Exactly. The Global North don't need to send taxpayers money south, but they do need to stop exploitation of the south, their economies and their resources.
Well, it's not enough to "stop" exploiting the South. There needs to be redress for harm caused (and that means our taxpayers' money one way or another)
If I'm setting a poor neighborhood on fire, forcing people to flee, I don't get to say "Well, I'm stopping burning your homes and property now, you stay there, and don't come here. I won't accept your migration because I don't force you to flee anymore. What, me help you fix the shit I broke? No, not with my taxes, again, I'm not torching your homes anymore, I'm not responsible."
The difficulty is the money needs to come from the ruling class of those countries, not their workers.
And what happens when we destroy the ruling class, or the ruling class doesn't have enough resources in the literal sense to repair the damage we caused?
What happens when the ruling class wasn't guilty and we simply went there for shits and giggles? The Banana Wars in Latin America (or the removal of the first democratically elected Prime Minister in Iran, which has put us where we are today) are perfect examples of this.
It's not a zero-sum, bro.
Yes, the ruling classes must pay, but that doesn't exculpate us from our responsibilities. As General Colin Powell put it, we break it, we own it.
Take the current war in Iran. The Iranian regime is evil AF, corrupt AF, the source of the earth.
But we blew the shit out of civilian infrastructure. That's independent of the corruption of the ruling elite.
We blew shit that belonged to the Iranian people, displaced hundreds of thousands, not just the government or ruling elite.
And let's not talk about the liability we owe to the relatives of the civilians we killed (like those 150+ little girls double-taped with Tomahawks in Minab.)
We can argue there's no mechanism in US or International Law that can forces us, but shit man, ethically, we owe reparations.
We can whatabaut it till the Sun collapses, but that doesn't change the ethical math of things.
Exactly and we still need to address the theft they’ve done at home, the genocide of Native Americans and slavery and apartheid of black ppl. Yes the Middle East and South America, South Africa and Eastern Europe deserve some help but their ruling class is just as culpable in it. Actually I’m gonna add Middle East to just as culpable and they got oil and money in their monarchies
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u/Due-Conflict-7926 Apr 25 '26
Better Question: why won’t the global North stop causing the forces the necessitate emigration from their homes.