SCENE FROM THE RAPE OF NANJING
"O, while you live, tell truth, and shame the devil!"
Shakespeare.
"We owe respect to the living; to the dead we owe only truth."
Voltaire
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for
good men to do nothing."
Edmond Burke
"Until humans can face the ugly truth about themselves,
change is impossible."
Anonymous.
QUESTION FOR THE MATURE: Does war dehumanize or simply reveal man’s true nature?
Dear David, I awaited for someone to comment before I say something on the horrendous images and memories that these images recall.
My answer is: war reveals SOME Men/Women’s true nature..
I cannot believe MAN is all about this. I do not find myself in these actions/images, and I know no war in the world could make me commit such atrocities. God Damn it, I feel guilty sometimes I even eat chicken. And I cannot be an exception. I have lots of friends like me. And my logic assumption is that MANY MANY MANY MANY humans are peaceful, positive beings.
The fact that the negative ones ruled throughout the history doesn t mean that we are all the same! Does it?
It s like saying patrupedes are all carnivorous. NO. Human is complex. Complexity gives space to aberration but also to progress. It is a matter of many factors of which I sum just a few: – ENVIRONMENTAL CONDITIONS (social,family, peers, education, religion)
- GENETICS (animal instincts, intellectual capacity)
- FEAR (sense of self preservation at all costs or not)
- EMPATHIC CAPACITY (some are not born with the “empathy” gene)
- only last, PERSONAL CHOICE
- and WILL (capacity to sustain the choice against environmental and internal pre-impositions)…
Sometimes CHOICE comes too late, and sometimes people are not allowed to have a choice by outside/inside limits.. if you sometimes look at people CHOICES/LACK OF, you may even realize it is no ultimately their fault..
However. Denying reality and facts and making the humanity look pink is delusional.
Also, painting it all black and denying the possibility of small progress, even at small steps, is just as negative as well.
90% of my hope is gone.
Please help me keep the 10% alive..
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Adina, congratulations on your courage for speaking out on this difficult issue. A few others, mediocre cowards and mealy-mouthed apologists that they are, prefer to lurk in the shadows and engage in frumpish gossip and backbiting. They are persona non grata on this blog now!
You are right when you say that, ‘denying reality and facts and making humanity look pink’ is delusional. History (and the news headlines each night) is replete with examples of human savagery and barbarity both large and small. Graphically, the photograph shows but one!
The little Vietnamese girl running down the road with most of her skin burned off with American napalm is another image that comes to mind. Hiroshima is another, that and the missile attack on the wedding party in Iraq (or was it Afghanistan?). Abu Graib, Guantanamo Bay, Darfur, Dresden, Auschwitz, The Killing Fields (Pol Pot) are but a few others.
When humans can look at themselves and their fellows honestly and clearly see what they really are then, and only then, will we have any chance of changing our primitive behaviour so we can eventually find peace.
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Thank You, David. I know what you say about the backstabbing cowards.
Bitterness and anger bite my soul when vividly experiencing reality trough the reminder of your pictures.
They are indeed the coward hypocrites.
They already have easy answers to difficult questions.
Most of the time they have a direct link to God, and they own the ultimate truths.
They already start the spiritual fight with bombastic statements, and disappear like the cowards they are when defeated by intelligent answers.
But here we are.
Intelligent people. Pardon my lack of modesty.
Not necessarily in agreement with each other.
Ready to challenge each other exposing our most intimate doubts and beliefs.
Challenging the stupidity and the hypocrisy.
HISTORY IS A FACT, (eventhough manipulated enough, still bares the mark of the real beast: Human)
HUMAN CRIMES ARE AN OMNIPRESENT FACT.
Come on cowards, bring some mighty quote from the Bible to prove us and those pictures above wrong..
what’s the most appropriate ending to it all? Would an “Amen” nake you feel better when you watch with your own eyes the atrocities of your “brothers in faith”?
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Yes, it’s an irony that most of the worst mass atrocities and depravities are carried out by those professing ‘religious faith’, Adina.
The Mei Li Massacre as I recall was carried out by bible-carrying, God-fearing Americans. Cheers.
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I agree with all of these comments. POLITICAL PONEROLOGY claims 10% of humans are psychopaths. Thanks.
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There are both professional psychopaths and casual psychopaths (ones who will respond negatively if the circumstances permit), Swans. If you add them together there are many.
Cheers.
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Other Things that you can do:
Alone or with others you can pretend to carry out sabotage and espionage. The purpose is to overwhelm the counter intelligence services. Once they have figured out that you are just yanking their chain you really can carry out acts of sabotage and espionage if you want to.
At your trail all evidence that is presented against you can be dismissed by the fact that you, or your group were only pretending to do these things as an act of civil disobiedence.
You can also carry out anti recruiting activities. Starve the Military Industrial Complex.
You can also recruit communist and anarchists to join the military and try to destroy from with in.
You can also put out leaflets exposing the evil nature of the US government in bars, and resturants near military bases.
I have some other ideas but they are really really nasty so I better not repeat them here in a public forum.
GoodLuck
In memory of Iraj ibn Farydun
The Sun of Buddha
Where is Paridise found?
Under the swords of the Zen Ninja!
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Ah, BuddahLoves, there truly are many ways to skin a cat! Cheers.
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BuddahlovesPaine, and so do I. You yourself fill me with hope that some men and women will step!
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