Fornits
Treatment Abuse, Behavior Modification, Thought Reform => The Troubled Teen Industry => Topic started by: Anonymous on July 11, 2005, 04:46:00 AM
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I am a former member of peer group 50..
As Cliche as this may sound...
I might not be alive if I had not been sent there..but the "program and counseling" of HLA did not change me. I changed because of the friendships I made and hardships I endured (both self inflicted and external) during my stay at HLA-- Happiness is simply a choice- and HLA was a def. experience that made what I thought were hard situations and the "miserable" life I thought I was being forced to live a MUCH DESIRED AND NOW APPRECIATED cakewalk and adventure. I am open to talk on any subject (emotions felt, stories, and more) and share the TRUTHS of what I, my parents, and cousin, all expierenced while residing in the mountains of Dahlonega (incl. prev. behaviors, fam info, etc) up to my life outlook and opinions of the present day. I have many untainted memories and advice for anyone who made need it.
You can even email me--- [email protected]
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:???:
so what changed besides your perspective? ... hope that works out for you in the long run...
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Hey, could you throw out the hackeneyed buzzwords and spindoctoring and try to present some freaking facts?
How did HLA actually help you? What was your problem to begin with? If suffering is 'good' for you and fixes you, why couldnt you just hire some thugs off the street to beat you within a inch of your life so you can go write some feel-good book about it?
If "hardship" and "friends" fix it, then why bother with programs at all? Go let your kid live in the street for a few months and it would be fixed - and cost you so much less money. And now the liberals want to stop President Reagan from selling chemical warfare agents and military equipment to Saddam Hussein and why? Because Saddam 'allegedly' gassed a few Kurds in his own country. Mark my words. All of this talk of Saddam Hussein being a 'war criminal' or 'committing crimes against humanity' is the same old thing. LIBERAL HATE SPEECH! and speaking of poison gas... I SAY WE ROUND UP ALL THE DRUG ADDICTS AND GAS THEM TOO!
--Rush Limbaugh, November 3, 1988
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well yah, when the elephant gets off your foot of course it feels better. When I first got out of lockdown, it felt like a total cakewalk, everything was so easy and I was not afraid of anything, 'cause of course, no one in the real world gets bound and drugged for giggling. I tricked myself into believing that now that I was out of lockdown, I was completely FREE. I quickly became one of the most popular girls at my school, I was involved in all the extra-ciricular activities, I was dating an cute older guy, oh it was great to be me. I could take on so much at once because I'd been trained to be more like a machine than a human. Then my senior year, 9/11 happened. It was a real wake-up call. I started to question what I had previously thought of as my "freedom." I thought that just because I could go outside, I was free. I saw people losing their jobs, homeland security, the patriot act, flags springing up everywhere "we will never forget." Then it hit me, we are all just living in one big lockdown facility.
All the confidence that I had learned to fake in the program so I could make my status in the level system revealed itself as just a front I was forced to put on in order to avoid punishment.
Then in every single person I saw it, I saw that facade- meekly disguising a fear that everyone has- the fear that come down to it, your status in the level system of life is futile. I really started to question what I had been put through and who I was, and shit I'm still questioning it today. Then I stopped acting. I put down my front. I stopped being the cute and cheery all-American super-teen that everyone loved, and I started trying to find the real me, the me that had a stong spirit and real passion, and a sparkle in my eye that died the day I was thrown in an observation cell. Maybe one day I'll find her. -cm
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Cm, don't fret and don't worry. I think maybe you're just cursed w/ intelligence. If you get into history (which I can't recomend highly enough, cause you didn't learn any in highschool) you'll see the same theme again and again; leaders seducing followers, followers blithely following, even into war.
But there are cool people here and there. They often land up in jail cells like Thoreau or Ghandi or as laughing stocks. The really, really smart ones? They do standup and claim they like getting laughed at.
But don't despair just cause the `50's never happened or damned near everyone seems so gullible. It's always been this way. You just have to find your poise and grace anyway.
:wave: It is criminal to steal a purse. It is daring to steal a fortune. It is a mark of greatness to steal a crown. The blame diminishes as the guilt increases
--Schiller (1759-1805)
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cm,
Just wanted to appreciate you for sharing your story and perspective, particularly re: 'one big lockdown', and trained to be 'more like a machine than a human'.
Are you refering to HLA as a 'lockdown'?
If you care to share more, I'm curious about 'bound and drugged for giggling' and 'observation cell'.
Sounds like you're well on your way to reclaiming the 'real' you. Kuddos. My son, is still burdened with the 'facade' (conditioning), but just so releaved to have the elephant off his foot that he doesn't want to look back. Everyone in their own time.
How long were you there? How old were you?
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cm...uh yeah, when you start to question your beliefs, thats called growing up.
And no offense, but I really hate it when people talk about 9/11, especially people who weren't even there...
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On 2005-07-11 22:52:00, bandit1978 wrote:
And no offense, but I really hate it when people talk about 9/11, especially people who weren't even there...
Oh god, me too! Especially when it's that smirking chimp and he's using it to justify his buddies' imperial aspirations!
I give money for church organs in the hope the organ music will distract the congregation's attention from the rest of the service.
--Andrew Carnegie, Scottish-born American industrialist and philanthropist
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It's funny, that in the two cities that were most affected, Bush did not win the majority vote (not in 2000 or 2004).
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No offense meant, but on 9/11 we were all "there."
If you could go to the grocery store or the mall or anyplace in public without being terrified the next few months, you were different from most of the people around here.
We're all still "there" every time we fly on a plane. I guess unless it's a charter flight--I'm not rich enough to know what has and hasn't changed for those.
It's different from the people who were in the WTC, or their close friends and families, or the people who were in the shadow of the buildings, or even New Yorkers generally, or people in the Pentagon, or the families of the people on the planes, or the people who "almost" took one of those flights but didn't. Or all the people in the airports who got grounded that day.
But we were all "there" as we watched and didn't know if there were any more planes, or how many there were, or whether there were other kinds of follow-up attacks and how bad and where *they* were. If you had a loved one working in a tall building in a major city, you were "there."
I live in Metro Atlanta, and we were scared spitless down here.
Okay, so someone wasn't "there." You still can't know if they had friends or family working in the Pentagon, or another prominent DC building, or the Sears Tower, or the Hancock Building (also Chicago), or the IBM Tower (not particularly famous, but an eye-catching part of the Atlanta skyline).
If you lived in a metro area, *you* didn't even know which friends you'd lost track of were working in the city's skyscrapers.
My brother-in-law is a 2LT in the Army getting ready to deploy to Iraq. A good friend is going over soon with Blackwater. One of my husband's best friends from college was in the fighting in Afghanistan and is now active duty pretty much for the duration--which pretty much ended his corporate life for a long time. A friend's husband got called up and the deployment is putting serious financial and marital pressure on his family. If you live in a military family, 9/11 changed *everything*.
Whether you do or don't approve of Iraq, and you probably don't, we wouldn't be there if not for 9/11. It changed everything.
Timoclea
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I feel terrible for those with family or friends fighting in these wars. Thats something that I just will never understand, cause I really don't know anyone in the military.
But being in Atlanta was not the same as being in Dc or NY on that day. Not even close.
My sister was in North Carolina at school, and she said that one of her classmates said that NC has like the 8th largest oil fields or something, blah,blah,blah...so they were worried. Thats what everyone says.
But unless you actually had your apartment smoked out, and had to evacuate "independence day" style, you were not there.
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It sounds like you may be getting angry or frustrated at the wrong people.
At the same time, I'm sorry for how hard it must have been for you--it sounds like you're speaking about what happened for you that day.
T.
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I'm not mad, just annoyed.
But really I'm in no position to judge the experiences of others, nor their response to these things.
One of my friends took her 5 year old son to a hill to watch the Pentagon smoking. This reporter was like "uh...so why did you bring your son here?"
:wstupid:
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I don't think it's so much the event of 9/11 that made people question things- I think it was the aftermath. All the new security laws and all the heightened prejudice towards foriegners. Also all the incongruent "facts", the foreknowledge that many higher-ups seem to have had, and that it sevred as an excuse for war and the overt, almost phoney, patriotism that everyone adopted in the wake of event, etc.
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The ironic thing is, the people in NY and DC did not even vote majority for Bush, and most of us have never supported the war!
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Most of us already knew that Bush was a liar, and we were never really patriotic to begin with. Most people in DC and NY are intellectual, cultured, liberal people who side more with Europe on most all issues. Half of my friends are Middle Eastern royalty or expats.
Originally, we were not suprised at how easily fooled the "other half" is. We expected ignorance coming from them (no offense to anyone...thats just how it is).
But I was suprised and disappointed that GW won the second election. I really thought that Americans were smarter than that. Guess I overestimated them.
The good news is, Citizens are beginning to wise up. Approval rates of war in Iraq are like below %40. And Bill Oreilly of Fox news stated that the war in Iraq is "a total disaster". Wow.
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On 2005-07-12 14:29:00, Anonymous wrote:
If you could go to the grocery store or the mall or anyplace in public without being terrified the next few months, you were different from most of the people around here.
...
Whether you do or don't approve of Iraq, and you probably don't, we wouldn't be there if not for 9/11. It changed everything.
Timoclea
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Well, I must be a whole lot different from those well informed city folk, then. I was sad to see that it finally came to this, but not the least bit surprised. Attacks similar to that one have been happening at strategic points all over the planet for a good long while already. Was it any more shocking than Waco or the OK City bombing? Really? Why? And was it really any different, when it comes right down to it?
If Al Qeda did it, as the most popular conspiracy theory goes, then Iraq had nothing to do w/ it. Sadam was next on Bin Laden's shit list; farthest thing from an ally.
Nothing changed significantly on 9/11/01, except in the over active imaginations of some lunatics who still think empire is just a dandy idea; people who refuse to learn from history.
I cannot see how a man of any large degree of humorous perception can ever be religious -- unless he purposely shut the eyes of his mind and keep them shut by force.
--Samuel Clemens "Mark Twain", American author and humorist
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I suspect that Bush had always planned to go after Saddam. 9/11 was pretty convenient for him though; it did help him sell the war to some folks (I never bought it in the first place, and it doesn't take a political science degree to know that there was no connection there).
Are there any regular citizens who have legitimate and just reason to support the administration's war in Iraq?
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Were people in Atlanta (suburbs?) really terrified to go to the malls and stores after 9/11?
I guess I just had a different perspective on it- I went to Miami for a bit, and felt much safer and more relaxed, and the people down there hadn't changed- everyone was still strutting around South beach, lounging in cafes eating and drinking, ect...it was cool. (everyone in DC was on edge, for awhile it was "martial law" on the streets, I wanted to get away, plus I was running low on xanax)
T- I'm really sorry to hear about all your loved ones at war. How do you feel about it ? (like, do you think it's a just war and best use of their skills??). Just wondering.
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it was hard for people in my age group (I'm twenty one now, which means I was 17 when 9/11 happened, which means that a large handful of my friends both male and female enlisted in the military because they wanted to stand up for their country. I know it takes a lot of bravery, but it's like they are just fighting this war for the suits who could care less. I think it was done on purpose. I think that the blatant STUPIDITY of the current president and how many people are upset with the war has to do with it... Also the weirdness involving the bombings in Europe and that they were enacting some sort of security drills, in which the same locations were supposed to undergo a simulation, when the actual bombings occurred. see-
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/ju ... rcises.htm (http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/july2005/090705bombingexercises.htm)
I think they are just trying to get people so fed-up with the system that's already in place, so that they willingly, even enthusiastically, embrace any new system (or new world order) that might come along to "save us" from these inept leaders and take their place.
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Thats a pretty far out theory.
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On 2005-07-14 21:19:00, bandit1978 wrote:
"Most of us already knew that Bush was a liar, and we were never really patriotic to begin with. Most people in DC and NY are intellectual, cultured, liberal people who side more with Europe on most all issues. Half of my friends are Middle Eastern royalty or expats.
Originally, we were not suprised at how easily fooled the "other half" is. We expected ignorance coming from them (no offense to anyone...thats just how it is).
But I was suprised and disappointed that GW won the second election. I really thought that Americans were smarter than that. Guess I overestimated them.
The good news is, Citizens are beginning to wise up. Approval rates of war in Iraq are like below %40. And Bill Oreilly of Fox news stated that the war in Iraq is "a total disaster". Wow. "
You're being a snob. I'm as smart as you are, or smarter. I'm as "cultured" as you are. I'm a *classical* liberal--which is now called "libertarian."
And I disagree with you.
And no, as it happens, I am *not* an aberration. That's just *your* side's self-serving negative stereotype.
Your side is not without its impulses to extreme self-congratulation. The fault seems to be inherent in any sort of partisanship.
People who disagree with you are not necessarily stupid, ignorant barbarians simply because they evaluate all the information and history and come to different conclusions from the ones *you* reach.
The smugness you display is why I ditched the UU church I had been attending after a year. Those folks were no better than the people they spent half of every church service congratulating themselves that they weren't. But they sure did make themselves unpleasant in their unceasing refrain of their version of holier than thou.
I don't like it in any religion or political party.
If I really am more ignorant than someone on something, or when I really do run into people who are smarter than I am, fine. When I run into someone who personally is abysmally ignorant or demonstrably stupid, fine. Sometimes, with some pairs of individuals, one legitimately is stupid and/or ignorant relative to the other.
I'm choosing to make this argument on the defensive because it would be unduly harsh to take it on the offensive. It might be best not to take that choice for inability.
I side against Europe on many issues because I disagree with them on many fundamental values, and I believe that some of their policy strategies are culturally suicidal. There is no cultural cachet that comes from siding with Europe.
Have you even for a moment considered that, beyond the issues, since on either side not all of the voters can be above average, your side's blatant snobbery mitigates against your political arguments with the very people you are criticizing? You look down your nose at people and expect them to side with you? And you claim to be *smart*? Right.
Do you really think the voters you decry are too stupid to notice you look down on them and too servile to resent it?
Oh, yes, you liberals are the champions of "the common man" aren't you. So much so that you will even deign to come down from your high perch of culture and intellect and expat "royalty" to go slumming with "the other half"---who should of course be properly grateful.
Don't you ever listen to yourself?
Timoclea
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On 2005-07-14 23:10:00, bandit1978 wrote:
"Were people in Atlanta (suburbs?) really terrified to go to the malls and stores after 9/11?
I guess I just had a different perspective on it- I went to Miami for a bit, and felt much safer and more relaxed, and the people down there hadn't changed- everyone was still strutting around South beach, lounging in cafes eating and drinking, ect...it was cool. (everyone in DC was on edge, for awhile it was "martial law" on the streets, I wanted to get away, plus I was running low on xanax)
T- I'm really sorry to hear about all your loved ones at war. How do you feel about it ? (like, do you think it's a just war and best use of their skills??). Just wondering. "
Bandit, I'm sorry for how harshly I just went off at you, but you struck a nerve (obviously). I don't think you *are* a snob, I think you were cheering your political party like we cheer our football teams (we all do it), but in a way that *sounded* snobby.
I come from a background that has some of that snob factor in it, and some of the reverse, and I had to learn the hard way that I'm no better than (nor worse than) other people from different backgrounds. And which things I did that came off to others as looking down on them---either through snobbery or reverse snobbery.
Because I'm so self-critical of going down that road, I guess I'm hyper-sensitive to it.
A just war? Well, what are the criteria for a just war? Just cause; right action; right authority; and a reasonable chance of success.
Well, Al Qaeda committed multiple acts of war against us. There are substantial ties of pre-war Iraq not to those acts of war, but to Al Qaeda after (as well as before) those acts of war. This makes Iraq militarily not a neutral but a co-belligerant. Also, we had a truce with Iraq, not a peace, and Iraq had repeatedly violated the terms of the truce. The first is enough for "just cause"---add the second and it's a slam dunk. So as far as I'm concerned Iraq satisfies the first element of the Just War litmus test: Just Cause.
It was also strategically a good choice of *which* co-belligerant to take on for various geopolitical reasons that I can elaborate on if you care. Iraq is centrally located to our problems, its regime one its people would not miss, and the strategic exit route from the bases in Saudi lay through removal of Saddam. Second element, right action, is satisfied.
Right Authority: The US was the target of several of Al Qaeda's acts of war, including the 9/11 attacks, the Cole Bombing, and--every bit as seriously as 9/11--the embassy attacks in Africa. As the direct target, it is a slam dunk that the US was the right authority to prosecute the war. (Another example of "right authority" would be if the entity attacked was one of our treaty partners who had subsequently invoked a mutual defense clause.)
Reasonable chance of success: Well, the facts speak for themselves. Hussein has been removed, Iraq is gradually developing effective security forces, we have been able to remove substantial troops from Saudi--facilitating ultimate withdrawal from proximity to Mecca and Medina as well as removing one of our entanglements with the House of Saud, and Iraq is acting as a "bug zapper" for sociopathic RIFs--Jordan and Syria and others are not keeping the RIFs from crossing their borders into Iraq because it's getting rid of their own most dangerous domestic trouble-makers (which long-term helps to stabilize the region). If we kill the sociopathic RIFs in Iraq, we don't have to fight those particular individuals in the US. The RIFs are going to run out of people willing to blow themselves up killing bunches of children faster than we will run out of bullets. Success is never going to be perfect, but it is likely to be reasonably effective as long as we stay on top of zapping bugs somewhere in the world. There already seems to be some success at preventing further attacks in the US. Reasonable chance of success satisfied.
So yes, under the classic criteria, I believe Iraq qualifies as a Just War.
Personally, I think we should have prosecuted the war full tilt immediately after the African embassy bombings. Messing with embassies or ambassadors has been one of the most serious acts of war since Alexander the Great and is an international standard worth upholding with extreme prejudice. (A full and sincere apology by regimes hosting Al Qaeda along with full and sincere cooperation in rooting them out would have been more than adequate to avert such a war. I don't recall us actually getting that from some of the regimes involved. Those regimes should have been our targets.)
"best use of their skills" sounds like they couldn't get any other job. I'm going to guess you didn't mean it to sound that way. I believe there is no more honorable profession than serving your country in the military, and that the decision to do so, like the decision to become a police officer, firefighter, or teacher, frequently involves great personal sacrifice in terms of working conditions and pay.
My brother-in-law David is in the 101st Air Assault Division as a 2nd Lieutenant. He is a graduate of The Citadel--I believe his major was Criminal Justice. His second choice of career after the military was the FBI.
He graduated from Ranger School, toughing it out for six months until he passed. Ranger School is amazingly demanding physically, intellectually, and psychologically. Most who attempt it don't pass. I think the fail rate is about 70% of each class. Then he went straight to Airborne school and learned to jump out of perfectly good airplanes--another demanding and dangerous school. Then he went to "rope a dope" school and learned to jump out of/operate out of helicopters.
And now, as a 2LT, he's dealing with the joys of babysitting rowdy enlisted men and dealing with all the trouble they can get themselves into. :smile:
In one of the most honorable professions there is, he's one of the elite.
He could have succeeded in a lot of things in life. He chose to take these risks to protect people like us from people like the RIFs, at risk of his own life and limb--and with the certainty of making good friends some of whom he would lose in combat, and taking responsibility for the lives of his men.
We're all very proud of him, even though we're also very worried for him. As a ranger-qualified member of the 101st, branch-detailed infantry (even though I think his permanent branch--where he'll go when he gets enough rank--is artillery or something), he is virtually guaranteed to be in the thick of combat. On the other hand, the infantry units have the lowest casualty rates because they're specifically trained to fight--so when they're in the thick of combat, they know what to do better than the REMFs in an ambushed convoy.
Whatever our family members' various religions and philosophies, our prayers and hopes go with him, as with our various friends and all the others in service in the US military and those of our allies in theater helping us.
Timoclea
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Oh, and Bandit, I like you. Didn't mean to go overboard. I've broken my leg rather badly, which is a big stressor, along with some other major shit, and I'm afraid I took it out on you. Sorry.
T.
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On 2005-07-15 01:14:00, Anonymous wrote:
I think they are just trying to get people so fed-up with the system that's already in place, so that they willingly, even enthusiastically, embrace any new system (or new world order) that might come along to "save us" from these inept leaders and take their place.
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins; all of them imaginary."--
H.L. Mencken, 1923Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.
Thomas Jefferson, 1787
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wow. good quote.
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T- I like you too.
I know that I can sound like a snob. I'm sorry. I get very upset about the state of our country these days, and sometimes I really want to prove a point, even if it means offending people.
I am ashamed to say that most of my immediate family voted for Bush. I am soooo ashamed. My brother thinks that the 2nd amendment is the most important law in the books (whatever). I think my sister thinks that gay marriage and abortion should be outlawed, and that breaks my heart. My father is a very hard-working man, and I respect him for that. He also is a good provider. He instilled in me the importance of charity, and I have seen him opt to take a paycut rather than lay someone off. But I worry that he is so concerned about his tax bracket that he just ignores this war in Iraq.
Mostly these are theories, though, because most of my family refuse to discuss politics with me.
There was never any legitimate connection between Iraq and Al-Quade. The latter is a religious fundamentalist group, which Iraq was not. In fact, religious practice was very restricted under Hussein. "Wrong war, wrong place, wrong time"
So I don't see the troops now as "defending our country"...not even defending our interests ("our" meaning the majority of citizens). Not that I don't respect them- they are just doing their job.
It's about resources. Military is a resource, just as nurses are. We all know that the military is totally over-extended. There may come a time (maybe sooner rather than later) when they are needed somewhere else, then what will we do?? (it's the same with nurses and other medical staff- if lots of staff are sent to one floor, say cause there is some VIP there, it may leave other floors understaffed, then if something goes wrong with the non-VIP- it may not be caught so quickly, less people to respond, ect...would you want your loved one in that hospital?). So yeah, it's a terrible mismanagement of resources, to say the very least.
U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia is a huge problem. You made an interesting point- the US able to leave Saudi because they can set up in Iraq.
The problem is that the occupation of Iraq is breeding a whole new group of jihadists- people who were not inspired to kill now totally hate us. Everyone hates us more than ever! I can't blame them. Thats dangerous.
America is going to fall like Rome, unless we have some sort of revolution. I mean really, the Constitution is nice and important, but we must learn to evolve and adapt these principals to the world as it is now. (If you recycle platic, it can be reformed and reused; but if you don't, it will just lay around and rot and take up space, no good anymore.)
I didn't know that the UU church was snobby like that (we have many UU churches around here, and I have considered checking them out). I am studying Hindu theology right now, and it's much older than Christianity, and it makes a lot of sense. They say that the universe continues through cycles- that the earth and solar system will eventually be destroyed, then come together again, and repeat again and again.
Anyway, I'm hoping to become more grounded and centered and balanced, so I won't feel so angry about these things.
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T- I'm sorry to hear about your leg. What happened?
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The New York Times ran a very interesting op-ed article- last week or the week before. Called "A Muslim Problem".
The author (can't remember who it was) says that these countries need to start taking some responsibility for their jihadist zealots, like redirecting them or something.
Apparantly, not one major cleric has issued any fattwa condemning obl.
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Funny, after Timothy McVeigh bombed the Federal building I don't remember reading too many articles about 'A Christian Problem'. Fundamentalism is on the rise across the globe, unfortunately. It's a WORLDWIDE problem, not a muslim problem.
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On 2005-07-17 10:17:00, Anonymous wrote:
"Funny, after Timothy McVeigh bombed the Federal building I don't remember reading too many articles about 'A Christian Problem'. Fundamentalism is on the rise across the globe, unfortunately. It's a WORLDWIDE problem, not a muslim problem. "
Look sometime at the areas across the globe where majority muslim areas and non-majority muslim areas meet.
There's a reason some experts talk about "Islam's bloody borders."
Christianity has *sometimes* spread by persuasion. Even frequently. I'm not a Christian, but I'll give them that. Judaism doesn't encourage conversions. Buddhism has rarely spread by the sword. Taoism is incompatible with spread by the sword in the first place. Hinduism has some bloody internecine conflict but not so much of actual spread by the sword. Shintoism at its worst was more xenophobic than anything else.
Have you ever actually *read* the Koran?
I have. Islam has a problem. Every religion is different. Islam's founder thought it was a sacred duty to kill all the people who thought he was insane when, at 41, he came out of a cave saying an angel was talking to him. He ran away to Medina because his neighbors in Mecca thought he was a dangerous psycho and tried to kill him--or he thought they were trying to. Their side of the story hasn't survived into history, so we don't know how much of that was a paranoid delusion.
Mohammed was one of those rare functional and charismatic psychotic people. He took his followers from Medina back to his hometown of Mecca and killed everyone from his hometown who wouldn't agree with him, at swordpoint, that he *was* talking to an angel and that he *wasn't* psychotic.
Gautama's and Jesus' and Moses' relatively nonviolent natures set their stamp on the religions that followed them. Okay, Moses reportedly killed somebody, but arguably it was not premeditated and shocked him deeply.
Mohammed was a vicious, bloody killer. He mostly got his stooges to do his dirty work, but he was murderous, psychotic, and had "short eyes." His nature set an indelible seal on the religion he founded. He, or those immediately following him, were also terribly rigid, and set his "teachings" in stone so they couldn't mature and change.
The only reason Islam is a major world religion is because when you kill people if they don't convert, and you kill them if they recant after conversion, and they're too afraid to tell their children the truth--that they don't believe this shit for a minute, and you control the raising of their children so that their children actually *are* true believers, you can (obviously) make a certain amount of mileage in the world.
Islam's problem with continuing to expand is that the rest of the world didn't stay stuck back in the sixth century, particularly in the military sciences.
But Mohammed started off, way back in the sixth century, as a very bad loser. He's set his mark on those who came after him.
But I can pity those poor schmucks all those centuries ago who converted to stay alive, at the price that their descendents are still brainwashed into living a psychotic's nightmare.
The only "good" features of Islam as a world religion are the ones it borrowed from Christianity and Judaism to start with. Probably because of his mental illness, Mohammed was a great poet, but a lousy philosopher.
Timoclea
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On 2005-07-17 09:19:00, bandit1978 wrote:
"T- I'm sorry to hear about your leg. What happened? "
I tripped and fell down the stairs. Second time I've gotten really hurt on those.
Our house is about 30 years old. The building codes have changed. The stair treads are about eight inches deep, instead of the twelve the current building codes require. And I'm a klutz. I get distracted or upset and forget to pay attention to keeping my feet under me.
So we're replacing the stairs down to the garage.
Broken leg bone, torn ligaments, a plate and lots of screws, 12 weeks with no weight on the thing.
Timoclea
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And how is that any better/different than the christian right's interpretation of Manifest Destiny?
How would any of these relidious zealots prove that god is avtually talking to them?
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Yeah, no kidding. How many times have you heard something to the effect "Well, ya' don't see Christians blowing up buildings!" as an excuse for shaking down the Aryan, brown. I've actually yelled at the TV before "No? Ask a Shawnee or a Blackfoot about Manifest Destiny... oh yeah, ya' can't cause they're fucking nearly all dead!"
As de dawg chases his tail, when will people start to realize that we're more similar to than different from each other, and none of us as noble as most dogs?I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me.
-- Hunter S. Thompson
_________________
Ginger Warbis ~ Antigen
Drug war POW
Seed Chicklett `71 - `80
Straight, Sarasota
10/80 - 10/82
Anonymity Anonymous
return undef() if /coercion/i;
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A little ironic... what just came to my mailbox. Or is it 'god' speaking through/to me????
Psa 2:7 I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.
Psa 2:8 Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.
Psa 2:9 Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel.
Psa 2:10 Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth.
Psa 2:11 Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling.
Psa 2:12 Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.
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Sorry Bandit, but the Constitution is not plastic and it's probably the best damn thing we've got going for us, and you may "whatever" our second amendment rights, but come down to it, that's what's really keeping us from a police state. I swear now that I'm an adult, if anyone ever comes to lock me up again, they're gonna get an assfullalead!
Her Green plastic watering can
For her fake Chinese rubber plant
In fake plastic earth.
That she bought from a rubber man
In a town full of rubber plans.
Just to get rid of itself.
And It Wears Her Out, it wears her out
It wears her out, it wears her out.
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The most important thing about the Constitution, to me, is that three fourths of the US agreed to it. Actually, ratification by the states was eventually unanimous, iirc.
Yes, it sucked that a lot of people couldn't vote at the time. It was a big damned improvement over everything else contemporaneous with it except Switzerland.
It's important that a country have some roots that can't be changed by the whim of a transient simple majority. That's what the Constitution is for.
The people who wanted it the way it is already got a three fourths majority, minimum, to agree it ought to be that way.
If you want to change it, you have to get just as big a majority to change it to *prove* to the country then and for posterity that you weren't just a transient, simple majority making a mistake, but were as big a majority of the country as the one that originally put it in place.
And the Constitution has been changed relatively recently when we added the succession clause in case the President and a bunch of other high officials died suddenly, and when we put term limits on the President. And when we put limits on the procedures for pay raises for Congress.
If you can't get a super-majority to *vote* to change the Constitution, how do you expect to fight and win a revolution? Especially when the military and just about all the private citizens who own guns disagree with you?
You don't know the military. Even if somehow you managed to get them *ordered* to attack on your side, they all took an oath to protect and defend the US Constitution (not the President, Congress, Courts, or government) from all enemies foreign and domestic. If ordered to fight on behalf of your revolution, they'd treat it as a manifestly illegal order and under the Nuremberg precedents would take it as their absolute duty to fight against your side.
That said, I can understand your frustration, because it's hard to watch the country doing things that you deeply believe are wrong.
For the record, my cousins on the Trail of Tears certainly had their own opinions of Manifest Destiny, which I share. I don't so much blame that on religion as on simple greed and racism. Terrible things have been done throughout history and no nation's family tree is clean.
Islam's problem is that it's *still* having some very bad things caused by the psycho-roots of Mohammed being a seriously murderous nut.
Timoclea
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Victims of the christian faith:
http://www.truthbeknown.com/victims.htm (http://www.truthbeknown.com/victims.htm)
Didn't Falwell (or Robertson) claim that 911 was his christian god's punishment for supporting abortion? Or some such crap?
This Korean Methodist minister says that god killed the tsunami victims because they were heathens:
http://blog.marmot.cc/archives/2005/01/ ... -heathens/ (http://blog.marmot.cc/archives/2005/01/13/god-killed-tsunami-victims-because-they-were-heathens/)
Lordy, lordy, could the list go on..... I think these should count as christian victims too, if they claim responsibility.
And this, doesn't sound much different than criticisms of the koran, except 'sex with virgin maidens' (or whatever it was) is only mentioned indirectly- 'a happiness far beyond anything in this life':
So why would God allow His own adopted children (Christians) to die in some of the larger scale incidents? We don't know all the reasons because God's thinking is so far beyond ours. But we have one good possibility to consider. While our secular society tends to view death as a horrible thing, God sees the death of His saints in a much different light. Consider these Bible verses:
Precious in the sight of the LORD [is] the death of his saints. Psalms 116:15
And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed [are] the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them. Revelation 14:13
Upon death, His saints are with Him for all of eternity. They are now free from pain and suffering forever. They now know a happiness that is far beyond anything imaginable in this life.
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I'm not trying to be sarcastic or arguementative. I genuinely can not discern any difference between religious zealots on either side. And Bushy boy doesn't strike me as playing with a full deck himself, but then I've heard it is sometimes hard to distinquish between ignorance and 'mental illness'.
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THE FOUNDING SACHEMS
By Charles C. Mann
New York Times
July 4, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/04/opinion/04mann.html (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/04/opinion/04mann.html)
AMHERST, MASS. - Seeking to understand this nation's democratic spirit, Alexis de Tocqueville journeyed to the famous centers of American liberty (Boston, Philadelphia, Washington), stoically enduring their "infernal" accommodations, food and roads and chatting up almost everyone he saw.
He even marched in a Fourth of July parade in Albany just ahead of a big float that featured a flag-waving Goddess of Liberty, a bust of Benjamin Franklin, and a printing press
that spewed out copies of the Declaration of Independence for the cheering crowd. But for all his wit and intellect, Tocqueville never realized that he came closest to his goal just three days after the parade, when he stopped at the "rather unhealthy but thickly peopled" area around Syracuse.
Tocqueville's fascination with the democratic spirit was prescient. Expressed politically in Americans' insistence on limited government and culturally in their long-standing disdain for elites, that spirit has become one of this
country's great gifts to the world.
When rich London and Paris stockbrokers proudly retain their working-class accents, when audiences show up at La Scala in track suits and sneakers, when South Africans and Thais complain that the police don't read suspects their rights the way they do on "Starsky & Hutch," when anti-government protesters in Beirut sing "We Shall Overcome" in Lebanese accents - all these raspberries in the face of social and legal authority have a distinctly American tone. Or, perhaps, a distinctly Native American tone, for among its wellsprings is American Indian culture, especially that of the Iroquois.
The Iroquois confederation, known to its members as the Haudenosaunee, was probably the greatest indigenous polity north of the Rio Grande in the two centuries before Columbus and definitely the greatest in the two centuries after. A political and military alliance formed by the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk and, after about 1720, the Tuscarora, it dominated, at its height, an area from Kentucky to Lake Ontario and Lake Champlain. Its capital was Onondaga, a bustling small city of several thousand souls a few miles
south of where Tocqueville stopped in modern Syracuse.
The Iroquois confederation was governed by a constitution, the Great Law of Peace, which established the league's Great Council: 50 male royaneh (religious-political leaders), each
representing one of the female-led clans of the alliance's nations. What was striking to the contemporary eye was that the 117 codicils of the Great Law were concerned as much with
constraining the Great Council as with granting it authority. "Their whole civil policy was averse to the concentration of power in the hands of any single individual," explained Lewis
Henry Morgan, a pioneering ethnographer of the Iroquois.
The council's jurisdiction was limited to relations among the nations and outside groups; internal affairs were the province of the individual nations. Even in the council's narrow
domain, the Great Law insisted that every time the royaneh confronted "an especially important matter or a great emergency," they had to "submit the matter to the decision of their people" in a kind of referendum open to both men and women.
In creating such checks on authority, the league was just the most formal expression of a regionwide tradition. Although the Indian sachems on the Eastern Seaboard were absolute monarchs
in theory, wrote the colonial leader Roger Williams, in practice they did not make any decisions "unto which the people are averse." These smaller groups did not have formal,
Iroquois-style constitutions, but their governments, too, were predicated on the consent of the governed. Compared to the despotisms that were the norm in Europe and Asia, the societies encountered by British colonists were a libertarian dream.
To some extent, this freedom reflected North American Indians' relatively recent adoption of agriculture. Early farming villages worldwide have always had less authoritarian governments than their successors. But the Indians of the
Northeast made what the historian José António Brandão calls "autonomous responsibility" a social ideal - the Iroquois especially, but many others, too. Each Indian, the Jesuit missionary Joseph-François Lafitau observed, viewing "others
as masters of their own actions and themselves, lets them conduct themselves as they wish and judges only himself."
So vivid were these examples of democratic self-government that some historians and activists have argued that the Great Law of Peace directly inspired the American Constitution. Taken literally, this assertion seems implausible. With its grant of authority to the federal government to supersede state law, its dependence on rule by the majority rather than consensus and its denial of suffrage to women, the Constitution as originally enacted was not at all like the Great Law. But in a larger sense the claim is correct. The framers of the Constitution, like most colonists in what would become the United States, were pervaded by Indian images of liberty.
For two centuries after Plymouth Rock, the border between natives and newcomers was porous, almost nonexistent. In a way difficult to imagine now, Europeans and Indians mingled, the historian Gary Nash has written, as "trading partners, military allies, and marital consorts."
In a letter to Thomas Jefferson, the aging John Adams recalled the Massachusetts of his youth as a multiracial society. "Aaron Pomham, the priest, and Moses Pomham, the King of the Punkapaug and Neponsit Tribes, were frequent visitors at my
father's house," he wrote nostalgically. Growing up in Quincy, Mass., the young Adams frequently visited a neighboring Indian family, "where I never failed to be treated with whortleberries, blackberries, strawberries or apples, plums,
peaches, etc." Benjamin Franklin was equally familiar with Indian company; representing the Pennsylvania colony, he negotiated with the Iroquois in 1754. A close friend was Conrad Weiser, an adopted Mohawk who at the talks was the
Indians' unofficial host.
As many colonists observed, the limited Indian governments reflected levels of personal autonomy unheard of in Europe. "Every man is free," a frontiersman, Robert Rogers, told a disbelieving British audience, referring to Indian villages.
In these places, he said, no person, white or Indian, sachem or slave, has any right to deprive anyone else of his freedom. The Iroquois, Cadwallader Colden declared in 1749, held "such
absolute notions of liberty that they allow of no kind of superiority of one over another, and banish all servitude from their territories." (Colden, surveyor general of New York, was another Mohawk adoptee.)
Not every European admired this democratic spirit. Indians "think every one ought to be left to his own opinion, without being thwarted," the Flemish missionary monk Louis Hennepin wrote in 1683. "There is nothing so difficult to control as
the tribes of America," a fellow missionary unhappily observed. "All these barbarians have the law of wild asses - they are born, live, and die in a liberty without restraint; they do not know what is meant by bridle and bit."
Indians, for their part, were horrified to encounter European social classes, with those on the lower rungs of the hierarchy compelled to defer to those on the upper. When the 17th-century French adventurer Louis-Armand de Lom d'Arce, Baron de Lahontan, tried to convince the Huron, the Iroquois's northern neighbors, of Europe's natural superiority, the Indians scoffed.
Because Europeans had to kowtow to their social betters, Lahontan later reported, "they brand us for slaves, and call us miserable souls, whose life is not worth having." Individual Indians, he wrote "value themselves above anything that you can imagine, and this is the reason they always give for it, that one's as much master as another, and since men are all made of the same clay there should be no distinction or superiority among them."
INFLUENCED by their proximity to Indians - by being around living, breathing role models of human liberty - European colonists adopted their insubordinate attitudes. Lahontan was an example, despite his noble title; his account highlighted
Indian freedoms as an incitement toward rebellion. Both the clergy and Louis XIV, the king whom Lahontan was goading, tried to suppress these dangerous ideas by instructing French
officials to force a French education upon the Indians, complete with lessons in deferring to their social betters. The attempts, the historian Cornelius J. Jaenen reported, were "everywhere unsuccessful."
In the most direct way, Indian liberty made indigenous villages into competitors for colonists' allegiance. Colonial societies could not become too oppressive, because their members -surrounded by examples of free life - always had the option of voting with their feet.
It is likely that the first British villages in North America, thousands of miles from the House of Lords, would have lost some of the brutally graded social hierarchy that characterized European life. But it is also clear that they
were infused by the democratic, informal brashness of American Indian culture. That spirit alarmed and discomfited many Europeans, aristocrat and peasant alike. Others found it a
deeply attractive vision of human possibility.
Historians have been reluctant to acknowledge this
contribution to the end of tyranny worldwide. Yet a plain reading of Locke, Hume, Rousseau and Thomas Paine shows that they took many of their illustrations of liberty from native examples. So did the colonists who held their Boston Tea Party
dressed as "Mohawks." When others took up European
intellectuals' books and histories, images of Indian freedom had an impact far removed in time and space from the 16th-century Northeast.
The pioneering suffragists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Matilda Joslyn Gage, both Finger Lakes residents, were inspired by the Great Law's extension of legal protections to women. "This
gentile constitution is wonderful!" Friedrich Engels exclaimed (though he apparently didn't notice its emphasis on limited state power).
Just like their long-ago confreres in Boston, protesters in South Korea, China and Ukraine wore "Native American" makeup and clothing in, respectively, the 1980's, 1990's, and the first years of this century. Indeed, it is only a little
exaggeration to claim that everywhere liberty is cherished - from Sweden to Soweto, from the streets of Manila to the docks of Manhattan - people are descendants of the Iroquois League
and its neighbors.
...........
Charles C. Mann is the author of the forthcoming "1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus."
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Christian fundamentalism is ugly. And I'm not Christian (not like most people would think of it), and I believe the gvt. should be secular.
But when McVeigh blew up that building, or when other freaks blow up abortion clinics, Christian ministers/priests/preachers are among the first to condem it. They don't want to be associated with those people. Really, it's not a Christian problem.
So why havn't any muslim clerics issued an official statememt condeming the acts of obl??
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When Erick Rudolph went into hiding in the Carolina mountains, he had ppl leaving him food and clothing and other types of support and comfort. Never mind what the PR guy at the pulpit is saying. Watch what the true believers are doing. If you do that, I think you'll conclude that Xtianity is just as dangerous as any other religion.
At present there is not a single credible established religion in the world.
--George Bernard Shaw, Irish-born English playwright
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I think they are all dangerous.
I personally feel more threatened by Christian fundamentalism, because they live here and seek to impede my day-to-day life and activities.
Do you really think that mainstream Christians would provide refuge to someone who sets off bombs at Planned Parenthood clinics and Olympic stadiums?
Of course, it's Islamic fundamentalists who blow things up also. But if the Islamic mainstream does not wish to be associated with violent fundamentalists, why have their leaders not officially condemned them?
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Might have to do with the fact that 'who did it' has never been determined. There are so many unanswered questions:
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/911q.html (http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/911q.html)
http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?to ... t=10#45449 (http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?topic=4996&forum=32&start=10#45449)
The families of the victims have never had their questions acknowledged or answered:
http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?to ... rt=0#65458 (http://fornits.com/wwf/viewtopic.php?topic=6994&forum=32&start=0#65458)
Some good articles here that shed light on the issue of modern christian terrorism:
http://my.execpc.com/~awallace/coattails.htm (http://my.execpc.com/~awallace/coattails.htm)
In contrast to the many who have poured out their sympathy and help, a few of the nuttiest extreme-right wing Christian groups have expressed almost precisely the same thoughts as the Taliban: that the terrorists were carrying out the will of God. While the great majority of Christians have moved to show sympathy and understanding, these few extremists have gone the opposite way, by claiming that the victims deserved their punishment. Their claim: "We warned you and you wouldn't do as we said. Now you must suffer." Their most common accusation: that continued right to abortion and continued existence of gay people angered the Almighty.
Many good articles including one on the similarities between obl and rudolph- Cavemen Prove to be Elusive
http://www.insightmag.com/global_user_e ... yid=246513 (http://www.insightmag.com/global_user_elements/printpage.cfm?storyid=246513)
Quote:
"I knew he was conservative and antigovernment and anti-Clinton, but I didn't know he was antiabortion," Jamie said. The brother theorizes that Rudolph's ideology was influenced when their mother hauled him off to a Missouri commune run by the Christian Identity Movement, which espouses white power. The antiabortion focus is said to result from the notion that "they are murdering white babies. If they were murdering black babies, they'd be all for it," Rudolph's brother said.
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I agree. I am most worried about funamentalist Jews, Christians and Muslims. They all seem quite insane.
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On 2005-07-18 14:24:00, Antigen wrote:
"When Erick Rudolph went into hiding in the Carolina mountains, he had ppl leaving him food and clothing and other types of support and comfort. Never mind what the PR guy at the pulpit is saying. Watch what the true believers are doing. If you do that, I think you'll conclude that Xtianity is just as dangerous as any other religion.
At present there is not a single credible established religion in the world.
--George Bernard Shaw, Irish-born English playwright
"
I know somebody whose hometown was up near where Rudolph was. It wasn't so much that the locals agreed with bombing abortion clinics and GLBT nightclubs, as it was that they had so much dislike and distrust for the federal government that they didn't believe he'd really done what he was accused of.
*Some* of them probably were bigots, but hostility to the feds had a lot more to do with the behavior than anything else. And, those folks admire self-reliance. His living out in the woods while running from the revenoors made him such a local folk hero that people *chose* to believe he wasn't guilty---or that he might or might not be but wouldn't get a fair trial, and so forth.
I've known small town and "small town city" bigots--I don't deny that they exist.
But this wasn't about religion, it was about hillbillies' ingrained dislike and distrust of feds.
Timoclea
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Tuesday, July 26, 2005 6:08 PM
Subject: C-SPAN to Broadcast 9/11 Cover-up This
Weekend; Scholarly Journal Publishes Excellent 9/11 Article
" A Zogby poll in late August 2004 found 49 per cent of New York City residents and 41 per cent of New York citizens overall agreed that 'some leaders in the U.S. government knew in advance that attacks were planned on or around September 11, 2001, and that they consciously failed to take action.' Stanley Hilton -- a former aide to Senator Bob Dole -- has filed a $7 billion suit on behalf of the families of 14 victims of the 9/11 attacks, alleging that Bush, along with
Cheney, Rumsfeld and others, actually ordered 9/11 to happen for political gain. Hilton says he has incriminating documents and witnesses showing this."
-- Journal of Psychohistory, Winter 2005 Issue
July 26, 2005
Dear friends,
C-SPAN is the first major media source to provide
serious coverage of the 9/11 cover-up. An excellent university lecture by renowned theologian Dr. David Ray Griffin revealing disturbing 9/11 facts was aired two consecutive weekends back in May. Now, this Saturday at 8:00 PM and Sunday at 1:00 PM (Eastern time), C-SPAN 2 (Book TV) features one of the foremost researchers on 9/11, Nafeez Ahmed, author of two of the best books on 9/11.
By informing ourselves and spreading the word, we can build a brighter future.
With best wishes,
Fred Burks for the WantToKnow.info Team
http://www.wanttoknow.info/coverupnews (http://www.wanttoknow.info/coverupnews)