News Article
Anwar
I don’t know about that.. I find most people to be completely ignorant as to what’s going on, and then they step right in line with the supporters.
Daniel
I don’t get out much so I don’t “feel” the word on the street. I’m going from the YouGov CBS News Poll data (and the article that pointed me there). Survey of 2,063 Adults in the U.S., 1,615 registered voters. So take it as you will. Filtered by Dem party affiliation, the number goes from 61% to 77%
Regarding the situation with Israel and Hamas, which of these should the U.S. do or not do now?
Send weapons and supplies to Israel Y=39% N=61%
Send humanitarian aid to Palestinians in Gaza Y=62% N=38%
https://www.scribd.com/document/740568401/Cbsnews-20240609-SUN-NAT
Corporate-owned media definitely have a bias as to what side they support for financial reasons, I see it all the time, so it is not surprising these results are not known or felt.
Anwar
I see it in the worst dregs of human society known as the comment section of most news outlets. I guarantee if you and I were to go to a show… Say, something we wouldn’t expect like a Gary Numan show or something… The overwhelming majority of people would have no clue. Of course, that’s just my own assumption.
Eric
While I feel her assessment isn’t incorrect, encouraging “the west” to move away from capitalism wouldn’t fix anything about the world’s problems. It would be highly possible it would just open the door more for non western oppressors to take hold of more global power. Unfortunately “might” is still the order of humanity. If the west stopped exerting it’s power it would just make more room for the Chinese, Putin, and the oil barons of the middle east to exert theirs. And talk of colonialism fails to see the full picture. Most countries on this planet exist because of one group conquering another. This is not exclusive to “the west”. Sure, some of these systems are western inventions, but the idea that if the west just did what is “right” the world would become a better place is kinda of a liberal myth in my opinion. The realist in me kinda thinks the west needs to stay toe to toe with the less savory global actors. I will agree capitalism is what is driving climate change though.
Daniel
I hear that. The “west” invented and have dominated capitalism so that is the reasoning behind that sentiment I think. Other cultures have been adapting-to and inheriting capitalism as an ideal economic model, even “communist” China, and I see no real stopping it. I agree non-western capitalist models are/would be equally destructive. I also don’t know if we can “solve” anything. My personal take is that we are already too far gone. Technology will not save us. Shit like carbon capture, plastic eating microbes, fusion power etc. are never going to reverse the damage already done, and are never going to to ramp-up in time anyway. There is no end in sight for the increase in pollution and damage. Shit is going to get worse and large migrations of people out of areas which will soon become unlivable will probably propel a surge in fascist governments around the world. I’m just glad Gretta and others are starting to think about how our problems are not the result of resource needs, but about how economies of greed, hoarding and income inequality manage those resources.
Eric
Very true, and I totally agree. My comment is mostly directed at the common western liberal notion that “we” are the bad guys (western colonialist background) and somehow all our problems stem from that. History seems to tell a very different picture. Even capitalism isn’t really the problem, greed is. Greed has taken many forms throughout history. Capitalism is just the device. I just don’t feel that if you change the economic model that you can fix the problem. Unless we somehow can combat greed.
Daniel
I don’t know, I hear what you are saying, but the west does deserve a gold star for exploitation, other cultures may get there eventually but Western culture was born of artifact worship and so we have been the masters of ownership for at least the last 5,000 years. All humans have the same greedy tendencies, but the west does deserve special recognition for it’s exceptional execution of theft from the rest of the world. Spread the timeline out long enough and we may see some competition, but the West, starting with Sumeria, Egypt, Greece and on to the Roman empire, has always been about constant growth and resource hoarding. That culture spread to Europe and then America and has never changed, always successfully consuming more foreign resources than the rest of the world combined. Greed is a political issue and economics are regulated by politics. The West has definitely defined its political structure from ancient times on the need to feed. I’m inclined to agree that makes us the baddest, but only because we started so early. Who knows what other civilizations may have done if they had been the ones to master expansionism first.
But… it does not always have to be that way. There have always been break-away splinter cultures formed out of western culture who seemed to learn and grow into a relatively self-sustaining culture, especially in northern Europe and parts of the middle east, but the hard pockets of the old western cultures seem to keep alive the absolute expansionist greed mentality.
Eric
But that touches on the point a bit. Greed is not inherent to a particular ethnicity. Look to Aztecs, Gengis Kahn, warlords of Africa, etc… Or the current behavior of China or Putin. I think the western world just had the luck of their colonialism coinciding with newer technology that kinda supercharged it. At it’s core I doesn’t make them (us) better or worse people. Those are human problems. If it wasn’t us it would have been someone else. Guess what I’m trying to say is there is nothing inherently better or worse. That kind of judgment feeds into age old ideas of tribalism. I mean yes, many of the current problems are the result of what the west has done, but making the leap to judgment on them as a people seems disingenuous. I guess I see greed as a human nature problem. Until humans can deal with that I feel we will continue to have these problems.
Daniel
Absolutely. Labels only help to destroy, they never help. Holistically we are the same species in mindset and ability. All fights need a starting point and Western culture mastered global exploitation first, and so they they do get the credit, that is my only point. As a human race, no, there is no differences, and yes other cultures could have done the same. However management of our inherent failures is what cultural beliefs help us do (or not do as in western culture). Managing our destructive tendencies as a species is the only goal worth striving for. One problem with expansionist western culture has been the exporting and/or replacing other more modestly destructive cultures. I feel most of the worlds culture is now somewhat western to a degree, because of commerce, and so the problem grows. Russia, although mostly asian by population, is politically western, even if they don’t want to admit it. But for instance, India and China who have always been far more populated, have historically been moderately less self-destructive and expansionist, until more modern times, I would argue, because they have absorbed more western culture into their own. All people have greed, but some cultures self-regulate better than others. We can never know what could have been, only judge by what has played out in history. Would the Eskimos eventually have evolved into a self-destructive society? Maybe, but also maybe their unique culture would have prevented it. I do agree we are cut from the same cloth, but I believe the cultural emphases on social responsibility and fealty to nature is the weakest in western culture, which has allowed for us to be the most destructive. Would that have sprouted elsewhere? I don’t know.
What is the difference between burning books and throwing them in the garbage? Maybe just the spectacle.
