Reply #36: is the world going down the toilet

[hfojvt]

just because of the war, or is western society insane for deeper reasons? Were we just as insane in October of 2000? Would we be just as insane if Gore had been sworn in on Jan 20,2001?

What makes the people around me robots? Because they watch alot of TV or drink alot of beer? What would make life less meaningless and/or boring?

You wrote: "What can be of interest in this particular example- Cindy Sheehan- is to consider not only those who claim to be against the war but disparage or disagree with her tactics, they are to my mind experiencing great cognitive dissonance and their position is abhorrent"

I see neither cognitive dissonance nor abhorrence. It is an evaluation of tactics. Being in the anti-war crowd does not mean that everything anybody else in the anti-war crowd does is going to be seen as helping the cause. Leaving Cindy out of it, I said the same type of thing as the beginning. In Feb. 2003 I went to an anti-war march in Lawrence, Kansas. Many of the signs said things like "War begins with a Dubya" and "a village in Texas is missing its idiot". Which to me, hurt the cause. It turned into a rally that said "we hate Bush" instead of a rally that would say "we hate war". The 2nd message is more to the point and more inclusive, especially in a red state.