 |
| |
|
|
GePap
|
 |
of the Big Apple
Nov 2001
time: 23:26
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by yavoon
its depressing that u expect us to do everything about everything or nothing. kinda extreme dont u think? how about when our morality and our interests coincide that u allow us to take a stand?
instead of spitting some inane hypocrisy talk at us. when in reality ALL THESE things moraly outrage u and u do absolutely nothing about any of them. |
I can do nothing about them..last tim I checked, I was not in power..let me check, yup, I am not.
Daz asked why American hate Saddam..you and others state that it is cause he is a bad man. That makes a huge assumption: that Americans hate bad people, which,simply based on a simple examination of the facts, is shown to be false. For example, Laz was able to find huge quotes about the terrible actions of the Hussein regime: are long as quotes such as that available for all the victims of countless regimes, many US supported, around the world? NO. You only know what you are told..so they question is why you are told what you are told. The US government has decided, for various reasons to go to war with Iraq..that means the gound mut be laid. The US currently is allied with Usbekistan, which means you will only rarely hear about the repression there.
Now, maybe you and Laz actually care..but that is not true about Americans in general.
As for the morality..I do care, but I also know that caring is not enough, and that sadly we live in a world were morality is secondary to greed and fear. Which is why i dislike people spout about how they are doign something for morality when it fact fear and greed is what drives them. I do not ask we do nothing..I only ask we be honet with ourselves and other about why we are doing it...
|
|
| |
|
|
|
GePap
|
|
of the Big Apple
Nov 2001
time: 23:26
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by The Mad Monk
That's a great reason we should go in, and not just sit back because we think the government's motives are not as pure as the driven snow. |
Any comparison of Saddam to Hitler, or the current situation to 1941 is shallow at best, wrong usually. In this instance, it was shallow, but meant to point out that "the American People" have no inborn hatred of aggressors, bullies, madmen, or butchers, a trait we share with the rest of humanity.
And if I oppose the government's actions is because I think:
a. They way they got to this point was utterly foolish and has done great harm
b. I disagree with their assesment of the likely otucomes of this action, which will affect hundreads of millions of people.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
yavoon
|
|
if ur blaming us for having allies of convenience than ur not a very practical person. the enemy of our enemy is our friend.
sure they might be bad ppl too. but we would have no military bases in the entire middle east and the whole place would become one gigantic umm bad word? just because we need allies in places doesn't mean we are endorsing what they do. it just means thats how the world works.
ur a huge cynic and there's very little one can do to convince a cynic otherwise. so I guess thats just how it is.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
yavoon
|
|
why are u suggesting we ally w/ al queda? are u being "funny." or are u just being stupid. I don't think we are shrouding our efforts to neone intelligent.
this is all a backlash from sept. 11. we want to be proactive in places that coddle hatred because we have found out that that hatred is not as benign as we had hoped.
when we look at the list of possible places to attack, we find out that iraq is BY FAR the easiest. so we go there. no biggie, its not total convenience, we are driven by security issues and past mistakes(we knew afghanistan was a craphole that coddled hatred), we just thot that was benign hatred, then we learned it wasn't.
I think we only bring up saddam's horrible crimes because peopple bring up thing slike "iraq civilians will die" so its only a natural counter argument to mention the multitudes of ppl who died under saddam's reign.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
yavoon
|
|
well the "truism" has to be used by ppl who are capable of knowing when to use it. it is obviously not random divine truth. but certainly it is a very useful tool.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
The Mad Monk
|
 |
of Ice Cream
Mar 2000
time: 23:26
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by GePap
Any comparison of Saddam to Hitler, or the current situation to 1941 is shallow at best, wrong usually. In this instance, it was shallow, but meant to point out that "the American People" have no inborn hatred of aggressors, bullies, madmen, or butchers, a trait we share with the rest of humanity.
And if I oppose the government's actions is because I think:
a. They way they got to this point was utterly foolish and has done great harm
b. I disagree with their assesment of the likely otucomes of this action, which will affect hundreads of millions of people. |
I'm not comparing Saddam to Hitler, I'm comparing our tendency to say "they're far away and not bothering us, so **** 'em"
|
|
| |
|
|
|
yavoon
|
|
its not lazyness its practicality. its the world tryin to figure out a best way. there are definitely good times to use it. and I dont even know wtf u mean by "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" being used to link saddam and al queda. thats just silly and makes me think you are either randomnly spouting things out or don't know what you are talking about.
|
|
| |
|
|
|
chegitz guevara
|
 |
Ft. Lauderdale, FL Communist Party of Apolyton
Jun 2000
time: 00:26
|
|
quote:
Originally posted by DanS
Che: Do you know which "movement", if any, from which AI draws its support? |
By and large they mostly draw their support from liberals. People in the process of radicalizing (such as myself at one time) may pass through AI, and then leave because their level of political activity and analysis only goes so far, and according to the "laws" of the organization, may never be directed at the host country. The reason for this is the protection of members of AI who may not be in free countries. Being a member of AI in some countries (say Chile under Pinochet) was enough to have the government watching you. Being critical of that same government often meant death, disappearance, or imprisonment and torture.
With the exception of the death penalty, AI does not engage in politics, per se, but merely encourages governments to live up to their existing laws and treaty obligations. When someone disappears, they begin an emergency letter writing campaign within 48 hours to get the government to investigate the disappearance and to let them know that the world is watching. Often this is enough to keep people alive. Many former prisoners have told of how their jailers would comment on the letters written on their behalf. AI also tries to gain release for "prisoners of conscience," people who opposed their own government non-violently and were jailed for it, like Ken Saro-Wiwa. Finally, they put pressue on governments not to torture their prisoners.
My break with AI came when I found that they placed both Cuba and Nicaragua in the worst catagory of human rights abusers, along side such countries as Guatemala and South Africa (this was the late 80s, mind you) and placed Israel in the highest catagory of human rights. Both should have been more towards the middle (no death squads in Cuba or Nicaragua, and the later had internationally recognized free elections, while Israel had both death squads and engaged in the torture of Palestinians). The US, which practices the Death Penalty (which AI is campaining against) was also placed in the highest catagory. It was clear to me that AI had a bias towards the West in overlooking their blemishes, while overstating the aspects of some revolutionary states. Also, the fact that they refused to consider Nelson Mandela a prisoner of conscience, because he carried out acts of sabotage in the early 1960s (against power lines) gave me problems.
In the US, many people in AI formed a new group (while still staying in AI) called VISTA (IIRC). This new group concentrated on human rights abuses within the US, such as the death penalty, torture of prisoners, political prisoners, etc. They put out a book, Can't Jail the Spirit which lists political pisoners in the US (but it's damned expensive it seems--I remember paying only about $14 for it in 1990 or so, but it's going for $41 to $65 on Amazon.com).
|
|
| |
All times are GMT. The time now is 05:26.
Apolyton Time is 00:26. |
top of page
|
| archivepost |
|
Forum Rules:
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
|
HTML code is ON
vB code is ON
Smilies are ON
[IMG] code is ON
|
|
|
|
|
|
15-03-2003 23:11
Just as long as they aren't our allies.
|