Is it time for "the west" to accept responsibility

[Higgly]

Sorry, but you will have to go deeper than "the world is a mess".

As usual, the neocons spin the point into a blur. If you follow the trajectory of human development over the centuries, you will find that in just about every century, life has gotten better for larger numbers of people.

Edited September 26, 2007 by Higgly

[Michael Hardner]

As usual, the neocons spin the point into a blur.

Actually, I think Bush/Cheney made some good points there.

When one says 'the world is a mess', I'm not sure if that's just an admission of a permanent state of affairs or not.

The world maybe a mess, but it is in at least some ways less of a mess than before.

BC pointed out some reasons for that. Here's another one: our birthrate is accelerating at a declining rate.

[bush_cheney2004]

As usual, the neocons spin the point into a blur. If you follow the trajectory of human development over the centuries, you will find that in just about every century, life has gotten better for larger numbers of people.

Nope...not even close....drought, famine, disease, ice ages, natural disasters, etc. made for much variety over the centuries...not always for the better. "Western" technology, investment, and economic growth has mitigated and in some cases eliminated such variation and risk.

Edited September 26, 2007 by bush_cheney2004

[Bonam]

Indeed, just about all the progress, advancement, and improvement in quality of life that has come about in the past few centuries can be attributed to "the west". Regardless of various screw ups along the way, western civilization has every reason to be proud of what it has accomplished, and is still accomplishing.

[jbg]

Indeed, just about all the progress, advancement, and improvement in quality of life that has come about in the past few centuries can be attributed to "the west". Regardless of various screw ups along the way, western civilization has every reason to be proud of what it has accomplished, and is still accomplishing.

It is true that Islam has contributed much progress to the demolition field, learning how to demolish occupied structures.

[jbg]

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.

Which songs? Lightfoot is my favorite singer. My favorite of his is "Wherefore and Why".

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.

Wow, what a leap.

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.

That is how we should respond to the theft of private property by "nationalizing" governments. It should have always been treated as cassus belli.

It's hard to come up with a bigger psycopath than the Shah - maybe Stalin or Hitler - in the 20th century.

Ahemajad (sp)?

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.

Things are no better now, especially for gays (don't worry, I'm heteorsexual).

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.

Which way are the rowboats on the open sea going, towards Florida or towards Cuba?

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.

Why did the Arabs insist of keeping them in "camps" rather than repatriating them? Israel repatriated Jewish refugees from Europe and Arabian lands rather than outfitting them as walking bombs.

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?

And the West is what gives you freedom to post this drivel (aside from your excellent writeup of Gordon Lightfoot, and your coming to terms with the possible ill effects of rep-by-prop elsewhere).

[jbg]

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.

Exactly. During WW II the press called the joint British-Canadian-Australian-New Zealand-US forces the "democracies". Now the press labels its own freedom protectors as aggressors.

[M.Dancer]

You have to be a bit a crack-pot to suggest that the Shah and Stalin or Hitler are in the same league......

[Sulaco]

Having come from an East European country I feel I don't have to take responsibility for anything except I guess Stalin. Though I am sorry Vienna was saved from the Muslims by a Polish king, his knights, and the thousands of serfs.

Having adopted the West as my home, having made the explicit choice, I feel I arguably bear more responsibility for the West's sins than do Morris or ScottSa. After all my endorsment of the West is fully active.

Thus I am conflicted. I am sorry that the West provided technologies that did away with serfdom, that the west provided a culture that is superior to Eastern Orthodox mysticim and that had infuenced even thouse countries were the orthodox still hold sway - cultural emperialism. I am sorry also to all the Easterners that Western companies continue to work on genetically engineered crops that might permit those same Easterners, who have been so resistant to rationalized farming methods, to become self sufficient without very much work at all. Afterall, they did not take western technical knowhow so it looks like it will have to be embedded in plant genetics. I am sorry that western medicine has been so promulgated in the pursuit of betterment and that as an unlucky result sticking thousands of needles into people is not nearly as prevalent a curative approach as it otherwise would be. I am sorry that my tax dollars went to an attempt to end starvation as warfare is Somalia. I am sorry the Serbs were put in their place by western bombs. I am sorry awww lordy am I sorry.

So on so forth ad infinitum.

You know good comes with the bad - from the west far more good than bad.

Edited September 26, 2007 by Sulaco

[Sulaco]

As usual, the neocons spin the point into a blur. If you follow the trajectory of human development over the centuries, you will find that in just about every century, life has gotten better for larger numbers of people.

What's a "neocon"?

[M.Dancer]

What's a "neocon"?

I don't know Sully, but I think you are one and you should really accept responsibility......

Tell the truth.....you waged a colonial war against smallpox?

[Borg]

And I have reported you.

Yawn ....

Borg

[Sulaco]

I don't know Sully, but I think you are one and you should really accept responsibility......

Tell the truth.....you waged a colonial war against smallpox?

After winning a victory against small pox the surviving small pox populations were placed into reservations at various Western Laboratories in case the disease should somehow resurface again under a new guise. I think it's time to start returning land to the descendants of those smallpox victimized by the West.

Worse yet - the west has, by providing cheaper modes of transport created whole countries were multiple contagions battle for the possession of host bodies. The west could not have thought that Malaria and the Sleeping sickness might coexist in any one country peacefully. It was really an attempt to make sure none of the these contagions could prosper, so that that the west could always have a well of contagion to exploit. And I should add that I do believe had Africa not been devided in such a manner that two or more contagions are forced to coexist in single political entities, these contagions would have kept to their territories and all conflict would have been averted.

Hmm... And what next? A renewed war on meningitis.

Fighting tuberculosis just produces more and better tuberculosis bacteria.

But I am being facetious.

What I am really sorry for is that western nations are attempting to build hygene infrastructure in the 3rd world. Roman imperialism reborn.

Edited September 26, 2007 by Sulaco

[M.Dancer]

Yawn ....

Borg

Figleaf was someone who reported everyone anytime they didn't like their tone, even though her tone was very condescending and direspectful.

I can see someone reporting someone who is being an ass ....but actually going on record and admitting you are a pussy by saying that you are reporting someone, this sort of passive aggressive behavior should stay in the girl's locker room.

[Jerry Galinda]

Hey, they had those things under Saddam, if that's your measure.

So in your books, every developing country should expect to be subservient and put up with anything the west gets it into its fool head just because it doesn't have reliable electricity? Good luck selling that one in Vietnam.

Stupid policy of Saddam caused that Iraq practically was a bankrupt.

It was one of the reasons that war (regular war) lasted so short.

Generally Iraqis were "tired' of Saddam's oppressive rule .

It doesn't mean that they wanted western democracy and so on.

[moderateamericain]

You know what, fine. Lets cut off all foreign aid into other countries. Pull out all of our troops and watch the world slaughter itself back into the stone age. Africa will just impolde. The Arab's will immediatley attack and attempt to crush Israel. Pakistan and India can go to war. Russia will attempt to reclaim Eastern Europe, North Korea will Invade South Korea. China will fuck someobody up hard, I would guess Siberia for the resources or the oil fields South of Russia. Take your pick. Let it all burn. Don't want us there, fine. But just to point out. Prior to 1945 the US was a minor player in world politics. It took TWO world wars to drive us out of isolation. But be my guest and feed your own people thats if your not too busy slaughtering them.

Edited September 26, 2007 by moderateamericain

[ScottSA]

Figleaf was someone who reported everyone anytime they didn't like their tone, even though her tone was very condescending and direspectful.

I can see someone reporting someone who is being an ass ....but actually going on record and admitting you are a pussy by saying that you are reporting someone, this sort of passive aggressive behavior should stay in the girl's locker room.

You just don't want to admit your culpability in "the world is a mess." You can do it. They make organic hair shirts these days, complete with genetically unmodified lice.

[M.Dancer]

You just don't want to admit your culpability in "the world is a mess." You can do it. They make organic hair shirts these days, complete with genetically unmodified lice.

Your premise is drunkenly askew

http://www.mapleleafweb.com/forums//index....st&p=252747

[Higgly]

Figleaf was someone who reported everyone anytime they didn't like their tone, even though her tone was very condescending and direspectful.

I can see someone reporting someone who is being an ass ....but actually going on record and admitting you are a pussy by saying that you are reporting someone, this sort of passive aggressive behavior should stay in the girl's locker room.

I cannot tell you how pleased I am that it upsets you. I'll have to keep it up.

[Higgly]

Let's not forget who gets credit for modern arithmetic! How about explosives!

Hey, here's a bar of gold. This means I can kill you!

What a concept.

[JB Globe]

We force them to buy our wheat. We are evil.

I agree. We're crippling their economies and keeping them in poverty by using our control of global trade to make it impossible for their farmers to compete on a level playing field.

More evil than the farmers who haven't leaned modern farming techniques who we force not to learn.

Who says they're not using modern farming techniques? You're just assuming that Africa=backward - but they're using the same dwarf-wheat we're using here - they use crop rotation, they diversify their fields with different crops. They use less machinery, mainly because it's cheaper to use labour than it is to rent or buy heavy harvesting machines. And keeping cost down is important when you're selling in a developing country - but even with this they can't compete with the subsidized prices on Western grain.

Evil we are. Feeding people. For less than they could feed themselves. Evil.

I don't think you understand the cycle that these subsidies have started:

1 - We flood their markets with subsidized grain with prices so low and quantities so high that local farmers can't compete.

2 - Local farmers have to cut their profit margin to next to nothing to compete - since we've made it illegal for governments to have subsidies on their grain the way we have subsidies on ours.

3 - These farmers which make up 80% OF THE POPULATION IN MOST COUNTRIES can't afford to improve their farm because they make almost no profit.

4 - These same local farmers also can't afford to send their kids to school in the hopes of climbing the economic ladder.

5 - This means that there is a lack of professionals in these countries in virtually all professional fields.

However you want to cut it, agricultural subsidies are hypocritical - on an ethical level - I've already established that. But even on a capitalistic, free-market level - these subsidies are the very antithesis of free-market capitalism.

[Higgly]

Who says they're not using modern farming techniques? You're just assuming that Africa=backward - but they're using the same dwarf-wheat we're using here - they use crop rotation, they diversify their fields with different crops.

M.Dancer tends to go by the assumption that poverty means inferiority. It's a thing he has.

By the way M.Dancer, you do know that credit for dramatically increased rice crops that ended the cycle of starvation in many Asian countries belongs to the International Rice Research Intstitute in the Philippines?

Edited September 26, 2007 by Higgly

[M.Dancer]

I cannot tell you how pleased I am that it upsets you. I'll have to keep it up.

Doesn't upset me, I'm not the one with the personality disorder....and BTW what is figleaf's membership status now?

[M.Dancer]

Let's not forget who gets credit for modern arithmetic! How about explosives!

Hey, here's a bar of gold. This means I can kill you!

What a concept.

Modern arithmatic? yeah....I think it was my grade 3 teacher. Although they are doing some interesting theorectical mathematics in Mogadishu I hear....

[M.Dancer]

By the way M.Dancer, you do know that credit for dramatically increased rice crops that ended the cycle of starvation in many Asian countries belongs to the International Rice Research Intstitute in the Philippines?

You mean that non proft organization supported through funding from Canada, the US, The UK, Australia, France, Sweden, Spain, Denmark, Germany and a cfew asian countries too?n The same organisation that was founded and created by the Ford and Rockefeeler Foundations? That Indiginous organistion headed up by the world famous Philipino scientist, Robert Zeigler?

The dickens you say!

Was there a point though to that factoid?