??? I really dont mean to be offensive, but this entire thread is like banging your head against a brick wall! Truthseeker has some good ideas, but is charging and backpeddling and confusing everyone as to what the real issue is... is it the standard "believe in god or rot in hell"? or is it "get out and be a good person"? I still cant work it out! I am not a christian, i cant fit into that mould. I am wiccan. I see so many "sunday christians" it makes me sick. All well and good to really believe! GO FOR IT! its a wonderful thing! but dont do it because you think you are guaranteed access to a wonderful afterlife, otherwise you miss the point entirely. HERE AND NOW, BE THE BEST 'YOU' YOU CAN BE I dont realy care what people believe in providing they dont interfere with others lives. If you believe to get to "heaven" etc. you have to throw 30 odd ppl off a tall building, thats not very good really... but i think you can all understand my meaning, If you need/want/have religion in your life, and you are a good person, GREAT! if you dont, and you are a good person GREAT! Live this life as tho there is nothing more, this is it! try your guts out to make it a good one, smile, feel free, help, accept help and...keep smilin'!Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Goofyfish... Now you are mean to Truthseeker. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! I think he sees it in another way, he lived in Brasil. What he says about the Rain Forest is true. They cut the Trees down and the Rain Forest is of great importance for Earth and humans to stay alive. Remember???!!! Guess it is a whole different situation if you grow up in a Land like Brasil. I cannot tell you how it is, I am from the Netherlands, another different Land. Guess you don't have to take Truthseeker down the way you do. By telling him that he makes 76 posts with nothing to say. he DOES say something. I agree with him that humans better learn to love more and to think less. Cannot talk about all the war stuff, just because I don't keep track of all the wars going on here on Earth. There are and have been to many killings for nothing. It should be better to quit the killing, in any possible way. The U$ plays a big, big part in all those wars going on right now. And Truthseeker is right about the oil. The U$ wants to have complete control. Did you hear about the new money budget bush decided on? Did you see where he cuts the money down and where he adds more money? If not, let me know. I'll post the whole article for you. Scilosopher, it has been a little while since I have been talking to you. I told you I wanted to go to Amsterdam when you were talking about it. I didn't say where I was.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Callatya, you are right. The best you can do is being yourself, with care for others that is. A little more friendship and understanding should bring a change in the way of living among humans. And you didn't read the whole thread, for it is not godbelieving here, just believe in life, with love and care for eachother and the Cosmos. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Guess I am the greatest godhater on Earth. I live my life from out myself, my Inner Feelings, trying to do so in balance with Nature, Earth, the Cosmos and humans. The humans are the biggest 'problem' though...Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
I know it was for the non believers.... i ws trying to be a tad objective... doubt i succeeded, i hardly ever do!Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Of course you'll succeed... Just post a little more. Then everybody knows you better and understands what you mean exactly. I bet you'll succeed in that.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Another experience of life, posting at Sciforums. It is such a nice family here. And I mean it! You can experience life at Sciforums. So many different humans who are posting here in all the Forums. Good luck. Have a nice day...Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Banshee You are quite correct, and I apologize. Even The Fish gets frustrated repeating the same points over and over. Outside of his “message of compassion” however, I stand by my statement that TruthSeeker’s posts are collections of “false assumptions, unrelated and unsupported statements, meaningless diagrams, and a mantra based upon inconvenient time constraints.” I do not disagree that the rainforests of the earth are being destroyed without apparent thought to the consequences. What I object to is the unsupported accusations that the United States is responsible for all of the issues that TruthSeeker claims. Perhaps these allegations are true; provide facts to back a statement and we’ll discuss it. Ouch. Now it’s your turn. What sources do you use in order to support such sweeping statements? Peace.
goofyfish, I've made myself very clear. I wanted to pass a message of Love, Compassion and Self-awareness to you. If you don't accept it by your proud, you should be really ashamed. But no, you keep it. You lose the opportunity to be more aware about your world and about yourself only to keep your proud. Where is your maturity? I tried to exchange ideas with you and you instantly attacked me. Why? Are you afraid of losing the bases of your life and begin everything again with a new view of yourself and the world you live in? How old are you? Are you really being adult (if you are)? I'm 17. Your have been desesperatly discussing with a "child". A "child" which is trying to pass a message of Love, Compassion and Self-awareness to the world... what a weird world... the adults should be doing this, not the children... What kind of fact do you want? In the middle of the biggest rain forest in the world, which kind of evidence do you want? Forget about it. Discussions in this topic are impossible. To get the information is hard and require time (which I certainly don't have) and it's not the point of the thread. P.S.: If you want to reply, please don't do it until the weekend. I can't get here these days... I've started school again and I will be very busy (as usual...)... Blessings, Nelson
Banshee, If you do those things, you are not the greatest "godhater" on Earth... you are one of the GodLovers! You say it all. It's how I live my life, and is what I'm trying to say here. Blessings, Nelson
Truthseeker... Don't insult me. I am not a godbeliever! I prefer to call it 'All That Is', not god almighty, for this god has brought more doom than good to this Earth and humanity. Look at all the holy wars that are going on in the name of the great god almighty. I am sorry if I upset you with this, it is just the way I feel and how I live. Not with worshipping some invented god. Than I go for the word gods, in plural. Way back in history there were more gods then that one god almighty. Even in the bible is spoken of more then one god. This is not the Religion Forum, so I don't go into this any further in this thread. Experience Life with an open mind and a different view, everything is connected with the Cosmos.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! All That Is...
Goofyfish... Isn't it so that the U$ is involved in every country where oil is to be found? Isn't it so that the U$ interfere in every so called Third World country? Especially for you. Experience Life through the eyes of an Indian human being. Will you please read all of it? Published in the February 18, 2002 issue of The Nation (http://www.thenation.com/) Shall We Leave It to the Experts? Enron's Power Project in India Demonstrates Who Benefits from Globalization by Arundhati Roy India lives in several centuries at the same time. Somehow we manage to progress and regress simultaneously. As a nation we age by pushing outward from the middle--adding a few centuries on either end of the extraordinary CV. We greaten like the maturing head of a hammerhead shark with eyes looking in diametrically opposite directions. I don't mean to put a simplistic value judgment on this peculiar form of "progress" by suggesting that Modern is Good and Traditional is Bad—or vice versa. What's hard to reconcile oneself to, both personally and politically, is the schizophrenic nature of it. That applies not just to the ancient/modern conundrum but to the utter illogic of what appears to be the current national enterprise. In the lane behind my house, every night I walk past road gangs of emaciated laborers digging a trench to lay fiber-optic cables to speed up our digital revolution. In the bitter winter cold, they work by the light of a few candles. It's as though the people of India have been rounded up and loaded onto two convoys of trucks (a huge big one and a tiny little one) that have set off resolutely in opposite directions. The tiny convoy is on its way to a glittering destination somewhere near the top of the world. The other convoy just melts into the darkness and disappears. A cursory survey that tallies the caste, class and religion of who gets to be on which convoy would make a good Lazy Person's concise Guide to the History of India. For some of us, life in India is like being suspended between two of the trucks, one leg in each convoy, and being neatly dismembered as they move apart, not bodily, but emotionally and intellectually. Fifty years after independence, India is still struggling with the legacy of colonialism, still flinching from the "cultural insult." As citizens we're still caught up in the business of "disproving" the white world's definition of us. Intellectually and emotionally, we have just begun to grapple with communal and caste politics that threaten to tear our society apart. But meanwhile, something new looms on our horizon. On the face of it, it's just ordinary, day-to-day business. It lacks the drama, the large-format, epic magnificence of war or genocide or famine. It's dull in comparison. It makes bad TV. It has to do with boring things like jobs, money, water supply, electricity, irrigation. But it also has to do with a process of barbaric dispossession on a scale that has few parallels in history. You may have guessed by now that I'm talking about the modern version of globalization. What is globalization? Who is it for? What is it going to do to a country like India, in which social inequality has been institutionalized in the caste system for centuries? A country in which 700 million people live in rural areas. In which 80 percent of the landholdings are small farms. In which 300 million people are illiterate. Is the corporatization and globalization of agriculture, water supply, electricity and essential commodities going to pull India out of the stagnant morass of poverty, illiteracy and religious bigotry? Is the dismantling and auctioning off of elaborate public sector infrastructure, developed with public money over the past fifty years, really the way forward? Is globalization going to close the gap between the privileged and the underprivileged, between the upper castes and the lower castes, between the educated and the illiterate? Or is it going to give those who already have a centuries-old head start a friendly helping hand? Is globalization about "eradication of world poverty," or is it a mutant variety of colonialism, remote-controlled and digitally operated? These are huge, contentious questions. The answers vary depending on whether they come from the villages and fields of rural India, from the slums and shantytowns of urban India, from the living rooms of the burgeoning middle class or from the boardrooms of the big business houses. Today India produces more milk, more sugar and more food grain than ever before. And yet, in March 2000, just before President Clinton's visit to India, the Indian government lifted import restrictions on 1,400 commodities, including milk, grain, sugar, cotton, tea, coffee and palm oil. This despite the fact that there was a glut of these products on the market. As of April 1--April Fool's Day--2001, according to the terms of its agreement with the World Trade Organization, the Indian government had to drop its quantitative import restrictions. The Indian market is already flooded with cheap imports. Though India is technically free to export its agricultural produce, in practice most of it cannot be exported because it doesn't meet the First World's "environmental standards." (You don't eat bruised mangoes or bananas with mosquito bites or rice with a few weevils in it, whereas we don't mind the odd mosquito and the occasional weevil.) Developed countries like the United States, whose hugely subsidized farm industry engages only 2 to 3 percent of its total population, are using the WTO to pressure countries like India to drop agricultural subsidies in order to make the market "competitive." Huge, mechanized corporate enterprises working thousands of acres of farmland want to compete with impoverished subsistence farmers who own a couple of acres. In effect, India's rural economy, which supports 700 million people, is being garroted. Farmers who produce too much are in distress, farmers who produce too little are in distress and landless agricultural laborers are out of work as big estates and farms lay off their workers. They're all flocking to the cities in search of employment. "Trade Not Aid" is the rallying cry of the head men of the new Global Village, headquartered in the shining offices of the WTO. Our British colonizers stepped onto our shores a few centuries ago disguised as traders. We all remember the East India Company. This time around, the colonizer doesn't even need a token white presence in the colonies. The CEOs and their men don't need to go to the trouble of tramping through the tropics, risking malaria, diarrhea, sunstroke and an early death. They don't have to maintain an army or a police force, or worry about insurrections and mutinies. They can have their colonies and an easy conscience. "Creating a good investment climate" is the new euphemism for Third World repression. Besides, the responsibility for implementation rests with the local administration. Enron in India The fishbowl of the drive to privatize power, its truly star turn, is the story of Enron, the Houston-based natural gas company. The Enron project was the first private power project in India. The Power Purchase Agreement between Enron and the Congress Party-ruled state government of Maharashtra for a 740-megawatt power plant was signed in 1993. The opposition parties, the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Shiv Sena, set up a howl of swadeshi (nationalist) protest and filed legal proceedings against Enron and the state government. They alleged malfeasance and corruption at the highest level. A year later, when state elections were announced, it was the only campaign issue of the BJP-Shiv Sena alliance. In February 1995 this combine won the elections. True to their word, they "scrapped" the project. In a savage, fiery statement, the opposition leader L.K. Advani attacked the phenomenon he called "loot through liberalization." He more or less directly accused the Congress Party government of having taken a $13 million bribe from Enron. Enron had made no secret of the fact that in order to secure the deal, it paid out millions of dollars to "educate" the politicians and bureaucrats involved in the deal. Following annulment of the contract, the US government began to pressure the Maharashtra government. US Ambassador Frank Wisner made several statements deploring the cancellation. (Soon after he completed his term as ambassador, he joined Enron as a director.) In November 1995 the BJP-Shiv Sena government in Maharashtra announced a "renegotiation" committee. In May 1996 a minority federal government headed by the BJP was sworn in at New Delhi. It lasted for exactly thirteen days and then resigned before facing a no-confidence vote in Parliament. On its last day in office, even as the motion of no confidence was in progress, the Cabinet met for a hurried "lunch" and reratified the national government's counterguarantee (which had become void because of the earlier "canceled" contract with Enron). In August 1996 the government of Maharashtra signed a fresh contract with Enron on terms that would astound the most hard-boiled cynic. The impugned contract had involved annual payments to Enron of $430 million for Phase I of the project (740 megawatts), with Phase II (1,624 megawatts) being optional. The "renegotiated" power purchase agreement makes Phase II of the project mandatory and legally binds the Maharashtra State Electricity Board (MSEB) to pay Enron the sum of $30 billion! It constitutes the largest contract ever signed in the history of India. Indian experts who have studied the project have called it the most massive fraud in the country's history. The project's gross profits work out to between $12 billion and $14 billion. The official return on equity is more than 30 percent. That's almost double what Indian law and statutes permit in power projects. In effect, for an 18 percent increase in installed capacity, the MSEB has to set aside 70 percent of its revenue to pay Enron. There is, of course, no record of what mathematical formula was used to "re-educate" the new government. Nor any trace of how much trickled up or down or sideways or to whom. But there's more: In one of the most extraordinary decisions in its not entirely pristine history, in May 1997 the Supreme Court of India refused to entertain an appeal against Enron. Today, everything that critics of the project predicted has come true with an eerie vengeance. The power that the Enron plant produces is twice as expensive as its nearest competitor and seven times as expensive as the cheapest electricity available in Maharashtra. In May 2000 the Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Committee (MERC) ruled that temporarily, until as long as was absolutely necessary, no power should be bought from Enron. This was based on a calculation that it would be cheaper to just pay Enron the mandatory fixed charges for the maintenance and administration of the plant that it is contractually obliged to pay than to actually buy any of its exorbitant power. The fixed charges alone work out to around $220 million a year for Phase I of the project. Phase II will be nearly twice the amount. Two hundred and twenty million dollars a year for the next twenty years. Meanwhile, industrialists in Maharashtra have begun to generate their own power at a much cheaper rate, with private generators. The demand for power from the industrial sector has begun to decline rapidly. The MSEB, strapped for cash, with Enron hanging like an albatross around its neck, will now have no choice but to make private generators illegal. That's the only way that industrialists can be coerced into buying Enron's exorbitantly priced electricity. In January 2001 the Maharashtra government (the Congress Party is back in power with a new chief minister) announced that it did not have the money to pay Enron's bills. On January 31, only five days after an earthquake in the neighboring state of Gujarat, at a time when the country was still reeling from the disaster, the newspapers announced that Enron had decided to invoke the counterguarantee and that if the government did not come up with the cash, it would have to auction the government properties named as collateral security in the contract. But Enron had friends in high places. It was one of the biggest corporate contributors to President George W. Bush's election campaign. US government officials warned India about vitiating the "investment climate" and running the risk of frightening away future investors. In other words: Allow us to rob you blind, or else we'll go away. Last June the MSEB announced that it was ending its agreement with the Dabhol Power Corporation, a joint venture of Enron--which has the largest stake--General Electric and Bechtel. DPC ceased operations soon afterward, and is pressuring the government to cover its debts. Royal Dutch/Shell, the Anglo-Dutch petroleum group, TotalFinaElf and Gaz de France are currently bidding to take over Enron, Bechtel and GE's collective stake in the plant in a "distress sale." Globalizing Dissent Recently, globalization has come in for some criticism. The protests in Seattle and Prague will go down in history. Each time the WTO or the World Economic Forum wants to have a meeting, ministers have to barricade themselves with thousands of heavily armed police. Still, all its admirers, from Bill Clinton, Kofi Annan and A.B. Vajpayee (the Indian Prime Minister) to the cheering brokers in the stalls, continue to say the same lofty things: If we have the right institutions of governance in place—effective courts, good laws, honest politicians, participatory democracy, a transparent administration that respects human rights and gives people a say in decisions that affect their lives--then the globalization project will work for the poor as well. They call this "globalization with a human face." The point is, if all this were in place, almost anything would succeed: socialism, capitalism, you name it. Everything works in Paradise, a Communist State as well as a Military Dictatorship. But in an imperfect world, is it globalization that's going to bring us all this bounty? Is that what's happening in India now that it's on the fast track to the free market? Does any one thing on that lofty list apply to life in India today? Are state institutions transparent? Have people had a say--have they even been informed, let alone consulted--about decisions that vitally affect their lives? And are Clinton (or now Bush) and Prime Minister Vajpayee doing everything in their power to see that the "right institutions of governance" are in place? Or are they involved in exactly the opposite enterprise? Do they mean something else altogether when they talk of the "right institutions of governance"? The fact is that what's happening in India today is not a "problem," and the issues that some of us are raising are not "causes." They are huge political and social upheavals that are convulsing the nation. One is not involved by virtue of being a writer or activist. One is involved because one is a human being. If you're one of the lucky people with a berth booked on the small convoy, then Leaving It to the Experts is, or can be, a mutually beneficial proposition for both the expert and yourself. It's a convenient way of shrugging off your own role in the circuitry. And it creates a huge professional market for all kinds of "expertise." There's a whole ugly universe waiting to be explored there. This is not at all to suggest that all consultants are racketeers or that expertise is unnecessary, but you've heard the saying: There's a lot of money in poverty. There are plenty of ethical questions to be asked of those who make a professional living off their expertise in poverty and despair. For instance, at what point does a scholar stop being a scholar and become a parasite who feeds off despair and dispossession? Does the source of your funding compromise your scholarship? We know, after all, that World Bank studies are among the most quoted studies in the world. Is the World Bank a dispassionate observer of the global situation? Are the studies it funds entirely devoid of self-interest? Take, for example, the international dam industry. It's worth $32-$46 billion a year. It's bursting with experts and consultants. Given the number of studies, reports, books, PhDs, grants, loans, consultancies, environmental impact assessments--it's odd, wouldn't you say, that there is no really reliable estimate of how many people have been displaced by big dams in India? That there is no estimate for exactly what the contribution of big dams has been to overall food production in India? That there hasn't been an official audit, a comprehensive, honest, thoughtful, post-project evaluation, of a single big dam to see whether or not it has achieved what it set out to achieve? Whether or not the costs were justified, or even what the costs actually were? Cynics say that real life is a choice between the failed revolution and the shabby deal. I don't know...maybe they're right. But even they should know that there's no limit to just how shabby that shabby deal can be. What we need to search for and find, what we need to hone and perfect into a magnificent, shining thing, is a new kind of politics. Not the politics of governance, but the politics of resistance. The politics of opposition. The politics of forcing accountability. The politics of slowing things down. The politics of joining hands across the world and preventing certain destruction. In the present circumstances, I'd say that the only thing worth globalizing is dissent. It's India's best export. Arundhati Roy, a novelist who lives in New Delhi, is the author of Power Politics (from which this article in the February 18, 2002 issue was adapted). A second and expanded edition will be available (February 2002) from South End Press. * 2002 The Nation Company, L.P. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= And perhaps the U$ are not the only ones involved here, they play (again!) the biggest part in it.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! It is not personal to you though Goofyfish...it is just in general. I do like your posts a lot and don't want an arguement about this. Really not, it is not worth arguing.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Because it doesn't solve anything...
Actually, I totally agree with you. But there is a lot, lot more to it than that. Fundamentally I think our society (Human Society as whole) is all about competition. It's in our nature. How else did we become as successfull as we are. I do not mean economic success but success as a species. We need resources to live and where those resources are owned by some one or something else Humans have always taken them, by force if necessary. Now for the but. If we where entirely selfish and thinking about ourselves we would not have got so far. Humans can also be extremely co-operative. But then you get into issues about society and demography. A group of humans who are copperating could be called a community. Where you have two communities vieing for resources you get conflicts. It is my belief that this combination of abilities to cooperate and successfully compete is what has got us so far. It is in the core of what makes us Human. In a way it is an extension of Darwinian evolution, not social evolution. If our unique abilities are a successful adaption then we will survive. If not, we will kill ourselves and the experiment of intelligence will fail. The universe cares not one jot either way. The question, as such, is whether all peoples can cooperate to acheive a common goal. Let us consider for a moment that all nations manage to acheive a lasting and endearing peace with a basic standard of living enjoyed by all. This utopia is nothing short of real globalisation and the embodiment of communism. I also feel that the capitalist ideal of tapping the global market will also acheive the same thing. The above is nothing more than a few random thoughts about a much bigger and in depth topic. The details of this have been debated endlessly for a long time. Neither you nor I have a simple solution. If we did we would be very rich and powerful people.
"If we did we would be very rich and powerful people." I thought you just said that we humans had to be a little more co operative toward one another. Then you come with money and power again? How does that compare? It's the same old story, the same old song and dance my friend...Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
banshee That is the paradox as I see it. People who succesfully espouse a peacefull paradigm and acheive it then become succesfull. They out compete the opposition by co-operating more successfully. Did Gandhi and Mandela strive for peacefull resolutions to the tyranny their people lived under only to step aside and live peaceful, happy lives. Nope, they became great leaders and, like it or not, became reasonably wealthy. In the ideal world the leader of a community should be the one who least wants power and prestige. In the real world it is precisely that power and prestige people aspire to. As I say it is in our nature. I am not saying I agree with it, its just an observation.
To strengthen my point. The people who most actively sought to get people to understand each other and lay aside all differences later became the greatest role models and histories greatest figures. They have been used to justify some of the greatest massacres in human history. No doubt they would be horrified at what people have done in their name.
Re: Goofyfish... Is it? What information do present to support this? Is it? What information do present to support this? Why do you direct this excerpt of a book to me? It supports neither of your statements regarding American involvement in countries with oil, or countries experiencing war. I have actually read parts of Power Politics, from which this article was adapted, while loitering at the local bookseller. While Ms. Roy presents strong arguments that the United States and bureaucracies under its sway like the World Bank and the Agency for International Development may have “bullied” the Indian government into a series of privately funded hydroelectric projects in the name of agricultural development, clean water, and affordable electric power, she says nothing to support your statements. I do not take it personally. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Posts to this board are discussions to me, never arguments. If you review the history of my posts to this board, I think you would agree that I support environmental conservation, that I disagree with a majority my government’s foreign and domestic policies, and that I am concerned that American response to most crises is force. I think you misunderstand my problem with your posts, and those of TruthSeeker. I do not necessarily disagree with either of you. I just feel that sweeping statements without the support of facts cannot lead to an open discussion. This type of comment most often leads to invective “chest thumping” where nothing is resolved and hard feelings are the result. Peace.
Goofyfish... I apologise to you. Just have a hard time with the american government and its actions. I know you disagree with a lot of 'things' going on here in America. Guess I ran into you at the moment I just heard some things about bush and his political actions.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! It is a little difficult for me to adjust to the american way of living. I am here for 3 months now and still have troubles with the mentality. For instance all those banners who scream at you from the houses. With their inscription:'god bless america'. It will be better in time...I am experiencing life in America now...and I am doing my best to live my life here. In balance with Earth, Nature and the Cosmos and myself and the american inhabitants... Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
To thed ted, Successfull? Wars! Pollution! Violence! Confusion! Look around! Lots of wars and corruption in the world. We don't have freedom. Terrorism! Is this really success? I think this success you talk about is extremely superficial... Sure... Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! This is because you live in a rich country. People who lives in poor contries don't have any Globalisation and are those who pay for it. When Capitalism treat people that have and don't have money equally, then you will have a possibilty of the above. With a world with lots of exclusion as ours... I don't know... Blessings, Nelson
