The Cure is Compassion by deadlockvictim

I'd think the "is tagged as offensive" bit should kinda forewarn ya about that one.

Unfortunately DLV, Compassion of any kind in this day and age is scorned by the sadist sociopaths our society holds up as examples as naught more than the wimpiness of liberals and hippie freaks.

We've built a society on hate and cruelty, so expecting folks molded from birth into it to even comprehend compassion is a bit much, I'm afraid.

-Frem
It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

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Wednesday, May 16, 2007 12:49 PM

DEADLOCKVICTIM

thanks for that Frem...

given the option, i choose not to join such a society..

as for the previous 'tagged' poster - i must agree with your assessment.

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Wednesday, May 16, 2007 1:03 PM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

DLV

Pardon my sleep deprived post - but all I can think of is this is a game of Jeopardy.

"What is the medicine for hate?"

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Wednesday, May 16, 2007 1:08 PM

KHYRON

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
"What is the medicine for hate?"

More weed, man.

Hippieisall

Questions are a burden to others. Answers are prison for oneself.

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Wednesday, May 16, 2007 1:55 PM

RIVER6213

Quote:
Originally posted by kaneman:

You seem to be totally earning that "Tagged as being Offensive" label. It's a wonder they haven't banned your ass off of this server.

-River

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Wednesday, May 16, 2007 3:47 PM

DEADLOCKVICTIM

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
but all I can think of is this is a game of Jeopardy.

...do you mean something like...

"I'll take 'Why Is This Civilization Circling The Drain', for 200 Alex..." ...?

edit: i guess that would be the question - (not how the game is played if i recall)

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Thursday, May 17, 2007 3:02 AM

I think compassion is definantly helps most of the time though sometimes other things are helpful.

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Thursday, May 17, 2007 7:37 AM

DESKTOPHIPPIE

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:
Unfortunately DLV, Compassion of any kind in this day and age is scorned by the sadist sociopaths our society holds up as examples as naught more than the wimpiness of liberals and hippie freaks.

On behalf of hippie freaks everywhere - HEY!!!

Banners, Avatars, LJ Icons and other fun stuff at www.desktophippie.com

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Sunday, May 20, 2007 2:03 PM

SIRI

DLV, thank you for daring to use the "C" word. I often think of how terrible it would be to live in fear of sending children to school, or going out to buy groceries or sitting with a friend having coffee. Yes, Sadam was an awful dictator who did unspeakable damage. But is this better? Couldn't there have been another way found that caused less suffering? I suspect to speak of compassion might risk showing cracks in the armor. But there are cracks in all of our armor.

quote]...There is hunger for ordinary bread, and there is hunger for love, for kindness, for thoughtfulness; and this is the great poverty that makes people suffer so much....

Mother Teresa of Calcutta

I hope we risk using the "C" word for ourselves, for one another and for those in Iraq and elsewhere.

Siri

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Sunday, May 20, 2007 4:07 PM

AURAPTOR

America loves a winner!

" All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing " - Edmund Burke

There were mass graves being dug and filled under Saddam's reign long before the war to topple him began. Whether good men do nothing, or try to fight evil, innocent lives will be lost.

Damned if we do, damned if we don't, it seems.

People love a happy ending. So every episode, I will explain once again that I don't like people. And then Mal will shoot someone. Someone we like. And their puppy. - Joss

" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "

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Sunday, May 20, 2007 9:49 PM

DTH

I said scorned by sociopathic monsters, not by me, lol...

You really can't get more 'liberal' than an Anarchist, right ?

Besides which, the Hippies were right all along.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2007/05/02/notes05020
7.DTL

STOP!
Hey!
What's that sound...
Everybody look what's goin down...

-F
PS - Does it not totally suck that you can't find good luudes anymore ?

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Monday, May 21, 2007 5:10 AM

HKCAVALIER

Quote:
Originally posted by AURaptor:
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" - Edmund Burke

The spurious implication of this saying is that if good men do something--anything--then we are thwarting evil's triumph, and that's the big problem here.

I think of the old complaint about liberals "throwing money at a problem" and I see the current admin. "throwing action at a problem" and not just any action, but the most active (read violent) action they can think of.

Similarly, uninformed compassion can lead good men to do very bad things. My model is of the woman being beaten by her boyfriend in the apt. across from you. Your compassion drives you to go over there and expel the boyfriend from the place. But the next night, you see the woman's whole family over there demanding to know what she did wrong to drive her man away and then her father starts beating her.

Whoopsie.

So you go over there with a few friends and oust the Father and the family, but the next night she has a new boyfriend who's into knives.

Double whoopsie.

Compassion, without understanding the other person's context is a dangerous thing. Compassion for people struggling for decades under an insane dictator (the compassion that made so many people, liberal and conservative alike, support the invasion of Iraq in the first place) without understanding what that kind of life does to a person's psyche has been desastrous for everyone involved.

The compassion of an ignorant 900 lbs. gorilla can be fatal ("I will hug'm, and squeeze'm, and love'm..."). So, for my money, ignorance is the big problem, and wisdom--which, of course, includes compassion--is my cure.

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Monday, May 21, 2007 1:22 PM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions."

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Monday, May 21, 2007 1:40 PM

FINN MAC CUMHAL

Quote:
Originally posted by deadlockvictim:
If anyone is interested, this quote from Deepak Chopra echoes my thoughts exactly. At a time like this, when all our president and his administration can do is focus on winning, regardless of the extreme cost in human suffering, I have to wonder what ever happened to compassion.
This man speaks to my heart.

Is this compassion for Iraqis? Or something more selfishness? Will the US abandoning Iraq to its fate prematurely stop the killing of Iraqis? Probably not. It is more likely to cause that killing to increase as death squads and terrorists move completely unobstructed, until they tear down the current democratic Iraq and re-establish totalitarianism. None of which is good for the Iraqis, so it’s unlikely that concern for Iraqis is what Chopra is seeking. It may be concern for American soldiers, which is admirable, but I’m not sure trading a few hundred or even a few thousand American lives in this case for the tens or possibly hundreds of thousands of Iraqis that will be slaughtered completely in vain if we leave is the best strategy. Furthermore, the long term effects may have the result of putting the US in more danger. If a bin Laden Caliphate is established in Iraq or even a Persian one, we may be facing the serious possibility of a massive future threat against the US, in the form of terrorist heaven and/or possibly an Iranian offensive to control the Middle East, prompting a war that will be far worse then what we are dealing with today. But whatever happens, what we certainly don’t need to do, because it is not only inaccurate but compassionless, is attempt to paint our premature retreat as good for the Iraqis. It will not be.

Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.

Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.

-- Cicero

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Monday, May 21, 2007 1:59 PM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

Your simple faith that the US is preventing violence and loss of life is heartwarming, but misplaced.

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Monday, May 21, 2007 2:09 PM

Bullshit.

The most compassionate thing we can do is get the hell out of somewhere nobody wants us and let Iraq solve Iraqs problems - every minute of our meddling just prolongs the bloodshed by that very much and whatever puppet regime we prop up is gonna blowback on us again and start this whole goddamn idiotic cycle all over again.

Sometimes compassion is having the decency to leave well the hell enough ALONE.

-Frem

It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

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Monday, May 21, 2007 3:18 PM

Quote:
Similarly, uninformed compassion can lead good men to do very bad things. My model is of the woman being beaten by her boyfriend in the apt. across from you. Your compassion drives you to go over there and expel the boyfriend from the place. But the next night, you see the woman's whole family over there demanding to know what she did wrong to drive her man away and then her father starts beating her.

Whoopsie.

So you go over there with a few friends and oust the Father and the family, but the next night she has a new boyfriend who's into knives.

Double whoopsie.

or You don't lose the battle.

A father beats up and uses other violence towards his wife(who had stockholm syndrome] and his 4 children. He threatens their lives constantly. This man is her 2nd violent relationship. They remain married for 18 years, having many children. The daughter grows up strong despite the domestic violence while good man stand around doing nothing.

One day the daughter gets courage and with this courage, words and saves her sister from sexual abuse from her father and saves her mother from a life of violence with abusive men. She doesn't contact her mother for 3 years until her mother leaves the relationship. Her 3 siblings and her mother move away from her father. When her mother leaves her father, her mother says to her daughter that her daughter's strength made her feel strong.(enough to leave) Her mother meets a wonderful good man who respects women. They live happily, the mother's spirit grows wings. HAPPY ENDING

When the daughter marries a good man she unfortunately moves next to a violent man. This neighbor beats his wife regularly. One day this man starts beating his kid with his fists in the driveway. She walks outside and stands up to him. He is silent the next week and the mother moves with the kid that was getting beaten up. The man moves out at the same time. The mother thanks her for sticking up for her son as she leaves. HAPPY ENDING

I'm that daughter.

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Monday, May 21, 2007 3:41 PM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

You did more than well at every step.

However, I also know of families who were beaten even more if the husband/father thought that someone had found out, and no one's mind was changed. On an individual level I generally don't personally intervene unless I know I'll be around for what happens next and next and next. But I have called police on a few occasions.

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Monday, May 21, 2007 4:31 PM

SIRI

I re-read the original post which specifically suggested there seems to be very little compassion for the people of Iraq - before, during and after the US intervention/invasion/visitation whatever you want to call it depending on your point of view. The point was the lack of compassion. I find it interesting that the conversation has shifted in rather diverse paths. Are were debating whether or not compassion is a good thing in and of itself or the various forms it can take?

Siri

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Monday, May 21, 2007 5:08 PM

I was debating that sometimes when good men do compassionate action, there are good outcomes. Sometimes when good men do nothing, everything stays the same.

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Monday, May 21, 2007 5:08 PM

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Monday, May 21, 2007 6:37 PM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

In a general sense I have my own ideas of what is good and bad. But in the particular the good one may try to do can end up badly - even worse than doing nothing at all. And I have seen people really, really try to bring someone's life around - taking on personal risk, financial loss, and using up lots of their lives - all to no avail.

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Monday, May 21, 2007 7:42 PM

HKCAVALIER

Hey Mazaen,

I think the crucial difference between your heroic personal story and my hypothetical scenario is that you are the daughter in the first instance, and you are intervening in a situation which matches your own personal triumph very closely in the second. You were not simply a "good woman" but a thoroughly "knowledgible woman."

It reminds me of a story told about Mahatma Gandhi. A mother brings her son to Gandhi and tells him that her son won't stop eating sugar. Gandhi tells the woman to come back in a week and he will be able to help her. A week later, she brings her son back to Gandhi and Gandhi looks the boy straight in the eye and says, "Don't eat sweets!" The mother protests, "Bapu, if that is all you needed to say, why didn't you say that last week when we came the first time?" And Gandhi told her, "Last week I was still eating sugar."

As a geo-political metaphor, your story is much closer to a revolution, or a neighboring state that has just ousted a dictator helping, through non-violent aid and education, another state to do the same; than to American overseas adventurism.

I was responding to AURaptor's "good men" quote that seems to imply that all you need is to be a good man and to take action and evil will be thwarted. It's quixotic nonsense.

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Tuesday, May 22, 2007 9:18 AM

SIGNYM

I believe in solving problems, not sharing them.

Quote:
I often think of how terrible it would be to live in fear of sending children to school, or going out to buy groceries or sitting with a friend having coffee.

For a moment I thought you were talking about Cuday or South Central LA or Inglewood or Compton. My friend's neighborhood just has about five shootings in recent months. She no longer allows her girls to play in the front yard.

---------------------------------
Always look upstream.

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Tuesday, May 22, 2007 9:32 AM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

The problem with the US in Iraq is several-fold. First of all the US is no longer an occupying force. Absent that authority there is little the US can plan and carry out, either militarily or as aid. Second, the US no longer has a military function in Iraq. The bulk of the country has effectively broken up not just into two main camps (Shiite and Sunni) but into factions and tribes as well. There is no longer a clear 'insurgency' group. And third, sadly, the time for rebuilding and securing the country is long gone. The US and Iraq would have been FAR better off had the US spent time, money and lives in rebuilding rather than the complete waste of chasing the military phantoms of the catchphrase de jour.

The cure WOULD have been compassion, if it had been applied early.

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Tuesday, May 22, 2007 12:28 PM

BIGDAMNNOBODY

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
The US and Iraq would have been FAR better off had the US spent time, money and lives in rebuilding rather than the complete waste of chasing the military phantoms of the catchphrase de jour.

I hear this about Afghanistan as well and it makes me think. What good does rebuilding do if there is no security? Why build up the infrastructure when it will become a target? I'm all for developmental aid and the rebuilding process but security must come first IMHO.

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Tuesday, May 22, 2007 1:08 PM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

I think you have to gain the cooperation of locals piece by piece. Rebuild and establish a secure area where they can set up local organisation, and then give them guns. Call it muscular compassion.

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Tuesday, May 22, 2007 2:05 PM

WALKERHOUND

Quote:
Originally posted by Fremdfirma:

The most compassionate thing we can do is get the hell out of somewhere nobody wants us and let Iraq solve Iraqs problems - every minute of our meddling just prolongs the bloodshed by that very much and whatever puppet regime we prop up is gonna blowback on us again and start this whole goddamn idiotic cycle all over again.

Sometimes compassion is having the decency to leave well the hell enough ALONE.

ya know this is kind of an interesting take on "compassion". Let’s call it the: screw-you-guy's-i'm-going-home-call-me-who-ever's-the-last-man-standing approach.

Don’t get me wrong that was basically are response to Vietnam (hay all you Hmong and montinards (SP) just try and cover ya heads when thay come for ya….if that don’t work try just sort of going limp)>

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Tuesday, May 22, 2007 4:12 PM

Well, bear in mind that I was one of the ones saying we shouldn't do it, and that chaos would ensue.

Suppose I charged into your house and held you at gunpoint in order to change your diet to a more healthy one for you, to "help" you ?

You'd kinda resent that a lil bit, wouldn't you ?

You can NOT ram "Freedom" down someones throat on the barrel of a gun, you just can't do it, they don't want it, they won't keep it, and they'll resent you for smashing up their country in the process.

If the Iraqis wanted Saddam out bad enough, if enough of them wanted him gone - he'd have been gone, thus not enough of them had the desire or will to effectively eliminate him and his regime, it doesn't mean he was liked, it means they accepted him in light of whatever alternatives.

Look at the Shah, for example.. enough Iranians wanted him gone and were willing to take him and SAVAK on, and they kicked his ass right on out and replaced him with Khomeni, doesn't mean they all liked him neither, just preferred him to the available alternatives.

If *enough* people want you gone, your gone, one way or another, and no military or security is gonna prevent it when they are simultaneously overwhelmed and infiltrated by those who'd like to see the end of you - but it requires folk to be willing to do it, and a judgement on whether or not the amount of violence and bloodshed likely to result is worth being rid of them, and also whether whatever alternative is any better.

And the very worst idiocy is to go in and throw someone like that out without one single thought to what you plan to replace them with, chaos WILL ensure, civil war is guaranteed.

Iraqs problems were for Iraq to solve, not us, and every moment we are there just prolongs the bloodshed, and yes, there WILL be a lot of bloodshed, and yes, there's no denying our part in causing much of it, but to prolong it and remain unwanted is just salt in an infected wound, especially with our rapacious corporations fighting over their oil.

Whether it happens now or later, we're still responsible, and if we prop up some US-Friendly goon like Saddam or the Shah, or even Osama (who we created, more or less) it'll boomerang on us like it ALWAYS does and there will be another civil war when the Iraqis muster enough force to throw that one out, or they turn on us.

Why feed the cycle ? why piss on a country we've already wounded bad enough ?

Out, Now.

It's truly the kindest solution.

-Frem

It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

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Tuesday, May 22, 2007 6:34 PM

I have a vote and I'm not afraid to use it!

FremD

I agree. I thought Iraq was a phony war for unclean reasons. The US should never have attacked. But having attacked, the US should have had plans for rebuilding and security. Having failed that there is nothing more that can be done. The US can't fix what it broke. If left alone the Iraqis will be able to figure it out, given time.

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Tuesday, May 22, 2007 11:34 PM

Well, Rue, the situation in Iraq currently reminds me of an old tale, which I've been unable to find reposted, about a man with a wobbly table, who starts taking a file to the legs... until he eventually winds up with a wobbly stool... then a wobbly cutting board, and in the end, naught but a handful of sawdust - a parable of sorts about now sometimes not pickin at something is a wiser idea than incompetent attempts to fix it.

My own variation of that, is that a delicate situation is a lot like trying to hold onto a wet egg.. cup it gently, firmly, and there's no problem...
But you start to squeeze, and that egg gets mighty slippery, and the harder you squeeze, the slipperier it gets, and you keep going with that, and *POIT*, now what do you have ?

And right now we're squeezing harder and harder, with obviously predictable results, for those of us who live in the real world, unlike a certain poster who's beginning to strike me as deluded, deranged and so out of contact with reality that I'm not even gonna bother busting his chops no more.

A good example of well-meaning but idiotic foreign policy is sending food to south africa when they keep murdering the only people willing to run farms down there - stop sending it and either they'll learn REAL fast some tolerance, or they'll starve till they do.

A major problem with our foreign policy is it's shortsightedness, politicians want results, and want results they can hold up and play on while they're still in office, and thus go for the quick fix even when it will without a doubt cause greater problems down the road, and conversely, this administration wants to keep that war going as a bulwark against criticism, impeachment, and prosecution till they can get safely out of office and prolly out of the country with their ill-gotten gains.

You really think Cheney for example, isn't gonna run his ass to Dubai after he's done as veep ?

Just some random thoughts on the matter.

-Frem

It cannot be said enough, those who do not learn from history, are doomed to endlessly repeat it

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Wednesday, May 23, 2007 5:01 AM

HKCAVALIER

Quote:
Originally posted by rue:
I thought Iraq was a phony war for unclean reasons. The US should never have attacked. But having attacked, the US should have had plans for rebuilding and security. Having failed that there is nothing more that can be done. The US can't fix what it broke. If left alone the Iraqis will be able to figure it out, given time.

Hey Rue,

Just a thought: a country where a violent, insane dictator is routinely killing his own people on the slightest pretext is pretty broken.

How can you break something that was already so broken it was devouring itself?

I can't help thinking this whole "you broke it you buy it" meme is part of our nation's pathological control fantasy.

Seems to me that blaming ourselves for what's going on in Iraq is not unlike an incompetent doctor blaming himself for a patient's cancer that's already metastasized throughout the body. Yes, the doctor is incompetent, but this patient was beyond the care of even the best doctor in the world.

But we like the idea that the fate of the Iraqi people rests in our hands. We like to imagine we mighty Americans wield that kind of raw power in the world. The alternative--accepting our real helplessness, our powerlessness to change certain things in our world--seems tragically out of reach.

What our country has forgotten how to do, maybe since Lincoln--the only sane option left when someone we care about has a terminal illness--is to grieve. We never grieved the atom bomb and we never grieved Dresden. We never grieved for Vietnam, and we're not about to grieve for Iraq.

HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Wednesday, May 23, 2007 7:50 AM