Friday, January 9, 2015

Our reality may NOT be real ("The Principle")

Pat Macpherson, Seth Auberon, Pfc. Sandoval, Dhr. Seven, Wisdom Quarterly; Rick DeLano (ThePrincipleMovie.com, facebook), coasttocoastam.com, Jan. 7, 2015; Forward Boldly
Artist’s conception of an Earth-like planet orbiting an evolved star with a stunning “planetary nebula.” Earlier in its life, this planet may have been like one of the eight newly discovered worlds orbiting in the habitable zones of their suns (darkgovernment.com).
(ThePrincipleMovie.com) "The Principle" Twitter: @PrincipleMovie, #AreYouSignificant. It will come to the AMC in LA and OC then branch out to other outlets. (See the movie).
 
Where in the world [system] is Earth (Bhumi)?
Everyone knows that the ancient idea of Earth in the center of the universe is a ridiculous holdover from a superstitious age, right? Modern science has proven that we are nothing special.

We inhabit, in Carl Sagan's words, "an insignificant planet of a humdrum star lost in a galaxy tucked away in some forgotten corner of a universe in which there are far more galaxies than people."

Well, prepare to be shocked! "The Principle" is destined to become one of the most controversial films of our time. It brings to the public the astonishing results of recent large-scale surveys of our universe -- surveys that disclose unexpected evidence of a preferred direction in the cosmos, aligned with our Earth.

"The Principle" includes narration by Kate Mulgrew ("Star Trek Voyager," "Orange is the New Black," "Ryan's Hope"), stunning animations by BUF Compagnie Paris ("Life of Pi," "Thor"), and commentary from prominent scientists including George Ellis, Professor Michio Kaku, Julian Barbour, Lawrence Krauss, and Max Tegmark.
 
Attempt to get to Space X cheap.
Tracing the development of cosmology from its inception (Stonehenge, the Great Pyramid at Giza) through Copernicus' great revolution, to the astonishing new discoveries of Earth-oriented alignments in the largest structures of our visible universe, "The Principle" brings us face-to-face with the question and the challenge, What does this mean for the future of humankind on Earth?

NOW PLAYING! (AMC LA, OC, Seattle)

Maya: The "Illusion"
Dhr. Seven, Amber Larson, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly, BUDDHISM IN A NUTSHELL

Well of course our reality is NOT real. It is maya, illusiory. How so? Three things appear in every obvious way to be true and reliable such that we can take them for granted. But things are not as they seem.

Joy! It's all unreal, a dream. Wake up! (AS)
One, things seem stable, continuous, lasting, more or less permanent. In fact, they are radically (at their root, at the most fundamental level) impermanent. This does not mean they eventually fall away as all things must. It means they are falling apart, hurtling toward destruction, at every moment. They are ceaselessly phasing through three submoments -- arising, turning, and falling -- within each moment. They pass away at every moment. Nothing survives the moment, but what replaces it at the very next moment is nearly identical, nearly. It is not identical. It does not have continuity. It does not have identity. Therefore, all "things" (conditioned formations) are impermanent (anicca).

Joy, joy, jump for joy! Having realized it's all impermanent and disappointing, what a marvel that it's an illusion, a dream to wake up from. Enjoy it then wake up (epicparent.tv).
.
Two, things seem able to satisfy, to please, to bring fulfillment, to be pleasing. In fact, they are unsatisfactory, lack the ability to fulfill us. They are disappointing. This does not mean they eventually will get tired and old. Striving for them in their absence is distressing. Getting them is disappointing. Worrying about losing them as we attempt to cling to them is unpleasant. And losing them -- or realizing we never really had them under our control because they, too, are impermanent -- is unpleasant, painful, disappointing, a cause of woe and lamentation. Even getting them, getting our heart's desire, to find out they did not, would not, could not fulfill us, that has got to be the worst thing of all -- not that we will know it, because the mind/heart will quickly switch to something else to crave and hanker after. All things, all conditioned phenomena, are unsatisfactory (dukkha). [But there is one thing, that is, one "unconditioned element" the Buddha called nirvana, which is not a "thing" and not like any other thing, so it is difficult to conceive. The Buddha called it the end of all woe, but one knows-and-sees it only by way of enlightenment or bodhi).]
  • WARNING: This third ultimate truth is dangerous because, without wisdom, it is easy to mis-grasp. To grasp it incorrectly is like taking hold of a snake by the tail. It will quickly spring back to bite. The Dharma misunderstood is similarly dangerous because it will drag one -- by entering a thicket of rong views and speculations -- rather than liberate one as the Buddha intended. Conventional truth is not ultimate truth and vice-versa. Why? What is ultimately true in physics about matter, that it is mostly empty space, does not matter when it is coming at you. Step aside. For to say "I did not step aside because there, ultimately, there was no 'I' and nothing to fear from 'mostly empty space' will be ridiculous and a foolish misunderstanding of what is being said and what is not being said by Buddhism or physics. Buddhist physics, moreover, has much to say about the impersonal qualities of materiality, spoken of as "ultimate materiality" described and analyzed in terms of particles (kalapas) and mind-moments (cittas), which ultimately seem less physical than conceptual or interdependent with perception.
Zen zero or ensō (Stanoin/etsy.com/WQ)
Three, things seem personal, I, me, and mine. In fact, all things are impersonal, lack essence, are phenomenal. We take forms (materiality), sensations, perceptions, mental formations (such as volitions), and above all consciousness to be "self," our ego, our personality, our "soul." We do not see these things as they really are, falling away, unable to satisfy, and not-self. What?! This is the biggest shock. One could reason it. But it must be seen directly, experienced directly, for such a realization to lead to spiritual liberation, the end of treading this painful and otherwise endless round of rebirth and disappointment. Things are not-self (anatta).

Kwan Yin as Avalokitesvara (Heart Sutra)
In what is arguably the most famous Buddhist discourse, at least of the Mahayana school of Buddhism, the Heart (of Wisdom) Sutra, which is the epitome of the "Perfection of Wisdom" (Prajna Paramita, Sanskrit Prajñāpāramitā) literature, it is said: "Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone altogether beyond, enlightenment, yes!" What did Avalokiteshvara (a deva whose name means "One Who Looks Down From On High," who came to be regarded as Kwan Yin, Goddess or Bodhisattva of Mercy) just realize and explain to the Buddha's chief male disciple foremost in wisdom before uttering this paean? The realization was this ultimate truth: These five things, these "heaps" or "aggregates" or "groups" (form, feeling, perception, formations, consciousness) are empty, that is, devoid of self. They are impersonal. O, what an awakening. (Due to ignorance, most beings who hear this think it is the worst news ever. But when enlightenment dawns, one sees things just as they are, and the Truth sets one free).

Buddhist cosmology: Earth and space
There are worlds (exoplanets) upon worlds upon worlds in space, and gov'ts know it.
 
Buddhist cosmology: Countless worlds, 31 planes
Buddhism, like modern Hinduism (along with earlier Vedic Brahmanism) and Jainism, have very sophisticated views of space (akasha) and space worlds (akasha deva lokas). This Earth, known as Bhumi (like Tierra, "ground," Gaia) is only one world (loka) in the Human Plane in the lowest of Three Spheres, the Sensual Sphere. There are many deva worlds in addition to other planets with "humans" or humanoids who are not earthlings. The devas, or "shining ones," inhabit this sphere in celestial or "heavenly" worlds which are very advanced technologically and able to visit Earth and take humans there, as happens.

The other two spheres -- the Fine Material (Rupa) and Immaterial (Arupa) -- are harder to conceive. They can be visited but, moreover, one can be reborn there as a being among those beings.

In the long course of samsara, the "wandering on" through countless worlds, one has likely already been reborn in nearly all 31 planes, with the exception of a few exclusive worlds known as the "Pure Abodes" (suddhavasa). One has not been there because one has not yet entered upon the stages of enlightenment (from stream-entry to arhatship) or overcome the fetters that bind one to this realm in this sphere.
.
UFO monument built by ETs or with knowledge of ETs at Cambodia's Angkor Wat bas relief showing a war in "heaven," that is, in space (samcambodiatours.yolasite.com)
.
ETs and UFOs called "myths"
Above the exalted sensual worlds are fine-material worlds inhabited by greater, more glorious devas, brighter, living longer lives, enjoying pleasures greater than those found in sense strand worlds. We would regard these worlds as invisible due to the fineness of the material of which they are composed. Over and above that are rarefied worlds known as "immaterial" or "formless" planes, beyond physicality even of the subtlest sort. This is nearly impossible for us to think about because everywhere else body and mind are interdependent and inseparable, as illustrated in the analysis of the Five Aggregates of Clinging (an explanation of who we are as living beings or "souls," selves, egos, personalities).

There are beings on Earth who are invisible to our normal faculty of vision, visible with the "divine eye" (dibba cakkhu), pineal gland or third eye. Devas (sylphs, woodland spirits), creatures (overseen by the Four Great Sky Rulers of the four directions of the sky), monsters, ghosts, hellions, inimical spirits, and others. There are many more, shapeshifters and light-emitting beings, who live in other worlds even within this solar system and galaxy. Read about some of them in The 31 Planes of Existence.

Commentary
Get your head out of the sand! Face reality.
Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal editors are not geocentrists (believers that Earth is at the center). Rahter, we think science has much to answer for and must stop acting like a faith, a religion with its white-labcoat-clad "priests" who feel they are above reproach and cannot have their work questioned, even when what they at times publicly claim (like inventing dark matter to get their equations to work) is foolish and demonstrably wrong. But no one gets beyond the gatekeepers of Academe without believing or publicly acquiescing to certain nonsense. Let science be "science" rather than a biased load of bollocks. Let us all question science and scientific authority just as we question spirituality and its "leaders."



Those d-mn Christians!
(Church Militant TV) Robert Sungenis and Rick DeLano on the controversy surrounding the release of their documentary film on cosmology and the Copernican theory. Scientists that were interviewed for the film are now trying to distance themselves from the movie because it dares to suggest that the Earth is significant and unusual. Is it geocentric? The scandal was started by an outside Catholic blogger who "tipped off" the scientists in the film possibly out of "pure malice." It may have backfired because the blogger generated a lot of free publicity for the film makers in associating geocentrism with anti-semitism.

Rick DeLano, producer of "The Principle," interviewed on Catholic radio "Forward Boldly" with Christine Niles to give him a chance to clear the air about the nature of his film and respond to critics who say he is a Christian nut or angainst science.

Challenging the Copernican Principle
Exciting guest Rick DeLano, insipid host George Noory, coasttocoastam, Jan. 7, 2015
UFOs in ancient Christian iconography, spacecraft paintings (misija.com)
We earthlings are not of Earth, but we've been here a long time. So have other beings.
 
Overnight, Rick DeLano discussed his work researching current theories of astronomy and Copernicus and how this material has raised controversies related to his new documentary, "The Principle."
 
Slice of space, akasha deva loka (space.com)
"There is a crisis in [Western] cosmology," states Dr. Michio Kaku. Physics has never been able to provide us with any scientific experimental proof of Copernicus' principle that the Earth travels around the Sun, and it could just be the opposite case -- that the Sun travels around the Earth, DeLano explains, but to say so causes of firestorm in the scientific community whose faith in in Copernicus without proof.
 
While the Copernican argument is plausible, there has never been any scientific demonstration of it because "physics can only talk about relative motion," DeLano says. "The other possibility is that the Earth is actually at rest in the center of the universe, just as every human being [has] essentially believed for thousands of years."
 
My, what secret crafts you have, Uncle Sam!
For his new film he interviewed such scientists as Dr. Michio Kaku, who cite a crisis in cosmology in that the theory of relativity does NOT gel with quantum theory.

And this is the greatest contradiction between theory and observation in the history of science.
 
Prof. Kaku, physicist Lawrence Krauss, narrator Kate Mulgrew, and other participants in the documentary have claimed that although they consented to be in the film, they did not know there was a "geocentric" agenda. For an overview of the media barrage against "The Principle," see this page on DeLano's site.
 
Triangle UFO in NASA footage (NASA)
Rick DeLano concludes that we are alone in the universe using faulty logic: If other "planets are perfectly good for life, and life is everywhere, and they're billions of years older than us, somebody should have turned us into a parking lot, long since...We see an astonishingly silent universe, at least according to the sensors like SETI," he philosophizes.
 
Look up nightly and see the wars.
Apparently he has not been looking in the night sky with night vision goggles or seen NASA footage of how crowded space is just above Earth with UFO traffic, no matter how hard NASA TV tries to keep it out of the frame. We are definitely not alone in space, but no one can say so within respectable science, such as the university system, until we have not only documented evidence, of which there is a great deal, but also replicable proof. (Even then one will not be allowed to say it until the gatekeepers say it is all right). More + AUDIO
 
NASA footage of UFOs
(EPS) NASA video and audio footage of UFOs sighted by astronauts on board during various Space Shuttle missions orbiting Earth.
(LunaCognita) NASA: Alien anomalies caught on film, a compilation of stunning UFO footage from NASA's own archives, most of which are kept secret from the public.

Coast to Coast AUDIO: listen with Windows Player  High  Low, download MP3s: Hour 1   Hour 2   Hour 3   Hour 4. Note: Some mobile devices do not download MP3s, so use a desktop.

Event for World Peace 2015 (Hsi Lai Temple)

CC Liu, Amber Larson, Seth Auberon, Pat Macpherson, Crystal Quintero, Wisdom Quarterly
Hsi Lai Buddhist Temple, Hacienda Heights, suburban Los Angeles (flickriver.com)

Coming West, Buddha's Light Mountain (Hsi Lai, Fog Guang Shan) Temple (l.facebook)

Honoring the Buddha worldwide (Hsi Lai)
Wisdom Quarterly is taking a field trip to the Heights, Hacienda Heights that is. On Saturday, January 10, 2015 at 9:30 am "Coming West" Temple ("Buddha's Light Mountain" or Fo Guang Shan) is hosting a "Prayer for World Peace" to welcome 2015.

Is the American military-industrial complex listening?

Full Moon, Hsi Lai (WQ)
Governments and corporations are the only makers of industrial-scale war. But it is us they draw from to pull the trigger and shoulder the weight of enormously negative karma that results in tremendous suffering for ourselves and others -- mutilation, PTSD, rape, disfigurement, death, loss, imprisonment, torture, enslavement, oppression, full-spectrum dominance...
 
We say no to war, YES to peace, no to violence, YES to love, no to foolishness, YES to kindness!

Fo Guang Shan pyramid, Buddha Memorial Center, Kaohsiung, Taiwan (Zosoiv71/flickr)
.
Nuns serving tea and starting conversation (WQ)
Coming West Temple says, "Our wish for the coming year [is] that there be no jealousy, only affection,; that there be no hatred, only harmony; that there be no greed [hoarding, clinging, grasping], only generosity; that there be no selfishness, only fulfillment."

Full moon and mooncakes, Hsi Lai (WQ)
Hsi Lai Temple is a marvel on an affluent hillside separating Los Angeles and Orange County (traveling over the hills or heights leads to Anaheim) overlooking the San Gabriel Valley and the distant Angeles Forest mountains and the tallest peak in Los Angeles, snow capped Mt. Baldy.

Theravada monk Bhikkhu Bodhi
It is the largest Buddhist temple in the western hemisphere, running neck and neck with upstate New York's Chaung Yen Monastery (BAUS.org), home of the American scholar-monk and translator Bhikkhu Bodhi. These are Taiwanese Mahayana temples with open arms to Theravada tradition monastics, scholars, and students, particularly nuns of all traditions, such as Sri Lankan and American Theravada and Tibetan Vajrayana bhikshunis.
  • FREE, open to all (meet in main shrine)
  • 9:30 am, Saturday, January 10, 2015
  • Hsi Lai Temple
  • 3456 Glenmark Drive
  • Hacienda Heights, CA 91745
Interfaith Prayer for World Peace, CYM (BAUS)
Buddhist Association of the United States, Carmel, NY
(BAUS) Part 1 of 12 New Year's Interfaith Prayer for World Peace, New York, Jan. 1, 2015
New Year's Interfaith Prayer for World Peace, Chaung Yen Monastery, NY (BAUS.org)

Professional cuddlers embrace more clients

Amber Larson, Crystal Quintero, Seth Auberon, Wisdom Quarterly; Stephanie Armour, Wall Street Journal, Samantha Hess (wsj.com via finance.yahoo.com/news)


Kimberly Kilbride is a professional cuddler. For $80 an hour, or up to $400 for an overnight gig, the 33-year-old mother of three dons flannel pajama bottoms, puts away her family pictures and two pit bull mix dogs and invites clients into her bedroom in Highland, New York, to snuggle. Once the spooning begins, she insists that it stay strictly platonic.
 
The cuddle-for-hire business is taking off -- even though the clothes stay on. Thousands of customers across the country are booking appointments with professional cuddlers in at least 16 states. The snugglers squeeze, tickle and bearhug clients for a fixed rate. Patrons who booked these services out of mere curiosity say they have become hooked on their therapeutic benefits.

“I am a convert,” says Melissa Duclos-Yourdon, 35, a freelance writer and editor in Vancouver, Washington. She originally hired a cuddler after hearing about it from members of her book club, thinking it could provide fodder for an essay. Once cuddled, “I felt transformed,” she says.

While snuggling businesses have existed for years, interest is accelerating with newer online apps and meet-up services. Plans are under way for a cuddling convention.

One free app, Cuddlr, launched in September and already has had about 240,000 downloads, according to Charlie Williams, a founder and developer.

The location-based social-media application allows users to find people near them to cuddle with. Between 7,000 and 10,000 people are using the service daily, he says. The company’s slogan: “Ever just want a cuddle?
 
If I get a heart on...my head? (MG)
The website Cuddle Comfort offers a matching service where members can post pictures, profiles and find others who are interested in nonsexual spooning. The free site now has around 18,000 members, founder Mark Sanger says. Recent discussions on the site include the best movie genres to snuggle to.
 
Not everyone feels warm and fuzzy about for-hire cuddling. When Jacqueline Samuel, 31, opened her business in a Rochester, New York-area family guest home, neighbors worried it would attract unsavory patrons. She moved that business about two years ago to a Rochester commercial district. The Snuggery now charges $50 for 45 minutes and $425 for an overnight cuddle session. More + VIDEO

Thursday, January 8, 2015

CIA should shoot all cartoonists! (CARTOONS)

I. Rony, Ashley Wells, Pat Macpherson, Seven, Seth Auberon, Pfc. Sandoval, Wisdom Quarterly
Vigil in defense of crude cartooning: Je Suis Charlie Hebdo, "I am Charlie" (npr.org)

Je Suis "Charlie"? Hey, you can't make fun of grown up Charlie Brown! (Family Guy)

Chalie Hebdo cover adopts "Charia" Law: "100 lashes if you don't die laughing!" (wiki)
Christ (West), Buddha (East), Oshun (Africa), Kwan Yin (China), Shiva (India) with saying by Rumi (Sufi-Muslim): "When I am silent, I fall into that place where everything is music."
Americans are fat and ugly and stupid...and we have constipation (lol/WQ).
Hey, Poncho! - My name is Rao. - Hey, Raul! Whatcha' doin' there, bro-ski?

Why we NEED satire
CIA Telethon raises money (American Dad)
Our United States of America "military-industrial complex" funds, backs, and occasionally cheers on a secretive outlaw organization that works hand in hand with the Pentagon, White House, and U.S. military (all branches).

Putin/Bush Hitler reincarnations
Its main function, when not running illegal programs to augment its own funding and fight other quasi-governmental spying organizations, is to gather intelligence (spy), assassinate democratically elected leaders, destabilize functioning economies of governments and administrations not favorable to U.S. corporations (industries), policies, and strategic geopolitical ambitions. It is part of our imperial armed forces.

The priest throttled me. God doesn't want to see your t-ts, you st-pid b-tch! I held up my sign: "Catholic Church, out of my body" refusing to give in to child molesting patriarchs! (F)

.
US: guns over liberty!
What better way to set up pretexts for invasions, torture prisons, control of the geopolitical "Middle East" than to make sure some small radicalized segment of a larger group stage big showboat events?
 
In the U.S. there are false flag plane crashes, government run drug imports, school shootings, demonstration bombings (Boston, Oklahoma), racist police violence, and "violations" of our way of life.

Wake up, America! Be free!
Abroad, it is all about car bombings, suicide bombings, defacing treasures (think Buddhist Bamiyan, Afghanistan by the CIA's Taliban or the looting of the Iraq/Mesopotamian National Museum when the U.S. invaded Baghdad), and senseless "terrorist" atrocities.

This is particularly true in invaded countries -- Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, etc. -- where our U.S. military-industrial complex is bent on starting or continuing to make money by war-profiteering. What is war-profiteering? It is when private contractors fill their pockets by emptying public coffers. Gen. Smedley Butler said it nearly a century ago:

I love this corporation, I mean, country!
"War is a racket" and it always has been. Ex-government workers are future corporate employees, shareholders, and board members. Mr. Dick (Cheney), meet Halliburton.

Mr. Bush, meet the Carlyle Group. Mr. Obama/Soetoro, don't worry, we'll find a nice job for you, because you were well groomed and know how to play ball!
 
Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite? Not in the USA. Not in France either as migration causes tension and racists and/or religiously inspired violence becomes the scourge of Europe and the Euro Zone.

Putin, you know why US gas prices are so low? Low oil prices to punish Russia for Ukraine.
Je Suis Charlie ("I am Charlie [Hebdo]") agrees Jon Stewart, just like the CIA wants him to. Let's all rally around our rights and look the other way when warmongers torture and kill in our name. Stewart doesn't make 30 million a year for being radical. No, he gets it for playing ball while seeming to be subvert the system he is part of (thedailyshow.cc.com).
.
Fergistan: new slave patrols?
The argument is simply NOT one of, "Oh do satirists have the right to make fun of people?"

Of course they do. Make fun of any public figure, any president, any police department, ANY religion -- with a good intention (not with what Ven. Pema Chodron, the famed American Tibetan-Buddhist nun, calls shenpa).
 
Hold people and institutions to their lofty ideals. We all want, even as many already think we have, freedom of speech and expression. But these are more idealistic dreams (inherited from French rhetoric) than lived realities in the U.S. today.

Hey, American Jackass, what are you doing, bird-watching? - Good morning, NSA guys!

.
FEMEN feminists topless in Palestine/Israel
In the past, in royal monarchies, there was only one person who could tell the truth to the king or queen -- the Fool, the Jester. Far from being foolish, this person represented the only party who could be honest because such honesty was clothed in humor, in jest, in jokes, in irony, in SATIRE.

Hey, are those gals topless? (Colbert)
The Jester is indispensable. And oddly but not paradoxically, it is where most of us Americans get our news today -- The Daily Show, Colbert Report, Saturday Night Live (SNL), John Oliver (HBO). It isn't from FOX News. And our truthiness comes from The Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad, late night talk show stand up, the only few minutes when popular TV gets real.

In France and Ukraine we have out FEMEN, topless protesters to topple the patriarchy that dominates Western societies and Islam, too. But these are vulgar shows and cartoons, often obscene, irreverent, and disrespectful! Yes, and we need them to be just like France and Europe need Charlie Hebdo and similarly satirical publications.
  
Jesus is sacred and can't be teased or depicted like the Buddha is (fox.com/family-guy).

Hara Kiri magazine and Charlie Hebdo satirical cartooning (nationalreview.com)
Sexist religion? Misogynist Church, Inc? "Male" God? The Annunciation (femen.org)
The USA and its citizens (in police departments and military) TORTURE and, according to our leaders like Dick Cheney, "[We] would do it again in a heartbeat." (thismodernworld.com)
Torture? Yes, torture. We torture and lie about it. (Jen Sorensen/jensorensen.com)

Cartoonish humor can promote awareness of real-world issues like domestic violence.

U.S. condones U.S./Israeli war crimes: drone assassinations. Just ask Droney. (TMW)

Hey, you stupid anti-Semite, you can't say anything questioning Israel or saving Palestine!

Pro-NAZI rats and poor Jewish mice? Maus II: A Survivor's Tale (Art Spigelman)
Wisdom Quarterly's wished for in-house cartoonist (Saara/Arkiharha/flickr.com)

Cartoon PORN in the USA: princess dressing. Thanks, Disney! (vsauce/youtube.com)

TRUTH: slavedriver, rapist, U.S. Founding Father, former Pres. Thomas Jefferson warned us.

U.S. policy fuels Middle East extremism (video)

Amber Larson, Crystal Quintero, Seth Auberon, Wisdom Quarterly; democracynow.org

Nermeen Shaikh, Amy Goodman (democracynow.org)

9-11-01-twin-towers
9/11 Decade: Timeline of Voices of Dissent
Democracy Now! discusses the Charlie Hebdo French cartoon magazine attack in Paris with the Lebanese-French academic Gilbert Achcar, professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.

"We have to put all this in context," Prof. Achcar says. "The Western intervention, the Western action in the Middle East, has been creating the ground for all this. This is what I called previously the clash of barbarisms, with a major barbarism represented by Western intervention."

Retiredgeneral
Why U.S. lost its Iraq, Afghan wars
Prof. Achcar also discusses the close relationship between the United States and radically Islamist (Wahhabi) Saudi Arabia, which he calls "the ideological source of the most fanatical, most reactionary interpretation of Islam." On Friday Democracy Now! will continued this discussion. More 
Screenshot2015-01-05at11.41.16am