Roman Legions and the US Army

This article(click on the title please) is an eye-opening one about the growing role the mercenaries play in the US army thanks to the greedy plutocratic system now ruling in the States. The danger for US and the world is that, like Rome, the mercenary numbers will grow and soon the mercenary army won't be happy with just fighting and getting some handouts. Not that an all voluntary army, like the one existing in US, now is much better, but a mercenary army is much worse in that respect.

In Rome, when the citizen's army was replaced with a mercenary(Legions) army, soon they started to demand more and at last the whole political system was corrupted by use of the mercenary armies. The mercenaries started to sell their services to the highest bidder for controlling the population and supporting different political factions. The Rome's democracy was extinguished forever and changed into a dictatorship. Right now, people might laugh at this idea, as I am sure people were laughing in Rome when the mercenaries were just taking root and it looked a good idea to use expendable cheap lives instead of the citizens lives, but the empire's rulers should beware, it won't stop at this stage. They will gradually grow in numbers and force(as you can read in the article, they are now having their own heavy machinery and are even using air force), and will replace the Pentagon's regular army. Soon it won't look a bad idea at all to contract out the whole structure of the army to outside mercenary corporations. That will be the beginning of the end.

Small city states like Florence of the Renaissance period could use small mercenary armies without endangering their democracy, but empires can't do that. The rewards of the game in the empire is too high and sooner or later will attract the mercenaries into the internal squabbles of the powerful elites of the empire.

Maher Arar

Maher arar is compensated for 10 million dollars. Well, it was time the government did something to compensate for its unbelievable stupidity and cooperation in giving him away to the Americans. No person in his sane mind will give information about one of its own citizens to a government like US who is kin on torturing people at the fall of a hat. Thank goodness Canadian government is still not as corrupt and distant as the US government. The empire south of the border is getting a bit rotten, even we can smell it here in Toronto!

I have to admit I feel a little bit proud to belong to a country that its prime minister himself takes the time to appear on TV and apologize to an ordinary citizen because of his mistreatment. I also notice that Harper still insists on calling himself and his government “the NEW government” of Canada. I think somebody has to remind Mr. Harper that it is past the one year point with his government already and he is not totally NEW anymore. Anyways, I can’t see Dubya ever do the same to an American citizen and apologize for anything.

One Night Under the Bombs

ONE NIGHT UNDER THE BOMBS IN TEHRAN

I stop the car and pull up to the shoulder. It is crazy driving now, there is no way I can be at home before the rockets start raining around us. The city is in total darkness. The highway is dark also, there are no lights. Iraqi jet fighters are flying low overhead and you can hear the woosh of their engines. The city is in total darkness, like the second world war, like the modern warplanes don’t have radars and a million other technical innovations to direct them to their targets, like we are still living in 1940s, but … “they” order us to turn off lights each night, and we have to abide by it. I can't even have the car lights on in this pitch black highway and must rely on the faint moonlight to drive.

The first explosion, I hear it and a moment later I see the skies lighten up in south Tehran. A direct hit, somewhere in downtown, more dead people, more destroyed houses. We have to take cover. I can nearly smell the fire and smoke of the second and third explosion.

My son is only two months old, sleeping safe and sound and undisturbed in his mother’s arms. We open the car’s doors and run away towards the bushes. You can hardly see anything, I know there might be a ravine around, and we might just fall off into it, but there is no time to think. The bombs are dropping all around us and each one is closer. I take Ben from my wife, he is now in my arms, soft and warm, a bundle of life, deep asleep, as if nothing is happening. How I wish I could be like him, not knowing what is happening. Not knowing that there are jet fighters right there over our heads, with pilots intent on killing people on this dark night. You can’t believe that you are right in the middle of an air raid and any moment you might be the next target and explode into a million little pieces. We duck under the bushes, lie down, try to be one with the earth, like it can protect us. I can see the horizon now, red and orange hues behind the hills, and the smoke, and the sound of other explosions, getting further away. They break the sound barrier as a good-bye to Tehran and disappear. Just in a few moments, which lasts like a lifetime, tens or hundreds of people are dead, gone forever, families destroyed, hopes and futures dashed. Is this life we are living? Every day new air raids, without any anti-aircraft defence, the city is wide open to the jets and rockets of the Iraqi dictator, and people are welcome to be “martyrs”. After all, what is better than getting killed with one of these bombs? You become a martyr instantly and end up in paradise for eternity.

We get out from under the bushes, tap the dust away from our clothes and get into the car and drive back home in silence. My son is still sleeping, in his little innocent world, there is no death, there is no war, and there is no air raid.

OBSERVATIONS OF A NEW IMMIGRANT ABOUT A JOB IN CANADA

Oh my, why does not the cook stop using “fucking” when he speaks? Between each two words he inserts one “fucking”, without no specific reason. It does not help the grammar and seems out of place, but it is inserted, as if out of a sense of duty. The others(the others who help him) aren’t much better. Even some of the women do it, out of a sense of duty. Worst one is the little guy with beard and ever- present baseball hat and Harley-Davidson jacket. He tries to look tough, but poor guy, the eyes give him away. Eyes like a beaten dog with the tail between legs, head down, looking anxiously around to find a place to hide. He is released from jail every weekend to visit his family and he has to work here for some hours. He is not much communicative so you don’t understand how long he has to work, you only know he has to work here. There is a competition between him and the cook to see which one can insert more f words in their vocabulary. The others are not that bad, of course “f” word is one of the standards by which the class you belong to is recognized, like the “Sun” and the baseball hat. Even the women use it frequently, and please, I am not a male chauvinist, but I find it unpleasant when a woman uses the word, like the last bastion of politeness has also been defeated.

The kitchen is just a greasy messy and untidy place, with lots of empty cardboard boxes and chairs and tables stacked at corners, big garbage bins, and of course the ever spewing hotplates, hot tops, ovens, microwave and a big bread toaster which for some reason has the pride of place and is praised by the cook form time to time, as if it belongs to him . It does not create much of a delicacy. What they cook here amounts to hot dogs and some sandwiches and burgers in different shapes accompanied by toasts and breads, so the cook can not be considered a chef per se actually. He has been working here for at least 6 years now and has quite a reputation. He is somehow considered “cool” and liked by the people working here. There are informal meetings in the kitchen and you learn a lot about behind the scenes of this establishment just by listening to people talking to him. He is a sort of father confessor, or the unofficial boss here. Under his baseball hat which never is removed he must have some hair, or perhaps he has already lost it. Only thing I see are two short sparse ponytails hanging out. He is rather tall and skinny. That always strikes me. Why aren’t cooks all fat, after all, they are working with food all the time and they can eat as much as they want. Is it because they know what horrible stuff they concoct in the kitchen that they are not tempted at all to nibble at the food? Is it a sort of secret sect like oath they take when they begin their profession, like the doctors, that forbids them from eating in the kitchen? But working here I begin to understand the reason. It is just the ever present smoke and smell of grease, and the professional way you deal with the food. After a short time you come to look at it just as a mechanic looks at the car parts. Does he want to eat them? No! Same here, for the chef and the staff, food looses it’s luster as something delicious, it turns into a thing like paper for office people. It is just something you work with. After some time, even I start to feel the same about it, although at first I was wondering how people resist the temptation to eat from the meals they serve for others. I even throw out the spillage from the courses I serve into the garbage, instead of eating it.

There is a small fridge at the back, a sort of walking through fridge, where you go in and grab lard or margarine and bring in. Also it is used to save the cooked but not ordered burgers from the night for later use. Sometimes these poor things have to wait for three days to be re-cooked and served at last. Once when I ask the cook about them, he becomes nervous and takes the pain of explaining that they are quite clean and he has cooked them just a few hours ago and he never uses leftovers. He does not use gloves and I don’t know what things does he touch with his hands and fingers during the day, I hope at least he does not play with his genitals. But anyway, “the people at the other side” don’t care. They even drop by sometimes, the old customers, the professional small time gamblers, the ones that don’t have anything to do except bingo, bingo, and more bingo, the ones that really live in this place, instead of living at their homes and consider the whole body of employers as some sort of family. They drop by directly to order what they want instead of writing and handing it over to the cashier. They stay there, talk and joke and don’t seem to care a bit about the hygiene of the place. Oh well, I suppose if they don’t, why should anybody else?

There is also a door at the back, which is used mainly for getting out for short smoking breaks by the people working in the kitchen. There is no place for people to sit and wait until the next serving session. It works like this, between the bingo sessions the kitchen is nearly lifeless and workless. The cook goes around, talks to the other employees, and the kitchen gets empty and soulless. The hands also get out for a smoke, or just hang around. I take one of the chairs from the tall column of old greasy chairs and sit down and start to read my book. It must be a strange sight, but nobody complains or says anything. Actually the hands are very formal, no camaraderie here. They look like people who don’t know how to carry their bulk, where to sit and where to stand and where to wait for the next order to be delivered. There is just one small narrow table by the wall next to the ovens with two chairs next to it. People often hang their jackets on it and you don’t dare sit there in case their jackets are creased. Sometimes when you get your miserable lunch or dinner you sit there by that thing called the table and gobble it up between the orders. The employees also sit there for their food. The only free food here is the beverages like coffee or pops. The coffee served is the worst imaginable type, a boiled water coffee soup, despite that, the customers don’t care and don’t complain. Anyway, the generosity of the Bingo house towards its employees only extends to the drinks.

There are two halls here, the larger one belongs to who else than the smokers, it is always blue with smoke, and smelly, and crowded, the non-smoking areas are usually relatively quiet and empty. It shows the types of people that usually go to bingo. There are vending machines, some old gambling machines and one of those bunny and teddy bear grabbing machines. Between sessions, the obsessive gamblers go to the machine and try their luck, it seems they can’t tolerate even a few minutes without the thrill of losing and losing more. There is one window to another world, and that is the window that opens to the hockey arena beneath the Bingo hall. Sometimes people stand there and gaze into that different world of sports and health, but then they come back mechanically to their own familiar world of bingo papers and markers and balls. Sometimes when I am tired I look through the window into that other world, usually there are people playing there, mostly young kids, mostly white, no immigrant stock there.

And what a pathetic bunch are these, customers of this bingo house. It is the saddest sight in the world to behold. Before seeing them I did not know that life could be so pathetically meaningless. can life be so miserable, so meaningless, so empty of joy and happiness? Is life meant to be spent in a smoky hall eating French fries and putting marker points on cheap checkered paper, machine like, soulless?? I wonder, between the delivery sessions, when I lean on the counter in the small shop area and look at these people, a sort of dark depression comes over and gets hold of me. Is this what humanity and life is all about? This place is the domain, the palace, of sad old fat women, smoking tons of cigarettes, wasting centuries of time. If Freud was alive today, he would call this place the temple of unsatisfied sexual desires, the replacement masturbation.

There are some permanent customers, some people that come virtually every day and sit at the same seat and repeat this meaningless pursuit day by day. They smoke, they mark, they eat cheap junk food, they play cards between the sessions, or do crossword puzzles, or play some board games, they have their cello tapes to stick the paper to the table so that it does not wiggle when they mark it. They spend most of their waking hours here. They must hate their guts, I can’t imagine why a healthy human being would spend hours here smoking or inhaling the smoke of others sitting motionless on a chair and mark endless papers like a machine. With a little change they could make at least some money, contracting out their movements to some packaging or data entry company. The most eminent one among these is an old emaciated woman in the last stages of decomposition, unkempt with cheap sports trouser and T-shirts, dirty, hair never combed, not taking any care of herself. Everyday she is there earlier than us, same clothes, same seat. I have enquired from other employees, they say that is her routines, she is here everyday. She always sits at the same chair and table in the smoking area. She sometimes plays cards with some regulars. Most of the time she is smoking cigarettes and after each session her ashtray is full. I don’t know how long is she going to live with this exciting and healthy lifestyle, but she seems to enjoy it. She must be losing a whole lot of money, where does she get the money from? She must be one of those compulsive gamblers. Some people hate themselves, or drown their sorrows in alcohol, this little woman seems to drown them in bingo.

There are other interesting personalities here as well. The woman that sits with her back to the hall and the people, in the smoking area, mechanically marking her papers. She seems to have a grudge against THE people. Always on the same seat, far corner of the hall, north east. Now this is a corner seeking creature if there is any. Then there is this shaky-head daddy. I call him by this name. Most nights he is here. Like other regulars, he sticks to the same area night after night. Always black dress, sort of western cowboy style, just without the hat. They all have a special area that they protect dearly and other regulars don’t dare to take, I guess they even mark it like dogs or cats from time to time. He wears a dark glass and shakes all over. His head shakes, his hands shake and his legs shake too. But he manages to mark anyway, and I think that is enough in this place. Oh, and of course, the Teddy bear woman. She brings a different teddy bear every night, has it sitting next to her cards and touches it from time to time. Come intermission, the Teddy is being rubbed all over her face, like a small baby. She cuddles and kisses it. I guess it is her lucky Teddy bear. Talking of luck, some people bring strange lucky stuff with them. There is this woman that lines up a whole menagerie of little figurines on her table, funny little statutes of people and animals. The other one has some sort of shiny stones museum that are lined up in front of her. From time to time she rubs them like a magician or witch, I guess they have some luck locked into them and by touching them, it moves to your arm and body and your marker and from there spills into the paper. You see some old gentlemen in full dress, ties and jackets and all? Cologne smell around them, coming for the Bingo, I don’t know if they manage to pick up any of those fat old sad ladies or not, but for their sake I hope they do. Some of them are too old, for example this old lady comes there with a stroller and can barely move, she comes up with the elevator, buys papers and stack them up on their stroller and walks slowly to the smoking area and drops herself down in a chair. And then there is the Halloween night. The young sleepy girl at the counter has got her white angel wings at the back, some others come with demon dresses. The funniest ones are the three old black ladies with full costume, red demons with even the forks.

Most people here are old, retired sort, but sometimes you see some younger ones. The saddest sight of course is of the ones sitting alone by themselves all through the session. I pity these bunch. Don’t they have any friends? Why should somebody come here all alone by herself/himself, sit in a corner and waste his/her precious time like this. Something strange I noticed here is some couples, the woman is visibly older than the man. The man is a young guy in funky dress, the woman old and fat smoking type, and definitely not his mother. Other thing you notice, there are no immigrant faces among the customers of this bingo hall. You don’t see one Chinese and Asian, or any middle eastern, or south American, or Russian. They are all Canadian-born. There are not even blacks among them. They are a homogenous bunch.

What I do here? I sit in the kitchen and serve the food to the customers. Most is ordered in the smoking area. Somehow they eat more, or are more extravagant and easy with their money. The non-smoking area does not order that much, it just nibbles some snack. Most of the time I am in the smoking area, when I come back home I reek of smoke. It just sticks with you and does not go away, it sits right there on my smell buds, even next morning I still feel it. One other duty I really hate and try to dodge as much as I can is emptying the ashtrays, after I do it, it seems like I have smoked a whole pack of cigarettes. The smoking area is large and after each session the ashtrays are full and you have to go table by long table and empty the ashtrays is small buckets, the bucket fills up quickly and you have to bring another bucket. I also wash the dishes and skin the carrots from time to time, not very difficult, but the difference with washing at home is that the pots and pans are huge, fortunately there are no patrons dishes as everything is served in paper plates and cups. Speaking of paper cups reminds me of this stupid young boy that usually serves the ground floor salon. Yes, there is also a little ground floor salon, dark and with no windows, but some people actually use it, I don’t know why on earth one wants to sit there. Anyway this boy has one very interesting character. he eats paper cups, after he drinks his pop, he starts to chew on the plastic cup and chops off big pieces and chew and gulps them down. he says it is delicious, I think he is stupid. He also collects coins, whenever he receives coins from customers, which is many times, as he uses to sell paper and food in the halls, he checks them and from time to time he comes up with something interesting. He is also somehow interested in the chubby young lady at the counter, both are the same age, but apparently the young one is not interested at all. She is the only one without tattoos, and the only one that does not smoke, a bit strange in this place.

Some Thoughts about immigration

1. If you have a family and you want to invite somebody to live with you, forever and forever, and be a part of your family, who do you think is suitable for this purpose? If you have the chance between two options, who will that option be? Will it be that educated refined professor from the Cambridge University, or that illiterate peasant from a far off village in the mountains of who-knows-where land who needs to be educated how to use a toilet and a fridge?

I think it is a no-brainer what you will do, despite all the talk about political correctness and multi-culturalism and tolerance. You prefer your kids to be around that professor. His presence will elevate the culture and arts and conversation level in your family and all of you will learn from him and benefit from his presence. What will that peasant offer your family by living with you????

2. When mass movements of populations happen in history, the new settlements will be the exact same copies of their motherlands. They can't be otherwise, can they? They bring the same culture and level of education and behaviour and social structure with them. It has always been like this throughout the history. The Greek colonies around the Mediterranean were exact same copies of the Greek cities that sent them there. If the city was Athens, they were democractic. If it was another city with dictatorial social structures the new colony was a dictatorship.

In the new colonies of Americas, the Spanish created the same backward social structure of the motherland and the whole of south America turned into a bunch of bloody corrupt coup ridden dictatorial states, and the British immigrants in the north created a democracy.

It can't be any other way and it is stupid to expect these people to do otherwise.

Now, if you had a say 300 years ago in shaping the immigration policy in your new American country, which group would you have prefered to immigrate to your country, or colony, or whatever it is? The British immigrants with their culture for democracy back from the motherland, or the Spanish immigrants who would have built up the same corrupt dictatorships they had back home. If you had a choice, would you bring the mafia infested peasants from Sicily, or mostly educated Holland or Scandinavian immigrants?

It is a no-brainer again, isn't it?

3. The barbarian invasions, how correct it is. If a society open its gates to barbarians and can't moderate and control the rate of immigration, sooner or later it will pay the price of it's folly by being drowned under the waves. Rome resisted it, but when cracks appeared and then the walls came down completely and waves of barbarians flooded the empire and also were granted citizenship, soon it was destroyed and changed beyond any recognition. I have witnessed another similar one in Tehran. Tehran was a city with its own refined urban culture created for good or bad for 200 years. Then in the short period of 20 years waves after waves of freed serfs from the countryside swelled the population. The immigration was so huge that the city culture, that had been planted painstakingly for two hundred years was totally overtaken by the peasant mentality and culture. The city drowned and died. You could feel it and see it year by year. Everything got worse, from the driving codes to the attitude of people towards each other. And when the revolution happened, it was a peasant revolution in the city, not an urban one. And of course none of us forgets the Russian Revolution which was supposed to be a revolution of workers and PEASANTS, but at the end was turned into a revolution of the peasants only.

The point is, whenever in the history the advanced civilizations have opened the gates to huge waves of immigration from less developed socieites, without first providing a strict system to change and educate the barbarians, they have been destroyed under the waves. I am sure the Romans were still discussing the benefits of multi-culturalism and tolerance and the merits of mass immigration when the Rome was being burnt down and pillaged by the barbarians.

I am not against immigration if it is planned well in advance and with a goal to refine and advance a society. I am just against a "barbarian invasion" sort of immigration. Although sadly, from what history teaches us, I know that most of the time barbarians win at the end.

Free Wi-Fi Hot Spots in Toronto, Right on Brothers

Stand up against the greedy corporations. Click on the Title to read the article.

Same old Same old with brand new :-(

I am sitting in the subway and watching people listening to music and playing games on their latest brand modern gizmos. If you are the type who seeks or believes in miracles in the religious stories, forget it, the miracle is right here in front of your eyes, just look at what they have in their hands. If it is not a miracle, what is a miracle then? Out of the shapeless rock and oil of the land and mountains, we human beings have created these marvels of technology. We are the GODS, not the old Santa up there. And then...... how do we use these miracles???

Look at 99% of the programs in the TV! Same old middle ages junk. Stories about ghosts and ghost hunting in old houses, junk and trash reality shows, shopping channels, trash commercials. Have we made even one small step ahead of the trash they were showing 2000 years ago in the Coliseum? Isn't it sad and sardonic to watch a program about ghost hunting in this marvel of human ingenuity, the TV?

It is sad..... This primate called human, or Homo Sapiens, is a bundle of contradictions. It never stops to amaze me with it's brain and alas, its stupidity. On one hand it has created miracles with its creations, on the other hand, somehow, it does not know how to use them properly. If I wanted to watch gore and blood and empty headed shows and programs, I did not need a High Definition TV for that.

ISN'T IT SAD? What can we do about it?

Civilization needs taxes, and high taxes at that

As that wise old guy(Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.) said:

Taxes are the price we pay to live in a civilized society.

There is no Free Lunch. You have to pay if you want to live in a civilized society, there is no other way. Yes, if you want to live in a backward third world country, listen to libertarian and their like, listen to corporations and their cronies and avoid paying taxes. But if you want to live in a country which provides a humane level of services for it's citizens, you can't escape paying taxes. Otherwise, how on earth is that government supposed to pay for health care, public education, good infrastructure, good public transport, child care, etc?

And anyways, being the citizen of a country does not mean it is only that country and that government that is in a contract with you to provide you with services. It means that as a citizen, you have duties towards others too. Part of that duty is paying for the services that are provided for everybody and especially less fortunate members of the society. Unfortunately since the second half of the 20th century, with the "ME" culture, that second part, that duy of me towards others have completely been forgotten and replaced with the "GREED" culture propagated by the corporations.

Taxes are the only equalizer available to a government, otherwise we will witness the huge gaps between poverty and wealth in places like US who has extensively slashed taxes for the wealthy during the past half century. In my trip to New York I was astounded to see homeless people in the ground floor of some of the largest and finest financial buildings in wall street escaping the cold weather outside at winter. It was disgusting to see that the wealthiest city in the world and the heart of the capitalism, where billions and trillions traded hands each day could not provide basic needs of its citizens while a great number of other citizens where living in posh palaces.

tax cuts are good only if you cut taxes of the poor and give them the buying power, cutting the tax of the rich won't contribute much to the market as they already can buy anything they want. to compensate for the tax cuts for the poor you can get a few bucks more from the rich and it won't damage the economy.

A look at the following articles is an eye opener:

http://www.thestar.com/printArticle/172618

http://www.thestar.com/article/185224

http://www.thestar.com/opinion/article/192438

The tragedy and the heroism

Human life in general is tragic. We are all sailing towards death. There is no denying it. From the moment we are born, we are dying bit by bit. And we are the only animal who knows that it is dying..... and yet, in the face of this undeniable and irrefutable death, we build lives, make families, make love, have children, laugh and dance and celebrate and make merry.

That is the heroism of human beings. That is the heroism of life, that despite inescable death, still smiles in the face of death. That is why I respect homo sapiens, it is the only animal on this planet that knows it will die sooner or later, and there is no escape, and yet despite that, it struggles, it builds, it writes, it composes symphonies, and it tries to be happy.

At last a new Socialist Revolution

Well, It was time to see one more. Chavez in Venezuela is nationalising the oil industry and some hydro and public services and already Americans are hollering about a new communist threat. Calm down guys. He is just nationalising services that are public in many other countries in the world, even in Europe and Canada, etc. If you don't have public health care and 40% of your people don't have any health insurance, that does not mean other countries should ape you and let the greedy insurance companies benefit.

One Big Living Organism

When I look at all the cellphones, the internet, the telephones, the satellites, etc, I notice that inter connectivity in our race is increasing and getting higher and higher. It reminds me of one other arena where inter connectivity changed the nature of things and created new out of the old.

In the natural world, life started with the single cells. Gradually these single cells gathered together in incoherent groups, because of the sources of food that were available and protection. First there was no connections, there was just a group and lump of cells, but through millenia of living close by, they started to connect, and later the neural system and all the other connecting tissue was generated and at last multiple cell organisms turned into one new organism with its own consciousness. Same thing is happening in our society, with the rapid rate of increasing instant connection between humans in densely populated areas of the human race, we are witnessing the beginning of a new super organism that one day might even have a consciousness of its own without us even noticing it. After all, we will all be but just single cells inside that body.

Do the cells in our body know at all about "us"? Do they know that there is a higher intelligence made out of their harmonious co-operation and living together? I doubt it.

Run Bita, Run

A surprise ricochet zinged through the room and struck the ceiling. Shocked students hit the floor by instinct. No one expected conflict today. There was no special event planned for today. It was just the normal small demonstrations here and there in the city that formed and deformed as the military showed up. For the big main demonstrations, you always had prior notice, people knew where and when to gather, but today, no, it was a normal day, just normal local ongoing demonstrations, fluid, like waves of ocean, hitting the rocky beaches of military and police here and there, disbanding and forming somewhere else. Nobody was supposed to die today, nobody.

I run along the wall, below the windows, a few more bullets ricochet. We run into the big staircase, we are on the second floor of this three floor Atelier of the Fine Arts School of Tehran University. I am a 3^rd year student, The Iranian revolution has started, with all its beauty, power, color, gravity, sadness and deadly attraction. We live right in the middle of it all, Tehran University, the beating heart of the revolution. It starts here and it ends here. It is the flowing stream, the mother of revolution, when you are here, you are at the heart of it all, and yes, I am a student right at the heart of it all.

I run downstairs, Bita follows me. A quick look through the ground floor windows, everything is quiet. From a distance, we hear the crashing roar of the crowd, and near us a few more pelting bullets. Danger, man! beware. Danger everywhere. There is an open ground Between us and the crowd, perhaps two blocks away, we are protected from the military only by some trees and bushes and the fences between the university and the street.

The street is dead, only the soldiers, with standard issue American M16s. helmets on, full combat gear, military trucks along the street. Dead silent. I wave to Bita, we have to run to the crowd, join them, something is going on. We have to be there. But two blocks? Two blocks of life or death. What if a stray bullet cuts through the blocks. What if one of the soldiers sees us? that will be the end, but somehow , these days, it does not matter, the end is everywhere, in the news, in the streets, in the university, the end is looking you in the eye every moment, the end fills up the cemeteries and graveyards, the end spreads its dark wings over the city, the end comes with the military trucks and American M16s. The end sits on each bullet.

Who cares, run Bita, Run. We crouch and snake from one column to the other, and now the open ground, the killing field, runs towards us. We duck, we bend, we run, through the parking lot, towards the trees at the other side. This is the most difficult part, you have to just run and focus on the trees that beacon to you to run faster and hold their arms open to protect you. In these few seconds, that last like an eternity, you just pray, and wait, wait for the soft sound of the bullet tearing through the flesh, and then hear the bang, but the end is kinder today. I am hiding among the ancient tree trunks now, and Bita, panting, is next to me. Her beautiful face sweating, her dark black eyes smiling, from here we can see the new bullet holes just under the Atelier’s windows. Bastards, now they shoot directly at the students.

We move carefully, slowly, among the Bush. During the Shah’s time, thick bushes were planted to wall off the grounds of the University to ensure that student demonstrations and strikes against the Shah were obscured from full view of traffic. Paradoxically, the same growth is now obscuring the direct fire of the military. Lucky for us. Didn’t think of this, did you?

The crowd is shouting, thundering, moving, breaking against the fences, anger, hatred, defiance. I see the bodies. High on hands, moving from hand to hand, wrapped in white clothes already, new martyrs. Later we know they are high school students. Joining their university brethren, they were shot at the gates. The soldiers don’t come inside the university, they never come in. they just shoot from the street, right into the crowd, inside the university. By now, all the trees and walls have bullets in them, everywhere you can see bullet holes. Run Bita, run, towards the huge snake of the crowd that bangs its head on the walls, and rolls over the central playground, rolling and rolling. Run Bita, Run, and do you see the end, one step behind you? Why couldn’t I see it? Why couldn’t I protect you?

We join the crowd, fists up in the air, chanting the slogans, the crowd is alive, it is like one, you feel like a cell in a huge body, like it has its own personality, over and above each one of us, like it knows what it wants and wants to do. I hold Bita’s hand firm, don’t want to lose her here. The dragon of the crowd changes course, decides to push towards the gates, directly towards the soldiers, towards the guns, towards the “END”.

The “end” is waiting, smiling, with its empty eye sockets, moistening its lips. The end knows who is the next, it has already drawn the cards for each of us. We are pushed towards the gates, there is no way back, there is no way fore, we are now just cells inside the body of the huge dragon. The soldiers are scared, they are small, they are tin soldiers. The fury and fire of the dragon gets closer. The officer lines them up, two rows, the first one sits down, the second is standing behind them, like they are posing for a group photo, M16s look forward. I see it coming, but what can I do, I hold Bita’s hand harder, a calm comes over me, over the crowd. Now we are facing the guns, looking into the barrels, we are chanting, we are alive, we want freedom, we want bread, we want our land, our oil, our natural resources, to belong to us, not to foreigners. The officer barks something, few moments later, you see the blue smoke, you hear the thunder, you hear the screams. It is like a dream, a bad bad dream, people start to fall all around you, like autumn leaves, is it the end? But why aren’t I scared? I am calm, I see it, I feel it, I am not scared. I hold Bita’s hand hard, harder. Run Bita, run, we have to get back. But why, why the hand is so heavy. I try to drag it, it does not move, it is not grabbing anymore. I grab at it, I don’t want to look back. I know, I know already. Bita, why don’t you run? Follow me girl, like all the other times, we always escape, we are always safe, Bita! She is not answering. She is already on the ground. There is a small red rose spreading on her chest. I sit down, I hold her, I am silent, all around me people are screaming, moaning, swearing, … but I am frozen, quiet, a stone. And at that moment, I feel him, face to face, cold as ice, dark and silent, moving slowly over Bita, over many many others there, happy with the new crop, there to reap the reward and gather the souls.

I am silent. I, Bita, and the “end”. The three of us.

Interesting article about Bush

http://www.thestar.com/article/169988

The trick is to make them believe there is no other system available

I was watching this movie about the French Royalty before the revolution. It looked so absurd how the lower classes would even let these people rule them. Then it dawned on me that we are no better than them.

Somebody in the future watching a period movie about my time will also not understand how on earth me and other people like me let this absurd capitalist system rule us and do nothing to change it.

The trick with all these oppressive systems is to brianwash the masses to believe that there is absolutely no other way to live than this one. To believe that there is no Utopia and all Utopias are childish dreams. I know that our current system sucks also, but with all its shortcomings, to that of a French peasant of pre revolution days, IT IS UTOPIA, and it is here because some people then dared to dream of Utopias and started to believe in them.

The moment people start to think that" hey, stop mister, there might be better ways to organize our society and there might be fairer systems" the system starts to crumble and fall apart. That is the critical moment and all the beauty of deceit in a capitalist system, or any oppressive system, is that they succeed in delaying reaching that critical moment, when the masses START TO QUESTION, and start to dream about Utopias, and start to DEMAND MORE, believing that more is actually possible and available if they demand it.

But kudos to capitalism. At least for the time being, it is dominant and it seems nobody, even the leftists, can't even imagine a social structure that is free of capitalism. I know that this sad state of affairs won't last forever, as it did not last forever for the previous social structures, but believe me, the rate of change is so slow, you sometimes despair. I am just looking forward to the time that people start to demand more: more health care, more public housing, more equality, more social services.

George Bush's new old policy

I saw his pathetic picture last night on the TV talking to the American people. He is going to send more and more and more and more troops there. Why don't dictators learn from history? Is Vietnam now such an old story he has forgotten it?

More troops in Iraq will kill more innocent civilians and create more hatred.

I have no doubt this is no way out of the quagmire. Not that I know what to do. He has dived into such a mess by his own free will, it seems there is no sure way out. It is not Vietnam because there is no big empire helping the other side, but it is no Panama either. He has managed to destroy the country. The middle class has escaped and Iraq is turning into another Afghanistan bit by bit.

There is no depth to human stupidity when it is bred by arrogance.

Mormons, Religion

They sit in front of me eager to convert, the conversion factory. Several points come to mind:

1. They remind me of soviet style planning. Each factory head and production unit had a production quota and in earlier times, if you did not meet it, you were dead meat. Do they have a production quota also? Is somebody in Utah going to order them be executed if they don't convert a certain number of people at the end of the year? Why are they so eager to jump to baptism even without knowing if I really believe or not?

2. They look like a man that wants to sleep with the woman under the testosteron pressure and can't wait. They are so eager and so rushed, they just see the baptism at the end of the road and nothing else.

3. Why do people turn to them? It is certainly not the belief structure, it is so childish, it is funny. No, I understand now. It is the warmth and the friendship and the shallow smiles.

4. Why do the Christians smile so much? Are they the ones that have not yet heard the bad news? Seems everybody else is dour and sour because they know the reality of the cruel world.

5. We intellectuals tend not to take them seriously. We under-rate them. We think the ideology is so unscientific, so childish, that there is no chance of winning the masses with it. While we are laughing at them and think they are just marginal, they are busy converting. Since talking to them, I tend to take the danger more seriously. They fill up the void in people's life, the huge void opened up by capitalism.

6. In a sinking ship most people suddenly remember god and religion and start praying in earnest even if they did not believe before. Why is it that in the most capitalist country in the world Christianity is so powerful? Is it a sinking ship? In a cruel capitalist world, where people don't find any help or support system, they turn to these groups, to these ideologies to feel support and peace of mind. If they have a clear, defined, safe future ahead of them, and know that a powerful welfare and social systme supports them, they will be like tourists on a cruise ship, enjoying life and not caring that much about religion. As a proof, it is just enough to check Europe in comparison to the US.