Message 1/40 From Timothy C. May We mine the copper they have no money to mine and pay them with worthless trinkets like penicillin, schools, and roads. We are exploiting them. Yep, they are better off in a state of natural grace, eating grubs and with a life expectancy of 35. --Tim May I can't believe I'm hearing this. Buddy can you even READ? Have you forgotten that the Americas was doing fine until the Europeans got there and "civilised" it? Go and read a few books, try "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" - J Dee and then try "Blackfoot Physics" by F David Peat. Roads? Hell the longest tarred road in the world existed in India before the Americas was colonised, I have a list of Chinese inventions made 10,000 years ago longer than your arm. Oh yeah, the average life expentency for a male on the streets of LA is about 35. Then go and read some Chinese history, (Go and read Joseph Needman's history of ancient China.) then try some Arab and Indian history. Maybe that'll give you some idea of who was eating grubs when eh? Anyways who the hell is talking "natural grace" if anything Europe during the Dark Ages is a reflection of a "Western" heritage...and I can't remember when I mentioned that living in a "natural" state was better than being civilised, it's just that you seem to think that the "West" has a monolpoly on "civilisation". Which is pretty damn apathetic considering the access to historic records and books you must surely have. Honetly I'm just astonished that you insist on holding on to these ideas before you'v had the chance to check them out. What are your ideas based on anyways?CNN? I suppose I should know better than to ask, the many times I'v been in the States reminded me of Soviet Russia and the "Iron Curtain", there seems to be a complete news blockout about the rest of the world, enforced because intelligent people like you are content to base your ideas and perceptions of the rest of the world on a mistaken belief that the the universe revolves around the USA. Just to clearify a this. You might not being doing this, but don't lump me as being anti-Western. I was born and live in London in the UK, and there are a huge number of things that the West can be credited with achieving, but on the most part the role of the West, mostly the USA, has been overblown. In the UK and most of Europe there is a much greater understanding when it comes to the rest of the world. Very few, if any, Englishmen today will claim that our past colonial and imperial history is something to be proud of. On the whole it isn't. The only place where these ideas florish are in the USA. Which is a shame. Zaid Hassan