Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Gold/Mining/Energy : Precious and Base Metal Investing -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jacob Snyder who wrote (881)	12/13/2001 4:56:47 PM
From: pater tenebrarum	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 39344

Jacob, if you're referring to the government-free Somalia, it seems to me it is an experiment in anarcho-capitalism, and governments across the globe are deathly afraid that it might work (so far it DOES work) and prove that one actually doesn't NEED a government. i follow what is happening there with great interest, and you may have heard that Mohammed Aideed, the war lord that the US/UN contingent fought and failed to capture was done in by his own people. the reason: he wanted to form a central government, and the Somalis all definitely agree on one point: NO-ONE is to form another central government. i congratulate them on this stance, and fervently hope that their non-government anarcho-capitalist experiment succeeds! that governments are becoming irrelevant in this region of the globe is not per se a bad thing. it is OUR conventions, our failure to think 'out of the box' that makes us believe we "need" a government. i can very well imagine a world WITHOUT governments. there would probably be a lot less bloodshed and oppression if the world were differently organized. of course, i don't want to deny that reality will likely look a lot different, and that we will likely be saddled with ever bigger government in the future. but it's not a development i welcome. i also urge you to consider the situation from Bin Laden's point of view. he is of course a dangerous madman, but how did he come to be what he is? it is in fact colonialism that has produced him. the major grievance from his PoV is that US troops have remained in the holy land of Saudi Arabia after the Gulf war. no matter how evil a man he is, and how horrible his methods, we can not deny this fact. if there were no Western military presence in the Mid East, it would be highly unlikely that Bin Laden and his ilk would regard us as targets. do i agree with his philosophy, or that espoused by his Taliban brothers in Afghanistan? of course not, and i do in fact support the military intervention there (although i at the same time oppose the severe curtailment of civil liberties at home, which imo will do nothing to protect us, but definitely represent a huge governmental power grab). but many Muslims see this in a different light - they think we're hypocrites, and they're quite right in that regard. since if it were REALLY the values of liberty and democracy we wanted to defend, we wouldn't support a string of feudal, decidedly undemocratic regimes in operetta land. in reality, our access to the Mid East's oil reserves informs our policies toward the region. good from our point of view, since our life style depends on this oil, but from the point of view of the populations of these countries naturally reprehensible. but then, i'd rather cast my lot with us than with them, for obvious reasons. but i have no illusions as to why we're there. so future colonialism to establish our 'new world order', while it looks likely that it will happen, is at the same time not something i look forward to without reservations. the price of AIDS medicine makes no difference? i disagree with that. a great deal of the medical help Africans get is provided by foreign NGO's that depend on donations to do their work. if they could buy ten times as much AIDS medication as they can now, they could do a lot more. i can't comment on Cuba, as i haven't really followed what has happened there, but i'll check it out and will take your word for it in the meantime. and i agree that a radical approach may be needed in Africa to defeat the AIDS epidemic. however, since no-one cares about Africa, it probably won't happen. the only African country that DOES have a realistic chance of eventually stemming the tide is imo in fact South Africa, and its politically stable neighbors Botswana and Namibia (which unfortunately don't really count in terms of population size). but i think central Africa is a lost cause w.r.t. AIDS.