Globalism

[Aquitaine]

Many union organizers are have been killed all over the world. I had a friend who had to leave Cental America because he was told leave or die.

Really? The ituation is that bad? Just because someone stands up for the Rights for the littel guys, he gets killed? By whom??

 

[Alceste]

Really? The ituation is that bad? Just because someone stands up for the Rights for the littel guys, he gets killed? By whom??

Through the Cold War the US and other Western powers interfered with the democratic process in any third world country threatening to lean even slightly to the left, and installed some despot via an assassination or CIA-backed civil war or coup. The despot and his cohorts usually did the killing on behalf of US corporations. In many Latin American countries in the 80s even a whisper of union sympathy was enough to get you or your family "disappeared", let alone open labour organization.

The Neo-Cons basically took the gloves off - decided to do America's pro-capitalist killing, torturing and regime-changing directly rather than through proxy dictatorships.

 

[Wannabe Yogi]

Equal political, economic, social, and civil rights for all people is a pipe dream.

I believe that every one in the world could have shelter, food and basic medical attention and education. How important is the needs of the poor to you, were would you place there needs above the rich filling their pockets with money ?

I have also noticed that you did not comment on the baby milk issue. Why?

 

[Wannabe Yogi]

Really? The ituation is that bad? Just because someone stands up for the Rights for the littel guys, he gets killed? By whom??

Death squads in El Salvador.

 

[Wannabe Yogi]

The above is proof you haven't been paying any attention to how this actually plays out in the real world. American farmers are put third world farmers out of business because the US government subsidizes US crops so heavily they can be sold below the cost of production.

My father was a rancher/Farmer I can remember him plowing under 150 acres of carrots because it would cost him more to to pick it then he could get on the open market.

This is only half the equation.

The poor countries must sell their crops to a company like Monsanto. Then buy it back at a higher rate. It's the only way food production will be counted in the GNP.This makes the price of food go through the roof. Its great for the commodities traders and very bad for the poor.

 

[Aquitaine]

Through the Cold War the US and other Western powers interfered with the democratic process in any third world country threatening to lean even slightly to the left, and installed some despot via an assassination or CIA-backed civil war or coup. The despot and his cohorts usually did the killing on behalf of US corporations. In many Latin American countries in the 80s even a whisper of union sympathy was enough to get you or your family "disappeared", let alone open labour organization.

The Neo-Cons basically took the gloves off - decided to do America's pro-capitalist killing, torturing and regime-changing directly rather than through proxy dictatorships.

For real? I thought all that stuff about the CIA setting up puppet Dictators and assasinating revolutionary figures was all just Conspiracy stuff.

Do you have any sources I could look at regarding stuff like this?

So d'ya reckon Mugabe is a puppet of the West too? He has a Knighthood from the Queen - that I know is true.

 

[Wannabe Yogi]

For real? I thought all that stuff about the CIA setting up puppet Dictators and assasinating revolutionary figures was all just Conspiracy stuff.
Do you have any sources I could look at regarding stuff like this?

President Bush in 2005 named Negroponte as the first Director of National Intelligence.
"I think he could have stopped all these assassinations and torture... We're against this nomination. If he didn't see human rights violations in Honduras, it's possible he won't see human rights violations anywhere in the world." —Leo Valladares Lanza, former head, Honduran Human Rights Commission, quoted in New York Times, March 29, 2005

Read this information about John Negroponte. Much of this info came from the New York Times its not just Conspiracy stuff. John Negroponte had ties to a death squad called Battalion 316. From 1981 to 1985, Negroponte was the U.S. ambassador to Honduras.

In addition to internal repression in Honduras, Battalion 316 also participated in the CIA's covert war against Nicaragua. Members of the Battalion were conscripted by the CIA for such sensitive missions as training the Contra terrorists and even mining Nicaragua's harbors. Negroponte worked closely with Gen. Alvarez in overseeing the training Honduran soldiers in psychological warfare, sabotage, torture and kidnapping. Honduras was the second largest recipient of U.S. military aid in the hemisphere at this time after neighboring El Salvador. Increasing numbers of both Honduran and Salvadoran soldiers were sent to the U.S. Army's School of the Americas to receive training. In El Salvador, the death squads were headed up by Major Roberto D'Aubuisson, a 1972 graduate of the School of the Americas. General Luis Alonso Discua Elvir, one of his classmates at the US "torture academy," was a founder and commander of Battalion 316.

Through his support of Battalion 316, Negroponte is directly complicit in the murder of at least 184 Honduran civilians officially found to have been killed by the death squad by a 1994 Honduran truth commission. The unit used shock and suffocation devices in interrogations, kept prisoners naked--and, when no longer useful, killed them brutally, and buried them in unmarked clandestine graves. Women were raped, often in front of their families.

Negroponte was likely involved in a number of other like paramilitary formations throughout Central America, as compliant and "stable" Honduras served as a base for U.S. operations throughout the region. Recently, the New York Times (March 8, 2005) reported that the Organization of American States (OAS) has reopened an investigation, "based on new forensic evidence," into the massacre of "hundreds of peasants" at El Mozote, El Salvador in 1981--when 800 unarmed men, women and children were murdered by Salvadoran soldiers "from a battalion trained and equipped by the United States." Reports of the massacre were published at the time in the New York Times and the Washington Post--reports that were "dismissed" by Negroponte and other "officials of the Reagan administration."

http://ww4report.com/negropontedeathsquad

 

[Alceste]

For real? I thought all that stuff about the CIA setting up puppet Dictators and assasinating revolutionary figures was all just Conspiracy stuff.

Do you have any sources I could look at regarding stuff like this?

So d'ya reckon Mugabe is a puppet of the West too? He has a Knighthood from the Queen - that I know is true.

I don't know anything about Mugabe, but the usual story is that a puppet dictator is installed who then "goes rogue", falling prey to the fantasy that he's a king and can do whatever he wants. Then he becomes unpopular, like... uh... Saddam Somebody-or-other, and the process is repeated.

 

[sandy whitelinger]

Globalisation is polarising the rich and poor of the world.It is dividing folks along an axis of class and economic inequality, axis of religious beliefs and culture moras. Today more then ever there is a gap between the poor that labour and the rich who accumulate wealth without labour, this gap has never been bigger. The gap between the have’s and have not’s is creating an ecological and social disaster.

United Nations Development Program Report, which showed the distribution of global income to be very uneven.
Quintile of Population Income

Quintile of Population -Income

Richest 20% - 82.7%
Second 20% - 11.7%
Third 20% - 2.3%
Fourth 20% - 1.4%
Poorest 20% - 1.1%


I think its clear that it is the rich who benifit from Globalisation.

I'll have to agree with Neo-Logic on this on. That the rich get richer may increase the gap between the richest and the pooest but these are only statistics. How does this hurt the poor unless they get poorer?

And as long as you are looking at statistics if a poor person increases their income 1,000% but that amounts to only an increase of, say, $1,000/ year while a rich person increases their earnings 5% but this amounts to $100,000 the gap has increases but the poor person has increased their wealth more dramatically.

The question will be, as Neo kept pointing out, has the standard of living increased because of an increasing global economy.

 

[sandy whitelinger]

Through the Cold War the US and other Western powers interfered with the democratic process in any third world country threatening to lean even slightly to the left...

What constitutes leaning slightly to the left?

 

[sandy whitelinger]

No, the economy in the late 1800s was no more sustainable than it is now - it was just toward the beginning of the story of industrialized global capitalism rather than the end.

I think I see that the type of economy that you would propose would severely limit production as call for a need of some serious population control.

 

[Aquitaine]

I think I see that the type of economy that you would propose would severely limit production as call for a need of some serious population control.

People are calling for population control nowadays. Hell look at China for instance.

 

[Alceste]

I think I see that the type of economy that you would propose would severely limit production as call for a need of some serious population control.

Yes, if I was the boss, I would make sustainability the concept around which my policies and legislation are crafted. Our current rate of resource consumption is unsustainable, so crafting a sustainable economy would have the effect of limiting resource consumption the West. Our current rate of population growth is also unsustainable, so measures to limit population growth are desirable. The first steps would be widespread secular education, global easy access to birth control and global food security.

Most women would not choose to have a half a dozen kids if it were up to them, and if they could be confident the kids they do have would survive into adulthood, and if secular education to counter anti-choice religious dogma were easily available.

 

[Wannabe Yogi]

I'll have to agree with Neo-Logic on this on. That the rich get richer may increase the gap between the richest and the pooest but these are only statistics. How does this hurt the poor unless they get poorer?

And as long as you are looking at statistics if a poor person increases their income 1,000% but that amounts to only an increase of, say, $1,000/ year while a rich person increases their earnings 5% but this amounts to $100,000 the gap has increases but the poor person has increased their wealth more dramatically.

The question will be, as Neo kept pointing out, has the standard of living increased because of an increasing global economy.

I find it very interesting when ever I have this conversation with a person who is rich. ( By world standards that is making over 10 dollars a day top 20% of incomes ) The either throw out facts to defend themselves or there eyes glaze over. Very few seem to show care for the poor.

Here are some more facts about this world system that you seem to defend so vigorously:

-Around 1/2 the worlds population makes around $2.50 a day or under.

-Almost 2 billion people make under $1.45 a day.

-Unicef says Nearly a billion people will enter the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names.

-Total debts of the developing world in 2006: $2.7 trillion
World Bank data March 3, 2008

-Total official development assistance in 2006: $106 billion
World Bank data March 3, 2008

-Less than one per cent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000 and yet it didn’t happen. State of the World, Issue 287 - Feb 1997, New Internationalist

-the developing world outside China and India has seen little or no sustained progress in reducing the number of poor.

I find all of the above statistics to be completely unexceptable. It makes me sad that so many people seemed unmoved and feel the need to defend the rights of the rich to get richer. If there is progress its much to slow and at the cost of billions lives. I will not execpt this as just.

 

[Aquitaine]

I find it very interesting when ever I have this conversation with a person who is rich. ( By world standards that is making over 10 dollars a day top 20% of incomes ) The either throw out facts to defend themselves or there eyes glaze over. Very few seem to show care for the poor.

Here are some more facts about this world system that you seem to defend so vigorously:

-Around 1/2 the worlds population makes around $2.50 a day or under.

-Almost 2 billion people make under $1.45 a day.

-Unicef says Nearly a billion people will enter the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names.

-Total debts of the developing world in 2006: $2.7 trillion
World Bank data March 3, 2008

-Total official development assistance in 2006: $106 billion
World Bank data March 3, 2008

-Less than one per cent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000 and yet it didn’t happen. State of the World, Issue 287 - Feb 1997, New Internationalist

-the developing world outside China and India has seen little or no sustained progress in reducing the number of poor.

I find all of the above statistics to be completely unexceptable. It makes me said that so many people seemed unmoved and feel the need to defend the rights of the rich to get richer. If there is progress its much to slow and the cost of the lives of billions of people I will not execpt as just.

I remember hearing a statistic once that was something along the lines of 1% of the world owns like 95% of the wealth. Considering this is Globalism we're on about, it doesn't seem very fair.

 

[Wannabe Yogi]

Christ said "feed my sheep" instead we have tied a noose around the necks of the poor and we are dragging them to the slaughterhouse. They are just to weak from hunger to complain or fight back. So they go to their deaths un heard and forgotten.

 

[Wannabe Yogi]

I remember hearing a statistic once that was something along the lines of 1% of the world owns like 95% of the wealth. Considering this is Globalism we're on about, it doesn't seem very fair.

Yes the whole thing seems not very fair.

 

[Aquitaine]

Yes the whole thing seems not very fair.

I guess we're not really living in a "Globalised" world from the perspective of unity and equal treatment for all, it just seems we're only Globalised when it comes to Corporations and resource harvesting etc.

To be fair, I think I'd like to see some form of isolationism to a degree, for all countries: allow them to sort themselves out first before attempting to join the Global market etc, where they just get Economically abused and so on.

 

[sandy whitelinger]

I find it very interesting when ever I have this conversation with a person who is rich. ( By world standards that is making over 10 dollars a day top 20% of incomes ) The either throw out facts to defend themselves or there eyes glaze over. Very few seem to show care for the poor.

Here are some more facts about this world system that you seem to defend so vigorously:

-Around 1/2 the worlds population makes around $2.50 a day or under.

-Almost 2 billion people make under $1.45 a day.

-Unicef says Nearly a billion people will enter the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names.

-Total debts of the developing world in 2006: $2.7 trillion
World Bank data March 3, 2008

-Total official development assistance in 2006: $106 billion
World Bank data March 3, 2008

-Less than one per cent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000 and yet it didn’t happen. State of the World, Issue 287 - Feb 1997, New Internationalist

-the developing world outside China and India has seen little or no sustained progress in reducing the number of poor.

I find all of the above statistics to be completely unexceptable. It makes me sad that so many people seemed unmoved and feel the need to defend the rights of the rich to get richer. If there is progress its much to slow and at the cost of billions lives. I will not execpt this as just.

Once again you have used income rather than standard of living a the standard of measure. Ten dollars a day in rural China goes alot further than ten dollars a day in New York City.

And the poor we will have with us always.

 

[sandy whitelinger]

I guess we're not really living in a "Globalised" world from the perspective of unity and equal treatment for all, it just seems we're only Globalised when it comes to Corporations and resource harvesting etc.

To be fair, I think I'd like to see some form of isolationism to a degree, for all countries: allow them to sort themselves out first before attempting to join the Global market etc, where they just get Economically abused and so on.

Without global trade how is a peasant farmer in a backward economy going to ever elevate their status? Isn't making ten dollars a day in a sweatshop in improvement over spending all day scrounging for food and water and firewood?