Gangadhara - "Look at the Iraq war. George Bush looks at the war as part of his greater war on terror. Or so, he publicly claims. Yet, what was the real cause? Oil? Contracts? Contracts for whom? Cheney's firms? Vendetta because Saddam threatened to blow up his father? Truths, half truths that we suspect but, never will be told about officially?
So, despite protests from his own countrymen, the war went on. Was this in the best democratic tradition?
Look at Arnold Schwarzzenneger. I can never spell his name. One of his strengths was that he was married to a Kennedy. Dynasty!! Same goes for Bush."
Your "examples" are not true examples; you give a fact and then add examples of common theories. There is no interpretation in them; they are straight copies of the same theories that run amuck across the various media - and more than likely, you heard these theories from one source (at least!) from which your mind picked them up. A thought would add something new; it would make something clear that was unclear before.
A thought comes from reading something and coming to a conclusion of one's own - for example, if you had never heard any of these theories before, and you came up with the IDEA that perhaps Bush's intentions were more fully towards profiting from Iraq's oil than in whatever else (mind though, this is still only an IDEA, not yet a thought), then you worked through the facts that you know about Bush's past actions, etc.(this could happen in a second or over an undetermined amount of time) until you came to the conclusion (i.e., THOUGHT) that, yes, in fact Bush did intend to acquire Iraq's oil based on Facts A, B, C, etc. ... THIS is a thought, although a small one. At least, though, a developed thought. Undeveloped thoughts are not really thoughts; they are IDEAS. And ideas are common. THOUGHTS are not... especially in this world.
Thoughts can be explained, or developed further. Ideas can't really; one just has them, like the idea to go to the park. (But please let me know if you think this IS, in fact, a thought. If so, we're on completely different pages.)
Thoughts take time; thoughts take effort. Ideas are more like questions - they could be good or poor ideas, as will inevitably be determined either by experience or by investigation.
Thoughts take perception; they are the expressions of what one sees in reality. Ideas are of the mind; they take into account little or nothing of reality, as in the idea of little green martians eating the green cheese of the moon (Realities: a being, the act of a being eating, the object of the moon.)
Ideas are easy to come by. Everyone has ideas; and ideas are easily propigated, especially by way of media. But thoughts are neither easy to have nor easily propigated; one must be able to think in order to express a thought to another person, even if the thought was first expressed by someone else, in which case the thought becomes one's own.
One even must be in a mode of thinking about the subject at hand in order to receive thoughts from others.
So, your "thoughts" are not thoughts, by my standards. They are merely a culmination of ideas, many of which I have heard a hundred times before from a hundred different sources. And, to me, ideas - especially those which are repeated to infinity - are boring. They circle around getting nowhere; accomplishing nothing. Ideas stir people up; and I find this stirring distrubing, unnecessary, and unproductive.
For instance, what good are you accomplishing in stirring people against democracy, even in your small ways? If people became stirred enough, perhaps they would decide to do away with democracy - then what? Dictatorship? Communism? Totalitarianism? Is this good? By your own admission, no.
This is why I ask for thoughts - original thoughts (which, actually , is a redundancy). Do you have any? Does anyone here? Is anyone actually even interested in thoughts... or just in ideas?
