I Don't Care, I Love It!

"Hey hey hey just think while you've been getting down and out about all the liars and the dirty dirty cheats of the world you could have been getting down to this sick beat." Taylor Swift from her song "Shake it Off."

Well, I am a fella who no longer has hella good hair but I DO have somethin' in my brain so when the fakers fake fake fake and the haters hate hate hate, I'm not just gonna shake shake shake. But thanks for the advice anyway, girl younger than the underwear I have on right now.

"You're on a different road, I'm in the Milky Way. You want me down on earth, but I am up in space. You're so damn hard to please, we gotta kill this switch. You're from the 70's, but I'm a 90's bitch." "I crashed my car into a bridge. I watched, I let it burn. I crashed my car into a bridge. I don't care. I love it." Icona Pop's song "I Love It."

"You're like a drug that's killing me. I'd cut you out entirely. But I get so high when I'm inside you." Maroon 5 from the number one song on Billboard as I type, "Animals."


"Staying in my play pretend Where the fun ain't got no end Ooh Can't go home alone again Need someone to numb the pain You're gone and I gotta stay High all the time To keep you off my mind." Tove Lo's song "Habits (Stay High)"

Anybody else see a theme here or am I out on that all too familiar limb of the tree all by myself again?

I have been on a bit of an ethical, philosophical, spiritual mission since I got out of the mindless euphoria of youth to try to find some joy in the suffering of life. That's been my goal for quite some time now. Not going well, but thanks for asking. But am I seeing here what could be my problem? Am I too busy trying to find GENUINE joy in the pain that is life? And "Life IS pain, highness! Anyone who tells you different is selling something." Westley/The Dread Pirate Roberts. Such a quotable movie!!!

The first noble truth of Buddhism is that life is suffering. You're gonna get lemons. But maybe I've been struggling so much because I am trying to make lemonade out of lemons instead of saying, "Screw it, I'll just go dancing, crash my car and watch it burn like a pyro, have some hate sex or alter my mind synthetically to get to a play pretend place where I'll forget about those uncooperative lemons." Don't fix the problem, settle, shake it off, get stoned or just repeat I love it I love it I love it I love it I love it until you love it.

Does this sound like unhealthy autohypnosis or phony escapism to anyone else out there or am I from the 70's and damn hard to please? I guess I DO want people more down to earth instead of walking around with their heads in the clouds, (or the Milky Way). How else are we going to make the world a better place? Or at least keep the world from being run by liars and dirty, dirty cheats?

But then again, maybe the younger generation is finding in their crappy music, a way to empty their heads of all thoughts so that what is important becomes clear. Having hella good hair, a smile on your beautiful face, youthful body and the ability to move that body to a throbbing techno beat. I admit that is an insanely envious and dismissive statement, but seriously, are they so different from Mevlevi twirlers who "sama" dance to experience the ecstasy of total surrender? Are the flashing strobes in the club welcome luminosity to Daoists in deep meditation? Is the sweat from dancing caused just from exercise or is it the result of what the Hindus call "siddhi" which is a(n) hallucinatory state marked by excessive body heat? Are these young whippersnappers practicing Tantric "hot" yoga at the clubs characterized by the intense heat of the kundalini ascending the spine? Is Friday or Saturday night raving essentially the same as the Namibian San tribe trance dancing with the goal of heat ascending the spine culminating in an out of body experience? Are they so different from natives smoking herb in sweatlodges to gain communication with the spirits? Or the Cora, Huichol, and Tarahumara Indians dancind their peyote dance all night long so that they can have visions of the future?

I'm a believer in trying to DO positive things, not just, as they say, "act as if." If I don't like my situation, I do something about changing it. I don't settle for artificially self-programming my brain to accept things the way they are. Especially when I know they are absolutely wrong. The Buddha, Gautama Siddhartha started his life as a rich boy with no idea of the suffering of the world. All the people around him acted as though it didn't exist. He then left his cozy home and was exposed to the real world. He didicated his life to finding enlightenment. That is, a way to take joy in th suffering of life. I just find it hard to believe that his "enlightenment" was to go back to the happy pretenses of his younger days. Could it be that easy?

It's not supposed to be if we believe the Bible verse, "Straight is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth unto life and few there be who find it." This verse was practically the sole inspiration for one of the very few epic poems, The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser in which the Redcrosse Knight struggles literally with what we all struggle with figuratively. He fights many battles for Una, or truth and fends off the evil womanly wiles of Duessa and the two-faced, wicked harlot almost defeats him. To me that would seem to be the opposite of what these young, hedonistic songsters are advocating.

But is the truth overrated? Wouldn't it have been infinitely easier for me to just do what I was supposed to do, get married, work a job I don't like, crank out two point five kids, smile at people I want to punch in the face then go drink scotch till it feels better... I don't know if that WOULD have been easier, would it? A lot of people I know did pretty much that and when I ask them "How are you?" do they not say they are fine? I've been called selfish many times for not having a wife and kids. Am I? Oh geez, major crisis!

But, I DON'T CARE, I LOVE IT! This is the way life is supposed to be. Difficult. Otherwise you're doing something wrong I reckon. And I'm not going to go out and crash my car, get laid, spike up and shoot some forget into my veins, I'm just going to figure it out, fix it up and keep plugging all the leaks until I die. Youngsters sage advice notwithstanding, I think it might be too late for this dog to learn the trick of just acting like my troubles are not there.

Get Smart

Read this.

Now take a look at this:

Now PLEASE watch THIS.

I'm tempted to just leave this post at that. But you know I can't. Let's start with the supermarket scene. It says it may have been in a different country or it may have been totally fabricated. I have a hard time accepting that in Canada, which I have read is the "most educated country in the world," (whatever that means), this could ever happen. If Canadians really ARE educated they'd take the hour or two of research time it would take, (the vid is an hour and a half actually), and realize that the Iraq invasion and occupation had absolutely jack-shit-diddly to do with ANY rights and freedoms we have in Canada. It was Operation Iraqi Liberation - O.I.L. Period.

Ostensibly it was about weapons of mass destruction. ZERO were found. But how many were USED? Watch the doc. They talk about cluster bombs used on the general population. Cluster bombs are weapons. They are intended for indiscriminate destruction of large amounts of people. Perhaps these are the bombs the lady in the burka was referring to. Incidentally to add drama, the average age of the population of Iraq that were being indiscriminately cluster bombed was 15. How many were used in Iraq? Impossible to know because despite the hundreds of "embedded" reporters we saw giving reports from the ground with soldiers drinking beer and kicking a football around behind them, the Iraqi operation was mostly done from the air and I don't remember a single reporter embedded in a bomber. They weren't allowed to see that part of the war, the documentary reports. And if they were they might have lots their hooowah comradery that built up when spending time with the amiable troops and actually been journalists instead of jingoists. Now I know that the article points out most of the cluster bombs were launched from the ground but if any reporter had seen that or any of the air bombings, they'd probably have lost some of their patriotic support and possibly the contents of their stomach.

This report gives an unconfirmed number of about 10,800 cluster bombs used by the U.S. and 2,200 used by the U.K. Watch the video. Read the article. People died and children were sent to the hospital because of cluster bombing. The video shows some. It also talks about an Agent Orange, napalm-type substance also used in Iraq.

Afghanistan, Syria, Gaza, the Ukraine, pretty much anywhere there is conflict the cause is oil, natural gas, or some form of corporation-enriching commodity. This is not conspiracy theory. In so many cases the people who do the research are, in my experience, the ones who believe the "conspiracies" and the dummies who believe the corporate and political media doublespeak are the ones laughing at them for being so stupid. Like the cartoon. Laughing, bullying, taking away their jobs, or worse.

The Muslim shopper had a point. When ARE we going to stop bombing people, or in Canada's case, when are we going to stop supporting with our tax dollars, the greedy, violent tactics of western corporate global Manifest Destiny? When are we going to face facts and admit to ourselves that if we saw this kind of killing in our countries, we would want revenge too? When are we going to stop blaming these things on religion? Yes, the woman was Muslim. Yes, she has more rights and freedoms in Canada than she had in Iraq. But precious little if any of the fighting done by Canadian soldiers since WWII has had anything to do with either.

I have met a hundred soldiers here in Asia if I've met one and amongst them I have yet to hear a single freedom fighter slogan or emotional mantra such as "freedom ain't free" or "fighting for our way of life." Those are skillful emotional manipulation used on civilians to build the fighting forces into heroes they don't want to be. They're doing a job and collecting a paycheck, most of them. And when I talked to soldiers, male and female, during the Iraq operations every one of them said they wanted to go over there. I asked if it was to "defend the liberty of Americans" and they all said, "Nope, it's better pay." I have even heard stories from protesters protesting for peace and being guarded or even arrested by soldiers and/or police, that they were secretly told by the soldiers to keep doing what they're doing.

Look at the little girl in the article. Shahad Thaer Mustafa. Just saying the name connotates something negative in my mind and I hate the fact that somehow I've gotten that anti-Muslim name sentiment into my head. It sounds like a religious extremist or terrorist, right? How do you suppose that happened? She's a little girl whose uncle was killed by actions that could very accurately be described as "terrorist." If she grows up and joins ISIS or ISIL or whatever organization they might morph onto by then she will be called a terrorist. But is that accurate? Or is she just a person who has seen friends and relatives killed by a force and she is doing everything within her power to weaken or eliminate that force? Even if it unfortunately involves killing innocents. Her uncle was innocent. Maybe some other friends and family she lost were too.

If this becomes the case there is no doubt little Shahad would be labelled a terrorist. You see when she allows for the killing of innocent people in the name of her cause, it's called terrorism. When the allied forces use cluster bombs that they know will kill innocent people, it's called collateral damage. The same goes for a lot of other types of warfare that has been used including drone strikes. When an attack in retaliation for murders perpetrated by evil corporate warmongers is arranged and carried out the spin-doctors in the media always pretend like it was completely unexpected, out of left field, unwarranted, cowardly and without justification. Terrorism. This aggression will not stand. This aggression will not stand. We must redouble our efforts to combat such unwarranted and evil attacks. It's all skillful, emotional manipulation. And if your brain is small enough, it's so easy to jump right on that bandwagon of violence!

But smart people question things. Smart people don't get carried away with emotional calls to arms against people who are subjugated by our foreign policies. Smart people need to object to people using, "It's just business," or "It's my job," to try to justify taking human lives. Smart people know that this is why there are more and more emotionally messed up soldiers and former soldiers. Read this story of one soldier who was wounded in Iraq. Was he a hero or an unappreciated pawn in the global game of Monopoly or Risk or Oil Grab being played by the true psychopathic terrorists of the world? Smart people need to stop sitting down and taking the brainless abuse that dumbasses such as the two in the cartoon or the person who wrote the fake supermarket story dish out. Smart people understand that the people bombing Iraq are not WWII veterans and they're not doing it for Iraqi, U.S. or Canadian freedom. Smart people need to say some smart things and educate those people even if they don't want to be educated and they might punch you in the face if you try. Smart people need to show the same support for corporate/military killing as they do for retaliatory killing or if you prefer, "terrorism" being committed by ISIS and other such groups: NONE.

The Koran does not support killing unless in self-defence. I doubt there is a single member of any ISIS-type organization who doesn't believe that this is what they are doing. The simple solution is to remove the perceived need for self defence. Stop with the extremist economics. Don't just kill more people and further solidify their resolve. I don't even think a person has to be smart to figure this out, but it's getting to the point in our world where we must either get smart or get dead. We're not there yet but I sure hope we don't leave it until it's too late!

Harpy Egg Wasting No Time Building His Legacy: Chinada

Well now I know how the U.S. must feel. HERE'S a wonderful article by the CBC, Canada's national(ly owned) news broadcasting corporation. It is absolutely hilarious how positive they are making this sound. The deal is expected to "dramatically boost exports..." of Canadian money and resources back to China. "The signing of the deal was announced in Beijing today..." because while Harpy Egg is there he won't have to field questions like, "Why the hell are you making all these massive deals that Canadians only find out about after they are done and while you are not in the country to explain them?"

And look who the quotes are from. "Great boon for Canada..." says Stewart Beck, of Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. "Great news for Canada..." says Jason Henderson of HSBC Canada. Two white sounding names working for Asian companies. Probably eggs like the crime minister. An "egg" is a person who is white on the outside and yellow on the inside. Though most eggs in Asia eggs are well tanned, but my N. American readers will get the analogy. And there might just be a little bit of profit in this for their workplaces so talk about the WRONG people to get unbiased comments from! Jason at HSBC must know that the Canadian bank that will take care of the "hub" transactions, (gozillions of dollars worth of them), has still not been chosen. So of oourse he loves the deal and will do anything to help facilitate and expedite the proceedings for whoever is in charge of choosing the bank... wink wink ANYthing!

But the article isn't all bad. I like articles like this actually. It's the most dependable way to find out how many Chinese actually ARE in Canada. Let's see... "Trade between China and Canada supports 470,000 jobs in Canada." 470,000. There are 470,000 Chinese citizens in Canada. Because the Chinese DON'T hire Canadians. They're too expensive! Well except for guys like Stew and Jason above who are kept around to make quotes and appearances so people think Chinese companies hire non-Chinese. In all seriousness HSBC was established in the UK and probably has a few non-Chinese holdovers after the Hong Kong handover. The other company is just figuring out how to "trade" with Asia things like oil, natural gas, and whatever else Canada can handover, I mean trade to China. And those other countries over there.

I'm exaggerating. Sometimes Chinese companies hire Canadians, or Chinese people who have, (somehow), qualified for Canadian citizenship. These are valuable people to politicians because they allow statements like, "Chinese companies employ Canadians," to ALMOST be true. At last count more than half of the people in Canada were not born in Canada and the Chinese are by far the biggest group of these new Canadians. They've just been hanging around in Canada for years to be the future labour force for Chinese companies to start pillaging Canadian resources once the sale of Canada to China has been finalized. Chinese have been filing into Canada for years and systematically deteriorating Canadian laws to allow them to do so. For example the Canadian government knows there are lots of Chinese in the country on student visas who not only breach those visas by not attending classes, they are illegally working in their uncle's tire store or dim sum restaurant. And they are working for illegally low wages. I did not pull this out of my ass, people, this is an example taken from many years ago when I lived in Vancouver. Two of my students told me they were working for their Uncle for less than minimum wage. Less than minimum wage in Canada is still way more than they can make in China. That was I think in the early 2000's and I found out first hand from the government agencies that they knew about it and there was nothing they could do about it.

You can't just sell Canada to the Chinese overnight. It takes many years apparently.

At least this article isn't like most of the past articles I've read about Harper's traitorious reign as a PM loved about as well as a hockey lock out. Most of the articles I've read preceeding this one did not allow for comments. This one, they believe, might fool a few Canadians into saying something positive I guess. But I read through the comments. Nope.

This will be great for Chinese business in Canada! The ones already in Canada and the future businesses. This may actually inspire MORE Chinese businesses to set up in Canada. So now the businesses and all the Chinese workers they employ can avoid the hassle and expense of exchange rates while they are sucking dollars out of Canada and back to their beloved homeland. I don't see the benefits for Canadians though there are those knuckleheads blinded by inexplicable loyalty to the Conservative Party of Canada I suppose, who are trying to tell us this is a good thing.

But even though this won't help the average Canadian, even though this will contribute to a tide of new businesses in Canada that aren't hiring Canadians, even though the Chinese will eventually do to Canada what they did to China and take every drop of oil, stick of wood, gallon of water and anything else they can sell out of the country, take heart, my fellow Canadians because Harper is taking care of you. Well, your kids anyway. So since you won't be working, why not crank out about 20 kids? They'll be worth about 160 bucks a month each. That'll keep you in Kraft Dinner and maybe even hot dogs with it once in a while. I don't know if the Chinese will be nice enough to put Canadians on reservations while they invade but who knows? We might have that to look forward to.

The ISIS Crisis

There’s a part in the movie, “Her,” when the guy played by Joaquin, (Johnny Cash), Phoenix, says that sometimes he thinks he’s felt everything he’s ever going to feel. It’s after a failed computer set up with a girl that was really pretty, very nice, easy to talk to and the night went well, but it just didn’t work out. She ends up calling him a creepy guy. He argues and says, “No. Really I’m not.” But that’s just what you’d expect a creepy guy to say, isn’t it?

A couple of things that might give you some idea where I’m going with this: 1. I wasn’t sure if he was creepy or not. I kinda took both their sides on that one. Because the guy, what’s his name, (Google), Theodore, is a very nice guy. He’s NOT abnormal, he’s just past the point in life where he’s no longer able to get into character for some of the social situations that make up our youths. At least not without more alcohol than they drank on that evening. He may have replaced too much of his emotions with wisdom and when he gets to the point in the date that everything is strategically set up to come to, and he opens up the emotional floodgates, it’s more of a trickle than a flood. And maybe, like myself, he starts employing the brain where it’s really not wanted and questioning the stagecraft of the entire evening and losing the seduction supplied by the suspension of disbelief and while he’s moving in for the all-important first kiss he’s thinking of scenes in a movie or TV show he has seen lately. “Should I do the clichéd hesitant kiss like Twilight, or should I just make a strong statement and then grab her like in Divergent, or should I start the hesitant kiss, hope she asks, “Do you want to kiss me now?” then say, “Yes, please,” then go for it like in the Flight of the Conchords?
2. I didn’t make it all the way to the end of “Her,” or any romantic movie lately. If it’s got comedy with it or adventure I’ll hang in there but romances do zilch for me. In fact I’m to the point in my movie watching career where I absolutely hate the requisite love interest that is thrown into movies habitually. It usually ruins comedies, adventures, dramas, well pretty much any kind of movie but a romance. If I want romance, I’ll go watch one of them. Now get back to the car chase. Actually car chases and explosions are powerless to me as well. Blood and gore. Funny. I just laugh at how they have just gotten more and more absurd as I’ve gotten older. EVERY movie has become a comedy to me!

And not only that, to carry on the above description of the kiss, I’m the guy that’s thinking, “Okay now should I do fast head movements or slow; should I do the head grab or a hair touch; full tongue or just probing darts here and there; eyes closed, of course eyes closed, that’s right isn’t it; how can I make this the most romantic kiss she’s ever had so that we will talk about this when people ask if we remember our first kiss; oh why didn’t I drink more; but wait if I had drunk more then she might not have allowed me to get to this point; but at least I might score; if I can make this memorably romantic… Then I totally lose character and burst out laughing because I picked this girl up at a bar, have known her for all of two hours and because of the loud, thumping, crap dance music have yet to have a conversation with her, I want her body and she wants my money, who the hell are we kidding? HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

And after that she looks at me strangely and says, (can you guess what she says?), “You’re a weirdo!” Weirdo and creep, do we have synonyms? Let’s check with the judges…. Ding ding ding! I think instead of challenging the assertion that he’s a creep, Theodore could very easily have said something like, “Yeah well at least I’m not a big phony.”

And there you have it! Phoniness. A common theme that has coloured the literature, (that is the ADULT stories), of many a great. My favourite is probably Salinger. The irony of Holden Caulfield flunking out or getting kicked out of so many schools as a result of already having done what their purpose it was to teach him, that being to reach intellectual adulthood and the bittersweet moment of sad clarity when the Tooth Fairy, Santa Claus and “you can do anything you put your mind to,” are gone forever.

What puzzles me is that I was young once and I remember so well flinging myself into love fully and completely trusting that it was worth the risk. It was a fantastic feeling! Maybe the best feeling there is! My question is was it all genuine or was I then just a better actor than now? More able and willing to throw myself entirely into the roll. Or maybe it’s just a physiological explanation. After all it could have just been all those raging hormones that made life tingle so much every time I looked into her eyes and saw that she was right there with me on this ride, real or imagined. Another question is pretty obvious: does it really matter? It was something I will never forget and it was absolutely wonderful. Who cares if we were just stupid kids who had built up a fallacy of our own to a point where we both fully believed it? We weren’t hurting anyone but ourselves. And holy shit did it hurt! Probably worse than anything else! After saying the stupid things we say about forever and always and realizing that wasn’t going to happen. For me they weren’t lies. I found the one for me, genuinely told her so, and watched in helpless horror as we proved incompatible. About fifteen times. I don’t think it was the vain disappointment of having been proved wrong that caused the heartache, it was the gut-wrenching jolt of adulthood knowing that she WAS the one and still she was wrong.

Now don’t go thinking I’m going to run out and kill myself here, I realize that my idyllic expectations for a woman who never looks like she just woke up even when she just woke up; who thinks everything I say is clever and agrees with it; who will never blow a smelly fart let alone take a stinky dump; never look at another man or like a sexy actor; have no problem with me looking at other women or liking sexy actresses; never love me any less than a kitten or puppy; and so on and so forth. NO girl is the right girl with those expectations. With age my expectations have really lowered. It doesn’t mean I will date or marry any less a person, it just means I will be fully aware that anyone I choose to be with now is not perfect. And one of the new expectations is that she know that about me. But in a realistic relationship such as that we lose the fantasy and the emotion of those foolishly optimistic and hopeful relationships of our youth. Like most things in life, love is not just about play, it requires some work too. Said the reluctant grown-up.

So, sorta like Theodore, I’ve felt all I can feel as far as unrealistic, heart-bursting, super tingly feelings. The best things in life are fake I guess. Now I’m perfectly content with the satisfyingly simple, realistic happinesses life has left in store for me.
However, I still maintain that in my youth I was more capable of greater love than I am now. And forget about the cloudy, vague, mysteries of romantic love, I’m talking about REAL love here. Love that still endures. I loved the music back then more than I can ever love the music of today! No question. I still love that music too! And, much like romantic love, if I have a beer or two and suddenly somebody puts on some 80’s rock, 80’s hits or even some old 80’s hair band, I can still get emotionally cranked up. But even this reminds me of the movies. That scene from “The Wrestler” when they were doing EXACTLY the play acting I’ve described above and suddenly some Ratt comes on the box. This is genuine love and unlike the phony romance they were awkwardly trying to prod along, in that song they shared some real love.

I get none of that over here. Not just because the only girls I have dated are from the 90’s music generation, (or on a good night the 2000’s), and I’m with the Wrestler when he says, “The 90’s sucked.” And before I go on I’d like to point out that I was in my TEENS in the 80’s and am dating girls who were in their TEENS in the 90’s and 2000’s. Nobody remembers the music of the decade when they were born. But not only do girls here in their 30’s and 40’s like music from a different generation than me, (like my Halloween honey last night), they like music from a different continent, sung in a different language! So it’s tough to relate on a musical level. I’m afraid I’ll have to start dating 20 year olds since all the best music of the late 2000’s and the 2010’s is remixed 80’s tunes. Hee hee hee!

But I’m going off the rails, (on a Crazy Train), here. Stop that! When I think about the 80’s when I was young and foolish, ERR verything was better! I think it’s like that because I just put more emotion into everything. I liked TV shows better. Video games were lame but better. My friends were better. Movies were better. Snack food, fast food, candy, FOOD was better. Nature was better. Fishing, camping, just walking outside was better. Cars were better. School was better. Hairstyles and fashion… okay I got carried away there. I’m not sure that all of this stuff was better but what I think is true is that I put far more emotion into those days so all of this stuff SEEMS like it was better. Even hair and fashion. I liked a good mullet when I still had the hair to have one. And big, feathered hair on a girl? Oh yeah. And what about terrycloth shorts? The yoga pants of my generation. I used to love watching girls’ volleyball! Not like, LOVE.

Okay, so whether you agree with me on that or not I have to get to my point. There was one other thing I was into on a very emotional level back in the 80’s that I’m not now. The churches I went to back then benefitted from my wholehearted participation in all the various programs. And I certainly don’t regret it. My spiritual walk figured largely in who I am today. And in the curiosity in the prospect of God that leads me to do things like investigate other religions and read the Koran. Long before I taught in Canadian, Korean, Chinese, Japanese or Indonesian schools I was a Sunday School teacher in Ignace and Thunder Bay. I loved it! And just like hearing an old 80’s tune or meeting up with a friend from high school, if I heard an old gospel music song from the 80’s or met up with someone I knew from church back then I’m sure I’d get just as emotional. But with more reason and less emotion I will say that my expectations of God, much like those of a girlfriend, have significantly lowered.

But I know the feeling of being emotionally revved up for the God you believe in. I know how it feels to believe you are invincible with God on your side. I know how attractive and persuasive that can be. And I know that there are people in religious places who will take advantage of the vigour and foolhardy emotion of youth. In fact it’s not ONLY the youth, it’s just commonly the youth who are so more emotional. As we age we can reign in our emotions and discern the difference between right and wrong more often but not always. Sigmund Freud had one of the greatest all time quotes about this. “The people are not moved by fact or reason, but the skillful manipulation of emotion.”

What do you reckon the average age of a member of ISIS is? Or whatever acronym they’re going by these days. I’ve read, (and there’s really no way of knowing how accurate this is but), that the average age of recruitment is between 16 and 25. Coincidence? I think not. And how skillful do you think an ISIS leader needs to be to manipulate the emotions of a force so young. Is it that much different from ANY military really? The comradery, the common purposes and beliefs, the common code, the common suffering, spending all their time together, these people get very close and given their ages there is going to naturally be a massive buildup of emotions amongst them. If you remember back to your youth, (assuming my readers have all passed it by), what would the result be if someone tried to take away something you felt a strong emotional attachment to? Not gonna happen, right?

Well what about if someone KILLED someone you had become emotionally attached to? Or what if you were told that someone was trying to put an end to the religion and the way of life you had become emotionally attached to? That’s a whole other level of commitment. The soldiers of ISIS are highly motivated to say the least. If we could talk to them all individually I bet we would discover a world foreign to most of us. If you listen to Christ Hedges, a guy who has been there, he has seen what contributes to the mindsets of the member of ISIS and states from a position of superior closeness to almost anyone but the actual members of ISIS, that it is not shocking in the least to see them join a faction based on revenge. They don’t see a couple of military member killed by some whacked out nut jobs with some tenuous connections to a newly espoused religion. They see killings regularly for long periods of time. More than two. And most, if not all of them, have seen people killed that they know or are related to. There is very little doubt as to who has committed the killings or why. And there is a convenient organization recruiting people to fight against the killers. Hedges, in a couple of talks he gives that are available to watch on Youtube, says that almost anyone would do the exact same thing.

There really should be no surprise at all that ISIS or the Taliban or Hezbollah or whatever the name is the revenge fighters are going by, are very successful at recruiting. And there should really be no surprise, (but there always is), in places like the U.S., U.K., Canada, any of the countries who are dropping bombs on these people or supporting the attacks on them, when they commit acts that are considered by the so-called “terrorists” as the only way to fight back. These acts are always described as TOTALLY unprovoked, shocking, senseless acts of “terrorism.”

"But wait," you may say, "THEY started it!" Well, two things: firstly, is that really a legitimate foreign policy? Are the world leaders 5 years old? And secondly, did they really start it? If terrorism IS senseless, unprovoked acts of violence on innocent people then why aren’t illegal occupations of Iraq or Afghanistan described that way? What about indiscriminate drone bombing of Pakistan and Somalia? The 35 years of well-funded war between Israel and Palestine: anti-terrorism or terrorist war crimes? Slaughter of Kurds in S.E. Turkey? Syria, Sudan…

How about something that happened in Indonesia where I am now and where the largest portion, (about 13%), of the Muslims of the world call home: the East Timor massacre. Not a lot of people have heard about it. Well what do you know about that? Even though it’s described in a C.I.A. report as “one of the worst massacres in the 20th century,” we didn’t really hear much about it… I will use this, because it happened in the 70’s and 80’s during the Suharto reign of terror and we have damning evidence against the greedy warmongers who financed and fortified it, as a model that most likely applies to most or all of the above.

Indonesia. 95% Muslim and I went out to a Halloween party last night dressed as death and carrying a toilet brush. I’ll give you a second… I was, ahem, a brush with Death. Thank you very much. Anyway, as you may have surmised, I didn’t get my head cut off though I am an infidel and an enemy of Islam. Maybe, just maybe, there might be something other than religion that influences the goings on in this country. Do you think?

Back before the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to two guys fighting for, no scratch that, uh, peacefully working toward the independence of E. Timor, before Suharto was exposed as the black mark on Indonesia he is now considered, there was an Australian ambassador named Richard, (ever notice how many truly bad people are named Dick?), Woolcott who recommended a “pragmatic” course of “Kissingerian realism” in E. Timor because it might be easier to deal with Indonesia rather than an independent E. Timor on, (I’ll give you three guesses…), its oil reserves. Valuable resources in E. Timor – fighting in E. Timor. We’ve seen that pattern re-emerge many times since, haven’t we? Another pattern that goes along with that: the U.S. supplied Indonesia with 90% of their arms to go in and kick some E. Timorian ass. For 24 years Indonesian military forces exposed E. Timor to a wide variety of tortures, executions, deliberate starvation, even rape. The numbers vary but around 200,000 people, about a quarter of the population, was killed. You can bet 100 percent of the population was affected.

Now, there isn’t much of a “terrorism” threat in Indonesia, but not surprisingly, any stories in the news with links to ISIS or terrorism I hear around here often mention E. Timor.

I am not saying that the U.S. or any of the countries that profit from wars in resource rich countries deserve things like the 9/11 attack or suicide bombs or car bombs or any of the things labelled “terrorism” by our beloved media. I don’t condone ANY killing unless it is in self-defence. Which brings us to the next subject that needs to be dealt with in the ISIS crisis: Islam. Interestingly, there are people who would say that Islam does not condone any killing except that in self-defence. It’s not very popular to believe that right now and as our friend Wild Bill points out, the evidence against that is “overwhelming” and it is only people who do not understand Islam, (unlike himself presumably), who believe this. Wild Bill waves his coffee at us and tells us that we should not mindlessly believe guys like “President Pee Wee,” who said that ISIS does not represent the Muslim faith and a majority of the people they are killing are Muslims. Wild Bill prefers that we mindlessly believe HIS totally unsupported fear/hate cultivation. He gives some interesting stats that he claims infallibly quantify the Muslim violence throughout the world quoting an unsourced rule of Mohammed, (or maybe just one he made up), to be a friend until you can crush the enemy. So apparently in Wild Bill’s research he has found that when the Muslim population reaches 20% there is war, violence, burning of religious buildings, rape, assassination, absolute may ham! And it is observed in EVERY nation that is nice to Muslims EVERY time!

Indonesia has the largest concentration of Muslims anywhere in the world. It’s 95% Muslim and has roughly 13% of the world’s Muslims. I guess that little known rule of Mohammed is more accurately, “Be a friend until you can crush the enemy, and then be a friend again.”

Religion! I don’t think it has a lot to do with the ISIS crisis myself being that there are many variant sects of Islam, many who hate and fight each other. Not just the well know Shia and Sunni sects but historical sects like the Sufi who believed, as the Koran says, that religious pluralism is God’s will. Well they were replaced in the 18th century by the less accepting, and, yes, more violent Wahhabism. Wahhabists believe that they are the only true sect and all others are “apostate.” They also believe the Koran should be read literally. Well herein lies a massive problem. It is unlikely that all the churches and/or religions ever met and agreed upon anything but if they did it almost certainly was to make their beliefs and the written records thereof, the holy books, completely undecipherable. So much so that the casual observer would call them contradictory.

Unlike our buddy Bill, I am not going to make that statement without some backing. As evidence that the attempt to characterize the entire religion of Islam as either violent or peaceful is a futile exercise in ignorant reductionism, I will present verses from their holy book, the Koran, which seem to support both sides. These are all going to be written here completely without context.

But before I do that, let me caution the reader that I brought up Mohammed, Wahhabism, and the Sufis as historical information. To believe the Muslim of today is violent, or peaceful based on the distant past is a slippery slope. I would probably not need to, though I will, remind you, dear reader, of the many acts of brutality committed historically by the “Western” nations that we could unjustly use to condemn their religions as well. For instance, the world wars, the Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades, European colonization and ravaging of various parts of Asia and Africa, or the decimation of North American natives to name a few. If we are going to declare modern behaviour of violent, extreme sects like ISIS to be related to Islam, I think we should concentrate on the relation to the religion and the Koran, not the history. So without further ado, let’s see how much more confusing I can make the situation with some Koran verses.

To those against whom war is made, permission is given (to fight), because they are wronged;- and verily, Allah is most powerful for their aid;

(They are) those who have been expelled from their homes in defiance of right,- (for no cause) except that they say, "our Lord is Allah". Did not Allah check one set of people by means of another, there would surely have been pulled down monasteries, churches, synagogues, and mosques, in which the name of Allah is commemorated in abundant measure. Allah will certainly aid those who aid his (cause);- for verily Allah is full of Strength, Exalted in Might, (able to enforce His Will). [Quran 22:39-40]

Fight in the Way of God against those who fight you, but do not go beyond the limits. God does not love those who go beyond the limits. {Quran 2:190]

"O you who believe! stand out firmly for justice, as witnesses to Allah, even as against yourselves, or your parents, or your kin, and whether it be (against) rich or poor: for Allah can best protect both. Follow not the lusts (of your hearts), lest you swerve, and if you distort (justice) or decline to do justice, verily Allah is well acquainted with all that you do." [Quran 4:135]

Here are a few that would seem to support the self-defence argument I mentioned earlier. Islam is not a “turn the other cheek” religion and I think I kind of respect them for that. There is a great deal of difference between a violent religion and one that takes no shit. But you can see how these verses might be distorted. For instance the one that warns AGAINST distorting justice could be interpreted as a call to take action and avenge parents or kin who may have been unjustly killed or tortured or whatever. If you decline to do justice, (i.e. violent revenge), Allah is watching.

"But if the enemy inclines towards peace, you (also) incline towards peace, and trust in Allah" [Quran 9:61].

There are also those verses in the Cow at the very beginning of the Koran that I quoted before that say there will be non-believers. Allah has made them this way and Allah will deal with them. Leave them alone. I’m paraphrasing obviously but don’t wish to directly quote them again.

This all seems okay to me. Where are people getting the idea that the Koran is promoting violence? Well there IS one that is the overwhelming favourite of Muslim bashers. And I’m not going to offer anything in the way of explanation. It certainly does seem to contradict all of the other verses. See if you feel any differently.

"Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever you find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush." [Quran 9:5]

But for every verse like that there are many like this:

"...if any one slew a person unless it be for murder or for spreading mischief in the land, it would be as if he slew the whole people; and if any one saved a life, it would be as if he saved the life of the whole people." [Quran 5:35]
But I have saved the best for last. The one that I believe is most to the point and may actually on its own explain the whole ISIS crisis.

"Let there be no hostility except to those who practice oppression." [Quran 2:193]

Look at the militant actions taken by capitalist nations in the name of corporate profits all around the world including in nations peopled with Muslims. Are they not oppression? If the religion of Islam is a contributing factor to the actions of ISIS, this may be the most persuasive Koran verse. We are told by most Muslims that ISIS represents an extreme sect that is not representative of most Muslims and I believe them. But if ISIS follows the Koran at all it would seem that the best course of action to end the violence they are committing would be to stop the oppression. Stop the hostile takeover of oil-rich nations. Stop promoting proxy wars within strategic or resource-rich nations to weaken the country and make them vulnerable to cheap economic domination, or oppression. Pretty much throw out the blueprint for Western economics. Yeah fat chance of that happening!

No, instead the West has decided that the best course of action is to demonize Islam and convince the world that these groups putting up resistance are terrorists and they need to be bombed. I’ll remind you again, so you don’t have to scroll back, of that quote by Freud, “The people are not moved by fact or reason, but the skillful manipulation of emotion.” Look what happened when those two girls from Austria who joined ISIS. When they realized that they had made a foolish, youthful, massive mistake I could not believe the internet reaction. It was with violent vitriol to the effect of “Let them be raped and abused by the scumbags they joined. It’s their own fault.” People, not just teenagers, can have their emotions aroused to such a point that we can get pretty feral and dumb as teenagers.

And what about the instant reaction of the Crime Minister of Canada after the shootings? He saw a perfect opportunity to promote hate/fear with the possible purpose of eroding constitutional rights. As Russel Brand put it, “Right, Canada, give us your computers.” It is already happening too! And he blathered on to propose investing more tax payers’ money into the violent PROMOTION of groups like ISIS. Yes the bombings. He said efforts will be redoubled. Harper's shameful reaction to the tragedies in Canada was totally about economics, not some honourable cause of protection of Canada and the Canadian way. I didn’t find him any more credible than old Wild Bill, did you? I was proud of Trudeau's speech about the events and VERY proud of THIS: social experiment. It shows me that Canadians are not yet falling for the fearmongers' salesmanship.

Talking about a problem without proposing a solution is called whining. So what can we do to end the ISIS crisis? It certainly has NOTHING to do with killing ISIS members.

This will only perpetuate the steady stream of capital flowing into the Western war profiteers’ coffers. Nothing else. What we need to do is cut off that and many other flows of capital by opposing, non-violently, our government and corporate terrorism worldwide. Root out bad corporations, (won’t be hard), and don’t buy their products. Support taxation of those corporations. If the government won’t stop supporting the violent business tactics, don’t support the government. Easy peasy Japanesey. But how many of us will even try? We’re too busy working in our punitive consumer societies. Gotta stop typing now, gotta go to work.