Iraq- Objectivity
-
Holden MacGroyn
Re: Iraq- Objectivity
Well I pirated the be-yatch so you just have inferior copies of Mama Rumsfeld.
I on the other hand, am trying to sell her back to Donnie....
Still.....Holden MacGroyn
I on the other hand, am trying to sell her back to Donnie....
Still.....Holden MacGroyn
-
Officer Dibble
Re: Iraq- Objectivity
Well, yes. But once again I say, so what? Big deal. Why should you care? How does it affect you personally? This is the way all business is conducted all over the world, it works well, and it?s perfectly normal. Of course there is the poncy hypocritical public veneer of probity, but in reality most business is conducted by a system of backhanders and favours. Didn?t you know that? Didn?t they teach you that at uni? Well, it's time to grow up then.
There have even been a number of high profile cases come to light of City Council corruption and in these instances the Council in question were all Labour councils! (Doncaster for one) They were putting in huge over-inflated expanses receipts and spending council tax payers dough on high class hookers, holidays and champagne swarays in swanky hotels - yep, those socialist comrades really know how to party, can't fault 'em there. And here's me thinking they were all boring bastards, just shows you.
But it's wrong to sneer at western business ethics. In many third world regions if you've got the dough you can ride roughshod over the less financially well endowed and get yourself out of the very deepest do do - like, for instance, murder charges. Compared to less developed regions of the world we in the west are paragons of probity. Why don't the hand wringers ever acknowledge this? Why do these naive knob-heads delight in bad-mouth their own side? The side that has provided them with the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed.
Dibble.
There have even been a number of high profile cases come to light of City Council corruption and in these instances the Council in question were all Labour councils! (Doncaster for one) They were putting in huge over-inflated expanses receipts and spending council tax payers dough on high class hookers, holidays and champagne swarays in swanky hotels - yep, those socialist comrades really know how to party, can't fault 'em there. And here's me thinking they were all boring bastards, just shows you.
But it's wrong to sneer at western business ethics. In many third world regions if you've got the dough you can ride roughshod over the less financially well endowed and get yourself out of the very deepest do do - like, for instance, murder charges. Compared to less developed regions of the world we in the west are paragons of probity. Why don't the hand wringers ever acknowledge this? Why do these naive knob-heads delight in bad-mouth their own side? The side that has provided them with the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed.
Dibble.
-
jj
Re: Iraq- Objectivity
All this is to say: 'It's the Way of the World'.
OK, so let's junk all these futile attempts at moral evolution and get back to the real business of eternally shafting each other. Christ/Buddha/
Mahomet/Uncle Tom Cobboley were all wasting their time, humanity is irredeemable, so why even bother?
What a world we've created..........Aleister Crowley must be laughing in his grave: 'Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.......'
OK, so let's junk all these futile attempts at moral evolution and get back to the real business of eternally shafting each other. Christ/Buddha/
Mahomet/Uncle Tom Cobboley were all wasting their time, humanity is irredeemable, so why even bother?
What a world we've created..........Aleister Crowley must be laughing in his grave: 'Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.......'
-
TopShelfBlue
Re: Iraq- Objectivity
Mart wrote:
"The first company awarded contract to re-constuct Iraq is Halliburton, formerly run by Dick Cheney, US vice-president."
Halliburton misses $600m Iraq contract
Mark Tran
Monday March 31, 2003
Halliburton, the company once headed by the US vice-president, Dick Cheney, has failed to make the shortlist for an American government contract to rebuild Iraq, it emerged today.
Halliburton, an oil services company, was one of five companies invited by the US agency for international development (USAid) to bid for a $600m (?381m) contract to rebuild Iraq's basic infrastructure.
Only US companies were invited to bid, to the fury of British industrialists and unions, who pointed out that British troops are fighting alongside American soldiers.
The five companies also had close ties to the Bush administration, sparking accusations that the White House was returning favours for generous political campaign contributions.
Allegations of unduly cozy ties between the Bush administration and corporate benefactors has dogged the White House, going back to the scandal over Enron, the failed energy company.
"The first company awarded contract to re-constuct Iraq is Halliburton, formerly run by Dick Cheney, US vice-president."
Halliburton misses $600m Iraq contract
Mark Tran
Monday March 31, 2003
Halliburton, the company once headed by the US vice-president, Dick Cheney, has failed to make the shortlist for an American government contract to rebuild Iraq, it emerged today.
Halliburton, an oil services company, was one of five companies invited by the US agency for international development (USAid) to bid for a $600m (?381m) contract to rebuild Iraq's basic infrastructure.
Only US companies were invited to bid, to the fury of British industrialists and unions, who pointed out that British troops are fighting alongside American soldiers.
The five companies also had close ties to the Bush administration, sparking accusations that the White House was returning favours for generous political campaign contributions.
Allegations of unduly cozy ties between the Bush administration and corporate benefactors has dogged the White House, going back to the scandal over Enron, the failed energy company.
-
Officer Dibble
Re: Iraq- Objectivity
But we didn't create the world or the universe, we are just components of a greater whole. We are what we are and there's nothing wrong with that. It is precisely what nature and evolution intended for us. So let's stop this pretentious moralising and accept humanity for what it is - It isn't good, it isn?t bad, it just is. Once we can accept what we are we can take it from there.
I'm not suggesting that we would "shaft each other" Not at all; the only person I feel like shafting is my favourite dolly bird. But, let's not beat ourselves up over the imagined sins of humanity.
Dibble.
I'm not suggesting that we would "shaft each other" Not at all; the only person I feel like shafting is my favourite dolly bird. But, let's not beat ourselves up over the imagined sins of humanity.
Dibble.
-
jj
Re: Iraq- Objectivity
'Take it from there'.......but where?
'Imagined sins'? So you mean all that stuff on the telly isn't really happening?
As a (more or less) humanist, I'd argue that the survival of the species depends on us all rubbing along together fairly comfortably, and that H.sap's full potential can only be reached when every individual on the planet has the chance to fulfill their own. So, in short, the greatest possible good for the greatest possible number.
It seems to me that this is most effectively achieved by a form of democracy similar to that practised in the West- although much of the world, having evolved with an ethical tradition that puts a notional common good before the rights of the individual, would apparently disagree: I think that this is putting the cart before the horse. I'd go to war to defend that point of view, but I don't think I'd do it to impose it on anyone else: that would be an exercise in futility.
And this is where I take issue with the current action: it's doomed to failure not only in the short term, but more importantly also in the longer term. History shows that stable democracies only evolve and flourish where there is a strong middle class (bourgeoisie/merchant class/call it what you will), and it's that loosely-defined group that, once materially satisfied, starts wondering about the eternal verities, and demanding a greater say in How Things Are Run.
Take China, for example, a nasty dictatorship if ever there was one: but in 50 years' time, when all the paranoid old guard are safe in Abraham's bosom, there will be a new generation of youngish technocrats in place who will have drank in democratic ideals with their mothers' milk........Iraq had a stable middle class and a good educational standard before Sadaam (and still had, during the early years): alas, sanctions and war have taken care of all that. The only thing necessary was to have contained him (by, e.g., domiciling weapons inspectors there sine die) and to wait for the inevitable cracks to appear. I'd contend that he's only a regional threat (and that a weak one): far more dangerous globally are the stockpiled WMDs in the former Sovier republics, for example....
As I've said before, the inherent short-termism of Western democracies is their Achilles' Heel: as long as a coherent long-term strategy fails to develop and we continue our military adventurism we will fail to win the battle of ideas, and in my view the maturation of humanity as a species will be delayed at best, or at worst aborted permanently.
'Imagined sins'? So you mean all that stuff on the telly isn't really happening?
As a (more or less) humanist, I'd argue that the survival of the species depends on us all rubbing along together fairly comfortably, and that H.sap's full potential can only be reached when every individual on the planet has the chance to fulfill their own. So, in short, the greatest possible good for the greatest possible number.
It seems to me that this is most effectively achieved by a form of democracy similar to that practised in the West- although much of the world, having evolved with an ethical tradition that puts a notional common good before the rights of the individual, would apparently disagree: I think that this is putting the cart before the horse. I'd go to war to defend that point of view, but I don't think I'd do it to impose it on anyone else: that would be an exercise in futility.
And this is where I take issue with the current action: it's doomed to failure not only in the short term, but more importantly also in the longer term. History shows that stable democracies only evolve and flourish where there is a strong middle class (bourgeoisie/merchant class/call it what you will), and it's that loosely-defined group that, once materially satisfied, starts wondering about the eternal verities, and demanding a greater say in How Things Are Run.
Take China, for example, a nasty dictatorship if ever there was one: but in 50 years' time, when all the paranoid old guard are safe in Abraham's bosom, there will be a new generation of youngish technocrats in place who will have drank in democratic ideals with their mothers' milk........Iraq had a stable middle class and a good educational standard before Sadaam (and still had, during the early years): alas, sanctions and war have taken care of all that. The only thing necessary was to have contained him (by, e.g., domiciling weapons inspectors there sine die) and to wait for the inevitable cracks to appear. I'd contend that he's only a regional threat (and that a weak one): far more dangerous globally are the stockpiled WMDs in the former Sovier republics, for example....
As I've said before, the inherent short-termism of Western democracies is their Achilles' Heel: as long as a coherent long-term strategy fails to develop and we continue our military adventurism we will fail to win the battle of ideas, and in my view the maturation of humanity as a species will be delayed at best, or at worst aborted permanently.