dear afee-ers,

please consider that while borders may be imbecile, arbitrary, ceremonial
... it all depends on the context. our context today is the new plutocratic
imperialistic-militaristic world "order". very few very powerful people are
deciding about who is right and who is wrong, who is good and who is bad,
who may live and who has to die. and they empower their very interest-led
decisions by laser bombs and missiles. in this world of destroyed law and
justice, reasonable order and moral which once was based on discourse,
borders may be perhaps the last legal protection of less powerful peoples
and nations - and thus a factor of progress and progressiveness. in these
days we have to claim and protect the unviolable-ness (unviolability?) of
national borders in iraq and yugoslawia against nato-imperialism and
-terrorism. lets return to the principles of international law and to the
trust in the ability of the peoples of any region to solve their own
problems alone, without the pressures, conspiracies and bombs of the new
rulers of the world, i.e. u.s., germany and u.k. - and start distrusting
the virtual realities that our mass media sell us as "news", hardly
anything of these are right. do we again need ten to fifteen years to find
out that they again pushed us in a campaign that was unwarranted,
unjustified, egocentric of the powerful - and immoral ?! i am well aware
that it requires a lot of patience to let peoples solve their own regional
problems without interventions by imperialist traders, financiers, secret
services and militarists. but who would be more apt to be patient to
evolutionary and time-consuming problem-solving processes than
institutionalists?

sorry for my poor english. wolf elsner.



At , you wrote:
>At 14:50 16.04.99 -0400, you wrote:
>>Dear Ron Stanfield, old friend who keeps his messages short:
>>
>>Please delete this message, as its length will displease you.
>>
>>All others--a rhetorical question:  Why are borders imbecilic?
>>
>>I think that borders between nations are imbecilic because they are almost
>>always based on arbitrary, past divisions of the spoils of war and empire.
>>They are very seldom based on instrumental reasoning in terms of the
>>means-ends continuum.  I think that borders between nations are imbecilic
>>because they are almost always based on some form of jingoism, which is the
>>most vicious means of creating and maintaining inequality between different
>>kinds of people that I know of. I do not think that borders between nations
>>are imbecilic because they hinder so-called free  trade.  Nor do I think
that
>>borders between nations and other items below have anything at all to do
with
>>the border between my own kitchen and my own dining room.  Such comparisons
>>are themselves imbecilic, being based on arbitrary choices made to ridicule,
>>not to further a line of conversation--a blocking of inquiry.
>>
>>I think that the contemporary borders between races are imbecilic, likewise
>>being based on arbitrary (non-instrumental) criteria designed to create and
>>maintain inequality between groups of people for the benefit of the powerful
>>and to the detriment of the common good.
>>
>>I think that the contemporary borders between genders are imbecilic,
likewise
>>being based on arbitrary criteria designed to create and maintain inequality
>>between groups of people for the benefit of the powerful and to the
detriment
>>of the common good.
>>
>>I think that borders between classes are imbecilic, likewise being based on
>>arbitrary criteria designed to create and maintain inequality between groups
>>of people for the benefit of the powerful and to the detriment of the common
>>good.
>>
>>I think that borders between ethnic/religious groups are imbecilic, likewise
>>being based on arbitrary criteria designed to create and maintain inequality
>>between groups of people for the benefit of the powerful and to the
detriment
>>of the common good.
>>
>>I think that borders between people with different sexual preferences are
>>imbecilic, likewise being based on arbitrary criteria designed to create and
>>maintain inequality between groups of people for the benefit of the powerful
>>and to the detriment of the common good.
>>
>>I think that a large number of alternative ways to begin reducing these
>>borders exist.  I have no personal blueprint for the future.  I do, however,
>>hold a citizen of the world hope that someday these kinds of borders will go
>>the way of the rack and the iron maiden.  As Marc Tool put it in a book I
>>edited:  "Choose Equality."   I would add to that:  by abolishing imbecilic
>>borders. In sum, imbecilic borders have to do with creating and maintaining
>>inequality and the world is riddled with them.
>>
>>Thank you for the chance to share my  thoughts. I thoroughly enjoy reading
>>everyone else's.
>>
>>
>>As ever,
>>
>>
>>Bill Dugger
>>
>>