Developing country
Do you know the main difference between developed and developing countries? No, it’s not the high income per capita, otherwise the “countries of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates” would be considered developed countries.
The main difference is, that in developed countries even common people are allowed to live in dignity. Even Joe Sixpack and Sally Soccermom, not that bright, not that well informed, not that rich, not that important, not that perfect – are allowed to live, as if all human life and the laughter of children and happiness are values in themselves.
If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich. – JFK's Inaugural Address, January 20, 1961, 12:11 EST
Because dignity can’t survive without each of them, a basic level of justice, health, food, cleanness, security, privacy, houses, water and electricity is offered to everyone, even when people may not be able to pay for, yes, even when they are <whisper,shudder>pooooooor</whisper,shudder>...
in developed countries.
Not only the rich ones – being able to pay for lawyers, doctors and power supply everywhere on Earth, even in the darkest regions of Africa or Asia – are allowed to walk tall...
in developed countries.
Now the trumpet summons us again... not as a call to bear arms, though arms we need... not as a call to battle... though embattled we are... but a call to bear the burden of a long twilight struggle... year in and year out, rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation... a struggle against the common enemies of man: tyranny... poverty... disease... and war itself.
posted by Again at 3:15 AM
8 Comments:
Again: There is, of course, one *additional* category -- Hyper-developed (i.e., exceedingly overprivileged) nations -- though I know of only TWO currently, both of which exhibit an unmistakable HerrenRasse mentality: Global Outrage Greets Israel 'War Crime' in Qana [Agence France Presse] ==== Israel's air strike on the Lebanese village of Qana sparked global outrage, with the UN Security Council deploring the deaths and Arab and Muslim leaders and thousands of livid protesters in the Middle East branding the assault a war crime. ==== Diplomats said the United States again forced the emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to water down its statement so that Israel was not openly criticised. ==== But the statement said: "The Security Council strongly deplores this loss of innocent lives and the killing of all civilians in the present conflict and requests the secretary general to report to it within one week on the circumstances of this tragic incident." ... ==== The 15-nation council met in emergency session at the demand of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Siniora after the Israeli raid left 52 people dead, including at least 30 children. ... ==== [There really *are* no words that can adequately describe such reprehensibly cowardly, inhuman savagery by the state of Israel or the nauseatingly sycophantic coddling of that government by our own , utterly immoral US Reich. And though the circumstances are radically different, the "enabling" interaction between the two countries reminds me sharply of the Kaiserreich's "blank check" support for Austria-Hungary's challenge of Serbia in 1914. And we surely know what was utimately lost when that was done: "half the seed of Europe, one by one". ~Wilfred Owen, The Parable of the Old Man and the Young ] :-(
Again: Enormous thanks for that link to JFK's Inagural address. He was undoubtedly one of the finest orators this country ever placed in the White House -- a genuine source of inspiration. To think that we now hosr a court jester -- the functionally illiterate George W. Bush -- as a would-be "statesman" is utterly digusting in retrospect.
nemo
[Agence France Presse]
la Grande Nation...
the French are the only ones daring to tell the truth...
Germans are not allowed and Brits have to kiss some asses...
Enormous thanks for that link to JFK's Inagural address
yes, i love it too...
so full of hope and... yes (despite the fact that JFK himself was "only a politician")... full of decency and wisdom...
"full of decency and wisdom..." ==== Again: Exactly! I suspect that JFK will be quoted extensively for time immemorial as the very *epitome* of lofty American ideals -- espousing what America *might* have been, though it surely is not now. ==== Regarding that media self-censorship, I often find it utterly inscrutable that all the obvious efforts are dedicated to avoiding "offending" Israel, whereas the press exhibits no such reservations regarding its Arab neighbors, who are alleged by some to be so amazingly reactionary and warlike! From any practical stance, that makes no sense at all -- but then, nothing much *does* these days, insofar as the motivations of the US, Israel, and the international press corps (with notable exceptions) are concerned. ==== Oh, the Guardian is hanging strong, as always. It just featured a scathingly righteous editorial by a former Labour government adviser that's remarkably difficult to "contest" in any way: How Can "Terrorism" Be Condemned While War Crimes Go Without Rebuke? : Washington's partners in this hypocritical war on terror are given free reign to wreak their own brutal, illegal violence, by David Clark [The Guardian / UK]
Again: WOW! Bouncing off your own link above, it seems clear that -- aside from Bush's "lapdog" -- quite a few Brits aren't "puckering up" to anyone's posterior! [GREAT, utterly scathing piece! You really made my day with that one.] :-)
Again: Well, you were right -- I hadn't reviewed your final "laundry list" of lnks, and the "health" link in particular (though not the ONLY one ) hit me like a ton of bricks! ==== I've been well aware of the enormous yet widening gap between the Have's and HaveNot's in this country for years. But that single statement, that the distribution of wealth in the US is now more skewed than it's been in *75* years -- since the *Hoover* administration -- was absoltutely devastating . The very name "Hoover", synonymous with the *worst* failings of the Great Depression, evokes images of one of the country's most miserable excuses for a presidency (until the arrival of George W. Bush) -- one which did virtually nothing (*except* "stay the [disastrous] course") to alleviate the crushing poverty of millions of Americans in the Depression. It was an era even characterized nominally by "Hoovervilles" -- huge tent cities erected in Washington, DC, by the unemployed and homeless -- oftentimes veterans -- who gathered desperately seeking relief, only to be typically "evicted" by the harshest of means. ==== I see clearly now what you're getting at. And yes, the US has decidedly become a Banana Republic (under the heavy-handed, one-sided "policies" of our Banana Republikans), manifesting the worst sort of *engineered* inequality within its populace.
nemo
the "health" link in particular
that link - btw - was originally offered by "Insurance News" on http://www.insurancenewsnet.com/
but now that link is gone and only commondreams dare to show, that American babies are "left behind" Cubanese ones...
and that American lifes don't last longer than (trarara!!!) Costa Rica...
but who cares?
they are only Americans, aren't they? Not worth a Dollar and a Cent...
(forgive me, Nemo, I know that's not true, but i fear, your government does not...)
problem i see is NOT that bad things happen in America...
bad things happen everywhere - even in Sweden or Norway, where i would like to emigrate - but the quick pace the Aristocracy takes back the country
and i know why they will be allowed to do it without resistance - there is no difference to Ancient Egypt, where the people allowed their "maximo lider" to take all of their freedoms - just because the leaders started as (objective by using mathematical tools) judges and so earned trust ==> creating an elite ==> inevitably unscrupulously abusing the power...
it's so easy to see everywhere and always in history - people acting against their very own interests dependent on the necessary learning method of brain (designed to let you act IN your very own interests) in case your brain isn't that mighty to understand, that all the learning is just a hypothesis....
and the typical "problem" of the Americans - to believe, that you and you alone are master of your fate - only makes it easier for the Aristocracy to enslave Americans...
because actually, if they are successful to "reconfigurate" America to a dictatorship, they can say: "YOU alone are guilty of that, YOU - single American - could have avoided it: If you only would have decided that your 'fate' is to live in freedom you would have managed it to live in freedom, because you are American and Americans can do all what they decide to do - so, it's your fault, simply your fault..."
and so Americans will be the best slaves ever in history, i guess...
and looking at the American employee, self-exploiting, not daring to take the deserved holidays, not daring to attack his/her bosses, willingly obeying each command because "what the leader says is always good for my success".....
Again: I thought of your post instantly upon reading this, and figured I'd pass it along to you. Talk about a *brilliant* strategy for truly sustainable development -- Cuba is actually dedicated to the proposition of *feeding* its people, organically. Imagine that!!!: Cuba's Agricultural Revolution an Example to the World ==== by Andrew Buncombe [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]
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