their conflict with Israel.
I am a dedicated peacenik. I am also a realistic peacenik. Israel has made many egregious errors in its dealings with the Palestinians over the years since 1948. However, aside from the two treaties with Egypt and Jordan, no iota of meaningful effort has been made by any Arab state or any Arab person of stature to bring realistic acts and ideas to the peace tables in the past.
An "Arab Peace Initiative" agreed to by fifty-seven Arab and Muslim countries appeared in the New York Times of December 19, 2008, that to the uninitiated and unknowledgeable reads like a good beginning to a negotiated peace with Israel. See U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194 that calls for, among other hits on Israel, a huge area including and surrounding Jerusalem to be internationalized and no longer to the capital of Israel, and the free return to their homes of all prior Arab residents of "Palestine" who fled the 1948 fighting at the insistence of the five invading Arab armies, who have been kept in refugee camps for sixty years by their Arab "brethren" and who now number over 3,000,000 persons. Those sections plus other nails in Israel's coffin are in that resolution. However, if the Arab Peace Initiative was agreed to by Israel, it would cease to exist as a nation in short order.
May Conscientious Objectors continue their actions in Israel. They are clear and good indicators of Israel's willingness to espouse peace. May such people appear safely in the near future in ANY Arab country. Then a serious peace dialogue may be opened with the leadership of that country. When the rockets stop falling from Gaza, an opportunity for peace discussions may open. When suicide bombers cease their attempts to explode themselves in Israel, the roads and checkpoints in Arab territory will be opened as will the possibility of dialogue.
Peace is a multi-sided affair. That fact must be recognized by all who claim they wish for peace in the Middle East between Israel and its neighbors.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
SUPREME MERCHANTS OF DEATH KILL GUN CONTROL
In America, drug addicts and drug dealers, mentally ill and violent criminals, the speedy very young and the trembling very old, may now buy, use and abuse, deadly firearms! In June of 2008, the Supreme Court voted 5 to 4 to allow the merchants of death and their primary marketing agency, the National Rifle Association, to sell guns to whoever has the money to purchase them. And they agreed to allow every citizen of the United States to carry a weapon, concealed or not, any place at any time. No restrictions! The right to bear arms is our Constitutional right!
How come? Because the Constitution says so, say the five conservatives who voted to overturn the Washington, D.C. firearms code that thoughtfully prohibited a specific segment of the population from carrying weapons in an effort to reduce mayhem in the District. Among the five are a couple of jurists who believe the Constitution and the first ten Amendments should be interpreted to mean exactly what the “Framers” meant when they wrote the words in 1776, EVEN IF WORD MEANINGS CHANGED, REGARDLESS OF ANY CHANGES OF ANY KIND THAT HAVE OCCURRED IN THE COUNTRY SINCE 1776, AND DESPITE HARMFUL RESULTS THAT WILL ENSUE FROM SUCH INTERPRETATIONS.
I can think of some rational basis for such interpretations. Perhaps the judges are being bribed. Or perhaps the judges are mentally ill. Or perhaps the judges are contrarians, sadists, masochists, humorists, misogynists or misanthropes. Or perhaps they are true believers in the Constitution, its words and its authors, similar in nature to believers in the bible and believers that god himself wrote the words of the bible and that those words are holy.
Let death by handguns in Washington, D.C. continue to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America, oh scabrous Scalia and tarnished Thomas, retrograde Roberts, incognito Alito and Can Can Kennedy.
How come? Because the Constitution says so, say the five conservatives who voted to overturn the Washington, D.C. firearms code that thoughtfully prohibited a specific segment of the population from carrying weapons in an effort to reduce mayhem in the District. Among the five are a couple of jurists who believe the Constitution and the first ten Amendments should be interpreted to mean exactly what the “Framers” meant when they wrote the words in 1776, EVEN IF WORD MEANINGS CHANGED, REGARDLESS OF ANY CHANGES OF ANY KIND THAT HAVE OCCURRED IN THE COUNTRY SINCE 1776, AND DESPITE HARMFUL RESULTS THAT WILL ENSUE FROM SUCH INTERPRETATIONS.
I can think of some rational basis for such interpretations. Perhaps the judges are being bribed. Or perhaps the judges are mentally ill. Or perhaps the judges are contrarians, sadists, masochists, humorists, misogynists or misanthropes. Or perhaps they are true believers in the Constitution, its words and its authors, similar in nature to believers in the bible and believers that god himself wrote the words of the bible and that those words are holy.
Let death by handguns in Washington, D.C. continue to uphold the Constitution of the United States of America, oh scabrous Scalia and tarnished Thomas, retrograde Roberts, incognito Alito and Can Can Kennedy.
Saturday, December 13, 2008
MY COUNTRY - RIGHT OR WRONG - FROM A TO Z
From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, the patridiots (new word) of countries all sound alike; My country - right or wrong.
The catastrophe of Islamic fundamentalists growing poppies for heroin destruction in the Western world in Afghanistan and the primitive savagery with modern weapons destroying Zimbabwe elicit shouts of joy from the patriotic inhabitants of those nations that sound as familiar as the Shouts of American patridiots.
Oklahomans and Koremans, Icelanders and Israelandis, Argentinimans and Somalimans, all salute their flags, sing their anthems, and kill. Does the morality of what their countries do in the world really matter to their patridiotism (new wordd)? No! Not at all.
Pledge allegiance to the flag of the disunited states of the world. No! Pledge allegiance to only one flag, the flag of the country of your citizenship - and devil take the hindmost.
My leader uber alles! My president, my prime minister, my king, my emporor, my dictator, Hail! Heil! Hell!
Thank God I'm PolishFrenchEquadoreanAmericanJapaneseSpanish - because He loves my country, if there is a god. There must be one. Look how beautiful is my country!
And if necessary, I will kill Iraquis, Afghanis, Israelis, Lebanese, Russians, Pakistanis, Chinese, Taiwanese, Sudanese Darfurians, Nigerians, Congolese,and Indians. And if necessary for My God, Americans, too.
So, as we go from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, let's wave our flags, sing our anthems, pledge our allegiances, follow our leaders, and kill whoever we must, wherever they are, whenever it's necessary, because My Country - Right or Wrong.
Did you learn any new words today?
The catastrophe of Islamic fundamentalists growing poppies for heroin destruction in the Western world in Afghanistan and the primitive savagery with modern weapons destroying Zimbabwe elicit shouts of joy from the patriotic inhabitants of those nations that sound as familiar as the Shouts of American patridiots.
Oklahomans and Koremans, Icelanders and Israelandis, Argentinimans and Somalimans, all salute their flags, sing their anthems, and kill. Does the morality of what their countries do in the world really matter to their patridiotism (new wordd)? No! Not at all.
Pledge allegiance to the flag of the disunited states of the world. No! Pledge allegiance to only one flag, the flag of the country of your citizenship - and devil take the hindmost.
My leader uber alles! My president, my prime minister, my king, my emporor, my dictator, Hail! Heil! Hell!
Thank God I'm PolishFrenchEquadoreanAmericanJapaneseSpanish - because He loves my country, if there is a god. There must be one. Look how beautiful is my country!
And if necessary, I will kill Iraquis, Afghanis, Israelis, Lebanese, Russians, Pakistanis, Chinese, Taiwanese, Sudanese Darfurians, Nigerians, Congolese,and Indians. And if necessary for My God, Americans, too.
So, as we go from Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, let's wave our flags, sing our anthems, pledge our allegiances, follow our leaders, and kill whoever we must, wherever they are, whenever it's necessary, because My Country - Right or Wrong.
Did you learn any new words today?
Thursday, December 11, 2008
DARFUR - A LOOK INTO THE FUTURE
The rape and killing goes on in Darfur and the so-called civilized nations stand by and watch it happening. One can only surmise that the United Nations and the powerful nations of the world are watching what is happening there to project what will happen in there own countries when the division between the powerful and the weak is an invitation to return to pre-civilization, to savagery, to rape and perhaps cannibalism.
Perhaps the perpetrators of this living horror motion picture will be brought to "justice," whatever that means. Or perhaps there will be nations led by similar savages that will veto the namby-pamby responses suggested at confabulations of the powerful. May all these "diplomats" of the African Union and the Arab league lose their wives and children in similar fashion. Then, perhaps, justice will be meted out to those who deserve it by their inaction in the face of raw evil.
George Bush and his administration are equally guilty of rape and homicide and genocide as Omar Hassan al-Bashir and his savages are. May Bush and his minions rot in hell for this monstrous failure to intervene despite knowledge and promises.
The weak, the poor, the illiterate, the chaff of the earth, will die in pain on the dusty plains of Darfur while the powerful smile, pray to God in their churches, shake hands with each other, drink their toasts and smoke their cigars on the green lawns of the White House. This monstrous turning away will not move their consciences one jot or tittle as they go about their business of acquiring more wealth and greater power.
Darfur is a look into the future of mankind. It is the other side of the mountain down which civilization will slide as it returns to the age of hunter gatherer societies eking out their existence on hot dry plains devoid of life-giving vegetation for beasts and humanoids as these upright hairy men club each other for the available worms and insects to nourish themselves and their offspring. If there is a God, may he in his mercy, remove their memory of prior eras.
Perhaps the perpetrators of this living horror motion picture will be brought to "justice," whatever that means. Or perhaps there will be nations led by similar savages that will veto the namby-pamby responses suggested at confabulations of the powerful. May all these "diplomats" of the African Union and the Arab league lose their wives and children in similar fashion. Then, perhaps, justice will be meted out to those who deserve it by their inaction in the face of raw evil.
George Bush and his administration are equally guilty of rape and homicide and genocide as Omar Hassan al-Bashir and his savages are. May Bush and his minions rot in hell for this monstrous failure to intervene despite knowledge and promises.
The weak, the poor, the illiterate, the chaff of the earth, will die in pain on the dusty plains of Darfur while the powerful smile, pray to God in their churches, shake hands with each other, drink their toasts and smoke their cigars on the green lawns of the White House. This monstrous turning away will not move their consciences one jot or tittle as they go about their business of acquiring more wealth and greater power.
Darfur is a look into the future of mankind. It is the other side of the mountain down which civilization will slide as it returns to the age of hunter gatherer societies eking out their existence on hot dry plains devoid of life-giving vegetation for beasts and humanoids as these upright hairy men club each other for the available worms and insects to nourish themselves and their offspring. If there is a God, may he in his mercy, remove their memory of prior eras.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
TERROR, TERRORISM, AND ERRORISM
Terrorism is intended as an instrument of change. It is often the systematic use of terror as a means of coercion. By dictionary agreement, it is the use of force to intimidate and incite fear in a population or government to achieve the acquisition of power. As an instrument it is used by forces that wish to bring about change and/or to create awareness of the need for change.
Terrorism is more often a sledge-hammer than a scalpel, although if the objective is narrow enough, it functions as both. Chasing populations from coveted lands or eradicating them through murder by governments or by militarily stronger forces led by charismatic or religious leaders, is an example of using a scalpel to identify and separate desirable from undesirable populations and using the sledge hammer to wipe out the undesirables. Using a sledge hammer against the twin towers of the World Trade Center accomplished nothing more than useless destruction. It did not lead to fear by the American people nor did it lead to acquisition of land or power or stature in the minds of the American people. It was an act of Errorism par excellence. No change was achieved by the terrorists nor did it create an awareness of a need for change. All it did was enable television-watching poverty-stricken rabble to dance on their rooftops in glee and jealousy at the pain inflicted on the dead, the dying, and their families.
Terrorism is generally an outgrowth of the comfortable use of force by political, military, or religious groupings that have learned their explosive trade and entice gullible naifs to blow themselves up to achieve martyrdom while in the service of non-mainstream entities. The bomb-carrying souls are convinced of the righteousness of their cause and die with the false expectation that many virgins in heaven await them. Those who use terrorism seem to believe that it gives them power or magnifies their power.
Terrorism as a stand-alone strategy is not effective because it does not produce wealth. Huge amounts of wealth are often expended on terrorist attacks. When supported and used by entrenched political and religious entities to eliminate rivals for power, it can sometimes be effective in acquiring wealth and political power. Short term success may be achieved but the resultant de-stabilization hardly leads to long-term goal satisfaction. The counter attacks by the target often reduce the pleasure of success.
Therein lies the essential misconception of the power of terrorism and the difference between terrorism and “errorism.” Errorism is the use of terror to achieve rational results. It just doesn’t work.
Terrorism is more often a sledge-hammer than a scalpel, although if the objective is narrow enough, it functions as both. Chasing populations from coveted lands or eradicating them through murder by governments or by militarily stronger forces led by charismatic or religious leaders, is an example of using a scalpel to identify and separate desirable from undesirable populations and using the sledge hammer to wipe out the undesirables. Using a sledge hammer against the twin towers of the World Trade Center accomplished nothing more than useless destruction. It did not lead to fear by the American people nor did it lead to acquisition of land or power or stature in the minds of the American people. It was an act of Errorism par excellence. No change was achieved by the terrorists nor did it create an awareness of a need for change. All it did was enable television-watching poverty-stricken rabble to dance on their rooftops in glee and jealousy at the pain inflicted on the dead, the dying, and their families.
Terrorism is generally an outgrowth of the comfortable use of force by political, military, or religious groupings that have learned their explosive trade and entice gullible naifs to blow themselves up to achieve martyrdom while in the service of non-mainstream entities. The bomb-carrying souls are convinced of the righteousness of their cause and die with the false expectation that many virgins in heaven await them. Those who use terrorism seem to believe that it gives them power or magnifies their power.
Terrorism as a stand-alone strategy is not effective because it does not produce wealth. Huge amounts of wealth are often expended on terrorist attacks. When supported and used by entrenched political and religious entities to eliminate rivals for power, it can sometimes be effective in acquiring wealth and political power. Short term success may be achieved but the resultant de-stabilization hardly leads to long-term goal satisfaction. The counter attacks by the target often reduce the pleasure of success.
Therein lies the essential misconception of the power of terrorism and the difference between terrorism and “errorism.” Errorism is the use of terror to achieve rational results. It just doesn’t work.
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
STATE RELIGION vs. FREEDOM OF RELIGION
State religion and government are in collusion to assure the continuity of the government and to assure the accrual of wealth by the state’s power elites. If the representatives of the state’s religion, the high priests, mullahs, bishops and other high functionaries, behave appropriately, they and their religions and co-functionaries will also be assured of the continuity of their wealth stream. (They will not be assured of entry to heaven, though.) The Catholic Church in Italy and the Sunni hierarchy of Islam in Saudi Arabia and the Shia hierarchy in Iran, are perfect examples of that collusion and set examples for like cooperative arrangements across the world
The same is true of states with “freedom of religion” where people of all faiths have access to power. Freedom of religion enables competing members of power elites of all faiths to accrue wealth by aligning themselves and colluding with governments that contain members of many faiths. However, the sign on the door states, "ATHEISTS NOT WELCOME"
Collusion in all cases simply means sharing wealth through a quid pro quo arrangement with government factotums who occupy decision-making positions in the enormous variety of offices that control contract-letting, purchasing, industry-wide rules committees, pork barrel aficionados, and other gate-keepers of government controlled money. You kiss my ring and I’ll kiss yours.
Several distinctions between the power elites and their government puppets work to the benefit and detriment of the puppets. The major distinction is that government functionaries must have the positions of influence to produce the benefits. They must be elected and they must be re-elected. They must have relationships with others in their fields who also seek benefits. But they benefit from their relationships by acquiring the funds necessary to get re-elected and funds to satisfy the needs and demands of electorates that will vote them into office.
In the United States, no atheist stands a reasonable chance of being elected to any office, high or low. A Google website claims five elected atheist officials in the entire United States at this time. (Pete Stark, congressman from California, among them.) So, where is the separation of church and state? Obviously, religion is a key to the door of election to government office. Sarah Palin can attest to that religious “truth.”
The same is true of states with “freedom of religion” where people of all faiths have access to power. Freedom of religion enables competing members of power elites of all faiths to accrue wealth by aligning themselves and colluding with governments that contain members of many faiths. However, the sign on the door states, "ATHEISTS NOT WELCOME"
Collusion in all cases simply means sharing wealth through a quid pro quo arrangement with government factotums who occupy decision-making positions in the enormous variety of offices that control contract-letting, purchasing, industry-wide rules committees, pork barrel aficionados, and other gate-keepers of government controlled money. You kiss my ring and I’ll kiss yours.
Several distinctions between the power elites and their government puppets work to the benefit and detriment of the puppets. The major distinction is that government functionaries must have the positions of influence to produce the benefits. They must be elected and they must be re-elected. They must have relationships with others in their fields who also seek benefits. But they benefit from their relationships by acquiring the funds necessary to get re-elected and funds to satisfy the needs and demands of electorates that will vote them into office.
In the United States, no atheist stands a reasonable chance of being elected to any office, high or low. A Google website claims five elected atheist officials in the entire United States at this time. (Pete Stark, congressman from California, among them.) So, where is the separation of church and state? Obviously, religion is a key to the door of election to government office. Sarah Palin can attest to that religious “truth.”
NON-STATE ACTORS WITH VESTED INTERESTS
"The terrorists want to destroy Pakistan, too. (NY Times 12/9/08) by Asif Ali Zardari, president of Pakistan: The Mumbai attacks were directed not only at India but also at Pakistan's new democratic government and the peace process with India that we have initiated. Supporters of authoritarianism in Pakistan and !!non-state actors with a vested interest!! in perpetuating conflict do not want change in Pakistan to take root."
This phrase, “NON-STATE ACTORS WITH VESTED INTERESTS,” with some linguistic variations, appears in many news items that indicate a desire by those actors to perpetuate existing governments and government institutions and practices, or to change the governments. Other similar phrases are used to describe people and the multifarious establishments they represent without providing sufficient information to identify them or identify how they act to achieve success in their missions.
However, they are actors with interests, and they act to protect and enhance their interests. And they act outside the exposed states and governments they influence for their benefit and for the benefit of those for whom they exert themselves, namely, power elites; wealth and the wealthy. The “actors” generally are combinations of members of power elites and their employees, the so-called “lobbyists.”
Acquiring a government contract to provide goods or services for any of the branches of government, for instance, is generally an enterprise that is rarely open to scrutiny as it might be in the open commercial markets of a country. The amount of money the government spends on everything from pencils to planes, far outstrips what is paid in the open market. Also, where in most commercial dealings, competition determines price paid, in government, competitive bidding is often so designed as to eliminate all but one bidder, the result of a non-state actor having an “in.” So a hammer that might cost $2.95 in the local hardware store, costs the government $45. And you, the taxpayer, pay for that exhorbitant discrepancy.
There are more deleterious impacts on government functioning by non-state actors than paying exorbitant prices for simple goods. Protecting the common people, the lower and middle classes, providing for the common good, providing government services (education, health care, police protection, etc,) adequately for the non-power elites, all suffer in the conflict waged by power elites for acquisition and control of the money that pours into government coffers, control of, or absence of control of, manufacturing and mining processes, and control of natural resources. The taking in taxes from the powerless to provide for the interests of the powerful, is an unfair match as much as minimum wage and occupational safety control.
Wealth is created by using the country’s natural resources and expending labor on them. Those natural resources are owned for the most part by the government and the power elites. The wealth created is shared in a grossly unequal fashion between the lower and middle classes on the one hand, and the government-protected power elites on the other.
If the government does not protect the power elites, it will be overthrown in the oligarch/dictator countries of the world or voted out of office in the democracies and semi-democracies of the world. In all cases, the non-state actors with vested interests control the “democratic” process in the democracies and the distribution of wealth in the dictatorships and oligarchies.
So, when you open your newspaper or magazine and see the phrase, “non-state actors,” you know what and who the author is writing about. And you will know that they all have “vested interests.”
This phrase, “NON-STATE ACTORS WITH VESTED INTERESTS,” with some linguistic variations, appears in many news items that indicate a desire by those actors to perpetuate existing governments and government institutions and practices, or to change the governments. Other similar phrases are used to describe people and the multifarious establishments they represent without providing sufficient information to identify them or identify how they act to achieve success in their missions.
However, they are actors with interests, and they act to protect and enhance their interests. And they act outside the exposed states and governments they influence for their benefit and for the benefit of those for whom they exert themselves, namely, power elites; wealth and the wealthy. The “actors” generally are combinations of members of power elites and their employees, the so-called “lobbyists.”
Acquiring a government contract to provide goods or services for any of the branches of government, for instance, is generally an enterprise that is rarely open to scrutiny as it might be in the open commercial markets of a country. The amount of money the government spends on everything from pencils to planes, far outstrips what is paid in the open market. Also, where in most commercial dealings, competition determines price paid, in government, competitive bidding is often so designed as to eliminate all but one bidder, the result of a non-state actor having an “in.” So a hammer that might cost $2.95 in the local hardware store, costs the government $45. And you, the taxpayer, pay for that exhorbitant discrepancy.
There are more deleterious impacts on government functioning by non-state actors than paying exorbitant prices for simple goods. Protecting the common people, the lower and middle classes, providing for the common good, providing government services (education, health care, police protection, etc,) adequately for the non-power elites, all suffer in the conflict waged by power elites for acquisition and control of the money that pours into government coffers, control of, or absence of control of, manufacturing and mining processes, and control of natural resources. The taking in taxes from the powerless to provide for the interests of the powerful, is an unfair match as much as minimum wage and occupational safety control.
Wealth is created by using the country’s natural resources and expending labor on them. Those natural resources are owned for the most part by the government and the power elites. The wealth created is shared in a grossly unequal fashion between the lower and middle classes on the one hand, and the government-protected power elites on the other.
If the government does not protect the power elites, it will be overthrown in the oligarch/dictator countries of the world or voted out of office in the democracies and semi-democracies of the world. In all cases, the non-state actors with vested interests control the “democratic” process in the democracies and the distribution of wealth in the dictatorships and oligarchies.
So, when you open your newspaper or magazine and see the phrase, “non-state actors,” you know what and who the author is writing about. And you will know that they all have “vested interests.”
Monday, December 8, 2008
NO MOB VETO
The New York Times of December 5, 2008, carried a full page ad titled, “NO MOB VETO.”
The thirteen signers agreed to its very first - and verifiably truthful - sentence, “We’re a disagreeable lot.”
After obtaining information about the signatories and their backgrounds and organizations, the accuracy of that statement becomes amazingly clear. They indeed are a disagreeable lot. They are all Republicans, they range from Conservatives to extreme right wingers. And they all are adept at creating scary images of gays, liberals, Democrats, and Obama, among other bug-a-boos, with hyperbole such as “MOB” to identify those who strongly oppose what they believe to be sweet and sane anti-gay behavior, initiating and propagandizing a California Constitutional amendment through false T.V. advertising with an enormous outlay of money.
NoMobVeto.org is a project of The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, an organization that purports to be a defender of religions against violence, VERBAL violence. This disagreeable lot, this right-wing mob, objects verbally and vehemently to your VERBAL and possibly vehement objections to California’s Proposition 8 that now constitutionally prohibits gay marriage.
So they want to veto your right to object to religion’s use of church funds, especially the Mormon church’s huge money war-chest, to vehemently initiate and promote a constitutional ban on gay marriage in California. (Do gays frighten Mormon polygamists more than do heterosexuals?) Clearly, the concept of “Separation of Church and State” is what they, as devout religionists, have determined that freedom to be; always bad for you and all ways good for us.
The moral of this story is that the Times ad was designed to “coerce your opponents into silence” while averring that your opponents were doing that to you. The NO MOB VETO ad describing opponents of Prop 8 as a mob, shows the nature of the Religious Right as a disagreeable MOB.
P.S. The United States State Department contributed to the ad.
P.P.S. Many of the supporter organizations of the ad maintain offices and lobbyists in or near Washington, D.C.
The thirteen signers agreed to its very first - and verifiably truthful - sentence, “We’re a disagreeable lot.”
After obtaining information about the signatories and their backgrounds and organizations, the accuracy of that statement becomes amazingly clear. They indeed are a disagreeable lot. They are all Republicans, they range from Conservatives to extreme right wingers. And they all are adept at creating scary images of gays, liberals, Democrats, and Obama, among other bug-a-boos, with hyperbole such as “MOB” to identify those who strongly oppose what they believe to be sweet and sane anti-gay behavior, initiating and propagandizing a California Constitutional amendment through false T.V. advertising with an enormous outlay of money.
NoMobVeto.org is a project of The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, an organization that purports to be a defender of religions against violence, VERBAL violence. This disagreeable lot, this right-wing mob, objects verbally and vehemently to your VERBAL and possibly vehement objections to California’s Proposition 8 that now constitutionally prohibits gay marriage.
So they want to veto your right to object to religion’s use of church funds, especially the Mormon church’s huge money war-chest, to vehemently initiate and promote a constitutional ban on gay marriage in California. (Do gays frighten Mormon polygamists more than do heterosexuals?) Clearly, the concept of “Separation of Church and State” is what they, as devout religionists, have determined that freedom to be; always bad for you and all ways good for us.
The moral of this story is that the Times ad was designed to “coerce your opponents into silence” while averring that your opponents were doing that to you. The NO MOB VETO ad describing opponents of Prop 8 as a mob, shows the nature of the Religious Right as a disagreeable MOB.
P.S. The United States State Department contributed to the ad.
P.P.S. Many of the supporter organizations of the ad maintain offices and lobbyists in or near Washington, D.C.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
THE HISTORY OF RELIGION
Part One - Betrayal of Belief
Religion is the edifice built upon people’s need to believe in a higher power and their need to explain the inexplicable and provide answers to the unknowable. They are the institutionalized systems that incorporate people’s attitudes, beliefs, and practices that are then exploited by charlatans for their aggrandizement. True pious believers of stature and honest belief preach to the masses from the pulpit at the front of the stage while the real action is taking place behind the drawn curtains of religious edifices, the acquisition of wealth and power.
At the time, about thirteen thousand years ago, that some human-inhabited geographic areas began the move from hunter-gatherer societies to communities of herders and farmers, religion came into existence. Prior to the establishment of permanent habitation, there are no signs of organized religious structures or systems of worship. The single outstanding difference between migratory and sedentary societies is the accumulation of wealth through surplus production of agricultural products and the goods, services, and habitation needs of people in those societies. Surplus led to barter and to the exchange of goods for services and the establishment of specialized craftsmanship, to the accumulation of wealth and its byproduct, power, and the byproduct of both, stratification of societies with richer and poorer, stronger and weaker.
It is reasonable to assume and there is some anthropological evidence that prior to the establishment of religion, people believed in “higher” or supernatural powers. The indiscriminate equation of the laws of nature and the universe with the existence of superhuman powers probably arose in human cognition with the growth in awareness of the immensity and vastness of natural forces and the recognition of human inability to control or affect those forces. Thus began man’s belief in gods that manipulated natural forces. However, primitive clans, families, individuals, and tribes, were busy trying to feed themselves rather than allocating time and material to the worship of superior powers. Perhaps early man prayed or danced for rain or successful hunting without religious leaders, houses of worship, and sacramental equipment. Stories were told and re-told through generations of events or people that in some way influenced the forces of nature. The skeleton of belief embedded in religion was erected as the stories spread from individuals through families, then tribes and clans, and into structured societies. Belief was the need and religion was the ready answer.
Early statues and objects thought to be conceptualizations of powerful gods have been unearthed with little more than their existence as evidence of modern man’s belief in higher powers. Burial grounds were non-existent in early migratory periods, so even prayer to an especially powerful human predecessor was improbable. But the idea of being able to influence or propitiate those powers through prayer, gifts, and sacrifice contributed to the birth of religions and their parasitic institutions. Religions and the formalities attached to their practice were created and exploited by those who saw power and a profit in them, as is generally the case with so many human inventions. The absence of the shards of religion throughout the million years of humankind’s existence prior to the revolution that took place when animal and land husbandry began to show a profit provides some evidence of when religion reared its head.
The strongest nail in the creation of religious edifices was the invention of writing. In the Western World, writing based on an alphabet came into use approximately three and a half thousand years ago. The rules and regulations enumerated and ritualized in religious tomes could be spread among the populations and pointed to by religionists as having emanated from god simply because the laity did not know how to read. The Old Testament and Christian bibles, the Koran, the Book of Mormon, and other religions’ foundational books are passed off as the word of God. How convenient that they are objects of belief, belief in their holiness and belief that they are god-written, "the word of god" whose authority may not be questioned. What a gold mine.
Part Two – Religion and Wealth
Though the books may not have changed, changing times have forced religionists into exegeses, into explanations and interpretations of original “holy” works and subsequent “holy” writings that would make some sort of sense to the contemporary audience. The Renaissance and the Enlightenment were historical periods that expanded man’s knowledge of the world around him; it also expanded hugely the capacity to produce wealth.
The driving force behind the work of religionists was and is wealth accumulation. If Jesus drove the money lenders from the temple, what did that mean in His day? What does that mean today? And what has it meant, especially to money lenders and the perception of money lenders, through the two thousand years since Jesus acted as he is purported to have acted. And whose perception of money lenders counts, anyway? The crucial question that must always be answered is, “If wealth accumulation is at odds with religious teachings, how are religious teachings adjusted to conform to wealth acquisition?
The crucial answer is that religious teachings ALWAYS conform to wealth acquisition. The purpose and goal of religious teachings IS wealth accumulation. All other aspects of religion, whether stolen from ethical humanism or other ethical philosophies, or whether other aspects of religion are designed solely to mesmerize people into adhering to the particular religion by proselytizing propagandizing missionaries through song and dance or food or “spiritual” sustenance with promises that cannot knowingly be kept, are all designed to increase material support for the religious hierarchy and, thereby, the power elites.
Religions and governments function on behalf of and at the behest of power elites. Both entities provide education to the masses to achieve allegiance and pander to prejudice and intolerance of non-believers and “foreigners.” Strong believers and patriots support the two main systems whereby masses of people are controlled and motivated to act for the benefit of power elites; religion and government. In the church it is called volunteerism. In business that is called marketing.
And in every community there is an “acceptable” house of prayer. A sufficient number of believers and a paid Shaman start the process of marketing and as the congregation grows, the religious services expand to ever greater attractiveness. Proselytizing cum marketing is ordained from above, not heaven but rather hierarchy. And, since disparaged money lies at the root of this growth demand, the unique tools of marketing religion come into play. “Your soul will burn in Hell for eternity and only by conversion to our brand of soft soap will you be saved.”
Part Three - Religion and Murder
Anti-religious propaganda is patently against the interests of religion and power. Only violence or war against a religion in the acquisition and defense of power is acceptable. Power is money, land, assets in the way of cattle or slaves, adherents and believers who work to increase the flock. Such valuables are envied and fought over and fought for in the name of the true God. This is how our world was and is run. This is how our world will be run in the future.
Religious terrorists, or priests and preachers, indoctrinated to hate and attack “non-believers,” will acquire weapons of mass destruction and wreak havoc on the world’s populations in the names of their “Gods.” Those Gods are the protectors of the believing wealthy, Wahabists, Catholics, Protestants and other Christian sects, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, pantheists and nativists, Bhuddists, etcetera, etcetera, all in their chosen variety of their religions with all their symbols of numerology, clothing, forms of prayer, food requirements, holy days, and bibles from which their esoteric beliefs and functions differentiate them from others.
Only the Jews preach “Peace.” And that is reason enough to kill them. And, since the Jews do not proselytize nor, until 1948, did they have an army, it was easy enough to slaughter them like animals.
Now, in 2008, billions of Moslems would once again presume to exterminate them, and, they are actively working on the methods to achieve that goal. (Iran in particular with its stated and avowed goal of extermination, is actively working on the development of nuclear weapons to realize their holy mission on earth.) With the help of most of the nations on the face of the earth, gathered in the United Nations in their single-minded pursuit to first, delegitimize this most creative human strain, and then, banded together politically and militarily, plan to march as Crusaders of old to chase them from Jerusalem and the “Holy Land.” That is, the Land that the Jews made holy and where they have gathered after Hitler’s and Germany’s failure to achieve total elimination.
Thus, religion has shown its ugly dirty insidious face to the world. Prejudice against women, Gays, Gypsies, Atheists, and other various illogical, often crazy, single-minded and narrow-minded pursuits by the enormous variety of institutions established to bring God to earth for the “benefit” of humankind, must alert narrow-believers and non-believers to the dangers they face by being different from their pursuers, different from “other” religions and religionists.
And, all thinking, caring, aware, humane, knowledgeable people, must also be prepared to do battle against the religious killers of the world.
Religion is the edifice built upon people’s need to believe in a higher power and their need to explain the inexplicable and provide answers to the unknowable. They are the institutionalized systems that incorporate people’s attitudes, beliefs, and practices that are then exploited by charlatans for their aggrandizement. True pious believers of stature and honest belief preach to the masses from the pulpit at the front of the stage while the real action is taking place behind the drawn curtains of religious edifices, the acquisition of wealth and power.
At the time, about thirteen thousand years ago, that some human-inhabited geographic areas began the move from hunter-gatherer societies to communities of herders and farmers, religion came into existence. Prior to the establishment of permanent habitation, there are no signs of organized religious structures or systems of worship. The single outstanding difference between migratory and sedentary societies is the accumulation of wealth through surplus production of agricultural products and the goods, services, and habitation needs of people in those societies. Surplus led to barter and to the exchange of goods for services and the establishment of specialized craftsmanship, to the accumulation of wealth and its byproduct, power, and the byproduct of both, stratification of societies with richer and poorer, stronger and weaker.
It is reasonable to assume and there is some anthropological evidence that prior to the establishment of religion, people believed in “higher” or supernatural powers. The indiscriminate equation of the laws of nature and the universe with the existence of superhuman powers probably arose in human cognition with the growth in awareness of the immensity and vastness of natural forces and the recognition of human inability to control or affect those forces. Thus began man’s belief in gods that manipulated natural forces. However, primitive clans, families, individuals, and tribes, were busy trying to feed themselves rather than allocating time and material to the worship of superior powers. Perhaps early man prayed or danced for rain or successful hunting without religious leaders, houses of worship, and sacramental equipment. Stories were told and re-told through generations of events or people that in some way influenced the forces of nature. The skeleton of belief embedded in religion was erected as the stories spread from individuals through families, then tribes and clans, and into structured societies. Belief was the need and religion was the ready answer.
Early statues and objects thought to be conceptualizations of powerful gods have been unearthed with little more than their existence as evidence of modern man’s belief in higher powers. Burial grounds were non-existent in early migratory periods, so even prayer to an especially powerful human predecessor was improbable. But the idea of being able to influence or propitiate those powers through prayer, gifts, and sacrifice contributed to the birth of religions and their parasitic institutions. Religions and the formalities attached to their practice were created and exploited by those who saw power and a profit in them, as is generally the case with so many human inventions. The absence of the shards of religion throughout the million years of humankind’s existence prior to the revolution that took place when animal and land husbandry began to show a profit provides some evidence of when religion reared its head.
The strongest nail in the creation of religious edifices was the invention of writing. In the Western World, writing based on an alphabet came into use approximately three and a half thousand years ago. The rules and regulations enumerated and ritualized in religious tomes could be spread among the populations and pointed to by religionists as having emanated from god simply because the laity did not know how to read. The Old Testament and Christian bibles, the Koran, the Book of Mormon, and other religions’ foundational books are passed off as the word of God. How convenient that they are objects of belief, belief in their holiness and belief that they are god-written, "the word of god" whose authority may not be questioned. What a gold mine.
Part Two – Religion and Wealth
Though the books may not have changed, changing times have forced religionists into exegeses, into explanations and interpretations of original “holy” works and subsequent “holy” writings that would make some sort of sense to the contemporary audience. The Renaissance and the Enlightenment were historical periods that expanded man’s knowledge of the world around him; it also expanded hugely the capacity to produce wealth.
The driving force behind the work of religionists was and is wealth accumulation. If Jesus drove the money lenders from the temple, what did that mean in His day? What does that mean today? And what has it meant, especially to money lenders and the perception of money lenders, through the two thousand years since Jesus acted as he is purported to have acted. And whose perception of money lenders counts, anyway? The crucial question that must always be answered is, “If wealth accumulation is at odds with religious teachings, how are religious teachings adjusted to conform to wealth acquisition?
The crucial answer is that religious teachings ALWAYS conform to wealth acquisition. The purpose and goal of religious teachings IS wealth accumulation. All other aspects of religion, whether stolen from ethical humanism or other ethical philosophies, or whether other aspects of religion are designed solely to mesmerize people into adhering to the particular religion by proselytizing propagandizing missionaries through song and dance or food or “spiritual” sustenance with promises that cannot knowingly be kept, are all designed to increase material support for the religious hierarchy and, thereby, the power elites.
Religions and governments function on behalf of and at the behest of power elites. Both entities provide education to the masses to achieve allegiance and pander to prejudice and intolerance of non-believers and “foreigners.” Strong believers and patriots support the two main systems whereby masses of people are controlled and motivated to act for the benefit of power elites; religion and government. In the church it is called volunteerism. In business that is called marketing.
And in every community there is an “acceptable” house of prayer. A sufficient number of believers and a paid Shaman start the process of marketing and as the congregation grows, the religious services expand to ever greater attractiveness. Proselytizing cum marketing is ordained from above, not heaven but rather hierarchy. And, since disparaged money lies at the root of this growth demand, the unique tools of marketing religion come into play. “Your soul will burn in Hell for eternity and only by conversion to our brand of soft soap will you be saved.”
Part Three - Religion and Murder
Anti-religious propaganda is patently against the interests of religion and power. Only violence or war against a religion in the acquisition and defense of power is acceptable. Power is money, land, assets in the way of cattle or slaves, adherents and believers who work to increase the flock. Such valuables are envied and fought over and fought for in the name of the true God. This is how our world was and is run. This is how our world will be run in the future.
Religious terrorists, or priests and preachers, indoctrinated to hate and attack “non-believers,” will acquire weapons of mass destruction and wreak havoc on the world’s populations in the names of their “Gods.” Those Gods are the protectors of the believing wealthy, Wahabists, Catholics, Protestants and other Christian sects, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, pantheists and nativists, Bhuddists, etcetera, etcetera, all in their chosen variety of their religions with all their symbols of numerology, clothing, forms of prayer, food requirements, holy days, and bibles from which their esoteric beliefs and functions differentiate them from others.
Only the Jews preach “Peace.” And that is reason enough to kill them. And, since the Jews do not proselytize nor, until 1948, did they have an army, it was easy enough to slaughter them like animals.
Now, in 2008, billions of Moslems would once again presume to exterminate them, and, they are actively working on the methods to achieve that goal. (Iran in particular with its stated and avowed goal of extermination, is actively working on the development of nuclear weapons to realize their holy mission on earth.) With the help of most of the nations on the face of the earth, gathered in the United Nations in their single-minded pursuit to first, delegitimize this most creative human strain, and then, banded together politically and militarily, plan to march as Crusaders of old to chase them from Jerusalem and the “Holy Land.” That is, the Land that the Jews made holy and where they have gathered after Hitler’s and Germany’s failure to achieve total elimination.
Thus, religion has shown its ugly dirty insidious face to the world. Prejudice against women, Gays, Gypsies, Atheists, and other various illogical, often crazy, single-minded and narrow-minded pursuits by the enormous variety of institutions established to bring God to earth for the “benefit” of humankind, must alert narrow-believers and non-believers to the dangers they face by being different from their pursuers, different from “other” religions and religionists.
And, all thinking, caring, aware, humane, knowledgeable people, must also be prepared to do battle against the religious killers of the world.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
CHURCH SPLIT OVER GAYS
So, the United States pisscopalian church is splitting over gay existence. A presumptuous gay wants to become a pisscopalian bishop.
It’s true that gays are not the same as non-gays. No one is the same as anyone else. If there is a God, He made it that way. Don’t anti-gay people know that?
Of course, there may not be a God. So the pisscopalians are in deep doo doo, because they are different from everyone else.
For some reason, perhaps because of discrimination, gays seem to be more sensitive than straights. And that seems to push them to be more creative, more sensitive, more caring. Not all of them, of course. Some are prejudiced and hard assed just like pisscopalians. I suppose that’s true of any class of people. Within the class there are all kinds of people. That’s because everyone is different from everyone else. Lot's of gays cut hair, dance, design clothing, create art, music,theater and movies, and generally seem to be in the forefront of mankind's creative urges out of proportion to their numbers.
By their very existence, they rouse mentally disturbed or insecure people to attack them. And now, a major religious institution is attacking them.
What this seems to indicate is that religions are no different from other man-made institutions. And religions are what all religions seem to be about. “We represent God on earth. Other religions are not as good as we are. Give us your money. We’ll make sure you get to heaven.” And lots of religions teach their believers to kill the other guy. I guess they have to do that if they represent God on earth.
I’m not sure why, though.
12/7/08
LOVED THIS ONE! I RE-READ IT A FEW TIMES AND THEN SUBSTITUTED THE WORD JEW FOR GAY IN EVERY INSTANCE AND IT ALSO MAKES SENSE. YOU COULD SUBSTITUTE ALMOST ANYONE IN THE SAME WAY..BLACK, HISPANIC, ETC. HAPPY HOLIDAYS AND LOVE TO ALL, BJ
It’s true that gays are not the same as non-gays. No one is the same as anyone else. If there is a God, He made it that way. Don’t anti-gay people know that?
Of course, there may not be a God. So the pisscopalians are in deep doo doo, because they are different from everyone else.
For some reason, perhaps because of discrimination, gays seem to be more sensitive than straights. And that seems to push them to be more creative, more sensitive, more caring. Not all of them, of course. Some are prejudiced and hard assed just like pisscopalians. I suppose that’s true of any class of people. Within the class there are all kinds of people. That’s because everyone is different from everyone else. Lot's of gays cut hair, dance, design clothing, create art, music,theater and movies, and generally seem to be in the forefront of mankind's creative urges out of proportion to their numbers.
By their very existence, they rouse mentally disturbed or insecure people to attack them. And now, a major religious institution is attacking them.
What this seems to indicate is that religions are no different from other man-made institutions. And religions are what all religions seem to be about. “We represent God on earth. Other religions are not as good as we are. Give us your money. We’ll make sure you get to heaven.” And lots of religions teach their believers to kill the other guy. I guess they have to do that if they represent God on earth.
I’m not sure why, though.
12/7/08
LOVED THIS ONE! I RE-READ IT A FEW TIMES AND THEN SUBSTITUTED THE WORD JEW FOR GAY IN EVERY INSTANCE AND IT ALSO MAKES SENSE. YOU COULD SUBSTITUTE ALMOST ANYONE IN THE SAME WAY..BLACK, HISPANIC, ETC. HAPPY HOLIDAYS AND LOVE TO ALL, BJ
Monday, December 1, 2008
MORTAL SwINdle
A Catholic priest has determined that those who voted for Barack Obama have committed a “mortal sin.” First, the definition from Webster’s, “A sin (as murder) that is deliberately committed and is of such serious consequences according to Thomist (St. Thomas Aquinas) theology that it deprives the soul of sanctifying grace.”
The priest appears to have taken a leap of fact by implying that those who voted for Barack Obama should run to confession immediately for they have committed a mortal sin even though they have not committed murder or its equivalent, abortion, because, per the dictat of the Catholic Church, a vote for Obama is equivalent to having an abortion or agreeing for someone else to have an abortion – or commit murder.
For those Catholics who voted for Obama and need “sanctifying grace,” that presumably is available in the confessionals of the church system, the priest admonishes that they should go immediately. Is the urgency due to the faulty memory of God? Or is it simply a matter of, “The sooner, the better?” and the greater likelihood of success in achieving grace?
Historically, the Catholic Church has been in favor of large families. It is reasonable to assume that the greater the number of adherents to the faith, the greater the amount of alms collected in church baskets and the more donations of work and provisions will be provided, thereby enhancing the power of the Church Frightening the poor, the uneducated, the primitive, to join the church to save their souls from burning in hell by paying an entrance fee and accepting the dictates of earthly beings in elegant uniforms, is surely voodooism at its worst. Let the need for adherents lead the priests to procreate.
The Jewish faith has survived its fifty centuries of existence notwithstanding its acceptance of small families and abortion on demand pursuant to the needs of the mothers and their families. At no point in this long history has abortion ever been a religious issue by denying heaven or religious acceptance to those connected with the always sad need for the procedure, intimately determined.
Finally, this loud priestly declaration on behalf of the Catholic Church screams out for protection of the sanctity of the separation of church and state. Under what political freedom does the Catholic Church interfere with the political decisions and political will of its believers? Stay quietly in your church, Oh Priest, ye political sinner.
The priest appears to have taken a leap of fact by implying that those who voted for Barack Obama should run to confession immediately for they have committed a mortal sin even though they have not committed murder or its equivalent, abortion, because, per the dictat of the Catholic Church, a vote for Obama is equivalent to having an abortion or agreeing for someone else to have an abortion – or commit murder.
For those Catholics who voted for Obama and need “sanctifying grace,” that presumably is available in the confessionals of the church system, the priest admonishes that they should go immediately. Is the urgency due to the faulty memory of God? Or is it simply a matter of, “The sooner, the better?” and the greater likelihood of success in achieving grace?
Historically, the Catholic Church has been in favor of large families. It is reasonable to assume that the greater the number of adherents to the faith, the greater the amount of alms collected in church baskets and the more donations of work and provisions will be provided, thereby enhancing the power of the Church Frightening the poor, the uneducated, the primitive, to join the church to save their souls from burning in hell by paying an entrance fee and accepting the dictates of earthly beings in elegant uniforms, is surely voodooism at its worst. Let the need for adherents lead the priests to procreate.
The Jewish faith has survived its fifty centuries of existence notwithstanding its acceptance of small families and abortion on demand pursuant to the needs of the mothers and their families. At no point in this long history has abortion ever been a religious issue by denying heaven or religious acceptance to those connected with the always sad need for the procedure, intimately determined.
Finally, this loud priestly declaration on behalf of the Catholic Church screams out for protection of the sanctity of the separation of church and state. Under what political freedom does the Catholic Church interfere with the political decisions and political will of its believers? Stay quietly in your church, Oh Priest, ye political sinner.
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