Brothers get into fights all the time for the most pointless reasons...

hardly all, but of late..

sadly i end up in some of them, in spite of the fact that i am so un-politically minded..

i kept my words on this subject rather muted the first couple of years i was here, for forum stability, but since the war, the innuendo has exceeded even my patience on the subject.

fortunately, the burning is with a far less intensive flame than they were before i joined the discussions... let us hope the trend continues.

my advice sir gwil, get a bigger stick, cause the peons have not been the issue of late

? posted by Leperous

Brits always seem to be the clever ones, rather than the evil ones... Irish are criminals usually too

irish are usually depicted as sots (alcoholics), and chinese as evil too ..

hmmm, interesting concepts.. i will definitely watch movies with interests in origins of characters from now on

No my dad used to live there but thats not to say I didnt visit Amsterdam on my travels over there though.

Well, as most major films are made here, I hardly think it is suprising that there is no sterotypical american villian. there are plenty of american villians, but only when the good guys are americans too

The brtish villian is a long tradition which I don't quite understand...

For some reason americans love the aussies, so an australian villian wouldn't go over so well...

I don't think I agree with you Orph, when you dispute the wealth of america. yes there is poverty, and no I havn't seen everything in this country, but I have never seen anything in this country that even remotly compares to mexico. a bum on the street in an american city looks rich compared to what I have seen in mexico. As I say though, I haven't seen everything...

Hollywood just changes its villian casting to suit the enemy at the time russians in the cold war, brits just generally, arabs nowadays/at the time of earlier wars...

I think the point is that no-one is doubting US poverty levels, but we want to see changes made by Governments and corporations who play BIG roles in affecting poverty in countries around the world.

Cheap labour, overinflated food prices, non-trading, unfair localised trade agreements... these aren't policies that affect bums/hobos on US streets etc most of the time, but they can give millions of people a better quality of life with the sacrifice of a few dollars or over-production. It just becomes a bigger issue for all of us to deal with, when entire countries are affected by our actions/policies in developed nations.

On a side note; I don't believe LEDC's do have the resources to tackle their problems - poverty is already widespread over underfunded infrastructures, and the largest employers are usually corporations from abroad, who simply set up shop to exploit cheap labour and desperation amongst unemployed people. A lot of these countries are far behind us, because we have meddled with them for the last century - backing regimes with dubious motives, exploiting them for military/economic purposes, etc etc. We destroyed what could have been prosperous nations, now is the time to redress the balance and support them - not use them.

Heh, i'm the first to admit I mostly back futile causes and ideas, and acknowledge compassion doesn't "swing" in international affairs, money and power politics do.

There can be some movement though on the smaller issues, and I hope by raising money/vocally supporting organisations etc I can make my small change, become one big change for the better.

Indeed, no major shifts will happen until people are united to fight poverty, injustice and exploitation at home, and abroad - but thats another kettle of fish entirely, and probably impossible judging by our very nature as humans. It's all a great shame really, when compassion for the fellow man is a rare trait in todays individualist world

and yeah, agree to disagree - we could debate this til we were blue in the face