http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/ What's on the minds of young leaders from around the globe? en-us http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/22650
What should one do now? In the last junction of the 30s, we must strive to derive utmost enjoyment and satisfaction from it. This must be "by giving importance to life." We need not think about the ages in between, neither did I. But those "10" years are not like that, it is not easy to get through them. We don't pay attention to the 20s at all. We spend them with great pleasure. Then we pause for a moment in the 30s and stagger. When the 40s arrive, it is then one understands the seriousness. There are the 50s and the 60s, God willing… I think a lifetime is passing. The 40s should not be taken lightly… So far, we have been looking ahead, we had nothing to do with the past. But it is now time to look back as if something will appear. From now on, we will open our dairies more often.

When I was a little kid, I used to envy my older relatives and acquaintances. I was becoming impatient to be like them. I had my fears though. For example, I was scared of being circumcised. I was scared to death about leaving home for to school, the military service. Moreover, I don't know how to say it, but this wedding day thing scared me. Back then there was a tradition. The bride was brought to the would-be husband's house mounted on a horseback, and the bridegroom took her in his arms,and carried her up the stairs to the room. With my childish mind (I didn't think that there would be a day when I would grow up to be a mature young man and reach the age of marriage), I was worried about if got married someday, then how I would I take the bride from the horse in my arms and carrry her up through those long stairs. This ridiculous fear consumed me for many long years until I grew up. That's why I used to envy my relatives who finished school, military service, got married and were freed of those worries. I wanted to be a young man as soon as possible with no worries, no grief…just like them.

Now, every time I remember that fastidious child, I become shy and smile and I get lost in the feelings of those sweet days. That child grew up. Even though it was somehow difficult, he left home, left his mom and went to school. He saw the cities that he had never dreamed of. He got married, completed his military service and he had a baby girl. He went through the experiences of those relatives, elder brothers he once envied. He realized one by one that his childish fears were groundless. Then, taking a look now at those relatives, the heroes of his childhood days, they have all become old and gray. They don't have anything for him to envy anymore. Life must be that kind of a thing… As 40 appeared, I said, "I think we're getting old…," to my younger friend in his early 20s. "Don't worry," he replied: "The one who says "I am getting old" never gets old. The one who says "I feel young" is the one who is getting old…" With regards to youth and old age, many many words of wisdom have been said. But I think the most correct among them is Longfellow's epigram, "Youth comes only once in a life time." Then there is also Schiller's maxim completing this idea, "We don't abandon the dreams of our younger years." It is very early to think about the words of grace concerning old age. What those like me, who are knocking on 40s door should do, is to really slow down the years from now on and extend the dreams of youth as much as possible…


Once upon a time, my mom I had thought should I leave her, my world would come to an end, brought up a conversation on yearning and separation. That woman rich in heart, made a remark that would make all philosophers and poets envious, "We're getting old without seeing each other my son." I was struck, shaken… That hit me like a bullet. As if something was stuck in my throat and I couldn't swallow it. Both she and I knew that our hearts could not withstand conversations like this anymore. We simply remained silent and wept inwardly. But this time it was different. This was a sentence that as long as I am living, I will never ever forget, and each time I remember, it will burn me from the inside out. No matter what is said after that is all in vain. Unfortunately, we can only see each other once a year. Life separates us even though we don't want it that way, and we don't have enough strength for reunion. You are right mother."We are getting old without seeing each other." Look, you are approaching your 60s and I my 40s.

03.04.2005
e-mail:a.colak@zaman.com.tr

]]> Fri, 04 Mar 2005 13:25:00 EST http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/22650 http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/13830

When a baby is taken from the wet nurse,
it easily forgets her
and starts eating solid food.

Seeds feed awhile on ground,
then lift up into the sun.

So you should taste the filtered light
and work your way toward wisdom
with no personal covering.


That's how you came here, like a star
without a name. Move across the night sky
with those anonymous lights.


(Mathnawi III, 1284-1288)

]]> Wed, 28 Jan 2004 16:58:00 EST http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/13830 http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/13453 ]]> Mon, 12 Jan 2004 06:52:00 EST http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/13453 http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/12552
Well, we would also be glad to see the same sensetivity on global warming issue. USA has been insisting on not signing "Kyoto Protocol" which has vital importance to stop global warming. America! Would your excellency mind to perform the same sensetivity on this issue for the sake of freeing NATURE!?!

"The US refused to sign the treaty, arguing that its economic interests would be threatened [BBC]. The US also opposed the Bonn refinement of Kyoto because of the cost to US business of Kyoto's prescriptions on the reduction of environmentally harmful emissions which contribute to climate change." http://www.vexen.co.uk/USA/pollution.html

]]> Wed, 03 Dec 2003 19:52:00 EST http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/12552 http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/10947 On what strange ways you've gone from our world!
You shook your feathers and you broke the cage;
You flew away, far, to the soul's own world.
You were a hawk, encaged by Mrs. World.
You heard the drum and flew to Where-no-place.
You were a nightingale among the owls-
The garden's scent came; you went to the rose.
You suffered headache from these bitter dregs-
At last you went to the eternal tavern...
The rose flees from the autumn-daring rose
That you went on in the autumnal wind!
You fell like rain on the terrestrial roof,
Run here and there, escaping through the spout.
Be silent-there is no more pain of speaking:
You are protected by a loving friend!
]]> Sun, 14 Sep 2003 11:40:00 EDT http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/10947 http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/10924
She has been working not only for Sweden but for the humanity as well. She has her own eminence,and unique personality.

Good bye Anna, you were such a nice "lady"...

Erdem/Turkey]]> Fri, 12 Sep 2003 09:05:00 EDT http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/10924 http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/10654 it is difficult to find out huh? think about it! you find it out...]]> Sun, 24 Aug 2003 14:38:00 EDT http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/10654 http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/10315
is it a consequence of coincidence?

UNDERSTANDING HOW THE BRAIN WORKS

"It's important to understand the complexity of the human brain. The human brain weighs only three pounds but is estimated to have about 100 billion cells. It is hard to get a handle on a number that large (or connections that small). Let's try to get an understanding of this complexity by comparing it with something humans have created--the entire phone system for the planet. If we took all the phones in the world and all the wires (there are over four billion people on the planet), the number of connections and the trillions of messages per day would NOT equal the complexity or activity of a single human brain. Now let's take a "small problem"--break every phone in Michigan and cut every wire in the state. How long would it take for the entire state (about 15 million people) to get phone service back? A week, a month, or several years? If you guessed several years, you are now beginning to see the complexity of recovering from a head injury. In the example I used, Michigan residents would be without phone service while the rest of the world had phone service that worked fine. This is also true with people who have a head injury. Some parts of the brain will work fine while others are in need of repair or are slowly being reconnected.AN ELECTRICAL AND CHEMICAL MACHINE

Let's start looking at the building blocks of the brain. As previously stated, the brain consists of about 100 billion cells. Most of these cells are called neurons. A neuron is basically an on/off switch just like the one you use to control the lights in your home. It is either in a resting state (off) or it is shooting an electrical impulse down a wire (on). It has a cell body, a long little wire (the "wire" is called an axon), and at the very end it has a little part that shoots out a chemical. This chemical goes across a gap (synapse) where it triggers another neuron to send a message. There are a lot of these neurons sending messages down a wire (axon). By the way, each of these billions of axons is generating a small amount of electrical charge; this total power has been estimated to equal a 60 watt bulb. Doctors have learned that measuring this electrical activity can tell how the brain is working. A device that measures electrical activity in the brain is called an EEG (electroencephalograph).

Each of the billions of neurons "spit out" chemicals that trigger other neurons. Different neurons use different types of chemicals. These chemicals are called "transmitters" and are given names like epinephrine, norepinephrine, or dopamine. Pretty simple, right? Well, no. Even in the simplified model that I'm presenting, it gets more complex.

Pls go to "AN ELECTRICAL AND CHEMICAL MACHINE

Let's start looking at the building blocks of the brain. As previously stated, the brain consists of about 100 billion cells. Most of these cells are called neurons. A neuron is basically an on/off switch just like the one you use to control the lights in your home. It is either in a resting state (off) or it is shooting an electrical impulse down a wire (on). It has a cell body, a long little wire (the "wire" is called an axon), and at the very end it has a little part that shoots out a chemical. This chemical goes across a gap (synapse) where it triggers another neuron to send a message. There are a lot of these neurons sending messages down a wire (axon). By the way, each of these billions of axons is generating a small amount of electrical charge; this total power has been estimated to equal a 60 watt bulb. Doctors have learned that measuring this electrical activity can tell how the brain is working. A device that measures electrical activity in the brain is called an EEG (electroencephalograph).

Each of the billions of neurons "spit out" chemicals that trigger other neurons. Different neurons use different types of chemicals. These chemicals are called "transmitters" and are given names like epinephrine, norepinephrine, or dopamine. Pretty simple, right? Well, no. Even in the simplified model that I'm presenting, it gets more complex."

Pls go to "http://www.tbiguide.com/howbrainworks.html" for further reading.

]]> Sat, 02 Aug 2003 19:57:00 EDT http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/10315 http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/10194
hi guys! is this a consequence of coincidence?...well, i do not think it is...
read..you will enjoy ...

"The universe contains about 70 sextillion - or 70 thousand million million million - observable stars, according to the most accurate estimate yet made of the number - a figure that far exceeds all previous estimates.

The calculation was made by a team led by astronomer Dr Simon Driver of the Australian National University in Canberra and announced this week at the 25th General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union in Sydney.

"Even for a professional astronomer used to dealing in monster numbers, this is mind-boggling," said Driver. "This is not the total number of stars in the universe, but it's the number within range of our telescopes. The real number could be much, much larger still - some people think it is infinite."

Even so, 70 sextillion is greater than the estimated number of sand grains on all the world's beaches and deserts - about 10 times more.

The team - which included Dr Jochen Liske from the Royal Observatory Edinburgh, Dr Nicholas Cross of Johns Hopkins University, Professor Warrick Couch from the University of New South Wales in Sydney and Dr David Lemon from St Andrews University - did not physically count the stars.

Using some of the world's most powerful telescopes, they instead took a representative sample by counting all the galaxies in one small region of the universe closest to Earth. By measuring precisely how bright each galaxy was, they were able to estimate how many stars it contained and then extrapolated this out to the whole region of the universe visible through telescopes.

The team believes its estimate is 10 times more accurate than any previous one because it combines the best counts of galaxies ever conducted with the most modern cosmological measurements of the geometry of the universe.

The calculation was made as part of the world's largest galaxy survey, the Two-Degree Field Galaxy Redshift Survey, results from which were also presented to the meeting this week. The survey, run by the Anglo-Australian Observatory in rural New South Wales, aims to measure the distances of 250,000 nearby galaxies.

Driver noted that the vast majority of stars are too dim to see with the naked eye, which can pick out only around 5,000 stars from even the darkest places, and only 100 or so in the middle of a big city.

But he argues that most stars probably have planets, a fraction of which probably have life: "But they are very, very far away. It's not so much a question of whether other life exists, but whether we will ever be able to contact them, given the massive distances involved."

Last year, Dr Charles Lineweaver and doctoral student Daniel Grether of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, calculated that our Milky Way galaxy contains about 300 billion stars, of which about 30 billion are like our Sun, and at least 1.5 billion theoretically have orbiting planets the size of Jupiter.

In 1999, observations by NASA astronomers, using the Hubble Space Telescope, suggested that there are 125 billion galaxies in the universe.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s910295.htm]]> Sat, 26 Jul 2003 09:40:00 EDT http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/10194 http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/10087
We as children of humanity,owe you !!!
Thanks for your great struggle and devotion..
Dear friends, today is the birthday of N. Mandela...
regards,

http://myhero.com/hero.asp?hero=nelsonMandela
"I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die."



Imagine growing up in a country where drinking out of the wrong water fountain might get you thrown into jail; where a man might have the very same job as his neighbor, but because of the color of his skin get paid less in a year than the other man made in a week; where the government told you that your ancestors and their ways of living were wrong and savage and not even human. Sounds like some futuristic film, doesn't it? Well, for Nelson Mandela, this was no movie. Growing up in South Africa under the Apartheid system of government meant these things, and worse, were part of daily life.
But Nelson Mandela was a fighter. Instead of bowing down to this unjust system of government, he became a lifelong warrior in the battle to free South Africa. Starting out as a leader of an underground political movement called the African National Congress (ANC), Mr. Mandela played a part in many dramatic demonstrations against the white-ruled government.

His career in the ANC was cut short in 1964 when he was sentenced to life in prison. The notorious Rivonia Trial, as his sentencing was called, is now seen as nothing more than a cruel ploy used by the white South African government to silence Nelson Mandela once and for all. But even while in prison, Mr. Mandela continued to be a beacon of hope for his people who carried on the struggle against Apartheid in his absence.In 1990, after 27 years of imprisonment, Nelson Mandela was freed. His release marked the beginning of the end for Apartheid. In less than five years after his release, Mr. Mandela was awarded the Nobel Peace prize and elected president of South Africa.

Today, thanks to the self-sacrifice of Nelson Mandela, Apartheid has been outlawed. Everyone in South Africa now has an equal opportunity at home and at work to live comfortable, productive lives. Nelson Mandela is one of the world's true freedom fighters, and his life and personal triumphs will be remembered long after the world has forgotten the evils of Apartheid.

"I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom comes responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not yet ended."
]]> Mon, 21 Jul 2003 05:59:00 EDT http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/10087 http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/10038
The human body is a miracle of symmetry, as well as of asymmetry. Scientists know how an embryo develops in the womb to form this symmetry and asymmetry, but they are completely ignorant of how the particles-the particles that reach the embryo through the mother and function as building blocks in the formation of the body-can distinguish between right and left, how they are able to determine the place of each organ, how each goes and inserts itself in the exact place of a certain organ, and how they understand the extremely complicated relations among cells and organs, and their requirements. This is so complicated a process that if a single particle which should be placed in, for example, the pupil of the right eye, were to go to the ear, it could lead to malfunction or even death. Another point relevant here is that all animate beings are made from the same elements coming from earth, air and water, and similar to one another with respect to the members and organs of their bodies, yet they are almost completely different from one another with respect to bodily features, visage, character, desires and ambitions. This uniqueness of the individual is so reliable that one can be identified absolutely by one’s finger prints.

]]> Fri, 18 Jul 2003 02:45:00 EDT http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/10038 http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/10020
U.S. military forays since 1898
1898-1902: Cuba
Victory in the Spanish-American War of 1898 left the U.S. in possession of Spain’s last major Caribbean colony. After independence in 1902, Washington sent troops back well into the 1930s, when Fulgencio Batista seized power. The U.S. helped keep him there until Fidel Castro’s revolution in 1959.

1898-1946: Philippines
Washington governed the Philippines as a province from the end of the Spanish-American war until 1946. A hefty garrison force fought a bloody conflict with pro-independence Filipino rebels. By the time Japan conquered the Philippines in 1942, however, a path toward independence already had been agreed. After independence in 1946, U.S. troops remained on two large bases leased from Manila until 1999 and Washington routinely intervened in domestic politics.

1904-1999: Panama
Washington won rights “in perpetuity” to the territory around the Panama Canal after helping locals secede from Colombia. Washington did little to promote democracy for decades. In 1999, the canal and adjacent territory were turned over to local sovereignty and the county currently is a functioning democracy.

1905-1924: Dominican Republic
U.S. Marines intervened and occupied this nation on the eastern side of Hispanola after European states hinted they would intervene to stave off the nation’s bankruptcy. American troops left in 1924, but the U.S. Treasury controlled the country’s finances until 1941. In 1965, Marines imposed a new pro-American government. True democratization failed to take root until the mid-1970s. Today, the country is a functioning democrac

1912-1925: Nicaragua
American Marines ruled Nicaragua for 13 years beginning in 1912, fighting nationalist rebels before leaving in 1925. They returned in 1928 to fight a new rebel leader, Augusto César Sandino. The U.S. withdrew in 1934 after killing Sandino, leaving Anastasio Somoza in charge. Somoza ruled as U.S.-based dictator until his overthrow by Soviet-inspired Sandinista guerrillas in 1979. A CIA-based war against them ended in 1989, when free elections forced the Sandinista regime out of power.

1915-1934: Haiti
U.S. Marines entered Haiti in 1915 after a mob killed the Haitian ruler. Some 20,000 American troops stayed there, running the country via military administration, until 1934. The Marines left power in the hands of Haiti’s national guard, which, in turn, installed the brutal Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier into power. He and his son Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier ruled until 1986, when Baby Doc fled to Paris.

1945-1952: Japan
Gen. Douglas MacArthur sat as military governor of Japan between 1945-1949. By absolving Emperor Hirohito of his wartime guilt, MacArthur successfully blunted opposition to the democratization of Japan, most notably the drafting of a new constitution that foreswore war and established electoral laws. In April, 1952, a peace treaty took effect and the Allied occupation ended.

1945-54: Germany
The four victorious Allied powers occupied sectors of German territory and quadrants of its capital city, Berlin. The occupation quickly broke down into rival Western vs. Soviet zones. “De-Nazification” and Marshal Plan aid began to transform Western Germany by the early 1950s, and in 1954 it emerged as the independent West German state.

1945-1948: South Korea
The defeat of Japan left Korea, a Japanese colony, split between U.S. and Soviet control. The U.S. military governed the southern part of the peninsula until 1948, when elections established the Republic of Korea. U.S. forces remained, however, when the Soviet-backed north refused to hold elections. In 1950, North Korea attacked and war raged until 1953. U.S. forces – some 38,000 – have stayed ever since.

1945-1955: Austria
As in Germany, Austria – which had been annexed by the Germans in 1938 – was split between victorious powers. Austria's status remained unclear for a decade until a treaty ended the occupation, recognized independence and forbade unification with Germany.

1965-73: South Vietnam
When communist guerillas defeated French efforts to reestablish its Indochina colony in 1953, the U.S. stepped in to back the anti-communist Vietnamese government. Drawn progressively into the maelstrom, Washington formally landed combat troops in 1965, their numbers topping out at 500,000 in 1969. Throughout, the South’s government remained undemocratic and corrupt. The U.S. pulled out in 1973, and the South was overrun by communist North Vietnamese troops in 1975.

1983-84: Grenada
U.S. troops landed on this tiny Caribbean island, citing the arrival of Cuban military advisers and the threat they allegedly posed to American medical students studying there. After a short battle, U.S. troops took control of the island, deposed its left-leaning “military council” and organized free elections before leaving in 1984. The country is now a functioning democracy.

1994-99: Haiti
When the Duvalier dictatorships ended in 1986, the Haitian military took direct control of the country. An election in 1993 quickly led to a coup, which in turn caused the U.S. to threaten invasion. The threat forced the generals into exile, restoring the ousted president, Jean-Bertrande Aristide. U.S. and other international forces patrolled the country until 1999.

1995-present: Bosnia-Hercegovina
The collapse of Yugoslavia beginning in 1990 led to civil war in its most ethnically diverse republic, Bosnia-Hercegovina. European-led U.N. force tried to restore order but failed. In 1995, after years of steering clear, the U.S. intervened and imposed a peace treaty that included a NATO-led occupation of the fractured state. Some 6,000 U.S. troops are still there, along with 40,000 other forces, in 2003. A democratic state is struggling to emerge,

2002-present: Afghanistan
A U.S.-led campaign to find al-Qaida leaders harbored by the Taliban government swept elements of both from the central Asian nation. Prospects for democracy remain extremely fragile. In early 2003, some 9,000 U.S. forces remained in and around Afghanistan, many engaged in the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/938233.asp#BODY]]> Thu, 17 Jul 2003 03:07:00 EDT http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/10020 http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/9968 what is the main reason of stark domination?
intelligence, physical superiority(?),....?
in the middle of "opposition sex" discussion...nice to expand the circle...join!!!
]]> Mon, 14 Jul 2003 17:47:00 EDT http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/9968 http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/9946 take me.
Liberate my soul.
Fill me with your love and
release me from the two worlds.
If I set my heart on anything but you
let fire burn me from inside.

Oh Beloved,
take away what I want.
Take away what I do.
Take away what I need.
Take away everything
that takes me from you.

]]> Sun, 13 Jul 2003 07:04:00 EDT http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/9946 http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/9916
with great dreams ...backing them with greater effort and struggles...and workþng for my own project over a year ...and in return i have had no bucks...this is called "idealism" i guess...i will insist on that but now i have to work for a company which is exporting underwear(waiting for your orders )...now...at the office and tryin to catch "intriguing girl"'s attention...hay...by the way office work does not suck...it kills..
life is worth living...isnt it?
]]> Fri, 11 Jul 2003 02:30:00 EDT http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/9916 http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/9888
the lover is always getting lost.

The intellectual runs away.

afraid of drowning;

the whole business of love

is to drown in the sea.

Intellectuals plan their repose;

lovers are ashamed to rest.

The lover is always alone.

even surrounded by people;

like water and oil, he remains apart.

The man who goes to the trouble

of giving advice to a lover

get nothing. He's mocked by passion.

Love is like musk. It attracts attention.

Love is a tree, and the lovers are its shade.

]]> Thu, 10 Jul 2003 03:58:00 EDT http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/9888 http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/9866
In every moment I shape an idol.

But then, in front of you, I melt them down

I can rouse a hundred forms

and fill them with spirit,

but when I look into your face,

I want to throw them in the fire.

My souls spills into yours and is blended.

Because my soul has absorbed your fragrance,

I cherish it.

Every drop of blood I spill

informs the earth,

I merge with my Beloved

when I participate in love.

In this house of mud and water,

my heart has fallen to ruins.

Enter this house, my Love, or let me leave.

by Rumi 1207-1273]]> Wed, 09 Jul 2003 04:19:00 EDT http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/9866 http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/9839
Make happy all your friends and blind your foes!

Rise from behind the hill, transform the stones

To rubies and the sour grapes to wine!

O Sun, make our vineyard fresh again,

And fill the steppes with houris and green cloaks!

Physician of the lovers, heaven's lamp!

Rescues the lovers! Help the suffering!

Show but your face - the world is filled with light!

But if you cover it, it's the darkest night]]> Sun, 06 Jul 2003 18:18:00 EDT http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/9839 http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/9800
They're the words of a former general, in Israel no less: Amram Mitzna, the outspoken if ineffective Labour leader, who in a handful of soundbites has shown the world that even inside a nation in terror, it is possible to see beyond the politics of perpetual war.

The ground-level shift in Israel brings to mind the words of US State Department spokesman Robert Kimmitt, when he told the world in April that Iraqi citizens face "a hard peace or an easy peace." He meant peace under Saddam Hussein's tyranny, or peace after a short, horrific war - but there's a deeper meaning to be mined from the term "hard peace." It suggests difficult choices. It seems to call for a peace movement that demands much, much more than the absence of war.

We need a "hard" peace movement because the choices on all sides have become so perverse. I'm hanging on to an Associated Press photo of Iraq's militia, women in white headscarves holding AK-47 assault rifles. They are soldiers for Hussein, but they are also the people that the world wants to liberate from a tyranny that is, as Noam Chomsky puts it, "as evil as they come." What does America's war plan offer them? An uncertain chance at freedom, and then only if they survive a war in which they will be the targets.

But what has the peace movement had to offer these women? Millions of people chanting "no blood for oil"? It's a start, but the new politics of empire, sprung from terror, demand a more robust response.

Like the global justice movement, the most effective global peace movement will be grassroots, dispersed, radically democratic, tolerant of a wide array of tactics and even, perhaps, willing to contemplate the possibility of "just war." And it is unavoidable, again, that America will be this movement's principal foe. The US has shifted to a siege mentality - a national cowardice - and placed itself on a permanent war footing. The Bush Doctrine is the grandest imperial arrogance of our times. It needs to be met not only with reaction and refusal, but also with a political challenge for peace that is as complex, imperfect and strategic as the call to arms.

It's worth taking a moment to acknowledge that what is building now is something that has never existed. There have been movements against certain wars, against specific acts or threats of war. But there has never been a global peace movement with the scope and depth of the past few years' campaign against corporate globalization.

The results are plain enough to see. In the headlines, we have utterly vile crimes of war on both sides of the Mideast conflict, and a war criminal in Iraq whose protection has been an uncomfortable side effect to opposition of American aggression. Out of the headlines, the absence of a global peace movement is even more disturbing. There are, for example, the wars of central Africa, in which the dead are piled as high, if not so uniformly, as in the Holocaust. There is Chechnya, where some 100,000 lie dead, most of them killed by the army of Russia - a UN member now opposing the war in Iraq. This is the world in which the old chants no longer make sense.

It's nowhere near enough to "give peace a chance." What we need now is a peace that takes chances.
By James MacKinnon
http://www.adbusters.org/magazine/46/articles/risk_for_peace.html]]> Fri, 04 Jul 2003 08:16:00 EDT http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/9800 http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/9691 therefore not by book nor from tongue.
If knowledge of mysteries
come after emptiness of mind,
that is illumination of heart.


by Rumi]]> Mon, 30 Jun 2003 05:32:00 EDT http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/9691 http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/9526 11 - 3 - 2003 http://www.observer.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,924925,00.html
From the world's most popular novelist, Paulo Coelho,
an open letter of praise for President Bush.

Thank you, great leader George W. Bush.
Thank you for showing everyone what a danger Saddam
Hussein represents. Many of us might otherwise have
forgotten that he used chemical weapons against his
own people, against the Kurds and against the
Iranians. Hussein is a bloodthirsty dictator and one
of the clearest expressions of evil in today’s world.

But this is not my only reason for thanking you.
During the first two months of 2003, you have shown
the world a great many other important things and,
therefore, deserve my gratitude.

So, remembering a poem I learned as a child, I want to
say thank you.

Thank you for showing everyone that the Turkish people
and their parliament are not for sale, not even for 26
billion dollars.

Thank you for revealing to the world the gulf that
exists between the decisions made by those in power
and the wishes of the people. Thank you for making it
clear that neither José María Aznar nor Tony Blair
give the slightest weight to or show the slightest
respect for the votes they received. Aznar is
perfectly capable of ignoring the fact that 90% of
Spaniards are against the war, and Blair is unmoved by
the largest public demonstration to take place in
England in the last thirty years.

Thank you for making it necessary for Tony Blair to go
to the British parliament with a fabricated dossier
written by a student ten years ago, and present this
as ‘damning evidence collected by the British Secret Service’.
Thank you for allowing Colin Powell to make a complete
fool of himself by showing the UN Security Council
photos which, one week later, were publicly challenged
by Hans Blix, the chief weapons inspector in Iraq.

Thank you for adopting your current position and thus
ensuring that, at the plenary session, the French
foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin’s anti-war
speech was greeted with applause – something, as far
as I know, that has only happened once before in the
history of the UN, following a speech by Nelson
Mandela.

Thank you too, because, after all your efforts to
promote war, the normally divided Arab nations were,
for the first time, at their meeting in Cairo during
the last week in February, unanimous in their
condemnation of any invasion.

Thank you for your rhetoric stating that ‘the UN now
has a chance to demonstrate its relevance’, a
statement which made even the most reluctant countries
take up a position opposing any attack on Iraq.

Thank you for your foreign policy which provoked the
British foreign secretary, Jack Straw, into declaring
that in the 21st century, ‘a war can have a moral
justification’, thus causing him to lose all
credibility.

Thank you for trying to divide a Europe that is
currently struggling for unification; this was a
warning that will not go unheeded.

Thank you for having achieved something that very few
have so far managed to do in this century: the
bringing together of millions of people on all
continents to fight for the same idea, even though
that idea is opposed to yours.

Thank you for making us feel once more that though our
words may not be heard, they are at least spoken –
this will make us stronger in the future.

Thank you for ignoring us, for marginalising all those
who oppose your decision, because the future of the
Earth belongs to the excluded.

Thank you, because, without you, we would not have
realised our own ability to mobilise. It may serve no
purpose this time, but it will doubtless be useful
later on.

Now that there seems no way of silencing the drums of
war, I would like to say, as an ancient European king
said to an invader: ‘May your morning be a beautiful
one, may the sun shine on your soldiers’ armour, for
in the afternoon, I will defeat you.’

Thank you for allowing us – an army of anonymous
people filling the streets in an attempt to stop a
process that is already underway – to know what it
feels like to be powerless and to learn to grapple
with that feeling and transform it.

So, enjoy your morning and whatever glory it may yet
bring you.

Thank you for not listening to us and not taking us
seriously, but know that we are listening to you and
that we will not forget your words.

Thank you, great leader George W. Bush.

Thank you very much.

]]> Wed, 18 Jun 2003 13:08:00 EDT http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/9526 http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/9294 "What does globalisation of the media mean, generally, and what would it mean for the press and othe media here, especially with the 'opening up' of the skies?

For one thing, it means huge increases in advertising, especially of foreign commodities. Because their resources could overwhelm anything that India can have. It also means much narrower concentration of media sources... It will reflect the points of view of those who can amass the huge capital to run international media. Diversity and information will decline, media will get more and more advertiser-oriented.

Is globalisation an accurate word? Wouldn't 'transnationalisation' be more accurate?

I would call it the extension of transnational, corporate tyranny. These are tyrannical, totalitarian institutions, mega-corporations. They are huge command economies, run from the top, relatively unaccountable, and interlinked in various ways. Their first interest is profit -- but much broader than that, it's to construct an audience of a particular type. One that is addicted to a certain life-style with artificial wants. An audience atomised, separated from one another, fragmented enough so that they don't enter the political arena and disturb the powerful. It's completely natural.

Quite a few newspaper-owning corporate houses here believe they're entering a partnership, and that the Indian press is mature enough to hold its own (presently, foreign ownership is not allowed in the press, but the situation could change).

That's a joke. If a local food place joins up with McDonald's, they may be very mature. But McDonald's has the resources to overwhelm them and has an interest in incorporating them within its system. That's more profitable and again helps create the kind of market that they need.

It's like opening up India to international narco-traffickers, claiming that people here are mature enough to resist. Well, sure, they can resist. But when they start going after school children with free drugs, and the children get addicted, it doesn't matter how mature you are. TV and advertising are simply cultivated addictions, designed to control people in a particular way. In fact, in some ways more insidious. Narco-traffickers have to sell their stuff and addict you to it. Whereas this creates a particular kind of person.

So the media's primary function is to sell?

Their primary function is selling audiences to advertisers. They don't make money from their subscriptions. CBS news doesn't make money when you turn on your television. They make money when an advertiser pays them. Now advertisers pay for certain things. They're not going to pay for a discussion that encourages people to participate democratically and undermine corporate power.

To sell life-styles, or values, or free market principles...

That's a fraud. They believe in free market principles for others, not for themselves. The major corporations in every society, in fact all the advanced sectors of business, rely very heavily on state subsidy and state intervention. They want to tell you to join the free market. They're not going to do it.

How did you react to the liberalisation debate here being conducted as if it were something new?

I was struck by this when reading the press here, the idea that somehow there's something new about neo-liberalism. There's nothing new about neo-liberalism. India has been subjected to neo-liberalism for 300 years -- which is why it's India and not England or the United States. Which is why you broke away from Britain.

That the US is not a fully market society (is known)... but social security and similar interventions are the fringe of the system of state subsidy of private power. Discussing the US as a market society without mentioning the Pentagon is like talking about the USSR and not mentioning the Politburo. The Pentagon is the massive core of the welfare state for the rich. It pours public funds under the guise of security into advanced industry in every large sector of the economy.

How do the forms of media and thought control in the US differ from, say, those of a totalitarian state?

A totalitarian state has a ministry of truth. They present quite publicly what the truth is. You have to adhere to that truth. If you don't, there are various penalties. Here, there's no ministry of truth. There's just a common consensus among extremely narrow sectors of power as to the way the world should be perceived and as to what kind of people there should be.

Is there any real spectrum of opinion in the US media?

On Saddam Hussein there was no spectrum. When he offered to withdraw from Kuwait, there was a media consensus that you don't say it. So that was suppressed. But there's a spectrum... Take the major issue in American politics today: balancing the budget. The media tell you Americans have voted for it. The Republicans want it done in seven years and the Democrats in seven and a half. That's your spectrum. The American people are against it by large majorities. But their opinion is not part of the spectrum.

Besides, the Pentagon budget is going up. The public opposes that by six to one, but that doesn't matter. There's the information system and the business community it represents. That makes up the spectrum. Within it there are certain differences.

Some people are optimistic about the Internet throwing up certain possibilities... more democratic, less control. What do you believe will happen?

The state of the Internet right now is rather like the state of the electronic media back in the 1920s. In most countries, radio or a large part of it was handed over to the public interest. So you get the BBC or Canadian Broadcasting and that's as democratic as the society is. There was a struggle about that in the USA. Church groups, unions and others wanted a similar system. But they were overwhelmed by private power. And radio was mostly handed over to huge corporations.

Later, with television, there was no struggle at all. They just handed it over to private power. Now, you've got the Internet. Like all the rest of modern technology, it's funded by the public. It comes out of the Pentagon and the National Science Foundation and so on. Just like computers and the rest of electronics. The public pays the cost, then you hand it over to private power.

Even with print, there was a large, independent press in both England and the USA earlier this century. In England, it was on the scale of the commercial press. They were gradually overwhelmed by corporate power. So with the Internet, we have to wait and watch. Will corporate power be able to do what it wants? They'd like to turn it into a home shopping service and a way of addicting even more people, even more totally. Well, a lot of the public has different ideas. A struggle will take place and you can't predict the outcome.

What about content? Like everywhere else, there's been a shift here in coverage patterns: entertainment, titillation, selective scandal busting. Where does that leave journalism of the sort that used to record contemporary reality or people's lives?

But with the US media, in England and Europe, it's quite clear. News content is declining and narrowing and getting homogenised. So the European press now seems increasingly a pale copy of the New York Times and the Washington Post. It's just like with TV news stations. There's much less funding going into reporting altogether. It gets marginalised.

Now if you're the owner of Westinghouse, a mega-corporation, and a huge advertiser, that's what you want.

Why do the educated classes line up quickest behind media-constructed reality? Say, in the liberalisation debate in India?

That's very common. It's natural.

Are you saying that the schools and colleges are part of this training?

Oh, surely. George Orwell pointed this out 50 years ago in Animal Farm which is, of course, a satire on the Soviet Union. There was a preface to it which was not published incidentally. It was on literary censorship in England in which he said look, I'm satirising the Soviet Union, but look at England...

And he talked about how unwanted ideas can be silenced without the need for an official ban. And he described the measures. He said one reason is that the press is owned by wealthy men who have every interest in having certain ideas expressed and not others. Another is the process of socialisation that takes place through the educational system and particularly the elite educational system...in which you just internalise certain values. Where, as he put it, you learn there are certain things that just won't do.

So you can have a total disconnect between what millions of people are thinking and this discourse?

Yes. In a business-run society, if you're spending a couple of billion of dollars on public relations, you want to know how to package things so as to overcome public opposition... Public attitudes are usually quite divorced from the spectrum of educated opinion, often wildly at variance.

Incidentally, over 80% of the American public think there's no functioning democracy, that government works for a few special interests. That's one reason people don't bother voting.

Where does all this leave journalists in the mainstream who do not share the values of corporatised media? Are we wasting our time?

No. Not at all... Take the USA. I'm very critical about the media but they're better than they were 30 years ago. Basically, the activism of the 60s led to considerable ferment, out of which came major changes in American culture... There are always popular constituencies which relate to individual journalists and they're mutually supportive. They get information from them, give them information.

So it's worth staging a kind of guerrilla action within such media systems?

It's always worth pushing any totalitarian system to its limits, obviously.

There is this romanticised idea of the American media having brought the war in Vietnam to an end and exposed Watergate. How do you react to that kind of stuff?

The media were very hawkish on Vietnam. The media were always very pro-war... By around 1970, about 70% of the population regarded the war as fundamentally wrong and immoral and a mistake and that remained steady in the polls till the early 90s when the latest ones were taken. And that point of view was virtually never expressed in the media. The most critical comment you could have in the media was, say, Anthony Lewis of the New York Times, who was kind of off the spectrum. By 1969, he decided that although the war had been started with the noblest of intentions, it was now costing the US too much. So now he wondered if we shouldn't get out of it.

So it's a myth?

A total myth. In fact, if you're interested I've got hundreds of pages of documentation running through the media coverage. Case after case after case right through the war. In the early 1970s for example, when the media were supposed to have been adversarial, the US began the bombing of Cambodia. It was the worst bombing of civilians in history. Hundreds of thousands were killed. Probably a million and a half refugees fled up to Pnom Penh. We know nothing about it. Because Sidney Schanberg and others who are called the consciences of the press, were sitting in Pnom Penh -- and refused to walk across the street to interview a refugee. Those would have been the wrong stories.

And Watergate?

Watergate was a tea party. In fact, Watergate was almost a controlled experiment. The Nixon administration collected a bunch of petty crooks who entered the Democratic Party Headquarters for no known purpose and stole a couple of files, okay. Right at the same time, there were other things. There was an enemies list. Privately, Nixon called some people bad names -- me, for example. I was on the enemies list. Nothing ever happened to anybody on the enemies list. That's Watergate.

The same time that Watergate was exposed, it came out that in the courts, in classified documents, under the freedom of information act, that four administrations, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon, had enlisted not a few petty crooks, but the national political police, the FBI, to attack and undermine legal, legitimate dissent...

The COINTELPRO scandal, as it was known, got zero importance. This, despite direct FBI involvement in the political assassination of two black leaders. Not only didn't it get the same importance, it apparently never existed, the way it was treated.

It was totally blacked out?

Well, there might have been a few lines here and there. But it was of no interest and that demonstrates something very simple. The people in the media have no concerns for democracy or freedom or anything else. What they're concerned with is protecting power from people. When Fred Hampton, a black organiser, was murdered by the FBI and the Chicago police -- that was okay, it wasn't an issue.

But Thomas Watson, the head of IBM... you can't call him bad names (as Nixon did on the tape: PS). Do that and democracy collapses. When the media present Watergate as an instance of their adversarial, courageous character, you can hardly even laugh. Furthermore, they can't understand that once you tell them because they're so indoctrinated.

You spent a day in the Bengal countryside. What did you think of village and panchayat set-up you saw in West Bengal?

Very interesting. I've seen plenty of rural development programmes and this was quite striking, I thought. There was a lot of engagement and it's pretty obvious that the villagers have things under control. They seemed to answer the questions you asked them very easily and well.

You think it's quite a democratic set-up at the village level?

As far as I can tell. I mean it certainly looked like very active participation with a lot of people knowing what's going on and eager to talk about it.

Well, that's not how the media here see it.

No? That's their problem. But I can only tell you what I saw.

]]> Tue, 03 Jun 2003 10:42:00 EDT http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/9294 http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/9286 and obviously this is not a "maturity"...
i do still have some dreams...but i am not representing "purity"...i as an individual in this world am walking in the street which is covered by mud...and that mud was brought by mature(!)power holders who have been dominating this ugly and materialistic world for centuries...before we turn into black paper , let s clean the street..!!! Will you be with me? Let's start questioning ourselves first:

Let go of your worries

and be completely clear-hearted,

like the face of a mirror

that contains no images.

If you want a clear mirror,

behold yourself

and see the shameless truth,

which the mirror reflects.

If metal can be polished

to a mirror-like finish,

what polishing might the mirror

of the heart require?

Between the mirror and the heart

is this single difference:

the heart conceals secrets,

while the mirror does not.

by rumi 1207-1273

]]> Mon, 02 Jun 2003 20:11:00 EDT http://dialogtus.tigblog.org/post/9286