DeadJournal.com Archive (2002-2006)

This is my first entry in DeadJournal. Actually, I really do not have a whole lot to say right now. As soon as I can think of something, I will post ie. ;-)

Take a look at my recent article on religious terrorisms. Its approach is different and decidedly anti-American in its policy arguments. (By the way, I am an American.)

http://terrorism.religionsnet.com.

Cheers, Mark A. Foster, Ph.D.

The time will come when the evils of the present U.S. administration will be exposed. My prediction (based on my readings and observations, not on some imagined psychic readings!!!) is that George H.W. Bush will go down in history as the most corrupt president in American history. Enough said for now.

I know that some writers have made comparisons between Pakistan-India (vis-a-vis Kashmir) and Palestine-Israel. In my view, however, such comparisons have little merit.

Neither Pakistan nor India are colonial powers. On the contrary, prior to their independence, they constituted a single colony (India) governed by Great Britain.

On the other hand, Israel is itself a colonial power. That makes Palestine occupied territory, by definition, just as the Palestinians have claimed.

Making analogies between these two divergent geopolitical situations may serve certain partisan agendas, but they have little basis in fact.

Some comments:

>>Religion
is the biggest hoax that there ever has been. Yes God exists but
religion is the exploitation of peoples beliefs to get them to conform
with an idea or value set. There is only one thing that needs to be
followed and that is to do your best to be a good person.<<>>There
is no differentiation between God and the Devil either, they are one
and the same the Host and the Excecutioner, the Healer and
Death.<<>>Be
good go to heaven be bad go to hell it doesn't matter what religion you
look at this is the only thing that is common for all. The rest of the
crap that they tell you is to make money and get you down on your knees
before them, its about power!<<>>These are my personal beliefs
and many will say that they are wrong but then again everyone in an
organised religion is at least following the last thing I said.<<>>By
following one religion you limit yourself to that religion and its
values but if you choose to just follow your heart then no matter what
happens when you die there is a good place for you to go, that is if
you actually did lead a good life!<<>

If there is a "true" Judaism, it is comes closer to Jewish Renewal (the

continuation of the 1960s havurah/havurot movement), Reform, Reconstructionism, or

Conservative.

Orthodox Judaism, especially the ultra-orthodox - as contrasted with the modern (Yeshivah

University) Orthodox - contradict the notion of contextualism, an idea which is inherent in the

history of Judaism, including the adaptations incorporated into the Talmuds and the Kabbalistic

works.

Pres.
Bush will give a nationwide speech tonight announcing that a new
cabinet-level Office of Homeland Security will be established.
Presumably, Gov. Tom Ridge, the current Homeland Security advisor, will
be the appointee.
Big brother just keeps on getting bigger. Pretty soon, no one will be able to deny that the U.S. has become a police state.
Sadly,
both of the major political parties, Republicans and Democrats, do not
see (or do not care about) the onward march of American society toward
fascism.

Sadly, both of the major political parties,
Republicans and Democrats, do not see (or do not care about) the onward
march of American society toward fascism.

Will jaywalking be the next terrorist act?

There
are two countries in the U.S. - America (the nation of
anti-establishment Leftists) and Amurica (now, Pres. Bush's country).
The real culture war is not between so-called liberals (modern
liberals) and conservatives (classical liberals) but between both of
these Right-Wing political perspectives (Amurica) and the Left
(America). Both liberals and conservatives have united around Pres.
Bush on the so-called war on terror. The American dissidents are the
Leftists, who may soon have the status of dissidents in other
authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, such as the former Soviet Union.

The
revolution, however, is progressing. It will, hopefully, continue on
its own (without any encouragement from the intelligentsia)

It
was pointed out, on a web bulletin board, that there may soon be life
sentences for those who create viruses or deface websites. (I am just
reporting.)

In response, I posted the following:

Although
I am not a fan of illegal hacking, IMO, this most recent proposal seems
to me to have the bloody fingerprints of John Ashcroft all over it.

As
soon as the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is established by
Congress (and, mark my words, it will be, following King George's
address to the Amurican nation last night), the true nature of the
domestic police state will become so evident that only the most
hardened fascist Republican will be able to deny it.

It should be pointed out that the majority of Isl?mists (the Saudi Wahabbis) are not militants or terrorists.

A
parallel might be drawn between the postmillennial Christian
reconstructionists, wanting to establish Christian countries before the
return of Christ, and the Isl?mists, i.e., the former Taliban regime in
Afghanistan. The militant Wahabbis might be compared, with some
justification, to the extreme right wing of Christian
reconstructionism, i.e., the Christian Identity Movement (Aryan Nation,
etc.) and its militias.

In other words, just as most
Wahabbis are not militants, the majority of Christian
reconstructionists are not members of the Christian Identity Movement
and do not promote its extreme racism and ethnicism.

The
term "globalization" has, unfortunately, been abused and corrupted by
corportate capitalism. It has been associated with greed, the abuse of
the environment, the not-so-hidden agenda of King George II and his
royal court (Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, et al.), a desire for
global domination (neoconservatism) and a disdain for global justice (a
rejection of the world court on war crimes), etc.

My
prediction is the Bush II will go down as the most corrupt president in
American history. He has used the events of Sept. 11th, with which he
may have been (at least partially) complicit, as an opportunity to
advance his vision of a bourgeois new world order based on dominant
U.S. values.

Indeed, there are, in reality, two nations in
the U.S., which constitutes that country's culture war: America and
Amurica. America is the minority - both in terms of numbers and power.
It is the nation that works for socialist globalization. Amurica is the
knee-jerk jingoistic nation. It is the land of unilateralism, of "my
country, right or wrong," and of capitalist globalization.

Both
conservatives and liberals, Republicans and Democrats, are, for the
most part, agencies of Amurica. Both support the Amurican war on terror
(the war of U.S. imperialism). Both advocate an invastion of Iraq.

On
September 11, the international revolution came to the U.S. Now,
hopefully, a new domestic revolution of America against Amurica can
progress without any addtional violence.

Of all the branches
of Christianity, I am mostly fond of the Church of the Brethren,
Friends General Conference, and the United Church of Christ. Christ
taught a message which emphasized orthopraxy over orthodoxy, and He
explicitly denied the claim made by some of the Jews that He was the
incarnation of God (John 5:16-20).

Unificationism is a
child-like, right-wing ideology originally developed to theologically
justify the battle against North Korean communism. These days, it has
been used by Moon and his followers to rationalize other right-wing
causes.

Its basis is conceptualizing the world as consisting of types of Cain (satanic) and Abel (godly).

Furthermore,
Bush's political Manichaeism, bifurcating the world into good and evil,
reminds me of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's unificationism. Since Moon
publishes what is perhaps the most powerful conservative daily in the
U.S., the Washington Times, and he has made extensive inroads into the
Washington political establishment, it would not be inconceivable that
he may have had an influence on King George, or the king's royal court,
too.

>>IMO, Andrea Yates was mentally ill at the time
she killed her children, and as such, should not be in prison, but
under medical treatment. Her doctors failed her, the system failed her,
and her family failed her. As to why there was no "massive revolution",
my only hypothesis is that the American public was "brainwashed" by the
talking heads appearing on every news program, talk show, etc., each
with their own agenda to advance.<<>>nothing is beyond the
universe, because the universe is everything.

>>Why
can't everybody have a domain, payed by their gouverment, so they can
develope bussinessess and make money? Well, not everybody, but at least
50% of the population. Ha? This economic situation has really turned me
down...http://mark-foster.olathe.ks.us

I got it simply because it was available, but I never used it.

Now,
however, the dot us domain has been taken over by a commercial
registry, and the price range approximates what it costs to register a
dot com.

Capitalism. You gotta love it .

If the
objective is a purely economic union, I can see excluding, at least for
the time being, Mexico from a "United North America." However, if the
goal is the establishment of a political union of North America,
something which does not fully exist in Europe, then I do not see how
Mexico can be excluded - even in the first stages.

If
Canada, Mexico, and the United States are to share a common federal
government, the addition of political power can allow that government
to be more "liberal" in terms of who is included. In other words, in a
purely economic union (such as the EU, with its somewhat restrictive
policies), its members can be more easily threatened by economic
disparities than in a confederation which is both political and
economic.

Under the assumption that it is prudent to know one's
enemy, I sometimes watch Fox and Friends on the Fox News Channel. This
morning I responded to the question of the day, which asked how viewers
felt about the American legislators who just went to Iraq. Here was my
email response:

"I would like to see large groups of
Americans go over to Iraq and then, in civil disobedience, refuse to
leave unless and until the United Nations formally approves military
action in that country."

Americans, including politicians, are
trapped in a collective delusion that there is really a difference
between the two major parties. The fact that both parties are about to
approve an Iraqi war resolution should, hopefully, shake some people
out of their mass hallucination.

[13 Oct 2002|07:57pm]
What do you know, an Isl?mic fundie asking for the murder of a Christian fundie. Will two negatives cancel each other out?

Iranian
Muslim cleric, Muhsin Mujtahid Shabistari, has declared a fatwa, or
religious edict, calling for the death of a major player in the
American axis of evil, Jerry Falwell.

Falwell, who headed
the now defunct American fascist organization, the Moral Majority, had
referred to the Prophet Muhammad as a terrorist. As the old adage says.
"The evil thou seest in others, in thyself may be true."

A
Christian Zionist, Falwell, a victim of chronic foot-in-mouth disease,
later apologized for his remarks, but not for his views, on this
subject. His apology was also too late for those who died in India, as
a result of his comments, in rioting.

May God forgive this misguided, publicity-seeking preacher when he stands before his Creator.

>>I
can't imagine a muslim would write "Dear policeman, I am God" though,
otherwise I would have suspected it could have been Al Queada. The guy
is turning out to be a real bastard though, he seems to be getting
someone every day.<<>>I agree the whole world (especially
Britain) needs saving from American Imperialism, but CAN'T ANYBODY DO
BETTER THAN A STUPID SNIPER?!?!?!?!
To: "'Realityman@netscape.net'"

Dr. Foster,

Thank you very much for your email. It was a bright spot after reporting for several days on very sad news.

These sniper shootings just tear at my heart. I hope and pray that police catch the killer very soon.

Your kind email was an encouragement.

Thank you...and thanks for watching Fox.

Sincerely,

Molly Henneberg

-----Original Message-----
From: Realityman@netscape.net [mailto:Realityman@netscape.net]
Sent: Saturday, October 12, 2002 3:46 PM
To: Henneberg, Molly
Subject:

Molly,

I
wanted to say how much I enjoy your reports. You appear to have genuine
compassion for the people in the stories you cover, including the
current killings in the Washington, D.C, area.

--
Mark A. Foster, Ph.D.
http://markfoster.net

>>Throughout
all of this [Iraq, Middle East, al-Q?'?d?, India vs. Pakistan, etc.],
why is China being sooooo quiiiiiiet.....?<<>

"There is a liberal media." The Fox News Channel is "fair and balanced." Both of these are examples of useful lies:

"A harmful truth is better than a useful lie."
- Thomas Mann

In the following passage, after the Jews accused Jesus of claiming to be equal with God, Jesus totally rejects their charges.

It
is clear from the below (John 5) that Jesus would never have approved
of the non-biblical dogma of the Trinity subsequently formulated by the
church fathers.

quote:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

18
Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had
broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making
himself equal with God.

19 Then answered Jesus and said unto
them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of
himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he
doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.

20 For the Father
loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things that himself doeth: and he
will shew him greater works than these, that ye may marvel.

21 For as the Father raiseth up the dead, and quickeneth them; even so the Son quickeneth whom he will.

22 For the Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son:

23
That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He
that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him.

24
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth
on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into
condemnation; but is passed from death unto life.

25 Verily,
verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead
shall hear the voice of the Son of God: and they that hear shall live.

What about the recent discussion in the news media of gay marriage? Should it be legal?

In
my view, yes. The government may have a right to decide who marries
whom in civil ceremonies but not in religious ceremonies. For a
government to interfere in these matters would constitute a human
rights violation.

In the case of a religion (any religion,
no matter how small), it is the religious community (or its
administration) which should make this determination. Since membership
in a religion is, in Western countries, a matter of personal choice
(not demanded by a government), religions can, in this respect, do what
they like. If a member does not like the religious law, she or he can
choose to ignore it (and incur whatever penalties may be imposed) or to
leave the religion.

For instance, the Baha'i law, as
interpreted by Shoghi Effendi, which excludes the possibility of gay
marriage, applies to Baha'is. Baha'i law, however, is religious law.
Does it (or should it) apply to those who are not Baha'is? Obviously
not. It is not for one religion to impose its own religious law on
those who are not members of that religion.

There are many constructions of the Illuminati. What, then, are these
Illuminatis? They are social constructions of fear, hatred, or both. To
those who are afraid of, or who hate, the Jews, the Jews become the
Illuminati. To those afraid of, or who hate, occultists, the occultists
become the Illuminati. To those afraid of, or who hate, certain alleged
extraterrestrials, they become the Illuminati.

None of this is
to say that there are not people with nefarious objectives. Some of
them may even cooperate with each other in areas where their objectives
coincide. One may deny particular constructions without denying history
or current events.