Thursday, June 05, 2008

and so........b

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080605/ap_on_re_as/myanmar

we read with horror the way that the burmese government is treating it`s population and can`t understand why they are turning away international aid.

the reason why we can`t understand is because we make several false assumptions regarding what is occuring.

we assume that governments have thier citizen`s best interest in mind.

we assume that life is held in high regard.

we assume that all people think like we do.

the truth is that governments, including our own, are self-serving and will protect themselves from threat.

in burma they had a nice little deal going.......a miltary dictatorship with a visible intimidation force on display constantly for the edification a small community of military and political types living off the backs of a virtual slave-labour force working to keep the holiday camp going.

this system had been ticking over for decades under the radar of the u.n. and the western press, until the cyclone hit and thousands died.

this little embarrassment brought the international media to bear on burma and it`s little game.

the burmese government`s worst nightmare would be international military and civilian forces at large in on it`s soil poking around through files and interviewing survivors and generally shedding light on the burmese junta`s game of holiday camp......so they turn aid away and thousands of people die and suffer.

like new orleans.

do you think our government is any different?

people walk the streets of our country every day suffering their own personal disaster, in numbers far larger than those in burma now, and our government puts our wealth into upgrading it`s systems and structures before it will do one thing to alleviate the suffering.

i know what you are thinking.......let them get jobs.

could you get one quickly if you lost yours?

would you take one paying less?

there is enough resources and money on the planet right now for everyone to live comfortably while factories and robots make and grow all that we need.

computers run everything now anyway and so the running of production of food and materials that way is no problem at all.

it`s happening anyway.

it`s just not for us.

our lives could be made meaningful by interacting with eachother and enoying the abundance of all that surrounds us, but instead we struggle desperately to accumilate stuff while others suffer, and our own government take a large portion of our effort and upgrades it`s systems and structures to protect it`s self agains us.

like in burma.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

A bit of a fatalistic attitude on your part but your point is well taken. governments are notorious for being dangerous for thier citizen`s lives.

X. Dell said...

I would agree with anonymous in that this isn't inevitable. At the same time, I don't see you as being all that fatalistic here, since you're commenting on a current condition, and not taking it any farther.

And what's to disagree with? As the old adage goes, better to rule in hell than to serve in heaven. Seems like there are enough folks invested in creating hell on Earth.

Dr.Alistair said...

x. as you well know, the "government" is a paranoid little beast intent on keeping an eye on it`s constituents......y`know, for thier own safety.

the burmese version is a tinpot little dictatorship that would rather kill a few of it`s own than have an international outcry over the state of thier housekeeping.

in the west there is this sanitized view that these people are cute doe-eyed trolls that emigrate here to nanny our children and clean our floors, the fact is that they delight in the many forms of fascism and tyranny that is the hallmark of fuckheads around the word who oppress thier own.

canada and the u.s. have show the same tendancies occasionally.

it`s a product of bureaucracy for the most part.....especially when they think nobody is watching.

Dr.Alistair said...

and i am clearly commenting on the present situation, but i will say that history shows that these situations don`t change, here or elsewhere.