Any “religion” that ignores or tolerates honor killings, killing of gays, violent genocide, slavery, stoning to death for drinking alcohol or for marrying someone of her own choice, the sale of women and the sexual abuse of young people is not a religion; it is a criminal conspiracy.
Fools rush in etc…….
You may recall that General Nagata is a top US General. He is quoted as saying, “We do not understand ISIS, and until we do, we are not going to defeat it. We have not defeated the idea. We do not even understand the idea.”
How telling this is. In 1995, a similar shocking statement was made by former Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, who admitted that during Vietnam War that he had had no idea of the crucial influence of China on Vietnamese history. Now, 20 years later we read that a top-ranking military officer “doesn’t understand” why so many Muslim Sunni men might turn to violence. It’s fine for the general to call for comments and help, but why didn’t he inform himself a decade ago of the history of the Middle East in general and the factors driving young people to violence?
Americans and the British can rarely bring themselves to see reality from the point of view of others. From about 1830 onwards, the West’s military power was so overwhelming that the Europeans didn’t have to fire their gunboats to get what they wanted from Asian and African societies; the mere threat accomplished the objective. That is what came to be called “peaceful economic penetration,” after World War I. (Contributed by Carmen).
And yet, after all these years of war, our leaders don’t seem to have a clue about the cultures of Islam. The world is seen by them through a self-confounding superiority complex, the INS (indispensible nation complex), where you are fooled by your weaponry and your own hyperbole into appointing yourself Top Policeman on Earth.
Epicurus might ask, “Why do men always have dominate and control others?” He believed in equal opportunity and not bossing others around. We have done, quite unwittingly, sufficient damage. Now stay out of the moslem wars that we are not competent to win!
Two nations with bribery in common – and not much else.
On a two-day visit to Islamabad this week, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced plans to invest $46bn in Pakistan to create the “China-Pakistan economic corridor”, a patchwork of major infrastructure projects linking the two countries. For Beijing, the plans are a step in consolidating its influence in the region, while Pakistan hopes the cash injection – which dwarfs the $7.5bn invested by the US in 2010 – will boost its economy. (The Week)
Excellent! Early imperial over-reach? The Western world will breathe a giant sigh of relief if China takes over one of the most corrupt, violent, disfunctional and ungovernable countries in the world and lets the rest of us stop worrying about it. Britain could never tame the wild North West Frontier under the Raj, nor can its current government. Maybe China will be more successful? Whether President Xi is wise, and whether he will get his money back, is another matter. Pakistan is an extreme example of why Epicurus disliked involvement with governments and politics (see current news about the assassination of free speech activist Sabeen Mahmud, a courageous woman who fought for human rights. No one has been arrested for any political assassination for many years).
YOLO
What does it mean? It’s youthspeak for “You only live once”.
Unbeknown to them, the young have instinctively grasped the idea of Epicureanism, some without ever having heard of Epicurus! Congratulations!
Battling the admass man
In 1954 J. B Priestley coined the word admass: the creation of the mass mind, the mass man. Admass man was blinded by the dazzling array of consumer goods offered by the consumer society, his senses dulled by the bland rapidity of modern communications and the pervasive pressure of advertising; he lived, Priestley thought, in a mechanical, superficial, conformist world, where people would cheerfully exchange their last glimpse of freedom for a new car, a refrigerator, and a TV Screen. Sixty years on ad,ass man is more the norm than the exception.
The greatest engine for fighting this blight of consumerism is education. I don’t mean training or learning a manual skill. I mean being enabled and encouraged to question everything, to think outside the box, to see connections where no one else sees them, to solve problems that others dither over, to expose the double talk and double-think that characterizes so many self-important people, and to be able to argue your point of view politely but convincingly. I would also add that the study of history, greatly misunderstood as a boring string of events, kings and battles, is actually a study in human motivation and nature, properly taught, of course.