Well, I respectfully submit that it's not Western countries in general. Personally I live in the UK, which has North Sea Oil. The vast majority of oil we burn in the UK was produced here.sepulchre wrote:PapersandPaychecks wrote:Problem is Papers, its not just the U.S, its Western countries in general. If your point is that some on the thread seem to think this is not what drives U.S policy, then your point stands.Isn't it the oil-producing cartels who really have their hands in the US's pocket?
Then I suggest you might want to speak up to whoever represents you in government, and donate a few dollars to some appropriate pressure group.sepulchre wrote:PapersandPaychecks wrote:Papers, that party is not part of the "two-party system' here. In this way you must understand that the ideas you are talking about don't even make it into the public forum of left and right here. The only left that seriously talk about such ideas are third party political organizations.Consider voting for whichever party wants to invest a reasonable sum in fusion research.
The US would need to, at least.sepulchre wrote:PapersandPaychecks wrote:No, the West would buy fossil fuels from China and Venezuala, right?Because fusion research wouldn't necessarily succeed, and future generations of Americans would benefit from reduced energy costs, right?
It certainly won't develop fusion. Doing that in the early twenty-first century is a project equivalent to flying to the moon in the mid-twentieth: the market will benefit from it, but only government has the kind of money and power it takes to actually DO it.dcs wrote:The market will develop something else. It's really not terribly important.PapersAndPaychecks wrote:Clinging stubbornly to your "right" to burn oil, coal and natural gas is effectively building up a mortgage the next generation will have to pay off. Because the supplies WILL run lower and prices WILL keep going up. The nations that use less of this stuff are going to be at an ever-increasing economic advantage in the 2010s and 2020s.
Whether you blame International Communism or Tyrants And Monopolies, energy costs are a problem the individual taxpayer is going to have to pay for until it gets solved, yes?dcs wrote:PapersAndPaychecks wrote:It's a contrived crisis to consolidate power in global gov't and multinational corporations. Big businesses love government regulation as it keeps their smaller competitors from getting any bigger, and keeps would-be competitors out of the market entirely.Whether you love Kyoto or hate it, solving the looming energy crisis is a challenge this generation faces.
Papers, yes and I remember the Scots bemoaning who would get the rights to that oil the summers I spent studying there (another topic I realizeit's not Western countries in general. Personally I live in the UK, which has North Sea Oil.
). However, British petroleum, then Anglo-Iranian oil, from the 20'-40's supplied all of the oil to the UK and it came from, Iran. The Saudi's were getting a 50/50 split of the profit in relation to refining with the West, but Anglo-Iranian oil wasn't having that, nor in the thirty years that they had been in Iran were any Iranians trained to the level of technician necessary to extract the oil. After the democratically elected Mossaedeq nationalized the oil, the British government tried to have him recind the legislation and prosecute him in the World Court ( yes of which the U.S will not be a part of, given) because he 'stole private property'. Meanwhile, the British foreign service was expelled from the country along with all of its attendant spies which always reside among the ranks of embassy staff. Mr. Churchill veted the Truman administration to incite a coup through the C.I.A. Truman, one of the few, did not believe the C.I.A was in the bussiness of directly overthrowing governments. Once regime change came with Eisenhower and his secretary of state, Dullas, a life-time corporate lawyer, the U.S changed its policy. Dullas, who had worked his whole life serving big bussiness could not imagine the people of any sovereign country being allowed to curtail the designs of the private sector (this is the paradigm in the West). Roosevelt's nephew, actually, instigated a coup with 3-4 weeks, and Mossaedeq was placed under house arrest for the rest of his life. Respectfully, Papers, we have three major media corporations (internationally owned) that have bought up what we commercially hear,read, and watch on radio, newspaper, and tv, locally and nationally. The largest lobby in congress are those groups that represent the media corporations. The Bush administration began the deregulating ownership of media outlets (and they're trying really hard with the internet as we speak). There was a public outcry because of a grass roots internet movement. The FCC held public hearings and its assertions for free market media were stalled and put down after a vote on the floor of congress (most of whose members claimed to not even be aware of it). Congress, months later, turned around and fed the legislation back into one of its many bills filled with so much varied information that no one who cared in congress nor the press noticed it until it was too late. This is politics in America.Then I suggest you might want to speak up to whoever represents you in government, and donate a few dollars to some appropriate pressure group.
The U.S spends more on defense than all other nations combined in the world. We have over 700 military bases internationally (Central and South America, Africa, the Middle East, South East Asia, and the Pacific) - the pentagon calls them 'lily-pads' jumping off place where we can protect our interests at any time. Our spending never declined after the Cold War and the arms race it actually increased. Money makes money, and all that money being spent has to be making money now or in the future. Much of the military contracting is done as a 'no bid' contract, that is the pentagon just hands out the contract to whomever it wishes. The Pentagon was audited by the U.S Congressional Auditor who serves both houses of congress. The Pentagon could not account for 4 trillion dollars of spending, that is no paper trail, sure off-shore accounts of private contractors and corporations, but no way to account for a bill that the poor and middle-class tax payers will bear. Four Trillion dollars.After all, the US spends about seven times more on defence than any other country.
I have to confess I am not up on this schism or if it is still as much of a part of the culture of Great Britain collectively as it was in the nineties when I was there.Scotland is fortunate it has south-east England to pay its bills.
Hey, interesting comparison, anything you would be willing to elaborate?can't help seeing parallels with the East India Company.
Papers, it has to, and here is why. The relationship of elected leaders, multinational corporations, legislation that works globally (be it the bio-engineering of seed, or the engineering of trade policies), and military expenditure is a model that the U.S is setting as a precident and leading with globally. Other nations, including Great Britain, are neither blind nor disconnected from this model.the details hold little interest for me personally,
Sad thing is, this is old news here, though not widely reported if at all. As for the taxman, our income tax was never legally past in the first place. Moreover, if any ordinary citizen ever lent 10x what they had in capital, which is what banks are legally allowed to do they would be jailed. This kind of corruption is a trademark of the democracy pedalled here.If you told the taxman you had four trillion dollars you "couldn't account for" you'd be jailed, so I presume heads will shortly roll.
After Roosevelt's 'New Deal' which was supposed to create a safety net for Americans the trend went something like this: first, the husband worked, then both the husband and the wife worked, then they mortgaged the house, then they needed credit cards, eventually there is the shadow of bankruptcy and they move a little farther down the economic food chain. As I said above, inflation rises as the total supply of money and credit expand faster than the available goods and services. Money, here, is printed by an institution run by private bankers (The Fed) and credit is offered by banks at ten times what they actually own in capital. This is an international paradigm by the way. Who is going to profit and have more buying power if there are higher prices, higher interest rates, and more money in circulation. As Guiliani said after 9/11, 'go shopping', or Bush during the debates in 2000, 'environmental policy is determined by the market.'I see millions of US families struggling to pay the mortgage and raise one or two kids. And millions more who can't afford kids because both parents have to work to pay the mortgage.
Papers, who do you think is going to get college credit and a signing bonus for fighting all the wars in which our now global national security is threatened. Soon they'll be giving out citizenship if you serve. Moreover the above is only guaranteed if they can fulfill their contract, sorry if you were injured or killed. The pentagon is now charging soldiers for lost helmets if they were injured or killed and lost their head gear (that can mean the families of the dead even). Media, man, it's smoke and mirrors.And welfare-dependents in trailer parks who have seven toddlers and don't seem to be able to afford to wash them. Which means the next generation won't be the children of the hard workers, will it? It'll be the children of the trailer trash and the immigrants.
Depending on which version one watches. It is often better than what we have available here in the states. In general England is a home to many phenominal journalists like Pilger, Robert Fisk and ex-patriots like Greg Pallast. We have them here, but most are work independently and their work reported on non-commercial outlets.The BBC nowadays is a reputable organisation noted for its journalistic integrity...I like to think we're mostly past that now.
Well, the Scotland matter could be a thread in itself.sepulchre wrote:I have to confess I am not up on this schism or if it is still as much of a part of the culture of Great Britain collectively as it was in the nineties when I was there.
They're Her Majesty's subjects, though; they owe the Crown the same duty the rest of us do, so the oil belongs to all of us.The East India Company existed for about 250 years, iirc. It was founded to represent British trade interests in India and by the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, came to exert a stranglehold over world trade as strong as the present-day oil companies do, controlling the market in goods as varied as silk, tea, cotton, opium and saltpetre. It had a similarly massive influence over military policy.sepulchre wrote:Hey, interesting comparison, anything you would be willing to elaborate?
Hm. I don't see this as some kind of new trend the US is setting.sepulchre wrote:Papers, it has to, and here is why. The relationship of elected leaders, multinational corporations, legislation that works globally (be it the bio-engineering of seed, or the engineering of trade policies), and military expenditure is a model that the U.S is setting as a precident and leading with globally. Other nations, including Great Britain, are neither blind nor disconnected from this model.
Oh, sure, but when the taxpayers just shrug and lap it up, what do you expect?sepulchre wrote:Sad thing is, this is old news here, though not widely reported if at all. As for the taxman, our income tax was never legally past in the first place. Moreover, if any ordinary citizen ever lent 10x what they had in capital, which is what banks are legally allowed to do they would be jailed. This kind of corruption is a trademark of the democracy pedalled here.
That's the "I want it now" culture rearing its head, though, isn't it. (And I speak of my own country as well as the US here!) It's not a problem with the welfare state per se. It's a problem of priorities, a sympom of a sick culture that won't give up the second car or the air conditioning system or the 50" plasma TV its grandparents would never have dreamed were so important.sepulchre wrote:After Roosevelt's 'New Deal' which was supposed to create a safety net for Americans the trend went something like this: first, the husband worked, then both the husband and the wife worked, then they mortgaged the house, then they needed credit cards, eventually there is the shadow of bankruptcy and they move a little farther down the economic food chain.
It's another old, old pattern. Time was when a rich man could buy a commission in the King's Army, and he had to buy his own uniform. Those blokes in red coats went out there and fought for most of the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and there were so many of them they could control the whole coast of Europe and the Canadian-US border all at once.sepulchre wrote:Papers, who do you think is going to get college credit and a signing bonus for fighting all the wars in which our now global national security is threatened. Soon they'll be giving out citizenship if you serve. Moreover the above is only guaranteed if they can fulfill their contract, sorry if you were injured or killed. The pentagon is now charging soldiers for lost helmets if they were injured or killed and lost their head gear (that can mean the families of the dead even). Media, man, it's smoke and mirrors.
I don't really know enough about US journalism standards to comment. It seems obvious to me that journalism needs one taxpayer-funded centre of excellence that's independent of government, plus some commercial competitors to keep them sharp and honest.sepulchre wrote:Depending on which version one watches. It is often better than what we have available here in the states. In general England is a home to many phenominal journalists like Pilger, Robert Fisk and ex-patriots like Greg Pallast. We have them here, but most are work independently and their work reported on non-commercial outlets.
It is impossible for something that is taxpayer-funded to be independent of government. If it depends on the government for its existence, how could it possibly be independent of the State? At best (or worst, depending on one's POV), the State could be a neglectful parent. It is no accident that the media are called the Fourth Estate.PapersAndPaychecks wrote:I don't really know enough about US journalism standards to comment. It seems obvious to me that journalism needs one taxpayer-funded centre of excellence that's independent of government, plus some commercial competitors to keep them sharp and honest.
Oscar Wilde wrote:In old days men had the rack. Now they have the press. That is an improvement certainly. But still it is very bad, and wrong, and demoralising. Somebody - was it Burke? - called journalism the fourth estate. That was true at the time, no doubt. But at the present moment it really is the only estate. It has eaten up the other three. The Lords Temporal say nothing, the Lords Spiritual have nothing to say, and the House of Commons has nothing to say and says it. We are dominated by Journalism.
You say that as if it were obvious and incontrovertible.dcs wrote:It is impossible for something that is taxpayer-funded to be independent of government.
This is true in Australia also. The government owned ABC is the biggest and most persistent critic of the government in this country, much to the disgust of our previous conservative government. The obscenely rich media moguls who own pretty much all the other channels, don't allow the same level of criticism to be aimed at their mates in government, that the ABC journalists get away with.PapersAndPaychecks wrote:You say that as if it were obvious and incontrovertible.dcs wrote:It is impossible for something that is taxpayer-funded to be independent of government.
I take quite the opposite view. I think most governments throw huge amounts of taxpayers' money at things they can't control at all.
The BBC is one of them.
If a constituent has a grievance with their representation by a head of state reminding them that they are a subject of said leader is probably not going to really address said constituent. All that said my knowledge of the situation is minimal at best and you are right it would better serve another thread, but if such a day comes I would wish to hear what you have to say.They're Her Majesty's subjects, though; they owe the Crown the same duty the rest of us do, so the oil belongs to all of us.
Indeed, it is interesting though, that many of the colonial merchants pedaling tea were actually charging higher prices than the Brits.As you're probably aware, the East India Company's monopolistic and anti-competitive practices were one of the main factors in the Boston Tea Party.
Except that now the private sector is the government, most officials quoted by commercial media sources are former private sector people with active ties to industry.governments will want in on the racket.
What does that ultimately mean? Here in America, one doesn't have to nationalize. The private sector merely insinuates its cronies into the political processeither through election, appointment, or lobbies. As I said the U.S centralized banking institution, the Federal Reserve, is composed of private sector bankers who are appointed to their positions from within the existing ring of bankers.Incidentally, in the UK, a major bank (the Northern Rock) was recently nationalised.
No doubt there is nothing original about the machinations of empire in the U.S. As a former colony we have taken our cue from the Old World Powers. Moreover, given that most of America is internationally owned especially by Great Britain, one might argue not only has Europe blazed this path before, but that U.S imperialism is its latest manifestation.Hm. I don't see this as some kind of new trend the US is setting.
Papers we wouldn't have a 4 trillion dollar shortfall in the pentagon audit, the highest military spending on the globe, and military bases in almost every country if we were isolationist. It doesn't take a lot to rouse the U.S to action, it takes a lot to convince its people that there is an actual threat to their lives. Every government has to convince the poor and the middle class that there is something worse waiting for them than the daily struggle they already bear under the yoke of those in power. The Nazis did this when they invaded Poland and sent back news reels of a dead Polish soldier dressed up like a German soldier, fooling the populace into believing it was Germany that had actually been invaded.First, the US is isolationist and, for a superpower, remarkably unwilling to risk the lives of its soldiers intervening in world affairs.
The collective memory of any populace is short, the U.S population and its media being no exception. Forgiving though, we have the middle of the country to contend with, the religious right, and a sinister history of puritanism of which Christian fundamentalism grew out of. For instance, Congress and the Bush administration had to be petitioned over and over again before a commission could be formed to investigate 9/11. They started with only 4 million dollars and after two years finally recieved about 17 million. In contrast Congress willingly spent over 80 million in tax payers dollars investigating the Clintons.the US is remarkably forgiving of its leaders.
Those who do give a damn don't last long in a conventional two-party politics. As an example congresswoman Cynthia Mckinny of Alabama was one of 3 people who stood on the floor of congress a pleaded with her fellow representatives to investigate Jeb Bush's wiping clean the voter rolls of over 100,000 registered voters, primarily African Americans, through enlisting the services of a computer technology company called Data Tech (I think the name was). Mckinny lost her seat in congress two years or so later because any constituent in Alabama can vote during party's state primary. She was voted out of office by republicans who flooded the polls of a democratic primary. She is now running for president on the Green Party ticket. Through the work of American Civil Liberties Union African Americans had their day in court with the state of Florida - an event that gained no corporate media coverage in this country. Moreover, many Americans have suffered heavily for being politically dissident. The civil rights movement, the Anti-War movement, the Green movement, the Anti-nuclear movement (God bless the Aussie Helen Cauldicott) and others are still very vibrant in this country. Many of its constituents are still being arrested and jailed. One, however, would not know about it at all if you got your information from the corporate press.The US voters don't really seem to give a damn, or else they don't think things will change if they replace an incompetent.
Here's the bigger picture. The Decline is intentional on the part of its leaders. The wealthy elite of the country have been trying to dismantle the 'New Deal' since it was passed. The goal is deregulation of all hinderances to a global free market, privitization of all goods and services, consolidation of all media outlets. These goals serve to maximize profit by forcing out other technologies and ideas that lack the capital to back themselves, leaves the welfare of the populace at the mercy of profit margins of the private sector, and convinces the populace that somehow they are dependent upon the corporations. An example of this is how the pharmaceutical industry has managed to demonize almost every behavior in child and adult alike. There is a vaccine or drug for everything. Oh, and by the way you're going to pay through the nose for it. Moreover, since it all is privatized, a contract for oversight and review of your drug or vaccine will probably be done by a subsidary of the parent company that makes said drug or vaccine. As for crime rates, who do you think are working for Microsoft at 5 cents an hour - its not solely immigrants this time? Its about the sustained profit of multinational corporations not the welfare of nations.The relative positions of the US and European economies, or standards of education and healthcare, or prevailing crime rates, just don't seem to register.
That is why countries like China are accessed for cheap labor, mass production, and huge profits for a few.So the US is in a weaker military position than historical superpowers ever were.
To play off your metaphor, the coffe bean is a free-trade commodity, very few imagine their coffee to be anything but just coffee. No tax payer of any nation rises up until he has lost almost everything or is told that he will lose everything (as if the Twin Towers had anything to do with working class people). Freud, like many before him, realized that the populace was afflicted by a schism between inner and outer reality and that pschoanalysis might heal that divide since the outer politcal reality would not even consent to its existence. Individual people are complicated and believe me the elite that sell them a bill of goods that says you are helpless with us plays off that complication.Oh, sure, but when the taxpayers just shrug and lap it up, what do you expect? Nothing will change until the populace wakes up and smells the coffee.
Though I could care less about his music this is what Marlyn Manson aptly called the society of 'fear and consumption'....the 50" plasma TV its grandparents would never have dreamed were so important.
Who are you thinking of here? I am thinking of Bolivia, Equador, and Venezuala, but you might be on another page....there are some less avidly consumerist cultures out there poised to take over when the UK and the US finally drown in their own debt.
....Though most of them couldn't write their names.
This is the sad fact that as voices that need to be heard are marginalized by major media, they themselves have to incorporate or become a 'not-for-profit' entity to find any kind of niche. That niche continues to be diminished as the private sector exerts its power through its elected officials to deregulate things like the airwaves which first and foremost belong to the public trust.journalism needs one taxpayer-funded centre of excellence that's independent of government, plus some commercial competitors to keep them sharp and honest.
Spoken like, someone who doesn't live in the U.S.. I live in a "wealthy household" according to the democratic party and no extra vehicles, no air conditioning system beyond a tiny window unit and no place to put a 50" plasma tv if i wanted or could afford one.PapersAndPaychecks wrote:
That's the "I want it now" culture rearing its head, though, isn't it. (And I speak of my own country as well as the US here!) It's not a problem with the welfare state per se. It's a problem of priorities, a sympom of a sick culture that won't give up the second car or the air conditioning system or the 50" plasma TV its grandparents would never have dreamed were so important.
I thought she was from Georgia?sepulchre wrote: Those who do give a damn don't last long in a conventional two-party politics. As an example congresswoman Cynthia Mckinny of Alabama was one of 3 people who stood on the floor of congress a pleaded with her fellow representatives to investigate Jeb Bush's wiping clean the voter rolls of over 100,000 registered voters, primarily African Americans, through enlisting the services of a computer technology company called Data Tech (I think the name was). Mckinny lost her seat in congress two years or so later because any constituent in Alabama can vote during party's state primary. She was voted out of office by republicans who flooded the polls of a democratic primary. She is now running for president on the Green Party ticket. Through the work of American Civil Liberties Union African Americans had their day in court with the state of Florida - an event that gained no corporate media coverage in this country. Moreover, many Americans have suffered heavily for being politically dissident. The civil rights movement, the Anti-War movement, the Green movement, the Anti-nuclear movement (God bless the Aussie Helen Cauldicott) and others are still very vibrant in this country. Many of its constituents are still being arrested and jailed. One, however, would not know about it at all if you got your information from the corporate press.
Sorry Thoth, that sort of thing only matters to Southerners. To those north of Mason-Dixon, the South is just one big state. You know, like Massachusetts and New York are the same state.Thoth Amon wrote:I thought she was from Georgia?sepulchre wrote: Those who do give a damn don't last long in a conventional two-party politics. As an example congresswoman Cynthia Mckinny of Alabama was one of 3 people who stood on the floor of congress a pleaded with her fellow representatives to investigate Jeb Bush's wiping clean the voter rolls of over 100,000 registered voters, primarily African Americans, through enlisting the services of a computer technology company called Data Tech (I think the name was). Mckinny lost her seat in congress two years or so later because any constituent in Alabama can vote during party's state primary. She was voted out of office by republicans who flooded the polls of a democratic primary. She is now running for president on the Green Party ticket. Through the work of American Civil Liberties Union African Americans had their day in court with the state of Florida - an event that gained no corporate media coverage in this country. Moreover, many Americans have suffered heavily for being politically dissident. The civil rights movement, the Anti-War movement, the Green movement, the Anti-nuclear movement (God bless the Aussie Helen Cauldicott) and others are still very vibrant in this country. Many of its constituents are still being arrested and jailed. One, however, would not know about it at all if you got your information from the corporate press.
It's simply a matter of will. It's not that they "can't" control it, it's that they "won't" control it.PapersAndPaychecks wrote:You say that as if it were obvious and incontrovertible.
I take quite the opposite view. I think most governments throw huge amounts of taxpayers' money at things they can't control at all.
The BBC is one of them.