[Am-info] Dishonesty in ads] - OT

[Sujal Shah]

On Thu, 2002-06-20 at 08:31, Geoffrey wrote:
> Mike Stephen wrote:
> 
> > Oh please....  In exactly the same way that Bill Gates is the
> > most generous person on the globe.  After all he gave away
> > hundreds of millions.  In the same way he has illegally
> > maintained his companies profits, so has America maintained
> > its dominant position with threats and wielding "large
> > baseball bats" when negotiating with others.
> > 
> > Please....  you cannot possibly be so blind.....
> 
> Like I said....  Your bias is so obvious, in everything you post.  This 
> is the problem.  Same with OS/2, your bias get's in the way of your 
> validity.

This is so very OT.

However, Geoffrey and John, do you claim that what he's saying isn't
true (About the U.S.)?  Or that it's irrelevant to the point he's making
Re: Microsoft?

Because what he's saying about our country is true (it's also true of
any hegemon at any period in history... you can debate whether it's
right or not that we, the U.S., do this all you want, but it's true).

I'm an American, and I have a strong faith in the foundations of this
country and the general goodness of it's people.  I'm also under no
delusions about this country's shortcomings, as well.  Power and
extraordinary amounts of money corrupt and corrupt absolutely.

There is a great "pop history" book called Lies My Teacher Told Me, by
James Loewen.  One of my favorite books.  It basically started as a
study of the accuracy of American high school history texts (all but one
did extremely poorly).  The book goes through a couple of periods of
American history and discusses the parts that weren't included in your
history classes.  His point isn't that America is bad (and I disagree
with Mike on this, obviously) but that by disavowing our true history,
we force ourselves into repeating the problems we've created in the
past.

I'd also point out to you that we have a spotty track record overseas. 
For more corroboration, see Chile
(http://www.law.northwestern.edu/depts/clinic/ihr/hrcomments/1998/oct28-98.html), Iran (http://www.nytimes.com/library/world/mideast/041600iran-cia-index.html),
the Phillipines, Honduras, Nicaragua, I could keep going.  For every
WWII act of nobility/economic necessity, we have a number of shady
things we've done in support of large domestic industries.

I'll shut up with one more quote:

"I helped make Mexico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped
make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to
collect revenue in. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international
banking house of Brown Brothers. . . . I brought light to the Dominican
Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras
'right' for American fruit companies in 1903. Looking back on it, I
might have given Al Capone a few hints."

  -- Marine Corps General Smedley D. Butler, quoted from Lies My Teacher
Told Me

We live in a good country, and one of the best places to live in the
world.  We still attract some of the best and brightest from around the
world.  But we also have flaws, and some of them are scary.

Sujal




> -- 
> Until later: Geoffrey		esoteric@3times25.net
> 
> I didn't have to buy my radio from a specific company to listen
> to FM, why doesn't that apply to the Internet (anymore...)?
> 
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---- Sujal Shah --- sujal@sujal.net ---

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