The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 26 Aug 08 - 09:16 AM

I love & hate television in equal measures; capitalism likewise. Not a matter of recalcitrance or yet even inconsistency, but my personal (and, indeed, unpublished - unless posting here counts as publication) dialogue with respect to most aspects of life. For example, I love singing folk music, but rarely, if ever, do I listen to it by way of recreation; I also love attending Roman Catholic Mass but in no way shape or form do I believe in God. Life, I fear, can never never so simple as to be 100% consistent, WAV - and if it is, chances are there's something missing.

Unlike you, I have no strong opinions nor yet have I reached any conclusions; nor do I believe that I have stumbled upon the best way forward for humanity. I just make observations along the way that are subject to change, as such things do, the more one experiences & the more one learns. One thing remains fundamental however, is the belief that whatever one does, one must do it quietly, & happily, & in the hope that it in no way inhibits others from doing likewise. Any sort of bullshit that gets in the way of this - such as the ill-informed racist propaganda you insist on promoting at every available opportunity - I will, quite naturally, oppose.

So - stick to the facts, WAV; you make any more personal remarks like that and I'll be having a word with the mods.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 26 Aug 08 - 08:19 AM

Some recalcitrance and inconsistency here? I'm not sure where on mudcat...but I am sure I've read, and agreed with, critical remarks re. capitalism and the rotten inequality it produces from you, IB.
I've also recall you knocking television one day, and then talking about your enjoyment of, e.g, the Early Music programme (which I too enjoyed) just a few days later..?
And, it's getting rarer, but I have heard the media question immigrants as to the reason, with "to get rich" being a common and accepted reply - as most here have not learnt to question capitalism, of course.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 26 Aug 08 - 07:44 AM

Yet another smokescreen to obfuscate the real issues here.

For a start, being a free-market capitalist I have no dislike of free-market capitalism; it is an organic necessity of the world, as it is today, and always has been, & any attempts to over control it invariably result the horrors of totalitarianism. Secondly, we're not talking about supporting those who emigrate to get rich, rather those of diverse ethnicities who have immigrated into this country simply to make a living, and those who have been born to those families, into their second, third & forth generations. It is against these people that you direct your Own Good English Culture claptrap, constantly banging on about how much better things were before they came, using the immigrant population as a scapegoat for 50 years of political mismanagement - just as any self-respecting racist does.

This is not a personal attack, WAV, but a serious questioning of your published ideology. Whatever personal feelings that lie behind you so-called conclusions you are entitled to, much as any other flawed human being, but once you publish it, then it becomes something else altogether - it becomes a manifesto, a potential rallying point for those who would seize on such ideas as a justification for the racial hatred you claim not to espouse, but which seeps as a rancid bile between your every word.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 26 Aug 08 - 06:46 AM

I thought that's one of the things we do agree on, IB - a dislike of free-market capitalism? And, if so, why support future economic/capitalist immigration/emigration. This is where the likes of the Socialist Workers Party get confused - they, too, are against capitalism but they end up supporting those who emigrate to get rich...

"Within the broader music industry, and beyond, what some get for their hour's work, compared with others, is ridiculous and inhumane; hence, many relatively competent musicians within the folk-scene are really struggling to make ends meet; so, if we like fair competition, we don't like capitalism. A better way, as I've suggested in verse, is to accept that humans are competitive, and have strong regulations (partly via nationalisation) to make that competition as fair as possible – whilst also providing "safety-net" support."(from here)...
And accepting eco-travl and fair-trade between nations, via the UN - rather than yet more conquest and capitalist immigration/emigration.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 26 Aug 08 - 04:26 AM

A non-racist could have lots of reasons for questioning immigration/emigration, such as population density, land rights, trying to have a multiple number of cultures living under the one state law, caring for young Spanish couples who are being priced-out of the property market by wealthy English and Germans - not content to just visit as respectful tourists, etc.

A truly non-racist would see these things as in the light of the economic realities of 21st century capitalism which really have fuck all to do with immigration. Only a racist would attempt to use them as scapegoats to justify their anti-immigration cause.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 26 Aug 08 - 04:12 AM

You posted that 2 hours after my last, Don - but it's as if we'd posted at the same time and you hadn't read it.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Don Firth
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 07:38 PM

"Racist? No, of course I'm not a racist! I resent the implication! As far as I'm concerned, those people are perfectly fine!

"It's just that I don't want them living next door to me!"

O-o-o-o-h, yeah!

Don Firth

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 05:38 PM

A non-racist could have lots of reasons for questioning immigration/emigration, such as population density, land rights, trying to have a multiple number of cultures living under the one state law, caring for young Spanish couples who are being priced-out of the property market by wealthy English and Germans - not content to just visit as respectful tourists, etc.

Poem 76 of 230: LAND RIGHTS

If there is a good thing
    From the Second World War
It's that most peoples learnt
    To conquer lands no more.

In Africa, Asia,
    And the Pacific, too:
Post-war independence -
    Steps only bigots rue.

But for some indigenes,
    Outnumbered much-too-much,
It has all come too late
    For liberty, as such.

So 'tis in Australia,
    And America's sites,
Where the best now, I think,
    Is to respect land rights.

From walkaboutsverse.741.com

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Les from Hull
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 03:08 PM

I'm not going to go back though all this twaddle, but if you oppose immigration on the the grounds that it affects the culture of this country, surely you must oppose emigration - even foreign holidays on the same basis. So all you white-skinned Americans, Canadians, Australians etc - get yourselves back to Europe!

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: GUEST,Insane Beard
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 02:49 PM

WAV, your whole philosophy is founded on ethnic & cultural purity and the facile belief that England was a better place before immigration - God knows you've made no secret of that. Opposing future immigration on any grounds whatsoever is (frankly) ridiculous, let alone when you are so open about your passions for Our Own Good Culture as it (supposedly) existed before the immigrations of the last 50 years, exclusive of any of the other cultural aspects & attributes of the Multi-Cultural UK as we know today. So it is not future immigration that bothers you, it is immigration period.

I was born into a multi-ethnic & multi-cultural Northumbria; I grew up with Moslems, Hindus, West Indian Blacks, Chileans, Chinese and Yemenites. No bother, WAV - and no rivers of blood. Ethnic diversity & cultural harmony, and unity, in diversity.

Why oppose immigration, future or otherwise, if you're not a racist? Where is your argument? If you weren't a racist, you'd be getting on with your life; living & letting live; happy with the cultural diversity we can enjoy in many parts of the UK, to a greater or lesser extent. Obviously you're not happy with this state of affairs, ergo, you are a racist.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Stu
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 02:21 PM

"So, in answer to your question, anything that causes racial offence is racist by default; such as your ideas, hatched in moral & human vacuum without ever once stopping to thing how offensive this thinking is likely to be to other people."

Yeah - and he doesn't like girls playing sport in case they squash their norks (see other thread).

Another "ism" to the list?

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 02:05 PM

Words in someone's mouth, again, Volgadon. And saying that future immigration can't be questioned due to fear of offending those here due to past immigration is, frankly, ridiculous.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: GUEST,Insane Beard
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 01:51 PM

Let me ask you a question, IB - do you at least accept that someone who questions immigration, and likes their own culture, may OR MAY NOT be a racist?

The real question is one of reality, WAV. Anyone who questions immigration does so without stopping to think of the effect of such witless grunting on actual immigrants, such as my dear friend, Rajinda, who came to live in England when she was eight months old & has lived here for the last forty-five years, her family likewise. Needless to say Rajinda, a Pakistani Moslem, thinks of herself as English; I think of her as English, as does her husband, likewise Pakistani, and her children, who are also English Moslem, born on English soil, living all their 21 years on English soil.

How are these people expected to feel when someone, such as yourself, starts gibbering on about immigration & repatriation?

So, in answer to your question, anything that causes racial offence is racist by default; such as your ideas, hatched in moral & human vacuum without ever once stopping to thing how offensive this thinking is likely to be to other people.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 12:26 PM

Forgive me those who've heard it all before but, in my defence, I went a tad beyond "kindergarten" (IB) and achieved 4 technical certificates in manufacturing and a BA in humanities.
Let me ask you a question, IB - do you at least accept that someone who questions immigration, and likes their own culture, may OR MAY NOT be a racist?

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 11:42 AM

My goodness, such passion! I begin to think the man may be serious.

Everybody's into cultural purity, aren't they? What I mean is, everyone just naturally promotes their own culture, is in favor of it, instills it into their children, celebrates it, goes on and on about it how wonderful it is, defends it against any perceived threat of any sort whatsoever... This is also true of people who bitch all the time about racism.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Gene Burton
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 11:30 AM

Is it actually possible for a person to defame themself?

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 11:17 AM

That's false and defamatory, IB

Everything you say comes down to your twisted obsessions with culture & ethnicity; every warped piece of WAV logic is based on the same irrational sentiments concerning cultural purity. So tell me, how is that not racist?

If can't live & be happy with the cultural & ethnic realities of life in Great Britain in 2008 without scapegoating those same realities for society's ills - then what else are but a racist?

It's you who needs an education, WAV - you need to get yourself back to fucking kindergarten and relearn the basics of human decency; the basics of right and wrong that stand as self-evident truths when dealing with human realities rather than the twisted fantasy you persist in so relentlessly promoting.

False and defamatory? You defame yourself, WAV, not only in believing such bullshit - which is your right & priviledge - but in publishing and promoting it at every available oppotunity. These ideas are evil, and the sooner you realise that the better.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: catspaw49
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 10:36 AM

I live for the day when "Da' Hat" shall adorn my melon. I'm gonna' go straight for the Orphan Girl and tell her I be god......but unlike Cheech, I will do a trick for her.....heheheheheheheheehehe................

Spaw

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 10:31 AM

You know, Spaw, I fear that we may end up as depraved and generally useless as that jerk, Cheech Wizard before we're done. What an awful fate.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: catspaw49
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 10:24 AM

No need to explain it Wavy! Like I said, thanks for the chuckle!!!

Spaw

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 10:17 AM

Firstly, Spaw: my inexpensive digital camera does not allow audio recording; and, secondly, as I said in the About me section, folks can, if they wish, give this video a viewing while they listen to my tracks, above it.
And, yes, I do move the recorder/English flute around in my mouth quite a bit - as I at least try for a good timbre, and to match recorder and voice (play like I sing/sing like I play).

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 10:14 AM

That's it in a nutshell, Spaw. ;-D Boy, talk about having too much time on one's hands, eh? Who'd have guessed when we were young, hungry, and roaming the world in search of love and enlightenment that it would come down to this! Wasting our days with idle inanities on an Internet forum. Oh well, I guess it beats workin' for George Bush, anyway.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: catspaw49
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 09:54 AM

Ah Hawkster, I admit it! Wavy gets his jollies acting indignant over facts and I think the Insane one enjoys pointing out the flaws in the "logic".................and YOU get off coming along and pointing it all out......LOL......We be a sick bunch Man....hahahahaha.............

I made a crack somewhere about this but I want to thank Wavy for the laugh on this one! I was researching his silly usage of "English Flute" (a term almost never used since before 1900) instead of Recorder.................and I found THIS hilarious video. Only Walky would give us the benefit of his recorder technique in a SILENT MOVIE!!! And btw, what's with all the mouth malling?

Seriously Wav, I want to thank you for one of the best laughs I've had lately. Seriously! Thanks!!!!!

Spaw

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 09:34 AM

Oh, come on, Insane Beard. You look forward to him saying more things that outrage and offend you. Just admit it. ;-) You log in every day just hoping he'll give you another opportunity to comment on how wrongheaded and terrible he is. (And you're not alone in that...)

You need him like Bush needs Osama (or the rumour of Osama, at any rate).

As for Catspaw, the poor bastard can't even get off anymore without his daily WAV fix, but he's just too proud to admit it. (hee! hee!)

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 08:36 AM

That's false and defamatory, IB - in person and on the web, you have only known me to question THE ACT OF IMMIGRATION ITESELF, and to keep pushing for English culture in England: quite different from criticizing and particular race or culture. I think you once mentioned trying some college/uni formal study - I suggest you try again, and reconsider making such ill-informed remarks.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 05:27 AM

WAV - the real filth here is your vile racist opinions; no amount of soap & water can ever wash the blood off those ideas.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 25 Aug 08 - 04:41 AM

Re: Sparing Spaw's spawnings
Perhaps the mods have been enjoying the Olympics - they didn't bother "cleaning up"/deleting your droppings/posts this time, Spaw.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: catspaw49
Date: 24 Aug 08 - 05:58 PM

Do YOU use soap Wavydude? Are you sure its English in origin? What a friggin' catsasstrophe for you!!!!! Better check.

Katlaughing has been cleaning up the litter for me for years except when I'm cleaning up litter for her as you know JtS.....But I must argue here! There's certainly nothing novel in profanity(:<))

Spaw

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor
Date: 24 Aug 08 - 10:12 AM

LOL

Catspaw and the Clumping Kitty Litter!

A novel of profanity!

LOL!!!

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 24 Aug 08 - 10:03 AM

Catspaw - get back to your kittie litter and wash your mouth out with some soap, please.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: catspaw49
Date: 24 Aug 08 - 09:14 AM

I think he's having a good time like some of us are as well.

Spaw

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: GUEST,Jack the Sailor
Date: 24 Aug 08 - 08:51 AM

Call him a racist if you will, but this thread is proving that Walkabout is a very calm and tolerant man.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: catspaw49
Date: 24 Aug 08 - 08:47 AM

I have it on good authority that Wavygravy once moved to the country but found himself with a neighbor who was an Englishman and plowed with a horse. On the other side was a Pakistani who used a tractor. Wav didn't know whether to shit or wipe........whether to evacuate his bladder or wind his watch. In the end he found himself sitting in a pile of shit, pissing on himself, and wondering what time it was.

Spaw

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 24 Aug 08 - 03:37 AM

That's true, Don, although Cromwell stopped suchlike for a while; but, yes Volgadon, although I'm a tradie, I don't support every single tradition in England or other nations of the world.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Don Firth
Date: 23 Aug 08 - 04:44 PM

I was always under the impression that horse racing, steeplechase, etc, was an old English tradition; an inntegral part of English culture.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 23 Aug 08 - 04:20 PM

So you only want Eng culture you aprove of?

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 23 Aug 08 - 02:22 PM

Good to hear you and yours, again, IB. Generally, I do support traditions, of course, but I'm happy tractors have taken over from horse-power; and, as for horse racing, I'm with Cromwell - here's that poem/sonnet...

Poem 146 of 230   HORSES FOR COURSES?

To some, in income-anticipation,
    Horse-balking at gates is a small debase;
To me, it seems a memory/fear case
    Over the coming whip-castigation.
To some, the winning jockey's elation
    Is the highlight of an ended horserace;
To me, the horse's bulged veins and scared face
    Undermine the winners' celebration.
I can't condone a punter's desire
    To gamble rather than earn a living,
    But can acknowledge a jockey's courage;
I can't see and think as a raced sire,
    Nor feel the scrapes hedges are giving,
    But find horses choiceless in their bondage.

From walkaboutsverse.741.com

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Don Firth
Date: 23 Aug 08 - 12:58 PM

It used to be "I Ride an Old Paint," but now I ride a 1999 Toyota Corolla.

But that doesn't scan nearly as well.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 23 Aug 08 - 07:07 AM

I don't like horses being used in such ways, LH, and, thus, am pleased that the horses-and-carts tradition in England has largely died out

And with it goes so much of the traditional & folkloric life, the ecology of the countryside, and the continuance of culture & craftsmanship, which defined the whole nature of the England we know & love today. "During a single 10-year period (1984-1993), more than one-third of all hedgerows in the United Kingdom were lost -- a whopping 121,875 miles of destruction..." And of course now they've banned hunting the rest of it will no doubt go down the pan too...

Oh - that Poor Old Horse Song (Owld Grye) is up on the new Venereum Arvum myspace page - see Here - which was collected at the Appleby Horse Fair. Do stop by and have a listen...

Meanwhile, I'm off the start a new thread about horse songs in the English-speaking tradition...

Saddle your horses; your saddles prepare; we'll away to some cover to seek for a hare!

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 23 Aug 08 - 06:28 AM

(As suggested in poem #146, e.g., I don't like horses being used in such ways, LH, and, thus, am pleased that the horses-and-carts tradition in England has largely died out - love seeing heavy-horses run wild in a field, mind.)

THE WEEKLY WALKABOUT, E.G.

Poem 36 of 230: WALKABOUT MEXICO

In late December,
    1996,
I can remember
    Being in a fix -
For time and pesos -
    And, thus, unable
To see Mexico's
    Sights commendable.

So, in Tijuana,
    I enjoyed the show
At a miniature
    Rep. of Mexico.

From walkaboutsverse.741.com

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Little Hawk
Date: 22 Aug 08 - 05:42 PM

"WAV, you have the cart before the horse."

Not again?!!! Good lord, this seems to be happening all the time in our society. People are constantly putting the cart before the horse. I put it down to the overuse of automobiles, the underuse of horses (and carts) these days, and the fact that the horse and cart does not normally come with a simple illutrated instruction manual that even a total idiot can understand.

step 1: place horse directly in front of cart
step 2: fasten harness to horse
step 3: mount cart, facing forward
step 4: grasp reins firmly in left hand and take whip in right hand
step 5: snap whip and yell "Hiyo, Sugarfoot!" (substitute your horse's name here in place of "Sugarfoot")
step 6: hang on! You have now successfully launched your horse and cart. Good luck.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 22 Aug 08 - 03:13 PM

And, in certain cases, you can have more, like Muhammad or Muslim rulers.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Don Firth
Date: 22 Aug 08 - 02:36 PM

"Those USSR examples are more to do with (lack of) freedom of speech/political matters, rather than questioning/supporting the multicultural state, Don and Volgadon. In muslim nations, BOTH the law of the land and the Koran say a man can take up to four wives...should it be that way for muslims in the USA and England?"

####

WAV, you have the cart before the horse.

The lack of freedom in the USSR and other totalitarian states comes as a result of the state not allowing the populace to question or criticize it. Anything that doesn't conform to the arbitrary ideas of the state's dictatorial leaders, including their concepts of cultural imperatives, they suppress. And it is this that is the cause of lack of freedom (freedom of speech, freedom of dissent, etc.), not the other way around.

As to the matter of polygamy, the Koran says the following:

Marry such women as seem good to you, two, or three, or four. But if you fear that you will not do justice, then marry only one (4:3).

And a commentary by a Muslim scholar goes on to say:

Thus the Koran appears to clearly sanction polygamy, up to four wives. However, it also states that the man must deal justly, both materially and emotionally, with all four. A separate Koranic verse states this is humanly impossible: "And you cannot do justice between wives, even though you wish it." (4:129)

Tunisia recently banned polygamy on these grounds. Turkey, under Kemal Ataturk, banned polygamy decades ago. So the "four wives" cultural imperative is not an imperative at all.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 22 Aug 08 - 12:08 PM

Meaning tidy little departments of seperate culture which don't mix. Oh, you can open and admire each, as long as you put them back just as soon as you are done, don't stay too long and NEVER mix them.

Are you not going to answer me?

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: WalkaboutsVerse
Date: 22 Aug 08 - 05:07 AM

Those USSR examples are more to do with (lack of) freedom of speech/political matters, rather than questioning/supporting the multicultural state, Don and Volgadon. In muslim nations, BOTH the law of the land and the Koran say a man can take up to four wives...should it be that way for muslims in the USA and England? As on my myspace header, I like the idea of "a multicultural WORLD".

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 21 Aug 08 - 03:34 PM

Add to that list Mikhail Bulgakov, who could hardly get any of his things published or produced, even his play about Stalin's early years, which Joe himself admitted was exactly how things were, but the people needed a myth. Another fine example is the poet Osip Mandelstam, who lost his life because of a verse poking fun at Stalin.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: SINSULL
Date: 21 Aug 08 - 02:52 PM

Does this cultural isolation apply to foods as well? No pasta outside of China, for instance? I am confused...

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Don Firth
Date: 21 Aug 08 - 02:11 PM

No, I amend that. Another example of this kind of society is the Soviet Union, in which authors could be censured and persecuted for writing something the authorities didn't approve of (Boris Pasternak, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn) or composers could be reprimanded and denied performance for writing "the wrong kind of music" (the Zhdanov decree in 1948, condemning Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Khachaturian, and other Soviet composers as "formalist" and "antipopular.").

What you are advocating, WAV, gets pretty close to this: wanting to discourage or prevent people from singing "the wrong kind of songs."

If you want to go a little further into history for examples, there was a time when one could be burned at the stake, not for what one did outwardly, but for not having the "correct" beliefs.

No. That's not the way the world should go; not the way any country should go. That's a big step backwards on the road to civilization.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: Don Firth
Date: 21 Aug 08 - 01:21 PM

". . . if ideally" [??] "the law of the land and the culture of the land are closely linked. . . ."

The only places in the world where this is the case is in autocratic theocracies such as Afghanistan under the Taliban.

"Ideally?"

Absolutely not! You may as well have a nation of robots.* A society dominated by conformity, restriction, prohibition, and oppression.

Don Firth

*Robot    Etymology: Czech, from robota, compulsory labor; slave.

Subject: RE: The Weekly Walkabout (part 2.)
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 21 Aug 08 - 12:43 PM

"So if all states become multicultural
    Or humans become culturally one -
Through settlement and globalisation -
    Holding Olympics would then be null."

I dunno, the ancient Greeks got along alright. The olympics are about sports, not about nationalism and are meant to celebrate the fact that athletics know no nationality.

What about an answer to my nationalism with fair trade queston?