We interrupt your regularly scheduled program...
So, it’s been quiet around these parts because I’ve just been too busy, too stressed and not really inclined to write for awhile.
So, what I’m going to do is start going through the drafts queue of the blog and emptying everything out. Getting all those unfinished thoughts and bits out and into the interwebs because you know I just shit jewels baby! JEWELS!
Anyway, this is from 2006 (wow five years!)
One has to question our motives but at the same time I often get a sense the U.S. is like the clingy friend in the community of nations that will go out of its way to make sure the other nations like it. Even to the point of doing something that is self destructive.
And we really have to remember that because there are times when our own interests as a country are not served by putting another nations interest before our own.
Things are changing around us all the time but people don’t recognize trends in history until they are well past them. There have been a lot of things going on in the last year, a lot of things I truly believe are pointing to the underpinnings of our society and how weak the foundation that society is built on. You see different facets of it, different players in the conflict that will take place coming onto the stage and introducing themselves but you have to wonder where they will be positioned when the dust settles and who the victor will be.
And right not I’m speaking purposefully in the vaguest of terms because what I have to say would be better put off until another day. Needless to say there is a conflict brewing on the horizon, you are seeing it in the demonstrations that happened across the Middle East, you are seeing it in the economic calamity that is happening right now across Europe, you are seeing it in the demonstrations that recently took place in England and you are seeing it in the formation of the Tea Party. Lots of different agendas bubbling up across the globe pointing to a desire to change the status quo. It’s happening now, the signs are there but I can’t predict what will happen next.
So, it’s been quiet around these parts because I’ve just been too busy, too stressed and not really inclined to write for awhile.
So, what I’m going to do is start going through the drafts queue of the blog and emptying everything out. Getting all those unfinished thoughts and bits out and into the interwebs because you know I just shit jewels baby! JEWELS!
Anyway, this is from 2006 (wow five years!)
Apologists and you.
I try to read a healthy amount. Most of my reading isn’t what one would could attest to the most prestigious of sources but I still make the attempt nonetheless. I grew up in a family and environment where reading was encouraged and I find it is something which has served me well through time.
I like picking up both of the New York tabloids each and every day. Each comes at the world from a slightly different vantage point even if tabloids are held in the highest regard. There’s also the Village Voice which I enjoy picking up when I have the occasion. Along with these print media outlets, there are a smattering of blogs and different online news sources I read on a regular basis too. Finally, I watch the news fervently, having no allegiance to any source, it’s more about soaking up the information wherever it comes from. Oh, and NPR, let’s not forget the wealth of great shows on NPR I love too.
Aside from the NY Post and Fox News neither of which I bear a fealty to and admittedly sources I view with a bit of reservation given their editorial leanings - the news as it comes to me does not come from outlets in lockstep with the views of our current administration. Neither do they share the views of my party of record.
I don’t proscribe with blindly falling in with the party line, it never made sense to me.
One thing I have noticed and have commented on in the past (and will continue to do so) is how news, events, and rhetoric is painted in the most starkly black and white terms so as to be the most incinidery and the most divisive. Once again, I will issue my caution, if you are going to engage in any kind of dialog with me, if you even begin to want to convince me of your argument, you had better do it without falling into the easy ploy of absolutes. Once political bigotry starts spewing from your orifice, everything issuing forth thereafter lessens in impact and significance because you have already made it known you are a propagandist.
Case in point:
The perception of our country in some quarters of the world. Among all the things I read is a continuing litany of the failures of our foreign policy. Once again, people around the world seem to like us as people but hate the steps our government takes. Even if a large segment of our own population isn’t in agreement with the government’s actions, the media and populace in other countries cannot resist the urge to point out our failures, to question our judgement and to harp on our shortcomings.
Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of material coming from certain parts of the European community commenting on what failures the US has blundered through over the last half of the decade.
Why am I not surprised?
Well, I remember a time when there were these enormous protests against US policy in Europe, just gigantic. If you’re around my age you’ll remember them too - they were the protests over the US placing cruise missiles in what at the time was West Germany. You remember West Germany? The result of the Cold War where the victors of WWII split up a nation to use as a battlefield by proxy?...You know I finished it there but the truth of the matter is in the 5 years since not much has really changed. Our foreign policy though well-intentioned is sometimes vilified by the very people it ultimately winds up benefitting.
One has to question our motives but at the same time I often get a sense the U.S. is like the clingy friend in the community of nations that will go out of its way to make sure the other nations like it. Even to the point of doing something that is self destructive.
And we really have to remember that because there are times when our own interests as a country are not served by putting another nations interest before our own.
Things are changing around us all the time but people don’t recognize trends in history until they are well past them. There have been a lot of things going on in the last year, a lot of things I truly believe are pointing to the underpinnings of our society and how weak the foundation that society is built on. You see different facets of it, different players in the conflict that will take place coming onto the stage and introducing themselves but you have to wonder where they will be positioned when the dust settles and who the victor will be.
And right not I’m speaking purposefully in the vaguest of terms because what I have to say would be better put off until another day. Needless to say there is a conflict brewing on the horizon, you are seeing it in the demonstrations that happened across the Middle East, you are seeing it in the economic calamity that is happening right now across Europe, you are seeing it in the demonstrations that recently took place in England and you are seeing it in the formation of the Tea Party. Lots of different agendas bubbling up across the globe pointing to a desire to change the status quo. It’s happening now, the signs are there but I can’t predict what will happen next.
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