Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Cathy Cooper on February 22, 2011 at 10:34am

It benefits the Capitalists, as it maintains chaos.  Chaos is required for the Capitalists to maintain the status quo, because if there was no chaos, there would be rebellion against the system itself.

 

They lie to people in other countries, and tell them they will be "rich" in order to "switch" their system from Socialism or Communism.  Then they turn it into a Capitalist system where the Corporations are all American owned with cheap sources of labor, and officials who are paid off goons.  You can read about it The Economic Hitman"--even Vietnam was an "Economic War."

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Permalink Reply by Cathy Cooper on February 22, 2011 at 11:20am

Thanks, I couldn't remember the exact title of the book....but it certainly changed the way I looked at governments and the news media.  I am going to check the other book you cited as well.

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Permalink Reply by Jaume on February 22, 2011 at 12:12pm

But that's what they usually do, don't they? According to G. W. Bush, the US's interference with Afghanistan and Iraq was a just cause. Who are you to decide what is 'just' when a democratically elected (ahem) head of state thinks otherwise? ;-)

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Permalink Reply by Ben on February 22, 2011 at 1:14pm

I would take the description of "assist" one step further. I would not provide assistance that was military in nature. Only humanitarian where there is not one side you are taking against another.  Example: famine, drought, tsunami, earthquake assistance.

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Permalink Reply by Pope OoO (Out of Order) on February 24, 2011 at 7:49pm

Absolutely.

And furthermore (and still on-topic), perhaps we could have (e.g.) cost-effectively helped prevent some devastation in Haiti before their earthquake, by helping them improve their living conditions. But of course that kind of focus is even further off than focusing on the nearer term post-disaster aid.

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Permalink Reply by T A A on February 25, 2011 at 1:56am

That kind of aid would bring no benefit to our charity organisations... unfortunately, even charity is a business, especially among the religious, which is a major influx to Haiti, keeping them poor and subdued. In our society charity rarely accomplishes improvement, it mostly only accomplishes self-aggrandisement. They don't need our charity, they need us to stop interfering with their economy, and allow low cost non-profit-based knowledge transfers so they can accede to increased autonomy, especially in the area of food and water, those are the basics. Haitians already have a relatively solid educational system, it's just that it only teaches basic literacy dominated by religious values.

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Permalink Reply by Albert Bakker on February 22, 2011 at 12:34pm

The desire to do good is on of the greatest tools for manipulation of the masses in propaganda.

Like Jaume said you can't know. Usually a good way to know whether you are being manipulated is when you suddenly realize that you feel very strongly about a place you only have a vague idea about where you could find it without typing it into the search-box in Google Earth.

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Permalink Reply by Jaume on February 22, 2011 at 12:38pm

The desire to do good is on of the greatest tools for manipulation of the masses in propaganda.

 

And "the road to Hell is paved with good intentions."

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Permalink Reply by Albert Bakker on February 22, 2011 at 12:44pm

Another is when you are convinced you're being put in immediate existential danger by a small, sparsely populated island somewhere in the Caribbean without really being able to explain why.

 

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Permalink Reply by Ben on February 22, 2011 at 12:04pm

No, we should not be involved in other countries wars. We should mind our own business. Even if we asked to interfere we shouldn't.

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Permalink Reply by Jaume on February 22, 2011 at 12:27pm

Saudi oil is the US's business. Containing China's aggressive economic policies is the US's business. Stability in developing countries for the sake of, well, Big Business, is the US's business. It won't be easy to shake the mindset that every place in the world but my toilet (and I'm not even sure about that), is the US's business.

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Permalink Reply by Jaume on February 22, 2011 at 12:35pm

Yep (even my toilet. ) Globalization meant a lot of things a while back, but the only thing that's been actually globalized today is business.

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