War for Peace

In addition to # 169,



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Kulharee writes <<< but $ to $, it contributes more, >>>

First, this article is not a discussion about AID, second that is just like saying that even though Worker Joe gives 30% of his income in taxes of various kinds, since Corporation X is giving 1% it is somehow more generous because dollar for dollar the corporate tax amount will come to be more than Worker Joe. That is not how comparisons are done and generosity determined. The gross amount of AID that the US gave did not exceed the other nations until 2001, and even then if we remove Iraq and the two top recipients of AID before the Iraq war, to whom aid is given for political and not humanitarian reasons, the gross amount falls far short of other nations. Finally you have not and cannot answer the fact that AID in the US according to its own official statements has been foreign policy tied in most cases and results in net loss in most cases from the recipient nation due to such policy requirements and sweet heart deals that follow.


Hamidm, since your question was adequately answered about links between those corporations, instead of accepting the facts as an honest person you come up with further distractions about African Americans and college professors on boards of directors, did you not know that educational institutions, especially the top ones are the ones that serve a vital function for the elite, both as training ground for world view and suppliers of leadership and only those members from the lower echelons are allowed in that clone themselves in the fashion of the dominant ones. The AAs and Jews in the power elite are near clones in their social outlook to the traditional power elite, they have been allowed in due to circumstance, there has been extensive data studies on this by Domhoff and he has published his findings as empirical verifications of the power elite model every decade after Mills published his work in 1956. The latest revision published was in 2005. No amount of ``qualification`` can ever justify the disparity in income between a ceo and and entire regiment of workers combined and the entire point of the discussion, fusion of interests and class consciousness that such institutional arrangement offers the power elite was ignored by hamidm. How else will he justify the lie based upon which he has lived his whole life, some c@ck and bull story about productivity which amounts to inventing ways in which to better fleece workers and line his own pockets.

All what this post by hamidm proves is that regardless of the validity of the answer, well documented, he will still reject it and carry on with his ignorance. Much like the other bigots on here, Hindu or otherwise~ look at their hypocrisy, they don`t give up any opportunity, even distractively construct opportunities to attack Islam at the drop of a hat, engage each other in nationalistic debate and then have the audacity to accuse me because I referred to the well-known repeat violators as ``Hindu`` bigots- which they happen to be and they have adequately demonstrated over the months that I have been here.

And Feroz`s hypocrisy, the same person who was arguing with HP till he was blue in the face that the non state actors like alleged 9/11 perpetrators had their entire state to blame for their acts, in this thread blamed the Muslims for no democracy in the Arab lands, wanted the US to construct an entire militarized corridor across Muslim lands- finds faults when I refer to the most miserable haters on here as ``Hindu`` bigots and that only after they distract all discussions by bringing in Islam into the equation, and attacking me because everything I say gets invisible according to their perception of my ``Muslim`` identity. This hypocrisy is quite baffling and then he talks about ``racing with hares and hunting with hounds``, rather he is a tortoise that suffers from arthritis and a poodle that suffers from gum disease!

Hamidm2 #150 {``salimullah,
.......... you are a very wise man .... mashallah, subhanallah and jazak allah khair !``}

Hamidullah Sahib,
Thanks for your kindness, brother. Just checking - please make sure that the clearance between your ankles and the cuffs of your shalwar is not less than the proper length. Lakhaimullah. :)

Re: # 159 by burpinder on July 12, 2006 3:53am PT

{.....behram (apart from his slumdweller-defecation obsession, the bawa seems fairly astute) etc. ask you relevant questions, ...}

Actually, I must admit, that I was totally impressed by these slumdweller on Bombay`s railroad tracks, who took their bedsheets to help the dead and the injured of this terrible and horrible act of violence.

Dear masadi:

See what you have done to yourself, just because you have no harmony between your intellect and your belief. A true believer like yourself can never be intellectual. So you need to get it straight within yourself first, are you an intellectual or are you a believer? And while you are at it, figure out whether you are a capitalist or are you anti-capitalist? If you are anti-capitalist then you must be the first one to ask the US to get rid of poppy fields in Afghanistan. It has been reported that the US is spending over $50 million to support the Afghan farmers grow rice instead of opium. How about that for capitalism? But Afghan farmers who have more desire for money want to continue to flourish with their opium farming because they make over $4,000 per acre of opium field versus rice farming, which gets them only $15 per acre. Which one would you prefer? eh!

Respectfully submitted,

masadi,

..... it is obvious you have no idea about how the world of business works - not only that, you have a very selective, paranoid and myopic view of the world of big business which provides sustenance to billions of people around the world (with god`s help, of couirse!) .............. typically a board of any fortune 500 company will include a number of people who are ceo`s of other companies simply because they are the best qualified to guide a big business ........ and you will find people on multiple boards because there are only so many of them to go around - and no, anyone cannot be on a board just as everyone cannot run the 100 m in less than 10 seconds ........... and on every board you will find european and asian (tpically japanese) businessmen as well as professors (real professors, not make believe ones!) .......... the purpose of the board is to ensure good governance and increase shareholder value - and that is it ............

................ you mentioned cathleen black who serves on the board of ibm and coca cola - what is wrong with that ? ........ she is an extremely astute business person who has a great track record in the publishing business and is the kind of person most shareholders (and that includes you and me) would love to have on their board to keep an eye on runaway and incompetent executive management .......... you want `active` board members like her who will stand up for the shareholders and the employees ........ i will grant you that in the past a lot of boards have been stacked with people who slept through board meetings and let the management run great companies into the ground ........... now we have kirk kerkorian`s man keeping them awake!

....... and you also failed to mention that the IBM board has two professors on the board (see there is hope for you yet !):

charles vest - president emeritus and professor of mechanical engineering at MIT; formerly he was the provost and vp for academic affairs of the university of michigan; he is a director of e. i. du pont (see, real professors go places!)

shirley jackson - president of rensselaer polytechnic institute. dr. jackson was a theoretical physicist at the former bell labs & professor of theoretical physics at rutgers ...... she is also a director of federal express , marathon oil corp., medtronic, inc., public service enterprise group and the new york stock exchange (she is also black and not on welfare)

in case you are wondering, there is also another african american on the board; he also happens to be the chairman of american express .......

............ actually, most board of directors have at least one or two academics (real professors and not worthless ideologues) and people from non-profit organizations ............... so, if you are really concerned about the `elite` dominating the boards why don`t you try and get on a board yourself ?........... but first you will have to get over your paranoia and start reading jack welch and ck prahalad instead of looneys like mills or whatever his name is ............

p.s. if you are really serious about eradicating poverty instead of indulging in self-serving sloganeering, you might want to read prahalad`s ``the fortune at the bottom of the pyramid``

Re: # 151

Professor, I didn’t ask whether the poor nations should accept or reject the USAid, the question was should US stop giving the Aid? I reckon you are in favor of US completely stopping the economic aid. You are farther from the truth, yes, US contributes less as a %age of it’s GDP compared to Europe, but $ to $, it contributes more, and if counting the private US donors, US contributes far more than the rest of the world combined.

So let’s hear one more time from you. You are in favor of US stopping all economic Aid?

masadi, I don`t owe you any explanations regarding chowk`s editorial policy for removal of posts. Simply because I am not the editor. But it`s obvious you are a master of sidetracking any discussion into a direction of your choice. So enjoy, we bigots, hindoo and paki alike, will graciously step aside....

not just hindu bigots, professor masadi. pakistani bigots like me also think you are a jerk. so...it is unanimous. :-)

#160 burpinder writes <<< You lie, masadi mian. I quote:

#136 by masadi on July 11, 2006 6:49am PT
As you all can see these Hindu bigots are more worried about me, my personality and what others think of my work than dealing with what is presented. >>>

No lie at all, that was said after they repeatedly diverted the discussion from this article to Islam. It was not used as an argument, and the reason is presented clearly in the quote you reproduce. I am not at all concerned with nationalism, which these people are overly concerned with which prompts them to attack both Islam and anyone they consider to be in the other camp. This is quite obvious on here. I have never got into an India/Pakistan match on here, never and neither do I care about the religion of the person unless he is relentlessly, and irrelevantly attacking Islam, then I might give him a taste of his own medicine.

Then he writes

<<< What`s wrong with you exactly? You abuse and insult every poor sod who bothers to read your article and questions it >>>

Have enough intelligence to form your own claims rather than parrot Ferozk`s nonsense against me. I do not insult anyone unless provoked multiple times and that also involves the usuall AHs on here who have a reputation of deliberately ruining every discussion on the topic that is going on by turning it into an India Pakistan or an Islam bashing session. Quite amazing how Feroz accuses me of being nationalistic, he has constructed an image of mine in his own mind, possibly because he has not been able to counter what I wrote intellectually so its a knee jerk reaction formation where he sees only the negatives and what he wants to see, which is unfortunate. If I was the one insulting people how come I have had zero posts removed by Chowk except one, and all of these others you mention have had multiple removals? Please explain

Re: # 158

You lie, masadi mian. I quote:

#136 by masadi on July 11, 2006 6:49am PT
As you all can see these Hindu bigots are more worried about me, my personality and what others think of my work than dealing with what is presented.

masadi #156 ``we will discuss mannerisms at some other thread``

...like your twitching nose hairs for instance?...

What`s wrong with you exactly? You abuse and insult every poor sod who bothers to read your article and questions it. Some poor semi-literate like ahmedmadani reads and pretends to understand your piece and you are happy?

If seemingly intelligent folks like hamidm, ferozek, behram (apart from his slumdweller-defecation obsession, the bawa seems fairly astute) etc. ask you relevant questions, answer them. At least try to understand their point, without calling their intelligence into question.

Is that so difficult?

Feroz writes in #155 <<< Another point, upon which I am in disagreement with you, is that I see no effacy in identifying your comments to your distractors and questioners on the basis of their religion or their national identity. >>>

I have never done that in fact I have been quite explicitly against nationalism or religious provincialism. These others that you are defending are motivated by just such bigotry when they attack all unrelated posts by me as being Islamic or use that to dismiss whatever I write. You are imagining things and then applying them to me, that tells me you have some personal axe to grind rather than discuss what I write in a scholarly manner

Then he wrote

<<< Sir, truth is not a monopoly which can be controlled and exploited because truth exists in a free market place of ideas, ... >>

Apparently you don`t know that the means of communication have indeed been monopolized and the corporate media has indeed got a monopoly over what they want to cover and the image and definition of ``truth`` they want to portray. Once again your criticism is misdirected against me.

Re: # 121

Hear! Hear!

But seriously, why go to all that trouble ferozbhai? A simple ``chup kar chutiye`` would have sufficed!

#155 ferozk, we will discuss mannerisms at some other thread, the people that I responded in that manner against are the same ones that have abused all limits of decent discourse. Why have you not directed your lecture towards them? The questions that you asked, I addressed, even though they were irrelevant to the discussion on this article and dealt more with countering your perceptions of my motivations. If you have any questions relating to the current article, please relate them to me. If teaching mannerisms is your motivation, I suggest you start with the real abusers first, then your sensibility might have some effect on me as well. When I call one of these bigots an SOB, it is meant as an insult and not as an attempt to question someone`s parentage~ of which I have no clue. Also if you were to shift your sensibilities towards combating the carnage going on in Iraq or other human injustices rather than why I used an expletive, it would serve your purpose as an educator much better, in my opinion.

Thank you for informing me of your concerns.

re: Mr. Asadi

Thank you, for your comments to my last post.

To be perfectly honest with you sir, it is very hard to understand your point of view. In order to understand your point of view, questions need to be asked and from your answers, further questions need to be formulated, which eventually triangulate your point of view and harmonize it with the questioner`s point of view. This is a forum of debate and this means that we will start from the opposite poles and through questions and interactions and explanations, will finally arrive at some form of a consensus.

Citing my own personal example, I have a differing point of view than yours and I tried to ask you questions; to clarify your point of view using my own knowledge base as a benchmark. The idea was to ask you questions to explain to me, what I considered were discrepencies in your argument and instead, of answers; I was abused. I will never understand your point of view, if your intention is to mock those who try to understand your point of view. Intellectual debate and an intellectual environment for learning and understanding issues requires a freedom of tolerance for dissenting ideas. It is for this reason, that I greatly favor the Socratic Method of learning and I do not believe too much in the rote-lecture methodology of teaching as the best means to understand new information and gain any knowledge about it.

Furthermore, as an educationist, you should never stoop to the level of calling your distractors names. It behooves your profession and it belittles your own personality. It does not matter, what the provocation. I do not feel that it is justified in any case to question some one parentage and to cast aspirations upon it, when you are in disagreement with them. Such acts of personalized behaviorisms, do not advance the cause of your intellectual point of view, but only facilitate the impression that your arguments are intellectually insecure. Such acts also prove the Chinese proverb that the first person to raise their hands in an argument admits to defeat and in the case of Chowk; the first person to insult another person and their personas admits to the hollowness of their own agruments.

Another point, upon which I am in disagreement with you, is that I see no effacy in identifying your comments to your distractors and questioners on the basis of their religion or their national identity. Truth knows no nationalism and neither is it ever limited by political bounderies. Ideas and truisms cannot be discarded on the basis of religion and nationality and those who do so, are offering a proof of their own self-admissions that they judge opinions not on the basis of its merit but rather on the perceptions of its origins.

Sir, truth is not a monopoly which can be controlled and exploited because truth exists in a free market place of ideas, where different and conflicting views ply for their share of the truth. The realism of truth emerges from this struggle and it is because of this struggle and truth`s own myriad realities, that truth cannot be judged as a monolithic testament, which is the sole preserve of some intellectual ownership and which disallows and fears disagreements invading its sacred santuary. Sir; those who try to control the truth, intellectually, are no better than those, whom you refered to as exploiters and neo-colonists, because there is also an imperialism of the mind and those, who practice it are no better than those who seek to wage an imperialism of economic and political exploitation.

It is never a good idea to run, with the hares and to hunt, with the hounds.

Ciao