[quote author=TRINIDADDY link=topic=93572.msg595863#msg595863 date=1414283472]
"The de facto role of the United States Armed Forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing." - Lt. Colonel Ralph Peters
"The weaker and poorer a country is, the more dangerous it is as an example. If Grenada can succeed in bringing about a better life for its people, some other place that has more resources will eventually ask, 'why not us?'" - Chomsky
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The "Westernization" of the world should not be celebrated, and you guys looking at history in a very superficial way.
Remember, Africa and the Middle East were run by local monarchs and local tribal leaders. This was a brutal form of feudalism.
Africa and the Middle East were then conquered by the bigger Empires. Henceforth, they were ruined by French, British, Dutch, Belgian, American etc Imperialism. These Empires used (and continue to use) divide and conquer tactics, supported brutal monarchs, dictators, terrorist groups and deliberately fostered divisions along ethnic and religious lines. In places like Rwanda, they even arbitrarily created "races" along financial lines (the "middle class" Tutsi pitted against the "lower class" Hutu, even though both belong to the same "tribe"). Any Middle Eastern or African leader who attempted to help the people or fend off exploitation was/is assassinated/couped and replaced with someone more brutal.
So the turmoil and backwardness these countries are in today is a direct result of "Westernization". This "Westernization" deliberately destroyed democratic and progressive movements whilst financing, arming and supporting psycho religious movements, psycho reactionary movements and psycho political movements. This process is still going on. Look at who is the chief supporter of crazy theocratic regimes (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Bahrain etc) in the Middle East, as well as who is the chief supporter and creator of crazy extremist groups. It's the "West" which wants barbarism, destabalization and primitivism. Had these countries been left alone, they would be more "civilized".
The "West" itself would have this barbarism in its own backyard were it not for the blood spilt by many activists, freedom fighters and dissidents over the centuries.
Of course every sensible person today knows that the "West" is plundering the Middle East and Africa and is directly responsible for some of the more barbaric religious and social customs still practised in these nations. 99 percent of the nutty movements in Africa and the Mid East (Al Shabbas, Muslim Brotherhood, Isis, Alqueda) were directly caused by the West. Places like Afganistan were secular, progressive and with liberal women's rights back in the 1950s and 60s, until the West set it back 200 years.
But "the West" wants barbarism ONLY up until a certain point.
A good example is Ukraine. The West (CIA, IMF and World Bank) recently couped Ukraine with the help of local neo nazi and terrorist groups (Right Sector and Svoboda). It then put these psycho puppet groups in power, turning the Ukrainian government over to them. This is a common tactic. Historically, the West supports such barbaric groups because such tactics allows the West to conquer nations by proxy. Once they have conquered the nation, they then kick out the crazy puppet groups and put in their own "civilized" guys (usually bankers). These "new guys" then nudge the conquered country toward neoliberal capitalism.
Another good example is Saddam Hussein, a CIA asset in his 20s, who was used by the West to destroy local democratic movements in Iraq and destroy local unions and socialists. Hitler was backed until 1938 for similar reasons. In both cases, the West were unable to kick out their puppet and put in their own guys. Instead, the puppets went rogue.
Israel does the same thing. Israel funded, armed and practically created Hamas in the 1980s to kill the PLO. Hamas, in those days, was a psycho Islamist group and the PLO were a moderate, progressive group. Today Hamas is moderate and internationally recognised and Israel is arming even more nutty guys to destroy Hamas. Someone like Pattycake will blame "muslims" for Palestine being "primitive" and "praise" the "benevolent Westernization of Israelis". A serious person, however, will call this superficial thinking. Worse, this kind of thinking propogates problems.
But the point is, Africa and the Mid East will be plundered by the West via gangster tactics for as long as they can get away with it. The West will then replace their gangster puppets with "new", "civilized" puppets. Some of these replacements will go smoothly, some will backfire. Regardless, eventually all of these countries will be forced to implement and adopt neoliberal, "free market" reforms. Why? Because whilst capitalism loves old school slavery and exploitation, capitalism ultimately must expand or die. Like a Ponzi scheme, it must constantly seek out new markets, a new customer base, and an always expanding populace, for reasons too complicated to get into at this moment.
Suffice to say that Africa and the Mid East will be westernized and fools will blindly "praise" the West for their "altruism". Once every inch of the planet is in the grip of "modern", "enlightened" capitalism, then people will start asking bigger questions. Namely, why's everyone in debt, poor, overworked, why is unemployment high and why are poverty rates and inequality inexorably increasing.
No doubt future humans will find some other scapegoat, rather than question the system itself.
"was watching the movie Blackhawk Down where a Somali warlord said to a captured US soldier: "
That film was such war porn. It's a big ole racist film which completely ignores why Somalia is so backward, the Western support of dictators like Siad Barre and the West's deliberate pushing of Somalia and Ethiopia into war (by tactically arming and pushing one vs the other, and then vice versa years later).
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The women there need to liberate themselves so that the course of violence there can change, and the children can be protected. None of that can be with an institution of oppressed women. And America is far from perfect, so the women all over the world need to liberate themselves so that the course of violence can change and the children can be properly nurtured and protected.
We cannot have peace, love, and prosperity on this planet with the women in darkness.
And that is the law of the universe.
Which is something even Karl Marx tried to tell us a long time ago.
I agree that it shouldn't be called westernization because it isn't. But it's considered westernization to sexist males who want to keep women confined to the bed, kitchen, and supporting their ego.
