: :: McSpotlight: Hardly, Stuart. What's of more concern to us is that institutions like Friedman's Chicago school appear to be interested in maximising their own assets at the expense of everything and everyone else on the planet; and that the U.S. is abusing its superpower status in efforts to foist unhealthy food on the rest of the world. As it happens, I/we have no resentment of America or Americans per se; it's only that America is currently acting in an imperialist fashion to the detriment of everyone else.: Doesn't the fact that you correlate a private enterprise like McDonalds and general U.S. policy rather help make my point? Your beef (heh heh) is with McDonalds is it not? I believe they act in their own interests and do not sing to the tune of any U.S. policy maker or lobbyist.
: The U.S. is abusing exactly nothing.
: America is currently NOT acting in an imperialist fashion.
: You Brits just like hamburgers and that's all there is to it. America can't make you buy them and eat them - can we? McDonalds can only set a store where its allowed and attempt to lure you in there - which it apparently has. Cry all you want about the fish 'n' chips places dying off or just come over here. We have plenty of them and don't complain much about imperialist Brits.
--
McSpotlight: No, Stuart. My point is that the U.S. Government is effectively powerless when compared to the multinationals that fund the U.S. Government and the NGOs that transnationals also run by proxy. As such, your government cannot act contrary to the wishes of the US corporate body.
I'm correlating the activity of McD's and the government; sure. I'm not saying that McDonald's dances the tune of the government; quite the reverse, in fact; the US corporate bodies are pressing the US Government to create a world favourable to US trade. How many of Bill Clinton's scientific advisors are in the employ of Monsanto? How much did Monsanto contribute to the Democrat war chest in 1996?
A test; let's see if the IMF (one such NGO) is actually willing to risk destabilizing the Indonesian economy (with all the knock-on financial effects) in order to preserve human rights in East Timor; it is pretty much indisputable that pro-Indonesian Muslim militias are trying to kill as many of the pro-independence Catholics as possible; and that the Indonesian army is standing by and letting it happen.
If the US Government is actually willing to contribute men and materiel to an international peacekeeping force (as Europe and Australia are asking), despite the adverse effects it would have on the US economy, I'll accept that the US Government is not controlled by the US corporate. If the US sticks to the weak line that it is Indonesia's business to intervene, not the West's, thus allowing obvious genocide to continue, I'll maintain that the US Government is more concerned of its own industry than it is with democracy or human rights.
Rex, McSpotlight.
(Speaking for myself here, rather than for McSpotlight as a whole)
