Saturday, August 05, 2006

In Response to a Response

First, let me apologize for my absence from le blog; I have been preoccupied with making a much-needed, and personal, transition. Also, you may now find posts of mine, happily, featured on Huffington Post, as well as OpEd News.

Recently, it was with delight, and honor, that I happened to come upon a response to my blog post, "Is Psychosis Contagious?," from "Gay in Florida," (see below), a most intelligent, and astute comment which aptly compares the psychopathic, and pseudo-religious, warfare in the Middle East to the conflict between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland. While I don't share "Gay's" conclusion that folks in Ireland have their act together just yet, they've come a long way, baby, from that nexus of road rage known as the Middle East.

Moreover, I quite agree with Gay's suggestion that my post underemphasized the "religious" aspect of the conflict; that may be because I think both Muslims and Jews have strayed so far from the tenets, and core principles of their faith that to suggest their strife has anything to do with a credo, or belief system, of any kind, is ludicrous. That said, while it may likewise be argued that Capitalism and Communism, too, are merely paper ideologies, no one can deny, or dismiss the existence of the Cold War. It doesn't take a Marxist to see that the root cause of war has little or nothing to do with political theory, and almost invariably is about economics, and basic human greed.

But, most importantly, "Gay's" conclusion that no lasting peace is possible without religious tolerance is a profound, and profoundly accurate one with which I concur. We "daughters of the American revolution," and descendants of those who came over on the first swift boat out of Britain often forget that the reason our forbears fled their mother country, overcame and displaced Native Americans to occupy the original 13 colonies was to escape the kind of religious intolerance we practice as routinely, these days, as flossing our teeth.

Best of all, it's good to see something other than Jeb Bush coming out of Florida!