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By Luc Loranhe (2007)
The following piece was written at a time when I was not inclined towards political activism, but concerned only with managing my own life as appropriately as I could, in accordance to my personal value system of optimal sexual experience, and after that, a gentle death. The attitude was that when repressive morals encroached on one location, I would just go somewhere else. I assume that many people have a corresponding value system and attitude. For each of us, the point at which there occurs the transformation of quantity (another anti-sexual element introduced in the social environment) into a new quality (political activism instead of just retreating again) is set differently. I arrived at it only some time after having written the following piece, so it does not reflect my newer political agenda. However, even at times I had no political agenda, I stuck to principles of dialectical materialism to analyze my environment.
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I am very much against the widespread messing of the US in world political and social affairs. It doesn't benefit the American people. It costs a lot of taxpayers' money, and creates financial returns only for a few wealthy American individuals who then get even richer.
What's left
http://www3.sympatico.ca/
sr.gowans/feckless.html
These wealthy individuals are hidden behind the typical American business facade, the corporation. But corporations, so-called juristic persons, are not alive, and therefore do not have interests. They are just an instrument so that those who own them can evade liabilities, and can remain largely anonymous, enjoying their growing wealth in a stress-free environment.
For the ordinary American, there is no benefit from the US' messing in other countries political and social affairs. Plain international trade is OK. Of course, the messing starts when traders want to maximize their profits by changing political and social conditions in other countries (for example: imposing free trade). Such changes in political and social conditions of other countries may indeed be reflected on corporate earning sheets as higher dividends for their owners.
But that's not the full story. There are related costs which will not show on corporate balance sheets, as corporations won't cover them, and instead roll them over to the American government and tax-paying public.
Anti-Americanism is the natural consequence of bullying the people of other countries. And some of those constantly bullied will become terrorist. And the expenses for American homeland security won't be paid by those people, who, in hiding behind corporate facades, reap additional profits from the messing in political and social affairs of other countries (mostly in the Third World).
I am against US meddling on the level that is now common in many Third World countries. It doesn't benefit the American public, and it is a disturbance for me.
But I am flexible, and if conditions get bad in one country, I can still go somewhere else. I am neither a terrorist, nor a supporter of terrorism. I will never become a suicide bomber in order to effect changes in a world in which I myself will no longer be around.
I only have a few more years, but if I will commit suicide, it will be for my own comfort, not an esoteric purpose such as a religion, or a nation, or so that my children will live in a better world.
Like everybody else who flies, or regularly has family members on board of planes, I am against international civil aviation becoming a battleground for the containment of the ambitions of US corporate owners.
I am also against attacks against so-called soft Western targets in Third World countries, as I am one myself.
That said, I would like to proceed to apply some dialectical logics.
First it is important to differentiate between the image of the West in general, and the image of the individual Westerner. The image of the West in general depends largely on US political meddling. But the image of the individual Westerner depends more on the question of how frequently Westerners are encountered in a country. As an individual Westerner, I have no problem distancing myself from ugly US politics. But if there are too many other Westerners around, their presence and their possible individual unpleasant behavior clearly reduces my sexual market value.
Terrorism is not a response on the presence of a large number of individual Westerners in a country. Much rather, it is a response towards US political interference with the aims of local political groupings. However, the individual foreigner can well become a pawn in the political conflict.
Odd as it may sound, and even though I am a potential target, I do realize that beyond the short term, terrorists play into my hands. They do, because an immediate result of their activities in any country is that the number of Westerners, who come to that country, declines.
New Slump Predicted for Regional Tourism Industry After Bali Blast
http://english.people.com.cn/200210/
15/eng20021015_105089.shtml
International tourism statistics
http://www.world-tourism.org/newsroom/
Releases/2006/january/06_01_24.htm
I have lived in Third World countries for more than 20 years. In countries like the Philippines and Cambodia, I have experienced Westerners becoming gradually less exclusive and welcome the more of them arrived.
For my purposes, there is an ideal level of how many Westerners should be present in a Third World city. Enough Westerners so that the sight of me will not attract hordes of children following me wherever I go because they so seldom see a Western man. But not enough Westerners to ignite anti-Western sentiments.
Mass sex tourism as it existed, or exists, in Thailand, the Philippines, and Cambodia, is totally against my interests. So is any other form of mass tourism. Events that cup the number of Western tourists coming to the country where I live, or events that depress Western tourism overall, are in my interest, be it SARS, or plane crashes, or hotel bombings.
However, I do want to, and have to, point out that my realizing that terrorism and other adverse events play into my hands does not mean that I would have a hand in such acts and events. I am, entirely, a silent beneficiary.
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Copyright Luc Loranhe