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Absolutly terrible

November 21, 2007

Erik Bethke

Seoul

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eula human rights oil saudi arabia LiveJournal Archive

An appalling and dismal reminder that we all need to do much more to achieve basic human rights in this...

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An appalling and dismal reminder that we all need to do much more to achieve basic human rights in this world. http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/11/19/saudi.rape.victim/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

As an American and a westerner living abroad, I can say with confidence that I can appreciate different cultures and laws. But the extremely repressive form of slavery that Saudi Arabia practices against its women is so awful I truly cannot understand it.

I do not understand why they are ally - so what they have a lot of oil - I do not understand the alliance.

I do not understand why we sell them state of the art military hardware.

Why do we want the oil so badly that we would fund the slavery of these women?

I read plenty of history, economics, political science and so and so yes I can understand what is happening if I only look at this small bit or that small bit. But I do not understand why western women let alone men allow this to happen.

Change what you Buy or? Buy what your Told

As we can see from the 2000 and 2004 elections the American system has been a Republic and it is not a Democracy - the truly Democractic power of the 21st century is your decisions as a consumer.

Those with capital just want to get richer, they will be happy to sell you whatever you want to buy.

-Erik <div

Originally posted on LiveJournal

Original LiveJournal Comments

anonymous — November 20 2007, 19:54:16 UTC

Our leaders are good buddies with the House of Saud. The Bush family, for instance, is quite close to them. The House of Saud is a family of brutal dictators who have raped its country of its resources so that its scions can purchase $400 million private jets and palaces. It legitimizes itself by investing in Disney and Four Seasons and so on. I'd like to see them hanging by a short noose personally.The sad truth though is that America has always done this. America has never been the shining light on the hill that popular American culture likes to pretend existed. We are a nation far more concerned with buying the next gas-guzzler or cheap Chinese-made jeans than we are with anything else. Human rights, etc pale in comparison to our enormous greed for material wealth.The sadder truth is that this is how almost all nations behave given the opportunity. :(

Connections Across Time

The 2015 version of this argument drops the consumer activism angle and goes straight for the military budget.

Am I the only one puzzled why we should have more of our blood and treasure s...

The 2015 version drops the consumer activism angle and goes full dark sarcasm: 'Fine, let's invade—but at least pick the right country.'

Of all the ME countries we could choose to start a war for choice, and one th...

The outrage didn't fade in eight years — it just got a sharper sarcastic edge and a bigger target.

Holy shit I can't believe the Iranians are so barbaric! We gotta go to War War War!

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