Re: [PEN-L] quotation du jour

[paul phillips]

Sabri, I tend to agree with you except the first clause "our planet is shrinking".  I would argue, because of peak oil and global warming, globalism ("a shrinking  planet") is shortly, if not already, in retreat.  All of those writing in this area argue, I think correctly, that we must retreat into an era of localism.  Indeed, many argue that the US is not a nation state and is too large to be a nation state and should be broken up into a series of regional governments. (Hopefully, this would end the US imperialist design). As a Canadian, I am sympthetic to that argument and, of course, to the  argument that Canada should be broken into a series of regional governments. To an extent that may already be  true. This leads me to this more or less motherhood generalization, that the only meaningful government in the future are the "local" governments covering local/regional socio-economic regions; and regional "confederations" of local governments meaning that confederal positions are based on regional consensus. "National" (whatever that means) interests must  conflate the interests of the local/regional interests.  Thus the nation state must, in essense, become a very local thing. But that means, of course, a very different conception of the 'Nation State'. Our planet is shrinking, common problems like finite energy, global warming, and pollution are going to be key and the old model of competing states seems unsuited for these challenges. I agree with this wholeheartedly. Yet I still support the deployment of the so-called "nation state" against the so-called "globalization" (or should we say "imperilialism" as it stands)to achieve the above objective. Some sort of a "stagism" maybe, but in my heart I believe that this is the way to go. Of course, I have no proof of that this is the way to go. This is just a feeling. Those who are willing to change my feelings are most welcome to give it a try to change them if they care. Since most people who know me know that I am an "anti-globalizationist", or better said, "counter-globalizationist", they find it difficult to understand why I still support the so- called "nation state". Yet I still do since this is the only possible tool to use I can think of to counter "globalization". Any comments? Best, Sabri

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