US and British Naval Power Massing In Persian Gulf

Well, someone's getting fucked up.

Popcorn, anyone?

 

Battleships!!! Nobody has used Battleships since the early 1980's, anyways, the Iranians will be scared, or we will have to kick the *sses.

 

The only problem is the endles wars, no war comes cheap the more you fight is the more you spend and that means you will need any peny you can get, its not that America can not afford the universal healthycare and to create jobs for the citizens but it is only focusing to be the boss and that is the heavy load that puts it down. Americans should be ready because all these fronts are by funded by citizens through veavy tax, poor service delivery so that squiz the hell out of the local people to keep their superiority above everyone.

 

I don't think what you are saying here is absolute at all. Just because nature religions view the world in terms of multiplicity it isn't a religious institution? Can't a developed and organized form of spirituality be called a religion. How do you know for sure that there weren't dualistic views, spiritual or religious, before agricultural times exactly? And of course last but not least, it was not a winner take all situation in those times? Please explain how this is certain, since I would love to know this stuff for sure too :2thumbsup:

 

Oh socking! Not planning WWIII again are they? Yawn! And the best laugh is the people all know whats happening, the cat has been out of the bag for a long enough time. They feel they want to push forward, they are banking on the peoples reaction to the war, the trauma that will be caused, they know the people will know it was all a lie but they will be too shocked to react in any meaningful way. Well that's my 2 cents.

 

BINGO!

THE AVERAGE US CITIZEN

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THE US GOVERNMENT
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I have confidence

 

(Part 1 of 3)

That is a good question Asmodean.

Let me answer the second question first: “How do you know for sure that there weren't dualistic views, spiritual or religious, before agricultural times exactly?”

Would you believe—a time machine? (I said that in a Maxwell Smart voice). Just kidding. Here are my reasons why I do not believe that is the case:

1.) I have spent most of the last twelve years researching and writing a book (I held a job for most of that time so it has taken a while…). The book is primarily about a word root that is found in just about every language. I have yet to find a language where there is no evidence of this root applied to its primary meaning or to parts of the archetypical constellation of words around the primary meaning. This root is k~n (~t)----you might recognize its modern English version as the c-word, a word, which was once very sacred (the Sanskrit word kundalini uses the same root for example), but is now very crude (in English and numerous other languages). In this book I provide very good evidence that man not only had a common point of origin (of course), but shared a common primal language and a common primal spirituality. By tracing the etymology of this word and its archetypical constellation of words around the world (and through dead languages and proto-languages), along with the traditions of the World Tree archetype (the axis mundi, celestial axis, World Tree, Tree of Life, World Mountain, World Cave, Labyrinth, etc), you can trace a fairly good history of the feminine and the evolution of religious thought. It suggests very strongly that every religion and spirituality has evolved from this common primal belief system, and that each religion has been built upon a precedent set before it. The book then helps validate that each step on the path towards religion is consistent with the cultural development of the people the belief system serves (i.e. hunter-gathers are very consistent in their beliefs, planter cultures are very consistent in their religious development (in primarily a Goddess stage, then a masculine stage, and so forth).

2.) In numerous languages, especially indigenous languages and older languages, the feminine root can become non-gender specific. Or is sometimes used for the male with some words and the female with others. For example, there is an Australian aboriginal language where the root is very clearly used for the penis, but not the vagina, but then is also used almost as clearly for menses. I believe that this indicates that our hunter-gatherer ancestors, in their primal belief system did not see a significant difference between the role of the male and the female, but understood that they equally shared in the process of procreation. This is a very multiplistic concept, as a dualistic mindset, corresponds with a stronger differentiation between the male and female. This is validated by the fact that hunter-gatherer cultures today tend to maintain a higher respect for the women than do planter cultures.

3.) In the course of researching this book I have researched the culture, myths and traditions of many, many tribes of indigenous people, and I have yet to find a hunter-gatherer culture where a dualistic philosophy has developed. Many planter cultures have retained a multiplistic philosophy, and you can often see where they are in transition—for example the twin motif among many planter cultures, including those of the Southwestern US, or the Aztec myth of Quetzlacoatl and his twin brother. If you come across a hunter-gatherer culture where duality rules, then by all means let me know about it. Many planter cultures today, such as the Native Americans along the Southern half of the US, and various indigenous cultures in the tropical zones around the world, have a pseudo-religious structure, where you find group ritual and a roughly formed hierarchical structure, that you do not find in hunter-gatherer cultures. On the other hand, you might find, hunter-gatherers who take hallucinogens in a group in spiritual ceremony, but the existential experience itself is individualistic and subjective, not group shared.

4.) Philosophy and belief systems serve to make sense of the existentialist experience of life—for purposes of this discussion, it mirrors the social structures and culture that make up that experience. Psychologically I look at things from a Jungian perspective and would say that man’s psyche mirrors that existentialist external experience as well. The hunter-gatherer lifestyle is much more individualistic. The individual can go out and hunt alone, or coordinate his efforts with others, but either way his success is based on his own abilities. Coordinated hunting efforts typically are more successful the smaller the group. When man began to move into villages and planting became his major focus, for the first time he had to work together in larger groups to assure survival of the whole village. This meant that for the first time, he experienced a more solidified group ethic, which led to a stronger identity of in-group, out-group, and other dualistic factors, that once institutionalized, required a dualistic philosophy. The hunter-gatherer may have had a basic tribal identity, but beyond that he had no real need for a dualistic perspective. There was nothing in his experience to challenge his multiplistic perspective. Everywhere he turned his life was affected by a multiplicity of forces.

5.) The spiritual life of the hunter-gatherer because it is not institutionalized (religious) is largely subjectivistic. It is a one to one relationship with spirit, and is inspired by the myths and cultural motifs of the hunter-gatherer’s ancestors, and by the shaman/healer/medicine man. It is experienced, not studied or worshipped. It is nature based, and nature is a multiplicity. Nature teaches with the earth beneath our feet, the sun, moon, and stars, a multiplicity of elements—lightning, rain, snow, wind, etc, and a multiplicity of animals, and plants, tricksters and helpers, healers, and providers, as well as forces that take away. If everything is alive, then you have a multiplicity of forces to be experienced. On the other hand, the group ethic of the planter, leads to the rise of the institutions to keep the group coordinated and managed, to protect the interests, to appease the powers of the universe to bring healthy crops, rains, etc, for their survival, to teach and care for the young, and all the other things required for the villages and later village states to work. The rise of these institutions in the group ethic framework is conducive to a more objectivistic spiritual experience. Spirituality itself becomes the institution of religion. The objectivistic religious experience is the beginning of man’s alienation from the spirit (which also means the beginning of man’s alienation from his subconscious), and delegates a person of power (the priest) between the individual and spirit. The hunter-gatherer shaman helps the individual in his subjectivistic experience if needed but the individual and spirit are still one. However, the priest beginning with the planter culture has control over the objectivistic experience of the religious adherent, because objectivism implies that the subject has become observer of the object. For example, even in Hinduism where the belief is that we are all nothing more than one spirit (atman), we are still objectivisticaly separated as ego (the subject-observer), and that we need a priest (guru) and adherence to strict dogma (dharma) and ritual in order to break through this objectivistic reality and become one with truth (spirit). What creates this objectivistic separation is the duality we must transcend—and even in Hinduism you have this planter culture duality of feminine (the earth and the physical world) and masculine (the spiritual plane). (The polytheistic qualities of Hinduism is an example of traditions that it retained from its distant hunter-gatherer past—both of the Aryan tribes and those of the Indian Subcontinent. In the West, we destroyed such traditions through a stronger defeat of the feminine in the Middle East, and a deeper move into objectivistic rationalism in both the Greek and Roman traditions). Unlike the hunter-gatherer, the objectivistic religious experience is less one-on-one spiritual, and more worship and teaching/studying.

6.) This is validated by the fact that hunter-gatherer animism is considerably consistent all the way around the globe. Each culture has its own myths and motifs, but there are common themes, and they are all based on a generally common outlook of reality. Even their methods of experiencing the sacred—the methods used to create an ecstatic experience—are effectively the same of only a few techniques.

7.) Finally from the Jungian perspective, we can see that even the early planters were most likely not very dualistic in their zeitgeist. This is when the feminine (the Goddess) reigned over man, and the irrational (the spiritual and subconscious elements of life) still had a large sway over man’s philosophy and way of life. As one Jungian psychologist has explained, under the feminine, man would see things as if under the moon: many shades of grey and white. Under the masculine, it was as if, under the bright sunlight, clearly distinguishing between the black and white. This is confirmed by the fact that excavations of early Goddess cultures tend to yield very little in the way of weapons. My book concludes that almost all, if not all cultures that developed beyond the early planter culture, went through the Goddess cult stage. I say this because of a.) the early shift of this root word to primarily refer to the vagina; b.) the fact that the root has survived so long in every language, and c.) the fact that so much modern language has developed from this root, including such key words as the English ‘country’ and Japanese ‘kuni’ (meaning the same thing). The word ‘king’ and even the word ‘nation’ with its n~t (~n) root clearly tying back to the feminine root.

 

(Part 2 of 3)

Now for your first question: “Just because nature religions view the world in terms of multiplicity it isn't a religious institution? Can't a developed and organized form of spirituality be called a religion?”

1.) I define religion as having an institutional structure, which includes most, if not all of the following traits (the ones followed by an asterisk are always present): A hierarchical structure with a chain of command;* A group ethic;* The religion itself is an organized group entity,* and most often the individual or community is either a member (part of the in-group) or not a member (part of the out-group); There is a sense of the secular and non-secular; a stronger emphasis placed on group shared ritual, while de-emphasizing the individual experience.* There is a stronger control, manipulation, or interpretation of the individual experience; There is a set of commands, rules, codes, and laws (that are far more defined than the norms and guidelines of spirituality) and these shape a set of dogma;* The myths, commandments and laws, and teachings are written down (the only exception would be the early Goddess cults of those cultures that had not yet developed a writing system);* There is a separation of man from spirit and religion places itself between them;* The individual ecstatic experience is deemphasized in favor of teaching, studying, rationalization, and discussion (i.e. the subconscious and irrational elements of spirituality are deemphasized in favor of the rational and conscious elements of physical reality); Sacredness is attached to items and people that are no longer a part of the ecstatic spiritual experience, such as the book or writings of the religion and the people of the religious hierarchy. An individual can choose to learn how to become part of the hierarchy, and serve a sacred function to the community without being chosen by spirit; finally, religion, being a group entity, seeks to perpetuate its existence and maintain its position through power, control, manipulation, and intimidation, and usually seeks growth through conversion.* In other words these are all traits that arise from a group ethic. Religion is an institution, and the hunter-gatherer does not have a need for an institution. For example, in all of the 100’s of Native American languages, and even more dialects, there is not a single word meaning ‘religion.’

2.) One could argue that there is a hierarchy in a hunter-gatherer community as well, as there is after all, a chief or leader of some sort. But hunter-gatherers do not have an institution wherein they vote in a chief, or set up any kind of formal government. Instead the chief is determined by age—who is the head of the family, or the biggest family, or simply the village elder; and by wisdom, i.e. who knows how to handle the problems at hand in the best way; and finally, who gives of himself the most for the community. A hunter-gatherer tribe often has multiple chiefs (there’s that multiplistic dynamic again). In other words, a chief is determined naturally though the dynamics of respect. Conceivably, he could also be determined by the strongest male—the alpha male, who achieves his position through force. Though I have not run across such a case. On the other hand, the bravest strongest male in the face of danger and battle gains respect from his courage and once again this is part of the dynamic of respect I referred to anyway. Hunter-gatherers live a life of leisure with their families (Anthropologists have only recently acknowledged this to be true and that older beliefs to the contrary were based on incorrect stereotypes), and they like to preserve harmony within the group—this is the idea of multiplicity after all—seeking harmony of the multiple forces. There is little incentive to power grab, because it disrupts the harmony. Being a chief is seen more as an obligation than something one would choose to do. If a faction disagrees with the consensus they can always leave. Good examples of this are seen in the Indian Wars of the 1800’s against the Lakota. America used the Lakota’s lack of structure against them. They would take people who were not recognized as chiefs, make them drunk, claim they were chiefs and get them to sign treaties. Also when some chiefs decided that peace was preferable to fighting, others disagreed and did not go to the reservations, one group even escaping to Canada. One thing I have not mentioned is that women also share in the leadership of hunter-gatherer communities.

3.) The only exception to this is in cases where the institution of religion is forced upon the hunter-gatherers. Most often this includes forcing them out of their hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

4.) Again, if you find a hunter-gatherer culture where the institution, group ethic, or an organized religion exist---please let me know. But be careful, if they tend to live in one place, and have fixed fields, especially those which can be worked by more than one family, than you are looking at a planter culture.

Remember, social change does not happen all at once. There is a transition period. For example, before man really began moving into the early planting communities, there were herders who were moving heads of aurochs (early cattle). This was clearly a defining moment in the development of the Goddess cults. But then herders were living a different lifestyle from the hunter-gatherers. Major evolution into new levels of social development on occur when a lot of different trends and changes come together.

 

(Part 3 of 3)

Now for your last question: “It was not a winner take all situation in those times?”

Violence is a natural part of human nature—inherent from our distant animal past. In fact, another Jungian psychologist, Dr. Edward Whitmont, working on the work of others explains that there is an archetypical connection between relational bonds and mutual support and aggression and sexuality. Unchecked and unfettered aggression is destructive, but prohibited, it is repressed until it explodes outwards. This is why the overly rationalistic Roman civilization, required the bloody gladiator sports, and this is why the Hunger Game in the movie of the same name serves to defuse the revolutionary and violent impulses of the common people. Dr. Whitmont says that regulating this impulse requires both expression and inhibition. This is achieved best by transformation of aggression through ritualization. Part of this is served by the blood sacrifice, which has been with us at least since the Paleolithic (and which Christianity sanitized through the crucifixion). The hunter-gatherers often perform other rituals that seem overly aggressive and barbaric, not to mention the sexual rituals that shock missionaries and speak to the same archetypical urges, and therefore probably defuse the aggressive dynamics among the more peaceful cultures. But aggression is clearly part of human nature, but here is why it was not a winner-take all proposition in our hunter-gatherer past:

1.) If we examine it from the hunter-gatherer perspective, we see that subduing another culture serves no purpose to the hunter-gatherer. The hunter-gatherer sees himself as just another part of nature. He does not own the land under his feet anymore than the animals that walk upon it. So the argument over territory would not come into play unless game or water became limited, but even then, it would be based on a different perspective than what we understand. Hunter-gatherers understand that all life is sacred, and do not have a dualistic perspective of secular and non-secular, or sacred and non-sacred. In the animistic universe no one ever steps out of the sacred. Therefore there is no religious conflict. One group follows the way spirit has taught them to communicate with spirit, and they understand that another group has their way that spirit has taught them to communicate. (Unfortunately this is why it is so easy for missionaries to convert them, because they naively believe that they are simply being shown another way to communicate with the sacred). Add to this the fact that all hunter-gatherers tend to have the same basic understanding of reality and the universe. They also understand that everything has a cost, nothing comes free in the animistic universe. Add to this the fact that the hunter-gatherer experiences spirit directly, which is also to say that he directly experiences his subconscious. The hunter-gatherer is therefore more likely to ritualize aggression and sexuality and thereby defuse the need for such expression, than certainly men of the Industrial Age. Put all these things together, and it would not make sense for a hunter-gatherer to subdue or take everything another group has. And what would they get? Among most true hunter-gatherers, more pointed sticks? Feathers? Beads? Women? (they could steal those…). Horses from more advanced groups—again they could steal them.

2.) Politically it does not make sense. I have already explained the loosely non-institutional form of government that was the basis of hunter-gatherer communities. If leadership is based on trust, it would disrupt group harmony to force another group of people under them, and expect that they would respect and follow the same leadership. It would make more sense for them to kill off any small group of visitors if they perceive them as a threat, and then move away if more come.

3.) But battles did occur. So why is that? The Lakota Indian, John Marshall III (you can tell he is Native by his name----LOL), wrote quite a few good books on Lakota beliefs and norms and values and so forth. But in his book, Conversations with Grandfather (I think that is it), he gives a very good account of why the Lakota and other hunter-gatherer cultures did fight. First of all, Lakota does not have a word for warrior. There is no word, ‘war path.’ He wrote that these are White perspectives that have been imprinted into Native American stereotypes. Next, battle among the plains Indians served a very important purpose—it was the way that a youth would come of age. It was a proving ground where people would show their bravery, and gain respect (we’ve already talked about respect). It was dangerous and people would be killed, but the bravest thing to do was to touch or knock your enemy off his horse with a coup stick. This did not kill him, and probably was a moment of disgrace. Battles were quick and then over. Not that war should be supported, but this makes perfect sense in regards to Dr. Whitmont’s dynamic of expressing the aggressive archetype. From the viewpoint of that culture it provides a social benefit. Taking Dr. Whitmont’s work further, we have the Lakota example that they were a more war-mongering tribe until they were visited by the White Buffalo Calf Woman. She brought them back to walking in better harmony with the Red Road. One of the ceremonies she taught them was the Sun Dance, which includes a piercing of the flesh (so that the people may live)—a clear example of ritualized violence. No Native American tribe had ever witnessed the violence and totality of war that the European settlers introduced. Even the practice of scalping is something they learned from the Europeans.

4.) As I have said, the planter cultures marked the beginning of man’s alienation from his subconscious. As we became more conscious-mind focused, we began to see a greater split between what psychologists today identify as the masculine qualities (rationalism, logic, etc) and feminine qualities (irrationalism, empathy, etc). This does not mean that men are more rational and women are more irrational. But I believe this split is an indication of how dysfunctional a psyche modern humans do have. Men and women began to focus more on the masculine aspects, and we saw the rise of the Male God. The external duality of our philosophy, was reflected by an inner inflation of the ego-shadow complex. We became good boys and girls chasing after an unattainable ego-ideal, and an unhealthy repression into the shadow of everything we felt did not fit that ideal. The Enlightenment and the Industrial Age only furthered this alienation and an even greater inflation of the ego-shadow complex became the new status quo. The problem with repressed elements in the shadow is that they come back in violent and evil ways. Is it any surprise that the extended periods of peace time, especially across the British Empire, and the global repressed conservatism of the Victorian Era (1832 – 1912) was followed by two very bloody world wars? The shadow is not just an individual dynamic, Jung saw a collective shadow dynamic that covered a whole nation. Indeed may Jungian psychologists point to the dynamic at work in families, companies, and all kinds of groups. The Republican Party is currently very blatant in its shadow projection. The Cold War was largely the result of two collective shadows projecting on each other: the US repressed its own lack of freedom, war-mongering, and civil discontent and projected it onto the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union repressed its own economic dysfuctionality and war-mongering and projected it onto the US. Just about any war feeds on the dynamic of shadow projection. For example: Today Americans support freedom of religion, diversity, and protect the world, we aren’t the ones who hate the Muslims, they are the ones that hate us, that’s why we burn their Qurans and protest against them and hate them. Or: We Muslims are good fundamental faithful people that oppose the evils of the world, unlike the Americans that are all about the heretical, materialistic, and sexual evils that tempt mankind. That’s why we do not want them seducing us and breaking down the honorable religious values of our countries, except that their restaurants are ok, and their expensive cars, and whatever high-end and status goods we can buy from the West. And what’s wrong with Western porn if its in the privacy of our own homes…?

5.) The planter cultures began to have things to protect—their fields, their water supply, their stores of grain. As institutions developed, villages began to grow into city-states. Populations were concentrated as never before, and in bad times, there was plenty of reason to militarily gain more fields, more water, more stores of grain. Plenty of reason to fear nearby groups with their own armies. Religious differences made it necessary to convert other people or do away with them as a threat. A growing institution of government required an institution of police, guards, and military. From this point on, and particularly after the rise of the masculine (and the rise of objectivistic rationalism) the reasons for subduing or massacring the surrounding out-groups grew. The aggression of the hunter-gatherer as a social benefit, also changed under the planter group ethic. Head hunting, for example, is often connected to the fertility of the fields, or in other planter cultures, the spirit of the headhunters victim protects the village.

6.) Likewise there is not much evidence of prehistoric, or pre-planter culture massacres. That is except for one possible exception in Africa. Though I have yet to actually research it much, or even find the details. I don’t even know for sure if it is pre-planter, i.e before about 7,000 – 8,000 BC. I simply remember seeing years ago, archeological evidence in Africa of the earliest evidence of a massacre.

 

Iran needs a kick in the ass... i mean more his president and the people who still believe and support him... they are sick people...

the other persians are ok... but Armadinedjad should eat is own shit... there's proof now that he (gives order to) tortured thousands of students and many died or disappeared... many even were sodomized... i am serious...and it's just a part of the whole affair...

I saw a shocking documentary about that... this man is as mad as Kadhafi and Bashar al Assad ... dictators seems to appreciate the middle east...god or allah only knows why ?