And he thought of those he angered, because he was not a cruel man...
As I watch events unfolding in the
Some Americans believe that only a handful of militant fundamentalists are creating a bad image for the rest of a peaceful Moslem peoples. Unfortunately this is not true. The Shiite movement is huge and getting larger everyday. What is disturbing to me is the methodology being employed to organize and strengthen this military machine. And make no mistake; we are watching the development of a major political and military entity.
When Hitler unified the divided political factions of
What made me angry and finally brought my voice to life was the Holocaust conference held in
A man is known by the company of men he keeps. When I saw the evil with which Mr. Ahmadinejad was willing to lay down in the mud of the sty and wallow around with it was simply too much for me to remain silent about. Have we, the people of the world truly forgotten the horror of the Holocaust? Have we forgotten the Nazi organization that systematically exterminated and silenced the voices of six million Jewish HUMAN BEINGS?
Ellie Wiesel, author of “Night” wrote, ”Those who kept silent yesterday will remain silent tomorrow.” He wrote these words about the Jewish population who believed in the impossibility of what was happening to them until the very moment they were loaded upon the trains and shipped off to the crematoriums.
How many of us today are standing silent and passive as sheep, watching as a great beast rises up in our midst to devour as many of us as possible? Martin Luther King, one of my personal heroes and inspirations said, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
What is happening in the Moslem world matters. It matters to all of us because of the Shiite war machine being built and the Nazi tactics being employed to build it. When you employ tools of evil to build a thing you can not possibly build anything that is not evil. How can we sit idly by and watch the panorama of hatred and intolerance unfold before us and dismiss it as small and insignificant?
Shiite Moslems are converting huge numbers to their fundamentalist perspective and those who do not submit are being dragged from their homes and tortured to death. We sit in silence as moderate voices are stilled and radical voices scream in unbridled bloodlust.
To my fellow countrymen I say, do not raise your voice up to me and cry, “
Each of us stands before the almighty as an individual in the Day of Judgment. We do not stand before the almighty in comparison to one another and achieve righteousness based upon the deeds of each other. Therefore, it is important that you stop justifying the terrible iniquities of the Shiite war machine in the present moment with a list of
I have witnessed an event that clearly defines the Shiite identity and I can not remain silent about it any longer.
I will not allow my voice to be silenced by fear of offending the few. If my words sting your heart I offer my apologies. I truly do embrace all individuals whose daily lives are guided by love, tolerance and service of their fellow man regardless of color, nationality and faith.
It is just that silence is an option we can ill afford in the world today. By remaining silent we give credence to an evil developing in our midst. Will we continue to hide our heads in the sand as others have done before us in the past believing the lie, “Surely it can not happen to us! Not in this moment”?
I am done. This is the last I will speak of this as we enter the Christmas Season. I believe you all know what I will be celebrating and why.
I will be praying for peace on earth and goodwill towards all men. But I will also remain as watchful as a guard at the city gates.
I will sound the alarm when our city is in peril.
The times they are a changing...
Bob Dylan
“The most heinous and the most cruel crimes of which history has record have been committed under the cover of religion or equally noble motives”
Gandhi
"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
Martin Luther King
"Those who remain silent today will be those who remain buried in silence tomorrow."
(Paraphrase) Dirk Bauman
DirkStar, Friday, December 15, 2006
28 Comments:
Well put. It makes one think and that is what is important. I will admit to burying my head in the sand but it is sad that the few that are not militant will be persecuted. I am referring to WWII when the US started sending Japanese Americans to camps. It will happen again.
The tentacles have reached out and grabbed quite a few Americans and pulled them into their den. They have recruited the scum of America to spread their twisted warped message to their countries. Adulation is a powerful drug and Duke is an addict.
Do you know what the percentage of converts to Muslims in the prison population is? I am rambling... enough said.
I will pray for peace. I always do. I will not judge my fellow man-- or at least try not to. I know there are good and bad everywhere. I can not pick up a gun and call myself good. Just me.
ill pray for peace
City mouse, I am not encouraging anyone to pick up a gun!
Our voices are a weapon too and I do believe that now is the time to be using them.
We are being programmed with the phrase, "You shouldn't talk about politics or religion."
I say these are the two most important topics we shold be talking about today.
Evil is afoot in the guise of a major world religion and it must be addressed and dealt with...
I wish it were not so, but it is and I will not participate in an ignore it and it will go away delusion.
So we are to 'forgive' the sin of the US because of the horrors in the Mid East?
I think not.
Replace Muslim with Christian and Mid East/Shiite with US Government and you are describing your the progression of your country....filled with intolerance and hatred for others. The growth of a fascist right wing nation.
But what do I know?
Nobody is right.
Hatred in all forms is wrong.
You are right.....we shouldn't be ignoring this conference.
I think the leader of Iran is a dangerous and crafty man.
But the same can be said about Bush or the one's telling him what to do.
So as Holocaust survivers say 'never again' and ask us to never forget......we should ask them WHY genocides continue to this day and nobody does anything to stop them.
I have to admit...I NEVER imagined seeing David Duke shaking hands with the Iranian prez...that was mindblowing to say the least.
The thing is....if you heard him with Wolfe Blitzer (a biased journalist)....sadly a lot what he said was absolutely true.
But you just don't want to hear it from a scary bastard like him.
When you see the hatred and fundamentalism exploding in the world...ask why?
"Evil is afoot in the guise of a major world religion and it must be addressed and dealt with..."
Same could be said about right wing Christian fundamentalism that is spreading across the US and has a very powerful influence in the Government.
A lot of people fear that just as much.
crunchy carpets, I think we Americans just dealt with the christian conservative movement.
Only, we voted them out of office instead of dragging them into the streets and drilling holes in their heads.
That is the difference in how affairs are being conducted.
By the by, your inverted logic does not work, simply because I say I will not excuse the actions of one based on the actions of another does not mean i'm saying to forgive the actions of one based on the actions of another...
America will stand in judgment of its deeds, just as the Moslem world will stand in judgment of its actions.
My point is that I will not say nothing about an evil somewhere else, simply because I live in a country that has made its fair share of mistakes.
Should Germany never have a say in world affairs because of Hitler and his actions in the past?
How about Japan?
Or Italy?
In dealing with the problems of the present we have to leave past mistakes in the past or else nobody has the right to speak out now.
I'm tired of America's past being a reason why I am not allowed to speak out now...
But Dirk..I am not talking about the past..I am talking the hear and now.
And I also think we need to learn from the past ...find the truths ...instead of the lies and propaganda...and then progress from there.
I think we need to speak out more and more..ask questions....demand answers and solutions.....
Demand changes.....
I guess the "underlying purpose" for Holocaust Denial is the perceived view that the Holocaust was the primary impetus for the creation of the state of Israel, and the view by Arabs that Israelis are taking "their land."
(My personal view is that we would be insane to mess with the Dome of the Rock, but other than that I guess I am basically Zionist.)
There are a couple historical fallacies in this theory--and I am by no means a historian.
Primarily, as I see it, the state of Israel was probably "created" during a secret meeting British Prime Minister David Lloyd George held during WWI, which resulted in the Balfour Declaration.
The "reason" for the Balfour Declaration can never be known, since the results of the meeting were sealed under the War Powers Act--but we presume that a group of English WASPS (and Lord Rothschild) felt that a Jewish state would "stabilize" the Persian Gulf region--you could argue because Eurocentric Ashkenazi Jews would presumably be in charge of the new state, resulting in a "European mentality" that we can "deal with."
The problem arises where you try to look for an "Arab" possession of what is now Israel that preceded it--you really can't find one, unless someone with more historical knowledge than I have can show me where there is one (a unified, single country that was Palestine and was a Muslim country, in other words.)
Initially, after the Muslim conquests, what is now Israel was divided up into 3 different countries. After that, playing fast and loose with history, was the Ottoman Empire--who like the Romans thought of "Palestine" as primarily a tax revenue source and not a place to spread religious hegemony. (Caligula's proposed temple to himself notwithstanding in the Roman case.)
So being pissed off about the existence of Israel--and by conjecture being pissed off about the Holocaust "enabling" the creation of Israel--is pretty much a futile excercise.
But just try explaning this at this "convention."
I guess my rather heavy-handed point above in summary is that the Zionist movement was already in full swing with or without the Holocaust. And the "reason" was probably--surprise!--Western need for stabilization of the Persian Gulf so we can extract oil from it, even back in 1906 or whenever.
I'm not enough of an expert on this to disagree and from what little I do know I wouldn't disagree at all.
I would be interested in your opinion, either here or in email on the Iraq situation and how it fits into this. It does seem that the predominately Sunni controled areas that were able to keep some "blance" in the area were Saudi Arabia and Iraq under Saddam.
Now, it is pretty clear that in the end Iraq will also be a Shiite Theocracy and will join in an alliance with Syria and Iran.
I believe this will actually be Bush's legacy in the Middle East. The growing threat of Shiite power and dominance.
Of course, I could be wrong.
Folks, I simply can not accept moral ambiguity.
The argument that side A has wrong in its position and side B has wrong in its position, therefore nobody is entitled to say anything about the actions of the other is just plain ludicrous.
Let's all just ignore the evils being committed and do nothing because we are all just imperfect beings?
Nonsense!
See, we're all talking...
Now we can begin getting somewhere.
And we're doing it without missles, name calling and power tools.
See the power of using our voices?
I see your point but America is guilty of silence and inactivity as well. You have heard about Darphur right?
Funny how our country hasn't stepped in to help when genocide is being committed on a daily basis there. I guess if the region had oil it would be a different matter.
I don't think there is a country on this planet that isn't guilty of remianing silent while evil deeds occur right under their nose.
I am not saying that the denial of the Holocaust isn't beyond disturbing but considering that there are acts equally as evil (if not in number then at least in intent) going on while we sit by and do nothing... I think that those take precedence.
We can not stop a dictator from holding a summit based on lies. We can speak up to stop the evil we see in the world. Unfortunately we as a country (and the rest of the world) are failing to do something.
It seems as if in this day and age that silence is golden and our leaders will always remain silent for gold or if the gold isn't there.
Dirk
I too believe the silent ones need to buck up and let their voices ring.. so to speak.
This is what worries me, I don't trust any of the politicians of today. I trust none of them. How can we get some reliable people to want a job that is totally insane (to me at least).
I vote always for who I feel is the "lesser evil". I don't see anyone out there doing anything but yakking the yak to get voted in.
The whole thing scares the shit out of me, to the point I don't want to read about it anymore.. I don't want to watch the news. Not so much 'sticking my head in the sand' so I can la-te-da my way through the day. But because I don't see anything I (me) can do about it.
If you have answers, please... voice them.
Zen..I think that is pretty much it...all the instability there now and then is because all the 'countries' and borders were created...mostly by colonialists from the west.
Have you read T E Lawrences 7 Pillars of Wisdom or Edward Said's 'Orientalism'....it is a fascinating look at Western Colonialism and the impact on the Middle East.
Basically when you start playing god..you fuck things up.
And as far as Iraq goes...I think it will be divided into Sunni Shiite and Kurdish factions and the conglomerates and governments will make deals with each group for access to oil and so on.
Whim, I agree on the Darfur issue.
This is my point...
Too many of us, the average American, can tell you the name of every single American Idol contestant but we can't name a single country on the continent of Africa.
The truth is that our leaders reflect to us what we are interested in.
I don't hear many American Joes talking about Darfur...
We have to be vigilant. We can't just turn the country over to our representatives and trust that they will do the right thing. The more "they" tell me to shut up, the louder I'll get. I hope everyone else will, too. And, we need to make the news media accountable and insist that they return to their "watchdog" role.
I find myself aligned most closely with kentucky brat in this discussion. I DO have my head in the sand, though, and that's a shameful admission. I avoid the news, catching only headline snippets. Those bits and pieces scare the shit out of me and make me feel totally helpless. So I pull myself in a little more and compound my ignorance by avoiding even the headlines. Yes, I know that makes me a part of the problem and not of the solution. I'm not proud to admit it. Even I, in my ignorance, am well aware of the monstrous giant that grows stronger every day, and of the total ineptitude of our leaders in facing it down. If they don't have any solutions, how can I possibly contribute anything at all?
You wrote a few days ago of fear, and I admitted that I am indeed a very fearful person. I deadbolt my doors and padlock my fence and never leave my house after dark. But it's not the fear of the danger outside my door that scares me the most. It's the fear of the global annihilation will surely be the result of the current madness if it is not stopped. What are we here for if not to make a world a little better during our tenancy, and to leave it a little better for our progeny? But "the world" is a little too big for me, too overwhelming.
So Dirk, you keep on thinking AND acting globally. I'll listen, and I'll learn and I'll support. And I'll continue to act locally, because that's where I can sort out the confusing issues and try to be of help. I'll keep trying to help our homeless, who need as much help as anyone caught up in the larger crisis. It's not enough and it won't bring world peace. But it's what I can do, and it mitigates my shame, because I believe that every act of kindness, whether global or local, moves us towards a better day.
Betty, you couldn't have said it better!
It is not all about the governments.
"We the people" must speak up and bring the hidden secrets into the light.
You alone have grasped my point. The "individual" must speak up and confront evil.
It has never been groups or governments or religions that change the world for the better.
It has always been the heart, the vision and the power of just one individual who dared to stand in the presence of the many and speak the truth when no one else would.
Everyone looks at me and says, "Dirk, what do you expect me to do? I am only one person."
I tell them that is what makes them one of the most powerful forces in the world...
Betty, you are a force to be reckoned with.
Well said, Dirk. Now if only I knew what to do.
The limited "reality" the news provides (and I'm referring to NPR, because I simply can't stomach TV "news") depresses me to the point that I sit and stare blankly. I do suffer from clinical depression, so being uninformed does help me get through the day. Maybe that's a poor excuse, but it's true.
But what might we be able to do? Is there perhaps some way - maybe through the blogging community - to gently deliver our fears, outrage and hopes to those who "don't get it" - without being combative. I just have never seen people won over to a point of view by being beaten over the head with it.
Again, what is the way to make oneself heard? The vote in November was encouraging, but days after the election the Pew Research people conducted a survey (I was one they called) and found that we should not read anything much into what the vote resulted in. So what is the individual to do?
I am away from home and on a borrowed computer and must give it up, so maybe will get back to this later.
There was a conference on the holocaust in Iran?!?!?!? Sure didn't see it in the papers! I guess Lindsay Lohan and Nicole Richie need all that valuable newsprint, instead. Priorities, people!
You have quite a discourse going here and that's swell, but...
There seems to be a disconnect (for me) between this here now Iranian David Dukes love-fest and the idea that Muslims are saying you can't celebrate Christmas as you see fit. Was that part of the Iranian conference agenda or was there some other "Down-With-Christmas-Or-Die-Infidel" story?
Hope "Big River" was to your liking and that you and the Mrs. had a good evening together. Carry on (I know you will!)
Craig D.
I just wanted to show you some love! Have a great weekend!
*Ducks as I walk out of the room*
Dirk, ALWAYS a fantastic post! It's my action and my "voice" that defines me! Same for every individual! And just as America's deeds dictates how it is judged, the individual's deed dictates how his country is judged! IN choosing one's on action, he/she represents all of the people! That should be our power--what we DO, and in what we DO we can choose evil. . . or fight for what is "right". So as long as the person doesn't remain static and watch evil happen in front of his anti-empathic gaze, the person is striving and promoting health in mankind as he acts out. To leave the power in the hands of the others who make decisions (those people liars) is to denounce personal freedom! well I like to believe that I'm my own self. Drugs dont own me. Religion doesnt own me. Government doesnt own me. They just want to help me, thats nice, but could I suggest some things? I represent them just as much as they represent me.
Great post Dirk and well thoughtout, its to bad those in power can't see this view with their eyes.
I feel the word 'evil' is used far too freely in this issue and in your posts. Just because someone is Muslim doesn't make them evil, nor if they are Shiite or even if they are an extremist. The thousands of people fighting in in the Middle East today are not all evil. Mostly they are misguided. Just like every soldier in the 1930's German army were not 'evil'. They were fed a diet of hatred and propaganda. In the Middle East we have the same thing. The Muslim faith is being used as the tool to inject hatred into the minds of the people by leaders. And just like in the west, these leaders have very different ideals and objectives to those of the people.
It's interesting that the phrase 'War on Terror' was an amendment to a speech written for Mr Bush which had originally been 'War on Hatred'. The meaning of the original phrase was lost but the new phrase was seen as more powerful. The hatred and intolerance which breeds in the Muslim faith does not live there naturally but has been implanted by those who have a completely different agenda.
The leaders understand that this is not a war of religion but a power struggle to control a very important generator of the world's wealth. They only use religion as a method of generating the hatred needed to kill each other and those from around the world.
As for Iraq, the only way it can survive in peace is to either reinstate a harsh and dominant leader as WE did there a century ago or to return it to the the three separate states that it originated from before we started our meddling.
I take a very pragmatic/survivalist viewpoint of the Middle East, and I feel that is important to say up front.
Somebody who says they are being "objective" about this region is usually lying, anyway.
That said, coming at it with "Enlightened Self-interest":
Palestians were dancing and singing in the street after 9/11; Israelis were crying, praying, and lighting candles.
As an American, who do I want to "win"??
But it is not a "zero sum game," and in fairness to Muslims, Westerners have manipulated that region for one reason ("black gold") every chance they got since the early part of the 20th Century.
The "kingdom" of Kuwait was created as an oil field and harbor for the former separate Anglo-American oligopolies of Gulf and British Petroleum.
There is a curve in the map of the border of Iran and Iraq known as "Churchill's Burp" because quite literally Churchill burped when he was drawing the countries after WWII.
Now, as Americans, we become victims of our own isolationism and our historical illiteracy.
We are trying to make a "country" out of Iraq, which is as "tribal" than our own Plains states were in the late 19th Century, and we are wondering why the "Pawnees" and the "Sioux" and the "Chickasaw" (substitute Kurds, Shi'ites, and Sunni's) are not holding hands and skipping to the ballot box singing nursery songs.
I guess what I am trying to say is that when push comes to shove, I am on "our side" and if it is between OUR GUYS (including women) and THEIR GUYS dying, I want OUR GUYS to live.
But I also understand why a Bedoin might not want to jump off his camel and start kissing my feet the minute I land over there...
What is the "solution"??
It is complicated and ugly:
1) Reduce US dependence on foreign oil through hybrids, etc.;
2) Exploit oil resources in places friendlier to the US, e.g. Caspian Sea and Alaska;
3) Stamp out extreme anti-Western Islamic fundamentalism at its source, since it is going to be a worse threat to the US than Hitler and Tojo put together.
4) While doing #3, ENCOURAGE tolerant, mainstream, non-anti-Semitic Islam.
(Not a pretty picture, I realize.)
Ah, Baron...
This is not a war about controlling a generator of wealth.
We have almost reached the peak oil point in the middle east. the only source of income for most of the region will begin to diminish as less and less oil comes from the ground.
The resource is not infinite...
It has been pumped from the ground as if it were and it is nearly gone.
What then?
Again, let me restate my position. I am against evil leaders who are poisoning the the minds of the general populace with doctrines of hate and anti-semitism. I am not against individuals who live enlightened lives of service to their fellow man.
Thanks for dropping by! And Merry Christmas to you.
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