Excellent historical analysis, Smitra. Thanks. I was a contemporary witness during my adult years (40s to 70s) and vouch for your ideas. Bruno, however, picked prohibitionism as the main (sole?) culprit what does not match my conclusions. It was part of it, for sure.
I found as main culprit the dissatisfaction of the overwhelming majority of people with their lives as slaves in a capitalistic system to work for less than what they may have produced. Also the 'ownership' claim of Nature, including her products, beyond the effort the claimant has put into getting them, plus an ownership of the so called law-enforcement forces to suppress any opposition - making the advanced society an *economical inequality* of haves and have-nots, the latter being forced to work FOR the former for their mere survival. Governments are exponents of the rich and powerful and force the have-nots into their armies to die in wars for the interest of the wealthy. It is called patriotism. The exploited slaves (dead, injured casualties of wars) of the system are called heros. Just to vent off John Mikes On Mon, Sep 7, 2015 at 1:36 PM, Bruno Marchal <marc...@ulb.ac.be> wrote: > > On 31 Aug 2015, at 16:52, smitra wrote: > > The real problem i.m.o. is that big powers tend to have a big inertia, it >> takes them a long time to see that the World has changed and that they need >> to focus on other issues than they currently are engaged with. In some >> cases that can lead to escalation of a pointless conflict that has its >> roots in past issues that are no longer relevant, as is the case with the >> war on drugs. And that then can cause a lot of harm. >> >> But I think the general issue is this huge inertia. So, when Gorbachov >> was in power and he was ready to deal seriously with the West, it took us a >> very long time to engage with him. A point on which we never engaged with >> the Soviets in a constructive way was Afghanistan. >> >> The Soviets were willing to withdraw from Afghanistan, even before >> Gorbachov came to power, but on certain conditions like leaving behind a >> stable government. We never wanted to engage with the Soviets on that, >> because of pur mondset that the root of all evil was communism, and the >> Soviets were just talking bullshit about our allies there, the Jihadists. >> >> Them posing a threat to the World? that to us was just ridiculous. We >> knew for sure that with the Soviets gone out of Afghanistan, their >> communist puppet government dismantled, the Afghan population would be able >> to form a democratic state. We were so sure about this that we never >> critically analyzed all the hidden assumptions made here. >> >> It later turned out that we were wrong and that the Soviets were right, >> not in their general approach but about seeing the threat of Jihadism that >> we helped to fuel. Also they were right about the dangers of having failed >> states. Our ideology at the time was that a failed state would quickly get >> itself organized into a flourishing democracy if you could only keep the >> evil communists out. >> >> Another fallout of this was that Gorbachov's political position was >> weakened in the Soviet Union, which made his nationalist opposition who >> were critical of the West politically stronger. When Yeltsin took over he >> had to deal with an economically weak Russia while in the background there >> were forces lurking who were extremely critical of the West. In any country >> you'll have the opposition that tends to question the government's policy >> especially if things are not going well economically and especially when >> there has been a recent radical change. In the years after the collapse of >> communism that move was democratization, liberalization of the economy etc. >> etc. >> >> It's easy for us to say that the Russians who were critical at the time >> were stupid, just look at the opposition in the US against a universal >> health care system. Now, if we could turn back the clock and had dealt with >> Afghanistan differently, then the outcome of that might not just have >> prevented the rise of international Jihadism, you would also have had the >> pro-Western reformists in Russia to be in a politically far stronger >> position. Likely you would not have had Putin in power today, or Putin may >> not have become that anti-Western (he wasn't when came into power). >> >> Another thing is that we would have improved the UN Security Council >> System to deal with complex problems. As it currently functions, the UNSC >> is a panel of prosecutors who are the World's policemen, prosecutor, jury >> and judge at the same time without a requirement for members to recuse >> themselves when they are involved. >> >> The system works fine in emergency situations, like when Iraq invaded >> Kuwait, just like a police can intervene effectively when there is a bank >> robbery going on. But when the emergency situation is dealt with, we all >> know that you need a proper justice system to deal with the problem on the >> longer term. We know that what cannot work is a system where the local >> police can have a caucus with other police officers from neighboring areas >> to deal with that. Even if you assume that police officers can be 100% >> objective, you would still not have much faith in a system where the police >> officers could be the prosecutors juries, judges, appeals judges and >> Supreme Court judges all at the same time. >> >> This i.m.o. is the reason why Iraq was invaded. Iraq under Saddam Hussein >> (supported by both superpowers in the 1980s) could never prove that it had >> no WMD within the current system once some prosecutors decided to throw the >> book at him. >> >> Had instead the Western powers thought critically about how to improve >> the international institutions instead of seeing the collapse of the Soviet >> Union as a big gain in their power within the current system, the UNSC >> could have been reformed. You can think of a system where the UNSC >> continues to exist in its present form but that it creates a new >> institution where judges rule on contentious fundings of facts. The UNSC >> could then have referred difficult dossiers like the Iraq WMD case, Iran's >> nuclear program etc. to such an institution where decisions are made on the >> basis of real evidence instead of political rhetoric. >> > > I think I agree with your analysis, but I think there is much more, which > is the disparition/erosion of the separation of power, which is part of the > making of the rhetoric. > > > > >> So, I put most of the blame of the current situation on the West's >> failures to just think about the long term during the late stages of the >> Cold War. >> > > > As long as prohibitionist are not all in jail, or amnestied perhaps, some > corporatism will will continue to make huge profits in diseases and war > selling. > > The war on terror is fake, because if that was genuine, the most urgent > thing which would have been done is to stop prohibition, which is the fuel, > even the main engine of international crimes and terrorism, and it is know > today that whatever drug is prohibited, the consumption of it is multiplied > by a large factor (which is normal as you offer the market to the > criminals). > > I mean that it is not just our incompetence, there is a part of > unwillingness. We tolerate the lies on important things, like on cancers, > indeed we tolerate that people think for us about what is good or bad to > us, but that's contradict already the intent of most of the founders of > America. > > As long as prohibitionism is not abolished, I think we must remain > skeptical about any *official* theory by default. Liars lie rarely only > once. Prohibition rotten everything. International prohibition can only > lead to international chaos, mafia wars, well disguised. > > Bruno > > > > >> >> Saibal >> >> >> >> On 30-08-2015 22:34, meekerdb wrote: >> >>> On 8/30/2015 10:50 AM, Bruno Marchal wrote: >>> >>>> - the governments know that prohibition is the main fuel of >>>> criminality and terrorism. >>>> >>> So Muslims flew planes into buildings government (which one?) >>> prohibited something (what?). >>> Brent >>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google >>> Groups "Everything List" group. >>> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, >>> send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >>> To post to this group, send email to >>> everything-list@googlegroups.com. >>> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list >>> [1]. >>> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout [2]. >>> Links: >>> ------ >>> [1] http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list >>> [2] https://groups.google.com/d/optout >>> >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Everything List" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. >> To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. >> > > http://iridia.ulb.ac.be/~marchal/ > > > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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