On Friday, March 07, 2003 2:54 PM, Jon Gabriel wrote: > >From: "Han Tacoma" > >Subject: L3 Another breed of international criminals: Patients > >Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2003 14:15:23 -0500 > > > >An article that appeared in The Boston Globe, > >while it seems to have come to my attention with title and date different > >than my search at the Globe to confirm -- the contents are the same. > > > > <snip> > > > [...snip...]
OK, your post is interesting and while I think it should be a new thread, I will reply on this one. This is by no means a simple task. It is fraught with complexities that I could not even begin to tackle -- academics, politician, historians, etc. would have to be referrenced to no end and even be included in the dialogue. ...and it has all been said before. I will set the stage of where I'm coming from and it is certainly very basic. My place of birth is Indonesia (3rd generation Dutch -- "damn those Dutch for colonizing us" is what the natives said), I grew up in Peru in the early 50's. I was only four then so it took a little while for me to start comprehending things but I _lived_and_absorbed_ an era with socio-political developments related to "oil", corruption and foreign intervention. Turns out that circa 1911, London Pacific Petroleum was exploiting about 40,000 properties and paying for only ten (10). Blame it on the corrupt governments of the day, the country was still being cheated. In 1914, London Pacific Petroleum transfers the rights to the International Petroleum Company, a subsidiary of Standard Oil of New Jersey, owned by John D. Rockefeller -- lock stock and barrel (sounds like a pun :-) Time magazine reports on Dec. 07, 1998 http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/from_search/0,10987,1101981207-1406 67,00.html (copy and paste -- the line will be broken) "Blessed Barons": Rapacious? Sure. But 19th century titans Carnegie, Rockefeller and Morgan set the stage for the empire builders of the 20th BY RON CHERNOW (you'll have to pay if you want the full article -- the abstract should be enough to give you an idea.) There you'll find a story about the collusion with the railroads to obtain tariffs of preferential rates, taking control secretly of rival companies, legislators bribed and engaging in industrial espionage. Even in the 30's there was already an "anti-imperialist" sentiment in place among the oil workers. This goes on well into the 60's when the legality of Rockefeller's IPC empire is questioned about mineral rights and all hell breaks lose, on July 28th of 1968, Belaunde (then president) announces, in his message to the Congress, the recovery of the ground and the subsoil of Brea and Pari�as. [even in the US, the farmers do not own the rights to underground resources (minerals) -- all they own is the surface] I say hell breaks lose because once again "strange" things happen and a specific page (pagina 11) of the contract for the sale of crude of the IPC to the Empresa Petrolera Fiscal (government owned) is "lost". All the while (1911-1968) the country seems to have been exploited by a foreign concern. That is the first time I heard "damn Americans" and it is also cause for a coup-d'etat. > Anti-American MP's with big mouths do tend to complicate things tho. Isn't this generalizing things a bit? It was one MP that said it (not that I condone it -- a politician should know better!) > Judging by the words "Damned Americans, I hate those bastards" Ms. Parrish > has a rather low view of us, and her televised "apology" sounded > particularly insincere. Now, *I know* (I lived in the US 1979-1984) that the American people are very generous. From my experience I also don't believe that the statement "the interests of the USA" is synonymous with "the interests of all the people in the USA". When you say "rather low view of us", I don't believe she was referring to *all* the people in the USA. In my opinion, it is fairly easy to take things out of context. I think it requires to take a historical perspective and these comments made are the consequence thereof. As I said in the beginning, this is not a simple issue and the shades of grey are far to numerous to get into in a single post. If you haven't read it, "The Ugly American" by Eugene Burdick and William J. Lederer (ISBN: 0393003051) was first published in 1958. In it you discover the arrogance, disinterest and ignorance that continues to alienate the US from the rest of the world. It is almost a blueprint that shows the mistakes made in Korea, Vietnam, in Afghanistan and hopefully not to be repeated in Iraq. > > Welcome to the list, by the way. :) Thanks, I do appreciate that! Cheers! -- Han Tacoma ~ Artificial Intelligence is better than none! ~ _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
