Re: Saima Alvi's Contribution to Understanding

        Jay's question is appropriate.  I would simply suggest that we
blame no one in particular for the horrors that await us in this century,
but continue to oppose and unmask the institutions that have evolved,
through the dialectic of world history, to exploit and divide us all:  the
capitalist system of relations of production, the nation-state system
invented in Western Europe to defend and profit from it, and the various
collations of opiates cherished by ruling classes since antiquity for
their power to hold the masses in thralldom.  These collations are usually
referred to reverentially as religions.  Judaism is but one, and they are
all, at this stage of history anyway, powerful agents of division and
hatred.  Of course we are not allowed to attack them, even though their
adherents butcher one another by the millions, because the mantra of
"diversity" chanted by every smart neo-liberal politician and college
president makes evangelical secular humanism sound like bigotry.  The
days of Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Wells, Darrow, and Russell are long gone.
No public platform in today's Godful world is complete without its rainbow
of clerical costumes inhabited by earnest purveyors of this-that-or-the-other
True Faith.

        But when the chips are down and the croupier speaks, you will
always find three forces in fateful conspiracy:  capitalism, nationalism,
and religion.  The only just and rational alternative is socialism,
cosmopolitanism, and secular humanism.  This is an alternative with fewer
articulate believers in the early 21st Century than we had in the early
20th, which is a good reason to abandon all hope for Homo sapiens.

        I haven't abandoned all hope yet.  Maybe I can last another year.
But I would urge wsn'ers to keep their eyes on the big picture.  It really
doesn't matter in the long run whether it's the United States beating up
on Iraq or Iraqi Arabs beating up on Kurds or Muslims torching Hindus or
Hindus disembowelling Muslims or Serbs expelling Kosovars or Kosovars
expelling Serbs or Israelis colonizing Palestine or Palestinians blowing
up Israelis or Russians killing Chechens or vice versa or whatever the
hell other.  All of this will pass.  What will not pass is the
stranglehold of capitalism, nationalism, and organized religion on the
imaginations of almost everyone on this fractured planet, unless the Left
somehow recaptures and expands the socialist, cosmopolitical, and humanist
vision of its Founding Mothers and Fathers.  Repeat after me:  there is no
wealth but the common wealth, there is no tribe but humankind, there is no
god but the collective will and purpose of our species.

        A-women and a-men.

        Warren


On Tue, 1 Oct 2002, Jay Fenello wrote:

>
>
> Blaming Jews for Zionist policies, makes as much
> sense as blaming Americans for U.S. policies --
> both groups are simply following leaders who act
> in accordance to their distorted views of reality.
>
> The real question is, how do we break through the
> distorted views of reality, and end the cycles of
> hate that divide people and keep them subservient
> to the puppet masters?
>
> Jay.
>
>
> At 9/29/2002  02:20 PM, Saima Alvi wrote:
> >A Look at The 'Powerful Jewish Lobby'
> >====================================
> >by Mark Weber
> >
> >For decades Israel has violated well established precepts of
> >international law and defied numerous United Nations resolutions
> >in its occupation of conquered lands, in extra-judicial
> >killings, and in its repeated acts of military aggression.
> <snip>
>
>
> +++
>
> Jay Fenello, Internet Services
> http://www.Fenello.com ... 678-585-9765
> http://www.YourWebPartner.com ... Web Support
> http://www.AligningWithPurpose.com ... for a Better World
> -------------------------------------------------------------
> "If we are to get on the right side of the world revolution,
> we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values.
> We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society
> to a person-oriented society." -- Martin Luther King, Jr.
>
>
>