by sleepy 27 Replies latest jw friends
I don't want this to become an American bashing thread. America is the leader of the western world but there are many, many more countries included in "the west" than them. All guilty in one way or another.
Of course all of us, even the ones decrying the injustice, are sat in comfy homes with computers and food in the fridge ...
good post bigboi....
Simon, could you please ban the commies from this board and bring FredHall back? I'd rather read his nonsense than this crap!
Mike.
Holier than thou, seems to be running its course.
The U.S.A does plenty of shitty things to plenty of other countries. Why is that? I don't see any other countries in the world trying to help as many people as we do. When you pay out Billions to help others sometimes you have to step on people to get things done. I do think it is arrogant to assume that the American way should be everyones way though. Some things work for some countries and others don't.
As far as enviromental concerns. We have the ability to set the example for the rest of the world to follow but we don't. I don't have an answer for that problem though. I do think Bush is stupid for spending taxpayers money for another (read:something that tells him what he wants to hear) study to decide if Global warming is real.
I never said anything about America being holier than thou...but be realistic. We can and do help people, and if encouraging democracy is a bad thing, geez, i don't know what to say to you. I keep forgetting how terrible Democracy impacts a population. I mean, the American way, it's disasterous to do things the american way.
I can see what you mean by it not working for everyone. the Somalia thing was an example of that. I guess we should just let people kill and starve each other to death because we wouldn't want to establish a democracy and screw up their way of doing things, their culture.
You do have to step on toes to get things done sometimes. Sorry. That's life. This isn't the new order with Jehovah calling the shots. I think it's wrong to not give America it's due. Despite some flaws. Just ask all the refugees who risk their lives to come to this "awful" country that "bullies" other countries with food, medical aid, humanitarian supplies, etc....
I agree with Environmental issues being neglected. Something needs to change on this. But give America and the West a break. Its good there are folks who don't agree with everything the USA does, but they at least need to acknolwedge SOME MAJOR POSITIVE CONTRIBUTION the US has had on the world at large.
I think that the days of the U.S. being leader of the world are numbered.
There will be some major financial catastrophe, then some charismatic fascist hyper-nationalist leader will create a militaristic, totalitarian state. The totalitarian state will experience a brief glory, then it will slowly lose it's momentum, ultimately dying violently or fading away.
It's the perennial pattern.
To condemn the so-called ``West'' for its prosperity is to suggest that prosperity per se is ``evil''. If that's the operative axiom, then its corollary is that there's virtue in poverity.
It's indisputable that where we are when we first open our eyes to the world is a mere caprice of chance. Rather than name-calling and finger-pointing, the most--indeed the only -- constructive approach to tackling this intractable ``inequitable distirbution of resources'' problem is to recognize that it's everyone's problem, whatever side of the border we were born on, and that we all have to cooperate --sweat and sacrifice together -- to solve it, or we sink together.
It seams wealth and exploitation are being confused.The issue is not whether the west is wealthy and that that is something bad, but that the west exploits the worlds resources and poorer countries and holds monopolies over these resources.This in part being driven by our demands for certain goods that we find "nessessary" for life , and want cheap.
Of cource there are other factors involved, but we do directly effect the lives of people around the world by what we use.Often we are so distanced from the poverty of the rest of this planet we do not care nor think about it.
Some examples are that of the dimond, which an African may mine to earn a few pounds, risking his life and working long hours,yet will be sold for thousands in the west, or a factoury in Inda that makes footballs using children paid pennies yet is sold in Britian for 30 quid, or prehaps TV made in china for a few quid yet sold for 100's in the west, a factory that also pollutes that country and poisions local people.
Edited by - sleepy on 27 August 2002 17:2:33
