Robert Fisk on the middle east wars

[David Josephs]

So yes, you should read my other posts in this regard. All of them. Not simply ones related to Israel. My view is that war is absolutely a for profit activity and one that I find entirely reprehensible. And Israel, very clearly, is part and parcel of this highly profitable business enterprise. But so are the other nations of the middle east too.

I will David - your respect and presentation here is well established, and well deserved...

I find your challenge about war being a "depletion of inventory" peculiar to be perfectly honest.

and I agree with you about war being a "profit activity"... yet would you agree we've had years of relative peace in that there was not Iraq or Korea or Vietnam or Kuwait or Afghanistan etc... yet the war machine surges ahead building for the inevitable... the depletion of war justifies the expansion and rearming continuing... wihtout depletion the butcher, baker and candlestick maker has to stop consuming resources to build inventory which will never be reduced enough to justify the continue production... not so in the war business... and that, as you say, is what makes that business so different and profitable...

(Yet no where near as profitable as the Banking and Insurance industries which are the pillars these other industies rely.)

Which is why I found Iron Mountain to be so interesting.... hoax or not.... since it is an extension of philosophical Peace thinking from the ages.

As long as lines are drawn on maps and there is more than one person in the conversation... it will be very difficult for humanity to treat itself to a Resource-based world view, rather than an US v THEM - We need it more than you mentailty.

http://thevenusproject.com/about/the-venus-project
While very idealistic (and what peace model isn't) I found this to be akin to the first bite in the eating of the elephant. May look a bit foolish, but that elephant can't get eaten by just staring at it.

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I am not uber pro-Israel either, btw... and it's very possible I completely missed the satire... I just feel that borders, imposed or not, are not the reason most of the 370 million arabs would like to see the 8 millions jews of Israel gone...

or why the Indians or the slaves can ever trust the US. It was my view that pinning this on WWI's creation of the RISK board only tells a tiny fraction of the story.


DJ



http://www.ucg.org/doctrinal-beliefs/bib...b-peoples/
As God promised, Sarah became pregnant and give birth to Isaac. The hurt and anger of the teenage Ishmael towards this half brother Isaac led Abraham to send him and his mother Hagar into the wilderness. The young man, told since childhood that he was the son of promise, found himself an outcast from his father. This set the stage for generations of strife between him and Abraham's other son, Isaac. Ishmael went on to become the father of many Arab nations

The biblical story doesn't end with Ishmael and Isaac. One generation later there was competition between the sons of Isaac, Jacob and Esau. Genesis records how the eldest, Esau, sold his birthright to his twin Jacob. In Genesis 27 we find the oft-told story of how, when Isaac was old and blind, he was tricked by Jacob into giving him the birthright blessing. It would be through Jacob's lineage that God would fulfill His covenant with Abraham. God assured Jacob that this was His will, but Esau's hatred for what he perceived as a theft of his birthright drove him to plot Jacob's murder. Jacob fled for his life, living estranged from his family for many years.
The descendants of Jacob would become known as the Israelites. Esau became the father of the people the Bible calls the Edomites or Idumeans. The relationship between these two peoples has at times been peaceful and at other times bordered on genocide

[David Guyatt]

David, yes, I agree, it's not a recent innovation. We can step back into history and see human nature in all its "red in tooth and claw nature".

Sometimes, we can even look back and see a real civilizing influence poking though too. It is the human condition and unless, or until, human nature is transformed by consciousness, this back and forth is, for me, destined to continue.

If the dark shadow nature of mankind is left to itself, will it eventually gobble up it's own tail and consume itself - and all of us along with it?

That is the danger and the challenge we all face. Can enough men and women become conscious of their own shadow selves and withdrew their energy/libido from the Collective monster?

It's a quandary.

And yet, for me, the whole thing reflects back to us the world as it is. Day and night, winter and summer -- all the usual and obvious opposing poles of the universe as we currently understand it.

It's a designer quandary.

I found the Venus Project well intentioned, for sure, but a little short on reality. I wish it were so easy, but the problem as I see it is as above: our inherent human nature that is built of components of both black and white, perennially swinging from one pole to the other.

To be perfectly honest, this whole, huge philosophical question is the real motivation of a forum like DPF, in my opinion anyway. It's a mirror of man's dark nature. Only by understanding ourselves, and knowing ourselves, will real progress be accomplished.

If not we simply plod along at the pace of grazing cattle - not knowing if we exist or endure. Or why.