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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: nihil who wrote (33470)	3/29/1999 7:36:00 PM
From: PiMac	Respond to of 108807

Aren't we grand? Really. Don't we step into the breach though there be only some vague future payback? Of course it is right that we keep the best the world has to offer. Of course it is right that we step in when we say it is right, for this world is of our making. Not your making or mine, of course, but some white, male, elderly, wealthy, protestant American. We can continue to muddle through in the care of the world as we have, or we can seek to optimize the process. WWII was a singularity in time not just because we destroyed the most powerful force in the world, but especially because we went back and assured a functioning, prosperous, peaceful society there. The Cold War's ending did not have the same importance: We won; they lost. While we have the 'playground' in order, let us stop playing Most Righteous, and World Cop, and America's Business is Business, and get the jump on what we will soon need. The power monopoly that US holds, historically will not long remain unchallenged. [I'm betting China, with Islam on the outside] Will we begin that era of struggle as we ended the Cold War era, or will we have brought peoples..not just countries..into our culture of charity and reason and inherent rights? Europe is our allies and shares a common culture. Russia, et al, will follow. Then what? Prepare for siege from our servant countries? Or include them with us now! The unrushed, laisse-faire time of sail and stream are over. We must get the remainder of the world at least as far as our own ignorance. That requires proactive contact, not just waiting for them to notice a better way. [per this thread, where is it our most secret and dangerous bio-experiments will be first demonstrated..Boston or Uganda? We ignore them there at our peril--moral as well as survival.]

To: nihil who wrote (33470)	3/30/1999 2:05:00 PM
From: PiMac	Respond to of 108807

Nihil, I hope this is more responsive. [I am unclear how this relates to any previous posting, but for discussion, it is interesting and well presented.] <<One result of colonialism and African slavery is the growing nonwhite populations of the United States and Europe. The growing racial diversity of the rich countries has accelerated, rather than retarded, growth of democracy and human rights in these [the rich countries-pi] countries, making them stronger and more likely to survive and federate economically.>> Is your opening paragraph an assertion that a nation's economic and political stability are more stable, more quickly, more often, because accommodating diverse groups internally somehow facilitates inter-nation exchange and connection? You offer the EU as an example. You suggest the new connections, or federations - like EU, NAFTA - are the successors to a dead or dying colonialism and nationalism. But these Federations aid democracy, while reducing aggression outward and chaos inside. <<The inside-the-federation specialization of national economies>> and <<The give-and-take equitable treatment of members>> <<makes secession less and less likely.>> Do I infer correctly that you see arisen a super-state of these federations comprised of nations? And the armies of the past are now the economic forces between these federations? These forces and federations are unstoppable by older means and by neutrality, no matter the opposing claim's righteousness nor the means they use. The ethnic peoples within the nations, within the federations, now exert economic demands for their cause, even though the cause be for another federation, whereas, before, the demands were more conventionally nationalist. [A non sequitur?] This may be a leap: you seem to end with the assertion that The United States role seems to be prepping the unfederated nations so that they, too, may join and calling on the free world to stop the 'out-of-bounds'. Getting the nation here to agree and the already federated nations - the Free World - to agree what and where prepping is ripe and what is unacceptable, is difficult. My Take, and Where we Disagree. A world without armed conflict is wonderful. But that doesn't mean it becomes a world without aggression. Economic coercion is not as immediate as physical destruction, but it is as ruthless and as imprisoning. The peace of stability hides rigid control, remember Jim Crowe. The economic status quo perpetuates exploitation - banana republics, Nike. Historical anomalies have no 'legal' corrections. Saddam's correcting the British error with Kuwait could have led to the Kurds getting their long overdue homeland. But, economically, 'losing' Kuwait would have been losing a division on D-Day. The right of dissent is subordinate in Cuba to the right of medical care. The freedom of religion in China is superseded by the right to eat. Diversity may facilitate an attitude moderation, but I see the topic as loosely related to the greater post. [Guess we all use facilitating literary devices.] I am sniping. Violence, wealth, reason, anything graspable by the thumb is a tool. Tools are productive and dangerous depending on the wielder. A sword is a plowshare is a sword. The only tool that matters is a human - inside, outside, and invisible. America has always been a marvel in its willingness to share its wealth and to die for its friends. But our record at winning the hearts and minds of another people is dismal, abysmal. [Didn't the missionaries, for God's sake, to Hawaii set up its conquest?] The wilderness is nearly cleared; it is time to build community.