Point of Views
I was watching the Daily Show last night which showed Britons marching and protesting against warmongering George “Hitler” Bush. They were protesting against US’ actions in Iraq and Afghanistan… And I was once again struck by selfishness of people.
Iraq, I might understand, but Afghanistan? I’m sure that if couple of planes crashed in the middle of London and wiped out couple of thousand people, and couple of planes crashed in middle of Paris wiping out Louvre, we’ll be seeing French and British coalition army (as ironic as that sounds) with almost same response as the US. So many people are swayed by rhetoric of others into arguments and protests without realizing what exactly they are fighting about.
Take, for instance, the whole WTO and Globalization hoopla - I fail to see just exactly what is wrong with it. Everytime a WTO meeting is held, people gather together and protest (and break mail boxes, loot stores, and other fun protest things). As far as I can tell, these anti globalization protesters say that big multinationals are ruining humanity by ‘exploiting’ cheap labour and taking advantage of difference in living standards to make money. What I fail to see, is just exactly what is wrong with those practices and what alternatives these people are suggesting besides burning effigies and shouting slogans. Complaining about another system without providing a way for it to be fixed or improved is just whining…
This hasn’t been covered at all by any press outside Korea, but there’s bunch of Nestle Korea employees who are protesting - in Korean - in front of Nestle’s head office in Switzerland. The union was in labour negoations and had asked for over 10% increase in their wages and say in management of the company. Talks failed and after 3, 4 months of strikes and lockouts, Nestle is looking at shutting down its factories in Korea and union, as expected, is less than pleased. But what’s the point of sending people to middle of Switzerland and having them protesting outside the main office in a Language they don’t understand?
The entire world seems to have gone a little crazy… But with all these interesting things happening, I’m now thinking that Politics and/or Civil Servant would be an interesting job to have. 