THE WAY IT IS ....

For thousands of years, various thinkers, philosophers, religious or non religious, all questioned the nature of reality, human related reality, questions of how should people lead their lives and what ethics should reign among different groups of people. All religions were an attempt at telling people to obey certain laws or face consequences, they were called  "godly inspired and spread laws" Simply for more weight, but most humans kept asking, what constituted the best way to live !!!

Some of our later worldly religions, such as Judaism and to a fair extend its offshoots, Christianity and more so Islam, take a different look and approach to these laws, ways and applications. A legalistic and pseudo moralistic God ordered approach, and less of a philosophical one, accompanied always with a firm threatening tone generally from God himself, and always implying that disobeying or infringing on his laws would bring about and entail the harshest of punishments, often imaginative involving various forms of cruel tortures with fires and skewers et all, and in both lives, the here in this world and in the next one !! God for some reason , never proved himself very philosophically empowered .

From the oldest commandments handed to Moses, to proliferate among his people , to all other prophets of the old Bible, to modern Greek influenced Bibles, to Mohammad and his follower's versions of an Aramaic/Judaeo/Arabian Islam , they all stressed on not committing basic sins, faithfully and blindly obeying god's laws and rituals, and a total feverish devotion and loyalty to him. the religious institutions and hierarchies there after, inherited these divination, obedience, and devotions and turned them into a full school.

Even early Hinduism was very similar in those aspects and approaches, whereby performing the right religious rituals , showing piety during one's life, and he's assured an incarnation of a better and higher quality, and eventually after death one would dwell with the Gods. Later Buddhist concepts mixed with Chinese and Japanese religions, turned more philosophical and addressed human well- being and nature more directly , and less godly and threatening .

Lately , many people all over the world are more than ever shifting emphasis , asking and rationing in the lines of ; " How should a virtuous person act, and under what rules of civility should we conduct ourselves toward others, rather than " how to serve God and live happily ever after" . The positioning of human affairs and persona, rather than God as a central goal in life, is becoming the norm in many civilized societies .

It is accepted nowadays that any authority, including god's and his religious hierarchies, is only legitimate, where it has the consent of the governed . Humans historically surrendered some of their rights to some absolute authorities and to religions and religious institutions only and mostly when life was very poor, nasty, brutal and short. in modern times all theocracies are a perfect example .

When the Rwandan genocide took place in the 90s, the majority extremists Hutus began originally to refer to the Tutsis as cockroaches, the characterization of intended victims as low insects or animals are common phenomena in or before any genocide, the Nazis frequently depicted Jews as rats, and all their victims as Untermenschen, (Sub-humans), Americans labeled native red Indians as savages, and black slaves were always less than humans.

Israeli Zionists, are often referring to Palestinians as animals or even less than animals, many still use the old demeaning adage against Palestinians of "a cancer" , obviously it says and implies that most people can be persuaded to participate in , and condone and justify large scale killings, annihilation, theft and apartheid, only after they begin to think of their victims as completely alien and lowly , that  they are indeed sub-human .

" Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities, has the power to make you commit atrocities." said Voltaire back in 1765.

My thanks as always ...

                                   

AMERICAN NEW FOREIGN INCLINATIONS .....

Indeed it is the first time ever, for a Saudi monarch to visit Russia, The king of Saudi Arabia and Mr. Putin in Moscow had many meetings , many exchanges, and signed deals that are very significant to both , the world geopolitics and the U.S.  The Saudi side will pump many billions of Dollars, into the Russian economy, a first by all aspects, and the Russian counterpart will send some considerable and advanced military hardware, including the famed S-400 anti aircraft missile system.

To look at it strategically, as the Saudi side historically got its military hardware, and more from the U.S. turned it into a significant development, for the area, Saudi itself, and some other allies like Pakistan and others .

The U.S. has been a trusted ally and protector of Saudi, and many other Arab entities, as well as Pakistan, since their inceptions and founding, the U.S. replaced the hegemony and colonialism of classical Europe , plus the implanting of Israel in the M-E, by a pseudo relation of friendship and trust. They all faced a rising Soviet Union , and went into a cold war instigated mostly by the U.S.

The United States confronted a new enemy, and needed some new allies across the glob, to help contain the spread of Soviet influence, Saudi and Pakistan were such exemplary allies. Somehow this whole scene is over, and the logic behind it no longer interest the U.S. and many of our older allies are drifting away , looking and searching for new partners and different alliances, leaving us stuck with some alienating relationships, with entities like Israel that do not help nor advance our position, or our interests in the world or the Middle East. Making it increasingly difficult to manage the entire area of the M-E, as well as  South and East Asia.

The U.S. lately became the hegemonic par excellence we know today , with our unchecked adventures and political weird decisions like the latest pulling off UNESCO, and threatening the United nations, strictly for the sake of Israel's Netanyahu and his alt right partners . Our policies are uncertain to say the least, our unconditional support of a colonial , apartheid state like Israel, is becoming blind and unquestioned and puts us in the follower position that we should not be in, isolating us from a whole Arab and Islamic world, throwing us into a stupid cosines with a very costly recipient of 3 to 4 Billion Dollars yearly of tax payer's money. All dating back to at least 50 years now, and still going like no other time, with no questioning what so ever.

The U.S. of today has clearly moved even closer to Israel in all policies, for no clear Trumpist reasons and his administration's political immaturity. Back up, financial and armament unchecked support, we have reached a total accommodation with Israeli rhetoric and hegemony, even theft and apartheid , Drifting away from our other allies , while toppling some potential allies, pushing everyone to start crafting new national security  policies, and addressing several regional security issues in different frame minds. Rather than letting the U.S implement these plans for them. Reaching out to Russia and China, and some European countries, is becoming the norm of the new strategies and securities.

The problem for the U.S. strategically is that while its relations and influence over the entire M-E, are changing , improving or deteriorating , America and its politicians are not realizing that they still need to work and coordinate with all sides, including maybe saving the Iranian nuclear deal, and not to succumb to only one side and one narrow hegemonic vision.

As we need to make sure Iran doesn't grow too powerful in the Middle East , we  need to make sure Israel Neocons and religious ultra right, don't step too much their presumed security needs and turn them into destructive hegemony and colonialism, dragging us and the world with them . America as the supper power it is ,  needs all sides, and has to maintain a power leverage over all sides, regardless of our petty elections and monetary local election needs and lobbying influences.

It's a crazy enough world as it is , and recent history proved it several times during the last century, and through this one , do we need more moron politicians and crazy leaders all over to restart and jump start new world adventures, conflicts and hellish experiences ???

My as always, many thanks for everything .     

          

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN FARMER ......

J.Hector St. John de Creveceur  (1735-1813) was a surveyor with the French army during the Indian wars (1754-63) After the war, Creveceur purchased a farm in NY, and prospered, the following excerpts are from his published ; "Letters from an American farmer", published in (1782).

A new continent, a modern society, different from what we have seen. It is not composed as in Europe, of great lords who possess everything, and of a herd of people who have nothing, here are no aristocratically families, no high courts, no kings, no bishops, no ecclesiastical dominion, no invisible power giving  to a few very visible ones, no great manufacturers employing tens of thousands, no great refinements of luxury . The rich and the poor are not so far removed from each other as they are in Europe. Some few towns excepted .

We are all tillers of the earth, from Nova Scotia to West Florida, we are a people of cultivators scattered over an immense territory, communicating with each other by means of good roads and navigable rivers, united by the silken bands of mild government, all respecting the laws , without dreading their power, or sudden change of mood, Because they are equitable.

We are all animated with the spirit of an industry which is unfettered and unrestrained, because each person works for himself. If he travels through our rural districts , he views not the hostile castle, and the haughty mansions, contrasted with the clay-built hut and miserable cabins, where cattle and men help to keep each other warm, and dwell in meanness, smoke, and indigence.

A pleasing uniformity of decent competence appears throughout our habitation, a civilized conformity , the meanest of our long-houses is a dry and comfortable habitation. Lawyers or merchants are some of the fairest titles our towns afford, that of a farmer is the only appellation of the rural inhabitants of our country side .... we have no princes, for whom we toil, starve, and bleed, we are the most perfect society now existing in the world. Here man is free as he ought to be .

WOW !!!! That was 1782 and for 234 years, we've been trying to add to the beauty and betterness and fairness of these lands and this scene, more or less of course depending on who's governing, but at least surely, most of the times. So why is it Mr. president that you and your very, very rich oligarchy, family, and entourage, and administration, your palaces, private clubs and habitat, and private golf courses , your private jets and yakhts  , and filthy  rich friends from all over the civilized and not so civilized  world are working so hard to topple it all !!!

What the American dream have achieved during 250 years , and managed to redistribute over the whole population, you're all trying and working hard to reverse, recreating the opposite , the exact opposite to be honest of what the good gentlemen farmer and many generations later were so proud of , and happy to live within.

Why are you all creating so much havoc and enmity in the land ?? all over the country literally ??  So much division and hatred between its people ?? Europe nowadays is the envy of the world with its fairness to its people , its fair social programs, its medical to all, and social securities to its elderly, even its treatment of immigrants and political asylum seekers , its free superior education at all levels, and they'r not bankrupt by any means.

While we, who had it all here, at least we could see it all coming with the light at the end of our tunnels , are reversing it all, and walking back , with sure steps to feudal days of greed , brutality, and hatred, and unfairness, why is it so Mr. Trump  ??? under your reign . Americans of all walks of life are bewildered , so are the world populations . But of course America comes first .
As always, my very sincere thanks for your time and help, from the la la lands (The lovely Lebanon)  I right to all of you with love .