Do you really feel that the US way is right?

[andycapp]

Redwolf,

I disagree with your linkage of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict as one of the motivating factors for the September 11 atrocities committed by members of Bin Laden's al Qaeda network - the original linkage was afterthought on Bin Laden's behalf, for propaganda purposes, and as an attempt to justify the atrocities.

If you look at Bin Laden's own statements it is quite clear that the motivation is a hatred of non-muslims and the desire to impose his fundamentalist view of Islam on others. His view of the world, and others like him, owes more to the problems within the Islamic world than any actions of America and the West.

I would ask you to consider the following articles written by Anwar Ibrahim and Salman Rushdie

www.freeanwar.com/articles/article111001.html and www.theage.com.au/news/state/2001/11/06FFX1WH04NTC.html

 

[sonorakitch]

Redwolf,

I am not trying to make petty offences towards you. Just trying to illustrate that the use of "disenfranchisement" is not applicable to your argument. Please reread my post to find that out.


I don't think I need to respond to your initial comments about the U.S. 'disenfranchising' people in the middle east. AndyCapp's article does a good job of this. But:

"A western population getting rich off of their backs... And the fact is that we do nothing to change it - we don't even CARE - as can be witnessed by our ongoing debate."

You are right: there is nothing that we can do to change this. There will always be poor people on this earth: there will always be people that have to make shoes, attempt to cultivate an unforbidding place (like Afghanistan), and there will always be people that die of malnutrition. Unfortunatley, this will never change. The best we can do is provide them with jobs to feed their families (which seasonal farming does not do) and attempt to bring their status to a competitive platform. MNC's do this. I said it before (you did not address any of it) that globalization brings nations out of the 18th century. So, in short, hopefully we can continue providing them with some sort of better opportunity.

"How about oil? What is a barrel of oil worth right now? like $25 a barrel?! That's RIDICULOUSLY cheap when you consider the fact that it is a non-renewable resource and we only have enough for the next 50 years or so at current consumption levels."

So you are suggesting we call up OPEC and ask them to raise their prices to $50 a barrell in order to be "humanitarian"? Again, a unrealistic and rather absurd proposal.

"An alternative to globalization? I would like to see a world where corporations can not sell items in the western democracies that are made from slave labour in the third world.

It wouldn't be the BEST solution and maybe our standard of living would decrease... but it is the RIGHT solution. What is more important? People's lives or money? IF the answer is money than I'm afraid there is no point in us arguing anymore."

I see your point. It is commendable, but it won't happen, so lets try to make the system work for them the way it is supposed to.........the way it worked in North America.

Scrimshaw,

Disenfranchisement means to take away the rights of others. It is in Websters....in the blue paperback...on page 177. I am just asking how the U.S. has robbed the rights of any member of Al Queda. I think it is proposterous to suggest we have. Redwolf could have used another word, like "No wonder why people who feel threatened by America fly planes into buildings", or "No wonder people that hate the U.S. because the Saudi government asked for its protection when Iraq was planning to invade the Arabian Penninsula fly planes into buildings".

"That's the problem with some(not all) americans on this board. Anything that opposes your views (which are often garbage as well) must be garbage. "

Perhaps re-read my post. I was simply being sarcastic. Redwolf made a comment on how he hates all Americans that disagree with him. I actually like Canadians very much, respect their opinions, and love the country. And I don't think anybodys points are garbage as long as they are not baseless.

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Again, you have provided no alternative to globalization. Can you?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Just because we can't think of anything better doesn't make it a good thing. Lot's of crappy ideas are still used simply because we can't think of another way yet."

My point exactly. How can you suggest to change a system if you have no alternative? I am merely suggesting that before you consider one system to be faulty, attempt to find something else that will work better, or think up one yourself. Thats all.

~Chris

 

[BlueMonday]

Originally posted by rmsharpe
At least the next time that OPEC tries to screw with us, we've got ANWAR to drill in.

Please...PLEASE tell me you don't support the opening of ANWR to the butt-****ers at Exxon, Mobil, and Shell.

 

[sonorakitch]

animepornstar-

"american helicopters killed over 2000 civilians in panama city when they were hunting noriega."

Do you have any proof for this? I would absolutely love to see this.

~Chris

 

[amadeus]

Originally posted by BlueMonday


Please...PLEASE tell me you don't support the opening of ANWR to the butt-****ers at Exxon, Mobil, and Shell.

I very much support the drilling of ANWAR.

Some things you should be aware of, is that:

First, the land used for drilling would be about 1/10,000th of the land there.

Second, the United States is better at being responsible when it concerns protecting the environment than, say, Iran. Do you really think the Iranian government is going to care how many animals they kill when they put up new oil facilities? Probably not.

Oil has to come from somewhere, it may as well come at a lower social, economical, and environmental price.

 

[Juize]

Originally posted by rmsharpe


I very much support the drilling of ANWAR.

Some things you should be aware of, is that:

First, the land used for drilling would be about 1/10,000th of the land there.

Second, the United States is better at being responsible when it concerns protecting the environment than, say, Iran. Do you really think the Iranian government is going to care how many animals they kill when they put up new oil facilities? Probably not.

Oil has to come from somewhere, it may as well come at a lower social, economical, and environmental price.

... guess what happened to this post?

It was edited! Bet you didn't guessed that!

 

[SunTzu]

Noriega was running drugs into america. We stopped that.
And i don't remember any such number like that.
Oh wait i do remember, Sweden murdered 4,000 harmless russians during world war 2.
i remember reading it somewhere so its true

 

[SunTzu]

I support the drilling in Alaska. I have an idea!
Lets take over Afghanistan. i mean hell there's nothing useful there anyways.
Lets turn it into a huge ZOO!
Since we can now clone human embryo's successfully, lets start cloning the hell out of endangered species and move them to the Afghanistan Zoo.
And let the drilling begin! mwhahaahahahahaha *cough* sorry got carried away

 

[animepornstar]

Originally posted by sonorakitch
animepornstar-

"american helicopters killed over 2000 civilians in panama city when they were hunting noriega."

Do you have any proof for this? I would absolutely love to see this.

~Chris

well, it´s impossible to prove it but The Central American Human Rights commission [CODEHUCA] studied the invasion and reached the following conclusions:

1) The U.S. Army used highly sophisticated and experimental weapons against unarmed civilian populations;

2) Estimates of the number of non- combatants killed run from as few as 2200 to as high as 4000 Many of the mostly black victims were residents of the El Chorrillos slum which was next to the Panamanian military headquarters and was razed to the ground in the attack;

3) U.S. efforts to obscure the actual death toll included massive incineration of corpses prior to identification, burial in mass graves prior to identification, and U.S. military control of administrative offices of hospitals and morgues;

4) "A thorough, well-planned propaganda campaign has been implemented by U.S. authorities to... deny the brutality and extensive human and material costs of the invasion." (CODEHUCA report submitted to Americas Watch 6/5/90)

 

[Scrimshaw]

Sonorakitch,

Thanks for the definition but I don't really care as I already knew that. The problem is with rewolfs argument, not his english if you feel the afgan people were not disenfranchised. For the record I feel that word is quite applicable to his argument if you read all of his post.

I am merely suggesting that before you consider one system to be faulty, attempt to find something else that will work better, or think up one yourself. Thats all.

The system is still faulty no matter if we have an alternative or not. We aren't here in this forum to solve the worlds problems, only to complain about them it seems sometimes.

Redwolf,

An alternative to globalization? I would like to see a world where corporations can not sell items in the western democracies that are made from slave labour in the third world.

That's not really an alternative. You only suggest a kind of moral code on countries that import foreign made goods. I wish they could do that as well but it'll never happen. As long as there's a deal to be had from others poverty I feel they'll continue.

 

[RedWolf]

Originally posted by SunTzu
Noriega was running drugs into america. We stopped that.
And i don't remember any such number like that.
Oh wait i do remember, Sweden murdered 4,000 harmless russians during world war 2.
i remember reading it somewhere so its true

Panama doesn't have a drug problem - America has the drug problem.

I don't think that gives you the right to invade a foreign country.

(When i say America in this context i don't just mean the US... I mean America as in North America. Sorry)

 

[RedWolf]

Oh crap.

I had a huge intelligently written post... It was an olive branch of sorts... a compromise and an explanation.

But i was opening a jpg through windows explorer and it opened in my civfanatics browser.

I looked at the jpg (it was an amusing picture of George Bush and monkey face expressions)... closed it down without thinking and went back to writing my post...

but "Oh wait... I only have ONE browser window open now - and it has my hotmail account open in it? Where is my civfanatics window?... Oh crap"

So it looks like it's gone but i think i will try to write it again... but i need some sleep for now.

(i swear I'm too dumb sometimes to use computers)

 

[Sultan Bhargash]

What a disturbing thread! There is truly nothing more sad than the ideological fight between left and right wing in the free world. It really hampers civilization's ability to progress when those who would help the world (the left wing) are made to suffer for their humanity and those who would advance the opportunities for self help (the right wing) are made to waste all their time in vicious negatism. And I dont see a way out, since the "middle" pioneered by Bush, Clinton, and Bush is really a wasteland where every positive quality of right and left is subverted to amoral plutocracy. What a hassle. That being said, I offer my last two cents before unsubscribing to this awful thread: about ANWAR: the oil up there is a 180 day supply at best, not the answer to our dependency on OPEC, which actually only supplies about 4% of our oil anyway. YOu wouldnt miss the OPEC Oil if America phased in an intellegent standard of 30 miles to the gallon, a standard we would not need to meet until 2012. And you dont miss the opec oil - gas is about a dollar a gallon, same as Reagan era - and you wont because we are "clearing" Afghanistan out to build a pipeline from the friendly Russian republics to a big fat tanker in the once coral-friendly gulf. So stay the F*** out of ANWAR (and by the way, they also want Yosemite, and what is next?) and start working on them damn solar cars Jimmy Carter used to tell us about!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Lefty Scaevola]

Originally posted by RedWolf

Panama doesn't have a drug problem - America has the drug problem.
I don't think that gives you the right to invade a foreign country.

Noriega declared war on the USA, on international television (do you not remeber him pounding on the podium with a machete, declaring that a state of war exists?), weeks before the USA responded with an invasion. His forces also began the hostilites, albeit at a pitifully small level.

 

[amadeus]

Originally posted by Sultan Bhargash
and start working on them damn solar cars Jimmy Carter used to tell us about!!!!!!!!!!

You don't know much about energy, do you?

Solar power is a thing of the past.

Nobody is realistically going to use solar power, ever.

It's going to be making vehicles more efficient, and the development of fusion power.

 

[SunTzu]

North America has a huge drug problem.
But most of the drugs are brought in through mexico from Latin America and South America.

 

[allan]

First off: definition of "slave", from my Webster's: "a person held in servitude as property."

The MNCs certainly aren't above criticism (no one is), but they do not practice slavery. So let's quit bantering about this term for whatever propaganda purposes....

Now then, as Sonorakitsch said (without effective rebuttal, so far anyway), before MNCs started opening up shop in these various third world countries, much of those they hired were doing seasonal agricultural work WITHOUT a fixed wage--i.e. without an income they could count on. And even in good times, that old fluctuating income was often less. Why do you think so many rural folk migrate to the cities throughout the third world? If MNCs were making things worse for them, would they come? Do you presume these people as stupid or something? Fact is, the people clamor and compete vigorously for the kinds of jobs the MNCs provide--hardly the same as being slaves captured at gunpoint and forced to be someone's property in a far off land.

Economic prosperity cannot happen overnight, but incrementally. And the MNCs are providing a net incremental increase in the economic progress and well-being of the working poor in the third world. And in the future, these standards of living will continue to increase incrementally, each generation living better than the last, just like they did in the now-developed Western powers when they were first industrializing.

Yes it does seem unfair that some countries are behind us, that we all didn't start the same progressions at the same time. But there is really nothing that can be done about it, which is why so many critics of MNCs are at a loss to provide such a solution. Instead they use emotionally-charged language like "slavery" and "greed" and "blood money" and whatnot, to bash at entities and people they do not like for whatever reason.

Constructive criticism means offering solutions, or at least brainstorming for possible alternatives. Anything else is useless bluster.

To be fair, Red Wolf did offer an alternative, which was to disallow sales of products made by MNCs in third-world countries that practice "slavery"--but aside from the fact that none of them practice slavery, even if we were to follow his loose use of the word his proposal would basically cut out the market that these workers, who have struggled to better their lot in life by seeking these jobs and abandoning the fields, depend precariously on. In other words, send them back to the fields.... Make their lives worse again, but at least WE in the West won't be "participating" in their "exploitation" anymore. We can salve ourselves with that while even MORE people struggle more hopelessly and starve--how nice.

I for one have visited many third-world countries, making friends in a lot of cases with laborers and skilled factory workers, and I for one would not like to see their strides out of destitution be reversed. If their way out is through an MNC plant, so be it. They for the most part seem damned proud to be making a dependable wage for once, even if that wage is less than what we in the developed world would accept. Who am I to deny them their livelihood?

 

[CornMaster]

Originally posted by rmsharpe


You don't know much about energy, do you?

Solar power is a thing of the past.

Nobody is realistically going to use solar power, ever.

It's going to be making vehicles more efficient, and the development of fusion power.

I just read that Malasaya (sp?) just spent $600 million dollars on a new environment friendly Solar Power Plant. So that shows, it's not all in the past. Tidal power is however. And your right about fusion power being the next great leap forward!!

But water driven cars are what I want to see!!

 

[sonorakitch]

Allan,

Excellent post. I completely agree with you.

~Chris

 

[RedWolf]

Originally posted by allan

Economic prosperity cannot happen overnight, but incrementally. And the MNCs are providing a net incremental increase in the economic progress and well-being of the working poor in the third world. And in the future, these standards of living will continue to increase incrementally, each generation living better than the last, just like they did in the now-developed Western powers when they were first industrializing.

Yes it does seem unfair that some countries are behind us, that we all didn't start the same progressions at the same time. But there is really nothing that can be done about it, which is why so many critics of MNCs are at a loss to provide such a solution. Instead they use emotionally-charged language like "slavery" and "greed" and "blood money" and whatnot, to bash at entities and people they do not like for whatever reason.

But you're missing my point... These corporations make BILLIONS AND BILLIONS of dollars every year. Yet their workers live in mud shacks and barely have enough food to survive... Walmart could afford to pay it's factory workers a wage that allowed them to buy enough food, shelter, and clothing for their families but they DON'T. And there lies the problem in my mind - these people MAY be better off with MNC's but they are still being exploited while the corporation gets filthy rich. Why is there not a more even share of the wealth? Greed is the reason. One entity gets rich while other PEOPLE starve. They can pretend that they're doing it "for the good of the third world" but frankly it just isn't true. The reason is greed.

Multi-nationals have no interest in seeing the economic conditions of the third world improve as it would cut into their profits.

Walmart won't even pay it's workers HERE a decent wage so why would it do it somewhere else? I heard once that almost 40% of Walmart employees are on food stamps in the US. It makes me sick. There's the American dream for you. (also the canadian dream - they pay just as badly here)