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Moore is an iconoclast, but:
I don’t know what people mean when they say that Bush has made “the right decisions,” but if you mean Bush is winning the war against terrorism by his handling of Iraq, there’s no evidence of that.
Bush never justified his invasion of Iraq. We didn’t complain, because Hussein was a slimy guy and we wanted to be rid of him. The war in Iraq has nothing to do with the war on terror. There was never a connection made between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda. We have never seen any evidence that Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction.. If anything, the war in Iraq has diverted resources we needed to have in Afghanistan tracking down Bin Laden, is still at large.
Bush is not working for America’s interests. He has unabashedly given out scads of no-bid government contracts to his corporate sponsors. Look at the facts and ask the logical questions; Bush has served corporate interests unwaveringly from day one. Bush has done nothing for America that was not either for show or a happy side effect of his ruthless pursuit of his own agenda. The President has built up the largest deficit in our history while reducing taxes for the wealthy, thus stealing trillions of dollars from American taxpayers, and giving the money to his corporate pals as government contracts and tax cuts. Robbin’ Bush steals from the people and gives to the rich.
We accept this because we love the simplicity of Bush’s world view. It’s hard to accept that big problems do not have easy solutions. We want a world where if George promises to get rid of Al-Qaeda, he’ll do it, and we just have to “stay the course” (translation: don’t ask questions, just let me finish looting our country and theirs). Choosing not to see the obvious lie allows us to trust that the world is secure. So we don’t have to wonder about Bush’s war on terrorism. We only have to decide if we are against terrorism, if we support the war and our troops. We’re either patriotic Americans or we’re a threat to our homeland security.
I want to believe Bush is doing the right things, but I’ve been plagued by facts that make it impossible. His best logic is circular. “We’re doing this because it is the right thing to do”. Being able to “stay the course” when things are difficult is admirable --unless you’re going the wrong way.
America’s commitment to simplicity is dangerous. We can’t always assume that the government’s answer is the right one, and if we don’t love our country enough to pay attention and enough to complain when necessary, we may be complicit in our own defeat by terrorism. George Bush serves Enron, not America. We need to watch him, and we need to make sure he knows we’re watching.
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Language pair: English;
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Mark S.
July 21, 2006
# Msgs: 2
Latest: July 29, 2006
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Re:Re:Re:Hurricane
Hi! I am an Turkish living and working in Istanbul, Turkey. I am a teacher in High School here and I desperately want to learn English! Is there someone out there who TEACHES ENGLISH who might want to do an exchange with me? we can practise English and Turkish...I'm not a gold member.. I am 28 years old, love art, music, concerts, traveling, and meeting new people...
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Language pair: English; Turkish
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ibrahim s.
December 20, 2005
# Msgs: 1
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Re:Re:Finland
> When I think of Finland, I imagine a beautiful country
It is said that beauty is in the eye of beholder. However, I agree that there are many people who like Finland because of the features you mention, and I like it, too.
> I think that the people there pay much attention to the environment and that makes the country really pure.
Low density of population also helps to maintain purity.
> It allegedly has heavy taxes, but in exchange welfare is pretty developped.
Many people think that the welfare WAS developed. Two decades ago we were proud of our welfare, especially the support for poor people, but since then things have deteriorated quite much. I hope we can fix the problem before we forget how.
> A kind of heaven...
Our heaven has long, dark, and coldish winter -- not extreme, perhaps, but troublesome.
On the other hand, I admit that Finnish summer is so lovely, that I am willing to pay for it by suffering the winter. Finland (or Scandinavia) is unique with its combination of reasonable climate and arctic sunlight.
Puti
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Language pair: French; English
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Juha-Petri T.
September 2, 2005
# Msgs: 1
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Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Pure Opinion: Is America a democracy?
Ah!
Yes, I meant the visualization part.
I wish I could take credit for that, but actually, that's where the issue was first identified and examined on a broad public scale. This was an actual problem that had to deal with frequently over many centuries in England.
But I agree with you. I was also impressed with how simple and easy it was to understand based on this example. You can see that it made an impression on me, since I still remember it in some detail, five years after taking my economics class :0)
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Reply to message # 53222
Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Pure Opinion: Is America a democracy? dwyn hart
Are you talking about the visualization part?
We'll you used cattle and things associated with cattle, to make a point. I never would have even thought about describing something like that. You just made it easier to understand and visualize, by using an example that a lot of people could relate to.
This is a reply to message # 53149
Language pair: English; German
Category: Current News
Post date: June 3, 2005
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Language pair: English; All
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Mark S.
June 4, 2005
# Msgs: 6
Latest: June 4, 2005
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Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Pure Opinion: Is America a democracy?
How so?
Reply to message # 53109
Re:Re:Re:Re:Pure Opinion: Is America a democracy? dwyn hart
I think I understand. Interesting choice of visualization.
This is a reply to message # 53035
Language pair: English; German
Category: Current News
Post date: June 2, 2005
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Language pair: English; All
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Mark S.
June 3, 2005
# Msgs: 6
Latest: June 4, 2005
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Re:Re:Re:Pure Opinion: Is America a democracy?
"Self interest governs all" The only thing that you can really count Self Interest Governs All Part 1 of 2
"Self interest governs all" means that the only thing that you can really count on is that people will do what is in their own best interests. This is the main principal behind western economics, and is also the great limiting factor that confronts us in dealing with problems that do not improve "the bottom line" for business. The classic example of this is known as "the problem of the commons."
Imagine you live in a small pastoral community where everyone raises livestock. Maybe grazing land is scarce, but we have a public "commons," a place where we can all graze our animals, so long as we are considerate and do our part in maintaining it.
Here's where the problem comes in. If we all have to share the commons--lets just say, for example, that there are ten local ranches—that means that we each enjoy about a tenth of the benefit of the commons, and are responsible for about a tenth of its upkeep. But look what happens when we start sharing it.
I may notice that I’m making fairly decent money from my livestock, but I might actually make a whole lot more if I double the size of my herd. If I do this, I double my benefit from the use of the commons without any increase at all to my cost in supporting it. Unfortunately, this is true equally for all who share the commons. You may imagine what is going to happen. Everyone is going to want to double the size of their herds, and pretty soon, we’ll all have so much livestock that we’ll all be overgrazing the commons. That’s going to ruin the grassland and make it unusable for all of us. Now, there’s going to be a big fight over who has to get rid of some of their animals, because all of us are enjoying such great benefit at such a low cost. This means that we’re all going to have to share some further expenses to provide security to ensure that everyone follows whatever we end up agreeing to as a group in order to reestablish some peaceful, sustainable way to use the commons.
See Self Interest Governs All Part 2 of 2
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Language pair: English; German
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Mark S.
June 1, 2005
# Msgs: 6
Latest: June 4, 2005
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Re:Re:Re:Pure Opinion: Is America a democracy?
Self Interest Governs All Part 2 of 2
A similar problem occurs when it comes time to put time, money, or effort into taking care of the commons. For every, hour, say, that I put into taking care of the commons, I pay 100 percent of the time (it is all me, nobody splits that hour with me) and I enjoy only a tenth of the benefit from my efforts during that time, since I only get to use the commons a tenth of the time, or I only get to use a tenth of the commons, or whatever we have all agreed to. So the natural economics of the situation is that everybody benefits most by using the commons as much as they possibly can and contributing to its upkeep as little as they absolutely have to. It winds up being a lose-lose proposition for everyone unless you can find a group of people that are just naturally altruistic and civic minded, and wouldn’t dream of using the commons any more than they’re entitled or caring for them any less than their fair share. In real-world terms, that’s quite a difficult crowd to pull together.
In terms of our modern world and today’s politics, we have all kinds of “commons” resources that we have to share, and where these dynamics will pop up. Highly visible examples are the air, rivers and oceans, which we all depend on and all want others to help us keep clean. Natural resources, like forests, mineral deposits, and farmland. Anything that we have to share and which requires some sort of sense of responsibility in its use and management.
This may make it a whole lot easier to see why it is so difficult to work out international treaties to deal with the problems of pollution and global warming. It may also explain why public bathrooms can get so nasty.
Cheers!
Mark / Sacramento
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Language pair: English; German
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Mark S.
June 1, 2005
# Msgs: 6
Latest: June 4, 2005
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Re:Re:Re:Pure Opinion: Is America a democracy?
"Self interest governs all" The only thing that you can really count Self Interest Governs All Part 1 of 2
"Self interest governs all" means that the only thing that you can really count on is that people will do what is in their own best interests. This is the main principal behind western economics, and is also the great limiting factor that confronts us in dealing with problems that do not improve "the bottom line" for business. The classic example of this is known as "the problem of the commons."
Imagine you live in a small pastoral community where everyone raises livestock. Maybe grazing land is scarce, but we have a public "commons," a place where we can all graze our animals, so long as we are considerate and do our part in maintaining it.
Here's where the problem comes in. If we all have to share the commons--lets just say, for example, that there are ten local ranches—that means that we each enjoy about a tenth of the benefit of the commons, and are responsible for about a tenth of its upkeep. But look what happens when we start sharing it.
I may notice that I’m making fairly decent money from my livestock, but I might actually make a whole lot more if I double the size of my herd. If I do this, I double my benefit from the use of the commons without any increase at all to my cost in supporting it. Unfortunately, this is true equally for all who share the commons. You may imagine what is going to happen. Everyone is going to want to double the size of their herds, and pretty soon, we’ll all have so much livestock that we’ll all be overgrazing the commons. That’s going to ruin the grassland and make it unusable for all of us. Now, there’s going to be a big fight over who has to get rid of some of their animals, because all of us are enjoying such great benefit at such a low cost. This means that we’re all going to have to share some further expenses to provide security to ensure that everyone follows whatever we end up agreeing to as a group in order to reestablish some peaceful, sustainable way to use the commons.
See Self Interest Governs All Part 2 of 2
on is that people will do what is in their own best interests. This is the main principal behind western economics, and is also the great limiting factor that confronts us in dealing with problems that do not improve "the bottom line" The classic example of this is known as "the problem of the commons."
Imagine you live in a small pastoral community where everyone raises livestock. Maybe grazing land is scarce, but we have a public "commons," a place where we can all graze our animals, so long as we are considerate and do our part in maintaining it.
Here's where the problem comes in. If we all have to share the commons--lets just say, for example, that there are ten local ranches. That means that we each enjoy about a tenth of the benefit of the commons, are responsible for about a tenth of its upkeep,
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Language pair: English; German
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Mark S.
June 1, 2005
# Msgs: 6
Latest: June 4, 2005
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Re:A new world begins today
I think he’ll be working along the same lines as John Paul II. This is logical taking into account that he was the most important advisor of the former Pope. He’s said he’ll carry on with the teachings in Vatican II, so I don’t think there’ll be much change within the church, pity, personally I’d have liked a few changes!
I guess he’s determined to do his best to go on with JPII’s foreign policy and mediation, and I don’t know if the world will be different with him as Pope, may be this will depend on his personality and strength to cope with the demands of a globalized society.
Now, what’s the view non-catholics get of the figure of the Pope?
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Language pair: English; All
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american version
April 26, 2005
# Msgs: 2
Latest: April 26, 2005
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seeking esl tutors for a website
hi everybody,
I'm looking for an esl teacher to help students online. This is a chatroom where students can go for help, but we need teachers who just have some free time and like helping students. We are two at the moment, but we need more. Are you interested?
Send me a message and I'll give you the address of the chatroom.
thanks
Andrew
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Language pair: English; Italian
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Andrew P.
April 25, 2005
# Msgs: 1
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