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Politics : High Tolerance Plasticity -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: CpsOmis who wrote (7715)	9/12/2001 12:46:46 AM
From: kodiak_bull	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 23153

Cosmo, With all due respect, I'm afraid your trip wasn't long enough. First of all, people in the first world by and large earned it. The popular view is that the White European stole all his wealth through colonialism but I don't believe the economic history supports that. Colonialism practically ruined several European powers (Spain and Portugal) and countries without a lick of colonial history (Switzerland, Sweden and Norway) are very wealthy. There's precious little we can do about the world's envy and I for one don't feel like apologizing for someone else's problem. Look at South America--there's no reason why a continent of such great wealth and natural resources shouldn't be as wealthy as the north (indeed, Argentina was, in the 20's, one of the 5-6 richest countries in the world, despite its latin, mercantilist past). Or look at Europe's economy, floundering in weakness and high unemployment levels--why? Well, you can start with the unions and the 8 weeks of annual vacation, the role of the State etc. etc. Do they envy and resent us? Yes. Is it our problem? What are we supposed to do, goof off like they do? I've met Italians who resent that English is the world's international language. Che cosa fa? Parla italiano per fare business? As for the Nike swipe, forget it. The reality of the world economy is, some Indonesian family would face no job, no money, no hope if it weren't for the Indonesian subcontracting factory. What seems like not much money to you is a fortune to someone who's lived on Bangladeshi standards for millenia. It might be all that stands between 3 points on infant mortality rankings, or starvation levels among the under 5 set. The argument is an anti-WTO canard. The Koreans did their transition in sneakers and textiles in the 1960's and 1970's and it was the springboard to a modern economy (they started the 1960s on a par with Morocco, btw). Your post reminds me of the two guys who are slugging it out in a ditch. One says, "Come on, let's stop hurting each other. You stop first." Hitler whipped up his people to certain death and destruction with fantastic rhetoric about how they had been cheated and robbed; I'm sure the bin Ladens of the world can do the same in Arabic. I'm sure some in that world think they have a valid beef with us. But I'm equally sure that there's nothing we could or should do differently in terms of pursuing happiness and wealth. If they can do this with kitchen knives or box rippers or sharpened plastic blades, then we aren't safe until we destroy them where they are. Can't do it at the airport; if you want to hunt tigers, you have to go to where the tigers are. Kb

To: CpsOmis who wrote (7715)	9/12/2001 12:50:07 AM
From: Cogito Ergo Sum	Respond to of 23153

CpsOmis, One of the more cogent posts I have read today. regards Kastel

To: CpsOmis who wrote (7715)	9/12/2001 3:03:33 AM
From: Raymond Duray	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 23153

Hi Cosmo, I share much of your world view. We are distinctly in the minority in even beginning to attempt to understand the motivation of the terrorists who so ruthlessly attacked the heart of capitalist aggression yesterday. I was pretty darn disappointed that CNN would couch the news in terms of an "Attack on America". I beg to differ. It was an attack on an arrogant leadership which has lost touch with the real values it so slavishly mouths while grasping for every unfair advantage imaginable. Unfortunately, a lot of innocent (and a sizeable percentage of not-so-innocent) American citizens were caught in a battle that was not of their making. I feel great sympathy for their losses. Your three months of travel have a distinctly different tone from what I've read from other world travelers commenting here at SI, who moved from resort to resort and dealt exclusively with the international hospitality industry, never having the experience you did with visiting the local populations. Their view was that the U.S. was greatly admired and considered a friend of the world. Frankly, their remarks never rang true to me. Yours do. Re: For those of you who have been to an air show and seen our fighter jets fly overhead it is an incredibly intimidating experience. Walking for a moment in the shoes of those we are intimidating, can you see why we might be seen as arrogant, immoral 'great satan' of a people? My own personal experience is being lit up and targeted by a National Guard helicopter on the quad at the University of Wisconsin in 1970, during a peaceful protest of the Viet Nam War. And yes, the military might of the U.S. is very intimidating, especially when it is concentrated on its own citizens attempting to assert our first amendment rights. Re: However, for us to ignore the fact that their may be a basis for growing and continued hatred of our country is to miss the opportunity for more productive long term solutions. Judging by the rallying of both parties in Washington toward a unified response, and the general reaction of the citizenry, I see very little chance that as a nation we will be learning any valuable lesson as to the root causes of yesterday's terrorist attack or how to ameliorate our arrogance and willful blindness to economic inequalities which, IMO, makes further terrorist attacks almost inevitable. That said, I'm not in favor of a policy of appeasement. Should we be able to identify the organization that is responsible for this act, I'm all in favor of completely eliminating it, as the saying goes, with extreme prejudice. However, I see this as a mere act of revenge that would be a feel-good opportunity for the citizenry of the U.S., but no real solution at all. In fact, totally counterproductive in that it would only help to continue the cycle of reprisals on both sides of the battle. Best, Ray