Government-Free: Babies Hold the Key

I dont fully understand the anarchist. our most basic unit (a family) has some structures that tend to make it a govt. Without a set of rules to go by then what is acceptable and what is not? Without a form of govt then who enforces what is considered acceptable by the unit?
I tend to believe govt should be strongest and most powerful the closest it is to the people and should loose strength the further it moves away from the people. A community should handle the needs of the people as it is most closely associated with those people. By time you get to a body as far removed as the UN it should have little or no power. Maybe if nations where kept weak then they wouldnt be so ready to go to war.
Im hoping our elections here are a pull back of power the govt has taken from the people. The ruling class in the last 2 years took a normal market correction and turned it into a crisis and thereby not only hurt this country but the economy’s of many other countries. No govt should be that powerful.

D. Thacker

I understand your points.  I don’t think anyone can call what America was in for a “normal market correction” though.  The patsy, regardless which party line s/he towed, was going to take a big, ugly fall.  I’m not American, just married to one, so I’m not a democrat or loyal to any political bent but I do agree with those who say the fall was inevitable.  How could it not be?  America went to war… America invaded several countries this decade… that alone causes a depression, if history is anything to go by.  When thought of statistically, logically and historically, America has fared extraordinarily well considering how much money they have shelled out in military bullshit.  There is nothing normal about war, and it is devastating on all levels especially financially, including the invading country… just ask Germany.

I do agree, though, with what you say about gov’t powers, when it is thought of in terms we know community to be – based in agriculture, structure, hierarchies, etc.  Most of us have never lived in any other kind of society, so therefore cannot even create in our minds an alternative.  I’d like to run down that road for a minute, starting with a quote I found while googling this info:

Children (as Liedloff saw in the indigenous societies in the Amazon) were always touched and always treated with complete confidence, but were never pampered. They got what they needed without ever being told what to do and parents never expressed anger towards them. Every step children took was of their own will and motivation. She refers to this as instinctual parenting. That is something primal. Her realizations are rather universal… But civilized living is anti-primal. Children must be broken and must learn to obey orders from the start or they may never be of use. To become a part of the machine, we must start from birth. We must learn very early the need for efficiency. And what’s more efficient than complete standardization? Liedloff saw that a baby is taken immediately from the womb into the arms of its mother. She’s the first thing the child will see. It hears the familiar heart beat and feels the heat of bodies. She saw births in the hospital where children are taken in sterile hands, measured, weighed, and set alone to learn the most central message of civilization: infinite need. What it eventually gets is a pathetic substitute for being held: bottles of formula, mechanical love, noise, and the loneliness and boredom of the crib. It cries for distant parents who are eager to ensure their independence and gets more attention from soft fabric than warm skin. It learns the importance of compromise. Confident and fulfilled children are not efficient machines. Everything must be done to undermine them. But the psychological pain goes deeper than this. It begins at conception. It takes in the anger, hate, love and fear of its mother in a world of compromise and the misery of not being efficient enough. We are assured that children are not thinking even if the religious say that they are full beings crafted by god. They’re just lower on the social ladder. We are told not to listen to the senses. Words are more important. Science can prove it. With this divine knowledge, we can continue to inflict the original trauma without consequence. And even better, we can take no fault for children with homicidal and suicidal tendencies. Chemical imbalances, chemical solutions. We breed the killers and they are increasingly efficient. Green Anarchy – Sticks and Stones and Nursing Homes

There is a reason I bang on about instinctual, primitive, connected parenting… because the way people parent ultimately affects my world and everyone in it, because each of us as parents is the caretaker of a future adult.

If we inflict foundational harm upon our children in deep psychological ways, then we will pay a price, we have paid a price.  When we compromise our child’s emotional well being for an immediate desire (or “need” as we prefer to call it), by putting them in child care too early, not holding them frequently, isolation sleep, “crying it out” to sleep, punishing emotions (like tears or anger), shaming, slapping, yelling… well, the list is long – when we do this, it is easier for now, and we may even get compliance or a good night’s sleep depending on the immediate goal, but the long term sacrifice is a well rounded child.

Hurt people hurt people, and since we have all been hurt, we all continue to hurt others, and we hurt our kids and pass the baton down.  Have you ever considered how a person might parent if they were never damaged as a child themselves?  If they were the “ideal” balanced human being, filled with light and love?  Perhaps our birthright, if we follow our instincts instead of our ego and the latest advice?  I’m not sure if there is such a person out there, but I know that there are those who are much closer to that than the western human being, and at least one such tribe is living in the Amazon basin.

It is important how we treat our babies from birth onward.  Be it circumcision, lack of skin on skin contact or the many other things we inflict on our babies, people in our culture have a traumatic entrance to life.  We are so deep in this indoctrination, most people I speak to about this have not even considered it before… we take it all for granted because we can’t remember any of it ourselves.

Something has gone terribly wrong with our society and we are out of our minds if we think we can heal it without considering how we treat our infants, and by extension, each other.

I don’t think anarchy is tenable.  Perhaps it is, depending on the definition… and I like to think anything is possible.  I am not saying I don’t believe in hierarchy, soft hierarchy.  I just don’t believe gov’t works – but then, “works” is a subjective term.  If I am a Bush relation or a fearful, compliant middle class white collar, well crap, gov’t works brilliantly!

Being governed is all our ancestors have ever known for thousands of years, and such embedding is all but impossible to reconsider.

Government relies on force and punishment.  Since you mentioned family, I should mention I do not do either of those things as a parent, and don’t believe they are necessary.  In fact, I know they are not necessary, because of families like mine and whole cultures.

People often told me my plans as a parent would not work, because children need to be led, punished, disciplined, controlled, or at the very least guided.  I call bullshit.  And I have evidence on my side… evidence for love and against tyranny.

When I hear it extrapolated into whole communities that we need to punish, force, dictate (“lead”), threaten… I can’t help but wonder if they are also wrong about that.  People are hopelessly wrong about human nature in general.  We underestimate not only our children, but ourselves, and our fellow beings.

What do we have gov’t for?  What do we have all these rules and laws for?  For safety and security?  The crime rate in countries with strong governance and tight laws, such as the USA, can be comparable to that of countries with civil unrest!  The sense of security is all but missing, fear is rampant, health is flailing, freedom is a memory and people are overworked and trapped.  But hey, they get to vote so YAY, hail government.

Ok, I know most agree with all that and think that a change in gov’t is the answer… I say: deluded much?  But I understand the attraction to being dragged into political games, and it doesn’t help that we are afraid of being the only one left standing on a soap box, that “a gov’t will be chosen, so I should at least have a say which one it is”… playing the game is the only option we’ve been given.  And that is why it is important to think outside the GIVEN information.

The fear is real that if we take back our freedoms and reject most of gov’t then we will have to fight for our lives – all of us, not just the handful that live in dodgy neighbourhoods, such it is currently.  People believe the strong will take everything and the weak will starve and so on and so forth… and secretly, most of us believe we are weak, so this picture does not appeal.  However, I suggest a look around you… who has most of everything anyway?  Is it you?  Is it even anyone you’ve met in your life?   I’d expect the next point brought up would be that yes, I guess we do have to struggle to get by, and most of our resources are controlled and used by a very tiny minority but at least we haven’t been treated like slaves, at least we aren’t tortured or have our towns burned to the ground; we’ll sacrifice some freedoms to be free of the worst potential.

At this point I’d like to take a moment on the word “slave”.  I see it defined as a person owned, deprived the right to payment and unable to quit work.

We have a sense of free will, because no one can technically force us to work, but what happens when we stop working?  We will lose everything, and unless we get charity, we will die from lack of shelter and food.  The free will idea is a total illusion.

For those lucky or privileged, we are able to choose our poison, and get weekends off.  Good’nuff.

In countries like Australia, they have more of a sense of free will.  A mother is paid over $1800 a month to stay at home with her children until they are 6 years old.  Socially, that resembles a family much more… however, hand to mouth is no way to live.  The money is barely enough for rent and food.  Plus, you have to contract yourself very heavily to the gov’t for the hand outs, they now know more about you than you do.

If the planet was still covered in food trees, then perhaps being out of work wouldn’t be so scary… feeling hungry, go out foraging.  But we’ve paved everything, so that’s out.  If the planet was still covered in greenery, we could fashion a shelter… but we’ve paved everything, so that’s out.  If it isn’t paved, it’s owned by someone else.  When we scale it right back to ABSOLUTE FREEDOM, it becomes blindingly obvious that those living in the jungles are the only ones who have any clue what that is.

The “want of something more” is our culture’s branding through childhood, the aching need to have, to be, to DO, so much so that the mere thought of simply playing like children in earth’s gardens without TV and museums scares the shit out of every single one of my friends and family.

There are cultures dotted around the globe that do not have gov’t, or anything like it.  They are self governing.  Alas, we can’t just take a note pad and have a round table with these people to extract their system blueprints, because it is very little to do with structure and there is no system.  Actually, it’s a little like looking for God… it ain’t “out there” in a system or a book, it is within the people and the environment, it is completely organic, and built into the way they move and think … it is the totality.  To isolate or separate parts of the whole destroys the whole.  Like God, if you can describe it, that’s not it.

We need to start in the cradle, by throwing the cradle away and then holding more, loving more, listening more while they cry in our patient arms, being more present.  The link between infancy and politics is not acknowledged, yet it is definitely cause and effect.  How can it not be?  We stopped listening to our instincts and started treating our most receptive sponges like inconveniences to run from as often as possible, confusing their biological instincts so much they become attached to comfort objects (aw, ain’t it cute?) and learn not to cry or rage, then we stick all these angry people together in a school yard… and we wonder why people are broken and bruised.  Broken and bruised people have no place in gov’t, but we have no other choice – we’re all broken and bruised.

There was a story told by Jean Leidloff in her book.  First, it is important to know that babies in this tribe rarely cried, they were compliant and happy and could play by a fire or a cliff safely.  They are extraordinary, and they turn into extraordinary adults who have no word for “work”, because there is no distinction between work and play, it’s all just life.  Women walking to the river to bathe, tossing babies to each other, laughing, playing, collecting and cooking; men running around like boys in a robin hood movie; they give and take fluidly, no one feels fearful, they have complete autonomy and no one expects apologies because no one assumes fault… it’s magnificent.

So comfortable in their naked bodies, comfortable with touch, just the way eden may have been before we tore things apart and built new things in an effort to understand… SCIENCE we called it (science means “knowledge”) and then we separated concepts and events into “good” or “bad”, right and wrong, and the duality was born.  A myth was written to capture this moment when we crossed from wild paradise to caged fear: “eating from the tree of knowledge” or the tree of “good and evil”.   It’s a story at the beginning of a very famous book I once read.

Well, in Leidloff’s story, there was a little boy who was taken from the jungle to America for a couple of years.  When he came back, he was just like a western child – snitty, seemingly uncomfortable in his own skin, whiney, cried often, had tantrums, wanted more, gave little… we know that child, we’ve met that child, we WERE that child!  He eventually healed.  No one pandered to him, but no one reigned him in.  He was given unconditional trust, and although he initially abused that trust, he healed.

People in these kinds of cultures don’t need govt because they aren’t expanding and don’t need to make a bunch of decisions.  They live simply and symbiotically with each other and earth.  They don’t ask for permission from anyone or seek a law book.  Children included.

Soon, they will all be gone.  There were millions of them, now there are thousands of them.  We are killing them for various reasons: our diseases, our pollution, our moralising attitudes, for openers.  Our fear has us wondering how they deal with the danger, what about health care??  Our progress has given us surgery and pharmaceuticals, guns and steel… what would we do without them, surely they have some small place in the world??

The state of my culture is such that we would need guided leadership for some time if we decided to work towards minimal governance.  I do think it should be a goal though, because this merry go round is headed to hell.  There is TOO much invasion from the gov’t.  They only need do 1% of what they currently do.  America has the most prisoners in the world, and the most cops.  They are over policed.  Our culture allows the gov’t into our bedrooms by legislating sex and morality, it allows it in our backyards by legislating plants… PLANTS!!  There is nowhere gov’t has not raped and plundered our rights and freedoms.  Religion and the morality brigade have been instrumental in this.  ”Taking offense” being at the top of the list… when we started applying laws to victimless acts, we fell down the slippery slope.

I’m not sure if I’m an anarchist yet, they say it doesn’t work.  Yet, gov’t doesn’t work either.  So it’s not really a good point of comparison is it.

A bird born caged will know a kind of joy.  It may have an uncomfortable sense of wrongness and want of “something more”, but it has never known freedom… and as long as it never sees a bird in the wild, it will be satisfied with “all it has ever known”.  In fact, most caged birds set free will die, and many fly back to the cage.  It is not long ago that people referred to wild humans as “savages” and we still compare that lifestyle to “living like an animal”.  But it is the only way we were meant to live, because we are animals.  We are mammals, named so because we have mammary glands to breast feed and yet even that has been all but eliminated and the breast sexualised.  We are not thriving in this caged environment.

Unprecedented Temperatures My Ass – here’s the NOAA data

You should first know that I have a unique view of the climate issue.  I question the validity of the conclusions drawn by those on the side of the anthropogenic (man-made) warming theory (AGW).

However, I believe all fossil fuel mining should be stopped, immediately.

Not capped, not taxed, not traded, not reduced, not replaced.  CEASED.  That’s how to deal with a crisis, by the way.  Taxes are not usually how we deal with a life shattering crisis, it is how we deal with consumption, want and greed.  Remember to factor that into your equations.

There is a false assumption that if you are against the AGW theory then you are either paid by an oil company or you must think fossil fuel is a great idea.  Rubbish.  Fossil fuel is poison, the carbon dioxide it releases has nothing on benzene, formaldehyde and the many other ways it is polluting our planet.  The mining itself is destroying cultures and the planet.

I bought the whole kit ‘n’ caboodle of an AGW world ending crisis wholesale, because I’m a passionate greenie.  I didn’t just buy the idea, I bought 50 acres of mountain land and figured well, perhaps if the tides rise it will acquire an ocean view.  I am eternally grateful I bought that land, it has changed my life.  But I no longer buy the current dogma as it has been given to the twits we call politicians.

That’s not to say I reject it.  I just don’t buy anything completely anymore.  I recommend this approach, as I’ve found one only ends up the fool if one sticks rigidly to one side of something like one has any clue what is going on.  We don’t.  Now I have questions.  And it is from the perspective of someone who has seen both sides of this issue that I can share an oft-needed perspective on it.

If either an oil company OR a vested interest “green” company wants to pay me for my thoughts, hey, by all means, let me know and I’ll open a bank account.  Seriously.  But currently, I am not supported by any company.

The idea that only those opposed to AGW have vested interests is naive.  And naivety is not cute in adults.  This new era in energy sourcing in our history is about who is going to lose (miners, oil companies, et al) but more importantly it is about who is going to gain (environmental organisations, green fuel, et al).  And the gains are in the trillions of dollars.  This is the new oil strike, so it is no surprise that the original oilers, the Rockefellers, back the AGW agenda, as do oil companies (surprise surprise?).

If I had five cents for every time someone ignored the complete science of planetary climatology on the basis of “oh looky here, he was once paid by Shell!!” I’d be rolling in at least three bucks by now.  I’ve learned that it is at this point I close the discussion as respectfully as possible because I’m dealing with someone who is shut off from information that challenges their paradigm.  Talking to such people is like talking to a wall, only less civilised because walls don’t insist I’m an irresponsible moron who should stop asking questions, bow down before the flawless scientists and suck down the media sermon with ketchup.  And God bless them all because they are passionate greenies just like me, and lo, not everyone had the advantage of an upbringing as laden in science as mine was.

Those with the biggest vested interests currently reside within the AGW movement, including the scientists behind all the data our politicians use to make global decisions; the scientists rely on global warming being a man-made problem or they’re out of a very lucrative, highly respected job.

For more information on why I recommend going off the grid, boycotting all external energy sources and releasing your need for babysitting from governments click here. (if that isn’t a link, the page isn’t done yet).

Let’s Look At the Facts…

The temperature data we have been given all start around the date of 1880.  This is an example of cherry picking a start date.  Cherry picking a date allows us to show evidence in favour of our own agenda without actually lying.

It is a very common thing to do.  It can be found in all areas inside and outside of science to make a point and it is also very simple.  Just find an area on a chart that goes up, or down, depending on the point you’re trying to make, and use that excerpt of the data.  Most of the time, it is a kind of “zooming in”, and the only way to beat this method of data massaging is to zoom OUT, to get the bigger picture.

The following is a chart we all know and love.  It is taken straight from the NASA chart page, and if you click the graph, you will go to that page.  If you do that, be sure to take notice of the fact that almost all the charts start at 1880 and those that don’t, only zoom in further to a more recent date.

NASA Temperature Data

That chart can be confirmed on most mainstream sites including wikipedia.

wiki temperature record

Look at the charts above.  There are two sharp increases on the graph.  The first is between 1920 and 1940, the second is between 1980 and 2000.  Both of 20 year lengths.  Both of the same increment (2 points).

If one is paying attention (a rarity indeed) one will squint askance and beg the question: What caused the 1920 warming?  I’ve asked several people this exact question and the answers are always quite reaching and some are outright ridiculous and this is because there is no answer that furthers the carbon dioxide theory.

Apparently I was not alone in spotting this inconsistency:

Abstract:
We provide an analysis of Greenland temperature records to compare the current (1995-2005) warming period with the previous (1920-1930) Greenland warming. We find that the current Greenland warming is not unprecedented in recent Greenland history. Temperature increases in the two warming periods are of a similar magnitude, however, the rate of warming in 1920-1930 was about 50% higher than that in 1995 – 2005.

… a similar increase and at a faster rate occurred during the early part of the 20th century (1920 to 1930) when carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases could not be a cause. The Greenland warming of 1920 to 1930 demonstrates that a high concentration of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases is not a necessary condition for a period of warming to arise.

This is an excerpt from Greenland warming of 1920–1930 and 1995–2005, Petr Chylek, M. K. Dubey, G. Lesins, 2006.  Cited at NASA amongst others.

More data comments can be found at the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.

Zooming Out – DOWN with Cherry Picking

The following charts are based on data of the central Greenland ice core from the NOAA.  Charts have been made like this with the data, such as those on wattsupwiththat.com and Richard A Muller’s site, and the following ones are from the Watt’s site however I am currently making up my own charts as I don’t want the source to interfere (and no, I don’t know nor do I care if either of those two sites are paid by NASA or the gov’t or an oil company or an environmental agency or Satan himself – it is the data that is important, focus people, focus).  The data can be confirmed with NOAA.

This next chart is occasionally used and it shows the “hockey stick”, which is the slang used to describe the sudden upswing of temperatures towards 2000:

Hockey Stick 1400

It becomes clear why the date 1880 was picked as the start date, as there was an embarrassingly steep rise just after 1800 which hits a convenient plateau at 1880, and the NASA charts after that are what we were given.  So now the same question is even more interesting, “what caused the sudden rise in temperatures from 1830 to 1880?

Apparently this increase is due to human carbon emissions.  Yet, carbon emissions started back around 1880.  The population of the entire world was about 1.5 billion and there were around 600 cars on the road.  You know, 1880, with the corsets and horses and buggies and absence of plumbing - that 1880.  Now, there are approximately 6.8 billion people and 900 million cars on the road.  The increase in industrial emissions is similar.

For something that was only really beginning, that is a very sharp increase.  One would expect it would instead gradually increase as carbon emissions and industrialisation increased.

Here are a couple more graphs, zooming out even further:

Temperature History from 800AD

WOW.  Those people in the 10th century have some explaining to do!  Somehow “they” managed to “cause” pretty intense global warming.  Neither the speed of warming, nor the height of the current temperature is unprecedented.  In fact, on this next chart you will see there is nothing very warm about it at all; we seem to be on the cooler end of the global history.

Here’s an image worth examining:

Carbon dioxide has been blamed entirely for the recent increase in temperatures.  Not just CO2, but specifically human emissions of CO2 in the form of fossil fuel use.  Aside from the fact that those playing this tune must think we are complete idiots and will cling to anything to bring large corporations to justice, there is absolutely no evidence for this.  None.

Correlation is not evidence of cause.

It is all based on this equation:

CO2 is a greenhouse gas + CO2 is increasing + global temp is increasing = CO2 caused the increased temp

Be careful of such logical fallacies, they can be tricky.  What appears to make sense does not stand up to scrutiny.  In this case it is Confusing Cause and Effect.  The man-made global warming formula is much the same as this one:

smoking causes cancer + ten people have cancer + all ten people smoke = smoking caused the cancer in all ten people

Or more simply:

CO2 has increased

Temperature has increased

Therefore, CO2 caused the temperature increase.

To highlight the problem more vividly, how does this sound:

Ten people have cancer

All ten eat carrots

Therefore, the cancer was caused by carrots.

The fact that smoking has been shown to cause cancer makes the first conclusion I made sound reasonable and likely and the majority may leave it at that, overlooking something important.  What if all ten people were working together in an area polluted with radiation?  Stubbornly sticking to what appears to be the “logical” cause based on what limited information we have, destroys all hope of finding the real cause.

Hence, to question such a fallacy in the current political climate (no pun intended) is not only sound, it is essential.

Here is an interesting page on the NOAA Paleoclimatology that shows another possible cause of the problems we face on Earth today.  If warming is natural, cyclic or in some other way not a major threat (even if it is natural that doesn’t automatically mean it isn’t a threat, by the way) then we may make things worse if we treat the global issue as though there was one cause and one solution.

For instance, our agricultural practices have done the most damage to our planet.  They cause droughts and drying lands and dysbiosis through monoculture (large areas of single species plants) and messing with the natural landscape.  Bio fuels will only further this problem by destroying miles and miles of indigenous land and people to plant monocrops (corn and the other proposed ethanol fuel sources).

But… “as long as it’s not carbon” right?

Back From the Brink – How Australia’s Landscape Can be Saved is a book I recommend by an Aussie bloke who rescues one of the harshest landscapes on the planet, turning it from uninhabitable desert wasteland into a lush paradise.  While doing so he decreases termites and returns the soil from its dry, acid conditions.  This alone is enough to question the given reasons for our landscape changes.  Since when does warm = dry?  Some of the greenest, lushest places on Earth are the hottest – Northern Australia, the Amazon… surely we aren’t going to fall for the idea that any one thing, temp, CO2, etc, is causing the landscape shifts we have experienced?  Next they’ll find a way to convince us that warming is what caused the streams to become polluted.

There are many ways we went wrong and turned the paradise of Earth with her pristine food sources and crystalline water veins into a garbage dump with sewerage veins.

People ask me how, as a greenie, I keep trying to draw attention to this issue, isn’t it better to cut down on carbon emissions?  Well, of course we need to do that.  But that is not what is being planned, and it certainly shouldn’t be done at the expense of the planet and her people, that would defeat the purpose.  If we knee jerk react to this, we will make more mistakes and the cost will be great.

This page focused on one area: the idea that the current temperature is unprecedented and a threat of cataclysm.

CO2 rises after the temperature rises.  Worth mentioning, don’t you think?  I have found only one AGW advocate that addresses this (ineffectively), or any of the other issues with CO2.

Blaming large corporations is not the answer, for we are ALL to blame and need to change our OWN ways.  We need to stop focusing on how companies operate because not only has history shown this does not create change, but if we simply stop paying them (ie, for the energy they sell) they will shrivel like a picked flower.  You have the ultimate power, as the consumer.  Take responsibility.

Be aware the proposed “solutions”, such as biofuel and hydroelectricity will impact this planet and people in ways that are not being discussed openly.  Particularly for the indigenous.  For example, the proposed flooding of virgin indigenous land for hydroelectricity, displacing thousands+ of indigenous people.

And failing ALL of that, should you still be shaking your head and refuse to contemplate alternatives, consider the mere fact is they expect you to accept that carbon dioxide has caused the complex issues our planet faces today.  It’s laughable.  Even looking at the greenhouse effect, CO2 is about 2% contributer to it, humanity is about a 10% or less contributer to that 2%, making a total of some tiny percentage of contribution.

Possible?  Of course.  Probable?  Hmm, not convincing enough.  Definite?  Not even close.

Burqa Ban – Using Oppression to Beat Oppression?

I don’t do anything religiously, especially religion; hell, I can’t even have the same breakfast two days in a row without getting antsy… but I do believe in freedom.  I take a pure stance on freedom… in a room full of extreme freedom lovin’ hippies, I’d be the radical one.

I probably don’t believe in anything you do in a spiritual sense and I probably do a lot of debating about your beliefs and in all fairness I possibly have absolutely no respect for your beliefs… but you are not your beliefs, and I will argue to the end for your right to believe what you do; for your right to religious freedom.

So when I heard people are calling for a ban of the burqa here in Oz, one eyebrow raised reflexively.  For starters the word “ban” makes me twitch; despite the intentions and the rhetoric that there is freedom in security, I’ve yet to see something “banned” that resulted in more freedom instead of less.

I have been lead to believe this ban is already in place in at least one country (France), and apparently there are several altruistic reasons for the idea.  Reasons such as our overall security and to stop the oppression of Muslim women.

They must think our brains are made of putty… either that or theyare made of putty.  These days I’m starting to think the latter.

You may be shocked to learn that Muslim women actually believe in their religion just as much as the men do.  I don’t like the blatant inequality any more than any other non-Muslim woman but I don’t think force is the answer.  Inequality is a facet of all the major religions to different degrees… we’d have to start splitting hairs if we’re going down that road.  Why stop at apparel?

When we ban, we remove choice.

The women (generally, cos hey, I read Princess, too)  want to be wearing the burka, they feel exposed without it.

We all have our boundaries.  We are all comfortable exposing ourselves to a certain point and then it’s a no-go any further than that.  I read a funny report from a guy who visited a Muslim country and when he walked into an area of breastfeeding women, they saw him and freaked, rushing to cover their… faces.

In our culture, a breast is quite shocking in polite society even if it is being used for its original job of feeding a small person.  So right there is a boundary difference… and yet we have the gall to say our boundary is the right one, and they are wrong.  Western arrogance hasn’t abated much since medieval prejudice, that is clear.  Not that the rest of the world is free of such arrogance, but we’ve been stripping them apart for that already – time to pull the log out of our own eye.

In some cultures, breasts and genitalia are not a big deal.  Nakedness isn’t so much celebrated as, “eh, whatever” in some parts of the world.  We tell them to cover up.  We’re telling Muslim women to uncover.  We want everyone to be juuuuuust so, just like us, because we are right, and everyone else is wrong.  ”Myes dear, you must cover yourself from the upper thighs to the upper chest or you will be shamed… oh and keep your face uncovered, or you will be shamed… and sexiness before the age of 18 – shamed… and sexiness after the age of 40 – shamed…”  etcetera ad nauseum, Western Social Policing 101.

Goddamn we’re a bunch of hypocritical judgmental moralising snivelers, aren’t we??  Even now, even today, after all those movies and speeches of the 20th century we’re still doing the same thing but we’re so stuck in our idea of right and wrong we can’t even see we’re still doing it.  ALL of us, in some way, are judging and moralising and we tell each other it’s ok because we’re in the majority.

What if, when you visited or lived in a particular place, you had to remove all your clothing… ALL of it, or you were arrested.  Clothing has been “banned” here.  Remember, this is in your best interests, because women in certain cultures wear no clothing, so are obviously more free than you are.  This ban is for your freedoms, you are oppressed by your clothing wearing culture and we are going fix that problem for you by force.

Do you see what is wrong with this idea?  Can you for one second put yourself in the shoes of the “other”?  If we could learn to be the “other”, no matter where or what or who, rational decisions could be made.  So far, we keep making decisions and banning things and making rules and laws and carrying on like fruitcakes without thinking outside of our own boundaries.

We find sexy that which is hidden, mysterious.  Some cultures find the neck sexy, so they hide it and only bring it out for their sexual partner.  Some hide the sexual organs themselves, but the rest of the body is open including the breasts and buttocks.  In our culture, breasts are hidden and hey, guess what happened… breasts became “sexy” – and this isn’t a given, it isn’t the way it is in cultures where breasts are out swingin’ freely.  Muslim women save all of it, even the wrists are sensual if exposed, the face is the sexiest part of all and the hair a mass of adrenaline producing wowness.  Just like us and bare breasts, it has become like a law – and Muslim men don’t hide their wrists… but remember men in our culture don’t hide their breasts either.

Wanna fight for equality?  Learn to recognise it in yourself first.  See the ways you keep inequality alive in your own culture, in your own house.  When you sneer and judge (women showing cleavage, Britney Spears’ panty-less predicaments, boobs on gasp-shock-horror public television…) could you be shitting in your own nest… tying the noose around your own freedoms?

Bans and laws and rules do not give you freedom.  Don’t confuse security with freedom.  If you live in a small box where your food is brought to you and you cannot move very far… sure, you might have more security, but you’re in prison.  Like caged animals we have been trained to not just accept this oppressive “security”, we demand it, and we demand more of it.  If someone is hurt by a pole, we ban poles.  Or, if we’re American, we also sue the pole maker.

Don’t forget the litmus test:  if you are not doing something out of Love, you are doing it out of fear.

Did anyone else watch those bombs decimate Baghdad in 2003 and think, “Uhh, can someone tell me how this has anything to do with freedom?”

Invading = freedom

killing = freedom

banning = freedom

Who are they trying to kid?  Don’t be one of them, we need more clear thinkers, people taking action from a place of Love, not fear.

You don’t bomb, invade or ban with Love, ya just don’t.  You do those things out of fear.  If you want to “help” a Muslim woman, here’s a place to start: meet one.  Have the courtesy to ask her if she wants your “salvation”.

Hands Off Iran

This was not written by me.

I can’t help but notice the increase in anti-Muslim rhetoric on the internet of late.  I think the likely candidate for this aggressive stance may be Iran.  I keep hearing how they are getting nuclear this and atomic that.  My question is this, “So what?”

Many countries have nuclear weapons, and the United States has actually used them against innocent civilians, twice.  Iran’s only war of recent date has been against Iraq, which was fomented by the United States.  Nations should uphold and embody the principal of innocent until proven guilty.  The theory of a “preemptive strike” would not hold up in a court of law if I decided to act unilaterally against my neighbor, nor should it. The same holds true for countries.

Every country should be allowed to do as they see fit until they directly interfere with another country.  Until such time, they should be allowed to enjoy the freedoms and liberties we expect and demand.  It is not our responsibility to interfere with the method of governance of any other country.  When their citizens have had enough, they will change things for themselves.

I’ve noticed that a lot of news coverage has been spent on the proposed mosque near ground zero, instead of the Indian-made car that runs on compressed air.  Again my question is, “So what?”  Until there is a full, complete and transparent investigation of the events of September 11, 2001, I, for one, shall reserve judgement against Islam.  Please don’t forget that the government that guaranteed us that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, is the same government that condemned Muslims for the events of September 11th.

They were wrong about Iraqi weapons, could they also have been wrong about the perpetrators of the September 11th attacks?  Is it at least possible?  If you say, “No,” I implore you to dig a little deeper into the story.  Check out Architects, Firefighters, et. al., For Truth.  A whole lot of highly educated and reputable professionals have come forward to say that the events of September 11 could not have happened the way we are being told.  Could those in government at the time have had another motivation for war, etc., than protecting American interests and security?  Until we have some hard facts, I think we should hold our judgement and demand proof.  Especially about Iran.

Lets face facts, we’ve had enough wars and enough deaths.  Iran hasn’t done anything that America has done, i.e., develop nuclear weapons and use them against civilian targets.  Iran should only be held accountable when they actually have something to be held to account for.  Until such time, please join me in the refrain, “Hands Off Iran.”

Peace be upon you,

John Gabens

P.s.  I am not a Muslim, Christian, Jew or anything else.  I am a citizen of Earth, and my spiritual beliefs are my personal business.  I know love is the answer, regardless of the question.

Look different... have different beliefs... but all love the same... and all connected at the core.