Another take on empathy

I was sitting in front of my bowl of muesli this morning , wondering what kind of activity I would still be able to pursue with an ecstatically purring cat on the lap who was waiting to be cuddled and caressed. I had just finished breakfast, the bowl was empty, but my little friend Wendy, who is, as I wrote in another post already, the closest resemblance of any living creature to a teddy bear, was not in the mood to go up and start the days work.

Wendy is lovely cat and the most social cat that I ever have see, She always approaches the other members of the cat family and even visiting cats with high expectations, undeterred by earlier disappointments where her fellow cats put her down and hissed and growled at her.

Wendy's social character unfortunately doesn't not include other fellow animals and she will mercilessly torture and kill a captured mouse or a bird. She feels no empathy for her hapless victim. The mice may squeak and the bird chirp in terror and desperation, little Wendy will be unmoved and finish her bloody business leaving only some indigestible body parts like intestines, tails, or bird feathers as evidence on the crime scene.

Empathy can be very selective and its intensity and reach differs. Apparently my cats feel some empathy towards me (for being their most reliable food provider and spending a lot of time with them), but animals in general feel empathy only for their own species, with elephants, dolphins, wales being the most notable exceptions.

Most humans feel empathy only for humans, others restrict their feeling of empathy to a certain race or nationality or only to their nearest friends and relatives (a study on racial empathy by Gutsell/Inzlicht found physical evidence that white people have difficulty empathizing with non-whites).

People, that cannot feel empathy are often described as sociopaths or psychopaths.

Why don't political leaders feel empathy and scruple, preventing them from starting another war, preventing them from causing misery and death to so many of their fellow humans? Why don't the air force pilots, the gunners in the attack helicopters, the drone operators, the soldiers of the occupation forces feel empathy?

Why don't weapons manufacturers and weapons dealers feel empathy? Why are Western nations shipping huge quantities of arms to everybody who can pay or is willing to do their bidding and fight proxy wars? Why does the USA kill Iraqis, Afghans, Pakistanis, Yemenites, Somalis, Libyans with drone strikes and bombs?

I am told by the corporate media that this are just wars, preemptive wars, humanitarian interventions, this are military actions in defense of our western values of democracy and liberty. Even "liberal media" outlets like the New York Times and Al Jazeera are in lockstep with the government and pundits from left to right inform us about the dreadful consequences of not taking decisive action.

Reading Ethan Bronner's propaganda pieces about imperiled, vulnerable Israelis and vicious Palestinians gives me an idea about the truth content and the integrity of NY Times reporting. Listening to Al Jazeera's reports about Gaddafi's atrocities makes me suspicious. A massacre in Tripoli's Abu Salim prison, allegedly killing 1,200 inmates is mentioned to justify NATO's intervention. This was 1996, isn't it a bit late to react now after 15 years with a bombing campaign? 

Concerning Libya (an actual topic):

A fabrication is a fabrication only until you have told it 100 times. After the hundredth repetition it has been transformed into a fact. Sometimes it will maybe need even less repetitions, only 80 or even only 60, to turn a fabrication into a fact. After the transformation into a fact one can refer to the former fabrication as a part of "common knowledge." Choosing the right media helps a lot: "you've seen it on Fox, MSNBC, CNN, YouTube, so it must be true!" Pure and true like crystal clear sparkling bottled water….

I went out to look for additional alternative news sources and applied common sense and logic to the various conflicting and contradictory informations. My findings resulted in the blogpost A Few Notes about Libya, which includes a detailed assessment of the media campaign against Gaddafi, a campaign which was so insidious and deceitful that it would have even made Dick Cheney and George W. Bush blush. 

It was a remake of the media campaign that prepared the Iraq invasion, and the scheme worked well again. Didn't people remember that the Iraq media campaign was, what is now clearly documented and many times proven, crooked and a bunch of lies? Are people really that forgetful?

“The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history.” Friedrich Hegel

I cannot rule out, that atrocities were committed by the Libyan army and I cannot rule out, that there were serious misgivings about Gaddafi's dictatorial attitudes, about cronyism and corruption, but I consider these crucial facts:

The Libyan population has one of the lowest poverty rates in the world (6 percent), a 82 percent literacy rate, and a life expectancy of 77 years (10 percent above the world average).

The fertility rate is 2,88 (comparatively modest for Africa). Women in Libya enjoy a reasonably high status. They have been able to vote since 1964, and Libya has signed the "UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women" (Cedaw). In 2004 it was the first Arab country to adopt an optional protocol allowing women to petition a UN committee about violations of their rights. As part of Gaddafi's bid to alter society after his takeover in 1969, he promoted a greater role for women, specifically calling on them to join the workforce. Most famous are his female bodyguards, known as the revolutionary nuns.

All this was of course before the NATO war and every quality of life parameter will be significantly lower now -- probably lower forever.

The protests against Gaddafi were dwarfed by daily (later nightly) demonstrations for him in Green Spare. Why should the majority of Libyans have been against Gaddafi, when he had kept Libya free from outside influence and exploitation for 42 years. He had not been bought and bribed, he had not sold out to Western corporations!

The rebels are represented by the Transitional National Council (TNC), lead mainly by former government officials who were ousted because of corruption or infighting. The rebel army consists of jihadist fighters from Afghanistan and Iraq, radical islamists, beduin tribes who see an opportunity to settle old scores with rival clans, and opportunists who gladly take the inpouring funds from NATO, the UAE, Kuwait and Qatar.

Even rebel commanders admit that some of their fighters have al-Qaeda links. The main fighting force is the Islamic Libya Fighting Group, which is a Libyan “mujahadeen" force. There are other interests of course represented too: one powerful person in the military leadership is General Khalifa Hifter, an US-based exile with CIA ties.

A draft 14-page "constitutional declaration," states that: "Libya is a democratic and independent state, the people are the source of authority, Tripoli is the capital, Islam is the religion and Islamic sharia is the principal source of legislation."

The rebels began rolling back the participation of women as their size increased. Enas Eldrasy, a 23-year old therapist, did quit the rebels saying: "when the revolution started, women had a role, but it disappeared."

The rebel fighters are desperadoes, they are not representing the population. It is a blatant media lie that this is a popular uprising. The Libyan people didn't raise up to chase Gaddafi out, it was a terrifying NATO bombing campaign which destroyed most of the military infrastructure and also hit many civilian targets, it was the heavy bombardment by naval artillery, it were NATO commandos aiding and training rebel fighters.

After a fact-finding tour to Libya in June former congresswoman Cynthia McKinney condemned the NATO bombing. She had witnessed several bombings of Tripoli and said: "Tripoli is under heavy aerial bombardment in all areas, also in civilian areas."

According to the Libyan Red Crescent NATO bombed 300 civilian targets between February and July, killing or wounding a total of 6,232 Libyans. These targets included the Libyan Down's Syndrome Society, a school that provided speech therapy, handicrafts and sports sessions for disabled children as well as Tripoli’s Nasser University, Libyan TV installations (killing 3 journalists and injuring 15), homes, schools, medical facilities and food storage warehouses.

Bombing such sites is outlawed by the Geneva Conventions and constitutes war crimes.

NATO uses ammunition, missiles and bombs with depleted uranium. Large parts of Libya will be forever radioactive contaminated (nearly forever - DU has a half-life of 4.6 million years). Why is the use of DU weapons not decried as a war crime and internationally banned? If the use of DU weapons is not a warcrime, what else constitutes a war crime?

http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/docs/163.pdf

http://www.bandepleteduranium.org/en/

http://www.rense.com/general56/dep.htm

NATO's attacks on Libyan government forces with bombing raids, combat helicopters and artillery and missiles from warships were an intervention in a civil war and were not backed by the UN resolution 1973 authorizing a no-fly zone. Providing the rebels with weapons was a breach of the UN arms embargo.

The attempts to assassinate Gaddafi, his children, and grandchildren was also a violation of the rules of engagement set by the UN Security Council resolutions 1970 and 1973. These UN resolutions didn't allow for the targeting of Libyan officials, or sanction the murder of Gaddafi and his children and grandchildren and other family members.

The USA and NATO are above the law.

===================

I don't want to repeat myself and refer to my earlier blog post about Libya for details, but I need to write down the main conclusions that I draw from the collected infos:

Removing Gaddafi from power was deemed necessary because Libya is the African country with the largest oil reserves in Africa and the ninth largest in the world (46 billion barrels). Libya was also one of the few African countries which are self-sufficient and free of Western influence and it has helped many other African countries financially to reduce their reliance on IMF loans.

Gaddafi had planned to fund three ambitious financial projects: the creation of an African investment bank, an African monetary fund and an African central bank. These Africa-centered institutions would have diminished the continents dependence on the IMF and the World Bank -- institutions who pressure African nations to privatize natural resources and to allow unlimited access to Western companies.

The USA had an eye on Gaddafi since a long time and only waited for the right pretext to strike. It will be interesting to see how their strategic plan works out. At present it looks like Gaddafi will join Che Guevara, Patrice Lumumba, and Salvador Allende in the shrine of fallen heroes. The six month NATO bombing campaign and a total naval blockade have weakened the Libyan army enough to allow a rebel takeover of Tripoli. Before that the rebels moved into the strategic important towns of Zlitan and Zawiya, after NATO had blanketed the towns with bombs and forced the Libyan army to retreat.

The thousands of killed Libyan's, the destruction of Libya's infrastructure and the widespread radioactive contamination with deputed uranium could have been avoided by Gaddafi stepping down and scheduling immediate democratic elections supervised by international organizations like the Carter Center. He could have remained some influence as an elder statesman guiding and advising his successors. But such a solution was not fathomable for a man who achieved power by a military coup and ruled for 42 years as a military dictator. This was not a thought Gaddafi would have ever been able to think.

Let me go back again to my initial musings about empathy:

Beside all geopolitical considerations (competition with China), the necessity to grab the worlds dwindling oil resources, and the push of the "military industrial complex" for more wars, did the leaders in Washington not spend any thought about the human costs of the Libyan war?

I have to ask again, why don't the political leaders feel empathy when they start another war, why don't the air force pilots, the gunners in the attack helicopters, the drone operators, the soldiers of the occupation forces feel empathy?

Does the US soldier feel any kind of empathy when he uses the Afghan farmer for target practice? The soldier will argue that this farmer was very likely to joy the Taliban after his brothers family was wiped out in a missile strike, so it was necessary and logical to wipe him out too. The soldier will maybe even argue that it will be necessary to wipe out the whole village because the villagers are enraged by the killings and likely to become ardent Taliban supporters.

Aren't the political and military leaders concerned about their legacy? Aren't the lobbyist, the propagandists and agitators ashamed, aren't the soldiers troubled, distressed, traumatized?

The later seem to be indeed troubled, distressed, and traumatized.

32 US soldiers committed suicide in July, the highest number since the Army started releasing monthly figures. That is one soldier per day. The annual number of suicides in the Marine Corps, which doesn't release monthly figures, is on pace with the Army. More than 1,000 military personnel have taken their own lives since the start of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. These figures do not include the suicides of veterans, which average 18 per day.

The political leader, the generals and the media agitators though are doing fine.

===================

Footnotes and unsorted tidbits:

Gaddafi will not join Che Guevara, Patrice Lumumba, and Salvador Allende in my shrine of fallen heroes. I don't condone his dictatorial rule and his iron grip on power, though I give him credit for putting the national interests of Libya before the interests of the international corporations.

He could have avoided the destruction of Libya by stepping down.

US Senator and former presidential contender John McCain tweeted last year: "Late evening with Col. Qadhafi at his ranch in Libya - interesting meeting with an interesting man." Gaddafi is or was for sure an interesting personality, but I don't want to spend much more thought on him, he is now irrelevant. I rather direct my attention to the remaining national leaders who stand up against IMF, Word Bank, and the G8 powers.

Will Hugo Chávez, Cristina Fernandez, Daniel Ortega, and the Castro brothers be the remaining keepers of the flame? (I didn't include Evo Morales, Rafael Correa, and Dilma Rousseff because of their negative environmental record.)

How would Cuba look today, if the Bay of Pigs Invasion would have succeeded? Would it look like Haiti? Would it look like Jamaica?

+++++++

In August Al Jazeera English launched in New York City on Time Warner Cable, a major step in the network’s goal of expanding further into the U.S. cable market and a chance to reach two million households in the world capital of culture and commerce. The network also became available on Verizon FiOS. Joining the media blitz about Gaddafi's atrocities has payed of (one knows which way the wind blows, when Hillary Clinton and John McCain are praising Al Jazeera.)

+++++++

Concerning NY Times reports: I would never pay for this kind of journalism, I only read some reports, because the NY Times paywall is easy to surpass.

I still ponder about an opinion piece of Paul Krugman on August 15 with the title "Oh! What A Lovely War!" It started with the sentence: World War II is the great natural experiment in the effects of large increases in government spending, and as such has always served as an important positive example for those of us who favor an activist approach to a depressed economy (meaning more government spending).

Wanted Krugman to make a case for increased stimulus spending without realizing that his argumentation could also be used for starting more wars? Or does ha actually think that wars help the economy?

This is from a Nobel laureate! An allegedly bright man who nevertheless isn't able to grasp the idea that a growing economy means more environmental destruction, a man who is not able to envision an economic system that is not based on continuous growth!

+++++++

Three weeks ago I scanned the headlines in salon.com and read:

Sarah Palin and Barack Obama are in love!

This was inevitable indeed, I thought, she probably will be his mistress, main adviser, and running mate in 2012. A moment later I realized, that I just misread, and the headline in fact was:

Sarah Palin and Barack Obama are in Iowa!

Politics is not that simple…

What a great story it would have been! Cleopatra and Marcus Antonio again."

They share so many interests. Especially the passion to shoot and kill. Though they have slightly different approaches and Sarah is more the hands on type while Barack prefers to use drones, precisely because of this different approach they would have complemented each other very well. They would have been the perfect killing team!

Congratulation

Congratulation, you've done it again! You've bombed another county into submission and created another hotbed for radical Islamists. You've removed another hinderance to the exploitation of Africa's resources. You have sent a message to all of us, that is loud and clear. 

You told us:

We don't care about people, we don't care about nature, we care about nothing than our profits.

We don't care about the future and we enjoy our power right now.

We will destroy the world as we see fit and you pitiful poor little wretch cannot stop us!

++++++++++++++

By some estimates the USA has spent nearly eight trillion US$ for military infrastructure, weapons, and wars in one decade.

5.9 trillion US$ for the Pentagon's base budget since 2000.

1.36 trillion US$ for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

636 million US$ for "Homeland Security".

++++++++++++++

The USA with 4.4 percent of the worlds population uses a quarter of the worlds resources (in some areas up to 30 percent).

The Americans have to exploit the worlds resources, because otherwise they couldn't afford their gigantic military machine.

The Americans need their gigantic military machine because otherwise they would not be able to exploit the worlds resources.

Who or what could contradict this striking logic?

++++++++++++++

When you have a menacing gigantic monster in your back, you will look for holes and caves, where you can hide, you will look for sticks and stones that you can throw in the monsters way to bring it to fall, you will look for gaps in the armor of the monster, where you can insert your tiny little spear, you will look for a bog, a mire, where you could lure the monster to sink and drown there or for a jungle, a maze, where it could get entangled in creepers and shrubbery.

You will run for your life or crouch in your hideout, waiting for your tiny chance. You never will fight the monster head-on, this would be suicide. Ho Chi Minh knew that.

Maybe you don't fight and avoid the menacing gigantic monster altogether? But that is difficult when the monster destroys all your food and goes on to burn the forests and to poison the rivers and lakes with its fiery breath. You will have to think very hard and find creative solutions!

Hewlett-Packard doesn't need your money

Hewlett-Packards CEO Leo Apotheker made the surprising announcement, that the company wants to get rid of the personal computer business, stops the development of WebOS devices and buys Autonomy, a British software maker, for 10 billion US$.

The takeover of Autonomy makes sense, because HP wants to offer more special services and cloud computing to corporate and government customers. Autonomy makes software that searches and keeps track of corporate and government data, BP, Ford and the US Defense Department are among its customers.

HP and Palm phones like Veer and Pre as well as the new HP TouchPad will be discontinued. HP just dramatically slashed the price of its tablet, but the TouchPad was not well received and did sell poorly despite the price reduction; it was never a serious competitor to Apples iPad.

HP will not make PC's anymore, could you ever have imagined?

Don't be surprised, Hewlett-Packard doesn't need your money, because the Pentagon pays so much better. In 2010 Hewlett-Packard was the sixth biggest defense contractor in Silicon Valley, with 28 contracts worth $69.9 million.

HP provides for instance the software for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. In June 2010 HP won a US Air Force contract for a Cyber Control System (CCS) designed to identify and respond to cyber threats. The 12-month government contract calls for HP (NYSE: HPQ) to implement the CCS for what the company said is a key part of the Air Force's cyber warfare strategy. In July this year HP renewed an IT support contract with the U.S. Navy, adding another three years of support services for as much as $3 billion in cash (the Navy network is among the largest IT installations anywhere and this is serious cash even for a giant like HP).

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/08/hp-holds-navy-network-hostage/

http://h10134.www1.hp.com/insights/casestudies/global-defense.aspx

Who needs to sell crappy PC's or smart phones, when the surveillance and data mining business is just taking off in a big way and the prospect of cyber warfare opens new business opportunities. Supplying one Big Brother will be for sure more profitable and easier than the cumbersome business with the little brothers and sisters could ever be.

========================

Top military contractors in Silicon Valley in 2010:

Lockheed Martin, 277 contracts worth $3.6 billion.

BAE Systems, 218 contracts worth $610.6 million.

Northrop Grumman Marine Systems, 227 contracts worth $159.8 million.

SRI International, 203 contracts worth $140.3 million.

Granite Construction, 47 contracts worth $111.8 million.

Hewlett-Packard, 28 contracts worth $69.9 million.

Vision Systems International, 173 contracts worth $49.1 million.

Oracle Corp. 266 contracts worth $40 million.

Fresh Express, 8 contracts worth $34.6 million.

Communications & Power Industries, 57 contracts worth $29.7 million.

Hope

During my active time as a musician I was often faced with the problem of not being able to make an instant reliable assessment/judgement about the quality and the creative value of a recording and the included musical ideas. I had to wait a few days before listening to the recordings again to properly rate them. Quit often it turned out that what I had thought to be a great idea and an inspirational moment was just another mediocre variation of the old worn-out stuff that I had ruminated about endlessly already for much too long.

I'm facing the same problem with my blog texts. Here is an example:

When "the audacity of hope" morphed into "the illusion of hope", were we then still left with a glimmer of hope, comforted by the solace of hope and able to enjoy the gift of hope, or was the "power of hope" finally broken?

Were we still visiting the cities of hope and going to the places of hope to rest at the cornerstones of hope? Were we still on a mission of hope, on a journey of hope, walking the walk of hope, guided by the beacon of hope and the star of hope? Were we still listening to the "voices of hope" and looking out for traces of hope and signs of hope? 

Will the hopeless ever be hopeful again when their hopes were dashed so many times before? Can we keep our hope alive?

==================

Friends asked me, why I don't promote my blog.

I would like and hope to have a few more readers, but in this limited life and in the limited time that I have I am only able to either write posts or promote my blog. I cannot do both. If I would only promote my blog and spend my time looking for readers and subscribers, people would visit this site and would find nothing there. It is logical that I have to opt for writing posts, a solution which at least gives me with the hope, that some web surfers accidentally will reach this page and read my elaborations.

I could of course make a compromise and write a little bit plus promote a little bit, but this would satisfy nobody, because the posts would be even more mediocre and poorly written than they are now, and the readers would be disappointed and would blame me for wasting their time by luring them to this page.

I don't want to waste anybodies time, I also don't want to waste my own time. I have so many other things to do, like: playing music, being with my wife, working in the garden, walking with the cats in the forest. I would not miss writing, I would not be bored.

I write when I feel that I have something to tell. Before I write anything, I first try to filter, sort, and process the zillions of bits and pieces of information, that constantly pour down on me, and I only start writing when I am able to make out some coherent patterns that lead to a solid understanding of an issue and its underlying systemic structures.

I need my time for writing, the texts come not easy. My fingers are pretty fast and I'm perfect in touch typing, after all, I was working as a journalist. This was in German though, English is not my native tongue and I'm not at all talented in languages. My vocabulary is tiny, my spelling and my grammar are terrible, I have to fight my way from paragraph to paragraph searching for the proper terms and phrases.

A rudimentary and superficial, yet nonetheless surprisingly useful insight into neurology is the tool that helps me to put this blog texts together and make them somehow understandable for the reader. Writing text is always an exciting expedition into my brain and I made many stunning and fascinating discoveries on this exploratory journeys.

Most texts are consequently in addition to the included information an invitation, an incitement to readers for undertaking similar expeditions into their own brains and make similar intriguing and spellbinding discoveries there.

As I told before, I have to fight for the right terms and phrases. Sometimes it is necessary to look at a special word more carefully and to study, analyze, and examine the meaning, possible usages, applications and relations in phrases and sentences. I avoided the term "semantics" at this point of the text because semantics itself is such a complex word with various meanings and far reaching implications that I would have to write a lengthy and elaborate tractate about linguistics to acceptably and correctly engage it.

As I went to bed yesterday, just before falling asleep the word "hope" came to my mind and I decided to have a closer look and try to find out what "hope" really means. My interest in the term "hope" was probably stimulated by a piece of Rebecca Solnit from two weeks ago with the title "Doom Is Not Inevitable: Hope Is Out There, We Just Have to Work For It." The article was not as outstanding as her writings normally are but it projected hope and was nice to read. Rebecca Solnit is the author of the much acclaimed book "Hope in the Dark," she has for sure some experience in propagating hope.

What is Hope?

Like its close relative Love, and together with the associated synonyms and translations, Hope is one of the most misused, abused, desecrated, depraved, beaten up and corrupted words in human language. Evoking Hope has won elections and the word is successfully used in advertising as well as in corporate and government propaganda. The term Hope is also misused for creating brand loyalty, constructing a corporate identity, for marketing, for creating hypes and hysterias. Together with teasers, rubber bullets, water cannons and tear gas, Hope is also successful used for crowd control.

Equipped with life experience and common sense it is fortunately not too difficult to expose and denounce the false prophets of Hope and to make out the real teachers and prophets among the hordes of fakers, charlatans, and impostors. This is nevertheless a tedious task, because the mass media corporations are drowning us in piles of useless and misleading information, hoping that one day, overwhelmed and exhausted by the information deluge, we will capitulate, surrender, concede, and swallow everything what we are force-fed via print, cable or air waves.

We all watched with disgust and in dismay how "the audacity of hope" became "the illusion of hope". This was (and still is) a shameful and disgusting spectacle, a painful disappointment, and a sobering experience. It is only natural that in the wake of this and similar experiences we have become numb to the hollow catch phrases of politicians who use Hope as a common ingredient in their speeches in the same way a chef uses salt, basil, ginger, jasmine, lavender, mint, and other culinary herbs and spices to make his cuisine more tasty.

We are numbed by the cynical and inflationary use of the word Hope and nevertheless it still has an impact, it still arouses positive feelings, it still warms our heart and calms our mind.

Definition by example:

Hope is, when my cats in the morning gather in the kitchen, look at the food cups and wait, that I open a can.

Hope is, when one of my cats at 3 AM scratches at the bedroom door for minutes, till I finally go up and let her in.

Hope is, when my dear little friend Wendy, who is a wonderful and lovely cat and the nearest resemblance of any living creature to a teddy bear, approaches one of her fellow cats and tries to make friends despite the fact, that she was rebuffed so many times before. Cats are normally solitary creatures, they are loners (just like me) and my poor Wendy with her atypical social character has a hard time to find real close cat friends, though she is accepted and well liked by the other members of my cat family.

Hope is, when the hares cuddle together in their hideout under the bushes in a bitter cold and chilling winter night, waiting for the spring.

Hope is, when the nestling in spring staggers into a dangerous and cruel world.

Hope is, when the tadpoles try to escape the ferocious dragonfly nymphs in my garden pond.

Hope is, when the birds start singing in the morning, waiting for a mate to hear their calls.

Hope is, when an ugly and penniless men thinks he can win the heart of a beautiful woman.

Hope is, when a single mother works in two or three jobs to earn enough money to pay the rent and some food, wishing, that her child will be doing fine even without her love and care.

Hope is, when I write about social injustice and inequality and about the general foolishness and indifference of humans, assuming, that my denunciations and blistering condemnations will be heard and will change someones mind.

Hope is, when humans disperse more and more synthetic substances into the ecosphere, taking for granted, that plant and animal life will not be negatively affected by these strange agents.

Hope is, when we dream of sitting on a quiet little creek, watching the crystal clear water sparkling and the lizard sitting on a stone.

Hope is, when I dream that oil one day will run out and all that terrible noise from the machines will stop.

Hope is, when peace protesters chain themselves to the White House fence.

Hope is, when protesters in Nabi Saleh, in Hebron, in Bilin go on undeterred despite facing teargas, rubber bullets, beatings, and detentions by the IDF.

Hope is, when the prisoner indefinitely detained by the USA at Baghram Air Base and Guantanamo or by Israel at Ketziot, Megiddo, Telmond, and Al Naqab Desert prison waits to be released or at least face trial one day.

Hope is, when the wrongfully convicted prisoner on death row appeals for a stay of execution and for a retrial.

Hope is, when the Egyptians and Syrians and Bahrainis continue with their protests.

Hope is, when the illegal immigrant is collapsing in the middle of the desert and crawls forward meter by meter.

Hope is, when the miner, trapped in a collapsed shaft, holds on in darkness and waits for the rescue crews to pull him out before the oxygen is used up.

Hope is, when the passenger in a capsizing ship tries to reach the upper deck while the water is gushing in.

Hope is, when the cancer patient waits for the metastatic tumors to be reduced by a new experimental drug.

Hope is, when the african mother carries her dying child to the next hospital many miles away.

Hope is, when we assume, that not even one of the estimated 22,000 existing nuclear bombs will ever be detonated and Hiroshima and Nagasaki will remain the only cities ever obliterated in a nuclear firestorm.

Definition by meaning (semantics):

Hope is a feeling, a state of mind, a mood. Hope is the wish for a positive outcome. Hope is the wish that circumstances in the future will be better. Hope is not prediction or anticipation or expectation (though this is often stated in popular definitions). Hope is not necessarily based on optimism, pessimists can be hopeful too. Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well, it is rather the certainty that it makes sense to continue with ones effort.

A religious person will associate hope with praying and the belief in god and an afterlife.

Hope is associated with the words: belief, faith, confidence.

Hope is associated with the words: longing, desiring, dreaming.

Hope is associated with the words: peace, happiness, calmness.

Hope is most closely related with the word Love.

Antonyms: despair, hopelessness, depression, desperation, forlornness, gloom, anguish, distress.

A few translations: l'espoir, esperanza, hoffnung, remeny, lootus.

==================

What hope means

Hope is the dream of a better tomorrow

Hope is a shelter from trouble and sorrow

Hope is the gentle breeze on a hot day

Hope is the light that keeps darkness away

Hope is the wish that our minds will be freed

Hope is the knowledge that love will succeed 

Hope is a wonderful, special sensation

Hope is peace, love, grace, and liberation

Hope is the memory which never dies

Hope is the light and the tears in your eyes

Hope is the dream that we will be together

Hope is as light as a little birds feather

==================

Definition by scientific explanation:

The word Hope is a memory pattern in our cerebral cortex which consists of various connections/links to other memory patters and other locations of the brain. One connection leads to a memory pattern in the auditory cortex which is the coding of the sound bite "hope". A second connection leads to the visual cortex in the back of our head.

The visual representation of HOPE/Hope/hope consists of the four letters H O P E. These letters have all their separate representation in the visual cortex of the brain and can be recognized one by one and combined into a word by the central executive (= working memory = consciousness) in the frontal cortex. As humans see the word Hope more and more often during their childhood, the various visual appearances will get their own closely associated patterns in the visual cortex and the central executive can be bypassed and is only needed, when the writing is uncommon, blurred, sloppy and not recognizable at a first glance.

The probably strongest connection leads from the main memory pattern to the amygdala deep inside the medial temporal lobes. The amygdala is a part of the brain which organizes the formation and storage of memories associated with emotional events. From here many neurotransmitters, muscle contractions and relaxations, the sympathetic nervous system and via hypothalamus metabolic processes and activities of the autonomic nervous system are influenced.

One connection leads to the movement/motor/muscle memory area, which is not consciously accessible (at least not without systematic mental training). Though we are normally not aware of our movement memory, this area of our brain is nevertheless of huge importance. Humans are movement animals, every aspect of our life is connected to gesture/motion/movement. Hope is seemingly related to walking, moving on. This is the big difference between Hope and its close relative Love. Love is associated with motor memory patterns like embracing/hugging, gently touching, caressing, fondling. We Love with our hands, we Hope with our feet.

There are many additional connections of the main memory pattern to other memory patterns in the cerebral cortex which can be either episodic memories (experiences in our life that we associate with the term hope), other words (mainly the ones that I mentioned in "definition by meaning"), or patterns representing actions/reaction.

One crucial connection leads to the central executive, also called working memory, which is the basis of our consciousness. The working memory is a group of highly interconnected brain areas with nearly "random access", consisting of a map of all memory patterns. Hope has its representation here and that allows us to consciously consider/contemplate the notion of Hope and use it in logical conclusions and creative ideas.

All neural connections are two way, which means that any part of the neural network can activate any other part. The amygdala for instance can send signals back to the memory patterns in the cerebral cortex or the visual cortex and the visual cortex can send signals to the eye and activate cells in the retina. When images appear in our mind, they will often be shady and grey, sometimes with a beige or yellow hue. These images come from the retina, stimulated by signals from the virtual cortex and reported back. Images in our mind that are colorful come directly from codes in memory patterns of the virtual cortex.

When we walk, the concerned movement/motor/muscle memory pattern will send signals back to the memory pattern in the cerebral cortex which represents Hope, and from there the amygdala and all other connected parts of the brain will be informed. Walking can be very calming and uplifting!

One has to keep in mind, that the amygdala and the central executive and many other parts exist in the left as well as in the right hemisphere of the brain and that all mentioned memory patterns and brain regions are not only connected to the main pattern which represents Hope but also connected with each other, though these connections may be less strong. The resonating of the visual pattern for instance will be reported not only to the main pattern in the cerebral cortex but also directly to the amygdala and therefore it can happen that our body reacts to a visual input without us being consciously aware of it (subliminal messages).

When through a sensory input or through a chain of free flowing associations the main memory pattern for Hope becomes activated, it will send signals to the amygdalas and the body will experience certain changes like: increasing or balancing of the neurotransmitters dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine, and GABA, muscle relaxation, and calming of the whole nervous system.

==================

As I wrote before, Hope is not necessarily based on optimism, pessimists can be hopeful too -- I know that, I am one of these individuals.

When I feel hope, I feel easy, I feel well and I am calm, composed, and relaxed. My pulse and breathing is slow and constant. Feeling hope is not much different from feeling love, and it is not much different from meditating. When I feel hope I am feeling my spine, my navel, my whole body. The continuous associations in my brain slowly fizzle out and fade away and it becomes perfectly quiet inside my head.

I would be a fool not to be hopeful, I would miss out on this most wonderful experience!

I'm walking again in the forest, accompanied by my cats. Do they realize, how much I enjoy their company?

I am just watching my breath, I am listening to the whispering of the leaves.

Hope is magic!

State of my world

It has rained the whole night and it is still raining. Not heavily, just a little bit. Sometimes the rain stops for a minute, then starts again. It is constantly drizzling. Cloudy, drizzly, dreary, that is the most appropriate description of the weather here.

My cats got the "Rainy Day Blues". They are all laying and sleeping on cushions and blankets and in their baskets and boxes in various places in the house. What else can a little cat do when it is uncomfortably wet outside? I put food into their food cups in the morning and they did eat far less than normally. They need less calories when they don't run around in the forest. Occasionally I go from one cat to the other and talk with them and pet them and they start purring.

I like the rain. I was laying in bed last night, listening to the rain and it was incredibly soothing and assuring. The rain told me: everything is okay, nature is still working.

Though I love the rain, I also envy the people in the southern USA, especially in Texas, or the people in the Horn of Africa and in northern China. They don't have rain there, they have a severe drought. The newscasters say, that they "suffer from a drought".

Do they really suffer? I envy the Texans, the Somalis and Kenyans, the Chinese for living in a drought stricken place. They should be glad, they should be joyous that no rain is falling -- rain that probably would contain dangerous radioactive emissions from Fukushima. This people should be glad that they are not stricken by radioactive contaminated rain!

I don't know, how many hot particles I have already digested with the delicious blackberries, gooseberries, blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries from the garden. This hot particles will accumulate in my body and in some years could make me sick with cancer.

I am doomed, because we have no drought and it is raining and drizzling. I would be doomed in any way -- nobody lives forever. But I rather would like to go naturally, I would like to just drift away peacefully in my sleep. Not pass away in pain and agony or in the fog of a morphine intoxication.

I have to remind myself again that I better view the newly emerging or already existing and constantly increasing environmental hazards in the right light and that I should not worry about hot particles and whatever else. My body has quite a few tools to fight off hot particles and other irritants and usually it will win. Compromising my immune system by worrying and agonizing all day long and descending into depression will only make it more likely that a hot particle one day will spur cancer.

I also should not envy my drought stricken fellow humans. They will inhale hot particles too. We all have to breathe. They will not take in so much radiation with their food maybe. Especially the Somalis will not eat much radioactive contaminated food. The Somalis will not die from cancer -- they will rather die from starvation.

Maybe the Somalis will also eat radioactive contaminated food, air shipped by the WFP. The widely reported airlifting of food is of course a publicity stunt to catch possible donors awareness. As it happens, the increasing frequency of natural disasters, the worldwide economic slowdown, and the insecurity of the financial markets have led to a general donor fatigue. Not only the Somalis are starving, the UN bureaucracy is starving too (though in a more allegorical sense).

Most of the food for Somalia will of course be carried by ship, because air transport is simply too costly.

The US army could easily transport all the food supplies, but the Americans need their Lockheed C-5 Galaxy and Boeing C-17 Globemaster aircrafts for Libya, Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq and some other places, where populations are desperate to be liberated from tyranny and eager to join the western free market world with all the sweet temptations of Walmart and McDonald's (or Burger King).

Though it would be much more desirable (at least from my point of view) to use the US cargo planes for food transports instead for weapons, ammunition, bombs, and missiles transports, airlifting food is as inefficient -- one could even say foolish -- as collecting the harvest from rural areas, processing and packaging the food in far away factories, and transporting it back into the same rural communities to supermarkets where the farmers and farmworkers and their neighbors have to drive with their cars and fetch it from the shelves or refrigerators.

Farmer's markets would spur job growth, at least according to a new USDA report, which lists 7,170 markets in the USA (probably more because many markets are not reported). Farmers markets doubled between 2000 and 2010, and the "Union of Concerned Scientists" estimates that more than 100,000 farms sell food directly to local consumers.

Back to the Somalis and the essential question: Why don't they grow their food locally? Or if they lead a nomadic life: Why don't they let their animals graze on the pastures like they did for thousand of years?

I have heard, that the pastures are ruined by overgrazing, that the trees have been used up for charcoal and all this has resulted in the destruction of the protective vegetation cover, soil erosion, and the desertification of wide areas.

Land degradation is continuing and increasing at an alarming pace not only in Somalia, but all over the world. This process happens quietly and piecemeal as different areas of degraded land spread and merge together and slowly become a contiguous desert.

In Somalia the process of land degradation has been amplified and accelerated by frequent droughts, which are becoming more and more severe with every reoccurrence. Climate change could be a factor.

Question: Why don't the Somalis not let the pastures recover? If there is not enough grazing land why do the nomadic pastoralists not sell their livestock and look for another job?

Answer: There are no jobs, there is no education system, there is no social security, there are no government development plans. Somalia is a failed state since 1991.

Many have looked for employment opportunities and found them in the militias of warlords or by joining gangs of pirates.

On a side note: The pirate enterprise started, when traditional fishermen lost their livelihood, because fish stocks in the coastal areas had been depleted by commercial fishing vessels or killed by toxic waste that European ships dumped there (a country without government is undoubtedly an attractive destination for waste disposal, because firms can even spare the otherwise obligatory bribes).

Question: Why do Somalis cut the trees for charcoal?

Answer: They have to cook their food. They have no electricity, they have no petrol, they have only charcoal.

On a side note: Charcoal is perhaps the biggest export of this rugged and collapsed country and illegal logging has become big business. It is a lucrative way for gangs to make money. Once, acacias covered vast swaths of Somalia's south and central regions; today, these forests are devastated. Despite a ban on the export of charcoal, truckloads of it clog the roads to the ports of Berbera, Kismayo, and Bossaso, bound for Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the UAE.

As the pastures and forests disappear and the food stock are emptied, Somalis, who are not able or willing to join the militias or the pirates, are fleeing the devastated land mainly to eastern Kenya, where they again cause a massive deforestation around the sprawling refugee camps, along with sinking water levels, air and soil pollution, and desertification.

The issue that is too hot to be discussed

The issue of overpopulation plays obviously a big role in this tragedy, but it is seldom discussed -- it is a "hot potato".

There is a steep population growth in Arab, African and Asian nations and it is caused by poverty, illiteracy, and patriarchal societies where girls are married off as soon as they reach their reproductive age and successively give birth to a child every year. Contraception is not used because of religious and shortsighted political reasons.

African countries have the highest birthrate on the planet, with Niger, Uganda, Mali, Zambia at the top of the list. Somalia is number eight and is even further ahead in the fertility rate statistic; with an average of 6.35 children born by Somali women the country is number four in the list. 

http://www.indexmundi.com/

I cannot believe, that Somalia's women love to have so many children! Common sense, logical thinking, and life experience tell me that no woman willingly will take the burden and the risk to give birth and raise six or more children in a war torn country where even the most basic support systems can't be taken for granted!

Wouldn't it be wise, to promote contraception and safe sex or maybe UN controlled programs for voluntary sterilization? Vasectomy (male sterilization) for instance is an effective, cheap, uncomplicated, and permanent form of contraception. The operation is quicker, easier and more effective than female sterilization and there is a very small failure rate.

Sterilization would not only increase the living quality and life expectancy of women, it would also absolve Somali men from the responsibility to father children which will be inevitably born to a life of hardship and misery because the land simply cannot support more people.

This proposal will not fly. I might as well suggest the obligatory castration of all boys at the age of twelve (except for a few to be kept as stallions). In the current social climate and at the current state of world affairs any actions what would infringe the right of human males to unlimited fathering will be met with hostility and fierce resistance.

It is indeed a very emotional issue for men, and whenever the issue of overpopulation is raised, all the testosterone driven males will jump up and cry: "bigot, racist, elitist, fascist"! And they will talk about Nazi inspired eugenics, Rockefeller or Gates conspiracies to cull unproductive humans, and WHO vaccination programs that in fact exterminate African and Asian children with purposefully contaminated vaccines.

It is also a very emotional issue for Somali men, who are evidently attracted by Arab culture because women in mainstream Arab culture are inferior creatures and are at the mercy of their male relatives. 

Somalia is influenced by many cultures, it is at the crossroads of African, Arabic, Indian, and Western culture. At present Arab culture wins and its imposition is relegating Somali women to a subservient role and condemning then to abuse and neglect.

On July 22, 2011 the newly appointed Somali Prime Minister Abdiweli Mohamed Ali, a Harvard-trained professor of economics, announced his 49-member cabinet. There are only two women in it: one minister and one vice minister. Article 29 of the Somali transitional charter guarantees a 12 percent quota for women in parliament. But of the current 550 transitional federal parliamentarians only 38 are women. There is also only one female permanent secretary out of the current 18 government ministries.

For many Somali men even this minuscule female representation may be too much, but there is a movement, a political and military force where their grievances will be addressed:

Al-Shabaab (HSM)

This group is the successor of the "Islamic Courts Union" which was removed from power by US backed Ethiopian forces in 2006.

Beside ethnic Somalis, Al-Shabaab is joined by fighters from the Persian Gulf, international jihadists, Kenyans and Egyptians (Egypt has a longstanding policy of securing the Nile River flow by destabilizing Ethiopia). Eritrea has deployed some 2,000 troops in support of the group.

Money comes from rich individuals in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states, remittances from the Somali diaspora, and pirate ransom cash. Kenya's Tourism Minister Najib Balala is accused of funneling money to the group (in the past, Al-Shabaab's presence in Kenya has been limited to ethnic Somalis but since 2009 its influence and membership have rapidly expanded to ethnic (male) Kenyans).

Weapons come from Yemeni groups and from Eritrea (which opposes the Transitional Federal Government). Al-Shabaab is also seizing weapons from local tribes and warlords. In two decades of conflict, weapons dealers were eager to poor arms into the country in exchange for cash or mining contracts. The autonomous region of Somaliland, embroiled in a conflict with Puntland, another autonomous region, is also suspected to support the group.

Al-Shabaab ousted warlords and curtailed the influence of tribal clans, it brought some calm and stability. The group reduced over-sized cheap food imports, a measure, that allowed Somalia's own grain production to flourish. This had the effect of shifting income from urban to rural areas, from mid-income groups to low-income groups, and from overseas farmers to local farmers. The policy worked remarkably well until drought hampered local food production beginning with 2010.

Al-Shabaab uses proven methods like suicide attacks and roadside bombs in the fight against the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and the African Union Mission (AMISOM), which consists of troops from Uganda and Burundi.

The ideology of Al-Shabaab seems to be very similar to the ideology of the Taliban -- especially, as I mentioned before, concerning the suppression of women. 

The parallels to Afghanistan are striking in many aspects. In both nations there is an Islamic movement and there is the US intervention to destroy this movement. The USA though have learned from Afghanistan, in Somalia the war is automatized and outsourced.

Western countries have not only outsourced their pollution to China and their sweatshops to Vietnam, Haiti, Mexico and other poor nations, they are now also outsourcing their wars to mercenaries (nowadays called "contractors") and to armies of smaller countries whose leaders are willing to fight proxy wars in exchange for bribes and weapons.

US drones are deployed and are killing Somalis nearly every day, but military technology is not yet able to completely automatize warfare and "boots on the ground" are still necessary. Therefore:

Ethiopian-backed militias are fighting in southern border areas and there are up to 12,000 regular Ethiopian troops in Somalia.

The CIA has several camps in Somalia ("Pink House" in Mogadishu) and is training  Somali intelligence operatives. The CIA also provides the newest weapons and equipment to Somali elite commandos and is helping in interrogations of suspects (.…). Bancroft Global Development, a US security company, is training Burundian and Ugandan troops -- the USA recently approved arms shipments worth 46 million US$ to these troops. Bancroft Global Development employs South African, French and Scandinavian mercenaries, no Americans are on the ground, the USA is only footing the bill.

The South African company Saracen International (linked to Eric Prince) was hired to train militias for the TFG and Puntland, the semiautonomous region in northern Somalia, but the contracts were reportedly canceled. Kuwait and the UK are said to have been involved.

+++++++++++++++++

As I was researching for this text I became fascinated with the many hidden layers and secret cross connections and disguised players. I could write another thousand words about the situation in Somalia and still would hardly scratch the surface and never be able to reach the bottom of this hellish pit. Whoever may be interested in more details should visit http://www.hiiraan.com/, it is an excellent source.

Conclusion

Though the waters are murky, the pictures are blurred and smokescreen after smokescreen is deployed by the corporate media there are some sound conclusions which I could draw from my information gathering efforts:

The conflict in Somalia is only to a very small extend a clash of cultures or civilizations. Furthermore this is not a fight against tyranny and it is not about humanitarian relieve or about the protection of civilians or about the "spread of democracy" or the promotion of universal humanitarian values.

This is power politics of an imperium at the dawn of its reign (USA against China and against the old stakeholders Britain and France). And this is about the use of the sexual energy of testosterone driven males to increase the war profits of big corporations like KBR (Haliburton), Raytheon, General Dynamics, L-3, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Boeing.

This is about the inability of humans to face the perils of overpopulation. 

There is not enough farm land and not enough water for irrigation to feed 6.8 billion people. Food prices rise all over the world. The so called "Green Revolution" was only possible with hugh inputs of oil, but "peek oil" was already in 2006. As oil will get more and more expensive, food from industrial farming also will get more expensive. As oil gets more expensive, more farmland will be used for biofuels, less will be available for food production.

Climate change will further decrease food production. Desertification and erosion because of overuse will reduce farm land.

Vast areas of land in poor countries are bought by international corporations, the rural population is evicted and crammed into slums on the outskirts of cities. This is another big business opportunity for big corporations.

How long will the scheme of "disaster capitalism" work?

When will this system collapse?

Who will suffer most?