Do you agree that armed conflict is not the only kind of war there is? Without which there will be eternal “peace†so to speak; rest assured, there will be other kind of ‘wars’ that will keep the strife of existence quite alive irrelevant of our personal mental attitudes or actions, or inactions towards the better, but I think we can well do without armed conflicts.
Agreed.
I too am simply chopping wood and carrying water… are you, really?
I'm not sure what you're implying, but I'm fairly satisfied with my lifestyle in that regard. I have essentially zero resources or skills to do anything but what I'm doing, which is fine, because it's a role that needs to be filled.
I'm not sure what you're implying, but I'm fairly satisfied with my lifestyle in that regard. I have essentially zero resources or skills to do anything but what I'm doing, which is fine, because it's a role that needs to be filled.
Unidian wrote:I'd like to offer Laird my moral support in this thread. Realistic or otherwise, his fantasy is better than most people's reality. I also know him on a personal level and I know (at least to some extent) what kind of a "spiritual" place this is coming from, for lack of a better term. It's a better place than most here have any experience of, myself included. That makes a big difference, because anyone can preach an idealistic vision for any number of purposes, sincere or otherwise.
Nat, even though I'm currently off posting duties, I couldn't help but respond to this. I want to thank you for your support. It actually made me very emotional (admittedly I'm quite drunk). You are a good friend.
No problem, Laird. Have one for me. I do have a "scheduled drinking event" coming up in a week or two, but it will be minor. The last one caused me some kind of injury, which was annoying.
Laird: Nat, even though I'm currently off posting duties, I couldn't help but respond to this.
Why, mate? Are you taking a break after all that heavy posting on various thoughts? Or has someone advised you to slow down? Which seems quite unlikely.
Laird told us he was taking some heartful time off to rethink some of his basic philosophical positions, coincidentally after the "wake up call" of falling and hurting his arm while chasing some children from his property.
Carl you naughty boy, you. Misrepresenting me like that. Sap, it was purely because I fell and hurt my arm whilst showing off how fast I could run to some little kids in my neighbour's property. Nothing to do with rethinking anything and I wasn't trying to chase them away, just have fun with them. My arm still hurts like hell (actually the grazes on my palms hurt more than anything - Kev reckons that I need antibiotics to fight off an infection) but I can at least type now. You can see my original goodbye message in the "Nuthin'" thread. By the way, welcome back! How were the inner Mongolians? A cheery bunch I hope.
Slap some Neosporin on there, if you haven't already. Kevin has the right idea here - an infection is really not something you want to toy with. If nothing else, use some hydrogen peroxide. It's pretty good and doesn't usually sting.
Thanks Nat. I have neither of those substances in my home but tomorrow (Monday) I'll see if I can get to the doctor's and get something prescribed. If I can't get into the doc's then I'll go directly to the pharmacy.
Carl you naughty boy, you. Misrepresenting me like that.
I am quite aware of his “mischievous†character, and your mentality too, so not for a moment could I take the reason seriously.
My arm still hurts like hell (actually the grazes on my palms hurt more than anything - Kev reckons that I need antibiotics to fight off an infection) but I can at least type now.
He is right and so is Nat; one should not take open skin injuries lightly and do something about it asap. BTW, frequent use of antibiotics is not good for the body in the long run, but nowadays most Doctors prescribe it for almost anything. Alternative remedies are far more effective although they may not result in quick recovery at times. It is always advisable to take probiotics at least for a month if antibiotics are taken for a week.
You can see my original goodbye message in the "Nuthin'" thread.
I don’t need to; I don’t really read every thread, and most of the times rerely return to a thread once I feel it has really gone way off-topic, or I see it revived and find it relative. Isn't that normal? :P
How were the inner Mongolians? A cheery bunch I hope.
They usually are a very hospitable people. I couldn’t make it though; I had to return from Beijing. My usual guide and interpreter, who otherwise is quite brave, wouldn’t want us to take the risk in the face of unpredictable weather now engulfing almost all of China, and further north is even worse. I was advised to wait until spring at least.
-tomas-
First off, Congrats to Brother Barack .. Prince Hall Free Mason
-from-
Tomas (the tank)
Prince of Jerusalem
16 Degree
Scottish Rite Free Mason
VietNam veteran - 1971
....................................
Here we go :-)
-Shah-
Regarding power structures: the US citizens have to mature collectively and stop electing Presidents like the Bushes and McCain.
-tomas-
Clearly you hadn't noticed the 2006 election strategy of Rahm Emanuel, he'd gone out to field the most right-wing Democrats he could find, he succeeded (as he said back then [that] he would!).
The Pelosi-led posse supported the surge in Iraq, just in time for Barack to announce his running for Prez and the surge has been successful so Wall Street paid him back by making the bailout the main headline thus taking the Iraq victory - "a hollow American victory".
This spilled over into the 2008 Prez, Congressional election strategy (quite successfully).
One may think Obama is some sort of Marxist clone but he is following a blueprint of 1930s European-style roundup of "dissidents". This will be defined to us however the power-elite determine when the All-World money-classes show up on November 15th. Deals will be made .. we can all agree we-all will be the losers in all this.
The crash of 1929 was a test-run and it moved Europe to accept right-wingers in Italy, Germany, France, and Russia-proper. It's happening once again in Europe.
The first piece of the puzzle to watch is Ireland...
Left/Right-wing is a mirage of black mirrors.
Obama's favorite president is George Bush 41... but does anybody (here) understand why?
-Shah-
Instead, they could elect Presidents like Ron Paul.
-tomas-
Paul had to retreat because of a skeleton in his closet that was gonna be exposed if he didn't get back in his hole. (I know what it is - but I'm not talking)
-Shah-
Until that happens, war will always exist.
-tomas-
Obama (with Rahm Emanuel's guidance), will break apart Pakistan, more incursions into Syria, the Balkans (Joe Biden's pet project) will explode, the Congo will heat up even moreso, and Iraq will be partitioned (as Joe Biden forecasted) into three enclaves.
He will oversee the NAFTA unification of Canada-USA-Mexico monetary union in 2010.
Remember: Our Dear Ryan used to babble how great Canada was doing, well, the Canuck Dollar is fading to .68 US. Even he, rails about the mass-immigration into Canada (he's a real wing-wing kook) but doesn't understand the long-haul thinking of our Ivy League "urbane"-folk pushed on by the unknowing semi-literate peasants who frequent (pontificate on - ad nauseum) to the Worldly Matters forum membership-roll of peasants.
Mexico kills 5-year-old children with shots of acid to the heart, grenades are being tossed near the border, it's now-allowed for US marshall's to shoot into Mexico, and to top it off - Mexico kills its own Drug Czar*
*Drug Czar is a term coined by Joe Biden all those years ago ;-(
In my peasant, non-urbane way of speaking ... Shah, you clamor for "change" you got it!
PS - Look up the word 'revolution' in the dictionary ..
Hint: It starts with a "c" and ends with an "e" ..
the four middle letter are hang
Not many people knew/understood the power of the Chicago Machine. Saddam did, he formerly owned the 'baggage mover' system at O'Hare airport. He was a fan of Chicago gangster movies. Hang em' high, Saddam.. You know what/who his real "crime" boss-overlord was/is??
Omama's "genetic father" is Frank Marshall Davis, who provided a glidepath for Barack to ease-into Chicago -politics- (many blood-sucking creatures) with nary-a-bump.
Anyways back to NAFTA-style justice blowing our way - The mexican "cartels" are even beheading their "enemies" and hang-ing their heads at overpasses in Juarez...
Public hangings will be the norm, in your local town square. I can determine who-here, at Worldly, that will be there shouting the loudest for more... not understanding they are being watched themselves - by others - higher-up on the pecking order. [a click of the heels]
Witchcraft/heresy street trials - what a beautiful choice!
He will oversee the NAFTA unification of Canada-USA-Mexico monetary union in 2010.
Much as i enjoy your work Tomas,this is just flat out whacky.
Without going thru all the ifs, and, buts in the treaty (agreement). That's what's going down in 2010. This isn't any thing new. It really has nothing to do with Obama (the figurehead) per se, it was gonna happen if Ralph Nader would've happened :-|
Treasury and the Fed will navigate the deals for us. They, and the banks...
He will oversee the NAFTA unification of Canada-USA-Mexico monetary union in 2010.
Much as i enjoy your work Tomas,this is just flat out whacky.
Here's another:
South American Union of Nations Constitutive Treaty
Done in the city of Brasilia, Brazil, on the 23rd day of the month of May of the year 2008, in original copies in the English, Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch languages, the four texts being equally authentic.
Laird wrote:I define war as the act(s) of violence perpetrated by an army against another army and/or against a country's infrastructure and/or against civilians. Under my slightly unorthodox definition, a war can consist of a single act of violence and needn't involve reciprocal violence - I construct the definition in this way to cover all such acts of aggression under a single banner. It's my contention that whilst there are understandable reasons why war has occurred and currently occurs, there is no reasonable justification for war to continue to occur, and it's my further contention that the world would unequivocally be a better place to live in with a complete absence of war. I don't want the discussion in this thread to focus upon challenges to these two contentions but of course I can't dictate how people choose to respond.
For simplicity's sake, I define an army to consist not only of soldiers and equipment, but also of all associated armaments including nuclear weapons. Under this definition, an army could consist solely of nuclear weaponry and of the personnel required to launch those weapons.
War under my definition entails at least one army. It follows then that a world without armies is a world without war. The disbanding of all armies (and the prevention of the assembly of new armies) is therefore one means of achieving the stated aim of this thread: a world without war. But how can we ever achieve this? Which nation will disband its army first in a world where everyone else is armed? And what about unofficial armies such as ad-hoc militias - how can we ever stop them from forming? I have a reasonably complete solution to the former problem and a partial solution to the latter.
There are a few reasons why a nation might not want to give up its army. I'll consider some of the trickier ones later, but to start with I want to consider this one: that it would be left defenceless in the event of an attack. In order then to persuade a nation to disband its army, one must first provide it with adequate defence. Here's where the first step of my solution comes in: rather than contributing troops and armaments to its nation-state army, each nation contributes troops and armaments to a global army. To kick this global army off, significant diplomatic efforts would need to take place to convince as many countries as possible to sign up to this approach, perhaps resulting in a treaty whereby most (or at least many) countries in the world sign up at the same time. From there I would hope that a snowball effect occurred whereby a significantly less armed and less dangerous world reduced each remaining nation's requirement to maintain an army such that remaining nations felt more comfortable in signing up to this approach too.
The more countries that signed up, the smaller (relative to the population that it's defending) the global army would need to be, because the smaller the size of the forces that it has to defend against would be. The ultimate goal is of course for all countries in the world to have signed up. The required size of the global army would then be practically zero: the only reason to maintain a force at all would be to defend well-governed countries against disruptive rebel and militia forces. Ideally, however, the world would have been gradually changing from a place where its citizens expected war as a matter of course to a place where they didn't understand how anyone could even contemplate war (or indeed any form of violence) as a solution. This process is of course a hugely complex one - involving such mammoth tasks as converting all rogue/fundamentalist states to saner, more peaceful forms of governance, eliminating civil unrest, and eliminating or at least reducing the economic gulf between the third and first worlds - and I don't intend to canvas all of the ways by which it would occur, partly because I haven't thought too carefully about them.
As armed forces globalised, the general availability of armaments would decrease owing to the decreasing number of armed forces in the world. It would become harder and harder for militia to arm themselves with high-tech weaponry. Also, the generally more peaceful nature of the world would discourage the formation of militia. The ultimate goal would be a world where people were so generally satisfied enough with the state of their lives/nations that militias and rebel forces were unknown.
Earlier I promised to discuss some of the trickier reasons why a nation might not want to give up its army. I'll start with the USA, which won't want to give up its army because its army is a significant means by which it maintains and acquires further power. I suspect that it would be one of the last countries to sign up to the solution that I've proposed. I hold out hope however that it would eventually subscribe as the ideological momentum became overwhelming due to practically all other countries in the world subscribing. I'm not saying that it's an easy sell, just that it's possible given other changes that lead to a generally more peaceful, cooperative, equitable world. Also I project that eventually the USA's army would no longer be capable of performing this power-mongering role. A global army would judge world events impartially and would step in to defend countries against unjustified United States aggression. Also the USA would no longer have the excuse to act unilaterally by claiming that it is the most suitable defender of the world against injustice, because the global army would be a more appropriate candidate.
Another tricky reason why a nation might not want to give up its army is that it is currently involved in a conflict where it is asserting selfish interests and it recognises that a global force would be more impartial and hence that to give up its armed forces to global control would be for its selfish interests to suffer. Case in point: the Middle East. Here the main hope is for third parties to step in as mediators to resolve the conflict, or for pressure to otherwise be brought to bear through means such as economic sanctions or through public expressions of dissatisfaction with war such as peace rallies. Don't think that I'm being realistic? Then think: the demise of apartheid; the fall of the Berlin Wall. Once the conflict has been resolved, there is a good chance that in the after-glow of resolution the decision will be made to subscribe to this globalisation solution.
Finally, a nation might not want to give up its army because it is ruled by an oppressive regime that relies upon its army to suppress uprisings. This falls within the bounds of what I wrote earlier: that the world would need to gradually change into a generally more peaceful place in part through the conversion of rogue/fundamentalist states into saner, more peaceful forms of governance. Again, I'll reiterate that I don't have all of the answers but I believe that such states are unsustainable in the long term and are destined to fail anyway, and that there are peaceful means of hastening that process. The sorts of peaceful means that I'm talking about are the likes of the rallies that we witnessed recently in Burma.
The first step is the globalisation of all armies. The final step is the conversion of the global army from an armed force into a disaster-response organisation.
Mensa says: Hi Laird, I appreciate your post. I think you'd appreciate my poem The Final War which I thought would make a great film. I intend to read more of your posts!
Yes, it's very important to avoid a scenario like the final war of your poem. I don't know whether the solution I described is the way to do it but I'm still interested in people's thoughts on it.
By the way:Tomas, what happened to the "NAFTA unification of Canada-USA-Mexico monetary union in 2010"?
