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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: lurqer who wrote (23460)	7/27/2003 12:36:57 AM
From: epicure	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

I'm afraid that classifying certain dictators as communist, simply because they called themselves communists, is also pointless. IMO there really has never been a communist leader. There have been dictatorial fanatics who nationalized all the means of production, but they never got any further than that. The dictatorship of the proletariat never really happened- the society simply ossified around a dictator who created a new, and repressive class based society- albeit with new classes having the upper hand. Communism is, essentially, a utopian dream that has never been realized in any state. I don't know whether you thought what I said was obfuscation- but I've always thought the simplistic label of "communist" was obfuscation.

To: lurqer who wrote (23460)	7/27/2003 7:52:31 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

Our Place in the World: Military interventions dangerous, costly ____________________________________ By LAWRENCE D. GREENE GUEST COLUMNIST The Seattle Post-Intelligencer Friday, July 25, 2003 While history does not really repeat itself and the idea that lessons can be learned from it is probably misleading, there are some parallels to the United States' new unilateralism under President Bush about which we might well reflect. Consider the Hellenistic age (from the death of Alexander the Great in 323 B.C. to the beginning of the Christian era) during which the Romans rose from a local Italian tribe to dominate the whole known Western world. They maintained for several centuries the Pax Romana under the Roman Empire. But they did not originally set out to do this any more than the present U.S. leaders would admit they are trying to establish an American empire. Like us, the Romans had overwhelming military power that no other power in the Greco-Roman world could match. Historians think it was just the existence of this disproportionate power more than intention to do so that put the Romans in charge of everything in their world. They overcame the Hellenistic kingdoms set up by Alexander's successors. Jews, Egyptians, Greeks, Syrians, etc., fell under Roman control. This may well be where the United States is headed today; after taking over Afghanistan and Iraq, perhaps Iran and Syria are next. At some point, the intractable situation in Israel may compel us to move in and occupy that country and enforce the peace that diplomacy for decades has failed to accomplish. Additional acquisitions might be North Korea and reoccupation of the Philippines. Based on my experience as an American soldier in the occupation of Japan after World War II, it seems the Republican Party is particularly inept in its handling of the Iraq occupation. I was able to move freely throughout Japan as an occupying soldier without ever being in the slightest danger from defeated Japanese lusting for revenge as our soldiers are now exposed to in Iraq. This was because President Truman knew how to use the existing political infrastructure to control the country, including allowing the war criminal Emperor Hirohito to continue in office. Because of the infatuation of the governing Republican Party with its fanatically held idea of deregulated, laissez-faire capitalism, the United States finds itself in the paradoxical position of having disproportionate power in relation to the rest of the world but with impaired ability to govern because of this ideological peculiarity of its Republican governing class. Obviously, if you hate the very idea of having government do anything, you are not likely to do government well. This is where the Bush administration finds itself now. It cannot administer its conquests because it is so ideologically opposed to the government effort, including the heavy tax burden to do so. However, the Bush bumbling and fumbling record in the job of occupation is much less important historically than the hugely disproportionate U.S. military buildup in relation to the military power of the rest of the world. It is naive to think any leadership elite would ever have this kind of power and not use it to exercise domination over world affairs. Regardless of whether it is the Democrats who are ideologically able to use government or the Republicans who are not, our country is headed toward becoming some kind of world empire. Dwight Eisenhower gave us a "heads up" about this development in his famous farewell address when he warned about the coming of an all-powerful American military industrial complex. The rest of the world is not overly happy with this development, but what about our own domestic American political and economic life? The rise of Roman international power was accompanied by a decline in Roman domestic republican institutions and traditions. A dictatorial figure we call the Roman emperor emerged and ruled with virtually no limitations on his power. Viewed from this perspective, the main question in our current political debates should be: Do we wish to accept the danger to our democratic constitutional traditions of continuing to extend unilateral military interventions that require such a disproportionate level of military capability and expense and threaten our own liberty? ___________________________ Lawrence D. Greene lives in Kent. Submissions for Our Place in the World, of up to 800 words, can be e-mailed to editpage@seattlepi.com; faxed to 206-448-8184 or mailed to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, P.O. Box 1909, Seattle, WA 98111-1909. seattlepi.nwsource.com