So Niki and I don't get any reception on our TV so I haven't watched the news in quite a while... But I find this whole Lebanon/Israel thing rather interesting. Now normally I stay away from the world of politics, especially since I have to admit that I am fairly ignorant. But I found this interesting scene in Robert Ludlum's book The Icarus Agenda. Now it is a fictional book, but it does look at both sides of the Israel/Palestine conflict.
The first comment I found interesting was, "Terrorists aren't born they are raised." We've seen the Palestinians commit suicide bombings, and then Israel respond with incredible brutality. On both sides there are children who have seen their parents murdered right in front of them, ripped away in an instant. And what happens to these children? They grow up nursing a hate of those who hurt them and their family. In essence they are raised to become terrorists (At this point I would like to say that I believe what Israel is doing now is very much a terrorist act). When a child is born they are not immediately a terrorist or a soldier, but they are taught to hate and fear.
Listen to this excerpt from Ludlum's book.
"They want to escalate, always escalate, always pointing to an adversary who himself has escalated to the top of his economic and technological ladder. Where the hell do we stop? Where do they stop? When do we stop giving our children nightmares because all they hear is the G**D*** promise of annihilation? When do their kids stop hearing it? Or do we just keep going up in this elevator designed in hell until we can’t come down any longer, which won't make much difference anyway because all the streets outside will be in flames."
It seems like what our world needs is some common sense. We need to see the human on the other side, to walk in their shoes, to see how our actions hurt others, to love our neighbor. We live in this culture of fear. There is some enemy that wants to come and take over our country and if we don't protect ourselves we will all be killed. So we teach our children about the monster on the other side of the wall, the Arab becomes the bad guy, because he’s an Arab. Israel becomes a land grabbing monster. And we continue to escalate until... what?? Until we all annihilate ourselves? Perhaps I over simplify things, but it is sure what it looks like to me. We raise our children in a culture of fear and they will continue to carry on this cycle of buying more weapons so that we can be safe. It is a culture of fear that makes us consume..... hmmm that reminds be of something Marilyn Manson said in Bowling for Columbine "You're watching television, you're watching the news, you're being pumped full of fear, there's floods, there's AIDS, there's murder, cut to commercial, buy the Acura, buy the Colgate, if you have bad breath they're not going to talk to you, if you have pimples, the girl's not going to f#@% you, and it's just this campaign of fear, and consumption, and that's what I think it's all based on, the whole idea of 'keep everyone afraid, and they'll consume."
Here’s a little video that shows what I mean…
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