Friday, September 26, 2014

Ebola crisis and ISIS

Ebola crisis combined with ISIS?
Ebola crISIS




I don’t believe that a 30 million Canadian donation is gonna impress me or other rational Canadians when we have an understanding of of the cost of an air mission to fight ISIS.  I am speaking of the Sept 20 2009, Huffington Post article “Libyan Mission Racked Up $11M In Hotel Bills.” It goes on to quote the CBC:
“In May, the military said it had spent more than $30 million on food, transportation and accommodations for the mission.”
IMO this directly relates to the increase in Canadian aid to West Africa to help in the American fight against Ebola of 30 million (Loonies). Just looking at the armament expended on that Libyan mission tells me that the cost was likely in the billions (With an S.) Therefore, I am cynical about all the inflationary hype by CBC about our PM’s, “Canada’s,” generosity, a paltry contribution of 30 million, in the face of the Ebola crisis. I believe that CBC is doing what their mandate requires and trumpeting the government’s “message.” At the time of Libya mission bagging Ghadafi was on the horizon, whereas in Iraq the mission is open ended.
Comparatively, while the CBC spent hours upon hours speculation about the missing Malaysian airliner MH 370, it spends zero time reflecting on the obvious discrepancy between what the Canadian government is willing to spend killing people and helping them. The Liberals are on board with this policy too..

Monday, September 22, 2014

Empathy is not Compassion: A tangent of political thought



   "What moves us to serve humanity, to achieve meaningful change, is genuine empathy; the capacity to feel the pain of others, to experience an intimate shared humanity, to accept discomfort and sacrifice in the path of a greater cause. In entering an authentic communion with others, we also discover a profound expression of our own dignity.”
    Payam Akhavan, from the 2014 Vancouver Human Rights Lecture, Beyond Human Rights: Building a World on Empathy.
I found his interview on CBC Radio Program Ideas very stimulating. The link is below the video. Here are some of my thoughts on the subject. I have entitled it:

Empathy is not Compassion

Interview with Payam Akhaven

http://www.cbc.ca/ideas/episodes/2014/09/18/beyond-human-rights/
Empathy is a state of perception based on the spiritual communion of life. The interview with the lawyer Payam Akhavan, although I have a generally low opinion of lawyers, gob smacked me into a higher understanding of what confronts humanity. It struck me that without empathy one can’t have true compassion, tolerance, or the ability to compromise. In my opinion these are the best human traits a leader might possess in today’s complex world, especially when they are combined with a larger intellect directly coupled with a diminished Ego. This seems to be an ideal checklist for a benign and beneficial, truly responsive, elected representative in a so called free multifaceted society.
Sadly, we still as a species adhere to the genetically programmed leadership model which served our primitive aggressive primate troop well. We haven’t evolved yet, because our species is currently in the grip of a conservative ideology which has been necessary as a survival mechanism. It probably is a remnant left over from harsh primeval times were aggressive strength in leadership was important to our species survival.
In my opinion this is a reflection, as I said before, of the tendency for accurate transmission of genetic material via replication in cellular reproduction. There is also a natural force which is equally important, but naturally weaker, to mutate, or make slight changes in our genetic material. This I see in the reflection of human political nature.  Those whose main thinking revolves around conserving power, control, accumulating wealth, supporting a strong military and taking aggressive action, don’t want change or any kind of genetic mutations, against the very nature of natural selection. Their goal is to be mired in a stagnant state. (Maybe even to revert to a spiritual state in a “blissful” Armageddon)
Maybe intuitively we, as a self-aware thinking species, understand this and know that the mechanisms of change are freedom of thought, tolerance and compromise, and since genetic mutations are caused only by radiation, heat and ingested chemical compounds. Perhaps we can infer (that the) prohibition to use different substances, also is at its root a barricade to natural change.
It is no mystery to me that Psychedelic substances have been found to help create empathy which can last a lifetime. Certainly there is no evidence that their use is any more dangerous than alcohol which creates violence in its users. These substances, which may be the only natural bridge our species has, are being forbidden in a global spirit of repression by the right warlike primal human conservative drive, a once necessary mechanism to our species survival.
In this year of a Canadian election, I will wonder about all aspects of the human condition and why we find ourselves so poorly served by our leadership. I mean wouldn’t we all want better outcomes / results in our lives instead of more of the same: caused by the same old thinking? I am wondering who amongst the current crop of wannabe Prime Ministers (Canadian) would have the most empathy for humanity? These jokers have all thrown their hats into the old model political leadership ring, where it seems the most vicious, financially well-endowed, the most beholden to corporate power interests’ campaigners will entertain us with rude conflict of bullshit in epic proportions.
Isn’t that why they seem so totally interchangeable in their attitude and behavior? They are the same contenders for our primate troop loyalty we have always had and will fight hard to eliminate one another. We enjoy the spectacle, just as we always have. No wonder the solutions to our problems evade us and there is ever more strife in the world. We pick our leaders for their confrontational qualities to perpetuate our political ideologies, to entertain us, not to find solutions to human social problems.
Empathy is a human state of being which can be a basis for pre emptive action in everyone’s lives that seeks solutions through compromise, not conflict.

Thursday, September 18, 2014

Murder by Crows






If you care to click on the link provided below the video you will be able to access these cameras live. This is the Crow’s eye view from above the scene of the crime. To the south you can see the crowd of addicts in front of the Carnegie Center, monitored constantly by the traffic cams! The Vancouver cops and city officials will deny that these events I WILL DESCRIBE, NEVER HAPPENED. Because the cameras are located above the scene of the crime there is no photographic evidence. You decide.