Dodging Pakistani Sleuths to Cover a War and a Coup

270x3=720? sorry:-) about the mistake.

urstruly, your point about mother's love is well taken...coincidently I am reading "The selfish gene" by richard Dakwins these days..that point is well known amongst biologists. it is damn the selfish gene of mother who wants to survive to the next generation through this child....she has already invested too much time (9 months) plus blood, sweat and what not..and number of eggs she has is limited.
father on the other hand had the ability to pregnante 270x3=720 (conservatively) women during those 9 months...and he has millions of seeds to spread around....in more animal way, he does not give a shit if this particular child survives or not..he has the ability to make hundreds like it.

anyway, my point is not that religious teachings about doing good stuff (for this life or rewards in the next one) does not have any good influence on us...surely it does..on some more than the others. my point is those religious teachings are also creation of sum total our human experience of many milleniums. You telling me from your own personal life experience that "drugs are not good for health" is no less meaningful than saying "God says drugs are not good for health". (just an example..drugs very well might be good for health :-) at various points in human history )

Urstruly:

The example of a bottle of shampoo was given by bulleya and I was responding to it. It is not my stance that people be required to give a proof of their faith.

bulleya:

"i think if anyone can prove that something in a religion is false, they should go ahead and do it....as long as they can prove it......."

...Why shouldn't the burden of proof be on those who make religious claims in the first place? Why should I not ask a Hindu to prove to me that Shiva first beheaded Ganesh and then put an elephant's head on him? Why should I be the one who has to prove that Shiva didn't do it? As I said to Urstruly, I am not asking the Hindu to prove the existence of his elephant-headed god to me and he should not ask me to disprove Ganesh's existence.

anil#118:

"Although independently, don't you think that you bring and accept the dissection as minorities, especially when it is in respect to Muslim-Indians?"

..only when it is germane to the issue being discussed. We are at chowk which is mostly, if not wholly, about religious and national identities of India and Pakistan.

Re: # 115

I just realized that every religion in the world advises its followers to love each other; it promotes love and respect between parents and offspring, between spouses, between siblings, between neighbors, and what not but no religion in the world advises a mother to love her children. The reason is that there is no need for it; it is already coded in her genes. What is not coded is taught to us through education.

Re: # 94

Dost

I learned something, a new word and definition, Hindian. Although independently, don't you think that you bring and accept the dissection as minorities, especially when it is in respect to Muslim-Indians? These Hindians I hope reject every attempt to dissect India on religious basis. There are many other forms of minorities, probably all will fall in one minority or the other.

Anil

Re: # 115

With all honesty I believe that it is not in our intrinsic nature to love our parents. It is absolutely a learned behavior. So to answer your quaestion, yes, I love my parents because I have been educated to do so and I see benefit in it for me in this world but hereinafter as well. A mother's love for her child is the the only instinctive behavior that exists in humans through genetic coding. IF it were not so human race would have wipped off the planet soon after it appeared.


As for the question regarding an abusive father my religion tells me to give him respect even then. I know it is easier said than done but reward for that is much higher in afterlife.

#114 bulleya, but saying that about Jesus in public is the biggest blasphemy and undercuts the whole basis of today's chistianity...how can you say that in pblic without hurting a christian's feelings?

urstruly,

what a twisting of my words...where the rich parents came into discussion?

I instead mentioned "their parents struggle and work hard to provide" [rich parents have to do that?]
I mentioned "love them care for them and live every moment for their kids" [how does it relate to richness or poorness?], "never cared for the kid" [again, could be a poor or rich].

honestly, tell me do you respect your parents ONLY because your religion tells you or you do it for some other reasons too?

"the paradise lies under the feet of your mother"; "

yes but how about respecting the father who treated your above mother as a piece of shit, abandoned her for another one, been absent from your life all along when you needed his help, love, support, guidance?

bulleya 105: "For example, can it be proved that Jesus was born through immaculate conception or that he was resuscitated after crucification?"

by all means.....i think if anyone can prove that something in a religion is false, they should go ahead and do it....as long as they can prove it.......

Re: # 109

So according to your logic all the rich people who provide well for their children must get respect from their kids by default and all those parents who are less fortunate do and cannot provide for their children deserve no respect from their offspring.

Thank God we do not live in such a cruel world. We see all the time that some of those children who are well fed and are affluent do not respect their parents while an overwhelming majority of less fortunate children would sacrifice their lives for their parents.

It is the teachings like the following that has tied us into such a tight network and made this world so beautiful and liveable for us;

"the paradise lies under the feet of your mother";

"if it were permitted to prostrate before someone other than Allah, i would have ordered women to prostrate before their husbands";

"I commend you to be good to women.} And {The best among you are those who are best to their wives."

"And live with them (wives) in kindness. For if you dislike them, perhaps you dislike a thing and God makes therein much good. (Quran, 4:19)"

"talking bad about someone behind his back is akin to devouring the flesh of your own brother"

"the most exhalted of the people among you are those who found themselves as perfect strangers but then they befriended each other to the extent that they became one".

""Thy Lord hath decreed that ye worship none but Him, and that ye be kind to parents. Whether one or more attain old age in thy life, say not to them a word of contempt, nor repel them, but address them in terms of honor. And out of kindness, lower to them the wing of humility, and say, "my Lord! bestow on them Thy Mercy, just as they cherished me in childhood." (Quran 17: 23,24)"

"Paradise lies under the feet of the mother."

"God's pleasure is in the pleasure of the father, and God's displeasure is in the displeasure of the father."

"He who wishes to enter Paradise through its best door must please his parents."

"It is a pity that some people may not attain Paradise, on account of not serving their old parents."

"If a person looks with love at his parents, God writes in his favor the reward equal to the performance of one Hajj."

"Whosoever supports two daughters until they mature, he and I will come on the Day of Judgment as this (and he pointed with his fingers held together)"

This is for one of the interactors on the other now lost article, who wanted Mead to hand him my head on a silver platter. Unfortunately for him, it didn't turn out that way..

As for the CIA's media outpost in Pakistan, GEO, Walter Mead was given wide coverage where part of his "spin" was that the US is doing nuclear deals with India and not Pakistan because Pakistan doesn't have its nuclear house in order but still the "door" to a similar deal with Pakistan is still open (wonder which orfice he pulled that lie out from)

------------------------------- From the ilog for today----

Attended the seminar with Walter Russell Mead and his entourage today (8/27). As I had mentioned earlier, as part of the cultural technician of the US empire (at the Council on Foreign Relations) he is in the business of cloaking US barbarism abroad in the finest silk, draped with the best available perfume of charity, human rights or alternatively the “city on the hill”. I remained silent during most of the Q&A session. There were a few relevant questions asked about Afghanistan, one person mentioned the “War on Terror” being a US search for “Mega Enemies” after the collapse of the SU, to feed the “Military Industrial Complex”, impressive I thought to myself. During the course of that question, that questioner suggested that more people get killed in automobile accidents in the US than get killed by Terrorism to which Walter Russell Mead condescendingly said “I don’t see the relevance of that to anything at all”. Asadi Sahib saw the opportunity and jumped in ; ) ha ha, fine moment, “Can I show the relevance of that please, I asked”. On being allowed by the moderator, I said, “The relevance of that is quite apparent in that the US has placed as priority #1 on its foreign and domestic policy list something that is less harmful than even automobile accidents. Why not have poverty elimination, health care, auto accident prevention much higher on the priority list, than the so-called “war on terror”.

To this Mr. Mead (the fat a$$ sob) replies, “ Automobile accidents cannot be on the foreign policy list, ha ha even though country x……..”

To which I replied, “Auto mobile accidents was just an example to show that the US is giving priority to things that are not as big or harmful as they are made out to be. How about poverty reduction, things that cause greater harm to humanity if the US is as benevolent as you suggest.”

Then he went to a long diatribe about how fitting into the “world system” (something the damn fool didn’t even understand) has caused a lot of poverty reduction around the world and the US has given Pakistan very favorable trade deals, letting them sell whatever they want and that will result in poverty reduction, and the US is the most generous nation on earth, that gives more than any other country, we outsource our jobs, make our people suffer to give you jobs…..yada yada”

I asked the moderator if I could respond to that and was cut off and told that the time was over . The guy was sweating, he didn’t expect a grilling, he expected gracious bows and man-worship the kind the Indians do with the Americans these days or Manto does with Jinnah.

If I was given the opportunity to respond to his BS, I would have pointed to him that more than 50% of the earth’s population lives below $2 a day thanks to the “world system”, that has historically produced a few winners (nearly all European) and most losers (the colored world). Poverty in the US has gone up during the tenure of GWB, and you cannot convince people of the benevolence of the US, when its own house is in disarray with over 40 million people facing food insecurity, and a health care system that sends millions to an early grave due to delayed or unavailable care, all for the profit motive. I would also have told him that foreign reparations of the TNCs that are doing Pakistan a “favor”, have gone up 900% in the past year but not the paltry wages they pay to the workers or the few they employ that are not even a drop in the Pakistan’s labor force. Next, I would have reminded him that US firms relocate not because the US is benevolent and sacrifices the jobs of its own to get rid of “poverty” but because they want to exploit cheap labor in foreign lands, part of a similar resource theft that took place during colonization and they relocate because unions are weak and wages are low, not because the US is handing out its “coat and cloak” as charity.

Well, I was cut off but I conveyed my point. The look on his face was all I wanted to see. We are not damn fools that you rape us, perpetuate poverty among us, use us and discard us and then want us to worship you like tahmed and hand out chicken tikkas and kulfis. Take your fat a$$ back to the corridors of power in Washington, soon that whore- house will crumble, because all structures built on injustice have shaky foundations….

" If we follow this logic no one will vacate a seat in the bus for an elderly; no one will remove a rock from the pathway so that others won't starddle. "
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if we start asking about worthiness, there won't be any need for such things anyway.
transportationd epartment will ask "is it worthy to send only 1 bus to pick up 2000 people?"..they will say no.. enough buses, enough seats and not one has to give up his seat to be nice..niceity will start much earlier, asking why not enough buses?
or why that rock was in the way in the first place.

Re: # 107

Dulla
you may be agnostic Aethist but majority of world people have gods or god ....

"So if we go by your logic a teenager might ask his parents for the proof of their worthiness for respect."
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urstruly, what is wrong with that? most of times teens don't have to ask this question because it is usually very self evident. they had grown up seeing their parents struggle and work hard to provide things to them and love them care for them and live every moment for their kids....but still if a kid asks for proof, it can be easily provided in terms of above things provided to the kid.
but suppose a parent has been dead beat parent and have given nothing other than his sperm...have never cared for the kid, never provided any living needs of the kid and basically been absent from his or hger life for last 15 years living away in luxury and enjoying his own things while the child struggled and missed on much.....do you think such a parent stilldeserves unconditional respect of the child? don't you think such a child has the right to ask that question?

capt clueless: if that's the standard, you should be banned from bloviating all over chowk given your dismal track record starting with the whole t-shirt with paki flag thing.

BTW, should the people who actually bought t-shirts with paki flags be allowed to sue you?

"i think there should be laws that protect against such demeaning.......interestingly, in western societies, if one makes a false statement about a bottle of shampoo, one can get sued.......or if one says that tom cruise is gay, he/she can get sued......but one can make any statement about religion, without having to prove its truthfulness......"
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bulleya, that is precisely the point...one can be sued for making false statement about a bottle of shampoo but everyone is free to dream up and make all kinds of statements and claims of truth about God and it is protected.