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TechnoratiWeapons: Our #1 Export?
The phrase "Obama has a lot on his plate" is the understatement of the year. The president has a to-do list a mile long, and every day a new crisis (like the coup in Honduras) gets added to the list. Can we really fault him if he sneaks the occasional smoke?
But before he heads out to the presidential woods, one of the tasks still undone is to update and revise U.S. arms export policy. The last official version of U.S. arms export policy is from the Clinton years. In addition to the usual rhetoric about promoting regional stability, ensuring U.S. military superiority, and promoting "peaceful conflict resolution and arms control, human rights, democratization," Presidential Decision Directive 34 (February 1995) inserted a new consideration: "enhanc[ing] the ability of the U.S. defense industrial base to meet U.S. defense requirements and maintain long term military superiority at lower costs." In other words, a potential arms sale should be judged in part on whether it is good for weapons manufacturers.
Not every administration needs a formal export policy. Under the guise of the global war on terror, President George W. Bush fast-tracked weapons sales, released countries from arms embargoes, and pumped more money into foreign military aid. His policy was — in essence —sell, sell, sell, and he did it without issuing a formal policy statement.
But now, President Barack Obama needs to decisively break with Bush era practices. Unfortunately, so far the administration is opting for less clarity and more verbiage.
With Friends Like These
At a May 2009 Defense Writers Group convened by the Center for Media and Security, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy was asked "whether the Obama administration will follow the general policy of supporting exports?" and "do you anticipate any change in terms of where US arms will be sold?" Flournoy responded: "We don't have a sort of arms sale policy as much as more a sense of commitment to building partner capacity." But she asserted that the United States isn't going to "hawk" a given weapon system around the world. She said something similar a month earlier, at the Center for Strategic and International Studies: We "have a direct interest in helping our allies and partners build their capacity to be security contributors, to be able to step up alongside us in shoring up the international system."
Vice Admiral Jeffrey Wieringa, the head of the Pentagon agency that administers weapons exports, was blunter: "We sell stuff to build relationships."
But last year, the United States sold arms or military services to well over 100 nations. Can they all really be reliable security partners? If not, will the Obama administration shorten this extensive list of customers? And will it seek better ways to build ties to countries like Pakistan than sending them nuclear-capable F-16 fighters, which are more likely to be used against India than in fighting al-Qaeda or the Taliban?
Absent an explicit shift away from Bush administration policies, U.S. weapons sales are likely to continue to fuel conflict and abet human rights abuses. During the two Bush terms, the majority of U.S. arms sales to the developing world went to countries that our own State Department defined as undemocratic regimes and/or major human rights abusers. And over two-thirds of the world's active conflicts involved weapons that had been supplied by the United States.
One thing is clear. In the absence of a firm and clear policy, a lot of weapons are being exported. In fiscal year 2008, the foreign military sales program sold $36 billion in weapons and defense articles, an increase of more than 50% over 2007. Sales for the first half of 2009 reached $27 billion, and could top out at $40 billion by the end of the year. In contrast, through the early 2000s, arms sales averaged between $8-13 billion per year.
The Push Factor
Among the many limitations of Undersecretary Flournoy's formulation of the Pentagon's "commitment to building partner capacity" is that it avoids confronting the domestic constituency for weapons exports, namely weapons manufacturers and their congressional allies.
This dynamic is now being played out over the F-22 Raptor.
This irrelevant high-tech wonder, originally conceived to counter a
Soviet-era plane that was never built, has for the moment been saved from the ignobility of Defense Secretary Robert Gates' cutting room floor by a concerted effort from Lockheed Martin executives, machinist union members,
and congressional representatives with manufacturing facilities in
their districts (and company checks in their coffers). The Air Force
has said they don't need the F-22, and Gates himself pointed out that
it had flown no missions in Iraq or Afghanistan.
But rather than planning for the eventuality that the F-22 production
line will close in a year or two, Lockheed Martin and its allies are
fighting back. They may or may not win their battle
to add up to a dozen F-22s to this year's military budget. But should
these efforts fail, they have a fallback position: export them. Japan,
Israel, and Australia have all expressed strong interest in the fighter
plane. Current law prohibits foreign sales of the F-22,
but Lockheed and its friends in Congress are pushing to change that.
Japan is playing its part by harping on fears of foreign competition.
Japan has announced that if the F-22 is not available it could go with
the European Typhoon instead.
Japan's stoking of the competitive fires is just one example of rising global demand for high-tech weapons. A dozen or so nations are in the market for fighter planes, including Brazil, Denmark, and Greece. And as Boeing's Vice President Robert Gower told reporters in Paris, "It is a great time to be in the fighter business."
Loren Thompson, a pro-export pundit with the Lexington Institute — and not so coincidentally, a consultant to Lockheed Martin — takes it a step further, predicting that for the United States, "weapons could be the single biggest export item over the next ten years."
Increased weapons sales will certainly help defense contractors weather the current economic crisis. But they won't help the overall U.S. economy or the security of the international community.
87 Comments so far
Show Allvdb, bornfreemen, johnsavage, et al make their points. But the critical part is in the main left unsaid: Wall Street and the international banking establishment make loans to munition-client states. The quid pro quo: use, say, 50-80% of that loaned money to _purchase_ weapons. Result: armed, militarized governments that force their citizens through oppressive taxation to pay for the very weapons that maintain them under the iron heel. Thus, very little of those bank loans helps build essential infrastructure and needed public services. In turn, such armed governments can easily assassinate union leaders, dissidents and journalists. It's a race to the economic bottom abroad. Nay, it's a post-Treaty of Versailles type world in every other Third World country. Jack London knew this after reading Teddy Roosevelt's statements...
These are _our_ very real foreign policies. Is it any wonder the oppressed of the world despise us? Is it any wonder the sole weapon left to the weak is terror? Until we force satrap governments to use IMF/World Banks to invest in and build infrastructure: utilities, public services, educational, housing, agricultural, etc., we will be "victims" of terror in perpetuity. But, it is not "profitable." Profits! The ROI and markup on weapons is remarkable compared to other non-lethal exports.
I invested time in seriously studying this issue back in the mid-70's when the UK was undergoing its "troubles" and Latin America was still a powder keg. Little has changed, other than the "problem" has spread to energy-rich Africa and the Middle East all the way to Pakistan.
International corporatism, what a concept.
Weapons are insane. Fireworks are sane. In my neighborhood, fireworks are illegal. But you can shoot off your AK-47, even blast a cannon.
Humans.
quoting a major international body, six basic points harshly criticizing the practices and impacts of the arms industry are listed below, by J.W. Smith:
1. That the armament firms have been active in fomenting war scares and in persuading their countries to adopt warlike policies and to increase their armaments.
2. That armament firms have attempted to bribe government officials, both at home and abroad.
3. That armament firms have disseminated false reports concerning the military and naval programs of various countries, in order to stimulate armament expenditure.
4. That armament firms have sought to influence public opinion through the control of newspapers in their own and foreign countries.
5. That armament firms have organized international armament rings through which the armament race has been accentuated by playing off one country against another.
6. That armament firms have organized international armament trusts which have increased the price of armaments sold to governments.
— J.W. Smith, The World's Wasted Wealth II, (Institute for Economic Democracy, 1994), p. 224
For a comprehensive view on this critically important subject read:
The Arms Trade is Big Business
at http://www.globalissues.org/
First the US fans the seeds of division and conflict all over the world then it offers to "help" by selling arms. Talk about disreputable! America is now the Adnan Kashoggi of the world's international arms business.
the only people the americans refused to sell weapons to were the original natives of that land.
China, Russia, Israel, the UK, and France are also notorious weapons proliferators. Even if the US DID stop selling weapons all over the world, those other countries would gladly take up the slack. This global insanity knows no bounds - even though the profits from selling weapons brings little or no benefit to the nations that sell them... so much for all those 'fiscal conservatives' - they are also deep in denial.
I can easily understand why every nation would want to keep enough small arms around for its own people to defend themselves against invasion - such as the AK-47s in every Iraqi home, or the Swiss system. Anything beyond that is TERRORISM - plain and simple, because beyond military rifles (the AK-47 is a preferred weapon because it is DEPENDABLE) and maybe a few RPGs, there aren't many other weapons that the average person could use to defend his/her home and/or community.
Selling military hardware should be considered a 'crime against humanity' since their only proven use is for terrorism. (And that includes cluster-bombs, land-mines, ALL weapons-capable aircraft, submarines, naval vessels, etc.) In all the wars since WWI, civilians have been the primary target, regardless of what military lobbyists claim - and that means all those 'wars' (because often the target country didn't even have a formal modern military, and there had been no 'official' declaration of war) have been wars of aggression - technically, crimes against humanity; the ultimate war-crime from which all other war-crimes are spawned.
As resources dwindle, the demands of newer and ever more powerful weapons - the tools of terrorism - will devour those very vital resources at a geometrically progressive rate. The inevitable result will be a slaughter of unthinkable magnitude - devastation on an unprecedented massive scale - as nations compete to fuel their bloated armies. This was the straw that broke Hitler's back - the resources demanded by his military machine reached impossible proportions - and created ludicrous situations: horses pulling tanks; cattle yoked to move war-planes around airfields; even dogs were finally employed to pull gargantuan loads as the fuel and rubber needed to support the Nazi military-machine devoured every available resource. And let's not forget WHY Auschwitz was built in the first place - so IG Farben could produce a rubber-substitute. As the resources required by military machinery become depleted, HUMANS become the ONLY available resource. In fact, just reading the history of WWII - on both fronts - belies the excuses found in contemporary history books about WHY these wars started, spread, and became global - and so inhuman - as the obsession with the control of 'essential' industries and resources inevitably drove nations into absolute insanity. It's also why the US and UK, France, and other European countries built exploitive empires - to plunder the resources needed to fuel the war machines.
There is something gut-wrenchingly perverse about circular reasoning - especially when it comes to arming the empire: the sole purpose of war becomes 'arming the empire' - and everyone else (especially those pesky civilians) become nothing more than 'collateral damage' at best. Hence escalation is also inevitable - the law of diminishing returns (on a finite planet) is not the fault so much of capitalism as it is SOP for fascism. This isn't a 'race to the bottom' - it is a 'race to extinction' and a miserable trail, at that. The permanent members of the UN 'Security Council' are also the primary exporters of insecurity - not only for the rest of the world, but for ourselves as well.
I only wish that every single American could have seen the results of militarism (fascism, nationalism, corporatism, predatory capitalism, or whatever else you wish to call it) in post-WWII Europe, as I did. Indelibly burned into my mind was the oft-repeated refrain of: "Why? Why? What was it all for? Such a terrible waste - and for what? Why?" as various members of my family gazed upon the carnage, mourning the lost relatives, the lost years, and the unspeakably horrific devastation spread across a once-idyllic landscape.
In all honesty, I cannot fathom WHY any human being would be involved - even in the most indirect way - with the manufacture of the machinery of war. What is more important to our future - to that of our children and grandchildren - than peace, freedom, security, and prosperity? What kind of sick and twisted being would sacrifice their souls - and that of their very own children - on such an altar of death and destruction? What price a pay-check? Those of you who collect those checks should never forget that they are written with the blood of innocent children - perhaps someone else's today, but your children will pay with their lives, and with their blood as well. It is blood-money - and it is an abomination such as I will NEVER understand. I might forgive the brainwashed children, indoctrinated with decades of propaganda and nationalistic nonsense - but I cannot EVER excuse their parents, who must - or should - know better. And not just Americans, for few actually saw the horrific devastation their war-machines had wrought - but the Europeans, the Russians, the British, the French, and the Chinese - the very core of the UN that had been created to PREVENT such mindless criminality, and swore: NEVER AGAIN. And then, before the dust had even settled over the rubble, started building even more formidable weapons - insuring that 'NEVER AGAIN' would be nothing more than a self-serving hypocritical bumper-sticker.
We have met the enemy - and they are us.
Where did Hitler get the money to build his war machine??????????? Germany was bankrupt in the early thirts when Hitler took over.
War is needed for increased weopons manufacturing. And the banks lend money for wars.
Where did Hitler get the money to fund his war machine???????
Banks are the root of all evil,war, and human carnage. Kaos makes money, war brings kaos.
"Where did Hitler get the money to fund his war machine???????"
ask bush's gran'pappy.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/2434851/Wartburg-Hitlers-Secret-Bankers
The military wouldn't be in reckless status if only more people had their accounts in credit unions over banks. During the Great Depression when credit unions saved the day, the military was tamed and stayed that way until after WWII followed by escalation starting with Vietnam. There should be Peak Military somewhere around the corner though.
"starting with Vietnam"
During WWII the US supported Ho Chi Mihn's struggle against the Japanese.
At the war's end, due to a lack of fit white guys in the region, these same Japanese were re-armed to help France regain it's colony.
Ho expected continued support from a nation which was born out of resistance to colonial exploitation and was sorely dissappointed.
(France's attempt to hold on to Vietnam was almost exclusively financed by the US, starting immediately after WWII's end)
Sioux Rose
ARMYBRAT: A brilliant post! I am saving this one. You add much to the case I seek to present as per "Mars rules." And why this is a crime against not only humanity, but the Holy Spirit. Isn't it ironic that most spiritual/religious prophets come to teach the ways for human beings to get along, a few easy rules that would facilitate that process. Yet the leaders of too many flocks use their influence and power to turn population against population? Some in this forum see history ONLY through the prism of economics, that elites manipulate the naive belief of civilians to rouse feelings of nationalism and enough passion to fuel war. I think they under-estimate ideology and what spirituality/religion actually means to a lot of people. The alternative to a life of quiet desperation, limited economic options or job satisfaction for many results in an inward search for meaning. I just find it CRIMINAL that this search has been co-opted by a number of religious institutions (and ALL patriarchal religions are guilty of this) so as to work against the teachings of Spirit, and arm person against person. The net result is homage to Mars (with Mammon being equally served by this Faustian bargain). Love, which is to say homage to Venus, is the antidote to a world suffused with far too much MARS influence.
Thank you for sharing your INTELLIGENCE and INSIGHTS today.
Great insight as always. Wisdom from a modern sage: You can bomb the world into pieces, but you can't bomb it into peace. - Michael Franti & Spearhead
FOLLOW THE MONEY! Not only do we the Taxpayers pay for our own weapons, Forign Aid is generally DIRECTLY linked to a promise from the gifted country that they buy an equal amount of weapons from US corporations. I have read well researched articles about this and feel strongly the entire situation is pretty much about corporate profits. There is an out of print book 'The Rise and Fall of the Krupp Empire' that speaks well of what war based corporations did for Germany. Events of the last thirty years and more seem to show We the People are definately last in line for the benifits of society. Government seems to be an instrument to move private money into Corporate hands, in a larger part through the Military.
Veteran '66-68
It's very likely that the USA is dumping arms around the world. Dumping means selling below cost, usually to steal market share, but in this case to "build relationships" and to "grow the US economy" and to cultivate global chaos to ensure the Pentagon is "further needed". The difference is absorbed by US taxpayers.
"Building partner capacity", Jhesu-bleffing-Kripe! the Orbamawellians are making their mark on the poor battered mama tongue . . .
Manufacturing of weapons and selling them worldwide is our second largest export.
Allow me to explain.
Yesterday , on FOX's Glenn Beck show, his guest was an ex- CIA employee, or so they claim. He stated during is evil right wing neocon monolog, " the only way Americans were going to demand that their government make them more safe was if Osama Bin Lauden attacked America again" and only Osama could do it.Wow, they better find that guy soon.
If Fox news has any reporting or journalistic credibilty left , they lost it yesterday by allowing this right wing lunatic on the air.
Its people like him, that show us all that the number one American global export is fear. Fear mongering in the USA is what allows the number two export from our country to be weapons.
Because , if we , Americans , are afraid of our own shadows,with the most powerful military in the world at our beck and call, than how safe can any other country feel.
Not safe enough, not without our weapons... Chaaaa-Ching.
Wake up America.We got sold out by the military industrial complex who have made a play to steal our country and shutdown the constitution and our democracy.
Stop watching Fox, they are all fearmongering fools reporting on that news network.
BornFreemen
Gang stalking torture victim 2.7 years and runing by right wing community watch , IAFF, EMS , Christian lunatics.I wish I was crazy, but this stazi network is real, and they have had 7 years of fearmongering, money , and power to help them become a nation wide good old boy terrorist network of slandering thugs.
Becasue you can not have a nation wide network without suspects, so they lie to create fear and suspects.
I will never trust a fireman or EMS driver again, ever.
Feeling safe is a state of mind, not the consequence of how many weapons, soldiers, or police you have. If you are afraid, then no amount of weaponry or police/military protection will make you feel safe. Moderate fear is a natural response to real threats in the world. But too many people in this country are afraid of unreal or irrational things - crime, foreigners, anal-probing aliens, the UN's 'black helicopters', exploding Islamists, plague-carrying Mexicans, 'creeping socialism', bird flu, swine flu, change, life, death...thinking...the list goes on. Only those with the fear can ease their own fear. Certainly government and all its weapons can't help them.
Deepa
"Amnesty accuses Israel of using human shields in Gaza"
JERUSALEM: Amnesty International accused Israeli forces of war crimes, saying they used children as human shields and conducted wanton attacks on civilians during their offensive in the Gaza Strip.
The London-based human rights group said it found no evidence that the Islamist rulers of Gaza used civilians as human shields during the 22-day offensive Israel launched on December 28.
It also reiterated its call for an international arms embargo against Israel.
"Much of the destruction was wanton and resulted from direct attacks on civilian objects," Amnesty said in a study.
Israeli troops forced Palestinians to stay in one room of their home while turning the rest of the house into a base and sniper position, "effectively using the families, both adults and children, as human shields and putting them at risk," the group said.
"Intentionally using civilians to shield a military objective, often referred to as using 'human shields' is a war crime," Amnesty said.
It could not support Israeli claims that Hamas used human shields. It said it found no evidence Palestinian fighters directed civilians to shield military objectives from attacks, forced them to stay in buildings used by militants, or prevented them from leaving commandeered buildings.
I can't say that the only weapons we export the most are those of metal. The biggest weapons that the US exports the most are those of knowledge. No, you don't see it at first but bribe those leaders enough and accept bad ideas of training potential dangerous people with dangerous knowledge and you're #1 in exporting the weapons of dangerous knowledge.
yes,
Bush is gone..
But Halliburton keeps on cashing checks..
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=15382
As this is something I feel more should be aware of, I shall post this passage again:
The American government has always maintained the right of its citizens to ship arms to belligerents. President Washington took this position when France protested against the sale of arms to England in 1793, the answer being that "THE EXPORTING FROM THE UNITED STATES OF WARLIKE INSTRUMENTS AND MILITARY STORES IS NOT TO BE INTERFERED WITH." - Theodore Roosevelt's "Fear God..."p.160
These people have been gun runners from the getgo.
Sioux Rose, good point. Imagine if everyone were allowed to carry knives to soccer games in order to be "safe"?
Have you seen Lord of War with Nicholas Cage? It's really good and deals with arms trafficking.
When you are the #1 arms merchant in the world you have a vested interest in war. War is good for profits. Peace sells but who's buying?
Sioux Rose
RIC: It also becomes Disaster Capitalism's own quite profitable self-fulfilling prophecy. I mean with all those arms, what percentage acts as a deterrent, against what percent is inevitably put to use? This profliferation in growingly efficient weapons of destruction puts every human (and animal) at risk. And if $ is the name of the game in trafficking arms, what's to stop a private army like Blackwater or a South American drug cartel equivalent from finding ways to obtain these dandies on the black market? I'm sure there's a famous quote somewhere that deconstructs the LIE that weapons make a society safer. Like those statistics surrounding domestic gun possession, it's generally inhabitants of said households that tend to figure most prominently in the figures of despair (i.e. ending up on the fatality lists).
Selling weapons is necessary to keep the international plutocracy in power by giving them the ability to crush any populist movements they feel threaten them. The U.S. government will continue to make it priority number one to subsidize its weapons manufacturers.
Selling weapons is necessary to keep the international plutocracy in power by giving them the ability to crush any populist movements they feel threaten them. The U.S. government will continue to make it priority number one to subsidize its weapons manufacturers.
Deepa
The question is, why is the United States aggressively pursuing this deadly trade?
The first reason is strategic. The executive branch wants to preserve its “freedom of action” to arm U.S.-allied countries such as Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and groups like the Afghan mujahadin, Jonas Savimbi’s UNITA movement in Angola, warlords in Somalia, and terrorist groups opposed to the current government in Iran.
The related second reason is economic (i.e. control of markets and natural resources). Us supplies weapons to strengthen those regimes that promote and protect the US economic interests.
It is known that the recent occupation of Somalia by Ethiopia and the subsequent appointment of Somalia government have been orchestrated by the United States of America, was to control of oil fields there. Salim Lone, a columnist for the Daily Nation in Kenya and a former spokesperson for the UN mission in Iraq says: “Somalia itself and the region, the Horn of Africa, is newly oil-rich. Kenya has some oil. Oil is the key to domination for the United States -- global domination, I mean. But it is going about, you know, the wrong way to get that oil. The US is also worried that its welcome in the Middle East is diminishing, and they need to make sure -- both they want to encircle the Middle East with the oil field, and they want to make sure they have Somalia and other countries handy for the oil.” (www.democracynow.org, 27.4.2007).
US supplies weapons to the opposition groups in countries where the current governments are opposed to promoting the US economic interests. This creates instability and civil wars and conflicts.
The record of predatory capitalism and heartless, absolute greed is consistent. It leaves mass human wreckage everywhere. The US and the Western economic neoliberalism and the shock doctrine of deconstruction and chaos can be seen around the world. For example, the capacity to control natural resources in Africa is enhanced by spreading terror, uprooting people, destroying families, and sowing distrust and hatred.
Since 1990 twenty-two of the thirty-two countries in the lowest economic development category have experienced armed conflicts and the deadly arms have been supplied (either directly or indirectly) by weapons producing and supplying countries. The armed conflicts in countries cause political chaos, destroy the infrastructure and make a huge dent on their economies, which make them vulnerable. This, in turn, provides an easy access for the transnational companies to their markets and natural resources.
This is what is happening in Congo.
What is the number one weapon found most common in all these conflicts? The AK-47 and the US does not produce the AK-47. Look to russia and eastern european nations. The US does not produce the RPG, but you will find that weapon in all these conflicts as well. You will find that the AR-15 or M-16 is used very little by these civil conflics, most of the small arms are from Russia, Belgium and Germany.
Well, our weapons are tooo expensive and, after all, we would not deal with them anyway. We only arm our friendly dictators and rights abusers.
But I could be wrong !
Sioux Rose
DEEPA: Sound analysis. I think in terms of the type (and massive amount) of karma all this pro-killing activity induces. The moral depravity is made clear when the same countries that buy arms don't do much to feed their own people. And in the U.S. while the MIC beast is coddled and given its share of pork barrel welfare checks, increasingly more go without homes, food, or health care. If there was such a thing as Satan, imagine the width of his grin seeing all this done in the name of mostly "Christian" nations. It's been said that evil works primarily through the tool of deception. If this was a basketball game, evil would have a higher score right about now.
Deepa
Sioux Rose, you are absolutely right about moral depravity of the leaders of countries that buy weapons.
However, I think the issue is more complex. Take the example of India and Pakistan. The MISTRUST, created by political leaders in both countries (there are better relations between common people of India and Pakistan), the Cold War Era, and the British Raj, is the most conducive ground for the weapon industries. The tensions between these two countries continue to be heightened by political leaders for political gains, and weapons-supplying countries for business interests. Since the governing political leaders receive huge amounts of bribe from weapon industries, they benefit politically and economically by keeping the tensions between the countries at a high level. Even the political leaders in the weapons-supplying countries receive huge amounts of bribe from the weapons industries.
On the other hand, US continues to heighten the tensions between India and Pakistan by supplying more weapons to Pakistan. So india is forced to spend more money on buying new weapons. Now US is supplying weapons to Pakistan directly, and to India through Israel. Israel overtook Russia as the major weapons-supplier to India. This is where US benefits more if a dictator rules Pakistan. That is why US has been trying to dethrone the democratically elected government. (Musharaf is given safe haven in UK).
So weapons-supplying countries (which are not only economically rich, but also control international trade, financial agencies like IMF and World Bank, and UN & Security Council) create tensions among dependent/economically poor countries in order to create conducive atmosphere to sell their weapons.
This is very much evident in Africa. After the Cold War and the fall of USSR, US and Israel are the main culprits in not only creating and heightening tensions among countries, but also supplying weapons to countries, which further increase the tensions that lead to further spending on weapons.
Therefore, it is a vicious cycle.
The only solution, I perceive, is: citizens in US and Israel should fill the streets demanding their governments to stop this nonsense. Until and unless this happens, nothing can stop the GREED of those few, who are benefiting from weapons trade.
Sioux Rose
DEEPA: Thank you for broadening the scope of my argument (and points). You are totally correct. I was the guest of a young man from Kashmir as he was my humble travel agent when I courageously went through India on my own back in 2004. Needless to say those from Kashmir have their own regional interests that they feel justified in rigorously protecting, too. India could become a monster.
Perhaps the only thing that would help alleviate the situation of escalating world armaments would be enough persons experiencing a spiritual epiphany where they realize the price of so-called defense is more likely to destroy their children's futures. It is far more cost-effective to learn to get along, expand tolerance of cultural differences, exotic mores, and basic sensibilities. I believe women have MUCH to bring to this transformation as many have retained high levels of empathy in part from their own poor treatment by societies that still hold them as second-class citizens.
It is clear that the elites manipulate these differences to shore up enough antipathy to guarantee future wars; for after all, a great deal of profit results from these calamitous outcomes. If enough persons recognized the legacy of war in terms of the land mines that burn the limbs off children long after the conflict is over; and more recently in terms of the radioactive impact of depleted uranium, a global critical mass of higher consciousness might be reached. I don't rule out the intention on the part of elites to do what they can to reduce the world population. The fact that huge wars with enormous losses have been started over false pretexts is eery enough; and that no force (apart from that wonderful Spanish judge! and a few American legal experts) has demanded accountability does not bode well for those who love life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness everywhere. I do believe there are higher factors that can act as karmic arbiters, and on some level, these influences will (and are) come into play.
Thank you for your important post & response.
Siouxrose
You wrote “experiencing a spiritual epiphany… It is far more cost-effective to learn to get along, expand tolerance of cultural differences, exotic mores, and basic sensibilities.”
I’m sure you know after your visit to India that one of the greatest empires in History was founded on the basis of “denying violence” and supporting compassion. It was created by a man called Ashoka and was born 304 b.c.. He established his kingdom first by war, but he had an epiphany when he looked upon the tens of thousands of dead that his battle had caused, and from that point on his empire grew, by spreading his edicts, his laws, and the peace and harmony that people found under his rule.
Perhaps some of the readers here may be interested in the Edicts of King Asoka
http://www.cs.colostate.edu/~malaiya/ashoka.html#PREFACE
Kashmir does have a majority Muslim population but after all the disputes and fighting, Kashmir has remained with India while Pakistan didn't. Pakistan could equally be a monster on Kashmir as well. No offense but Pakistan needs to overcome its religious fundamentalism and so too does Kashmir need to rid itself of religious dominance. Nobody's benefiting except for the elites as it is. A lot of the spiritual teachings in India have been long abandoned and yuppie capitalism has been taking over. Ironically, some of Pakistan I believe is also falling for it in desperation. Anyone who thinks that religious fundies will be swept away by unfettered disaster capitalism are foolish. In fact, the two have plenty more in common and actually love each other as Saudi Arabia has shown. Both the Hindus and the Muslims in south Asia agreed to a lot of the male domination rules ages ago and most of it still stays intact. Kashmir could be more spiritual but the closest I think they'll come is Hare Krishna.
Deepa
Kashmir is divided into two parts: one is under Pakistan (POK), and the other is under India (You may find it in the Map).
Religious fundamentalism is found in all religions and in almost all countries. US has more number of Christian fundamentalists/ZEALOTS than any country. Some of the Christian ZEALOTS like Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, John Hagee, James Dobson...have been influencing the White House and the US policies. We all remember how the middle name "Hussein" of Obama was overemphasised by the American Christian ZEALOTS (because a non-Christian cannot be the president of the US). Every four years American presidential candidates stand in queue before these Christian ZEALOTS. This highlights the dominance of Christian fundamentalism in the US.
Read this: "TV Evangelist John Hagee Wants War With Iran, and He Wants It Now!"
http://www.lewrockwell.com/barnwell/barnwell73.html
So lets us not link "religious fundamentalism" to Islam only. Religious fundamentalists and terrorists are found in all religions.
Male domination has divine legitimacy and sanction in the Chrsitian and Hebrew religious scriptures. This is still practised in Christian churches. In 230+ years history of US, there is no female president, vice president. Nancy Pelosi is the first female speaker. Katie Couric is the first and the only female evening news reader.
I agree with your assessment of religious fundamentalism and as a Christian, I find Hagee totally embarrassing and degrading. However, I have to confess that male domination and abuse of women has also found its place in Islam and Hinduism for centuries when it shouldn't have. I don't excuse any religious sect whatsoever, period.
But I never heard of a Christian ladding him self up with bombs and blowing him or her self up in a market place or bus, have you? Fundamentalists is not a good word to describe a person who uses religian as an excuse to commit violence. The Amish are fundamentalists as well but they are set against the use of violence in any form.
No, rightwing Christian groups have been running cars and trucks into hospitals they suspect of supporting women's reproductive rights and even if they're not suicidal, they're no less dangerous. Myself being a Christian, I'd much rather be honest about it.
Deepa
Read:
James Carroll, “The Bush Crusade,” in The Nation, 279/8 (September 20, 2004).
Commenting on the eleventh and the twelfth century Christian Crusades James Carroll says:
"In the name of Jesus, and certain of God's blessing, crusaders launched what might be called "shock and awe" attacks everywhere they went. In Jerusalem they savagely slaughtered Muslims and Jews alike - practically the whole city. Eventually, Latin crusaders would turn on Eastern Christians, and then on Christian heretics, as blood lust outran the initial "holy" impulse. That trail of violence scars the earth and human memory even to this day - especially in the places where the crusaders wreaked their havoc. And the mental map of the Crusades, with Jerusalem at the center of the earth, still defines world politics. But the main point, in relation to Bush's instinctive response to 9/11, is that those religious invasions and wars of long ago established a cohesive Western identity precisely in opposition to Islam, an opposition that survives to this day."
- George W Bush, who describes himself as a “born again Christian”, has been quoted by Bob Woodward in his book "Plan of Attack" describing himself as a “messenger of God” “doing the Lord’s will”.
- The US Christain soldiers’ savagery is epitomized by a video posted on the YouTube website. This video, called "Hadji Girl", shows a serving US Marine in uniform strumming a guitar and singing about killing Iraqis, while his colleagues laughed and cheered. It also refers to Iraqis as "hajis", a term usually applied to someone who has completed the pilgrimage to Mecca, but commonly used among the US troops as a derogatory term for the Iraqis. The four-minute song includes graphic descriptions of killings. Dressed in a green T-shirt and military style trousers and boots, the American “liberator” sings: "I grabbed her little sister and put her in front of me. As the bullets began to fly, the blood sprayed from between her eyes, and then I laughed maniacally."
- If you want to see the "evil personified American Christians", see the Abu Ghraib torture pictures:
The Abu Ghraib files
http://www.salon.com/news/abu_ghraib/
2006/03/14/introduction/index.html
Deepa
The American history is filled with its "sacred savagery" in the world. One of them was to Philippines. William McKinley, then US President explained:
"I went down on my knees and prayed to Almighty God for light and guidance more than one night. And one night late it came to me: 1) That we could not give them [the Philippines] back to Spain — that would be cowardly and dishonorable; 2) that we could not turn them over to France and Germany — our commercial rivals in the Orient — that would be bad business and discreditable; 3) that we could not leave them to themselves — they were unfit for self-government — and they would soon have anarchy and misrule over there worse than Spain's was; and 4) that there was nothing left for us to do but to take them all, and to educate the Filipinos, and uplift and civilize and Christianize them, and by God's grace do the very best we could by them, as our fellow-men for whom Christ also died. And then I went to bed, and went to sleep, and slept soundly, and the next morning I sent for the ... War Department map-maker, and I told him to put the Philippines on the map of the United States (pointing to a large wall map), and there they are, and there they will stay while I am President!"
The President described the combination of sadistic cruelty and starry-eyed self-adulation as a noble campaign to ``uplift and civilize and Christianize" the Filipinos. “Civilizing” and “Christianizing” the Filipinos took longer than McKinley thought. This noble campaign brought out the brute in the soul of the US Christian crusaders. A frustrated US General ordered troops to kill every Filipino male over age ten. The righteous American Christian warriors succeeded in their campaign by overcoming local resistance forces through their overwhelming superiority in weapons and sheer ruthlessness. They slaughtered about half-a-million Filipinos within the next few years. The American media explained that it would take patience to overcome evil, and bring liberty and happiness to the Filipinos.
One critical citizen satirized McKinley's war: "G is for guns/ That McKinley has sent/ To teach Filipinos/ What Jesus Christ meant."
Deepa
Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago, summarized the savage activities of the US around the world:
"We took this country (America) by terror away from the Sioux, the Apache, the Arawak, the Comanche, the Arapaho, the Navajo. Terrorism! We took Africans from their country to build our way of ease and kept them enslaved and living in fear. Terrorism! We bombed Grenada and killed innocent civilians, babies, non-military personnel. We bombed the black civilian community of Panama with stealth bombers and killed unarmed teenagers and toddlers, pregnant mothers and hard-working fathers. We bombed Gadafi's home and killed his child…We bombed Iraq. We killed unarmed civilians trying to make a living. We bombed a plant in Sudan to payback for the attack on our embassy. Killed hundreds of hard-working people; mothers and fathers who left home to go that day, not knowing that they would never get back home…We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and Black South Africans...."
- I would appreciate if you could let me know a country as savage as the Christian country, the US, which claims to be the "God's chosen country" ("a city on the hill").
Sioux Rose
DEEPA: Excellent posts. I do take issue with your stating that patriarchal religious views held DIVINE sanction. Hardly. Any prophet that arises from a specific era must deal with the consciousness at hand. They can only turn over so many applecarts. I believe this is why the U.S. Founders did not question slavery or women's rights, etc. I dated a construction worker who put it this way: "Geniuses devise/draw up the plans (i.e. architectural blueprints), and idiots have to put the pieces together." Any new teaching delivered is always beyond the understanding/consciousness of those receiving it. Thus it is adapted to the mores of the existing era. This is not the same thing as any Divine validation of a harmful prejudice, in my view THE ONE that has torn matter asunder and given birth to every other ism division. The result being all this trafficking in weaponry as per the topic of this particular article.
Deepa
Sioux Rose:
Thanks.
Patriarchal religions claimed divine legitimacy. This is what we find in some texts of the Bible. Old Testament, partucularly the first five books, contain several references. Even in Ephesians, I Timothy.
Sioux Rose
DEEPA: To claim is not the same thing as to BE. Powers throughout time have arrogated claims to a number of things, and then gone about burning persons as witches or otherwise burning them with bombs. In either case they use their claim to a (Divinely) superior status as the raison d'etre for casting others of supposed lesser status staight into the unforgiving flames.
Deepa
Sioux Rose:
However, the claims of (some forms of) Christianity and Judaism are based on their SACRED SCRIPTURES, which are believed to be INSPIRED WORD OF GOD.
The "born again" Christians such as Bush, Pat Robertson, Billy Graham, Hagee...believe in SACRED VIOLENCE (like bombing vietnam, Iraq...) based on some of the Biblical texts where God is involved (either directly or indirectly) in genocidal violence.
For eg. killing of first born children of Egyptians and their slaves and livestock (Exodus 11.4-6), killing of Amalekites: "Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey" (I samuel 15.3).
The claim of American exceptionalism or the “city upon a hill” (Biblical phrase for Jerusalem) mindset has been a pillar of American expansionism since its inception as a country. It was John Winthrop, who first used this phrase in defining the new settlement in North America as the “city upon a hill". John Cotton, a Puritan preacher, used this phrase to embody the idea of American exceptionalism.
Considering themselves as the chosen people of God and as reenacting the Biblical narratives of exodus and conquest, the European colonizers occupied the “promised land” through divinely sanctioned violence against the owners of the land. The Puritans of New England applied the biblical texts of Israel conquest of Canaan to their own situation, casting the Native American tribes as the Canaanites and Amalekites. In 1689, Cotton Mather urged the colonists to go forth against "Amalek annoying this Israel in the wilderness." A few years later, Herbert Gibbs gave thanks for "the mercies of God in extirpating the enemies of Israel in Canaan." He was referring to the European colonists as “Israel” and the Native Americans as “the enemies of Israel”.
Similar rhetoric persisted in American Puritanism through the eighteenth century. Indeed biblical analogies continue to play a part in American political rhetoric down to the present. Ownership of the “promised land” is conferred by divine grant, and violence against the Native Americans is not only divinely sanctioned and legitimate, but also mandatory.
Similarly some forms of Christianity and Judaism believe in gender inequality based, again, on the INSPIRED WORD OF GOD (I have given two references in my previous post). This is glaringly evident in Churches and christian communities.
So, the claims on gender inequality are based on GOD'S INSPIRED WORD. That means, their claims have divine legitimacy and sanction.
The Vedic Era in ancient India existed where women not only had equal rights and opportunities but turned out heroins and famous leaders. The role of women was marginalized and degraded at the end of that era and when invaded, the Hindus and Muslims agreed to patriarchal ruling in both religion and politics.
Excellent point and right on. Why the progressive movement, especially the women's rights groups, never picks up on this fact beats me. If more women actually knew about the true Vedic Era as you mentioned it and not the revisionist version offered by religious fundamentalists, women all over the world wouldn't be in the degraded status they're still in today.
Hare Krishna
Hare Krishna
Krishna Krishna
Hare Hare
Hare Rama
Hare Rama
Rama Rama
Hare Hare
The Hare Krishna movement has its controversies. The original founder had tremendous respect for women but some of the cultists ruined the movement but there have been recoveries. I still prefer remaining a Hindu Brahmin.
I have no judgment on any movement, sect or religion. I was merely chanting a holy mantra. Maybe it helped someone to have a better day. Namaste. Shanti Om. Peace.
My wife and I may be Christians but we have a lot of respect and admiration for Hindus and especially the Brahmins who live a truly progressive life and would put even most of us on this site to shame. Unfortunately, neither the Far Right nor the Far Left has any respect for Hindus. The Christians on the Far Right accuse the Hindus of trying to convert when in fact, the Christian Taliban disguised as "missionaries" did all the mischievous violent conversion and Mother Teresa was no saint. The Muslims on the other side accuse the Hindus of violence when in fact it was the Muslims who did all the violence and abuse of women the most. There are good Christians and Muslims who respect and learn from the Hindus and help each other out but the fundies are the problem. There are a lot of good things to learn about Hinduism and it's not as bad as some claim it to be. Even the Palestinians love it.
Of course, those who would be tasked with rewriting weapons export rules for BO are basically the same ones who wrote the Clinton version, so expecting anything other than more of the same would be like expecting BO not to keep handing the banksters trillions, or expecting him to stop mountaintop removal, or expecting him to not keep pushing for more government secrecy, or expecting him to stop calling for indefinite prolonged detention without charge or trial, or expecting him to...
Apparently, a lot of Americans intend to keep living in a delusional world where BO doesn't work for "the owners" of "the place."
It seems to me the supider and more OBVIOUS the supidity of a Policy, the stupider and the more obviously stupid the rationale for such an absurd policy.
A man who thought Ketchup a vegetable warned of a millions man strong "Communist army" marching to the borders of Texas and the people ate it up.
The de-industrialization of the US economy is almost complete. GM has been dismantled, unions broken, and much of the productive capacity will be outsourced to other countries, just like most of our former industrial capacity in general.
The one manufacturing sector left is weapons manufacturing. It is very sad that just about the only things made in the USA are planes and weapons systems. It becomes harder to deny that the USA is becoming more like a neo-fascist country every year.
Sioux Rose
SOCIALIST: Add Hollywood producing the cultural soft propaganda that sexes up all these weapons; and pornography to degrade the very notion of human being(s); and big pharma inventing new dis-eases to hardly cure, but manage on maintenance programs that essentially rent back to persons the right to remain in their own functioning bodies. Oh, and all those frankenfoods & their seed equivalents. What America produces is almost straight across the cosmic board TOXIC and/or deadly!
Want to see our biggest government contractors?
http://www.usaspending.gov/
Bottom-right corner.
It's all about fear, isn't it? The government has been scaring the public since the late 1940s that there are numerous existential threats in our neighborhood and the world and that more police, bigger armies, and more powerful weapons are the only way to address these 'threats'; that taxes must be increased to pay for more police, armies, and weapons and more socially-directed activities like education, health care, infrastructure maintenance, civil and social justice, etc. must be put on the back burner because we can't afford them.
The fact is, fear is a personal and internal perception and has nothing to do with actual conditions and the number and potenency of our police, our armies, or our weapons. This is why with the most potent military apparatus in the world we're still afraid as a nation and demand the impossible from our government - to be free from fear.
"It's all about fear, isn't it?"
It's what the church dealt in, too.
(Many still swallow it.)
There is no need to fear the unknown.
Rather, respect the dangers we know to exist.
Tirebiter - Very, very good. You are correct about fear as the big motivating factor in furthering the agenda of the military/industrial/national intelligence complex since the end of World War II. Please indulge my foray into yet further paranoia anyway.
If F-16's, and presumably F-22 fighter jets, are "nuclear capable" as Freda Berrigan's article says, then selling this potential delivery system to a growing number of nation state customers all over the globe enhances the existential threat to the United States of a 9/11 style terrorist attack. Should a rogue state or a non-state actor like Al Qaeda somehow get ahold of a black market nuke or two, the evil doers would still have to have the technological capacity to somehow detonate it on American soil. There are not many loose ICBM's, missle carrying subs, or long range bombers for sale in the international arms bazaar, or listed for auction bids on e-Bay.
Nuclear capable fighter jets, made in USA, proliferating around the world?
Now there's some blowback I'd rather not think about.
Bill from Saginaw
Sioux Rose
TIREBITER & Bill: You are both of course correct about the manufactured "fear factor," but don't forget that it serves the mechanics of that dark profit motive borne from a marriage between mammon (putting $/profit first) and Mars (lusting for war, and purposely setting conflicts/conquests into motion). This insidious duo is deadly to persons, ecosystems, nations, and souls. The fact that it's in charge creates a reign of terror vaster than anything history has yet witnessed. Of course there were never 6 billion living "targets" or such vast sums invested in systems that could take them out, thousands at a time like so many inhuman animation points flashing across a video screen. Amazing the "progress" a society can make when its priorities remain unexamined, part of a mythology far more sinister than anything the astro-logos could replicate. But war is championed while astrologers are branded dangerous heretics. There remains an ancient fear of looking up and expanding our collective sense of meaning, gentleman. To see the earth as a singular spinning sphere that belongs to a cosmic neighbhorhood could vastly alter the mindset that has managed to pit nation against nation for centuries. In fact given the greater "enemy" or should I say threat is climate change, it would behoove persons to recognize we're all in this together, if our common stake is the sustainability of life on this impossibly beautiful and amazing planet!
"But war is championed while astrologers are branded dangerous heretics."
I generally agree with your comment, but wouldn't call astrologers 'dangerous heretics', only superstitious silly-billies.
Sioux Rose
Bite that tire: Well, you obviously know little about history and the fate of astrologers, nor do you recognize the degree to which this subject is rendered taboo across the media. I am talking about SERIOUS astrology. Have you ever seen an astrologer interviewed on television? How come sports casters get all kinds of perks, and the religious right has several 24/7 networks pulsing with their unbelievably insane End Times discussions; and our own newscasters smile while they deliver the night's deadly details, over and over again. The voice made conspicuous is the one that has something that could do a lot to shift collective awareness. You have taken on the prejudice of the old church-state, made a value judgment based on a superficial understanding of a subject I have devoted 30 years to studying. To the white person, the Black person's experience of direct prejudice is frequently passed off. To the male, the aspects of culture that impact the lives of females are also easily passed off, like the sexist jokes that demean women and are a CONSTANT in too many movies and a number of TV shows. The list goes on. Just because you don't see it, and it's not in your experience, hardly makes it not so.
I thought you were boycotting me? I even thanked you for it in advance. How quickly we forget.
Be that as it may - I take your point about the cruel historical treatment of astrologers. But many 'heretics' - protestants, deists, and believers in other 'gods', agnostics, atheists, free-thinkers, scientists, in fact anybody whose different views the church feared - received the same treatment. But I doubt that many astrologers are burnt at the stake these days and more often than not receive the kind of attention their bronze-age mumbo-jumbo merits - which is polite scorn. To be fair, I have the same opinion of religion and other superstitions as well.
I agree with you about the vacuous fare available on the media. But how envious you sound of 'sports casters perks'. How bitter you sound about 'newscasters', and the 'religious right' who occupy the limelight and SERIOUS astrologers who don't, and men (those violent minions of Mars) who you often sound like you blame for the apparent feelings of whatever personal angst it is you feel - rather than blaming the nonsense you say you've devoted 30 years of your life studying.
In the dark, it may make sense to be led by the blind, but in the light it makes no sense at all. Astrology may have been a reasonable approach when we were in the dark and knew little or nothing about the world, but now that we do know something astrology has no practical utility except as entertainment.
I know you don't like my views concerning astrology which is only fair since I don't like yours. I find astrology silly and delusional, you find me ignorant and judgemental. So be it. There's probably some truth in both our observations.
Finally, I actually respect your often reasonable posts here - that is, until you offer as support for your argument the machinations of Mammon or Mars as rationale. That's when to me you begin to sound...let's just say less than convincing and leave it at that.
Tirebiter:
You write "In the dark, it may make sense to be led by the blind, but in the light it makes no sense at all. "
If you would just like to look up and read again the article and see how "enlightened" mankind is to dedicate quite so much of his science and technology to the arts of OFFENCE and destruction, principle for power and greed, I think you must either have to laugh at this statement of yours or take a good look into some mirror that reflects the inflated view you have of your own species, and its most pathetic progress.
I remember a story about a frog who lived in a well, and he thought it was the whole world. Another frog, his cousin, came to see him and tried to explain to him what the sea was. He said it's very big. "Is it twice as big as my well?" he asked. “No, it's much bigger than that” answered his cousin. "Four times?" asks the well frog adding "nothing can be that big".
So his cousin took the well frog to see the sea and when he saw it his mind just exploded.
Remember, we only think we know what is real and what is true. We are limited by our perception and our relation to the dimension in which we think we find ourselves. I guess scientifically, you could call it relativity.
So there are different ways to see the same phenomena too. They can be all true.
"take a good look into some mirror that reflects the inflated view you have of your own species, and its most pathetic progress"
I think if you peruse my posts on CD you will find that I have no such 'inflated view' of my species. In fact, I consistently compare it to yeast (with apologies to yeast) and think it particularly amusing and incapable of long-term survival.
You deride science and technology but use a computer, probably drive a car - or a bicycle, or a bus, take or may take medication to treat any illness, marvel at the Hubble photos, use a phone, listen to music, watch TV, and on and on - all products of science - not superstition - which was the object of my criticism.
"So there are different ways to see the same phenomena too. They can be all true."
Perhaps true. All you need is evidence to demonstrate their truth.
Mankind is not being held back by his ability to reproduce experiments and give phenomena names and extrapolate or apply science to technical problems. We can light fires and control the atom, but we are not much further advance from the Neanderthals when it comes to controlling our own ego and greed.
I do not berate science and technology but put them into their perspective and place along with philosophy to understand logic, ethics, and morals, with arts to understand communication, imagination and creativity. In short without all the other bits there is no spirit in man and there is no mystery to explore and give names to what we find or grasp or meanings to pin it all together. What we don’t know we cannot name. But, the more we know, the more we know we don’t know! Each answer gives us further questions. The meaning and the truth is in the journey.
I do berate man’s greed, avarice and cruelty, that turn so many of his ideas and handiwork into applications for suffering, death and destruction, rather than valuing all sentient life, and cherishing the precious resources on which it depends.
In your flat world it seems if something is not scientifically explicable, explorable,, measurable it does not exist or it is apparently simple superstition. But there are many things to which scientific tools are just not appropriate, and do not afford the capacity to measure; things that have no physical expression to grasp, but without fully understanding them we know they have an effect. One day perhaps we will evolve to have the senses and capacity to appreciate them fully.
Example; Try and measuring how much love and compassion we must generate to save our planet and each other?
I agree that greed and cruelty are destructive. I also know that science is a neutral tool and is put to use for both good and bad. I know too that when it is put to a bad use it is inevitably because of superstition or the greed and cruelty we agree exists.
As for saving the planet - you don't need to save 'the planet', the planet will be just fine. But mankind will self-destruct because it is incapable as a species of the love and compassion you suggest. The perceived need for survival will trump both love and compassion. Survival is an innate impulse while love and compassion are learned ones. Consequently I do not think we will ever evolve to have the senses you suggest are a possibility.
I agree too that the more we know the more questions that arise. That's how life and the aquisition of knowledge works. Or would you rather forego knowledge and accept the conventional wisdom found in dead philosophies and remain ignorant of the world, or accept that everything that is to be known is either already known or necessarily provided by the priests and prophets?
True, science cannot measure everything in my 'flat world' (funny, I thought it was round - or slightly pear-shaped), and I don't find all the claims (or disciplines)of 'science' convincing, but I find it a better overall measure of the world than subjective 'feelings' (feelings I experience like any other normal person) about how things are.
Actually, you don't need love and compassion to save the world - only enlightened self-interest.
And finally, while many bemoan the lack of love and compassion in human beings, no one, including you, has provided any concrete way to instill greater love and compassion in human beings. More often that not 'education' is suggested; but specifically, what kind of education is appropriate; that is, specifically what methods or curiculum have been successfully demonstrated to instill more love and compassion? My contention is that no such methodology exists - that is, of course, unless you can enlighten me.
Of course you are right that love and compassion are learned, although some elements are primordial instinctive as in the love of a mother for her child. The existence of these "feelings" is essential to the survival of humanity, as the child is totally dependent on the nurture and warmth both physically and emotionally given in his early development. Children deprived of such love, have difficulty to love others, and in turn have difficulty caring emotionally for their own offspring or empathizing with society. These emotions are principally transmitted in the relations between family members and then can be further extended to close friends, and one can even project a sense of compassion to total strangers on the other end of the world.
Enlightened self interest would teach you that your greatest and most tangibly lasting "happiness" does not derive from the pleasure of acquiring things or receiving love, but the ability to make others happy, to be needed for the infinite love you can give, or appreciated and respected for your services to, or care for others, therefore I contend love and compassion are essential, without them ones perspectives are narrowed to the dominance and demands of the ego. You can never be happy making yourself happy to the exclusion of others. Over time and generations if the egos reign societies collapse.
The appropriate education to learn love and compassion is meditation on the four noble truths and impermanence. If you seriously seek enlightenment you need no faith nor superstition, just discipline and perseverance and you will find it on the way of the path not as the destination. Once you commit to the path your destination will inevitably be modified.
The four noble truths
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXmdKWVirUA
I am familiar with the four noble truths but have to ask, do you really think it realistic that they would be taught across this world by the current crop of humans? We can argue what should be forever, as long as we recognize what is and what is not likely to change anytime soon - whether a good idea or not.
There are of course exceptions that test the rule, but I would suggest that the rule is that humans as a species are not geared for compassion and love, but for acquisition and survival. It is what has abetted our survival for millenia and I don't see that changing anytime soon. Which is why I think that before long we will be history.
The 'love' of a mother for a child is cherished by society - but its value to society is not for its intrinsic value, but because it is a survival trait. If infants were abandoned because they are a pain in the ass (they are a colossal pain in the ass) the species would immediately expire.
When a predator is near, birds with chicks often pretend to be vulnerable - often faking a broken wing to convince the predator that it is easy prey - to draw the predator away from the nest. Is this love and/or compassion? Or merely a survival mechanism?
The one thing that is constant is change, and the current crop of humans will adapt to the disasters they are creating by their material greed and spiritual dessert. The survival mechanisms on which that depend are also to a great extent the social skills of cooperation, tolerance, understanding and communication, which all may have to be re-learned PDQ as the present system collapses, the group dynamics and economies change. It is normal too, that at times of trouble human bonds become tighter and more important. So those that can find the necessary qualities for the next era will be the winners. So yes, love and compassion may be a buy.
Acquisition is as important as sharing given the above dynamic, so one thing does not exclude the other. As for the parents or the birds why can’t it be both love and instinct that are at work together; is it for love or more money that the noisy kids, already hyper from stress, are dumped in the crèche and collected and fed by the nanny, so that mum and dad can follow their careers, all for what ….? Happiness?
I like to see my glass is half full, but enjoyed the exchange.
The simple fact is that current crop of humans (and their children) will adapt to change or they will perish. And while I agree that cooperation, tolerance, and understanding are far more useful as survival traits than the diet of competition we've been fed for millenia, I don't see those aspects of human nature rising to the surface in what I think will be the coming era of scarcity - not when they've been absent in a time of relative global abundance - notwithstanding the uneven distribution of that abundance around the world.
"I like to see my glass is half full, but enjoyed the exchange."
I would like to see the glass as half-full, but too much life-experience and the constant disappointment in my fellow homo sapiens, has led me to see it as half-empty. As for the exchange - same here. Thanks for the effort.
"astrology has no practical utility except as entertainment."
with respect, it is my suggestion that astrology started with farmers wanting to know how the seasons and the moon's phases affected their crops.
we still successfully tend our garden according to these principals.
'Astrology' perhaps started that way, but that's because farmers didn't know any better. They know better now. Planting these days is or can still be done based on the phases of the moon, but I do not consider this 'astrology' in need of 'SERIOUS astrologers' as has been suggested here.
My understanding is that, among other things, astrology is an 'art or science' that ascribes characteristics to individuals based on the alignment of heavenly bodies. If you consider the modern understanding of agricultural techniques - specifically planting according to the phase of the moon - 'astrology' then I will just accept that we have a semantic difference and let it go at that.
my contention was that this is where it started - the possible effects on a person's psyche is a different matter.
as for predicting future events - HA.
(but this does not mean that I think Sioux Rose is in the fortune telling business. What she attempts is identifying POSSIBLE trends based on millennia of observations - not all her own, of course)
Sioux Rose
BITING TIRES: I do forget. I have LOTS of irons in lots of fires, and can't keep track of all the CD threads and those I respond to. But I'm sure glad you're not a therapist as conflating my personal response to a media that shuts out voices like mine and the FACT that patriarchal cultures under thrall to MARS do enormous damage to life, persons, and ecosystems are hardly the same thing. I think you threw everything into the spin cycle except the detergent. So glad I don't have to suffer your presence at any social events. The tire metaphor is a good one for you, as you cling to the ground, and can't see the stars or anything that exists beyond your limited ego/mind's capacity to discern it. Talk about limiting your universe to a foot extending past your belly button. Yuck! Do balloons deflate as soon as you enter a room? Maybe your name should be "tire inflater" and you can boost your income carrying one of those gadgets that adds air (to tires) as needed?
'BITING TIRES: I do forget. I have LOTS of irons in lots of fires, and can't keep track of all the CD threads and those I respond to.'
You forget. A sorry excuse. I thought you were supposed to be one of the 'enlightened ones'?
I'm sure you have LOTS of people who call you out that you vow to ignore. Perhaps you should keep a list of us next to your computer. Here's a thought, you could call it your 'enemies list'.
And blaming that pesky MARS again - poor red planet; tarring it with all the destructive acts of homo sapiens. It would be far more realistic and productive to blame people's flaws for their choices than a hunk of oxidized rock millions of miles away.
'I think you threw everything into the spin cycle except the detergent.
The tire metaphor is a good one for you, as you cling to the ground, and can't see the stars or anything that exists beyond your limited ego/mind's capacity to discern it. Talk about limiting your universe to a foot extending past your belly button. Yuck! Do balloons deflate as soon as you enter a room? Maybe your name should be "tire inflater" and you can boost your income carrying one of those gadgets that adds air (to tires) as needed?'
Spin cycle usually follows the wash cycle and is used to drive water and detergent OUT of the wash. One doesn't put detergent in the spin cycle. Well, normal ones don't.
True, tires cling to the ground. It's called being in touch with the world. I prefer it to not being in touch at all.
'Yuck' - 'Yuck?' - what is this a Peanuts cartoon? Tell the truth, are you actually Lucy in disguise?
Oh, and one of those 'gadgets' is called a 'pump'. Add it to your vocabulary.
Jeez, Rosie, you sound confused. Even your insults match your philosophy - they are childish and idiotic.
Anything that can carry air-to-ground munitions is technically nuclear-capable. A WW2-era P-51 Mustang could be nuclear capable if there were nukes light enough to fit its hardpoints. F-22s probably aren't...they're interceptors, and only carry air-to-air missiles.
Well is'nt it just dandy, our whole country has made the marketing of death, torture, extortion, rape, and instruments and methods of domination into the only novelty we now can sell worldwide. Our whole nation is a prison, and even the most priveleged of us are mere trustee's of a system guided by the needs of undead, inamate "corporations" that have no human experience to draw an empathic ethical connection from.
This is a lose-lose proposition for the top and the bottom rungs of our society there is no aristocratic agenda to illuminate the firmament, just "winners" of our shlock-o faschist game-show of a culture. Then of course there are the rabble. Only just barely contained by our police state. A mass of little tyrants who tax us all with their citations. good work ruling class! Now you and your children are as screwed as everyone else....
Finally we know that our system has no victors, just a heirarchy of victims. with each tier torturing the level directly below. On top of this structure are the "elite" , are they pretty? are they profound? no, they are sad, alcoholic, over medicated mediocrities, like all the poor shmucks below them.
When will the elites realize the we are all the MIDDLE, the top is the center and the bottom is the center and the bottom is the center. we have been decentralized, maybe we always were. New breakthroughs in physics display unequivically that there is no "top" but only a vast network of centers all radiating from within.
Over this ontological reality is a mask of power, and all of our militarism poverty and repression is the product of this error in our perceptions.
We are killing ourselves, now more effectively then ever. Every leader knows the score.
A politics of love must find it's place in our world, but as long as it is the killing machine that is making all the money, we are trapped.
Sioux Rose
XZO: Good post. The only way to reclaim the balance writ into things ranging from minute particles to those as vast as planetary systems is to add VENUS and her expressions (which include love, art, cooperation, culture, beauty, sensuality, pleasure, romance, fine food, gardens, exotic scents, bewitching music) to the human mix/experience. This would offset the disproportionate emphasis on MARS (lover of war) as sponsored foremost by the U.S., but spreading like a lethal disease (hint: via profligate weapons sales)around the world.
I think of the problems you described as generally belonging to the class of Free Rider problems. The elites are better off if they take advantage of those on the lower rungs, but all members of society, including the elites, are worse off if all the elites take advantage to the point that those on the lower rungs are broken and crushed, because the feedback loops that all depend on for sustenance run through all the rungs of society.
The classic Free Rider problem is that where an individual X is best off if every rider pays for the transit service except for X, so X is a "free rider." However, if too many others try to copy X and ride for free as well, then the transit service goes bankrupt and so everyone is worse off.
Even a parasite needs to be careful enough to not kill off its host.
The banking industry is not as careful as a flea.
Abolish weapons.
We can build a supersonic jet fighter that can hover like a helicopter, but when it comes to solar, wind, wave, or other alternative energy technologies: 'we cant do it yet, the technology just ISN'T THERE yet'
Thats BVLLSH*T!!! These energy alternatives could very well SAVE THE PLANET (as well as pull our sorry *ss*s out of the latest GOP-gifted depression), they represent investments that pay back major dividends in reduced global wars for oil, energy independence, sustainability, and maintenance of climate.
After about $300 billion a year, the defense department represents a waste of money. At $150 billion, it can fulfill its purpose, which is protecting America from invasion. At $300 billion, it can protect America and anyone else we want to protect from invasion. At $600 billion, it represents $300 billion in protection, and another $300 billion in welfare-for-cold-warriors. Most of whom live high on the hog in Orange County, CA, vote GOP to keep the gravy train coming, and look down their noses at 'those welfare immigrants' in LA county.
Sioux Rose
UBREW: Totally right-on! Just as rather than close up G.M.'s shops these should be retooled to produce green technology and domestic infrastructure; the military should not get another dollar from any public/tax program until they similarly start retooling to bring constructive rather than destructive initiatives and projects to this world.
One problem with turning the paradigm around now is that the U.S. elites in their selfish disregard have virtually made war into a self-fulfilling prophecy by arming so many other unstable nations with lousy rulers. Someone is prone to have itchy fingers with lots of fancy weapon systems floating around.
One way or another the karma of investing in destruction rather than construction is about to head home. It's a shame that so much wealth was squandered on such primitive and useless behaviors. There is a price for this level of depraved indifference, and while the current U.S. leadership has granted impunity to its chief smooth operators, higher universal forces (being cognizant of the cries of widows and children in too many lands) are not so lenient nor naive.
Good points. What boggles my mind is that millions of fools in the US buy into the notion that we need to spend a trillion dollars a year on defense (all said and done) in order to protect us from a small group of militants holed up in the mountains of Tora Bora or where ever, who have no tanks, helicopters, jet fighters, bombers, aircraft carriers, satellites, drones, CIA, etc, etc.
I was talking to this college "educated" fool who tried to justify Obama and his Afghanistan/Pakistan wars on the grounds that, "Oh, it's the Taliban." Like the Taliban are coming to get us therefore we need to bankrupt our nation spending a fortune on "defense", but we can't afford single payer health care or enough stimulus money to avoid massive job losses.
Notice how it's okay to lay off teachers, police and firefighters and shut down companies, but what's never on the table is, "Hey, lets drop a few less bombs and kill a few less people so we can have more money to spend on health care and education."
The problem is that the very fools who are suffering as a consequence of policies directed at enriching Big Business & War Inc. are the very same fools that defend them.
We need to educate the fools one by one.
WHAT'S SO FUNNY ABOUT PEACE, LOVE AND UNDERSTANDING?