How much would you be willing to forgive?

[JNathanK]

I read a book called Shock Doctrine, by Naomi Klein, and in it, she goes into detail about how all these CIA and corporate sponsored dictators in South America imprisoned, tortured, and killed political opponents, like labor organizers and protesters. In an Argentine Ford factory, there were torture chambers to keep workers in line. Under Pinochet, the Santiago arena was turned into a make shift prison where people were electro-shocked and beaten.

With the bloody history of America's foreign policy, I keep in mind that those oppressive forces our government has been unleashing elsewhere in the world could be easily turned on us.

If martial law was declared, and you were forcefully pulled out of your home at night by armed soldiers or mercenaries for participating in OWS and trucked to detainment camp, in the face of oppression and death, how much would you be willing to forgive? Would you stare vengefully into the soul of your armed assailant as you were dying or about to die, or would you be willing to forgive this person?

[unionworks]

1. Welcome to DU

A legitimate question. We have had posters on DU who were gassed and beaten at various protests. It's what usually happens when unarmed people stand up to people with guns, ala "V for Vendetta". Perhaps some of them might care to answer this very personal question.

[saras]

2. I don't know what you're talking about, but it has nothing to do with forgiveness as I understand it

First, I would have died fighting them before getting that far. No forgiveness and hopefully no vengeance, just cold calm efficiency.

Forgiveness is what you do when you accept the amends someone has offered for the wrong they acknowledge without coercion.

Enabling is when you give someone the message that violating socially-agreed-on boundaries is acceptable and/or protect them from the consequences.

Beyond that, you're off into Stockholm Syndrome...

Some of us have known people who already have died, here or in other countries. It's not hypothetical.

Maybe the word you're looking for is pity?

[JNathanK]

4. I never said it was purely hypothetical.

That's why I brought up real world examples. The only hypothetical part is all this madness finally being unleashed on US citizens. Yah, fighting back would nice, but we might not have that chance, because we'd be up against tanks and machine guns.

My thinking is if it all went to shit and the worst case scenarios happened, what would our last moments be? Would they be filled with hate and anger, or peace, love and forgiveness?

Hate feeds on hate, and every war is a perpetuation of that dynamic. We each have very negligible influence, but its still an influence. I could see why I might die hating the armed mercenary that kills me, but I don't know if I'd want my last moment to be one that contributes to the modality that's plagued humanity for so long. I think a better state of mind to die in would be one of love, peace, and forgiveness, because it would be a final expression that would counter all the bitterness and anger. Even though the effects of my final emotional state might not save the world, it'll still change its course in some way. It might range from microscopic to macroscopic, but it'll still leave a lasting effect. I think all our actions in life have lasting effects, and that the global sphere is just an aggregation of all the good or bad choices we've collectively made as a species.

The soldier who kills innocent civilians is just a brainwashed tool of those drunk on power, and that's been the dynamic for thousands of years. They're a victim of the system their selves, and they don't even realize it, because, when push comes to shove, their leaders see them as expendable cannon fodder. Because of this, I don't know if I'd want to die holding anything against them. However, the stupidity, ignorance, and futility of the human species might be so evident to me at that point that I might very well die in a state of extreme hatred, and I might be so bitter that I won't care what awful things will come to the planet I might filled with contempt for the planet, wishing for its complete destruction and erasure from all memory.

I could be completely detached too. There's really no way of knowing.

This is really my way of putting myself in the shows of the innocent casualties of the South American juntas. I'm just wondering what they thought when they died in such a defenseless state and how they coped with their situation. I could see those types of atrocities coming here to the States. It was fairly easy for them to depose and kill democratically elected officials and impose a military junta. It could happen here, especially since it was all US sponsored.

[2pooped2pop]

6. love and forgiveness

would probably not be on most peoples minds. The protestors have been very good at keeping love to the forefront of their actions. I think though if you were fighting for your life, or thought you were, that very few of us would be able to allow love and forgiveness to be our ruling emotion.

I'm afraid it would be hate, fear,panic.

[nenagh]

3. Honestly, I didn't have the courage to read Naomi Klein's book, even though she is a fellow Canadian

Because one snowy day I bought a hardcover copy of Antonia Juhasz's book 'The Bush Agenda : Invading The World one Economy at a Time'.

When I read the economic plans that Pres Bush had for Iraq, and the changes to Iraq's longstanding laws ... It was too sickening.

It seemed inconceivable to me that Bush's team had such intricate economic plans ready to go seemingly at the outset of the Iraq war.. But not the plans to ensure peace in the country...

[JNathanK]

5. I can understand why you were afraid to read it. I'm losing sleeo over it.

...especially since your're Canadian. At the beginning of the book, she wrote about MKULTRA experiments carried out by a psychiatrist by the name of Ewan Cameron, who was employed by the CIA to study mind erasing and reprogramming. In a Montreal hospital, he experimented on unknowing patients by shooting them up with drugs and electro-shocking them over the course of months. Its so dark, and its so evil.

[nenagh]

7. I have read about MKULTRA and indeed know of a woman, a physician, who received compensation..

Because of her treatment in Montreal.

My understanding is that she was given LSD... She became a psychiatrist however I do not know if she was entirely able to overcome the experience of the LSD especially when she was not guided to understand the out of body aspects to LSD that she was likely to experience.

Since then, I have read Jeremy Narby's great book, 'The Cosmic Serpent' , in which he outlines his experience, as an anthropologist, of taking ayuaska and then experiencing visions similar to those experienced by shamons in that region.

Dr. Jeremy Narby, while staying with the indigenous tribes years ago wanted to understand their rationale for telling him that they derived their knowledge of uses of plants for medicine.. From the plants themselves...

Most interesting book...

[JNathanK]

10. Holy crap, I just started reading that same exact book a couple days ago. I'm halfway through it.

...no joke. Yah, its really fascinating, because it demonstrates all these parallels between world religions in concern to serpentine deities. Every mythology from pre-Columbian, meso-American folklore to Christianity references serpents as being primordial entities that play a key role in the evolution or altercation of human awareness.

How does that relate to the LSD, mind control experiments and the overall topic, other than the freakish synchronicity in you bringing that up?

[izquierdista]

8. I wouldn't forgive, I would leave

There are those that stay around and acquiesce, those who stay around and fight, and those who pick up and leave. Sometimes picking up and leaving is hard, like the Jews who left Nazi Germany in the '30s, arriving in a new land with just the clothes on their backs, but in retrospect, it beat staying around.

It was difficult for my grandparents, who decided sticking around in some backwater of the Austrian Empire held no future for them. They made it to America, passing through Ellis Island, and missed out on being able to participate in World Wars I and II. Looking back, the best decision for them was to pick up and leave.

It's always possible to pick up and leave. People emigrated from the 'closed' borders of the Soviet Union, people continue to make it out of North Korea, people leave the poverty of Mexico for the United States. Well, they used to. People are always on the move, and many are motivated to move to where life is better. See, if they stay, they have to decide whether or not to forgive, but if they pick up and move, the question becomes moot.

[JNathanK]

11. +1

nt

[MisterP]

9. I recommend Steven Stern and Jacobo Timmerman on the post-facto issues and reconciliations

for Chile and Argentina

[unionworks]

12. I might be mistaken

...but I believe that Ghandi, the father of the whole nonviolence thing, forgave everything.

[backscatter712]

13. Call me a bad person, but I don't forgive easily.

And I'm already refusing to forgive law-enforcement for the oppression they've already inflicted upon Occupy and this nation.

You think I'd forgive the sacks of shit sent to drag me off to some hellhole?