Hey all,
On the world news today i saw some snippets of Bush’s state of the union address and found it really quite strange. One of them was his “america is addicted to oil”- he then went on to explain that the reason that he needed to assist in the breaking of this addiction was becasue the oil came from unstable states- not that it is contributing to global warming or the destruction of the environment. Bush really does seem to have it out for all “those them middle eastern nations”, who apparently run by unstable durka durka headscalf men.
I wonder when both he and many in American society see that there are different ways to running a country then American style capitalist democracy- where everything is for sale.
It’s the same mentality as in the cold war- it didn’t matter that some of the communist nations were democratic (as in the majority of the population supported socialist ideals) the fact that they were communist at all meant that it was america’s duty to convert them to “the only proper way of governing a nation” (others call it imperialsim).
The words freedom and democracy were inserted absolutely everywhere and have lost meaning- from current American foerign policy it seems to equate to - open for trade and exploitation.
This post may seem a little anti- american but don’t get me wrong, almost all of the american people i have had the pleasure to meet are fantastic people- but i wonder how a government that goes to war, tortures prisioners etc can ever garner enough support to remain in power. For all those that are sceptical just conjure up a little fantasy…
suppose there was another superpower whose ideals contradicted your own. This superpower was so fundementally opposed to American ideals that they invaded your country (with some ass sniffing clingers on of course) deposed your government and took control of your country. Your rebels would not be “terrorists”, rather freedom fighters etc etc. We always need to keep in the back of our heads the knowledge that WE may be the ones that are wrong- and on that note anyone who wants to debate anything from the State of the union address or what i have said go for it.
i feel a little better now,
Mark
the oil thing as far as i can tell is a step in the right direction, though not for the reasons bush stated or the reasons you stated. However it’s not gonna mean any less of an oil dependency, just an attempt to revive us oil, which won’t work.
have you heard of the peak oil idea? look for it on google if you haven’t.
turns out that taking over middle eastern countries and trying to install a stable/friendly government doesn’t work very well. the new plan is to drill up alaska because polar bears put up much less resistance.
Sorry, I was watching American Idol.
Not really, just thought it was funny that apparently more Americans watched that than the President’s speech. Maybe they realized it would be more of the same-old same-old, and not necessarily an indicator of anything that might change.
When a big part of your job is worrying about unstable states, I think it’s okay to think of them as such. Yes, we (the world) need to break our addiction to oil. But the “oil industry” isn’t going to go quietly, unless it’s on their terms. My personal jury is still out on whether the President is more interested in his people or the “stability” of oil. Promises to invest more into research of non-petroleum sources of energy are nice, but actual action is really good.
Unstable yes. Doesn’t matter if they all have the same Constitution as the US, they keep fighting and trying to blow each other up. This is not because of a form of government, or religion, though those can be factors. The situation is generally a lot more complicated. Like a lot of places in Africa. But there’s no oil down there, so “we” don’t seem to care.
I think the goal for Iraq was for it to have some sort of “government by the people.” The US does not overtly want to control this process. How much control is going on behind the scenes is debatable. But I do believe the goal was to turn Iraq into a self-governed ally, in large part to protect their oil supply so we could buy it.
Too bad they have all that oil. If they didn’t it would have saved us, oh, what, half a trillion dollars by now? More? I want to be first in line when a viable hydrogen/fuel cell car hits the market.
I missed the part where we converted the governments of any of the former Soviet republics. During the cold war, the problem was that we had a lot of nukes and they had most of the rest. And wars like Korea and Vietnam were but two examples of the Soviet goal of spreading their form of government to the rest of the world. That would not have been acceptable to me, nor would it to most Americans. The fact that probably most of the poor farmers in Korea and Vietnam probably didn’t care was not material at the time.
I agree with you on the overuse and diluting of those two important words. But free trade does not necessarily mean exploitation. Unfortunately free trade often means the “haves” are better enabled to get more, and the “have-nots” get less. But this tends to be true in most forms of government, including the old Soviet system.
Especially for a second term! Told you so! I voted for the other guy.
It would be a hell of a fight. And maybe we’ve broken our fair share of UN Security Council resolutions by then as well. And been guilty of racial cleansing within our own borders (not counting a long time ago, which we did). And recently invaded our next-door neighbors for their oil (okay, maybe we kind of did that too).
But this country is pretty big and powerful. A tough nut to crack. Uh, so I guess that means we can do what we want. Uh. Hmmm.
At least George W. Bush is consistent. He keeps talking about the same few topics, and doesn’t change direction on them. So he’s predictable. That leaves a lot of other qualities to be desired. 
yeah, I saw a documentary called The End of Suburbia, pretty much about just that.
its a scary thought…
I am not criticising Bush’s descision to invest in research here but his reasoning for it- that oil requires America forking out billions to middle eastern nations (many whom he sees as baing unstable)
The one thing i don’t understand about the Coalition of the willings invasion of Iraq was their lack of forsight into who would be elected in free elections- an Islamic party which would form an Islamic Theocracy (Like Iran). And also that this elected government would be an ally to the West. In this way i very severly doubt that the coalition ever had the wishes of the Iraqi people at heart. An elected government in Iraq could never be democratic and pro American- at least not for a very long time.
After all America did set the Iranians and Iraqis against each other, supplying each suide with weapons to assist in the mass carnage that ensued, and on the whole raped the middle east.
What about the Nicuraguan conflict where funds were channedled through increased defence spending (part of the star wars saga) to a facist minority who brutally killed 60 000 or so civilians. Just as Russia and the soviet union supported the north Koreans in ideology and by material means, America supported the facist dictatorship.
But what about Afghanistan in the 1979 i hear you say, surely that was an act of Soviet imperialism. Surely then Cuba is a close parallel to that situation.
“Those that forget history are destined to repeat it”
This quote i feel sums up bush’s failure as president, on foerign policy at least, (i don’t know anything of american internal policy). Please for the sake of the rest of the world rid your country of this unwavering righteousness and worrying self confidence.
mark