How Close Are We To Armageddon?
Nine specific prophecies in the Bible will occur within the final seven years prior to the Battle of Armageddon.
- Armageddon web site of EndTime Ministries
Let’s begin by putting Armageddon into perspective. People have been predicting the end of the world since shortly after the death of Jesus of Nazareth, supposedly based on Revelations 16: verse 16, in the final book of the Christian Bible (also shared by Islam, but seldom mentioned). That is, for 2000 years people have found evidence that the end of the world is imminent. Lots of predictions, not much evidence.
Revelations 16, verse 16, reads as follows: And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon. That is the only mention in the Bible of a place called Armageddon.
The name supposedly comes from the Hebrew place name Megiddo. The "them" (King James version) that will gather would be kings who will gather with their warriors on a mountain. They would fight the ultimate battle of the resurrected Jesus versus the Antichrist.
That’s all very well, but there are no mountains anywhere near Megiddo. Plains, maybe, but no mountains. The plains of the Megiddo valley, near Galilee, were the most common place for battles to be fought in ancient times. In all likelihood, Megiddo (or Armageddon) came to be used as a symbol of battle the way many people refer to all facial tissues as Kleenex, or Holocaust (there have been many throughout history) when they refer to the one perpetrated by Hitler.
Despite how often the name has been mentioned over the past 2000 years, there is no place on earth with the name Armageddon.
Who is the Antichrist? Some say Satan. Some insist the Antichrist is human, in particular any foreign leader who happens to be the enemy of the day. In the period following the death of Jesus, that would be the Caesar of the day. Today his name might be Putin or Ahmadinijad, possibly Bush, or even Obama, depending on your preferred prejudices.
Most people today who think about Armageddon, or the possibility of the world as we know it ending, have never read the book of Revelations. If you have read any other parts of the Bible, give Revelations a read. You will likely wonder what happened, why the Bible suddenly became different in its final book. In fact, scholars can’t agree on anything about Revelations, except its position as the last book of the Bible.
Some say it was written by many people, some by only one man, some say by someone who was insane, but it was included in the Bible at the time of sorting in the Fourth Century because it was powerful (scary) and prophetic.
Why should we take those who predict the end of the world seriously? One religious leader, Harold Camping, has predicted the end of the world three times in 2011. He had "evidence" to support each of his predictions. I am here to tell you his predictions were wrong.
Might it all end for us in 2012, specifically on December 12, as predicted by the ancient Maya? Let me say only that the Mayan calendar itself went well beyond that date. If they expected the world to end on that date, it would not make sense to have a calendar extend beyond that date. The Maya predicted a time of renewal in 2012, but not of permanent destruction. They didn’t even predict the end of their own empire, which should give us a clue as to the dependability of their predictions.
Surely all the violence and conflict happening around the world is evidence enough that life is getting worse on our planet. This would only be true if you knew nothing about history and if you believe the news media that have taken their modus operandi from supermarket tabloids. Violence sells advertising, just as we have come to accept that sex and scandal do as well.
The world is actually more peaceful today than it has ever been in human history. Far fewer wars or violent conflicts are happening today than has been the norm for millennia. Major crime is down in most large cities of the world. Though we have seen Occupy protests in many countries of the world, they have been--and they have stressed the importance of their being--peaceful demonstrations.
Even the Arab Spring demonstrations were relatively peaceful. If you know anything of Arab history, you will appreciate how significant that was. Arab peoples are still largely associated with tribes and tribes--anywhere in the world they still exist or did in the past--are notorious for their wars and violent conflicts. That includes the tribes of Israel who were responsible for writing the Bible. They were primitive, coarse, violent people.
Slavery, rampant in the 19th and early 20th centuries (and throughout history before that), exists only in relatively small pockets in tribal conditions today. Genocide, which accounted for something over 60 million deaths in the last century, has all but disappeared due to pressure from world powers.
We live in a time of transition. We live in a period of history when the "civilization" of humanity envisioned in the past could possibly happen in the near future, even in the lifetimes of some of us. It won’t happen quickly. It won’t happen easily. For example, many people today would like to see former U.S. President George W. Bush charged in the International Criminal Court with Crimes Against Humanity. Others see Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinijad leading the world into its first truly nuclear world war. Neither will happen.
We need to separate what is real from the propaganda that those with something to gain want us to believe. We need to understand that when someone, or some power, strongly urges us to believe something, they have something to gain and we have something to lose by believing.
We also need to teach this to our children. Unless they learn what we now understand to be true, what has been gained in our lifetimes could be lost.
As always, education is the key to our future.
Bill Allin is the author of Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today’s Epidemic Social Problems, a book of answers and solutions to problems our leaders want us to believe can never be solved. They can and the solutions are inexpensive and fairly easy to implement.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Showing posts with label war. Show all posts
Showing posts with label war. Show all posts
Friday, November 11, 2011
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Wars Are for Making Money or Gaining Power
Wars Are for Making Money or Gaining Power
'All the reasons which made the initiation of physical force evil make the retaliatory use of physical force a moral imperative.'
- Ayn Rand, Russian-American writer and philosopher (1905 - 1982)
No doubt the pivotal word in Ms. Rand's quote is "moral." Every leader who proposes war--who advocates violence of any kind to others--does so on moral grounds. "It's the right thing to do under the circumstances before we have big problems." Moral response to offensive physical force always has a religious connection. Seldom is the more secular ethics explanation (excuse) given for revenge.
Islamists--not Muslims, but former Muslims who perverted the words of the Prophet and the Qu'ran to something political and violent--claim that everything and everyone they don't like is a threat to Islam or an insult to the Prophet. Few (if any) of such claims are valid references to the Qu'ran, most are concocted lies designed to deceive the innocent (who never check the facts) into committing acts of violence, including suicide bombing and killing that solidifies membership in such perverse groups as the Taliban or Al Qaeda.
Former US President George W. Bush went to war with Afghanistan and received support from American people and the governments and militaries of many countries by claiming that revenge was necessary after the events of 9/11. The undercurrent of his revenge speeches always pitted Islam against Christianity in the USA. Though both the Taliban and Al Qaeda have continued and flourished since the war began, not a single act of violence is known to have occurred since September 11, 2001 on US soil. Precautions were taken to prevent them, which could easily have been done without beginning a war. Will Mr. Bush's oil investor friends profit when a pipeline is run over Afghan soil from oil-rich former Soviet states to the sea from where it may be shipped to any part of the world? Certainly.
President Bush also took his country to war with Iraq (with less support than for Afghanistan) by claiming it was morally right to attack a country that had Weapons of Mass Destruction (which the US had sold to Iraq, but which Iraq had used up in its war with Iran). He claimed that it was the moral duty of Americans and any right thinking people of other countries to eliminate the repressive regime of Saddam Hussain (remember the Axis of Evil?). He could have made that claim about any Arab country, as we are now learning, but most of the others do not have huge oil reserves underground.
Though the Tutsis and the Hutus of Rwanda had lived together in tense harmony since the departure of German imperialists, the minority Tutsis ran the government while the majority Hutus were considered (by the Tutsis and the Germans before them) inferior and incapable of being employed in government service. Hutu leaders pleaded moral outrage at the prejudice against their people. When war between the two began, it was brutally violent. It turned into a genocide because the Tutsis did not have the power to fight back with equal measure. The Tutsis eventually gained allies and weapons sufficient to bring the war to a close in a stalemate. It was the moral claim by the Hutus of prejudice and repression by the Tutsis that fired up what became the genocide. Nearly a million people died, countless survivors will never get over the emotional scars.
A more recent example of genocide happened in Kosovo where the Christian Serbs were morally outraged at the Muslim Albanians for [insert the excuse that suits you, the Serbs used many, none of which were valid--it was a religious war and everyone knew it except the Serb fighters].
Americans still claim that everyone in their country would be speaking German if the US had not entered the Second World War in 1941. As unsupportable as this claim is--such language migrations have never happened successfully in history--it was moral infuriation of Americans against Hitler that resulted in the declaration of war. World domination would not succeed any better for Hitler, if he had been left to his own plans, than it had for the British with its empire that encompassed nearly one-quarter of the land mass of the planet, or the Roman Empire or the empires of any self-appointed world emperor because military domination requires far more cash than any country can produce no matter how many allies it might have. (Big empires cost too much to support--see the history of the USSR.) But the fear of Hitler brought moral rectitude into play until enough countries destroyed Hitler and his Nazis.
Since its creation Israel has received enormous financial help from the US. Conspiracy theorists claim this happened because of the huge influence Jewish industrialists and media barons have over the US government. While this theory is largely unsupportable (no one claimed the Jews were taking over the US when they controlled the garment industry, for example), it continues to exist for reasons that are mostly based on religious prejudice. The US supports Israel due to guilt over its not taking action against the Nazi genocide of Jews, which results in millions of deaths in Europe. Guilt always has a religious (moral) base.
While many people die and more suffer in any war, on both sides, a few always become rich (or richer). Those few always lead the charge of moral outrage against the enemy they intend to plunder. While Germany and Japan lost the Second World War and neither had any oil to speak of, both were physically destroyed in war and rebuilt later into economic giants as a result of investments and loans from wealthy people in the "winning" countries.
In today's world, those with money have power. While this has been the case throughout human history, it is more true today when rich people can buy influence over elected decision makers. The wealthy don't need to hold power when they can buy it.
Bill Allin is the author of Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want their children to grow and develop in all ways necessary, not just intellectually and physically. Social problems in our cities (and the taxes they cause) demonstrate the urgent need for change.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/
'All the reasons which made the initiation of physical force evil make the retaliatory use of physical force a moral imperative.'
- Ayn Rand, Russian-American writer and philosopher (1905 - 1982)
No doubt the pivotal word in Ms. Rand's quote is "moral." Every leader who proposes war--who advocates violence of any kind to others--does so on moral grounds. "It's the right thing to do under the circumstances before we have big problems." Moral response to offensive physical force always has a religious connection. Seldom is the more secular ethics explanation (excuse) given for revenge.
Islamists--not Muslims, but former Muslims who perverted the words of the Prophet and the Qu'ran to something political and violent--claim that everything and everyone they don't like is a threat to Islam or an insult to the Prophet. Few (if any) of such claims are valid references to the Qu'ran, most are concocted lies designed to deceive the innocent (who never check the facts) into committing acts of violence, including suicide bombing and killing that solidifies membership in such perverse groups as the Taliban or Al Qaeda.
Former US President George W. Bush went to war with Afghanistan and received support from American people and the governments and militaries of many countries by claiming that revenge was necessary after the events of 9/11. The undercurrent of his revenge speeches always pitted Islam against Christianity in the USA. Though both the Taliban and Al Qaeda have continued and flourished since the war began, not a single act of violence is known to have occurred since September 11, 2001 on US soil. Precautions were taken to prevent them, which could easily have been done without beginning a war. Will Mr. Bush's oil investor friends profit when a pipeline is run over Afghan soil from oil-rich former Soviet states to the sea from where it may be shipped to any part of the world? Certainly.
President Bush also took his country to war with Iraq (with less support than for Afghanistan) by claiming it was morally right to attack a country that had Weapons of Mass Destruction (which the US had sold to Iraq, but which Iraq had used up in its war with Iran). He claimed that it was the moral duty of Americans and any right thinking people of other countries to eliminate the repressive regime of Saddam Hussain (remember the Axis of Evil?). He could have made that claim about any Arab country, as we are now learning, but most of the others do not have huge oil reserves underground.
Though the Tutsis and the Hutus of Rwanda had lived together in tense harmony since the departure of German imperialists, the minority Tutsis ran the government while the majority Hutus were considered (by the Tutsis and the Germans before them) inferior and incapable of being employed in government service. Hutu leaders pleaded moral outrage at the prejudice against their people. When war between the two began, it was brutally violent. It turned into a genocide because the Tutsis did not have the power to fight back with equal measure. The Tutsis eventually gained allies and weapons sufficient to bring the war to a close in a stalemate. It was the moral claim by the Hutus of prejudice and repression by the Tutsis that fired up what became the genocide. Nearly a million people died, countless survivors will never get over the emotional scars.
A more recent example of genocide happened in Kosovo where the Christian Serbs were morally outraged at the Muslim Albanians for [insert the excuse that suits you, the Serbs used many, none of which were valid--it was a religious war and everyone knew it except the Serb fighters].
Americans still claim that everyone in their country would be speaking German if the US had not entered the Second World War in 1941. As unsupportable as this claim is--such language migrations have never happened successfully in history--it was moral infuriation of Americans against Hitler that resulted in the declaration of war. World domination would not succeed any better for Hitler, if he had been left to his own plans, than it had for the British with its empire that encompassed nearly one-quarter of the land mass of the planet, or the Roman Empire or the empires of any self-appointed world emperor because military domination requires far more cash than any country can produce no matter how many allies it might have. (Big empires cost too much to support--see the history of the USSR.) But the fear of Hitler brought moral rectitude into play until enough countries destroyed Hitler and his Nazis.
Since its creation Israel has received enormous financial help from the US. Conspiracy theorists claim this happened because of the huge influence Jewish industrialists and media barons have over the US government. While this theory is largely unsupportable (no one claimed the Jews were taking over the US when they controlled the garment industry, for example), it continues to exist for reasons that are mostly based on religious prejudice. The US supports Israel due to guilt over its not taking action against the Nazi genocide of Jews, which results in millions of deaths in Europe. Guilt always has a religious (moral) base.
While many people die and more suffer in any war, on both sides, a few always become rich (or richer). Those few always lead the charge of moral outrage against the enemy they intend to plunder. While Germany and Japan lost the Second World War and neither had any oil to speak of, both were physically destroyed in war and rebuilt later into economic giants as a result of investments and loans from wealthy people in the "winning" countries.
In today's world, those with money have power. While this has been the case throughout human history, it is more true today when rich people can buy influence over elected decision makers. The wealthy don't need to hold power when they can buy it.
Bill Allin is the author of Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want their children to grow and develop in all ways necessary, not just intellectually and physically. Social problems in our cities (and the taxes they cause) demonstrate the urgent need for change.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/
Thursday, March 05, 2009
You Can Find Peace
Peace begins in the heart of each person -- not societies, not countries, not nations. Each person.
- Prem Rawat (http://www.tprf.org/home.html)
The United States has gone to war many times in my lifetime, each time with one of the stated causes being peace.
Two world wars have been fought by dozens of countries, each of whom wanted peace. Some of them wanted power and domination over others along with that peace, but peace was ostensibly the primary objective in the reasons they gave for going to war.
I remember the Dukhobors, a spiritual Christian sect from Russia that wanted nothing more than to be left in peace when they migrated to Canada in the mid-twentieth century after being persecuted for over a century in their native countries. They defied Canadian laws, though their behaviour was in line with their own beliefs. When the police came to arrest them, they protested, often in the nude and sometimes violently. They wanted peace for themselves, not so much for others.
In our past, every society, country and nation has gone to war to exact peace. It hasn't worked.
The United States issues more and more permits for its citizens to carry handguns to protect themselves, the idea being that they can have peace of mind and their communities will be more peaceful because bad guys won't risk creating problems for themselves with people who carry guns. Neither the United States as a country nor its citizens as individuals nor its communities feel safer or more at peace. Peace and fear remain, as always, at odds with each other.
The individuals who are really most at peace are those who have created peace within themselves. Unlike those who advocate violence, promote fear and create unrest among their fellow countrymen, those who have peace within them do not advertise or brag of their accomplishments.
We don't know much about people who live peaceful lives because our media find nothing interesting about them. People who live peace do not proselytize to find others to join them. To do so would be to violate their peaceful existence.
Those of us who want to live lives of peace must find it for ourselves, within ourselves. As Prem Rawat said, "peace begins in the heart of each person." It cannot be otherwise. Peace doesn't work that way.
Peace cannot result from fighting. Fighting for peace is a false objective advocated by those who want violence. For them, the promise of peace is a tool for war.
People who want peace want it for themselves. People who want violence want it for others.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to grow children who are capable of living peaceful lives, who have the knowledge and skills to find peace for themselves.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Prem Rawat (http://www.tprf.org/home.html)
The United States has gone to war many times in my lifetime, each time with one of the stated causes being peace.
Two world wars have been fought by dozens of countries, each of whom wanted peace. Some of them wanted power and domination over others along with that peace, but peace was ostensibly the primary objective in the reasons they gave for going to war.
I remember the Dukhobors, a spiritual Christian sect from Russia that wanted nothing more than to be left in peace when they migrated to Canada in the mid-twentieth century after being persecuted for over a century in their native countries. They defied Canadian laws, though their behaviour was in line with their own beliefs. When the police came to arrest them, they protested, often in the nude and sometimes violently. They wanted peace for themselves, not so much for others.
In our past, every society, country and nation has gone to war to exact peace. It hasn't worked.
The United States issues more and more permits for its citizens to carry handguns to protect themselves, the idea being that they can have peace of mind and their communities will be more peaceful because bad guys won't risk creating problems for themselves with people who carry guns. Neither the United States as a country nor its citizens as individuals nor its communities feel safer or more at peace. Peace and fear remain, as always, at odds with each other.
The individuals who are really most at peace are those who have created peace within themselves. Unlike those who advocate violence, promote fear and create unrest among their fellow countrymen, those who have peace within them do not advertise or brag of their accomplishments.
We don't know much about people who live peaceful lives because our media find nothing interesting about them. People who live peace do not proselytize to find others to join them. To do so would be to violate their peaceful existence.
Those of us who want to live lives of peace must find it for ourselves, within ourselves. As Prem Rawat said, "peace begins in the heart of each person." It cannot be otherwise. Peace doesn't work that way.
Peace cannot result from fighting. Fighting for peace is a false objective advocated by those who want violence. For them, the promise of peace is a tool for war.
People who want peace want it for themselves. People who want violence want it for others.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to grow children who are capable of living peaceful lives, who have the knowledge and skills to find peace for themselves.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Sunday, November 02, 2008
Is Freedom Really Worth Fighting For?
Here lives a free man. Nobody serves him.
- Albert Camus, writer, philosopher, Nobel laureate (1913-1960)
The concept of freedom has as many interpretations as there are people who use the word.
We fight wars in the name of freedom. We insist that people who have been wrongly convicted and incarcerated be freed because freedom is a basic human right. What the concept of freedom means is confusing.
Politicians manipulate our thinking on various subjects by hinting or clearly stating that our freedom will be reduced or confined if we do not support the action they advocate. It motivates fear, which is what gets them elected.
Freedom is a great political football because nobody is clear about what it means. Most times the word is used, it means whatever the user wants it to mean.
Whatever freedom is, the concept exists between the ears.
Is it worth fighting for? If you can't think for yourself and tend to take your view of the world and your opinions of the parts of it that affect you from others, it's not worth fighting for. You have given up your freedom voluntarily already.
Freedom as a tool of political persuasion is only used--can only be used--with people who have already given up their right and ability to think for themselves. When we see how many wars are fought in the cause of freedom, we can see how many people don't think for themselves. Many people don't think at all, they just follow.
People such as The Mahatma, Mohandas Gandhi, who was jailed many times for annoying the British with his peaceful insistence (resistance) that the UK free India, and democracy leader and Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Ki, of Burma, under house arrest for years, did not consider their freedom to have been removed. No matter where they were (or are) they could think for themselves.
Their freedom to move around from place to place was restricted, but their freedom of mind was not--could not--be taken from them.
Are you free? Because you read, because you choose to seek out information and opinions on various subjects, you certainly are free. Or you have greater potential to be free, whether you adopt it or not.
You may listen to input from a variety of sources, but you don't make up your mind on any subject until and unless you have learned more than enough on which to base a sound decision.
If freedom is based on the unfettered ability to think, isn't everyone free, almost by definition?
By definition, yes. By choice, no. Too many people allow their minds to be manipulated by others who have something to gain by having them as allies or supporters. Look at the effectiveness of most advertising and religions as examples of how propaganda can be used to have people voluntarily give up their freedom.
Follwers listen to one line of thought and adopt it as if it were inherently good and right and the only possible choice. It's like two siblings fighting over something and mom supporting the first one to explain their case to her. The first one to make a good case get the most supporters.
No one can take away your freedom of thought. The only way you can lose that is to give it away.
Why do so many people give away that right? They aren't taught it at school. At home, kids have to follow the ways of the family, at least when they are younger. At school, kids are taught that the teacher's way is the right way. Even at the college level students learn that it's risky to take a position on a paper that is contrary to that of the teacher because a low mark may result.
People who enjoy true freedom of thought generally do not voluntarily go to war. Some may take leadership roles and send others into battle. They don't go themselves because they value their own freedom.
The freedom to think.
We can teach this. The world won't fall apart or be bombed out of existence if we teach freedom of thought and support freedom of expression. It's not just a clause in a constitution. Freedom can be a way of life.
It's only a risk when too many people allow themselves to be persuaded that it's a dangerous thing to allow others to express their opinions.
Freedom of thought and expression is embedded in the constitutions of many countries. Yet people in those countries give away that freedom when they accept the fear mongering by leaders who want opinions that differ from their own to be suppressed.
We have nothing to fear from differences. We only allow ourselves to be afraid when we don't have exposure to all sides or positions of an argument or issue.
Those who limit our exposure to differences of opinion or forms of art or anything else want to remove our freedom of thought, our freedom to make our own choices. The more we restrict our learning of information about differences, the more we sacrifice our freedom.
When we imprison our own minds, all that's left is our bodies. And they are no more sophisticated than the bodies of other animals or plants. Bodies aren't intelligent, they just are.
We can teach the freedom to think. We can teach it in schools. We simply need to teach boundaries with it, such as when freedom of thought becomes licence or anarchy that impinges on the rights of others.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to teach children how to think for themselves.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Albert Camus, writer, philosopher, Nobel laureate (1913-1960)
The concept of freedom has as many interpretations as there are people who use the word.
We fight wars in the name of freedom. We insist that people who have been wrongly convicted and incarcerated be freed because freedom is a basic human right. What the concept of freedom means is confusing.
Politicians manipulate our thinking on various subjects by hinting or clearly stating that our freedom will be reduced or confined if we do not support the action they advocate. It motivates fear, which is what gets them elected.
Freedom is a great political football because nobody is clear about what it means. Most times the word is used, it means whatever the user wants it to mean.
Whatever freedom is, the concept exists between the ears.
Is it worth fighting for? If you can't think for yourself and tend to take your view of the world and your opinions of the parts of it that affect you from others, it's not worth fighting for. You have given up your freedom voluntarily already.
Freedom as a tool of political persuasion is only used--can only be used--with people who have already given up their right and ability to think for themselves. When we see how many wars are fought in the cause of freedom, we can see how many people don't think for themselves. Many people don't think at all, they just follow.
People such as The Mahatma, Mohandas Gandhi, who was jailed many times for annoying the British with his peaceful insistence (resistance) that the UK free India, and democracy leader and Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Ki, of Burma, under house arrest for years, did not consider their freedom to have been removed. No matter where they were (or are) they could think for themselves.
Their freedom to move around from place to place was restricted, but their freedom of mind was not--could not--be taken from them.
Are you free? Because you read, because you choose to seek out information and opinions on various subjects, you certainly are free. Or you have greater potential to be free, whether you adopt it or not.
You may listen to input from a variety of sources, but you don't make up your mind on any subject until and unless you have learned more than enough on which to base a sound decision.
If freedom is based on the unfettered ability to think, isn't everyone free, almost by definition?
By definition, yes. By choice, no. Too many people allow their minds to be manipulated by others who have something to gain by having them as allies or supporters. Look at the effectiveness of most advertising and religions as examples of how propaganda can be used to have people voluntarily give up their freedom.
Follwers listen to one line of thought and adopt it as if it were inherently good and right and the only possible choice. It's like two siblings fighting over something and mom supporting the first one to explain their case to her. The first one to make a good case get the most supporters.
No one can take away your freedom of thought. The only way you can lose that is to give it away.
Why do so many people give away that right? They aren't taught it at school. At home, kids have to follow the ways of the family, at least when they are younger. At school, kids are taught that the teacher's way is the right way. Even at the college level students learn that it's risky to take a position on a paper that is contrary to that of the teacher because a low mark may result.
People who enjoy true freedom of thought generally do not voluntarily go to war. Some may take leadership roles and send others into battle. They don't go themselves because they value their own freedom.
The freedom to think.
We can teach this. The world won't fall apart or be bombed out of existence if we teach freedom of thought and support freedom of expression. It's not just a clause in a constitution. Freedom can be a way of life.
It's only a risk when too many people allow themselves to be persuaded that it's a dangerous thing to allow others to express their opinions.
Freedom of thought and expression is embedded in the constitutions of many countries. Yet people in those countries give away that freedom when they accept the fear mongering by leaders who want opinions that differ from their own to be suppressed.
We have nothing to fear from differences. We only allow ourselves to be afraid when we don't have exposure to all sides or positions of an argument or issue.
Those who limit our exposure to differences of opinion or forms of art or anything else want to remove our freedom of thought, our freedom to make our own choices. The more we restrict our learning of information about differences, the more we sacrifice our freedom.
When we imprison our own minds, all that's left is our bodies. And they are no more sophisticated than the bodies of other animals or plants. Bodies aren't intelligent, they just are.
We can teach the freedom to think. We can teach it in schools. We simply need to teach boundaries with it, such as when freedom of thought becomes licence or anarchy that impinges on the rights of others.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to teach children how to think for themselves.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Sunday, August 17, 2008
It Takes A Lot Of Stupid People To Make A War
Religion--freedom--vengeance--what you will,
A word's enough to raise mankind to kill.
- Lord Byron, poet (1788-1824)
Almost every war is fought under the banner of a religion. Though the religion may not be the primary purpose of the wars, such as it was during the Christian Crusades to "free" the Holy Land from those of another religion, the God or gods of the religion of the perpetrators of the wars are always invoked to bring success to the cause. In the case of the Second World War, for example, both the Allies and the Axis powers firmly believed that God was on their respective sides.
While communism purports to be non-religious, even anti-religion, the power of the state (thus of its leaders) is treated like a religion. Russian leaders after the Revolution insisted that they be treated as gods as they transformed many independent eastern European states into components of the USSR, just as the Caesars did to make the empire of Rome. The Caesars appointed themselves gods as well.
Every religion that claims to have a monotheistic God at its head preaches peace. Even Hinduism, which has thousands of gods when studied one way, has one God above all--a God very similar to the God of the Abrahamic religions--with that God having many facets to his personality and his interests, according to many Hindus. Hinduism and its offspring, Buddhism, are surely the most peaceful religions in the world. They not only teach peace, they insist that their followers practise it in their daily lives.
If most of the people fighting in wars today do so under the banner of a God who teaches that peace is the right way to live, then all soldiers who kill are heretics. To use a modern day western term, they are terrorists. Indeed, in wars such as those in Afghanistan and Iraq, both sides refer to the fighters of the other sides as terrorists. To the Taliban of Afghanistan and the Sunnis and Shiites of Iraq, the US and its allies are terrorists.
And they are terrorists, on both sides. Albeit, they may have been persuaded to kill by their employers or their religious masters--persuaded in ways that should properly be called brainwashing or mind-bending.
Being persuaded to kill for your religion, for your God who teaches that peace is the only way to live, is an indication of stupidity.
If two people meet on the street, get into a debate that becomes heated and their anger rises to the surface, those two are expected to find ways to settle their differences. Usually that involves dialogue until the issue is settled, often through compromise. In fact, if the argument becomes physically violent, both could be charged and imprisoned.
States are not held to that standard, even those states whose individual citizens are expected to settle their differences without resorting to violence. Somehow, the leaders of those states are exempt from the standards they set for their own citizens. They are granted the right--indeed, some claim, the duty--to lie to their citizens to make them want to fight a war, to want to kill an enemy who only became an enemy because the leaders would not settle their differences through dialogue.
While we could say that someone like Adolf Hitler could not be stopped through dialogue when he tried to conquer the world by taking over country after country in Europe and Africa, we could also note that Hitler was elected by people who wanted Germany to regain the power it once had, but had lost by the Kaiser (the German form of the name Caesar) losing the First World War. The German people of Hitler's time believed that they had a God-given right to dominate their part of the world.
Russia--at least the leaders of Russia today--believes the same thing about eastern Europe. Only they do so without resorting to religion. They use the old standby "The bad guys are trying to hurt us again" to terrorize rogue provinces within Russia and in neighbouring territories in former Soviet states as excuses to invade and/or bomb them.
That excuse was used by the US and their allies to invade Afghanistan and Iraq, even though the US leaders knew that only one organization (al Qaeda) was behind the attacks of September 11, 2001. In fact, nothing inspired the expansion of al Qaeda's membership around the world so much as the US and its allies invading those countries. The people of those countries don't feel liberated. They know that the US-led coalitions literally created the enemies they fight today in those countries.
It's public knowledge that the US supplied weapons to both Osama and Saddam. Then it turned against these men when they became powerful enough to influence the buying of weapons from countries other than the US and to direct the flow of oil away from the US and its allies in western Europe.
It's also public knowledge that Bush supporters--the most influential ones who paid the way of the US into Afghanistan and Iraq--are and were weapons manufacturers and the owners of oil concerns in the US and many offshore locations.
The German people were duped by Hitler in the 1930s. The Russian people are duped by Putin and his puppet president today. The American people were duped into voting George W. Bush--the self-appointed "war president"--back into power in 2004 and show many signs that they may be willing to vote his successor into power in November, 2008.
This world has many killers, most of which are supported by their respective governments and religions. It has far more people who want peace. But those who want peace are prepared to play stupid and allow the war terrorists to take power and run roughshod over their rights. They quietly sacrifice their rights and their future of peace to those who are prepared to speak loudly, threateningly and often.
Where citizens are allowed to remain ignorant, uneducated, or where they are brainwashed into believing that bad guys in other parties or in other countries are out to get them, there will be war. In the vast majority of countries of the world--countries with far less power and facing much greater economic risks than the US and Russia--the people know what peace is. They respect what peace is and what they stand for as people who support the ways of peace.
But in countries where people can be brainwashed or are stupid or uneducated, war is the rule. War is the rule, not the exception.
What we adults teach our children is what they will believe as adults. As we look around the world today, we can see what the children of yesterday have wrought with the beliefs they were taught as children. Peace in most places, war in some.
War is uncivilized. The leaders who practise it are throwbacks to a less civilized form of humanity. Those who believe them deserve to be their prey. They deserve to be eaten, but not to eat their more advanced fellow humans.
Teaching children is what we do. We either do it in formal settings such as schools or places of worship or we do it as role models, by acting the roles we expect our children to follow when they come of age and take control of the future of their country.
Children learn from us, one way or another.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to grow children who will become educated and peaceful adults, instead of the mindless followers and believers of self-defeating propaganda that we have in so many places today.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
A word's enough to raise mankind to kill.
- Lord Byron, poet (1788-1824)
Almost every war is fought under the banner of a religion. Though the religion may not be the primary purpose of the wars, such as it was during the Christian Crusades to "free" the Holy Land from those of another religion, the God or gods of the religion of the perpetrators of the wars are always invoked to bring success to the cause. In the case of the Second World War, for example, both the Allies and the Axis powers firmly believed that God was on their respective sides.
While communism purports to be non-religious, even anti-religion, the power of the state (thus of its leaders) is treated like a religion. Russian leaders after the Revolution insisted that they be treated as gods as they transformed many independent eastern European states into components of the USSR, just as the Caesars did to make the empire of Rome. The Caesars appointed themselves gods as well.
Every religion that claims to have a monotheistic God at its head preaches peace. Even Hinduism, which has thousands of gods when studied one way, has one God above all--a God very similar to the God of the Abrahamic religions--with that God having many facets to his personality and his interests, according to many Hindus. Hinduism and its offspring, Buddhism, are surely the most peaceful religions in the world. They not only teach peace, they insist that their followers practise it in their daily lives.
If most of the people fighting in wars today do so under the banner of a God who teaches that peace is the right way to live, then all soldiers who kill are heretics. To use a modern day western term, they are terrorists. Indeed, in wars such as those in Afghanistan and Iraq, both sides refer to the fighters of the other sides as terrorists. To the Taliban of Afghanistan and the Sunnis and Shiites of Iraq, the US and its allies are terrorists.
And they are terrorists, on both sides. Albeit, they may have been persuaded to kill by their employers or their religious masters--persuaded in ways that should properly be called brainwashing or mind-bending.
Being persuaded to kill for your religion, for your God who teaches that peace is the only way to live, is an indication of stupidity.
If two people meet on the street, get into a debate that becomes heated and their anger rises to the surface, those two are expected to find ways to settle their differences. Usually that involves dialogue until the issue is settled, often through compromise. In fact, if the argument becomes physically violent, both could be charged and imprisoned.
States are not held to that standard, even those states whose individual citizens are expected to settle their differences without resorting to violence. Somehow, the leaders of those states are exempt from the standards they set for their own citizens. They are granted the right--indeed, some claim, the duty--to lie to their citizens to make them want to fight a war, to want to kill an enemy who only became an enemy because the leaders would not settle their differences through dialogue.
While we could say that someone like Adolf Hitler could not be stopped through dialogue when he tried to conquer the world by taking over country after country in Europe and Africa, we could also note that Hitler was elected by people who wanted Germany to regain the power it once had, but had lost by the Kaiser (the German form of the name Caesar) losing the First World War. The German people of Hitler's time believed that they had a God-given right to dominate their part of the world.
Russia--at least the leaders of Russia today--believes the same thing about eastern Europe. Only they do so without resorting to religion. They use the old standby "The bad guys are trying to hurt us again" to terrorize rogue provinces within Russia and in neighbouring territories in former Soviet states as excuses to invade and/or bomb them.
That excuse was used by the US and their allies to invade Afghanistan and Iraq, even though the US leaders knew that only one organization (al Qaeda) was behind the attacks of September 11, 2001. In fact, nothing inspired the expansion of al Qaeda's membership around the world so much as the US and its allies invading those countries. The people of those countries don't feel liberated. They know that the US-led coalitions literally created the enemies they fight today in those countries.
It's public knowledge that the US supplied weapons to both Osama and Saddam. Then it turned against these men when they became powerful enough to influence the buying of weapons from countries other than the US and to direct the flow of oil away from the US and its allies in western Europe.
It's also public knowledge that Bush supporters--the most influential ones who paid the way of the US into Afghanistan and Iraq--are and were weapons manufacturers and the owners of oil concerns in the US and many offshore locations.
The German people were duped by Hitler in the 1930s. The Russian people are duped by Putin and his puppet president today. The American people were duped into voting George W. Bush--the self-appointed "war president"--back into power in 2004 and show many signs that they may be willing to vote his successor into power in November, 2008.
This world has many killers, most of which are supported by their respective governments and religions. It has far more people who want peace. But those who want peace are prepared to play stupid and allow the war terrorists to take power and run roughshod over their rights. They quietly sacrifice their rights and their future of peace to those who are prepared to speak loudly, threateningly and often.
Where citizens are allowed to remain ignorant, uneducated, or where they are brainwashed into believing that bad guys in other parties or in other countries are out to get them, there will be war. In the vast majority of countries of the world--countries with far less power and facing much greater economic risks than the US and Russia--the people know what peace is. They respect what peace is and what they stand for as people who support the ways of peace.
But in countries where people can be brainwashed or are stupid or uneducated, war is the rule. War is the rule, not the exception.
What we adults teach our children is what they will believe as adults. As we look around the world today, we can see what the children of yesterday have wrought with the beliefs they were taught as children. Peace in most places, war in some.
War is uncivilized. The leaders who practise it are throwbacks to a less civilized form of humanity. Those who believe them deserve to be their prey. They deserve to be eaten, but not to eat their more advanced fellow humans.
Teaching children is what we do. We either do it in formal settings such as schools or places of worship or we do it as role models, by acting the roles we expect our children to follow when they come of age and take control of the future of their country.
Children learn from us, one way or another.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to grow children who will become educated and peaceful adults, instead of the mindless followers and believers of self-defeating propaganda that we have in so many places today.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
How Bad Will The Future Really Be?
Never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.
- Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, nicknamed "the wise" Roman Emperor, (121 CE - 180 CE)
An emperor of Rome, indeed the leader of any country up to modern times, would need to be sanguine about the future because the chances of his having his head detached from the rest of his body before that body was worn out stood exceedingly high.
What about old Julius? He certainly couldn't have used all of his weapons of reason when he allowed his formerly trusted ally Brutus and his gang to slay him. Actually, he likely did. To the best of his ability.
Julius was a very ill man, suffering from a great deal of pain and loss of his abilities of perception due to disease at the time of his death. It's entirely possible that he did the equivalent of falling on his sword, just to put himself out of misery. He knew he was too sick to rule Rome, to give it his best. Yet his honour forbade him from committing suicide, even if it be for the good of Rome. It's highly likely that he knew what was about to happen when he met privately with his "enemies."
In other words, we now know that Julius Caesar likely used the best of his mental faculties to do what was best for both himself and for Rome. History hasn't recorded the event of his death that way, but history has a way of relating what its teller wants to the story to be.
Marcus Aurelius must also have used his abundant mental faculties during his almost two decades as emperor of Rome (actually king, as Rome did not call anyone an emperor). His reign was the ultimate example of Pax Romana and his death brought turmoil as to who should lead the greatest empire the world had known until then (later the British Empire was greatest in history, covering one-quarter of our planet's surface at one time).
Though Christians were still persecuted in his time in theory, in practice they seldom were. Rome (undoubtedly a brutal regime in many ways, though hardly the worst in history) really was fairly peaceful during Marcus's reign. It would have required considerable weapons of reason to make peace so effectively that the period was given its own name.
So we turn to ourselves. Every media outlet in the western world and most in other parts of the world report almost daily about how bad conditions are in the world. I have heard many young people from North America say that they don't plan to have children because the world is just getting worse and they couldn't in all good conscience bring children into such tragedy.
The world must be getting worse, just listen to our media tell us. But it's not so.
No point in history has ever been so peaceful, with such a great percentage of people living long lives, healthier than their ancestors, in human history. The media always tell us that the world is a terrible place and leave us to conclude that the future will surely be worse. Neither is true.
Even during the dreaded Holocaust, when millions of Jews, cripples, people with much lower than average intelligence and people who simply pissed off the Germans were being exterminated, good things were happening elsewhere in the world. In the west, women who worked necessary jobs in factories earned a decent living and started a movement for equal rights for women that is still going on today. The Jews that survived got a country of their own a few years after the war, something they had not been able to accomplish for themselves for the previous 3000 years. The powers of the world came together as never before to defeat evil.
Just as Marcus Aurelius said that we will face the future as it comes to us with the same weapons of reason that we use today, we must use the weapons of reason we have available to us today. Or we will make the world a worse place to live, unsafe, unhealthy, unlivable for our children and grandchildren.
Our weapons of reason that help us to cope with today must make us realize that good things are happening in the world each day, even we if don't read about them. We must reason that just because our media report almost exclusively bad news does not mean that the world itself is getting worse. They just report what many people want to hear. Paris Hilton makes the news when she sneezes (and maybe her dress has a "wardrobe malfunction"), but we hear nothing about the millions of good people around the world and in our own communities who are doing good deeds and making good things happen every day.
It's important that we heed Marcus Aurelius's advice about the future. It won't be as bad as the fear mongers want us to believe (they make their living scaring people, remember, rather than getting "real" jobs). And the present isn't as bad as almost every source of information we have make it out to be.
We need to use our weapons of reason every day of our life, not just about the future. The more we refuse to find out information about what is really going on in the world and decline to use our powers of reason when we learn it, the worse the world will become and the worse our own lives will become.
Not learning and not thinking is what will make the world really worse. Bad guys can easily manipulate the thinking and voting of people who are ignorant and who don't want to think for themselves, who depend on others to think and to tell them what to think and believe.
We have the power within us, even those of us with the poorest of education and the most dire of backgrounds. It doesn't cost a thing to use it. We just have to try.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to grow children who can think for themselves about subjects other than the limited ones taught in schools.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, nicknamed "the wise" Roman Emperor, (121 CE - 180 CE)
An emperor of Rome, indeed the leader of any country up to modern times, would need to be sanguine about the future because the chances of his having his head detached from the rest of his body before that body was worn out stood exceedingly high.
What about old Julius? He certainly couldn't have used all of his weapons of reason when he allowed his formerly trusted ally Brutus and his gang to slay him. Actually, he likely did. To the best of his ability.
Julius was a very ill man, suffering from a great deal of pain and loss of his abilities of perception due to disease at the time of his death. It's entirely possible that he did the equivalent of falling on his sword, just to put himself out of misery. He knew he was too sick to rule Rome, to give it his best. Yet his honour forbade him from committing suicide, even if it be for the good of Rome. It's highly likely that he knew what was about to happen when he met privately with his "enemies."
In other words, we now know that Julius Caesar likely used the best of his mental faculties to do what was best for both himself and for Rome. History hasn't recorded the event of his death that way, but history has a way of relating what its teller wants to the story to be.
Marcus Aurelius must also have used his abundant mental faculties during his almost two decades as emperor of Rome (actually king, as Rome did not call anyone an emperor). His reign was the ultimate example of Pax Romana and his death brought turmoil as to who should lead the greatest empire the world had known until then (later the British Empire was greatest in history, covering one-quarter of our planet's surface at one time).
Though Christians were still persecuted in his time in theory, in practice they seldom were. Rome (undoubtedly a brutal regime in many ways, though hardly the worst in history) really was fairly peaceful during Marcus's reign. It would have required considerable weapons of reason to make peace so effectively that the period was given its own name.
So we turn to ourselves. Every media outlet in the western world and most in other parts of the world report almost daily about how bad conditions are in the world. I have heard many young people from North America say that they don't plan to have children because the world is just getting worse and they couldn't in all good conscience bring children into such tragedy.
The world must be getting worse, just listen to our media tell us. But it's not so.
No point in history has ever been so peaceful, with such a great percentage of people living long lives, healthier than their ancestors, in human history. The media always tell us that the world is a terrible place and leave us to conclude that the future will surely be worse. Neither is true.
Even during the dreaded Holocaust, when millions of Jews, cripples, people with much lower than average intelligence and people who simply pissed off the Germans were being exterminated, good things were happening elsewhere in the world. In the west, women who worked necessary jobs in factories earned a decent living and started a movement for equal rights for women that is still going on today. The Jews that survived got a country of their own a few years after the war, something they had not been able to accomplish for themselves for the previous 3000 years. The powers of the world came together as never before to defeat evil.
Just as Marcus Aurelius said that we will face the future as it comes to us with the same weapons of reason that we use today, we must use the weapons of reason we have available to us today. Or we will make the world a worse place to live, unsafe, unhealthy, unlivable for our children and grandchildren.
Our weapons of reason that help us to cope with today must make us realize that good things are happening in the world each day, even we if don't read about them. We must reason that just because our media report almost exclusively bad news does not mean that the world itself is getting worse. They just report what many people want to hear. Paris Hilton makes the news when she sneezes (and maybe her dress has a "wardrobe malfunction"), but we hear nothing about the millions of good people around the world and in our own communities who are doing good deeds and making good things happen every day.
It's important that we heed Marcus Aurelius's advice about the future. It won't be as bad as the fear mongers want us to believe (they make their living scaring people, remember, rather than getting "real" jobs). And the present isn't as bad as almost every source of information we have make it out to be.
We need to use our weapons of reason every day of our life, not just about the future. The more we refuse to find out information about what is really going on in the world and decline to use our powers of reason when we learn it, the worse the world will become and the worse our own lives will become.
Not learning and not thinking is what will make the world really worse. Bad guys can easily manipulate the thinking and voting of people who are ignorant and who don't want to think for themselves, who depend on others to think and to tell them what to think and believe.
We have the power within us, even those of us with the poorest of education and the most dire of backgrounds. It doesn't cost a thing to use it. We just have to try.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to grow children who can think for themselves about subjects other than the limited ones taught in schools.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
What Kind Of World Do We Have Really?
People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession to their character.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, American philosopher and poet (1803-1882)
Think about it. That person who is so negative about the world, isn't he also a pessimist about his own future and his place in the world?
The loving mother who dotes on her children also looks on the world as a loving place, with bad guys being the exceptions not the rule.
The happy person sees happy people around him and finds happy situations even when reading world news.
The violent person can cite not just violent experiences from his own family while growing up, he can show you violence all around his community and the world.
A trusting person believes that the world operates on trust, while untrustworthy people are few.
Is your opinion of the world a confession of your character, as Emerson claimed? While the two are related directly, I believe that the relationship goes the opposite way to what Emerson stated. We see in the world people like ourselves. Those who are not like us seem to be the exceptions. When we don't see people like ourselves in our immediate world, we look for them in other places. Sometimes that means a move, a change of job or a change of partner.
Even in the face of apparently overwhelming evidence to the contrary, people will believe about the world what they want to believe. An optimistic person will see the world as a positive place. Nothing will console a negative person about what a hell-on-earth we live in and how no one should bring up a child in the present conditions.
Is the world really a great place with enormous possibilities? Or is hell something we live through each day of our lives?
It depends on what kind of person you are.
If you don't care for the world as it is, change your attitude toward yourself and those around you. You world will gradually become a marvelous place.
You don't have to take Emerson's word for it. Think about what you think of the world in general and about what you think of your own life.
It's true that life is what we make of it. It's also true that your world is what you make of it.
Live the life you want your life to be. The world around you will follow your example.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to grow children with positive attitudes toward themselves and their world and need the tools to make it happen.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, American philosopher and poet (1803-1882)
Think about it. That person who is so negative about the world, isn't he also a pessimist about his own future and his place in the world?
The loving mother who dotes on her children also looks on the world as a loving place, with bad guys being the exceptions not the rule.
The happy person sees happy people around him and finds happy situations even when reading world news.
The violent person can cite not just violent experiences from his own family while growing up, he can show you violence all around his community and the world.
A trusting person believes that the world operates on trust, while untrustworthy people are few.
Is your opinion of the world a confession of your character, as Emerson claimed? While the two are related directly, I believe that the relationship goes the opposite way to what Emerson stated. We see in the world people like ourselves. Those who are not like us seem to be the exceptions. When we don't see people like ourselves in our immediate world, we look for them in other places. Sometimes that means a move, a change of job or a change of partner.
Even in the face of apparently overwhelming evidence to the contrary, people will believe about the world what they want to believe. An optimistic person will see the world as a positive place. Nothing will console a negative person about what a hell-on-earth we live in and how no one should bring up a child in the present conditions.
Is the world really a great place with enormous possibilities? Or is hell something we live through each day of our lives?
It depends on what kind of person you are.
If you don't care for the world as it is, change your attitude toward yourself and those around you. You world will gradually become a marvelous place.
You don't have to take Emerson's word for it. Think about what you think of the world in general and about what you think of your own life.
It's true that life is what we make of it. It's also true that your world is what you make of it.
Live the life you want your life to be. The world around you will follow your example.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to grow children with positive attitudes toward themselves and their world and need the tools to make it happen.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Monday, May 26, 2008
A Man's Weakest Spot
Typically, the weakest spot of men is their manhood, be it physically or mentally. We all know that a blow to the genitals can bring down the strongest man. But striking at a man's sense of manhood is just as efficient a cowardly "low blow". The magical formula to defeat a macho is by pushing him to do something dangerous and stupid, with the (not so) "secret" words : "I dare you to do it, if you're a man."
- Pascal Rassi, artist
A macho, as Rassi calls him, is not just stupid. He is a throwback to prehistoric days when the most powerful young men in a band or tribe were the most daring and strongest. These were the warriors. These were the men who forever trumpeted "My (blank) is better/bigger/stronger than your (blank)."
These were the people who, as children, would not only accept reasonable dares, they would be the ones to taunt others with unreasonable or risky dares. They learned that they gained social power by making others look like chickens because they would not accept unreasonable dares.
These people exist today, though they may be found in politics or in vocations that thrive on guile and people-management muscle as well as in gyms for muscle builders.
They are not bullies, though they may be violently aggressive. Bullies lack self esteem and pick on those they perceive as weak, whereas the Testosterone Kings want to confront their equals or those who consider themselves superior, to defeat them.
Confrontation is a constant issue with the machos. Like prize fighters working their way to the top, the machos win even when they lose because in a loss they learn how to do it better the next time, to defeat the next macho in line. They don't lack self esteem. More likely they suffer from an unsupportable excess of it.
However, not all men succumb to a dare against their manhood. Some are secure enough and intelligent enough to recognize a stupid dare and an unwinnable confrontation to walk away from it without looking back. They understand that their sexuality is not at risk because of a stupid dare.
While this machoness is usually attributed to men, women suffer from the same dares to their womanliness. The cosmetics industry thrives on it, indeed exists solely because of it. They dare women to be as beautiful as the models in their advertising, even though the models may be anorexic and madeup to within an inch of their lives, more like china dolls than real women.
Everyone wears clothes, but the women's fashion industry uses the threat of not being "in" to push new wardrobes on budget-weary women each year. In the medical field, cosmetic plastic surgery has grown enormously over the past two decades so that it is now the most lucrative and cushiest segment of the medical community.
The victims of these dares and threats to their sexuality testify that we have not fully emerged from the mentality of our forebears in their primitive days as carnivores of the African Rift Valley.
Security, sexuality and self esteem all exist entirely within our own minds. We act out our lives as our minds tell us they believe we are. If we listen to others, we will never be confident about any of them.
You are who you believe you are. If you don't like who that is, you can change your beliefs. That will change your life. That will change who you are. Believe it.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to teach their children the social and emotional skills they need to be competent and confident adults.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Pascal Rassi, artist
A macho, as Rassi calls him, is not just stupid. He is a throwback to prehistoric days when the most powerful young men in a band or tribe were the most daring and strongest. These were the warriors. These were the men who forever trumpeted "My (blank) is better/bigger/stronger than your (blank)."
These were the people who, as children, would not only accept reasonable dares, they would be the ones to taunt others with unreasonable or risky dares. They learned that they gained social power by making others look like chickens because they would not accept unreasonable dares.
These people exist today, though they may be found in politics or in vocations that thrive on guile and people-management muscle as well as in gyms for muscle builders.
They are not bullies, though they may be violently aggressive. Bullies lack self esteem and pick on those they perceive as weak, whereas the Testosterone Kings want to confront their equals or those who consider themselves superior, to defeat them.
Confrontation is a constant issue with the machos. Like prize fighters working their way to the top, the machos win even when they lose because in a loss they learn how to do it better the next time, to defeat the next macho in line. They don't lack self esteem. More likely they suffer from an unsupportable excess of it.
However, not all men succumb to a dare against their manhood. Some are secure enough and intelligent enough to recognize a stupid dare and an unwinnable confrontation to walk away from it without looking back. They understand that their sexuality is not at risk because of a stupid dare.
While this machoness is usually attributed to men, women suffer from the same dares to their womanliness. The cosmetics industry thrives on it, indeed exists solely because of it. They dare women to be as beautiful as the models in their advertising, even though the models may be anorexic and madeup to within an inch of their lives, more like china dolls than real women.
Everyone wears clothes, but the women's fashion industry uses the threat of not being "in" to push new wardrobes on budget-weary women each year. In the medical field, cosmetic plastic surgery has grown enormously over the past two decades so that it is now the most lucrative and cushiest segment of the medical community.
The victims of these dares and threats to their sexuality testify that we have not fully emerged from the mentality of our forebears in their primitive days as carnivores of the African Rift Valley.
Security, sexuality and self esteem all exist entirely within our own minds. We act out our lives as our minds tell us they believe we are. If we listen to others, we will never be confident about any of them.
You are who you believe you are. If you don't like who that is, you can change your beliefs. That will change your life. That will change who you are. Believe it.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to teach their children the social and emotional skills they need to be competent and confident adults.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Monday, April 21, 2008
We Have To Suffer, And We Do It So Well
Man has to suffer. When he has no real afflictions, he invents some.
- Jose Marti, Cuban freedom fighter and hero (1853-1895)
When you read the quotation you might be tempted to think that it was written recently. But Marti, Cuba's greatest national hero, lived well over a century ago. In the sense of this quotation, nothing has changed in humankind since his time.
The observation about life applies both to political/national and to personal lives. The USA and the United Kingdom, for examples, have been involved with wars at least once in each generation for hundreds of years. Were these wars necessary?
For the few hundreds of years leading up to and including Marti's time, the world was indeed a violent place. The evolution from tribal states to centralized governments took a very long time. That is, though centralized governments try to avoid wars in most cases (the US, UK, some African and Asian countries excepted), many got involved with wars until a century ago for the same reasons our ancestors did, control of land and resources. That's tribal.
Politically weak leaders in countries with centralized governments, who want to make names for themselves, stir up rumours that another nation is out to get them, that the people had better prepare for imminent attack or all will be lost. As this kind of politicking appeals to our natural sense of caution, fomenting fear within a population is relatively easy. In some cases, simply making up lies is sufficient to get people behind the leader who will defend them in their "time of great need."
Even in more peaceful times, political parties feel the need to devise the appearance of conflict between parties to get votes and between candidates to help one succeed over another. In most cases, the afflictions (conflict) are more imagined than real, as becomes obvious after an election when a new party in power assumes similar policies that it railed against when it was in opposition.
In our personal lives, some people revel in conflict. In business, for example, succeeding through conflict often gets one person the top job in a company over others who see no valid reason for it. Or who lose the battle.
At the personal level, family doctors see many patients every day who have nothing wrong with them except an overactive imagination and a penchant for hypochondria. Some hand out prescriptions which are nothing more than sugar pills, just to satisfy the imaginary needs of these people to be "cured."
Any phenomenon that can be called a bandwagon effect plays on the same need for an affliction even if one doesn't exist.
Is the planet really warming, inexorably and inevitably, as some say? The Arctic ice cap is melting, to be sure, but the ice cap in the Antarctic is increasing in size. That has always happened in cycles. Some parts of the world are getting hotter--more temperature extremes--while others are having colder temperatures in their winter than have been seen since the Little Ice Age.
Oh, that Little Ice Age. It happened roughly between 1450 and 1850. Since 1850, so our records show, earth has been warming. Reason suggests that it is warming naturally, as we would expect after a minor ice age.
Are we truly in danger of warming our own planet to the point of killing off most of its inhabitants? The hubris of that is astounding, that one species believes it has power of that magnitude. Our weather is governed by the sun more than by any other factor. When we learn to control the sun, we can control weather.
But fear over the effects of climate change is our global affliction of the day. I haven't heard of a single coastal city or even a low island that had to be abandoned because of rising sea levels.
I have heard of many possible causes for the increase of asthma. One primary cause is surely air pollution. We are polluting our air with about half a million chemicals emitted from smokestacks and about half that number of chemicals enter our waterways. That's the stuff we breathe and drink. Why aren't we riding that hobby horse, since it affects the health of almost everyone on our planet?
The air pollution scare tried and failed a few decades ago. Now scientists seeking government grants are ignoring our terribly polluted air that actually kills thousands of people in large countries every year in favour of scaring us into believing in the potential tragedies of climate change.
Meanwhile, several older climatologists who claim that climate change is natural and cyclical have been virtually silenced by the younger ones. The older ones are beyond needing grants, while the younger ones have great careers in fear mongering ahead of them.
It's hard to know what the real facts are because they get obscured by so many who have financial interests and celebrity in mind for themselves.
As Jose Marti said, we need to suffer. There are lots of people around who are well prepared to help us to do just that.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want children to have the skills to be able to distinguish between advertising propaganda and fact so they can live healthy and safe lives without fear of emotional bullies.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Jose Marti, Cuban freedom fighter and hero (1853-1895)
When you read the quotation you might be tempted to think that it was written recently. But Marti, Cuba's greatest national hero, lived well over a century ago. In the sense of this quotation, nothing has changed in humankind since his time.
The observation about life applies both to political/national and to personal lives. The USA and the United Kingdom, for examples, have been involved with wars at least once in each generation for hundreds of years. Were these wars necessary?
For the few hundreds of years leading up to and including Marti's time, the world was indeed a violent place. The evolution from tribal states to centralized governments took a very long time. That is, though centralized governments try to avoid wars in most cases (the US, UK, some African and Asian countries excepted), many got involved with wars until a century ago for the same reasons our ancestors did, control of land and resources. That's tribal.
Politically weak leaders in countries with centralized governments, who want to make names for themselves, stir up rumours that another nation is out to get them, that the people had better prepare for imminent attack or all will be lost. As this kind of politicking appeals to our natural sense of caution, fomenting fear within a population is relatively easy. In some cases, simply making up lies is sufficient to get people behind the leader who will defend them in their "time of great need."
Even in more peaceful times, political parties feel the need to devise the appearance of conflict between parties to get votes and between candidates to help one succeed over another. In most cases, the afflictions (conflict) are more imagined than real, as becomes obvious after an election when a new party in power assumes similar policies that it railed against when it was in opposition.
In our personal lives, some people revel in conflict. In business, for example, succeeding through conflict often gets one person the top job in a company over others who see no valid reason for it. Or who lose the battle.
At the personal level, family doctors see many patients every day who have nothing wrong with them except an overactive imagination and a penchant for hypochondria. Some hand out prescriptions which are nothing more than sugar pills, just to satisfy the imaginary needs of these people to be "cured."
Any phenomenon that can be called a bandwagon effect plays on the same need for an affliction even if one doesn't exist.
Is the planet really warming, inexorably and inevitably, as some say? The Arctic ice cap is melting, to be sure, but the ice cap in the Antarctic is increasing in size. That has always happened in cycles. Some parts of the world are getting hotter--more temperature extremes--while others are having colder temperatures in their winter than have been seen since the Little Ice Age.
Oh, that Little Ice Age. It happened roughly between 1450 and 1850. Since 1850, so our records show, earth has been warming. Reason suggests that it is warming naturally, as we would expect after a minor ice age.
Are we truly in danger of warming our own planet to the point of killing off most of its inhabitants? The hubris of that is astounding, that one species believes it has power of that magnitude. Our weather is governed by the sun more than by any other factor. When we learn to control the sun, we can control weather.
But fear over the effects of climate change is our global affliction of the day. I haven't heard of a single coastal city or even a low island that had to be abandoned because of rising sea levels.
I have heard of many possible causes for the increase of asthma. One primary cause is surely air pollution. We are polluting our air with about half a million chemicals emitted from smokestacks and about half that number of chemicals enter our waterways. That's the stuff we breathe and drink. Why aren't we riding that hobby horse, since it affects the health of almost everyone on our planet?
The air pollution scare tried and failed a few decades ago. Now scientists seeking government grants are ignoring our terribly polluted air that actually kills thousands of people in large countries every year in favour of scaring us into believing in the potential tragedies of climate change.
Meanwhile, several older climatologists who claim that climate change is natural and cyclical have been virtually silenced by the younger ones. The older ones are beyond needing grants, while the younger ones have great careers in fear mongering ahead of them.
It's hard to know what the real facts are because they get obscured by so many who have financial interests and celebrity in mind for themselves.
As Jose Marti said, we need to suffer. There are lots of people around who are well prepared to help us to do just that.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want children to have the skills to be able to distinguish between advertising propaganda and fact so they can live healthy and safe lives without fear of emotional bullies.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Friday, April 11, 2008
An Important Life Lesson
God changes not what is in people, until they change what is in themselves.
- The Qu'ran
The greatest opposition that most people face about changing themselves is from themselves.
The greatest deterrent to social change resides with those who want social change but are not willing to do anything to advance the cause.
The most severe reason why our world's worst problems continue and often get worse is because people complain about them but refuse to work together to make anything different.
Why this reluctance? We want to look after ourselves and to protect or secure what we know as our greatest priority.
Nothing in the world changes unless and until humans change it. Excluding climate and weather, of course, which have the ability to change themselves as consequences of outside influences (usually from the sun).
Why do we not want things to change? Most of us face too much change around us every day. We have equipment that breaks down, commitments that get delayed because others didn't keep theirs to us, a bill we forgot to pay on time, upsets with loved ones, weather and illness that prevents us from doing what we had planned. The list of factors that affect our lives is endless and most of them we have little or no control over.
We don't want to have to change ourselves because too much is changing around us already that we can't control. So, what's he big deal? Why are we so focussed on ourselves that we're prepared to ignore problems we could solve elsewhere?
Somebody told us that we should be able to control our lives. Somebody led us to believe that we would one day reach a plateau where we would have mastered enough skills and have enough control that only minor things could go wrong. Somebody told us that one we day we could "have it made." Somebody told us we could have the perfect job and the perfect mate.
Those happened when we were kids. Those same people, trying to be encouraging and helpful, neglected to tell us that we are fallible, that we have weaknesses, that we would inevitably trust people who would lie to us and break our trust, that nobody is perfect including us, that our hearts would be broken. That sometimes life gets us down so much we think it sucks.
They also didn't give us the information we needed to understand that mistakes and failures are inevitabilities of life. Or the skills to be able to cope with life's downturns that sometimes make impending disaster seem certain.
They didn't teach us that worrying produces nothing and only does harm. Worry never solves anything, absolutely nothing. It not only wastes time, it harms our health and often our relationships with those closest to us. We worry when we think something might happen. We worry for ages, though what we worry about almost never happens.
This is the base from which we approach each new day. Change? Who the hell wants change when the world is swirling around us at a pace we can't keep up with?
Here's a suggestion. Let's teach kids the lessons that we wish we had been taught ourselves. Let's give them the tools they need to avoid the pitfalls we have faced and overcome in our lives. They won't avoid the pitfalls and failures, but they will be able to recover from them faster and with less grief.
Let's do that.
That's change though, isn't it? Yet a painless way to change.
While we're at it, teaching our kids, let's teach them about love. Not lust, not love of money (greed), not hero worship or domination, not abuse or addictive behaviour. These things masquerade as love in some places. Let's teach our kids about real love.
We may have to find out what real love is ourselves before we teach it. For those of us who grew up without love in our lives, finding real love is extremely hard. But doable.
That's painless. The lessons have to be searched out for many of us because they aren't taught commonly to all kids.
Let's teach our kids to have self respect and to respect others. If they love themselves, they won't have trouble respecting others. That's easy. And painless.
But it is change. And it won't happen by itself.
A saying I learned as a child went "God helps those who help themselves. And God help those who are caught helping themselves." It was a kind of ironic joke.
I like the version in the holy book better: God changes not what is in people, until they change what is in themselves.
What's to argue? It costs nothing. It will ease the pain of life's miseries.
Eventually it will make for a happier, more loving, more charitable and more peaceful world.
It's worth a little of your time.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a book that provides the means to make social change without upset or revolution. It's a peaceful way to make changes in ways that will not defy any political ideology or religion.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- The Qu'ran
The greatest opposition that most people face about changing themselves is from themselves.
The greatest deterrent to social change resides with those who want social change but are not willing to do anything to advance the cause.
The most severe reason why our world's worst problems continue and often get worse is because people complain about them but refuse to work together to make anything different.
Why this reluctance? We want to look after ourselves and to protect or secure what we know as our greatest priority.
Nothing in the world changes unless and until humans change it. Excluding climate and weather, of course, which have the ability to change themselves as consequences of outside influences (usually from the sun).
Why do we not want things to change? Most of us face too much change around us every day. We have equipment that breaks down, commitments that get delayed because others didn't keep theirs to us, a bill we forgot to pay on time, upsets with loved ones, weather and illness that prevents us from doing what we had planned. The list of factors that affect our lives is endless and most of them we have little or no control over.
We don't want to have to change ourselves because too much is changing around us already that we can't control. So, what's he big deal? Why are we so focussed on ourselves that we're prepared to ignore problems we could solve elsewhere?
Somebody told us that we should be able to control our lives. Somebody led us to believe that we would one day reach a plateau where we would have mastered enough skills and have enough control that only minor things could go wrong. Somebody told us that one we day we could "have it made." Somebody told us we could have the perfect job and the perfect mate.
Those happened when we were kids. Those same people, trying to be encouraging and helpful, neglected to tell us that we are fallible, that we have weaknesses, that we would inevitably trust people who would lie to us and break our trust, that nobody is perfect including us, that our hearts would be broken. That sometimes life gets us down so much we think it sucks.
They also didn't give us the information we needed to understand that mistakes and failures are inevitabilities of life. Or the skills to be able to cope with life's downturns that sometimes make impending disaster seem certain.
They didn't teach us that worrying produces nothing and only does harm. Worry never solves anything, absolutely nothing. It not only wastes time, it harms our health and often our relationships with those closest to us. We worry when we think something might happen. We worry for ages, though what we worry about almost never happens.
This is the base from which we approach each new day. Change? Who the hell wants change when the world is swirling around us at a pace we can't keep up with?
Here's a suggestion. Let's teach kids the lessons that we wish we had been taught ourselves. Let's give them the tools they need to avoid the pitfalls we have faced and overcome in our lives. They won't avoid the pitfalls and failures, but they will be able to recover from them faster and with less grief.
Let's do that.
That's change though, isn't it? Yet a painless way to change.
While we're at it, teaching our kids, let's teach them about love. Not lust, not love of money (greed), not hero worship or domination, not abuse or addictive behaviour. These things masquerade as love in some places. Let's teach our kids about real love.
We may have to find out what real love is ourselves before we teach it. For those of us who grew up without love in our lives, finding real love is extremely hard. But doable.
That's painless. The lessons have to be searched out for many of us because they aren't taught commonly to all kids.
Let's teach our kids to have self respect and to respect others. If they love themselves, they won't have trouble respecting others. That's easy. And painless.
But it is change. And it won't happen by itself.
A saying I learned as a child went "God helps those who help themselves. And God help those who are caught helping themselves." It was a kind of ironic joke.
I like the version in the holy book better: God changes not what is in people, until they change what is in themselves.
What's to argue? It costs nothing. It will ease the pain of life's miseries.
Eventually it will make for a happier, more loving, more charitable and more peaceful world.
It's worth a little of your time.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a book that provides the means to make social change without upset or revolution. It's a peaceful way to make changes in ways that will not defy any political ideology or religion.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Monday, March 31, 2008
How You Can Make Your World A Better Place
If you paint in your mind a picture of bright and happy expectations, you put yourself into a condition conducive to your goal.
- Norman Vincent Peale (1898 - 1993)
It's almost too simple to imagine that we live in a world we create for ourselves within our own mind. But it's a fact.
Few would disagree that there are real things in the real world, stuff made of matter and energy. The more scientifically savvy might say that we should include dark matter and dark energy. Fair enough.
How do we know so well that these things exist? We see, hear, taste, touch or smell them, or we see evidence of their existence such as we do when we detect that gamma rays have been somewhere we have a detector.
How do all these senses and cognitive processes work together? They're all conduits of information for the brain. The brain, in turn, acts on some of them by sending out messages through the same conduits to nerves and muscles so they will act according to the brain's wishes.
Work with me here while we try an analogy. Let's say that we substitute NASA's Mars Rover staff for the brain and the rovers themselves for the senses. We accept that the rovers are mechanical robots of sorts. They sense light and have other equipment that performs similar functions to our own senses.
The NASA staff act like the brain for the rover robots, receiving messages from the robots and sending messages back to the robots to act according to NASA's wishes.
What do the NASA people know about current conditions on Mars if the rovers refuse to send or receive signals? Nothing. What does your brain know about the real world around it if your senses refuse to send to or receive signals from your brain? Nothing. In the absence of input and the ability to send signals to their remote slaves, neither the brain nor the NASA staff know a thing.
Do you remember when the first rover landed on Mars and began to send signals back? Pretty exciting, as I recall. Not long after signals began to be exchanged, the rover captured an image that looked as if there was some sort of life form or manufactured object in the form of a face. Everyone at NASA and many who watched from home on their TV sets had a guess of what the "face" might be.
People had all sorts of guesses, including speculation about alien life on Mars, either then or in the past. You may have had an opinion as well because that's what our brain does, draw conclusions based on input. Using the same "sensory" input, or reality, many brains reached many different conclusions. Some of them were outright fanciful, if not borderline crazy.
Every time you see, hear, taste, touch or smell something, your brain reaches a conclusion about what's out there in the world around it. Other people's brains, given the exact same input, could easily reach different conclusions. What, then, is real?
"Real," to us, is what our brain says it is. Our brain doesn't give a whit what other brains think, it stays with its own conclusions. What it "saw" through its senses and concluded from the input is what is real to the brain.
That applies to many things in our lives. In truth, to almost everything. No two brains see the same reality. So what's real?
What's real is what your brain says is real. So why not, as Dr. Peale suggested, have your brain sense a bright and happy world?
That's not reality, you say. Some bad stuff goes on in the world. Just read a daily newspaper or watch television news to see some of it. Fair enough. But what is your source for good news, for happy and bright events that would more than counterbalance the bad stuff we get fed constantly? Most of us don't have that source for positive input or feedback.
So our feeble brains reach the only conclusion they can, based on what they have to work with. The world must be a terrible place with lots or dreadful stuff going on. Who could blame a brain for thinking that way?
With that as a starting point each day, what's to stop your brain from going deeper, from making more dire conclusions and predictions based on the same input day after day? Surely life would become depressing.
Some people couldn't cope with that level of depression, from constant, unrelenting negative input. They might turn to alcohol or drugs. They might fight with and kill a spouse. They might rob a convenience store when they need money to pay off bad debts or drug dealers. They might adopt any of numerous emotional illnesses we commonly call neurological disorders. They might commit suicide.
Who could blame a brain for that? It acts on what input it receives. If the input is all bad, constantly, maybe it eventually loses control. Maybe it causes its slave senses to turn a car into a lethal weapon or to rage at other drivers, co-workers or children.
You can see how this works. Fill your brain with what you want it to conclude about your world (it's world) and your brain will respond accordingly. It's that simple.
Fill it with good and helpful thoughts and the world will be good and helpful. You know how it works now. It's not deception. It's working with what you have around you.
A brighter and happier you will make those around you happier as well. Bonus. As they get happier, others they meet will be happier too and eventually it will spread farther. Around the world maybe. Another bonus.
But there's more. Call within the next 15 minutes and you can have your brain give itself a dose of feel-good neurotransmitters, like dopamine and serotonin.
All for the same low price. The time you took to read this.
Act now. Before you get to a newspaper or television.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to have bright and happy children grow into happy and healthy adults.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Norman Vincent Peale (1898 - 1993)
It's almost too simple to imagine that we live in a world we create for ourselves within our own mind. But it's a fact.
Few would disagree that there are real things in the real world, stuff made of matter and energy. The more scientifically savvy might say that we should include dark matter and dark energy. Fair enough.
How do we know so well that these things exist? We see, hear, taste, touch or smell them, or we see evidence of their existence such as we do when we detect that gamma rays have been somewhere we have a detector.
How do all these senses and cognitive processes work together? They're all conduits of information for the brain. The brain, in turn, acts on some of them by sending out messages through the same conduits to nerves and muscles so they will act according to the brain's wishes.
Work with me here while we try an analogy. Let's say that we substitute NASA's Mars Rover staff for the brain and the rovers themselves for the senses. We accept that the rovers are mechanical robots of sorts. They sense light and have other equipment that performs similar functions to our own senses.
The NASA staff act like the brain for the rover robots, receiving messages from the robots and sending messages back to the robots to act according to NASA's wishes.
What do the NASA people know about current conditions on Mars if the rovers refuse to send or receive signals? Nothing. What does your brain know about the real world around it if your senses refuse to send to or receive signals from your brain? Nothing. In the absence of input and the ability to send signals to their remote slaves, neither the brain nor the NASA staff know a thing.
Do you remember when the first rover landed on Mars and began to send signals back? Pretty exciting, as I recall. Not long after signals began to be exchanged, the rover captured an image that looked as if there was some sort of life form or manufactured object in the form of a face. Everyone at NASA and many who watched from home on their TV sets had a guess of what the "face" might be.
People had all sorts of guesses, including speculation about alien life on Mars, either then or in the past. You may have had an opinion as well because that's what our brain does, draw conclusions based on input. Using the same "sensory" input, or reality, many brains reached many different conclusions. Some of them were outright fanciful, if not borderline crazy.
Every time you see, hear, taste, touch or smell something, your brain reaches a conclusion about what's out there in the world around it. Other people's brains, given the exact same input, could easily reach different conclusions. What, then, is real?
"Real," to us, is what our brain says it is. Our brain doesn't give a whit what other brains think, it stays with its own conclusions. What it "saw" through its senses and concluded from the input is what is real to the brain.
That applies to many things in our lives. In truth, to almost everything. No two brains see the same reality. So what's real?
What's real is what your brain says is real. So why not, as Dr. Peale suggested, have your brain sense a bright and happy world?
That's not reality, you say. Some bad stuff goes on in the world. Just read a daily newspaper or watch television news to see some of it. Fair enough. But what is your source for good news, for happy and bright events that would more than counterbalance the bad stuff we get fed constantly? Most of us don't have that source for positive input or feedback.
So our feeble brains reach the only conclusion they can, based on what they have to work with. The world must be a terrible place with lots or dreadful stuff going on. Who could blame a brain for thinking that way?
With that as a starting point each day, what's to stop your brain from going deeper, from making more dire conclusions and predictions based on the same input day after day? Surely life would become depressing.
Some people couldn't cope with that level of depression, from constant, unrelenting negative input. They might turn to alcohol or drugs. They might fight with and kill a spouse. They might rob a convenience store when they need money to pay off bad debts or drug dealers. They might adopt any of numerous emotional illnesses we commonly call neurological disorders. They might commit suicide.
Who could blame a brain for that? It acts on what input it receives. If the input is all bad, constantly, maybe it eventually loses control. Maybe it causes its slave senses to turn a car into a lethal weapon or to rage at other drivers, co-workers or children.
You can see how this works. Fill your brain with what you want it to conclude about your world (it's world) and your brain will respond accordingly. It's that simple.
Fill it with good and helpful thoughts and the world will be good and helpful. You know how it works now. It's not deception. It's working with what you have around you.
A brighter and happier you will make those around you happier as well. Bonus. As they get happier, others they meet will be happier too and eventually it will spread farther. Around the world maybe. Another bonus.
But there's more. Call within the next 15 minutes and you can have your brain give itself a dose of feel-good neurotransmitters, like dopamine and serotonin.
All for the same low price. The time you took to read this.
Act now. Before you get to a newspaper or television.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a guidebook for parents and teachers who want to have bright and happy children grow into happy and healthy adults.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Monday, March 03, 2008
Why Peace Doesn't Work
I offer you peace. I offer you love. I offer you friendship. I see your beauty. I hear your need. I feel your feelings. My wisdom flows from the Highest Source. I salute that Source in you. Let us work together for unity and love.
- Mohandas K. ("The Mahatma" - Great Soul) Gandhi
Beautiful, isn't it? It's a longer version of the meaning of the Hindi salutation "Namaste."
Why doesn't it work?
Gandhi himself, perhaps the most peaceful leader in history, was murdered by one of his own, a fellow Hindu. Peace didn't seem to work for him that way. Why not? Especially when, generally speaking, most Indian people are peaceful compared to the people of most countries.
A concept such as peace must be taught to children, to all children, in order to be effective. Forces that work slavishly to teach fear and violence to children never sleep. In the United States, for example, you would be hard pressed to listen to a newscast or read a daily newspaper that would not incline a child toward fear and/or violence if its contents were taught to that child. Violent news is certainly repetitive.
Concepts we want to impart to our children require repetition, whether peace or violence. The US national anthem is a war song, the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag a commitment to use violence to enforce the safety of the people of the country, if necessary. The US has, since its inception, always found someone to fear, thus a reason to engage in war almost constantly throughout its history.
These two have been daily features in US classrooms longer than anyone can remember. That is, the message that violence is to be considered a primary means to resolve conflicts is taught to children every single day they attend school.
That is but one example. Canada, one of the more peaceful nations in the world has a somewhat similar national anthem, though not a pledge to its flag.
The same teachers who supervise these daily exercises--the US anthem and the pledge--do not place similar emphasis on the concept of peace or peaceful resolution of conflicts. They rarely, if ever, appear in curriculum, though the conflict messages are repeated daily.
Peace, to most of us, means that when the potential for disagreement arises, the parties involved should consider ways of resolving it other than by using violence or psychological coercion.
Until that message is conveyed to children more often than the messages about violence, the message that is taught in a stronger manner will win out in the minds of the kids, who will grow up to have similar beliefs but have access to more weapons.
Indians are taught to adore and to respect the leader who brought independence to their country. They are also taught the concepts of peace and passive resistance.
Canadian children are taught that a Canadian began the concept of international peacekeeping through the United Nations and that Canada is the only country in the Americas that gained its independence from its imperial power by peaceful means.
What children are actively and repetitively taught becomes a way of life for them in adulthood.
Those who love and support violence are tirelessly dedicated to passing their message to younger generations. Those who love peace tend to not have the same devotion to their cause.
If you want change, teach the children.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a book about how, what and when to teach children the important life lessons they need to become secure, competent and confident adults. It's a manual for life.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Mohandas K. ("The Mahatma" - Great Soul) Gandhi
Beautiful, isn't it? It's a longer version of the meaning of the Hindi salutation "Namaste."
Why doesn't it work?
Gandhi himself, perhaps the most peaceful leader in history, was murdered by one of his own, a fellow Hindu. Peace didn't seem to work for him that way. Why not? Especially when, generally speaking, most Indian people are peaceful compared to the people of most countries.
A concept such as peace must be taught to children, to all children, in order to be effective. Forces that work slavishly to teach fear and violence to children never sleep. In the United States, for example, you would be hard pressed to listen to a newscast or read a daily newspaper that would not incline a child toward fear and/or violence if its contents were taught to that child. Violent news is certainly repetitive.
Concepts we want to impart to our children require repetition, whether peace or violence. The US national anthem is a war song, the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag a commitment to use violence to enforce the safety of the people of the country, if necessary. The US has, since its inception, always found someone to fear, thus a reason to engage in war almost constantly throughout its history.
These two have been daily features in US classrooms longer than anyone can remember. That is, the message that violence is to be considered a primary means to resolve conflicts is taught to children every single day they attend school.
That is but one example. Canada, one of the more peaceful nations in the world has a somewhat similar national anthem, though not a pledge to its flag.
The same teachers who supervise these daily exercises--the US anthem and the pledge--do not place similar emphasis on the concept of peace or peaceful resolution of conflicts. They rarely, if ever, appear in curriculum, though the conflict messages are repeated daily.
Peace, to most of us, means that when the potential for disagreement arises, the parties involved should consider ways of resolving it other than by using violence or psychological coercion.
Until that message is conveyed to children more often than the messages about violence, the message that is taught in a stronger manner will win out in the minds of the kids, who will grow up to have similar beliefs but have access to more weapons.
Indians are taught to adore and to respect the leader who brought independence to their country. They are also taught the concepts of peace and passive resistance.
Canadian children are taught that a Canadian began the concept of international peacekeeping through the United Nations and that Canada is the only country in the Americas that gained its independence from its imperial power by peaceful means.
What children are actively and repetitively taught becomes a way of life for them in adulthood.
Those who love and support violence are tirelessly dedicated to passing their message to younger generations. Those who love peace tend to not have the same devotion to their cause.
If you want change, teach the children.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a book about how, what and when to teach children the important life lessons they need to become secure, competent and confident adults. It's a manual for life.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Saturday, February 16, 2008
The Storm That Changed World History Forever
One of the most ambitious emperors in history mounted the biggest naval invasion force in history and suffered the greatest naval disaster in history, changing world history thereafter in the process.
Genghis Khan (1162-1227) has the more famous Mongol name as a great emperor of China and invader of foreign territories. His empire stretched from the Black Sea to the Pacific Ocean. Kubla Khan, his grandson, is better known as the kindly host of Marco Polo, the European who wandered east to find the source of the Silk Road.
Unknown to many, Kubla Khan had greater ambitions even than his grandfather. Establishing what is now Beijing as his capital city, he planned to conquer or at least control the whole world.
Japan, a rising world power in those times, was one of his objectives. But far from the only one.
In 1280 CE, Kubla Khan ordered the construction and assembly of the world's largest navy. On target, one year later, his fleet set sail for Japan in May of 1281. His objective was a navy of 12,000 ships. He reached that number in time, but only through a massive construction effort.
(To put that into perspective, the second largest invasion navy ever was involved with the D-Day invasion of France by the Allied Forces, with a fleet of 4,000 ships, many of which were smaller than the Chinese ships of Kubla Khan's navy nearly 800 years earlier.)
The Khan's shipbuilders were Chinese, at that time designers and builders of the most impressive ships the world had seen. The warships were about four times as big as European warships of the time. They even included watertight compartments that would prevent water from flooding the ship if one compartment was punctured.
In August of 1281, as the emperor's fleet approached Japan, a massive typhoon (hurricane)--the top level of storm by today's standards of measurement-- struck the Chinese fleet. Before hapless Japan had a chance to fight to the death to defend itself, 12,000 Chinese ships sank, taking their crews with them to the bottom.
However, not every Chinese ship sank. The ships that held the leaders of the navy (not including the Khan, who was at home spending time with his wives and concubines) survived. Why did the ships of the leaders survive while the rest of their fleet sank? In short, the leaders' ships were built without flaws.
The Chinese were none too happy to comply with the Khan's wishes to build naval ships because they had recently been conquered themselves by the Mongols. They toiled as slaves to build the fleet. In response, they built flaws into their workmanship. The ships would not hold together in a bad storm, even though they looked good when they set sail.
It turned out that Kubla Khan's demand that 12,000 ships be build within one year was far too ambitious. That size fleet should have taken from two to five years. So the naval leaders supplemented the numbers with river boats seized from Chinese fishermen and traders. River boats had little need for keels and were designed more to carry cargo than as warships. They were not designed to withstand the rigours of storms at sea.
In the typhoon, they tipped over easily while most of the other ships in the fleet fell apart and sank.
Japan was saved by the kamikaze (big wind). But the story doesn't end there. Kubla Khan's reputation was soiled and the reputation of the Mongols altogether was trashed. Not long after Kubla Khan died, the Mongol reign over China fell apart and disappeared into history.
True, the Mongol tribes were among those who invaded eastern Europe decades later, bringing about the fall of the great empire centred in Rome. But those tribes were not coordinated in their efforts, the invaders integrated into European civilization and the Renaissance blossomed not long (by historical time) later.
But the story doesn't end there either.
In the time of Kubla Khan, Chinese traders, explorers and settlers had spread over most of the globe. One of their villages has been found in Nova Scotia, Canada, and others are being investigated on the west coast of the USA and in South America. They may even have sailed across the Atlantic to western Europe along with the Norse traders who had been to the Americas before the turn of the First Millennium.
With the defeat of Kubla Khan's great fleet, China could no longer afford to send ships around the world to explore and to trade. All Chinese ships, crews and settlers were called home from across the globe. From that time on, Chinese culture turned inward, with no significant expansion for centuries.
That left the world open to Europeans. And to Christianity.
The Europeans and their religion did what the Chinese under the Mongol emperor had set out to do, dominate the world.
World history literally changed dramatically and permanently as a result of one storm in August of 1281 CE. No matter where in the world you live, your life is different from what it might have been had that typhoon not occurred.
For one thing, you wouldn't have been reading this article in English.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a book for adults to learn what they missed in their childhood development so that they can compensate for it and build better lives for themselves now.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Genghis Khan (1162-1227) has the more famous Mongol name as a great emperor of China and invader of foreign territories. His empire stretched from the Black Sea to the Pacific Ocean. Kubla Khan, his grandson, is better known as the kindly host of Marco Polo, the European who wandered east to find the source of the Silk Road.
Unknown to many, Kubla Khan had greater ambitions even than his grandfather. Establishing what is now Beijing as his capital city, he planned to conquer or at least control the whole world.
Japan, a rising world power in those times, was one of his objectives. But far from the only one.
In 1280 CE, Kubla Khan ordered the construction and assembly of the world's largest navy. On target, one year later, his fleet set sail for Japan in May of 1281. His objective was a navy of 12,000 ships. He reached that number in time, but only through a massive construction effort.
(To put that into perspective, the second largest invasion navy ever was involved with the D-Day invasion of France by the Allied Forces, with a fleet of 4,000 ships, many of which were smaller than the Chinese ships of Kubla Khan's navy nearly 800 years earlier.)
The Khan's shipbuilders were Chinese, at that time designers and builders of the most impressive ships the world had seen. The warships were about four times as big as European warships of the time. They even included watertight compartments that would prevent water from flooding the ship if one compartment was punctured.
In August of 1281, as the emperor's fleet approached Japan, a massive typhoon (hurricane)--the top level of storm by today's standards of measurement-- struck the Chinese fleet. Before hapless Japan had a chance to fight to the death to defend itself, 12,000 Chinese ships sank, taking their crews with them to the bottom.
However, not every Chinese ship sank. The ships that held the leaders of the navy (not including the Khan, who was at home spending time with his wives and concubines) survived. Why did the ships of the leaders survive while the rest of their fleet sank? In short, the leaders' ships were built without flaws.
The Chinese were none too happy to comply with the Khan's wishes to build naval ships because they had recently been conquered themselves by the Mongols. They toiled as slaves to build the fleet. In response, they built flaws into their workmanship. The ships would not hold together in a bad storm, even though they looked good when they set sail.
It turned out that Kubla Khan's demand that 12,000 ships be build within one year was far too ambitious. That size fleet should have taken from two to five years. So the naval leaders supplemented the numbers with river boats seized from Chinese fishermen and traders. River boats had little need for keels and were designed more to carry cargo than as warships. They were not designed to withstand the rigours of storms at sea.
In the typhoon, they tipped over easily while most of the other ships in the fleet fell apart and sank.
Japan was saved by the kamikaze (big wind). But the story doesn't end there. Kubla Khan's reputation was soiled and the reputation of the Mongols altogether was trashed. Not long after Kubla Khan died, the Mongol reign over China fell apart and disappeared into history.
True, the Mongol tribes were among those who invaded eastern Europe decades later, bringing about the fall of the great empire centred in Rome. But those tribes were not coordinated in their efforts, the invaders integrated into European civilization and the Renaissance blossomed not long (by historical time) later.
But the story doesn't end there either.
In the time of Kubla Khan, Chinese traders, explorers and settlers had spread over most of the globe. One of their villages has been found in Nova Scotia, Canada, and others are being investigated on the west coast of the USA and in South America. They may even have sailed across the Atlantic to western Europe along with the Norse traders who had been to the Americas before the turn of the First Millennium.
With the defeat of Kubla Khan's great fleet, China could no longer afford to send ships around the world to explore and to trade. All Chinese ships, crews and settlers were called home from across the globe. From that time on, Chinese culture turned inward, with no significant expansion for centuries.
That left the world open to Europeans. And to Christianity.
The Europeans and their religion did what the Chinese under the Mongol emperor had set out to do, dominate the world.
World history literally changed dramatically and permanently as a result of one storm in August of 1281 CE. No matter where in the world you live, your life is different from what it might have been had that typhoon not occurred.
For one thing, you wouldn't have been reading this article in English.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a book for adults to learn what they missed in their childhood development so that they can compensate for it and build better lives for themselves now.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
Good News! What's That?
Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised.
- Marilyn Manson
I am not one who believes that musicians and other entertainers should not express their opinions publicly, no matter the form of their entertainment or the issue under discussion.
Though I do not listen to the music of Marilyn Manson or appreciate his onstage antics, he is an intelligent man with insights into human nature that go far beyond those of the average person.
Is there more violence in the world today than in the past or is there simply far greater coverage by television networks of tragedies around the world?
Let's begin with wars. The United Nations states that there are fewer wars going on in the world today than ever before in human history. We normally have between 27 and 32 wars ongoing in the world at any given time. We have 24 at the moment. One measurement of what constitutes a war is that more than 10,000 people have died in a partisan conflict (that is, not plain genocide).
Most wars today take place in poorer countries--that is, the general population suffers from poor nutrition and education is not free and widespread among all socioeconomic classes. Many of today's wars are taking place in countries that are either Muslim states or where the population is primarily Muslim. This is mere coincidence because Islam spreads faster among very poor people. Although violence is preached in some mosques, it is also taught (and has been in the past for two millennia) from Christian pulpits.
Studies have verified that war takes place less frequently in countries where the general population has a higher level of education. Violence may be recorded in higher numbers in better educated populations, but that's because much of it goes unrecorded in poorer countries where the general level of education is lower.
Small efforts are taking place in many poor countries where teachers from rich countries volunteer to teach kids who might otherwise receive no education. Governments in rich countries spend far more money in developing resources in poor countries so that their own corporations can exploit those resources than they do in teaching the children of the countries. We could raise the level of general education in the world if governments were more interested in making peace than in developing industries that thrive in war conditions.
Television news teams and news organizations in general love to broadcast records of violence. In Afghanistan, for example, each time a soldier from NATO is killed or injured, it hits the news of the soldier's native country, though almost no news of rebuilding of infrastructure and education systems ever gets air time.
In the news business, no news is bad news. News about violence is much easier to find than news about good events that happen. People who do good works under tough circumstances tend to stay below the news radar because news reporters have too often in the past brought them unpleasant backlashes resulting from exposure. Good news, no matter how welcome by viewers, is harder to find than bad news.
News networks have conditioned us to believe that we want to know bad news. They compete with each other not to show us the good things that happen in our neighbourhoods and our countries, but how tragedy wreaks havoc with lives, families and futures. Tragedy inevitably involves violence in the news business.
Now that half the people in developed countries get their news from the internet, the same sources of news that supply our television stations give us the same goods on their web sites. It's easier for us to read from a network news site than it is to seek out news sources that are more impartial and that provide information about good stuff.
Even without trying, someone who wants to avoid violent and partisan news can't help learning the latest escapades of Britney Spears, for example. But if Muslims in a community work together to raise money to help rebuild a Jewish synagogue that has been damaged by bigotted and violent vandals, few will learn about it.
Whatever sources we use to learn about what is happening in the world, we should keep in mind that they are partisan and they present highly editorialized material. We can also remember that their bias is toward bad news, not good news.
Good news is out there. We need to find it. If that's too hard, we should make some good news ourselves.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a book about how, what and when to teach children what they need to know to lead balanced and confident adult lives that are not poisoned by biased media.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Marilyn Manson
I am not one who believes that musicians and other entertainers should not express their opinions publicly, no matter the form of their entertainment or the issue under discussion.
Though I do not listen to the music of Marilyn Manson or appreciate his onstage antics, he is an intelligent man with insights into human nature that go far beyond those of the average person.
Is there more violence in the world today than in the past or is there simply far greater coverage by television networks of tragedies around the world?
Let's begin with wars. The United Nations states that there are fewer wars going on in the world today than ever before in human history. We normally have between 27 and 32 wars ongoing in the world at any given time. We have 24 at the moment. One measurement of what constitutes a war is that more than 10,000 people have died in a partisan conflict (that is, not plain genocide).
Most wars today take place in poorer countries--that is, the general population suffers from poor nutrition and education is not free and widespread among all socioeconomic classes. Many of today's wars are taking place in countries that are either Muslim states or where the population is primarily Muslim. This is mere coincidence because Islam spreads faster among very poor people. Although violence is preached in some mosques, it is also taught (and has been in the past for two millennia) from Christian pulpits.
Studies have verified that war takes place less frequently in countries where the general population has a higher level of education. Violence may be recorded in higher numbers in better educated populations, but that's because much of it goes unrecorded in poorer countries where the general level of education is lower.
Small efforts are taking place in many poor countries where teachers from rich countries volunteer to teach kids who might otherwise receive no education. Governments in rich countries spend far more money in developing resources in poor countries so that their own corporations can exploit those resources than they do in teaching the children of the countries. We could raise the level of general education in the world if governments were more interested in making peace than in developing industries that thrive in war conditions.
Television news teams and news organizations in general love to broadcast records of violence. In Afghanistan, for example, each time a soldier from NATO is killed or injured, it hits the news of the soldier's native country, though almost no news of rebuilding of infrastructure and education systems ever gets air time.
In the news business, no news is bad news. News about violence is much easier to find than news about good events that happen. People who do good works under tough circumstances tend to stay below the news radar because news reporters have too often in the past brought them unpleasant backlashes resulting from exposure. Good news, no matter how welcome by viewers, is harder to find than bad news.
News networks have conditioned us to believe that we want to know bad news. They compete with each other not to show us the good things that happen in our neighbourhoods and our countries, but how tragedy wreaks havoc with lives, families and futures. Tragedy inevitably involves violence in the news business.
Now that half the people in developed countries get their news from the internet, the same sources of news that supply our television stations give us the same goods on their web sites. It's easier for us to read from a network news site than it is to seek out news sources that are more impartial and that provide information about good stuff.
Even without trying, someone who wants to avoid violent and partisan news can't help learning the latest escapades of Britney Spears, for example. But if Muslims in a community work together to raise money to help rebuild a Jewish synagogue that has been damaged by bigotted and violent vandals, few will learn about it.
Whatever sources we use to learn about what is happening in the world, we should keep in mind that they are partisan and they present highly editorialized material. We can also remember that their bias is toward bad news, not good news.
Good news is out there. We need to find it. If that's too hard, we should make some good news ourselves.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a book about how, what and when to teach children what they need to know to lead balanced and confident adult lives that are not poisoned by biased media.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Sunday, January 13, 2008
How To Achieve Peace
First keep the peace within yourself, then you can also bring peace to others.
- Thomas a Kempis, German ecclesiastic (1380-1471)
Those who live without peace in themselves will not acknowledge the truth of this quote, cannot understand the concept, will scoff at those who use it and teach it.
Could US President George W. Bush, the self-acknowledged "war president," have peace within himself? He believed that beginning a war in Afghanistan would bring peace to his own country. Is his country more at peace today than it was in 2001?
He was going to "liberate" the oppressed people of Iraq, to bring them peace after a generation of living under Saddam Hussein. There were no weapons of mass destruction, Saddam is dead and many of the citizens of Iraq look back longingly at the maybe-not-so-bad old days of Saddam's dictatorship.
Though Mr. Bush seems to have settled his differences with North Korea's Kim Jong Il (the memory of neighbouring Vietnam lingers strong in the memories of American people), it remains to be seen if he will find some excuse to invade Iran before the end of his term of office. Imagine the distinction he would have in US history if he were able to launch three wars within two terms of office!
Nobody wins a war, neither the loser nor the winner. Bush's wars have cost the US so dearly that the country has all but lost its status as having the currency against which other countries compare the value of their own. China will soon pass the US as the most powerful trading nation on earth. The people of every city in the United States live under a constant alert warning in preparation for...no one knows what.
As the US primaries leading up to the vote in November progress, debates, backbiting and infighting are much as expected, but the level of emotion in ordinary conversations daily has risen as people anticipate the possibility that their once-great nation may be reduced to a second level power, with all of the anxieties of the homeland of an empire but little of the wealth it had in the past.
Thomas a Kempis was of course interested in the peace of individuals. But individuals collectively make nations. Nations that teach the values of war and violence to their children are nations that engage in war and violence.
The only way to have peaceful individuals and a peaceful country is to teach peace to the children. India, for example, is a nation that teaches peace to its children. Though India has its share of violent incidents, the amount of violence in the country of one billion people is far less than that in much smaller countries. India has not invaded another country in the past 1000 years (though it did step in, by request, to stop the slaughter of the people of East Pakistan--now Bangladesh--by the army of West Pakistan in 1971).
Teach right. Teach good. Teach peace. When these become the structure within which children are given their education, they become the guides for living once those children become adults.
Good and peaceful people are seldom aggressive. However, when they leave the running of their country to the aggressive and violent people, the country becomes aggressive and violent because the leaders teach the need for these "to achieve peace." It's a lie. It doesn't work. It has never worked. So wars have become the means for seeking peace. So the warriors say.
All it takes is for enough people to talk about this concept of peace and to vote accordingly in elections.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a book about how, when and what to teach children, including the concepts of peace, good and right. The book includes practical guides for teachers and parents.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Thomas a Kempis, German ecclesiastic (1380-1471)
Those who live without peace in themselves will not acknowledge the truth of this quote, cannot understand the concept, will scoff at those who use it and teach it.
Could US President George W. Bush, the self-acknowledged "war president," have peace within himself? He believed that beginning a war in Afghanistan would bring peace to his own country. Is his country more at peace today than it was in 2001?
He was going to "liberate" the oppressed people of Iraq, to bring them peace after a generation of living under Saddam Hussein. There were no weapons of mass destruction, Saddam is dead and many of the citizens of Iraq look back longingly at the maybe-not-so-bad old days of Saddam's dictatorship.
Though Mr. Bush seems to have settled his differences with North Korea's Kim Jong Il (the memory of neighbouring Vietnam lingers strong in the memories of American people), it remains to be seen if he will find some excuse to invade Iran before the end of his term of office. Imagine the distinction he would have in US history if he were able to launch three wars within two terms of office!
Nobody wins a war, neither the loser nor the winner. Bush's wars have cost the US so dearly that the country has all but lost its status as having the currency against which other countries compare the value of their own. China will soon pass the US as the most powerful trading nation on earth. The people of every city in the United States live under a constant alert warning in preparation for...no one knows what.
As the US primaries leading up to the vote in November progress, debates, backbiting and infighting are much as expected, but the level of emotion in ordinary conversations daily has risen as people anticipate the possibility that their once-great nation may be reduced to a second level power, with all of the anxieties of the homeland of an empire but little of the wealth it had in the past.
Thomas a Kempis was of course interested in the peace of individuals. But individuals collectively make nations. Nations that teach the values of war and violence to their children are nations that engage in war and violence.
The only way to have peaceful individuals and a peaceful country is to teach peace to the children. India, for example, is a nation that teaches peace to its children. Though India has its share of violent incidents, the amount of violence in the country of one billion people is far less than that in much smaller countries. India has not invaded another country in the past 1000 years (though it did step in, by request, to stop the slaughter of the people of East Pakistan--now Bangladesh--by the army of West Pakistan in 1971).
Teach right. Teach good. Teach peace. When these become the structure within which children are given their education, they become the guides for living once those children become adults.
Good and peaceful people are seldom aggressive. However, when they leave the running of their country to the aggressive and violent people, the country becomes aggressive and violent because the leaders teach the need for these "to achieve peace." It's a lie. It doesn't work. It has never worked. So wars have become the means for seeking peace. So the warriors say.
All it takes is for enough people to talk about this concept of peace and to vote accordingly in elections.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a book about how, when and what to teach children, including the concepts of peace, good and right. The book includes practical guides for teachers and parents.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Thursday, November 15, 2007
A Message From The Taliban
When the Soviet military pulled out of Afghanistan in 1989, Afghan citizens cheered wildly because the Soviets had reportedly killed about one million Afghans during their occupation of the country.
The Mujahideen that had nominally routed the Soviets separated into their various (mostly tribal) factions and began turf wars within the country, each determined to dominate the economy. This would be somewhat like organized crime gangs battling each other, only lots of innocent citizens were robbed, raped and killed, including children. Torture of the (summarily convicted) "accused" was a daily practice.
The Afghans cheered again in 1996 when the Taliban defeated the warlords in most of the country. By then an estimated 50,000 innocent Afghans had died in the conflict in Kabul alone at the hands of the gangs of the warlords.
Most of us have an idea of how brutal the Taliban regime was before it was driven into the mountains along the border with Pakistan. What follows below accurately depicts the true nature of the Shari'a law theTaliban put into place immediately.
It's worth keeping in mind that even today the Taliban intends to retake control of Afghanistan. And Shia militants from the south of Iraq and Iran (with military weaponry support from Iran) plan to turn all of Iraq into a Taliban-style repressive regime.
We already know what the Sunni militants did to Iraq during the Saddam years.
What follows was broadcast on the radio, from loudspeakers atop each mosque and printed on flyers that were dropped all over the streets where every citizen could find them.
************************************
Our watan is now known as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. These are the laws that we will enforce and you will obey:
All citizens must pray five times a day. If it is prayer time and youare caught doing something other, you will be beaten.
All men will grow their beards. The correct length is at least one clenched fist beneath the chin. If you do not abide by this, you will be beaten.
All boys will wear turbans. Boys in grade one through six will wear black turbans, higher grades will wear white.
All boys will wear Islamic clothes. Shirt collars will be buttoned.
Singing is forbidden.
Dancing is forbidden.
Playing cards, playing chess, gambling, and kite flying are forbidden.
Writing books, watching films, and painting pictures are forbidden.
If you keep parakeets, you will be beaten. Your birds will be killed.
If you steal, your hand will be cut off at the wrist. If you steal again, your foot will be cut off.
If you are not Muslim, do not worship where you can be seen by Muslims. If you do, you will be beaten and imprisoned.
If you are caught trying to convert a Muslim to your faith, you will be executed.
Attention women:
You will stay inside your homes at all times. It is not proper for women to wander aimlessly about the streets. If you go outside, you must be accompanied by a mahram (a male relative).
If you are caught alone on the street, you will be beaten and sent home.
You will not, under any circumstance, show your face. You will cover with burqa when outside. If you do not, you will be severely beaten.
Cosmetics are forbidden.
Jewelry is forbidden.
You will not wear charming clothes.
You will not speak unless spoken to.
You will not make eye contact with men.
You will not laugh in public. If you do, you will be beaten.
You will not paint your nails. If you do you will lose a finger.
Girls are forbidden from attending school. All schools for girls will be closed immediately.
Women are forbidden from working.
If you are found guilty of adultery, you will be stoned to death.
Listen. Listen well. Obey. Allah-u-akbar.
******************************
Not only were women thereafter forbidden from receiving an education, they received no vote or political status, including no representation in the government.
In Kabul one hospital was designated for women, while all other hospitals (including those for women only) were assigned for men.
Children had to attend the hospital for women unless they were taken by their fathers to the male hospitals (only if they were boys).
The one hospital for women was given no supplies, including no drugs for anesthesia during operations and no fuel for power generators.
Female surgeons were to wear their burqa while conducting their surgery in the operating theatre.
The power and influence of the Taliban in Afghanistan and militant Muslims in Iraq is why foreign troops are in those countries. We believe that we cannot treasure life in our own countries while allowing the slaughter of innocent men, women and children elsewhere.
Every Muslim mother in Iraq and Afghanistan has the same hopes and aspirations for her children as your mother had for you. We want to give those children a chance.
It's the right thing to do.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a book about what, when and how to teach children what they need to know to be competent and confident adults.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
The Mujahideen that had nominally routed the Soviets separated into their various (mostly tribal) factions and began turf wars within the country, each determined to dominate the economy. This would be somewhat like organized crime gangs battling each other, only lots of innocent citizens were robbed, raped and killed, including children. Torture of the (summarily convicted) "accused" was a daily practice.
The Afghans cheered again in 1996 when the Taliban defeated the warlords in most of the country. By then an estimated 50,000 innocent Afghans had died in the conflict in Kabul alone at the hands of the gangs of the warlords.
Most of us have an idea of how brutal the Taliban regime was before it was driven into the mountains along the border with Pakistan. What follows below accurately depicts the true nature of the Shari'a law theTaliban put into place immediately.
It's worth keeping in mind that even today the Taliban intends to retake control of Afghanistan. And Shia militants from the south of Iraq and Iran (with military weaponry support from Iran) plan to turn all of Iraq into a Taliban-style repressive regime.
We already know what the Sunni militants did to Iraq during the Saddam years.
What follows was broadcast on the radio, from loudspeakers atop each mosque and printed on flyers that were dropped all over the streets where every citizen could find them.
************************************
Our watan is now known as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. These are the laws that we will enforce and you will obey:
All citizens must pray five times a day. If it is prayer time and youare caught doing something other, you will be beaten.
All men will grow their beards. The correct length is at least one clenched fist beneath the chin. If you do not abide by this, you will be beaten.
All boys will wear turbans. Boys in grade one through six will wear black turbans, higher grades will wear white.
All boys will wear Islamic clothes. Shirt collars will be buttoned.
Singing is forbidden.
Dancing is forbidden.
Playing cards, playing chess, gambling, and kite flying are forbidden.
Writing books, watching films, and painting pictures are forbidden.
If you keep parakeets, you will be beaten. Your birds will be killed.
If you steal, your hand will be cut off at the wrist. If you steal again, your foot will be cut off.
If you are not Muslim, do not worship where you can be seen by Muslims. If you do, you will be beaten and imprisoned.
If you are caught trying to convert a Muslim to your faith, you will be executed.
Attention women:
You will stay inside your homes at all times. It is not proper for women to wander aimlessly about the streets. If you go outside, you must be accompanied by a mahram (a male relative).
If you are caught alone on the street, you will be beaten and sent home.
You will not, under any circumstance, show your face. You will cover with burqa when outside. If you do not, you will be severely beaten.
Cosmetics are forbidden.
Jewelry is forbidden.
You will not wear charming clothes.
You will not speak unless spoken to.
You will not make eye contact with men.
You will not laugh in public. If you do, you will be beaten.
You will not paint your nails. If you do you will lose a finger.
Girls are forbidden from attending school. All schools for girls will be closed immediately.
Women are forbidden from working.
If you are found guilty of adultery, you will be stoned to death.
Listen. Listen well. Obey. Allah-u-akbar.
******************************
Not only were women thereafter forbidden from receiving an education, they received no vote or political status, including no representation in the government.
In Kabul one hospital was designated for women, while all other hospitals (including those for women only) were assigned for men.
Children had to attend the hospital for women unless they were taken by their fathers to the male hospitals (only if they were boys).
The one hospital for women was given no supplies, including no drugs for anesthesia during operations and no fuel for power generators.
Female surgeons were to wear their burqa while conducting their surgery in the operating theatre.
The power and influence of the Taliban in Afghanistan and militant Muslims in Iraq is why foreign troops are in those countries. We believe that we cannot treasure life in our own countries while allowing the slaughter of innocent men, women and children elsewhere.
Every Muslim mother in Iraq and Afghanistan has the same hopes and aspirations for her children as your mother had for you. We want to give those children a chance.
It's the right thing to do.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, a book about what, when and how to teach children what they need to know to be competent and confident adults.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Friday, April 06, 2007
The Violent Proselytizers Are Winning
Man is the only animal that laughs and weeps, for he is the only animal that is struck with the difference between what things are and what they ought to be.
- William Hazlitt
That quote is not true, strictly speaking, for these emotions are known to be expressed by other primates. But the point is well taken.
For the sake of discussion, let's divide everyone into two groups. There would be those who, as Hazlitt said, see the great differences between what things are and what they ought to be. And there would be those who know exactly how things should be and concern themselves at some length to see that what they believe should become what is.
On one side we have people (the vast majority, I believe) who know what should be but do little or nothing to see that it comes about. On the other we have people who are driven to make something happen.
Why are the latter group so driven, managing to carry on with their message when the rest of us would be exhausted? The message they carry is not thier own. They were waffling around with their lives, wondering what the truth about life could be, wondering why we are here at all, wondering where they could fit into a grand scheme. Then someone came along with an answer.
The answer sounded good. Sounded wonderful, in fact. It sounded as if heaven itself was about to open up and take in all that believed in it. All they had to do was to believe.
Spread the word, these people were told, as were those before them who had told them. They did, and they do. They take the message to anyone and everyone, whether their message is wanted or appreciated. Whether they can teach it to willing listeners or must wage war to use force to convince the others to accept their own set of beliefs.
Those who are prepared to go to war for their beliefs (whether in reality or figuratively) are most convinced that their cause is right. The more resistance they find, the more convinced that they are right and that their message must get through to the ignorant and unwashed multitudes.
They never stop to question whether their way might be right. They never doubt that the others may not want to share their beliefs or that they are happy with their own beliefs. They never hesitate about whether their beliefs are correct, accurate or beneficial over the long term, to themselves, their people or the world. They need to win.
It has been said that those who are most aggressive about spreading their beliefs to others have grave doubts. They want others to join them so that they can believe with greater confidence that their way is correct. By their reckoning, numbers are important. They want allies, not necessarily friends.
Those who are uncertain about many things in life remain quiet, for they have little to teach to others. When and if they do find a path they can believe in, they tend to remain quiet about it because doing otherwise would place them in conflict with the other group, who is already known to be prepared to go to war for their beliefs.
If the quiet ones remain quiet, never joining with others who have also found their way, never wanting to impose anything on anyone else, very little changes. Or so they believe. Eventually, those who have the strong beliefs and are aggressive about spreading them convince enough people to join them that they gain political and military power as well as the psychological power they have from the strength of their beliefs.
Hitler tapped into that in Germany with his National Socialists (who followed a path that was anything but socialist). Mussolini used it in Italy. The power brokers of the Japanese military also found ways to take over their country and subsequently much of Asia, with the three countries forming what became known as the Axis Powers. The Serbian leaders of the former Yugoslavia pumped up their Serbian culture mates to kill the Muslims. The emerging leaders among the Hutus of Rwanda filled the heads of their fellow tribesmen with it, using radio broadcasts, so that nearly a million Tutsis were slashed to death with machetes. Saddam used his abilities to convince the minority Sunnis that they should totally dominate the majority Shias as well as the Kurds in Iraq.
In each case the silent ones remained silent because they did not feel it their place to tell others how to run their countries. It wasn't their business. They were prepared to allow millions of slaughtered victims be burned or buried, but they assuaged their consciences by prosecuting the perpetrators who survived when the slaughter was over.
At least the leaders died too, they believed. They vowed to remember each event so that it would never happen again.
These movements all began with a few zealous individuals who had power in mind for themselves and a set of beliefs with which to convince their future supporters. It didn't matter whether their teachings and beliefs were correct, were acceptable or would be approved by the majority because they planned to take control of the majority.
The uncertain ones remained silent in every case. The aggressive ones never do.
The aggressive ones always have that message they want to reach so many others. The doubtful ones and those who have found the path to peace remain silent.
Bill Allin
Turning it Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to make the motives of the power seekers plain before they take too much control over too many people and too much history.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- William Hazlitt
That quote is not true, strictly speaking, for these emotions are known to be expressed by other primates. But the point is well taken.
For the sake of discussion, let's divide everyone into two groups. There would be those who, as Hazlitt said, see the great differences between what things are and what they ought to be. And there would be those who know exactly how things should be and concern themselves at some length to see that what they believe should become what is.
On one side we have people (the vast majority, I believe) who know what should be but do little or nothing to see that it comes about. On the other we have people who are driven to make something happen.
Why are the latter group so driven, managing to carry on with their message when the rest of us would be exhausted? The message they carry is not thier own. They were waffling around with their lives, wondering what the truth about life could be, wondering why we are here at all, wondering where they could fit into a grand scheme. Then someone came along with an answer.
The answer sounded good. Sounded wonderful, in fact. It sounded as if heaven itself was about to open up and take in all that believed in it. All they had to do was to believe.
Spread the word, these people were told, as were those before them who had told them. They did, and they do. They take the message to anyone and everyone, whether their message is wanted or appreciated. Whether they can teach it to willing listeners or must wage war to use force to convince the others to accept their own set of beliefs.
Those who are prepared to go to war for their beliefs (whether in reality or figuratively) are most convinced that their cause is right. The more resistance they find, the more convinced that they are right and that their message must get through to the ignorant and unwashed multitudes.
They never stop to question whether their way might be right. They never doubt that the others may not want to share their beliefs or that they are happy with their own beliefs. They never hesitate about whether their beliefs are correct, accurate or beneficial over the long term, to themselves, their people or the world. They need to win.
It has been said that those who are most aggressive about spreading their beliefs to others have grave doubts. They want others to join them so that they can believe with greater confidence that their way is correct. By their reckoning, numbers are important. They want allies, not necessarily friends.
Those who are uncertain about many things in life remain quiet, for they have little to teach to others. When and if they do find a path they can believe in, they tend to remain quiet about it because doing otherwise would place them in conflict with the other group, who is already known to be prepared to go to war for their beliefs.
If the quiet ones remain quiet, never joining with others who have also found their way, never wanting to impose anything on anyone else, very little changes. Or so they believe. Eventually, those who have the strong beliefs and are aggressive about spreading them convince enough people to join them that they gain political and military power as well as the psychological power they have from the strength of their beliefs.
Hitler tapped into that in Germany with his National Socialists (who followed a path that was anything but socialist). Mussolini used it in Italy. The power brokers of the Japanese military also found ways to take over their country and subsequently much of Asia, with the three countries forming what became known as the Axis Powers. The Serbian leaders of the former Yugoslavia pumped up their Serbian culture mates to kill the Muslims. The emerging leaders among the Hutus of Rwanda filled the heads of their fellow tribesmen with it, using radio broadcasts, so that nearly a million Tutsis were slashed to death with machetes. Saddam used his abilities to convince the minority Sunnis that they should totally dominate the majority Shias as well as the Kurds in Iraq.
In each case the silent ones remained silent because they did not feel it their place to tell others how to run their countries. It wasn't their business. They were prepared to allow millions of slaughtered victims be burned or buried, but they assuaged their consciences by prosecuting the perpetrators who survived when the slaughter was over.
At least the leaders died too, they believed. They vowed to remember each event so that it would never happen again.
These movements all began with a few zealous individuals who had power in mind for themselves and a set of beliefs with which to convince their future supporters. It didn't matter whether their teachings and beliefs were correct, were acceptable or would be approved by the majority because they planned to take control of the majority.
The uncertain ones remained silent in every case. The aggressive ones never do.
The aggressive ones always have that message they want to reach so many others. The doubtful ones and those who have found the path to peace remain silent.
Bill Allin
Turning it Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to make the motives of the power seekers plain before they take too much control over too many people and too much history.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Monday, March 26, 2007
Trying To Stay Sane In An Insane World
Insanity - a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world.
- RD Laing, psychiatrist and author (1927-1989)
One dictionary defines insanity as a "relatively permanent disorder of the mind." Who decides that the dysfunctional condition of one mind is "relatively permanent?"
In times past people whose behaviour strayed too far from the norms of society were either imprisoned or incarcerated in insane asylums. Today the deciding factor of insanity seems to be whether or not a person might be a danger to themselves or to others. Even that danger must be a physical one, as people who are emotional dangers to others or to themselves are allowed to move freely among us.
Is the world around us insane? In some senses it is. We allow politicians who are known to have devious or suspicious pasts and beliefs to persuade us that they have the best plans for the next government. We vote for candidates who themselves make promises or their parties make promises that we know very well they will turn their backs on if elected.
We believe people who lie to us, even if we know they are lying. That may be someone who tells us we are stupid or incompetent or a leader who tells us to be afraid of an enemy who knows nothing about us and wants nothing to do with us.
We allow ourselves to be propagandized by television commercials, and the minds of our children to be programmed by them, without taking any trouble to either learn the truth about the products they advertise or teaching our children the skills they need so that they can tell when someone is trying to twist their minds.
We lock our doors at night against evils that may not exist when anyone with an IQ greater than a doorknob would not invade a home when the owners are home. And we leave large areas of easily broken glass windows available on our homes while we put multiple locks and deadbolts on our doors, as if no thief would be discourteous enough to not come through the proper door.
We work excessive hours to earn a mighty income so that we have enough money to buy recreational toys (and drugs) we barely have spare time enough to use. We value leisure time, in theory, but don't know how to relax when we have it. So we go shopping, even to the extent of choosing vacation destinations where the shopping is known to be good.
We take excessive and shocking amounts of drugs, both prescription and "recreational" because we don't live healthy lives and need something to protect us from the unhealthy lifestyles we have decided are necessary for us.
We pity those who have emotional breakdowns or who retreat into various medically accepted forms of mental illness because they couldn't cope with their lives using the coping skills at their disposal.
Rather than trying to figure out what is insane and what is "normal," a condition which keeps changing itself over time, we should plot a course for our own lives that is within our ability to cope and that will deliver to us the kinds of rewards we most want from life.
And not listen to all those crazy people out there who tell us different.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to help each person carve a path of sanity for themselves through a seemingly insane world.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- RD Laing, psychiatrist and author (1927-1989)
One dictionary defines insanity as a "relatively permanent disorder of the mind." Who decides that the dysfunctional condition of one mind is "relatively permanent?"
In times past people whose behaviour strayed too far from the norms of society were either imprisoned or incarcerated in insane asylums. Today the deciding factor of insanity seems to be whether or not a person might be a danger to themselves or to others. Even that danger must be a physical one, as people who are emotional dangers to others or to themselves are allowed to move freely among us.
Is the world around us insane? In some senses it is. We allow politicians who are known to have devious or suspicious pasts and beliefs to persuade us that they have the best plans for the next government. We vote for candidates who themselves make promises or their parties make promises that we know very well they will turn their backs on if elected.
We believe people who lie to us, even if we know they are lying. That may be someone who tells us we are stupid or incompetent or a leader who tells us to be afraid of an enemy who knows nothing about us and wants nothing to do with us.
We allow ourselves to be propagandized by television commercials, and the minds of our children to be programmed by them, without taking any trouble to either learn the truth about the products they advertise or teaching our children the skills they need so that they can tell when someone is trying to twist their minds.
We lock our doors at night against evils that may not exist when anyone with an IQ greater than a doorknob would not invade a home when the owners are home. And we leave large areas of easily broken glass windows available on our homes while we put multiple locks and deadbolts on our doors, as if no thief would be discourteous enough to not come through the proper door.
We work excessive hours to earn a mighty income so that we have enough money to buy recreational toys (and drugs) we barely have spare time enough to use. We value leisure time, in theory, but don't know how to relax when we have it. So we go shopping, even to the extent of choosing vacation destinations where the shopping is known to be good.
We take excessive and shocking amounts of drugs, both prescription and "recreational" because we don't live healthy lives and need something to protect us from the unhealthy lifestyles we have decided are necessary for us.
We pity those who have emotional breakdowns or who retreat into various medically accepted forms of mental illness because they couldn't cope with their lives using the coping skills at their disposal.
Rather than trying to figure out what is insane and what is "normal," a condition which keeps changing itself over time, we should plot a course for our own lives that is within our ability to cope and that will deliver to us the kinds of rewards we most want from life.
And not listen to all those crazy people out there who tell us different.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to help each person carve a path of sanity for themselves through a seemingly insane world.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Thursday, March 22, 2007
My Country: Free But Not For Every Citizen
The most certain test by which we can judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities.
- Lord Acton (John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton), historian (1834-1902)
Canadians have viewed the claim by US President George W. Bush that the US is fighting the war in Iraq for "freedom" with skepticism. For one thing, Canadians are not certain what the measure of freedom would be when Mr. Bush achieves it.
However, we Canadians are confident that we live in a free country. Unless, of course, you happen to be of Middle Eastern origin.
Maher Arar, a naturalized Canadian citizen born in Syria, travelled to various countries as part of his business. With his Canadian passport, he felt confident that he could move freely, even into and out of his native country.
On one trip back to Canada from Syria, Arar was stopped at Canada Customs and held on suspicion of terrorist activities or connections. When the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (the national police of Canada) and the Canadian Security and Investigation Service (spy agency) could get nothing of interest from Arar, they sent him to the USA.
When their equivalent agencies in the US could also not get any worthwhile information from Arar, they deported him to Syria where he spent a year in prison being tortured every day. The Syrian authorities also got nothing from him.
It had never occurred to these agencies that Arar had nothing to tell them because he had nothing to do with terrorism, terrorist cells or with arrnaging finances for terrorist organizations. He was born in Syria (an "Axis of Evil country), he visited Syria and he phoned people in Syria. That was enough for them.
Arar did, however, have a beard (as all Muslim men do), olive coloured skin and Syrian heritage, which seemed to be enough to make him guilty in the eyes of Canadian and US security agencies.
Neither Canadian nor US agencies had the legal right to send Arar to another country, least of all Canada because he was a Canadian citizen. The US deported him to Syria without even telling Canada about it.
Maher Arar survived, returned to Canada, suffered through successive thorough investigations and eventually was given about 10 million dollars to go away and shut up by the Canadian government. He was removed from the Canadian list of suspects relating to terrorism.
The Canadian government, pressured by the media who were now firm Arar supporters, asked the US to also remove Arar from its watch list. The US refused, declining to give any reason.
After all, that would be tantamount to admitting they broke their own and international laws.
Maher Arar continues to live in Canada with his wife and family, trying to cobble together a life after a year of torture and daily expectations of death in a Syrian prison. Nights, for him, are the worst time of the day.
Meanwhile, three other naturalized Canadian citizens in situations amazingly similar to that of Maher Arar want to be absolved of any accusation of association with terrorism, receive compensation and build new lives after their own extensive bouts with torture abroad.
These four men have a right to wonder where in the world they could live now where their lives and those of their families would not be at risk.
Certainly not in any country that is fighting in Iraq. Or in any country whose government knows how to find Iraq on a map of the world.
Free countries, yes. But how free when the national police break the law and destroy people's lives without fear of being held accountable?
Are we in the "free world" fighting for freedom for everyone or just for those with the same skin colour, religion and nationality as us?
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to make a complex world a little clearer to understand.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Lord Acton (John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton), historian (1834-1902)
Canadians have viewed the claim by US President George W. Bush that the US is fighting the war in Iraq for "freedom" with skepticism. For one thing, Canadians are not certain what the measure of freedom would be when Mr. Bush achieves it.
However, we Canadians are confident that we live in a free country. Unless, of course, you happen to be of Middle Eastern origin.
Maher Arar, a naturalized Canadian citizen born in Syria, travelled to various countries as part of his business. With his Canadian passport, he felt confident that he could move freely, even into and out of his native country.
On one trip back to Canada from Syria, Arar was stopped at Canada Customs and held on suspicion of terrorist activities or connections. When the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (the national police of Canada) and the Canadian Security and Investigation Service (spy agency) could get nothing of interest from Arar, they sent him to the USA.
When their equivalent agencies in the US could also not get any worthwhile information from Arar, they deported him to Syria where he spent a year in prison being tortured every day. The Syrian authorities also got nothing from him.
It had never occurred to these agencies that Arar had nothing to tell them because he had nothing to do with terrorism, terrorist cells or with arrnaging finances for terrorist organizations. He was born in Syria (an "Axis of Evil country), he visited Syria and he phoned people in Syria. That was enough for them.
Arar did, however, have a beard (as all Muslim men do), olive coloured skin and Syrian heritage, which seemed to be enough to make him guilty in the eyes of Canadian and US security agencies.
Neither Canadian nor US agencies had the legal right to send Arar to another country, least of all Canada because he was a Canadian citizen. The US deported him to Syria without even telling Canada about it.
Maher Arar survived, returned to Canada, suffered through successive thorough investigations and eventually was given about 10 million dollars to go away and shut up by the Canadian government. He was removed from the Canadian list of suspects relating to terrorism.
The Canadian government, pressured by the media who were now firm Arar supporters, asked the US to also remove Arar from its watch list. The US refused, declining to give any reason.
After all, that would be tantamount to admitting they broke their own and international laws.
Maher Arar continues to live in Canada with his wife and family, trying to cobble together a life after a year of torture and daily expectations of death in a Syrian prison. Nights, for him, are the worst time of the day.
Meanwhile, three other naturalized Canadian citizens in situations amazingly similar to that of Maher Arar want to be absolved of any accusation of association with terrorism, receive compensation and build new lives after their own extensive bouts with torture abroad.
These four men have a right to wonder where in the world they could live now where their lives and those of their families would not be at risk.
Certainly not in any country that is fighting in Iraq. Or in any country whose government knows how to find Iraq on a map of the world.
Free countries, yes. But how free when the national police break the law and destroy people's lives without fear of being held accountable?
Are we in the "free world" fighting for freedom for everyone or just for those with the same skin colour, religion and nationality as us?
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to make a complex world a little clearer to understand.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
Friday, March 16, 2007
Is Media Reported Cruelty Realistic?
Human kindness has never weakened the stamina or softened the fiber of a free people. A nation does not have to be cruel to be tough.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd US President (1882-1945)
Not only do some nations seem to believe that they must be cruel to be tough, many individuals have adopted this belief as if it will either assure them of success in business or at least protect them from those who want to take away their power.
The United States military is tough. Many American citizens have joined with millions of people elsewhere in the world to make everyone aware of the atrocities at Abu Graib prison, the murder of innocent Iraqis, the slaughter of several troops of their allies (four Canadians at one shot) in incidents of friendly fire and more events that suggest the US military is cruel. By association, people come to believe that the United States must be a cruel country.
This is not true. Seldom are the many good deeds that the US military does in Iraq or Afghanistan daily reported in mainstream media. They aren't as interesting as people dying. The humanitarian and rebuilding efforts, the assistance with setting up government systems and training security forces so that the people of these countries can tend to their own problems go almost unnoticed. To people who have come to believe that oppression and restrictions are how life should be, teaching them the concept of freedom is a big job.
Afghanistan, still the laregest producer of opium poppies in the world, all of it under the control of rogue warlords, receives a contant supply of aid from the US to convert its agriculture base to something the rest of the world will respect and appreciate. If the small poppy farmer sees little help from the US, it's because the US can't put its experts in the field on a one-to-one basis to help everyone. They need to trust someone and sometimes they trust the wrong people.
In Iraq, the US challenge is not to subdue the Sunnis or the Shi'ites, but to keep the two factions from trying to annihilate each other in their struggle for dominance. The "Iraq War" is a US led mission to prevent the entire Middle East from turning into a bloodbath as the two flavours of Islam defy the most fundamental rules of the Prophet Muhammed by killing other Muslims, including unarmed and non-aggressive women and children.
US troops who could face death from a sniper or suicide bomber at any moment of any day receive full press coverage when one of them goes berserk from fear or stress overload and kills someone who wasn't a threat after all. The offence is reported, the stress seldom receives any attention.
The patina of cruelty by the US in Iraq or Afghanistan consists of nothing more than Hollywood style trash reporting by the media with little or no attention given to balance or depth.
Television, especially the reality shows, are trending toward cruelty among individuals in their attempts to outdo each other in the ratings, which are all about advertising dollars. Does the world really want to know which contestant on The Apprentice will be hired by the Trump Empire, or does the audience want to see what creative ways The Donald can devise each show to lead up to "You're fired!"?
Soap opera style incidents enlivened the competition on programs such as Survivor in the easly series, but dirty tricks get the attention today. Someone has to suffer if the show is to retain its popularity. People eagerly watch on television behaviour they would be ashamed to have happen in their own families.
That's not real life. In real life, Americans are helping Americans every day. And they contribute to charities and NGOs that help people around the world, every day. These events seldom make the news. During and after the Katrina disaster, did we hear about the good work that was done by thousands of volunteers from many parts of the country and from other countries daily or did we hear about those who suffered because someone didn't get to them soon enough?
The media have a right to choose what they print and broadcast. We have no right to interfere unless they break a law. However, we have the right to boycott the advertisers who pay for programs that twist the truth until it sounds like lies. And we have the right to turn our favours to programs and publications that produce more balanced reporting.
We don't need to be concerned about people who know the difference between propaganda and truth, between slanted reporting and balance. We need to be concerned about people who can't tell the difference. That includes young people who are just beginning to take an interest in world affairs but have not been taught to recognize propaganda and editorials masquerading as news. They are vulnerable. They are potential victims, our sons and daughters.
We need to teach those who don't know so that they don't reproduce more people who don't know.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to put it all into perspective.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
- Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd US President (1882-1945)
Not only do some nations seem to believe that they must be cruel to be tough, many individuals have adopted this belief as if it will either assure them of success in business or at least protect them from those who want to take away their power.
The United States military is tough. Many American citizens have joined with millions of people elsewhere in the world to make everyone aware of the atrocities at Abu Graib prison, the murder of innocent Iraqis, the slaughter of several troops of their allies (four Canadians at one shot) in incidents of friendly fire and more events that suggest the US military is cruel. By association, people come to believe that the United States must be a cruel country.
This is not true. Seldom are the many good deeds that the US military does in Iraq or Afghanistan daily reported in mainstream media. They aren't as interesting as people dying. The humanitarian and rebuilding efforts, the assistance with setting up government systems and training security forces so that the people of these countries can tend to their own problems go almost unnoticed. To people who have come to believe that oppression and restrictions are how life should be, teaching them the concept of freedom is a big job.
Afghanistan, still the laregest producer of opium poppies in the world, all of it under the control of rogue warlords, receives a contant supply of aid from the US to convert its agriculture base to something the rest of the world will respect and appreciate. If the small poppy farmer sees little help from the US, it's because the US can't put its experts in the field on a one-to-one basis to help everyone. They need to trust someone and sometimes they trust the wrong people.
In Iraq, the US challenge is not to subdue the Sunnis or the Shi'ites, but to keep the two factions from trying to annihilate each other in their struggle for dominance. The "Iraq War" is a US led mission to prevent the entire Middle East from turning into a bloodbath as the two flavours of Islam defy the most fundamental rules of the Prophet Muhammed by killing other Muslims, including unarmed and non-aggressive women and children.
US troops who could face death from a sniper or suicide bomber at any moment of any day receive full press coverage when one of them goes berserk from fear or stress overload and kills someone who wasn't a threat after all. The offence is reported, the stress seldom receives any attention.
The patina of cruelty by the US in Iraq or Afghanistan consists of nothing more than Hollywood style trash reporting by the media with little or no attention given to balance or depth.
Television, especially the reality shows, are trending toward cruelty among individuals in their attempts to outdo each other in the ratings, which are all about advertising dollars. Does the world really want to know which contestant on The Apprentice will be hired by the Trump Empire, or does the audience want to see what creative ways The Donald can devise each show to lead up to "You're fired!"?
Soap opera style incidents enlivened the competition on programs such as Survivor in the easly series, but dirty tricks get the attention today. Someone has to suffer if the show is to retain its popularity. People eagerly watch on television behaviour they would be ashamed to have happen in their own families.
That's not real life. In real life, Americans are helping Americans every day. And they contribute to charities and NGOs that help people around the world, every day. These events seldom make the news. During and after the Katrina disaster, did we hear about the good work that was done by thousands of volunteers from many parts of the country and from other countries daily or did we hear about those who suffered because someone didn't get to them soon enough?
The media have a right to choose what they print and broadcast. We have no right to interfere unless they break a law. However, we have the right to boycott the advertisers who pay for programs that twist the truth until it sounds like lies. And we have the right to turn our favours to programs and publications that produce more balanced reporting.
We don't need to be concerned about people who know the difference between propaganda and truth, between slanted reporting and balance. We need to be concerned about people who can't tell the difference. That includes young people who are just beginning to take an interest in world affairs but have not been taught to recognize propaganda and editorials masquerading as news. They are vulnerable. They are potential victims, our sons and daughters.
We need to teach those who don't know so that they don't reproduce more people who don't know.
Bill Allin
Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems, striving to put it all into perspective.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
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