RELIGION or POLITICS ???

Hello anybody, because I have an idea that nobody will be logging onto my blog anymore since I stopped putting out any type on news on either politics or religion. Well, simply because as hard as I could try to build and interest in these fields and as a Nichiren Buddhist, I, sorry to say, had not one soul as far as I know who came back and offered comments on my efforts. So I concluded that these subjects aroused no loyal interested folks. By chance if a\someone should stumble on this blog today I'd welcome a message of the visit.  Thanks  Ta Ta  CJ  

RELIGION or POLITICS ???

Greetings my friends, hey, how's it going as this first day of the week unfolds, or, shouldn't I ask???? That bad, huh?  Oh well, cheer up,  it will get better as the week plays out.

Now, I am not sure where I am going with this blog, or if I am going at all.   I thought there would be more interest to guys and gals, in these fields of politics and religion, if only to justify their differences of opinions as opposed to mine. Or to defend why they are one religion or another,  OR,  why they are a republican, democrat, or independent. So far I've had no one respond.  Does that mean no one watches?   I don't know. But if not, I've got a decision to make, keep going and hoping pround Americans will be interested in what I write about.  Or, spiritually minded folks who are interested in differences of opinion on why a person is of a certain religion or another.  As anyone visiting here in time knows I am a Nichiren Buddhist. Proudly and happily so, and I can tell you why at the drop of a hat. And why I think that religions are "our weakest link",  since I think they are divisive.   Disagree?, tell me about it.  Liberal, Conservative, far-lefter --far-righter?

After this week I will decide.   Meantime check out these tid-bits.

*******
There are a terrible lot of lies going around the world, and the worst of it is half of them are true.


~Sir Winston Churchill
*******

Cynical Meanings ...............


Cigarette: A pinch of tobacco rolled in paper with fire at one end and a fool on the other.

Divorce: Future tense of marriage.

Lecture: An art of transferring information from the notes of the Lecturer to the notes of the students without passing through "the minds of either."

Conference: The confusion of one man multiplied by the number present.

Compromise: The art of dividing a cake in such a way that everybody believes he got the biggest piece.

Tears: The hydraulic force by which masculine will-power is defeated by feminine water power...

Dictionary: A place where success comes before work.

Conference Room: A place where everybody talks, nobody listens and everybody disagrees later on.

Classic: A book which people praise, but do not read.

Smile: A curve that can set a lot of things straight.

Office: A place where you can relax after your strenuous home life.

Yawn: The only time some married men ever get to open their mouth.

Cheers.     CJ

Well friends, here it is again, and despite all of our differences and problems the world keeps turning and 
friday is here, and I suppose you are ready for what goodies the weekend might provide. I have no topic to present to you today and so am going to fill in with some wisdom both Eastern and Western so relax and give yourself a little more "down in the street wisdom & Live smart stuff". 


The government that can protect you from your enemies can be used as easily by your enemies to harm you.


~Harry Browne


A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes.

~Hugh Downs

Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.

~Thomas Edison


1. There are 3 kinds of Law: Social and Moral;   culturally and acceptable behavior;    civil and criminal law, or legally acceptable behavior;    and Universal Law or Cause and Effect.   We may avoid the consequences of the first two, but NEVER  the third.

2.  It is much easier to 'say' what is just and right, than it is to do what is just and right.

3.  There is always a piece of fortune in Misfortune.

4.  In all the affairs of life, at every moment, we have a choice.

5.  From the previous day, upon awakening, so to are we born with our karma from previous existences.  In this way, just as we sleep and wake, we are born and die, maintaining an eternal cycle of life.

FINALLY, NICHIREN BUDDHISM, THE BUDDHISM OF THE 'SUN', IS SHEDDING ITS LIGHT ALL AROUND TEH WORLD.   WE HAVE ARRIVED AT A TIME IN WHICH OUR MOVEMENT FOR PEACE, CULTURE AND EDUCATION, GROUNDED INT BUDDHIST PRINCIPLES, MUST SEND ITS LIGHT OF HOPE THROUGHOUT SOCIETY.

Here is to Hope, Health, and Happiness to each of you.    Cheers      CJ

Brian T. Kennedy, President of the Claremont Institute, and who has also written for such as the National Review, Wall Street Journal, and Investor's Business Daily. This article was published in the Newsletter, IMPRIMIS. by Hillsdale College. Let's get to it. You've read the Koran Suras to set up your base for understanding one of America's BIGGEST PROBLEM ahead.)




Ah Yes, and here it is mid-week again, and the clouds keep getting darker, but so help me, despite what still seems like public apathy, I think underneath it all, there is a growing antipathy toward this administration, and somewhere along the months ahead, this will turn into full blown action to correct this current trend towards economic disaster. Say, along about Nov. 4, 2012....   Now let's complete my blog on "Not just the economy, stupid".


My last blog finished making reference to our winning the Cold War, and of Russian (at that time) government's brutally repressive domestic policies and their strengthened alliances with America's enemies. Then suggesting that our Conservatives had overdone the winning..... We go on.....


       Perhaps it is not surprising, then, that our policy toward Russia has been exceedingly foolish.   For the past two decades we have paid the Russians to dismantle nuclear warheads they would have dismantled anyway, while they have used those resources to modernize their ballistic missiles.   On our part, we have not even tested a nuclear warhead since 1992 -- which is to say that we aren't certain they work anymore.   Nor have we maintained any tactical nuclear weapons..   Nor, to repeat, have we built the missile defense system first proposed by President Reagan.

       Just last month, with bipartisan backing from members of the foreign policy establishment, the Senate ratified the New Start Treaty, which will further reduce our nuclear arsenal and will almost certainly cause further delays in building missile defenses -- and this with a nation that engages in massive deception against us, supports our enemies, and builds ever more advanced nuclear weapons.

       At the heart of America's strategic defense policy today is the idea of launching a retaliatory nuclear against whatever nuclear power attacks us.   But absent reliable confidence in the lethality of forces, such a deterrent is meaningless.   In this light, deliberatin about the need for a robust modernization program, rather than arms reductions through New Start, would have been a better way for Congress to spend the days leading up to Christmas -- which is to say, it would have been supportive of our strategic defense policy, rather than undercutting it.

       But what about that stretegic policy?   Some of  New Start's supporters argued that reducing rather than modernizing our nuclear arsenal places us on the moral high ground in our dealings with other nations.   But can any government claim to occupy the moral high ground when it willingly, knowingly, and purposely keeps its people nakedly vulnerable to nuclear missiles??

       The Russians understand well the intellectual and moral bankruptcy of the American defense establishment, and have carefully orchestrated things for two decades so that we remain preoccupied with threats of Nort Korean and now Iranian ballistic missiles.   We spend our resources developing modest defense systems to deal, albeit inadequately, with these so-called rogue states, and meanwhile forego addressing the more serious threat from Russia and China, both of which are modernizing their forces.  

      Who is to say that there will never come a time when the destruction or nuclear blackmail of the U.S. will be in the interest of the Russians or the Chinese??   Do we imagine that respect for human life  or human rights will stop these brutal tyrannies from acting on such a determination.?

      If I (author) sound pessimistic, I don't mean to.   Whatever kind of self-deception gripped the architects of our current defense policies, the American people have proved capable of forcing a change in direction when they learn the facts.   Americans do not wish to be subjected to Sharia law, owe large sums of money to the Chinese, or be kept vulnerable to nuclear missiles.   Having responded resoundingly to the economic and constitutional crisis represented by Obamacare, it is now time for us to remind our representatives of the constitutional requirement to provide for a common defense  -- in the TRUE sense of the word.    Finis

Thanks all for stopping by and getting enlightened on a serious subject, if you didn't already realize it.  You no doubt are aware of rising prices in every direction that affects the pocketbook or purse, so, are you prepared for it to get worse?Or as has so often been said,  "Can't hurt".     Cheers     CJ

(Brian T. Kennedy, President of the Claremont Institute, and who has also written for such as the National Review, Wall Street Journal, and Investor's Business Daily. This article was published in the Newsletter, IMPRIMIS. by Hillsdale College. Let's get to it. You've read the Koran Suras to set up your base for understanding one of America's BIGGEST PROBLEM ahead.)


Hi people, hope all your weekends were Heaven compared to what happened in Japan. Personally I cannot even begin to imagine what it must be like to live through such a horrot. Of course it does no good to dwell on that aspect, but it does give us all an opportunity to be supportive there wherever we might be badly needed. WE who are proudly of the GREAT HEARTS!!!!

Anyway, to continue with the last episode to those of us who are anything but Stupid, right?    To Go On......


      China has for some time carried out a policy that has been termed "peaceful rise".    But in recent years we have seen the coming to power of what scholars like Tang Ben called the "Red Guard generation" -- generals who grew up during the Cultural Revolution, who are no longer interested in China remaining a secondary power,  and who appear eager to take back Taiwan, avenge past wrongs by Japan and replace the U.S. as the preeminent military power in the region and ultimately the world.

       However far-fetched this idea may seem to American policymakers, it is widely held in China that America is on the decline, with economic problems that will limit its ability to modernize its military and maintain its alliances.    And indeed, as things stand,  the U.S. would have to resort to full-scale nuclear war to defenc its Asian allies from an attack by China.

       This is the prospect that caused Mao Tse Tsung to call the U.S. a "Paper Tiger".   Retired Chinese General Xiong Guong Kai expressed much the same idea in 1995, when he said that the U.S. would not trade Los Angeles for Taipei -- that is, that we would have to stand by if China attacks Taiwan, since China has the ability to annihilate Los Angeles with a nuclear missile.    In any case, current Chinese aggression against Japan in the Senkaku Islands and their open assistance of the Iranian nuclear program, not to mention their sale of arms to the Taliban in Afghanistan, would suggest that China is openly playing the role that the Soviet Union once played as chief sponsor of global conflict with the West.

      Which brings us to Russia and to the degradation of American strategic thinking during and after the Cold War.   This thinking used to be guided bg the idea that we must above all prevent a direct attack upon the U.S. homeland.    But over the past 50 years we have been taught something different:  that we must accept a balance of power between nations, especially those possessing nuclear ballistic missiles;   and that we cannot seek military superiority -- including defensive superiority, as with missile defense -- lest we create strategic instability.  

       This is now the common liberal view taught at universities, think tanks and schools of foreigh service.    Meanwhile, for their part, conservatives have been basking in the glow of  "winning the Cold War".    But in what sense was it won, it might be asked, given that we neither disarmed Russia of its nuclear arsenal nor put a stop to its active measures to undermine us.   The transformation of some of the former captive ntions into liberal democracies is certainly  worth celebrating, but given Russion government's brutally repressive domestic policies and strengthened alliances with America's enemies abroad over the past 20 years, conservatives have overdone it. 

Closing now for this monday and of course a new week to work  on more history.  Oh did you notice that with all the turmoil in the middles east and Japan, Obama wa faulted for not answering questions on four big topics, yet he is playing golf today, and planning a trip to South America shortly.  Isn't it good to feel that we have a President who is concerned and interested in Ameria's place in this world as a TRUE LEADERs and on top of everything that is happening?   Hmmmmmmm?????    Cheers      CJ

RELIGION or POLITICS ??? Rules for Economic Recovery ......cont'd.

(It is written by Brian T. Kennedy, President of the Claremont Institute, and who has also written for such as the National Review, Wall Street Journal, and Investor's Business Daily. This article was published in the Newsletter, IMPRIMIS. by Hillsdale College. Let's get to it. You've read the Koran Suras to set up your base for understanding one of America's BIGGEST PROBLEM ahead.)



And happy TGIF to you too.  My last line from Wednesday read "Yet even to raise a question of whether Islam presents a domestic threat today is to invite charges of bigotry or worse".  So we pick it up from there.


NOT JUST THE ECONOMY, STUPID........

       And as dangerous as it potentially is, this domestic threat pales in comparison to the foreign threat from the Islamic Republic of IRAN and its allies -- a threat that is existential in nature.   The government in Tehran, of course, is enriching uranium to convert to plutonium and place in a nuclear warhead.    Iran has advanced ballesitic missiles such as the Shahab-3, which can be launched from land or sea and is capable of destroying an American city.   Even worse, if the Iranians were able to deliver the warhead as an electomagnetic pulse weapon from a ship off shore -- a method they have been practicing, by the way -- they could destroy the electronic infrastructure of the U.S. and cause the deaths of millions or more.   And let me be perfectly clear:  We do not today have a missile defense system in place that is capable of defending against either a ship-launched missile attack by Iran or a ballistic missile attack from China or Russia.  We do not yet today have such a system in place, even though we are capable of building one.

       Since I (author) have mentioned China and Russia, let me turn to them briefly in that order.   The U.S. trades with China and the Chinese buy our debt.   Currently they have $2 trillion in U.S. reserves, about half of which is in U.S. treasuries.   Their economy and ours are intimately intertwined.   For this reason it is thought that the Chinese will not go to war with us.   Why, after all,  would they want to destroy their main export market.???

       On the other hand, China is building an advanced army, navy, airforce, and space-based capability that is clearly designed to limit the U.S. and its ability to project power in Asia.   It has over two million men under arms adn possesses an untold number of ICBMs -- most of them aimed a the U.S. -- and hundreds of short and medium-range nuclear missiles.   China's military thinking is openly centered on opposing American supremacy, and its military journals openly discuss unrestricted warfare, atomic warfare, and terrorism.   China is also working to develop a space-based military capability and investing in various launch vehicles, including manned spaceflight, a space station, and extensive anti-satellite weaponry aimed at negating U.S. global satellite coverage.

       Absent a missile defense capable of intercepting China's ballistic missiles, the U.S. would be hard pressed to maintain even its current security commitments in Asia.   The U.S. Seventh Fleet, however capable, cannot withstand the kinds of nuclear missiles and nuclear-tipped cruise missiles that China could employ against it.   The Chinese have studied American capabilities, and have built weapons meant to negate our advantages.   The destructive capability of the recently unveiled Chinese DF-21D missile against our aircraft carriers significantly raises the stakes of a conflict in the South China Sea.   and the SS-N-22 cruise missile -- designed by the Russians and deployed by the Chinese and Iranians -- present a daunting challenge to its enormous size and Mach 3 speed.  (To be continued on Monday).  Hey. are you getting the picture????

OK,  so much for this wonderful week. Unfortunately, the dire things in the futur, near or otherwise, are not tomorrow or next week or month, it is just an insidious movement that causes many people to shrug and say "oh well, maybe it isn'' going to happen and I'll wait and fact up to it, IF it happens""   Kaboom, and that attitude is WHY it happens.   All I can say, hey, be alert, awake and vigilant. Prepare for what might and could happen, and if it doesn't, breath a sigh of relief and be  damned grateful.     Cheers      CJ

RELIGION or POLITICS ??? Never Just The Economy, Stupid - Cont'd.

Happy Wednesday to you, friends. I am convinced this to be a very important article for everyone to read, bar none. It is written by Brian T. Kennedy, President of the Claremont Institute, and who has also written for such as the National Review, Wall Street Journal, and Investor's Business Daily. This article was published in the Newsletter, IMPRIMIS. by Hillsdale College. Let's get to it.  You've read the Koran Suras to set up your base for understanding one of America's BIGGEST PROBLEM ahead.


NOT JUST THE ECONOMY, STUPID.....

      It is often said that to point out these verses is to cherry pick unfairly the most violent parts of the Koran.   In response, I(author) assert that we must try to understand Muslims as they understand themselves.    And I hasten to add that the average American Muslim does not understand the Koran with any level of detail.   So I am not painting a picture here of the average Muslim.  I am trying to understand those Muslims, both here in the U.S. and abroad, who actively seek the destruction of America.

      Here at home, the threat is posed by the Muslim Brotherhood and its organizational arms, such as the Council on American  on Islamic Relations, the Islamic Society of North America, and the various Muslim student associations.   These groups seek to persuade Americans that Islam is a religion of peace.   But let me quote to you from a document obtained during the 2007 Holy Land Trial investigating terrorist funding.   It is a Muslim Brotherhood Strategic Memorandum on North American Affairs that was approved by the Shura Council and the Organizational Conference in l987.  It speaks of "Enablement of Islam in North America, meaning: establishing an effective and a stable Islamic Movement led by the Muslim Brotherhood which adopts Muslims' causes domestically and globally, and which works to expand the observant Muslim base, aims at unifying and directing Muslims' efforts, present Islam as a civilization alternative, and supports the global Islamic State wherever it is".

Elsewhere this document says:

      The process of settlement is a "Civilization-JIHADIST Process" with all the means.   The IKHWAN {the Muslim Brotherhood} must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand JIHAD in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and "sabotaging" its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and Allah's religion is made victorious over all other religions.   Without this level of understanding, we are not up to this challenge and have not prepared ourselves for JIHAD yet.   It is a Muslim's destiny to perform JIHAD and work wherever he is and wherever lands until the final hour comes......

       Now during the Bush administration the number of Muslims in the U.S. was typically estimated to be around three million.   The Pew Research Center in 2007 estimated it to be 2.35 million.   In 2000, the Council on American Islamic Relation put the number at five million.  And President Obama in his Cairo speech two years ago put it at seven million. 

       In that light, consider a 2007 survey of American Muslim opinion conducted by the Pew Research Center.   Eight percent of American Muslims who took part in this survey said they believed that suicide bombing can sometimes be justified in the defense of Islam.   Even accepting a low estimate of three million Muslims in the U.S., this would mean that 240,000 among us held that suicide bombing in the name of Islam can be justified.

        Among American Muslims 18-29 years old, 15 percent agreed with that  and 60 percent said they thought of themselves as Muslim first and American second.   Among all particpants in the survey, five percent -- and five percent of the low estimate of three million Muslims in America is 150,000 -- said they had a favorable view of al Qaeda.

       Given these numbers, it is not unreasonable to suggest that the political aims and ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood represent a domestic threat to national security.   It is one thing to have hundreds of terrorist sympathizers within our borders, but quite another if that number is in the hundreds of thousands.   Consider the massacre at Fort Hood:  Major Nidal Malik Hasan believed that he was acting as a devout Muslim -- indeed, he believed he was obeying a religious mandate to wage war against his fellow soldiers.  Yet even to raise the question of whether Islam presents a domestic threat today is to invite charges of bigotry or worse.

OK,  I am cutting here and will continue on Friday. My blog friday starts out thusly -- AND AS DANGEROUS AS IT POTENTIALLY IS, THIS DOMESTIC THREAT PALES IN COMPARISON TO THE FOREIGN THREAT FROM THE ILSAMIC THREAT FROM THE iSLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN AND ITS ALLIES --- Are you all getting the picture??
If not come visit again then, and you will be convinced.     Cheers      CJ