What WE know about the reality WE are speaking about drives ME to the following ‘inkling’:
We are living inside a three layered reality.
The ‘real’ one, the ‘perceived’ one and the ‘result’.
We ‘measure’ reality using our conscience. Through our senses. Very much like when we gauge a length using a tape measure. We apply the tape measure over the length and ‘read’ the number.
We apply the standards we’ve been groomed into over the underlying reality and we decide according to those standards.
Then we attempt to deal with the consequences of our decisions.
“Sheer hatred of the regime”….
Who’s painting the pictures we’re hanging on our walls? Who chooses them? Who has to make do with the ‘aftermath’?
Your ‘most cherished’ tool for bringing people back into submission being the all mighty thunder. Jupiter Tonans. The Thundering God. Thor yielding his Mjoelnir…
And now what?!? Every worshiping place has a lighting rod installed…
What do you feel? Have all those people lost their faith in you? In you behaving as a rational being? In your ability to treat them right? Are they convinced they are now insulated against your wrath?
War and chess have a lot in common. Most strikingly, the different manners in which both of them end.
The king is captured. Or the other side gives up.
A tie is nothing but the prelude for an encore, not a real end.
Even the roads to the end are very similar in both cases. While at the start of the game/’joust’ everything is ‘possible’ – nobody knows what the other side might be doing next, as the end nears each of the combatants are more and more limited in their currently available choices by the consequences of their previous decisions. By the very path they had followed since the beginning. Which path becomes more and more evident for everybody present. Opponent as well as spectators.
Finally – but not the least important, the similarities go even further. Deeper? The king is the most ‘important’ piece but not the most powerful. In fact, the king cannot do much by itself. It can help the other pieces achieve their common goal but when left alone it is basically powerless. The only thing it can do is run. But only as far as the board allows it to go… A pawn, if it manages to reach the eight rank, gets to be promoted. To become the new ‘right hand’ of the king. The new ‘most powerful member of the team’.
‘OK. And the real point of your post is?’
Putin cannot win this war – cause war it is, by himself. Hence he needs to preserve the loyalty of his henchmen, to instill enough fear into his opponents to make them quit and to convince the ‘spectators’ that their efforts to help Ukraine are too expensive.
Now! Are we smart enough to understand that we, each of us, are ‘next’? That each time a bully gets his way, all other (would be) bullies present become even more bullish? Are we smart enough to understand that the most meaningful thing we can do in this situation is to separate Putin from his power base? From the ordinary people who see no other alternative and from those who, for various reasons, continue to support Putin’s misconstrued ‘vision about the world’? Are we smart enough to understand that no matter how hard it is for us, the Ukrainians have it ten times harder?
Democracy is about every body having the opportunity to speak up their minds. To speak up their minds, not to kill their neighbors under the pretext that there is a difference of opinion between them!
“We didn’t invade Ukraine,” he claimed. “We declared a special military operation because we had absolutely no other way of explaining to the West that dragging Ukraine into Nato was a criminal act.” “Russia is not squeaky clean. Russia is what it is. And we are not ashamed of showing who we are.”
Are you trying to figure out what’s the real meaning of Lavrov’s words? Let me translate for you this fine example of NewSpeak.
‘We – those who are currently running Russia, will do whatever we need to do in order to preserve our power. In order to achieve that, we first and foremost need to convince the ordinary Russians to continue to obey our orders. In order to achieve that, we need to convince the ordinary Russians that you are the enemy and that their only chance lies with us, their current masters. Hence each time we destroy an Ukrainian apartment block and any of you says ‘Russians are savages’ we’re one step closer to our goal. Each and every time any of you declares ‘Russia has to pay for what it has done in Ukraine’ we tell them, the ordinary Russians, ‘See? This is what they plan to do to you once we’re are gone’.
WWI had lasted until 1945. We have the opportunity to end the Cold War now. The war in Ukraine will reach a conclusion. Let’s make it so that after the war will have ended, Russia will fold in the family of ‘civil’ nations.
Those nations that choose to live in peace! Not because they cannot win wars but because they have learned that winning wars it’s not enough. Those nations which have learned, the hard way, that war has but one winner while for peace to last every body must be a winner.
Going back is not an option. If back were good enough, we wouldn’t have left it in the first place.
Many people believe we’re reliving the fall of Rome. Contemporary with that fall was the advent of Christ’s teachings. The fact that, eventually, Christianity has altered his teachings to fit the needs of the christian hierarchy doesn’t demean any of what he taught us.
That people who treat each-other respectfully fare a lot better than those who allow the exploitation of the weak.
That people who live ‘together’ fare a lot better than those who keep forgetting that ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ are both relative and temporary.
That people who are convinced that ‘survival belongs to the fittest’ will eventually make place for those who understand that evolution is solely about the demise of the unfit.
“And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand: And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself; how shall then his kingdom stand? And if I by Beelzebub cast out devils, by whom do your children cast them out? therefore they shall be your judges. But if I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God is come unto you. Or else how can one enter into a strong man’s house, and spoil his goods, except he first bind the strong man? and then he will spoil his house. He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad.”
How many times have these words been invoked? By people who use them to divide? To carve a follow-ship? A follow-ship for them to lead…
How many times have these words been invoked? By individuals cocky enough to pretend they are speaking for Christ? Cocky enough to pretend they are able to fill Christ’s shoes…
Any way you look at what’s currently happening, it doesn’t make any sense.
Forget about ‘we’re throwing away 30% of the food we produce while a third of us die of hunger’. That’s ‘peanuts’. Not for those whose children go to bed hungry but…
People living on the northern side of the Mediterranean Sea had accomplished something marginally short of miraculous. They had come up with an ideology which convinced them to respect each-other. Christianity. They had been able to develop the best mechanism for allotting resources. The ‘free market’. And the best mechanism for reaching decisions for the entire community. Currently called ‘democracy’.
In their attempt to understand, they have devised an extremely original manner of looking at things. ‘Science’. Based on what they had learned through ‘science’, they had developed ‘technology’.
Working as a team – they used to respect each-other, as children of the same god – and making ‘good’ use of their technology, they had been able to conquer the rest of the planet.
At some point, Europe used to export almost everything – including coal, and import inconsequential things. Silk, spices, tea, sugar, cotton and tobacco. At that moment, England was considered the factory of the world. It used to manufacture and export the most technologically advanced ‘wares’. Fabric, ‘china’, steel products, machinery, chemicals… And coal! Which was warehoused around the globe and used, eventually, by the English steamships plying the seas for commerce. And for war…
Look at us now! We depend on our former colonies for much of our energy. Oil, that is. We depend on the rest of the world for much of the fancy foods we currently eat. Brazilian beef, tropical fruit, fancy sea-food… And we depend on China for cheap manufactured goods. From clothes to cameras to cranes. ‘White goods’, electronics – computers included, and almost everything else which is sold at decent prices.
Not to mention the fact that Europe had been the flashing point for three World Wars. I, II and the Cold one. Not to mention the fact that as I write the biggest country in Europe – Putin’s Russia, is trying to annex some 15 % percent of one of its neighbors. Ukraine, also an European country.
If any of this does a modicum of sense to any of you… please let me know!
I, for one, am at a loss. I understand what happened – stay tuned, but I have no idea when we’ll figure out we’re on the wrong track. Going in the wrong direction.
Both fascism and communism appear when enough people are fed up. Really fed up. So fed up that they have become gullible enough to accept the lies promised by those who want to get ‘at the top’, in the given circumstances. The difference between fascism and communism, the only one, being the exact conditions which had caused the ire of the people. Communism can, and will presently be, presented as the only possible alternative to those confronted by a ‘black ceiling’. Fascism, on the other hand, can, and will presently be, presented as the only possible alternative to those confronted by a ‘glass ceiling’. The always poor who have no chance of improving their lot will accept the lies promised by the communists. They don’t know any better so they believe those lies are possible. The impoverished who have no chance of returning to their former situation will accept the lies professed by the fascists. They know what they have lost and need to find a culprit to blame for what had happened.
In a sense you can identify fascism with the right and communism with the left. In reality, fascism and communism are the two ugly faces of the same fake coin.
An embassy is a conduit. It brings information back and forth between the ‘host’ and the ‘sender’.
A spy ring is (intended to be) a ‘one way pipe’. It gathers information about the ‘host’ and transports it to the sender.
They have in common the fact that the bulk of the information is gathered from ‘open’ sources. From the media, that is. Newspapers, TV, radio, internet…
Imagine now the following situation. There is this planet. Let’s say ours. Inhabited by us, the human people. And you have some other people. One or more species capable of interplanetary travel. Who have found out about this planet and want to learn more about us before making contact. Since they haven’t yet conquered us – as per our knowledge, and since there’s no evidence of any galaxy wide conflict raging on we may presume the aliens are fundamentally peaceful. Either naturally ’empathic’ – hence in no need whatsoever of being governed, or having such a ‘natural’ form of government that they’re very happy with it. In their attempt to learn about us and to understand our situation before engaging in any way with us, the aliens have sent an ‘undercover’ fact-finding mission on Earth.
Right now! When a country capable of yielding almost half the (self) destructing power available on Earth ‘happens to be’ at loggerheads with a coalition of countries which controls most of the other half of the destruction power already mentioned above.
The local agent employed by the fact-finding mission compiles two news articles which, in his opinion, summarize perfectly what’s going on on the planet.
“Medvedev alleged that some in the West would like to “take advantage of the military conflict in Ukraine to push our country to a new twist of disintegration, do everything to paralyze Russia’s state institutions and deprive the country of efficient controls, as happened in 1991.” “
Meanwhile, on the other side of the ‘planetary divide’,
So. Forget, if you can, about the war in Ukraine and about the US mid-term elections. Let’s pretend you’re the head of the alien fact-finding mission. What recommendation would you send back to those calling the shots in your organization after reading the two articles I mentioned above?
Because it illustrates perfectly the prevailing trend. How things change because of us. How we – collectively, change the world around us.
At first, click-bait had been used by ‘fraudsters’. ‘Publishers’ who used to cram completely useless information under some very ‘enticing’ titles.
Now… you may say that the information about our galaxy – the Milky Way, being on a collision course with Andromeda – our closest galactic neighbor, is also useless. Maybe… After all, that will only happen after 4 billion years had already passed… Anyway, this time, the targeted public is rather different than before. More ‘scientifically minded’… Which proves my point. That using click-bait has become a lot more acceptable.
The new normal…
Which brings me to the next question. How many of you are going to watch this?
We need to eat. At some point, we discovered that by cooking it we got more out of the food we had at our disposal. Then we learned to cook tastier and tastier meals.
Because we’ve some how convinced ourselves that being happy trumps being alive.
Evolutively speaking, pleasure is a ‘heads up’. It tells us that we do ‘the right thing’. That the food we eat is suitable for us. Nourishing. Evolutively speaking, happiness is a heads up. That we’re on the right track. That we’re doing nothing to jeopardize our survival.
Those ‘heads – up’ were valid. Once… And they still are. When ‘used with discretion’.
The problem being that we’re currently harnessing the horse behind the cart.
We’re no longer pursuing life as a wholesome experience. We just want to be happy! We no longer eat to remain alive. We just want to have a better experience! An even better experience than the previous one…
Should we return to the Stone Age? When so many of us died of hunger? Of illness? Should we give up the ‘pursuit of happiness’ as a legitimate goal?!?
How about being happy while pursuing a meaningful life?
The difference between a scientific paper and a piece of ‘mere’ literature. And what can be learned by analyzing a message.
I’ll start with the second.
A message has two layers of meaning. The ‘prima facie’ and the ‘deeper levels’.
When somebody asks ‘What time is it, please!’, the first thing you do is to check your watch. Most of the time, it’s the proper way to react in this situation. But not always! Sometimes, the guy only wants to find out what kind of watch you’re wearing. To determine if it’s worth the effort. To steal it from you!
If looked at from the proper angle, most messages speak volumes. The first volume is always about what the ‘speaker’ wants to convey to their audience. The next ones are about the speaker. About their ability to speak, about their manner of thinking… and so on. When speaking, the speaker wants to convey a limited amount of information. The intended message. When listening, an attentive listener may learn more about the speaker than about the issue at hand!
A scientific paper starts by stating a conclusion. And continues by listing the arguments. An ‘ordinary’ piece of literature builds a ‘scaffolding’. Introduces a series of ‘things’ and leads the reader towards a conclusion. Which is more likely suggested rather than imposed.
Should I continue? About what I learned by reading the Amnesty International report?
The most important issue here – for Amnesty International, being the fact that “Ukrainian fighting tactics endanger civilians”. As if Ukraine was the big bully. Who had enough resources to carefully select ‘tactics’!
“Attacks launched from populated civilian areas”. Hello!!! Ukraine itself is a populated country! Mostly by civilians… This is not a joust. Which may be organized ‘out there’, on an open field. If both sides agree… This war, like almost all others, is about conquering, and defending, populated areas!
“Such violations in no way justify Russia’s indiscriminate attacks, which have killed and injured countless civilians“ Finally!
But shouldn’t this be the ‘main course’ of the Amnesty International report?!? After all, it was Putin who had ordered the Russian army to invade Ukraine… It had been his orders which had started this mayhem!
