Profound Clairvoyance or Blatant Obviousness?
Letter to Richard Dawkins - Error in the First Chapter of 'The God Delusion'?
Letter to Richard Dawkins
Error in the First Chapter of 'The God Delusion'?
Zahir Ebrahim
February 18, 2008.
© Project HumanbeingsfirstTM. Permission granted to use freely as per copyright notice.
Document ID: PHBFZE20080218 URL: http://humanbeingsfirst.org. | Print | PDF | Comment.
To: Mr. Richard Dawkins,
Subject: Error in The First Chapter of: The God Delusion(?) (http://richarddawkins.net/firstChapter,1)
Dated: February 18, 2008
Dear Mr. Dawkins,
While reading the first few paragraphs of the first chapter of this interestingly titled book, I came across the following assertion in the very first passages:
There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.
Carl Sagan, in Pale Blue Dot, wrote:
How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, 'This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant'? Instead they say, 'No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.' A religion, old or new, that stressed the magnificence of the Universe as revealed by modern science might be able to draw forth reserves of reverence and awe hardly tapped by the conventional faiths.
All Sagan's books touch the nerve-endings of transcendent wonder that religion monopolized in past centuries. My own books have the same aspiration.
The underlined assertion in question is one attributed to Carl Sagan above. And since Mr. Dawkins claims “My own books have the same aspiration”, and also, further on quotes “The Nobel Prize-winning physicist (and atheist) Steven Weinberg”, I thought it à propos to draw Mr. Dawkins' kind attention to what the sharer of the same Nobel Prize in Physics, the same year for the same topic, stated in the 'Banquet speech' after accepting his one-third of that much wonted glory as rationalists par excellence (http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1979/salam-speech.html):
On behalf of my colleagues, Professor Glashow and Weinberg, I thank the Nobel Foundation and the Royal Academy of Sciences for the great honour and the courtesies extended to us, including the courtesy to me of being addressed in my language Urdu.
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Pakistan is deeply indebted to you for this.
The creation of Physics is the shared heritage of all mankind. East and West, North and South have equally participated in it. In the Holy Book of Islam, Allah says
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“Thou seest not, in the creation of the All-merciful any imperfection, Return thy gaze, seest thou any fissure. Then Return thy gaze, again and again. Thy gaze, Comes back to thee dazzled, aweary.”
This in effect is, the faith of all physicists; the deeper we seek, the more is our wonder excited, the more is the dazzlement for our gaze.
The point being, the quoted verses (in bold) of the Qur'an above (67:3-4) do exactly what Carl Sagan presumably lamented and what Dawkins ostensibly shares in [Sagan's lament], by his own admission. I have also seen similar expressions of wonderment in the Vedas and the Bhagvat Gita (though I am unable to cite them off the top of my head at the moment).
It might help Mr. Dawkins argue his case better - if his sole intent is not to preach to the choir, or push an agenda whatever its merit, but to be a genuine 'truth' seeker, a scientist, a discoverer, before he can be an exponent – if he also became a bit knowledgeable of the subject matter in which he pontificates.
Most of Mr. Dawkins' objections, it appears, are drawn from the Judeo-Christian history and narrative of the subject matter, and as the above example from the Qur'an sufficiently proves, does not necessarily extrapolate (easily) to the Eastern conceptions of the subject matter (in their original exposition minus their cultural distortions and colored-manifestations due to which, in order to acquire sufficient credible expertise, one has to be minimally fluent in their original languages, in this case Arabic and Sanskrit, and read the original works).
Comprehension, as in all matters, and as in physics and biology, comes much later, and deepest comprehension comes, and certainly only after at least acquiring accurate factual knowledge of the subject matter that can be had, through much reflection. Deep comprehension is far more precious and contributory to human knowledge and understanding of 'how it all happened' than mere recitation of imposing data and voluminous facts and figures (which, as every good scientist knows, is often quite ephemeral and continually evolving in 'what it means').
Some have it, obviously, and quite enduringly, like Newton and Darwin, both scientist par excellence in their respective fields with an enviable factual mastery over their domains of articulation some of which still holds centuries later, leaving a lasting impact on others by their deeper insights; while others, mere chimps and wannabes, pick on populist themes in the culture du jour merely chasing the glory and notoriety their entire lives, and are mercifully forgotten the moment they are six feet under and food for the 'same' maggots. What perhaps distinguishes one from the other, minimally, is at least the former cannot be caught by a simple layman (like this humble plebeian) in such glaring ignorance of the subject matter in which one is so expertly pontificating.
As Abdus Salam quoted Einstein in the Nobel Lecture (http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1979/salam-lecture.pdf): 'I believe, however, that the following quote from Einstein’s Herbert Spencer lecture of 1933 expresses his, my colleagues’ and my own views more accurately. “Pure logical thinking cannot yield us any knowledge of the empirical world; all knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it.” ' And surely, even on such a subject matter as 'God', and 'how it all came about', of which at least the latter pertains to empirical world, 'all knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it.' Other than that, one's 'virtuous' speculations, either side of the divide, are as good as another's! Most call that 'beliefs'.
Unfortunately, since Mr. Dawkins 'speculations' fall short in the very first passages of the very first chapter that he has so generously made available for free on his website to whet the appetite of prospective readers, I fear I would have to pass this otherwise fantastically titled book and perhaps wait for his next, hopefully more carefully researched one that more accurately captures the factual reality of the domain over which he so authoritatively writes.
I am genuinely looking forward to seeing the world from a real rationalist's lens – being of considerably limited capabilities myself – if only I can find one (a teacher) who is genuinely knowledgeable, non-agendist, non-indoctrinated, and non-fundamentalist truth seeker. I define a 'fundamentalist' as one who has unexamined axioms - in any field. And I find that science, interestingly enough, is as populated by them as any other 'religion'. I hope Mr. Dawkins isn't among them.
And I further hope that Mr. Dawkins can recognize that the only strict scientifically tenable position on the subject matter – unless one claims to be the 'all knowing', 'perfect' in knowledge 'god' – is agnostic. That was the argument of Bertrand Russell (in his conversation with a priest broadcast on radio in New York, and reproduced in his essay compilation titled 'why I am not a Christian', where he conceded that his position can no more be 'proved' than his antagonists', and in that sense he was agnostic). The rest is a matter of personal beliefs, no differently for a theist, than for an a-theist. Unless one commences from Bertrand Russell's strictly scientific proposition – agnosticism – and compelling demonstrates either swing, one is as vacuous as any 'pir' in any 'religion'.
May I further, and lastly, humbly indicate a personal bias, that I don't perceive any Earthly 'orchestra' unable to play Mozart or Beethoven faithfully, being a compelling evidence for a super-rational Martian, of the non-brilliance or non-existence of Mozart or Beethoven. I hope that captures, and singularly refutes, the essence of many of the 'utilitarian' style arguments that I normally see agendist atheists propose in disfavor of religion. An honest atheist is an agnostic – and commences his discovery mission from that position with an open mind – and upon encountering such dismal 'orchestras' and abuse of 'music', instead of concluding that humanbeings don't know how to construct beautiful music, might rationally conclude that perhaps the fault might be with the Neanderthal 'orchestras' and that there is no way of asserting anything about the composer using 'orchestra's' cacophonies as evidence. Conversely, I found Richard Feynman's 'out of body' experiment in a sensory deprivation tank quite illuminating and insightful of his open mindedness to experiment in alternate forms of knowledge exploration/acquisition as a scientific paradigm, and its informal acceptance by the scientific world upon the mere word of a credible name in its field, with none dare calling him a 'lunatic', a 'fringe', or diminishing his stature as the foremost scientist of his era, illustrative. When Feynman finally noted his success by actually 'seeing himself float' in the unusual series of experiments, with these words “no known laws of physics were violated”, and almost every scientist I have ever met accepted it as a reality of Feynman's 'scientific' experience, then if that was a criteria of the most stellar scientific mind of the twentieth century to not invalidate a personal experience that no one else can 'scientifically' reproduce (as is normally understood by repeatability and reproducibility if known variables are similarly controlled), then I see little reason not to apply the same subjective yardstick to others with similar (or higher) credibility in their own domains as well. This is the realm claimed by 'prophets'. I don't, a priori, necessarily find any reason to deny subjective experience just because I can't experience it myself, especially when such experience is preceded with a lifetime of established credibility that has been amazingly documented. (Again, there is more to the world, and its history, and to its civilizations, and to its cumulative heritage and wisdom, than the Judeo-Christian world of Europe and its legatees in the North postulate, and is entirely evidenced in the assumptions and presuppositions that seem to have gone into constructing the thesis by Dawkins given his unfamiliarity with the subject matter from other civilizations). If I were to deny all personal testimonies and evidences, then, apart from the world's judicial system and eye-witnesses ending up in trouble, I would (if I were a physician) also end up denying others' headaches as well – and be sued up the wazoo – for I am reliably informed by my medical scientist and doctor friends that diagnosing a patient's headache remains an objective headache of the medical profession to this very day! The medical profession throughout the world takes it seriously when someone 'credibly' (i.e., non-hypochondriacally) complains of one – without there being any non-subjective, non-personal, diagnostic evidence for it. Just some food for thought that needs to be taken into consideration when forwarding arguments for non-existence and 'God Delusion' as genuine scientists rather than as exponents of personal agendas. Taken to its extreme of course, every 'Napoleon' in a mental hospital ought to be set free and sent to Corsica – which is why the notion of established 'credibility' of the 'testifier' is noted explicitly here. The evidence of a testifier is treated as 'valid' unless his or her 'credibility' can be convincingly demolished first – and those demolishing it are also put to the scrutiny to examine their hidden-agendas, manipulations, and objectivity – that is the civilizational norm and fair-play expected by any plaintiff in any fair court of law , or so I am told.
Since the harbingers of these 'religions' that preached the existence of 'god' in antiquity aren't here today, the least fair-play [in order to discredit their teachings in modernity du jour] would be to accurately know what is it that they have factually conveyed, in letter, in spirit, and in context in their own lingua franca of the times. A tall order, to say the least. [Examining their credibility in antiquity, and how such credibility might hold up with today's norms and yardsticks would obviously be the next step in order to adjudicate quackhood from sagehood.]
This is of course quite a different line of reasoning. Apart from it being relevant (as noted above, and only a fanatic would deny the truism that commanding detailed knowledge and understanding of the subject matter that one is choosing to refute is always useful in any discourse), it is also most useful (unless one's audience is one's own choir) for illuminating us poor plebeians who aren't endowed with huge 'scientific' minds and are often victims of up-bringing, culture, indoctrination, innate need for a 'big brother' watching over us, or equally innate susceptibility to search for 'VJ' (Start-Trek) – the 'god' gene – and unable to know all the modalities and nuances of the subject matter. To teach us of what we know not, as self-proclaimed experts, bring credibility as a 'testifier'. Show us that you even know of what you purport to refute – one humanbeing to another. Forget the 'ubermensch' scientist inside you and come down to our level to teach us – as did the exponents who taught the contrary – if you wish to credibly refute their legacy!
Feel free to carry this letter on your website if you deem it appropriate, or even mildly useful. I look forward to a more accurate, and perhaps also enlightened book in the future.
Kind Regards,
Zahir Ebrahim
the plebeian,
founder, project humanbeingsfirst.org
The author, an ordinary researcher and writer on contemporary geopolitics, a minor justice activist, grew up in Pakistan, studied EECS at MIT, engineered for a while in high-tech Silicon Valley (patents here), and retired early to pursue other responsible interests. His maiden 2003 book was rejected by six publishers and can be read on the web at http://PrisonersoftheCave.org. He may be reached at http://Humanbeingsfirst.org.
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Error in The First Chapter of: The God Delusion?
Perpetuating the fiction of Who Killed Benazir Bhutto
Letters to Editors On their perpetuating the fiction of Who Killed Benazir Bhutto!
Letters to Editors
On their perpetuating the fiction of Who Killed Benazir Bhutto!
Zahir Ebrahim
February 08, 2008.
Updated February 19, 2008.
© Project HumanbeingsfirstTM. Permission granted to use freely as per copyright notice.
Document ID: PHBFZE20080208 URL: http://humanbeingsfirst.org. | Print | PDF | Comment.
Letter to Editor, Dawn - “Indian official warns over Pakistan nukes”, February 19, 2008
On February 19, 2008, Dawn reported that: “The nature of the dangers which nuclear weapons pose has dramatically intensified with the growing risk that such weapons may be acquired by terrorists... The mounting concern over the likelihood that in a situation of chaos, Pakistan’s nuclear assets may fall into the hands of jihadi elements ... underscores how real this danger has become ... India has to be deeply concerned about the danger it faces”.
As usual, neither Pakistan's Foreign office, nor Pakistan's newsmedia appear to be adequately equipped to effectively deal with this propaganda mantra of 'loose nukes'. The rising crescendo of this mantra which will be dutifully harvested to eventually see NATO and UN troops taking over our 'nuke' safety to come 'save' us and the world, was fully dismantled in this rebuttal-report by Project Humanbeingsfirst: “Response to Zia Mian's 'How Not to Handle Nuclear Security'”, available at http://humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2007/12/response-toziamian-nuclear-security.html.
This report was forwarded to the Foreign Office through a retired military contact person, but that august Office does not seem to have benefited from it. Even almost two months later, right in the middle of Pakistan's most important election, indeed on election day itself, the matter surfaces again. The prime reason for this was also preemptively deconstructed in this stark warning to the nation by Project Humanbeingsfirst: “Wakeup to the grotesque reality of the 'Grand Chessboard'”, available at: http://humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2007/12/wakeup-grotesque-reality-grand.html.
All this analytical deconstruction of reality is of course under the premise that lonely 'Alice' is wide awake while the mainstream has been complicity sold the 'Mad Hatter's' reality at the 'unbirthday party' enthusiastically singing the 'imperial' war song without noticing its absurdity.
To understand just how absurd, the fact that the trumpeting elephants in the bedroom are also singing the 'imperial song' and remain unnoticed – as examined in these two analysis reports of Benazir Bhutto's assassination by Project Humanbeingsfirst: “Perpetuating the fiction of Who Killed Benazir Bhutto” at http://humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2008/02/perpetuating-whokilled-benazir-fiction.html, and “Who Killed Benazir Bhutto? In her own words!” at http://humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2008/02/who-killed-benazir-bhutto-herownwords.html, with all mainstream news sources choosing to ignore the subject matter entirely – is telling in and of itself.
This absurdity can further be witnessed in the opinion piece in the same edition of Dawn (US poll fears) by the Rand Corporation 'antiterrorism expert', Farhana Ali. While voices of 'empire' deftly spinning “imperial mobilization” as its 'war on terror' continually get prominence in the victims' own newspapers and are loudly echoed by its own politicians and ruling elite who claim to be more 'white' than the 'white man' willingly carrying more of its 'burden', contrarian voices of sanity able to penetrate through the mass deception are conveniently shut out.
Well, the proof of the pudding is in its eating. The following was clairvoyantly predicted by Project Humanbeingsfirst in its bold wakeup call to the Pakistani nation two months ago. While almost all pundits of Pakistani politics everywhere were crying hoarse of 'rigging' at the polls until today – the day after elections – Project Humanbeingsfirst seems to have been the only voice to have suggested to the contrary as far back as December 21, 2007 in its wakeup call:
“ ... This mantra of elections is replete with red herrings craftily synthesized to maintain Pakistan as a servile client-state in order to carry on with the same bold 'imperial designs' on the 'Grand Chessboard'. It is merely the rebottling of the same old wine in a different bottle. It will surely be legitimately conducted, with no apparent riggings, and duly approved by all the impartial international observers to give the artful elections an official international legitimacy.
It is quite immaterial who wins in these elections. The laws and the judiciary of the nation have already been reconstituted under the umbrella of 'emergency' to enable the nation to carry on unfettered in its primary objective of fighting the 'War on Terror' as an obedient patsy client-state – and hence to carry on in its own devilishly crafted suicide! ...”
And we see exactly the same come true today (in Dawn's report: US hopes polls lead to ‘civilian democracy’, and 'Heavyweights knocked out'). Hopefully nothing else that the rational and awakened mind prognosticates, will ever come true.
Zahir Ebrahim
Founder, Project Humanbeingsfirst.org, email: humanbeingsfirst@gmail.com
Letter to Editor, Dawn, February 14, 2008 – “How low can your government sink?”
In his weekly column of February 10, 2008, 'From crisis to crisis', the venerable Ardeshir Cowasjee, after making some banal but obviously true observations about the absence of “law and order” and how little our ruling elite has likely ever understood “democracy” such that they have not even risen to its level of “mediocrity” as the “worst form of government except for all others”, concluded with this question and assertion: “President General Musharraf, how low can your government sink? The dead will one day be heard.”
While I defer to the senior columnist's expert knowledge of the dead as I can't claim to know much about what if anything awaits them apart from mythologies that I have been taught, as an ordinary plebeian, I can however, humbly, but verifiably offer that we haven't seen the “low” yet. It is rather surprising that even as a veteran octogenarian who has seen all the machinations of superpowers, Cowasjee is unable to insightfully describe the 'hectoring hegemons' playing the 'great game' once again on the 'Grand Chessboard'. He is evidently unfamiliar with the computer science concept of 'Most Significant Bits' (MSB) in a vector of bits each of which contributes according to its station and position in a computer word. An MSB can trivially override the value of lower order bits just as easily as a 'one' in the thousandth place overshadows a 'one' in the tenth or unitary place in our familiar decimal arithmetic. For local national politics to be independently culpable for their failings, the machinations of higher geopolitics has to be diked (i.e., neutralized by building dikes). Identifying the true significance of various 'bits' is just as important for computer science as it is for social and political science. The West excels in both; we merely only mimic them without much comprehension either of state-craft, computer science, or any science for that matter (with few notable exceptions).
Well, the machinations to first create a crippled Pakistan in an entirely avoidable blood-bath as an easily manipulatable 'client-state' to check the advance of Communism - Jinnah's and the Muslims' genuine struggle for a separate nation notwithstanding – and then to maintain this status quo in deliberate equilibrium in which none of the original aspirations for a separate nation could be realized, to the present day of deliberate destabilization to squirrel away its “loose nukes” and to repartition the outmoded 'client-state' to better suit the new posturing in the new 'great game' on the 'Grand Chessboard', are known to any half-serious student of superpower geopolitics. Why such an understanding should remain notably absent in Ardeshir Cowasjee's columns as the 'MSB' of Pakistan's trauma and travails can perhaps only be addressed by him in further elaboration of his own question “how low can your government sink?”
In this plebeian's view, this 'wretched' nation is in its steep “descent into oblivion” (http://humanbeingsfirst.org). The assassination of Benazir Bhutto (as deconstructed in “Who Killed Benazir Bhutto? In her own words!” at http://humanbeingsfirst.org), and the clever red herring of the patsy 'al qaeeda' taking the fall not only for the assassination (as analyzed in “Perpetuating the fiction of Who Killed Benazir Bhutto” at http://humanbeingsfirst.org) but also a stolen “loose nuke” or two (as deconstructed in “Response to Zia Mian's 'How Not to Handle Nuclear Security'” at http://humanbeingsfirst.org), are all baby-steps in the nation's further destabilization that begs the mature analysis of veteran and seasoned thinkers like Cowasjee and privileged others who grace the columns of this august newspaper and get to have their say.
I look forward to either a convincing rebuttal of these deconstructions of manifest 'katputli tamashas', or Ardeshir Cowasjee and Dawn (in its editorials) courageously coming right out and saying what most plebeian Pakistanis today believe to be the truth of the matter – for that is indeed the only meaning of Democracy – what people believe, and what they want. This is really why it is the worst form of government, one that can at best, rise to plebeian norms, the norms that killed Socrates. For all other norms are thought to be far worse – or that is what the West, and Cowasjee, would like us to believe.
Even accepting what the 'White Man' has taught us in its 'la mission civilisatrice' – which we have gobbled up like no other 'brown sahibs' in history – the peoples neither have a voice, nor any genuine representation, never mind a 'social contract' according to which they agree to be governed according to the laws they approve and ratify. All of this is hogged by the ruling elite and their vassals who collaborate to construct 'Mafioso' contracts to govern the 'serfs' by, whose only eye is for the national “kitty” and unbridled power, and who deftly either 'manufacture consent' by bleating 'imperial' songs du jour in dutiful service as obliging 'client-state', or 'manufacture dissent' by purporting to be exposing the 'imperial' crimes. But in reality, in both cases, only cleverly deflect from the 'MSB' of the matter and thus inadvertently, or deliberately, misdiagnose the disease. Let either charge not be the fate of any honest exponent of truth.
Thank You.
Zahir Ebrahim
Project Humanbeingsfirst.org, Email: humanbeingsfirst@gmail.com
The author was educated in EECS at MIT, engineered for a while in Silicon Valley, and in these times relentlessly pursues the unmasking of 'hectoring hegemons' and their vassals as the 'baboons' of modernity attempting to pass off as hominids.
Letter to Editor, The News, February 14, 2008 – More patsies on the 'Grand Chessboard'
In its editorial of February 14, 2008, titled “Benazir's book”, the News opined: “While Benazir, in her book, touches on many critical concerns, including those of terror and relations between Islam and the west, the task of solving these problems is no easy one.” I would humbly venture to offer that such a relation is rather straightforward to fathom, and indeed solve, for those un co-opted few who understand the need for boogieman to promulgate 'empire'. Has this august newspaper become so memory challenged like the unfortunate victim herself that it cannot bring perspective to bear on the deception game being played on the 'Grand Chessboard'?
Not only was Benazir Bhutto made a patsy by the 'hectoring hegemons' as rationally deconstructed in “Who Killed Benazir Bhutto? In her own words!” (at http://humanbeingsfirst.org), but the entire nation, not to mention the world, is again being made a patsy by deliberately “Perpetuating the fiction of Who Killed Benazir Bhutto” (see http://humanbeingsfirst.org).
If the newsmedia cannot lend perspective to imperial monumental crimes against humanity and becomes so relegated to being obedient stenographers that they entirely mimic their masters (ruling elite) whom they appear to exclusively serve as if they were the TASS of yesterday, perhaps it's time to shut down the profession of journalism. If one cannot distinguish between the crimes of the 'pirates' and the 'emperors', cannot identify the cultivated puppets from the puppetmasters, are unable to apportion to each the guilt and culpability commensurate with their station, no reportage is perhaps better than being complicit in perpetuating mass deception for “imperial mobilization”. For then, at least, peoples' own commonsense comes into play for the inalienable right to self-defense! It is the sowing of confusion and obfuscation that enable any ruling-elite to carry-on as vassals and client-states of 'empire'.
And while I can quite agree with the editorial when it notes: “Most immediately, any government would have to find means to improve the precarious security situation in the country, and nothing that the PPP's leadership has said so far gives any indication that it has a viable strategy to achieve this”, the newspaper's inability to even grasp at the hidden in plain-sight reality of 'hectoring hegemons' deliberately destabilizing Pakistan to get at its 'loose nukes' (see “Open letter to a Pakistani General” at http://humanbeingsfirst.org) is just as inexplicable as the famously trumpeting elephant in the newlywed's bed that is often ignored until fait accompli. Then, ex post facto, all rush to write about it as quite obvious!
There are certainly other more harmless professions and honorable ways of making a living than being the purveyors of falsehood. Either the newspaper openly declares itself the new 'TASS' – the privatized extension of the State's apparatus – or minimally lends rational and historical perspective to at least its editorials by transcending the stenography school of thought and going back to the heyday of journalism that understood its overarching mission to be the watchdogs upon the corridors of power – to the 1960s, to I.F. Stone – a period which courageously recognized that “Deception is a state of mind - and the mind of the State” (James Jesus Angleton, former head of CIA Counter Intelligence, 1954-1974).
Zahir Ebrahim
Project Humanbeingsfirst.org, Email: humanbeingsfirst@gmail.com
The author was educated in EECS at MIT, engineered for a while in Silicon Valley, and in these times relentlessly pursues the unmasking of 'hectoring hegemons' and their vassals as the 'baboons' of modernity attempting to pass off as hominids.
Letter to Editor, The Nation, February 14, 2008 – Patsies on the 'Grand Chessboard'
In the Nation's article of February 13, 2008, 'A profound manifesto of her beliefs', a detailed unveiling of the late Benazir Bhutto's book was disclosed. Has this august newspaper become so memory challenged like the unfortunate victim herself that it cannot bring perspective to bear on the deception game being played on the 'Grand Chessboard'? Not only was Benazir Bhutto made a patsy by the 'hectoring hegemons' as rationally deconstructed in “Who Killed Benazir Bhutto? In her own words!” (at http://humanbeingsfirst.org), but the entire nation, not to mention the world, is again being made a patsy by deliberately “Perpetuating the fiction of Who Killed Benazir Bhutto” (see http://humanbeingsfirst.org).
If the newsmedia cannot lend perspective to imperial monumental crimes against humanity and becomes so relegated to being obedient stenographers that they entirely mimic their masters whom they appear to exclusively serve as if they were the TASS of yesterday, perhaps it's time to shut down the profession of journalism. If one cannot distinguish between the crimes of the 'pirates' and the 'emperors', cannot apportion to them the guilt and culpability commensurate with their station, no reportage is better than being complicit in perpetuating mass deception for “imperial mobilization”. For then, at least, peoples' own commonsense comes into play for the inalienable right to self-defense! It is the sowing of confusion and obfuscation that enable any ruling-elite to carry-on as vassals and client-states of 'empire'.
There are certainly other more harmless professions and honorable ways of making a living than being the purveyors of falsehood. Either openly declare yourselves the new TASS as the privatized extension of the state's apparatus, or lend rational and historical perspective to every report by transcending the stenography school of thought and going back to the heyday of journalism that understood its overarching mission to be the watchdogs upon the corridors of power – to the 1960s, to I.F. Stone – a period which courageously recognized that “Deception is a state of mind - and the mind of the State” (James Jesus Angleton, former head of CIA Counter Intelligence, 1954-1974).
Zahir Ebrahim
Project Humanbeingsfirst.org, Email: humanbeingsfirst@gmail.com
The author was educated in EECS at MIT, engineered for a while in Silicon Valley, and in these times relentlessly pursues the unmasking of 'hectoring hegemons' as the 'baboons' of modernity attempting to pass off as hominids.
Letter to Editor, Daily Times, February 08, 2008
The 'Hectoring Hegemons' insist on bringing to fruition the 'outlandishly plausible' pretext of how America will invade both Iran and Pakistan in 'self-defense'. In a report in Pakistan's largest English language daily, Dawn, on February 07, 2008, the following precious gem was noted: 'Defence officials told Congress on Wednesday that Al Qaeda is operating from havens in “under-governed regions” of Pakistan, which they said pose direct threats to Europe, the United States and the Pakistan government itself.' The report presciently continued, almost as if in sympathetic baby-step realization of the outlandish 'self-defense' scenario already laid out in this scribe's wakeup call (http://humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2007/12/wakeup-grotesque-reality-grand.html): 'Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, predicted in written testimony that the next attack on the United States probably would be launched by terrorists in that region.' Since the writing of this wakeup call, Benazir Bhutto (http://humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2008/02/who-killed-benazir-bhutto-herownwords.html) was assassinated only a week later to further the 'strategy of tension' in Pakistan, while simultaneously lending more substance to the boogieman of 'al-qaeeda' who was immediately blamed the very next day (or was purported to have claimed responsibility as noted by Daily Times, December 29, 2007).
The erstwhile Najam Sethi of Daily Times, displaying his own considerable forensic expertise, had noted in his own news analysis in the same edition at the time: 'Shortly before she returned to Pakistan, Daily Times reported a statement by Baitullah Mehsud, an Al Qaeda-Taliban warlord based in Waziristan, saying that he had trained “hundreds of suicide bombers” and was determined to kill Benazir Bhutto because she was an American agent.' He further went on to complain: 'But sections of the media sympathetic to Al Qaeda’s anti-American aims and objectives now quickly pounced on Daily Times and accused it of wilfully carrying an erroneous report.' And then, the veteran journalist laid out the same mantra as the hectoring hegemons: 'Why is it difficult to believe that the same Islamist network that tried to eliminate President Musharraf, Shaukat Aziz, Aftab Sherpao and Benazir Bhutto on October 18 may be responsible for her murder on December 27?'
I would humbly dare to suggest, that for the same reason as why the WMD's did not exist in Iraq, or more importantly, as there does exist, in bright plain-sight of those not unwilling to see, the blueprint for world conquest on the 'Grand Chessboard' that employs the same paradigms and boogiemen that have now been made existential with copious help from co-opted and willing vassals the world over, like the Daily Times. Not to be left behind in the race for who helped win the 'World War IV' the most, the Scotland Yard, who was asked to investigate the assassination, before they had even fully embarked on their forensic journey had already noted “Scotland Yard believes Al-Qaeda assassinated Benazir Bhutto” (Times Online, January 13, 2008). And today, February 08, 2008, the NY Times reported that the Scotland Yard has offered the JFK vintage 'lone gunman' theory, pinning the blame on the ubiquitous cavemen of 'al-qaeeda' sitting with their laptops and Klashnikovs in the Hindu Kush monitoring, controlling, and threatening the world's foremost armed to the teeth superpower and its allies.
In support of the Scotland Yard's conclusions, Pakistan immediately made 'two more' “important arrests”, as the Daily Times stenographically echoed, continuing: ' “It is a major breakthrough. These two men were involved in the assassination and they are from a militant group which is relatively new,” the official said. “Their tentacles are from the tribal region and Baitullah Mehsud” ' (February 08, 2008). The International Herald Tribune (February 08, 2008), perhaps more interested in journalism than stenography, aptly noted: “The findings support the Pakistani government's explanation of Bhutto's assassination in December, an account that had been greeted with disbelief by Bhutto's supporters, other Pakistanis and medical experts.” The following was added by IHT for additional forensic clarity into the matter: “It is unclear how the Scotland Yard investigators reached such conclusive findings absent autopsy results or other potentially important evidence that was washed away by cleanup crews in the immediate aftermath of the blast,”
Next stop, a 'terrorist' act as narrated by Zbigniew Brzezinski a year ago (February 01, 2007, quoted in the wakeup call) before the US. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Adm. Mullen before the US. Congress a year later (February 06, 2008, cited above). And rather unsurprisingly, the world's foremost investigative bodies will entirely reach the conclusion-space already outlined in this wakeup call no differently from the Scotland Yard's today. It is perhaps also why, no English language daily in Pakistan, or the New York Times, has bothered to publish this scribe's humble prognostication – they don't like real forensic clairvoyance and uncomfortable deconstruction of reality! Only hard ex post facto 'forensic' data, as gleaned by the Scotland Yard, before the news media can determine “all the news that's fit to print”!
What's it gonna take for the Pakistan's ruling establishment, and its press, to wakeup to the grotesque reality of simple arithmetic of '2 + 2 = 4' on the 'Grand Chessboard' and to stop rehearsing the asinine mantra of 'war on terror' against the fabricated 'al qaeeda'? An ex post facto narrative in ten-twenty years, a multi-million dollar book deal after the nation's 'descent into oblivion' * is complete, or the 'morning after'? Post fait accompli of yet another 'new pearl harbor', there is no 'red pill' – only victims! And further exaggerated wet dreams of “full spectrum dominance” of 'baboons' in suits and ties passing off as hominids!
Stand-up today as the genuine hominid and unmask the impostors, or live in the ruins of humanity tomorrow as pet-zombies of the 'baboons' – for only the early-dead would have mercifully remained human! What a model of civilizational-progress in the modernity du jour whereby the entire specie is in a steep 'descent into oblivion' due to a handful of parasites 'who wage wars by way of deception'. The vast majority, 99.9%, have been silenced [into apathetically] “looking from the side”, while their co-opted local ruling elite control all sources of power to become the major cheerleaders and circus clowns of the hectoring hegemons – uncannily forgetting that six feet under, the hungry maggots can't tell the difference!
* 'arresting the Descent into Oblivion' is the tentative title of this scribe's forthcoming book.
Zahir Ebrahim.
Founder, Project Humanbeingsfirst.org, email: humanbeingsfirst@gmail.com
Letter to Editor, Dawn, February 08, 2008
The 'Hectoring Hegemons' insist on bringing to fruition the 'outlandishly plausible' pretext of how America will invade both Iran and Pakistan in 'self-defense'. In a report in Pakistan's largest English language daily, Dawn, on February 07, 2008, the following precious gem was noted: 'Defence officials told Congress on Wednesday that Al Qaeda is operating from havens in “under-governed regions” of Pakistan, which they said pose direct threats to Europe, the United States and the Pakistan government itself.' The report presciently continued, almost as if in sympathetic baby-step realization of the outlandish 'self-defense' scenario already laid out in this scribe's wakeup call (http://humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2007/12/wakeup-grotesque-reality-grand.html): 'Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, predicted in written testimony that the next attack on the United States probably would be launched by terrorists in that region.' Since the writing of this wakeup call, Benazir Bhutto (http://humanbeingsfirst.blogspot.com/2008/02/who-killed-benazir-bhutto-herownwords.html) was assassinated only a week later to further the 'strategy of tension' in Pakistan, while simultaneously lending more substance to the boogieman of 'al-qaeeda' who was immediately blamed (the very next day, as reported in Dawn, December 29, 2007) for the former Pakistani Prime Minister's grotesque assassination.
The Scotland Yard, who was asked to investigate the assassination, before they had even fully embarked on their forensic journey had already noted “Scotland Yard believes Al-Qaeda assassinated Benazir Bhutto” (Times Online, January 13, 2008). And today, February 08, 2008, the NY Times reported that the Scotland Yard has offered the JFK vintage 'lone gunman' theory, pinning the blame on the ubiquitous cavemen of 'al-qaeeda' sitting with their laptops and Klashnikovs in the Hindu Kush monitoring, controlling, and threatening the world's foremost armed to the teeth superpower and its allies. In support of the Scotland Yard's conclusions, Pakistan immediately arrested “Two very important terrorists” (as reported today in Dawn, February 08, 2008). The International Herald Tribune (February 08, 2008) noted: “The findings support the Pakistani government's explanation of Bhutto's assassination in December, an account that had been greeted with disbelief by Bhutto's supporters, other Pakistanis and medical experts.” The following was added by IHT for additional forensic clarity into the matter: “It is unclear how the Scotland Yard investigators reached such conclusive findings absent autopsy results or other potentially important evidence that was washed away by cleanup crews in the immediate aftermath of the blast,”
Next stop, a 'terrorist' act as narrated by Zbigniew Brzezinski a year ago (February 01, 2007, quoted in the wakeup call) before the US. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Adm. Mullen before the US. Congress a year later (February 06, 2008, cited above). And rather unsurprisingly, the world's foremost investigative bodies will entirely reach the conclusion-space already outlined in this wakeup call no differently from the Scotland Yard today. It is perhaps also why, no English language daily in Pakistan, or the New York Times, has bothered to publish this humble prognostication – they don't like real forensic clairvoyance and uncomfortable deconstruction of reality! Only hard ex post facto 'forensic' data, as gleaned by the Scotland Yard, before they determine “all the news that's fit to print”!
What's it gonna take for the Pakistan's ruling establishment, and its press, to wakeup to the grotesque reality of simple arithmetic of '2 + 2 = 4' on the 'Grand Chessboard' and to stop rehearsing the asinine mantra of 'war on terror' against the fabricated 'al qaeeda'? An ex post facto narrative in ten-twenty years, a multi-million dollar book deal after the nation's 'descent into oblivion' is complete, or the 'morning after'? Post fait accompli of yet another 'new pearl harbor', there is no 'red pill' – only victims! And further exaggerated wet dreams of “full spectrum dominance” of 'baboons' in suits and ties passing off as hominids! Stand-up today as the genuine hominid and unmask the impostors, or live in the ruins of humanity tomorrow as pet-zombies of the 'baboons' – for only the early-dead would have mercifully remained human! What a model of civilizational-progress in the modernity du jour whereby the entire specie is in a steep 'descent into oblivion' due to a handful of parasites 'who wage wars by way of deception' while the vast majority, 99.9%, remain silently bespectating “looking from the side”!
Zahir Ebrahim.
Founder, Project Humanbeingsfirst.org, email: humanbeingsfirst@gmail.com
The author, an ordinary researcher and writer on contemporary geopolitics, a minor justice activist, grew up in Pakistan, studied EECS at MIT, engineered for a while in high-tech Silicon Valley (patents here), and retired early to pursue other responsible interests. His maiden 2003 book was rejected by six publishers and can be read on the web at http://PrisonersoftheCave.org. He may be reached at http://Humanbeingsfirst.org.
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Perpetuating the fiction of who killed Benazir Bhutto -