Jewish Atheist

MEMO FROM: Alan
TO: Barack
RE: Bold foreign policy speech

Mr. President,

Now would be an excellent time for a game-changing foreign policy speech. And I have the perfect event to tie it to. Here’s a suggested draft:

My fellow Americans…

I have made a foreign policy decision today which I know is right for America…a decision which is in the best interests of our country, a decision that will strengthen us militarily, economically and morally, enabling us to stand as a beacon of peace to the world. I tell you right now that this decision is momentous and may well cost me a second term, but I don’t care because I act in the best interests of our great nation.

Listen to the words of Abraham Lincoln, words that I have thought about many times in the past weeks:

“I do the very best I know how– the very best I can. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won’t amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.”

[PAUSE]

My fellow Americans, the decision I have made, significant as it is, was not caused by a cataclysmic event. It was, as we say in the English-speaking world, “the straw that broke the camel’s back.” Now, our friends in the Middle East no doubt know a lot more about camels than we do. They may even know whether it is possible to break a camel’s back in this manner, whether the poor beast can survive not another ounce. From what I know of camels, they’re not especially loyal and devoted, and our hypothetical camel would have quit long before that.

But in the metaphor, the camel’s back has been broken. We are, as a nation, to use our colloquial idiom, fed up. For those translators who don’t know what that means, I’ll provide synonyms. We Americans are discontented, dissatisfied, satiated, sick and tired, surfeited, disgusted. And what are we fed up with?

There is a joke that Columbus sailed West so he could find the Far East without having to deal with Middle Easterners. I can see why. I am fed up with you barbaric Arabs and other Muslims who cannot graduate from mediaeval fantasies and value systems, who cannot throw off their mental chains…and join us here in the 21st century. And I am about to give you an extraordinary opportunity to do just that.

[PAUSE]

The straw that broke the camel’s back, or at least this camel, who happens to be Commander-in Chief of the world’s most powerful military machine, is this: on February 2, 54 people died when a suicide bomber exploded herself — that’s right, they’re getting women to hide bombs beneath the cloaks that they make them wear (sort of kills two — or even a lot of — birds with one stone, as we say in America).

Yes, she killed herself and 54 people in Baghdad, the supposed stronghold of American power. If the Iraqis can’t even hold their capital secure with our help, then something is grievously wrong. And there’s more: the bomber committed her murders at a Shiite religious pilgrimage, to disrupt the upcoming elections.

In the ensuing days of early February, the mayhem continued, with dozens more deaths from bombs in Pakistan and Iraq.

Back to the massacre of pilgrims. Let’s lay aside the ridiculousness of trekking somewhere just because something supposedly happened in the 8th century that is somehow of great importance to us. Let’s even ignore the irony of Saddam’s rule being safer for the populace insofar as these pilgrimages, which Saddam prohibited, inevitably involve many deaths from trampling, accidents, terrorism, etc.

But it’s the second part that’s the straw, my fellow Americans. It was done to disrupt the elections — a vital step in the coalescence of Iraq into one country. Here in America we jostle 100 ethnicities, but we make a country out of it. Muslims can’t even do it with a handful.

The same thing goes on in Afghanistan. It’s all we can do to keep the Afghans from deteriorating into the tribal state that is apparently their natural condition. Google “grave of Empires” and you’ll see what I mean.

So when a FEMALE bomber kills herself at a RELIGIOUS festival to disrupt NATIONAL elections. I did another American thing: I threw up my hands. This, in our culture, is the gesture that accompanies the ultimate frustration.

[PAUSE]

We have done everything conceivable to help the Afghans and Iraqis build nations and civil societies. We have shed the blood of thousands of Americans. Everyone who supports these wars should visit veterans’ hospitals and see the maimed and mangled bodies that lie, along with the dead, on the other side of military glory. We have spent trillions - inconceivable amounts of the taxpayers’ and even succeeding generations’ money. And a suicide bomber kills 54 people in Baghdad.

And that is why my message tonight is less than a sound bite. It is one word: ENOUGH.

Not one more drop of American blood, not one more cent of America’s wealth to raise primitive tribes out of the Middle Ages when they don’t want to be raised.

[PAUSE]

At this moment there is on the desk of each of the Joint Chiefs of Staff an official Presidential order to begin evacuation of troops from both countries. In 36 hours, the Joint Chiefs are to report to me with phased withdrawal plans, which will be implemented immediately. We knew how to send those kids in — and I notice with shame and humility how few of us, who have sent so many to their graves, had the guts to enter the military. Not many, I would think. But we knew how to send them in, and we know how to get them out. It’s a simple matter of logistics.

I realize that my directive will cause much controversy and disruption. There are those who think that once the American flag is planted, it must never be pulled up, no matter what the cost.

To them I say, if we planted it there with vague or unachievable goals, if we planted it there foolishly, arbitrarily, with no foresight, ignorant of the local culture and hostilities (and language), reflexively fighting the last war, if we planted it there in the arrogant belief that America can shape the world to its liking (as some of the Bush war criminals declared), then I say it’s high time we pulled it up.

To do so is an act of humility and nobility. Does not every religion teach humility and loving your neighbor? With love and regret, we leave the Afghans and Iraqis to their own destiny. We leave them to learn love, not kill each other. (We’ll still buy their oil and heroin.)

We look forward to the day when they shun primitive tribalism and religion. But we cannot eradicate this noxious mix, this vile culture of warlords and tribes, of corruption, of fundamentalist religion, of violence and death, this way of life which has defied peaceful centralization and civilization for a thousand years. It is time to stop trying to make the impossible possible.

[PAUSE]

Not one more drop of blood. Not one more cent. Enough!

Thank you.

“The tongue of man is a twisty thing,
and there are plenty of words there
of every kind, the range of words is wide,
and their varience.”

Homer, Iliad

“Next in criminality to him who violates the laws of his country, is he who violates the language.”

Walter Savage Landor, Imaginary Conversations

He said, “f***ing retarded” (I’m using the asterisks not out of fake propriety but to avoid being targeted by porn sites). There’s a firestorm of rage, a profusion of apologies.

It’s a language matter that deseves comment from professionals. Way too many laypeople think they know about language. Others who will vent their spleen on the issue can’t even see how their own anger is stirred up, over nothing.

Double whammy

Let’s be objective. This expression contains two words, EACH of which is emotionally loaded in its own right. First, f***, the subject of rigid language taboos that might be (among other things) strong markers of class, context, and speaker-audience relationship, is, as a participial adjective, one of the most florid and remarkable language developments in modern English. Consider:

(1) I won’t drive your uncle’s f***ing car.
(2) I won’t drive your f***king uncle’s car.

This is one of the most common uses — as a term of disparagement. It adds an extra dollop of contempt to the refusal, implying a disagreeable quality of the word denoted by the noun: broken-down car, bad-tempered uncle.

But other uses abound, including as an infix: un-fucking-believable. Books have already been written on this subject. Another large class of uses: F***ing expresses general dissatisfaction with the situation, e.g., So we go into this big f***king house…, or conversely, respect for some element of it: He’s got this big fucking SUV.

Another use: as an intensifier, equivalent to ‘very’/'incredibly’/'truly’ (the case at hand).

Weird stuff

But all have in common that weirdest of linguistic behaviors (right up there with glossolalia), language taboos. As with religion, certain words are accorded BY CONSENSUS to be unutterable in mostly public contexts, the consequence being…? I don’t know — I never tried it. I spent too much of my life among people whose punishment is ostracism, if not worse, for the use of that word, i.e., regular people, their regularity defined by their behavior around this and other taboo words explored at length by George Carlin.

Just words

Lenny Bruce was neither the first nor the last to say: Folks, they’re just words. There are many names for Blacks, as Clarence Page and I recently pointed out in separate columns. But there’s one, n****r, you can’t use, except when you can (i.e., contexts are sharply defined) just as with f***.

Some religious Jews practice total language taboos, making God so much a mystery that you even can’t say his name, you need G-d (he’s watching every fucking hyphen?), shaddai (’the Almighty’),ha-shem (a double avoidance; it means “the name”), tetragrammatons (YHWH, Yahweh, Jehovah).

Name in vain (??)

God’s name is the subject of the Third Commandment. Enshrined in the most basic rules of behavior are language taboos, written in stone. “Take his name in vain” rolls right off the tongue, and if it refers also to non-god-related taboo words, it’s easy to construe it as a prohibition against something we’re very familiar with: the use of taboo words.

But the commandment doesn’t prohibit cunt, fuck or piss. It only has to do with God’s name. It might have to do with things like “I swear to God…” or “as God is my witness,” said when the speaker doesn’t mean it.

(BTW, what do atheists say when they have orgasms? Do you have to train yourself not to cry out to God? Should you?)

New taboo

Taboo words now include REtard, accent on the first syllable. This suggests a bigoted, Southern, good-ol’-boy redneck who’s at once loved (in the media) and hated (in reality and by America’s liberals and elites). In all other uses, the accent is on the second syllable. So right away that initial accent comes as a verbal blow from someone who probably knows that REtard, an intended insult, is a very different word from reTARD.

Accent on the first syllable differentiaties the intended insult from the (somewhat) neutral English word. And what is the insult? That the name caller is intelligent but the retard is not? But there will always be people more intelligent that the name-caller (retards never think of this argument).

Retard has been preceded on this course by idiot, moron, and imbecile. They used to be technical terms but have long since moved on to their derived meanings, e.g, ’someone who lacks the intelligence that the name-caller thinks necessary.’ The word is an epithet, a metaphor. Such a person could in fact have a normal IQ compared to the population at large.

Power of names

Names have power, no question, And in this age of multiculturalism, fake egalitarianism (where’s the Zulu Tolstoy? asked Saul Bellow), political correctness, exquisite sensitivity, and gotcha politics, the word retard becomes a target. Hey come on, liberals, it indicates ignorance on the part of the name-caller (including false pride in his/her own intelligence). People are unequal. That’s a fact. Liberals should stop pretending everyone’s equal. Bullies and bigots should stop exploiting the fact that they aren’t.

So REtard is undergoing a watering-down process. Retarded has moved on, weakened, generalized, become a general term of opprobrium. That’s how it was used in the offending expression. The speaker was not talking about the feebleminded (an archaic term which I like).

Retarded can now apply to ANY person, thing or idea.

If a person, then it means ‘insensitive,’ ‘naive,’ ‘elementary in his/her thinking,’ ‘lacking acuity,’ ‘not up to speed/snuff in some way,’ or even ‘outright delusional.’ Applied to things, it means ‘useless,’ ‘wrong for obvious reasons, ‘frivolous.” Applied to ideas, it means ‘obvious,’ ’simplistically stupid,’ ‘impractical for obvious reasons,’ or even ‘archaic’ (the retarded idea that women should stay home and have babies). These are just first observations — there may be other meanings.

The two words have even conjoined in the epithet fucktard, which stigmatizes the hopelessly “retarded.” No wonder atheists so often use it to refer to babbling evangelicals, braying imams, oily televangelists, Pope-ass-kissing Cardinals and davening hasidim.

Thus, f***ing retarded probably means “ridiculously simplistic/impractical/futile.’ But how much more memorable was the original! The speaker chose to cloak his disapproval with the power of TWO verbal taboos. But the neutral terms sound priggish and sterile, while f***ing retarded makes the speaker hip, one of the guys, adept in the latest way to sling insults. And what could be more important than that?

“Now that I’ve shed my skin completely,
One true reality alone exists.”

Zen saying

Zen monk: “How should I escape birth and death?”
Zen Master Shih-kung: “What is the use of escaping it?”

Once again it’s Groundhog Day, which was nothing more than a rather witless locally-oriented celebration until Harold Ramis’ brilliant movie of the same name. It became — and still is — my all-time favorite message film.

Groundhog Day explores the everydayness of life with an ingenious premise worthy of Kafka, Camus, or Ray Bradbury: an arrogant newsman from Pittsburgh (Bill Murray, named Phil, as in “Puxsatawny Phil,” the groundhog) finds himself trapped in Puxsatawney, PA, where, over and over, he wakes up at 6:00 a.m. to Sonny and Cher singing “I Got You, Babe,” and he and his producer and cameraman have to do the same local-color Groundhog Day story, day after day after day.

At first he can’t believe what’s going on. When he does catch on, he uses his newfound “power” to learn more and more about an attractive local woman (who’s always meeting him for the first time) and get laid. Of course, that’s what any guy would do.

Coping strategies

He then decides: what the hell? He becomes a libertine, a freedom-abuser. He consumes large quantities of sugar; he smokes. He even tosses a live toaster into his bathtub.

He realizes he can do anything – even kill himself — and still wake up to Sonny and Cher the next morning. There’s no way out.

So bit by bit, his coping strategies turn positive. He starts to acquire wisdom. His Groundhog Day broadcasts become more thoughtful and philosophical. He starts to take piano lessons (every lesson is the “first” one for the teacher) and gets better and better. He rescues people from predicaments that he knows are going to happen.

He makes many attempts to bed his beautiful producer Rita (Andie MacDowell) and, after many slaps in the face, sheds his arrogance and snarkiness, becomes a real person…and one day awakes to Sonny and Cher – with Andie in bed beside him. Something has changed!

Existential message

Just as Secular Humanists have begun to adopt Festivus and make it a festival of their own, so should we consider co-opting Groundhog Day as a celebration of the predictability of life as a context in which it is WE who must change.

I see it as a pan-Humanist festival. It wouldn’t matter if you were Jewish, Chritsian, Muslim, Hindu…we could all watch the movie and celebrate our own power to change.

Same old, same old

Think of it: you will awaken tomorrow morning, with the same fundamentals all in place: the same mind in the same body with the same partner (or no partner) beside you, in the same house, with the same job and relatives. The people around you will continue to be who they are. If your boss was a demented tyrant yesterday, he/she will still be one today.

The macro environment changes a little, but it doesn’t affect many of us directly. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, politicians will preen and spar, insane religions and political doctrines will still have the same powerful grip on the human mind. Muslims will still be killing each other, Christians will still be trying to take over the US, and people of all “faiths” will continue to believe literally in their holy texts.

Ancient superstitions and rivalries will be as strong and destructive as they were yesterday. The battle between scientific truth and religious fantasy will continue unresolved. At least one Muslim will blow him/herself up, and Americans will continue to die in foreign wars.

People will continue to blather about saving the planet even as they destroy it. Politicians will promise change, but the only change will be that government will get bigger, and there will be more war.

Reactions to life

Marvelously predictable, isn’t it? And we react just like Phil – we can’t believe it (SURELY my wife/kid/boss/situation can change; it MUST!). We can’t believe there’s no way out.

We try all kinds of things to get away from it. We go to bars, football games, churches, and casinos. We run away to addictions of all kinds. Anything to “get away.” We even try to kill ourselves, quickly (suicide) or slowly (drugs, alcohol, work).

But perhaps on Groundhog Day, we can realize, as Phil eventually did, that through it all, the only thing that we can certainly change is our own mind and behavior. Like Phil, all we can do is keep at it until we get it right.

__________________

Alan M. Perlman is a secular humanist speaker and author — most recently, of An Atheist Reads the Torah: Secular Humanistic Perspectives on the Five Books of Moses. For information, go to www.trafford.com/06-0056. He is the founder of Positive Humanists International/PHI©.

“I used to think my brain was the most wonderful organ in the universe. Then I realized who was telling me this.”

“They’re Made Out Of Meat,” quoted by Robert Burton, M.D. in his book On Being Certain: Believing You’re Right Even When You’re Not. Story available at www.terrybisson.com/meat.html .

How the meat thinks — how mind emerges from neurons and neurotransmitters — is still a mystery, and one that won’t be solved anytime soon.

But at least we know where certain thoughts and emotions come from. It turns out that certain regions of the brain are responsible for what Burton calls “a feeling of knowing” without proof or empirical data. This brain activity results in deja vu (mistaken feeling of familiarity), its evil twin jamais vu (mistaken feeling of strangeness), the tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon (”Wait! Don’t tell me - I know this.”), as well as all kinds of intuitive activity (sports, music performance, etc.) and, of course, religious faith, which would not exist if our minds were incapable of knowing without proof.

This feeling of knowing probably had evolutionary benefits — better to harbor suspicions than to be caught unawares. Today it’s almost ubiquitous in everyday life. It is what enables major league batters to begin their swing when the ball is only nine feet from the pitcher. By the time they know they’re actually swinging (or think they’ve seen bat meet ball) the contact (or lack of it) has already happened. It’s what enables musicians, especially improvising musicians, to let go and do what they do. Contemplation of each movement is impossible — it’s all happening too fast.

The feeling is easily exploited. The Big Kahunas, when it comes to knowing without thinking, are marketing, politics, and religion. Here’s where the most wealth and power are at stake. All depend heavily on thoughtless knowing…on the creation of fake ideals and objects of worship. All three present an exclusive and divisive world-view (we have the best product, the best country, the best god). All ask for loyalty, with an implied promise: If you buy the beer, OF COURSE you get the hot babe — that’s what the commercial says. Vote for the politician who says, “We can” and you can…what?

Needs you didn’t know you had

And, very importantly, all three create products for which there is no need, solutions to problems people didn’t know they had, gadgets they didn’t know they wanted. The sustained success of all three depends on that: you may not have known it, but you NEED Obama to fight for you, you NEED the Pope to intercede for you, you NEED tiny Oreos in tiny packages. You are pathetic and helpless.

PLEASE quit

And if you believe the Prez when he says, in his State of the Union speech, that he “won’t quit”…well, that’s all I needed to hear. My response: Barack, PLEASE quit. I LOVE politicians who quit trying to control my life while they bail out their rich friends with my money. But there’s no such animal. Let’s see, $787 billion (the amount of federal bailout) distributed among 300 million people is $2,600 for every American. Just give us back our money. We’ll spend it or save it, benefiting the economy either way. I don’t NEED politicians fighting for me. Stop fighting whatever it is you’re fighting, i.e., other politicians who have different plans for controlling my life.

Religion’s roots

I now have a better understanding of why religion is so deeply rooted in the mind. Burton deals with this issue too, in his most ambitious — but most confused — chapter on faith, which he equates with a sense of knowing — in this case, knowing meaning and purpose. More on that in a future post.

He says you can go in either of two directions with your feeling of knowing: science or religion. He chides Richard Dawkins for his evangelical fervor, concluding that Dawkins’ answer to what constitutes a meaningful life is as much a matter of the feeling of knowing as faith and prayer are for a priest, rabbi, or imam. You have the feeling first, then you gather support. As Lewis Carroll’s Red Queen said, “Verdict first — then the evidence.” That’s how the mind seems to work. Dawkins’ “choice” about what gives his life purpose and meaning is no more valid than the rabbi’s.

Science and religion are not equal.

I think not. Burton is WAY too easy on religion. He ignores the degree to which believers must deny reality and invest themselves in outrageous fantasies for which there is no evidence. Once you establish that you can believe one thing without proof, then you can believe anything. Fantasies flower, enveloping the believer’s entire waking life with ritual and observance, if one is so inclined.

And such is the social respect for religion that a believer is not ashamed to don phylacteries in public (most recently on an airliner, triggering terrorist fears — who knows what’s in those boxes?), without (well-deserved) ridicule. One is not ashamed to take money for homeopathy and past life regression.

Now, I have nothing against fantasies, as loing as they’re not mistaken for reality — and as long as believers keep it out of public view and not coerce or persecute those who are different…or try to take over societies and control education, which they are always trying to do, because these are the ways to keep conflicting beliefs away from the flock, so that they can go on believing without proof.

Burton gives religion a generous pass on its behavior. Crusades, Inquisitions, jihads, witch trials, suicide bombers…these are most certainly NOT equivalent to the outputs of Dawkins’ beliefs: inquiry, knowledge, reasoned argument, and understanding of human beings and the universe.

Unlike politicians, marketers, and clerics, Dawkins doesn’t try to give people answers to problems they didn’t know they had.

Why religion persists

The inescapable conclusion is that for reasons social, ethnic, and neurological, the capacity for religious belief (and that includes New Age sewage) will be encouraged, indeed relentlessly programmed from a very early age. It becomes a habit of mind.

A lucky few of us escape. It doesn’t really take much. When my Mom would babble about God’s will, my father would cut her off with “What’s God got to do with it?” All he had to do was ask the question. That — plus a lack of serious indoctrination (we were wishy-washy Jews) — was enough to trigger my skepticism, which can usually override my belief without proof, although I’m still capable of intuitive activity (jazz improvisation) that goes by too fast for conscious thought.

A Modest Proposal

In a future post, I’ll deal with religion’s products-you-didn’t-know-you-needed: forgiveness, salvation, absolution, and answers to Big Questions. For now, given that religion is ineradicable and the progress of secular humanism is glacial even in this supposedly enlightened land of ours, we can do one thing which would be equivalent to ending racial segregation. It would recognize that religion is nothing special where Caesar is concerned. It would have immense symbolic and economic repercussions (and help with the deficit).

Two words: Tax religion.

As we pursue complete separation of church and state, here’s one positive thing humanists can do: Make them pay the same taxes as the rest of us. In hundreds of leafy suburbs, churches and synagogues sit on VERY pricey real estate. Why should I subsidize their primitive rites with my tax dollars? Let’s also tax their bake sales and every other revenue stream. George Carlin observed that for an omnipotent deity, God always seems to have a problem with money — he’s always asking for it. But I’m sure he’ll come through with the extra cash, if believers just pray hard enough.

Where are the laws that give religon a free pass economically? Is any secular organization working on this? Is there any politician willing to take on this issue?

If religion is perpetual, let it pay its own way — perpetually.

“…a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one other, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government…”

Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, 1801

Before (or as) you read this, listen to Charlie Parker’s “Now’s the Time.” It’s a straight-up jazz blues, and it was a radical reworking of a traditional musical form. And it’ll set the optimistic tone for what follows.

News from Massachusetts

At a time when half the electorate considers itself “independent,” the election of a Republican to Teddy Kennedy’s hallowed Senate seat may contribute to a tipping point in American politics. It may help create a unique opportunity for a third party, as more and more Americans realize that Republicans are not the alternative to Democrats. Republicans pretend to hate big government but do nothing to reduce it (except propose smaller alternatives to Democratic programs). They start wars to extend America’s expensive, unnecessary, and un-American world empire. They infect politics with religion, which they then use to deny abortions, limit scientific research, and teach homophobia and creationism.

No wonder the latest polls show 48% of the electorate “angry” at BOTH major parties. What an oppportunity. Continue Reading »

“Man must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.”

Martin Luther King
Nobel Prize Acceptance speech, 1964

Today we celebrate Martin Luther King’s birthday, and of course the ascent to power of America’s first Black (well, sort of) President. More on that in other posts.

1968 and beyond

King was murdered in 1968 – what an incredible, tumultuous year. Anti-war hysteria and conflict. The disastrous Democratic convention in Chicago. And TWO political assassinations (Bobby Kennedy, remember?). Continue Reading »

Two posts in a row on Obama. But he is a complex and many-faceted character. He is above all the ultimate Affirmative Action achievement. As Geraldine Ferraro said, to her everlasting regret (such are the ways of political correctness), if he were white he’d never have gotten this far; he would be IMHO an obscure Illinois Senator, perhaps a tool of the Combine, dutifully delivering Black votes to his bosses in Chicago and Springfield.

But he sits in the White House, even though he is literally but not culturally African-American, inasmuch as the term is ambiguous. Like Italian-American, it can refer to, say, a Moroccan or Kenyan who becomes American — or to the descendants of such people.

What it really means

But we all know that the far more common meaning is the (as far as I can tell) latest of the long train of names that have attached to a particular ethnicity — Africans 400 years ago, but long since become something else: African-Americans. More on that momentarily.

Obama belongs to the first group. But he gets credit for the second. As I said, complex.

Continue Reading »

FROM: Alan
TO: Barack
RE: Naming the enemy

Dear Mr. President:

One of the most important things to know about language — and as a politician, you’re probably already aware of this — is that how we choose to name things is a very big deal. Every American should read Hayakawa’s Language in Thought and Action, or some form of it; maybe they wouldn’t be so easily manipulated by the way things are named.

The enemy whom we are supposedly pursuing after 1992 and 9/11 (we’re about due for another biggie) has been called by many names — Islamofascists, terrorists, extremists, violent extremists – each an attempt to make the fear as vague and all-pervasive as possible. Governments do best when the people are stirred up with fear of an external enemy, especially one that threatens violence on our own soil. Unlike many citizens in the world, Americans take for granted their physical safety on their own soil.

Liberalism gone wild

Also, the government’s various names have tried to avoid targeting any particular group (though all the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis), out of political correctness and liberalism gone haywire, so bend-over-backwards nuts that they granted citizens’ rights of our great nation, which people have died for, to those who would destroy it.

Today’s speech came close to naming the enemy: al-Qaeda. I liked your contrasting its culture of death with our way of life, but they’re psychotics and don’t see it that way: they see it as a path to ETERNAL life! It’s weird how religion fucks with people’s heads, isn’t it?

But al Qaeda isn’t the enemy. Have you conveniently forgotten that the maniac who murdered American troops on American soil was not a member of al Qaeda? But he did have something very important in common with that poor brainwashed Nigerian (see below).

Mr. President, it’s time to go to war with words. If you want some idea of what I’m talking about, read Churchill’s speeches about the Nazis, and you will hear righteous anger and contempt, an elegance of language mixed with open resolve to conquer. Likewise, Ronald Reagan gave the USSR a push over the edge with “evil empire.” (If Peggy Noonan wrote that, nice work; most of her other stuff is inspirational mush.)

“I have seen the future…”

It’s hard to remember that once upon a time, Americans considered the USSR an example of a system that worked, as opposed to capitalism, which seemed to be faltering badly. Reagan made the moral call: a police state is the antithesis of all that is human and humane; it is evil. The Soviet leadership had no answer. What were they going to say? That totalitarianism HADN’T ruined their countrry? That prison camps and misused mental hospitals weren’t evil? They fell apart ideologically as well as economically and every other possible way.

War of words

You see where I’m going with this. It’s a war of words as well as bullets. What you call the enemy tells the citizenry how we must view them. I recently saw a New York Times headline from 1945 announcing that the “Japs” had surrendered. The hatred and contempt were still there, even at the end.

But for the first time the enemy isn’t easily targeted. No Barbary pirates, Confederates, Nazis to isolate. This isn’t even like the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese, who, although they too blended with the locals, were kind enough to stay in Viet Nam and wouldn’t blow themselves up on American airliners or open fire on American troops at a military base.

Mr. President, what we are up against is not a country, not a people, not even a loose network of wackos (”al Qaeda” is nothing but “the base”) — but a psychotic belief system, and you must abandon your professorial restraint and GET PISSED at the real source of the problem. Eloquently, of course.

The enemy

To fight this war of words, you must isolate and clearly identify the enemy, which previous Presidents have failed to do. The enemy is a poisonous set of religious ideas which fanatics acquire as children and pass on to their children. The fantasy element is bad enough, but when it includes suicide and world domination, we are all threatened, and you must respond in kind.

Charles Krauthammer is quite right when he says that someone who murders an abortion doctor or commits eco-terrorism is a violent extremist, but the element that threatens us is religion. The enemy is thus properly referrred to as “jihadi” or “jihadists.”

Lexicon of war

The Army psychiatrist and the kid from Nigeria, along with being male, had ONE THING in common. The war of words must encompasss that one thing. Acccordingly, America’s mortal enemies should be referred to with the adjective religious whenever possible, e.g., religious terrorists (as many have noted, you cannot make war on terror, which is only a tactic), religious zealots, religious extremists. Alternate religious with Muslim and Islamic, e.g., Islamic radicals, violent Muslim extremists. If you want to go for the burn, throw in fanatics or even lunatics.

Now you have a range of choices, but they’ll all be on-message: our enemy is a vile, criminal, phantasmagorical, inhumane religion whose intent is to dominate the world by — as crazy as it seems — blowing up a few dozen people at a time. This noxious dogma has no place in the modern world, and as long as we allow it to be taught, there will be an endless supply of borderline, unstable losers who will be happy to take a few infidels with them as they forsake this tough world for a paradise of ease and sex (the profusion of virgins would not lure me - I prefer experienced women).

Peace and love

On the positive side, you can challenge them to prove that theirs is a religion of peace — by being peaceful (and adopting the ‘inner striving’ meaning of jihad). If it’s not, then — and I envision this as an update of the old Tom Lehrer song - who’s next? We’ve had two incidents in just a couple of months. Where’s the next loose screw going to come from? If an actual army psychiatrist can go over the edge, who’s next? Because guaranteed, unless these Muslim men find real love somewhere, they will continue to be vulnerable to fantasies and getting laid in the next world, because they don’t know how to (or their religion won’t let them) get laid in the here and now. I wouldn’t be surprised to find a lot of sexual repression in Islam; it hurts men as well as women.

So yes, Muslim men should find love in this world; that’s the ideal solution. Then they wouldn’t have to resort to suicidal fantasies. But their religion won’t allow that. Religion is the real enemy. It’s a case of killing the snake by cutting off the head.

It’s a WAR

BTW, don’t you have a behavioral profile on these people? They’re fighting a war that’s centuries in duration. They and their uncaptured colleagues around the world will not be impressed with our show of justice. Their version of justice is what they did to Daniel Pearl. If they’re caught, it is nothing less than liberalism gone haywire to give them lawyers and civil trials. FIND OUT who’s training, paying, and equipping them. The Ft. Hood guy too. Captured enemy combatants may be priceless resources. They are most assuredly not American citizens. I’m not saying take them out back and blow their heads off. First try them fairly and prove they did it. Get all the information you can, because the next attack will be unexpected too. Then take them out back.

Repeat the above procedure as needed. It’s a snake with many heads.

To recap:

– the enemy is an insane, destructive religious doctrine incompatible with a peaceful modern world;
– jihadis can forget about killing or converting the infidels; we’re way too numerous and strong; they should try to find love in this world instead of somewhere else (that doesn’t exist);
– America seeks peace with everyone, but the civilized world will not tolerate poisonous, dangerous ideologies, secular or religious, that manipulate people into committing crimes against humanity.

The above advice is gratis, as are my speechwriting services for your speech entitled “American at War: The Real Enemy.” Just let me know when you’d like a first draft.

“I wanted to be an atheist — but then I found out they have no holidays.”

Henny Youngman

As I drive through one neighborhood after another, the lights of every color illuminate the night, proving, for all to see, that this is a (mostly) Christian country. One guy in the next suburb has what I call Multi-icon Overload — Santa, Rudolph, Frosty, and Nativity — and a full complement of lights draping house and hedges. Pretty obscene waste of energy, but, as usual, religion is tax-free, guilt-free, and immune to criticism.

We love holidays

Our reading today comes from the Book of Youngman. If we exegetically examine the text, we infer that holidays are perceived to be an advantage. People like to get together to celebrate something or other. The original meaning of the holiday fades, but still they celebrate. Continue Reading »

“The days come and go like muffled and veiled figures sent from a distant party, but they say nothing, and if we do not use the gifts they bring, they carry them as silently away.”

Traditional IBM motto

This year, for third time in memory, I had no trouble mentally switching calendar years. I haven’t mis-dated a single check.

This is a good sign: the mind is still sharp. And also not so good: a sign of heightened awareness of time passing, of the fourth quarter of my life ticking away.

I’ve become very choosy about how I spend my time. A lot of people like to spend tons of time in transit, seeing the necessary 1,000 places before they die. Good for them, but it’s not me. As Ram Dass says, wherever you go, there you are. Continue Reading »