Which people is the one with the short memory? Sorry I didn't have the patience to read the entire document. When I share something that moves me with several dozen friends I do them the courtesy of preparing an abstract or an executive summary. After wading through several pages I was overwhelmed with a sense of irony. Europeans have always sneered at Americans for our short sense of history. For example, we don't give a damn who owned the land we inherited from our grandparents so we can't possibly understand the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Well I don't have much grasp of history either, but dammit, I was ALIVE during WWII. I know how Europe's two strongest nations, Germany and Russia, were as bloodthirsty and as racist as America at its worst. I had family (although distant) who died in concentration camps and in gulags. As soon as the Germans were subjugated and thrown out of the countries they had conquered, the Russians moved in before the citizens even had a chance to hold a free election. To this day the people in the new democracies in Eastern Europe have one common criticism of the New European Order: "You naive idiot bastards reunited Germany! How long now until World War III?" So please, Europeans, get off your soap box. We don't think you're any worse than us because we have no delusions about our own sins. All in all we kind of like you. But we certainly don't think you have the inside word on how to build a happy peaceful loving continent. Our memories may be short, but not THAT short. Come back in a hundred years when the Catholics and Protestants, the Orthodox and the Muslims, the Catholics and the Orthodox, have stopped killing each other's children. When you can call a hotel in Paris and ask, "Parlez-vous anglais?" and they don't yell "Non!" and hang up on you. When you don't see one people (Slovaks) sever its ties to another (Czechs) that look and sound identical to the rest of us, out of national pride, even though they have a GDP of just about zero and the Czechs were happy to support them. When European citizens of European ancestry start treating European citizens of African ancestry better than we do instead of lecturing us about racism. I'll give you one major point: You're way smarter than us about Windows vs. Linux. But all in all, nothing sums up Europe better than the Ace of Base song: "Happy nation, livin' in a happy nation, full of peace and love and brotherhood." Except the whole damn song is sung in a minor key by zombie voices. It sounds like a funeral dirge.
Fraggle Rocker: I've never been an advocate of Cliff Notes. An abstract or summary could be construed as selectively voicing my own personal interpretation and biasing those of others. It is a subject worth the investment of more of the reader's time to read thoroughly and not just skim and wing a response. In that regard, courtesy also is in the preparation.
The only comment I have for the moment is to say that my mistake until now has been in trying to argue with slave moralists on their own terms. Normally I don't try too hard to bring philosophy into politics, but from my point of view they're interchangeable to a large degree. This is a basic comparison of Nietzsche's morality types. Far from comprehensive, and somewhat simplified, but it should give the general idea. http://academics.triton.edu/uc/nietzsche.html
A very good article. I've had discussions/debates along those lines with others concerning power and the tendency to use it when viewed from different levels of strength. The roles have reversed from pre-Great Power levels, when we were the fledgling nation trying to get its legs, and when our own Monroe Doctrine could only be enforced by the Royal Navy because it best suited British interests. And in the modern era, while we have share many common interests with the European democracies, the one constant that held the transAtlantic relationship together was the fear of the East during the Cold War. The Soviet Union may have actually been a good thing for Atlantic democracies.
I find myself upon reflection having somewhat moderated my previously expressed criticisms of European nations -- France and Germany most particularly -- due to an enhanced appreciation for their apparent perspectives on force projection and international rule of law. But I also find that I have not similarly moderated my appreciation for why the US cannot generally afford to permit Europe to define our national foriegn policy for us, and why the UN and the ICC aren't always necessarily in everyone's best interests in all situations pertaining to US foreign policy. In that regard, my opposition to the US voluntarily subjugating its sovereign powers to ICC control and oversight remains unchanged: ICC is a patently bad idea for the US -- European enlightenment to the contrary. Were the US to be contrained by the ICC to the degree desired by the European intelligencia (and who ever believed the ICC wasn't specifically intended from its inception to specifically target the US above all other potential defendants) I an not confident that the new European Renaissance would last very long on its own. If the case indeed has been made by the essayist that the US and Europe continue to need one another in very fundimental ways -- because it is a largely necessary, therefore useful symbiotic relationship that Europe's new political enlightenment could not exist long without and which the US probably can't afford to exist without for its moderating influence and for the additional purpose lent to it in the conduct of its foreign policies -- then I should think that those who believe that US should be so constrained by international influences that it cannot effectively project force beyond its own local horizons are operating according to flawed reasonings, and I would be pleasantly surprised should I see their own views on US force projection moderated to a noticeable degree. Do I think that such will be the case? We shall see.
OK I did read the whole treatise, agreed with most observations but must confess it all blurs into polipsychobabble to me: Use the old neitzschean lens all you want, but political elitism will be impossible as world views become less isolated. As perceptions and economics continue to integrate, nationalism is quantifiably fading. Before a massive gulf yawns between the US and Europe, or some family feud develops, or ever greater wars swallow us up, we're going to simply move on. Scoff if you want- a day is coming when politicos thumb their noses at "those people", even say they're throwing a splendid war, but nobody shows up to seriously participate because "those people" are indistinguishable. I have yet to read a tome by a distiguished expert in political science addressing the staggering changes technology is about to bring. History is accelerating, and may begin to blur a bit for even the most astute observers. I have a hunch that survival will dictate a dominating view that we're in this thing together.
Is it? If all politics is "local", even though there may be a more or less fluid flow of people back and forth across borders -- bringing and taking cultural and ideological influences -- and nations are defined by legal boundries and statutes representing local circumstances/attitudes, will there be a time anytime soon when people on opposite sides of the planet share identical common local concerns, common local statutes, common language, common culture, common political representation, etc.? Theologic memes don't recognize national boundries yet not a single one has acquired complete control/subscription of the hearts and minds of all people of the world. Why should political/legal memes do any better such that nationalism quantifiably equals zero?
..."will there be a time anytime soon when people on opposite sides of the planet share identical common local concerns, common local statutes, common language, common culture, common political representation, etc.? Common political representation? I sure hope not. All the rest? The undeniably historic anti-war protests last weekend proved the trend is active. Language? English won out last century. Political memes evolve faster than theological ones, because reason is not as severely confined. Additionally, the real wave of information-sharing has not yet impacted this planet. That is why political/legal memes are accelerating ahead of theological ones.
Conflicts. Point taken. But it's possible to develop a style of digesting both the points you agree with and the others. I suppose it's a matter of trust. People who know me respect my synopses. There's rarely a document written that can't be shortened by 2/3 and made better in the process. As for nationalism and conflict. This is the second or third time since my rant about the very concept of the corporation keeping Adam Smith turning in his grave, that I've had to relent and say something nice about the "artificial persons." As corporations actually do become as rich and powerful as nations, their goals are starting to compete in the same arena as the nations. In many cases that will probably be a damper on military actions, since corporations don't want their customers to lose their lives or their sources of income. However, this particular impending war has BIG OIL written all over it. Did you see Sunday's Parade magazine? They had a feature on "The Ten Worst Living Dictators." Bush's buddies the Saud family are number 2! Right behind Kim Jong Il but right ahead of Saddam. The fifteen girls who were forced to die in the school fire, because they couldn't get to their scarves and the firemen weren't allowed to carry them, probably tipped the scales. Saudi Arabia is right up there with Iraq's worst crap, because when it all comes down they don't give a damn about anyone's life except their own.
Links? To other than rhetoric as "news", of course. Regardless, oil is only one reason the Bush Administration is taking down Saddam. Oil makes for a simple, easily understandable reason about which anyone (those not posting in this thread) can express an apparently learned opinion while loftier reasons escape their imaginations.
What percentage of the human population of the planet demonstrated? 0.008%? [guessing 50 cities; 500,000 marchers per city; totaling 25 Million people against 6.34 Billion/2 (let's say half being adults and available for marching.] Trend.... Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Ummm ... That's a rather skewed way of looking at it, isn't it, Mr. G? In Oregon, there was once an anti-tax ballot measure that sought to count all non-voting registered voters as "no" votes against revenue measures. Aren't you giving voice to the apathetic and claiming them to express an interest favorable to a presupposed perspective? thanx, Tiassa Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Why should that work only for anti-war demonstrators? Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
