A Flakier World Is Possible
Mumbai, India may be breaking world records for the greatest density density, measured in goofballs per square foot. The World Social Forum, a coalition "opposed to neo- liberalism and to domination of the world by capital" kicked off their annual meeting today. Meanwhile, another group meeting there simultaneously, Mumbai Resistance, is criticizing the WSF for not being radical enough.
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Financiers and manufacturers group together not only to control the working class but to control the government, too. That control extends to foreign policy, because of this powerful group’s need for cheap raw materials, cheap labor, and monopolistic control of markets.
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Wait, Julian’s not posting live from the conference? I’m kind of surprised.
Until Spanish textbooks stop calling New York “Nueva York”, I’m not about to switch up my pronunciation of things. It’s Bombay, not Mumbai.
Why do any nations have different names in other languages? Why do English-speaking people call Deutschland “Germany”? If people did the same thing, it would be quite rude:
Dan: Hi, my name is Dan.
Sam: Hi, George. My name is Sam.
Dan: I said my name is Dan.
Sam: Well, in my language we call you George.
“The World Social Forum is not an organisation, not a united front platform, but “?an open meeting place for reflective thinking, democratic debate of ideas, formulation of proposals, free exchange of experiences and inter-linking for effective action, by groups and movements of civil society that are opposed to neo- liberalism and to domination of the world by capital and any form of imperialism, and are committed to building a society centred on the human person”.
Did someone fart, it smells like bullsh*t in here. Not to mention poor grammar. Quotation marks go after the period. Their mistake, not mine.
Actually, the period insidethe quotation marks convention is country-specific. You’ll see it outside in most British publications–so it’s not really an error.
“Why do any nations have different names in other languages?”
Convenience, tradition, inertia, etc.
I probably can’t correctly pronounce the native names of 3/4 of the world’s nations.
Steven,
It is Mumbai, not Bombay. The name was officially changed a few years ago. It is not a difference in language or anything. All Indians used to call it Bombay before the change too, irrespective of language.
You say aluminium, I say aluminum …
open, reflective, free exchange … wow that sounds pretty interesting until “opposed to neo- liberalism and to domination of the world by capital and any form of imperialism, and are committed to building a society centred on the human person”.
Real open, huh? Too bad, I was right with them until all that human person centred crap. I’m pulling for a society centred on robots … or chipmunks … robots or chipmunks … or robotic chipmunks. Sheesh.
So what does Mumbia mean, so long?
Jeez, one beer and I’m already drunk.
Free Mumbia!
I pronounced it “Frawnce” once instead of “France” and got laughed at unmercifully. And this was in Quebec! Never again.
In Kay-beck?
While we’re on the subject of open minded thinking and free exchange, let’s not just reflexively dismiss everything these guys have to say, just because they’re a bunch of commie, shit-stirring, riot-leading activists…
Anyway, as I was saying… I’m just as opposed as they are to the copious quantities of corporate welfare and government pork that get doled out at the expense of taxpayers. The only difference (well, one of many obvious differences) is that I don’t blame the corporations for ‘lawfully’ acting as profit-maximizers, I blame the government that has the power to dole out the benefits. Thus I don’t think that we need more government to restrict corporations in an attempt to solve the problem, but less government to prevent the problem from occuring in the first place.
On other issues, there’s nothing wrong with expecting equal rights for women, in a country where women are generally treated as property. Nor is there anything wrong with questioning war and militarism.
Anyhow, the irony is that all of these declared “anti-capitalists” are demonstrating against a bunch of things that have nothing in common with capitalism, and that libertarian, “laissez-faire” capitalists would object to as well.
I agree, Russ, but with a difference in emphasis. I think corporatists like Gerard Swope and David Rockefeller have been such a central part of the governing structure that it makes more sense to treat them as a ruling class acting through the government. Check out the membership of ExCom during the missile crisis, for example: so many corporation lawyers and investment bankers (not to mention an auto company president), it’s hard to tell them apart.
They’re as much a part of the state today as the feudal landlords of 700 years ago were.
The point, though, either way you put it, is that exploitation is possible only through control of the political means. Exploitation is impossible when all exchange is truly free.
And Peking was changed to Beijing, and Shanghai is really Guangzhou, etc. We must purge pernicious colonial influences.
Actually, it’s Canton that became Guangzhou. I think Shanghai is still Shanghai.
“The only difference (well, one of many obvious differences) is that I don’t blame the corporations for ‘lawfully’ acting as profit-maximizers, I blame the government that has the power to dole out the benefits.”
You think it dawns on elected officials and their political appointees to implement these policies on their own? You think they’re acting out of misplaced altruism? Who do think makes sure that the right people end up in the government?
OK, don’t blame the TNGs for feeding off the gravy train. Blame them for ordering it up.
I googled TNG, and got Star Trek. White out, write in “TNCs.”
Corporations can’t order anything that isn’t on the menu.
Assume for a moment that Congress actually restricted its actions to its Constitutional limitations. How could a corporation get any favours? I blame the politicians for using taxpayer’s money to offer favours in exchange for donations to buy votes to get reelected.
In the same respect, I don’t blame the individual welfare receipients for the existence of welfare. They’re just maximizing their self-interest in an entirely lawful manner. I blame the government for offering welfare in the first place.
“Peking was changed to Beijing…”
Peking didn’t really get ‘changed’. Bay-jing is actually how the Chinese pronounce the name for the city (in the official Mandarin dialect, in any case). ‘Peking’ comes from an old European (I believe Dutch) system for representing Chinese words, which is very inaccurate, at least by the time it made it to English.
What has happened is that the Chinese government came up with a system, called Pinyin, for writing Chinese using the latin alphabet, as part of their policy of simplifying and modernizing the language. Whether or not the government is still carrying on this policy, I don’t know. At some point in the 1980s the major news agencies adopted the Pinyin spellings for Chinese proper names — whose idea that was, I don’t know either.
It’s a little confusing for people who grew up with the Dutch system but it’ll probably get worked out by the time we’re all dead.
Cheerio!