The world's in a sad state. How's everybody feeling?

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I don't watch CNN. I sometimes visit the site, but I usually read other (better) sources). I skim through the headlines, follow one or two stories for awhile. I don't watch TV. I have been paying closer attention to the news in the last few years and there are more conflicts and disasters presently - there are more going on at once than I can ever remember. And the Russia Ukraine stuff is scarey too (with the plane going down too) but I was a teenager when the cold war ended and it was already not so cold, attitudes were friendlier- by the time it did so I have only slight memory of that collective Russia phobia. As for the rest... spin the bottle on a map....
 
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Locations[1] of ongoing conflicts around the world, July 2014
Major wars and civil unrest, 1,000+ deaths per year
Minor skirmishes and conflicts, fewer than 1000 deaths per year
The following is a list of ongoing armed conflicts that are taking
 
@crazyheart ...that's a lot of hot and heating spots. The list didn't copy. In Syria alone there have been well over 100,000 deaths in 4 years. That alone is well over 1000 per year. And the Gaza/ Israel conflict has had around 600 deaths in 2 weeks. Russia/ Ukraine, I don't know what the count is but that plane went down because of the conflict even if it wasn't at all involved - collateral damage. It's horrible. And then there are the other 'casualties of war" the non-physical ones, like rights and freedoms - they go out the window as the world gets more tense.
 
I was just reading in the Guardian that a Netherlands official wanted Putin's daughter deported from the Netherlands. She lives there with her Dutch boyfriend. My first thought was that, while I understand the nation's grief and anger over the tragedy, the plane incident has nothing to do with her. Secondly, she's his daughter and Western Europe is likely safer with her there...he won't cut off the gas...then I went on to read that this person apologized for his remarks, and thought, "well that's a relief". I'll take any little but of good news I can find. :)
 
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Not only that, but I somehow just feel better reading that his daughter lives in Western Europe with a Dutch boyfriend. She obviously likes the west and westerners, and he let her be there with her boyfriend - I know she's an adult but I am sure if he didn't want her to he has power to stop her. Plus, it's a non-traditional/ inter cultural relationship. Puts things in a better perspective.
 
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If you feel bad about the state of the world I suggest you start looking at the actually figures of current wars and insurrections going on and compare them to fifteen years ago or thirty years ago or a hundred years ago.

It used to be you just didn't hear about the bad stuff at all. If a high school's worth of girls got kidnapped by rebel troops in Africa it never made the news. If some dictator in Asia rounded up and imprisoned a thousand people it wasn't interesting enough to reach the media in our part of the world.

There are a lot fewer wars and insurrections going on now than there were in years past. The body count in these wars is getting smaller and smaller. The difference is that we are hearing about them and hearing the details. It is far easier to overlook an article that says "Shelling in Gaza" as opposed to one that says "Fifteen killed at UN school in Gaza" So the news is sounding so much worse than it used to because it is actually becoming so much more detailed.
 
This.

And remember, on a bad day in WWI, 20,000 men would go over the top, get mowed down, and 10,000 would run back.

10,000 letters would soon be sent out to 10,000 sets of parents. The generals would remark, "I say, that went decidedly poorly!" and call for another 10,000 men to be sent to the front lines from the reserves to try it again a couple days later.

The battle would be covered with a couple of lines in the papers, talking about their gallantry.

Life is still not worth what we think it should be worth. Countries are still being lead by aggressive military types, crooks, megalomaniacs, and dangerously incompetent fools. But our ancestors had it worse.
 
Did as many civilians die? Maybe so. But not when battles were fought on battlefields. One thing we didn't have in WW1 was the military 'technology' that puts everybody at risk.
 
dead world.jpg As long as Private Central Banks are allowed to exist, inevitably as the night follows day there will be poverty, hopelessness, and millions of deaths in endless World Wars, until the Earth itself is sacrificed in flames to Mammon.
 
Nobody uses the word "Mammon". It's a stupid made-up word, like "Moroni".

If you want to blame wealth or greed, blame wealth or greed - words that people actually use.
 
I agree with chansen. He's got a point. Wealth, money, greed, a combo thereof, is what mammon means. We might as well say that. Saying Mammon, depending on your audience, just sounds a bit weird, unless we're quoting a bible verse directly. A lot of people won't know what the heck it means and so you'll alienate them before any point gets across, IMO. But I knew what you meant.

However, I still think they've (the people in control of the weapons) got to agree to lay the weapons down before agreeing to stop buying and selling them. No fair negotiations about resources or anything else can really happen under threat of violence. Peace has to come first.
 
Just because chansen is calling me a Nobody because I chose to use the 'stupid made-up word' Mammon instead of the word Money does not negate the fact that money... man's invention ... is the ruler of war and peace, the power of powers, the one weapon superior to all other weapons, an enthroned abstraction which controls and manipulates most of our lives.
 
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