Scout,

You make the tired old pacifist line: "It takes at least two to make a war."

The sad truth is that it takes two to make peace. If only one side chooses not to fight, you don't get peace, you get a massacre.

Scout,

well said. Even if the belligerents don't agree.

MIDDLE EAST WAR - TERRITORIAL DOGFIGHT
IT IS OVER CONTROL OF THE LAND. wars are not about intolerance and lack of compassion. Therefore you cannot stop war by beng tolerant and compassionate. They should change the term ethnic cleansing to territorial massacre and then we would more accurately see that man at the tribal level is dangerously territorial. Man like every species on earth has two big survival instincts. The first is the sexual mating instinct and the second is the territorial instinct. Mankind is programmed to insure the survival of his biological offspring that being his children, his extended family and his tribe to who he is biologically related through tribal intermarriage.

Thus we had a territorial massacre in Germany
A territorial massacre in Somalia
A territorial massacre in Rwanda
A territorial massacre in Bosnia
A territorial massacre in East Timor
The IRA fought a bloody territorial campaign for control of Ireland
Sunnis and Shiites fighting territorial war over Iraq
Tribes in multi-tribal countries demand separtist states like
Chechyna in Russia and then the massacres start.
I see suicide bombing as a form of ethnic cleansing that is trying to kill members of the other tribe and remove them form the territory. War has been over the land all across history no matter what nice sounding political or religious reasons were used for the killing. Religions are tribes at the biological level because they don't marry outside of their religions.

David B, you have probably figured out by now that I am an irreligious person, but not completely soulless - and I do read your postings - so I can't avoid being influenced by your sentiments. Isn't that the beauty of OLO?

- so let me go way out into orbit and come in again from left field (pretend we never met before).

Preface to my idea of WHODUNIT (gathering woolly thoughts):

I think that if a creator exists, it is equally distributed between all of us.

I think that the reason god hasn't manifested itself (to me, anyway) is because it cannot coagulate until we learn to coagulate.

If I were god, that's how I would play hide and seek with my children. Only by truly coming together, could humans re-create me, re-gather me, re-make me better than ever. My life in their hands, theirs in mine.

In that unlikely event, something else would inevitably happen. The human race itself would undergo a deep change. Technocrats like me would call that leap - evolution.

I think the most fundamental forces in human society are those that draw us together and those that thrust us apart. I think we exist in a kind of equilibrium between the two. Maybe attraction = GOOD and repulsion = BAD if we wish to put our humpty-dumpty creator back together again. Despite being irreligious, I confess that the idea appeals to me very much.

The neocons are the living embodiment of the repulsive force. Their trademarks are fear, suspicion, security, barricades, superiority, ambition, wealth, pragmatism, power, war. Their purpose is to prevent the re-awakening of the power within us, because the parasitic bastards will lose their free lunch.

It simply doesn't matter where the neocons come from, or what religion they purport to uphold. They always come together in mutual understanding, be it across a banquet table or a bloody battlefield.

Yet they are few and we are many - and we will win - see if we don't.

Gee, what an interesting philosophy, Chris Shaw.

All of the problems on the world are caused by a race of people you call "neocons." And if "neocons" did not exist, then Muslims would not fly aeroplanes into Western buildings, rape and murder entire schools full of "neocon" little girls, blow up "neocons" on London buses, blow up bars in Bali full of partying "neocons", or fire katyushka rockets into "neocon" cities.

Uh huh. What it like down in the garden, dancing with the fairies?

Dear Chris
glad to hear you read my posts :) "My work is ALmost done" :)

Your response did not address my most important question, which is...

Who... do you point to as the Savior/Messiah of the world in terms of....

Political Ideology
Social Theory

That kind of thing..... I understood what you said about forces of repulsion and attraction, but your passion to verbally stomp the NeoCons suggests you have a very firm and clearly defined alternative.

PLEASE ENLIGHTEN US :)

Sharkfin actually summed the human situation up very well..'tribal/territorial'... he is learning :) *grin*

My alternative does not rest on any particular political ideology such as socialism or capitalism. Politically I can only see wisdom in a centrist position, a balance of social welfare and creative free enterprise. No party with the possible exception of Family First represents such a position that I can see.

Labor without the Unions would be good.
Coalition without the Economic rationalist/globalists would be good.
Greens.. from another planet
Dems.. who ?

I guess the Left of the Coalition marrying the Right of the Labor party would be my preferred political landscape.

But in the final analysis, I see hope only in Christ.. redeemed/renewed people in community.. aah..Robur..thats the taste :)