"A View Upon Terrorism"
Let's begin with three simple definitions from the 1981 edition of "The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language."
Terror: 1. Intense, overpowering fear. 2. Anything that instills such fear; a terrifying object or occurrence. 3. The ability to instill such fear; terribleness: the terror of the haunted house. 4. Violence toward private citizens, public property, and political enemies promoted by a political group to achieve or maintain supremacy. 5. Informal. An annoying or intolerable pest; nuisance. Often used in the phrase a holy terror.
Terrorism: 1. The use of terror, violence, and intimidation to achieve an end. 2. Fear and subjugation produced by this. 3. A system of government that uses terror to rule.
Terrorize: 1. To fill or overpower with terror; terrify. 2. To coerce by intimidation or fear.
Please note that there is no definition for the word "terrorist." This, of course, is not because the word didn't exist 20 years ago. I'm certain that there's a grammatical term for the reason that the word wasn't included for definition, but suffice it to say that it's merely a term for one who puts the forgoing words into action.
I have another "definition" I would like to share with you today; however, it doesn't come from any dictionary. Instead, its origin is in a science fiction novel. I'm talking about John Brunner's 1976 book, "Shockwave Rider." This tome turned me on to two intriguing ideas. The one we're concerned with here has to do with a claim made by the main character of the novel when he says, "if evil exists in the world, it is when human beings treat other human beings as though they are things." I've since clarified that statement by claiming that one of the chief ways in which we create this evil is when we speak of our fellow human beings through the use of labels.
Now I've not speaking about every use of labels where human beings are concerned. For instance, the use of the label, "children," is not, in and of itself, evil. I'm speaking, instead, of the situations where people group others together under a label for the purpose of criticizing and degrading them. There are numerous examples of these words/labels: nigger, kike, whore, psycho, yankee, redneck, hippie, biker, queer, etc. These are all words designed to render a negative connotation towards an individual or a group of individuals. We could go on with contemporary examples such as liberal, conservative, hawk, dove, atheist, communist, infidel, and terrorist, among many others. The main error which leads to the misuse of these words is when we take the "actions" of an individual, or a group of individuals, and give those actions a label which we then use to judge the person/people, and those who are similar to them, who perpetrated the actions in the first place.
So one who lies becomes a "liar." A woman who has sex outside a certain prescribed concept of acceptability, or worse, in a way that many men secretly dream that they would like her to have sex, becomes a "whore" or a "ho." One who is opposed to war becomes a "peacenik," or "unpatriotic," or a "communist." Those who promote war become "hawks" or "warmongers." One who believes in the rights of others becomes a "liberal." This is not an easy issue to deal with. I find myself slipping up quite regularly by "labeling people" unfairly. This sort of thing often happens in moments of passion.
Anyway, I think that "terrorist" and "American" are two labels which have fallen into this category of personifying evil by many who bandy those terms loosely. Understand, I'm not saying that "terrorists" or "Americans" are evil, but that classifying "large groups of people" under these labels is EVIL. I'm certain that King George considered the perpetrators of the Boston Tea Party to be terrorists, and probably therefore thought of most, or all, "Americans" as such.
With all of that said, I'm gravely concerned at what is presently happening in my country, in the United States of America. It's true that Osama bin Laden was apparently responsible for striking terror in the hearts of Americans as a result of the events of September 11, 2001. However, since then, it appears to be our own government that fosters terror in the hearts and minds of our citizens.
When reading the definition of "terror" in the dictionary, following the word, "and" in definition number 4, there was a line break in the dictionary. During a quick glance at the definition, beginning with the new line created by this line break, a new definition appeared: "political enemies promoted by a political group to achieve or maintain supremacy." And that sounded just like what those in our government who are hell bent on going to war are doing to this country and to the world. They are creating labels for political enemies in an attempt to instill fear and terror and thereby achieve or maintain supremacy.
I want to make it very clear here that I am an American. I feel extremely proud, without reservation, about the good fortune of my citizenship . I served my 4 years of active duty in the US Navy during the Vietnam War, with the government's acknowledgement that I was a conscientious objector. However, that does not mean that I feel better than anyone else. It is not my desire to "lord it over others" that I have more opportunity than they have nor that I should assume that others hate me for what I have that they don't. I believe that it is the role of Americans to figure out how to share their good fortune with others, not to merely say, "work hard and you can do it, too," and then turn our backs and walk away. There is a tremendous amount of responsibility that comes with our national wealth.
Unfortunately, I do not hear this from most of our government leaders, our economists, or the major representatives of the media (particularly where many talk show hosts are concerned). The actions of many of the foregoing people is very inflammatory. It's as though some of these people seem to think that the "free speech" of the First Amendment means freedom to verbally terrorize others. And that is scary. It breeds a feeling of impending terror for my fellow citizens. Sheets of plastic. Rolls of duct tape. Colors of terror. The daily spin upon where terror might strike next.
As an example of how extreme some of this internal terrorist violence has become, I recently heard a talk show host "plead," on the air, for any listening gynecologist to voluntarily forcibly remove the sexual organs of a listener because the talk show host was offended by what the woman had said to him. I was offended by his statements and complained to the radio station hosting his program, but to no avail. It appears that certain forms of terrorism are tolerated by some in the media.
Many years ago I made the claim that, should a way be discovered to provide everyone on the planet with adequate food, clothing, and shelter, I was afraid that many of my fellow Americans would be the first to take up arms to put an end to such an endeavor. It greatly disheartens me how quickly many Americans jump to condemn others for reasons that often amount merely to the fact that those others are "different" and less fortunate.
On September 11, 2001, Osama bin Laden and his associates were able to strike terror into the hearts of Americans and others around the world through their attacks upon the Twin Towers in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. Although there have been other alleged aborted attempts at acts of violence by people who might be associated with Osama and his crew of extremists, the overwhelming source of the continuing terror felt by many has been perpetrated and encouraged by the Bush Administration of the United States Government with massive amounts of help from the largely American media. Whether one likes it or not, by definition, President Bush and his political and military associates and a large portion of the media are, again I remind you, "by definition," terrorists.
And their brand of terror appears to possibly be motivated by the definition of terror that revealed itself through my misreading of the dictionary definition: "political enemies promoted by a political group to achieve or maintain supremacy." It is a fact that shortly after the events of 911, President Bush, with an apparent sense of great pride, announced that his administration had "found the purpose" for the remainder of his term, as a result of the horrific events which had just transpired. But somewhere the administration seems to have gotten sidetracked. It's been almost 18 months and bin Laden is still out there, and the color-coded alert levels imply that he is just as great a threat as he was before we "went after him," and the administration has yet to present convincing evidence that Iraq is knowingly tied to the events of 911. They said that they would get bin Laden and they have yet to fulfill that promise. Now they say that they're going to get Saddam, and the only thing I can see for certain is that thousands of innocent people will die as a result of the actions of our government, with no promise that they will be any more successful this time than they have been at eliminating bin Laden. You know, of course, that our actions in Afghanistan have resulted in more innocent people being killed in that country, by us, than the number of innocent people killed in this country on 9/11.
This country's (U.S.) refusal to condemn Iraq's use of chemical weapons in its war with Iran, gave Iraq our blessing with our silence. I hear people shout about learning from the lessons of history, and I wonder why they can not see the history within our own lifetime when this country, the United States, was involved in "encouraging" Saddam Hussein to do precisely what we now condemn him for. That's sheer hypocracy. It's lunacy. And it has become its own form of terrorism
Increasingly I find terror in "political groups" who "promote" or publicize "political enemies" "to achieve or maintain supremacy." And if I have any fear at all, it is a fear of those people, my fellow citizens, who are too blind to recognize these acts of terrorism and are all too quick to condemn any of their fellow citizens, often through the use of labels, who may disagree with them.
Terrorism knows no creed. It can spring just as quickly from the left or the right or even from the center. Terrorism does not justify counter terrorism. Terrorism can not be defeated by "might" without "might" resorting to terrorism, in which case "might" loses, for it becomes what it is fighting. Terrorism can only be overcome through coming together and building upon our commonalities while respecting our differences. And that's why those who want to go to war are so ruthlessly vehement in their insistence that their way is the only way. They don't have the backbone to actually overcome terrorism by diffusing it. They can only strike back and thereby keep the game of terror alive. They demand that we look at the lessons of history. Well, history proves that striking back only breeds hatred and more striking back. The reason John Lennon said, "Give peace a chance" is because peace has never been given a chance.
The only thing our institutions support is "business as usual." Well, Albert North Whitehead said, "It is the business of the future to be dangerous," and "every new breakthrough all but destroys the culture from which it springs." Those are the true lessons of history. Those who want war need to wake up and grow up. War does not work. It only lays the groundwork for the next war. That is the lesson of history.
To support war implies that somewhere there is a justification for killing other people. When people use their religious beliefs to back up, support, and justify their desire to kill other people, they do a grave injustice to their religion, no matter what that religion is. The one thing that all religions have in common is what is classically known as the Golden Rule. Check out: http://www.fragrant.demon.co.uk/golden.html or http://patriot.net/~bmcgin/golden.html . Those who find other statements in their religious documents to justify their ignoring this common moral underpinning that runs through all religious thought are essentially spineless when it comes to doing what needs to be done. They are not the kind of people that I would count upon in the clutch, for if they should decide that I was the enemy, they wouldn't blink an eye before labeling me, doing away with me, and feeling justified in doing so.
Terror is based in fear. Some people find it easier to strike out than to confront their own fear. When we don't have the guts to deal with our own fears, then we take it out on someone else. That's where terrorism raises its ugly head. All violence is attached to terrorism. And all terrorism is intended to achieve a position of power ruling over others. That is not what America is about. That may be what some Americans believe, but it is not what all Americans believe.
No amount of judicial legerdemain will change the fact that the majority of Americans who voted in the last Presidential Election did not vote for the current administration. And it's only a matter of time before the sham of terrorism which is being perpetrated upon America and the rest of the world in an effort to cover up and accomplish "God knows what" will eventually unravel. I just hope that the unraveling comes before we go to war and thereby set in play events that will be extremely difficult to reverse, if reversal is even possible.
We intend to continue to comment upon this insane situation that has been created by the current ruling administration in our country. You can read about it here and at http://practicaltruth.blogspot.com .
Let's begin with three simple definitions from the 1981 edition of "The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language."
Terror: 1. Intense, overpowering fear. 2. Anything that instills such fear; a terrifying object or occurrence. 3. The ability to instill such fear; terribleness: the terror of the haunted house. 4. Violence toward private citizens, public property, and political enemies promoted by a political group to achieve or maintain supremacy. 5. Informal. An annoying or intolerable pest; nuisance. Often used in the phrase a holy terror.
Terrorism: 1. The use of terror, violence, and intimidation to achieve an end. 2. Fear and subjugation produced by this. 3. A system of government that uses terror to rule.
Terrorize: 1. To fill or overpower with terror; terrify. 2. To coerce by intimidation or fear.
Please note that there is no definition for the word "terrorist." This, of course, is not because the word didn't exist 20 years ago. I'm certain that there's a grammatical term for the reason that the word wasn't included for definition, but suffice it to say that it's merely a term for one who puts the forgoing words into action.
I have another "definition" I would like to share with you today; however, it doesn't come from any dictionary. Instead, its origin is in a science fiction novel. I'm talking about John Brunner's 1976 book, "Shockwave Rider." This tome turned me on to two intriguing ideas. The one we're concerned with here has to do with a claim made by the main character of the novel when he says, "if evil exists in the world, it is when human beings treat other human beings as though they are things." I've since clarified that statement by claiming that one of the chief ways in which we create this evil is when we speak of our fellow human beings through the use of labels.
Now I've not speaking about every use of labels where human beings are concerned. For instance, the use of the label, "children," is not, in and of itself, evil. I'm speaking, instead, of the situations where people group others together under a label for the purpose of criticizing and degrading them. There are numerous examples of these words/labels: nigger, kike, whore, psycho, yankee, redneck, hippie, biker, queer, etc. These are all words designed to render a negative connotation towards an individual or a group of individuals. We could go on with contemporary examples such as liberal, conservative, hawk, dove, atheist, communist, infidel, and terrorist, among many others. The main error which leads to the misuse of these words is when we take the "actions" of an individual, or a group of individuals, and give those actions a label which we then use to judge the person/people, and those who are similar to them, who perpetrated the actions in the first place.
So one who lies becomes a "liar." A woman who has sex outside a certain prescribed concept of acceptability, or worse, in a way that many men secretly dream that they would like her to have sex, becomes a "whore" or a "ho." One who is opposed to war becomes a "peacenik," or "unpatriotic," or a "communist." Those who promote war become "hawks" or "warmongers." One who believes in the rights of others becomes a "liberal." This is not an easy issue to deal with. I find myself slipping up quite regularly by "labeling people" unfairly. This sort of thing often happens in moments of passion.
Anyway, I think that "terrorist" and "American" are two labels which have fallen into this category of personifying evil by many who bandy those terms loosely. Understand, I'm not saying that "terrorists" or "Americans" are evil, but that classifying "large groups of people" under these labels is EVIL. I'm certain that King George considered the perpetrators of the Boston Tea Party to be terrorists, and probably therefore thought of most, or all, "Americans" as such.
With all of that said, I'm gravely concerned at what is presently happening in my country, in the United States of America. It's true that Osama bin Laden was apparently responsible for striking terror in the hearts of Americans as a result of the events of September 11, 2001. However, since then, it appears to be our own government that fosters terror in the hearts and minds of our citizens.
When reading the definition of "terror" in the dictionary, following the word, "and" in definition number 4, there was a line break in the dictionary. During a quick glance at the definition, beginning with the new line created by this line break, a new definition appeared: "political enemies promoted by a political group to achieve or maintain supremacy." And that sounded just like what those in our government who are hell bent on going to war are doing to this country and to the world. They are creating labels for political enemies in an attempt to instill fear and terror and thereby achieve or maintain supremacy.
I want to make it very clear here that I am an American. I feel extremely proud, without reservation, about the good fortune of my citizenship . I served my 4 years of active duty in the US Navy during the Vietnam War, with the government's acknowledgement that I was a conscientious objector. However, that does not mean that I feel better than anyone else. It is not my desire to "lord it over others" that I have more opportunity than they have nor that I should assume that others hate me for what I have that they don't. I believe that it is the role of Americans to figure out how to share their good fortune with others, not to merely say, "work hard and you can do it, too," and then turn our backs and walk away. There is a tremendous amount of responsibility that comes with our national wealth.
Unfortunately, I do not hear this from most of our government leaders, our economists, or the major representatives of the media (particularly where many talk show hosts are concerned). The actions of many of the foregoing people is very inflammatory. It's as though some of these people seem to think that the "free speech" of the First Amendment means freedom to verbally terrorize others. And that is scary. It breeds a feeling of impending terror for my fellow citizens. Sheets of plastic. Rolls of duct tape. Colors of terror. The daily spin upon where terror might strike next.
As an example of how extreme some of this internal terrorist violence has become, I recently heard a talk show host "plead," on the air, for any listening gynecologist to voluntarily forcibly remove the sexual organs of a listener because the talk show host was offended by what the woman had said to him. I was offended by his statements and complained to the radio station hosting his program, but to no avail. It appears that certain forms of terrorism are tolerated by some in the media.
Many years ago I made the claim that, should a way be discovered to provide everyone on the planet with adequate food, clothing, and shelter, I was afraid that many of my fellow Americans would be the first to take up arms to put an end to such an endeavor. It greatly disheartens me how quickly many Americans jump to condemn others for reasons that often amount merely to the fact that those others are "different" and less fortunate.
On September 11, 2001, Osama bin Laden and his associates were able to strike terror into the hearts of Americans and others around the world through their attacks upon the Twin Towers in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. Although there have been other alleged aborted attempts at acts of violence by people who might be associated with Osama and his crew of extremists, the overwhelming source of the continuing terror felt by many has been perpetrated and encouraged by the Bush Administration of the United States Government with massive amounts of help from the largely American media. Whether one likes it or not, by definition, President Bush and his political and military associates and a large portion of the media are, again I remind you, "by definition," terrorists.
And their brand of terror appears to possibly be motivated by the definition of terror that revealed itself through my misreading of the dictionary definition: "political enemies promoted by a political group to achieve or maintain supremacy." It is a fact that shortly after the events of 911, President Bush, with an apparent sense of great pride, announced that his administration had "found the purpose" for the remainder of his term, as a result of the horrific events which had just transpired. But somewhere the administration seems to have gotten sidetracked. It's been almost 18 months and bin Laden is still out there, and the color-coded alert levels imply that he is just as great a threat as he was before we "went after him," and the administration has yet to present convincing evidence that Iraq is knowingly tied to the events of 911. They said that they would get bin Laden and they have yet to fulfill that promise. Now they say that they're going to get Saddam, and the only thing I can see for certain is that thousands of innocent people will die as a result of the actions of our government, with no promise that they will be any more successful this time than they have been at eliminating bin Laden. You know, of course, that our actions in Afghanistan have resulted in more innocent people being killed in that country, by us, than the number of innocent people killed in this country on 9/11.
This country's (U.S.) refusal to condemn Iraq's use of chemical weapons in its war with Iran, gave Iraq our blessing with our silence. I hear people shout about learning from the lessons of history, and I wonder why they can not see the history within our own lifetime when this country, the United States, was involved in "encouraging" Saddam Hussein to do precisely what we now condemn him for. That's sheer hypocracy. It's lunacy. And it has become its own form of terrorism
Increasingly I find terror in "political groups" who "promote" or publicize "political enemies" "to achieve or maintain supremacy." And if I have any fear at all, it is a fear of those people, my fellow citizens, who are too blind to recognize these acts of terrorism and are all too quick to condemn any of their fellow citizens, often through the use of labels, who may disagree with them.
Terrorism knows no creed. It can spring just as quickly from the left or the right or even from the center. Terrorism does not justify counter terrorism. Terrorism can not be defeated by "might" without "might" resorting to terrorism, in which case "might" loses, for it becomes what it is fighting. Terrorism can only be overcome through coming together and building upon our commonalities while respecting our differences. And that's why those who want to go to war are so ruthlessly vehement in their insistence that their way is the only way. They don't have the backbone to actually overcome terrorism by diffusing it. They can only strike back and thereby keep the game of terror alive. They demand that we look at the lessons of history. Well, history proves that striking back only breeds hatred and more striking back. The reason John Lennon said, "Give peace a chance" is because peace has never been given a chance.
The only thing our institutions support is "business as usual." Well, Albert North Whitehead said, "It is the business of the future to be dangerous," and "every new breakthrough all but destroys the culture from which it springs." Those are the true lessons of history. Those who want war need to wake up and grow up. War does not work. It only lays the groundwork for the next war. That is the lesson of history.
To support war implies that somewhere there is a justification for killing other people. When people use their religious beliefs to back up, support, and justify their desire to kill other people, they do a grave injustice to their religion, no matter what that religion is. The one thing that all religions have in common is what is classically known as the Golden Rule. Check out: http://www.fragrant.demon.co.uk/golden.html or http://patriot.net/~bmcgin/golden.html . Those who find other statements in their religious documents to justify their ignoring this common moral underpinning that runs through all religious thought are essentially spineless when it comes to doing what needs to be done. They are not the kind of people that I would count upon in the clutch, for if they should decide that I was the enemy, they wouldn't blink an eye before labeling me, doing away with me, and feeling justified in doing so.
Terror is based in fear. Some people find it easier to strike out than to confront their own fear. When we don't have the guts to deal with our own fears, then we take it out on someone else. That's where terrorism raises its ugly head. All violence is attached to terrorism. And all terrorism is intended to achieve a position of power ruling over others. That is not what America is about. That may be what some Americans believe, but it is not what all Americans believe.
No amount of judicial legerdemain will change the fact that the majority of Americans who voted in the last Presidential Election did not vote for the current administration. And it's only a matter of time before the sham of terrorism which is being perpetrated upon America and the rest of the world in an effort to cover up and accomplish "God knows what" will eventually unravel. I just hope that the unraveling comes before we go to war and thereby set in play events that will be extremely difficult to reverse, if reversal is even possible.
We intend to continue to comment upon this insane situation that has been created by the current ruling administration in our country. You can read about it here and at http://practicaltruth.blogspot.com .
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