h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Ghandi didn't think so.


-Strider

First in reply to Aragon
I dont really think that there is any good reason for me
to reconsisder my definition of the Isralis and palestinians.
The peace process was a fraud, it ensrined Israls illegal
occuaption of the West Bank and Gazza strip with the Palestinian authority offered just 17% of the west bank and 60% of Gazza.
two million Palisinians are now living below the poverty line
wile Isralies complain that they are scared to go to discos.
Palestinian homes are bulldozed to make way for the 400000 settelers
in the occupyed territorys!
One side possesses modern millitary equipment(surrplyed by the US)
with which it can
bomb from the sky and roll in the tanks wile the other is
so desperate it resorts to straping explosive to its self and blowing
its self up.
I know who I surport.
On revolution Beanfoto is right
peace will come only after revolution, you can try to reform the
system as much as you like but at the end of the day cappitilism
needs war just like it needs explotation.
But I think Deidzoeb has a mistaken idea of revolution
revolution must come from the people from the bottom up then
people will become there own masters.
Yes at the begining things like workers concils will have to
take controll of buricratic matters like food distribution
but how is this any worse then the multinationals controlling
every thing ! We dont live in a real democracy the world is
controlled by unelected bisness men.
Peace will only come when we stop competing and start sharing
human nature is set by humanitys matiral conditions, only
a revolution will change these.

Agreed the situation is terrible. So what do you propose? Killing all the Israelis? Deporting them? They have a right to live too, and it is their homeland just as much as it is the Palestians'.

*still believes in *
-Strider

We cannot see conflicts such as this as unresolvable. A peaceful solution was found within Ireland / Northern Ireland, based on lawful, peaceful negotiation.

In my view its the Western Power's desire to control oil in the mid-east region, using Israel as a 'proxy power' to flex muscle in the when they see fit that really frogs up the situation. That and the poverty and powerlessness within Palestine that breeds extremism and hatred.

What happened to the Oslo accord? Am I right in thinking that Sharron utterly disregarded it?

Another important issue of course is the 'war on terror'... (goddammit you can't battle an abstract noun ) This unlawful resort to state violence and bombing to combat whichever previously useful CIA funded thug (eg Bin Laden, Hussain) who has now become 'terrorist'(as defined by US) is a dangerous precident, and one that Israel and India seem keen to follow.

Lowering the bar of 'civilised' nations in an attempt to fight terror will only make the whole world less civilised and more terrifying...

pj

I heard the US plans to send 1000 Special Forces troops (Green Berets or something) to "advise" Philippines forces how to fight the Abu Sayyaf (spelling). Just advisors, mind you.

I thought this would be one little war followed by another little war somewhere else (Iraq, Sudan, wherever seems convenient), but it's more likely a return to the days of Reagan, little military interventions bubbling above surface and brewing below, in every single region of the world where the US perceives some threat to our "way of life." (Read: continuing to make $$$ hand over fist)

[email protected]

Sorry, I just thought that there needed to be a small reminder of what the first fifty entrys in this conversation had to say. It is very easy to think of war in terms of governments and ideologies strugling againsed each other, but the truth of the mater is that in war, people die, normal every day people who never get to say what they are dyeing for, never get to voice their opinions or say if they belive that the cause they give there lives to is fair or just. Note I said give there lives to, not for. Most of the people who die in any war will never fully understand the issues behind there deaths. It is easy to talk of the nessesity for violince and revolution to change things when you look at the world as a series of orginzations, but if you look at it as individules, can you truly justify destroying those lives for causes they may not belive in?
-Virabhadra

*listens to Virabhadra and agrees*


-Strider

The world is not made up of indviduals it is
made up of comunitys and networks and alliances
and famalieys and freindships.
One must all ways look at the bigger picture
otherwise all the indviduals will be suffering
forever.
It is the normal every day people who have the
realy power to change things, revolution is not
like war it dose not have conscript armys fighting
for abstract notions it is made up of real people
fighting for controll of there lives.
I belive in peace as the perfect situation and I
think there are few that dont but as long as there
is disalution there will allways be violence and
as long as the capitilist system endures there will
all ways be disalution ans alionation.

No to war yes to revolution

JK: You've said quite a bit about what you don't like in the world today. I'm interested in what your solutions would be. What would replace Capitalism. We tried Communism, it doesn't work. Human nature is to greedy to maintain it. I fear that your proposition would lead humans into eternal chaos.

-Strider

Jk, I consider myself a socialist, but I can see big holes in some of your arguments.

"The world is not made up of indviduals it is
made up of comunitys and networks and alliances
and famalies and freindships."

To say that the world is not made up of individuals is like saying that glasses are never half-empty, only half-full. It's a matter of perspective. No, it's not even that. The world is made up of individuals and groups both at the same time. What people are debating here is whether it's more important for us to think about individuals or groups.

"...revolution is not
like war. it does not have conscript armys fighting
for abstract notions. it is made up of real people
fighting for control of there lives."

"Control of their lives" is another abstract notion that they're fighting for. Some people in capitalism would claim they have more "control of their lives" than communists.

On the other hand...

Strider, this seems like a pretty sweeping generalization:
"What would replace Capitalism. We tried Communism, it doesn't work."

Capitalism works for some, but it certainly misses many. How is it that the United States is one of the most prosperous nations, yet has the highest infant mortality rates of any industrialized nation?

I guess the statement that "we tried Communism, it doesn't work" seems faulty to me in the same way that it would seem silly to claim, "We've tried sending men to Pluto, it doesn't work" ...implying that we should stop trying.

Anyhow, I guess this just bristles on me because I'm confusing Communism with Socialism. Socialism can still be tried, has not been "demonstrated" as ineffective just because dictators & oligarchs in China & Russia claim they were trying to help people, whether the people like it or not. Perhaps they've demonstrated that socialism can't be rammed down peoples throats with anti-democratic regimes.

Has real socialism been attempted in any kind of really democratic way? I look forward to some responses from nations in Europe that I don't know enough about.

=X , I wasn't suggesting that Capitalism is working all dandily. I'm just saying that I'm not sure what would come next after this hypothetical revolution. Marx predicted an eventual uprising of the workers. Lenon tried to implement it (which is downright stupid, since he wasn't working class), and it failed miserably. That was the only point I'm trying to make.

Socialism frequently works marvelously in small situations (ie Kibbutzes). I'm just not sure how it would be implemented so that it would effectively work en mass.

And that's kinda the problem, as I see it: nobody knows, because nobody's really given it a shot. The problem with Marx' plan was the required 'dictatorship of the proletariat': any dictatorship, no matter how noble its intent, is doomed to fail because it won't allow itself to take into account the fluidity and variety of the human spirit.

Capitalism, on the other hand, professes to be all about the human spirit, but has zilch and less morality about how to express/attain/maintain that human-ness. It is nothing more than a self-justifying ('legitimate-through-repetition') mantra designed to excuse greed. (IMO, it fails...)

Revolutions come and revolutions go, but the only one that will suceed will be the one where the light bulb goes off over the world and we realize that we are all in this life together, and what helps/improves/benefits you helps/improves/benefits me. (Which - again, IMO - is the basis of Socialism.)

Come the revolution, we must remember to take off the chains of others as we throw off our own.

And it can't happen soon enough, as far as I'm concerned.

-7_pinko_from_way_back_ago_7

Hi

I hope you all read ecalpemos webguide:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A573040

add me to your wonderfull people for peace. I did not know that I had to join, but I promoted you anyway. (see webguide and my space)

[email protected]

Hey, wouldn't the doves leave them with a massive dry cleaning bill?
Doesn't sound too pacifist to me - I'd prefer to think peaceful thoughts at them. Tho' has anybody else found out how reeeaallllly hard it is to love your enemies?

read previous mentioned ecalpemos.
go to WOWzone. read Carmen's story.

WOW-greetings,
pheloxi

WOW - Wish Only Well

I read the story, before. I've read it again. I'm still thinking peace, promoting peace, and hoping for peace. One day, I hope.

x x Fenny (Universal Tolerance, regardless of war)

Strider said "We tried Communism, it didn't work."

"We"? What nationality are you, Strider?

It is my understanding that the USSR collapsed because it lost an economic arms race with its Capitalist rival. I don't think this proves anything. Not that I'm defending or attacking the politics of the former USSR. I'm just questioning a statement I suspect was made (repeated?) without sufficient thought...

Pattern-chaser

"All we are saying is give peace a chance"

I'm American. "We" is the world (in this case). And as to the failure of the USSR, I wasn't reffering to its collapse, but rather its existance as a failure. There are those (on this thread) who will probably argue with me on this, but I believe that the USSR was never succesful. From the beginning it had few or no possitive effects whatsoever and had a multitude of negative effects. Where the concept of Communism states that everybody owns everything, the actuality was that nobody had anything (including food) execpt for the people in charge, who shouldn't have even existed in the state that they did, according to the communist ideal.