The US Government and Extraterrestrials(ETS)

Reproduction and a beautiful PIECE, written in the style of Art Buchwald!
The US Government and Extraterrestrials(ETS)

Arthur "Art" Buchwald (October 20, 1925 – January 17, 2007) was an American Humorist best known for his long-running a column in the Washington Post, which in turn was carried as a syndicated column in many other newspapers. 

His column focused on political satire and commentary. 

He received the Pulitzer Price for Outstanding Commentary in 1982 and in 1986 was elected to the American Academy and institute of Arts and Letters.

The US Government and Extraterrestrials(ETS)
 
Now that concrete proof of the existence of the ETs was available to the US government, the ETs started sending messages to the leadership which knew about the Roswell incident.
 

The central message was that nuclear weapons were very dangerous and should be eliminated, plans to build nuclear power plants should be shelved immediately and in return the ETs would help the world develop new sources of energy which were safe and essentially unlimited. 

The elimination of nuclear was naturally a military decision, but the civilian leadership of that time was also involved.
 

This was the time of the cold war. 

Harry Truman was the President. 

Truman was no Roosevelt - he was a small town Southerner, a decent man, but no great statesman - not exactly an internationalist or overly broad-minded. 

He had no regrets about using the atomic bombs.
When Germany attacked Russia, Truman said "If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany and that way let them kill as many as possible, although I don't want to see Hitler victorious under any circumstances."
 

He and his cold war Generals were the people who would be making the decision on what to do about the ETs overtures.
 

The decision was made to ignore the ETs urgent messages. 

A secret department was created to investigate the ETs, their downed spaceship and their ultra high technology. 

How did the thought process go? 

How did they decide what the best course of action was?

 

Since the whole affair is so highly classified, we can only speculate.

So here goes (pure speculation):
 

Super patriotic General (his father may have been at the Alamo):
"I smell a rat. What do these wags want?
What is their angle?
What is in it for them? 

Who do they think they are fooling?
We weren't born yesterday.
Once we disarm they will invade us with their fancy weapons".
 

Blue blooded Politician (his was the third generation of ivy league educated men in the cabinet):
"The great nation of the United States stands between these blood-thirsty savages and the entire world. We are the world's last hope. It is manifest destiny that the US makes the last stand to defend the world against these aliens."
 

Member of the Cabinet (a self-made man - his father was a used car salesman during the Depression): "These aliens are a bunch of saps. We will just string them along until we figure out their technologies. That can't be too difficult, we already have all those Germans working on the rocket program. If not, we can just con them into handing their secrets over and keep all our nukes as well".
 

Someone who looks rather like Dan Quayle jumps up and starts hysterical shouting - "USA! USA! USA!".
The general asks him to shut up and sit down.
 

The OSS (CIA) man in dark glasses (nobody in the room knew his real name):
"Wonder what kind of sex these aliens have?
We could get some pictures and spread them around.
Nobody in the world would touch them again with a barge pole.
We have already taken care of all the witnesses.
Its like the aliens never existed."
 

The President takes a deep breath and with great pride in his voice:
"Boys, today will be remembered forever in history as the day, America did right by the world. Just keep it to ourselves for now. Shut it down like it never happened.
You all have a good weekend now."
I am sure we can come up with a lot of different scenarios.
 

When governments keep information, which rightfully belongs to all humanity, so secret, I think we have the right to speculate all we want.
 

There is of course no need to be at all charitable in our speculation about their motives.
If any of the readers have their own ideas, please mail them to me at the address at the bottom.
The decision was unanimous - the aliens were to be ignored.
 

The Truman team basically did not take the ETs that seriously. 

After all any US marine could break one of those ETs, that they had found on the ship, into two pieces with both his hands tied behind his back. 

Our jewels - the nukes would be preserved and strengthened. 

The incident would be completely covered up. It was a wonderful day in America.
When the Truman term ended in 1953, General Eisenhower, the golfing President entered office. 

The General knew exactly how to fight battles and win wars.
Just command someone to do it while he went golfing.
 

Eisenhower's cabinet contained two of the most evil men in the world since WWII - the Dulles brothers (Kissinger, Dick Cheney, David Addington, Karl Rove and Elliot Abrams come pretty close in matching them in evil).
 

One brother was the Secretary of State and the other one was Director of the CIA. 

And then there was Nelson Rockefeller - he was no stranger to secrecy and the intelligence agencies and Eisenhower had already assigned him chairmanship of the President's Advisory Committee on Government Reorganization.
In addition Rockefeller was appointed the head of the Operations Coordinating Board responsible for integrating the implementation of national security policies - the OCB included the Under Secretary of State, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, the Director of the Foreign Operations Administration, the Director of Central Intelligence, and the President's Special Assistant for Psychological Warfare.
The ET phenomenon had been well analyzed by the military by now.
 

The report that Nelson Rockefeller saw was devastating - it basically predicted the end of world as he knew it.
Nelson Rockefeller was reputedly a 'liberal', eastern republican, not like the narrow minded ones from the south. However, Nelson also believed in the 'American way' and the superiority of 'Western civilization'.
 

He was proud of his white, Anglo-Saxon heritage, American capitalism and his Christian upbringing. 

He was also an internationalist who believed in spreading these American/European values across the world through evangelizing.
 

The other earthly races were the white man's burden and he would show them the right way to live.
 

But these ETs were going to spoil all that.
They appeared to be far more advanced and superior.
 

They even talked in terms of peace and brotherhood.
 

If the world at large found out about these superior beings, why would they bother with what he and America had to say?
It would be the end of American and Anglo-Saxon domination.
It may even be the end of capitalism. 

With cheap, unlimited energy sources like the ETs promised, the third world would advance at a rapid pace. 

All poverty and want would be eliminated.
Within a couple of decades, they would catch up with the West.
With free energy and technological progress, the countries with the highest population would be the most powerful.
China and India would be dominant with the US a distant third.
Christian beliefs and dogmas were also at risk.
 

This would never do. 

The ETs had to be outwitted and defeated.
 

The world was to be united against the ETs under the leadership of America and its allies.(Of course with clean, free energy, there would be no pollution, no climate change, no global warming, no poverty, no starvation - but these were not the problems of the 50s and 60s in America nor considerations for the 'free market' republicans who wanted the market to fix all these problems).
 

Truman and his team had done a good job keeping the ET information from the public, but now it was time to take it further underground, not only would the public not know about, it would be hidden from all elected officials as well.
Nobody but those within military/intelligence complex who were already involved with ETs would have that information and any others would get to know only by invitation from those already in it.
This group would be financed completely off the books, by black budgets from the CIA and other agencies or from friends in the know in private industry (banking, defense and energy/oil companies) or even self-financed by illegal activities when necessary.
The ultimate cover up had begun.
The private industry partners in this black project were  very likely led by Nelson's brother - David Rockefeller. Together with other European banking families, US defense contractors and energy interests, the two Rockefeller brothers (or at least Nelson alone) would help the US intelligence communities (CIA/NSA/NRO etc) manage the operation.
The golfing president signed off on it and essentially signed himself out of the loop without quite understanding what he had done.
The US Military/Intelligence Cabal and ETs
The plan to handle the ET phenomenon consisted of several projects (all run by the blackest of the black ops):
Try to catch up with the ETs technologically - develop similar space vehicles as well as weapons to disable/destroy such spaceships. This project of building spacecraft like the ETs was handed to the defense contractors who were partners in the operation.
Discredit all witnesses to UFO sightings or close encounters with actual ETs. This involved planting CIA assets in every organization which believed in UFOs and buying off any journalists or writers who wished to investigate the ET phenomenon.
The worst part of it was catching those who did have encounters with the ETs and intimidating them, if necessary kidnapping them, torturing them, drugging them or eliminating them if that was what it took.
Get people in the US (as well as the rest of world) to fear and loath the ETs (without ever admitting that they existed).
Here the plan got more complex - it involved psychological warfare.
The plan was to have the military/intelligence members pretend to be aliens and then abduct ET sympathizers or those who may want to expose the cover up.
The abductees were drugged, hypnotized, tortured or sexually abused (the intelligence operatives have long discovered that sexual abuse was a easy way to traumatize people) using techniques perfected in the CIA's mind control project MKULTRA.
Besides drugs and hypnosis, bombarding the victims with concentrated electromagnetic rays was also used. The latter technique caused paralysis and often made the victims unknowingly have out-of-body experiences. While under drugs and hypnosis, false memories of alien atrocities were planted in the victims minds. The whole thing sounds like science fiction, but it turned out to be a very successful program.
Since the ETs often visited rural areas, a special group that secretly mutilated cattle was created.
This was sure to turn farmers against the 'demonic aliens'.
If nothing worked outright murder was always an option. They had discovered ways of driving people completely crazy or even inducing cancer in people from a distance using the Electromagnetic weapons.
The groups involved in the disinformation, abductions, torture, mutilations were very much like the Nazis - Mengele, Bormann, Himmler, Goebels all rolled into one (apparently only a Hitler was missing).
I am convinced the planetary Dark Forces influenced the groups, some of them may have even been obsessed by one of the Lords of Materiality.
As years past, the group went out of control. Even the civilian leadership (what little there was of it), like the Rockefellers, could no longer control them.
They became a rogue operation within a rogue operation.
If a CIA director or even a President dared interfere in the cabal's affairs, they and their families were at risk.
No Democratic President was let in on the covernup.
Kennedy who tried to find out more may have been assassinated for that very reason. Carter and Clinton did not have a clue and were threatened when they asked any questions. GHW Bush Sr. was in on it, but when he suggested revealing the secret, he too was threatened.
The Church and the ETs
When the Vatican was informed by the US government of the alien menace, they were equally appalled.
They searched the Bible desperately for any indication of such beings. If the ETs were not angels or demons, what were they?
Could the divine trinity be applied to the ETs too?
The Father and the Holy Spirit seemed universal enough, but Jesus posed a real problem. Was Jesus just the Son of Man or also the Son of ET?
There was no indications that The ETs accepted such a human/divine Son of God (or even a God).
And they were an advance superior race!
The whole Christian belief system built around the 'only begotten Son of God' was at risk.
It was best to suppress all information regarding the ETs.
Recent statements from the Vatican indicate that they are preparing for the time when eventually the truth about ETs will be revealed. A priest (Monsignor Corrado Balducci) not directly associated with the top brass at the Vatican, has been authorized to state that "extraterrestrial encounters are not demonic, they are not due to psychological impairment, they are not a case of entity attachment, but these encounters deserve to be studied carefully".
He spoke about the extraterrestrial people as part of God's creation and that they are not angels nor are they devils.
Recently Fr. José Gabriel Funes S.J., the current director of the Vatican Observatory, organized a conference about the possibility and consequences of life existing in outer space.
He even suggested that there could be aliens who were superior to humans and not guilty of original sin (Whatever that means! I guess, he is saying that the aliens are not demonic like the fundamentalists believe).
Incidentally the SJ - the Society of Jesuits is supposed to control the Vatican's intelligence service.
 

Islam and the ETs
Luckily for us all, no Islamic country with the exception of Pakistan has nuclear weapons.
Pakistan has never had a stable government.
There was no point in the ETs approaching them.
However, I am sure that if Pakistan's nukes ever got into the wrong hands, the ETs will disable them before any harm is done.
Islam is very specific about the type of beings that exist in the universe.
According to Islam there only three kinds of beings - humans, angels and demons.
The ETs were not humans and they were definitely not angels - that leaves only one choice.
I am pretty sure the full disclosure of the existence of the ETs will result in the complete collapse of the Islamic religion.
Unfortunately, the fanatics among the Muslims will not give up without a fight.
This will mean violent clashes between the firm believers (in this three kind of beings theory) and those Muslims who will accept that the ETs are not demons, but superior and advanced beings.
Foreign Governments and ETs
The motives of The US government are fairly clear.
The presence of ETs, their technological superiority, the availability of limitless sources of energy were threats to US domination of the world as well its political, social, economic and religious structures.
But what about the other nuclear powers that were also approached by the ETs?
What were their motives for participating in the cover up?
These are not so clear, so we must speculate. The analyses below is speculation, some day soon we will find how much truth there is in it.
Britain
The British were convinced by the US government that the ETs were dangerous and not to be trusted. If the west ever lost their nuclear weapons, the ETs were sure to invade and take over the world. Britain being a developed economy had nothing to gain by revealing the existence of the ETs and their UFOs and much to lose.
Recent official statements from the British government indicate that while not admitting the ETs/UFOs exist, the British government considers them harmless and benign.
However, the British government as usual would like to defer to the US on whether or when to reveal their existence.
France
The French government does not like to defer to the US, but they also see the danger of the West losing dominance and the more populous countries of the East becoming world powers. France is heavily invested in nuclear energy and quite sure the fission plants are safe.
Also France is technically a Catholic country.
Perhaps the France would like to defer to the Vatican for the timing of revealing the ET phenomenon.
 

Russia
The Russia were the second country to be approached by the ETs.
However they were soon convinced by the US that the ETs would not only leave them defenseless (without nukes) but that the ETs posed a danger to the monopoly of power of the Communist party in Russia.
Once the people had free localized energy, they would be independent of any central control. More recently, after the fall of communism, the reason for the Russians silence is not that clear. Naturally like the US, they also did not like the idea of the Eastern countries becoming the dominant world powers in the near future.
 

China
The Chinese were also fearful of losing their nukes - their only protection against the USSR and US. They were also worried about losing the power monopoly that the centralized communist party enjoyed.
More recently, they have been having delusions of grandeur.
In a few decades they expect to overtake the US economy and become the dominant power with or without the ETs help. They do not relish the idea of sharing the world stage with the Indians who they consider an inferior race. It is best if the ETs and their technology were delayed or hidden for ever.
India
India has been late coming to the nuclear club.
So the contact with ETs has been very recent. India would benefit most amongst all countries by elimination of nukes, the revelation of the existence of the ETs and the development of new energy sources.
With cheap energy, India's millions of starving people would be dragged out of poverty in a single generation.
Also among all the religions, Hinduism would be least affected by the ET news, if anything many of its beliefs maybe vindicated.
However, though India is regional power, on the international stage, it is a timid country. If would defer to the US rather than upset the status quo.
Besides Indians are panicky people.
If you walk through the streets of Bombay and shout 'the sky is falling', people will run for their lives. That maybe another consideration.
Besides having their own reasons for participating in the cover up, there is reason to believe that leaders of foreign countries have also been threatened by the US Cabal, these include threats to the lives of the leaders as well as their families.
There are rumors that members of the families of foreign leaders have been abducted by the US staged fake aliens and frightened into silence.

Sir John Kotalawala

Sir John Kotalawala
 
I must confess this is the only Sri-Lankan politician, I am going to mention since he gave up politics in its infancy and left an indelible mark in my formative brain.

He was famous for his uttering   “ It is better fox  hunting in England than doing politics in Ceylon". 

Shooting foxes was a sport in UK then, I joined the cavalcade, vigorously opposing it, as a sport, in early eighties, on the lines of animals rights while working there.

Sir John Kotalawala who was ranked as General in later years was our 3rd Prime Minister of Ceylon from 1953 to 1956. He entered mainstream politics by being elected to the Legislative Council as the member for Kurunegala, thereafter to the State Council in nineteen thirties. In 1948, when Ceylon became a dominion, Kotelawala, was appointed to the Senate. He was elected to the parliament in 1952 and was the Leader of the House and was chosen as the Prime Minister when Dudley Senanayake resigned in 1953.

Sir John was an outspoken man who loved sports and did not mix his words in political circles and thereby made a few political enemies in the opposition.

He was picked up as a target for slandering and his mavericks made it easy.

Prime Minister Sir John Kotelawala laid the foundation for a Non Aligned foreign policy. He took the initiative to hold the South and South East Asian Colombo Powers Conference which became the precursor for the Bandung Conference where the principles of Non Alignment was formulated. An important happening at the Bandung Conference should be recalled.

When the agenda item Colonialism and Independence came to be discussed Sir John raised an issue which caused a stir at the conference.

He actually dropped a bombshell equated Soviet domination over Eastern Europe with Western colonialism in Asia and Africa.

Sir John was always against international communism, Chou-En Lai and Jawaharlal Nehru had got upset and sought to take Sir John to task for his statement but Sir John was said to have, in his inimitable way, been blunt and forthright as he always  was.

The Indonesia was worried that the conference would collapse but that did not happen and the conference was an absolute success.

Back here in this country the local Marxists had roared and called Sir John "Bandung Boouruwa" but it was the Marxists who turned out to be the absolute Booruwas for when the Iron Curtain fell and the Soviet Union collapsed the countries of Eastern Europe rose as one to claim how they had been cruelly ruled by Moscow.

In 1996, when Indonesia celebrated an important anniversary of Bandung and  our late Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar was in attendance, he had the onerous task of listening to the heads of Eastern European governments, who were recalling that it was Sir John who had spoken up for them when they were under the Soviet jackboot.

I knew him as a kid and used to visit his Walawwa (Bungalow) with my father. Everybody feared him but he was very easy with children and especially me. 
When Queen Elizabeth visited Ceylon  in 1953 he invited us and there was a grand party running parallel with the official ceremony.

We were treated like royals.

Sri-Lankan Elephants

Elephants
The elephant the biggest mammal is threatened. 
The big mammoth went into extinction due to two reasons. 
One is it was considered to be food for the prehistoric man. They were hunted down to extinction.
 The second more probable reason is they acquired a variant of human disease, the killer tuberculosis. 
It was not due to deforestation.
The story about the Sri-Lankan elephant is no different.
They were hunted for ivory.
They were domesticated by kings for the war machines.
Then it was the symbol of a party.
It was the prized possession of the wealthy and was their hired heavy labour.
 
Latest was the merchandise of ill repute.
Politicians with power started dealing with illegal capture and transfer of baby elephants.
By selective genetic extermination by the Sri-Lankan hunters, the percentage of tusked animals went below five percent.
So they went in for the real kill.
Kill the mother (she) elephant and hunt the baby elephant as a merchandise. 
Buddhist (corrupt) monks  were the beneficiary
This went on in broad day light after the war.
Even, LTTE never mixed up their politics with elephant trade.
The end of the war came and the political masters without the terrorist threat went for the bounty.
Sri-Lankan media it was ‘mums the word’ since rulers and the political henchmen were in this big business.
Then added to this deforestation and location of sugar cane and banana plantation in their migration path way.
From 1960s (CP. De Silvas time) for politicians elephant was a merchandise and they used the bogus claim of damage to poor farmers plots. 
They were not poor farmer but hashish (ganja) growers and some politicians were involved in this hashish trade.  
They in fact come to the parliament to protect their illegal trading interests.
Parallel with these development their is a ‘Flora and Fauna Act’ with a director to oversee the enactment of these laws.
But he becomes part of the problem and the elephant register disappears and duplicate registers are introduced.
He is paid a salary and a pension for all of his inaction.
None of these were elephant friendly actions.

Their population has gone down to 2000 and the official figured are ‘cooked up’ figures.
 
Who believes their statistics when our children’s malnutrition is reported as 20% percent when actual ground level malnutrition is double of it nearing 40%, especially in the war torn areas.
Would you expect our forest officers to go to the forest and count them every day.
Most of them are in their homes and go to the base to collect the monthly salary.
Pure nonsense.
They are only targeting which one is their next prized kill.
 
This is how we achieved our miracle progress.

There is no end to man's creativity.

Only countries (Russia and now China) without religion seem to thrive on creativity.

Chernobyl nuclear exclusion zone could become the world’s largest solar farm!

Basic Tenet of All Civilizations

Basic Tenet of All Civilizations

Muslim Mafiosi

I think the basic tenet of all civilizations, whether our own or galactic won't change.

The underline theme is paranoia.

The outcome of paranoia is, dominate first and destroy next.

From Buddhist Civilization (Avihinsa has no dominant role, Just Think of Dalai Lama with American and Indian Support) to Muslim Civilization to Western Civilization to current Dollar Civilization will  yield to Chinese Yuan.

Nobody talks about Yen now!

Yuan rules and Dalai Lama succumbs.

What will become of us after Yuan (becoming Capitalistic Tool) domination, I haven't got a slightest of clue or idea.

I think it is the next global collapse.

Are we ready?

Now let me dissect the Galactic Civilizations.

In the galactic scenario, the the evolved ones fear the not so evolved ones.

It is a reciprocal relationship.

Evolved ones fear that not so evolved ones would reach their expertise given time and take over the rein.

Not so evolved ones fear take over by the evolved ones.

Same good old paranoia rules.

Next question is, are there any galactic civilizations without paranoia?

What is their role?

It is a million dollar question.

I have no answer.

If there is any without paranoia, I beg them to visit us NOW.

We are on the threshold with Muslim Mafiosi, in action now.

 

Lifespan of Advanced Civilizations

The Premise is that due to blind faith (ISIS is a case in point) or due to greed or insanity (North Korea is a case in point) new civilizations in their forward march destroy themselves in midterm before they are fully evolved or civilized.

We are now in this current threshold of self destruction.

My alien theory (I strongly believe they visited us in 1947, to investigate, two years after the Atomic Bomb Explosion) that they visited us but left convinced that we were not mature enough to interact with them.

Additionally Area 51 was not evolved to its present level of sophistication, then.

It was built after the possible crash of alien spaceship with more advanced technology.

I believe the alien spaceship was brought down by hostile fire.

By Nigel Calder and John Newell

The Lifespan of Advanced Civilizations

A very short lifespan for advanced civilizations may be a realistic probability because as our own case shows, technology mushrooms very rapidly and is accompanied by many dangerous effects such as;

1. Overpopulation

2. Depletion of natural resources

3. Pollution and worse of all

4. Rapid escalation of nuclear stockpiles which can easily reach the level where they are capable of wiping out the whole population of a planet.

By the same token, if we were to find significant number of other advanced civilizations in our galaxy it would mean that some at least had been able to overcome the dangers that are now looming over our own civilizations. 

If they have reached this advanced stage, it would mean that they have been able discard all of their animistic (BARBARISM) attributes such as materialism, selfishness, territoriality, dominance over others and killing instincts which in a technological civilizations are likely to lead to self destruction.

They would have been able to to mature into higher levels of cosmic intelligence characterized by spirituality, altruism, respect of others, adherence to peace and love for each other.

Joining such a galactic society would indeed be a colossal step forward in the intellectual and ethical evolution of our civilization. 

 

This might also be the reason why we have not yet heard from any such advanced civilizations as may exist. 

 

There must be a galactic rule that says that before a new civilization is invited to join the galactic society it must show that it is able to overcome the major crisis that probably befall all new technological civilizations.

Since we are still in the midst of this evolutionary problem, there may be advanced civilizations waiting to see how we do before inviting us to join the galactic society of advanced civilizations.

I Think Hinduism is mother of all Religions

I Think Hinduism is mother of all Religions and has millions of gods.

As one good Indian friends once said.

“We have over one billion in India and over one billion gods. That is why I like Buddhism which is without any gods”

This is a reproduction and ideas are not mine!

10 Common Misconceptions About Hinduism

Hindus Worship Idols

It’s Called Hinduism

The terms “Hindu” and “Hinduism” are anachronistic and do not refer to any ancient texts of Hinduism. The term refers to the people of the Indus River region of India. “Hindu” and “Hinduism” likely came from the Persians who invaded the Indian subcontinent and who may have referred to the people of the river valley using the word “Hindu,” which means “river.”

The common name for Hinduism is Sanatana Dharma (“eternal duty of God”), which is not widely known in the Western world. Followers are called Dharmis, which means “followers of Dharma.” The use of the words “Hindu” and “Hinduism” are primarily used in Western cultures, though many modern Indians have adopted them.

Other dharmic traditions akin to Hinduism are Buddhism, Jainism, and Sikhism.

Hindus Are All Vegetarians

It is true that many Hindu people practice vegetarianism, but this is not the case for the majority of followers. Some Hindus believe that all animals are sentient beings, so they do not eat meat. But many others eat pretty much whatever they please.
Only 30–35 percent of Hindus are vegetarians due to the spiritual belief of ahimsa, which is a principle of nonviolence against all living things. That minority of Hindu vegetarians makes up the vast majority of vegetarians worldwide, who total over 300 million people.
Most spiritual leaders (swamis, sadhus, and gurus) are vegetarians while lay Hindus are more likely to eat meat. Ahimsa prescribes negative karma on a variety of levels for the slaughter and consumption of meat products, but not all Hindus follow this—just as not every follower of Judaism keeps kosher.

Hinduism Is An Organized Religion

The reasons that religions become organized are diverse, but it often has to do with spreading both the religious teachings and the political influence of the primary nation. Christianity spread via the Romans/Byzantines, and Islam spread through the Muslim campaigns in Asia and Europe.

But Hinduism was never organized and did not spread very much until recently.

There is no particular leader of the faith, and it has never been powered by any sort of empire.

So the religion has evolved into a list of teachings and guiding principles without the political influence seen in the other two majority faiths. There is no founder of Hinduism and no specific origin date. The Hindu synthesis began to develop between 500–300 BC as various forms of Hindu study coalesced into the practices we see today.

Hinduism Has A Discriminatory Caste System

Because Hinduism is so often related to India, it is a common misconception that the religion itself follows a caste system. The so-called “untouchables” in Indian society fall outside this system, but this is related to Indian culture and has nothing to do directly with the teachings and practices of Hinduism.

The Indian caste system reflects a person’s group assigned at birth but has nothing to do with personality. Meanwhile, the Hindu term varna describes the social order as a framework of moral duties relating to a person’s characteristics regardless of birth.
Although the two systems have become intertwined, Hinduism does not feature the same system of castes outside of India. The Indian caste system affects Hindus and divides them into Brahmins (priests and teachers), Kshatriyas (warriors and rulers), Vaishyas (farmers and merchants), and Shudras (laborers). Those who fall outside the system are Dalits (outcasts/untouchables).

Hindus Worship Idols

Many people believe that Hindus worship idols. Because the rest of the world’s majority follows Islam and Christianity, both of which forbid idolatry, this seems odd and antireligious to many. However, Hindus don’t consider it the worship of idols but instead see God in everything.

All objects are an arca (“living embodiment”) of God such that life is seen as poured into every image or “idol” one might find a Hindu worshiping. Hindus call the practice murthi puja (“image worship”), and it refers to the belief that the entirety of creation is a form of God so that his form is in everything.
Hindus do not see this as worshiping an idol because Hinduism describes it as a direct worship of God (who is in everything) instead of the worship of a representation of God. This directly conflicts with the Abrahamic traditions of idol worship as outlined in the Ten Commandments, which makes it difficult for Westerners to separate the Hindu practice of murthi puja from what they know as idolatry.

Practitioners Worship Cows

Hindus do not worship cows. This common misconception is due to the manner in which Hindus treat the cow, an animal that gives more than it takes, is symbolic of all other animals, and represents life and the sustenance of life. Taking only grain, grass, and water, a cow provides milk, cream, yogurt, cheese, butter, and fertilizer for the fields—thus giving more than it takes.
Cows are also respected for their gentle nature and are seen as maternal caretakers. Because of how venerated cows are in Hinduism and Indian society, it appears to outsiders that they are worshiped. But Hindus see it as honoring and respecting the animals instead

Women With Bindis Are All Married

A bindi (red dot on the forehead) is worn by millions of women and young girls throughout the world, especially in India. Bindis have a spiritual role in Hindu culture, though this has lessened in modern times.
Traditionally, a woman would wear a red bindi made with vermilion powder above and between her eyes to signify marriage denoting love and prosperity. The location relates to the “third eye,” where one loses their ahamkara (“ego”). In modern times, this has mostly lost its meaning and women can wear whatever color bindi they choose.
A black bindi signifies loss and may be worn by a widow to signify the loss of her husband. Men would sometimes wear a type of bindi called a tilak, which is a series of lines worn on the forehead, sometimes with a dot. Various colors would denote different classes or castes, but this is mostly a cultural tradition that only the strictest practitioners still follow.

Hinduism Is About As Old As Judaism

Many cultural traditions and religions sprouted in the Indian subcontinent for thousands of years before finally coming together to form modern Hinduism in AD 1800. It is a common misconception that Hinduism began around the time of Judaism, the first Abrahamic religion that also spawned Christianity and Islam.
While Judaism is an old faith that originated around 1500 BC, the earliest forms of Hinduism arose from prehistoric faiths dating back tens of thousands of years. But the true beginnings of the faith began around 4000 BC with the combined practices of several tribal religions, which makes it the oldest still-practiced religion in the world.

The Hindu Bible Is The Bhagavad Gita

The Bhagavad Gita is one of the most recognized Hindu texts in the Western world, but it is not a Hindu Bible. The Gita teaches many tenets of Hinduism through a narrative dialogue between Pandava Prince Arjuna and Lord Krishna.
The Hindu sacred texts are divided into Sruti (“What Is Heard”) and Smriti (“What Is Remembered”). The Sruti are considered to be divinely inspired while the Smriti are derived from great sages.
The Gita is considered by many to be an allegory for a person’s ethical and moral struggles, and it is used as a guide. Mohandas Gandhi cited the Gita as his “spiritual dictionary” and used its teachings to help him during the Indian independence movement.

Hinduism Is Polytheistic With 330 Million Gods

Monotheism is the belief that there is one God while polytheism is the belief in many gods. Judaism was the first monotheistic religion with one God compared to the pantheons of Greece and Rome

Cruelty to Elephants, our Gentle Giants

Cruelty to Elephants, our Gentle Giants
The idea of this piece was in my mind for sometime but deliberately delayed it, so that I could devote much time and effort on the final outcome. 
The idea was to have an overview of the human thinking over the last 3000 years based on written or oral material of the East and West. 
How science shaped and developed my way of thinking is altogether a different kettle of fish.
 
I must say, I had the luxury of free thinking from my childhood and nobody tried to modify it.
 
In other words, I did not have a mentor.
 
Except for the sports master, in my simple village school who instilled in my mind, the golden rule in sports “It is participation, not winning that matters” under the Olympics banner and the late Professor Senaka Bible in my undergraduate days, there were only a few personalities that I admired.
 
Only other exception to that rule was Sir John Kotalawala whom I used to see as a tiny tot. He was famous for his uttering   “ It is better fox  hunting in England than doing politics in Ceylon". 

Shooting foxes was a sport in UK then, I joined the cavalcade, vigorously opposing it, as a sport, in early eighties, on the lines of animals rights, while working there.
We won our campaign and it was abolished on the grounds of preventing cruelty to animals. 

Unfortunately in this country we still cause untold cruelty to our “Gentle Giant”, a political symbol of major party in the name of traditional Buddhist practice of parading them in procession. 

Some cruel monks of our tradition are the exponent of this “cruelty sport” while illegally hunting the baby elephants in the wild joining hand with Ganja (hashish) growers.
 
Having said that, I did not understand the deeper meaning of Buddhism (till later years in my life), but its principle practices have  had a lot of influence in my thinking. It teaches us of Simplicity and despise grandiosity and Avihinsa (non violence) the guiding principles which are antithesis to our grandiose high priests.
For a starter, I did not believe in creation of the world by a single god. 
That meant I did not believe in existence of any form of god dead or live. 
Advent of the Russian exploration of space when I was a tiny tot, not only made deeper meaning and admiration of its people without a religion.
For my luck, I was born with scientific outlook and learning science was a pleasure (language and religion were not) and a pastime.
To add to that there was emergence of lot of reading material including local papers and scientific journals at the British Council Library. English language or literature (I hated Shakespeare but made a point to visit his birth place when I was  working in UK) was not my forte but that did not deter me from grasping scientific terminology.
In other words, the outside world contributed a lot in my formative years. 
The fact, that I was born to a independent free nation was a feather on my cap. 
There was no indoctrination and freedom to think and act were bonuses.
How, I went up the ladder was a shear chance occurrence with no prior programming.
The rationalist Abram Kovoor was making his presence felt and I had the audacity to pose probing question to him (but no need to record those flimsy occurrences, here). 
I never followed his line of thinking but had admired him all the same.
Abraham Thomas Kovoor (April 10, 1898 – September 18, 1978) was an Indian professor and rationalist who gained prominence after retirement for his campaign to expose as frauds various Indian and Sri Lankan "god-men" and so-called paranormal phenomena. His direct, trenchant criticism of spiritual frauds and organized religions was enthusiastically received by audiences, initiating a new dynamism in the Rationalist movement, especially in Sri Lanka and India.
Professor Carlo Fonseka was active somewhat later in  time to Kovoor but he did not make an impact on me.
But I loved his orations and style.
It was revelation at that time.
All these petered out and we went into a shell and old sort of dogma crept into the system with Swabahasha steamrolling, the English education.

Emails are Can of Worms

Emails are Can of Worms
Reproduction

JULIAN ASSANGE:
Well, WikiLeaks has become the rebel library of Alexandria. It is the single most significant collection of information that doesn’t exist elsewhere, in a searchable, accessible, citable form, about how modern institutions actually behave. And it’s gone on to set people free from prison, where documents have been used in their court cases; hold the CIA accountable for renditions programs; feed into election cycles, which have resulted in the termination of, in some case—or contributed to the termination of governments, in some cases, taken the heads of intelligence agencies, ministers of defense and so on. So, you know, our civilization can only be as good as our knowledge of what our civilization is. We can’t possibly hope to reform that which we do not understand.
So, those Hillary Clinton emails, they connect together with the cables that we have published of Hillary Clinton, creating a rich picture of how Hillary Clinton performs in office, but, more broadly, how the U.S. Department of State operates. 
So, for example, the disastrous, absolutely disastrous intervention in Libya, the destruction of the Gaddafi government, which led to the occupation of ISIS of large segments of that country, weapons flows going over to Syria, being pushed by Hillary Clinton, into Jihadists within Syria, including ISIS, that’s there in those emails. 
There’s more than 1,700 emails in Hillary Clinton’s collection, that we have released, just about Libya alone.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: 
The Democratic National Convention is opening today in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, amid massive party turmoil. Democratic National Committee chairwoman and Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz has resigned following the release of nearly 20,000 emails revealing how the Democratic Party favored Hillary Clinton and worked behind the scenes to discredit and defeat Bernie Sanders. The emails were released Friday by WikiLeaks.
In one email, DNC Chief Financial Officer Brad Marshall suggested someone ask Sanders about his religion ahead of the Kentucky and West Virginia contests. Brad Marshall wrote, quote, "It might may no difference, but for KY and WVA can we get someone to ask his belief. 
Does he believe in a God. 
He had skated on saying he has a Jewish heritage. 
I think I read he is an atheist. 
This could make several points difference with my peeps. My Southern Baptist peeps would draw a big difference between a Jew and an atheist," unquote. In another email, Debbie Wasserman Schultz calls Sanders’ campaign manager Jeff Weaver a, quote, "Damn liar."
AMY GOODMAN: 
A third email shows National Press Secretary Mark Paustenbach writing, quote, "Wondering if there’s a good Bernie narrative for a story, which is that Bernie never ever had his act together, that his campaign was a mess," unquote. Multiple emails show the DNC complaining about MSNBC coverage of the party and of Communications Director Luis Miranda once writing, quote, "F***ing Joe claiming the system is rigged, party against him, we need to complain to their producer," unquote, referring to Joe Scarborough. Other emails suggest the DNC was gathering information on Sanders’ events and that a super PAC was paying people to counter Sanders supporters online.
On Sunday, Bernie Sanders reacted to the emails during an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS: 

I told you a long time ago that the—that the DNC was not running a fair operation, that they were supporting Secretary Clinton. So what I suggested to be true six months ago turns out, in fact, to be true. I’m not shocked, but I am disappointed. ...

What I also said many months ago is that, for a variety of reasons, Debbie Wasserman Schultz should not be chair of the DNC.

And I think these emails reiterate that reason why she should not be chair. I think she should resign, period. And I think we need a new chair who is going to lead us in a very different direction.

AMY GOODMAN: 
WikiLeaks has not revealed the source of the leaked emails, although in June a hacker using the name Guccifer 2.0 claimed responsibility for the hacking into the DNC’s computer network. 
On Sunday, however, Clinton’s campaign manager claimed the emails were leaked, quote, "by the Russians for the purpose of helping Donald Trump," unquote.
We go now to London for an exclusive interview with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has been holed up in the Ecuadorean Embassy for more than four years. 
He was granted political asylum by Ecuador, but he fears if he attempts to go to Ecuador, if he attempts to step foot outside the Ecuadorean Embassy, that he will be arrested by British police and ultimately extradited to the United States to face, well, it’s believed, possibly treason charges for the documents WikiLeaks has released.
Julian Assange, editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks, welcome to Democracy Now! 
Can you talk about this email—these emails, these 20,000 emails you have released?
JULIAN ASSANGE: 
Yeah, it’s quite remarkable what has happened the last few days. I think this is a quite a classical release, showing the benefit of producing pristine data sets, presenting them before the public, where there’s equal access to all journalists and to interested members of the public to mine through them and have them in a citable form where they can then be used to prop up certain criticisms or political arguments. 
Often it’s the case that we have to do a lot of exploration and marketing of the material we publish ourselves to get a big political impact for it. But in this case, we knew, because of the pending DNC, because of the degree of interest in the U.S. election, we didn’t need to establish partnerships with The New York Times or The Washington Post. In fact, that might be counterproductive, because they are partisans of one group or another. Rather, we took the data set, analyzed it, verified it, made it in a presentable, searchable form, presented it for all journalists and the public to mine. And that’s exactly what has happened.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: 
And, Julian, your reaction to the announced resignation of Debbie Wasserman Schultz shortly after the release of these emails?
JULIAN ASSANGE: 
Well, I mean, that’s interesting. We have seen that with a lot of other publications. I guess there’s a question: 
What does that mean for the U.S. Democratic Party? 
It is important for there to be examples of accountability. The resignation was an example of that. Now, of course, Hillary Clinton has tried to immediately produce a counter-example by putting out a statement, within hours, saying that Debbie Wasserman Schultz is a great friend, and she’s incorporating her into her campaign, she’s going to be pushing for her re-election to the Congress.
So that’s a very interesting signaling by Hillary Clinton that 
if you act in a corrupt way that benefits Hillary Clinton, you will be taken care of. 
Why does she need to put that out? Certainly, it’s not a signal that helps with the public at all. It’s not a signal that helps with unity at the DNC, at the convention. It’s a signal to Hillary Clinton partisans to keep on going on, you’ll be taken care of. But it’s a very destructive signal for a future presidency, because it’s—effectively, it’s expanding the Overton window of corruption. It doesn’t really matter what you do, how you behave; as long as that is going to benefit Hillary Clinton, you’ll be protected.
AMY GOODMAN: 
I mean, it’s very interesting, because Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine appeared together, as Mike Pence and Donald Trump did the week before, on 60 Minutes. And Hillary Clinton distanced herself from all these emails and the DNC, saying, "These people didn’t work for me." And yet immediately upon the forced resignation of Deborah Wasserman Schultz, she said she’s a good friend, and immediately hired her. But, Julian, I was wondering if you can say, from your point of view, what do you think are the most significant emails that have been released, that you have released?
JULIAN ASSANGE: 
Well, actually, I think the most significant ones haven’t been reported on, although The Washington Post late last night and McClatchy did a first initial stab at it. 
And this is the spreadsheets that we released covering the financial affairs of the DNC. 
Those are very rich documents. There’s one spreadsheet called "Spreadsheet of All Things," and it includes all the major U.S.—all the major DNC donors, where the donations were brought in, who they are, identifiers, the total amounts they’ve donated, how much at a noted or particular event, whether that event was being pushed by the president or by someone else. 
That effectively maps out the influence structure in the United States for the Democratic Party, but more broadly, because the—with few exceptions, billionaires in the United States make sure they donate to both parties. 

That’s going to provide a scaffold for future investigative journalism about influence within the United States, in general.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: 
Julian, on that issue, clearly, a lot of the emails talk about the actual amounts of money that were being offered to donors for the opportunity to—I mean, asked of donors for the opportunity to sit at different events next to President Obama, especially, the use of President Obama as a fundraiser. Now, most people in the political world will consider this business as usual, but the actual mechanics of how this operates and the degree to which the DNC coordinates with the president, his marketability, is—I don’t think has ever been revealed in this detail. Would you agree?
JULIAN ASSANGE: 
That’s right. And it’s not just that the president holds fundraisers. That’s nothing new. But rather, what you get for each donation of a particular sort. There’s even a phrase used in one of the emails of, quote, "pay to play." 
So, yeah, I think it’s extremely interesting. There’s emails back and forth also between the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC. So, you see quite elaborate structures of money being funneled to state Democratic Party officers and then teleported back, seemingly to get up certain stats, maybe to evade certain campaign funding restrictions.
In relation to what has become the most significant political discussion as a result of the publication, which is that the DNC higher-ups, including Debbie Wasserman Schultz, were clearly against Bernie Sanders and trying to subvert his campaign in a whole raft of ways, that’s true. That’s the—the atmosphere that is revealed by hundreds of emails is that it’s perfectly acceptable to produce trenchant internal criticisms of Bernie Sanders and discuss ways to undermine his campaign. So, whether that’s calling up the president of MSNBC—Debbie Wasserman Schultz called the president of MSNBC to haul Morning Joe into line, which it subsequently has done. I noticed this morning, Morning Joe actually discussed it themselves, trying to shore up their own presentation of, you know, a TV program that can’t be pushed around. But, in fact, they did not mention the call to the president. That was something that is still unspeakable. And it was a 180-degree flip in that coverage.
And you see other, you know, quite naked conspiracies against Bernie Sanders. While there’s been some discussion, for example, about—that there was a plan to use—to expose Bernie Sanders as an atheist, as opposed to being a religious Jew, and to use that against him in the South to undermine his support there. There was an instruction by the head of communications, Luis Miranda, to take an anti-Bernie Sanders story, that had appeared in the press, and spread that around without attribution, not leaving their fingerprints on it. And that was an instruction made to staff. So, it wasn’t just, you know, a plan that may or may not have been carried out. This was an instruction that was pushed to DNC staff to covertly get out into the media anti-Bernie Sanders stories. Another thing that—
AMY GOODMAN: 
On Sunday, Hillary—
JULIAN ASSANGE: 
Another aspect that is—
AMY GOODMAN: 
On Sunday, Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager, Robby Mook, cited experts saying that the DNC emails were leaked by the Russians in an attempt to help Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. Mook was speaking to CNN. 
This is what he said.

ROBBY MOOK:

What’s disturbing to us is that we—experts are telling us that Russian state actors broke into the DNC, stole these emails, and other experts are now saying that they are—the Russians are releasing these emails for the purpose of actually helping Donald Trump. I don’t think it’s coincidental that these emails were released on the eve our convention here. We also saw last week at the Republican convention that Trump and his allies made changes to the Republican platform to make it more pro-Russian. And we saw him talking about how NATO shouldn’t intervene to defend—necessarily should intervene to defend our Eastern European allies if they’re attacked by Russia. So, I think when you put all this together, it’s a disturbing picture.

AMY GOODMAN: 
So, that was Robby Mook citing experts saying the DNC emails were leaked by the Russians. You were the one who released these 20,000 emails, Julian Assange. Where did you get them?
JULIAN ASSANGE: 
Well, what’s not in that clip there by Robby is that, just afterwards, he was asked by Jake Tapper, "Who are these experts? Can you name them?" The answer was no, a refusal to name the experts. But we have seen one of the experts, so-called experts, that the Democratic Party is trying to base its incredible conspiracy theory on about WikiLeaks. 
And that is this—what we jokingly refer to as the NSA dick pic guy. 
He’s a former National Security Agency agent who started to produce conspiracy theories about us in 2013, when we were involved in the Edward Snowden rescue, as a means to try and undermine the Snowden publications, subsequently embroiled in some amateur pornography scandal. That’s why they don’t want to name their experts, because they are people like this.
In relation to sourcing, I can say some things. 
A, we never reveal our sources, obviously. That’s what we pride ourselves on. And we won’t in this case, either. 
But no one knows who our source is. It’s simply speculation. It’s, I think, interesting and acceptable to speculate who our sources are. But if we’re talking about the DNC, there’s lots of consultants that have access, lots of programmers. 
And the DNC has been hacked dozens and dozens of times. 
Even according to its own reports, it had been hacked extensively over the last few years. 
And the dates of the emails that we published are significantly after all, or all but one—it’s not clear—of the hacking allegations that the DNC says have occurred.