Nelson Mandela Admits Thoughts, Prayers Of Millions Played No Part In Recovery
Offline http://www.theonion.com/articles/nelson-mandela-admits-thoughts-prayers-of-millions,32853
PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA—Addressing supporters Monday from the hospital bed where he is being treated for a recurring lung infection, former South African president Nelson Mandela admitted that the millions of thoughts, prayers, and well-wishes he has received have played absolutely no role in his improving health, and that his recovery has been 100 percent dependent on doctors. “In these past days of struggle, I have seen messages of hope and love from citizens around the world, which, while nice, weren’t going to help remove the excess fluid from my lungs. Doctors do that,” Mandela told reporters. “The capacity of gentle souls to unite their voices in a message of peace and strength is certainly the greatest gift of mankind—I’m not denying any of that. But when you’re a 94-year-old man with a horrible lung infection, you need trained medical professionals. That’s really most important. All that prayer stuff is, frankly, pretty useless.” Mandela said that while his doctors were compassionate and thoughtful human beings of unflinching character, that’s not going to do anyone any good if they “don’t give me some codeine.”
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yeah, that absoutely is not anything, or even like anything, marx ever said. if i have gained any feeling of the man after the better part of a decade studying him and his writings, i can safely conjecture he would have been appalled at such a crude analogy.
oh, and before brian brings it up, marx was a firm believer in EVOLUTION. he even sent darwin a first edition copy of volume one of capital.
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
I would recommend Late Marx and the Russian Road: Marx and the Peripheries of Capitalism by Teodor Shanin. It translates many of Marx's writings in the five years or so before his death on the topic of Russia with commentary. You might also want to take a look at some of his letters written near the end of his life. Marx had some ideas about Russia skipping capitalism (In Capital, Marx framed capitalism as a necessary step before a revolution.)
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1881/03/zasulich1.htm
http://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/ni/vol01/no04/marx.htm
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
Me neither. Thank god Brian has it figured out with wiki. Marx was just naive.
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
marx and engels both swung back and forth on the issue of whether or not a capitalist stage was necessary for a society. they seemed most optimistic about "skipping" to socialism during the fateful year of 1848, which saw workers' and peasants' uprisings all over europe (and was also the year when the manifesto was published), though it appears both settled on the more conservative route--i.e. that capitalism was necessary--by the end of their lives. if you're talking about the same letters i've read, marx qualified the possibility of a direct road to socialism in russia pretty heavily.
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
yeah, brian's clumsy, dilettantish opinions of marx and marxism remind me of the time i almost got EXC to actually read capital. he didn't even get through the first paragraph before he started nitpicking at every word and shoving his own interpretations in there. i don't think he ever went any further in his reading.
as for myself, my great aunt (lovely woman but super conservative christian) gave me a copy of atlas shrugged a couple years ago. i would actually give it a read, to prove i'm open-minded if nothing else, if it wasn't so goddamn long. i have so many books queued up it's ridiculous, and time saving really is a key factor, especially with three jobs, studying for my master's, and a toddler.
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
Yes, it was qualified pretty heavily. It has been a few years since I read the book, but off the top of my head, he thought a total revolution in Russia based on agrarian communes would have to be supported by a Western proletariat revolution that would supply modern technology.
If, if a white man puts his arm around me voluntarily, that's brotherhood. But if you - if you hold a gun on him and make him embrace me and pretend to be friendly or brotherly toward me, then that's not brotherhood, that's hypocrisy.- Malcolm X
yes, and this was precisely lenin's view in the earliest years of the revolution, before it became obvious this wasn't going to happen and he had to make what he saw as a tactical retreat into NEP.
trotsky never gave up this view, of course, and it became the basis for his theory of "permanent revolution."
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
I don't care if you side with Ann Rand or Marx, the left or the right, Our species are diverse and our self interests are diverse so economics cannot be put into any type of box. Like everything else it has to be situational and mixed and is as much timing as well.
I only agree with Marx and Lenin in the context of the time and the lack of value of the worker. Right now we can see that growing disparity in America. But that does not mean in fighting that that our system of government is at fault. That is like blaming the hammer for what the people using it do with it. There seem to be a few decades after WW2 where our system was doing the right thing, but our decline started with Regan and massive deregulation.
Revolutions happen because of political and economic disparity and can go to a more open society or a more closed society. Religious and political excuses often can simply create a power vacuum that allows anyone to fill that gap, even if that person ends up not being good for society.
There is no fucking magic to economics or "one size fits all". You look deep into any "philosophy" you can cherry pick the nice motifs.
Convoluted mental masturbation of any kind does not change what humans are at their core. We are capable of both greed and sharing, both cruelty and compassion, and we are diverse in our economics and our personal desires. Economics should not be based on state vs private sector, or class vs class. But that which maintains stability while allowing economic diversity. There will always be a range of things better suited to the private sector and things better suited to government. Economics is not "Marxism" or "Nanny state", or "Fuck you I got mine". It is simply a ratio that keeps society stable.
It also is not a checkbook and the psychology of all classes of that society have to be taken into account, not just the spending of the government and or the private sector. Point being again Marx intent was naive and Stalin used that to simply switch the monopoly of class to his state monopoly.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
Check out my poetry here on Rational Responders Like my poetry thread on Facebook under Brian James Rational Poet, @Brianrrs37 on Twitter and my blog at www.brianjamesrationalpoet.blog
WE KNOW YOUR POINT OF VIEW, BRIAN. CONSTANT REPETITION WON'T MAKE US TAKE IT ANY MORE SERIOUSLY.
"I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright. . . . Or maybe 'stupid' is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I. . . . And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots."
--Hunter S. Thompson
I wonder what redneF would say if he could see this. He should have stuck around a couple more months as Brian degenerated so far that nearly every frequent poster had enough of the bullshit.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.