OFF TOPIC - The IOC sucks. - Page 4

Steve A · #31 July 16th, 2001, 12:33 AM

It's interesting to see how many people feel that the other cultures are inferior and that the local slant is the only "truth". I guess it's fair to assume that everyone views are slightly biased towards the home team. With the various conflicting claims, it would be hard for an outsider to judge the relative credibility of tha participants.
Consider this: In how many places in the world could a debate like this take place in public? Which countries have laws protecting your freedom to express these ideas? Which countries allow virtually unrestricted communication of information across the internet, and which limit it.
Since most Users of this forum could be considered to have some expertize in the uses of and restrictions on the internet, which country's culture would you select to "govern" the internet? It would be interesting to see some honest answers to that one.

Steve A

JenMax · #32 July 16th, 2001, 02:15 AM

Question? When was the most recent US presidental election held in which a person not born and reared in the upper classes of society ran for and was elected to the US presidency?

Baron Munchausen · #33 July 16th, 2001, 03:10 AM

quote:
Originally posted by JenMax:
Question? When was the most recent US presidental election held in which a person not born and reared in the upper classes of society ran for and was elected to the US presidency?

Oh, it's not a hereditary aristocracy. Bill Clinton was a poor boy from the depths or Arkansas. But he had to suck-up to thousands and thousands of people who already had the money he needed to run his campaigns. Thus, he had to make promises to do things that would benefit them. Each and every congressman or senator also has to make so many promises and get into so many 'deals' that they are basically unable to act on their own sense of right and wrong by the time they get into office -- if they still HAVE a sense of right and wrong by then. Government is totally about power brokering now. Even if it always has been mainly about power brokering, there used to be the occasional outbreak of morality in the old days before mass-media dominated politics.

Quikngruvn · #34 July 16th, 2001, 06:22 AM

Heh. I didn't realize bashing the US government was a worldwide sport, but I guess I should have....

The key word here is money. Especially in the past decade or so, it has taken more and more money to run a campaign to achieve (or keep) a political office in the US. As the good Baron mentioned, the money's got to come from somewhere-- mainly special-interest Groups, corporate entities, and wealthy individuals, all with their own agendas. Or, "he who has the money makes the rules."

In any US election, more than 90% of incumbents retain their office. Many run without any opposition, while others just have so much more money (from supporters) than any challenger.

'Course, then there is the case of Strom Thurmond, who is practically idolized in the state of South Carolina. He was re-elected to his eighth six-year term in the US Senate at the still-spry age of 94. Thankfully, he will not run for re-election next year, when he's 100 years old-- because he'd get re-elected (around here, it's considered sacrilege to believe that Strom will ever die). The bad thing is, even with the election more than a year away, the winner has all but been declared. Lindsey Graham very quickly got the money and political endorsements to seal the deal, before any challenger could even move to create a campaign war machine.

The point of that diatribe? It just illustrates another aspect of US governement, the "Good Ol' Boy" system. The people already in power, mostly rich white men in their 40's or 50's, decide who gets to join their club. They then have money poured into the candidates' campaigns (often from the national party's funds, but see above for where that cash came from) so that they can bring someone into office who will agree with their ideology. While in office, the Good Ol' Boys each promise to support the others' agenda in exchange for the others' support. National political office is an exclusive club, and you almost have to know the right people to get in.

Remember, this is the same country that elected a professional wrestler to the office of State Governor.

If there was a point to this post, I think it's this: most Americans realize that there are serious problems with the current form of US government, but are either too stupid, too lazy, or too complacent to do anything about it. Still, it beats many alternatives....

Quikngruvn (who honestly considers himself lucky to have been (cue Bruce Springsteen) "Born in the USA")

LazarusLong42 · #35 July 16th, 2001, 07:09 AM

quote:
Originally posted by JenMax:
Question? When was the most recent US presidental election held in which a person not born and reared in the upper classes of society ran for and was elected to the US presidency?

And before Clinton, Reagan, Carter, Eisenhower.

LL

CW · #36 July 16th, 2001, 11:47 AM

Just a quick respond to Capt_Spoogy

quote:
Originally posted by capt_spoogy:
CW - Don't assume ALL the west is moulding China into an enemy.

I admit you are quite right in terms of politics, but it seems to me that subconsciously, Chinese somehow seems to be looked down as "second class" people by most westerners. I hope you can tell me I'm totally wrong.

quote:
While I agree that China could make use of a better government system, it seems rather strange that people not even living in the country is pushing for a change harder than the Chinese themselves.

Perhaps it's because they get mowed down by tanks or just plain disappear when they do...

That is not the primary reason at all. As I said before the leadership in China has been changed since the incident in 1989, and I really doubt that they will do the same thing again if a similar situation occurs again. Besides, using tanks to crush a protest is an over-kill!

If you think the government in China is still a true and honest Communist government then you have got it totally wrong. Ever since the 1970 the place is becoming more and more of a capitalist world, that's why they had those hugh corruption cases involving PRIVATE Chinese coporations running into billions of dollars. As you guys living in Canada might have heard, the prime suspect for one of the largest corruption case in modern China is currently being detained in Canada.

Nowadays the top aganda for most people in China is the economy. They are A LOT more money-minded then they were 30 or 40 years ago when China was still running under a true Communist system, and politics has somewhat taken a second place since. Try going to Beijin and give the local people a lecture on Communism doctrines, they will tell you to get a life!

quote:
In some ways I'm glad they got the olympics - but it worries me that the people who control China will use it as a propaganda display saying there's no problem with their country during those 16 days...

In my opinion, the reason for Beijin's Olympic bid is much more economical than political. Besides, the local citizens want the Games themselves. This is a matter of nationalism or patriotism or whatever you want to call it. Bad government or not, China IS their mother country, this is more of a Chinese cultural thing than government propaganda as some of you suggested. Even if the Chinese government does try to use the occasion to tell the world they have a great system, will you believe it? Do you really think they want eggs all over their faces?

quote:
I think in this day and age that should be moving towards democracy a lot faster than they are. If the majority of Chinese know what the west was really like (as oppossed to the propaganda fed to them) - what lifestyle would they choose?

First of all, do you think the Chinese government is still actively feeding propaganda about the west? That would be a rather silly thing to do nowadays. They wouldn't have done that AND let thousands of students travel overseas to study every year. I admit that they still try to censor things but it is already much more open then it used to, and I'm sure it will continue to change for the better. As to the pace of change, what are you basing your judgement on? What is slow and what is fast? Every country or culture has its own unique charateristic, it is simply wrong to apply one set of "rules" to another. Taiwan for example only had their first real general election Last year or the year before, and the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party) finally got kicked out of office after some 90 years in power. I bet nobody in China would want to see any political reform rushed, the current governemnt in China is perfectly stable and if that changes you might end up with a collapsed economy like Russia. In fact if you look at Zhu Rongji's speeches in meetings inside China, the first thing he talks about most of the time is how he is going to control corruption, which is currently unfortunately everywhere in China, an unwanted by-product of the economic reform. That is THE biggest headache-causing problem for the government right now instead of any political unrest in the country or any so called "politically incorrect" people.

As to choosing between the current Chinese life-style and western style, of cause they will choose the Western way! The key question here though, is WHY? Ever since the reforms in the 1970s and 80s, the people had their first real taste of wealth, or in too many cases the lack of it. For the thousands of migrants and boat people leaving China each year, how many do you think is really for political reasons? For the great majority of so called "IIs" (Illegal Immigrants) sneaking into Hong Kong after the 1970/80s Reform, they were looking for a better life. Though from what I saw their definition of "better life" had little to do with the political side of things.

My own family moved to Australia from Hong Kong in 1994. My parents, like a lot of others during that period made their decision due to the worry about the possible government instability after the "handover". But above all, they were worrying that the instability would ruin the economy and way of life in Hong Kong. If you look at the figures, there is a peak of people leaving Hong Kong due to the Tiananmen Square aftershock the few years immeidately after the event, but the number of people leaving each year gradually went down and now we are actually seeing people moving back. My own family will probably do the same too after I graduate from university.

The thing I want to point out here is that things in China is nowhere near as dramatic as many of you think.

[This message has been edited by CW (edited 17 July 2001).]

CaptSpoogy · #37 July 16th, 2001, 02:43 PM

Marty - The official consensus why Toronto did not receive the olympics despite having the top bid was for geopolitical reasons which you touched on. It was time to give it to the largest populated country in the world...not because of the US 2012 bid...

IOC members have been quoted as saying they really want Toronto to run again in 2012...and I think if they do, the US won't have a chance...

------------------
Visit the Spoogy Federation at:
http://spoogyfederation.tripod.com

geoschmo · #38 July 16th, 2001, 03:42 PM

The United States has problems, many of them glaring. But they are not "systemic", that is they are caused by or agravated by our form of government. If anything, our system of government has allowed us to prosper to such a degree that we have become complacent and apathetic to the problems of some of our citizens.

There are poor in the United States, but their standard of living is nowhere near as poor as those in other nations. Even in the most impoverished areas of the deep south, appalacia, or the southwest indian reservations people have food, shelter, clean water, and access to medical care and education. Reports to the contrary in the nightly news are only in the news because they are newsworthy, and so very rare. The poor of the United States complain that they have to deal with rats, the poor in other nations eat the rats.

The most recent presidential election was actually more noteworthy for the fact that BOTH major candidates were children of well-to-do, politically connected families. This is actually something of a rarity in our political system, especially at the highest levels. Most children of political families avoid it in their adult life because they have grown up seeing the less-desirable side of it.

Geoschmo

Lucanos · #39 July 18th, 2001, 10:29 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
First, Vietnam. Happened in the 1960s, early 70s. If you can bring that up, I can bring up France executing people right up to 1977.

Since the US basically has the same political system today as in the sixties - I can bring that up! And those god damn french idiots need some critisism - so go ahead.

quote:
Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
Second, the death penalty. China excecutes a lot more people than the US does, and for lesser crimes.

Yes, and they execute "innocent" people, just as the US do. In my oppinion it doesn't matter how many you execute. I'm not "against" US death penalty, I'm just saying that it bears witness of how "far" the US legal system has evolved.

If a country needs to execute its population there also needs to be a major flaw in its political system. The death penalty shows us that the US political system is far behind in the evolution.

quote:
Originally posted by Phoenix-D:
I'm also trying to figure out why a lot of people seem to think their local news is the only word. You called the EU news propaganda along with the US news, but then you go on to take their viewpoint!

No Way! - I don't belive GW Bush is a retard - I belive he is very smart - and very "dangerous".

Phoenix-D · #40 July 18th, 2001, 10:39 PM

I was talking mostly about..

quote:

The difference between the chinese and you, in this sense, is that they know they live in a dictatorship.

You don't!

You think your country is "the free world", don't you?

I'm sorry to tell you that EU propaganda against the US is saying something else. Most Swedish and Danish citizens I know think that the US is alot WORSE than sovietunion ever was. You US citizens (as I refuse to call you "Americans") have no idea.

..that.

Phoenix-D