retired_huseyinek

My Bad on the My Bad

retired_raistlin1979

That Wikipedia link on Jean Baudrillard is really fascinating. I'm not sure I agree with it 100% (Kuwait *was* freed from Iraqi occupation), but there's a large grain of truth to what he says. America was at war, yet practically no one died from combat. Sadamm was not overthrown or weakened enough to lose power. And CNN certainly helped display that we were at war with the first real-time media coverage of it.

Oddly enough, Bush Sr. failed to gain re-election off the "victorious" first Gulf War, whil Dubya managed to get re-elected off an atrocious showing in the Iraqi occupation. Go figure.

retired_lapepe

I managed to look up the poll that Chomsky probably referred to. Linky 1 and linky 2.

The comments on the poll don't actually say how many wanted them to stay, but that less than 1% believe the occupation has led to increased security. It's more or less the same thing though. 82% are "strongly opposed" to their presense.

Kallinan,
what you forget is that the US has supported numerous dictorships across the globe, and actually overthrown or helped to overthrow democratic regimes. I think Guatemala in 1954 was on of the first democratically regimes they overthrew, at least since WWII. The latest they overthrew was Haiti, and they tried to overthrow Venezuela in 2002 through a military coup. I'm reading for an exam now about democracy, and the curriculum mentioned for instance that the dictatorship in South Korea from 1948-1960 "was largely upheld through its legitimation by the US". That's a quote from the curriculum. About the Phillipines: "US occupation between 1899 and 1945". Cuba has much of the same story. Spain occupied it, then the US threw them out and occupied it from around 1900. This was more or less upheld, although through client regimes (as they are setting up in Iraq now) up to the Revolution there. This is probably one of the reasons they have put all sorts of blockades and santions against Cuba since. And there are many other stories like this. Especially in Asia, Mid-East and South-America. Just look at today's world for instance. The Saudi regime is one of the most brutal in the world, but it is legitimized by the US, surely because of the huge oil reserves. There are many such examples. "US moral high ground" is a powerful illusion. Perhaps this is what Baudrillard fellow was talking about.

Dr Hook,
no I'm not a Marxist. I think there are things in marxism that don't sound all bad, and compared with capitalism, marxism surely is the lesser evil. But I am no marxist or communist or anything like that. To be honest I have no idea how to classify myself, perhaps democrat is the best, but that word has almost no meaning now, so it's kinda useless.

You are of course correct that today's "capitalism" isn't really capitalism. This is I think because proper capitalism simply can't work. Nothing will get off the ground without public money. Forget about all kinds of research and science besically. Only the biggest corporatins can afford their own R&D, and they only spend in on areas they know will bring big returns, eg Viagra. There is almost no R&D on AIDS medicine and diseases Africa are suffering from, simply because they don't have the money to buy the drugs, and the West don't suffer from them. Then there is the horrible nightmare of WTO and TRIPS, but I won't go into that.

By "work" I mean work for the general public. One could of course argue that that's the case today too, as the great majority of the world's population are suffering from capitalism, they don't enjoy the benefits of it. In that regard, capitalism works as advertised. It is great for the rich people, and terrible for the rest. The middle class gets by, but it looks like the middle class is decreasing now. This is perhaps especially evident in the US and possibly also the UK.

You may be right that one of the big faults about marxism is that it only deals with economic interests, but that is even more so the case within capitalism. As a result of this the environment is falling apart. We know for a fact that this is happening, and yet the leaders of the world won't do squat about it. The reason is clear: it costs money. The shortsightedness of capitalism (or the global economic system if you want) is its biggest problem. It can actually lead to the destruction of the planet. There are a lot of very serious reports about this now. Just today I read that the tropical borders have expanded over 100 km further to the north and the south compared to 1979, which in turn is increasing the expansion of deserts, which take away the food from people, especially in Africa.

Issues such as this is of the highest importance, yet the politicians of the world seem careless about it. The US of course plays a big role here pulling out of Kyoto, but also Russia, China and India, which are doing way too little as well.

retired_lapepe

Yeah, that is pretty incredible, but I think the "Read my lips: no more taxes" seriously bit him in the arse. Added to that important lie, Clinton had a charisma Bush Sr couldn't match.

It's actually pretty incredible that despite Bush Jr fucking up almost daily, the Democrats have barely gained. Americans have great distrust of Bush, but the Dems have gained little. This tells us something about the US system. There is of course the personlification of the party system. You have big groups that will only vote Rep or Dem pretty much no matter what candidates run or policies they say they will follow. But it's also what was discussed above, that the entire US political system is shifted to the right. There is actually no opposition party in the US. It's more or less one party with two wings. They are remarkly similar on the big issues. Even H. Clinton - who is supposed to be a liberal by US standards, won't do much different in foreign policy. She is a stern "supporter of Israel", and isn't all that negative of the Iraq war. Just as her husband and Kerry, she would probably be less hawkish than Bush, but the goals are the same: US full-spectrum dominance in the world.

The fact that Bush is so hawkish and loves war, may have been a great disservice for the US. Now even Europe see the true face of the US political elite, and the world to a much greater degree than in 2000 understand what the US is really about. Their talk about freedoms and democracy is a variant of "you are allowed to think and do exactly what you want, as long as it's the same as we want you to do". When these two things do not match, you are in deep sh!t, labelled as a rogue nation, a stability risk in the region, even dictatorial. The double-speak and two-facedness is quite astonishing.

retired_raistlin1979

I'm not suprised by 18%, but that's a *lot* different than 1%. And no, it's not "more or less the same thing."

Re: US Occupations

I simply disagree that the US is responsible for more harm than good. The Saudi regime example especially strikes me as incorrect - it's legitimized by the money it pulls in from oil. If the US isn't buying the oil, it's China, Europe, or every other country.

As for the "US moral high ground", in this debate, I don't believe I'm trying to rationalize it. You're the one on an American-bashing crusade. But if you'd like to offer up a world power, past or present, that has abused its position of power less, feel free to list it here. Despite some horrible foreign policies, I still don't view the US as the cause of problems the world's problems. Nor do I think the world would necessarily be better without the US.

Here's where you start sounding nonsensical. First, the whole US is shifted to the right. So to us, the US population, we *do* have choices of our leftist Dems & right Repubs.

We don't have any extreme choices offered by multi-party systems. One of the benefits (and curses) of a two-party system is it forces the two parties to the center. Center being defined as "political center of the population" before you go on some other "US is right" rant. Hillary is taking some very centrist views on purpose - in a very calculating way - so she'll appeal to more than just the core Democrat voters. Perhaps it appears to be "one party with two wings" to you, but I think that's just a function of your own biases.

Congratulations, you caught a nation involved in propaganda. Funny enough, the rest of the Western world did the same two-face & double-speak when Hamas was voted in to the Palestinian Authority. So assuming you live in such a Western, first-world country - I assume you're also willing to condemn your own country for that?

I'm not trying to defend US foreign policy here. I've made that abundantly clear calling the Iraq war a sham and by butting heads with Ignats. But I think you're taking it to the other extreme, seeing only the bad in every US action in history. You're starting to sound as narrow-minded as Ignats.

retired_lapepe

Less than 1% think they are increasing security in the country, which means over 99% think they are decreasing security in the country. 82% are "strongly opposed" to their presense. The remaining 18% are some opposed, neutral, some positive or very positive. It's not 18% very positive.

I'm not on an American-bashing mission, I'm simply telling some facts. I am critical of the US government's foreign policy, yes, but I'm not saying anything any American that knows the same wouldn't be saying. There is an "other America" as it is called, rising up. It is very critical of its foreign policy, and also domestic policy, with all the power corporations are getting etc etc. Just around now there is a proposals that will probably go through the House which will substantially decrease internet access for the public, I think it was called HR5252. There are many issues like that where corporations gain power at the expense of the public, meaning everybody that isn't terribly rich.

I'm not saying that the US is anything better or worse than for instance Britain were, or any other imperial power in history. But now we have the US as the big power, so it is the most sensible to criticise them. The Brittish Empire did horribly atrocious things too, for instance in Iraq and India. They divided out Kuwait for instance, and did some horrible stuff in Iran as well. Every empire in history has been atrocious, don't think the US is anything better or worse.

Sure there are some choices, no doubt. But the point is that the US political landscape is shifted to the right. Both parties are to the right of center, and most politicians are to the right of center. There isn't a proper opposition party in the US, basically because of the election system, and that both Dems and Reps do all they can to prevent other candidates appearing in presidential debates for instance. This is some of the stuff I mean with a democratic deficit in the US. Despite Bush doing mistake after mistake, the Dems seem incapable of gaining much. This is I think because they largely agree. So if the Dems were really negative about the Iraq war, they would meet themselves in the door as pretty much everybody agreed to send the troops to Iraq etc. On big issues they generally agree - hence no real opposition party. The UK has a similar system, but it's not as bad as in the US yet. Without proportional representation it tends to end up with 2 or 3 parties.

I don't agree that the two parties are at the "political center of the population". Poll after poll show that the US population is out of sync with the policies from Washington. The US public is on many issues liberals, perhaps even in the normal sense, not just US sense. I think the reason the US political system has shifted to the right is that there isn't a third party alternative to the left of center. The alternative the US people has is extreme right or some right. This isn't the case in most other countries, not even the UK - although it has basically the same electoral system.

I agree, most of the world did the same thing about Hamas, and are still doing it. I am very skeptical about this too, this is by all means not just a US problem. It is perhaps worst in the US, but it's far from the only place. It's the same thing here in Norway. The government refused to talk to members of the Palestinian government when a few of them visited recently. And this is a socalled center-left government. The only way to get a viable peace agreement in Israel/Palestine is for negotiations to take place. If Israel does as it threatens, draw up the borders by themselves, and in that process annex even more Palestinian lands, we can forget about peace in the region. It will never happen, unless the exterminate the palestinians. Hamas is the democratically elected government, so it makes perfect sense to negotiate with them. The fact is that Israel has been rejectionist of a peace deal for decades, and continues to be. The palestinians have wanted peace since Israel came into existence. They can build a wall if they want, but at least build it along the 1967-borders, instead of far inside Palestinian territory.

Just because I've mainly been critical of US foreign policy in this thread doesn't mean that I am euphoric about European foreign policy. It's basically just as bad. We only have to go back 40-odd years, and Europe still had many colonies in Africa, go further back and it's even worse. It's pretty bad today too, and I don't like at all the direction the EU is taking. I could go on in lengths about that too.

I certainly don't hope you see me as one-sided as Ignats was. It may sound one-sided, but it is because I know a lot about this stuff by now after reading quite a bit about it. Knowing the evils in the world changes you. I'm not at all saying the US is responsible for all the horrible stuff in the world, but they are involved in an aweful lot of it. If we really wanted to get rid of war and extreme suffering we could. Only 5% of the US military budget would get rid of all easily treatable diseases in the world, which kill millions every year. But as long as powerful politicians across the world is hellbent on more power, this will never be achieved. There is so much money in the world, only a little fraction of it would be needed to make a huge impact on Africa. We have the resources, technology and capability to basically get rid of hunger and easily treatable diseases, the only thing lacking is the will to do it.

retired_lapepe

Ai caramba! That got a lot longer than I thought. Sorry for another essay guys...

retired_duncan

Don't apologise. Those that don't want to read it, won't.

It's too D&M for me to get into. I mean, I'm at work and trying NOT to think

(+1)

retired_raistlin1979

Pangaea,
After your last post, I think I understand you much better. You're willingness to critcize old British, European & Norwegian policies speaks volumes. You were just coming across very one-sided, probably a preconception of mine from your argument with Ignats.

Just a couple nitpicks -

You're quite correct, if it's a standard poll, it's not 18% very positive. But by your own accord, 99% do not think Allied forces are decreasing security. It would be 99% would think Allied forces have no effect or are decreasing security. At the end of the day, there's no denying US & UK are doing a crummy job over there. And I don't blame a single soldiers - they were given an impossible task (nation building in a volatile zone) with inadequate resources.

Old news. This has been happenning for hundreds of years. It's just the start of a new cycle with new technology.

Perhaps, because we have all branches currently controlled by one party. And since polls also show the controlling party slipping in popularity, this would make sense.

Here I disagree. I could detail all the ways the US lags behind in liberal progress - treatment of homosexuality, socioeconomic equalit of women & non-Caucasians to name a few - but I'll try another tactic. Proving that a two party system *must* be centered on the political center.

We discussed this in Economic Game Theory of all places, but that class dealt with coalitions (in this case, political parties) so it makes sense. Basically, the goal of a political party is to get elected. So if the political spectrum ranges from 1-10, and you pick 3... well, I should pick 4. That would get me 70% of the vote to your 30%. But then you would pick 5, and I'd be forced to 6... so we split 50-50. Which is about what happens in every national election. It's just the way a two-party system works.

Now for the real life proof of the above theory:

If the Repubs are extreme right of center, and the Dems are sorta right... why aren't the Dems winning *every* election in a blowout? They should get way over 50% of the vote... probably more like 70%. No, the real (and perhaps scary) truth is that the US, as a whole, is just that far to the right. Remember, we had whole states founded by Puritans and Mormons. :kris102:

And new views are eventually incorporated into the old parties with a 2-party system. If a large group of voters suddenly want all schools to serve chocolate banana milkshakes - you better believe one of the old parties (probably the party currently losing) will start preaching chocolate banana milkshakes.

So in conclusion, two parties will stabilize on each side of the political spectrum. And while we don't have successful parties with more extreme ideas (i.e. Green or Libertarian), those ideas get moderated and incorporated into the exisiting parties.

If you want, my next essay can be why our voting system does not allow for 3 major parties.

retired_jmathias

I don't agree that every major world force can be a feckup.
Take Napoleon Empire for example. He founded Illyrian province on the territory fo ex Yugoslavia. Specially Slovenia, Istra and Dalmatia. He took care of public schooling increased literacy and contributed to free spirit of artists. The province really prospered during his era.

But you ahve to ask what has US done for their poeple. Illiteracy in the US is higher than in any other developed country. Number of people without proper education is increasing. People are getting more and more manipulated and are getting more and more unable of free-thinking. Citizens social care is non-existant, schools are made to create fach-idiots (that is a person with only one skill and nothing else) etc.

But hey, they gave them that American dream. Anybody with a garage can become new Bill Gates. Sure, but what they are forgetting to tell is that Bill Gates parents were rich, otherwise that kid could never affor the newest technology trick.
Anyone, with a decent look can become new Rita Hayword. However, majority of them ends up in pron industry.

Go figure!