[Who Owns the Truth?] My First Regular Irregular “Keep the Pot Boiling” Column – ISIS, Rabid Fury, Status of Women, Strife, Mayhem, Political Correctness and the Future – by Gary S. Smolker

The Fight Against ISIS Is A Fight Against Political Correctness

ISIS is composed of people who follow the teachings of strict conservative Islam, an ultra-puritanical form of Islam.

They follow an interpretation of religious laws in the Koran that translates into institutionalized outrage and expression of anger, sexual slavery of women, an obsessive hatred of imagery, representation (and therefore of art and music) and also of the body, nakedness and freedom.

ISIS has published manuals explaining that it is in their religious laws to have sex with prepubescent girl slaves, to stone women for offense against Sharia law and to kill infidels and heretics.

Those rules are approved and followed by the vast majority of Muslims who live on the periphery of the society of intellectuals and officials in Muslim countries.

Depictions of how those beliefs are lived out in Muslim societies are presented in stories told in a multitude of films released in 2015, such as:

1. The American film “He Named Me Malala.
2. The Indian film “Parched.”
3. The French/Algerian film “Maintenant ils peuvent venir (Let Them Come).”
4. The French/Belgium film “Les Cowboys.”

Malala Yousafzai’s book “I Am Malala”, published by Little Brown & Company in 2013, describes what women face in countries where attacks on women are condoned.

To conservative Muslims, gay Paris is a whorehouse.

To conservative Muslims the United States is an ever more outrageous place because in the United States it is strikingly obvious that women are getting ahead, women are educated, women do not view themselves as domesticated slaves, women do not kowtow to men, women are independent thinkers, women expose their bodies in public, momen are demanding, and women have power.

In America:

• 37% of women graduate from college vs. 31% of men.
• 38% of women earn more than their husband, up from 24% in 1987.
• Since 1973, real female incomes are up 34%, and real male incomes are down 5%.
• 21% of non-working dads aged 35-44 cite child care as the primary reason, up from 2% 20 years ago.
• There are more women voters in the United States than male voters.
• Women freely express that they want power, money, a husband, and children.
• Women in the United States have multiple sex partners without being getting pregnant.
• In America it is accepted that women in America have sex with multiple sexual partners when they are not married, and sometimes while they are married.
• Women sit on the California Supreme Court.
• Women sit on the United States Supreme Court.
• A woman is the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board.
• Women run giant corporations in the United States such as General Motors and IBM.
• Hillary Clinton is campaigning to become President of the United States.
• America promises to provide the opportunity to succeed on the basis of ability to “everyone.”
• Religious tolerance is a core American value.

In strict Muslim households women have no human rights, women are their husbands’ sexual slaves.

To people who have been educated to think that women are inferiors and should have no rights the status of women in America is an outrage, an insult to their religion.

Conservative Muslim religious leaders and political leaders get their people so excited with rage about the status of women and sex in everyday life in America the vast majority of Muslims all over the Muslim World call America the “Great Satan.”

The broadcast of facts about every day life in America to the general Muslim public by television, movies, videos, YouTube, the Internet, and social media seriously threatens and erodes the power of conservative Muslim religious leaders and dictators who run Muslim countries.

The fact that American women freely express that they want power, money, a husband and children is unbearably outrageous to conservative Muslims.

The facts that American women have the ability to have multiple sex partners, are independent thinkers, make demands, are independent and have power is outrageous to conservative Muslims.

Conservative Muslim leaders are afraid if Muslim women find out about the status of women in America and in other of the Western countries the vast majority of women in Muslim countries will want to become like American women.

Conservative Muslim religious leaders have good reason to be afraid of that because people “learn” about the life of women in the West.

How People Form Their Identities

People try to behave like people they want to emulate.

Stories provide the crucial means by which individuals, especially males, form their identities in imitation of heroic predecessors and in opposition to hereditary enemies.

Stories, by implication, indicate to individuals their role in society and how they are supposed to act.

Dictators, Kings, Military Leaders and Religious Leaders Have Good Reason to Not Want “Their” People to Watch Western Films

Film tells important stories, spark imagination, connects communities and enable filmmakers – writers, directors, actors, etc. – to express themselves.

For example, the recently released film”Suffragette” tells the story of the effort women had to go through in Great Britain in order to “get” the right to vote.

In the movie, the women who led the effort to get a law passed giving women the “right” to vote were literally and figuratively “terrorists.”

In this movie they smashed windows, blew up mail boxes, set fire to the Prime Minister’s home while it was under construction and one woman threw herself in front of a galloping horse the King of England was riding in a race at Derby.  The King was thrown from the race horse he was riding;, she was run over by the King’s horse and died.

The Inherent Dialect of Violence

In order to understand the violent acts carried out by ISIS in Paris on Friday, November 13, 2015, consider the political, economic and social context of who the “shooters” in Paris on Friday night (November 13, 2015) were and who the people they shot were.

The Muslim/ISIS terrorists in the recent Paris attacks were basically French citizens growing up in the Muslim ghettos in France where youth unemployment is forty to fifty percent.

Like conservative Muslims everywhere, members of ISIS are offended by (and very angry at) non-believers who do not live according to conservative Muslim rules.

The Muslim terrorists externalized their anger, which is what all conservative Muslims are taught to do.

Some of the people the terrorists shot were attending a rock concert others were eating and drinking in a bar or cafe.

Killing people who disagree with their way of life is the way conservative Muslims externalize their anger.

That is how the members of ISIS and members other conservative Muslim groups have been taught [emotionally educated and socially programmed] to react to the very real programmed injury they feel when someone disagrees with their religious belief and/or acts in a prohibited way.

Conservative Muslims do not want to be assimilated.

They do not want to be a peaceful integral part of a culturally diversified society.

ISIS has 100,000 battle-hardened soldiers.

ISIS and other conservative Islamist groups attack and kill us – people who do not behave the way they think all people should – because that is what they exist to do.

Nicolas Henin ( a French citizen whom ISIS held for 10 months) has written in an story about ISIS published on November 16, 2015:

“Everything convinces them they are on the right path and specifically, that there is a kind of apocalyptic process underway that will lead to a confrontation between an army of Muslims from all over the world and others, the crusaders, the Romans.  They see everything as moving us down that road.  Consequently, everything is a blessing from Allah.”

 

Cultural Attitude About Violence and Its Place in Human Affairs

Muslim society greatly values fighting.

Their warrior-prophet-leader Mohamed is their model for behavior.

The life of Mohamed is the model from which Muslim society’s cultural attitude about violence and its place in human affairs comes from.

Muslim History

Muslim history, from the time of Mohamed forward, is a history of violence and factional conflict.

Muslims have always lived in a tempestuous land of never-ending conflict and violence.

Muslims have a continuous history of experience with war and strife and a continuous history of living under the domination of leaders who have inhibited the evolution of communal and individual liberties and the kinds of community institutions which have given vitality to hundreds of towns, states, countries and communities elsewhere.

For further information on the history of the people who have lived in Muslim countries read “Jerusalem” by Simon Sebag Montefiore and”Lawrence in Arabia” by Scott Anderson.

For further information on modern-day conservative Muslim mindset read “I Am Malala” by Malala Yousafzai.

TAKEAWAY ADVICE:

• What happened in Paris on Friday, November 13, 2015, has to be seen through the lens of a way of life.
• ISIS and other strict Islamist groups are intent upon establishing a caliphate.
• William James was right: As you think, so shall you be.

Apocalyptic Violence

According to Machiavelli:

Men do injury through either fear or hate. – Machiavelli, “The Prince”, chapter 7

Such injury produces fear; fears seeks for defense; for defense partisans are obtained; from partisans rise parties in states; from parties their ruin. – Machiavelli, “Discourses on the First Decade of Titus, Livius”, book 1, chapter 7

According to psychologists, social workers, criminologists and top national security experts: Extremism and violence appeal most to “disaffected people” who feel alienated.  They don’t love themselves.  They don’t love anyone.  They are angry.

They seek revenge for being miserable.

Killing other people is their way to get revenge.

That is why they kill people.

They don’t care if they are killed for expressing their anger.

The Judaeo-Christian Rule “Love Thy Neighbor As Yourself” does not apply to them because they do not love themselves.

Things to Consider Regarding Absorbing The Current Flood of Muslim Immigrants

How will you decide where you are going to put them?

Where can you put them?

How will you vet them, school them and feed them?

How will you integrate then into “your” society?

How will you monitor them?

What will you do with them if they don’t fit in?

Deciding what to do and how to do it takes effort – takes planning, manpower, time and money.

There are easier ways for a terrorist to gain entry to the United States than to seek admission as a refugee.

The current Syrian refugee screening process in the United States takes three years.

A recent article from the Cato Institute concludes that Syrian refugees to be admitted in the United States pose no significant threat to the United States: “Few ISIS soldiers or other terrorists are going to spend at least three years in a refugee camp for a 0.042 percent chance of entering the United States when almost any other option to do so is easier, cheaper, and quicker.”

By the way, under current rules, regulations and laws, visitors to the United States from 39 different countries do not need a Visa to come to the United States legally.

The Scapegoating Process to Find Someone or Some Group to Blame for the Hard Blows of Fortune

Many Americans are unset, fretful and fearful about the way things have been going in the United States.

Their accumulated grievances find expression in presidential candidate Donald Trump’s outbursts.

Donald Trump is doing a masterful job of exploiting the climate of fear in the United States.

In his political campaign, Donald Trump is acting as lightning rod.

Donald Trump says what many people in the United States want to hear by expressing their points of view, by expressing their anger, by expressing their anxieties, fears, frustrations and by going along with their desire to blame someone else for the hard blows of fortune in their lives.

Compare what Donald Trump has said and how Donald Trump has behaved during the Republican Party’s primary election contest, with the following statement made by Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States: Nothing gives one person so great an advantage over another, as to remain always cool and unruffled under all circumstances.”

The Unraveling of the Social Fabric of the United States

The United States has its own form of political correctness – mostly on college campuses.

According to one survey, 40% of Millennials  are willing to limit free speech if it is racist.

On many college campuses it is understood that there is to be no speech that might offend anyone for any reason or make anyone who is a woman, or a member of a so-called underrepresented minority feel unwelcome.

Currently student protestors at Princeton University demand that  the administration acknowledge the “toxic legacy” of Woodrow Wilson, who served as university president and New Jersey governor before being elected President of the United States.  Woodrow Wilson was an unapologetic racist.  He believed black Americans were not worthy of full citizenship and admired the Ku Klux Klan for the role it had in terrorizing African Americans to restrict their political power.

The protestors’ top goal is to convince the university to rename the Woodrow Wilson School of Public Policy and International Affairs and the residential complex known as the Wilson College.

By the way, George Washington managed many slaves at Mount Vernon.

I do not know of anybody who has suggested that the capital of the United States (Washington, D.C.) be named.

However, I do know that as a result of  “political correctness” top comedians refuse to perform on college campuses in the United States.

People in the United States are living in an age of hyper vigilance about offending anyone.

At one extreme,

• Eskimos are complaining that one of the Kardashians wore a “sexy Eskimo” costume on Halloween.
• Anyone who offends anyone else is now called a “bigot.”

In my opinion political correctness is destroying the creativity of our children.

Political correctness destroys the essence of joyous creativity in them.  It suppresses them, it shuts them down.  It is devastating.

Political correct concerns has effected”retail.”

• Recently, Nordstrom’s stopped selling a Hanukkah sweater angering some customers who saw it as playing on cliches about Jewish women.
• Recently, Bloomingdales’s apologized for a catalog ad critics said made light of date rape.
• Recently, Walmart’s took heat over a Halloween costume of an Israeli soldier.

It is one thing to want to get along with other people.  It is another thing to tell other people how to behave.

It is an entirely different thing to try to control how people think, to control what religion people choose to practice, and/or to control the cultural composition of the population of a country.

Immigrants and Refugees

Consider the social, political and cultural implications of proposals (a) to put even more special limitations on the immigration of Syrian immigrants to the United States, (b) to register Muslims in the United States, and (c) the proposal to build a wall in the United States on the border between the United States and Mexico to keep people from Mexico, Central America and South America from entering the United States.

Consider the economic and cultural impact of low fertility rates in highly industrialized countries which need immigrant workers to keep their economic engines running.

Ask yourself: “Who does work and what kind of work do they do in the United States?”

Then look at the rest of the world: Consider Germany’s demand for labor, demand for “new labor sources” to keep its economic engine running.

Germany within a few years could be 20 percent Muslim, which would represent a demographic shift which would forever change the face of Germany.

We Have to Rethink What Security Means

Europe’s political and business leaders regard migration as critical to the Continent’s aging demographics.

But, as we have seen, this strategy threatens long-term social harmony and political stability in those traditionally homogeneous countries.

But consider the experience in the United States with refugees (starting with the Pilgrims).  The quality of assimilation in the United States has been very high.

• Today, the United States houses 20% of the world’s migrants but has only 5% of the world’s population.
• Up to now, the United States has been able to assimilate diverse minorities.
• Up to now, the United States has been able to not “radicalize” those minorities.

Facing a Demographic Implosion – Demographics Is Destiny

Whether people like immigrants or not, people in affluent highly industrialized societies have no choice but to accept immigrants and immigration or to forego their social security payments and witness their “welfare states” collapse because an influx of immigrant workers is necessary to keep the economic engines in their countries running.

The birthrate in almost all industrial countries is lower than replacement.

In the near future the percentage of older people who don’t work will exceed the population of working people.

Population trends will  shape policy.

Nowhere is this clearer than in China’s recent suspending its “one child” policy.

By 2050, according to United Nations projections, the number of countries with below-replacement level fertility rates is expected to nearly double, to 139 countries, accounting for 75% of the world’s population at that time.

There is a coming tsunami of senior citizens with a smaller work force, greater pension obligations and slower (or no) economic growth.

Most affluent countries and those on the way to prosperity, all face the same basic dilemma: an aging population and a shrinking workforce.

Under such circumstances countries are being “forced” to either restore fertility rates to sustainable levels or to welcome masses of people from those parts of the world that still produce a demographic surplus.

Immigrants and their children have allowed the U.S. and Australia to stay close to the replacement rate, and have kept Canada from imploding.

The Impact of ISIS Attacks on Travel — Is Now A Good Time to Go to Paris?

I have started an off-line e-mail conversation with friends and a series of face to face conversations with friends and strangers about the ISIS attack on Paris last week.

On Monday, November 16, 2015, one friend wrote to me:

“Gary,

About 8 million people live in Metropolitan Paris.  In the last year (also last week) about 500 were killed or injured in the 6 terrorist attacks.  This means about 7,999,500 people were not attacked.  The chance of being attacked was about 0.0065% over the year and less than 0.000022% on any given day.  For people who don’t attend rock concerts, the actuarial risk was even lower.

CORRECTION: I just checked and the metro Paris population is now over 12 million, o reduce the above chances of attack by about one-third.  I’d say, go, save money and avoid lines and crowding.

Name of Friend”

Music Empowers Humanity, Nurtures Creativity, Soothes the Soul and Is A Social, Sexual and Emotional Force in Western Countries

I am thoroughly convinced that music empowers humanity and nurtures creativity.

Saturday night (November 14, 2015) I went to a Caltechlive concert performance by the “Good Lovelies” at the Beckman Auditorium at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, California.

I went to that concert while I was tremendously upset about the massacre in Paris the night before.

The “Good Lovelies” performed songs they had written.

Their performance quickly soothed my soul, quickly brought me into touch with my own humanity.

Listening to them perform made me happy.

 

The “Good Lovelies” are three young Canadian women: Caroline Brooks, Kerri Ough and Sue Passmore.

I estimate they are in their early twenties.

 

At the Caltechlive concert Saturday night, the “Good Lovelies” sang love songs they had written to their husbands.

Each of the songs they sang were about their desire, yearning, and waiting to be together with the man in their life.

Their songs struck my heart deeply.

 

Below, are the beginning lyrics of one of the songs which they sang.

 

LAST NIGHT

Last night I dreamed of you

Holding me again

Cradled in your arms

Until the morning came

Where are you now

That sleep is gone?

Lonely hearts get colder

And Heaven’s overgrown

 

Are you thinking of me

When I am thinking of you?

I carved our names in a tree

I think of you

When I’m falling asleep

And nobody’s here next to me

 

They have been on the road”touring” for seven years.

Instead of writing and singing songs about a man longing for a woman, understandably they write and sing songs about a woman longing for a man.

Can you imagine three women singing a song like that in flawlessly perfect three-part-harmony?

It is a very beautiful experience.

 

Below are the lyrics to their song DON’T HOLD BACK, which is another song they sang.

 

DON’T HOLD BACK

The full flower moon is rising

And spring is overdue

My knees are growing weaker

Each time I lay eyes on you

 

Don’t hold back love

Don’t hold back love from me

Don’t hold back love

Don’t hold back love from me

 

Crawl into my arms

I’ve been waiting oh so long

For the ice to melt

For you to come along

 

Don’t hold back love

Don’t hold back love from me

Don’t hold back love

Don’t hold back love from me

 

My heart is a flutter, I’ll have no other

I am yours for the keeping

Swift and fleeting, love is a blur

I am yours just say the word

 

Don’t hold back

Don’t hold back love from me

Don’t hold back love

Don’t hold back love from me

 

The Good Lovelies’ music empowers humanity.

On stage, during the concert I attended on Saturday night (November 14, 2015),  they told funny stories of comedic adventures they have had during the past seven years while they have been on the road.

To some extent my going to their concert was a form of life style resistance against ISIS in that conservative Muslims who follow the theology/ideology of ISIS would be outraged

• by the “Good Lovelies” performing on stage,
• by me attending their performance,
• by the “Good Lovelies'”  lifestyle,
• by my lifestyle’,
• by my respect of independent women.

Conservative Muslims are outraged by the conduct of any woman who lives and behaves independently and by any man who supports their choice to do so.

What Are the Truths About the Paris Massacre Last Week?

According to one of my friends, conservative Muslims are called strict Islamists by people who are either too afraid to call them what they are or too ignorant to know what conservative Muslims believe.

According to him, Conservative Muslims believe men and women should be separated, women should not perform in public, nor should women wear the kind of clothes the “Good Lovelies” wore during their performances at the concert I attended on November 14, 2015.

They believe women are inferior to men.

They strongly believe that women should not be independent.

Conservative Muslims do not believe in “affirmative action”, women’s rights, women liberation, etc. etc.

Conservative Muslims believe they are superior to all people who are not conservative Muslims.

They believe they are superior to all people who wholeheartedly follow their interpretation of Sharia Law.

Conservative Muslims also believe that the harsh penalties and punishments set forth in the Koran are reasonable and should be followed

According to that friend, the reason the so-called Muslim/ISIS terrorists randomly shot people in the audience at the concert hall in Paris, tried to bomb the soccer stadium and randomly shot couples in Paris who were out for the night is that they consider it is their duty to rid the earth of people like the people who were in those places at those times.

They have NO tolerance for people who don’t behave in a POLITICALLY CORRECT WAY; they have no tolerance for people who don’t strictly follow their interpretation of rules set follow in the Koran; they have no tolerance for people who have a different interpretation of what the Koran commands people to do then they do.

Recent Movies Which Portray Politically Correct Muslim Behavior

“Rock the Kasbah”

The recently released Bill Murray movie “Rock the Kasbah” is about a young unmarried young Muslim woman living with her family in a small village in Afghanistan.

In “Rock the Kasbah” Bill Murray is an entertainment talent manager.

While in Afghanistan promoting one of his clients, who is a singer, Bill Murray accidentally discovers this young woman.

She has a beautiful voice.

Thereafter, Bill Murray talks this young Muslim woman into entering and into singing on a nationally broadcast singing contest.

When her father and other people who live in her village learn that she has sung in a singing contest they “disown” her.

I saw this movie recently (in November, 2015) at a local theater in Sherman Oaks, California.

“He Named Me Malala”

“He Named Me Malala” is a documentary.

It is the true story of a young woman who at age 15 (Malala Yousafzai) was shot in the head by a Taliban assassin while riding home in a school bus in Pakistan’s Swat Valley.

The Taliban attempted to assassinate Malala because Malala was an outspoken champion of the idea that girls should be given an education.

The Taliban targeted Malala for assassination because Malala wanted to learn how to read and publicly said she wanted other girls to learn how to read.

The movie makes it clear that the Taliban, following strict conservative Muslim/Islamic law, is vehemently against women being taught to read.

Malala was targeted by Taliban militants for her outspokenness in support of girls’ education.

Malala has an astounding eloquence and boldness.

Even when Malala was eleven years old she was attracting the attention of international reporters because of her outspoken advocacy.

During the course of the movie, the film shows various village schools in the Swat Valley where girls are taught to read had been bombed, had been completely destroyed by the Taliban.

Malala and her father Ziauddin Yousafzai spoke after the showing of “He Named Me Malala” which I attended.

Malala told the people in attendance: When you tell your story it is a healing, it is a rehabilitation.

Malala and her father then thanked Academy Award winning filmmaker Davis Guggenheim for making the documentary we had just watched. 

I saw the international premiere of this documentary in September at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival.

“Parched”

This is an Indian film about the plight of women in rural villages in India.

Lena Yadav, the filmmaker, stated at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival that the story told in this movie is based on true events.

According to Yadav: 80% of the women in India don’t know what an orgasm is; they are sexual slaves.

The village elders and all the local men in the village where the story told in this movie takes place repeatedly tell each other: Don’t get an educated wife, they have books riding their minds.

The story in this movie revolves around the life of a young girl who is forced to marry a young boy she doesn’t want to marry.

Her young husband brutalizes her, steals from his mother, drinks excessively and is a lazy oaf.

Watching her son brutalize his child bride disgusts her.

She then begins to thirst for more than what life has given women in her village.

The men laze around and talk to each other while the women do all the work in the village..

As the story in the movie progresses, she questions the status quo in her village, the rules of conduct in her village which favors men, sends child brides to abusive husbands and ostracizes women for being educated and opinionated – and begins to have a series of lengthy conversations with female friends – outside the hearing of men in the village – about “how women should value themselves” and what stops them from doing so.

According to the film maker the life of women portrayed in this movie is the typical life of all women in rural Muslim and Hindu villages in the countryside and in strict religious communities in big cities in India.

I saw the world premier of this movie in September at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival.

 

“Maintenant ils peuvent venir” (“Let Them Come”)

This French/Algerian movie is about the dark decade in Algeria in which strict Islamists tried to take over Algeria, and 200,000 died in the ensuing conflict.

It is set in Algeria in the late 1980s.

In one scene a Muslim man is told by his strict Islamist father-in-law that the marriage between he and his wife (his marriage to the daughter of the father-in-law) is not valid because he is not a strict Islamist.  He is an infidel because he is hot a strict Islamist.

The father-in-law has taken his daughter away; he has married her to a strict Islamist; and now lives with the second man.

That man already had a wife.

That man now has two wives.

His daughter is now that man’s second wife.

This film is a family chronicle which begins shortly before the man characters get married to each other in an arranged marriage, and follows that marriage and the man and woman who got married from that time forward.

I saw the world premier of this film in September at the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival.

Progress, Creativity, Political Correctness and Different Ways of Thinking

If we are going to solve the problems that are rampant on our planet, we need to have creative people with creative ideas.

Yet we continue to close down creative people, with invalidations that ever more imperiously impose from without, an institutional mentality that squashes [young] people in a way that forces them to give up the expression of their souls and, instead to worry about winning the approval of  authority figures, the approval of grown-ups, college administrators, the federal government, all sorts of protesters who don’t feel welcome in society and all sorts of other bosses and audiences.

This violation of self is insulting and injures who we are deep in our hearts.

In hopelessness and despair some people become tormented, depressed or suicidal.

In such a society everyone is forced to worry about what everyone else thinks about them, which is the route to vapid mediocrity.

Seeing the Big Picture

Forty percent of Millennials in the United States are okay with limiting free speech if it is racist.

The Mormon Church (the Church of the Later Day Saints) recently adopted a same-sex marriage policy barring children of married same-sex couples from being baptized [not allowing them to become members of the Church] until they are adults, until they are 18 years old.

In order to become members of the Church they are required to leave their parents’ home and to disavow same-sex marriage and co-habitation.

At the street level, on my recent travels in different parts of the United States, I have read bumper stickers which state:

1. CHOICE.  What a beautiful right.
2. Democracy is not a spectator sport.
3. Freedom of religion means any religion.
4. Compassion is the radicalization of our time.
5. Don’t believe anything until it has been officially denied.
6. I will believe corporations are people when Texas executes one.
7. You don’t have to burn books to destroy culture.  Just get people to stop reading them.

Those bumper sticker statements are a sign of the way many people are thinking in the United States.

Responding to Our Ever-Evolving World

The history of the human race is violent.

Only by striving to understand the behavior of people throughout history and in remote places can we hope to understand from where we have come and how much of the pasts lives unrecognized with us.

What is happening in the world today is culturally contextual, historically contextual, in our faces every day and very dramatic.

In a recent article by Rosa Brooks, a Georgetown University law professor, in Foreign Policy she states:

“The Paris attacks were not surprising.  Occasional terrorist attacks in the West are virtually inevitable; … we’ll see more attacks in coming decades, now fewer.  We need to stop viewing terrorism as shocking and aberrational, and instead recognize it as an ongoing problem that needs to be managed, rather than defeated.”

In a recent article by Charles Gave, written for a French paper in September, 2015,  Mr. Gave explains that nobody can understand the disaster that is unfolding if he knows nothing of history, past events that shaped the world today.

Mr. Gave explains:

For the past 50 years, money has flowed in a torrent from Saudi Arabia to the rest of the Middle East, Africa, South Asia and Europe to build Wahhabi mosques: “schools” where the only things taught – and only to boys – are the Koran and religious extremism.

The goal of this project is to “purify” the Middle East and eventually the rest of the world to an “original” form of Islam.

According to Mr. Gave:

• First: The West must clearly identify the enemy which is not the Muslim religion,but the Wahhabi sect.  And it must immediately break off relationships with the states such as Saudi Arabia and Qatar, which are exporting this virulent form of extremism.
• Second: We will have to stop accepting political donations from these countries to finance our electoral campaigns.
• Third: We will have to stop selling those countries warplanes, helicopters, missiles, radars, tanks and other weaponry.  One does not prosper by selling weapons to one’s enemies.  As Lenin said: “The capitalists will sell us rope with which we will hang them.”

There Is No Such Thing As Zero Risk

How are you going to change what you are doing now?

How are you going to change what you will be doing in the future?

Consider the impact of the confluence of highly impactful forces in the news every day (geopolitical, sociopolitical, economic, cultural, historical, local political, local social, global financial forces, local financial forces).

Many political “experts” will tell you that U.S. foreign policy is responsible for the rise of ISIS, and of terrorist attacks:

• There were no terrorists threats against U.S. citizens from the Middle East when Saddam Hussain was running Iraq  and when Omar Qaddafi was running Libya.
• The consequence of the United States destabilizing countries in the Middle East has been the reign of terrorist terror we are now experiencing.

Other political “experts” will tell you that the current surge of terrorist attacks is the result of Saudi Arabia and Qatar funding fundamental extremist Muslim clergy and schools which teach boys the Koran and extremism.

Consider the impact of all of the above forces on you personally, including the impact of such forces (a) on your current investment strategies, (b) on your current investments, (c) on your current travel plans,(d) on your current career plans, (e) on your current retirement plans, and (e) on all your other current strategies and goals.

Good luck.

 

Copyright © Gary S. Smolker, All Rights Reserved

 

I DON’T AGREE WITH THE STATEMENT “DON’T GET MAD.” – My Thoughts About The Upside of Feeling Down & Currently Playing Movies About Spectacular Achievements That Resulted from Hard Work Motivated by Getting Mad – by Gary S. Smolker

I DON’T AGREE WITH THE STATEMENT, “DON’T GET MAD.”

On Valentine’s day (February 14, 2015) a friend sent me (via e-mail) the following quote:

“Don’t get mad.  Don’t get even.  Get stronger and faster and more powerful.  Fill yourself with knowledge and empathy and an indomitable spirit.  Because no one else can do that for you.  In the end, its your life, your choice and your world.  Give 110% always.”  – Apolo Ohno, American Speed skater

I replied:

Thanks for sending me the quote.

That quote (copy above) is quite stimulating.

I disagree with the statement, “Don’t get mad.”

I am currently writing an article currently called something like THOUGHT ABOUT THE UPSIDE OF NEGATIVE EMOTIONS.

In that article I will mention that Martin Luther King, Jr. was so mad at the way black people were treated that he changed the world as a result of his actions as a civil rights leader.

Getting mad at injustice is a very natural thing that can have tremendous beneficial results for you personally, the rest of your country, and the rest of the world – – especially when getting mad motivates you (or someone else) to take action that results in bringing about positive change.

Why do you think President Harry Truman signed the order integrating the U.S. military forces in 1948?

President Truman integrated the military forces of the United States because President Truman was appalled at the way black soldiers who had fought for their country in World War II were being treated when they returned home to the United States.

He was mad.

Gary

Anger Motivates A Person to Take Action

Anger fuels social progress.

When you are mad you get a boost of energy – you are like a volcano ready to erupt.

Negative Emotions Are Critical to Success

To make their own lives more satisfying and to make this a better and more just world and to endure its challenges leaders have found it necessary to wisely engage their full range of negative emotions.

For example, anger stimulated and has sustained leaders of the civil rights and gender equality movements.

President Harry Truman’s Moral Clarity

When Harry Truman became president in April 1945, African-Americans might have had reason to fear setbacks because President Truman had grown up knowing few black people in Missouri, where all of his grandparents had owned slaves.

But, having been an officer in World War I, President Truman had respect for anyone who served his country in uniform.

During the demobilization of the military after World War II, President Truman was appalled to hear that African-American veterans were being brutally treated when they returned.

That made him angry.

That made President Truman so angry that in 1947, President Truman gave the first address by a president to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People since its founding in 1909.

In his speech, President Truman proposed anti-lynching legislation, the abolition of poll taxes that discouraged voting and an end to job discrimination.

At that time the lynching of black Americans in the South was widespread and very few, if any, black Americans were allowed to vote in the South.

In his speech President Truman linked the battle to advance those rights at home to the Cold War.

In his speech President Truman said, “Our case for democracy should be as strong as we can make it.  It should rest on practical evidence that we have been able to put our own house in order.”

President Truman then turned to the president of the NAACP and told him, “I mean every word of it [the speech he had just given], and I’m going to prove it.”

Thereafter, President Truman sent a series of measures to Congress to combat this, and when they didn’t pass, he, in his capacity as commander-in-chief, in 1948 issued orders which desegregated the armed forces and the civil service and another order in 1951 that banned discrimination in defense contracting.

Truman’s legislative initiatives to improve civil rights did not get through Congress, but he ignited a national debate that brought minority protection closer to reality.

Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Audacity of Hope, Dr. King’s Dream, the Spectacle of Bloody Sunday and the Birth of the Voting Rights Act of 1965

Selma, Alabama, is the county seat of Dallas County.

The region was one of the capitals of American slavery, and long after the Civil War the area retained a black majority.

However, in 1964 only a handful of the county’s black residents could vote.  Whites controlled all 10 county commissions, 11 boards of education and 34 town governments.  Every judge was white, there were few black lawyers, and black residents were generally not allowed into the courthouse except to pay taxes.

White terrorists operated with the implicit sanction of both private and public authority.

In 1964 a locally grounded voting rights campaign began.

Dr. King decided to participate.  Soon after he arrived in Selma, he was arrested along with several thousand other protestors for parading without a permit and unlawful assembly.

While in jail in February 1965, King wrote a letter to the New York Times stating, “This is Selma, Alabama.  There are more Negroes in jail with me than there are on the voting rolls.”

After a 27-year-old black pulpwood cutter, was shot by troopers when he tried to protect his mother from the clubs of troopers breaking up a night vigil, young activists threatened to carry his dead body to Montgomery and present it to Governor George Wallace.

Local leaders converted the angry sentiments into a plan to walk to Montgomery from Selma to petition Wallace for the right to vote.

On a Sunday, in full view of TV cameras, those marchers (600 demonstrators demanding equal access to the voting booth) assembled on the outskirts of Selma.

As they approached the Edmund Pettus Bridge, which had been blocked by Alabama state troopers and white civilian volunteers deputized by Sheriff Clark, they were clubbed and whipped and tear gassed and chased off the bridge by State troopers and local police using electric cattle prods and bull whips.

Widespread public outrage erupted after video clips were shown on national TV.

What happened next?

President Johnson told a joint session of Congress:

“What happened in Selma is part of a far larger movement which reaches into every section and state of America.

“It is the effort of American Negroes to secure for themselves the full blessings of American life.  Their cause must be our cause too, because it is not just Negroes but really all of us who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice.  And we shall overcome.”

President Johnson immediately proceeded to introduce voting legislation that King had pleaded for privately, and announced his plan of action in a joint session of Congress.

President Johnson placed Selma alongside Lexington and Concord and Appomattox as turning points where “history and fate meet at a single time in a single place” to shape our “unending search for freedom.”

Speaking “as a man whose roots go deeply into Southern soil,” Johnson told Congress: “There is no Negro problem.  There is no Southern problem.  There is no Northern problem.  There is only an American problem.”

Johnson told Congress that “the real hero of this struggle is the American Negro.”  “There cause must be our cause too.  Because it is not just Negroes, but really all of us who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice.  And we shall overcome.”

On August 6, Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, providing for the registration by federal examiners in any state or county where fewer than half the adults were registered to vote.

All of the above is dramatized in the recently released movie “Selma.”

“Selma” is a reminder and wake-up call about what hatred, intolerance and oppression lead to and that the United States has gone through more than one “War of Morals.”

The movie “Selma” reminds us there is a future beyond lynchings, shootings, blood and bombs – a future that is far closer to reality now than appeared even remotely possible when 600 demonstrators demanding equal access to the voting booth assembled on the outskirts of Selma, Alabama and were clubbed and tear gassed by State troopers and local police when they tried to march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

For all of the above reasons, “Selma” is a must see movie.

Looking Back

If you are wondering if recent events might be a signal of the dawn of a new baptism of liberty, equality and freedom and of the end of human bondage, consider the following historical events.

1. On June 11, 1963, after Alabama Governor George Wallace attempt to keep two black students from enrolling at the University of Alabama was televised, that night President John F. Kennedy went immediately on the air with an improvised speech to rally support for a civil rights bill that had yet to be written. “Those who do nothing,” the president told his audience, “are inviting shame, as well as violence.  Those who act boldly are recognizing right, as well as reality.”
2. Around 9:30 p.m. on April 3, 1968 (shortly before he was murdered), Martin Luther King, Jr., in a speech he gave at Mason Temple, a Pentecostal church where at least 1000 people had gathered to hear him speak, said:

• “If I were standing at the beginning of time – and [I] could choose my  lifetime – I would consider the glories of ancient Greece, Egypt and Rome.
• “But I wouldn’t stop there.  If you would allow me to live just a few years in the second half of the 20th century, I will be happy.”

King chose above all to see, and did see, the stirrings of a human-rights revolution for freedom worldwide.

Alan Turing’s Frustration

Winston Churchill said Alan Turing made the single biggest contribution to Allied victory in World War II against Nazi Germany.

Turing devised a number of techniques for breaking secret encoded German Navy messages to German U-boats.

It is estimated that Turning’s work shortened the word in Europe by as many as two to four years and saved ten million lives.

Turing was able to do this because he got mad at his boss and took the unprecedented step of going above his boss’ head to get support for his work.

Turning’s boss at the Britain’s codebreaking center thought Turing was nuts and Turing’s work was worthless, took steps to destroy a computer Turing had built (Turning is considered the father of computer science) and proceeded to try to “fire” Turing.

Breaking all rules, on October 28, 1941 Turing and his crew of codebreakers wrote directly to Churchill spelling out their difficulties.

The effect was electric.  Churchill wrote a memo to General Ismael – the military man in charge of the codebreaking center – which read: “ACTION TODAY.  Make sure they have all they want on extreme priority and report to me this has been done.”  

On November 18, 1941, the chief of the British Secret Service reported to Churchill every possible measure was being taken.

All of the above is dramatically portrayed in Norwegian Director Morten Tyldum’s film “The Imitation Game.”

“The Imitation Game” is nominated for eight Academy Awards, including best picture.

“The Imitation Game” is a must see movie.

Boris Spassky’s and Bobby Fischer’s Need for Silence

Absolute concentration, mania for maintaining focus and fanatical devotion to craft are necessary if you want to achieve extraordinary success.

American Director Ed Zwick picture “Pawn Sacrifice” shows how that comes into play.

“Pawn Sacrifice” takes the audience into the minds of the USSR’s world chess champion Boris Spassky and the American challenger Bobby Fischer as it follows their actions at the 1972 World Chess Championship in Reykjavik, Iceland.

After one game, played before an audience in an auditorium, Bobby Fischer refused to play any more games against Boris Spassky in the contest for World Chess Champion unless the rest of games were played in a basement ping-pong room without a live audience and without live coverage before a multitude of motion picture and TV cameras present in the auditorium during the prior game.

Fischer explained that the noise made by the live audience coughing, etc. and cameras and cameramen filming the contest was too distracting.  He was distracted by the noise of the cameras taking motion pictures.

The noise broke his concentration, destroyed his ability to focus on and think about his next move.

Rather than win the World Championship title by accepting Bobby Fischer’s forfeit as a result of Fischer’s refusal to play chess against him, Boris Spassky agreed to have the remaining games played in a basement.

After a next game was played in the basement, and won by Fischer, Spassky accused Fischer or someone else as having sabotaged the chair in which Spassky sat – made the chair “noisy” to break Spassky’s concentration while Spassky was playing.

Spassky’s chair was x-rayed.

Nothing was wrong with Spassky’s chair.

Later, after Fischer won the match and the World Championship, two dead flies were discovered in a light fixture above the chess set.

Spassky had been distracted by the sound of flies flying in that light fixture that only he could hear.

This movie is all about their lives, it is all about focus, concentration, mental preparation, planning.

Both men thought deeply, and planned and prepared mightily before they acted.

This movie is a peak into the minds of Grand Master Chess Players.

Stephen Hawking’s Disappointment

Dr. Stephen Hawking is and always has been an extrovert.

When Dr. Hawking was a young graduate student at Cambridge he was diagnosed as having motor neuron disease.

When he leaned he had motor neuron disease he was told he only had two years to live.

He told his girl-friend Jane Wilde to “go away.”

Stephen explained to Jane that he had only two more years to live and that he would lose his physical abilities over that time.

Jane replied: “Then lets enjoy all of those remaining moments of your life together.  I can’t go away because I love you.”

After that, Stephen Hawking didn’t let the facts that he had been told he only had two years to live and that he would lose all motor function get him down.

1. He (Stephen Hawking) married her (Jane Wilde) while he was still a young graduate student at Cambridge.
2. He (Stephen Hawking) went on to earn and received a Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics and became a member of the world renown faculty at Cambridge University.
3. While earning his Ph.D. degree and afterwards, Dr. Hawking formulated/created breath-taking theories about the universe.
4. When he lost control of his vocal cords he learned how, through a teacher arranged for him by his wife Jane, to communicate by raising his eye brow when he was shown a letter of a word he wanted to speak on a board.
5. Later, a machine was invented (designed and built by third persons though the efforts of his wife) which converted Dr. Hawking’s “spelling” into speech.
6. Although Professor Hawking couldn’t speak (because he eventually couldn’t control his vocal cords) he dictated a book (“A Brief History of Time”), which sold over 10 million copies.
7. Dr. Hawking and his wife Jane Wilde had three children together.
8. When this movie was recently made, Professor Stephen Hawking was over 70 years old.
9. Professor Stephen Hawking is still alive.

Norwegian Director Morten Tyldum’s film “The Theory of Everything” accurately and dramatically portrays all of the above.

“The Theory of Everything” is nominated for five Academy Awards, including best picture.

“The Theory of Everything” is a must see movie.

Cheryl Strayed’s Self-Loathing

Cheryl Strayed hated herself for having destroyed her marriage by having random sex with strangers and being a heroine addict.

She decided to “clean” herself up by taking a solo 1,100-mile-hike along the Pacific Crest Trail.

It worked: She stopped being an addict, fell in love with a new man who became her husband and had children with him.

Chris Strayed’s life story is dramatically portrayed in Jean-Marc Vallee’s film “Wild” and is nominated for several Academy Awards.

“Wild” is a must see movie.

Chris Kyle’s Anger

Chris Kyle saw the Twin Towers in New York fall down on September 11 after terrorists fly hi-jacked airplanes into them.

That made Chris Kyle so mad that he joined the United States Navy.

Although he was 30 years old, he tried out for the Navy Seals.

The rest is history: Chris Kyle became the deadliest sniper in American history.

In that role Mr. Kyle saved the lives of countless  American serviceman in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mr. Kyle’s real life story is accurately and dramatically portrayed in Clint Eastwood’s film “American Sniper.”

“American Sniper” is a must see movie.

It has been nominated for six Academy Awards, including best picture.

Currently Playing Movies That Teach Good Behavior

WINNING TAKES MORE THAN JUST PUNCHING.

Winning Takes Adaptability, Advance Work, A High Energy Level, A Sense of Purpose, Authenticity, Being Alert At All Times, Courage, Curiosity, Creativity, Determination, Discipline, Drive, Endurance, Fortitude, Flexibility, Grit, Particular Personality Traits, Preparation, Seriousness, Being Teachable, Hard Work and Training to go the distance as portrayed by NORWEGIAN DIRECTOR MORTEN TYLDUM in “The Imitation Game”, portrayed by ENGLISH DIRECTOR JAMES MARSH in “The Theory of Everything”, portrayed by AMERICAN DIRECTOR and COMEDIAN CHRIS ROCK in “Top Five”, portrayed by AMERICAN DIRECTOR DAMIEN CHAZELLE in “Whiplash”, by AMERICAN DIRECTOR ED ZWICK in “Pawn Sacrifice”, portrayed by AMERICAN DIRECTOR AVA DUVERNAY in “Selma”, portrayed by AMERICAN DIRECTOR CLINT EASTWOOD in “American Sniper”, by CANADIAN DIRECTOR PHILLIPPE FALARDEAU in “The Good Lie”, and by CANADIAN DIRECTOR JEAN-MARC VALLEE in “Wild.”

A Quick Read

Over the past 50 years I’ve read books and articles on “the science and psychology of becoming a success.”

For a quick read on those topics, I recommend that you read all the articles in the Winter 2015 issue of SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN and the article on “emotions” in the January/February 2015 issue of PSYCHOLOGY TODAY which confirm what I’ve read elsewhere about what it takes to be an outstanding success.

These articles confirm, as indicated in the movies listed above, that there is no shortcut to success.

You have to put in time, effort and sweat equity.

Successful people have a long attention span, the ability to concentrate, the ability to be attentive, a passion for what they are doing, fanatical devotion to their craft, their motivation is internalized.  They care about what they are doing for its own sake.

They look at disappointments and setbacks as opportunities to learn and as challenges.

Being born a creative genius or with an enormous talent is not enough to produce an outstanding result – it takes a village to produce an outstanding result.

All students need a combination of the right teacher or coach, the right guidance, challenge, the right instruction and feed-back and never-ending practice or study.

In addition to other traits, highly successful people have a positive attitude, a fierce drive, passion and grit; they are persistent, they have the ability to focus, and they have mental toughness, optimism and emotional control.

Excellence is about grappling with tasks beyond current limitations and falling short again and again.

Excellence is about stepping outside the comfort zone, training with a spirit of endeavor, and accepting the inevitability of trials and tribulations.

Highly successful people are motivated individuals who don’t give up when something goes wrong.

Their progress and success is built, in effect, upon the foundation of taking risks and the necessary failures that follow.  That is the paradox of their outstanding successful performance.

A Personal Note

I try to have strong personal relationships with people who give me emotional support and who are obsessed about the same things I am obsessed about.

On Valentine’s Day (February 14, 2015) a friend sent me the following note:

“Nothing worse than boredom!! Even torture is more interesting.”

The Gary Smolker Thoughtful Person Club

I’ve started a “Thoughtful Person Club.”

To join “The Gary Smolker Thoughtful Person Club” send your name and e-mail address to me via the Internet at GSmolker@aol.com.

According to WordPress, in 2014, people in 108 countries viewed the “Gary S. Smolker Idea Exchange Blog” at http://www.garysmolker.wordpress.com.

Conclusion

Negative emotions can do a critical job for you.

You only have so much time and energy and you can’t give 110% to everything.

You need priorities and that means that most activities will get 0% or slightly more of your time and energy.

Negative emotions can help you decide what to spend your time and energy on.

Every negative emotion orchestrates a complex suite of changes in motivation, physiology, attention, perceptions, beliefs and behaviors that can make you a “winner” by giving you the motivation, energy, resolve, drive, emotional strength, mental toughness, will power and fortitude necessary to complete whatever you set out to do.

Perhaps the recent actions of ISIS will prompt a worldwide reaction that will shock people out of their “do nothingism.”

Look at what ISIS burning a Jordanian pilot alive prompted the King of Jordan to do.

Look at what ISIS beheading Egyptian Coptic Christians prompted the President of Egypt to do.

When people are made to become extremely mad (outraged) it prompts them into taking action.

 

Copyright © 2015 by Gary S. Smolker