GOD and goofy belief systems.

quit working corporately,quit driving cars, quit watching television, be Humans not Consumers... hard and nearly impossible because we are slaves to comfort but thats the first step

"To kill man's hope is to kill man"

eliasan, i think public discourse today is about abortion rights and prayer in schools and gay rights.

i don't care about any of that. of course, i have a position on all of those issues, but i don't think the issues themselves are that important frankly.

politicians in general like the debates i mentioned. they can pick sides and argue them. it's nice and neat and straight forward.

the things politicians will refuse to debate--and by the way, so will many in the press--are things that are dangerous to the status quo.

here's an example: imagine we introduced a bill today that would take 40% of all military spending and re-direct it to education. Can you IMAGINE the conservative republican backlash?

Or imagine that we required counseling for porn stars. (80% have been sexually abused...) The democrats would explode...

How though would you get the people to recoqnize that this is the change needed? it almost makes you think that facism, or at least the concept of irrationality could be useful for something.

"What is true power?"

YodaMouse,

That is the only issue i have with what you said, i do not want to cut military spending until reforms around the world are inacted. To many countries would love to destroy us, call it republican paranoria but there it is.

I am an avid supporter of increased education though, just not the way you proposed it.

I suppose the libertarin aspects of my political belief coming.

"What is true power?"

Azhrei, I refuse to debate the merits of fascism and communism. I grew up in a communist country and I can tell you first hand that it's no picnic. I have a couple of very personal experiences...

Trust me, opression of the people only leads to one thing: revolution.

Anyhow, as to changing the status quo. Well, you have to have a movement. I presonally like Ghandi's non-violent approach. Not because it's so successfull. It's just that if you want a great society, you don't start with the worst elemnts of it. Plus, I don't think I could live with myself otherwise. Think of it as corporate policy for everyone.

2,000 tactical thermonuclear devices in America's front pocket is enough deterent.

Our military spending is for tactical reasons, not for battlefield supremacy.

But that's besides the point. I simply believe that we can spend 10 times what we do now on education and still afford a military.

YodaMouse,

I did not mean to offend you and i apoligize if i did. i only referred to the irrationaility concept as a means to an end, I would not actually expect it to work, but i do not know of any concept that could overcome mans desire to dominate. Reason alone will never work.

"What is true power?"

There are as many kinds of revolution in the world as there are people. Look at the rennaissance: an entire period of human history devoted to the revolution of the mind. Some directly attribue it to the eventual industrial revolution.

Look at Ghandi's movement.

Look at the fall of the Soviet empire.

Reason does and will work. It's just that force is preferred because it's a straight forward approach, and because it works more often. That however does not mean that it's the ideal approach.

PS - no offense taken. I am here to discuss after all...

This is almost a natural libery vs. civil libery argument. The fact remains though we need government as long as we have civil liberties. the answer is to form of government that is fluid and can change. We have to find leadership of the right kind.

"What is true power?"

Well, okay. I'll grant you that leadership is important.

But I think social framework is more important. Take Democracy as opposed to a Dictatorship. Democracy is a stronger framework which is more difficult to abuse and therefore stands up to the test of time better.

I'm just giving and example here.

But yeah, leadership is important. And no, I do not think Pres. Bush is our strongest leader. But I do like the nice little spring cleaning he did in the Middle East.

I think a united arab empire is America's worst nightmare. (911 on steroids.) Now, they're so busy bombing each other that they'll leave us alone for a while, hopefully...

the only reason that the arabs are out to get us is cause we fucked them long ago in a few wars and they are not a 9/11 times a miillion. What bush did in the mideast was kinda stupid becouse he screwd up a few countrys whole system.

"Fear nothing for fear is the mind killer."

What about finding a better form of government than democracy... surely someone can think outside of the box and come up with one.

If not then come up with the characteristics of one, enough people together shoudl be able to figure it out.

"What is true power?"

hey how about communism that was a fun system while it lasted.

"Fear nothing for fear is the mind killer."

eliasan my friend, and you need to trust me on this one, communism was not fun.

government is a product of people, maybe we should focus on the origin instead of trying to create something out of something already broken.

"To kill man's hope is to kill man"