Saturday, January 01, 2005
CONFLICT RESOLUTION 101
To define Conflict Resolution and to put it in a context that most of us can understand, (And if you still cannot after reading this then you are useless and there is no hope. There are however plenty of opportunities in the food service industry with funny hats and name badges and all you have to remember is to ask “Would you like fries with that?), it is the art of picking the battles that one needs to fight in life and the wisdom to identify and walk away from situations that you really cannot impact and really do not need to be impacting anyway. There is a huge problem in this country of Blessed Free Speech. The problem comes from the fact that most of the speech that is made under this freedom is stupid, idiotic, off the mark, uninformed and none of your damned business in the first place and about as worthless as used sheep dip.
Not that I resent the Freedom of Speech. This is the most sacred of our freedoms. I have and will always have as my credo, “I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend your right to say it.” But come on people; let’s say something intelligent. Damn, I have found myself defending some real stupid statements, theories, ideals, political positions, and other assorted flotsam and jetsam that spews from some peoples mouths under this right and it is getting a little stale and I am getting too old to defend the touched in the head. It seems at times it has gotten to be a near impossibility to sort the horseshit from the bullshit and find the nuggets of truth and rationality.
Who is to blame for this? WE ALL ARE! We all do it. Me, you, that guy over there, that blathering talking head on TV, that writer, that educator, that theologian, that evangelist on television with the$500 haircut and the $3,000 suit crying alligator tears over not getting enough money from the rubes to continue his version of the Supreme Beings Divine Plan and God himself only speaks to him to tell us what God has in mind like some liposuctioned, tooth whitened, libido enhanced, Moses. And since God only speaks to and through him or her God now allows them charge by the word and you have got to pay the preacher to hear THE TRUE WORD, Hallelujah!! Can we get an AMEN here? And order the Ferrari.
We need constructive dialogue. We have some serious problems and if we do not address them they are going to reach out and bite us in the ass while we worry whether it is acceptable for two people who love each other to declare that they are a union in mind body and soul to the rest of the world.
For instance, there is a group of folks that are desperately hungry, poor, dirty, I-Pod-less, desert folks, that want the whole world to live by 15th Century Religious Law and Customs, that have nukes, who are not very fond of us at the moment. Now, in my mind, this is more important to me than whom someone is married to. You think Gay Marriage will destroy the American Fabric? Wait until you see what a few little nukes can do to screw up your shopping experience at Wal-Mart.
Of course, we are reassured by spokesman from the government that all is well and that we should not worry about it and go about our introverted lives, but I say let’s take a for instance. The smart folk like to call them Scenarios, I will call them "for instances." For instance, these are the same folks that decided that we should not see the people hand in hand jumping from the top of the World Trade Center on 9-11 in order to, and I love this, “not to inflame passions”. Are they out of their minds! The passions demand to be inflamed! The dead demand that they be avenged. Righteous fury should be the mood of this nation. Let slip the Dogs of War. Run; do not walk into harm’s way. They attacked us. They killed some of us. They killed our women and children. They did not make war on our armies. They made war on our children. Take due revenge in a manner that they, our enemies will never again even conceive of attacking this country and its citizens. Let the world shudder at the size, ferocity and intensity of our wrath! Let the world fear us.
Then let the world see our compassion after we bury and avenge our dead that will not only equal our wrath, but also exceed it. For we are truly, a compassionate people. We have demonstrated this many times before. We have a tradition of trying not to start wars, but we finish them. Our past-vanquished enemies now live under some of the highest standards of living conditions on earth. But does being compassionate mean that we are a weak people? Not at all. What this shows is our strength of what our country and our ideals are.
This needs to be done before some of the folks that find blowing themselves up so that they can go to the garden and be serviced by Virgins of an indeterminate number decides to sail a freighter in to the Hudson River with just a small nuke on it right near Wall Street. Not even a megaton, just a little designer suitcase couple of kiloton number and set it off. No discussion. No advance threats. No demands. Just comes in and decides to open his own can of Whupass on us. That is something that I really think we, as a nation needs to seriously discuss and not waste time and money on whether or not almost seeing Janet Jackson’s nipple has scarred me for life. (For the record, it did not. I have seen way better and way worse.)
It is time for us as a people to stop all the idiot ranting and raving and come on in and sit down at the kitchen table leaving our egos and prejudices out on the stoop and talk about this like the family we try to portray. A cup of coffee and light up a smoke, (to the Anti Tobacco people, “Shut up. A cigarette is not going to give me lung cancer any quicker than Strontium 90 floating around in the air will. I deny you the satisfaction of counting me as another senseless tobacco death when I am taking in a big nose hit of “Mushroom Cloud U-238”…good stuff!), and decide what we are going to do now.
I know scholars and fine smart people that I admire and in many ways respect that would still make the one stupid suggestion that sounds like this. “First we have to identify the problem”.
Identify the problem! We know what the problem is! Some folks are trying to kill us! Does that statement clarify the problem enough? They, and by they I mean anyone that takes a mind to do it, are going to come over here and blow us up big time. September 11th will fast disappear out of our memories the day that we have to bury not just 3,000, but 3,000,000 from a single event. That is the problem and unless we get that through our collective heads you can make book on it’s happening and the scary part is the folks that tell us not to worry know it. Do I look like Alfred E. Newman? Of course I am worried.
I am more willing to be damned for saving our children’s lives than being damned for wasting them. With that said, now can we get down to getting some serious discussion underway on what course we are to take and Resolve this Conflict before we have to bury a city?
Not that I resent the Freedom of Speech. This is the most sacred of our freedoms. I have and will always have as my credo, “I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will defend your right to say it.” But come on people; let’s say something intelligent. Damn, I have found myself defending some real stupid statements, theories, ideals, political positions, and other assorted flotsam and jetsam that spews from some peoples mouths under this right and it is getting a little stale and I am getting too old to defend the touched in the head. It seems at times it has gotten to be a near impossibility to sort the horseshit from the bullshit and find the nuggets of truth and rationality.
Who is to blame for this? WE ALL ARE! We all do it. Me, you, that guy over there, that blathering talking head on TV, that writer, that educator, that theologian, that evangelist on television with the$500 haircut and the $3,000 suit crying alligator tears over not getting enough money from the rubes to continue his version of the Supreme Beings Divine Plan and God himself only speaks to him to tell us what God has in mind like some liposuctioned, tooth whitened, libido enhanced, Moses. And since God only speaks to and through him or her God now allows them charge by the word and you have got to pay the preacher to hear THE TRUE WORD, Hallelujah!! Can we get an AMEN here? And order the Ferrari.
We need constructive dialogue. We have some serious problems and if we do not address them they are going to reach out and bite us in the ass while we worry whether it is acceptable for two people who love each other to declare that they are a union in mind body and soul to the rest of the world.
For instance, there is a group of folks that are desperately hungry, poor, dirty, I-Pod-less, desert folks, that want the whole world to live by 15th Century Religious Law and Customs, that have nukes, who are not very fond of us at the moment. Now, in my mind, this is more important to me than whom someone is married to. You think Gay Marriage will destroy the American Fabric? Wait until you see what a few little nukes can do to screw up your shopping experience at Wal-Mart.
Of course, we are reassured by spokesman from the government that all is well and that we should not worry about it and go about our introverted lives, but I say let’s take a for instance. The smart folk like to call them Scenarios, I will call them "for instances." For instance, these are the same folks that decided that we should not see the people hand in hand jumping from the top of the World Trade Center on 9-11 in order to, and I love this, “not to inflame passions”. Are they out of their minds! The passions demand to be inflamed! The dead demand that they be avenged. Righteous fury should be the mood of this nation. Let slip the Dogs of War. Run; do not walk into harm’s way. They attacked us. They killed some of us. They killed our women and children. They did not make war on our armies. They made war on our children. Take due revenge in a manner that they, our enemies will never again even conceive of attacking this country and its citizens. Let the world shudder at the size, ferocity and intensity of our wrath! Let the world fear us.
Then let the world see our compassion after we bury and avenge our dead that will not only equal our wrath, but also exceed it. For we are truly, a compassionate people. We have demonstrated this many times before. We have a tradition of trying not to start wars, but we finish them. Our past-vanquished enemies now live under some of the highest standards of living conditions on earth. But does being compassionate mean that we are a weak people? Not at all. What this shows is our strength of what our country and our ideals are.
This needs to be done before some of the folks that find blowing themselves up so that they can go to the garden and be serviced by Virgins of an indeterminate number decides to sail a freighter in to the Hudson River with just a small nuke on it right near Wall Street. Not even a megaton, just a little designer suitcase couple of kiloton number and set it off. No discussion. No advance threats. No demands. Just comes in and decides to open his own can of Whupass on us. That is something that I really think we, as a nation needs to seriously discuss and not waste time and money on whether or not almost seeing Janet Jackson’s nipple has scarred me for life. (For the record, it did not. I have seen way better and way worse.)
It is time for us as a people to stop all the idiot ranting and raving and come on in and sit down at the kitchen table leaving our egos and prejudices out on the stoop and talk about this like the family we try to portray. A cup of coffee and light up a smoke, (to the Anti Tobacco people, “Shut up. A cigarette is not going to give me lung cancer any quicker than Strontium 90 floating around in the air will. I deny you the satisfaction of counting me as another senseless tobacco death when I am taking in a big nose hit of “Mushroom Cloud U-238”…good stuff!), and decide what we are going to do now.
I know scholars and fine smart people that I admire and in many ways respect that would still make the one stupid suggestion that sounds like this. “First we have to identify the problem”.
Identify the problem! We know what the problem is! Some folks are trying to kill us! Does that statement clarify the problem enough? They, and by they I mean anyone that takes a mind to do it, are going to come over here and blow us up big time. September 11th will fast disappear out of our memories the day that we have to bury not just 3,000, but 3,000,000 from a single event. That is the problem and unless we get that through our collective heads you can make book on it’s happening and the scary part is the folks that tell us not to worry know it. Do I look like Alfred E. Newman? Of course I am worried.
I am more willing to be damned for saving our children’s lives than being damned for wasting them. With that said, now can we get down to getting some serious discussion underway on what course we are to take and Resolve this Conflict before we have to bury a city?
