OFF TOPIC - The IOC sucks.

[Baron Munchausen]

Well, this thread has taken an interesting twist. First, yes the IOC sucks. That's what the scandal of the past few years was about. Just because open bribery has been sort of 'cleaned up' we should not assume that they are beyond improper influence. I don't doubt that all the nations involved in this year's competition were using various "behind the scenes" influences. China just happened to have the most effective methods this year.

The political discussion that has grown out of this initial point is quite fascinating. It is of course a joke that the industrialized nations of Europe/North America are called the 'free world'. Nothing is 'free' in the capitalized world, especially political opinion. They just suppress dissent by cleverer means than the ham-handed 'communists' and similar dictators. It's a bit hard to get your political opinion into the mass media if it doesn't have the support of either the Democratic or Republican parties in the US, for example. We had FIVE qualified national candidates in the Last Presidential election. How many were in the "Presidential Debates"? Two. The two representing the parties with hundreds of millions of dollars to spend. Keep on rockin' in the 'free world'!

The United States is a Republic by formal definition but in practice it's some sort of Plutocracy or Oligarchy. You cannot get into political life without huge amounts of wealth. If you're not born into it -- which both of the 'recognized' candidates in the Last Presidential election were, btw -- you have to get 'sponsors' among the money-classes. Thus the profession of "politician" is actually 'fund-raiser' most of the time. Yet, in the most bizarre twist of all, most of the 'white middle-class' population think they live in a democracy! The European nations are somewhat better because they tend to have 'proportional' representation and public funding of political parties. But they are still largely ruled by their corporate classes, just less severely.

Marty Ward:

How much of the Southern United States have you seen? If you travel very far outside of a city in Alabama, Mississippi, or Louisiana you'll see some very 'third world' countryside. It's the classic 'vicious circle' that you see in Africa or South America. The people are poor and uneducated, so no one will locate any serious industry nearby to give them jobs. So they have no money and cannot get education/training to get decent jobs. The programmer's Deadly Embrace in social conditions. It's quite real but most of the victims are the Wrong Color to attract interest from the 'liberal' mass media, so it goes unreported. Then there are the "Indian Reservations" where those inconvenient ORIGINAL inhabitants of this continent are housed. They "weren't using the land" say the propoganda manuals^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Htext books in the public schools. Text books carefully supervised by the government and the huge corporations who own all mass publishing channels. Not using it? What is 'not using it'? Not chopping down all the trees and damming all the rivers and raping the land for minerals? Well, this is a nifty principle. If someone is "not using" their property in a way that I think they should, I have the right to take it??? So, the descendants of the rightful owners of this entire continent a now forced to live in abject poverty in deserts that aren't useful to the media-industrial complex. But they don't count either. Then there's Appalachia, where there are actually white people living in poverty. But that's too scary to be dealt with, so they have to be dismissed with a good label like 'white trash'. Obviously if you're white and not comfortably middle-class there's something wrong with you and you're 'white trash'... Yep, if you don't count people who aren't already middle-class there's no poverty in the US!

Besides, it would not look good to have real poverty in the US while we are haranguing all those 'third world' nations to join our trade treaties so they can become 'prosperous' like we are ...and lock their economic subordination into a legal structure. They might realize that "capitalism" does not automatically make everyone wealthy. They must not be allowed to realize that until it's too late or they might not sign the treaties. Thus the silence.


[This message has been edited by Baron Munchausen (edited 15 July 2001).]

[Phoenix-D]

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Yet, in the most bizarre twist of all, most of the 'white middle-class' population think they live in a democracy!

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That would be because most are idiots and/or do not care about the political system. Never was set up as a democracy. Democracy, like communism, appears to be one of those systems that might work in small communities but falls flat on it's face in large ones.

Lucanos

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The difference between the chinese and you, in this sense, is that they know they live in a dictatorship.

You don't!

You think your country is "the free world", don't you?

I'm sorry to tell you that EU propaganda against the US is saying something else. Most Swedish and Danish citizens I know think that the US is alot WORSE than sovietunion ever was. You US citizens (as I refuse to call you "Americans") have no idea.

On the other hand, I can't say I blame you for beliving that your country is a free one. The propaganda in the US is so intense.

Whenever I see the newspaper here in Sweden or in the UK - G. W. Bush looks like a moron. They prefer to publish pictures where he's got stupid expressions.

When I came to the US (A couple of months ago - I have cousins there) the pictures of Bush in the newspapers where totaly different, he looked alot smarter and somewhat cool in his trenchcoat and hat.

Human rights? What's with vietnam? Was that a humane thing to do?

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First, Vietnam. Happened in the 1960s, early 70s. If you can bring that up, I can bring up France executing people right up to 1977.

Second, the death penalty. China excecutes a lot more people than the US does, and for lesser crimes. Not all US states allow the death penalty, and McVeigh was the first one to be federally exceucted in quite a while, I think.

Third, the papers- I'm curious, where was this? Local papers here gennerally do not show ANYTHING in a good light in their editorial comics. Heck, today's was a Chinese-looking guy in a suit with IOC on it, saying "We have no political repression, we merely outlaw unauthorized "issues advocacy"

That's actually a dig at the IOC AND a local Senator, John McCain, who constantly tries for "campaign finance reform", which appears to be mostly making lots of complicted rules so you need to pay lawyers just to campaign.

I'm also trying to figure out why a lot of people seem to think their local news is the only word. You called the EU news propaganda along with the US news, but then you go on to take their viewpoint!

Phoenix-D

[This message has been edited by Phoenix-D (edited 15 July 2001).]

[Marty Ward]

Baron,

I've seen a small portion of our country, mostly the seaports and chemical production areas. Lots of visits to Tx., La., Ala. and Miss. Grew up in Maryland and have seen quite a lot of West Va, generally considered the poorest state in the nation.

Spent ~15 years in the merchant marine and have seen my fair share of third world nations.

I have never seen anything approaching the poorer areas of third world nations in the US. We have people who are poor in our country, that is not disputed. What we don't have are third world conditions. Go visit Somalia, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, or Brazil if you doubt me.

I just hate to see such slanted and generalized statements made about my country.

We had 5 qualified canidates? You give them to much credit

[This message has been edited by Marty Ward (edited 15 July 2001).]

[Steve A]

It's interesting to see how many people feel that the other cultures are inferior and that the local slant is the only "truth". I guess it's fair to assume that everyone views are slightly biased towards the home team. With the various conflicting claims, it would be hard for an outsider to judge the relative credibility of tha participants.
Consider this: In how many places in the world could a debate like this take place in public? Which countries have laws protecting your freedom to express these ideas? Which countries allow virtually unrestricted communication of information across the internet, and which limit it.
Since most Users of this forum could be considered to have some expertize in the uses of and restrictions on the internet, which country's culture would you select to "govern" the internet? It would be interesting to see some honest answers to that one.


Steve A

[JenMax]

Question? When was the most recent US presidental election held in which a person not born and reared in the upper classes of society ran for and was elected to the US presidency?

[Baron Munchausen]

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Originally posted by JenMax:
Question? When was the most recent US presidental election held in which a person not born and reared in the upper classes of society ran for and was elected to the US presidency?

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Oh, it's not a hereditary aristocracy. Bill Clinton was a poor boy from the depths or Arkansas. But he had to suck-up to thousands and thousands of people who already had the money he needed to run his campaigns. Thus, he had to make promises to do things that would benefit them. Each and every congressman or senator also has to make so many promises and get into so many 'deals' that they are basically unable to act on their own sense of right and wrong by the time they get into office -- if they still HAVE a sense of right and wrong by then. Government is totally about power brokering now. Even if it always has been mainly about power brokering, there used to be the occasional outbreak of morality in the old days before mass-media dominated politics.

[Quikngruvn]

Heh. I didn't realize bashing the US government was a worldwide sport, but I guess I should have....

The key word here is money. Especially in the past decade or so, it has taken more and more money to run a campaign to achieve (or keep) a political office in the US. As the good Baron mentioned, the money's got to come from somewhere-- mainly special-interest Groups, corporate entities, and wealthy individuals, all with their own agendas. Or, "he who has the money makes the rules."

In any US election, more than 90% of incumbents retain their office. Many run without any opposition, while others just have so much more money (from supporters) than any challenger.

'Course, then there is the case of Strom Thurmond, who is practically idolized in the state of South Carolina. He was re-elected to his eighth six-year term in the US Senate at the still-spry age of 94. Thankfully, he will not run for re-election next year, when he's 100 years old-- because he'd get re-elected (around here, it's considered sacrilege to believe that Strom will ever die). The bad thing is, even with the election more than a year away, the winner has all but been declared. Lindsey Graham very quickly got the money and political endorsements to seal the deal, before any challenger could even move to create a campaign war machine.

The point of that diatribe? It just illustrates another aspect of US governement, the "Good Ol' Boy" system. The people already in power, mostly rich white men in their 40's or 50's, decide who gets to join their club. They then have money poured into the candidates' campaigns (often from the national party's funds, but see above for where that cash came from) so that they can bring someone into office who will agree with their ideology. While in office, the Good Ol' Boys each promise to support the others' agenda in exchange for the others' support. National political office is an exclusive club, and you almost have to know the right people to get in.

Remember, this is the same country that elected a professional wrestler to the office of State Governor.

If there was a point to this post, I think it's this: most Americans realize that there are serious problems with the current form of US government, but are either too stupid, too lazy, or too complacent to do anything about it. Still, it beats many alternatives....

Quikngruvn (who honestly considers himself lucky to have been (cue Bruce Springsteen) "Born in the USA")