Generational Dynamics Forum - New Site

The December Scientific American has an article on how global warming contributes to such snowmegadon's as Buffalo's.

psCargile wrote:Israel is the beachhead to the rest of the world.

I don't know Gerald, from what've I gleaned of Generations Dynamics, religion may be an excuse but not the motivator behind conflict. Remove religion and people will still want someone elses tract of land. If Israel and Judaism are utterly destroyed, the world will still have problems, and people will find another scapegoat to blame for their own mishandling of their lives.

Very true, religion is a handy excuse, or maybe it's a major contributing factor. If you are raised to believe A and that B is bad you will defend A against B http://www.nheld.com/schools_to_careers_editorial.htm
"Adolph Hitler said , "Let me control the textbooks and I will control the state." (Quoted in William L. Shirer, "Education in the Third Reich," ch. 8, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich). Of course Stalin shared the same ideas and he once said, "Give me your four year olds and in a generation I will build a Socialist state".

It appears that the leaders determine the direction of the masses, and only a catastrophic shock will change the minds of the masses . ( not very uplifting, but most likely true )

Jim you make good points. I think you are for sure valid in the fact that dropping Europeans into an Islamic culture for sure caused issues. I am sure a devout Muslim is horrified at what passes in many places today as an acceptable norm as everyone is thowing away good rules for pluralism. Sort of like the French dedicating Notre Dame to the God of Reason - just foolish. I think though the growth of Islam in Europe (for example) is not a net positive. There was a few years back a French owner of a Religous book shop near Paris who was intimated and finally raped by Mulim men. There are the Sharia law zones popping up in the UK (around Londen) so please don't paint their culture as pure and good - they have a very dark side as well. Wherever Islam goes, like a virus, it appears to eventually co-opt the local culture when critical mass is reached - eventually overakes and enforces its views/laws/Gov't. I am sure that is their goal for Western Europe and they may reach it. I know your point is Isreal et environs and my point is perhaps a little broader trying to see where this is all going to go. For sure if I lived in the South of the US ,say Texas, and a group of Mexicans came and said you have to leave sicne we lived here 200 years ago I would have a few choice words. At the same time I am sympethetic to the ancient religion of Judiesm and the historicial claim they have to the land of Cannan. I think it is good that they are back in their homeland and I only hope eventually they can find a way to live in peace with their neighbors after the war is over.

Israel is the beachhead to the rest of the world.

I don't know Gerald, from what've I gleaned of Generations Dynamics, religion may be an excuse but not the motivator behind conflict. Remove religion and people will still want someone elses tract of land. If Israel and Judaism are utterly destroyed, the world will still have problems, and people will find another scapegoat to blame for their own mishandling of their lives.

MarvyGuy ..... "While I can appreciate Muslims preferring their own corruption I am having trouble finding a well run government in that region outside of isreal."

I am having trouble finding a well run government anywhere inside or outside the region... including Israel. I suppose it is in the eye of the beholder. My only point is that sometimes too many understand this conflict as having religious roots. It does not have religious roots, the root was dropping an eastern European way of life, manners, social norms, religion, laws, government, dress, and education into the middle of a completely different culture. If the United Nations (or winners of a war) decided to grant an area of land in your neighborhood, town or state to a perceived oppressed and put upon people from say sub-Sahara Africa, and those newly arrived people believed in the subjugation of women, death to homosexuals, and sacrificing children to their god(s) what would be your reaction? Now give them the ability to destroy your neighborhood if attacked. It really was not a religious dispute in the first place .... it may be now, but it was not always that way.

One of the major problems in the Mid East is organized religion -- that being -- Jewdaism, Christianity, and Islam, ( they have common roots ) but more importantly their respective leaders and those leaders desire for control and power over others. Other wise they all would probably get along and the death count would probably drop to nothing.
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Many years ago I heard someone say, and also have been reading variations of this comment in the comment section on various sites, and to paraphrase -- not for the sensitive --

Nuke the religious sites of Jerusalem, Mecca and Medina -- if their god can't protect it's holy sites their god is bogus -- end of story.

While I can appreciate Muslims preferring their own corruption I am having trouble finding a well run government in that region outside of isreal. No matter how anyone wants to view this nothing we do or say will matter since the decision will be decided by force of arms just like everywhere else. These relatively peaceful years of prosperity are drawing to a close for us all. I hope they can work this out after their war but I will be too worried about survival to really care if I am still alive. But if you are going to list Western problems make sure you list theirs or you come across as a troll and ad zip to the discussion. With ISIS killing right and left and media protraying their form of government as peacful its hard to be sympathetic to the cause and since I fear that it may be me one day being slaughtered like some goat because I won't convert I really don't care to hear their viewpoint at this juncture anyway.

NoOneImportant .......".....a sewage heap that Israel, and her Jews alone transformed into the jewel of the Middle East."

It may be said that one man’s jewel is another man’s eyesore. Forcibly inserting an eastern European (Jewish) culture into a relatively passive local community of Palestinians does not produce a jewel. Palestinian children will never be taught by Palestinians that Israel is anything more than an eyesore. Strip clubs, accepting gay lifestyles, drugs, rampant corruption in private and public industry, and several other areas of western culture are viewed as a threat to Arab/Islam/Muslim cultures. Israel represents a western culture threat more than anything else. Middle Eastern cultures prefer their own corruptions.

to NoOneImportent -- regarding calling a spade a spade

I can't take credit for the statement, it has been around a long time

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_a_spade_a_spade

To "call a spade a spade" is a figure of speech which explicitly calls out something as it is, by its right name. The implication is not to lie about what something is and instead to speak honestly and directly about a topic, specifically topics that others may avoid speaking about due to their sensitivity, unpleasant, or embarrassing nature.[1]

Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1913) defines it as:

To be outspoken, blunt, even to the point of rudeness; to call things by their proper names without any "beating about the bush".

Origin[edit]
Its ultimate source is a phrase in classical Greek. Plutarch's Apophthegmata Laconica (178B) has την σκαφην σκαφην λεγοντας (ten skafen skafen legontas). σκαφη (skafe) means "basin, trough", but Erasmus mis-translated it (as if from σπάθη spáthe) as ligo "shovel" in his Apophthegmatum opus. Lucian De Hist. Conscr. (41) has τα συκα συκα, την σκαφην δε σκαφην ονομασων (ta suka suka, ten skafen de skafen onomason) "calling a fig a fig, and a trough a trough".

The phrase was introduced to English in 1542 in Nicolas Udall's translation of Erasmus, Apophthegmes, that is to saie, prompte saiynges. First gathered by Erasmus:[2]

Philippus aunswered, that the Macedonians wer feloes of no fyne witte in their termes but altogether grosse, clubbyshe, and rusticall, as they whiche had not the witte to calle a spade by any other name then a spade.

It is evident that the word spade refers to the instrument used to move earth, a very common tool. The same word was used in England, Denmark, and in the Netherlands, Erasmus' country of origin.

Usage[edit]
The Oxford English Dictionary records a more forceful variant, "to call a spade a bloody shovel", attested since 1919.

The phrase appeared in chapter 1 of Joseph Devlin's book How to Speak and Write Correctly (1910)[3] where he satirized speakers who chose their words to show superiority:

For instance, you may not want to call a spade a spade. You may prefer to call it a spatulous device for abrading the surface of the soil. Better, however, to stick to the old familiar, simple name that your grandfather called it.
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Guess this word usage issue has been around a long time.

How tragic it is to see this transpire. The parallels to pre 1939 Europe become more frightening daily. Europe is lost, for Europe has increasingly become deaf to the ongoing conflict between good and evil. Europe has apparently lost the ability to discern the difference between good and evil. The Islamists are permitted to preemptively and indiscriminately murder Jews with impunity, and without provocation wherever the Jews may be. Yet only Israel is called to task for its restrained humanity, a restraint that is viewed by her enemies as weakness. Only when too much becomes enough for Israel; only when Israel responds to the subhuman viciousness and murder in Israel's pursuit of justice delayed, only then is Israel alone to be roundly criticized; only then is Israel alone to be condemned for her outrageous "crime". And what is Israel's crime you might be tempted to ask? Why, obviously - her crime is: because she IS. Her citizens are to be murdered, without discrimination for the overtly heinous action of seeking and desiring to continue to live. They are to be murdered for their desire to survive and for their desire to continue to transform what used to be, prior to 1949, the Middle East's sewage heap; a sewage heap that Israel, and her Jews alone transformed into the jewel of the Middle East.

As Gerald might note: the above is an acute failure to call a spade, a spade. "Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil, who change darkness into light, and light into darkness, who change bitter into sweet, and sweet into bitter! - Is 5:20 While what Israel might physically have may be of value and be desirable for its worth, it is not her true treasure, for what she has is perishable. Israel's real treasure, Israel's enduring gift to all humanity is cerebral; her true treasure is the gift of the meaning of, and the pursuit of goodness, as opposed to evil. It's a gift as outlined in her Tanak (the Old Testament.) What a book (even if you are a non-believer), so much transformative wisdom in the pursuit of goodness to be found in one place. It's a goodness to be had by any who desire it at a price that is virtually inconsequential -- and Israel is its guardian, not perfect, not without flaws, but better by far -- for it is they who carry the message of goodness -- than those who would murder her without compunction, or hesitation. Israel is the beacon of light that shines in the darkness, woe be to the world who would ever permit that beacon to be extinguished.

John's comments regarding Spain were ironic. Should Israel ever be extinguished Spain would certainly be the next Islamic target-- the Islamist were expelled from Spain in 1492. By their actions the Spanish are unquestionably hoping to accommodate those who will, after digesting Israel, most assuredly seek to eat the Spanish next.