Farewell to a changed, subtle Iran

A nice view from someone who has been on the inside.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/6277172.stm

From The Economist of 30 Jun 2007 entitled "Muzzling dissent and moving to a war footing":

The authorities are moving towards a war footing for fear of military strikes, an economic embargo, or American plans for a "velvet revolution" leading to a change of regime.

Some official are using this sense of crisis as a pretext for attacking opponents at home. "The arrests, the intimidation, even the economic policy is about preparing Iran for the biggest outside threat it has faced since the Iran-Iraq war," says a prominent economist. "These people have military backgrounds and see dissent as a security issue. They're very paranoid." ...

... a mood of fear has been building up for more than a year. Many Iranians interpreted last summer's detention of Tamin Jahanbegloo, a mild mannered academic, as warning not to attend political or cultural conferences abroad.

... authorities are serving notice to intellectuals generally to watch their step. A case in point was the arrest in April and May of four prominent and scholarly Iranian-Americans, accused of spying and plotting a "soft revolution". ...

Since Mr Ahmadinejad's election as president in 2005, younger conservatives have dominated key positions. Many of them view politics through a military prism. It is they who are keenest on the present crackdown. ...

The brief arrest in April of Hossein Mousavian, a former nuclear negotiator and old ally of Mr Rafsanjani, showed how strong the hawks are. Last week a group of angry right-wing radicals and seminarians gathered outside a clerical court in the eastern city of Mashhed to demand the prosecution of a former president and leading reformer, Muhammad Khatami, for having shaken hands with some women during a recent trip to Italy ...

Either reactionaries are rattled by the prospect of the general election due next year, or they are flaunting their confidence that they are in charge. In Iran's opaque politics, it is hard to say which.

Rafsanjani and Khatami were the people who once could have reestablished relations with the US. Since the wacko extremist "Axis of Evil" speech, look at what has happened to Iranian moderates. By repeatedly threatening Iran - as both TheMercenary and Urbane Guerilla advocate - then extremist conservative gain more power.

But their extremist political agenda, conservative military solution to problems, advocacy of unrestricted wiretapping, torture justified by fear and perceived threats, ....

Leaders of a nation that TheMercenary and Urbane Guerrilla so hate and fear - its leaders having the same fears, political agendas, neo-military solutions, and aspirations, wacko conservative justifications, attack moderates as liberals or enemies of the state, and perceive of enemies hiding everywhere. Intellectuals should watch their step. Only those with political agendas know what is good.

How ironic that TheMercenary and Urbane Guerrilla so hate mirror images of themselves as to advocates threats, military confrontation and ultimatums - and only make extremists in Iran more powerful. TheMercenary's BBC citation also demonstrates how Americans have 'fixed' the region.

Once Iran and America could have restored cordial relations. Then some wacko gave the "Axis of Evil" speech. Even Rafsanjani and Khatami are now threatened the same way that UG accuses Americans of being communist.

tw;361987 wrote:

1) TheMercenary and Urbane Guerilla
2)TheMercenary and Urbane Guerrilla 3)TheMercenary and Urbane Guerrilla 4) TheMercenary's

Pssstt.. tw, It ain't about UG or me.... it's about the Iranians and a view from a woman who knows what she is actually talking about, unlike what ever crap you just posted.

A Pajamas Media exclusive video and interview about the Iranian weapons flooding Iraq.

By Richard Miniter

BAGHDAD—Maj. Martin Weber, an explosives expert, is trying to walk through a political mine field with me.

Support Pajamas Media; Visit Our Advertisers

As with an ordinary mine field, you have to be very careful where you put your emphasis. Stress the wrong truth and either the left or the right wants to blow you up.

Here at Camp Victory, a sprawling concrete and razor wire American base that wraps around Baghdad International Airport, Maj. Weber was trying to explain how to negotiate that mine field. On the one side he wanted me to know me that the captured weapons on the table before us were — definitely, no doubt about it, absolutely — from Iran. On the other hand, he avoided drawing the obvious conclusion that Iran is supplying America’s enemies inside Iraq.

That simple and obvious conclusion would anger the Democratic leadership in Congress, much of the press corp, and a large swath of the antiwar set.

Bear this is mind, when you watch this exclusive Pajamas Media video shot in Iraq. The video offers startling new evidence of Iran’s involvement in the insurgency. It is the first up-close, online video showing captured Iranian weapons. These particular weapons have not been shown to the public before.

Far from being offered up by the military, it took me weeks of wangling to see Maj. Weber. The military does not want to talk about the mortars, rockets and bombs flooding in from Iran. It has been burned by the press every time the subject comes up.

Senior officers also realize that the Democrat-led Congress doesn’t want to hear about Iran’s sinister role in Iraq and that President Bush does not want a confrontation with Iran now. To make the interview even harder to get, Maj. Weber’s specialty, Explosives Ordnance Disposal or EOD, has a culture of not talking to the press. Any EOD officer who does, owes his unit a case of beer for each appearance.

So conspiracy theorists who feel this exclusive Pajamas Media Video is military propaganda couldn’t be more wrong—the military would have been happier if the interview never happened.

Finally, Maj. Weber agreed to this exclusive interview with Pajamas Media on two conditions: that a public-affairs officer be present to interrupt him if he said anything with political ramifications, and that the conversation be limited simply to the weapons themselves.

I agreed to those conditions because a large story the rest of the media missed: the weapons themselves. These Iranian weapons and others like them are killing American soldiers.

Twice before the military has tried to present to the press overwhelming evidence of Iran’s involvement in the Iraq war, only to be met by hostile skepticism. The skepticism basically takes the form of three questions:
1) Couldn’t these weapons have been made anywhere?
2) Isn’t it fishy that these weapons were marked in English with American-style dates?
3) Isn’t all of this a ploy to justify a neocon war with Iran?

As you will see from the video, Maj. Weber can definitively answer the first two questions. As for the Daily Kos-inspired third question, well, who can address questions from planet Paranoid? And who should bother?

A West Point graduate, Maj. Weber has spent the last decade studying bombs made by the FARC in Colombia to Hezboallah in Lebanon. Like other skilled bomb technicians, he can examine the components and design of a bomb or weapon and tell you who made it and where. For the weapons shown in this video, he can even point out the page in the Iranian arms sales catalog where one can find these weapons. As for why Iran is selling or giving these weapons to insurgents, that is a question for someone else.

Maj. Weber is matter of fact. He laughingly admits that he got into EOD because he liked to hear things go BOOM. He’s an old fashioned army officer who abhors politics but loves his profession. He’s not trying to pedal a line, that’s for the guys upstairs. He’s just trying to tell you what he found and what it means.

http://pajamasmedia.com/2007/05/iranian_weapons_american_lives.php

Merc, did you get what tw posted?

He is saying Iran is more extreme because that is their response to the US's outside threat against them just as we responded with extremism when we felt threatened by terrorists or whoever.

This can be seen in with McCartney and the red scare as well. Usually, whenever a country feels threatened by an outside force, that country will move to conservative extremism because that gives the people a sense of security.

There has been rumor of an attack against Iran for the past couple years and we are accusing them of aiding terrorists, which (they may think) is enough justification for us to attack them. They watched as we attacked Iraq with lies as justification and the propaganda against Iran is mounting along with their propaganda against us. This is more than enough for them to lead to extremism.

piercehawkeye45;362035 wrote:

Merc, did you get what tw posted?

I never read what he posts. But I read what you post. :D

piercehawkeye45;362035 wrote:

He is saying Iran is more extreme because that is their response to the US's outside threat against them just as we responded with extremism when we felt threatened by terrorists or whoever.

That is BS. Iran has been hostile to the US since 1979. Things are not suddenly sour. The Irainian government has been feeding proxy fighters and terrorists since the early 80's. The list is long and well documented. This is not some new thing. They are just feeling a little more heat than we have been able to put on them prior to our move into Afganistan, and subsequently Iraq.

This can be seen in with McCartney and the red scare as well. Usually, whenever a country feels threatened by an outside force, that country will move to conservative extremism because that gives the people a sense of security.[QUOTE/] Not the same. The McCarthy era was based on perceived threats. These threats are real. It amazes me that people like yourself and thousands of others have been unable to see that real threats against the US exist. 9/11 wasn't enough was it? What will it take? A personal death in your family or a close friend killed before the masses wake up?

[QUOTE]There has been rumor of an attack against Iran for the past couple years and we are accusing them of aiding terrorists, which (they may think) is enough justification for us to attack them. They watched as we attacked Iraq with lies as justification and the propaganda against Iran is mounting along with their propaganda against us. This is more than enough for them to lead to extremism.

I am glad they have been put on notice and remain very worried. I think that is an important strategic move. I doubt very much that we will directly attack them. It would take something very seriously provocative on their part for us to respond with direct military action IMHO.

The extremism has been there long before we moved into the neighborhood. Don't be fooled by the left-wing rhetoric. I don't know where you get your information from but there is a lot of material out there that provides a more balanced view other than the "US bad, everyone else victim" stories so often spouted on our 1,0's of the internet by armchair quarterbacks with no experience in the world of the military and anti-terrorist organizational experts.

I can tell you where the extremism came from.

That is BS. Iran has been hostile to the US since 1979.

Actually 1953. That wasn't even the worst account of Operation Ajax I have seen too. I can give you other sources if you want.

Not the same. The McCarthy era was based on perceived threats. These threats are real. It amazes me that people like yourself and thousands of others have been unable to see that real threats against the US exist. 9/11 wasn't enough was it? What will it take? A personal death in your family or a close friend killed before the masses wake up?

It doesn't matter if the treat is real or not, if a country feels threatened by an outside force, they will usually resort to extremism.

The extremism has been there long before we moved into the neighborhood. Don't be fooled by the left-wing rhetoric. I don't know where you get your information from but there is a lot of material out there that provides a more balanced view other than the "US bad, everyone else victim" stories so often spouted on our 1,0's of the internet by armchair quarterbacks with no experience in the world of the military and anti-terrorist organizational experts.

I have given one source on Operation Ajax and I have read many, all of which have said the same thing. The CIA even admits to it. If you can find something that goes against what I have posted, I would like to see it.

piercehawkeye45;362056 wrote:

I can tell you where the extremism came from.


Actually 1953. That wasn't even the worst account of Operation Ajax I have seen too. I can give you other sources if you want.


It doesn't matter if the treat is real or not, if a country feels threatened by an outside force, they will usually resort to extremism.


I have given one source on Operation Ajax and I have read many, all of which have said the same thing. The CIA even admits to it. If you can find something that goes against what I have posted, I would like to see it.

Oh I agree, don't get me wrong. I am well aware of our history in the era of the 50's - 90's. I lived much of it, some as a young child or teen bystander, some as a participant. The bottom line is that there is no way in hell that you can hang all of the current level of Muslim extremism on some collection of single events conducted by Western governments. No way in hell. That would be a totally simplistic view of how the Muslim world views the West (IMHO). You completely discount the source of the extremism thought and that is from a bastardization of the Koran. The other historical events are fuel for the fire of Muslim extremism which some very shrewd leaders in the Muslim world have manipulated to serve their cause. This idea that we, the US or the West, are someway directly responsible for Muslim extremism is naive.

"My plea to fellow Muslims: you must renounce terror


As the bombers return to Britain, Hassan Butt, who was once a member of radical group Al-Muhajiroun, raising funds for extremists and calling for attacks on British citizens, explains why he was wrong

Sunday July 1, 2007
The Observer


When I was still a member of what is probably best termed the British Jihadi Network, a series of semi-autonomous British Muslim terrorist groups linked by a single ideology, I remember how we used to laugh in celebration whenever people on TV proclaimed that the sole cause for Islamic acts of terror like 9/11, the Madrid bombings and 7/7 was Western foreign policy.

By blaming the government for our actions, those who pushed the 'Blair's bombs' line did our propaganda work for us. More important, they also helped to draw away any critical examination from the real engine of our violence: Islamic theology.
Friday's attempt to cause mass destruction in London with strategically placed car bombs is so reminiscent of other recent British Islamic extremist plots that it is likely to have been carried out by my former peers.

And as with previous terror attacks, people are again articulating the line that violence carried out by Muslims is all to do with foreign policy. For example, yesterday on Radio 4's Today programme, the mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, said: 'What all our intelligence shows about the opinions of disaffected young Muslims is the main driving force is not Afghanistan, it is mainly Iraq.'

He then refused to acknowledge the role of Islamist ideology in terrorism and said that the Muslim Brotherhood and those who give a religious mandate to suicide bombings in Palestine were genuinely representative of Islam.

I left the BJN in February 2006, but if I were still fighting for their cause, I'd be laughing once again. Mohammad Sidique Khan, the leader of the 7 July bombings, and I were both part of the BJN - I met him on two occasions - and though many British extremists are angered by the deaths of fellow Muslim across the world, what drove me and many of my peers to plot acts of extreme terror within Britain, our own homeland and abroad, was a sense that we were fighting for the creation of a revolutionary state that would eventually bring Islamic justice to the world.

How did this continuing violence come to be the means of promoting this (flawed) utopian goal? How do Islamic radicals justify such terror in the name of their religion? There isn't enough room to outline everything here, but the foundation of extremist reasoning rests upon a dualistic model of the world. Many Muslims may or may not agree with secularism but at the moment, formal Islamic theology, unlike Christian theology, does not allow for the separation of state and religion. There is no 'rendering unto Caesar' in Islamic theology because state and religion are considered to be one and the same. The centuries-old reasoning of Islamic jurists also extends to the world stage where the rules of interaction between Dar ul-Islam (the Land of Islam) and Dar ul-Kufr (the Land of Unbelief) have been set down to cover almost every matter of trade, peace and war.

What radicals and extremists do is to take these premises two steps further. Their first step has been to reason that since there is no Islamic state in existence, the whole world must be Dar ul-Kufr. Step two: since Islam must declare war on unbelief, they have declared war upon the whole world. Many of my former peers, myself included, were taught by Pakistani and British radical preachers that this reclassification of the globe as a Land of War (Dar ul-Harb) allows any Muslim to destroy the sanctity of the five rights that every human is granted under Islam: life, wealth, land, mind and belief. In Dar ul-Harb, anything goes, including the treachery and cowardice of attacking civilians.

This understanding of the global battlefield has been a source of friction for Muslims living in Britain. For decades, radicals have been exploiting these tensions between Islamic theology and the modern secular state for their benefit, typically by starting debate with the question: 'Are you British or Muslim?' But the main reason why radicals have managed to increase their following is because most Islamic institutions in Britain just don't want to talk about theology. They refuse to broach the difficult and often complex topic of violence within Islam and instead repeat the mantra that Islam is peace, focus on Islam as personal, and hope that all of this debate will go away.

This has left the territory of ideas open for radicals to claim as their own. I should know because, as a former extremist recruiter, every time mosque authorities banned us from their grounds, it felt like a moral and religious victory.

Outside Britain, there are those who try to reverse this two-step revisionism. A handful of scholars from the Middle East has tried to put radicalism back in the box by saying that the rules of war devised by Islamic jurists were always conceived with the existence of an Islamic state in mind, a state which would supposedly regulate jihad in a responsible Islamic fashion. In other words, individual Muslims don't have the authority to go around declaring global war in the name of Islam.

But there is a more fundamental reasoning that has struck me and a number of other people who have recently left radical Islamic networks as a far more potent argument because it involves stepping out of this dogmatic paradigm and recognising the reality of the world: Muslims don't actually live in the bipolar world of the Middle Ages any more.

The fact is that Muslims in Britain are citizens of this country. We are no longer migrants in a Land of Unbelief. For my generation, we were born here, raised here, schooled here, we work here and we'll stay here. But more than that, on a historically unprecedented scale, Muslims in Britain have been allowed to assert their religious identity through clothing, the construction of mosques, the building of cemeteries and equal rights in law.

However, it isn't enough for Muslims to say that because they feel at home in Britain they can simply ignore those passages of the Koran which instruct on killing unbelievers. By refusing to challenge centuries-old theological arguments, the tensions between Islamic theology and the modern world grow larger every day. It may be difficult to swallow but the reason why Abu Qatada - the Islamic scholar whom Palestinian militants recently called to be released in exchange for the kidnapped BBC journalist Alan Johnston - has a following is because he is extremely learned and his religious rulings are well argued. His opinions, though I now thoroughly disagree with them, have validity within the broad canon of Islam.

Since leaving the BJN, many Muslims have accused me of being a traitor. If I knew of any impending attack, then I would have no hesitation in going to the police, but I have not gone to the authorities, as some reports have suggested, and become an informer.

I believe that the issue of terrorism can be easily demystified if Muslims and non-Muslims start openly to discuss the ideas that fuel terrorism. (The Muslim community in Britain must slap itself awake from this state of denial and realise there is no shame in admitting the extremism within our families, communities and worldwide co-religionists.) However, demystification will not be achieved if the only bridges of engagement that are formed are between the BJN and the security services.

If our country is going to take on radicals and violent extremists, Muslim scholars must go back to the books and come forward with a refashioned set of rules and a revised understanding of the rights and responsibilities of Muslims whose homes and souls are firmly planted in what I'd like to term the Land of Co-existence. And when this new theological territory is opened up, Western Muslims will be able to liberate themselves from defunct models of the world, rewrite the rules of interaction and perhaps we will discover that the concept of killing in the name of Islam is no more than an anachronism.

[email]Hassanbutt1@gmail.com[/email]"

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2115832,00.html

Here is a sample. I have found that these are snapshots of the issue. To really understand it is to seek out some really good books written by numerous authors on both sides of the issues and make your mind up. The problem does not lay in a simplistic view that the US and the Western imperialistic manipulations of these cultures are the source of today’s issues with Muslim extremism.

http://memri.org/bin/articles.cgi?Page=archives&Area=sd&ID=SP92105

http://www.the-dissident.com/islam.shtml

I just bought his book, but have not started it, by Daveed Gartenstein-Ross chronicles the "process of radicalization" in a new book, "My Year Inside Radical Islam.":
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCulture.asp?Page=/Culture/archive/200702/CUL20070227b.html

http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/si/2004/dec/barrettDec04.asp

http://www.cjsonline.ca/reviews/radicalislam.html

http://sociologyesoscience.com/groupsinasia.html

Long, but a good insight:

http://www.apsu.edu/oconnort/3400/3400lect04a.htm

Pierce: http://sociologyesoscience.com/

There is a difference between a country's extremism and individual extremism, we seem to have crossed the line but they basically involve the same things. Your articles seemed to focus on the individual kind.

First for a country's extremism, as it has been mentioned, these can be brought on by many reasons, outside threat, individual extremism, etc. There is individual extremism but what I am wondering is how far will a country go if it wasn't for an outside source? Iran proved to be a democratic country in the 1950s, and then it went to extremism less than 30 years later. Was the extremism caused directly by Ajax? I will disagree with this; I think Ajax served as a catalyst for the extremism. It was there before but Ajax gave people excuses for their actions. As I mentioned earlier, at least for Iran, extremist Islam was the only option for many to get rid of the Shah.


Individual extremism can be much different as your articles have said. I found this part to be very interesting.

Fifteen of the 19 terrorists who inflicted the horrors of September 11 were subjects of Saudi Arabia. They did not grow up in refugee camps, and they did not face poverty or deprivation. Of the 9/11 terrorists:

[list]
[*]Wael Muhammad al-Shehri, age 25, was a physical education teacher at an elementary school in the Kamis Mushayat airbase in Saudi Arabia.
[*]Waleed al-Shehri, 21, was a dropout from a teachers’ college. His brothers include professional officers in the Saudi military, including an Air Force pilot.
[*]Abd’ al-Aziz Abd’ al-Rahman Al-Omari, 23, was a graduate of Imam Muhammad Bin Sa’ud University, a prestigious religious institution in Saudi Arabia, and was a disciple of a senior Saudi cleric.
[*]Fa’iz Muhammad al-Shehri was an employee of an official Saudi relief agency.
[*]Mohned Muhammad Al-Shehri, 24, was a student at Imam Muhammad Bin Sa’ud University.
[*]Hamza Saleh al-Ghamdi, 21, traveled extensively in Pakistan and Afghanistan, using his family’s money, before coming to the United States.
[*]Ahmed Ibrahim al-Haznawi al-Ghamdi, 24, was the son of a leading imam, or mosque leader.
[*]Ahmed Abd’ Allah al-Nami, 23, was also a student at Imam Muhammad Bin Sa’ud University.
[*]Majid Mishaan Moqed al-Qufi al-Harbi, 22, was a student at the elite King Sa’ud University in Riyadh.
[*]Hani Saleh Hassan Hanjour was a pilot for Emirates Airlines, headquartered in the United Arab Emirates. His father was a military contractor.
[*]Satam M. A. al-Suqumi, 24, was also a student at King Sa’ud University in Riyadh.
[/list]
None of these terrorists was a product of humiliation or deprivation of any kind.

This strongly backs the argument of how individual extremism is more of a form of delusion than it is to a mass response to poverty or imperialism. If you look at the United States, what population represents the majority of 9/11 conspiracists? Not the uneducated lower class where you would expect, but the educated, college aged middle class. There is no doubt that there is a psychological or sociological relation between the two (tell me if you disagree). Since the two are most likely related, we can look into how individual extremism is caused. There are obviously other factors, like how the Islamic religion is set up and brainwashing as well but I have a hard time believing that a Muslim who is in touch with reality will become a terrorist just as most educated middle class kids are not 9/11 conspiracists. There are a few exceptions since not all 9/11 conspiracists are out of touch with reality, but this can be seen as base for individual extremism.

But once again, there is a difference between a country's extremism and an individual's extremism. If a country becomes extreme, it most likely isn't because of mass irrationality, but there is something that they actually have to perceive as a threat (unless there is really effective propaganda, but still unlikely).

For example, let’s take Palestine. Palestine has recently democratically elected Hamas, an extremist group, to rule their state. Why has this happened? This means not only extremists, but moderates, are on the same page. You have brought up very good points on individual extremism, but I have not seen how those explain these actions.

I'm throwing the BS flag on tw here: I have issued precisely NO threats re Iran. My nearest involvement with Iran has been that I was operational in the task force that supported the failed hostage rescue mission -- and I've the Navy Expeditionary to show for it.

Tw, retract your erroneous statement. Do it now.

Urbane Guerrilla;362398 wrote:

I'm throwing the BS flag on tw here: I have issued precisely NO threats re Iran. My nearest involvement with Iran has been that I was operational in the task force that supported the failed hostage rescue mission -- and I've the Navy Expeditionary to show for it.

Tw, retract your erroneous statement. Do it now.

Don't hold your breath.

Are you serious UG??? I've been waiting for over 6 months - Don't get your hopes up.

I know, I know; and it doesn't bother me that tw is so very dishonest, so very often. It demonstrates that we're all better men than he.

Funny the guy can't raise his ethical standards any, though. Really remarkable.

This is what a commie looks like, people.

Well clearly it does bother you else you wouldn't point it out on such a regular basis.....

Oh, and given my new usertitle, this is what a commie looks like :

Actually, I am the bitter fruit that his sins have borne him. It is something of a pleasure to stuff this bitter fruit down his craw regularly. There's also some obligation to the interest of humankind here.

And DanaC, I am acutely disappointed in you -- thought you had more brains in that head. Communism was a crank's work and a creature of the nineteenth century that the entire globe had to spend the bulk of the twentieth century proving wrong. You want to ride that wave of the past? Foolish! Unmodern, too. Socialism and communism is presently keeping the Old World less than functional.

Oh Urbane, please. You know exactly what I am and are not the slightest bit disappointed. I am not a communist: that was a joke based on LJ's choice of usertitle for me. I am, however, a socialist as you well know. A socialist, and a Marxist.

Socialist is a very broad term that can have varying definitions as well so it is hard to categorize socialists as one group. It is possible to have a free market socialist economy, just that it would most likely be extremely union controlled or need a lot of government regulations (not control) because the free market will naturally shift towards capitalism.

Dana, darling, those affiliations still mean you're NOT an economic literate. Sorrreeee.

Read Hazlitt, for starters.

You'll find a LOT of Americans thoroughly down on and vehemently opposed to Socialism because we understand, however inchoately, that it simply won't work anywhere near as well as laissez-faire capitalism, and we've watched the socialist programs of the socialist welfare states gradually sink to the ground. Nobody can get rich under socialism except the few exceptional artists -- who often have to shield their wealth from the revenue officials of their own countries and keep the lucre offshore. In capitalism, far more people can get rich because there's far less interference and the US is pretty much without a class structure designed to impose glass ceilings and other impediments to self-betterment.

We end up doing much good by doing damned well. You could have this too -- at one time you did -- but your nation has to get thoroughly tired of the failed promises of the Welfare State first and not so much overthrow, as throw over, all that.

Urbane, sweetie, your assumption that economic literacy leads automatically to an acceptance of laissez faire capitalism shows how narrow your worldview is.

Britain's welfare system isn't perfect, but it mitigates some of the worse excesses of the market. People get rich in the UK. Lots of people get rich in the UK. The fact that more people get rich in the USA is not a marker of success unless you deem getting rich to be the ultimate expression of success. In the UK, we consider large numbers of people without access to medicine or decent housing a mark of failure, rather than the lower number of wealthy elite. WE use our system to try and resolve such issues, and these are relatively popular because they are relatively successful.

The vast majority of English people do not look at your country and say 'I wish we had that'. The vast majority of English people prefer the system we have here. It is how we do things. We tried the whole laissez-faire capitalism experiment during the 18th and19th centuries and the result was Dickensian. We fought for the safeguards we have. Why would we give them up for a small chance at fabulous wealth?

DanaC, check something: we're wealthy, no? Now do we suffer at present from Dickensian conditions? We seem to have found safeguards, haven't we? And do they get in the way of becoming wealthy?

It's not remotely an assumption: we Americans are five percent of the world population and we are twenty percent of the globe's economy. We are walking, living, breathing proof that laissez-faire is the way to go -- and because of its free and libertarian nature, it does not compel us to be uniform business-drones, either. It's been working this way for roughly three centuries now. That's proof enough for this kid.

If it's not Dickensian, why are all the illegals needed?

Are they or are they not escaping from an utter absence of jobs and money south of the border?

I have been reading about/studying Iran for years. Since I was a young teen.
SO complex, especially now.
There is no way to have a concise conversation about the current situation without being so simplistic, as to just be... sorry... but... wrong.
I mean, at least for myself.
Perhaps someone else can, but I can't.
There are so many generational, regional, cultural, ethnic, religious, spiritual and educational differences... and each feels differently about the West, as well as the US.
All of them intersect and overlap.
Some love us, some hate us, most don't give a shit... truly, MOST. Most just want the best social services for their families and businesses and really could care less if those in power deal with the US and Europe or not.
That nation is old. OLD, old in a way the most Europeans cannot understand and old in a way that Americans... well, don't even try, I don't.
As I studied Persia I learned the meaning of the word foreign.
One dream of mine has been to go. I dream of it at least weekly, mostly of the smells.... it aches in my heart.

Urbane Guerrilla;363434 wrote:

Are they or are they not escaping from an utter absence of jobs and money south of the border?

Of course that's what they're escaping but the reason there are no jobs or money is because they are here instead of fixing their own house. So being here, US employers can hire them cheap, treat them like slaves, make the taxpayer care for them because they get no benefits and keep them in line with the immigration cops. Dickensian it is.

My point, of course, is that this ends up being an improvement of their condition. Billions of US dollars in remittances (or envios, as the Spanish has it) going south don't lie -- they are affording to do this, and en masse. I live in the middle of where this sort of thing is going on, and frankly, what I see is a lot of these people earning enough to put them in at least the lower middle class. The crop pickers mostly get to the fields in private automobiles -- of various vintages, never the very newest, no doubt a couple-three per vehicle, but private autos.

Who is going to fight this "war", most of the young people like the US?

Urbane Guerrilla;363594 wrote:

My point, of course, is that this ends up being an improvement of their condition. Billions of US dollars in remittances (or envios, as the Spanish has it) going south don't lie -- they are affording to do this, and en masse. I live in the middle of where this sort of thing is going on, and frankly, what I see is a lot of these people earning enough to put them in at least the lower middle class. The crop pickers mostly get to the fields in private automobiles -- of various vintages, never the very newest, no doubt a couple-three per vehicle, but private autos.

Well whoopee fuckin' doo.... they can scrape together a few bucks to buy a used car. Maybe it's because there are limited things they can spend their money on.

Can they buy a house? Can the become part of the general community where the people that hire them live? Can they pay for hospitalization if they get sick? No, they are in limbo... at the mercy of the whims of the boss man.

Even the billions of dollars being shipped to Mexico do nothing but allow those left behind to exist. Nothing gets fixed, corruption remains rampant, even personal property rights are tenuous. Why? Because they are running away instead of fixing there own country. The Dickensian bosses allow, no, encourage, this to happen.

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.

Nice.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6901451.stm

Damn right, if any Iranians are thinking there could be changes, that would make Iran a better place to live, it must be an American plot.
After all, Iranians don't think without outside agitation, do they?

I really missed your commentary Bruce - well put.

It just is not our place to go into Iran.

rkzenrage;364779 wrote:

It just is not our place to go into Iran.

Not to mention it would be suicidal as well.

Matter of fact, I was just in a house a certain Mexican, his wife, and four kids just moved into. They are probably renting, but his place is bigger than mine. No, Bruce, what I see here on the ground suggests somebody's -- lots of somebodies -- getting along better than you want to believe.

While I agree with you the Mexican economy needs a major remodel, it's not left unremodeled because every hard worker is up here north of the border. Remodeling an economy that began as a latifundium economy of a few holders of all the wealth and the vast mass of everyone else is going to take the endeavor of the whole of the population if you want to convert that start into the horde of smallholders, with secure property rights, that was and is the basis of the North American middle class.

Urbane Guerrilla;365212 wrote:

Matter of fact, I was just in a house a certain Mexican, his wife, and four kids just moved into. They are probably renting, but his place is bigger than mine. No, Bruce, what I see here on the ground suggests somebody's -- lots of somebodies -- getting along better than you want to believe.

Good money in picking fruit and veggies, is there? Those farmer's have good medical & retirement plans for them too? By the way is he here legally? If he is, ask him how he feels about the Mexican Mafia, or how they feel about La reconquista.
Hey, he's not a panhandler is he?

Jose and Carlos are panhandling at the freeway off ramp.
Jose drives a Mercedes, lives in a mortgage free house and has a lot of money to spend.
Carlos only brings in 2 to 3 dollars a day.
Carlos asks Jose how he can bring home a suitcase full of $10 bills every day.
Jose says, "Look at your sign." It reads: "I have no work, a wife & 6 kids to support".
Carlos looks at Jose's sign. It reads: "I only need another $10.00 to move back to Mexico.".

While I agree with you the Mexican economy needs a major remodel, it's not left unremodeled because every hard worker is up here north of the border. Remodeling an economy that began as a latifundium economy of a few holders of all the wealth and the vast mass of everyone else is going to take the endeavor of the whole of the population if you want to convert that start into the horde of smallholders, with secure property rights, that was and is the basis of the North American middle class.

Then I guess it's not going to happen because the "whole population" isn't there to do it. Some are renting 4 bedroom houses near you and the rest are hanging in Compton. Uh, you don't live in Compton do you? Or south central? Or Pomona? Santa Ana? Or a hundred other places it isn't safe for whites or blacks to walk the street, in CA alone. Where you have to know the Mexican flag to locate the Post Office, where your kids aren't safe in public schools and city employees are attack on duty.