Comments on: Fellow Celebrity Who Gives a Damn: George Clooney http://todbrilliant.com/fellow-celebrity-with-a-cause-profile-2-george-clooney/ Wed, 07 Jan 2009 12:18:23 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.6.5 By: todb http://todbrilliant.com/fellow-celebrity-with-a-cause-profile-2-george-clooney/#comment-49 todb Thu, 28 Sep 2006 17:14:47 +0000 http://todbrilliant.com/2006/09/27/fellow-celebrity-with-a-cause-profile-2-george-clooney/#comment-49 <p>I totally understand your perspective, and on every logical level it rings very true and solid. Of course we have to include the clutural and political context. YET . . .YET . . . on a fundamental humanitarian level it just doesn't work. Or at the very least, we must incorporate these two facets into the decision making, but not use them as our exclusive parameters. Agreed, we typically make bad situations worse through intervention and when we do get involved it's too little, too late (Milosevic). Clearly, our world organizations/bodies/institutions/governments have skewed motivators. Perhaps Jimmy Carter should take over, hand in hand with the Dalai Lama? Okay, I'm joking and I can't say I'm a huge Carter fan, but what would the Dalai Lama, for example, say about this situation? Better yet, what has he said? Oh wait, here's what he said, in somewhat stilted English: </p> <p>"The United Nations are a structure, it's a political sort of authority, they are representatives of the governments, so then unfortunately behind the scenes they are always making tricks. I think some kind of corruption of the highest level ... and the poor people suffer, look at Africa, Darfur."</p> <p>I get the drift, though. He's saying "The UN is a fucking mess and needs to put people first, not politics. Until it does so, the poorest people will continue to be butchered mercilessly." </p> <p>Now, what is the utopian ideal? Hell if I know. But I'm an unabashed idealist. We may be the same bloody savage species that we were in the midst of the Crusades (I don't believe in the dawning of the Age of Aquarius - we've changed zero, in terms of evolutionary or spiritual function over the past centuries), but we're better organized and better educated (overall, perhaps, at least I hope so) and have more resources with which to do great good.</p> <p>The role of globocop is easily filled, by the way. Last time I checked, Peter Weller is still alive and well (who better than the man who gave life to both Robocop AND Buckaroo Banzai?).</p> I totally understand your perspective, and on every logical level it rings very true and solid. Of course we have to include the clutural and political context. YET . . .YET . . . on a fundamental humanitarian level it just doesn’t work. Or at the very least, we must incorporate these two facets into the decision making, but not use them as our exclusive parameters. Agreed, we typically make bad situations worse through intervention and when we do get involved it’s too little, too late (Milosevic). Clearly, our world organizations/bodies/institutions/governments have skewed motivators. Perhaps Jimmy Carter should take over, hand in hand with the Dalai Lama? Okay, I’m joking and I can’t say I’m a huge Carter fan, but what would the Dalai Lama, for example, say about this situation? Better yet, what has he said? Oh wait, here’s what he said, in somewhat stilted English:

“The United Nations are a structure, it’s a political sort of authority, they are representatives of the governments, so then unfortunately behind the scenes they are always making tricks. I think some kind of corruption of the highest level … and the poor people suffer, look at Africa, Darfur.”

I get the drift, though. He’s saying “The UN is a fucking mess and needs to put people first, not politics. Until it does so, the poorest people will continue to be butchered mercilessly.”

Now, what is the utopian ideal? Hell if I know. But I’m an unabashed idealist. We may be the same bloody savage species that we were in the midst of the Crusades (I don’t believe in the dawning of the Age of Aquarius - we’ve changed zero, in terms of evolutionary or spiritual function over the past centuries), but we’re better organized and better educated (overall, perhaps, at least I hope so) and have more resources with which to do great good.

The role of globocop is easily filled, by the way. Last time I checked, Peter Weller is still alive and well (who better than the man who gave life to both Robocop AND Buckaroo Banzai?).

]]> By: GreenEngineer http://todbrilliant.com/fellow-celebrity-with-a-cause-profile-2-george-clooney/#comment-48 GreenEngineer Thu, 28 Sep 2006 16:18:23 +0000 http://todbrilliant.com/2006/09/27/fellow-celebrity-with-a-cause-profile-2-george-clooney/#comment-48 <p><i>Can we get some armed NATO troops in there already? No? Fine, let’s start a fund to hire Croatian mercenaries to protect these people. Hell, Charlton Heston can round up a group of neo-Rough Riders in a heartbeat. Stop already with the geopolitical excuses, the religious obstacles and the myriad other excuses offered by handwringers who don’t really give a damn about human lives. FIRST, we save lives and end suffering. THEN, we worry about the potential political fallout. It’s very simple – we either put love and respect for each other above politics and religion, or we don’t.</i></p> <p>That's a nice sentiment, and easy enough to support outside of our cultural and political context. However, just exactly this sort of "humanitarian" reasoning was part of what took us into Iraq. The role of globocop is a very, very slippery slope, and we as a nation have not done a very good job with it historically. Given the outstanding lack of judgement displayed by our leadership (and I'm not just talking about W. in this case), I'm not sure that the moral consequences of getting involved in someone else's fight are preferable to the moral weight of sitting on the sidelines and letting them sort it out.</p> <p>And, of course, there is oil there. Which complicates things and practically ensures that any action we take there will wind up being twisted to serve powerful special interests rather than the needs of the indigenous people. What's happening there is a tragedy, beyond a doubt, but one hopes that we haven't already forgotten the lesson of how easy it is for us to take a bad situation and make it much, much worse.</p> Can we get some armed NATO troops in there already? No? Fine, let’s start a fund to hire Croatian mercenaries to protect these people. Hell, Charlton Heston can round up a group of neo-Rough Riders in a heartbeat. Stop already with the geopolitical excuses, the religious obstacles and the myriad other excuses offered by handwringers who don’t really give a damn about human lives. FIRST, we save lives and end suffering. THEN, we worry about the potential political fallout. It’s very simple – we either put love and respect for each other above politics and religion, or we don’t.

That’s a nice sentiment, and easy enough to support outside of our cultural and political context. However, just exactly this sort of “humanitarian” reasoning was part of what took us into Iraq. The role of globocop is a very, very slippery slope, and we as a nation have not done a very good job with it historically. Given the outstanding lack of judgement displayed by our leadership (and I’m not just talking about W. in this case), I’m not sure that the moral consequences of getting involved in someone else’s fight are preferable to the moral weight of sitting on the sidelines and letting them sort it out.

And, of course, there is oil there. Which complicates things and practically ensures that any action we take there will wind up being twisted to serve powerful special interests rather than the needs of the indigenous people. What’s happening there is a tragedy, beyond a doubt, but one hopes that we haven’t already forgotten the lesson of how easy it is for us to take a bad situation and make it much, much worse.

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