Globalism Post 9/11

September 11 is transforming our notions about a raft of subjects, from economics to technology. Thanks to our myopic and narcissistic media and opportunistic, short-sighted politicians, we are only beginning to grasp the ways in which computer networks are changing, even radicalizing much of the world, sometimes in great, sometimes horrific ways. Six months ago, most Americans were stunned to discover how differently others in the world regard us from the way we see ourselves. Globalism is a major reason. Invasive American culture -- from movies, music, fast-food -- have highlighted political and religious differences, from Europe to the Middle East and South Asia. So have networked, hi-tech economies based on information and tech, argues a new book by George Soros.

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?

Comments

a little nonsense, but hey - it's near April Fools

[mesocyclone]

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.

No after versus before here

[Logic Bomb]

I fail to see how anything in this article differs substantially from anything said about globalization pre-9/11... especially by Jon Katz. I guess next week we'll be treated to a similarly-rehashed version of the (already useless) discussion of whether globalization is a good thing.

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.

running away from the world

[wiredog]

We seem to be running away from the world, and much of the world hates us for it.

Much of the world hated us when we weren't running away from it.

For example

Syrian Radio blared before the 1967 war, "The Arab seas and the fish in them will feed on the Americans' rotting imperialist bodies." Thirty-five years before Mr. Atta's work on 9/11, Radio Cairo trumped Syrian calumny with the macabre but now prescient warning, "Millions of Arabs are preparing to blow up all of America's interests, all of America's installations, and your entire existence, America." The same big lies that we see today on al Jazeera were the everyday stuff of the latter 1960s -- when official government radio stations blared out daily untruths that Americans had bombed Arab countries during the Six Day War and so prevented a "sure" Muslim victory.

Re:running away from the world

[4of12]

I was going to say that most Americans are not actively running away from the world. [What stands for "news" in many Arabic language daily papers would leave many of us open-mouthed and incredulous.]

Rather, we ignore the rest of the world and consider America to be our world.

That's why most Americans were aghast and surprised by the 9/11 attack, because most of them didn't have any clue about the ideas that circulating in the rest of the world.

Our own media bears much responsibility in this regard, because it, too, has largely become part of an apparatus of market-based forces - infotainment used to embed valuable advertisements. George Soros makes a good point there.

I think the scariest part of globalism is that with free movement of corporations between nations, there will be a tendency for those corporations to be attracted to nations with a vacuum of regulations, enabling them to operate in what they find to be the friendliest environment from a pure market perspective. Zero corporate taxes, little corporate liability or responsibility apart from "returning shareholder value".

Unfortunately, I don't think a good, rational consensus can yet be built at the international level as to a proper corporate regulatory environment. There are too many special interests that would burden things in all kinds of contorted ways, pretty much as many nation states have done. There simply has to be a way of achieving some balanced policy that combines both perspectives, where returned shareholder value is everything, and where cost is no object to achieving a global optimum of human happiness.

As a consequence, you'll see more and more nations gravitating towards being run for corporate interests, which have only the small inertial forces of ethics among their chief executives preventing them from abandoning even more traditional human values and morals in order to achieve a better return on shareholder value.

It will probably be some years before this evolution of nation/corporate states comes to a head, but inevitably it will.

While I strongly believe that free, unfettered flow of accurate information and individual empowerment (such as democracy) are vital to finding a good solution, these two particular ideals may not necessarily be included in either the solutions that provide maximum shareholder value, or in some of the proposed solutions that supposedly provide optimum global human happiness.

Re:running away from the world

[letxa2000]

there are many healthy reasons to dislike america, especially post-1945. for the past half-century, the u.s. has been engaged in fucking over anything and anyone who might pose a threat to its investments (present and future).

I love it when people just point to money.

Sure, there are economic concerns that come in to play. But mostly it's political and strategic interests that U.S. acts on.

Did we get involved in Kuwait because of oil? Yes.

Did we care about the oil because of its economic worth? Perhaps a little, but the main reason is because our country depends on that oil. Not just economically, but socially and militarily. Take away that oil for long enough and the U.S. can't defend itself, can't travel, and society itself changes--if we're not invaded.

Sure, money was a concern. But it was way down on the list compared to strategic reasons to get involved.

Yes, we get involved all over the world. Sometimes it's annoying even to us Americans. But after December 7th, 1941, can anyone say that the United States should simply look the other way? That's what got us bombed at Pearl Harbor. We got caught with our pants down and NO, we're not going to look the other way.

Yes, we are interested in our wellbeing. Of course we are. Every country is. As the most powerful country we have more enemies and, thus, tend to be involved in more places. That with the goal that we'd rather fight in a foreign country than have our country bombed. That's just plain logical.

So before you go blaming every U.S. move on money, look at it from a strategic, political, and military standpoint. Sure, money is always a consideration, but strategic and political reasons are almost always the immediate reason for U.S. action... money is secondary.

Re:running away from the world

[sillyopolis]

Many of the knee-jerk rabidly anti-American arguments here are prejudiced if not simply incompetent. Americans were not "surprised" at being attacked because they have some sort of fantasy about everyone in the world liking them. People are "surprised" that anyone would have the utter lack of decency and humanity required to carry off such a horrific attack against innocent people. In short, Americans tend to expect the best from people -- they tend to hope and expect that other people are moral and just. This is the characteristic American openness that in some ways helped make 9/11 possible. Don't get me wrong -- I like that openness, though I dislike when people exploit it.

Saying that America is at the same time insular and has profound reach and influence in the world is a convenient argument of fiction designed to drag America's name through the mud either way you go. No nation is perfect and all nations are guilty by their collective natures.

I would agree with you that the free movement of corporations amongst nations can represent a risk, but it can also represent a protection. Nations must be able to compete with each other for the benefits that corporations can bring. The consistent basis for protection against abuse of that flexibility is norms of international law that protect individuals as well as corporations from harmful and illegal influences.

It's really tiring to hear the old line though of "it's America's fault" when either a) barely a shred of discussion is offered to support the argument, or b) no contrary examples are offered to explain the horrible actions perpetrated by other nations.

The problem is not that the world is overrun by American influence and culture. The problem is that the world needs to stop being so obsessed with America and get on with the business of minding their own business, with a healthy understanding that both 1) extreme attachments to nationalism and 2) knee-jerk accusations of nationalism represent the same kind of prejudice.

I find it ironic and interesting that the same people in one breath accuse America on the one hand of being isolated and ignorant of the rest of the world, and on the other hand of being too involved and too present in the world.

Nothing will satisfy such people. They argue toward self-defamation, and not toward the truth.

Re:running away from the world

[4of12]

People are "surprised" that anyone would have the utter lack of decency and humanity required to carry off such a horrific attack against innocent people.

I didn't express myself clearly or you didn't understand what I meant.

I don't blame the United States for the events of 9/11. I think that quite clearly the perpetrators of that event need to shoulder full responsibility for it, as well as those who trained them and provided financial support.

But you fall into the same cultural pit of isolation as the rest of us peasants. What you can call utter lack of decency (and, I, too, FWIW), believe it or not, others can refer to as a strike against Satanic and infidel immorality, justified by God. Those hijackers went to their deaths believing they were doing a good thing not an evil deed. I don't believe it was a good deed, but the fact is, they did and, more to the point, there are many people out there in the world who still do believe that sort of thing.

It's probably as incomprehensible to you as to most Americans that believe that innocent civilians should not be the targets of political violence. But there it is. It's real. They believe something different, even if you think it's a crock.

I find it ironic and interesting that the same people in one breath accuse America on the one hand of being isolated and ignorant of the rest of the world, and on the other hand of being too involved and too present in the world.
It's like this: most Americans don't know a foreign language, don't read foreign media or watch foreign television. Most everything they understand about the outside world comes through network television news. I submit that they are therefore isolated and ignorant of the rest of the world.

Meanwhile, many of the world's largest corporations are based in the USA. Their trade ventures into the rest of the world are very important, both to us and to the rest of the world, because of the economic benefits that derive from such trade.

What those countries see are not you and me. They see vice presidents of American corporations, negotiating business arrangements in their countries. Those Americans have a different culture, act in different ways, and are yet quite important. You may think that Americans are represented by the State Department. That's only a small part of it. America is represented by corporate officers overseas and by the media which it broadcasts, such as Baywatch, Dallas, etc.

You and I may know that America is not what is portrayed on television, but most of the rest world sees only that. They think we're all materialistic airheads, concerned more about our looks than the well-being of our fellow man, ready to go on a gun-crazed killing spree out of vengeance for some trifle.

I think America is more than that, but I harbor no illusions that just because we are good, that the rest of the world will automatically know it just as we know it.

Re:running away from the world

[sillyopolis]

It may be you took my post as responding to you in particular, when I was referring to the general character of posts -- not yours per se. Yours inspired a response, but I realize you see more than the single-minded vision of America being at the root of all problems.

However, there are some problems with your response.

You write: "It's probably as incomprehensible to you as to most Americans that believe that innocent civilians should not be the targets of political violence. But there it is. It's real. They believe something different, even if you think it's a crock."

Go back and read my post -- I think you didn't read my understanding correctly. I am not deying that ignorant and violent people exist or that they have different points of view (this seems to be your impression of my post): JUST the opposite.

I'm not saying it's incomprehensible; in fact I'm saying you misjudge people when you accuse them of being "suprised" in a manner that lacks apprehension. The shock people experienced on 9/11 was overwhelmingly shock at the horror of the event, and the nature of the target. It's one thing to see a military target attacked, but when a civilian target is hit, yes indeed, that represents surprise: not an act of violence has occurred, but that it has been carried out against civilians.

I may grant you that this punctured some sense of safety many Americans have felt, but that does not change the simple fact that *most Americans do understand that some people hate America.* One would have to have been blind in the last half century to not understand that.

Your theory that Americans don't know or care what's going on in the world is simply untrue. Americans may not be interested in getting involved in every conflict that you want them to get involved in, but I can assure you that when they do, some of the same people who protest lack of involvement (not necessarily you in this case) will be right there to criticize that interest and involvement. The arguments about involvement or non-involvement are generally hollow and have no serious consequence. In the international, arena, America is criticized for being involved; and then, for not being involved. A difference of principle or opinion is considered ignorance, rather than a difference of opinion. I tell you many times, this perception by outsiders is itself a shallow kind of ignorance. This is not my prognosis for how the whole world operates, but I highlight it here because it is an arrogance that is often overlooked.

Some people can never be made happy, no matter what choices America makes. The fact of my personal experience in this lifetime is that most Americans are good hearted people and do care about others, and are interested. Is everyone an intellectual pyramid about what's going on in the world? No more than in other places in the world -- why measure people according to nations in this regard? Is there a nation in the world that you can single out as being particulary informed about America? Do you see why I might find failure in this point?

Whether most Americans speak more than one language or not may deprive them of some cultural breadth, but that is more than made up for in the rich tapestry of immigrant culture that has helped build America over the generations. Language is a feature of culture but it's not the only feature. Furthermore, 10% of the U.S. population is foreign born, and these influences do contribute to what people understand about the world. How many nations can say that? Yes, there are people who don't appreciate that instruction and influence, but the tact of blaming people en masse for what they don't understand and with the flimsiest of explanations is a completely ineffective method of instruction. The aggregate effect of that in media and public discourse conditions people to listen less to criticism, not more.

I'm not denying flaws -- certainly they exist (who can say that's not true of any nation?). But there are some people in America and elsewhere who will deny the virtues of America or deny the flaws of other nations out of hand -- as a reflexive movement. That's the only thing I have a problem with -- not you or your post (and please remember the liberty I've taken to express some general comments here that are not tied to what you said -- this is not aimed at you per se).

As for what happened on 9/11, it's not a matter of being incomprehensible to me. I comprehend it exactly: it's *reprehensible* to me. Somehow, although it may not suit your definition, I manage myself to be aghast at what I find reprehensible. However it does not indicate a lack of understanding or previous expectation on my part. There's a difference.

In short, I fully expect more horrible terrorist attacks against innocents to occur in the world, and quite possibly in America again in the future. If you pursue the mathematical odds, history would suggest this is inevitable on one scale or another. I would say other Americans equally share that understanding. However people will still be shocked and aghast when such things happen. It is not a sound basis for criticizing the level of understanding of what differences in opinion exist in the world.

On another point: Yes, some people think they did a good thing, but it's morally and ethically unjustifiable. I understand some people have a different point of view but that doesn't compel me to pander to it as being a view worthy of equal treatment. The celebration of and actual death of innocent people purely on the basis of nationality, race, gender, or any other accepted social classification you can think of is wrong. Period. If you wish you can write it off as an existential equality, but I'm not an existentialist and perhaps you are not either, but if you are we shall forever differ on this point!

I fully understand there are many and varied viewpoints in the world. If you begin from the vantage point that I don't understand this, you fail to see the nuance I am trying to illustrate here. The point is not that I can't see that nuance. I can, and I fully appreciate the presence of that ignorance in many parts of the world -- an ignorance that suggests to people that they can use violence against innocent people as a means to protest or solve a problem. There are people in every part of the world who have that misguided view -- I take no position on which nation has or has not ignorance. They all have a share.

In your recent post you write, "I think America is more than that, but I harbor no illusions that just because we are good, that the rest of the world will automatically know it just as we know it."

If you have this patience for the world, perhaps you should take a step back and exercise the same patience -- or at least positive effort -- for America. You may recall in your earler post, you write:

"That's why most Americans were aghast and surprised by the 9/11 attack, because most of them didn't have any clue about the ideas that circulating in the rest of the world."

If you "harbor no illusions" about the rest of the world "automatically" understanding America, then why do you 'blame' Americans for not automatically understanding the rest of the world?

I see this as a double standard.

-silly

Running Away?

[e1en0r]

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.

Re:Running Away?

[Kibo]

I think that's why they say they hate us, but in reality the people who do hate the US are just stupid and poor.

They see us making trade demands from everyone, our fingers in too many pies, and think it greedy or maybe arrogant. But it's just that we're the largest trading partner of most countries. Our national interests are simply more distributed, and unsurprisingly, our foreign policy follows our interests. But there's a strange sort of dichotomy. I think it might come from the value placed on individuality, where by and large people take care of their own crap. Perhaps other cultures see national agreements more holistically. And perhaps expect something more than free trade for any concessions made, and we've left the building. We're watching Access Hollywood for an update on the personal dramas of Britney and Justin, or something equally mundane. A baby who inexplicably fell down a well, whatever. And the populace of other countries feels that the US is too conceited for it power, or too powerful for its conceit. But the truth is much less interesting. It's simply a matter of my goods for your money or my money for your goods, and if you expect me to even entertain the prospect of this process, there are going to be a few things we need to agree on first.

Then you have people, such as the palestinians, who expect to just be happy because some book I've never read says they deserve it. They picked a fight, they lost. And now they're really loosing. (Good.) They expect the US to wave a magic wand and just solve all their problems for them, without any effort on their part. Even if the world did work that way, and history has consistantly shown us it doesn't, why on Earth would we possibly intervene on behalf of the palestinians, given the past years events, and the occasions they choose for celebration?

If it wasn't in such a tragic context, even Arafat's recent statments would be funny. According to him the US is directly responsible for palestinian deaths because the Isralies use some american hardware, and the palestinians are not directly responsible Isralie civilian casualties because they are short on saritonin re-uptake inhibitors, or something. They really feel entitled to everything, and it's somehow our obligation to just give it to them, and they shouldn't even have to stop killing innocent people to get it. It's pretty obvious I've got no pity left for the palestinians. But I do think they have an excuse of sorts.

Some of the data I've read suggests the the majority of the people in the muslim world, which is vastly poorer than the west on a per capita average, are illiterate. Being illiterate and raised in enviroments that even in their mildest forms I would consider reactionary and fundementalist, and having few sources of information, they grow up without bullshit detectors. This and the fact they grow up with a religion that extols, in some instances, the murder of civilians and suicide, and a culture where people think nothing of using people for political ends, well it's to be expected. But we can't make them rich, we can't make them smart, we can't grow bullshit detectors in vasts and have missionaries and peace corps volunteers insert them using a novel out-patient procedure. They've got to help themselves, too bad for them they don't see it that way. Too bad for us too.

Well, at least I get to see some stuff blow up on CNN. There's the steel lining I guess.

Re:Running Away?

[delcielo]

They hate us for sticking our nose in their business when they don't want it; and they hate us for not sticking our nose in their business when they feel they need it.

Perfect case in point: "Why isn't America, the richest nation on Earth, doing something about the famine in Somalia?" So the U.S. starts shipping food over as fast as it can. The warlords steal the food from the people. So the U.S. sends troops in to protect the food/people. "Why is America interfering with poor little Somalia? Why is America hunting the muslim warlords? It must be because they're muslims. The infidels are attacking."

Re:a little nonsense, but hey - it's near April Fo

[Stonehand]

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.

The US already knows this

[Monkeyman334]

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 effect of September 11.

[Kaz Kylheku]

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.

Good to see misinformation is alive and well.

[neema]

"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.

Re:Good to see misinformation is alive and well.

[Mr.Intel]

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.

Anything that happened between 1943 and 1989 is a result of the Cold War and blame can be placed on any number of countries/leaders. There is no excuse for killing of any kind in my book (except maybe capital punishment). None of these things were necessarily 'right' or 'good', but they may have been the best thing at the time to do. Besides, countries make mistakes just like you and me. Throwing up a list of the brightest and most horrible as an attack is childish and naive.

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.

Tell that to the jews in America that have tremendous political clout. The US is a republic that more often than not listens to it's constituents and that is why Israel gets the guns and planes. Add to that the need for an American interest in the region and you have a strong impetus for the US to stay involved in Israel.

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.

Maybe you should spend some time in a foreign school where they feed you the "We hate Americans because they starve our children" line every day when in fact the dictator has 58% of the countries wealth, food, electricity and clean water in his 100 palaces. Then you can begin to be justified in claiming to want to know "the real matters at hand."

Re:America is better.

[MtViewGuy]

AMEN!!

I think what makes the USA so resented is the very fact that because of the fact our Constitution has been pretty much stable since 1789, we have perhaps the second longest-lasting representative republic (the first being Great Britain) in the world. This has provided a stable base for economic development in this country.

It also has helped that even with our unfortunate War Between the States in 1861 to 1865, our country never had a situation where the entire country suffered grevious losses on an unimagined scale. Look at Great Britain--they lost a very large fraction of their country's finest young men in World War I, which began their decline as a world power. France and Germany in the 20th Century suffered seriously from the effects of two World Wars. A large part of the former Soviet Union in its European parts suffered horribly in World War II. Japan suffered heavy losses during World War II. Chinca suffered heavy losses during World War II, especially the areas under Japanese occupation.

I think the world envies us because when we put the mind to it, we have the capacity to out-produce just about anyone on this planet. Why do you think we pretty much put the structure of the Internet into place? CERN in Europe may have invented the World Wide Web, but it was here in the USA that the World Wide Web was developed to be very easy to use, thanks to the development of the Mosaic web browser in the early 1990's.

I also think the success of the USA has shown that Islam is often incapable of relevancy in the 21st Century. Their religious leaders need to form the equivalent of the Council of Trent AND the Second Vatican Council so they can make the religion relevant in our modern world.

Thank You

[Ars-Fartsica]

Thank you for pointing out that what lefties in the West perceive as grass-roots poltical banter out of the Middle East is simply the same message they have promoting for decades: the destruction of Israel, the destruction of the West, the imposition of autocracy.

Now why the Islamic cultures despise the West is obvious - their culture is in decline, their dictatorial and dogmatic structures cannot withstand open examination, and they seek to villify what they see as the agent of change, instead of recognizing and adapting to change itself.

Incorrect

[Ars-Fartsica]

Funny, I thought they hated us for sticking our noses in their business.

Modern Saudi Arabia wouldn't exist without the US sticking its nose very far into the Middle East. The regime is propped up with US aid and oil money, although paradoxically it is the Saudis funding most of the anti Western efforts.

The reason they hate the West is because the West, for all its trash culture, is a free culture, and their model of rule is a contradiction of freedom. Their culture is in decline, their power is eroding, and they know that if their own populaces were empowered, most of them would be executed.

An English stance

[waterbiscuit]

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.

Re:European perspective

[benphegan]

Not a good excuse for a nation that thinks "International News" means from inter-state. I am an Australian living in London. Australia is an (almost) equally large landmass a lot further from anywhere than the US, with a lot smaller population and a similar culture. Yet after spending some time in America I was amazed at how much more Australians travel and understand the rest of the world in comparison. And although our media is also predictably controlled by its own interests we do have a lot more information available about world events, probably due to demand.

I dont think that it is so much of a perspective problem, I think that America needs to readjust its view of where it fits in the world. Have a look around folks....why dont people like you? Have a go at understanding that, maybe try and fix it. But hey, not with bombs, alright?

The Problem Isn't Globalization, But Our Hypocrisy

[enkidu]

The parts of the world that hate us, (even those that do hate us seem to love other parts of the U.S.), don't hate us because we have so much power, or because we export so much of our "decadent" culture, or because they "hate our freedom", or even because we are turning our back" on the rest of the world. They hate the U.S. because they view us as hypocrites. And so we are.

We talk of free trade and then enact tariffs to protect our industries from "unfair" trading. We talk of democracy and we support repressive, undemocratic regimes. We talk of justice and refuse it to innocent victims of our bombings. We talk of international rules but ignore them when it doesn't suit us. We talk of equality but treat all others as inferiors. We talk of freedom but want our "partner" nations to do what we tell them to do. What do you expect?

And who is to blame? We all are to blame. The media is to blame for ignoring their public responsibility, printing and broadcasting spineless mush (like this piece) that serve the interests of corporations and stability. The government is to blame for supporting coroporate profits to the exclusion of higher social and diplomatic goals. And we the public are to blame, for electing these bozos, for giving them high approval ratings when they do not deserve them, for not demanding better coverage of the foreign press and international affairs, for being content with our computers, our SUV's, our anime cartoons and our prosperity with no thought as to how these things are produced. We are to blame because we allow our government to continue to act hypocritically and we say nothing.

So don't give me that bullshit about "abandoning" the global arena. Globalization isn't the problem. It's our hypocrisy that is pissing people off. And it's pissing me off too.

Deconstructionist view of the universe

[nadador]

Katz already answered his own question, "Is globalism good or evil?" by the very context of his remarks here. He pits globalism as the necessary evil against religous fanaticism by making the rather remarkable leap that countries unwilling to bow to the will of the modern market will undoubtedly spin out in a blaze of religiosity.

Antiglobalists, and Katz to some extent, fall prey to the currently very vogue deconstructionist view of the universe. In that sense, the only proposal of their vitriolic spew is to attack the organic unity of any tradition or political philosophy that the avante garde determine is their next target. The great problem with adopting a Derrida-esque view of the universe is that you aren't left with much but nihlistic fatalism and a sense of martyrdom. There's an article in the January/February issue of Foreign Affairs that points this out perfectly. The author (whose name escapes me at the moment) states that antiglobalists make the assumption that desconstructionism (a philosophical movement that sprung out of a reaction to formalist literary theory) should not be considered to be a more appropriate or humane or sanctified way of viewing the universe than economics, at least not a priori. His point is that deconstructing globalism doesn't necessarily get you anywhere, and its not even a necessarily appropriate thing to do.

So Katz secures his place in the vanguard of populist philosophy by lamenting the evils of globalism while recognizing its pacifying effect on populaces that, in Katz view, are likely to succumb to religious fanaticism. We all admire the irony and struggle in Katz' voice. Lets all have a quiet moment and think about what a great writer Katz is.

The only problem is that Katz' deconstruction of globalism hasn't left us with anything productive. The net gain to the universe is zero. No new knowledge has been propogated, no new thought inspired - just insipid moaning and ranting and raving.

All I'm asking is that when we discuss matters of such great importance that our goal be to synthesize some new rational thought that actually produces a net gain for the universe. If we discuss globalism, let's discuss ways of mitigating its faults rather than eloquently rehashing all of the arguments against it.

Re:Its about -concentration- of wealth

[istartedi]

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.

Useless babble

[radicalsubversiv]

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.

... 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 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.

Re:Next: Is Globalism good or evil ?

[ethereal]

Chaotic neutral?

Re:a little nonsense, but hey - it's near April Fo

[saider]

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.

Re:Its about -concentration- of wealth

[mesocyclone]

This is irrelevant to the issue of terrorism, because the terrorists themselves were not poor. They had a very good standard of living by world standards.

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.

Religious holidays

[strombrg]

You forgot to mention religious holidays.

Personally, I don't see how Muslims could avoid being worried about the way globalism is likely to push christmas and other christian holidays on them. Many christians really get an attitude when you don't want to celebrate their religious holidays with them, and many of these people control the popular media which is being exported, increasingly, to foreign nations. It quite literally is a threat to the Muslim way of life, as well as the ways of life of other religious peoples, as well as atheists, some agnostics, and probably others too.

Semantics: Globalism vs. Corporate Imperialism

[alexander.morgan]

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.

Re:"hegemony" = We have an inferiotity complex

[Iguanaphobic]

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.

You need a clue.

[Reknamorken]

Maybe you should get real. It looks to me like you took this persons declaration of age to be something to attack his ideas with. That's ridiculous.

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.

Re:Next: Is Globalism good or evil ?

[benwaggoner]

That's like asking if weather is Good or Evil. To the extent we're going to have a multinational economy (and who doesn't want to have fresh strawberries in December, and laptops made in Taiwan), globalism, as strictly defined, is the way this all works.

Globalism gives us many wonderful things we all want. The question isn't Globalism: yes or no. The question is how best to encourage its benefits and deal with its disadvantages. No one has proposed any alternative to Globalism that isn't much worse than things are today, let alone how good they could be.

One of the charming ironies of global capitalism is that it achieves the "from each according to their abilities" part of the socialist creed far better than pure socialism ever did. Of course, a pure capitalism doesn't address the "to each according to their needs" part at all, which is why there aren't any pure capitalist societies in the world, and why we need to strengthen and improve the World Bank and IMF, not eliminate them.

What we want is a global economy where people can compete ferociously on production, but where there is properly integrated environmental protection, and a safety net where none starve, and all can get a good education irrespective of the economic success or failure of their parents.

Global capitalism means we can all get goods and services as the lowest cost available for the quality we need. Remember, the two ways you get richer are through wages going up and prices going down. Those who want high steel tariffs want to enrich the few at the expense of the many.

For those curious about the details, check out David Ricardo.

Re:a little nonsense, but hey - it's near April Fo

[pangloss]

OMFG.

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:

• USDOJ Homicide Trends In U.S.
• UK Homicide Statistics
• Violent Deaths and Firearms, The International Context

Re:I don't know what subject to give this...

[joss]

In Europe they hate US because
a) americans think the sun shines out their ass
b) americans are amazingly ignorant about non-us
c) [and this really grates] americans are more powerful and more successful (although standard of living is often higher in europe).

In 3rd world, it is much more love hate relationship, jealousy plays a part, but a feeling that they've been robbed of freedom and wealth by US is much more significant. West encourages and finances coups. Then it lends money to resulting dictatorships. The money is spent by dictators on arms bought from west and used to subdue population. Country then has big debt that it owes west which is paid for by growing export crops (coffee, choclate, coke, whatever). However, the export crops have collapsed in value, so they can barely afford to buy grain from US after having converted their agriculture to cash crops at behest of IMF. Also, the regimes we prop up are necessarily friendly to western business interests at expense of local industry. Effectively, entire populations are enslaved and set to work for west, their natural resources exported for a pitance, and all this without us having to bother with the hassle of explicit invasion. Neat, huh.

Anyway, accurate or not, this understanding of what's going on is what makes people less than fond of US. It's not that they "hate our freedom", they hate their own slavery and don't think it's entirely an accident.

To every problem...

[jpellino]

...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.

"Invasive American culture" -- no way.

[TheMonkeyDepartment]

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.

Re:Misconceptions on "Wahabism" and Arabs

[mesocyclone]

Nothing you have said denies that Wahabism (as it is called in the west) is an extreme sect of Islam (which is different from saying Islam is extreme). You appear to have misunderstood me. And anyone who has seen how religion works in Saudi Arabia (and I am not talking from what the media says here) recognizes extremism there. And since, as you point out, the Saudi's have embraced it. The movement has hardly snowballed until recently with Saudi funding of Wahabi teaching throughout the world.

And I do not consider my support of Israel to be blind. I have read in depth about the subject and I find your statements to be distortions. Israel does not threaten the world, as does Saddam. Iraq gets cruise missiles and bombs because it is ruled by a dangerous maniac who has demonstrated his willingness to kill innocent people in large numbers. We did not confront him until he invaded Kuwait, in case you do not remember. Kuwait and Saudi Arabia asked for our help, as they feared him (and do so today). BTW, are you aware that Saddam is not truly a muslim, and only recently has claimed to be one because it is convenient to him. The Baathist movement (which rules Syria and Iraq) are secular anti-religious movements.

The Iraqi children accusation is one of the most outrageous lies. Yes, they are dying. No, we are not killing them. Saddam is killing them. Do you know that he has built 40 palaces since the Gulf war. Don't you think that money might help those children? We do not embargo medicines or food, so the fate of those children is directly caused by Saddam and his greed and evil.

As far as Israel goes, they are not innocent. I do not think they should have the settlements, and many Israeli's don't either.

BUT... they do not kill children on purpose. They do not target families at religious ceremonies and blow them up. They do not say one thing in english (condemning terrorism) and the opposite in their native language (as Arafat does). They do not oppress those Muslims who are their own citizens, and they fight the Palestinians only because they are being attacked.

If you were to poll Israeli's, you would find all but a small minority who want nothing other than to live in peace, and are willing to return the West Bank and Gaza to get it. If you look at official PA statements, they want nothing other than to drive the Israeli's into the sea, and are willing to target and intentionally kill women and children in order to do so.

As far as I am concerned. Yasser Arafat is an evil man and always has been. He used terrorism against innocents for decades. He has stolen much of the money that the west (including the US) gave the PA.

However, all of this is mute. I will never convince you of any of this. What will happen is that the despots and dictators of the middle east who allow terrorists will be swept away by our military power. And this is as it should be... well not really. It would be better if you would get rid of them, instead of making excuses for monsters like Saddam. BTW... can you explain why there are no true democracies in all of Araby? Why Iran is suppressing its own citizens who want freedom?

There are certain moral issues that are simple, and others that are very difficult. In my opinion, he who intentionoally targets women and children in warfare is evil. It is wrong. And I include the US and Britain in this in their WW-II bombing campaigns - even though they were in retaliation for similar behavior by Germany.

You can argue about Palestinians all you want, but until the civilized Palestinians are in power, I am not interested. Civilized human beings do not target innocents. Civilized human beings do not send their young out to kill innocents while killing themselves. In fact, most interpretations of Islam condemn suicide for any purpose!

Don't mix the two stories

[trumpetplayer]

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.

Re:Its about -concentration- of wealth

[nathanm]

For example, compare the democratic freedoms an Israeli arab has vs. an Iranian Jew (if any are left).

Or compare the democratic freedoms any Iranian has compared to an Israeli arab.

Iran is a rather strange case. The elected government is more moderate than ever, but their (non-elected) Council of Elders has de-facto veto rights over any policies the government changes. The best hope there is that the Council is composed of 12 Mullahs in their 70s and older. They won't be around forever.

There is a huge difference between a "partial" democracy and a real democracy.

Some degree of democracy does not a democracy make.

Then by that measure, there are no democracies. A pure democracy has never been tried (on a whole country scale at least). It's for good reason too: i.e. civil rights in the US couldn't happen in a pure democracy.

Actually, Turkey is an exception. Funny... they are an Israeli ally.

Turkey is in some respects less of a democracy than many other Arab countries. The Kurds in western Turkey are treated pretty bad, many are political prisoners.