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Globalism Post 9/11
We seem to be running away from the world, and much of the world hates us for it. Such forces make America not only the world's leading superpower, but probably its most feared and hated nation. As the U.S. evolved rapidly from an industrial to a data-based economy, much of the world hasn't come along, or doesn't want to.
Our technology is running away from the rest of the planet, from genomics to supercomputing to bio-tech research to weaponry. Globalism, arguably the single most significant political issue on the planet even before 9/11, is even more critical now, even though there is little consensus on what it is or how we should feel about it or even define it. Deep-thinking billionaire philanthropist Soros jumps in with a significant new book -- George Soros on Globalization -- in which he advances some exciting and startling ideas about the future.
Anti-globalization protests have become a staple of international summit meetings, Soros points out, a sort of "fragmented potpourri of laments about life in the modern world." A ferocious advocate of open societies, he takes on what's good and bad about globalism, and how we might put it to better use. We'll take up that discussion here.
As Soros points out, 'Globalization' is a much overused term with a wide variety of meanings and contexts. Soros uses it to mean the development of global financial markets and the growth of trans-national corporations, along with their increasing power over national economies. "I believe that most of the problems that people associate with globalism," writes Soros, "including the penetration of market values into areas where they do not traditionally belong, can be attributed to these phenomena."
One could also blame the globalization of information and culture; the spread of television, Internet and other forms of communication; and the increased mobility and commercialization of ideas.
But Soros understandably concentrates on economic issues. Globalization as he defines it, is new. At the end of World War II, most countries strictly controlled international capital transactions. International capital movement accelerated in the early 1980s under Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, and financial markets became truly global only in the early 1990s, Soros says, after the collapse of the Soviet empire.
That period also happens to coincide with the most explosive growth of the Net and the Web, perfect engines for the new data-driven economies and systems for the rapid movement -- literally -- of capital.
By contrast, as we can see on the evening news most nights, while governments may not be able to restrict the flow of capital, they're still fairly effective at controlling the movement of people. (Although even there, the Net ultimately makes that more difficult, at least in terms of intellectual property and ideas. This kind of content is liquid, no longer confinable within territorial boundaries.
Since capital is the essential ingredient of contemporary production and economies, countries compete to attract it. It's no accident that nations who can't or won't are also incubators for political discontent and terrorism. Globalism has transformed our historic economic and social arrangements. Since capital can move anywhere in seconds, any nation-state's ability to exercise control over an economy has been radically undermined. This was a huge club the British held over the Chinese government during negotiations over the transfer of Hong Kong. The Chinese were forced to be somewhat more democratic when, with the stroke of a key, billions of dollars in capital could have fled Hong Kong in a micro-second, even if its people couldn't.
"The globalization of financial markets," argues Soros," has rendered the welfare state that came into existence after World War II obsolete, because the people who require a social safety net cannot leave the country, but the capital the welfare state used to tax can."
This was no accident, he explains, even if few Americans had any idea it was happening. The Reagan administration (along with Thatcher) was determined to reduce the state's ability to interfere in the economy and, helped enormously by globalization's rise, it succeeded.
So, exuberantly costumed demonstrations aside, globalism is not about to evaporate or even weaken, not any time soon. Quite the opposite: nation-states and their constituents now have to choose between globalism (and its attendant prosperity) or religious fanaticism. This leaves us with the central question:
Next: Is Globalism good or evil?
It's no accident that nations who can't or won't [attract capital] are also incubators for political discontent and terrorism
Oh - you're right. Poor Saudi Arabia.
The only good weather is bad weather.
Hey editors, if you're hurting for money (see also: subscriptions), maybe you should tell Katz that either he comes up with original material or you're taking him off the payroll.
Could it be argued this is the next stage of human evolution? Perhapse evolution isn't the right word for this. But if we're changing over our society, from the primitive economic structure utilized by the rest of the world towards a more advanced, digital society in general...isn't that the next step? If what we do truely proves to be superior in the next few years, won't natural selection then come into play with other parts of the world who are resistent to the changes come about? If they don't evolve they are at risk of dying out and being overcome.
Be better in bed. Wikiafterdark!
Much of the world hated us when we weren't running away from it.
For example
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We seem to be running away from the world, and much of the world hates us for it.
Funny, I thought they hated us for sticking our noses in their business.
We seem to be running away from the world, and much of the world hates us for it.
sorry running away? you have a culture that by its nature invades and polutes every other. how are you running away from the rest of the world? in fact i would say its quite the opposite. for years the government of your country has meddled in the affairs of others. that is why Osama is pissed as well as many many other countries. The USA is a bully and the last thing bullies do is run away from a fight.
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For all their oil, neither their GDP ('bout US $9000 per capita as of 1998) nor massive budget deficit (expenditures $44B, revenue $32.3B => exceeds revenue by ~36.2%) is impressive.
But then, that's not surprising in an economy so full of patronage that 40% of the labor force is in government.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
When we went to fight for Saudi Arabia, or our oil interests, whichever you prefer, we were very carful not to offend anyone. Soldiers were told to drink only in their tents, and avoid the girl lovin' yeehaw cowboy attitude of America. But wait a second? They invited us! The politicians didn't care, and the rules still applied so we wouldn't alienate them.
But just because "they" may not like our ways, doesn't mean it's a bad thing, in some places there are no womens rights. The women might not even care because they've had it drilled in to their brains all their lives that they were meant to stay at home and not vote. It's been part of their culture for centuries, what makes the US right all of a sudden? Nothing really, but that doesn't make it easier to sit back and watch the women be oppresed and say "oh, they don't mind." So it's kinda, might makes right, and the US has the might.
There is the myth that church and state are seperated in the US. But none of the constitutional rights go against the ten commandments and we're one nation "under god". Why? Because we had to go by *something*. We couldn't make laws to make everybody happy, so we decided on "Christian" laws. We choose that adultery is bad, but in some parts of africa, it's expected to give your wife to company. Again, what makes the US right? Well, we have the aids problem a little more under control, but the only moral reasoning is that it comes from the bible. Still, in the US it's illegal.
What I'm trying to say is, we can't decide for people what is right or wrong. But if another culture sees our culture and likes it, why stop them from joining? Where does it cross the line from preserving their culture to oppressing them and isolating them from the outside world?
The primary enduring effect is that we now have a whole bunch of crackpots who keep insisting that some mysterious changes have taken place tranforming the whole world. These changes are a psychological phenomenon that factors only in *some* people's lives. Then there are those who don't perceive any changes, but simply repeat the message that there are changes without thinking critically, like the crowd of people in the well-known story about the Emperor's new clothes. Whenever a sufficient number of people claim to perceive something, there are those who pretend to also perceive it for fear of being seen as strange, stupid or lacking in perception. The net effect is a mass self-bullshitting.
The secondary enduring effect is that some psychotic, paranoid redneck idiots are using September's attacks as an excuse to increase their destructive interference in other people's lives in the name of national security, patriotism or whatever.
This is where the Hong-Kong story is wrong, it doesn't matter what the British Government do or say, it is the markets themselves that will judge. A significant factor in the case of Hong Kong would have been the Bank of China that was putting most of its Forex transactions through Hong Kong. They would also have advised retaining the status quo, even though it would cost some face.
The issue though is the trans-national corp. Who regulates it? This is a separate issue to capital flow. Here the corporate HQ gravitates to the best tax/regulatory environment. Is that really correct?
"We seem to be running away from the world, and much of the world hates us for it."
Ah yes, thank you for pointing that out. It's not because much of the world hates us for running into shit we should of kept out of and then exploiting everything around us.
We were truly "running away from the world" as the United States killed over 100,000 Filipinos in the 1899 Filipino-American War. (And consequently returning to the Phillipines in 1945 to defeat the leftist Huks and install a series of puppet presidents, namely Ferdinand Marcos who sucked the country dry of capital for three decades and then retired into Hawaii).
They most certainly don't hate us for the CIA's 1953 takedown of democratically elected Prime Minister Mossadegh in Iran and the subsequent installment of a repressing and torturing Shah.
Or the other takedown of 1953, Jacobo Arbenz, who was a democratically elected president and had such "evil" plans like land reform, civil liberties and nationalizing the Washington-connected United Fruit Company. More US political installments and US trained death squads leads to another 100,000 victims.
Or the US attempts to overthrow the Syrian goverment. Twice.
It's not that we're hated because we still, to this day, Israel with billions of dollars of aid, despite its harsh treatment of Palestinians and massacres in Lebanon.
Or the million or so who died as a result of 1957 Sukarno-Indonesia scandal (which had such tidbits like the CIA making a fake sex film to try to blackmail him).
Or Vietnam.
Or the '69 carpet bombings of Cambodia where hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians died. The end result being the US helping the genocidal manial Pol Pot to take over who declares "Year Zero," kills anyone with an education, or even wearing glasses, and sends everyone to the countryside to work in agricultural labor camps. More than two million die in his "killing fields".
Certainly, the world doesn't hate us for the infamous Congo/Zaire affair where a man calling for the liberation of Congo's economy and politics, Patrice Lumumba, is assasinated with the help of the CIA and then chopped into little bits and then burned in acid. Mobutu Sese Seko takes over, changes the name to Zaire, and begins one of the most corrupt and bloody dictatorships in modern times. Thirty years later, despite its rich natural resources, the people of the Congo are still dirt-poor, Mobutu is a multibillionaire, and the country is in chaos. In 1997, Mobutu is overthrown, and retires to the Cote d'Azur. The country slides into a civil war that has killed more than one million.
I guess that our "running away" consists of violence in Cuba, Chile, East Timor, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Panama, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia and Colombia.
So Katz, before you point the finger to an "invasive American culture" as a cause of hatred from lots of the world, why don't you try pointing the finger at an "invasive America"?
As a 17 year old, I get enough of this "They hate us because we have all this good shit" on the news and at school. At least places like this news website should be reserved for some insight past what the media feeds us and into the real matters at hand.
As for the "culture war" between the West and the Islamic countries, it boils down to one simple truth - a closed repressive culture is being overrun by one that glorifies and even exploits openness.
These regimes are frightened by Western culture because they realize their rule cannot withstand open examination, but instead must be enforced autocratically or through religious dogma.
advocate hatred to others such as homesexuals and in some sects of christianity towards other religons in general.
(Still FortKnox, but anon for Karma)
True Christians don't judge. Sure, I'm not homosexual, and I think its bad, but I have no hatred for homosexuals. You are speaking about fanatics still.
There are different levels of fanaticism. Any "hatred"... ANY... is a form of fanaticism of Christianity. Sure, its a minor form, but its still fanaticism.
I really hope this doesn't get modded down, but I have to say that the world itself is, well, pretty unchanged. Contrary to the belief of apparently nearly every American alive, America does not constitute the whole world apart from the Middle East.
America seems to have adopted the 9/11 tragedy as a tragedy for the world. It is not. It is a tragedy for those in the WTC. Of course we sympathise for those. I don't know the exact figures, but less than 4000 people died. How many people do you think there are who are starving, dying of famine, etc etc? I'm sorry, you do not merit our totally undivided sympathy.
Americans seem to think that they are so powerful that a terrorist attack on them is a terrorist attack on the civilised world. This is simply not true. It is a terrorist attack on America, and nothing more. What gives America the right to assume that the whole world is hugely affected by what happens to them? I can certainly say that absolutely nothing has changed here.
I hate to be so totally against America like this, but I cannot help but feel that you've got to realise that there's a lot of other non-Middle-East countries out there who remain unaffected and who do not have such a superiority complex about themselves as to assume that they reflect the feelings of the world. As for the Middle East itself, well they have their opinions too, and they're not so uncivilised as you might think.
I think I heard somewhere that this is almost always true for countries that derive their wealth from natural resources. So, paradoxicly, striking oil can actually be bad news for the economy.
It's probably part economics and part psychology. People get the idea that they don't really have to create to be wealthy. They figure they can just sell all their natural resources, and that will supply the wealth. In the short run, this is true. In the long run, they are actually depleting their wealth.
Now, that need not be the case if people turn towards activities that are sustainable and not dependant on the resource (gold, oil, diamonds, whatever).
To do this, the Saudis need to develop industries that don't have anything to do with oil. The problem is, that's such a leap, and because they are still swimming in oil wealth it is probably a very hard sell.
If I were the King of Saudi Arabia (that sounds so quaint, doesn't it?) I would be pushing for the development of automotive plants, chip fabs, irrigation projects, and innovative urban designs to take advantage of the desert environment (think ubiquitous solar power). That's plainly the future after the oil runs out and/or the west stops needing it. However, can you imagine trying to sell this vision to the Saudis now?
So, the Saudis supply the raw material, but we supply the "human capital" and in the process of doing so we enrich ourselves while the Saudis impoverish their land. They are in very deep doo-doo if they don't wake up.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Nothing like a bad mix of George Soros and techno-futurism to come up with vapid social analysis.
We seem to be running away from the world, and much of the world hates us for it.
Americans are doing a good job of ignoring the rest of the world, thanks to the woefully narrow focus of most of our news media. The U.S. government, on the other hand, continues to get better and better at interfering with the rest of the world, often in ways we don't even hear about. How many ./ers know there are American "military advisors" (a la Vietnam) in Colombia and the Phillippines right now?
As the U.S. evolved rapidly from an industrial to a data-based economy, much of the world hasn't come along, or doesn't want to.
Mr. Katz, who do you think manufactures your sneakers? Your car? Your computer? Regardless of whether the U.S. now has a "data-based economy," someone has to do the producing. And, quite frankly, the fact that good-paying industrial union jobs in the U.S. have evaporated, only to be replaced with temp work for 13-year-old Indonesian girls earning a few dollars a day, doesn't strike me as much cause for celebration.
A ferocious advocate of open societies ..
No, Mr. Soros is a ferocious advocate of open markets. Big difference.
Since when does "people == content"? I'm all for the Net's revolutionary impact on intellectual 'property,' but it doesn't have much effect on whether peaceful people can cross borders freely. That privilege is reserved for capital.
nation-states and their constituents now have to choose between globalism (and its attendant prosperity) or religious fanaticism.
This is a false choice: Enron or Osama. I pick neither. Unfortunately for Mr. Soros, the romantic notion that ordinary people, not financial markets, ought to make the decisions that affect their lives, lingers in the hearts of many.Red All Over: Rambling Missives from an Aspiring Revolutionary
Mod that up... That was great...
As a Canadian we have to live a breath the American influence... Trade between Canada and the US is in the worst state it has ever been. The US uses its massive influence and power to get its way... If Canadians stand up for what we believe we'd be considered terrorists and they would blow us to pieces...
It could be said that Microsoft is to the US and the US is to the World.
Man, I'm Canadian and even I know American history well enough to know that.
So what do you care if Americans have guns?
And this is why I will never move to the States, I'd be fearful for my safety and the safety of my family.
I wish more people would adopt this philosophy instead of coming to America and tying to make it more like their home country. When you come to America know that we like our guns (among other things). Don't come over here and say "Back in my country...". If your country is so much better, then go back.
I have never criticized any other nation's internal policies. It is none of my business.
Remember, You are unique...just like everyone else.
The problem with Globalization the way Katz/Soros defines it is that those in power are not accountable to the billions of people they are affecting. WTO, World Back, IMF, these folks can't be voted out, impeached, etc, and they are not worried about the next election. There's not even a real court or system of laws that has any real power over them.
No Power Without Accountability!
In light of that, who cares who did what 50 years ago or which religion wants to slaughter whom or who has pork in what project? None of that matters as long as those setting global policy and moving mountains of money can operate with total impunity.
P.S. - And unless you're a majority stock holder in a major international corporation, it's guaranteed those folks don't represent your interests or mine.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
The issues pushing theocracy are much less economic in SA. These issues include:
-The despotic, repressive monarchy which itself is hedonistic while requiring its citizens to adhere to strict wahhabism.
-The extremist nature of Wahhibism, and its vicious ideas.
-a general Arab resentment of the West because the West has replaced Arabia as the center of progress and culture. This is made worse by the obvious popularity of western culture - even as that culture insults all religions and religious ideas.
If the men involved in terrorism had been from poor families, one could pay more attention to the economic motive. But they were not. Many were quite well off, in fact.
The only good weather is bad weather.
Never trust a yank. They lie and cheat.
Don't believe me? Bananas & Steel
Bananas: The europeans preferentially imported bananas from small ex-colonies in the caribean. Many of the islands have economies that are 50% or more dependent upon bananas. Their costs are higher than the big central american banana plantations (unavoidably due to geography), but within bounds that the EC could handle by giving a small degree of help. America used GATT to force the europeans to cut their subsidies so that their would be a 'level playing field' - which in practise means that the caribean producers loose their markets to the benefit of the big american fruit growing corporations.
Steel: American steel is expensive because of high wages and other production costs. American jobs were threatened because foreign producers could deliver steel 50% or more cheaper than USA steel. So in direct contravention of GATT america pushes through 40% levies on foreign steel imports.
Never trust a yank. They lie and cheat. A nation of hypocrites who when the going get tough are more than prepared to swing their bloated weight around.
(and guess what grop all those small banana growers who the americans forced out of business are turning to? Yep, drugs)
Your post makes me even more glad I live in the US and not Canada. You don't like guns, don't live here. They've saved my ass once...I might not be here if it weren't for guns.
:)
Statistics show that areas with increased gun ownership (especially when those guns are carried on one's person) have significantly decreased crime rates (Florida for example).
Other areas (England) that chose to ban guns almost completely have seen a horrific increase in the rate of violent crime and murder. I actually know some older Brittish couples who feel they have pretty much been robbed of their retirement by the gun control. They have people breaking into their houses and making them feel VERY unsafe. The police are only reactionary (can't prevent crime, only punish it) and they are not allowed to protect themselves.
I don't look at the gun issue through clouded lenses of feelings, fears, and misconceptions. Guns are not evil, bad, etc...but some people, irrationaly, feel that way...and they are often portrayed that way.
Look at the facts and you will see the light.
Guns are just as good, if not better, than "free" software.
The question is not about "good" or "evil." The question is about the definition of globalism.
Corporations and the U.S. Government confuse globalism with corporate imperialism. Or perhaps they don't. It just sounds better. Corporate imperialism is what people hate, not globalism, except as the term is used by the powers that be.
To make globalism work, we need to give people control, including the power to move around the world as easily as corporations and capital. We need to respect the degree to which communities want their lifestyle altered by participating in the global community. And we need to give the people a real say in government, not Mickey Mouse elections based on sound bites and FUD, with a choice between grits and boiled pork.
Further, we need to see the exploitation of third world labor in the same light as the exploitation of mineral resources. When we ship labor overseas, to reduce cost, it must be accompanied by benefits such as education, not just the billowing bank accounts of a few dictators and corporate moguls.
Western countries and the U.S. in particular, must also start to walk the talk. All western political and corporate leaders are good at parroting free trade sound bites. But they are much less adept at letting the market work its magic. The current U.S. vs. Europe steel debacle is just one of the many examples. Take a look at all the regulations and restrictions limiting clothing imports into the U.S. You might say, that is to protect U.S. clothing manufacturers--so much for free trade. But then why not limit the export of programming jobs to India, or help television manufacturers in the U.S.? The reason, among others, is to keep third world countries in their place, and to protect the artificially inflated market of designer brands in western countries. As long as U.S. corporations are in control, everything is OK. But if it looks like control might shift to another country, then trade restrictions are imposed.
And finally, intellectual property law reform is badly needed. As it is, the IP laws are bad for the people in developed countries. But much worse, for people in developing countries they are just a further tool for indefinite enslavement, and in many cases, such as availability of drugs, they are a matter of survival.
The overwhelming hate Americans experience in many parts of the world is certainly related to these issues. As is a completely out of touch and unjust U.S. centric foreign policy, but that is the subject of another essay. Many of these people who hate the U.S. don't hate Americans, they hate what a select few Americans do to their countries and people. Remember when Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union the "Evil Empire?" Well, those same Russians are still there, but obviously not so evil anymore. The current administration believes that propaganda can help sell American values to the third world. But how do you sell enslavement and exploitation to the looser? Military force, of course, mixed with plenty of FUD and a little well place cash. The promise of a future more bleak than it already is. That is the theory anyway. September 11 should have been a wake-up call to yes, defend ourselves, but also to reevaluate our view of the world.
Obviously, all of this cannot happen overnight. The world's problems are not solved by moving three or four billion poor people to the U.S. or Western Europe. But there is no reason why the government should restrict the movement of the workforce between countries with a similar economic status. There is no reason why we can't develop a "free trade" system that benefits all parties. There is no reason why social responsibility cannot be part of globalism.
In the end, the U.S. Government and U.S. corporations (if there is a difference), must learn to ask and give, not to tell and take. Then perhaps, American values will be admired. And interestingly enough, this is also the recipe for unlimited wealth, because it is giving of service and value, that creates wealth. I should think the collapse of the Roman, Spanish, British, etc.. empire has taught us that much. Perhaps it has, but it is not relevant until after the next election cycle, or the golden parachute kicks in.
Talking about the world is interesting, but the first step must be cleaning up the mess at home. Would you hire an interior decorator who lives in a dump? It may be a surprise to Americans, but even Western Europeans ridicule the U.S. legal and political system. The U.S. may spend tons of money on medical care, but its infant mortality rate is among the world's worst. Social Security? Or do you mean social insecurity? Even with all the news coverage, it is always an eye opener to see the reaction of people from Europe when they catch a glimpse of U.S. poverty. Clean up at home, and lead the world by example. Just remember how well it worked when your parents said: "Do as I tell you, not as I do."
The bottom line is: Globalism is Good. Corporate (or State) Imperialism is Bad.
The United States system of fairness, work ethic, innovation and competition makes us extremely successful.
Don't forget legislation. When the above doesn't work to your advantage, you always resort to legislation. 20 years ago, the major forest product companies in Canada recognized a major lack of productivity in their sawmills as compared to the U.S. They embarked on a multi-billion dollar upgrade which now makes their processing capability second to none in the world. Through modernizing their industry, they were able to produce more wood more efficiently than any other country in the world. Compare this to the U.S. companies. They were content to keep pouring diminishing amounts of raw lumber (already cut it all and never bothered to replant) through very antiquated, labour-intensive mills. The result: a lack of raw lumber and poor productivity and high cost products. The solution: 29% tariffs on finished lumber from Canada and welcoming shipments of raw logs from Russia and Europe.
You might want to rethink the "fairness, work ethic, innovation and competition" part of your thinking. Don't forget that Canada is your number one trading partner and friend. Just imagine what your "Department Of Commerce (Protectionism when we can't play fairly) has done to your ENEMIES!!
I choose to disregard the rest of your post as intolerance. But then, given your innovative education system, what more could I expect.
Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power.
Folks,
I find it remarkable how contradictory the two streams of advice about how the US should change its behavior are. One one hand, there are those who say we need to be less involved in the rest of the world - no global policing, no liberation of Kuwait, leave Iraq alone, leave Bosnia alone, no more support for Israel etc. Others say we need to be more involved - impose a Palestinian/Israeli settlement, neutralize Iraq, increase and improve foreign aid, make freeer trade, etc.
Neither side is essentially wrong - what they all want is for us to do the "right" things, and not do the "wrong" things. Of course, which is which is far from obvious.
As in all things, Stan Lee said it best: "With great power comes great responsibility." Spiderman's greatest failure wasn't what he did, but what he didn't do, allowing a criminal to go free and kill his Uncle Ben. As semi-facetious as the argument may sound, the US has been bit by that radioactive spider, and we need to accept the fact of our power, and figure out how best to use it.
Due to a combination of excellent geography, a successful culture built by waves of immigration, and dumb luck, the US has the ability to Make Things Different in the world. We can make changes. But while we're powerful, we aren't prescient, and can't predict the long-term ramifications of what we do with any accuracy.
But choosing not to act is still an action - was not intervening in Rawanda any better than invading Iraq would be? Our power means we have to make these decisions, and sweat them, and argue about them endlessly on talk shows, and then, gut clinched, try to do the right thing and hope it all works out.
Many of the examples of past US evil are from the cold war. I think we can agree that a good number of the things we did were not only not effective for our goals, but hurt them in the long term. But do you think that, with what they knew at the time, the people who made those decisions knew which were which? Does this mean we should have let the Soviet Union have a free hand all over the world? No.
The US needs to be engaged with the world, and we have to know it's going to be a messy business that will make us enemies. So we need to do it in as smart a way as possible, with a long view, with clear-eyed compassion, and with as little attention to our trivial domestic politics as possible.
For a recent example of us NOT doing this right, we failed to drop textile tarrifs for Pakistan. Pakistan's leadership, whatever their faults, have been a surprisingly good partner in our current conflict. And they're dirt poor, which helps terrorists, and hurts the development of a healthy society. Pakistan makes a lot of textiles, and could important a lot more to the US, helping develop a better, non-aid-based economy. But, in order to not risk the Carolinas in the mid-term elections later this year, and his reelection in 2004, Bush refused to lower tarrifs or increase Pakistan's quota for textiles. I know it sounds like a small deal, but getting this kind of stuff right could help enormously.
Anyway, there is nothing we can do that will keep people from hating us. We have the power to pick winners and losers, and so we'll be resented for what we don't do just as much as for what we do. So we just have to do the right thing as best we can, and give the world as few VALID reasons to hate us as possible.
My video compression blog
As someone who is twice his age I agree with most of what he said. AND, more importantly, I think his arguments hold large amounts of truth. To respond to you directly:
Blaming everything that has happened between 1943 and 1989 on the Cold War is a bit silly. The Cold War is a symptom of something else. It's the result of power struggles. Power struggles and the control for dominance is just that. And, IMHO, it's hardly ever justified. It's basically a form of mental masturbation and usually performed by insecure little boys who haven't figured out how to deal with their own personal problems. The reasons, however, are usually couched in some kind of rah-rah about protecting the world or some other such trite crap.
Surprisingly, I agree with you about the Jewish constituency; however, you ignored some things. I'm not Jewish and I am, frankly, quite sick of American Jew's support (those that do) of Israeli behavior. Israel is the South Africa of this decade. There is no excuse for the ongoing institutionalized indentured servitude (really slavery if you don't want to mince words) and mistreatment of the Palestinian peoples. It's very much akin to the justification of South African slavery. Did you know that Nelson Mandella and the ANC were classified as "terrorists" by both the South African and American governments in the early 80s?
Your last argument is the most ridiculous and clearly shows that while the rest of your article is appears logical that you are operating on the basis of emotions for your deductive reasoning. In a huge number of cases the "dictator" in question that you refer to was backed by the U.S. Liberty, human rights, etc. are for American people, not people in other countries. Aren't you paying attention to the what the U.S. government does as foreign policy as opposed to what they say?
I doubt you have even been overseas. Having spent a fair bit of my time overseas I can say that A) your claim of how the propaganda machines function is exaggerated and B) people in other countries are frequently understanding of the difference between American people and the American governmen, and C) you have totally ignored that where there is a propaganda machine in place it's probably a small flame next to the might mechanisms of the American mass media which affect the globe.
Anyway, mod this down as a troll, but you clearly needed a clue. Here it is. Take it or leave it.
Linux is UNIX.
I have never seen someone successfully defend their right to arms. Your NRA statistics are wonderful, but flawed. It is also worth noting that Florida has some of the nations' worst road rage and violent crime rates. It's true that in an armed society, petty crime is reduced, but only because petty theives fear for their lives should they rob a store, for example. Of the same token however, with so many guns close at hand, more disputes end in violence.
The older Britons that you claim to know are certainly the Hestonite minority. How the fuck can gun control ruin your retirement? It should not come as a surprise that the US has the highest violent crime rate in the developed world and they have the most relaxed gun laws . Please don't take made-up views and smear them around. I've never met someone from the US travelling outside America that wasn't amazed by the lack fear on the streets of foreign countries. If you like staying inside at night or worrying about your girlfriend's safety, I leave you to it with all your uber-capitalist views.
Go back under your bridge you bastard troll.
Do you want to remove linux?
Osama, the Taliban, Hambali, Hamas, and many others fight for thier god and thier religion and THAT is thier cause for discontent.
They do not fight for their god or their religion. What their actual reasons are are immaterial in this scope. Their god and their religion is what they use to dupe tools into blowing themselves up to further their own ends. The low ranking members might fight for god or religion, but the leaders of religious groups don't really believe, they just use belief to dupe the ignorant as has always been done.
Other areas (England) that chose to ban guns almost completely have seen a horrific increase in the rate of violent crime and murder.
And then you claim: "Look at the facts and you will see the light".
Since you didn't actually cite any actual statistics, were you hoping we'd just take your word for it? I'll show you mine, what have you got to show?
Well, it took about two minutes to find data via Google, and here are the facts: according to the US Department of Justice/FBI Uniform Crime Reports, in the U.S. in 1997 there were an estimated 18,210 homicides. Or, a rate of 6.8 per 100,000 population.
In the U.K. in 1997, there were 640 homicides. Or, a rate of 1.24 per 100,000 population.
Next time, heed your own advice and look at the facts before spouting your useless drivel.
References:
If I got my opinions from CNN, or from other mainstream US media I would probably share your views of palestinians.
Your own bullshit detector needs some attention.
I could list sites for you to visit, or suggest you actually try going to the middle east and taking a look for yourself, but I don't think it would do any good. The trouble is, people judge the credibility of information against what they think they know already. You obviously believe you have a more accurate understanding of what's going on there than 98% of the people who live there. You "know" too much to learn anything.
They disagree with what you learnt from CNN - they must be stupid and ignorant.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
...there is a solution that is simple, obvious, elegant, and wrong.
Eventually I'll get to Soros, but for now let's look at the choice of words in the post:
Our invasive American culture is THEIR choice - last time I checked, the McDonald's franchise punch list did not include armed invasion. Soneone in every place where there's a McD's, Coca Cola, Polo, or US motion picure - the locals had to make it so. You don't get too many US franchises without someone on the receiving end, real estate, vendors, zoning, import & export officials letting if not inviting you to do it.
Also - let's not cross the line and infer by omission that 9/11 was or is any indication of the opinion of anyone but the perpetrators of the terrorism. "Others" is far too unbounded a term to us to describe the marginal combatants who sent two flying bombs into the financial center of the US.
The world has been "globalized" in the modern sense since WWI. This all is nothing new. What is new is the speed at which it can happen, and the facility with which anyone can get their nose in front of a camera. Giant puppets don't mean anything except that they are easier to see and therefore take advantage of the technology of video cameras and the individual predelictions of the TV news producers.
We say "globalization" as if there were any other choice for the only known planet filled with one race of planet-shaping beings.
The real action point comes down to individuals and entities that make the decisions. Nike is responsible for what they do, not America. And before you say it's our laws that let Nike (as an example) do (whatever), it takes two to tango. Is a Nike factory a forced invasion? Is Nike removing Asian teens from their six-figure suites and putting them in a factory? Fill in your favorite offender. The country they're in wanted them there - if they didn't, they wouldn't be there. They decided that this was the best offer they could get. Just like we all decide that minimum wage is right where we want it. If it weren't, we'd vote out anyone who disagreed with it right? Again. Individual choice. The politician's to vote a certain way and ours to sack them. But we have yet to learn the ppower of our (voting) choices, even after the 2000 elections.
And it works both ways. The upper south is now an annex of Asian auto manufacturers. Fuji Heavy makes tanks, but they didn't need them to raise their Subaru plants. Alabama just gave away the store to Hyundai to get them in the state. It was a company and a state government who did this.
Point is, hammering away at an abstract called 'globalization' will do little to change whatever someone wants changed. Put down the puppets, become someone who can make a decision in the direction you wish to, and do something real.
I teach. Every day I make sure that at least in part, my aid to my students includes the messsage that doing is better than wishing, that action is more effective than mentalism, that if you don't work for what you want you will get what someone else wants you to have.
None of this involves carnage against living beings for living as they do. 9/11 is not the untinkable thought in the minds of the rest of the world. While I think Dubya is a little too fond of hearing himself say 'evildoers', it does boil down to individuals who decide to make war, or who design or agree to a sweatshop. Someone has to decide to do these things. We need to make individuals more congizant, enlightened of their actions and consequences.
Globalization's not inherently evil, it's not inherently good. It's inevitable. Consider it as a technology and realize that it only is considerable in specific instances. We learned this lesson at Trinity, but alas, teachers know that that wonderful mental agent called transference never works the way its supposed to.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
I am so tired of reading complaints about "invasive American culture." It is oh-so-trendy-and-intellectually-hip to bash things American, just by virtue of the fact that they originate from America. But if you blindly do so, you demonstrate yourself to be badly biased and ignorant of reality.
Throughout the world there is a voracious appetite for American culture. We are not "invading" anything. If a French businessman opens up a McDonald's franchise on the corner of his street, his business is free to succeed or fail based on the demand for the product. Somebody must like McDonald's Hamburgers over there, because the restaurants somehow stay in business. Should the French businessman be denied the right to open and operate his own McDonald's? Doesn't he have the right to make money how he wants? Just because something is distributed in a chain or franchise arrangement (whether it's a restaurant, supermarket or store), it doesn't make it automatically crappy and evil.
Here in Texas, I am constantly seeing reminders that we are not the vicious cultural stormtrooper that we are made out to be. Wildly successful businesses started by Mexican or Vietnamese business owners are everywhere. I see Spanish-language advertisements all over the place on billboards. Many of my friends listen to Indian pop music, drink Australian beer and eat Japanese food. And they do this without a second thought -- not "wow I'm being so cool and hip for consuming this stuff," but because these things have really woven themselves into the culture. Americans seek out and embrace other cultures.
I have traveled through more than 20 states, and I have seen it with my own eyes: Americans, for the most part, are genuinely interested in foreign cultures, willing to embrace new ideas and learn about the world. If anything, this made 9/11 all the more tragic and disturbing, because the perpetrators were so terribly misguided in their beliefs about the American people.
It's unfair and ignorant to say that all muslims are kill-crazy bombsmiths. It's unfair and ignorant to say that all Frenchmen are rude, snotty, disheveled little toads. And it's equally unfair to say that American culture is ruthlessly invading the rest of the world, or that the American people are spoiled SUV-driving yuppies, because its a grossly unfair and ignorant characterization.
Yeah, the Russians must be really impressed.
You are sovereign in your country. If you don't like something, don't allow it. I mean really, if its important, take a stand. The Saudi's got away with forbidding 500,000 Americans troops from having alcohol. How? Because they believed it. Now me personally, I think they were stupid. But they did what they felt that they needed to do to protect their culture.
Now you sit here and whine about how your culture is being destroyed by the evil Americans. Well, if I were offended by your walking nude into my neighborhood, but did nothing but complain, then I would be as guilty as you are for whining here about this.
"I wasn't using my civil rights anyway...."
I don't agree with the point of mixing up these two: Globalization and 9/11 attack, I'll explain my view. For me, the attack MAY BE just "somebody doesn't like the things that the USA do out there", and I won't go into discussion about their licity although I would like to mention that I am in principle against any kind of violence and therefore neither I like the USA intrusism nor I like the attack.
Now for the globalization movement. I think that there are many different people with many different reasons to be against this "invention" out there. I am myself firmly against the globalization movement so I'll explain my reasons.
Ecological reasons:
It is stupid to ellaborate a biscuit in Spain (actually my home country) and sell it in Australia while ellaborating some other biscuits there in Australia to sell them in Spain, well understood that good conditions are given for the two countries to ellaborate their own biscuits using either cooking recipe. Full stop. Now a bit further. If doing this is convenient for many companies, as it is the case, then big warning: Something is wrong. And so we arrive to the next chapter, social reasons.
Social reasons:
(Or how these companies, the multinationals, do business.) So it is in fact convenient for many companies to manufacture their products far away, even spending much money in trasportation. It is simple to imagine (or perhaps not so simple) to what extent the worker is being exploited. The concept is so obvious that I won't explain it, I will just say that, at least in Europe, chances are that if you pick any article of clothing in a store and have a look, it has been manufactured in China or Korea. For a cup of rice. You may say: If we rejected to buy those, that people would die. No. If we did so, their corrupt governments could not take place and convenient social laws would be adopted, just in our privilleged countries.
Choice reasons:
We consumers lose our freedom of choice. You may say: If you prefer to pay more and avoid exploitation, well, you are free to do so and let people decide by their own instead of trying to ban globalization or anything. Wrong. If we haven't got the information, then it's impossible for us to know what is going on. It would be neccessary for every piece of product to have a hundred of stickers telling how, when and where it was manufactured, impossible, paranoid. The result would be pretty much the same as with the EULAs. To use the same example: WE THINK THAT "Write Your Own Damn Code" IS GOOD, BUT WE DON'T CARE ABOUT "Grow Your Own Vegetables". Or buy them to a near neighbour or at least NEAR, say in your home country. Not patriotism or anything, it is just that we know better what is going on AT HOME than far away.
Economical reasons:
Read this: World Bank Secret Documents Consumes Argentina
My opinions are just opinions, and I am even often changing my views. But my point is that these reasons, wrong or right, make sense, I am not a hippy or anarchist but a design engineer, I LIKE to think. Therefore I don't like this link between the 9/11 attack and globalization.
If you find this interesting, this link may be of interest to you: Znet (Zmag), specially here.