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people in power believe in the ends justifying the means. This has NOTHING to do with ideals or the value of all people or tolerance or religion (these things are USED as if it does but they do not) - it has to do with controlling and leveraging our power on the global stage - like every other country needs to do in some way (the world is not a peaceful place and countries DO vie for power and influence - look at the stratfor reports - http://www.stratfor.com/about_ stratfor).

You speak of tolerance. Tolerance is not the answer. I don't want to "tolerate" other religions. I want to embrace the people IN them AND respect them for their similarities AND differences REGARDLESS of what labels they attach to themselves (i.e. where they GOT the beliefs, etc.). THIS is what the United States was built upon and THIS is what your father died fighting for in the last great war - BEFORE we had standing armies as George Washington warned us against (i.e. because they tend to get used). The religion, country, government, etc. itself is a set of contexts that a person lives within. People matter. In many ways, people are the ONLY thing that matters.

People generally however only embrace things outside of their level of awareness (world view), if it serves them. So the answer is not to preach tolerance but rather to preach increasing the awareness of people to create a more inclusive circle (which a functioning democracy depends upon). Now, THIS is the problem.

IT IS NOT PROFITABLE TO INCREASE PEOPLE'S AWARENESS

In fact, corporations and governments regularly prey and DEPEND upon people's LACK of awareness so they can continue to do EXACTLY what they want to do. Do you really think that when Upton Sinclair wrote "The Jungle" about chopped off body parts being found in the food people ate, the meat packing/preparation companies just said "ok, we will fix that"? No, there needed to be outcry from the INFORMED people and this is how the FDA was formed.

We are in a similar time now which I talk about on my blog - http://pragmaticidealist-1step tofix.blogspot.com/. I also talk about the solution to the issues you raise.

Like I said, I agree with you but you are leaving out the main concern that is so critical to this argument and since it is like the air we breathe - we hardly notice it. That main concern is the role of the Advocate - people who believe in things much like you do and seek to champion causes. Everyone advocates for something in some area of their lives and I am simply

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