I agree that peaceful construction is always better than destructive war. However, sometimes you have to defend a group that is under attack. You wouldn't try to hug someone who is pointing a gun at you. But pulling out another gun wouldn't solve the problem either. Words and memes work best. Your best weapon for destruction should also be your best tool for construction. Words and good memes can destroy bad memes at the same time they construct good relationships.

I farted and Bill Smelt it and RLA asked if my stomach was upset and Graham said I always farted and it really stinks and then Sandra said that I always fart and it always stink.
So I go into a room to visit with people and no one will come close, I do not know why so start smelling my arm pits and grammi notes that people say my farts stink but I really need to use deodorant...
So I move from that room where I am feeling rotten in and go to the next to visit with that group of people and I overheard someone say I stink and I don't wash and that people should stay away because they heard RLA ask about my disease,you know people like that carry diseases.

OK the whisper started after I expelled gas once and ended up I was diseased and stay away from people like me because we all carry diseases...

Well that is a small description of where bigotry and racism and hatred and even prejudices start. Socially we add days, years, decades and centuries where it can not be traced back to how, where or when it started. We can identify those who participate in carrying it on but then what????????????????????????//

I was about to post an article and saw Snuff just posted it

It applies to this thread about

TRUTH and how they always toss a boogieman in the equation to get everyone fearful and hating someone or other due to their skin color or religion

(much like the nice people from south of the border who some say are enemies)

Keep people scared and they hate those people are taking their food

I have stepped in front of the man beating his spouse and I have stepped between a gun and a man and now I am older and times are changing and people see others lives less precious then their own.
When I was younger I could stand my ground and could not be pushed. Now that I am older I type in CGCS hoping that we are communicating ideas and beliefs and ideas and possible understanding so that we can contribute today to solving something tomorrow.

Yes, we're talking about that Community maintaince and growth that does not require the direct and immediate intervention of a police force or Emergency Medical Team...

The key here is to fear nothing more than fear itself.

Race is just one of many ways people play the divide in conquer game. If you know where and why you stand on issues, you can't be divided from people in the same place, who also know where and why they stand on the same issues. Only those who don't know where they stand or why they stand there are easily divided.

There will always be differences. And yes, some differences are intolerable. Your right to swing your fist ends at the tip of my nose. The differences we should never be intolerant of are those differences that are not chosen by those who are different, such as biological differences and some socioeconomic differences that we are born into. Not all, but some cultural and religious differences should be negotiable. Political differences are negotiable by definition, or they shouldn't be considered political.

Intolerable differences should be addressed peacefully. We should feed the hungry rather than declaring a class war against them and threatening them with arms while guarding our resources. We should be discussing our negotiable differences difference rather than ignoring them till they explode.

Thank you for recognizing that I am fearful. Thankyou for taking me to that place I was trying to reach. Thank you for being a person of Common Sense who finds Common Ground.

Yea G4 we are on common ground....

When you have a segment of the population (and the board is a population too), that for whatever personal reason still believes in say the Dixie Flag and when the news lately is full of nooses being strung and you have the inequity of the Jena 6 showing there is racial warfare going on against the blacks in the US, just knowing right from wrong is meaningless

It becomes mob mentality

Same as those who vilify the Mexicans and other gentle souls from south of the border
Same as those who crucified the Irani leader and did not want to give speech a chance
(because they were afraid of ./....what????

When you have Bush telling Cuba and other nations they need to be democratic, whilst Bush steals our democracy out from under us
(in the name of so-called terrorists that don't exist)...

As stated on some other thread, possibly this board or others, after seeing the movie Rendition the other day, I came out of the theater arguing with someone as to what it is a liberal is suppose to take out of a movie like that...when most likely the only ones seeing that movie would be same politically inclined in the first place...

When in the 1970s the nation was light years ahead finally, and in 2007 we are back in the Jim Crow days where nooses are strung
you have to admit ....what??? exactly???

What is the point that will come when this 50-50 bickering stops? Where will it come from? Some horrofic mother nature event
like the tsunami where people just flock together? Or will it be the oncoming staph epidemic or bird flu where 50 percent of the world
dies out...
leaving...what???
Then it will be fear of the sick...like lepers...

Seems to me we are still in the dark ages to never advance (and Katrina showed it).

And when you have a segment of the population that oversimplifies socioeconomic problems by boiling them down to racism, the bigger problem which racism stems from gets obfuscated.

This personalizes the issue and puts the focus on that sub-set of persons who carry out
this kind of analysis, rather than focusing on the method of analysis which needs correcting...
I don't disagree with the statement.

When 1/2 the population is brought up to hate the rest of the world by strawman arguements, there is no hope, unless that 1/2 is taught to move over to the other side

(After all, those who are not racists and sexists have nowhere to compromise their position, now do they?) Am I suppose to become a racist just to meet racists in the middle???)

What other side are you talking about?

And people are being taught to unlearn their prejudice upbringing. I take it you've never been in the military.
Nobody is suggesting that you become a complete racist. Besides, there are different degrees of racism. Its naive to think that you are 100% not racist yourself. Those who are not completely racist can still help others overcome their racism by empathizing rather than just equally hating them back. You also run the risk of becoming a racist in the process of trying to identify racists.

When people realize that we have all probably lived lives as every race and both sexes many times in the past and will continue to do so into the future then being sexist and racist becomes totally ridiculous.

Still there are hard wired prejudices within us all that may have had survival value back when we lived in tribes. A dark legacy from a time when the "other" often was a real threat. That is a challenge for the modern human to overcome. These "vestigial instinctual prejudices" are about as useful today as our vestigial tails. But the throwback tendency of some is exascerbated by the demagog socially politically and religiously in order to gain power for themselves. Those who seek to divide even subtily with code words and policies designed to maintain inequality or target groups within the population for repression or demonization should be recognized for what they are and marginalized politically.

In other words it should go without saying that those who would lead by hate and fear are unfit to lead a brave nation forward! Let them form their own nation of shivering cowards who only "feel safe" among those who look just like them, and who will give up all rights for that same feeling. Perhaps caves somewhere on some deserted isle far out in the ocean can be found for them.

Now as you can see. That as I let myself ramble I too started to become divisive and scornful at least of a certain segment of the population. And while they should be scorned I can easily go too far and begin to become like what I disdain.

Life is hard. (Sigh)

Very insightful piece. We're together in our in-process way of viewing Life...I put the process in a shorted time frame for the Individual Person and see the Universe of which we are an integral part, recycycaling itself adinfintium...