Third Saturday Seminar 2008-2009
“War Without End”
The Cosmic Divide
Curt Gibby, Director
9th Session
Saturday, 16 May 2009
9:30 am -12:00 noon
Room B-102, Lone Star College – Montgomery
3200 College Park Drive – Conroe, TX – 77384 – 936.273.7000
Some of the things we have dealt with since we started are: “Why do we love war? (Lawrence LeShan), The Religion War ( Scott Adams), and Civil Wars Wars from LA to Bosnia (Hans Magnus Enzenberger). We scratched our collective heads as we saw the Taliban chased out of Afghanistan with our help in response to 9-11 and then we invaded Iraq on what most us thought was pretty flimsy evidence of WMD or complicity in 911, but after the good planning and execution of the the first Gulf War we (at least I) felt that the questionable (even with Colin Powell’s assurance) evidence notwithstanding, our military was first class and would be able to quickly unseat Saddam Hussein (which we did) but instead of securing Iraq and its civil Institutions and rebuilding it, we watched with growing disquiet, then horror, that we had sent our troops into a hornets nest.
The on April 20th I was watching The Daily Show I saw Jon Stewart briefly Interviw Reza Aslan about his book “How to Win a Cosmic War, God Globilization, and the end of the War on Terror.”* Aslan said things like “A cosmic war is a religious war. It is a battle not between armies or nations but between the forces and evil, a war in which God (in Heaven) is believed to be directly engaged on behalf of one side against the other.” I was fascinated. This was the framing I have been looking for to make sense of apparent global insanity. What Aslan is saying is consistent with what I saw in Vietnam, a war against an enemy with nationalistic/territorial goals and could have been won by either side, and what I have read about in the Middle East, where there is no end in sight because our war against Al Qaida (Terror) cannot be won because Al Qaida and it’s fellow travelers is fighting a cosmic war—a war that can’t be won.
For example Jihadists, use of takfir —
The power of al-wala’ wal-bara’ as a religious doctrine derives from its ability to unilaterally proclaim someone an infidel, or kafir—a practice known in Jihadist circles as takfir. Islam has no means of excommunicating a Muslim. There is not, nor has there ever been, a centralized religious authority with the power to declare who is and who is not a Muslim. The practice of takfir, however, places that authority into the hands of individual believers, allowing them to simply declare their Muslim enemies to be “unbelievers,” thereby avoiding any religious prohibitions against shedding Muslim blood. Jihadists use takfir with remarkable skill, applying it to those who disagree with any aspect of their worldview, for example Muslims who vote or take part in the political process: “Those who believe in democracy and they vote and they don’t mind being elected or to make laws when they have a chance. These people are kuffar [plural of kafir ],” writes al-Masri in his book Beware of Takfir “It does not matter how much worship they do or how many times they go on Hajj [pilgrimage] they cannot come an inch closer to Islam because of this action. (p 104)
>From the front book flap — (This is the first time in years I paid full price for a book, GCG)
“How to Win a Cosmic War is both an in-depth study of the ideology fueling al-Qa’ida, the Taliban, and like-minded militants throughout the Muslim world, and an exploration of religious violence in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Surveying the global scene from Israel and Iraq to New York and the Netherlands, Aslan argues that religion is a stronger force today than it has been in a century. At a time when religion and politics increasingly share the same vocabulary and function in the same sphere, Aslan writes that we must strip the conflicts of our world— in particular, the War on Terror—of their religious connotations and address the earthly grievances that always lie behind the cosmic impulse.
How do you win a cosmic war? By refusing to fight one.”
*How to Win a Cosmic War: God, Globalization, and the End of the War on Terror – Reza Aslan (2009), ISBN 9781400066728, Random House
It comes down to something like, “Whose rules are used for the game.” If you let them play by theirs you don’t win.
Let’s talk about it on Saturday.
Here’s a selection of resources which I encourage you to check out. Especially the Jon Stewart interview of Reza Aslan (7 minutes), then go to the Youtube Playlist (1 hour). If you didn’t listen to Karen Armstrong last time go to Bill Moyer’s interview of Karen Armstrong talking about compassion at the bottom of the list.
Reza Aslan: How to Win a Cosmic War (7 minutes)
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=224289&title=reza-aslan
Reza Aslan: How to Win a Cosmic War (Youtube Playlist – six 9+ minute episodes)
Dr. Reza Aslan discusses the subject of his upcoming book (“How to Win a Cosmic War” — to be published in 2008 by Random House) at Herzl Ner Tamid, a synagogue on Mercer Island, on February 10, 20…
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=8981A31C4764F90F
Other References
Fundamentalist World: The New Dark Age of Dogma – Stuart Sim (2005) ISBN 9781840466287, Totem Books, Paperback
Whether it’s religious, political, imperialist, nationalist or even market fundamentalism, believe it: we live in an increasingly fundamentalist world.
Civil Wars: From L.A. to Bosnia – Hans Magnus Enzensberger (1994), ISBN 1565842081, New Press, Hardcover
In Civil Wars, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Germany’s most astute literary and political critic, chronicles the global changes taking place as the result of evolving notions of nationalism, loyalty, and community. Enzensberger sees similar forces at work around the world, from America’s racial uprisings in Los Angeles to the outright carnage in the former Yugoslavia. He argues that previous approaches to class or generational conflict have failed us, and that we are now confronted with an “autism of violence”: a tendency toward self-destruction and collective madness.
The Religion War – Scott Adams (2004), ISBN 0740747886, Fiction, Publisher Scott Adams, Inc., hardcover
With publication of The Religion War, millions of long-time fans of Scott Adams’s Dilbert cartoons and business best sellers will have to admit that the literary world is a better place with Adams on the loose spreading new ideas and philosophical conundrums. Unlike God’s Debris, principally a dialog between its two main characters, The Religion War is set several decades in the future when the smartest man in the world steps between international leaders to see if he can prevent a catastrophic confrontation between Christianity and Islam that would destroy most of civilization. The parallels between where we are today and where we could be in the near future are clear. Adams says The Religion War targets “bright readers with short attention spans-everyone from lazy students to busy book clubs. ” The book may be a three-hour read, but it’s packed with concepts that will be discussed long after the last page is turned, including a list of “Questions to Ponder in the Shower” that will underline the story’s purpose of highlighting the most important-yet most ignored-questions in the world.
About the Author:
Scott Adams is the creator of Dilbert, which appears in more than 2,000 newspapers in sixty-five countries. Scott has twenty-nine books in print with more than eleven million copies sold, including two number one New York Times best-sellers. He is CEO of Scott Adams Foods, Inc. and co-owner of two restaurants, Stacey’s Cafin Pleasanton, California and Stacey’s at Waterford. The author, cartoonist, engineer, artist, restaurateur, actor, hypnotist, and entrepreneur live in Northern California.
Violence: Terrorism, Genocide, War – Wolfgang Sofsky (2004), ISBN 1862076146, Granta Books, Hardcover, Translator Anthea Bell
A fascinating and timely study of violence and war and what lies behind them.
What makes people act violently, either alone or as part of a mob Why do they commit atrocities in times of warp Why do gangs, tribes, and even football supporters resort so readily to violence Wolf Sofsky pursues answers to these questions in a book highly praised by the German critics for its ‘great intellectual power.’
He argues that our propensity for violence as a reaction we have evolved as a response to our own mortality and one which has taken many different forms the course of human history. His wide-ranging account takes in witch-hunts, ritual violence, and inter-tribal o but his greatest concern is to explore the violence of the modern age. He writes With especial power about the atrocities of German and Soviet and the new forms of global terror war and hiss book’s ending amounts to a powerful condemnation of our era’s untrammeled brutality.
Where I started—
Why We Love War. And what we can do to prevent it anyway. January / February 2003. By Lawrence LeShan, Adapted from The Psychology of War: Comprehending its …
www.utne.com/2003-01-01/why–we–love–war.aspx – 42k – Cached – Similar pages
The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind
Le Bon, Gustave. The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1895) Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library. | The entire work (360 KB) | Table of …
etext.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/BonCrow.html – 6k – Cached – Similar pages
(Karen Armstrong)”… if you want to make God laugh, tell Him, or Her, your plans. A self-proclaimed “freelance monotheist,” Karen Armstrong is now on a mission to bring compassion, the heart of religion, as she sees it, back into modern life. “Do not do to others what you would not like them to do to you.”
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/03132009/watch.html
Public Service Announcement:
LWV series on Local Government Issues
The series is being held on Thursday afternoons 1-3 in Room 121 of the University Center from March 26th through April 30th (except for April 16th ). Room 121, The University Center.
The series is sponsored by the League of Women Voters to inform voters about those county government entities with publicly elected boards of directors. Board of directors’ elections for contested positions on the MUDs and the Community College District take place in May, 2009. If you’ve ever wondered what the taxing entities on your tax bill do, here is your opportunity to ask the experts.Helen Bostock, League of Women Voters – Montgomery County, is the coordinator for the series.
http://www.montgomery.lonestar.edu/all. To join ALL, enroll in classes, or ask questions about the ALL program, contact ALL at 936-273-7446. The ALL office is located on Lone Star College – Montgomery campus in Building C-Room 228 for in-person registration.
While this is an ALL program, a limited number of guest passes are available by contacting Donna S. Burns at 936.273.7259 or email at Donna.S.Burns@lonestar.edu
Current Events: (It’s late.)
Iran commutes the sentence of the pretty Iranian-American Journalist. What does this mean for World Peace? (if anything.)
Gates relieves Commander in Afghanistan, replaces him with a Special Forces Type and a guy from Gates office. Gates apparently is more interested in results than excuses and requests for material instead of action. Also wants military in Afghanistan to cooperate with and become good at the political thing.
Did Pakistan finally get the message and realize you can’t make a deal with cosmic warriors (i.e. Taliban, see above discussion) so they have dropped Pakistan commandos into the Taliban’s base to kick some Taliban butt.
CNN just woke up to this today — Cyberspies penetrate electrical grid. It appears that hackers from China and Russia have been able to penetrate the computers controlling our electrical grid, leaving software in place that could be activated later. China at the moment is very interested in reading the Dalai Lama’s office email. Could we use a $150 million F-22 to make them stop it? http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090408/us_nm/us_cyberattack_usa
While we are out trying to clean up the middle east. The real bad guys are sneaking in our many backdoors. Thank you Bill Gates.
Our new President, who sold us, “Change,” “Hope,” and, “Yes we can” hasn’t thrown away too many things of the Bush toybox.
And you can’t buy ammunition because it’s keeps selling out of stores.
Now they finally tell us since they are spending so much money on bankers and since the economy is so severely depressed by the recession brought on by the bankers (credit crisis) that people don’t have wages with which to pay Social Security and Medicare taxes, we are burning through the Social Security and Medicare funds at an amazing rates. Thank your banker and neocon friends when you see them.
Now in hopes that prophesy can be self-fulfilling we are being told the the GDP will stop dropping (bottom?) in the 4th quarter. However unemployment will still keep increasing. Isn’t that exciting?
Japan Pays Foreign Workers to Go Home (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/business/global/23immigrant.html)
In the meantime, please, “DON’T (be) PANIC(ed)!”
About The Third Saturday Seminar:
This is the 9th meeting of the Third Saturday Seminar for the 2008-2009 season. We run from September to June.
Started in January 2000, We are about personal empowerment through demystification. Our subject matter is broad but it always tries to be about understanding ourselves and others better; and, having fun.
The Third Saturday Seminar (TSS) is sponsored by the Academy of Lifelong Learning (ALL) Program at Lone Star College – Montgomery http://montgomery.lonestar.edu/25959/
There is no fee for ALL members to attend TSS. You can find the ALL Schedule at: http://montgomery.lonestar.edu/142962.pdf
Course Information – Meets mostly on Third Saturdays. I have been assured that we will meet every time in B-102 during the spring semester 2009
For information about Lone Star College Montgomery : http://montgomery.lonestar.edu/
Maps:
http://montgomery.lonestar.edu/14972/
http://montgomery.lonestar.edu/14970/
http://map-it.woodstock.edu/map_pdf/B_floor_1.pdf
As usual, if anything in this notice doesn’t work or make sense (It is midnight somewhere), please let me know so I can warn the others. If the spelling and syntax seems more fractured than usual, chalk it up to the fact I am (still) breaking in a new laptop computer (or, perhaps it’s the other way around.) Down with Vista!! Bill Gates is a nebbish!
Hope to see you Saturday.
Best regards,
Curt Gibby
Spring, TX
281-353-4350 (cell-)
Fax: 281-288-8230
gcgconsult (at) n-star.com
http://www.northstarinst.org/TSS/ (REALLY OUT OF DATE)