Nothing

It may not seem apparent to some as to why I should name this entry "Nothing." But when we see what the President's answer to the question of what the 9/11 attacks had to do with the war in Iraq, you'll see that the title becomes much clearer. Yes, we went to war in Iraq because it had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. How ingenious, Mr. President.
During a news conference last Monday, some irreverent reporter dared to ask the President a serious question. "What did Iraq have to do with that?" In response to the President's usual answer, "the terrorists attacked us and killed 3,000 of our citizens before we started the freedom agenda in the Middle East." Ah yes, all of the machinations of the Administration are unraveled here and now, in this simple little word- "Nothing." And so why is it that what happended on Sept. 11, 2001 must now reverberate in a country that had "Nothing" to do with the act of war comitted on our soil by Mr. Bin Laden? And why haven't we caught him yet? Maybe it's because we don't wish to catch him, and never did. We know that the Administration came into office itching to invade Iraq in January 2001. And yet the President makes use of twisted logic to this day. No, I don't believe that the President ever thought that Iraq attacked this country. I never heard such things mouthed in the media, though there were probably quite a few who did think so. But that isn't the point. What should galvanize every American was that the President sent us to Iraq precisely because it had "Nothing" to do with 9/11. Will he ever admit that he is wrong?

How Common Place the War has Become!

I am no longer frightened by the war in Iraq. I was frightened, however, during the lead-up to the war in late 2002/early 2003. What I thought would plunge America into an endless war of bloodshed has been true afterall, but why should I fear anything? I am in college, whereas I feared that I might get drafted to go and fight either this war, or some other one that the Administration thought expedient to start. But, alas, no draft has ever come. And I am in college! But should I think in so selfish a manner, when others no too older than I am have already died far more horrible deaths than I could imagine, who never had the chance to go to college, marry thier sweathearts, have kids, fashion a nice carrier, etc. ? OF course, we are lucky ones, those of us who are not left as charred remains, the lucky ones! But no! None of this dread matters at all. It is an illusion to deaden the conscience to the sufferings of others, kids even! Whether Americans or innocent Iraqis are slaughtered makes no difference. The rich man's war and the poor man's fight will never be inverted. It makes the entire meaning of human life absurd, even on the biological level, seeing as how those young men killed in the wars never had the chance to reproduce! But what am I to say concerning this utter absurdity, the fact that the young human male is starved for sex, but wastes his own species away in war? Perhaps this really is Darwinism playing out: the most masculine, the more virile, the most aggressive gender of species wiping itself out! Maybe the world will soon have more women than men. Has it ever occured that women account for so much less violence in this world? Perhaps we should have the added benefit of greater intelligence, seeing as how we have all heard the repeated mantra that women are smarter than men. Although I see an exception to this. I will name every man on my mind who revolutionized the way we think:

Plato
Aristotle
Epicurus
St. Paul
St. Augustine
St. Thomas Aquinas
Niccolo Machiavelli
Martin Luther
John Calvin
Galileo
Rene Descartes
Isaac Newton
John Locke
Voltaire
Leibniz
Kant
Hume
Nietzsche
Einstein
Hawking
(all geniuses)
And yet, NO WOMEN!
Ah, but I should at least count in Simone de Beauvoir (the only name apparent to me), who carried on an existential love relationship with Jean-Paul Sartre. They rejected all the conventional attitudes regarding romance and sexuality, and they lived in seperate appartments, leading seperate lives. But of course, i should probably include a section about the entire subject of the existential matter of the lowest, the seemingly lowest rung of the male gender being shipped off to war. It is because, I think, that young men are starved for sex, that they do not wish to die. But what makes them fight? I think it is only because we are viewing this current war in the age of the unbridled sexual revolution in which the idea of drafting young men could never work, all because the allurements of sexuality would create an aversion to sudden death, even gory and grusome death, where the frailness of the human body itself can be ripped apart, when our whole biology screams out for the "tenderness" of sexual gratification precisely because we live in the sexual age! I really think that there is an entire length of analysis, sociological, psychological, and physiological, that can go into the whole concept of machismo identity, and why it is that the human male may become extinct due to the lack of incredulity among so many of its members. Men are more starved, more urging for sex as a method of satisfying urges, seeing as how the female doesn't have several billion eggs looking for fertilization at the same time. Could this uniquely male trait of pointless aiming and aspiration be the explanation for his aggressive urges. Notice there being a unique allegory in the sense that the egg fulfills its purpose upon fertilization, while billions of sperm are wasted away in excess. There you have the male predicament. So little efficiency for the bulk of males, mainly young males. Perhaps, then, this really is their purpose in life, to be wasted away for the sake of those mature and older men at the top who are smart enough to rule nations and empires. At least some purpose is effectual. At least we take refuge in the fact that the military age male is bulky, strongly virile, and pumped up for action, ready to die if necessary.
But of course, I may sound too much like a feminist in saying of all these perceived anti-male things. But I realize that male domination may stem from a lack of existential consciousness, as Simone de Beauvoir noted in her book The Second Sex. Perhaps we should utilize her existentialism regarding the difference between sex and gender. Accordingly, gender roles are created through cultural conditioning, while sex is reduced to mere biological traits. Now, of couse, I realize that this runs counter to the thoughts I have considered earlier. But, if existentialism be true, then men can equally make themselves to be more feminine as women can make themselves to be more masculine. By this, I mean that males can end the trait of violence and domination given to them, while females can be of greater influence in the social and political sphere. I think that it is worth considering.
All that I have attempted to do is to show how I think that war and sex have somewhat of a deep relationship between each other. I have always considered unfair, in part, that in societies where men and women had greater equality, as in 1960's America, the young men fresh out of high school went to fight and die in Vietnam. We never asked women to do the same. Does this mean one is possibly condemned to death because of sex difference?
Of course, to think that men are as numerous in the world of academia as are women in most areas underscores the idea that all men are stupid or have a violent nature. Yes, there is that existential, as opposed to that biological element in that the poor men, the men at the bottom of the barrel are the ones sent to war. It is only a continuation of the western cultural attitude in ascribing to the male the virtue of courage, along with strength, which is nothing more than brute courage and brute strength, as opposed to the chivalry often credited to them. But yet, it is only on the condition that the male has more muscles than brains. But the whole culture is messed up.
It would be convenient for me to provide more Leftist cultural analysis stemming from all of the dominant academic circles, to include neo-Marxist, existentialist, psychoanalytic, post-structuralist, and critical theory views regarding this issue at hand in a latter entry.

The Systemic Infection- Does Emergent Evangelicalism Give us a More Accurate View of Sin?

Last time, I discussed the Ignatian spiritual discipline of seeing God in all things. This time, I think it would be appropriate to view a modern evangelical perspective regarding the worldly impact of that oft misunderstood word "sin." Of course, the common evangelical view of sin in recent years has had something to do with the evils of our personal behavior. Indeed, it seems that many skeptics think of sin as a horrid provincialization of the interests of the Deity. That we should be inordinately punished because God has a personal grudge against some private infatuation seems obsolete and unenlightened in this world of modernity. But according to the view of one author, we have gotten the message of the "Kingdom of God" completely wrong in this day and age, and for quite some time prior.In the March 2006 issue of the progressive Christian magazine Sojourners, the cover article featured an excerpt entitled "Found in Translation," which was taken from Emergent Church leader Brian McLaren's most recent book The Secret Message of Jesus: Uncovering The Truth That Could Change Everything. Not much of a fan of the title (it smacks too much of religious enthusiasm, in my opinion), I thought, however, the central thesis of the article to be poignant to the future of evangelicalism in America, and indeed the whole of Christianity throughout the world. McLaren describes how the Lord's Prayer can be paraphrased to make the message give the relevancy it has for this day and age. When we say, "Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven," we too often ignore the literal meaning of these words: what happens on Earth is as important as what goes on in Heaven. I too often think that the word "Heaven" is more indicative of a place beyond any conceivable place in this cosmos, that is, it is in the sky, beyond the universe, whatever you may wish to say of it. But the question is not about heaven, but about the Kingdom, the reign of God's perfect justice. But of course, there is a problem manifest with the world "will", which as McLareren says, "...can take us down a trail of control, domination, and coercion, and since I don’t believe those ideas are in Jesus’ mind, I have looked for other words." He goes on to describe the literal Greek word for will as "wish". But as McLaren complains, this word "... sounds fairy tale-is and creates other problems. But I have found the idea of “the dream of God for creation” does the job nicely." May Your Dreams come true for Creation- as he puts it? Perhaps this is not a bad way of saying it, but here is a better one, "May Your Love and Justice reign on Earth as it already does in Heaven"- in other words, what is characteristic of the heavenly state, which I don't think has one single physical location, but is a condition of the very abstract of justice, peace, and love, is supposed to manifest itself in the earthly realm. And so I guess it is safe to say that Christians no longer have to remain "heavenly minded", in the sense that the entire life of the Christian person ought to be spent on what I recall one author, a virulent critic of all religion whom I have recently read, describe the goal of benign religion as even a waste of precious time, say, when we write, print, and read thousands of volumes of exegesis on the "disordered thinking of ignorant men," or when we devote our time to building a church or a mosque instead of another school, hospital, or library. Indeed, when theologians gather to debate miniscule points of theology, which all amount to a paucity of hairsplitting when compared to the real problems we are facing in this world, we have every right to be critical of our beliefs, that is, when they are divorced from any real and concrete concerns of the here and now. I could care less, say, if theologians gather to debate whether the other church has a valid Eucharist because they disagree over transubstantiation, or whether justification is a juridical act of God in which you are declared to have Christ's righteousness imputed to you, or whether it is actually infused into you, or whether or not communion should be distributed in the hand or put in the mouth. We could argue day and night over what music to use, what our response will be to pro-choice politicians regarding the Eucharist, and whether we damn those who disagree with our partisanship in the political realm, whether or not gay civil unions should be allowable, on and on and on. All of this legalism is the same as the Pharisees practiced in regards to ignoring the weightier matters of the law. What McLaren gives us in the wake of the bickering is what matters most, and it is not working together in evangelistic efforts to fill the pews on Sunday. Ignore all of that, and ask whether or not it is more important that the church, more than being a refuge on Sunday mornings, is a force for healing and reconciliation in this hurting world. Forget the pulpit, the pews, the organ, the altar, the bell, and the spire. That is not the church. The church is the people of the New Life, the Way. It is community of the Resurrection, the force in the world which attempts to do all that is humanly possible to reverse the tide of life to death to death to life. And so I go on to describe some of the unique metaphors used by McLaren to describe how the healing power of the Gospel can be applied to our modern world.The first instance involves the idea that the world as it is is a "totalitarian regime", in which lust, power, racism, sexism, nationalism, and all the ideological and exclusionary "isms" reign. In the midst of all of this, God is recruiting a "revolutionary movement of change," as McLaren describes it. Now some disgruntled theologians might describe this idea of "revolutionary change" as being akin to liberation theology, that oft hated system in which it was claimed that certain political partisans in Latin America wanted to use Christianity as a cloak for their neo-Marxist agenda. Never mind that they faced the horror of genocidal and repressive regimes that the whole church should have been in opposition to. I think that while it is safe to criticize various aspects of liberation theology that have a worldly and partisan political agenda, one must also recognize that the church's mission is not to be a refuge from the fears of this world, and neither is it to be an accommodation to the power structures of this world. The church must understand itself as a counterculture against the prevailing tides of evil and sin in this world, whether it be personal or social. McLaren also uses the conception of the Gospel as a medicine meant to cure the evil in each person and in all of society, and he also uses the analogy of a party, in which people leave behind all the troubles of this fallen world to join in the eternal celebration of the love and goodness of God. What I think describes the kingdom of God most philosophically is the account McLaren gives of the eternal dance of the Trinity, which was used in the early church. As he describes it,

"In the early church, one of the most powerful images used for the Trinity was the image of a dance of mutual indwelling. The Father, Son, and Spirit live in an eternal, joyful, vibrant dance of love and honor, rhythm and harmony, grace and beauty, giving and receiving. The universe was created to be an expression and extension of the dance of God—so all creatures share in the dynamic joy of movement, love, vitality, harmony, and celebration. But we humans broke with the dance. We stamped on the toes of other dancers, ignored the rhythm, rejected the grace, and generally made a mess of things. But God sent Jesus into the world to model for us a way of living in the rhythm of God’s music of love, and ever since, people have been attracted to the beauty of his steps and have begun rejoining the dance."

As far as I can tell, this rich symbolism indicates a sense of Christianity being a force for good in the world, rather than how many critics have underscored it as a force for evil, misery, and ignorance. It is true that there has always existed a form of apostasy within Christendom, but nothing else really matters than those "red letters" in the New Testament, the words of Christ. What others may say is only of use insofar as they agree with those red letters. This is way in which we rid the church of hypocrisy and superstition, because Christ did not come to establish a church full of hypocrites and sorcerers. Indeed, for the church to become as its Lord is, it must be a force of moral progress in the world, which means that it must speak against and offer alternatives to the prevailing evils of poverty, greed, war, abortion, and sexual immorality by offering conversion to change hearts and minds, and not a simple political program on how to change the world. We are simply the prelude, the beginning, of things to come which will reveal the splendor and enlightened truth of the Infinite, the One and Living God and the Lamb.

Why Ignatian Spirituality is the Most Relevant

What some disgruntled anti-Catholics have in the past termed a "Jesuitical" conspiracy against Protestant lands sounds paranoid in this day and age. Of course, we cannot but see the truth that the Jesuits were an outgrowth of the Catholic Counter- Reformation, and they have been termed as the foot soldiers of the pope, because their founder, St. Ignatius of Loyola, was a soldier before experiencing conversion. Yet, it is important to see that the Jesuits have always been the fathers of the fields of human excellence, such as education and the advancement of human rights and social justice in the world for the sake of harmony and peace. This became a prime concern after the murder of six Jesuit priests in El Salvador in November 1989 for their work among the suffering poor. They were labeled subversives, but other would call them prophets. It was for this reason that the order itself became noteworthy for its teachings regarding the "preferential option for the poor." Of course, we may take this as all a method of politicking, but the Jesuit understanding of the cosmos seeks to "find God in all things." That is, all things are a reflection of the harmonic nature of the Godhead itself, the ultimate Absolute which gives unity and diversity and diversity in unity the entire framework of the meaning of God and the world.Now, if all traditional Christians hold that the purpose of the redemption of Christ is to reconcile the world with God, may we not see the further meaning of this as a continual process of making the world a more sacred place by treating as sacred the human being? Of course, as the life of St. Ignatius points out, he was cautious of all things in latter life, often with a frail and sensitive demeanor. He was not the stern, iron- willed soldier figure which many think of him as being. The purpose of the Jesuit life is to be on fire, on fire in a sense that the fire of love burns bright within each person. And so why can we not see the immance of the divine Power in even the most miniscule object in existence? That is why the Jesuit way is the relevant way, because the world and the Absolute are integrated, the former revealing God and the latter giving meaning to the world. And this is why I think Ignatian spirituality is one of the most effective ways of cleansing Christianity from the lethargy it suffers in this present day. The perceived narrowness of the religion is coupled with its provincialization as a predominantly white and American religion. Furthermore, what I find most disturbing is the secularization of the religion as being a tool at the disposal of the individual or of the state. But alas, the Ignatian path sets us on the right path by helping us to realize the cosmic dimensions of the meaning of the faith, and that, as the notable theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin described, Christ is the Personal and human Power, God reconciling the cosmos to Himself. In this sense in which we see the presence of God in all things, we begin to see that no longer are there distinct dichotomies between sacred and profane, natural and supernatural, because we understand that there is all existence, everywhere we look, and that the whole of existence is that which involves the Creator and creature being swept away in a dance of perfect harmonic magnitude. As St. Ignatius put it, the Christian "loves God in all things and loves all things in God."I would furthermore like to comment upon the teachings or St. Ignatius regarding detachment to the things of the world, or as he called it- "indifference." By this, we mean that there is no longer rich or poor, healthy or unhealthy. Regardless of which state one finds himself in, we can be certain that the ultimate possession of man is God and God's ultimate possession is man and the universe. Thus, we can see the transience of the evils and toils of this world, the senseless death and suffering which pervades our lives. Is there not complete reconciliation in the suffering and death of Christ? Imagine looking at a crucifix and seeing that the Figure on it comes alive, gasping and groaning for release from the turmoil of his pain and impending death. And when we think about His suffering in Real Time, we are given a greater understanding of what it means to see God in the world, because we are no longer worshiping an image or word known as "Jesus." We encounter the meaning of God Himself in the course of linear time, which is the hallmark of human consciousness itself in that the linearity of time for us points to a unique teleological expectation of the final reconciliation of all things to Ultimate Reality, whether we call it God or not. Of course, the Christian believes that God is a Person, but also that He is beyond a Person. God is Ultimate Reality and Being. There is far more than being a Person to His essence. It is mysterious as to how this could be so, but we accept it because we cannot limit the conception of God in our minds to a person Who is only like us. Of course, we must affirm the Incarnation and to realize that God did become "just like us." But the Trinity as a whole is beyond human comprehension in the same manner as a glass cannot contain an ocean.But let us go on to the popular devotion known as the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It was supported by the Jesuits as a means to communicate the love of Christ for all people, in opposition to the strict moral rigorist and denial of divine love to all people, which was taught by the Jansenists. And in some way, I think that the Jesuits promoted a form of Incarnational realism, as opposed to the nominalism of Reformation soteriology, which saw the sole purpose of Christ as that which was to make possible a mere path for depraved sinners to get their tickets to heaven. What was the meaning of the Incarnation, if not to make God known to man, and to teach man the way of obedience to the perfect will of the Creator? And furthermore, by the infatuation of the Reformation thinking on how to get "saved", a fundamental component of reality was missing: the very existence of the day-to-day life of the world, and also of the God of the universe partaking in the lot of humanity as a poor and obscure rabbi, and ultimately as a vagabond Who was executed by the great powers of His time for going against what they thought was the "right way" to understanding the predicament of man and the nature of God. And this all amounts to the Ignatian teaching regarding effective love as the only true love as opposed to affective love as a fanciful sort of sentimentalism, which means that God must not be an obscure Vantage Point which transcends all things in order that the only love we may express towards Him is a nice feeling of awe and reverence, or of a tingling of sorts regarding how much Jesus loved us so that we could merely play a harp on a cloud. Effective love demands the sacrifice of self, indeed the death of self, to the glory of God and to the realization that in heaven, we shall have no possessions, but God alone. Heaven is not a place in the sky, but more than a place, it is the consummation of the redeemed into the very life of God, which is the fountainhead of all existence. As of now, we merely experience the stream of life running down the valley. In eternity, nothing matters but the unity of the eternal song sung by man and God. And this is where I shall pick up tomorrow by discussing the nature of the work of Christ as pointing the way to the Kingdom of God as the harmony of the dance set in perfect order.

Why The Misery Must End

If we are to believe the enthusiastic reports of our government concerning the situation in Iraq, then we are only ensuring that the killing shall continue unabated into the next decade, perhaps. I say this because the direct combat phase in Vietnam for the United States lasted from March 1965 to January 1973. Thus, if we were to imagine that this war will last just as long, we are only in August of '68- at the very height of the brutal slaughter, and it won't stop for several more years. We might think that the decline in U.S. casualties is a sign of better days, but that is only because of the significant spike in Iraqi army deaths. And even these units are incapable of controlling Baghdad, which means that we may once again see a significant rise in U.S. battle deaths, that is, unless we resort to the only method which works: total and absolute resistance to the tyranny of this government which has wasted our blood and treasure for a frivolous, damnable reason (and I mean, quite literally DAMNABLE, that is, if you believe there is a hell). And if you think there is a solution to the problem of Iraq which will originate from the infinite wisdom and prudence of Bush & Co., just look at the facts:

-The skirmishes and battles fought between coalition and resistance forces has increased from an average of 70 to 90 per day.

- There are an estimated 20,000 resistance fighters in Iraq to this day, and their ranks will be perpetually replenished by thousands upon thousands upon thousands of more enraged young men willing to die for both God and country.

-Apart from Baghdad, Kirkuk, and Mosul, there is little, if any, violence which would erupt due to sectarian strife. It is only when coalition forces attempt to recapture a city that violence erupts. Otherwise, much of Iraq would be relatively peaceful without us getting in the way, seeing as how it is controlled by local authorities. But this is not a rosy picture in the least bit: As long as Baghdad continues to erupt in sectarian violence, and as long as we continue in our quest to gain control over more of Iraq, the insurgents will continue to keep mobilizing all their efforts with ever-more sophisticated IED and sniper attacks. Should we not also include on our part the never-ending use of tank and artillery fire which demolishes homes and kills scores of innocents, which only further recruits indignant locals to the ranks of the insurgency?

- If we are facing enough turmoil with the Sunni areas of Iraq that are facing sectarian violence, imagine the incredible risk we are taking to gain control of the Shia areas. So far, such insidious weapons as IEDs have been used sporadically in the south, but that could all change. If U.S. and coalition forces are over-extended in the Sunni areas, dealing with internecine warfare, just imagine how much more terrible things could get in the near future.

- About 40,000 Iraqis are dying on a yearly basis as we continue to deny defeat. Is there any justification left in 2006 for what was lauded by the Bush stenographers, that is, the mainstream media, in 2003 as a great war to "liberate" Iraq? Every single justification, even the remotest one, died before they could be acted upon.

I remember the headlines which started in August 2002 about the impending war. Did we think that we were going to war, say, in early 2002, despite Bush and Co. labeling Iraq with the "axis of evil"? Needless to say, all of the hype simply started at once in that fateful August, and the world has not yet recovered from the trauma suffered. To simply fathom the fact that over 100,000 Iraqis are dead, and 18,000 of our soldiers are dead or wounded shatters the conscience and silences every voice which still supports this war. We came to bring "liberation" to Iraq, but we have only brought death- more death than Saddam did. And we still continue to think to this very day and hour that we have a "duty" to continue this senseless and brutal war. 2,592 American soldiers are dead- and for what? Did Iraq attack this country? No. Did Iraq ever intend to? No. Was Bush & Co. lying to us? Yes. And for this, we must expel all of them from office, even if we are reduced to using brute force to expel these criminals from the White House and Congress. Do I advocate violence? No, for that would only show that we are no better than these war criminals. What I mean by using "brute force" is that if impeachment fails, then we must take to the streets every day, every moment, to force this regime to end the war right this instant. We must mobilize a huge grassroots effort comprised of civic, business, and religious leaders, not to mention intellectuals and celebrities who shall speak their minds. And most important of all, ordinary people must make the bulk of this movement. Can we be so sure that this nefarious regime will not resort to the draft- taking our own children, our flesh and blood, to fight, kill, and die in a senseless war which will never end as long as they are in power? This is why I advocate the streets as our forums. We must start marching, say, every weekend in the Capitol, all day long. We must harass Bush and his ilk- not with physical violence, but with the truth. We will shout, we will scream, and we will rage in defiant anger against the ruthless bastions of power in Washington and beyond- all of the Congressmen and Senators who supported this war will be punished to the greatest extent possible by not re-electing them. We will throw every one of them out of office, and we will not support anyone who will still give credence to the war. We will lay down a strict orthodoxy to supplement our orthopraxy of working for peace and justice in this land. We will revolt against big oil and all big business which puts profit ahead of human lives and dignity. We might like the thrill of war while playing a videogame, but this is no game: real lives are being lost daily, and the world suffers in agony while we continue this dangerous charade of arrogance and brutality masked as benevolence. We have as much luck bringing our style of democracy to the Middle East as we do a snowman that will not melt in the summer heat. Our only hope for peace is to leave Iraq this very instant- and no one is justified in thinking otherwise.
As for the detractors to our case for withdrawal, and for the apologists of the stupidity and incompetence of this regime, I do not wish to engage in name-calling, because while all of you are responsible for this war by letting your leaders go about executing it, you are not guilty of starting it. Only the Bush regime is guilty. And so for the remainder of this message, I would like to share some personal reflections on why I will not be an Army officer after all. In September 2005, I entered college ROTC as a freshman. I never really wanted to be there, but I felt forced by a desperate father who felt I had no other options for going to college (as of now, I do). But I forgive him for the myopia he suffered then, and the hypocrisy of opposing the war while still letting his son go into the military. And he also understands now my utter incompetence of being a soldier, much less an officer. But while I was there, I had a hard time fitting in with the rest of the cadets- all of them prospective officers, or working their way to that goal of earning their gold bar at the end of their four years in college. I honestly thought that by 2009, I would be a second lieutenant, possibly leading troops into battle. However, due to the fact that I was the lowest scoring cadet on the physical fitness test straight for an entire year, and that I couldn't even handle an M-16 rifle properly, I grew more and more despondent as time went on. I had no idea about what was going on in any of the battle drills we went through, and thus I was simply the cannon fodder who would be stationed, waiting for the order to go and get killed. I honestly had no idea how I would be able to memorize the complexity of leading a squad through one of these drills, which I had to do by the time I was supposed to enter summer training camp before graduating. Needless to say, I won't have to worry about that. But I think I was determined that I would not make it through my first year of ROTC somehow when I did the worst at firing that M-16. I hate this weapon, because its only purpose is to kill people. That's it. It can't defend human rights or bring democracy to oppressed peoples. It is a nihilistic instrument of destruction, pure and simple. I couldn't even zero in a target because I was too nervous to have enough common sense to fire with my right eye instead of my left. The same was true for the pop-up targets- forty of them in all, and only one which I shot down. And so there you have it, the futility of me even using a weapon to defend myself. And I send a special apology to MSG Coe for having put in his precious time and talent to train a dud, and also I send an apology to LTC Hilton for having made his Battalion look a little worse for having me in it. And I apologize to anyone whom I might of offended for stating my case, especially to the families who have lost loved ones in the war, and yet still support. Honor your loved ones by pushing for them and for all the rest of the military to get out, so that more lives are saved. And to everyone- honor the necessity of peace in the world by doing whatever is in your capacity to help end the war. I know I have only spoken, but I remember a saying by the philosopher Sartre that commitment is not a word, it's an action. May this be just as true for us who value peace as it has proved so terribly and fatally true for those who gave us this war.

Is the Therapeutic Worldview Tenable?

Therapy and addiction- two words that have captivated the modern world's outlook on human disorder. Now we have a new "disorder"- Internet Addiction Disorder. I do not hold to this idea because I think that once we start putting human follies and actions at the level of disorder, then everyone is addicted and no one is held responsible. Will our society hold that because a man died after spending fifty hours on his computer playing an online game that anyone who spends more than a few hours online is addicted? Or can we say that perhaps because we have a computer in our room that we are simlpy drawn to its enticements? What if we had no choice but to stay outdoors all day? I think it is pretty sure that most of us would just adapt to what is given to us. Now I hold that spending too much time on the Internet is not a good thing, but addiction is not the word for it.
If man had a greater sense of the fact that some of his follies are from his sense of laziness or unwillingness, we would see a lot more money saved in therapeutic expenses. We are simply saying that every idiosyncracy is an "illness" that must be treated in order that we may become "normal"- whatever that means. Now I know that I said earlier that I have asperger's syndrome. Am I really right? I don't know for sure. But I can say that some of my own shortcomings are not the results of mental illness. I think we need to sometimes give ourselves a good kick in the pants every now and then.

Some Relevant Views

Does anyone ever wonder why the right wing is so anti-intellectual when it actually comes to looking at the reality of things? The answer is that these authoritarian personalities- whether we're talking about Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reily, or Sean Hannity- are pathological personalities who are dreaming for a world that never was, and that never will be this side of the grave. They are simply trying to construct a view of the world that is void of nuance because they are the "intellectual" (ditto) heirs of Plato and Aristotle. The thinking of these two men plagued Western society for so long that it led to justifications for every social evil imaginable- from slavery to conquest to the oppression of women and those of other religions- all because the society is built upon an absolute and ideal ordering that can never be challenged or removed. Things must be the way they are, because the "ideal" ( whatever that is) presupposes it. So there you have it. Right wingers are presuppositionalists, and furthermore, they are direct-casue presuppositionalists, meaning that they think that all the problems of society are caused directly from other root problems, thus creating a simplistic view of the universe and of man. I don't deny that there are simple answers to many evils (mainly human selfishness), but I don't think that they are caused by such a simple factor of other antecedant causes so as to make one prima causae the whole reason for why crime, poverty, or terrorism exists in this world. Talk to any right wing reactionary, and you will find that there can be no other solution to crime than locking away more misfits. Poverty is caused by laziness. Terrorists are simply blind nihilistic fanatics who hate America because they hate America because they hate America...ad infinitum, ad nauseum.
Everything which America does is all-good, by the way. We are God's chosen people, a city on a hill- to use the popular phrase of Puritan John Winthrop. Never mind that the Right has bastardized Christianity to the point that Jesus might someday be the new posterchild for recruiting by the U.S. Army, where He owuld probably be seen as encouraging the next generations of young Americans to lay down their lives for the sake of others (the oil companies). Ane never mind that the religious right spews forth its rhetoric about being a moral force for the Christianization of America, in order that we can "win the world for Christ." I hate their musings about how American culture has degenerated so much, and that only the Right can save the family. Of course, families are being ruined when we cut funding for those who are poor, or when a father, son, or brother has just been senselessly killed in Iraq because of the blind and stupid actions of this Administration, which is such a "friend" of Christianity and "moral progress."
The problem with the Right of today is that it's an authoritarian belief system which can only behold one way, the One, the Absolute, the ultimate synthesis, to borrow some Hegelian jargon. They have a similar worlview as did the German philosopher Hegel- that history is running to its climax, and the grand synthesis will result when America establishes itself as the global hegemonic hyper-power. I shouldn't use the term "synthesis", because of the fact that these neocons don't believe in "synthesizing" America with Al-qaida or any of its other enemies for that matter. America is the great thesis- all else that opposes it is the antithesis. The pendulum must end swinging on our side alone, but that can't happen anyway. I think that soon we'll see that neither America nor the terrorists will win. We will only see something different in the future. What it is, I don't know.
Those of us on the Left must be passionate about using the tools of reason to accomplish our ends. This is why we are not to emulate the Right in any of its tactics, because its ends are so closely intertwined with its means that they are almost one- to see their absolute authority as established against all else, and to bomb the living f@#$ out of those who are in the way of our plans. Liberals stand for reason, fairness, and tolerance- those oft hated values which the right thinks will only lead to weakness and fuzzy thinking because they don't just dogmatically state the Truth of All Things, that Absolute One which is the ideological guidepost for everything the right does. Thus, the right is for conventional wisdom, meaning that they simply want to live their whole lives on a set of rules that can never change concerning how they're supposed to interpret the world. Liberals value the splendor of the universe, the amazing capacities for humans to love one another, and for the amazing possibilities of the future for creating a better society based off of peace, love, and justice. Is there something so horribly impractical about this idea?
AS FOR THE FIRST VETO OF OUR 43RD PRESIDENT, I should perhaps be a little indignant that it had to involve a ban on stem cell reasearch. That my own family members suffer from diseases that could be cured makes this personal. But I am not the only one to see that this presidency is just a bit too despicable for rational minds to digest. I hate everything about George's legacy in the White House, and I don't care if we have 2 1/2 more years until he leaves. I want him gone. He is not pro-life at all. He is pandering to the religious right for orders as to how to vote regarding these vital issues, and I don't care to hear how stopping stem cell research is going to usher in a postmodern "culture of death", where the "dignity of human life" will somehow be threatened by a cadre of elite scientists who are godless moral relativists. With all of this said, I don't hold to embryonic stem cell research as the salvific panacea that others have idolized. But because we don't yet know the effects of this type of testing doesn't mean we shouldn't pursue it; after all, if it does work, we will see cures to our most dreaded diseases. If not, we will simply have to find another way, and then it would be permissible to vote against this type of research. But unlike this excrescence of a president has done, we are to base our objections to research on grounds that are empirically verifiable, not on some speculative theological/metaphysical theory ground in a particular religious viewpoint which holds that one cannot seperate human personality from an entity that may have the genetic material to develop into a human person with thoughts, feelings, volition, etc. But instead, Mr. Bush sought the easy way out. It isn't damaging to society to think that God has a Mother and to pray and go to church. But we live in a pluralistic society, and if we make rules, we use legal and practical necessity in our deliberation, not theology.

More views will be offered later on why America may not survive the next 2 1/2 years.

Some Observations on my Weakness as a Blogger

Maybe the title of this blog is too much for some to fathom, but I think it gets the point across. Let me first begin by saying that I have never wished to use fifty dollar words for the sake of becoming the next George Will, but perhaps I have stumbled upon a huge stumbling block, in the sense that my own wish to present things as I see them is much too obscure a way of making my thoughts known to others. In that sense, I apologize for not being impressive enough. I created this blog to let off the steam in my head, and anyone is free to be as vehemently opposed as humanly possible to any and all of the ideas and viewpoints presented here. That is the purpose of democracy itself, and I am a great proponent of that Enlightenment ideal of irreverence, even if that means I have the right to challenge some of the assumptions of the Enlightenment itself.
I should also comment on my stance regarding the fear of nuclear war and impending death. I do not live in constant fear of it, and it's a good thing that I think less of it now than I did even a year ago. I simply wished, by means of poetry, to express the angst of impending doom as a means of art.
I think that a good amount of what some critics of mine have made clear to me comes out of the fact that I do suffer from Asperger's syndrome, which involves a level of high-functioning autism where my mind can be encapsulated at times in a condition in which it simply wants to hear itself talk. I am trying to combat this urge without losing the unique writing style which I possess. Which leads me onto my articles discussing human nature, which some might view as a pessimistic outgrowth of my Asperger's syndrome.
I was at a loss of ideas to discuss, and thus I chose that topic to start out with. If it was wise to do so or not, I leave that to my readers to decide. I am not misanthropic, but rather a confessor of sorts who simply wishes to confess the angry inclinations of my mind which have occurred from time to time, and to tie in those thoughts with the innate possibility that anyone could act them out. There is much goodness and sorrow in life, and if we are live it to the greatest potential which Providence has bestowed upon us, it is better to live in the light of day while there still is some left.
With this clarification, I shall try to use better consistency and writing style in future posts.

Sacred Rock

This poem is somewhat enigmatic in its love for nature. The immutability of nature is emphasized.

I saw the lake

And it was beautiful.

What is the meaning of life?

That the Rock of Ages gave us life.

And the lake was there.

And the land was there.

I saw all that history kept

For me here is the present.

And I sought the Sacred Rock

On the beach as I walked.

And I walked ten miles to see the glimpse-

And the glimpse gave me the ages there and then.

Personal Reflections on Life (or Delirium) at the University

Having just completed my first year at the University of Michigan and now about to begin my sophomore year, I thought that I should take the time to reflect on the nature of the great transition from a life of obscurity to a greater life of obscurity. I mean this by saying that the college life is one with little direction from outside factors. The major transition comes with the fact that one must partition responsibility on his or her own- and this is all very much true and necessary. But the poignant factor comes when we misunderstand the ordeal that we are about to confront. And so I say these words with a somewhat sobering tone of humility as I reflect on my first year of college.When I came to the university in September 2005, little was I prepared for a transition from the mundane academic tasks of high school to the advanced level of real scholarship, or at least having to deal with one's professors as scholars and erudite intellectuals rather than your run-of-the-mill high school teacher. This is the greatest hardship faced by incoming freshmen, and I am no exception. When we talk about the truths of common knowledge, we are dealing with people who are light years ahead of us in erudition. This is not bad, and is necessary, because whatever we mean by "common knowledge" ought to come under scrutiny by those with greater character as something that is never supposed to rise above the ordinary conventions of society. But how do we square the intellectualism of the university with the common lives of every day people? I think this should be done by the simple linking of each person with every other. There is none among us in his daily routines and responsibilities who can say that he washes his clothes or takes care of his children in a more "erudite" fashion than the rest of the people do. But because we cannot judge the personal characteristics of any individual whom we do not know personally, it is best to leave this subject as it is.But let us consider the incredible pace of work involved in college. I confess that I had lost the spirit to excel at times, all because of a lethargy that had entered into me. It is most likely that I was discouraged because of the massive amount of work required, and I believe that I had somewhat of a cynical attitude about simply "getting by" without being the same type I was in high school- a somewhat masterful academic who scored mostly all A's during the last four years. But now you are one among 38,000 individuals, and there is nothing that anyone will do to notice how great one's achievements were in the past, and there is little hope for your recognition unless you are among the elite class of intellectuals. And so I shall admit that I still carry this sort of cynicism, albeit refined in a way that does not evolve into despair and failure, and I confess to have having senses of the latter categories.I did not think that my character could handle the fast-paced environment of the classes I was taking. My two English classes, along with being enrolled in college ROTC (which I have now thankfully divested myself of), were the cracking points. I was more worried about my achievement in ROTC, and this shaded my entire college experience. Having felt the pressure to at least pass my PT test, there seemingly wasn't even enough will for me to do this- and I admit that I never wanted to be there, but felt that my father would not want me to trade in a free scholarship in turn for having to take out college loans. But the fear that accompanied the prospect of becoming an army officer was too much to handle, largely because I was in an environment of type-A personalities imbibed with the military spirit, and I was not one of them. I felt that the responsibilities of learning to be a military officer and a college graduate were too much to handle, and I really thought that it was too much.Now I will say that I didn't do too bad with my first semester, but the second one was worse than I expected it to be. It is all in the fact that now the elite school of the elite school in all the state of Michigan (the Residential College) required of me that I learn a language, and so I chose to start as a true beginner with German. If I could only see the weaknesses of my talent for learning a new language, how much more sober would I have been! I feel that I am at a supreme loss because of the fact that the pace of learning a language that would have taken an entire year in high school now only takes half that long in college. I don't blame the rigor of college studies for my own unprepared ness, especially after I had done so well previously learning Spanish in high school. Maybe I should just blame myself for the lack of character that I had when going into this course- thinking that the German language would come naturally. As for the upcoming semester, I will have to take the second level of this course before having to pass a proficiency test. Pray for me, whoever reads this blog, that I may do better in German this time!As for the course in logic which I also took, I will be honest in saying I failed the mid-term exam. Although I ended up getting a C- in the course overall, this is my shame. Maybe it was to be expected, seeing as how I still lack that all-important trait of erudition. It is enough for me to know that A is not non-A and non-A is not A- the law of contradiction. As for the rest of the material- I leave it up to the logicians in pontificating over symbolic logic. I prefer the logic of simply using arguments with sentences.And as for ROTC in the second semester, it had a happy ending: I was gone. The outcome of my dismal failure as a prospective military man was plain for all to see: I cannot pass a basic marksmanship qualification, I cannot pass a PT test, and I cannot learn how to lead men into battle. And for all of this, it was apparent that my superiors would have had it better if their professional battalion of soldier-cadets would no longer be marred by this excrescence. And so I am gone, and good riddance.As for my roommate, he had better character than I did while living together. I asked the stupid questions, I sequestered myself from his friends and social activities, I borrowed what was his without asking, and I was of the more childish disposition while he had greater maturity and a sense of realism. I apologize to him for having been his roommate.Now I shall prepare to redeem that which was lost this coming September, and by then, I will add one of my book-length works to this blog.