H2O Man
H2O Man's JournalOn Human Beings
“We are faced with evil. I feel rather like Augustine did before becoming a Christian when he said, ' I tried to find the source of evil and I got nowhere. But it is also true that I and a few others knew what must be done if not to reduce evil to at least not add to it.' Perhaps we cannot prevent this world from being a world in which children are tortured. But we can reduce the number of children being tortured. And if you believers don't help us, who else in this world can help us do that?”
Albert Camus
Yes, indeed, we are currently faced with evil. As always, I use the term “evil” in the psychological sense as defined by the late Michael Stone and his top student Gary Brucato. Those of you interested in “true crime” in a psychological context may be familiar with their books, or have seen Gary on various podcasts. In that context, it is the crimes that absolutely repulse most people that rate as evil. The butchering of four college students in Idaho a few years back, for example.
Dropping a tomahawk missile on a girls' elementary school fits my idea of evil. It reminds me of when in 1963, members of the KKK planted 19 sticks of dynamite & timing device under the steps of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, killing four little girls. Most people find such things repulsive. Only the sickest among us try to excuse such things, or worse, celebrate it.
Human beings, in my opinion, should not celebrate evil. If an individual, group like the KKK, or a military murders innocent people, we should not celebrate. When those responsible for evil are tried, convicted, and incarcerated, we should be relieved, even very happy. Being human for now, I struggle with the recognition that the deaths of a few world “leaders” could result in my celebrating. Much of my thinking is based upon my status as a grandfather, and discussions with my siblings, cousins, and friends who are grandparents. It is not only about our children, as we all relate to the powerful quote above from Camus.
Thus, as a pathetic old man who has participated in the wonders and horrors of life, I think about “evil,” too. It exists only within human beings. Natural disasters are destructive, but not evil. Likewise, the documentary series “Chimp Empire” suggests that sapiens have long participated in violence. This relates to how the organic structure of sapiens leading to down to us have that potential, but chimps are not “evil,” but rather participants in the wonders and horrors of organic life on earth.
Evil, however, is entirely a reality of modern humans. It came about as a concept when our frontal lobes evolved in size, making child birth painful, making the awareness of our future death an unpleasant reality, and most all of the features of the ancient allegory about the “fall from grace” that is generally misunderstood. Indeed, one of the most common sources of evil is when higher learning falls upon lower understanding. That type of concrete thinking is why it is likely that at least one stranger in the grocery store you go to thinks we needed to bomb Iran before they bombed us.
There is the story about Jesus meditating in the desert for 40 days. Those at the lower levels of understanding believe that is limited to an actual desert, rather than grasping a “desert” also has a significant psychological meaning. More, they believe that Jesus was tempted a red being, complete with horns and pitchfork, known as the devil. They are guided by Santa God and Stained Glass Jesus, totally unaware that was a psychological struggle that Jesus had regarding the path he would follow. This reality helps us view Jesus in the context of humanity.
I think the other source of evil starts with the abuse of children, including individual cases in particular. Both DNA and environment combine to create sociopaths, just as blue and yellow creates green. This creates the creeps that butcher college students, dynamite churches, or bomb schools. This can include childhoods that appear “normal,” whatever that is.
I do not pretend to know what “the” answer is. But I know if a little one in the extended family is being abused, we have to confront and deal with it. If a child is being abused in a community, the community must take action. The same in a state, country, or any place on earth. We are in a tough fight – it might even feel like a desert these days – and this requires that we all do our best to reduce the numbers of human beings suffering.
Mission Accomplished, Part 2
"And every dead child is my child.
Every grieving mother is my mother.
Every crying father is my father.
Every home turned to rubble is the home I grew up in.
Every brother carrying the remains of his brother across borders is my brother.
Every sister waiting for a sister who will never come home is my sister.
Every one of these people are ours, Just like we are theirs.
We belong to them, and they belong to us."
~James Baldwin
I have great respect for the Constitution. Within my libraries are a number of books about its creation and the correct application of it in the law of the land. Also, other books about times it has been misunderstood or purposely applied in incorrect ways.
I doubt like hell the current president has ever read the Constitution, or any books on its history. He has shown that he has zero respect for it. His cult is composed of others who show a profound ignorance of the Constitution, and snakes in DC who willingly betray their oath of office, to have loyalty to it.
Thus, I think that Mark Twain was correct: “Loyalty to country ALWAYS. Loyalty to government, when it deserves it.” One can be patriotic and 100% opposed to this president, and everything he does. And I question the concept that supporting him while honoring the Constitution is somehow possible.
I think that Israel has as much right to exist as any nation. I want the citizens to be able to live in peace. At the same time, I recognize that Netanyahu is a war criminal. I think that he has harmed Israel, making it at increased risk for the hostilities that put its citizens at risk. I do not think it is a coincidence that antisemitism is on a dangerous rise in the United States. Thus, like many good, thinking people, I am against Netanyahu while being pro-Israel.
The synergy of this president and Netanyahu has already caused great destruction in the Middle East. As I watch news from foreign countries, and podcasts featuring retired military and intelligence officials, it becomes evident they have started a war that they cannot control. Having human parasites such as Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff as “envoys” documents that greed, rather than U.S. interests, was the primary factor in this hideous war.
The administration has not told Congress or the public why they attacked now. They have changed the goal posts several times since starting the war. The mediator between the U.S. And Iran had come to DC on February 27, and told the vice president that Iran was willing to agree to serious limitations, and likely allow for U.N. Inspectors. He told CBS's Maureen Brennan the same thing. This raises the disturbing question of why the president joined Israel 24 hours later in the vicious attack – something no other president since the 1979 Iranian revolution would do.
We know that this was the wet dream of the necroconservatives in the Bush-Cheney administration hope to accomplish. Hence, Condi Rice's recent White House visit was no surprise. We know that the vast majority of republicans in the House and Senate are afraid to disagree with the president. More, they are getting “contributions” from AIPAC, and we should remember the AIPAC espionage scandal from the W Bush administration, when spies leaked information on Iran to Israel. So we can't seriously look to them to be loyal to the United States in this case.
https://www.trackaipac.com/congress
Another important factor, as documented above, is that a heck of a lot of Democrats are also on the AIPAC payroll. We saw, in the 2008 presidential primaries, that those who had voted in favor of attacking Iraq did not do well. We saw, in 2024, the refusal to confront the genocide in Gaza – including bringing the rotting pre-corpse of Dick Cheney on stage for an endorsement – did not play well. Indeed, it was a ticket to defeat in the context of independent voters now deciding the outcome of presidential elections.
I speak only for myself in saying I will never donate to any politician or group that takes money from AIPAC.I speak for the well-being of humanity when I ask others to consider, at very least, contacting those who represent you in DC that you are opposed to this war, and unable to support any politician who is connected – be deed or silence – to this immoral war. More, that your support will go to those opposed to the war, especially if they refuse AIPAC contributions.
Alexander brothers found guilty
Three brothers -- two of whom dealt in "luxury real estate" -- were found guilty on all charges in their federal trial for sex trafficking in New York City. Between 2008 and 2021, the brothers drugged, raped, and trafficked an estimated 60 girls and women. Eleven of the victims testified in the trial.
https://abcnews.com/US/alexander-brothers-found-guilty-counts-sex-trafficking-trial/story?id=130904145
"Somehow this Madness must Cease"
"And as I ponder the madness of Vietnam and search within myself for ways to understand and respond to compassion my mind goes constantly to the people of that peninsula. I speak now not for the soldiers of each side, but simply of the people who have been living under the curse of war for almost three continuous decades now. I think of them too because it is clear to me that there will be no meaningful solution there until some attempt is made to know them and hear their broken cries. …
“Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world is aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours.”
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.; A Time to Break Silence, April 4, 1967.
The above quote is from my favorite of King's speeches. He was viciously attacked by a wide range of people in the media afterwards for supposedly “straying” from Civil Rights. Yet King was intent upon telling the truth to a sick and divided nation. A year to the day later, he was murdered.
I posted it on facebook this evening. So far, only positive responses. Two days earlier, I had posted a verse from Jimi Hendrix “1983 (A Merman I Should Turn to Be” about the horrors of war. The lyrics are not “political.” Still, while most people liked it, I was attacked by two of the least intelligent human beings that I have encountered. And I have met some extremely ignorant fools in life.
"Oh, say can you see, it's really such a mess
Every inch of Earth is a fighting nest
Giant pencil and lipstick tube-shaped things
Continue to rain and cause screaming pain
And the Arctic stains from silver blue to bloody red
As our feet find the sand and the sea"
-- Jimi Hendrix, 1983 (A Merman I Should Turn to Be)
As one can see, Jimi's lyrics were about the human condition, not “politics.” Yet one fool commented, “I guess it was okay when Obama...” I simply said, “You guessed wrong.” The other was a cousin who lives about a half an hour away, who I have seen twice since 1969, both times at funerals. The two are the type of sick individuals who support the attack on Iran, and view the destruction with glee.
It is a sign of ethical illness to be happy when an American president willing becomes a lap dog for a war criminal like Netanyahu, in a desperate attempt to save his administration. It is a moral failure to approve of what the felon is doing. We need to be sure this virus does not spread, and instead that the Democratic Party holds to Dr. King's righteousness.
Weird Scenes
“You remember Huston’s plan? Implement it. I want it implemented on a thievery basis. Goddamn it, get in and get those files. Blow the safe and get it.” – Richard Nixon
Why, some may ask, am I so focused upon the public get access to the Epstein Pedo files? Because without them, a criminal president and his supporters can create myths …. such as the lie that Nixon was unaware of break-ins, and only guilty of participating in the cover-up. The above quote came from a June, 1971 White House tape which was first made public by the Washington Post and Newsweek in 1997.
What was Nixon after? Documents. He thought the Brookings Institute – a Washington think tank – had records regarding his activities during the 1968 presidential election. Why did the “plumbers” break into Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist Lewis Fielding's office? What were the “plumbers” looking for in the Chilean embassy and the Watergate for? Nixon believed that Castro had sent Senator Ted Kennedy and others documents on attacks on him when Nixon was VP.
What is Nixon best remember as trying to hide the White House tapes. …...
I had gotten this far in an essay to remind people that a desperate president will resort to blowing things up to cover their criminal behaviors. While doing so, I saw that the criminal leaders of the U.S. and Israel were conducting a criminal attack on Iran. What could possibly go wrong?
I would not want to live in Iran. I like the concept of a wall between state and religion. That includes a “build that wall” in the context of the christian nationalists in our country. I remember Malcolm X paraphrasing Matthew 6:5, “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in synagogues and on street corners to be seen by others.” I'm not fond of bitter old men who think they speak for god when they tell females how to dress, or send males off to war.
I remember in the early 1980s, when in an interview the late Dick Gregory said that the United States had difficulties with Iran and the Muslim world because it hadn't come to understand Malcolm X. Current polls document that the majority of American citizens were opposed to the U.S. starting a war with Iran. But here we are.
I was talking with my daughter who lives in Europe. I said that I favor something that Yoko One said in 1972, after the release of the “Some Time in New York City” double-LP. Reporters questioned her about the picture of Nixon and Mao dancing naked on the cover. Yoko said she advocated that when world leaders meet, they do so in public, naked.
The release of the Epstein Pedo Files is stripping the felon of his garments. We must continue to fight on every front.
The Wobble
I was doing a radio show on a boxing match years ago, with two associates who know the sport. In between rounds six and seven, they said one guy looked to be pulling ahead and was on his way to victory. I said I disagreed, and anticipated he would get knocked out in round eight. He did. The two asked me how I had known? I said I could see it in his legs – even though he had been getting off good punches, his legs were getting weak.
The U.S. Supreme Court decision was an example of a blow that made the felon's legs wobble. While many watched the anal pore located below his nose as the felon engaged in an enraged tantrum before the press, I was seeing the legs of the administration quiver. Those legs have been looking shaky in recent weeks.
We are approaching the point where we knock the fucking legs off, and the administration tumbles down and is counted out. We know the felon is not going to honor the USSC's decision. He simply cannot, as it is not in his sociopathic nature to do so. His approval ratings were already dropping, due to everything from the economy to the Epstein Pedo Files scandal.
The legs that allow the felon & fiends to stand upright at this time are the republicans in the House and Senate. They are trapped. Double-trapped, as Malcolm would say. They were already aware that they face significant loses in the mid-terms that are potentially larger than after Nixon resigned. Puppets like Marjorie Taylor Greene were not only talking back to the puppeteer, they were jumping ship. What options do they have today? Agree that the felon can violate a Supreme Court decision? Or refuse to ignore his criminal behaviors?
Let us hope they have the wisdom to make the right choice. Either way, they lose. And we knock those fucking legs off of maga.
Cottonwood Races
An old associate that I used to meet at the Los Alamitos track in Anaheim in the early 1980s recently told me that “around the 26th it will be problematic for corrupt, demented, orange colored individuals.” He always had a way of knowing how the horse races would work out, as he knew how to read schedules. I have no idea if he is correct about the “corrupt, demented, orange colored individual.” But he has always been good at calling races.
Now, I am going to speculate – and I'm not objective here – that if it relates to Jack Smith's second report, we have a blast on this forum. We will be significantly closer to ending the orange plague's on-going rat race.
As Rev. Jesse said, “Keep hope alive!” I was lucky to see him twice. Great respect.
Hello
(I wanted to take a short break from the most difficult time in my life, to share an essay that I posted earlier today on another internet forum. Unlike DU -- my favorite site -- this one has Democrats, republicans, and independents of all sizes and flavors, and so my goal is to show there is common ground to be found here.)
" (There is a) power of the Congress to inquire into and publicize corruption, maladministration or inefficiency in agencies of the Government. That was the only kind of activity described by Woodrow Wilson in 'Congressional Government' when he wrote: 'The informing function of Congress should be preferred even to its legislative function.' From the earliest times in its history, the Congress has assiduously performed an 'informing function' of this nature.”
Watkins v. United States, 354 U.S. 178, 200 (US Supreme Court, 1957)
The above quote is from The Senate Watergate Report, also know as the Ervin Committee Report (page 40). There is also a longer quote from the Supreme Court's 1953 decision in United States v. Rumely, 345 U.S. 41,43, which states the informing function is “indispensable.” The ruling also quotes Wilson, saying: “....unless Congress both scrutinize these things and shift them by every form of discussion, the country must remain in embarrassing, crippling ignorance of the very affairs which it is most important that it should understand and direct.”
In my opinion, the wide-reaching Epstein Pedo File scandal provides a powerful example of an area where an extraordinary number of democrats, republicans, and independents agree – let's put all the cards on the table. My generation grew up on the Senate's Watergate hearings. That led to the Rockefeller Commission, the Pike Committee, The Church Committee, and the Nedzi Committee hearings, which uncovered corruption that took place under administrations of both parties.
As more of the victims of Epstein et al came forward in recent years, the public listened. Julie K. Brown put the spotlight on it. Citizens from both parties recognized this went beyond mere politics. Attempts to make it such has created stumbling blocks that slow or halt the path of progressive. But citizens of all backgrounds applied Amendment 1 pressure, and a growing number of elected officials began to support the effort to release the Epstein Pedo Files.
In November, 2025, the House passed a bill directing the DOJ to make the files public. The vote was 427 to one dick voting against it. The following day, by unanimous consent, the Senate passed it. The president signed it into law. The files released thus far are already having significant impact internationally, with at least ten other countries beginning investigations of possible Epstein connections that contaminate their societies. There are issues that our country needs to consider as sources of concern.
People from both parties and no party have asked who Epstein really was? Where did he get the money to finance his life-style? Who did he work for? We know that during the years the Reagan administration was involved in the Iran-Contra scandal, Epstein has a business relationship with Adnan Khashoggi.
https://deepnewz.com/middle-east/jeffrey-epstein-monitored-cia-since-1983-financial-fixer-adnan-khashoggi-iran-9d52c065
I think that alone might suggest that citizens have not only a right, but also a responsibility, to find out about the connections between Epstein and the intelligence agencies of the U.S., Israel, England, and eventually Russia. One might start with the five billionaires who initially funded Epstein, and focus on which country's intelligence agencies they were connected to.
Citizens must demand serious investigative hearings. Not ass-clowns playing “gotcha,” or the head of the Plastics reading from their burn book. Knock off the politics, and tell the public the truth.
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Member since: Mon Dec 29, 2003, 08:49 PMNumber of posts: 78,978