/BOMB/

= ‘Sacrifice | Botched’: This is an excerpt from a text that captures how sacrifices in the Iraq War got botched. It could serve as a metaphor and a context to what happened yesterday when the United States of America dropped a bomb on Iran…

Sacrifice is never the way. The way is nonviolent. If the way is violent, that sacrifice will be botched, it will likely be met with a counter sacrifice, until all the sacrifice is without purpose. Then it is just reactionary brutal unapologetic violence without any semblance of meaning. The violence begets violence and soon there isn’t even a notion of what it is all for.

The violence has been perpetrated and every side of the Iraq War has suffered. We think that we’ve already lost so many of our own, that if we give up now their sacrifices will not be honored. We think that if we give up now the lives of all those who sacrificed will be rendered obsolete and ultimately without justification.

The sacrifice was immense–on both sides. On the American side, the sacrifice was supposed to be for freedom. The sacrifice did not prove to be about freedom, it amounted to very little. The question in the Middle East is: Who was to blame for this atrocity? Was it justified? Was there purpose in any of it at all? When do we give up? If we lose the war, what do we tell the mother of a dead soldier, that it was all for nothing?

It becomes increasingly evident that the life of a mother’s son was jeopardized for the interests of the political and economic leaders of the United States. Now someone is going to have to explain how these men sitting around a table in a room without windows are deciding the fate of the world, and in particular, the life and death of your 19 year old child.

The deeper downward spiral will keep going down down down until it is clear that we have to admit to failure, that it will never go up again. Every step we take, every life we destroy, every soldier killed, does not justify the very real pain that came before. We will have to give up on the value given to sacrifice, we will have to realize that the sacrifice was botched, and those American soldiers really did die for very little, perhaps even making the Middle East worse off. If we keep going, it is just going to increase the cost of pain and death, more and more, down down down.

The atrocity of war will never be justified, we and they will never truly be satisfied and the war never really ends. It turns out that all the sacrifice of money, time, and lives turned out to be ambiguous at best. That’s hard to admit, but we need to know it. Despite our colossal effort and striking involvement in the Middle East, we didn’t end up winning them over, we just made them angry like a beehive swatted with a stick by a foolish child.

(Read more) at Sacrifice | Botched

Mossy Oaks Hot Coffee

Now, I will dig into the past for a metaphor from a mental hospital that captures some of the stuff that is going on right now in the Middle East. The most powerful non-nuclear weapon used by the U.S. in these operations is the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), which weighs approximately 30,000 pounds (15 tons), and it was dropped on a target in Iran just yesterday.

= Below is an excerpt from ‘Story’ that I believe speaks to us at this moment. What follows is metaphor in narrative form and as action that reflects and sheds light on the reality of what it means to “drop a bomb on someone’s head”. I acted in Mossy Oaks with total impunity, fearlessness, and absolute craziness that amounted to inspiration, and it was recorded. With as much theory as practice, I think I did my best writing there. Now, I provide the background, and then we will see if the metaphor holds up.

I was boiled nearly to death, total mania, going 140mph literally and figuratively, confronting infinite sadness and the horror of universal suffering. A brief moment of mercy as I flew–I felt like I was flying–I was flying off the ledge of a bridge that was high enough that I broke a neck and a couple hips. What happened before was too horrific to ever repeat. What happened during my two month stay in a hospital in a wheelchair slowly mending my bones was too sad to ever repeat.

The accumulation of pain was acute and razor sharp, it was like waiting in a pot of boiling water ready for my life to begin once again. I was charged to take on the world. It turns out I would take on the world in the unlikely place of a mental hospital called Mossy Oaks. The energy I consumed and spent could not have been more electric. I volunteered for that abysmal psych ward because I was going to tear it up. This would be my environment, my incubator that would let insanity fly.

This metaphor involves hot coffee–pouring a hot coffee over your head that causes you to pass out. The act was prefaced by a severe statement to one of the mental patients who was wearing army camouflage, “This is what it feels like to have a bomb dropped on your head”, I said.

This metaphor was lived, practiced, and carried out in real time, and I did actually pass out after a flash of pain that left me on the floor with burns on my face and forehead.

Metaphors are always incomplete, you have to be careful about butchering what you compare something to, but metaphors can be useful. Though hopelessly simplified, ideally, they serve as a heuristic that helps us think through something even if the overlay is not real. Acknowledging that, the Bomb Coffee Incident is in context as a narrative as follows:

‘Story’ [TEXT]: “There were testimonials to the parallels between extremists of all kinds, Black Panthers, the KKK, the terrorists of Islam, that were acknowledged as human and not dismissed without thinking of the circumstances of hatred that propelled these organizations into existence. We showed on the one hand the pain of hatred, how it rots you from the inside out and the pity these extremists deserve for their sacrifice, hating because love wasn’t powerful enough in their lives that they had to resort to the pain of hatred.

We showed on the other hand a synthesis of the flames, that the fire has raged on but is no longer necessary in the world to come, the world of one. We were made to hate in order to teach each other to develop as societies, but now we are ready to put the fire out and relish the love that we have been fighting for, bask in the waters that will overflow in the world soon.

One teaching that can only be described from my own perspective but that was richer through the circle of spirit that flowed through all of us, was the coffee incident. It was 6:00 am and they put out the coffee for us to wake up to, a day another day. The coffee was hot and I had only the intention of drinking it. I went to sit down and next to me was a man bald with an army camouflage shirt. The thought popped into my head and I reacted with total time precision and submission.

I poured that hot coffee over my head after I said, ¨This is what it feels like to have a bomb dropped on your head.¨ And I lost consciousness after the flash of burning pain and fell to the ground. They revived me and after a period of time I sat down next to the man wearing the army shirt. I told him what he already knew, that war is horrific to all who are involved, and that politics and money drive the decision to go to war, which affects the life and death of countless soldiers and civilians.

At first, he agreed without words, nodding his head, as I lectured to the people who had gathered, that the mess of the Middle East was a complex tragedy, a farce of a war that drives the insanity of the people of Islam and unnecessarily puts the lives of our soldiers at risk.

But, in so many words, the camouflaged man demanded that we respect the fallen soldiers who died for something greater than themselves, the American flag and nation, who they were willing to die for, even as many of them were too smart to be convinced by the rationale of politicians who do not know the sacrifice to go to war.

That is what that man wearing the army shirt taught us. He took his stand defending his army shirt with pride. All of us learned together through reflected words, speech, and action. All of us included the patients, the staff, and now YOU (as a reader) how complex war is, but also that understanding can be achieved. It was a reflection of spirit the way the whole incident unfolded and was more than my perspective on it, it was the totality of all our perspectives reflected by each other.

Put it into perspective at “Fake Suicide” (Read more)…this is where the story about Mossy Oaks began.

It starts with words…

= I am like Switzerland, I am neutral. I yearned to make a positive impact on both sides of the line drawn in the desert sand. These are some words to prep for my role in that capacity.

We need words words words in this world before violence wins and it all falls apart. Personally, I believe mutual understanding is the most powerful path towards military deescalation. We are at war…wars are determined by words. What do Che Guevara, Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and a White Nationalist have in common? Their actions began with words.

It starts with words, framed with colorful metaphors and convincing analogies, converted into symbols worth any number of speeches, and that promote a result…an activity, violent or nonviolent, that transforms the political landscape and causes social change.

Action encompasses the process that starts with original words written or spoken, and then ends with those key activities, violent or nonviolent that move and shake history. Words are the origin and prime movers of that process.

As Che Guerava said, “Words are beautiful, but action is supreme.” For him this is the difference between revolution and the ‘candy coated facade of gradual reform’. But did Che Guevara not wield power through the words he blasted into a movement? Were Che’s words not only beautiful, but actions of their own? Was he a poet, and he didn’t even know it?

Before the extremity of violent or nonviolent activities, it starts with the willingness to recognize another person’s point of view, it starts with affirmation, and that starts with words.

We must inquire and be willing to appreciate a different opinion, showing curiosity and interest.

We must try to communicate in a productive, empathetic way so all parties have an opportunity to be heard and respected for who they are.

We must try to understand, and that comes from an effort to appreciate the perspective of the ‘other’ that you now know and who you can decide to honor or prevail against.

Then, offer real concrete support to reinforce and promote the truth irrespective of which side that truth may fall.

What happens if your effort to affirm, inquire, direct, understand, and support is rejected? What if the opposing actor with their own contrasting opinion decides to ignore, contradict, misdirect, misunderstand, and undermine everything about you and what you think and believe?

Give it a try. That is worth a lot if you start from the beginning of affirmation and go all the way to support at the end of the process. If you are still rejected after an honest and thorough attempt, then it is time to dig deep and reconsider your options. After all, if you are rejected you have to defend yourself, that is basic self-preservation.

But if you have options, if you have alternative plans in place, then muster up the energy to offer your understanding and support one more time. That goes a long way, to be rejected and still come back to the negotiating table. Despite the ugliness that was their initial response, you have taken the high ground of righteousness, truth, and goodness.

If your efforts are rejected yet again, for some people, the contest in question is decisively over and heels inevitably dig in. That reaction might be natural, because you would have to be a saint to continually turn the other cheek over and over again. At what point do you stop?

That’s an open question for all of us as a world.

It starts with words (Read more)

The People in the Middle East, the People of Islam

= Departing from my place in Switzerland, where I have been comfortably sitting in a lotus position of defensive, evasive neutrality, here’s an argument that defends what the people of Islam in the Middle East might be thinking about us right now.

‘Story’ [TEXT]: “You live the heat. How hot is it there? It is like an oven the hot box of the world.

Why are they hating?

The Iraq War was all a tragic sleight of hand to get into the Middle East and prop up a government that served the oil barons and the corporate Forbes list. Time ticking where the oil at? It’s a BBQ we need grease for our slimy car culture of greed and expansion to the world. They know the world will come to an end and they want every last bit for themselves before it does end.

Is my light too bright? I see right through you.

There are powerful people in this world who want to control everything in service of themselves. They will be ousted and if we could stone them I would. Instead, I’ll invite you to walk and talk. Or you can try going against the whole world who will soon know how you have devastated our lives locally, internationally. I’ve never been afraid of saying anything and I will embarrass you until you are smoked out of your windowless vaults of conniving plots. You will be ashamed of yourself, that is your future.

I’m spiteful a renegade and me and my brothers will force you to fold the hand you’ve been carrying. You will have lost all of your wars every single one and you will be ordered by the King to apologize to every soldier you mutilated mental or physical intercontinental. You are gonna have to knock on a lot of doors, but you’ll get your elixir of life so you have plenty of time for prostrating yourself to mankind, we are not friends, don’t come near me or my people you crusty old white men.

You do not care about the future of the world, but I want you so you can warn humanity for the rest of eternity against the greed that consumes you. We all need to learn from you and your mistakes. I want you to be the evidence of mankind going against God and trying to rise above him. We will learn from your notorious example. I want you.

We went so far in our revenge for the twin towers, you drove them insane hail mary you slapped them with your bombs the head hancho all they know is the hits to their house of pain, jumping around dodging your bombs trying to kill all of them, spreading your ruthlessness deadly, yes, innocent women and children too.

You feel it in spurts of hatred fed back to you and you cannot fathom why someone would do that to innocent people. You are guilty of being blind. Waves of bombs destroying the Middle East like Hitler over England. Bombs so cowardly, trying to clean up your travesty, a plot so evil you are drowning in paranoia. You are so scared of the righteousness of the people chosen by God to spread the word that the world will be one. I am carrying Muhammad’s vision bringing the world to a recognition that we are all people of God and must be brothers and sisters. It won’t stop it won’t quit and it can’t wait. The Muslim brotherhood will scorch your little circle of white crusty men.

The people of Islam have a one way ticket to the paradise they have yearned for, and they will heighten the hell if you continue with your greed Western world. Terror for terror or love for love. You show them no love people of America and Europe and you should ALL be ashamed.

The USA started this bully fight and I will throw sand in your eye if you continue to fuck with my clic. I’ll go where your bombs go and dare you to drop a bomb on me and if you do, in my last dying breath, I will pray to GOd that a big fucking meteor is hurled right to your financial towers, and that you will become the assholes that eternal Hellfire revolves around. I will pray to GOd that you will spend your time in the empty universe getting ready for your reincarnation. Maybe a worm that moves like a black snake.

Sorry for my hate.

We must know the people of Islam, they must know us. We have everything in common in establishing peace and so much to learn from each other. We are going to learn to understand each other or we going to kill each other off and send this world to a Godless abyss.

REJOICE FOR THE PEOPLE OF ISLAM. Your civilization is genius and your religion is exquisitely beautiful. I am Muslim. I am Christian. I am Jewish. I am Buddhist. I submit to God like a Muslim, I pray like a Muslim. I understand how you sacrifice for something greater than yourself in service of God.

It is the strongest religion in this world, not Christianity, which flails in comparison to the faith of the Muslim people. I have read some of the Quran and plan to read it more than once and strengthen my faith to be worthy of my brothers and sisters around the world keeping the absolute love of God alive even in Godless places.

Many Christians believe that Jesus Christ sacrificed for them so they can kick back, and not have to sacrifice anything. Just relax and enjoy their lives of luxury. That luxury is built on top of genocide, war, oppression, dominance, and greed all in the name of Christ. I am the truth, if you are cold and dark hearted, well then, you have mounted yourself on top of quite a legacy.

Go to church and read the Bible again. You didn’t get it the first time.

I spent time in that hospital after jumping off a bridge and the sadness I felt allowed me to go deeper into the pain of humanity. This article as you might be able to tell is a fountain of pain.

I am sorry bombs representing my flag are dropped on your family. I ask for forgiveness for the young American soldiers, they know not what they do, they could not be any more blind to the big picture, we all are. I’m sorry we lack the solution to your tragic lives at the bottom. I will call for the world to walk and talk for the people of Islam, the PEOPLE OF THE MIDDLE EAST. WE ARE WALKING IN YOUR SHOES NOW.

Just a plea that is not deserved, but that I hope and will pray for. The strategy to blow people up and gun them down is the most horrific act and hate we do not understand even though your weapon act is one of warfare. We do not know in the blindness of our society that your lives are being destroyed, we live in a dream world and reality is too dark and we ignore it and go in every direction but the way to the truth. You are right it is a culture of cheap entertainment and distraction.

I am sorry to deliver the truth but people in the Western world suffer from a nation wide case of mass confusion, we are baffled by your violence. The masses do not have the empathy to truly care and seek understanding for the reality lived in the Middle East. We go back to going around and around with our lives the very next day. Your strategy is worthless, it is not working. I would tell you if it was.

I have prayed in the Mosques of Istanbul for peace and justice in the Middle East.

YOU WILL NEVER NEED TO SACRIFICE YOUR LIVES AGAIN. I make that promise to myself and deliver it to you. We have done enough and the flame can be set aside in the name of building a world of one before God. It will be done peacefully and the powerhouse of the USA is going to lose its status as the leader of the world. It did an absolutely terrible job and it is time to build nation spanning solidarity that supports intricate, diverse networks of people whose spiritual allegiance is to everywhere.

We are going to become a world and the light of Islam will be the mercy they give you in the Western world for the gift of TRUTH, that you are a culture who has looked past the humanity in the rest of the world. We all owe the Muslim people our gratitude for keeping God alive and you might want to apologize for being less than a brother.

Here are a few essays like this one…I mean what I say (Read more)

Qur’an

Can we really judge the people of Islam when we have absolutely zero comprehension of their BOOK, the Qur’an. Can we dismiss a people, a civilization, a society without making the slightest bit of effort to understand the faith of Muslim people? Islam is a world religion that has been in effect and guided people for more than a thousand years. If we are to be involved in dropping bombs in Muslim countries, perhaps we can spend a little while trying to understand the Qur’an, and getting to know these people better.

The Qur’an is addressed to all humanity without distinction of race, region or time. Its major themes are God, human beings, society, nature, reason, prophethood and revelation. The Qur’an speaks of the transcendence of God, the fact that He is beyond all perception of human beings.

Below is a weak interpretation of the Qur’an (and Islam) meant for people who are totally ignorant of this religion and I attempt to bridge the gap between no understanding and some partial understanding. There is much to learn from other religions and other ways of cultivating prosperous, just, natural, spiritually rich societies. We need to understand each other. We will never escape our ignorance about other ways of living and the incredible variety and diversity of life, if we don’t seek cultural understanding, spiritual knowledge, and inspiring and productive morals and values.

The Qur’an expounds on the unity of God reflected in the unity of mankind. Since we are all created by God, we are all equal before Him. There is no difference between people of one race and another, between rich and poor, between the powerful and the powerless, between men and women. Islam is uncompromising on its stance on human equality.

As the literal Word of God, the Qur’an is the Qur’an only in the original revealed text. Bear that in mind if you decide to read my re(re)interpretation of the Qur’an. It is meant for people who are totally ignorant of this religion. Below I merely attempt to bridge the gap between no understanding and some partial understanding.

I have chosen to embed my partial reinterpretation of the Qur’an, in an article called ‘Pathways to God’. It intends to clearly reflect a multiplicity of faiths including Judaism, Buddhism, a diversity of Christian faiths, Hinduism, World Churches, and even secular persuasions. When we put the great religions side by side we can appreciate a diversity of pathway(s) to God. That will help us understand what we can learn from each other spiritually, socially, and soon to be–in solidarity.

Pathways to God (Read more)

Comic Book

The last prophet, Muhammad, submitted to God. Saddam Hussein, the dictator of Iraq, submitted to oil. Muhammad guided his people to the all mighty all merciful Allah. Saddam guided the people of Iraq into poverty and extremism while he amassed great wealth at the expense of his nation.

Muhammad is the good guy. Saddam Hussein was the bad guy…

…A Muslim woman living in a small town in Iraq was surrounded by a desperate society that did not believe in the power of righteousness, the power of faith, or the power of people. This Muslim woman would become inspired by the divinity of Allah, and the teachings of Muhammad. In the age of modern day Iraq, at a time of great struggle, she would discover a way to deliver miracle after miracle across the nation. The people would learn to believe in her and eventually they would learn to believe in themselves.

‘Showdowns’ [TEXT]: “I am that woman. My name is Aziza. I am Muslim and devout and I will show you how I submitted to God and what I learned from Muhammad. I saw through the misdirection of Saddam pretending that he was a man of faith carrying out the religion of Islam when actually he was a man with no spirit who only wanted to accumulate power. All kinds of ways did Saddam try to limit us and keep us apart from the outside world. Only he could enjoy the fruits of other cultures while he stifled our own. He kept us from the world and he kept us from being connected with each other. Our connection was quasi-religious but not of real spirit, just rules, that is what became of Islam under this soulless dictatorship. As a woman I felt the heavy weight of tradition that in my opinion was not tradition at all, but bigotry, male chauvinism, and domination. If religion was meant to be a source of good, solidarity, and love, I felt none of these things in my life under the traditions marketed to the public by the manipulation of Saddam.”

Muhammad was my super hero, a feminist at heart, someone who treated everyone with dignity and respect, and who believed in the spirit within and between us. For all the love that he gave us, he was also a warner.

He warned us of selfishness, of oppression, of mistreatment of others, of violence, and the repercussions of straying from the path of righteousness and faith. He warned us of failing to learn from God’s message that had been brought to the Arab world.

Muhammad showed us beauty, gratitude, kindness to one’s neighbor, loving one’s enemy, being there for one’s brothers and sisters, caring for the elderly and sick, raising children to be strong and fair, and so on, all explained with absolute grace and clarity.

Muhammad was a man of God, but he was humble and did not ask to be revered as more than human, only God was to be revered. Muhammad delivered God’s message, and that is all Muhammad was, a messenger. Muhammad will be my inspiration as I travel the desert looking for answers.

Okay, first step, first act of faith?

I walked right out of the town where I had lived my whole life and went straight out into the desert. Was I testing God? A little bit. But I was testing destiny…mine and Iraq’s and the Muslim world, and the whole world…

(Read more) about the comic book story of Aziza and the overcoming of Saddam.

Righteous

= A short story about a providential meeting with an Uber driver from Iraq (to be continued):

‘Story’ [TEXT]: I sprinted through the terminal in Atlanta in order to make my layover flight to Miami. I was convinced the plane would wait for me. I missed it by minutes. I looked through the airport window and saw the plane was still there. The gate was closed and there was no one at the desk. Soon after a group of people from another flight arrived to the disappointment they had missed the flight. One woman was extremely distressed and began waving through the window trying to get the attention of someone to let her on the plane.

I felt for this woman and I thought something needed to be done. What was the righteous thing to do? I groaned that I would have to go down the path again. I knew that the airline was not doing right. I burst through the gate entrance covered in signs of how illegal it was to open the door. I set off the alarm, and flew down the jetway to where the flight attendant was closing the plane, “I have a ticket for this flight and so do a dozen people at the gate. Please let us on. Some of us have families to go home to.”

“How did you get down here? Who let you down here?”

“I walked down here on my own.”

“I’m calling security. Come with me.”

“The plane is sitting here and there are people who need to get on. Please consider them.”

There were looks exchanged between the pilot and the flight attendant. They escorted me up the jetway back to the terminal and demanded that I wait there. The flight attendant was on the phone calling security as I contemplated the repercussions of my actions. I did not have time for this. I had a more important mission to accomplish than fighting with the TSA.

I walked off hurriedly heading for the exit of the airport. I kept an eye out for security as I briskly made my escape. I decided to abandon my one checked bag that had all my life possessions for starting anew in Barcelona. I did not need material things. I made it out of the airport and walked through the long-term parking lot to the fringes of the property, jumped a fence, and waited for an Uber outside of the airport.

The Uber driver was from Iraq…(Read more)

Spirit

There is a man who submitted to GOd totally and completely, his name was Muhammad. I am the first student of Muhammad. I have rocked history with fearlessness and total submission to God above, and beyond almost anyone–just like Muhammad dictates that we should. For that reason, I earn the respect of the Muslim people, they consider me as a believer with a profound respect for the religion of Islam.

In another sense, we are all inspired by Muhammad, Buddha, Moses, and Jesus. In a way, we are all Muhammad, Buddha, Moses, and Jesus. In a sense, we strive to live up to the ideals established by these individuals, and we get closer and closer to the examples they set with the passion we give to the people around us. Embrace your own divinity, do not only ascribe these qualities to religious leaders, whether Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Muslim, or any other pathway to God. You are capable of living a life that is infused with spirit, you do not need to feel less than anyone who claims to be more devout than you are. I hope I set that example. I hope you will never stop believing, I hope you will never stop for long because you are too busy walking for the good of the world.

–Peter L Mangan

This is Urgent/Timely/Pressing!