A Strategy to Counter Democracy's Global Retreat
Produce inexpensive, good translations of Burke, Locke and other thinkers, and spread the texts widely.
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/...48812814130846
WSJ?Murcoch's apologist for and defender of the wealthy/corporate Class to rip off the 99%, including dumbing down, destroying the public school system so people won't be literate enough, critically thinking enough to understand "Burke, Locke and other thinkers,"
Here's a link that doesn't require registration:
link
Sounds like a much better strategy than outright invading countries and then pretending to install a de-facto democracy through military means. The author is correct that it's a long, drawn out process. But you have to let them figure it out by themselves, you can't force feed it to them.
Long and drawn out maybe. But so much cheaper.
The 1%ers are so blinded to reality of most of Americans and the ty state of American democracy, America for sale, now it's a plutoctracy/corporatocracy, that they actually think America (themselves, of course) has any right, has the arrogance to spread America's ty democracy to other countries.
The 1% would NEVER want Americans to think like those "thinkers" because then the 99% would throw them out and take back America from the 1%.
Last edited by boutons_deux; 02-03-2014 at 05:38 AM.
Most of the books he referenced were not from Americans.
It doesn't matter who wrote them. Arrogant, self-congratulating, ty-example, declining America has no business dictating to other countries how they should organize themselves.
btw, Tunisia is one Arab country, post Arab Spring, that has written a Cons ution even better in places than the US Cons ution, and without America's condescending "help".
http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/02/01/t...man-rights-era
Having read Locke, I laugh at the notion that other countries esp of other religions would take his writings seriously. He invokes genesis in social contract. His questions on the authority of the king are purely Biblically based etc.
If you want to spread US democracy then I would go with Emmerson myself.
I am going to assume this is an op ed because it seems typical culturally naive US bull . Locke and Burke are hardly universal but instead steeped heavily in the judeochristian paradigm.
The Bible had a big part on views of god given rights that the king has no authority over. All Muslims I've met over there believed in Jesus as a Prophet. So I don't think they would disregard because it spoke about the bible. But I think more of the point is correctly interpreting the classics that helped evolve western culture. I don't think it would have a huge impact, but over time it could make a significant difference. I saw some 80's show that talked about Dallas the TV show. USSR allowed it because they thought it would show capitalism as greedy. Instead Russians embraced it. The show alleges that Dallas had a huge impact on the collapse of Soviet Union.
I gotta stop clicking on SnC's threads.
http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/sear...searchid=46310
I gotta stop clicking on SnC's threads.
I was thinking the same thing about you.
Dallas? Really? I would say that the collapse of the Soviet system had much more to do with the pit falls of Stalin's vision of centralized economic control.
I love our cultural hubris. That if others only would read what we find important then they would be better off! I think introspection is important. If you think that it is important then have you read the Koran, Gita, Farabi, Lao Tsu or the Analects of Confucius? What about Hegel or Schopenhauer for that matter?
Yeah, that's in part what I mean by force-feeding. The author seems to suggest that by influencing their thought process with western prose they would reach the same conclusions as westerners (and embrace democracy/freedom, something the author equates, but it's not necessarily the same). I'm not so sure about that. There are a lot of their own cultural, historical and religious aspects that I think make that suggestion misguided.
"the collapse of the Soviet system had much more to do with the pit falls of Stalin's vision of centralized economic control"
"Communism" was, in practice, eg in Russia, China, NK, Cuba, totally an hetical to Marx's principles of control of society and economy by The People.
Communist countries are, were all autocratic, dictatorial, MURDEROUS regimes, power systems, that removed all control from, silenced, oppressed, impoverished The People to the wildly wealthy benefit of the autocrats and their cronies (iow, just like "democratic" America's 1% screwing the 99%).
"According to Marxist analysis, class conflict within capitalism arises due to intensifying contradictions between highly productive mechanized and socialized production performed by the proletariat, and private ownership and private appropriation of the surplus product in the form of surplus value(profit) by a small minority of private owners called the bourgeoisie."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism
Prosaically, "Some Animals Are More Equal Than Others"
That EXACTLY describes America's Class War, where the 99% (proletariat) produce great wealth while the vast majority of the wealth is confiscated (distributed upwards) by the 1% (bourgeoisie), producing the World Champion inequality present and increasing in USA.
Last edited by boutons_deux; 02-03-2014 at 09:48 AM.
I think by having it available, is how I took what the author meant. I don't think it would be average person dinner table conversation. But to be debated in college classes.
the so-called "Judeo-Christian tradition" is not underrepresented or excluded from the town square, it's only sorry it no longer holds the whip hand.
if there needs to be a state mandate to make sure Christianity and Judaism are represented in college curricula, so much the worse for those traditions.
I think the author goes way past availability. It describes it as a means to effect change.
If the prose is worthy of debate, then it will get there naturally.
I meant to ask you
off topic
how do you feel about blasio? You live in ny right?
ElNono is a NJ resident, I believe, so it's probable he has an opinion about Bill de Blasio.
WH is correct, I do live in NJ, but due to locality, we do get the NY news and NJ/NY are basically one big state...
That's a good question about de blasio. I haven't been able to get a read on him yet. I don't put a lot of stock about what they say, and I rather sit back and watch what they do. He's still fairly new. He did win the election quite comfortably, so I guess he did say the right things.
He has big shoes to fill. Bloomberg was well known for some of his most polemic proposals, including stop and frisk, or the soda ban, but outside of that he was very good for New York. He was great during Sandy, the Big Apple experienced some solid growth with him, businesses were moving in, and he did the little things that spoke well of him (like following up his press conferences by repeating them in spanish, all by himself. A nod to the realities of the area he was governing).
I'll keep you posted about Bill as news unfold.
I said Stalin's view. We all know you are a Marxist yet I chose my words carefully. Nice strawman though.
I get you. As you say, this notion that they will come to the same conclusions as we did is foolhardy. OTOH, I think it can give an understanding of where we come from. I just think the OP needs to understand that what is good for the goose is also good for the gander. I think the lot of us reading the works that underpin other cultures would do just as much good as our would them.
no doubt
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