Senator Mark Hatfield to Congress on THE FALLACY OF "PEACE TROUGH STRENGTH"

The current leaders of Congress and Presient Biden need to hear these words of warning from 1989 against excessive spending on weapons and war preparation. from Address to the President and Congress from Republican Senator Mark Hatfield in 1989
Short Bio:...a Lieutenant J. G. in the Navy, Mark Hatfield commanded landing craft in some of the bloodiest battles of World War II. He was one of the first U.S. military personnel to enter Hiroshima after the atomic bomb was dropped in 1945.
These experiences, coupled with a deep religious faith and steadfast belief in the progressive principles... [and] Despite warnings of political suicide, as Oregon's Governor, Mark Hatfield cast the only vote at the 1965 National Governors Conference in opposition to a resolution supporting President Johnson's Vietnam war policy.

In 1981, Senator Hatfield cast the lone vote in the Senate against enormous increases in the Department of Defense budget.

Known as the father of the Nuclear Freeze, Senator Hatfield joined with Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) to force a halt to the nuclear arms race.
In 1981, he sponsored the first prohibition against U.S. combat troop involvement in El Salvador and in 1984 authored the amendment which successfully deleted funds to conduct the so-called "secret war" in Nicaragua.

In 1984, he was credited with single-handedly preventing renewed production of nerve gas weapons.

WASHINGTON, WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 2, 1989
Vol. 135 No. 107
Congressional Record

"Peace through strength is a fallacy..." Senator HATFIED: “People wanted to believe that victory was right around the corner, and they wanted to believe that our massive war spending would one day end. And so at least for a couple more years the money kept flowing into the military.

Mr. President, from the Revolutionary War to the Civil War to the Spanish-American War through World War I, through World War II, through Korea, through Vietnam, and through the cold wars in between:

At no time did the spending for military purposes reduce or diminsh after those wars. They reached a peak during a war, and then remained at that peak following the war. No build down-only a build up. And no peace dividend, Mr. President. None at all.

And as we entered this decade, the clarion call went out: despite one of the largest and best trained militaries in the world, despite a nuclear arsenal of unprecedented destructive power, we're somehow vulnerable. A spending gap is what they called it and so we began a massive buildup; bil- lions and billions of dollars to catch up.

Nevermind that this spending gap was a phony as the bomber gap of the 1950s and the missile gap of the 1060s-Democrats and Republicans alike dutifully lined up and marched to the drummer of higher military spending.

And so it is that we have gathered here every year since only to play on. the margins. Oh, we sound reasona- ble-and we like to think that we sound responsible. We go to hearings and briefings, we have long debates over this program and that program, this weapon or that weapon, and we cast our votes on amendment after amendment.
But when it comes right down to it, Mr. President, we are only playing on the margins. This Congress-a bipartisan majority of this Congress-has approved $2.2 trillion of the $2.3 trillion requested for defense spending during this decade alone.

We have played on the margins for so long, Mr. President, that I am afraid we do not even know what the real issues are anymore. We seem to have lost sight of the fact that many of the programs we have authorized- and are authorizing again here today- are intended for one purpose and one purpose only; mass destruction.

We seem to have lost sight of the fact that every dollar we spend on bombs and bullets means that we are underfunding programs to meet the Nation's desperate human needs: health care, education, our war on drugs, low income housing, prison con- struction, AIDS research-all of these things are part of our national defense.

Sometimes, Mr. President, we even lose sight of the margins. Several days ago, the Senate considered an amendment earmarking money for the devel- opment of more lethal weapons for our ground troops.

More lethal? Even the words have begun to lose their meaning.

what is more lethal supposed to mean when some of our troops already carry tactical nuclear weapons on their backs? But nobody else even raised an eyebrow: the vote was 98-1.

I remember, back in 1981, when 10 subcommittees of the Senate Appro- priations Committee were forced to make $9.9 billion in cuts from domestic spending-so that defense spending could be increased by $7.4 billion.

We can no longer afford to fool ourselves, I said in the full committee markup- but oh, how wrong I was. The Nation's defense budget has almost tripled in the past decade with our bipartisan blessing and spending to meet the desperate human needs throughout this country has been cut and cut and cut again to pay for it-some 33 per-cent reduction in the nondefense discretionary programs in the last decade.

Could somebody tell me if there is some secret strategy-some finite figure that we will one day reach and then suddenly be secure? Will we ever have enough?

I do not think so.

We are, Mr. President, like the thirsty man in the desert who thinks he sees an oasis ahead but when he moves closer, it moves too. Further and further-or for us, higher and higher. And as his thirst finally kills him, our lust for bigger and better weapons of mass de- struction is going to destroy us one day too.

Peace through strength is a fallacy, Mr. President, for peace is not simply the absence of a nuclear holocaust.

Peace is not a nation which has seen its teenage suicide rate more than double in the past two decades. Peace is not a nation in which more people die every 2 years of gunshot wounds than died in the entire Vietnam War. Peace is not the town in Pennsylvania which last year was forced to cancel its high school graduation because officials believed that a group of students planned to commit suicide at the ceremony. And peace is not here in Washington where
after leading the Nation in murders last year, children are beginning to show the same psychological trauma as children in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Can we really believe that the decisions we have made--and are making--do not have a direct relationship to the violence which plagues our Nation? I suggest that we consider changing the motto on our coins, Mr. President.

It now reads: In God We Trust-but by blindly pursuing the nuclear arms race, by putting the destruction of life over the preservation of life, we have foresaken our trust in God. We have shaken our fist at God as E.B. White once put it, we have stolen God's stuff. Our motto ought to be:

In Bombs We Trust. That is our national ethic-that is the example we are setting here, on this floor.
...is there no ethical dimension to the arms race, to our abuse of our natural and human resources, to our waste of scientific genius, to the bankrupting of the Federal Treasury to pay for weapons of mass destruction?

Is there no ethical dimension to our decision, our conscious decision, to add more and more weapons to our stockpiles, while millions of people in our own country have no roof over their heads,

when we cannot fund our homeless programs, when we cannot fund our war on drugs?

Is there no ethical dimension to the violent examples we are setting for our children? Is there no ethical dimensions to the definition of national security that we are passing on to the developing nations of the world, where arsenals are now as bloated as the bellies of the Third World's children?

... who accept the twisted logic which says we must produce nerve gas to negotiate a treaty; which says we must continue nuclear testing to ensure safety. A safe nuclear weapon? Mr. President, I wish George Orwell could sit in on these debates.

...the United States and the Soviet Union deployed more nuclear warheads than will eliminated under the treaty. That is right. We spent and spent and spent, so that the adminis- tration could negotiate from strength. For all our money, all our weapons, the only thing we received in return was a tiny little dent in the stockpile we had just created.

... To those who may suggest that I am naive, I respond: I have been there. As a young naval officer, I walked through the rubble of Hiroshima-a month after the bomb was dropped. I saw the death-the slow, agonizing pain-and the charred bodies.

As we stand here playing on the margins, Mr. President, as we stand here voting 98 to 1 for the development of more lethal weapons, the stench of death haunts me still.

Forty-five years ago, we could legitimately say that we did not know. Now we do. Let me read just a few lines of John Hershey's "Hiroshima:" He found about 20 men and women on the sandspit. He drove the boat onto the bank and urged them to get aboard. They did not move and he realized that they were too weak to lift themselves.

He reached down and took a woman by the hands, but her skin slipped off in huge, glovelike pieces. Then he got into the water and, though a small man, lifted several of the men and women, who were naked, into his boat. Their backs and breasts were clammy, and he remembered uneasily that the great burns he had seen during the day had been like: yellow at first, then red and swollen, with the skin sloughed off, and finally, in the evening, suppurated and smelly.

With the tide risen, his bamboo pole was now too short and he had to paddle most of the way across it. On the other side, at a higher spit, he lifted the slimy living bodies out and carried them up the slope away from the tide. He had to keep consciously repeating to himself:
"These are human beings. These are human beings."

SDI, Asat weapons, the Midgetman, the MX missile, the Stealth bomber, nerve gas, the D-5 missile, the Trident submarine: I will cast my vote against them all.

Since 1980, Mr. President, I have given more than 30 speeches during our annual consideration of this bill: 7 against nerve gas production,

5 against underground testing,

3 against ASAT weapons,
3 against the MX missile,

3 against the draft,

2 against SDI.
The list goes on and on. But I have felt over the years like I am speaking in a vacuum; we have approved them all.

And I speak in a vaccum today; my colleagues will listen politely and then vote for it all. I will feel that way too-as I have for many years now-when I cast my vote against final passage of this bill. For I too am playing on the margins.

In the absence of political will-on this floor and across the country-in the absence of the kind of political will we seem to be able to muster when the Department of Defense needs another increase but not when children go hungry, anything more is impossible.

Mr. President, unfortunately we only have had one President of the United States who, in my view, understood national security, national de- fense. He was a five-star general: Dwight David Eisenhower.

Mr. President, these are his words:
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is hu- manity hanging from a cross of iron."

This was the man who led the Allied troops in World War II; he understood war, but he also understood peace.
We are kidding ourselves, Mr. President. Today we are vulnerable. The national defense of this Nation, has left us vulnerable, but not because we lack an arsenal.

The vulnerability of this Nation today is that we rank at the bottom of the list in math and science, and that at least 20 million Americans cannot read or write. The vulnerability of our Nation is the deterioration and the erosion of our infrastructure, our highways, bridges, air- ports, our ports.

Our vulnerability today is a nonproductive economy, noncompetitive economy. Our vulner- ability is the people who are without homes, nutrition, education, health care.

Ultimately , the security of the Nation is not found in its materialism. It is found in a spirit. It is found in a strength of heart and mind. It is found in its people-we the people.

We the people are vulnerable today. Let us at least be honest: we are not addressing those vulnerabilities with this bill or any other bill."



BIO: As a Lieutenant J. G. in the Navy, Mark Hatfield commanded landing craft in some of the bloodiest battles of World War II. He was one of the first U.S. military personnel to enter Hiroshima after the atomic bomb was dropped in 1945.

These experiences, coupled with a deep religious faith and steadfast belief in the progressive principles... [and] Despite warnings of political suicide, as Oregon's Governor, Mark Hatfield cast the only vote at the 1965 National Governors Conference in opposition to a resolution supporting President Johnson's Vietnam war policy.

In 1981, Senator Hatfield cast the lone vote in the Senate against enormous increases in the Department of Defense budget.

Known as the father of the Nuclear Freeze, Senator Hatfield joined with Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) to force a halt to the nuclear arms race.
In 1981, he sponsored the first prohibition against U.S. combat troop involvement in El Salvador and in 1984 authored the amendment which successfully deleted funds to conduct the so-called "secret war" in Nicaragua.
In 1984, he was credited with single-handedly preventing renewed production of nerve gas weapons.

3 Sons OUGHT NOT SLAUGHTER each other's families!

Three Sons OUGHT No Longer Fight

Disking the rock strewn
Objected earth near Bet Shean,
Underneath the Middle Eastern sky
Rows of mean earth riven by the blades,
We cut away our anger, hate, and pride,
Stopping to drink, not from the liquor

Of fanatic corruption but from
The precious water welling up,
Our oasis of Jacob'd sharing,
In this Hanukkah season
Of Christ's mass after
Ramadan.

Allah

We three sons of Abraham,
Muslim, Jew, and Christian,
Fight the true battle
Not each other but
To be found worthy
In compassion
Giving,
And purity--
The true Submission
To God
Over
All.

Selah



First pub. in
outwardlink.net

NEVER forget the thousands of innocent humans who lost their lives because of fanatical war, 9/11

Review of Once Upon a Country, a Palestinian Autobiography by Sari Nusseibeh

Once Upon a Country by Sari Nusseibeh

Powerful autobiography and political history from one family’s perspective of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict of the 20th Century!

It restores my hope in Palestinians and makes me realize that the real problem in the Middle East (an elsewhere as well) isn’t any certain group of people, nor even any particular religion, but rather extremism, blind faith, and the dark side of human nature.

The central answer to intolerance is educated reason and the rejection of religious and political ideology!

I seem to have far more in common with this Palestinian, Sari Nusseibeh, than my own relatives for instance, more agreement with him than probably with anyone here on the Central Coast of California, where most people are fanatically supportive of the present administration of the U.S. and the Israeli government, and for various forms of creedal Christianity!

What Once Upon a Country also does is—despite Sari’s evident practical agnosticism and nominal faith—is restore confidence that we as humans can find hope and change despite the almost insurmountable problems and catastrophes of human history.

Sari communicates his life story and rational hopefulness and how he stood for nonviolence and reconciliation in the midst of intense hatred and violence, some even coming toward him and his family.

The book, too, again makes one cognizant of how much human destiny is affected by background, that while we do have some free creative choice (are morally responsible), some of us are better able to choose than others--
how upper class individuals who are bright and secularly educated, can have tremendous impact on their nations and the world, unlike average people who are more likely to be blinded by popular media and religious and political propaganda.

Part of the reason that Sari can be so rational and tolerant is that he comes from brilliant tolerant parents who sent him to England to be educated, where he earned his B.A. Then he earned his PhD in literature and philosophy in the United States at Harvard.

Such a background, while not guaranteeing moderation, hope, and nonviolence, certainly makes such moral qualities more possible than if he had grown up poverty-stricken in an intolerant family in Gaza with only a rudimentary education and filled with intolerant religious doctrines.

The extreme historical irony of reading this book is that Sari has been waging his nonviolent campaign for years yet the news never mentions it, but only the Palestinian extremists with bombs and Israeli settlers taking Palestinian land.

What if the international and U.S. news instead focused on Sari and other Palestinians’ peaceful protests and their efforts at education (such as Mars Elias Schools and Ramallah Friends School)?

This book has reignited my tremendous concern for Israel-Palestine. Thanks Sari!


In the Light of tolerance, education, and creativity,

Dan Wilcox

At Ramadan, What All Humans Need--3 Ought Not Fight

At this contentious time of physical and verbal harm,
this reflection is surely needed:

3 Ought Not Fight

Disking the rock strewn
Objected earth near Jerusalem,
Underneath the Middle Eastern sky
Rows of mean earth riven by the blades,
We cut away our anger, hate, and pride,
Stopping to drink, not from the liquor

Of fanatic corruption but from
The precious water welling up,
Our oasis of Jacob'd sharing,
In this Ramadan season
Months before Christ's birth
And Hanukkah.

Allah

We three sons of Abraham,
Muslim, Jew, and Christian,
Ought to fight the true battle
Not each other,
Not with weapons of harm
But
To be found worthy
In compassion
Sharing,
And kindness--
The true
Submission
To God
Over
All.

Selah



--Daniel Wilcox

First pub. in
outwardlink.net

Ironing History

"Call me Ismael...And, doubtless, my going on this whaling voyage, formed part of the grand programme of Providence that was drawn up a long time ago.

Art by SNH

"It came in as a sort of brief interlude and solo between more extensive performances. I take it that this part of the bill must have run something like this:

[1851]
"Grand Contested Election for the Presidency of the United States.
"WHALING VOYAGE BY ONE ISHMAEL."
"BLOODY BATTLE IN AFFGHANISTAN."

"Though I cannot tell why it was exactly that those stage managers, the Fates, put me down for this shabby part of a whaling voyage, when others were set down for magnificent parts in high tragedies, and short and easy parts in genteel comedies, and jolly parts in farces—though I cannot tell why this was exactly...besides cajoling me into the delusion that it was a choice resulting from my own unbiased freewill and discriminating judgments."
from Chapter One: Loomings, Moby Dick by Herman Melville

What an irony of history and literature, an ironing of reality, that we come round similar events and similar actions and similar beliefs now, 165 years later, today in July, 2016.

The first 3 ironies and history-repeaters speak for themselves. Are in the news, have been in the news for days.

But what of fate, of determinism, of qadar, of predestination?

Yes, that Medusa,

that Kali,

that Hydra

of philosophy and religion is making a huge return of late, too--

#1 In the take-over by Augustinian Reformed leaders of much of American Christianity in the last 30 years.

#2 In the huge popularity around the globe of Islam and "qadar," (which, strangely, is even defended by many secular leftists and "liberals" in the United States and Britain).

#3 By the massive support for and by most atheist leaders of determinism and the denial of human choice.

Famous determinists include neuroscientist Sam Harris ("Tumors All the Way Down"), biologist Jerry Coyne (no "moral responsibility," murderers and rapists have no choice), and biologist Anthony Cashmore (humans have no more choice than a "bowl of sugar").

And there is daily in the news, the horrific attacks by modern Ismael of innocent civilians such as the stabbing death of the 13-year-old young girl by a Muslim Palestinian youth this month.

How deep is the abyss of darkness overwhelming humanity,





Daniel Wilcox

Money for Murder--Please Write Your Congressperson!

Arabic on the poster in part reads, "Palestinian National Liberation Movement, Fatah, celebrates its martyr hero Mohammed Nasser Mahmoud Tarayreh." (AP Photo/Nasser Nasser)

What did Mohammed do?

Mohammed broke into 13-year-old Hallel Ariel's bedroom and stabbed her to death in her bed.

What a hero!

Then he attacked another Jewish person, but was shot.

Rataj Tarayreh, a sister of Mohammed Nasser Tarayreh, is looking
at a poster with pictures of her "martyred" brother,

Yasser Arafat and President Mahmoud Abbas,
at the family house, in the West Bank village of Bani Na'im, near Hebron.

The family is now eligible for $350 a month from a Palestinian “Martyrs’ Fund"--a Palestine Authority method
of rewarding the families whose family members such as Mohammed Nasser Tarayreh murder innocent Jewish civilians!

Relatives of the murdered Hallel Ariel

Please write your U.S. congressperson to divest all the millions of dollars being given to the Palestine Authority, until this travesty, horror, and injustice is stopped.



In the Light which shines through this world's ocean of darkness,

Daniel Wilcox

The Tyranny of Certainty

Certainty—at least the intense feeling, the passion for that state of mind, that mental obsession, that human idol—is a dear longing, seemingly in nearly every human.

Probably, maybe, it was the devil in the bloody details which led at least 3 smart, fairly rich, well-educated young men in Bangladesh to slaughter civilians in a café for Allah.

#1 A handout picture released by the King Faisal Foundation on March 1, 2015 shows Saudi King Salman bin Abdul Aziz left, presenting Zakir Naik, president of the Islamic Research Foundation in India, with the 2015 King Faisal International Prize for Service to Islam in Riyadh. (AFP/King Faisal Foundation)

One of the jihadists, Rohan Imtiaz, in the Dhaka restaurant attack last week put up a Facebook message of Zakir Naik's statement about Muslim jihad:

“If he is fighting enemies of Islam, I am for him. I don’t know him personally. If he terrorizing America, is the biggest terrorist, I am with him."

"Every Muslim should be a terrorist. The thing is that if he is terrorizing a terrorist, he is following Islam.”
Zakir Naik
www.Peaceforall.org.uk

#2 Yet the Muslim leader Zakir Naik, like other Muslim leaders, claims to be against killing!

How does that figure?

Because most Muslims believe they have a duty to kill or punish those who have “created corruption in the land,” a vague phrase that can mean a wide variety of actions, as any study of Sharia Law in Muslim countries shows.

Check out the news of the 700 lawyers working for the death penalty for individuals accused of demeaning the name of Muhammad:

"Leader of the Khatm-e-Nubuwwat Lawyers' Forum, a conservative alliance of lawyers offering free legal advice for anyone filing a blasphemy case, Ghulam Mustafa Chaudhry poses for a portrait at his office in Lahore, Pakistan February 22, 2016."

"The stated mission of the Khatm-e-Nubuwwat Lawyers' Forum and its leader Ghulam Mustafa Chaudhry is uncompromising: to use its expertise and influence to ensure that anyone insulting Islam or the Prophet Mohammad is charged, tried and executed."

"Whoever does this (blasphemy), the punishment is only death. There is no alternative," Chaudhry told supporters crammed into his small office behind the towering red-brick High Court building in the eastern city of Lahore."

http://www.reuters.com/article/pakistan-blasphemy-lawyers-idUSKCN0W905G


#3 Eric Hoffer, author of The True Believer, has answers:

“Absolute faith corrupts absolutely."

"The true believer is apt to see himself as one of the chosen...who is destined to inherit...heaven, too."

#4 Naik is a medical doctor who has become a very popular media speaker for Islam, has more than 100 million viewers,
and has been called the “rock star” of Islam.
However, he has been banned from public speaking in United Kingdom, Canada, and Malaysia.

#5 The list of café killers includes Nibras Islam, Rohan Imtiaz, Meer Saameh Mubasheer, Khairul Islam, and Shafiqul Islam.

Why did they lay aside their college educations,
their relationships, their families,
their social life, their friends,
their fun activities,
their interests, their passions,
their ethical intuitions,
even the usual understanding of religious ethics
that one isn’t to kill women?

After all, Muhammad, when he had at least 500 Jewish men beheaded, didn’t execute the women and children but had them sold into slavery.

Yet so many thousands of Muslim young men, now, many of them from middle or upper-class background, and well-educated, have gone off to jihad and killed hundreds of thousands of other humans!

They abandon what most humans want--
LAY all that down!

And often commit war-suicide, before they have hardly even begun adulthood,
in order to kill for Allah, for the God of 99 names,

to destroy young men and women at malls,
in heretical mosques,
in churches,
anywhere non-orthodox Muslims live.

#6 After shouting “God is Great,”
these 5 ran in and asked individuals

if they were Muslims
and demanded they recite the Quran.

If not, they hacked them down.

#7 The killers seem happy, totally guilt-free,
indeed, proud and dutiful.

They are technologically smart and upload photos during their attacks!

How could this impossible, horrific, tyranny of murder possibly happen?

Do these smart, happy-looking individuals look like the sort who would kill innocent civilians eating at a café?

#8 Eric Hoffer gives answers:

“Absolute faith corrupts absolutely.

To be in possession of an absolute truth is to have a net of familiarity spread over the whole of eternity.

There are no surprises and no unknowns. All questions have already been answered, all decisions made,
all eventualities foreseen. The true believer is without wonder and hesitation.

The act of self-denial seems to confer on us the right to be harsh and merciless towards others.

The effectiveness of a doctrine does not come from its meaning but from its certitude.

No doctrine however profound and sublime will be effective unless it is presented
as the embodiment of the one and only truth.
It must be the one word from which all things are and all things speak.

The impression somehow prevails that the true believer, particularly the religious individual,
is a humble person. The truth is that the surrendering
and humbling of the self
breed pride and arrogance.

The true believer is apt to see himself as one of the chosen...who is destined to inherit...heaven, too.

#9 Three of the innocent slaughtered by the Muslim killers:

He who is not of his faith is evil; he who will not listen shall perish.

There is no doubt that in exchanging a self-centered for a selfless life we gain enormously in self-esteem. The vanity of the selfless, even those who practice utmost humility, is boundless.

…a mass movement, particularly in its active, revivalist phase, appeals not to those intent on bolstering and advancing a cherished self, but to those who crave to be rid of an unwanted self.

A mass movement attracts and holds a following not because it can satisfy the desire for self-advancement, but because it can satisfy the passion for self-renunciation.

There is no doubt that in exchanging a self-centered for a selfless life we gain enormously in self-esteem.

[The true believer’s] innermost craving is for a new life - a rebirth - or, failing this, a chance to acquire new elements of pride, confidence, hope, a sense of purpose and worth by identification with a holy cause.

An active mass-movement offers them opportunities for both. If they join the movement as full converts they are reborn to a new life in its close-knit collective body...

Or if attracted as sympathizers they find elements of pride, confidence, and purpose by identifying with the efforts, achievements, and prospects of the movement.
A mass movement attracts and holds a following not because it can satisfy the desire for self-advancement, but because it can satisfy the passion for self-renunciation.

It is obvious, therefore, that in order to be effective, a doctrine must not be understood, but has rather to be believed in.
We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand.

Self-surrender...is...the source of a mass-movement’s unity and vigor, is a sacrifice...

To know a person's religion, we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance.

The taint inherent in absolute power is not its inhumanity but its anti-humanity.

The rejection of approximations and the insistence on absolutes are the manifestation of a nihilism that loathes freedom, tolerance, and equity.

Both absolute power and absolute faith are instruments of dehumanization. Hence absolute faith corrupts as absolutely as absolute power.

Here, as elsewhere, the technique of a mass movement aims to infect people with a malady and then offer the movement as a cure.

An effective mass movement cultivates the idea of sin. It depicts the autonomous self not only as barren and helpless but also as vile.
To confess and repent is to slough off one’s individual distinctness and separateness, and salvation is found by losing oneself in the holy oneness of the congregation.

...whether or not [religions such as Islam] develop into mass movements depends less on the doctrine they preach and the program they project than on the degree of their preoccupation with unity and the readiness for self-sacrifice.

We join a mass movement to escape individual responsibility…"to be free from freedom”…Had they not joined…in order to be free from responsibility?
We are ready to sacrifice our true, transitory self for the imaginary eternal self we are building up, by our heroic deeds, in the opinion and imagination of others.

We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand. A doctrine that is understood is shorn of its strength.
Self-righteousness is a loud din raised to drown the voice of guilt within us.

Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. Thus people haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but also by nursing a fanatical grievance. A mass movement offers them unlimited opportunities for both.

There can be no mass movement without some deliberate misrepresentation of facts.

The act of self-denial seems to confer on us the right to be harsh and merciless toward others.

To the frustrated, freedom from responsibility is more attractive than freedom from restraint. They are eager to barter their independence for relief of the burdens of willing, deciding and being responsible for inevitable failure.

They willingly abdicate the directing of their lives to those who want to plan, command and shoulder all responsibility.
Every extreme attitude is a flight from the self.

He turns away from an unpromising self and plunges into the pursuit of pride — the explosive substitute for self-esteem.
All social disturbances and upheavals have their roots in crises of individual self-esteem, and the great endeavor in which the masses most readily unite is basically a search for pride.

Pride is a sense of worth derived from something that is not organically part of us, while self-esteem derives from the potentialities and achievements of the self.

We are proud when we identify ourselves with an imaginary self, a leader, a holy cause, a collective body or possessions.
There is fear and intolerance in pride; it is sensitive and uncompromising.

Activists of Pakistani religious group Sunni Tehreek demanding executions of court sentences given under the blasphemy law...

The less promise and potency in the self, the more imperative is the need for pride. The core of pride is self-rejection.

A doctrine insulates the devout not only against the realities around them but also against their own selves.

The fanatical believer is not conscious of his envy, malice, pettiness and dishonesty. There is a wall of words between his consciousness and his real self.
We are prone to sacrifice others when we are ready to sacrifice ourselves.

It is not love of self but hatred of self which is at the root of the troubles that afflict our world.

To find the cause of our ills in something outside ourselves, something specific that can be spotted and eliminated, is a diagnosis that cannot fail to appeal.

To say that the cause of our troubles is not in us but____, and pass immediately to the extermination of the____, is a prescription likely to find a wide acceptance.

To know a person's religion, we need not listen to his profession of faith but must find his brand of intolerance.

Unlimited opportunities can be as potent a cause of frustration as a paucity or lack of opportunities.”
--Eric Hoffer
-------

Think and reflect on those wise words of Hoffer.

Is it probable that these smart, well-educated, fairly rich young men somehow felt insecure or guilty or uncertain?

And so latched onto Islam as the absolute, which it claims to be, as their one certain salvation?

Did they kill the women Tarishi-Jain and Abinta Kabir because they weren't veiled, or because they couldn't quote the Quran?

I don’t know the answers.

However Hoffer's answers are probable, unless one really thinks that the Quran is true, perfect, and eternal.

But we do know that all absolute religions cause slaughter,
intolerance, injustice, harm, persecution, inequality, and so forth
in the name of certain truth.


In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Lift the people of Baghdad, Dhaka... in the Light.

Please lift the people of Baghdad, Dhaka, Istanbul, Orlando, and so many others suffering in religious darkness.

Baghdad Massacre, 215 precious individuals lost to religious hatred, Sunni Muslims against Shia Muslims.

Faraaz Hossain, a 20-hear-old Muslim student killed by Quranic jihadists
in Dhaka attack

Nibras Islam, one of the killers. Only months previously,
he was studying at Norhtsouth University in Dhaka,
driving around, hanging out with friends at restaurants, and watching movies.

Nibras and the other 4 attackers are all Bangladeshis from rich families and with good educations, according to Bangladeshi's home minister Asaduzzaman Khan. Islam's father is a successful businessman, one uncle a police officer, another a scientist, and another a government official.

The Bangladesh government said that the attackers belonged to a banned group, Jumatul Mujahedeen Bangladesh (JMB)

What is it about the Islamic religion that it leads bright, educated, wealthy men to murder large groups of people for Allah?

Why do millions of Muslims support attacks of other Muslims, ex-Muslims, other religions, and atheists?

Another father said of his son, "My son used used to pray 5 times a day from a young age."

Then there are the older leaders such as Ramadan Shalah, Secretary-General of Islamic Jihad who inspire the young men. Again, like the young jihadists, these Islamic leaders are highly educated--economists, engineers, doctors, etc.

Shalah earned a PhdD in banking and economics at the University of Durham in Britain. Later he was a professor at the University of South Florida.


He has been indicted in the past with a 53 count indictment in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida for activities related to Islamic Jihad and been added to the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list.

Shalah was involved in the March 2014 launch of over 100 rockets toward civilians in Israel. He said the rocket attack was coordinated with HAMAS.


Why do many millions of Muslims support attacks of other Muslims, ex-Muslims, other religions, and atheists?


May this ocean of darkness which has, again, swamped across the world, engulfing, deluding, destroying be wept against by all.

May all Muslims reject the horrific commands of the Quran and the false witness of Muhammad
and come to experience what is true, what is good, and what is compassionate.


May the Light of peace, hope, justice, and human rights shine.






In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Freedom to Choose

At tragic times like the present when destruction, heartbreak,
debacle, and slaughter 'reign' down--
when the ocean of darkness
seems endless and abyss'd,

remember the gravely etched truth
of the psychologist Victor Frankl who lived at Auschwitz:
















The wonder of being human, of being consciously aware, of experiencing
and living in the transcendent, of seeking the good,
of sensing the 'ought' of every ethical truth
is that each of us understands
(except for determinists of course)
that every human, everyone of us, all of us--
no matter how difficult our troubled life path,
no matter what our difficult circumstances,
no matter our weeping heartache,
no matter how chasmic deep our tragedy--

we are free to choose alternatives in the very midst of the evils,
to reject the horrific wrongs,
to song hope and justice,
to turn toward the Light,
to reach out to others and empathize,
to act compassionate,
and
to care
hell
down
and
out.

"I am not...my circumstances, I am...my decisions."
Educator Stephen Covey

"Any person, regardless of the circumstances, can decide what shall become of them--mentally and spiritually.
Victor Frankl

"I am not what happened to me, I am what I choose to become."
Psychiatrist and psychotherapist Carl G. Jung

Let us choose each moment.


In the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

"Why Did You Come to Iraq to Kill?" asked the Muslim of the American.

A true story from Iraq of a dialog between a Muslim jihadist and an American soldier:

"...a young U.S. soldier and evangelical
Christian, Joshua Casteel, was sent to the prison to work
as an Arab language interrogator.

One day, during his interrogation of a self-described
jihadist from Saudi Arabia, the contradictions became all
too glaring.

Eager to trip up this composed and confident
young Saudi, Joshua asked him, "Why did you come to
Iraq to kill?"

The young Saudi quickly turned the question
back on Joshua, asking, “Why did you come here to
kill?”

A lengthy discussion ensued in which both Joshua
and the young Saudi talked about their duty to their
people and their country...

Joshua noting his Christian
faith and the Saudi referencing his Muslim faith.

Finally, the young Saudi looked at Joshua and said,
“You claim to be a Christian, but you are not following
the teachings of Christ to love your enemies, to pray for
those that persecute you, and to turn the other cheek.”

Joshua immediately felt the irony of being schooled on
the Sermon on the Mount by a self-declared jihadist.

Joshua soon realized that he had lost all objectivity in the
interrogation and could no longer continue....

“We were both idealistic kids devoted to our people, and
devoted to our religions, willing to kill and to sacrifice...

"Wouldn’t it be great if we were both able to put down our
weapons and find a different path?”

This experience became the energizing catalyst leading
Joshua out of the military with a conscientious objector
discharge.

Joshua’s vibrant voice for peace,
sparked in the dark cauldron of war,
blessed many until his death
from cancer in 2012."

from "Returning Veterans, Returning Hope"
The Peace and Justice Support Network
www.PJSN.org/vets

What a heart-breaker and healer of a true story!

Do you know of a another story that could be included with ones like these?

Live for Peace and Justice in the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Is This Presidential Election a "Seeding Time"?

Would you agree or disagree with the following statements?

#1 Usually, war is justified when there is a dangerous enemy.

#2 The only way to understand what is happening and what ought to happen is to wait a couple hundred years to get a more objective perspective.

While we wonder at the tragedy, uncertainty, and even absurdity of our times, so have humans in the past.

We, at present, deal with Muslim jihadists, but the colonists dealt with savage Indians resisting the confiscation of their lands, and with the complex conflicts between the British and the French Empires on the American frontier, and then against the British government itself.

If one skips the nationalism, even the admirable patriotic legends of the Revolution, and reads a few history books, one soon discovers that those troubled times weren't clear cases of good versus evil, or right versus wrong, or justice versus injustice (nor are most--maybe all--historical events).

Nor is the present time. Who is correct? who is right?

The Syrian Government of President Assad which protected all of its citizens except for Sunni Muslim jihadists?

The Sunni Muslims jihadists that the U.S. Government supports, hoping they will overthrow the Syrian Government of Assad?

The Russian Government which is bombing the jihadists to protect the Syrian Government?

The Turkish Government which is killing Kurdish Rebels?

Etc.

T'was Seeding Time by John L. Ruth is a powerful narrative about the troubles and tragedies of that period, but not told from the perspective of the Revolutionists such as Adams, Jefferson, or Washington,
or told from the opposite perspective of the British Parliament and King George and the evangelist/reformer John Wesley,
or even the Indian tribes losing their homelands,
but
from the perspective of a few contrary American immigrant groups--the Mennonites, the Quakers, the Brethren.

Ruth starts out his historical account in December 1755 at the start of the worldwide 7 Years War (known in the colonies as the French and Indian War).

The war involved all the European powers and "affected Europe, North America, Central America, West Africa, India, and the Philippines. Considered as the greatest European war since the Thirty Years War of the 17th century, it once again split Europe into two coalitions," Great Britain against France. (Wikepedia)

From the first page of Seeding Time:
"Angry Indians had crossed the long Blue Mountain...and left behind in the ashes of [immigrants'] cabins the smoldering, scalpless bodies of European settlers...their Swiss Amish father had forbade them to fire at the Indians..."

"The wounded Jacob Jr. and his sister were tomahawked on the spot, and the mother as well, after having been stabbed in the heart with particular malice"

"...No one was more troubled by such events than the Quakers, who up to this point had controlled the Pennsylvania legislature...Israel Pemberton...with fellow Friends...organized the "Friendly Association"...appealed to the Mennonites..."

"for aid in building up a fund from which presents could be purchased for meetings with the aggrieved Indians...on account of the unjust treatment of the Indians...This enraged the Scotch-Irish...[but] the devout Quakers...believed that nonviolence was the essence of the Christian faith..."

Benjamin Franklin (later one of the Revolutionaries) took a dim view of the Mennonites, Quakers, and their nonviolence toward the Indians.

So on the eve of the Revolution, these formerly oppressed Swiss-German Anabaptist Brethren and Quakers were living diligently in the Quaker Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in "Penn's Woods."

Then following the first battles in Massachusetts, during the spring of 1775, fervent war fever spread again like fire through the colonies including Pennsylvania. All men were under pressure to sign up to fight the British or to contribute money for the Revolution.

Thus whether we live now when nearly all presidential candidates are claiming we Americans should attack the Syrian government
and continue supporting the Islamic jihadists
(who we gave about 300 million dollars alone several months ago)
or
back in the volatile slaughter of the 1700's, there are no easy answers.

So, too, as at the time of "Seeding Time" described by Ruth, those who oppose war find it very difficult to follow the way of peace-making when everyone is crying "War!
Go Fight!
Stop the Enemies!"

A fine short history book well worth the reading time.

'Twas Seeding Time by John L. Ruth, Herald Press, available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other book stores.

In the Light of Peacemaking and Seeking,

Daniel Wilcox

Weep low, angled humans...a Muslim father has praised his son...

...for knifing to death a mother of 6 in Israel/Palestine.

"Witnesses reported a brutal scene on Sunday: Dafna Meir was painting her house's door-frame when the terrorist approached her from behind and stuck his knife in her head.

Meir's daughter Renana, the eldest of six children, was present and called for help, her screams helping to scare him off."
by Yoav Zitun, Elior Levy and Elisha Ben Kimon

"Speaking to Palestinian media, Adais's father said he was proud of his son for stabbing the unarmed nurse to death.

'I am proud of him,' [the father] said, adding that [Israeli] security forces also detained and interrogated several family members during the arrest operation."

QudsN, a Palestinian news also applauded the Muslim for slaughtering Dafna.

Left behind are her 6 children and her grieving husband.

WHERE ARE THE MUSLIM LEADERS WHO WILL START CONDEMNING THESE HORRIFIC ACTS OF EVIL BY MUSLIMS?


When will Muslims worldwide change and become healers and rescuers, not butchers?

In contrast what you get are many Muslims praising these killers:-) even designing digital art of the bloody knife of revolt in support of the slaughter.

“We welcome every drop of blood spilled in Jerusalem. This is pure blood, clean blood, blood on its way to Allah. With the help of Allah, every martyr will be in heaven, and every wounded will get his reward.”
Mahmoud Abbas, chairman of the PLO and President of the Palestinian National Authority, September 16, 2015



Grieving tonight.

Please lift up Dafna's family,
and the Muslims killers
(that they might repent) into the Light.

Daniel Wilcox

Welcome Syrian Refugees Say 1,000 American Jewish Rabbis

1,000 American rabbis have responded to the anti-immigration outlook of too many Americans:

"In 1939, our country could not tell the difference between an actual enemy and the victims of an enemy...In 2015, let us not make the same mistake."

"We, Rabbis from across the country, call on our elected officials to exercise moral leadership for the protection of the US Refugee Admissions Program.

Since its founding, the United States has offered refuge and protection to the world’s most vulnerable. Time and time again, those refugees were Jews. Whether they were fleeing pogroms in Tzarist Russia, the horrors of the Holocaust or persecution in Soviet Russia or Iran, our relatives and friends found safety on these shores."

"We are therefore alarmed to see so many politicians declaring their opposition to welcoming refugees.

Last month’s heartbreaking attacks in Paris and Beirut are being cited as reasons to deny entry to people who are themselves victims of terror. And in those comments, we, as Jewish leaders, see one of the darker moments of our history repeating itself.

In 1939, the United States refused to let the SS St. Louis dock in our country, sending over 900 Jewish refugees back to Europe, where many died in concentration camps. That moment was a stain on the history of our country – a tragic decision made in a political climate of deep fear, suspicion and antisemitism.

The Washington Post released public opinion polling from the early 1940’s, showing that the majority of U.S. citizens did not want to welcome Jewish refugees to this country in those years.

In 1939, our country could not tell the difference between an actual enemy and the victims of an enemy. In 2015, let us not make the same mistake.

We therefore urge our elected officials to support refugee resettlement and to oppose any measures that would actually or effectively halt resettlement or prohibit or restrict funding for any groups of refugees."

from http://www.vox.com/world/2015/12/5/9851526/refugees-letter-rabbis



Become a ray of Light for refugees,

Daniel Wilcox

Islam and the Question of Sharia Law

These 3 statistical graphs show
how dangerous and wrong Islam
is and why all those
concerned with truth, justice,
and goodness need to oppose
it in all its various
forms.

Of course, a thorough reading of very bad
current events going on in Islamic countries
and in Palestine/Israel, and in France show
the horror in detail--
persecution, imprisonment, denial of
freedom of religion, speech, and the press,
subjugation of women, little girl
female mutilation, stabbings,
honor killings, executions, crucifying,
bombings of civilians and of other
Muslim groups, and so forth.

At the same time as our dedicated opposition to the horrific religion, we need to be compassionate, generous, and helpful in helping individual Muslims escape this false destructive way of life.

And we need to be aware that there are some progressive Muslims who do reject Sharia Law, reject the eternal perfection of the Qur'an, reject the unjust and immoral actions of Muhammad, reject jihad, etc. We ought to enlist their aid.

Please write letters for human rights groups, share your resources with aid agencies who are helping refugees escape from the slaughter, and offer a better hope than the false deceptions of Muhammad and Muslim leaders since.

There are many good books on Islam. I've read too many to list. One of the most personable and powerful is Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Her autobiography is startlingly suspenseful and emotionally impassioned. She shares of her growing up as an African Muslim, her forced marriage, and her escape to the Netherlands. There she tried to oppose the wrongs of Islam, especially the many Islamic honor killings in that society, but she was persecuted for her stand for freedom.

Muslim women in the secular society of the Netherlands








Eventually, she moved to the U.S. The powerful book is in many ways so different from the fictional but accurate view of Islam in A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini (the novel about a girl growing up Muslim in Afghanistan). But both books are so tragically similar in showing how horrific life is in Islamic countries and even in sections of secular countries where mullahs hold sway.

Because of the craziness and evil of Islam in her life, Ayaan has rejected religion. She has to have body-guards to protect her from the millions of Muslims who think she should be killed for rejecting Islam.
Outstanding book.





Live in the Light,

Daniel Wilcox

Qur'an, Sura 8:12 OR "Where Were You When the World Stopped..." To Paris in the Light

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EIVCPCwXy8

by Alan Jackson

Where were you when the world stopped turning on that [November] day?
Were you in the yard with your wife and children
Or working on some stage in [France]?

Did you stand there in shock at the sight of that black smoke
Risin' against that blue sky?
Did you shout out in anger, in fear for your neighbor
Or did you just sit down and cry?

Did you weep for the children who lost their dear loved ones
And pray for the ones who don't know?
Did you rejoice for the people who walked from the rubble
And sob for the ones left below?

Did you burst out with pride for the [blue, white, and red]
And the heroes who died just doin' what they do?
Did you look up to heaven for some kind of answer
And look at yourself and what really matters?



Hold France in the Light,

Be a Peacemaker Today. Reach Out to Syrians.

Please write President Obama and your senators to prioritize a diplomatic solution to the Syrian crisis. Also, request the defunding of all Islamic rebels. Millions of dollars have gone to them which has only increased the bloodshed, killed civilians, and furthered the cause of Islamic jihad.

Then go to World Vision, or some other aid agency, and donate funds to help lessen the tragic circumstances of millions of Syrians. 11 million Syrians have been displaced! Millions are living in other countries as unwanted refugees.

If you have more time, please stop by Amnesty International's website and write a letter or email for prisoners of conscience.

Join us in this peace movement today.

In the Light,

Daniel