Comments for Global Studies Review

Comment on India-Gulf Migration: Corruption and Capacity in Regulating Recruitment Agencies* by Jo

Jo — Sun, 30 Oct 2011 10:18:02 +0000

Dear Mary,

Thank you for an excellent article – I am a social entrepreneur based in Qatar, and have been feeling helpless for a while in seeing the issues created by misinformation between these agents.

I have begun to create a solution to this through crowd sourcing information using mobile phones and helping the community share the realities of the placement with others without fear.

Your insights from feild work will be very valuable to at this stage as we design the product.
Jo

Comment on Does Transitional Justice Work? Latin America in Comparative Perspective by Mr. King

Mr. King — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 03:57:41 +0000

Strengthening democracy… Perhaps we should start asking questions about the big picture…

Do we need a Referendum For A New Democracy?

Are you concerned about the future of democracy? Do you feel democracy is under attack by extreme greed in countries around the world? Are you sick and tired of: living in fear, corporate greed, growing police state, government for the rich, working more but having less?

Can we use both elections and random selection (in the way we select government officials) to rid democracy of undue influence by extreme wealth and wealth-dominated mass media campaigns?

The world’s first democracy (Athenian democracy, 600 B.C.) used both elections and random selection. Even Aristotle (the cofounder of Western thought) promoted the use of random selection as the best way to protect democracy. The idea of randomly selecting (after screening) juries remains from Athenian democracy, but not randomly selecting (after screening) government officials. Why is it used only for individual justice and not also for social justice? Who wins from that? …the extremely wealthy?

What is the best way to combine elections and random selection to protect democracy in today’s world? Can we use elections as the way to screen candidates, and random selection as the way to do the final selection? Who wins from that? …the people?

Comment on Global Financial Crisis and Fragile States by Nimref

Nimref — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 04:52:54 +0000

Third World Philippines has been among those gravely hit by the current long recession. As your essay indicates, everyone views such planet-scale problems as the purview of world institutions engaged in human development and world finance. Tragically, only a few experts within such institutions do the thinking and panning out of the massive volumes of funds contributed by world publics through their governments. Yet studies on twenty past financial crises worldwide put the blame squarely on banks, investment companies and financing institutions that engaged in excessive stock speculation and risky lending, using over $100 trillion in world capital for the purpose. Again just a few thousand expert money managers played around with the gargantuan funds. It is perhaps high time for humanity to design new systems whereby most of the world’s expert minds (employee masses) got involved in managing world capital. The internet should become a major tool towards such democratization of finance and investments. Blogs and websites may enable millions of expert groups worldwide to invest ‘affordable capital’ in high-profit model agribusinesses in the 3rd World. Agribusiness (multi-crop farms, managed forests, ethanol distilleries with sweet sorghum plantations, etc.) create regular jobs for Elementary-level 3rd World people while addressing global warming. High profitability develops the desire among local employee masses in their millions to replicate the models by pressuring their government to pass a law that lends capital to thousand-employee groups that set up agribusiness joint ventures with 1st World equipment supplier companies. The subsequent tripling of local capital is a tax-income producing factor that is highly attractive to politicians mulling passage of such a law. Profitable joint ventures also enable increasingly larger shares of 1st World capital to flow to the 3rd World instead of the traditional pittance (just around $200 billion in mainly short-term loans) that money managers throw to ‘maximum risk’ 3rd World ventures. This model developed worldwide should enable the world’s grassroots to gradually gain control over trillions of dollars in stock shares, bonds, bank deposits, and funds recycled by big businesses. World capital largely goes to production and job-creation instead of speculation, which are mere transfers of financial instrument titles from losers to winners. Joint and transparent planning by the joint ventures for world-scale marketing prevents the overproduction and market shortages that create financial crises and recessions. Currently, the internet is democratizing information availability. We should use it to democratize world finance and investments as well.

Comment on The Role of Criminal Prosecutions in Response to Grave Human Rights Violations at the Local, National and International Levels: the Case of Uganda by Stuart Malawer

Stuart Malawer — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 13:04:25 +0000

It’s depressing to see how difficult it is to apply fundamental law to crimes of such magnatude. It seems smaller the issue, more law. Larger the issue, less law. I wonder if there is any possibility of regional law developing here as in other regions.

Comment on Found in Translation by Eileen Duggan

Eileen Duggan — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 22:01:25 +0000

As a neophyte both to the art of translation and to “The Constant Prince” I will nonetheless opine that your interpretation of Muley’s lines gives a far greater sense of the tensions and realities of his situation than does Mac Carthy’s.

Excellent article and thank you for sharing with OLLI members last week your insights into the complex choices facing the translator.