im unsure the value...is aptly represented with the words argue

david/quote..""the price of promoting your ideas
is to allow those who differ with them to *argue with you.""

[i..too have had many debaits with jw]
i dont argue with them
[i realise they are fixed in their beliefs
i use them more to test my own beliefs]

and had many a good half hour with a few of them

its about seeing it not as a conflict
but an oppertuinity

to get to know...an other aspect
of the one good giving us all our lives

[maybe it's just cause i get so few visiters]
but here they come...and here we go again

[what we hate in others
we often hate within ourselves]
i found i love the good[god]..within me
thus find it easy to love the good [god]..within them

david said.."You said, "overcome the situation."
I don't agree that we have to overcome the situation.""

now there i see how it must be hard for you
[the jw..is only trying to do what they think
is best for you...[they ask for nothing..come only to give you a leaklet]..thinking that will help us save our souls

you must know..these deciples of the christ
really believe..only they are the chosen
just as your people believe the same

before they asumed the frail faul doctrine errantly
you must recall jesus was claimed to be of the jew
[teqniclly he is the saviour/messiah..of the jew]

these people
if they knew you to be you
would love you all the more

but instead..you really believe
these called by the nazereene
that you...""We"
""can try to it keep under control
and minimise the harm done,""

but david
will the mesiah only say what we expect him to say/do

or comes he to bring a change..
to change what we 'man..have been unable to do
thus need his help doing..

what?

""but no encounter where people differ can be made pain free.""

WISE words to live by

""no encounter
where people differ
can be made pain free""

thinking of a certain messiah
who came to his own..who knew him not

thus even his own rejected him
think back to the stiff necked people of old

so fixed in their rituals/rites..status..
that EVEN their own messiah
couldnt even get them to eat..
[without the ritual
..of washing their mitts..[hands]

refusing to eat..but his deciples didnt know that law
thus made it..AS IF..feeding 4000/5000..'all they wanted'
was a mirror-call..because none 'wanted' to eat..without the
SACRED HANDWASH RITUAL...even doing it twice

and his new converts missed it alltiogether
hey look a mirracle...lol...[as revealed by their eating of the shew-bread in the temple]..where the messia revealed

'its not what man puts in his mouth
which makes him unclean..but that which comes forth from 'it'

and still those
claiming the christ
DONT know his own people...

[who refused to eat..without the "ritual'
that should read rit-u-'EL']..so fixed
was their own love of rite/ritual

""Maybe I am reading you wrongly.""

its not for you to say

[how goes that parrable
stick..in one eye
plank in the other?]

"" What do you mean by
'overcome the situation?"

know your a leader of men
at least help those decieved by the darkones
to know what the living loving messiah came here to do

ie unite our fathers house
to bring the dived sects..back under the one roof

to reveal the lie of jud-gment day
and reserction day

[and that he died...let alone died..for us to sin]

to teach that god is not man..yet is IN all men
that some critters have higher levels of god awarness..[thus un-kosha]
and so much more..that he is all living..all loving..all grace..all mercy

and love
isnt as high a quality as
grace mercy charity...doing good..WORKS
not bad thoughts...honouring his good with our lips
not having passion..to do as we know our father does..for even the least

Dear davidf and Squeers,

I am going to have to disagree with you both.

Anyone walking toward the Shrine through the pre-dawn streets of South Melbourne on an ANZAC day may well get a sense of shared purpose but hardly one of triumphalism. It is predominately a pilgrimage of remembrance though I do grant there is less evidence of a recognition of the futility of war as the years progress.

I am however going to submit that the glorifying and 'medalling' of our armed forces is in some ways a measure designed to assuage our guilt. In a democratic society we are collectively responsible for, to put it crudely, brainwashing our servicemen and women and sending them off to invade and kill the citizens of another country.

The one thing I will grant Howard was his frankness in often telling us the real reason for our involvement in overseas conflicts, because in was in 'Australia's best interest'. This was never more starkly displayed than the deployment of 450 Australian troops in early 2005 to the Al Muthanna province in Iraq to guard Japanese engineers left vulnerable by the imminent withdrawal of supporting Dutch troops.

Cont..

Cont..

Howard's overarching reason was “there was a real possibility that the Japanese could no longer remain there, and that would have been a very serious blow to the Coalition effort.” but he was happy to acknowledge “The Japanese element of this is quite crucial because Japan is a major regional partner.” The Financial Review speculated at the time that Howard's visit to Japan scheduled for two months later to discuss the stalled free trade agreement between the two counties “would be a handy foreign policy trophy” if he were to bring home the bacon.

I remember writing a letter to my local paper saying I didn't want Australian troops dying just so I could get a cheaper price on a DVD player.

I think most Australians feel that our alliance with America is very much in our 'best interest' and the thought of putting that at jeopardy scares the hell out of us, even if it means participating in unjust wars. That is why we are unlikely to have the balls of NZ and why we keep voting, through our covert system of secret ballots, in compliant governments despite our overt protestations.

Governments allow us the hegemonic expression of the self interest of the majority. Unless it is faced up to and discussed openly we will always have it subsuming our better selves. Without the discussion we will continue to blame other forces like the perceived oligarchic stalwarts the churches, the press, the military, political parties and corporations. They can indeed be condemned for emotional manipulation but only of a compliant if not willing populace.

csteele,

yes, I agree completely. But shifting hegemonic ideology has proved difficult to say the least. Raymond Williams's notion of "cultural materialism" theorised hegemony's being vulnerable to piecemeal change that would eventually amount to revolutionary change if only the whole population was culturally involved in challenging the various components of the staus quo. Jurgen Habermas theorised something similar with his notion of the "public sphere". I can only describe Williams's project as a dismal failure that gave us identity politics, while Habermas's by his own admission fails at a certain level of social complexity or massification, wherein organisation becomes chaotic and prey to larger forces. The best antidote I've come across so far is the work of Takis Fotopoulis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Takis_Fotopoulos and his interactional concepts, "inclusive democracy" and "paideia", whose current debasements I would say are "representative democracy" and "ideology". Representative democracy amounts to the perpetual evasion of responsibility. The ancient Greek word paideia refers to education, from an early age, in the ethical and principled running of the state, so that individuals grow up passionately engaged, rather than passive, with political and ethical questions.
Our current system is merely indoctrination into institutionalised life, where we are absolved of such considerations. Even if we want to challenge our cultures ostensible mores, we are powerless to do so and forced to comply even in our dissent as the hegemon is monolithic.
This is why I'm so passionate about getting RI out of schools. I would like to see it replaced with ethics and programmes from an early age that are devoted to the age old question, "how should we live"?
Fotopoulis recommends http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inclusive_Democracy and I think this has great merit.
Please note it is 'not' a Marxist agenda.

Squeers,

Very good point.

Humans, being intelligent, are masters at deception and misrepresentation - and one thing that drives hostility is to be on the receiving end of contrivance and subterfuge - especially if a false idea is digested and then perpetuated.