Sunday, January 31, 2010

Mother is Mother

Mother is Mother

I choke every time I read this story about the Mother. It reminds me how precarious life is and how precious it is to tie the lose ends of the life, and recieve blessings from your mother. Don't let a moment go by, pick up the phone and give her a call or better yet, go visit her. If she is not alive, there is a friends mother or a stranger that you can give that affection to.

Nine Februaries ago, on a Saturday Morning in 2002, I received a call from my Mother from India; she started telling me to carry on with life and take care of myself and my family. I sensed her last moment had come and I started crying a like a baby with my late wife, son and daughter around me. It will not amaze Indians and Perhaps Pakistanis’ and Bangladeshis of my generation (born in 50’s) that culturally we rarely verbalize our affection for parents or even say thank you in words, it is all non-verbal communication through caring and doing things for them.

I want to thank God for giving me the sense to tell her in time that I loved her, and thanked her for making me whoever I am today, it is because of her I am who I am today. It was the first time I have said those words in my life to my mother and turned out to be the only time I ever said. Thank God for that. I would have been a farmer in Irgampalli had it not been for my mother. I told her like they say in the Indian Movies, Ma, I am coming, and you are not going anywhere until I see you. Damn it, my eyes are wet now.

I reached Bangalore Airport at 2:00 AM, none of my three brothers were there to receive me, finally I took the taxi and reached my home about 6:00 AM – my Mother’s body was placed in the middle of the house. I sat next to her…. And every one was figuring out what was happening to me as I was smiling at her beautiful face, admiring her for tying all the loose ends of life, she had called every one for the whole week to forgive and be forgiven.

Prophet Muhammad was asked by his associates, who is the most important person in one's life. He says, Mother, they asked him again, who is next, he repeats Mother, they ask him again and for the third time he says, it is your mother and on the 4th call he says, it is your father. The importance of mother is stressed in every faith and culture and indeed, the Prophet said, the paradise is under your monthers feet. Such is the prominence given to mother. In Jewish tradition it is the Mother through whom the Jewish tradition continues, in Hindu tradtion Mother is venerated to nearly the status of God, there is a beautiful song, " o ma, your face is nothing different than God" ( us ko nahin dekha hum nay kabhi, per us ki zaroorat kya hogi, ai ma, teri soorat say alag, bhagwan ki soorat kya hogi - song link below) you find similar values in all traditions.

She was the mother of my town, as my Dad was a Mayor once, she had earned her own place in the community, all her Hindu, Christian, Jain, Parsee and Muslim friends were visiting her and doing their own prayers for her soul to rest in peace. I was admiring her for leaving a beautiful lesson for me to learn… tying the loose ends and going in peace, what a way to go!

And when I read the following story, which my fiancĂ© sent to me, my whole life went back to Saturday, February 23, 2002. I am yet to tie all the loose ends. However, one of the most pleasant parts of my life was the way my late wife Najma departed on her eternal journey – we cleaned each others’ slate, tied the loose ends and had the luxury of saying bye to each other. May God bless her soul, she is in peace and I am in peace, it was a perfect Michami Dukkadam, a greeting phrase the followers of Jain faith say to each other – Michami Dukkadam, simply meaning, let’s clean each other’s spiritual slate and refresh our lives for the next year. I have simplified my life by reducing all my goals and things to do in writing… It is a reminder for me to keep the life as clean as I can, and as simple as I can.

Amma, here I am, I will continue to tie the loose ends of life and when I go, I will have few things or none left to be done and God willing I will be smiling as you did. Amen!

A PIECE OF ADVICE

I learned that arguing with mother is the dumbest thing to do, she wants the best for you and why do you want to disagree in a conversation that gives her joy and you lose nothing. I realized that little late in my life, but was able to have a happy relationship with her in the last several times I visited her including the one in 2001, I would go home and sit next to her for the whole day, and let her talk and I would listen, it was a feast to her that I'd listen to her without interrupting. One time she slapped me ( Ofcourse with affection and I was 48!) when she realized that I had gone to sleep while she was talking. But she was the happiest woman seeing her son spend time with her. Please do that for your mother, she would love that and you'd be blessed for the rest of your life. They say, Mother's wishes (prayers) are a boon in one's life.

The song in praise of mother in Hindustani ( Hindi/Urdu) language - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hwGkie0BnQ&feature=fvw

Mike Ghouse
http://www.mikeghouse.net/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

IT IS ABOUT YOUR MOTHER

After 21 years of marriage, my wife wanted me to take another woman out to dinner and a movie. She said, 'I love you, but I know this other woman loves you and would Love to spend some time with you.'

The other woman that my wife wanted me to visit was my Mother, who has been a widow for 19 years, but the demands of my work and my three children had made it possible to visit her only occasionally.

That night I called to invite her to go out for dinner and a movie. 'What's wrong, are you well,' she asked? My mother is the type of woman who suspects that a late night call or a surprise invitation is a sign of bad news.

'I thought that it would be pleasant to spend some time with you,' I responded 'just the two of us.' She thought about it for a moment, and then said, 'I would like that very much.'

That Friday after work, as I drove over to pick her up I was a bit nervous. When I arrived at her house, I noticed that she, too, seemed to be nervous about our date. She waited in the door with her coat on. She had curled her hair and was wearing the dress that she had worn to celebrate her last wedding anniversary. She smiled from a face that was as radiant as an angel's. 'I told my friends that I was going to go out with my son, and they were impressed,' she said, as she got into the car. 'They can't wait to hear about our meeting.'

We went to a restaurant that, although not elegant, was very nice and cozy. My mother took my arm as if she were the First Lady.

After we sat down, I had to read the menu.. Her eyes could only read large print. Half-way through the entrees, I lifted my eyes and saw Mother sitting there staring at me. A nostalgic smile was on her lips.

'It was I who used to have to read the menu when you were small,' she said. 'Then it's time that you relax and let me return the favor,' I responded. During the dinner , we had an agreeable conversation nothing extraordinary but catching up on recent events of each other's life. We talked so much that we missed the movie. As we arrived at her house later, she said, 'I'll go out with you again, but only if you let me invite you.' I agreed.

'How was your dinner date?' asked my wife when I got home. 'Very nice, much more so than I could have imagined,' I answered.

A few days later, my mother died of a massive heart attack. It happened so suddenly that I didn't have a chance to do anything for her. Sometime later, I received an envelope with a copy of a restaurant receipt from the same place Mother and I had dined. An attached note said: 'I paid this bill in advance. I wasn't sure that I could be there; but, nevertheless, I paid for two plates - one for you and the other for your wife. You will never know what that night meant for me.

'I love you, son'

At that moment, I understood the importance of saying in time: 'I love YOU' and to give our loved ones the time that they deserve. Nothing in life is more important than your family. Give them the time they deserve, because these things cannot be put off till some 'other' time.

Somebody said it takes about six weeks to get back to normal after you've had a baby... somebody doesn't know that once you're a mother, 'normal' is history.

Somebody said you can't love the second child as much as you love the first... somebody doesn't have two or more children.

Somebody said the hardest part of being a mother is labor and delivery....somebody never watched her 'baby' get on the bus for the first day of kindergarten... or on a plane headed for military 'boot camp.'

Somebody said a Mother can stop worrying after her child gets married... somebody doesn't know that marriage adds a new son or daughter-in-law to a mother's heartstrings..

Somebody said a mother's job is done when her last child leaves home... somebody never had grandchildren.

Somebody said your mother knows you love her, so you don't need to tell her.... somebody isn't a mother.

Pass this along to all theGREAT'mothers' in your life and to everyone who ever had a mother.

This isn't just about being a mother; it's about appreciating the people in your lives while you have them... no matter who that person is!

The Indian song praising the mother - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XquVaTHY6nY

~~~

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Are you a perfectionist?

Sunday, Jan 16, 2010
Carrollton

"The perfectionist is bound to be a neurotic; s/ he cannot enjoy life, until s/he is perfect. And perfection as such never happens; it is not in the nature of things. Totality is possible, perfection is not possible."
Indeed the, perfectionists have difficulty finding contentment.

I was one for many years, thank God, I have gotten out of it. My daughter topped me on that one, when she was little, I would make her bed on the way out to school, that little thing would walk back and pull the bed cover down by 1" on the left, so it is all even, you can almost put a level finder to it.

My late mother beat me too, she would ask me to dig 2 centimeter holes in the ground to plant the flower bulbs, OMG, of the dozen or so holes I dug and planted the bulds, she would go back and take it out and redo it, if it did not meet her Nasa precision by 1/10th of a millimeter.

My uncle would take a day to fix a broken toy, he has got to have it right, then he would complain about the time lost. Hey, at one time, I would fold, re-fold and fold the clothes again until I found satisfaction and then gripe about the lost time, my son would yell, Dad, what's the big deal?

It is an opportunity for us to help our friends with “Perfectionist leanings” to ease into an understanding that even God’s* perfect universe has room to tweak. The orbit of the planets and the system of universe is precisely put together and every thing is running smoothly for times beyond our imagination and will continue to do so. The universe is perfect, but has room for random contingencies.

God* is probably saying, “look at the model of universe I have made out of matter, it is precise and running smoothly and every element is doing what is created to do. [(Please share a quote from your holy text so we can learn, in Qur’aan, Sura Rahman, God says that every thing I have created in the form of matter is doing precisely what it is scheduled to do- Qur’aan 55:6 “[before Him] prostrate them¬selves the stars and the trees.)” and then it continues, be content with what you have, don't deny the goodies I have given you. ] However, I have randomly included falling stars, meteorites and other cosmic debris in the universe and on your planet earth; the Tsunamis or earth quakes. There is no perfection my man."

This is your model, you have the free will, but you do not have influence on every variable out there. “Strive” to be the best but accept that there is no perfection. That acceptance will bring you peace of mind or at least contentment.

Another example to help our friends ease is our own space program. NASA produces precise rockets to go to moon, they cannot afford to have 1/100th of 1 degree variation in the trajectory, but yet, we have had tragic accidents.

You have to accept that, there are others involved in every thing you produce. You cannot demand them to be like you, as you would not want to be like them. You cannot even go to work on time if there is an accident, flood or something else. Do the best and be content with your effort.

The press release I wrote yesterday on the Holocaust and Genocides event, took me a few hours to fix it, if it was a decade ago, I recall, it would have taken me a week to do it, even then I would not have been happy. Take a look; it is at www.HolocaustandGenocides.com

* God does not have to be taken in the traditional sense shared by religions, it can be taken as the energy or force that logically caused evolution, creation or the big bang for us to come into being.

Mike Ghouse is a thinker, writer speaker and an activist of pluralism, interfaith, co-existence, peace, Islam and India. He is a frequent guest at the TV, radio and print media offering pluralistic solutions to issues of the day. His websites and Blogs are listed on http://www.mikeghouse.net/

If you wish to see comments on this, please go to face book at: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=380988&id=851280248&saved#/notes/mike-ghouse/the-perfectionists-tend-to-be-unhappy-what-is-your-take/278985732773

~~~

Saturday, January 16, 2010

PRESS RELEASE
Contact: Mike Ghouse (214) 325-1916,
email: MikeGhouse@aol.com
event email: HolocaustandGenocides@gmail.com
Website: http://www.holocaustandgenocides.com/

III ANNUAL REFELCTIONS ON THE HOLOCAUST AND GENOCIDES

DALLAS – (January 14, 2010) –The Foundation for Pluralism announces the 7/7 speakers Panel to reflect upon the Holocaust and Genocides event at 5:00 PM on Sunday, January 24, 2010 at the Center for Spiritual Center, 4801 Spring Valley Road, Dallas, TX. 75244.

Each individual in the seven member panel would acknowledge the inhumanity in each one of us and reflect upon the solutions for co-existence. It is a purposeful event to learn, acknowledge and reflect upon the terrible things, that we humans have inflicted upon each other.

What can you do as individual?
Continue: http://holocaustandgenocides.blogspot.com/2010/01/press-release-on-holocaust-and.html
~ ~ ~

Friday, January 15, 2010

Haiti and Earthquake

Haiti - posted at the Foundation for Pluralism Blog

Haiti and Earthquake Theology
Dr. Jeffress, this is one of the most timely pieces, that we the people of faith need to read. I thank you from the bottom of my heart. It is time to get out and help, God is testing us and our intentions. Indeed, when we don't understand the calamities and its purpose, and we never will, it is good to trust in God. He is the creator and he knows his creation.
http://wisdomofreligion.blogspot.com/2010/01/haiti-and-earthquake-theology.html

Haiti, Voodoo's view on the quake
If you feel the temptation that your faith makes sense and others don't, ask yourselves, where does this arrogance come from? My comments follow the article
http://wisdomofreligion.blogspot.com/2010/01/haiti-voodoos-view-on-quake.html

Haiti needs one hundred helicopters
I urge each one of us living in the United States to make the call to the white house at the number given below. May God bless success to these initiatives and hope together we can save lives. Amen - http://wisdomofreligion.blogspot.com/2010/01/haiti-needs-one-hundred-helicopters.html

Faith in action: Haiti TragedyShare
It is the spirit of service, every religion is participating in the efforts to find relief to the victims in Haiti. This is what religion is all about; it is not me, me, and me, it is we, we and us.
http://wisdomofreligion.blogspot.com/2010/01/multifaith-action-haiti-tragedyshare.html

Seeking Harmony in Malaysia
I am pleased to see the following article by Imam Feisal. He has laid out how things are and then offered solutions. My comments follow the article
http://wisdomofreligion.blogspot.com/2010/01/seeking-harmony-in-malaysia.html

Mike Ghouse
~~~~

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Haiti - Faith in Action

LET'S ACT

I am pleased to share below a list of organizations racing to serve humanity in need.

The spirit of service rises above all differences whenever there is a calamity. This refreshes hope in the goodness of humanity. Thank God, men and women of faith of religion are participating in the efforts to find relief to the victims in Haiti. This is what religion is all about; to serve others. It is not me, me, and me, it is we, we and us.

God says in Quraan, you must race in doing good, you must compete in serving humanity, please share the quote from your holy book in the comments section below.

I am also adding a poem written by my friend Mirza. A. Beg below the notes, it is worth reading and forwarding to men like Pat Robertson, who do not understand the nature.

If you know an organization that is working on this, please click the following link and list it, and it will appear in the comment section below- http://mikeghouseforamerica.blogspot.com/2010/01/haiti-faith-in-action.html#comments

If you want to forward this information, copy the following link and send: http://mikeghouseforamerica.blogspot.com/2010/01/haiti-faith-in-action.html

Thank you
Mike Ghouse
~~~~~~~~~

Official casualty reports are still unknown, but by all accounts the earthquake that hit Haiti on Tuesday, January 12 has leveled one of the most densely-populated regions of the country. The disaster was described by local officials as a "catastrophe of major proportions." Faith-based and disaster relief organizations around the globe are quickly mobilizing to provide immediate assistance to address the devastating aftermath of the quake.

How Can We Help

• Donations to American Jewish World Service’s "Haiti Earthquake Relief Fund" will enable AJWS's network of grantees in Haiti to meet the urgent needs of the population based on real-time, on-the-ground assessments; LINK: https://secure.ajws.org/site/Donation2?df_id=3460&3460.donation=form1

• Catholic Relief Services is also organizing its office in Haiti, and has announced an appeal for donations to deal with the chaos; LINK: http://crs-blog.org/earthquake-hits-haiti/

• Islamic Relief has launched an appeal for £1 million to respond to the disaster; LINK: http://www.islamic-relief.com/Emergencies-And-Appeals/emBackground.aspx?emID=66

• Oxfam America, which has launched an immediate appeal is seeking donations, as they prepare to rush teams from around the region to help provide clean water, emergency shelter, and sanitation; LINK: https://secure.oxfamamerica.org/site/Donation2?df_id=3560&3560.donation=form1

• Doctors Without Borders teams, who were already working on medical projects Haiti, have treated hundreds of people injured in the quake despite the destruction of medial centers and hospitals; LINK: http://doctorswithoutborders.org/

• Direct Relief International is responding to the disaster by sending emergency medical supplies to all their local partners; LINK: http://www.directrelief.org/EmergencyResponse/2010/EarthquakeHaiti.aspx

• CARE is mobilizing donors to help send immediate supplies and aid down to the country; LINK: https://my.care.org/site/Donation2?5000.donation=form1&df_id=5000

• AmeriCares is taking donations to help get emergency medical supplies down to Haiti, and has agreed to pledge upwards of $5 million in order to help with the chaos. LINK: http://www.americares.org/newsroom/news/deadly-earthquake-strikes-haiti-2010.html

Other Ideas for Taking Action

Organize a fundraising event to help the Haiti victims. Reach out to your campus' religious groups, to Greek life, service organizations, student government, and offer to help coordinate an interfaith campus/community-wide activity in response to this disaster.

Note Courtesy of Bridge Builders @ http://bridge-builders.ning.com/

"Haiti Earthquake Fund" Established By
Helping Hand For Relief & Development (USA)
Leading International NGO of USA
USA Tax Exempt #: 31-1628040

Irfan Khurshid, Coordinator International Programs,for HHRD-USA is making arrangements to set-up A Base Camp in Haiti

HOW TO CONTRIBUTE Monetary Help at www.HHRD.Org
(Click Donate Now Tab & Choose "Haiti Earthquake Fund")

Earthquake in Haiti
Some Thoughts
Mirza A. Beg
Wednesday, January 13, 2003

Earthquake in Haiti
Tens of thousands dead
Perished without warning
Silencing thoughts and feeling
Mourned by dazed family and friends

Another human calamity
As in disasters before
Earthquakes and Tsunamis
Volcanoes and typhoons
In times and places before

A wrath of God, fury of nature
Or simply an occurrence
Powerful and amazing
As Galaxies colliding
Indifferent to humanity

An event predetermined in time
Propelled by the laws of nature
With no malice or blame
Ants crushed by a bulldozer
Insects under passing feet

Geologic plates moving, colliding
Directions determined eons ago
By forces of cosmic creation
Unconcerned by our feelings
Humbling the arrogant humanity

Inadvertently the Nature tests
Our own nature and values
Some condemn the victims
For inviting the wrath of God
Some don’t even notice and go on

But many find morality in piety
Helping the injured and destitute
Giving meaning to our lives
Compassion for fellow beings
Scripts the nobility of being

Mirza A. Beg can be contacted at mab64@yahoo.com or
http://mirzasmusings.blogspot.com/

~~~

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

Free to criticize religions but not with hate


High Court Decision on Hate; a new international precedent
 
I applaud the decision by the Bombay High Court, they have set a new international precedent favoring the freedom of speech and adding the "Hate clause" to the ruling. This is something the Europeans can look up to. Freedom of speech must prevail.

It is our duty to keep law and order and faithfully guard the safety of every citizen. Hate is one of the many sources of disrupting peace in a society and it is our responsibility to track down the source of such hate and work on mitigating it. We have an obligation to maintain a balance in the society.

My comments follow the article "Free to criticize religions but not with hate" –Mike Ghouse
http://wisdomofreligion.blogspot.com/2010/01/free-to-criticize-religions-but-not.html
 
~~~-~~~

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

War is wrong, we can still salvage America

WAR IS WRONG

If we had supported the anti-war movement with Cindy Sheehan and Mike Moore long time ago, we would not have seen the ravages of financial disaster, bankruptcies and joblessness we are facing now due to war.

It was fashionable for the bullies to put down these folks, but doing so, they have brought disaster on us.

Throughout the human history a few have duped the majority by creating fake reasons to go war. They knew it is wrong but their greed for money and power was overpowering their own morality.

The only ones that suffer are the general public; in this case we the Americans, the Iraqis and Afghanistanis, the causers of war are sitting pretty with their secure wealth.

We need to wake up and oppose wars, if not we end up losing both morally and financially.
Obama needs to come to his senses, there is no justification for war or killing, particularly the ones in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Respectfully, we need to bow out, they can take care of it themselves, it is sheer arrogance to believe that we have to baby sit them. They all have endured the Butchers from 12th century down till now. We are creating more mess for them and us.

Let's get the hell out of there, let's leave them alone.
Here is an you tube from a soldier who has been there

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3ZjsC3BOBE


- War is a tool of the weak incapable of dialogue.
- War mongers are usually powerful
- War mongers are too eager to kill than dialouge
- War is justifiable to defend ourselves and not to kill others ... See More
- War was need to stop Hitler from killing, he was maniac
- War brings disaster to all.
- War mongers themselves would never be on front line
- War mongers are real cowards, they use others
- War is dumb, for one man, you destroy the nations?
- War is dumb, we are payingthe price.
- War should be the last resort to save lives

~~~~

Political Linguistics in America

Political Linguistics in America

My comments follow the article by Prof. John Kozy, the article not only brings out the political linguistic gymnastics, but also the ideas about governance and his challenges to traditional narratives – Mike Ghouse


Political Linguistics in America


The American Kleptocratic "Necrocracy": A "Democracy" that Kills

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=16469

by Prof. John Kozy


Languages are called living because they constantly change. There's no way to stop that, of course; people use languages as they will. Linguists often speak approvingly of the change, citing the richness it adds to language and inventiveness of the human mind, but the change also has unintended consequences that are often overlooked. The change, after all, is what makes works written in old and even middle English unintelligible to modern speakers of English.


Some attempts have been made to control linguistic change; they have not had much success. L'Académie française, for example, has continuously fought a loosing battle against changes in French, and even the U.S. governments attempts to advocate Simplified English show few positive results. Yet attempts to control linguistic change arise because of an irrefutable fact, namely, that linguistic change often makes speech and writing ambiguous which obscures meaning and leads to muddled thinking.


Take the word 'democracy,' for instance. It has come to mean something like a government whose agents are 'elected by the people.' But that's a slippery definition. Democracy originally meant rule by the people, but the people do not rule in governments whose agents are merely elected.


If there are legal or financial restrictions on who can seek office, what is called democracy can be any one of a number of different kinds of government. If only clerics of a specific religious sect can seek office, the government that results is really an ecclesiocracy. If only the affluent can seek office, it would be a plutocracy. If only geniuses are allowed to seek office, it would be a geniocracy, and there are numerous other types. Merely calling a nation democratic is so ambiguous it has no real meaning.


When President Wilson went before Congress on April 2, 1917, to seek a Declaration of War against Germany in order that the world "be made safe for democracy," exactly what was he pleading for? Almost a dozen major and numerous minor wars since have apparently not made the world safe for anything, no less, democracy. The world is more dangerous for nations and their peoples than ever.


When US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with more than 20 Arab foreign ministers in Marrakesh, Morocco to promote democracy in the region, what exactly what was she promoting? After all, the Iranians hold regular elections.


When President Bush told a gathering of the Asian American Heritage month in Washington that "We're working with India to promote democracy and the peace it yields throughout the continent, " exactly what was he promoting, especially since Arundhati Roy, an Indian woman, writes in Listening to Grasshoppers; Field Notes on Democracy, that democracy has "metastasized into something dangerous." She argues that democracy in India is not for, of and by the people but "designed to uphold the consensus of the elite for market growth," which is, of course, exactly what American democracy has become.


P.R. Sarkar, the founder of Prout, the Progressive Utilization Theory, is cited as saying that democracy can never be successful unless the majority of the population are moralists, that there needs to be a trend that supports humanistic values, and that capitalism breaks down whatever remains of those very values. "In its relentless quest for individual material acquisitions and selfish comfort it makes us all insensitive to the suffering of others and prone to divisive tendencies." Sarkar is right, of course. After all, even the Papacy has been corrupted at various times in history. Any system can be corrupted when it is controlled by the immoral.


Roy claims that this late phase of mature capitalism is headed for hell. But people living in capitalist economies have always lived in hell. Dante's Inferno has seven levels; today's capitalist democracies have many more, and only the level distinguishes one capitalist hell from others.


Roy approves of violence as a means of people's resistance to injustice. She claims that many of the poor are "crossing over... to another side; the side of armed struggle." Certainly that observation is true, but the crossover has not yet occurred within capitalist democracies, and the Western democratic attempt to "promote democracy" is merely an attempt to extend the boundaries of this hell to other regions. Yet, success may be illusory.


Victor Davis Hanson, a patrician, conservative, American historian, who writes on war but has never himself served, claims that "the usual checks on the tradition of Western warfare are magnified in our time." He argues that there are there are five traditional checks on it. One is the Western tendency to limit the ferocity of war through rules and regulations. Second, there is no monolithic West; the U.S. and its allies often can't agree. Third, it is very easy to acquire and use weapons. Four, there are ever-present anti-war movements in the West, extending all the way back to Classical Greece, citing Euripides' Trojan Women and Aristophanes' Lysistrata, and fifth, it's not easy to convince someone who has the good life to fight against someone who doesn't.


Although all of these are true, Hanson, like many historians, fails to probe deeply by asking, Why? The why may lie in the increasing recognition of the insight President Eisenhower described when he said, "I hate war, as only a soldier who has lived it can, as one who has seen its brutality, it futility, its stupidity . . . every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense atheft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed." That recognition may in the end be the ultimate check on the Western way of war, and patricians like Hanson are right to be concerned. The time that the poor are willing to fight to preserve the patrician lifestyles of the wealthy may come to an end as the perpetual war of Western nations against the rest of humanity is exposed by the stream of people in body bags returned to their homelands for burial.


The democracy being promoted and made safe is not the one of rule by the people. It is a kleptocratic necrocracy that kills so that it can scavenge the carcasses of the dead and dying so that America can continue to be the largest consumer of the world's resources. Such is the democracy that the youth of Western nations are being asked to fight and die for, and it is made possible by the ambiguity in the word democracy what has made the term meaningless.


Napoleon is cited as having said that religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich. As the poor grow more and more numerous, being stripped of their meager holdings by kleoptocratic capitalist political economies whose greed knows no bounds, this may change, and Arundhati Roy may be right in believing that many of the poor will cross over to the side of armed struggle. If so, the Western patrician class has good reason to be concerned.


------------------------

John Kozy is a frequent contributor to Global Research. Global Research Articles by John Kozy. John Kozy is a retired professor of philosophy and logic who blogs on social, political, and economic issues. After serving in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, he spent 20 years as a university professor and another 20 years working as a writer. He has published a textbook in formal logic commercially, in academic journals and a small number of commercial magazines, and has written a number of guest editorials for newspapers.



Comments by Mike Ghouse


"One is the Western tendency to limit the ferocity of war through rules and regulations."
Up till the above statement, the writer was doing well finding holes to each one of the earlier statements, I was looking to read about the ferocity of "shock and awe" of Bush and Ferocity in Iraq.


- "Napoleon is cited as having said that religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich." Indeed, that has been my argument, it is because of religion we have less chaos in the world, and lack of it would have been disastrous. Most of the conflicts are directly attributable to greed (which goes against religions) and arrogance (against religion) of the individuals.


"Arundhati Roy may be right in believing that many of the poor will cross over to the side of armed struggle. If so, the Western patrician class has good reason to be concerned."


I have always wondered about this, when the disparities get intensified and goes completely out of balance and out of management, would it lead to a revolt big enough to justify communistic idea of forcing equality onto every one. What will happen in Pakistan? Is communism a product of disparity beyond the threshold of bearing?