The Insanity of War

I just saw a rather controversial documentary about 9/11 and the subsequent war in Iraq. The documentary is called Fahrenheit 9/11, an alteration of the title of the book by Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451. My guess is that the director of the movie, Michael Moore, probably wanted to draw parallels between the society depicted in the book and what has happened in our society since 9/11.

There has been great controversy over the movie with a great deal of political polarization. Unfortunately politics has become a spectator sport and if something is perceived to be critical of one side then all the supporters of that side defend their team to the last breath, no matter what.
So having said all that, I'm not going to pass any public judgement on the movie. Like every other source of information you should evaluate it carefully - not just blindly accept or reject it.

What I do want to say in this post is that back in 1950, in the book Dianetics, L. Ron Hubbard said something about war that is 100% applicable today:

Wars never solve the need of wars. Fight to save the world for democracy or save it from Confucianism and the fight is inevitably lost by all. War has become associated in the past with competition, and it has been believed, therefore, by shifty logic, that wars were necessary. A society which advances into a war as a solution of its problems cannot but depress its own survival potential. No government was ever permitted to enter a war without costing its people some of their liberties. ... A democracy engaging in war has always lost some of its democratic rights. As it engages in more and more wars, it eventually comes under the command of a dictator. ... So went Greece, so went Rome. So goes England. So goes Russia. And so goes the United States and with it goes mankind.

Technology changes, times moves forward, perhaps societal attitudes change, but man basically is man and what was said over 50 years ago is just as applicable today. Mankind MUST stop engaging in war. When the Iraq war began it was heralded as a "conflict" that would be over soon and was being engaged upon to "save the world from WMDs." Back then it was obvious to those supporting the war that it would be a short war and we'd be out of Iraq in just a few months. Several years later we see that the reasons given for the war were ... how shall I put it? ... inaccurate and the idea that any war can be over in a few months is, to put it mildly, short sighted.

Before the war we were told that it was a solution to certain problems and now we are told we can't pull out because it would create even bigger problems. I think anyone who has studied history would have seen the inevitability of this mess from the start.

There is a solution to the insanity of war. It's a solution that will take a lot of work and effort, but I think any amount of effort is better than the millions of deaths that accompany a war.

As L. Ron Hubbard said:

Man is now faced with weapons so powerful that man himself may vanish from the Earth. There is no problem in the control of these weapons. They explode when and where man tells them to explode. The problem is in the control of man.
...
There is a higher goal, a better goal, a more glorious victory than gutted towns and radiation-burned dead. There is freedom and happiness and plenty and a whole universe to be won.

Dianetics has the tools to bring rationality to man. It is the answer to war. Learn about Dianetics and use it and let's make this world a better, saner place!

Tennis and the Conditions (States of Operation)

I just saw the romantic comedy "Wimbledon". A cute little movie that is a slight variation on the usual theme: in this one there is no other man or other woman. Anyway, in the special features of the DVD there is a "making of" featurette that touches on the superstitions of tennis players.

The main superstition, and one that you see in the movie, is that if the player wins a match then he or she will try to keep everything the same in the next game. They'll try to use the same racket, have the same ball-boy on their court, if they arrived late they'll try to arrive late again, etc., etc.

Although this was called superstition in the featurette, in actual fact they are trying to follow a formula for success that they have a vague inkling exists. They don't really know the mechanics but they know that if they keep things the same then the same outcome should happen. Of course, because they don't have the exact formula and they don't understand what the phenomena is that they are dealing with they don't always have the success they were hoping for in the next game.

What they are missing is something that L. Ron Hubbard discovered in the mid-1960s, namely the conditions or states of operation of existence and the formulas for improving them. It is pretty obvious that everything in this universe is in some sort of state or condition but is that condition something random and unpredictable or are there specific predictable conditions? And if one can determine which condition something is in then are their steps one can take to improve the condition?

The answers are: no, yes, yes and yes. No, the conditions are not random. Yes, they are predictable (and there are only a few of them). Yes, you can determine what condition you are in. Yes, there are steps you can take to improve your condition.

There is more data on this discovery here: Improving Conditions in Life

And in this booklet: Ethics and The Conditions

Cultural Lag

The philosopher Schoepenhouer said: "All truth goes through three stages. First it is ridiculed. Then it is violently opposed. Finally it is accepted as self-evident." This also applies to any new idea that doesn't follow the mainstream. The Mormon religion is a good example of this: When the religion first began in the 1820's it was ridiculed, but soon that changed to outright attack. The attacks consisted not just of nasty articles in newspapers but of physical violence and murder. The situation got so bad that church leaders decided to leave the east coast of America and make a dangerous journey across the heartland of America to Utah. (History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) The attacks continued for many years but the religion survived and eventually became accepted to such a degree that we now have a Presidential candidate, Mitt Romney, who is a Mormon.

L. Ron Hubbard, founder of Scientology, called this phenomenon "Cultural Lag": the time it takes a culture to accept a new idea. He said, "an example is Dr. Semmelweis's discovery of the cause and cure of childbed fever. For over a half a century after that women still died in agony after childbearing."

It is unfortunate that cultural lag exists, but it is a reality and we have to bear with it. In the United States, Scientology was first ridiculed and then attacked and now it is generally accepted as a bone fide religion. However, other countries have a longer cultural lag, so it is not surprising that recently in the United Kingdom a rather nasty attack occurred. The interesting thing about the attack is that if follows right on the heels of the biggest expansion the church has ever had in the UK: The grand opening of the new Church of Scientology of London and the purchase of large new buildings for the Church of Scientology of Manchester and the Church of Scientology of Sunderland.

The attack was all the more egregious because it came through a channel that many people around the world trust and respect, the BBC. But the BBC is very large and I don't suppose it is easy for them to keep an eye on everything that goes on. The BBC TV program, Panorama, decided to do a hatchet job on Scientology, so they got their best hatchet man, John Sweeney, handed him a hatchet, opened his cage door and yelled "sic 'em!"

The results were predictable. But what neither the producers of Panorama nor John Sweeney expected was that the Church didn't just crawl into a corner and weep, instead they produced a documentary exposé about the BBC, Panorama and John Sweeney. It makes very interesting viewing: see John Sweeney screaming at the people he is supposed to be interviewing, see John Sweeney interviewing a convicted sex offender as an "authority" (and swapping criminal records as they talk), see the tactics used by Sweeney to make his victims seem uncooperative, see what happens when a church camera crew attempts to get an interview with the Director General of the BBC.

The entire video:

• BBC Panorama Exposed
  

  The video in parts:
  

• BBC 1/3 - Scientology Documentary on BBC Panorama program
  
• BBC 2/3 - Scientology Documentary on BBC Panorama program
  
• BBC 3/3 - Scientology Documentary on BBC Panorama program
  
• Other related links:
  
• Scientology and Me - BBC Panorama Program – all related videos
  
• Freedom Magazine Report

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More on the Dianetics Anniversary

Here is another announcement about the 57th Anniversary of Dianetics:

Published 57 years ago today, "Dianetics: the Modern Science of Mental Health" ignited an entire movement which now spans 5 continents and 160 nations, and comprises over 7500 Scientology churches, missions and groups.
Celebrating the 57th Anniversary of Dianetics: the Modern Science of Mental Health.