Hugo

No, and nor did the medical revolution. That began in the late 18th Century, when capitalism first took hold. Yes, it was called mercantilism.

You see, here lies the problem. Saddam was not one iota interested in the welfare of his people (as if the mass graves hadn't clued us all in on that), and we all know that any dollars that went into Iraq would go to missiles and tanks. He even found a way to abuse the oil-for-food programme. He simply pocketed the medicines and food that the UN exchanged for oil, sold them to friendly regimes in Syria and Jordan in exchange for weapons or hard currency he could use to buy weapons from his buddies in France, Germany and Russia. Those three, of course, really got rich off the whole deal - they sold the vast majority of the food and medicines and took a cut, and then again they sold weapons under the table and took another cut. Saddam did not care that his people were starving and sorely lacking for medical facilities. A lifting of UN sanctions would have facilitated Iraqi rearmament and absolutely nothing else. To my mind, the root cause of every problem regarding Iraq was Saddam Hussein. It's a shame that the UN did not give backing to a realistic plan for ridding Iraq of him, but then, it's unrealistic to expect that they ever would when France, Germany and Russia were on the UN Security Council. Corporate interests and globalisation are actually a force for world peace, even when that peace is probably not in the best interests of the world, as we have seen here. It's self-correcting, and one of the key things that makes it self-correcting is people such as you. As long as you are around to get angry at environmental abuse, low wages, etc, there will be the risk of consumer backlash and corporations can better be kept in line. For example, one of the great results of environmentalism is that being eco-friendly has become big business. Hybrid cars are all the rage and manufacturers are jostling to get in on that market. Nike has made a fully biodegradeable shoe. Ford has revamped their Rouge plant to make it far more environmentally sound. Taxicabs are running on LPG instead of gasoline. Biodiesel is big news in Europe. Everywhere you look, products have "made from 100% recycled material" and "recycleable packaging" splashed all over them. Municipal garbage collectors are picking up glass, plastic, aluminum and yard waste separately, for recycling. Progress - and it was all made possible by the free market. A good idea on paper. However, it's been tried before, and it didn't work. Back in the days of the British Empire, there was considerable pressure at home for British companies operating in Western Africa to raise pay and living conditions for their workers. They caved in and did so. The results were fairly predictable. The higher overheads meant that considerable numbers of African employees had to be fired. The attractions of greater pay and benefits also brought masses of Africans flooding in from the countryside in search of better jobs, which they could not get because there was now a labour glut. In the end, all this did was to create a massive surge in unemployed urban poor and a food shortage due to labour shortages in the countryside. The Industrial Revolution took well over 200 years to get us to where we are now. The people in the Third World are at the beginning of a long road, and they are also beset with a lot more problems than the British and American industrialists were (civil war, famines, corrupt government etc). We have seen in China and the USSR what happens when you try to artificially accelerate this process - famine and economic chaos. In my opinion, the greatest problems with globalisation arise not from free trade but from infringement upon it. Outsourcing is a good example. You can always save 3,000 jobs - if you are prepared to lose 30,000. For example, George W Bush recently introduced protective legislation for American steel workers (yes, George W Bush did something very wrong, and you heard it from me - I'm no zealot). Good job. Now the steelworkers jobs are safe. However, because it is now more difficult for Americans to import cheap, foreign-made steel, the prices of everything that involves steel in it's manufacture will go up - cars, buildings, bridges, power tools, machine tools, you name it. Because of this, people will buy less, and all those industries will suffer, and those employed in those trades now have their jobs at risk.

Pardon me, I did misattribute caesar's words to you. My apologies. I now await your further comments on the points I raised regarding globalisation and UN sanctions on Iraq.

Yes, you did. Your exact words were: "The people though poor,(thanks to US sanctions)" You did not say "thanks largely to US sanctions", "thanks in part to US sanctions", "thanks, amongst other things, to US sanctions". You said "thanks to US sanctions." You should watch what you say more closely. Somebody may hold you to it. Ah, so you think the UN should have dropped sanctions against Iraq? What should they have done instead? No. There's another thread on globalisation running right now, feel free to get stuck in. It's a fact, though, that countries that do more trade with the West end up with improved real incomes, life expectancy, standard of living and so forth, whereas those that keep closed doors (like Cuba) don't. Here's an example. In the early 1980s, China opened up to foreign trade for the first time in history, really. Since then, the average Chinese income has quadrupled - a massively higher rate of growth than anything prior. In 1980, the average American was 12 times as rich as the average Chinese, now, the average American is about 7 times as rich. There's not a shred of evidence that globalisation and US trade have a generally negative effect on participants, in fact, quite the opposite. There's also plenty of evidence that globalisation has a levelling effect on world wealth, contrary to what you think. I've already had Blackdog, Blair and Thelonius flailing around wildly trying to prove this giant misconception, do you want to try? I notice you didn't try to pursue your ridiculous point about the "happiness" of the Cuban people. Good idea, you might look like a fool.

I know you've been active in the forums since my last post, Blair, so I hope you're working on a real hum-dinger of a reply and not just giving up, hoping nobody noticed your implied concession. At least Blackdog went out with a bang and not a whimper.

For your information, Castro sent a communique to Nicaragua once warning them not to cut off trade links with the West as he had done. I also think that it's ridiculous when people such as yourself blame US sanctions for the plight of the Cuban people, and then lambast the US for trading with dictatorial regimes - which is it? Should they sanction, or not? Clearly, there is no right answer that the US can give you. US sanctions are to blame for the poverty of the Cubans and Iraqis, and US trade is to blame for propping up evil regimes in China and Saudi Arabia. Consider this massive inconsistency and hypocrisy for a second. I guess they would be, after Castro murdered an estimated 141,000 Cuban citizens who were not "happy and very friendly". After that, I'd put a big grin on my face and rave about my socialist paradise too.

I'm sure you could get around that. If you want, insist he wears an electronic tag or has one implanted and make sure he only goes home or to work. And if you can't hide a bag of weed from a police search, you certainly can't hide a laptop. They can find anything. Partially. But you can deter or punish without imprisoning, and if the punishment is good, it will be a deterrent too. I don't go for that. I don't want anybody's blood on my hands for any reason, no matter if they're a child-rapist and murderer. It's partially ethical and partially because of my religious beliefs.

So, we can take it that you are going to use one sentence as an excuse to avoid having to reply to anything else I have said? Furthermore, I stand by my comparison. Moore and Hitler are/were both bigots and gigantic liars who set out to deliberately deceive masses of people in order to further their own, selfish ends.

I believe that the whole point of jail is to exclude people from society, so that they may have no physical contact with innocent people lest they harm them. If somebody won't harm a person physically, why do that? There are other ways to prevent reoccurrence of white-collar crime. Seize all the assets of an embezzler and forbid him to hold any executive position again, for example. For a hacker or virus writer, once again, fine him, seize his computer equipment and forbid him to own any more. State that the conditions of his not being imprisoned include random spot checks of his home by police to ensure he has not obtained more computer equipment. It would be a lot cheaper than jail.

I do see your point, August, and perhaps we can find common ground. I can agree that big-time embezzlers probably deserve jail, and that it would be a good deterrent, however, I don't really wish to see Canadian jails swelled with working-class and middle-class people who didn't pay their taxes, or drove with an expired driving license or expired plates, and so forth.

I personally believe that only violent criminals should go to jail. Punishment for white-collar crime should consist of supervision/house arrest and fines. There's no need to waste tens of thousands a year on these people. If that is done, then we can say that those in jail are those who have violated the most sacred of our rights: the right to life and security of person. I don't think that those people deserve to be allowed a vote. If they are considered rehabilitated enough to be released (i.e. one can honestly state that they do not believe they will re-offend), give them the vote back.

Criminals are punished for crimes by being stripped of their civil liberties. As a citizen, you have the right to live, work and travel where you want to, or where you are able to, and do what you want, within the confines of the law. Criminals do not have that. It is their punishment. They must stay in a specific place, for a specific time, and do exactly as they are told to by another human being. Criminals have "opted out" of our society by breaking our laws and violating the rights we assign to our citizens. They have indicated that they no longer wish to be a part of our society. If that is the case, why would we continue to give them the benefits of our society?

The man is an utter buffoon. "Bowling for Columbine" was such a complete load it was unbelievable - see here. Goebbels himself could not have done a better job distorting and hiding the truth. Furthermore, I find a 300lb man who tells Americans they are too fat insulting. I find an extremely rich man who lives in a very exclusive area of New York and is practically a corporation unto himself ridiculous when he rails against corporatism and riches. I would hope Canadians have more sense than to listen to this hysterical demagogue. But Germany listened to a man who told lies of similar proportions in the 1930s, so you never know.

Only after they had executed class enemies and so forth. So in that case, you are right, they did provide for everyone - but only after they had murdered everyone they did not feel they should have to provide for. Much like Nazism. I did not say it was. But they share it, and in much the same way. For instance, just as 19th Century American democracy held that women were unequal, and that blacks could be enslaved, it remained that you could not kill women or blacks with impunity. Neither was it the case that all blacks were slaves. But for Nazis and Communists, all Jews/Class Enemies are subhuman. None can ever be accepted in society, and not only is killing them acceptable, it is endorsed and carried out en masse by the State itself.

Well done. Now, I require you to take that train of thought a bit further than you have. Who developed and manufactured these vaccines and drugs? Oh, yes: pharmaceutical companies. Wealth creates health. As John Locke said, the inventor, the industrialist and the capitalist have contributed far, far more to furthering the welfare of mankind than the philanthropist or the charity worker. It is true. The great inventions that have changed our lives for the better - the railway, the telegraph and telephone, anaesthesia, asepsis, antibiotics, the motor car, canned food, and so forth - were all created and developed for profit. Your example, Thelonius, proves my point, not yours. Do you not think it a funny coincidence that the sudden explosion in medical technology and advances began at exactly the same time as the adoption of capitalism? Do you not think it strange that for the centuries, nay, millenia past where humanity adhered to mercantilist theory virtually no advances were made at all? Yes, it certainly was. What a doozy. Let's just recap your "proof." You just gave three examples of incidents. Since you are not reading what I write I'll just repeat myself until you do, no sense getting carpal tunnel syndrome just for you: And beforehand, you provided a link to an opinon website. I did actually take the time to read a sample article and noted that in well over six thousand words, there were a mere three hard facts cited. That's all, and even those are not evidences of global trends but rather, isolated incidents such as you are citing. The rest is simply the author rambling along on his own prejudices and personal observations. This is not an inquiry, this is rhetoric. The author is not seeking the truth. Instead, he has picked a prejudice of his own and sought to prove it, picking a select few facts to support it and ignoring the majority of the evidence that does not support his viewpoint. It reveals a highly prejudiced and partisan worldview. In these terms, it is on a similar level as Mein Kampf or Das Kapital. He is not interested in learning the truth, but in proving his prejudices correct. As I say, the hard facts and trends all support my argument. Life expectancy is up - globally (see previous citation). Real income is up globally too, and the countries with the most economic freedom and international trade are those that increased most (World Bank, Fraser Institute). The rich are not getting richer at the expense of the poor - China and India are both relatively and absolutely richer now compared to the USA than they were 20 years ago (World Bank).

For example, this would be the type of information I'm looking for. It's a comparison of life expectancy in a wide sample of countries from 1950, and 1998. Note that there is not one single instance of it having dropped. There is also no single instance of it failing to have increased substantially. Now, as we know that wealth is the root cause of the extension of quantity and quality of life (wealth pays for healthcare, clean water, good food, safe jobs, comfortable housing etc), how could life expectancy have increased so dramatically if these countries were not getting richer, or if their riches were being exported and not retained at home?

Once again, I don't see why I have to do your research for you. If you have links to the specific statistics and analyses that I asked for, provide them. If any of the many, many links you cursorily suggested I waste hours of my time reading in an effort to find the proofs you are too lazy to give do in fact contain this information, link to them. If the evidence is as abundant as you claim, this should be no problem for you. I don't know what you are used to, but opinion columns, absent or completely lazy/inept research and a mocking tone do not fly here.

Do you know what the very first line of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is? I'll tell you: "Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law:"

This evidence does not prove the point. You will have to provide evidence that standards of living, longevity, literacy, average income etc. have declined in a majority of countries, especially third-world countries, since 1980, and that that decline cannot be attributed to war, civil strife, drought and famine, disease and any other factors besides globalisation and capitalism. You will find the task impossible. You can only find evidence to support the truth, and what you claim is not true. Anything else is merely anecdotal. On the first few pages of the section of your site on "globalisation", probably 8 in 10 are about NAFTA. What does that prove about the impact of globalisation on the entirety of humanity, exactly, anymore than crimes in your hometown are indicative of crime trends in the entire country? What you've essentially done, insofar as you've done anything, is the same as Blackdog. You have pulled together a collection of incidents and tried to paint a global picture. It does not work that way. I used to do tier-2 support for cable internet. The company I worked for had millions of satisfied customers, yet from where I sat, all I heard was the complaints, the outages, the downtimes, etc. I could pull together two dozen examples of democracies that failed to uphold the rights of their citizens, that ignored or encouraged tyranny overseas and at home, and so forth. What does this mean - that democracy is evil, and is trampling the human spirit and destroying the liberty of the common man? I don't think so. That is why I ask you for some evidence that proves a global and undeniable trend, rather than incidents that may represent a mere one negative event in a thousand positives.

Then why are you not providing any?

It does not matter. The point was that both ideologies hold that a select group is inherently better than other everyone else. The same is true of Nazism, and it is applied in the same way (i.e. selectively). Yes, I am saying that. A polity in which women cannot vote is not a democratic state. Until 1911, there were no democracies. A mixed economy is not socialism. It is, as I said three times now, democratic-capitalist-statism. As in Scandinavia, for instance. I'm not disputing that. What I'm telling you is that the two are so closely related it's uncanny. Nazism is extreme-left, the same as Communism. For example, both believe in state-sanctioned bigotry, but they merely decide who to be bigoted against by different means. For the Nazis, it's racial, or what's perceived to be racial. For Communists, it's economic, or what's perceived to be economic. This also reflects the tunnel-vision present in both ideologies. Communists see all history and human affairs in terms of economics, Nazis see it as racial and nationalistic. Neither is able to comprehend other factors. In any case, turning Nazism to Communism is a simple case of noun-substitution.

Oh... a bit like France, Germany, Russia, China, et cetera, et cetera? Can you name me a U.N. member state that does not do that? And bearing in mind that the correct answer to that rhetorical question is "no", why would "many" have a "big beef" with the U.S. specifically, as you put it, other than for pure bigotry?

They have come to mean different things. What people understand by "socialist" means, as I said, democratic-capitalist-statist, such as NDP. There was to be no intermediary stage between capitalism and communism. Marx "foresaw" that capitalism would reach an extreme and then collapse violently. As to what Marx says in the Manifesto, it is true, but just as today it's about popular perception of two different words describing the same thing - much like "insurgent" and "terrorist." He picked the word that had the popular connotation he was looking for, just as the left-wing press today talks of "insurgents" and "militants" in Iraq whereas the right-wing press talks of "terrorists", but they are both describing the same people, no? This is not a good analogy. To follow it, we might say that Communism was like being shot with a 5.56mm bullet, whereas Nazism was like being shot with a 7.62mm bullet. Of course we can see differences - but are they really of any significance beyond the splitting of hairs? I drew a long list of the many enormous similarities between Nazism and Communism. You could not draw a similar list between two other purportedly different systems - democracy and theocracy, or military dictatorship and feudalism. But perhaps you could draw a very similar comparison between, say, a federal republic and a Parliamentary democracy, because once again, these two ideologies are really two different methodologies for one single set of concepts - much like Nazism/Communism.

As I said, Marx and Engels used the terms interchangeably. Marx knew of no state between capitalist and communist economies because he held that capitalism would be overthrown by violent revolution. In Das Kapital and Manifesto of the Communist Party, for instance, Marx in multiple instances refers to members of the Communist Party as "socialists", not "communists." That confusion is made by people who have not read Marx. They just use different terminologies. I'll illustrate. Both hold that a certain group of individuals are inherently superior. In Nazism, it's the Master Race, in Communism, the Proletariat. Both hold that the State should be all-powerful. Both hold that the People, or rather an arbitrary idea of the People, will hold power, but in a dictatorial and undemocratic method. Deutschevolk or Proletariat, it's really all the same. Both hold that violence is a legitimate tool of the State to be used against anyone it should see fit to. Both hold that there are no inalienable human rights. Both hold that women are property and not equal human beings, and despise the nuclear family. Both view democracy as weak and contemptible. Both believe that their system is the only true way and will inevitably become the only system. Both believe that individualism is a crime and that the individual should sacrifice everything, up to and including his very life, to the State. Both despise religion. Both despise the arts and intellectual pursuits in favour of industry and labour. And so forth. Communism and Nazism are two sides of the same coin. "National Socialism" is not a misnomer. Fascism is not as extreme as Nazism, but they hold basically the same tenets.

Cgarrett, Blair, if Blackdog cannot successfully defend his assertions with his evidence, what makes you think you can defend them with absolutely none? Facts trump feelings, I'm afraid.