GuidoWorld

Circus of Hope

Last weekend I saw the Cirque du Soleil in Atlanta. It was not only visually amazing, but a powerfully emotional experience. To see people push their bodies to perform at such a high level of execution and precision was awe inspiring. Watching people work together in such a organized manner demonstrated the level of harmony and purpose people can accomplish. When people work together to create such intense beauty and grace it is gripping and uplifting.

The Olympics and the NASA objective of getting to the moon are two other examples of how far people can push themselves and those around them to accomplish amazing feats. In some ways it is easy to fathom people working on their own to accomplish the previously impossible, but when people work together as an intricate machine it is truly mind boggling. The opening ceremonies for the Olympics in China this pass year was another example of how jaw dropping fantastic teamwork can be.

These feats of teamwork give me great hope for the future of man. The Cirque du Soleil in particular was impressive and hopeful, in the fact that the performers appeared to be from so many cultural and national backgrounds. Seeing such diversity working and functioning so intimately together was something to marvel at. It shows how well we can not only cooperate, but how we can flourish in harmonic rhythm.

Our politicians still talk of patriotic nationalism and globalism at the same time, without recognizing their irreconcilability.

I’m sure the Cirque du Soleil is filled with conflict as well as harmony, with self interest as well as teamwork. Yet, when all is said and done they can come out night after night and work as a well oiled machine an accomplish the goals and vision of the group. Such success breeds harmony and a sense of purpose which carries one past all obstacles and petty feelings. No society is, or will ever be perfect, but a global community constructed on our providing for everyone’s basic needs has many templates of success to pattern itself after.

The Cirque du Soleil, and the Olympics are just two of many thousands of models man has used to inspire himself to create beauty and harmony. In a circus not everyone has to have an outstanding skill, some people’s role is to support and assist those with talent and determination. Some stay in the background and organize, prepare or just plain encourage the performers of the troop to do their best. While many make the circus possible by just being an appreciative audience.

Mankind is incredible in its talent and industry. When our goal is to build and invent we create truly impressive objects and systems, and when our goal is to destroy or conquer we can be unimagineably brutal and devious.

The hope is that man begins to make his goals worthy of being accomplished, for man has shown that he is quite capable of accomplishing what he sets out to do.

The following lyrics address these ideas from a similar perspective. This song is part of a CD I should have on this site later this year.

Carnival                                                           7/4/08

Life is a carnival
A merry-go-round slowly spinning for me
There are wonders at every turn
Novel and talented people smiling

Here’s to the people who play hard
Here’s to the people who take time to care
Everyday is a party
Everyday is a walk at the fair

Come waltz a number with me
Gliding in step we fashion our own world
There is magic in melody
Poetry, love and sweetest harmony

Both performers and watchers are we
Take a bow before clapping
I’ll be your audience
A good fan for cheering
Then I’ll bask in your applause

Life is a carnival
A merry-go-round slowly spinning for me
There are wonders at every turn
Novel and talented people smilng

Jim Guido

Atrocities

What is happening to the Palestinians is appalling for many reasons. In my lifetime I have heard of many atrocities. The situation with the Palestinians stands out in my  mind for a number of reasons. Since I’ve been alive (I’m 53) most atrocities are perpetuated by a ruthless dictator or military leader. They are realtively short lived, and other nations either protest, minimize or ignore the situation. In time the chaos either burns itself out or succumbs to international pressure.

The Isreali atrocities have occurred over decades of time and not the work of one meglomaniacal leader but rather a national policy of a democratic state. This is not to say that Isreali citizens openly support the murderous actions of their government, but somehow the  organized political process does nothing to end the aggressive policies of the state. While  many Americans have protested the War in Vietnam, Iraq, etc. I know of no mass outrage expressed in Isreal.

Much of the world is aware and angry at the situation with the US being the major obstacle to international unity in pressuring Isreal to be humane. The US does not stop at ignoring the problem, but actually aids and supports the atrocities. The US uses its veto power to keep the UN powerless in addressing this issue in a substantive manner.

While the US press stays mute the rest of the world expresses its horror and sadness. The folllowing articles discuss the facts while painting the picture of the situation in the middle east.

These facts are from one of the articles below. Take a moment and really feel these statistics before moving on

According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, the final tally read: 1,314 Palestinians killed, including 416 children and 106 women; 5,320 injured, including 1,855 children and 795 women.

In comparison, the number of Israelis killed included four civilians and nine soldiers, along with 84 injured.

And according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, the buildings destroyed included 4,100 residential homes (with 17,000 damaged), 20 mosques, 25 educational institutions and medical facilities, 31 security offices, 16 government buildings, and 1,500 factories and shops.

The Office of the UN’s Humanitarian Coordinator pointed out that 16 health facilities and an equal number of ambulances were destroyed or damaged during the 22-day conflict.

The last time the US restrained Israel in its never-ending wars of aggression was when President Eisenhower pulled the plug on the Anglo-French-Israeli effort to grab the Suez Canal in 1956.

Since then, we have not even chastised Israel when its actions hurt the United States. During the 6-Day war in 1967, for example, Israel attacked the USS Liberty, a Navy signals intelligence ship, in international waters, and murdered over 30 American sailors. The Israelis, of course, claimed it was an accident — but the Israeli claim was at least questionable, to put it charitably, because the Israeli fighter bombers made multiple attack passes, before Israeli gunboats machine gunned survivors in the water. Moreover, festooned with antennas, the Liberty had a very distinctive profile and was flying a huge American flag. Yet the US Congress never held an inquiry into Israel’s culpability (the only time in our history Congress failed investigate the root causes of a Naval disaster) and the DoD inquiry was as a disgraceful white wash.

Viewed in retrospect, the pusillanimous reaction to the assault on the USS Liberty by the United States government had a decisive grand strategic effect, however. It told Israel in no uncertain terms that it was now free to ignore or even hurt the interests of its patron in the pursuit of its own venal ambitions. History certainly suggests as much, because since that attack, Israel has operated without even a modicum of cosmetic restraint by the US. The Israelis have felt free to plant spies in the US government, like Jonathan Pollard. Most recently Israeli Prime Minister Omert bragged to Israeli citizens and the press about about he made Bush dance to his tune by interrupting a speech Bush was making in Philadelphia and telling Bush to humiliate the inept Condolezza Rice by forcing her to abstain on the UN resolution calling for a halt in fighting in Gaza — a resolution that she had helped to draft, presumably with Bush’s blessing.

Nevertheless, the American taxpayers continued to finance Irsrael’s arrogant behaviour year after year by repeatedly shovelling billions of dollars for new weapons and military/economic aid to Israel. The transfer of our front line weapons has been justified repeatedly as being necessary for Israel’s self defense, yet the Israelis have repeatedly used those weapons for offensive attacks, recently in Lebanon (2006) and now in Gaza. In the case of Gaza, it used the distraction of the US election in Nov 08 to break the cease fire (again using US weapons), and after triggering the desired response from Hamas, it unleashed its long-planned murderous attack on Gaza in late December, just weeks before the innauguration of President Barack Obama, in effect, pulling the rug out from under Obama and painting him into a corner at the very time when Obama was trying to focus his energies on and build bipartisan political support for dealing with the worst internal economic crisis since the Great Depression.

The GBU-39 guided bomb is perhaps the most egregious case point illustrating how our aid directly helps Israel to wage aggressive war regardless of American interests. After the disastrous Israeli attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006, the Pentagon pushed for and Congress approved the transfer of thousands of precision bombs to replenish Israel’s stocks in August and September 2007. The GBU-39 Small Diameter Bomb was not included in this gift. But then, more recently, and for no apparent reason, four months before its assault on Gaza, the Pentagon first notified Congress of the GBU-39 transfer in August 2008. Congress was in recess during August, but transfer of GBU-39s to Israel was one of the first items it disposed of in after reconvening in September, in dutiful obedience to the demands of the Israel Lobby and its wholly owned subsidiaries in the Pentagon. These weapons and their delivery racks were then rushed to Israel, and in less that 3 months from the time of Congressional approval, 1000 GBU-39s were cleared aerodynamically for release from Israel’s planes and placed in the operational inventory, just in time for Israel’s attack on the Gaza Ghetto. The GBU-39 is one of the most modern weapons in the American inventory.

Last September, the GBU-39s were trumpeted by the Israeli press as bunker busters of choice for an attack on Iran. But that claim was preposterous and most likely deliberate misinformation, given that we now know the Israelis had been planning the assault on the Gaza Ghetto for at least three months. It was preposterous because GBU-39 has a tiny warhead (only 50lbs encased in a 280 lb bomb). Its small size and (theoretical) high accuracy, however, makes the GBU-39 a far more appropriate as a weapon of choice for assassinating individuals and small groups in densely populated urban areas, like Gaza, than for taking out deeply-buried nuclear components in Iran.

Unfortunately for the mass of innocent Gazans, the GBU 39 does not work as accurately as advertised. It has reliability problems, among other things, according to my sources some of whom have experience in using this weapon (indeed, one told me he thought its problems made it a step backward in effectiveness). To make matters worse, targeting intelligence is never as good as claimed by airpower enthusiasts. In the real world, once the bombing starts, the feed back from the effects of the attacks is ambiguous at best, and consequently target lists proliferate wildly, as was the case in WWII, Korea, Viet Nam, Iraq (I & II), Kosovo, Lebanon (I & II), and now again in Gaza.

All of which begs the question with respect to blindly supporting Israel: How much is enough? On January 19, Bruce Robbins argued in the Providence Journal that enough is enough.

Israel’s claim of self defense in Gaza was bogus because, the ceasefire was working. Robbins quotes Israeli figures, which say the number of rockets fired out of Gaza in July, August, September and October 2008 was, respectively, 1, 8, 1, and 2, whereas in the two months before the cease-fire, the Gazans fired 149 and 87 rockets. The ceasefire was broken on Nov. 4-5, when Israel launched air and ground attacks against Hamas, while the attention of the world was distracted by the U.S. election (sound familiar?). Whatever started this new and massive round of atrocities, the Israeli parliamentary election being he most probably candidate, it was not a few more rockets, rockets that may not have been fired by Hamas at all, but by splinter groups, like Islamist Jihad. What Robbins does not say is that the overwhelming majority of rockets fired from within Gaza are homemade Qassam rockets. Qassams do not even have a guidance system. Their explosive warhead weighs between one pound and 22 pounds, depending on the model, and it is made of smuggled TNT and urea nitrate, a common fertilizer. Its propellent is a mixture of sugar and potassium nitrate, another common fertilizer, and the fuse designed to detonate the warhead is made from a rifle or pistol cartridge, a spring, and a nail. In flight, the rocket is not even spin stabilized but merely settled down by primitive fins, make out of sheet metal, mounted next to the nozzles … which is a dynamically unstable configuration and is why it often leaves a crazy corkscrewing smoke trail when launched in the direction of Israel.

None of this matters, however. It does not matter that the Israelis have slaughtered over 1300 people in the Gaza Ghetto against a loss of of only 13 Israelis, because Congress is cheering, having passed a resolution of overwhelming support (390 to 5) in the House. And it does not matter that Obama is hosed and will probably be humiliated into toeing the line from the git go, because he has pledged to preserve the special relationship.

Franklin “Chuck” Spinney is a former military analyst for the Pentagon. He currently lives on a sailboat in the Mediterranean and can be reached at chuck_spinney@mac.com

Articles such as these are everywhere but on and in the US mainstream press.

Every previous president, except for maybe Carter, has given in and assisted the Isreali’s in their disregard for internatinal law and human ethics.

Will Obama be any different? He had a good first day, but can he stand up for what’s right when no other president before him had such integrity.

I’m not pro-Palestine nor anti-Isreal, I’m just a person who never sees genocide as a solution.

Jim Guido

First Day A +

In yesterday’s post (see below) I outlined eight fundamental ethical stances Obama would have to quickly tend to in order to back up his talk of change, hope and unity.

Well he tended or at least appeared to tend to at least three of them

First, he immediately began working on the middle east situation and is involving the Palestinians in the dialogue. In the past we have preferred to demonize the PLO and Hamas and basically only spoke to the Isrealies.

Second, Obama tried to put a halt to all of Bush’s last minute laws which many of them had to do with our basic human rights.

Third, he announced plans to close Guantanamo Bay. This, of course, has potentionally strong implications in terms of ending our policies of engaging in torture and also is a step towards restoring people’s rights to trial and due process.

Fourth, Obama began talks on plans to exit Iraq. The key here is that he just doesn’t move the military from Iraq to Afghanistan as he hinted during his campaign.

I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised by the majority of this. Obama showed mid season form on his swing today, let’s see if he has any follow through.

Jim Guido

Prove It

There were some nice words from President Obama today. Yet, his appointments and cabinet members do little to give me hope. I would jump on board the hope wagon if Obama did a few things which demonstrated the beginnings of a return to decency for the US. Without these bare minimum of basic human principles his words will remain empty.

1) Stop using the war on terror as a pretext to take away our citizens basic human rights. Return our rights to us quickly and earnestly.

2) Stop demonizing nations who have ideological differences from us.

3) Stop punishing innocent people for living in countries whose leaders we do not like.

4) Stop  our military, government and police from using any form of torture.

5) Stop undermining international law and the UN.

6) Stop supporting nations which indulge in ethnic cleansing and mass murder.

7) Stop talking like our nation is morally and ethically superior to all other nations.

Live up to being a citizen of the land of freedom, and have the US stop leading the world in % of the populace imprisoned.

Millions have died and suffered due to our sanctions and embargoes against nations. Iraq and Cuba are just two examples of how we punish civilians for their leaders.

The same type of prejudice which the blacks have endured in this country has now spread to other groups such as the Muslims and Arabs.

Patriotism and its us and them values accomplishes unity in much the same manner as the KKK.

When it comes to how we view and treat much of our fellow men I am often embarrassed to be an American. I would love to be proud of our country and the role it could play in helping us create a global community where everyone’s basic needs are provided for. The only way to reduce war and terror is to improve the lot of people’s lives and to cultivate and share the bounty of the planet.

Yet, if these eight issues are not addressed at the beginning of Obama’s administration, then it will be conclusive evidence that true change is not Obama’s agenda.

When it comes to basic human kindness there should be no waiting time. Each moment we wait brings more unnecessary suffering and hatred.

Each day many people are being killed and starved, and a few simple changes of policy could put an end to much of this. We’ve had too many leaders in the last century who have talked of human compassion while tolerating and executing policies which are callous and inhumane.

Just remember Mr. President, the whole world is watching.

You might be able to get by with articulate good words and token actions of humanity. But I truly hope you and the rest of us are better than that.

Jim Guido

Obama Babble

Those familiar with my posts know that I’m quite suspicious of anyone allowed to win the nomination in either party. Those who might really rock the status quo are ignored, marginalized or depicted as crazy by our military/industrial complex run media. One only has to look at the way Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich and Howard Dean were portrayed to see examples of this form of media control in action.

This is why despite his charm and articulation I had my doubts of Obama as a man of change. During his campaign his foreign policies definitely belied a man of change. His pro war rhetoric regarding terrorism, Iraq and Afghanistan were tried and true Orwellian propaganda. The old ironic I’m a uniter and a fighter routine, mixed with patriotic global humanitarianism were fed to us daily. Yes, that should sound confusing.

Since winning the election Obama has continued to talk like a man of  change and act like an old school conservative. His cabinet, advisors and retinue are as old school as one can get. He is surrounding himself with political and economic experts whose career of policies and actions have greatly been responsible for the political and economic messes and crisis we now find ourselves in.

First Obama is advocating for the same tired old bail outs and stimulus plans which have been part of the problem. The economy doesn’t need stimulating it needs restructuring. During the initial years of the Bush administration many were bemoaning the foolishness of having a 300 billion dollar a year national debt. Economic experts around the world complained that this was unsustainable and would result in the US economy ultimately drowning in a sea of debt. Well after a few bubbles these predictions have come to pass.

The solution offered by these forward thinking economists was in a reduction of debt and borrowing habits and an increase in an expansion of the real economy by encouraging the type of investment born from savings as opposed to loaning. This suggestion was not heeded as policy makers and the Fed continued to try to borrow and loan its way out of the problem.

Now the problem is plain for all to see and not just forward thinking economists, yet Obama and all the kings men continue to try to stimulate humpty together again. Obama’s solutions are to put together another money printing loan dominated stimulus package, and to print and borrow our way out of a defaltionary recession.  Obama made his intentions clear of how he plans  improving the economy when he announced that his projections are for a 1.2 trillion dollar debt this year along with a 1.6 trillion dollar debt next year. This was accompanied by comments leading one to conclude that we will be seeing plus 1 trillion a year increases in the national debt for years to come.

If 300 billion was unsustainable a few years back how is 1.2 trillion to 2 trillion a year sustainable now. What makes this even more absurd is the fact that we are entering a deflationary period where wages, prices and values of things are going down. In recent months the world economy has lost over 50 trillion dollars. So in a time when the world is losing money, wages and prices are dropping how hard is it to have our national debt ascend, and what could be the long term benefit of such a debt. Isn’t it just more of short term relief adding to more long term woe. But this is all Obama’s policy makers know, and this is the path the self proclaimed man of change has chosen. Now, with the new emphasis he will be able to point out how bad things could have been if it weren’t for the jobs he has saved (created).

Part of the reason for Obama’s bleak rhetoric is probably handler influenced. The old Wall Street pros that surround him know the benefit of talking down a company’s (the nations) expectations so that you can have a positive report later. It is stamdard procedure for many companies to talk down expectations at the beginning of a quarter so that they can beat estimates and talk their stock go up at the end of the reporting period. Obama’s articulating how bad it is and how bad its going to be while Bush is still in office is safe and can only make him look good in comparision. Even if things get worse he can state that he warned everyone and that it is better than he originally thought it be and this is just evidence of how well his programs, policies and agendas are working. Thereby keeping the faith and support of the faithful while contuing to try to solve a problem with the wrong tools.

Jim Guido

The Truth of Illusion: A poem

The Truth of Illusion

Many a sage hath said
“All is an illusion”
If all is an illusion
then illusion is an illusion
and all is true

If all is true
then truth is true
And the truth of illusion
is that it is an illusion

Belief
is knowing something is true
despite all evidence to the contrary

Belief
is the truth
of illusion

Belief
is denial
A denial of mystery
Of the truth of mystery

Belief
is denial
A denial of truth
Of the truth of truth

Belief
is the ultimate illusion
for it makes truth into an illusion
And it makes
Belief
Into the disbelief of truth
and the belief of illusion

Belief
Is in what one
cannot know or see
touch, hear or validate

Belief
is about the eternal

Truth
which is eternal
is not real
it is belief

Truth
is
about
what is

Truth
is not forever
Forever
is not about life

Truth
is bout life
And
Belief
is about
the denial
of life

I’m not certain
if that will be
true tomorrow
but today
and for all
the day’s
I have known
All the day’s
I have touched
loved and breathed
it is the only truth
I’ve lived

Jim Guido