Wednesday August 12, 2009, 10:29 pm
Who will of course become sworn enemies of the US; when will they ever learn? I guess perhaps when the US government realises that while they worship the dollar it doesn't buy real friends, loyalty or any respect.

Thursday August 13, 2009, 10:49 am
Russians got Kadyrov to manage Chechnya for them. Could US handle guys like Kadyrov? I doubt...

Saturday August 15, 2009, 1:50 pm
Sherbet... therer is nothing to show for it, except rich sheiks in rich palaces adorned in gold... America what were you thinking... you cannot simply buy everything you want.. that comes at a terrible price..

Saturday August 22, 2009, 8:23 pm
The True Cause Of Cruelty
Posted by Alex Lickerman

In seventh
grade I once found myself in the school gym locker room changing before class
when a group of my classmates began bullying a boy named Pino for having breasts
(a condition called gynecomastia that
sometimes occurs in young boys at puberty, usually resolving spontaneously). I
failed to rise to his defense, too afraid at the time to have their malevolent
attention redirected toward me, but remember feeling awful for Pino and
wondering how anybody could be so effortlessly cruel.
It’s commonly observed how children can be mean to one another in a certain
phase of their development, can bully one another mercilessly and then somehow
still grow up into reasonably well-adjusted adults who leave their cruel
behavior behind in childhood (regrettably, of course, some don’t leave
it behind, often due to strife, cruelty, or neglect they’ve suffered themselves
at the hands of their parents or other caregivers). Most of us find cruelty in
children as unacceptable as we find it in adults and often attempt to quell it
when we see it. And yet if we fully apprehend the true cause of cruelty, we’re
also forced to recognize just how easy it is for any of us to fall prey
to it, and further, that it stands as the identical underlying cause of both
murder and war.
THE SPIRIT OF ABSTRACTION
It’s called the spirit of abstraction, a term originally coined by Gabriel Marcel
in his essay “The Spirit of Abstraction as a Factor Making for War,” and is
defined as the practice of conceiving of people as
functions rather than as human beings. In early
American history a large segment of the population labeled African Americans as
“slaves,” reducing their identity as human beings into an abstract idea only,
freeing slave owners to consider slaves their property. Hitler convinced a
majority of Germans to conceive of a segment of their population as “Jews,”
abstracting their identity as human beings into something he convinced the
German people was so inferior he was able to wipe out 6 million of them (not to
mention half a million gypsies as well). Americans, in turn, abstracted the
Japanese people into “Japs,” a derogatory term that reduced them from human
beings with hopes, loves, families, and fears into the “enemy” on whom it was
therefore eventually permissible to drop two atomic bombs.
NOT JUST SOMETIME OR SOMEWHERE
ELSE
When George H. Bush announced the beginning of the first Gulf War in 1990 a
cheer was reported at a professional basketball game, and I remember thinking
that even if a war were deemed necessary how barbarous it was to enter into it
with anything other than a heavy heart. I know now why that cheer went up,
though. The spirit of abstraction.
Today there are the telemarketers at whom we snap and upon whom we hang up
angrily for calling us at home. There are the customer service representatives
we abuse for following a “no receipt, no return policy.” There are other
drivers on the road at whom we swear when they refuse to let us merge into
traffic (a practice of abstraction of which I’m particularly and frequently
guilty). All examples of ways each of us fall prey to the spirit of abstraction
on a daily basis.
The spirit of abstraction is the main reason I resist associating myself with
any group. Certainly texture and interest attaches itself to different cultures
and traditions, but it’s far too easy to abstract others (Americans, Canadians,
Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, women, children, doctors, valets, hairdressers) if I
attach too much importance to labels. Not that it’s wrong to value a particular
facet of a person (as long as valuing it is what you’re doing), but every
group—except for the largest, the human race itself (and perhaps even that’s too
narrow)—by definition excludes others. We like to connect ourselves
with people who share similar backgrounds and characteristics to make ourselves
feel comfortable and safe, but the cost, in my view, is often (though certainly
not always) too high: a subtle belief in our own group’s superiority that
promotes the abstraction of anyone else belonging to another.
How often do you think about even your spouse outside of the function he or
she plays in your life, regarding him or her as a full-fledged human being in
his or her own right whose needs, desires, and pleasures may exist completely
apart from your own? How often do you think this way about your children,
overcoming the tendency to conceive of them as simply extensions of yourself and
allowing them to blossom in your conception as human beings with their own
destinies—destinies that may be intimately intertwined with yours but are
ultimately their own responsibility in the same way your destiny is yours?
WHAT CAN WE DO?
I firmly believe if we trained ourselves to avoid abstracting others, cruelty
in all its forms would be a far rarer thing than it is today. How, then, can we
improve our ability to do this more consistently?
Recognize that, just like you, everyone has a reason for what they
do. It may not appear a good reason to you (and may not actually be),
but no one ever acts in a way that seems irrational to them. Aim first
to understand their reason before you judge it. A negative judgment
may, of course, ultimately prove justified, but if you’ve first sought to
understand their perspective, you’ve already taken a step away from abstraction
toward empathy.
Observe how often you abstract others in the course of your
day. When you see your mailman dropping off your mail, how often do
you allow her to expand in your mind to her full dimension as a human being and
wonder about her mother, her kids, her health problems, or her hopes and
dreams? How often do you think about the taxi driver’s struggle to obtain a
visa, his fear that he may not be permitted to stay in this wonderful country a
constant gnawing at his gut, even as he may seem more interested in talking on
his cell phone than driving you safely to your destination? When I’ve observed
myself this way, I’ve been amazed at how few people I encounter during the day
that I actually embrace in my mind as full-fledged human beings.
Practice wondering about what people don’t show
you about themselves. Maybe you’re one of the rare
people who routinely considers the full human dimension of people who flit in
and out of your life. The rest of us, however, need to practice seeing
through labels, reminding ourselves that everyone was once a small, helpless
baby in need of protection who someone raised and cared about (I once attended a
talk by Bernie Siegel, author of Love, Medicine, and Miracles, who
projected a picture of the most adorable baby any of us had ever seen, which
elicited a loud and prolonged “Awwwww…” from the audience. When he next
projected a picture of a decrepit old man, the audience shrunk back. “Why so
repulsed?” Bernie asked. “It’s the same person.” The real reason for the
audience’s reaction? The spirit of abstraction operates with respect to age,
too).
To my classmates in the school locker room all those decades ago, Pino was
nothing more than a funny looking kid with breasts, an abstraction that enabled
them to tease him mercilessly. To me, however, he was a gentle little boy I
pitied for being unable to stand up for himself, a full-fledged human being who
was terribly embarrassed by their teasing (though he pretended not to be). I
wish I could go back in time armed with the courage to stand up for him. I wish
I’d told him I didn’t think he was funny looking. I don’t know how hurt he was
by that episode or by any subsequent episodes of bullying he may have
experienced, but I find myself hoping that if he did suffer frequently in that
way that rather than scarring him it blossomed in him a special sense of empathy
(as feeling like an outsider often does)—a sense of empathy that turned him into
an adult who today won’t tolerate cruelty of any kind.http://www.happinessinthisworld.com/2009/07/19/the-true-cause-of-cruelty/#more-2860