HISTORY - MAXIMIZING POWER

HOW THE WORLD WORKS

2011-05-22T19:09:00.000-07:00

THE SYSTEMS AND FORMULAS OF THE WORLD

Have you ever thought about how the world works, that is, our world on the planet Earth? And did you ever think about how the world worked in the past, before telephones and airplanes, and before cars and trucks were invented? How did peoples and countries communicate with each other, if they did communicate with each other? What did they try to do to make their lives comfortable and how did they measure success in the world of ten thousand years ago and five thousand years ago? Who and how did what in the many different societies that existed over the millennia since mankind emerged from caves and started living in homes that they built on land that they owned and farmed, using tools that they made and materials that they pulled from the earth? And how were leaders chosen, if they were chosen? Who rose to the top and how did they rise to the top of their societies?

Our world generally operates within systems and uses formulas to achieve local successes. The systems are interconnected and the formulas are similar from nation to nation and from one international entity to another. The international connection enables trade for mutual benefit and the internal systems are designed to accommodate differences such as currency, language and cultures, economic level, and political establishments. Except in cases of rogue states or states that are in the process of violent change or collapsing, these statements hold true.

Natural resources like oil that are in huge universal demand and huge populations that provide low cost labor, skew the systems and formulas as much as internal warfare, regime change, and major natural disasters do over shorter time periods. The drive for power and wealth acquisition brings a measure of tranquility to international exchanges that benefit the elites in whatever combination of nations are engaged.

Internal systems and formulas are based on how wealth and allegiance are achieved. Variations between and within the systems reflect the nature of a nation’s wealth, history, government, culture, people, and often, religion. The history, language, natural resources, and geography of a nation are key determinants of wealth acquisition. A typical formula has multi-generational power continuation that regardless of huge disparities in wealth distribution, auger for economic stability. That power can be embedded in government or in royal symbolism or in religious unity within a country. Governments as a matter of course represent power elites that invest the money to obtain government sinecures for their lackeys. “What is good for General Motors is good for the country,” used to be considered instructions for government functioning. With General Motors teetering on bankruptcy at the end of 2008, the slogan requires a name change, perhaps to the more truthful and realistic, “What’s good for the wealthy and powerful, is good for the country.”

Success is measured in accumulation of wealth just as failure is measured in loss of wealth.

KILL THE JEWS

2011-05-19T21:28:00.001-07:00

The daily newspapers are teaching the world, “History in the Making.” Your extensive or limited knowledge of history is distorted. We are watching the world of the Arabs being assaulted by the “People.” Television, the internet, cell phones, and death models are the “teachers” of the People. The revolution taking place is emanating viscerally from the “People.” They did not decide to revolt.

The "People" never decide anything. Compare their intelligence to that of dogs. They sniff. They bark. They eat what's given to them. They piss and shit where they are taught to piss and shit - if they are "civilized." If they are not civilized, they piss and shit wherever they are whenever they have the urge. They sleep where they are taught to sleep. They masturbate or screw at every opportunity. When they are out of the house they are on a leash held by the power that controls them.

Their civilizations comport with the civilizations of the Power Elites. They follow. They do not lead. When they break away from the Power Elites, they perform a revolution. The Power Elite adjusts their condition to that of other civilizations that served as initiators and models for their revolution. After much killing, they restructure their societies so that THEIR leaders can join the Power Elites. The people remain subservient at a different level, a level that is better economically. They are thrown bones with more meat on them.

They settle down until civilizations around them again stagger to a new position that appears better than that of their present position - ECONOMICALLY! The Power Elites share a meager portion of their wealth to pacify the masses and bring them to accept their new circumstances.

Get it?

Now - for Israel. The Jews and Israel are a light to the nations. Smarter, wealthier, better educated, more creative, and, more in control of their lives and fortunes than any other People on the face of the earth. They have contributed more to civilizations than any other geographic, religious, or ethnic grouping. They are easily identifiable by their status and by their religion. They should be killed. Who wants them killed? Power Elites. Arab/Muslim Power Elites overtly. Other Power Elites clandestinely. They set a very bad example to the masses of the world. Let's kill them.

The history of the Jewish People is a study in survival. It all started when the Jews stated that there was only one God. All the idols weren't worth shit. The power Elites of the day needed the People to believe in idols. Moses reinforced the separation from the idols with his Ten Commandments of morality. So, let’s kill the Jews.

And that has happened through the centuries, and it is happening again today. Now, let's see how smart the Jews are.

MYOB

2011-04-28T16:15:00.000-07:00

Mind Your Own Business

Our earth-world, that is, the surface of the earth, is divided into countries. Each of those countries has a name, a language, a society of leaders and led, food idiosyncrasies, religion(s), often unique geographies and sizes, a position on the scale of modernity in a large variety of institutions, laws, education, science, longevity of life, and the use of technology; geographical insularity, unique physiognomy and skin coloration, value systems, and other differences too numerous and too fine to describe here. And we are all different no matter how we act or how similar we may appear.

The one outstanding mutual characteristic seems to be the common request by all countries to all other countries, to Mind Their Own Business – to not interfere with the way things are and the way things are run and done by whoever is in charge in any particular country. This is the MYOB syndrome.

The ramifications of MYOB are huge, as recently illustrated by the Tsunami s generated by earthquakes off the coasts of Japan and the ongoing surge by indigenous peoples in a variety of countries to acquire freedom and representation, mostly in the Arab world, harmful to populations and often deadly to individuals in the path of explosive power that exists in the operating structures in those countries.

The so-called United Nations is helpless to intervene effectively in either the natural disasters or the man-made disasters. A few countries have the capability to move quickly and effectively by having a prior obligation in their societies’ mores to help others in need. Israel tops the list in rapid response to the MYOB syndrome. The earthquakes in Turkey and Haiti brought immediate teams of trained people and dogs plus equipment and supplies commonly known to be in dire need in such situation. Israel was the first “other” on the scene in those countries. It was also among the first in the hamlets of Japan suffering the impact of the destruction of nuclear power plants in that country. Other countries also joined in these humanitarian cries for help. Many countries Mind Their Own Business at all times. The debating society known as the United Nations is often the last to appear with its minions and millions and often stays to harvest little- merited kudos.

The oligarchies of the Arab world have long benefitted from the MYOB syndrome as practiced by the Big Oil countries, the United States, Britain, Holland, and a few others. Blind eyes were turned for decades on societies and hierarchies that treated their lower classes with well designed neglect, their women with a misogyny that stems from religion and primitive cultural intolerance, and maltreatment of the peasantry with torture and dismemberment for minor offenses, simply to assure their power status in their societies. Thus, the oil flowed and the profits were distributed to the few as the affected governments benefitted and dealt with these fake kings in their flowing white bed-sheets, with ingratiating smiles and rewarding practices.

Probably the most devastating impact of the MYOB syndrome lies in the provision of armaments and war-making machines and equipment to the often impoverished countries of the world and their power elites, who then use those arms to remain in power and to aggrandize their thefts from the coffers of their countries and to engage in warfare to subdue neighboring countries to steal their land, highjack their produce, kill their men, and rape their women. One cannot help but believe there is involved the role of arms merchants and agents provocateurs in achieving that monetary success. And in those cases, they were and are indeed, Minding Their Own Business.

The future of Mankind, eliminating natural disasters, lies in everyone minding everyone else’s business for the common good. As humans, we all have the same physical and mental frailties. Were we to live in a family setting, the hope for well-being and happiness stands a greater chance of success than in living disparate lives as we now do. Minding our communal business rather than minding our own business, caring for and about each other, en mass, will provide the only means to achieve that well-being and happiness.

Prediction - HOW WILL IT END?

2011-02-06T02:01:00.000-08:00

Tunisia started a revolution in the Arab World. How will it end?

The most reliable way to forecast an answer to this question is to look back at other revolutions in other countries and compare what is comparable and use the differences to make quesses.

Unrest caused by poor economic conditions that have led to two-class societies where power is held by an upper class protected by well-fed loyal armies, and the lower classes suffer deprivation in their lives and have been powerless to change their condition. Powerless until the masses are ignited by a unifying act by one of their own or by some egregious act by the masters of their existence.

The revolution takes place and the portraits on the walls of the houses of power are changed. Some careless oligarchs lose their heads and some lucky ones, with their families, are wafted away by fellow power brokers in foreign lands. With the change, grievances are addressed and economies manipulated to raise the standard of living of the masses - at relatively low cost to the power elites - and just enough to pacify the revolutionaries. New laws are put into place that provide the appearance of equality. The equality is not of power but rather of pacifiers.

So it was with the French, American, and Russian revolutions. So it was with the removal of the Shaw of Iran and the deportation of Idi Amin. So it is with the Chiness revolution. AND SO IT WILL BE WITH THE ISLAMIC REVOLUTION.

And that is how it will end. With hollow voting power, increased standard of living from abject poverty to food pacification, honking horns of patriotism and calls of religionists to heed the opium words of God.

The rich will get richer and the poor will get children.

THE POWER OF RELIGI0N

2011-01-16T20:21:00.000-08:00

THE POWER OF RELIGION
And what to do about it

As much as the destruction of religious institutions appears to me a desirable goal, the world has been mesmerized by religions into believing they are not the evil force they truly are. Wiping out religion and replacing it with ethical humanism is too formidable a task to accomplish in the next millennium. The more modest goal of separation of church and state throughout the world should be reasonably attainable.
This is a war for the hearts and minds of masses of people. This is a war of education, of propaganda, of enlightenment. At every turn and in every instance where religion is shown up for what it is, a supporter of power structures and an instigator of death by religicide, the course of action to be pointed out must lead to political separation. A constant din must be maintained to alert people to the dangers of religion and religious input and control of the political process.
Atheists, humanistic ethicists, and agnostics have been too reluctant to buck the strong tides of religious oceans. For the most part, they try to keep their heads down. After all, how far can they get in their own lives of work, school, love, family, friends, all of whom have what is called "respect" for religion. This ingrained respect is a huge deterrent to effective action. The first step must be to separate the attack on religion from its association with an attack on belief, humankind's fundamental need. Also, care must be taken to separate the charlatans of religious institutions from the poor deluded good religionists who will defend their institutions to the death. The point of attack must be to convert deluded ethical devout religious leaders to the awareness that they are involved with murderers and panderers of death through religicide.
The second point of attack must be in identifying and exposing the charlatans who have earned the respect of people as leaders of religious institutions. That has to be performed in both delicate and coarse ways. This is a war to be conducted over centuries. I do not suggest nor imply that this is the way to achieve peace in the Middle East in the near term. For now, it is sufficient to identify the mullahs and rabbis who preach death and hold them up for the anti-gods that they are.
A variety of perceptions have colored the reaction to my proposition that religion is evil. They range from, "Not my religion!" to "They are not ALL evil." What I posit is not really related to the nature of religion as a vehicle for worship per se. That is, I do not contest that what religion says it offers is not delivered. But religion has a superior goal to the mere structure in which believers can make obeisance to their gods. My claim is that religion is a creation of power elites to be used as a tool for controlling people; individuals, small groups and huge masses of people. The power elite may be the single witch doctor or Shaman, the chief of a tribe, the king who is himself the representative of god on earth, the combination of the Vatican and Nazi Germany, or the government of the United States with the varied and diverse religious establishments of the country. The need for people to believe in a higher power has made them susceptible to the lure of religion; they are told how to pray, when to pray, and where to pray - and they can do it with others to reinforce the rightness of their need and the righteousness of their belief. The fact that missionaries may have the purest of motives does not detract from the fact that control of their converts passes to the power elites that supported the missionary work in the first place. The fact that various religions and religionists have cultural and historic aspects unrelated to power but only concerned with the true well-being of their adherents does not detract from the fact that all religions enable evil to flourish by their affinity to power elites. All religions without exception are prostituted by power elites. Even the religions that claim "Peace" as an integral part of their very essence - like Judaism - are prostitutes because they sell their wares to pacify, to lure, to inveigle the masses into actions detrimental in cataclysmic ways to their well-being and the well-being of others.
Is there one piece of dirt or rock worth the life of a single individual? Not really! Yet religion religicizes dirt and rocks into holy entities so their believers will die for them. Young men die for god and country. Who benefits? God? Surely not! The martyr? No. The power elite does. The sellers of arms do. The oil companies do. The Sheiks and Shahs and Mullahs do. The country is said to benefit. Who is the country if not those who lay down their lives in the wars that religion and patriotism tout as good and necessary? Religion has religicized love of country and patriotism. Religion is evil incarnate. Religion is the actualization of harm to its believers. As to its murderous affect on non- religionists, non-believers and "other"-believers, no knowledgeable person will deny the religicide the inquisition inflicted on its victims nor the religicide of the Crusades nor the religicide of the poor Irish who need to die their Protestant deaths at the hands of the Catholics and vice-versa.

Rational enlightened self interest is the road out. But people must be willing to take that road.

GOOD MORNING AMERICA

2010-10-10T09:16:00.000-07:00

A leading economist has made the amazing discovery last week that money determines what the government - in all its forms, including The Supreme Court of the United States. decides is best for the country. How shocking this discovery must have been to his system. What follows here is the Foreword to a my work in progress, "Maximizing Power." It's a bit long for a blog session, but may open the door to understanding how major economist Richard Reich discovered America. Perhaps he discovered how the world works, also.

MAXIMIZING POWER

Understanding History

FOREWORD

George Santayana’s comment that “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” makes an assumption that the “past” is not worthy of repetition. It is by remembering the past and learning its lessons well that those who have power and wish to defend, enhance, and pass that power on to designated heirs, will absolutely work to repeat it. Repeating history will reward them hugely. And only those with power are the ones in a position to repeat history.

The search for meaning in current events mandates an understanding of the forces at work that control whatever is controllable that triggers, manipulates, and creates the ever changing landscape of mankind’s history. Just as scientists search for natural forces that lead to earthquakes, floods, landslides and other such phenomena, so too, social scientists, historians, economists, political scientists, and philosophers, search for causation and meaning in the historical events that lead to beneficial change and to upheavals and disasters, whether caused by human good or evil intent, or by humans benignly or unknowingly setting in motion a train of events that spins out of control. The general search in nature and history is motivated ostensibly to understand events, in part to predict them, and in both contexts, to attempt to bring good or to mitigate the impact of disasters on the human condition. The specific goal of power holders in their search of history’s lessons is to contain forces at work to unseat them from their thrones.

Control of humongous historical forces demands humongous power. The creation, the accumulation, the aggrandizement and protection of such power, and the means by which it works its will on the world, is the focus of this book. From the outset, it appears that in every society, at all times in human history, power was a commodity always in demand and the more one had of it, the more one wanted of it. The drive to maximize power by individuals and cabals of individuals seems as prevalent in the psyche and as much a part of evolution as any other element in nature’s drive to assure “survival of the fittest.” And, “the fittest” means the most powerful. Through the ages, violent personalities became magnets to power elites, themselves violent in their drives to maximize power. Their violence, however, was and is now, rarely attributed to them. In their drives to acquire, retain, control, and maximize power, violence through surrogates is a tool well understood and well used by them.

Power, as used herein, is control over assets and lives. “Assets” means wealth of any kind; armies and armaments, cotton and cattle, ships and slaves, olives and oil, diamonds and diamond mines, and money, money, money. “Lives” means workers and soldiers, mothers and their wombs, children’s minds and mob mentalities, votes and vetoes, and the lives and deaths of any number of people – no matter if in the millions - at any time in any place. Slavery throughout history was and in some places today, is, a measure of power. Slavery means ownership of lives in “fee simple absolute,” a term usually applied to an estate in land limited absolutely to a person and his or her heirs and assigns forever and without limitation or condition. Slaves and control of lives translates to “wealth” and the more one has of wealth, the more powerful one is. Until the relatively modern development of substitutes for muscle power by machine power, slaves were an integral component of economic systems. Control over masses of humans with chains and whips has been replaced by AK 47’s and UZI’s, by wages and legal systems, by indoctrination through patriotism and religion, and often by intolerance and hatred of “others.” The doled out benefits by the powerful of the day often buy allegiance of the masses.

Maximizing power was, and is, the driving force of civilization. Power in this context came into being parallel to the time when assets could be accumulated and exchanged for land, the natural resources of the earth, air, and water, goods created and generated by labor expended on natural resources, and services. The concept of “maximizing power” explains the history of mankind as different geographical areas around the globe moved from the nomadic hunter-gatherer stage of human development to a more predictable and controllable settled existence. Sedentary life styles became common in towns and villages and then cities. Only with the development of planned agriculture and animal husbandry, excess production and storage capability made wealth accumulation possible. That in turn enabled the exchange of goods and services for other desirable assets. If the exchange was not fair or freely given, the powerful took by power – through legal chicanery, with lobbyists, by taxation and poll taxes, by imprisonment, by force, or by killing. Specialization and separation into castes, guilds, priesthoods, landholders, warriors, serfs, and myriad creators and producers in any layered landed society, enabled the accumulation of power, enabled control over the powerless by the powerful, enabled the establishment of tribes, fiefdoms, nations and nation states. Identifying the nature and methodologies of those driving forces of civilization at work is necessary to understand how power is obtained, maximized, or lost, and how societies and the mechanics of life were changed as a result of power-aggrandizing conflicts that erupted and were mollified.

Power began its career rooted in hunger, greed, brute strength and savage cunning, fraud and fakery. Early power creators and their minions sought benefit in stratified societies with themselves on top of the heap. The accumulation of power worked to the benefit of the wielders of power – the “stronger” - to the detriment of those subject to control by the wielders of power – the “weaker.” Not much has changed over the years. Might makes Right. The truism continues to this day. Power elites are strongly hereditary. Families, title-holders, old school ties and old-boy networks, military association, clubs and social registers, old wealth and extreme wealth, all produce members of the elite. The power elite is made up of people who grow into their roles, have doors opened for them, are aware of their power and know how, when, where and with whom to enjoy it and use it. Once in the club, they know it and do not easily allow new people into it.

Control of education systems, communications systems, and political systems, are the main ways that power stays in power. With the elite’s connivance, the overt wielders of power in today’s world work diligently to persuade populations that educated self interest is not beneficial but rather detrimental to themselves, their own interests, and to the societies in which they live.

Power functions like mercury in its liquid form. When relatively small globules of mercury stand alone on a flat level surface, their cohesive nature enables them to retain their shapes. However, when the globule becomes too big, it tends to split into two smaller globules. Or when another globule comes too close, the two globules may join together. Without carrying this analogy too far, power elites rely on each other to reinforce their power within the structures peculiar to that power elite except when one elite attempts to aggrandize its power by taking over the structure of another. As an example, religious power structures within national power structures rely on support from each other. Rarely will a national power structure attempt to subvert or overthrow the existing religious support structure. However, when a conflict arises between the two, as happened in the reign of Henry V in England, the king replaced the religious structure with one more to his liking. His power elite overcame the power hierarchy of England’s Roman Catholic Church. More common conflicts erupt between similar power structures than dissimilar ones. In a bland form, political parties in democratic countries vie for favor from an electorate. However, underpinning for both or all such parties flows from the economic power structures within those countries – often with both sides calling on God for support and claiming God as their supporter – and with both sides calling on all their churches to support their righteous paths. Yet religions do not equate their moralist cries against abortion and stem cell research with a need to cry out against the immorality of war or the monstrous money-producing armaments industries that foment wars to assure continued profits. Such religious moral teaching is inimical to the needs of their power elite back offices.

Communist China, in its march toward a capitalist economy in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, has fought vigorously against the establishment of religions in that country. The leadership has recognized that religion, rather than being the opiate of the people as Karl Marx predicated, was an energizer of the people to create and support a competing power structure. Foundational elements of power structures include abhorrence to power sharing. Power, in all its shapes, sizes, and manifestations, jealously guards what it has and works assiduously to expand its borders. In the news of August 7, 2004, lower level officials of the government in some agricultural areas are simply taking away land from peasants for use by the state and imprisoning or shooting protestors. So much for the ideals of communism in what is essentially a fascist, by definition, Chinese state.

A paradigm of the tenet that religion energizes people to create competing power structures, can be derived from the war being conducted primarily by the United States in Iraq. After the initial invasion, all of the power structures of the country – tribal, religious, geographical, ethnic, economic, political – each with their adherents and their history, are now (2004) engaged in a massive power dance with and against each other and with the connivance, assistance, or goals of the mighty power of the United States, to retain, gain, or return to power. With the definition of power clearly in mind, the control over the assets, the goods and services of people, and this includes territorial control, one can understand the indoctrination by Imam’s of the various sects of relatively primitive and under-educated people to give their lives to martyrdom for the power elites’ causes. Land and buildings have been religicized by the Imams. Opposing sects have been demonized by Imams of different sects. The call has become common-place to cleanse the “holy” land of demons, devils, and foreigners, that brings forth the suicide zealots, the knife-wielding beheaders and Kalachnikov-wielding street fighters to commit religicide. This is immoral control by religious power over the minds of masses converted to the service of power elites.

The nature of power elites is varied. The power elite of New Orleans is a fascinating study of intertwining families, political dynasties, geographic heavyweight chunks, historical impediments, and combinations of local small power elites that magnify their power by cooperating with other local small power elites. New York City presents as complex a structure of a totally different nature. Analogies of the lone tree, the wild forest, the cultivated rows of Christmas trees planted yearly for November harvest, the giant redwoods of California, and the yucca trees of desert prominence, all have their hierarchies, their friends and enemies, their turf, and their history as they wield their power. This analogy may help explain the function of power entities. Using trees as an example, when a tree stands alone, it derives nourishment from the surrounding soil, provides shade, fruit, and soil replenishment to the surrounding ambiance, and grows old, fat, gnarled, and widespread over its domain. When other trees/power entities are in the neighborhood, they compete for nourishment, sunlight, and the very air itself, and in that struggle grow tall and lean, and grow faster than the stand-alones of the forest. The struggle leads to an early death for the weaker trees. The forest is not always a live-and-let-live environment. It can be cut-throat in the extreme. Kingdoms isolated by geography become old and fat, dynasties may suffer small scale power squabbles, but the powerful old king or emperor sits on his throne and is replaced by his designated heirs into perpetuity – it would seem to contemporaries. And then, a foreign power interrupts what seems like the natural order of things. Newness and change infect the power holders. Power elites chosen by god suffer transformation and are overthrown, guillotined, exterminated by disease or by technology, or simply by the superior force of a superior invading power elite.

The friends and associates of power elites change as they grow – out of everyone’s need to grow their power over their world. In an agrarian society, a successful farmer becomes a strong friend of the local banker, the mayor of the town, the business members of Rotary International and other so-called “service” clubs. His wife comes off the front porch of her early struggling years and joins the Ladies Auxiliaries, the tea clubs, and they both become golfers and members of the country club. In a capitalist society, a small business establishment grows into a mighty conglomerate and then into a multi-national company. In the initial stages, the entrepreneur who has discovered a process or product that fills a broad need, manufactures and grows and provides for that need while employing workers who in turn grow the economies of their particular locations. This is a generally positive evolution whose major negative may be the exploitation of employees whose share of the growing profit stream that results from their efforts is disproportionately small. That company exerts power commensurate to its size – first within the confines of the walls of the business, then within the town or locality, then within the county or State, and finally, within the country, and then internationally. All this while, the nature of the power changes from simple limited monetary control in a small geographic area, to political and economic control over larger populations and political forces that affect the lives of ever larger numbers of people. The friends and associates of the founding entrepreneur and his upper echelon employees and Board members tend to be similar in social, political, economic, and philosophical views and functions. They all need each other and support each other and keep tabs on each other. They may join forces when they deem it appropriate or cut each others’ throats when they deem it appropriate. Power aggrandizement is the determinant of what and when such changes are appropriate. Power elites are like chameleons. They freeze into position to blend in and disappear to an aggressor’s eye or they change their coloration from true blue to red, white, and blue, to green, or Nazi grey to protect their lives. They will adopt the dominant religion of the environment and wave the flag of their environment, no matter the change in national loyalty so long as they prosper and grow. They will go to war or sue for peace if they believe that move will enhance or protect their power no matter what other forces or isms are at work. They give up when they have lost the battle and then join the victor to grow again. And to refer to Karl Marx, it is important to understand the dynamics controlling these changes; that every power configuration contains within itself the seeds of its own destruction.

Looking back, it is somewhat possible to see the future. The undulating history of conflict between materialist driven power elites and religiously driven power elites appears to be a human syndrome. And just as materialists use the tools of religion in their strategic and tactical planning, religionists will use the tools of materialism. The great equalizer in the future battles of the worlds will be weapons of mass destruction. Iran in 2004 seems to be in the forefront of melding fundamental religious power with the latest nuclear weapon technology. Will morality and ethics sway these battles? Will mutual assured destruction hold sway? Will martyrdom be so attractive to religionists as to become their secret weapon? Will science in the hands of the materialists give them the edge to survive?

Terrorism as a means of acquiring power seeks to achieve maximum impact on the affairs of society using minimum, narrowly focused destructive power. With murderous attacks on populations and institutions, terror-based power elites appear to believe they can effect major change in the way the world is run. The sad truth is that such attacks only benefit and strengthen existing power elites by providing cover for their own depredations on society’s resources. It is reasonable to assume that power elites support terror to accomplish just that. This kind of pact with the devil was made by the ruling family in Saudi Arabia to hold them safe and harmless from the extremism of Wahabism. However many decades this kept the family safe, the respite could have been predicted to come to an end with attempts to replace or destroy the power structure of that kingdom’s elites. Terrorism against the State of Israel, supported and condoned by ruling oligarchs, has kept the power elites of the twenty-two countries in the Arab world sitting on their thrones by inhibiting competing home-grown power elites from gaining traction through popular support. And, however simplistic it may appear, support for terror against that small nation garnered and continues to garner support among all but a few secure countries at the United Nations General Assembly – believably for the same underlying reason; stability at home, and of course, abroad in the Arab world through oil production stability. The cost of terrorism to the existing power elites is meaningless simply because any destruction, human and institutional, is profitable. The danger to existing elites lies in the potential loss or diminution of power. When terror organizations figure out how to take over power elites, as Hitler and his cadres did in Germany and Stalin and his supporters did in Russia, then the elites will maneuver to join them or embrace them and enter into profitable partnerships with them until the next seismic event occurs. Iran today, in control of religious power elites, is not sharing their goodies with outside power elites any more than Kim Il Sung of Korea is sharing his power cookies. Therefore, they have been ostracized and branded as part of the “Axis of Evil.” That portends poorly for the elites in those countries and explains political decisions taken by outside forces whenever exchanges occur with those two “pariahs” who don’t want to share. If this sounds like school-yard squabbling, it is. But it is high stakes squabbling and it often leads to heavy gunfire and loss of life and, more to the point, a shift in power.

The outstanding “pariah” entity through the ages is the Jewish People. The Jews and Jewish power elites have never wanted to share their power. Indeed, if Jews are true to their religion and to their identity, it would seem they cannot share power. This “stiff-necked” people has been used and abused by power elites from their earliest identifiable manifestation as believers in “One God.” This identification set them apart and at odds with every other tribe, kingdom, oligarchy, dynasty, political and economic grouping in existence at their date of birth on Mount Moriah and continuously and subsequently into modern times. Being “separate” became part of their core identity. The Ten Commandments, the “Laws of God,” handed down by their God on Mount Sinai made murderers, adulterers, thieves, and immoral creatures out of all the then existing rulers and their power elites. Is it any wonder they were delegated to be hated and reviled by every people in every place they sojourned. If they were “right,” about one God and the morality of the commandments, then everyone else was wrong. More important, if their God was all-powerful, what happens to the power of the power elites. As is the nature of power elites, they work at absorbing power wherever and however it exists. The creation of other monotheistic religions, Christianity and Islam being the most successful, and the isolation of the Jews from all other power elites was the counter-attack. The Jews became the piñata of the world, being struck, pierced, and after raining intellectual, scientific, medical, artistic, and materialist goodies of many varieties down on ungrateful masses of people, ripped apart and destroyed. Power elites and their front rulers offered the Jews the choice of assimilation, expulsion, or death. The attractiveness of assimilation to the upper classes of the Jews, the power elites of the Jews, often believing and hoping their status would be improved by joining the dominant culture as much as they were allowed, led to significant cleavages among the Jews. Strong religionists became the torch bearers that maintained the group’s identity over millennia as richer more connected brethren divorced themselves from Judaism and its traditionalism and age-old ritual observances. So, while the Jews were a landless powerless identifiable scapegoat group, at the same time, the Jews were and are fully appreciated by the power elites for the benefits that their scapegoat status brings those ruling entities. Every misery known to mankind is attributed to the Jews by power elites to deflect the pain and outrage of oppressed and poor populations in even the most affluent and democratic countries regardless of whether a Jewish population even exists in that country. The Bible as history and subsequent reasonably verifiable accounts provide sufficient documentation to support the conclusion that the Jews have been subjected to the vilest forms of bestiality for the millennia of their existence because of their refusal to subjugate themselves to the power elites in the communities in which they lived and because they are readily identifiable. In the year 2004, the nations of the world appear about to embark on yet another monstrous anti-Semitic crusade against the State of Israel to create once again the landless uprooted indefensible Jewish condition that allows persecution and scapegoatism to rear its ugly head. While genocide of millions of blacks takes place in Africa, the 150 nations of the world led by Arab oligarchies condemn Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East, for building a fence against terrorism to protect its population.

Power elites in democratic societies must function in surreptitious ways. A subset of this maxim is that when autocratic societies evolve or revolutionize into democratic societies, the elites take care to protect their power without appearing to be anti-democratic. Protective coloration, found in the animal world to provide cover for predators as well as victims, enables fascistic functioning to appear democratic. Hitler was voted into office.

It may appear odd and even antithetical, that power elites function at the highest levels of government in democracies. However, the very first democracy was founded by power elites. The United States was established by the new power elites of colonial America to replace those centuries-old elites of England. The wealthy colonists believed they could safeguard their status and impose their control over the territory and treasure of America. Those huge assets merited revolution and overthrow of the royal system of governance. A new untried system of governance was established by the power elites whereby the owners of property could exert their collective will over the wealth of the united colonies. The unique nature of this new system was that it enabled all free men to participate in governing the country. That freedom was an outgrowth of the suspicious nature of the Founders and their concern that the variety and number of new power elites extant in the late 1700’s somehow balance themselves so as not to enable one or a grouping of any of them, to wrest power from the others. Thus were born political parties, a new concept that allowed competing interests to present their interests to the voting public, to compete for power. Thus, “Democracy.” George Washington was concerned about how power was to be controlled by the people. He thought that political parties were “potent engines by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the Power of the People, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government.” Washington’s concerns were justified by the reality of the system. President Dwight. D. Eisenhower, chosen by the elite of his day, warned the American people of the dangerous power of “The Military-Industrial Complex.” It is reasonable to assume that he was removed from his pedestal by that same cabal and placed in a grey area of history books.

Looking forward without reference to past events – which is patently impossible but worthy of contemplation - one can conjure up a future completely different from what we see around us today. Futurists can project visions that appear to have no reference points in the present. Even predicting human evolution through the thousands of years of mutations creating the fittest forms to survive the depredations of time, can be an exercise worthy of effort regardless of believability.

If I were a futurist, I would predict the continued existence of viruses, cockroaches and power elites surrounded by a grey human existence.

Copyright by Norman/Nachum Meyers 2004

PEACE FAILURES - PAST AND FUTURE

2010-09-12T11:44:00.000-07:00

PEACE FAILURES - PAST AND FUTURE

September 9, 2010

The outstanding, continuous basis for Palestinian/Israeli peace-initiative failures in the past, and the obvious presence of those reasons for the much anticipated failure of the current peace initiative, is the intransigence of the on-looking Arab states. The vast majority of those states benefit in various ways from the continuation of the conflict. Only two of the twenty-one neighboring states have peace treaties with Israel – Egypt and Jordan, and only one other, Morocco, has formal relations with Israel.

The primary benefit is the continued rule of the oligarchies in those states. By pointing at Israel and pointing to the continuing Palestinian/Israeli conflict as the source of all woes and the sad economic condition of their masses, the oligarchs are freed from responsibility for that miserable impoverished condition. Reading local newspapers, seeing state-controlled television, and driving through the countries from city to city, it becomes apparent that every negative in their citizens’ lives that can be found, is exploited loudly and vigorously against Israel. Poor health care, low level schools, retarded economic growth, even the rutted condition of the roads and the shortages of foods and goods caused by control of the wealth and power of the oligarchs, is levied against Israel. “How can one make peace with such an enemy?” “Allah willing, the Jews will all be murdered.”

The condition of unemployed hordes of men, sitting and smoking and sipping at their little coffee-cups in the cafes that line the roads in all the towns in the Arab world, is blamed on Israel. Yet calls to protest peace with Israel brings those hordes to march, raising banners and weapons by young and old men, - but not the burdened women - screaming imprecations against the avowed enemy of their world of deadly backwardness. All this rabble-rousing noise is applauded by the wealthy in their walled villas and government offices.

The Western World wants Israel to make concessions to these rulers so their oil may flow westward; to become the sacrificial lamb. Israel does not cooperate. Israel cannot cooperate and live.

No Palestinian leader can ever make peace with Israel without fear of assassination by the military servants of the Arab power elites for taking away their goodies. No compromise can ever be made without the acquiescence of those power elites.

Notwithstanding United States pressure on Israel to make concessions that appear to lead to peace, will peace ever be achieved without democratic rule in Arab countries. This is the curse in all the conflicts with the Muslim world and within the Muslim world. This is the curse of Iran and Saudi Arabia, of Syria and Lebanon, of Iraq and Afghanistan. Guns are votes.

No democracy, no peace; not past and not future.

WHY NO PEACE - YET?

2010-07-18T10:10:00.000-07:00

The advocacy of b'tselem's solutions, and those of similar advocate groups, to the Israeli Palestinian/Arab-World conflict that began in 1948 when five Arab states attacked the Jewish community in Palestine to overthrow the United Nations' decision to divide the lands of the British Mandate between indigenous Jews and Arabs, is a cancer on the body of any peace agreement.

Any "solution" that leads to the destruction of the State of Israel is, on its face, not viable. From the first Armistice that ended the conflict in 1949 and through the years of "peace" negotiations, the Arab world has required - and continues to demand - that a stick of dynamite be inserted into any "peace" agreement that would ensure the destruction of the State of Israel. That stick of dynamite is called, "The Right of Return."

The establishment of a democratic state with political equality for all its inhabitants would immediately wipe out the State of Israel with the admission into the country of Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war. The very existence of this down-trodden group of people is the result of the Arab World's intent to destroy Israel by holding those refugees hostage rather than absorbing them into the societies of the countries that placed them and has held them for sixty years in "refugee" camps (including the Gaza Strip.)

The balancing act required to enable the continued existence of Israel and finding a future for the refugees of 1948 requires a willingness on the part of the host countries to absorb those millions of exploited people. Absent that, there is no hope for peace in the region.

The land can be divided. Jerusalem can be divided. The water and natural resouces can be shared. Health care, education, economic growth, and political equality can come into fruition with a peace agreement. But not with the "Law of Return" that would lead to the destruction of the State of Israel by vote.

WHITHER IRAN

2010-07-17T15:41:00.000-07:00

Iran's ruling classes are part and parcel of Islamic terrorist anti-Western networks. Their support of these networks is part of the united enterprises designed to undermine western civilization. Iran, through it's fascist/religious leadershp, sees itself as the leader of a new world order.

The proof of this analysis lies in Iran's manipulation of the United Nations and the major Western powers in protecting its acquisition of a nuclear capability in a way that is remeniscent of Hitler's conning and bluffing the West in his rise to militaru power. That war, World War II, until the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, will seem like a child's playground

Israel's conflict with the billion-strong oligarchic Arab world is evidence of the unity achieved thus far by this huge cabal. The whole world seems to be moving in the direction of delegitimizing and destroying Israel. The missionary goal of Islam through atomic destruction of Israel first, pro-Western backward societies next, and finally, Weatern nations and civilizations, is apparent, however sick and psychotic this thinking is. Suicide bombing will not then be limited to fanatic individuals. States will engsge in it. It will become the means whereby whole populations and nations will achieve martydom through atomic immolation of "The Other." whether they wish it or not.

The long history of wars is the story of ever-increasing destructive and killing capacity. We are now in the atomic age of war. Wake up or die, World.

PATRIOTIC FERVOR

2010-07-16T18:25:00.000-07:00

How many people on earth die for their country and their love for their country every day? How many of them die for the benefit of their country? How many of them die for the benefit of arms makers, politicians, dictators, oil companies, religious belief and religious leaders? How many die for the pay of a soldier? How many die for their love of the military? How many die for their love and excitement of war and killing?

How are those who die taught to die? Was it the flag and the national anthem? Was it the father or older brother who taught them the glories of war, patriotism, and obedience to authority? Was it the clergymen, priests, rabbis, ayatollahs, voodoo-men, who taught that a rock or place where long-dead bones lie merits their deaths to protect those inanimate shrines. Moses, who died on Mount Nebo, buried himself in an unmarked and unknown grave for the just purpose of preventing the deaths of those who are taught that his grave was worth dying for because he was a "holy man."

Friends, Romans, Countrymen,

Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind…And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded with patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader, and gladly so.

How do I know? For this is what I have done.

And I am Caesar. (Or Mao, or Arafat, or MacArthur, or the pope, or deGaulle, or Komeini - or Genral Motors, Boeing, or Krupp?)

William Shakespeare

The true sorrow of humanity lies in this; not that the mind of man fails, but that the course and demands of action and of life so rarely correspond with the dignity and intensity of human desire.

TURKEY IS NOT THANKSGIVING

2010-07-10T20:21:00.000-07:00

YEAST IN THE MIDDLE EAST

Ferment is being fomented in the Middle East. Yeast creates gasses that enlarge dough and, what is fermenting in the Middle East bodes ill for Israel. Turkey is leading the latest charge. It wasn’t enough to have a billion Arabs and Muslims in over twenty countries bent on destroying Israel, Turkey now sees its bright path in alignment with those forces. After all, where’s the market?

Turkey is edging away from the democracy introduced by Attaturk and rolling over to join the world of Islam. The Turkish citizens killed by Israeli forces on board a blockade-running vessel were unwisely attacking Israeli commandos. However unwise the Israeli attempt to halt the ship by boarding it, not knowing what awaited them, the attack by Turkish activists intent on killing the Israelis was equally unwise.

It is interesting to watch the world pile-up of condemnation of Israel for engaging in defensive measures for the safety of its citizenry. It seems unlikely that any sovereign state would act otherwise. The pile-up is more than moral outrage if one looks at the immorality of many of the accusers. To an older segment of the Israeli population it sounds remarkably similar to the screams of truncheon-bearing anti-Semites in myriad countries in the 1930s and ‘40s.

No doubt that Israel is in danger. No doubt that whatever is offered to the Palestinians in exchange for real peace will be insufficient in the eyes of the Arab world and thus of the Palestinians. Without the “Return” of refugees from the Arab initiated 1948 war, there will be no peace. Such a return would be the end of Israel. And if half the Palestinians agree to some sort of settlement, the terrorist groups in Gaza and Lebanon will see to it that it will not last. Israel’s mild response or major attacks will lead to the same result; it will be found guilty of over-protecting its people.

Perhaps a century from now, when and if the Arab world catches up to civilization, there may be hope for peace - unless Israel lies in shattered ruins on boundless and bare desert sands, like Ozymandias..

ISRAEL PALESTINE -WAR AND PEACE

2010-07-05T11:59:00.000-07:00

TOP TO BOTTOM - INSIDE & OUTSIDE

Going on the Marxian presumption that all wars have an economic base that I believe to be true, trying to analyze the ongoing struggle between the Palestinians and the Israelis, mandates a look at the economic forces at work over the years from 1948 to the present.

The purpose of this effort is to ascertain the chance for peace between these two Peoples and what it will take to get there.

Top to Bottom is a shortcut description of the forces at work in the economic hierarchies that have influenced the chances of war and peace between the antagonists. Similarly, Inside and Outside delves into those economic forces at work that have influenced and affected peace efforts and continuing war between the two peoples.

It is a given that political leadership is tied to economic or financial powers. The influence over government policy by the public at large, even in open democratic and transparent societies, is minimal and always fragmented by economic status, religion, patriotism, and educational levels. This nurtured lack of cohesiveness saps the “power of the people” and leads to powerlessness. The people, the masses, are the “Bottom” of those who affect war and peace. A primary function of this group is to provide the soldiery for the wars determined by others. This group never gains from war, yet is manipulated to believe that they are doing the right thing, that they are doing good by supporting war and by going to war.

On the other hand, the Top makes money from war. They increase their wealth and control over masses of people who are the cannon fodder. The Top consists of armaments and munitions makers, planes, tanks, and trucks makers, suppliers of clothing, food and all commodities to armies. Suppliers of medical supplies and equipment are the Top. Land beneficiaries are Top. Communications developers and suppliers are Top. Warships and commercial ships are top. Fuel suppliers are Top. Think of all the machinery-makers who make all these elements that go to war. They are also Top. And most important, war destroys all this “stuff,” so the wealth keeps rolling in so long as war continues. The Israeli Palestinian conflict is an ideal educational model for the Top.

Now, for the Bottom. Let’s start with the makers of caskets and the growers of flowers. They benefit from war - but not on the scale of the Top. But they are the Top of the Bottom. The Bottom are the soldiers who march off to death with patriotism in their bellies. The Bottom are the parents, wives and children the soldiers left behind, many glorious in their patriotism and belief in God and country to support the pain and anxiety. Whether the Bottom stays behind or marches forward, they never benefit from war. They only benefit from peace yet have no power to bring peace nor enforce it. “Theirs not to question, “Why?” Theirs, but to do and die.” This powerless mass of people simply forms the mix from which gold is mined- nothing more. They may vote. Yet their vote is meaningless given the choices on their ballots. Convinced that ownership of guns gives them might and rights, the guns they use are to create wealth for the makers of guns, in armies or in pools of slobs. They are the bottom. God guides them as He is wielded by power elites.

What meaning does “Inside” have on the issue of war and peace? "Inside” refers to the entities directly on the front lines; the countries or groups cited in news reports, the nations, countries, rebel groups and the like, shooting at each other. So, for the Israel Palestine conflict, the Inside are Israel and the Palestinian people located in the West Bank and Gaza - and to some degree, within Israel proper. Additional Inside entities are all the terrorist groups shooting at Israel and the supposedly non-terrorist religious groups, like Hezbolla in Lebanon and spin-offs in Gaza who have declared war on Israel and are determined to wipe it off the face of the earth.

“Outside” are all the political and geographic entities that are affected positively and negatively by this ongoing conflict. Indeed, many of the Outside have fomented and contributed to the ongoing conflict believing it to be beneficial to their internal political interests, the maintenance of the status quo. Yasser Arafat, the “George Washington” of the Palestinian People, ran around to the capitols of the Arab world, collecting money and arms in exchange for Palestinian blood to continue the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Arafat scuttled every peace effort that may have halted the slaughter.

The Outside is not to be confused with the Top despite the similarities between the two groups. The accumulation of wealth drives the Top. Most of the Muslim Outside is directly surreptitiously involved in the conflict so as to maintain stability in their homelands. The conflict is pointed to as the reason for the sad condition of the masses in these generally oligarchic countries. The twenty Outside Arab countries have closed their borders to Palestinian refugees from the wars that these Outside countries have initiated, funded, and educated their citizenry to decry. To this day, funding for the continuation of the conflict pours in from Iran, the Gulf States, the Osama bin Laden congregation of terrorist entities, charitable Muslim groups in the Western World, and sadly, also from many left-wing groups deploring Israel’s military tactics in the face of homeless, poverty-stricken Palestinians who have provided most of the blood for the wars fomented by the Top and Outside against Israel.

The Outside are all the countries that dip their toes into the raging waters. The Outside is the United Nations and the United States of America. The outside are all the countries doing business with the oligarchies and their billions of barrels of oil. There is a balance in the status quo of on again off again conflict. This situation provides a laboratory for the testing of future weaponry.

Israel and its “allies” and supporters - and indeed - the hapless Palestinians, have yet to find the way out of this constantly changing maze created to continue the war and destruction so beneficial to the controlling money-making Top and Inside and Outside forces, so useful to their cause and so detrimental to peace. Major wars in other places do not seem to interfere with the ongoing perpetual attempt to wipe Israel off the map.

WAR & PIECE - OF THE PIE

2010-06-20T14:43:00.000-07:00

6-20-10

Reading the daily death tolls around the world, especially the Muslim world, is shocking me into deep depression, primarily because I feel so helpless in the face of these tragedies. No day passes without the loss of life of ordinary people. Somehow, the death of soldiers, terrorists, Jihadists, so-called “Martyrs,” and “activists” sent to die, seems the fulfillment of their roles on earth, and less shocking to my system. The main exceptions to this list of kill and be killed human beings are the child soldiers sent to kill and be killed by cynical or crazy leaders of warring and war-loving entities.

In almost every nation in the world, death by gunfire plays its prominent role in news media reporting on numbers, combating elements, places, methodologies, reasons and rationales, for the killings, and only rarely, on the survivors of attacks or relatives of the dead for “human interest” stories. This Darwinian idea of survival of the fittest transmuted to death by gunfire of the weaker classification of humans, the “Victims,” and seems almost scientifically acceptable as a means of keeping the world’s overpopulation from overconsumption of the earth’s available food, water, and energy supplies.

The variegated warring factions around the globe all have a partner in their search for wealth and power through force of arms; the manufacturers of the tools of war. They get their cut from every action. They happily supply killers with the means to kill. And when business is slow, the salesmen turn out, along with all their competitors, to promote war. These “agents provocateurs” are often members of the indigenous populations that are or become the buyers and users of this huge assortment of materiel. And they are also members of the families and clans and ethnic groupings of the dead.

The United States is the largest manufacturer and supplier of weaponry in the world. And the country’s budget is heavily skewed in favor of the manufacturers of that weaponry and munitions - from aircraft to ships to tanks and cannons down the single infantry helmet, rifle, and hand grenade. To justify and support this bloody industry, the armed forces of the United States is the major single purchaser of killing machines and equipment.

Will there always be war? Of course! Why? There’s lots of money to be made from war.

Jerusalem - Palestinian Capital?

2010-04-09T16:42:00.000-07:00

JERUSALEM - APRIL 2010

Israel plans residential building in East Jerusalem. East Jerusalem is where the Palestinians are planning to establish their capitol when a two-state solution to the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is achieved.
An immutable law of physics is that two bodies cannot occupy the same space at the same time. That physical law is accepted by both parties. Therein lies the problem facing the Jews and the Arabs. The solution to the problem is the non-existence of one of the parties; the State of Israel or the State of Palestine (which is yet to come into existence.) They cannot both own Jerusalem.

It has become obvious to reasonable minds after sixty plus years of war and non-agreement, that the elements of agreement in this conundrum can never suffice to establish a two-state solution. Over eighty percent of the Palestinians wish to throw Israel into the sea. An unknown but dedicated percentage of the Jewish population of Israel will not agree to give up a single biblical rock of the ancient Land of Israel. Least of all, would they ever agree to give up a portion of the City of David, the City of Peace that is the literal Hebrew name of the city where David’s son, King Solomon, built the ancient temple of the Jews, the place where Abraham, the founder of Judaism and Father of the Jewish People, prepared to slaughter his son Isaac to show the actuality of his belief in God.

In the past, the United States has balanced the Arab/Islamic world in Israel’s life and death struggles. Presently, that support appears to be weakened by the United States’ need to establish peace in the area for its own needs. And an implausable win-win situation in a two-state solution to the conflict has not saved Israel from the Obama Plan. And the world is now almost unified in its demands on Israel without regard for the constant unwavering threat to Israel’s existence by over a billion Muslims.

Sadly, Israel has treated its own Palestinian population as second class citizens rather than lifting them up to parity with Jewish citizens to create a much-needed democratic buffer to their Arab brethren. Perhaps Israel would have faced fewer wars, fewer rockets, and fewer suicide bombers over the years of its existence surrounded by aggressive neighbors.. Role models for modernity and relative equality might have defanged somewhat the oligarchs in the countries surrounding Israel and Israel’s political stance in the rest of the world would have been enhanced dramatically. Just imagine the impact that Israeli-Arab ambassadors might have had in the world’s corridors of power.

This lost opportunity will not return easily, if at all.

CONCEPTIONS - MISCONCEPTIONS vs TRUTH AND LIES

2010-03-29T12:59:00.000-07:00

The world is beginning, nay, rushing to hate Israel. The smart world sees Israel as dynamic, modern, strong, creative. Substitute the word “Jews” for Israel and another slant on the truth takes place. That is not pretty. See anti-semitism return to power. To achieve peace in the Middle East and make everybody happy, Israel must become a primitive, poverty-stricken, uneducated, caste system, tribal, oligarchic state. It may not even be a state but rather a collection of nomads wandering the world begging for life. And it must learn to hate the Jews, self hatred if you will, to fit in to the Middle East.

And the billion primitive, Islamic, oligarchic tribal, poverty-stricken, Israel-hating populations of the earth, despite a television set in every pot, see Israel as a degenerate thief of their lands and wealth, a blot on the face of the earth deserving to be erased. Prayer-hardened foreheads for the men and burka-covered women protecting their virginity from peering eyes of lustful men promote a world of degeneracy, hatred, slavery, and early death. And hatred of the Jews.

The land is tilled by wooden plows pulled by donkeys. The brains are filled with Koranic verses of death and dismemberment. The food is primitive and primitively eaten. The clothing worn, no matter how adorned with chains and daggers, is primitive. The Crusaders would feel at home here as if time stood still. And the occupation of the people is hatred of the Jews.

Today, yes today, the western world is being attacked by the Islamic empire. Its values are being imposed on the gullible generous peoples of Europe. The rule of modern law will be replaced by Sharia, the rule of the ancient Koran. And Israel is being attacked again by the losers of six wars as well as that great Western power, the United States, that thinks its oil will be more secure in the hands of Arab autocrats and oligarchs

And the “tension” in the Middle East is caused by Israel’s existence. So let the western world aid in the de-legitimization and the very destruction of the State of Israel. Let the Palestinians return to the lands from which they and their five states of Arab armies lost their battles with the Jews. And let the Jews be chased in to the sea, there to perish, despite the despicable United Nations resolution to share the land. And all will be right with the world, again. As it is now?

THAT'S WHAT OBAMA AND CLINTON THINK. BUT IT'S WRONG!!

Israel is America's stromgest ally in the Middle East. The United States should make that clear to the Arab world. And that's the TRUTH!! DON'T MESS WITH ISRAEL. DON'T THINK ANOTHER STATE WITH GUNS POINTED AT ISRAEL WILL BE ALLOWED TO EXIST. ENOUGH ALREADY!

ISRAEL KNOWS WHAT'S RIGHT

2010-03-18T21:35:00.000-07:00

The important question is, “Do Israel’s enemies know what’s right. In the sixty-two years of its existence, the Arab world has shown little proclivity for reaching a peaceful solution to the conflict between them. The Arab world and its citizens have shown little more than a proclivity and a desire to wipe the State of Israel off the face of the world’s maps.

Every negotiating session between Palestinians and Israelis has been sabotaged by the Arabs. Every step that Israel has taken to show its desire for peace by returning lands to the Arabs has resulted in greater turmoil and greater destruction. From Lebanon in the north to Gaza in the south, Israel has relinquished swaths of land only to see modern buildings destroyed and arable land returned to dessert. And in addition, it has reduced its level of safety from attack by its neighbors.

In addition, Palestinians residing in Israel, some with Israeli citizenship, have made no effort to pacify the conflict, homogenize the populations, adhere to the rule of law, or conduct their actions in such a way that reciprocity by Israel would bring a constructive relationship that could lead to peace.
The world powers see Israel as strong and the Palestinians as weak. Therefore, it must be Israel that relinquishes its wartime gains so the Arabs can once again try to retrieve “their” lands by force. Israel is lambasted in the U.N. by the U.N. and the preponderance of Moslem representation in its councils. There is no war of words. There is a constant barrage of resolutions designed to cast Israel in the light of the “Aggressor Nation.”

Now, Obama and Biden and Clinton are all upset about Israel’s intention to build housing in East Jerusalem - as if East Jerusalem, if donated to the Palestinians would end the conflict. Or if East Jerusalem were donated to the Palestinians, war, and terror would cease and construction would begin somewhere in that area of the world that would show peaceful intent.

Over the years, Israelis have become more jaded by Arab functioning and world pressure to make peace. There does not appear to be balance in the equation and Israelis have worked to hard to establish a homeland for the Jewish People, the likes of which does not exist in any other part of the world - compare to the huge swaths of arable Arab land and its huge wealth of oil.

Now enter Iran, the model of peaceful intent, with Ahmadinajad building up Iran’s military nuclear capability and bellowing that the Holocaust is a lie concocted by Jews to steal Arab land. And for once, the Arabs have embraced Persian non-Arabs to reap the benefits of Iran’s support of weaponry and terrorists to use it against Israel.

Someone must inform the United States and its government, Israel’s staunchest ally, and America’s staunchest ally in the Middle East, that Israel is the peace-loving one. Stop trying to weaken it in order to strengthen America’s negotiating posture.

GUSH SHALOM - MIRAGE

2010-03-07T19:32:00.000-08:00

Gush Shalom, an Israeli peace organization whose name means, "The Peace Bloc," has amassed a large number of Israelis to its cause, "The establishment of two states - one Jewish and one Palestinian - living side by side in peace in what used to be Palestine." The primary enemies of Gush Shalom are those groups and individuals who disagree with its goals and its methods for achieving those goals.

Gush Shalom performs many useful services in the cause for peace. Uri Avneri, the leading writer/activist in the movement, writes his messages of achieving the desired peace with a strong pen. He describes the affronts to Arab citizens of Israel with clarity and truth. Others also write, lecture, march in parades, stand in rallies, and work to protect Arab rights in Israel and to educate for a peaceful solution to more than a century of Arab (often violoent) opposition to Zionism, the conversion of The Ancient Biblical Land of Israel into a modern homeland for the Jewish People.

The opposition to Gush Shalom can be delineated by the political parties to which those opponents attach themselves. One of the pillars of these myriad parties is a clearly stated belief that the Jews of Israel, the Israelis, have such a measure of security from Arab/Palestinian attack, that nothing be done by the State that would jeopardize the safety and well-being of its inhabitants, and further, (depending on the party or parties) that no peace agreement be entered onto that might enhance by the Arabs or the Israeli government the potential military capability of the Palestinians who would form their own state alongside Israel.

In addition, on national, ethnic, and religious sides of the conflict are extremists who see no solution that can possibly be mutually acceptable. This is disproportionately true for the religious elements on both sides of the conflict. Every rock is holy. Every trespass is a desecration. Two parties cannot occupy the same space at the same time, ever.

So, though Jewish extremists are essentially defensive, Arab extremists call for death to the Jews; an obviously incompatible situation. Herein lies the source for the enormous conflicts in Jewish life and Israeli politics. There is no apparent "Live and Let Live," on the Arab side of the conflict. The vast majority of Arabs and now Iranian Muslims and other Islamists call for death to the Jews. And the Israelis of all political stripes know this, yet Gush Shalom believes there is a fair way out of the conflict. That way, according to Gush Shalom, is fairly.

In the face of entrenched regimes and religiously educated populations intent on the anihilation of the Jewish People, it would appear that the fanatic idealism of Gush Shalom will not provide a foundation for peace for Israel and the Palestinians. The mirage of rapprochement has borne little fruit. The polls show little trust and lots of animosity.

The questions that muat be answered before approaching the peace table are these; Who erodes talk of peace? Who promotes war and hatred? Who benefits from these positions?

These are not questions of what is fair, how to redress old grievances, how to assure security, how to promote peace? These are foundational questions that address the causes of war, the incitements of hatred and terror, the issue of legitamacy. Gush Shalom's efforts to "Make Nice" have little to zero impact on the outcome of war and peace any more than the terror of religious belief has.

Wealth and power are the determinants of war and peace. How many religionists want peace between Islam and Judaism? How many Arab national regimes must fall before peace can realistically be discussed and achieved? How are the arms merchants to be reined in away from this wealth-producing conflict?

The crude South African expression of farting against thunder is what is taking place here. Gush Shalom is close to being irrelevant. Their goals are desireable; their methods, a mirage.

THE MUSLIM WORLD vs. COOL CLIMATES, MULTIPLE RELIGIONS, and MODERNITY

2010-03-03T19:57:00.000-08:00

Reading and seeing the news pertaining to the countries of the Muslim world as it is happening doesn’t appear to make sense to non-Muslims. News, generally of bad events, appears to be drawn more from the Arab world, the Muslim world, the world of Islam, than from the Western or modern world. The undeveloped nations that are not predominantly Muslim but rather warm-climate, jungle worlds, do not dominate the inches of the daily news columns as do the events of the Arab and non-Arab Muslim world.

First, what are the apparent changeable differences that distinguish the world of Islam, the Arab world, from the rest of the Peoples of the earth? Warm and hot climates, singularity of religion, primitive cultures and life styles, all are in evidence in non-Muslim countries. Except for natural devastating events; typhoons, earthquakes, parched-earth famines, uncontrollable epidemic illness, tsunamis; those countries do not merit newspaper column inches on a daily basis.

Are the hot sands and burning sun responsible for the elemental savagery and the vicissitudes of pain and suffering inflicted and experienced in the World of Allah? It is true that there are fewer cell phones, television sets, automobiles, power generation and distribution networks, in that world. But they are not alone in that condition.

Power struggles with their attendant blood-letting savagery are not unique to the Muslim world. It is demonstrably more prevalent and of greater magnitude in many Arab countries but the differences are not self explanatory. Stoning and beheading and dismemberment are more prevalent, more common, and more commonly accepted in that world than even in the savage backwater expanses of the Amazon or in the wretched jungle conflicts in the backwaters of Africa. They certainly are not every-day occurrences even in the most backward areas of uncivilized countries.

Over the centuries, tribalism in most countries was replaced with larger communal structures. With that growth, came a reduction in savagery regardless of climate, religion, or the development of industry replacing farming as the main source of wealth and stability. More to the point, this modernity spread geographically latitudinally across the globe. Even at the expense of decimation of native populations, modernity took over and replaced savagery. What happened in the Muslim world? No multiplicity of religions, no climate changes of significance, and very little in the way of modernity.

One common thread through time, place, and custom, held true and holds true today; “Wealth equals power and Power equals wealth.” Whatever worked, wherever it worked, and however it worked, that truism explains the world, its history, and the world as we know it today. Regardless of locale, regardless of geography or population, power controlled wealth and wealth controlled power. And, because the essence of religion is power over the minds of people, religion and wealth and power were always partners in whatever world they lived. They used and exploited each other to maintain wealth and power. And so it is in the Muslim world, less hidden, more clearly established and connected, and more developed and exposed in its usages than in the modern Western world. No matter the climate, no matter the modernity surrounding it, the Muslim world has its foundational pillar in the religion of Islam to the exclusion of all other religions - and explains its goals to the worlds of the “non-believers.”

ACCEPTANCE OF THE "OTHER"

2010-02-06T14:54:00.000-08:00

We live a world of constant conflict. Much of it is based on religious differences supported by huge amounts of money that in turn bring wealth to the few while the many are killed and dying. Only acceptance of others will bring peace. Sadly, rejection is taught with mothers’ milk.
The Arab-Israeli conflict will never end. All the parties to the conflict never sit at the same table. And, aside from Israel, few of the parties who do sit at the peace table have little power to affect the outcome of their meetings. That is simply because the beneficiaries of the conflict happily support it and see no good reason to end it. Only their wealth will be spilled at the peace table; not their blood.
Israel’s power lies in its ability to say, “Yes.” And the Yes comes because of the benefits it can bring to those who are powerful and control the wealth of the country. Even so, were the decision in the hands of the religious bloc, they and their Arab brethren in war, will operate to destroy peace.
Acceptance of the “Other,” in all its ramifications, cannot be attained through religious teachings, through propaganda of the wealth-controlled media, through the profits of the arms makers and arms merchants, and finally, from the existing political hierarchies that control and are controlled by wealth. Rejection is the password to all peaceful manifestations. The mistrust of the other by the masses, engendered, supported, and educated by the power elites of the warring nations, will continue forever as a “necessity” of national defense, patriotism, and religious purity.
Following that state of affairs, the peace movements serve up the citizenry of their countries as tender food for warlords, enthusiastically waving their banners for peace, marching in peace rallies, occasionally contributing their lives for the cause of peace, always unaware of the legalized power of war-mongers laughing in opposition to their naivete. For they who know, know that if by mistake peace is achieved, it will be short-lived.

2010-02-04T15:30:00.000-08:00

Eric Hoffer 1902-1983

THIS WAS WRITTEN IN 1968 (42 years ago) - Astonishing!

You probably won't remember the name Eric Hoffer. He was a longshoreman who turned into a philosopher, wrote columns for newspapers and some books. He was a non-Jewish American social philosopher. He was born in 1902 and died in 1983, after writing nine books and winning the Presidential Medal of Freedom. His first book, The True Believer, published in 1951, was widely recognized as a classic.

Here is one of his columns from 1968. This article was written 42 years ago! Some things never change.

ISRAEL 'S PECULIAR POSITION
By Eric Hoffer (LA Times 5/26/68)

The Jews are a peculiar people: things permitted to other nations are forbidden to the Jews.

Other nations drive out thousands, even millions of people and there is no refugee problem. Russia did it, Poland and Czechoslovakia did it. Turkey threw out a million Greeks and Algeria a million Frenchman.

Indonesia threw out heaven knows how many Chinese and no one says a word about refugees. But in the case of Israel, the displaced Arabs have become eternal refugees.

Everyone insists that Israel must take back every single one.
Arnold Toynbee calls the displacement of the Arabs an atrocity greater than any committed by the Nazis. Other nations when victorious on the battlefield dictate peace terms.

But when Israel is victorious, it must sue for peace.

Everyone expects the Jews to be the only real Christians in this world. Other nations, when they are defeated, survive and recover but should Israel be defeated it would be destroyed.

Had Nasser triumphed June 1967, he would have wiped Israel off the map, and no one would have lifted a finger to save the Jews.

No commitment to the Jews by any government, including our own, is worth the paper it is written on. There is a cry of outrage all over the world when people die in Vietnam or when two Blacks are executed in Rhodesia . But, when Hitler slaughtered Jews no one remonstrated with him.

The Swedes, who are ready to break off diplomatic relations with America because of what we do in Vietnam, did not let out a peep when Hitler was slaughtering Jews. They sent Hitler choice iron ore, and ball bearings, and serviced his troop trains to Norway.

The Jews are alone in the world. If Israel survives, it will be solely because of Jewish efforts and Jewish resources. Yet at this moment, Israel is our only reliable and unconditional ally.

We can rely more on Israel than Israel can rely on us.

And one has only to imagine what would have happened last summer [1967] had the Arabs their Russian backers won the war, to realize how vital the survival of Israel is to America and the West in general. I have a premonition that will not leave me; as it goes with Israel, so will it go with all of us. Should Israel perish, the Holocaust will be upon us all.

THE MIDGET BRAIN

2009-12-08T22:37:00.000-08:00

THE MIDGET BRAIN
Ahmadinajad, the Midget Brain political leader of Iran, has made a variety of scurrilous statements about Israel, the Jews, and the Holocaust. He proposes the destruction of the State of Israel, a holocaust for the Jewish People, and the denial of a major historical event that was set in motion by an equally midget brained national political leader, Adolf Hitler.
The Jewish People survived the Holocaust and created the modern State of Israel. Over the millennia of its existence, this People has contributed to the advancement of the human race. They have shown the way of morality, the equality of all people - including that of women, legal systems, medical advancement throughout their history, science and the arts, literature, and creativity across the spectrum of human endeavor. Today, despite their small number compared to other nations and ethnic groups, they have won more Nobel Prizes, suffered the lowest losses in the flattened world economy, have created more uses for electronic devices, hold more seats on the New York Stock exchange than most of the world’s nations, and, Midget Brain, have one of the most advanced and capable well-trained and well-equipped armies of the world.
Those who hold this Iranian midget-minded monster in high esteem should provide him with warnings about his threats against the Jewish People. Today, after having suffered the tragedy of near extinction in Europe, and after fighting and winning against overwhelming odds in the face of four wars of extinction by the combined armies of the Muslim world, and after suffering continued border attacks supported by surrounding Muslim nations and wreaking havoc and destruction on those attacking nations, Israel has provided sufficient warning to all its war-like enemies that they must beware of the outcome of attacks on the Jewish Nation. The history of the David and Goliath conflict should provide the necessary paradigm for today’s antagonists.
“So David volunteered to fight Goliath. It took some persuasion, but King Saul finally agreed to let David fight against the giant. Dressed in his simple tunic, carrying his shepherd's staff, slingshot and a pouch full of stones, David approached Goliath. The giant cursed at him, hurling threats and insults.
David said to the Philistine, "You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied ... today I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air ... and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel ... it is not by sword or spear that the Lord saves; for the battle is the Lord's, and he will give all of you into our hands."
As Goliath moved in for the kill, David reached into his bag and slung one of his stones at Goliath's head. Finding a hole in the armor, the stone sank into the giant's forehead and he fell face down on the ground. David then took Goliath's sword, killed him and then cut off his head. When the Philistines saw that their hero was dead, they turned and ran. So the Israelites pursued, chasing and killing them and plundering their camp. Israel today has a “pouch of stones” in readiness.

Jerusalem Artichoke: Yes in My Backyard (YIMBY)

2009-11-14T17:14:00.000-08:00

Jerusalem Artichoke: Yes in My Backyard (YIMBY)

WELCOME TO THE LAND OF THE THINKER WRITER PROTAGONIST.

I'll address two issues. The Holocaust was a seminal event in Jewish/Israeli history no less than Moses talking with God on Mount Sinai or Abrham's journey to Mount Moriah. That event is much more than what you see and describe, and certainly more impactful for the generations whose lives were touched by it. Yet equally important for the narrative of our people as its history unfolds today in the furnaces, the crematoria if you will, of conflicts designed to destroy us.

Dealing with the life you chose to lead and the spot in which you chose to lead it, mandates an awareness of the impact that you have on the future, not only of your small family, but on the future of your People and the Palestinian People. I look forward to how you will address the conflict as it affects your daily life and the lives of those around you; Jew and Arab.

Write AND PUBLISH!

Nachum - November 14, 2009

The World has Two Classes

2009-10-31T21:24:00.000-07:00

The world, your world, has two classes; the Rich and Powerful, and The Rest of Us. If you don't know which class you belong to, you are in "The Rest of Us."

Politically, if you are in the leadership grouping of any government other than a dictatorship, you are The Rest of Us.
Militarily, if you are in any rank but not the dictator, you are The Rest of Us.
Religiously, if you are any level including the top rank of your religious structure, you are The Rest of Us.
Artistically, no matter how high you are in your field or how wealthy and well-known you are, you are The Rest of Us.
Professionally, no matter how high in your field or how wealthy and well-known you are, you are The Rest of Us.
Financially and industrially, if you do not know what class you are in, you are The Rest of Us.
If you are employed by the Rich and Powerful, you are The Rest of Us.

If your world is not connected to the whole world, you may be the Rich and Powerful, but not for long if your world has anything worth acquiring by the whole world's Rich and Powerful.

The Rich and Powerful eat at the table. The Rest of Us eat under the table, and then only the crumbs, the left-overs, the tough parts, the small or burnt portions. The Rest of Us fight each other for whatever is under the table. The Rest of Us kill each other for whatever is under the table - often in the belief that we will be rewarded with a place at the table. That almost never happens, and if it does, it is only temporary.

The Rich and Powerful travel apart from The Rest of Us. They vacation apart from The Rest of Us. They belong to clubs closed The Rest of Us. They know each other and help each other. They belong to families that have been known for generations. They belong to families that have known each other for generations. Money is not a key into the world of the Rich and Powerful. Vast money may be forged into a key, but not always.

The Rich and Powerful need The Rest of Us. The Rest of Us do not need the Rich and Powerful. More correctly, we do not need the Rich and Powerful to exploit and enslave The Rest of Us. But The Rest of Us must learn how to undo the burden of exploitation and slavery.

How? By rejecting religion, patriotism, unequalism and inequality, and by teaching and learning the need for self -fulfillment to the extent of each individual's capability, and cooperative functioning and sharing.

WHEN WILL PEACE COME?

2009-09-27T17:23:00.000-07:00

WHEN WILL PEACE COME TO THE MIDDLE EAST?

So long as the Arab/Muslim world continues to show death-dealing animosity to Israel's existence, Israel will simply continue to prepare itself for war. When the bombs stop falling on Israel, when the Saudi text-books that show Israel's destruction as a good thing to young Arab minds, when the oligarchies of the Arab world show a willingness to normalize relations with Israel, when every Muslim and Arab terrorist organization in existence ceases its active war against the Jews and Israel, when the new nuclear-powered Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinajad, ceases his denial of the Holocaust to loud applause by the Muslim world, and when 85% of the Palestinians cease to wish for, work for, pray for, the destruction of Israel and death to the Jews, peace will come.

HISTORY versus TRUTH

2009-09-05T15:14:00.000-07:00

The time frame of history begins with pictures on the walls of caves and ends at today's newspaper and website writings and pictures. Oral history, however close to the truth of the past it may be, relies on the vagaries of memories and limited presentations to small audiences.

The need for written records matched the growth of settled populations and competition fostered by accumulation of wealth. Mercantilism and religion joined forces to increase their control over populations and wealth. Somehow, the history of financial dealings and transactions, and the word of God, became entwined. The leaders of both these forces relied on the past for their present power; the one for stories of success and the other for stories of communication with God.

Quite obviously, conflicting needs led to conflicting accounts of past events and transactions. The very definition of truth became fungible. The statements of high priests were the ineffable truth. The wealthy and powerful, by force of position created the truth. Thus, the history of events and transactions became subject to the needs and desires of the victors of wars or the people who paid the writers to create the history of events. Kings, Pharaohs, High Priests, Emperors, and their minions, dictated history and history thus became what was written.

If we call what was, the truth, and we call what was written, history, it becomes readily apparent that the two may not be identical. This can be demonstrated by two versions of the same event as depicted by winners and losers of wars.

As a starting point, Israel's "War of Independence" became Palestinian Arabs' "Naquba" or "Tragedy." Israel describes the exodus of the Palestinians as responsive to the demands of the invading Arab armies to clear the way for them to throw the Jews into the sea. The Palestinians assert that the Jews attacked the civilian population mercilessly, forcing them to flee into exile and leave their homes and homeland for the refugee camps in neighboring Arab countries. Both histories have become immutable truths. Both truths are immutable history to their believers.

More familiar but with fewer details, which is the "true history," the two-faced history of America's westward movement from the initial landings of Europeans on the east coast through the declarations of statehood of the western territories of what is now the United States of America or the tragic history of the slaughter and theft of their lands of Native Americans in that same period?

The lesson to be learned here is that the "Truth" and "History" of the same events may be at variance and this syndrome has been repeated from the beginning of recorded events and shall always be repeated. That history repeats itself is the nature of history. A corollary is that power uses history to guide its actions in the present and thus, contrary to Santayana's warning, knowingly repeats the lessons learned from history. With this in mind, a search for the facets of events as seen by those affecting them and affected by them is mandated, keeping in mind that the powerful, usually the "winners," write the histories though the truth might lie elsewhere.

RELIGIOUS SADISM

2009-09-05T15:11:00.000-07:00

Adherents of many religions, from the flock to the shepherd, find satisfaction in cruelty to others ostensibly mandated by the commandments and the laws passed down to the present day practitioners of cruelty. From self-flagellation to torture of others in the fulfillment of their God’s requirements as they and the factotums of their faith dictate, cruelty and the infliction of pain fulfill their sense of piety and obeisance to their God.

The lash, the wheel, stoning, the long fall from the precipice and the fire at the stake, all fill the need for the infliction of unbearable pain and for the deep satisfaction that comes from observing and sharing in the rituals of one’s religion, however cruel.

From the days of Egyptian Pharaohs’ lash, through the Roman practice of feeding Christians to lions to the roaring approval of the coliseum’s crowds, to Torquemada’s re-education of recalcitrant non-believers and the burning of Joan of Arc at the stake to the immense approval of the supposedly more religious observers, cruelty and the infliction of severe and deadly pain were religious norms.

These early tortures served as tutorials for today’s Islamic practices to obtain adherence to Koranic requirements for modesty, abstinence, killing of Jews and Westerners, and obeisance to law as dictated by the Imams of the religion.

The early Hebrews substituted a lamb for their sacrificial offerings and ceased that act of cruelty with the second destruction of their temple and the destruction of temple worship. Such sacrifices acquired the name of “Sa-ir l’aza’zel,” “Emissary to Hell,” in recognition of the inhumanity of the act. And in precognition of events in 2008 and 2009, Hell was located in Gaza.

Apparently, civilization does not require the elimination of cruelty in religious practice for the so-called civilized world is mum in the face of an enormous variety of cruel and painful religious practices.

HOW THE WORLD WORKS

2009-09-05T15:09:00.000-07:00

THE POWER OF PREJUDICE

2009-08-22T21:36:00.001-07:00

Who ever thought that prejudice has power to change the world? It does. It is as powerful a mass human motivator as religion and belief, patriotism and nationalism, greed and need for wealth, exploration and exploitation for conquest and expansion, loyalty, obedience, and unquestioning respect for royalty and authority. They are all two-faced indoctrinated motivators of guiltless human behavior.

Prejudice, racism, and hatred of the “Other,” are taught to the young as a good, just as are religion and patriotism. The fruit of this education lies in the acceptance of heinous tasks as promotion of benefits for humanity. Crusading armies created and motivated to convert or kill accept their mission as holy. Rape, mayhem, and slaughter, destruction of whole societies, “spoils of war” and theft of land and property, are all accepted as the commission of beneficial acts for those who “belong” to the right and righteous nation, ethnicity, or religion.

This is not the world of early man. This is the world of the 21st century. Today is the time of the Pharaohs, the time of Torquemada and the Crusades and Nazi Germany. Today’s use of power is the same as the use of power throughout the history of Man. Wealth and weaponry clearly enable power to be exercised. Less clear is the harmful use of religion and patriotism to achieve the goal of wealth and power aggrandizement. And finally, it is most difficult to accept the teaching of prejudice as consciously or subconsciously intentional to achieve the same goal.

The destruction of Aztec and Mayan civilizations, the conquest of the natives of North America, the Nazi Holocaust and the Rape of Nanking, Cambodian torture and today’s slaughter in Darfur, along with large and small episodes of conquest and destruction of “Other” peoples and their societies through the centuries by warriors steeped in hatred.

Can we call this behavior primitive? Can we call it savagery? Can we call such behavior modern and civilized?

What People, what religious group has stated, “To save a single life is to save the whole world?” That People has been a primary target for destruction throughout its existence. It is today the single most abhorred People in the world. It is the People that has saved more lives and given life more meaning than any other group through the centuries of human existence. Yet it is powerless against the humongous power of the prejudice arrayed against it. It is the Jewish People.

To be or not to be, that is the question;
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to — 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause. There's the respect
That makes calamity of so long life,
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th'oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely,
The pangs of despised love, the law's delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th'unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch[1] and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.[2]
”

THE AHMADINEJAD MODEL

2009-08-19T15:55:00.001-07:00

The historical combination of religious leaders and economic power elites traditionally has the economic forces in first or superior position of power within any given political/national system. The early pharoanic systems were models emulated through centuries wherein religious leaders assumed advisory roles to those in power. This most likely came about because of the need for warring capability only occasionally found combined in religious leaders. Early Jewish leaders from Moses to the Kings of Israel managed this duality of economic and military mastery together with a direct connection with God that enabled them to conduct the affairs of state with success.

The prevalent world model of governance has economic leaders backed by religious minions who agree to be supportive while staying out of their way in exchange for acceptance of and high regard for their sanctuaries, their mumbo-jumbo, and their connections with God who will be called upon to approve the works and deeds of the wealthy regardless of any negative impact on the masses. This holds true for the most primitive and backward societies to the most sophisticated, conditioned only on the requirement that the leader or leadership is non-religious and interested primarily in the retention of economic power.

Enter into the modern world by virtue of Iran’s apparent acquisition of nuclear capability, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He is neither a wealthy wielder of power in the society nor is he a religious leader or part of the religious hierarchy that controls Iran. So what is he? First of all he is deeply religious and adheres to the faith and its religious leaders without question. He has a doctorate in civil engineering and traffic transportation planning (whatever that means.) Therefore he is probably trusted by Ayatollahs to understand and explain to them the mechanics of the modern world. And, he is a political animal. He has held a variety of political positions, both appointed and elected, including being elected as mayor of Teheran; no small feat. He has joined religious/political/militaristic organizations throughout his career. Their support for him has been evident in this recent election to the presidency (as it was when initially elected.)

The controlled election of Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, establishes a new and modern model for power elite control of a society. He is the economic/financial/ military handmaiden of the religious powers of Iran. He is to the Ayatollah government of Iran, the corridor through which power flows to and from the power elites of the country. This reversal of control is unknown in any other relatively modern society in the world today. And it grows out of the power of religious fundamentalism in control of huge economic resources. This is the Ahadinejad Model for control of power and wealth.

Now we must wait to see how other states with powerful religious fundamentalist bodies deal with this model. We look at the conflict in Afghanistan between the government supported by the United States and the Taliban as a potential place for reversal. This is, after all, the goal of Al Quaida. Saudi Arabia may be the next big power in line to fall. There are other hot spots. Time will tell.

RELIGIOUS INFESTATION IN THE MUSLIM WORLD

2009-08-18T20:56:00.001-07:00

As religions spread in the world because of the need for economic powers to control masses of people in ways other than war, the ascendancy of religion in the Muslim world created a monolithic human entity. And because the economic powers lost the battle for supremacy over this particular mass of people, the advances that economic activity bestowed on the rest of the world, were lost to the Muslim world.

Every sphere of human activity and creativity was controlled by and driven by religious hierarchies, intent on preservation of their power over their masses of people through the mumbo-jumbo of incantations and head-banging prayers. Today, we see that this religious infestation has caused and continues to cause the huge dichotomy, disconnect, and destructive tremors between the tectonic plates of the primitive religious world and the modern religious world.

Perhaps were there not mass communication devices such as radio, television, and computers, an absence of knowledge of the other, ignorance of the nature and quality of life on the other side of the divide, would have minimized the need for the Shamans of Islam to protect their hegemony over their people by educating them in the ways of human slaughter. Martyrdom would have been limited to the loonies of the religion.

But, what is, is. This is our world and we need to understand it out of our need to protect ourselves and our progeny. We have few tools available to us to combat the evils of religion, simply because our own power elites have exploited mankind’s need to believe in a higher power and instituted relatively benign religions among the masses, incorporating stolen value systems for educational purposes to keep the masses cowed and in their place.

Today, by force of arms, our societies try to keep the religious primitives at bay. But now, even the primitives have acquired weapons, including the most destructive kinds. And they are howling at the gates and the walls of our societies. And they have presented the world with a conundrum; the Ahmadinajad Model. Let’s see where it goes from here.

ISRAEL - YOU GO FIRST

2009-08-17T15:45:00.000-07:00

Egypt’s President Mubarak is on the way to speak with Barack Obama about how to achieve peace in the Middle East. He and his advisers and their fellow Arab leaders across the entire Arab world are all agreed that Israel is the one holding up the peace process by its “occupation,” its refusal to negotiate the status of Jerusalem, and by its refusal to allow the return of refugees from the 1948 war.

I suppose if I were an Arab and a Muslim and if I was indoctrinated to believe that Israel was a rogue state created to salve the world’s conscience for an unproven holocaust in which millions of Jews were killed by Nazis, and that pariah state was created on land stolen from its inhabitants of thousands of years who were chased out by an Israeli army supported and funded by the Western world, it would not be hard for me to believe that Israel should agree to take the first step toward peace by agreeing in advance of negotiations to commit suicide.

However, if I were a student of Middle East history without a connection to the conflict, I could reasonably conclude that Israel has survived a continuous onslaught of annihilation by its neighbors pre-dating its announcement of nationhood. I would also know that Israel is the only democracy of the twenty-odd oligarchic states that surround it. I would also know that the Arab states are poverty-stricken and that Israel has one of the highest Gross Domestic Products in the world that leads to an unrivaled jealousy by neighboring populations that live in poverty, ignorance, religious superstition, poor health, political impotence, and little hope to share in their rulers’ wealth.

So, naturally, having little to offer in the way of achieving peace and knowing that peace has little to offer their populations in the way of achieving modernity, the Arab rulers wisely are now attempting to entice the United States into helping wipe out the only functioning modern democratic state in the region that presently sets a bad example for their down-trodden populations mired in religious sectarian class conflict.

I believe the wait for Israel to go first in offering to settle the conflict by allowing itself to be sliced into pieces will not be a pleasant one for the Arabs sitting in the hot sun waiting patiently for this to happen. Israel will not go first.

RACHEL RACHEL

2009-08-16T11:47:00.000-07:00

THERE ARE TWO - OR MORE - SIDES TO EVERY STORY

As an Arab house was being demolished by the Israeli army (for being the house of a terrorist,) Rachel threw herself in front of the bulldozer performing the demolition.

Was she murdered by the bulldozer operator who, perhaps having seen her, could have stopped his machine in time not to harm her?

Did the operator not see her?

Was she intent on becoming a martyr?

Did she slip and fall unintentionally and was thereby crushed?

Did she think the operator would stop his machine before he reached her and therefore did not extricate herself in time?

Whatever. The sad fact is that a young woman was killed by a bulldozer operated by the Israeli army as it was demolishing a terrorist house.

Peace advocates and Arab sympathizers are using Rachel's death for propaganda purposes to forward and support their agendas, placing Israel in the harshest light possible for "murdering" her.

Many Israel supporters are actively opposed to using the incident to vilify Israel and have reacted vociferously to counter the peacenik/Arab attack. This contretemps has split the Jewish community in the United States into opposing camps after a showing of a film of the incident. On the one hand, the morality of Thou Shalt Not Murder is sticking out. And on the other, beating up on Israel at every opportunity by a substantial portion of the world does get tiresome and irksome to those who are close to supporting Israel, right or wrong, out of perceptions of Jewish persecution and anti-Semitism.

So, is there a "Right" and a "Wrong" side to this event. Yes, for sure, and it only depends upon whwre you stand and where your heart lies.

TRUISMS THAT ARE NOT!

2009-08-10T15:35:00.000-07:00

TRUISMS THAT ARE NOT!

Part One

When I think about telling youngsters about the world as I see it, the appearance of commonly accepted beliefs more often than not is at variance with reality. That makes it difficult to convince or persuade inexperienced acolytes raised to believe the myths of their parents, teachers, scout leaders, preachers, and assorted mongers of platitudes, of this paradox. As examples; patriotism, belief in God, the value of hard work, and a variety of slogans and proverbs designed to lead masses to believe in behaviors potentially inimical to themselves yet beneficial to a small class of people.

The primary goal of this propaganda is an orderly society wherein the wealthy and powerful retain and enjoy their wealth and power and the lower classes are convinced of the correctness of their estate and their happy state in the society. Look at Great Britain and the rigidity of its classes that fill the minds of its people to this day. Look at India and its sects and China that modernly has recreated extreme class divisions accepted by its people with equanimity despite the “communist” names given to its classes.

Though a multitude of warnings against such naïveté exist in proverbs and quotations as are found in Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, it is rare to find a jaundiced eye amongst that class of people eager to find acceptance of peers, bosses, successful people, and elders and higher classes of all kinds built into the mores of the quiescent societies. Discontent with your place and the thought of re3volution are No No’s.

Though this appears to be a highly cynical view of the world, it more denotatively is skepticism. When ideas are presented as for the “common good,” serious investigation is called for. A study of the Ten Commandments is an excellent training ground for careful analysis of the goals of the creators of the document; an orderly society untrammeled by dissent and unperturbed by inequality. For such a study, the value of scientific proof immediately becomes apparent.

The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States are a second set of documents that lend themselves to this study of happy inequality. This despite the fact that
“All men are created equal” is proclaimed loudly. And so, slavery existed for hundreds of years before the proclamation and nearly a hundred years and a war after the proclamation.

The essence of “Truisms That Are Not” is to maintain stable rigid classified societies. The aim of this polemic is to introduce single class societies as humanistic, fair, and reasonable, as the path to a well ordered society of the peoples of the earth of the future. This will not happen without class warfare.

A SUCKER IS BORN EVERY MINUTE

2009-08-09T02:20:00.000-07:00

A SUCKER IS BORN EVERY MINUTE

P.T. Barnum’s quote was never more apt than as evidence of the American People’s naivete about government-provided health care. The so called Health Care Debate is not a debate but rather a war that entails the outpouring of millions of dollars by health care insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, the American Medical Association and their associations and other for-profit leeches on the bodies of the sick for their assault on the Obama effort to provide health care for millions of uninsured and under-insured Americans. And the people, in their obvious gullibility, are being convinced that they will be better off in the hands of profit-making insurance companies than in the hands of a proven, effective, government-run health care delivery system such as Medi-Care.

Another famous quote that defines this criminal usage of their health care dollars by the rapacious insurance industry is this; “No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American People.” There are many instances of proof of this assertion. However, looking at the activities by insurance companies in their blatant savage attack on a government-run single-payer health care system provides sad evidence that George Orwell was correct in turning Up to Down and Good to Bad in the moronic minds of masses of people. Fear is the poison being spread by connotative word mongers in the pay of the profiteers. SOCIALISM, LONG DELAY, FREEDOM TO CHOOSE, CANADA, and a host of pejoratives designed to spread misinformation and havoc in town-hall meetings across the country.

The only surprise in this debacle is the apparent total absence of preparedness by the Obama administration for this war. Simply looking at the destruction of Michael Moore’s epic presentation “Sicko” and of Michael Moore himself, red flags should have been flying. The Clinton insurance company-sabotaged attempt to enter this fray on behalf of the American People provide clear evidence of the capability of the health insurance industry to mount a devastating attack on what is so apparently a needed health care program for the people.

The outcome of the good and legitimate intentions of the government still hangs in the balance. But knowing that money talks and knowing of the malleability and the inability of the plain folk of America to defend themselves in the face of this propaganda onslaught, their final choice is highly questionable.

AN ORWELLIAN PIG - DICK CHENEY

2009-07-14T00:24:00.000-07:00

AND AN ORWELLIAN IDIOT - GEORGE W. BUSH

George Orwell's epic classic, "1984," is a MUST READ for every American who can put down his or her beer can. For that matter, it's a must read for everyone who knows how to read.

Only then, will the reality of how the world operates become clear. Some readers may think of North Korea, Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia, or other scamming countries. That's simply not enough. This great work depicts how power operates on a political level in ALL countries.

The expose' now taking place about the Bush/Cheney years in the White House is a clear description of power usurpation by monied elites. As this scabrous drama unfolds, the useless deaths of thousands of American soldiers and the repulsive nature of religious fundamentalism allied with the arms merchants of the world and the oil mogul states and companies driven by profit motives can only make the vomitous years of that American presidency bloodier and bloodier.

I hereby promise to purchase "1984" for anybody who requests it.

Send your request to: chum@meyerslink.com and give me your mailing address.

NEW YORK TIMES HEALTH CARE REPAIR

2009-07-08T21:14:00.000-07:00

The New York Times editorial board is as obtuse about health care repair as the rest of the country’s citizens.

In its lead editorial on July 7, 2009 titled, “Financing Health Care Reform” that ran about twenty-four column inches, not a single mention was made of the insurance companies that are the prime culprits responsible for the existing health care mess.

Though the percentages vary from analyst to analyst, it is reasonable to state that the insurance companies suck approximately twenty-five cents out of every dollar spent on health care in the United States. In fighting this travesty, other legal and illegal money-sucking activities are committed by entities involved in providing health care of various kinds. The insurance companies and their fellow criminals, the pharmaceutical companies, are the reason that the United States tops the list for health care cost and is TWENTY-FOURTH IN THE WORLD in providing health care.

Everyone, including our president, talks about health care “coverage” and “insurance.” They do not address the core idea of health care DELIVERY.

And the insurance industry has convinced the American People that they for sure don't want government telling THEM who should treat them or telling THEM what they need in the way of health care. NO! The American People should want the INSURANCE INDUSTRY telling them what, when, and where, and especially IF they should get health care. The INSURANCE INDUSTRY WILL TAKE BETTER CARE OF THEM THAN THE GOVERNMENT!! HOO HA! Are the American People dopes and dupes, or what?

Health care is as essential for the population as roads and red lights. The government provides roads and red lights. No one complains. Let the government do its job of providing health care. Get the insurance companies to stop sucking from the teats of the health care provider industry. GET THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY OUT OF HEALTH CARE!!!

IRAN - JULY - 2009 - EXPECTATIONS AND PREDICTIONS

2009-07-06T01:00:00.000-07:00

IRAN - JULY -2009 EXPECTATIONS AND PREDICTIONS

The news and the information coming out of Iran relating to the recent election create blaring warning signals for the world. The establishment of a militaristic theological state that benefits the military and theological establishments seems an ordered future for Iran. With the creation of atomic capability in this closed society, the world is threatened with an atomic catastrophe that will make Hiroshima and Nagasaki seem like firecrackers.

The first victim of this “new order” will be Israel, of course. Now desperately attempting to create a rocket response barrier to annihilation while also trying to convince the world of imminent danger to established order, Israel is in the position of Chicken Little running around claiming the heavens are falling because of the acorn that fell on her head. But Ehud Barack is no Chicken Little. The intelligence apparatus renowned for its high capability is sounding a reasonable alarm.

Yet, what can the world do? The effete United Nations has shown both its ineffectiveness in conflict situations and its bias against Israel that results from the preponderance of anti-Israel Arab and Muslim nations who vote anti-Israel knee-jerk resolutions ad infinitum. The sordid story of Palestinian victimhood at the hands of their Arab brethren who point to Israel as the source of their calamitous existence is expanded to tie the hands of the world peace body even when the very existence of their states and their peoples is threatened by this atomic threat.

Iran will have its way with the world, having learned well the lessons taught by that theatrical state, Korea. The difference appears to be that with all its pomposity and swagger, Korea recognizes that its geographical position has placed it at China’s and the world’s mercy. Iran believes that it possesses a magic formula of geographic and maritime location and oil in the ground that will someway impress rational nations and prevent them from intruding on its nefarious plans to “only” eradicate Israel as an example of its machismo, in defiance of civilized functioning.

I predict that Israel will be forced to act, as it did in 1967, preemptively, to assure its continued existence. In some bizarre way and for some inscrutable reason, the world is forcing it to do so without support. In addition, the world will turn on Israel for doing the world’s work.

The trigger that sends the bullet on its way will be the murder of Iranis who dared to challenge the military-theocratic complex.

ELENA BONNER SAKHAROV TALKS

2009-06-22T09:28:00.000-07:00

HUMAN RIGHTS AND ISRAEL’S RIGHT TO LIFE

Elena Bonner, the widow of great scientist and dissident Andrei Sakharov and an outstanding human rights activist in her own right, is truly one of the heroes of the modern age. (It was my privilege to interview Bonner nearly two years ago for this article.) Yesterday, the 86-year-old grande dame of the Russian human rights movement spoke at the Oslo Freedom Forum. Her speech, of which Ms. Bonner sent me an English translation, is worth reproducing in full. Ms. Bonner is a woman of strong and outspoken opinions; agree or disagree, she is always worth hearing.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Friends,

In his invitation to this conference, the president of the forum, Thor Halvorssen, asked me to talk about my life, the suffering I have endured, and how I was able to bear it all. But today all that seems to me quite unnecessary.
So I will say only a few words about myself.
At the age of 14, I was left without my parents. My father was executed, my mother spent 18 years in prison and exile. My grandmother raised me and my younger brother. The poet Vladimir Kornilov, who suffered the same fate, wrote: “And it felt that in those years we had no mothers. We had grandmothers.” There were hundreds of thousands of such children. Ilya Ehrenburg called us “the strange orphans of 1937”.
Then came the war. My generation was cut off nearly at the roots by the war, but I was lucky. I came back from the war. I came back to an empty house. My grandmother had died of starvation in the siege of Leningrad . Then came a communal apartment, six half-hungry years of medical school, falling in love, two children, and the poverty of a Soviet doctor. But I was not alone in this. Everyone lived this way.
Then there was my dissident period followed by exile. But Andrei and I were together! And that was true happiness.
Today, summing up my life (at age 86, I try to sum up my life every day I am still alive), I can do so in three words. My life was typical, tragic, and beautiful. Whoever needs the details — read my two books, Alone Together and Mothers and Daughters. They have been translated into many languages. Read Sakharov’s Memoirs. It’s a pity his Diaries haven’t been translated; they were published in Russia in 2006. Apparently, the West isn’t interested in Sakharov right now.
The West isn’t very interested in Russia either, a country that no longer has real elections, independent courts, or freedom of the press. Russia is a country where journalists, human rights activists, and migrants are killed regularly, almost daily. And extreme corruption flourishes of a kind and extent that never existed earlier in Russia or anywhere else. So what do the Western mass media discuss mainly? Gas and oil — of which Russia has a lot. Energy is its only political trump card, and Russia uses it as an instrument of pressure and blackmail. And there’s another topic that never disappears from the newspapers — who rules Russia ? Putin or Medvedev? But what difference does it make, if Russia has completely lost the impulse for democratic development that we thought we saw in the early 1990s? Russia will remain the way it is now for decades, unless there is some violent upheaval.
During the years since the fall of the Berlin wall, the world has experienced incredible changes in an exceptionally short period. But has the world become better, or more prosperous for the six billion eight hundred million people who live on our small planet? No one can answer that question unambiguously, despite all the achievements of science and technology and that process which we customarily call “progress”. It seems to me that the world has become more alarming, more unpredictable, and more fragile. This alarm, unpredictability, and fragility are felt to some extent by all countries and all individuals. And civic and political life becomes more and more virtual, like a picture on a computer screen.
Even so, the picture of life, formed by television, newspaper, or radio remains the same — there is no end to the conferences, summits, forums, and competitions from beauty contests to sandwich eating ones. They say people are coming together — but in reality, they are growing apart.
And that isn’t because an economic depression suddenly burst forth, and swine flu to boot. This began on September 11, 2001. At first, anger and horror was provoked by the terrorists who knocked down the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center and by their accomplices in London , Madrid and other cities, and by the shaheeds, suicide bombers who blew themselves up at public spaces like discotheques and wedding parties whose families were rewarded $25,000 each by Saddam Hussein. Later, Bush was blamed for everything, and as always, the Jews — that is, Israel . An example was the first Durban Conference, and the growth of anti-Semitism in Europe , noted several years ago in a speech by Romano Prodi. Then there was Durban-2; the main speaker was Ahmadinejad proposing to annihilate Israel .
So it is about Israel and the Jews that I will speak. And not only because I am Jewish, but above all because the Middle Eastern conflict since the end of World War II has been a platform for political games and gambling by the great powers, the Arab countries and individual politicians, striving, through the so-called “peace process,” to make a name for themselves, and perhaps win a Nobel Peace Prize. At one time, the Nobel Peace Prize was the highest moral award of our civilization. But after December 1994, when Yasir Arafat became one of the three new laureates, its ethical value was undermined. I haven’t always greeted each selection of the Nobel Committee of the Norwegian Storting with joy, but that one shocked me. And to this day, I cannot understand and accept the fact that Andrei Sakharov and Yasir Arafat, now posthumously, share membership in the club of Nobel laureates.
In many of Sakharov’s publications (in his books Progress, Coexistence and Intellectual Freedom and My Country and the World, in his articles, and in his interviews), Andrei Dmitrievich wrote and spoke about Israel . I have a collection of citations of his writing on this topic. If it were published in Norway , then many Norwegians would be surprised at how sharply their contemporary view of Israel differs from the view of Sakharov.
Here are several citations from Sakharov:
“ Israel has an indisputable right to exist.” “ Israel has a right to existence within safe borders.” “All the wars that Israel has waged have been just, forced upon it by the irresponsibility of Arab leaders.” “With all the money that has been invested in the problem of Palestinians, it would have been possible long ago to resettle them and provide them with good lives in Arab countries.”
Throughout the years of Israel ’s existence there has been war. Victorious wars, and also wars which Israel was not allowed to win. Each and every day — literally every day — there is the expectation of a terrorist act or a new war. We have seen the Oslo Peace Initiatives and the Camp-David Hand-shake and the Road-map and Land for Peace (there is not much land — from one side of Israel on a clear day you can see the other side with the naked eye).
Now, there is a new (actually, quite old) motif currently in fashion (in fact it’s an old one): “Two states for two peoples.” It sounds good. And there is no controversy in the peace-making Quartet, made up of the U.S. , the UN, the EU, and Russia (some great peace-maker, with its Che chen war and its Abkhazian-Ossetian provocation). The Quartet, and the Arab countries, and the Palestinian leaders (both Hamas and Fattah) put additional demands to Israel . I will speak only of one demand: that Israel take back the Palestinian refugees. And here a little history and demography are needed.
According to the official UN definition, those who have fled from violence and wars are considered refugees — but not their descendants who are born in another country. At one time the Palestinian refugees and the Jewish refugees from Arab countries were about equal in number — about 700,000 to 800,000. The newly-created state of Israel took in the Jews (about 600,000). They were officially recognized as refugees by UN Resolution 242, but not provided with any UN assistance. Palestinians, however, are considered refugees not only in the first generation, but in the second, third, and now even in the fourth generation. According to the UN Works and Relief Agency’s report, the number of registered Palestinian refugees has grown from 914,000 in 1950 to more than 4.6 million in 2008, and continues to rise due to natural population growth. All these people have the rights of Palestinian refugees and are eligible to receive humanitarian aid.
The entire population of Israel is about 7.5 million, among them about 2.5 million ethnic Arabs who call themselves Palestinians. Imagine Israel then, if another five million Arabs flood into it; Arabs would substantially outnumber the Jewish population. Thus created next to Israel will be a Palestinian state cleansed of Jews, because in addition to the demand that Palestinian refugees return to Israel , there is also the demand that Judea and Samaria be cleansed of Jews and turned over to Palestinians – while in Gaza today there is not a single Jew remaining.
The result is both strange and frigthening, and not because Israel will be actually destroyed – it’s a different time and different Jews. It is terrifying to see the short memory of the august peace-making Quartet, their leaders and their citizens if they let this happen. Because the plan “two states for two peoples” is the creation of one state, ethnically cleansed of Jews, and a second one with the potential to do the same thing. A Judenfrei Holy Land - the dream of Adolph Hitler come true at last. So think again, those who are still able, who has a fascist inside him today?
And another question that has been a thorn for me for a long time. It’s a question for my human rights colleagues. Why doesn’t the fate of the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit trouble you in the same way as the fate of the Guantanamo prisoners?
You fought for and won the opportunity for the International Committee of the Red Cross, journalists, and lawyers to visit Guantanamo . You know prison conditions, the prisoners’ everyday routine, their food. You have met with prisoners subjected to torture. The result of your efforts has been a ban on torture and a law to close this prison. President Obama signed it in the first days of his coming to the White House. And although he, like President Bush before him, does not know what to do with the Guantanamo prisoners, there is hope that the new Administration will come up with something.
But during the two years Shalit has been held by terrorists, the world human rights community has done nothing for his release. Why? He is a wounded soldier, and fully falls under the protection of the Geneva Conventions. The Conventions say clearly that hostage-taking is prohibited, that representatives of the Red Cross must be allowed to see prisoners of war, especially wounded prisoners, and there is much else written in the Geneva Conventions about Shalit’s rights. The fact that representatives of the Quartet conduct negotiations with the people who are holding Shalit in an unknown location, in unknown conditions, vividly demonstrates their scorn of international rights documents and their total legal nihilism. Do human rights activists also fail to recall the fundamental international rights documents?
And yet I still think (and some will find this naïve) that the first tiny, but real step toward peace must become the release of Shalit. Release — not exchange for 1000 or 1,500 prisoners who are in Israeli prisons serving court sentences for real crimes.
Returning to my question of why human rights activists are silent, I can find no answer except that Shalit is an Israeli soldier, Shalit is a Jew. So again, it is conscious or unconscious anti-Semitism. Again, it is fascism.
Thirty-four years have passed since the day when I came to this city to represent my husband, Andrei Sakharov, at the 1975 Nobel Prize ceremony. I was in love with Norway then. The reception I received filled me with joy. Today, I feel Alarm and Hope (the title Sakharov used for his 1977 essay written at the request of the Nobel Committee).
Alarm because of the anti-Semitism and anti-Israeli sentiment growing throughout Europe and even further afield. And yet, I hope that countries, their leaders, and people everywhere will recall and adopt Sakharov’s ethical credo: “In the end, the moral choice turns out to be also the most pragmatic choice.”

RELIGION vs. MORALITY - IRAN - JUNE 2009

2009-06-20T11:18:00.000-07:00

AN ELECTION WAR

Early in their founding eras, religions discovered an enemy in morality. In the ensuing wars between them, religious leaders, as all leaders attempt to do in time of war, found ways to undermine their enemies’ strengths. A monstrous strategy grew out of a simple military tactic; dress and speak like the enemy, infiltrate his ranks, discover what and where his weapons are and what his battle plans are, and by playing his game and taking over his assets, pretend to be him and destroy him. Thus, religion co-opted morality and now uses it as cover for nefarious acts.

Events in Iran today, June of 2009, show the schism between religious practice and moral functioning and the preaching of morality. These events also show clearly the essence of the religion-power combination. The tremendous overt psychological power of religion over the masses combined with economic power over human activity, both constructive and destructive, make it almost impossible for the masses to revolt for a better life. The election and the subsequent fraudulent functioning of the religious leaders and their supreme religious leader on behalf of economic and military power elites is a clear demonstration of religious immorality.

Can this nascent non-religious Iranian Revolution succeed even to the minimalist extent of the Russian Revolution? Religious power was beaten by the leadership’s education and subsequent laws against religion, driving it underground for five decades. However, the economic power elite soon subverted the success of the masses and with the aid of capitalist nations, including the United States, succeeded in taking control of life in the Soviet Union for the benefit, not of the masses, but for the benefit of the elites.

Customarily, economic power elites control governments. In Iran, since the revolution led by Ayatollah Ruholla Khomeini in 1979, religion took over the government, but, and here’s the rub, the power elites remained in power behind the curtain of religion which was behind the curtain of government, as evidenced by the aggrandizement of military capability and capital growth. In much of the world, and certainly the Western world, religion is behind the curtain of the economic power elites and those elites, behind their curtain, control the governments.

In the coming days and weeks in Iran, the morality of religion will prove to be the immoral weapon and the chimera it is.

JIMMY CARTER RIDES AGAIN

2009-06-17T17:28:00.000-07:00

Jimmy Carter, a former president of the United States, is again self-involved in the Middle East Mess. He has come to “Save” Palestinians from Judaism. Maybe he is not aware that Palestinians are Muslims and he should be saving them from the decadence and savagery of Islamic fundamentalism, as practiced by Hamas.

Carter has decided that the ills, trials, and tribulations of life of the Palestinians in Gaza can be corrected by Israel being more generous with the lives of its citizens. When rockets were landing in Jewish Israel, Carter stayed home to write his book about the separation of Jews and Arabs imposed by the Apartheid State of Israel. Perhaps if rockets landed in the Peanut State of Georgia, Carter might have understood the need to protect his friends and family from the depredations of Georgia-hating Arabs. He might then have understood that providing the rocketeers with life-sustaining peanuts keeps the rockets flying.

Why can’t Jimmy leave the Jews alone? What keeps him scratching this pimple? For some strange reason, Carter wants the world to accept the terrorist organization, Hamas, into its bosom, this despite its avowed intent to destroy the Jewish State.

Ah-h-h, now I get it. Destroy Israel. Now his missionary zeal makes sense. By destroying Israel, the world will move closer to the immolation promised by Armageddon. So long as Israel protects holy Jerusalem and the biblical lands, it interferes with the Second Coming. So, using the agency of Arab hatred and destructive intent, the great Christian religionist, Jimmy Carter will remove the obstacle to that wonderful event. By so doing he will achieve martyrdom.

I have a better solution for Carter’s desire for martyrdom; let him convert to Islam and become a suicide bomber who blows himself up – hopefully a solo event – and thereby achieve his apparent desired goal.

RUPERT MURDOCH SPEAKS

2009-06-17T02:49:00.000-07:00

This is an address by Rupert Murdoch, Chairman and CEO, News Corporation and one of the most famous people in the world's media today. He delivered this response upon receiving the National Human Relations Award given him by the American Jewish Committee on March 4th, 2009 in New York City. It is well worth reading.

Thanks for those kind words, Hugh.

Over the years, some of my wildest critics seem to have assumed I am Jewish. At the same time, some of my closest friends wish I were.

So tonight, let me set the record straight: I live in New York . I have a wife who craves Chinese food. And people I trust tell me I practically invented the word "chutzpah".

Ladies and gentleman, I thank you for having me tonight. I also want to thank Nelson Peltz … Michael Gould … and the many co-chairs for the time and effort they have put into this event. I am humbled by the honor you have given me - because this award speaks more to your good work than it does to mine.

Michael, I was fascinated to hear you talk about this history of this fine organization. The American Jewish Committee started in response to the persecution of Jews in Czarist Russia . And your response took a very American form: An organization that would speak up for those who could not speak for themselves.

In the century since your founding, the American Jewish Committee has become one of the world's most influential organizations. Yet though your concerns begin with the safety and welfare of Jews, these concerns are anything but parochial. The reason for this is clear: You know that the best guarantee of the security of Jews anywhere is the freedom of people everywhere.

Your good work has helped bring real and lasting changes to our world. Unfortunately, while some threats have been defeated, new ones have taken their place. And these new threats remind us the AJC's work is more vital than ever.

In Europe , men and woman who bear the tattoos of concentration camps today look out on a continent where Jewish lives and Jewish property are under attack - and public debate is poisoned by an anti-Semitism we thought had been dispatched to history's dustbin.

In Iran , we see a regime that backs Hezbollah and Hamas now on course to acquire a nuclear weapon.

In India , we see Islamic terrorists single out the Mumbai Jewish Center in a well-planned and well-coordinated attack that looks like it could be a test run for similar attacks in similar cities around the world.

Most fundamentally, we see a growing assault on both the legitimacy and security of the State of Israel .

This assault comes from people who make clear they have no intention of ever living side-by-side in peace with a Jewish state - no matter how many concessions Israel might make. The reason for this is also clear: These are men who cannot abide the idea of freedom, tolerance, and democracy. They hate Israel for the same reasons they hate us.

At I speak, the flashpoint is Gaza . For months now, Hamas has been raining down rockets on Israeli civilians. Like all terrorist attacks, the aim is to spread fear within free societies, and to paralyze its leaders. This Israel cannot afford. I do not need to tell anyone in this room that no sovereign nation can sit by while its civilian population is attacked.

Hamas knows this better than we do. And Hamas understands something else as well: In the 21st century, when democratic states respond to terrorist attacks, they face two terrible handicaps.

The first handicap is military. It's true that Israel 's conventional superiority means it could flatten Gaza if it wanted. But the Israeli Defense Forces - unlike Hamas - are accountable to a democratically chosen government.

No matter which party is in the majority, every Israeli government knows it will be held accountable by its people and by the world for the lives that are lost because of its decisions. That's true for lives of innocent Palestinians caught in the crossfire. And it's also true for the Israeli soldiers who may lose their lives defending their people.

In this kind of war, Hamas does not need to defeat Israel militarily to win a big victory. In fact, Hamas knows that in some ways, dead Palestinians serve their purposes even better than dead Israelis.

In the West we look at this and say, "It makes no sense." But it does make sense.

If you are committed to Israel 's destruction, and if you believe that dead Palestinians help you score a propaganda victory, you do things like launch rockets from a Palestinian schoolyard. This ensures that when the Israelis do respond, it will likely lead to the death of an innocent Palestinian - no matter how many precautions Israeli soldiers take.

Hamas gets away with this, moreover, because they do not rule Gaza by the consent of those they claim to represent. They rule by fear and intimidation. They are accountable to no one but themselves.

This is the chilling logic of Gaza . And it helps explain why even a strong military power like Israel can find itself at a disadvantage on the ground.

The second handicap for Israel is the global media war. For Hamas, the images of Palestinian suffering - of people losing their homes, of parents mourning their dead children, of tanks rolling through the streets -create sympathy for their cause.

In a battle marked by street to street fighting, the death of innocents is all but inevitable. That is also true of Gaza . And these deaths have led some to call for Israel to be charged with war crimes by an international tribunal.

But I am curious: Why do we never hear calls for Hamas leaders to be charged with war crimes?

Why, for example, do we hear no calls for human rights investigations into Hamas gunmen using Palestinian children as human shields? Why so few stories on the reports of Hamas assassins going to hospitals to hunt down their fellow Palestinians? And where are the international human rights groups demanding that Hamas stop blurring the most fundamental line in warfare: the distinction between civilian and combatant?

I suspect the answer has to do with the same grim logic that leads Hamas to provoke a military battle it knows it cannot win. Whether Israel is ever found guilty of any war crime hardly matters. Hamas gets propaganda win simply by having the charge made often and loudly enough.

In this, Israel finds itself in much the same position the United States found itself in Iraq before the surge. There, al Qaeda realized that it was in its interests to provoke sectarian violence between Shia and Sunni - no matter what the cost to innocent Iraqis. That is the nature of terror. And what we are seeing in Gaza is just one front in this much larger war.

In the West, we are used to thinking that Israel cannot survive without the help of Europe and the United States . Tonight I say to you: Maybe we should start wondering whether we in Europe and the United States can survive if we allow the terrorists to succeed in Israel .

In this new century, the "West" is no longer a matter of geography. The West is defined by societies committed to freedom and democracy. That at least is how the terrorists see it. And if we are serious about meeting this challenge, we would expand the only military alliance committed to the defense of the West to include those on the front lines of this war. That means bringing countries such as Israel into NATO.

My friends, I do not pretend to have all the answers to Gaza this evening. But I do know this: The free world makes a terrible mistake if we deceive ourselves into thinking this is not our fight.

In the end, the Israeli people are fighting the same enemy we are: cold-blooded killers who reject peace … who reject freedom … and who rule by the suicide vest, the car bomb, and the human shield.

Against such an enemy, I will not second-guess the decisions of a free Israel defending her citizens. And I would ask all those who support peace and freedom to do the same.

I thank you for listening. I thank you for this award. And I thank you for all you are doing to make our world a safer and freer place.

REPLY TO NORTH KOREA NUKES.

2009-06-16T19:53:00.000-07:00

What NK and Iran have are angry paranoid nukes. Both perceive they have been oppressed or invaded by the West, NK in 1950 and Iran a few years later when the CIA got rid of a nationalist leader who wanted a fair shake for Iran. Truman agreed with that but as soon as he was replaced by Ike, Dulles ordered CIA to proceed. This is recent history to these two victims of imperialism, as they perceive it, and they don't trust America. They feel they can never have enough protection against us and will not disarm just to improve Obama's chances for reelection. Iran sees it's position with Israel as kill or be killed. They know Israel would've already attacked if it could have done so successfully. If we felt that way about enemies, we'd act overly defensive too. Hey, wait a minute! Guess what? We do! Why, we tail and imprison suspicious foreigners at the drop of a fez. Our native rightwing terrorists are allowed to march around with assault rifles and shoot up liberals at will as we hunt down veiled women and send them packing, making friends all over the world.

HARVEY CHAIMOWITZ

H

NORTH KOREA’S NUKES

2009-06-14T11:56:00.000-07:00

NORTH KOREA’S NUKES – A CONTRIBUTION TO WORLD PEACE – June 2009

The “Haves” say the Have-Nots” may not have what they have. The Big Nuke Nations, Russia, China, England, France, and the United States, have enough Nukes ready to blast each other and the world out of existence. This condition is known by its acronym, MAD. MAD means Mutual Assured Destruction. In their collective wisdom, these five nations realize that MAD really means world peace. So now, they all possess Peace Nukes.

Peace Nukes are preventive medicine for any nation sick enough to think that Nukes can be used to further the quality of life within their own nation. Such nations are creating Maybe Nukes.

Other countries are now joining the Haves group. North Korea wanted Nukes. North Korea made Nukes. Are they Peace Nukes or Maybe Nukes? Iran wants Nukes too. Iran is making Nukes. Are they Peace Nukes or Maybe Nukes? Pakistan and India have Nukes and maybe they will not use them to bring peace between these two antagonistic neighbors. They are definitely Maybe Nukes.

Israel has Nukes. They are definitely NOT Peace Nukes. They are Maybe Nukes. They have them to assure peace with their billion-plus Arab enemies who also want to obtain Nukes for the sake of peace by wiping out Israel. Syria asked North Korea for help in acquiring some Maybe Nukes. North Korea obliged and began sending that peace-loving nation the elements of Maybe Nukes. Israel responded with a non-Nuke attack on Syria’s planned Maybe Nuke facility. THAT was an act of war!

Israel does not believe that Iranian Nukes are Peace Nukes. The past and present president of Iran, Achmadinajad, has clearly stated his strong desire to wipe Israel off the face of the earth. The question facing Israel, and the world, is this, “Are North Korea and Iran governed by madmen?” For sure they do not possess Peace Nukes. Do they possess Mad Nukes? Or is there a third category of Nukes bubbling to the surface of this witch’s brew, “Use Nukes?”

The world is waiting uneasily for the answer with bated breath.

SICK HEALTHCARE

2009-06-13T18:33:00.000-07:00

The date is June 13, 2009. The president and congress (controlled by Democrats) are in the process of creating a health care program to assure that every citizen in the United States has “Health Care Coverage.” To guarantee that end, a so-called “Public Plan” is being devised so people in need of health care services will have a choice between going to an insurance company for health care payments and going to the United States government for payment for their health care needs.

Public Plan is being opposed by potential losers if the plan comes into being and is being called a variety of names, from socialized medicine to government controlled health care and wastrel government intervention into the private sector. A battle is taking place in Congress, in the media, and in the minds of the American People. The trenches on the anti-Plan side are filled with money. The pro-Plan people also have financial backers who are far less wealthy or powerful. But they have fairness in their trenches.

The insurance industry attempted to derail this endeavor into being still-born by promising to reduce health care costs over the next ten years by one trillion dollars. They could certainly accomplish this by adding more “Deny” desks to their offices and to the offices of physicians who are their prostitutes. The denial of health care by the insurance industry to up their profits is as natural as banks upping their interest rates on loans.

The American Medical Association is opposed to government involvement in health care delivery out of concern that physicians will not make as much money as they believe they should. That is completely understandable, is it not?

Many health care providers oppose the plan in the belief that by ensuring health care for everyone, they will be paid less for their services than they are at present. The government has traditionally been slow to hand out money to anyone who does not have money. The providers are concerned they may fall into that powerless condition. Hospitals and clinics and those who care for the indigent have small weak lobbies in Washington. So they anticipate that the insurance companies will continue to rake in their huge profits while money is squeezed out of the health care delivery systems, as it is now by those so-called health care insurers. “So-called” because they really do nothing in the way of delivering health care to anyone.

But, perhaps the government will inch forward into fulfilling its role as government in providing for the basic needs of its citizenry; needs like roads and traffic lights, water and sewage disposal, and, YES, health care.

WEAPONS OF WAR = MANKIND’S FUTURE

2009-05-30T21:23:00.000-07:00

Historians write about the past and try to bring understanding to bear on current actions ala Santayana’s dictum.

Futurists attempt to predict the future to enlarge understanding of possibilities our progeny and our descendants may face.

Looking at today’s world and tracking the events and the powers that have brought us to where we are to provide a platform from which to scan the future, historians and futurists may reasonably conclude that, aside from natural phenomena, even those brought on by man’s actions on earth, weapons of war are certainly among the instruments that will determine mankind’s future on earth if not the key instruments in creating that future.

From rocks and clubs, through the ages of spears and swords and bows and arrows, and then explosive powder used in myriad manners and forms from simple destructive explosions through sophisticated machine guns with huge fire-power and cannons throwing explosive projectiles many miles with deadly accuracy and smart bombs that can penetrate the toughest barriers delivered by aircraft and rockets, up to today’s atomic bombs capable of immeasurable devastation of life and property, we see the growth of control of events and people through weaponry.

Where are we going?

India and Pakistan, each with huge hungry populations, created and maintain, at huge cost, atomic weaponry. In Darfur, rape, maiming, and murder are carried out by men with weapons who themselves come from hungry families. Gaza, destroyed by Israel in retaliation for rocket fire aimed at the civilian population by Hamas, a terrorist group that seized control of the impoverished Strip that is now being fed weaponry rather than food or the tools of reconstruction by sympathetic militaristic regimes in Syria and Iran.

The United States spends a fifth of its annual budget on the military and that is only a part of what is spent on personal arms in the country. Winchester, Colt, Garand, and other arms-makers names have been around for a century-and-a-half and still going strong. Aircraft and ships of war abound. Tanks and trucks, atom bombs and rockets, small arms and weaponry and ammunition of all kinds abound. And these weapons are made available to allies and others around the world, some illegally. All the nations of the world are armed and prepared for war, offensive or defensive, internal and over their borders.

We are going to war. That’s where we are going. That is mankind’s future. Bloodshed and violence will be the leitmotif of so-called “Civilization.”

Why? Because there’s money in it! Lots of money!!

WEALTH vs. TERROR

2009-05-29T17:15:00.000-07:00

PREPARE FOR SUICIDE BOMBINGS

In this era of unconventional warfare, the use of human bombs has become common. Though generally motivated by religious zealotry accompanied by low intelligence or extreme belief, the suicide bombers are motivated by family monetary need in equal measure. It can reasonably be assumed that the greater the poverty in the world, the more common suicide bombing will become.

Unscrupulous leaders of hatred will more and more utilize this reservoir of highly effective bombs to achieve their mission of terror – the destruction and murder of civilians and civilian properties. Therefore, a war on poverty is equally a war against terror. And a war on poverty will in all likelihood reduce the numbers of hatred groups and hatred leaders.

These unproven yet logical assumptions may penetrate the corridors of political power through the benefits that reduction in destruction may bring to power elites and their wealth and property. For example, a reduction in air travel was reversed when an increase in airport surveillance was initiated by governments. The government of Israel has foiled terrorist plots through the extensive use of Arab intelligence operators feeding information to the intelligence apparatus in return for Israel monetarily feeding Arab civilians and raising their standard of living.

A comparison can also be made between terror in wealthy nations compared with the incidence of terror in poorer nations. Terror is hugely common in the Muslim world where the per capita income is significantly lower than Christian nations where terror is almost non-existent. A measure of the increase in terror incidents in wealthy nations shows the direct correlation with the increase in low-income immigrant communities, often Muslim.

So the answer to terror is, MAKE THE PEOPLE WEALTHIER!

ANTI-SEMITISM RE-VISITED

2009-05-25T20:54:00.000-07:00

ANTI-SEMITISM REVISITED FOR UNDERSTANDING

Why anti-Semitism? Why the hatred of the Jews with no foundation for the hatred? Hatred taught at home in childhood is understandable. But hatred learned in adulthood simply to be part of whatever group it is that hates Jews is less understandable. Why not hate monkeys or apples or skyscrapers? Simply, they are not people. You can’t elevate yourself by hating apples or monkeys, now can you? Join a group that hates any group of people and you then “belong” easily. No questions asked about why you are a Nazi or a member of the John Birch Society or a WASP who can’t stand the smell of Jews. Or maybe you belong to a group that hates the Christ killers.

Or maybe you are a Muslim and your Koran tells you to despise and kill Jews. Perhaps you are Arab or an Arab sympathizer who hates Jews because they wrongfully claim biblical lands as their ancestral home and the State of Israel has stolen Arab land for its nationhood. And you claim to not be an anti-Semite but just think the Jews have committed a crime and should be punished by death and annihilation.

On the other hand, the Nobel Peace Prize committee, without any Jews on board, seems to be in love with Jews, having awarded them a disproportionate number of prizes out of all relationship to their numbers on earth for having brought benefits and good to mankind. And there is no earthly endeavor for which Jews have not earned honor and respect, almost, for achievements in advancing knowledge and the quality of life for humankind.

But, “Let’s Kill the Jews,” because they own the banks, control the earth’s governments, propagandize through their mass ownership of news media, and their numerous doctors kill Christian babies in their hospitals and homes to harvest their blood to drink on their Passover holiday. The People of the Book are hated for teaching their children to read in places where non-Jewish homes raise fatherless children in drug infested neighborhoods where not a dime is spent on a book or even a newspaper. The Jews are exploiting Us by their reading, their learning, their educational drive and humanistic values. We hate them for keeping us down-trodden while showing off their easily-gained wealth.

There seems to be no society on earth that is not ready to kill Jews. The downward slide of humanity into an abyss of killing, ignorance, poverty, illness, and despair, starts with the killing of Jews and people who resemble them. It starts with the killing of the intelligentsia, the learned, the hard-working, the wealthy, the caring, the humanistic, the tolerant and accepting followers of the Ten Commandments, the Jews and the people like them.

When any human being becomes educated by killing another, the downward slide will stop and humanity will start climbing out of the feces with which it has covered itself. On that day, killing another will be an act of God. And it will show that God does indeed not exist.

SOMALIA 2009 - HOW AND WHY RELIGION WORKS

2009-05-24T19:23:00.000-07:00

Somalia is being torn apart by religious factions using all the factionalism of that primitive country. Today's New York Times article (May 24, 2009)by Jeffrey Gettleman on the destruction taking place there covers several columns. Only one sentence in the article explains the "Why?" of it.

Peaceful clans, tribes, religious orders, are now engaged in savage total warfare. Jihad against fellow Muslims. The weapons and transportation and training are being supplied from ???? and by ???? These once peaceful poorly educated and poorly fed people are out there with expensive weapons drawing blood from their mirror images. They are chopping off hands and heads with religious zeal, motivation, and righteousness.

How did this happen? How did Darfur, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and all the others happen? Where were these people before they were transformed into religious murderers and by whom were they transformed into religious murderers?

Here's the sentence, the revelation, the rational and motivation for all wars.

"The Sufis, a loosely organized religious brotherhood, also drawing from many different clans, had studiously avoided getting gummed up in Somalia's back-and-forth clan battles, OFTEN NO MORE THAN THIN COVER FOR POWER STRUGGLES BETWEEN BUSINESSMEN AND WARLORDS."

All wars have an economic base and motivation. Perhaps Dick Cheney, former vice-president of the United States, having met with a cabal of oil company magnates, exploiting the ignoramus president George W. Bush and his jingoistic mentality, led the United States into war in Iraq utilizing a THIN COVER for businessmen AND warlords to reap huge profits, the true goal of the war.

INFINITY vs. BEGINNING and ENDING

2009-05-20T20:29:00.000-07:00

INFINITY - WHY and WHY NOT?

An assumption has been made based on research performed by a variety of scientists that in the beginning, the universe came into being by a Big Bang. An assumption also exists that after a huge amount of time and a reverse process to the Big Bang, the universe will probably cease to exist.

I am not a scientist. I am a thinker.

I think that science is not able to accept the concept of infinity. It talks a good line about it but the utility of the concept seems to escape them. Playing with numbers and even generally with time is the closest that science (scientists) comes to accepting infinity's existence. The very definition of the word does not find meaning for them.

By accepting infinity's existence, one can readily accept the fact that there is not nor was any begininng to what we call everything, namely, the universe. And we can also easily accept the fact that there will be no end to everything.

The form of things certainly changes. The speed of things changes. The power - however measured - changes. The universe changes. And those changes may or may not be observable, measurable, understood, and believed. The forms of things are infinite.

But, there never was a beginning nor will there be an end. We are in infinity. We are in a form and the universe is in a form, that is observable, measurable, and understood, at this place and time of infinity. We can imagine other forms and other places and other times, but we cannot prove that they existed outside of now or infinity.

IN THE BEGINNING - WHO?

2009-05-16T11:45:00.000-07:00

IN THE BEGINNING

“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.”

Just as there is no God other than in the minds of mankind, there is no “beginning” other than in the minds of mankind.

A good revelatory opening sentence to this book of religious chicanery might be, “In the beginning of mankind’s mental capacity, Man created God and Man claimed that God created the beginning and in that “beginning” He created what Man saw as the totality of existence, “the heavens and the earth.”

Now, believers and non-believers, scientists of all stripes and all fields of study and religionists of the world whose power resides in the obeisance of believers, all are searching for “The Beginning.” They are searching for some event in some moment of time – as time is defined by common agreement – that will makes sense of the creation of the universe scientifically and theologically.

It is a nonsensical search. The beginning of time and the beginning of the universe must occur simultaneously because of the mind of man and the limitations that religion and science place on the mind of man based on the meaning of words and language. The word, “beginning” will have a different meaning denotatively – and subsequently connotatively – at every endless step of the way to finding the beginning of the universe.

Perhaps a new word will come into existence that will define a non-beginning based on an eternal existence, an infinite existence, of the “beginning” of the universe as a “point in time that is infinite,” and therefore not a “point” in time. This new word cannot stray far from the existential meanings of words in existing languages.

My suggestion for this word or phrase, embedded in the first sentence of the new Book of Genesis, is; genesis (the origin or coming into being of something.)

The opening line of the bible and the opening line in scientific texts on how the universe was created would then read, “In the Genesis, man created God and man said that God created the Genesis of the universe. The bible and the scientific texts could then comfortably take their different paths to exploring the genesis of the universe.

A TWO-STATE SOLUTION?

2009-05-10T17:41:00.000-07:00

The Judgment of Solomon

The saying is based upon the Biblical passage in 1 Kings 3:16-28, where two new mothers approach Solomon, bringing with them one dead baby boy. Each mother presents the same story and accusation: She and the other woman live together and have both recently given birth to baby boys. One night, soon after the birth of their respective boys, the other woman woke to find that she had smothered her own baby in her sleep. In anguish and jealousy, she took her dead son and exchanged it with the other's child. The following morning, the woman discovered the dead baby, and soon realized that it was not her own son, but the other woman's.

After some deliberation, King Solomon calls for a sword to be brought before him. He declares that there is only one fair solution: the live son must be split in two, each woman receiving half of the child. Upon hearing this terrible verdict, the boy's true mother cries out, "Please, My Lord, give her the live child - do not kill him!" However, the liar, in her bitter jealousy, exclaims, "It shall be neither mine nor yours - divide it!" Solomon instantly gives the live baby to the real mother, realizing that the true mother's instincts were to protect her child, while the liar revealed that she did not truly love the child.

Solomon by his wisdom avoids the destruction of the subject matter of the dispute (the baby). There is no reason to believe that destruction was ever his intent
Today the world is looking at a similar enigma involving two Peoples; the Palestinian People and the Jewish People. The land from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River is coveted by both Peoples. More to the point, the Jewish People lives under the death threat of the Arab – and Persian – world. The Palestinians have been and are supported in their wish to drive the Jews into the sea by the inhabitants of the world of Islam. That world is actively training the martyrs who will attempt to carry out the annihilation. The Nazi Holocaust that destroyed over six million Jews is to be partially completed by the Muslim destruction of the State of Israel’s Jewish population. So, despite that destruction, the Jewish People will continue to live and bring benefit to the world as they have for all the millennia of their existence.

Enter Barack Obama, the new president of the United States. Wielding the tremendous power of his powerful country, he will be sitting on Solomon’s throne. Will he find in judgment the benefit of cutting the coveted land in half? This Holy Land that gave birth to the Hebrew nations and the Jewish People was occupied by Jewish religionists for five thousand years and prayed to by the Jewish People in their Diasporas that they would return to the Land in the coming year. Will Obama convince the world’s nations that peace will be achieved only by giving to the Arab peoples another swath of the Holy Land similarly to Winston Churchill’s chopping off the major portion of the Jews’ ancient land to establish a Bedouin Kingdom of Trans-Jordan.
And if a comparison is made between what the two Peoples have done on their divided shares of territory, a sad conclusion must be reached that poverty, disease, lack of education, exploitation of the poor, primitiveness in all aspects of daily life have permeated the Muslim sections while the benefits of and to modernity and a better world emanate from the Jewish State.

So where is the benefit of a Two-State Solution to the Middle East conflict, the benefit of slicing the land in half? Jews cannot live in peace in the Muslim world. They must live in constant fear for their very lives. Arabs who are native to the Palestinian territories may live in peace in Israel and enjoy better health, a higher standard of living, education, and equality founded on acceptance of Israel’s right to exist. This would be the modern Judgment of Solomon.

Are you listening, Barack Obama?

A SMALL PICTURE OF THE FUTURE - DENMARK

2009-04-15T11:39:00.000-07:00

By Susan MacAllen

In 1978-9 I was living and studying in Denmark.
But in 1978 - even in Copenhagen, one didn't see Muslim immigrants.

The Danish population embraced visitors, celebrated the exotic, went out of its way to protect each of its citizens. It was proud of its new brand of socialist liberalism one in development since the conservatives had lost power in 1929 - a system where no worker had to struggle to survive, where one ultimately could count upon the state as in, perhaps, no other western nation at the time.

The rest of Europe saw the Scandinavians as free-thinking, progressive and infinitely generous in their welfare policies. Denmark boasted low crime rates, devotion to the environment, a superior educational system and a history of humanitarianism.

Denmark was also most generous in its immigration policies - it offered the best welcome in Europe to the new immigrant: generous welfare payments from first arrival plus additional perks in transportation, housing and education. It was determined to set a world example for inclusiveness and multiculturalism.

How could it have predicted that one day in 2005 a series of political cartoons in a newspaper would spark violence that would leave dozens dead in the streets -all because its commitment to multiculturalism would come back to bite?

By the 1990's the growing urban Muslim population was obvious - and its unwillingness to integrate into Danish society was obvious.

Years of immigrants had settled into Muslim-exclusive enclaves. As the Muslim leadership became more vocal about what they considered the decadence of Denmark 's liberal way of life, the Danes - once so welcoming - began to feel slighted. Many Danes had begun to see Islam as incompatible with their long-standing values: belief in personal liberty and free speech, in equality for women, in tolerance for other ethnic groups, and a deep pride in Danish heritage and history.

The New York Post in 2002 ran an article by Daniel Pipes and Lars Hedegaard, in which they forecasted accurately that the growing immigrant problem in Denmark would explode. In the article they reported:

'Muslim immigrants constitute 5 percent of the population but consume upwards of 40 percent of the welfare spending.' 'Muslims are only 4 percent of Denmark's 5.4 million people but make up a majority of the country's convicted rapists, an especially combustible issue given that practically all the female victims are non-Muslim. Similar, if lesser, disproportions are found in other crimes.

''Over time, as Muslim immigrants increase in numbers, they wish less to mix with the indigenous population.

A recent survey finds that only 5 percent of young Muslim immigrants would readily marry a Dane. 'Forced marriages - promising a newborn daughter in Denmark to a male cousin in the home country, then compelling her to marry him, sometimes on pain of death - are one problem'

'Muslim leaders openly declare their goal of introducing Islamic law once Denmark's Muslim population grows large enough - a not-that-remote prospect. If present trends persist, one sociologist estimates, every third inhabitant of Denmark in 40 years will be Muslim.'

It is easy to understand why a growing number of Danes would feel that Muslim immigrants show little respect for Danish values and laws.

An example is the phenomenon common to other European countries and the US: some Muslims in Denmark who opted to leave the Muslim faith have been murdered in the name of Islam, while others hide in fear for their lives. Jews are also threatened and harassed openly by Muslim leaders in Denmark, a country where once Christian citizens worked to smuggle out nearly all of their 7,000 Jews by night to Sweden - before the Nazis could invade. I think of my Danish friend Elsa - who as a teenager had dreaded crossing the street to the bakery every morning under the eyes of occupying Nazi soldiers - and I wonder what she would say today.

In 2001, Denmark elected the most conservative government in some 70 years - one that had some decidedly non-generous ideas about liberal unfettered Immigration. Today Denmark has the strictest immigration policies in Europe. (Its effort to protect itself has been met with accusations of 'racism' by liberal media across Europe - even as other governments struggle to right the social problems wrought by years of too-lax immigration.)

If you wish to become Danish, you must attend three years of language classes. You must pass a test on Denmark's history, culture, and a Danish language test.

You must live in Denmark for 7 years before applying for citizenship. You must demonstrate an intent to work, and have a job waiting. If you wish to bring a spouse into Denmark, you must both be over 24 years of age, and you won't find it so easy any more to move your friends and family to Denmark with you.

You will not be allowed to build a mosque in Copenhagen. Although your children have a choice of some 30 Arabic culture and language schools in Denmark, they will be strongly encouraged to assimilate to Danish society in ways that past immigrants weren't.

In 2006, the Danish minister for employment, Claus Hjort Frederiksen, spoke publicly of the burden of Muslim immigrants on the Danish welfare system, and it was horrifying: the government's welfare committee had calculated that if immigration from Third World countries were blocked, 75 percent of the cuts needed to sustain the huge welfare system in coming decades would be unnecessary. In other words, the welfare system as it existed was being exploited by immigrants to the point of eventually bankrupting the government. 'We are simply forced to adopt a new policy on immigration.

The calculations of the welfare committee are terrifying and show how unsuccessful the integration of immigrants has been up to now,' he said.

A large thorn in the side of Denmark's imams is the Minister of Immigration and Integration, Rikke Hvilshoj. She makes no bones about the new policy toward immigration, 'The number of foreigners coming to the country makes a difference,' Hvilshov says, 'There is an inverse correlation between how many come here and how well we can receive the foreigners that come' And on Muslim immigrants needing to demonstrate a willingness to blend in, 'In my view, Denmark should be a country with room for different cultures and religions. Some values, however, are more important than others. We refuse to question democracy, equal rights, and freedom of speech.'

Hvilshoj has paid a price for her show of backbone. Perhaps to test her resolve, the leading radical imam in Denmark , Ahmed Abdel Rahman Abu Laban, demanded that the government pay blood money to the family of a Muslim who was murdered in a suburb of Copenhagen, stating that the family's thirst for revenge could be thwarted for money. When Hvilshoj dismissed his demand, he argued that in Muslim culture the payment of retribution money was common, to which Hvilshoj replied that what is done in a Muslim country is not necessarily what is done in Denmark. The Muslim reply came soon after: her house was torched while she, her husband and children slept. All managed to escape unharmed, but she and her family were moved to a secret location and she and other ministers were assigned bodyguards for the first time - in a country where such murderous violence was once so scarce.

Her government has slid to the right, and her borders have tightened. Many believe that what happens in the next decade will determine whether Denmark survives as a bastion of good living, humane thinking and social responsibility, or whether it becomes a nation at civil war with supporters of Sharia law.

And meanwhile, Americans clamor for stricter immigration policies, and demand an end to state welfare programs that allow many immigrants to live on the public dole. As we in America look at the enclaves of Muslims and Illegal Hispanics amongst us, and see those who enter our shores too easily, dare live on our taxes, yet refuse to embrace our culture, respect our traditions, participate in our legal system, obey our laws, speak our language, appreciate our history. We would do well to look to Denmark, and say a prayer for her future and for our own.

If you agree with this article, then please pass it on...

THE POWER OF PREJUDICE

2009-04-06T19:59:00.000-07:00

PAY HEED, ARABS AND JEWS!

2009-03-12T05:20:00.001-07:00

Our children are the foundation of future peace between our Peoples. Unless and until we believe, feel, and act toward all our children with parental love as if each one of them, Arab and Jew, belongs to "me," and unless and until we educate them to "PEACE," we and they, in all our generations, shall continue to suffer the agonies of war, hatred, poverty, disease, and ignorance.

Let us begin now to lay the foundations for the peace that our prior and present generations have not been able to achieve. Let us invest our love for our children and grandchildren, time, effort, and money, to bring our future generations to the happiness of peace. Let us demand of the powers that rule our Peoples, our governments and religious institutions, that they create in our schools, mosques, and synagogues, educational programs for peace. Let us demand that the drive for peace be elevated from individual efforts and volunteer peace organizations to government and religious institutions.

The education for peace - and war - lies in the schools systems of our nations. Those systems, governmental and religious, must be forced by peace-loving citizens to embark on a new course in education. Let us demand that teachers be taught to teach peace. Let us demand that teachers be given the tools to teach peace. Let us demand that the books used in our educational systems contain meaningful age-appropriate lessons for peace - rather than the messages of war that they presently contain. Let us demand that our educational systems idolize and idealize peace rather than war. Let our religious and lay leaders preach the martyrdom of life and love rather than death and hatred.

Unless and until our children and their children are actively taught PEACE by their parents and teachers and religious leaders, they shall always boil in the cauldrons of war.

WHAT DID YOU LEARN IN SCHOOL TODAY, ACHMED?

2009-03-07T17:28:00.000-08:00

Well, Mom, today we learned that by killing Jews we can go directly to heaven without passing GO. Our Imam told us that as children of the Jihadi Middle School, we would soon have our own Kalashnikovs. But first we will have to practice with wooden guns. Also, our shop teacher will show us how to sharpen our knives so we can behead Americans easily. All of us boys were very excited. In the yard at recess time, we attacked each other to see who was fastest and strongest. You know Akram, the kid from down the street, the skinny one? Well, we nearly killed him, but we didn’t. I don’t think we are allowed to do that, yet.

We also learned to thank Allah that we are not girls. Girls are weak and stupid, aren’t they, Mom. They better stay away from our school. We’re liable to kill them if they talk to us or show us their hair. The Imam said that girls must be kept behind the walls of their houses and taught to be useful to us men. They better come when we call, and come quick! Isn’t that right, Mom? They have to learn their place. Don’t they, Mom? Unless they agree to wear suicide-belts and kill non-believers. Then they are OK and can become shaheeds, martyrs, like us boys.

After school a few of us boys went near the coffee shop to play. I heard Muchmad’s Dad talking about how he and the men of the tribe went down to the village last week and after they drank their coffee and played a few games of Sheshbesh, decided to go see the new doctor. He said that they had better tell him that new-fangled ways don't go here in our village. So they told the doctor not to treat women or he would be very sorry. Very very sorry. Why is that Mom? Who treats women?

Hey Mom, what’s two times two?

THE NATURE OF POWER ELITES - II

2009-02-07T18:21:00.002-08:00

This is a repeat from about one year ago - with a minor addition about the Obama presidency. The collapse of the world's financial systems, and the methods being used to revive them, are clear lessons in how Power Elites control the wealth of the world and screw the masses. Follow the news, read the facts as much as they are made available, and understand how the world works.

Power Elites, that is, those who control power, can be and often are viewed and misconstrued as the engines rather than the drivers. They are thought to be identical to those forces in societies that enhance them and empower them, such as the forces of religions, political entities, entrenched educational and indoctrination systems, armies, and other forces that enable Power Elites to retain, control, and grow their power. Those elected or dictatorial entities are the front offices and office-holders of Power Elites.

As an example, an armed force has tremendous power and is controlled by a political entity that has tremendous power that in turn is controlled by Power Elites. Building and maintaining an armed force require the expenditure of huge sums of money. Those expenditures, especially in times of war, are the troughs at which Power Elites feed and grow ever more powerful.

It is not unusual that the party in power in any society is often believed to be the Power Elite. The expression, “The power behind the throne,” grew out of awareness that the throne was the apparent but not the real power in the kingdom. Power Elites quietly control the powers that operate the machinery ostensibly held and wielded by all of the individuals and establishments in a society. Power of the magnitude described here is not the engine of societies. The engine with all its bells and whistles and moving parts is the visible motor element of any society. Power is the unseen force directing and controlling the engineers who in turn control the engine that moves the train.

The placement of George W. Bush in the presidency as their puppet was accomplished by the Elites’ legal and sometimes illegal control of the electoral process in the United States and their influence on a majority of the justices of the United States Supreme Court who created a one-time exception to electoral laws to achieve Bush’s election. Enrichment of Elites through government actions and inactions by placing friendly heads of departments and agencies began immediately. The government opened its doors to lobbyists, major contributors to the Republican Party, and upper echelon management of large corporations and influential leaders and a huge variety of emissaries of the Power Elites from financial, manufacturing, religious, educational, and business institutions.

The financial house of cards built in the United States that led to the world economic crash of 2008 had as its foundation Power Elite control of government enforcement agencies through the president and vice-president. The Securities and Exchange Commission investigations for securities fraud dropped from 69 in 2,000 to 9 in 2,007 and investigations that led to Justice Department prosecutions dropped from 437 cases in 2,000 to 133 in the first eleven months of 2008.

No president, no dictator, no king or queen, controls the power they wield. They sit on their thrones at the pleasure of the Power Elites. They are exposed and vulnerable to disenfranchisement, removal by force of revolution, and assassination.

Power Elites are impervious to assassination. Power Elites are neither crowned or elected. Power Elites are combinations of agreeing forces. They are embedded in interlocking directorates. In modern times at the upper levels of power, they appear as CEOs , CFOs, trustees of huge trusts, holders of shares in monopolies and multi-national corporations or other international conglomerates and organizations that are set up to manipulate each and every political, financial, military, and other entity that could maximize their power. Today, we see the transmogrification of the power structure through globalization. Power Elites have the wealth to play the shifting geography game. China, India, Iran, Brazil, and Russia, among other nations, are where the game is being played in the early second millennium. And the game goes on no matter who wins or loses or who gets jailed or killed.

Power seeks aggrandizement as part of its nature while it attempts or appears to attempt to retain the status quo of the society in which it is functioning. Power Elites do not wish to appear disruptive nor call attention to their existence. Power is at one and the same time revolutionary and extremely conservative. No ethics or morality is involved. Ethics and morality are humanistic concepts and humanism is the antithesis of power. Power must expand itself in whatever shape or form and by whatever means are available to it to accomplish its goal to grow or be beaten back by other powers. In this ongoing struggle between Power Elites and their front offices, humanity is used and abused. After their idealistic establishment, power structures within communist and socialist states, by allowing power to determine human existence, elevated the mechanics of power to prevail over more humane, beneficial social systems that promised, “To each according to his needs and from each according to his capabilities.” Those systems declared that ownership of wealth, natural resources and the means of production, would be communal.

The methods used to accomplish this magic elucidate one of the more fascinating examples of charlatanism. George Orwell’s, “1984,” explains the magic. Communist societies established on the ideological foundation of classless sharing and equality of the masses quickly degenerated and metamorphosed into stratified dictatorial nation-states with unassailable totalitarian Power Elites in control of all aspects of life and ready to do battle with other nation-states’ Power Elites. Capitalist powers rose up and worked assiduously to destroy the “Communist Menace” and “Godless Communism.” They succeeded in large measure because the idealism of socialism was undercut by the reality of a poverty-stricken non-socialistic life under dictatorships in closed two-class societies. Also, nothing replaced the dynamism and power of religion as a major tool for controlling the masses by the Power Elites and their front offices. The people were told by the dictatorships that there would be no pie in the sky when they died and no replacement was offered for that spiritual sustenance.

Power Elites operate outside of moral and humanitarian imperatives. Power Elites have only the one goal of maximizing their power by any means and at whatever cost to mankind and nature. If the outcome is beneficial to the masses, so be it. If the outcome is disastrous to the masses, so be it. Elites attempt to operate with, and control the forces that, move men and mountains without regard to good or evil, however good and evil are defined by those who claim to know what is good and what is evil. Oligarchic and fascistic states are the ideal settings for Power Elites to function optimally. I use “fascism” to mean rigid autocratic governmental economic regimentation and suppression of political opposition. But Power Elites can and do function well at the opposite extreme of human political constructs, in near anarchic national or cultural configurations of any size. They are often the only regimented controlling force in such chaotic political and economic situations. (A prime example of this exercise of power is Robert Mugabe’s control of Zimbabwe.) The racist element of fascism is unimportant to Power Elites except as a tool to fulfill their destinies. The people and their surrogates who function in Power Elite frameworks are the strongest, the brightest, the most opportunistic, the most ruthless and the least humane of their contemporaries in every milieu. That is not to say they do not necessarily love their countries, their families and their dogs.

The perfect analogy for Power Elites, their position in the world and their modus operandi, is the game of chess. The pieces on the board are either black or white. They know who they are for and who they are against. And they never change color. They also do not set the rules nor can they change the rules of the game. They neither gain power nor lose power. And the pieces are always available for the next game.

The pawns are the masses, the peons, the foot-soldiers. There are hosts of them and they are expendable and have the least value. They go into battle and are sacrificed most readily.

The rooks or castles as they are also known are the builders and managers of the world, They are straightforward, can-do, engineering and science types. They are strong and their point valuation in the game is higher than the other functionaries on the back line.

The knights are the military. They are capable of moving short and long as well as long and short and to the sides. They are ponderous but when called into action, yield often unexpected results. Not only must they be fed but their horses must also be fed, a most expensive proposition.

Then we have religion’s bishops. How appropriate that they move at an angle to the truth of a straight up and down board. While you are concentrating on getting to where you are going in a straightforward manner, they attack you obliquely, unsupported by the reality of life.

The queen, in all her regal majesty, is able to move in sweeping manner up and down the board and able to go with the rooks and with or against the bishops. The queen is the most powerful player on the board because of her mobility, intuition and strong will.

Finally, the figurehead is the king, about whom the whole game rises and falls. When he falls, the game itself falls. He himself is weak but his power is immense because he is the apparent Power Elite. He is like the president of the United States or the Queen or King of England.

But how about the Power Elites? Where are they? They are not on the board. They are not either black or white – and they can change color at will and even become colorless. They are not displayed for all to see. They are hidden from the pawns, the rooks, the knights and bishops, from the queen and from the king himself. They are manipulators but are not themselves manipulated except by competing Power Elites.

“Manipulated” according to Webster is, “to manage or utilize skillfully – to control or play upon by artful, unfair, or insidious means, especially to one’s own advantage.” Power Elites move the pieces on the board of the world, unseen, planning and plotting, strategizing and devising traps into which may fall opposing manipulators and their minions. And when they move their pieces about the battlefields, the how, when, where and why of life and death are in their hands. In this game please note, the manipulators only take; they never give. And win or lose, another game is set up and the manipulators continue according to their rules of the game. And those rules are hidden from the pieces on the chess board except for when the king is dethroned.

Now we will see the impact of Power Elites on the Obama presidency. How will they control him and his appointments and appointees to assure their continued control of the wealth of the United States.

Look carefully.

RESPECT - A FOUNDATION OF PEACE

2009-02-07T18:21:00.001-08:00

WITHOUT CONQUEST, PEACE WITHOUT RESPECT IS UNATTAINABLE.

I wish to explore one of the foundations of life on earth, “Respect.” I write here of man’s relation to man although, man’s respect for nature and the world will ensure a harmonious life for himself with the earth, its foliage and its creatures that provides sustenance for his body and his sense of beauty.

Webster’s: Respect: to consider worthy of high regard, esteem, to refrain from interfering with. Though there are more meanings to the word, these three relationship definitions are the essence of this essay.

To respect another person requires each of us to hold each other in high regard. The simplest way of assuring that relationship requirement is hold others in the same regard as we wish to be held. Just as we do not wish to be judged by our clothing, our speech, our ethnicity, our beauty, our posture, our knowledge or intelligence, or any other quality that is different from the person judging us, so too, we must not judge others. The simple fact of another’s existence demands respect, demands high regard. And, as in so many aspects of life, give and ye shall receive.

To esteem another brings emotion and judgment into the equation. We all start with our own very fundamental personal perceptions of life in general when we are called upon to judge another. More easily we can say that we like someone at first sight, or the opposite, we are put off or even repelled by another at first sight. But that is our individual response to an individual and says nothing about the quality of the other. The quality of the other remains inviolate just as our own quality remains inviolate regardless of anyone else’s opinion of us. Just as the wealthy person is put off by one of meager means, the poorer person is not diminished any more than the wealthy person by this perception. And of course, the opposite is true. Each, in fairness, mandates respect equally from the other.

To refrain from interfering with another covers a broad range of behavior by each individual. Generally, it is the more powerful that interferes with the less powerful. Each of us in any relationship generally knows who is the more powerful. The boss over the employees, the teacher over the students, the parents over the children, knows. However, the master over the slave is not a comparable relationship. That last relationship is an excellent measuring device when we evaluate whether we are interfering with another and therefore, not respectful of the other.

Respect of the parent for the child is the most transparent relationship that exists that shows whether respect at all exists in the powerful person. The parent always falls back on the excuse that he is doing what he or she believes to be best for the child. “Sit up” and “Stand straight” and “Speak respectfully” and “Use your napkin,” are intended to be educational statements by parents. Generally, however, they show an interference with the inferior’s, the child’s personhood. Respect of the parent for the child is a marvelous window into the awareness of those people into the meaning of “Respect.”

We all need respect. Sadly, we often repeat the ill-informed functional aspects of respect that we learned from our parents who demanded respect without giving it. And so I go back to the original definition; “Respect: to consider worthy of high regard, esteem, to refrain from interfering with.” If we can give and hold each other to that same standard of respect that we wish for ourselves, we will live in a happier world.

TO MY FELLOW MIDEAST PEACENIKS

2009-01-31T13:54:00.000-08:00

I sent to my mailing list a satirical mock-up of the front page of the New York Times depicting the Warsaw Ghetto uprising as a disproportionate response of Jews to the Nazi holocaust. A number of respondents castigated me for making light of the holocaust and for the disgrace of mis-using the highly regarded Times to create this ironic piece.

If the point of my sending you the piece was not clear and if the irony of the piece was adumbrated by use of the renowned New York Times front page for the message, I point you to most of the world's news coverage of the Gaza War and the casting of Israel by all Muslim countries and many if not most of the other U.N. members, as the perpetrator of a holocaust while denying the fact of the Holocaust of the Jews. I do not believe this piece was a "disgrace" to the memory of the murdered Jews by the Nazis in the past and by the Arabs in the present.

I think the point of the piece was well taken. Did it deprecate the newspaper or disgrace the memory of the Holocaust? Not one jot or tittle!

The fact that there were and are "good" Germans and that there are "good" Arabs/Muslims does not mitigate or belittle the existential threat posed by the world of Islam to Israel and the Jewish People. When I see the grade-school textbooks in the Arab world teaching other than hatred of the Jews, and when I hear the Imams in their mosques preaching peace, I will have greater hope that one-on-one peace efforts will have meaningful weight for the future lives of my progeny and my People.

Perhaps you also may feel that Israel's response to the Hamas rocket attacks was, is, and will be, "disproportionate," and Hamas' use of civilians and civilian structures as strategic and tactical sacrificial lambs, and its continued rocket attacks despite its "truce" agreement, its holding a kidnapped soldier for over two years, its continued importation of war materielle rather than food and building materials, and its stated goal of Israel's destruction with the aid of Iran and Syria for sure and the surreptitious aid of other Muslim countries, is not disproportionate because unintentionally fewer Jews were killed.

I can tell you this from personal knowledge; Gaza civilians were the targets that Hamas set up to draw Israeli fire. Wherever and whenever possible, the Israeli army avoided civilian casualties. The army is trained that way. But shit happens, intentionally and unintentionally.

This struggle that you and I and many others are engaged in, has many faces. You may be on the cleanest end of it. That does not provide the same protection that kibbutz air raid shelters do. Nor does it save a life that the assassination of a terrorist does. Nor does it make the massive destruction of smuggling tunnels, rocket factories, terror cells, and rocket launching platforms more evil because it kills the population that willingly and enthusiastically supports Jew-killing and accidentally kills the civilians who are not involved directly or indirectly in the killing of Israelis.

I am not on the side of those who act to bring peace by deportation of Arabs and theft of Arab lands and destruction of Arab property. I am a realist and a pragmatist. As you perform to achieve the highest level of success you can in bringing peace to Jews and Arabs, so do I. And so do all my family and friends who have been and are in the Defense Army of Israel. And so do all the people who argue with me about the best means to achieve the impossible dream. Sadly, none of us have yet found the road to peace. But just as there are killers on both sides of the divide, I look for the moral people on both sides of the divide. I find a monstrously great difference between the way the Jews have been raised and the way the Muslims and specifically, the Palestinians, have been raised and educated. That foundational difference lies at the heart of our struggle for peace.

And equally important, the goals and interests of the many countries involved in the Middle East and its future may not be compatible with peace between the Palestinians and Israel.

KILLERS NEED PEOPLE TO KILL

2009-01-28T11:04:00.000-08:00

* OPINION EUROPE
* JANUARY 12, 2009
Ending the West's Proxy War Against Israel
Stop funding a Palestinian youth bulge, and the fighting will stop too.

By GUNNAR HEINSOHN |
From Wall Street Journal Europe
Mr. Heinsohn heads the Raphael Lemkin Institute at the University of Bremen, Europe's first institute devoted to comparative genocide research.

As the world decries Israel's attempt to defend itself from the rocket attacks coming from Gaza, consider this: When Hamas routed Fatah in Gaza in 2007, it cost nearly 350 lives and 1,000 wounded. Fatah's surrender brought only a temporary stop to the type of violence and bloodshed that are commonly seen in lands where at least 30% of the male population is in the 15-to-29 age bracket.

In such "youth bulge" countries, young men tend to eliminate each other or get killed in aggressive wars until a balance is reached between their ambitions and the number of acceptable positions available in their society. In Arab nations such as Lebanon (150,000 dead in the civil war between 1975 and 1990) or Algeria (200,000 dead in the Islamists' war against their own people between 1999 and 2006), the slaughter abated only when the fertility rates in these countries fell from seven children per woman to fewer than two. The warring stopped because no more warriors were being born.

In Gaza, however, there has been no demographic disarmament. The average woman still bears six babies. For every 1,000 men aged 40-44, there are 4,300 boys aged 0-4 years. In the U.S. the latter figure is 1,000, and in the U.K. it's only 670.

And so the killing continues. In 2005, when Israel was still an occupying force, Gaza lost more young men to gang fights and crime than in its war against the "Zionist enemy." Despite the media's obsession with the Mideast conflict, it has cost many fewer lives than the youth bulges in West Africa, Lebanon or Algeria. In the six decades since Israel's founding, "only" some 62,000 people (40,000 Arabs, 22,000 Jews) have been killed in all the Israeli-Arab wars and Palestinian terror attacks. During that same time, some 11 million Muslims have been killed in wars and terror attacks -- mostly at the hands of other Muslims.

What accounts for the Mideast conflict's relatively low body count? Hamas and their ilk certainly aim to kill as many Israelis as possible. To their indignation, the Israelis are quite good at protecting themselves. On the other hand, Israel, despite all the talk about its "disproportionate" use of force, is doing its utmost to spare civilian deaths. Even Hamas acknowledges that most of the Palestinians killed by Israeli air raids are from their own ranks. But about 10%-15% of Gaza's casualties are women and minors -- a tragedy impossible to prevent in a densely settled area in which nearly half the people are under 15 and the terrorists hide among them.

The reason for Gaza's endless youth bulge is that a large majority of its population does not have to provide for its offspring. Most babies are fed, clothed, vaccinated and educated by UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. Unlike the U.N. High Commission for Refugees, which deals with the rest of the world's refugees and aims to settle them in their respective host countries, UNRWA perpetuates the Palestinian problem by classifying as refugees not only those who originally fled their homes, but all of their descendents as well.

UNRWA is benevolently funded by the U.S. (31%) and the European Union (nearly 50%) -- only 7% of the funds come from Muslim sources. Thanks to the West's largesse, nearly the entire population of Gaza lives in a kind of lowly but regularly paid dependence. One result of this unlimited welfare is an endless population boom. Between 1950 and 2008, Gaza's population has grown from 240,000 to 1.5 million. The West basically created a new Near Eastern people in Gaza that at current trends will reach three million in 2040. Within that period, Gazans may alter the justifications and directions of their aggression but are unlikely to stop the aggression itself.

The Hamas-Fatah truce of June 2007 allowed the Islamists again to direct all their energy on attacking Israel. The West pays for food, schools, medicine and housing, while Muslim nations help out with the military hardware. Unrestrained by such necessities as having to earn a living, the young have plenty of time on their hands for digging tunnels, smuggling, assembling missiles and firing 4,500 of them at Israel since 2006. While this gruesome activity has slowed the Palestinian internecine slaughter, it forced some 250,000 Israelis into bomb shelters.

The current situation can only get worse. Israel is being pushed into a corner. Gazan teenagers have no future other than war. One rocket master killed is immediately replaced by three young men for whom a martyr's death is no less honorable than victory. Some 230,000 Gazan males, aged 15 to 29, who are available for the battlefield now, will be succeeded by 360,000 boys under 15 (45% of all Gazan males) who could be taking up arms within the coming 15 years.

As long as we continue to subsidize Gaza's extreme demographic armament, young Palestinians will likely continue killing their brothers or neighbors. And yet, despite claiming that it wants to bring peace to the region, the West continues to make the population explosion in Gaza worse every year. By generously supporting UNRWA's budget, the West assists a rate of population increase that is 10 times higher than in their own countries. Much is being said about Iran waging a proxy war against Israel by supporting Hezbollah and Hamas. One may argue that by fueling Gaza's untenable population explosion, the West unintentionally finances a war by proxy against the Jews of Israel.

If we seriously want to avoid another generation of war in Gaza, we must have the courage to tell the Gazans that they will have to start looking after their children themselves, without UNRWA's help. This would force Palestinians to focus on building an economy instead of freeing them up to wage war. Of course, every baby lured into the world by our money up to now would still have our assistance.

If we make this urgently needed reform, then by at least 2025 many boys in Gaza -- like in Algeria -- would enter puberty as only sons. They would be able to look forward to a more secure future in a less violent society.

If the West prefers calm around Gaza even before 2025, it may consider offering immigration to those young Palestinians only born because of the West's well-meant but cruelly misguided aid. In the decades to come, North America and Europe will have to take in tens of millions of immigrants anyway to slow the aging of their populations. If, say, 200,000 of them are taken from the 360,000 boys coming of age in Gaza in the next 15 years, that would be a negligible move for the big democracies but a quantum leap for peace in the Near East.

Many of Gaza's young -- like in much of the Muslim world -- dream of leaving anyway. Who would not want to get out of that strip of land but the international NGOs and social workers whose careers depend on perpetuating Gaza's misery?

Copyright 2008 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved

INTERESTS OF HISTORY

2009-01-23T20:59:00.000-08:00

WHAT IS "HISTORY" AND HOW IS IT MADE?

Tracing any human institution from its inception to the present, or to its demise if that is the case, is simply a study of history and the impact the institution had on its times.

To fully comprehend any human institution, it is essential to find and evaluate the interests that brought it into being. What is meant here by the term, “interests,” is benefit, participation, welfare, good, influence, partiality, and a variety of situation-specific meanings such as wealth, power, position, and the like.

Probably the most wide-spread institution is that of “family.” The underlying interests are apparent. Sexual gratification, safety in numbers, economic need fulfillment and stability, procreation, two heads are better than one, companionship and psychological support, and other individualistic interests that are fulfilled by the family at all levels and by all its members.

Guarded financial and political institutions of power are the most difficult to enter and institutions that need members, volunteer workers, and money donors are the easiest to enter. The interests of the first are to guard and maximize their power. The interests of the second are to gain and expand power. All human institutions, in varying degrees and kinds, hold the same interests. And all of them want to leave their mark on history.

Dynasties, nations and kingdoms, ethnic groupings, families, political parties, religions, corporations, sport teams, universities, and other institutions of all kinds, when studied by themselves or in the context of their kind or in the context of their time of existence, open windows on history.

Competition between and among institutions leads to the windows on history being manipulated, generally by the stronger of the competitors or the winners of the competitions. Historians, being human and springing from their own histories, themselves manipulate the windows of history to achieve egocentric, ethnocentric, religious and other predetermined or desirable views of the particular era and area of study.

However researched and annotated, however impartial the historian, the resulting history is his story or her story.

GOLDA MEIR SAID

2009-01-23T15:19:00.000-08:00

Golda Meir (former Prime Minister of Israel) said, "We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us."

There will never be sulcha - forgiveness - without learning that we are all children, Jews and Arabs. And there will never be learning so long as the people are exploited by their political and religious leaders to go out and "Kill the other!"

The world must know the difference between aggressive killing and killing in self defense. Since Israel evacuated Gaza, more than 6,000 rockets have been fired into Israel with aggressive intent to kill. Arab terrorist groups have sent suicide bombers into Israel on "Holy" missions to become martyrs by killing Jews.

Imams, Kadis, "Holy" men, preach death to the Jews as a holy mission. More than 70,000 Iranis volunteered to become martyrs by killing Jews in Israel when their president declared that Israel should be wiped off the face of the earth.

How can peace be achieved in the face of this holy war against a People whose crime is existence? How can the children of Jews and Arabs be saved from the slaughter of these religionists? Where in the Koran can be found the solution to this enigma?

If history teaches a lesson here, there is no solution based on anything that is presently being done. Teaching our children to make war no more is not happening. Until that teaching takes place, they will die ever more excruciating deaths, as will their parents and their children.

BARACK LINCOLN OBAMA

2009-01-21T21:27:00.000-08:00

BARACK LINCOLN OBAMA - January 20, 2009

It is time!

The ghost of Abraham Lincoln stood next to Barack Obama at Tuesday’s inauguration of the 44th president of the United States. He saw the bible on which Obama’s hand rested as he swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States, his bible.

It is time.

He saw the 43rd president nearby and the assembled dignitaries and the assembled predators. He looked out to see the people massed past George Washington’s monument and uncounted hundreds of thousands more breathing the cold winter air as they listened to old words and new promises from the man, Barack Obama who was chosen, miraculously as he was, to lead his country at a time of parlous danger.

It is time.

Lincoln shrugged and wondered how this compleat man, experienced as he was and inexperienced as he is, would pilot his time’s ship of state through monstrous heaving seas of testing and peril. Lincoln felt he was father to this man as indeed he was in many ways. Would that he could stay the hand of Obama as was Abraham’s at his testing on Mount Moriah. Would that he could instill in this Goliath the wisdom to dodge David’s smooth stone and instill in this David the capacities to chasten the giants of war around him and lead them to peace to spare the killing of the small people of the earth.

It is time.

Would this man, President Barack Obama, see the dangers of hidden powers surrounding him, infiltrating the ranks of trusted advisors, influencing slyly small numbers to join forces to become the movers and shakers, observe the tactics of skilled manipulators of the People’s representatives in the halls of government, and having seen them, maintain the solid ramparts of honesty, fairness, humaneness, and equality to prevent the dam-bursting flood of evil where once stood good and good intentions?

It is time.

Lincoln himself also knew that if this man, President Barack Obama, succeeded, he would face mortal danger, and he shuddered. And if lightening were to strike,

it would not be time.

A MASSACRE OF ONE

2009-01-20T21:35:00.001-08:00

The concept of, “To save one life is to save the whole world,” grows out of the biblical creation of humankind, the world, through the creation of a single person, Adam. Jewish exegesis places demands on the Jewish People that flow from the Torah, the bible. Also, “To destroy a life is to destroy the whole world.” By extension, with or without knowledge, these concepts also apply to non-Jewish human beings.

For centuries, the course and demands of life failed to match humanistic and religious requirements to uphold these two mirror-image concepts. Reality finds religion in the roots of killing, in the roots of mass murder. Killing for wealth does not trample moral convictions, but killing for religion is totally at odds with moral convictions – or so it must be.

Rockets have been fired by Hamas, an Islamic terrorist group, at Israel in an attempt to kill its citizens.

Israel’s struggle to survive in the sea of Islamic hatred and Islam’s determination to commit genocide of the Jewish People in a second attempt after the Nazi holocaust is totally at odds with moral conviction by any definition. The Gaza War started years ago with daily rocket attacks on Israel by Islamist militants, terrorists by common definition, determined to kill Jews. Until Israel’s retaliation, this criminal immoral genocidal action was applauded by the population of Gaza. Palestinian, Muslim, and peace-loving people’s tears and rage flow from Israel’s reaction and no connection seems to connect the Arab action and the Israeli reaction.

The moral dilemma for Israel is whether it is trying to save life by destroying life? Is it trying to save the world by destroying the world?

The moral dilemma for the world, including the world of Islam, is whether it at all faces a moral dilemma? Apparently not.

KILL FUTURE NOBEL PRIZE WINNERS

2009-01-19T17:07:00.000-08:00

The leaders of most of the Arab world, most of the preachers of Islam, all of the Arab terrorist organizations, and the president of Iran (a non-Arab Islamic country,) declare their enmity to the State of Israel and to the entire Jewish population of the world.

The impact of the success of their goal would be the deaths of nearly one quarter of all Nobel Prize winners into the future if statistics hold up.

The loss in lives of the rest of humanity would be stupendous if future products of present and future winners of the prize for medicine were wiped out. Now THAT would be a holocaust.

The Nobel Foundation of Sweden awards the Nobel Prizes to men and women who have rendered the greatest service to humankind. Of the 750 Nobel Prizes awarded worldwide between 1901 and 2007, at least 162 were awarded to Jews. While Jews are approximately 0.25% of the world's population, Jews make up approximately 22% of all Nobel Prize laureates worldwide.

Killing Iran's Ahmadinajad would be a boon to humanity. The murder of preachers of "Death to the Jews," would be a blessing to the world. Of course, by wiping out terrorrist organizations and their members, their killers would earn Nobel Peace Prizes.

And the blessings bestowed on mankind by the rest of the Jewish/Israeli prize-winners is incalculable if past inventions, discoveries, scientific achievements and all the rest of their life-time products were counted in.

Think about it.

PEACE BETWEEN ISRAEL AND THE ARABS?

2009-01-17T23:18:00.000-08:00

Conflict between Israel and the Arab world has been ongoing before Israel’s War of Independence and the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948. Attempts to establish a Jewish state in harmony with the Arab countries that border the territory called Palestine began decades before and since 1948, without success. Those efforts failed, and future efforts may fail, because of territorial and biblical history, religion and the various conflicts engendered by and between them, the political natures and rivalries of the various Muslim states, the need for a non-Arab scapegoat for the Arab condition, economic structures built on two-class societies with their oligarchic leaderships intent on retaining their power and wealth, and above all, because education to peace did not override education to war between and among the parties to the conflict.

Attempts have been made to achieve “Peace Treaties” between Israel and its neighbors mostly by emissaries from the United States conducting marathon negotiation sessions with Palestinian Arabs and Israeli government functionaries. Historical records show that preparation for war on the part of all parties was constant during these negotiations and that the Palestinians were in intimate contact with leaders from the surrounding Arab oligarchies to obtain input, permission, and veto messages to carry back to the negotiating tables. Financial support for Palestinian leadership was a hidden controlling element in the negotiations.

Though the apparent goal of the negotiations was “Peace Treaty,” the true goal of the Arab world was continuation of the conflict, for numerous reasons of self-interest. No matter how close success appeared, an insurmountable obstacle for one side or the other somehow appeared at the table. Failure of negotiations thus conducted was fore-ordained.

Regardless of the historical truth or accuracy of these assertions, for one reason or another, after peace treaties were signed between Egypt and Israel and Jordan and Israel, no additional treaty was signed with any neighboring country nor with any representative Palestinian entity. Inasmuch as unforced treaties are generally viewed as mutually beneficial, it is apparent that peace treaties were not viewed as beneficial to the rest of the controlling Arab world regardless of how beneficial potential positive treaty outcomes might be for the Palestinian Arabs.

These dishonorable tragic relationships between the surrounding Arab states and the Palestinians and their multitude of refugees from the various wars between Israel and its Arab neighbors have wrought havoc on the economic and psychological conditions of this benighted group of people.

Now, in January of 2009, Lebanon led by Hezbolla and Syria led by Bashir al-Assad, both under the sway of Iran, the two remaining border nations at war with Israel, and the fragmented Palestinian people, the Gaza portion of whom are in a constant state of war with Israel since Hamas established control of the territory, do not appear to place value on achieving peace with Israel at this time. To the contrary, those three entities with overt military support from Iran are engaged in a race with each other to determine who will win the prize for destroying the State of Israel and murdering all the Jews who have the temerity to live there and who oppose the goal of their own extinction.

The remaining oligarchies in the Arab world appear to be unsure about whether to accept Israel’s existence at all and whether to formalize a relationship with her. It appears that the growth of Iranian military power is an important determinant in making this decision. Oil markets and religious competition are impediments to cooperative action in all areas of Islamic life except war. Unless and until a change takes place in the value systems of the nations of the world of Islam, there is little hope for a peace settlement of any kind acceptable to Arabs and Israel.

IS THE FUTURE OF ISRAEL IN DANGER?

2009-01-12T10:11:00.000-08:00

Israel serves as a military extension of the U.S. in the Middle East. Its population and military speak, read, and understand, high-level English. It stores huge amounts of munitions and tests weapons and weapons systems; it's scientists and engineers work closely with the American military. It is a major source of top-quality intelligence for the U.S. And, if push comes to shove, it is a U.S. fighting force of huge capacity and fire power. And the cost of all this, relative to the U.S. military budget, is miniscule. U.S. presidents did not maintain the relationship with Israel out of love but rather out of benefit and need.

(As an example, Israel intelligence and battle plans, if used appropriately, would have prevented or minimized the Iraq fiasco. Bush and Cheney learned this belatedly primarily because they did not understand what Israel was providing to the U.S. when they entered office.)

Obama will learn the lesson quickly. The people he has chosen to serve as advisers and cabinet members are not "Yes men and Yes women." They also have substantial knowledge of and experience with Israel.

Look at a map. Israel, Eqypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan, are lined up against Iran - the future enemy. Syria and Lebanon are cannon fodder in any future confrontation. Iraq has always hated Iran, so even with independence?? from the U.S., they are part of the anti-Iran coalition. Of all of these countries, Israel is militarily the strongest.

The money-driven European nations know the drill. They either keep out of the way or join forces or send forces in the event of a confrontation with Iran. Barack's real problem is to get those countries to join the anti-nuclear stance of the U.S. Israel knows Iran's nuclear sites should have been attacked and set back in their nuclear programs. Bush left the US decision to support such a strike to Obama. Let's see what happens.

The Islamic world's attack capacity - a factor of at least 5 greater than defensive capacity - is no where near what's needed to endanger Israel, with the single exception of Iran's nuclear capability. And that is a worry for the Western world no less than for Israel.

The Gaza War is a training ground for future conflict between the Islamic world and the Western world. Israel is paying the price for that Western-world training. It will be repaid many times over when this type of war is again initiated by the Arabs. The goal of such a future war, as is true of all wars, is economic.

Finally,"Oil Money" and oil itself from the Arab world is not enough of an incentive for consumer nations to destroy trade relations with the U.S. The future of energy supply lies in non-carbon-based fuels. Perhaps the major question that remains unanswered is the position of China in the relationships that would be called into question in the event of a confrontation between the developing world and the more advanced nations. China is getting a taste of the huge amount of wealth at stake in a future confrontation. At this point, it is difficult to determine with any security if China will weigh in as an ally of the Muslim world and the more backward nations to position itself for the real economic/market confrontation with the Western world that has to come. This requires a whole different analysis.

Though the Moslem world, in its religious dependency and primitive educational and economic systems, has convinced itself that Israel is the root cause of its misery and is therefore only worthy of extermination, it is unlikely that despite its numerical superiority, it can prevail in a war of any magnitude against that country. The Gaza war being waged at this time is providing clear evidence that if they attack Israel, they are doomed to defeat notwithstanding Iranian support.

HAMAS - ISLAMIC RESISTANCE MOVEMENT

2009-01-09T21:34:00.001-08:00

Hamas (حماس Ḥamās, an acronym of حركة المقاومة الاسلامية Ḥarakat al-Muqāwamat al-Islāmiyyah, meaning "Islamic Resistance Movement") is a Palestinian Sunni Islamist paramilitary organization and political party which holds a majority of seats in the elected legislative council of the Palestinian National Authority.

Hamas was created in 1987 by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi and Mohammad Taha of the Palestinian wing of the Muslim Brotherhood at the beginning of the First Intifada. (Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur'an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.) Notorious for its suicide attacks and other attacks on Israeli civilians and security forces, Hamas also runs extensive social programs and has gained popularity in Palestinian society by establishing hospitals, education systems, libraries and other services throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Hamas' charter calls for the recapturing of the State of Israel and its replacement with a Palestinian Islamic state in the area that is now named Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. Hamas describes its conflict with Israel as political and not religious or antisemitic. However, its founding charter, writings, and many of its public statements reflect the influence of antisemitic conspiracy theories. (Wikipedia is the source of this information.)

So what kind of truce can be meaningful between Hamas and Israel that allows Israel and its people to continue their existence? What is the United Nations looking for from Israel other than its suicide and from Hamas other than a rest-period in its goal of murdering the Jews in Israel and the acquisition of armaments from Moslem partners and arms merchants to continue its war aimed at the destruction of the State of Israel?

Is the U.N. Security Council kidding?

IN THE MIDDLEAST MIDDLE AGES

2009-01-05T15:41:00.000-08:00

Just in case there are a few people out there who are not knowledgeable, the Middle East Middle Ages are in Gaza right now, just as they have been since the Middle Ages of the Middle West - except for the weaponry and TV sets.

Food, clothing, and shelter are pretty much the same except now it's provided free of charge, paid for by taxes paid by working people in other countries.

Transportation for the masses is provide by two feet or four feet, for the most part. The four-footers still defacate in the middle of the street.

Hubris and honor are indistinguishable except that only men are allowed to possess either of them, just as only the men are allowed to sit in the coffee shops that line the main streets of every village and town, and women wust defer to men in almost any queue any place for anything wherever the women are permitted in the first place.

Whenever protest is allowed against anything, only males are allowed to protest. Look at the pictures. Unless a woman can grow a beard, she is not allowed to rally with the men.

She may join other women in calling for the extermination of Israel. That is the highest honor for women in the Middle Ages Middle East, except for the martyrdom of becoming a suicide bomber. She is only allowed to ascend to that high position once. And no virgins are waiting for her if she manages to get to heaven. That honor is strictly reserved for men.

FROM GAZA TO ISRAEL

2009-01-04T21:30:00.000-08:00

The trip from Gaza to Israel may be accomplished in the mind of the traveller. The vehicles needed to go from one place to the other exist in the mind. Some of the vehicles may be simple and others complex, some speedy and some slow, some require sweat as fuel and others require knowledge. Stations along the way may describe illness to health, or poverty to wealth, ignorance to education, isolation to involvement, intolerance to acceptance. The traveller may bounce over rutted roads or fly through smooth air, encounter primitive communities or sophisticated metropolises. Fellow travelers may share their languages, thoughts, foods, and fears. The journey may last moments or years, from childhood to old age, or for as long as a bullet takes to reach its target.

The only prediction that can reasonably be made is that the journey cannot be foretold. Whatever will be, will be.

And the only choice for the traveler is whether or not to make the trip. As with a bullet, it goes only once and only one way.

HAPPY NEW YEAR - 2008 to 2009

2008-12-31T21:21:00.000-08:00

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?

TARGET OF VIOLENCE

2008-12-29T02:03:00.000-08:00

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.

ZIONISM - A MISTAKE?

2008-12-27T02:50:00.000-08:00

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.

CAN ISRAEL AS ISRAEL SURVIVE?

2008-12-20T22:15:00.001-08:00

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.

ISRAELI PALESTINIAN PEACE

2008-12-19T21:29:00.000-08:00

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.

SUPREME MERCHANTS OF DEATH KILL GUN CONTROL

2008-12-18T16:46:00.000-08:00

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.

MY COUNTRY - RIGHT OR WRONG - FROM A TO Z

2008-12-13T17:18:00.000-08:00

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?

DARFUR - A LOOK INTO THE FUTURE

2008-12-11T22:47:00.000-08:00

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.

TERROR, TERRORISM, AND ERRORISM

2008-12-10T00:23:00.000-08:00

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.

STATE RELIGION vs. FREEDOM OF RELIGION

2008-12-09T20:49:00.000-08:00

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.”

NON-STATE ACTORS WITH VESTED INTERESTS

2008-12-09T13:04:00.000-08:00

"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.”

NO MOB VETO

2008-12-08T13:47:00.000-08:00

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 HISTORY OF RELIGION

2008-12-07T14:07:00.000-08:00

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.

CHURCH SPLIT OVER GAYS

2008-12-06T23:28:00.000-08:00

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

MORTAL SwINdle

2008-12-01T15:15:00.000-08:00

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.

IF GOD IS TO BRING PEACE, THERE WILL ALWAYS BE WAR

2008-11-30T20:28:00.000-08:00

From the (San Jose) Mercury News wire services:
The U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly endorsed the idea of an unprecedented treaty regulating the global arms trade, despite opposition from the United States.
Of the U.N.’s 192 member nations, 147 voted in favor of drafting the treaty. Only the U.S. and Zimbabwe voted against it, with the other nations absent or abstaining.

What do the United States and Zimbabwe have in common?

Both heads of state were illegally elected. Mugabe, the dictator who seized power after being elected out of office, needs armaments to protect his illegal control of Zimbabwe and also to slaughter opponents of his regime. George W. Bush, elected by the Supreme Court of the United States against the clear vote of the citizenry of the country, must repay the armaments industry that contributed heavily to his election campaign.

Mugabe’s actions and the reasons for them are clearly discernable. He and his supporters are the power elite of Zimbabwe. Bush’s actions are cloaked by the opaque curtain drawn between the government of the United States and the power elites behind the curtain that manipulate the strings of the elected puppets acting on the stage in front of that curtain, for their benefit.

So, if there is a God, and if He wanted to bring peace to the world, He is finessed by the more powerful forces driving for ever greater wealth and greater power. It is also possible that if there is a God, He belongs to the power elites of the world.

HOW THE WEST SUPPORTS TERRORISM

2008-11-29T15:58:00.000-08:00

Manufacturers of weaponry used in terror attacks are mostly located in the Western world. The cockamaimy export regulations used by these nations as safeguards against weaponry falling into inappropriate unacceptable hands are obviously useless, and obviously, intentionally useless.

Merchants of death throughout the world have no problems supplying their clients with whatever they want in arms and munitions so long as the dollars (and only dollars) are there to pay for them. Terrorists of all stripes, mini-revolutionaries, governmental terrorists ala Mugabe, rapists and land-grabbers, Muslims, Sikhs, past and present Russians, American loonies, Indians and Pakistanis, Phillipinos and Palestinians, Kurds and Turks, and the list goes on and on barely describing who and why they need killing tools and against whom those tools will be used.

The vast land of the United States will become a killing ground in the same way that other sophisticated modern nations will become killing grounds; because the weapons of terror are available and easily obtained. The Supreme Idiot Court of the United States has upheld the right of all citizens to bear arms. What enormous gigantic power lies in the hands of arms manufacturers and merchants to be able to obtain a majority of the justices to twist the clearly stated language of the 2nd Amendment to the United States Constitution that calls for citizens' RIGHT to bear arms in a WELL REGULATED MILITIA.

When sufficient money enters the cabals that hold violent beliefs, the country will recognize the errors of ommission and commission that enabled the United States to join the modern world of terror alongside Iraq, Pakistan, Gaza, Afghanistan, and other centers of suicide bombers, ideological nut-cases, anti-government neo-fascists, and just plain crazies who believe that death is a form of life and a way of life.

Let's make money from this new era. Join the NRA.

HIS STORY - PUTIN CREATES & DESTROYS THE PAST

2008-11-27T15:31:00.000-08:00

The New York Times: November 27, 2008

Nationalism of Putin's Era Veils Sins of Stalin's

That's the headline of the story about how "history" is created. Vladimir Putin, the Dictator of Russia, theoretically the leader of a democracy, is intent on creating the events of the past, today. This former KGB agent, (the Russian secret service under the Stalin dictatorship,) is intent on rewriting the history of Soviet Russia to conform to his idea of what the Russian people and the world SHOULD know about that era. Records of events of that past horror show are locked up now, and will in all likelihood be destroyed so that the new Putin version of what took place will not be subject to verification.

Skeptics of the notion that history is created by power elites, the winners of wars and controllers of information and education, may wish to evaluate the impact of Putin's acts on the truth, the realities, the facts, of what took place in that prior time. They may wish to examine how George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and their minions in the United States have so tightened their control of the evidence of their actions as those actions affected the course of events while they were in power, that Putin and the American power structure of the past eight years may be partners in historic revisions that overlap in time.

Historians, at least those who believe they write history, are forced to create structures from the scraps of evidence they find, much as anthropologists create whole skeletons from single bones.

The sad truth is that children learn about the past what kings and queens want them to learn.

TERRORISM AND STATECRAFT - 21st CENTURY

2008-11-17T06:41:00.000-08:00

The dividing line between terrorists and statesmen has been eroding over the past few decades, unless the rise of Nazism is included in the definition of terrorism.

Iran, whose political leader, with the acquiescence of its religious - and more powerful leaders - has called for the destruction of another nation, Israel. Iraq's Saddam Hussein attacked neighboring Kuwait in a clear terrorist attempt to gain hegemony over that state. Syria's previous president, Hafiz Assad, killed 10,000 citizens in what can only be described as a terrorist attack. Libya's president Qaddafi sent terrorist minions to place a bomb on board a Pan Am airliner that resulted in the deaths of over two hundred passengers and crew.

Terrorists are supported, trained, and sent on missions by nations. They are not sent out to hold up banks. They are sent to kill innocent civilians in what the statesmen consider an act of retribution, a political act. The New York City World Trade Center twin towers were destroyed by terrorists from Saudi Arabia. It is difficult to believe that this cadre of killers was unknown to the leaders of that country.

Terrorism as statecraft has spread to oppressive regimes and to the regimes' internal opponents as the most effective means of retaining and obtaining power. War craft and statecraft were, and in many countries are, the means of settling conflicting claims to power. The difference between terrorism and war craft is found in the targets of the killing and destruction that takes place. Thus, Saddam Hussein's attack on Kuwait's civilian population might be classified as terrorist until other nations' armies engaged Iraq's armed forces.

The killings of Sunnis by Shiites and vice verse are terrorist, by definition. However, with both religious groups in the Iraqi government, and with the killing of each other by civilian bombers, we see 21st century terrorism as statecraft and statecraft as terrorism. This condition is a harbinger of a new way of electing political leaders and political parties.

President Mugabe of Zimbabwe has shown that the next step in this march to political expression is voting machines that blow up, along with the voter, when the wrong button is pushed.

THE ISRAEL PALESTINIAN CONFLICT – Part 2

2008-11-14T06:01:00.000-08:00

THE ISRAEL PALESTINIAN CONFLICT – Part 2 - NOVEMBER 2008 & SEARCH FOR COMMON GROUND – Part 2

After evaluating alternative methods for approaching solutions to the conflict, it appears that the bases for thinking, discussing, and arriving at agreements, are so rigid and intractable as to prevent any realistic method from arising to enable resolution of the conflict.

To start with, the Islamic world is intent on wiping out the State of Israel and Israel refuses to cooperate in its extinction. Past attempts to ignore, breach, or bypass this wall have ended in much death and no change in this fundamental and foundational element.

As with most of the conflicts between peoples on the face of the earth, the intractable elements of history, religion, patriotism, geography, love of country, military strategy, wealth and its power, all work against peaceful solutions and accommodations between the parties. Often, within a country, conflicts arise between competing political entities over the degree and nature of concessions to be offered to achieve peace. The more powerful grouping, the wealthy and the ones who benefit most from conflict are the winners and the mass of populations send their sons to war.

The earth has been and is divided and rotates in two orbits; one, the masses, the pawns, and the other, the power elites – the kings and queens - with their knights, rooks, and bishops.

Through the centuries, “conventional” arms have inflicted limited damage on conflicting parties. However, we have entered the age of “non-conventional” warfare. Nagasaki and Hiroshima are the only real examples of the results of such warfare. The pictures are there for all to see but the experiences of that kind of warfare have been hidden from today’s players in both orbits, by intent and by a kind of stupidity that defies explanation. Power elites do not benefit from holocausts.

The United States and Russia have set examples to the world of that stupidity cloaked in a variety of garments that have been woven from the cloth of history, religion, patriotism, and simplistic bravado. The atomic nations and the nations that aspire to join the nuclear club have been dumbed down by the sheer excitement of owning such destructive power.

Until such moment when parts of our world again experience the immense tragedy and sorrow of nuclear holocaust, no progress will be made in mankind’s ability to solve its relational problems and conflicts. Until peoples with burnt out eyes and immolated flesh are shown to monetary and religious fundamentalists, the “decision-making powers,” will there be any possibility for conflict resolution between nations and peoples.

RESPONSES TO THE ABOVE POSTING:

REPLIES

You conclude that it will take a nuclear holocaust to resolve the conflict between Israel and Palestine. I find nothing in your essay that addresses the Israel-Palestine conflict itself, and no constructive suggestions toward any kind of settlement. What is the actual aim of this essay?

Adina

Sorry, Nachum, I don't get it. Are you saying that we are so inured to the nuclear age that we need another city to be annihilated in order to solve some problem, possibly the Islamist/Jewish conflict? I think you are mixing metaphors here.

/Rick

There has not been a weapon invented that humanity did not use - and no horrors have stopped wars.
Yes - western Europe has been at peace these 60 years - I am not knowledgeable enough to know why. perhaps those power elites have not seen any advantage to war - yet. Same goes for North America. Our problem - Ahmedinajad (?) and his ilk do not care about the holocaust they might cause - there are those virgins in heaven and who knows what is needed to bring back their missing messiah/immam (the word I would need has just eluded me). remember - it's the Christians who expect Armaggedon before the second coming.
We were in germany talking to classes as part of Kristalnacht commemorations. A girl asked me if I don't want to live in a safe country (instead of Israel). I said, sure - and then gave her the Zionist spiel. So yes, I am happy for every day without catastrophy - and fear for my kids and theirs, and nothing to be done...

TAMAR

Nach- sounds like you are saying that our only hope is nuclear war? Why bother?

ANNE

YOU WANT FEEDBACK..OK..YOUR WISH IS MY COMMAND.
I READ EVERYTHING TIL I'M RED.WHITE AND BLUE IN THE FACE. SO MUCH FOR PATRIOTISM. YOU PRESENT ALL THE NEGATIVES AND NO SOLUTIONS. WE KNOW ALL THE BAD THINGS BUT WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT THEM. YOU SEEM TO FEEL THERE IS NOTHING WE CAN DO ABOUT THEM EXCEPT REMIND EVERYONE WHAT THEY ARE AND WHOSE FAULT IT IS. IF YOU DON'T HAVE ANY SOLUTIONS I AM SUGGESTING THE ONE THING I CAN NEVER EXPECT FROM MY GOOD FRIEND...GIVE UP!.ENJOY THE BLESSING OF THE NEW ADDITION TO THE CLAN AND HOPE (RATHER THAN PRAY) THAT SOMEONE IN THE VERY NEAR FUTURE SOLVES THE PROBLEMS THAT EXIST IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND EVERYWHERE ELSE. HOPE YOUR NEW ADDITION WILL NEVER HAVE TO FACE THE PROBLEMS THAT, IT SEEMS, THE FUTURE HOLDS FOR THE NEXT GENERATIONS. THESE ARE THE TIMES THAT I AM THANKFUL THAT I AM NEARING THE END AND NOT HAVEING TO START AT THE BEGINNING. OLD AGE DOES HAVE ITS ADVANTAGES.

BOB J.

The last entry about how they should forget the past and plan for the future was a memorable idea that will stick in my head, as long as it works.

HARVEY

PROP 8 - BUILDING BLOCK OF FUNDAMENTALISM

2008-11-14T03:00:00.000-08:00

California's Proposition 8, passed by a small majority in the recent election, defines marriage as ONLY between a man and a woman.

The years have shown that the marriage of any two individuals and the way they live their lives together or the way they get a divorce, is independent of law. Prop 8 overthrew a California Supreme Court decision that permitted marriage of any couples requesting the State's license to marry.

Now, as a nation, we are faced with the choice of enshrining this same proposition in the Constitution of the United States.

Unless we recognize this attack on individual rights and freedoms for what it is, we as a nation are doomed to an explosion of reactionary law-making that will bring Americans to live under similar intolerant tenets of religious fundamentalism seen in the Islamic world.

Proposition 8 is similar in kind to the attacks on women's rights now being conducted in courts throughout the land. Citizens running for election to political offices, from town Librarian to Mayor to member of the Board of Education and on up to the President, will declare their desire and willingness to tear down the separation of church and state and make decisions required in their positions that will dictate LEGAL prejudice, isolation, discrimination,

Prop 8 has many faces and many disguises. As our New England forebears stated so eloquently, "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." Unless we are vigilant and act on that vigilance, our liberties will exist only in history books.

SEARCH FOR COMMON GROUND - PATH TO ??

2008-11-13T03:09:00.000-08:00

Palestinians are Arabs who lived in a geographically ill-defined area of Middle East land, the borders of which have changed innumerable times over the centuries. Jews also have lived in that area for thousands of years. With the rise of the Zionist movement in the late eighteen hundreds whose goal is the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people, those Jews are often defined as Zionists, sometimes against their objections to such a non-religious name. Most Palestinians wish that Israel would disappear or be "disappeared." Hence, the Palestinian-Israel conflict.

"SEARCH FOR COMMON GROUND" is the name of an organization seeking to resolve the Palestinian-Israel conflict. Notice the difference between Palestinian, meaning people who live in a geographical area called "Palestine," and Israel, meaning a nation established in 1948 in part of that area. The conflict began in biblical times and continues to the present, having assumed many shapes over the centuries.

Common ground is an expression that generally implies an area of agreement between parties with differing points of view. Searching for that area of agreement and finding it should or may lead to agreement on issues in dispute by holding up the pictures of areas of agreement as guideposts on the way to agreement on those opposing issues, those issues in dispute.

However, when there are no common grounds that relate to the issues in dispute, the search for common ground is a misleading tactic in the way to agreement on issues in dispute. Being friendly with your opponent, a desired condition growing out of common ground, is of no use in the resolution of issues of belief and historical/geographical imperatives. As an example, if one loses a piece of jewelry that is found by another in neutral territory and claimed by the finder as belonging to him, no common ground can resolve the conflict of ownership.

Or, if one believes that a certain rock is holy, no finding of common ground will enable a non-believer to destroy or remove that rock from its location.

Or, if one is brought up to believe that a national territory extends to a certain location and if, after warfare over that territory, a non-national attempts to occupy that territory and claim it under the rules of war, absent some agreement that is based on a fair exchange of territory - patriotism, love of country, and history will simply nullify any change that is not found to be fair.

These are examples where “common ground” leads nowhere. History, religion, geography, patriotism, prior ownership, all nullify the benefits of cordial relations generated by finding common grounds that enable antagonists to discuss their disagreements in an amicable fashion.

The solution to the Palestinian-Israel conflict lies in the parties defining a future without reference to history, geography, religion, patriotism or any unchangeable immutable points of reference. What do the parties to the conflict want for their following generations? Peace, health, education, opportunity, prosperity, equality, and all the happiness that these may provide. Until the definition for the future is agreed upon, no discussion of territory will lead to a solution.

HISTORY'S GOLDEN RULE

2008-11-07T06:47:00.000-08:00

What is History's Golden Rule?"

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Not quite.
Do unto others. Closer.
He who has the gold makes the rules. Much closer.

History's "Golden Rule" is this, "He who writes the history has the gold."

And the corollary to the rule is that the winner is the one with the gold.

The writers of history in the first instance, the survivors of events, the victors in the field, the kings and queens and dictators and presidents, and all the leaders of nations, empires, tribes, and religions, and the puppeteers behind the curtains - the true powers, "the powers behind the thrones," who indeed control the writers of the first instance, are the power elites, the ones who have the gold. They are NOT historians. They are story tellers.

At some point in time, the "historical" stories begin to change, dependent on two conditions; independence and availability of evidence. After the first and second and possibly the third generation of winners have passed away, at times, a different group appears, removed from the influence of power, who write a different kind of history. It is history that more closely identifies the facts of historical events after research of available evidence.

Winners and losers switch places, evidence is often intentionally destroyed, and protagonists and antagonists die with historically important secrets buried with them. In addition, an influence on the veracity of historical documentation continues in its power to affect the writing of history, namely religious institutions that thrive regardless of power elites' demise.

Religious institutions provide the clearest proof of the nature of history's Golden Rule. Under the continuous mendacious claim of poverty, wealth and its power continue being amassed by every religious establishment concocted by the mind of man. Since the first cuneiform and wall paintings appeared, these establishments, in partnership with ever-changing power elites, write the histories. It is a rare history that is a true history that enters the doors of academe for educational usage. The writers of true histories and their books are relegated to the archives from which future historians may pull out a bone from the grave of buried truth.

Thus the cycle of historical adumbration continues, giving unto Mamon what is Mamon's, with false disinterest.

THE ISRAEL PALESTINIAN CONFLICT - NOVEMBER 2008

2008-11-06T07:21:00.000-08:00

Israel was established as a nation in 1948. The new nation was immediately attacked by five neighboring Arab armies. The Arab world with two exceptions, is still officially at war with Israel. Now, sixty years later, the Arabs still dream of pushing Israel into the sea. In addition, they have been joined by Iran in that crusade, though it states that it is not an Arab nation, whose leader has called for the annihilation of Israel.

The peoples of the Arab world fight and kill each other and anyone else that their political and religious leaders define as enemies. Tribal mores prevail to a substantial extent in the twenty countries of the Arab world. Not a single Arab country is a democracy though sham voting takes place under the guns of thedictatorships and various armed coalitions. Dictatorial religious leaders also determine the political directions these countries take.

In many ways, Arab populations live in the eighteenth century, (or even earlier in some cases,) culturally and economically and in their systems of government and what their governments have not provided such as education, health care, political and gender emancipation, and other standard protections and benefits that modern times have brought the western world. Their power, water, transportation, and waste disposal infrastructures, primitive to begin with, are decrepit with few exceptions. However, all of these countries expend enormous amounts of monetary and human capital on their military capability.

Five wars and sixty years have come and gone and modern democratic Israel is now in the process of electing a new government. The central issue in the election is who will be better able to deal with this ongoing conflict. Over these past years, the country has become a military, an economic, and an intellectual powerhouse that is comparable to the advanced western nations in its way of life, its economy, and in its democratic political structure.

Defining the difference between the parties vying for votes in this upcoming election can be simplified by one key philosophical difference tha has enormous ramifications for Israel's future; Talkers and Preparers.
The Talkers believe that war can be averted by talking and the Preparers of military power believe that their efforts will prevent war.

The Talkers will probably lose the election because the Preparers are backed by huge amounts of money in anticipation of the huge amounts of money to be made in the event of war. And sadly, because of the necessity to expend huge amounts of money to bribe the religious parties into joining the winning coalition and the reluctance and inability of the Talkers to expend such money, the Preparers will win.

AMERICA IN IRAQ - A "NO WIN" WAR

2008-11-06T07:13:00.000-08:00

If there is a "No Win" situation in war, it occurs when one warring party lives in the war zone and has nothing to lose but lives and it's a "no choice war," and the other warring party is an outsider sticking its nose in where it doesn't belong and by its presence, forces the natives to fight.

The United States initiated and fought such a war in Viet Nam. In the 20th century, wars of independence by "colonies" were such wars. Think, "Algeria and France," and other national wars of independence as examples. So long as foreign troops occupy land held dear by citizens, there will be never ending conflict. The United States, undeterred by its Viet Nam experience and in the unsubstantiated belief that it "paid" to take over Iraq's oil fields, created a causus belli out of whole cloth, sold it to the American people and a small number of other nation confederates, and marched into Iraq as into quick sand.

Now, in November of 2008, that war is being fought on the electoral turf of America. John McCain pounds his campaign lectern and states that if Barack Obama is elected president, the United States will lose the war in Iraq, and that he alone knows how to win that war. Obama's retort hits the easy mark by asking where has McCain been with this profound knowledge for the past five years and why did he not share his knowledge with his president.

Obviously, there is no possible victory in such a war as this quagmire. It is a classic "No Win" war that will serve West Point instructors well in coming years as the paradigm of a war that should never be fought by the United States on foreign soil. The Iraq war will serve to teach strategy and tactics for a defensive war should America ever be attacked by an invading force - an unlikely scenario in the foreseeable future.

Extrication is the word and the goal for the next president. Extrication of all foreign forces now in Iraq who went there as allies of the United States.

American presence in Iraq is based on falsehoods perpetrated by the leaders of the country. The nefarious and illegal actions of president George W. Bush and vice-president Richard Cheney should lead to immediate imprisonment, trial, and guilty verdict, and a death penalty for their murders of American soldiers and the murders of all the dead of Iraq.

TALKING WITH THE ENEMY vs. WHAT?

2008-11-06T07:10:00.000-08:00

History may teach the leaders of nations that being a "winner" in a war means determining future relations with the "loser." But wars have neither winners nor losers; that the fact of going to war means that everyone loses except the people who make money from war. Even the winners of territory are hard put to declare themselves winners unless that territory historically belonged to the winners. Death and destruction of property, including war materiel, makes populations losers by deprivation of the needs of life and the destruction of the quality of life.

So, given that wars are always between losers regardless of who gives up the fight and who is declared "winner," how can wars be averted? First, by insulating conflicts from acquisition-of-wealth influence and second, by the disputing parties talking with each other even when wealth is at stake.

All wars have an economic base. No war is ever fought if nothing of value is at stake. History and religion provide the fastest and surest bases for war. Possession of land and natural resources, slaves, populations, and religious adherents and religious space, access to ports, trade routes, and the means of production of wealth, and, believe it or not, for the destruction of wealth, are all good reasons for going to war.

However, populations are persuaded to march off to war for patriotic and religious reasons, for reasons of perceived injustice or for the security of their nations. Whatever mechanism is used to persuade, the underlying motivation for the war propaganda remains economic.

So how can talking cure the lust for wealth in a particular conflict situation? First and foremost, by removing wealth production from the causus beli. Second, by talking with the "enemy." Only then, is there a real possibility for arriving at solutions to conflicts between nations and ethnic groups. And so long as talking goes on, war goes off.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA - NOVEMBER 4, 2008

2008-11-06T07:06:00.000-08:00

Americans have chosen for their president at this historical moment a second Abraham Lincoln.

Barack Obama has arrived at the helm of the ship of state at a time of turmoil and terror. How fortuitous that a man of his stature and strength came forth from Illinois to assume the burdens of leadership at a time when the ship was foundering in the tempestuous storms brought on by his predecessor in the White House.

Amid the challenges of fear and hunger and the known horror that an eruption in our atomic age could bring, Barack Obama has stepped out to lead our country and to uplift our nation to a potential new age of honesty and openness in government, common sense in the roles of legislators and their constituents, intelligence and awareness of the nature of our times in judges' applications of the laws of our land, fairness in taxation and the distribution of the burdens of caring for our citizens, and dedication to a better future for the children of the world. These are changes that he has promised.

And he will bring his visions to his listeners with veracity and linguistic virtuosity, a happy change among the many of which he spoke in the months before his election.

With the same grace he has shown to the losers in his victory, we, the people who chose him to be our leader, must now show the patience and cooperation that he will need in the coming months and years of his presidency, to chart a new course for the nation and, in its dealings with the nations of the world. with wisdom, so that those who follow him in his role as captain will find the way to a happier, more equitable, world.

2008 PRE-ELECTION THOUGHTS - WHAT'S AT STAKE

2008-11-01T01:35:00.000-07:00

It's Friday night, October 31st, 2008. November 4th is Election Day for president and an enormous variety and number of political offices and propositions on which "The People" will vote.

The United States of America is in critical condition. It is suffering from so many unaccustomed ills. The economy is in deep trouble. We are at war in too many places. Our health care and education systems are inadequate to meet the challenges they face daily. Our country's position is the world has been so abased and we are held in such low esteem that the beacon to the world we were once has been extinguished. Our courts' higher levels have been loaded with judges litmus-test-chosen by their history on the bench of decision making restricted to and based on documents from our county's founding condition over two hundred years ago, and on a religious ethic that defies one of the foundation blocks of our democracy, the separation of church and state. Our country stands alone in its insistence on using the death penalty to reduce crime while at the same time our jails are overfilled with criminals, petty and monstrous, for whom there is no future but crime because of the "No coddling with education" policies of our state/police union controlled systems. And there are many more problems that can be listed to show that the land of the free and the home of the brave has been converted to the land of the enslaved and the home of the weak led by the power elite of the country in union with the political system that has passed laws allowing grand theft and rewarding the most successful thieves with even greater power to elevate their thievery to a level unsurpassed in the history of the nation. And the American People have been duped into believing that to have it any other way means "Liberalism" and "Socialism" and heaven forfend that the one percent of the power elite that holds 99 percent of the country's wealth be disabused of their belief that the fascistic economy they control is God's gift to them and them alone.

What's at stake is the future of the United States, its people, and the powerful of the free world descending into savage brutality leading an economic charge against ALL of the world's people. America turned into a white Darfur and Somalia in action under the banners of Syria, Iran, and North Korea, the axis of evil, the mirror of America that has become the evil renegade state leading civilization down to savagery.

Can Barack Obama turn around this headlong rush by these powerful forces? Half the people of the United States are against him. The wealthy and the poor uneducated indoctrinated masses who think he's a "socialist." Ha, ha. He will be elected president and shot when he seems to be successful. America is the leader of the free world in assassinating its leaders, did you know that?

EDUCATION vs. INDOCTRINATION - PROP. 8

2008-10-26T08:50:00.000-07:00

To educate means: 1. to provide schooling, 2. to develop mentally or morally, esp. by instruction. A synonym is “to teach.” Our Founding Fathers recognized the importance of education to preserve the democratic nature of our country.

To indoctrinate means: 1. to instruct, especially in fundamentals or rudiments: Teach, 2. to imbue with a usually partisan or sectarian opinion, point of view, or principle. Nazi Germany indoctrinated its people to further the cause (or curse) of Nazism through militarism, hatred of the “other,” and strict conformity to the dictates of its Dictator, Adolph Hitler.

In May of 2008, the California Supreme Court struck down a 2000 law that restricted same sex couples from marriage denying to them rights under the equal protection clause of the California Constitution that is similar to the equal protection clause in the United States Constitution.

CALIFORNIA CONSTITUTION
ARTICLE 1 DECLARATION OF RIGHTS

SECTION 1. All people are by nature free and independent and have
inalienable rights. Among these are enjoying and defending life and
liberty, acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and pursuing
and obtaining safety, happiness, and privacy.

Proposition 8 amends the California Constitution to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry within the state. It defines marriage as only between one man and one
woman.

Proposition 8 would deny constitutional rights and protections to homosexuals. The selling point of those who propose and sanction this proposition is that their children may be educated to the fact that homosexuals have the same rights as heterosexuals.

And for the citizens of our state who support the proposition in the wildly uneducated but strongly indoctrinated belief that homosexuality can be taught to their children in school and by use of books about gay marriage, they believe passing such an amendment will protect their children from the “evils” of education and provide them rather with the benefits of indoctrination to prejudice and intolerance, regardless of the facts of life.

Also, in the sad and harmful belief that they are acting morally by supporting Proposition 8, they are sadly harming a significant number of people in the State of California by their immoral act.

Vote NO on proposition 8!

REDUCE HEALTH CARE COSTS THE EASY WAY

2008-10-24T14:40:00.000-07:00

Jesus, where are you when we need you?

The cost of health care in the United States is twice as much per capita as the cost in any other westernized country in the world. The quality of health care ranks 24th in quality and availability when compared with those other countries. This amazing state of affairs has brought tragedy to many Americans and shock, dismay, and poor health care to a large number of insured people, mostly the working lower and middle classes. In addition, because of the high cost of health care insurance, many Americans are forced into frightening situation of not being able to obtain any health care outside of government or charitable offerings.

The reason for this situation is that a substantial amount of money that goes into the health care system, goes to companies that do not deliver any form of health care, namely, the insurance companies. Most of that money goes into profits, executive officer compensation at extremely high levels, and into the reserve pot of money from which actual payment for delivery of health care is drawn.

That "pot of money" is invested by the insurance companies for profit making purposes and that profit does not get injected back into the pot but instead goes into the coffers of the insurance companies for their own uses, namely, distribution of dividends to shareholders.

The easy way to reduce heath care costs is to remove all insurance companies from the health care field. The only costs that will continue are the costs of clerical workers (who are trained to deny health care to insureds under an enormous variety of pretexts) and other necessary costs such as office supplies, rent, and usual and customary costs of any legitimate business.

Then the "pot of money" can be invested in the same way the insurance companies invest it and the profits returned for delivery of health care.

This is comparable to Jesus chasing money-lenders from the temple.

AMENDMENTS FOR ALL AMERICANS

2008-10-23T11:27:00.000-07:00

The County Clerk gets anywhere from $10 to $25 to issue a state approved marriage license. Pastor Priest Mullah gets as much as possible to guarantee God approved Holy Matrimony. RELIGION HAS INFILTRATED GOVERNMENT - NO? Fortunately, the population has a choice about most aspects of marriage.

You are not allowed to masturbate. Black and white may not marry. You can be arrested and fined for having or giving oral sex. No matter how lonely a cowboy is, he may not have sex with a cow. It’s OK for a teacher to talk about war and killing and bloodshed to the kids in her class. It should be a federal offense to say that two women or two men can get married.

I would like to see constitutional amendments for some very important values in my eyes. Making dictionary definitions into law or changing dictionary definitions into law, does not get me excited. Like “Marriage must be between a man and a woman,” does not strike me as warranting a change to the foundational laws of the United States. Now, if it were to be changed to, “Marriage must be between a man and a woman of the same color,” that would get me excited. Or, “Masturbation, oral sex, and bestial sodomy, not leading to human conception, are against the interests of the United States,” would be a good constitutional amendment. Or how about,”Showing pictures of war and bloodshed on television is OK, but showing a bare breast, by shocking the under-eighteen year old population, is forbidden.” I know that Pastor Priest Mullah would like such constitutional amendments.

How about a constitutional amendment that states, “No person in the United States may be denied health care due to “Insufficient Funds.” Or, “No establishment shall make a profit by controlling the distribution of health care if that establishment does not provide health care.”

How about, “There shall be a single national standard for driver education and testing in the United States.”

I like amendments that are not faith-based and that have wide beneficial impact on the people of the United States. How do you feel about that?