Leave Afghanistan: Why Wait Until 2014?

President Obama is espousing 

“The Afghan war as we understand it (being) over”

after the U.S. combat role ends in 2014,

and Afghanistan will enter a “transformational decade

 of peace and stability and development.”

Yet, General John Allen, commander of NATO’s ISAF mission in Afghanistan and Obama's commander on the ground, told a media briefing on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Chicago on May 20 2012, ”I don’t want to, again, understate the challenge that we have ahead of us. The Taliban is still a resilient and capable opponent in the battle space. There’s no end of combat before the end of 2014. And, in fact, the Taliban will oppose the ANSF (Afghan National Security Forces) after 2014.”

In other words, the war won’t end with NATO withdrawal.

So, Obama is pressing President Hamid Karzai to engage in reconciliation talks with the Taliban and to implement electoral reforms to diminish corruption and make elections transparent.

Do people believe talks with the Taliban or electoral reform with enhance Karzai's political survival? Does Karzai even believe these efforts will help? After all, Karzai has a minimal political base, and the U.S.-led invasion force pushed him into power.

Tony Karon, a senior editor at Time says, "The only thing keeping him (President Karzai) in power over the past decade has been the presence of tens of thousands of Western troops. Even if the Afghan security forces NATO is frantically training to take over — and suffering almost weekly 'green on blue' fatalities as Afghan security men turn their guns on their Western mentors — were up to par, it requires a vast leap of faith to imagine they’ll be loyal to Karzai." (Tony Karon, "Obama’s Afghanistan Problem: Neither Karzai Nor the Taliban Like the ‘Reconciliation’ Script," Time, May 21 2012)

Karon goes on to explain Karzai is the "least-worst" option for his position in a place where corruption and and cronyism has a long tradition. Karon says, "After all, when the CIA had first sent its operatives into Afghanistan to initiate the toppling of the Taliban, they were armed not with stirring calls to freedom and democracy, but with suitcases containing millions of dollars in hard cash. Karzai knows the limits of the loyalty of those presently aligned with the status quo, and the traditional fluidity of Afghan warlord politics. He holds his present position only because there’s no obvious alternative to play the role he’s been playing." (Tony Karon, "Obama’s Afghanistan Problem: Neither Karzai Nor the Taliban Like the ‘Reconciliation’ Script," Time, May 21 2012)

Of course, the Taliban brands Karzai as a “puppet” of the West. Obama’s Afghan “surge” that began in the summer of 2009 doubled down the U.S. military commitment in order to pummel the Taliban into suing for peace and being ready to accept U.S. terms that included the extension of authority and legitimacy for President Karzai. That hasn't happened.

The more militant Taliban elements retain ties with al-Qaeda, as well as some of the movement’s younger, more embittered mid-level commanders. None of them see any good coming out of negotiating a compromise when their primary enemies, the U.S. and its NATO partners, have made clear they intend to withdraw by the end of 2014. Surely they view that time is on their side.

           The latest New York Times/CBS News poll found

that more than two-thirds of those polled — 69 percent — thought that the United States should not

be at war in Afghanistan.

 

 

Just four months ago, 53 percent said that Americans should no longer be fighting in the conflict, more than a decade old.

(Elisabeth Bumiller, "Support in U.S. for Afghan War Drops Sharply, Poll Finds,"  

The New York Times, March 26 2012)

The same poll found that 68 percent thought

the fighting was going “somewhat badly” or “very badly,” compared with 42 percent who had those impressions

 in November.

In a Washington Post/ABC News poll, 60 percent

of respondents said the war in Afghanistan

had not been worth the fighting,

while 57 percent in a Pew Research Center poll

said that the United States should bring home

American troops as soon as possible.

 

 

In a Gallup/USA Today poll, 50 percent of respondents

 said the United States should speed up

the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

 

My Take

President George W. Bush faced broad discontent over the war in Iraq. His overall approval rating eventually dipped below 25 percent. How long can President Obama's dismal withdrawal strategy hold greater criticism at bay?

If the American people, by a margin of greater than two to one disapprove of the war, the U.S. should end it. Does it seem that the present U.S. government has a clear rationale for pursuing their policy through 2014? The answer is evidently "no." Now, after more than a decade of war, and despite some significant accomplishments, most notably the killing of Osama Bin Laden, victory in Afghanistan remains elusive.

Don't the American people need to be more active in calling for an immediate end to the war in Afghanistan? Does public opinion count for anything these days? It seems few care to do more than mouth their disapproval. For most, politics and bureaucracy seem too strong to be influenced by protest. Besides, since media coverage has diminished, people really seem to have lost interest.

The U.S. has not been gaining any clear advantage in Afghanistan. But, the cost in life and the monetary investment keep piling up. Does anyone hold hope that the U.S. will bring lasting peace, democracy and stability to Afghanistan? I have not talked with one person who believes significant improvements are being made. Maybe it's time for foreign policy to be made on the basis of majority rule.

 

When President Barack Obama cited cost as a reason to bring troops home from Afghanistan, he referred to a $1 trillion price tag for America's wars. Staggering as it is, that figure grossly underestimates the total cost of wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan to the U.S. Treasury and ignores more imposing costs yet to come, according to a study released on Wednesday.

The final bill will run at least $3.7 trillion and could reach as high as $4.4 trillion, according to the research project "Costs of War" by Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies

(Daniel Trotta, "Cost of War at Least $3.7 Trillion and Counting," Reuters, June 29 2011)

 

2,106 Americans have died in

Operation Enduring Freedom

 

The suicide rate among the nation’s active-duty military personnel has spiked this year, eclipsing the number of troops dying in battle and on pace to set a record annual high since the start of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan more than a decade ago.The military said that there had been 154 suicides among active-duty troops, a rate of nearly one each day this year.
 

 

 

 

Brick Parents: "We Don't Need No Ed-u-ca-tion"

“If a child sees something in a parent that the child aspires to, he or she will copy that parent and be content. If a child feels that a parent is living a life that shows compassion and understanding, patience and love, that child will not have to reach a stage of rebellion against that parent. 

"Why rebel against someone who has listened to you and wants to help you fufill your dreams? A parent who has proven time and again that growth and happiness of his or her children is priority number one does not have to worry about where these children are heading in life. They will be sensitive and productive members of society for as long as they live.”

 

-Alice Ozma, The Reading Promise: My Father and the Books We Shared
 

What image do children see when they look at their parents? Of course, they see loving providers, unselfish models who work hard to give their families the best life they can afford. And, most children see important dependent relationships with their parents who continually mentor and guide them through every phase of their upbringing. In a perfect world, love would be the foundation upon which all family relationships are built and maintained.

But,unfortunately, many kids do not see one important ingredient in Mom's and Dad's life that fosters their children's important progress and eventual independence. Especially in poor, depressed areas like Appalachia, children should witness their parents' thirst for knowledge. Kids must see, firsthand, that their parents are constantly learning new information vital to their betterment.

Today, too many parents are doing relatively nothing to strengthen their own intellects. As models for their children, these parents do not provide enough positive reinforcement that learning is the most important process for lifelong achievement and eventual happiness.

To me, the quest for information can be an intensely rewarding experience, so I always encouraged students in my classes to find subjects they liked and to "dig to their very roots." I noticed the happy, aggressive learners took pride in their discoveries -- the more they knew, the more they became interested in other, related subjects. For many, an intense craving for information became habitual. Their initiative led to greater self confidence that fed their particular desires for acquiring more and more information and sharing their findings. These students taught me, the teacher, more than I ever would have dreamed.

A relatively new study suggests that the same neurons that process the primitive physical rewards of food and water also signal the more abstract mental rewards of information.

"Ethan Bromberg-Martin and Okihide Hikosaka trained two thirsty rhesus monkeys to choose between two targets on a screen with a flick of their eyes; in return, they randomly received either a large drink or a small one after a few seconds. Their choice of target didn’t affect which drink they received, but it did affect whether they got prior information about the size of their reward. One target brought up another symbol that told them how much water they would get, while the other brought up a random symbol.

"After a few days of training, the monkeys almost always looked at the target that would give them advance intel, even though it never actually affected how much water they were given. They wanted knowledge for its own sake. What’s more, even though the gap between picking a target and sipping some water was very small, the monkeys still wanted to know what was in store for them mere seconds later. To them, ignorance is far from bliss." (Ed Yong,"Why Information Is Its Own Reward...," ScieneBlogs, July 15 2009)


Dopamine neurons (dopamine = pleasurable hormone) are thought to be involved in learning about rewards – by adjusting the connections between other neurons, they “teach” the brain to seek basic rewards like food and water. Bromberg-Martin and Hikosaka think that these neurons also teach the brain to seek out information so that their activity becomes a sort of “common currency” that governs both basic needs and a quest for knowledge.

Now, I know many of you are saying, "Thirst for knowledge? Isn't that what teachers and schools are supposed to be instilling in my children. I don't need any more knowledge. I went to school years ago and already have all the information I need. Besides, junior has a computer and a television."

Reread that last paragraph. Put yourself in the role of your child. Basically, you are instilling the belief in your child that learning stops once outside the schoolhouse door. In other words, children begin to believe that their parents see no reason to continue critical, independent, life-long learning.

This view is tragic. Knowledge is the great equalizer, the only true asset for those who lack other means to structure a good life. Today, more than ever, a thirst for knowledge will lead a child to greater opportunities.

If parents do not show their children their own active quests for information, for improvement, for learning "for learning's sake," they stifle their children's development. And, I am not just speaking of taking an interest during children's grade school years, but just as important (probably more important considering the pressures and stresses of teens), they must engage in developing the thirst during children's high school years and beyond.

Parents learning? What a radical idea for many. But that is exactly what I mean. Parents must diminish negative behaviors that encourage laziness, disengagement from the learning process, and a self-chosen contempt for acquiring intelligence. Instead, they must sacrifice unproductive free time to improve their own stations in life. Their kids will see this, digest its importance, and follow their lead.

Numerous studies support the fact that the majority of children consider their parents to
be their most important role model. In the American Bible Society survey, 67.7% of teens aged
12-18 believed parents are the most important role models in today’s society. More than 1,100
12-18 year olds participated in an eight-question survey conducted by Weekly Reader Research
on behalf of the American Bible Society. 

According to a research study
by Harvard Researcher Ronald Ferguson,

"Nearly half of a child's achievement in school

can be accounted for by factors outside the school,

including parent support."

Consequently, the most important support

any child can receive comes from the parents.

This support ranges from being responsible for making sure that the child arrives at school well-rested, well-fed, and ready to learn, to setting high expectations for their child. The following are suggestions of how parents can support their child's education:


* Attendance: Good school attendance is important to academic achievement. When students are absent from school they miss vital instruction. Parents have control over their child's attendance and this includes arriving on time to school, and not taking students out in the middle of the school day.

* Attitude: Parents need to display a positive attitude toward school in general. If parents have a positive attitude, the child will also have that positive attitude toward school. Parents must be careful in how they address school concerns in front of their child. If they display a negative attitude toward school, their child may adopt that as his/her own attitude toward school.

* Priority: Education must be given a top priority for it to come out on top. Therefore, parents must make education their first priority, above all other after school activities.

* Support: Children need their parent's help. When a child needs help on homework or other special projects, it is their parents that they turn to. Parents need to offer support and help their children. They may even need to find help outside of the home, a tutor, for example.

* Role Model: The parent needs to be a positive role model for the child in helping to shape the child's opinions and attitudes about learning.

* Get Involved: Research reveals that high self-esteem and student achievement are closely related to positive parental involvement in school. When parents get involved at school it can be a motivating factor to the child. It tells the child that the parents think that school is important.

* Communication: Parents need to keep in touch with their child's school and have a positive relationship with the teacher.

My Take

NOTHING could make a bigger difference in the problems faced by youth in Scioto County than kids seeing a parent involved in education. This does not mean merely attending ball games or helping with a school activity or two. Children need to see parents who are actively bettering themselves. This, I am sure, will have the biggest impact on their children's positive development.

Some tough kids from the inner city get out of their undesirable environments by developing their athletic skills and later employing them in professional sports careers. This accomplishment is a rarity.The chances of becoming a professional athlete is about 24,550 to 1—so you have a better chance of getting struck by lightning, marrying a millionaire or writing a New York Times bestseller. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are 9,380 professional athletes you have a .00565% chance of becoming a professional athlete.

On a personal note, I spent 34 years as a student and a teacher at Valley High School in Lucasville. To my knowledge, one person, Gene Tenace, became a prominent professional athlete. Just rounding figures to 100 graduates a year would make the odds 3,400 to 1 during my tenure alone.

Developing a keen mind and a thirst for knowledge will help insure much better odds for finding a good job and a better life than betting your future on brawn. Parents, you must quit depending upon schools to take 100% of the responsibility for educating your children. If you don't believe in lifelong learning and SHOW IT, your children will likely hate school, refuse to do their homework, neglect their studies, and learn to pattern themselves after you, their role models with stagnant, semi-developed brains.

Dehumanizing Dirty Criminal Trash Before Disposal

Problems in community life are among the most distressing and troublesome aspects of our modern society. A great deal of attention is given to individual problems, yet community problems arguably are broader and more important because, to a large degree, they affect us all – young and old, rich and poor, male and female, and majority and minority group members.


Believing “bad people” are responsible for creating social ills, "good people" often tend to ignore helping to stop a community problem that doesn't directly affect them or their loved ones. They generally abhor those “bad people” who engage in criminal activities such as theft, child abuse and neglect, violence, drug use, welfare fraud, racism, and domestic violence, yet they fail to understand how they, the “good people,” contribute to the continuance of the problems.


Sure, “good people” complain about their own susceptibility to problems. After all, they must live in the same setting as “bad people” who practice unacceptable behavior. They also believe those in charge of enforcement and the judicial system should solve the problems so that decent residents like them can live a better life. In other words, they want “the system” to repair “the broken system.” They rally behind cries of "Do your job and hang 'em high!" 


Many “good people” become proactive with their immediate families. Of course, this is recommended to anyone in danger of becoming a victim of problematic criminal behaviors. They buy guns, install home security systems, talk extensively with family members about possible threats and appropriate reactions, and plan procedures with strategies to employ in case of personal intrusion. In essence, they recognize “bad people” access their neighborhoods, so they address the problem by strengthening their own castles and protecting their occupants.


So, to “good people,” the proper response to a problem is calling for tougher action in what they perceive as a failing system and taking care of their own. Nothing is wrong with these actions. We all would love to see more people take responsibility to improve their own conditions. But, the problem with this equation is the lack of action taken for the sake of others in the community, the lack of response to improving the common good and finding workable solutions.


All citizens even have a responsibility to help prodigal “bad people” to improve their lot and learn better to coexist. Instead, many “good people” want to “tighten the screws” on the “bad people” without looking at the roots of their behaviors. They care nothing about rehabilitation. Oh, sure, “good people” believe in second chances and understand making mistakes as long as “good people” are the ones who receive the benefits.

Without empathy, love, and action on the behalf of the entire community, the “good people” allow the problems to thrive. Problems cannot be wished away or ignored. “Good People” who are concerned chiefly with "looking out for Number One," and ignoring their responsibilities of citizenship, soon cannot "insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare" or carry on their other major duties as members of the state.


When a crisis comes, the people may turn in desperation to some hero-administrator. But in the end, that hero administrator will not restore the order without the cooperation and action of the citizens. A community cannot long endure unless a great many of its citizens stand ready and willing to brighten the corner where they are, and to sacrifice much for the good of all others, if need be. Citizens all have civic and social duties to address community needs and to serve the public good.

What moral responsibilities do all people have? Should they restrict their responsibilities only to doing things deemed beneficial to themselves or to doing things for those they judge as “good”? Moral responsibility is primarily the responsibility related to actions and their consequences in social relations. It generally concerns the harm caused to an individual, a group or the entire society by the actions or inactions of another individual, group or entire society.


When is it time to take action for the sake of all? When should "good" people decide to dirty their clean hands and reach out to those they deem unworthy? I believe they must when a murderous problem threatens their existence. You see, we often choose to let them exist, and they could cost us our lives.

 

 

Hangman

by Maurice Ogden

1.
Into our town the Hangman came.
Smelling of gold and blood and flame
and he paced our bricks with a diffident air
and built his frame on the courthouse square

The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,
Only as wide as the door was wide;
A frame as tall, or little more,
Than the capping sill of the courthouse door

And we wondered, whenever we had the time.
Who the criminal, what the crime.
That Hangman judged with the yellow twist
of knotted hemp in his busy fist.

And innocent though we were, with dread,
We passed those eyes of buckshot lead:
Till one cried: "Hangman, who is he
For whom you raise the gallows-tree?"

Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:
"He who serves me best," said he,
"Shall earn the rope on the gallows-tree."

And he stepped down, and laid his hand
On a man who came from another land
And we breathed again, for another's grief
At the Hangman's hand was our relief

And the gallows-frame on the courthouse lawn
By tomorrow's sun would be struck and gone.
So we gave him way, and no one spoke.
Out of respect for his Hangman's cloak.

2.
The next day's sun looked mildly down
On roof and street in our quiet town
And stark and black in the morning air,
The gallows-tree on the courthouse square.

And the Hangman stood at his usual stand
With the yellow hemp in his busy hand;
With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike
And his air so knowing and business like.

And we cried, "Hangman, have you not done
Yesterday with the alien one?"
Then we fell silent, and stood amazed,
"Oh, not for him was the gallows raised."

He laughed a laugh as he looked at us:
"...Did you think I'd gone to all this fuss
To hang one man? That's a thing I do
To stretch a rope when the rope is new."

Then one cried "Murder!" One cried "Shame!"
And into our midst the Hangman came
To that man's place. "Do you hold," said he,
"With him that was meant for the gallows-tree?"

And he laid his hand on that one's arm.
And we shrank back in quick alarm,
And we gave him way, and no one spoke
Out of fear of his Hangman's cloak.

That night we saw with dread surprise
The Hangman's scaffold had grown in size.
Fed by the blood beneath the chute
The gallows-tree had taken root;

Now as wide, or a little more,
Than the steps that led to the courthouse door,
As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall,
Halfway up on the courthouse wall.

3.
The third he took-we had all heard tell
Was a user and infidel, and
"What," said the Hangman "have you to do
With the gallows-bound, and he a Jew?"

And we cried out, "Is this one he
Who has served you well and faithfully?"
The Hangman smiled: "It's a clever scheme
To try the strength of the gallows-beam."

The fourth man's dark, accusing song
Had scratched out comfort hard and long;
And what concern, he gave us back.
"Have you for the doomed--the doomed and black?"

The fifth. The sixth. And we cried again,
"Hangman, Hangman, is this the last?"
"It's a trick," he said, "That we hangmen know
For easing the trap when the trap springs slow.""

And so we ceased, and asked no more,
As the Hangman tallied his bloody score:
And sun by sun, and night by night,
The gallows grew to monstrous height.

The wings of the scaffold opened wide
Till they covered the square from side to side:
And the monster cross-beam, looking down.
Cast its shadow across the town.

4.
Then through the town the Hangman came
And called in the empty streets my name-
And I looked at the gallows soaring tall
And thought, "There is no one left at all

For hanging." And so he calls to me
To help pull down the gallows-tree.
And I went out with right good hope
To the Hangman's tree and the Hangman's rope.

He smiled at me as I came down
To the courthouse square through the silent town.
And supple and stretched in his busy hand
Was the yellow twist of the strand.

And he whistled his tune as he tried the trap
And it sprang down with a ready snap.
And then with a smile of awful command
He laid his hand upon my hand.

"You tricked me. Hangman!" I shouted then.
"That your scaffold was built for other men...
And I no henchman of yours," I cried,
"You lied to me. Hangman. foully lied!"

Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
"Lied to you? Tricked you?" he said. "Not I.
For I answered straight and I told you true"
The scaffold was raised for none but you.

For who has served me more faithfully
Then you with your coward's hope?" said he,
"And where are the others that might have stood
Side by your side in the common good?"

"Dead," I whispered, and sadly
"Murdered," the Hangman corrected me:
"First the alien, then the Jew...
I did no more than you let me do."

Beneath the beam that blocked the sky.
None had stood so alone as I.
And the Hangman strapped me, and no voice there
Cried "Stay!" for me in the empty square.

 

 

 

Meaning In Life: Deeds, Human Encounters, Love

"Ultimately, man should not ask what the meaning of his life is, but rather must recognize that it is he who is asked. In a word, each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible."

-Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

The originality and deep humanism of Viktor Frankl's thinking enabled him to develop his own approach to the human soul: he became founder of the so-called Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy. Thrown into a Nazi death camp in 1942, he, by his spiritual strength and his will to life, had managed to survive and thus became a living proof of the main thesis of his philosophy:

"One can live only for so long as one's life has a meaning."

Frankl (1905-1997) believed a societal sickness had been haunting the world for over 50 years and has now become pandemic. This sickness is the loss of meaning in people's lives. More and more people today have the means to live but no meaning for which to live. Boredom is the main symptom of the sickness. When boredom becomes unbearable, then addiction and aggression threaten the individual and society.

“Unlike an animal, man is no longer told by drives and instincts what he must do. And in contrast to man in former times, he is no longer told by traditions and values what he should do. Now, knowing neither what he must do nor what he should do, he sometimes does not even know what he basically wishes to do. Instead, he wishes to do what other people do... or he does what other people wish him to do...”

(Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning, 2006)

Robert Kaplan, noted American journalist, calls this illness that has engulfed America an “existential vacuum,” the meaninglessness of life. He actually believes democracy may be slipping away because of a passive voyeurism. An important symptom of the vacuum is the willingness to give up self and responsibility, which Kaplan sees as a form of tyranny. He gives the following image to illustrate his understandings:

 

“When voter turnout decreases to around 50 percent at the same time the middle class is spending astounding sums in gambling casinos and state lotteries, joining private health clubs and using large amounts of stimulants and anti-depressants, one can legitimately be concerned about the state of American society. We have become voyeurs and escapists. Many of us don't play sports but love watching great athletes with great physical attributes. It is because people find so little in themselves that they fill their world with celebrities. The masses avoid important national and international news because much of it is tragic, even as they show an unlimited appetite for the details of Princess Diana's death.”

(Robert D. Kaplan, “The Coming Anarchy,”

The Atlantic Monthly, February 1994)

Frankl

Are the most serious problems in America direct consequences of boredom, loss of self, and loss of responsibility?

Addiction to illicit drugs is one of the most pressing problems in the United States today. Drug-related crime is also a huge threat. Of course, the demand for drugs is at the heart of the problems.

Although, in percentages, the numbers of ethnic minority drug users are higher, the market itself — and that is what is important even if one only wants to stop the spread of drugs — is sustained mainly by whites, middle and upper-middle class whites. Why are these people involved in drug activities? The cause is almost without exception linked to the meaninglessness in the lives of American adults and children

How about other forms of addiction? Gambling – through numerous state-supported lotteries, and legal and semi-legal casinos spreading in America – is rapidly increasing. More numbers of children are becoming addicted to video and computer games. And, of course, enslavement to the Internet is on the rise. Are these problems signs of boredom?

People now often claim their lives have no meaning, and they become depressed. Depression has reached epidemic proportions in America. According to Mental Health America, it affects more than 21 million American children and adults annually and is the leading cause of disability in the United States for individuals ages 15 to 44.

The rate of increase of depression among children is an astounding 23%. And, unbelievably, pre-schoolers are the fastest-growing market for antidepressants. At least four percent of preschoolers – over a million – are clinically depressed.

Depression is also the principal cause of the 30,000 suicides in the U.S. each year. Suicide is the third leading cause of death for teens. It is the second leading cause of death in colleges. Every year there are approximately 10 youth suicides for every 100,000 youth. Certainly, many of these people found no meaning or no reason to continue living and facing life's many struggles.

The CDC Youth Risk Survey found that for every suicide completion, there are between 50 and 200 attempts. 8.5% of students in grades 9-12 reported a suicide attempt in the past year, and 25% of high-school students report suicide ideation. (www.teachervision.fen.com)

How do many of the living cope? Many medicate. Psychotropic drug prescriptions for teenagers skyrocketed 250 percent between 1994 and 2001, rising particularly sharply after 1999, when the federal government allowed direct-to-consumer advertising and looser promotion of off-label use of prescription drugs, according to a new Brandeis University study in the journal Psychiatric Services. (“Psychotropic Drug Prescriptions For Teens Surge 250% Over 7 Year Period,” ScienceDaily, January 4 2006)

How about aggression? Doesn't Hollywood and television deliberately engulf America with violent content? A.C. Huston and colleagues have estimated that the average 18-year-old will have viewed 200,000 acts of violence on television (A.C. Huston, E. Donnerstein, H. Fairchild et al. Big World, Small Screen: The Role of Television in American Society. 1992)

It is the problem of supply vs. demand. But why do people like and want to watch these kinds of movies and TV programs? The reason is exactly the same as that, which, two millennia ago made the Roman mobs pack the Coliseums where gladiator slaves killed each other, or were thrown to wild animals. Could the reason be boredom?

In a recent (March 20, 2005) Time Magazine Poll 53 percent of respondents said that they think the FCC should place stricter controls on broadcast-channel shows depicting sex and violence. 68 percent believe the entertainment industry has lost touch with viewers' moral standards. 66 percent said there is too much violence on open-air TV, 58 percent said too much cursing and 50 percent said there is too much sexual content on TV. 49 percent say FCC regulation should be extended to cover basic cable.

A powerful factor that also feeds aggression in America is the proliferation of firearms. It is now threatening normal life in our cities and towns. Is the desire to "bear arms" a result of Americans' deep-laying mistrust of government as a potentially oppressive institution? Could it really be a response to the high level of the boredom-born aggression in American people?

It seems all segments of society have been penetrated by the existential vacuum, or as Frankl also calls it, the "frustration of meaning." The American Dream - the dream of affluence and success - does not even seem to promise happiness anymore. And evidently acquiring wealth and success does not add meaning to life anyway: among the drug users there are more affluent than poor.

So, what is meaning? In his Autobiography Frankl writes:

"As early as 1929 I developed the concept of three groups of values, three possibilities to find meaning in life - up to the last moment, the last breath. These three possibilities are:

1) a deed we do, a work we create,

2) an experience, a human encounter and love, and
3) when confronted with an unchangeable fate (such as an incurable disease, an inoperable cancer) a change of attitudes. In such cases we still can wrest meaning from life by becoming witness of the most human of all human capacities: the ability to turn suffering into human triumph."

(Viktor E. Frankl, Recollections: An Autobiography, 1997)

Simple? Yet, meaning cannot be learned or taught, or shared."Meaning" is always personal, the meaning. In other words, life gives the individual an assignment, and a person has to learn what that assignment is. But what is important," the true meaning of life is to be discovered in the world rather than within man or his own psyche, as if it were a closed system." (Viktor E. Frankl Man's Search for Meaning, 1985.)

Frankl stresses that finding a meaning in life inevitably requires what he calls "self transcendence" - rising above one's own self: "being human always points, and is directed, to something, or someone, other than oneself - be it a meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter.... The more one forgets himself - by giving himself to a cause to serve, or another person to love - the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself."

Many thanks to Genrich L. Krasko, VIKTOR FRANKL: THE PROPHET OF MEANING.

Genrich L. Krasko is a retired physicist still affiliated with Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA. He lives in Peabody, MA with his wife Zeya. Full article: http://stuff.mit.edu/people/gkrasko/Frankl.html
 

 

Video Viktor E. Frankl:

 

Feeling Saudade and Transcending the Indescribable Pain

“The Portuguese call it saudade: a longing for something
so indefinite as to be indefinable.

Love affairs, miseries of life, the way things were, people already dead,

those who left and the ocean that tossed them on the shores of a different land -

all things born of the soul that can only be felt.”

―Anthony De Sa, Barnacle Lo

In his book In Portugal of 1912, A. F. G Bell writes:


"Saudade (pronounced sawˈdadɨ) is different from nostalgia; in nostalgia, one has a mixed happy and sad feeling, a memory of happiness but a sadness for its impossible return and sole existence in the past. Saudade is like nostalgia but with the hope that what is being longed for might return, even if that return is unlikely or so distant in the future to be almost of no consequence to the present."


"One might make a strong analogy with nostalgia as a feeling one has for a loved one who has died and saudade as a feeling one has for a loved one who has disappeared or is simply currently absent. Nostalgia is located in the past and is somewhat conformist while saudade is very present, anguishing, anxious and extends into the future."


Some believe the ultimate form of saudade is one felt towards people and things whose whereabouts are unknown in regards to any of the following things or circumstances:

• Old ways and sayings
• A lost lover
• A far away place where one was raised
• One lover sadly missing another
• Loved ones who have passed away
• Feelings and stimuli one used to have but has tired of
• One's youth
  

The word saudade was used in the (13th-century). Some specialists say the word may have originated during the Great Portuguese Discoveries, giving meaning to the sadness felt about those who departed on journeys to unknown seas and disappeared in shipwrecks, died in battle, or simply never returned.

Those who stayed behind—mostly women and children—suffered deeply in their absence; the state of mind has subsequently become a "Portuguese way of life": a constant feeling of absence, the sadness of something that's missing, wishful longing for completeness or wholeness and the yearning for the return of that is now gone, a desire for presence as opposed to absence --as it is said in Portuguese, a strong desire to " matar as saudades " (lit. to kill the saudades ). More than yearning or longing, the “Portuguese soul” adds to this sentiment a feeling that the return of that thing or person is unknowable and entirely left to fate. (http://www.reference.com/browse/saudade )

Undefinable Longing

Saudade can be a rush of sadness coupled with a paradoxical joy derived from acceptance of fate and the hope of recovering or replacing what is lost by something that will either fill the emptiness or provide consolation.

Saudade is often bittersweet -- that single moment when the greatest joy and agony are experienced. Sometimes missing something isn't solely horrible. Feeling saudade can also be blissful. The feeling is sugar-coated. Those who experience it remember it with a grin, a laugh about the memories and their hearts are filled with this great intoxicating feeling. They feel happy that they have people and places to miss.


It is rare that a word can elude precise definition and yet symbolize something universally experienced. The complex nature of saudade is more than emotional yearning. Saudade has been described as a vague and constant desire for something that does not and probably cannot exist. It may also be translated as a deep longing or yearning for something that does not exist or is unattainable such as unrequited love.


In short, the feeling and mood of saudade can take different aspects, from concrete realities (a loved one, a friend, the homeland) to the mysterious and transcendant. It may be an incompleteness that one unconsciously wants to never completely resolve.

“Love is the distance

between you and what you love."

What you love is your fate”

–Frank Bidart

FOOTPRINTS OF THE PAST
By Rufina Bernardetti Silva Mausenbau


Mysterious signs hidden
of dreams taking refuge
of love, joy and pain
looking through the dark
centuries of time
Trembling emotions of
magical hope
rare incredible promises
of life, and love crossing
to present times
pain and violence of
perpetual rebirth emerging
Memories retained
imposing brutally on the present
fragmenting the heart
perceptible only to those transcending
the pain


Video: "Saudade" by Love and Rockets