Cultural Exercises

inothernews:

A woman, identified as Cub Scout troop leader Ingrid Loyau-Kennett, confronts one of two suspects who moments before viciously beheaded a British soldier on a street in London in what government officials called a “terror-related” incident. The attackers had claimed responsibility for the murder, saying on camera “The only reason we have done this is because Muslims are dying every day. This British soldier is an eye for an eye a tooth for tooth.” Loyau-Kennett, who wasn’t hurt, is also captured on video telling one of the men “Right now it is only you versus many people. You are going to lose.  What would you like to do?”  Both suspects were later killed shot and wounded by police.    (Photo: @sibiillamlaw / Twitter via The New York Daily News)

God damn it.

One hardly knows what to say.

Again human beings infected with one of the most toxic of cultural upbringings demonstrate brazenly how evil acts sanctioned by that culture can be. Someone on an earlier post suggested the appalling butchery perpetrated on an 8-year old child “bride” might not have been a “genuine” account, because the news source was “questionable”. Well open your eyes sweetheart! Here is another example of barbarity fostered within that toxic culture - a culture that sanctions cutting throats. Look at the photo. The murderers bloody knife still in his hand, on display for every news source in the world. His religion, by his own admission, was the sole motive for the attack. Take your pick among your news sources. But don’t dare - for shame - make excuses for that culture! Don’t dare - for the sake of the man who they just killed in cold blood - blame the victim.

What a miserable excuse for a human being of a man. “An eye for an eye”. What a vile and vacuous excuse for murdering and butchering someone, randomly on the basis of their occupation, not even for anything done by that person. Gandhi I think said “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind”. But so does turning a “blind eye” to evil among us.

What an appalling excuse for such a barbarous crime. Nowhere are muslims being targetted by Western governments and “murdered” for being “muslims” - only for being terrorists, actively engaged in committing or plotting acts of violence. Western powers are not attacking “ordinary” muslims. The only people who specifically murder muslims for being muslims in those countries are other muslims - sunnis vs shiites. Western troops in so-called muslim nations are fighting to protect law and order and facilitate the secular work of governments on behalf of their citizens. Western forces are constrained by laws, and punishments are meted to those who violate them, who “take the law into their own hands”.

Westerners in general have no hatred toward muslims as muslims. What about the volunteers who have for decades been coming from the West to provide humanitarian aid and medical assistance to “muslims” in those same countries? And all those muslims who have willingly come to Western nations to escape poverty, persecution and misery in their own countries. They have been welcomed and granted extraordinary generosity to rebuild their lives freely, on the basis of Western respect for humanity above any creed.

No, what we have seen today is an evil manifestation of a primitive culture which we “tolerate” growing in our communities, and even protect via an unofficial media censorship and fearful political silence in the name of “tolerance”.

But this terrible story has a heroic counterpoint, and one which we can rally around. That heroic woman! A Cub Scout troop leader who confronted the murderer, bloody knife still in his hand.

I was a Cub as a child. I still recall the pledges - “Be Prepared”, “Akela, We’ll do our best”, “On my honour, I promise that I will do my best, to do my duty… to help other people and to keep the Cub law”. What a living embodiment of the “everyday hero” ethos of scouting! I hope Scout numbers surge. Community organizations are the lifeblood of a culture. If more people were prepared, each individually, to “do our best” we can not only turn around the decline of Western culture, but even help re-educate those brought up by toxic cultures, and integrate them into a truly life-enhancing, humanity-affirming civilization.

I encourage all fair-minded citizens of western democracies, to find the contact addresses of local muslim organizations and officials at mosques, and to begin writing to them. Not attacking them for what has happened, not attacking their religion or their god, but calling on them to denounce such murderous violence committed in the name of their religion; reminding them that their god is blasphemed by anyone committing evil in his name. We need to be calling them out on these types of atrocity, making their leaders stand up publicly and either confess their approval, or condemn it without equivocation.

I want to hear the chorus of “western” muslim organizations decrying this evil act; cursing and excommunicating this murderer; announcing their shame at the violation of the tenants of their religion; calling on the courts to deal with this evil man as harshly as his acts demand. It is through being confronted by the shame of evil that we all learned to do what is right and avoid what is wrong. We need to let these religious leaders know that they stand in our eyes shamed if they fail to renounce this type of behaviour. And if each time such atrocities occur, they hear their leaders condemn them, then their followers will also gradually come to share their leaders sense of the wrongness of these actions. Then muslim culture will be able to integrate and contribute to the life of our society. Then religious terrorism will simply die out.

Please write a letter today! I am needing to have my faith in humanity restored.

holly-marie-image:

Happy Goth Day ! 

Here is a painting by John Henri Fuseli

Based around the idea of sleep paralysis and the folklore of this phenomena being to do with a demonic presence. Just for you, enjoy your day of “Gothness”.

Sleep well!

 

The painting is called “Nightmare” and always freaked me out when I was younger.

Still does, now I think about it. Very successfully disconcerting art.

I would prefer to explore a Jungian understanding of Gothness, demonic archetypes, vulnerability as a feminine archetype perhaps.

Art is fuel for thought.

Everyone should make one of these and post it!

After the appalling story I responded to yesterday, it is time for something a little more hopeful.

I believe humans can be wonderful.

While I cannot believe in a god the way religions do, I still hope and believe there is a sort of divine spirit weaving through the universe, inspiring the best and most creative and noble impulses within matter.

Kindness and goodness and creativity. That is a spirituality I can live with.

(via osmunicorn)