I agree with your posting.
Until
"But the good things that the US can do seem to me to hold out much promise for being able to do good things in the future, in spite of the Bush/Crusade/Empire nonsense, and I would like to point us toward trying to make it so. The US is enormously wealthy, enormously talented, and immensely ignorant. A virulent intolerance is sweeping our country right now."
I think we have to keep in mind that there was an attack on mainland US. As
though Pearl Harbor happened in downtown NYC.
Pearl Harbor may have been necessary, but I think it helps to appreciate that it was the Japanese response to the U.S. attempt to strangle their economy by cutting off their oil supplies.
Perhaps there never would have been a Pearl Harbor had not Admiral Dewey shown the Japanese the writing on the wall. Unlike just about every other backward society, the Japanese were able to get their act together to stand up to the Imperialist aggressors.
And, anyway, who is to blame for Pearl Harbor? The Japanese who tried it, or the Americans who were asleep at the wheel? Or, on a somewwhat less flattering view, the Americans who had been given a soporific by FDR so they would not see? The real infamy was not from Tokyo but from Washington D.C. For we should expect our enemies to try to do us harm....
I repeat my contention that, while there is so far no evidence George W Bush is an alQaeda operative, Osama bin Laden could not have hand-picked a "better" U.S. president, since anybody more useful to his cause would have been arrested and removed from the White House and thereby cease to be of any "help". Fortune favors those who prepare themselves for it (or however the chiche goes.
"911" might never have hapened had American workers not been so well conditioned to please their bosses and, pursuant to that exigency, to ignore the obvious
Remember Johnell Bryant! (the U.S. Dept of
Agriculture official who had a long interview
with Mohammad Atta several months before 911,
and who, even after the fact, could not imagine
anyone could have suspected this person
who, in the interview, threatened to kill her,
might do something like fly a plane into
an American office building). Bush should
appoint this lady to replace Colin Powell!\brad mccormick
Not a conventional attack but
a terrorist attack by unknown shadowy figures.
A wounded giant tries to strike back in all directions. Geared up conventional war the US doesn't quite know what to do.
But there is a war going on. Not with a nation state but with a network. A
network of terrorists.
Let's see how things play out.
The US couldn't walk away after Pearl Harbor and it can't walk away after NYC.
arthur
-----Original Message----- From: Lawrence DeBivort [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, August 30, 2003 2:54 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: RE: [Futurework] Will Bush become a Shia Moslem? Glass half-full or glass half empty?
Hi, Brad,
I agree than the US role in the world since WWI has been a mixed bag; my only point is that the US has done well in several important situations, and could do even better if it put its mind to it. Examples:
The Marshall Plan. Behind the scenes diplomacy between Greece and Turkey. reconstruction of Japan. Effective countering the UK/French/Israeli invasion of Egypt in 1956, and support for the nationalization of the Suez Canal. termination of the Panama Canal Lease. Significant aid for approximately. 80-110 countries for humanitarian, social and economic purposes. International fountain of technology and science. Host to hundreds of thousands of foreign students. Major supporter of the ILO's efforts to bring industrial and maritime safety to all countries. Etc.
Yes, you will probably assert that we could have done better in many of these areas than we did do -- no argument. But let us recognize what the US HAS done well, and give it credit for doing so.
And yes, we have our embarrassments big and small -- Arbenz and Mossadegh being but examples -- and have done much harm, sometimes deliberately, sometimes out of ignorance or naivete.
But the good things that the US can do seem to me to hold out much promise for being able to do good things in the future, in spite of the Bush/Crusade/Empire nonsense, and I would like to point us toward trying to make it so. The US is enormously wealthy, enormously talented, and immensely ignorant. A virulent intolerance is sweeping our country right now.
We have much to do.
Cheers, Lawry
-----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Brad McCormick, Ed.D. Sent: Sat, August 30, 2003 12:52 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Futurework] Will Bush become a Shia Moslem? Glass half-full or glass half empty?
Lawrence DeBivort wrote:
The US (or some its policy leaders) may have taken on the role
of Empire,
but it is not a role that the world wants us to take on, nor,
do I and a lot
of other Americans want to take it on. So we made a (big)
mistake. OK, let's
admit it and get back on the right path. It is utterly stupid
to compound a
mistake by 'doing it harder.'
Yes, the Bushies are spin-masters -- so let the spin masters apply their talents to putting the best face on it. I can, by the way,
think of several
easy AND legitimate ways of explaining to the world the many
and very good
reasons for the shift in direction. I think the result is that the world would feel a whole better about the US and its future impact in
the world,
and that the world would be a far better place for having an
America that
eschews Empire and embraces tolerance and respectful living.
The extremists
out there would be left without much of a cause against the US,
and the US,
after some specific further fence-mending, could resume to generally positive role it has sought to play since WWII.
What "generally postiive role" -- unless one means taking positive action to help reactionary regimes all over the planet.
Sure the U.S. has done a lot good after WWII. But haven't we done a lot of harm, too? A couple names that I seem to remember from D.F. Fleming's _The Cold War and its Origins_ are Arbenz and Mossadegh (sp?). Do I misremember?
But I do not believe moral judgment is necessary before the punishment is meted out. I do not want to catch the drug-resistent tuberculosis the U.S. has helped to flourish in the breakdown products of the former Soviet Union.
Tear down that wall!
That man once tried to kill my dad.
In the long run, Bush2 may prove to have been the lesser disaster because he focused on a pettier objective.
\brad mccormick
-- Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----------------------------------------------------------------- Visit my website ==> http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
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--
Let your light so shine before men,
that they may see your good works.... (Matt 5:16)Prove all things; hold fast that which is good. (1 Thes 5:21)
<![%THINK;[SGML+APL]]> Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED] ----------------------------------------------------------------- Visit my website ==> http://www.users.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
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