Home › Forum Online Discussion › General › Nobel Speech on Art, Truth, Religion, Politics (merit)
- This topic has 4 replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 18 years, 11 months ago by Moonglow.
-
AuthorPosts
-
December 9, 2005 at 11:33 pm #9297Michael WinnKeymaster
This is long, but well worth it.
I think we need to ground our discussions about reality and truth and merit in our present day cirucmstances. As someone who spent a fair amount of time as a war correspondent in third world countries, I think the playwriter Harold Pinter will give anyone pause to measure their passion for truth against his passionate speech.
michael
In his video-taped Nobel acceptance speech, Harold Pinter excoriated a ‘brutal, scornful and ruthless’ United States. This is the full text of his address
Thursday December 8, 2005
In 1958 I wrote the following:
‘There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false.’
I believe that these assertions still make sense and do still apply to the exploration of reality through art. So as a writer I stand by them but as a citizen I cannot. As a citizen I must ask: What is true? What is false?
Truth in drama is forever elusive. You never quite find it but the search for it is compulsive. The search is clearly what drives the endeavour. The search is your task. More often than not you stumble upon the truth in the dark, colliding with it or just glimpsing an image or a shape which seems to correspond to the truth, often without realising that you have done so. But the real truth is that there never is any such thing as one truth to be found in dramatic art. There are many. These truths challenge each other, recoil from each other, reflect each other, ignore each other, tease each other, are blind to each other. Sometimes you feel you have the truth of a moment in your hand, then it slips through your fingers and is lost.
I have often been asked how my plays come about. I cannot say. Nor can I ever sum up my plays, except to say that this is what happened. That is what they said. That is what they did.
Most of the plays are engendered by a line, a word or an image. The given word is often shortly followed by the image. I shall give two examples of two lines which came right out of the blue into my head, followed by an image, followed by me.
The plays are The Homecoming and Old Times. The first line of The Homecoming is ‘What have you done with the scissors?’ The first line of Old Times is ‘Dark.’
In each case I had no further information.
In the first case someone was obviously looking for a pair of scissors and was demanding their whereabouts of someone else he suspected had probably stolen them. But I somehow knew that the person addressed didn’t give a damn about the scissors or about the questioner either, for that matter.
‘Dark’ I took to be a description of someone’s hair, the hair of a woman, and was the answer to a question. In each case I found myself compelled to pursue the matter. This happened visually, a very slow fade, through shadow into light.
I always start a play by calling the characters A, B and C.
In the play that became The Homecoming I saw a man enter a stark room and ask his question of a younger man sitting on an ugly sofa reading a racing paper. I somehow suspected that A was a father and that B was his son, but I had no proof. This was however confirmed a short time later when B (later to become Lenny) says to A (later to become Max), ‘Dad, do you mind if I change the subject? I want to ask you something. The dinner we had before, what was the name of it? What do you call it? Why don’t you buy a dog? You’re a dog cook. Honest. You think you’re cooking for a lot of dogs.’ So since B calls A ‘Dad’ it seemed to me reasonable to assume that they were father and son. A was also clearly the cook and his cooking did not seem to be held in high regard. Did this mean that there was no mother? I didn’t know. But, as I told myself at the time, our beginnings never know our ends.
‘Dark.’ A large window. Evening sky. A man, A (later to become Deeley), and a woman, B (later to become Kate), sitting with drinks. ‘Fat or thin?’ the man asks. Who are they talking about? But I then see, standing at the window, a woman, C (later to become Anna), in another condition of light, her back to them, her hair dark.
It’s a strange moment, the moment of creating characters who up to that moment have had no existence. What follows is fitful, uncertain, even hallucinatory, although sometimes it can be an unstoppable avalanche. The author’s position is an odd one. In a sense he is not welcomed by the characters. The characters resist him, they are not easy to live with, they are impossible to define. You certainly can’t dictate to them. To a certain extent you play a never-ending game with them, cat and mouse, blind man’s buff, hide and seek. But finally you find that you have people of flesh and blood on your hands, people with will and an individual sensibility of their own, made out of component parts you are unable to change, manipulate or distort.
So language in art remains a highly ambiguous transaction, a quicksand, a trampoline, a frozen pool which might give way under you, the author, at any time.
But as I have said, the search for the truth can never stop. It cannot be adjourned, it cannot be postponed. It has to be faced, right there, on the spot.
Political theatre presents an entirely different set of problems. Sermonising has to be avoided at all cost. Objectivity is essential. The characters must be allowed to breathe their own air. The author cannot confine and constrict them to satisfy his own taste or disposition or prejudice. He must be prepared to approach them from a variety of angles, from a full and uninhibited range of perspectives, take them by surprise, perhaps, occasionally, but nevertheless give them the freedom to go which way they will. This does not always work. And political satire, of course, adheres to none of these precepts, in fact does precisely the opposite, which is its proper function.
In my play The Birthday Party I think I allow a whole range of options to operate in a dense forest of possibility before finally focussing on an act of subjugation.
Mountain Language pretends to no such range of operation. It remains brutal, short and ugly. But the soldiers in the play do get some fun out of it. One sometimes forgets that torturers become easily bored. They need a bit of a laugh to keep their spirits up. This has been confirmed of course by the events at Abu Ghraib in Baghdad. Mountain Language lasts only 20 minutes, but it could go on for hour after hour, on and on and on, the same pattern repeated over and over again, on and on, hour after hour.
Ashes to Ashes, on the other hand, seems to me to be taking place under water. A drowning woman, her hand reaching up through the waves, dropping down out of sight, reaching for others, but finding nobody there, either above or under the water, finding only shadows, reflections, floating; the woman a lost figure in a drowning landscape, a woman unable to escape the doom that seemed to belong only to others.
But as they died, she must die too.
Political language, as used by politicians, does not venture into any of this territory since the majority of politicians, on the evidence available to us, are interested not in truth but in power and in the maintenance of that power. To maintain that power it is essential that people remain in ignorance, that they live in ignorance of the truth, even the truth of their own lives. What surrounds us therefore is a vast tapestry of lies, upon which we feed.
As every single person here knows, the justification for the invasion of Iraq was that Saddam Hussein possessed a highly dangerous body of weapons of mass destruction, some of which could be fired in 45 minutes, bringing about appalling devastation. We were assured that was true. It was not true. We were told that Iraq had a relationship with Al Quaeda and shared responsibility for the atrocity in New York of September 11th 2001. We were assured that this was true. It was not true. We were told that Iraq threatened the security of the world. We were assured it was true. It was not true.
The truth is something entirely different. The truth is to do with how the United States understands its role in the world and how it chooses to embody it.
But before I come back to the present I would like to look at the recent past, by which I mean United States foreign policy since the end of the Second World War. I believe it is obligatory upon us to subject this period to at least some kind of even limited scrutiny, which is all that time will allow here.
Everyone knows what happened in the Soviet Union and throughout Eastern Europe during the post-war period: the systematic brutality, the widespread atrocities, the ruthless suppression of independent thought. All this has been fully documented and verified.
But my contention here is that the US crimes in the same period have only been superficially recorded, let alone documented, let alone acknowledged, let alone recognised as crimes at all. I believe this must be addressed and that the truth has considerable bearing on where the world stands now. Although constrained, to a certain extent, by the existence of the Soviet Union, the United States’ actions throughout the world made it clear that it had concluded it had carte blanche to do what it liked.
Direct invasion of a sovereign state has never in fact been America’s favoured method. In the main, it has preferred what it has described as ‘low intensity conflict’. Low intensity conflict means that thousands of people die but slower than if you dropped a bomb on them in one fell swoop. It means that you infect the heart of the country, that you establish a malignant growth and watch the gangrene bloom. When the populace has been subdued – or beaten to death – the same thing – and your own friends, the military and the great corporations, sit comfortably in power, you go before the camera and say that democracy has prevailed. This was a commonplace in US foreign policy in the years to which I refer.
The tragedy of Nicaragua was a highly significant case. I choose to offer it here as a potent example of America’s view of its role in the world, both then and now.
I was present at a meeting at the US embassy in London in the late 1980s.
The United States Congress was about to decide whether to give more money to the Contras in their campaign against the state of Nicaragua. I was a member of a delegation speaking on behalf of Nicaragua but the most important member of this delegation was a Father John Metcalf. The leader of the US body was Raymond Seitz (then number two to the ambassador, later ambassador himself). Father Metcalf said: ‘Sir, I am in charge of a parish in the north of Nicaragua. My parishioners built a school, a health centre, a cultural centre. We have lived in peace. A few months ago a Contra force attacked the parish. They destroyed everything: the school, the health centre, the cultural centre. They raped nurses and teachers, slaughtered doctors, in the most brutal manner. They behaved like savages. Please demand that the US government withdraw its support from this shocking terrorist activity.’
Raymond Seitz had a very good reputation as a rational, responsible and highly sophisticated man. He was greatly respected in diplomatic circles. He listened, paused and then spoke with some gravity. ‘Father,’ he said, ‘let me tell you something. In war, innocent people always suffer.’ There was a frozen silence. We stared at him. He did not flinch.
Innocent people, indeed, always suffer.
Finally somebody said: ‘But in this case “innocent people” were the victims of a gruesome atrocity subsidised by your government, one among many. If Congress allows the Contras more money further atrocities of this kind will take place. Is this not the case? Is your government not therefore guilty of supporting acts of murder and destruction upon the citizens of a sovereign state?’
Seitz was imperturbable. ‘I don’t agree that the facts as presented support your assertions,’ he said.
As we were leaving the Embassy a US aide told me that he enjoyed my plays. I did not reply.
I should remind you that at the time President Reagan made the following statement: ‘The Contras are the moral equivalent of our Founding Fathers.’
The United States supported the brutal Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua for over 40 years. The Nicaraguan people, led by the Sandinistas, overthrew this regime in 1979, a breathtaking popular revolution.
The Sandinistas weren’t perfect. They possessed their fair share of arrogance and their political philosophy contained a number of contradictory elements. But they were intelligent, rational and civilised. They set out to establish a stable, decent, pluralistic society. The death penalty was abolished. Hundreds of thousands of poverty-stricken peasants were brought back from the dead. Over 100,000 families were given title to land. Two thousand schools were built. A quite remarkable literacy campaign reduced illiteracy in the country to less than one seventh. Free education was established and a free health service. Infant mortality was reduced by a third. Polio was eradicated.
The United States denounced these achievements as Marxist/Leninist subversion. In the view of the US government, a dangerous example was being set. If Nicaragua was allowed to establish basic norms of social and economic justice, if it was allowed to raise the standards of health care and education and achieve social unity and national self respect, neighbouring countries would ask the same questions and do the same things. There was of course at the time fierce resistance to the status quo in El Salvador.
I spoke earlier about ‘a tapestry of lies’ which surrounds us. President Reagan commonly described Nicaragua as a ‘totalitarian dungeon’. This was taken generally by the media, and certainly by the British government, as accurate and fair comment. But there was in fact no record of death squads under the Sandinista government. There was no record of torture. There was no record of systematic or official military brutality. No priests were ever murdered in Nicaragua. There were in fact three priests in the government, two Jesuits and a Maryknoll missionary. The totalitarian dungeons were actually next door, in El Salvador and Guatemala. The United States had brought down the democratically elected government of Guatemala in 1954 and it is estimated that over 200,000 people had been victims of successive military dictatorships.
Six of the most distinguished Jesuits in the world were viciously murdered at the Central American University in San Salvador in 1989 by a battalion of the Alcatl regiment trained at Fort Benning, Georgia, USA. That extremely brave man Archbishop Romero was assassinated while saying mass. It is estimated that 75,000 people died. Why were they killed? They were killed because they believed a better life was possible and should be achieved. That belief immediately qualified them as communists. They died because they dared to question the status quo, the endless plateau of poverty, disease, degradation and oppression, which had been their birthright.
The United States finally brought down the Sandinista government. It took some years and considerable resistance but relentless economic persecution and 30,000 dead finally undermined the spirit of the Nicaraguan people. They were exhausted and poverty stricken once again. The casinos moved back into the country. Free health and free education were over. Big business returned with a vengeance. ‘Democracy’ had prevailed.
But this ‘policy’ was by no means restricted to Central America. It was conducted throughout the world. It was never-ending. And it is as if it never happened.
The United States supported and in many cases engendered every right wing military dictatorship in the world after the end of the Second World War. I refer to Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, the Philippines, Guatemala, El Salvador, and, of course, Chile. The horror the United States inflicted upon Chile in 1973 can never be purged and can never be forgiven.
Hundreds of thousands of deaths took place throughout these countries. Did they take place? And are they in all cases attributable to US foreign policy? The answer is yes they did take place and they are attributable to American foreign policy. But you wouldn’t know it.
It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.
I put to you that the United States is without doubt the greatest show on the road. Brutal, indifferent, scornful and ruthless it may be but it is also very clever. As a salesman it is out on its own and its most saleable commodity is self love. It’s a winner. Listen to all American presidents on television say the words, ‘the American people’, as in the sentence, ‘I say to the American people it is time to pray and to defend the rights of the American people and I ask the American people to trust their president in the action he is about to take on behalf of the American people.’
It’s a scintillating stratagem. Language is actually employed to keep thought at bay. The words ‘the American people’ provide a truly voluptuous cushion of reassurance. You don’t need to think. Just lie back on the cushion. The cushion may be suffocating your intelligence and your critical faculties but it’s very comfortable. This does not apply of course to the 40 million people living below the poverty line and the 2 million men and women imprisoned in the vast gulag of prisons, which extends across the US.
The United States no longer bothers about low intensity conflict. It no longer sees any point in being reticent or even devious. It puts its cards on the table without fear or favour. It quite simply doesn’t give a damn about the United Nations, international law or critical dissent, which it regards as impotent and irrelevant. It also has its own bleating little lamb tagging behind it on a lead, the pathetic and supine Great Britain.
What has happened to our moral sensibility? Did we ever have any? What do these words mean? Do they refer to a term very rarely employed these days – conscience? A conscience to do not only with our own acts but to do with our shared responsibility in the acts of others? Is all this dead? Look at Guantanamo Bay. Hundreds of people detained without charge for over three years, with no legal representation or due process, technically detained forever. This totally illegitimate structure is maintained in defiance of the Geneva Convention. It is not only tolerated but hardly thought about by what’s called the ‘international community’. This criminal outrage is being committed by a country, which declares itself to be ‘the leader of the free world’. Do we think about the inhabitants of Guantanamo Bay? What does the media say about them? They pop up occasionally – a small item on page six. They have been consigned to a no man’s land from which indeed they may never return. At present many are on hunger strike, being force-fed, including British residents. No niceties in these force-feeding procedures. No sedative or anaesthetic. Just a tube stuck up your nose and into your throat. You vomit blood. This is torture. What has the British Foreign Secretary said about this? Nothing. What has the British Prime Minister said about this? Nothing. Why not? Because the United States has said: to criticise our conduct in Guantanamo Bay constitutes an unfriendly act. You’re either with us or against us. So Blair shuts up.
The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law. The invasion was an arbitrary military action inspired by a series of lies upon lies and gross manipulation of the media and therefore of the public; an act intended to consolidate American military and economic control of the Middle East masquerading – as a last resort – all other justifications having failed to justify themselves – as liberation. A formidable assertion of military force responsible for the death and mutilation of thousands and thousands of innocent people.
We have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people and call it ‘bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East’.
How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? More than enough, I would have thought. Therefore it is just that Bush and Blair be arraigned before the International Criminal Court of Justice. But Bush has been clever. He has not ratified the International Criminal Court of Justice. Therefore if any American soldier or for that matter politician finds himself in the dock Bush has warned that he will send in the marines. But Tony Blair has ratified the Court and is therefore available for prosecution. We can let the Court have his address if they’re interested. It is Number 10, Downing Street, London.
Death in this context is irrelevant. Both Bush and Blair place death well away on the back burner. At least 100,000 Iraqis were killed by American bombs and missiles before the Iraq insurgency began. These people are of no moment. Their deaths don’t exist. They are blank. They are not even recorded as being dead. ‘We don’t do body counts,’ said the American general Tommy Franks.
Early in the invasion there was a photograph published on the front page of British newspapers of Tony Blair kissing the cheek of a little Iraqi boy. ‘A grateful child,’ said the caption. A few days later there was a story and photograph, on an inside page, of another four-year-old boy with no arms. His family had been blown up by a missile. He was the only survivor. ‘When do I get my arms back?’ he asked. The story was dropped. Well, Tony Blair wasn’t holding him in his arms, nor the body of any other mutilated child, nor the body of any bloody corpse. Blood is dirty. It dirties your shirt and tie when you’re making a sincere speech on television.
The 2,000 American dead are an embarrassment. They are transported to their graves in the dark. Funerals are unobtrusive, out of harm’s way. The mutilated rot in their beds, some for the rest of their lives. So the dead and the mutilated both rot, in different kinds of graves.
Here is an extract from a poem by Pablo Neruda, ‘I’m Explaining a Few Things’:
And one morning all that was burning,
one morning the bonfires
leapt out of the earth
devouring human beings
and from then on fire,
gunpowder from then on,
and from then on blood.
Bandits with planes and Moors,
bandits with finger-rings and duchesses,
bandits with black friars spattering blessings
came through the sky to kill children
and the blood of children ran through the streets
without fuss, like children’s blood.Jackals that the jackals would despise
stones that the dry thistle would bite on and spit out,
vipers that the vipers would abominate.Face to face with you I have seen the blood
of Spain tower like a tide
to drown you in one wave
of pride and knives.Treacherous
generals:
see my dead house,
look at broken Spain:
from every house burning metal flows
instead of flowers
from every socket of Spain
Spain emerges
and from every dead child a rifle with eyes
and from every crime bullets are born
which will one day find
the bull’s eye of your hearts.And you will ask: why doesn’t his poetry
speak of dreams and leaves
and the great volcanoes of his native land.Come and see the blood in the streets.
Come and see
the blood in the streets.
Come and see the blood
in the streets! *Let me make it quite clear that in quoting from Neruda’s poem I am in no way comparing Republican Spain to Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. I quote Neruda because nowhere in contemporary poetry have I read such a powerful visceral description of the bombing of civilians.
I have said earlier that the United States is now totally frank about putting its cards on the table. That is the case. Its official declared policy is now defined as ‘full spectrum dominance’. That is not my term, it is theirs. ‘Full spectrum dominance’ means control of land, sea, air and space and all attendant resources.
The United States now occupies 702 military installations throughout the world in 132 countries, with the honourable exception of Sweden, of course. We don’t quite know how they got there but they are there all right.
The United States possesses 8,000 active and operational nuclear warheads. Two thousand are on hair trigger alert, ready to be launched with 15 minutes warning. It is developing new systems of nuclear force, known as bunker busters. The British, ever cooperative, are intending to replace their own nuclear missile, Trident. Who, I wonder, are they aiming at? Osama bin Laden? You? Me? Joe Dokes? China? Paris? Who knows? What we do know is that this infantile insanity – the possession and threatened use of nuclear weapons – is at the heart of present American political philosophy. We must remind ourselves that the United States is on a permanent military footing and shows no sign of relaxing it.
Many thousands, if not millions, of people in the United States itself are demonstrably sickened, shamed and angered by their government’s actions, but as things stand they are not a coherent political force – yet. But the anxiety, uncertainty and fear which we can see growing daily in the United States is unlikely to diminish.
I know that President Bush has many extremely competent speech writers but I would like to volunteer for the job myself. I propose the following short address which he can make on television to the nation. I see him grave, hair carefully combed, serious, winning, sincere, often beguiling, sometimes employing a wry smile, curiously attractive, a man’s man.
‘God is good. God is great. God is good. My God is good. Bin Laden’s God is bad. His is a bad God. Saddam’s God was bad, except he didn’t have one. He was a barbarian. We are not barbarians. We don’t chop people’s heads off. We believe in freedom. So does God. I am not a barbarian. I am the democratically elected leader of a freedom-loving democracy. We are a compassionate society. We give compassionate electrocution and compassionate lethal injection. We are a great nation. I am not a dictator. He is. I am not a barbarian. He is. And he is. They all are. I possess moral authority. You see this fist? This is my moral authority. And don’t you forget it.’
A writer’s life is a highly vulnerable, almost naked activity. We don’t have to weep about that. The writer makes his choice and is stuck with it. But it is true to say that you are open to all the winds, some of them icy indeed. You are out on your own, out on a limb. You find no shelter, no protection – unless you lie – in which case of course you have constructed your own protection and, it could be argued, become a politician.
I have referred to death quite a few times this evening. I shall now quote a poem of my own called ‘Death’.
Where was the dead body found?
Who found the dead body?
Was the dead body dead when found?
How was the dead body found?Who was the dead body?
Who was the father or daughter or brother
Or uncle or sister or mother or son
Of the dead and abandoned body?Was the body dead when abandoned?
Was the body abandoned?
By whom had it been abandoned?Was the dead body naked or dressed for a journey?
What made you declare the dead body dead?
Did you declare the dead body dead?
How well did you know the dead body?
How did you know the dead body was dead?Did you wash the dead body
Did you close both its eyes
Did you bury the body
Did you leave it abandoned
Did you kiss the dead bodyWhen we look into a mirror we think the image that confronts us is accurate. But move a millimetre and the image changes. We are actually looking at a never-ending range of reflections. But sometimes a writer has to smash the mirror – for it is on the other side of that mirror that the truth stares at us.
I believe that despite the enormous odds which exist, unflinching, unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as citizens, to define the real truth of our lives and our societies is a crucial obligation which devolves upon us all. It is in fact mandatory.
If such a determination is not embodied in our political vision we have no hope of restoring what is so nearly lost to us – the dignity of man.
* Extract from “I’m Explaining a Few Things” translated by Nathaniel Tarn, from Pablo Neruda: Selected Poems, published by Jonathan Cape, London 1970. Used by permission of The Random House Group Limited.
© The Nobel Foundation 2005
December 10, 2005 at 5:35 am #9298matblackParticipantIt’s disapointing, that from an Australian perspective, “our” government has blindly supported the US and Britain in almost every example outlined in this speech, not the least of which being Iraq.
The prime minister has now placed australia on the terrorist hit list by doing so.
Some people from australia trvelling internationally (for exampel, to indonesia) place a new zealand or canadin flag on their bags or clothing so as not to be identified as australian for fear of attack.December 10, 2005 at 11:48 am #9300MoonglowParticipantJust glad to say I am Canadian — eh.
December 10, 2005 at 1:27 pm #9302MoonglowParticipantGovernments are not perfect. Politics are not my expertise. Healthcare is where I sit. Work from the inside out. Change can happen this way too – in politics. Good people are needed in high places, those that do not succumb to greed and power. Any takers? Is easy to talk from afar, much more difficult to speak within the mellee but it can be done. And I believe it is being done as we speak if you look hard and long enough. Sometimes in government actions as those of which Michael has spoken it isn’t so much a game of white and black but rather which is the least of two evils. And the choice of selecting the least of those two evils is a little more complex I think, then reading a few articles printed by imploded newspapers. I see research and articles written all time and even looking at specific raw data, one can miscrue it all by writing it down the way one chooses to write it down. By the way one chooses to report on it. In fact there are even specific departments now that look at that. A whole new study of that. How to report on the data with cleanliness. No tainting. But is difficult. I believe this to be true not just in scientific data but also in politics. I am by no means pro war nor am I anti Iraq, however perhaps before one tears down what one has, perhaps one should look at the alternatives. And perhaps before one tears a structure down and shreds it to pieces, perhaps one should look at the fact – is there anything in place to replace it. And perhaps there may be more at work here than meets the eye. People tearing down the structure of their own country makes that country weak. Easier for prey. And do not tell me that the U.S. is the only country out there who wants power. Some want power for wronger reasons. And that is fact. If in fact one is very peassionate about a more wholesome, more compassionate, honest government then I would suggest working on structures that encourage that from a person’s expertise. Having that fantastic energy exist in the area you are concerned about is such a bonus, so much more than just talking, but rather being. I work in evaluation and I believe wholeheartedly that this needs to be done in many, many things. The correct way. It is amazing how we seem to “think” there are wrong things or that this way or that way is better. However when evaluated correctly it is truly mind stunning sometimes at the truth. Situations, procedures, people’s responses are sometimes just seen by what we ourselves have seen in that instant or what we have read in that small amount of time, but taken over a rather broader number and asked the correct corrections over time one can come up with a much cleaner understanding. On a simpler line, say I grew up in a household that hates Catholics. Would I now be biased? If I grew up in the 70’s with parents who were into the old anti-US thing going on at that time. Wouldn’t I be biased. If I grew up in a drug induced family, wouldn’t that affect my outlook. What are the percentages of that happening, the likelihood. And another thing to remember …once a “new process” has been formed for anything, what is the likelihood of it being successful. Evaluate that. How would people embrace that. A lot of times too though once knowledge is given to people about say, smoking – (re how tobacco affects one’s lungs), after that knowledge in the form of posters, brochures, radio, etc. has been distributed. Now evaluate people’s response — effective, not effective. Opinions? I have seen that many, many opinions are gleaned from ignorance by no fault of the opinionator. Once give information (unbiased and truthful) they will form their own opinion. And this is very important. Because this to me is the only way that change can in fact take place permanently. And it will. Knowledge is so very important. Education. But one must be extremely careful in how one educates. Not with anti anything but rather a pro attitude. Let’s take care of our health. Smoking hurts our health. So let’s look at how we can help that. Anti U.S.? Really? Isn’t that quite narrowminded? That’s like me saying because of Hitler I hate all Germans. Gad, my grandfather was a German! One must be extremely careful on the amount of movement from right to left or left to right in any politics. Each government has their positive and negative attributes. This is nature. Great attrocities happen every day – in war, against women, against children, with ignorance. It is great to break that ignorance but if in its place you only put more ignorance. Than really what is the difference and which is better. Another process in evaluation is putting in another method or adding something or knowledge or whatever but it is again monitoring and then re-evaluating. And maybe more changes,more tweaking, always striving to find the best. Too many times in the past changes are made, then people wipe their hands and go — hey! great, we’re done! Now what else needs changing. So many times those changes made are not the most effective and have hurt more than the process that was in place at the beginning but no one has remained accountable, nor have they bothered to think that the changes instituted could ever become better – because of ego, because of bias, because they become what they tried to change. Difficult to change things without becoming part of it.
Not so easy. And Saddam, well, you know we hear some of what happened but I have also heard that there are Iraqs who don’t like him. I guess just as there are Americans who hate Bush. Guess it all depends on who you talk to.
Where I live we had a premier of our Province who I disliked immensely when he first came into power. I hated him. But as time has gone by and he had done what he said he would do and he has actually listenend to the people and been very good for our province, well I must say … I will be sorry to see him go. It is a process. Was for him and it was for all of us in the Province. Not all that he does is great, but he did try. And he showed personal changes to show that. And he does care.
So …. just to show that change can happen …. in opinions even, once there is more experience, on both sides. Not saying that what U.S. has done is right. Probably not. But would Iraq or China done anything different or worse? Maybe. Maybe not.I have heard of Taoists sects who can change weather patterns. Lots going on this year against U.S. weatherwise. Taoists sects are in China. Hmmmmm, one could think on that couldn’t one. Not saying anything really, but one’s mind tends to hinge towards the possible negative aspects of that. Interesting isn’t it. New Orleans is busted right off the map. Of course we can also think that New Orleans was a party town, lots of negativity maybe, not so good things? Maybe it is a cleansing? Maybe not. We can’t judge that I think. Not properly. However to make things good, to make things better, one should do so with a rebuilding attitude, of peoples ideas, opinions, structures from a positive standpoint not a bashing attitude. At that point then I tend to think under what influences is one acting upon. Right now the U.S. is not the country to be leary of. It is China. And if you don’t think so then you are outright blind. They have enough army to go right out and take the world over. Sitting back, quietly, infiltrating, building … both energetically and physically. The Chinese history markers say that the next 60 years, beginning this year belongs to the East. Perhaps maybe one should be alittle more careful on the structures one tries to burn.
Another note — In Canada we are very multinational. In one block we will have a born Canadian, an East Indian, a Chinese, a Ukranian, native Indian and a black family. It is like the United Nations in our Elementary schools. However if we look at the gangs in our City we can see that they are mostly Vietnamese, Spanish, black, etc. ….. this is fact. They are the impoverished. They also bring to this country what they learned in their country …. war. There are some people who just don’t have the thought of killing as being wrong. Because they grew up with it. They come here and can not fathom compassion. To them it DOES NOT EXIST. Co-workers say it is so very, very scary. Because they cannot even see one hope, one glimmer to even work with or from to heal. Non-existent. And to a lot of us Canadians and Americans who have never lived with this we cannot understand. CANNOT! So … do you want to live like them? By promoting anti anything isn’t one encouraging this same wave of thought. What about pro-compassion, pro-understanding, pro-help. In my view we are damn lucky to be living in the U.S. or Canada right now. Damn lucky. And a lot of those wars in the East are thousands of years old so don’t blame the Americans for that. Muslims have been fighting since the beginning, so have the Protestants and Catholics, so have the Curds. So, enough is enough. And it has to stop. But you are not going to stop it if you take the same hard stand as the closed minds that breathe those feuds. I used to think oh poor people over there fighting. We should go help them all. We had an Irishman here to do some Rehab work. Very egotistical, very thinking his way was the right way, very not wanting to work in a team …. hated Canada. He didn’t make any effort to become any part of us for whatever reasons. But see … now my opinion changes. To me .. now what I see is a reason why they have the IRA and problems over there. Too much an “I am right” attitude. Palistinians, Jews. Same thing. Muslims. Same thing. Too many live life in past. YOu killed my uncle, you killed my great, great, great grandfather. You die! Excuse me?? So when does forgiveness begin?
That has been one of my big lessons. So to me, if I have to friggin learn it than so should everyone else in this friggin world. Forgiveness for mistakes of people, of religions, of governments, of hurts. That was yesterday. If we are to evolve we must not live in the past but rather build the future and to me … That is done by positive construction not by rattling of swords nor by anti-government, not by anti-anyone. But rather a “working with” attitude. How can we work with what we have to make it better. We have to try. But okay, so someone can’t try, then what. Well we try more, but if they are then affecting the livelihood of others in our society, then what. Well that leads to one of my biggest pet peeves.
Canada has made mistakes in letting many, many immigrants into our country who neither respect the Country nor the people in it nor intend to live by the rules of the community. To me, still in the building of good things there must be consequences of choice. So to me … any immigrant who does not abide the rules and laws made and withheld by society he lives in, …. well him/herself and his whole family are deported back into the life they left for a new one here. Which they choose not to embrace but rather to bring their shitload of issues to our Country. So yes, one helps to incorporate all but there must be consequences or all hell will break loose. Because a lot of these people come from war. Their life is not as ours, thought patterns are not same. Rehabilitation and bonding is not always possible, but one cannot hurt the rest of society because of their limitations, so until they learn, till they heal they must have consequences on their own level. This I think is one of the mistakes in our Canadian immigration. Accountability. You can bet that if a whole Vietnamese family is threatened of being deported because of their young nephew who is a drug dealer they will take steps to correct that. Well you and I both know that Family accountability exists very strongly in Eastern cultures. They will police their ownselves more strongly than western police ever could. Hey, don’t want to live peaceful … see ya dude. We tried, but at some point there must be a line drawn.
We all take our safe countries for granted. Don’t do that. Don’t get caught up in the 70’s – anti government bashing, I mean look what free love inthe 70’s brought us, AIDS, herpes and a lot of other veneral diseases. (or the spread of them at least).
Like you know, I don’t think that is what they meant by free love. But look what happened.Frigg it just pisses me off. People have so much here and all they can do is bad mouth everything. YOu know in some countries you get shot walking down the street. How about not letting this happen here. Not like it is over there. Rehabilitation, education, evaluation, education. Knowledge. HELLLOOOOO! Destroying of anything can happen with a single thought. So can the building of anything. Which would you choose?
Fu_k!!
Hearing anti-government crap just frigging drives me up a frigging wall. Hellooooooo!!! Go help somebody or go help a system, or go help an old lady across the street. Or go become Bush’s best friend and talk to him, open his mind up. Become a Senator. Become a lawyer. You know, really, digging up old relics of newspaper clippings from shell shocked newspaper boys. What is that really going to serve to do? It is over and done. Good wishes to all who suffered that pain, but it is time to move on, move on to better things. Release it all.Some never learn. Just as bad as me. God help us all.
One second thought of war – creation.
One second thought of love – creation.
One second thought of destruction – creation
One second thought of birth – creationWhich do you want? Our minds are much more powerful than one thinks.
Think about that.December 10, 2005 at 1:27 pm #9304MoonglowParticipantGovernments are not perfect. Politics are not my expertise. Healthcare is where I sit. Work from the inside out. Change can happen this way too – in politics. Good people are needed in high places, those that do not succumb to greed and power. Any takers? Is easy to talk from afar, much more difficult to speak within the mellee but it can be done. And I believe it is being done as we speak if you look hard and long enough. Sometimes in government actions as those of which Michael has spoken it isn’t so much a game of white and black but rather which is the least of two evils. And the choice of selecting the least of those two evils is a little more complex I think, then reading a few articles printed by imploded newspapers. I see research and articles written all time and even looking at specific raw data, one can miscrue it all by writing it down the way one chooses to write it down. By the way one chooses to report on it. In fact there are even specific departments now that look at that. A whole new study of that. How to report on the data with cleanliness. No tainting. But is difficult. I believe this to be true not just in scientific data but also in politics. I am by no means pro war nor am I anti Iraq, however perhaps before one tears down what one has, perhaps one should look at the alternatives. And perhaps before one tears a structure down and shreds it to pieces, perhaps one should look at the fact – is there anything in place to replace it. And perhaps there may be more at work here than meets the eye. People tearing down the structure of their own country makes that country weak. Easier for prey. And do not tell me that the U.S. is the only country out there who wants power. Some want power for wronger reasons. And that is fact. If in fact one is very peassionate about a more wholesome, more compassionate, honest government then I would suggest working on structures that encourage that from a person’s expertise. Having that fantastic energy exist in the area you are concerned about is such a bonus, so much more than just talking, but rather being. I work in evaluation and I believe wholeheartedly that this needs to be done in many, many things. The correct way. It is amazing how we seem to “think” there are wrong things or that this way or that way is better. However when evaluated correctly it is truly mind stunning sometimes at the truth. Situations, procedures, people’s responses are sometimes just seen by what we ourselves have seen in that instant or what we have read in that small amount of time, but taken over a rather broader number and asked the correct corrections over time one can come up with a much cleaner understanding. On a simpler line, say I grew up in a household that hates Catholics. Would I now be biased? If I grew up in the 70’s with parents who were into the old anti-US thing going on at that time. Wouldn’t I be biased. If I grew up in a drug induced family, wouldn’t that affect my outlook. What are the percentages of that happening, the likelihood. And another thing to remember …once a “new process” has been formed for anything, what is the likelihood of it being successful. Evaluate that. How would people embrace that. A lot of times too though once knowledge is given to people about say, smoking – (re how tobacco affects one’s lungs), after that knowledge in the form of posters, brochures, radio, etc. has been distributed. Now evaluate people’s response — effective, not effective. Opinions? I have seen that many, many opinions are gleaned from ignorance by no fault of the opinionator. Once give information (unbiased and truthful) they will form their own opinion. And this is very important. Because this to me is the only way that change can in fact take place permanently. And it will. Knowledge is so very important. Education. But one must be extremely careful in how one educates. Not with anti anything but rather a pro attitude. Let’s take care of our health. Smoking hurts our health. So let’s look at how we can help that. Anti U.S.? Really? Isn’t that quite narrowminded? That’s like me saying because of Hitler I hate all Germans. Gad, my grandfather was a German! One must be extremely careful on the amount of movement from right to left or left to right in any politics. Each government has their positive and negative attributes. This is nature. Great attrocities happen every day – in war, against women, against children, with ignorance. It is great to break that ignorance but if in its place you only put more ignorance. Than really what is the difference and which is better. Another process in evaluation is putting in another method or adding something or knowledge or whatever but it is again monitoring and then re-evaluating. And maybe more changes,more tweaking, always striving to find the best. Too many times in the past changes are made, then people wipe their hands and go — hey! great, we’re done! Now what else needs changing. So many times those changes made are not the most effective and have hurt more than the process that was in place at the beginning but no one has remained accountable, nor have they bothered to think that the changes instituted could ever become better – because of ego, because of bias, because they become what they tried to change. Difficult to change things without becoming part of it.
Not so easy. And Saddam, well, you know we hear some of what happened but I have also heard that there are Iraqs who don’t like him. I guess just as there are Americans who hate Bush. Guess it all depends on who you talk to.
Where I live we had a premier of our Province who I disliked immensely when he first came into power. I hated him. But as time has gone by and he had done what he said he would do and he has actually listenend to the people and been very good for our province, well I must say … I will be sorry to see him go. It is a process. Was for him and it was for all of us in the Province. Not all that he does is great, but he did try. And he showed personal changes to show that. And he does care.
So …. just to show that change can happen …. in opinions even, once there is more experience, on both sides. Not saying that what U.S. has done is right. Probably not. But would Iraq or China done anything different or worse? Maybe. Maybe not.I have heard of Taoists sects who can change weather patterns. Lots going on this year against U.S. weatherwise. Taoists sects are in China. Hmmmmm, one could think on that couldn’t one. Not saying anything really, but one’s mind tends to hinge towards the possible negative aspects of that. Interesting isn’t it. New Orleans is busted right off the map. Of course we can also think that New Orleans was a party town, lots of negativity maybe, not so good things? Maybe it is a cleansing? Maybe not. We can’t judge that I think. Not properly. However to make things good, to make things better, one should do so with a rebuilding attitude, of peoples ideas, opinions, structures from a positive standpoint not a bashing attitude. At that point then I tend to think under what influences is one acting upon. Right now the U.S. is not the country to be leary of. It is China. And if you don’t think so then you are outright blind. They have enough army to go right out and take the world over. Sitting back, quietly, infiltrating, building … both energetically and physically. The Chinese history markers say that the next 60 years, beginning this year belongs to the East. Perhaps maybe one should be alittle more careful on the structures one tries to burn.
Another note — In Canada we are very multinational. In one block we will have a born Canadian, an East Indian, a Chinese, a Ukranian, native Indian and a black family. It is like the United Nations in our Elementary schools. However if we look at the gangs in our City we can see that they are mostly Vietnamese, Spanish, black, etc. ….. this is fact. They are the impoverished. They also bring to this country what they learned in their country …. war. There are some people who just don’t have the thought of killing as being wrong. Because they grew up with it. They come here and can not fathom compassion. To them it DOES NOT EXIST. Co-workers say it is so very, very scary. Because they cannot even see one hope, one glimmer to even work with or from to heal. Non-existent. And to a lot of us Canadians and Americans who have never lived with this we cannot understand. CANNOT! So … do you want to live like them? By promoting anti anything isn’t one encouraging this same wave of thought. What about pro-compassion, pro-understanding, pro-help. In my view we are damn lucky to be living in the U.S. or Canada right now. Damn lucky. And a lot of those wars in the East are thousands of years old so don’t blame the Americans for that. Muslims have been fighting since the beginning, so have the Protestants and Catholics, so have the Curds. So, enough is enough. And it has to stop. But you are not going to stop it if you take the same hard stand as the closed minds that breathe those feuds. I used to think oh poor people over there fighting. We should go help them all. We had an Irishman here to do some Rehab work. Very egotistical, very thinking his way was the right way, very not wanting to work in a team …. hated Canada. He didn’t make any effort to become any part of us for whatever reasons. But see … now my opinion changes. To me .. now what I see is a reason why they have the IRA and problems over there. Too much an “I am right” attitude. Palistinians, Jews. Same thing. Muslims. Same thing. Too many live life in past. YOu killed my uncle, you killed my great, great, great grandfather. You die! Excuse me?? So when does forgiveness begin?
That has been one of my big lessons. So to me, if I have to friggin learn it than so should everyone else in this friggin world. Forgiveness for mistakes of people, of religions, of governments, of hurts. That was yesterday. If we are to evolve we must not live in the past but rather build the future and to me … That is done by positive construction not by rattling of swords nor by anti-government, not by anti-anyone. But rather a “working with” attitude. How can we work with what we have to make it better. We have to try. But okay, so someone can’t try, then what. Well we try more, but if they are then affecting the livelihood of others in our society, then what. Well that leads to one of my biggest pet peeves.
Canada has made mistakes in letting many, many immigrants into our country who neither respect the Country nor the people in it nor intend to live by the rules of the community. To me, still in the building of good things there must be consequences of choice. So to me … any immigrant who does not abide the rules and laws made and withheld by society he lives in, …. well him/herself and his whole family are deported back into the life they left for a new one here. Which they choose not to embrace but rather to bring their shitload of issues to our Country. So yes, one helps to incorporate all but there must be consequences or all hell will break loose. Because a lot of these people come from war. Their life is not as ours, thought patterns are not same. Rehabilitation and bonding is not always possible, but one cannot hurt the rest of society because of their limitations, so until they learn, till they heal they must have consequences on their own level. This I think is one of the mistakes in our Canadian immigration. Accountability. You can bet that if a whole Vietnamese family is threatened of being deported because of their young nephew who is a drug dealer they will take steps to correct that. Well you and I both know that Family accountability exists very strongly in Eastern cultures. They will police their ownselves more strongly than western police ever could. Hey, don’t want to live peaceful … see ya dude. We tried, but at some point there must be a line drawn.
We all take our safe countries for granted. Don’t do that. Don’t get caught up in the 70’s – anti government bashing, I mean look what free love inthe 70’s brought us, AIDS, herpes and a lot of other veneral diseases. (or the spread of them at least).
Like you know, I don’t think that is what they meant by free love. But look what happened.Frigg it just pisses me off. People have so much here and all they can do is bad mouth everything. YOu know in some countries you get shot walking down the street. How about not letting this happen here. Not like it is over there. Rehabilitation, education, evaluation, education. Knowledge. HELLLOOOOO! Destroying of anything can happen with a single thought. So can the building of anything. Which would you choose?
Fu_k!!
Hearing anti-government crap just frigging drives me up a frigging wall. Hellooooooo!!! Go help somebody or go help a system, or go help an old lady across the street. Or go become Bush’s best friend and talk to him, open his mind up. Become a Senator. Become a lawyer. You know, really, digging up old relics of newspaper clippings from shell shocked newspaper boys. What is that really going to serve to do? It is over and done. Good wishes to all who suffered that pain, but it is time to move on, move on to better things. Release it all.Some never learn. Just as bad as me. God help us all.
One second thought of war – creation.
One second thought of love – creation.
One second thought of destruction – creation
One second thought of birth – creationWhich do you want? Our minds are much more powerful than one thinks.
Think about that. -
AuthorPosts
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.