Europe Afghanistan NATO America
Hillary Clinton is now at NATO HQ begging “our allies” (NOT!) for more warm bodies to send to the Afghanistan meat grinder. So far, some 7,000 European souls are being pledged from 26 nations. What is hopeful is that both France and Germany say their will wait for what the United Nations has to say. Let’s hope that both of the EU’s core Member States have a long wait and that the report from the UN is discouraging.The reality is that Afghanistan is hopeless, unless the Afghanis assume responsibility for their own security. The reality is that, sooner or later, both Afghanistan and Iraq have to stand or fall on their own.
Categories: Anglo-American system, ESDP/CSFP Tags: Afghanistan, CSFP/ESDP, NATO
Social class in the UK
In the UK, social class could legal footing, like gender and race, and it’s welcomed!In the article cited, the British Government intends to make social class on the same legal footing as race and gender.This is a wonderful development for people like me, from the lower rung of the ladder, plus the added disadvantage of being a woman.First of all, we can safely speculate that the social system of capitalist nations can even encourage discrimination against the poor and underclass. Often, as here in the US, poverty and underclass membership are viewed as having “moral problems” and “not working hard enough.” In the US, it can be said that policing the poorer neighborhoods have something to do with stereotypes about “poor folks” than involvement in actual crimes – along with police attitudes about “poor folks.” In the US the lack of social safety nets means that criminal justice involvement then becomes the trigger for “getting help.”As an underclass woman with a background in the criminal justice field, I simply don’t agree that police should get more “involved in underclass communities.” Social class membership, like race, gender and age, can be one of the attributes of “possible criminality” (a stereotype) that draws police attention. Underclass people are viewed as “more dangerous” that non-underclass, a fact that we can point to where Madeoff is spending his pre-trial days!It actually has to do with not having access to the same resources and/or the same opportunities that other enjoy. There are social indicators of class membership, such as family background and life experiences, that probably tip others off as to social class membership, as well as income. My social class, along with my gender and age, is probably one of the things that has kept me out of school, out of various employment – and keep me excluded.The reality is that in modern American society, race is no longer a point of discrimination as it once was – but social class is. Social class, if memory serves me right, is also cited in European policy to combat social exclusion. If not, social class is probably one of the factors that leads to social exclusion (along with long-term unemployment, disability and the like) and giving social class the same legal status as race and gender will help to combat discrimination and social exclusion that come with class membership.What the Labour is planning to do should be looked at by the EU’s social policy groups and hopefully the US too …Labour plans ‘class war’ law to narrow the gap between rich and poor http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/4229931/Labour-plans-class-war-law-to-narrow-the-gap-between-rich-and-poor.html**Yellow Stars Euroblog***
Categories: Anglo-American system, International system Tags: poverty
