Third-World Definition

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Please bear with me, the problem isn't completely resolved.

Following is an explanation of third world. You may find it interesting.

Third World is a term originally used to distinguish nations that neither aligned with the West nor with the East during the Cold War, many were members of the Non-Aligned Movement. Today, however, the term is used to denote nations with the smallest UN Human Development Index (HDI) in the world, independent of their political status. These countries are also known as the Global South, developing countries, least developed countries and the Majority World in academic circles.

Development workers also call them the two-thirds world and The South. Some dislike the term developing countries as it implies that economic development (industrialisation) is the only way forward, while they believe it is not necessarily the most beneficial. The term Third World is also disliked as it implies the false notion that those countries are not a part of the global economic system. Some note that the underdevelopment of Africa, Asia and South America during the Cold War was influenced, or even caused by most powerful nations of the time; these nations could largely be divided into capitalist states in the west on the one hand, and communist states in the east on the other.

Noting that some of these countries have been left behind by economic globalization, some writers use the term Fourth World to refer to the poorest of these countries, which lack industrial infrastructure and the means to build it.

Many "third world" countries are located in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. They are often nations that were colonized by another nation in the past. The populations of third world countries are generally very poor but with high birth rates. In general they are not as industrialized or technologically advanced as the first world. The majority of the countries in the world fit this classification.

The term "third world" was coined by economist Alfred Sauvy in an article in the French magazine L'Observateur of August 14, 1952. It was a deliberate reference to the "Third Estate" of the French Revolution. Tiers monde means third world in French, but in the sense of "one-third" -- it does not mean "third in rank" (which would be troisieme monde). The term gained widespread popularity during the Cold War when many poorer nations adopted the category to describe themselves as neither being aligned with NATO or the Warsaw Pact, but instead composing a non-aligned "third world" (in this context, the term "First World" was generally understood to mean the United States and its allies in the Cold War, which would have made the East bloc the "Second World" by default; however, the latter term was very seldom actually used).

Leading members of this original "third world" movement were Yugoslavia, India, and Egypt. Many third world countries believed they could successfully court both the communist and capitalist nations of the world, and develop key economic partnerships without necessarily falling under their direct influence. In practice, this plan did not work out quite so well; many third world nations were exploited or undermined by the two superpowers who feared these supposedly neutral nations were in danger of falling into alignment with the enemy. After World War II, the First and Second Worlds struggled to expand their respective spheres of influence to the Third World. The militaries and intelligence services of the United States and the Soviet Union worked both secretly and overtly to influence Third World governments, with mixed success.

The dependency theory suggests that multinational corporations and organizations such as the IMF and World Bank have contributed to making third world countries dependent on first world countries for economic survival. The theory states that this dependence is self-maintaining because the economic systems tend to benefit first world countries and corporations. Scholars also question whether the idea of development is biased in favor of Western thought. They debate whether population growth is a main source of problems in the third world or if the problems are more complex and thorny than that. Policy makers disagree on how much involvement first world countries should have in the third world and whether third world debts should be canceled.

The issues are complicated by the stereotypes of what third world and first world countries are like. People in the first world, for example, often describe third world countries as underdeveloped, overpopulated, and oppressed. Third world people are sometimes portrayed as uneducated, helpless, or backwards. Modern scholarship has taken steps to make academic discourse more conscious of the differences not only between the first world and the third world, but also among the countries and people of each category.

During the Cold War there were a number of countries which did not fit comfortably into the neat definition of First, Second, and Third Worlds. These included Switzerland, Sweden, and the Republic of Ireland, which chose to be neutral. Finland was under the Soviet Union's sphere of influence but was not communist, nor was it a member of the Warsaw Pact. Austria was under the United States' sphere of influence, but in 1955, when the country again became a fully independent republic, it did so under the condition that it remained neutral. None of these countries would have been defined as third world despite their non (or marginally) aligned status.

With the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, the term Second World largely fell out of use and the meaning of First World has become extended to include all developed countries. By the end of the Cold War, the term Third World had shifted in English from its original meaning and became a synonym for infrastructure-poor countries. The term "Fourth World" came to denote to countries (such as Afghanistan) with almost no industrial infrastructure to speak of, or as a synonym for "least developed countries", as opposed to Third-World countries that are partially industrialized. Heavily industrialized states that were formerly communist are simply called "former communist countries.

"There is nothing puzzling about America's gratuitously aggressive foreign policy. What an aggressive foreign policy accomplishes by slow degrees, a state of war accomplishes in a trice. Overnight [war] kills reform, overnight it transforms insurgents into traitors and the Republic into an imperiled realm. Overnight it strangles free politics, distracts and overawes the citizenry. Overnight it blasts public hope."

Walter Karp

Congratulation, Rick Scott!

November 5, 2010 Email msg. To Rick Scott:

Congratulation, Rick Scott! Tell me, have you made your millions by bilking Medicare and Medicaid?

He was elected Governor of Florida! I swear those people should not be allowed near the voting machines...or whatever they are using down there to make a pretend election.

Oh yeah! Of course he is a Repuglican.

Corporate-controlled Media

Regarding Jon Stewart's rally, mainstream corporate-controlled media's conservative bias becomes glaringly evident, proving in fact that "liberal media" is a conservative ruse, an out and out lie.

The Sunday morning political shows didn’t have any coverage of Stewart’s rally. There wasn’t a mention of it. But when they went to commercial break, they showed a dozen Tea Bagger counter-demonstrators.

Conservative, complacent and complicit, that's Mainstream Corporate-Controlled Media in the United States of America.

Ethics and credibility are dead in America---especially on the conservative side of politics. Secretive Republican donors plan ahead. Mr. Koch waives a $1,500 registration fee. Guests on political shows have included Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court, Gov. Haley Barbour and Gov. Bobby Jindal, Senators Jim DeMint and Tom Coburn, and Representatives Mike Pence, Tom Price and Paul D. Ryan.

Greed is insidious and will find it's way into every aspect that affects our lives in America. "Justice Scalia infamously refused to recuse himself from a suit against Vice President Dick Cheney even after it was revealed that Scalia and Cheney went on a duck hunting trip together during the pendancy of Cheney's case.

Scalia also came under ethical fire when he skipped Chief Justice Roberts' swearing in ceremony to attend a junket to a Ritz-Carlton resort funded by the right-wing Federalist Society; and Thomas accepted more than $42,000 in free gifts in just six years on the Supreme Court."

Any questions here, "The two justices' attendance at these events raises serious questions about whether Scalia and Thomas are deciding cases impartially - or whether they are pushing the same agenda as all the Koch event’s other attendees." It can only be answered with, "If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck", if it looks unethical, sounds unethical, then------!

This says it all. The story of the state of the union in America today, is thanks to the Repuglicans and the secret money that supports them. Robert Reich recently summed up the state of working people: “They’ve lost their jobs, their homes, and their savings. Their grown children have moved back in with them. Their state and local taxes are rising. Teachers and firefighters are being laid off. The roads and bridges they count on are crumbling, pipelines are leaking, schools are dilapidated, and public libraries are being shut. Why isn’t government working for them? Because it’s been bought off. It’s as simple as that."