Just watched the movie

[Braggi]

Hotel Rwanda. Hadn't seen it before.

Just read up on Darfur.

And we complain about medicines in parts per billion or trillion in our drinking water. We complain that immunizations are too risky. We complain the batteries in our iPods are too hard to change.

What should we be working on?

-Jeff

[Lenny]

Hotel Rwanda. Hadn't seen it before.
Just read up on Darfur.
And we complain about medicines in parts per billion or trillion in our drinking water. We complain that immunizations are too risky. We complain the batteries in our iPods are too hard to change.
What should we be working on?
-Jeff

Being thankful?

[Mark Chiang]

That reminds me, Darfur Now will be released on video on May 27th..

[nurturetruth]

yes ! yes! yes!

What all are we grateful for ?


This is definitely an option we CAN productively do and embrace!

Besides, there is alot of misfortune everywhere to focus in on!

but hotel rwanda is a real eye opener and it had an affect on me too!

:thumbsup:


Being thankful?

[Braggi]

Being thankful?

Well, I am certainly thankful. My gratitude is huge for being born and raised in a place where mass violence is so rare and nothing like genocide has happened in my lifetime. That is, nothing except the genocide of tribal languages and customs of the native people here. Even that has seen a tiny reversal in my lifetime.

I think my main emotions are bewilderment, disgust, ... I'm dancing around in my mind with anger. I'm not sure the film angered me. The "bad guys," if there are any, are the Europeans that artificially defined the "tribes" that wound up at war with each other. What was presented in the US press as "tribal warfare" was anything but. The Hutus are not a tribe. The Tutsis are not a tribe. They are either a single people or groups of smaller tribes given false identities for the purpose of turning them against each other. This is a practice seen all over the world where European influences prevail. This is classic prison guard behavior where inmates are turned against each other to limit the power they have against the guards.

This the theory of the "wedge issue" so popular among Republicans in today's United States. If they can just keep the people busy fighting each other and keeping the media filled with images of that fighting, the Government can do whatever it wants without anybody paying attention.

In Rwanda the white Europeans left after setting the wheels of genocide in motion. "Free speech" was used as a tool of genocide. Free access to weapons put the actual tools of murder into the hands of an angry, aggressive group of people. These are freedoms we take for granted in this country: free speech and access to weapons. How could they be turned against us by "evil" people and "evil" plans?

We really have to be careful in this country. Freedom is a dangerous thing. It needs to be treated with utmost respect. The call to violence needs to be examined thoroughly and never put on the "fast track" whether that violence is against other countries such as Afghanistan and Iraq or against US citizen groups or against "illegal aliens" or anyone.

As Isaac Asimov tried to teach us: "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent."

Yes, I have a great deal to be thankful for. Gratitude meditation is one of my basic survival tools. It has kept me sane (relatively) at times that were so dark I had trouble finding my soul.

I think we need to talk about Darfur. I'm glad to hear a film is coming out on that topic. Darfur is a microcosm of the world wide struggle of the animal herders against the agrarian cultures. See the myth of Cain and Able.

-Jeff

[Moon]

Getting the Chinese government out of Sudan, Tibet and Burma;
getting the US government
out of Iraq; and getting the Israeli government out of Palestine.
In short, telling everyone to go back home and stay there.

Hotel Rwanda. Hadn't seen it before.
Just read up on Darfur.
And we complain about medicines in parts per billion or trillion in our drinking water. We complain that immunizations are too risky. We complain the batteries in our iPods are too hard to change.
What should we be working on?
-Jeff