zazen

Very well written. Centrism and claiming to be centrist can be a cowardly way to hide from more mentally taxing discussions. I wrote this elsewhere but feel it has relevance here. ''Mature rationality is not just understanding but discerning . The enlightened types like to be detached from the disputes and dichotomies of the common man, looking down at it all from a lofty place of transcendence. As Ram Dass said, part of awakening can be playing the role of form we are in - that is human. To be human, we've got to get down in the muck where the humanness is happening. Moral relativity is about understanding both sides but moral legitimacy is about determining and discerning the rightness of each side. Pluralism doesn't always mean neutralism. It's possible to see both sides of every contentious issue - that's a sign of intellectual maturity. But just because we can see both sides doesn’t mean we should live our life as though they both have equal merit. If we don’t further grapple with the rightness of each side we neglect a whole dimension of understanding by simply leaving it at “well I can see both sides which means both are equally right”. It’s good to understand that all concepts are relative and that none contain absolute truth, but this necessarily means that some concepts are more relatively truthful than others and by extension some actions are more relatively right than others. None of us live our lives as though all things are the same and all concepts are equally true - men can't have babies and I can't identify as something I'm not. We don’t drink bleach to wake us up, we order a coffee. When we want to go to somewhere we take a specific route, we don’t walk in a random direction and hope for manifestation to do its magic. Our daily choices reflect our reliance on relative truths as a fundamental aspect of our everyday life. I can understand why a robber had to rob to feed his family but I can still claim it not to be right. I can understand why Hamas did what they did and still claim it not to be right. I can understand why Israel feels entitled to the land of Palestine and still claim it not to be right. Where a rational society malfunctions compared to a irrational one is that it doesn't mature past the stage of understanding towards discernment. It rationalises in every direction and gets stuck at the subjective level playing the game of moral relativity. Like a windmill able to go in all directions and see all perspectives but which keeps us going round and round, dazed, dizzy and chaotic. Maybe what's needed is to graduate to also having discernment which implies a hierarchy of values and thus a compass to guide us towards betterment. Deciding our direction with the windmill of moral relativity and not a compass is what keeps society lost, disillusioned, incoherent and polarized with no transcendental logos to unify around. I feel this is one of the reasons a lot of people in the West are returning to religion or tradition as a way to feel anchored in something with direction. But, religion and tradition can too easily become shortcuts to thinking and turn dogmatic - as can liberalism - that all perspectives can freely exist and are fine so we don't have to wrestle with the tougher beast that is discerning which perspectives are better or worse.''

@Danioover9000 That Osho vid you shared earlier was very interesting to say the least. I read some where that its not just propaganda but atrocity propaganda which is a fitting term. The lies keep piling up. @Raze That bulldozer story is just horrifying, body literally exploding from the pressure. And then the flour massacre. So a captive population of which half are children are starved (to PrEssUre HaMaS bRo) and then when they run after the aid they are shot at? Then we're told the pressure is to release hostages when deals have been declined to release them for a ceasefire and truce? As if they want us to believe they care about the hostages so much that they bomb a tiny strip of land in which they are held hostage? What more does the world need to see and how can Zionists just revert to blaming Hamas for everything with a serious face.

Sirius report: ''Another moment of clarity as Russia once again makes the point very clear that NATO forces present in Ukraine would cross a major red line. Do not confuse the token elements from NATO countries present in Ukraine as constituting NATO forces already being present: Scholz stated that NATO and European countries will not send ground forces to Ukraine.''

Isn't it a logical contradiction for some Israeli's to say that Hamas are so savage they don't even care about their people suffering above ground - but then they think they can pressure Hamas to give up or agree to a hostage exchange by bringing about suffering to the people they fight for by restricting aid. If the view is that Hamas are so savage and don't care about their people, why then think that restricting aid and bombing innocent people would pressure Hamas while their immune from it underground? Besides strategy - it seems the whole conversation about it being morally abhorrent to collectively punish a people seems to be absent because its now become normalised after months of war crimes that the US keeps co-signing on and only paying lip service to the fact they are 'concerned' yet not doing anything tangible but instead continue vetoing ceasefires. Disgusting.

One would think it wrong not to speak on whats going on and share the suffering taking place - at least to show Israeli's a side they maybe aren't being shown on their media, or to illicit a reaction to their states actions being wrong. The common response is these are bad apples and cherries being picked, but for a small country with a small population it seems to be a awful lot of bad cherries being picked continuously for many months now. There seems to exist a deep systemic dehumanization that needs to be brought to light. For a country that is on trial for Genocide and under the watchful the eye of the world to continue their actions and also speak in genocidal ways signals something clearly wrong. The fact that the West is complicit in this should make everyone question where power lies and how the world really works. How can these 'cherries' not know they have a follow up ICJ hearing later this week: Only a culture that breeds entitlement and believes in its impunity can act out in such a way. The US raised a naughty child and this is the result of not being held to account for decades on end. @Nivsch The fact that you see Gideon Levy as extreme - is actually extreme to most Westerners. This shows that Israel doesn't have a political left any more, it only has a right, far right and extreme far right. The center of gravity has moved totally right at least in terms of foreign policy and attitude towards Palestinians. Israel being more LGBT friendly doesn't make it okay to just bomb a captive population of 2 million. American culture that contains twerk dancing and drag shows for children doesn't mean what they do beyond their borders is any good either. Whether it was a Western country or a Eastern one I would equally criticize both.

Insisting that Russia and China accept behavior from the US that the US would never accept from them is simply endorsing global subservience to the US empire. Those who suggest Russia should just accept Ukraine's NATO integration or that China should endure US military presence in the name of "freedom and democracy" essentially advocate for unchecked US influence worldwide - a uni-polar world, not a multi-polar one. They can approve of democracy - the rule of the people (ie more than one) within their country, but are against the existence of multiple powers globally co-existing. It's not that the US isn't a power or won't be (decline doesn't mean collapse), its that its no longer the only power on the world stage and needs to acclimate to this new reality. It can't just keep being a geopolitical titanic navigating the sea and expect other powers to remain 'contained' in dingy boats along side it being submerged by the waves it causes by its actions.

Everyone's making good points here. The conversations evolved to the macro of what political system is better but overlooks the possibility that a system can be more fair but less good. Further, it may be good in domestic politics but bad in foreign policy - one can criticize a countries foreign policy whilst admiring its more developed domestic policies and culture. A system is only made good by the agents within the system. Similar to Ken Wilbers state vs structure we can say a system is only made good or bad by the state of being/mind of those within it. Is a democracy that dictates beyond its borders better than a dictatorship only dictating within its borders? In other words it is democratic within its borders but dictatorial beyond them and is often found meddling, regime changing and causing chaos globally. Just this weekend Imran Khan in Pakistan won an election that is being rigged and contested by the army and corrupt opposition who are Western puppets and ousted him previously. He was imprisoned on flimsy charges and had previously come out on BBC and in other interviews stating the US interference and a coup took place on good authority - silence from the West. Is it really a good idea to meddle with the 5th most populated nuclear powered nation who is on a fault line with another nuclear powered nation (India)? All because Imran Khan was independent and clear that they will act independently in their own countries interest and not allow for a US base to be set up due to past troubles. We can look at human right abuses within less developed nations, but that doesn't absolve more developed nations from doing bad. A democracy isn't immune from corruption or plutocracy - these are just more intricately woven into the fabric of government and done with sophistication. Democracy means rule by the people for the people - the implication that this is superior is based on the assumption that you have a informed populace who know whats good for them over a ignorant one that don't - more informed than entertained. In a classical dictatorship the dictator is overt, out in the open, dictating everything top down. In a imperfect democracy that is a form of inverted dictatorship the dictators are in the shadows of corporate boardrooms and lobby groups who dictate policies not aligned to the people from within.

True, hard to tell if he would have taken more of Ukraine. It’s one thing to have the power to take territory, but another to have the staying power within a territory - especially against a population resistant to it which more of Western Ukraine would be. Holding the view that Ukraine doesn’t exist as a ‘sovereign’ state is dangerous. A similar parallel to this is when the extreme elements of the anti-Israel camp don’t recognise Israel to exist or that it shouldn’t. It’s one thing to have this view within yourself, it’s another to use this as a basis for action. Whether he acted on this view as the main catalyst for invading or it was just on the periphery and used to justify his actions after the fact is another. The US didn’t force this view on him, but they contributed to him acting upon it and using it as justification in retrospect - besides the other main reasons of a legitimate threat being on their border with NATO expansion. Besides 2014 and other factors leading up to it I’m guessing Putin seized this chance while the West is distracted with its own domestic issues and before the Russian population declines and ages to levels making it unfeasible to secure a territorial buffer zone in the future. RFK I’m guessing would have listened to Western analysts who weren’t given the spotlight due to imperial interests and not provoked the inevitable. Once war erupts it’s too late but it can be settled. Boris could have aided in peace but hindered it - this is well known in UK but is often lost in the flood of propaganda and deflection. @zurew You don’t have to agree with all the points someone makes. Even if you don’t like the messenger for whatever reason, if the message has some valid points it’s worth sharing.

Even a US court has ruled the findings of plausible case for Genocide as valid now. https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/01/genocide-gaza-israel-california-court

I think when criticising countries, the people of those countries get offended as they personalise it as an attack on them - but usually it’s that we’re referring to the few bad agents who run the show. Not like some monolithic conspiracy but just as a confluence of aligned elite interests. That's why people wonder why there’s very few politicians who do what’s long term and strategically good for their country. As Leo mentions above - these politicians are ‘mired in groupthink’ they wouldn’t admire otherwise had they the ability to step outside of it, and are beholden to financial and political survival by entities and people they don’t always hold the same views as but where personal interests align to create bad public outcomes. Strategy requires a long term vision that short term 4 years cycles keeps cutting. Maybe that’s a flaw that needs to be somehow addressed in the political system. Each different political party undoes the work of the previous one on areas they differ in policy. By the time the party gets the groove of running the nation they get bogged down in saying and doing things they wouldn’t otherwise and prepping for the next election cycle instead of focusing on running the country. Besides the parties, influence and power lies with private sector (corporatism). The strings they pull politically causes dissonance. For example, US politics see’s Russia as a boogeyman and a current threat to the West (Europe particularly) yet LNG exports have been halted from US who the ‘West’ (Europe) rely on to fuel their economies and military budgets against this threat of Russia. Surely, you wouldn’t cripple your European allies (Nordstream anyone?) during major war time with Russia who you deem so evil? The only way to squre that circle is either Biden catering to the environmentally minded base of support for the coming election or the private sector pulling strings to cripple European industry/competition and make Europe even more dependent on the US - or the convenient marriage of both. Thats why the contradiction and dissonance of our own nations sounding good but doing bad exists. Our documents say we’re good ( “human rights, democracy, freedom” ) but the conduct of our state is otherwise - good documents, bad deeds. The imperialist mindset comes from the frame that anyones freedom anywhere is a threat to their supremacy everywhere. Thats why the US can set up 800 global bases including surrounding (in their softened words “to contain”) the borders and seas of Russia and China and frame it as acceptable, but if the role was reversed (Chinese/Russian base in Mexico?) they’d call it a national security threat from a entity wishing to dominate. Even Westerners themselves now feel disillusioned from their nations claiming an Angelic nature written in the ink of charters which is then contradicted in action. Those nations that call this out or challenge it have to pay the blood price through wars, interventionist coups, sanctions and propaganda campaigns that demonise them - which only turns the world more hostile towards the West and isolates it

Powerful nations, including the United States, do not allow foreign military threats to accumulate on their borders. This is why many analysts and officials in the West had warned for years that NATO's actions could lead to conflict. Yet, when the war did break out, it was often portrayed in the media as an "unprovoked invasion," despite these earlier warnings. History always seems to start the very date the Western powers feel transgressed against and that a certain transgression occurs. The same way for Israel the current conflict started on October 7th and 'just occurred' in a vacuum. What is omitted is the escalatory amount of provocations that lead to the eruption of war. The other side is then gaslit for being war mongering when their own military industrial complex and vested imperial interests have been behind the scenes churning the gears of war through think tanks, propaganda and contracts. It’s crafty - pushing someone into a corner despite them explicitly saying what their red lines are, then pointing fingers at them and using mass propaganda to paint them as a boogeyman for trying to get out of that corner. A snapshot look at a situation will show who is the clear aggressor in that narrow slot of time (Hamas on October 7th and Russia invading) but it would leave out the Birds Eye view needed to shed light on the covert provocative nature of the instigators. It is human to condemn acts of violence, but it is wise to condemn the conditions that led to those very acts and to mitigate them.

Ex colonizers should think why the majority of the world don't think like them. At least some colonial states like Portugal and Spain have evolved past that paradigm and recognize wrong from right in the current era. If someone comes out and says clearly who is more in the wrong in a situation - the assumption is that they are biased. But it could also be that even someone who did their best to view a situation objectively with fresh baby eyes and minimal bias comes to the same conclusion of who is more of the aggressor, instigator and oppressive party in a situation. There are other reasons why people don't come out and say who is wrong in a situation - maybe cowardice from the consequences, lack of interest in debating the issue, lack of knowledge or just that they don't wish to alienate the other side as the other side usually takes criticism as condescension and hostility. Fortifying dignity, liberation and self-determination are non-negotiable to people, that's why they're called inalienable rights - it isn't some gift from the oppressor that rewards the oppressed if they behave well like pavlovs dog. Dignity removes the boot of oppression from the neck, liberation allows the freedom to stand on ones feet and move, and self determination allows the people to choose the path they walk. Those who oppose any of these or denies them to a people becomes their oppressor and can expect resistance, even armed resistance. If those people become liberated and choose to oppress another people, the same mechanism that applied to their original oppressor now applies to them.

@Karmadhi Yeah, every religion can be taken and perverted. Some more than others depending on what their texts contain and the conciousness reading them as you mentioned and outlined nicely. Judaism seems oriented around a people, Christianity around the fact that man is god (though they took this more literally than metaphorically that we all contain God essence / Christ consciousness), Islam went beyond ethnicity and claimed God is a all encompassing unity beyond the form of gender and genetics. Its conception of God is a more accurate map of the reality of God. How religion is used can definitely influence the psyche and help normalize certain behaviors, mixed in with the ideology of nationality. For example the following: ''Investigation by Haaretz reveals not only that the Israeli military is covertly running a racist, genocide-promoting social media account, 72 Virgins, but that the military lied when challenged about its involvement. A typical post shows a video of an Israeli military vehicle driving backwards and forwards over a Palestinian with the excited caption: 'Run him over run him over!!!! Screw the bastards! Flatten them.' The Haaretz report can read here: https://archive.ph/DqeYw '' The claim that just because a certain society allows more freedom for gay people to openly show public displays of affection or that women aren't shamed for sleeping around - that this allows them to be given more of a free pass in committing massacres is irrelevant and indefensible.

You can experience a projection of nature, not nature itself which has a more visceral connection in ways we don't even know of.

Why is it that most of the Jewish youth of America don't agree with the Israeli states actions and have actually been the most vocal about it in protest? This suggests their is a difference in mentality. Unless you refer to the settlers who come from America and feel entitled to take Palestinians homes like the famous Jacob from Brooklyn who said 'If i don't steal it someone else will' - those guys are similar to Israeli mentality of the far right. It wasn't meant to be thorough take. But since you think you know better whats going on in Netenyahu's head maybe elaborate on it. If its as simple as 'he's trying to defeat Hamas absolutely and get rid of them' then that's nothing new. The question is, how realistic is that, what will be the consequences of that (suffering of many more Palestinians) and can Israel afford more bad press world wide and war crimes being live streamed boastfully by the IDF to be further embarrassed by the ICJ case which I'm sure is noting all of it and will display it on their follow up.

@BlueOak @bebotalk Sometimes, the substance of the message isn't the issue but the style of it is - and if that style is bad faith, dismissive and mocking that stains the message. Blueoaks description on the hollowing out of the middle class is spot on - and how the beast of corporatism has grown to devour its own people in the region from which it grew out of - the capitalist West. While the tide of capitalism may have lifted many boats in its ascent, it is now drowning many in its later stages. It reduces members of society to numbers on a screen - the separation of state and religion removes the moral dimension from state power and hands it over to the private sector of corporatism which lacks morality. Corporatism is amoral, anational - it's interest is solely in the material and multi-national and serves the board rooms push for profits over the citizens working as a cog in the machine who struggle to sleep peacefully at night knowing they have a sense of security - financially, socially, politically, Bebo mentioning how the past was worse than the present is partially true in that whilst things have progressed in certain decades (which Blueoak provided the nuance for - 40-90's) they have devolved in others ways and times. The boomer generation often looks at the younger generations and says 'your life isn't even tough' but both generations can have it rough without invalidating the others suffering. One's suffering (the older generations) may be more physical, while the others is more psychological (younger gen) - but as we know the body and mind aren't two islands and psychological dis-ease spills over into the physical. The younger generation of today feel disillusioned, un-anchored, atomised, over stimulated and flooded with information they lack the wisdom to parse through, and distrustful of all the institutions their parents relied on for a sense of stability to make sense of reality. Their parents raised them with the expectations of a better future, and to inhabit a world oriented towards that but which hasn't transpired to meet those expectations. This makes them feel betrayed and sidelined. Civilization and buzzwords such as rights, progress, and democracy provide a veneer of improvement but what lies behind is a deep visceral distrust for the system, disorientation from a lack of social belonging, and disgust for a culture that condescends them. Many people in the West who have a heritage elsewhere - aren't inclined to fight for it. A lot of them had their homelands colonized and pillaged. And the natives within the West feel forgotten and spat on by the state and system that hollowed out their quality of life through floods of migration lowering their wages and outsourcing to cheaper labor pools globally. This is the same system which would now like to use them as fodder for their wars. The people in general are far more aware of the stupidity of war, and who it really serves (the few over the many) and the propaganda that is exercised on them to brainwash them into a state of war. After the Middle East debacle and lies that led to it (weapons of mass destruction) - people are wary of war in general. That doesn't rule out war, its just more likely that the war won't be for the system or state, but against it.

To the moderate Israeli's to not get triggered when people refer to 'Zionists' the nuance of how the word is used should be explained. I think a lot of those speaking against 'Zionism' don't necessarily mean the eradication of Israel as a state, but the eradication of an oppressive apartheid version of the state. If the idea of Zionism means a state and homeland for Jews then most can be for it (regardless of if they are against ethno-states in general - that's another conversation). But if Zionism means a state for Jews that is formed and exists till today at the expense of local inhabitants within their borders or surrounding it, a state that goes beyond its borders to form a Greater Israel and encroaches land through settlement expansion, and a state that denies local inhabitants outside of its borders statehood and keeps them in a limbo state of affairs which involves a violent 'security' structure that is routinely resisted against - most are against this version of Zionism. Call it ultra-Zionism. The British philosopher Bertrand Russell's warning from 1970 on Israel's strategy in the Middle East: 'For over 20 years Israel has expanded by force of arms. After every stage in this expansion Israel has appealed to “reason” and has suggested “negotiations”. 'This is the traditional role of the imperial power, because it wishes to consolidate with the least difficulty what it has already taken by violence. Every new conquest becomes the new basis of the proposed negotiation from strength, which ignores the injustice of the previous aggression. 'The aggression committed by Israel must be condemned, not only because no state has the right to annex foreign territory, but because every expansion is an experiment to discover how much more aggression the world will tolerate.'

And they will silence anyone who will. Like the notorious Henry Kissinger said ' It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal.' Now Biden has has halted LNG exports, only further squeezing those dependent on them - mainly Europe. The economic heart of the EU - Germany is slowly de-industrializing. European competition is reduced and US dependence is solidified, including US industry. This isn't to attribute conspiratorial intention, but rather points to the opportunism of corporatism which is amoral and cares nothing for any nation or its citizens except for those who sit in the boardrooms. The irony is that Europe is still buying oil from their Russian 'enemy' through the back door - just at a higher price and suffering of their own people with cost of living, industry losses and lay offs. Russian oil is being bought up by India and other intermediaries, refined and repackaged and sold at a profit back to Europe. 'Sanctions' at work. Instead of peace they would rather continue to ratchet up world war 3 rhetoric and let their own people suffer because their ego can't handle a multi-polar world. Shame.

The pimps of war and the narrative orchestraters of empire don't want this interview to drop tonight - especially by one of their own who has big reach. It goes against information interests and exposes the underbelly of imperialism, the hypocrisy and the propaganda. The pointless death of countless lives can be attributed to this imperial war machine that throws anyone or thing under the bus for its own greedy interest, including its own 'allies'. Women are being sent to die for this because they’re low on men - but no mainstream western media outlet or spokesperson will be let to admit defeat or speak of it. They then spin their women going to war as if it’s some win and to show that they’re ‘built different’. Disgusting propaganda for perverted ends. It’s so horrific that they can't afford the truth to come out in any way that shows the West has any responsibility in this. The word provocation doesn’t enter or exist in their dictionary, neither does the red lines of other powers that have explicitly been shared. Instead, the West are the only unipolar power of the world - a false reality they fail to let go of and will allow countless lives to die for. They believe in a rules based order dictated by them, not international law equally applies to all as a matter of principle. Not to mention the billions of dollars that domestically aren't used and are instead sent and recycled into corrupt pockets. This doesn’t discount the devilry of other nations, but it doesn’t invalidate the analysis of devilry the West commits - if only one is able to detox from the propaganda that seeps into them if they live within the West (like fish in water) - the Global South are much more aware of this reality.

Honey, I'm home. BREAKING: Netanyahu rejects cease-fire deal with Hamas and vows to fight until "absolute victory." This madman will set Israel and the world on fire just to delay his inevitable removal from power and the consequences from a pending corruption court case against him. Keep this in mind in future discussions when Zionists bring up the fact that many peace proposals are rejected by Palestinians - without delving into the details of those proposals or hoping those they discuss with have a short memory or are ignorant of the details. Even Saudi Arabia has now come out and said no normalization with Israel will take place without a recognized Palestinian state. At the same time a poll shows half of Israel don't want a Palestinian state. Similar to a poll early on in the conflict that showed 60% didn't think Israel was using enough firepower (after dropping the equivalent of two Hiroshimas on a tiny populated area of civilians unable to flee) - keep these poll results in mind next time Zionists claim its only a few extremists in their government, or use Netenyahu as a scapegoat for the systemic entitlement and dehumanizing sentiment a lot of Israeli society has for Palestinians. 'Zionism backs Palestinians into a corner from which they can either die in silence and darkness, leave Palestine and accept the erasure of their homeland, or fight back. Then, when they fight back, Zionists audaciously play victim on the world stage. Truly dystopian..'

Should be terrifying to Westerners that the elites of their very own 'democracy' are capable of such heartless actions. What happened to innocent till proven guilty and even if found guilty - the proportionate persecution of the wrong doers, not the whole organisation. By that logic many Western institutions should be de-funded, boycotted by the world and dismantled for the actions of the few glorified gangsters in black suits that are among them ie collective punishment. Israel and its allies successfully moved the conversation from 'a plausible case of genocide ruled by the top world court' to 'we'll cut off aid to the most aid-dependent population who have nowhere to flee and who have just been ruled to be under a plausible genocide - all because of unsubstantiated claims by a state that has been proven to lie many times before'.

The framing from Zionists is that Israel is rewarding Palestinians something rather than returning something they have a right to by international law. It isn't a gift Israel is giving because their so moral and noble but a right of return. Even the UK are now working towards that as Karmadi noted. As far as Hamas are concerned - they aren't the sole reason or root cause of the conflict, but a natural outcome of conflict that arises from Israels denial of Palestinian self determination and dignity. @Nivsch @Karmadhi Interesting discussion about the state borders. I think besides the borders and structure of the state whats also important are the contents of it. Such as security controls, is it militarized or not, is there Israeli presence within it, and the settlement issue is a big one as we can see in the map above. The settlements make it logistically impossible to have a state because of the way they are spread across the land. It encircles Palestinian land making them like ghettos, pockets or like swiss cheese with holes in it. No continuous land area to run a state within, transport goods and services or people, or have ease of access to resources. Would these settlements remain in the protection of Israel? Because that isn't a proper Palestinian state then but an occupation as is already the case.