Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Road Walker who wrote (295090)	7/16/2006 1:17:23 PM
From: combjelly	Respond to of 1572942

"An American Foreign Policy That Both Realists and Idealists Should Fall in Love With" Indeed. This is the sort of stuff that Niall Ferguson talks about when he talks about an American Imperialism. It doesn't have to mean the US invading and taking over countries, it means the US doings things like described here. Part of the problem is that Niall is a Brit, so he tends to cast things in the light of the British Empire. But he sees a dire need in the world for a country or countries to provide a liberal framework and coax everyone towards democracy and free enterprise. And he sees the US as ideally suited to do it. For it to work, the US has to keep its own self interest in mind. But, it can't be to the exclusion of the other countries, because it is in our interest for them to have productive economies. The point he hammered on in the lecture I attended was the US needs to have a longer term horizon. Long term goals are a generation or more, not 6-12 months. And, given his background, he thinks the US has worked its way into a precarious economic situation. Not that I am a rabid follower of Niall, far from it. But I think the concept has merit. It is like when we chose to rebuild Europe when we could have done like the USSR did to their territories. It benefits us all.

To: Road Walker who wrote (295090)	7/16/2006 1:55:15 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1572942

Yet idealism has lost some of its luster. Neoconservatism, whose ascendancy has scared liberals into a new round of soul-searching, seems plenty idealistic, bent on spreading democracy and human rights. Indeed, a shared idealism is what led many liberals to join neocons in supporting the Iraq war, which hasn’t turned out ideally. In retrospect, realists who were skeptical of the invasion, like Brent Scowcroft and Samuel Huntington, are looking pretty wise. Much has been made of the neocons' beginnings as liberals. I have always had a hard time believing they were. Any look at history tells you that in the 1960s, it was fashionable to be liberal....I think many people adopted the guise under peer pressure and not necessarily because they were really grounded in liberal principles. There is a kind of 'feel' to liberals just as there is a kind of 'feel' to conservatives. People like Wolfowitz don't come off even remotely like liberals. Furthermore, I don't now of any liberals who joined with the neocons in wanting this war as the author claims. In fact, I don't see the neocons as idealistic. I see them more as egotists who are trying rebuild the world in their/the US's image. Liberals are far too empathetic to step all over another's culture like Bush has in Iraq. And idealism to a liberal is seeing the good in a culture and trying to build on it to make a better nation. Z is a classic liberal. I find the author's contentions to be a bit insulting. S/he looks to be trying to find an acceptable middle ground between liberals and conservatives but I don't think you do that by blaming one side for the problem. And finally, no one will every convince me that the architects of this war......Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush......ever had a liberal bone in their bodies. Neocons may be ~neo but it was the GOP that lapped up their ideology. Now is the GOP representative of the conservatives as well as the neocons......or just the neocons? I think the answer to that question needs to be determined before any of us can go forward. The truth is a lot of Bush's base is very much intact and they are no small splinter group. Their numbers are measured by the millions. Even people like Elroy who claim they didn't vote for him believe in what's he's doing. I'm afraid I find this author a bit glib. In my mind, the Iraqi war has made us all conscious of a major problem in this country. I never knew that there was a large group of Americans who believe that power makes right; that America sits next to God.......if not literally, then figuratively. I think that issue needs to be dealt with before we morph into "progressive realism" or any other ~ism.I think there needs to be a national discussion as to what it means to be American and how we see ourselves in the world. Nations go through soul searching from time to time. I think now is America's time. I am afraid if we don't that 30 years hence we will be right back where we are now.