RE: Amnesty International

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anthrosub -> RE: Amnesty International (9/17/2006 12:17:09 PM)
Here's something a friend of mine sent me... : Interesting article from Spanish newspaper Interesting article from Spanish newspaper that doesn't worry about political correctnesss. " ALL EUROPEAN LIFE DIED IN AUSCHWITZ " By Sebastian Vilar Rodrigez() I walked down the street in Barcelona , and suddenly discovered a terrible truth - Europe died in Auschwitz . We killed six million Jews and replaced them with 20 million Muslims. In Auschwitz we burned a culture, thought, creativity, talent. We destroyed the chosen people, truly chosen, because they produced great and wonderful people who changed the world. The contribution of this people is felt in all areas of life: science, art international trade, and above all, as the conscience of the world. These are the people we burned. And under the pretense of tolerance, and because we wanted to prove to ourselves that we were cured of the disease of racism, we opened our gates to 20 million Muslims, who brought us stupidity and ignorance, religious extremism and lack of tolerance, crime and poverty due to an unwillingness to work and support their families with pride. They have turned our beautiful Spanish cities into the third world, drowning in filth and crime. Shut up in the apartments they receive free from the government, they plan the murder and destruction of their naive hosts. And thus, in our misery, we have exchanged culture for fanatical hatred, creative skill for destructive skill, intelligence for backwardness and superstition. We have exchanged the pursuit of peace of the Jews of Europe and their talent for hoping for a better future for their children, their determined clinging to life because life is holy, for those who pursue death, for people consumed by the desire for death for themselves and others, for our children and theirs. What a terrible mistake was made by miserable Europe. I'm sure many will point out that it's not all the Muslims that are responsible for the issues, which is true but that's not the point. It's the Muslims in general and the conditions they either created or imported with them that are being pointed out. I remember a couple years ago, a Muslim scholar in Egypt published and article titled, "All Terrorists are Muslims." I remember thinking how true it is today but at the same time, how no other religious group has been without it's violent elements in the past. I was having a discussion a while back about the Arab/Israeli conflict in the Middle East and one person pointed out how the Israelis took the area of land used to create the state of Israel and did so much with it. What was that area like when the Arabs had it? I'm sure there are many reasons the Arab people appear to be so backward compared to developed countries. Religion, economics, and education are all combining to keep these people developing at a fraction of the pace of the rest of the world. I'm sure they are frustrated and perhaps that's why they are so quick to join the hate groups so they can lash out. anthrosub*

juliaoceania -> RE: Amnesty International (9/17/2006 12:32:03 PM)
Yes the Israelis use the ground water resources in an unsustainable way to fill their swimming pools, stealing it from out of under the Palestinians to do so... Go Israel! I do not think we measure progress by the same yardstick. I see unsustainablity as a way of life to be arrogance and ignorance of the most dangerous kind

meatcleaver -> RE: Amnesty International (9/17/2006 2:04:16 PM)
There is some truth in the argument that the holocaust is the reason for the tolerance and acceptence in western Europe of other cultures but I think that is now fading fast. Holland has always been tolerant and has felt some guilt in not being able to protect its Jews in the war but there has now been a strong lurch to the right and the idea if immigrants don't want to be Dutch why are they here? There are many groups here that have nothing to do with Dutch history and colonialism and are making demands of Dutch society that the Dutch themselves don't even make. The Dutch government want to repatriate 25,000 illegals, though that is proving more difficult with a lot of opposition from the general population but with high crime rates amongst certain groups of immigrants, tolerance is certainly waning.

anthrosub -> RE: Amnesty International (9/17/2006 3:57:11 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: juliaoceania Yes the Israelis use the ground water resources in an unsustainable way to fill their swimming pools, stealing it from out of under the Palestinians to do so... Go Israel! I do not think we measure progress by the same yardstick. I see unsustainablity as a way of life to be arrogance and ignorance of the most dangerous kind That may be all well and true but I don't think it's really on target as a rebuttal of what I was pointing out. The Arab people as a whole suffer from a variety of issues that combined, are keeping them from making any real progress (no matter how you measure it). As far as how people employ non-sustainable methods in developing their quality of life, that's going on everywhere (Oglala acquifer abuse, Rain Forest depletion, over-fishing in the world's oceans, natural fertilizers, fossil fuels, etc.). I don't think a few swimming pools carries the same magnitude when looking at the big picture. But you are right...employing non-sustainable uses of natural resources is ignorant; it will be the downfall of the human race if we down nuke ourselves first. anthrosub

juliaoceania -> RE: Amnesty International (9/17/2006 4:15:11 PM)
So you talk about making Israel bloom and making Palestine a better place than it was before... I would argue that if you pour money and resources into a place that tends to happen... yes Palestine was undeveloped, but that hardly means that its people with a similar educational level and bankroll wouldn't have done that for themselves. Your whole post weighs the indigenous peoples of Arabic and Persian decent as somehow inferior. That attitude is the problem, not the solution I am of the opinion that people can run their own affairs by and large, they do not need outsiders telling them what to do and how to live, and when the outsiders do so, it is usually not for their good... but the entity that is bossing them around. The whole "White man's burden" thing is really passe`, people can handle their own affairs much more adequately and in their own best interest far better than outsiders can. However I want to measure it? I measure it that they would be much better off solving their own problems.. like most people are, and would be if they were not being suppressed Your post reminds me of a film I saw in a class about Israel in which an Israeli claimed that she had a right to have a pool and the use of the resources, even if Palestinians had some claim on them, because her people had developed those resources. That is hogwash. That is like saying I have the right to kick you off your land and take whatever is on it because you were not using it anyways.

seeksfemslave -> RE: Amnesty International (9/17/2006 4:19:12 PM)
Well its certainly not PC thats for sure, but as I have pointed out elsewhere the so called advantages of multi culturalism are being challenged all across Europe and at long last NOT only from the extreme right. I believe that the die has been cast and within the framework of representative so called democracy nothing can be done. I am a total pessimist about this problem. I hope I am wrong. Dont like the "we" did this or that approach though.

meatcleaver -> RE: Amnesty International (9/17/2006 4:19:34 PM)
Water in the middle east is fast running out and that is going to be the cause of the next conflicts there. Israel more than any other country in the area has a live today fuck tomorrow attitude with water. They seem to ignore the sustainability of the area in which they live. The Jordan is but a trickle of what it used to be and with countries building dams in the area, sooner or later things are going to come to a head. It's bad enough living in a water poor area without having to rely on cooperation with neighbours that are your enemies. Water or the lack of it could be the downfall of Israel and not its hostile neighbours. Traditional farming is traditional for a reason, it is usually because that is the best way to sustain the land for future cultivation.

seeksfemslave -> RE: Amnesty International (9/17/2006 4:24:12 PM)
JuliaOceania said The whole "White man's burden" thing is really passe`, people can handle their own affairs much more adequately and in their own best interest far better than outsiders can. That certainly has not proven to be true in Africa!

gooddogbenji -> RE: Amnesty International (9/17/2006 4:26:51 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: meatcleaver Traditional farming is traditional for a reason, it is usually because that is the best way to sustain the land for future cultivation. Read up on what Greece looked like before they cleared forests to make way for traditional farming. Or the prairies, before buffalo were driven through the lush Alberta forests by the natives. Not saying traditional is bad, but it aint always the rosy picture it's painted as. Traditional methods can only be as good as the information they had at the time. Yours, benji

meatcleaver -> RE: Amnesty International (9/17/2006 4:34:33 PM)
If there were forests there wasn't traditional farming, forests are cleared for farming. Britain used to be covered in forests but of course there wasn't any farming then because the land hadn't been cleared. However, clearing forests is not always a great idea, it depends on the soil beneath. Land in the Amazon basin is mostly only fertile for a couple of years once it has been cleared. It keeps coming back to the fact that you can only take so much out of the land and if you live in an area where the soil is poor and water is relatively scarce, sure you can take a lot out initially but you pay the price in the end, especially if the water stops flowing. The US, Canada, Britain and a some other north European countries don't have to consider their neighbours when it comes to water because they are geographically fortunate.

juliaoceania -> RE: Amnesty International (9/17/2006 4:55:46 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: seeksfemslave JuliaOceania said The whole "White man's burden" thing is really passe`, people can handle their own affairs much more adequately and in their own best interest far better than outsiders can. That certainly has not proven to be true in Africa! Most of Africa's problems outside of the AIDs epidemic can be attributed to colonialism and neocolonialism. The IMF and the WTO have caused major problems on the continent.. not to mention that the people do not profit from a land that is resource rich by making products and goods from extractive industry.. those resources are shipped off continent. Africa's trade as a whole is not with each other, but with the outside. it is hard to have a spirit of unity and economic cooperation when the continent has very little internal infrastructure and the monies that could have been spent on such an infrastructure were instead gobbled up by two bit dictators, and leaders of the IMF knew it. Billions have been co-opted by corrupt governments while innocent people are left to pay the debt. How do we know what Africa would be if the playing field were a little more level?

StrongButKind -> RE: Amnesty International (9/17/2006 9:59:26 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: WyrdRich Maybe the problem is simply that the Israelis have been far too nice. Yeah, that's probably it. Also, George Bush is too smart, Bill Clinton is too honest, and North Korea is too democratic.

juliaoceania -> RE: Amnesty International (9/17/2006 10:20:08 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: gooddogbenji quote: ORIGINAL: meatcleaver Traditional farming is traditional for a reason, it is usually because that is the best way to sustain the land for future cultivation. Read up on what Greece looked like before they cleared forests to make way for traditional farming. Or the prairies, before buffalo were driven through the lush Alberta forests by the natives. Not saying traditional is bad, but it aint always the rosy picture it's painted as. Traditional methods can only be as good as the information they had at the time. Yours, benji Part of the problem of the fossil fuel economy is the world population boom. Traditional and sustainable lifeways will not support burgeoning local populations, so more pressure is exerted on to the land. Basically we are in a situation in which the carrying capacity of planet earth is going to be exceeded if it has not become so already. Nature shows us when a species exceeds its carrying capacity its population will have to crash. So we can keep on trucking the way we are, but sooner or later we either willingly stay within our carrying capacity or we will pay the price with mass famine and disease which in turn will reduce our numbers to a sustainable level. I would prefer people live within their means and stop depleting resources faster than they can be replenished. But that is just my opinion and demographic geographers that study this problem

anthrosub -> RE: Amnesty International (9/17/2006 10:24:34 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: juliaoceania So you talk about making Israel bloom and making Palestine a better place than it was before... I would argue that if you pour money and resources into a place that tends to happen... yes Palestine was undeveloped, but that hardly means that its people with a similar educational level and bankroll wouldn't have done that for themselves. Your whole post weighs the indigenous peoples of Arabic and Persian decent as somehow inferior. That attitude is the problem, not the solution I am of the opinion that people can run their own affairs by and large, they do not need outsiders telling them what to do and how to live, and when the outsiders do so, it is usually not for their good... but the entity that is bossing them around. The whole "White man's burden" thing is really passe`, people can handle their own affairs much more adequately and in their own best interest far better than outsiders can. However I want to measure it? I measure it that they would be much better off solving their own problems.. like most people are, and would be if they were not being suppressed Your post reminds me of a film I saw in a class about Israel in which an Israeli claimed that she had a right to have a pool and the use of the resources, even if Palestinians had some claim on them, because her people had developed those resources. That is hogwash. That is like saying I have the right to kick you off your land and take whatever is on it because you were not using it anyways. I'm not sure what I posted has you so focused on the Israeli and her swimming pool analogy. If you read what I'm saying carefully, I'm not saying the Arab people are solely responsible for their plight; on the contrary I'm saying they have the cards stacked against them. Things have reached a point where they've been behind the eight ball for so long it's no wonder they're taking the path of violence so frequently. I'm sure Israel took big advantage of all the help they got just after WW2 and that's probably a big part of why they did what they did with the region as far as their economic development is concerned. I think the Arab people were pretty much happy to live and let live until oil started being discovered all over the place. The problem is, the oil may be on their land but the rest of the developed world was the first to figure out what it was good for and built their economies on those uses. Now the developed world needs the oil while the Arab nations are reluctantly playing catch up. This is the reason they're being pressured by outside interests and quite frankly, I don't see what's wrong with that. We need to be able to deal with them somehow and if they aren't going to play ball, well.... If you were on an island and discovered your little patch of land had things everyone else needed but because you grew up differently than all the rest, you're going to take offense at being "invaded" by their cultures. What is everyone supposed to do, convert to your way of life just so they can have what you have? On the other hand, it's not right for the others to expect you to change your ways either but there's still the problem of sharing the resources. So what happens? The ideal would be a compromise or a set of rules to keep everyone from feeling encroached upon. This is a simple example that proves impossible in the real world because even within those Arab nations, there are those who want things to stay unchanged while others want things to become modernized...even westernized in some respects. I would say what we are seeing is a long, drawn out process of sorting things out now that oil has been discovered in the Middle East and a large part of the world with very different cultures has become so dependent on it. Within this framework we are seeing stories within stories, conflicts within conflicts, and so on. Eventually, a new status quo will be reached but not before a long period of time passes and lot more violence takes place. anthrosub

meatcleaver -> RE: Amnesty International (9/17/2006 11:56:47 PM)
Lines drawn in the sand to define nations which actually cut across political and cultural divides was not the smartest thing for the British and French to do. Kurdistan was consciously split up and now the Kurds are the biggest nation on earth without a country. Obvious result...conflict. The British and the Germans playing Arabs off against each other in WWII in an effort to get oil in for their war effort. Later the USA manipulating politics in the ME to gain guaranteed oil supplies. Traditional farming is uneconomic because of the EU and USA subsidize their agriculture and dump the surplus on the world market. (This extends beyond the Arab world) So if you add it up the Arabs have never really been independent for 600 years. First the Ottoman Empire, then the League of Nations mandate for Britain and France in 1918. Being divided and ruled and then manipulated and exploited for oil supplies. Before taking into account the conservative nature of ME culture, the west had sown enough seeds for conflict.

Kedicat -> RE: Amnesty International (9/18/2006 12:35:06 AM)
Amnesty Intl and other groups often do a fine job of holding all sides to task. Media often doesn't report the less sensational side. That the US or some other big western country gets a bad report from them is news and gets reported more. In a way that is good. A country that is considered more stable, just and humane should hold itself up to a better standard, so as not to slip backwards. AI has Canada on it's list of poor players regarding aboriginal issues and some others. Rightly so in some ways. I am proud of my country. But I will not say it is right all the time, or doing it's best in every case. My country right or wrong blind patriotism leads to your country getting more wrong. There are terribly biased left and right wing groups out there spouting corrupt figures and yellow journalism. I find AI to be quite balanced in facts. But of course a person can disagree with the entire issue on which they gather the facts. If you think international treaties on conduct in extreme situations is just some panzy commie plot, then AI's facts and reports are meaningless to you, or an attack.

seeksfemslave -> RE: Amnesty International (9/18/2006 2:33:40 AM)
JuliaOceania claimed that the people of nations can run their own affairs best and I pointed out that this did not seem to have happened in Africa. Then she said...... Billions have been co-opted by corrupt governments while innocent people are left to pay the debt. Doesn't that prove my point ! An example: R Mugabe in Zimbabwe handing over highly productive farms to the natives. Those farms now stand idle and wasted. With regard to Israel I saw a woman point to some new settlements, which I believe have been subsequently cleared, and say, That land belongs to us because God says so. Debate with that ! I thought most of the water in Israel is being used for irrigation, am I wrong ? Mass immigration , from alien cultures , on a scale now being witnessed in Europe is a recipe for major conflict. I believe it was stopped in the US at the turn of the 20th century, hopefully it will be stopped in Europe.. That only means that we will have to wait for the birth rate differential to take affect before the problems get worse.

seeksfemslave -> RE: Amnesty International (9/18/2006 2:47:20 AM)
Meatcleaver said about the Arabs... Being divided and ruled and then manipulated and exploited for oil supplies. If they have been exploited for oil, what is the source of the ruling dynasties wealth then ? One of the Arab states has very close to if not the highest per capita income in the world. Does use of such wealth again demonstrate JuliaOceania's belief in the fact that peoples will necessarily run themsleves in the best way. Particularly ex Colonials With regard to Amnesty Int. when they reported a few years ago that the Brits. were torturing Irish people, this received massive publicity in the UK. This FACT shows that the British media is not as right wing as NorthernGent tells you it is. For NG see the Independant, Guardian and welfare beneficiaries extraordaire the BBC !

meatcleaver -> RE: Amnesty International (9/18/2006 2:54:32 AM)
quote: ORIGINAL: seeksfemslave Meatcleaver said about the Arabs... Being divided and ruled and then manipulated and exploited for oil supplies. If they have been exploited for oil, what is the source of the ruling dynasties wealth then ? Of course you make sure it is worth the while of your place men. How do you think Britain ruled India with only 40,000 men with half of them being administrators. One has to ask the legitimacy of the Arab governments that were imposed on the Arab people. Also, it is the affluent middleclass and merchant class that start revolutions in their pursuit of what they perceive to be their share of power. ie, English Civil War (which was really a revolution), the French Revolution, The American War of Independence, The Russian Revolution. All caused by the more affluents classes taking advantage of general discontent.

philosophy -> RE: Amnesty International (9/18/2006 5:00:42 AM)
"Shall we then go to the record and Cite the initiators of the resolutions the originators and votes are available. Now not having done all my own research on this I'll admit I am a bit less than perfectly defensable in the possition but the prima facia case of several resolutions being initiated by Libia, Egypt, Syria and voted en mass against a common enemy begs for consideration of just the kind of Democratic tyrany I charge. 7 wolves and a sheep voting on what's for supper." .....Archer, with respect, you have utterly ducked my point here. Lets take it as an assumption that every single general resolution against Israel is exactly as you've inferred...initiated by Israel's enemies........my point is that there is no moral difference between that act and America blocking every security resolution against Israel. Both acts are basically partisan and have little, if anything, to do with justice. We either condemn both or neither if we are, as you've indicated in other places, looking for a balanced approach. i happen to disagree with you regarding the source of all those general resolutions, but my earlier point still holds even if i'm wrong about that. If i'm right about it then, as i'm sure you'll agree, Israel at the very least is enjoying an immunity against international law.

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