@MirCat - my extra post is possibly superfluous, as @Parsifal has written some good responses.
I have fallen foul of people on here and other threads, but in my heart I am always willing to see the other person's point of view - but don't always express that in my writing - as the tone of posts here is - generally - combative. It's the push and thrust of verbal battle which seems to get the juices flowing and I am not immune to that either, but have learnt, to re-read my posts, to consider what the other person might be thinking, would he/she be hurt, upset etc.?! But I am a woman, men - generally - don't do that sort of thing - they do like the battle, they like to win, or at least like to think they are winning.
As to what is going on in the Middle East now, it is a dreadful thing, but it has been brewing for so long, and with participation of the West, there will never be a total winner, it will go on festering and brewing until - collectively - some memories are lost and buried and the slow growth of new ideas, maybe loves even, will win out. My fear is that the West (and maybe East too) will interfere to the extent that a bigger conflagration could ensue.
I personally think religion is a canker!
- but we do have religions, multiple ones, we suffer them, we think 'we are right' and 'they are wrong, they have the wrong g.d! We have the right g.d who is going to reward us" and all that nonsense and that goes for Jews, Christians, Muslims and any other ism you want to mention - for that to change we need a quantum leap in human intelligence. Will it happen? I believe it will happen, probably not in my lifetime, but the progress of evolution will eventually happen in our minds and brains, too.
Re Jews and social revolutionaries of the early 20th century?! - I have no idea why so many socialists/communists were of Jewish background, fact is most of them were not practicing Jews - they had seen the evils of religion before they took up the cudgels to change society, it was most likely their educated, background, their critical thinking - and perhaps being part of an outsider group, too - which brought them to new insights - society, societies always rely on new ideas (and not always good ones either) to evolve!!! Jewish people were/are also heavily represented in the healing and teaching professions, also in journalism - never forget that. (I am not Jewish btw, but have Jewish friends, and I appreciate them very much!).
We are, collectively, in the middle of huge changes, yet the old 'capitalists' still persist in remaining within the old battle lines, which says: "us, the western capitalist system are here, on the good side - the eastern/communist system is way over there and they are our enemies - when capitalism has long since left 'the building'.
What we have is a kind of corporate dictatorship, which caters for most of our needs, just leaving us enough to be 'happy', to be drugged - whilst the corporations make the rules of our world, deplete our world, rape our world, bribe us into 'needs' we don't even have, so they can go on making huge profits for their anonymous owners (some of us are even here on HC posting . . . . . and while all this is happening we are stuck in an oilslick of entertainment, music, social media'; our youth's enthusiasm and capacity for renewal is siphoned off into useless activities 'on-line'; their peacock-nature is catered to in unprecedented ways and their capacity for changing our society for the better is thus neutralised, nullified. We are stuck IMO. Sounds dramatic - but hopefully this is just my world view and I am wrong. I am actually hoping I am wrong!
re Hollywood movies (Oppenheimer) etc. - whatever they present, is almost always skewed by the worldview of the producer, the actors even - you have to learn to look past that - same applies to newspaper articles or anything out in the public arena - we are all caught up in our own world-view, our own thinking and tend to adjust the world to that, rather than the other way round!) Take care Taurisk
