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Globalization
In fact, as British political scientist Anthony Giddens writes in his eerily prescient book Runaway World: How Globalism is Reshaping Our Lives, the conflict now underway between the United States and some extremist fundamentalists was inevitable. Cosmopolitans welcome technology and cultural diversity, while fundamentalists find it disturbing and dangerous.
In a globalizing world -- one of its cornerstones being the Net -- technology, information, culture, money, business and imagery are routinely transmitted across the world. Boundaries mean different things now, including the inescapable fact that they are highly porous. This enrages political, social and religious fundamentalists, as we are hurriedly learning. They turn to religion, ethnic identity and nationalism to build "purer" traditions -- and a few turn to violence.
So despite the fact that there's no consensus on exactly what globalism is (my dictionary defines it as the process by which social institutions become adopted on a worldwide scale), the questions torment us: is globalism a force to ease poverty and inequality, by bringing higher standards of living and new technologies to poor and distant regions? Or merely an unprecedented vehicle for promoting the greed, conformity, environmental destruction and profit-at-all-cost ethos of multinational corporations? Perhaps it's both.
Giddens' predictions are coming true before our eyes. The conflict is here, and we seem to be unwilling and unknowing combatants. We, along with our leaders, are astonished at just how much we seem to be hated out there. We see our popular and technological culture despised in much of the world. Fundamentalist extremists have declared a holy war against it, one that may continue for years with bloody and uncertain consequences.
It's not an oversimplification to say that technology is the prime battleground. Technologies from movie cameras to TV sets to the Net are the means by which culture and wealth travel from one part of the world to the other. Fundamentalists have declared war on technology as much as on anything. And from anthrax to passenger jets as missiles, they've shown a sophisticated grasp of how technology can be used to devastating effect against its creators, who revel in making it but not thinking much about it.
In this conflict what Giddens calls "the cosmopolitan approach" is the choice of the people who are reading this column and working in the tech universe. We value free speech, religious freedom, scientific exploration, open communications, cultural choice and diversity. Such tolerance is closely conected to democracy.
Yet democracy and fundamentalism are both spreading world-wide, two seemingly irreconcilable ideologies colliding head-on. As Giddens points out, globalism creates a paradox: democratic cultures are its most enthusiastic proponents, yet globalism doesn't seem to promote democracy so much as corporate profits and practices. In fact, you could argue that globalism seems to expose the limits of democratic structures: Can governments preserve the environment, keep work secure and equitable, ensure fair wages, control capitalism, distribute new technologies equitably, respect diverse cultural values, contain greed and restrict the imagery that Americans love but that frightens and offends large segments of the world population?
In Part Two: Have multinationals hijacked globalism? (Yes.)
The only reasons we seem to be surprised at how much we're hated out there is that we don't take the time to learn what our country has done over there, what past attitudes have been, past policies, past responses. Everyone knows America isn't well-liked in certain areas of the world... but precious few man-on-the-street Joe Average Citizens can tell you -why-. That, in a nutshell, is what the problem is. If people knew -why- we were hated, if they took the time to learn about the past instead of repeating it, maybe we could find a way out of this that doesn't involve a billion dollars worth of explosions.
What type of government could possibly wrap itself around globalization? That is the major stumbling block that I see. The UN has bumbled its way around enough to know that it isn't the answer. Perhaps smaller regional governments (The EU, Pan-African Congress, OAS, etc) are the first answer to get around the poisonous ethnic problems that have caused the latest conflicts in the world. After that, let the global government figure itself out.
Wil Weaton submits yeasterday: "You know, I don't have a huge problem with Katz, and I don't really understand why some people do." Today there a JonKatz post.
:-)
thanx Wil...
I'm not a prophet or a stone-age man,
I'm just a mortal with potential of a super man.
globalism can be a boon or bane. social threefolding provides a framework for sustaining rights within a global economy: http://home.earthlink.net/~johnrpenner/Articles/St einer-Social.html
This might put things in perspective.
If the lameness filter actually worked, would you even be reading this?
I would say that instead of communism coming after industrialization, we havee globalization, or the concentration of capital from everywhere in the hands of a few wealthy countries that make up a small percent of the world's population. This concentration of authority makes a proletarian revolution next to impossible because the bourgeoisie who "owns" the global capital is far away and impossible to destroy. Except through terrorim. Hundreds of years of imperialism, which is now refered to by "globalization", has shifted most wealth back to the few in the west and japan, and caused much of the world to live in poverty. Remember the "chaosland" in 1984, that wasn't part of the three superstates? This is our third world, and they are pissed. They have decided to either kill each other or kill us. Look at how many wars are going on today, none of them are between developed states. They are all out in the heart of darkness between confused, poor, economically depressed areas of the world. The current state of affairs is western cultures fault, we kept persuing imperialism and it does bother the people we take money from.
Thanks,
Travis
forkspoon@hotmail.com
This thesis has also been bandied about by Thomas Friedman in The Lexus and the Olive Tree.
[Warning, liberal rant below]
I believe that the forces of integration are long-term stronger and more stable than the forces of disintegration. I believe that the reason that the fringes of cultures are radicalizing is because the centers of cultures are drawing together.
I am a giant proponent of the theory that ideas clash in a marketplace of public discourse and I believe that globalization is merely expanding that marketplace, and that the discourse that results will be beneficial. We're bound to have some bumps along the road. Heck, we're probably bound to go down some blind alleys, but in the end, increased communications and integration will help us all respect each other individually and discover what makes us all human.
[End of Liberal Rant]
Of course, I also believe that the free market is best in 90% of circumstances because it forces individuals to evolve and have goals. My biggest worry is that the concept of individual freedom will be found wanting in the global discussion.
IMHO. HAND.
People are only divied when there is no outsiders. When a country is invalded any squabbling between states/counties is forgoton about.
I would guarantee that if Aliens landed in the morning it would mean instant globalization , becuase there would be an outsider.
Cruise TT
Local forms of clothing have been replaced with baseball hats and blue jeans.
And religion has been replaced with shallow consumerism. This all makes sense from the point of view of Global Capital. But let us not forget it was capitalists who ended slavery in order to have a bigger market for their goods.
The real problem of globalization is the American attitude which puts individual freedom above just about every other principle.
In Europe, the Middle East, Africa, South America, Japan, Russia etc our values are different. We put family and religion first. We do not care about your profit motive.
We will eventually win, because we will eventually stop buying into your culture of greed. It may not happen today or tomorrow, but it will happen. And then your IRAs and pension funds will be worth nothing.
It hasn't been shown to any degree of conclusiveness that the anthrax attacks were perpetrated by Islamic fundamentalists or fundamentalists of any sort. For all we know so far, it could have been some disgruntled biotech industry worker.
JonKatz has an axe to grind; The Economist doesn't. JonKatz will certainly feed your paranoia that the big bad multinationals are out to get you, The Economist will provide a fairer, ballanced set of information.
Isn't this a media problem.As the media itself have been swallowed up by cost conscious companies, the number of foreign bureaus and the quality of foreign reporter goes down..we get little news from overseas...
jonkatz@slashdot.org
Iraq - supported against Iran during the Iran v Iraq war, seen as an ally of the west and an aid in getting cheaper oil and controlled oil prices... invade Kuwait (dictatorial regime) and the west turn against Iraq (with "democratically" elected president) because of the risks to oil revenues.
Afghanistan, supported Taliban and Mujahadin against the Soviet Union when they invaded, pushed as "freedom fighters" and "liberators". Soviets leave, so does all of the assistance from the west. Saudi Arabian national accused of leading a group on terrorists in which several (all non-Afghans) commit dreadful attrocities. West decide to invade Afghanistan and attack not the terrorist leader but the previously supported Taliban movement. This of course is unrelated to the desire to have access to the Caspian Sea oil without having to pay Russian pipeline charges.
It might sound a harsh judgement but these are still the facts. Both of these now supposedly "evil" regimes were previously funded and supported by the very people now set against them... the opinions and views of the Taliban and Sadam Hussien have not changed. It is just now politically and economically sensible to take these views.
Having a recession..... start a war, increased employment, increased public spending (defence), flag-waving support to gloss over your lack of leadership.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
The western democracies carved out a place where there could exist such a thing as a middle class. Where a working man could make a living for himself and his family. The western democracies are a haven for capital: they are stable and work by the rule of law.
So that is why there is work here.
We compete on the gloabl stage for work. We offer a business advantage over third world competitors in that we are stable and are run by the rule of law. And because we have this advantage over 3rd world, that is the only reason why we have work here at all. Otherwise we would have no work here because we CHARGE HIGH WAGES.
People, that is a GOOD THING! WE WANT HIGH WAGES!
WE DON'T WANT LOW WAGES!
But big corporations want both stability/the rule of law AND low wages. So therefore "open borders immigration" and globalization is what corporations want because it LOWERS WAGES!
Our politicians want to give them that because the corporations PAY THEM.
Can you please see that this is a process of negotiation! That there are CONFLICTS OF INTEREST between corporations and the citizens of western democracies?
When you go to buy a car and the salesman says he wants 100K, you don't just pay him, do you? YOU NEGOTIATE!
The problem is that corporations have poured so much money into propaganda through so many means that people like Katz beleive the pro-globalization propaganda. Or maybe, Katz is being paid by business lobbies to write pro-globalization propaganda.
Jon Katz, do you take money from corporate lobbies?
Sig:
Navy nuke sub lifestyle?
Yes, as long as we retain our sovereignty and don't turn that over to a multi-national body. I think it would dangerous to allow a multi-national organization like the U.N. to have final say in matters of law and of military over the U.S. We have the longest running democracy of any nation, and it works. Thus, I think its dangerous for countries like Britain, with long-established laws, to turn over power to multi-national institutions like the EU. Let each country govern itself and come to agreements with other countries, but never turn over power or the right to have final say to these organizations. Doing so is a recipe for disaster; it places more power into the hands of fewer people, it makes it more likely for a despot to control more lands, and it takes away from people the ability to govern themselves. The right to self-govern is supreme in the U.S. and hopefully will remain so.
By doing so, we ensure our government responds to us as a people and has control of the military. As long as we have an elected government that controls the military, we don't have to worry too much about the power of other countries, and other multi-national organizations. But if we give up any power to multi-national organizations, we lose ability to govern ourselves, and we lose the freedoms we have worked for over 225 years to create and preserve.
No, Thursday's out. How about never - is never good for you?
Not quite.
Many anti-globalists are in fact in protest against the prospect of the Disney Planet, McEarth, and the Microsoft World. They are in protest of the potential economic, political, and social rape of the economies and resources of people around the world for the mere financial profit of a few corporations. They are against the corporate democracy where only they voices of the corporations count, and yours do not.
If you are fighting against Microsoft, you are to a certain degree fighting against globalization. This is a much bigger and more complex picture than so quickly sketched above.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
Either way, September 11 makes it clear that globalization - pitting fundamentalism against cosmopolitan tolerance - is the biggest, most important story in our lifetimes
Global Warming is by far the biggest, most important story in our lifetime. We'll all learn that soon enough.
It was discovered that one of the great causes of discontent and unrest in Central America in the 60's was unintentional, where Peace Corps workers left out magazines, loaded with american advertisements, where locals saw them. The indiginous people, uninitiated to the ways of Madison Avenue, would see what american had, what their country and culture lacked and it erroded their faith in their own noble cultures. They had to have cars, they had to have women with come hither looks, they had to drink Tanqueray, they had to have a Timex! Discontent breeds revolution, revolution creates upheaval and all the ills (hunger, disease, orphans, maimed bodies, etc.) Enter the "fundamentalist", whether it's Daniel Ortega spouting the promises of Marxism and reclaiming the land in the name of the people, or some Mullah in Afghanistan preaching a glorious afterlife littered with nubile virgins to people desperately poor, the appeal is the same: Anything is better than what we have now.
The bitterness of people in the middle east has been a long time simmering. From european colonialism to corporate colonialism to the shameful double standard of Israel vs. Arabs (and yet these people come from the same blood, but tell them that.)
Now the West loses billions of dollars in upset commerce, tourism, etc., and it's the poorest people on earth the US is pitted against in a war which consumes even more billions of dollars. (With hopes from some that war will stimulate the economy(!))
Jimmy Buffett had it right, if you ever have listened to the Feeding Frenzy CD. Drop a bunch of money on these people, then drop a bunch of catalogs, for the cost of one B-1 bomber we could have full employment, they could have all kinds of toys and we'd have peace. Well, peace if that bully in Israel would stop the acts of war against the palestinians.
My $0.02 anyway...
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
The question is not one of "surprise" over "how much we are hated" in the first place. The question is one of how to respond to this "hatred"..,.er, I mean, murderousness, to be more precise. When someone is trying again and again to murder as many of your people as possible, you don't sit around sipping espresso musing about "why we are hated". You fight back.
And you certainly don't listen to armchair sociologists who try to convince you that the way to defend yourselves against murderers is to "learn" about "why we are hated". Do you advocate that black people being lynched by the Klan "take the time to learn about why they are hated"?
Thought not.
Well, Jon Katz's scree here is just lame; so lame, in fact, that it's hard to rebutt it, because he says so little beyond bland, basically amorphic conjecture. A few points: There is a conflict between democracy-cosmopolitanism and Islamic fundementalism, but that is not a relatively deep explanation for why we were attacked on Sept 11 or why we are hated. We are primarily hated for foreign and economic policies and actions, policies and actions that are anti-democratic and often terroristic. "They" are Islamic fundementalists (probably, there has been no really good evidence I've seen, but assuming); but "we" are not truly democrats (small "d").
We were attacked primarily for colonialistic policies and actions in the Middle East. We have been treating the people there like dirt and only relevent as obsticles or aids to our power and wealth drain from the region. This is standard colonialism. The only thing that's remarkable is that we pissed off some people who are crazier than we are: there was a weird convergence of us being assholes to a region and peoples and some of those people being crazy, twisted fuckers with a lot of money. What's remarkable is that we weren't attacked before, say, by Central Americans.
The stupid, ahistorical, aconscious discussion of viewing the Sept 11 attaks as "fundementalism versus democracy" is not only -- well -- ahistorical, aconscious and stupid -- it's dangerous. If we stay this stupid, history will repeat itself, the history of Sept 11, and the history of us killing people, terrorizing people, and destorying civilizations, like we are again doing in Afghanistan now -- how many innocent people will we starve? How much further will we set back Afghan civilization? How much further will we destroy our own domestic security? My answers to all the above: A lot. Enough to make me literally sick to my stomach.
Jon Katz, get an historical perspective. You're dangerous and ignorant otherwise. http://www.zmag.org (website for Z Magazine) is a good place to check out. I dare you.
Curt.
I think a large part of our conflict stems from our open, largely tolerant culture. The openness of our culture tends to promote moral relativity in that what is "wrong" for one person or culture may not necessarily be "wrong" to another. Fundamentalists from a rigidly structured society would, I'm sure, view this as threatening to their culture and way of life. I'm not saying our culture is better in any way. We hesitate to label anything "wrong" or "bad" (aside from big business) even if there is serious harm induces. (Jeff Dahmer was just palately challenged.) I think if you apply this to current events, perhaps it allows you to understand the hatred for the USA in the Middle East.
Of course, Americans aren't really liked MOST places.
A co-worker of mine had an interesting opinion on that. He said that we get most of our views on foreigners by the people we see in our own country. In other countries, they see mostly our richer, overbearing, (dare I say, snobbish?) citizens, and form their opinions base on them. We in the US tend to see immigrants, who tend to be poorer, and trying to make a better life for themselves, and we form our opinions on other countries based on them.
I thought that was really interesting.
Opinions?
"...At the end of the day"..."when everyone goes home, you're stuck with yourself." RIP Layne Staley
We preach about free trade, yet Shrub gets his panties in a bunch when some country can sell us steel for cheap.
Our companies fight tooth and nail for the ability to sell to the entire world, yet want people in the US (the richest general population on the planet) to only buy products domestically (no buying cheap drugs from Canada, region-enforced DVD players, etc.).
We, as a society, can't have it both ways, yet we try so damned hard to have it that way. We dictate to the world our standards which enrich our corporate world (NAFTA, WTO, intellectual property right protection, etc.), but balk at the idea that someone else may produce a better mouse trap for less.
It sickens me, really.
Method of processing duck feet
You don't have to be a religious nut harbored by a goverment abroad to be a fundamentalist. In all this hype against Islamic terrorists there appears to have been a careful glossing over of the 2nd worst act of terrorism on US soil.
Why wasn't a war declared on the sort of organisations that McVeigh belonged to, and the sort of anti-goverment far right views that are regularly expressed on right wing talk shows ?
Right now I'd say the smart money is on the anthrax being produced in the US, not in another country. And on the US most wanted terrorists one of them was born in Indiana. If this is truly a war on terrorism then we can look forward to seeing the CIA, MI5, French Secret Service and several others all being labelled as such.
After all what would you call someone who bombed a Red Cross depot ?
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
So far when we speak/write about globalization, we're talking about the corporate side of things. But if you really look at it, globalization is little more, and nothing less than an ability to transcend national boundaries. This has historically meant travel, expensive travel, restricting it to the Rich and corporations. Hence that's where we focus our rants on globalizations.
But two things have happened. First, transportation has gotten cheaper, so it isn't the province of merely the Rich. Second, the Internet has given us Virtual Travel. These changes ease globalization for all, including bringing it into the price range of more people/groups.
So one can argue that globalized corporations are Evil, though others would contend against that.
Most would argue that globalized institutions like the Red Cross are Good.
Then how about other globalized groups like the Mafia and El Quaeda?
Globalization isn't just for corporatization, any more.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
1. Not everything revolves around technology, but we all appreciate John Katz catering to the Slashdot crowd. Sorry, but the current mess has NOTHING to do with TV's and Camcorders. It has EVERYTHING to do with egos, power, and revenge.
:-)
2. "Democracy is open-minded" and "Fundamentalists Aren't"? Can we not be open minded enough to understand that some people want (or are at least willing) to live under other forms of government? Are we so close minded to think that sticking to ones religious roots is a bad thing? Sure, the Taliban are a bad example, but that doesn't justify your criticism of all fundamentalists. You may as well be criticizing the right of all religions to exist.
3. Do you have an editor (or egg timer) that reminds you to write new articles, regardless of whether or not you have anything to say? Kind of a "Keep Jon's ego inflated" timer? I know I was just rarin for a Slashdot article on globalization with next to no content or research, pulled straight from your ***.
4. Have a nice day.
The battle isn't changing - only the battleground is.
The real fight is the ongoing friction between ever-larger units of society - the individual, the tribe, the nation, and now global society. Individuals chafe against the constraints of their own culture. Then as representatives of their own culture, they struggle against the crush of nationalism. Beyond that, the nations are fighting the coming globalism. This is not a fight that will ever be clearly resolved.
I think by nature humans are individualist and tribalist. However, the lines of those tribes are becoming more and more fluid. I belong to several tribes - SF fandom, Open Source programming, Unitarian Universalism, etc - that overlap some, but are really separate groups, each with their own struggle. As an Open Source advocate, i'm fighting against globalist corporatism on one level. As a Unitarian, i'm fighting against it on another. And against my own tribes, i'm fighting to protect my own identity.
Our tribes give us our connection to society. That connection is what gives us meaning and purpose, beyond mere survival. Nationalism and globalism simplify the survival question by improving our standard of living, but they don't give us much to feed our spirit. And both nationalism and globalism work to crush our tribes, which get in the way of convenient homogeneity.
As for the Middle East, look at what they're getting. They see the worst of globalism - Coca-Cola and Britney Spears - while getting nothing of the best of it, like freedom of speech and a growing economy. And we're crushing the strong and beautiful tribe of Arab and Islamic culture. No wonder they are fighting back! However, i don't think the medievalists like bin Laden can win in the long run, either, because they don't offer anything BUT tribalism.
There's a key... globalist culture provides huge economic incentives to participation, but you pay with your soul. It's great to have a Starbuck's everywhere so you can always get good coffee, but it sucks that Starbuck's is putting the funky individualistic cafes out of business. T-shirts are wiping out tribal dress because they're cheaper (unless you're a geek like me, where the t-shirt and its logo IS your tribal dress. I'm wearing a Klingon Kultural Ekchange shirt under my business casual).
I could go on. Does any of this make sense?
Hand me that airplane glue and I'll tell you another story.
You need to define your terms better - your article, as it stands is gibberish.
You confuse at least two types of "globalism":
little-g "globalization" could conceviably take place without Big-G "Globalization", I suppose, but because "globalization" currently comes along with US and Western Europe coporate entities (Ford, Microsoft, British Petroleum, Duetche Telecomm) and US-oriented Popular Culture (Coca Cola, blue jeans, Britney Spears, Hollywood movies), and "Globalization" derives its names and ruling class from US corporate entities, it's easy for some folks to confuse the two. Apparently, you (Jon Katz) haven't made this distinction too clearly.
I've driven through most of the country and I was disappointed by the uniformity of all the small towns I passed through. Each was just a slight variation on the theme of McDonalds + WalMart. The only thing different as you cross the US is to see what the local Grocery store chain is. The US is a huge country - but without the variety of other parts of the world the same size. Globalism will just mix all of the worlds cultures together until we get one big old bland McCulture of mass media and the lowest common denominator... At least that's my fear.
There are 10 types of people in this world, those who can count in binary and those who can't.
I consider this article by Katz highly simplistic. And to equate globalism with Sept 11th. Rather, blame American foreign policy, which one Canadian feminist called "soaked in blood".
Katz misses the whole threat of globalism - transnational corporations (TNCs) have in effect stolen power and the ability to make public policy from the nation-state.
TNCs are starting to eclipse smaller countries in terms of revenue, and with the ability to move capital and investments (and thus jobs) across the globe in the blink of an eye, nations are finding that they have to pander to these corporate monstrosities. As National Cash Register said, "We aren't an American company. We are an transnational company currently headquartered in the United States."
In globalism, we are making the same mistakes made during the Industrial Revolution. First, we focus on investment and capital, and let labor and the environment go to shit. Next, we'll try to incorporate some basic labor laws into the global picture. Then maybe we'll have a global agreement on the environment. That is, if TNCs don't block them.
Interesting reading on the subject includes The Myth of the Good Corporate Citizen by Murray Dobin, and The Ingenuity Gap, by Thomas Homer-Dixon.
People talk about why we are hated and what we did in the past and they always point to us, its our fault. What happened to nationalism? I dont blindly follow our governemnt but i also dont feed into what the media says. We do the best we can. Yes we do screw up but everyone does. We follow the rules and gerenaly dont lie. But other countrys dont follow the rules and lie. "Government sanctions have killed over a million Iraqies" Thats the biggest load ive ever heard. Iraq can trade thier oil for food they just cant get moeny for thier oil. Saddam has killed hundreds of thousands of more people with biological waepons then we ever killed in total. An the Media will glorify anything for a buck. The Groups in the middle east lie to reporters and ambassadors b/c they know that there are a certian amount of gullible ppl who will believe them. Well it you have a military base with the words "Civilian hospitial" written on it, does it mean we should not attack it? No, but then the tell the press and other countries that we destoryed a civilian hospital. People always question what our government says and does yet never seem to question the oppisition. Since when do we as americans put more faith in what our enemy says about us. If you feel simpathic to the enemy move over there, because we are at war and the PROPAGANDA IS EVERYWHERE... Dont be the fool that followed Hitler.
"All I can tell the "lesser of two evils" folks is that if they keep voting for evil, they'll keep getting evil."-Lp.org
has already been the motto of many of us for a long time.
What makes Katz think that the US is cosmopolitan? How is George W Bush saying that athiests are not patriots that far from the rally call of Islamic fundamentalism.
It's the recourse of the fundamentalist to ignore the doctrines of his chosen cloak when it suits him. "Thou shalt not kill" is pretty unequivicable.
To be global means to be respectful of diversity as much as anything yet nation states promote secular culture. Liberals wish for some sort of Eden, capitalists dream of a global market and religious types dream of a homogenous homeland of the righteous. There is almost no common ground.
It's only the liberals, who probably eschew some sort of higher power, that think twice about the killing part.
Want to save lives? Try not killing animals for food, billions of deaths per year. Try not driving your car so fast. the Sept. 11th death toll was two weeks of US automobile deaths yet I see no "war" on reckless driving.
We try to teach our children to be forgiving (turning the other cheek I believe Christians call it [ha!]) and yet the response to events is to kill more people either through bombs and rockets or starve them out in refugee camps.
The source of current Islamic anger, of course, is the US occupation of the holy lands following the, er, cosmopolitan Operation Desert Storm. The world pays the price for US/UK interventionalism in Middle Eastern politics. Saddam, Osama, Pol Pot, Pinochet and numerous others all financed and encouraged by US/UK foreign policy and then demonised once their usefulness expires. Here's an idea, if you want to get your hands dirty send in your own troops, not arm a bunch of locals who will want a payback for the sacrifice of them and their brothers.
If the powerful wanted peace there would be peace.
If the powerful wanted no poverty there would be no poverty.
If the powerful wanted less crime there would be less crime.
Feel free to go on dreaming that might is right but get ready for your come uppance because there is always someone mightier than you, if not today then tomorrow.
Only a fool thinks he isn't one.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Please note I'm not speaking for or against Marxism, merely pointing out a flaw in your argument.
Blaming GW Bush for the Iraq war is like blaming Ronald McDonald for the poor quality of food.
Never in my life has Katz been more dead-on about everything he's written about Globalism.
In Soviet Russia...michael would be rotting in Siberia!
The London School of Economics is giving a Free course called "The Globalisation Debate" at the onlineline University course clearinghouse "Fathom.com. Their system doesn't permit direct linking, so you will need to search on Globalisation, or the school. Here's the course description:
Globalisation is a fervidly contested and often misunderstood concept. It has occupied and divided economists, sociologists and anti-capitalists alike. Anti-globalisation protestors have regularly and successfully picketed World Trade Organisation summits as part of their stand against the might of globalisation. Yet, many economists tout the benefits of increased trade, sophisticated telecommunications networks and cross-border investment to developing countries, pointing to the gains workers and unions throughout the world stand to make from closer integration.
Most people seem to know whether they are for or against globalisation, without pausing to consider what exactly it is and where its effects can be seen. Globalisation might be a term too slippery to be closely defined, but it is a vibrant debate worth engaging in.
In this seminar two major sociologists put forward their versions of globalisation. For Anthony Giddens, it is a phenomenon characterised by fundamental changes in the world economy, the communications revolution and trade between nation-states in physical commodities, information and currency. For Leslie Sklair, globalisation should be seen as a new phase of capitalism, one that transcends the unit of the nation-state. In an interview, he introduces the globalisation debate and stakes out his position within it. Sklair builds on these arguments through a flash image gallery, which explores how the idea of globalisation is used by transnational corporations.
The course is taught by Leslie Sklair is a reader in sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science and is responsible for the doctoral programme in the sociology department. He has been a visiting professor at New York University, San Diego State University and Hong Kong University, and has lectured on globalisation all over the world. His Sociology of the Global System (1995) has been translated into Japanese, Portuguese, Persian, Chinese and Spanish. He has conducted fieldwork on transnational corporations in Mexico, China, Hong Kong, Egypt and Australia, and in Europe and North America.
There is no tolerance in the so-called 'democracy' of the US. The Media is owned by the same corporations that successfully lobby congress (because the people don't vote).
'Spreading Democracy' by the US Government, is supporting dictatorships and fascist regimes that make their countries more amenable to US Foreign Investors and Globablization.
Globalization is not what you hear about in the 6 o clock news. Globalization makes it possible for once US based corporations to now extend themselves as transnational, thus averting the laws of any specific country. They can easily close up shop, and often do, and open up in a third world country without labor laws.
The real thing to examine is this: Is globalism really good, or is it similar to Socialism and various other ideas in that is looks excellent on paper, but in practice, never seems to work out just right. There are many ideas like this that appear to be the solution to everything, but when put into practice, become a big mess. My thought is that many of these things deserve a closer look before being put into practice so that we can avoid slogging through a mess.
Ed
(insert attempt to be witty here)
The increase in religious fundamentalism is, in my opinion, the result of the spread of Western liberal culture through the Internet, television etc... The liberation of women from their historic roles, secularism and commercialism are anathema to many religious groups; including not least Christian fundamentalists in the United States.
Globalization is primarily a commercial function, and I don't believe it has a thing to do with the radicalization of opinions in the third world. Most people are happy to work for next to nothing for a rapacious Western conglomerate because their only other choice IS nothing.
Anti-American feelings in the Islamic world is primarily a response to U.S. support for Israel. Finland has some global corporations and you don't here people screaming "Death to Israel, death to Finland!".
Finding a way to reconcile Israel with her Arab neighbors would be a good start in reducing radicalism in the Islamic world. Religious fundamentalism is something we should not worry about, hell, maybe they're right.
Economic globalization is a fundamental choice that each nation is free to make, and again is none of our business.
Religion has historically been used as a motivator for war. From the Inquisition to the Holy wars in Turkey it has been used to get men to fight, but it has never been the reason to fight.
In this case as well you are seeing a reaction to rampant captialism (globalization) wrapped in the wonderfully motivating skin of religious fundamentalism.
Middle Easterners do not hate the working man in America. They hate the huge multi-nationals and their US military police force that secures them further profit at the expense of lives and sometimes countries.
This country has been living off of the fat of the rest of the world for 2 generations or longer. Wouldn't you resent a country that swoops in bombs and kills many of your population and then sets up your government for you, all in the name of oil profit?
How come there is no Italian or Japanese military base on US soil? How come there is NO other countries military base on US soil, yet we have 60+ major military installation in other countries in the world?
Globalization is the problem not the solution.
For a better view of why we're hated, consider the USA's actions after WWII and contrast them with our conduct during the Cold War.
After WWII, we learned from the mistakes of post-WWI and helped both Europe and Japan rebuild. We were taking what we talked about with the American Dream and helping others achieve it. Let's ignore for the moment whether the American Dream should be exported or not - that's not the point. The point is that we were doing what we were saying.
During the Cold War that all changed. While talking American Dream, our conduct was "Enemy of my enemy is my friend." We turned a blind eye towards their bad habits, and supported them if they were against the communists.
Defining yourself by what you are not is a terrible way to live a life, IMHO. That goes for a person, an organization, or a country. Perhaps we had to pursue our anti-communist foreign policy, but to have done so in so single-minded and negative a fashion, without similarly acting on our own positive beliefs was unwise. The aftereffects of our negative foreign policy are coming back to roost.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
I spent two hours in Nice, France, a few years back, talking with a palistinian on the run. He had a number tattooed on his arm from when he had been imprisoned in Israel. He was clearly frustrated because the land which had been in his family for generations had been siezed and his family had been displaced by the occupiers. There's a lot of injustice happening in Israel, and that the US has actually done very little to help the palestinians. Worth noting, however, that most arab states have done little contructively, either.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
...for people to come out and lambaste Katz, but it's unusual for me: I prefer to do my Karma Whoring in more meaningful ways, like occasionally posting useful information.
But not this time! Katz, you have clearly gotten in over your head. The non-sequitor upon which this essay is based is an utter disaster. How can you conclude there is ANY relationship at all between a cosmopolitan world-view and acceptance of free trade? I can think of several respected scholars (former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, for one) who firmly believe that the notion of national identities, particularly in business, are passe, but still support the use of tariff mechanisms by nations to protect their domestic social institutions. Read The Work of Nations sometime for insight into Reich's concept of "Strategic Trade."
I realize that the two columns you do here are only a small component of your journalistic work week, but it would behoove you to contemplate that before undertaking an essay on the interrelationship between societal openness and macroeconomics, when you obviously didn't have the opportunity to thoroughly research the macroeconomics piece. What eludes me is how the views of such prominent a figure as Reich could fly under your radar!?
MOO;IANAL.
There used to be a picture linked here.
Didn't we used to call these people political philosophers?
Also, it seems to me that globalisation is too large a subject to be resolved in a few editorials. here are Oxfam's more considered views on the subject.
Isn't the U.S.A the only country to use nukes in war? And they used it on Japanese civilians? ...After the war was won?
95% of U.S. mass-media is American-centric. Where is the stage for non-U.S. opinions inside the U.S? There is no healthy introspection & that leads to bigotry and pride.
The United States has the most prisoners per capita in the world. The state is promoting, paying for and organizing what amounts to racial cleansing with its war on drugs. You see, black men and white men statistically consume the same amount of drugs, yet in jail black men who were convicted for drug charges outnumber white men 40 to 1.
The war on drugs has dragged into Central America & Mexico creating armed conflicts where none would have been. Think about it: drug lords would not exist if the prohibition on drugs didn't inflate the prices the way the prohibition on alcohol raised alcohol prices (artificial scarcity).
Millions of civilians in Iraq are dead and dying because of the blockade imposed on the country by the United States. It's true that it would all end if Saddam Hussein would just give up his power, but they knew he never would. Millions dead... Is that the only answer you could come up with?
How about going to school in Europe and taking American history?
Not only do people not want our way of life, they are not in a position to accept our way of life. It is well known, within political science, that a republic must have a strong middle-class and third world countries do not have one, it is part of the antiquated definition of being third world.
However globalization is doing something that the world's poor like and the American middle-class hates, it is equalizing the wealth. Poor countries, like Singapore, are getting western blue collar jobs dumping sizable amounts of wealth into those countries. While on the other side of that it is making all blue collar professions in the west all but disappear and as this happens the only thing for blue collar workers to do is get better educated and find a white collar job. While they do this they flood the market driving the wages down for what use to be a staple for middle class life. Now both the middle and lower classes are both in white collar jobs making the destination all but nonexistent.
The disappearance of the middle class in America and the west is a frightening but all too real consequence of our global economy. No longer will we have an American upper, middle, and lower class; we will not have an Egyptian upper, middle, and lower class, or distinct classes for Europe or China or anywhere else. We will have a World upper, middle, and lower class. This means that the much of the world's poor will be brought above the poverty line at the expense of the West's affluent middle class. And this is a threat to the stability of our Republic that nobody relizes.
-Grant
|grant.henninger.name|
And yes, we can and will kill all the terrorists.
Actually, you won't. Because killing them will just make their neighbours hate you more and turn them into terrorists.
My Journal
You miss the point that even if we 'kill all the terrorists', more of them are created every day. You say they hate us because we're powerful, wealthy, intelligent etc. If that is the case, then there are only a few future paths for the U.S. 1) Continue business as usual, and be prepared to deal with the fact that we will always be hated, and will always be the target of violence. 2) Give up our power, wealth, education, etc and turn ourselves into a third world country. 3) Try to spread our wealth and success to the rest of the world.
Most of the brainwashed American masses think that option (1) is the patriotic option, despite the fact that it puts us in the losing situation of trying to fight the whole world and will probably end up in option (2) in the long run. A true patriot would realize that the only long-term path with any semblance of national security is (3). Note that (3) is not what most corporations think about when they are going overseas. They are most certainly not interested in exporting any of the things which make America a very livable place, such as environmental protections, labor laws, etc. Rather they are looking to avoid all of the pesky government 'intrusions' that try to make them act the least bit responsible or decent. They want the 'right' to pollute as much as they want, pay the lowest possible wages, and run like hell taking all of their capitol as soon as the next country looks like it will accept more pollution and even lower wages. Or as soon as they have extracted all the natural resources. Then people like you wonder why the masses in these countries aren't grateful that we gave them our pollution and paid them slave labor wages and strip mined their country.
That's why 'globalization' is such a hot topic. Corporations talk about a level playing field, but what they are really looking for is a way out of the basic regulations that keep America from being a 3rd world country. The Blame America First Club, as you like to call it, wants globalization to mean exporting our labor and environmental laws, our democratic government, as well as capital investment. Corporations are interested in maximizing profits by avoiding labor and environmental regulations. Usually this means avoiding any true democracy as well, since most people actually like things like being paid a decent wage and having clean water to drink and vote accordingly.
When
I think that globalization is inevitable.
The only reason cultures are significantly different is that up until now, distances significantly impeded communication. If the global communication infrastructure stays in place for a few hundred years, it's almost unavoidable that cultures and languages start to meld together.
That's globalization to me -- the assimilation of all cultures into one culture. It's long term, though, like evolution. So it's not something most people would notice unless they really thought about it.
Your view on this is correct but the ignorance of the greater part of the American (and perhaps Western) population is only part of the problem. There is no question in my mind that we have to understand past American and Western foreign and colonial policies and attempts to impose Western culture and values have made these people distrustful and angry of us. Look at China: Taiwan has a vibrant Chinese culture that readily welcomes other cultures because it understands and gets along with others while the Mainland Chinese cast a suspicious eye towards them because they feel it will subjugate its own.
At the same time, ignorance goes both ways. Islamic fundamentalist schools teach extremism in the absence of presenting other points of views(Jewish and Christan schools are not entirely innocent of this). Fundamentalism twists holy scriptures in perverse ways without a rational counterbalance.
There are people who do get both sides of the story and want to accept and embrace the best aspects of American and Western culture (eg. pluralism, rule of law from what I saw in the news). But they are frustrated at how the US is supporting regimes that run counter to these values, thus making us look like hypocrites. I understand that some of these regimes are safety valves that keep the fundamentalists in check. But these regimes have to either be told to change gradually but definitively or have to be toppled.
Finally, money helps. One of the many reasons young Arab and South Asian boys go to maddrassas (?) is that their families are poor and these places provide food and shelter w/o realizing their minds become poisoned. And once these students graduate, they see how government officials horde loads of cash for themselves while they usually remain dirt poor. These people need financial help.
Sanity.html - Error 404 not found
The WTO (essentially THE prime mover of globalization) was never elected or ratified by any single government. You have to pay to enter it, and the more you pay, the more voting rights you have.
Fair enough, you may say. A bit cruel, but it's only like shareholders in a company. However, there are very strict rules and if you break these rules (on IP rights for instance) you are dismissed from the WTO. It explicitly states in its rules that to trade with the WTO, you need to be a member state. Considering the US, UK, and all of Europe is part of the WTO, with the US having the largest voting rights, how is that fair?
It has also created bad effects for member states as now, to be competitive, you have to have your industrial workers in third world countries being paid peanuts. You could argue that this has brought costs down for the consumer, and it has to some degree, but these products need to be shipped from A to B and stricter quality control needs to take place. Also, as fuel prices and other taxes increase, the costs of transporting these goods increase. Many of these third world countries have other industries but all industries rely on each other as the society members have relationships to each other. Only the trans-national corporations with their factories survive, killing off other local enterprise, and so increasing the costs of these other industries as the country gets more impoverished. So, eventually we have to buy from elsewhere, destroying that industry. And so it goes around...
I don't know what the answer is, but especially with the current terrorist crisis, we can cope for a while without the easy and free movement of trade. All countries will be hard hit, but seeing as we're all heading into recession, I can't see the problem with re-creating new industries.
I never said I hate anyone. I didn't say anything specifically about Afghanistan. We didn't "hate" the German people when Nazism threatened us. We didn't "hate" the Japanise either.
The simple fact of the matter is, the controlling factions of Afghanistan have committed an act of war, a war crime at that, and we must respond. If you disagree with this, I have an exercise you might try. Have someone hit you. You don't hate them, so you won't retiate. They hit you again, only harder. You don't retaliate, again, because you don't "hate."
Eventually one of two things will happen. You will defend yourself at the expense of someone you "don't hate." Or, you will be very seriously injured. This is no different. We can have a few dozen Afghan innocents die, or just keep letting Americans die. I'll take the former. If you think war means hate, I suggest you go sing "Give Peace a Chance" around a bond fire with some middle east militants and see if how long you live.
-- Ken Kinder ken@_nospam_kenkinder.com http://kenkinder.com/
don't bee fooled
:)
:)
doobee concerned -- we're little children in the romper room gone astray
melting pot == lake of fire
USA == Great Satan (trying to cover our asses while we poison and _relentlessly_ bomb third world people)
now some comedy --
jethro tull -- aqualung
the song before hymm 43 == my god
my god - the answer to life, the universe and everything (the whole general sort of mish-mash)
the white knight (potus) is talking backwards
and the red queen (red cross) 'off her head'
a hookah smoking caterpillar is talking now
they've got the guns, but we have the numbers
gonna win yea we're taking over
:)
:)
rejoice
Basically true, in a fundamental way. But socialism will probably never work until some sort of Great SoftWare OverLord is around to run things fairly. Until then, we just have to keep a lookout for our own interests.
Sig:
Navy nuke sub lifestyle?
somebody care to confirm / deny the following list? -
"The USA has bombed the following countries since 1945:
China(1945-46 & 1950-53)
Korea (1950-53)
Guatemala (1954, 1960, 1967-69)
Indonesia (1958)
Cuba (1959-60)
Congo (1964)
Peru (1965)
Laos (1964-73)
Vietnam (1961-73)
Cambodia (1969-70)
Grenada (1983)
Libya (1986)
El Savador(1980s)
Nicaragua (1980s)
Panama (1989)
Iraq (1991 - 99)
Sudan (1998)
Afghanistan (1998, 2001)
Yugoslavia (1999)"
Quite a list anyway.
I think you kinda missed Katz point. One of the first things he says is that globalization is a term that has many conotations, depending on where you are coming from. The dominant, and most negative meaning for the word equates to corporatism, which is exactly as you describe: companies forcing their will on weaker sovereign govts in order to make a greater profit elsewhere.
However, globalization can also refer to the continuing spread of ideas and community around the world through mediums such as the internet. Although some of these ideas can be negative (American consumerism comes to mind), there are also a lot of ideas that benefit from a wider audience.
Dear, sweet Lord. Never in my most imaginative, feverish nightmares would I have dreamt that someone would actually accuse Jon Katz of being a pro-corporate shill.
If it ain't broke, you need more software.
What you do here is exactly the same polarization like Bush does: "whoever is against globalization is against technology, democracy -- simply a terrorist.
That is not the way we have to discuss this problem. If you want to talk about the WTC attacks, then please take "The Clash of Civilizations" by Samuel P. Huntington as base for that. Because that is what happened here.
Globalization is a serious problem, you should not mix it up with emotionally overloaded topics like the terrorists attack. We need solutions for that that really help. Your article implicates the call to defend globalization agains the terrorists. But that is not the question we have to discuss.
Some facts from the first book I mentioned:
Cheers! Kolja
I did an entire web site on this issue and other related things just recently. Please, don't take the information in the site the wrong way, since it's based on lots of other sources. Enjoy :)
Read it here:
http://www.tliquest.net/truth
#Secret Windows Source Code, in MS C% - if (uptime >= "24 hours") then bsod() else print "Windows License Violation!"
Katz is helping to create a Globalization straw man. He attacks the straw man of "McDonalds Globalization", and meanwhile globalization by subverting the rights of ownership of American/WEstern Democracies citizens (they/we OWN our respective countries, defacto) continues.
Yeah, I know, it's a new idea for you...
Globalizations SHOULD really be about stoping immigration and the subsequent lowering of wages.
Sig:
Navy nuke sub lifestyle?
I believe that most (if not all) of the downsides of globalisation stem for the way that most big corporations take no responsibility for the environment and human welfare. Their remit is to maximise shareholder value, and that's what they do.
IMHO, governments should bring the corporations back to an ecologically and sociological responsible position through regulation. This way their duties to the shareholders would be leveled with duties to the environment and society.
I'm not against commerce and the synergies available in large companies, but there must be a way to get those large companies to help distribute the benefits to _all_ the stakeholders - rather than just the senior execs and major shareholders.
Just because you can't, doesn't mean you shouldn't.
I could write loads here about how and why, but instead get the reasons from someone who can explain it better:
http://slate.msn.com/?id=56497
bombing the afghans is like bombing sicily
to get rid of the mafia...
I'm not so certain that the gripes are mostly about what the US has done or about what the western world is. I would argue that the center of the conflict is one of ideologies. Consider the differences between the two cultures I have stumbled upon by talking to my newly immigrated Arabic friend.
Western view on religion's role in ethics:
ethics or being ethical has little to do with being religious, ie: it is quite possible to be ethical and not be religious. Ethics should be derived through a mixture of intuition and case studies.
Middle eastern view on religion and ethics (from my understanding)
It's just about impossible to be ethical and not be religious. The two are one and the same. There might exist some cases where a person can be ethical and not religious but that person is not an ethical person. (From my understanding it's akin to being accidentally ethical)
Western view on religious ceremonies:
Any religion that requires shows of devotion from its followers is suspicious. God should not care how he is worshiped. Perhaps these shows of devotions are for the church leaders and not God?
Middle eastern view of religious ceremonies:
Essential to proving your devotion to god.
Westerners who don't observe religious do-dads are either lazy, undevoted or scared to be devoted because they secretly know they are unethical (see above).
weeee, isn't religion fun.
So anyways, this is what's I've gathered and I'm not sure it's completely accurate since it was picked up by listening to how many friend argued ? and of course this is a survey of one, which doesn?t help. Also I'm not certain of how regional the views are either.
At any rate, if the views expressed are accurate for about 25% of the population of most countries then the western world has a serious image problem - ie: just about everyone is unethical or if you push it, evil and it can't be resolved entirely by simply being good.
anyway.. comments welcome.
You have a good point. I hope moderators notice it.
More definitions: I sometimes make the distinction between cultural and economical globalization. First type of globalization means globalizing culture, "the world village" of Internet, people's possibility to travel around the world and increased information/knowledge about things on the other side of the globe. Economical globalization means multinational companies, increased power of big companies, and free trade. Unfortunately, economical globalization has the side effect to kill small local businesses. (Replacing small cafés with McDonald's, as somebody put it.)
With economical globalization I see much more problems than with cultural globalization. But of course those are connected with each other.
Here's an excerpt:
The Afghan resistance was backed by the intelligence services of the United States and Saudi Arabia with nearly $6 billion worth of weapons. And the territory targeted last week, a set of six encampments around Khost, where the Saudi exile Osama bin Laden has financed a kind of "terrorist university," in the words of a senior United States intelligence official, is well known to the Central Intelligence Agency.
The C.I.A.'s military and financial support for the Afghan rebels indirectly helped build the camps that the United States attacked. And some of the same warriors who fought the Soviets with the C.I.A.'s help are now fighting under Mr. bin Laden's banner.
From those same camps, the Afghan rebels, known as mujahedeen, or holy warriors, kept up a decadelong siege on the Soviet-supported garrison town of Khost.
This was written in 1998.
Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it (as somebody once said ...).
There might well be a conflict between fundamentalism and the US but the fundamentalists are just as much in favour of globalism as are the Americians. Even terrorists nowdays are globalist -- just witness the IRA training rebels in columbia.
cheers
Neil Broderick (ngb@orc.soton.ac.uk)
why their wealth, their entertainment, and their freedoms have made so many others unhappy.
Oh yes. Your argument makes so much sense. Now I understand. America is hated because the rest of the world is jealous.
Of course! That's why everyone hates the Swiss! They have the highest Earning Power (GDP per capita) in the world. All that fresh air and beautiful scenery too! And their public services are so efficient. Bastards! The only thing I don't understand is, since they obviously must be really hated, why haven't they had any terrorist attacks yet?
They snubbed my articles on TV about Band of Brothers and Mr. sissy-punkass-blabbermouth-poopy-pants Jon Katz gets to show off his lack of brains!!! Hey someone at Slashdot start rejecting Mr reporterboy's sh*tty articles....
No, seriously, I just come here for the articles.
Most people here on Slashdot would probably consider me pretty "fundamentalist" if that's what we're labeling people today who have belief systems that have certain absolute, set-in-stone values that they are unwilling to bend on in ANY circumstance. Unfortunately, I'll have to keep what that belief system is a secret until the later into this schpiel, or most of you will just stop reading, having immediately labeled me as an idiot for what I believe.
So, I've labeled myself a "fundamentalist" now, so what do I think about technology? Technology, awesome! I work with it everyday, love it, there's absolutely nothing wrong about trying to learn more about our universe and how to make our lives easier, healthier, and more productive and exciting. If we didn't have technology, we'd all be dying from anthrax right now, there'd be no way to track down terrorists in dark buildings in the dead of night in a land halfway round the world, etc, etc, etc.
Globalization, is stupid. Now, I will tell you finally, that I am a Christian. Yes, the kind that believes the Bible is absolute truth. Yes, I'm sure I've offended a lot of you just now; get over it. In the Old Testament, there's a story about a guy named Nimrud, who gathers all the people of the earth at that time (not long after Creation, so there weren't that many people as there are today, obviously), and they attempted to build a monumental tower, the tower of Babel. It's goal was to unite all humanity, and be their 'stairway to heaven', a monument to humanity's greatness. God did not like the fact that Nimrud was trying to elevate humanity to a god-like position, because we are flawed creatures, and NOT gods. So God dispersed everyone throughout the earth and made them speak different languages so that they could not all 'unite' and try to promote themselves to a false sense of godliness.
Now, whether you believe that story is true, or just an interesting story, does not matter. What matters is the application it has towards what globalization does to humanity. It corrupts humanity. It gives us a false sense of security in our human-ness. It makes us feel as if we're greater than our weaknesses by our own power. It's been said before that absolute power, corrupts absolutely. I would say that distributed, global power making, distributes the corruption globally, absolutely. We cannot escape it. You slashdotters hate 'group-think', right? It's been made fun of in numerous Simpsons episodes. So why would we want to see it on a grand, worldwide scale?
Being a "fundamentalist" Christian does not make me an opponent of technology, in fact, all Christians should embrace learning and exploring God's universe to learn more about it's design, and about how wonderfully and fearfully made we are. But trying to use science and technology to elevate ourselves to a position of godhood is simply ridiculous. We didn't create ourselves, we didn't even cause ourselves to "evolve", if you believe in Evolution, that was completely apart from our own power. So why would we want to try and "all get along"? Group think will never accomplish humanity's agreeing on one standard, unless that standard is complete anarchy, because ultimately, you cannot tolerate everything, and have everything be in agreement. At some point, as we have seen with the awful events of Sep 11th, that tolerance of everything, breaks down into a complete polarization and lashing out of one belief system (fundamentalism) versus another belief system (globalization). Fundamentalists are not to blame here, the attempt to "globalize" is. I DO NOT condone AT ALL the random killing of innocent civilians to get your point across as Osama and Sadam are doing. That gets you nowhere, and is completely counter-productive to accomplishing the goal of 'enlightening' everyone to the evils of globalization.
However, trying to create a global coalition of nations that all want to bash on Afghanistan is already beginning to break down. Globalization just does not, and will not, work to create a better human existence. Trusting in ourselves to all get along, all the time is a pipe-dream, and those who believe it CAN be accomplished would do well to look back into distant, and recent history to see the numerous civilizations and leaders that tried to pull this off and failed miserably in trying to do so (Nimrud - as I mentioned above, Alexander the Great, Egyptian Pharoahs, Persian Kings, Ghengis Khan, Napolean, and Hitler). Everyone who's tried, has run their country into the ground doing so, and those countries are still suffering the consequences of their leaders at one time or another trying to 'control the world'. None of them are majorority world powers today, and I fear that the United States of America will be the next one to take its place in history as a failed attempt at world domination.
The UK doesn't exactly look too good here, 300 years or so of buggering up the country makes the US' 30 years look pretty small cheese in comparison.
The point here is that it is important to do things now with a _clue_ about where it could end up.
Right now is a classic example, the "Northern Alliance" who China regard as supporting terrorism in China. Are a bunch of nutter thugs from whom the Taliban split because the Taliban are religious nutters not just straight nutters. Do we want those people in charge ? No thank you.
How about using a sensible concept in a country like that like "democracy" and "subsidy". Help to build a democratic goverment and build all those cheap Nike factories in Afghanistan. Make sure the oil revenues are evenly distributed rather than just to the rich elite.
In Kuwait the west defended a dictatorial regime with a poor human rights record, especially against immigrants from the 3rd world, and replaced it with... exactly the same regime.
How about replacing a bunch of nutters with a demoncratic goverment.... that _we might not always agree with_. But that has a vested interest in peace.
Option 4) Work _with_ the other countries in the region, have Pakistan involved in determining the make up and format for elections (I know miltary dictator setting up a democracy), have Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, Syria et al involved in this process.
Remember this was a war against _terrorism_ NOT against the Taliban, their crime is harbouring a terrorist... who they OFFERED to handover to a neutral country (ala Libya and the Lockerbie suspects).
Bombing the Red Cross is _not_ the sort of act that will increase stability in the region.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
For those of you who can't stand being enlightened, avert your eyes. Here's some truth for you:
The fundamentalists hate Western culture and they want everyone who lives a life any different from theirs to die. They want Western culture destroyed and will willingly put themselves to death to further their cause.
Why? Because the want their culture to be the dominant one, that's why. It's as simple as that. When one Northern Alliance soldier was asked why he was fighting the Taliban, he said "Because they are not from my tribe." Tribes. That's all this is.
We, and by we I mean the whole of Western society, are a tribe. That's all we are in the eyes of those who want us dead. We are a tribe and the fundamentalists can never belong to our tribe because our way of life is incompatible with theirs. But the fundamentalists can't slow down the spread of our tribe because people the world over and absolutely dying to become part of our tribe. The fundamentalists have been passed over and left in the "has-been" section of the primitive world. And, because of fear, lack of understanding, desperation, whatever, the fundamentalists seek to tear apart the society to which they can not belong.
As I look around the room where I work, I see people who wouldn't assume that they are the same as me. We've got different color skin, different religious backgrounds. But to these terrorists, these religious extremists...we are the same. And we are not them. And thus, we must die.
I want to take a moment to address another couple of statements I read in this thread, without bothering to make multiple repies.
Yes, we've most likely killed more Afghan civilians than whoever is putting Anthrax in the mail has with their attacks. From all accounts, that still leaves more than 5,000 civilians on our side. If you want to draw parallels between agressive acts, you'd better include all of them.
Violence creates more violence. Indeed. But what choice do we have? It is obvious that there are people in the world who hate us so much, they would like nothing better than to kill our people. No political or humanitarian acts will ever stop this way of thinking. The very existence of our nation is a threat to the way of life for extermists such as the terrorists holed up in Afghanistan. Therefore, the only choice we have is to make an example of the Taliban. An example that illustrates a point to other governments: "If you don't keep it under control, you won't stay in power."
Back to globalization. Pay close attention to this, because it's 100% pure truth. We can't stop globilization of Western culture. Why? BECAUSE OTHER PEOPLE WANT IT! The Japanese imported music, movies and baseball just to be more like us! Envy for our success and relatively secure life will drive other cultures to want to be like Western cultures. We don't have to be active in the globalization of Western culture...it'll happen without us.
My sigs always suck.
We compete on the gloabl stage for work. We offer a business advantage over third world competitors in that we are stable and are run by the rule of law. And because we have this advantage over 3rd world, that is the only reason why we have work here at all. Otherwise we would have no work here because we CHARGE HIGH WAGES. People, that is a GOOD THING! WE WANT HIGH WAGES!
High wages for Westerners. Screw the poor elsewhere! They want to work for us but don't let them! Let them starve instead. We want them to work for us to lower the price of our goods. But don't let them! Let's have our products be overpriced instead! The most important thing is to protect the wages of the middle class.
Even if a person were as short-sighted and narrow-minded as that, it would still be no argument against globalization. The economics of the situation are that when we send money abroad those people become consumers and they buy stuff we make like K-rad computer games and Intel processors. So they can escape poverty, we get cheaper basic goods and we get paid to do more interesting work than working in a t-shirt factory. What a ripoff, eh?
If you don't believe the economics, just look at recent history. Ross Perot claimed that NAFTA would send tons of American jobs to Mexico but until the recent slowdown there was virtually no unemployment in the US. We know that low-end jobs did move to Mexico. But we also know that new, high-paying jobs have been created in the tech sector in the last several years. That seems like a good trade to me!
the conflict now underway between the United States and some extremist fundamentalists was inevitable. Cosmopolitans welcome technology and cultural diversity, while fundamentalists find it disturbing and dangerous.
I find it ironic that people are so horrified by bin Laden's holy war against American "technology and cultural diversity" (aka, freedom), yet don't blink when Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and other extreme fundamentalists declare war on the very same thing here at home. In case you haven't noticed, it was American extreme fundamentalists who have launched campaigns to filter the internet, ban books, control television, outlaw homosexuality, and do everything they can to silence anyone who disagrees with them. Instead of blowing up the WTC, their followers blow up abortion clinics, kill doctors, and call for a holy war against homosexuals.
What bin Laden and other terrorists have done to our country by declaring a holy war and killing our citizens is appaling and should be dealt with through a forceful retaliation. But don't be so naive to think that there aren't factions within our own country (with the assistance of members of congress who are on their payroll) who aren't engaging in the same thing here at home.
Right now, Americans are living in the same fear that those who have been targeted by this country's right-wing fundamentalists have been living in for years. Fear for their lives just because of who they are, and because war has been declared on them.
The reality is quite different. Although there are all sorts of groups among the protesters, including, for instance, union members protesting loss of jobs in this country, the general view of the anti-WTO crowd is NOT anti-globalization. Most agree that free trade can be a very good thing. What they are protesting is the MANNER in which free trade is being pushed.
With trade organizations taking precedence over local government regulations, environmental and labor laws are being pushed aside in the name of free trade. In such a case, there will be some people in those third-world countries who will benefit, while many common people have it even worse. Think of the child laborers making Nike shoes, for instance. The owner of the factory is doing quite well with free trade, but that 8-year-old working the machine in the corner is not having such a nice life. So the protesters are basically saying, 'Have free trade, but do it in a socially-responsible manner that upholds the worth of the individual.'
Since capitalism and free trade in a pure form doesn't really care about the worth of the individual except as the individual provides work or cash, the media lies about the situation to color people's perception of this debate. They reduce the complex arguments down to "Free Trade Bad," which is not at all the message being argued.
________________
Private Essayist
Not much will come of idle discussion of the issue. bin Laden hates the U.S. so much, he twisted his own religion to give himself an excuse to declare war on it (or maybe it happened the other way around, regardless...). He's not going to stop trying to get us infidels unil he's dead and buried. I'm definitely not a pro-war person, but it's simple math. His one life for countless others. Indiscriminate bombing is certainly not the way about it, though. Hopefully the ground troops we've put in there will be able to take him down/out/whatever, but I fear there may be too many casualties: their civilians and our soldiers.
I dunno.. just another example of why religion is the deadliest force on earth.
There is no difference.
The real greed is on their side. While we seek only money, the seek power and to take freedoms that others have as proof of their power.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Of particular interest is how the US government (including a trip by Clinton) strong armed the Indian government to play ball with US companies like Enron. She also explains clearly the tactics used to bribe local officials to make deals that are very, very bad for their own countries.
Anyway, Roy is a great writer who uses personal experience and a lot of research to tell an interesting story that would surprise most US citizens.
-- Mark Watson www.markwatson.com
violence begets more violence - he who lives by the sword shall die by the sword
John, did you notice that a lot of people who don't live by the sword get killed by those with swords? I hate to suggest you might be a bit naive, because I suspect that perhaps you understand this truth but if all of us sheep were to disarm, you think the wolves would disarm too? Sorry, but I have to think not.
I am in agreement that we must understand the nature of the problem on a deeper level than most people seem interested in thinking about it. Only then can we address some of the issues that give the bin Laden's of the world a fertile ground to recruit terrorists from - the dispossessed, the downtrodden, the hopeless. I also agree that certain parts of this 'war on terrorism' could lead to a widening of the conflict... up to and including a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan.
But to suggest that we can allow 6000 murders to go unpunished or unprosecuted is equally reprehensible. I don't (frankly) care what excuse bin Laden has (or the hijackers) - 6000 murders is still 6000 people slaughtered with malice of forethought. The kind of individuals that could do this won't hesitate to do it again and they're far enough gone that attempts at "understanding" will only give them time to work more of their evil. Similarly, waiting for the UN to accomplish anything (ha ha, World Court, good joke...) is pretty utopian and also allows these villains to work their evils.
It boils down to this: If you are a human being, you have some right to life. Those who would abbrogate your right to life for whatever cause are probably evil. They need to be brought to account. Is that all that needs done? Not by half. Afghanistan and a few other places need rebuilt. They need rebuilt not to make them anti-Islamic or to make them capitalist, but rather to make them a place where the women are not oppressed and where reasonless fundamentalism doesn't reign and where terrorists are made unwelcome. That is why we must dismantle their government and their terrorist networks and seek to bag bin Laden.
Innocents will get killed. Some new bad feelings will be created. But appeasement or ignoring the problem because the solution might be costly (as we saw clearly in several historical periods) has lead to more death and destruction than a lot of forthright actions. The horror of war is a universal constant, but the horror of the Taliban and Al-Queda is greater.
And instead of focusing on the few civilian deaths (yes, they are rotten...), try to focus on this: This is probably one of the few wars in history where anyone has TRIED to distinguish between civilian and military targets. No firebombings of Hamburg/Mecca. No Nuclear bombings of Hiroshima/Kabul. There is a conscious effort NOT to hurt those already brutalized by war. Will some be hurt or killed? Probably. But not all that many and the Americans should be lauded (along with their allies) for at least making a firm attempt not to kill those who aren't involved. Ask the Taliban to stop parking military vehicles and HQ inside of civilian neighbourhoods if they value their people. And if they don't, this is further evidence they need removing. I notice Al-Queda and the hijackers don't distinguish between civilian and non-civilian targets. Bin Laden himself said all Americans (and by extension, the rest of us in the civilized capitalist democracies) are his enemies, whether we carry a gun or pay taxes.
I don't know about you... but when a man declares me his enemy without ever meeting me just based on his assumptions about me, and is willing to kill me for that, I'm more than willing to see him prevented (permanently) from doing harm to me or others like me. He is willing to assign my life and the lives of those he uses as pawns a value of zero or less... so I am forced to consider him a fundamentally broken mind and an evil the world can do without.
Thomas B. Canada
-- Mal: "Well they tell you: never hit a man with a closed fist. But it is, on occasion, hilarious."
Jon,
I think you kind of misjudge that globalization has been a recent trend.
I say that is completely wrong. After all, during the zenith of the Roman Empire in the 1st and 2nd Centuries AD the entire Mediterranean Sea was under Roman control, so Roman culture homogenized the culture of that part of the world. The same happened when Islam spread starting the 7th Century AD, which by 1000 AD created an fairly homogeneous Moslem culture that went from southern Spain to the west, down the east coast of Africa to the south, and much of central Asia to the east. And Arab merchants based in the Arabian Peninsula in those days became extremely wealthy, just like the multinational corporations of today.
In short, the globalization of today is just repeating what happened 1000 to 2000 years ago, only we have faster means of goods transport.
Raymond in Mountain View, CA
Those Afghans who feel jaded by the spread of globalization should look at Japan. After WWII, Japan's economic development had nearly halted. However, they chose to embrace the ideas of globalization and free trade, and by the 80's they were setting new precedents in efficiency (look up the 'just-in-time' system of manufacturing, developed by Toyota). The popular opinion among many Afghans is that the United States' dominance in world economics is what is holding them back. But if they attempt to accept globalization as a form of progress, they too will have to opportunity to grow. Granted, this is where fundamentalism vs. cosmopolitanism comes into play, but bombing them certainly won't help them to think any differently, about us or their situation.
May the threads progress competently.
Although I concur with the culture portion of Jon's comment "Technologies from movie cameras to TV sets to the Net are the means by which culture and wealth travel from one part of the world to the other.", I have to disagree with the wealth portion.
Globalization is only the newest noun for an age-old economict process formerly known as colonialism or imperialism. The only difference is that instead of a colonial power demanding that it's colonies trade exclusively with it, we have a global hegemony of economic clout demanding that all countries capitulate to the World Bank and IMF. Same game, different names but it has always been moving wealth around the world.
Lots of people like to believe that The Net has started a revolution. In fact, it's only spead up the existing trade processes.
Are you implying that the government in Sicily sympathize with the mafia?
Life and Debt, an interesting documentary (haven't seen it yet) about the globalization process effects on Jamaica, with special emphasis on the IMF. Turning it essentially into nothiung more than a tourist trap, with all local industry disappearing and a huge debt load. An example - IMF policies require you to end farm subsidies, while the US can (and does) subsidize farm products. Local farmers can't compete go out of business.
The International Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders represent a different kind of "globalization", for which we used to use the term international. For example, many people make the claim of being an "internationalist", which means that they are loyal to no flag and their ethics are inclusive of the entire world population (but not necessarily a "one-world-government"). I wager that Doctors Without Borders would prefer to be called Internationalist rather than globalist.
Most opponents of "globalization" are not isolationists (a common straw man of neoliberals). If anything, they want to see even less restrictions on movement, communication, and goods than multinational corporations lobby for, but as a means of feeding people, not extracting profit. Central to this view is the idea of open borders--free and easy immigration for all. Anyone notice how long those people were marooned off the coast of Austrialia? Or how long refugees rot in camps in the U.S.?
The reason that multinational corporations oppose that kind of globalization, the globalization of population movement, is that they would lose the very profitble factor of geographic advantage -- the ability to pay a sweatshop worker in Burma $0.12/hr rather than a union worker in the U.S. $9.00/hr. So multinational corporations form PAC's and fincance politicians that want to lower trade tariffs while restricting immigration at the same time. And let's not forget IMF policies forbidding the nationalization of industries (or forcing privatization of State industries), cutting of social services, and leveraging loan promises against environmental protection.
As much as politicians make pretty speeches about "the New World Order" and globalization's bounty of technology and prosperity, the fact is that they are being bankrolled by multinational corporations. Listen closely and you'll hear that they are really saying nothing substantial at all.
If you start talking about Al Qaeda and the Russian "Mafiya" being globalized then you digress from the commonly accepted meaning of the word (and thus have an uphill semantic battle to fight). They are multinational organizations, for sure. The reason why those groups and corporations are multinational rather than international is that multi- signifies that they have membership/property in various nations, rather than having an ethical inclusiveness to ALL nations. Corporations and terrorist/crime organizations have selfish ethics (ie. a corp's loyalty is to it's stockholders, mafia's is to it's family, a terrorist network is loyal to their cause, etc.) Internationalists are loyal to the Earth and it's inhabitants, regardless of whom they are.
[pink beam of light]
As it has been pointed out many times, the WTC attackers were anything but poor. bin Laden has 100's of millions and the people who actually hit the WTC were middle class all the way.
Brian Ellenberger
"...we are all now dumber ..." -- from the 'nudie magazine day' movie.
Later or sooner Worl became one country.
But not that kind.
US takes more than %50 percent of global GMT. This is not good. In USA people had lots of rights, enough money for the life, insurance etc etc.
But what about typical 3.th world country? Nearly noting. Their %5 or %10 percent of population living like USA people. But others have noting.
Thats the creating fundemalists. (in any form).
If we look the history. In the Middle Age West is poor East is rich. Then West creates Crusaders
Please tell me what is the difference between Middle Age Crusaders and Current Taleban or someting.
Current fundemalists had noting to loose. That makes them angry. Plus Islamic religion makes them fearless.
So what we got?. An angry, fearless warriors.
I think no body really understood in the Afganistan. In Afganistan US and others lost the control. Rebellion is not really against the US or Chirtians, Rebellion against the living poor, bad live.
If that Capitalist plundering continues Next is Pakistan.
Then count other Islamic Country's.
Before the everything else, we must increase life quality in all areas in the world. Then start to talking about Globalization. Look EU, their life quality nearly equal, then merging people is not too hard. Other wise every time we found a Taleban, Osama, Saddam or someting like that.
[My english is better than most other people's Turkish, so please point out mistakes politely. Thank you.]
Attacking during holidays is nothing new in warfare.
In Part Two: Have multinationals hijacked globalism? (Yes.)
Great! Glad you answered that one. Now I don't have to read the second of two parts.
JonKatz, here are some "Great Rules for Writing" from William Safire in the New York Times:
Do not put statements in the negative form.
And don't start sentences with a conjunction.
It is incumbent on one to avoid archaisms.
If you reread your work, you will find on rereading that a great deal of repetition can be avoided by rereading and editing.
Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do.
Unqualified superlatives are the worst of all.
De-accession euphemisms.
If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is.
Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky.
Never, ever use repetitive redundancies.
Also, avoid awkward or affected alliteration.
Last, but not least, avoid cliches like the plague.
[
People associate anti-globalism with fundamentalism, or being against democracy, or being rooted in envy towards western way of life(consumption slavery) or towards material abundance. In fact what one feels most is the tide of low quality TV and films, the swamping of industrially manufactured and processed fast food, local governments playing into the global agendas of IMF and WB. What this means in the end is loss of diversity - everybody watching the same channels, wearing the same clothes and speaking the same language everywhere!
I am sure there are people saying that this wouldn't be a bad thing (after all, the world spoke one language before Babel), but the (debatable) truth IMHO, is that it is diversity, not uniformity that breeds innovation and growth, and perhaps that's why it is harder to preserve.
-naspa
In reality one thing will happen. Both parties will defend theirselves and the best defence is offence.
You hereby have a circle of violence that is inescapable. The US fights it's war (with planes) and the [group] fights their war [guerilla/terrorist]. If you don't end this circle and decrease that violence some way you end up being unhappy. Killing won't make 'm go away unless you commit genocide (please don't).
So the goal should be to create a situation that is sustainable for both countries/regions. At some point this feeling should be mutual.
nosig today
Nobody can stop globalization, and discussing against it is so difficult for most people, that the discussion will die and turn to more manageable issues.
The biggest problem with globalization is the lack of representation given to the general populations of the nations of the world. The members of the United Nations are not elected. The people who run the WTO are not elected. We have decissions that effect us all being made by people who do not represent us. This is a problem.
There is a power vacuum in the world that has been filled by the United States. While the United States has done a relatively good job at this (for those who don't agree, please read your history books about other global powers) there is the problem of authority. The authority that the United States holds over the world comes from power. It does not come from the choices of the citizens of the world. This is a problem.We may have to start looking at a global government with representatives voted for by all the citizens of the planet. Clearly, some structure is needed to give a voice to the people of the world. Without it, we must prepare for more frustation and violence.
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
Globalization is not hated for what it should be, but for what it is. Communism and National Socialism are great ideas in theory, but the greed of individuals in those systems turn them sour. Globalization promises, in theory, increased wealth and quality of life for everyone in the world, but so far in practice has yielded corporations a way to get cheap labor in countries with lax human rights and environmental controls. The most recent issue of Wired was a good example of this globalization, in its article on Flextronics manufacture of the Xbox. Cheap labor ($4 an hour) for technical manufacture jobs. Globaliztion has so far amounted to increased wealth only of the countries where the corporations originate. I think fear of this process is founded just looking at the record so far.
This is still Slashdot, right? Not some Forbes-Forum? Not the CNN chat room? Where's the Tech?? Yes, Globalisation has an impact on everything else socio-politico-economico-trollio, but what about someone pointing to how satellites enable round-the-world communication? How ocean-lay'd fiber lets international markets trade? How those multinational corp's would be dead without the internet? Or even- why they might not be dead without it. (gasp!)
So, how about it? Anyone wanna think aloud about TECH's impact on globalisation, and globalisation's impact on tech? I mean come on, what's really driving up the size of the bandwidth pipe? broadband users' desire for pr0n? :P
--cryptomancer, "Being a programmer, I understand how globalisation has affected my distributed app's latency.."
Yes, we understand these tags always apply: fud, dupe, typo, slashdotted, topic name
That sounds real spiffy. "Finding a way to reconcile Israel with her Arab neighbors would be a good start in reducing radicalism in the Islamic world."
Golda Meir: "How can you make peace with a people that hate you more than they love their own children?"
Religious fundamentalists of _ALL_ religions mess up the world for all of us. They spread hate in the name of God instead of love. That's equally true for christians, muslims, jews, hindus, you name it.
> the controlling factions of Afghanistan have committed an act of war
Really ? There were 0 (count em) Afghanis involved on Sept 11. Maybe you refer to their refusing to hand over the chief suspect without evidence, or at least refusing to hand him directly to USA. They offered to turn him over for trial to the UN, but this offer was rejected. Is this the act of war you are referring to ?
The Taliban are assholes. Unfortunately the bombs have strengthened their grip on the country. Foreign aggression always has that effect. For instance, the USA didn't rise up against Bush as a result of attacks. Even if the fundamentalists had dropped curried goat as well as plane-bombs on the US, I doubt they would have won our hearts and minds and inspired us to overthrow our unelected government.
> We can have a few dozen Afghan innocents die, or just keep letting Americans die
If it were this simple, I would respect your logic if not your principles. Unfortunately there are c. 1,000,000,000 muslims in the world, most of them do not live in Afghanistan. Many of them see this action as an attack on their spiritual bretheren. It is very likely that 100000-1000000 innocent people will starve as a result of the US action (the deaths through bombs are likely to be relatively low). Maybe you don't care about these people and think the price is worth it, but there is a good chance that some other people in the world don't care about you (and me) either, and think that killing more Americans may be the only way to express their distaste for this action. After all, it's the only language we seem to understand.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
I don't think that the underlying issue is fundamentalism vs democracy at all. Or even fundamentalism vs technology. Access to technology and distrust of globalisation are issues here in the West too. People that can't afford a good education or computers are scared. They know that they are competing at a strong disadvantage in our economy. This makes them, and the large number of people in many industries who have had stagnant wages over the last 20 years, (justifiably) afraid of globalisation.
But, take it a step further. If you are living in a place where you don't have decent access to clean water, let alone the internet, how will you react to globalisation? Remember, the message you will hear is the importance of technical skills and knowledge -- things you don't have and can't get. Any rational person (or even not-so-rational) will be afraid. Especially if you feel powerless to do anything about your situation.
This is where fundamentalism kicks in. Its leaders offers two things these people want: easy answers and a voice -- a way to express their frustration and fear to a society (the West) that they perceive (largely correctly) as indifferent to them and their needs.
Democracy (or lack thereof) is irrelevant in this situation. The issue is fear and poverty. Why would you ever support a program (globalisation) that you feel is against your own interests? If you felt that fundamentalism would help defend you from it , wouldn't you support it?
The question for Westerners is twofold. First, are they wrong about globalisation's effects on them? And second, what are we willing to do address their (real and perceived) concerns.
If globalisation is to be a good thing, all parties need to benefit and feel that they are benefitting. Otherwise, we are having a discussion about imperialism and exploitation: which is exactly what many of these people feel we are discussing.
"...Religious fundamentalism is something we should not worry about, hell, maybe they're right...." Congratulations you just iterated the problem. Hell! Maybe they're right. Maybe maybe maybe. Guess what? Globalization, terrorism, radicalism, right & left wing-ism (yeah I know its not a word, dont jump on it) are all surface issues. What needs to be addressed is the ideology in which Fundamentalism takes root. Yes, I advocate freedom of speech, freedom of religion (in particular!) and every other human right detailed or otherwise in the Constitution. But tell me this: if a group of people from a small New Hampshire town firmly believed that there were Green Aliens playing jazz on the dark side of the moon, and they were marching on Seabrook to take control of the power plant because they believed a core meltdown was the only thing that could generate enough energy for these aliens to reach the earth, would we do anything less than laugh at them and hurl them in a jail cell? Yeah well guess what we should be doing to Religious Zealot Fundamentalists. I dont care if your culture hasn't 'progressed' (or 'regressed', however you want to look at it) to the point America and the rest of the free world has. If the tenets of your ideology involve the violation of human rights, thats where the line needs to be drawn. We need to say "Sorry, you're WRONG". Not "Well, they might be right! Maybe the fact that Fundamental Muslim religion sees the US, having the most morally sound and just economy and justice system in the world, as bad enough that they can justify killing unsuspecting innocents in violent acts of terrorism!". Sorry buddy. No way. The point of this whole shpeel is this: I dont have to defend an ideology firmly rooted in preservation of human rights. You can argue that we impose the burdens of pollution and underpaid workers on third world countries till yourface turns blue and it doesnt matter. Corporations dont kill people. Corporations dont place people in our service against their free will. Corporations dont rape people. Corporations expand and build facilities in concordance with the local laws of the countries they occupy. They offer jobs at a specific wage, and those jobs are *rapidly* filled because, while it is an absurdly minimal wage to *us*, it is a generous wage compared to the wages offered by native businesses or not having a wage at all. We need to stop tolerating idiot ideologies. Yes, Im saying Fundamental Muslim Religion is wrong. I think all religions are self-imposed mental bondaeg, but thats not todays topic. At the very least, we must stop tolerating ideologies that allow for the violation of human rights.
As for He/She/It, I am an American He with no excuses or apologies for my culture.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Finding a way to reconcile Israel with her Arab neighbors would be a good start in reducing radicalism in the Islamic world. Religious fundamentalism is something we should not worry about, hell, maybe they're right.
Only problem is that most arabs do not believe in "reconciliation" but "elimination". Sorta what the nazi's had in mind.
Religious fundamentalism is something we should not worry about, hell, maybe they're right.
The primary cause of the problems in Israel is the result of unyielding, inhumane and illogical positions of the fundamentalist Jews and the fundamentalist Muslims.
The cause of most wars and genocide thoughout history are almost always traced back to religious fundamentalism or, its substitution, nationalism.
There is no difference.
If you treat other countries as your inferiors, they will treaet you as oppressors. We're not dealing with dogs here - we're dealing with humans, as vicious and angry as they may be (in the case of the Taliban and al Qaeda).
Someday, you're going to die. Get over it.
I rarely read anything by Katz, and I certainly have never replied, mostly because he usually manages to say something vaguely annoying withing the first paragraph. It's usually not anything I can put my finger on, but I get annoyed anyways. This time I can put my finger on it. This conflict does not pit fundamentalism against cosmopolitan tolerance. This is a conflict between fundamentalism and imperialism.
My return address is out of date, so don't even bother sending flames there.
That's why we aren't targeting the Afghans.
I'd actually say that the whole globalization movement has it's genesis in multinationals -- i.e., chartered corporations like the Dutch East India company. So, has it been hijacked by them? Not really, it's been their cause all along.
I don't see that any of *our* institutions have successfully promoted abroad. And I think it's fair to say that our State department, and the various commercial interests that lobby our government don't want to see a replication of this country's freedom (limited as it is) in the developing world. Free people are too interested in their own welfare and promoting their own interests. Global corporations want things like: cheap labor, cheaply extractable natural resources, captive import markets, etc. Freedom interferes with these things, because people naturally want to maximize their own country's autonomy.
From what I can see, Globalization in practice amounts to exporting unproven economic theory, and forcing developing nations to be the laboratories of capitalism, whether or not it serves their interests.
I'd be interested to hear counterexamples, if people can think of instances where the transfer of Euro-American social institutions has produced the kind of relative stability/prosperity that we enjoy.
-w
Thank you for a fantastic summary of why so many naive leftists' proposals for the Middle East are wrong. The only thing that ever got Israel to the table with the Palestinians was American support - absent that, the Middle East will disappear in a puff of (possibly nuclear) smoke.
If it ain't broke, you need more software.
It may seem selfish and greedy to protect contries so that we can protect our oil prices, but those contries have a tremendous power over us. Currently our country and way of life cannot continue if we were to be cut off from that oil. We are currently working to eliminate our demendency on it, but untill that happens, if we want to keep our way of life, we have to maintain a presence in the Middle East. It cant simply be argued out by philosophies, it simply is a fact that we need that oil.
I challenge anyone who sees otherwise to come up with an alternative.
Im not here now... Im out KILLING pepperoni
One of the major problems of traditional globalism is that it opens the borders to investments, allows goods to be shipped easily across borders, etc. In other words, it's easy to move production to areas with low labor costs, little or no environmental protections etc.
On the other hand, it does not allow labor to easily cross the borders. Globalization will allow American companies to build factories right across the border in Mexico. All the dollar-a-day jobs you can handle. However, if someone doesnt want to work one of those jobs, they're NOT free to cross the border to find a higher paying job.
-J5K
The libertarian solution to the failures of capitalism is to apply more capitalism til the failures are fixed.
Sure, but I was rather pondering this isomorphism thing...
The, _without exception_, existence of low average IQs of countries with large muslim populations might help explain the _behavior_ of muslim populations:
f /i rf_rpt/1999/irf_malaysia99.html
Country IQ % Muslim
Malaysia 92 59*
Turkey 90 100
Indonesia 89 88
Iraq 87 97
Lebanon 86 70
Morocco 85 99
Iran 84 99
Egypt 83 94
Qatar 78 95
Sudan 72 70
Tanzania 72 35
Ghana 71 30
Nigeria 67 50
Guinea 66 85
Sierra Leone 64 60
Ethiopia 63 50
Country average IQs from:
http://home.att.net/~eugenics/lynn.htm
Religious statistics from:
http://www.xist.org/global/religion.htm
* Religious statistics for Malaysia:
http://www.state.gov/www/global/human_rights/ir
-nb
(A) Neither are they. do you really want to live in a country under siege?
(B) It doesn't take either. Look at the trouble the Irish paramilitary groups caused Britain over the last 30 years.
My Journal
Globalisation and Fundamentalism are both about the same thing. Power!
From the beginning of time till today the whole world has evolved around one thing: Power!
Nothing has changed and nothing will until we really get down to the core issue (Power!) we keep those who have power, very happy and very safe by squabbling about all this crap. We need to learn to understand them and what they want. We must learn to see the real hidden agendas.
Spend some time thinking about being someone in power. Think about how you would read these articles. We read things and think... do I agree or disagree, what is my opinion? They read it and they think... how do I keep my power and keep these people happy and maybe, if I can, gain more control over them. How do I use this to my advantage!
It is impossible to be anywhere in the lower 95% of the chain without being strongly abused by those at the top 5% of the chain. To get in the top 5% of the chain you have to play their games as well as they do. You must be part of them. Someone who has any ethics and real goals besides power will soon loose a foothold in this part of the chain and would be forced to back down or just be totally destroyed.
Politics is nothing more than words to distract us, to delude us. Politics is the twisting of words. I know because I can do it myself!
In the end it's about one thing... Rich or Poor... Powerful or weak! Every place in world, every moment in time.
Don't forget it!
Of course what Katz' is calling Globalization is in fact Americanization. Dropping McDonald's in Red Square or in a cave in Kabul. The pervasiveness of our media. Baywatch, Starwars, AOL, yadda yadda.
Many see this as evil, or imperialistic. How can we (USA) impose ourselves on the rest of the world? we don't respect culture (hey, we renamed our war didn't we?) and we trash all that we (USA) do not hold dear.
You mutilate your women by cutting of their clitoris -- we condemn you. You beat women who show their ankle -- we condemn you. You cane people who spray paint cars -- we condemn (and sue, and force you to change your local laws) you.
Guess what... USA is the biggest, loudest, strongest, wealthiets, fattest, healthiest, best looking country in the world. We do what we want. You can follow if you like, you don't have to, unless you want to do business with us. Then you'd better learn English (American) and get ready to know that 36 inches is a yard because we don't like the metric system.
Large, loud people often get noticed. People who get noticed tend to garner followers. How do we tell the Japanese not to be just like us when thy want to be just like us? Or the Mexicans, or the Russians, Germans, Brits, etc.
People want to be Americans. They want to be movie stars. They want to hit homeruns. American culture is cool, and glamorous, and proabably a better way of life than they have.
The thing of it is is that the Globalization isn't being forced down anyone's throat. Sure the American way of life is portrayed, in our media, which is the conduit for its expansion, as better than it really is but America practically invented Marketing; what did you expect?
The funniest part of this is that America is essentially still isolationary (is that a word?) but we tend to get dragged into things. The fact is that a lot of people want to be American. It looks good.
My argument is not dissimilar to people who say that cigarette ads don't make people smoke. They don't. So America is well marketed, and people want to be a part of that.
Whose fault is that?
This
It won't happen. As long as humans are emotional beings, there will always be many who will look to some sort of a spiritual escape from the rational, material, factual world.
Hopefully, with globalization, like with other consumer goods, one day, one will be able to comparison shop and pick and choose the spiritual fulfillment of their liking from a wide range of available choices, regardless of geographic location, instead having one forced upon by the powers that be that run the state.
This, I imagine, is one of Osama bin Laden's biggest fears.
"Either way, September 11 makes it clear that globalization - pitting fundamentalism against cosmopolitan tolerance - is one of the most important issues in our lifetimes. "
Globalisation is not pitting fundamentalism against cosmopolitan tolerance. The people opposing globalisation are not always radical religious fundamentalists out to get you. Take a look at India. We have people dying here of starvation. One way or another, globalisation caused it. I don't say globalisation is good or bad - I'm not trolling here. I hope to make it clear (so clear that you should understand it) that most of the people against globalisation are doing it because of the starving millions, not because they have their religion to propagate.
"People with a host of grievances against technology, multinational corporations and capitalist democracies have made globalism a dirty word"
Yes, they have grievances against technology because technology doesn't mean jack when you're dying of hunger. And please don't talk of GM food and the advantages of scientific research - the 'green revolution' already happened in this country.
Yes, they have grievances against multinational corporations like Enron because they bribe the politicians and secure contracts like the one in Maharashtra. They are sucking the blood out of half dead corpses with their exhorbitant charges. Enron charges about 900% more than the State electricity board does (without subsidies).
Yes, they have grievances against capilist democracies because if you look closer, they don't know what democracy is - they never get to practice it, and couldn't care less - for them, utopia is a frugal meal that couldn't amount to 300 calories per day.
-Shaunak.
OK, argue away. But you are begging the question, is it even proper for governments to "preserve the environment, ...."? I, for one, don't think it's Uncle Sam's job to "distribute new technologies equitably".
Actually, this quote is classic Katz: anti-US logorrhea that seems to make a point, but actually is moronic. I challenge anyone to name a non-democratic government that does any of these better than the US. I'll give you the last one, I don't doubt there are lots of places that have a firm grip of the press.
Open the gates: Let the huddled masses go free -- the best way to show globalization can benefit the poor and rich is to allow an unrestricted migration of labour
Financial Post - Canada; Oct 30, 2001
BY SAMUEL BRITTAN
For all the effect they have had on hostile opinion, the many books and articles showing the benefits of globalization might as well have been printed in invisible ink. Most people's reactions are based on their political prejudices or favourite newspapers.
What is needed is a dramatic gesture, which is worthwhile for its own sake and would demonstrate that the free movement of capital and labour is of benefit to the world's poor.
The trouble is that there is too little globalization rather than too much. There was far more economic free movement a century ago than there is today. The big difference is, of course, in migration policies.
Many countries then allowed free inward and outward movement of labour. Today, legal migration is tightly restricted and, in practice, a focus of illegality and criminal violence. The resemblance to traditional drugs policy, where prohibition produces the very evils it claims to prevent, is all too obvious.
My proposal is to abolish the distinction between economic migrants and asylum-seekers -- who in the U.K. are not permitted to work for the first six months and are provided with vouchers at sub-benefit levels -- and allow anyone who so wishes to seek his or her fortune in any country of choice. This goes far beyond the ideas of David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, of merely extending the number of work permits.
Like nearly all economic liberalization, the free movement of labour would increase the world's national income and would particularly benefit people in poorer countries, where even those who stayed behind would find a brisker demand for their services. Although the best results would be obtained at the lowest cost if this change were generally adopted, many Western countries could move unilaterally.
Would there be any quid pro quo? Not as such. Recipient countries could impose a minimum qualifying period for state pensions. The main counterweight to liberal migration policy would be a relentless policy of exposure and punishment for anyone, irrespective of origin, who incited violence not merely against religious or racial groups but against any individuals, irrespective of the country in which they resided. Most human rights charters have provisions for amendment in emergencies.
The obvious European country to initiate a laissez-faire policy would be Ireland, which has a low population density and needs the safety valve of immigrant labour for a potentially overheated economy. But even the U.K. has a lower density than, say, the Netherlands, which is not obviously suffering from a low quality of life.
Given the extreme hostility to immigration in Germany and Italy, a common European Union immigration policy is unthinkable except on highly restrictive lines; but one can live without it. It is hardly likely immigrants will try to smuggle themselves from the U.K. and Ireland into some smoulderingly hostile German city.
The potential concession that an economic analyst has to make is that wages of workers competing with migrants could be relatively or even absolutely depressed. A high-quality and under-publicized research study -- Migration: An Economic and Social Analysis from the Home Office -- shows that native wages have not been depressed in the U.K. Immigrants have tended to perform three types of job. They have worked in public services, especially health, where pay is determined by the government. Wages are well below market levels and the effect of newcomers is to reduce shortages. In London, 23% of doctors and 47% of nurses are non-U.K. born. At the other extreme, "in relatively low paid and insecure sectors (such as) catering and domestic services, unskilled natives are simply unwilling or unable ... to take the large number of available jobs."
Companies benefit from immigration "but it is not likely that natives are significantly disadvantaged: If migrants do not fill these jobs they simply go unfilled or uncreated." An estimated 70% of catering jobs are filled by migrants.
There are also the highly skilled information technology workers. According to the Home Office study, the inflow of these technicians has enabled the IT sector to grow faster rather than to depress pay in it.
The study confirms migrants are more polarized than the rest of the population, with larger concentrations of wealth and poverty and high and low skills. Not only are they highly concentrated in London and the southeast, but there are also large clusters both in wealthy Kensington and in the impoverished East End. "Levels of entrepreneurship in self-employment also appear to be high among migrants," it adds. It is not only Pakistani and east African businesses that have been attracted to the U.K.: About 150,000 French entrepreneurs are said to have arrived since 1995.
In general, earnings behaviour follows what is known in the United States as the "assimilation hypothesis." Wages in a particular age cohort start off lower for migrants but, as skills are acquired, eventually overtake those of comparable native workers. And, contrary to the popular view that immigrants are a burden on the public purse, they contribute 10% more to government revenues than they receive in government expenditures.
About 400,000 people arrived legally in the U.K. in 1998 with the intention of staying a year or more; but some estimates suggest that up to another 200,000 entered the country illegally.
The net effect of strict official restriction and feeble enforcement is, as one would expect, nightmarish conditions for those who depend on criminal gangs to enter the country. Harriet Sergeant, in Welcome to the Asylum, explains how the process leads to "slavery and child labour." She advocates a government drive for better statistics and better control. But given that very few illegal immigrants are in fact sent back, the alternative laissez-faire policy might make surprisingly little difference to the net numbers but would ensure that arrivals are recognized as human beings.
The author's main objection is that the U.K. would be swamped by, for instance, the 25% of Slovak citizens who say they want to emigrate. But would they in practice? If evidence from the European Union is anything to go by, it is surprising how few people would make the leap.
The present policy has reached a dead end. Why not try five years of laissez-faire, then review the strategy?
Bush Lies Watch
"That would mean that the world gets poorer, not richer. The sweat shps close: but nothing takes their place. The poor get even poorer. And so do the rich. Or even more so, the rich get even richer. "
I was very active in the anti-sweatshop movement when I was in school. This is a common misconcetion that we encountered. We didnt want the offending companies to *close* the factories. We wanted the companies to pay the workers a living wage, respect local labor laws, respect the workers right to form a union, etc.
You'd be surprised how often people end up missing or dead when they try to unionize when working in sweatshops. Or when the workers do form a union at great threat to their personal safefy, the factory closes putting everyone out of a job. Or how, even though $1 a day (or equivalent low wage) may go a lot further in the 3rd world than in the US, it still wont cover basic expenses. Or how little effect workers wages has on the final cost of a product.
So in theory globalization may be a good thing, improving life for people in poor countries, in practice the companies involved do not take it upon themselves to actually improve living conditions. And the people working in the factories dont make enough to invest much in their own economies to make a difference.
-J5K
The libertarian solution to the failures of capitalism is to apply more capitalism til the failures are fixed.
Yup, it's good old American progress against those evil regressives/reactionaries, yet again. We are Good, they are Evil. Nothing new here, folks, move along, take a number for your bombings, please.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
It's not about 'giving up' on Israel. No one in their right mind is calling for that. It's about Israel maturing and being encouraged if not eventually forced to deal with the Palestinian crisis in a constructive manner rather than endless cycles provocation, attack and retaliation.
**>>BELCH
But what if everyone else in the neighbourhood, city, state, country, or world, does not want to live in such a social setup? Where are you then?
Not because of our bravado but because of the lack of motivation to be what America has become -- a social, economic, military and cultural powerhouse. No American should hold their head in shame for that.
It is the lack of ethical growth, particularly outsde of the country's borders, that causes us to be ashamed.
I paraphrase: "We hold these truth's to be self evident, that man was created with certain unalienable rights..." Yet often we show little respect for the rights of those outside our borders. If tomorrow we woke up and the enire world were one big USA - how much current USA foreign policy would be struck down as unconstitutional? If we delt with local politics in California like we have delt with the mid-east, could we get away with it?
Just curiosity: what was particularly liberal about your rant?
My opinion? Fukuyama would be correct if people actually did act rationally. But, having grown up among many fundamentalists (of the good, Christian variety
Today, there are enough cultural (Notice how that word starts with "cult"? Same Greek root!) differences and irrationality about to make Huntington's thesis look more believable at this time.
That is all.
I think that one of the issues of globalization is that corporations, having no ethics, are quite happy to run along and move their organization to anywhere that they can get the best return on investment.
If this means taking advantage of a cheap workforce, no labor laws, no benefits, then so be it.
Globalization actually makes it possible to enact labor laws, benefits and so on, on a world-wide basis. If all you can see is a Nike shoe factory moving to a 3rd world country, depriving us poor Americans of good paying jobs while exploiting the locals, well, I'm sorry to tell you but they're doing that already. Globalization will provide an interface with which to address those concerns. Right now there is nothing.
And I'm still not clear on the anti-global trade folks' position, is it the seeming loss of American jobs you decry, or the seeming abuse of foreign work-forces? If corporations spreading world-wide brings about the sort of disasters you protest-addicts seem to envision, who will buy their products? How will they survive? Who will profit, and then what?
**>>BELCH
Bin Laden actually doesn't care about the Palestinians or Iraq or any of that. He wants the world remade in his view--he points to the Taliban as the ultimate form of society. In an interview a few years ago, he said his ultimate goals were not to get the US out of the mideast, but to have a jihad in Egypt, a jihad in Israel, a jihad in Bosnia--basically a Jihad everywhere that will replace all governments with a fundamentalist Muslim one such as the Taliban. It's a different kind of globalization, really.
That's not globalization. He doesn't want to remake the world in his view, and he doesn't want to take over the world. He wants Muslims to retake the Muslim world, which he sees as having been colonized by the West. He really doesn't care what happens to us in the West, so long as we leave Muslims alone.
Again, no amount of understanding the root of the problem will make that go away. The only thing that these people (the terrorists) understand is having a bomb dropped on them so they can't do anything anymore.
But you're saying this on the basis of your own understanding of the problem. If that understanding was proven incorrect, then I presume you would revise it. So crack open a book, and maybe you'll learn that your CNN black-hats-white-hats view of the world doesn't stand up to critical scrutiny.
It's a sad commentary on humans, but its the truth--do you think enough understanding would have prevented Hitler from attempting world domination? I doubt it--ask Neville Chamberlain.
You're talking about "understanding" after the fact, but you're neglecting the understanding of bad situations before they turn into wars. A better understanding of Germany after WWI would have meant a less onerous Treaty of Versailles being imposed, preventing the perfect conditions for an extremist nationalist rising like the Nazis.
Similarly, better understanding of what a pile of shit the US has made of its foreign policy in the Muslim world will prevent future Bin Ladens from rising. It's called "fixing the roof while the sun is shining". No-one is asking you to understand the rain in your living room better, only to understand that if you had fixed the roof last week when the hole was pointed out to you, it wouldn't be there now.
Of course Bin Laden would still exist, even if we had understood the problem better. But he would not have had the army of supporters, both passive and active, that he now commands. Further use of your "bombs are the only language these people understand" analysis will lead to an unending stream of them, more than you and your gov't will ever be able to find, let alone bomb.
Globalism is not and has never been a political movement. It is no more than a social and political trend that began with the Industrial Revolution. Geography is less of a constraint than it was in past. Airline travel, the telephone, satelite TV and the Internet mean that you can live in one country and have the same communications access as if you lived in another country on a different continent.
Anti-globalism is a political movement of sorts. There is no real cohesion between the aims of the various factions however. In many cases the aims are completely opposed.
Bin Laden is not an anti-globalist in any meaningful sense, he is anti-US but his political aims are global. He wants to return the world to the middle ages one country at a time, starting with Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Palestein but continuing on to Andaloucia (Spain), Africa etc.
Some of the anti-globalists are anti-democratic tin pot nationalists who want to declare independence for their little fragment of a nation state so that they have a better chance of getting power themselves.
Other 'anti-globalists' are tin-pot union leaders looking for some form of protectionism that will discriminate against goods produced by foreign workers.
Most of the 'anti-globalists' are not protesting about the process of globalisation however but the limited form in which it is taking place. As they see it the West is busy exporting the working practices and political structures of the nineteenth century while trying to deter democratization that might threaten Western interests.
As a political critique it was far more accurate in the 1970s than today. The list of dictators supported by the West and in particular the US is very long. The US subverted democratic governments in Chile and the Congo and replaced them with mass murderers.
US administration policy since the cold war, and in particular since the Clinton administration has been to end support for most of the worst regimes. Marcos, Pinochet, Suharto and the rest have been consigned to the dustbin of history. It is therefore somewhat strange to start an unfocused 'the US can do no right' movement at this time. There are several areas where the US is standing on the wrong side of history, proping up the gulf dictatorships for example, however US foreign policy is much reformed.
The biggest problem of globalism is ex-patriate meddling in their former home countries, particularly in the second and third generations. Sean Connery's calls for an independent Scotland made from a Spanish golf course are ridiculous and harmless enough. The funding of the IRA by Irish Americans or the Sikh separatists in India by Bradford shopkeepers was not. The problem with ex-patriates is that they can believe all the propaganda they like, they can fund all the murder they like and live in perfect safety far from the consequences of their meddling.
The funding of Israeli settlements by US Jews and the funding of extreemist Madrasah schools in Pakistan by Saudis are just another example of a type of meddling from a long distance that is hated by the majority in the countries that are subjected to it.
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
Please stop spreading this stupid rumor.
It's almost as bad as the Nostradamous non-sense.
It was started by an article written by "Robert Scheer", and it's factually wrong.
Did the White House give the Taliban $43 million?
> Eli Lake, who covers the State Department for UPI and who wrote an accurate report about the $43 million grant last May, calls the notion that the White House gave the money to the Taliban as a reward for their anti-drug efforts " just absurd." He notes that one of the Bush administration's first actions upon taking office was to shut down the Taliban's mission in New York, in compliance with UN sanctions.
- sigs are for wimps.
Fathom.com which is trying to be the international university course clearinghouse has a FREE onlie course called "The Globalization Debate". Maybe some of you are serious enough about this to take the FREE course and see some examples of well considered and balanced opinion on globalisation.
Here's the course description that I include here because the Fathom site would not allow internal links:
Globalisation is a fervidly contested and often misunderstood concept. It has occupied and divided economists, sociologists and anti-capitalists alike. Anti-globalisation protestors have regularly and successfully picketed World Trade Organisation summits as part of their stand against the might of globalisation. Yet, many economists tout the benefits of increased trade, sophisticated telecommunications networks and cross-border investment to developing countries, pointing to the gains workers and unions throughout the world stand to make from closer integration.
Most people seem to know whether they are for or against globalisation, without pausing to consider what exactly it is and where its effects can be seen. Globalisation might be a term too slippery to be closely defined, but it is a vibrant debate worth engaging in.
In this seminar two major sociologists put forward their versions of globalisation. For Anthony Giddens, it is a phenomenon characterised by fundamental changes in the world economy, the communications revolution and trade between nation-states in physical commodities, information and currency. For Leslie Sklair, globalisation should be seen as a new phase of capitalism, one that transcends the unit of the nation-state. In an interview, he introduces the globalisation debate and stakes out his position within it. Sklair builds on these arguments through a flash image gallery, which explores how the idea of globalisation is used by transnational corporations.
Leslie Sklair is a reader in sociology at the London School of Economics and Political Science and is responsible for the doctoral programme in the sociology department. He has been a visiting professor at New York University, San Diego State University and Hong Kong University, and has lectured on globalisation all over the world. His Sociology of the Global System (1995) has been translated into Japanese, Portuguese, Persian, Chinese and Spanish. He has conducted fieldwork on transnational corporations in Mexico, China, Hong Kong, Egypt and Australia, and in Europe and North America.
Sklair's latest book, The Transnational Capitalist Class, aims to provide the first systematic, research-based sociological analysis of the relationships between processes of globalisation and the major transnational corporations that are widely considered to dominate the global economy. Using the Global Fortune 500 as an example, the book focuses on the extent of globalisation in these corporations.
Anthony Giddens is the director of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). He started his academic career at the University of Hull, and went on to study for an M.A. in sociology at the LSE; by 1976 he had completed a Ph.D. at Cambridge University.
Giddens has held numerous teaching positions within sociology, including at the University of Leicester and the University of Cambridge, and has lectured extensively at many overseas universities. He has received 10 honorary degrees throughout his career. More recently he was the BBC Reith Lecturer in 1999.
Giddens is the most widely read and cited social theorist of his generation, authoring 34 books and countless articles and reviews. He co-founded the academic publishing house Polity Press in 1985 and still stands as chairman and director of Polity Press Ltd. as well as the director of Blackwell-Polity Ltd. He also stands as the chairman and director of the Centre for Social Research.
Giddens is well respected for developing the theory of structuration, and has been at the forefront of developing ideas in left-of-centre politics, helping to popularize the idea of the "third way," and travelling to many countries around the world to talk to political leaders and heads of state about the development of third way politics. Frequently referred to as "Tony Blair's guru," Giddens has also made a strong impact on the evolution of New Labour.
Smart. After the events of the last two days, the Red Cross needs to be eliminated as a criminal organization. It has taken $100 million of the $550 million donated to it for 9/11 recovery and decided that American victims of the 9/11 ATROCITY don't deserve it. Children in my neighborhood scrambled around, hitting up every person they saw for money for the Red Cross. Its sad to know their hard work and heart felt desire to help was for nothing. Now we find out that the Red Cross is going to misappropriate that money for other purposes. If you or I took $100 million and diverted it for purposes other than the intended, I think we would be in deep trouble. What is even worse, there is no guarantee that the Red Cross will use majority of the money donated for the 9/11 Atrocity will be used for the victims. Very disturbing to say the least!!!
<SARCASM> Also, painting BIG RED CROSSES on your buildings tend to make them easier to hit. </SARCASM>
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
If you're at least capable of watching the latest Disney travesty while munching on your favourite mass-produced soy beef surrogate while browsing porn on your laptop, then chances are pretty good that
A. You're not starving
B. You're not being shot at
To a college age budding intellectual, it must surely seem that starving and being shot at is hugely preferrable to a Microsloth McWorld. Thing is, you're already there in your McDorm fomenting acts of McDissent curtesy of the hard-earned McDollars of your McParents. Those who really are starving and/or being shot at might relish the idea of a chance at that which you are so eager to dismiss.
When Palestinians and Israeli's can argue religious ethics over french fries in a middle eastern community college before the start of their Film Survey class in which they will deconstruct the socio-political undercurrents of Dumbo, then we can ask them if they'd like to give it all up to become rock-throwing McAnarchists.
**>>BELCH
Moving to a place where my values are represented.
It is the lack of ethical growth, particularly outsde of the country's borders, that causes us to be ashamed.
You are right, it is so unethical to feed the world, assist other countries in times of natural/unnatural disaster, provide medical treatment for the world, defend weak nations against rogue nations, etc. Its amazing how often people completely refuse to acknowledge the overwhelming good that comes out of America. I don't understand what perverse thrill you must get to hate your country and your home.
If America is so horrible and evil, why hasn't the UN moved out?
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Jon, you can't have equitable spread of anything and a free-market economy unless you have a really strange definition of equitable (most dictionaries will not include 'I got mine' as a definition).
Economies are inevitably controlled in some fashion- one term for this is 'dirigiste' (sp?) which means 'directed'. One result of this is the evening out of the ungovernable boom and bust cycles of free-market capitalism. There is plenty of reason to think that a worldwide ungoverned boom and bust cycle would be a bad thing.
Globalization does not have to mean uncontrolled freemarket Chicago School capitalism- it is just a convenient label for this, as uncontrolled freemarket Chicago School capitalism pushes for a global boom (as was once, foolishly, written about in Wired, in the 'Long Boom' issue) without a moment of thought for the resulting global _bust_ that will follow.
Equitable spread of technology yes- but free market economy is the last way you're gonna get that.
By PAUL GEITNER
The Associated Press
10/30/01 12:47 PM
GHENT, Belgium (AP) -- Global trade can help win the war against terrorism if the West spreads the wealth it generates more equitably, former President Clinton told a conference of globalization critics Tuesday.
"Not everyone who's angry is angry at the civilized world and wants to destroy it," Clinton said. "A lot are angry because they can't be a part of it."
Arguing for more globalization, not a retrenchment in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, Clinton said bringing terror suspect Osama bin Laden to justice is not enough.
"We need to reduce the pool of potential terrorists by increasing the number of potential partners in the 21st century world," he said.
He called on Western nations to foot the bill to raise living standards and improve education in the developing world to promote equal opportunity.
"Global trade is not bad, but there's not enough," Clinton said. "We need to spread the benefits and reduce the burdens quickly to all the people."
Clinton was invited to the University of Ghent by the current president of the European Union, Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, who has sought to organize a debate on "ethical globalization" ever since anti-globalization radicals rioted outside an EU summit in June.
Rather than the attacks overshadowing the discussion, speakers agreed that solving problems like the growing gap between rich and poor -- what Clinton called "the dark side" of globalization -- has become even more urgent.
"In a way, the Western world saw the price of poverty flashed up on its TV screens on Sept. 11," Verhofstadt said.
"Poor unstable countries and regions that fall prey to gangs of criminals" like bin Laden's al-Qaida network are part of the price, he said.
Some speakers expressed fears that the U.S.-led military response to the attacks would divert resources and attention from anti-poverty programs.
"It's a no-win situation for us," said Dr. Owens Wiwa, a Nigerian activist who expects a tougher time raising money for Africa's AIDS crisis.
Naomi Klein, a best-selling Canadian author and anti-corporate activist, said she was afraid the war atmosphere would make it harder to be publicly critical of globalization.
"People are afraid that being critical of the market is seen as being anti-American, even treasonous," she said.
But she said she felt that the needs of the poor and excluded would have to be addressed.
"It's become a security issue," she said.
------
On the Net:
http://www.eu2001.be
Oliver's army is here to stay Oliver's army are on their way And I would rather be anywhere else But here today
Noooo! I woOOOooOoOooOn't listen! Feel my pent up, middle-class trust-fund hippy wrath in AAAALLLLLLL CAAAAAAAAAAAAPPPPPPPPPS!
YAAAAAGGGGHHHHHHH! (bamf)
Er, sorry. I'll go now.
**>>BELCH
No. It would've been the same if the government of Sicily (and/or Italy) refused to prosecute and/or extradite the mafiozos.
Nice try, though, very catchy...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
"I have an exercise you might try. Have someone hit you. You don't hate them, so you won't retiate. They hit you again, only harder. You don't retaliate, again, because you don't "hate.""
I have a more accurate exercise. Have someone hit you, then they run off. You don't know where the person is, so you go round headbutting people at random.
That is much more of an analogy to America's actions in Afghanistan.
"It's not a war on drugs, it's a war on personal freedom. Keep that in mind at all times." Bill Hicks
The word "fact" does not belong in that sentence or anywhere near it. Everything there is opinion, and cannot be proved otherwise. It appears that Katz has just read this book, and feels the need to repeat everything in it. He should be a little more responsible when writing an article that will be read by thousands.
I've read a goodly number of the responses to Katz's article today. The only thing I can really say is that most people responding to this thread probably need to brush up on the recent middle east history. I would start at about 1900 and work my way forward. Take a look at it with an uncritical eye and see what you come up with.
The number of factual errors propogated by people who are absolutely convinced that they are right is astounding.
Two things need to be said though, and they need to be said at as a global point of discussion.
The first is that while the US has, in a lot of cases, really botched things in certain areas in the Middle East. They are not now, nor have they ever been at the root of all that is evil in these countries. A Good number of these countries have governments more closely resembling the Catholic Church during the Spanish Inquisition and it is unfair and incorrect to assume that this has anything to do with US policy in the Middle East.
Second, the US supplies a good majority of all relief to all disastors that occur anywhere in the world. In most cases, civilized countries will welcome that aid and that relief, even if they don't like us very much. In the middle east and in France they will take that relief and then spit at us as we leave.
So, before you all resume your American Policy bashing please do two things. Brush up on your history and please remember who is paying for the food supplies being dropped in Afghanistan even as we bomb military targets.
Keep in mind two questions as well. First, if Bin Laden had decided to bomb the Kremlin would Afghanistan even exist now? Two, if Bin Laden had decided to bomb the Forbidden City would Afghanistan even exist now?
Beware the wood elf!!!
Wrong-o, pal!. Warts and all, we're THE leading (if not the sole) exporter of freedom and liberty in thought and deed in the modern world. We're it. If you feel down-trodden now, wherever the heck you are, we're the only chance you have.
Nazis! Hmph. Indeed...
**>>BELCH
If you can't understand why people would be upset with the many instances where the USA has not acted in the most honorable manner, I don't know how I can help communicate that to you. In some sense, the great social/ethical/moral successes of the USA act to make the failings more painful.
If you found out that your parents were cheating on their taxes, or your brother was embezzeling from his company, or your sister was cheating on her spouse, or your grandfather stole lollypops from infants, wouldn't you be a bit ashamed? Would you feel less ashamed if you were a rich, powerful, and generous family that was active in the local community and was kind to small animals?
I don't get a "thrill" from my fealings about the country. And I don't "hate" the USA. But my pride in the country is lessened by some of its actions. Even if one thinks the USA is the greatest country in the world, the fact that it could be so much greater in so many ways makes me dissapointed. I don't understand why some people have such difficulty in being critical of their own governments. I do not deny the good that is done in my name, why do so many deny the bad that is done in theirs?
If America is so horrible and evil, why hasn't the UN moved out?
'cause then they'd never get their back dues? :-) Actually, I think we paid up quite a bit in the last few years, are we "in good standing" yet?
The IRA is the organization that just disarmed itself [newsday.com], right? You were saying?
That would be the organisation that disarmed itself because
A)The Brits stopped shooting and started talking
B)Ireland is no longer in an absolutely terrible economic situation which was blamed largely on the British.
Back when the Brits were shooting the IRA, each one they shot caused 3 more to step up to take their place. Believe it or not, when you kill someone you alienate their friends, family and pretty much everyone in the surrounding area.
My Journal
I wholly support globalisation, but I detest MS, Disney, McDonalds etc. Not because of globalisation, but because of crap, over-priced, dumbed-down products.
How about using a sensible concept in a country like that like "democracy" and "subsidy"
Exactly how are we to create a democracy and who would we subsidise? The fact that the Northern Alliance is a bunch of thugs is true but there is not really much else to work with there. You have to work with what exists. Afghanistan is a tribal/feudal society, I doubt that it has the cultural preconditions to support the democracy you envision - a king and a "loya jirga" council of tribal leaders (or 'warlords" as they are alternatively called) is Afghanistans best hope of stablity and some modicum of peace.
Remember this was a war against _terrorism_ NOT against the Taliban,
That is really a distinction without a difference. The Taliban and Al Queada are hopelessly intertwined and the destruction of one requires the destruction of the other. The Taliban was supposedly willing to give *one* terrorist up to a neutral country which would have done very little to stop terrorism. I doubt they would have even carried through but I bet the negotiation would have lasted until the Afghan winter.
Bombing the Red Cross is _not_ the sort of act that will increase stability in the region.
It might if there are secondary explosions after the Red Cross warehouse is bombed. I think it is obvious that the repeated bombing of the Red Cross warehouse is NOT a mistake. But I have a hard time coming up with a rationale for the bombing which is a PR fiasco and undermines our ability to act in the region. The only thing I can come up with is that we have good intelligence that the Taliban is using those warehouses to shelter it's military assets. We can hit anything we want in Afghanistan so the only hope the Taliban has of preserving high value targets is to put them places we will CHOOSE not to hit: like residential neighborhoods, mosques, hospitals and Red Cross warehouses. Another possiblity is that we intend to starve the Taliban out in the coming winter but that seems very unlikely since the core leadership and army would probably survive just fine and only innocent civilians would suffer - sadly that is exactly what we are doing in Iraq but if it was our intent in Afghanistan I doubt the government would be doing so much to highlight the plight of those same innocent civilians.
As a side note, I think the sanctions against Iraq are poorly thought out, lead to the suffering of innocents, are never likely to accomplish our goals, and spark Arab resentment (on the street - I doubt the governments of Iraq's rivals are *really* upset by it). But it is galling to have this pointed out by the same people that opposed the use of military force and wanted to "give sanctions more time to work" and who now ignore the real issues that caused us to impose sanctions in the first place. Iraq is a "rogue nation" it supports terrorists and is actively seeking to develop chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. It has already used such weapons (chemical) in the past and would almost certainly use them again in the future if it wasn't afraid of a punishing response from the much maligned U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia and the gulf states.
But what does Stiglitz have to say? Well, feel free to read the whole article (linked below), but here's a quote from it:
More than ever, given the current context, the United States should focus on fiscal policies and aim government spending at combating the effects of the terrorist attacks. The recovery of the economy, which could take a long time, depends on effective stimuli from the government, he said.
Globalization, in its fully implemented form, would take government out of having any role whatsoever in controlling such things. Thus, the money-bearing entities would truly control the world. In essense, we would also be dissolving ourselves of an active role in our own government, as well, as we would be placing power in corporations (which are not democratically controlled by us) rather than the government we purport to democratically elect. Erazim Kohak has some interesting words to think over, as well (from Voices of Democracy, see below):
"The demands of the privileged on the finite resources of individual societies as well as of the globe as a whole have accelerated the pauperization of the underprivileged... In the days when populations appeared finite and resources infinite, the affluent north and west of the globe dismissed the problem with the consolation that increasing prosperity of the prosperous would marginally generate prosperity for the deprived. Popularly this came to be known as the 'trickle-down' theory which John Kenneth Galbraith is said to have described as feeding the bird by giving oats to the horse. Unfortunately, that theory has worked only to assuage the consciences of the privileged, not to alleviate the lot of the deprived. In the past fifty years, the gap between the haves and the have-nots has increased precipitously. The global south today is desparately poor and getting poorer, the affluent north is opulently affluent and becoming more so... We can't run a world polarized between incredible wealth and desperate poverty."
I would encourage people to look at the other criticisms that have been proposed, both of globalization raping the already destitute nations to further enrich the rich and of its effects on a true sense of democracy for any nation, including the United States. Some recommended reading:
"Try that in Windows!"
Look at the cost of toys. The cost of toys is very cheap in America because we import most of them from china (low wage). If you want expensive toys we have a tendency to import them from Germany (high wage). Most people want quantity over quality, but they are both available.
Next why does a programmer in US or Europe get paid more than one in Venezuela or India. It is because my employer knows it will get paid well for the software it produces. A software company in either of these countries knows that their software will most likely be stolen. Further the level of graft is unpredictable and can be exhorbitant. Business doesn't mind paying graft, it just wants to know how much it will cost and that what they own/produce won't be confiscated by the government.
This all comes down to the rule of law. The fact the in our Western civ culture we have a respect for law and property provides a security that is only matched by the number of children in the 3rd world. I depend on my retirement, 401k, and yes Social Security (all property) to provide sufficient funds to retire and live well. In 3rd world countries you depend on your children to provide in your old age.
In our modern world our covenent is with corporations not God. I make a deal with my employer to provide a retirement account. I make a deal with my government to provide a social security check. I make a deal with my mutual fund managers to increase the value of my investments. I promise to work hard and increase the value of my employer. I promise to support the law and institutions of my government.
When we all play by these rules we all do better. No longer do I depend on the whims of a god to provide for me and to protect me from my enemies.
Do you know what the most popular restaurant in Paris is? McDonalds.
Do you know what the most popular OS in NYC is? Windows.
Flawed logic? Yes. Serving shit for a low cost will get you many customers who want to fill their bellies (as opposed to, say, 'have dinner'). Perhaps defining 'popular' as "whee, I'm hungry but on a low budget, let's enter there" as opposed to, say, "Okay, I'll meet you guys at that place across the town, it's worth the trip, you'll see" is an interesting bias in itself. Globalized shit may look popular because it's globalized, but the culture thus invaded WILL see it as shit first and foremost. Mind you.
Stop applying American logic to other cultures if you don't want them to hate you.
Bleh, and the worst is that I know this post will be modded (-1, flamebait) in less time it takes to say "Two royal cheese and a big coke please". Oh, to hell with it.
-- B.
This sig does in fact not have the property it claims not to have.
Here's what former President Clinton had to say about Globalization and how it relates to the September 11 tragedy, more specifically, how he thinks it can be used to "win the war":
t m
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/1030-05.h
"Try that in Windows!"
Simple facts: They hate us because we're powerful, wealthy, intelligent, educated, and yes, free.
No, they hate you because you keep invading them to secure your supply of cheap oil.
After living abroad for seven of ten years, I've often commented that "borders are evil". Just look at all the heartache that results from people smuggling, border-skirmishes, etc, around the world. Virtually every border I've seen creates some level of inequity/conflict between close neighbors living on opposite sides.
But recently I've found myself agreeing more and more with the anti-globalization activists. Why? Because I now see globalization as not being a process of breaking down borders but rather one of extending Western hegemony! This kind of globalization is allowing the dominant culture to ride roughshod all others.
Well, not to split hairs, but Mohammed lived and died in the 600s. He also taught that they shouldn't fight against others unless the enemy took up arms against them.
We don't know who did Sept 11. The Presidency does, and isn't saying a word on it. Bush wanted to do this 'war' on the Taliban even before Sept 11 (see BBC) and said he would have continued even if bin Laden had been handed over (see BBC, CNN)
Who are we to define what justice is to these people? If bin Laden is guilty, then show the Taliban, and he will be handed over. Prove it in a court of law (which Collen Powell said couldn't be done - see CNN, BBC, ABC, CBS, etc...) Show the world he is guilty. Don't show it that the US is just looking to flex its military muscle for oil and regional gains. Which is what it is doing.
They stuck me in an institution, said it was the only solution, to...protect me from the enemy, myself
1. The Yom Kippur War.
2. The Tet Holiday Offensive.
Yes, I would LIKE to respect their religion.
But has anyone expanded the radical notion that we are dealing with them in the underhanded, dirty ways that we haven't with anyone else because for practically all of history they have pointed to everyone else and said "kill"?
For literally centuries, the other tribes of the world have been at arms length with them becasue these nations have been impossible to deal with. I mean, we really don't have this intense hatred with Africans, and after all, we enslaved their people, and bred them. What about the Russians? Nope. Just politics. There is not nearly as much venom as could be between the Europeans and Africans. And that was more recent and more horrific.
Its just that these people have been taught to be butchers for the longest time so long that they have prophecy about it... after all they site grievances a thousand years back. That was a time when we were all barbarians. What a shock if some Christians did nasty things. Considering that all of humanity did nasty things too.
But I can't feel sympathy for them when there are people that are laughing about "the yuppies that jumped out to their deaths" in front of a Mosque IN LONDON. That should be a surefire indication that we should never have listened to them, especially when they use the words OBLIGATION and KILL in a sentence together.
But honestly, none of this will matter when many of you are reading about the US in other countries. You think it won't happen to you in Norway, France, Nicaragua, or wherever. Just watch with morbid fascination. We'll burn in nuclear hellfire for your entertainment. You'll watch and laugh, thinking of a justification or a reason... knowing all the while that many of our sons died to keep your people out of the grip of a madman like Hitler. And only the Brits will be with us to save the world from all of the psychos with nuclear weapons. Of course, they'll get hit too. Then you'll realize what a mess it was. Then you might send troops. Or you might negotiate. But by that time, they'll be aiming for you... just because you're not like them. Not Muslim. Which is reason enough. Then all of civilization will be gone... and we'll be in a museum like the Romans and the Greeks. Reset the clocks people, time to start all over again.
Just keep in mind that the Romans would have never taken this kind of crap. Or the Greeks. They understood the importance of civilization.
We can stay and prop up our own puppet (that's worked well for us in the past, check out Vietnam, Central America, the Phillipines).
Or on a more positive note: Germany, Japan, Italy. Aside from vietnam even the nations you cite as failures were unlikely to be any better off and would perhaps of been worse off without our involvement. And from the point of view of the "boat people" even vietnam was apparantly better off under the rule of a US puppet government and in a state of war than under the subsequent totalitarian dictatorship.
The policy we are trying now (toppling the Taliban) does nothing for "the people of Afghanistan who are STARVING TO DEATH... How a few more years of us bombing them will help I don't know.
Is it supposed to? Toppling the Taliban is not primarily being done to benefit the Afghan people though in the long run it likely will. It is being done to remove a threat to us.
Besides all that, why are we targeting Afghanistan? There are lots of other places where people are starving.
Um... You see, there used to be two really big towers in New York City and then one morning.... But I guess you knew that. We are attacking Afghanistan because they are allies with and are protecting the organisation that attacked us. Al Queada will "pop up" in other places but those other places will either seek to arrest them or if they harbor them will share Afghanistans fate. Terrorists other than Al Queada already exist or will pop up in other places but the governments of those places will either seek to supress them or if they are supporting them will keep them on a short enough leash to prevent them from doing something stupid like attacking the U.S. and inviting the same kind of hell that the Taliban will suffer.
Also, we are "targeting" those other nations. Take the example of our "new favorite ally Pakistan" First off the terrorists that they support didn't attack America and when some terrorists that did attack America (in the first Trade Center bombing) where found in Pakistan they were arrested and turned over to us. Pakistan did not offer to turn them over to a neutral muslim country, or claim that Pashtun hospitality demanded them to protect their "guest" regardless of their crimes - they turned them over. Secondly I think we did address the fact that Pakistan supports terrorists, especially since while the terrorists supported by Pakistan are not the ones that attacked America they are in fact part of the same network. It is pretty clear that in the first few days after the Trade Center attack Pakistan was offered a choice, help us destroy the Al Queada network (that arguably you support) or there would be dire consequences. I don't know what exact consequences were threatened (or hinted at) but General Musharefs statement defending his decision to his people hinted that Pakistan had to support the U.S. or it would potentially "lose it's 'strategic assets'" That's code for it's nuclear missles. While Musharef was still pondering his decision the Pentagon very pointedly did NOT rule out the use of nuclear weapons in response to the attacks. It would be silly to even consider using nukes on the Taliban but what if another nuclear power refused to cooperate that was a known financial and military supporter of one of Al Queada's constituent organisations?
As for Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Syria - Saudi Arabia and Egypt do not support terrorists, quite the contrary, they had already been seeking to destroy their indigenious terrorist groups. I would imagine that they are under a great deal of pressure to seek out and crack down on financial and political backers of Al Queada but it is hard to see what more they could do. Syria as well is probably under a great deal of pressure, they support terrorism against Israel and may continue to do so under the protection that our practical need for Muslim coalition partners provides. But are probably running like hell from any group associated with bin laden or espousing direct attacks on the U.S. who knows they may already be providing us with intelligence on some of their past 'clients'
Do the Muslims hate the Japanese for installing the Saudi's? Do they hate Japanese for having their troops there for the last few decades? Do they hate Japan for their foriegn policy? Nope. Something to think about!
We give Muslims trillions of dollars in money for oil.
Nope! Bzzt! Wrong! We give trillions to A FEW PRINCES!!! We don't give oil money to farmers or even oil workers! We give it to the opressive, almost feudual gov't.
I like universal brotherhood, too, but not when medieval theocracy has anything to do with the game plan.
It is very likely that they would have starved anyway. I don't know if you heard, but the Afghans have been waging a civil war for a decade, there's a horrible drought, and even their sympathetic Muslim neighbors in Pakistan don't want any more of them coming in until they get their shit together and stop behaving like medival thugs.And who has delivered the most food aid to Afghanistan? Their "good Mulsim" oil sheik brothers in Saudi Arabia? No, they're too busy drinking jack daniels and cavorting with eastern european whores while they cry about the corrupt west and fund terrorists by leaving money in paper bags at the service entrance. The United States has been sending the most food aid to Afghanistan.
We also understand rebuilding nations we didn't destroy, letting people practice and preach whatever religion they choose, and allowing individuals to participate in the political process. Fuck you, twit.Expanding a vast wasteland since 1996.
How can you kill something that has been around as long as there has been aggressive people? Terrorism is a bully in the playground. It is the police officer intimidating the crap out of you by aiming his scanner gun at you while you know you are doing the speed limit. Terrorism is leveling cities and killing all inhabitants in the name of god or pope or allah. Terrorism is running over protestors with a tank.
Please. We won't kill them all. That is why this whole damn thing is a joke. It would be like making everyone stop hating each other. It can't and won't happen.
They stuck me in an institution, said it was the only solution, to...protect me from the enemy, myself
Is it globalism or globalizm? Globalisation or globalization? Bloody yanks.
:wq
I've ignored this thread long enough.
No evidence is presented; bombing simply commences on the country believed to be the home of the prime suspect.
We went to the folks in charge in that country and said "Give him up. Don't talk, don't dick around, just give him up" and they said "no." We said "The clock is ticking." they said "no." We said "Time's running out." they said "Tell you what... We'll try him in OUR OWN courts" we said "That's not the deal. Give him up. the hourglass is running out of sand, folks." They said "We'll give him up to a neutral third party." we said "Time's up." We are now attacking those who protected the guy who sent the planes into the buildings. What part of this did you manage to avoid learning? Bombs didn't fly the day the planes crashed. (Like when our embasies were bombed under a certain other administration.) Heck, they didn't fly the next day or the next week. I believe your perspective is a little warped.
Oh, and if you insist on the old west metaphors, picture the sherif standing in front of the saloon saying "Come on out or we'll burn the place down." Don't want to get burned alive? Come on out. Simple, really. And as for "vigalantism" keep in mind that the UN and NATO both gave us the green light before the first fuse was lit.
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> Many of them see this action as an attack on their spiritual bretheren.
Because their thuglike leaders tell them to believe this. It is the age-old path to power. The leaders see it as an opportunity to solidify power by directing the people's rage against others. They use the Palistinians similarly, which they also do not actually care about, and frequently persecute.
Also, I highly doubt most are seeing it that way. "Massive protests" seem to have a few dozen or hundred individuals. They interview some of these people and they look and sound like a drugged up Gomer and Goober Pyle.
"They're killing your Islam brothers because they hate Islam!" doesn't go very far when the facts are laid out.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
Right here, you've hit the root of the problem. And that is a media that is centrally controlled and top down, and run for capitalistic interests. The most important kind of activism right now is media activism, because people won't be motivated to change something if they don't know what's going on.
When I started reading slashdot, I felt very connected to the geek world, I felt like I knew exactly what was going on. So I started another slash site to cover a broader range of issues. It's starting to grow, but it's a snowball that's hard to get started.
Anyway, this site I've started is terradot, and I hope to see you all there.
cheers, Joshua
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout!
> Have someone hit you, then they run off. You
> don't know where the person is, so you go round
> headbutting people at random.
>
> That is much more of an analogy to America's
> actions in Afghanista
No, that is a bad analogy, too.
An accurate one is they hit you, then run hiding behind other people, saying "I'm gonna hit you again!" and planning to do so, if not actually doing so.
Then you come in and suggest to let them continue hitting them because, occasionally, one of the people he's hiding behind gets hit too.
I am for the complete Trantorization of Earth.
Guys, the reason the US is hated in the middle east is not because the rest of the world hates freedom (sorry Dubbyah) and it's not because the US has lots of modern technology (sorry Katz). It's because US foreign policy has been a kind of terrorism on the middle east.
US funding of Israel and the US habit of vetoing the hundreds of UN resolutions that otherwise would have been passed against Israel have both funded and ligitimised the loss of countless Arab lives.
I would guess that a lot of the rest of the world (I'm a New Zealander BTW) would be unimpressed at other bits of US foreign policy: ignoring the world court when it finds against them (e.g.: bay of pigs), the treatment of Cuba (the Red peril is past, okay?), the unjustified bombing of the pharmaceutecal capabilities of the Sudan (which supplied 90% of the anti-malarial drugs in that country), using trade as a weapon (that why New Zealand was drawn into Vietnam, for example)
I am amazed and saddened by the lack of insight Americans have into the misery caused by American foreign policy. I'm not saying that everything American is bad - far from it, I'm all for the global village and US technology has had a lot to do with making that happen. What I am saying is that Americans should wake up. To say that someone would attack you because they either hate freedom or are jealous of big American cars is either dangerously naive or willfully blind.
Wake up! Read ZMag for some insight.
Then all I ask of these people that feel that America has done wrong by them is to immediately cease all contact with American foreign aid and American products.
There was no excuse for the atrocity of 9/11/01 nor was America in *ANY* way responsible for the terrorist attack. Trying to point the finger of blame at the US for these ISLAMIC terrorists is completely deluded. This was an act of hate and America was the victim of the crime. Its like blaming a woman for being raped because of the clothes she wore.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Just reading through the whole forum I can't help but notice that criticizing the roles of Israel, and its chief supporter the US, is tantamount to being a holocaust denier, as reflected in the replies and the moderation they receive.
Millenia of historically documented persecution and torture should never exempt any race or nation from being reprimanded.
Israel is the aggressor occupying Palestine. The US, far from being "the only country trying to bring about peace in the Middle East", arms and funds Israel and it's persecution of the Palestinians. Yes, the Palestinians retaliate, wouldn't you?
That does not make me an anti-semite.
Many of these issues came up during the 19th century. I chose 1844 as the starting point because that was the invention of the first world-wide-web, otherwise called the telegraph. And around that time came the railroads with that caused the modern form of the corporation- an economic organization that could manage something that large. Close behind followed banks, steel, petroleum, and so on.
Europe was at relative peace between Napolean's defeat in 1815 and 1914 except for a skirmish here and there. Likewise America found peace after 1865 and became a global force. At the turn of 1900 economist were talking about the end of real war. International trade was at levels not seen until the 1980s. This was the golden age of those silly Ivory-Merchant films.
Then came the one-two punch of the Great World War and the Great Depression almost eliminated global trade. People couldn't believe that this could happen after the glorious start of the 20th century. Will the 21st century begin with a global collapse too.
As Santayana said, ignoramouses like Katz are doomed to repeat history?
We are bringing justice to a people that have no concept of what justice really is. Justice? Who are we to decide what justice is? Or right or wrong? We cannot possibly see the situation as they do and the other way around. The *only* possible solution is... eh, well, I don't know!
If Western Civ, Capitalism and America are Flamebait and Troll food, how about we ship these moderators to Afghanistan and so they can hide in the caves with the noble anti-western Taliban. Get a feeling what life without Western Civ is like. Hopefully, they will get a virulent infection in their multiple body piercings during their soul searching.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
For a fresh look at one way globalization negatively affects the third world without attempting to attach a media buzzword to the WTC attacks, see the film "Life and Debt," playing in Chicago and various other cities. It shows in detail how Jamaica's economy has been crippled by IMF loans, and how the average Jamaican lives and works. Quite a startling view of one of the negative aspects of globalization. Given a 3-star rating by Ebert in an excellent review that begins like Katz's, asking questions defining the scope of a nebulous topic, but then actually goes to attempt to answer those questions instead of further shrouding it "in hysteria and knee-jerk cant".
To all of the foaming-at-the-mouth geeks out there who have never left the U.S. or, god-forbid, travelled to a Muslim country: Shut the fuck up. Please. I know you all think you're geniuses, and can espouse the proper doctrine for solving the world's toughest problems--like Israel v. Palestine, or which is the toughest S.O. unit, Delta Force or the Pipe-Hitting Niggaz down the block--but you forget that you're just a bunch of fucking losers.
AntiChristX
Daring to remain below 5 karma indefinitely
"Globalism"??? What a curiously inappropriate word to use in describing the reasons behind the 9/11 fundamentalist backlash, as well as broader anti-American sentiment. I think the word you want is "imperialism", Katz. And Webster, the small, lovable black child from 1980's sitcom fame, told me that it is a far more descriptive term in describing U.S. foreign economic policy. You see, the people of many, many nations tend to resent the way that the United States hijacks the economies and governments of developing nations in an effort to maintain it's hegemony. Have you ever heard of the World Bank? "Papa Doc"? No?
And surely "globalism" is the wrong term to use when we speak of the U.S.-run puppet government that will supplant the Taliban once it has been bombed back to the stone age. For less-public examples of hegemonial hijacking, we need only look to the puppet governments of Haiti, Chile, El Salvador, and a host of other nations. See if you can do a "Google" search on "Papa Doc" or "Baby Doc", and then try to infer how this father and son tag-team could have received American sponsorship while they robbed, raped, and executed their alleged constituents--the people of Haiti.
This recent military action has absolutely nothing to do with opposing viewpoints, a dichotomy awaiting union. Also, this recent American military action has nothing to do with poppy plants and the morphine and heroin trade in the same way that the Gulf War had nothing to do with American corporate oil interests.
Research Afghanistan and you will find that it has no real agricultural infrastructure--regardless of it's governments "laws" against it, Afghanistan's people grow poppy plants meant to be processed into substances for eager American and European veins. They do not grow corn, rice, or wheat to feed the people who live there. In fact, Afghanistan is the world's largest exporter of heroin. Think of it as a business opportunity awaiting American investment! Maybe *that's* what you mean by globalization!
You ignorant, ignorant man. I think you should cuddle up with some genuine historical fact and some practical knowledge of American governmental and economic processes before you presume to guess why it is fundamentalists hate America.
Love,
Self-Important
There are two points I'd like to bring forward here.
Firstly: Globalism. You defined globalism as either the spread of good or the spread of bad, or at least that is how I interpreted it. I believe that globalism is neither, that rather it is the spread of a single culture across the planet. Not necessarily the so called "Western" culture, for I think westerners have a great deal to learn from those in the East. Globalism is, I believe, better defined as "the access to and influence of particular groups of people (posses if I may) on other groups of people, creating a new group of "globalist" people. I.e., those who have been influenced by other cultures and have modified their way of living to reflect, in particular, the good things they see in other cultures."
The second point I'd like to bring forward is the use of the word "We".
The author of the article here on Slashdot appears to be what I'd call a typical American. As a British resident, Irish citizen and Swedish national, I feel I have the right to comment on this. I have been many places and seen many things, including but not limited to Western Europe, the United States, northern Africa and the Middle East. I know that the "We" you speak of is not defined by where you live or where you were born, but rather by what you believe and which culture you "belong to". I don't believe the Taliban are fighting America or technology or "The West" in particular, I think they're fighting against the idealised way of Western "civilisation." There are many people here in Britain, in America and other western countries who are open minded towards those in the Middle East who may have different religious and cultural beliefs than most westerners, contrary to popular belief. It is the closed minded, "America is the best thing since sliced bread" type of people who not only the Taliban but people like me despise.
Anyway, nuff said. I'll start flaming soon if I'm not careful... People may hate me for this, but my first responce to the attacks on the World Trade Centre on Sep 11 was: Good for the Taliban, it's about time the Americans wake up and realise they're not the only people on the planet. And yes I am very sorry that so many people had to lose their lives because of it, and my condolences to those who suffered the consequences.
A lot of you wish for the american people to considder exactly why they are hated. You should remember that the american people are not to totally to blame, it is the Federal Government. Believing it is acting in the best interests of America and the Democratic ideal, it has done some horrific deeds.
Take Iran for example, In the early '50's iran was considdered a shining beacon of democracy in the middle east, having a democratic and popular government. This popular and democratic government made the decision to nationalise the countrys oil industry, which was TOTALLY owned by the British. This, of course got the backing of the countrys communist party. As a reaction, with the hysteria in the US over communism in the '50's, the CIA, along with MI6 replaced this democratic government with a horribly oppressive government under the shah. This can be directly linked to the islamist revolution in '79. Through your own imperialist greed, you created anouther poor and socially damaged nation. America, as usual, proved to the world it had learned nothing from this exploit by repeating the act in Chile, putting pinochet into power, who murdered thousands.
The reasons you are hated are many and varied, and unfortuantly, just.
Madhatter
Eat right. Stay fit. Die anyway.
In Osama Bin Laden's message to the American people, which the White House asked newspapers and television to not show, he said the primary reason this happened is because the US military has been occupying his homeland, Saudi Arabia, for a decade. This is usually breezed over in American media, if mentioned at all, but it's what set him against the US to begin with. This is a quite rational, political reason, in fact he got kicked out of Saudi Arabia by the US-friendly monarch of Saudi Arabia for advocating American withdrawal. This makes a lot more sense than the loopy reasons being thrown about here and elsewhere. The people who talk like that have counterparts in the Muslim world, who say we're "evil crusaders bombing Afghanistan because we hate Islam, and no matter what anyone does, the US will always hate Islam and arabs". Someone made a reply here in which they cynically said that OBL never mentioned the Palestinians before 9/11. They have a decent point, this may be so, and many leaders in Islamic countries have used the nexus of Israel and the Palestinians to try to rally broader support from the Muslim world.
Regarding Katz's statement - first, I'm set back by his arrogant view that America is the torch-bearer of cosmopolitan enlightenment, and the world is blessed by the spread of our enlightenment. This is the same kind of manifest destiny, imperialistic, colonial idea that America and the European powers held in centuries past - what results from this type of colonialism? South Africa. The Vietnam War. The antagonisms between Hindus and Muslims on the Indian subcontinent that the British antagonized.
Katz's view on the benevolence of multi-national corporations, capitalism and technology are repulsive to me as a working class American, who knows what reaction a third world nation, who's corrupt bourgeoise politicians borrow from the US and Europeans in the name of the country, only to have the WTO turn around and demand that the country pay up for the money the corrupt bourgeoise of the country stole. What do you think the money borrowed by Pakistan and other countries went towards, building roads in poor, rural areas? Ha! Then the WTO comes in, and has the government privatize all the public utilities (which means that they all become owned by foreign corporations), do away with social welfare programs and so forth.
That's to say nothing of the laundry list of things multinational corporations have done in third world countries, I wouldn't even know where to begin. Perhaps Dow Chemical Union Carbide's gas spill in Bhopal, India which killed thousands and injured hundreds of thousands. I can't educate people as to what the US media has not been educating it's citizens of US involvement around the world in in a short post. You'll have to check out the role of Shell in Nigeria, Nike in Indonesia, Phillip Morris in Thailand (making the US use GATT to sell it's deadly tobacco drugs - and without warning labels, and too children, just like it did decades ago in the US). It's a laugh that the US is sending $1 billion to Colombia to fight drugs - how come we're not spending $1 billion on other drug-producing countries? Hell, the head of the US army "anti-drug" force was caught red-hand trafficking drugs into the US. The US began by stealing the Panama canal a century ago, funded the Colombian military for prior decades because it was "fighting Soviet communist proxies". The Soviet Union folds, but the same money and military support keeps flowing, but now the US military's PR department has changed the reason to "fighting drugs". I could go on and on forever.
It's funny how the US is going to rid the world of fundamentalism when polls show that the US is the most religously fundamentalized country in the industrial world. If the federal government lifted church/state restrictions, the South and the West would put back creationist science, prayer in school and so forth quicker than you'd believe.
A Christian nation like the US should know the bible verse Matthew 7:1-5
Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye.
I suggest that you read Barbara Garson's book, reviewed here by Salon.
In it, she argues that no world government can regulate the financial industry. Every attempt leads to offshore loopholes. The financial industry actually regulates world governments. Every time a government votes to increase spending for health, education and other social services, the financial centers vote by sucking their money out of that country. Since capital is so concentrated these days thanks to mergers and consolidations, the effects are immediate and chilling.
Many times, people are living in wretched conditions because their governments promised to secure loans given to private corporations that end up failing. Indonesia, for example, closed 250,000 clinics, 6 million children dropped out of school, and the infant mortality rate has risen 30 percent, in order to raise taxes to pay back bad loans.
You can't help but think that that is going to have an effect on our ability to function as a civil society. People should have education and health care, it leads to technological breakthroughs and satisfying lives. Money should have a social cost associated with it. If that makes me a pinko commie, then so be it.
It seems to me that our foreign policy in the last half of the 20th century was to secure low wages for industry and keep democracies out of power in Central and South America, SouthEast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. It's only fair that what's good for American citizens should be fair for our global brethren.
Ghandi said, "There are many things I'd die for, but nothing I would kill for." The terrorists would act differently if they truly had social justice as an end and not chaos, but they'd have a lot less sympathy around the world if our monetary policy were different. I think there are other ways to solve imbalance than crashing a plane into a building. I just wish someone would point them out to me.
I'd also suggest reading Warren Wagar's Short History of the Future, in which he argues that a corporate global economy is eventually superceded by local government/ communal anarchy. Many of his decade-old predictions have already come true.
We can grow tired debating the merits and mistakes of our current global economy. The evolution of an even more global economy is inevitable. How can it be better than it has been is the question to answer.
I exist to espouse the values of Democratizing Capitalism. Rather than "flattening" the organizational structure, companies should distribute ownership and accountability to all employees. This means that we differentiate value by offering salaries commensurate with experience and education. We integrate team focus by equally distributing all the shares of the company. The ratios are debatable. Perhaps the financers are allocated a specific percentage as well as the founding figures. The bottom line is that no one has any more ownership than the employees, and every employee shares equally in ownership.
Place this scenario in your work environment. If you know with certainty that you will share in the profits that you can help generate, you will do anything to help with costs. Make no mistake. I am not talking about your paltry share of some profit-sharing pool. I am talking about a collective employee ownerhsip of up to 66% of the company. Knowing that you will see a return for your productivity or frugality will certainly inspire appropriate action.
Impose this scenario on any developing nation. Imagine yourself a manager charged with manufacturing bicycles in a stable Afghanistan. How much easier would it be to motivate your employees if they were partners? How much more inspired would they be if they knew that the majority of the profits generated would be returned to them. How much more trusting of you would they be if they shared in resource allocation and strategic decisions?
Imagine yourself an impoverished "third world" citizen. One of your brethren approaches you to discuss a new opportunity. An English corporation wants to use your labor to manufacture bicycles. They will arrange the marketing, distribution, and supply of raw materials. You and your friends will supply the labor and management of resources. You learn that you and your fellow employees will own 66% of the company. Decisions you make can improve or destroy your job. But, these are decisions that YOU make. You have the power.
You are a CEO. You need new markets. You need new raw materials and labor resources. The best way to penetrate a market is to manufacture in it. Managing risk is your life. Controlling employees in the hypothetical developing nation is pointless. What you need is partners. These partners can be your employees. With training, key locals or expatriates can be instrumental in organizing a workforce. Your risk becomes everyone's risk. If things go bad, you don't bring back your lilly management staff to try somewhere else. Your management staff is home and they have every interest in succeeding. They are building their own house, so to speak, and any shortcuts just weaken their own home.
Capitalism and globalism are not bad. People who abuse the capitalist principles on a global scale are bad. These people need to learn that they can profit while sharing in the power. There is enough to go around.
You all know who knows what's up at work. So often it's the "lower" level emloyees who have the least decision making authority. How much more money could they make for your company if there were improved ways to distribute the decision making? Wouldn't they be motivated to do so if they got something for it? How many of you managers would love for the "lower" level employees to have to understand the collective costs of their decisions? With more efficient means of communication, this perceptual knowledge gap could be filled.
We are America. We should be loved around the world for the freedom we embody. This love becomes so hard when some jerk is making you work harder for that two dollar a day job making sneakers. "What kind of freedom is this that comes from America," you might ask. Until we change what most people around the world see in America, the unchecked greed factor under the guise of capitalism, then the resentment should not surprise us. When our Democratic values pervade our Capitalistic principles, we will see the peace we all seek.
Success without humility is an indulgence in arrogance
This is the best post I've read yet. Sorry I don't have any mod points for you!
"That's not even wrong..." -- Wolfgang Pauli
?We rightly support Israel's right to exist.?
But also support Israel in attacking their neighbors, in killing civilians and suspected terrorist without a trial.
?We rightly maintain a military force in Saudi Arabia with the approval of the Saudi Arabian government.?
But Saudi Arabia has a despotic, corrupt government.
?We rightly support the embargo against Iraq, which refuses to abide by the weapons inspections it agreed to as a condition for peace after it invaded Kuwait.?
An embargo that made Saddam Hussein stronger, an embargo that includes water purification equipment and chemicals, medicines and books. An embargo that killed thousands of innocent people.
Yes, those are the right things to do.
Mexico: 100% conservative's America now!
Somehow, I don't see Iran and Iraq becoming buddies to fight America. Or Kuwait and Iraq. Or Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Or Egypt and Iran. Or Turkey and Iraq.
"Muslims" are not a single political or religious entity any more than are "Christians" or "The West".
"That's not even wrong..." -- Wolfgang Pauli
Israel is partaking in the problem with terrorism, and know it better than the US will ever, but the US support of Israel is not why thousands of innocent people were murdered in this struggle between civility and savagery.
Israel is simply a democratic and technologically advanced nation similar to the USA in a hostile region they were rightfully given to live in.
Savages and civility historically don't live well together.
(BTW, savage is not a bigotted term. Remember anything about the Barbary Pirates? They were NOT PIRATES AT ALL! They were sailors of ships in commisioned navies of north African nations of what is now Libya and Egypt etc. sent to overtake commerce ships and steal their loot and anything else they could because the nations and people refused to participate in any form of trade or production of goods to achieve the goods morally. Savages fits quite nicely considering they are only two generations out of the Barbary Pirate era.)
The real issue here is not figuring out why innocent Americans and other nation's people were murdered in the WTC and the Pentagon. But since most people seem to think there needs to be a reason for evils perfomed against us, and many believe it is because of the US's support of Israel, or possibly some retaliation against our missile attacks that were retaliations for embassy bombings etc., I'll tell you what the real reason for the murder and burning bodies of American and other nation's people in the WTC and Pentagon was.
It was to create a precedent of complacency and naivety toward small, short, but deadly attacks on innocent people around the world but especially on Americans.
Terrorism is not a separate entity from war. It is the prime effective weapon of an underdeveloped foe. It is the only effective weapon that a population with no production of goods and services has. It is the cheapest form of warfare known to man.
It is the warfare of cowards who allow themselves to remain simple minded and oppressed and indoctrinated to the point of allowing generations go by with no education so as to never have the collective intelligence as a nation to rise above the deceit and murder and feelings of hatred and jealousy toward other nations for things you don't have. These feelings can be easily planted in the fertile minds of people that are suffering in a failed sociopolitical system who are hungry for a better life by crazy power hungry men with notions of turning back the clock to a century where Islamic Fundamentalism ruled much of the world.
If the Afghan refugees trying to club and stone their way into Pakistan were to turn their clubs and stones around and go after the very "government" that failed to provide for them what they need, they might be on the right foot, stepping ever closer toward a beautiful thing called liberty.
Oh pishaw!
If you think the only people to feel that the USA has made errors are those to whom we give foreign aid, then you are very wrong. Many friends, allies, partners and even (as Bush recently called Canada) "family" have been critical of the USA's policies in any number of areas. Cut off trade with all of them and the USA will be hurt pretty bad too.
And there are many people in the USA who have felt that the USA has had bad foreign policy - it is their DUTY to speak out.
There is something mighty wrong with a country if it cannot handle dissent, and in general the USA is perfectly able to do so. This is one of its strengths. Unfortunately, one of its weaknesses is a tendancy to give little weight to the opinions of those outside the country.
There was no excuse for the atrocity of 9/11/01 nor was America in *ANY* way responsible for the terrorist attack.
There was no excuse for the atrocities committed by Germany in WWII, but the whole rise to power of the Nazis probably wouldn't have happened if the Great Powers had not imposed the terms for peace that they did after WWI. Avoiding the rise of problems such as these should be at least part of our foreign policy. Behaving in such a manner that a minimal number of people feel that such actions against the USA are justified might not be such a stupid idea.
This was an act of hate and America was the victim of the crime. Its like blaming a woman for being raped because of the clothes she wore.
This is true. But when a rape is reported and the crime is investigated, it is possible that you might find out that the victim is responsible for other unrelated crimes. What do you think happens then? Surprise, surprise, the "victim" might be brought to justice too. Just because the USA was the victim of a nefarious deed does not automatically whitewash all past and future misdeeds that the USA was or may be involved in.
What sort of responsible citizen would ever want their government to not act in a fair, just, equitable manner whenever possible?
If anyone wants an intelligent dense discussion of globalism and get the OS revolution's as a bonus, read the 1999 essay In The Beginning Was The Command Line. rather than bothering with Katz or his smarty-boy-of-the-moment.
________________________________________ History Must Not Fall Into The Wrong Hands ___________________________________
I don't mind Katz. I don't hate his stories. Sometimes I read them and ponder them.
But there is no doubt (at all) that his stories run perpendicular to the rest of Slashdot. The usual Slashdot story is a reaction to and an invitation seeking the readers reaction to some product, policy, or controversy. There are other things, too, but mainly this is a "hey, there's a story over <a href=....>here</a> so make comments".
Katz, though, creates a controversy or discussion point himself. That's very different. Actually, that requires a little extra. His stories aren't pointers -- they're the base.
Anyway, who else would write a story about Globalization?
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Chomsky spoke at MIT about The War on Terror. He points out that the USA is the biggest terrorist state, and has been for years. This is very clear to those living outside the US of A. (like me)
The US is the rogue state. Millions of Afgani's are about to starve and freeze to death, because the US wants to prove its "Credibility" and seize control of Central Asian oil.
Most likely India and Pakistan will be exchanging some mushroom clouds pretty soon. And USA boys will be bogged down for a decade with their high tech toys. Did ya hear Lockheed won the billions to make more death machines... can anyone say "Military-Industrial Complex"
Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks
You that never done nothin'
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it's your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly
Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain
You fasten the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud
You've thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain't worth the blood
That runs in your veins
How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I'm young
You might say I'm unlearned
But there's one thing I know
Though I'm younger than you
Even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do
Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul
And I hope that you die
And your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand o'er your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead
* * Always question "the National Interest" - 9 times out of 10 it is a cover for evil
Bravo! Could not have said it better myself
www.enthea.org
McVeigh was practically working solo. After he was caught there was simply no one else to go after. If he were working under the orders of the President, and the President refused to turn himself over then perhaps your comparison is valid.
This has nothing to do with hating the Afghan people. The Taliban were given more than enough chances to turn over bin Laden and dismantle any terrorist network within their borders. We've more than given them enough avenues out of this, they refuse. The Taliban have decided that the lives of THEIR OWN citizens is worth less than the life of a known terrorist. And yet, the US are the bad guys here.
Remember, the a war against terrorism has been declared. This isn't just about bin Laden. Afghanistan is known to be a terrorist haven more than any other country. They refuse to comply with pretty much the rest of the world in making life difficult for terrorists. They want to run their country, well, with that comes all the responsibility there in. The death of Afghani civilians falls on the shoulders of the Taliban.
Remember, if 5 weeks ago bin Laden were turned over, and all terrorists in Afghanistan were kicked out, not a single bomb would have been dropped.
Civilian casualties are a terrible thing, of course, there is no denying this, the vaunted technology of long range precision guided weapons is not perfect and there will be mistakes and collateral damage, this cannot be avoided, only minimised. I find it interesting on this particular note that much fuss is made of the mistakes with the precision guided weapons, but very little is ever said about their intended effects, how effective is the campaign in this fashion? is this information being made available?
The "fog of war" in any dramatic modern situation results in large amounts of misinformation from both parties. The US Military is likely to want to exaggerate about the effect of their strikes and the Taleban is likely to want to exaggerate about their lack of effect whilst simultaneously playing up the collateral damage angle. Perhaps in hindsight it would be useful to examine former situations with similiar tactics and terrain, does anyone know now that Kosovo is no longer such a publically visible issue what the real effectiveness of the Allied airstrikes on Serbian military assets on the ground was? Afghan and Yugoslavian terrain aren't terribly far removed from one another and the complexity involved in the operations should be comparable.
Anyway, back to the original topic, it seems awfully lacking of intestinal fortitude to suggest that US Service people should put themselves in the undeniably infinitely more dangerous situation of engaging the Taleban and Al-Qaeda ground forces in order to minimise what so far appears to be not a huge amount of error on the part of the Allied airstrikes. I have watched the issue quite closely, and whilst I realise that it's one thing to belittle the problems that the civilian population of Afghanistan is having on the ground over there from 16,000km away, and entirely another to remark on it while there are cruise missiles landing nearby, I still have faith in the ability of the US military to do the job that they were sent to do in the best way possible.
I am not even a resident / citizen of the US, and still I would be far more accepting of collateral damages to the civilian population of Afghanistan than Military Casualties from the volunteers in the Allied forces.
It just seems it's being ignored, that we can just send in the ground troops and the taleban will stick it's tail between it's legs and hand over Bin Laden, this is not likely to happen. The combination of largely, but not entirely, effective allied air power with precision strikes from special forces groups may not be the kindest to the people of Afghanistan compared with sending in an overwhelming ground based force but it appears to be the best way to minimise damage to the Allied armed forces.
If you've got a rusty scalpel, and a sick person infected with a contagious cancerous growth, you may need to use the tools at your disposal to do the job, even if they're not perfect. I think everyone agrees that it's gotten past the point where it's sensible to adopt the role of the pacifist in the situation.
It all just seems very one sided, I realise there are a lot of angles to the issue, I don't for one minute believe that in any fashion the citizens of the USA bought the events of September 11 upon themselves. US Foreign policy in certain areas of the world has been self serving, this is true, there have been wars fought largely for no other reason than it was in the US' best interests economically speaking to do so, the CIA and various other branches of the US government have taken part in some terrible snafus throughout modern history, etc etc etc, No amount of evil perpetrated by the US government or it's agents can justify direct, purposeful attacks designed to inflict the maximum attrition possible on civilians. There's simply no way around that fact. I can think of no rationale, modus operandi, or political ideology that can justify such a heinous crime.
The ironic thing about the entire event is, well.. I'm going to ask you all to think back, does anyone remember a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away, the release of a movie called "Independence Day".
This movie sucked ass, it was pathetic, it was so crap it could not possibly have been worse if it was filmed with the art directory of a red/green 3d film specialist in charge of production. This movie was hyped, hyped big time, by the time it came around, everyone knew about it and everyone went and saw it pretty quick. The first release of this that I saw was a handicam taped version from a US theatre, there's a scene in the movie where an alien spaceship absolutely annihilates the white house, the entire audience *cheered* when this happened. These were American people, residents of the US, watching a piece of blatantly nationalist film, and they applauded at the destruction of a symbol which before september 11 had been pretty much synonymous with corruption and greed.
With the recent actions in New York and Washington the US government appears to have scored itself a major propaganda coup, outraged commentators across the country were speaking of the perpetrators "damning their cause" (assumedly anything vaguely related to modification of American foreign policy in the middle east) and Flag waving patriotism and national anthem recitals became the norm.
Personally, if the attacks on september 11 had been on just one target, say the whitehouse, I think the response would have been pretty close to this, before the events of the past month took place. There was a lot of dislike and distrust for the government of the USA, now it appears as if all this has evaporated into a vague, slightly disconcerting patriotic mist. Guess nothing unifies a group of people like another group of people trying to kill them.
Is it just me, or is it weird that W. shrub JR has not provided concrete evidence to the public at large of Al-Qaeda's involvement in the September 11 Attacks? Is it also really weird that on the FBI's most wanted page he is wanted for involvement *only* for the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, with no mention of the S11 attacks?
He may have been morally dispicable, but Theodore Kazinsky had a lot to say on the matter of globalization (or, more generally, the negative effects of industrialized society). Although the Manifesto was published in several major newspapers, not too many people really paid attention to what he was trying to say.
I guess that's understandable, given that he was into blowing people up. Draw the parallel to the terrorists. The mass media is mostly dousing any legitmacy they may have in their criticism of the USA (mostly unvocalized criticism, but look at their target). Which is unfortunate, because we could learn a lot from our enemies.
The corporations that now drive our industrial/technological society and gain the most from it are the key to understanding the fringe's criticism and hatred of the US. Rather than simply dismissing Kazinsky as a Luddite, consider that he and other dissenting voices may actually be trying to tell us something genuinely important.
This isn't a troll. Read the Manifesto, and momentarly set aside the fact that Ted was a bomber (although, appearantly not insane). Well you are at it, set aside your attachment to your confortable lifestyle and try to look at the bigger picture.
And if you really want to have some fun, take this Al Gore vs. the Unibomber Quiz.
Good luck.
Clarification of some issues:
1) Ignorance of Americans of how their actions are perceived by others is a problem. - Agreed, the ignorance contributes to problems of ticking off other people.
2) Seeking consensus on a global scale is both possible, AND the way to bring peace. - This is a key implication of what you have said. I disagree on that in a couple ways: First, you can't make everyone in the world happy. Second, America should act out of what is "right", not what the global consensus is. But the reality of situation is any nation-state will always act out of its self-perceived interests (whether they be right of wrong).
---
Activists who protest for unilateral peace have not met a starving dog.
Pope John Paul II has taken the principle of the "General Welfare," as enunciated in the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, and developed by Lyndon LaRouche in several recent statements, as the basis for his own renewed, strong attack on globalization, calling it a new form of "colonialism."
e vg lobal.html
g in eers.html
See
http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2001/2819e_pop
http://www.larouchepub.com/lar/2001/2840peru_en
I would paid someone secretly to send Anthrax out to high profile people. Then I make more money.
Hell just think what would happen if you bomb UPS, and have anon threats that more UPS trucks will be bombed... I bet FedEx goes up, UPS down.
Fortunes to be had. Just think if you wanted to be evil... You can be rich...
God spoke to me
I tend to get sidetracked in these discussions.
You are right in one respect, but wrong in another.
Had the treaty after WW1 been softer, WW2 would probably not have happened. Germany underwent a lot of hardship after WW1, and that was the breeding ground we provided for Hitler. Germans felt unfairly treated.
So, in a way, Chamberlain was doing the right thing - he was being understanding, for Hitler had reason to be outraged.
Today, bin Laden arguably has reason to be outraged, too.
The problem is that in both cases, the mistakes had been made and the process was beyond the point of no return. America can learn from this, and should immediately. Right now, you are upsetting the world, and the world probably will come knocking again and again until you learn your lesson.
If you're gonna be a world leader, think and act globally. Stop your president from saying outragous, silly things like "wanted, dead or alive" and "either your with us, or you're with the terrorists". Granted, he's learning, but I only think he's learning how to restrain himself. Oh - and that's your misconception to correct if I'm wrong.
When you occasionally travel abroad, bother to learn a few phrases in the local language - "thank you", "please", "hello", "yes", "no" and "do you speak english?" for starters.
The list goes on and on. Your nation has an attitude problem almost as big as mine. Maybe it's about time you started doing things right?
Stop the brainwash
As long as I am mayor of this city [Jersey City, New Jersey] the great
industries are secure. We hear about constitutional rights, free speech
and the free press. Every time I hear these words I say to myself, "That
man is a Red, that man is a Communist". You never hear a real American
talk like that.
-- Frank Hague, 1896-1956
echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln80~Psnlbx]16isb572CCB9AE9DB03273snlbxq' |dc
Oh yes, that's a good logical argument. Do you know anything about the current state or history of the region at all? Palestinians regularly attack Israeli civilians and Israeli tanks regularly roll into areas where Palestinians live. Your analysis is beyond facile, it's not worth responding to. Get a clue, come up with a good solution and until then shut the fuck up.
The whole point of my scribbling ramble was to offer people a logical alternative to the snap decision of deciding that supporting Israel was the reason for the WTC/Pentagon murders.
Also I was attempting to show that terrorism is not merely done in retaliation for political stances, but is also used to commence war when you have no other means.
People seem to think we need to analyze the situation and decide on a reason as to why we were attacked before we can justify striking out against world terrorism. That is not true. There is such a thing as right and wrong. Therefore if terrorism is wrong, and the U.S. is right to fight it, it should not require any more justification than that to fight terrorism in any nation. To assume any other option is ludicrous. Do police officers ask themselves if they can morally arrest a proven criminal if he's sleeping in his warm bed? I think not.
Obviously, technology is enabling everyone, and significantly corporation, to communicate and do business on a world-wide scale. I believe this is generally good, despite whatever heartaches and hardships crusty fundamentalists must endure. That however, even in full sober view of 9/11, is not the ultimate longest lasting problem. The most impactful problem will be that of unchecked corporate power. Corporations are not democratic, yet in the global economy, their resources and influence dwarf those of many duly elected national governments. Let's start to disassemble the ruse of corporate entitiy rights so that the entire world can live democratically, or at least give people, locally, a choice as to how they want to live. Ultimately, human rights trump property rights.
"bin Laden arguably has reason to be outraged"
He's made his reasons for outrage quite clear for years. He believes he is serving Allah in the promotion of a brutal, medieval, fundamentalist utopian vision of pure Islam everywhere in the entire Muslim world. The purer, the more pleasing to Allah. Going to extremes of brutality toward and oppression of all that is impure is merely striving for excellence.
He believes that the Muslim world is in such shambles because it is not yet purified, and he intends to rectify that. He originally felt that the problem was just corrupt (meaning non-fundamentalist Muslim) local governments, but he has since been convinced that the larger problem is the corrupting influence the West exerts on the Muslim world.
This "corruption" -- meaning open, tolerant, science-based, diverse society in which not just men (bad enough), but even women (unspeakable) are free to do, dress, speak, and otherwise behave as they please -- is the ultimate evil and must be fought. He sees the US as the most powerful vector of all of the above, qualifying us as the root of all evil. I take that as a compliment.
Only in the last few years has he begun including all the various Muslim vs. non-Muslim regional turf wars in his list of "grievances", as he has begun to see the political expediency of uniting all Muslims behind him in his real agenda of driving out impurity and "purifying" the Muslim world.
Superficial analysts like you look down his growing laundry list, pick out your favorites and say, "yeah, I can see why he's outraged at the US". You don't see it at all.
"When you occasionally travel abroad, bother to learn a few phrases...."
I'd guess you're a continental European from the regularity in which I hear that from continental Europeans. They must teach that in school to help defend against natural feelings of cultural insignificance. Your superficial analysis (perhaps intentionally) mistakes simple economic expediency in Europe for cultural sophistication. You find similar "sophistication" in places like the Himalayas and the Golden Triangle region of the Mekong.
My small software company knows a lot more about giant Microsoft than MS knows about us. If I were European, perhaps I would credit that to our company's obvious cultural superiority to MS.
If *you* ever bother go to Asia -- where I worked as an interpreter for years -- you'll see that the vast majority of Westerners who speak the local Asian language well are, surprisingly to most Europeans, Americans. I know who my competitors were, and though there were many skilled Europeans, they were outnumbered by skilled Americans.
"Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
It's an MSN site, but the author is Paul Krugman, who you can find out more about here:
http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/
Yes, this is quite true. They are distorting it. One of the problems is that the elite, the fat cats like Bush et al are presenting their opponents as if they were the same as the al-Queda group.
They're not. A lot of people protesting against the WTO are people who have quite a few assets. Like me. We own stocks, we invest. But we see the dangers of the so-called "Free Trade" groups, and the implications of the laws to promulgate them.
Sure, we want fair trade, equivalent transaction costs. But we don't think that we should be promoting lower labor standards or environmental standards on other countries. Because that is what is implied by groups such as the WTO.
One good source for information on the objections to this "Globalization" would be ATTAC, an organization which crunches the numbers and has a number of much more informative publications on this subject. I've read some of their works when I picked them up in the original French on visits to Paris, but they have English and other language publications as well.
Will in Seattle
I didn't say that I wanted genocide. That is a real stretch to infer that I even wanted violence out of this. I said that we should have never listened to them. We should not ever pay attention to racists. By my opinion of that alone, we shouldn't listen to the Israelis, because they are just as hateful and racist.
We should put in place a method to protect ourself in that region, and then we should walk away from both parties involved. And definitely stop giving anyone money for guns. I am not a troll, I have been talking about this for years before the first intifada. So, I see what is going on, and I realize that this is a challenge to the very fabric of civilization... a challenge that we can't lose.
It would certainly seem that way, would it not? Assuming they were acting rationally, I would have had to do something for them to feel it necessary to tar and feather me. If 100+ nations agree that Israel should withdraw from the territories it invaded in 1967, and only Israel and the U.S. disagreed, don't you think maybe there's something to it?
Possibly, but that was exactly why the UN was created. Europe and the rest of the world was sick and tired of long bloody conflicts. They created a process whereby two nations in disagreement could settle their differences without going to war. Part of the process is having the Security Council and/or General Assembly vote on a resolution and all UN members uphold it. If the U.S. doesn't like it, they shouldn't have set it up in the first place.
The problem, as it has been from the beginning, is that the U.S. has a permanent seat on the SC and can veto any resolution at will. So the UN (some 160+ nations) is still partially at the whims of the U.S. (and France, the U.K., China, and Russia).
No, not only, but primarily. That there are disagreements among member nations is part of the UN process -- not a problem. But I feel that five states having permanent veto power over a 160-member organization is a major problem. We don't give the two California senators veto power in the Senate simply because California is so populous. Why should the U.S. have that power in an organization whose charter is to maintain peace among all member states?
As my previous post stated, the U.S. is intentionally killing civilians -- not with their bombs (though that's debatable) but by starvation. That a terrorist organization whose leader is hiding in Afghanistan killed several thousand civilians is not a justification for killing more civilians. If you commit murder and then hide in the suburbs, the police don't make bombing raids hoping to take you out.
You seem quite sure of your position. Did you see all of the classified evidence? Or are you just taking Bush and Blair at their word? I'm not comfortable doing that -- that's why courts of law were created. Gather and present evidence, then judge the case without bias. Letting the "victim" carry out a sentence against the accused without trial is barbaric.
No, that is a totally different situation. In that case, I am preventing an armed attack against me. In Afghanistan's case, we are retaliating against an entire population for a single act that some of their fellow citizens are accused of having committed. In your case the proof of my attempted crime is me pointing a gun at you. With Afghanistan, the proof is the good word of an unelected president with family business ties to bin Laden.
You speak as if Afghanistan was responsible for the 9-11 crimes. Do you hold the U.S. government responsible for Timothy McVeigh's actions? Just because the accused party lives in Afghanistan does not mean the Taliban had anything to do with it. As well, the CIA funded and built those terrorist organizations to fight Russia, so the U.S. is as much to blame.
If a murderer were to hide out among a crowd, the police would use snipers rather than grenades to avoid collateral damage. The steps that the UN ratified were akin to a sniper. Stop the money. Share intelligence. Apply political pressure and sanctions. The U.S. decided on its own to use grenades.
If you compare the dollars the U.S. spends on weaponry to that it spends on humanitarian aid, we don't look so rosy. If a crime syndicate donates some of its money to the Red Cross, do we call them generous? Sure, we were supplying some aid to Afghanistan, but we cut it off at the worst time: right before winter.
You have to look beyond the small view presented by the media. Why is the U.S. even trying to topple the Taliban government? That's not our right; it isn't in the UN charter; and it goes against the UN resolutions passed for this very situation. The U.S. has installed puppet dictatorships and funded military coups in South America for decades. Why is this one chosen to be dismantled?
Perhaps it's all that black gold in the Caspean Sea. The oil companies would love to have access to it, and there are three routes for a pipeline: Iran (no chance), Russia (no control), and Afghanistan. Once the Taliban is replaced by the Northern Alliance with U.S. help, Afghanistan becomes the prime candidate.
Freedom to fear. Freedom from thought. Freedom to kill.
I guess the War on Terror really is about freedom!