some essays

by slog

Posted to Utterances on 2003-11-26 10:38:00

Josh Moore

Find a group that has used the P.E.R.T. Method of problem solving and tell me why the Dewey system would work better.

Well I’m not sure if it was exactly the PERT system that was used and I will assume the motives given were sincere—the Bush administration and the war on terror-instead of thinking of the root causes of terror (political instability, hunger, extremism) they have launched a campaign that espouses the methods of our ‘enemies’. Locking people up without trial or counsel, warrant less searches, occupation of foreign countries, reckless violence, unilateral terror bombings—do these sound like the actions of freedom loving ‘democracy’ or more like the actions of a fascist state?


The 9/11 bombings certainly did merit some kind of reaction. Even the Dalai Lama has gone as far as saying that the first invasion probably was justified. However, the whole world (excluding a few wonderful democracy loving places like Croatia) could not and will not excuse our actions. 3,100 lives is a great number—but far more lives have been taken and I do not believe that an American life is any greater then any other life-being a Buddhist, humanist, and Catholic.


What was the cause of the war in Iraq? G.W. says that it was because of the threat of future terror. Now, nearly a year after the first bombs have been dropped—our Fuehrer tells us that Iraq had link to the 9/11 attacks and the evidence for weapons of mass destruction is scant to non-existent. This is much to chagrin of people like Toby Keith and pickup driving Confederate flag bearing rebels.

If I was the pseudo-democratically elected leader of the ‘free world’ I would have asked myself five things according to Theravada philosophy

1.) What is the situation?
2.) What is its history?
3.) What is good about it?
4.) What is bad about it?
5.) How do we avoid the evil and maximize the positive?


Apparently G.W. was never a high school debater—as any champ level team can tell you—economic growth, not sanctions and certainly not the chaos caused by war end social problems and extremism. Money=education=democracy. Apparently G.W. (whom I believe is a very sincere if misguided man) was hoodwinked into thinking that bombing Iraq would somehow save American lives in the long run. Let me examine the process via the PERT method—solution bombing Iraq will prevent terror—at least that’s what we were told.

Think global act local does not mean call NORAD and tell them to scramble the bombers. An eye and for an eye will make everyone blind. The solution for the problem (terror) was so incredibly garbled that a whole new solution is needed. Perhaps if Mr. Bush like Mr. Clinton before him would have told the truth (bombing Iraq will equal huge profits for companies my administration has personal interest in) the American people would have been more accepting. IE solution—Halliburton will make money if they can do exclusive business in the world’s 2nd greatest known reserves of oil and explained it benefited me and you and everybody and the number 42 because of the flawed concept of trickle down economics it would be a success instead of rapidly becoming a 2nd Vietnam.

Apparently G.W. never figured out what the situation was-let alone was good and bad it and how maximize the good and mitigate the negative.



Explain how conflict can help a group.

I doubt if you are familiar with Hey’s ‘Europe and the Jews’ a highly suggested reading. You see despite the label put on the regime of Adolph Hitler—the notion that the Jews are a group worthy of pogroms and racial prejudice has a much longer history then the Beerhall Putsch, going as far back the 3rd century if not earlier. J.P. Sartre suggests that all white European Christians are just as much capable for the Holocaust as us blonde haired blue eyed Teutons. History has noted that the West refused the entry of millions of Jews who otherwise would have been spared the Death Camps and forced labor and that the Nazi regime offered them at $10 head for ransom but the West once again refused to pay. With that, Kesserling, Hitler, Himmler, and the rest felt that the ‘free world’ did not concern itself with God’s chosen people.

Anti-Semitism benefited the Nazi’s because it offered a scapegoat for the military, social, and economic woes of the Versailles treaty. Now a whole people could be blamed for the failures of the Imperial Army and Navy; the widespread hunger and humility forced upon them by the United Kingdom and France.

Hitler’s anti-Semitism took it roots while he was a student in Vienna. Influenced by radical right philosophy of the time and the mayor of Vienna he began to imagine that he could pick a Jew out of the crowd by merely looking at him. Little did he know that many years later Death Head SS units would be taking the blonde blue children of the Jews and the Slavs to adopt and make good little Reich’s kinder.

Nazi racial philogy was a surface based and was not truly racist—it was a system to blame a non-existent ‘race’ for the problems of a nation that far less homogenous and Aryan then the Reich’s leaders even choose to believe. Hitler’s dream was mostly centered on what probably could be considered the most ‘racially pure’ population of 20th century German-the south areas of Schwabia and Bavaria. The home of us tall (most Germans were short at the time) blonde blue High German speaking peoples. Of course, they could blame Jewish blonde and impurity for the corroded nature of the rest of the populace.

The Jews were not to blame. The far majority of those killed were not rich diamond cutters or bankers-those people fled for the States and Palestine. Most (90%) were poor Polish peasants. Blaming the Jews for Germans economic woes was a misconception and the economic advisors to the Nazis knew this.

By creating a conflict with another group the Nazi’s furthered their agenda. Knowing that this racism was not based on reality was immaterial. Just like any other situation if you can create a conflict and blame someone else for your own problems your bound to come out as a winner—especially if the rest of the world is giving it’s own tact approval.