"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." George Orwell
Did you know that
The Celtic cross was really a Neolithic mathematical protractor used for surveying , time keeping, astronomy and navigation.
the church, true masters of spin
In 1954 William Golding wrote a story about a group of less-than-wise souls whose belief and trust in rationality and the rule of law breaks down and who end up living in fear of an incorporeal beast lorded over by a tyrannical 'leader' who believes in the rule of force.
John Steinbeck observed in the 1930's that each successive US President needed to be less and less intelligent in order to cope with the increasingly appalling contradictory decisions to be made
the notion that war is a necessary condition for preserving general social cohesion. The problem with this theory is that there can never be a time of peace; an enemy must always be created if none exists. It also sends a message to the "enemy" that there is no room for settling manners in a diplomatic manner, but only certain defeat and annihilation awaits them.
16 comments:
War is nothing but a continuation of politics with the admixture of other means.
~Clausewitz
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
-Plato? dunno.
good quote cressida. sometimes attributed to plato but no one knows where or why. sometimes attributed to George Santayana's,"Soliloquies in England". who knows?
well thank you Caprice. I like it. Hence I know it. But not who said it. Oh well. I'd rather know the quote than who said it.
only the dead, really? so nothing can be achieved peacefully, and we are doomed to always be at war?
wheres the role for diplomacy in such politics?
back to clausewitz eef
besides, on a small scale or a large scale there will always be an "other" and they will always do things you don't like. without them, we would never know what we do like, what we do stand for, and what we will not accept.
acceptance of 'other' not an option?
in all political ideologies, war is a continuation, with a mixture (sorry not sure bout quote) of other means?
is pacifism/neutrality not a political stance?
what happened to "faircity" eef? I liked it.
no.
the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.
that was dante, forgot to credit him. but it is true. was switzerland really neutral during the holocaust. i would say no. was diplomacy an option with hitler? do you think neutrality was a reasonable option in that situation? no. and so we accept that war is necessary. we may not agree with it in every case but we agree that it is necessary.
what if your morals dictate that you do not harm others? turn the other cheek?
then i quess you stand by and let 6 million people be killed by a maniac, or watch as the crisis in somalia happens. or cambodia, sudan, liberia, northern ireland, palestine.
but in all of those cases, we are not really turning the othe check. we are not be killed, starved, or generally oppressed. we are just watching it happen.
hmm. this is a very stimulating debate.
I tend to lean with Caprice. My sympathy and heartache for the suffering people always justified military action to me. I see the other side though. It is difficult. I tend to think of the future of the earth when I think about international issues. What is best to help the earth stay/become a pleasant place for our kids and their kids and their kids to live? and the kids of people in other countries I have never met. Maybe this heart on my sleeve perspective is actually a set of blinders. But I go with what I feel the most.
the world did stand by and watch until it became apparent that hitler was getting a little too close for comfort.
there are still mini-hitlers in power all over the globe, doing horrendous things to their people, and people are still being exterminated based on their race or religion. and in some cases on their socioeconomic status 'lie die-poor and far away from us'
we have stood by as the tragedies have unfolded in sudan, liberia, cambodia, etc.
in the situations where military force was eventually deployed, usually too little, too late, i would argue that it was either due to strategic interests, access to natural resources, or the outcry of the public demanded a response.
i mean what was the real reason the us got involved in ww2? since we didnt know about the concentration camps?
or in any conflict since?
well, that argument would make more sense than pacifisim. going for the wrong reason and being against that is different than not going at all. my point was that it would be wrong for us to "watch" those things happen and not cry out for them to be stopped, by whatever means neccessary.
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