My cousin wrote me a while ago to discuss a visit to Mexico. In her letter she expressed angst over the danger one might encounter in a trip south of the border. It seems all the news North Americans receive about Mexico emphasizes the violence. Decapitations and quartered bodies from countless coast to coast turf wars litter the streets,,, a sight as common as roosters and hens but that is not a fair representation of this country. The fotos below indicate just a little of the richness of Mexico, a richness that eternally defies bad news.
My cousin ended her letter describing an anxiety closer to home. She mentioned the fear of many in the US of riding the subways or going into tunnels. My knee jerk reaction was that it seemed an irrational fear given the risk of heart disease in, let's say, eating gobs of manufactured trans fats and sacks of sugar. Why is it that some North American friends will proudly buy their teenage daughter a car, or have sex with someone an hour into the first date without a condom, or drive from New York to Connecticut to buy a powerball ticket oblivious to the real odds,,yet they are afraid of a terrorist act in a tunnel. From where does this unquestioned security bubble come?
Strangely Secure
Security has always been an issue in the US. If you don't believe me look at the commercials on the NFL Channel. It's all about selling insurance and flashlights that blind intruders, yet security is not something one purchases for $9.99. Security is something that comes from within,, a result of the confidence gleaned from having built a strong identity, cultivating skeptical vigilence, all the while loving the world around you. Jesus at his best may be a good example.
I couldn't help but think that terrorism has accomplished its goals. In surveys terrorism perpetrated by religious fanatics,, muslims in particular, ranks as one of the top concerns of North Americans, ironically in second place after corrupt officials. Terrorists, whether they commit heinous acts in New York or Paris, have goals. Their aim is not to topple a regime by a massive invasion but to employ random acts of violence that intimidate the population and in turn cause chaos and doubt in those regimes. Terrorists stir the "comfort pot" creating widespread fear, weakening society's resolve, disrupt economic movement, and manufacturing doubt in the capacity of government to protect its citizens. Terrorist acts provoke government over-reaction that evidences itself in the form of authoritarian laws that in turn erode the most cherished freedoms.There is a dread of the fanatic religious alien in our midst,,, a dark person,, from a different tribe,,, not judeo christian,,, and that speaks a strange language. The apprehension surrounding of what this unorthodox individual is capable has corroded public confidence in most institutions, yet those institutions have found that they can use that lack of confidence as a tool to regain power and to manipulate public opinion. Often as a result, a war is begun, some rights, and some priviledges are taken away, and everyone strangely feels more secure.
I don't wish to diminish the grave results of loathsome terrorist acts and there are plenty from which to choose like the The Yazdi community bombings, 9/11, the Pulse Nightclub attack in Orlando, Florida, the Beslan School hostage crisis, Paris nightclub massacre, and the Cinema Rex fire in Iran. These acts have irrevocably affected society and the lives of the survivors. How should society react to these atrocities. Do acts that are perpetrated by religious fanatics hold more weight than those of Timmothy McVeigh, Sandy Hook, or Basque Separists? Do these acts carry less weight because they are perpetrated by those that resemble us. Are foreign wars to root out terrorists the correct courses of action? Is Islam a violent religion? Should governments make every effort necessary to destroy the breeding grounds of terrorism? And where are those hatcheries? In Saudi Arabia or in Iraq.? Are there real risks to the survival of western culture in allowing jihadist acts to harden government and further consume society's worthy attributes?
Thomas Mann said: “Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil.” Socrates said: “There is only one good, knowledge,, and one evil,, ignorance.” From which of these statements can we derive a plan for society's self preservation,, the crime of tolerance or an attempt to understand? Is the fear of a glassy eyed foreign fanatic lurking behind every bush a real concern or has it been carefully cultivated? Is a cumbrous never ending media campaign that assails us with inflated accounts of danger responsible? Has our reason been compromised by propaganda? When reason is cloaked by the repetition of lies anything is possible,,,, costly foreign wars,,, and erosion of our own precious freedoms when governments "react" to the terrorist threat. Americans clearly need an alternative to the main stream media. Is terroeism a threat to the roots of our civilization, or is it hynosisi induced hypochondria. Is the boogey man at the very threshold, or is it all just the result of never ending evolutionary process that tends to kill its own increase?
One cannot speak of terrorism without mentioning the role of United States. The U.S. is not an innocent party to terrorist acts yet this fact has been relegated to the deep freeze. It carries a heavy historical mantle of imperiouness by having backed terrorism throughout the world, either directly or through its client states. Public opinion is molded, and enemies are created.This insures pretexts for invasions such as Vietnam, Granada, Iraq, or Afghanistan. This does not count the damage from many proxy wars that happen because of U.S. backed dictatorships. El Salvador, Nicaragua, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Phillipines, Indonesia,Guatemala, Chile,,,,,to name a few, have suffered incredibly at the hands of U.S. desire to control governments and their resources.
Does the above paragraph mean that Mexico off the hook? I think not.
Having moved to Mexico right after 9/11 has protected me from having to deal with the threat of Islamic terrorism. Mexico has not been a victim of that version of terror. There are other forms of terror at work here. In Mexico the government, the police, the army, narcos, and business cartels can take on the role of terrorists. Tlatelolco, Acteal, San Salvador San Salvador Atenco, and Ayotzinapa are some examples. Another is the war on journalists. Mexico is #1 in the world in assasinations of journalists. Open your mouth too wide and someone will put a gun in it or an influential politician will blacklist you. This devastates even a feeble attempt at democracy. Killing journalists creates a paralysing reticence to reveal what is happening and leaves the general population with Televisa's (Television Of The State) safe version of the world in which parochial fashion conscious TV personalities who are incapacitated by their alliances. Instead of investigation they play "look who I am with today". Killing students or campesinos is a terrorism that affirms the status of power.
I think of Thomas Mann's novel, The Magic mountain,, a rich story that struggles to understand the human condition. There are two prominent talented adversarial characters in the book, one a jesuit communist Leo Naphta and the other, Ludovico Settembrini, a humanist freemason capitalist. They are both idealogues. They argue at length, almost too beautifully, about the best social structure for mankind. After a while one does not know who to believe, Settembrini or Naphta. Settembrini stands for the ideals of Western civilization, the Renaissance, and Enlightenment, in short, reason, individual liberty, humanism, tolerance, nationalism, and progress.These are supposedly capitalist virtues. On the other hand Naphta always demonstrates a love of extremes and contempt for all forms of compromise. He defends the Inquisition and the authoritarian aspects of Catholicism and communism. He loathes the bourgeoise state and sees it as weak. Strength and societal control are the only answer to what he sees as a liberal plague gone beserk. I could be in both Naphta and Settembrini's camp at the same time.
In a dispute with Settembrini Naphta argues: "The heroic age that wrested your ideals came to an end long ago. Those ideals are dead or at best are twitching in their death throes, and those whom they had hoped to finish off have got their foot in the door again". Announcing his own political credo, Naphta says: "The mystery and precept of our age is not liberation and development of the ego. What our age needs, what it will create for itself,, is terror." Naphta doesn't mean the random terror of religious fanatics but the terror of an severely authoritarian state, the only structure from which order will come.
Settembrini states: “What have you against analysis?’ Nothing—when it serves the cause of enlightenment, freedom, progress. Everything when it is pervaded by the horrible haut goût of the grave. And thus too with the body. We are to honour and uphold the body when it is a question of emancipation, of beauty, of freedom of thought, of joy, of desire. We must despise it in so far as it sets itself up as the principle of gravity and inertia, when it obstructs the movement toward light; we must despise it in so far as it represents the principle of disease and death, in so far as its specific essence is the essence of perversity, of decay, sensuality, and shame.”
It's like Camille Paglia and Chris Hedges sparring,,, but really the novel is better than that matchup.
By the way my cousin never came for she feared for her security.
My cousin ended her letter describing an anxiety closer to home. She mentioned the fear of many in the US of riding the subways or going into tunnels. My knee jerk reaction was that it seemed an irrational fear given the risk of heart disease in, let's say, eating gobs of manufactured trans fats and sacks of sugar. Why is it that some North American friends will proudly buy their teenage daughter a car, or have sex with someone an hour into the first date without a condom, or drive from New York to Connecticut to buy a powerball ticket oblivious to the real odds,,yet they are afraid of a terrorist act in a tunnel. From where does this unquestioned security bubble come?
Strangely Secure
Security has always been an issue in the US. If you don't believe me look at the commercials on the NFL Channel. It's all about selling insurance and flashlights that blind intruders, yet security is not something one purchases for $9.99. Security is something that comes from within,, a result of the confidence gleaned from having built a strong identity, cultivating skeptical vigilence, all the while loving the world around you. Jesus at his best may be a good example.
I couldn't help but think that terrorism has accomplished its goals. In surveys terrorism perpetrated by religious fanatics,, muslims in particular, ranks as one of the top concerns of North Americans, ironically in second place after corrupt officials. Terrorists, whether they commit heinous acts in New York or Paris, have goals. Their aim is not to topple a regime by a massive invasion but to employ random acts of violence that intimidate the population and in turn cause chaos and doubt in those regimes. Terrorists stir the "comfort pot" creating widespread fear, weakening society's resolve, disrupt economic movement, and manufacturing doubt in the capacity of government to protect its citizens. Terrorist acts provoke government over-reaction that evidences itself in the form of authoritarian laws that in turn erode the most cherished freedoms.There is a dread of the fanatic religious alien in our midst,,, a dark person,, from a different tribe,,, not judeo christian,,, and that speaks a strange language. The apprehension surrounding of what this unorthodox individual is capable has corroded public confidence in most institutions, yet those institutions have found that they can use that lack of confidence as a tool to regain power and to manipulate public opinion. Often as a result, a war is begun, some rights, and some priviledges are taken away, and everyone strangely feels more secure.
I don't wish to diminish the grave results of loathsome terrorist acts and there are plenty from which to choose like the The Yazdi community bombings, 9/11, the Pulse Nightclub attack in Orlando, Florida, the Beslan School hostage crisis, Paris nightclub massacre, and the Cinema Rex fire in Iran. These acts have irrevocably affected society and the lives of the survivors. How should society react to these atrocities. Do acts that are perpetrated by religious fanatics hold more weight than those of Timmothy McVeigh, Sandy Hook, or Basque Separists? Do these acts carry less weight because they are perpetrated by those that resemble us. Are foreign wars to root out terrorists the correct courses of action? Is Islam a violent religion? Should governments make every effort necessary to destroy the breeding grounds of terrorism? And where are those hatcheries? In Saudi Arabia or in Iraq.? Are there real risks to the survival of western culture in allowing jihadist acts to harden government and further consume society's worthy attributes?
Thomas Mann said: “Tolerance becomes a crime when applied to evil.” Socrates said: “There is only one good, knowledge,, and one evil,, ignorance.” From which of these statements can we derive a plan for society's self preservation,, the crime of tolerance or an attempt to understand? Is the fear of a glassy eyed foreign fanatic lurking behind every bush a real concern or has it been carefully cultivated? Is a cumbrous never ending media campaign that assails us with inflated accounts of danger responsible? Has our reason been compromised by propaganda? When reason is cloaked by the repetition of lies anything is possible,,,, costly foreign wars,,, and erosion of our own precious freedoms when governments "react" to the terrorist threat. Americans clearly need an alternative to the main stream media. Is terroeism a threat to the roots of our civilization, or is it hynosisi induced hypochondria. Is the boogey man at the very threshold, or is it all just the result of never ending evolutionary process that tends to kill its own increase?
One cannot speak of terrorism without mentioning the role of United States. The U.S. is not an innocent party to terrorist acts yet this fact has been relegated to the deep freeze. It carries a heavy historical mantle of imperiouness by having backed terrorism throughout the world, either directly or through its client states. Public opinion is molded, and enemies are created.This insures pretexts for invasions such as Vietnam, Granada, Iraq, or Afghanistan. This does not count the damage from many proxy wars that happen because of U.S. backed dictatorships. El Salvador, Nicaragua, Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Phillipines, Indonesia,Guatemala, Chile,,,,,to name a few, have suffered incredibly at the hands of U.S. desire to control governments and their resources.
Does the above paragraph mean that Mexico off the hook? I think not.
Having moved to Mexico right after 9/11 has protected me from having to deal with the threat of Islamic terrorism. Mexico has not been a victim of that version of terror. There are other forms of terror at work here. In Mexico the government, the police, the army, narcos, and business cartels can take on the role of terrorists. Tlatelolco, Acteal, San Salvador San Salvador Atenco, and Ayotzinapa are some examples. Another is the war on journalists. Mexico is #1 in the world in assasinations of journalists. Open your mouth too wide and someone will put a gun in it or an influential politician will blacklist you. This devastates even a feeble attempt at democracy. Killing journalists creates a paralysing reticence to reveal what is happening and leaves the general population with Televisa's (Television Of The State) safe version of the world in which parochial fashion conscious TV personalities who are incapacitated by their alliances. Instead of investigation they play "look who I am with today". Killing students or campesinos is a terrorism that affirms the status of power.
I think of Thomas Mann's novel, The Magic mountain,, a rich story that struggles to understand the human condition. There are two prominent talented adversarial characters in the book, one a jesuit communist Leo Naphta and the other, Ludovico Settembrini, a humanist freemason capitalist. They are both idealogues. They argue at length, almost too beautifully, about the best social structure for mankind. After a while one does not know who to believe, Settembrini or Naphta. Settembrini stands for the ideals of Western civilization, the Renaissance, and Enlightenment, in short, reason, individual liberty, humanism, tolerance, nationalism, and progress.These are supposedly capitalist virtues. On the other hand Naphta always demonstrates a love of extremes and contempt for all forms of compromise. He defends the Inquisition and the authoritarian aspects of Catholicism and communism. He loathes the bourgeoise state and sees it as weak. Strength and societal control are the only answer to what he sees as a liberal plague gone beserk. I could be in both Naphta and Settembrini's camp at the same time.
In a dispute with Settembrini Naphta argues: "The heroic age that wrested your ideals came to an end long ago. Those ideals are dead or at best are twitching in their death throes, and those whom they had hoped to finish off have got their foot in the door again". Announcing his own political credo, Naphta says: "The mystery and precept of our age is not liberation and development of the ego. What our age needs, what it will create for itself,, is terror." Naphta doesn't mean the random terror of religious fanatics but the terror of an severely authoritarian state, the only structure from which order will come.
Settembrini states: “What have you against analysis?’ Nothing—when it serves the cause of enlightenment, freedom, progress. Everything when it is pervaded by the horrible haut goût of the grave. And thus too with the body. We are to honour and uphold the body when it is a question of emancipation, of beauty, of freedom of thought, of joy, of desire. We must despise it in so far as it sets itself up as the principle of gravity and inertia, when it obstructs the movement toward light; we must despise it in so far as it represents the principle of disease and death, in so far as its specific essence is the essence of perversity, of decay, sensuality, and shame.”
It's like Camille Paglia and Chris Hedges sparring,,, but really the novel is better than that matchup.
By the way my cousin never came for she feared for her security.
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