News in Australia, Canada, UK and
many other countries, have in the first page the comments of Stallone:
“Sylvester
Stallone has revealed he and the film crew from his Rambo sequel
witnessed atrocities while filming along the Burmese border.
"I
witnessed the aftermath - survivors with legs cut off and all kinds of
land mine injuries, maggot-infested wounds and ears cut off. We saw
many elephants with blown off legs. We hear about Vietnam and Cambodia
and this was more horrific," Stallone said in a telephone interview.
He
returned eight days ago from shooting John Rambo, the fourth film in
the action series, on the Salween River separating Thailand and Burma.
He said it was "a hellhole beyond your wildest dreams".
The
scenes he described occurred before the crackdown against large
pro-democracy protests when soldiers responded by opening fire with
automatic weapons on unarmed demonstrators.
For
decades, Burma's
army has waged a war against ethnic groups in which soldiers have razed
villages, raped women and killed civilians.
http://entertainment.aol.co.uk/stallone-tells-of-burma-atrocities/article/20071001160209990013
"Stallone's
next challenge is trying to get an "R" rating from the MPAA.
"This
is full scale genocide. I want an 'R' and I want the violence in there
because it is reality. It would be a whitewashing not to show what's
over there,'' he told Associated Press."I think there is a story that
needs to be told," Stallone said."
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22517232-2,00.html
Meanwhile
in Yahoo news we find the follow:
"Soldiers
responded last week by shooting at unarmed demonstrators. The
government says 10 people were killed, but dissident groups say
anywhere from several dozen to as many as 200 died in the crackdown.
Dissident groups say up to 200 protesters were slain and 6,000 detained
in the junta's crackdown, compared to the regime's report of 10
deaths..."
The Top news in the first page of yahoo
is about the Giant Snakes a reporter saw, in a Chinese lake... no
comments....
http://www.yahoo.com/
The
UN expected Gambari, to solve diplomatically the problem. That is
ridiculous and obvious Gambari, who waited days and days to be received
by the government in Burma, would not have any possibility to have a
positive result.
The petition, An appeal
to the UN Security Council to protect the people of Burma,
Has until now only 27 thousand signatures.
http://www.petitiononline.com/9848/petition.html
The
second petition asking: UN must act, Call for action on Myanmar
Military Government ,Now !!!! Has only 7 thousand signatures.
http://www.petitiononline.com/kha8954b/petition.html
While
other petition as for sample: Remove JewWatch.com from the Google
Search Engine! Got in no time 377981 Total Signatures.
http://www.petitiononline.com/rjw23/petition.html
And
the petition: Christians Say, "Enough Is Enough!" has 70437 Total
Signatures.
http://www.petitiononline.com/miram/petition.html
Is
this an inversion of values or what? Of course any group must fight for
their rights, and any religion to defend their principles. But what
shocks me most, is the great indifference for what is happening in
Burma. Such indifference from part of the
authorities is
barbarian. The worker of a hospital in Burma called the owner
of
a web site in tears, saying that they were removing injured monks from
the hospital, and incinerating them still alive!!!!!".
The
United Nations have the following agreement:
Convention
on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
Adopted
by Resolution 260 (III) A of the U.N. General Assembly on 9 December
1948.
Entry into force: 12 January 1951.
Article
III: The following acts shall be punishable:
(a)
Genocide;
(b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;
(c)
Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
(d) Attempt
to commit genocide;
(e) Complicity in genocide.
Article
IV: Persons committing genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in
article III shall be punished, whether they are constitutionally
responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals.
Article
V: The Contracting Parties undertake to enact, in accordance with their
respective Constitutions, the necessary legislation to give effect to
the provisions of the present Convention, and, in particular, to
provide effective penalties for persons guilty of genocide or any of
the other acts enumerated in article III.
Article
VI: Persons
charged with genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in article
III shall be tried by a competent tribunal of the State in the
territory of which the act was committed, or by such international
penal tribunal as may have jurisdiction with respect to those
Contracting Parties which shall have accepted its jurisdiction.
http://www.preventgenocide.org/law/convention/text.htm
Unfortunately
the UN can be considered the major responsible, for the continuing
state of terror and chaos that exist in Burma. Is Burma eventually
going to have the same end Tibet did? For as it seems China supports
the dictator leader of Burma. Consequently its obvious that
no
military interference will happen from the UN in Burma, is obvious that
the monks and the people will continually be living in a state of
terror, its obvious that many more will die, their bodies left in the
middle of the jungle or incinerated, that many more will be beaten to
death, tortured, etc. Burma is not USA or Israel so why the authorities
would take any immediate action?
The point is we
as persons,
who are deeply shocked with what is happening there, what can we do? To
raise our voice, sign the petitions, denounce the indifference and
criticize it, just do not remain silent in front of such crime.
Erica
Letzerich Georgiadis
(reprinted from a private e-mail with permission - editor)
St. Paul has written one of the very great texts of the Bible in the words: "The things that are seen are temporal; the things that are unseen are eternal." This is true for religion, but also for philosophy, and for science as well.
The kingdom of heaven is within you, invisible, uncreate. No man can reveal his heaven to his brother; it is an apocalyptic vision for his self alone. Know ye not, says St. Paul again, that Jesus Christ is in you? Closer than breathing, nearer than hands and feet, is the assurance of Tennyson who had the vision splendid if any man ever had.
The most vital teachings of religion, philosophy, and science, are those which throw light on human relationships - family, community, nation and humanity; in other words, on life as it is on earth, here and now, in all its phases, physical, mental, and spiritual. There is a perpetual ebb and flow between emphasis on the ideal and emphasis on the actual - represented in ancient China by Lao-Tse and Confucius, in Greece by Plato and Aristotle, at the dawn of Christianity by Christ and Ceasar, and in the Nineteenth Century possibly by Blavatsky and Darwin.
When the ideal is divorced from the actual, it becomes at best quixotic or sentimental, and at worst fantastic, superstitious, or fanatic. It is then rightly branded as 'the opiate of the people'; for, instead of giving men the spiritual elixir of an awakened mind, which brings 'the peace that passeth all understanding', it puts them to sleep with the soporifics of blind faith, emotionalism, or credulity. On the other hand, when the actual turns its back on the ideal it degenerates into sordid selfishness - a poisonous bootleg that drives men mad.
The woods are full of both kinds of addicts at the present time - on the one hand, people drugged with the opiates of dogmatism or fantastic pseudo-mysticism, and on the other hand, people mad with the moonshine of unilluminated theories and half-truths about economics and politics. It is part of the mission of Theosophy to teach men to follow 'The Middle Way' pointed out by the Buddha and the Christ - 'to render unto Caesar those things which are Caesar's and to render unto God those things which are God's.'
All men may be divided or they daily and hourly divide themselves into two classes: those who think and those who merely react. Few of us are wise enough always to enroll with the thinkers; few are so far divorced from the human thinking principle innate in all of us that we never do any thinking for ourselves at all. But those who keep always in touch with actuality and yet ever use their divine power of thought and reason in striving towards the ideal, are the salt of the earth. They are on their way to becoming the Philosopher-Kings of who Plato wrote in his Republic.
Those who merely react to the impact of their environment and the stimuli of their personal desires and animal propensities are they who will always have to be regimented; and it is they who make necessary the endless series of laws and rules and regulations which so afflict our modern world. The mass of mankind will always be forcing upon themselves additional restrictions of their liberties, in order to prevent them from injuring their neighbors. But the wise man is truly free, because his desires are few and the world that he lives in is limited only by the scope of his own thoughts. The greatest minds of all ages are his confreres and his home is the Universe. In the words of Vergil:
Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas,
Quique metus omnes, et inexorabile fatum,
Subjecit pedibus, strepitumque Acherontis avari -"Happy the man who has learned the causes of things, and has put under his feet all fears, and inexorable fate, and the noisy strife of the hell of greed."
It doesn't hurt to take a hard look at yourself from time to time, and this should help get you started. During a visit to the mental asylum, a visitor asked the Director what the criterion was which defined whether or not a patient should be institutionalized.
"Well," said the Director, "we fill up a bathtub, then we offer a teaspoon, a teacup and a bucket to the patient and ask him or her to empty the bathtub."
"Oh, I understand," said the visitor. " A normal person would use the bucket because it's bigger than the spoon or the teacup."
"No." said the Director, "A normal person would pull the plug. Do you want a bed near the window?"
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