Tags for this video have been changed from 'The Real News, Cyclone, Myanmar, Food, Crisis, Poor' to 'The Real News, Cyclone, Myanmar, Food, Crisis, Poor, Burma, starvation, rice' - edited by Krupo

>> ^Trancecoach:

Anyway, this girl is preaching to the choir. There doesn't seem to be any corporate executive, any industrial CEO, privy to such a speech (or prepared to receive the message), who is also in a position to do the things that she calls on him or her to do. Nevertheless, the power is in the hands of the individual, the consumer, to abstain from participation, from voting with their currency, and stop encouraging malpractice with their purchases.


Why are you blaming the marketplace for poverty, are you freaking nuts? Look at any country like Burma or North Korea or Somalia, and I gaurantee you find that the problem lies in the system of government and whether the bulk of capital is individually controlled or "communally" (governmentally) controlled. You HAVE to have large amounts of economic freedom in order to have a prosperous country: people keeping what they earn, being allowed to enter mutually agreeable transactions with each other, enter labor contracts with each other. Government's job isn't to take that money, it's to make sure no one is infringing on each other's rights, providing recourse through a system of courts, and some legitimate national defense spending. Usually a constitution outlines these functions, to be followed and amended, but never ignored and subverted (as ours has). As people get wealthier in this scenario, it has the effect of increasing voluntary relinquishment of capital (charity). That's moral because it's their money, their choice, nothing is forced. But this whole guilt trip about people being obligated to give up the "luxury" of having more children or certain things they want for their kids because SOMEBODY SOMEWHERE has less than them is just lunacy. Why do they have less? It isn't because some capitalist pig wants to come in and offer them a job that pays more than anything else in their protectionist country. It's because they were born in a place with no resources, to irresponsible parents who were financially incapable to have them, and who do nothing but cower under their protectionist dictatorial governments. It's sad, but nobody on this earth should be paying through the nose to subsidize these people. The money just gets stolen, or it prevents a badly needed auto-determined revolt by preventing true consequence of such government.

Government has incredible powers that the private sector doesn't. They have the power to force payment (tax), create new paper money which debases the value of existing money (inflate), redirect that money to industries which bribe those in government (subsidy), ban a product from being sold in the marketplace (search: stevia, miraculin), and legislate special privilege legislation upon being bribed or lobbied (NAFTA, HMO Act, etc, etc.). So as you can see, the root cause is not industry, it's the idealist socialist enablements with whom these companies can collude to beat competition or avoid bankruptcy in a way OTHER than catering to demand and following prudent policies in so doing. Because it isn't in a greedy company's best interest to go bankrupt by taking huge investment risks, delivering products that you don't want or deceive you. They'll get sued into oblivion for the latter. Therefore, despite having the sole intention of making money, doing so requires offering you something you think will make you happier (and yes, this is your job to figure out, lol.). Adam Smith's "invisible hand" if you will.

Government, on the other hand, could make horse buggies from tax dollars that noboy buys and include it as production in GDP.

^Have you been following the situation RhesusMonk? The UN, USA, Britain, Australia and many other nations and organisations have aid and people waiting on the tarmac but Burma's military rulers are denying them entry visas. That looks like a pretty direct cause of people dying due to lack of access to aid thanks to the Junta's stubbornness.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'myanmar, village, flood, cyclone, disaster, catastrophe, 2000 bodies, heartbreaking' to 'Burma, village, flood, cyclone, disaster, catastrophe, 2000 bodies, heartbreaking' - edited by Zeph

Thanks for posting this. I've read a few of his books and think he has done some great reporting particularly on Burma and East Timor. If you ever get the chance to read "Heroes" do so. It deals with people in all different kinds of situations around the world and really offers some insight into injustice.

Lurch, i would refer to bases in germany, uk, lithuania and literally scores of other countries as a form of occupation, it's a kind of quiet empire. The presence of those bases gives the USA considerable political leverage.
"state sponsored killing" referred to collateral damage, not bases. i would definitely call the US Army blowing up Iraqi civilians "state sponsored killing". Hope that explains it.

As for the whole "there will be bloodshed if we withdraw"... damn, as if there isn't bloodshed now, and as if the bloodshed will stop quicker with an occupying christian army on their soil. Comparisons to Vietnam are interesting... last time I checked Vietnam was not a communist stronghold bathing in blood.

What you are saying, by extension, is "there should be US troops in every country where there's bloodshed" and that is totally impossible. What is so different about Iraq? Why not go prevent the bloodshed in Sudan or Burma or China or Russia? No war proponent has ever explained this to me.

About those bases you say aren't permanent:

We're talking about a U.S. embassy compound under construction these last years that's meant to hold 1,000 diplomats, spies, and military types (as well as untold numbers of private security guards, service workers, and heaven knows who else). It will operate in the Iraqi capital's heavily fortified Green Zone as if it were our first lunar colony. According to William Langewiesche, writing in Vanity Fair, it will contain "its own power generators, water wells, drinking-water treatment plant, sewage plant, fire station, irrigation system, Internet uplink, secure intranet, telephone center (Virginia area code), cell-phone network (New York area code), mail service, fuel depot, food and supply warehouses, vehicle-repair garage, and workshops."
...
When it comes to American construction projects in Iraq, the sky's really the limit. Just recently, National Public Radio's Defense Correspondent Guy Raz spent some time at Balad Air Base about 70 kilometers north of Baghdad. As Thomas Ricks of the Washington Post reported, back in 2006, Balad is essentially an "American small town," so big that it has neighborhoods and bus routes -- and its air traffic rivals Chicago's O'Hare International Airport.
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174858/baseless_considerations

It's because

1. Russia actually DO want Putin to stay in power. Despite what Kasparov says there, the general Russian public does have a strong support for Putin. Especially young Russians support Putin with much optimism and vigor.

2. If released Chechnya, other states with private militaries would start demanding the same thing. Many of them being remnants of instability since the collapse of USSR. So even though Chechnya alone does have a legitimate cause to demand independence, Russia just cannot afford to show signs of 'giving up' at this time.

Once things have settled down, they may give it another chance.

3. Improved human rights treatment can be achieved without having to make a democratic nation. People usually confuse democracy automatically resulting to better humans rights and civic power. It's actually the opposite. More civic power means more demands for civilian rights, and civilian rights leads to democracy.

Human rights violations result from power struggles (government instability) and lack of civil power. Once government stabilizes and economy goes up, these things will take care of themselves.

In reply to this comment by messenger:
@legacy:

You have said several times that you democracy can't be forced on a people who aren't ready for it. I fully agree with the principle and your examples. But I don't see how that sentiment applies here. What country is being considered for "forceful" democratization? Nobody's talking about going to war to make China and Russia democratic. We're talking about nations that are clamoring for freedom and being militarily repressed. As I said above, if Russia and China stopped their human rights violations, Tibet, Taiwan, Burma and Chechnya would be free, and soon democratic. Heck, Taiwan already is democratic, but not freely so. China and Russia would be imperceptibly smaller, and free to continue on as the dictatorships they are now, without having any democracy "forced" on them.

@legacy:

You have said several times that you democracy can't be forced on a people who aren't ready for it. I fully agree with the principle and your examples. But I don't see how that sentiment applies here. What country is being considered for "forceful" democratization? Nobody's talking about going to war to make China and Russia democratic. We're talking about nations that are clamoring for freedom and being militarily repressed. As I said above, if Russia and China stopped their human rights violations, Tibet, Taiwan, Burma and Chechnya would be free, and soon democratic. Heck, Taiwan already is democratic, but not freely so. China and Russia would be imperceptibly smaller, and free to continue on as the dictatorships they are now, without having any democracy "forced" on them.

All that's holding Russia and China together right now is gross human rights violations. Without them, both countries would fall apart. It's true. And that's a good thing. I'd rather have a divided Russia and a divided China, and a free Taiwan, a free Tibet, a free Burma, and a free Chechnya.

But what would be so wrong with that? As the site grows, and new diamonds are minted (or, rather, wouldn't that be carbonized? -am not up on my geologic terminology obviously), which at this point is inevitable, the number of channels will inevitably increase and have to become more narrow by definition... its like any library or large database, as it grows, so does the complexity of the cross referencing.

I mean, what would be the problem with having a WW2 or Vietnam channel? Eventually that might be kind of cool, but until then, it is not as if there isn't a home for them, there are always the history and military channels to append those videos to. And anyway, if 99% of the vids for the channel I am creating are going to be about the current 'War on Terror' then why not limit it to just that? Why have the random inclusion of clips from Vietnam? They would be so out of place amongst all the vids from the current conflict that I don't see the point in including them.

Also, as it stands, if I designate my channel as simply 'war' and gobble up all the submissions related to 'war', then there is the built in possibility that I will be duplicating the content of the 'military' channel... when really, what I have envisioned for this channel, is a place on the sift that will foster discussion on the current war (which given the numbers, is a hot topic here, and deserves to be highlighted), not wars that have been fought and done with.

If its the ability to filter out vids that people might find too violent or graphic that you are thinking of, then the *Graphic or *Raw tags that have been proposed will take care of this, with users being able to filter these vids out. This would then filter out any other potentially violent vids containing other subject matter, like that one that popped up recently of the monks (or was it journalist?) getting shot in Burma, which otherwise, has no place in the channel I am aiming to create.

I just wanted to raise this point with you Jonny, the war is covered in drastically different ways between American and European media. This was especially prevalent during the start of the war, 'Shock And Awe' on CNN was basically the Al Jazeera feed, they allowed the American people to see US warplanes decimate Baghdad but didn't follow it up with Al Jazeera's coverage of numerous civilians killed as part of 'collateral' damage.

The media as a whole rallied around the Bush administration, even publications such as the Washington Post, New York Times and many others justified the invasion of Iraq initially. Even with world protests, dissent from major European powers like France and Germany.

Embedded reporters were with the US forces offered a slanted view of the war, because the other side was never given a voice, and am not talking about insurgents or anything like that but the civilian population who ultimately bares the brunt of the casualities in the war. Criticism of any sort was avoided at all costs because somehow that would mean undermining the mission or the troops, not even thinking about how such a preception would be taken by the rest of the world.

Was it swelled patriotism, revenge reportage or an inablilty to critique a war seemingly everyone supported - I don't know but it was very clear for me to see just by switching between Fox, CNN, EuroNews, BBC and Al Jazeera.

The US Military believed that it lost the war in Vietnam not in Vietnam but in the way the war was presented to the American people back home. The same situation is being replayed now in Iraq, only this time the media was fully with the US military. Only now the news does not show combat, does not show US troop losses but mentions them in passing, does not show civilian costs of the war and most of all doesn't ever mention the vets coming back from the war injured and or disabled.

Ultimately my arguement is that I believe VS as I stated can be a venue for informed views with regards to current affairs in the world. The most important right now being the war on terror, the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan and many others that take place around the world.

We in less then 2 years have seen the rise of YouTube and citizen journalism as a whole, videos of the political repression in Burma flooded the internet almost as soon as the event occured, would that have happened before? Videosift is one of the few sites that actually has a politics section, a topic that is usually avoided like plague by other video hosts. I believe the userbase in the site as a whole is more then capable of policing itself, especially with long term users.

Likewise I do not believe we should avoid addressing important issues like the war. Everytime I think about this issue I recall this:

"I think the human race needs to think about killing. How much evil must we do in order to do good. "
- Robert McNamara

With regards to rubberneckers and drivebys, there is already a website far more catered to their interests called LiveLeak, I believe that VS as a community would provide the need framing and context not to create sensationalism for the posts that could arise, drive bys here don't last long at all. The reason people keep coming back is because the core userbase is exactly the opposite of the YouTube fanbase.

I do agree though that we shouldn't rush to finalize the issue.

reason, it's really plaigarism if you're copying and pasting and not acknowledging your sources. It's also a cheap shot not to include the response to the points you're making, or at the very least, a counter-point to said response.

And my most significant point, however, is to call BULLSHIP on the claim that Allende was organizing a bunch of armed groups or other such nonsense. Historical fact (from the same Wiki article as above, and from Klein's book among other sources):
"Increasingly annoyed by the long negotiations, Leigh gave the order to bomb La Moneda. However, he was informed that the Hawker Hunter fighter jets were running late and that 40 minutes would pass before they arrived at Santiago's downtown. Pinochet meanwhile ordered that tanks and infantrymen besiege the palace and destroy all the opposition. They encountered none during their path to La Moneda and only when they got to the palace did they meet a few easily-defeated socialist gunmen. At noon, the jets finally arrived and proceeded to bomb the palace. Allende committed suicide soon after." (emphasis mine)

If he *were* in fact assembling groups of armed supporters in the streets, shouldn't they have been fighting back tooth and nail with their weapons?

Buddy had a military that was - as was proven - a coup threat, and he was taking steps to allow civilians to exercise greater control over the unruly men with guns. Sounds like a Good Idea to me.

The excessive show of force - i.e., having jets fly in as if it's a real war - ties in neatly with Klein's theories about the Shock Doctrine, in particular the idea that the military had to dazzle and cow their opponents (dazzle and cow... a.k.a., shock and awe, she would and did say).

Besides, if it was a true 'people's' revolution or something like that, shouldn't you see the people themselves marching through the streets (think the Orange Revolution in the Ukraine)? This was a reactionary takeover by the elites, plain and simple.

Echoes of Burma? Hell yeah.

"Our country's unity is stronger than nuclear weapons, therefore, we are not afraid."

Therefore, we are husks.

For the sake of a future, we really need to keep Il in his place, or kill the bastard-it is unfortunate that so many lives be caught in the middle-so many are hopelessly lost daily to the fucker-Too bad, Iran's got one too-and Sudan, and Burma, and Zimbabwe, and Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Saudi Arabia, E. Guinea.....assholes never die completely out-

It's not oil in Burma's case, but natural gas. China is the biggest importer of that gas, and has thus far been somewhat reluctant to let the Security Council do anything. But short of invading and imposing 'democracy' from the barrel of a gun (and we've seen how well that works), the west does not have much leverage against the junta. Asean has been cranking up the pressure the past few days - let's hope they can at least get them to call off the hounds.

Lost political power due to media's coverage in Iraq? What different channels are you watching because as far as I can see the media trumpets whatever the Whitehouse decides to do even when they go against the facts on the ground and are neatly presented by a politicized general. Esclation in forces? No it's a surge! Success in the surge? Drawing down the troops not actually you know... bringing them back because the army is breaking down....

There is solidarity amongst the common people that something has to be done about Burma's violent crackdown, a push for stronger action via the UN beyond empty rhetoric is one, visiting the countries leaders is another. It's not that he is politically cut off from actually doing something, it's more like he sees no need to intervene in an actual struggle for democracy, especially when there is no oil interests.