Trafficking of children and women does happen in the US today, no doubt.

But, you know. To compare actual legal slavery which did happen in the US (out in the open, legally, socially acceptable, ENCOURAGED, in gigantic numbers - if I remember correctly there were over 4 MILLION owned slaves in the US at the time slavery was abolished) to modern-day sex trafficking in the US (which is hidden, illegal, and there are several actual task forces in your country devoted to finding and freeing these women and children) is just kind of....wow.

I mean, the biggest evidence of change in human nature is the fact that what was considered normal and okay then is not considered normal and okay now. You can't deny that.

Wow!
 

So one form of slavery out trumps the other? Really?

WOW they are selling GIRLS so men can dismember them for fun. You're right only one kind of slavery should count.

I do agree that crucifying people along the freeway is frowned upon these days. Agree 100%.

However, there here and now is what matters. International slavery is a huge problem and one we try our best to sweep under the rug and ignore because in our eyes its not as bad as it used to be. In my book its worse. Why? We know better now.

We still are OK with war and torture and political killings and secret prisons and thats just the US government.

Yes.

What is happening today.

Becasue what is happening right now is the only thing we can do anything about!

Are you intentionally misreading me?

The point is: there has been progress. What was once perfectly okay, legal, encouraged is now the sort of thing that your government spends hundreds of millions of dollars to try to stop. That's progress. That's evidence of a shift in what "normal" means. That's evidence that the people we were 200 years ago are not the people we are today.

The point is not: Brandy clearly thinks that sex trafficking is no big deal and that only one kind of slavery counts.

Grr
 

AND continued to get swept under the rug, not to mention sweat shops, farm work, sex rings, hotel workers, so on and so on mostly women being enslaved everyday.

I really don't see progress just because the Government has a special task force, I don't see this progress when I see Latinos picking lettuce for 125 bucks a day.

That's what I read that just because "America" has a law we're more civilized cause I don't see it this way as a woman who continues to see, help, and scream for those who haven't felt this change.

I think in some areas there has been progress in others not.

I will get it in my head that we value human life more than we did 100 years ago...and then I turn on the news.

If you took all of the money spent on every sporting event across the world in one year, that number would be still subsumed by the amount of money spent on pornography. And yes, there is a correlation to pornography and trafficking.

I have worked in this issue trying to affect change, and what I have too often found is everything from ignorance to denial to laughter about the "world's oldest profession" and complacency and complicity from the street to the highest levels. And the beat goes on, and women, men and children are marketed and sold for sex. So I sit up and pay attention when someone actually writes passionately about this issue and posts statistics because that's all too rare. Human trafficking will not change until we all become passionately involved in ensuring justice and force that complacency and complicity out into the light.

And to the other point - people have a right to call themselves whatever they wish, and if a continent has the word "America" in its name, why wouldn't it take umbrage if another continent, or country, lays sole claim to the word?

Both seem pretty clear to me.

I may have fucked up by saying stuff cause I'm not as good with academic wording and I don't have your educations but I'm a Mexican woman living here in America as a non citizen, I have my past history on these issues to and continue to see my kin, people shit on and continue to be over worked under payed and sometimes killed. I'm ok with using my voice even if it's a voice from someone who didn't even finish highschool. Thanks for allowing me to participate.

This is not about who has the most education, its about fairness, love and respect of our fellow humans.

ps. you have not fucked up anything!

I don’t think anyone is purposely misunderstanding what is said here anymore than anyone purposely misunderstood when it was being said that people in the U.S. should take the time to consider what it sounds like to other people from other countries who also live in America when we say things like “This is America love it or leave it” and instead understood what was being said, despite explanations to the contrary, that the United States should change its name, perhaps even use its longitude and latitude address.

I totally get that looking at things differently is difficult. Change is difficult.

Wait, are people *really* going to put the *illegal* kidnapping of girls and the *illegal* selling of same in the same category as legalized slavery and then say that slavery is still LEGAL in the United States? Is that actually the argument you are making here, Snow? Because that sounds *precisely* what you are saying and I am absolutely stunned that any person intelligent or educated person--and I assume everyone here is both--actually thinks that legalized slavery and illegal sex trafficking are the same things. By this logic, the prisons are filled with people who should not be in prison because murder is still legal.

Here's the argument that is being made:

Me: Slavery is illegal throughout the Western world and also in most other nations (I think there's one or two laggards.

Others: Slavery is still practiced in the United State because sex trafficking happens *therefore* slavery is still legal in the United States.

Here's that logic applied to people in prison for murder:

Murder still happens. What happens is legal. THEREFORE, murder is still legal. By that argument--and not a single one of you can argue that this is not a logical consequence of your statements--we should free every single rapist and murderer held in prisons world wide because until rape doesn't happen, rape is legal. Until murder doesn't happen, murder is *legal*.

So let me challenge all of you arguing that slavery is still *legal* in the United States.

1) Find me a historically valid account of a slave ship captain being arrested for transporting slaves out of Africa. Not a slave ship captain who was arrested for some other crime, but for the actual act of taking captured slaves from Africa to America.

2) Find me a historically valid account of a slave taker who was charged with the crime of kidnapping for capturing blacks in Africa and selling them to the slave ship captain.

3) Find me a historically valid account of a slave owner who was prosecuted for EITHER murdering one of his own slaves OR for raping one of his own slaves.

4) Find me a state in the United States that still enforces slave return laws.

5) Find me a state in the United States where blacks can be summarily executed for learning to read or teaching others to do the same. Please provide the last known date, after 1865, that a black person was legally executed for the 'crime' of learning to read.

6) Find me a state in the United States where it is *legal* to own a person such that if that person is a woman, and that woman has a child, the person who owns the woman also *automatically* owns the child. Here, ownership means "that which you can dispose of as you please". If I wanted to, I could take a sledgehammer to my Audi and destroy it and as long as I did it on my property and disposed of the waste properly, there's not a damn thing anyone could *legally* do to stop me. IF slavery is still legal in the United States then one of you should be able to provide me with an example, within the living memory of at least one person on this board (so, within, say, 60 - 70 years) where someone was born in this nation, the child was immediately sold--at a profit--to another person and became that person's property such that they could *sell* that person to another human being. The example needs to be such that if our hypothetical person were to run away, they would have committed a crime. If someone aided them in running away they would have committed a tort OR a crime or both. Bonus points if you can, in your example, provide the trial transcripts of the fugitive slave.

Once again, the statement I made was NOT that there was no sexual slavery in the United States or any other nation. I said that throughout the world slavery is now illegal. It is most definitely illegal in the United States. A couple of people have now stated that slavery is still legal in the United States because of the presence of sexual slavery. The burden of proof is now squarely on your heads to provide a specific example where legalized, chattel slavery is being practiced in the United States and backed up by the force of the state.

If you cannot provide those examples (and I'm this side of certain you can't) please explain the logic where the presence of sexual slavery in the United States means that slavery is legal and explain why people here are not screaming to have *actual* murderers and rapists released since the logic being deployed leads to the conclusion that murder and rape are also legal and should not be punished since their practice means they are legal. Thank you.


Cheers
Aj

We all have different paths, and we all have different voices. And if your voice or any other voice wasn't welcome here, then the thread should not be called "Justice as fairness: we can do better than we are."

You have a right to speak, and I appreciate what you have written.

Did Snow say Slavery was legal in the US?

If the point is we can do better, then let's.

Aj I'm pretty sure that's not what *I* said, I should have pointed out more clearly that slavery exists, illegal but you sure the hell wouldn't know it from the numbers, the women and kids left behind.. (SuperBowl Sunday a fine example)



If you're idea of this new world is going to work we gotta look at allllll the ugly I think that may be where I went wrong.

*shrugs*

I was under the impression She was arguing that it exsists...not that it is legal. I have read no where that She stated it was legal slavery.

Human trafficking is considered a modern day 21st century form of slavery...what is wrong with stating that opinion??

I don't think anybody here is negating that illegal slavery is different from 21st century slavery...what i see is people trying to make light this present days form of slavery.

I will say it seems to me that people do value other peoples pasts and histories in some sort of hierarchy form and fashion. This comes off as valuing one kind of slavery/oppression over the other.

In history, there is *perhaps* not a single civilization which did not experience some type of slavery.
Even European Christians experienced slavery by Muslim Masters and during the Roman Empire - Or so, that is what history (tainted or not) tell us.

I come from a long history of slavery. My people have been enslaved for close to 6,000 years and most recently ending when Hitler lost his reign. Does this make me the oldest descendant of slaves? Perhaps -- BUT, we certainly do not know this to be true. We do not know the history of the other lands during this time and certainly not thousands of years before.

What about the enslavement of the Maya and Inca tribes (and the other indigenous tribes of nations)? How do we look through time and not imagine the civilizations being built hundreds and thousands of years ago - even notably in Egypt? Do we dare say, these great structures were built by the hands of willing men and women? I would be foolish to think not.

And today, while The United States and many other countries are fighting the war on Human Trafficking - this is still happening today. Not only in the USA, but in a bountiful of other nations. Women and Children are sold as sex slaves, workers and traffickers of drugs. Not by their own choice - but by the hand of masters who enslave and own them. Legal or NOT - you cannot dissect the word "Slavery," and make it work for one people and not another.

In some form or another - Most of us did not originate from the America's - Some of us were forced here as slaves and some of us came to escape slavery in our homelands. There are VERY FEW pure white people on this land, except perhaps the White Christian Europeans who landed here, only to take the land from the Indigenous people of this land.

I am Julie and I am the direct descendant of a very strong people. My people have survived thousands of years of slavery and slaughter - As have many of the people here. African and Latin Descent and Many others -- Even as stated above, those European White Christians, who later enslaved many of us.

Can we be ANGRY at the United States for even allowing the African slave trade? Damn right. It shames me beyond belief that this country in which I was born was so self-righteous and entitled. I am sure those in other countries feel the same shame as I do.

Julie

Snow, you have not gone wrong. What you are saying is true and you have incredible insight on this subject.

Ummm, so may I ask why it is I am not enslaved since only the last few generations of my family have been free? I'm rather mystified by this. YOUR words are that the world is NOT a better place. I agree that there are no good old days when the world was safe. THESE are the good old days and I'm absolutely shocked that so many intelligent people draw no distinction between legal, sanctioned, open behavior and illegal, prohibited, hidden behavior.

So according to you, Snow, and Miss Tick the fact that slavery happens *anywhere* means that slavery is *legal* in the United States and Western Europe. Because that is the point of contention. I did not say that slavery was gone from the face of the Earth. I said that slavery was *illegal* in almost every single country. At least four people on this thread have now made this connection and not one of you have, as yet, offered an explanation for how you get to that conclusion. Again, if I had said that slavery was everywhere gone from the United States you could take me to task for not seeing sexual slavery but I didn't say that. I went back and checked to make certain I didn't say that and I didn't. I was talking about legality. So now, since we are having an argument that slavery anywhere means slavery is legal *everywhere* (or if not everywhere at least in the United States) then I think the burden of proof is on those of you making this argument to demonstrate that slavery is LEGAL--the key phrase here is LEGAL.

Again, the chain of logic looks like this:

Slavery is still practiced in the world-->The United States had slavery--->THEREFORE slavery is legal in the United States-->THEREFORE the United States still has slaves being held legally.

The substrate logic is this:

If X happens then X is legal and socially sanctioned. Because if that's not the argument being made then this whole thing is some kind of very strange derail. Since your logic is sexual slavery is still taking place, therefore chattel slavery is still legal in the United States you *must* be using the construction "that which is done is legal, regardless of what the law might say". So, since slavery is legal in the USA because sexual slavery happens *anywhere*, then murder must *also* be legal in the United States. So explain to me why you are not advocating for all convicted murderers and rapists to go free since the mere fact that someone goes out and murders means that it is both *legal* and *socially sanctioned*. If it applies to slavery (and if it doesn't what are you arguing) then it must also apply to rape, theft and murder. Since it manifestly does not, why the one and not the others?

As a rule, liberal democracies do not put people in prison for actions that are legal. If liberal democracies are putting murderers in prison but murder is illegal because people commit murder, then murder is not a *crime* and since we do not put people in prison if they have not been convicted of a *crime* every single murderer is being held illegally because their actions were neither illegal or socially proscribed.

Cheers
Aj

I never said it was legal. I get that slavery is a touchy subject, but we never said it was legal.

No one has said that anyone can't speak here. Good god. However, I'm not going to just sit here and let people take my statement and then run it three times around the barn so they can, once again, inflate the United States into the most evil nation ever to plague the Earth.

Again, my ancestors came here as *property* not *people*. If one of my ancestors ran away and was caught if they were *lucky* they would be maimed. The law did not protect them. Their children could be sold--not taken from them because of abuse but "I lost a boatload of cash at the poker table, I'll sell a couple of slaves to raise the money". You, Snow, Apoc, are all arguing that this system is still legal in this nation because in another nation women and girls are being kidnapped and sold into slavery.

The argument, again, is NOT about whether it still exists, it is whether it is legal and socially sanctioned and to what degree that is true. Y'all are saying it is based upon the evidence of sexual slavery and sex trafficking. I say it is not legal or socially sanctioned because someone who kidnaps a woman in the United States has to fear being caught by the police and tried and imprisoned if caught. You are saying that kidnappers do not fear this because grabbing young women off the streets in the United States is perfectly legal because it happens. The kidnapper then sells the kidnapped to some other piece of walking scum. You are saying that the person who bought the woman has nothing to fear because holding her against her will is perfectly legal. The pimp then turns the woman out as a sexual slave. You are arguing that, once again, the pimp has nothing to fear either from having the woman as a prostitute or holding her against her will. The basis of this argument? The fact that sexual slavery is happening means that in the United States of America a man who kidnaps, sells, holds against her will and prostitutes a woman has nothing to fear from the law because these actiosn are legal. This is the argument being advanced. I would like someone making this argument to explain upon what evidence they base this belief that slavery is *legal* in the United States of America.

Cheers
Aj

OK, so in moving forward.

Can we help make things better?

Do we really even want to if it means changing our minds?

Again, I want to be clear.

I am not saying slavery is legal in the US. I am not saying what you think I am saying at all.

I am saying, yes, we can do better.

I think people got it from when ruffryder said:
"The world and the U.S. still has slavery."

And you said;
"Okay, here you have gone way too far, ruffryder"

I guess we don't think he went way too far.

But the point is that degree matters. The whole point that I was making (since I'm not willing to speak for Aj what with her being a grown woman and all) was that the fact that what was once legal is now illegal IS EVIDENCE that the world is a changing place.

It just seems to me that people are tackling this with an "all or nothing" approach. Like some people seem to believe that the only signifier of progress or improvement is if ALL evil is drained from the world. Like maybe some people here believe that nothing has changed until everything is ALL better.

But degree does matter.

Then what are you arguing about, Apoc? Here's how this started from my perspective:

Me: Slavery is now illegal in just about every nation.
Ruffryder: Slavery still exists in the United States
Me: That may be the case but slavery is still *illegal*.
You and Snow: Yes, slavery still exists in the United States.
Me: Yes, but it is still *illegal* in every Western nation and most every other nation on the planet.
Chorus: But sexual slavery still exists!
Me: That is the case but I did not make an argument that slavery was non-existent, I made an argument that slavery was *illegal*. The existence of slavery may be legal, but for slavery to exist it need not be legal.
Chorus: Sexual slavery still exists!
Me: but it's not LEGAL!

Now, it is perfectly reasonable, given the opening premise that slavery is illegal for me to interpret the arguments of you, roughryder, et. al. as being that if slavery exists anywhere then slavery is still *legal* therefore nothing has changed. Because I wasn't saying a damn thing about whether or not sexual slavery exists--I'm nowhere near stupid enough to entertain that possibility. From my perspective, the illegality of slavery in the vast majority of nations is a *vast* improvement over human history. The argument y'all seem to be making is that it either isn't an improvement or it's still legal for no OTHER reason than that sexual slavery still exists.

I'm sorry Apoc, you know I have a great deal of respect for all of you but either I can't read, someone decided to derail the thread, or y'all are saying that because sexual slavery still exists nothing has changed vis a vis slavery even though it was perfectly legal throughout the world until the 19th century and now is illegal pretty much everywhere.

Cheers
Aj

Okay, so let's work on some definitions. When *I* use the term slavery, at least vis a vis the United States I mean this:

the LEGAL system where people of group X were forcibly removed from their homes, put on ships, brought to another country, and held in a lifetime of servitude which was--and this is the important bit--sanctioned by both law and society. So when roughryder said "the world and the U.S. still has slavery" what was being said--given the definition above--is "the United States still has LEGALIZED slavery". Legalized, Miss Tick. Anything outside of that definition may be slavery but it is not *legal* slavery. The society is not set up to *preserve* slavery. I was talking--and I thought I had made myself clear that this was what I was talking about--the system of chattel slavery that existed in the United States from the 17th to the 19th centuries. Roughryder was saying that this system still exists.

Every single one of you arguing that slavery still exists in the United States is saying "legalized slavery in the USA is still in force and the society still is arranged by both law and custom to maintain that system". I never said that illegal slavery was gone, I was talking about the legal system of slavery.

The fact of sexual slavery in the world is something we should all be concerned about but it is *ancillary* to the point I was making. Yet, people are arguing this ancillary point and since I was talking about legality, not existence, and since I see the fact that a system that plagued humanity since *at least* the time of agriculture (so 12000 years) became ubiquitously illegal over 99% of the globe is an improvement. That is the point I was making. That is the point that you, roughryder, Apoc and Snow all disagree with.


Cheers
Aj

Unfortunately, people can and people do deny it. This morning's derail is proof that they do not see this as a *vast* improvement.

Cheers
Aj

Because a Rawlsian conception of justice isn't utopian. Not even by half. Here's why:

Firstly, the original position/veil of ignorance thought experiment is not practical it is simply a thought experiment to get us to the two principles that self-interested, rational agents would choose if they were able to and knew *nothing* about where they would land in the social hierarchy. However, you'll note there *is* a social hierarchy.

So, rational actors, operating with full knowledge of their current social position would behave as follows. I'm a black woman so whatever rules we're going to make in our new society, I'm going to ensure that me and mine are advantaged. If that disadvantages white men, so be it. If I'm rich I'm going to make sure that what I do advantages, or at least doesn't hurt, the rich etc. But what if I don't *know* whether I will be rich or poor, the racial majority or minority, male or female, etc. Would I willingly agree to a system of social principles that would cause me harm? No. Would you? No.

But notice here that Rawls *presumes* social hierarchies. Built into the thought experiment is this assumption: I'm a doctor and my best friend is a lawyer. We're both well off and have kids who are just finishing post-grad work. My daughter is becoming a lawyer and her daughter is becoming a doctor Knowing this, over drinks, I arrange for her child to interview at my practice (where she will be hired) and she arranges for my child to interview at her law firm (where she will hired). Now, does the poor child who worked hard and got into law school have that advantage? No. Rawls *assumes* this will not change and nothing can be done so it *can* change. However, we *might* be able to put in social structures that *mimic* the advantages the poor kid does not have.

This is why it is not utopian. A utopian premise would be either there would be no rich and no poor (completely egalitarian) or that even IF there are rich and poor there will be no benefit to being rich (no connections). Rawlsians assume that there will be rich and they will be connected. Rawlsians assume that there will be majority populations and minority populations and that minority populations may be subject to discrimination, etc. So the Rawlsian tries to figure out how to balance the scales in as light-handed a way as possible. Utopians assume human nature can be changed, Rawlsians assume it can't but that society can be rigged in such a way that any inequalities benefit those who have the *least* and not the *most*.

Our current society is rigged to bring the greatest benefit to the most well off and the least benefit to the least well off. Rawlsians want to reverse that but at no point do we maintain the illusion that there will be a society where there won't *be* people who are better off than others, just that we can tip the scales so that least well-off aren't stuck in utterly hopeless positions relative to the most well-off. That's not utopian at all.

Cheers
Aj




"Likening what happens in woodlands to the popular Nintendo Wii game,
Spore Wars, Ph.D student Tom Crowther's study has just been published in
the international journal Ecology Letters. His findings reveal that, by
feeding on the most combative fungi, invertebrates ensure that less
competitive species are not entirely destroyed or digested."

So where is that intervening force in the human race or in our communities? Where is the tolerance and in fact protection of "less competitive" voices - a tolerance and protection that Rawls' or any good judicial system must in fact be predicated upon?

And as we live now in the age of seven billion (thank you for the post on this, AJ), with nine billion looming closer than we think, and in a world of dwindling resources, how will any system of thought, any societal structure that rewards competition, hierarchies and hegemonies play out?

I think we know. And I think some part of us imagines we are heading for a time of brutal realities and choices with no hope of Utopian systems of thought, however worthy or even practical they seem in theory, let alone in praxis. And I think that scares the stuffing out of us. As well it should.[/QUOTE]

OK, so we misunderstood each other. I agree that slavery (as it existed earlier in US history) is no longer legal in the US nor in most places in the world and this is a vast improvement over government sanctioned slave trade.

I don't think it is a derail however, in a thread about to justice, to point out that slavery does exist worldwide and is not given enough attention. It preys on the weakest among us and should be taken very seriously.

Because the slave trade today is subrosa, it almost makes it more difficult to go after. Denial and all.

I don't want this to be about who is suffering more or who has suffered more, but the US in effect does have legally sanctioned "workers" and "political prisoners" in our country and overseas than in my mind are slaves of the US gvt. I dream of a US and world that is better than this. I think justice demands it.

What I really do want to argue about is the comment about Latin American countries killing each other if they united.

I kind of need a logical explanation on how that was OK for Ruffrider to even say, much less for AJ to agree with.

Its sitting on my heart and I hope I am misunderstanding what y'all mean by this.

What I meant by this is that if the Latin American nations were to attempt to unite and one nation were a hold out, then the Latin American nations that *were* in on unification would do what any other group of nations, surrounded by a nation that was standing in their way would do--they would invade that nation, conquer it and create a Pax Latin Americana. I'm not saying--nor would I say--that Latin Americans are violent who will slaughter each other if the sun rises. I'm saying that the people living in Latin America are, for better or worse, the same species living in Western Africa and Asia and North America etc. If Canada *ever* got it into its head that there was some compelling reason to conquer the United States and if they could get enough nations to go along with it, Canada would invade and conquer the United States in a heart beat. Does that mean that I think Canadians are violent? No! It means I think that Canada, as a nation, will do what it perceives to be in its strategic interest. Right now, it pleases Canada to be about as dovish a nation can be. At present there is no reason to believe that this will change. However, if there ever *is* a reason for it to change it *will* change because that is how nations--ALL nations behave.

My agreement with roughryder was merely the acknowledgement that border disputes *happen*. Despite the image that people seem to have that only Europe and the United States are uniquely territorial and war-like that is not the case. At present Venezuela is providing aid to rebels in Colombia. They are doing so because it is either in their strategic interest to do so or it is in their ideological interest to do so or both. I'm not--let me be clear--NOT--saying that Venezuelans are a uniquely violent people nor am I saying that Colombians are a uniquely violent people. I am saying that there is internal strife *inside* Colombia. For reasons known to the Venezuelan chain of command they are providing material aid, technical assistance, troops on the ground or all three to those rebels. Chances are, the Venezuelans are doing so because they perceive it in their interest to do so.

Should the day come that Brazil should decide that a Pax Brazilia is in their national interest they will take whatever steps to conquer or otherwise influence the nations of South America to do their bidding. Those that refuse will be subjugated if the Brazilians can get away with it.

ALL of that can be true without making ANY comment about the relative levels of violence of Brazilians specifically, South Americans generally, or any other group other than two: human beings and that same species grouped together in a nation-state. If human beings can get what they want by trade instead of trade, they will do so. If they perceive that the only way they can get what they wish is through violence they will use violence. Nations behave the same way. As long as it is more profitable for Brazil to trade with Bolivia, that is what will happen. Should it become more profitable for Brazil to conquer Bolivia *that* is what will happen.

The whole idea behind mutual defense blocs (NATO, Warsaw pact, etc.) is to raise the stakes of attacking any member nation that signs on to the pact. If Brazil wants to conquer Bolivia and knows no one will come to the aid of the Bolivians, Brazil will conquer Bolivia. But what if Bolivia and Peru, Argentina and Venezuela have a mutual defense pact? Well now, what was an easy job of conquering one country suddenly becomes a much more difficult job of taking Chile while having to worry about your flanks. What was simply a strike to the Brazilians west suddenly becomes being vulnerable from attacks on their Northern and Southern flanks PLUS their coast. Well, now that's going to give the Brazilian high command a moment of pause. This logic--and it is logical--is why WW III never happened. If Russia *could* have invaded Western Europe, driven all the way to the English channel, rested and jumped the channel to take England without *ever* having to worry about the USA getting involved they would have done just that. They never even tried (although they trained for it) *because* they knew that the USA would get involved.

Again, all of that can be true without saying anything about the war-like tendencies of the Russian people.

So, again, my point is that if Latin American nations decided to create a Pax Latin Americana and there was a holdout, for whatever reason, the members of the coalition would simply do the easy thing and conquer the holdout if for no other reason than to not have non-contiguous borders. My comments were about geopolitics, not about race.


Cheers
Aj

Thank you for explaining what you meant AJ. I think its an important distinction.

I don’t know exactly how to articulate my feelings around this. Perhaps because it is about feelings more than it is about facts. And that’s hard because with facts you always know where you stand. Either it’s a correct fact or it’s not. But for a good deal of this I don’t have facts. There aren’t any yet. It isn’t a fact that China is looking to assert itself in South America. It isn’t a fact that they aren’t. China may say that it isn’t interested in empire-building or intervening in the affairs of other countries but I doubt that can even be helped. As China emerges as a super power, the stakes will continue to change until imperialism is almost accidental or unintentional but rather unavoidable.

But I don’t think it is true that a unification of Latin America would either mean that the people of Latin America would end up killing themselves if one nation doesn’t want to join or that China and Japan (a dynamic duo that I think is still a long ways off) would unite to isolate the U.S. and own the Western Pacific ocean. Or that Russia will arise like a phoenix from the ashes and somehow find money to buy off a unified Latin America.

I also don’t believe countries should only be allowed to make decisions that are in the best interest of the United States. That would be nice for us. But hardly very fair.

I think we could handle a united Latin America. We might have to actually be a little nicer to them. In our dealings with other countries there is just something about the way we control things even while we supposedly set them free that is troubling. But I really am not going to get into a litany of wrongs that the U.S. and its corporations have done to the people, the natural resources and the environments of a variety of other countries. I will just take a moment to say that if I was a country surrounded by weaker nations that were geographically important to me I would have done everything in my power to make sure that the things I did to these nations were always in the their best interest so I could keep them as allies. It’s just good politics. At least I would imagine it is. It’s certainly how I try to treat my friends. I don’t take advantage of them, steal their stuff, dump my crap in their yard because the repercussions for me are nil, unlike if I dump in my own back yard nor do I interfere in their personal affairs.

This isn’t about South America but just our militaristic way of being in general. There is a choice. One can choose a militaristic stance right from the get go so as not to appear weak or whatever. Or one can choose to lay back a bit and watch which way the wind is blowing. I just think we need to start thinking economically rather than militaristically if we even want anything left to worry about defending. If we keep spending so much of our money on offense disguised as defense there may be little left to concern ourselves with. I wish we would stop sniffing around Iran. And China really has all it can handle right now worrying about its own people. They are certainly an economic power, and with that comes a certain degree of imperialism however, history so far has shown that China is not an imperialistic country.

And scare tactics just suck. Maybe it’s just realism to others but to me it’s scare tactics to talk about China and Japan uniting and owning the Western Pacific and Russia controlling the North Atlantic. It’s scare tactics to say the United States would end up isolated, cut off and unable to move anywhere but within territorial waters. It’s scare tactics to me because it opens people up to all sorts of possibilities that they are willing to do just to try and feel safe and secure. We have to protect ourselves from some threat or other to our freedom. And every time we start talking about threats to our freedom other people in other countries start to die. I’m not saying not to be aware of the possibilities but for too long now the rich have used our fears and fed them to the war machine and we have been at the mercy of a litany of fear that is transformed into violence, blood and death. And they make more and more money.

It also makes little sense to me that simply the unification of Latin America would cause China, Russia and Japan to make moves that would most likely cause world war. If they were interested in a war of that magnitude I can’t imagine that they need a united South America to do it. I don’t think it is a lack of unification that stops China from inching its way toward the Americas. And those little piss wars where poor countries are destroyed for fun and profit seem to always happen.

It’s like our policy is always shoot first and don’t bother asking questions later.

It reminds me of a story my grandmother used to tell me when i was little. I think it is a kind of Portuguese proverb or some such. But I don’t think it loses much in the translation. There was this farmer whose plow broke and he needed to borrow one. So he started the 5 mile walk to his neighbor’s farm to ask to borrow his. All the way there the farmer kept remembering all the things he had done for his neighbor over the years. And he would think what if his neighbor refused to lend him the plow. He would say “But I gave you that axe when you needed it” and then he would remember “I lent you my wheel barrel more than once over the years” And on and on it went. When he finally reached his neighbors farm he knocked on the door. When his neighbor answered the farmer had worked himself into such a state that he screamed “keep your fucking plow you asshole”.

I don’t know I’m kind of all over the place. I have a hard time thinking in militaristic terms. It’s upsetting. I feel a bit sick. It doesn’t feel like justice and fairness we can do better than we are to me at all.

I can't see China and Japan uniting either. Historically they have hated each other and Japan has acted pretty badly in regards to China...but I am not sure AJ meant that they would unite? Just that both would like control of the Pacific? But either way, I agree.

It has always made me feel a lot sick to think about the political chess games we engage in and how horrible the fall out seems to be eventually.

My dream is to see North and South America united, a very unpopular opinion in this thread. Lol.

I do think China and Japan will join forces. Not soon. But they will. I know the Chinese people really don't like the Japanese. Bad blood there. However they will push past it I believe. And the governments will do what governments do best regardless.

Don't they hate each other? Really bad and of long standing good reason?

Oh and an add on from last post... Not all South America is poor. Not sure of you meant that, but if you did....

I wasn't talking about any country at all in particular. I was thinking about Afghanistan when I wrote it. And that whole post wasn't only about South America. I know i was all over the place and I'm sorry And that particular part was in reference to the wars that super powers engage in through other smaller and poorer countries. Usually little countries that of course have something of value.

I think the strategic advantage of China-Japan alliance will far outweigh their bad history.

Well this thread has gone down quite a road. I think Apocalipstic has the right idea in circling back to the beginning.

Keeping in mind that folks can be justified in feeling as they feel and thinking as they think, even if we do not share those feelings or thoughts, how do we move forward?

If we cannot come to some consensus about some basic ideas in thread of a dozen or so people, how exactly to we have justice, equality, harmony and sustainability in a world of seven billion?