First of all, allow me to qualify what I am about to write by stating the following: I love the general intent of the founding parents of America and underlying principles upon which The Constitution of The United States of America is based. As a scientifically minded spiritual person, as someone who is convinced that G-D is not religious and does not prefer one religion over another, I totally agree with the wisdom of separation of religion and state! The horrors that ravaged much of the rest of the world, especially Europe, in the name of religion, were the result of the ability of the official state religion to impose its will on those who dissented. I love the principle of freedom of expression and free speech, and understand that in order to protect real freedom of expression and free speech certain logical limitations on what can and cannot be expressed in public must be enforced by law. For example, you should have the right to suggest any non-violent opposition to anything, anyone and any group, but the minute you state things which threaten the lives and thus the rights of others to the same right to freedom of expression and free speech, the minute you directly imply that you would seek to deny others the very rights you benefit from, you have violated the rights of others and should be subject to some form of legal penalty! And I understand that true Democracy cannot really exist as long as the basic rights, including the right to housing and minimmal sustenance, of all are in any way violated! America is wonderful and great on its original Constitutional intentions and ideals, but fails to live up to them BIG TIME! That said, I will never agree to advocate violent social change or violence that is not truly justified by the right to self-defense as defined by International Law and the Human Rights Charter of the United Nations. I advocate non-violence over violent self-defense with exception to situations like what happened in World War Two, when the sick Nazi and Fascist murder machine slaughtered millions and attempted to destroy every vestige of true humanity and high civilization! Those fighting Fascism, Nazism, pseudo-Islamic Fascism, Terrorism and other similar evils, are totally justified, even by the basic principles upon which Satyagara, i.e. Non-Violence, is based.
And now follows the article I wish to share with you.
The other day I saw this report on CNN about a woman being tasered by a police officer in a manner that is totally in violation of any true need to police society! And this real American horror story came within 48 hours of an incident where someone at a university event, a speech by Senator Kerry, was ganged up on and tasered by people who are supposed to protect society and individuals, but who behaved more like sadistic thugs than seriously responsible police officers! Those two incidents evoke memories of what has happened over and over again in the name of law enforcement in America and increasingly so since Bush stole the office of The Presidency in 2000 and again in 2004. We must not forget what happened to that female lawyer in Miami, Florida a few years ago! Nor must we forget about the Rodney King police brutality incident and the consequences of that! Surely decent and honorable police officers, probably fewer and fewer than ever, suffer the most from these gross violations of the rule of law!
How can these sort of things be happening in America?
And it does not help when Anderson Cooper, someone I used to have great respect for, makes light fun of these taser attacks.
Tasers should only be allowed to be used when the individual is armed or is an obviously muscular brute! Never in any other case.
Instead, the police should have the option to tell non-violent offenders that if they do not resist arrest they may yet be released without charges being filed, and the laws should be ammended to reduce the number of arrests based on non-violent acts.
Anyway, America is losing it in more ways than just the ones mentioned thus far.
What's with an MIT student wearing a so-called piece of art that clearly is meant to resemble a bomb? At an airport??!
And what's with sick television shows like COPS, and this new piece of crap about young children left to suffer in a mock Western Ghost town??
And then all these attempts by the right wing in America to equate responsible alternative life-styled kinky adults with sick people who harm children?!? Sure, we need to find those real sickos who would harm minors and put them on special "adult sex only" adults-only penitential farms and, even when they have served their time there, moved to adults-only communities that are located at a significant distance from families with children. But we also need to get the government out of the sex lives of mature and consenting adults, regardless of what their sexual identity and/or lifestyle is!
We should even decriminalize the act of prostitution and promote a Geisha-like alternative social solution for adults in need of adult companionship, whereby any man or woman can provide a service for a fee that does not involve direct sexual intercourse, such as enterntainment (reading a poem, reading a story, chatting), massage or whatever, and then, when the service is over, that man or woman can, of their own free will, free of any charge, engage in sexual contact.
But the right wing and even many confused moderates, centrists and left-of-center persons perpetuate the myth that kinky adults are mentally ill and a public health threat! As I see it, more people die from cancer and other diseases related to stressful survival, including sexual frustration and disattisfaction than die from STDs! And also a greater number of average folk get serious STDs than those who are kinky adults! Kinky adults and many in the GLBT community are more safety-conscious than average folk who think it is alright to go behind the backs of those they claim to love and cheat them by having sexual relations without their knowledge and consent!
I find all these violations of civil rights and freedoms beyond unacceptable! They should be fully investigated, massively protested against and we should never accept the BIGGEST OF LIES which states that in order to protect America from the threat and reality of terrorism we must be willing to sacrifice some, let alone any, of our freedoms and liberties!
Truly intelligent people can see that this is absolutely false! There is absolutely no need to sacrifice a single freedom or liberty in order to provide the best possible security and protection from potential terrorist attacks.
And then there are those idiots who have no qualms about appearing on TV news shows where the reporter uses terminology that clearly serves to perpetuate an abominable falsehood concerning Muslims and Islam! The use of the terms "Islamo-fascist", "Islamic Extremists", "Islamists", and "Islamic terrorists" are not only totally incorrect and false, not only offensive and hurtful to those Muslims who are moderate and who are equally opposed to terrorism and sick pseudo-Islamic terrorist groups like al-Qaeda, but they are terms that perpetuate a very untruthful and dangerous public impression about the roughly 1.2 billion people who consider themselves Muslims or of Muslim background! Why? Because these false terms add fuel to an already explosive fire and push us closer and closer to the point where the conflict between non-terrorists and terrorists becomes a much wider and ultimately suigenocidal conflict between entire civilizations, between all Muslims and all non-Muslims!
Regardless of the fact that Islam has as one of its core historical tenets the idea of spreading their faith by the sword (i.e. violence), there are a number of Islamic reform movements that for all intents and purposes understand that that tendency to violence is no longer applicable and actually harms the relatively positive aspects of Islam. If you pay close attention and do your research you will find that such calls to violence can be found in the historical context of Christianity and Judaism as well! Moderate reformists in Islam need to be encouraged and embraced, instead of being forced into a greater conflict that is in part caused by the use of dangerously false terminology, labels and expressions!
And now we have this sick and dangerous megalomaniac Ahmadinejad being invited to address students at Columbia University! Well, like Elie Wiesel, I totally agree that someone who spews anti-Jewish anti-Semitic hatred, Holocaust-denial, and the destruction of the historically legitimate state of Israel, should be censored! But so should Bush and all Neo-Con pseudo-Republican fascists!
Oh! And then this stupid girl at MIT! Wearing a piece of so-called art at an airport that is clearly meant to look like a bomb! If someone so stupid can be a student at MIT then maybe someone like me should be allowed to be a Professor of Ethics at MIT!
Something is really wrong with America! We should all be outraged to the point of boycotting any company who produces products or provides services that also supports the right wing creeps!
Get your copy of The Blue Pages at http://www.PoliPointPress.org and start boycotting the companies who are the friends of our enemies!
Friday, September 21, 2007
Thursday, September 6, 2007
The Story of The Wise Old Man and The River.
written by J.P. Fenyo , Philosopher.
There is an ancient story, so old that no one remembers where it comes from.
Once upon a time there was a young man who wanted to save his village from a plague of locusts that had killed off all the village's crops (vegetables,fruits. etc.) on the side of the river that they had lived for ages. The young man could see in the distance that the land on the other side of the wide river was fertile, full of life and free from the plague pf locusts. So he tried to swim across with a long rope tied to an old but strong tree on his side of the river. He knew that if he could make it to the other side he would be able to tie the rope to another tree there and the village could start building a rope and wood plank bridge and they could all move over to the greener side of the river! But the currents in the middle of the wide river were too strong and he nearly drowned in his attempt to swim over. So he became sad and when he finally fell asleep that night he had a weird dream.
In his dream he met a wise old man sitting under a Fufu Tree. And after telling the wise old man why he was so sad, the old man said these wise ancient words: "Sometimes to get to get the results we want we must use a method that seems totally unrelated to our goal, and so you too must find an island in the middle of the river and see if you can swim there first! Once you are half way safe it will be easier to get to the other side after being able to rest in the middle! Things that do not seem to be part of the solution to a problem, often are the very things you need to do in order to solve the problem!" Whe the young woke up the next day he searched for an island further upstream and found it! And by first swimming to that island he was finally able to cross to the other side! The whole village was able to cross over to the greener side and the young man was rewarded for having saved the village from famine and disaster!"
The beginning.
This story is also in the form of a brief quotation:
"Sometimes to get to where we really want to be we must first go somewhere we never had in mind!" - Jean-Pierre Ady Fenyo, Philosopher
There is an ancient story, so old that no one remembers where it comes from.
Once upon a time there was a young man who wanted to save his village from a plague of locusts that had killed off all the village's crops (vegetables,fruits. etc.) on the side of the river that they had lived for ages. The young man could see in the distance that the land on the other side of the wide river was fertile, full of life and free from the plague pf locusts. So he tried to swim across with a long rope tied to an old but strong tree on his side of the river. He knew that if he could make it to the other side he would be able to tie the rope to another tree there and the village could start building a rope and wood plank bridge and they could all move over to the greener side of the river! But the currents in the middle of the wide river were too strong and he nearly drowned in his attempt to swim over. So he became sad and when he finally fell asleep that night he had a weird dream.
In his dream he met a wise old man sitting under a Fufu Tree. And after telling the wise old man why he was so sad, the old man said these wise ancient words: "Sometimes to get to get the results we want we must use a method that seems totally unrelated to our goal, and so you too must find an island in the middle of the river and see if you can swim there first! Once you are half way safe it will be easier to get to the other side after being able to rest in the middle! Things that do not seem to be part of the solution to a problem, often are the very things you need to do in order to solve the problem!" Whe the young woke up the next day he searched for an island further upstream and found it! And by first swimming to that island he was finally able to cross to the other side! The whole village was able to cross over to the greener side and the young man was rewarded for having saved the village from famine and disaster!"
The beginning.
This story is also in the form of a brief quotation:
"Sometimes to get to where we really want to be we must first go somewhere we never had in mind!" - Jean-Pierre Ady Fenyo, Philosopher
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
Pavarotti! E morto oggi! Noooo!
The world has lost a great man!
A man whose singing voice commanded the attention of millions!
An Italian of greatness beyond measure!
Luciano will sing to us no more!
We will miss him every time we hear that powerful and magnificent voice.
My condolences,
Jean-Pierre Ady Fenyo, Philosopher
A man whose singing voice commanded the attention of millions!
An Italian of greatness beyond measure!
Luciano will sing to us no more!
We will miss him every time we hear that powerful and magnificent voice.
My condolences,
Jean-Pierre Ady Fenyo, Philosopher
Restoring Humanism In America.
To my way of thinking, 21st Century America, thus far, has suffered much more than the murder of innocents on 9-11-2001. It has also suffered from the mass effect of the commercial mass media and the corporations that produce too much junk (mind you, not all American corporations produce junk).
Too many Americans have grown up under the dangerous influence of unrealistically violent cartoons, movies and video games.
Now, don't get me wrong; I'm definitely opposed to any form of government imposed censorship and in fact it is my sincere conviction that all these unrealistic depictions and portrayals of violence (war and crime) should be allowed to be viewed by anyone, so long as each of those cartoons, movies and video games comes with a short, roughly three minutes long, mini-documentary that shows what real violence is like and how it destroys life and harms us all in so many other ways beyond the immediately obvious blood, carnage and death.
Anyway, we Americans are overwhelmed by all the hate, fear, violence and insecurity that has convinced many Europeans living in less violent countries, that we are a country full of mentally deranged and dangerous people, and that we glorify violence and brutality to the point that in some ways we begin to resemble the Fascists and Nazis of times past and present. That said, part of the overall problem we face is that a large enough minority of Americans, perhaps around 40%, live in relative comfort and safety, and would be quick to dismiss an Op-Ed piece like this as going too far and making more of a problem out of something that they are certain is not as bad as it seems. That is to say, those of us Americans who can afford to stay away from the poverty, crime and daily corruption that plague most of our large inner city metropolises and many of our suburbs, have no experiential reason to feel equally adamant about what both visiting Europeans experience, and what disenfranchised working class autodidacts can clearly see, day in and day out! This convenient ignoring of the full picture reminds me of that famous Alfred E. Neumann catch-phrase (MAD magazine) which goes "What, me worry?!" Because, nothing is considered a real problem until it affects you directly in person! And Europeans can see this great and growing gap (divide) between the relative "haves" and the "have nots" of America, and for them that attitude of ignorance, of failing to see the whole picture, combined with America's unintentional culture of unrealistic and fortuitous violence makes for an America that is not only a danger to itself, but, being so wealthy, military powerful and economically influential, is a threat to the rest of humanity, to world peace!
What advice do I have for my fellow Americans?
Well, we need to restore humanism to America. For there was a time after the Civil War and even up till the 1980s when many relatively educated Americans, mostly from the Middle Class, sought the wisdom of the great humanists, such as Gandhi, Einstein and Asimov, and were willing to go out of their way to help inform, educate and sometimes befriend those less fortunate!
Well, skepticism and complacency, have managed to ravage American humanism and we now live, for the most part, in a society that is too much in the hands of opportunists and desperate novices! There is even, to some extent, a severe disconnect and inability to cope on the part of many of the remaining depleted Middle Class, to the point where reality avoidance is commonplace and people tend to build walls based on seemingly convenient theories about how:
a. things are actually not that bad, b. people who claim otherwise are just mentally ill misfits and troublemakers, and c. the real problem is the suffering of people much further away and usually abroad! This culture of denial and reactionary thinking is so common today that just by writing this kind of Op-Ed Blog I risk being labelled everything the opposite of what I actually am! For those who have somehow managed to attain and keep their own comfort zones, people like me are perceived as dangerous threats and obstacles to greater social harmony! Never mind that they cannot seem to understand and explain the cause of all those sick overreactions and psychotic people, whose senseless, despicable violent acts harm so many innocents and only serve to make things even worse than they were to begin with! Never mind that throughout history it took the daring and risky intervention of truly introspective, critically thinking , relatively non-violent radicals to bring about true progress and more meaningful human civilization. No. The enfranchised large minority of "haves" tend, by virtue of their immediate circumstances and daily experience, mediocre and dissociated from the rest of us. And they do so to their own detriment without really realizing it!
In order to restore humanism in America we are going to have to instigate, motivate and inspire the "haves" to think critically and not hypocritically, to dare face the painful truth that all it really not well with America as a whole, and that all those horrible incidents that make up so much of the local news are symptomatic of a society that actually disrespects,neglects, ignores or even punishes those who make every reasonable effort to be honest and constructive individuals, instead of rewarding their humanity, their honesty and creativity!
But how do we go about instigating, motivating and inspiring the "haves" to seriously dedicate themselves to the great, most meaningful, and spiritually (and emotionally) rewarding goal of providing the "have nots" with all the real means to elevate themselves out of their dire predicaments?
The answer lies in promoting broad and deep philosophical discourse at all levels of society and in the mass media working to re-enforce the idea that what anyone should really strive for and praise is wisdom, compassion and love and not vanity, greed and self-adulation!
That's my Free Advice, for whatever it is worth.
(PS: If you agree, disagree or have anything to say at all, leave a comment.)
Too many Americans have grown up under the dangerous influence of unrealistically violent cartoons, movies and video games.
Now, don't get me wrong; I'm definitely opposed to any form of government imposed censorship and in fact it is my sincere conviction that all these unrealistic depictions and portrayals of violence (war and crime) should be allowed to be viewed by anyone, so long as each of those cartoons, movies and video games comes with a short, roughly three minutes long, mini-documentary that shows what real violence is like and how it destroys life and harms us all in so many other ways beyond the immediately obvious blood, carnage and death.
Anyway, we Americans are overwhelmed by all the hate, fear, violence and insecurity that has convinced many Europeans living in less violent countries, that we are a country full of mentally deranged and dangerous people, and that we glorify violence and brutality to the point that in some ways we begin to resemble the Fascists and Nazis of times past and present. That said, part of the overall problem we face is that a large enough minority of Americans, perhaps around 40%, live in relative comfort and safety, and would be quick to dismiss an Op-Ed piece like this as going too far and making more of a problem out of something that they are certain is not as bad as it seems. That is to say, those of us Americans who can afford to stay away from the poverty, crime and daily corruption that plague most of our large inner city metropolises and many of our suburbs, have no experiential reason to feel equally adamant about what both visiting Europeans experience, and what disenfranchised working class autodidacts can clearly see, day in and day out! This convenient ignoring of the full picture reminds me of that famous Alfred E. Neumann catch-phrase (MAD magazine) which goes "What, me worry?!" Because, nothing is considered a real problem until it affects you directly in person! And Europeans can see this great and growing gap (divide) between the relative "haves" and the "have nots" of America, and for them that attitude of ignorance, of failing to see the whole picture, combined with America's unintentional culture of unrealistic and fortuitous violence makes for an America that is not only a danger to itself, but, being so wealthy, military powerful and economically influential, is a threat to the rest of humanity, to world peace!
What advice do I have for my fellow Americans?
Well, we need to restore humanism to America. For there was a time after the Civil War and even up till the 1980s when many relatively educated Americans, mostly from the Middle Class, sought the wisdom of the great humanists, such as Gandhi, Einstein and Asimov, and were willing to go out of their way to help inform, educate and sometimes befriend those less fortunate!
Well, skepticism and complacency, have managed to ravage American humanism and we now live, for the most part, in a society that is too much in the hands of opportunists and desperate novices! There is even, to some extent, a severe disconnect and inability to cope on the part of many of the remaining depleted Middle Class, to the point where reality avoidance is commonplace and people tend to build walls based on seemingly convenient theories about how:
a. things are actually not that bad, b. people who claim otherwise are just mentally ill misfits and troublemakers, and c. the real problem is the suffering of people much further away and usually abroad! This culture of denial and reactionary thinking is so common today that just by writing this kind of Op-Ed Blog I risk being labelled everything the opposite of what I actually am! For those who have somehow managed to attain and keep their own comfort zones, people like me are perceived as dangerous threats and obstacles to greater social harmony! Never mind that they cannot seem to understand and explain the cause of all those sick overreactions and psychotic people, whose senseless, despicable violent acts harm so many innocents and only serve to make things even worse than they were to begin with! Never mind that throughout history it took the daring and risky intervention of truly introspective, critically thinking , relatively non-violent radicals to bring about true progress and more meaningful human civilization. No. The enfranchised large minority of "haves" tend, by virtue of their immediate circumstances and daily experience, mediocre and dissociated from the rest of us. And they do so to their own detriment without really realizing it!
In order to restore humanism in America we are going to have to instigate, motivate and inspire the "haves" to think critically and not hypocritically, to dare face the painful truth that all it really not well with America as a whole, and that all those horrible incidents that make up so much of the local news are symptomatic of a society that actually disrespects,neglects, ignores or even punishes those who make every reasonable effort to be honest and constructive individuals, instead of rewarding their humanity, their honesty and creativity!
But how do we go about instigating, motivating and inspiring the "haves" to seriously dedicate themselves to the great, most meaningful, and spiritually (and emotionally) rewarding goal of providing the "have nots" with all the real means to elevate themselves out of their dire predicaments?
The answer lies in promoting broad and deep philosophical discourse at all levels of society and in the mass media working to re-enforce the idea that what anyone should really strive for and praise is wisdom, compassion and love and not vanity, greed and self-adulation!
That's my Free Advice, for whatever it is worth.
(PS: If you agree, disagree or have anything to say at all, leave a comment.)
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Do you need Free Advice?
If you need Free Advice then send me your question or problem and I, the original NYC Free Advice Man (as written-up in the August 17, 1987 issue of The New Yorker) will do my utmost best to give you the advice you seek, need and/or deserve. It's totally Free of Charge and is based on many years of experience and an above average knowledge of life and many other things. Hey, what's there to lose, it's FREE! Try it and I guarantee you that you will never forget me as long as you remember to remember me!
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