Is it time for "the west" to accept responsibility

[Higgly]

It seems you have a built in bias aginst Western ideologies.

C,mon Hig, let's hear it, go West , go West, Go West!

This post by Leafless got me thinking that I am not getting my point across.

I was down in the St Lawrence Market on Saturday. This is one of Toronto's food markets - a great place to buy food. The prices are not cheap but the goods are of very high quality and there is an additional historical bonus. Up high in the north end of the market building is a set of rooms that look down on the market space. It was in these rooms that William Lyon MacKenzie first worked his magic on Upper Canada. You can almost see him up there scowling at the rest of us. In any case, when I was down there I came across a fellow who was singing Gord Lightfoot songs, He had a guitar and had set up a speaker and amplifier and was going through all the old familiar tunes. I'm a big Lightfoot fan so I threw him a looney and listened for awhile. At first I thought, boy does he ever sound like Lightfoot. But then after I got closer and could distinguish his voice from what was coming out of the speaker, I realized that he didn't sound anything like Lightfoot but had just turned the treble to zero and the bass up to ten to mask the differences. A good anology for what the western press has been doing with international affairs.

My point is that we have become trained, brainwashed even, by our own press into thinking that we in the west somehow are some sort of guiless good-guy, while those we are told to hate (the axis of evil, among others) are, well, evil. Gone are the days when the Washington Post could break a story that would bring down a president. Now we have a guy like Dan Rather, on the eve of the Iraq war, declaring that he was a reporter, but he was an American first. You go Dan. No really. Just go.

The best example of this I can think of off the top of my head is Iran. Here is a country that has been so sorely mistreated by the west, that one has to wonder not why it is hostile to us, but why it has not taken longer for it to be so. We are now routinely told that Iran is evil (well, maybe that axis of evil thing is getting less play these days, but still...).

A brief historical review might be in order.

First we have Iran in the 1950s democratically electing a left-leaning President - Mossadegh - who announces he is going to nationalize the oil fields. Oops. Next thing you know we have an American/British engineered coup that puts the Shah of Iran in power. It's hard to come up with a bigger psycopath than the Shah - maybe Stalin or Hitler - in the 20th century. Robert Fisk writes in his book on the Arab world "The Great War for Civilisation" how Savak agents kept deli meat slicers in the basements of their homes so that they could slice off the arms of people they were torturing a little bit at a time. Of course the reason that this was necessary was that the Iranians were so completely ticked off at having their democratically elected government replaced by a western-backed clown (and there are few better worlds to describe the Shah - just look at him in his clown outfit on Wikipedia - the medals are amazing for a guy who never served in a military campaign) that the only way they could be kept in line was by sheer brutal force.

Another good example might be Cuba. Here is a country which at one time was run by a brutal dictator who essentially turned his country into the whore house of North America and a printing press to print yankee dollars for himself and his cronies. When the Cubans, in the person of Fidel Castro, launched a revolution and kicked out the nasty man, the US launched a constant campaign of war - both military and economic - to starve the Cubans into submisssion. No leader was more vigorous in his persecution of the Cubans than was the beloved John F Kennedy who put his brother Bobby in charge. Shows you how important this was. The US launched constant attacks against Cuba during Kennedy's time in office and it is thought by some, and not without reason, that it was Castro who had Kennedy killed. It certianly would not have been difficult in those days. The protection around the US president was so thin that just about anybody with a gun might have had a decent chance of carrying it out.

We turn now to Israel, another darling of the western press. During its birth in 1948, Israel expelled hundreds of thousands of Arabs from Palestine. Many of them went to Lebanon. Refugee camps were set up just inside the Lebanese border for the Palestinian Arabs, but the Israelis complained that the Palestinians were sneaking back into Israel from the camps and so Lebanon moved the refugee camps to Beirut and away from the border. The first Prime Minster of Israel, David Ben Gurion, however, plotted to have south Lebanon become part of Israel. The main reason for this is that Ben Gurion wanted the Litani River so that he could drain it for its own use the way Israel has drained the Jordan. His plan was to have the Christian Maronites under Walid Jumblatt start a civil war so that Israel could come in, saying that it was coming to the aid of its Allies, the Christians, and take the territory it wanted. This information is available in Israeli cabinet documents cited by the historian Avi Shalim in his book "The Iron Wall: Israel in the Arab World". In spite of being moved to Beirut, the Palestinians continued their attacks, and in the early 1980s finally carried out a suicide attack on a bus in Tel Aviv that killed 35 people. In the previous 10 years, Palestinian terrorists had carried out attacks that had killed some 105 Israelis but now Israel invaded under Defense minister Ariel Sharon. The battle cry of the IDF was "To the Litani!". In the course of the next 20 years during its occupation of Lebanon, the IDF killed some 15,000 people, most of whom were civilians, and spawned the birth of Hezbollah, a Shia organization which came into existence strictly as a force for fighting and expelling the Israelis.

All of this conveniantly disappears down the memory hole (www.thememoryhole.org for a good list) whenever our "evil" enemies do something outrageous.

The question I have is this: is it time for the west to stop kidding itself and come to terms with its own responsibilty for the mess we are all in?

Edited September 23, 2007 by Higgly

[ScottSA]

[blah blah blah]

The question I have is this: is it time for the west to stop kidding itself and come to terms with its own responsibilty for the mess we are all in?

No, I think wwe should start blaming the people who created the mess instead. I think we should also laugh at people who turn history upside down in spasms of self hatred. Har har.

[Higgly]

No, I think wwe should start blaming the people who created the mess instead. I think we should also laugh at people who turn history upside down in spasms of self hatred. Har har.

Still waiting for your reliable and verifiable sources, ScottSA. It's lonely without friends, is it not?

[ScottSA]

Still waiting for your reliable and verifiable sources, ScottSA. It's lonely without friends, is it not?

There's a name for this type of tomfoolery:

http://www.pleasurepoint.com/logical.html#ad_populum

[Higgly]

There's a name for this type of tomfoolery:

http://www.pleasurepoint.com/logical.html#ad_populum

I don't read links. Bring your arguments to the table and back it up with cites.

Edited September 23, 2007 by Higgly

[Bonam]

The west has more than come to terms with its responsibility. If anything, the west has overcompensated. The sense of guilt and self hatred that pervades most western media should be more than adequate to demonstrate this.

[Higgly]

The west has more than come to terms with its responsibility. If anything, the west has overcompensated. The sense of guilt and self hatred that pervades most western media should be more than adequate to demonstrate this.

Give us an example.

[Bonam]

Give us an example.

- Injustices to native peoples. Guilt over this leads to the discussion and implementation of unreasonable laws and treaties, which give certain people advantages (such as tax exemptions) based only on their race.

- Injustices to blacks in America. Guilt over this leads to the implementation of socially corrosive and ineffectual affirmative action programs, and popular support for such policies.

- As a result of guilt for past injustices in south Africa, western media is almost completely silent on the racist anti-white policies now implemented there.

- Damage to the environment. Guilt over this often leads media to point out the excesses and unsustainability of "western" lifestyle.

- Guilt over perceived past over-intervention in regions of Africa and the middle-east leads to inaction in places where western intervention is in fact needed. For example, Darfur.

- Inaction in Europe (as exemplified in many recent threads on this board) as certain areas are subjected to violence and lawlessness by immigrants of certain groups, in the name of tolerance, based on guilt over past mistreatment and intolerance.

Just a few random examples off the top of my head.

[Higgly]

You are saying that inadequate solutions invalidate the problem. I am saying that if there is still a problem, the solutions are inadequate.

[bush_cheney2004]

...All of this conveniantly disappears down the memory hole (www.thememoryhole.org for a good list) whenever our "evil" enemies do something outrageous.

The question I have is this: is it time for the west to stop kidding itself and come to terms with its own responsibilty for the mess we are all in?

This oh so special memory hole seems to have forgotten many more such interventions that did not have any "blowback" at all. Who shall decide when they are desired or not? That's why "we" don't make decisions based solely on "memory holes", and I am using the term "we" very loosely indeed.

[Higgly]

This oh so special memory hole seems to have forgotten many more such interventions that did not have any "blowback" at all. Who shall decide when they are desired or not? That's why "we" don't make decisions based solely on "memory holes", and I am using the term "we" very loosely indeed.

OK. Like what?

[bush_cheney2004]

OK. Like what?

Rwanda....unless you want to blame the Belgians. See, it really is better when greed and economics runs the show, "memory hole" be damned.

[Higgly]

So you are saying that either the west must be responsible for everything or nothing at all? How is this reasonable?

In any case, who decided that the Hutus and Tsutsis should all be put together in one country? Was that really such a smart thing to do?

Edited September 24, 2007 by Higgly

[bush_cheney2004]

So you are saying that either the west must be responsible for everything or nothing at all? How is this reasonable?

No, I am saying thet the "West" will be responsible for anything that supports individual or collective interests. This is how it should be. It is not a "mess" at all, and far more orderly than before any such notion of "West" existed. The very term is synonymous with collective action and purpose.

Tutsi and Bantu Hutu were well established in the region before German and Belgian colonial influences, having displaced other indigenous peoples before them (no "Western" influence required for good ole' fashioned WAR).

Edited September 24, 2007 by bush_cheney2004

[Higgly]

No, I am saying thet the "West" will be responsible for anything that supports individual or collective interests. This is how it should be.

Yikes.

[bush_cheney2004]

Yikes.

Unlike you, I haven't the burden of guilt while enjoying the fruit of "Western" exploits. Yet you still enjoy them, eh?

[Higgly]

Unlike you, I haven't the burden of guilt while enjoying the fruit of "Western" exploits. Yet you still enjoy them, eh?

So what exactly am I guilty for and what exactly am I enjoying?

[bush_cheney2004]

So what exactly am I guilty for and what exactly am I enjoying?

The guilt is of your own making. Indulge to your liking, but don't insist that others weep at the same wall. The "West" can no more accept "responsibility" for interventions than the "non-West" can accept responsibility for being "victims". The entire notion baffles all compass points of history.

Edited September 24, 2007 by bush_cheney2004

[Higgly]

The guilt is of your own making. Indulge to your liking, but don't insist that others weep at the same wall. The "West" can no more accept "responsibility" for interventions than the "non-West" can accept responsibility for being "victims". The entire notion baffles all compass points of history.

Hmmm. Is that your final answer?

[bush_cheney2004]

Hmmm. Is that your final answer?

No...I always like to conclude such circle jerks by noting the flood of immigration to the "West". Victims voting with their feet.

[Higgly]

No...I always like to conclude such circle jerks by noting the flood of immigration to the "West". Victims voting with their feet.

So you mean the West where they are having problems finding enough people to man the oil rigs, work in the Harveys, build the houses, plow the snow, clean the hotel rooms....

You mean that west?

[bush_cheney2004]

So you mean the West where they are having problems finding enough people to man the oil rigs, work in the Harveys, build the houses, plow the snow, clean the hotel rooms....

You mean that west?

No, I mean the West that is better than wherever they came from. The West isn't a place, it's an economic state of mind and being. But you already know this, and won't be leaving anytime soon.

[Higgly]

No, I mean the West that is better than wherever they came from. The West isn't a place, it's an economic state of mind and being. But you already know this, and won't be leaving anytime soon.

So the west was not better than the places that previous immigrants came from: Ireland, China, the Ukraine, post-war Italy (ever seen "The Bicycle Thief"?)...

Maybe what you really want to say is that they are not white and they don't go to church, huh?

[bush_cheney2004]

So the west was not better than the places that previous immigrants came from: Ireland, China, the Ukraine, post-war Italy (ever seen "The Bicycle Thief"?)...

Maybe what you really want to say is that they are not white and they don't go to church, huh?

No, that's what you say. Immigrants to "Western" consciousness come from all over the world, including "white people". Even the Church is in on the take. Pre-war Italy was nice too...see Roman Empire.

[mcqueen625]

Responsibility for what? It is the extremist Islamists who want us to change to suit them, so where is their responsibility? It seems to me that radical Islamists want what they want whether we want it or not. Their stated goal is the to convert the world to Islam by force, if necessary. It is not a new thing for these people to threaten death to anyone who does not believe as they do. If we are not willing to stand up for what we believe in then we deserve whatever happens. Presently the only way to stand up to these extremists is to take the fight to them because they have already brought the fight to not only North America but to Europe as well.

Edited September 24, 2007 by mcqueen625