USA

Obama’s Pax Americana

April 13, 2015 by Leave a Comment

A visitor from the 80s’, merely 30 years ago, would have been amazed at the stories newspapers tell today, the U.S. is making peace with Cuba which for some reason was left as an enemy while normal relations with Russia had been restored 20 years ago. The small island nation somehow managed to maintain its social revolution way longer then the mother country and also carried its obligatory title as the enemy of the American people.

President Obama takes care of this one, and as his term as president nears a close he is moving all the pieces so relations with Cuba are restored. However one must wonder if this change will really change the day to day reality of the simple Cuban teenager who is pimped daily for what many Americans would consider lunch money, or to the Cuban young man how is harassing tourists along the beach for a couple of green dollars.

With all the above criticism of the current U.S. president Cuba is actually a normal move, it is right in reach of the American continent, it is almost Miami’s closest city. It is the moves in the Muslim world that Obama makes that should raise concerns, mainly due to the lack of any sense of those moves – apart from one – letting someone else do the dirty work.

A long time ago president Obama choose to address the Arab Muslim nations by rushing to Cairo for his first speech, many thought this signaled that the man himself was a Muslim and a member of the Muslim brotherhood, however now Obama is busy courting the “other side” of Islam – the Shia Muslims. He had given up on his Sonni Muslim, many of whom are long lasting American allies like Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and turned to the Iranians (not Arabs but Persians) for what can only be seen as desperate cooperation.

Somehow all of this can be told as a simple story, the Americans want order, they thought that the Sonni Muslims could provide it but it failed and now they are trying with the Shia Muslims in hope that Iran carries more weight than its previous allies. The only problems here are that both sides of the Muslim world are hostile to each other – and that everyone is aware of this American “dance”, which makes this kind very awkward.

Lessons From the Boston Bombing

May 7, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Two weeks after the bombs that shattered the concept of security for most Bostonians and many other US citizens it is time to start reflecting on the lessons learned and the people involved. This is not a research in the personal history of the bombers and their passage from country to country, the pathology of a soul that looks for a place to call home and that eventually finds itself murdering the people who not only embraced it, but the same people who had hopes to make their spirit grow and soar.

Most of the attention is focused on the living suspect of the bombing, the successful student, honorary sportsman and a hard working young man who had allegedly participated in the planning and execution of the bombing, as well as the later terror attack. Shockingly this is not a surprise, nor is this anything that anyone can say can not happen. And that is entirely the fault of the Western civilization, with its years long “correctness” towards religion and different cultures.

The hatred that many religious people (of many different religions, by the way, but most dangerously of all of Muslims) harbor against the west can and could have been diminished if only we had some more pride in the development of the Western civilization, if we would not shy away from declaring that this society is better, more advanced and more free because it has evolved away from religion.

Instead of accepting any type of “belief system” out there we should emphasis the long road that democracy has made from ancient Greece to today, the development of free people in Europe (French revolution) and the American declaration of independence which is practically the manual for any true liberal out there.

You want to practice your pagan religion? good, do it at home, and do not harm any one in the process. You want to slaughter a lamb in your bathroom because you think God likes you better if you do it? well, you better eat the whole thing and send your kids to a school where they will explain about the un necessary pain and suffering inflicted on animals in the name of god and its followers. Do not expect us to giggle as you tell us about your traditions, rather expect us to be enraged that you do not embrace the civilization that accepted you – and we do expect you to show appreciation of this culture and civilization by respecting its most basic values.

So next time someone tells you they are off to Koran lessons, or they say that they decided to drop their plans for academic studies because “only god matters”, try and give a shit attention and tell them that you hope that they also spend some time learning about what led to the American revolution, to current suffering of most women in the Arab world, the Church denying Africa condoms and much more – you might just prevent the next hobby bomber.

When Politics and Movies Mix

February 25, 2013 by Leave a Comment

The first lady made a surprise visit to the Oscars ceremony yesterday, not in person but by a video link to the White House, and as a presenter of an Oscar, not any old Oscar but the one for best movie of the year. The first lady is not an actress, and nor is she a direct politician, so that makes or more or less like anyone else sitting and watching at home, and why exactly would she present the Oscar for best film when the very capable Jack Nicolson is just there and can do a better job at this?.

Is this another move to blur the lines between government and entertainment, or is this some PR stunt who is made to enforce the “cool” factor the president and his wife enjoy?, say whatever you will, time is running short for the American government to fix a leaking economy, which is in dire need of life boosting injections every few weeks so it would not implode, but for some reason the attention is diverted to completely different things – who have no real value.

The Academy award is given by the members of the acting academy, not by friends and relatives of elected members of the public, the idea is to have the award served by those who know the actual craft and can show their appreciation of the work their fellow actors and film makers have made, this is clearly not the case here, lets hope is it not a sign of a desperate “bread and circuses” tactic.

Sometimes, What You Believe Can Get You Killed

August 29, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Most people will not understand what rattlesnakes have got to do with faith, or god or Christianity. It is very strange indeed that some people connect these deadly reptiles with anything that is spiritually based, but not a complete shocker that some people found a way to incorporate snakes into their belief system.

In one of his brilliant talks Sam Harris talks about the power of faith and belief and how stupid it is of us to “respect” people who believe – or rather the belief itself. Not everything anyone believes is worth respect, in some cases it is worth nothing more then ridicule, and in the case before us it deserved (past tense) a stern warning that simply was not there – probably due, in part, to the fact that people are too careful not to criticize beliefs of other people.

This is the sad and tragic story of pastor Mack Wolford, better known as the “Serpent pastor” for his belief that people should play with deadly snakes as a way to test their faith, a kind of a faith-o-meter that has got to have you on your toes at all time, because if your faith diminishes for any kind of reason you could very quickly die of a snake bite. There are many things I can doubt, but I have little doubt about the very high level of Mack Wolford’s belief, it will be safe to guess that it was as high as it can be in any person of faith.

But faith did not save Mack, and if you read carefully you will also come under the impression that he was in no great rush to save himself once bitten, because faith should not only work as a shield to protect form bites (which it failed to do) but faith would also heal the bite by itself, without needing those crazy hospital things.

Lets put things right and proper right here, there is in no way an attempt to laugh at this case, because the man had died of a snake bite. What was already a completely not normal situation in the fist place – having deadly snakes around, became an even more serious situation when the person got bitten, only to slowly get himself to a medical facility. Faith does not do that to people – Religion does.

Religion feeds this monster and keeps it alive, these non sensical interpretations of what the bible tells us to do, what god wants us to do, how we should do it – gets people all kind of ideas, and since the big man is never around to make clear what exactly he wants us to do, well, these things just grow into these type of situations.

Is it crazy that a man died because of a bite of snake that he had as a pet because he believed that god wanted him to do that? yes it is. Is it immoral for a 44 year old man to have this kind of belief without anyone in the church around him stopping him from literally killing himself on these basis – we guess not, because it seems to be more difficult to tell someone what he believes is nuts than to face and and say the truth.

The Honest Atheist

August 29, 2012 by Leave a Comment

Jerry DeWitt story — The Jerry DeWitt Story

It is moving to learn about people who need to force their way to the light, to break out of an old mold and bravely build themselves a new philosophical cornerstone. Not everyone is born an atheist, or gets to grow up with parents or siblings who are not believers and who regard religion as something that is best kept for spare time as a hobby (at best), for those who are born into this world with parents and a whole community of believers it is unbelievably difficult to break the mold and step forward.

It take a lot of courage, but even more than that it takes an honest person to reveal him or herself as a non-believer to a community that has never accepted anything but believers – who are formed in their own shape. The honesty is a vital component here because it seems easy enough to not say anything to anyone and only to be a non-believer at heart, the story of Jerry DeWitt is not one of “closet” atheist but of a person who found out he does not believe any longer and when confronted with the every day stuff religious people deal with his honesty took over.

This article about Jerry DeWitt (NY Times) is well worth a read, to remind many of us that there are still plenty of people in this world who face extraordinary difficulties in expressing their own belief in public and who need to pay a dear price for it, and also remind us that our conscience and beliefs change – and that we should accept changes in others as we wish to have them accept those changes in us (almost sounds religious – does it not?).

And what is it exactly that is moving in this story? the fact that a pastor drops out of his faith or the fact that this step is met with so much resistance and anger, fear and hostility?, we should hope that in the very near future people who live in Western countries (such as the U.S.) could make steps that correlate with their moral compass without fear of becoming a community outcast, or getting fired from work, or losing all your friends.

Religion has formed itself on cases like these, it has been doing that for hundreds and thousands of years, it is no mistake that a former pastor turned atheist gets to do this walk of shame, because religions have gotten used to systematically bully free thinkers out of stepping forward, and at the same time to fiercely preach for being true and honest. The community in this case follows the old golden rules, “it its not like you – treat it badly”. That is the only way religion knows how to survive, and this will change only when the balance of power will turn and religions will be outnumbered by non believers.

Still, this pastor is somewhat lucky, for if he was living under Islam he would have lost much more.