Friday, June 14, 2013

The Longevity of Sharks: A philosophy of being.

We, these thinking things
Have purposes to serve
Varied and natural
Like Sharks 
Swimming in oceans for millenia
Successes provide by systems in balance
Unlike Sharks
Able to work against nature
A shark just is.
He goes about his business
We do.
So it seems that our being
Is a product of our doing
And we have a decided advantage/disadvantage
Being able to direct what we do
The Philosophy of Being depends on what you Be
All I can tell you for certain is that sharks, 
who have been here for longer than we,
are not assembling into societies,
spreading like a virus,
gobbling up resources,
producing waste,
reproducing,
reproducing...
Sharks live in a balance because they must
Perhaps if they could somehow make the choice
Things would end a little differently
If there can be any purpose to being
It must be what we can do that matters
The difference is responsibility.
 A shark just is. 
You and I can shape the world.
The philosophy of a human being is doing. 

-Thanks to all my readers over the five years I've been doing this.

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

What Canadians can learn from Turks.

Last Friday, Turkish police cracked down on protesters who were holding a sit in to stop the government from removing trees from one of the last remaining green spaces in Istanbul, Taksim Square.

Authorities want to cut down 600 trees to make room for apartments, parking, a shopping mall.
You know, the usual.

Turkey is a country on the grow at the moment. It has taken a secular turn where capitalism has become the norm. It has a healthy economy, (for the region,) despite not being interesting to the West, (meaning, there's little oil there.) However, the US is interested in Turkey for geographical reasons. American investors are taking advantage of Turkey's willingness to sell by investing in various projects, some of which are good, like infrastructure, but most are cash grabs, like the building of airports they don't need.

However, Turkey's PM, Erdogen, has been in power for ten years now and seems to have gotten the back of the Turkey's youth. Over the years, it is claimed, his religious conservative views have become more and more invasive. To help understand this claim please read this

Yet this is not what really started this whole "Turkish Spring" idea. In it's simplest form, some students went into a park to stop the cutting down of some trees, then were brutally attacked by the police, acting on behalf of Erdogen and the government. So now their really pissed off and who can blame them?

Thus the protest has gone from "Don't cut down these trees!" to "Erdogen must go!"
The protests are no longer confined to Taksim square but are pocketing up all over the country.
It's difficult to say if Turkey is going to go the way of Egypt, of Syria, of the Occupy movement, or nowhere. 
Everyone waits and watches.

But reduce it to it's lowest common denominators: 1.) The government is selling its resources to the highest bidder, ignoring prudence and logic. 2.) The government is using its conservativism against its own people, who don't agree with it. 

To Canadians, this sounds very familiar. 
Consider this quote from Arzu Cerkezoglu, president of the Confederation of Revolutionary Trade Unions of Turkey (DISK), Erdogan and his government "should start caring about the wishes and demands of the people and the workers."
She accused the government of "starting a war" against the Turkish people.
"They banned the rights we won and deserve. They are selling the rivers, the mountains and have put all [Turkey's] assets on the open market," she said.
Under Erdogan's leadership, Turkey has boosted economic growth and raised its international profile.
But he has been a divisive figure at home..."
Article here

Turks revolt because the leader of the country, a man who has and is currently hijacking the country's resources for the financial gain of corporations, not citizens, continues by force.

We, on the other hand, simply allow it to happen.
Where is our Taksim Square?

Saturday, June 1, 2013

Murderous White People


At the end of Chapter 13, in my book ASE, I clarify what the problem is. Although, in the context of the chapter, I am referring to the starting of wars, the blame is able to be more generically widespread to what readers of mine could express as “Mr. Taylor's problem with the world.” It is quoted, “If you are so inclined, it is unlikely you will have any problem finding other foreign examples, (of the problem.) However, if you're like me, you want to go to the biggest source, the top of the pyramid. Here you will find white, male, bitter, pinched, mean, old faces who have as their last concern, your well being. I think it is well worth our while to notice who is represented here and how. It used to be that “they who had all the gold made the rule.” Perhaps now we should scrap the Golden Rule and replace it with something else. After all, if you spent all your gold on bombs, you still make the rules. If you feel uncomfortable having this discussion, you had best be honest with yourself about why this is.”

So in its briefest expression, at its lowest common denominator and with caution now thrown to the wind I present what is probably my most controversial statement ever: My problem is with white people.
In the past, other races of folks have run around the globe, killing, raping, taking what they want from other people, even themselves. We can find in history examples of, for instance, this African people wiping out that African people. Or perhaps, these Asians wiping out these other Asians. We can also point to ancient ideas that segregate, or at minimum “devalue” other humans lives: Perhaps you are part of a culture that finds women to be lesser than men, or the handicapped, or even the less intelligent. Perhaps you go so far as to clarify your distinctions such that only certain hair or eye colours are acceptable. It doesn't matter, because dead is dead.

Despite all this “practice,” I stand by my statement that, in the modern world and for the last approximately 300 years: the white hand is the one holding the whip. No race has stolen more resources, plundered more land and killed more people. In my research for this piece, I looked up some numbers. I did so because often when you read a book, or watch a documentary, facts and figures are presented in such a way that they support the author's goals. I wanted to make sure that when I say white people have killed more than any other race, I was correct. It appears I am correct by an extremely large margin. In my research I discovered some people have already tried to answer this question, which is strictly a number, by saying the Romans have, or the Mongols have. Well, firstly (idiots!) Romans are white. Secondly, the Romans (in the Empire's prime,) wiped out approximately eight million people. The Mongols, during Genghis Khan's reign killed an estimated forty million people. While these numbers are large, the number of people killed by whites is measured in billions.

Consider Britain alone: It killed or allowed to die by way of purposeful inaction, nearly two billion Indians and did so in a paltry eighty years. The Germans killed up to seventeen million in less than ten years. The Belgians killed over ten million Congolese just to harvest rubber. The European invasion, (I think it's fair to call it an invasion,) of North and South America killed off several hundred million of indigenous peoples, even using the most conservative numbers. I would say all of those deaths occurred in the time between the fifteenth and twentieth centuries, except for the fact that these murders continue to this day, (albeit mostly at the hands of Americans,) by way of people being displaced at the “hands of progress.”

Now, having said all this, it may occur to some of you that the White Peril is not necessarily the product of being white, that is to say, not a product of race but rather a product of place. Meaning that it is only because whites have power, (money,) not necessarily because they have paler flesh. This could be considered true, but in order to do so, one would have to ignore the fact that for these many hundreds of years, Caucasians have considered only the opposite. If, for instance, we could convince a Nazi to raise up a healthy Hebrew baby to adulthood, giving him or her all the environmental cushions that a Nazi child would have, (provided he or she was “white enough,”) then surely it could be scientifically proven that race is not a determinant in the varied successes of any particular human. Thus we come to the great lie that all racists must hide behind.

Racism through the ages does not support the ideas represented in the previous paragraph. Whites are not the Kings of the World because they are white, as much as non-whites are not the slaves of the world because they are not. Whites are in charge because they took charge. They did so brutally and with only power and wealth in mind. There are very few instances of whites not “winning” whatever claim they undertook. Looking back in history, there have been times of reparations, but all of these cannot ease the past suffering of those people which Caucasoids chose to exploit. In fact, most of the reparations offered by, for instance, England to India, or America to the Native Americans, have been charades to save face. Once you have all the gold, all the land, all the bombs, any apology or even establishment of right cannot hold a flame to near or complete genocide.

So why is it that I'm still alive? Why haven't the non-white nations of the world risen up and smote us all? (Yes, I'm white. I'm about as white as you can get.) The answer, albeit painful, is simple. It's because whites, despite being bastards, have brought the world to the point it is at now. We have pushed progress faster than any other race, nation or idea. Everyone who isn't white, strives to be white, or perhaps more correctly, strives to live within the western paradigm. Even to this day, with America as the current Empire, stomping around the world killing brown people, immigration to the US flows uncontested. Everybody wants the cushy job, the air conditioning and the Big Mac. Some of you, at this point, are probably thinking this sounds like I'm gloating, (being white,) or even some kind of weird backwards racist, but the fact is I'm embarrassed. I'm ashamed of my race, my culture, even my current status in life. I have the cushy job, air conditioning and I can have a Big Mac whenever I want. I can't help that it just happened to be white Europeans that either developed and/or exploited the sciences that came out of Europe after the middle ages. We are where we are. I can't even help the fact that I can do nothing to better the situation. We are all trapped in a status quo that not only devalues existence, but may prove to be its demise. Some of you might even argue that "the whiteness" I'm referring to isn't shared by, for instance, Barack Obama. You're wrong. The whiteness isn't measured by the colour of your skin, but by your ability to "act white." (Be greedy, cruel, spoiled and ignorant.)

I'd like to suggest that, as it was the wealthy and powerful that were the ones that got us into this mess, that it be the same that get us out. Just because you're grandfather was evil doesn't mean you have to be. So how about it, powerful leaders of the western paradigm? Which of you is going to be the one to stand up, be pragmatic, be honest, be prudent and say, "I'm sorry, here's what we're going to do to fix it?"

Take the chance now, before the chance is taken from you...