state of affairs....

[lilwifeyx3]

ok, i am honestly worried at this point.
Hugo Chavez is allowed to stand in the UN and call bush the "devil" and blast america aimlessly....and get APPLAUSE! not just alittle, standing ovation, loud, affirimng applause. no one booed him, i can't find any comments being made to the contrary.

I see commercials air promoting military action to help the jewish people, asking for donations, "stand for israel" (i'm sure you guys have seen those too)

The pope makes inflamitory comments about islam. he recieves death threats, fires and riots start. muslims where now provoked even further.

Islamic terrorists are getting PHD's from our collages, but still are driven to martyrdom. things are not going well for us guys. And people are misdiagnosing the problems left and right. I see 2 problems. Bush has ostrasized us alittle farther than we like to admit. The problems in the middle east are deeper than i think most admit. Islam has BILLIONS of subscribers, and the lines between modeartion and extremeisim are growing ever thinner. How many architects and engineers need to hit the wall at 400 mph before we realize its not a problem of education. when it comes down to it, its the problem of unshakeable irrational faith in an ideaology. Terrorisim is a tacticm we are not at war with a tactic, we are at war with islam. ok, there i said it. i had a thread on islam a while back, but got little in way of answers. so to you, i pose 2 questions. What do you expect to happen once bush steps down? and when i say this one, i really honestly want answers because i for one am honestly fearful. How do we deal with the revival of militant religion? ranging from islam to christian reconstructionists. i don't see what we can do on a global scale now, its almost grown to the point of no return, and i for one, will be damned if i end up having to fight this war 10 years from now. Things are not getting better. We have absolutely no reason to expect to survive these differances indefinately.

 

[ColeR]

Vote for someone who likes the writings of the Apostle John. I'm pretty sure that Bush removed them from his Bible.

Or, vote Libertarian. There is no substantive difference between Republicans and Democrats. They do the same things. It's the difference between lite beer and regular beer.



Then you'll be damned.
And don't blame me. I did not vote Republican.

 

[Thekunt2DASORIGINAL]

I also have to say that alot of this demonstrates the "End times" thinking to me, that if jeruselam was replaced by a mushroom cloud tommorrow, peoople would see a silver lining in that cloud, it would preface to them that the best thing that is ever going to happen, is about to happen (the return of their savior/death of the enemies wide-scale) it should be self evident why that thought process is not helpful in anyway to creating a sustainible future.

 

[handsomeguyLAlCA]

agreed, never had a problem with those.

 

[FwefE]

Come again?! You never agree with me!

Is today April 1st and I wasn't told?

 

[JeremyY]

I think we all like to think that the world is going to hell. A phrase I see quite a lot is "this screwed up world" (substitute screwed for a certain other word). I'd bet that us in the West are in better nick than say, 10 years ago. It's just fashionable to think that the world is going to hell.

If the US invades Iran, I might change my mind. But all I see right now is fairly standard for modern times.

 

[Magni]

I think the "people are just saying this because it's fashionable" is dead wrong. Here are two major reasons why I believe the present is worse then that past by far.

1.) When have we ever had the capability to destroy our entire race, the planet, and everything we have ever known? Present times (nuclear technology)

and

2.) When have we ever had the capabilty to abolish world poverty and don't due to greed and moral corruption? Present times. America alone could feed the world, and we spend so much damn money on crap we don't really need.

Sure, we're not getting cut up and beaten down for whatever reason and we live longer. We don't fight battles on a battle field (but come on people, whether you get your testes cut off and then your head chopped off, or you get blown to pieces by a missile . . . death is death.) for the horridness of that. But what we do in war now is still horrible. The times are getting worse, or in other words, the stakes are getting much, much, much higher. Hands down.

 

[srichandar]

The Cold War.



You could probably trace this back to the 1980s at least.



Find people who lived in Europe in WWII and talk to them before it's too late.

Apparently we are at war now (on terror) and we were at war then. But the times don't compare. We are so comfortable now, everything is so easy.
I have faith that in modern times, nothing decisive ever gets done. So no one will be able to wipe out humanity.

 

[CarlS]

I don't think the member states of the UN will ever agree to anything the US does. I mean they cheered Yassir Arafat so why not Chavez. Pretty much anything anti-US is going to get cheered. I've said we should get out of the UN for years no more than we get which is usually a good bashing.

The reaction to the statement by the pope is incredible. I mean, I'm not catholic or anything but he was simply stating something said like 600 tears ago wasn't he? I like the fact that to show the world they aren't terrorists and violent people they shot that nun and are burning down churches across the middle east........yea, that'll show us.

 

[Ellis]

would you say this would classify as a cold crusade?( well on the verry hot side of cold) i think this is going to expload verry soon, verry quickly and not end for some time, i think the attackls of islam may go to make agnostic cauacasian men take side with christianity if only so that they may have a side to stand on, as they will feel threatened by the unity of islam, and the fear they will be targeted even though they may not even support a particular ideology.

i think a war will come off this and what bush has set in motion is verry verry ireversable (at least for some time)

 

[rbahaman]

Hopefully.. the day bush is out of office, we can get a more reasonable person in the white house that does not advocate cowboy politics. Don't see it reducing tension in the middle east.. lets face it.. they've always been at war.. Sure.. christians kill each other, but nothing like the ideological rift Sunnis and Shia's have had for hundreds upon hundreds of years.

And you may flame me for it, but I'll say it anyways.. as bad as things are in the middle east right now... I pray to whatever god might be listening... Please don't let the next president be a woman. Any possible headway we can make in that region would go straight to hell. It sounds misogynistic I know.. But its the fact of the matter.

But if you think the world is truly bad now.. it could be worse.. It could be 1941 and you could live in Eastern Europe..

 

[computerguyt]

We have to think about why people in these countries hate us(U.S. U.K.) so much. Since the days of the Brittish Empire we have been sticking our noses in their affairs and trying to controll the natural recources found there. The CIA has been up to lots of dirty tricks in that part of the world for years and now we are blowing the hell out of two countries for thier 'freedom'.

The media is also demonising Muslims to make it seem that they are so bad that it doesnt matter if we destroy thier countries infrastructure and kill thousands of civilians. We(our leaders) have created the situation and are making it worse. Take everything you see/hear in the media with a large pinch of salt.

Im not excusing the actions of terrorists or anything but I can see why they are angry with us. Imagine a middle eastern army invading your country, destroying your roads, schools, water supply friends and family members. Im sure you would want payback.

 

[dearmeohmy]

to quote willy Nelson.......bush aint no texan and he aint no cowboy

SO QUITE INSULTING TEXANS AND COWBOYS

 

[cordylou]

they started this, again, how many engineers have to fly planes into our buildings before we accept where the problem lies? i don't think it justified invading iraq, but it does justify some heavy handedness to put it lightly.
does it really matter? if we don't address the role militant religion has played, we're jamming our fingers in our ears, I mean, it would almost be equally effective to embark on a genocide mission, thanks to bush, i probably WILL end up fighting this war 10 years from now, i'm not promoting that, but you know what i mean.

 

[BOBPOP]

Not here in the States; ever since Dubya took office life for the average American has become exponentially worse. Things weren't all that great seven years ago but by comparison to today it was the golden era. In contrast those in the top income brackets have found the Bush junior years very lucrative. The rift between "haves" and "have nots" in America is beginning to look something like what you see in third world countries.




There's a bit more to it. It comes down to the wealthy and privileged of their country exploiting the citizens and the wealthy and privileged of our country turning a blind eye as long as it suits their particular agendas. When things reach critical mass the wealthy and privileged of the other country use a mix of religious fervor and blame shuffling to keep the unwashed masses from their doorstep. Quite frankly I’ve yet to see a nation in existence that isn’t in dire need of a political enema.

 

[fattyacid]

Don't forget what Dubya did to the airports. It used to be that traveling was easy and actually fun, and that going to airports to pick up Grandma or Daddy or whoever was easy and actually fun. Now flying and just going to airports is [bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep] and yes I do personally blame Dubya. He did it. There's no reasoned argument to the contrary. He "pooped" all over us, the jerk.

 

[AlexisInfectious®]

Exponentially worse? Do you really mean that?



Interesting. The leader of the Monster Raving Loony Party (aka the Liberal Democrats) has just gone on record to claim that the gap between rich and poor under Tony Bliar is greater than it ever was under Maggie Thatcher.

 

[robbies_mrs]

you've got to be kidding me dude!!!

You're telling me a metal detector up the ass isn't worth not having to fly with captain muhaofftopicd?

 

[buddieblue]

Up my ass, no, it's not.

We had metal detectors and x-ray machines before Dubya took office. I'm talking about the changes that have occurred since Dubya took office.

 

[thinj]

Yeah . . that's modern times. Anything from around the 1900's and up is pretty much modern times, where things started to really change.