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USA! USA! USA!

Oh no, the sky is falling!

Look, no one's going to starve to death in the states, that's what the social safety net is for. If anyone's going to starve it's sure not going to be some unemployeed programmer, it'll be someone born into disease and poverty in the south bronx.

Just be glad you don't live in a part of the world that has real problems and hope that if your job goes overseas it will raise the standard of living for the people who really need it.

What chemicals, fuels and water are needed to get silicon to the point where it is pure enought to make wafers? I think it would seem absurdly high too - that is the point of these kind of articles - people don't realize how much toxic, man made materials it takes to make a PC or an MP3 player.
And for those saying "the water can be recycled" ah, yeah, not exactly its much easier to dump toxic crap into water during the manufacturing processes than to remove it afterwards, a la MTBE which people can detect in water at less than a few parts per billion, not to mention other stuff that is ruining the world's fresh water Great Lakes Food Chain
More water stuff... you want water - pay up, you serfs
bwater

In Florida, a state where Chief of Police Timoney suspends the Constitution at will - calling legitimate protesters "anarchists" and using obscene violence to squash freedom of expression

Home of Disney, sponser of the DMCA and SSSCA), who profits from child sweatshops child sweatshops

A State where black people can't vote black people can't vote)
and where lawyers and judges replace voters lawyers and judges replace voters

The only thing good about Florida is Fantasy Fest and Vice City.

I think Thomas Friedman is spot on about Arab/Israeli issues but he is way off in the America outsourcing jobs issue.

Although the medical expertise and technology in India is not bad, there are some risks worth considering:

1. If a blood transfusion is required, be sure to consider autologous blood donation. India has reportedly taken steps to improve the quality of the blood supply however, it still draws on a population rampant with HIV, hepatitis, malaria, and various other blood born diseases. Remember, this is still a third world country.
2. Infection rates. They're much higher than in the west. Check out this recent bit of medical news:
3. Think about recovery. With a heavily taxed immune system, do you really want to face food and water born pests that make the most fit visitor to Mumbai extremely ill? On a recent trip, 5 out of 7 of my traveling companions fell ill. Yes we all drank bottled water (and yes we inspected the caps).

The saw bones may be cheaper over there but when your hide is on the line, don't forget to factor in the other risk factors.

Bush Mission to Mars: it's all about militarizing space

Excerpts from Bush's "space exploration" speech delivered earlier today:

America is proud of our space program. The risk-takers and visionaries of this agency have expanded human knowledge, have revolutionized our understanding of the universe and produced technological advances that have benefited all of humane's (sic) doing an excellent job.

Certainly, some of it has benefited people who live in affluent nations -- most notably, the aerospace industry, otherwise known as the "defense" industry. The vast majority of mankind, however, lives under conditions of grinding poverty and the advances gained from the space program do not benefit them in the least. In fact, many of the "technological advances" of the aerospace industry have resulted in widespread death and destruction -- for instance, the development and use of stealth bombers and cruise missiles. For untold numbers of Iraqis and Afghans, the American space program translates into GPS guided bombs killing their children.

Our investment in space exploration helped to create our satellite telecommunications network and the Global Positioning System.

See the previous comment.

Our first goal is to complete the International Space Station by 2010. We will finish what we have started.

Bush's "first goal" is to realize plans spelled out by the Commission to Assess United States National Security Space Management and Organization, chaired by Donald Rumsfeld in 2001. A report issued by the Commission demands the US "have the option to deploy weapons in space to deter threats to and, if necessary, defend against attacks on U.S. interests." In other words, the US will build a new generation of space-based weapons to further realize Pax Americana. Of course, this will motivate other countries (most notably China) to waste money and precious resouces on developing space weapons of their own, initiating an arms race.

In fact, China has already started its own space weapons program, according to a report released by the Department of Defense. "The report focuses on the current and probable future course of that country's growing military-technological prowess, including the use of space to assure military advantage," Leonard David writes for Space.com. "This year's report cites a comment from Captain Shen Zhongchang from the Chinese Navy Research Institute. He envisions, according to the DoD, a weaker military defeating a superior one by attacking its space-based communications and surveillance systems." For more on the strategic thinking of the Chinese, see Chinese Views of Future Warfare.

[Secretary of the Air Force Pete Aldrich] has tremendous experience in the Department of Defense and the aerospace industry. And he is going to begin this important work right away.

Aldrich does have "tremendous experience" -- he is the overseer of the Defense Departmenta(TM)s Missile Defense Support Group (MDSG) and reports to the DoD's Senior Executive Council (SEC) and the Missile Defense Agency. "The SEC, which is chaired by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and includes the service secretaries and Aldridge, recently was assigned the task of considering whether elements of the Ballistic Missile Defense System (BMDS) should move to production and deployment," writes Alaska Missile Defense Early Bird Weekly.

In other words, Reagan's Star Wars reinvented.

"[The] real scandal [of BMDS is] that the defense being developed won't work -- and few in Washington seem to know or ca

>So yes, in either case, the minimum wage in this state is $6.75, and it's not the highest in the country either.

That's if you include reliance on donations to keep your job (an employer used to paying $2.13 an hour is not suddenly going to drop their pants and pay you thrice that if business levels). I personally don't count those, but hey, whatever floats your boat.

>The minimum wage in China that you're referring to, is only for ONE CITY. A major city. Not even its suburbs

I can find more. It isn't hard. I have personal examples. My business partner once worked in a slave labour clothing factory. He made about 25 cents an hour a decade ago. Ask about. I think you'll find this isn't uncommon. Heck, even biased sources admit a Chinese worker makes $52.50 monthly (using your numbers). The facts I present are the truth, much as some feel hard pressed to admit.

>A typical Chinese workweek exceeds 60 hours and often will exceed 80

Then the typical Chinese company operates outside the law.

The PRC's Labour Law requires that the daily working hours of employees shall not exceed eight hours and the average working hours in a week shall not exceed 44 hours. Employees are also to have at least one rest day per week.

Sorry, you won't be successfull at convincing me the typical Chinese company operates above Chinese law. China is all about enforcement of its laws in any way necessary.

>But that aside, the fact remains that there are no child labor laws

False.

According to Article 15 of the Chinese Labour Law, employers are not allowed to hire underage workers - workers below the age of 16.

I know there are many groups that are spouting these lies. An infamous man once said, if you tell a lie often enough, it becomes the truth. Sadly, when it comes to China and labour laws, we've made that adage itself true.

>I'm not saying we should stop buying Chinese products totally. But we need to end these unfair (and illegal) trade and labor practices. We can't compete with that. No one can.

Who wants to? Nobody wants to go through the industrial revolution again. Everyone has to once. That's life. Nobody can appreciate the good without the bad.

I also agree, end the illegal labour practices. Encourage China to prosecute companies that refuse to abide by Chinese law. Then again, that should be obvious! :-)

"As Wal-Mart, we do not discriminate against anyone, including women," said Mona Williams, Wal-Mart's vice president for communications.

She noted that when Wal-Mart posted notices companywide in January inviting workers to apply to become management trainees, only 43 percent of those who expressed interest were women.

(emphasis mine)

13-16 hour days molding, assembling, and painting toys, 7 days a week; 20 hour days in the peak season.

A whole 13 hours at Christmas? And here I am working at my shop doing 24 hour days. Fuck you and the horse you rode in on. They have it good. But hey, just pretend nobody is working long hours at Christmas in North America, the wool over your eyes will keep you warm.

Workers are paid 13 cents/hour wages in China: the minimum wage is 31 cents.

Incorrect. There is no minimum wage in China. However, individual Chinese cities have elected to enact minimum wage standards.

The minimum wage in Shenyang, for example, is 320 yuan monthly, or 8 cents per hour if your above numbers are true.

But that's ok. Don't let the truth cloud your rhetoric.

There is no health or safety enforcement: constant headaches and nausea from chemical fumes, indoor temperatures above 100 degrees F, rampant repetitive stress disorder, no protective clothing available.

That's not unusual for any Chinese factory. It's not unusual for any developing nation. It is unfortunate and my heart bleeds for them. But denying them employment and money will only serve to exacerbate such problems through death and pestilence.

Most employees are young women or teenage girls.

It is unfortunate that in most rural areas choices are diffcult and it is believed in such areas that men are more suited to farm work than women. This leads to women working in such factories to support the financial aspect of such families.

Suppliers have to open their accounting books to Wal-Mart executives so they can cut "unnecessary expenses" like unionized worke

Here is that article I forgot to link in my message above.

Sorry about that...

Sivaram Velauthapillai

1. Afghanistan, 1998, 2001, 2002, 2003
2. Bosnia, 1994, 1995
3. Cambodia, 1969-70
4. China, 1945-46
5. Congo (now Zaire), 1964
6. Cuba, 1959-1961 ("Bay of Pigs" invasion)
7. El Salvador, 1980s
8. Grenada, 1983
9. Guatemala, 1954, 1960, 1967-69
10. Indonesia, 1958
11. Iran, 1987
12. Iraq, 1991-2000, 2003 (The U.S. government used radioactive bombs in the first war against Iraq. See United States War Crimes Against Iraq for what appears to be an accurate history.)
13. Korea and China, 1950-53 (Korean War)
14. Kuwait, 1991
15. Laos, 1964-73
16. Lebanon, 1983, 1984 (both Lebanese and Syrian targets)
17. Libya, 1986
18. Nicaragua, 1980s
19. Panama, 1989. The U.S. government called it "Operation Just Cause". The link is to a U.S. military web site.
20. Peru, 1965
21. Somalia, 1993
22. Sudan 1998. There are doubts

I don't think you know your history very well.

Ever heard of something called Iran-Contra? US did invade with the CIA (of course, I'm not implying that they invaded with their military). Check out this link: The history of U.S. intervention in Nicaragua.

While you are at it, here are all the US interventions in the last hundread years or so:

A history of U.S. intervention in Latin America and the Caribbean

A Brief History of U.S. Interventions: 1945 to the Present

Hope you learn something...

Sivaram Velauthapillai

Oh, but that's the whole point!

September 11 today, marks the anniversary of the day when a small group undertook a campaign of terror against a democratic government. When it was over, thousands were dead or arrested, repressive measures were in place, a fascist, military-controlled government was in place, and Salvador Allende, the democratically elected President of Chile, lay murdered.

The military coup in Chile thirty years ago today was financed and coordinated by the Nixon government.

This analyst has made the point that Allende was viewed as a danger by Kissinger precisely because he was a committed "democrat":

Kissinger set the CIA against Allende, not to preserve democracy or to counter a Soviet puppet in Latin America, but to prevent a charismatic socialist from providing a democratic alternative to American policy. "Henry thought that Allende might lead an anti-United States movement in Latin America more effectively than Castro, just because it was the democratic path to power," commented an ex-staff aide. In fact, it was precisely because Allende was widely regarded as a believer in democratic institutions that there was so much shock connected to his overthrow, especially in the Third World and southern Europe. What Kissinger was saying-and backing up with covert American power-was that adherence to democracy wasn't enough; that countries would not be allowed to switch over to a socialist way of running their economies even democratically. The message of Chile was: no matter how unjust or corrupt the alternative, the United States would not allow meaningful economic or social change, at least with a Marxist label, and a willingness to have good relations with Cuba, China, and the Soviet Union.

-Fl

I will respond to a selected few comments you have made.

I have been to Chile many times. I've talked to people who live there. The 1970s coup was very necessary. The whole country was an economic disaster and there were massive food shortages

I have lived in Chile since 1989, one year before Pinochet miscalculated the support he would get in a second plebiscite and was replaced by a "democratic" government.

The people you have talked to have told you one side of the story. As a matter of fact, you seem to have listened very carefully to them, as you have repeated the far-right-wing speech quite accurately.

Communists hate Pinochet because he was the only person to ever remove a communist government from power.

Might I point out that calling someone a "communist" in Chile amounts to saying that they do not glorify the military government and its actions? Note carefully that the criteria for being a communist has not changed. The difference is that from 1973 onwards you were "disappeared", tortured and often shot, while today you are just looked down upon by the right wing sector of society.

I bid you to take a few moments to think about your words: might it not be more likely that so-called communists resent the military government for having tortured and killed fathers, mothers, friends, family members, and, well, innocent people?

To this day, there is no understanding among the two sides in Chile. Day after day, year after year, the 11th of September comes and goes, and there is no understanding. So-called "communists" are told to their faces that the disappeared "do not exist", that they are a "marxist myth", or that they all ran away abroad. People mindlessly repeat the mantra that Allende's government was a disaster (it was, but not without considerable help from the USA and the Right), that it would have been much worse, look at Chile now, what a miracle, and so on.

Go on, I challenge you to read up about the Chicago Boys, about the amount of money spent manipulating Chile's media, about the right- and CIA- organized trucker strikes, about what Pinochet did to the public health system (AFP and ISAPREs).

Show your commitment to being well-informed, and form an opinion based not upon conversations with one side of an extremely polarised society, but on historical documents.

For your convenience, here are a few links, starting with an interview with Noam Chomsky: Secrets, Lies and Democracy, The Lawless State , U.S. Responsibility for the Coup in Chile. Please, take some time to Google a bit (or, heaven forbid, go to your local library ;-)

1. Afghanistan, 1998, 2001, 2002, 2003
2. Bosnia, 1994, 1995
3. Cambodia, 1969-70
4. China, 1945-46
5. Congo (now Zaire), 1964
6. Cuba, 1959-1961 ("Bay of Pigs" invasion)
7. El Salvador, 1980s
8. Grenada, 1983
9. Guatemala, 1954, 1960, 1967-69
10. Indonesia, 1958
11. Iran, 1987
12. Iraq, 1991-2000, 2003 (The U.S. government used radioactive bombs in the first war against Iraq. See United States War Crimes Against Iraq for what appears to be an accurate history.)
13. Korea and China, 1950-53 (Korean War)
14. Kuwait, 1991
15. Laos, 1964-73
16. Lebanon, 1983, 1984 (both Lebanese and Syrian targets)
17. Libya, 1986
18. Nicaragua, 1980s
19. Panama, 1989. The U.S. government called it "Operation Just Cause". The link is to a U.S. military web site.
20. Peru, 1965
21. Somalia, 1993
22. Sudan 1998. There are doubts that the pharmaceutical plant that was bombed was making weapons.
23. Vietnam, 1961-73 (An estimated 2,000,000 Vietnamese were killed.)
24. Yugoslavia, 1999

There are many sources for this information. For example, see this PBS web page: PBS: A Chronology of U.S. Military Interventions (PBS is the Public Broadcasting System in the U.S.) Also see From Wounded Knee to Afghanistan: A Century of U.S. Military Interventions [zmag.org] and The government of the United States is a consistent opponent of international law. [prairie-fire.org]

I put some links and explanation together about wh

Here is a link on some of the history of the S&L bailout.

Iran Hostage crisis ---> Started under Carter. Ended under Reagan.

Actually it started in 1953 when Eisenhower ordered the CIA to overthrow the popularly elected (as in a real democratic election) prime minister of Iran, Mossadegh, by pushing Reza Pahlava, the Shah, to expel him. Riots ensued, the Shah fled, the CIA put the riots down, brought the Shaw back, and trained SAVAK; who went on to earn Amnesty International's award for "worst human rights record on the planet" in 1976. That's the year Carter was elected, he didn't take office 'till 77. I'm not sure how you can imply he was responsible for the revolt in 79 to overthrow a brutal and repressive regime.

As for Reagan's illustrious involvement in the hostage crisis: He traded weapons to the Ayatollah Khomeini, the forces of darkness, to secure their release. Even Reagan admitted it. A very clever move, now known as the October Surprise, which was significant in defeating Carter.

Star Wars ---> Dreamed up in the 70's continues today. Even Clinton continued to fund it.

"When President Reagan first issued his challenge to America's scientific community to find a defense against ballistic missiles..." Clinton did continue funding, but then Clinton governed as a moderate republican, unfortunately.

Grenada ---> Warehouses full of Soviet weapons seized just before the 'rebellion' was to start. Talk to 82nd airborne vets about what they found and saw before you think it was a joke.

Greneda was no joke for the Grenadines. They had made the mistake of electing Maurice Bishop who, alas, was mildly socialist. CIA destabilization began shortly thereafter under Carter in '79, actually, but given the animosity and outright betrayal of Carter by the UberRight in the defense organization (Ollie et al, see above), it's not clear he knew anything about it. Given that Grenada was a managed news event, you should be careful of any "news" you read about it, and the dangerous weapons they had. Remember pfc Lynch's "Rescue."

War on drugs ---> Bush Sr., Nancy was "Just say No to drugs." Not to mention drug use DID decline through the end of the 80's and early 90's. The war is 'lost' because we (people and government) lost focus not because it could not be won.

US prohibition has quite a long history, all of it embarrassing. Reagan did declare the "War on Drugs," but what that really meant, and continues to mean is difficult to ascertain. One thing is for sure, it is not about helping people. Mentioning Gary Webb's careful and exceptionally well documented journalism runs contrary to the charade, but the evidence is strong that under Reagan the CIA was supporting the sale of cocaine in the US to fund the Contras after congress confronted the CIA's arms sales underwritten funding.

Central America ---> What part? And no fair bringing up Nicaragua. You already have Iran-Contra on the list. And if you thing the Sandinistas were better than the Contras you're frikin' nuts.

The difference is the Sandinistas were the popularly elected government and the Contras were the private army of Samoza, evacuated, rearmed, retrained, and reinserted

You mean, of course, that the US never starts anything, and has never started anything. I agree fully; our country does us proud.

No, actually, it is Israel.
The old USSR _used_ to be No 2. But since the mid 1990's, Israel has had the honour.
See here, here and here for details.
Note that although they are being outdone in nuclear weapons, their large arsenal of chemical and biological weapons more than makes up for it...

1. Afghanistan, 1998, 2001, 2002, 2003
2. Bosnia, 1994, 1995
3. Cambodia, 1969-70
4. China, 1945-46
5. Congo (now Zaire), 1964
6. Cuba, 1959-1961 ("Bay of Pigs" invasion)
7. El Salvador, 1980s
8. Grenada, 1983
9. Guatemala, 1954, 1960, 1967-69
10. Indonesia, 1958
11. Iran, 1987
12. Iraq, 1991-2000, 2003 (The U.S. government used radioactive bombs in the first war against Iraq. See United States War Crimes Against Iraq for what appears to be an accurate history.)
13. Korea and China, 1950-53 (Korean War)
14. Kuwait, 1991
15. Laos, 1964-73
16. Lebanon, 1983, 1984 (both Lebanese and Syrian targets)
17. Libya, 1986
18. Nicaragua, 1980s
19. Panama, 1989. The U.S. government called it "Operation Just Cause". The link is to a U.S. military web site.
20. Peru, 1965
21. Somalia, 1993
22. Sudan 1998. There are doubts that the pharmaceutical plant that was bombed was making weapons.
23. Vietnam, 1961-73 (An estimated 2,000,000 Vietnamese were killed.)
24. Yugoslavia, 1999

There are many sources for this information. For example, see this PBS web page: PBS: A Chronology of U.S. Military Interventions (PBS is the Public Broadcasting System in the U.S.) Also see From Wounded Knee to Afghanistan: A Century of U.S. Military Interventions [zmag.org] and The government of the United States is a consistent opponent of international law. [

to subsidize research - historically including automation, jet engines and of course information technology - that may be useful to the private sector.

Yes, everything I say is Chomskyist.

So - what do we have here? We have the pentagon developing an incredibly sophisticated, expensive technology. No private sector entity could ever muster the resources - I mean expertise, not just the finances - to make a comprehensive project like this work. Not even Microsoft (they'd screw it up anyway.) ONLY the defensive department can do it.

I should qualify that - Total Information Awareness could be implemented as open source, if we had motivation to do so. However, that wouldn't serve the purposes of the administration's corporate backers, who's goals do not include clarity and transparency.

Technology much like this already exists in the hands of corporations ("unaccountable private tyrannies," the man can sure turn a phrase) but it is not sophisticated enough for their needs in predicting our behavior - almost everything you do has a commercial component, and would be of interest to someone business, so saying that this is restricted to commercial activities is facetious.

If your primary objection is to the government getting it's hands on the data in the first place, keep in mind that a host of completely unaccountable private organizations - international corporations - already have it. In order for the government to develop such a technology, they need the information in question - so they need new legal powers to get it. The same is not true of corporations, who can and do simply trade the information with eachother.

Once the technology is developed, however, it absolutely will become available as a tool for use by the private sector, who already have the information needed to make it work.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/General/ThirdWor ld_def.html dyjgttwt?

Yes, Canada does have some oil resources

One of Hitler's earliest actions was the building of a detention center for "terrorists", in March 1933 at Oranianberg. Suspension of constitutional guarantees was his principal plank in reaching for absolute power. Hartmann's essay is an essential backgrounder on how Hitler used the same tactics as Rummy's Bush: When Democracy Failed alan

"5. I am not aware of a United States chemical or biological weapons program. Perhaps you could post more information."

I've been reading books about U.S. government activities since I was serving in the U.S. Air Force during the Vietnam war. At that time, the government was lying to U.S. citizens about what we were doing at the base at which I was stationed in Thailand. I was shocked that the U.S. government would so easily lie, and I began to be interested in knowing more.

I've put together two articles that collect links about mostly hidden violent U.S. government activities. I've been amazed at one of the responses I've gotten: Most people have very little knowledge of U.S. government violence, even though the U.S. government has killed more than 3,000,000 since the Second World War.

The U.S. government is a world leader in biological weapons, although you don't hear about that much any more. Try visiting the U.S. Army Soldier and Biological Chemical Command. The site says, "The operational capabilities of the command include the safe, secure, storage of chemical weapons at the eight United States stockpile sites at Anniston Ala., Blue Grass, Ky., Edgewood, Md., Newport, Ind., Pine Bluff, Ark., Pueblo, Colo., Tooele, Utah and Umatillla, Ore." Most of the site is not accessible to people like you and me who pay taxes to support this. The site is written to show only the mostly defensive activities.

However, the U.S. government is heavily involved in EVERY kind of weapons manufacture. For example, see the October 29, 2002 article in The Guardian US weapons secrets exposed.

The U.S. government has a long history of encouraging and perpetrating violence. For example, see US sent biological weapons to Iraq in 1980s.

I've pulled together some links in two articles: History surrounding the U.S. war with Iraq: Four short stories and What should be the Response to Violence?

The response to violence should be to study why it occurs to make sure that you are not contributing it, and to fix the underlying problems, rather than engage in more violence. Peace cannot happen overnight. If there have been years of trouble-making, it will take years to correct. Since the present violence in Iraq began more than 50 years ago, it may be necessary to have 50 years of attempts at peace to correct it.

1) Great pyramids of Egypt (paid for by the blood of thousands of conscripts)

2) The Holocaust

3) Detention of the Japanese during WWII

4) McCarthyism

5) Detention of arabs today

6) Watergate

7) Radiation testing on US troops

8) Waco

9) The Internal Revenue Service

10) Project MK-Ultra

Anyone else care to contribute?

The term "propaganda," incidentally, did not have negative connotations in those days. It was during the second World War that the term became taboo because it was connected with Germany, and all those bad things. But in this period, the term propaganda just meant information or something like that. So he wrote a book called Propaganda around 1925, and it starts off by saying he is applying the lessons of the first World War.

• Body of Secrets - Anatomy of the ultra secret National Security Agency by James Bramford. - I'm reading this now and it is excellent. It is quite astounding what the NSA were capable of in the 50s, let alone today.
• Report by the European Parliament into Echelon - huge, amazing, has some great pics. Quite focussed on Echelon's abilities in the corporate espionage area.
• Books by Phil Agee - CIA Diary: Inside the Company and On the Run. Both out of print, no suprise but I got my copies through a mail order house in the UK. The were posted a day after my order but took a month and a half to get to me. suspicious moi? Although more about the CIA they contain fascinating insights into the overall operations of the Intelligence Services as they were in the 70s. Especially interesting is Agee's description of the CIA being alerted to his every move from hotel checkins, phone taps, border checks and so forth. Makes you think twice about checking into a hotel - anywhere. Also very interesting is his description of standard CIA destabilisation stratagem - you can see these same tactics being deployed today against Chavez in Venezuela and Schröder in Germany.
• A Secret Country by John Pilger. The chapter on the CIA's infiltration of the Australian labor movement and the subsequent 'dismissal' of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam is excellent in particular. Whitlam had threatened to evict the NSA's Pine Gap and Narrungar remote monitoring and relay facilities from Australia. This was also aroud the time of the ill fated Nugan Hand bank which was being used by the CIA to launder heroin money. The NHB was the prototype for the equally ill fated BCCI, Bank of Credit and Commerce International aka Bank of Crooks and Criminals International. The bases, with their unregulated traffic were perfect conduits for heroin from south east asia.
• American Tabloid and The Cold Six Thousand - If you like his style, and many people don't, this is historical fiction by James Ellroy that is rich with character driven insight into the working of corruption on the grandest of scales. If i see the Cold6K on someone's shelf I just can't help picking it up, turning to a random page and reading. I am always immediatly drawn in. I can't wait for the 3rd in the series to come out. :-)

So what your saying is so what if a handful of corporations gain even more control over the media as long as we get cheap DSL?

Dow owns Union Carbide, responsible for killing thousands in Bhopal, India through multiple dangerous accidents in its chemical plants. Despite Dow putting a caring face on (the site is owned by Dow, though it isn't clear by looking at the main page), the aftermath continues.

A fairly good summary of the event can be found here, although it doesn't quite reveal the way Union Carbide pretty much tried to ignore the Indian legal system, ignoring repeated summons, allegedly trying to abandon responsibility for the accident altogether.

You said, "I'm not an expert on history..."

There is an excellent short book available online that explains the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. It was written by Jews who recognize that there was unfairness by Jews in the formation of Israel. The title is The Origin of the Palestine-Israel Conflict. Here is a quote from the chapter called Conclusion for Jewish Readers: "We know it is hard to accept emotionally, but in this case the Jewish people are in the wrong. We took most of Palestine by force from the Arabs and blamed the victims for resisting their dispossession."

The book says:

"During the 1948 war, 750,000 Palestinians fled in terror or were actively expelled from their ancestral homeland and turned into refugees. The state of Israel then refused to allow them to return and either destroyed their villages entirely or expropriated their land, orchards, houses, businesses and personal possessions for the use of the Jewish population. This was the birth of the state of Israel."

The Palestinians have, ever since, been living in refugee camps.

Why does the U.S. government give huge amounts of money to an already prosperous country? An article written from notes of a speech by San Francisco, California, political science professor Stephen Zunes explains that U.S. weapons manufacturers sell weapons to both Israel and to Arab countries. The article, U.S. Aid to Israel: Interpreting the "Strategic Relationship" says,

According to Zunes, "The Israelis announced back in 1991 that they supported the idea of a freeze in Middle East arms transfers, yet it was the United States that rejected it."

"THIRD WORLD -- the economically underdeveloped countries of Asia, Africa, Oceania, and Latin America, considered as an entity with common characteristics, such as poverty, high birthrates, and economic dependence on the advanced countries. The French demographer Alfred Sauvy coined the expression ("tiers monde" in French) in 1952 by analogy with the "third estate," the commoners of France before and during the French Revolution-as opposed to priests and nobles, comprising the first and second estates respectively. Like the third estate, wrote Sauvy, the third world is nothing, and it "wants to be something." The term therefore implies that the third world is exploited, much as the third estate was exploited, and that, like the third estate its destiny is a revolutionary one. It conveys as well a second idea, also discussed by Sauvy, that of non-alignment, for the third world belongs neither to the industrialized capitalist world nor to the industrialized Communist bloc. The expression third world was used at the 1955 conference of Afro-Asian countries held in Bandung, Indonesia. In 1956 a group of social scientists associated with Sauvy's National Institute of Demographic Studies, in Paris, published a book called Le Tiers-Monde. Three years later, the French economist Francois Perroux launched a new journal, on problems of underdevelopment, with the same title. By the end of the 1950's the term was frequently employed in the French media to refer to the underdeveloped countries of Asia, Africa, Oceania, and Latin America."

Source: http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/General/ThirdWor ld_def.html

See also:
http://www.infoplease.com/askeds/11-27-01askeds.ht ml

http://pages.prodigy.net/aesir/oncwg.htm (slightly different take on the term)

Actually, corporate entities are legally afforded many if not all of the same protections afforded individual citizens. Read up on Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad (1886) here.

Written like a true tr0ll!

Of course, I think you either don't drink at your own fountain, or you have a little lead in your pipes, if you know what I mean.

I would like to speculate for the crowd how well this coherent-sounding rhetoric would hold up while you were being tortured by a few CIA-trained SAVAK interrogators. Oh, that SAVAK. The American-backed Shah of Iran's security services. The people who were so bad the Ayatollahs looked great by comparison. In the words of Amnesty International, "No country in the world has a worse record in human rights than Iran." Under our puppet dictator, that is.

We are lovers of totalitarianism in the West, and we gave the Soviets excellent competition. I just gave you one Middle Eastern country. Press me, and I can respond a dozen times before I even get into to South America.

The western elite cared plenty about methods. And, the methods of the western "elite" in general did not use methods as evil as the Soviets. Certainly the western "elite" didn't use evil methods against their own people!

I want you to chant this a dozen times before you go to bed each night, and two dozen times in the morning. But you have no chance of catching up to the number of "insurgents" (now the term is "terrorists") our regime has murdered, generally by proxy, but often directly, before you die. Unless you're visiting Guatemala and get mistaken for a communist. Then you'll really miss the mark. Or start chanting a lot faster, one or the other.

Think I should be confused by the fact that I won't go to reeducation for my comments? Why should I? I'm intimately familiar with the recent history which allows me to speak unfavorably about capitalism, as well as the more recent history that seems eager to turn back the clock.

I don't really understand it myself, but I suppose the idiot's garden of denial about the exigencies of power and the behavior of western governments is powerfully attractive to some - actually, most - people. I think it has something to do with our pain threshold. Or maybe just those regular public education funding cuts.

Rock on, "mesocyclone." If you really believe what you are saying, someone as obviously wrongheaded as yourself will be in little danger of questioning your beliefs, and if not, you're even more likely to profess the same. Take my advice, though. Don't do too much traveling in the 3rd world.

Currently running in favor of corporations. The donating of corporate cash to political committees or spending on issue ads, is currently considered protected free speech by the courts. This of course requires the courts to consider corporations entities with the legal standing of people, a legal fiction granted by the Supremes in an 1886 creative reinterpretation of the 14th amendment (written to protect freed slaves) that gave corporations most rights of humans under the law and constitution.

Heh, makes me wonder what sort of citizenship laws congresscritters will pass for silicon-based intelligent entities (that will probably, initially, be owned by corporations.)

A more accurate definition of the origins of the term Third World:

THIRD WORLD -- the economically underdeveloped countries of Asia, Africa, Oceania, and Latin America, considered as an entity with common characteristics, such as poverty, high birthrates, and economic dependence on the advanced countries. The French demographer Alfred Sauvy coined the expression ("tiers monde" in French) in 1952 by analogy with the "third estate," the commoners of France before and during the French Revolution-as opposed to priests and nobles, comprising the first and second estates respectively. Like the third estate, wrote Sauvy, the third world is nothing, and it "wants to be something." The term therefore implies that the third world is exploited, much as the third estate was exploited, and that, like the third estate its destiny is a revolutionary one. It conveys as well a second idea, also discussed by Sauvy, that of non-alignment, for the third world belongs neither to the industrialized capitalist world nor to the industrialized Communist bloc. The expression third world was used at the 1955 conference of Afro-Asian countries held in Bandung, Indonesia. In 1956 a group of social scientists associated with Sauvy's National Institute of Demographic Studies, in Paris, published a book called Le Tiers-Monde. Three years later, the French economist Francois Perroux launched a new journal, on problems of underdevelopment, with the same title. By the end of the 1950's the term was frequently employed in the French media to refer to the underdeveloped countries of Asia, Africa, Oceania, and Latin America.

Wrong. Read this.

Have people forgotten CoIntelPro ??

Learn more From this webpage:

COINTELPRO is an acronym for the FBI's domestic "counterintelligence programs" to neutralize political dissidents. Although covert operations have been employed throughout FBI history, the formal COINTELPRO's conducted between 1956-1971 were broadly targeted against radical political organizations.

These people would spread FUD via a deep-dark secret purposeful conspiracy. The FBI actually became involved in destroying people and political movements. Murder, Sabotage, Agent Provocateurs, Misinformation and Criminal-Implicating (framing) were regularly used.

These people are at it again: here and here and here

My guess is that you're think of the Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific RR case from 1886. It's actually quite interesting. The Supreme Court decided that the 14th Amendment applies to corporations.

"The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of opinion that it does."

It was quite a landmark case. You can read the original ruling, or see one of many interpretations.

[H}ow many viable magazines/cable channels/ISP/Movie Studios etc are there besides AOL TW...hmm, I don't have enough time to count.

The answer to your question is 5.

6 media conglomerates own just about every major media and entertainment product in the US.

S.O.A.

Blowback

CIA in Guatemala

Interview

Vandana Shiva has been protesting the interference of Monsanto with local communities for years. Biodevastation, Water Rights.

Also watch out for Bechtel, using the same tactics in South America Water War Victory.

These corporations are changing the face of the planet for a quick one-time profit. They lack any ties to the local communities they despoil. Take the money and run... Yet the after affects will be long lasting and world wide. And people wonder why we have a cultural image of mad scientists. Once again, proprietary science has allowed itself to create a monster it thought it could control. We'll see...

It's extremely refreshing to note that at least somebody has smelt the coffee over there. Even if the standard /.'er doesn't see it after some witty moderation by the me-me-me-generetion of the libertarian task force.

So, even though I'm not completely in harmony with the actual communist ideals - I prefer socialism with more of a "eco fascist" touch with much less focus on human wellfare - I agree fully on your point on the olicarghy of the investers ruling the world (not just America, but everywhere - look at Russia, China, EU, and indirectly the third world as well), and the consequences it brings to the well-being of an average citizen, foreigner, animal, or anything else than the bank account of the inner circle. And this is not paranoia or something not really existing brought you by the servants of Papa Stalin - everything is completely transparent and public to research if you just have a few hours to spend on it.

A good starting point for the uninitiated could be e.g. Chomsky's Profit Over People, not a perfect compilation of essays, but thought provoking.

Pathetic. Read a little about what really happened.

As for democracy, yes Kuwait is not one. However, the U.S. is not imperialist: it will not let others choose Kuwait's government for it (not even the U.S.)

Haha. How long have you been this dense?

My government protects me from corporate abuses. Why can't their government protect them?

Oh yeah, because their government sucks! That's my point.

Why does their government suck?

Gee, could it be the fact that our government systematically and illegally destabilizes and undermines and blatantly overthrows any attempts at local democratic self-rule in third-world countries, preferring instead to prop up easily-controlled ,corrupt militaristic regimes?

" Coming to grips with these U.S./CIA activities in broad numbers and figuring out how many people have been killed in the jungles of Laos or the hills of Nicaragua is very difficult. But, adding them up as best we can, we come up with a figure of six million people killed-and this is a minimum figure. Included are: one million killed in the Korean War, two million killed in the Vietnam War, 800,000 killed in Indonesia, one million in Cambodia, 20,000 killed in Angola ... and 22,000 killed in Nicaragua. These people would not have died if U.S. tax dollars had not been spent by the CIA to inflame tensions, finance covert political and military activities and destabilize societies.

"Certainly, there are other local, regional, national and international factors in many of these operations, but if the CIA were tried fairly in a U.S. court, under U.S. law, the principle of complicity, incitement, riot, and mayhem would clearly apply. In the United States, if you hire someone to commit a murder your sentence may be approximately the same as that of the murderer himself.

"Who are these six million people we have killed in the interest of American national security? Conservatives tell us, "It's a dangerous world. Our enemies have to die so we can be safe and secure." Some of them say, "I'm sorry, but that's the way the world is. We have to accept this reality and defend ourselves, to make our nation safe and insure our way of life."

"Since 1954, however, we have not parachuted teams into the Soviet Union - our number one enemy - to destabilize that country... Neither do we run these violent operations in England, France, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, or Switzerland. Since the mid-1950s they have all been conducted in Third World countries where governments do not have the power to force the United States to stop its brutal and destabilizing campaigns.

"One might call this the "Third World War." It is a war that has been fought by the United States against the Third World. Others call it the Cold War and focus on the anti-Communist and anti-Soviet rationales, but the dead are not Soviets; they are people of the Third World. It might also be called the Forty-Year War, like the Thirty-Year and Hundred-Year Wars in Europe, for this one began when the CIA was founded in 1947 and continues today. Altogether, perhaps twenty million people died in the Cold War. As wars go, it has been the second or third most destructive of human life in all of history, after World War I and World War II.

"The six million people the CIA has helped to kill are people of the Mitumba Mountains of the Congo, the jungles of Southeast Asia, and the hills of northern Nicaragua. They are people without ICBMs or armies or navies, incapable of doing physical damage to the United States the 22,000 killed in Nicaragua, for example, are not Russians; they are not Cuban soldiers or advisors; they are not even mostly Sandinistas. A majority are rag-poor peasants, including large numbers of women and children.

"Communists? Hardly, since the dead Nicaraguans are predominantly Roman Catholics. Enemies of the United States? That description doesn't fit either, because the thousands of witnesses who have lived in Nicaraguan villages with the people since 1979 testify that the Nicaraguans are the warmest people on the face of the earth, that they love people from the United States, and they simply cannot understand why our leaders would want to spend $1 billion on a contra force designed to murder people and wreck the country."
-- John Stockwell, former CIA official and author

For decades, our government -- with all its military and financial clout -- has deliberately shat upon other peoples in their efforts to attain the very freedoms we take for granted.

And you have the gall to suggest that this is their fault?

The Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights and how they are being routinely ignored by the government.

Free Speech: Second thoughts on the First Amendment. Another very interesting read.

I have been lucky enough in the past few weeks to attend a couple of Howard Zinn's talks in Boston.

Miguel.

The Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights and how they are being routinely ignored by the government.

Free Speech: Second thoughts on the First Amendment. Another very interesting read.

I have been lucky enough in the past few weeks to attend a couple of Howard Zinn's talks in Boston.

Miguel.

Fantastic Lad

Lots of info on this school that teaches such things as torture (they even have a published manual for it!) at different sites. Some are out there liberal, but there is a lot of hard evidence available to anyone that wants it. Try here.

So don't be surprised when you hear that terrorists are trained in the USA! apparently, someone who may have been involved in the WTC attack was even trained at U.S. military schools. I guess that's only fair considering the groups we back have killed far more innocents than died in the attacks. Not trying to belittle the loss in the U.S., just pointing out that the hate we spread sometimes comes home to roost. would that it could end everywhere!

Everyone,

As is often the case, the Economist seems to have the best story: America under Attack

Also see The Economist front page

Stratfor provides interesting and more complete analysis.

Lax Security One of the important points made in the article is that security in U.S. airports and on U.S. airplanes before the bombing was lax compared to the security in Europe.

George Bush had Increased Support for Israel. The Economist article does not mention that the Bush Administration in the U.S. had recently increased its support for the Israeli government and therefore also Israeli violence. The Clinton administration, in contrast, was more careful not to do things which could be interpreted as an incitement to violence.

Once again, intelligence agencies were useless. It is amazing to me that "intelligence" authorities claim that they did not have any idea that there would be an attack like this. Below is a link to an album cover from a band called "The Coup". It is black American "Party Music". The album was sold long before today's bombing. The album cover shows both towers of the World Trade Center in New York in flames:

The Coup -- Party Music, album cover shows the World Trade Center towers burning.

If black rap artists can have this idea, why didn't the intelligence agencies have it? The idea was not particularly innovative, since the World Trade Center had already been bombed once. Did the intelligence agencies think that those who did it would just stop trying?

From one of the Stratfor articles: "Reuters is reporting that Arabic satellite television channel MBC warned Sept. 8 that followers of suspected Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden were planning a major attack on U.S. and Israeli interests in the next two weeks."

Violence is Assumed. Commentators on three of the largest U.S. TV networks, NBC, CBS, and ABC, have made comments that assume without debate that the U.S. will engage in military action in retaliation. One U.S. senator said on TV that the U.S. response should be comparable to the U.S. response to the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor. One of the U.S. responses at the time of Pearl Harbor was to be the only country that has ever used nuclear weapons. Is the senator suggesting that?

This is my reply to the many people who are recommending violence as an answer to violence:

Do you have any thought that violence in retaliation might be a mistake, and might just invite further violence? Those who say no may change their minds after they consider the following issues:

The U.S. government (not necessarily the U.S. people) has a history of thinking that violence is the answer. The U.S. government killed 2,100,000 people in Vietnam and maybe 150,000 people in Iraq. The U.S. has bombed 14 countries in 30 years, killing a roughly estimated 3,000,000 people. None of the people who were killed were in any way directly threatening the U.S. These people had mothers and fathers, friends and families and wives.

Most of the citizens of the U.S. had, and have, no idea of the beliefs of the people that their government killed. Most people in the U.S. cannot even locate the countries the U.S. government bombed on a map of the world. People cannot be thought to have chosen violence when they do not come close to understanding the issues. It is often the government that chooses violence, not the people.

No matter how violent a country is, or how many people a violent country kills, there is still an inexhaustible supply of people in other countries who also want to engage in violence. Violence can be unending. Do you want that?

No matter how angry you are, there are thousands of people who are more angry than you. Do you want them to attack you?

As was mentioned above, the Bush administration recently increased U.S. support for the violence of the Israelis. This was sure to make the people being killed by the Israelis unhappy. Do you find it surprising that some of them are motivated to violence also?

There are many countries where people are severely distressed by Israeli violence. Recently there was a TV news story about street violence in which Israelis were killed. The Israeli counter-attack was shown on TV: A helicopter fired rockets at a building, causing huge explosions. It is not important in this instance whether the Israelis are the aggressors. What is important is that a significant number of people in the world think they are the aggressors.

The problems between the Jews and the Arabs have existed for 3,300 years. The Jews say that they are the "chosen people" of God. The Jews say that Arabs are descended from an illegitimate child of their tribal founder, Abraham, and a slave girl.

It is not difficult to understand the thoughts of the Arabs. It is not difficult to understand that it is annoying to live next to a group of people who claim that they are superior, and that Arabs are inferior. It is not difficult to understand that it is annoying to live near people who claim that you are a descendent of a bastard and that God doesn't like you as much.

It is also not difficult to understand that the constant claims of the Jews of superiority over everyone else (including people of European descent like me) are mentally de-centering to Arabs who happen to be psychologically conflicted.

Violence is caused by mentally de-centered people. Mentally de-centered people engage in violence. It's that simple. Being violent toward them makes mentally de-centered people even more mentally de-centered. That's why violence is not a good answer to violence.

The U.S., and all those who hate violence, should take very strong action. But the action must be designed to cure the problem of highly-conflicted, mentally de-centered people. Whatever that response is, it must be more sophisticated than violence.

The terrorists are extreme examples of mentally disturbed people. Remember that those who crashed airplanes into the buildings cannot possibly benefit from their own actions. They are dead. Someone who is willing to commit suicide is about as mentally de-centered as it is possible to be.

Does the U.S. really have a place in a dispute that began 3,100 years before the founding of the country? How many people here really understand this dispute? What percentage of the citizens of the U.S. can even find Israel on a map of the world? I think the percentage is low.

I find the arrogance of my Jewish friends annoying, too. However, there are many differences between myself and the terrorists. I am less conflicted. I am better educated. It doesn't matter to me what other people have been saying for thousands of years; I don't believe Jews actually are superior. I don't live in an area where I am at risk of being killed by Israelis. I am not Arab, so I am not the target of the strongest claims of Jews that they are superior.

I can also understand why Jews would find Arabs annoying. There is an element of the Arab culture that allows Arabs to think that lies are sometimes acceptable. My Arab friends have sometimes lied to me over trivial issues. To someone who values careful thought, lies are extremely repugnant.

Should we be giving Israel money when that will be seen as us a choosing to enter a 3,300 year-old conflict? The U.S. government gives billions of dollars every year to Israel. If anything, this money seems to have made Israel weaker. The Israelis have spent money they didn't earn; this is always a corrupting influence; they have had problems with inflation. It can hardly be said that the people of the U.S. give the money; most have no idea that money is going to Israel. So, the people pay the money, but the government gives it away. Rightly or wrongly, sensibly or crazily, the Arabs see this money as encouragement of Israel's violence toward them.

On this particular issue both cultures are crazy! They've been killing each other since the time of the Pharaohs! What does this have to do with the U.S.? Do we walk into bars and take part in any fight that is happening there?

The U.S. has a history of secret interference with the governments of other countries. We often hear about secret activities of the U.S. government after it is too late to object. The U.S. supported the killing of president Mossadegh of Iran, and then supported an extremely weak man, the Shah of Iran. (See Iran 1953: Making it safe for the King of Kings) [thirdworldtraveler.com], for example.) This provoked a revolution in Iran that was hostile to the United States. Citizens of the U.S. were kept hostage.

The U.S. secret agencies' secret answer to the anti-U.S. sentiment was to support Saddam Hussein of Iraq against Iran. We supported Saddam Hussein's violent war against Iran. However, when Saddam Hussein became violent toward another country in the region, we spent billions of dollars to kill an estimated 150,000 Iraqis and destroy their property.

When executives do things openly they make lots of mistakes, and are sometimes held accountable, usually in a very peaceful way, and usually by their own staffs. When executives do things in secret, there is little accountability, and the mistakes can become huge.

Anyone interested in the activities of secret U.S. agencies may have been interested in a segment of the CBS show "60 Minutes" about the secret involvement of former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in the killing of Chilean General Rene Schneider. The show aired on Sunday, September 9, 2001. General Schneider was a strong supporter of democracy. Here are links to information about U.S. interference with democracy in Chile:

National Security Archive Chile Documentation Project [gwu.edu]

PBS News Hour: "... evidence of a policy to undermine democracy in Chile and to support dictatorship there" [pbs.org]

Hinchey Report, CIA Activities in Chile [state.gov]

Iran, Iraq, and Chile are just three of the countries that have suffered from secret U.S. involvement. There is some discussion of U.S. government interference in Saudi Arabia below. Also, don't forget Nicaragua. I asked someone who went to Nicaragua during U.S. involvement there whether it was possible to see the wealth that the U.S. government was pouring into that small country. The amount was said to be about $1,000,000 per day. I was told, no, there was no evidence of the money that was spent.

There is a cycle: 1) The U.S. government influences other governments in hidden ways, including arranging the killing of foreign leaders. 2) Some members of the countries with whom the U.S. has interfered want to retaliate violently to the violence of the U.S. 3) The U.S. uses the violent retaliation as a justification for more hidden activity.

Invading countries and killing the residents and destroying their property is not a way of relating I consider socially skilled. Why do the citizens of one country think they can kill the citizens of another? If killing is the answer, can't the U.S. ask a better question?

The interference in the affairs of other countries by the secret U.S. agencies has prompted some people to retaliate. These people who retaliate are called "terrorists" in the U.S. The terrorists make everyone in the U.S. less safe. So, U.S. citizens have, in some ways, gotten less security for the money they spent on secret activities.

The violent attitude toward people outside the U.S. has, predictably, spread to the internal police forces in the U.S. When some religious fanatics decided to do stupid things in Waco, Texas, the U.S. government responded by bringing in very violent-minded people. The result was that people were killed.

There were people who didn't like the activities of the U.S. police forces in Waco. There were people who were psychologically de-centered by these activities. One of them, Timothy McVeigh, bombed a U.S. government building in Oklahoma. So then the U.S. government killed him.

Secrecy encourages people not to trust. Violence encourages violence.

We tend to hear about the activities of secret U.S. government agencies about 30 years after they occur. What are they doing now?

It is 10:00 o'clock. Do you know what the U.S. government is doing? No, it is a fact that you don't. You don't know any other time, either. You cannot even know how much of your money is spent on secret activities, because the budget for secret U.S. government agencies is hidden in other appropriations.

Definition of a terrorist: The other country's CIA.

There is in the U.S. very little attempt at understanding other cultures. Arab friends of mine have described situations in Saudi Arabia that are extremely volatile. Apparently Osama bin Laden, and many average Saudis who live in the U.S., feel very unhappy with U.S. influence in Saudi Arabia. They think that there should be political parties and democracy in Saudi Arabia. However, the U.S. government strongly supports the dictatorial regime of the house of Al Saud. Residents of Saudi Arabia, for example, are not allowed to leave the country without an exit visa. They are potentially prisoners of their own country.

Why not ask ourselves why Osama bin Laden is willing to go to so much trouble to promote terrorism? Maybe we would learn something. I am NOT saying Osama bin Laden is right about anything, and definitely his violence is reprehensible. Nevertheless it may help to understand him. According to Arabs to whom I've talked, there is considerable good reason to be dissatisfied with the secret actions of the U.S. government.

As other people have said in the past, the U.S. government has a history of supporting corrupt dictatorships. The U.S. government supported Pakistan against India! India is the world's most populous democracy. It has been suggested that the preference for supporting dictatorships is due to U.S. government corruption. A dictator is almost certain to be willing to support embezzlement of U.S. government money, and to keep it secret. Trying to arrange embezzlement would be very dangerous in a democracy because of the danger of being discovered.

Under the stress of conflict, people show how they truly think. It has always annoyed me that people who call themselves Christian often reveal that they don't really believe in the important messages of Christianity, and that they don't even understand those messages.

Basically, Jesus Christ's idea of not returning violence with violence means that we can vigorously protect ourselves, but that any response must be the true minimum necessary to achieve security. This is a theory that can be recommended even to the majority of people in the world who are not Christian. The theory seems to fit the facts. The facts seem to be that violence always has severely negative side-effects that overwhelm any effect that might be seen as positive.

Answers? Prevention is an answer. Better understanding is an answer. Being charitable long before any problems begin occurring is a good answer. And maybe there are times when we just don't know the answer.

There is often considerable misunderstanding about non-violent methods. One reason to suggest non-violent methods is that they can be extremely powerful. For example, suppose that representatives from the U.S. knew Osama bin Laden's family. Or suppose that you understood how money is transferred to bin Laden. Or suppose the U.S. was so well-liked in the region that bin Laden had difficulty finding supporters. One of the values of non-violent methods is that literally hundreds of them are available, and many of them are far, far cheaper than violence.

The desire for non-violence is a desire to be extremely powerful. Those who are really powerful can have a strong influence just by voicing disapproval.

There are many people who support violence because they want to act out their own personal anger, while at the same time hiding their internal conflict from themselves. It is a fact that such people would be FAR more comfortable if they could be helped to understand and take responsibility for their anger. Acting out anger is like a drug. It provides only temporary relief, and it makes the person who does it more angry. Having un-recognized anger is like carrying a 100-pound sack of cement on your back wherever you go. Un-recognized anger drags you down 24 hours per day.

Violence is not a good answer to violence.

Regards,

Michael Jennings

Michael Jennings
P.O. Box 14491
Portland, OR 97293-0491
U.S.A.

E-Mail: M_Jennings@USA.com

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