04-13-2017, 11:49 AM
(04-12-2017, 05:17 PM)Ragnarök_62 Wrote: I want Mideast politics/religion/crackpots banished from my life. Here's the real deal, I don't give a rat's ass if some part of the world chooses some backward looking religion. If said religion dooms its adherents to death, let it rip.
I hear and feel your pain, just as I feel the pain about South Sudan, Syria, etc. I understand that military action to resolve these "humanitarian concerns" you said we should ignore (in another post somewhere recently), frequently causes as much problem as doing nothing. When the USA gets involved and invades other countries in order to stop some regressed brutal crap going on, it frequently ends up as the USA imposing its imperialistic and corporate/financial interests on others for the benefit of the MIC and the wealthy, and it's often about resisting some ideology like communism or religious terrorism whose danger is exaggerated or extended to places it doesn't exist.
It's an interesting and deadly dilemma, though. I saw The Great War last night on PBS (unfortunately we don't have PBS watchers here). And as horrible as Woodrow Wilson was, I think that the Great War was a great turn in history away from nationalism and toward internationalism. The UN and world involvement by all nations to keep the peace is what separates our era from the past. The Great War was a great Revolution, and was unprecedented both in its horror and scale and for how many ancient and outdated empires it toppled. And also for how it shoved us into a different world, and for which the millions who died gave their lives. It took another world war to get us closer to this new world, so it wasn't "the war to end war, to make the world safe for democracy," as Wilson claimed. But it was a huge deal; REALLY huge, as the astrological Neptune-Pluto cycle confirms. http://philosopherswheel.com/fortunes.htm
One civilization died; another was born in the Great War and in the 20 years that led up to it. We became from that point on a world civilization, not a tribal or national one. We are all part of one world, and our allegiance is to the Earth now, not "murica." And so, maybe American entry into World War One, which ended and decided the greatest war in history, was needed lest the European nations were to continue to bleed themselves to death with their outdated dynastic and national/imperial quarrels. Still, it did not end the problem; the war, in effect, continues.
So, maybe humanitarian concerns are valid if we are involved with and interested in humans in our world, to which we belong now rather than to a nation. And it's true, we DO so belong. So, when an outlaw regime or outdated religious empire actually does threaten us and our allies, as the IS and Assad actually DO today, then the whole world must take action in some hopefully-effective and thoughtful way. Because the new era has not made us into angels yet, there are still outlaws within and among nations.
On the other hand, one "superpower" nation as world policeman is just as outdated as nationhood in general. Such an international concern must be multi-lateral and global, and that's why the UN is NOT something to wish death to. It is the mark of our transition into the new era that began with the Great War and the 22 years that led up to it. And just as the soldiers at Gettysburg gave the last full measure of devotion to a cause for which they must not have died in vain, so the cause of international cooperation and responsibility is one for which millions fought and died for in trenches, and which they should not have died in vain either. Everything we have today, was given to us by folks who struggled and died for it over millions of years, and we need to respect that, and not be cynical and unmindful of our heritage.
Reasonable minds can differ, and I applaud your view Rags. And I know your mind is reasonable, at least when it's not bipolar
End of today's essay.