Wednesday, April 30, 2014
















"Engineering Chaos": Mother Agnes-Mariam lectures neo-cons on their bad behavior

    I just went to hear Mother Agnes-Mariam, a Syrian nun dressed in a serious nun outfit, give a talk on the horrible situation that her country finds itself in today -- and I ended up with ten pages of notes on the shocking details of what she said.  However, the main gist of her talk can be summed up in just a few words.  "[Western neo-colonial] powers have been engineering chaos in Syria -- and they need to stop this disruptive behavior right now so that peace and reconciliation can safely proceed."

     According to Mother Agnes-Mariam, these Western powers-that-be have been "engineering chaos" in Syria quite successfully over the last three years.   But I would also like to add that Western neo-cons haven't just been engineering chaos in Syria -- oh no.  They've also been doing it everywhere that they can, all across the Middle East.  And then it also suddenly dawned on me that said neo-cons have been following a similar step-by-step pattern all over the world, not just in the Middle East:

Step 1:  Find yourself a resource-rich country where a percentage of the population is unhappy -- for whatever reason (and if you can't find any unhappy people there, then just make some up).

Step 2:  Begin to foment revolution in the name of "Freedom and Democracy".  Make F&D sound really really good!

Step 3:  Start the killing -- or "Shock and Awe" or whatever you want to call it.  Use terms like "freedom fighters" and "rebels" and "no-fly zones" and "humanitarian relief".  And also be sure to throw in scare-words like "WMDs" and "Chemical Weapons" and "Nuclear Proliferation" whenever humanly possible.  But it doesn't really matter what you call anything as long as chaos results.  Or another Benghazi.  Or another Maiden Square.

Step 4:  The most imperative goal in Step 4 is to make sure that an impressive number of civilians are killed (See Step 3)  

Step 5:  Disassemble the mechanisms of state.  Bomb the hospitals.  Bump off the water supply.  Destroy the infrastructure.  Blow up city hall.  Replace the strong-arm guy who is holding the country together with a thousand factional groups who all hate each other and everyone else -- and are willing to kill to prove it too.  Think Iraq.  Think Libya.  Think Yugoslavia. 

Step 6:  Move into the void that's created and steal land and resources to your heart's content.  "Good job, Brownie!"

     But enough of this.  Let's get back to Mother Agnes-Mariam's talk.  She spoke for over an hour on peace and reconciliation in Syria -- by and for Syrians.  It was a hopeful speech; sadly informative but also rational and inspiring.

     And then suddenly five or six people popped up from the audience as if on cue and started shouting at Mother Agnes.  "What about the use of chemical weapons!  What about that dictator Assad!"

     I at first thought that the ushers at the venue had over-reacted a bit by telling those guys to either be quiet or leave.  But later I learned that these same guys have been following Mother Agnes-Mariam all around America and trying to disrupt all of her talks.

     And at another one of her talks, I later found out, Mother Agnes had welcomed their participation and attempted to answer their questions -- only to discover that they had no valid evidence, no real POV and nothing really to say.

    These guys were simply trying to "engineer chaos" too!

     And afterwards, outside on the front steps, one of these guys (wearing a really expensive-looking suit) handed me his card.  He was from Washington DC, of course.  That figures.

PS:  And who else can you think of who's now happily busy trying to "engineer chaos" right here in our very own United States?  Rush Limbaugh come to mind immediately.  And Cliven Bundy and Karl Rove and the Koch brothers.  And of course Fox News.

PPS:  For those of you who still want to soldier on and read more about what Mother Agnes-Mariam had to say, here are some of the quotes that I wrote down.  I think I copied most of them correctly, but I was writing pretty fast:

   "In Syria today, the horrendous reality is of thousands and thousands of mercenaries who enter historic city complexes to turn them into battlefields.  They are terrorists and bandits who spread agony among the residents.

     "Sponsored by foreign powers, these 'Tafiri' [self-appointed inquisitionists] 'liberate' towns by forcing the residents out of them.  The majority of Islamic clerics throughout the world denounce the Tafiri, however. 

     "Syria is a cauldron of chaos -- designed to dismantle a country.  It is engineered by neo-colonials to divide and reign -- and to dismantle and gain.  

     "All of Syria used to be middle-class.  No homeless people in Syria.  And now they are obliged to beg; living in slums where the violence has followed them.  Mosques, churches and synagogues are also being systematically destroyed.  Factories, hospitals, residences.  Homs now looks like Stalingrad.  Apocalyptic.  The economic and production heart of Syria has also been destroyed.  The engineers of chaos destroyed it.

     "A young woman wakes up with no legs.  And her friend is now blind.  In some places, only 3% of the population remain -- and the Takfiri 'rebels' still shell them.  We are living among vampires -- where beheading is getting very normal.  We are seeing heads everywhere.  They play football with them.  One Takfiri leader is said to have beheaded 350 people.

     "What happened to the Arab Spring?  That striving for freedom and democracy has been hijacked by the engineers of chaos.  The Free Syrian Army lacks money, its members are starving.  But the Takfiri faction is receiving all kinds of money and weapons.  The Takfiri are in direct opposition to reconciliation.  They come from 80 countries -- and Syrians are their victims.

     "There are seven million refugees inside of Syria and two more million outside of the country.  They are starving.  Out of a population of just 22 million, each day 9,500 more civilians are forced to leave their homes.  Soon all 22 million will be displaced.  We are back to the barbarian era. 

     "When you see something like this in your city -- thousands beheaded, children pushed off roofs, people roasted in ovens -- there will be more and more violence.  But there is a third way.  We have to build bridges.  That is the challenge of reconciliation among Syrians.  We have to develop trust.  We have a lot of martyrs [to the non-violent cause], but we will not stop because the bloodshed must stop!

     "Saddam was killed.  Gaddafi was killed.  Has it gotten any better?  If Assad is gone, who will take his place?  The 2000 factions?  No.  How can I reconcile with a group who wants to behead me?  We are now talking to former [FSA] fighters who go back to protect their neighborhoods from the Takfiris.  The FSA is willing to talk.  Even Syria's Al Qaeda is upset that ISIS Takfiri are killing everyone and burning factories.

     "We are accused continuously, especially by people in the US, of being political.  This is preposterous.  We are talking only out of a position to stop the bloodshed.  Alternative media can now go deeper and not just repeat mainstream media [brainwashing] ad nauseam.  Go and hear everyone.  I am not an oracle -- but do not put me to death if I disagree.  This is not the way to truth.

     "If a solution to Syria's problems is imposed from outside, we will be worse off than before.  We must be free from foreign intervention.  Change will not come from violence.  Violence has just strengthened [Assad's] regime.  All the Takfiris have done is to get rid of the infrastructure of the state instead.  The state itself is the sole hope for Syria.  That, and a dialogue of symbiosis and reconciliation among Syrians themselves." 


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Advertizements for myself: In these hard times of brutal (and illegal) corporatist ball-busting socialism-for-the-rich-only, I am doing whatever I can to make a spare dollar. Here are some of my current alternate-economy schemes that never seem to work -- but I keep hoping!

******
If anyone ever wants to hire me on as a travel writer (or war correspondent), "Have laptop, will travel!"
  And I would really like to go back to Iraq to see how things are now.  Or to Timbuktu.  Never been there.  Or Ukraine or Syria -- or Oklahoma, Hawaii or Milwaukee.  Never been there either.  But can't afford to go on my own.  PS:  Here's a great GX tour of Oklahoma on July 6 that I would love to go on:  http://www.globalexchange.org/reality-tours#id=the-radical-tour-of-oklahoma



******
 
Need someone to help you throw out stuff? I'm really good at deciding what needs to be thrown out (starting with all those corporate-owned bums in Washington!)

****

Need an actor to play an older woman in your movie?
Then I'm your man! I can portray all kinds of older women -- from judges, business execs and other insane zombies to bag ladies, cancer patients, kindly grandmothers and dying patients in rest homes. I've played them all. So send me a script and let's do this. Hollywood, here we come! Here's my new 2014 reel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uad0XDU_cXg&feature=youtube_gdata

****
Are you a plaintiffs' attorney who is tired of writing those pesky personal injury settlement briefs all the time? No problem! I can write them for you. Years of experience. And pay me only if you win the case.
****


I recently got my Notary Public commission!

Need a Notary Public? Have seal, will travel. E-mail me at jpstillwater@yahoo.com and I'll stamp your document, make it official and only charge $10. Of course if you live outside of Berkeley, I may have to charge travel expenses -- but am well worth it!

****
Want something good to read? Buy my book! "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket: Helpful Tips for Touring Today's Middle East," available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. http://www.amazon.com/Bring-Your-Own-Flak-Jacket/dp/0978615719/ref=cm_pdp_rev_itm_title_1. It's like if Jack Kerouac, Mark Twain and/or Janet Evanovich went to war.

I also wrote a book about going on Hajj (also included as a chapter in "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket," but this book is cheaper -- but it's worth buying them both!) My book on the Hajj is so outstanding that I bet even Christian fundamentalists will love it! Please buy it here: http://www.amazon.com/Mecca-Hajj-Lessons-Islamic-School/dp/0978615700/ref=cm_rdp_product

****

"Imagine a world where EVERY child is wanted, nurtured, protected and loved: World peace in one generation!"
You can now buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for parents and teachers. To purchase, just click here:http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

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"Life is a competition. The winners are the ones who do the most good deeds."
You can also buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for those of us who are still idealists in these troubled times. To purchase, just click here: http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters 

Tuesday, April 22, 2014



4/20 day at Cal





















Back when LSD was legal, traveling was really cheap!

    I love to travel and visit new places -- but it's truly a sad fact of life that in order to go see the world, you really do need to have money.  And lots and lots of it too.  Oligarchs have it http://billmoyers.com/episode/what-the-1-dont-want-you-to-know-2/  I don't.

     For example, it's a whole lot easier to be a hot-shot war correspondent if you actually possess the airfare necessary to arrive at said war.  Syria?  Ukraine?  Venezuela?  Israel-Palestine?  Somalia?  The Congo?  Or any one of the other 134 places in this world where U.S. armed forces have bases and another war might break out at any minute or the CIA might start another "Color Revolution"?  http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175794/tomgram%3A_nick_turse,_secret_wars_and_black_ops_blowback/

     The only way that I can get to these places cheaply is to join the Marines! 

     But I've also figured out another way to travel safely and cheaply to exciting and exotic places:  Just pack my bags and travel to all those wondrous and profound places that exist inside of my own mind -- instead of outside of it.

     Back in 1965 when I was living on the infamous Lower East Side of New York City, LSD was still legal -- and Sandoz pharmaceuticals in Switzerland was kind enough to produce a laboratory-grade LSD that one could easily get one's hands on.  Taking trips back then was easy and cheap -- you simply took journeys deep into the depths of your own mind.  But that's not possible any more.

   In the last 15 years, I have been all over the whole freaking world, been to every state in the Union except Wisconsin, Oklahoma and Kentucky, set foot on all seven continents, visited every important religious shrine I could think of and toured every major war zone in the Middle East except Libya and Syria.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QU961SGps8g&feature=youtu.be

     But how far into the inside my own brain have I ever gone?  Since LSD became a controlled substance?  And peyote, mescalin, ayahuasca and magic mushrooms became so hard to get?  Not very far.

     Of course I have traveled short distances into the Outback of my brain with the help of various hypnotists -- and that must count for something, right? 

     And I can always dream about traveling the world.  Dreams are free.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-c9DY01Q2M  

     What if you knew that every single night of your life, you could look forward to visiting, say, Tel Aviv and Tahiti?  Or Paris and Pakistan?  Or Kandahar and Kentucky....   Life would suddenly become a whole lot more fun.
     And speaking of dreaming, there's another possibility of sneaking inside of our dream worlds -- by practicing a technique called lucid dreaming.  But I haven't mastered it yet so far either.  http://www.wikihow.com/Lucid-Dream

     For several years during the infamous 1970s http://www.thomhartmann.com/blog/2014/04/middle-class-not-%E2%80%9Cnormal%E2%80%9D#sthash.QFqgQxf0.dpuf, I used to sit cross-legged and listen to a Tibetan lama go on and on about what happens to us in the Dream Bardo.  So I made up a bumper-sticker for my car that read, "Lost in the Bardo again!"  And I think I'm still am lost in the Dream Bardo -- but when I wake up, I can't remember a damn thing.  And then there was all that dream-training I went through in Subud.  Not a clue what good that did either.

     Because who the freak knows what goes on in our dreams?  By definition, we are all sound asleep.

      So I ask you.  Have I ever really gotten right down to it, packed my suitcase, girded my loins and actually traveled very far into that scary and unknown country of the mind?  Not so much -- at least not since the 1960s.  So this is the country where I want to go next. 

     Any suggestions on where I can buy a ticket to go there?  Or how to reserve a few nights at the Neo-Cortex Hotel?

PS:  Most Americans really, really do not want to go there -- back inside of their own brains.  They seem to want to do anything that they can to avoid it, in fact.  They leave the TV on 24/7, let infomercials and talk-radio hosts do their thinking for them, never take out their ear-buds, and shop til they drop in malls designed to distract people from thinking.  Plus all too many Americans immediately attempt to get stinking drunk at the very first sign that an inner journey might be about to begin.

     "Know thyself," Socrates once said. 

     Most Americans seem to shudder at the thought.

PPS:  The interior of our brains contains the good, the bad and the ugly -- not just Einstein-like thoughts.  Sure, we might discover another Theory of Relativity.  But our brains are also the places where our worst nightmares are stored.  Are we ready for that as well?  As well as for all the good stuff?  Sure, why not.

     Just view all that bad stuff in our brains as a Oscar-quality horror movie and then just relax and enjoy being scared out of our minds.  Or into them, as it were.

    Also, it seems like such a waste that most consciousness-expanding substances are now labeled "controlled," and can't even be legally used by mental-health professionals to further explore the human brain, or in religious ceremonies to get ourselves nearer to spirituality, or by cancer patients to help still their fears of impending death.  But cigarettes are legal.  And so is booze.  And Prozac.  How come only the mind-numbing stuff gets legalized?

PPPS:  Another reason why traveling inside of my brain is important to me:  I am so badly frustrated that the world as we know it today will soon come to an end and yet nobody seems to care or to act in a responsible way to solve all our myriad problems. 
http://www.thenation.com/article/179458/why-thenationcom-today-all-about-climate
 
     If only I could get inside of my own mind, tap into that incredible resource, find a goal or a plan that would work and then Just Do It, I wouldn't have to lie awake nights worrying so much about all the crazy-bad trouble that human beings have gotten themselves into so far. 

PPPPS:  Cattle-rustling is NOT patriotic.  So what is?  Stopping climate change and jailing sleazy banksters and un-electing corrupt politicians.


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*************************************

Advertizements for myself: In these hard times of brutal (and illegal) corporatist ball-busting socialism-for-the-rich-only, I am doing whatever I can to make a spare dollar. Here are some of my current alternate-economy schemes that never seem to work -- but I keep hoping!

******
If anyone ever wants to hire me on as a travel writer (or war correspondent), "Have laptop, will travel!"
  And I would really like to go back to Iraq to see how things are now.  Or to Timbuktu.  Never been there.  Or Ukraine or Syria -- or Oklahoma, Hawaii or Milwaukee.  Never been there either.  But can't afford to go on my own.  PS:  Here's a great GX tour of Oklahoma on July 6 that I would love to go on:  http://www.globalexchange.org/reality-tours#id=the-radical-tour-of-oklahoma




******
 
Need someone to help you throw out stuff? I'm really good at deciding what needs to be thrown out (starting with all those corporate-owned bums in Washington!)

****

Need an actor to play an older woman in your movie?
Then I'm your man! I can portray all kinds of older women -- from judges, business execs and other insane zombies to bag ladies, cancer patients, kindly grandmothers and dying patients in rest homes. I've played them all. So send me a script and let's do this. Hollywood, here we come! Here's my new 2014 reel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uad0XDU_cXg&feature=youtube_gdata

****
Are you a plaintiffs' attorney who is tired of writing those pesky personal injury settlement briefs all the time? No problem! I can write them for you. Years of experience. And pay me only if you win the case.
****


I recently got my Notary Public commission!

Need a Notary Public? Have seal, will travel. E-mail me at jpstillwater@yahoo.com and I'll stamp your document, make it official and only charge $10. Of course if you live outside of Berkeley, I may have to charge travel expenses -- but am well worth it!

****
Want something good to read? Buy my book! "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket: Helpful Tips for Touring Today's Middle East," available at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. http://www.amazon.com/Bring-Your-Own-Flak-Jacket/dp/0978615719/ref=cm_pdp_rev_itm_title_1. It's like if Jack Kerouac, Mark Twain and/or Janet Evanovich went to war.

I also wrote a book about going on Hajj (also included as a chapter in "Bring Your Own Flak Jacket," but this book is cheaper -- but it's worth buying them both!) My book on the Hajj is so outstanding that I bet even Christian fundamentalists will love it! Please buy it here: http://www.amazon.com/Mecca-Hajj-Lessons-Islamic-School/dp/0978615700/ref=cm_rdp_product

****

"Imagine a world where EVERY child is wanted, nurtured, protected and loved: World peace in one generation!"
You can now buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for parents and teachers. To purchase, just click here:http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTiqVCTMaMEgkTRhPenqIefocM4Ov6OwXPD0Ys-DI8GblFCdA-sjGWzIc5F64b7vCMm0iwwL2AYkD2pi9xPT6tsd4Oqgr4O6tuO3QN3cyg0YIWlUy2-3oPs07XEXssLliSwhly/s1600/IMG_0045.JPGhttps://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgfaqs_lZVD9OiBwQV6_gUkgvGHjprj9K2p4tTAQ2hnwi4yQ2pcM0gQ2FqJeGDmdiSFF70_llhC2w4EczqZ17ODHpx4TdovL2YjGl57fg90f9j5BuOTf2q2Rajc7Znqi_1Ep5Is/s1600/IMG_0041.JPG
"Life is a competition. The winners are the ones who do the most good deeds."
You can also buy T-shirts, coffee mugs, tote bags, truckers' caps, baby gear and/or teddy bears with this logo printed on them. They make great gifts, especially for those of us who are still idealists in these troubled times. To purchase, just click here: http://www.cafepress.com/StillTWaters