Posted by Julia from dhcp100030.res-hall.northwestern.edu (199.74.100.30) on Wednesday, February 27, 2002 at 2:43AM :
In Reply to: Re: On Being Jealous Of Our Way Of Life posted by Jeff from bgp01107368bgs.wbrmfd01.mi.comcast.net (68.42.59.180) on Tuesday, February 26, 2002 at 11:48PM :
Jeff,
I admit, I should not have used a word like 'model' to describe what you said as people picking and choosing who they decide to help. It IS natural, as you say, and this description of a 'natural' event is not necessarily a 'model' event.
I understand that people tend to help each other out first; I see that people collect funds and support their own before they serve the interests of others. I do also understand that there are ramifications for such behavior especially if people, communities, cities, states and federal governments adopt this kind of thinking into their policymaking. I think we see it all the time. Israel gets billion dollar gifts from the U.S. and people in Iraq don't. China's human rights abuses and grievances are progressively looked past as eager capitalists want to subsume China into the world trade regime....but countries with similar, if not worse, human rights records are left to the side.
I don't think that people helping their own is in itself a bad thing, but I do think it comes with ramifications that people on this forum, including myself, contest all the time. In essence, we are not protesting the starving children of this world, we are prostesting the starving children of Iraq, who share some cultural, ethnic or geographic tie to us. We are asking people who are not from our culture, heritage or geographic origin to make decisions that they deem outside their interests. In their foreign policy they, like other countries, pick and choose who they reward and punish...
All i asked you is why should the U.S. in your opinion go beyond what they are doing now and lift the sanctions off Iraq, when the formulated interests of the state dictate otherwise? in essence you are asking them to put aside their interests and advance the interests of people other than themselves.
The sad part is, some people lose, some people win; countries pick and choose who they help all the time...and all I am saying, with my own bias, is that it comes with ramifications....
-- Julia
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