Global survey reveals discontent with U.S.

[august spies]

if you continue to ignore the facts and refuse to research, there is nothing i can do to force you to accept the truth, so you will continue to rationalize torturing people for thought crimes.

as for kurch, coke and their connection with aparthiend south africa is common knowelege to political people. so maybe that is a little more specific.

to your question of the point, of course the government of south africa was responsible, it was the main illigetimate authority. States work hand in hand with corporations to achieve maximum power.
Very rarely does a corporation act itself in killing people. one time in nigeria during the dictatorship, chevron let the military use its corporate helicopters, and many people ending up being killed as a result. this was kind of a "foux pas" and its rare to find this police states flying their true colors.

the whole point i was making about chile, is that the corporations need the states force (no matter how brutal it may be), to maximize their profits. they work in tandum.

 

[Strelnikov]

That settles it... Gotta drive to the Chevron station to fill the truck, and buy me a Coke while I'm there.

Strelnikov

 

[asutickler]

That settles it... Gotta drive to the Chevron station to fill the truck, and buy me a Coke while I'm there.

Could you pick me up a case of Diet Pepsi while you're over there, please? I'd like to support the facist overlords of Chile. 🙄


Hey, if we're really in the business of getting "evil corporations" to do our dirty work for us, maybe we should just sic those Mephistophelian folks from the Charmin corporation on Saddam and Co. After all, their whole business revolves around cleaning up @$$holes... 😀

 

[kurchatovium]

August, if you mean Coke was involved in aparthied because they sold their product in South Africa. I would not call that supporting aparthied but merely a business trying to make money. Isolating a goverment never works to bring it down, take Cuba for example no trade still Castro is in power. One could argue that doing business in South Africa was a bigger force for change than not doing businees there. Just a thought.

 

[Neutron]

We Own..

The world. Think of it as Pax Americana. So why should we care what the rest of the world thinks?


Tron

 

[red indian]

Well said Tronny!!!!!!!!!!.........

.......and you wonder what caused sept 11th?

 

[Neutron]

No Different Than...

Pax Brittanica at the beginning of the century eh?

Tron

 

[kandykisses]

Such a sad state.

I'm not surprised that we ranked so low on the totem pole of world opinion. No one ever likes the kid in class with the big car, the new clothes, the nice new gadget of the day. Everyone wants to be his friend though. 😛

I've noticed in world reporting that one little fact still remains. Most people don't hate Americans as people. They hate Americans that stand behind a foreign policy that is often at times questionable. To the rest of the world, foreign policy IS America. Sad thing since most Americans don't have a clue as to what our government does after it takes money from our paychecks. Ask ten people on the street what America's stance is on ANY topic, and I'm willing to wager my life savings that 9 of them are clueless.

American government stagnates in a puddle of career politicians. Our government is not now equipped to handle the ideal American state of grace. That would involve change. Ammendment power is my rally point to prove that we're not running our country the way it would work best. We're allowing a small group of very wealthy individuals to represent us to the world. Unfortunately, most of the rest of the world thinks that we all hold pockets full of Benjamins and carelessly meander through life. Until the apathy of the current voting populace changes, our world standing will continue to fall. Shame on the naysayers who think involvement is not a moral duty.

I don't blame the rest of the world for the way they think.

However,

I blame them for sucking up all things American then bashing us without mercy. I blame them for owning American music, cars, clothes, entertainment, art, products, you name it....while they do the verbal equivalent of burning Old Glory. I am disgusted at the hypocricy in the world. But, I'm an American, and aren't we just the biggest bunch of jerks around?

JOBY

I couldn't have said it better JoBelle! And you are right!Why can't we just all get along? You said what I wanted to but said it much better!

😀 [B[ Kandy [/B]

 

[BigJim]

Re: No Different Than...

Pax Brittanica at the beginning of the century eh?

Tron

Nope, no different at all Tron. And your point is? Or were you just trying to score a few patriotic points there?

 

[BigJim]

Hey, if we're really in the business of getting "evil corporations" to do our dirty work for us, maybe we should just sic those Mephistophelian folks from the Charmin corporation on Saddam and Co. After all, their whole business revolves around cleaning up @$$holes... 😀

Did you hear? Saddham Hussein just got taken into hospital for a circumcission operation! He was wheeled into the operating theatre and the surgeon said, "I can't operate on this man, there's no end to this prick!"

 

[asutickler]

Did you hear? Saddham Hussein just got taken into hospital for a circumcission operation! He was wheeled into the operating theatre and the surgeon said, "I can't operate on this man, there's no end to this prick!"

LMAO!

The way I heard it, Saddam came staggering out of his circumcision surgery with a bandage wrapped around his cranium. The doctor followed, shrugging apologetically and muttering, "What can I say? The guy's a dickhead!"

😛

 

[august spies]

kurch, the corporations are there for one reason, to make money your right, and thats the problem. why? because they are most profitable under authoritarian regimes, where labor unionists can be killed, the environment can be polluted, and they can work as closely with the state as possible(things that make bush and enron look like nothing) foriegn companies dont work to unseat unsavory regimes, they work to create and support them, and only pull out after mass boycott such as:

"It is not possible to do business in [Burma] without directly supporting the military government and its pervasive violations of human rights." --Levi-Strauss & Co. upon withdrawing from Burma

the goal of the embargo agaisnt cuba is to make the people suffer as much as possible, this is why no other country has such and embargo. and that is why they block food and medicine.

 

[Biggles of 266]

the embargo...

isn't the US govt. thinking of lifting or loosening the embargo for some reason? I thought I read that somewhere.

Biggles

 

[august spies]

some of the more liberal memebers of the gov are talking about losing the travel restrictment, but i havnt heard much about the food and medicine.

is bush belives in freedom, then why can i only go where he tells me?

 

[Deleted member 2452]

Re: Re: No Different Than...

Nope, no different at all Tron. And your point is? Or were you just trying to score a few patriotic points there?

jim, there was a point, and a good one i felt. it was to show that people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones!
if there is any real problem in america, it is that we are getting sick, and tired of being bashed by other countries, basicly out of jealousy.
steve

 

[Krokus]

Re: Re: Re: No Different Than...

jim, there was a point, and a good one i felt. it was to show that people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones!
if there is any real problem in america, it is that we are getting sick, and tired of being bashed by other countries, basicly out of jealousy.
steve

AMEN to that.

 

[ShiningIce]

No, not jealousy. Outrage. 🙄

 

[BigJim]

Re: Re: Re: No Different Than...

jim, there was a point, and a good one i felt. it was to show that people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones!
if there is any real problem in america, it is that we are getting sick, and tired of being bashed by other countries, basicly out of jealousy.
steve

Well that would be a point worth making, if all opposing arguments were coming from a standpoint of "my country's better than yours, so neener!"

You probably know as well as anyone, what a yank-ophile I am Steve. Despite the fact that most people only read about me talking about the things I don't like, I still wish I'd been born there. When I make what I think is an informed and constructive critiscism (ha bloody ha!) it's because I think the point might be worth airing, not because I delight in bashing the world's superpower from pure spite and jealousy.

Tron was perfectly correct; Britain has committed some horrendously blatant acts of imperialism over the last three centuries. The problem is that the forces that drove that, then went and set up base in America. Originally they'd up'ed sticks from Holland about the time that William of Orange came to the throne. (William the 3rd I think?)Although Queen Elizabeth the 1st had pissed in many an Irish face before that, it was him that really started the worst feeling of all between us and the Irish. Before that, Holland had done most of the world's exploitation and colonialism, with the help of Spain.

Just because a briton makes a disparaging remark about activities that are either perpetrated by America or by people in America, doesn't mean that they're anti-American. Certainly it isn't the case with me. It may just mean that they can see the problem. Again we have the problem of national barriers seperating us. A remark from an American to another American will have a totally different conotation than one made by a Brit to an American. All because of perceived national pride. 🙁 Why? The fact that I'm not American doesn't blind me to the fact that Britain has pissed an awful lot of people off in the past. Matabele, Zulu, Irish, French, American, Dutch.......take your pick.

It also doesn't blind me to the fact that some seriously evil things are based in America. That has nothing to do with the American people being bad. On the contrary, they're my favourite people in the world to be friends with. It just means that corruption will always try and install itself where the power and the money is. In the world today, most of both are based in the USA so that is where most corruption is. Not a moral or ethical judgement on my favourite nation, just a matter of rather plain fact. But try and persuade most patriotic, flag-waving, apple-pie eating Americans of that, and they take it as a personal slur; as if you'd insulted the very make-up of their DNA.

 

[BigJim]

No, not jealousy. Outrage. 🙄

Outrage Ice? How'd you mean exactly? (Sorry if I'm being thicker than a whale omlette.😀)

 

[kurchatovium]

I guess here is where I differ with you august it is not in any companies best interest to have the people in that country suffer in poverty. The better the country is doing, the more stable the country is the more prosperous the companies profits are going to be. Companies want people to have a high standard of living it means more customers to buy their products. If you carry it to the absurd extreme where everyone is so poor because of bad regimes propped up by "evil companies" that no one can buy anything then there are no profits for the company. I don't see companies as inherently evil, only the brutal dictators and communist regimes I see as the true evil. Place the blame where it belongs on the tyrants who are subjugating their people and keeping them from a higher standard of living.

The goal in Cuba was to topple a nasty regime under Castro not to make the people suffer. That is Castro's job. The problem is economic sanctions don't work in changing goverments. Only free trade or direct military intervention will do that. Given that the latter is only suitable in extreme situations that leaves free trade. That was my point. Anyway just my two cents worth.

 

[august spies]

kurch your arguing well here, but your missing the main point. the companies prop up the dictators for a reason, and for doing that they are just as at fault and complicit in their crimes.

the main point you are missing however is the corporations are there for resource extraction[/U] meaning, they are there to take the resources back to the empire, not sell them to the people of the colony. the fancy clothes are only manufactured in sweatshops in indonesia but are all sold in the US. the copper from chile, the minerals from congo, are all mined and shipped out of the country back to the us and sold for use in the us to other us firms (mainly the us gov) not the people of the region.. hence the term multinational. that is why we leftest see free trade, and not really free trade, its the powerful side exploiting. it was the same in british india and hasnt changed since. all you have to do is check out one of the millions of critques on the WTO. thats why they had to shut their meeting down in seatlle because of protest. what they are doing is not fair trade, its resource extraction.

as for cuba depriving medicine has nothing to do with castro, and the us has never cared for the people of latin america and probably never will, just look at what happend in the past two decades of us intervention in the region, and the living standard of el salvador.

your argument would be more rational if those companies werent their for extractive purposes, in fact many people even see capitalism falling apart years down the road right here in teh us as the income gap continues to grow because as you pointed out people here wont even be able to buy all the crap companies are pushing on them.

 

[Deleted member 2452]

jim i see, and understand your point.

but i think you missed my point. what i was saying is that the countries that were mentioned in the servay are countries that are jealous of the usa.
we all know you are a true friend of the usa, and as i've repeatedly said, i'd love to have you as a neighbor. i don't take offence in the way you critisize, because you never say "america sux", etc. as others have.
another point that i think you have wrong. spain, holland, portugal, england, were collonial powers. they took and held land, and set up colonies on those lands. america doesn't do that. we kicked out the spanish from cuba, and let the cubans have it. we freed the philapines and let them have it. we've freed europe twice, and haven't even been paid back the war debt! wait, sorry, denmark, and finland pain us back. but the point is america has never been a colonial power.
mr spies, you keep going to one salient point, which is false in it's premise; pepsi, and cokacola are not in the raw materials business. on the contrary, they bring in product, and take out only money. so your theory about striping a country of their natural resorses is false.
steve

 

[august spies]

woahh ar.. america is not a colonial power?? look again. we killed up to a third of the population is some parts of the phillipines in an imperial land grab and than installed a fascist dictator ferdenhand marcos, who was only deposed of in a popular non-violent uprising in 1986. same thing with cuba except their uprising was more violent and took place much earlier. We in no way freed any of those nations.

pepsi and cokes resources are the cheap labor, that is what they extract, and the ability to pollute.

but the main resource extraction industries are the minning and deforestation, in which nations are basically just robbed blind. that is why most of the worlds resources are in the global south, and most of the worlds wealth is in the north. Its been going on for 100s of years. just because mobutu was black it doesnt mean he wasnt an american puppet. he was put in power by the cia and he overthrew the coutries eleceted leaders, he continiued to take orders and money from the us and us companies, he robbed the country blind as the companies robbed it blind, and the people are poor and suffering, and even after his recent downfull there is a civil war going on. colonialism causes massive damage, and to say the us isnt a major colonial power is nuts.

nothing could show a more clear example.

 

[kurchatovium]

America is now a colonial power. If we wanted to be a true colonial power we could literally take over the planet and no one could stop us. The reason we don't do that is unlike other certain other goverments we have a sense of morality. Do we dominate the industrial world? Yes of course. That is not a bad thing though for from that has come many new technologies and medicines and a host of other goodies that most take for granted.

The resources of the planet have always been there for people to utilize if they have corrupt goverments which keep them from turning their iron ore into coffee pots that is not our problem. By the way, how do Pepsi and Coke pollute they basically take sugar and water and add fizz. Not a whole heck of a lot of pollution there unless you are trying to say its global warming from the C02. Don't even get me started on that big scam. I think basically at this point we have to agree too disagree.

 

[august spies]

well their bottling plants (plastics etc...) but the main issue there was working conditions and wages

anyone if you think that i can come into your house, bring the mafia, hold you at gun point, and take your stuff than i say "its not my problem" if you think thats fine, then i guess we have to agree to disagree.