Only History Could Help Us

[austintorn@aol.com]

Butterflies at the Edge of Forever

(An oldie but a goodie)

http://gallery.me.com/austintorney#101416

Hit 'slideshow', then pause, then can use the forward arrow to go one by one.


And the sequel:

http://gallery.me.com/austintorney#101284

[racecar]

We bought A History of US, by Joy Hakim recently. Another recommended book was Peace Child, by Don Richardson...An Unforgettable Story of Primitive Jungle Treachery in the 20th Century. I'm not past the intro yet.


Author's introduction

The Sawi people of the former Netherlands New Guinea are one of an estimated four hundred tribes in the western half of New Guinea now called West Irian or Irian Jaya. Each of these tribes is distinct and unique, a little cosmos unto itself with its own world view, its own set of legends, its own sense of humor.

In 1962, Carol and I went to live among the Sawi. As we studied their language and probed into their legends and customs, we found that we were living and working among a people who honor treachery as an ideal. In many of the legends that the Sawi people tell to their children around the campfires, the heroes are men who formed friendships with the express purpose of later betraying the befriended one to be killed and eaten. The Sawi expression for this practice is "to fatten with friendship for the slaughter."

In recognizing that the idealization of treachery was a part of the Sawi view of life, we understood why we felt a certain culture shock in living among them. Yet we had been sent there by God to win them, to overcome within a few short years the idealization of treachery which had been part of their way of life over centuries, possibly millenniums, of time.

The key God gave us to the heart of the Sawi people was the principle of redemptive analogy- the application to local custom of spiritual truth. The principle we discerned was that God had already provided for the evangelization of these people by means of redemptive analogies in their own culture. These analogies were our stepping-stones, the secret entryway by which the gospel came into the Sawi culture and started both a spiritual and a social revolution from within.

As Carol and I ministered to the Sawi by means of the "Peace Child" and other redemptive analogies, we watched in suspense to see if the regeneration of these cannibalistic, head-hunting people. He did!

In an age when all of mankind is rapidly becoming interdependent within a single global community, cross-cultural communication unavoidably becomes one of man's highest priorities. Peace Child chronicles the agony-and the triumph- of our attempt to probe one of the world's most violent cultures to it's foundations and then to communicate meaningfully with members of that culture.

The result, we believe, is an adventure in human understanding which will infuse the reader with an even greater and more compassionate regard for the earth's endangered minority peoples.


batten

PRONUNCIATION:
(BAT-n)

MEANING:

1. verb: To fatten or to grow fat; to thrive and prosper at another's expense.

"You've battened on me for a bitter-long day;
But I'm driving you forth, and forever and aye,
Hunger and Thirst and Cold."
Robert William Service; The Bohemian; 1914.

Compliments of A.Word.A.Day

[RascalPuff]

Dear racecar:
Sorta brings to mind the principal antagonist in Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness'. As a sympathizer with anyone who endeavors to bring more peace to the world, there is a tendency to fear for the security of anyone who would chance a mission such as that described in the introduction you deliver. A couple of missionaries with the objective of changing the demonic pattern instilled in an entire culture by undetermined extensions of tradition and time.

On the other hand, mebbe it isn't all that much more different than what goes on in the advertising business of North American Wall Street derivation... : ) Primitive jungle treachery in the 20th century... Yah. The advantage of dealing with the overtly cannibalistic culture is perhaps, that, at least they let you know that it's their culture to betray, whereas our culture's elements of traditional betrayal include the factor of denying that objective throughout the process of carrying it out. ('Peace Child', is it then? Looks good on the marquis?)

Bon apetit,
- RP

[racecar]

Dear RascalPuff ~

I don't know. Perhaps the scene is different, yet nothing has changed. ( How many ways can you spin the same story?)

Salud

[RascalPuff]

Dear RascalPuff ~

I don't know. Perhaps the scene is different, yet nothing has changed. ( How many ways can you spin the same story?)

Salud

It appears that approximately the same story may be spun out in diverse and indeterminate ways. One avenue of 'redemption' - and egress - for World War Two's Holocaust is to deny it altogether. Another is to ignore it and/or draw a minimum of object lessons from it. The temporal-mortal world proves out time and again to be a safe refuge for moral trespassers of cataclysmic proportions. The exemplary lessons are historically abundant. Another such example is the moral refuge and insulation from justice enjoyed by those responsible for the atrocities of the Confederate States prison camp of Andersonville (by MacKinly Kantor), the closing statement of which testifies:

"The Rebels' attempts to justify their conduct, by the claim that our Government refused to accede
to their wishes in a certain respect, is too preposterous to be made or
listened to by intelligent men.

The whole affair is simply inexcusable, and stands out a foul blot on the
memory of every Rebel in high place in the Confederate Government.

"Vengeance is mine," saith the Lord, and by Him must this great crime be
avenged, if it ever is avenged. It certainly transcends all human power.
I have seen little indication of any Divine interposition to mete out, at
least on this earth, adequate punishment to those who were the principal
agents in that iniquity. Howell Cobb died as peacefully in his bed as
any Christian in the land, and with as few apparent twinges of remorse as
if he had spent his life in good deeds and prayer. The arch-fiend Winder
died in equal tranquility, murmuring some cheerful hope as to his soul's
future. Not one of the ghosts of his hunger-slain hovered around to
embitter his dying moments, as he had theirs. Jefferson Davis "still
lives, a prosperous gentleman," the idol of a large circle of adherents,
the recipient of real estate favors from elderly females of morbid
sympathies, and a man whose mouth is full of plaints of his wrongs,
and misappreciation. The rest of the leading conspirators have either
departed this life in the odor of sanctity, surrounded by sorrowing
friends, or are gliding serenely down the mellow autumnal vale of a
benign old age.

Only Wirz--small, insignificant, miserable Wirz, the underling, the tool,
the servile, brainless, little fetcher-and-carrier of these men, was
punished--was hanged, and upon the narrow shoulders of this pitiful
scapegoat was packed the entire sin of Jefferson Davis and his crew.
What a farce!

A petty little Captain made to expiate the crimes of Generals, Cabinet
Officers, and a President. How absurd!

But I do not ask for vengeance. I do not ask for retribution for one of
those thousands of dead comrades, the glitter of whose sightless eyes
will follow me through life. I do not desire even justice on the still
living authors and accomplices in the deep damnation of their taking off.
I simply ask that the great sacrifices of my dead comrades shall not be
suffered to pass unregarded to irrevocable oblivion; that the example of
their heroic self-abnegation shall not be lost, but the lesson it teaches
be preserved and inculcated into the minds of their fellow-countrymen,
that future generations may profit by it, and others be as ready to die
for right and honor and good government as they were. And it seems to me
that if we are to appreciate their virtues, we must loathe and hold up to
opprobrium those evil men whose malignity made all their sacrifices
necessary. I cannot understand what good self-sacrifice and heroic
example are to serve in this world, if they are to be followed by such a
maudlin confusion of ideas as now threatens to obliterate all distinction
between the men who fought and died for the Right and those who resisted
them for the Wrong."


Best regards,
- RP

[racecar]

Dear Rascalpuff~

"We frail humans are at one time capable of the greatest good and, at the same time, capable of the greatest evil. Change will only come about when each of us takes up the daily struggle ourselves to be more forgiving, compassionate, loving, and above all joyful in the knowledge that, by some miracle of grace, we can change as those around us can change too"

"Play is an equal opportunity activity. Finding people who like the same rules can be a bit difficult though."

Hope you don't mind if I dance around with this a little.

[labelwench]

But I do not ask for vengeance. I do not ask for retribution for one of
those thousands of dead comrades, the glitter of whose sightless eyes
will follow me through life. I do not desire even justice on the still
living authors and accomplices in the deep damnation of their taking off.
I simply ask that the great sacrifices of my dead comrades shall not be
suffered to pass unregarded to irrevocable oblivion; that the example of
their heroic self-abnegation shall not be lost, but the lesson it teaches
be preserved and inculcated into the minds of their fellow-countrymen,
that future generations may profit by it, and others be as ready to die
for right and honor and good government as they were. And it seems to me
that if we are to appreciate their virtues, we must loathe and hold up to
opprobrium those evil men whose malignity made all their sacrifices
necessary. I cannot understand what good self-sacrifice and heroic
example are to serve in this world, if they are to be followed by such a
maudlin confusion of ideas as now threatens to obliterate all distinction
between the men who fought and died for the Right and those who resisted
them for the Wrong."


Best regards,
- RP

Several years ago, the comment was made on one of the National Broadcast mediums, that perhaps it was time to quit observing Remembrance Day, as the wars were long over and very few of the veterans left alive.

Such remark was met with an enormous outcry, as it is exactly for those reasons, and the sacrifices that were made, that we must never forget.....

Those who forget their history, are doomed to repeat it, 'tis said.

The suggestion was also made, at one time, that we have no further need for libraries of bound books, that the electronic media could store all information far more efficiently.

Ah, yes, undoubtedly so......

Far easier to edit and lose 'the facts' in such a 'virtual' medium.

[RascalPuff]

Several years ago, the comment was made on one of the National Broadcast mediums, that perhaps it was time to quit observing Remembrance Day, as the wars were long over and very few of the veterans left alive.

Such remark was met with an enormous outcry, as it is exactly for those reasons, and the sacrifices that were made, that we must never forget.....

Those who forget their history, are doomed to repeat it, 'tis said.

The suggestion was also made, at one time, that we have no further need for libraries of bound books, that the electronic media could store all information far more efficiently.

Ah, yes, undoubtedly so......

Far easier to edit and lose 'the facts' in such a 'virtual' medium.

I couldn't agree more with the points you're making here, Anna. And it's freakin' scarey that there are people who would discard the days of Remembrance - which are celebrated as such. Also, indeed, I too have heard it suggested that libraries are becoming 'out-dated', and unnecessary - whereas, the portability, and certainly the tactile experience of the written words in books are not expendable qualities - cannot be 'out dated'.

Yes. I think it was Santayana who said: "Those who do not learn from history are self-condemned to repeat it".

Indeed, the Fascists still extant in this world would heartily great the forgetting of W W II and The Holocaust. Then go on to deny such history altogether and/or ask 'What difference does it make?'. While basking in the freedom won with tens of millions of military and civilian lives - in my own lifetime. Then there is the matter of how things would be if the Civil War had not been resolved by the Union; etceteras...

[RascalPuff]

Several years ago, the comment was made on one of the National Broadcast mediums, that perhaps it was time to quit observing Remembrance Day, as the wars were long over and very few of the veterans left alive.

Such remark was met with an enormous outcry, as it is exactly for those reasons, and the sacrifices that were made, that we must never forget.....

Those who forget their history, are doomed to repeat it, 'tis said.

The suggestion was also made, at one time, that we have no further need for libraries of bound books, that the electronic media could store all information far more efficiently.

Ah, yes, undoubtedly so......

Far easier to edit and lose 'the facts' in such a 'virtual' medium.

Orwell's 1984 features the status quo of the state of 'Oceania', wherein it is the standard to obliterate history, so that the incumbent and ongoing trespasses of liberty are not recognized by 'We the people' - the objective of the obliteration of history (accomplished through the disposal of books via the 'memory hole') being that there is no past to compare the present with, hence 'We the people' are deprived of any perspective from which the tyranny of the present may be recognized. This installed standard paves the way for the perpetration of what behaviorial science sometimes calls 'tolerance thresh-hold expansion'. There are many examples of its successful, ongoing installation in the 'normality' of present day TV programming. The status quo far surpasses the prophetic genius of George Orwell's 1984 (which, notably, many people have never heard of), as regards the Corporate State displacement of free thought and free speech. A cogent excerpt from http://forums.delphiforums.com/mollyspup (TV THAT WATCHES YOU) follows:

Times have swiftly changed, regarding the human perception of 'normality' - and certainly 'morality' - since what has become the qualified invasion of the American home, family and culture, by methodologically contrived, deviously motivated, television programming.

In 1977 and earlier it was responsibly determined that the average television viewer, from birth to age eighteen, has witnessed from 15,000 to 30,000 vividly depicted, replicated or documentary acts of extreme - wide spectrum - violence (including torture and rape of women, children and the elderly). It has since been scientifically determined that such artificial experiences in such abundance are profoundly destructive to the human psyche and consequently, society at large.
Subjecting the often issued question:
'Why is there so much violence on television?'
The standardized (TV GUIDE) answer is:
"That's what the public wants to see."

The correct answer is that 'the public' sees - watches: because it's there, because it's on television.
(You may not own or use TV at home. But the moment you step out your front door you're influenced by those who do. That is to say, the much touted 'freedom knob' that the cynic will remind - you can 'change stations or turn it off', is no 'escape from TV' at all...)

No word went out from the broadcasting industry that it had abducted the national consciousness - sending its young men and women to fight a war in a foreign land and bringing television cameras with them - a compellingly unrefusable offer ('What you want to see')...

For decades the self defending entertainment industry with its corporate state sponsors aggressively broadcast the falsehood that violence on television does not cause (more) violence in reality. Concurrent with prodigious lies endlessly repeated, about Vietnam - what the war was about, why we were there and what was happening... Interspersed with five and ten second 'sound and video bytes' that have become and still continue as audio-visual and therefore cerebral 'icons' - TV and entertainment industry termed 'teasers' - featuring Janet Leigh under Anthony Perkin's butcher knife in the PSYCHO shower; on loop in the American frontal lobes…
The Exorcist, Dressed To Kill. Texas Chain Saw Massacre. Natural Born Killers, Just Shoot Me; enthusiastically tagged 'snuff' and 'splatter' movies: logarithmically squared. ('The Smash Hits Keep On Comin' - with a bullet!')

In the early '90's, in a series of congressional inquiries, investigations and hearings broadcast on CNN, a phalanx of esteemed educators and scientists presented forensic and other scientific evidence in abundant quantities, finally and publicly establishing beyond a reasonable doubt that violence on television does in fact increase violence in reality. This was proved to be true of individually influenced persons as well as and especially of small groups and large crowds of persons - which is what a 'television audience' is, by definition. Hundreds of thousands, and often millions of individuals experiencing the same audio-visual input, with accompanying emotions: simultaneously, on a regular daily basis, for years and decades....

Issues of 'censorship' and 'free speech' are brought to the defense of the television entertainment industry and its sponsors:
Whereas, in the preamble to the constitution of the United States, 'the insurance of domestic tranquility' is plainly stated. The promulgation of violence on a national scale - the public endangerment of cross section considered citizens - is in opposition to the cited constitutional preamble. Proving not to be an issue of censorship or free speech, but instead a solemn, peace disturbing issue of public safety - incumbent and impending public endangerment.
Not an issue of disallowing adults from watching whatever their choice of (legal) programming. An issue of keeping adult classified material off the public access airways and in the control of the adult audience it is legally and morally restricted to.

As the status quo prevails, Two Live Crew, for example, can be aired by any disc jockey in the nation, over public access airways (impacting children everywhere; even when they don't 'tune it in'), howling detailed lyrics about anally gang raping a woman and forcing her to lick the residual fecal material from the appendages of her assailants... Proponents say that this 'entertainment' and 'free speech' is 'protected and guaranteed by the U.S. constitution and the Bill Of Rights.' (The inevitably impacted children - and general populace - be damned.)

It was 'resolved' that 'parents and teachers are responsible for what their children and students see, hear and are influenced by, on public access television and radio.' Enter the 'ratings' system. General Audience. Parental Discretion advised. Restricted - to adults, and X ratings.
Of course it is not humanly possible for a parent or teacher to control what their child or student sees on television or hears on the radio, from birth to age eighteen.

That is to say, firstly the 'violence on TV' controversy was - vigorously and extensively - denied as having a negative influence on people in reality; then it was finally and reluctantly acknowledged that qualified and commonplace TV programming does in scientifically established fact, have a destructive influence on people - especially children and young people - in reality; whereupon the responsibility for controlling that destructive influence was unrealistically projected on parents and teachers.

Another victory was chalked up in the increasingly popular tactic of reversing responsibility, further punishing and Blaming the Victim(s). The lesson learned here was that congress compromised its duties to protect the public from proven serious endangerment, to placing responsibility for controlling that ubiquitously projected danger on the endangered public itself... Apparently congress was paid ('lobbied') off to abandon it's duties to the public, endangered and victimized by the intruding corporate state and the offending administrators of the quasi omnipotent entertainment and advertising/ sponsorship industries.

Television industry magnates and their sponsors are - for decades - fully aware of the psychology of violence and its influence on TV viewers. The human brain has a hierarchy of priorities that capture attention most readily - in reality, when threat of violence occurs near or is directed upon a person, that person's attention is riveted on that incoming stimulation. When a person is audio-visually taking in violence conveyed to them in two dimensions via television, that person's attention is riveted upon that incoming stimulation, just as it is in the three and more dimensional world of reality.


The Invisible ('What?') War: A War of Perception
Capitalism and 'free enterprise' are frequently held to account for this usurpation of peace and tranquility in America; whereas the declination of moral standards and the deliberate propagation of fear, confusion and chaos for profit, mind and crowd control is the real cause of the (still denied) national epidemic of violence (domestic terrorism); still encouraged, promulgated, normalized and denied by the cited, rogue corporate state and entertainment industry perpetrators.

[RascalPuff]

The 'normalisation' of the anomalous, continued:

In response to the question of what the rogue corporate state has to gain by projecting unredemptive violence and obstinately corrupt misrepresentations and presentations of 'sex' on the public via the massive medium of public access TV, and thereby generating all of the phenomenological consequences thereof... the answer is that a public that is introduced to and maintained in a state of fear, confusion and chaos, consumes much more (of everything the corporate state sells), than a public that is in a generally peaceful state of harmony, viz, what there is to be gained by such programming and public access effluvia is a higher gross national product, i.e., financial gain.

At hazard of ruffling some fan feathers, Truly Yours submits examples to be found in familiar 'entertainment' programming such as 'The Simpsons, Beavis & Butthead, South Park' - all of which programming formats are aimed at a General Audience, certainly including children. What these exemplary programs (for which there are scores of counterparts) have in common is the content of specious violence and profane language (this certainly and emphatically includes 'commercials'). Whereas, when the viewer 'sees it on TV', it becomes 'acceptable' and 'normalized'. Meanwhile, script including 'Bitch' and 'A-hole', and featuring people sitting on a toilet in a conversation with a specimen of human feces (wearing a sailor hat) are included in the 'plot' - behavioral studies call this 'crazy-making', which is 'not to be taken seriously'; 'only a joke'. Such programming also incubates and produces 'tolerance thresh-hold expansion', meaning that the more of this kind of programming that is projected without reprimand, the worse it will get, etceteras, ad infinitum.

Public access to comparable content - and worse - is easily acquired on the internet, by quite anyone who has the ability to write and the knowledge of how to make entries on Google and other search engines. An employee of the Security Exchange Commission recently testified on network TV that a random survey was conducted as to what the employees of the SEC were connecting to on their computers, at work, during working hours. It was determined that out of an eight day working time window, over eighteen hundred 'hits' were carried out on porn sites, by the employees, during working hours. This information did not include what type of porn was being 'hit on', although it may vary from 'the spice channel' to unmitigated, stark pornography, including carnal interaction with animals - all of which is rampant and very easily accessed, on the publicly employed internet. How these SEC employees are comparable to the American public at large, and what they access in their non working hours, may only be speculated.

I can testify here from personal experience as a senior citizen, that, although this has always been a troubled world, and there have always been social elements which have profited from trouble, such dynamics are enormously increasing in the past fifty, and especially the past twenty five years. The youth of my generation (D.O.B. 1941) were not exposed to hard drugs unless their family happened to live in a bad neighborhood within a big city. If a person wished to obtain illegally dispensed hard drugs it was necessary for them to retrieve such 'polysubstances' from bad neighborhoods in big cities... Presently, hard drugs are available in nearly all American communities (including schools), from coast to coast. Unlocked front doors were commonplace throughout the nation, along with the rarity of bicycle locks, since they weren't needed, because no one stole your bicycle (which is now at hazard of being stolen so that it may be converted to money or trade for hard drugs - the latter of which is destroying what use to be the average American family. Simple courtesey and respect for others is increasingly preceived as a sign of weakness... While the physical abuse of women and children - including rape - looms ever more ominouslyu, as the fastest growing violent crime in the United States).

'The price of liberty is constant vigilance'. - Franklin

Returning to and highlighting the theme of this thread (Only History Could Help Us), is simply a reminder that those who do not learn from history are indeed self condemned to repeat it, and keep on repeating it: pejoratively. Those who would eliminate Memorial Day, and Veterans Day, for example, would forsake all of the history (certainly including the U. S. Constitution) - containing all of the lessons - that encourage and represent deterrence of destructive and subversive elements (of every description) at higher and infrastructural levels of government, industry and society at large.

Pro Fascist, Naziism and Ku Klux Klan propaganda flourishes undeterred - very easily accessed by anyone, certainly including children. The issue of 'censorship' is held up to defend this kind of material as it is accessed and presented on the (exemplary) net. Whereas, this record (Truly Yours) reiterates: this is not an issue of 'censorship', but, rather, an issue of 'public safety', and 'public endangerment' - a formidable threat to the moral and legal fabric of the entire nation, and, certainly, the entire world (Of course much of this discussion is interchangeable with the theme of 'irresponsible authority').

Best regards,
- RP