i do believe there are some humans who are hell bent (in a bad way) in all manner of guises, but i do also think that there are humans who are not out to harm, do not want to, would like to contribute in some positive way...also i don't think that self preservation mode (or whatever you want to call it) is necessarily sinister. but at the same time i do understand what heraclitis was saying about conforming to keep "everyone" "happy" or to stay off the "dead pile". i suppose the workings involved in that sort of system can be complex

i also agree with the "peaceful protests" needing to fall on "responsive and capable ears"

That is certainly the amazing thing about biology.. Now in that period of time and that place I mentioned probably 20 million people were killed by the actions of those who survived. Situations were all bad and relationships were all sad and the best bit of humanity was just plain hard to find. However, that is thing about genes and such, response mechanisms for many situations and relationships are setting underneath it all somewhere.

You realize the deaths of all those people weren't all about just killing those not part of the master race (Germany) or master plan (Stalin), it came down to calories per day. Somebody was going to die no matter how much you did not want it to happen. It was the actions of man that set the sequence of events but hey, once you get started, ooh its hard to stop, you can't stop, you just can't stop. There were those on the side of controlling and those on the side of being controlled. Fate, happenstance, just rotten luck? I know Eichmann's actions were really in the west but the point is, he had a network in place made up of Jewish administrators gambling on being the last to go as a means survival. He could not have done what he did without them. Jewish Elders worked out time tables and Jewish police herded the unfortunate to the trains. If you suggest to me that these were anything but normal men playing the cards they were dealt then I will say flatly, I don't believe you. The Middle East today appears to be a thousand microcosms of that area then. Religion and politics are being used as mechanisms of justification now as they were then.

We all want to cherish the good part and forget to acknowledge that other bit!

In the Middle East in Southeast Asia in Darfur...don't you want to ask what's going on?

I am open to other explanations but I have not heard anything but just wishful dreaming (I know, I know "you may say I am a dreamer". I sing that song. But isn't that really the point of the song? Is it really a hopeful song?)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyUagbsg-HI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jTxrq_Erw-k

OK, Thanks

You know Len, I agree that there is no evidence to support that it is genetic. I never said there was! However, even if it is not genetic, the observations that the theory is trying to explain don't go away!

I love satire.

No but the alternatives may offer a way to change the observed behaviors. And yes, you do claim it to be genetic. That would mean no way out. That's learned helplessness. That's the man in the corner of the cell who believing they have no control over their destiny so why try, lays down and accepts his fate.

http://youarenotsosmart.com/2009/11/11/ ... plessness/

In all these discussions, people talk about the evils of war and man but they do not talk about the people who stood up and shortened wars, prevented them, healed those who suffer war, made a difference. People go on about the travesties committed in the name of religion, but they fail to observe the people who go out organized by their churches to clean up, they fail to understand what a difference a leader like Pope Paul made in our own lifetimes. They fail to see that these can be a greater good than a belief in a short brutal life with only their disbelief as comfort. That which gives hope is a miracle. Hope makes that man get up from that corner and control what he can.

People do these things. If authorities attempt to compel otherwise, it is the authorities who are odds with the good. If religion is misused, so are herbal cures. People choose. The laws of power, to choose, to choose choices for self and other, these are not outside our personal power as long as we do not succumb to helplessness. I choose to correspond because in my experience and opinion, the arguments you present lead precisely to helplessness and if you choose to become helpless, you may. If others choose to support that, they may. But it is your choice and theirs. I choose otherwise. Call that pompous. Or just the human will to be better by choosing to be free to choose.

I don't believe in fate. And if genetics are offered as an excuse, I demand proof. I cannot change being born poor, Southern, that my ancestors owned slaves or that my neighbors take pride in ignorance, but I have learned to earn, can speak without a deep accent, work to overcome the effects of slavery, and put myself through college with the one thing my racist father with the accent gave me, a guitar. If I can do it with six strings and songs, little that is possible is out of reach. IME, that is.

No, I don't agree with any of those statements about what I claim and how I perceive the possibilities of the future. Sorry, Len, way off the mark here! Not even close son!

The day is soon to come when Luke 21:20 is fulfilled, with Jerusalem being surrounded by armies, to scare the living hell out of the same kind of leaders who killed their last king.

That is when the World Court of Daniel 7 will sit to take away authority to kill, from those 4 beasts of Daniel 7 or 4 horsemen of Revelations. THEN the power will be given to those who have stood for peace.

Can any of you name who the last king was to sit on David's Throne? GOOD LUCK WITH THAT.

The Lamb broke the covenant between day and night while on that tree, and Israel has not had a king since!!!!

talking about what i myself have gotten from a lot of heraclitis' contributions...is somehow encouragement...what can i say

based on my past experiences with you len, i suppose my comment will be cast in the most negative light possible. ah well

And it just keeps getting better.

And closer to fifteen pages but no closer to describing solutions for peace in the middle east.

Or anywhere else for that matter. I keep trying to do what I can. Lot's of little voices make a bigger voice. All I am saying...

I guess it depends on your perspective.I think there have been lots of descriptions of solutions. I think there have been lots of descriptions of solutions for years.

It would certainly be more simple if there were a war gene. We could solve it with gene therapy. The human penchant for war is much more subtly enmeshed in our genetic make up than that. It is in our dual nature of compassion and hatred, fear and trust, pessimism and hope, pragmatism and fantasy. All the things that allow us to create Us and Them scenarios. You can deny it but I admit it. I have real emotional and physical responses that create these dual natures in my mind.

Republicans charge a war on the US taxpayers credit card to make their friends wealthy at the cost of a few 100,000 lives and then they scream we are not going to pay the bill. Pisses me off. Makes me want to hate Republicans. Makes me want to blame them for everything gone wrong around me. If I killed all the Republicans would that solve the problems?

It sounds silly but is it, really? Isn't that the kind of argument that led to the holocaust. ...to 911?

I think the solution in the Middle East as elsewhere is the same....

We need a global epiphany

Everybody, every single human is US, and everybody, every single human, is Them. We are all in it together!

I also disagree about communication. I think the dawn of the age of rapid mass communication may assist in this epiphany! At least I hope so!

Voices raised for the cause of peace do give negotiators heart. There is a possibility that a compromise will be reached and will stick. Otherwise, eventually negotiators will come to the table with all the previous agreements in hand and their maps.

Look at Syria in the previous weeks. So far no epiphany, no negotiation, no criticism has backed the despot down. Same as Gadahfi. Like it or not. Will he eventually come to the table? Yes. No society can live in a state of perpetual violence by people on the government and government on the people. The question is who will be at that table, what demands will they make, what concessions will be made and who and how will concessions be enforced.

But solutions for Middle East peace that come down to 'close all the churches and march the Jews into the sea' are recipes for more violence. Voices raised in those causes are the calls to war. If you believe that is genetics at work, believe as you will. If you believe that is destiny or fate or divinely inspired, believe as you will. It makes no difference to the bodies piled up. If you believe there is a solution, get your agreements and your maps and get to the table. Peace is agreement among the willing.

me too!



i learned a new phrase.....straw man!!