Happy Now ?
Again, the Independent has been voicing its concerns over the hole in the soul of its anglo-saxon readers. A noble thing to do, naturally.
The article states that despite the West's affluence, people are gloomy, sad, depressed..in short unhappy. It seems being wealthy brings on the blues. The wealthier you are,the more depressed you are, according to the article.
It also says something very interesting : "In a world of abundance, when everybody has what they need,something strange happens. They begin to want what(omega) they don't have." (of course we are talking about the West here and don't you ever forget that.)
Fascinating, this business of wanting what you don't have, is it not? Which reminds me of a story.
A "well intentioned" man, a journalist, a writer, I am not sure, ended up in Baghdad when it was being "liberated."
He proceeded to loot some of Iraq's belongings. He says so himself and calls himself a thief of the occupation.
He ransacked through Uday Hussein's (Saddam Hussein's son) "shag" house, as he calls it. And pillaged whatever he managed to loot. He sold everything with "good intentions", so it seems. Giving the money away to charity to help Iraqis emigrate to some Western capital. And this man prides himself on the fact. Wilful arrogance and dupery at its utmost!
I wonder how much he looted and how many Iraqis made it to the Western Capital in question. I also wonder if he is experiencing a hole in his soul due to affluence, now?
Mind you, if we had not been "liberated", we would not need to emigrate nor would we be in need of charity.
3.7 Million Iraqis are seeking refuge today, outside of Iraq. Maybe our venerable writer can arrange for visas now.
Incidentally, even Saddam Hussein's underwear and personal clothes were looted by the "liberation" forces and its "embedded" journalists and writers. Forgot to mention, that the above "gentleman", our struggling writer, promotes his books on the web, books dedicated to "anti-occupation themes"!
I suggest to this man, whoever he is, to return now all that he has looted from Iraqi nationals, and I want to remind him that Saddam Hussein and his family are Iraqi Nationals, to their rightful owners. Even if that means that he pays a visit to the daughters of Saddam, Raghad and Rana Hussein.
That would, in fact, be the only manly thing he can undertake to rectify his disgraceful actions.(if he is capable that is.)
But, my anger subsides and I feel a sense of serenity, from what a Native American person said in one of my comments section:
"Layla, the greed of these white people will bring the end of the world. Remember, they can't steal your soul."
We will be all drowning together Mister Writer. (by the way, I have always had great respect and admiration for Native Americans- they are the true owners of America.)
On the same subject of Iraq and the hole in the soul.
When I posted my article on the poor crippled dog being "taunted"(have you noticed how this verb has become so vogue since the lynching of President Saddam Hussein?) by american soldiers, I received tens of mails .
An outpouring of heart felt sympathy. I was very touched. Really.
Some even denounced the cowardice of wanting to kill a defenseless crippled animal. And rightly so. A few words uttered though, on the million defenseless Iraqi civilians.
Thank God, and God whether you believe in It/He/She, does not matter, arranged for a wonderful article titled "Individualism and the Dog." Through sheer coincidence, I promise you.
I understand, that in the face of strong individualism, dogs are favored. Besides which, dogs do not beg for our forgiveness and understanding ,but humans in their albeit limited, imperfect forms do.Dogs are simpler, Humans beings are a test.
Getting back to the article and it is very much related (you need to read it though- can't do the reading for you.)
What is it that you are after and cannot have?I wonder...
What is this fascination with this "Oriental" thing?
What is it we have, apart from oil and being the cradle of your civilization,that you want so much and cannot grasp or grab?
After all, you expropriated nearly everything. You ransacked and pillaged, you looted, you starved, you killed,you raped...so what else are you after ? Come now, be true with me, if you can.
What is it that hooks you so much to the Orient?
The fact that "God" is part of our daily reality?
The fact that we can find pleasure in simple things, like the smile of a good friend?
The fact that Time has not managed to control us the way it controls you?
The fact that we have resilience in the face of calamity?
The fact that we care about our families no matter what?
The fact that we may be very poor and still share everything we have with a guest or a wayfarer?
The fact that we have managed to surrender inwards to whatever life deals us with?
The fact that we don't have too many hangups about marriage and raising families as we consider this a natural gift from the Divine? (despite your malthusian theories)
The fact that we are still capable of deriving satisfaction from non material things?
The fact that we hold on to our dignity and honor even if it means our physical death?
By the way, etymologically, to orient someone is to guide them when they are lost.
And the Orient(Mashreq) is where the sun rises and the West (Al Gharb) is where it sets down.
"Maghreb" means sunset, "Ghareeb" means strange, and "Ghorba" means exile in a foreign land.
And you have managed to do the three. Bring darkness like in "Maghreb", act in "Ghareeb" ways and drive thousands into "Ghorba."
Belying your apparent belonging to the race of humans and even to that of animals.
And you still have not managed to fill that hole in your soul.
Happy now ?
Painting: Iraqi artist, AbdelAmeer Alwan.
Comments
Layla, thank you again for such beautiful and ACCURATE writing. God bless you always. Hopefully, the Thief will have the courage to return stolen property to the family of President Saddam Hussein. I doubt it, though, because STEALING for these people is genetic.
It is a huge badge of honor for fearlessly speaking the truth as you are.
You are blessed.
* Globalist bankers own government puppets.
* USA is military arm of Globalist bankers.
* Mideast is not in the globalist club, but has what they need to continue functioning in their industrial system (for a while longer).
That is the top level.
On the bottom level, where 99% of us are, we hear stuff like "dispose the brutal dictator" and "prevent WMD attack" and "liberate Iraqis" and "spread Democracy".
Most of us on the bottom continue to argue with false choices, flase pretensees thrown at us. Bush is either stupid or smart, evil or blind... but there are 100 comprimised, co-opted, owned, controlled presidential candidates ready to take his place.
The nature of money drives the machine. The nature of the banking system, commercialism amd oil-starved industrial systems drive it.
While we on the bottom 99% argue and divide against each other, the banker-industrialist corporations that own our leaders come in and own the theater.
We need to forget about the false arguments of race, religion, politics... it really isn't that difficult.
The game right now is very simple.
We are in a system run by ancient European clan families, industrialist mafias. The Rothschilds, Rockefellers, and about 30 more at least on the top tier. Hundreds more, including the Bush clan are on the second tier trying to grow up into the circle. These guys are killers but they have an achilles heel.
If we can stop accepting their theater, stop arguing about false arguments, stop saying Bush is stupid when it has nothing to do with these genocidal events... If we can stop looking at the trees... back up... look at the forest... then we can get outside of the box, out of our artificially induced paradigm, and we outnumber them thousands to one. Education is key, arguing the real issues is key, holding them accountable to international law like the Geneve Convention, start Nuremburg proceedings, back these old bastards into the wall.
The only chance to topple the system is to see the system and clue others into what it looks like, how to defend against it, how to stop supporting it unwittingly.
We don't need to be good Americans or good Iraqis, good Christians or good Muslims. All that is important for personal choice but the larger issue is to be a good person, to get outside this theater and bring others out with us so that the theater loses power over us, loses it's effect. And then we can start bringing the owners of the theater, and the managers of the theater and the ones who made money off of the theater to justice.
If we bring a few to the courtroom and get convications, the rest will get the message and back off. I know it seems unlikely at this point, but that is my best idea for now.
Anyone else?
Westerners don't care about their families. Tick.
Westerners have hangups about marriage. Tick.
Westerners cannot derive satisfaction from immaterial things. Tick.
It is so lazy, and a complete pile of rubbish.
Layla i always say the richer i get the unhappier i get.
Basically what you said in your post about that report!
It is true that no matter how much one has, one always wants more. I don't think it is an affliction of the West alone.
With me personally, the older I got the more my values that I was taught as a child meant to me.
My children (10 month boy, 6 year old girl) are VERY well mannered and well behaved.
I guess the SHAME of all of this is the people WHO DO have good morals don't do anything to promote them. Only in their immediate circle of family and friends.
I we had another "million man march" in USA and one million people took to the streets of D.C...ONE MILLION with the same decent values that were predominant in the 1940's and 1950's....we could get something done.
But so long as the people actually believe that the vote process is not capeable of being rigged in USA then we will continue to be led by the stinking rich wealthy bastards who are raping US of our liberties as well as PROMOTING immorality thru media to our children.
As they pillage and desecrate Iraq, soon, SOON. You will be facing it here as well.
If ANYONE believes the illuminatti in D.C care AT ALL about the average American citizen, then you like many have TRUELY lost your mind!
Hi Layla.
Stay safe & god bless.
Ike
Enough to do more than just fucking survive.
Substandard food, substandard medical care, substandard housing, substandard transportation.
I just want enough to live comfortably without having to worry about not having enough money to do things for my family.
And it HURTS me to see my mother SUFFER in many ways because she is so poverty stricken.
We are not even poverty level so I guess we are subpoverty as well.
If it were not for what freedoms we have left (freedom of speach, the right to keep and bear arms). I would say USA is a shitty place to live.
Soon you will see, you will have to fight for these rights.
A friend once told me it was easier for him to survive in the jungles of Vietnam than to have a decent life here in USA.
Thats pathetic...
USA is a land of wealthy or poor.
I am poor.
ANYONE who reads this AT ANY TIME that has money. You take your money and stick it straight up your ass!
Or pay your filthy Mexican labor to do an American $10.00 per hour job for $4.00 an hour. Let them come here by the hordes and take our jobs, not even knowing our language and then spit on us because WE don't know spanish!
The rich can go to hell, most all successful people are bad people.
I know many good people here in my little town.
But who cares about our opinion or our voice.
We a poor and were "doomed from the beginning, with no chance".
America has had it too good for too long.
And now the wolf has his teeth at our throats and the majority are too complacent to see it.
Thats ok.
I guess the jew's didn't think it could happen either...
Ike
I am a third generation UNION industrial painter.
I know about unity.
The people in USA will not unite until it is too late and the federal thugs along with the hired contract security is policing the entire country and packing people away to all the nice prisons they have built ALL ACROSS America, as well as the FEMA holding centers that were built by Halliburton.
Devide and conqor in Iraq and do the same to USA.
Whites against black's, against Mexicans, against every other race that has saturated our country.
Black's kill Mexican's like sport in Los Angeles, California and moany other big cities.
I have been there and seen it.
The ones who lead this charge into world domination KNOW WHAT THEY ARE DOING.
And sadly, we are going to just sit and let it happen.
History repeats its self.
Again and again, and again and again.
and again, soon.
Ike
I need to clarify a few points here.
1) my post was written in the light of an article that came out in the WESTERN media and dealt with the feelings of alienation and emptiness that is so common in Western countries and that despite their Affluence as societies as a whole.
So it is not my media who says that , it is your media.
2) Anyone with a little knowledge of sociology and how societies work will attest that the so called developed countries are suffering from a deep "MALAISE" tearing away at the very fabric of society.
Delinquency, alcoholism, violence, lack of support network, lack of communal feelings etc etc...
And all sociologists agree to more or less extent that these are a
PRODUCT of a societal structure that favors INDIVIDUALISM. And these are western sociologists.
3- One may argue as Arkbuilder said that this is a product of capitalism and the rule of money.
Something that Ike touched upon. Yes it is true but that is not the ONLY reason.
4- Seeing it from a "third world", perspective and from an arab angle, no one in their honest mind can deny that the WEST with its history of slavery, colonialism, empire building ALSO developed apart from the economics of it all, a WESTERN view of what CIVILIZED AND CIVILIZATION MEAN.
5) Can anyone deny the blatant fact that millions of Native Americans, Africans, Indians, Asians, Latin Americans suffered from the Civilizing mission of the White West ?
6) From an Arab perspective, and a basic reading in Orientalism, shows that until this very day, orientalist images fascination and hate simultaneously coexist in the western mind when it comes to both Arabs and Muslims. And I argue that this perception also shapes the way foreign policies are conducted and these latter cannot be SOLELY relegated to Economics and Oil like crude leftism would like to argue.
7)Ask ANY third worldist (and I hate that word by the way) what good the west brought upon them as nations and countries and listen to what they have to say...It is really a question of listening and realizing that we don't all have the same view of reality.
8) my article was not intended to say that Western people have no values or manners or did not care about their families , or had no faith. This is NOT what I am saying.
What I was alluding to was all the above points I mentioned and to be seen in a sociological/historical context.
I hope I have clarified enough my position.
Regards
And has anyone questioned the mind frame?
It is as if Iraq has become a public looting and pissing and killing ground for Westerners whatever their political inclinations. And if this is NOT RACISM , I don't know what is!
As one who posts here regularly I want you to know that I did not misunderstand your post.
And I do beleive you understand what I write of.
My anger dearest Layla is ALWAYS with ALL things considered.
All peoples.
All conflicts.
All wars.
It is realy as though I am hypersensitive. I feel a lot. And I care as much...
I know WELL the suffering of the Native American Indian after the invasion of the white dog.
I know the history of many great Native Americans like Geranimo.
He was fearless as a warrior and tried from his heart to fight for his people.
I have seen them now, reduced to alcoholism and housing as bad as anything third world...
Did you know that a fraternal collage club that G.W belongs to (As well as John Kerry), known as "the skull and bones", at Yale University, STOLE the actual skull of Geranimo? If you don't then I believe you will find it interesting.
And you and the media both are correct in what is said. Most Americans are mentally disturbed in some way or another. Depression and anxiety being two of the more dominant.
It is a land of antidepressant, self medicating people.
Poverty and deprivation cause depression.
I guess too much money could do the same...
I really would not know much about the affects of having too much money...
You must know that a great deal of, if not most, of these mental health issues are brought upon the people by the government.
They do things and create situations to disturb the mind, then they capitalise off of it by selling us antidepressants at STAGGERING cost.
Also. I am in school now Layla.
I am in collage in my final semester of earning an associates degree in culinary arts. Eating is in demand, people eat, so they can pay me, to feed them someday.
Just trying to better my life.
Anyway, I am in a sociology class this semester and I agree totally with what the sociologists here say.(was also at my school the day after the collage bombing in Iraq and I thought much about it. ALL bombings against innocents is BAD).
And the writer looting then writing.
Yes I hear you.
Psycologically speaking, G.W has ACTUAL questionable behaviorial habits.
Hitler was insane. Agreed?
I just wish, as I said, that we....us.....anybody......somebody!
Could do more....
To straighten out ALL of the messes that mankind has created for all of us in these times...
Thanks for your work Layla.
Stay safe & godbless.
Ike
The West today is Industrial-based society. Long gone are the seekers of individual rights. Today we have seekers of individual privelege and self worship.
But there is one small probelm. Industrial civilizaation (western mentality) is reliant upon fossil fuel for every thing we have, eat and do. Everything. Yes, everything.
At the risk of generalizing too much, some points have to be made...
Industrial civilization has no functional extended family. Tick.
Industrial civilization functions together as strangers. Tick.
Industrial civilization ranks itself in groups and as individuals according to their collection of material things. Tick.
Industrial civilization spends more time with info-tainment than with their spouse.
Industrial civilization worships the self, preferring to live an individual's life, going so far as to send granny to the old folks home and kids to boarding school and divorce the spouse in exchange for the wholly dissatisfying experience of "self-worship", a cubicle life with electronics and a refrigerator, whenever possible.
Industrial civilization considers bottom line oil acquisition from abroad as a blood transfustion to keep this loony, insane system alive. No cost is too much because "them people" are backwards anyway.
Maybe I can get some comments from my fellow Americans out there?
I would like to send to you some (supportive) material that I am sure will come handy to you in your effort to unmask and bare naked the truly ugly, inhuman, immoral, hypocritical face of the monster called "western civilization". Articles/items that would help you dig deep at the rotten roots of it all. If there is a direct e-mail address to you rather than posting on your blog, please send it to me.
Best of wishes
I agree completely.
You can click on my profile and there you will find my email address.
Regards
Nice article. Regarding Yank Christians, don't you know what a "subbie" is? They blindly do as their "Big Daddy" in Israel tells them, and they never think. Just imagine, some group takes "your leader" and tortures him, and kills him, and these pathetic "Christians" then feel a need to protect the abuser. So they think that that by killing Saddam, Iraqis will be as pathetic and servile as they are. Is there anything as loathsome and pathetic as a Yank Christian? They just love suffering for their god. If you want to make a Christian happy then cause it a great deal of pain. They just love it and will come back for more. Hence Bush's behaviour in sending more troops. It pacifies those guilt-feelings they have; all that being born in sin that they suffer from.