I was reading the New York Times today and I stumbled upon a very interesting article that raised the question of whether Americans will want to see violent, gory movies in the coming months.  If you remember back to the period after the Columbine shootings, there was a movement for more restrictions on the violence in movies.  This is especially relevant in the case of the Virginia Tech shooting with the connection between Cho and that violent Korean film “Old Boy”.  So, will this be a wakeup call to take up the cause of cleaning up the violence in games and movies?  The sequel to the movie Hostel is scheduled to premiere fairly soon.  If anyone has seen the first Hostel, you know that that was a very gory film.  In one scene, an eye is ripped out of the socket.  Will people want to see movies like this in the wake of this tragedy? 

My answer is an overwhelming yes.  Even with the reaction to Columbine and the call for less violence in movies, the entertainment industry eventually returned to the point it had been at in the first place.  In the past few years, the films and games have only gotten worse.  You see, the American public has an extremely short attention span.  We can only champion a cause of moral righteousness for so long before we revert back to what we really are: a violence-hungry society. 

My belief is only strengthened by the reaction the country has had to the Virginia Tech shooting.  While it was a pleasant surprise to see the media lay off the Virginia Tech story after only a week, it also signals a changing attitude towards this type of tragedy.  It is almost as if American people are becoming callous to these massacres, which is reasonable because we have had so many lately.  In the past year there has been Virginia Tech, the Amish School House shooting, the shooting in the Kansas City mall the other day, and I am sure a few more that I am just missing right now.  We are not reacting with the kind of emotion that we did to Columbine because we are becoming so used to this sort of thing.  When I talk about a response, I am not saying there should be new legislation, since I can’t see anything we can do to stem this tide of violence.  The response that I would like to see is one of emotional outpouring.  It’s almost as if after 9/11, tragedies are now expected and can’t be dwelled on.  This callousness will be demonstrated when Hostel 2 (a movie based on the torture of college students at a European hostel) rakes in $50 million at the box office only a month or two after the massacre of 32 college students. 

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Six football players here at Penn State were charged with various felonies in connection with a brawl that occurred at a downtown apartment party a few weeks ago.  You can find all the details here at the Daily Collegian.  The six players, along with as many as 20 others that were not named by the county prosecutor, allegedly muscled their way into a party and began to beat down five or six people.  Accounts from witnesses say that the football players knocked one of guests at the party unconscious and then continued to punch and kick his head.  Another guest was struck with a beer bottle in the head and had to be taken out in an ambulance.  All of this over a dispute a few hours earlier between one of the players and a guest at the party.

How stupid can these football players be?  Haven’t they ever heard of ASSAULT?  Just because they play football for a BCS contender (well, not last year…) does not place them above the law.  I just can’t get past the fact that they are here at the university on scholarships (FREE) and they do something this stupid and risk destroying everything they have worked for over the years.  All it takes is a little bit of composure and discipline, which they seem to have on the field, to just let an argument go.  Did they really think they were going to get away with forcing their way into an apartment and leaving people unconscious in their wake?

The potential fallout of the situation is huge.  These are not just second string players that are being charged.  Two of the players were named to the All Big Ten teams.  The administration is not going to be able and just turn a blind eye to this, and I believe all will face a minimum suspension, with two players being expelled.  Once again, you are essentially being paid (in educational currency) to play a game.  How can you blow that opportunity over something this dumb?

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I am always amazed at how many people follow the war in Iraq so closely, but still can’t define the difference between a Sunni Muslim and a Shia Muslim.  In order to fully understand what is happening in Iraq, you have to understand the cultures that exist there.  Religion is responsible for most of the conflicts in the world, past and present, and it would be ignorant to study the war without understanding the divisions that are forcing it to continue.  For this reason, I’ll outline the major historical paths of both the Sunni and Shia branches of Islam in hopes that it will help people understand the difficulties that Iraqi’s are having in drafting a constitution and creating national unity.

In order to understand the division between the two branches, you have to grasp the origin of Islam itself.  I’ll quickly go over a brief version of how Islam came to be (very brief).  Islam begins in the Arabian Peninsula, specifically in the city of Mecca.  Originally, there were many tribes that lived in the area surrounding Mecca, each with their own God or Goddess.  These tribes would gather in Mecca to worship their own God at the Kaaba, an immense holy shrine in the center of the city.  The Prophet Muhammad was born to a middle class family inside the walls of Mecca.  He worked as a caravan driver for years, crossing back and forth between the Zoroastrian Persian Empire to the East and the Christian Byzantine Empire to the West.  As a result of this, he was exposed to both monotheistic religions.  Eventually, he travelled back to Mecca and spent a great deal of time in the caves surrounding the city.  On one particular day, the Angel Gabriel is said to have appeared to Muhammad in a revelation.  The Angel dictated the word of God to Muhammad, which he memorized and in turn dictated to his followers.  His followers wrote each revelation down in the Qu’ran, word for word.  Muhammad continued to have these revelations for the next twenty years, or until his death.  According to Muslims, Muhammad was given the same message that was given to Abraham, Moses, and Jesus.   However, they believe that the message was distorted by those three, and that the Qu’ran is the only undistorted message from God.  Muhammad unified the entire Arabian Peninsula through military conquest, which he based in the city of Medina.  It is at the death of Muhammad that we see the split occur in Islam. 

First we will look at the Sunnis.  The majority of the Muslims in the world are Sunnis, approximately 85%.  These Muslims base their religious authority on the Islamic Law, as interpreted by religious scholars.  Essentially, they derive all of their laws and beliefs from what is written in the Qu’ran and fromt he recorded sayings and actions of the Prophet Muhammad (the Hadith).  In other words, if nothing is written about a certain situation in the Qu’ran, the religious scholars will examine the Muhammad’s actions in a similar situation to determine how to act themselves.  In the era after Muhammad’s death, the Sunnis elected a leader for the Islamic Empire that had sprung up.  This leader was known as the Caliph.  The Caliph had political and social authority, but not religious authority, as that was only found in the Qu’ran. 

The Shia Muslims are the minority in the world population of Islam.  The Shias believe that just before Muhammad died, he chose a succesor.  This successor is said to be his cousin, Ali.  Ali was named to the position of Imam, a position that maintained political and social authority, as well as RELIGIOUS authority.  In the history of the Shia tradition, there have been 12 Imams, all blood descendants of Muhammad.  Many of these Imams are said to have been slaughtered by the Caliphs of the Sunnis, so we start to see why the hostility exists between the two groups.  This past history, coupled with the different belief in where religious authority lies, leads to bad blood between the two groups.  The Shias say that the 12th Imam is still alive, being cared for by God.  When the world ends, they say the 12th Imam will reappear, and interestingly enough, so will Jesus.  Each Imam had the ability to make religious decisions by himself, but today they are carried out by various religious leaders.  These leaders are generally called Ayatollahs, the higher ranking Shia clerics.  Even more powerful are the Grand Ayatollahs, of which there are very few. 

So now we can clearly see the differences between the Sunnis and the Shias and where they originated in history.  The next step is applying all this to Iraq.  The proportion of each branch in Iraq is much different from the world distribution.  The Sunnis are actually the minority in Iraq with only 15% of the population, mostly grouped around Baghdad and the Central region of Iraq.  The Shias are the majority group in the country with about 65% of the population, concentrated in the South (the remaining 20% are Kurds in the North).  The strange thing about Iraq is that under Saddam Hussein, the Sunnis were actually in power despite their extreme minority status.  Now we have to look at the challenges facing the new government Iraq.  There are two issues that are preventing the emergence of the new government:  Religious authority, and religious leadership.  The concept of Islamic Law, as practiced by Islamic countries, is that Islam is not just a religion, but a legal system as well. If two groups have different beliefs, they can’t have the same laws.  This is a major problem for Iraq because you can’t have certain laws for certain people.  As for the issue of religious authority, you have Shia Ayatollahs saying one thing, and the scholars of the Sunnis saying another.  The two will never see eye to eye. 

After dissecting all of this, it seems to me that the only way to achieve peace is to divide the country along religious lines.  Why do we insist upon trying to force incompatible groups to live together under the same government?  While unification could be possible, it would take a major shift in the actual religion itself.  While we have seen this happen in the past with things like the Protestant movement, what are the chances of it happening in the limited time our forces have left in Iraq?  You certainly don’t have to agree with this conclusion, but the cultural divide is obvious. 

Also, for an interesting related article follow this link to Popular Doctrine blog. Popular Doctrine

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I recently read a blog article in which the author mistaken replaced “Atheist” with “Agnostic”.  Thinking back on prior readings, I realized that many people make this same mistake.  While I know that a few people know the difference between the two, I figure I’ll outline them just to make sure my readers are well educated.  We can start with Atheism.      

Atheism is used to describe someone who specifically believes that no God or gods exist.  They cite lack of physical or observable evidence for the existence of the divine.  There are two types of Atheism: implicit and explicit.  Implicit Atheists are those who do not hold Theistic beliefs, but have not consciously rejected these beliefs either.  An example would be a newborn baby, who neither believes in religion, nor has it consciously rejected religion.  Another example would be someone who was born and raised in a remote village in which the divine had never been heard of.  An explicit Atheist is one who has consciously rejected religion and the divine, and considers them to be non-existent.  Atheists can still have morals that are comparable to those who are religious, they just do not accept them to have been set forth by a divine source.

Agnosticism, on the other hand, consists of people who have not yet decided if God exists or not.  These people reason that God may exist, or he may not, but we will never be able to proove one or the other.  Interestingly enough, there exists a middle ground between the Agnostic and those who believe in God.  The “Agnostic Theist” is someone who does not know if God exists or not, but chooses to believe in that God anyway.  This really interested me because it seems like quite a few people I know would fall under this category, despite the fact that they consider themselves to be Christians or Jews. 

Though many people use Atheism and Agnosticism interchangeably and nobody stumbles over the point they are trying to make, there really is a fairly large difference.

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It’s time for a little bit of fun on College Critic.   I have written a few intense articles in the last few days and I’m in the mood for something a little bit more lighthearted.  I know most blog readers have heard of flickr, but I am not sure if any of you have heard of the upcoming 24 Hours of Flickr that is taking place tomorrow all over the globe.  In order to participate in this event, all you need is a camera.  Everyone that wants to get in on the fun will take pictures all day long in order to document their day.  Then upload them to flickr for everyone to see.  This personally appeals to me because I enjoy photography, even if I am a complete amature.  I recently bought a Canon Powershot S31S, and I can’t wait to get out there and snap some pictures.  Even if you aren’t into photography, you may want to check out the results of Saturday’s event.  I think it is going to be extremely interesting to see life through the eyes (or lense) of someone in another part of the world.  Anyway here is the link to the 24 Hours of Flickr site: 24 Hours of Flickr. Enjoy!

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The war in Iraq rages on, and I still hear people (though they are dwindling) saying that we can win this war.  First of all, I am not sure that I would classify the conflict in Iraq as a war in the first place.  Usually a war has two clear cut sides, two opposing forces.  If you transfer this view to what is occurring in Iraq, who are we fighting?  There are a few organized groups that are consistently orchestrating attacks on our troops, but overall, we can’t clearly define who we are fighting over there.  Are they Al Quaedi, remnants of the former Iraqi army, Sunnis, Shias, foreign fighters, or just ordinary citizens who don’t like our presence there?  If I had to muster a guess, I would say it’s a combination of all of those.  So how do you fight an enemy you can’t clearly define?  Let’s look at history. 

Vietnam:  The first and most obvious example of guerrilla warfare is Vietnam.  The enemy would ambush in thick jungles, open fields, and in supposedly friendly or neutral villages.  Many of their soldiers did not wear uniforms.  Obviously, our soldiers did not know the terrain and had difficulty communicating with the civilians.  I think we all know the result of this conflict.

The Revolutionary War:  While we had the Continental Army fighting against the British, we only began winning major battles towards the middle and end of the war.  By that point, the British forces had been significantly weakened by the hit and run tactics of minutemen in the countryside, as well as ambushes on caravans travelling through the rural landscape.  While the British had a poor supply line (the Atlantic Ocean) , the attacks would have continued.  There really isn’t any way to prevent them. 

USSR in Afghanistan:  The USSR invaded Afghanistan in order to gain a mountain buffer between itself and its Islamic neighbors.  After their mistreatment of the Afghans, a loose coalition of mountain fighters took arms against the Soviets.  While the CIA supplied the weapons and ammunition, the mountain fighters crushed the soviets using their knowledge of the mountain passes and other skills. 

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising:  If you haven’t heard of it, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was the largest attempt made by Jews during the Holocaust to fight back.  The Warsaw Ghetto was an area of the city that was entirely fenced in and guarded by the Nazis.  It originally housed 380,000 Jews but that number was down to 80,000 when they began to fight.  The uprising consisted of a group of Jews making guerrilla attacks on Nazi soldiers who patrolled the ghetto.  These few Jews in a confined space were able to hold out for four months agaisnt the powerful German Army.  The only solution for the Nazis was to sweep through the city burning each building one at a time.  By that time, most of the fighters had escaped through the network of sewers under the city.

History is a great guide if you are looking for answers as to whether you should follow a course of action.  Even things that happened a thousand years ago can be applied to today’s world.  We should have had the foresight to see that our push into Iraq would turn into what it has.  You can fight against certain defined factions of fighters, but you can never stop the outraged citizen who decides to wake up one morning, strap himself with explosives, and suicide bomb a patrolling convoy.  The urban environment of Baghdad just complicates things more than ever before, since you need to avoid killing civilians at all costs.  This war could go on for years, but there would still be roadside bombs, suicide bombs, and ambushes as long as we are there.  If you need more convincing evidence, just look at the conflict in Israel that has been ongoing for more than a decade now.

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If I were to just throw the word Communism out there, what would come to your mind?  Probably some combination of the USSR, China, and Vietnam.  For some of the older readers, maybe even adjectives along the lines of “evil”.  Regardless, most people in America will agree that Communism definitely carries a negative stigma.  Where does this negative attitude come from?  It’s strongly rooted in American history.

Let’s look at the US interaction with Communist countries in the past.  We start with Communist Russia (USSR) who was, during WWII first our enemy, then our ally, and again our enemy shortly after the war ended.  Obviously we had strained relations with the USSR all the way through the from the late 40’s (early 50’s) all the way until its breakup in 1991.  For those of us who are history challenged, that was the Cold War.  The Cold War inspired fear in the older generations of Americans with threats of atomic weapons.  It was during this period that the label of Communist could destroy lives and careers.  No where is this more visible than in the McCarthy Era.  Throw in the conflict in Vietnam, which was a blatant attempt to stop the spread of Communism, and it is easy to see where the stigma comes from. 

All previous misconceptions aside, most people have no clue what Communism really is, and even fewer cannot tell you how it differs from Socialism.  Let me start out by saying that a true Communist government has never existed, and will likely never exist.  Governments that claim to be Communist, like modern China and Vietnam, are simply distorted versions that borrow relatively few aspects from pure Communism.  With this in mind, we will examine Communism as it was meant to be.

Communism as designed by Karl Marx in the Communist Manifesto is a system designed to attain equality for every individual.  While it predicted a violent overthrow of the Elitist regime in order to come about, the rest of the writing is peaceful.  The world Marx envisions is one in which every person in a society is treated perfectly equal.  There is no leader, no class divisions.  Each person in the society is works the same amount as everyone else, and each person is given the same share of the fruits of their labor.  Society essentially functions like one big factory.  An even better example is that of a Kibbutz in Israel.  A Kibbutz is a collective farm community in which all of the members work the farm and share the food.  It is essentially a communist society.  As you can see, pure and unadulterated Communism is designed for the well being of all. 

The USSR was the first to incorporate Communism into their government.  Lenin brought the system in but fundamentally distorted it.  It seems like commonsense that in order for all people in a society to be equal, you can’t have a leader.  When we look at the Communist Party in the USSR, they were given advantages because of their positions of power.  The old adage “Power Corrupts” held true in their case, and has in every other Communist Government to date.   The only problem is how do you establish a Communist government without a leader?  Better yet, without a violent overthrow, who is going to be willing to allow their wealth to be redistributed among the people if they are wealthy or even middle class?  These are just some of the road blocks to create a Communist society.  The main point that you should take from this is that Communism itself is not evil or wrong, but rather everything we Americans preach constantly: Equality for all.  While pure Communism will never exist, and attempts at it have always ended badly, the idea itself is not something to look down upon.  The practice is what we must fear.

On the same plain as Communism is Socialism.  Whether you know what Socialism is or not, you have probably heard that is popular in Europe.  Socialism is a system that borrows a lot of elements from Communism, but is not precisely Communism.  In fact, Socialism can be incorporated into just about any form of government.  You may have noticed that the US has quite a few Socialist aspects.  Socialism involves programs that usually redistribute wealth in order to help balance equality.  Services that run off our taxes, like welfare, are Socialist in nature.  During the Great Depression, Socialism ran rampant as the government tried established public works projects and other types of employment practices.  One of the most important differences between Socialism and Communism is that Socialism lacks the necessity of a violent revolution.  Socialized healthcare can be found in Canada and Europe, and could even be heading our way.  The Socialist party in Britain is the most dominant of their political parties.  Socialism is spreading throughout the world, but as far as I can see, there are not too many downsides to it when viewing it from a moral stand point. 

One thing that I feel most people do not understand is that you can’t compare Capitalism to Communism.  Capitalism is not a government, but rather an economic system.  We do not have a Capitalist government.  Communism, on the other hand, is both an economic system and a form of government in one. 

Hopefully this helps shed some insight into the topic of Communism and Socialism.  While I am in no way an advocate of Communism, I think that there are very few people that understand the difference between true Marxist Communism and how it has been distorted by governments claiming to be Communistic.

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