In my next life...just fantasizing (OT)

[specialk]

It’s tense times like this, with all the turmoil in the Middle East, I like to take a step back…take a deep breath and reflect. I choose not to join the endless debate of who’s at fault, who’s in the right. I’d rather not join in the vitriol and rhetoric in another post here at HA.

Instead, allow me to ramble for a while, and if you can stick with me for awhile great, if not that’s fine. I can’t help but look to the past in hopes we will learn from it. Since the earliest of times when two Neanderthals decided to club it out with each other over whatever……..through the ancient cultures and conquerors like the Romans, Macedonians, The Huns ………to more modern periods of strife involving the The Axis vs. The Allies, the North vs. the South, the Jews and the Arabs, The Protestants and the Catholics…just as examples, it amazes me how little value humans place on their own lives. Lets face it what else is worth more than your own life. Yet, look how easily, throughout the history of mankind…..people will put their own lives on the line, on the battlefield only to have it snuffed out . Why? Because two people (leaders?) can’t resolve a dispute? Or want what someone else has over in their territory (natural resources) that these so-called leaders can get others to drop what their doing and take up arms and hope they come away as conquerors , with riches. Well as we all know it doesn’t work out that way. In the history of warfare, the battlefields were strewn with bodies of aggressors and would be conquerors. So, I ask all the dead men and woman was it worth your life? Was that the right price to pay for your most precious possession, your own life? I’m not talking here about the defenders. Everyone has the right and duty to protect their life, but it’s the aggressors I’m amazed at. Bloodshed from a bullet, a spear, a bomb, a sword ending in death was an attractive proposition?

In the animal kingdom the Lion kills the Antelope because it’s a meat eater. Genetics demand the lion kill other mammals for survival. But, humans are supposed to be the intelligent ones. We’re supposed to be able to understand the value of life, and you would think humans would do their best to not to waist it so easily, yet we humans don’t get it. No, since the dawn of mankind, we’ve done nothing but kill each other.

I’d love to ask the soldiers buried in Civil War cemeteries was it worth it? If you had it to do all over again would you change anything? Would you rather lived to an old age surrounded by your grand children and a setting sun on your homestead? In my lifetime, (54yrs.) I’ve seen plenty of shit go down the pike. From, the Civil Rights struggle, Vietnam, Northern Ireland, The Middle East. Lots of dead people. Many lives cut short . Well, when they dump a load of dirt on you it’s too late…no do-overs.

In my fantasy “next life” things will be different. The first time war breaks out….nobody shows up! “no thank you” I’m busy having a nice time, fuck off! Humans will have figured it all out. They would understand the value of their own lives, and will not give it up for 2 jerks who have a dispute. In my fantasy life the jerks will settle it on the golf course, or over a Texas Hold ‘Em match.

In my fantasy life Tgirls, and gays will be allowed to live in the open just like everyone else. Allanah Starr will sit down with Jerry Falwell and get along just fine.Jerry will be a regular at Allanah’s parties.

Chef Mike and Vickie will best of friends, exchanging recipes in between xrated sex sessions, written by Hondarobot.

Chef, myself and our “pal” from Canada will tour Wash. DC taking in the museums and monuments , followed by a great dinner at Chef’s downtown restaurant. Followed by cigars and wine at the local Tgirl club in DC.

J will lead a tour of HA members to Egypt taking in the Pyramids and other ancient Egyptian antiquities followed by a relaxing weekend on a beach in Lebanon, enjoying bagels and lox.

Jimmy Carter and Habitat for Humanity, will lead a group of all able bodied HA members to North Korea to build homes for our new friends in Asia, and will be rewarded with N. Korean Hybrid cars free of charge.

Mind you , I’m in no particular hurry to get to this “fantasy next life”. It would be nice to live out the rest of this one enjoying a relaxing summer evening on my deck with a good cigar, glass of Pinot, gazing out over my pond to see if the green heron nest has chicks in it, hoping to get some great pics of them. It would be nice to log on to HA, and see everyone getting along fine, discussing the latest young tgirl pics posted, or the latest shemale cartoons. It would be nice to wake up to find out peace broke out worldwide, and all the politicians were replaced by stand up comics. It starts with just one day at a time, followed by a week, a month and so on. Look, if it doesn’t work out, we can always go back to doing what we’ve done before, kill one another.

[dvda74]

Amen to that brother!

[suckseed]

I'm reading the 'other thread', but I find myself more inclined to chime in here. While I'm impressed by the trouble some of the others have gone to attempting to educate themselves about world issues, I am troubled by the apparent inability to arrive at a Truth, based on facts upon which everyone can agree. Maybe I'm naive, but I can't for the life of me figure out what the fighting started about in the first place. How does one apply logic to the illogical?
I used to do a lot of traveling. I've had conversations with homeless guys in NYC, a male hustler with AIDS who came up to me while I was videotaping some of the ruins of mansions from the riots of the 60's in Detroit, I walked through poor black neighborhoods in North Carolina where I was the only white face around. Same thing with mexican neighborhoods in Phoenix. And I looked at everyone I met in the eye and said hi while I was walking by, and every single person was cool to me. I notice this all the time. Just notice the face of someone when you're walking towards each other. If they are unsmiling or seem tense, just say 'hey, how's it going,' or 'morning'. Most of the time you can see them relax, and they'll say hi back. I firmly believe that most people are decent.
It's our cultures that get in the way.
The good news is, people can change. Look at The Gangs of New York.
Who gives a shit about hassling someone because they're Irish today. My grandfather, it has been told to me, would cross the street if he saw a black man on it, I'm ashamed to say. And in a couple of generations, America is going to be even more of a melting pot, which to me is still one of the best things about it. Humans are getting organized. If we can survive long enough to figure out that peace makes the most economic sense, and drop our fear of people that aren't like us because of some stupid ideas that others in our 'tribe' try to feed us, then maybe your dream will be reality, k. Thanks for the breath of fresh air!

[MacShreach]

I am troubled by the apparent inability to arrive at a Truth, based on facts upon which everyone can agree.

Noble sentiments indeed. The thing you have to realise is that there is no "Truth." That is because everybody is to some extent right and everybody is also to some extent wrong. The idea that there is a "Truth" is an unfortunate development of monotheistic dogma of the Jewish/Christian/Muslim continuum, which holds at its very centre the core belief that there is one god, and so one truth. I am afraid that this very notion of "truth," is at the heart of the bitter conflicts that we are seing today, and it is no coincidence that the religions involved are staunchly monotheistic and see everything in terms of black and white, absolute right and absolute wrong. These terms themselves are oxymorons.

It is so telling to see obvious inheritors of this ludicrous thinking yelling at each other, each dragging up this fact and that to "prove" their argument. None of it matters. Does the child whose father is about to be killed care who is "right?" Does that child care about any other truth than that he has a father and in a moment he will not? No. It doesn't matter whether the killer is terrorist or state, legally sanctioned or not. The child doesn't care.

If it were not tragic it would be hilarious to see these tired arguments being rehearsed, which are fundamentally all the same "I am right and therefore you must be wrong." But from that erroneous yet plausible statement we very quickly arrive at "Because I am right and you must be wrong, it is all right for me to do what I am doing to you." Which is oh so very close to "God is on my side so it's okay for me to kill you."

As long as we have the situation, as we do, firmly locked into our legal and political systems, where people are allowed to do what they want to do because they have "proved" that what they say is "true" or "right," then the nauseating results will continue, and this will only end when mankind learns the lesson -- that it doesn't matter whether people think they know the "truth" or what is "right." The only POV worth considering is that of the child whose father is about to be killed.

[suckseed]

Once again...a good point. So, what's a good man or woman to do nowadays? Just live your life? Write a check to the U.N.? The reason more of us don't do something is because, like it or not, I think there is little we Can do.
When I was an activist and started burning out after a few years, my best friend told me that he thinks more change is brought about by individuals than by organized groups. Seeing what little my old group has accomplished since I left, I'm inclined to agree.

[specialk]

After reading your post Suckseed, I was really tweeked by your choice of photos. Kids, yeh good ole kids. They are born pure, without hatreds, and prejudice. So what do parents do? Make sure they pass along their prejudice from generation to generation..........This is one area where the problem starts, this would be a good place to attempt a fix....Just stop passing the bullshit down.

[specialk]

I am troubled by the apparent inability to arrive at a Truth, based on facts upon which everyone can agree.

Noble sentiments indeed. The thing you have to realise is that there is no "Truth." That is because everybody is to some extent right and everybody is also to some extent wrong. The idea that there is a "Truth" is an unfortunate development of monotheistic dogma of the Jewish/Christian/Muslim continuum, which holds at its very centre the core belief that there is one god, and so one truth. I am afraid that this very notion of "truth," is at the heart of the bitter conflicts that we are seing today, and it is no coincidence that the religions involved are staunchly monotheistic and see everything in terms of black and white, absolute right and absolute wrong. These terms themselves are oxymorons.

It is so telling to see obvious inheritors of this ludicrous thinking yelling at each other, each dragging up this fact and that to "prove" their argument. None of it matters. Does the child whose father is about to be killed care who is "right?" Does that child care about any other truth than that he has a father and in a moment he will not? No. It doesn't matter whether the killer is terrorist or state, legally sanctioned or not. The child doesn't care.

If it were not tragic it would be hilarious to see these tired arguments being rehearsed, which are fundamentally all the same "I am right and therefore you must be wrong." But from that erroneous yet plausible statement we very quickly arrive at "Because I am right and you must be wrong, it is all right for me to do what I am doing to you." Which is oh so very close to "God is on my side so it's okay for me to kill you."

As long as we have the situation, as we do, firmly locked into our legal and political systems, where people are allowed to do what they want to do because they have "proved" that what they say is "true" or "right," then the nauseating results will continue, and this will only end when mankind learns the lesson -- that it doesn't matter whether people think they know the "truth" or what is "right." The only POV worth considering is that of the child whose father is about to be killed.

What sticks out in my mind about this post is Religion..........something that has caused more death than maybe anything else in this world. I should have included, in my "fantasy", banning all organized religions. People can be spiritual and have a God, "big man", to pray to, talk too....just keep it to themselves. Forget the "My God is better than your God" crap.

[BeardedOne]

...and all the politicians were replaced by stand up comics.

And all this time I thought they =were= stand-up comics.

[specialk]

Once again...a good point. So, what's a good man or woman to do nowadays? Just live your life? Write a check to the U.N.? The reason more of us don't do something is because, like it or not, I think there is little we Can do.
When I was an activist and started burning out after a few years, my best friend told me that he thinks more change is brought about by individuals than by organized groups. Seeing what little my old group has accomplished since I left, I'm inclined to agree.

Stop passing it down to the kids, getting involved in politics....clean house, send good people in and hold them accountable......politics sucks, but it's the "only game in town"........like it or not you need to pay attention to what goes on in Wash. everything they do there, affects your life. I'll even add, give up on organized religion, not God...the church or temple isn't needed though.

[blackandblue]

I'm going to bring a little reality to this thread.

The truth does matter. If we understand the root of the problem, we can understand how to deal with the problem.

If we ignore the root of the problem and just say "let's all be 'lovey dovey' to each other., you've a good chance as being viewed as ridiculous.

An example; Your next door neighbour steals your car, changes the locks and parks it in his garage.

You go to the Police. They tell you, "We haven't got time for this. Why not give your neighbour a half-share in your car.

You don't agree to this, so you approach your neighbour to get your car back. He, expecting this, is ready for you and beats you up and takes your children's bicycle as well.

You, again, go to the Police. They say to you, "Why not let him use the bicycle?"

You go again to remonstrate with your neighbour. This time he beats you up, takes your garage and parks his car into it.


So, tell me, what do you do? Move house and accept the humiliation or stand up and fight for what you believe is right?

Please drop the 'lovey Dovey' stuff. It's just not realistic.


Find the root of the problem and solve it.

For some reason the US and UK administrations seem bent on putting out misinformation.

Tony Blair for instance, tries to tell us the whole thing started with Hizbollah kidnapping two Israeli soldiers.

He fails to mention the Israelis wiping out a family suuning themselves on a beach in Gaza, leading to the kidnapping of the first Israeli soldier.

If you want to get to the truth, ignore Bush and Blair.

What's Putin saying here?; http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2006-07/16/content_641776.htm

Nobody seems to care if 10,000 Iraqis die or 1,000 Palestinians. They are just numbers. But Israelis, Americans, British. They are always counted as men, women and children.

It's a psychological ploy to demonise people, so that you end up having negative connotations about people you've never met.

Saddam Hussein was supposed to have been this evil man who killed his own people. Well who is killing and raping them now?
Osama bin Laden was supposed to be this evil terrorist. who here's mention of him now.

Americans need to move away from their televisual education and try to add a little depth to the lives.

Why do you think it is that the USA vetoes each and every UN resolution against Israel?
Do you really think that everyone else is wrong?

Educate yourselves or admit that you don't care.

But quit the 'lovey dovey' stuff. It's just silly.

[specialk]

I'm going to bring a little reality to this thread.

The truth does matter. If we understand the root of the problem, we can understand how to deal with the problem.

If we ignore the root of the problem and just say "let's all be 'lovey dovey' to each other., you've a good chance as being viewed as ridiculous.

An example; Your next door neighbour steals your car, changes the locks and parks it in his garage.

You go to the Police. They tell you, "We haven't got time for this. Why not give your neighbour a half-share in your car.

You don't agree to this, so you approach your neighbour to get your car back. He, expecting this, is ready for you and beats you up and takes your children's bicycle as well.

You, again, go to the Police. They say to you, "Why not let him use the bicycle?"

You go again to remonstrate with your neighbour. This time he beats you up, takes your garage and parks his car into it.


So, tell me, what do you do? Move house and accept the humiliation or stand up and fight for what you believe is right?

Please drop the 'lovey Dovey' stuff. It's just not realistic.


Find the root of the problem and solve it.

For some reason the US and UK administrations seem bent on putting out misinformation.

Tony Blair for instance, tries to tell us the whole thing started with Hizbollah kidnapping two Israeli soldiers.

He fails to mention the Israelis wiping out a family suuning themselves on a beach in Gaza, leading to the kidnapping of the first Israeli soldier.

If you want to get to the truth, ignore Bush and Blair.

What's Putin saying here?; http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/world/2006-07/16/content_641776.htm

Nobody seems to care if 10,000 Iraqis die or 1,000 Palestinians. They are just numbers. But Israelis, Americans, British. They are always counted as men, women and children.

It's a psychological ploy to demonise people, so that you end up having negative connotations about people you've never met.

Saddam Hussein was supposed to have been this evil man who killed his own people. Well who is killing and raping them now?
Osama bin Laden was supposed to be this evil terrorist. who here's mention of him now.

Americans need to move away from their televisual education and try to add a little depth to the lives.

Why do you think it is that the USA vetoes each and every UN resolution against Israel?
Do you really think that everyone else is wrong?

Educate yourselves or admit that you don't care.

But quit the 'lovey dovey' stuff. It's just silly.

Thanks for ruining my fantasy...........that is what the title of this thread says.....pure fantasy. I could have chosen to join the endless debate in "the other thread", and my posts would have sounded more inline with yours. what's the point? Besides, you and others are doing a fine job bringing balance to the fight...errrrr debate.

[Ironhead]

The other side of the coin is that there is no appreciation of what you have without experiencing loss. That's not a statement in favor of war, just simply pointing out that all the things you talk about wouldn't necessarily have the same value to you if you didn't have the current messed up attitudes to compare them to. Not to mention the fact that most of those monuments you mentioned are there because of lives lost in war. I know it sounds a little like a premise for an episode of The Twilight Zone (and it probably was), but changing such a fundamental pillar of human existence as hate could, and probably would, have drastically unexpected effects. I think if you want to shorten it down to a simple phrase the question shouldn't be "what if?" but "what next?".