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Originally Posted by powerclown
I worked in a few different places in the city of Detroit, Evergreen & Plymouth Rd (west side), Jefferson and 75 near the Cass corridor. Detroit is a crime-infested, drug infested, bleak, depressing, dirty, dangerous place for anyone to be. I understand there are reasons for these things. I understand there are deeply rooted, unfair, undeserved circumstances that people are born into, and may have no direct responsibility for at all. But there are reasonable and intelligent ways to respond to hardship.
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Fair 'nuff, thanks for answering. I don't know Detroit very well, but I've been working in poor areas of Philly all summer and have had to remove my own stereotypes about what goes on in the ghetto. That's why I asked. I feel that unless one actually goes and experiences first-hand these "scary" areas, facing down that suburban-instilled fear of poverty, it's difficult to really understand what is going on.
I feel similarly about Lebanon; I traveled there last winter, and I can tell you that quite a lot of people did not want to "allow" Hezbollah into their house... but there IS a viable degree of powerlessness. There may be "reasonable and intelligent responses to hardship," at least in one's mind, but to have the material resources and *power* to act them out is often very difficult.
This is in reference to your quote:
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Originally Posted by powerclown
who's fault is that for allowing them into their house to begin with?
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The way you put it, it sounds like Lebanon sent out an embossed double-enveloped invitation with an RSVP for Hezbollah to come into their country. It just didn't work that way. The whole mechanism of how Hezbollah came to power in Lebanon is complicated and cannot be understood by assuming that everyone just "allowed" them in. Yes, some Lebanese allowed Hezbollah, even encouraged them to flourish. But not everyone, by far.
Even now, quite a percentage of Lebanese do not support Hezbollah, but what can they do about it right now? What can they *actually* do? Most of them are hiding in safe places or their basements, waiting for the next airstrike. What can the government do when a substantial percentage of the population is Shi'ia and identifies with what Hezbollah is doing? The whole place is split down the middle... to try and remove one part of that would inflame yet another civil war. (And the US doesn't need to help start another one of those in the Middle East right now, if you ask me.)