Thankful for the good Time in which to live

I have to be thankful for the time period in which I spent my life, born in 1941 the Generation before me (like my parents) had to live through Great Depressions, two World Wars and the Flu academic of 1918-1920. My generation and the ones just after it lived their lives during the Golden age in west especially the United States thanks in large part to the cold war which gave birth to the Industrial Complex and Bank credit that gave birth to credit cards. Our Generations had a good time taken advantage buying big fast gas burning cars, building large tracks of suburban single home developments and eating fast foods. We certainly had a good time while we were the Global Market, but as companies themselves became Global sending jobs from the United States to slave labor nations there by lowering their cost, so unfortunately we spent for the now instead of building a nation that can compete in future generations. China is now investing in technologies for the 21^st century our congress debates about issues we should have solved 60 years ago.

The War to End All Wars

World War one ended ninety-one years ago today which as most war was completely unnecessary war between cousins, but cost the lives of millions of common working people. Generals in that war use the wrong tactics which against new technologies like the machine gun cost them so many men they had to send back first to London then later to Washington for more troops. If this sounds familiar it is for today's Generals are still asking for more troops which shows that in the view of Generals the Value of the common Soldier has not gone up in 91 years.

The Islamic Mind set

There has been a lot of talk lately about how the Muslims view those of other religions, who they seem to think it alright or even God's will for them to kill. They view the wars in the Middle East has wars between Christians/Jews and Muslims and not has most Westerners see it in non-religionist terms. The only way peace can come to the Middle East is for this mind set to change, but you can't change anybody's mind with bombs or occupying their lands. Now I am no expert on the Middle East, but it seems to me that there are more reasonable people of the Islamic faith that can live in harmony with the rest of the world community. If we help these more reasonable people have better live for themselves and their families the likes of the Taliban or Al Qaeda would fade away. It might seem a lot slower way to go than just bombing them, but it is the only way that might work while being safer for all.

Western Europeans' went through a similar phase from about the 1500's to today where a lot of people died for or because of the faith, we are now slowly evolving out of that mind set as the growing Anti-War Movement attest to throughout the Western World. The only thing we can do is to help this same respect for human life that is just now taken hold in our community will grow faster in the Islamic community.