quote:
Originally posted by Silver Cheetah:
Yorick's anti british post (which I excused at the time, and for which he thanked me, incidently) was directed at Brits posting on the forum, and was pretty personal in nature. No-one is attacking individual Americans on this forum. What we are trying to do - for the umpteenth time! - is question what is happening in Afghanistan, and the root causes of it. Obviously that is going to take us into a lot of different areas. The behaviour of American multinationals who are crazy for profit, which they make at the expense of people's health and living conditions, sometimes lives, in the third world, is a large part of why America is often regarded negatively outside her own front door.
Go find out about Export Processing Zones people, those places across the world where more than 27 million people work in disgusting conditions, often for as long as 20 hours a day to make your branded products, sold by companies who spend millions on brand building and sweet ■■■■ all on production/labour costs. And then you come back and tell me about America the Brave, the Good and the Beautiful.
And no, it's not just American multinationals. But they led the way, and most of the exploitation is done at their behest. Other companies world wide now are taking on the model that companies like Nike and The Gap perfected. It's the only way to compete. What a great world we're building. And most people couldnt care less. Shut your eyes and think of... anything. Just don't think about how your cheap products come to you courtesy of the poverty of the third world.
But SC, don't you see you're saying exactly what I'm talking about right now. It's not just American's,
but "American's perfected the process", "they led the way", "they blah, blah, blah".
If it's so bad, why not focus on those companies who did it after it was obvious how bad it was? Because this isn't about just anyone who does it, it's about the American's who do it because it's their fault. Your post explains that point nicely. The American's get two paragraph's and the rest of the world gets a two line statement ending with, "most of the explotation is done at their (American's) behest."
SC, you may think you see the truth and that it's America at the heart of all of the problems you've discussed in this forum, but isn't that a little too simplistic? Kind of like your argument about good vs evil?
You
did do a very nice thing regarding Yorick's anti-British post. [img]smile.gif[/img]
That post was aimed at brits in general, those on this board in particular. It caused quite a bit of upset because it was putting down the anti-war movement opinion and called in to question many things said and put them in a context those who held those views were offended by. I don't see all the arguments on this board as anti American arguments, but the arguments whose main line of defense is "look at you, it's your fault" I am entitled to find offensive.