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I haven't posted to this board for ages - but I have been reading it with an increasing despair.
There are a number of people who post lots of words (often not their own) which seem to be submitted to cast some socio/political/historical perspective on this hugely important moment in history.
However when, as is inevitable, individuals who are unfamiliar with these perspectives respond with incredulity and dismay that such 'facts' are being displayed there is an almost immediate reaction, which seems to me to mirror the blind prejudice which is the source of all human conflict.
Bad mouthing people is not going to solve anything. It is a travesty to post the words of Ghandi or Martin Luther King, for example, and then trash someone who doesn't seem to have 'got the message'.
I read, I listen, I watch, but I can hardly make head or tail of the level of confusion, intrigue, deals, the background political history, the foreground newscasts, newspaper articles, conspiracy theories, who said what to who when. All I can understand is that this situation is being conducted, by all sides, in the name of us, the people, whether we're British, American, Jewish, Muslim, Christian, male, female, old, young, black, white and so on, without the slightest interest in what we, the people, think, feel or believe. Of course, due to my life experience, I have a particular point of view about 'the world'. I have ideas about how 'the world' might conduct human affairs in a way which would be more beneficial to the people of 'the world' and those ideas might be quite different to yours. Still and all the bottom line, for me, is that ALL the people of the world need basic physical/practical security in order to begin to have the time and space to work out ways in which we can, collectively, share and enjoy the extraordinary wonders of our home - the earth.
I am privileged to have that time and space. I do not wake up each morning facing the prospect of being - thirsty, hungry, cold. My children are not on the brink of starvation. I am not being bombed. The list of my privilege could go on and on.
I look forward to the day when I do not have to use the word privilege to describe myself, and that day will only come about when all the people of the world wake up to the physical/practical security which, for some unfathomable reason I have.
Some of the rants which are posted on this board indicate, to me, a level of insecurity which is possibly the reason why the people who conduct things 'in our name' are able to get away with persistent examples of grossly inhumane policies both here (in this instance England) and there (everywhere else). It doesn't seem to matter much who's 'in charge', or the religious/political/social philosophy those 'in charge' promulgate, when it comes to the crunch one government or leader behaves much like another - the difference in intensity seems to be more to do with pragmatism than compassion.
The whole lot of us are, potentially, 'collateral damage' and we are, it seems to me, greatly deluded if we imagine that we are receiving more than a minute amount of' accurate information' about what is going on.
The only substantial positive change that I can see making a difference to the prospect of living in a humane world lies in us, the people, refusing to have other people killed, starved, hurt, harried, displaced, abused, riddiculed and humiliated. That refusal has to start at home, in our communities, on this board.. All the rhetoric is meaningless wihtout that commitment.
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