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Go Home Non-aligned Movement: Why Do You Still Exist?

THE SPINE JULY 29, 2008

Non-aligned Movement: Why Do You Still Exist?

BY MARTIN PERETZ

Younger readers and even those who are identified (or identify themselves) as baby boomers will not recall the Non-Aligned Movement. Its leaders were Jawaharlal Nehru of India, Fidel Castro of Cuba, Gamal Abdal Nasser of Egypt and Ahmed Ben Bella of Algeria and a whole coterie of other third worlders who were actually aligned with the Soviet Union. What a mess they made of their countries, what an unholy mess! Moreover, it was under their leadership--to which the biens pensants of the West deferred--that international relations turned into a system of moral illusion and economic distortion.Believe it or not, the NAM, as the Movement was loosely called then, is still alive. Moreover, it has over a hundred member-states. According to the Associated Press, the foreign ministers of these governments are right now meeting in Tehran, where the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, addressed them.There were few surprises in his speech, in which he cleaved to the early purposes of the assembly: to ensure "the national independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and security of non-aligned countries" in their "struggle against imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, racism, Zionism, and all forms of foreign aggression, occupation, domination, interference or hegemony as well as against great power and bloc politics."  But even cretins have to keep up with the times. So he criticized the pending indictment of the president of Sudan on charges of genocide, suggesting instead that the international court indict Israel's leaders on the same counts.  This, however, is really old hat.And I suppose so is blaming the West and the United States for the AIDS pandemic.  Still, that's what the nut case of Tehran, following in the footsteps of President Mbeki of South Africa, whose awful domestic and foreign policies will soon be exacerbated by Jacob Zuma, a real thug, which Mbeki, installed by the Rockefeller Foundation, was not.These conferences take time and cost money.  Like Durban II, they are also deflections from the real troubles of the Third World.  The U.S. and the other democratic countries should stop the patronizing policy of indulging states that we help in the poisoned activities of the non-aligned.  If they are really "non-aligned," let them be non-aligned alone and without aid at all.

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14 comments

The  goal of Non-Aligned Movement is to bring down the walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew.

"That is why the greatest danger of all is to allow new walls to divide us from one another.

The walls between old allies on either side of the Atlantic cannot stand. The walls between the countries with the most and those with the least cannot stand. The walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew cannot stand. These now are the walls we must tear down"

- jacobt1

July 29, 2008 at 10:16pm

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Jacobt1 -- one of my best friends drives a Volkswagen. He's also an Obama supporter. Does that make Barack Obama's presidential campaign a Nazi movement?

- rozenson

July 30, 2008 at 1:07am

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rozenson asked:

"Does that make Barack Obama's presidential campaign a Nazi movement?"

I'm glad you've asked. Obama revolution is built on mass hysteria and has some characteristics of a totalitarian  movement.

Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.

There is something terribly wrong with Obama supporters who want to be required   to work.

- jacobt1

July 30, 2008 at 10:54am

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"The  goal of Non-Aligned Movement is to bring down the walls between races and tribes; natives and immigrants; Christian and Muslim and Jew."

Jake, where does it say that?

- boneill

July 30, 2008 at 12:17pm

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"Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed."

So motivational speakers are now Nazis, too. Who are you, Jonah Goldberg? Next you will claim that moustaches are a Nazi weapon?

- rozenson

July 30, 2008 at 12:49pm

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en.wikipedia.org/.../Joseph_Brodsky

In 1963 Joseph Brodsky  was arrested and in 1964 charged with parasitism ("??????????") by the Soviet authorities.

en.wikipedia.org/.../Parasitism_%28social_offense%29

In the Soviet Union, which claimed to be a workers' state, every adult able-bodied person was obliged to work until official retirement. Thus unemployment was officially eliminated; those who did not work, study or serve, risked being criminally charged with social parasitism (Russian: ??????????) and declared an enemy of the workers.

campaignspot.nationalreview.com/post

Barack Obama will require you to work.

How lazy  are Obama supporters that have to be told to work?

- jacobt1

July 30, 2008 at 1:16pm

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Pray tell how exactly is Barack Obama going to DEMAND or REQUIRE people to work that they aren't already doing? Are you equating an Obama presidency with life in the erstwhile Soviet Union?

- wkwami

July 30, 2008 at 2:07pm

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"tell how exactly is Barack Obama going to DEMAND or REQUIRE people to work that they aren't already doing? "

Ask Obamas.

- jacobt1

July 30, 2008 at 2:56pm

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You've really outdone yourself on this thread, Jacob.  Kudos.  

- boneill

July 30, 2008 at 5:09pm

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BOnell,

I can never outdo Michelle.

- jacobt1

July 30, 2008 at 5:57pm

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jacobt1 pulled a dirty trick on us -- he quoted Barack and Michelle.

Have you no shame,  jacobt1?

- sabaka

July 30, 2008 at 7:34pm

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So Jacob, explain to me how Michelle Obama's quote leads you to believe that not working will be a crime under an Obama administration.

Oh, and I think if you were to say "Ask the Obamas," they would respond that what Michelle said means no such thing.

- bigfish

July 31, 2008 at 1:19pm

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I'll accept Obama's summons to Work, provided I can have my own presidential seal: "Ubi est Mea?"

(as coined by that great Chicago realist, The One who shall be evermore named Royko, during the Boss Daley era)

- teplukhin2you

August 1, 2008 at 3:02am

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jacobt1, thank you for the quotes from Michelle Obama. They are real. They are also truly demented and totalitarian. They were never denied or reneged by the Obamas. This way it's clear what's in store. It is therefore very fitting that they should be quoted - the more the better.

- sleepyavl

August 4, 2008 at 11:54pm

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