Burma Protests
 

Things are looking ugly for Burma. My professor told us that apparently a huge number of monks from previous days protests were attacked during the night. Their places were ransacked and they were beaten and put in jail... i know there's a BBC video on it somewhere.

The protests continue on though...hopeufully it won't be a repeat of 1988. :headshake

YouTube footage of protests:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZRmOibAEDGQ

BBC report: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7016608.stm

It's either gonna end in revolution or wholesale slaughter. It's prettymuch to the point of no return, I think. More momentum than can be stopped.

I heard they tried to buy yellow cake from Niger. When do you think we'll invade?:rolleyes:

Up the ante..
http://www.cellar.org/showthread.php?t=9357

Is this because they're pissed about not getting royalties for all the shaving cream signs?

Here's a blog from inside Burma, risking execution for posting pictures.

Not enough oil in Burma for us to occupy and force them to be happy.

Bruce, one datum that vindicates my point of view and not yours: the demonstrators are shouting, "Give us freedom! Give us freedom!"

Can't get a free social order nowadays without a democratic government. You've never understood that a less-than-democracy is not the logical nor likely free choice of any people but something imposed on them by force organized well enough to carry the day -- which frankly amounts to bigoted thinking, to imagine they wouldn't choose democracy. You're not a bigot -- I think... Can I be certain?

From Yahoo!News

No vindication for you, war monger.
If the want democracy, they will have to create it for themselves. First they have to convince the rest of the country that they want it too. What percent of the population of Burma are marching in the streets?

Look at the demonstrators on the news when the WTO comes to town and you'd be convinced that the whole US is down on the WTO.
Do you think the people screaming on the news from NYC, means that most Americans don't want Ahmadinejad to be allowed to speak here?

Nope, you're not allowed to force people to play by your rules.
You're not the judge. You're not the judge. You're not the judge. slam!

Blind. Blind, blind, blind, and no apostle of democracy, you.

You're trying to tell me these people haven't validity because they are yet few? Jee-zus, Bruce! Is there any recollection of Tien An Men in your dome? How about Hungary 1956? You're clawing after rationalizations for your bigotry, guy. It's a bigotry I don't suffer from, and you don't have to suffer from it either, is my message. But it falls on ears so deaf they might as well be carved out of basalt, no?

You've got a problem with removing fascists. That means you prefer to leave them to abuse the peoples. I do not. That is why my view is better than your view. It could be your view too; it's not my exclusive property nor trademarked. Put another way, democracy is good for anybody, not just Americans. To say that only Americans should have it and not help it grow elsewhere by doing whatever is necessary to neutralize hostile power is plain crazy talk.

No, I have a problem with YOU removing fascists.
If the people don't want fascist leaders, THEY must remove them. That's the only way democracy happens.

Yes, "give us freedom", not "give us a foreign invader"

The Burmese opposition wants diplomatic and economic pressure brought to bear and the ending of support from India and China for the dictatorship. They are trying to effect democracy, I hope they succeed. Nobody can impose democracy onto another country. All you can do is offer support to those who are seeking it.

Would you support invading a country that is supportive of overthrowing a fascist dictator but don't have the means to do it themselves.

This is assuming that our goal is NOT to spread our influence to their country, but to give the population a jumpstart they need to take control of their own country.

well, that was interesting

NO! That's exactly what Bush did in Iraq. We'll just take out Saddam and everything will be hunky dory, because the people said they wanted to be free. Well, that doen't work.
We don't need no mo stinkin' quagmires.

I thought that Iraqi experts were saying we shouldn't attack in first place because Iraq could never support a democracy? Cheney said it in '94 so it was obviously known before we went in the second time.

I was going to expand to "if you knew for sure that the people would take control of their lives" but then we leave realism behind...

The best laid plans of mice and men....

Planning the future for a whole bunch of people, without consulting them, is a recipe for disaster.

So, "Why don't the Americans come and save us?", a call to action for me, is a call to inaction for you. Jee-zus, Bruce, I call that a lot of damned bigotry. People can't have democracy in spite of local fascistoids because they're foreigners??? They can't have any help because they're foreigners??? That seems the core of your argument.

The fascists must be removed for democracy to happen, and it simply doesn't matter who does the shooting as long as the fascists do not survive the experience. An American bullet will answer as well as a Burmese one, and you know this.

You think you have a problem, Bruce, but if you'd ever willingly think deeper, you'd realize you don't, really.

The America-do-nothing, America-win-nothing toxic waste from the Left has ruined your clarity of thought, Bruce. Time to pull up your socks.

DanaC, check this from the TimesOnLine: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle2545351.ece

-- down at the bottom of the column.

http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/30/1159/29124.

By golly you're right, UG, lets declare war on China today, this morning, right now!
Push to button, drop the bomb... uh, well, er, better make that bombs.

Er, where does it say that the US must enter into every other country's internal conflicts? Do you know how many foreign wars we'd be facing, UG? Every US citizen under the age of 60 would have to be mobilized to serve in our new global war for "freedom." And Bruce is right, my bet's on China. We'll be "freedom" fighting there before you can say "Walmart" at the rate things are going.

I say we nominate some other country to be the Fighter of Fascism. Malta, perhaps?

Or belgium?

UG. I think this is probably the part you were pointing to:

Notice they are specificaly asking for UN troops. Why? Because that means no single country is invading theirs; instead the community of nations is intervening to stop the Burmese state killing its own citizens indiscriminately and without regard to the rule of either their own law, or international law.

They aren't asking us to go in and install democracy. They are most definately NOT asking America to launch an Iraq-style 'liberation'. What they are asking for is that the International Community intervenes using the legal powers vested in it by international law and consensus in order to allow their own internal democratic movement to progress without drawing governmental terror tactics.

Too complicated.

Bomb.Repeat.Bomb.Repeat.Bomb

And the reason they're asking for the UN and not the US (or any other specific country)? Because the UN has strict guidlines about human rights violations, and quite clearly, the Burmese government is violating human rights in this case.

Quite so; what struck me about those quotes was that they were an indicator of just how bad the conditions under the junta were and are -- that Joe from Yangon is moved to ask even occasionally for foreign boots on his ground.

Some internal affairs, ripe with blatant and conspicuous injustice, simply must be interfered with -- thus taking advantage of the opportunity they present.

UG, you do realize history is not going to treat your views kindly don't you? I mean the views which express your desire to see your country take over the world and have everyone else love you for it.

Burma may be the first nation wide uprising that never results in appropriate government changes, since the Czechoslovakia uprising in 1956. Burma can do this to their people since any power that be - that might demand protection of human rights - has been subverted or been turned cautious or adversarial by the United States. Any nation that could have answered UN calls for a solution will not do so for a long list of reasons directly traceable, in part, to America's overt attempts to undermine the UN (ie John Bolton) and to turn every problem into a 'them verses us' agenda.

Under George Jr, we now have enemies or adversaries everywhere where none existed 10 years ago. Situations such as Sudan, Somalia, Burma, Nigeria, and so many other central African problems will only get worse. The only exception - and no thanks to the US - was the French led solution on the Lebanese Israeli border.

There is almost no way to post on this subject without expressing bias. Those who support the current military government (who also agree with UG's political agendas) call it Myramar. Those who want protection for fundamental human rights call that nation Burma.

Burma, Burma, Burma, Burma, Burma, Burma, Burma, Burma, Burma, Burma, Burma, Burma.

It could have been worse. The teacher could have washed your mouth out with soap.

I have no desire for my country to take over the world -- I distrust the very idea, however much you might want me to have it to give you a straw man to treat like a Wicker Man. History is littered with the ruins of countries that tried it, and I am not wholly ignorant of history as you know.

What I do demand is that only good government exist. Anywhere. Failed states suffer from too little government, dictatorships from too much, and "that government is best which governs least." Or needs to govern least. Then there's proper room for love.

We've seen what happens with bad governance, and we've seen what happens with good governance. I pick good, and say make the bad extinct, without let, hindrance, or even momentary inefficiency.

So do you think the US currently has good governance? If so how do you define it? If not, what needs to happen to make it good?

Golly whillikers, Terry, this sounds like somebody who never moved on to Miss Lace.

"...And covered it over with sh -- aving cream!"

Overall, yes I do, and hold the same view of the UK and the greater part of Europe. Note that no state in these United States is a failed state, nor is any a dictatorship.

I do complain of our being overregulated, one reason I'm a Libertarian in spite of some Dwellars trying to tell me I'm not. They've had to be reminded it's the Libertarian Party and not the Party Of Clones.

Who is the party of clones?

There isn't one, or at least there should not be, not in a democratically ordered society.

(I'm just going to Google up anything I can find on Milton Caniff's Miss Lace.)

{Okeydokey, all fixed. Miss Lace is now an illustrative link.}

Miss Lace? More proof you're not living in the real world.

You're just embarrassed about not having gotten over Burma. In 1943. :p