No Abominoids Here: Are Dawkins and Hitchens Haunted by Hellfire?

Monday, October 19, 2009

Are Dawkins and Hitchens Haunted by Hellfire?

It's so sad. It really is. They both had such great promise when they were...younger. The aging process can create fear of what looms ahead and that frightens some of us; awfully much. Has it happened with them, I wonder?

We have two distinguished luminaries; one well known for scholarship, the other for... posh Brit speak? Both made significant marks early on; both now rapidly spiraling back from the 21st to the 12th century. Both seemingly riddled with the most appalling medieval superstition.

"Wait a minute", you say. "Hold it right there. Are you telling us the distinguished scientist Richard Dawkins and his side kick, the journo Christopher Hitchens, are both as superstitious as old village scolds? Giddoudahere!"

Well, anticipating your doubts I consulted my trusty Websters Twentieth Century, Unabridged, mind you, and here's the skinny:
Superstition...
1.any belief or attitude that is inconsistent with... what is considered in the particular society as true and rational...

Now today in Britain I would suppose 99.9% of the population (in the US even higher)
are believers, or at least nominal subscribers to some sort of faith which they consider true and rational. This is true of the rest of mankind and has been so since time immemorial. Not so with our hysterical friends whose ravings recently leave an ever so slight whiff of anti-brimstone all about. One could almost conjure the shades of an aroused, unbelieving rabble with pitchfork and torch.
(Nowadays, of course, closer to fondue warmers and really pointy swizzle sticks.)

Further along in my trusty Webster's lies a clue to the heightened rise in shrillness, and hissy-fit scourging of all vestiges of faith, wherever found lurking. A lapse into almost girlish histrionics at invocation of any minor deity. 'Militant Atheists',for Christ's sake, come on now!.

Perhaps this aha! moment with Webster's explains the recent explosion of anti-religious fundamentalism represented by our pundits:

Superstitious...overexact; scrupulous beyond need.

Having manifested as the secular equivalent of serpent handlers and tent-show Elmer Gantrys, these poor credulous souls have given atheism an even worse (is it possible?)reputation. Just what we need in these nutty times.

Thanks a lot,guys.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...: Is this a comedy piece?

very good.; October 21, 2009 at 5:22 AM
Molehill said...: Here's more definition of superstition.
1. An irrational belief that an object, action, or circumstance not logically related to a course of events influences its outcome.
2.
a. A belief, practice, or rite irrationally maintained by ignorance of the laws of nature or by faith in magic or chance.
b. A fearful or abject state of mind resulting from such ignorance or irrationality.
c. Idolatry.

Cherry picking again are you? like u probably do with your bloody bible.; June 14, 2010 at 3:00 PM
Unknown said...: You 'suppose' that 99.9% are believers? Your own supposition is an excellent source too cite for statistical data! Good work! Try looking up some actual surveys and data - particularly in the UK - and I 'suppose' you will soon be eating your words.

Oh, and I notice your attempt to claim anyone with any faith of any kind as being on your side - no matter how vehemently they would reject any specific claims you may believe in. As if Richard and Christopher are outsiders from a monolithic sea of concensus!

In actuality of course, EVERY particular faith actually consists of a minority of humans. In fact there are nearly as many different 'gods' as there are individual theists to construct them. You can TRY to claim all theists as a mass to pad your stats, but it's pretty dichonest. Though they all may claim belief in a 'god' or 'gods' the similarity of those beliefs often ends with that title.

Funny, the faithful only seem to stop their squabbling and pretend to be on the same team when there is an atheist about and they need to circle the wagons.

Try limiting your comparison sample only to any folks who would affirm any given particular doctrine or precept. That would be a more fair comparison, to atheists - and the numbers in many cases will come closer to balance.; June 14, 2010 at 10:31 PM
Coryat said...: "They both had such great promise when they were...younger."

Yes you're quite right, the populariser of a gene level view of evolution and a best selling author haven't fulfilled their promise. Unlike you, lonely internet troll. You're doing well.

"A lapse into almost girlish histrionics at invocation of any minor deity. 'Militant Atheists',for Christ's sake, come on now!."

Your misogynistic language is tiresome, whilst your use of the term 'militant' is inane. Do you mean militant like Islamic fundamentalists or Christian abortion clinic bombers? Or militant as in speak their minds? If so, I can't wait to hear you denounce militant stamp collectors!

So there we have it, your whole post is a mess of distortions, argumentum ad populum (backed up by argumentum ad dictionarius) weasel words such as 'militant' and unrestrained contempt for women.

I'm going to ask that you don't post again until you have really thought about what I'm saying. You have to understand, when a person like me deigns to speak to a person like you, it's because I feel that your words are seriously lowering the level of discourse. I would appreciate it if you would take my advice.; June 15, 2010 at 1:57 AM

Writ in Stone? Probably.

I'll be 80 years old this month so I get a free pass; probably. It's not really my fight. My three sons are in their fifties so they may squeak by; may squeak by, that is. The youngest grandchild is only fifteen so the grandkids are toast; very likely. What! Is this writ in stone? Can it be changed? Could be. Will it be? Not a chance in hell!

What must be done to avoid this tragedy? A total reversal of what's been going on since the advent of civilization. What! That's the deal. Nothing else will do it. The occupation of the seats of power, authority and decision making must be seized from the hands of men. Human males, guys, patriarchs, Padres, Popes, daddies, that is. That's never going to happen! Right. So we perish? Unless the female of the species regains sovereignty quickly and make intelligent decisions just as quickly, it's all over.

You mean war? Is that what you're talking about? We've heard that forever. No, not war. War can be avoided by just not doing it. What will do us in along with most life-forms on the planet will happen because of something we don't do now. Enough already with the meshuge puzzles.

The problem is the people who have been in charge everywhere on Earth historically, are the very ones incapable of avoiding the disaster. Males. In charge everywhere, but without the instinctive or intuitive equipment to prioritize future events at any cost to the present. In short, males are unfit for decisions effecting future generations. We don't have the vision, the instincts, the cellular orientation that females have, at least potentially, to project forward and plan benignly beyond the here and now.

There are twenty-five thousand deadly nuclear devices and appliances spread over the Northern hemisphere and more than a few below the Equator. There have been for seven decades countless TRILLIONS of Dollars, Rupees, Yen, Euros, Renminbis , etc, and millions of man hours of physicists, engineers and technicians devoted to manufacturing, installing and maintaining these dangerous inventions. All that money and time spent is gone forever. What remains is a burden of maintenance requiring even more expenditure of treasure and expertise well into the future. This requirement must be met despite whatever obstacles are encountered in the future as the choice is either to keep them maintained or suffer the inevitable consequences.

To balance this equation requires countless TRILLIONS in sound currencies, and a guaranteed supply of highly trained experts well into the future but the total annuity and indemnification for this task so far committed is...Zero. In light of a rapidly failing global financial system and civil unrest in many parts of the world, perhaps we have passed the fail safe point and cannot guarantee this being done even if we so desired; which is doubtful in the extreme.

So...

Peter Dedon, a member of the Radiation Protection Committee at MIT, explains: “What happens is that the nucleus of radioactive elements undergoes decay and emits high-energy particles. If you stand in the way of those particles, they are going to interact with the cells of your body. You literally get a particle, an energy packet, moving through your cells and tissues.”

"What long-term effects can radiation have?

The effect of the radiation may not be to kill the cell, but to alter its DNA code in a way that leaves the cell alive but with an error in the DNA blueprint. The effect of this mutation will depend on the nature of the error and when it is read. Since this is a random process, such effects are now called stochastic. Two important stochastic effects of radiation are cancer, which results from mutations in nongerm cells (termed somatic cells), and heritable changes, which result from mutations in germ cells (eggs and sperm)."

... ACHRE Report

Either abandon at once the failed patriarchical mindset worldwide and hope the ladies are wise enough to see the danger, or condemn future generations, your kids',kids',kids, to a hopelessly deadly environment. Some choice, eh?

Farewell Noble Spirit of The Enlightenment /

Approaching the End of Patriarchy?

Have we, in the final analysis, simply cloaked prior eons of chaos, darkness and base instinct with a veneer of sophistication? Have a few bold, courageous new ideas about reality a few centuries back, augmented with enormous natural resource and energy sources, blinded us to those lurking reactive forces?

If again back in thrall to those lesser impulses, are we, at best then, a clumsy work in progress? A dubious link between the human and the truly humane and a messy bit of unfinished celestial business pretending all is well with us.

Dorinda Outram:

"Enlightenment was a desire for human affairs to be guided by rationality rather than by faith, superstition, or revelation; a belief in the power of human reason to change society and liberate the individual from the restraints of custom or arbitrary authority; all backed up by a world view increasingly validated by science rather than by religion or tradition."

In ever increasing areas of the world are not critical signs pointing to a rapid reversion to a earlier mode of existence? For a few centuries now, easing of daily existence, along with greater material resources, has been followed by vastly greater fecundity that permeates even remote areas. But lately the very planet seems to be complaining that for centuries we, it's self-proclaimed stewards, have not acted wisely. As the privileged species, it seems to say, our housekeeping is atrocious; the place is a mess. Clean it up!

We have degraded, polluted, over-populated and taken up vastly more than our share of all that exists here. It has never been worse and that is because never before have we been able to take so much, so quickly, for use in the present; denying it to the future. Our legacy to the heirs, writ clearly and proudly, is, "You shall have nothing if we can help it. We are spending your Planet; go somewhere else. Maybe we'll overlook and leave behind something useful, something that doesn't take powerful machines to bring forth; that's doubtful. You will, future persons, if you are lucky, become scavengers, salvagers and junkmen, because we will leave plenty of that."

Apparently it will not be outer space to which we will then go, as many have dreamed. Like moths to a bulb we have risen grandly to the heights but also like the moth we grow exhausted (and broke) and succumb to gravity. ( America has difficulty even delivering the daily mail lately.)

On some level, mostly subconscious at this point in time, Westerners know the game is up. That the powers that be are not leveling with us. The information sneaks in stealthily that everything is different from what we are told. That things will not be returning to what we've known in the past... ever.

All sorts are wild and bizarre statements and actions will be the new norm for the nonce. Without information free from spin and slant people will thrash around for guidance and direction. A lot of this will be frightening for many, certainly unpleasant, but not unexpected after several generations of disinformation serving as truth. Anything we are told these days, particularly on the very best authority, best forget it and keep digging around. Somewhere beyond the noise is the truth.

Carl Jung cautioned that if we did not soon find a universal understanding of what makes us human the future looked dim. That perhaps we will see a gradual collapse of our material way of life and enter into a time comparable to the Dark Ages. The failure to examine in depth the actual nature of reality as opposed to the arbitrary hunches and dogmas currently in vogue fail to ground mankind within nature and the scheme of things. In no regard are we meeting the future united, prepared and in agreement on what we really are and what we really need. If we couldn't fix things during good times, how on Earth will we do it now?

Part of our own dilemma stems from devotion to a aggressive, militant fundamentalism. For decades our principal activity has been the outfitting of legions of missionaries (armed to the teeth of course) setting out bravely to convert the unwashed, the unbelieving and the disrespectful, hopefully at a profit. With missions in hundreds of bases everywhere our brand of Americanism and Christian fundamentalism has alarmed the world. But as Professor Chomsky reminds us, it did all begin here. We do own it.

Noam Chomsky:" We must bear in mind that the US is a very fundamentalist society, perhaps more than any other society in the world - even more fundamentalist than Saudi Arabia or the Taliban. That's very surprising."

"Until 1950, there was no entry for fundamentalism in the Oxford English Dictionary; the derivative fundamentalist was added only in its second 1989 edition." Wikipedia

We also learn these inventions, spawned early in the Twentieth Century by fledgling Divines and Dons, at Princeton Theological Seminary, were social skirmishes whose time had come. The creators were ambitious and zealous: to defend orthodox Protestant Christianity against the perceived threat of Darwinism and liberal theology. Sound familiar?

"The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive and unrealistic."
John F. Kennedy

Naturally our militaristic minions around the world have not gone unnoticed by the locals. Religious zealotry begets more of the same and lately half the globe is seething with it. Thus far, the second - stringers, the so-called BRICs, have not caught the plague. Not yet. But then it's the fifties in China and we all know where that era led elsewhere. The Middle Kingdom version is sort of the equivalent of hundreds of Levittowns being thrown up against a background of Berlin in the nineties replete with construction cranes to the horizon. And, oh yes, a political regime resembling the hairy hand of McCarthyism we all enjoyed so much.

A Beijing Scenario:

It's the fifties in the Middle Kingdom and the cruisin' has begun. Picture this scene out of "Chinese Graffiti" where forty million single dudes in spanking new SUVs cruise endlessly trying to pick-up, get this, NO chicks! Now that they produce more cars than the US the bumper stickers could shout, "What's Good for Great Wall Motors is Good for China!" Fifty years of 'one childness' has produced a bumper crop of ...testosterone.
Good luck with that!

All in all, the old guys who run things in Beijing should look around the world, especially in the West, to see where all this 'progress' might lead. Instead of benefiting from seeing where we stumbled they seem determined to end up the same way, broke, confused and angry. Nobody ever learns, it's our charm as a species and may bury us yet.

Now males, and especially older males, have much to offer but they really should be regarded as useful idiots. Aside from certain mental qualities that enable them to stand slightly aside from life's realities and do interesting things abstractedly, like build stuff and blow up stuff, they should never, ever, be allowed near the sources of power.

Two things, and only two, are commanded by nature: reproduction of species and death. All else is option. Males are largely indifferent to the former but appear much devoted to the latter.Too often the violent demise of some other male is a consuming focus of male effort. Now males are all right as far as we go but we have gone way too far for way too long. A thousand generations is quite enough as we, all of us, are now quite noticeably...stuck. We are stuck in the here and now; stuck in today.

The Earth has endured a thousand generations of male domination. Human life may one day soon be forfeit as a result. An innate lack of future orientation sufficient to overcome exploitation of the planet for temporal gain suggests males are unfit for continued leadership. Recorded history and mythology are testimony to the propensity of the gender to build, destroy, and kill with blatant disregard for future aspect. The male mindset that has been governing the globe lacks a clear future inclination and could lead the species to extinction if allowed to continue unabated

What to do? Well, the distaff, on the other hand, at least live from month to future month much of their lives; a big improvement over the male day- to- day plodding vision. And on occasion the femmes live several months out ahead; nine months out to be exact. In this way the future can be somewhat sensed as existing beyond now and beyond a single generation.

Is this then, a different way of viewing existence, of living along a different time line, what the human race sorely lacks as a lodestar? Orientation and planning with emphasis on the future rather than the temporal. Something that many females possess but which has been trivialized and disregarded in favor of what could be interpreted as male theft of the future for a specious patriarchy today.

There is likely no community on the planet where reversal or even lessening of current gender domination could take place in any meaningful way. In fact billions of people are expressly forbidden by theology to even contemplate such a transition. An advocacy of this notion might lead to excommunication, stoning, beheading or at least a banishment to the nearest desert for the audacity. Most theologies consist of many small truths cobbled together as one big lie; male supremacy.

So an arrangement that could possibly save the species from itself will have to await a post apocalyptic time. Not an ounce of power will be willingly ceded until civilization crashes around us. Why then is the example of a society which managed to exist far longer than any other known, and with near equal female participation; the three thousand year track record of Ancient and Pharaonic Egypt ignored as pagan and effeminate? Because it's better to risk total cataclysm and perish than to have them running the show!

Perhaps It all started after the last ice age. The hunters hunted and the gatherers gathered. Then the gatherers became diggers and, eureka!, agriculture. Thank's ladies! This was the real deal: civilization. Not the hobby-shop, toy and gadget world the now underemployed hunter bunch dreamed up. No this was what made it all happen. Full bellies and some leisure time courtesy of the femmes. But the gals let their lead slip away and the hobby-shop became the world.

What kind of a future will they make for us if women regain the leadership? What it won't be is the hobby-shop, gadget and garage-band world, the phallic oases guy's world, complete with extraordinary violence, it has been for generations. It will, early on, necessarily revert to the most basic of basics, growing stuff to eat, big time.

Restaurateur and Chef Jose Andreas of 'Julio' in Bethesda, Maryland was interviewed recently on NPR radio and made the most profound energy statement I have heard in years.

"But I think the most important is to remind everyone that the most important source of energy is not gas. The most important source of energy is food, because food is what keeps us - the humans - with energy. So we need to start thinking about food as the most important source of energy, because it's the energy that keeps moving us, the people - the people of America, the people of world.

... I hope that we're going to start taking seriously where our food comes from. Because right now I don't think we do. And we need to start making sure that our politicians understand that the most important thing is our food, period. And food should be un-negotiable..."

We may become a tribe of earnest junkmen recycling gadgets and gee-gaws; eternally recycling for employment. The ladies just trying their best to keep the babies warm and healthy. All the while finding and setting priorities, including the amatory arrangements. If it doesn't appear to make sense unto the seventh generation it don't git done! And that's not negotiable, pal

The Roman Empire slid into the backwater of history without a whimper. Will we, the 'can do' people, the inventors of damn near everything, the flyers to the moon; will we do the same thing? Very likely. Unless things change in a big hurry, a historical backwater is our likely destination,too.

With even a tiny clear glimpse of our future prospects America could wake out of it's trance and begin to prepare. Slowly, very slowly, in all probability. Committees, of course, endless committees, but that's okay. As long as they are realistic and not simply bent on returning to what cannot be sustained any longer. Hopefully the message that emerges from all this collective wisdom will be...
Stop! Stop everything!

We're broke. We're losing irreplaceable energy supplies rapidly. We're despised globally for bringing it all down on everybody's head by sheer hubris, endless war, and willful interference on a massive, Crusader like, scale for a century or so. It's up to us, alone, if we intend to survive as a viable entity.

Where to start? Sensible priorities might help. The time has come for National Triage. It can't all be saved. So what's important? Food, clothing, shelter, fuel and transportation. What? That old stuff? Yep, exactly. That's were it's at.

Well, we can handle all that, we already do. Sure, but on credit, yours, mine and the government's; at the sufferance of others. Those days are ending rapidly. As a debtor nation and debtor society the barbarians can arrive at the gates any day in the form of creditors demanding payback. On that day it's all over. Backwater time for sure.

How do we keep the wolf at bay? Maybe by living for the future for a change. The future to a farmer means planting now for harvest later. It doesn't mean waiting by the dock for dinner to arrive from farmers thousands of miles away. It also means less crop planting dedicated to cow and hog (and automobile) gullets and more stuff that goes straight to human nourishment.

The future also would appreciate us saving a little something prior to its arrival. Like fossil fuel? If we made our own jeans, bath towels, footwear, etc.etc. ourselves (we did once, remember?) we could save a little petrol for the future. Might come in handy, who knows? We could use what we manage to save now to keep the lights on, the food cold and the house warm, down the road. And put a little aside to carry us comfortably around instead of needing to walk everywhere.

As we rapidly edge toward the end of a surfeit of cheap and plentiful energy based on the consumption of irreplaceable fossil fuel, a bitter ' historical' reality begins to present itself for our consideration.

For three centuries we have developed a growing dependence on highly concentrated forms of what is basically solar energy, sunlight, to ease our burdens and grow our societies. Before the general use of coal and later, petroleum, we were limited to hydro, wind, firewood and, if the hunting was good, whale oil, to help us. But what formed the basis of our walking around energy usage was horse,and human, muscle power.

Human power, beyond the personal and familial, was augmented by hired help and/or owned help. History is rife with doleful accounts of the later. In fact it was only in the 20th century that chattel slavery was finally abolished worldwide. Legal human slavery existed in the lifetime of a few elderly people still alive today.

How fantastic is a scenario predicated on the gradual lead-up to a condition of want and coercion that would lead one or more societies to consider reverting to that 'peculiar institution'? And if conditions had so deteriorated as to make the unthinkable attractive who would take the first step?

David Suzuki said "We must reinvent a future free of blinders so that we can choose from real options."

A resilient globe, Earth, having managed to absorb constant assaults on its integrity for eons is now beginning to show vulnerability. Human populations were not sufficiently numerous nor technologically advanced enough in the past to cause grievous planetary harm. This is no longer true. Every day we come closer to the point of no return and nowhere is seen the remedy for reversing possible terminal decline.

We are not unique, never were. We are not all good and wise and noble. Too many pictures, too many reports have surfaced of too many nasty deeds done in our name all over the place for too, damn long. Too much money sticking to the hands of too few of us and too many lies about why that is. Folks are not as ready as they once were to drink the cool-aid or believe the half-truths and absolute fictions ever so slyly promulgated; about why things need to be this way.

"Nothing will see us through the age we're entering but high consciousness, and that comes hard. We don't have a good, modern myth yet, and we need one."
Robert Johnson

None among us living or dead is really fit to be called humane. The best and noblest among us is but a passive enabler of a species given to denial of future entitlement in favor of present utility. Notice the ones in those pictures with swollen bellies and flies on their eyes are never the mothers. We husband the breeders; forfeit the young...the future.

Nukes = No Future

At least after the old Romans packed it in and left the field our hapless ancestors had a pretty good chance of surviving. Granted things were not great for a while, say 500 years. But on the bright side. The old boys left some decent roads (nobody had anything much that rolled on wheels but at least they had a dry place to walk the goats) and if they were in need of some stones for refurbishing the hut or to lob at a foe, well, lots of that by quarrying out the old arenas.If there was any knowledge of hydraulics left behind, plenty of good watercourses were still standing. (They stand to this day!)So most of the abandoned technology was useful or at least benign.Not so with our detritus.

When the current experiment in modern living goes the way of the Maya, the Pharaohs and the rest of those benighted souls our rubbish will kill the folks dead. The more odiferous ruins will be avoided instinctively; the chemical plants, refineries and that foul smelling ilk. Distance will provide a buffer they can live with. Trial and error should teach the folks to avoid most of the obvious ordnance middens over time.

What worries me to distraction is the tens of thousand of nuclear devices and applications which will surely be abandoned when the Homer Simpsons of the future leave off ministering as the tide rises and the sun sets on our way of life. For without the expertise and TLC of the Homers all the nukes will someday go fizz

If you happen at the time to live in a small island place like say, Japan, you will have no chance at all (About one nuke site about every couple of miles, is it?). Even a larger area, France maybe, better mend fences with the neighbors because that is where they will all be living when les nukes go les critical. The folks won't even know what's hitting them.So if we want to do the kids' kids' kids a big favor we will stop building any more of the bloody things

. At the first hint of a general systemic failure in technical sustainability, we must spend whatever it takes to dismantle, decommission and stash away as best we know how every single nuclear machine on the planet. Nothing less will even begin to redeem the lack of foresight in a reckless, feckless tribe like ours.

Our Future, if there is one, is Female

Much of the developed world seems to be echoing the words of the irrepressible Kelly McGillis, "I'm done with the man thing." All over the place women, young women, are girding their loins, so to speak, and not beating about the bush. The wonders revealed by Gillette Atra(R) and Brazilian Body Waxing are out front and in your face. They say, " We're bold and we're beautiful, boys and girls. Take a good look, people, this is it; the mystery is over. Everything else may be a mess but not us. We listened to you, and where did it get us? Eros is our avatar now."

It all started after the last ice age. The hunters hunted and the gatherers gathered. Then the gatherers became diggers and, eureka!, agriculture. This was the real deal: civilization. Not the hobby-shop, toy and gadget world the now underemployed hunter bunch dreamed up. No this was what made it all happen. Full bellies and some leisure time courtesy of the femmes. But the gals let their lead slip away and the hobby-shop became the world

Not this time. Oh, no. With the coming ice age the ladies will not let it happen again.Ice age? Are you nuts? It's G.W., remember? Everybody went to Scandinavia and froze their butts to argue about Global Warming. Right. But that's the warm up bout, the preliminary, the main event is to follow: Ice Age. Bundle up, folks.

What's all this got to do with Kelly McGillis and girding of loins, anyhow? Just that the boys (and men) are stuck in a time warp, and the girls know it. And they won't stay in their shadows any longer. When was the last time you saw any young women wearing the scare-crow, clown costumed, little-boy-lost look, the guys are sporting these days? The last time the girls dressed to look like the guys was during the 60's. Remember? Patched jeans, hairy legs, no war paint, kinda scruffy and slightly venereal. Big mistake. Not gonna happen today. Not with these gals. Let the guys look weird, that's their trip.

So what kind of a future will they make for us, these modern gals? What it won't be is the hobby-shop, gadget and garage-band world, the guy's world, it has been for generations. It will, early on, revert to the most basic of basics, growing stuff to eat, big time. And recycling the gadgets and gee-gaws; eternally recycling for employment. The ladies just trying their best to keep the babies warm and healthy. All the while finding and setting priorities, including the amatory arrangements. If it doesn't appear to make sense unto the seventh generation it don't git done! And that's not negotiable, pal.

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Return to Diaspora or/

Yerida on the Exodus II?

Jewish journalist Gideon Levy: “If our forefathers dreamt of an Israeli passport to escape from Europe, there are many among us who are now dreaming of a second passport to escape to Europe.”

Best-Selling Novelist Grace Paley: from Two Short Sad Stories from a long and Happy Life.

"I believe in the Diaspora, not only as a fact but as a tenet. I'm against Israel on technical grounds. I'm very disappointed they decided to become a nation in my lifetime. I believe in the Diaspora. After all, they are the chosen people. Don't laugh. They really are. But once they're huddled in one little corner of a desert, they're like anyone else: Frenchies, Italians, temporal nationalities. Jews have one hope only- to remain a remnant in the basement of world affairs-no, I mean something else- a splinter in the toe of civilizations, a victim to aggravate the conscience."

Israelis Rush for Second Passports By FRANKLIN LAMB:

"Several studies in Israel and one conducted by AIPAC and another by the Jewish National Fund in Germany show that perhaps as many as half of the Jews living in Israel will consider leaving Palestine in the next few years if current political and social trends continue.

A 2008 survey by the Jerusalem-based Menachem Begin Heritage Center found that 59 per cent of Israelis had approached or intended to approach a foreign embassy to inquire about or apply for citizenship and a passport. Today it is estimated that the figure is approaching 70 per cent."

"Explaining that he was speaking as a private citizen and not as a member of Democrats Abroad (in) Israel, New York native Hillel Schenker suggested that Jews who come to Israel "want to make sure that they have the possibility of an alternative to return whence they came." He added that the "insecurities involved in modern life, and an Israel not yet living at peace with any of its neighbors, have also produced a phenomenon of many Israelis seeking a European passport, based on their family roots, just in case."

Lawrence Davidson, professor of history at West Chester University in West Chester PA:

"When and if that time comes, how are we on the outside, and especially those of us who are Jews, going to react to an Israel where those who seek a just peace are either silenced, imprisoned or exiled? What do you do with a society where everyone must support injustice or be themselves condemned as traitors or criminals? Under these circumstances how do you tell the difference between the innocent and the guilty?"

"If the historical goal of the state of Israel is to provide the world's Jews a secure national home, a place of refugee in a world of real or potential anti-Semitism, it seems to have failed. It has failed not because this writer says so, but because an increasing number of its own Jewish citizens say so. There have been studies originating both in Israel and abroad that show "as many as half of the Jews living in Israel will consider leaving ...if in the next few years the current political and social trends continue."

" This finding is in addition to the fact that yerida, or emigration out of Israel, has long been running at higher numbers than aliyah, or immigration into the country. "According to the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, as of 2005, 650,000 Israelis have left the country for over one year and not returned." The great majority of these were Jews. In addition, polls show that at least 60% and as high as 80% of remaining Israeli Jews "sympathize with those who leave the country."

"There are two prevailing explanations for this phenomenon. The first is that it reflects the conviction that the safe haven that Zionism was suppose to create is not safe at all. This is the position taken by the University of Pennsylvania political scientist Ian Lustick. "The danger for the Jewish state is that, given the choice between convincing Middle Easterners that Israel can be a good neighbor and leaving the neighborhood, more and more Israelis are attracted to the latter....The logically extreme expression of escape is, of course, emigration."

" Lustick is supported by Stephen Walt, professor of international relations at Harvard University who suggests that "the Zionist ideal is losing hold within Israel itself" because the Israeli government "endlessly delays the [peace] process."

Alice Rothchild MD. She co-founded and co-chairs Visions of Peace with Justice in Israel/Palestine, now American Jews for a Just Peace.

On her departure at Ben Gurion airport:

" But I am left wondering, what kind of country requires someone like me to scheme and lie in order to leave without being harassed?"

----------------------

The USA: Is it a Racket? or/ Ponzi Was a Piker and 'The Recovery' Fell Off the Back of a Truck. http://bit.ly/40uMEz

Timid Language: man's (thing we have no English word for yet) is inserted into woman's (thing we have no English word for yet) and...http://bit.ly/7b2twN

Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wuss? Even if the Corporate beast is more wuss than wolf, it can be a formidable entity. http://bit.ly/9PhzB5

Metastatic change in popular music is prophetic. Our future is thrashing about in utero waiting for the overture to begin. http://bit.ly/olTDp

The 24/7 Enigma. Look at yourself, if you dare. What strange combination of wild genes and theft caused you to end up this way? http://bit.ly/EuU5L

Deaths from 20th Century wars.. tie score for first place & a surprising result! http://bit.ly/15ebTB

Coal is a latter-day villain...big coal is a monster: Appalachia a wasteland but...http://bit.ly/1dRDZz

Well, we screwed up this time...big time. We had a century or more to get it right. http://bit.ly/cb356r

The American Revolution was won and it was decided. We lost.http://bit.ly/d67y7x

We have always been a right wing plutocracy.(What? Nobody ever told you?)http://bit.ly/95MKI1

Keep On Smokin'

At the anti-coal demonstrations in Washington protesting the coal fired electric generating plant supplying the nation's capitol little of substance was presented about our reliance on the stuff. Coal has become a latter-day villain with few defenders. We were told that big coal is a monster: that Appalachia is a wasteland, and that coal is not very clean, to put it mildly. To get a glimpse of the larger picture consider the following by Robert Bryce, author of "Coal Hard Facts".

"Let's look at the U.S., second only to China in terms of total coal consumption. In 2007, the U.S. used about 1.1 billion tons of coal. That’s the energy equivalent of about 4.2 billion barrels of oil per year or about 11.5 million barrels of oil per day. Here’s the key comparison: America’s daily coal ration contains more energy than Saudi Arabia’s daily oil production.

Indeed, the scale of U.S. coal consumption boggles the mind. In 2007, the amount of energy America used in the form of coal exceeded the total energy consumption – from all sources, coal, oil, natural gas, and nuclear – of all of the countries of Central and South America combined. Just as important as the scale of America’s coal consumption is this fact: U.S. coal use has increased faster in recent decades than has oil or natural gas consumption. Between 1973 and 2007, U.S. coal consumption jumped by 75.5 percent. During that same time period, U.S. oil consumption increased by 15.2 percent and natural gas consumption increased by just 5 percent.

Here’s another comparison: On a daily basis, global coal consumption is equivalent to about 63.8 million barrels of oil. Thus, replacing the world’s coal habit with something else will require finding an energy source (or sources) that can supplant the equivalent of six new Saudi Arabias. Or consider China. On an average day, its coal use provides the energy equivalent of 26.3 million barrels of oil, or about two and a half Saudi Arabias.

By any measure, those are daunting numbers. U.S. and global policymakers may not like coal, but given the enormous scale of the coal business, it’s obvious that the U.S. and the rest of the world will be relying on the black fuel for many years to come."

So what will we have left if coal use is curtailed?

Unfortunately, only nuclear energy can begin to duplicate those mammoth energy numbers. Not solar, not wind or wave, geo-thermal and certainly not our dwindling supply of petroleum and natural gas. And then if everybody switches to nukes, in only a few decades the usable uranium will be gone, and that will leave only deadly plutonium. What a dangerous future for our grandchildren that promises to be!

In the current frenzy to shut down coal burning, the details of exactly how we will keep the lights on is basically ignored. And where in the anti-coal movement is found a valid comparison of smokestack to tailpipe? Few serious students of the energy crisis believe that we will still have 150 million cars on the road in ten or twenty years. Most experts say: Can't happen, not enough usable, portable fuel remains.

And with the cars gone will it make much difference to the environment if we have a few thousand smokestacks in this vast country compared to millions of tailpipes? Before the switch to natural gas after WWll Dr.Allen W. Hatheway estimates 52,000 manufactured gas plants existed in the United States. Every small town and city made gas for their own use or to sell. That is in addition to countless factories, locomotives and home furnaces in use at the time. Now that's a lot of chimneys.

So don't be too quick to shut down the old smoke belcher or prevent new ones coming on board or we may end up shivering in the cold, but clean, air of a new dark age fifty/thirty/twenty, years from now.

--------------------------------------

Professor Chomsky Tells All...

We Started it.

Did Noam Chomsky give away the game in a Al-AlamTV interview on June 22, 2010?

Noam Chomsky:" We must bear in mind that the US is a very fundamentalist society, perhaps more than any other society in the world - even more fundamentalist than Saudi Arabia or the Taliban. That's very surprising."

What's all this? Is he nuts?

Well, a quick trip to Wikipedia might provide the answer

."Until 1950, there was no entry for fundamentalism in the Oxford English Dictionary [5]; the derivative fundamentalist was added only in its second 1989 edition." Wikipedia

We also learn these inventions, spawned early in the Twentieth Century by fledgling Divines and Dons, at Princeton Theological Seminary, were social nemesesa skirmishes whose time had come. The creators were ambitious and zealous: to defend orthodox Protestant Christianity against the perceived threat of Darwinism and liberal theology. Sound familiar?

Wikipedia again:"The term has since been generalized to mean strong adherence to any set of beliefs in the face of criticism or unpopularity, but has by and large retained religious connotations."

And

"Fundamentalism is commonly used as a pejorative term, particularly when combined with other epithets (as in the phrase "Muslim fundamentalists" and "right-wing/left-wing fundamentalists").[7][8] Richard Dawkins has used the term to characterize religious advocates as clinging to a stubborn, entrenched position that defies reasoned argument or contradictory evidence.[9] Others in turn, such as Christian theologian Alister McGrath, have used the term fundamentalism to characterize atheism as dogmatic."

Yeah, yeah, but those other guys are really evil. We are peace loving and kind. A visit to the infamous "20th Century Corpse Derby" at http://bit.ly/15ebTB might dissuade this notion.

So then, if we invented it, do we own it ?

------------------------------------------

The Murder Ape

But why?

They had it all. Living in a sylvan place that provided beauty and plenty and that was rare in the universe, they thrived and expanded. Nature and circumstance had been generous to the folks back then and life was good. Other creatures guided by surest instinct could not venture beyond the tethers keeping them locked into place or habit and this hobbled most novelty and mobility for them.

Not so with us. Our early ancestors, somewhere along the line, had lost their fur, their estrus and their fear of fire. Fortunate genetic twists had provided access to unlimited carnality coupled with a bare and luscious epidermis for increased pleasure. But instead of becoming artists of sensuality and connoisseurs of ecstasy similar to our distant cousins the Bonobo apes we morphed into something tragically different; the murder ape.

What went wrong? One of our prized possessions at the time was the mastery of fire. This enabled protection from the elements and provided a way to deter rivals or intruders but, alas, it also had a down side. Our ancestors had become highly addicted to the taste and aroma of cooked flesh. Lost in history is the exact source of the haunch, the chop or internal organ that was the source of the deadly proto-prions they were ingesting with dinner. Perhaps, in pregnant women fetal development was influenced by these warped proteins the eating of cooked meat had unleashed into their systems.

The effect was devastating. A marked incidence of the failure of the fetal skull to knit properly because of brain swelling caused repeated miscarriage. Fortunately a few hydrocephalic newborn survived if the mother was able to deliver successfully. This saved the tribes from extinction but the results of this aberrant brain growth has haunted our kind ever since.

The large-headed, swollen brain offspring with this sinister brain distortion were the ancestors of us; the murder apes. With this physical transition the door to the past, the golden age, was lost forever. The onset of a burgeoning self awareness and increased intelligence gave a significant evolutionary advantage but again, there was a cost. Because of enlarged frontal lobes ready access to the instincts which guide the lives of normal creatures was gradually rendered forfeit. The newly arrived ego screamed for attention. The former natural instinctive balance, our primal monitor of conflicting urges and impulses, became almost regressive because of this new ingredient. And so it remains, an elusive remnant sending helpful guidance signals mainly ignored in the resultant cacophony of ego.

Instead of a well balanced, sensual, somewhat privileged primate we now have a naked, lustful, highly predatory but self aware creature lacking a firm rudder with which to steer through life. A creature who, unlike other super predators, the wolves, large cats, etc. had lost the instinctual intra specie restraint exhibited by such powerful others. We had become instead vicious and blood-thirsty towards our own kind.

This is the sad story of how a simple addiction caused a promising primate family to become a planetary scourge. The taste for cooked flesh, unhappily laced with bent or folded protein, led to fetal brain swelling. Those not aborted had a damaged brain which contained a fierce predatory nature and a massive ego function This novel brain addition screamed so loudly for attention that it over whelmed the sounder instincts of the creature. Without this guidance our species became far less admirable than an ordinary wolf pack.

We had become and remain still, the murder ape.

To the Shores of Tripoli, et al,et al

With amazing regularity we have begun each new century of our existence as a nation by warring with Muslims. At the start of the nineteenth century, the fledgling United States, still unable to pay the debts incurred during the Revolutionary War, equipped a small fleet, manned by marines, to do battle with Barbary Pirates operating from North Africa. This was our first overseas military venture but would, of course, not be the last. The results were inconclusive but served to impress old Europe that the new kid was a player and to show the flag around.

It took another couple of decades to rout these bandits from those waters where they had preyed on shipping for years. Routed they were but it cost us dearly. It was not until 1815 that our involvement ended; the due bill showed up in 1819 with our very first Money Panic. The banks stopped lending to pay off war debts, the Louisiana acquisition and to get the international bankers off our backs. Starting to sound familiar?

Of course throughout the nineteenth century we had lots of wars with all kinds of people but right on schedule, at the turn of the Twentieth Century, we're back fighting Muslims again. This time it was the Moros. For a scary film depicting, not very accurately, and with typical Hollywood slanting of the bad guys as 'others' and therefore, demonic, see "The Real Glory". Gary Cooper, David Niven and Broderick Crawford star.

The Moros, who are Muslim and live in the southernmost islands of the Philippines, resisted the American occupation of their homeland. The U.S. Army tried out a new tactic of training native Filipinos to take over the burden of putting down the insurrection so the Army could withdraw. These surrogates, of course, were Christian and had little in common with the Moros. Does that sound familiar? In the course of the film, the Moro leader Alipang is captured. In order to break his will and cause him to suffer for his effrontery, the Troopers forcibly wrap Alipang in the skin of a slaughtered pig. This is a grievous insult to a Muslim and perhaps anticipates Gitmo and Abu Ghraib behavior. Nearly 100 thousand men, women and children were slaughtered in the Moro fracas; which falls just short of war crime numbers.

Thus began a new Century which featured wars with just about everybody on the planet. We all know the history of the late, lamented, 20th Century with a total of about a quarter billion casualties to its discredit.

That speeds us to a new marker, Y2K, The Age of Aquarius, Century of Hope, the beginning of the great 21st Century. Okay, we're at it again with the Muslims. Now its Af-Pak-Men-istan that has our attention. The scenario is the same. We send in the troops and then attempt to train surrogates to do the clean up work but always pick the least likely candidates for the job.

If we somehow manage to survive until 2100, which seems highly improbable these days, and someone will stake us the cost of another war, odds are it will be with Muslims. It's our heritage.

For centuries certain modes of dress and decorum prevailed among adult men and women..Guilt and sin were seen as the province of grownups, so called, and society was rigidly monitored for evidence of its presence. Among our predecessors infancy was prized as a time of innocence.

From the middle of the 20th century the media, movies, print, and the internet have been open to adult nudity and sensuality. Our behavior has broken the old tethers and a new morality is in evidence. Along the way to this adult utopia there has been a subtle shift in emphasis as the guilt and prurience long associated with adult behavior has seemingly been projected onto a previously exempt population: the kiddies.

The adult community has abdicated responsibility as role model in this rush to youthfulness at any cost. Behavior traditionally the norm for responsible citizens been nearly abandoned. In a draconian transference guilt and shame now demonize the young instead ...show yourself mom and dad but cover up that wicked child. And display the newly innocent adult who must lade on depilitories to mimic the young.

By failing to understand the significance of their actions, the cupidity of the present generation affects the very nature of what it means to be young and threatens future generations by what is an almost Promethean theft.
__________________________________________________________

It's the < . > stupid!

And yet it moves, in the words of Galileo, "Eppur si muove"

Stare at it 'till you're cross-eyed; won't see it happen. Gang team; and keep at it 24/7...nothing. Still, it moves. During these last glorious thirty plus years , it has had a constant rightward valency; will it last? Maybe it's starting to get itchy. Wants a change of direction. Beginning to drift?

Want to test it? See it in action, so to speak. Get a copy of your local daily of say 1970 and todays edition. Look them over. Check the price of a loaf of bread, for example. 1970 about $ .25, right? Now, today, $2.50. What happened? Look at a dozen eggs,1970 $.25 now $2.50. How can it be, you ask excitedly, what's going on. The house I sold in 1968 for $10000. it's, OMG, $100000, they were giving stuff away in those days! Wait, this old pay stub. The gross pay, one week, $80. I make $800 now. Oh, oh.

Relax, nothing's changed. Well one thing has. It's possible to control a screaming jet, a cruise liner, even a two year old's temper tantrum but one small thing cannot be controlled. You can try as you will, nothing works. Even a parenthesis ( ), for containment, no help, a hat pin through the heart, nah, a splash of white-away only creates an illusion of control.

To maul shamelessly the words of Baroness Orczy in her classic "The Scarlet Pimpernel", 'They seek him here, they seek him there, those Frenchies seek him everywhere; is he in heaven or is he in hell, that damned elusive decimal point!'

There's your culprit; that sinister imp, that impudent little wretch, that damned spot. No mistake about it. Ignore John Maynard Keynes, the entire Austrian School of Economics, even the dread Chicago Gang, they know not what they are talking through their spread-sheets about. They are missing the point. But every lowly merchant in the third world knows about the point, and has one; sort of a family icon. Keeps it always handy. Currency changes; today up-tomorrow down, out from under the apron comes... the magic decimal point. Nothing changes except the point! Life goes on. All is well. No worry.

That's the third world. With us it's different. All in the control, we say. Got the printing press, no problem. We make the money. That's our freakin' point. And so we nod off, get complacent, forget to keep watching that 'damned elusive' decimal point, who cares, until, whoa! it moved. "Did you see that? Did you?". Nobody saw it for sure, but it moved. Not all that far. Just a nudge...to the right.

There it stays. For ages and ages. Is this the new reality? Will it last forever? Wait, did you see something? Oh, no, unless my eyes are getting crossed again, it leaned a little...to the left. Gad! What next?

How Our Republic was Finally Rescued From Itself /or

50 Men, Women and Children Save our Bacon.

One thing trumps all others in America. It isn't wealth, nor power, it's not the myth of our uniqueness under Heaven... no it's a lot more basic and powerful than those. It even trumps celebrity which is a close second. No, fundamental as those are in the national psyche they pale in comparison to Number One...racism.

Despite manumission, Appomattox, Wounded Knee, Jim Crow, block-busting, MLK Jr and Barack Obama; it still rules. It's the one sovereign tenant that endures beyond all others. Sucker's got legs! If it begins to wane here at home we seek it abroad. Added to this ancient plague is a relative newcomer. Only about a half century old; it is a formidable competitor and looks like it's here to stay. (If the money holds out.) Big drum roll.....Forever War!

Now granted, we're used to war. Many of us have never known a time without it. The 9/11 War has morphed into Forever War and we're stuck with it. It has brought with it a few downsides like breaking the national budget, impoverishing multitudes here and abroad, and creating new enemies faster than we can destroy them...but that's OK. What's not OK is waging Forever War on us. That's not OK.

They have gone too far this time.

By giving the chief executive the power to do away with anybody, anywhere, anytime, for any reason, the old deal is off. The covenant with America is shattered. Rendered forfeit. That's cheating. Create and kill off all the enemies you want but we the people must remain sacrosanct.What gall, making targets of us! Who do they think they are and what are we going to do about it?

Now if you know anything about the power of Forever War then you know it is totally pervasive and impossible to gainsay because there is no other reality for us to live by or in. No place to be that does not include it. What to do? Play the trump card. What's that? Racism? What? Yup!

You serious? Sure. Now is not the time, though. It'll get worse; so we must wait. When they have spent the last dollar and nobody will lend us a nickel; we might not have to act. But fast forward in time a bit and count the number of guys who came back from the front as basket cases because they were overused. Count the number of Americans incarcerated for protesting ForeverWar or doing drugs. Watch the disintegration of the cities, grinding poverty and massive, permanent, unemployment. Then, if it appears the mass has gone critical; it's time to begin:

Secret Plan: Your Eyes Only. Need-To-Know Established. Emergency use only! Not to be attempted until things get so bad nothing else is feasible. The basis of the Secret Plan is to use racism against racism. To do this, start by recruiting 50 individuals, one from each state. They must be 15 years or older, of either gender, no maximum age, providing they are athletic and capable of running, jumping etc. They are to be recruited individually and must have zero knowledge of each other. Do not recruit persons exhibiting racism, homicidal tendencies or who exhibit personal grudges against anyone. One other recruitment requirement; the candidate must be of obvious African descent, preferably of dark complexion.

Here's where it gets messy...and bloody.

If quite certain no other alternative exists or is likely to manifest itself; proceed with training. Each candidate is instructed to attempt to cause violent injury, preferably terminal, to as many persons as feasible each day. These actions must be done in a public place and the recruit must be seen as the perpetrator. Easy escape is vital and should be planned in advance. All victims must be white.But this is cold-blooded murder. Yup. Of innocents. Yup. Unprecedented! Really?

Media coverage is expected to be enormous and continual. Local and national authorities will be in a state of frenzy when the race factor is fully digested. As the casualties mount and the scope of the problem becomes evident the racism latent in the culture will preclude meaningful action to quell the atrocities.

Racial integration is an aspect of local law enforcement almost universally now, and the old main-stays, the former court-of-last-resort, the National Guard and the Army are co-opted by integration. Who, then, can be called upon; who can be trusted, when there are millions of suspects?

The War Forever powers should at this point be willing (desperate?) to seek whatever terms are offered. Unconditional surrender is recommended. Our Republic is saved!

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Monday, October 19, 2009

Are Dawkins and Hitchens Haunted by Hellfire?

4 comments:

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Nice paint job

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Gene Pool?

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"Ashes to Ashes"

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Writ in Stone? Probably.

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Farewell Noble Spirit of The Enlightenment /

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Yet Another Bleak Doomer Scenario

Clean your plate!

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Nukes = No Future

Revolver Map

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Our Future, if there is one, is Female

So...Who Knew?

Return to Diaspora or/

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Welcome to 2011

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Keep On Smokin'

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Professor Chomsky Tells All...

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Samples!

Home:Where They Must Take You In

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Cool...like Wow,man.

Pfeed Phish Phood

A Black Day

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