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.
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