[Vision2020] [Bulk] Important Bill Maher Message

[Warren Hayman]

Thanks, Paul.

I think this phenomenon at which we both shiver has been called "the culture 
of fear" and, correlatively, the methods wherein promulgated "the politics 
of fear."

I find both well, fearful. They negate basic values of humanity and dignity. 
They reduce a human being to an other, and in that intangible reduction lies 
the seed for sprouting fear and hatred. Such a soil, if you will, consists 
of the substrate "that which I am not," nurtured into the ideatic 
progression of wrong >> bad >> evil. And of course some of the inevitable 
fruits include ignorance, arrogance, disdain, divisiveness, and hatred. All 
based on something within the concept of "not me as far as I am willingly to 
admit, therefore unknown, deleterious, possibly fatal (or something)." Too 
regretfully easy to slip down that slope, it seems.

And what saddens me as much as anything is to hear a young(?) female (?) 
voice here in Moscow asking whether Obama is Muslim. Follow the previous 
logic with the word Muslim. Sad because the answer has been such a foregone 
conclusion for some time now. Why not at least ask "Didn't he formerly 
attend the church of an inflammatory Christian pastor?" But no or not yet to 
that query even here in Moscow. Where are the critical thinking and reading 
abilities absent from such a question? Or, Who has been teaching/feeding her 
what, without the allowance of self-thought? Can anyone still ask that 
question with any seriousness beyond an intent of denigration?

We then finally arrive back here on V2020 reading the amplified scrutiny of 
someone's middle name, someone whose first name wasn't even spelled 
correctly, even though the tougher "Hussein" was right. My middle name is 
James, am I therefore synonymous with Duncan? Woe be it to any with the name 
of Charles or Manson, Jim or Jones, Ted or Bundy. Not to mention Adolph or 
Osama, somewhat common names within the respective cultures. I find all this 
devastatingly sad, especially so in Moscow.

Warren Hayman


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Paul Rumelhart" <godshatter at yahoo.com>
To: "Chasuk" <chasuk at gmail.com>
Cc: "Vision2020" <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Sent: Saturday, September 27, 2008 12:21 PM
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] [Bulk] Important Bill Maher Message


>I meant to reply to this earlier.  This is a very important point.  For
> those that haven't watched it or can't watch it, Bill Maher shows some
> of the devastation from the train wreck at Chatsworth and of Hurricane
> Ike.  He then makes the point that if this was the result of a terrorist
> attack, we would have freaked as a country (my words).
>
> This is very true, and the point has been made here before.  This caused
> me to think about something I've wanted to mention here before, but
> couldn't get the words together for it.  Our reaction to 9/11 as a
> country was in a way schizophrenic.  We reacted with extreme fear, and
> we reacted with extreme "macho"-ness.  Those two reactions seem
> contradictory to me, but I think the one comes from the other.  Being
> "macho" is often done because of fear, or as a reaction to a fearful
> situation.
>
> I would have liked us to have been truly macho in our response to 9/11.
> We could have taken the attitude of "You want a piece of me?  Come and
> get it!"  Instead of taking away liquids, lighters and nail clippers, we
> could have given every person that boards a plane a big Rambo knife.
> Just try to hijack a plane after 9/11 when everyone on board has a big
> knife - even if you happen to have one yourself.
>
> I'm kidding about giving knives out on planes, but you get the idea.
>
> So, instead of being the person that gets shoved by someone who shoves
> back and stands their ground, we were the bully that gets hit, runs off
> crying, and then pounds on some little kid we don't happen to like when
> the opportunity presents itself.  We justify it to ourselves because he
> resembled the guy that shoved us, and we got to steal his lunch money.
>
> Thinking that the name Barack Hussein Obama is an insulting name is a
> symptom of that fearful pretend macho-ness that has swept us down the
> path of shamefulness on the world stage.  It's time to put our foot back
> on the path we were originally on, don't you think?
>
> Paul
>
> Chasuk wrote:
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmCC_jasq0E
>>
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