The News and the Spirit

from JoeUser Forums
With palms together,

Good Morning All,



The morning news is bothersome, as always. People killed. Expolsions. Domestic spying. Lawsuits. Sometimes it is good practice to avoid the newspaper and internet news services. The type and level of information, speed of delivery, and tone is poisonous to the spirit.



Yet, we don't really want to live as ostriches.



It is important to know your world and the happenings within it. It is important to know what your government is doing, how it is doing it, and the goals it claims in the process. Our government does not seem to be as forthcoming as it might be. We are fighting a war, it claims.



Remember the works of fiction that warned us in school? 1984, Brave New World, Player Piano (the first Kurt Vonnegut jr. book which was quite interesting in light of today's world)?



Here we are. Of course its not the same. The threats are real. And so are the psychological processes of leading through fear. Like lemmings, we are willingly giving up our rights to privacy. We are giving up our money and many of our freedoms to wage wars of peace and end fear and intimidation by Third World sets of people wanting to bring back the Middle Ages.



I am one who believes terror wins when we decide to become fearful, hiding, and secret. A brave society is a society that remains free and above board even when threatened. A compassionate society cares about our enemies, nurtures the poor and the weak regardless of race, creed, or national origin. A smart society lives beyond superstition and the fear of fundamentalists and their devil.



When your heart is closed, you die regardless of whether you are safe. When your heart is open, you live even if you are in danger.



Be well.
religion
1,207 views 3 replies
Reply #1 from JoeUser Forums Top

You do seem to have a black and white view of the world, which is not always bad for the soul.  But is bad in international politics.  My religion teaches me to love your enemy, and turn the other cheek.  Yet when the only response to both is to hate you more, there is no way to compromise.

We did not start this war, but either side can end it.  We will with their extermination, or they will by accepting not everyone is Muslim.  They have the easier road.  And the easier task.  Yet they fail to follow through.

Hate is beyond reason.  That is all they have, and they are beyond reason.

Reply #2 from JoeUser Forums Top
You do seem to have a black and white view of the world, which is not always bad for the soul. But is bad in international politics. My religion teaches me to love your enemy, and turn the other cheek. Yet when the only response to both is to hate you more, there is no way to compromise.


With palms together,

I don't think compromise is at issue as much as understanding and perhaps changing a little here and there as to how we respond to threats. I do not see anything black and white in my post, if fact just the opposite. I consider rweasonable effort to search for solutions that do not involve violence to be a good thing. Black and white would be, "you hit me, I'll hit you." As to loving our enemies, I have'nt seen much of that in a very long time. Nor has anyone turned a cheek. We have weapons and are oh so willing to use them.

My point is this: when we act in fear those threatening us win without tossing a punch. There was a time in Gandhi's life when he said something like, "hit me and I will get up again, kill me and you will have my dead body, but not my soul." Practicing this is very challenging, but well worth the effort and the risk.

Be well.
Multiplicity - Control multiple PCs using one keyboard and mouse
Reply #3 from JoeUser Forums Top
There was a time in Gandhi's life when he said something like, "hit me and I will get up again, kill me and you will have my dead body, but not my soul."

Inspiring words, but I think they need to be looked at in context. Gandhi was fighting a particular enemy at that time, and the weapon he chose was non-violent civil disobedience. To many around the world he became a stirring example of what could be achieved with non-violence and gave hope to many.

But Gandhi said himself that his tactic only worked because of the nature of the enemy he was fighting. The British in India showed themselves at times to be capable of great brutality, as in the case of the Amritsar massacre, but were nevertheless a relatively benign and civilised occupier by the standards of most imperialist nations. This raises the question of whether or not such tactics would work against an occupier like the nazis. Gandhi actually answered this question when it was put to him and said that he believed his tactics would work, but that the Jews ought to commit collective suicide to 'shame' the nazis. For me this is not so much good thinking or bad thinking, but a failure to think deeply enough about an issue.

Far more naive than Gandhi's ideas however is to talk about 'exterminating' the enemy. In a conventional war this is problematic enough, but in the current world situation in which terrorists are actively supported by a minority, passively supported by many more and a majority in the muslim world prepared neither to support nor condemn them, just who is the 'enemy' and how many have to be exterminated before 'peace' can be declared? I remember my shock when American planes, believing (it seems wrongly) that Al Qaeda operatives were based in a Pakistani village, bombed the village to pieces killing men, women and children. My shock was not so much in the act itself, but in the fact that most Americans seemed to be 'comfortable' with this. Because when you look around the forums here it is obvious that many Americans see the 'War on Terror' as a clash of civilizations, which automatically makes any muslim (by nationality as well as religion) a potential enemy and a 'legitimate target' of 'collateral damage'. To have become blind to the moral problem with this is truely shocking.

To find non-violent solutions that will actually work should be the supreme moral challenge of our time. Failing that, to find violent solutions that are proportional and just should also be a priority.