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In response to the following BBC story I posted some comments & received some responses. Also a video commentary is below.
Evo Morales said: "My hand would not tremble to close the US embassy," as from the following BBC story: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-23190278
My response: OK, see ya.
Question received: "And if Russia diverted Air Force One? Or should other politicians be grateful for the chance to comply with our government?"
My answer:
I'd only see an equivalence if they diverted Admiral General Aladeen or Fielding Mellish (ref the films The Dictator and Bananas), or Kim Jong-un. I have no problem with the diversion of the presidential plane of a banana republic leader who may be attempting to spirit away a fugitive who otherwise very much deserves to be in jail.
Question: "If Obama hypothetically might be giving a lift to someone the Russians or Chinese wanted to imprison, and they used their pull with some countries to get the plane grounded.. ?"
Answer:
Evo is rather like a flea compered to giant stature of Obama, and so I cannot wrap my brain around an equivalence.
Here's a recent rather reprehensible action of Evo:
Bolivian President Evo Morales expels USAID
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-22371275
Just goes to show humans with Amerindian DNA can be crackpots also. Whodathunkit.
Speaking generally, the myth of the noble savage is one of the dogma points of the Chomsky Amy Goodman ultra left. They've got many others also worth rejecting, or at the very least examining closely to see if they can be rejected.
Bolivian president says eating chicken turns men gay
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/laplaza/2010/04/bolivia-president.html
Question:
"Democratically-elected leaders of the things the collective social fiction calls 'nation-states', traveling in airplanes. (By the conventions of the collective social fiction, the plane a national leader travels in is sovereign territory.) That's the equivalence."
"I was aware of the two things you posted, and I'm not the one calling Morales savage, or noble. But Morales, and the late Chavez, were points on a trend of Latin American countries shedding USian government and business influence (without subsequently meeting assassination or a puppet coup.)"
"That is a trend that is overall positive."
"John Kerry is indirectly quoted in one of the links, referring to Latin America as the 'backyard of the United States.' That's long-standing problematic attitude asserting a right to interfere."
"'Giant Stature', I try not to believe in Great Men. Or do you refer only to the difference in power of the nations? Would you prefer an analogy where the leader of some Bolivia-statured African or Asian nation was shunted aside in travels through the influence China or Russia had on some other African or Asian nations?"
Answer:"The term noble savage (French, bon sauvage) expresses the concept of an idealized indigene..."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_savage
Pinker on the subject (dispelling the myth):
http://blog.beliefnet.com/roddreher/2010/01/steven-pinker-on-the-blank-slate.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ramBFRt1Uzk
Regarding Chavez, and apparently Morales, while the actions of apparent nutbags may be in part, positive, it's difficult to separate their nutbaggery status from the partial-good they may (and only "may") have done.
Snowden's parasites:
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/07/05/edward-snowden-s-parasites-evo-morales-julian-assange-more.html
Do you ever watch Russia Today (RT)? It's pretty much a constant drumbeat for *supposed* freedom in America, while at the same time Putin's Russia is becoming less and less free by the day. Authoritarian governments are happy to glom onto the self-hating lefties. Thom Hartmann comes to mind. There's others. Hey, even Iran's Press TV has George Galloway. Maybe they can hire Amy Goodman next, or fund in full Democracy Now!. Makes you wonder who's funding Amy's near constant hate-everything-American conspiratorial crazed drum beat - at the very least uneducated drug addled hippies (your average Pacifica affiliate listener) who're unfortunately & sadly sucked in by her tripe & fear-mongering. Amy is a legacy of Vietnam, as are the drugie hippies, but not everything is equal. Both ends of the spectrum have big problems.
Also here's something of note re Goodman: "On October 2, 2004, Goodman was presented the Islamic Community Award for Journalism by the Council on American-Islamic Relations."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amy_Goodman
CAIR knows who their friends are, apparently. So do Russia Today (Putin/Russia) and Press TV (Iran). The left in America play right into their hands. Does that mean everything the left says or wants is bad? No, but as of now Amy Goodman is essentially in the same camp as tin foil helmeted Alex Jones, as is Glenn Greenwald.
So, should journalists, especially self-hating ultra-lefties like Greenwald, be the arbiters of what passes for classified information? No. How about Assange? Probably not. Did Assange & Snowden release info which probably should be released? Maybe. But I do think there does need to be classified information. Should embarrassing info be protected? Well, probably not. But "journalists," particularly the self-hating liberal types who play into the hands of governments like Iran & Russia, cannot be fair arbiters as to what should and what should not be released.
Some presidents have gone too far in what they classify. But on the other hand just opening the spigot so that any old "journalist" can decide for themselves, that also goes too far. Greenwald seemed quite happy to be the new arbiter for the entire body of classified info, as per what he's said in interviews. That's a dangerous state of affairs in my view.
So, since journalists should not be the final arbiters of what passes for classified info, should Assange be in jail? Maybe.
Assange is hiding behind a diplomatic structure which he himself has helped to undermine. Is that fair? Not really. Should the integrity of the embassy he's hold up in be honored in this case? Maybe not. Do I believe in diplomatic immunity? Not really.
Now, as for whether I personally feel Amerindians are "savages," they are no more and no less savage than any other group of humans. They are just as capable of doing just as much evil and good as any other group. And, just because of the color of my skin, that doesn't make me or my family personally responsible for the sins of other humans who also happen to share my same skin color. Children are not responsible for the sins of their parents, nor for the sins of other people who may happen to share the same "race" or skin color, or geographic origin. Now, that is an abusive idea present in Amerindian culture. The constant drumbeat of what "white culture" did to us, on and on - it's not healthy, and, it's racist, retrograde, and may I venture to say "savage," but any group of humans could well do the same, and I'm sure have.
Does that mean I think the Indian Health Service should be abolished? No. Does that mean I agree with what happened in places like Brigham City? No. But, I didn't do it, my family didn't do it, and the current U.S. and Utah governments did do it. We all agree it was a bad idea. So going further than this, and assigning blame to people who are currently alive & who had zero to do with past sins, that is abusive. Also allowing Indian tribes to have things like casinos has resulted in rather unsavory things like mass disenrollment.
http://www.natlawreview.com/article/tribal-membership-revocations-dialing-dollars
So anyway, all this goes to show there's more complexities than at first glance. Name a group. Any group. Any hyphenated group who is just oh so special and great, and dig a little deeper & be honest & we'll find out what really lies underneath the veneer: Humans.
Lastly I still have no problem with baring Evo from flying over any country, and I have no problem with going in and arresting Assange, today, now, and even baring in mind of where he is. Same goes for Snowden. Since, I believe that journalists should not be the final arbiters of what passes for classified info, and perhaps even more importantly, because journalists can end up being chumps for otherwise authoritarian regimes and groups (Russian, Iran, and Islam), I believe we should not allow the Alex Joneses, Amy Goodmans, Glenn Grenwalds, or Julian Assanges of the world to be the new classified info gatekeepers - because they can and often are chumps and thin fronts for otherwise oppressive regimes.
Question:
"I can't see most of it as any direct response to what I wrote so I assume I'm serving as a proxy for the public figures you name."
Answer:
Not as a proxy. Issues were raised & so I responded generally as I saw fit. I realize you may or may not agree with the other protagonists mentioned.
Here's a more succinct list:
I don't have a problem with blocking Evo's plane.
Morales & Chavez are/were nutbags worth dismissing out of hand. Friends of Fidel are no friends of Americans (Americans not sucked in by the ultra left self hating propaganda & party line).
The sins of the CIA from the past are worth calling out. But that doesn't mean everything the CIA or NSA does today is necessarily bad, or not worth protecting.
I don't have a problem with stating Obama's stature in the world is greater than that of tiny flea Evo. And for those who view Obama as The Joker, he's your president too (to the tea baggers who wish The South had won the civil war).
Regarding Latin America today & intervention: I don't see a need for a blanket ban on intervention. Depends on the situation. Yes we can criticize what happened in the past. But on the other hand any country can be a candidate for intervention given the right circumstances. An Afghanistan situation, definitely. An Iraq one, maybe. And so on.
If some other country were to bar Air Force One from travel, well, we could retaliate in other ways. But, itsy bitsy (world stage size wise) Bolivia is not in much of a position to do much of anything, other than elect an oh so noble Amerindian who's otherwise a crackpot banana republic style leader, in my view.
The USA should support it's own companies just as much as China & Russia support theirs. Aggressively. Not illegally or in uncouth ways. But I don't have a particular problem with tying US economic aid to whether a country buys American.
Both my wife and I ate some chicken this past week & we haven't turned gay yet.
