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Taking a Closer Thought...
I'm still confused that some well intended politicians in 1949 got together after WWII and added The Geneva Conventions to the basic rules of war. It was the fourth treaty of such nature whose precedents were set in 1864, 1906, and 1929. These conventions provided for basic wartime rights of prisoners, established protections for the wounded and protections for civilians around the war zone. You see why I'm still confused? We have a war situation. A country has chosen to sacrifice its citizens (or allow them to be killed) in order to defeat another army of another country (or with some justification 'fix' an evil regime), and 'they' (the other army) chooses to retaliate, AND 195 countries on this planet have agreed to some basic guidelines of war. If the last one standing broke some rules, does it matter how people were killed? Those victims are just as dead one way or another. And to top it all off, the use of chemical agents in war seemed so onerous that these same persons have placed a giant NO NO on their use as well as other weapons. This became called the Hague Conventions. It's as if there is something way down inside of mankind that seems to have a shout out to our consciousness now and then. "Thou shalt not kill". We, so far, have seen this as too definitive, and way too narrow for wiggle room. Universal Soldier (Songwriter Buffy Saint-Marie: 1964) Sainte-Marie said of the song: "I wrote 'Universal Soldier' in the basement of The Purple Onion coffee house in Toronto in the early sixties. It's about individual responsibility for war and how the old feudal thinking kills us all. (Made popular in 1967 by Donovan) Click to listen to her describe the song and hear her sing it! He is five foot two, And he's six feet four, He fights with missiles and with spears, He's all of thirty-one, And he's only seventeen, He's been a soldier for a thousand years. He's a Catholic, a Hindu, An atheist, a Chein, A Budhist, and a Baptist and a Jew, And he knows, he shouldn't kill, And he knows, he always will, Killing for me, my friend, and me for you. And he's fighting for Canada, He's fighting for France, He's fighting for the USA And he's fighting for the Russians, He's fighting for Japan, And he thinks we'll put an end to war this way. And he's fighting for democracy, He's fighting for the Reds, He says it's for the peace of all, He's the one who must decide, Who's to live and who's to die, And he never sees the writing on the wall. But without him, how would Hitler Have condemned him at Lw'ow, (German concentration camp) Without him Cesar would have stood alone, He's the one, who gives his body As a weapon of the war, And without him all this killing can't go on. He's the universal soldier, And he really is to blame, His orders come from far away, no more, They come from here and there, And you and me and brothers, Can't you see, This is not the way we put the end to war. Introspection...Anger starts from within each of us. Does it make it to the surface in the form of body language, words, or action?
Are we less angry than yesterday? Who or what has aided us in dampening or controlling our own potential anger? Personal anger expands into regions, nations, and the world like an invisible cancer. Do we add or subtract from the 'anger debt' that seems to show so clearly in our world media? Are our beliefs subjugated to another's authority? Do we use this as the 'way out' from expressing disagreement on topics. It always seemed strange that a soldier gives up their free will to the directions of their commanders. Necessary when one believes that the killing is justified. Horribly tormenting when one sees the travesty of political abuse of war. How do we use our talents, our intellect, our daily service within companies and corporations? Is the resulting service of labor and effort used for the purpose of furthering weapon development, contributing to 'hate' groups, adding to divisive thoughts, creating products or intellectual property that has little or no positive use? What efforts are visible to teach our children about their potential choice of anger? Is Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) an increasing witness to the fact that we should not be killing? Ask the dead about the morality of killing. I don't think I have an answer, just questions. Andrew Jackson's Farewell Speech of March 4, 1837 expresses with prophetic accuracy the results of allowing a 'central bank' to control a nation's currency system. You will find excerpts from the speech below. Link to the Entire Address (written) Link to a Spoken Address (via YouTube) Excerpts...... In reviewing the conflicts which have taken place between different interests in the United States and the policy pursued since the adoption of our present form of government, we find nothing that has produced such deep-seated evil as the course of legislation in relation to the currency. The Constitution of the United States unquestionably intended to secure to the people a circulating medium of gold and silver. But the establishment of a national bank by Congress with the privilege of issuing paper money receivable in the payment of the public dues, and the unfortunate course of legislation in the several states upon the same subject, drove from general circulation the constitutional currency and substituted one of paper in its place. ... The banks, by this means, save themselves, and the mischievous consequences of their imprudence or cupidity are visited upon the public. Nor does the evil stop here. These ebbs and flows in the currency and these indiscreet extensions of credit naturally engender a spirit of speculation injurious to the habits and character of the people. We have already seen its effects in the wild spirit of speculation in the public lands and various kinds of stock which, within the last year or two, seized upon such a multitude of our citizens and threatened to pervade all classes of society and to withdraw their attention from the sober pursuits of honest industry. It is not by encouraging this spirit that we shall best preserve public virtue and promote the true interests of our country. But if your currency continues as exclusively paper as it now is, it will foster this eager desire to amass wealth without labor; it will multiply the number of dependents on bank accommodations and bank favors; the temptation to obtain money at any sacrifice will become stronger and stronger, and inevitably lead to corruption which will find its way into your public councils and destroy, at no distant day, the purity of your government. Some of the evils which arise from this system of paper press, with peculiar hardship, upon the class of society least able to bear it. A portion of this currency frequently becomes depreciated or worthless, and all of it is easily counterfeited in such a manner as to require peculiar skill and much experience to distinguish the counterfeit from the genuine note. These frauds are most generally perpetrated in the smaller notes, which are used in the daily transactions of ordinary business; and the losses occasioned by them are commonly thrown upon the laboring classes of society whose situation and pursuits put it out of their power to guard themselves from these impositions and whose daily wages are necessary for their subsistence. ...
The result of the ill-advised legislation which established this great monopoly was to concentrate the whole moneyed power of the Union, with its boundless means of corruption and its numerous dependents, under the direction and command of one acknowledged head; thus organizing this particular interest as one body and securing to it unity and concert of action throughout the United States and enabling it to bring forward, upon any occasion, its entire and undivided strength to support or defeat any measure of the government. In the hands of this formidable power, thus perfectly organized, was also placed unlimited dominion over the amount of the circulating medium, giving it the power to regulate the value of property and the fruits of labor in every quarter of the Union and to bestow prosperity or bring ruin upon any city or section of the country as might best comport with its own interest or policy. This cryptic equation rode along with us on many bike rides as we passed through small towns, villages and rural settings in Germany over the last couple years. Sometimes in chalk, on rocks near homes, vertical, horizontal mostly, it provided a curious discussion amongst us. The most likely 3 possibilities we came up with was 1) Fire code to tell emergency staff what was inside 2) Postal code for package delivery 3) Building code compliance update in progress How amazing when we searched the internet for a match on this equation! Now don't laugh, we really had no idea that it was connected to Christmas! Have you had a blessing on your house lately? I think it's a great idea. An excerpt from a website below (click for the entire web page): (The letters have two meanings. They are the initials of the customary names of the Three Magi:Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar. They also abbreviate the Latin words “Christus Mansionem Benedicat”, “May Christ bless the house”. The year is divided before and after the these letters. The crosses (+) represent the protection of the Christ.) Intro: You've seen this line a hundred million times, snaking its way along the roof line of your math class. Long, detailed fractions occassionaly interspersed with some positions for prime numbers. Enchanting color coordinated paper strips to complement the room's theme: MATHS (as some of the world calls it) Background: Having asked the following question many times and not receiving a sufficiently simple answer, I always wondered why teachers were so defensive when asked, "Since we are allowed to ask how parts of something are there in another something (allowed to divide any number by any other number) , "Why can't we divide any number by ZERO?" "Just because you can't - it's undefined!" was the retort. What did I know, I was a just an inquiriing student asking a question..... Let's digress for a minute. The concept of nothingness, emptiness, invisibility has been looked at by cultures in very different ways. If you can't see something it was relegated to the domain of the gods many years ago. Bacteria, electrons, magnetic fields, TV signals, practically the entire electromagnetic spectrum was invisible and unknown for most of human history. The very idea of having a symbol to represent NOTHINGNESS was tinkering with the realms of mystery and religion. Yet, as the world of maths evolved and we bumped into the need for a place marker to satisfy our position number system, voila the ZERO appeared. It was a brilliant solution. No longer was a Nine only a Nine. If it was to the left of a zero, it was Nine units of ten, and no units of ones, resulting in 90. We leapt from hash marks on endless streams of paper, crossing every fourth mark to make an easy counting by fives, it was obvious looking at an abacus that something was needed to represent a positional nothing. Slowly, this symbol, not really a number, began to have equality to a number. We recited and placed it in the lowest integer position. We were taught that any number multiplied by zero equaled zero. (At least they didn't teach us that it was undefined) I just wish they had insisted in our learning that multiplying by zero is a fantastic journey of imagination, stating the process a little differently: 3 times 2 would be stated "What is the total of 2 sets of 3?" Then when asked, 3 times 0 would turn out to be "What is the total of ZERO sets of 3? -- No need to make a didactic rule stating that all numbers multiplied by zero would be zero, the question doesn't even deserve an answer. Freeing Zero from its Numerical Prison! So the next time you hear that you can't divide by ZERO, your answer may be, "Of course you can't, Zero is not a number!" I realize that this single change in the United States political system is a fantasy, a 'mind game' as one scientist called them. However, perhaps there may be a chord that can be struck for further analysis, resonating later in another idea. So, here goes. Background: It seems that to go forward with ideas and applying ones energy to beliefs is a continuous tone of political candidates. These promised changes would rectify given situations and give feedback to the voters that 'they' have indeed made a difference by voting for such a wonderful candidate. Yet during their elected term, there is a clock ticking: "Re-election, Re-election, Re-election", subliminally at first and then with ferocity. The candidates promises were harder to keep than expected. Voter perception becomes a large elephant in the room, tilting the floor of decisions in ways that the elected official hopes will prove beneficial at next election time. Favors to return, lobbying pressures under which concession is often necessary for reelection, political blackmail from angry focus groups, personal laundry drying on the media racks. Stumping from the heart during election time, mimicking teleprompters from another's speech in office. Sounds like a white collar prison. So much energy looking backward and sideways, the elected official has made the error of choosing a 'career' instead of a service to their constituents. If making the correct, yet politically unfavorable, decision was possible from the incumbents's views, it is rarely spoken about again once elected. Let's face it, they live in a catch 22 situation. Rule Suggestion Change: Every elected official is only allowed one term for that position, under any circumstance. City, County, State, Nation. That's it! Perhaps the length of terms might need adjustment for the duties required, but only one term. Reflection: • Could this actually assist those persons who truly wish to add their acumen into public service? * How much money would I spend to get elected on a one term position since I am prevented from making a career in politics? • What if public, elected positions were publicly funded? • There would be NO pressure to concede to lobbying efforts that try to dissuade the official from the voter's wishes. * We could have a negative effect where those elected take as much payola as possible since they can't be reelected. • How would we amend the odorous 2 party system so that there would be a larger option of candidates from which to choose? * Candidate credential testing would aid in supporting those who chose to enter public service and eliminating those who have not properly prepared. * And..... |
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