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Thoughts on where we are in America

Thoughts on where we are in America

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Where are we, America?

March 20th will be the four-year anniversary of the Iraq invasion and subsequent occupation. We’ve succeeded in making a bad situation worse for the people of Iraq. We’ve killed and been killed. We’ve drained our financial resources for the foreseeable future, and handed out contracts to such ilk as Halliburton. The oil profits are still being debated, but does anyone believe that the Iraqi people will benefit? A majority of the soldiers themselves thought they should be out by the end of 2006. In a number of ways, our own government has shown how little they care for the lives of our military “volunteers,” or generally for any human lives – except for embryonic tissues, and that only to get votes. They have attempted to destroy the checks and balances of our system. They have illegally withheld information, they have deceived us, they have replaced our land of freedom with executive abuse of power, spying and surveillance systems, massive corruption, crony capitalism, and the cynical manipulation of religion for power. They have worked to legalize torture and undermine human rights, and have even passed legislation to provide themselves retroactive immunity for war crimes prosecution.

To the extent that the American people have allowed all this to happen, and even participated in it, we are also accountable (or in biblical terms, “blood-guilty“). Our extreme self-insulation, limitless self-adoration, self-congratulatory arrogance, over-worked fatigue and apathy, lack of access to or interest in relevant information and intelligence and so on all work against meaningful changes. We appear to lack understanding about even our own self-interest. Yes, we have a pseudo-religious fanaticism here, but even that pales in comparison to our own suicidal down-spiral.

Here is my nightmare: Most of us will not pay with our lives in any sort of splashy symbolic way (as do desperate terrorists), but we will pay instead by meaningless steps, by degrees, into our deaths (and the deaths of those we love) as the euthanasia of unnecessary lives takes hold. We’ll have workers with no rights or access to accountability or fairness; that’s why Bush wants the guest worker program and the union-busting. The profitable private prison systems will also be a source of labor. There will be no regard for real global systems such as the environment, but only for the big game of capital – a game for the few. You and I are hardly necessary except insofar as we can habitate our role as consumers. The profits will continue to go to the top; we will work more and more for less and less (remember the debate about the four-day work week? ha ha). Privatization, such as what occurred at Walter Reed hospital and elsewhere, will reward profitable incompetence. The medical crisis will get worse. As poverty increases and the gap between the rich and everyone else widens, the social safety net – such as it is – will be cut off, a result of “hard choices.” Safety standards of any kind – gone. The economy collapses. People lose their jobs and then their homes. As desperation and anger escalate violent crimes will exponentially increase. More and more people will simply entrench and cocoon – with the aid of killer drugs like meth, or by a withdrawal of engagement from reality. Neighbor will turn against neighbor. We will lose everything that so many have fought for. We will fail to thrive, we will be unable to thrive.

I fear that we are already past the tipping point. Perhaps the American experiment will end in spectacular (or simply dreary) failure. After the Cold War, can we really still say we “won”? It used to seem so, but there is a kind of return of the repressed here. The Orwellian bad points of the USSR seem to have been rebirthed in the USA, under corporate fascism and governmental abuse of power.

We have a policy of “preemptive war” now. Why isn’t that more shocking to the American people? Really. Have you understood nothing of history?

No matter what happens, we always seem to be able to get up the money for war. Other issues are for some reason not as sexy to the national psyche. Will we be able to count on medical insurance, retirement funds, education for our children and grandchildren? We don’t know. How much money are we printing? We don’t know; they don’t report that anymore. Was the stock market drop a warning from the nations who hold much of our national debt? We don’t know. What could be paid for if we could even just reduce the interest we have to pay on our debt? Have you looked? Will we be able to trust the food we eat, the air we breathe, the land upon which we walk?

Ironically, I see one possibility for a hopeful future coming from the very corporations whose greed extends the international slash-and-burn zone. Corporations who want to survive into the future (and not just cut and run from the country once they’re raped it) will be forced to offer ethics and fairness in order to continue to attract consumers and knowledgeable workers. They have to have consumers. And – they really have to have skilled workers. A massive skilled workforce shortage is on the way in this country as boomers retire or die. Long-range planning would dictate that they not kill off their number-one asset: their people.

Limiting education only to those of the upper financial classes will not be enough to keep the machine going. However, I think that education in America will tilt more and more into technical training rather than education, a kind of Spartan techno-culture. No history, no literature, no cultural understanding, no real analysis, no skill in debate or dialogue. All spin. Like Bush, “all hat, no cattle.”

I want to work through various events, such as the firings, and Halliburton going to Dubai, but at this point I feel as though I have at once too much information and not enough information. I’m slowing down a notch. I’m percolating. I need to steep. Or soak. Or wallow. Or consider. Or something like that. I’ll let you know.

Silly observation: Why is General Petraeus’s name pronounced everywhere as “Betray us”?

I’m not saying it means anything, but it’s kind of like the mouthpiece of the White House being named Tony Snow(job). Just one of those things it’s hard not to notice. I’ve been trying to hope that he knows what he’s doing, but every time I hear the news I can only hear “betray us.” It’s disconcerting.

On a more serious note, I’m disappointed in Speaker Pelosi. There were good ideas and plans on the table, like requiring targets rather than timetables. The Iraq Study group report (despite its ties to the oil industry) came up with some ideas that were summarily ignored by the White House. There have been additional plans, some of them with very good recommendations, which have also gone nowhere. The supplemental bill proposed by Speaker Pelosi will give Bush another $100 billion for the war in Iraq, with hardly any questions asked.

Dont Buy Bush's War - If you fund it, you own it

To get congressional votes, Nancy Pelosi seems to have become mired in compromises that would allow the war to drag into 2008. While I can understand the hard realities of her position, there is no excuse for removing the only amendment to the supplemental spending bill that would have forced Bush to get authorization from Congress before attacking Iran. It’s frightening to me. I can see that this White House would lose little sleep over another preemptive war, even if it included nuclear weapons. I would like to see a whole separate bill, requiring that they either call Iraq a “police action” or else be required to formally “declare war” so that they couldn’t avoid constitutional laws. Congress has to approve going to war. That’s the Constitution. The very fact that they feel they have to remind the President about that in the case of Iran is very ominous to me. After all, they know things we don’t know.

If things can still be changed, I doubt that the change will occur on the terrain of issues of war funding or authorizations for war. It seems as though that would be the leverage point, but I don’t think so. It seems as though we can only actually get moving on the less important issues. It is no surprise to me that the voters’ priorities are not really at issue. Hey, the illegal war in Iraq already abuses the terms of the authorization it got from Congress. No, it will have to be something else, something that goes deeper into the systems and networks that have built up to rob and control us.

I have to admit that I’m also disappointed in CodePink, a group of women for peace. I support them, along with the ACLU, the Feminist Majority, and a host of other groups who often work together. Still, this was kind of sad.

Here’s the song parody that CodePink members sang at Nancy Pelosi’s office (from the Beatles’ “Can’t Buy Me Love” – alternate lyrics by Rae Abileah).

Can’t buy me war, war
Can’t buy me war

Bush wants billions more for war to keep up the bloody fight
Bush wants billions more for war but we know that it’s not right!
‘Cause I voted for you Pelosi, Pelosi can’t buy me war

Our schools are broke, our parks are bare, and we need insurance too,
Our hearts are broke, our soldiers killed, and we’re all counting on you
I voted for you Pelosi, Pelosi can’t buy me war

Can’t buy me war, everybody knows it’s so
Can’t buy me war, no no no, no

Say you aren’t going to fund the war and I’ll be satisfied
Tell me that you want diplomacy, which bombing just can’t buy
I voted for you Pelosi, Pelosi can’t buy me war

Can’t buy me war, war
Can’t buy me war…no!

So that’s the endpoint, something specific, a real action: women singing a parody of a Beatles tune at the Speaker’s office, wearing pink statue-of-liberty hats and camping out in her home driveway. I guess we each do what we can, if we still care. Although I applaud the effort, the execution seems so dated and pathetic. I like what some women are doing in other countries a lot more. More on that on another occasion.

So, then, what?

Americans love images. That’s why camera-phones aren’t allowed in some areas. That’s why journalists can only be “embedded.” Let’s find more of the photographs and footage. Show it.

Let’s hear and tell the stories of all sides. Ethics requires that.

Let’s have the international debates. Real debates.

Let’s also have multi-pronged dialogue. Real dialogue.

There are possibilities. But I think that if anyone left of Attila the Hun wants to be elected President of the United States, s/he had better start doing more. Start with the actions now; those will speak far louder than your little platitudinous speeches and little sideways sniping. I’m so utterly sick of it.

If Rudy G is the best that the reichright-wing can come up with, there is a real chance here.

Let’s get some real investigations going. Journalists, academics, detectives, everyday people – whatever is needed. We have to have a better idea of what is really going on. I want to see money trails, forensic accounting, real oversight. I want to see governmental watchdog organizations headed up by people who are not inextricably tied to the industries they are supposed to be watching. That sort of thing. It’s not rocket science. The conflicts of interest are glaring. Just start looking, and you’ll see.

I want a national discussion and debate among the Presidential candidates. Not this fake thing they do, but an actual debate that goes into some depth on each issue. Each night, debate on one topic – the specifics. If people are too bored by that, then they don’t have to watch. Then I want mainstream network television coverage of the results of fact-checking by at least 2-3 reputable groups.

Ideally, we’d get rid of the two-party system that has served only to reinforce one another’s foibles and drive both sides further from the real issues and priorities of the people they claim to represent. I dream of a more representative (even parliamentary) democracy, where coalitions would need to be formed among several parties. Let’s have a dozen candidates and vote for the top three. The top two winners would be the President and VP.

America is just too diverse for the limited vision and power politics of the duo-party structure.

Well, I don’t expect to see that any time soon. But spring is coming, and I always seem to feel more hopeful when I can feel things – despite everything – still growing at the proper time.

Stay attuned.

Comic Relief – SNL News

Comic Relief – SNL News

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SNL is reviving again, and I am grateful. These two bits made my whole week.

Really!?! – Seth Myers and Amy Poehler
This new segment is fantastic. I was laughing so hard that I almost fell off the couch. Worth staying up to watch.

Hardball – Amy Poehler (as Hillary Clinton) and Darryl Hammond (as Chris Matthews)

This was brilliant. I like the court jester approach, and there are some grains of truth in the exaggerations here. However, as with Hammond’s portrayal of Bill Clinton years ago, I am actually getting attached to the character. Great script, even better delivery. Some people will be upset, but I believe in the freedom of laughter. And I did laugh.

Now, I want to see McCain, Giuliani and Brownback characters! Can anybody do a credible Obama?

Scriptural to trim nose hair?

Scriptural to trim nose hair?

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Here is another parody of JW reasoning written by Subir Kaunds and published here with his permission. Thank you so much!

QUESTIONS FROM READERS

Is it scriptural to trim nose hair?

A Christian is governed by conscience. And some Christians may feel, in the absence of any specific prohibition in the Bible, that trimming nose hair does not go against their conscience. But is that the correct view?

Since we hold the scripture as our unfailing guide, we want to be “full grown in our powers of understanding” (1 Corinthians 14:20), and understand “the deep things of God.” (1 Corinthians 2:10).

To understand the issue under discussion, three things have to be taken into consideration. The meaning of ‘nose’ in the scriptures; the figurative use of ‘hair’; and scriptural principles that have a bearing on the matter.

First the nose or nostrils.

When God created Adam, he proceeded to “blow into his nostrils the breath [form of nesha·mah’ in Hebrew] of life, and the man came to be a living soul.” (Genesis 2:7) This “breath of life” not only filled the lungs with air but also imparted to the body the life-force that is sustained by breathing. The breath being drawn into the body through the nostrils is essential to life; it sustains the life-force. At the Flood, “everything in which the breath of the force of life was active in its nostrils, namely, all that were on the dry ground, died.” (Genesis 7:22).

The Hebrew word for nose or nostrils (´aph) is frequently used to refer to the entire face. Adam was sentenced to earn his livelihood from the ground ‘in the sweat of his face [literally, “nose” or “nostrils”].’ (Gensis 3:19) Lot bowed down with his face (nose) to the ground before the visiting angels.(Genesis) 19:1.1

So it is clear from the above that when the Bible speaks of the nose it actually refers to the entire face and that the nose is the fundamental organ that keep us alive since it is the genesis of the life-force. Keeping this point in mind we now have to see what the word ‘hair’ means in scripture.

One may be forgiven for thinking that all hair in the human body is the same. It is the same as saying that the toes are the same as the fingers (both being digits) or that the elbow is the same as the knee (both being joints) or that the scalp is the same as the soles of the feet (both being skin).

The hairs of the head, facial hair and pubic hair though fundamentally the same in substance, have different textures and uses. This dissimilarity becomes more pronounced when we consider the other hairs on the body like those which are found in our ear or inside the nostrils. About the hair in our ears consider the following information that appear in The Awake magazine issue of January 22, 1990 (published by the Watchtower Society).

“[In one of the walls in the inner ear known as] the basilar membrane, is the highly sensitive organ of Corti, named after Alfonso Corti, who in 1851 discovered this true center of hearing. Its key part consists of rows of sensory hair cells, some 15,000 or more. From these hair cells, thousands of nerve fibers carry information about the frequency, intensity, and timbre of the sound to the brain, where the sensation of hearing occurs… thus sound of a specific frequency produces waves that flex the basilar membrane at a specific spot, causing the hair cells there to react and send signals to the brain. The location of hair cells would correspond to the frequency, and the number of hair cells triggered would correspond to the intensity.”

In the light of this scientific fact can we conclude that the hairs inside the ear are the same as those on the head?2 A ear specialist would laugh at the suggestion. The same is the case with hair inside the nose. Consider the following facts:

“The olfactory area is located in the upper part of the nasal cavity, where the olfactory nerves terminate in hairlike endings; also fine endings of the trigeminal nerve are found in this area. The sense of smell in humans is very acute. According to an article in the Scientific American (February 1964, p. 42): “The sense of smell obviously is a chemical sense, and its sensitivity is proverbial; to a chemist the ability of the nose to sort out and characterize substances is almost beyond belief. It deals with complex compounds that might take a chemist months to analyze in the laboratory; the nose identifies them instantly, even in an amount so small (as little as a ten-millionth of a gram) that the most sensitive modern laboratory instruments often cannot detect the substance, let alone analyze and label it.” The nose also plays a large part in taste. There are four primary tastes: sweet, salt, sour, and bitter. These the taste buds in the mouth recognize. But much of the flavor in food is enjoyed because of the sense of smell. For example, a person whose nostrils are stopped up finds difficulty in distinguishing between two kinds of food, as most things then taste more or less flat. 1

These facts prove that the hairs in the ears and in the nose are actually nerves and not hairs at all. Can you imagine pubic hair helping us to smell and taste? But nasal hair does. We smell and taste due to the “hairlike endings” which are actually nerves.

This is also proved by the fact that some of us may even find that bright sunlight is enough to cause sneezing. This is because the eye nerves are closely connected with the nerve endings in the nose. (Awake 90 6/8)

In fact nasal hair may also have a part to play in digestion. Awake of February 8, 1987 (page 30) had this to say: “According to Dr. Volker Schusdziarra from the University of Munich, peptides (chemical compounds) that control digestion and arouse feelings of hunger and satiety and that are normally found in the stomach and intestine have recently been detected not only in the brain but also in the nerve cells of the retina. The German medical magazine Zeitschrift für Allgemeinmedizin reports that new variations of these substances are discovered continually. It appears that they carry messages between the sensory organs (eyes, nose, tongue, and so forth), the brain, and the digestive system.”

To sum up, we see that the nose often refers to the face and nasal hair is not hair at all but nerves. Hence, trimming nasal hair is actually like cutting the nerves of ones face. In the light of this let us turn to the Bible to understand the scriptural principles.

Christians are aware of scriptures like 1 Corinthians 11:14: “Does not nature itself teach YOU that if a man has long hair, it is a dishonor to him.” And Leviticus 19:27: “YOU must not cut YOUR sidelocks short around, and you must not destroy the extremity of your beard.” However these commands cannot be applied to nasal hair since we have seen that nasal hair is actually nerve.

However two scriptures have a bearing on the matter under discussion. God’s law to the Israelites stated: “YOU must not make cuts in your flesh.” (Leviticus 19:28). As we have seen trimming nasal hair is tantamount to cutting the nerves of one face.

Moreover wise King Solomon observed: “For the churning of milk is what brings forth butter, and the squeezing of the nose is what brings forth blood, and the squeezing out of anger is what brings forth quarreling.” (Proverbs 30: 33). Here tampering with the nose is equated with provocative wrath. Remember that the Bible repeatedly warns against wrath and anger (Colossians 3:6).

In view of the foregoing, mature Christians may take a dim view of trimming nasal hair. In fact trimming of such hair could only be allowed as part of an emergency surgical procedure. Cosmetic trimming of such hair may not be proper. The principle found at 1Timothy 2:9 would apply: “Not with styles of hair braiding.” Here it is the principle of avoiding cosmetic procedures that is important, rather than the type of hair. Also as Matthew 10:30 assures us: “The very hairs of your head are all numbered.” Obviously the hair here is used figuratively and includes all hair not just on the head.

An important point to keep in mind is that God’s law prohibited certain ones from the assembly. We read at Leviticus 21:18, “In case there is any man in whom there is a defect, he may not come near: a man blind or lame or with his nose slit or with one member too long.” Since the scriptures show that trimming nose hair is like maiming the face one who indulges in such practices cannot be appointed to privileges in the congregation.

FOOTNOTES

1 Insight on the Scriptures, vol ll, pg 509-510, (published by the Watchtower Society).

2 Hair on the head is also a marvelous product of intelligent design. Awake of August 22, 1989 (pg 31) reported: “Drugs such as cocaine and heroin, for example, will not be found in the urine even a few days after use. Yet these drugs will show up in a hair analysis months later. This is because drug residues remain embedded in the hair as it grows. Bernard Gropper of the National Institute of Justice observes: “Hair has the advantage of long-term memory. It’s a permanent record, like tree rings.” A three-inch [8 cm] strand of hair will give a six-month history, since head hair grows at a rate of about a half inch [1 cm] a month.”

And this passage from Awake of November 22, 1972: “Your hair actually can indicate the condition of your health. This is due to the fact that hair is one of the fastest growing tissues in the body, and any abnormalities in the chemistry of your body will show up in the growth structure of your hair. Some doctors are even beginning to think that it is possible to diagnose a person’s illnesses by examining a strand of hair.”

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