Paris attacks

[amolitor]

Consider your reductionism dumped upon.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Consider your reductionism dumped upon.

That's the best you can do? Equating ISIS with Robin Hood and Buddhists? If that is not reductionism and trivialization that amounts to justification, I do not know what is.

[amolitor]

Tsk.

[BernardLanguillier]

Have read a lot about this situation these past days, I see clearly the following:
- The West is mostly responsible for the current vicious circle we are in, with an extremely high degree of responsibility on the US (the Irak war) and a significant one on France too (the policy relative to Syria),
- More wars, more drone action, will only serve to mess up the situation further by generating more hatred,
- Only the Muslim populations of the middle east themselves can bring this situation to long term stable peace, but they are currently unable to do this,
- The target of the 13-Fri attacks in France isn't a vague hit on the Western way of living. The objective is to trigger civil unrest between the muslim populations in France and the rest of the countries in hope that France would explode from within. They are trying to start a civil war both as a result and as the origin of more hatred,
- The huge majority of peaceful muslims living in Western countries, in particular France and Belgium, have a key role to play in convincing the extremists among their communities to give up on their current course of action. Top arab intellectual, such as Tariq Ramadan, will be central also,
- European countries will probably have no choice but to embark on a painful securization of their societies, bringing them closer to - what I consider living hell - the US and Israeli standards.

No, I don't have the solution, I am just trying to gather objective facts.

Cheers,
Bernard

[Justinr]

All utterly meaningless unless you define "poverty", or "officially considered poor".

Jeremy

I see, so people aren't poor unless they are begging by the roadside, otherwise they are just fine. Is that it?

You asked what I'd been reading, I showed you some of what is being said in the US and the same things are being said over here as well. If you don't like my answer then go and talk to the people spreading this wicked propaganda.


I was trying to find the origin of a quote that goes something like 'poverty keeps pace with prosperity' but found this instead, which is equally apt, if not more so -

So long as all the increased wealth which modern progress brings goes but to build up great fortunes, to increase luxury and make sharper the contrast between the House of Have and the House of Want, progress is not real and cannot be permanent. ~Henry George, Progress and Poverty, 1879

But then, Henry George would be castigated as a bit of a pinko nowadays I guess.

[stamper]

Quote from: kikashi on November 15, 2015, 12:52:20 PM

    God only knows where you are looking.

    1. Western society is not becoming increasingly unequal; on the contrary, excluding the trivial number of ludicrously wealthy, the gap between rich and poor is smaller than it has ever been.

    2. It is not true that "more people than ever are facing poverty"; quite the reverse. The problem is with definition: if you define "poverty" relative to average wealth, then it becomes impossible ever to eradicate, and you are left with the ridiculous notion that a wealthy person who leaves the country decreases the number in "poverty" simply by leaving.

More food banks makes your statement seem ludicrous?


Not at all. They have no impact whatever on the statement.

Jeremy

The conservatives are planning to cut tax credits for millions of struggling families. If they manage that Jeremy do you think that will widen the gap  between the rich and poor?

[Jeremy Roussak]

I see, so people aren't poor unless they are begging by the roadside, otherwise they are just fine. Is that it?

That's not what I wrote, and if you paused to think for a moment, you'd be aware of that.

So long as all the increased wealth which modern progress brings goes but to build up great fortunes, to increase luxury and make sharper the contrast between the House of Have and the House of Want, progress is not real and cannot be permanent. ~Henry George, Progress and Poverty, 1879

They key word in that quotation is "but". Its use is subtle and a little archaic, which may be why its significance has passed you by. It's what makes the sentiment inapplicable. Anyway, why is a sentence from a 19th century journalist of any interest?

Jeremy

[Jeremy Roussak]

The conservatives are planning to cut tax credits for millions of struggling families. If they manage that, Jeremy, do you think that will widen the gap  between the rich and poor?

As I'm sure you're aware, the issue is rather more complex than you present. There's a perfectly respectable view which holds that tax credits are a state subsidy to businesses that underpay their employees; and that that problem is better addressed by increase in pay, via statutory compulsion if necessary, than by redistribution of income by taxation.

Jeremy

[Justinr]

That's not what I wrote, and if you paused to think for a moment, you'd be aware of that.

They key word in that quotation is "but". Its use is subtle and a little archaic, which may be why its significance has passed you by. It's what makes the sentiment inapplicable. Anyway, why is a sentence from a 19th century journalist of any interest?

Jeremy

Which is why I included the question mark, what do you mean by your remarks?

So are we to ignore all lessons from history, or just those that are inconvenient for any particular idealogy?

[wmchauncey]

There has always been and always will be, the rich and the poor, those that have and those that don't.
The Bell Curve represents more than intelligence...it also measures success/adaptability/all aspects of human behavior.
Blaming others for your shortcomings shows that you exist on the left side of that curve and lack the wherewithal to migrate to the right side.

Causes of terrorism encompass a list to vast to enumerate...abusive, drug addicted parents to some perceived god-like figure that
existed some fourteen hundred yeas ago.  Regardless, the maladjusted among us have always, and always will, exist.

There was a time that they were scattered fragments of civilized society, unable to adapt, unable to migrate to the right side of that curve.
The internet has lead the way in allowing those fragments to communicate, raking those fragments together into groups of malcontents.

I do know, and am positive about, is the government's inability to protect it's citizens from these malcontents.
The most oxymoronic phrase bandied about is governmental intelligence agencies.

[amolitor]

The situation in which the poor of the west find themselves today is much better than the their lot 100 years ago. This does not mean poverty is not real.

The point about gap between rich and poor isn't about the poor, though. That is a red herring. It is about the middle class, which the oligarchy is, as oligarchies are wont to do, busily trying to dismantle. With a fair degree of success in the just few decades.

Since poverty is now so great, the reasoning seems to be, why don't we just shove the entire working class down to that level? Then there is more stuff for us! And who doesn't like stuff?

The problem of course is that this future theoretical economy doesn't actually work very well.

The CEO of Uber, of amazon, of Pfizer, of Unilever, either doesn't know this or doesn't care. All he knows is labor costs can probably be reduced if he only applies himself, and then there's a bonus for him.

Because the capitalist/right wrong philosophies are currently ascendant among the leaders of our glorious Nations, these efforts to reduce labor costs are not effectively thwarted.

And here we are. We have a completely fabricated shortage of STEM graduates which enables the import of cheap labor into highly skilled markets. We have amazon warehouses worked by a rotating army of temporary, I.e. cheap, workers. Higher education is largely done by cheap temporary staff.

The middle class is being hollowed out.

There are global implications as well, as a result of these  ideas and policies, which I elect not to address for several reasons, one being that I don't understand them very well.

[AlterEgo]

The key point is, in the current day, only adherents to one text put it into practice.

Hindus were conveniently forgotten, granted they kill only in India... that is certainly an excuse  !!!

[Rajan Parrikar]

Hindus were conveniently forgotten, granted they kill only in India... that is certainly an excuse  !!!

There is no Book or text enjoining Hindus to kill, wound or convert others.

[amolitor]

A little googling suggests that is completely, objectively, false.

[AlterEgo]

There is no Book or text enjoining Hindus to kill, wound or convert others.

well, it seems they do this spontaneously then 

[Rajan Parrikar]

well, it seems they do this spontaneously then 

India has a long and turbulent history with Islam, and there are periodic outbreaks of violence in the country.

[Jimbo57]

As we all stood for a minute's silence at 11:00am this morning (noon in France), I reflected upon some of what has been written in this column.

Having reflected, I do not - for the time being at least - really want to say very much. It is just so mind-numbingly sad.

[amolitor]

The Gita is an exhortation to war. It is a conversation between a god and a prince discussing how, when, and why, the prince should go kill a bunch of people.

With some some sidebars.

[AlterEgo]

India has a long and turbulent history with Islam, and there are periodic outbreaks of violence in the country.

I see, so this is Islam to blame then 

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

By all means let's sidetrack the discussion to India, the major civilization threat to America, Africa, Asia, Europe and Middle East. The favorite trick of armchair intellectuals: trivializing and equating everything to the point of absurd.