Vaclav Havel's Advice

 A world war began in 1939 when Adolf Hitler sent his nazi fascist war machine across the Czech/German border. That firestorm of destructive militarism flamed for six years before Allied armies drove the damn nazis out.

In 1945, the Russian Soviets occupied most of eastern Europe when Allied troops drove the nazis of Germany and the fascists of Italy back into their holes.

That Czech nation where World War II had first erupted was occupied during the wars’ conclusion by the Soviet army. The Russian Soviets established their oppressive communist regime in Czech lands and the adjoining land of Slavakia, as they did throughout the entirety of eastern Europe.

In 1968, the Soviets extinguished a nascent democratic liberation movement in the Czech lands when they sent military tanks into Prague to forcefully show the Czechs who was in charge. It was a bloody frickin’ mess when the Russian militarists squelched Czech rebellion at that time.

But in 1989, the 50-year military oppression of the Czech and Slavakia lands was concluded when a popular groundswell of peaceful protest persuaded the Soviet communist regime to withdraw back to Russia. With nary a shot fired, that so-called Velvet Revolution returned the Czech lands and Slavakia to their own people.

The success of that peaceful revolution became manifest largely through the peacefully effective leadership of one gifted man, Vaclav Havel.

In his 1997 book, The Art of the Impossible, Vaclav published a collection of speeches that he had delivered in the early ’90’s when he was serving as the President of  a free, democratic Czech nation.

Reading his speeches, you will find: In 1992, serving as President of the Czech Republic,  Havel delivered a message to the World Economic Forum in which he explained our changing world in this way:

“The fall of communism can be regarded as a sign that modern thought—based on the premise that the world is objectively knowable, and that the knowledge so obtained can be absolutely generalized—has come to a crisis. This era has created the first global, or planetary, technical civilization, but it has reached the limit of its potential, the point beyond which the abyss begins. I think the end of communism is a serious warning to all mankind. It is a signal that the era of arrogant, absolutist reason is drawing to a close, and that it is high time to draw conclusions from the fact.

“Communism was not defeated by military force, but by life, by the human spirit, by conscience, by the resistance of Being, and man, to manipulation. It was defeated by a revolt of color, authenticity, history in all its variety, and human individuality against imprisonment within a uniform ideology.”

 

And I would add . . . oppression is defeated by a rejection of any uniformed jihad.

And one more thing . . . oppression is  defeated with a peaceful conversion away from of our hyper-capitalistic  transformation of this planet into a trash heap. 

Glass half-Full

From Prague to Helsinki

About five years ago, Pat and I visited Prague, Czech Republic. Walking around in that historic Bohemian city was a fascinating experience. 

In Wenceslaus Square, a tour guide talked glowingly about Vaclav Havel, a pioneer for Czech freedom(1977-89) and later, their first post-Soviet President in 1990. Vaclav Havel had addressed a huge crowd of Czech citizens from a balcony there, in Wenceslaus Square. That crowd-gathering event culminated in the historically peaceful “Velvet Revolution,” which ultimately brought democratic liberation that drove out Soviet communist domination.

Here's an explanation of how the Czech people peacefully apprehended their nation away from the Soviets. This plaque was posted in a Prague museum display that depicted what life was like for Czechs and Slovaks in the pre-liberation communist eastern Europe.

This summer, I am reading a collection of speeches that Vaclav Havel--playwright/President had delivered, over the course of his latter-20th-century lifetime, to his fellow Czechs, and to other Europeans and to many gatherings of world leaders and avid listeners around the world. 

I was reading, In his speech-laden memoir, The Art of the Impossible,  a message he had delivered to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg in 1990. The speech was delivered less than a year after the Czechs and their like-minded eastern-European brethren had sent the Soviets packin’, back to their Soviet digs in Moscow.

As years had passed in post-Soviet eastern Europe, Vaclav Havel became a leader of international reknown, and rightfully so. Leading his Czech fellow-citizens as the first post-Soviet elected President of Czechoslovakia, Havel offered a unifying suggestion to his fellow-European heads-of-state.

At the Council of Europe, in Strasbourg, May 1990, the bold Czech President spoke highly of  The Helsinki Accords, a treaty which and been agreed upon in 1975. He told them it would be an appropriate unifying framework into which the Czechs, the Slovaks, Hungarians, Poles and other post-Soviet eastern European nations could enter into a security agreement with the other European nation-states.

President Havel emphasized the principles of unity and security that could be actuated and strengthened using the Helsinki Accords as a basis.

As I was reading his message a few nights ago, the mention of Helsinki in this collection of  Vaclav Havel’s liberating orations reminded me of a recent connection that I have made to that far-north capital city, Helsinki. 

Helsinki is the home base of Anssi Lihtonen, a podcaster with whom I recently communicated online, as I provided musical content and conversation for his musical survey radio show.

Anssi, domiciled way up north there on the south coast of Finland, listens to music  that has come to ears from different parts of the world. When he finds music that meets his high listening standards, he communicates with the musicians, interviews them, and features their music on his “radio” (whatever that means nowadays) show up there in the far north and throughout the world wide web.

So, a couple of nights ago, when I was reading Vaclav Havel’s high opinion of the Helsinki Accords, I thought of my one and only online Helsinki friend, Anssi. 

And I thought perhaps you might want to hear what he and I talked about during our "radio" show conversation on the wwweb Cosmic Turtle show.

Check it out: Cosmic Turtle

    https://idaidaida.net/episodes/cosmic-turtle-2021-07-05 

Glass Chimera 

Thank TSA no more 911s

How do you feel when you’re required to take your stuff and shove it?

Are you inconvenienced—maybe even offended— when you have to shove your carry-on luggage and your other stuff, the ever-present cellphone, maybe even your shoes and belt . . . through that hi-tech TSA tunnel at the airport?

But hey, think about it this way: No Worries!

That’s right. No worries. Because of our Transportation Safety Administration doing their jobs so dutifully every hour of every day in every airport of this nation, we don’t need to be concerned about:

Another 9/11 terrorist attack!

We don’t need to worry that maybe we’re traipsing aboard a replay of United 93; we know we’re not going to be wrestling terrorists with box-cutters at 30,000 feet over Pennsylvania.

We resent those zealous TSA attendants, but we ought to be giving them a standing ovation.

We have not had another 9/11!

Instead of frowning at those people, we should thank them every time we go through there.

No more 9/11s!

All of that TSA security that drags us into tedious searches on the way to fly the friendly skies—it works! We are effectively being protected by our people on the front lines of American safety.

And let us not forget when and why all this airport security was put into place by our government.

The TSA was established so that we would not have skyscrapers burning and crumbling in full sight while the nation and the world watch in horror.

An let us not forget a few other details about that entire post-9/11 security ramp-up that brought the TSA.

When the TSA was established, we did not yet understand where the Al qaida threat was coming from.

Later, when our intelligence people traced the hijackers back to their Arabian connections and their Afghanistan hideouts, we took measures to prevent those criminals from ever pulling such a deadly disastrous stunt again.

And it worked. 

Furthermore, when we  moved our troops into Afghanistan, shortly after 9/11, we tracked down the terrorists and put a stop to their destructive plans to destroy our American peace and security.

We even executed the ring leader, Osama bin laden.

The result is, we now have a safer America, a safer world, and our mission in Afghanistan has proven successful. 

Now it’s time to get out of there.

Because the possibility of another 9/11 is next to 0, thanks to our guys and gals who tracked down the Al qaida criminals; thanks to our TSA people who work unceasingly around the clock to keep us safe as we fly the friendly skies. . .

Our friendly, protected skies. 

No more 9/11s.

No more need to hunt down terrorists in Afghan hideouts!

No more need for American soldiers in Afghanistan.

Thanks to all the uniformed men and women who protect us in places all around this dangerous world.

TSA has got this thing now.

Thank you, TSA!

Glass half-Full 

It Is No Easy Task

 What Americans need to understand about our withdrawal from Afghanistan is that there never was any easy way out.

Two Presidents ahead of him decided not to take the risk—not to take the political hit of withdrawing our troops. 

Joe decided it had to be done; he decided to take the risk.

Now he’s taking the political hit. 

There never was any easy way out. 

President Biden’s decision is an act of courage. 

And our guys and gals over there are on a mission that had to be undertaken. 

The Russians and the Brits preceded us in trying to get that country fixed.  

We need to shore up our own defenses on the home front to prevent another 9/11.

Those American citizens who support the President’s decision ought to be glad that he does not have a Watergate noose around his Presidential neck, as Nixon had in his post-Vietnam withdrawal in 1973. 

The trauma of Vietnam and Watergate was too much for this nation to take, so we allowed our Congress and Court to boot Nixon out.

But Joe does not have a watergate skeleton in his closet; so we need to get behind him, supporting him and our troops and our diplomats who are desperately working to rectify the tragic path of this foreign venture.

God bless America, land that we love!

Glass half-Full

Blood

 Anywhere in the world, if you cut into any person body and blood spurts out, the blood is red.

No exceptions, we’re all red-blooded citizens of the world.

Yesterday, as I was walking through a large parking lot, I noticed a large van with the Red Cross logo emblazoned on its panels.

Seeing that big Red Cross prompted a memory from 2005, when I accompanied my wife, Pat, and a group of other nurses from our Carolina home, down to south Louisiana, where Hurricane Katrina had destroyed so many homes and displaced so many persons.

That was a work of mercy and I was glad to play my small part in being a go-to guy whenever the RN crew, or other Red Cross volunteers, needed some tasks done.

Fond memories there for me, but not for the people whose lives were destroyed or displaced down there in my original home state of Louisiana. 

The Red Cross depends on volunteers to do the works of mercy that they do wherever they go.

Volunteers sacrifice their time, their treasure and their talents to help folks who are in severe need.

Sacrifice—it is a very important part of many essential, systematic human agencies in this life, including the very fabric of society itself.

That precious gift, called Sacrifice, goes back a long ways in the dark shadows of human history.

In ancient times, sacrifice was certainly important in civilized life, or tribal life, or clan life, or family life. God knows . . . fathers and mothers have sacrificed buckets of blood, sweat and tears for their children’s well-being and protection.

In the wider circumspect, leaders and defenders in tribes and clans have sacrificed for the sake of their people. . . for their protection, for their provisions, for general peace and prosperity. 

Sacrifice is a necessary component of communal life, and it goes back a long ways in the dark shadows of our origins. 

Several thousand years ago, a leader named Moses ascended a mountain in the middle of nowhere to obtain some important information about sacrifice. A very important part of what Moses brought back from his meeting with the Creator—the author of DNA and RNA and the life-force for yesterday and today and tomorrow—were some guidelines about Sacrifice. 

Sacrifice, as it turned out, is so important in the life and times of homo sapiens that we have set aside some aspects of it and ritualized it. This is an historical development that Jordan Peterson, a secular savant, has recently  explored and explained in his psych lectures illuminating the importance of stories, symbols and cultural heritage in human experience and history.

Sacrifice, it turns out, is so important to the well-being of human life that we have, down through the ages, ritualized it. 

And that ritual involves the other important element of human life—blood. 

In the ancient priesthood that was established after Moses’ revelation, blood was a central component in Sacrifice. But the blood in those sacrifices—and in our modern institutions today, is the propritiationary blood of animals. 

Humans have, for a very long time, sacrificed animals so that they could live. That custom has proved so important in human progress that we ritualized it, from the earliest stages, in order to emphasize the importance and necessity of this precious thing called Sacrifice. 

Well, by ’n by, that ancient sacrificial system of animal sacrifice got phased out. For us Christians, that phase-shift began with Jesus’ sacrifice at Calvary. He offered up his own blood, shed at the hands of Romans who were just doing their job, so that we could receive and comprehend the deep preciousness of this life.

That blood sacrifice at Calvary was, for us Christians, the last propitionary offering. Ritual sacrifice was done away with.

Oh, we still slaughter animals for food, but there is no longer any symbolic spiritual significance; the meat thereof is just for Sunday dinner, or Tuesday lunch or whatever.

Even so, that ancient heritage that is the taproot of our Christian worship still mentions, in sacred texts, in theological writings and in worship of our Resurrected Jesus—the Blood of the Lamb that covers our sin and obliterates its significance.

Some of our traditional images still harken back to that long-standing tradition. This morning, while singing songs of praise with other Christians, I noticed some wording that disturbed me, and prompted me to conduct this thought process which now manifests in bloggish writing about the blood and the ritual sacrifice.

The worship song included a line about the Blood of the Lamb, Jesus, washing me “white as snow.”

Whoa! Wait a doggone minute! That’s controversial stuff, these days, when so many folks are all hot and bothered about white privilege and white cluelessness and honky this and white that. 

I felt the need to explain. This is what’s called, nowadays, Christian apologetics.

So here it is.

First of all, I’m not white. I’m more pink that I am white, which does not mean I’m a communist pinko, nor does it mean that I’m a racist.

That “white as snow” reference in Christian worship is a reference to—wait for it— garments!

It's about clothes, robes, which are symbolic of that apparent identity which we--each one of us--present to everyone else in the world as we encounter others. 

Our righteousness before God is presented as a clean and acceptable sacrifice only because our “robes”— the outer presentation, the superficial stuff, the garments that we wear, our identity as citizens, the good standing that we have as members of mankind, citizens of the world, all that— is acceptable only because of the sacrificial Blood of the Lamb, Jesus . . . shed, so to speak . . . symbolically.  

White garments that are near a blood-letting wound get stained with red blood. If we attempt to clean those clothes, to wash them, the blood is, well, stubborn. It does not come out easily, if ever.

Offense against our Creator—or our fellow-man—is also stubborn, often quite injurious and damaging. In most cases, it doesn’t just go away.

Injurious acts against fellow-man, or God, don’t just go away. They have to be atoned for, and often compensated for.

For us Christians—white, black, or whatever— It is only by the propritiationary sacrifice of Jesus sacrifice that that stubborn stain agains God and fellow-man gets washed out.

The "white" garments symbolism is Christian hymns is not about skin color. Black Christians understand this, and have preached, for many centuries, about the Lord’s holy righteousness in all of us.

But the world generally does not comprehend the symbolism. They think we’re racist because we sing about our “spiritual” garments being washed “white as snow.”

So I just thought I’d share these thoughts that I had while singing with my people this Sunday morning.

It’s not about skin color. It’s about our ultimate destiny—all of us—black, white, yellow, red, precious in His sight, who claim Jesus’ blood sacrifice at Calvary as being our only admittance to heaven. 

White privilege—whatever the hell that is— needs to be driven out of our institutions and our society. 

Black Christians understand the symbolism explained above. So, you secular critics . . . just please go back to your hallowed halls of academia or your mellowed-out gathering-places of spirits libation, and give us Christians a break. 

   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52j9JhkheeE

 

Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world . . . red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world.

 

Glass half-Full 

Identity in an Online World

 Recently, two luminaries of the academic online world, Jordan Peterson and Bret Weinstein, conducted a fascinating discussion, which they generously shared with the rest of us curious viewers.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2O_gW4VWZ5c

Their online exchange hit upon several fascinating contemporary topics. One topic in which I found profound interest was what they said about the difference between personal identity and online identity.

At approximately 58 minutes into their videozed exchange, Bret uncovers a revolutionary aspect of life in the internet age.

Most important . . . At 59:30, Bret is saying: 

“ If you are sufficiently plugged-in to the internet early enough, there comes a point at which your persona on the internet takes primacy; it is more important than your actual, physical life persona.”

Dr. Peterson immediately responds with a personal acknowledgement of this recent development. Then he proceeds to speak candidly about the unforeseen effects that have arisen in his life since the impact of his “online avatars” have far exceeded the impact of his personal living and his actual teaching and psychology practice. 

We are living in an age when millions of people present their constructed identities online. 

In many cases, real people are using the online to reconstruct their original identity. Sometimes that works out fairly well for persons, other times . . . not so much.

One thing for sure, though, in the age of cyberspace: This thing called “Identity” ain’t what it used to be.

Or, as Ringo said, on a TV commercial in earlier times—excuse me for mentioning it—the ’60’s . . 

“This is not your father’s Oldsmobile.”

 This present world is not the same as it existed in previous ages, only a generation ago, when each person was limited to establishing their own identity through the use of old-school media: life-work, photographs, writings, recordings, family life, life in the public domain of a material, very real, world.

This cyber world identity is far more easily manipulated by its originator (you or me) than the old-school, old-world media of newspapers, telephones, radios, books, Main Street, life-on-the-street, flesh and blood personality. 

The flip-side of that flexibility is: that online persona may go on to step out ahead of its real-life originator in a magnifying function—or a metastasizing image—that may—or may not—fulfill the intent of its creator.

While young people who have grown up in the online world may find it easy to project an alternate identity for themselves, that power may not extend to, say, the area between their legs.

So be careful out there. You can catch a snake by its tail; but if you don’t know what you’re doing, its head—and teeth—could  recoil to inject you with something very strange. 

Some snakes have venom; others do not. All ye identity shape-shifters out there, do you know the difference?

Glass Chimera