While Barros' language is not very diplomatic---I wouldn't call America a cesspool--the essential content of his remarks are basically right. We Americans have fewer economic rights than do citizens of other Western democracies. A right to an education is constitutionally protected in some European countries. There is universal health care. Workers in some countries in Europe have not only a right to unions and collective bargaining, but may even participate in governance through their representatives. Gov. Scott Walker strips Wisconsin pubic workers of the collective bargaining rights, and and throughout America there are efforts to prevent workers (in both private & public sectors) from organizing at all. Yet in some European countries even common prostitutes have these rights which are denied to American workers. And even they have health, a right denied to American workers who happen not to have jobs which provides such benefits. And in America, unlike some European countries, if you lose your job you lose your benefits. If Barros' angry language riles you, then let me indicate more or less his point in the gentler, Christian language of Martin Luther KIng (though you may still not like it if you're very right wing): While in Europe in 1964 to receive the Nobel Peace Prize, Dr. King makes the following observations: "This was, for most of us, our first trip to Scandinavia, and we looked forward to making new friends. We felt we had much to learn from Scandinavia's democratic socialist tradition and the manner in which they had overcome many of the social and economic problems that still plagued far more powerful and affluent nations. In both Norway and Sweden, whose economies are literally dwarfed by the size of our affluence and the extent of our technology, they have no unemployment and no slums. Their men, women, and children have long enjoyed free medical care and quality education. This contrast to the LIMITED, halting steps taken by our rich nation deeply troubled me." (THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR., 259) It is more deeply troubling still that since the 1960s, our country has over the past 30 years reneged even on the "limited, halting" steps toward social justice that existed in King's time. If you REALLY love this country, you should be no less deeply troubled than was King. You should be more upset about 12 million American children going to be hungry than about Barros' indiscreet language
-Savant
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I suspect (but am not sure) that a cyclical view obtained among the Mayas. And also with Nietzsche, given his idea of eternal recurrence (amidst the 19th century when a linear view was already dominant). There have been people who feared the decline of the West. A cyclical view which portends the decline (let alone the destruction)of the West might be deeply disturbing. Frankly, I don't wish to see the DESTRUCTION of the West, or any other human civilization. But the end of Western hegemony I do wish to see--except I want it to entail the end of ALL hegemony.
-Savant
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You apparently don't know what is meant by social rights. Yet that only indicates once more the political immaturity of our country.Just looking for balance, and there isn't much in the way of that here.
What part of that constitution quote were you confused with? That's exactly what I'm talking about.
Lack of social rights? What world do you live in? Is pervert public nudity your idea of rights? Liberty doesn't mean lawlessness. This country is full of social rights, but it's likely that the definition of such in these parts are considered by many as downright immoral and contribute to the degradation of society.
Still not interested in euro opinion of American society if it's about a naive look at the world and role of the government.
Try universal health care, the right to a quality education, economic rights guaranteed by law. Just for starters.
It's remarkable how far backward folk have moved.I guess I could cast blame on either side of the divide between Africans & African-Americans. But I question why the divide need be there. People like Kwame Nkruman, W.E.B DuBois, Frantz Fanon and others promote Pan-African solidarity. I was myself involved in the anti-Apartheid movement here during the 1980s, and was reading Amilcar Cabral as well as Malcolm. Much of the quarrel here strikes me as the ignorant babbling of backward people. The common enemy is IMPERIALISM!
Ancient Greeks often described Black Ethiopians as among the most beautiful people in the world, the the beloved of the gods.
There was probably less racial mixture 2500-3200 years ago than now. When people cannot see the beauty of Blackness (mixed or unmixed)it's usually because their vision is distorted by racism.
-Savant
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Well actually he speaks of a "white cycle" , not white "race" or people, coming to an end. But what is this "white cycle"? Is it the "white matrix"? Is it the end of Western hegemony? The end of white Western economic supremacy? Well such could very well come to and end. And if the demographic shift he projects should actually happen, the process might even be hastened. Will power shift to China or some number of Asian countries. Last year, the ECONOMIST featured an article (with same titlte page) calle AFRICA ON THE RISE. It project that the next "tiger economies" could appear in parts (not all of) Africa. Depending on what you mean by the "white cycle" we could actually see its end. History works like that sometimes. But....this is no guarantee of some new global paradise. Fanon once wrote that even before the end of colonialism, people discover the "iniquitous fact exploitation can wear a black face, or an Arab one..."(Wretc hed of the Earth, p.145). As the more Christian and forgiving Dr. King put it "The bourgeois--white, black, or brown--behaves about the same the world over." (p.125, THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR). So, for me there's still the question of what the new post-Western white order is going to look like. Will it be led by Africans and Asians like Nelson Mandela, Mosadegh, Gandhi? Or will it be led by people like Mobutu, Assad and others of that (or worst)ilk? Will we be setting afoot the "new man" that Fanon talks about, or creating the "beloved community" envisioned by King? Or will exploitation simply wear a black face in the place of a white one? I don't believe in any inherently good or evil human (or "racial" ) nature. So the outcome--good or bad--is no forgone conclusion.
-Savant
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Another typically Tea-party "isolationist" mindset.Just looking for balance, and there isn't much in the way of that here.
What part of that constitution quote were you confused with? That's exactly what I'm talking about.
Lack of social rights? What world do you live in? Is pervert public nudity your idea of rights? Liberty doesn't mean lawlessness. This country is full of social rights, but it's likely that the definition of such in these parts are considered by many as downright immoral and contribute to the degradation of society.
Still not interested in euro opinion of American society if it's about a naive look at the world and role of the government.
Excellent illustration of the total lack of understanding of the expression "social rights". Nico here is viewing "social rights" as a debate on ... "public nudity" !
i think not 1 European would have thought at that, not one over 300 millions.
It's a kind of clinical post (Nico) to let us understand how the Yankee "brain" is somewhat maimed : individualism and self-conscience have invaded like a cancer the whole brain.
The basic reality that we are interacting in a society, that we depend on eachother, that we owe all something to others and institutions, all these basic elements are completely out of sight in a US Tea-partier mind.
That's precisely the mindset most Europeans, even when they are on the right-wing, reject fiercely. You only have to go to whitey far-right in the E.U. to see a Nico like that. And even there a Mrs Le Pen would still have a notion of "social rights", she wants Xenophobic limitations but her party is keeping the notion.
Americans feel the right to have a say on everything and every country so don't be surprised if the rest of the world has an opinion on you in return. It's "fair" (another delicate word for a Yankee Tea-partier).
As for my opinion, there is nothing "naive" : maybe i know your own country more than yourself :-) What i say is reflecting too some Americans' opinion on the USA and i would say that 99% of the historians and sociologists specialized on the USA are telling the same story.
a whiteboi
-attai1
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oh yes Sir, this post by Nico is the perfect illustration of what i was saying on the total lack of concern for "social rights" in the white majority among US voters.
You apparently don't know what is meant by social rights. Yet that only indicates once more the political immaturity of our country.
Try universal health care, the right to a quality education, economic rights guaranteed by law. Just for starters.
Otherwise Republicans would not dominate the House.
Plus you have the Yankeeism : we Americans are the best and above the world ... when the USA failed in Iraq, failed in Afghanistan, was terrified to go in Northern Mali to fight 2000 miserable Islamist militiamen ... thanks for the French to do the job. Even if the Malian "army" was US trained, US funded and if US AFRICOM is controlling and supposedly in charge of the "surveillance".
i will copy this post of Nico and keep it in my archive: i would laugh out loud if it was not so sad.
That being said, i also reckon the qualities of the USA in many fields and i'm certainly positively impressed by the history and struggle of AAs for ex.
a whiteboi
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