Holy Week and WikiLeaks
Hugh O’Neill
(Photo by Jack Taylor/Getty Images)
There is nothing new under the sun”
Ecclesiastes
I was sent a humourous Birthday card, depicting Jesus holding his mobile phone; his thought bubble reads: “Twelve followers so far. Sweet!”. As a Catholic, one often thinks of historical parallels and what insights into the Human Condition can be gleaned from old stories – looking for parables? It is Holy Week this week, a rapid 7 days in which Christ goes from the celebrity status of Palm Sunday, through to the Last Supper, Agony in the Garden in which he pleads for this chalice to pass his lips, betrayal by Judas, arraigned before the religious courts, and then delivered to the Romans for their judgement.
When Pilate can find no guilt, the crowds are influenced by temple agents to demand his crucifixion. Christ is duly tormented, humiliated and put to very public and agonising death on the cross, but with his last words, he pleads for his tormentors: “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do”. Meanwhile his followers go into hiding, terrified that they will be next.
But what has this story got to do with us now? Although the cartoon depiction of Jesus doesn’t look much like Julian Assange, it provoked a thought exercise: imagine being witness to those events 2,000 years ago in Jerusalem. There is something biblical about fleeing into exile for 7 years. One overarching parallel is the dominance of the Roman Empire akin to that of the American influence and the craven subjugation of the British Establishment – and other territories under Roman/American Rule. Many supporters of Assange have already labelled Lenin Moreno as Judas having sold his soul for 30 pieces of silver. (Note to Moreno: it didn’t end well for Judas).
Imagine how the tabloids and MSM would treat Jesus today: “He mixes with lepers and is probably leprous himself”; “What about that long-haired Mary Magdalene who seems overly attentive to his needs?” “His hair looks like he just spent 40 days in the wilderness”. Meanwhile, the alternative media has become the voice in the wilderness, unsettling Herod’s peace of mind.
So the question for me is why did the Jewish authorities influence Roman power (and subvert the democratic vote put by Pilate) to do their dirty work? Why was Jesus, King of the Jews such a threat to the status quo? Was it his antipathy to market place materialism and seeking a kinder world (as expressed in The Beatitudes)? One might ask the same questions behind the persecution of Julian Assange, who is hated for having exposed the war crimes and lies of the ruling classes.
For those who can only see a smelly unkempt rapist, perhaps we might recall that there used to be a commandment not to kill, just as there was one about coveting one’s neighbour’s wife. From my perspective, the killing of innocents seems the greater crime. Jesus (allegedly) issued a caveat against judging sexual offending: “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone”.
Finally, let us return to Christ’s followers who were hiding in mortal terror. They were eventually empowered with the “Gift of Tongues” which allowed them to be understood by every nation. Somewhere in there is a metaphor for the alternative media, but like the dyslexic agnostic, I lack the gift of tongues to complete the metaphor. Whether one is religious or atheist, If we should ever lose hope, then evil will indeed triumph.
SUPPORT OFFGUARDIAN
If you enjoy OffG's content, please help us make our monthly fund-raising goal and keep the site alive.
For other ways to donate, including direct-transfer bank details click HERE.
The thing about Jesus is that He knew what was coming, and dedicated His life to fulfilling what the Scriptures had to say about it. Others, like Assange, Manning and Snowden are different: They land in the shit because of their innate interest in truth and honesty, and end up having to decide how to handle the consequences of their refusal to accept that there is no difference between right and wrong. But not everybody has the courage to stick to their principles, as these inspiring people have done, and one may certainly talk about a Christ-like impulse behind their stoicism in the face of great injustice and persecution. They have nothing but my greatest admiration. Corbyn is different again, in that I see no amazing insight into human evolution and purpose where he is concerned. It’s rather hard to see whether he even believes in such things as “the… Read more »
An interesting juxtaposition in your phrase “the purpose of evolution”. Purpose is of the Mind – and the theory of evolution – while also of the mind, posits a mindless material existence as CAUSE – in place of MIND – which is truly always our greatest Intimacy of true environment – regardless the focus in objects of attention. Thus a ‘mind’ randomly accretes or assembles over billions of years as the illusion of a mind – in total subordination and dictate to a persistence of energy patterns or genetic mutations. But those who hold such an anti-magic wand can use it to block and deny Mind in any Movement that does not support the Model of materially captured convictions. I note that when it doesn’t suit us, we WANT to assign cause outside or away from self – and that can be to a god as much as to a… Read more »
Time to clear up some 2000 year old lies that have caused untold misery. Tiberius issued the execution order personally to his favorite ward, Pontius Pilate’s wife, at the island of Capri. Pilate had a Comey moment (remember Comey said he had a Hoover moment) with a sure order from above. Capri was thereafter the center of Mithra satanic rituals. Why was Tiberius moved to murder? Very simply, look at any Roman coin – all Caesars were the “son of god” – Jesus said to give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, a direct confrontation with the sheer evil that was Rome. Hence the Christian doctrine of Imago Viva Dei, and Capax Dei. Hence today the Torquemada Mueller inquisition, threats from Pompeo to blow the planet up, the sheer lies about the origin of the failed Russiagate – London. Why does Australia not take jurisdiction of citizen Assange? Well, have a… Read more »
Many points in your post – all Kingship and Aristocracy inherits the God-king idea. I hold that that arose in catastrophic experience of a past that is hidden by psychic ‘amnesia’ and which is held in the Mythic Record of all peoples from Antiquity. An experience of overwhelming terror as destructive power set the ‘Separation trauma’ that predicates what we call subjective consciousness – which is both the creative capacity to model or imagine reality and the subjection to its own ‘sowing’. But it was the elites of Jesus’ own people who set up and used the power of Caesar to crucify someone that the Roman authorities had no interest in – excepting as brought to them as a troublemaker by Jewish authorities operating as a permitted and limited semi autonomy under Roman Jurisdiction. When Pilate met Jesus – he was interested in him – but the lobby for his… Read more »
Interesting article and interesting comments. I am of the view that Corbyn is more in alignment with the analogies as to Jesus, his persecution and his crucifixion. Jesus talked about the need to help the poor and the vulnerable, about forgiveness and sacrifice and about the need for peace and to treat each other with dignity and respect. There is no doubt Corbyn espouses, very clearly, these values and is consistent as to how a Labour Government would deal with poverty, redistribute wealth, the need for peace etc. Jesus condemned the rich as being self-interested whilst being in a position to do good which they did not. Not only that, but Corbyn has suffered a relentless MSM and Government Campaign of persecution against him personally and politically and that campaign is and continues to be malicious, vicious, vitriolic, hateful and fake news most of it. Whether you support him or… Read more »
I agree 100%. Corbyn even has the right initials! But right now, it is JA who is on the cross. If JC ever became PM, then who knows what fate might befall him, given that an Army general is already on record as favouring a coup. JC wishes to remove their beloved Trident, traditionally the devil’s favourite tool.
“If JC ever became PM ..”
The dark forces might not allow Jeremy Bernard Corbyn to contest an election unless they are certain he’s going to lose. The Five Eyes might be viewing Mr Corbyn as an existential threat.
Dissidents Unite; Hugh
Sorry to interrupt your self-congratulatory moment: and planned ascension of Corbyn – because he has the right initials. Here is what support of the British Labour party, NATO and its proxies, and the White Helmets looks like in the real world:
http://english.almanar.com.lb/framework/includes/uploads/2017/04/manar-08620110014922762937.jpeg
I don’t remember the real JC supporting and collecting money for child murderers. Perhaps you are confusing Corbyn with some other guy?
BigB. In defence of JA and JC, and anyone else who tries to do the right thing. Nobody said it was easy, and nor should we abuse those who try but fail in your eyes. We are all mortals. Even Jesus struggled in agony in the Garden of Gethsemani and again on the cross (My God. Why hast thou forsaken me?”).
I do not need to believe any of these stories to be factually accurate, it is their insights into the Human Condition which becomes more profound as one grows old. (See also my response to ‘der einzige’ below). As I have also said elsewhere, even Saints cannot be saints all the time, and it is their Humanity which is the most empowering example to us all. If this mere mortal can find the courage, why not me?
That is entirely my point: to find the courage to do the right thing. Since the children of al-Fu’ah and Kafriya were blown up by NATO proxies: three months after JC was actively collecting money for the White Helmets …I have been antithetical to the false hopes blindly cathexed on Corbyn. I have no reason to reproduce my concerns here: but it is a pretty severe list which should rightly make any conscious living person give up any fallacy that Labour are a force for good in this world. Not least because of what I term the ‘Corbyn singularity effect’. Remove JC from the mix: and what will actually be elected is around 300 Zionists, neoliberals, or both. Who have no plans whatsoever to do any good for the poor. If they do, it will be at the expense of the poor elsewhere – such as the children of Syria.… Read more »
Big B. You are not, clearly, seeing who JC actually is. He has been consistently passionate about changing the plight of the poor in this country, of redistributing wealth, of building affordable housing and so on and so forth. You seem also to be ignoring the fact that we have, currently, the most corrupt Government (Fascist in its politics) in the UK Parliamentary history. If they win the next election (God forbid) we will descend into a one party, fascist state. The MSM is already nothing more than a propaganda machine for this Government; they are covering up corruption, outright lies, gross incompetence, ignorance and a lot more. Putin would love an MSM of this magnitude to promote its’ shit and propaganda. Jeremy Corbyn is quite rightly, the Prime Minister in waiting. God knows, we need Labour Party policies as stated in their Manifesto more than ever. This Tory Government… Read more »
Dissidents Unite I feel I have addressed most of your points already. The Manifesto is not credible or compatible with EU/NATO neoliberal suzerainty – that Corbyn is negotiating: contra his own morality. There is the small matter of anti-Constitutional Treason and post-democracy of ignoring a clear mandate to leave the EU. This overrides whatever ones actual vote was. If the public votes, and MPs ignore it – then they are all not fit for purpose. We have a Constitutional and legitimation crisis in which JC is playing a major Judas role. You say the Manifesto is costed. I say it is not: not in human terms. You hit the nail on the head when you say “changing the plight of the poor in this country” – what about in other countries? That’s 163 dead children at Rashidin – indicative of what NATO and White Helmet support (and regime change support… Read more »
Or an asset to acquire – I’ve been reading a bit about Lloyd George. A GPS route giver immediately reroutes any deviation. The purpose of ‘survival’ in its own terms operates at a level that we are rarely aware of and as power for its own sake. Power does not run through the old political channels excepting to maintain a Face for narrative control. The ‘threat’ to the ‘establishment’ or it globalist agenda is more to the maintaining of a narrative that masks and supports, or hides and diverts exposure and challenge. But if QE for (compliant) citizens or subjects is part of a further state capture and dependency – then who better to be allowed to ‘win it’ for ‘the people’. Who pays the piper calls the tune. I also respect Corbyn for his example and demeanour in representing the trust of people who support him – but leadership… Read more »
I can see Corbyn, and a few others trying to do what you mention, but the sad fact is a Labour government will not deliver anything to the poor. Not that will really help them.
Even the great Labour gov of 1945 had a rabid right winger in the foreign office. You can thank him for our slavish “special relationship”
Hidden History – The secret origins of the first world war – Gerry Docherty and Jim Macgregor – This book may be focused in the past – but has every application to an understanding of how power through due process is subverted and corrupted – no matter who gets in to the supposed offices of its jurisdiction. The Corbett Report has a documentary on the theme of the Book that includes some of this information as well as the whole interviews with Docherty on this and on Hoover and others prolonging of the war by manipulation of sympathies to serve a hidden agenda. The refinements and developments of such an influence will tend to be many moves ahead of any sense of the world we may imagine possible – until we come up against the complex of denials and deceits by which an invested narrative blocks any other from acceptance… Read more »
Hi some random Passer-by. I believe you are wrong, the Labour Manifesto is costed, is focussed and details exactly how they will deliver. May be you should read it. I think, mostly, the rabid right wingers have left the Labour Party (Alleluia). Also, if you look at the new Labour Politicians ushered in under Corbyn, they are passionate about policies that will redistribute wealth, create jobs, create affordable housing and more. This Government conversely, are completely devoid of any sort of thought. They haven’t a clue in their heads as to how to sort out the gross economic mess they have made of this country, how to sort out the mess they have made of Universal Credit, the gross mess they have made of the Probation Service (attributed to a lack of any thought or consultation by the Government on why the changes were necessary); on how to address the… Read more »
Not a coincidence that Integrity Initiative of the British Institute for Statecraft were caught slandering Corbyn as anti-semitic, the very same British unit that started Russiagate against Trump. Mueller refused to interview Assange on the DNC faux hack. VIPS (Veteran Intel Professionals for Sanity) strongly advise Trump to take Assange’s offer to clear up the DNC leak up. Pompeo met VIPS Binney on Trump’s orders and then Pompeo seemingly stopped any further Assange contact.
Assange can blow the entire Russia bogey meme out the window – he has taken on Tiberius’ imperial Great Game.
Jesus (allegedly) issued a caveat against judging sexual offending: “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone”.
The Biblical direction is not only against judging sexual offences, but all actions adjudged to be wrong. Something our Liberal/Leftist friends in particular would do well to consider, in my opinion.
And it saddens me that so many in positions of leadership in the American “Empire” fail to recognise that it and they are the Roman Empire of the 21st century and that evil figures such as Bolton are our Herod. Happy to see innocents abroad killed for political expediency in the name of the greater good of the Empire.
Julian is, I agree – to some extent – a 21st Century Christ. A rebel, seeking the good of humanity, persecuted by oppressive authority and misunderstood and abandoned by the masses.
The underlying freedom from deceit that Jesus exemplified is that there is no ‘good’ but God and that a true recognition of the Father in the Son – (or of Cause in the Effect) is the Relationship on which he founds his ‘church’. This Foundation is Timeless even if it must seem to wait on time for acceptance and extension. And so is operating through time as the willingness to share it – and as the translation and undoing of a mind in error or mis-taken identity. Even unto the least of us is no less a Christ unrecognised than you are – but the basis for true recognition is not the perception or projection of evil or sin in the Bad Guys – but the plucking from our mind of our OWN – that we might see, free of the mind of deceit and be free to speak or… Read more »
Macron is the antichrist.
Google it.
Hugh O’Neill beautifully and succinctly gifts us with the truth that recurs again and again throughout history. He grasps why the Jesus story resonates down though the years: a story of non-violent love and opposition to state violence, courage, truth, betrayal, hypocrisy, etc. Leonard Cohen sang that “Jesus was a sailor,” and Hugh O’Neill, a sailor himself, intuitively grasps the enduring power of the Christ story that reminds us that we are all sailors in need of faith and courage to bring us home again. Let’s bring Julian home, before the state authorities kill him. Thank you, Hugh.
Morning Ed. Many thanks for your kind words and for distilling the simple message I was trying to convey. You have the gift of tongues.
Of course the bare bones of the oft retreaded ‘easter story’ is fine, but forging that parable of pantheism with the brittle cast iron of imperial propaganda aka organised religion, is not.
If humans are to become self-reliant yet cooperative individuals we need be, it is essential for us to have shed the lies of the bosses, all of which which are designed to keep us fighting amongst ourselves; Xtian Vs Hindu vs Muslim Vs Buddhist while we all remain devoted to our religion’s particular despot. Otherwise we are truly fooked, nothing more than the puppets of the greedy self-righteous arseholes who thrive off our despair, starvation and misery.
Home being Australia, right? I am not sure of his safety there considering the Head of that State. Assange has taken on the British Great Game of centuries, with Russia being central. He knows it was not Russia that leaked the DNC stuff, and ruined Hilary’s chances. London is in complete chaos with Brexit and Trump and is reacting very dangerously. Trump should take up Assange’s offer to clear up the leak. He will face unbelievable nastiness but it will clear the way for US, Russia, China cooperation, his campaign theme.
Quote// “a story of non-violent love and opposition to state violence, courage, truth, betrayal, hypocrisy, etc. Leonard Cohen sang that “Jesus was a sailor,” // Hmmm.. As opposed to violent love? He didn’t oppose state violence or support it. ‘Resist ye not evil’ is part of a greater freedom. But fools will make a folly of it – as of anything else. Courage in honesty is love of truth and the truth of love. Jesus did not give time or attention to hypocrites – also meaning ‘actors’. The metaphor that Cohen used was where ‘drowning’ frees us – because in his words ‘only drowning men can see him’. Which is to suggest that a NEED is uncovered in extremis that is otherwise hidden. By all means protect the right and rights of Julian Assange and the free speech of all, but if you bring Jesus in to prop up the… Read more »
Give me back my broken night
My mirrored room, my secret life
It’s lonely here
There’s no one left to torture
Give me absolute control
Over every living soul
And lie beside me, baby
That’s an order
Give me crack and anal sex
Take the only tree that’s left
And stuff it up the hole
In your culture
Give me back the Berlin wall
Give me Stalin and St. Paul
I’ve seen the future, brother
It is murder
Leonard Cohen
Something stinks your new Jesus (for so many years, but it does not reach many)
http://progressivepress.com/blog-entry/something-stinks-about-wikileaks
I still find it hard that not many people have looked into Assanges background he used to hack for the CIA at one point and no one ever mentions his hey pretend that a man who gave up the names of afghans who had helped to get al qaeda and taliban members arrested is some nice principled bloke. The only part of what that judge said that was correct was that he is a narcissist
Judge to JA: you are a narcissist. JA to Judge: these are your words. As the prisoner was led from the dock, the judge tried to compose an appropriate sign to nail onto the cross: IULIAN Narcissus, Rex Iudicorum? Judge not, lest Ye be judged.
No, something stinks with your website regressive-illiberal-press.com
Tolstoy described perfectly such as you
“I know that most people, even those who cope well with the problems of the highest complexity, are rarely able to accept even the simplest and most obvious truth, if it compels them to proclaim false claims that they would like to present to their colleagues with pride, and from which, thread by thread, they woven the matter of their lives.” – Tolstoy
Belfast Telagraph: “What about 9/11?”
Mossange: “I’m constantly annoyed that people are distracted by false conspiracies such as 9/11, when all around we provide evidence of real conspiracies, for war or mass financial fraud.”
https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/life/features/wanted-by-the-cia-julian-assange-wikileaks-founder-28548843.html
Julian Assange – 9/11 Investigation question
Der Einzige. I watched this video and must admit that JA is decidedly wobbly on 9/11 and then his mouth runs away with him and starts talking about the JFK assassination. I am no psychologist, but that sure looked Freudian i.e. unable to admit that 9/11 was an inside job, his mind took him to JFK which was also an inside job. He talks about a few “rogue operators”, as if that says anything. When the MSM is part of the cover-up, then there is nothing “rogue” about these psy-ops. However, in our time of trial, it is extremely difficult to speak truth. Even St. Peter denied Jesus three times before the cock crowed! Just as Tulsi Gabbard should not be condemned for being forced to say under extreme pressure that Assad was a war criminal etc. Assange is a hopeless liar, and like me, ought never to play poker.… Read more »
How much are Mossange “revelations” versus the truth about 911?
It is about the video from helicopter attack which dozens, everyone could see earlier on liveleak and in dozens of other places?
It is strange that you are not so forgiving of BLiar when he talked about WMD. He was “forced to say under extreme pressure”. blah blah blah…
Humanity has a reflexive paralytic fear of the unknown. Useful, up until relatively recent times: when we conquered the wilderness and, potentially at least, put an end to cyclic scarcity. But we never really came to terms with the potential to end project fear: so we transferred it to aspects of modernity – like each other and anything ‘different’ or Other …outside the accepted and habituated ingroup norms. From which it became an instrumental utlity of the power-knowledge regimes. So acclimatised to fear-first instinctual reactivity are we: we are inveterately, quadriplegically change averse. We do love a good status quo …or even a bad one: no matter how alienating and anxiety causing it may be. We tend toward a ‘kill’ first reactionary response to proposals of real change …I mean fundamental change – not fear-first mechanical gradualist modification …the socio-Darwinian evolution of the status quo …by which the status quo… Read more »
All ths talk of fear, what of courage ? Where does that come from ?
Materialism has stolen our courage with the hidden death, the psychology of evolution.
The Christ story of resurrection was about confirming how death cannot ultimately touch us.
With that realisation, we have nothing to fear.
The Christmas week ends with tragedy in the churches. ISIS, AQ et al….who is ultimately behind them? What do they want ?
Events seem to be peeling everything away to leave us once again with the ancient stories.
*Easter
No birth, no death. The fear state is the invented interregnum between. There is no why or wherefore: it is just accepted, habituated, and conditioned. Why we still accept this in the 21st century – when all the knowledge is freely available to end our primal nescience (avidya) …I really do not know. This current power-knowledge state benefits no one. There is little point trying to explain this to anyone in power: so on it goes until we truly sick of all the death and misery …which in our self-preservation society, we probable won’t. ISIS and AQ are an extension of the capitalist logic. Who is ultimately behind them: we are. That is the 30% or so of humanity that are actively involved in the material dialectics of modernity. As we know, ISIS and AQ are not an authentic voice of the marginalised and excluded – that is the pretence.… Read more »
I hold indulging ‘worry’ to be a complete waste of energy and a self-undermining or taking away of ‘even the little that ye hath’, so I read your statement as a command or mind-control suggestion: “We should be really worried about what comes next” Fear makes its own version of reality and suffers it as true. Is not the intended ‘progression’ – or reconfiguration to a new world ‘order’ – to be based on energy-control at both global and granular level, through the ‘Internment of Things’? Supported by mind-control of an induced and ‘normalised’ narrative-identity, set in carbon-guilt for living, and enforced by state compliance credits of sin-dispensation – without which the un-personed will suffer exclusion from life by state proscribed and socially enforced dictate under the aegis of ‘The Rebellion’ that makes right by projecting wrong. The currently unfolding ‘Extinction Event’ is not only mind-made but mind-concealing by deceit… Read more »
Sri Lanka Bingo… Too early created article. Check!, Drill before the attack. Check!, Hoax shoe. Check!, Ban on social networks. Check!, GoFundMe Account. Check!, Wikipedia page put up the same day. CHECK!
While avoiding any reference to superstition, myths or legends the worst example of low life slimeballing I’ve seen in a long while came outta the keyboard of Counterpunch editor Jeffrey St. Clair this week. I’ve cut counterpunch a fair bit of slack over the years, when others have been angry at the neoliberal and/or reactionary tone of some of the articles Counterpunch has run, I have been more tolerant, thinking that if everyone who rates human beings far ahead of material objects agreed on everything, the places where I like to hang out at listening to other voices would be bland, boring and completely incapable of advancing the ideal of “humans before dollars” one iota. But after reading St Clair’s column “Roaming Charges: Time is Blind, Man is Stupid” this week I have decided that without contrarian Alex Cockburn’s contributions CP has degenerated into what critics always claimed it was… Read more »
Name one liberal publication in post-Clinton America that has not called on us to “stand in solidarity” with the middle class (revised to “working class” in 2016) within our capitalist state, while simply turning its back on our poverty crisis. This is just the way it is.
Spot on, UreKismet. I’ve stopped reading CP which used to be on my must-read list and I even donated to them some years ago. I also used to read the Guardian before it became a neo-con outlet. There are still a good few places on the net putting out honest informed analysis by principled peole – trouble is, not enough people are reading/watching/listening to them.
If only it were so simple. We have all been massively duped by the power elite with their controlled opposition setup in regard to Wikileaks and just about everything else you can imagine. As soon as opposition appears (and sometimes even before if they anticipate it), the power elite insert their octopus tentacles in and around it to control it and to make a mockery of us. Chelsea Manning is clearly an intelligence asset used as part of the power elite’s “Wikileaks” controlled opposition campaign – see analysis of her first interview after release from prison with Juju Chang, anchor of Nightline and active member of the Council on Foreign Relations https://off-guardian.org/2019/04/17/a-marriage-of-conscience-julian-assange-and-chelsea-manning/#comment-153703 … or just watch the 11 minute interview carefully and apply the two filters: genuine leaker and intelligence asset and see which you think fits best – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSx1VG8UnF8 The alleged video of soldiers firing on civilians is faked… Read more »
9 downvotes but no comment arguing with my hypothesis supported by evidence. How can people justify a downvote with no argument to support it? It simply baffles me. A downvote with no argument to support it is signifies scary mindlessness, scary belief in something with nothing to support that belief except a primitive hostility to the opposing belief.
I can almost see Assange with the cross on his back and a gentleman carrying a hammer and nails from Lidl – Lidl the promised land.
With modern day apologists for Empire, Freeman, Moore, Ball and Hyde ready to hammer in the nails.
We don’t even need to draw parallels between Assange and Jesus. We did not even need for something like the vilification of a truth-teller to happen to see, to fully comprehend that we, so called humans, have not evolved, changed a tiny bit since the crucifixion of another truth teller, another messenger…. And if we continue down this road, 2000 years from now, those deluded beings that will insist in calling themselves “humans”, “advanced” and “civilized”, will crucified any other truth-teller at hand. … This has nothing to do with religious beliefs, this has nothing to do with afterlive or miracles. Spiritual values, humanistic values are those real thing that are the only ones that can truly guide and light the road for meaningful community living cause we are all the same, we are just one…but we dont want to see the sameness, we choosed separateness… When we choose to… Read more »
Maybe worth quoting at length? “In his book, The Cap: The Price of a Life, Roman Frister recalls how, as a 16 year-old prisoner in an Auschwitz labour camp, he was raped by a senior inmate. To conceal this misdemeanour, the higher-ranking prisoner stole his victim’s cap. This was a death sentence for the boy, who would be shot at roll call for displaying an incomplete uniform. Determined to survive this calamity, Frister exchanged his fate with a sleeping fellow inmate by stealing his unknown comrade’s cap. His most memorable emotion, when the shot rang out at morning parade, was feeling “delighted to be alive.” Another similar story: the Russian writer and poet, Varlam Shalamov, spent 17 years in Kolyma, a gulag in northeastern Siberia where as many as three million prisoners met their deaths. Contrary to the view that hardship elicits in humans sentiments of solidarity, neither friendship nor… Read more »
Harry, while the stories you refer to are not, by any means, unique. While humans are indeed capable of going into unbelievable lengths in order to survive these stories, by no means, deny that we are indeed also capable of going in the other direction, of self-sacrifice, of freely choosing not to do “unto others what have been done unto me”…… But we are, in general, to attached to this material existence as the sole and only source of truth. We live in fear, like animals running for their lives. We live submerged in instinctual behaviour…like unconscious machines, like any other animal herd…we have not been able, as a species, to trascend our bestiality and mearely cover it with a veneer of “civilization”… In Schopenhauer’s words, transcendental choices require something that is rarely seen “the denial of the will to live”. This does not mean the denial of life, but… Read more »
Perception is selective and you have chosen your witness to the image you currently assert and defend true for you. It is of course within the remit of human experience to explore every imaginable facet of its nature. But insofar as your OWN choices align and unfold consequence, are they not framed BY what we accept true – and do we not often generate the very outcomes that in hate and fear we sought to avoid? The themes of the human drama are the archetypes of forgotten gods – but no less active in their re-enactment of the core themes of Separation (trauma). Whatever is believed or accepted in the mind and acted from as true will run a self-reinforcing loop of experience until it is replaced with a different belief – but shape shifting evasions do not change the predicate or foundation of their forms of expression but actively… Read more »
Binra:
You might have a higher message, a deeper wisdom..but your prolixity makes your writings obscure in such a way that either you have no idea what you are talking or you are talking to the wrong audience…
It is always the case that is never clear if you are talking for A, for B or for neither…or not even the last one…..
…sorry my friend….
Why ‘sorry’? For one I was not addressing what you said, but the same message you responded to. If you have no resonance with what you read from me, it simply is not for you at this time. But if yu have emotional reaction – maybe there is something for you in noticing that. Those actively identified and invested in blame and vengeance will not make any kind of sense of me – nor those who are exclusively identified in the physical framing of existence. An insane world is already a communication breakdown – but one where everyone agrees to be mad. But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked. “Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.” “How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice. “You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here. ~… Read more »
Any words for or about America’s lepers, the very poor?
In what context?
What is your desire in asking?
Thankyou.
Binra, was not an emotional reaction…just that, honestly, I can never underestand what you write, just a piece here and another there…..
I even feel dizzy sometimes reading you….but it might well just be me….
Well that response indicates you understood mine. There are aspects to the human experience that those who have opened to, are changed and cannot go back to how they were before – but that does not mean they have ‘arrived’ at a final truth – but they may be disillusioned in some respects. These can be the extremities of pain and loss as much as those of transparency to transcendence. I have no desire to push anyone where they are not the willingness of, and not just because that only results in ‘pushback’ or failure in the reaction. However I may seek to articulate it, I see freedom is in a recognition and not in any system of thought or belief – but note a fear of being exposed in or to a negative or malevolent intent does not want to be recognised – but to hide and remain hidden.… Read more »
No truer words spoken. Julian should not be persecuted but equally nor should he be hagiographised … as no one should be. Both treatments are inimical to truth. It really does disappoint me how uninterested people on this site are in pursuing truth to the end, how they stop short of it because it doesn’t agree with their highly-emotionally invested-in beliefs. I’m really unattached to what the truth is, I just like to know what it is – how can I be attached when what I’ve learnt in the past 5 years has turned my beliefs topsy-turvy and then some. They’ve been put through the washing-machine and I feel in a state where any belief I hold is only waiting to be upturned. As the Off-Guardian slogan says, Because Facts Really Should be Sacred. The facts are sacred which, by definition, rules out hagiography.
Good on ya, Hugh! My ole mate Clive Kelly (Trimaran Survival; film “Raoini”) will mean summat to ya. I’m in Frankfurt.
Regards,
Helmut.