While one of the points of this thing is right on the money — that we're not all that different from each other — there is so much other garbage in it that the thing loses credibility pretty fast. Global Public Opinion is the new superpower? Please. Millions of get-out-the-vote callers "defeated Bush's party"? Don't get me started.
"Real Middle East Peace Talks" wanted by the majority of Palestinians and Israelis? Sure, but it's kinda hard to sit down & reason with someone whose stated goal is your annihilation.
Ya. So of course everyone wants peace. Go go world peace. Well, not exactly "everyone," (e.g. Ahmedinejad) but in general, most people want world peace. It's how you get there that no one can agree on. Frustrating.
But anyway, the video compares our cultures a little to simply. Take one second and compare women's rights in the west to those in the staunch Islamic areas of the middle east. In court there, it takes 2 women to "equal" one man. If you get raped, there must be at least 2 other men there who saw it and are willing to testify to the rape... otherwise it was the woman's fault and SHE gets penalized. Obviously she was acting too seductively and the man couldn't help himself. please -.- Are we that different? Ask men there if they're cool with that set-up, then ask men here if that would be acceptable.
Concentrating on similarities is great, but idealistically pretending that we're all the same is an exercise in self-delusion. You gotta be realistic before you can start to solve problems. Well, IMO at least.
I see some valid (and not so valid) comments here, but in defense of the video: It's only two minutes and thirty-one seconds long. There's no way for it to provide a complete history lesson and cultural analysis. It's not trying to.
It's a motivational video for a grassroots peace campaign – and I think it's a pretty good one.
To be as pedantic as possible, I'm even going to throw in a quote from Noam Chomsky:
"If you assume that there's no hope, you guarantee that there will be no hope. If you assume that there is an instinct for freedom, there are opportunities to change things, there's a chance you may contribute to making a better world. That's your choice."
Typical woolly headed crapola. Perhaps we should all leave our doors unlocked - or send Oprah over to hug Iranian president Madmaninadinnerjacket - or all hold hands and wear flowers in our hair...
Peace is not a natural state of affairs. It's worth striving for, but it will never, ever be fully achieved. If you want peace you have to prepare for war.
"Striving for peace is something we can all agree on, isn’t it?"
Sure, but peace at any price? Peace only by acquiescing to every crackpot terrorist outfit that makes demands? Why are their medieval interests more valid or important than the national interests of elected democracies?
Shallow content in this video. Some answers: Q: Do they see us as facist? A: Doubtful, since THEY are the facists. Now and historically, including supporting the Axis in WWII. What do you think Saddam's Baath party was?
Q: How are we different? A: They deliberately target and murder civilians as policy. We do not. They use children in terrorist and combat operations. We protect the innocent. They think nothing of giving religious justification for murdering other Muslims. We have gone out of our way to protect and liberate Muslims even when it wasn't in our best interest (Kosovo, Somalia, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Iraq, Oslo Accords, huge amounts of foreign aid to Muslim countries annually, etc etc etc).
Q: Do they speak for us (showing pictures of Western world leaders)? A: Yes, actually. That's why we elected them to lead our representative democracies.
Comparing the image of the bombing of the World Trade Center and murder of thousands of innocent civilians (including Muslims) with the image of the "shock and awe" missile attacks on a few Iraqi government buildings after hours after fair warning is a ludicrous misrepresentation. Only someone who is mentally unbalanced or who sympathizes with our enemies would consider those events morally equivalent.
So yes, some kinds of world peace are great. We are agreed on that. Now just go convince Al Qaeda and you'll be getting somewhere.
Blogger astanhope seems never to have observed natural phenomena, believing we aren't at war basically all the time. Wars don't start when they're legally declared or are announced on tv, they start in the minds of a war-monger when he perceives he can bully the people around him and force them to do what he wants them to. Let anyone - or anything - get away with this for any length of time and you are asking for trouble. Didn't you ever use bleach to clean out those unsightly stains from your toilet bowl? Or use Listerine or some other germ-killing mouthwash to keep your teeth and gums healthy? It's the same with people, sadly. Some people just don't "play nice". Some people are like the bad bacteria that science, and the progress of human civilization should have taught everyone paying attention by now that certain natural phenomena - like said bad bacteria, or violent men with pathological tendencies need controlling by whatever means necessary. Otherwise whatchagonnado? Let the rats, roaches, ants, fleas, burglars, rapists and everything else invade your home in the name of "peace" and try to convince them all by calm persuasion to live in perfect harmony? Please tell me "astanhope" you at least once had an ant or a flea problem - or perhaps something as simple as athlete's foot that you had to deal with. The analogy may be crude, but so are people - as anyone can see by sticking their head out of the window. What is it that we have to say to you pacifists to smack you out of your coma and wake up?
I embrace peace until somebody wants to kill me, then I strongly advocate war to defend my family and nation.
You keep advocating peace with the mulsim's, see where that gets you. If only we had a chance to make peace with the national socialist party of germany in 1940. We all could have been such good friends! They're not so different... they mow their lawns just like us. We (evil americans) locked up west coast Japanese and they (misunderstood germans) terminated 6,000,000 Jews.
America is turning into a big baby who is more concerned about getting out of a conflict without hurting anyone's feelings and less concerned with standing on the side of what is right. Why are we loosing wars since vietnam? Because pictures of death make America sad (just as osama told us "america does not have the stomach for war").
Bush brings our marines home and sends them to jail for murdering the poor civilians. Who would have thought that civilians were going to die in a war. You might as well bring home the soldiers and have them stationed in America to hand out $2000 debit cards to victem's of the global warming storms.
Peace is not the natural state. Go look around. Do you know that animals eat and fight other animals. I know this is shocking and does not give you that warm-fuzzy evolved feeling, but we are animals too. The advancement of our species through civilizations happens through community which has always involved government (kings, queens and elected officials). Government is universally equal to force. Want to test this, stop paying taxes and let me know how peaceful you feel in the next few years.
I thought it was interesting - certainly discussion-provoking.
To me, a wide variety of ideas and postings is what makes Neatorama interesting. So, I support this and other postings by the blog's authors. Good job, astanhope!
Those idiots brought the bombings on themselves! Religion of peace my arse, have they even read the second book written by their "great" leader? That one only speaks of violence and death to any who don't assimilate into their militaristic fascist form of government. If we don't stop them at the door and quit letting them into our country we'll be overrun with muslims. I don't want to be around for that.
astanhope, please don't let these comments bother you. Ironically, people who love to spread hatred are the reason we need peace efforts to begin with.
Wow, those statistics are pretty alarming. Over a quarter of the population in the Middle East do NOT want peace or democracy. That's one out of four or one out of three people who don't want peace. That is pretty disturbing. So, I'm supposed to be convinced people want peace from this? Mission failed.
Bookmark the site below, and go back once a week to remind yourself who is in the right and who is in the wrong here. (Whoever made, and whoever posted, the pro-Moslem video clip was one mental midget.) GO HERE, PLEASE, AND LOOK AT IT, TOP TO BOTTOM: http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/
"Real Middle East Peace Talks" wanted by the majority of Palestinians and Israelis? Sure, but it's kinda hard to sit down & reason with someone whose stated goal is your annihilation.
But anyway, the video compares our cultures a little to simply. Take one second and compare women's rights in the west to those in the staunch Islamic areas of the middle east. In court there, it takes 2 women to "equal" one man. If you get raped, there must be at least 2 other men there who saw it and are willing to testify to the rape... otherwise it was the woman's fault and SHE gets penalized. Obviously she was acting too seductively and the man couldn't help himself. please -.- Are we that different? Ask men there if they're cool with that set-up, then ask men here if that would be acceptable.
Concentrating on similarities is great, but idealistically pretending that we're all the same is an exercise in self-delusion. You gotta be realistic before you can start to solve problems.
Well, IMO at least.
It's a motivational video for a grassroots peace campaign – and I think it's a pretty good one.
To be as pedantic as possible, I'm even going to throw in a quote from Noam Chomsky:
"If you assume that there's no hope, you guarantee that there will be no hope. If you assume that there is an instinct for freedom, there are opportunities to change things, there's a chance you may contribute to making a better world. That's your choice."
Or "terrorists blowing up world trade centre" = "US in Iraq".
Oversimplified, and perhaps a little biased.
Perhaps we should all leave our doors unlocked - or send Oprah over to hug Iranian president Madmaninadinnerjacket - or all hold hands and wear flowers in our hair...
Peace is not a natural state of affairs. It's worth striving for, but it will never, ever be fully achieved. If you want peace you have to prepare for war.
Sure, but peace at any price? Peace only by acquiescing to every crackpot terrorist outfit that makes demands? Why are their medieval interests more valid or important than the national interests of elected democracies?
Shallow content in this video. Some answers:
Q: Do they see us as facist?
A: Doubtful, since THEY are the facists. Now and historically, including supporting the Axis in WWII. What do you think Saddam's Baath party was?
Q: How are we different?
A: They deliberately target and murder civilians as policy. We do not. They use children in terrorist and combat operations. We protect the innocent. They think nothing of giving religious justification for murdering other Muslims. We have gone out of our way to protect and liberate Muslims even when it wasn't in our best interest (Kosovo, Somalia, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Iraq, Oslo Accords, huge amounts of foreign aid to Muslim countries annually, etc etc etc).
Q: Do they speak for us (showing pictures of Western world leaders)?
A: Yes, actually. That's why we elected them to lead our representative democracies.
Comparing the image of the bombing of the World Trade Center and murder of thousands of innocent civilians (including Muslims) with the image of the "shock and awe" missile attacks on a few Iraqi government buildings after hours after fair warning is a ludicrous misrepresentation. Only someone who is mentally unbalanced or who sympathizes with our enemies would consider those events morally equivalent.
So yes, some kinds of world peace are great. We are agreed on that. Now just go convince Al Qaeda and you'll be getting somewhere.
Embracing peace is something that everyone can do - and probably should do.
War isn't a natural state of affairs.
Didn't you ever use bleach to clean out those unsightly stains from your toilet bowl? Or use Listerine or some other germ-killing mouthwash to keep your teeth and gums healthy? It's the same with people, sadly. Some people just don't "play nice". Some people are like the bad bacteria that science, and the progress of human civilization should have taught everyone paying attention by now that certain natural phenomena - like said bad bacteria, or violent men with pathological tendencies need controlling by whatever means necessary.
Otherwise whatchagonnado? Let the rats, roaches, ants, fleas, burglars, rapists and everything else invade your home in the name of "peace" and try to convince them all by calm persuasion to live in perfect harmony?
Please tell me "astanhope" you at least once had an ant or a flea problem - or perhaps something as simple as athlete's foot that you had to deal with. The analogy may be crude, but so are people - as anyone can see by sticking their head out of the window.
What is it that we have to say to you pacifists to smack you out of your coma and wake up?
You keep advocating peace with the mulsim's, see where that gets you. If only we had a chance to make peace with the national socialist party of germany in 1940. We all could have been such good friends! They're not so different... they mow their lawns just like us. We (evil americans) locked up west coast Japanese and they (misunderstood germans) terminated 6,000,000 Jews.
America is turning into a big baby who is more concerned about getting out of a conflict without hurting anyone's feelings and less concerned with standing on the side of what is right. Why are we loosing wars since vietnam? Because pictures of death make America sad (just as osama told us "america does not have the stomach for war").
Bush brings our marines home and sends them to jail for murdering the poor civilians. Who would have thought that civilians were going to die in a war. You might as well bring home the soldiers and have them stationed in America to hand out $2000 debit cards to victem's of the global warming storms.
Peace is not the natural state. Go look around. Do you know that animals eat and fight other animals. I know this is shocking and does not give you that warm-fuzzy evolved feeling, but we are animals too. The advancement of our species through civilizations happens through community which has always involved government (kings, queens and elected officials). Government is universally equal to force. Want to test this, stop paying taxes and let me know how peaceful you feel in the next few years.
I am completely disgusted by this garbage video!
To me, a wide variety of ideas and postings is what makes Neatorama interesting. So, I support this and other postings by the blog's authors. Good job, astanhope!
I agree with Alex! Thanks.
That is pretty disturbing.
So, I'm supposed to be convinced people want peace from this? Mission failed.
GO HERE, PLEASE, AND LOOK AT IT, TOP TO BOTTOM:
http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/