One nation, over a cliff...

POSTED BY: SignyM
UPDATED: Wednesday, March 23, 2005 09:20
VIEWED: 7771
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SIGNYM

Friday, March 11, 2005 1:08 AM

I got this article in an email from the Financial Times, hardly a left-wing newspaper. Although the FT is subscription only, the article has raised such a stir that it's been reproduced on a number of websites including this one: www.tompaine.com/articles/the_dispensible_nation.php

I'll quote parts of it here, but I have other points to make so you can read it at the link.

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Rising Powers: How the U.S. Became the World's Dispensable Nation by Michael Lind

In a second inaugural address tinged with evangelical zeal, George W. Bush declared: "Today, America speaks anew to the peoples of the world." The peoples of the world, however, do not seem to be listening. A new world order is indeed emerging - but its architecture is being drafted in Asia and Europe, at meetings to which Americans have not been invited.

Consider Asean Plus Three (APT), which unites the member countries of the Association of Southeast Asia Nations with China, Japan and South Korea. This group has the potential to be the world's largest trade bloc, dwarfing the European Union and North American Free Trade Association. The deepening ties of the APT member states represent a major diplomatic defeat for the US, which hoped to use the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation forum to limit the growth of Asian economic regionalism at American expense. In the same way, recent moves by South American countries to bolster an economic community represent a clear rejection of US aims to dominate a western-hemisphere free trade zone.

Consider, as well, the EU's rapid progress toward military independence. American protests failed to prevent the EU establishing its own military planning agency independent of the NATO alliance (and thus of Washington). Europe is building up its own rapid reaction force. And despite US resistance, the EU is developing Galileo, its own satellite network, which will break the monopoly of the US global positioning satellite system.

The participation of China in Europe's Galileo project has alarmed the US military. But China shares an interest with other aspiring space powers in preventing American control of space for military and commercial uses. Even while collaborating with Europe on Galileo, China is partnering Brazil to launch satellites. And in an unprecedented move, China recently agreed to host Russian forces for joint Russo-Chinese military exercises.

In addition, both China and Russia have signed important deals with Iran: Russia will supply Iran with nuclear fuel and reprocessing, and China signed an oil and gas deal. I think both China and Russia are drawing a line in the sand (so to speak) around Iran.- signym

.... A decade ago, American triumphalists mocked those who argued that the world was becoming multipolar, rather than unipolar. Where was the evidence of balancing against the US, they asked. Today the evidence of foreign co-operation to reduce American primacy is everywhere -- from the increasing importance of regional trade blocs that exclude the US to international space projects and military exercises in which the US is conspicuous by its absence.

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So just for fun I googled up a number of searches: china+ arms+ deal, china+ oil+ deal, venezeula+ oil+ deal... and so forth. (You get the general picture.) What I found was deeply disturbing and a little frightening. It turns out that Bush has got an entirely deluded picture of his world success. South America is already forming coalitions against us, and the coalition includes Venezuela (which is our major source of imported oil, contrary to popular belief, and which has signed a multi-billion-dollar contract with China), Brazil (the largest economy in the region and previously mentioned as a launch point for Chinese satellites), Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Cuba (an important symbol of anti-Americanism).

Just to make things more interesting, I see that Russia is busy taking control of ALL of its oil industry. Exactly where they will funnel the revenues

SIGNYM

Friday, March 11, 2005 2:23 AM

And here we have yet another brilliant, heart-warming move by the Bush administration, guaranteed to push our few remaining allies away:

United States Quits Foreign Inmate Accord

www.cnn.com/2005/US/03/10/vienna.convention.reut/index.htmlWASHINGTON (Reuters) --

The United States has withdrawn from an accord that lets an international court decide disputes over foreign inmates of U.S. prisoners, an agreement used by death penalty opponents in their fight against executions.

The decision followed an International Court of Justice ruling last year that ordered new hearings for 51 Mexican death row inmates because U.S. authorities did not tell them they could consult diplomats from their own country right after their arrests.

The withdrawal was likely to anger Mexico, which opposes the U.S. death penalty, on the day Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice paid a visit to the southern U.S. neighbor...

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If I had ANY doubts at all if Bush was a nutter, those doubts have been laid to rest!

PIRATEJENNY

Friday, March 11, 2005 10:49 AM

These articles are great in the sense that people can get a good look at what Bush is up to and how its effecting the U.S, This administration is speedly charging us down the road of failure

We come off as hypocrites, we can't even talk about human right without coming off as such.

Europe Asia and Russia are pulling together and leaving us out of the loop and can you blame them after what this administration has showed what it will do.

If China decided rightnow that they were going to convert to the Euro or stop trade with us, we would be in big trouble, Economically that country could ruin us and they know it

I was looking into the Euro and I found this article
www.wsws.org/articles/2003/nov2003/doll-n25.shtml which I thought was interesting, its already been said that within the next 10 years that the Euro is going to be the dominate currency

America with the help of Bush's tactics is really bringing this country down..both at home and abroad America is fast becoming a joke

Seeing as how we are the only country that has ever used a nuclear bomb on another country I wouldn't be surprised if we did it again

an

SIGNYM

Friday, March 11, 2005 11:41 AM

I see that the Central Banks decided (about two weeks ago) to reduce the dollar in their "mix" of currencies. You add our overwhelming foreign, Federal and personal debt to the mix, and suddenly the dollar doesn't look like such a good deal.

XENOCIDE

Friday, March 11, 2005 2:50 PM

Actually, a devalued dollar would be good for debtors. Our debts are all set in dollars values and if we borrowed strong dollars and repaid weak dollars then yay for us.

That aside, empires end. Usually, historically, they end badly. I hope ours ends before it is so deeply entrenched as to ruin our nation.

-Eli

If voting mattered, they'd make it illegal.
http://www.bcpl.net/~wilsonr/farpoint.html

AURAPTOR

Friday, March 11, 2005 3:37 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by piratejenny:
These articles are great in the sense that people can get a good look at what Bush is up to and how its effecting the U.S, This administration is speedly charging us down the road of failure

We come off as hypocrites, we can't even talk about human right without coming off as such.

Europe Asia and Russia are pulling together and leaving us out of the loop and can you blame them after what this administration has showed what it will do.

If China decided rightnow that they were going to convert to the Euro or stop trade with us, we would be in big trouble, Economically that country could ruin us and they know it

I was looking into the Euro and I found this article
www.wsws.org/articles/2003/nov2003/doll-n25.shtml which I thought was interesting, its already been said that within the next 10 years that the Euro is going to be the dominate currency

America with the help of Bush's tactics is really bringing this country down..both at home and abroad America is fast becoming a joke

Seeing as how we are the only country that has ever used a nuclear bomb on another country I wouldn't be surprised if we did it again

an

People have had a good look at W, and when put up along side any alternative, they've chosen Bush. W might not be the best answer for everyone all the time, but the U.S. chose him over everyone else. Despite your chicken little claims about what the rest of the world thinks, or what they MIGHT do, things are going quite well here, and abroad.

I find such columns and post as these little more than sour grapes by folks who just can't accept that they lost at the ballot box.

Free country and all that, but that still doesn't require folks to beat a dead horse simply because they can.

" They don't like it when you shoot at 'em. I worked that out myself. "

SIGNYM

Friday, March 11, 2005 4:59 PM

Hahahaha!!! Well, it sure helps to know that at least you haven't lost your sense of humor!

Talk in Japan Shakes Dollar and Treasuries

www.nytimes.com/2005/03/11/business/11dollar.html?th&oref=login

ODDNESS2HER

Friday, March 11, 2005 5:05 PM

"...the U.S. chose him (Bush)..."

You mean the whopping 52% that he had to cheat to get?

HERO

Friday, March 11, 2005 6:48 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by oddness2her:
"...the U.S. chose him (Bush)..."

You mean the whopping 52% that he had to cheat to get?

Sore loser? Naw just a loser.

Vote goes your way, great. Vote goes against you, well it can't be because you lost. Either Bush cheated or the people who voted for him didn't know what they were doing. Lets face it. You hate democracy. You only want to accept results in your favor. America does not work that way...I refer you to the second term of President John Adams as proof (not John Q., John the original, although the 2nd term of John Quincy Adams also reflects my point...as does the Mondale administration and our southern neighbors whose mighty Confederacy recently celebrated its 150th anniversery).

The 2004 election was the simple continuation of a national trend thats been going on for ten years. Thats six election cycles. The Republicans have decisively won 5 of them. The '96 race was a split with Democrats winning the White House but further slipping in every catagory from Congress to dogcatcher.

I think that trend might be ready to reverse...but it hasn't happened yet. Democrats need to divorce themselves from the grip of special interests and the mire of 20th century politics. Red State Americans need health care reform, retirement security, education reform, tax relief, freedom from terror, and a myriad of other things. Republicans address some of these concerns, but their view is limited by their politics. There is no Democratic answer because the Democrats will not address these issues without first dictating a social contract that is unacceptable to red-state America.

Compare the two parties on social issues. Republicans allow internal dissent on gay rights, civil liberties, immigration, abortion, etc. Their convention allows presentations of all sides of these issues. Democrats ban those who dare disagree with the party line on any of the social core issues. Bob Casey, for example, former Democratic governor of PA, and an excellent governor I might add, was barred from addressing the 1992 Democratic convention because he was pro-life. This is the rule and in 12 years there have been no exceptions (although Hillary seems to be making a recent play for the center, she has yet to cross the red line).

H

ODDNESS2HER

Friday, March 11, 2005 7:27 PM

Hero, if I am sore, it's not because I lost or, as you ludicrously claim, hate democracy. The reports of registration fraud, voter intimidation and flipped votes involving black boxes have been well documented (Google "election fraud" "2004 election"). Just recently, a Bush campaigner admitted to harassing Democrats by phone. The exit polls on Nov. 2nd showed Kerry in the lead, yet somehow Bush "won" key states. If you love democracy so much, why aren't you angry that so many of your fellow Americans were not left in peace to vote as they wished?

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