It may seem odd, but I've never hypnotized a single person who didn't find an inimitable black stick figure in their heart of hearts, and by their own description, they were each duty-bound to flesh out their own figure of darkness with the tools required to see both sides now. It's as if each soul is meant to tame both darkness and light in order to jump the broom with at-one-ment.
I just watched a video of another conservative radio talk show host that temporarily got stupid and volunteered to undergo what he could handle by being waterboarded:
http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/05/conservative-radio-hosts-waterboarded/
One can watch the results of what happens when he does get waterboarded and he seems to have changed his mind dramatically. No blame. All cowboy hat and no cattle. Maybe the experience will make him more cautious.
I've watched a couple of videos about Jesse Ventura. I like his hokum. I'd probably vote for him if he ran for office just to see the show. What impressed me was when he stated that every person who goes through SEAL training gets waterboarded as part of what they have to endure to become a SEAL. He said it was part of the way they're trained to deal with being captured and/or tortured.
If it's normal procedure for SEALS to have to endure this as part of their initial training, then it's gotta happen with all the other "special services" groups in the various branches of the armed services like the Delta Force, and probably the CIA and FBI, and coming soon to your local and regional Homeland Security members. If one were to include the present members of these institutionalized groups and the past active members that are still living, that's a lotta people who have experienced being waterboarded.
If there were a way to get a statement from all the people who have been waterboarded in the name of patriotism and religion and other seemingly legitimate reasons, I'd like to ask them their opinions on what they've experienced through the media as this torture exposition has exploded on the world stage.
For me, a person born seventy years ago into a very different cultural environment and raised in various locations throughout the infamous Bible Belt, and who was carried to the bowels of a rather moderate First Baptist Church before I could roll over or crawl on my hands and knees, the idea of waterboard as it was exposed by the media was vaguely familiar, but I didn't realize the real connection until later.
The first memory I think of when I reach for personal experience to find a worthy representation of what waterboarding could do to me was being baptized in that little Baptist Church via total immersion, which included the seldom recognized "second dunk". Upon recalling that, there is no way I can be convinced I haven't been waterboarded. Waterboarded from the Baptist Church is concerned in event that was good for me and insured my being saved from sin and darkness. I'm not so sure. I don't think I ever have been all that sure this was a good thing. Five years later I rebelled forever against it.
The "second dunk" happens when the preacher appears to be lifting your head out of the water and just when your mouth clears the surface of the water, and you're reaching for a huge gulp of air, he dunks you again for good measure and you thinking you're drowning. In my case I thought I was dead for a moment, and then the preacher lifted me out of the water and saved me, and I came away from the experience thinking that I owed him my life. I was nine years old.
I've written previously about how my central quest for most of my life was to uncover the source reasons for how I can so easily be used by charismatic people. I think my experience with full immersion baptism made me real flexible and easy to get along with when it happened at the age of nine years old. By that I mean that I'll give it up and I'll give it up fast and with such determination to nip it in the bud, that some authoritative figures question the value of my testimony, and let me walk on.
I don't want nothing to do with anything that resembles what i experienced when I was double-dunked baptized. It, I'm beginning to wonder, may have had more to do with why I chose a quest centered around understanding charisma. It probably wasn't charisma that set me up for the fall as much as it was total immersion baptism. I'll tell you anything you wanna know and more, much more, before you ever think to resort to waterboarding or it's equivalent.
Jesse Ventura stated that he could waterboard another conservative talk show host maned Hannity into confessing with total conviction that his hero George Bush was a disgusting war criminal. I believe him. But, on the other hand, his strutting braggadocio might cause me to create an additional barrier for my voting for him if he runs for national office. Jesse "The Body" Ventura would have to volunteer to be waterboarded again himself to see if he could resist being convinced of George Bush's worthiness as well. Aye, and there's the rub. What part of your person could stand up to or survive waterboarding?
Here's a picture of American soldiers in Viet Nam waterboarding this guy. It looks like they're amused by it:
http://www.npr.org/templates/common/image_enlargement.php?imageResId=15895650&imageStoryId=15886834
I do not attempt to tell the God's own truth here because I don't know what the truth is or hardly ever. I try to capture the drifting thoughts that randomly appear in my imagination for reasons I may not understand. I don't know if the content I capture with these words is true or false. The Comments settings are turned off to prevent me from having to defend what amounts to little more than fanciful, sometime crude speculation. Great moments in our lives never return.
