Al Jazeera English - Latest Comments in 'Foreign Policy' magazine's 'distinguished' Global Thinkers

Re: 'Foreign Policy' magazine's 'distinguished' Global Thinkers

Cytotoxic — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 00:15:41 -0000

This article is simply not worth reading. Granted, any publication that thinks Obama has a 'more restrained' view of America's role is deluded, and so is anyone who thinks that Honduras had a coup in 2009. Honduras had a constitutional revolution and no the Obama administration not only did not validate it but fought against it, showing a disturbing inclination to aid the forces of evil in CA. Troll harder AJ.

Re: 'Foreign Policy' magazine's 'distinguished' Global Thinkers

Tubig Gannon — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 18:25:33 -0000

"Capitalism is based an the accrual of wealth and NOT , decidedly NOT on providing the essentials of life to all and for that reason kills those tens, hundreds of millions of people." That is correct. Yet, without wealth, there would be nothing to provide for the essentials of life for all. Henceforth, you have the most number of philanthropists in capitalistic societies; and you won't find them in societies wallowing in abject poverty under socialism, would you?

Re: 'Foreign Policy' magazine's 'distinguished' Global Thinkers

Tubig Gannon — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 18:20:45 -0000

"as they MORALLY should." You charge capitalism of being immoral, which it does not promise. Good and services did "not reach every man, woman, and child as they MORALLY SHOULD" have under socialism either; in fact, there was not enough goods and services available under soviet Russia.

"capitalism is the method of distribution of these goods and services", which produces the wealth that is funding the charity organizations that are trying to distribute goods and services to the needy in the world for FREE, under seeming insurmountable odds.

Re: 'Foreign Policy' magazine's 'distinguished' Global Thinkers

Joey — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 11:20:25 -0000

I would say moral philosophy is key to understanding economic and political behaviors and decision making. Modern economics and politics cannot be understood without understanding game theory and decision making.

Re: 'Foreign Policy' magazine's 'distinguished' Global Thinkers

Niloufar Parsi — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 04:50:47 -0000

Would you agree that economics and politics are more relevant to the study of morality and philosophy than natural sciences?

Re: 'Foreign Policy' magazine's 'distinguished' Global Thinkers

Naoise Scarfetish — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 03:23:10 -0000

Thank you Fernandez for stating the obvious once again. There is no point in repeating the political load of FP Magazine, as well as the way it depicts the world.

However, as an 'investigative journalist' you have the duty of finding the reasons why those people were picked (beyond the imperial apologetic narrative) in the first place and why on earth you are overlooking the 80 or so people on the list? I smell partiality if that is the least offending word about what you are doing.

Please do not be a fool like the people that you bash by trying to fool us.

Re: 'Foreign Policy' magazine's 'distinguished' Global Thinkers

Climp Jones — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 01:05:22 -0000

and yet here 'we all are' transitioning to 2013 and Vietnam has and is asking the US government for military support and backing. So much for your light at the end tunnel, welcome to reality or should I say the 'New Dawn?"

Re: 'Foreign Policy' magazine's 'distinguished' Global Thinkers

Climp Jones — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 01:02:11 -0000

perhaps...

Re: 'Foreign Policy' magazine's 'distinguished' Global Thinkers

$16721705 — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 00:51:32 -0000

"the country is falling apart but those above need to maintain the illusion for a bit longer"
My impression is similar to a horrible natural disaster where most are running for their lives; while others hang behind to loot as mush as possible until the very last second. It seems our illustrious leaders are "getting theirs" as long as they are able, while watching the country go to hell. And the band played on..

Re: 'Foreign Policy' magazine's 'distinguished' Global Thinkers

REMant — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 22:09:54 -0000

And Time put Obama on its cover, but do we need them more than they need us?

Re: 'Foreign Policy' magazine's 'distinguished' Global Thinkers

IwakPeyek2 — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 21:52:43 -0000

You think I’m angry with you? Why should I be, good for nothing? Read my answer to your post again. You’re a goof still to think that I was and still am angry. There is absolutely nothing in this so-called world that can make me angry with you because you atheists mean nothing to Muslims. Didn’t I tell you already to not flatter yourself?

Re: 'Foreign Policy' magazine's 'distinguished' Global Thinkers

Christopher Hobe Morrison — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 21:03:01 -0000

I will take Joey at his word, and I apologize for the assumption.

Re: 'Foreign Policy' magazine's 'distinguished' Global Thinkers

Frank Vivaldi — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 20:24:27 -0000

Responding to a comment below about shooting Natanyahu: Israel hater, you'd never get a chance as he was a trained elite commando. If you wanna eat your heart out even more you can google him, Natanyahu as a young man, and I'm sure you'll grieve, dreaming you were the man he is.

Handsome, charismatic, educated, articulate, tough warrior & statesman...I & 180 million other US & Brazilian Evangelist Christians aka proudly Christian Zionists love him as the leader of tough Israel we admire. Little country, but tough & amazingly successful, and while Natanyahu is a Prime Minister of a country, you & rest of you Zionist haters are insignificant...nobodies...losers. Weep & moan y'all as Israel shall always rise triumphant.

Re: 'Foreign Policy' magazine's 'distinguished' Global Thinkers

Joey — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 20:18:36 -0000

to cindy: my feelings are hurt. I have zero problem with jewish people who practice their religion. More power to them. Enjoy the rights and liberties that america offers. Same offer to those who enter america legally, work through the system and earn their citizenship.

as for wealth, I do not have a problem with wealthy people. do not know that many, but that does not mean I suffer from a sick jealousy of them.

Spend some time in underdeveloped areas... love for life and all people only comes to those that get to experience humanity at its worst and its best.

I save my contempt for utopians who believe that with compulsion, the world can be forced to become a better place.

Re: 'Foreign Policy' magazine's 'distinguished' Global Thinkers

Joey — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 20:13:09 -0000

actually no. I think rand is as utopian as marx. and ought to be rejected for the same reason.

Re: 'Foreign Policy' magazine's 'distinguished' Global Thinkers

Joey — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 18:40:40 -0000

have to say stalin. save more millions that way. Utilitarianism rules for just this reason.

Re: 'Foreign Policy' magazine's 'distinguished' Global Thinkers

Frank Vivaldi — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 18:24:54 -0000

Hollow barks of a toothless Israel hater.

Re: 'Foreign Policy' magazine's 'distinguished' Global Thinkers

Joey — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 18:20:11 -0000

Why were the north vietnamese in Laos, Cambodia and South Vietnam? It would seem that the aggressors are the ones with troops outside their own national borders or those of their allies.

Whole reason the US was able to extracate itself from vietnam was Linebacker 2. Mining of haiphong and a relentless bombing campaign against the north vietnamese was what got them to the peace table. B-52's kicked in the NVA teeth during the easter offensive. Would have been the same in 75

Nixon's ruthlessness and political acumen made him an individual of respect, of gravity. Hence the alliance with red china and later detante with brechnev. Contrasted with carter telling america it is a second rate power and standing idly by as the soviets invaded afghanistan.

and what of the death toll exacted by your fraternal comrades?

Re: 'Foreign Policy' magazine's 'distinguished' Global Thinkers

Joey — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 18:13:33 -0000

communism is defined by both contempt for humanity and the inherent rights of man not to be deprived of life, liberty, or property. Communism states that someone else is better served to administer your desires than you are.

Social communism is the most insidious. Sociologists (aka marxist theologians) want to tell you what to feel. The ultimate deniers of individualism and destroyers of the self.

Re: 'Foreign Policy' magazine's 'distinguished' Global Thinkers

Joey — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 18:10:44 -0000

Objective reality exists outside our ability to perceive as well as within it. It is our ability to perceive reality objectively (ie in a scientific manner) that defines our reason.

Now my WHOLE argument is thus: do not use the words ought, should, fairness, or equality when discussing economics or politics. Rather observe...THEN draw conclusions. That is the core of Positive economic, political, and social theory. Do not judge without first acknowledging that people act in accordance with their natures.

Approaching every situation with an ideal should or ought is beyond pointless.

Re: 'Foreign Policy' magazine's 'distinguished' Global Thinkers

Frank Vivaldi — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 18:04:12 -0000

Must be frustrating for the loser blog professors of hatred criticizing Israel yet despite their most arsenic blogs and pathetic attacks Israel remains powerful as ever, its melting pot of white, brown & black Jewish warrior people armed and able to defend themselves against Arab/Palestinian violence, laughing at her kind of as she rages on impotently about Israel this, Israel ignoring the 42,000+ dead Syrians & thousands maimed including thousands of women & children & 2 million misplaced refugees. She pretends to care about human life & human rights but in truth she's just a coward because if she wasn't, she'd be helping rebuild Gaza or helping stop the terrible carnage in Syria as Arabs slaughter each other.

Re: 'Foreign Policy' magazine's 'distinguished' Global Thinkers

Niloufar Parsi — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 16:52:04 -0000

I'm an optimist too, but that doesn't stop me from being a realist at the same time. Saverio put it in a nutshell: "Is there a normative or positive if we r only subjective?"

I's not referring to boring old Malthus, who does not need an 'answer'. As it happens, wealth tapers off birth rates, so the real longer term problem now for 'advanced' economies is how to maintain or raise their populations. Astonishingly, they've taken to immigrant abuse, of the old anti-semitic character, no less. old habits die harder than we thought. but i digress.

Technology and human creativity are not opposed by marx or marxism. in fact they've been significantly enhanced by the enormous contribution of marxism to social sciences. again, i digress.

your excerpt has one major flaw. you miss the fact that precisely Because we perceive the world through our senses, this necessarily weakens are access to 'the truth'.

Of course we exist. Of course the planet is finite, and it's quite likely we will have to abandon it some day and move on to another in order to survive. So we had better learn to overcome the limitations. What has all that got to do with the point that we have to acknowledge our limitations as subjective beings? You are more in the business of shaping reality to dreams by insisting that absolute, objective realities exist within our limited perceptions. You seem to confuse 'existence' of 'reality' (the 'in itself') with its comprehension in our minds. the two are not necessarily related.

Re: 'Foreign Policy' magazine's 'distinguished' Global Thinkers

John Goodrich — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 16:51:31 -0000

You're magnificently ignorant.

To simplify for you:
Right now, on this planet, there are enough goods and services produced to provide a decent life for every man, woman and child.

Right now on this planet, about half the people struggle to survive on 1-2 dollars a day and tens of millions die each year due to lack of the essentials of life.

The reason that the more-than-adequate goods and services do not reach every man, woman, and child as they MORALLY should in line with basic human goodness and the inherent human instinct for mutual aid is strictly because capitalism is the method of distribution of these goods and services.

Capitalism is based an the accrual of wealth and NOT , decidedly NOT on providing the essentials of life to all and for that reason kills those tens, hundreds of millions of people .

Since you mentioned Cuba , I will point out that Cuba alone in Latin America has no child malnutrition.

It has a First World level on the U.N.'s Human Development Index,

provides free and excellent pre-school to grad school educations,

it provides free and excellent health care, mental health care and dental health care for all its people.

It has one of the lowest crime rates in the hemisphere.

It trains tens of thousands of foreign doctors too poor to go to med school in their own countries.

it provides 80% of all health care in Haiti.

Cuba is largely socialist in how it distributes the essential goods and services and for that reason Cuba's HDI which is the basics of life ranks very high while capitalist nations with COMPARABLE socio-economic conditions do not, cannot come close to the equity and equality and the humanity of Cuba's (admittedly undemocratic ) state controlled socialism.

Capitalism which works by force and not the democratic will of the people is the economic form that now keeps half the world in poverty.
In the U.S. which is the richest of all the capitalist states, half the workforce makes $27,000.00 per year which puts them in or close to poverty .

There is no moral way to say that having the top 400 families possess more than 150 million people at the bottom of the U.S. population and having 17% of all children living in poverty is a good thing.

Re: 'Foreign Policy' magazine's 'distinguished' Global Thinkers

Niloufar Parsi — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 16:30:59 -0000

nicely put, Savvy!

Re: 'Foreign Policy' magazine's 'distinguished' Global Thinkers

John Goodrich — Sun, 30 Dec 2012 16:30:54 -0000

The problem:

You have Obama, Putin, Hitler, Stalin and Netanyahu in front of you and you have a pistol with only two bullets.
What do you do ?

Answer:
You shoot Netanyahu twice.