Ruth, Hi. your post in Digest 199 has this quote at the end of it
"When you call yourself an Indian or a Muslim or a Christian or a European, or anything else, you are being violent. Do you see why it is violent? Because you are separating yourself from the rest of mankind. When you separate yourself by belief, by nationality, by tradition, it breeds violence. So a man who is seeking to understand violence does not belong to any country, to any religion, to any political party or partial system; he is concerned with the total understanding of mankind. - --J. Krishnamurti, Freedom from the Known, pp.51-52 " This is an interesting quote..but ....... what about women who seek to understand violence? The universal club of parenthood? being a JMDL member as opposed to or in addition to a JOan BAez-er or a James TAylor-er (he does mention "anything else") YOu make valid and interesting points throughout your post (but who am I to judge.. I thought so anyway).... I feel, however that Krishnamurti makes a general sweeping assumption that people necessarily consciously define them selves by the religion they follow and/or the nationality they are. He appears, however to dissallow for the unity of the human kind for the common good, the unity of groups like the Red Cross, Medcins sans Frontieres..the large national and international charities who deny no-one in need their succour and assistance. All these people who work in such capacities have passionate belief in doing good in areas where wrong has been done.... They identify with that cause of neutral good.... not zealous conversion to "their side" but necessary, non-political, non-judgemental good.... All of us who are agaisnst this war, and I am passionately against it on humanitarian grounds and out of deep suspiscion over the motives for it. But we need to recognise also that the people who are fighting this war are possibly equally distressed, despite "doing the job they are paid for". I doubt very much that 100% of the soldiers are happily going about their day, and are possibly feeling that they have been misled, set up and will ultimately carry the can for the big shots who stay out of the firing line.... The question I am asking, as are many others, is how come Bush has already granted the contracts for the re-building of Iraq when its over... by whose decree? who says he can? Just who are the heads of these companies, who are they in relation to Bush? and surely the re-building of Iraq is down to the decision of some new Iraqi government if the war succeeds in its supposed objectives of freeing the place of Saddam... . Surely if Bush is the good man he says he is he cannot be talking about spoils can he? are these not reserved as reparation for damage sustained by the aggrieved against the aggressor? has he missed the point entirely? Did Iraq invade either the UK or the US.... I don't think so. Too many innocent people have already died and it is going to get worse... Lucy
