Why does a man talk?

Why does a man talk? What prompts him to open his mouth and let fly his words? To show off his knowledge, to impart his wisdom, to seek sympathy and love, to advocate-- to “communicate” a view, to cheat and lie, to let loose his frustrations and fears and hopes, to relieve his loneliness, or none and all of the above reasons? In my case, I only know that I am “ un artiste manqué” (sic!). Since I cannot craft stories with any artistic import, I have to make do with occasional release of words which otherwise might explode and render me truly hostile to the current social order.

It’s safe to say that I am a chatterbox despite having two speech impediments: stuttering and inability to articulate certain consonants. The speech impediments once worried my mother who thought I was mentally challenged. My interest in words went back a long way when, to my severe frustrations, I could not smoothly and seamlessly produced words as a normal kid did. My face reddened and was contorted in trying to get the words out of my mouth while my classmates laughed and jeered. Then one day I discovered words had some connection with thoughts and I felt a little better about myself. Say, for instance, while lesser mortals seem only able to portray or satisfy their fascination and preoccupation with sex via cartoons, photos, and videos of humans in scanty attires or in sex acts, I find the following adventure with words ---via the courtesy of a newly anointed Senator of the United States, in his prior reincarnation- -- much more enjoyable:

“Sex is one of the most joyous expressions of God’s love for man. During sex we briefly glimpse His ecstasy at our creation.

This is one of many ways of looking at what I consider the most sacred of our sensory pleasures. For those less spiritual, sex can be a powerful tool for two or three or four people to forge a deep bond. For still others, sex is merely a healthy form of recreation, like racquetball or bike riding or photographing animals having sex.

But regardless of how you view sex, there is unquestionably a dark side to it. The hazards of sexual relationships are many: emotional, physical, and mental. But for the purposes of today’s talk, we’re going to irresponsibly ignore the hazards and focus on the best part of sex: orgasms.

Orgasm is the pinnacle of sexual accomplishment. This is not to say that the pursuit of orgasms should be the end all and be all of your sexual life. Like life itself, the best part of sex is the journey and not the destination. However, some young men arrive at their destination too early. To them I say, next time you embark on a journey, try using a desensitizing gel or ointment. This will help your partner complete her journey, making it far more likely that she will go on future journeys with you.

Others may not journey often enough. To them I say, “You need not always have a partner for your journey…”

In a more serious vein, I find it impossible to convey ideas to the masses in modern times without words. The age of pantomimes was long gone. Speaking of ideas, there are good ideas and there are bad ideas. Bad ideas come mostly from ignorance and pathology and even idealism. Bad ideas are plentiful: the earth was flat, existence of witches and devils, there are physical locales--- not metaphors--- for heaven and hell, and communism. Bad ideas lead to bad outcomes. And as Michael Baigent states in Racing toward Armageddon, as bad outcomes go, the belief in Armageddon is one of the worst. (Baigent, born in New Zealand , had a BA in psychology from Canterbury University , and a MA in mysticism and religious experience from the University of Kent , England ). This belief is shared by the three Abrahamaic faiths. It is Baigent’s thesis that this belief will contribute to the collapse of civilizations and maybe the world, unless directly confronted. Just to let you get a glimpse of the incredible forces of brainwashing, the following are brief excerpts from the book:

“The apocalyptic view of the Middle East events held by recent U.S. administrations, most evidently with President George W. Bush, really began with President Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s. Famously, in 1981, Reagan revealed that he believed, ‘For the first time ever, everything is in place for the battle of Armageddon and the Second Coming of Christ.’ He later echoed this belief, stating, ‘I turn back to the ancient prophets in the Old Statement and the signs foretelling Armageddon, and I find myself wondering if---if we’re the generation that is going to see that come about.’

Two decades later, President Bush contented himself with advice from God. In 2003 he explained to the Palestinian prime minister, ‘God told me to strike at Al-Queda and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam.’”

I personally found it was highly appropriate that Reagan died of Alzheimer’s disease and Bush was widely viewed with scorn and distaste throughout the world. I also found it at once scary and sad that these two intellectual nitwits managed to rise to the position where they would wield so much power and destruction. The fact that they were elected by the majority of the American people says something to the level of “sophistication” of the populace and lends credence to the dictum: The masses are asses (donkeys, not buttocks---just for the sake of clarification) . Needless to say (but I am going to say it anyway), I view with askance those Vietnamese-Americans who adored Reagan and Bush. Tell me whom you adore and I will tell you who you are.

I have included communism in the bad idea category. Communism was conceived mostly by a poverty stricken German of Jewish descent (Jews, traditionally respectful of learning-- and money, too--- have had plenty of ideas. Some are good [relativity of space and time, transference, sublimation] ; some are bad and outlandish [exclusivity, Judgment Day]) who survived thanks largely to the financial support of Engels. Marx was a philosopher who dreamed up of communism in the British Museum Library in London . It looked good on paper. It was idealistic, but it was contrary to human nature because it failed to address squarely the issues of Man’s inherent selfishness and propensity to abuse power. Lenin put the ideas of Marx into practice. It was Lenin who used terror and ruthlessness as tools to seize and perpetuate power and left a blueprint for his followers, including Ho Chi Minh. Communism is bad because it is against human nature and against nature itself. It is an edifice of beliefs built on dreams and wishes, not on stark reality. People living under it have hated it. It is a relic, preserved by a handful of countries. Vietnam is one of those countries, unfortunately. While Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) has slavishly followed their mentor and master, the Chinese Communist Party, in almost all aspects of governance, there is one feature they have failed to adopt: use of talent. The Chinese are smart and secure enough to use the brainpower of those Chinese educated and/or grew up overseas. They welcome these people. The rise of China has many factors. Using the talent of the Chinese educated overseas is one of them and not a well known fact. In fact, as I mentioned before, the Chinese actively recruit talented people, regardless of racial origin. They have approached a friend of mine, a Vietnamese, to work for them, promising money and all kinds of privileges. Now they are prosperous, they have used money to buy influence. An ex-PM of Australia recently penned some articles favorable to China , just to cite an example. This is not the first time money is used in politics. The CIA has used money as a tool. Many politicians, especially in third world countries, have been on CIA payrolls. They are doing that in Iraq and Afghanistan . They did that in Vietnam (cf. the article about the connection between the CIA and the Vietnamese Generals before and after the fall of Diem, recently posted by chi Nguyen Mai Chi).

Man is a creature of momentum and excess, not moderation. Very few humans practice moderation. The USA is on the decline. Nothing has been done to arrest the momentum of decline. China is on the rise. Momentum is on its side. Vietnam is sliding into the abyss of being a province of China in due time, possibly in 10-20 years. Nobody in the VCP has done anything to stop the sliding. The domestic intellectuals know about the danger and are doing something. They are brave enough to publicly question and criticize the ineptitude, if not the complicity, of the VCP with regard to the sliding. In response, they have met oppression from the VCP. The overseas Vietnamese intellectuals are largely too concerned with their own material comfort to do anything worthwhile. There have seen some pockets of concern, but there is a glaring lack of coordination and central leadership.

It would be (I cannot bring myself to using “it will be”; it would be too sad and depressing) a huge irony in Vietnamese History to record that after thousands of years valiantly resisting the efforts of assimilation from their giant neighbor up North, the Vietnamese finally succumbed, despite defeating the French and the Americans, all because of the blind beliefs in the outmoded, impractical dogmas of Communism, all because of the ineptitude of The Vietnamese Communist Party, all because of the apathy of Vietnamese intellectuals, domestic and overseas, who were supposed to be the leaders and the conscience and the consciousness of their people.

Al-Queda and their sympathizers are trying to do something about the slide of Islamic countries. Ever since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire , being a Muslim has not been a source of pride in the Islamic world. Corruption, continued weakness, and lack of relevance in world stage have plagued the Islamic countries. Even a cursory reading of any world history textbook would bring about an understanding of how the Muslims look back to history in nostalgia, in remembrance of how glorious and wonderful the past was, of how they were successful in their struggles to survive and prosper. Human history is a long narrative of rise and fall, of adaptation and extinction. The current fight between Al- Queda and the West--- under the misguided leadership of the United States , with the behind-the-scenes prodding and propaganda put forth by Zionists and Christian apologists, is part of that narrative. China will be the beneficiary of the fight. China will emerge as the real winner, dominating the world. What about Vietnam ? Sadly, Vietnam became a footnote of Chinese History, with the birth of a skinny guy named Nguyen Tat Thanh, with aliases Nguyen Ai Quoc and Ho Chi Minh. He and his ilk were responsible for the collapse of Vietnam as a sovereign independent state.

I once said I would supply the names of world history books I have read. Here are the names of the books:

World History
Elisabeth Ellis & Anthony Esler
Prentice Hall 2003

World History, The Human Odyssey
Jackson Spielvogel
West Education Publishing 1999

World History, Patterns of Interaction
Roger Beck et al.
McDougal Littell 1999

To connclude this rather sad rambling mental exercise, I humbly yet proudly at the same time remind the readers of the indomitable spirit of our ancestors as reflected in the following excerpt from one of the history books mentioned above.

To know the past is to understand the present and to prepare for the future.

The following is taken verbatim, except those in the parentheses—they are mine, from Spielvogel book, page 328-329:

“Two early civilizations emerged in Southeast Asia: Vietnam and Funam. The Vietnamese first appear in history during the first millennium B.C. in the region of the Red River delta, in what is today northern Vietnam . By about 210 B.C., they began to form a state. However, the Chinese under the Qin (Tần) were in the process of expanding their empire. Chinese empires entered Vietnam but found the Vietnamese people a difficult people to conquer….

Qin Shi Huangdi (Tần Thủy Hoàng) was interested in the rhinoceros horn, the elephant tusks, the kingfisher plumes, and the pearls of the land of Yueh (Vietnam), he therefore sent Commissioner T’u Sui at the head of five hundred thousand men (roughly the number of the American military personnel in Vietnam at the height of Vietnam War) divided into five armies….For three years the sword and the crossbow were in constant readiness. Superintendent Lu was sent; there was no means of assuring the transport of supplies so he employed soldiers to dig a canal, for sending grain, thereby making it possible to wage war on the Yueh. The lord of Western Qu, I Hsu Sung, was killed; consequently, the Yueh people entered the wilderness and lived with the animals, none consented to be the slave of Qin, choosing from among themselves men of valor, they make them their leaders and attacked the Qin, by night, inflicting on them a great defeat and killing Commissioner T’u Sui; the dead and the wounded were many. After this, the emperor deported convicts to hold the garrison against the Yueh people.

The Yueh people fled into the depths of the mountains and forests, and it was not possible to fight them. The soldiers were kept in garrisons to watch over abandoned territories. This went on for a long time, and the soldiers grew weary. Then the Yueh came out and attacked; the Qin soldiers suffered a great defeat…”

Wissai
Nov. 25, 2009