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I want to talk about these two groups particularly: Amnesty International
Christian Aid
Ignoring the argument about natural rights not existing...
What do you think of such organizations, which try to fight 'human rights' abuses (generally things I think you'd all agree on, except gun control)? Should they be supported, as opposition groups to capitalism (which they necessarily are when they fight the organization that creates these conditions)? Do you consider them examples of anti-capitalist sentiment even without the direct statements against it?
About Christian Aid, do you think the fact that it grew out of church organization, even though it is anti-capitalist, makes it bad or unsupportable?
Personally, I support the two groups. I think any tendancy towards stopping oppression is good, whatever terminology is used..
I donot support these groups, but certainly look in to what they are saying in certain situations. E.g IMO Amensty International in my view is impartial to both Human rights abuses both by Sihalese Government and LTTE in Srilanka. I don't know about Christian Aid so no comments.
I don't think organisations like AI and Human Rights watch do anything apart from reporting Abuses by the Groups/Governments which is worthy of supporting or taking part.
It is possible to build gigantic factories according to a ready-made Western pattern by bureaucratic command – although, to be sure, at triple the normal cost. But the farther you go, the more the economy runs into the problem of quality, which slips out of the hands of a bureaucracy like a shadow. The Soviet products are as though branded with the gray label of indifference. Under a nationalized economy, quality demands a democracy of producers and consumers, freedom of criticism and initiative – conditions incompatible with a totalitarian regime of fear, lies and flattery.
-Trotsky
Marx & Engels ! Lenin ! Trotsky
Why isn't human rights watching an important thing to participate it / support? Because the groups also focus on economic destitution, I think it is a lot like a leftist watchdog group (that is they watch things pertinent to the left). They also help people with direct action, but that is more the Christian Aid thing. Maybe you should look into the latter.
As long as they're working towards a better world, they're okay. Isn't Socialism about improving the lives of people?
"If you're not ready to die for it, take the word "freedom" out of your vocabulary."
-Malcolm X
Such bourgeois "human rights" groups like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, International Society for Human Rights, and other such groups are nothing more than mouthpieces for imperialism. During the Clinton years they hailed his "human rights" imperialist aggression on Somalia, Haiti, former Yugoslavia, and Iraq (including the starvation blockade). Currently they seem to be focused on the counter-revolutionary Varela Project in Cuba where they call for a "peaceful" overthrow of Fidel Castro; as well as the "genocide" in the Sudan where they call for imperialist occupation not unlike what was seen in Yugoslavia.
No they should not be supported, unless you believe the U.S imperialists and their U.N and NATO dogs have the moral obligation to end human rights abuses. These groups are liberal bourgeois scum, pure and simple.
Amnesty International didn't support the Iraq blocade and bombing, they criticised it.
I think Amnesty International tries to take an unbiased approach (although I can't see how one could be unbiased given the nature of Western crimes), but groups like Human Rights Watch and the democracy promotion groups are tools of imperialism. Case in point: in the build up to the Iraq war, HRW did an excellent job at attacking the B'aath Party, providing plenty of ammunition for neoconservative pundits, but said nothing about the human rights implications of a WAR(!
In my opinion, such human rights groups are essentially in the same boat as the social democrats.
That is to say, they believe in a fantasy world where capitalism can be made cute and cuddly and fun to play with. They sometimes do the right thing and have good initiatives, standing up to various brutal capitalist governments. Other times, however, they become willing lapdogs of imperialism, usually because of their naive tendency to believe that governments or corporations can actually act with the best interests of humanity in mind.
So we should sometimes support human rights groups and sometimes oppose them, depending on the issue and the situation.
"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist."
- Dom Helder Camara, Brazilian archbishop
"Definition of a conservative: a person who believes that nothing should be done for the first time." - mikelepore
Here we see the dogmatic character of some self-proclaimed socialists!
Amnesty international is bad! It is a bourgeois organization!
And so on and so forth.
Anything that helps a man or woman leave the detrimental situation they live in is good.
Yes, they are not the means to change the social order.
But no, they are not "imperialist" or purposely "bourgeois".
"El ideal del P.S.O.E. es la completa emancipación de la clase trabajadora; Es decir, la abolición de todas las clases sociales y su declaración y conversión en una sola clase de trabajadores, dueños del fruto de su trabajo, libres, iguales, honrados e inteligentes." -Pablo Iglesias (founder of PSOE and UGT)
"Quienes contraponen liberalismo y socialismo, o no conocen el primero o no saben los verdaderos objetivos del segundo." -Pablo Iglesias
Art. 1.º España es una República democrática de trabajadores de toda clase, que se
organiza en régimen de Libertad y de Justicia.
I agree, but human rights organizations do not always do that. As it has been mentioned in this thread before, Human Rights Watch effectively supported the invasion of Iraq. That wasn't exactly a shining example of helping the common man...
I support human rights organizations only as long as their actions actually help people. I will not support them when they endorse imperialist wars or bad economic schemes.
"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist."
- Dom Helder Camara, Brazilian archbishop
"Definition of a conservative: a person who believes that nothing should be done for the first time." - mikelepore
When did HRW endorse the war?? I have watched AI more, but I've never seen a buildup up reports against a nation who the US is about to attack. The criticisms have been continual.
I don't recall them supporting capitalism, either. One has to remember that they are primarily concerned with human rights, and even still they speak out against policies which have and can lead to economic crises for people. Ai, for instance, has ben very critical of the U.S. before and since the invasion, criticising 'Shock and Awe,' our embargos and bombign campaigns before the war and the current policies.
The problem with amesty, is that they only speak against dictatorshops and regimes that dont come into direct conflict with U$/israeli interests. Look at any of their literature, and you'll be hard pushed to see sabra and shatila, or abu ghraib and guantanamo mentioned anywhere.
Have you read AI's reports on Israel, Abu Ghraib, and Guantanamo?
Guantanamo Bay has been one of their major talking points for the past year. It is on their front page!
How do you make these claims without even looking at these organizations' sites? The claim that they are somehow pro-war is abundantly absurd, but trying to say that they ignore Guantanamo when there is a "Close Guantanamo" button on their front page is a joke.
It was after reading AI's reports on Israel that I really started to understand the conflict and realized the degree to which the media lies about it. AI even points out this media bias at times. Seriously, look at the sties before you baselessly criticize them.
Personally I dont believe in "universal human rights", not in a way that there will be natural universal human rights. Cultures will respond differently to certain ideas and rights. I remember reading an article for a course I took on religious fundamentalism last year which brought up this point. It stated quotes from an muslim scolar who believed the Western world believes in the "freedom to do" while the Islamic world would believe in the "freedom to be". A person, in his point of view is truly free when he/she is free from outside temptation. The Western man/woman is free when they can give in to those temptation if they wanted to. While this might not sound like much to you, its a big thing when trying to discuss universal human rights/freedoms. Old local beliefs might have to be fully removed and altered in order for (in our view) better rights to be used, things like full equality, right of education, work, healthcare, food, shelter, etc.
If we look at the human rights the UN use now they are mostly Western oriented, the individual should be able to say what he wants, people should be able to form political parties etc etc etc. However forcing people into starvation because of our economic system is totally fine because those starving people would just "have to get a better job", exploiting peasants and workers worldwide is acceptable because they have the "freedom to form their own party if they wanted to". (reality of course is that this is totally impossible because "democratic" politics belong to those with money...the bourgeoise)
<span style=\'color:green\'>"Protest is when I say this does not please me.
Resistance is when I ensure what does not please me occurs no more."
-Ulrike Meinhof
"If one sets a car on fire, that is a criminal offence. If one sets hundreds of cars on fire, that is political action."
-Ulrike Meinhof</span>
I dont know much about "Christian Aid", but the name itself indicates that it is reactionary in nature.
Amnesty is a fucking imperialist sham. It's criticisms against the US war machine are mild and timid to the extreme, but somehow it still has the BALLS to slam Venezuela and Cuba.
Fuck Amnesty.
Do not say that we have nothing,
We shall be masters of all under heaven!
It's not necessarily that AI focuses so much on Venez/Cuba etc; it's about the media that manipulates AI's reports.
For instance, from what I've seen, AI has been relatively mild on Venezeual and Cuba, and more critical of the US than them.
AI and HRW are generally presented as being pro-Palestinian, or obsessed with bashing Israel. This generally comes from the same people who think the Palestinians all fled cos of fictional Arab broadcasts in 1948, or that they didn't exist at all.
AI and HRW get attacked because they report Israeli human rights abuses, which are generally backed up by tonnes of documentary evidence. What they actually propose as solutions, or the language they use can often be very different from the "radical" reputation they have though.
Check out this HRW report calling Palestinians who act as human shields "war criminals"
Theres also been AI reports calling for Israel to behave "moderately" in the West Bank - there is no demand for unequivocal withdrawal, democratic rights to self-determination are ignored.
In terms of Cuba, yeah, HRW and AI can be dodgy - describing the 70 'dissidents' who by their own admission were working with the US ambassador to disrupt Cuba as 'political prisoners'.
Even a look at what AI accuses Cuba of and the rest of Latin America of is interesting - they accuse Cuba mainly of harrasing or arresting 'dissidents'; for Columbia they charge the military with cooperation with death squads.
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That's true. Indeed AI's action on Venezuala has been little more than documenting complaints against the Government (something it does for all countries). The right foams at the mouth at amnesty for focusing more on Western countries that they support claiming it is a sign of bias (though in fact certain countries like the US are very easy to document for obvious reasons, hence a greater focus).
There is quite a broad range of opinions in Amnesty of course, but in general I find them to be an excellent resource and a force for good. They won't change the world on their own, but they certainly take steps in the right direction.
I was surprised to see that dichotomy presented here... It seems to mirror the dichotomy many psychologists refer to (and Marx) between having and being.
They go so far as to say that we are a society dominated by having rights and interests, whereas a realistic society is interested in being. I think the Islamic scholar has found a new way to phrase that, or a different incarnation of the same feelings. There's a certain truth to the idea that religion offers a way of being rather than having, but so does socialism.
The U.N. is a bit mroe liberal than that, actually. Certain rights like a stable economy, social education, etc. are also described as inherant to free nations, and this is part of the reason the U.S. got such a low ranking when the U.N. ranked nations for their freedoms. It is still true that the organizations are not communist, but they are still more liberal than the U.N. when it comes to these things.
Then maybe you'll be surprised to learn about it, if you follow the link to its site.
It seems pretty accurate to me, and it is highly critical of the U.S. & Israel particularly; that is a major criticism against it.
I believe it was very critical of Israel when the democratic government of Hamas was toppled, but I can't be certain. In reference to Cuba... I have to say that they are political prisoners, be they rightly imprisoned or not! It's not right for the U.S. to go in there with such propaganda, but at the same time the people have a right to free speech.
Another thing this shows is the difference between the "group-thinking" expressed in Islam (if we have to believe the scholar) and socialism and the individualistic ideology of Western capitalism. In the Western world the individual is put forward at the expense of the group, thus its a Danish cartoonist's right to piss off 1,5 billion people. In the "group-thinking" it would be different, you would then look at the interests of the group in general instead of the individual. In a way this thought is parallel to the "doing/having" and "being" Ive posted.
True, but for some reason the right to vote in a bourgoise "democratic" system seems to be more important than access to healthcare, education, shelter and food.
<span style=\'color:green\'>"Protest is when I say this does not please me.
Resistance is when I ensure what does not please me occurs no more."
-Ulrike Meinhof
"If one sets a car on fire, that is a criminal offence. If one sets hundreds of cars on fire, that is political action."
-Ulrike Meinhof</span>
