Posts by Lilith __
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Hard News: War, now and then, in reply to BenWilson,
I think it’s twisting the term “pacifism” to include designing nuclear weapons that end up getting used to kill vast numbers of civilians
OK Einstein was never involved in designing the bomb. What he did do was publicise German bomb-making efforts and urged the US to develop their own. This he said he later regretted.
But leaving his biography aside and just looking at his words:
I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace. Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war.
I think it’s an interesting point that if a few people refuse military service they are vilified, but if a lot of people refuse, the military action can’t go ahead. According to this, National Service was abandoned in NZ in 1972 because of lobbying and civil disobedience.
Non-violent resistance can be a powerful force for change, that’s been successful in many times and places. Last year’s Egyptian uprising is a good example.
The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.
An example of united and non-violent action in wartime was the rescue of the Danish Jews during WW2. Civilians at all levels of Danish society acted co-operatively to alert, protect, and smuggle the Jews out of Denmark to Sweden. Consequently, very few Danish Jews were caught or killed by the Nazis.
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Hard News: War, now and then, in reply to Joe Wylie,
VE (Victory Empire) event
Victory over Japan in the Pacific was obviously what concerned NZ's security and sovereignty directly.
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Hard News: War, now and then, in reply to BenWilson,
Wow. Nice to know what God’s purposes are.
I read that as being deliberately cagey. He was neither confirming nor denying whether he would pray for England
I think it's a wonderful answer. The answer they were probably expecting was, "Yes, I will pray for England." But he answered in his own independent way.
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Stunning, Alex, thank you!
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Einstein said:
I am not only a pacifist but a militant pacifist. I am willing to fight for peace. Nothing will end war unless the people themselves refuse to go to war.
and
The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.
Thoughts?
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Hard News: War, now and then, in reply to John Madden,
The constant wheeling out of the conscientious objector and the faint hint that this was real heroism begins to grate these days. I could never resolve whether it took more guts to go or not to go but bailing out was not braver.
You do know that in WW1 conscientious objectors were tortured on the front lines, and sometimes executed as an "example"? Yes, it was a long time ago, but if we go on remembering Gallipoli I think we have to go on remembering that, too.
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It’s all about gender ratio and equal opportunities, right?
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Up Front: Towards a Sex-Positive Utopia, in reply to Chris Waugh,
the problem is the people, not the tools they use.
I get what you’re saying. But I do think language (particularly exclusive/inclusive language) makes a difference to how we perceive and act in the world.
Instead of being neutral agents transparently revealing the meaning we want to communicate, words carry their own rich histories and associations with them. This is the beauty of language as well as its limitation.
Changing some of the words we use is a small part of creating social change, but I think it does matter.
I’d like to not always be saying “he” or “she”, and much as I find “they” inelegant, I do use that sometimes. I dislike always having to divide up the world into female and male, it’s so seldom relevant. Of all the ways we can divide society, that’s the one in just about every sentence we use.
I’m not saying gender is meaningless or unimportant. But is femaleness or maleness the single most important characteristic any of us has?
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Up Front: Towards a Sex-Positive Utopia, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Some women seem lost in shallow and sneering hedonism.
See, I'd reply sneeringly to that but I'm so busy with my shallow hedonism.
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Up Front: Towards a Sex-Positive Utopia, in reply to Chris Waugh,
Gender-inflected nouns are one thing*, but isn't non-inclusive language a different issue? Mankind, chairman, etc etc....
*actually, they are many things! Unfortunately I'm too tired to write a better sentence.