Curtis Dahlgren
"Don't jump to conclusions about the shooters' motives"? WHY NOT?
By Curtis Dahlgren
"Et tu, Brute? But for what?" – Julius Caesar, 44 BC (paraphrased)
"President Lincoln assassinated; feds investigate John Wilkes Booth's motive" – imaginary headline (April 15, 1865)
"It may take years to investigate the motive or motives of the Orlando shooter(s)." – your Attorney General (paraphrased)
"We are working to determine the precise motivation for the attack on our mission." – your Secretary of State (after Benghazi)
USA TODAY, June 13, 2016: "MASSACRE: Shooter pledged allegiance to ISIL" [Islamic State in the Levant]
Was that a Freudian slip or a plain old gaffe? Or the plain Truth? People are still debating the motive for the JFK assassination; never mind that the Kennedys were capitalists and Lee Harvey Oswald was a Marxist. What difference, at this point in time, does it make? Well, I'll tell you; there isn't much difference between laughter and slaughter, but it pays to know what it is! There's a whole lot of killing goin' on in this whole world, and in light of recent events and punditry, I am compelled to re-post someone's most important column here.
http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/dahlgren/151118 "Crossing the Rubicon to WWIII? A Tale of Two 'Brothers'"
"A wolf and a lamb met at a river while drinking one day. The wolf for some reason wanted to pick a fight and accused the lamb of muddying his water. The lamb says, "Impossible. I'm downstream." Then the wolf accuses him of slandering his kind the year before.
"Impossible," says the lamb. "I wasn't even born yet." So the wolf, finding it impossible to argue, drew near to the lamb, foaming at the mouth.
"Sirrah," he snarled, "if it was not you, it was your father, and that's the same thing!" He bit the lamb's head off and had him for lunch.
MORAL: The wicked man will always find an excuse for evil-doing."
I PARAPHRASE AESOP THERE (500 BC), and "that's the way it is," Walter Cronkite would say. He must be spinning in his grave. And speaking of spinning, our State Department says that we must find jobs for the jihadists. And that we must not jump to conclusions or call evil men wicked – only "extreme." Even the jihadists of ISIL aren't "evil""; they're just "extremely extreme."
God must laugh, while the barbarians laugh a different laugh – as they go about methodically killing children of their own father Abraham, brother against brother! My mother used to say, "Well, excuse me for living." Sigh. This is the story I was born to write. The story of two brothers:
Two brothers from Ireland, one Catholic and one Protestant; two brothers from Kenya, one Muslim and one agnostic; two brothers in Iraq, one Sunni and one Shia; two brothers in Pakistan, one Muslim and one Hindu; two brothers in Kurdistan, one Christian and one none-of-the-above. Simply not born into the right tribe for the powers-that-be, or maybe the powers that think they're the powers-of-destiny.
Call these "two brothers" Cain and Abel; we all came from the same blood. Why waste the blood over trivialities? But humans always find an excuse. The mother of one of the Paris terrorists said her son didn't mean to kill; he was just "stressed." Yes, there's no lack of "stress" out there, which is why I just rewrote the intro to this column. Originally, it was to have started out like this:
"Driving along country roads in Iowa, early in the 20th century, I saw and heard farmers plowing behind teams of horses, singing happily as they walked. Today farmers drive tractors – but where did the singing and happiness go?" – Editor, Plain Truth
It's funny, but I started to clean my garage the other day and stumbled upon this old magazine on the floor, a tabloid-looking rag with Chou En-lai on the cover, like a time warp. Last week I was talking about wormholes, and this magazine literally had wormholes (book-worm holes) in it. I never did finish the job of garage-cleaning. I went on to read the rest of the editorial:
"Where is any good news today? Where is any future to be found in nations developing nuclear weapons which can erase all life from the earth? . . . There is a CAUSE for every effect. There is a CAUSE for the state of the world today [but] it is considered 'intellectual' to be willingly IGNORANT of that . . It is popular to embrace agnosticism, meaning we don't know.
"Where do we find reassurance for tomorrow on university campuses when leaders of tomorrow are consigning morality to the limbo of an outmoded past, where suicides are on the increase, and unproven dogma are being absorbed by impressionable minds?
"Is there then nothing to live for? Self-professing 'great' men, professing themselves wise, became fools . . warning us that we must 'adjust' to a future of 'complex' dangers for which there are just NO SOLUTIONS?"[emphasis in original]
The same issue of the P.T. had an article titled "When terrorists go nuclear." A Ford Foundation writer said, "We guard our money much better than we have guarded, are guarding, or will guard our nuclear material." It sounds as if this were published last week, but it came off the press in June of 1975, shortly after the "end" of the Vietnam war.
By the way, the World Trade Center was bombed the first time while we were celebrating the "peace dividends" of the Cold War ending. After we had bailed out Muslims in the old Yugoslavia in the 90s, the WTC got hit again on 9-11 (that's the thanks we get!).
And now Paris gets hit right after Europe takes in waves of Muslim refugees, people that nations such as Saudi Arabia refuse to take. Some of these refugees are dressed better than I am. The Libyan rebels drove better Toyota pickups than mine was. Who gave these refugees the green light to go to the West?
Christians began to be persecuted and martyred after your President's Cairo speech. ISIS went on its rampage of barbarity immediately after five commanders were released from Gitmo. I'm just saying (just the facts). Cain probably killed Abel right after Abel had done a favor for him too. They call it human nature, but the editor of the Plain Truth said that human nature is going to be changed:
"People will learn the WAY to real happiness and find it. But I am not naïve enough to suppose that this utopia will blossom forth automatically. It will be produced in spite of men."
[In spite of women too. More to come.]
Oh, just one more thing, ma'am. They never fail to question the motives of a police officer immediately! Just a minute. Just the facts, ma'am. This is the city. I work here. I work the night shift. I work to keep the peace. At least that's what my job description said. So what's with all the TV cameras and inflammatory rhetoric encouraging these so-called protesters to riot, ma'am? Just because they steal TV sets doesn't mean you'll have more viewers. Just report the news, ma'am; don't encourage it! There's nothing in it for you to do that. Just the facts, ma'am.
P.S. That last paragraph couldn't wait until next week. Art Buchwald said, "Whether these are the best of times or the worst of times, it's the only time we've got."
In other words, make the MOST of it. To the young people, I would say don't blow it. To the old-timers, I would say, "Don't WASTE it."
DO WE? THE TIME IS NOW!
© Curtis Dahlgren
June 29, 2016
"Et tu, Brute? But for what?" – Julius Caesar, 44 BC (paraphrased)
"President Lincoln assassinated; feds investigate John Wilkes Booth's motive" – imaginary headline (April 15, 1865)
"It may take years to investigate the motive or motives of the Orlando shooter(s)." – your Attorney General (paraphrased)
"We are working to determine the precise motivation for the attack on our mission." – your Secretary of State (after Benghazi)
USA TODAY, June 13, 2016: "MASSACRE: Shooter pledged allegiance to ISIL" [Islamic State in the Levant]
Was that a Freudian slip or a plain old gaffe? Or the plain Truth? People are still debating the motive for the JFK assassination; never mind that the Kennedys were capitalists and Lee Harvey Oswald was a Marxist. What difference, at this point in time, does it make? Well, I'll tell you; there isn't much difference between laughter and slaughter, but it pays to know what it is! There's a whole lot of killing goin' on in this whole world, and in light of recent events and punditry, I am compelled to re-post someone's most important column here.
http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/dahlgren/151118 "Crossing the Rubicon to WWIII? A Tale of Two 'Brothers'"
"A wolf and a lamb met at a river while drinking one day. The wolf for some reason wanted to pick a fight and accused the lamb of muddying his water. The lamb says, "Impossible. I'm downstream." Then the wolf accuses him of slandering his kind the year before.
"Impossible," says the lamb. "I wasn't even born yet." So the wolf, finding it impossible to argue, drew near to the lamb, foaming at the mouth.
"Sirrah," he snarled, "if it was not you, it was your father, and that's the same thing!" He bit the lamb's head off and had him for lunch.
MORAL: The wicked man will always find an excuse for evil-doing."
I PARAPHRASE AESOP THERE (500 BC), and "that's the way it is," Walter Cronkite would say. He must be spinning in his grave. And speaking of spinning, our State Department says that we must find jobs for the jihadists. And that we must not jump to conclusions or call evil men wicked – only "extreme." Even the jihadists of ISIL aren't "evil""; they're just "extremely extreme."
God must laugh, while the barbarians laugh a different laugh – as they go about methodically killing children of their own father Abraham, brother against brother! My mother used to say, "Well, excuse me for living." Sigh. This is the story I was born to write. The story of two brothers:
Two brothers from Ireland, one Catholic and one Protestant; two brothers from Kenya, one Muslim and one agnostic; two brothers in Iraq, one Sunni and one Shia; two brothers in Pakistan, one Muslim and one Hindu; two brothers in Kurdistan, one Christian and one none-of-the-above. Simply not born into the right tribe for the powers-that-be, or maybe the powers that think they're the powers-of-destiny.
Call these "two brothers" Cain and Abel; we all came from the same blood. Why waste the blood over trivialities? But humans always find an excuse. The mother of one of the Paris terrorists said her son didn't mean to kill; he was just "stressed." Yes, there's no lack of "stress" out there, which is why I just rewrote the intro to this column. Originally, it was to have started out like this:
"Driving along country roads in Iowa, early in the 20th century, I saw and heard farmers plowing behind teams of horses, singing happily as they walked. Today farmers drive tractors – but where did the singing and happiness go?" – Editor, Plain Truth
It's funny, but I started to clean my garage the other day and stumbled upon this old magazine on the floor, a tabloid-looking rag with Chou En-lai on the cover, like a time warp. Last week I was talking about wormholes, and this magazine literally had wormholes (book-worm holes) in it. I never did finish the job of garage-cleaning. I went on to read the rest of the editorial:
"Where is any good news today? Where is any future to be found in nations developing nuclear weapons which can erase all life from the earth? . . . There is a CAUSE for every effect. There is a CAUSE for the state of the world today [but] it is considered 'intellectual' to be willingly IGNORANT of that . . It is popular to embrace agnosticism, meaning we don't know.
"Where do we find reassurance for tomorrow on university campuses when leaders of tomorrow are consigning morality to the limbo of an outmoded past, where suicides are on the increase, and unproven dogma are being absorbed by impressionable minds?
"Is there then nothing to live for? Self-professing 'great' men, professing themselves wise, became fools . . warning us that we must 'adjust' to a future of 'complex' dangers for which there are just NO SOLUTIONS?"[emphasis in original]
The same issue of the P.T. had an article titled "When terrorists go nuclear." A Ford Foundation writer said, "We guard our money much better than we have guarded, are guarding, or will guard our nuclear material." It sounds as if this were published last week, but it came off the press in June of 1975, shortly after the "end" of the Vietnam war.
By the way, the World Trade Center was bombed the first time while we were celebrating the "peace dividends" of the Cold War ending. After we had bailed out Muslims in the old Yugoslavia in the 90s, the WTC got hit again on 9-11 (that's the thanks we get!).
And now Paris gets hit right after Europe takes in waves of Muslim refugees, people that nations such as Saudi Arabia refuse to take. Some of these refugees are dressed better than I am. The Libyan rebels drove better Toyota pickups than mine was. Who gave these refugees the green light to go to the West?
Christians began to be persecuted and martyred after your President's Cairo speech. ISIS went on its rampage of barbarity immediately after five commanders were released from Gitmo. I'm just saying (just the facts). Cain probably killed Abel right after Abel had done a favor for him too. They call it human nature, but the editor of the Plain Truth said that human nature is going to be changed:
"People will learn the WAY to real happiness and find it. But I am not naïve enough to suppose that this utopia will blossom forth automatically. It will be produced in spite of men."
[In spite of women too. More to come.]
Oh, just one more thing, ma'am. They never fail to question the motives of a police officer immediately! Just a minute. Just the facts, ma'am. This is the city. I work here. I work the night shift. I work to keep the peace. At least that's what my job description said. So what's with all the TV cameras and inflammatory rhetoric encouraging these so-called protesters to riot, ma'am? Just because they steal TV sets doesn't mean you'll have more viewers. Just report the news, ma'am; don't encourage it! There's nothing in it for you to do that. Just the facts, ma'am.
P.S. That last paragraph couldn't wait until next week. Art Buchwald said, "Whether these are the best of times or the worst of times, it's the only time we've got."
In other words, make the MOST of it. To the young people, I would say don't blow it. To the old-timers, I would say, "Don't WASTE it."
DO WE? THE TIME IS NOW!
© Curtis Dahlgren
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(See RenewAmerica's publishing standards.)
