JERKWATER TRAIN

Propaganda is not an exclusive property of the conservative right, but also the liberal left. Well, you know I am not impressed by the human specie.

Jihad means to wage ware against the infidels in the name of Allah. This is based on the Quran, the teachings of Muhammad and conduct and conquests, and ample history. In fact, according to the salafi school of thought, which is ubiquitous thanks to the petrodollars, it's the sixth pillar of Islam. This is not an opinion, but a fact. Euphemism will not help liberal and decent Muslims against the fanatics, but honesty might. Islamic scholarship at the highest level need to delete jihad from the books. Will they ever? No that optimistic ... The elephant is in the room. When most Muslims view the Quran as human literature about the divine, and NOT divine literature about humans, and therefore should be subjected to scrutiny and careful critique like any human literature, then we won't be having this conversation. Jihad is EVIL! Must stop.

Waldo writes on Fate "And though nothing is more disgusting than the crowing about liberty by slaves, as most men are, and the flippant mistaking for freedom of some paper preamble like a " Declaration of Independence," or the statute right to vote, by those who have never dared to think or to act ..." Trump or Hillary, Sanders or Cruz, like it or not, are us in the mirror. Trump is a symptom of our sick society, riding high on anger and disappointments and illusions, however misplaced.

On the Spirit of the Times. I bet Waldo Emerson is turning in his grave. "But the mind, once prepared for the reign of principles, will easily find modes of expressing its will. There is the highest fitness in the place and time in which this enterprise is begun. Not in an obscure corner, not in a feudal Europe, not in an antiquated appanage where no onward step can be taken without rebellion, is this seed of benevolence laid in the furrow, with tears of hope; but in this broad America of God and man, where the forest is only now falling, or yet to fall, and the green earth opened to the inundation of emigrant men from all quarters of oppression and guilt; here, where not a family, not a few men, but mankind, shall say what shall be; here, we ask, Shall it be War, or shall it be Peace?" He had high hopes for our nation. What a disappointment we have been. Since WWII we have been at war. Only one president never fired a missile or drop a bomb, he went on to become a great hum...

Some sobering facts about Yemen: GDP per capita In 2014 per day = $2. Literacy rate 40% for females and 77% for females. And that's before this genocidal war even began. The rich, gluttonous, good for nothing but excrement and offal Gulf Arabs - with our high-tech weapons and cluster bombs and support - have been bombing the poorest Arabs. Can you imagine living on that WITHOUT bombs, proudly made by uncle Sam and the UK , being dropped on your head for 10 months?. These prople are so poor, on the brink of starvation, so let's drop bombs on them and we'll call it mercy. Alleluia, praise the lord. How can our government particpate in such atrocities, in our names? Who is profiteering from these perpetual wars? ... Since WWII we have been at war. Only one president never fired a missile or drop a bomb, he went on to become a great humanitarian with a cultivated soul that inspires the world. Jimmy Carter is not just a good man, but a great human being! Jimmy Carter did not...

"The cause of peace is not the cause of cowardice. If peace is sought to be defended or preserved for the safety of the luxurious and the timid, it is a sham, and the peace will be base. War is better, and the peace will be broken. If peace is to be maintained, it must be by brave men, who have come up to the same height as the hero, namely, the will to carry their life in their hand, and stake it at any instant for their principle, but who have gone one step beyond the hero, and will not seek another man's life;—men who have, by their intellectual insight, or else by their moral elevation, attained such a perception of their own intrinsic worth, that they do not think property or their own body a sufficient good to be saved by such dereliction of principle as treating a man like a sheep." Waldo Emerson I have been reading his essay on war. Since WWII we have been at war. Only one president never fired a missile or drop a bomb, he went on to become a great humanitarian...

We say things that make one wonder how it all began. For instance, bite the bullet: the bullet is too hard to bite into, and who in the right mind would want to bite the bullet? Suppose I am crazy and I bite the bullet and I bite too hard and the bullet explodes in my mouth? ... here is another one: shoot: shoot who? You? Me? The dog? Makes no sense at all to shoot anyone or anything. And why? ... a million ways to skin the cat: which cat? Mine or yours? I don't like to skin cats. We don't eat cats to skin them. Do you kill the cat first, and then you skin it? Or do you skin it alive? No matter how you dice it (wait ... dice what, the tomatoes? ) It sounds cruel to me. Or, this one, she's a ham. Wait a minute, I thought she was a person not a meat cut.