Posted by IsoM on April 7, 2003, at 15:38:28
In reply to Re: Hoping you'll apologize » Dr. Bob, posted by OddipusRex on April 7, 2003, at 14:16:48
Please, Oddipus Rex, don't you see what I was trying to get at when I posted that quote from Goering? He was a monster - horrible beyond words, but it was the gist of the message, not who spoke it, I wanted people to see. What if it came from Aristotle or Einstein instead?
No matter what nation we live in, if the people in that nation are patritotic & love their country, the majority will see themselves as the "good guy" & the other side as the aggressors. If people didn't believe that, who'd be willing to go to war for something they believed wasn't true?
And if we don't believe that the leaders of any nation aren't carefully crafting their words & the image they project, we're deluding ourselves. That's why there are speech writers & public relation peoples working to show the best they can. I watch leaders (of many countries, none in particular) give speeches & I watch their faces carefully. They're watching for the reactions to their comments - you can see their eyes moving over the audience, calculating the effect of their words. There's a great deal of psychology behind all this that's carefully used for the greatest impact on each nation's citizens.
I don't see one side as good & the other bad. I don't see one leader as evil & the other righteous. I see mistrust & hate & fear-mongering & confusion. I see pain & grief & horrors from all sides.
I watched the news of one US female soldier who was killed & she left behind 2 little girls, 3 & 4 years old, & my eyes filled with tears. I watched an Iraqi father sobbing next to a bed where his child that was seriously wounded in the bombing lay, & my eyes filled with tears. So much hate, so many blaming each side, so much death. Does one have to be for or against? Can't one just loathe all this without choosing sides?
I don't even pretend I'd know what to do. There's no easy answer - maybe there is no answer. Hasn't wars, hate, & killing been going on for many thousands of years? But even if I don't know the right answer, I can at least say what's a wrong answer. If someone came up with "highway construction" as the answer for a complex math equation, one wouldn't have to know the right answer to know that it wasn't the right answer for the equation. It's a lousy example, but all I'm trying to say that killing & hate is not the right answer for the problems facing this world.
poster:IsoM
thread:216901
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20030404/msgs/217076.html