Re: [OT] Bruce Perens talks to BBC
On Wed, Jan 28, 2004 at 12:23:00PM -0800, Steve Lamb wrote:
> Mike M wrote:
> >The point-by-point rebuttal was rendered moot by this last part. We (the
> >US) must not withdraw from the world and our borders must remain open and
> >we must accept being hated and we must stop being so arrogant and we must
> >do business fairly.
>
> I never said the borders should be closed. I said that the US (meaning
> the US government, sorry for being unclear) should not be meddling in the
> affairs of other nations, PERIOD. *NO* military action. *NO* aid.
> *NOTHING*. The government should be here govern the US and that's it.
>
> If individuals or business want to do something outside the US, have
> fun. If other individuals or businesses want to come here, all the power
> to them. But in both those cases it is a mutually consensual agreement and
> does not come off as something the US Government and this *as a whole
> nation* is doing and supporting.
The clarification is helpful and I almost agreed with your position. It
didn't hold up.
There's no way to separate the
private concerns from the public ones. How is the business of oil to be
separated from the world's current woes?
Here's a similar example from history. The industrial revolution in
Britain caused massive productivity increases in the textile industry.
iAs a result, the demand for Southern US cotton increased correspondingly without a
complimentary technical advancement in cotton's production. What was needed
was more cheap labor. Who is responsible for the atrocities that
followed, consisting of human enslavement, destruction of families, and
massive bloodshed in the American Civil War? The engineers and
businessmen in Britain? The Southern United States plantation owners?
The consumers that loaded up on cheap and plentiful textile products?
Elections in the US are high-dollar marketing campaigns. Lot's of
dollars come from business concerns outside the US. I have the priviledge of
being represented by a person with obligations to non-US interests. So
here is an example of foreign meddling in my domestic affairs.
Any way you look at it, we can't stop meddling. The US can and should fix
much of the meddling it does. Micro-loans directly to individual
entreprenuers instead of massive aid packages that ends up in Carribean and
Swiss bank accounts is one way. Adopting a journalist's ethics of
corroborating a story with independent sources in the intelligence community
is another. I think these measures are recommended for not just the US
too.
--
Mike
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