Nabih and Beyond Disaster - Connecting the dots as per a wise man’s advice

Thank you Nabih, once again for your kind reply.  I have downloaded the Hedges article and all the comments from the last page back to about 3 or 4 pages of comments so I can get a gist of what the commentaries are headed for.  I will read them and of course your Aug. 15 posts plus those up to the last one.  I am also reading (speed reading albeit) the Sheuer Imperial Hubris (and the Clarkson, and Diamond and a few others), as I’ve said my brain is hurting with all this cramming of new information.  I will try to connect the dots.  I will take notes Professor Ammari (said with affection even if not true).  And 75 is the new 60 these days.  I hope you are taking as good a care of youself and your wife as you can, it is all we can do and hope for the rest, even for those who are not yet 60 or 75!  I know several nonagenerians so there can be plenty of time left in life at 75.  I very much appreciate your wisdom.  Prima facie, I agree but would go beyond “that only a sense of justice can force terrorism to disappear,” which would in effect “defeat it.” A sense of justice is merely cognizing it.  We must learn to be just so that justice may be practiced. I realize that before that can happen we are compelled to ask what is justice and what does it demand of individuals and societies?

I meant to respond to this sooner but got caught up in the other forum with you and OM.  But I did want to say that I appreciated your response Nabih.  My three questions were intended to launch consideration.  I did not really expect them to be answered in one full meal, as it were.  I didn’t mean to stress you and knew ahead of time the questions are not the easiest to answer.  Of course, knowing that, I am nonetheless still looking for answers but realize such answers can only come through discussion.  I have a talent for asking “post-graduate” questions.” I am about to apply to post graduate school myself so it must be a mind set to ask such questions.  But do let me review your reply.

#1 I am still waiting for my copy of Sheuer’s book.  Since you put a lot of stock in what he said, in the meantime I did read Sheuer’s online synopsis of his book the intent of which he says is to inform Americans about the threat of Islamist militancy posed to our country.  He says that in the book he gives three points: 1. Islamist enemies attach America for what we do in the Muslim world; 2. The war is a war for survival and cannot be “talked” out of.  The choices are Sheuer says are war or endless war; 3. The defense through intelligence and military operations must be complemented by reviewing [and changing – by implication] and debate about US policies toward the Muslim world.  This he says would be in addition to the military and intelligence means of defense[offense] of what it is America is interested. 

What I see is his suggestion for a change in how America perceives the Muslim world but also that he advocates continued intelligence about and a continuation of the military means of dealing with the Iraq problem.  Do I miss the points here, Nabih? 

What value is this book then, if there is no extant change in the direction of the war?  What kind of changes is Sheuer looking for with a review and debate about US policies toward the Muslim world?  What kind of possible change is possible?

**By Douglas Chalmers, February 10 <Thus the GWOT is a religion in the USA and everwhere else it has contaminated the hearts and minds of people around the globe. It IS your crusade. You ARE a part of it and are being dragged along with it whether you want to be or not. It is exactly the same as the old Roman empire........>

Amun, or Amen, which ever the case might be! Strike the anvil Douglas; see if there is any gold to be found within these lead hearts dwelling in ‘Tiphareth’!

Peace

Nabih, the spelling for the CIA author is Scheuer.  I have ordered it and in it I will look for some truth.  It will take a while to receive so the truth will have to wait on the USPS.  Thank you for all of your recommendations.

Been meaning to get to this sooner but flu viruses have a way of forcing humans slow down.  That doesn’t mean it hasn’t been on my mind, your attack of John Dewey, one of my heroes.  Men are men and do not ever live up the their idea of a god.  If some giant of a human like John Dewey had some failings, they are completely overshadowed by all of the good he has done.  That is a logic that does not apply to everyone.  I dare say, if you had a public education, however paltry you turned out, it would have been much less if it were not for the pragmatic mind and influence of John Dewey. 

Since Dewey’s comment was made long before the Montessori Method existed, to project what someone like the mental giant Dewey would or would not like is pretentious at best.  The obvious straw man fallacy.  As an educator myself the sun does not rise and set on the Montessori method.  The fact that there are a few luminaries who had the M method of education pales against the hundreds who didn’t. 

I could give you an almost endless bibliography of his achievements in education.  The other aspects of his life are his own and I care not a whit about it.  There is hardly a man that has ever lived that didn’t have some moral flaw.  And that is my opinion not based on any particular laboratory study and I don’t intend to prove it.  It is only important that out of an entire universe we have our own responsibility to select the best parts of what socially contributing men do and save our breath on the rest.

Then, Nabih, we mutually admire one another.  Of course the sin of Cain, if we want to call the sin of human manslaughter “Cain’s Sin” I can accommodate for that as a metaphor, and I would completely agree that the ugly side of human nature has not changed since the cave (another simile).  Whether is it for territory, economics, food, or just the sheer pleasure of having power, mankind has from its evolutionary ancestry had the brutal in their marrow.  I am studying now the roots of morality and whether community is innate or not.  The savage in humans seems so bizarre to modern contemporary minds that we blanch at it and that we have had thousands of years now to contemplate it out of our nature.  It takes thorough and precise contemplation before a behavior can be eradicated on the scale we are discussing.  I will be happy, or rather interested, to read the Glaspie reference this evening.  I quite agree with you in your description of the scheme of the US Government with respect to Iraq.  We have murdered hundreds of thousands of innocents.  I am disgusted.  It is the gravest travesty what we Americans have done there and we are all complicit whether we actively took part or even protested.  We are still here and enjoying our barbecue chickens from MalWart.  I am sickened as I do not know what I can do save protest in various ways and teach my students tolerance and the reality of those in power.  Some of them engage me in conversation and it has always been fruitful to a degree.  Changing minds is the only way to change the world in any permanent way.  With respect to Germany and the Treaty of Versailles we are still feeling the strain between German citizens and the rest of the West.  It is occasionally seen in attitude but on the whole, all the German citizens I see here in this country as visitors, seem to embrace the Americans and our life interests.  I do not know what those who are in Germany think or feel.  There is a travel journalist on PBS and now NPR who has presented tours in Germany and of course the pre-planned interviews always show huge smiles and welcomes to Americans.  The Germans during the war and afterward did suffer and I am not sure if they too by silent assent were not complicit in their own anguish.  It is all very complex, human relations.  But we must still be wary and vigilant “to be civil and civilized” is a phrase I often use.  We must listen and select as best we can the truth of what is said and act on our perceptions.

So now I shall ask you a question or two, Nabih.  Given the major event about to happen in this country, the change of its leader(s), what do you think will save Americans from their own hubris?  How shall we as conscious beings proceed to influence the world to become better human beings?  We are many, we are 300 million.  The world, as I have said in a corrected post, has over 6 and a half billion.  What can we do to avoid the treadmill-of-going-nowhere?

Ideas survive human actions.  Whatever was his character is irrelevant to the essence of the brilliance of Bertrand Russell’s ideas.  People needn’t be paragons of virtue for their knowledge and ideas to have extraordinary value and to grant humanity just that much more to fulfill the potential it means to be human.  We, ourselves, have the responsibility to pick out the best and leave the worst in whatever we encounter.  Aristotle once said, in his Ethics, the nature of man is made for truth.  It seems if this is even halfway the case, then we need to look for truth and nothing more.

Let me remind you that I read both his books on the general theme of science and society. One was called The Scientific Outlook, and the other was called The Impact of Science . His hand waving does not convince me. Again disagreement with him seems to be interpreted as ignorance or just a surface skimming of his work on the internet. Please do not condescend to me. I had to buy both his books off of Amazon.com.

I feel uncomfortable in knowing that many of dystopic innovations Bertrand Russel wrote about in ‘31 and ‘52 have come to pass. I feel that his detached observations seem like a pose so as to provide him cover from criticisms of inhumanity. He seems overly enthusiastic in his expositions. Thus I do not sense any goodwill in the man.

Additionally, his idealistic goals seem to beg for a kindly fascism to impose the means to these goals.

One of these means is to give people some form of credits for their contribution to society or their maintain should they be too disabled to work. One limiting proviso is that the recipients could never hoard their credits in order to change social class. If the credits are unspent then the government claims them back.

A second of these means is to have speech codes that sanctioned people for expressing nationalistic or tribal praises or tributes. Pericles’ funeral oration could even be banned.

Thirdly, to achieve a birh rate that controls population, this utopia would have to use some sort of coercive means.

I do not want Russell’s passion’s to force me to live up to his ideals; this would be a tyranny of good intentions. A key component of classical liberalism is that the people as inidividuals know best what serves their interests. I know it is easy to say that the people do not inspire much confidence. I would say get the fluoride out of the water, and get the FDA out of the business of protecting monopoly food processors, for the masses have been dumb down by poisonous food and water. I am reminded of what the Archbishop of Quebec once said during the progressive era, “Temperance is praiseworthy, but prohibition is tyranny.”

If you want to say that after Exodus that the Bible is a history book, then I can hang with that.  No problemmo.

Shenonymous:

“A literal reading of the bible provides a fantastical belief philosophy based on mythologies the intention of which was to provide a conventional system for social order.”

I am hoping that what you MEANT to say was, “A literal reading of some portions of the bible...” Because once we get past the obvious myths of the creation, Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel et al (i.e., primarily the first half of Genesis), what we have is largely a geneology and history of the Israelites (i.e., Jews).  And once we pass Exodus, the overwhelming majority of the remainder of the OT is a combination of political/military history; the laws, rules, rituals, etc. of the Israelites; and the prophets.

Peace.

I enjoyed your post here Nabih.  This is my response:
A literal reading of the bible provides a fantastical belief philosophy based on mythologies the intention of which was to provide a conventional system for social order.  The lure of storytelling is compelling and easily passed from person to person and generation to generation.  Regardless of the message and the artfulness with which the stories are told, they must be seen for what they are.  If it is supposed the biblical stories are revelations from a supernatural being, God, then many legitimate implications and questions follow if blind faith is removed.  Blind faith is irrational and there is no argument to mediate it.  Whether there is substantial reason or not to do so, one may believe what one chooses, at least in this country.  Let’s take the story of Cain and Abel as the first act of war.  Given the evidence of archaeology and anthropology, we have much evidence that humans engaged in war over territory and economic factors: food and water mainly over a million years ago.  The fact that the bible was written according to the Hebrew school, Hanefesh, about 3,313 years ago testifies to another fact that it isn’t the end all information about mankind.  Written evidence is not always verifiable.  But this isn’t really the point, is it?  The point I believe you are making, Nabih, is one about human struggle and how ancient it is in the hearts of man.  To step back to your first point, the disobedience to god by humans.  Let’s take a look at that god who would deviously trick his newly made humans by giving them a brain that could even think of disobeying.  What kind of a god would that be?  Not one I’d be interested in paying fealty to.  What kind of a god insists on adulation and devotion who puts mankind into a setting where a devil in the disguise of a snake, poor snakes for the rest of eternity, could even tempt these newly fashioned humans?  Then because God made mankind as weak, supposedly in His own image, mankind submits to the temptations whereupon they are banished from the safety of Eden.  It defies all reason, Nabih.  However, the point again, is human greed, I do believe.  However, these stories have now been around for over 3,000 years and it seems they haven’t done much good, or have they?  I would guess that most humans interactions control their greed and need for war otherwise it would be total chaos and humans would not have advanced thus far in inventions and technology which for the most part requires cooperation.  People would not be able to live in luxury in Malibu or Acapulco or the French Riviera or wherever the rich and famous live without some cooperation especially from the poor.

Your points 3 and 4 seem to be correct even if not enough facts are accompanying them.  References would be helpful (even though I can find my own references, it would show that you have your own). 

Your summation that nothing has basically changed over the millennia for mankind in that there is still war and still greed which is most likely the basis for all war is not quite true.  I believe humans are beginning to wake up to their defects of social character.  It is just that it is a big world and many minds to work on.  To rely on “the religious” to correct the world is naïve in my mind.  They may provide a braking effect but it will take stronger willed people, the educators and enlightened politicians as you have noted, to do it.  It seems to be a natural disposition for mankind to have both greed and war and altruism and peacemakers, the two factions you allude to and learning to control the devastating characteristics is the prize if mankind is to progress.

Why do you say that?

“There is always a danger that increased personal independence will decrease the social capacity of an individual.... It often makes an individual so insensitive in his relations to others as to develop an illusion of being really able to stand and act alone—an unnamed form of insanity which is responsible for a large part of the remedial suffering of the world.”

John Dewey, Democracy and Education (The Macmillan Company, 1916), chapter 4. Referenced by Dennis Laurence Cuddy, Ph.D., in Chronology of Education With Quotable Quotes.

Dewey objected to Montessori’s use of phonics in teaching reading (or rather writing and reading; the Montessori Method teaches writing before reading, believe it or not).  Instead he advocated look-say, sometimes called whole-word, where written words are not regarded as made up of sounds, but rather as single pictographs, each of which must be memorized, like chinese.

See the book Why Johnny Can’t Read (1955, 1986) and its sequel Why Johnny Still Can’t Read (1981), by Rudolph Flesch, for an answer to Dewey’s objection to phonics.

Dewey once wrote:

“The mere absorbing of facts and truths is so exclusively individual an affair that it tends very naturally to pass into selfishness.  There is no obvious social motive for the acquirement of mere learning, there is no clear social gain in success thereat.” (The School and Society, 1899)

These famous lines were written before the Montessori Method existed, but you can see how someone believing them — and believing that the child should be subordinated to the group — would not like Montessori.  These words of Dewey’s written a century ago are the ultimate cause of the dumbing down of America.

The Montessori Method had a very promising start in the U.S. of the 1910’s.  All the “ladies” magazines featured it, Montessori nursery schools sprang up over the northeast, and some famous people such as Thomas Edison endorsed it.

John Dewey, his student William Heard Killpatrick, and other advocates of “progressive” education, fought this Montessori movement.  Eventually the writings of these influential professionals had the desired effect, helped by the fact that there were no articulate defenders of Montessori in the U.S. except for the layman Dorothy Canfield Fischer.  By the late 1920s there were very few Montessori schools in America, and that state of affairs continued for a generation.

The progressive educationists delayed the U.S. development of the Montessori Method by almost forty years.

Montessori enjoyed a resurgence in the early 1960s — in large part from a backlash against “look-say” and “group adaption” — and it’s now going strong.

http://dewey.area501.net/TheMontessoriMethod.htm

Please don’t condescend to me. I am very familiar with the man’s efforts to stop the nuclear arms race as well as the War Crimes Tribunal(The Vietnam War) without portfolio. Every time I bring up a contary opinoion on this board, there is always someone trying to educate my “benighted” soul.

“I find the coloured people friendly and nice. They seem to have a dog’s liking for the white man—the same kind of trust and ungrudging sense of inferiority. I don’t feel any recoil from them.” --Bertrand Russell

“The Life of Bertrand Russell” by Roland Clarke Page 229

Please don’t use any guilt by association. I have read two books by Bertrand Russell, and I am familiar with his biography.

Humanity is cooperation.” --Bertrand Russell

Somehow I feel uncomfortable with Russell’s idea of cooperation.

*- Bertrand Russell, “The Impact of Science on Society”, 1953, pg 49-50*
“In like manner, the scientific rulers will provide one kind of education
for ordinary men and women, and another for those who are to become holders
of scientific power. Ordinary men and women will be expected to be docile,
industrious, punctual, thoughtless, and contented. Of these qualities,
probably contentment will be considered the most important. In order to
produce it, all the researches of psycho-analysis, behaviourism, and
biochemistry will be brought into play.... All the boys and girls will learn
from an early age to be what is called ‘co-operative,’ i.e., to do exactly
what everybody is doing. Initiative will be discouraged in these children,
and insubordination, without being punished, will be scientifically trained
out of them.”

“Diet, injections, and injunctions will combine, from a very early age, to
produce the sort of character and the sort of beliefs that the authorities
consider desirable, and any serious criticism of the powers that be will
become psychologically impossible.”

From The Scientific Outlook by Bertrand Russell.

I am not very familiar the Schiller Institute or LaRouche, but if they can cite Bertrand Russell’s own words in a footnote, then they have him dead to rights.

http://groups.google.com/group/teachAndLearnOnline/ browse_thread/thread/aded81878e829b96

“On those rare occasions, when a boy or girl who has passed the age at which
it is usual to determine social status shows such marked ability as to seem
the intellectual equal of the rulers, a difficult situation will arise,
requiring serious consideration. If the youth is content to abandon his
previous associates and to throw in his lot whole-heartedly with the rulers,
he may, after suitable tests, be promoted, but if he shows any regrettable
solidarity with his previous associates, the rulers will reluctantly
conclude that there is nothing to be done with him except to send him to the
lethal chamber before his ill-disciplined intelligence has had time to
spread revolt. This will be a painful duty to the rulers, but I think they
will not shrink from performing it.”
*- Bertrand Russell, “The Scientific Outlook”, 1931*

Every human being deserves food shelter and clothing, the bare necessities in life. Let’s throw in universal health care too for the hell of it.

Nabih:

Thank you for your kind words.  And as if we needed any more proof that this problem is out of control, consider this article gtom The New York Times on 2/15:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/15/us/15homeless.html?a dxnnlx=1203115506-yaYoO59 8pTStsP1gZrBJQ&pagewanted=print

Peace.

Thank you Maani.  One good thing is better than none.  I appreciate your info on the LaRouche impeachment effort.  Three years of ineffectual posturing is good I suppose.  With all the money they have you’d think they could buy a couple if not more politicians since they are usually up for sale.  I think this impeachment exhortation has been a complete farce from impotent Democrats.  I can only hope the next administration will correct much as possible the wrongs desecrated against America as the Bush years have committed.  Were they to do that, I believe they could finesse their way into a second term.

Shenonymous:

“There is nothing his group of fanatics could say that has any value whatsoever to an ethnically homogenous society such as is America.”

Actually, there is ONE thing.  The LaRouche people have been calling for the impeachment of Bush and Cheney longer than anyone else: before Kucinich, before Paul, before anyone.  In NYC, they have had a table on the street to collect signiature and give out literature on this every single day for at least three years, if not more.

I certainly don’t support LaRouche or his people, or 99% of what they stand for.  But on this single issue, they have been at the forefront for longer than anyone else.

Peace.

Paracelsus, you are referred to Russell’s Tribunal, which he and Jean-Paul Sartre and many others among whom was James Baldwin, notable African American novelist and essayist, protested the investigated and evaluated American foreign policy and military intervention in Vietnam. This is just an iota of the major good that Russell did.  If you were to refer me to a Schiller Institute and LaRouche article, I would say it is a worthless piece of crap as LaRouche is about as far a right wingnut as they can get.  There is nothing his group of fanatics could say that has any value whatsoever to an ethnically homogenous society such as is America.

For someone who has worked intensely and helped with all of his resources, Mike Mid-City has for the last six years dedicated his life to helping the poor and homeless in San Diego.  He is one of those rare individuals who is the epitome of the concept of Christian and has seen the depths of despair among those less fortunate, most of which did not choose to live as homeless but whose circumstances, or misfortune, put them in that predicament.  He has done something about it.  There must be more that Americans as a society can do to put an end to our dispassion and end condoning the desolation of so many human beings.  We need a political leader who can and will assume this blight on our society as a real problem and help these ruined lives, many of which are children who have the same right to the wealth, welfare, and pursuit of happiness as any other citizen and the right to a decent life.

Nabih:

As a minister whose primary ministry is outreach to and advocacy for the homeless, I thank you for your sensitive and passionate words in this regard.  I strongly agree with your belief that homelessness is an insult - to us all.  Even if we were NOT the wealthiest nation in the world, even if we did NOT have so much available land, even if we did NOT have buildings in our cities which stand empty when they could be quickly and cheaply retrofitted for the homeless and poor - even if ALL of these things were not true, there would STILL be no excuse for us to tolerate homelessness, or to permit fellow human beings to live in boxes, in filth, without food, clothing, shelter, medicine, etc.

Many people believe that homelessness is caused primarily by alcoholism, drug addiction, and other personal failings.  Quite the opposite is the case.  Although a small percentage of homelessness IS caused by such failings, it is far more often the case that people become alcoholic or drug addicted AS THE RESULT of homelessness.  Most homelessness is caused by financial failure, catastrophes (e.g., being burned out of an apartment by fire, and not having the resources to get back on one’s feet), unconscionable releases of mentally and emotionally challenged persons from institutions without future support, and other circumstances that are out of the control of the person who becomes homeless.  And in most cases, these people do not have family or friends to help them or, worse, are rejected by those family members or friends.

As well, when many (perhaps most) people think of a homeless person (at least here in NYC), they think of an older black man who is alcoholic or drug addicted.  And this incorrect racial stereotype is (sadly) tacitly or overtly supported by the media.  However, the average homeless person (in NYC) is either white or hispanic, between 30 and 45, and neither alcoholic nor on drugs.  And nationally, there are more homeless white people than any other demographic - about half of them with children.

Thus, one of the first things we need to do to get people to think about - and act on - homelessness is to dispel the stereotypes and misconceptions, and to see the homeless as HUMAN BEINGS, with hopes, fears, dreams, needs.  To get people to realize that ANY OF US could be homeless, given a series of circumstances beyond our control.  And if not US, then someone we know: a relative, friend, colleague.

Finally, it is way beyond time that housing became a RIGHT in this country, as much as freedom of speech or the right to a trial by a jury of one’s peers.  It is time for an amendment to the Constitution requiring housing for every individual.

Sorry for the rambling.  But your words simply struck very close to home for me.

Bless you.

Peace.

Somehow I cannot fathom calling Bertrand Russell benevalent. Look up something called the lethal chamber. Also look into Russell’s views of black people.

Nabih, you do not disappoint me in the least.  My assessment of you as a contributor on these forums is as a “generous” man.  You are polite and respectful regardless of what is said, whether it is contemptuous or complimentary.  If you are peaceful or not in your heart is a matter that is private to you.  The degree to which you have resentments is the degree to which you are disappointed in your fellow man. 

The list you gave is comparable to the resentments I have about this world and I believe Mr. Chalmers also has similar views from the posts he has made.  But I of course do not know what he thinks.  I would prefer to not have enmity between his mind and mine but as I noted I am reactive to the comments that have been made by him about my character and I have reacted in kind and to an even worse degree often with the intention to wound what emerged as an arch enemy of a sort. I cannot help what Mr. Chalmers thinks or feels.  In all of the forums in which I have participated I have never suffered anything near to the kind of destructive language Mr. Chalmers has used with regard to me and he has used it against cyrena as well.  I do not share your opinion of Mr. Chalmers and I am sorry I find it difficult to be as generous as you regarding his prowess particularly when Mr. Chalmers has no wish to end the rude, sarcastic invectives he uses.  My mother always taught me that it takes two to tango.  It is an expression meaning it takes the two involved to make peace.  But peace is only possible if it is desired.  I have no wish to continue the hostilities.  I noted in my last post to you that I have ended any further remarks in reaction to Mr. Chalmers.  I only even mention his name here in response to your comments.  This will be the last that I do so.  I am only too happy to fulfill the favor you asked but I do not see it as your needing a favor.  It is a matter of being civil and civilized. 

For each of your points 1, 2, and 3 of the impediments to world peace, I completely agree.  Malevolent might will never lead to peace; the social and economic chaos you mentioned inexorably will destroy much of society, but once that destruction has happened, I believe those who have survived will regenerate a new world.  Since history repeats itself, it is difficult to say whether the Nugens (new generation) will have learned from the excesses of this present world.  We can only hope; I agree with you about the homeless of the world. Besides the countless homeless in the western cultures, as they are found in many European countries besides America, there are hundreds of thousands of those without homes in Africa.  These people’s destitution needs addressed as well instead of keeping the status quo. 

Your time constraints are most understandable and you have my compassion and so does your wife.  Some of us can understand because we have had similar experiences with loved ones. 

Thank you, sincerely
Shenonymous

Nabih, you are truly a generous man, and I admire you.  I have a sanguine personality and often resort to lex talionis if I feel violated.  Mr. Chalmers has repeatedly insulted me not only here but on other forums with the most vile language and I have responded quite ruthlessly myself, but only in defense of his truly useless and tasteless expressions, that, yes, seems to have electronic emphaseyma.  I am sorry but I feel I have also offended you, even though you have not said so, by participating in this petty debate.  As proof of my self-reproach for my part in this miserable squabble, I shall stop and desist and thank you for your sobering comments.  I sometimes let my hot-blooded nature take command and interfere with the more rational and mentally enriching encounters I much more appreciate.  I shall not address any further comments either here or anywhere else to Mr. Chalmers, whether or not he continues to make references to my person in any way.  He has just attained a nonentity status in my spheres of interest.

By Nabih Ammari, February 13: “And please cut down on your sarcasm and eliminate the “hhah” and “ahh”....”

Without you, reading and posting here would be much better, Nabih Ammari. You used to make intelligently written posts but lately, you have been sucked into Shenonymous’ slimy game that she plays with hapless males.

I don’t take dictation and don’t say you weren’t already warned, my friend. Better just go chew on your Valentine’s rose and forget about the rest, uhh.........

By Shenonymous, February 13: “...snarling shithead lack of imagination again...”

You have no originality, Shenonymous, probably because you have so much detritus in your head from the dope you are addicted to. Yes, you and cyrena are a pair. Back to the cult of the Texan chupacabra.......

You plagiarized me, Douglas.  You have no originality, probably because you have so much detritus in your head and are showing your snarling shithead lack of imagination again Douglas.  You are kind of schizoid as on rare occasion you are lucid and actually say something of value.  But more often than not you are the most degenerate contemptible creep on the Internet.  As a self-hating pervert, you seek to be berated.  cyrena, whom I have appreciated for many months now, and I can easily accommodate you and have. I don’t mind sharing the spotlight with her.  I’d be in excellent company.

By Shenonymous, February 13: “I’d find your asshole much too crowded with your own head in the way.... as quibble does...”

You just ain’t got no class Shenonymous - and you’re starting to sound like cyrena.  You need kissing?  No one really wonders why http://www.theage.com.au/ffximage/2008/02/13/sorry9_ga llery__600x380.jpg

You just ain’t got no class Douglas, I’d find your asshole much too crowded with your own head in the way.  Quibble is as quibble does.  You needing kisses Douglas?  No one really wonders why?

By Shenonymous, February 13: “...why don’t you crawl up your own ass and see if you can find yourself there...”

If you know where to find me then, crawl up there yourself and give me a nice kiss for Valentine’s Day, ha ha. It will change you slightly to be nice, Shenonymous.  Shall we quibble?

We have already made a correction and apology.  See above at Shenonymous, February 13 at 8:34 am and check with the US Census Bureau, The world population is as noted above 6,650,335,519 at Wed. 10:24 a.m.  Now by this time 6:10pm CDST it may have changed slightly.  Shall we quibble?

Or, as Dirty Harry put it even MORE succinctly:

“A man’s got to know his limitations.”

Zeitgeist babbles:
“ Gnothi Seauton (Know thy Self) – It was the High Science of the Gnostics, who discovered it within the geometry of the mystical Qabalah; later (1930’s) brought into a more contemporary focus – comprehensible to the western thinking faculties - by CJ Jung, Regardie, Crowley and others, who found its roots, deep within Egypt.”

This is utter gibberish.  Gnostics didn’t have High Science--because there is no such thing as “High Science”.  There is science, and there is non-science.  Science is science and some mystic babbler mis-using the term doesn’t make it science.

“Mechanistic science simply allows no room for any such experience beyond what the outward sensory organs perceive, utilized to measure energy events in 3D space – birth and death – geared to the mechanistic sensory organs. To this frame of thought, the body is a simple combustion engine, period! Therefore, we are presented with an incomplete image of ourselves which, subsequently has boxed the western thinking processes into a rigid, materialistic cage; psychologically speaking, it is the ego which enjoys the cage – the material world – metaphorically, keeping the blinders pulled shut.”

That’s because we live in the real world.  We have only our senses to allow us to perceive things.  By what method can you “perceive” anything else?  Our brain receives its data from our senses.  Since we already understand the universe in terms of forces and how they clump together to form matter, which force is used to “communicate” with you?  Your brain is an electro-chemical organ, controlled by predictable and definable processes.

In other words, any “perception” that doesn’t come from your 6 senses (including balance) is simply an HALLUCINATION! Your brain made it up, either trying to make sense of garbled sensory messages or from some other cause.

Migraine sufferers easily recognize in Moses’ “Burning Bush that is not consumed” a migraineur’s aura manifesting itself as apparent flashing lights.

“It is a high science and it’s certainly not myopic. Yes, it does utilize numbers and symbols, but not from within the superficial aspect that you perceive and it can ONLY be approached with a pure heart. In other words, it is not a pool for which the curiosity seeker will be allowed to dip his ego into and expect to survive.

Don’t take my word for it, find your master, and when you do, no one will be able to pull your strings.

Peace – Gnothi Seauton “

It’s not high science.  It’s just New Age gobbledygook.

Sorry, but I went to: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_people_live_on_earth
which gave this figure – about 4 billion, or 4,000,000,000 The rewards of being too much in a hurry to get on with life. I have a job, do you?

I should have gone to the Census Bureau this a.m.
U. S. Census Bureau World 6,650,335,519 at Wed. 10:24 a.m.

You are right, Douglas Chalmers And while you are at it, why don’t you crawl up your own ass and see if you can find yourself there? I think that is your normal place of residence.

By Shenonymous, February 13: “Peace and 4 billion people… There are 4 billion people who populate this world today...

Oh groan, Shenonymous, your “self-reflecting and being in the (monthly) mental state” of ??? equates to a sudden shortage of 2,650,326,765 people.

Is that what GWOT has achieved? Even the Neocons still only think in millions - I hope, uhh. And you can’t get Nabih Ammari to crawl up your ass on this one.......

But perhaps the most dubious award goes to the US Census Bureau’s website which shows a huge 303 million for the USA over a very small 6+ billion population for the world.

Now, that IS balance???..... more like global domination as it really is!!! http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html

Peace and 4 billion people

There are 4 billion people who populate this world today.

Imagine 4 billion people self-reflecting and being in the mental state of “knowing themselves.” If we were absolute replicas of one model, would there never be the problem of war?  The problem is that when we express our wishes for peace, which is really an abstract notion, we have a bit of amnesia about how complex the world is.  It isn’t so much a matter of each and every member of humankind learning to admit to their excesses and petty needs, (which is what I assume Maani means by the psychological denial), it is precisely a matter of each and every member of the 4 billion having the same degree of morals and values of material existence. 

It isn’t so much that the ordinary of the 4 billion exercise introspection, most of them have a hard enough time even understanding what that word might mean, it is to have those who desire wealth and power over others to become introspective and moral and altruistic.  The “individuals” Maani speaks of are the ones that make it difficult if not impossible to do this.  How do we identify each and every one of these degenerates?  For you would have to root out each and every one.

How shall we go about creating a world of 4 billion who are introspective, moral, peaceful?  How shall we begin?  You say, begin with ‘yourself.” All well and good and commendable.  But what about the other 3,999,999,999?  One of the most self-reflective, peaceful individuals that visits this forum is Nabih Ammari.  What do you say, Nabih?

MMC:

Alot of the reason we do not have peace on earth has less to do with eliminating war than it has to do with each person finding the “peace” in themselves - whether through a faith or simply via deep, honest and humble self-reflection.  If there were not so many demands on one’s time, so many distractions, so many “temptations,” and so much “denial” (in the psychological sense) in the world, then individuals might actually be able to take the time necessary to do this kind of introspection, and find the peace within themselves.  If they were able to do that, it would almost necessarily follow that they would “live” that peace, and thus create peace around them - for their households, for their communities, and so on outward.

Yes, we would still have to work on eliminating “war” and working toward the kind of peace that Jesus and Gandhi (and King, Lennon and others) sought to teach and live.  But “living” peace starts with the individual.  Sadly, the world and society is set up in such a way as to make it as difficult as possible for each person to do this.

Peace.