Where is the TYS model answer?

The UCL "Stop the War Coalition" held a free movie screening of the show Fahrenheit 911 by Michael Moore today. Being the cheapskate guy that I am, I saw a free movie opportunity and thus went along. And I got more than I bargained for. I came out of the movie feeling disturbed and disillusioned just like after reading Fast Food Nation.

I won't say I am pro-Bush, but neither am I as anti-Bush as perhaps say those anti-war demonstrators who seem to be just about everyone I know. He may not be smart and he may not be the best person for the job but I had thought that he did not screw up as badly as many people had thought that he did. After all what the hell would one do when your country got hit by terrorists who aren't afraid of death and just rammed 2 planes into your most prominent building? Surely a show of strength was required? As for Iraq, as a Singaporean, I found no reason not to support the war. From a long term perspective, it was definitely good to remove a dictator who had killed his own people etc. It's only the idiots who refuse to accept that they are no longer protected like it was under Saddam and thus attack American soldiers that slow down the process of helping Iraq. And Singapore did not have to spare a single limb (well of course subsequently we did send people over...) and so I found no reason to oppose the war.

But now, I am not so sure. Moore uncovered some evidence (I should have read those newspaper reports all those months ago...) which had pointed that Bush did receive intelligence reports before the 911 attacks but didn't bother with them. In addition, he seemed to imply that Bush had used the 911 attacks to carry out his long term plans of attacking Iraq to get oil. Even Afghanistan was about oil it seemed. From the view of those American families who had to provide the soldiers (which I had not really thought about to date...a shame being in NS for a while myself...), it seemed as though they had been sent to attack a country which posed no immediate threat to their country and perhaps just to enrich Bush and his aides.

Perhaps what was most disturbing was the issue about size and power again. A lot of Bush's aides were owners or advisors of big companies and it seemed like they all stood to profit from the Iraq war ( I had thought that it was all right last time, but now it seemed to be not so all right after all....I had been under the naive impression that America as a whole stood to benefit from the oil...). It seemed that the whole world was dominated by big bad evil giant corporations, out to squeeze every dollar out of every tiny consumer, spoiling the earth in the process and when space technology is viable, they will take their money, buy the spaceship and get out of earth, leaving the rest of us to breathe in carbon dioxide. Ok a bit extreme I know but you get my drift. But I had been brought up in a world (or at least I thought I had been led to believe our world was like that...) when if you work hard, you will eventually succeed and get rewarded. Not being fleeced and taken advantage of by some obscure economic theory to rip your consumers' surplus. The politicians you elect are supposed to lead your country to help you and FOR you. But the system of democracy in US seemed to have failed too. Is there any system out there which is the "right" one? Is there any religion which is the "right" one? Is there a "correct" point of view regarding Bush, regarding sweatshops, regarding the issues like in fast food nation? How am I supposed to think which can lead to the "perfect" outcome? Exposing more and more of my naivety here....I really don't know what is correct and what is wrong. On one hand it is intrinsic in humans to be selfish and firms to want to maximise profits. On the other hand, they should not be used as excuses for such clearly undesirable outcomes too.

Sigh I may be 21, but my level of maturity and thinking is clearly not 21 yet. If there really is a God up there, be it Buddha, Allah or Jesus, perhaps it is time for him to come down and point out the right direction. To stop the fear of terrorists, to bring the poor soldiers home, to help the underprivileged and to bring the world to 1994 when things seemed so nice and happy.

If only...