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My comparison with the US was not intended to indicate complacency about the status quo. Your comment about hunger strikes underscores my point. It is completely inappropriate for any citizen of the modern US to express any indignation about the democratic process going on in another country.

In the US we are given a standard explanation about other countries: Women are mistreated there, children and the poor are victims, governments there are corrupt and ineffective, sectarian or criminal gangs run things, etc. We as enlightened Americans are supposed to feel indignant, and we're supposed to support bold action that will free the people in question from their oppressive circumstances, since the people themselves are too dis-empowered to do it for themselves, too clueless to realize they should, etc.

The author's story was strongly influenced by this kind of explanation, right down to the indignation he ever-so-confidently expresses.

This is why I mentioned a few aspects of American society that ought to put things into perspective a bit. If someone is drawn to indignation and feels inspired to allow his life to be motivated by its sharp pangs, he should look closely at the environment he knows most about -- his own city or possibly his own country.

The narrative/explanation above is used to promote meddling in other countries and is a hallmark of neoconservative thought. The problem is that it's horribly misguided and harmful.

I think the more useful distinction between your positions is one of moral relativism vs moral absolutism, rather than neoconservatism vs (any other -ism).

Well it depends on what you focus on. Yes the differences between the two countries are relative. But they are obviously different and so it's not a stretch to realize that.

The noteworthy aspect, in my opinion, is the strong indignation felt by the author which is amplified in its absurdity by the existence of many of the very same problems in the US.

When a person has seen only a single sociopolitical system, it is easy to just shrug and say "it just is this way.". It is often only after seeing the totally different systems active in other societies first-hand that it becomes brilliantly clear that not only are the wrongs back home unacceptable, but that the other society you have found also possesses its own share of injustices that the locals are indifferent to. It is not wrong to be enraged at the suffering and petty evil everywhere. It is simply uncommon and stressful to try to do something since a single individual's effort may seem like that of an ant.

True. That is a good point.

Western countries have merely professionalised corruption. Give a politician 10 lakh rupees in a brown envelope and it's a symptom of corruption, but donate $100,000 to his campaign funds and it's the sign of a healthy democracy.

Here in the UK, we are investigating massive corruption in the banking sector, the press and government. Every day we are seeing new revelations from the Leveson Inquiry on press ethics, or the Treasury Select Committee on banking. It would take a great deal of hubris to make any claim to the high ground.

Strictly: campaign donations are a legal transaction, though previously in the US the limits were set far lower. I'd strongly recommend you read Lawrence Lessig's Future of Ideas and Republic Lost in which he first develops and then greatly expands the nature and scope of corrupting influences of money in the US, particularly in politics.

A difference of degree remains a difference, if only of degree. That said, independent third-party assessments of corruption such as the Corruption Perceptions Index as of 2010 hold the US (7.1) rather better than India (3.1) (the index uses a 10 point scale). There's room for improvement for both nations. Notably, the US is comperable with two South American countries, actually falling behind Chile (7.2) and just ahead of Urugay (6.9).

Topping the list, New Zealand and Denmark (tied at 9.3), and Finland and Sweden (tied at 9.2). Worst? Somalia (1.1), Myanmar and Afghanistan (1.4), and Iraq (1.5) (So, how's that regime-y change-y thing going for ya, Sarah?)

http://www.transparency.org/cpi2010/results

"People are holding hunger strikes to stand up against the corruption. When was the last time that happened in the US?"

The last major one was July 1st, 2011 in the California prison system.

Not sure why this is being down-voted. The over 2 million Americans that are imprisoned do count as citizens, and the prison system is as corrupt as they come, from cases of judges being paid by private prisons(1) to give harsh sentences to minors to the blind eye given to assault and rape behind bars(2).

(1. http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/peopl...)

(2. http://www.hrw.org/news/2007/12/15/us-federal-statistics-sho... )

Very true. The US prison system is on equal footings with the worst gulags of history.

Now that is a serious exaggeration, and an unproductive one as well.

What percent of your lifetime income / net worth would you give up to avoid a 6 month term in a maximum security penitentiary?

A smaller percent than if it were the actual Gulag?

Ok fair enough, but considering that gulags are known to us via old propaganda stories and prisons are part of the modern human rights (intellectual) blind spot that most affluent western people suffer from, it's not surprising that you consider them drastically different.

In my opinion, the notion of almost certain rape and being locked into a cell with a violent individual in a system where violence is tolerated is about as cruel a punishment as one could possibly inflict. The worst psychological torture combined with brutal physical subjugation.

Going to take a wild guess here, and speculate that you haven't read any Solzhenitsyn.

I have not. I realize there are things that are more horrific on a larger scale of human suffering, but for the individuals involved at a micro level the US system is cruel and unusual to the extreme.

While I don't disagree with the validity of your statement, I feel like you are splitting hairs... I was mainly using that as a demonstration of the relative differences in corruption between the two countries.

how does that justify having the poor out in the open begging for a living?

What would you do? You can't magically produce houses, schools, hospitals and other basic infrastructure to service several hundred million people. Forget that, I doubt you could engineer an efficient distribution system that just provides these people with nutritious food. Keep in mind these people are distributed across a fairly large country, belong to many different religions and speak hundreds (possibly thousands) of different languages. The majority of these folks are illiterate, and the overwhelming majority have no education beyond high school.

If you think you have a good solution to the problem, I am all ears, because I've been thinking about this for a long time and I can't see one.

I never promised a solution. I'd completely agree with you that it is a hard problem.

Just because I don't have a solution doesn't make the fact that having the poor, out in the open, begging for a living any less "bad".

Efficient food distribution is an interesting topic with respect to India - Mumbai has an industry based around moving food from affluent workers' homes to their place of lunch and back again, moving 200k meals a day. Even more interesting is that the workforce is largely illiterate, yet the failure rate for delivery and return is amazingly low.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dabbawala

this is a very good point, but remember that there is an economic incentive for this system. The people using the services are the ones paying for it. If the govt. tried to implement such a scheme in, say, a village, the guy in charge of disbursing the money wouldn't do it, he would keep it for himself. The villagers, meanwhile, don't even know of the existence of this scheme.

I agreed with most of your post except for this point:

Doesn't mean it's alright for people to live in a shelter of NEWSPAPER.

Why isn't it alright? Honestly, if it's adequate shelter, why isn't it alright? I'm trying to think of some reasons, and I figure it has to do with inability to withstand rain and wind, effects of rot and mold, lack of security, or who knows what. But then I keep going back to the word "adequate". What does this mean? Does adequate mean these problems actually don't exist, and therefore it's adequate? Or is there a different level of what is considered adequate in the gp, compared to what I think is adequate?

You can't just come out and say that it's not alright for people to live in a shelter of newspaper just because it's newspaper. You need to have reasons for it. And if it is indeed adequate, I can't think of any reasons why I would dislike living in a shelter of newspapers. In the same manner, I cannot think of any reasons why I would dislike caves in western China, huts in the Amazon, or igloos in the Yukon. If it's a matter of getting proper Internet, well, let's just assume that if I'm living there, I must have chosen to forgo some luxuries. For example, many missionaries throughout history easily decided to go native and live like the people they were trying to reach.

I need to understand the details behind your point.

Maybe "alright" wasn't the correct phrasing.

I meant something more like: "Just because people can live in a shelter of newspaper, doesn't mean it's okay for that to be their only resort against the elements."

You're assuming too much. It's not adequate shelter. You'd get sick living in a shack in an indian slum or in a hut in the amazon without modern medicine plus expensive and time consuming precautions--precautions a slum dweller can't take. Read up on public health in slums, particularly slums in the tropics.

"many missionaries throughout history easily decided to go native"

Err, no. Missionaries (as well as soldiers and merchants) used to have crazy high mortality in the tropics.

I'm not assuming anything. I'm questioning what is the definition of adequate here, because whatever is the definition will determine whether or not I agree with the original statement.

Whether or not those housing conditions lend themselves to proper sanitation or not, missionaries decided to go native in spite of the high mortality, also knowing the mortality rate of their peers (until modern medicine came about to make things like malaria a much smaller concern). I don't see your point. Missionaries had a crazy high mortality in the tropics? So what? It didn't stop their decisions to go native. And they certainly didn't have a crazy high mortality rate after the arrival of modern medicine. What are you saying no to?

> When was the last time that happened in the US?

1960's.

No hunger strikes AFAIK, the 99% occupiers are our cultural equiv.

The 99% occupiers are a form of cargo cult. Sans a clearly defined specific goal it resembles pantomime. Soak the rich is not sufficient.