Hi Robert >Keith Addison wrote: > > > Anyway, I guess this is the kind of person you'd be voting against, > > and you'd probably lose, yet again. This guy just applied to join the > > list: > > > Which sounds like he doesn't vote for the Oil Party, but it turns out > > he does. Before he got accepted he had a look at some of the recent > > stuff in the list archives and got cross about it: > > Jingoism rears its very ugly head again! > > >>From what I saw on the first page, most of the forum is bashing bush > > > >>and the military. I find all of this unpatriotic and harmful to the > >>US. Is this all that these people have in their life? I joined this > >>to learn about biofuel, not all of this $#!^. > > What's really strange about this, is that in some other forums to >which I have subscribed over the years, "off-topic" commentary is >roundly condemned, yet every once in awhile some "uberpatriot" sneaks >a shot over the bow. It's often couched in the language of >"independence", as if that's a goal reasonably and appropriately >achieved in this era, but the underlying attitude of "I deserve >whatever I want and I don't want to hear any criticism from you" is >part of the reason the world finds itself in its current mess. >Interestingly, these kinds of remarks don't draw the same kind of >scathing rebuke often leveled at people around here, people who write >with far greater depth and intellect.
Rather noticeable, yes. Different forums have different cultures. > >>It is amazing what you people think. All you do is complain, bitch > >>and moan, yet offer no solutions. > > A little bit of reading and understanding on the part of this person >would have helped, don't you agree? I'm sure he's proof against it, we've seen it time and again. Some of these people will flatly deny what they said yesterday, though it's there on public record for all to see. All but them, if they don't want to see it. They have impregnable protective screens and they're memory editors. I definitely don't think that all people who hold these or similar views and persuasions behave that way, just a minority, and the other "side" is not without it's knee-jerk nutters either. But this guy is violent, he's too far gone, and he's far from alone. I think it's a matter of personal integrity, and people like this don't really have any. Like this: http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/msg30705.html Integrity doesn't necessarily go with one set of views and persuasions and not another. I really don't care whether people are so-called right-wing or left-wing or whatever race or religion, just as long as they're honest. I think nearly everyone is honest at heart, but it gets bent, often by outside forces, not by volition. Fear and hatred are whipped up quite deliberately and expertly maintained. It's very difficult to reason with someone shut inside a laager mentality, but it's possible - until they turn their fear and hatred on you. By the way, don't you think this is quite interesting? Merriam-Webster Online Based on your online lookups, the #1 Word of the Year for 2005 was: 1. integrity 2. refugee 3. contempt 4. filibuster 5. insipid 6. tsunami 7. pandemic 8. conclave 9. levee 10. inept http://www.m-w.com/info/05words.htm For one thing, not that it matters very much but Internet spelling is generally bad, even in searches - are they managing to spell it right because they're copying and pasting from somewhere else? From the online print media perhaps? I mean, if you can spell integrity right would you need to look it up? :-/ Hm, doesn't include jingoism, what a surprise. > > Dunno why he'd thought he'd joined, all he did was apply (spike!). > > > > He wants to kill us, we should all be put to death by having our > > heads cut off with a dull kitchen knife. I guess that's what the > > glorious military's for, to kill people Americans think are > > threatening them, or threatening their cherished notions perhaps. > > Seems he fancies a bit of good old torture on the side too while he's > > at it. "Thank God", he says. I suppose he's a Christian, or a > > so-called Christian, the "God is hate" type of Christian, ie not a > > Christian at all. > > I'm really glad you make this distinction. You can tell a tree by >examining its fruit, and the scriptures are QUITE clear that no one >who harbors hatred in his heart genuinely loves God. And I think all societies whether Christian or not have known that for a long time. > > In fact I don't think that people who respond to dissenting views > > with such outright hatred are real Americans at all, no matter where > > they were born. But they're the ones who call the shots, for 25 years > > already. > > Honestly, Keith, sometimes you create the impression that all was >sweetness and light over here before Mr. Reagan came into office. Not at all Robert. IMHO what's very important to note is that it's over the last 25-30 years that neo-liberal economics has held sway, and that both the neocons and the far-right "Christians" have been putting their programs into action, and that the use and sheer volume and effectiveness of spin and consent manufacturing has exploded, especially in the US, while media ownership and control have imploded, especially in the US. All these at the same time, following Watts and the late sixties-early seventies. It may have been a reaction to what happened in those days rather than just a continuing symptom of something long endemic. I think the last 25-30 years is something of an era in its own right, not separated from what went before but different in some essential ways. >I'm >old enough to remember the Watts Riots and imagery of people being >sprayed with fire truck hoses in the streets. Kent State... >The attitudes that lead >to the kinds of abuses we've discussed in this forum are as old as >humanity itself. I just watched a National Geographic special on >chimpanzees and bonobos, and many of the same aggressive behaviors >that we decry in ourselves exist in the larger subspecies of ape. >(Bonobos apparently solve their problems with sex, but let's NOT go >there!) Given our genetic similarity to these creatures, it's likely >that the attitudes underlying jingoism and other forms of superiority >that we project are very old problems that were present in our >ancestors before humanity branched off from the great apes. Life for humans and pre-humans too has always been far more a cooperative venture. Yes, all abuses are old, but to ascribe to them a major and continuing role in our social development is a Victorian idea and it's quite easily debunked. It's yet another out-of-place idea that's gained more and more sway in the popular mind over the last 25-30 years, wonder why that might be (not!)? Please have a read of this, you'll enjoy it: http://snipurl.com/o8fg Foreign Affairs A Natural History of Peace By Robert M. Sapolsky From Foreign Affairs, January/February 2006 Not the whole story though. A major difference is that the pre-human apes left the forests and took to the plains and what happened to them there. Plains, note, not caves! > > Funny how they always want to kill people, he's not the first. A > > brain-damaged prat calling himself "AirCooled", Cary S. Campbell from > > South Florida, who got the auto-boot for the same reason about a > > month ago, sent a mindless offlist message titled "The End of the > > OPEN Forum or THE DECLINE AND EVENTUAL FALL OF THE BIOFUEL MAILING > > LIST" > > Oh yeah, I got that one. I'm frequently the target of posts from >confused, former list members baffled by their ejection from this >forum. I'm sorry about that. The only way to be baffled about it is to ignore the List rules you're referred to when you join and told to read, which is an obligation, and then to ignore everything else too. It was explained three more times to AirHead but he ignored it. These people think it's a shop or something, they're the valued customer who can do no wrong and can always get their way by shouting at the staff, among other odd ideas. Rules are for lesser mortals, not the wonderful them, they're special. But nobody's special, because everybody's special, and that kind of "specialness" gets it way by trampling over other people. >(Some people seem to think I'm "reasonable", and that I hold >"sway" around here and can get them reinstated! I've never been the >Alpha Male type.) One confused soul tried to prove from the Bible >that God intended George Bush to win the election so that a >"Christian" agenda could be imposed upon the world. > > If that's the case (and I see no evidence that it is), why would God >have to resort to dishonesty in order to pull that off? I suppose it depends which particular God you mean. Once you hate people and demonise them as evil the internal logic is that they're fair game by any means, honesty doesn't count - whatever you do to stamp out evil by whatever means is "good". This God likes omelettes and doesn't care about broken eggs. I think Haliburton et al also see it that way. > He persisted in arguing with me about this for two or three e-mails, >then realized I wasn't going to give in and simply vanished. > > > These people are sane, eh? They live with their families in their > > neighbourhoods and go to their jobs and to church on Sundays and > > fantasise about shooting people, cutting their heads off with a blunt > > kitchen knife and sticking daggers in their eyes just for fun. Sane. > > I wrote a song about racism once that deals with the apparent >"normalcy" of North American society. One lines goes: > > "We're expecting peace when our leaders meet > while we hate the man who lives down the street > and in anger, we lose all aplomb > and resolve our disputes with a fist, >or a gun, or a bomb" Good, Robert! Is it rock'n'roll? :-) The "we" is only some of us though, IMHO. > > This is sound advice - there's nothing you can do about them, so do > > nothing about them, don't waste your efforts. > > Todd seems to have more energy for this sort of thing. Personally, I >find it exhausting. Yes. Draining. > > D'you think there's maybe some money to be made selling these guys > > dull kitchen knives on the Web? LOL! > > That's about as ethical as selling weapons into a civil war! Aw gee. It's not as unethical as selling weapons in order to start a civil war though, and dull kitchen knives aren't as bad as napalm, landmines, cluster bombs, white phosphorus and DU. You don't buy it huh. Sigh. I guess I'll just have to stick to flogging porno videos to Mike Weaver. All best Keith >robert luis rabello >"The Edge of Justice" >Adventure for Your Mind >http://www.newadventure.ca > >Ranger Supercharger Project Page >http://www.members.shaw.ca/rabello/ > _______________________________________________ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/biofuel_sustainablelists.org Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (50,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
