Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Neocon who wrote (72523)	1/18/2000 3:40:00 AM
From: Edwarda	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Check out the edit that I added! <VBG> A very small but interesting anecdotal illustration: When Louis VII went on Crusade in 1147, he had to take his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine, because there was some question as to whether her vassals in Acquitaine and Poitou would follow him without her. Louis loathed the freewheeling ways and presence of converted Saracens (the Pullani) at the court of Antioch, where they stopped at a crucial point in the Crusade. At this point, Louis could have won a crucial victory by striking at Edessa, then in Saracen hands, which would have secured Antioch, whose position, although temporarily secure, was going to be difficult to continue to defend with the Saracens holding Edessa. Mind you, Jerusalem was not in danger militarily at the time, although losing Antioch would eventually endanger Jerusalem. Instead, Louis chose to go with his forces to Jerusalem because of its holiness to him and his shock at the tolerance for Pullani and even Saracens in Antioch. And he doomed yet another Crusade by so doing. Politics consist of people acting and they act as full people, with all their insight and all their baggage. "Psycho-politics" went into totally silly excesses, yet a fundamental postulate holds, I think: History to be understood has to be be seen as more than a sweep of events or dialectic--illustrative as they may be as ways to consider, debate, and evaluate. Religious beliefs and how they are lived out in their time are an important part of understanding are vital to understanding history and one another today. I should point out that religious beliefs are not the only area in which we need to understand context to get past simply throwing stuff and comprehend. I'm watching the ongoing debate on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc. and--at the risk of sounding as though I am commenting in a third-party way, I want to shake everyone involved. I want to scream at the top of my lungs, you are ALL right as far as it goes, but you are not going far enough. What we have is the given. It is not at all what the original conception was, a safety net rather than a pension. (BTW, anyone trying to live<i/> on Social Security is not a happy camper by any means.) What I am looking for is a suggestion for a way out of the trap that has grown. Raising the age of retirement doesn't work very well in an environment of consolidation. BTW, and I should post this to Lizzie as well, I do not know anyone who fits her descriptions. Among my friends and family, the elderly have remained enormously supportive--monetarily and otherwise--of everyone who is close. Not simply family, anyone in need; my Uncle Raymond tithed himself, as I do--and then we...just help out. [Edit: The point of italics' starting and ending is proving challenging at this hour. I apologize for any incongruities or nonsense.]