Saturday, November 20, 2004

No, Virginia, the Earth Is Not Flat ... They Just Believe It Is

By Rosemarie Jackowski

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Posted 11/20 | Add a Comment

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  1. Yes. If we START by taking the profit out of war, we’ll be taking a giant step toward taking the superficial satisfaction that comes from arrogantly asserting superiority over others...among other things.

    Posted by Richard Oxman from  on  11/20  at  11:40 AM

  2. Search Google about “Peak oil” , You will learn something interesting.

    Posted by conrad petrovich from europe  on  11/20  at  12:03 PM

  3. Intuitivley, something in me tells me that the creation of self-sustaining communities of kindred spirits… where resources of every form (material and intellectual) are shared and commonly owned… is part of the answer.  Governments generally thrive through the co-dependency of its slaves; ooops, I meant citizens.
    So the less dependent we become on the Government by becoming more self-sufficient as communities, the less potent the Government becomes.  Just listening to the particularly loud voice of my intuition today.

    Posted by Nader Rider from  on  11/20  at  01:12 PM

  4. The Green Festivals --arguably some of the most dedicated efforts to expound upon what NR lays out here-- make SOME positive contribution. However, the money-grubbing elements associated w such events...arguably...make us all take two steps back for every step forward. I submit that until we undermine capitalistic elements (embraced in projects sponsored by the likes of such Green proponents)SIMULTANEOUSLY we won’t make many advances. “No one turned away for inability to pay” resonates on this count.  I believe that was the order of the day at both OUTSIDE THE BALLOT BOX and ONEDANCE. Speakers like Moore and that very funny Big Name dude from Texas could charge a little less, do a bit more pro bono work to help in this way. NR’s wonderful intuition needs to be encouraged, supported.

    Posted by Richard Oxman from  on  11/20  at  01:20 PM

  5. For additional color commentary on this issue: read this.

    Posted by Nader Rider from  on  11/20  at  01:36 PM

  6. I admire Hackworth - he is as antiwar, in terms of what he puts out there, as we are - he just needs the soldier’s “get up” to influence his base.  And it is irony that only the CIA, the military and the left (not even liberals, where he is hardly mentioned) are into Chalmers Johnson who imho is twice as important as Chomsky/Blum etc.

    Posted by j cummings from  on  11/20  at  04:27 PM

  7. NR...Thanks for that info on the Williams Conference. I sort of remember when it happened. Some interesting topics were dealt with there but I think that conferences that give the message, subtle or not, that there are experts who should tell the common folks how to live their lives, are elitist. Also setting up a successful commune or independent community would be difficult. I’ve seen the experiments with community “money” and bartering fail. Also, are we ready, as a society, to eliminate government ? We are living at a time and place in history where most families, by choice or necessity, do not take care of their own.  Look at how many children there are in day care centers, many from the time of their birth....and the treatment of the sick and elderly in nursing homes is something that everyone should see.

    Posted by rosemarie jackowski from  on  11/20  at  04:29 PM

  8. War is the health of the nation…
    I just finished Welcome to the Machine. Derrick and George remind us that war is an ESSENTIAL element of capitalism since war creates scarcity which drives up prices and results in profits for producers. I don’t know if all the evidence would support this, but my guess is that by and large it would.

    Re; organizing, what do you do when you know people are are very smart and Left etc., but think trying to organize and educate is a waste of time?

    Re: the 911 connection, and 911 generally...Cockburn did it again, he BELIEVES the government conspiracy theory (never having bothered to review any of the evidence in print) that 19 Arab hijackers with boxcutters flew four planes into...you know the rest.... I agree with him that the vote fraud issue has come to serve as a diversion for the ABBers to avoid admitting what a horrible candidate the Democrats put up, and what a horrible party the Democrats truly are. But even there, he does not touch the issue that Thom Hartmann rightfully addressed: why are private for profit corporations running the voting process (fraud though the process is in the first place, something that Hartmann would probably not admit)?

    Sorry to ramble off Rosemarie, your articles are always a great contribution to this site.

    Posted by Rhino Rick from  on  11/20  at  07:52 PM

  9. Thanks Rhino Rick...your comment said a lot. My article was inspired by the fact that I have been receiving a lot of questions from ordinary people...some who read the PA site, and others who do not have computers. People have been asking what they should say to loved ones, sons, daughters, husbands, wives, etc who are thinking of going into the Military. I know that most PA readers are well informed and their knowledge base is out of the ordinary. BUT,
    the average person on the street really believes in the 9/11 connection to the war and that the US is fighting to protect us. The point that you make about war bringing profits is the single most important fact that should be brought out. I absolutely believe that history shows that that is the cause of the wars that the US has persued over the centuries. How can we get that simple fact out to the masses ????  I think that organizing is sometimes inefficient.  I have seen too many meetings where they meet to decide where and when the next meeting should take place but I admit that organizing is an essential part of any group effort.  About educating, that IS important but there are so many obstacles...too many towns where our view is rarely in the local newspaper, for example.  There is only Freedom of the Press, if you own the press.  I am not optimistic at all. I think that the US has put the planet in an impossible situation. I think that maybe it will take a powerful event or outside intervention and help from concerned people in other countries to change things. I do believe that possibly the survival of the planet is at stake. Think about the food supply, for example. I think that Monsanto has successfully sued the Canadian farmer because some seed blew on to his land.  That is just one small case of how one corporation has almost total control of the food supply. There are so many examples. The FDA and USDA refuse to allow the testing of cattle for Mad Cow because of the lobbying of the Cattlemen’s Association. That is a very interesting legal case. (Apologies to all of the vegans out there) The people of the planet are under a full spectrum assault...wars, the food supply, pollution, and on and on. What do you think that we should be doing and what would you say to someone who was thinking about going into the military?  We might be running out of time.

    Posted by rosemarie jackowski from  on  11/20  at  08:49 PM

  10. Watch people in a dining establishment.  Most of ‘em won’t refuse or send a meal back to the kitchen if it doesn’t meet their standards.  They’ll eat what is handed to ‘em.  Very few will hold the chef or cook accountable to their personal standards.  If people eat food this way, they’ll eat disinformation from the media in the same manner.

    Posted by Nader Rider from  on  11/20  at  09:54 PM

  11. Osama bin Laden succeeded in returning George Bush into the Blackhouse.  It was on what date?  Oh, yeah, October 29, 2004, the day remembered as ‘Black Tuesday’ way back in 1929.

    That’s something.  He wants to bankrupt the US economic system and he makes a ‘stellar’ re-appearance on the anniversary of the worst stock market crash in US history.

    How much is OBL worth?  750 million USD, give or take a few kopecks?  He profits from war, too.

    You have got to hand it to the guy, he’s a superb politician.

    Theo Van Gogh went to his urn exposing Muslim fanaticism and abuse of Muslim women and children, but no word of it here.  I guess that isn’t that important at this forum. 

    Maybe we might learn a thing or two from Mr. bin Laden.

    Someday.  Hey, let’s keep demonizing the US government.  There is a lot of political mileage in that obfuscation and all other governments look good in comparison.

    Posted by MDPB from  on  11/21  at  03:10 PM

  12. Rosemarie’s articles are a welcome to PA as are Rhino’s comments.

    I think Rick hit upon something. Even though progressives challenge a lot of corporate media nonsense, it seems many still buy into some questionable scenarios.

    Posted by kim from  on  11/21  at  03:17 PM

  13. A government that has been hijacked by an army of the likes of the nauseating Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Bolton, Rice, Delay, Hastert, not to speak of Kerry, Daschle, Pelosi, and that spineless bunch, and is nothing but a shitbag of greed and corruption, completely in opposition to what a democratic goverment ought to be and stand for ought to be demonized.  It ought to be tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail.  But Americans are too busy deciding what to watch on TV, pursuing their every last pleasure and personal aggrandizement, and above all building their wallets and bank accounts, to monitor, let alone hold accountable the rapists, thieves and murderers that hold positions of power and influence in this filthy and vile land called America.

    Posted by Tracy McLellan from  on  11/21  at  04:05 PM

  14. As far as OBL wanting to bankrupt the US economic system, I wonder why he’s wasting his time.  The Bushies and their forbears, and their permananent wartime economy are doing a stellar job of that on their own, just as their proxies, the WTO, WB, IMF, and that bunch of bandits is to other countries’ peoples around the globe.  It is around the corner, perhaps just a few years, perhaps even months or days, that a complete global breakdown is coming if we don’t change our ways.  And I wait on the brink of orgasm for that day.  If for no other reason than the flip Americans who know nothing better than the size of their bank accounts and Everybody Loves Raymond, can know the pain I’ve suffered. 

    At the same time these maggots of seething greed are obliterating the ecosystem of all earth’s inhabitants. Indeed, perhaps we owe OBL a debt of gratitude for attempting to bankrupt America’s economic system.  It ought to be bankrupted in any event - along with much else about America.  Its bankrupted culture and thoroughly corrupted political process, for starters.  Maybe then we could start over and develop real democratic institutions responsive to the citizenry rather than a phoney democracy and legislature that toadies for every last whim of its corporate bribers and benefactors.

    Posted by Tracy McLellan from  on  11/21  at  04:29 PM

  15. Doesn’t take much time to condemn and villify the Bush Cabal.  They have no idea of what kinds of fools they have become.  Fools never learn.

    The assertion about some kind of exonerating circumstances, the feeble, feckless attempt to mitigate the facts was absurd.

    We are all guilty.  No one can claim they are not in some way innocent of wrong doing.  It can’t be helped, we’re human.

    George Bush is human, too (although some may think otherwise).  Everybody makes mistakes.  I suppose the elite, the real players, jump for joy when the finger pointing deflects their complicity.  How many times must George Bush continue to be fooled before he shames himself?

    I have briefly followed Percy Schmeiser’s ongoing problem with Monsanto over the last three years or so.  What I have read and learned about him, if you are going to mess with Percy Schmeiser, you better be ready.

    Monsanto has bitten off a bit more than it can chew when they decided to sue Percy Schmeiser for violation of not notifying Monsanto that Monsanto’s patented canola seed was growing in his canola fields.  He’s a tough critter and I don’t think Monsanto was ready for old Percy.  They still aren’t and probably will never be.  Percy might have lost one round, but Monsanto has more to lose than a round or two.  They probably will.  Percy isn’t about to roll over and die.  That day can wait.  He ‘ain’t’ just huffing and puffing.  It will be a feud to the bitter end.

    He’d make a good President.  There is no fooling Percy Schmeiser.

    Posted by MDPB from  on  11/22  at  12:18 AM

  16. I’m not sure why you have to waste a breath giving any succor to the likes of Bush, MDPB.  It is one thing to be full of human foible and frailty and get a little sperm on the toilet when you masturbate.  Quite another to be imperfect and command the most murderous military killing maching in history and bungle into the nefarious imperial adventures that Bush has, and Clinton, and the rest of them before him.

    Posted by Tracy McLellan from  on  11/22  at  01:21 AM

  17. The Universe is just, I believe, even if some of its inhabitants are anything but.  If we, as a nation, can not bring ourselves to our knees in humility (secular, not religious), the Universe will compel us to do so in time.  It’s how the Universe works, I believe.  That’s why it’s often more rewarding to exert our efforts to get us to bend our knees first, before we feel the pain of being forced to do so by external circumstances.  How, then, do we as a nation change our march throughout the planet… from a domineering one to a humble and respectful one?

    Posted by Nader Rider from  on  11/22  at  02:04 AM

  18. Dear Rosemarie,
    Thank you for your very timely, informative article.

    To the rest of the PA readers: I would love to read some of your responses to Rosemarie’s question in post #9 above: “What would you say to someone who was thinking about going into the military”? Thank you.

    Posted by Crystal from  on  11/22  at  03:50 AM

  19. I would say to a young person who was looking into a military career to talk to those who’ve come back from Iraq with physical and emotional wounds that may never heal first.I’d also really drive home the point that they will indeed be killing actual human beings,people with family and friends,people who just want a safe place to live,clean water,land that supports growing food,and to be able to sleep without wondering what horror comes next.I’d show them photos that have found their way to the internet of the real costs of war.I’d have them read books not written by people who think war is an industry and a game.And mostly,I’d tell them that we need them here,we’re about to embark on a fight like no other in history on our own turf.We need their brains,since brains seem to be in such short supply these days in the hallowed halls of government.(ok those in power aren’t stupid,but they sure as hell don’t have a conscience)And mostly,I’d really convey,with all my heart,that if they return home in a body bag,I’ll miss them,grieve terribly for them,and wish to god I could have done more to stop them from leaving to fight for someone else’s money grubbing agenda.

    Posted by Tammy from Metro Atlanta  on  11/22  at  07:32 AM

  20. To Crystal...thanks for your comment. Too many of the “troops” don’t realize what they are getting into when they sign up. Most counter-recruiting groups inform potential enlistees of the lies that recruiters tell.  I prefer another approach. I believe that the enlistees should be told about the life long burden of knowing that you have killed innocent civilians. Of course, I acknowledge, that there are some who go into the military because of a sadistic desire to kill. I have actually been told that by some. There is not much that I can say about that group of sadists, but many others are looking for the glory, the educational, and the economic benefits. They should be told about the personal price...giving up your soul and your humanity.  Once you’ve killed a child or any civilian you cannot unkill them. It is pure and simple, once you have killed you are a killer. I suggest that anyone thinking about joining the military should first read Zinn’s History and of course Blum. Also the Geneva and Nuremburg Principles. Also everything on the PA site and the Veterans for Peace site. Also 2 movies, Born on the 4th of July, and the old one, Judgement at Nuremburg. ALSO, AS A SOCIETY, WE SHOULD BE CELEBRATING THE CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTORS, INSTEAD OF HAVING PARADES FOR THOSE WHO ARE SO WILLING TO KILL ! Also, I would explain the fact that the troops are endangering us at home, by their killing in other countries, so that means that joining the military is most UNPATRIOTIC act that a person could do.

    Posted by rosemarie jackowski from  on  11/22  at  09:12 AM

  21. The root of the term conscientious objector is conscience for a reason.  I don’t believe that any manner of rational argument can have as much effect on a potential candidate for soldiery… as can getting him or her to pay greater attention to their conscience.  It is one’s conscience that ought to be the internal authority of one’s actions and decisions in life, not the external authority of other people’s opinions or rational argument.  In every discussion that I’ve had with a potential soldier, I’ve attempted to get them to reinstate the primacy of their conscience over the din of compelling argument.

    Posted by Nader Rider from  on  11/22  at  11:50 AM

  22. NR...I like your argument.  I have said those same words to my friends who are doing counter-recruiting.  They disagree and argue that the most compelling reason to give for not signing up is that the economic and educational benifits are mis-represented by recruiters.  I like your argument better.  BUT, I have been meeting some of the troops who say that they are going to Iraq to kill people because THAT is the right thing to do. Many in this country have been brain-washed by the educational system and the media. Also there really is another group who are patholgical, and find joy and pleasure in the killing.

    Posted by rosemarie jackowski from  on  11/22  at  03:03 PM

  23. It has been my experience, Rosemarie, that anyone who successfuly taps into the internal authority of their own conscience… will invariably conclude that “doing no harm” is in sync and alignment with it.  It almost always is the case, I’ve discovered.  Conversely, and when people develop a righteous reason for killing, they are just-as-invariably tapping into external influences instead (i.e. educational, conventional media, cultural, familial, etc.).  If we can redirect people to trust in and listen to their consciences more, we will have a nation and a world that is deserving of our inhalations and exhalations.

    Posted by Nader Rider from  on  11/22  at  03:13 PM

  24. *laughs* Sorry for the proliferation of my comments re. this issue.  If this site had an edit function, I’d be editing my previously placed posts istead of adding to the thread.  Alexander just wanted to add his two cents on the matter,

    “Justice is conscience.  Not a personal conscience, but the conscience of the whole of humanity. Those who clearly recognize the voice of their own conscience, usually recognize also the voice of justice.  - Alexander Solzhenitsyn

    Posted by Nader Rider from  on  11/22  at  03:30 PM

  25. NR...My view of “conscience” might be slightly different from yours.  I believe that it is an internal voice, a compass, that is fragile and can be destroyed. The whole point of Military training is to destroy that voice. The taboo against killing is removed by military training.  There is very little in the literature about this.  One of the best descriptions of how military training destroys conscience was written by Tim McVey. Also remember the Ft. Bragg murders of the soldiers wives.  I try to explain to families the dark side of military training and the fact that once a taboo against killing is removed, it can not be easily recreated.  Maybe I am not as kind and forgiving as you are. I believe that some people have no conscience and are just plain evil. How else can you explain those who laugh and find joy in the killing.  Remember the troop, who coldly said, “The Chick was in the way”.

    Posted by rosemarie jackowski from  on  11/22  at  03:34 PM

  26. Our views about what the conscience is are not as different as you may think they are, Rosemarie.  Our consciences are our inner voices indeed.  Or that part of us that is connected to the Oneness (or fill in another decriptor of your choosing here) of it all.  We may, however, differ in our views of our consciences’ longevity or ability to usurp the external forces that battle to drown it out.  While our consciences may never be destroyed, I believe, they can be effectively drowned out for a period of time.  And all it takes, sometimes, to hear our inner voice… is to stop listening to the cacophony of voices that are endeavoring to drown it out.  That’s why the media takes great pains to avoid showing the excrutiating pain and suffering of war.  They don’t want our consciences to be awakened and listened to.  But our consciences can always be heard, Rosemarie.  We just have to stop listening to the voices that are endeavoring to drown it out.  And some of those voices include our well-intentioned efforts to logically convince people that they are wrong, in my opinion.

    Posted by Nader Rider from  on  11/22  at  03:49 PM

  27. And in case you may be wondering what science has to say on this issue, Rosemarie, here’s a link that you may find interesting.

    It also helps explain why the Administration took great pains to rush their invasion and occupation of Iraq.  God forbid that people would have enough time to reflect on the morality of such an intervention.

    Posted by Nader Rider from  on  11/22  at  04:30 PM

  28. Thanks for that link. I had not read about that particular experiment but there have been many similar that I know about. When I was raising my daughter, we dealt with the issue and had a name for it in our home. We called it “Eric Dorf Syndrome”, which to us meant doing something that violated your conscience because of the outside pressures. This discussion with you is very interesting to me because in a recent interview about events surrounding my arrest, I said that my only criticism of the police is that they did not take off their guns and badges and join in the Protest. Of course, I understand why they didn’t, with jobs to keep and families to support. I believe that NO employer should expect employees to leave their consciences and their humanity at the the doorstep...but they do.

    Posted by rosemarie jackowski from  on  11/22  at  06:42 PM

  29. I’m glad you mentioned a parenting example, Rosemarie.  For there are many child psychologists who believe that our children first learn how to trust an external source of authority over their internal ones… from their parents.  I see enough examples of this, unfortunately, as a single parent.

    Posted by NaderRider from  on  11/22  at  10:45 PM

  30. Dear PA Friends,
    A heart felt thank you to all who responded to the question of enlistment. Your soulful words Tammy say a lot and brought me back to the real reasons I do not want my son to join the military. Rosemarie and NR, you both stirred a lot of food for thought as well. I hope I will be able to touch my son like each of you touched me. I pray that none of you ever has to experience this heartbreak w/your children. Much love to you all.

    Posted by Crystal from  on  11/23  at  04:55 PM

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