Aside

When God (being God) introduces Eve to the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (via the Snake, who is also God’s creature) and awakens her to human awareness, self-awareness, and conscience — yeah, well she had to share THAT with Adam, poor fellow, considering what comes next in instruction), He’s careful (through the snake’s mouth) to conceal the presence of that other tree (by not mentioning it).

Knowledge is funny: how much do we really want to know, how soon, toward what end?

As issues may be parsed into dimensions and dimensions further defined, observed, explicated, the one or two central dimensions that cross all of the lines of the Islamic Small Wars are (imho) 1) Integrity Universally and its complement 2) Loyalty Selectively. A lot of things slip into the columns beneath those headers to then show up in events on the ground.

We may not see or hear the conversations that led to the murder of three Israelis and shortly thereafter an Arab boy — but we know somebody’s “holding out”. Similar behavior in business we often sanction as private and proprietary, but in politics undermining peaceful processes and whipping up crowds, the lying should get much less respect and, in fact, the general public must become more cognizant of processes below deck.

I skip down to the base when I think about “conflict, culture, language, and psychology” and the power of legacy in poetry to organize communities. That dives beneath the obscured layers of information but also lands one in the areas detached principle and theory — pure rather than applied research or thought.

For this thread, and having to shut down here for other obligations plus the Sabbath, I would suggest that those most in want and in need of the next new world may have to give up some old thoughts to climb into it, to come forward of positions, look over what we know of ourselves in myriad dimensions and ways and engineer to obtain for most of humanity improvements in (another of my terms of art) “qualities of living” — from cash supply and distribution x N-pop. x Area-Sq. to psychological and spiritual appreciation of the experience of living.

That said, conditions are pretty shitty for millions of souls, and some are getting attention in peace — anyone wish to include me in a peace and development project, let me know — but too many are suffering in the shadows of crime, criminal governance, and war. A prayer for those in line with “Tikkun Olam” and hope to continue doing what we do by bringing more to light and to mind and to heart universally.


What’s a writer to do?

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Aside

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“Secular” does not exclude religion or considerations related to religion: what it does is contain all with policy appropriate to predominant population while in fact endorsing all to the limits possible.

The effect of this “all for all” thought in contemporary western theological communities has been to foster a host in variety of ecumenical dialogues and related scholarly research. The fruits of that research, in turn, inform the educated that care, dip into so much material, or run into the same over the course of a lifetime. In the famed “melting pot”, we are all a little bit of one another, starting with the influence of the indigenous before the first landing. Perhaps that goes on — e.g., reading _The Masks of God_ or William James and _The Variety of Religious Experiences_ — to relax our grip on any single religious basis for the creation of law.

Fans of America may be reminded that some of our colonialists also burned “witches” at the stake in their day. In this age, we have a few who play with rattlesnakes to prove their relationship with God. Sadly, some die that way (and perhaps are thought less deserving, sigh, for not having been truly protected . . . or they’re on their way to heaven).

Imho, we’re a wild species possessed of great intelligence, language, and imagination, and perhaps more of all three than is good for us, but that’s the condition. We’re not all alike. Sometimes cultures, sometimes persons become destructive in nature as their boundaries collapse or as they seek to expand themselves much against others, and they confuse the space they get into and make a mess of everything they touch. Those we need to recognize sooner and deal with in various ways.


Blah blah blah, blah blah, blah.

I may have to settle down with fiction.

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Gaza rockets hit deeper, but Israel still limiting its response

Joseph Wouk's avatarWarSclerotic

Gaza rockets hit deeper, but Israel still limiting its response | The Times of Israel.

17:46 – Gaza rocket strikes Kibbutz Nir Yitzhak damaging buildings

17:22 – 2 more rocket volleys

Despite talk of ceasefire, Iron Dome intercepts Kassams aimed at Ofakim and Netivot Friday afternoon, the farthest-reaching attacks in recent days

July 4, 2014, 6:01 amUpdated: July 4, 2014, 4:56 pm
Rockets launched out of Gaza at a southern Israeli town. (photo credit: Yossi Zamir/Flash90/File)
Rockets launched out of Gaza at a southern Israeli town. (photo credit: Yossi Zamir/Flash90/File)

Despite talk of an imminent ceasefire, three rockets were fired from the Gaza Strip into Israel Friday afternoon, apparently targeting the towns of Ofakim and Netivot southeast of Sderot, as Gaza militants increased the range of their attacks. Two of the rockets were intercepted by the Iron Dome defense system and one hit an open field. No injuries or damage were reported in the attacks.

Walla news…

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Cynically Scripted? East Jerusalem Riots

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Hate, mindless hate, manipulated, ignorant, pointless would seem to course through East Jerusalem at the moment.

While police continue to investigate the murder of 16-year-old Mohammed Abu Khdeir, rioting crowds have erupted in East Jerusalem on the assumption — no evidence — that the crime must relate directly to revenge associated with the murder of three Israeli teens.

Posted to YouTube yesterday:


By AFP yesterday:


Posted to YouTube about an hour ago.

The basis: martyrdom, for the sake of martyrdom.


Without investigation, without process in the courts, the explanations for the murder are many, including a Palestinian false-flag operation to provoke and condone today’s rioting.

Prove it’s not so.

Prove the Palestinians now rioting are not being played into doing just that by their own handlers.

No investigation?

No proof of anything.

Additional Reference

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/israel-braces-as-palestinians-bury-mohammed-abu-khdeir-jerusalem/ 7/4/7014.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2014/07/02/benjamin-netanyahu-warns-vigilantes-against-trying-to-avenge-slain-israeli-teens-after-abducted-arab-boy-reportedly-found-dead-in-jerusalem-forest/ – 7/3/3014.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.602736 – 7/3/2014.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/israel-braces-as-palestinians-bury-mohammed-abu-khdeir-jerusalem/ – 7/3/2014.

http://www.jpost.com/National-News/Comment-After-the-horror-361106 – 7/1/2014.

Aside

Imagination is tricky.

While it appears to me to have an hallucinatory and mimetic  existence apart from language — so in dreams and in creative-expression nonverbal invention we have a prior-to-expression sensory experience (universally) — when we attempt to community via any art / any mode, we have to produce an external facsimile of that interior experience.  A large part of that becomes integrated into some verbal behavioral repertoire (lexicon, grammar, social grammar).  Our problem is that on the receiving side of this model, words become real and symbols, dreams, experiences, memories, and so on float in our cerebral soup together — and suddenly every little Muslim boy wants to be Muhammad and every Jewish kid understands perfectly the commanders exhortation, “Go in like Goliath and fight like David”.  The external reference becomes an internal marker.

The stories relayed by good men to their children, and the manner of their delivery, intend their children’s survival, and with the same the transmission of the tribal culture through time.  Some men, however, become the “bad daddy” in various ways and the bullying, cowardice, lying, and other facets of malignant narcissistic manipulation begin.  As head of a family, one might beat up his kids; as the head of a state or a movement, the same may lead the vulnerable and infantilized to ruin.

If that kernel of an explanation seems to work, well, perhaps we should struggle with it some, punch it around, road test it.

Back-story confession: my graduate school era introduction to Maslow –not on the curriculum . . . I stumbled into that one all on my lonesome — had a profound impact on my own stance, and, indeed, shifting focus toward the perceived healthy individually and communally may become a part of helping to make things a little bit better for the world (another lookup: “Tikkum Olam”).


The melding in imagination of language-derived or language-delivered concepts, injunctions, legends, and myths may play a mighty role in conflict — and we’re getting too old — and too powerful in destructive capacity — for “letting God decide” these matters on fields of battle.

In five words –

Confused
Subjective inner states
Exteriors

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Link – “Moderate Muslims – it’s time to be outraged” – David Aaronovitch

But it is obvious that this self-policing isn’t what floats the boat of Muslims politically. There’ll be the occasional good statement, but if, say, Israel bombs Gaza, then suddenly social media will fill up with Islamic outrage, careful commentators will become passionate, marchers will hit the streets. Why is there no Muslim Peace Movement campaigning for an end to violence in Muslim countries, where the victims are Muslims and the perpetrators are Muslims? Where it might make the most difference.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/opinion/columnists/article4137012.ece?shareToken=88a156e56a55e00441728bf2b672b532


I posted this for click-through to the Aaronovitch op-ed, but thought to update with the note there is most certainly a core global new intelligentsia campaigning for peace and against Islamic Jihad, and it is doing so — and has been doing so — with active Muslim participation in every facet.

Unfortunately, a socially networked “new global intelligentsia” doth not a political movement nor party make.

However, to suggest there is “no Muslim Peace Movement” is wrong.

Perhaps between Islamic Humanist efforts on personal pages and in forums across Facebook, my main hangout, they’re just not seen in aggregate.

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Aside

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It’s about shame.

The more militarily defeated they feel, the more determined in defiance they may become because that defines their heroism, “resistance” (of course, it’s resistance to economic development, education, employment, etc., but they’re on a civilizational mission for Islam, and that mission sense needs to be redefined and channeled elsewhere). Lowa Kay’s thought adheres to the simple notion that “if they’re enemy, they should be treated like enemy” and indeed conquered and eliminated.

Although we (Jews, others similar in outlook) prefer to “do conquest” with language and policy, it hard missing the fighting bands and legions of what appears to be traditional Islam (in my new vocabulary, I hereby declare the compassionate, moderate, reasoning, and reforming the “radicals”). Barack Obama — I know how he’s viewed in conservative circles — has tried to integrate Brotherhood members into the Federal mixing bowl; Europe has promoted multicultural accommodation, and has reached its limit (http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/07/02/Europe-Takes-One-More-Step-Toward-Eliminating-the-Burqa); in the Middle East, Iraqis and Syrians have taken a beating between combinations of fascist and tribal military and political powers, and the pride-goeth-before-a-fall appearance of the “Islamic State” tells how even Islam in its majority cannot tolerate what Islam — by way of hundreds of _conservative_ inventions — has in mind for the humanity of humanity.

We’re waiting for _radical Muslims_ (compassionate, moderate, reasoning, reforming) to a) understand what has been or is being done to them, and b) find the courage in themselves to combat the forces that would enslave them — and, so sorry, those forces are not Jewish or Christian or anything else: those forces are of a dark portion of their own and of themselves.

Coming to their feet on that basis would be honorable, for the rest has been really shameful.

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Obama’s trying to wriggle out of it while trying to get the Muslim targets and victims of “Islamist” aggression to stand up on their own!  Unfortunately, deep divisions within the community have weakened it for the onslaughts brought by the Islamic State, which might be a good thing: everyone can see it for what it is, what it represents, and what it intends to do with humanity, including its own.

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The Awesome Conversation moves along swiftly as the tempo of events promotes greater engagement at a faster pace.

I don’t know what to do with my part of the commentary other than as swiftly post some part here for greater permanence (and even that’s uncertain).

The Islamic Slaughter (IS) operating in Iraq and Syria displays itself well.

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Who’s New? Everybody.

First.One.Through's avatarFirst One Through

Many items in the Middle East are subject to positioning and posturing.   People point to paragraphs in the papers and argue whether the piece has an Israeli or Palestinian perspective. Rarely does the news provide analysis or education for its readers. Instead, it rehashes the political leanings of its editorial board and applies it to the story of the day. How often does a reader put down a paper and say: “Who knew?”

Here is a review of “Who’s New” and the misrepresentation of the facts in the media. Note that statistics, while often easily distorted, can still say a lot. In an area like the Middle East, it is amazing that they are rarely discussed.

A common narrative (which has merit) is that Jews came to Israel en masse after the English took control of the entire region of Palestine (which includes today’s Jordan). That statement, however…

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