welcome back

its been a while since i have reflected on one thing or another here. a good friend just started writing his thoughts down in a blog - baseballfilmlit.blogspot.com -and so i decided to go back to therapy too. it seems to me that for blogs like mine, those that are not actually read by any anybody except for offshore servers and google's own electronic brain, posting a blog entry is a lot like speaking with a therapist. a bit of forced introspection and some time to reflect on interesting observations. here goes...

i think i'll write a bit about politics and economics, but first let me put the next few entries into context for the electronic web crawlers.

1. i have been in tel aviv for a year and a half.
2. i have become increasingly a fan of economic libertarianism.
3. i am neither a war-monger nor somebody who is blind to the realities of the world.

so recently i have been trying to understand why there is so much fighting in the world - why there has always been. many people believe that the US is responsible for it all. i dont believe this is true. as per the wikipedia, there were 34 wars fought around the world from 1990-2002. there have been 9 wars from 2003-2006. there are also no less than 20 ongoing "conflicts."

in the context of the massive amounts of killings and struggles and horrific acts of violence all over the world and since the beginning of time, the unted states' recent offensives must be looked at as the unfortunate means to increased peace in the future.

from all of the wars and conflicts of the past 15 years (44 of them), the vast majority have either been fought by underdeveloped countries where negotiation wont work since neither side has much to offer the other, or by eastern european countries seeking Independence and democracy. once a democracy - or some other form of fair government, people are less likely to go to war. i believe that this is the point of the current conflicts in the middle east. and also the reason why it is so important that all of this madness ends in something productive. the people of bahrain, qatar, canada, brazil, great britain, israel, usa dont want to fight, to lose children, to cause harm. once people see hope, economic stability and a future there are better things to do than fight.

i believe the current conflict must be taken to the end. the end is a politically and economically stable middle east where the citizens are motivated by better things than fighting for ideology and religion. this could take a lot of time, but wars have fought since time's beginning. wars are not new. if this war wasn't being fought, other wars would be. and they wont stop, or at least history has not given us any reason to believe they will. and unlike many wars in the past, which were often fought for land, religion and wealth, this war, as bungled and clumsy and horrible as it has become, at least has a noble purpose. democracy is a social stabilizer. the more democracy, the less wars. we have to believe that this will work.