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: : Anybody hear about the anti-US demonstrations that greeted our spineless president when he went to Greece?
: Spineless is right, although I still prefer the term "draft dodger", it conveys a certain dishonorable aspect of his personality. 'Dodging' the draft is actually one of the few good things Bill ever did in his life. I respect anyone who took a stand against an unjust war. If I'd been around in the late sixties I would have resisted the draft; better to spend time in prison than to fight in an evil and immoral war.
: It gave me a warm feeling inside to see Bill Clinton's capitalist face rubbed in the dirt.
: Yeah, but let's not forget that Greece is a member of the EU, NATO and OECD, not exactly the portfolio of a Communist/Socialist country, where such gatherings for a demonstration would never have been allowed.
You think that socialist states are not democratic? How about the dozen examples I listed previously? Capitalsit states are far more restrictive of mass demonstrations than socialist ones. See the discussion of India and mass political action there. Your failure to learn anything about the facts of what you talk about is getting extremely irritating.
: The guy thought that he's ingratiated himself with everyone; perhaps he thought that the price for selling out his principles (if he ever had them) was that everyone woudl like him. time has shown how hollow that bargain was. His last year in office has begun with two massive protests; first in Greece, and now in Seattle at the World Trade conference.
: : Apparently teh demmonstrations in Greece were spearheaded by the large Communist Party and the Anarchists. Even the moderate Socialist Party of the late Andreas Papandreou, however, has a history of standing up to American dominance and steering a neutralist course. From what I heard, the demonstrations involved plenty of flag burning and destruction of shops. To be honest,the Greeks were protestinbg 3 diffgerent things (American suppression of Greek democracy in the '60s and '70s,American neutralism over the Greek/Turkish struggle in Cyprus, and the bombing of Yugoslavia). I only really sympathize with the first. But in spite of all that, it's about time that Clinton and our Establsihment wake up to the fact that many people in the world don't want to be like americam nor to do what America tells them.
: Apparently we have different sources. I read that the demonstrations were in response to the bombing of the Serbs. American suppression of Greek democracy in the 60's and 70's by modern day Communists?
A little knowledge of history might help here. The US installed miloitary junta in Greece in the late '40s (a fascist one at that) and then again in 1967. Massive protests eventually topplesd the Greek dictatorship in 1974 and ushered in a socialist democracy. This is nothing new. the US crushed democracy and replaced it with dictatorships or military regimes in many countries. Examples of countries where the US favored dictatorship over democracy include Guyana (elected leader kicked out in '66), Nicaragua (supported reactionary terrorists against the freely elected Sandinistas), Chile (Pinochet threw out and murdered the elected Allende, led Chile into twenty years of misery), South Africa, Zimbabwe, Guatelmala (overthrew an elected democracy, ushered in a bloody genocidal regime), Pakistan (supported a genocidal dictator against democratic India), teh list goes on and on.
:What will they think of next?
: Everybody knows there are places in the world that have no desire to improve their standard of living. It's one of those mysteries of life that no one can explain. If there are some places in the world where people prefer to bark at the moon to bring rain for their crops, fine. Whatever spins their collective props.
Your condescension is really striking. DO you have any respoect for people's opinions which amy differ from your own? Do you ahve any conception of freedom of speech, or freedom of conscience? Oh no, I forgot, you're a capitalist. Capitalists don't believe in free thought, as was proven so eloquently in Chile, or South Korea, or indonesia.
