Saturday 17 November 2007

Trends in global politics

Following on from my Open Letter to Yankee Doodle, there’s an interesting discussion happening on Richard’s Gatwick Forum about the likely shape of a post-UN, post-US ‘full spectrum dominance’, new world order. The question was asked whether Americans realise that their present policy of seeking to impose their will by military force is bound to fail – indeed, has already failed. Richard expressed the opinion that they do realise it, but are unable to admit it. I disagree, for the following reasons:


“You say that 'they' already realise their war ['on terror'; for 'full spectrum dominance'; or whatever] is lost - but I'm not sure they do. 'They' - the men [it's nearly all men] now running the USA in government and business - are mostly aged between 40 and 70. They have never known a time when America was not 'top dog'. They cannot conceive a state of affairs in which their will, if they are determined enough, does not ultimately succeed. They are in denial over the actual situation - it is even said that 'reality based' assessments are not welcome in Bush's Washington, which is ruled by conviction, hunches, and prayer meetings. It is all delusional, and the delusion is not confined to the current administration - the notion that the next presidential election will resolve things for the better is another false dawn, because the US electorate are not sufficiently awake to the actual situation they face.


“As I see it, the trauma of the 9/11 twin towers atrocity has deranged and derailed world politics. It was greeted as a 'wake up call', but its actual impact has been the opposite - to send those controlling US policy into sleepwalking mode. Whoever engineered that catastrophe - whether bin Laden, Mossad, or a neoCon 'inside job' - has scored a brilliant victory by exacerbating world tensions and conflicts, as they obviously intended. Immediately after 9/11, the USA enjoyed the sympathy of the whole world. They could have mobilised international backing for an effective razor-sharp police operation against the group of terrorists whom they boastfully swore to bring to justice [and haven't]. Instead, they made a 'category mistake' and launched military operations first against Afghanistan and then, much more foolishly, against Iraq which had the effect of arousing the hostility and anti-Western sentiments of the entire Muslim and Middle Eastern world. We now have a situation where, because of fear of the impending consequences of terrorist and military escalation, more and more people, politicians, and countries are succumbing to angry paranoia and hurling threats and hatred at one another. So-called 'peace initiatives' are merely a facade, because hardly anyone in positions of power genuinely wants them to succeed. Everyone wants 'victory'.


“Unless the great majority of the world's population, who are peace-loving, can assert themselves against these crazed maniacs, I fear the worst. It's symptomatic of our weakness that so far, fewer than 50 people have signed the - entirely apolitical - global petition against violence which some of us launched on the internet six months ago. What has happened to the sane, moderate, democratic, peace-loving solid centre in national and world politics? At the moment, it is nowhere in evidence.”

6 comments:

Bodwyn Wook said...

THE Self-adorative humbug & BS by which men live....

YOU Know, from the time of Erik the Red and Leif Eriksson, there was a settlement of Viking farmers in Greenland. They clung on until maybe the 1470s, or God-damn near 500 years, more than twice as long as these US hairpins have been exploring the ecstasies of Increasing Nuisance....

LIKE The Americans of to-day, too, those Greenlanders sure as Hell had to have felt like it was "forever" and "a done deal!"
Well, then they got their asses done in too...by global COOLING. The sonofabitch froze up colder than the hubs of Hell, and them Eskimos come down over the ice and paid the dirty pre-Lutheran bastards back for a LIST of remembered Rapes & Other Gripes, so I'm telling you, Boys, so far this America-business is just another God-damn flash in the pan -- and you know them Chinamen are going over THEIR lists everyday....

JESUS Chrsit, USE yer God-damn heads fer once.

Jose said...

As I see it, Anticant, you are absolutely right in your considerations. What has happened to our contemporaries that they cannot distinguish wrong from right? And if they do, why don't they act in consequence?

anticant said...

It's not merely that they have lost their moral compass and cannot distinguish wrong from right. They cannot distinguish between reality and fiction. They live in a world of dreams and fantasies, backed up, alas, by nuclear weaponry and economic greed.

Until the Americans come to their senses and recognise that their current ways of living and behaving are untenable not just in the long run, but in the short term, things are going to get worse and worse.

Bodwyn Wook said...

IT Is a "must do" not only for these decerebrated Yanks to give up their hocus-pocus, you know...there is this God-damned EU flummery, too, with hordes and gangs of Yer-A-Peeins toiling in the pisshouse & paying taxes in relays to Professional Misadministrators & Trained Liberals in Bruxelles! Overcentralized Essholes ARE constipation-cases, in ALL cases and all PLACES. NO mere human being full of fasle Darwinian cheer and no Sunday School can resist for long the "big power" BS. Here, personally, just soon as some sonofabitch rolls up who can offer a believable political case to take Minnesota and West Wisconsin, Greater Iowa & Hither Dacotah OUT of the God-damned "federal union" I'm all ready to sign up. The ONLY hope for Democracy is localitiy, locality, locality, and "---- The Government!" is the only intelligent slogan for any thinking man & woman, Grandpa Wook!

PS: ---- The Government!

anticant said...

The last Secession sparked off your Civil War. And although I support local autonomy and federalism as a good principle, it doesn't always operate harmoniously - witness the former Yugoslavia.

anticant said...

Now, now, Emmett, you'll be getting me sticking up for the better natures of Cheney and Rove next!