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  • hardie karges 7:15 am on October 15, 2017 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , Daesh, , ISIL, , , , Nietzsche, Sharia   

    Dr. Strange Dharma: How I learned to Love Donald Trump, and ISIL… 

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    The Golden Spires of Shwedagon Pagoda

    I’ve been through this all before, you see, like back in May, 2014, when I was returning from Asia via Europe, i.e. Istanbul, specifically so that I could do a side trip to the Iraq border, and make a little incursion into the northern quarter, maybe even go as far as Mosul, if things looked good, and my resources and patience were holding up, something I’d heard you could do, without ever really leaving Turkey, officially, that is, as long as you come back to the same border, and re-enter Turkey, just like nothing ever happened…

    But it seems somebody else had the same idea, a then-little-known organization variously called ISIL, ISIS, IS or Daesh (not Riprock). It seems they were causing a spot of bother there, huffing and puffing and blowing houses down, all in the name of Islam, putting the fun back in fundamentalism, telling people what they want to hear, and then doing what they had always intended to do—invoke Sharia law and rule as an Islamic caliphate… (More …)

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    • Dave Kingsbury 3:49 pm on October 16, 2017 Permalink | Reply

      Do you think that your car is running well if it accelerates effortlessly while driving you off a cliff? Haha – a pertinent question given our current weird, er, trajectory. You make a convincing case for the value of suffering, however. Let’s hope that cliff launch turns into a learning curve …

    • hardie karges 4:52 pm on October 16, 2017 Permalink | Reply

      I’ll drink to that…

  • hardie karges 7:22 am on June 21, 2016 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , ISIL, , ,   

    The Dark Side Dialectic of Religion, Culture and Politics… 

    isis

    ISIL wages war in the Mideast

    We cringe with horror at the antics of ISIL, but they’re very similar to those employed by the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR aka ‘Russia’) before them, that previous political entity with objectives almost exactly the opposite. The fact that the USSR crashed almost simultaneously with the rise of fundamentalist Islam is almost too coincidental to be ignored—almost.

    It’s almost like there IS indeed a dialectic of history—thesis, antithesis, synthesis—as theorized by Hegel, regardless of whether it ultimately has anything to do with the means of production, as theorized by Marx. In this scenario, something at least has to be offered up as an alternative to the dominant capitalist-consumerist system, or whatever system happens to be on top at any given time.

    In this view, therefore, there is no one specific dialectic going on at any one given time, but more of a random one—something anything. Sounds a lot like evolution, doesn’t it? Yes, it does, but more like a cultural evolution, a dialectic of ideas, as theorized by Hegel, in which we seem to be subconsciously struggling toward something else–always. Or is it a function of language itself? (More …)

     

  • hardie karges 3:15 pm on December 3, 2015 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , ISIL, , , satire, ,   

    Kerry to ISIL Leaders: “Get Lives. Get Wives. Get Laid ASAP”… 

    Funny how all the suicidal bombers and blow-up artists in the world have never been accused of being suicidal—okay, not so funny. But it certainly runs counter to the common narrative that depression is the cause of suicide—period. Narratives are not to be confused with truth, though, of course. People commit suicide for many reasons, including poverty, heartbreak, frustration, and old age, none of which are depression, strictly speaking.

    Then there are so-called ‘suicide bombers’ in the service of various intifadahs and jihads, who give their lives so that others may have better lives, and to serve Allah, so to speak. So they aren’t truly suicidal; or are they? I’d like to offer another theory: now we all know the extents and depths to which sexual frustration can lead, but can it make you violent? Can it make you suicidal? (More …)

     

  • hardie karges 12:15 pm on October 2, 2015 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: ISIL, , , , ,   

    Russian to Keep Up in Syria: Follow the Money… 

    Vladimir Putin

    Vladimir Putin

    Okay, so here’s a theory that has yet to make the rounds: maybe the Russians are on the at-t-tack in the Mideast to drive up the price of oil. Now we all know:

    1) the price of West Texas crude stands at about $45/barrel, and Brent is not much higher. That’s down from over $100 in less than a year, with no increase on the horizon, UNLESS (cue drum roll), unless the supply situation becomes uncertain…

    2) oil producers are not known for their br*$$ b*lls, and their lackeys on Wall Street even less, so the slightest disruption can have a psychological impact many times the actual damage…

    3) Russia is in a tight spot, given their dependence on oil income and their current expansionist designs, aka ‘male enhancement’…

    Do the math.  Don’t be surprised if Russia hits some ISIL-controlled oil wells and’or refineries, something the West is not known for doing in this conflict, though a few bombs could shut oil production down quickly… SOMETHING THE WEST HAS NOT DONE, I reiterate…

    More questions: Just why are we fighting this war anyway, for oil or money?  Hell of a choice…

     

  • hardie karges 1:18 pm on September 30, 2015 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , ISIL, , , Stalin, , , William James   

    Needed ASAP: Western Equivalent of ISIL, Moral Equivalent of War 

    We scratch our heads and wonder what is the big attraction with ISIL, like why would anybody in their right minds go halfway around the world to join this band of misfits and miscreants in their bid to destroy the world by creating it in their image and likeness, especially when it’s white fighters who aren’t—or weren’t—necessarily even Muslims in the first place?

    The answer is simple, of course: people are looking for something in their lives, something besides SNL and MDMA, which is about the best that the West has to offer: America, at least. Or, as Mel Gibson’s character in ‘Air America’ said: “I was fighting to defend… chicken BBQs and weinee roasts, and Ray Charles songs and drinkin’ Southern Comfort till you passed out behind the bar.”

    There you go. He said it better than I. That’s what we’re trying to cram down the rest of the world’s throat—weenies—lest they mistake unleavened (pita) bread and other Mideast specialties as the food of prophets, with the strict understanding that unless they change their ‘evil ways’, then the wrath of God will be visited upon them, many kilotons of wrath. Unfortunately for some of us, that just is not enough. Weenies are wretched food, a desecration of all that is sacred and holy, and Southern Comfort isn’t much better. (More …)

     

  • hardie karges 9:03 am on June 14, 2015 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , ISIL,   

    Religion: Founded on Fear, Fueled by Fire, Fed on Fulfillment 

    E Pluribus Unum…

    The nice guys over at ISIL have got it backwards. Fear may indeed be the starting point of religion, but not the end, and certainly not the means. That original fear is something like existential dread, whether in our ‘primitive’ ancestors’ realization of their own mortality, the danger from enemies or the self-conscious knowledge of our human predicament, struggling for survival.

    Regardless, that is something to be mitigated, not exploited. Organizing fighting forces on the principle of ‘kill or be killed’ with a God or a flag riding ‘shotgun’ to provide symbolic leadership and moral justification is a practice best relegated to the annals of history and the back pages of the Old Testament. (More …)

     

    • whitemvibes 1:44 am on June 15, 2015 Permalink | Reply

      Religion was founded on love. Love for God and love for people around you. Religious people are not all filled with images of hell or worried 24/7 about Sins.

      Religion is here to stay.

      • hardie karges 6:11 am on June 15, 2015 Permalink | Reply

        Old Testament could use a bit more love for my tastes, but I agree with your conclusion.

  • hardie karges 9:54 am on May 31, 2015 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , , ISIL, ,   

    Religio-Politics 101: Enlightenment of Religion, Endarkenment of War 

    ISIL wages war in the Mideast

    ISIL wages war in the Mideast

    Surely this must be the end of days, when religious fanatics overrun entire sections of the globe—with martyrs, books and fear; opposed by corrupt governments—with lawyers, guns and money; overseen by Empires and umpires—with commentary, updates, and buzzfeed; with the fossils of forgotten ancestors funding it all, sowing seeds of hate where no flowers have grown for years, decades, or centuries; in deserts laid waste by millennia of neglect and eons of misuse. For any religion to use fear as a weapon is to do a grave disservice to all parties concerned. Fear is a weapon of war, not religion… (More …)

     

  • hardie karges 8:13 am on October 11, 2014 Permalink | Reply
    Tags: , ISIL, , ,   

    News Flash from the Conspiracy Channel 

    Isis execution

    Isis execution

    Conspiracy TV has announced that it plans, in a rare show of support, to renew the contract for “ISIS: We’re Desert Rats, not Democrats” in its prime-time reality TV slot for two years, instead of the usual one year, according to CEO Rupert Crotchrot. “We’re very excited about the potential of this series,” explains Crotchrot, adding, “good head-loppers are hard to find. We had high hopes for the Mexican cartels, but the back-story just wasn’t there. Heads hanging from a bridge are fine, as long as you know WHY they’re hanging from that particular bridge.”

    ISIS, the shadowy terrorist group that has captured much of the Syrian and Iraqi deserts, emerged from relative obscurity earlier this year to capture the world’s imagination and restore a sense of awe to an otherwise ‘been there, done that’ world. There is wide hope that they will do much to restore otherwise moribund defense spending and jump-start economies still reeling from six years of economic recession. No one will confirm it, but apparently there are plans to expand the action to other locations as quickly as they can be found. But that’s just the rumor. No one’s talking.

    “ISIS: …Desert Rats…” will have its work cut out for it, what with new competition from the new reality TV series “Ebola: Out of the Cave, Part II” now scheduled in the same time slot on a competing channel. I know you’re as excited as I am. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see how this all plays out. On a sadder note, “Border Kids: the Wonder Years” has been canceled, effective immediately. Hey, they had a good run. That’s entertainment. Stay tuned for politics.

    (This intended as a work of satire, of conspiracy theories, military spending and the mass media. I have nothing but sympathy for all victims on all sides of all Mideast conflicts)

     

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