It's March 11, and it's time to talk about Terrorism & Democracy.
Abbas: they're both essential parts of the world.
Amanda: when I think of terrorism I think of small(er) subversive, dangerous groups that have no respect for life and use the most base and deplorable methods they can conceive to express their hated of a group of people. Democracy brings to mind a peaceful and organized way to govern a nation or region where there is respect for life and respect for individual opinion even if tempered by a smaller group of educated and responsible representatives of the individuals. terrorism- nasty killers; democracy-populcae with a choice
Dan: democracy is cool and terrorism is for suckers
Ian: Terrorocracy! Terrorism is any act of war by a non-governmental organization, like the Shriners with their fucking clown cars. While deplorable and everything, its not like it hasn't been going on for thousands of years now, so lets all stop crying about it.
Democracy is what we called in MBS "consensus building". Consensus building was important to keep rank-and-file worker bees feeling like they'd "contributed to the process" and "their opinions were heard and valued", while in reality, all important decisions got made by the slightly smarter people who owned the company. It was an important means to diminish dissent. Without democracy, people tend to express their existential emptiness by blowing shit up, whereas with democracy, people bitch to their therapists and whine on their blogs.
Jack: Letting terrorists vote with bombs is not democracy, you fucking socialists.
Me: Democracy means, in part, achieving a society where disaffected people protest or dissent via drum circles in mouse costumes. It's a tough struggle, since there's a lot of convincing that has to go on to show all interested parties that they're voices are being taken into account and action is taken directly because of their contribution. Mouse Bloc with guns means the disenfrancised aren't being paid for their art. Letting dissent get out of pocket is a failure of vigilance and dedication to the cause of democracy. I think one of the major issues is getting people to realize that absolute rule by committee means that no ones objectives will be achieved.
Will: democracy-works great if the goal is to represent the ppl and their interests as a "whole" society from a governing perspective. i.e. - what will enable and propell us succesfully to the next level of civilization. yet when special interests start interjecting confusion, they start to overwhlem, confuse and side-track the representation. imo we aren't living in a democracy, a state where loud voices and monetary interests skew the goal of governing a democracy
terrorism-highly effective means of striking to the core of ppl's psyche, fear. why wouldn't some ppl resort to terrorism if they aren't feeling like they are being heard/respected. if you keep pushing me in line at the bank and i ask you to stop, yet you keep pushing me i'm gonna standup for myself by screaming at you and then pummeling you. this is in a sense terrorism as we now choose to define it. it's fight or flight. now some may not agree with my desire to not be pushed but that's what i feel and i am the only one who represents myself as a person in that situation. how would you feel as a society that basically has no representation. i don't agree with terrorism as a whole, but i do understand a globally under-represented ppl who might not have the benefit of my view of civilization that i was afforded as a white kid born in the US.
Seems like the Club de Madrid's getting around. Here, in the States, when people die we commit hate crimes and then send our military out for justice. Europe likes to talk. This dialectic is a good and necessary distinction.
"This force-feeding of American wealth to the rest of the world is now proceeding at the rate of $1.8bn daily."
Mr Buffett said in the last 10 years foreign powers and their citizens had accrued about $3 trillion worth of US debt and assets such as equities and real estate. At current rates, he predicted that in another 10 years' time the net ownership of the US by outsiders would amount to $11 trillion.
"This annual royalty paid [to] the world would undoubtedly produce significant political unrest in the US. Americans ... would chafe at the idea of perpetually paying tribute to their creditors and owners abroad. A country that is now aspiring to an 'ownership society' will not find happiness in - and I'll use hyperbole here for emphasis - a 'sharecropper's society'."
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Thanks, Ian. What'll it take for Americans to start buying back America or are we operating on the premise that if everyone has a stake in our ownership society, they'll be less likely to want to tear us apart? We've supposedly got a booming economy, even though the interest rates are going up and OPEC wants to peg oil prices to the Euro, yet we're sharecroppers to the currency speculators out there. Hate the game, player.
"And although it seems unlikely that Bono will get the job, on Sunday, Treasury Secretary John Snow said that he has not ruled out the idea of the singer being added to the list of potential candidates for the leadership of the World Bank.
According to an Associated Press report, Snow said, "I am not going to review here all the candidates that are on the list. But I will attest to my admiration for Bono. He does a lot of good in this world of economic development. Most people know him as a rock star — he's in a way a rock star of the development world, too. He understands the give-and-take of development. He's a very pragmatic, effective and idealistic person." "
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"uno, dos, tres QATARZEEEEH" - Bono, counting money in the World Bank vaults. I have vertigo. I'm well intentioned, I donated to tsunami victims, make me the head of the World Bank. Seriously people, get a grip.
Ian e-mailed today from a cybercafe in
Stavanger, Norway forcing me to look up the word "
piste" because he was snowboarding down a cliff face. Also, something about hot girls. It's devastating to my sacules.