Well, hey, Bobert...I'm with ya there. I figure the Green Party is almost the only party left worth voting for. They haven't been bought out by the Big Boys yet. I also think Nader was the only real choice in the last US presidential election, but real choices don't have a dog's chance in hell of being elected in either the USA or Canada.

The last century was so terrible mainly because of the advanced weaponry that had become available...like aircraft, tanks, aerial bombing, poison gas, submarines, atom bombs, and so on...and because war became a global event, rather than just a regional or local one...again due to advanced technology, which has a faster and longer reach.

But...if you look into the things that were done openly by the Crusaders, the Spanish Inquisition, the religious wars in Europe, Attilla the Hun, etc...I think there is some indication that our basic sense of humanity and normal human rights has advanced quite a bit in the last 20 centuries.

When the Children of Israel, for example, went into the Middle East from Egypt they massacred entire local nations of people right down to the last man, woman, and child, and felt totally righteous and proud about doing it. That sort of thing wasn't all that unusual then. We have actually come a long way.

When the Nazis did the same type of thing in World War II, they did it much more slowly, by degrees, under a facade of legality, and with much greater procedural complexity....they went to considerable pains to keep the "Final Solution" absolutely secret from the German population and the world in general.

Now had they instead been doing it in the year 1200, for example, they would have done it openly and publicly with absolute relish, pride, and zeal, not supposing there was any need whatsoever for secrecy. Grotesque brutality and mass murder were entirely socially acceptable in 1200, except to those on the receiving end, of course.

I agree absolutely, however, that the problem now is we must break the cycle of win-lose, power from the barrel of a gun, etc...just as you said. That is the key. We need to cooperate as one Humanity, not compete and destroy each other and the natural world.

- LH