As far back as I can go in memory... I hated violence... Maybe I was scared... Maybe I was a chicken... But the truth is I hated violence... The legend says that I came home in the evenings and told my parents that I do not want to go to school... "They are picking on me... they are beating me..." I do not remember... but my mother told us these... and also that my father instructed my brother, a year younger than me; "Beat all those who attack your brother... Do not let them pick on him..." Well, I guess that qualifies me as a chicken... But no matter what I hated violence... as far back as my memory can take me... Recently... I completed a first draft of my memories... My childhood and adolescence and maturity... I sealed all of that and gave it to my elder daughter... She will do with it whatever she wants to do with it... I did not write it for the preying public... I did not write it for the youth who are addicted to voyeurism... I wrote it for me... They say the first draft of a writing comes from the heart...Well I stopped at the first draft... I have lived through much violence... in schools as student and as teacher and as professor... I have lived violently not by the gun, but by the word... and loved it... people who could not tolerate the word resorted to physical violence... I hated that...!!! Once they threatened one of my dear friends... We were young, 22 and 23 years old, and my friend was an aspiring playwright... He wrote wonderfully and he mocked the ruling system brilliantly... So they did not like him... and one of our fascist student acquaintances on the campus... threatened him... My friend was scared and the fascist student was cocky... We were at a football(soccer) game...in front of the stadium the fascist again confronted my friend... and true enough he let us see his pistol under his vest... My friend was scared shitless...I decided to act... "Okay stop the bullshit... take your gun and shoot him..." I challenged... The fascist got confused... he knew the system was with him and nothing will be done to him... his father was an apparatchik sycophant... living from the people ... on the people... because of the people... But the fascist was not expecting a challenge to his game... He just crawled away... (John Oliver or the German comic would rather say... He fucked off...) .....................................
Wars cause death and destruction... But wars are profitable too... Wars maim...injure...wound the humanity within us... But wars provide money for the war machine...
People, the "politically correct" liberals oppose gun violence and gun sales in North America... But these groups condone the gun violence caused by wars... They are against death penalty, but they support the war industry... they support wars...
The "Western democracies"... sell guns to Saudi Arabia... for profit.
Israel sells guns to Islamist-fascists in Azerbaijan... for material gains... Israel overlooks the fact that the Islamist-authoritarian rule in Azerbaijan represses its own people and also uses those weapons to wage war against the Christian Armenians... They want to eliminate Armenia from the map... and Turkey supports them in their "mission."
Russia sells arms to whomever pays the price... Iran, Syria... and Azerbaijan... and other "funny" regimes...
China sells arms to African countries... closes its eyes to the war mongering North Koreans...
War is profitable... Killing people, albeit in wars, pays big money... and big irony...the killers do not go to jail,they even are rewarded...
.....................
Ross, the chaplain at my last teaching post, and I were out for fun and dinner and drinks... After our happy hour drinks, we were walking to get our theater tickets and stumbled upon a demonstration... It was anti-war and against Western intervention in Iraq...
Ross gets enthusiastic and excited very easily... the kid bubbles up in him and he wanted to join the demo...
So we walked along... for a block or two... with them...
We got our tickets and went for dinner somewhere close to the theater... After dinner Ross expounded on his theories of war and peace... he said:"Now that the Soviet Union is gone... the West needs another evil culprit... and soon they will create one... The invasion of Iraq is the prelude to that... they need an evil group so as they will tell the people that those are the bad ones and so we are the good ones..."
He also explained his futuristic theory of wars to come... he said:
"The American economy is in trouble... The Western economies are on shaky grounds... China is overtaking them... India is emerging as an economic power... China and India have an unlimited supply of internal cheap labour available to them... The West and America cannot compete with them..."
He took a long breath and drank few sips of his drink and continued... So the only competition free production for America are weapons... and in other to bolster the economy... they need o sell arms... and in order to sell arms they need wars..."
He stopped... I was listening to his passionate theorizing...
"So they need an evil... to they their people that they are bad and we are good... Also they need to sell arms..."
He stopped for a long while... and I did not interrupt the interlude... I just waited for him to continue... and he did not... he was in a space of his own... almost not their with me... After a long while... he said:
"That's why there will be more wars... Wars are profitable to Big Brother... and the smaller brothers are killed and maimed... That's why I will not visit America from now on... no matter what..."
I knew that he visited Cape Cod with his Irish friends... every summer... But stopped crossing the border... and missed his friends and Cape Cod...too...
A place to find balance between the lives we live, and the natural world that surrounds us. Cape Cod is a unique isle.
........................
Give us a Break... Let us have Free Speech... or else... People will fight for it...
Check it out...
Dr. Paul Song, railing and ranting against the relationship between politicians and corporations before Sanders' supporters on Wednesday, said, "Medicare-for-all will never happen if we continue to elect corporate Democratic whores who are beholden to big pharma and the private insurance industry instead of us."
But,
Must we ban-censor his demeaning-sexist language ...?
According to the Turkish president... we should...!!!
But here in the U.S. the First Amendment... dictates...
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances."
.........................................................
But in Europe the "Western democracies" are giving way and succumbing to the dictatorial pressures from Turkey...
| The Turkish president
Erdogan holds leverage over Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, at the moment, and he
knows it very well. The German chancellor used to chide the Turkish
president over freedom of expression, stressing her opposition to
Turkey's EU accession, but now there is a softer approach... since she needs him for the "migration crisis..." ........................................ Suddenly Turkey is essential to stopping the migration flow to Europe and Mrs Merkel is treading very carefully... After all freedom of speech and morals and principles and convictions are "commodities... which may be traded" in the Global Village that we live in... And trade is for profit... Barter morality and principles for profit and the settling of the migrant crisis... ........................................................ Insulting the president or the country... happens so often that Turkish citizens have almost stopped raising eyebrows when a case of "insulting the president" is opened... After all, it happens frequently... in Turkey... Initially, when a former Miss Turkey, or Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk or the country's most famous cartoonist or a 13-year-old boy were accused of insulting Mr Erdogan, there was shock among the peple and in the ranks of the political opposition...
But now, with almost 2,000 such cases opened and journalists and reporters jailed, there is little surprise left - even when the target is a German citizen...
|
*** Debate is GREAT... Banning anything is stupidity...
"According to polling, 62 percent of all Tennesseans favor making the Holy Bible the state book in order to recognize its significance from a historical, economic and cultural standpoint," the House sponsor, Representative Jerry Sexton, said.
But the governor vetoes the bill... saying... "My personal feeling is that this bill trivializes the Bible, which I believe is sacred text," Haslam, a Republican, wrote.
So the Republican congress is debating the Republican governor...
Let them debate... Debate is good... Censorship is stupid and is evil...
...And
A woman in Ohio has been charged with live streaming the rape of a friend.
Police say Marina Alexeevna Lonina used Periscope to webcast while a guy, Raymond Boyd Gates, raped her friend. Lonin will be arraigned later today. It's another headache for Twitter, which owns Periscope and has had issues with online harassment in the past.
Why will anyone, let alone a friend, live stream the rape of a friend... Rape is inhumane to start with... It is the aggression of males having their penis as the lethal weapon...
But live streaming is a new, maybe technological dimension of inhumanity...
Should we censor it... Maybe we should... But I will suggest to educate the youth instead of censoring anything...
Ross, me chaplain friend, agreed with me...
Police say Marina Alexeevna Lonina used Periscope to webcast while a guy, Raymond Boyd Gates, raped her friend. Lonin will be arraigned later today. It's another headache for Twitter, which owns Periscope and has had issues with online harassment in the past.
Why will anyone, let alone a friend, live stream the rape of a friend... Rape is inhumane to start with... It is the aggression of males having their penis as the lethal weapon...
But live streaming is a new, maybe technological dimension of inhumanity...
Should we censor it... Maybe we should... But I will suggest to educate the youth instead of censoring anything...
Ross, me chaplain friend, agreed with me...
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.