Editorial:
Bombs, BinLaden, and BSPOCONO BIKER NEWS
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Editorial:
Bombs, BinLaden, and BS
This was written over 2 years ago but the truth doesn't change!
by Clanmother 9/13/01
I’m sure that none of you need to be reminded what happened on September the eleventh. What blows my mind is that any intelligent person could say “I never expected anything like that” or “How could anyone do something like that”. It just makes me want to tell them to go back to watching MTV or Pro Wrestling and leave reality to the Real People. The only thing that surprises me is that the loonies couldn’t get their hands on a nuclear device. What so many people are not willing to face is the fact that their lives mean nothing to a fanatic.
Throughout history there have been fanatics with warped world-views who have caused vast numbers of people to suffer and to die only to forward a belief. Mohammed of Mecca led his warriors on the first jihad (holy war) to win the Arabian Peninsula for Islam at the point of a sword, slaying any Jew or Christian that got in the way. A few centuries later Crusaders from Europe invaded that region to reintroduce Christianity at the point of a sword. But long before those events Joshua led his Hebrew army into Canaan slaughtering every Canaanite man woman and child in the name of God. In Renaissance times the Turks began to overrun Greece, the Balkans, and Central Europe to spread the faith of Islam at the point of the sword. This is when Prince Vlad Tepesch (Dracula) became a Romanian national hero. At one time the Islam controlled world was as far into Europe as to include Vienna before being driven back again at the point of the sword.
All this still goes on. What do you think the conflicts in the Balkans, the Philippines, Indonesia, India, and East Africa are all about? Three great religions have grown out of the simple faith of a Semitic shepherd named Abram who came from Ur of the Chaldes in ancient Mesopotamia: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
Anyone who studies those religions will tell you that the two principles that they share are “monotheism” and “exclusivism”. All believe in only one almighty God (Jehovah, Yahweh, or Allah). And all believe that only followers of their particular religion have the excusive right to go to Heaven or Paradise and thus spend eternity with their God. As long as believers of these faiths accept the believers of the others as believers though perhaps a bit eccentric there are no problems. But every so often a group of militant fundamentalists decide that anyone who doesn’t worship God in the exact correct manner is an abomination and must be forcibly converted or destroyed. Then you get a holy war. Islam is unusually susceptible to this because its founder was in fact a warlord of sorts who led his “holy warriors” on a campaign of military conquest, setting up theocratic governments, thus setting a theocratic precedent. Judaism and Christianity on the other hand have not usually been as demanding of clerical rule of society. America’s concept of separation of church and state is sheer anathema to Islamic fundamentalists.
In today’s world of haves and have-nots, the have-nots want to know what it is that keeps them from being as successful as people in other lands. In the Middle East the oil rich sheiks ride in Lear jets and limos. They have chateaus in San Moritz and Monaco. They eat caviar for breakfast while bathing in gold plated bathtubs. Meanwhile their fellow Arabs who are not oil land owners live in fly infested shacks and toil long hours in the hot sun just to survive. The sheiks who own the media tell the people that they are poor because the Americans and Europeans are exploiting them by taking their natural resources for next to nothing and not sharing their wealth.
Then come the fundamentalist whackoes who tell the poor people that we can be rich if we can destroy America. They say that if America collapses into chaos and economic depression, Europe and Asia will follow. Then no one will buy the oil from the sheiks. She sheiks will abdicate their thrones, the politicians of the West will resign in disgrace, and Islamic theocracies will emerge to run the governments of the world equitably under Islamic law, and everybody will live happily ever after.
They point to the success of the Mujahedein warriors over the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s, and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet economy. This is obviously a delusional world-view, but it is working to recruit thousands of young Muslim men every year to the cause of world Fundamental Islamism. It feeds on ignorance, paranoia and hate just like the various domestic Aryan and Afro centric hate groups do, but this is much bigger, and thus much more dangerous.
Most of us bikers don’t have our heads buried in the sand or the TV set. The simple act of riding outside of a cage puts us into more intimate contact with the real world. We need to get in touch with others and with our political suits and make sure they don’t make us as big an ass as the Soviet Union was in the 80’s. The best weapon that we have is the truth. Along with aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf we should have TV station and radio station ships broadcasting the truth to the poor slobs in the Middle East who are treated like mushrooms. Their government owned TV and radio stations keep them in the dark and feed them bullshit. Maybe when they learn that the real reason they’re poor is because their sheiks are squandering their national resources on private jets and pricey hookers, they might think differently. Perhaps if they see scenes of life in America where Moslems work and play along with people of other faiths and share in the same lifestyle they may not be so paranoid or hateful.
You have a PC or MAC; use it. Check foreign sites like BBC, (Itar Tass charges a fee), the Register, Haaretz, and others. Learn about your world and tell others, co-workers, friends, business associates, customers. Lets wake up America before these screwballs trick us into going the way of the USSR to financial ruin. The sad truth is that they wouldn’t win even if we were ruined. Nobody would win. It would only hasten the onset of the next “Dark Age”.
OPED: ie. YOUR COMMENTS ON THE EDITORIAL ETC.
On Mon, 12 Nov 2001 17:38:23 Rick wrote
Speaking of the military... I must say that we do truly need our defense
forces and people are always willing to join up and fight for a good cause,
usually toward attempting to create peace in the world - but how well has that
really worked out in the course of history?
Well, one thing's for sure, most religions, including Christianity don't
believe in killing another person. However,
our government over-rules the laws set by the Gods who people worship and state
that it's "ok to kill the enemy in time of war for the good of all
mankind." Guess I can't argue
with that... after all, we can't just let the bullies and terrorists of the
world walk all over us, so we don't have too much of a choice, do we?
They won't listen to reason and are guided by their own twisted religious
beliefs.
Just think...at one point in time, little baby Adolph Hitler and little baby Osama bin Laden lie cradled in their mothers' arms just as all of us had at some point... so, what happened to these innocent little children as they grew up and turned into power-hungry men who brain-washed thousands of people and terrorized entire nations? Who knows? I just hope they both burn in a place like Hell for eternity
Rick
Remember Rick; never wish for anything YOU may not want! I'll just let those in the next world decide what to do with Osama's spirit.
I remember hearing and reading things like:
"Indian giver"
"The only good Indian is a dead one"
"A Negro is equal to 3/5 of a man but a red savage isn't human at all."
"What happened to the heathen savages doesn't matter"
and best of all
"If they had
only learned to be good civilized Christian people they'd never have been put on
reservations"
Everyone sees history
from his own perspective. The Taliban focus on the time of "The
Crusades" starting in 1096, but they act as if their own forefathers didn't
provoke them by conquering Christian Jerusalem in 1076 then routinely robbing
European religious pilgrims.
This is no different
than the Americans blaming the Native people for defending themselves from
invasion, enslavement and genocide. The Euro-Americans invented ethnic
cleansing. In 1500 AD the entire continent of North America was fully populated;
everywhere you went, some tribe lived there. Europeans HAD NO RIGHT to kill them
and push them out. The first nation to use biological warfare was Spain.
Hernando Desoto methodically placed smallpox infected soldiers and sailors in
diverse native villages, and asked the natives to care for them. Entire nations
were wiped out by this alone. Nearly four centuries later smallpox infected
blankets, taken that day from dying soldiers, were given to Indians "as a
token of America's good intentions".
Original peoples’
child rearing methods are notoriously tolerant and forgiving. Perhaps if they
had been stricter and more brutal it would have prepared the generations for
what was to come.
Huge numbers of
American Indians have served in the US military and many were wounded and killed
for the freedoms that we now enjoy. America didn't really deserve it, but the
Indians are pragmatic enough to see the US government as the best and most
stable regime to live under in this modern world, “the lesser of evils”.
Now as you ponder the
truth about history compared to what you were told in school, imagine what total
bullshit must have been planted in the heads of Pushtun youth in Afganistan and
Pakistan, especially in those religious schools sponsored by Saudi Arabia.
Americans are
learning to face up to the truths of the past. It is a growing and wizening
experience. The proliferation of television worldwide is educating people. We
can only hope for the day "The History Channel" and its kind are
available and watched in every corner of the globe. We can only hope and we must
pray that the human species educates itself before it exterminates itself.
Clanmother
LETTERS:
To the Editor:
Great web site...has everything I need to know about what's going on!! I'm pretty wiped out right now ,
so
I'll go through the whole thing tomorrow night...
From Coyote, via Email
************
I
like the website's insightful articles and information exchange capabilities. I
just wanted to commend you on a fine site. One word of advice though...Tone down
the colors of the background screens, they're killing my eyes when I stare
at them too long :) Other than that...BRAVO!
See
ya in the dungeon!
Frank C
Thanks Frank.
We went round and round on the background color issue last over a year ago. It used to be that bright green was the background for every page. We compromised and kept it for a few here and there. Most pages you will probably agree are easier to live with. My philosophy is that POCONO BIKER NEWS is different from other biker e-zines and thus it should look different than the other black or red and black or black and blue biker sites. The native in me screams out for color. Let those other sites do the Dracula thing, we are alive and loving life here. Anyway when you click on our site, the first thing you see loading is usually the background color and you know you're here and welcome among your friends and neighbors.
The "Dungeon" awaits, Be Cool
Clanmother
************
On Sat, 6 Oct 2001 14:29:24
Lisa S wrote:
HEY CLANMOTHER, DON'T REMEMBER HOW I FOUND YOUR SITE BUT I'M GLAD I DID. I'M IN MY VERY LATE 30's, AND JUST BOUGHT MY 4TH BIKE. MY DAD HAD ME RIDING SINCE I WAS KNEE HIGH. FIRST A HONDA 50,THEN A 125 TO A 400 AND AFTER MANY YEARS OF BIKELESSNESS MY BOYFRIEND LET ME TAKE HIS NEW HONDA 750 FOR A RIDE, [WHICH WAS A MISTAKE] WELL ALL SAID AND DONE THAT BIKE IS NOW MINE AND HE BOUGHT ANOTHER NEW ONE, A HONDA 1100. NOW I KNOW THEIR NOT HARLEYS, BUT WE LOVE THEM JUST THE SAME. I HAVE YOUR SITE IN MY FAVORITES SO I CAN KEEP POSTED ON THE RIDES THAT ARE GOING ON AROUND MY AREA.[LEHIGHTON-POCONO'S] KEEP THE NEWS COMING AND WE'LL KEEP CHECKING BACK WITH YOU. LISA
Thanks for the vote of confidence Lisa.
Clanmother
************
Twenty eight years ago I went to a hillclimb race in the Poconos.
Do these events still go on?
When/where can I find a hillclimb race? Thanks.
meg******, via email
Dear Meg
Drag races at Zinc City M.C. have been described as a "hill climbs" as it is on dirt and all uphill.
(Readers with suggestions are invited to put in their two cents regarding hills and hillclimbs, or anything else.)
Letters is a relatively new feature, but how is it that when I meet you guys at gas stations, stores, etc. you are full of great information, tips, stories, and even disagreement at times when I'm in a rush or no paper or pencil is handy? Learn how to use the email feature on your PC , Mac or Web TV? Get with it y'all; be heard!
Click on the link to Email your Letters to: pocbikr@netscape.net