Philip Winestone wrote:
"Israel is only rich because it is supported by the US and donations,
and it has harvested brain power from all over the world."
Now that's what I call a rich statement. Can you explain it so that
mere mortals like myself can understand it?
Well, hopefully without boring or pissing off too many people, here is
my very brief history of Israel.
It starts with WWI, after which Germany was improvised by the treaty of
Versailles. Hitler took advantage of the desperate situation by
promising to restore the grandeur of the state and make life better.
However, he needed money to do this. The Jews had money and they were
generally resented by the Germans. So he stole the money by making the
Jews appear to be the cause of Germany's problems. People will believe
anything when they are desperate or afraid. However, he could not
simply make the Jews improvised without having to feed them and put up
with a lot of trouble, so he decided to kill them - thus started the
death camps. After the war, people in general and the surviving Jews in
particular were outraged and embarrassed that such a great crime was
allowed to happen. So the state of Israel was created. Unfortunately,
this required stealing land and homes from the people who lived in
Palestine where Israel was to be located. From the Jew's point of view,
this was ok because God had given this land to them centuries ago and it
was subsequently stolen from them. So, some Palestinians were placed in
camps and others were pushed into land outside of Israel. As anyone with
half a mind would predict, the displaced people were unhappy and began
to cause trouble. After several wars with the unhappy neighbors and
displaced people, the boundaries of Israel were extended to where they
are today. Meanwhile, the displaced people have grown more resentful
about their treatment and more powerful in creating problems for Israel.
Terrorism is being used to counter the overwhelming military might of
Israel and the US, with the US paying an increasing price for being
associated with Israel. Meanwhile, Israel has had to devote a large
fraction of its gross national product to military defense including an
expensive nuclear weapons program. Israel is a small country that has
neither oil, gold, nor diamonds to sell. It does not make cars sold all
over the world nor does it make large numbers of high-end electronic
products like Japan and Korea. How does this small country pay for the
huge overhead this military defense requires? The answer is, it gets the
money from the US as our largest receiver of foreign aid and it gets
donations from rich individuals who want Israel to survive. Meanwhile
the cost keeps going up for everyone. No one seems able to find a
solution because the Israelis are good guys and the other guys are
terrorists and, therefore, bad. Israel bombs an innocent country killing
many noncombatants. The response is rockets having the same effect, but
on a smaller scale. People in that part of the world now hate the US
and are starting to give us a taste of what has become modern combat.
All of this was caused by the way Israel was created and it will
continue because desperation, paranoia, resentment, and fear on both
sides have now become institutionalized. Unfortunately, the other side
in the conflict now knows that the US is weak because we are
overextended in Iraq, because we are addicted to oil, which is easy for
people to deny us, and because we have created a financial nightmare
within our own country. Consider this, the housing market is in
collapse because of higher interest rates, which are required because we
need to borrow so much money from other countries; as the price of gas
goes up the US car companies are being pushed closer to bankruptcy; and
US airlines are already on the ropes and will probably be pushed over
the edge by this latest terrorist threat even though no one died. In
other words, thanks to our past policies, the bad guys have a good
chance of bring down the house of cards. Of course, in other parts of
the world, these guys are not considered bad, especially if they win.
So, the question is, what can we do about the situation? This just
might be a question worth considering before it is too late.
Ed
P.
At 02:56 PM 8/11/2006 -0600, you wrote:
Terry Blanton wrote:
On 8/11/06, Edmund Storms <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
We need to use our creativity to explore another way.
That's easy:
1) Make energy free.
Unfortunately, free energy would not solve the problem. Free energy
would mean the Middle Eastern countries would be even poorer than they
presently are. Israel is only rich because it is supported by the US
and donations, and it has harvested brain power from all over the
world. The countries have long since exhausted the environment of
useful minerals, the climate is too dry for extensive agriculture, and
most of the soil is poor thanks to centuries of poor management. A
country needs to produce something the rest of the world wants. Of
course, if we did not need oil, we would ignore the internal conflicts
there just like we do when they occur in countries of Africa where oil
is not present. Thanks to the tools of terrorism, people who are
sufficiently unhappy can no longer be ignored.
2) Eliminate religion.
Religion is the only concept that justifies being as good as we are.
Very few people are "good" just because it is their nature. Granted,
religion is taken to extreme, but all ideas are taken to extreme
sooner or later. If religion and the rules it imposes are not
applied, what do you suggest be used in its place?
It's only the path which is in question.
That is true. How do we get people to follow the best path?
Ed
Terry
