With the Cross of Jesus, Marching as Before!

The Europeans in the Middle Ages began the Holy War known then as the Crusades.  It was launched against the Infidel in the Middle East.  The Crusades netted land and booty as their reward.

Somehow, we've carried on their tradition.  Interested in the Middle East for reasons of oil, we've become embued with a hunger to conquer, even destroy the Infidel, wherever he be in the area.  It probably began for us in the Vietnam War, where we were attempting to protect the Catholics in South Vietnam.  Our cause was just, but we were not sufficiently inspired to conquer the heathen of the North!  May God forgive our lack of courage!

It is true there were a handful of Al Queda who broke through our defense network in 9/11.  The event has led to an overhaul, much needed, of our intelligence agencies.  But we are not after the Terrorist in the Middle East, because we leave Pakistan alone; and do not invade Yemen.  No, we are after the Infidel.  We search him out in Iraq, Afghanistan, and await the day when we destroy him in Iran.  There is no place he can hide from our might, for we come in the name of Jesus, the Christ, the Savior of the World.  We shall aid the Zionist to conquer the Infidel in the Holy Land, even as we spread the Truth of the Gospel among the Infidel in other Middle Eastern lands.  We shall courageously withstand the arrows the Infidel aims at us.  In the Name of Jesus, Infidel, bow down before the true and lasting God and surrender, for your Jihad is nothing to compare with ours!

Is this what the United States has become?  Is this what history shall record?  The craziness of a people gone mad with religious zeal?          

John Dewey's "Keep 'Em Busy, Charlie!"

I attend a current events class at the Osher Lifelong Learning Center of the University of Nevada, Reno.  This past week we got thinking about the significance of the phenomenon of a rising educated populace all around the world; and how the common man in countries once deemed "primitive" is demanding, more and more, a piece of the action and a share of the world's goodies.

What's the alternative?  Suppose the demands of the commoner aren't heeded.  We envisioned unrest, class warfare, even war with guns and missiles deployed. 

In any case, the point to human existence, if there is one, is to be kept busy doing what man's developed potentials enable him to do.  That point was hammered home by the American philosopher John Dewey, who studied the common man seriously.

I think since there's so many educated persons the world over; and the numbers are growing exponentially, they clearly need to be kept busy doing the things they are trained to do.  Nations of the world through such organizations as G20 must find the wherewithal to enable the citizens of the world to interact with respect to their training--to prevent worldwide holocaust, caused by the discontent of an educated populace aimlessly shunted about.