Fighting Terrorism and Promoting Democracy

Never heard of a wolf-ticket, Booman, but your comments on issuing ultimatums are well taken

You saw my funny for the ladies who lunch, huh!

At least, I hope you're enjoying some privacy in your endeavor for the sake of others in your household! :wink:

The problem I still believe is that we should promote democracy over capitalism and not turn it into demonocracy.

Wolf-tickets, is a timeless slangular term for blustering, and threatning your toughness.

LW,
...You sound as if you don''t believe capitalism, and democracy, can co-exist. Or did you mean, as a priority?

Back in this thread, I used the symbolic idea of plopping down a MacDonald's on a country's capitol city main street as our idea of a hand of diplomacy in introducing and promoting democracy. Capitalism of different forms can evolve from a country setting up a democratic government. We've had extreme growing pains of capitalism damaging democracy almost fatally. The recent series on PBS, "Chicago: City of the Century" exposed many evils of Capitalism. Are they preferred by us over the evils of Facism and Communism? Certainly, but it's going to take another thousand years for us to work it out before we even come close to a Utopian society. Capitalistic ecomomies aren't just reserved for the U.S. --otherwise there wouldn't be a Hong Kong, Shanghai or Singapore.
All Chinese experiments which are give rise to the thought explored in James Clavell's novels. How rich do you suppose the Chinese are? Oh, yes, they don't seem to share the financial success with their poorest citizens who have been known to die from famine and governmental neglect within their system. However, some of that sounds familiar, now doesn't it?

Quite True.

LW, Talk about the extremes of capitalism of the Chinese; from the poorest in the majority to the few very wealthy individuals. Hong Kong is a contrast of what capitalism can mean. Is that good or bad? c.i.

It's not whether one believes it is good or bad -- it's a part of modern civilization and what prompted the experiment of communism. All political ideologies seem to work in a small, tidy model but when the oligarchies gets hold of them, they become distorted and you get an elephantine buraucracy that attempts to similate the ideals as a political machine. It's done under the presumpsion of pragmatism but the kind of pragmatism that Machiavelli wrote about. The idea of the forefathers was to split the oligarchy into three branches and then let the populace elect (hire) on the help. Would they be sold on smaller government today? That's an interesting proposition.

LW, If the trend of the past two hundred years is any indication of the future, it's probably close to impossible. c.i.

I have come to view the phrase "promoting democracy" as this instead: promoting capitalism for USA-based corporations". If "it" is in the interest of corporate America, then it is a priority for the Bush administration. Hence, drilling in Alaska, snowmobiles in national parks, logging in national parks, etc.

You have it, Cobalt. It's not promoting democracy and letting these countries develop a capitalistic infrastructure. Certain factions in our government don't want the competition we created with Japan and many other countries without out having our hand in it. They don't want any more Sonys. Their agenda is to protect us from the outside world buying America. What they can't stop is the rest of the world gradually learning how its done and many would say by studying how we bend business ethics to the breaking point.

(And sometimes beyond the breaking point).

We don't need to worrty about 'competition,' because we'll go to the third world countries to help them develop into capitalism by investing in their countries. Look at what's happening in China. Capitalists from all over the world are competing to invest in China. Whether decocracy will follow any time soon is the big question. c.i.

We can promote capitalism but is that the best way to promote democracy? We still have many countries suspicious of our intent and have poor diplomacy in place to counter those suspicions. Our economy is huge within our own standards and not doing so well right now -- there's certainly not enough money to invest in every third world country and bring them into the 21st Century. Much of that has to happen within and they have to desire it. Afghanistan may be a prototype and I don't see very good prospects there because the best they have to offer goes into illegal rather than legal drugs. I agree we are buying a lot from outside the U.S. but the investment is hallmarked by the audacious placing, again, of heart attack promoting MacDonald's stores. We want to promote our lousy diet in these countries? We've made a lot of mistakes in trying to promote democracy by trying to promote capitalism. It's likely to eventually occur in spite of us.

LW, I don't think the intent of expanding capitalism is to help their country become a democracy. I believe greed has more to do with foreign investment, and not whether they have a democracy. c.i.

Greed is becomming the hallmark of the Ugly American these days. How many other countries would one generally think of, if this moniker is applied? Lessee, there is the USA, and....um...some banana republics and...um....the Russian Mafia....

Dang can't seem to come up with any other countries that globally go for the gusto with capitalism, corporate 'theology' and methodology and, ironically, democracy.

Trying to tag "democracy" to this countries capitalistic endeavors around the world is fooling no one. c.i.

Now I getcha, c.i. We can't proselytize democracy unless we have credibility -- it's not like spreading a religion which deals with the incredible. Our giant corporations who are in red ink and who have tried to conceal it by corrupt means is not a good sales pitch, that's for sure. People in these countries have to make the decision that they want a capitalistic economy -- they may lose faith in their present governments or, like China, their government may be experimenting with free enterprise to see how the people deal with it. That they seem content with what they have may not be altogether true but are they ready for the image of lust for materialistism of our system? It's certainly not the doctrine of their religious faiths (and you imagine a true Muslim pining for a big screen TV?) Those people certainly lose faith in their government when they lose a war -- is this the modus operendi suggested by this administration in the shadows of the White House? Russia is having difficulty with their quasi-free enterprise, democratic concoction and we have had only some luck in convincing them that we have the perfect plan.
You don't suppose they are looking at our Constitution and saying to themselves, "Yes, wonderful words but this is not what the U.S. looks like to me."

LW, Nothing wrong with the words of our Constitution, but the leaders of most third world countries are not going to give up their power to democracy or anything else available in this world. China's leaders still reminds its citizens on a regular basis who is boss in their country, even as they convert their economy to capitalism. Russia's experiment to convert has failed, because they attempted to convert from communism to capitalism too quickly. The people were not prepared for it. With all the corruption in their government and mafia, Russia is going to struggle in their conversion for much longer than would be necessary otherwise. The potential is there, because the Russian people have the basic foundation of education. c.i.