You might think that it’s a no-brainer why one should live an honest life. But it’s apparent to me that a life of integrity is the exception rather than the rule. How many people do you know who are honest all the time? We could make a case about the morality and the “rightness” of living honestly. Religions have been advocating this for thousands of years, but it’s doubtful if many followers could provide a true model of integrity. I believe in the moral and ethical value of integrity but I also think there are very practical and worthwhile reasons for living an impeccable life. The right thing to do is seldom the easy thing to do. But it’s worth it.

• 1. Trust. In order to be successful in anything, a person must have a reputation of honesty.
• 2. Good Health. People who tell the truth are healthier. They have less concern, less stress and feel better about themselves. This has to translate into better health.
• 3. Pride. I’ve yet to meet a liar who has any real pride in themselves.
• 4. Peace of Mind. It’s impossible to worry and be happy at the same time.
• 5. Remembering. It’s been said that no one has a good enough memory to be a good liar.6. Good Sleep. If you lie—unless you have no conscience at all—you’ll often lose sleep because of your fears of being found out.
• 7. Confidence. There’s no way to have real confidence in oneself when you’re walking on “bull.”
• 8. Good Relationships. The more one trusts the better the relationship he or she is in, whether personal or business,
• 9. Legal Problems. We don’t have to look very far to see the legal trouble people get themselves into from dishonesty.
• 10. It Doesn’t Work. All too often our deceptions and duplicity are discovered.

From Dr. Kazi Kearse…

This year will go down in history as the beginning of The Great Collapse Awakening. We have two great opposing forces, never seen before on this planet occurring at the same exact time. On the one hand we have a deepening global great depression, which is in reality a dismantling, or collapsing in disguise. On the other hand, we have at the same time, a great awakening, not only politically, but of the entire human potential emotionally, and spiritually. For the first time in history, humanity is waking up, in mass, to their enslavement by the international banking families. A monumental time in the history of mankind where fundamental choices of how we live will be made on both the international and individual level, by every single person. You will be forced to decide whether you will live in LOVE, or live in FEAR…????

Whether you look at small towns, or large cities, across this nation, and around the world, people are waking up to their manipulation by government and corporate entities. One of the top political strategists for the Obama administration, Zbigniew Brezinski, in a 2010 speech before the world elite, said that for the first time in human history mankind is politically awake. I would agree with him, and I would also say that not only are people politically awake, but more and more people are becoming emotionally, and spiritually awake.

Are you trying to maintain a positive attitude on the inside while all around you your world is crashing down around you?  There IS a reason that this generation is the first generation, in recent memory, that could have less than the previous one. The truth is you have been lied to, manipulated, and set up, your entire life. The game was set up way before you were even born. Your parents were lied to also, and their parents before them. While they toiled under these lies, it is only now, in this generation, that ignorance of this system will lead to total disaster. For the power elite that run the game are calling in their cards. This is the pivotal point in history that everything will change. You must wake up. You can regain your vision by learning how to see around their lies. You can be free from those who seek to control you!

Since the dawn of time there has been an ongoing epic battle between the forces of all that is good, loving, and light; and the dark forces, which feed on fear, avarice and evil in men. I have long since chosen which I would stand with. Being on the side of light my heart is often filled with love and a desire to help others who have lost their way. I know, however, that there is an opposing force out there that works in the shadows, plots, and schemes to gather ever more power and control over others.

The main objective of those on the darkside is power. The main tool of the darkside is money, not just weapons, and land acquisitions. They are only what money purchases them. You will soon see, if you don’t already know, that these people have long ago acquired all the money they or their families would ever need. Through out history the wealthiest people have been the people who control the money, originally called money changers. It was not long before they amassed greater sums of money than even kings and queens.

Thus what we have occurring is an ongoing battle, or ( at a deeper level ) dance, between the forces of light and the forces of darkness. By your actions, or in actions, you will aid one of these forces. The forces of darkness hope you will choose to be silent. They hope to discourage you, or out right scare you into acquiescence. They make it  fine-able or even criminal to speak out against them.

The events of this year clearly outline this dance between the forces of light and darkness.

The Great Collapse

The Great Collapse is a force being set in motion by the international banking families. It is an attack they are launching on the masses. It is aimed at destroying us physically, mentally, and monetarily. What they call the Great Culling is at the foundation of the strategy. This is their incremental, but purposeful lowering of the world population by 80% – 90%, down to 500 million people. They believe that they can most efficiently control this number of people. Right now, they believe that our numbers are too high, and that eventually would get out of hand, and they would lose any control they might achieve.

Biological

They are carrying out attacks on us at many different levels. Biological attacks are being carried out through the use of vaccines, and the poisoning of our air, food, and water. Vaccines have had limited success, because they are voluntary, however the elite, like Bill Gates, are financing the development of vaccines that can be sprayed in the air, put inside mosquitoes, and inside of food. They will even be sold to people through the pharmaceutical industry as replacements for the costs of continually having to pop pills.

Aerial spraying of aluminum, barium, corexit, and many other known toxins are being purposely sprayed on us. Genetically Modified Organisms ( GMO’s)  are used in our food supply, often along with known carcinogens. The passage of the so called Food Safety Act will be used to tell us what we can and cannot eat, grow, and sell. It is part of a worldwide plan called Codex Alimentarius, which is part of Agenda 21, which is a UN plan to control the world. If the UN was truly a benevolent body of countries truly seeking to peacefully coexist, it might be one thing, but instead it was developed by a private group of international banking families, meant to centralize their power over the world, to push their agenda for their own interests.

The Healthcare Reform Act

The Healthcare Reform Act is a tax increase in disguise. It’s important to keep in mind who the tax increases actually go to. They are ultimately funneled to the international banking families, to pay back loans that the government takes from them at interest. Originally we were told that it would be optional, but now we know that it is not. We also now know we will be forced to pay premiums. If you do not, or can not pay the premiums, the IRS will come after you, along with penalties, and forced withdrawal from your paycheck. After the bill was written, and passed, we were told that it was indeed written by the executives at the big insurance companies themselves, and only favors them. Not the American people.

Military Industrial Banking Complex

Whether WikiLeaks, and Julian Assange are freedom fighters, or CIA plants, they are providing us with a look into the Military Industrial Banking Complex, and exposing the lies and misrepresentations. Perhaps the most infamous of the leaks was the helicopter attack on the Iraqi civilians, including a cameraman and reporter. Watching them callously shoot up a van with children inside, truly brought home the insanity of what is happening over there. Later information drops have been questionable, as far as them seeming to favor certain entities / outcomes favorable to the pro war and pro Israel lobby, giving the appearance that what started off as a good effort, may have been co opted

BP Oil Disaster

Whether or not BP and Halliburton conspired to unleash this or other oil spills around the world may be a matter of debate, but what is clear is that BP is using it for a certain agenda as reports of corexit spraying and poisoning of Gulf coast residents seems to be continuing. Not only have they destroyed the fishing and tourist industry, forced the relocation of  tens of thousands of men, women and children, but they may have also cut off the gulf stream current, and changed the weather in Europe and perhaps around the world.

ForeclosureGate

Banks made a big mistake, I believe on purpose, but they took very stable instruments like mortgages and turned them into derivatives, or financial instruments. They made a lot of money on the way up, and with getting bailout money, they are also making a lot of money on the way down. However, I believe that their ultimate goal goes even beyond that.

Because the banks have so screwed up the mortgages in this country, that no one knows, nor can prove, who owns most of the property in the United States. Bad for the banks…or perhaps an opportunity for them, through manipulating congress, to allow them to snatch up all the property in the country, or at least get it at a very cheap price, especially if the property rights are lost by the homeowners. The mantra of big business has always been “buy low and sell high”…

Growing Police State

One of the biggest stories this year has been fallout from the Underwear Bomber from last Christmas, and the resulting fallout. Michael Chertoff, who was in charge of Homeland Security ordered that naked body scanners be put in at airports around the country, and then left the administration to make money off of these body scanners, with his own company.

The problem with these body scanners is that they radiate you in order to get their image. Since many people did not want to go through these machines the Transportation  Safety Administration ( TSA ) instituted more and more invasive “pat downs” for people who refused to walk through the body scanners.

2010 saw many pieces of legislation put forth by the Obama administration that advanced the control of “big brother”. From expanding Infraguard to widening the control of “threat fusion centers”. From opening more and more FEMA camps to bringing in an emergency “council” of ten regional governors that the president selects, and is not voted on by the people, to run things when “he” feels there’s a crisis.

The Awakening

2010 has seen a great awakening in humanity. I call it the Great Collapse Awakening. I believe that history will show humanity is awakening at an exponential rate now. Eventually a critical mass will be reached. I think this is also why we see the dark forces trying to collapse everything so fast. They know their time is limited if we realize our full potential.

The next two years are critical. Not just for us, but even for our children’s children. You and I were born for this time, and for this struggle. It may get dark at times, and seem like all you have ahead of you is a life of misery, but maintain your focus and strength, and you will receive from it not just a victory of light over darkness, but on the personal level, a deep understanding of life, and love, and humanity!

Freedom

We have been told many lies. They were designed to keep us from our true power. 2011 will be about coming into our power. We will learn what sovereignty really is as we learn what freedom is, by almost losing it. There is a lot to unlearn. I hope I have helped you this year to unlearn the lies, and to see the truth of who you really are. There is much to still learn together. But this is our journey….

From Dr. Kazi Kearse…

Throughout history the elite have coalesced power by staging events to scare the populations of a given side, against the other side. The elite learned that you can finance both sides of a war, profit from the build up to war, and the fighting of the war, simply by staging events during peace time to bring the parties back to fighting, or give them ever new enemies to fight, and sources for you to collect money from.

The elite own all the major corporations, so not only do they get countries to loan money from them and thus owe them interest, but the money that the elite supposedly give to the country, just gets put into government contracts with the very corporations who are owned by the people who staged the war!

Corporatocracy is really a subgroup of the Oligarchy. The Oligarchy is made up of the families that own these large corporations and countries. The oligarchs are the ones who are really running the world. They are your true enemy. They like to try and fool you into fighting false enemies, like “the Muslims”, or “the communists”. All the while they fund those exact people to fight you too.

I submit to you that every event that has led our country into war has been staged by the same elite families; from the sinking of the Lusitania to the World Trade Center on 9/11. There are many excellent books and videos about the events that took place on September 11th, 2001. I will not try in this book to cover every one of them. I believe, however the following summarizes the highlights of the problems with the official story of the government and the 9/11 Commission. Some of the items in this list you may have heard about, some you may not have. ALL of them have been well researched…

Loose Change Documentary ( Full Cut )

1. The seeds of 9/11 go back to the 1980’s – 90’s.

The World Zionist Organization and the Israeli Likud government of Benjamin Netanyahu, principally Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and David Wurmser ( remember those names ). They published a document called: “Clean Break, A New Strategy For Securing The Realm”. Which called for cutting off peace talks, launching military assaults on Palestine, and getting rid of Saddam Hussein. Many of the authors of this document somehow make their way from Israel over to the United States and are given top positions in the US Government. Like Rahm Emanuel, later, in the Obama administration, they are somehow given “Duel Citizenship” status, and advanced roles in the American government. Richard Perle becomes head of The Defense Policy Board. Douglas Feith, Under Secretary, Defense Policy Board. David Wurmser, Chief Middle East Advisor. They all help draft the next document I will tell you about.

2. Neo Cons ( right wing conservatives ) who rose to power under president Ronald

Reagan, together with Perle, Feith, and Wurmser during the first Bush administration formulate a document and plan called “The Project For A New American Century”, also called the PNAC Report. In it they outline that America needs to increase it’s military presence around the world, and to preemptively strike other countries before they become too powerful. They particularly mention the middle east. The result will be that America will be able to maintain their dominance and control of vital resources. Oil is specifically mentioned. The document warns that this will take very long, unless there is a “new pearl harbor”.

3. The attack on the world trade center on 9/11/2001 would be used as that “pearl

harbor”. You may have wondered why George Bush Jr. stood on the top of the deck of that aircraft carrier when the troops had just chased out Saddam Hussein, with the whole war still ahead of him, and pronounced “mission accomplished”? Now you know why. His mission was accomplished! In fact it turns out, that the plans for removing Saddam Hussein where on president Bushes desk on September 10th, 2001.

The Truth About 9/11

4. There were many other preparations put in place before the attacks. To get a full

Understanding you have to look not only at what Al-Qaeda was doing, but also at the above players, now firmly in power in the American government. Sometimes you have to read behind the lines. CIA and Al-Qaeda ties go back many years. Osama Bin Laden was on the CIA payroll for many years, and carried out missions for them against middle east neighbors. In fact it is said that Al–Qaeda was funded by the CIA and put in place to do two things. To launch operations against American ( CIA ) enemies, and to act as a boogeyman in the American press, to justify funding the military establishment and the agenda of PNAC. In other words, to act in the interest of the banking families who own the corporations that get the contracts, and loan money to countries. Wars bring countries increasingly into more and more debt.

Media As A Weapon

The CIA tracked ( or monitored ) each of the so called hijackers before 9/11. One managed to bumble things so badly that he got himself picked up. Yet the real plot was never exposed. The stories of the other 19, mostly Saudi, so called highjackers are very bizarre. I say so called because some of them are still showing up alive and back home in the middle east walking around. It is said that Israeli Mossaud intelligence stole the 19 highjackers identities. Some of their wallet ids seemed to miraculously survive the incineration of the world trade center collapse and float down for investigators to find during the first few days of the clean up and investigation ? It was also amazing how fast our government had all 19 identities, backgrounds, and photos sent to the news media in really no time at all.

The World Trade Center was always publicly owned. A man named Larry Silverstein, however was somehow given the right to purchase it. Larry is a long time Zionist and billionaire with ties to Israel. He mysteriously worked out a sweetheart deal where he only had to pay a few million dollars for the multiple buildings, and quickly took out several billion dollars worth of insurance on them. Along with the clause that if the buildings were blown up by terrorists he would get twice as much.

Out – Foxed : Rupert Murdoch’s War On Journalism

Guess who he hired to be in charge of security? President Bush’s brother, Marvin Bush. Then weeks before the attack, they decide to shut down the buildings for “renovations”. The planners of 9/11 had a problem still. They had the technology since 1984 to remotely fly airplane jetliners into buildings, but the jet fuel, and building materials only burn to a few hundred degrees, however steal, which the buildings were made of, only melts and weakens at several thousand degrees.

An explosive would need to be added, but very few can burn that hot, except for something called Thermite. The debris field at ground zero was full of weapons grade nano thermite. In fact pools of molten metal were found only under the three buildings that collapsed. This is a by product of a nano thermite reaction. A chemical that is only able to be developed in state of the art American military labs. It’s not found anywhere else in the world. How was it delivered to The World Trade Center? Remember those renovations? Turns out that nano thermite can be sprayed on, like paint.

There were many manipulations going on, just prior to the buildings being pulled. Pulled means a controlled demolition. Silverstein admitted it when he was being questioned about building #7. He said “that’s why we had to pull the building”. Then his globalist friends got to him, and a few days later he took his statement back. Seemed he slipped and said too much.

Larry Silverstein Saying “We Decided To Pull The Building”

Stocks where being manipulated too. Massively in the days before the attack. As if some people in Wall Street knew that certain companies related to the airline industry was about to take a big hit. Goldman Sachs was not the only ones seeming to have inside information, even companies held by government officials were being sold as if they knew something was coming.

On the day of 9/11 inside information abounded around Washington. George Bush was sent out of town to go read to elementary school children, so that Dick Chaney would have a free hand to manage the events of the day. Chaney had an intimate knowledge of “the darkside” of PNAC and the military industrial complex, going back through several administrations. He needed to be at the helm for those minute by minute decisions. Like keeping those fighter jets far away until they are needed, like the one that shot down flight 93 over Pennsylvania only after the passengers had retaken control of the plane. Records show that Cheney was up early that day and sped to the underground command center.

There were a lot of people that morning who knew something. Someone called congressmen and told them not to come in. Someone called over 4,000 Jewish employees and told them to not come in also.

Rumsfeld Admitting Flight 93 Was Shot Down

5. Same thing at the Pentagon. The “so called” plane only hit the side of the building that was under renovation. Conveniently, Rumsfeld and crew were clear on the on the other side of the building. It’s very mysterious how with all the video cameras around the highest security building in the world, they will only show us one blurry image of something white hitting the building. Private businesses in the area had video footage, but the government came and took it from them, and never returned any of it. Same thing with all the audio tape from the cock pit black boxes. Some they kept, some they ripped up. No reason given, and no disciplining of the people who shredded it.

It does not even seem likely that a plane hit the Pentagon at all. The plane, particularly the engine, was never found in the building. In fact the hole that was originally made in the building was too small for it to have been the commercial airliner that they say it was. Experienced pilots have said that THEY could not even have flown into the pentagon the way they claimed this plane did. They also point to the fact that there is no ground dug up in front of the building,which surely would have happened if a plane that size was coming in from a banked turn at a high rate of speed. Nothing, that is not computer guided, couldhave hit the building so cleanly.

6. Problem – Reaction – Solution:

The attack on the world trade center, put together by the Neo Cons and the former Israeli Likud Zionists would be very profitable for their financial masters, the international banking families, because remember how the elite make money; by selling wars. The problem: “Terrorism”, gets sold to the American people through the media machine the elite own. The reaction is that we willingly give up our freedoms for a ( false) sense of security. The solution then gets to be incrementally stepped up to tyranny…Full control…Full Spectrum Dominance by a small elite…and the whole world will be swallowed up in it before they can do anything about it!

7. Once they control everything they can turn up the tyranny. They can collapse economies and get us to work more and more for them. They can poison us. They can imprison us. All without trial. For they are now, judge (regulators), jury (press) and executioner ( law enforcement ). Their minions cycle around and back again, from the corporate world, to lobbyists, to government regulators, then back again to the corporate world….etc.

The secret that cannot be spoken above a whisper is that if we ever had a government, it’s long since gone. 9/11 was an inside job. Americans and Israelis inside both governments killed over 3,000 Americans that day…Have sent over 4,000 American soldiers to their deaths, 60,000 to a life of VA hospitals and blew up over 1.5 million Iraqi men, women, and children and dislocated many millions more. All for empire, money, and the oil that comes with it.

And they aren’t done yet…. They want Iran…and they want YOU and your children. They will take it all if you don’t stand up now. Make no mistake about it. This is the 59th minute of the 11th hour. It’s up to you. Do you click this off and put on a music video, or do you do something? That’s all it takes to begin with. You doing some action. Sharing this link, joining an organization, or simply saying I will not comply anymore….

Speak the truth…LOUD….It’s our greatest weapon…

Stop The Machine Now

From Saudi Arabia Corespondent Eman Al Nafjan…

I occasionally get Emails and comments from non-Arab people asking what they can do to help. Generally there isn’t much that can be done by outsiders as it’s my belief that sustainable change is only change that happens from within. However in areas where West collides with East there are things that can be done to either hurt moderate Muslims or help us.

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is an area that has a lot of impact on the growth and recruitment of terrorist Islamic movements. This is a previous post on how young Saudis come to hate the West as a result of it.

Now with the Park51 Mosque, things have come to a head. This is an area where you can help. To lump Islam as one single ideology and 23% of the world population as terrorists is a grave mistake. To fight Islam in general is the single best backing position for the West to take in aiding fundamental Islamists. When you don’t support people like Imam Rauf and Tariq Ramadan, then in effect you are supporting people like Osama Bin Laden.

When outsiders  lump Islam into this one narrow interpretation that must be fought, they are playing their part in Osama Bin Laden’s world stage. Fundamental Islamists, from the nonviolent to terrorists all use the same effective argument to recruit Muslim laypeople. It goes along the lines of “see, see they hate us. They want to wipe us off the face of the Earth. Where is their freedom and democracy?”

They use as examples for this argument America’s support for Israel, the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan and discrimination against Muslims in western countries. The opposition to and cancellation of Park 51 looks like a future addition to the list alongside the burning of the Qurans in Florida.

Put yourself in the shoes of someone born in a Muslim country who only speaks the language of that country and who has never been anywhere besides that country. Your religious leader, your school teacher or any other person you might have reason to be drawn to tells you about the Palestinian plight illustrated with photos of maimed children and refugee camps. He then talks to you about the innocent civilians killed indiscriminately by American tanks and bombs. Iraqi women raped by American soldiers. He shows you pictures from Abu Ghraib. He talks to you about how Americans hate Muslims and illustrates about how thousands of Americans opposed the building of a mosque and how an American priest is going to burn the Quran. How would you feel?

Do Americans really want to feed into that argument? Islam is the second largest religion in the world, second only to Christianity. It’s not going away, you either help moderate Muslims or you feed into the fundamentalists’ view of the world. Who do you want to be proven wrong?

Journalism involves truth, truth can be relative, sides are thus taken and morality is then measured. Journalistic integrity involves openness to multiplicity and a willingness to engage perspective, whatever those perspectives may be. At times, when standing across the deep and cavernous valley of relativity, one person’s truth may seem like another’s lie, but as difficult as it may be, both sides must be addressed - both regions of truth must be heard. It is only then all concerned can arrive at their own conclusions and the freedom to release and thus add to our wide and wonderful world’s library of multiplicity can be employed. For RELATIVITY OnLine’s David Anthony Hohol, this is how things all come together and this is where the battle lines are drawn.

This past summer, I was offered the position of staff writer by an up and coming political website, donklephant.com. Named after the age-old symbols of the American two-party system, the Republican Elephant and the Democratic Donkey, the site professed itself to be the moderate middle representation of the dual-natured political landscape of the United States.

I was invited on board and given the unofficial title of Middle Eastern correspondent. Site editor and founder, Justin Gardner, an early 30s University of Missouri graduate and self professed Democratic blogger, extended me the invitation with enthusiasm. The process involved several emails and links to several of my editorials from RELATIVTY OnLine. He asked me to provide a genuine and “insider’s perspective” of the Arab World and touted my arrival as a contributor even before my first post:

David Anthony Hohol of RELATIVTY OnLine has lived in Dubai the last six years and during that time has also spent time in Syria, Iran, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, and Sudan. He’ll be giving us an insider’s perspective on issues facing the Middle East and beyond.

I looked forward to getting started and upon receiving “the keys” to his WordPress posted four blogs. The next day I was fired.

The post that led Gardner to kick me out the front door was one that cited the Israeli action in Palestine as “ethnic cleansing” and Arab World perspective of Israel as being “scheming thieves”. The subject line in my pink slip of an email message was “Scheming Thieves?” Below comes from Gardner’s message the following day.

I’m not sure what was unclear from my invitation to the site… Donklephant is about balanced coverage, not blatant advocacy.

Given that, I think it’s best we just called it a day on this partnership and left it at that. I simply can’t risk the integrity of the site.

There’s no question, Gardner’s brief and very quick reaction caught me off guard. The term ethnic cleansing was something I’d seen used several times over in publications all over the world. That very week, Time magazine used the phrase to describe how “much of the world” thinks of Israeli settlements in the West Bank.  And his distaste of my stating that the Arab World perspective of Israel is that of thieves who are plotting to take Palestine away from the Palestinians was even more unexpected. I mean, this is exactly what they think and believe me, Arabs describe Israelis in far more colorful terms than scheming thieves. “What does this guy expect? Didn’t he read anything from RELATIVITY OnLine or was he desperately trying to add writers without getting to know their perspective?” I asked myself.

With a jab thrown my way, I thought it only fair I throw one of my own to even things up. Below was my response:

Hello Justin,

I must say that I am quite surprised by your reaction…. You wanted me to write about the Arab perspective (review your own description of me as an upcoming writer) and that was what I did.

My words in the article were “many in the region” (i.e. the Middle East) look at the Israelis as “scheming thieves”. That is the side, the perspective, the opinion, that offers the balanced coverage you say you want.

Balance is about both sides, not one side being free to say what they want and the other being forced to be politically correct. And when you then say, “Okay, I don’t want you to write anything at all anymore,” it makes me wonder why you even invited someone to offer you the Arab perspective in the first place. By telling me, a secular Canadian, that you don’t want me or my stories about the REAL Arab perspective on your site after asking me to do so, is COMPLETELY inappropriate and that, Justin, is where the integrity you say are trying to protect is lost.

Best of luck.

With that, I thought we each could move on in our own directions. But Gardner could not accept each of us having our own say. He wanted more. Below was his response.

David,

Actually, I said you’d be giving us an insider’s perspective, not a one-sided Arab perspective that accuses a Zionist Israel of ethic cleansing. I mean COME ON. How would you ever think that’s appropriate to post…?

What’s more… if you, as a writer for this site, use the words “scheming thieves” and then link those words back to an editorial written by you where you call the state of Israel a terrorist state, well, guess what…that makes it seems as if Donklephant is endorsing that view.

And yes, balance is about both sides. That’s why I invited you. Because I thought you were going to offer a perspective that took a look at the situation colored by more of the realities of a foreigner living in the Middle East. I can tell you that it (my post) has absolutely no integrity on the site. Think of that what you will.

And so, I once felt it only fair to even things up, and respond:

Hello Justin,

I recently posted an article about the Burka and was thinking of your last email. In the end, I guess I couldn’t resist replying to you.

It may be a rhetorical question, but when I asked you to read over my editorials so as to get a better perspective on my writing style… did you even read one article form beginning to end? If you had you would have seen where I come from and what transpired could have been avoided. You would not have wasted my time… or yours for that matter. It was unprofessional on your part not to know who it is you invite to write for you. Perhaps now you’ve learned your lesson and will be more thorough in the future.

Saying you wanted an “insider’s perspective” as opposed to a “perspective of the region” is just semantics, by the way. That phrase could be defined any number of ways. At NO TIME did you ask me for a foreigner’s viewpoint, as opposed to the Arab perspective.

Further still, calling what I wrote a “one-sided Arab perspective” is flat out wrong and prejudiced. There are many in the international community, not Arab, and not even Muslim, who hold these views. I mean COME ON, you must know this.

And this point I went on a bit of a citation rant, linking articles, news stories and even Jewish groups that hold a similiar view. I included everything from a Pulitzer Prize winning writer Chris Hedges to a story on 60 minutes. I even quoted a passage from the aforementioned Time Magazine article from July of 2009:

“And yet to much of the world, the Katzes (a family of West Bank Israeli settlers) are participating in illegal land grabs forbidden by the Geneva conventions, which do not allow an occupying power (like Israel) from settling its own civilians on militarily controlled land.”

I ended my response with the following:

The world media as a whole is shifting. You can join the fearful herd and be a follower Justin; some are better suited to do so than others. But I will join the others in the distance and lead. Being against Israeli actions in Palestine, calling them bullies… is NOT anti-Judaism. This is a manipulative lie whose shelf life is finally and thankfully reading its end. Think of that what you will.

Best Regards

Gardner once again could not simply allow each of us to have our say. He craved the last word, he needed to be one up on me, and so he let loose one more long email. In it he disputed every source or citation as isalotory or radical, even claiming the Time Magazine article was representing only one Jewish family (when the article was about the inhibiting process of Israeli settlements). I thought about evening things up one more time, but decided to just leave it. A couple of months later, the idea to write about the experience crept into my head and here we are.

I concluded my evening of writing this piece by returning to the About Us section of RELATIVITY OnLine. I read it though once more and afterwards closed my laptop for another day. A sense of purpose soon rolled through me. It also seems to be the best way to finish this discussion:

RELATVIVTY OnLine seeks to promote global citizenry through the respect, awareness, and recognition of individual perspective. Specificity over stereotypes, tolerance over dogmatism, and justice over bigotry- RELATIVITY is about the deconstruction of ethnocentrism, and its dangerous tendency to compartmentalize and diminish. There are many paths and not only one, and the values and beliefs of any single culture will never be universal.

RELATIVITY seeks to expose the bias nature of the media and the socially programmable disposition of cultures the world over. From the earliest ages, populations across the globe are conditioned into believing news coverage is both objective and factual; that television and film are agents of truth. The reality is our hard drives are bombarded with massive uploads of over-simplified, dogmatic, prejudiced information on a near daily basis. We are systematically programmed to believe what we believe and all too often, leave the act of discovery for others. The truth is found when it is sought, lies will die when they are exposed, and the beauty of freedom is often born from slavery.

Today the world is smaller than it has been at any point in human history. An international Culture War has begun and victory will come only through hope, tolerance, and understanding. RELATIVITY OnLine will stand at the front lines and we hope that you will join us.

And so the battle rages on…