>>No one stopped the Romans either, and they did go, freely of their own will, when the last dime was spent and
the last over-reach was grasped.<<
Well, actually, the fall of the Roman Empire had quite a bit to do with the Xiongnu, later called Huns, whose attacks on the Germanic tribes in Eastern Europe caused them to flee westward, later uniting them under Attila.
encyclopedia.com
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saburchill.com
>>I think folks belittled Clinton's Oxford sheen too readily.<<
Clinton's world view was shaped at Georgetown and Oxford, but at heart he was an Arkansas cracker in the big city. European world leaders liked him because his world view is similar to theirs, and his inferiority complex made him malleable. He's the type of guy who feels comfortable sitting around an ash-tray covered table talking about ideas with jaded European leftists until three in the morning. He's the type of guy who feels even more comfortable hanging out in a pizza-box strewn office talking about politics with jaded American leftists until three in the morning.
When you dealt with the Clinton administration, you dealt, more or less, with Clinton's worldview.
Dubya doesn't hang out.
Dubya's daddy was head of the CIA during the Nixon administration (!) before becoming President. His granddaddy, Prescott Bush, was a US Senator from Connecticut. His great-granddaddy, Samuel P. Bush, became good buddies with Averell Harriman at Yale. Among Harriman's later accomplishments were being US ambassador to the Soviet Union, governor of New York, and advisors to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, not to mention running for President himself, twice. The Bushs all belonged, as is well known, to Skull& Bones, a secret society at Yale, that only admits those very well-connected to the Eastern Establishment, which, to the best of my knowledge, remains for the most part hostile to leftist ideas, although Averell's widow, Pamela, was a leftie. I think he married her because she was a hottie, not for her brains. She got along fine with Bill, and was much admired by the other establishment, the one that dominates the newspapers and the rest of the media.
If you know the history of US intelligence - by which I don't mean brains - you know that, from the beginning, US intelligence agents were recruited from exactly that background - the Eastern Establishment. Thwarting the global spread of Communism, as you pointed out some time ago, is/was our version of the Great Game.
No, Dubya isn't the type of guy who would fit in comfortably with black-dressed European leftists discussing Marcuse and semiotics, or whatever is the current fashionable topic of discussion. His worldview is different.
Dubya grew up in an environment where you don't show off, unlike Clinton and Gore, who never passed up an opportunity to show off.
But, like Bill, he is a proponent of the New World Order. Like Sergeyev said, "globalization is starting to look a lot like Americanization." |
