Political Link of The Week

[yesthattom]

Meanwhile, while the red states home-school the next generation...
This article is about India’s feeling towards the U.S. Basically, we are irrelevant. They are competing with China for leadership in the new century. The U.S. has blown it.

Maybe if we’re lucky Bush will lead us to a distant third-place.

(I’m sure the home-schooling readers of this LJ will be offended by the title, but it’s HIS title not mine. I keep my feelings about home-schooling to myself.)

Comments

[amaebi.livejournal.com]

...but I expect that US presidents will be able to keep US citizens happy simply by saying the US is Top Nation....

[alanesq.livejournal.com]

This is the same garbage we got fed to us in the 1980's when the fear was that Japan and West Germany was going to overtake the US in everything from economy to education. It was bullshit then and bullshit now.

The vast majority of people in China and India live in such squalid conditions that it would denigrate the term "Third-World status" to describe it as such. Yes, there are a small minority of citizens in both both countries who have access to education and economic opportunities which equal or surpass the average American's.

However, no other country comes even close to the opportunities that the average American has.

Also I find it rather offensive the way Indian officials are so dismissive about the "rural poverty". I guess the fact that people are starving and they still allow Untouchables to be discriminated against is ok so long as it's not in the urban areas, where it can be seen.

It's so great to see arrogance where it has not been earned.

[yesthattom.livejournal.com]

Aside from the fact that you are wrong, why would someone of your political ilk be reading my LJ?

[alanesq.livejournal.com]

Why would I limit myself to reading the LJ's of only people with political opinions similar to my own?

Although, I had no idea I was relegated to a particular ilk. ;)

[likethewatch.livejournal.com]

Sources, anyone?

[ayse.livejournal.com]

There are three "worlds" in the traditional sense of the thing. The first world is made up of capitalist, industrialized nations. The second world is the communist bloc. The third world countries are nonindustrialized (sometimes called "developing" although of course not all of them are) nations. Exactly how does calling India a second-world nation denigrate the term? Obviously, calling China a third-world country is wrong; it's part of the second world. But there's nothing inaccurate about using the term for India.

Unless you think "third world" is some sort of ranking, below which is maybe a "fourth world" or even "fifth world" status. In which case you are simply as uninformed about the meaning of the term you employed as you are about the living conditions of India and China.

[alanesq.livejournal.com]

Personally, I believe playing the label game is just a silly way of trying to avoid real issues. The concepts of "third-world" labels have encompassed many different definitions over the years. Yes, the term was used to describe those supposedly undeveloped neutral countries which the US/Britain/NATO bloc and the Communist bloc superpowers could fight over for geopolitical influence. Also it has been used to describe the socio-economic conditions of poor undeveloped countries.

In any respect, little of this has to do with the main complaints of the article, that somehow, India and China have surpassed the US as some kind of world leaders. Just because some leaders in India thinks the US is not a player anymore, doesn't make it so. (Notice, the article doesn't actually cite a single supposed leader, rather the article cited "a lot of Indian government people". Really good sources. Almost as good as the NY Times' use of "unidentified government sources".

Of course this is a matter of opinion, and there will always be those who believe that the US is evil/weak/"insert the insult of your choice", no matter what the claim is. In some regions, including within America, the US can do nothing right. Furthermore, the article completely disregards the real problems of poverty in India by relegating it to "rural poverty", as if the suffering of rural people is somehow not as important as urban poverty.