Well...To criticize and condemn Naziism (which I do!) is not to be anti-German.
To criticize and condemn exessively aggressive policies by the present Israeli government is not to be anti-Jewish or even anti-Israeli.
To criticize and condemn terrorist attacks is not to be anti-Arab or anti-Palestinian.
It is the systematic use of violence, the belief that "might makes right", the assured certainty of one's own cultural superiority over one's neighbours, and the general lack of goodwill toward one's neighbours that I am objecting to.
It's clear to me that both Israel and its Palestinian and Arab opponents have erred in all these respects, and continue to do so.
There are simple solutions to all these problems, but they are so radical that people will not even give them consideration...at least those in power will not. Too much money and control would be lost to them.
Thus, the ordinary public everywhere continues to live in a dangerous, violent, insecure, and corrupt world...when we could live in equality, tolerance, and peace...and cultural diversity without prejudice.
I will not cheerlead the murderous efforts of either Israel or its opponents to annihilate each other. They are both caught up in a dispute that ought never to have arisen in the first place.
If wealth were not distributed in a horrendously unequal fashion in this world today, you would not see these conflicts arising and dragging on endlessly.
My problem is not with Jews, Arabs, Germans, or any other identifiable cultural group. It is with institutionalized violence, organized murder, and the facade of patriotism that it proudly wears to justify its ends.
My comments about democracy were merely cautionary ones...in that one cannot simply rest on his laurels and assume that the superficial outward mechanics of democracy will guarantee social justice. Not when the system chooses and controls the candidates! Not when the people who are running the great game (worldwide) own and control the mass media. How difficult can it really be for them to manipulate the public, control the elections, and pursue their hidden agenda?...which has nothing whatsoever to do with either human rights or true democracy.
It has to do with money, power and control. "Lord of the Rings" actually isn't too far off, folks. The One Ring is military/financial power...and we are all presently living under the hand of Mordor.
Turn on your TV and gaze into the eye of Sauron. Recognize it for what it is...madness. Madness at the top (nuclear missiles) spawns madness at the bottom (suicide pilots). When the ones at the bottom commit some insane act like the attack on the WTC, then it gives the ones at the top a good excuse to tighten the chains they already have you and me bound in...and further reduce our civil liberties, and further extend their control over our lives.
The Arab-Israeli dispute is just a local symptom of a much greater worldwide program of domination and inequality, and ordinary Israelis and Palestinians pay the price for it every day of their lives...as do we all.
So don't waste your breath by trying to cast me as an anti-Semite. I am simply anti-totalitarian, and you are in the same boat I am. You are a victim of the same giant machine. It is so big that only a worldwide catastrophe of dimensions or circumstances as yet unseen could possibly bring it down. Its policies tend to lead inevitably in that direction anyway, so we may yet live (or die) to see it.
In the meantime, I try to be as good a human being as I can, and not harm anyone. The only thing I have jurisdiction over is my own life, and that's as it was meant to be. A pity that those in power can't see fit to do the same, and serve instead of dominate.
Now, depending on how much you take the status quo for granted...you will either write me off as "crazy" or you will get what I'm talking about. Either way...you live in chains...whether or not you choose to see them.
- LH