September 11, 2011
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The Politics of 9/11
It seems to me that in most respects, Osama Bin Laden won what he desired - up to and including martyrdom.
His goal was to make the US even more disliked among Arabs and other Moslems, and in a single stroke, he accomplished his goal beyond his wildest dreams - including throwing terror into the minds of at least enough Americans to cause them to react in a way guaranteed to disrupt their lives.I don't remember the immediate reaction as being particularly panicked, at least among those who viewed the attack with me. We were in a MD's waiting room watching the usual boring TV when the news flashed on - we saw the second plane hit. It was not until days later when the media and government began to spread the panic that many of us began to worry.
The strange decision to attack Iraq - which had no connection with or even sympathy with al qaeda, must have delighted Osama - even more Moslems would learn to hate us. As we became mired in Arab/Mid Eastern politics and poured more lives and treasure into that bottomless rat-hole; and as we changed our daily lives to accommodate the new levels of terror, he must have been delighted. His disregard for the lives and comfort of his followers probably made every drone strike and "collateral damage" impact music to his ears. Hopefully during his final moments, he realized that somewhere things had gone wrong, but somehow I doubt it.
I think the time has come to disengage ourselves from arab politics, as we have done to some extent in Libya. It's time to begin to treat terrorism as a police and intelligence matter, as we should have done in the first place. We did manage to overthrow the Taliban with less than 400 special forces and CIA agents.
We should remove our occupying troops and let the Arabs sort themselves out.
Comments (15)
we seem to cause destabilization in the region in order to exploit resources.
Do you ever get the impression that the people who CAUSE all the Middle Eastern unrest are unconcerned about anyone who is damaged by their little game. Because game is what it is.
Uhm, Dick.
Perhaps the vision of these events looks different from an "external" point of view as we have over here in Italy.
My feeling is that it's so false that statement that Muslims hate USA! It's not true. I know several muslim immigrants in Italy and they look like no care at all of this international politics. No normal reasonable person over here or over there is actually a follower of Bin Laden. The terrorists in the middle east is a small part of the cityzens. So small that can be ignored (if not that they have the power in fact to terrorize).
My personal feeling is that the war against arab terrorism is viewed more like and advantage by who keeps the power in the Western world. In fact it's not a secret anymore that Bin Laden himself was some how financed by US strong powers (before 9/11). Although everybody knew already that he was not what we commonly define a "saint".
Anyway, i also believe that what was the real purpose for USA to attack the middle east (which is to keep political control on that area and mainly not allowing other emergent economies to control it) is a won battle. Although those economies look like they are making good steps in the path to win the war anyway.
For common people i believe that the feeling of "hate" against the USA is somehow justified by the fact that the US intervent over there looks like the one that drop bombs on civil population. We can discuss if it is a necessary evil or not, but if i were one of them i wouldn't like either somebody that is dropping bombs on me.
Unfortunately i believe that we cannot, now, just go away and leave them to their destiny. Because the process is begun. It's like if you give only the first of the three injection for a vaccination treatment. It's putting only some poison in the organism, it's not solving any problem and it makes only damages.
@italian_culture - Thanks for the comment Dario, it's always nice to get a viewpoint from a different direction .
My contention is that Bin Laden's attack[s] were designed to both gain prestige among the radical islamists and to provoke the US to further intrusion in Arab politics - in both he succeeded.
US foreign policy has, for over 200 years been unabashedly and pointedly favorable to US economic interests- perhaps more than the foreign policy objectives of any other developed country (except perhaps, England's). While binLaden's personal fortune was, in part dependent on western financial investments, I'm pretty sure there was no covert funding of him - it would be too hard to keep that secret and revelation would lead to big trouble for any American who tried - as in fact it has to a few american muslims who have tried to support him.
There is ample evidence that bin Laden's actions have gained al qaeda a good deal of support among young radical muslims - willing to die for his cause. He was able to wrap his radical islamist political ideas in the robe of conservative Islam and gain the support of a good many conservative muslim religious leaders. This has been a serious problem for average American muslims, who certainly never supported bin Laden - as well a a serious problem for the average arab citizen of those countries impacted by the american response to 9/11.
Your comment that the US cannot leave the job half finished seems to indicate the idea that somehow the Arabs are unable govern themselves - which they have been perfectly capable of doing for millennia - actually longer then most European countries.
After what happened in 9/11, I just don't understand why the Americans had to go after Iraq, claiming WMD"s. And now it is only a joke, when there are so many Iraqi's who have died, and are displaced.
@tychecat -
Dick,
I don't believe that there had ever been any official US found to support foundamentalist islamic terrorism against US.
But the suspect that the US itself contributed in allowing the attacks to take place should be seriously be taken in consideration at first by the US citizens theirselves, being that the Amrican (and so, westerninan) economy could harvest only advantages from this situation.
Look, i am not saying that the citizens or any official democratic political power (see, for example Obama, or better Bush) is involved in any complicity with BinLaden (to tell the truth, i strongly believe that it's impossible that Bush didn't know anything, but that has nothing to do with my thesis). What i am saying is that the strong powers of the most powerful economy in the world (which everything you can say except that they have solidarity feelings) did pull, under the table, the right threads of the terrorism marionettes in order to preserve their leadership on the world economy.
In other words, i don't believe there is any war to terrorism. What i believe is that there is an economic war against China (and other emergent economies) that is plaied with weapons in a neutral territory, and islamic terrorists are just some puppets in the hands of those unscrupolous people.
Now, that does not justify at all any terrorist, which is ready to kill thousands of people including him/herself at any moment for his/her god.
But if you say that the strong american powers didn't know anything before and couldn't do anything to avoid it, well.... simply i cannot believe it.
Those unscrupulous (american) people are doing the good for theirselves and, by side effects, to american and westernian population (because loosing the war against china means that they become the rich part of the world and we start thinking of eating rat meat for our need of proteins and riding bikes for our transportation). Which makes me think that they are somehow supported by official democratic politics.
No, i don't believe that nowadays, with this situation, Arab world could think to instaurate by itself a democracy. The thing is that the whole population in the middle east lived its life against a dictatorial regime supported by some big powers (USA/USSR/Europe...). Every now and then the supporter decide that they have to drop bombs on their heads in order to support this or that local power. In this situation some countries (see Lybia, for example) had population that could start a revolution which could never been won without our support, and other would never even try any revolution untill they focus exactly which local power to fight (see Iraq, for example. Saddam Hussein was the bad guy we fought, but i recently watched on TV a repertory interview in which an italian "journalist" - which still have the prime time on national TV - defined the same Saddam Hussein "a good president", shaking his hand). In those times we used to support Saddam Hussain, and all of the sudden (after the fall of Berlin wall) started to consider him the devil. And who did pay the expenses of that? The civil population which you point out as the one that should build a government on the ruins of our interests over there.
I believe that they could, with time, find the way to democracy if they are left on their own. But that would take centuries of cruel civil wars fought with stones against stones.
What i would believe it is a little more human, is to be there not to fight, but to protect the weak ones in order to build democracy on civil discussion and not on violence. But actually you got reason, i don't think we could ever be capable of anything like that.
Bin Laden's terrorist attacks provoked an affection to the cause for islamic radicals, but also motivated american soldiers (and public opinion) that it would be a good thing to do such a stupid thing as for example going to fight Saddam Hussein who never did nothing for international terrorism.
And that's exactly my point. 9/11 attacks justified for the US public opinion the start of war against terrorism, which had the real goal to control the area and reduce the growth of Chinese economy (about the same of what happened at Pearl Harbor, but that's another story).
@italian_culture - Dario, you have suggested a more or less classic conspiracy theory. Many people around the world - and here in America can't help but believe that Al Qaeda could not have launched such an attack without someone noticing - and allowing it to happen.
You are making the classic mistake of under-estimating the hulking stupidity of american bureaucracy. There were a number of clues that the attacks were going to happen - which were ignored or which failed to connect. Almost immediately the government over-reacted and tried to steer public opinion into panic mode allowing the Bush administration to do as they wished to combat what they saw as a real terrorist threat. there were a number of senior bush administration members who saw the chance to further their own interests (Most obviously Vice-president Chaney, who quickly moved Halliburton (the source of his considerable fortune) into into very lucrative contracts in the proposed Iraq war - which was apparently Bush's idea - to repeat his father's very successful war against Saddam Hussain. There is a lot of evidence of poor judgment - but none of conspiracy before the attacks. After the attacks, they were used to further a very short-sighted agenda aimed at somehow increasing American presence in the Arab World while ignoring the Arab [ and world's] feelings about this.
A good many years ago [1959], I was privileged to attend the Institute on US Foreign Policy at the American University [Washington,DC] which included a lot of input from both US and foreign experts, including a good many arabs - which figured as the head of the institute was Prof. Abdul Aziz Said. A few years later I had an NDEA fellowship on the position of the US in the non-western world which specifically focused on mid-eastern relations. I've tried to keep up on US - Foreign relations off and on ever since - I used to teach World History as well as Modern European History, and have always had some interest in American politics.
I'm afraid that the current american political climate is such that America and the world are going to suffer a time of repeated bullying by the US - which will be bad for the US and the world. The Chinese are not seen as a particular threat here - we have made sure it is to their best interests to keep us strong and economically healthy - which we still are, despite what you read and hear.
@tychecat -
Dick, thanks for your answer.
I am probably overstimating American efficiency in bureaucracy, but being my meter of comparison the Italian one, that is far from being a compliment
I think that you suffer (it's not your fault, Americans are all depicted like that!!!) for some kind of.... mmmmh.... i believe in philosophy this is called "edonism", or, in other words, the faith that what is morally good is also materially advantageous.
I can also believe that AlQuaeda, standing on its own legs, gained international power enough to defeat the most powerful military force of the world in its own territory due to stupidity of a bureaucracy system (comparable to the Italian one).
But i am astonished for how Americans can explicitly ignore some facts:
1) BinLaden family were personal friends to the Bush family much before Bush senior was president (and i cannot trascurate the fact that America is a real democracy but the winner of presidencial election usually is the one that can invest more money in his campaign)
2) Osama BinLaden was a personal friend of GWBush apparently untill the day before the attack of the twin towers (note that point 1 and 2 are documented in plenty of photos and videos)
3) the plan of attack to Afghanistan was already on GWBush desk before 9/11/2001
4) BinLaden family have been protected till few days after the attack (they were riding the only jet planes flying in the world in those days)
5) BinLaden family (and other Arab financial powers) were, and still are, the main investors within American economy.
6) American economy is still based on oil energy, with obvious implications about the control of Middle East area
7) While American economy can run for few periods thanks to force of inertia, there are other economies in the world that are quickly climbing the mountain, and that climb cause them an unsatisfied thirst of oil. The beginning of the war to terror came exactly in the right moment (maybe a little late, infact a lot of historical expert forecasted such a thing) just when the flow of oil was changing direction from west to east.
Yes, if we ignore those points, it look like that some stupid terrorists could win against some more stupid bureaucracy.
But if we don't ignore those points, the suspicion that there is a cospiracy is well founded, i believe, and should be taken somehow in consideration by such a real democracy as America is.
Frankly and honestly i don't believe that all the powerful dudes in America threw an attack towards American people. But I firmly believe that some of them do not put any ethics and morality in the management of their own business, and such a thing as the deaths of 9/11 could in their mind be considered an acceptable side effect.
And we are not speaking about few pennies in the pockets of some people. We are speaking of a new settlement of the world economical powers which was still shaking after the fall of Berlin Wall.
I don't believe that there is a hierarchy of brains that consciously drive the world economy by mean of planning strategies. I better believe that there are few unorganized powers which try to make their own interests allowing or not some big events (such as 9/11), independently from their possible moral judgement.
If i see somebody planning a terrorist attack i could call the police, i could do nothing, i could hide the event to my neighbors (so that they won't call the police for sure). The guilt of the terrorist attack is obviously of the terrorists. But the responsability of not stopping them is mine. Moreover, if my behavior is driven by a social system and a cultural environment, i believe that the society in which i live has a serious problem.
Within this picture, your statement that Bin Laden obtainer the growth of the hate of Muslims towards USA looks to me not only false, but focusing the wrong picture. Like saying that a hurricane is a bad thing because for that day i cannot go swimming in the ocean.
@italian_culture - Dario, The Bush-binLaden family ties were and are well known and are the basis for most of the 9/11 conspiracy theories. What this relationship really reveals is the extent of how connected the international oil business is and how it does business - something Obama and democrats are trying to regulate - with little success so far. America does pay Mafia style "Protection Money"to Saudi Arabia as do many other countries. Attempts to wean us off oil as our major energy basis have so far had little success.
While fear of terrorists has been a factor in the US economy, politics, and way of life, it is far from being the most important - and indeed is seldom even considered by most americans, except to be annoyed when they are subjected to some kind of search. these anti-terrorist activities are, in my opinion, mostly left-over attempts to encourage American support of government anti-terrorist and foreign adventurism, but like these policies often are, once implemented, they are very hard to remove.
Like many Europeans, you over-estimate the influence US foreign relations has on domestic politics - actually far less than the reverse. US domestic politics - currently the combination of racial hatred and an economic downturn will probably result in the return to a jingoistic policy probably even more disruptive to the world's political order than Bush's was. Currently it looks unlikely that Obama will be reelected - but you never know.
Obama might even bow to the current climate and even refuse to run for re-election. This would probably mean Hilary Clinton as the Dems candidate - but so far I have not seen or heard any discussion of this. Another Clinton as US president would probably be a good thing for the world - and the US - but it's a long shot.
@tychecat -
Well, Dick, I didn't mean that the fear of terrorists is any important thing for American economy. Frankly i cannot judge this (how would American economy be doing if Americans were not frightened of terrorists? I don't know!).
What i wanted to say is that the fear of terrorists, or better the pride of Americans that cannot accept that foreign terrorists make such an attack on their territory (and on such a symbolic target, too!), had an enough strong motivation in public opinion to accept that the government sent soldiers to fight for a cause that, to an innocent view, would appair somehow immoral.
I mean, if the President of the USA told the normal medium cultured citizen "Hey, let's go to kill thousands of innocent kids in the Middle East so that we put our big paw on the energy resources, and in this way the poor Chinese people will keep being poor while we Americans can stuff our faces and get fatter and fatter", probably the medium cultured citizen would say "mmmmh.... no, in this way we will be fatter but evil, because the rest of the world would downgrade to a worse condition, and we will obtain it through violence and thousands of dead children". Or, atleast this is what i hope the medium cultured American's reaction would be.
But, if the President of the USA shows some hypocritical tear on his face and say something like "We cannot cohabit with all this fear for the rest of our lives, and we are not ready to accept that anyone destroy all what we built with centuries of sweat drops", the medium cultured citizen would react differently, answering something like "We trust in our chief if he will protect us and our children".
Don't you agree with me?
Uhm... but... ah! Obviously this second option is appliable only if some terrorist makes a big attack that shakes the foundation itself of Americans' lives and culture with respect of the Middle East.
So, if the President of the USA wants to start a war for controling the Middle East (with the support of Americans, otherwise - keep in mind America is "unfortunately" a democracy! -, he would eventually loose the office of President of the USA, which thing would make him loose the power to start that war anyway), well... i wouldn't say that he would organize an attack to the Twin Towers, but for sure he would see such an extreme act as an unexpected fluke.
And that is enough to me. If the President of the United States thinks that it is a fluke that two jets destroy two skycrapers, killing thousands of innocent fellow citizens, well, i believe that the principles of Democracy live somewhere else.
To tell the truth, i believe that the things have not been so clear as i depicted them. I don't believe that GWBush consciously killed (or consciously allowed somebody else to kill) thousands of Americans. What i believe is that he was constantly in touch with some "tecnicians" which know how to ride his presidencial mandate keeping contacts with who has the power. Those monkeys think something like "mmmmh.... i have to favour mr. X and mr. Y because they know, and in this way economy would do better...". In a Mafia style mr. X and mr. Y will tell mr. Monkey that "it would be better" to ignore some voices that some terrorists are planning to attack the TT. In the mean time mr. Z would send mr. President a request to sign an attack to Afthanistan and Iraq, which mr. President didnt submit because mr. Monkey2 told him that he cannot do such a thing without the consent of the public opinion. Then there is the clear news that somebody is going to attack the TT tomorrow, and mr. Monkey tells mr. President to ignore this news because mr. X and Y say it is a false alarm as it often happens. Spetember 11 there is the attack, and what really happens is that mr. X and mr. Y win the war and they determine the good of American economy, because mr. President now will submit the request of mr. Z, thanks to good suggestions of mr. Monkeys. Well done, mr. Presidnet, well suggested mr. Monkeys and thank you very much mr. X, Y and Z.
That's a cartoon scenary, and i am sure the things are much more intricated than this. Moreover the guilt for the attack is still of the terrorists: if somebody asks me to kill thousands of people i would say "no", because i still have my free will. If i say "okay" i am the responsible of those deaths.
But any scenary i can imagine, enclosing the cause of the international politics into the happiness of BinLaden (washing everybodys hands from responsabilities), well, that really seems to me very ingenuous.
By the way, just as a divagation, some suspicion of conspiracy of this kind was formulated also with respect to Roosvelt and Pearl Harbor attack. American people would never agree to participate to WWII without such an aggression as Pearl Harbor was. Saying that Roosvelt ordered the attack is really science fiction, in my opinion. More easy is an explaination in which Roosvelt allowed the attack, just closing his eyes (this is similar to my theory for 9/11), in order to have free hands to participate to WWII.
Any theory like this could be considered offensive towards America, i agree.
Moreover it could be seen unrespectful for an Italian like me, which was saved from Nazi-Fascism by the Americans.
But i humbly suggest another scenary: Roosvelt didn't know nothing at all, and Pearl Harbor could happen only for an unforcastable hole of American defense in the Pacific, exactly the way it is reported on the official History books. Nevertheless, after the attack, Roosvelt had a good excuse to convince American People to participate to WWII. Who was the real guilty one? Only the Japaneses? Also some American Defense Officer? And what kind of guilt is that, conscious or just negligence? But, after all, who cares? The fact is that some bad thing happened which caused another thing: the participation of USA in WWII, which was a thing that Roosvelt wanted but American citizens didn't. Roosvelt wanted to send thousands and thousands of American soldiers to die, while Americans didn't want. And after Pearl Harbor, American citizens had the feeling that the reason they participate to WWII was the attack to Pearl Harbor, and not the domain of World Economy for the rest XX century.
You could disagree and say: How could we possibly accept some guy as Hitler? Ehm.... my answer is: How could possibly somebody be friend to some guy like Osama Bin Laden?
I'm not friendly with American internal politics, I never thought the option of Obama refusing the run for re-election. And yes, i would like Clinton as president (frankly i liked her program better than Obama's even last time, although i also think that Obama is more fascinating, and this feature is important too!).
But i think the main problem is that, Clinton or Obama running, the election will be won by the Republican candidate, which means atleast 8 terrible years for the world.
@tychecat -
Hey, i am sorry my comments are so long and i (as usual) apologize for any funky English that comes out from my mouth!
@italian_culture - Dario - your remarks are never too long - but they do give me a lot to respond to. IIl stick to economics today.
I suppose your view of american foreign policy and American motives are fairly typical of the views of many Europeans. We Americans would do well to give a little more attention to those kinds of views, but unfortunately we still view ourselves as removed from the rest of the world and few Americans pay much attention to how internal American political and economic decisions influence the rest of the world. Obviously the international community worries about this - it sort of like having a badly trained elephant sharing your small apartment.
The current world economic downturn is probably the result of several disconnected financial screw-ups. The American housing bubble was caused mainly by poorly regulated refinancing decisions and the collapse of a major re-insurance institution [AIG} which also was a major re-insurer of many other world bond funds. I personally had a few hundred thousand dollars invested in an AIG company - fortunately I did not loose anything - rather made a profit. This collapse rapidly spread throughout the world. At the same time The European Union developed its own problems - apparently caused by the great disparity between the financial and economic policies of its members. I think Europe has learned that under-regulated economic and monetary union is a really bad idea - for all concerned, but that another story.
Asia has generally benefited from the world economic downturn. China in particular has seen the rise of the beginning of a robust middle class of entrepreneurs and educated workers. India also is on the cusp of becoming a developed nation. The Arab countries have mostly missed this economic surge mainly because of their antiquated economic and commercial policies. Throughout this mess US Government bonds have been seen as the major secure investment opportunity - which seems to indicate the faith world economic decision makers have in the American economic future - they seem to have more faith than some of we americans do
@tychecat -
Dick,
I think that American and European economies are destined to slowly die. It's only a metter of how much time. If it's gonna happen something like in one century, i am ok: i believe i will probably die before
In few words, this following is the reason for which i believe that capitalism cannot survive anymore. I am trying not to make a moral judgement at all. Just an interpretation of how the things work (by a fool like i am).
Suppose you live in a country which does not have any exchange with other nations (no import, no export, just self-sufficient). Suppose the population of that nation is constant (so it is constant the need of raw or transformed goods), and suppose the economy in that nation is ruled by a capitalist system. There will be few enterpreneurs that hold and invest the capital and a lot of people that work as employees in their enterprises (low labor or white collars, i don't care). One employer can live thanks to his work which consist on investing his money given by the profit of his company. The employee lives thanks to his own work, which is to transform the goods that will be sold by that company. With that added value the company can make profit, which is used to pay his salary.
The whole set of companies of that nation produce some total amount of good which make some total amount of money (say X). Whoever work in one of those companies receive a part of those money as salary. My problem is to understand where the growth of wealth is coming from in order to expand the economy and enrich the citizens.
I mean, all the produced products must be sold, because if they are not sold the companies won't make enough money to pay the salaries of the people that work for those companies.
In other words, the amount X is given by the fact that selling the products you make X dollars. But if you sell those products for X dollars there must be somebody that pay in total X dollars to buy those products. Being that there is no import/export with other countries, the same citizens that work for the companies of that nation receive exactly the total amount of money that have to spend to buy the same products that they produce with their work, otherwise their companies cannot pay those salaries.
The conclusion is that this kind of economy does not grow. Because it cannot use part of those X dollar to re-invest (by the way, there's not even an amount of money destined to the enterpreneur, being that his job to re-invest cannot be done).
For sure in an economy like that, one enterpreneur would try to gain market shares with some marketing, but in an ideal country that doesn't have import/export, one company that gains market shares mean another one that looses them. Some people will have a raise of their salary only if some others will have a decrease. So the whole population will be stuck with that X dollars in total.
So, at the end, where is the hole in this story?
That our capitalistic countries DO have exchanges with other nations, and the rich capitalist countries' economies can grow only thanks to the fact that other poor countries become poorer and poorer.
The capitalistic system is destined to die when it becomes global, because it won't be able to exchange with anybody outside (there's no foreign market unless they find some form of life on Mars or something).
Being that Capitalism is the strongest economy (i believe it's like that because it pushes the "selfishness" button of our consciousnesses) the only nation that can grow despite of other nation that get poorer and poorer are capitalist nations. So there is a kind of status of equilibrium among the nations in the world, controled obviously by who has the power and wants to keep and enlarge that power (the rich nations) which tries to regulate the distribution of wealth in the world.
I have the feeling that the tools that those big powerful people (or better, those big groups of powerful people with the same target) can use are actually the international wars (WW2, cold war, war to terror, but also minor conflicts all around the world).
China is rising its head, India will do the same soon. But they are doing that copying our economical capitalist system, unfortunately. Which means that they can grow only if somebody else (us) become poor (being that there is no more juice to suck from Africa).
I mean, they do want that, not because they are bad guys, but because they would like to be rich, atleast as much we do.
We cannot accept that strategy, because we like to be rich too. So, our only chance is to make so that China and India keep being poor as much as we can.
Anyway, i believe that the average citizen firmly believe to decide upon a moral point of view, and our moral should tell us that making somebody poor for filling up our stomachs is not fair. So, our average citizen needs a moral excuse for the strategies acted by the powerful people in order to preserve our supremacy in the world.
One good way to try to do keep supremacy is to keep control of resources, being that one economy cannot grow without a good (and cheap) source of energy.
Digression: By the way i also have the feeling that there is a sort of cospiracy against clean alternative energy sources mainly for that reason: everybody can get sun or wind energy and nobody can stop sun or wind wherever it is required, so nobody can control who and how that energy is produced, while it's quite easy to control the distribution in the world of fossyl fuels. In the same way it looks like we are trying to keep control of the technology for Nuclear power: it's not a case that rich nations can develop and grow nuclear centrals while if somebody else do the same it is accused to try to build atomic bombs.
I think that at the end this is the dilemma.
I live in a system in which i was conditioned to base the foundations of my life on some principles connected to some culture influenced by capitalism (grow of wealth). So, although i am not interested to be ultra-rich, i like the fact that working a little bit more allows me to have a comfortable car, and maybe in the future to buy an old dismissed farm, renew it, grow my veggies and maybe have some guest as rural tourism. I can support myself and my wife with our needs, which is not only bread and water, but also good food and wine, a hairstyle for her and a new drill-machine for me. I can also support two doggies whose only task in their lives is to make funny faces for our pleasure. To do that i must be rich - so, somebody else must be poor.
I'd just like to say that i am a good person and so i deserve to be rich. And it's kind of morally just that bad people like those damn terrorists in the middle east deserve to be poor. I'd like to say that, but frankly i don't believe it.
@italian_culture - Dario, don't be so pessimistic about the collapse of the West. Thirty years a go the Club of Rome financed Meadows& Meadows Computer projections of world ecology, society, and economics for the next couple of centuries. {"Limits to Growth"published in 1984] . Their first published analysis did indeed show economic/social collapse unless severe restrictions were put on industrial growth before 2000 [ which obviously did not happen]. Their study got much attention from the media and politicians at the time - mostly debunking it. Actually they had some good points but admitted the flaws in their study. Their work has been revised and enlarged many times and makes interesting reading - but it [and you] failed to take human adaptability into account.
Just as Karl Marx - in his famous study of economic realities, worked from incomplete data and sort of warped history to fit his thesis, economists have tended to focus on their particular view of society and how it acts while ignoring other facets of humanity. Humans are not primarily driven by economic necessity - we are bigger [and meaner] than that.
@tychecat -
Dick, i know (although not in detail) the study you quoted. I think the problem of a scientifical analysis of politics, society and economy in the future cannot be really sharp, because those fields strictly involve the imperfection of human beings and their consciousnesses.
I am not basing my observations on any science, infact i am not predicting any catastrophic future.
What i can only say is that if (and i underline if) we apply strictly some rules of capitalistic economy to our countries and to the world itself, the logical conclusion is that our coutries' and the world's economy will inesorably collapse (although i don't know when).
I also notice that the tendency is to apply more and more strictly those principles, which is, to my eyes, kind of dangerous.
I also notice that the powerful people of the world don't really care about the possibility of this collapse, because they, as in fact powerful people, are protected agains any disaster (in italian we say something like "they fall down standing on their feet"), and they don't loose occasion to show their selfishness.
Finally i notice that common people do not understand that those selfish monkeys are the ones that drive the world, also where there is democracy, by convincing people through mediatic propaganda. No, they think they are the subject of the important decisions.
Yes, maybe the humanity will find a solution, but what i see is a bounch of people dying of thirst all around one only little half empty glass of something that looks like water. Maybe somebody will survive, but my forecast is that most of them will die, if that solution won't come out soon.
The analysis you quote was really wrong, since we're still here. Is the world just 11 years late, or the danger is gone? i don't know, but i think it's worth to do something just in case. What do you think about it?