[news]Spielberg Goes On Last Crusade, Takes on PRC over Darfur

So... is Spielberg going to stop making movies in the US because the US government has never done jack to help Africans?

 

this US is a free country...we strive for liberation in all corners of the globe

 

Save Darfur and Enough! have been all over this. China sits on the security council and refuses to condemn Sudan for this crap. China has a great deal of influence over Sudan...and it needs to use it.

And if the US were in the same boat, I'd be saying the same thing. People > Government.

 

Except for huge African Aid packages, and a willingness to call out Sudan on Darfur.

The tactic of trying to find something wrong with the U.S. because the PRC is wrong, isn't going to work.

 

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Well said.

 

I don't think you're informed enough about some of our policies in Africa to be making that statement. The whole Darfur campaign is convenient enough because: 1) We have had strong dislike for the Sudanese government for years; and 2) China is threatening our hegemonic presence in the region with their 'back door deals' with Sudan/other African states. So us drumming up that particular tragedy in Darfur over others in Africa has more to it than just a 'humanitarian concern'.

Read up a bit about the current disaster that is Somalia (with our full blessings, btw) and get back to me...

 

There is no "our" here. I'm an American by birth, but I'm not creating foreign policy.

As a citizen of the United States of America and, more importantly, as a human being....I want who ever has influence over Sudan telling them to do whatever is necessary to cease this crap.

And to the extent the USA isn't working to stop this crap, I'll say the same to those who are in decision-making roles.

 

As citizens of a democracy (assuming that we're still democratic and have the power to affect change through the political process), then by definition anything our government does overseas is in our name, for good or bad.

When we make charity or help Indonesian tsunami victims, it's in America's name. When we make war on other nations (e.g. Iraq, Somalia), it's also in our name. It may not be fair since there is no way for any individual citizen to affect the outcome of the entire system, but to the rest of the world, that's how it's seen. We're not talking about a religion here with adherents spread all over the world, we're talking about a single nation-state, a unified actor in a system created/maintained by nation-states.

And just for the record, the Darfur tragedy isn't even the top human tragedy that's playing in Africa today. What's happening in Somalia (i.e. refugee crisis, indiscriminate killing/murder by American-sponsored Ethiopian military and its local Somali allies, etc) is at the same level or even worse. At least in Darfur there are humanitarian missions/UN oversight or African monitors that are alleviating the crisis a bit (even if it isn't enough), now in other parts of Africa it's a free-for-all. Nothing but killing fields.

 

1. the democracy thing...yeah, sorry. I don't buy it. it can be in my name, but if i'm voting contrary to that, then it's not me. i can't control foreign policy. it would look very different if i did. what i can do is write letters...and I signed a form letter yesterday asking the US to put pressure on China to put pressure on Sudan. So that it's perceived that way isn't remotely related to what I was talking about at all in this thread. I can be equally critical of the US policy as I am of any other country's.

2. it doesn't have to be the worst tragedy for me to want it to stop.

 

Spielberg is entitled to his opinion, and he's free to accept an invitation first, and then turn it down openly to make a political pose.

It's not the first time sports event were used for political games, and it won't be the last. He or anyone can start a petition to boycott Beijing Olympics altogether for I care. I do not support the games in China, because I think the huge amount of money could be used to help more Chinese. But it's not my call to make.

What's happening in Dafur is sad for any normal human beings. It needs to be stopped. Also, I think China can do more to help achieve that with their influence. But how they do that, it should be in terms of Sudan and China, NOT directed by Hollywood.

Speaking of involvement in Africa, all I know was, starting from 50's and 60's, China has been sending medical teams and all kinds of infrastructure supporting teams to Africa to help those nations. Whatever political motives involved, at the time, they never got oil, gold, or ivory back, except for a general fondness among people and friendship from the people and some governments. One of my aunt-in-law went to Zambia and Tanzania as a medical doctor. The condition was extremely poor, but she helped gladly. People in Africa see some stark comparison with people from some countries of moral beacons taking ivory and gold from them, selling them as slaves, and leaving them starving and killing each other. It was dated way back, but the help from Chinese "communist" government doesn't need re-pay.

Red China did that a lot in 50's and 60's, to countries like Albania and North Korea. But the support was taken for granted, and Albania was pissed because the growing demand for support couldn't be met, and NK started to level down all the tombs of Chinese soldiers. It's sad, but ungrateful people are everywhere, there is really nothing new. In Africa, China still has lots of friends, before or after dictator or military government, the friendship was built between people and countries, not certain ruling parties. There was an article in Time Magazine discussing this, last year.

China, as an emerging world power, can and should do more in world politics to exercise positive influences. The long standing foreign policy for China was always "not to interfere with other's internal policies". One can always argue that's right or wrong, but they have been doing what they say, for more than 50 years. China has never showed any interest in "changing regimes" or "building regimes" in the world, even in the days of Song Dynasty, when China made up 80%+ of world GDP. So it’s not going to happen, that China condemn other countries in UN for they are doing something China doesn’t want to see, be it Sudan or US. China will not condemn Saudi openly for the royal family supporting theorist groups, and China won’t condemn US for getting oil from Saudi.

Once again, China can do more and I expect them to do more for people in Dafur, I don’t think it’s fair to make it China’s responsibility or to blame Chinese to buy oil from Sudan. Similar blame was pointed at China or NK nuclear crisis. People overestimate China’s influence, intentionally or unintentionally. On the end, NK doesn’t really give a damn what China thinks, and China was afraid if Kim releases several millions of refuges to China. When US started to talk to NK, things solved. One should ask, when happened before that? Could it be that they were labeled as part of the “Axis of Evil” in public?

All those miserable things happening in Sudan, Congo, Kenya, and other places in the world, should be stopped. China can help, US can, the world can, so does Spielberg, and so do D & D posters. We may disagree on how, we should never disagree on whether. Personally, I will never take a friendly invitation first, promised to go and bring some gift, and then several months later, call a conference to announce that I am turning down the invitation because I don’t like some of the things the host are doing. But, that’s just me.

 

Except in the case of Taiwan, oh yeah and Tibet.

 

Tibet is strictly an internal matter to PRC, Taiwan is the unfinished business left over from a civil war that has never been officially ended. Stupid.

 

This is done in poor taste by Spielberg. If he's busy with Indiana Jones, just say so. And if he's championing this cause, how about standing up for the Palestinians as well?

I don't get the whole blame game. Why go after China who's giving money and Guns for their oil. We're doing the same with Saudi Arabia. I mean we're the same team who sold arms to Iran/Iraq to kill each other in the 80's and used that money for Central American rebels to kill more people. If we have a problem with Sudan, then go after Sudan. We've already set precedent. LET'S GET IT ON LIKE DONKEY KONG!!!

Oh wait... Bush doesn't want any piece of this tragedy:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7245002.stm

 

the US has done plenty for africa, and the Bush admin in particular has done an extraordinary amount. it just doesn't get the press it should, both because we're involved...elsewhere, and because it's republicans helping africans, for which no credit can ever be given.

that said, bush has fallen short in darfur, and if it were up to me, we'd have troops there now. enough of this ineffectual bull****- people are dying, and we can stop it.

we should.

 

Please! Bush's African Aid package received unfair positive coverage. Bush lied about how much the aid for Africa increased, and rather than report that the figures were wrong, they media tried to play it off as a one side says this, and the other side claims that, if they covered the lie at all.

The fact of the matter is that it's math, and the numbers show Bush lied. The media did not do its job.

 

hmm since the native american population in the US have been F-ed up the butt for the past couple centuries, maaaybe he should stop filming movies here as well.

 

I agree that we've done a lot for Africa that we don't get credit for and have for decades (I mentioned in another thread work my father did during summers for USAID, including leading projects in countries like Nigeria, Algeria, and Libya in the 1960's and '70's, so I'm familiar with this issue and have maintained an interest). FB has a good point about Bush, however, in that he's made a lot of positive statements regarding Africa, but hasn't provided the funding to back those good words up in his budgets. Bush has a tendency to do that. I'll give him credit for saying a lot of the right things and he does have some real accomplishments in the region, but I don't understand why he seems incapable of telling the truth. It demeans what he has done.

Want proof?

U.S. Foreign Assistance to Africa: Claims vs. Reality
Africa, Foreign Aid, Africa Growth and Development, Global Economics, Development

Susan E. Rice, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Global Economy and Development

The Brookings Institution

June 27, 2005 —
"Over the past four years, we have tripled our assistance to Sub-Sahara Africa." President Bush, Press Conference with Prime Minister Tony Blair, the White House June 7, 2005

The Bush Administration Record

The Bush Administration has significantly increased aid to Africa, but that increase falls far short of what the President has claimed. U.S. aid to Africa from FY 2000 (the last full budget year of the Clinton Administration) to FY2004 (the last completed fiscal year of the Bush Administration) has not "tripled" or even doubled. Rather, in real dollars, it has increased 56% (or 67% in nominal dollar terms). The majority of that increase consists of emergency food aid, rather than assistance for sustainable development of the sort Africa needs to achieve lasting poverty reduction.

President Bush has thus far rejected Blair's call to double aid to Africa, as well as the benchmark set by the OECD and signatories to the Monterrey Consensus, which called on developed countries to devote 0.7% of their gross national income to overseas development assistance by 2015. In declining to commit to either of these targets, President Bush frequently states that his Administration has "tripled" U.S. assistance to Africa over the past four years to $3.2 billion. On June 7, 2005, the President also announced that the U.S. will spend an additional $674 million, which consists of previously appropriated emergency humanitarian food aid. The U.S. recently agreed with G-8 partners to cancel the multilateral debt owed by 18 Heavily Indebted Poor Countries, a positive step forward.

http://www.brookings.edu/articles/2005/0627africa_rice.aspx


As you can see, Bush did significantly increase aid to Africa, a good thing, but not anywhere near the level repeatedly claimed by him. Why he constantly feels the need to embellish accomplishments like this is a mystery to me.

One thing that really bothers me. We gave Egypt $1.3 billion dollars in military aid in 2006, as well as $495 million in economic aid, and that will be considered in the "grand total" of US foreign aid to Africa. One, the Egyptian people would prefer to see those numbers reversed, don't you think? I don't have a problem with giving aid to Egypt, but I do have a problem with the great majority being for their military. Two, much (not all, by any means) of our aid to the rest of Africa is made up of "military assistance." We should get away from that and zero in on economic aid. Three, the G8, of which we are the leading member, of course, has begun "forgiving" the debt of some 18 poor African countries. Bush deserves credit for that. It is a very big deal and hasn't gotten enough attention.

Just some thoughts. This is an instance where Bush deserves kudos, but in a way has been his own worst enemy. The man has a knack for that, but I'll give credit where credit is due. Bush has made a real effort to increase aid to Africa. I hope the next President continues that effort and increases it.



Impeach Bush.
(not for his policies in Africa!)

 

Maybe you should get a colonoscopy. I'm sure Steven would be happy to provide the video equipment.



Impeach Bush.