Published on

Saturday, June 01, 2019

Common Dreams

Time Bombs: A Meditation on Walt Whitman’s 200th Birthday

by Bill C. Davis

 

Today is Walt Whitman's 200th birthday. A friend observed it's better he's not seeing what's happened to his country.

Trickle down theory applies here. America has a death penalty. America has the largest military in the world and in history. America will not stand being crossed. These moments of spasm and orgy are threads in a cultural fabric. Americans have a right to be enraged because of being crossed or challenged or humiliated.

Of course the question to be asked and rarely answered: what prescription drug was this current killer on? Without an answer to that, the basic anthropological truth about human beings is they will strike depending on the perceived depth of a threat or insult. The intensity of the strike is ratcheted up based on a cultural citizenship where the phrase "shock and awe" has become a national cornerstone. It's a phrase concocted because Americans would get it and accept it and in some cases make it part of their interior weapon stash.  

The hardware is always debated. The core nuclear reactor is the subtle and pernicious permission to access this aspect of human nature. Prior to a duel the classic phrase is "I demand satisfaction." This phrase has not been retired in America. It's not pistols at dawn it's a weapon of war whenever. 

One has to assume within these human time bombs is a hiss or a scream of "I hate everybody." Or "I'll show you if it's…the last thing I do." A gun settles scores. A gun satisfies the rage of indignation. There must be a sense of relief as a killer sees his targets fall dead. Is it that Americans feel more of a right to that feeling than other nationalities?  

When we strap ourselves in at a movie we hand ourselves over to the fantasy of killer justice. The antagonist will get either a bullet in the head - or an arrow in the chest and  in a crowded theater—cheers. Each audience member wants to be that person who delivered justice. Above all else - this is how you get justice. Kill.  

Walt Whitman's 200th birthday. He was a wound dresser during the civil war so he knew what men tend to do to each other. I suppose a war of sorts is in progress here - the enemy gets chosen not by geographical location but by a roulette wheel of sudden psychotic combatants. Background checks? First question. Are you a human being? Yes. Sorry—no gun for you.

A German's view on Islam

A German's view on Islam  

Worth reading because this is by far the best explanation of the Islamic terrorism I have ever read. His references to past history are accurate and clear. The author of this text is Dr. Emanuel Tanya, a well-known and well-respected psychiatrist--a man, whose family was of the German aristocrats prior to World War II, and owned a number of large industries and estates. When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide and shape our attitude toward the present day Islamic fanaticism. He said, - Very few people were true Nazis, but many enjoyed the return of German pride the Nazis brought to the German nation, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen. Then, before we knew it, the Nazis were in control of the nation, they owned us, and we had lost control. 

Suddenly they plunged the country into a devastating and costly world war, and by the end of the war we had woken up to a new reality - our world of comfort, peace and freedom had come to an end. My family lost everything. I ended up in a concentration camp and the Allies destroyed my factories. I see the same situation playing out today with respect to the attitude of the majority towards the current Islamist movements. We are told again and again by 'experts' and 'talking heads' that Islam is the religion of peace and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace. This unqualified assertion may be true, but the fact is that it is entirely irrelevant! It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the specter of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam. 

The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history. It is the fanatics who march. It is the fanatics who are waging any one of the 50 shooting wars currently going on worldwide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups in Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, and carry out the so called honor killing. It is the fanatics who take over mosque after mosque. It is the fanatics who zealously spread the stoning and hanging of rape victims and homosexuals. It is the fanatics who teach their young to kill and to become suicide bombers. The hard and quantifiable fact is that the peaceful majority, the 'silent majority,' has been cowed and made extraneous and irrelevant.

Communist Russia was comprised of Russians who just wanted to live in peace, yet the Russian Communists were responsible for the murder of about 20 million people. The peaceful majority were irrelevant. China's huge population was peaceful as well, but Chinese Communists managed to kill a staggering 70 million people. The average Japanese individual, prior to World War II, was not a warmongering sadist. Yet, Japan murdered and slaughtered its way across South East Asia in an orgy of killing that included the systematic murder of 12 million Chinese civilians, most killed by sword, shovel, and bayonet. And who can forget Rwanda, which collapsed into butchery. Could it not be said that the majority of Rwandans were peace loving'?

History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt. Yet for all our powers of reason, we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points: peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence. Peace-loving Muslims will become our enemy if they don't speak up, because, like my friend from Germany, they will awaken one day and find that the fanatics own them, and the end of their world will have begun. Peace loving Germans, Japanese, Chinese, Russians, Rwandans, Serbs, Afghans, Iraqis, Palestinians, Somalis, Nigerians, Algerians, and many others have died because the peaceful majority did not speak up until it was too late.

Islamic prayers have now been introduced into Toronto and other public schools in Ontario, and, yes, in Ottawa too while the Lord's Prayer was removed due to being so offensive! But to whom? Not to the vast majority of Canadians but to the few Islamic fanatics! The Islamic way is only peaceful until the fanatics move in and take control. In Australia, and indeed in many countries around the world, many of the most commonly consumed food items now have the halal emblem (i.e a sign or instruction that says this product is not to be eaten, consumed or used because Islam forbids it) on them. Just look at the back of some of the most popular chocolate bars, and at other food products in your local supermarket. Foods on aircraft have the halal emblem, just to appease the privileged minority who are now rapidly expanding throughout the world. In the U.K, the Muslim communities refuse to integrate and there are now dozens of no-go zones within major cities across the country that the police force dare not intrude upon. Sharia law prevails there, because the Muslim community in those areas refuses to acknowledge British law. As for we who watch it all unfold, we must pay attention to the only group that counts - the fanatics who threaten our way of life.

Anyone who doubts the seriousness of this text and just ignores without sending it on, is contributing to the passiveness that allows the problems to expand. So, extend yourself a bit and send this on and on and on in the hope that thousands, world-wide, read this, think about it, and send it on - before it's too late.

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