Zonie63
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Joined: 4/25/2011
From: The Old Pueblo
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ORIGINAL: ermood
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I think people want change every time there’s an election, but oftentimes, it doesn’t appear that the people really have any idea as to what they want the government to change into. I’m sure you’ve seen the political rhetoric over here and how polarized different factions are at the moment. Severely intransigent and entrenched factions can’t agree, so we end up stuck with what we have.
That’s what I meant when I told Meatcleaver that the outside world can’t really help us. The criticisms we hear from the outside world often confuse Americans and seem to rile them up even more.
Indeed, some of the deepest divisions in this country seem to revolve around America’s role in the world, between isolationists and interventionists, between hawks and doves, between America firsters and globalists. That’s been a serious point of contention between different factions in America.
I have a question about something i heard here on the television during the US elections: they talked about that when it comes to forgein policy's, the ruling party needs to follow US intrests... well if its true, then these US policy's will simply never change, wich would mean that this will continue until the rest of the world has enough of the US.
U.S. interests are a kind of gray area. Lots of politicians talk about “U.S. interests” but are generally pretty vague about what they mean. They sometimes mean ideological interests in the sense that we have an interest in defending democratic regimes over authoritarian regimes, which goes back to the old “making the world safe for democracy” mantra which has become a cornerstone in modern U.S. foreign policy.
However, in a practical sense, the term “U.S. interests” seems to refer to economic interests, usually related to some powerful economic faction or corporation. For example, in the Middle East, the big commodity is oil – something quite valuable and something our economy needs to keep running.
As for the U.S. policies never changing, that may be so. Our foreign policies have remained essentially the same since the end of World War II. The world situation has obviously changed, and our policies have adapted. But the basic practice of interventionism in the name of “freedom” (against whatever “anti-freedom” enemy we’re facing) has remained essentially the same. When the policy of Containment was introduced, it was about containing Soviet expansionism, although now, the same policy has morphed into containing terrorism and so-called “rogue nations.” It is believed that if they don’t stop these terrorists and rogue nations, they’ll expand and take over other countries, which indicates that U.S. policymakers are still operating under the old Domino Theory.
The big divide is not really any argument over what are U.S. interests. Both conservatives and liberals would agree in theory that democracy is better than authoritarianism, and both factions would prefer to see democratic governments in this world. But their argument seems to revolve around how far they’re willing to go to support democracy, not over the question of supporting democracy itself.
Likewise, both factions would agree that the U.S. needs oil and other resources to keep our economy moving. Both factions are capitalistic and support globalism and free trade, which would mean that both would have an interest in thwarting any rogue nations or terrorists who would impede or threaten global commerce. But again, both sides would dispute over how far the U.S. should go.
But that’s the reason why the policies (or perceptions of US interests) never actually change and why there’s no appreciable difference between the major political parties. Even if the Democrats might come off as more “peaceful,” they still refuse to change the policies which create the need for international militarism in the first place. They often utilize trite sayings, advocating peace for peace’s sake, but seem conspicuously silent when it comes to offering any solutions on changing US policies and the world so it does become more peaceful.
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Part of the problem here in the U.S. is that no one in power really wants to address the reasons why and how we ended up in this mess in the first place. No one wants to admit that they screwed up, so they point the finger of blame at someone else. That’s typical in politics, but no one can address the problem because then it would mean admitting that both parties have been on the wrong track for decades. They’d be shooting themselves in the foot and tearing down their sacred ideals they’ve held for so long.
So its exactly like it is in Europe;) nobody did anything wrong....
Yep, that’s about the size of it.
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I think that things are probably going to get even tighter in the years to come. This problem has been allowed to fester for so long that I think we’re past the point that there can be any relatively painless solution.
I agree with you here, i guess that this year or the next some European countries will step out of the EU... like Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy, maybe even the UK.
It already went wrong when they installed "laws" inside the EU in wich some countries (like Greece) couldn't even follow them already then... this is how the crisis all began. And becouse nobody helped or said something to Greece nothing happend until it was already way out of control.
The crisis had been brewing for quite some time before any signs started to become visible in the west. We could have heeded the warning signs 30 years ago but didn’t.
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Well, maybe it is just an American thing. I don’t recall if the current Pope said anything about communism or not, but I must confess that I don’t pay much attention to what the Pope has to say.
I was thinking more like Jerry Falwell, Jimmy Swaggart, Pat Robertson, but I’ve also run into some rather fiery local clergy who had very strong opinions about communism. Not all of them are like that, of course.
Well i don't listen to the pope to so... but i don't think he said anything about it.
I guess its just an American thing, never heard a word from such thing over here.
I often get the impression that religion is far more muted in Europe than in the United States.
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Actually, religions and political ideologies are both belief systems, so they do share that in common. I tend to look at religions as organizations which are not unlike political parties.
Yes you're right, they have some things in common, but well maybe its just me but i can't imagine a countrie that would follow any religion in from of laws ect.
Its just way out of time..
But maybe its just me who wants to keep them apart.
I can see it happening in some countries, particularly in cases where the secular government degenerates into corruption and chaos.
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Hard to say. Many communists were atheists who were against religion.
Well look at Russia when the Revolution happend, most of them where Christian Orthodox...
And i don't believe that in China/North-Korea/Cuba/Vietnam live many people that are atheists...
But yet again, maybe its me;) i don't really know wich religion is high at a political view...
Actually, I think those countries are predominantly non-religious and have actively discouraged religion (even though there is still official freedom of religion in those countries).
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But are you suggesting that if the US had better chances of success, they would have attacked? I don’t think I would agree with that.
No, Well that would depend on it, what chance of succes you are talking about...
Back then it would have been a simple chance of 1, maybe 2% that the US would be victorious.
But even at 60% i don't think they would have attacked.
However if the succes chance would be 90%.... they maybe would have.
But we'll never know that...
Well, again, it’s all “what if” at this point.
However, there was a brief window from 1945-1948 when the U.S. had a monopoly on atomic weapons, at which point we could have used that advantage to attack the Soviet Union. We obviously didn’t, as such a thing would be unconscionable, but if we really wanted to, we could have – with a high chance of success and with minimal loss and damage to ourselves or our allies.
Even after the Soviets tested their first atomic bomb, we still enjoyed a distinct advantage throughout much of the 1950s. It wasn’t really until the 1960s that the Soviets achieved parity.
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The main fear was that Russia might attack Western Europe or that China might attack Japan, which would then remove any buffer states and put the U.S. in a more vulnerable position.
I think that never happend becouse both Western Europe and Japan where also buffers for China and Russia, if they would attack and defeat Japan or Western Europe they would stand face to face to an enemy wich they couldn't defeat.
So i think that for both the US and USSR/China it was very importend that these buffers existed, it prevented an full scale/world distroying war.
Looking at it in hindsight, I agree with you. However, at the time, we really didn’t know what our “enemies” were thinking or what they were planning to do. It’s not as if they were very open or honest with us, as both China and the USSR were closed, secretive societies which ostensibly only wanted to flex its muscle and make the western governments shake with fear. Their policies and actions would indicate that they wanted the west to fear them, which is exactly what happened.
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