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Diary Appreciation: Red Dave’s Iraq Body Count

Dattaswami’s latest bout of religious diarrhea gives me pause, since his is a cut-and-paste job, one that bullies space away from other writers without even being especially thoughtful. It says a lot that Dattaswami has chosen to demonstrate such negative character traits in the name of the true religion for which he claims to hold swami status.

There’s a contrast between what Dattaswami has done and what others have done using the diary system. Rather than cede the stage to this fakir’s song and dance, I thought I’d take the opportunity today to express appreciation to some diaries and diarists whose efforts I really appreciate. Perhaps I haven’t taken enough time to express that appreciation before now; now is the perfect time to do so.

The first diarist I’d like to single out for appreciation is Red Dave, whose ongoing Iraq Body Count series is a daily effort to keep count of what many people would like to forget — the toll of dead and injured in Iraq. Thanks, Red Dave, for ringing a reminder out loudly and persistently. His latest post, the Iraq Body count for October 25, 2007, is here.

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Date: October 25, 2007

Author: Jim

Categories: activism, reviews, war and peace

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(318 votes, average: 2.86 out of 5)

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  Iroquois

  in October 25th, 2007 @ 15:36

  My take on Dattaswami is that it’s written by one of his disciples in India. I don’t know if admin can tell from the IP where they’re posted from.

  The swami in question would appear to be a genuine native religious person with real disciples. Curious to have that happening in real time in a foreign setting and available to us here.

  The religious questions are likewise somewhat original and I didn’t see any of the same materials posted here as on their website, so perhaps the disciple is taking notes and storing them here. The postings seem to be quite legitimate–if boringly abstract–universal religious questions answered in accordance with the Gita and other Hindu texts, unfortunately in that type of British English they speak over there that is so stilted to our ear.

  When I try to extract something from one of the Dattaswami paragraphs, I just imagine it in the voice of Apu from the Simpsons.

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  Jim

  in October 25th, 2007 @ 16:54

  It’s not happening in “real time” — look at the timing of those posts. Nobody can type in real time that quickly. And for my tastes there’s a whole lot of quantity versus very little quality. Just a whole lot of assertions, many of them ridiculous, with no support. It’s like mad libs, but pushier.

  And here’s just one of the cut-paste jobs.

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  RED DAVE

  in October 25th, 2007 @ 22:32

  Thanx. It’s nice to be appreciated.

  RED DAVE

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  Iroquois

  in October 25th, 2007 @ 23:18

  By “real time” I mean it’s not historical. Can you imagine being one of the disciples of Socrates? Jesus? Marx? Buddha? Well, we can’t go back and see what that was like and can only speculate on how those writings came down to us. But here is a real live sage and apparently real disciples recording the pearls that drop from the lips.

  The content I’m not so interested in. It doesn’t bother me that Marx or Plato or whoever made unsupported assertions. That’s the nature of philosophy as as far as I can tell–a group of internally consistent ideas that resonate with the human condition. I’m more interested in the mechanism of how it happens and how it’s transmitted.

  Just looking at the postings superficially, it looks to me like a different person posted them. Before they were all signed by Anil Antony with the same tag:

  At the Lotus Feet of His Holiness Sri Dattaswami

  Anil Antony

  http://www.universal-spirituality.org
  Universal Spirituality for World Peace
  antonyanil@universal-spirituality.org

  Now the writing has a different flow, somehow it just seems written by a different person.

  A whole other area of speculation is the purpose of the postings and why the author never has come back to respond to comments. I suspect they might be like cyber prayer-beads, meant to rack up “merit” by sheer repetition and help propel the poster closer to becoming pure spirit and escaping the wheel of reincarnation.

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  Jim

  in October 26th, 2007 @ 06:36

  Like Spam. Spam is a set of internally consistent ideas that resonate with the human condition. It’s transmitted interestingly. Spam racks up merit by sheer repetition and help propel the poster closer to becoming financially untethered, escaping the hamster wheel of work.

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  Iroquois

  in October 26th, 2007 @ 14:17

  Repetitive prayer is found in three religions (that I know of) that use prayer beads: Buddhist, Moslem, and Roman Catholic Christian. That would point to some spiritual benefit to the spiritual seeker for mindless repetition of some formula.

  But are Buddha, Allah, and God pleased, or do they just think it’s prayer spam?

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  Jim

  in October 26th, 2007 @ 15:17

  Or some material benefit to the religious institutions to have their followers engaging in mindless repetition of some formula. Where’s the beef?

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  Iroquois

  in October 27th, 2007 @ 00:04

  I’m not beefing about anything. If al-Lat is unhappy, let her send down a lightning bolt.

  Now that I think of it there’s a brisk prayer bead trade outside the dome of the mosque in Jerusalem, also the shrine of Nizrudden in New Delhi. People like a souvenir from a holy spot they can twirl when they dance the dubka at weddings. I don’t think the religious institutions themselves gain anything from it, though.

  If anything, the paste-happy Dattaswami minions will probably be getting demerits for themselves and will be reincarnated as something nasty.

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  RED DAVE

  in October 27th, 2007 @ 13:21

  Quote from Dattasshole from his website:

  “Poverty and Suffering

  A poor man suffers due to his poverty. Actually any suffering is the punishment given for the previously committed sins of the soul. If you help such a poor person, you are cutting short his punishment and interfering with the administration of God. Punishment is always given for a change. God wants the person to realize his mistake and correct himself. That is the purpose of the punishment. Therefore you need not sympathize with him and give him money to remove his poverty.”

  Ain’t compassion wonderful? I wonder how this jerk feels about liberalism, let alone socialism?

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  RED DAVE

  in October 27th, 2007 @ 13:23

  Also, I challenge the spammer who’s posting this bullshit to respond to the criticisms that people such as Iroquois, Jim and myself are making.

  RED DAVE

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  Iroquois

  in October 27th, 2007 @ 22:08

  Dave, the Dattaswami people have never answered anyone’s questions or posted any comments so far. It’s probably the biggest reason the readers here find them so annoying. They try to overwhelm, not dialog.

  I’m surprised you haven’t clashed with Hinduism earlier. Here’s the crash course: believers say people will be reincarnated based on their behavior in this life. So someone who has been reincarnated in a lower social caste in this life deserves it because of how they acted in a previous life. Very convenient–it justifies class distinctions as being divinely determined.

  To someone with this worldview, class struggle does not compute, social justice does not compute. Being poor and disenfranchised is a divine character test. If you handle it gracefully and go with the flow, you get compensated in the next life. No wonder Gandhi had to go with nonviolent resistance. Revolution just doesn’t fit in with their obedience training.

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