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

Keep in mind, we have a variety of views in this nation. Don't be fooled by our popular media. There are lots of different views and alternative media outlets. I listen to talk radio which tends to be very conservative. Earlier today, I went down to Georgia State University. A more leftist place outside of California is hard to find.

I once wrote a bad chapter in which all the men in the world woke up one morning and had no pants, no kilts, no bourkas, no robes to wear.
All the women laughed at them and then did their own thing.
Now I realize this is sexist.
And I hope it is a sexist thought that women could run the world better than mens.

I wish you would leave the President alone. He is a product of his country. Let no one tell you different. He is a representative of a portion of his country. At least seven or eight hundred thousand people. He is a moderate. There are many who are very far to the right of him. To continue to call him stupid is easy. To actually find out why Molly Ivins has called him 'Shrub' for ten years will take a little reading. I like Molly, but I wouldn't turn my back on her.
The third coast intelligentsia have been raking Bush over the coals for decades. World opinion has nothing on them.

I hear President George W. Bush plans to make an aerial tour of several nations including, but not limited to, Afghanistan, Iraq, Russia and China later this month.

Apparently he plans to spend the entire flight with his penis pressed against the aeroplane window bellowing "Look you terrorist b*stards, it's bigger than yours! You hear me? Bigger!".

I talked about how the American media looks like to an outsider. It's only through talking to people who actually know what it's like there - in other words Americans like you, Two Bit - that we can find out what the real story is. I also talked about Americans hearing the views of non-Americans. At the same time, us non-Americans need to hear the views of Americans - and not just the ones that come through our TV sets.

You start with constructive dialogue - next thing you know you could end up with mutual understanding. Strikes me that's a cornerstone of peace. We don't all have to agree, as long as we're all talking here, that's just a little bit of hope. The one fight I'm always willing to join in is the fight against ignorance - mine included.

I guess the thing that I most have a problem with in this question is the idea that war-loving people exist......

Do they exist?

I'm not a war loving person, but I see the necessity of war at times. There are simply some things that I as an individual(not as a representative of my country understand) will not allow. In which case, if violence were all that was left to choose, that would still give me the best possible outcome(because one could be totally peace loving, and be taken advantage of your whole life as a consequence of those around you who are not so inclined) I would do so with the most violence possible, the best concentration of force I could muster......but I wouldn't love it. I'm no murderer. But I would fight and die for my ideals. Certainly protection of my own family, just to name one ideal that pops into my head.

Does that make me a war-lover, or a realist? I would that we could all be idealistic about violence and say that it is NEVER the best thing to do, NEVER the only choice that would still give you terms your willing to live under. I think that place is called heaven ladies and gentleman, and we do not live there.

We live in a place where if you don't defend or even attack pre-emptivley the things you hold most dear to you, even unto your own freedom to disagree about war in the first place can be taken away, because wether you disagree with it or not, it is still very much a part of the world we live in wether you will or not.

But, that doesn't mean that I think we shouldn't strive for peace either. I don't think a head in the sand attitude that war is the right choice every time is the right idea either. Every effort should be made to make everyone play nice. Failing that, other options should be explored. Sometimes I think Two Bit has it right. Let them fight it out themselves and we'll trade with the winner. If their war didn't effect me or my life.

Honestly, I don't know what the solution to afghan or isreal is. Wish I knew. But I'm convinced I'm not the only one who has no idea.

I won't leave Bush alone, why should I? He has the power to bring war to the world without so much as a by-your-leave, and gives no indication that he understands or cares about anybody else's point of view, or even appreciates that there might be another point of view.

He may have been elected by the American people, but his activities impinge on everybody else who has no say in his election or otherwise. I cannot vote against him, but I can speak against him. I really do fear that the world is a much more dangerous place now that he is President.

I think it's interesting that you describe him as a moderate, tr. This is one of the big differences between the US and Europe, I think. Here he is seen as being well to the right of centre, certainly by everybody I have spoken to. His language is certainly immoderate.

Yet, trust me, he is so very cuddly compared to many others. One of these days, look up Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah.

I think you should be more considerate of the President because though he may be seen to be backseatdriving the bus, he did not build it, he does not maintain it, he has not seen the engine.

How many jobs have you had at a long established company where you were pointed out as the reason for all it's mistakes within a couple of weeks of taking the job?

He just got here. The world has been popping up with pimple wars like a teenager's face all along. If you believe that Bush has the power to sweep into office and take on the world, maybe you better start leaving a light burning under your bed... I am not a fan of any president. I am suspicious of all of them. The first president I was aware of as a child was Nixon. Skewed my perception of the White House for life. I don't like Bush. But I believe that the first step toward 'tolerance' is sorting through the things you take for granted.
I would be all for letting the whole world have a stab at voting for who should be President of the U.S.
Total popular vote gets it.
And I assure you, whoever won, there would be people all over the world who would hate the winner on the very first day.

Look to your media, look to your frame of reference. Maybe the only power that Bush has is the power you give him.

If only Bush's and Sharon's narrow election wins were declared null and void at the time. I agree that Bush isn't omnipotent, precisely because he's a back seat driver. What makes him dangerous is his lack of power, that the military and oil barons have even more control than normal over the affairs of the most powerful nation on earth.

We cannot wash our hands of the Israeli-Palestinian affair. It was British incompetence over the handling of the Palestine mandate that got things into this mess. We must be realistic about our part of the responsibility and do what we can to resolve things.

The paradox is this - how can you believe that we in the west stand only for freedom and democracy when for the last century and a quarter (and then some) we have interfered so much in other countries's political systems, compromising their freedom by stapling their economies to ours? Does 'freedom' mean only freedom within our country's borders (whether it be Britain, the US, France or any other imperial power) - in which case what is our moral justification for preaching it elsewhere?

We're straying off-topic here, but I would point out that crises are an integral aspect of most jobs as heads of State, and more for America than most. If Dubya wasn't ready for that, he shouldn't have run for presidency. There are no hard-and-fast rules of government, but knee-jerk reactions seem to be almost always a bad idea and this war has come over as one massive jerk of the national knee.
By the way, the association in the above paragraph between Bush and the word 'jerk' is purely coincidental.

I really must apologise. Somebody must have forgotten to tell you.
The current war is not a 'knee-jerk' reaction. The WTC attack was an excuse to do what many have wanted to do for, oh, over ten years, maybe twenty.
The Clinton administration was perceived as 'soft' on many fronts.
WTC was this generation's "Maine", "Alamo", "Pearl Harbor", their reason to fight. The genie of war has popped out of the bottle for many reasons, but this one has been building for years.
There were many 'leaders' and many 'governments' whose abilities to act might have forestalled this, but now it is here...Unlike Johnson with his 'Gulf of Tonkin Resolution', Bush did not have to lie to anyone.
I am not qualified to guess about the psyche of the sort of people who seek the Presidency. As I said, I don't like Bush, mainly because I used to have him for a Governor. But in the situation in which he found himself, even Gore would have had to let slip the dogs.
It was a case of 'Lead or get out of the way'.
Somebody wanted our attention and they got it.

Now, it could be said, that if the US were not a 'war-loving' people, that they could have licked their wounds, said,"Oh, now we understand what Beirut and Belfast go through," and settled down to try to reason with the rest of the world on an equal basis, joining the 'brotherhood of man' and just generally being nice about it...NOT!
Somebody wanted our attention and they got it.

According to a report on 'Bullying In The Workplace' that I read on a British site recently, it is a psychologically useful strategy to get management and coworkers to believe that the victim is overreacting. This not only allows the bully to get away with it, but also to establish precedent that will make it easier for the bully to escalate.

How do you bring peace to a bully?

A good question. I think you may find that many in the Middle East see themselves as victim, and the West (not just America) as the bully. Throughout the many conversations I have had here on this issue, I have always supported the initial reactions of the US.

They were attacked - it is the duty of the government to defend its citizens. It was patently obvious that the US administration had absolutely no choice but to take military action against whoever it found to be responsible, and that turned out to be Al Qaeda with the support of the Taliban. Others here may have a problem with that, but this left-wing Brit does not.

Where I do have a problem with Bush is this - leaving aside the question of his election (and I'm not sure we should) - here is a man who is the elected leader of the most powerful nation on earth. Here is a man who is ultimately responsible for the deployment of more 'weapons of mass destruction' then you could shake a stick at. Here is a man who proposes a military budget for his nation greater than that of the next ten nations put together. Here is a man who will have no truck whatsoever with any kind of international treaty designed to restrict weapons of mass destruction, be they nuclear, biological or chemical. Here is a man who reneges on treaty after treaty that his nation IS signed up to. Here is a man who ignores his allies while he threatens his enemies with destruction.

He may not be omnipotent, but he sets a tone. He may not be as extreme as the Senator for Utah, but he's quite extreme enough for me.

Everybody has the right to self-defence, but September 11 is not an reason for threatening to invade Iraq. That's a fight that many in the West have been spoiling for since they didn't 'finish the job' first time around. Not that I believe they will actually catch Saddam, anymore than they have caught Bin Laden. But I do agree that the attack on New York (and the Pentagon - nobody ever mentions that) was a fine excuse to settle scores.

No, I dislike Bush on the basis of what he says and what he does. He is seeking to impose his views on the rest of the world, and ready to use violence to do so. He is a bully. I wish I knew how to take peace to him.

I was watching a PBS doc on Akiro Kurosawa last night and they were talking to Crint Eastrood and James Coburn about the influence of Kurosawa's movies on the sixties westerns they made.
I realized that I had to rethink my whole gut philosophy with regard to violence and war and peace because I found that I had been influenced by Kurosawa and Crint and James and Sergio Leone as a child and never really progressed beyond the 'he wins who is left standing' dodgeball/gunfighter/samurai view of conflict resolution.

Iraq is an interesting subject. It is kind of like an itch that I cannot scratch. For all his sins, Hussein had introduced an element of stability in that area, just like that fellow in Iran. And the cute little fellows in Saudi Arabia, with their positively adorable police
who check the dress code when you run out of a building on fire...
Or Yemen...about which I presently know nothing....
One thing about the US going to war, it involves an instant geography lesson... sadly, that is not a joke.

sorry to belabor the Bush thing, but he is not allowed to say anything that his babysitters do not want to have to spin...just like some other 'leaders' we could discuss if we could find the time...

I think the last president that we had that was not carefully stage-managed was, um, Teddy Roosevelt and he was the bozo that introduced the press conference...something Coolidge never forgave him for...

I heard some noise on the CBS Up To The Minute last night. It said that if 'we'(meaning the US gov.) could find a way to feed all the hungry in the world, then there would be fewer terrorists....uck!
While the Shining Path and the Red Brigades reemerge in a bit of Seventies nostalgia...apparently well-fed...

Just a few random thoughts.

Perium in post 65 wondered if war loving peoples really exist. To which the answer is 'oh yes, alas, they do'. See my rather terse post F19585?thread=171546&skip=20&show=20#p1835292 in this thread.

On the idea that this is a war which has been a long time a-brewing: Can anyone remember when Arabs and people in the Middle East became the Baddies in Hollywood movies? I know it was in the early 90s, but it may have been earlier than that. This IS a war that has been a long time brewing, and the concept that Arabs are the enemy is a meme which has been spreading for a long time.

Ben

OK, I'll bite.

Isn't the real question not so much how do you teach someone peace, but is war really ok at all?

I offer that there are a couple of instances in which I would definetly go to war. There are a couple of instances that I can see that would justify my being in favor of say my country(or even someone else's) being in a war.

I also offer that true peace does not exist on this level of existance. The struggle for said peace does, perhaps that's one of our true life lessons. So you don't take peace to someone, they have to learn it for themselves.

> "I offer that there are a couple of instances in which I would definetly go to war."

...
...
...Do go on...

> "I also offer that true peace does not exist on this level of existance"

Come now - peace as in the absence of war certainly exists. Absolute peace in some kind of religious sense perhaps doesn't (though some Buddhists might disagree with you), but that wasn't what we were talking about. Was it?

As ben said earlier: fighting for peace is like fornicating for virginity...

The beginning of the idea for the thread in the first place was an entry I read about the history of Nuristan.

Then I thought about the Santa Claus theory of civilization that dates back to the Babylonians...When we conquer you, we bring you peace and prosperity and new masters...so why don't you behave and stop fighting...

Of course, historically speaking, the losers often end up conquering their masters from the inside. Cultural infusion and outpost soldiers going native and all that.

Every human has something they would fight for.

That's why the police and the social services and the courts and emergency rooms are so busy.

Don't confuse peace with the relative quiet while the reloading goes on.

True peace comes from avoiding desperation.

Testosterone, huh, Ben...and Estrogen has nothing to do with it...?

It is truly amazing how many matriarchal societies in history had strong warrior castes...

Belated response to post 60...

> "One of the main long-term tactics of the Palestinians is to paint the Israelis as oppressors in order to get international help."

A long-term tactic is also known as a strategy...

I don't think the Palestinians need to do an awful lot of 'painting' in this instance. The Israelis *do* frequently invade Palestinian territory, destroy Palestinian homes, assasinate Palestintian leaders, kill Palestinian civilians, restrict Palestinian freedom of movement. It's possible to argue that those decisions were necessary or justified, but they're still archetypal oppression.

And, given that the USA has consistently given arms to Israel (so has the UK, to my distaste), given that they have consistently vetoed UN resolutions against Israel, given their diplomatic support for Israel's actions... the Palestinian leadership would no doubt prefer a positive intervention, but failing that they'd probably be happy if the US just stopped screwing things up.

I always feel sad when people (especially in the US, but not limited to there) claim this dichotomy - as if the only choice is between actively f**king the planet up, or behaving like it doesn't exist. It is actually possible to intervene in the world in a positive way. As it is, the USA only seems to do good things by accident - as a by-product of some other, more selfish, aim.

> "Every day there is another news story about another few Israelis dead."

The Israelis have consistently killed two to three Palestinians for every dead Israeli. You see those stories too? *sigh* As in every war, it ain't goodies and baddies. Just baddies and more baddies.

Okay...the 'arabs' have a whole chunk of the Middle East and the Palestinians could have been absorbed or taken care of in a humanitarian manner by any one of seven or eight nearby countries.
The Israelis have a splinter of land that has been besieged for fifty years. The 'arabs' have been using the Palestinians as hostages and a seige against Israel and the world. If the UAE say the conflict is over, it will be over. Then the buses and the planes, like the ones the Israelis have been using to remove their beleaguered co-religionists from all over the world for years, will move in and the Palestinians will be assimilated into the welcoming arms of the people that have been paying to watch them die for fifty years...

When the 'arabs' take as good care of their own as the Jews have, then I will consider it an equal playing field. Look what happened to the Palestinians in Kuwait after the Gulf War. They were accused of collaborating with the Iraqis and deported, jailed, tortured and lynched.

Actually, I think the Palestinians and Israelis should join forces and take on the rest of the neighborhood. They have much more in common with each other than with any of their critics or their allies.

The US has been messing with the Israelis something fierce, treating them like children, going,"Do as I say, not as I do," for the past fifteen years and slapping them on the wrist when they behave as a sovereign country. It hasn't been all gravy.

Lucinda-->

Let's say, for example, my country was invaded.
I would go to war to defend it.
Let's say, my government changed to something I found unacceptable- like maybe a dictatorship or we became a colony of some other country that did not have my best interest or well being in mind.(oh wait that's how this started)
I would go to war.
Let's say the outbreak of a spreading global-type war occured.
I would go to war to defend my country as well as other countries.
Let's say that martians attacked the earth and wanted us to become their slaves.
I would go to war, I'll be a slave to no one.
Let's say someone raped my daughter.
I would go to war. Because not all wars are fought on the battlefield.

Just to name a few off of the top of my head.

Peace is the absence of war. OK. I'll concede that. But when is there not a war in some shape or form in some part of this world going on. There are always battles, big and small being fought. Not all of them are drawn on the map in neat little borders. Can we not trace the wars between the Israelites and the Palestinians back to antiquity?

Inner peace.....no we were not talking about that. So I'll not answer that rather condescending remark.