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#Post#: 8682--------------------------------------------------
Re: So let's make some policy!
By: Alharacas Date: November 3, 2018, 8:41 am
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Er, Neal, in case you're willing to concede that in the past,
the US have more or less successfully interceded on some
party's, government's or corporation's behalf in quite a lot of
instances in several South American countries, it should be
clear that there are enough people around already who'd have the
know-how to change the general drift of a government. It would
just be a matter of asking them to use their knowledge in a
different way, wouldn't it?
Failing that, perhaps you'd be able to find a few relics from
the American civil rights movement you could send in as
advisors? ;)
#Post#: 8694--------------------------------------------------
Re: So let's make some policy!
By: SHL Date: November 3, 2018, 1:19 pm
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Ironic that the US complains about foreign governments
interfering in US elections when the US, if it doesn’t like
another country`s government, just invades it and forces a
regime change or uses the CIA to topple, usually democratically
elected presidents, and install a faschist dictator friendly to
the US. So hypocritical.
#Post#: 8702--------------------------------------------------
Re: So let's make some policy!
By: NealC Date: November 3, 2018, 3:21 pm
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Alharacas -- Having the CIA do it, or some other govt
operatives, that seems too much like fantasy to me. I dont
think what they were able to do in the 50's-70's is really
possible today. And it usually ends up as Iran or Egypt. Fine
for a while, but lots of anger when your guy is thrown out.
And while it is easy to blame the US for every problem down
there, the banana republics are usually ruled as a kleptocracies
-- greed isn't just learned from the US. And a lot of what they
face still is the legacy of Spanish rule - a small minority
owning everything of value and a peasantry below.
Castro's success, and communism's success in general is in
overthrowing that sort of serfdom. But as we see over and over,
it only takes the society so far. In Cuba yes everyone has
basic education, health care, but then a life of grinding
poverty and political oppression with little to no chance for
advancement (unless they work in the tourism industry). South
Africa is in the middle of the same sort of thing, with race as
a colorful backdrop. How do we create systems that peacefully
break up the landholding aristocracy, that replaces the gangs
with justice, that keeps leaders with integrity from arrest or
assassination?
"We did it in Germany and Japan after the war" is easy to say.
But both societies were/are a lot different from South America.
Now that the US Foreign Policy can be more than 'containing
communism at any cost', what can be done differently?
#Post#: 8714--------------------------------------------------
Re: So let's make some policy!
By: SHL Date: November 3, 2018, 5:35 pm
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Neal,
I think a good start would be in leaving those people in Central
and South America alone. Help them out all you can, of course,
and that might mean opening the asylum door a bit, not that the
US doing it would be such a big gift to anyone, but if they want
to take their chances running a taco truck for a living and
living in a Spanish-only speaking neighborhood, why not? Who’s
that going to bother?
#Post#: 8716--------------------------------------------------
Re: So let's make some policy!
By: NealC Date: November 3, 2018, 6:07 pm
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When does leaving them alone become the laziness of not doing
anything? I'm up for that.
You say it is our fault, how do we fix it? I want more.
Revolution and expropriation can break up the status quo, but in
the long run it is not bringing wealth and freedom to the
masses. It is just a new set of overlords.
What did the Marshall plan actually do in Europe? Why did it
work? Was it because the war created ground zero? Are the
Germans and Japanese just better? Perhaps freedom is just
wasted on some people.
#Post#: 8718--------------------------------------------------
Re: So let's make some policy!
By: Alharacas Date: November 3, 2018, 7:39 pm
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[quote author=NealC link=topic=570.msg8716#msg8716
date=1541286440]
Are the Germans and Japanese just better? Perhaps freedom is
just wasted on some people.
[/quote]
I'll leave Japan to Chizuko. But if you've ever wondered how
Germans became so... German, it's mainly due to one guy, August
Hermann Francke, 1663 - 1727. There is a wikipedia article about
him, and it's even in English. Unfortunately, after telling you
that "he was appointed pastor of Glaucha in the immediate
neighbourhood of the town [Halle]. [...] Here, for the remaining
thirty-six years of his life, he discharged the twofold office
of pastor and professor with energy and success. At the very
outset of his labours, he had been profoundly impressed with a
sense of his responsibility towards the numerous outcast
children who were growing up around him in ignorance and crime.
After a number of tentative plans, he resolved in 1695 to
institute what is often called a "ragged school," supported by
public charity. A single room was at first sufficient, but
within a year it was found necessary to purchase a house, to
which another was added in 1697.
In 1698 there were 100 orphans under his charge to be clothed
and fed, besides 500 children who were taught as day scholars.
The schools grew in importance and were later known as the
Franckesche Stiftungen. [...] Shortly after its founding, the
institution comprised an orphan asylum, a Latin school, a German
(or burgher) school, and a seminary for training teachers for
these establishments." it does not go on to tell you how
Frederick William I, at the time King in Prussia, came to admire
and support Francke, whose students apparently turned out
uniformly dutiful, diligent and scrupulously honest. Which is
why they became the king's favourite candidates for any posts
going in the administration of his state: public office, clerks,
teachers - you name it, they got it. And this is how the
characteristics generally associated with Germans (among them
also the really unfortunate one, namely that even inhuman orders
must be obeyed) became fruitful and multiplied. Amen.
tl;dr version: Find one good guy, educate him and let him get on
with the job.
Or see
HTML https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seretse_Khama#Presidency
#Post#: 8723--------------------------------------------------
Re: So let's make some policy!
By: NealC Date: November 4, 2018, 4:27 am
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Frankly Alharacas, we haven't been that good at choosing such
people in the past. Indeed the act of making the choice marks
them as the American puppet, which presents another set of
problems.
This is certainly a great story about this guy but I would argue
that language is the starting point and the reflection of
culture. So what he was able to do was more possible because he
was a German teaching other Germans, and it was admired by other
Germans, who would find what he was doing culturally admirable.
Yes, I will now pause as you read that sentence a few times to
see if it actually makes sense. I haven't had coffee yet.
So let's take my above statement out a bit. Can the South
American countries only be helped so far because of a weakness
in the culture? It is hard to find a well run Spanish speaking
country after all.
Maybe the post war plans only worked because of the orderly,
hard working societies that they were imposed upon - namely
Japan and Germany.
#Post#: 8739--------------------------------------------------
Re: So let's make some policy!
By: Alharacas Date: November 4, 2018, 7:42 am
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"culturally admirable" - Er, no. That's the point. At the time,
Prussia was just like most other European monarchies, whether
large or small: plagued by corruption on every level (considered
normal at the time), with each and every post in the
administration being for sale (also the norm), and with about
99% of the people being neither able to read nor write. And -
this may surprise you - with quite large Slavonic-only speaking
parts of the country/peasantry (Wends and Sorbs). ;)
Apparently, however, some people are born with the idea (or seem
to acquire it from nowhere) that corruption and lack of
education are the root of all evil. And King Frederick William
I. was one of them. He set about reforming the bankrupt tinpot
monarchy he'd inherited with a truly iron fist - and Francke's
students. From the bottom upwards (a teacher each was sent to
even the smallest village) and from the top downwards (by
sacking every corrupt civil servant he heard about, starting
with this father's ministers right after he'd ascended the
throne).
#Post#: 8741--------------------------------------------------
Re: So let's make some policy!
By: NealC Date: November 4, 2018, 8:05 am
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HTML https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Kagame
#Post#: 8742--------------------------------------------------
Re: So let's make some policy!
By: Alharacas Date: November 4, 2018, 9:58 am
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[quote author=NealC link=topic=570.msg8723#msg8723
date=1541327254]
Frankly Alharacas, we haven't been that good at choosing such
people in the past. Indeed the act of making the choice marks
them as the American puppet, which presents another set of
problems.
[/quote]
I see. Well, you'd just need to get some respected organization
to endorse your new policy, wouldn't you? And then either found
one elite university per targeted country, or send carefully
selected students somewhere else. Carefully selected not just
as to their intelligence, but also as to their potential for
public-spiritedness and integrity*. Within a few years, you
should have the seeds of a new elite. And that's where I'm
getting into hot water with my ideas. Because the more I think
about what would be necessary to reform countries ruled by
kleptocracies on the one hand and plain thugs on the other, the
more I realize that you'd have to reform the US first. ;D
Because supposing you successfully managed to install enough of
your new elite lawyers, judges, policemen and politicians, the
first thing they'd have to do would be to introduce highly
restrictive laws about fire arms. That would be the first step
towards the next important stage: land reform. You would not be
able to dispossess big landowners - however gently and
gradually, perhaps using taxation laws like in England and
Sweden after WWII - as long as they were able to arm their own
private militias, now, would you? And if you actually managed to
do that, sooner or later, your policies would come into conflict
with economic US interests, wouldn't they? Because where would
the bananas, the coffee and beef come from? How much more
expensive would raw materials like metal become, if South
American mining companies were forced to introduce basic safety
and environmental measures, in order to avoid disasters like the
one in Minas Gerais in 2015?
*No, no, I assure you, they do exist. In every country. Just
recently, I read somewhere that most refugees are actually the
happier, the stronger their new state's authority is. Because
this is what most of them have fled from: corrupt or absent
governmental authority. It stands to reason, doesn't it? If
you're not just intelligent, ambitious and poor, but also a
halfway decent human being, what are you going to do in a
country where education, money and power are only for the rich
and/or the thugs? Sooner or later, you're either going to leave
- or to get yourself killed.
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