Friends, I came across this wonderful image on Goggle Images this morning.
It suggests to me the evolution of humankind, the ugliness and cruelty of its current status and the uncertainty of what may come in the future.
Of course, this assumes we humans have a future.
What does this image say to you?
P.S. Image came from: www.headburroantfarm.wordpress.com
Friends, to survive this threatening world and even before you dare to think about trying to change it, you need to create a fortress to which you can retreat when it becomes necessary, one in which you feel completely safe.
Now I’m not suggesting that you begin to build something similar to the one in the photograph (Neuschwanstein). A more modest fortress could be your own home or apartment, or a room therein. It could be a glade in a park or a flower garden or near the top of a tree or on a lonely beach. It could even be inside your own head.
I have two fortresses. One is on my veranda where there is an old, cane chair. This spot gets the early morning sun and it overlooks a garden. There is a statue of Buddha there and the insects and birds congregate. In the paddocks beyond, I often see kangaroos.
I feel warm and safe there because I can’t see any sign of other humans. There’s just me and nature and I feel part of it, part of its slow, patient rhythm.
Friends, as hard as it is to do, I have to admit that the ‘flat-earthers’ , bye and large, still rule the world.
I say this as someone who has spent more than a decade trying to get people to think, to question, to look at all the exciting possibilities that are available during our life if we did things differently as people, as nations.
Except for the people that contribute to this blog, I have failed. Indoctrination has won hands down.
People are most comfortable when clinging to the mindset imposed upon them when they were children. They are even more comfortable when imposing this mindset on their own children.
Friends, according to Reuters, this pathetic excuse for a man has appealed to the U.S. to IMPOSE A PEACE SETTLEMENT on the Middle East, one that creates a Palestinian State.
Yes, Abbas, a leader without a mandate, having failed to gain a single thing for his people from his continual appeasement and grovelling towards Israel, has now taken the final act of betrayal against his people. He is appealing to the world’s principal warmonger, a nation which for decades has supported every deplorable act and atrocity carried out by Israel, to IMPOSE a settlement.
Obviously, Abbas has lost what few brain cells he may have had since his Fatah Party rejected the democratic vote that saw Hamas elected by the Palestinian people and took over the West Bank.
He is quite obviously delusional and now thinks that America has the right to impose settlements on sovereign countries. And given the recalcitrance of Israel to American demands over the last decade, there’s even less chance!
Of course, America, which suffers from its own delusions of infinite power, would like the power to impose its will upon foreign countries and the world in general but, to my knowledge, they haven’t quite got it yet (although it’s not for the want of trying).
Friends, the photograph above shows a nice little scene. A friendly cleric chatting to some children. But, hang on, is this all that is happening?
What is really happening is that the cleric is shoveling stuff into the innocent childrens’ minds, stuff about a big Boogaboo who lives in the sky and who watches each child and, if they sin, each transgression is noted in a Big Book and, on Judgement Day, when all the graves open up and discharge their contents, they will be judged by the Boogaboo and, if they don’t measure up, down to hell they will go and burn in fires forever.
Now, I don’t know about you, but I find this scene rather harrowing. They are just kids who haven’t got the maturity or the education or the intellect to analyze this ‘stuff’ and decide whether to accept it or not. No, all they know is that an authority figure is telling them that something fearful, something mysterious, something threatening is out there beyond their vision.
Along with graphic representations of a man on a cross who wears a crown of thorns who people say is the Boogaboo’s son, it’s the stuff of nightmares.
Friends, sometimes things occur that stick a pin in the inflated egos of most humans, things that remind them that, as powerful as they think they are, nature doesn’t care one bit!
Did you see the anger and frustration on the faces of those whose travel plans had been interrupted? If they could’ve nuked Iceland, they probably would’ve. You could see them thinking: How dare this volcano disrupt our plans, cause us inconvenience.
And the airlines were busy working out how much they were losing each day as if their profits were all that counted. As they lamented their losses, the volcano continued to send ash into the atmosphere and was unperturbed by the chaos it was creating
Of course, in the past months, there have been lots of inconvenient things happening like earthquakes and hurricanes. We’ve even had a couple of earthquakes in Australia, one in Adelaide and one in Western Australia.
When the earth moves, the results are not always pleasant. The images from Haiti were disturbing and horrific and the people there had more to worry about than a delay in their holidays. Finding their dead and somewhere to sleep occupied most of their time and still does.
“I heard on the trunkline that humans are trying to find ways to avoid blowing up the world.”
“Why did they invent such terrible weapons?”
“Don’t know! Humans say I’m not intelligent enough to know.”
“Perhaps intelligence is a bad thing.”
“Human intelligence certainly is.”
Friends, often on this blog I have criticized Israel for extending beyond the mandate they were given and I have also mentioned their dream of creating a Greater Israel.
Thanks to Desert Peace (see Special Links), I have reproduced this map which featured in one of its excellent articles. Upon the map someone has drawn red borders, borders which Israel may well imagine are the future boundaries of its extended state.
Now, of course, the red lines are surely conjecture. Israel is not going to release maps showing what its plans are, no way. It may talk and dream about Greater Israel within Israel but not to the rest of the world (with perhaps the exception of the U.S., its constant partner in crime).
I imagine that America would love to see it grow to the size indicated. It would create a real buffer against potential Arab power in the Middle East. And if Greater Israel was heavily armed, it could further America’s aim to control that part of the world.
America’s problem would be to control the enlarged Jewish State which, like Israel, would believe it too is above all International Laws and Conventions and beholden to no one.
Friends, Al Jazeera broke the news late yesterday that the Israelis have struck another blow against the Palestinians.
They reported that: on April 13, 2010, a new Israeli military order comes into place allowing the mass deportation of tens of thousands of Palestinians from the occupied West Bank.
Any Palestinian or foreigner living in the West Bank without the appropriate id permit (receipt of which is controlled by Israel) can be deported within 72 hours or even jailed for up to 7 years.
Those Palestinians lucky enough to have escaped the open-air prison that is Gaza to now live in the West Bank maybe the first targeted and sent back.
According to Haaretz: Implementing this new military order is not only likely to spark a new conflagration in the territories, it is liable to give the world clear-cut proof that Israel’s aim is a mass deportation of Palestinians from the West Bank.”
Obviously, this news has infuriated the Palestinians who are already under the heavy boots of the Israelis. If thousands of West Bank citizens are forcibly moved to the already overcrowded and impoverished Gaza strip, that will greatly increase the suffering there.
Friends, if you get downhearted about the way the world is and that might always seems to be right, keep in mind that nothing lasts forever.
The image above portrays an aspect of the might of the Roman Empire, the invincibility of their legions, the spread of their conquests from Britain in the west to Asia Minor in the East.
Yet, they fell and all that is left of what was Rome and its empire are a few ruins here and there in Turkey, in Bath in England, etc. All the rest of the seemingly Eternal Empire has fallen into dust and the illustrious Emperors and their Generals are long gone and largely forgotten.
The same fate has befallen all the other Empires too: the Egyptians, the Persians, the Mongols, the Moors, the British, etc.