Posted by panchmaster from pool0581.cvx20-bradley.dialup.earthlink.net (209.179.252.71) on Sunday, November 17, 2002 at 2:16PM :
In Reply to: Re: Funny Business posted by Tony from 216-99-240-251-la-01.cvx.algx.net (216.99.240.251) on Sunday, November 17, 2002 at 12:34PM :
The governments of most of the countries there are repressive...dissent is not encouraged. That's partly by design. The last thing the United States wants is any kind of democracy or development in that region. They are to remain backwards, subversive, frightened and disorganized...better for business. The United States never had better allies than it does now in the Mullahs and Saddams other crackpots who've risen to power. Just as Noriega once facilitated CIA drug trafficking.
It wasn't but a couple of years after OPEC flexed its muscles and closed down America that the Shah was gone and all hell broke loose.
Kuwait, Saudi, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon...are all ruled by glorified despots who tolerate no dissent. Before Doc waxes eloquent on the virtues of Western style "democracy"...remember all the struggling nations it destabilzed...why? If American democracy and efficiency and values are such wonderful things...why not allow the people of those countries to choose their own leaders...why assassinate an Allende, a Diem, even a Sadat...why persecute the Cubans, why harrass and harry and murder the Vietbamese, why mine harbors and run covert operations against so many people for all these years?
Can the United States NOT have democracy unless the poor darkies of the world suffer? Maybe not...apparently they couldn't grow cotton without ripping apart families and selling Africans like so much cattle.
It isn't the American people who need these things done in their name so they can afford to have a weelend picnic...it's the Oligarchs who need to make ever increasing sums of money...and at the levels they want to make it...you have to steal and kill people.
The United States is NOT a purveyor of peace and democracy abroad...far from it. It doesn't even allow it at home. George Bush stole the presidency, with the complicity of the Dems...who are beholden to the same corporations. These days no one is an ideologue...no one supports one side against another. The game is played by all sides...and donations go to both Parties because they are really one...the party of the Oligarchs...the moneymen.
Was it Plato or Aristotle who said that human government proceeds along a cycle...from chaos to strong arm men, to demcoracy, to the rule of the wealthy, to rebellion and the threat of anarchy, to Tyranny, then to revolution and democracy...then back to near chaos, and the whole thing starts up again.
We are at the Oligarchy stage...we are being ruled by Wealth...and wealth grows only was we become poorer. Eventually there will come a reaction...credit cards may forestall it...but it will come. Mom and Dad working round the clock now can barely pay their bills, and the life they lead is hardly worth the name...unless of course you compare yourselves to people living in hell holes...also brought to you courtesy of your governments...and you can feel "better off".
Soon they'll put the kids to work...with "Education Tax Credits" or some such scheme...but that wont fix anything.
When the family dog has to be put to work...the Revolution will come.
-- panchmaster
-- signature .