Dear SPQR,

Thank you. A discussion of we/they involves agreeing on the problems. Some are destitute. Every person does not have a minimum standard of living. Without an equitable distribution of resources and control of our numbers we cannot achieve a minimum standard of living for all.

I see the we/they as one of the obstacles in getting to that point.

Dear Al,

You hold up British Prime Minister, David Cameron as if he is the ultimate arbiter on cultural morality - he isn't.

In fact, he leads a government that has just decided that it's a jolly good idea to privatise Britain's forests and woodlands....now there's a we/they idea if I've ever heard one.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-12257835

That was so delightfully patronizing, Boaz.

>>Dear PerryMason..... you can't see where I'm coming from because of the absense of faith in your life (I mean faith in Christ)<<

Apparently, in order to understand your lack of logic or intellectual rigour, and your tendency to invent stuff on the spur of the moment, I need to have "faith in Christ".

That makes me very glad that I don't.

>>When I say I'm an advocate of 'us/them'..I explained that very clearly.<<

I certainly thought so. It went like this:

>>I am absolutely, unapologetically, forever + 1, an advocate of "us/them"<<

Now you are trying to tell us that this approach only applies in a strictly religious context. And, moreover, only in the context of your own personal interpretation of religion.

>>"we" the saved.... "they" the unsaved. etc. I also outlined the disposition between 'we' (saved) and 'they' (unsaved)..and it is one of reaching out as ambassadors to achieve reconciliation between 'they' and God.<<

I am reasonably certain - even from the limited feedback on this forum - that you do not speak for other Christians. While this is probably very good news for Christianity itself, it does rather reduce the authority of your pronouncements-from-upon-high to the status of "Boaz says".

>>The point about the Mt Druit brawl was simply underlining that 'us/them' is a reality which will never be overcome outside of the unity found in Christ.<<

The Mt. Druitt brawl was, as you say, an "us vs. them" incident. As I read about it, it occurred to me that it was highly reminiscent of a scene in "West Side Story", with two ethnic gangs fighting over "territory".

Also, I'm afraid, highly reminiscent of scenes in Belfast, where deliberate confrontations between the two religions were engineered in order to establish "territory".

Which faction - Prods or Micks - were "outside of the unity found in Christ", I wonder? More importantly, from an us/them perspective, on whose side was God?

Given that only someone belonging to "the saved" is able to unravel this mystery, perhaps you could volunteer for the task?

An excerpt from the latest NLR, below, that talks to the us and them I think is important and raise early in the thread. Of course we’re blessed with abstractions like national borders, which allow us to rationalise and us and them that just happens to be overwhelmingly in our favour.

"under capitalism, the only thing worse than being exploited is not being exploited. Since the beginnings of the wage-labour economy, wageless life has been a calamity for those dispossessed of land, tools and means of subsistence. Expelled from work, the wageless also became invisible to science: politi¬cal economy, as Marx noted in the earliest formulations of his critique of the discipline, ‘does not recognize the unemployed worker’: ‘The rascal, swindler, beggar, the unemployed, the starving, wretched and criminal workingman—these are figures who do not exist for political economy but only for other eyes, those of the doctor, the judge, the gravedigger, and bum-bailiff, etc; such figures are spectres outside its domain.’1 These days, Marxism—more often seen as an example of political economy than as its critique—and other labour-based analyses face the same objection. Understandings built upon wage labour cannot, we are told, account for the reality lived by the most numerous and wretched of the world’s popu¬lation: those without wages, those indeed without even the hope of wages. Bare life, wasted life, disposable life, precarious life, superfluous life: these are among the terms used to describe the inhabitants of a planet of slums. It is not the child in the sweatshop that is our most characteristic figure, but the child in the streets, alternately predator and prey".

it seems that full stomaches ..make for dull concience's
we are all*.. equity shareholders ..in EARTH inc.

we are each
...enjoined mortal heirs ..of the immortal father ..[god/good]

the haves ...'have that they got'
by fishing the seas empty of fish
by forresting the for-rest.. into desert plains
by digging up minerals
and poluting our joint owner eaerth/waters airs

in short some think they own it all
thus they.. it must be ..who pay for the rest of it

there are those who got educated..[many for free]
who now must pay the rent

there are those who get rich off others illness
how do they sleep at night?

how much more do they expect to get
for simply colluding ..to take it all

they get govt subsides slaves
they lock up dissedent
silence freespeach

have made they comforts
while the rest of us bail them out

its time ..to either make the rich pay their own way
and return at least half of what they took by deciets and cleveness

or eat the rich

either way

its time for those who think to own it all
to return ..some ..of what they colluded to take away

Dear Poirot...

//You hold up British Prime Minister, David Cameron as if he is the ultimate arbiter on cultural morality - he isn't.//

Oh good heavens NOOOOOO! not a chance.. Cameron has simply picked the day before a massive English Defense League march in Luton to 'get up to speed' with what must be their focus group polling.

He is as much of a weasel as you could ever wish you didn't know.

All I'm pointing is that he is making the right NOISES..even if it is blatant political opportunism.

Periscope.. you're welcome. But faith in Christ has a rather unfogging effect on the brain.. truly. Your reference to the progressive understanding of "miracles" in another thread shows how much unfogging your brain needs. But.. it's a work in progress and we march on....blessings.

David.. I'm still waiting for that apology..... I don't care if you don't wish to interact.. no problem.. but you made a ghastly assertion and now I'm going to continue to remind you ... 4eva.(till you act)