Either the Indo is going seriously upmarket, or I am going seriously down-market, and judging by some of the criticisms here, it seems more likely to be the latter! I hope I don't get roasted on the letters pages of the Indo now, because I am getting to a bit of an embarrassment to my friends and family.... Previous letters published there attracted quite a lot of critical reaction.
Does Obama have a dream big enough? - Letters - Independent.ie
Behind his rhetoric of change, Barack Obama has managed to maintain a remarkable opacity about what he will actually do as president, particularly when it comes to the USA's role in world affairs. Sure, he will try to get troops out of Iraq and redeploy some of those resources to Afghanistan. Sure, he is predisposed to multilateralism and diplomacy rather than to starting more wars -- for example with Iran. True, he won't be a climate change denier, a free market deregulator, a cold warrior, or a bombastic proponent of the "New American Century", where all other powers supplicate to the shining city on a hill. But what will he actually do?Mr Obama brings a new world view to the office -- one explicitly opposed to neoconservative neo-imperialism. Mr Obama's African heritage, his Kansas roots, his Indonesian schooling, and his Hawaiian youth give him a sensitivity and appreciation of the world outside continental USA. His foreign policy experience may not be much greater than Sarah Palin's, but at least he doesn't believe that living next to Russia constitutes a qualification for high office.When the world outside America listened to George Bush they were instinctively distrustful, and that included many who were ideologically pro-American. The USA's global political influence is now far smaller than its economic and military strength might otherwise enable. Mr Obama's eloquence harks back to a time of Martin Luther King, the Kennedys, Bob Dylan and Noam Chomsky, when America was the leader of a world striving to be free. But now we live in a new world, where old empires have been torn down. Mr Obama could become the truly pre-eminent global leader of our age, but only if he has the strength and vision to recognise that America is not diminished by being of greater service to the world as a whole. America once had that vision and that visionary -- who helped to end a huge economic crisis and a World War. His name was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. I hope Mr Obama has the ambition to be not just a good president, but a great world leader. The idealism of the American people deserves no less.
Behind his rhetoric of change, Barack Obama has managed to maintain a remarkable opacity about what he will actually do as president, particularly when it comes to the USA's role in world affairs.
Sure, he will try to get troops out of Iraq and redeploy some of those resources to Afghanistan. Sure, he is predisposed to multilateralism and diplomacy rather than to starting more wars -- for example with Iran. True, he won't be a climate change denier, a free market deregulator, a cold warrior, or a bombastic proponent of the "New American Century", where all other powers supplicate to the shining city on a hill. But what will he actually do?
Mr Obama brings a new world view to the office -- one explicitly opposed to neoconservative neo-imperialism. Mr Obama's African heritage, his Kansas roots, his Indonesian schooling, and his Hawaiian youth give him a sensitivity and appreciation of the world outside continental USA. His foreign policy experience may not be much greater than Sarah Palin's, but at least he doesn't believe that living next to Russia constitutes a qualification for high office.
When the world outside America listened to George Bush they were instinctively distrustful, and that included many who were ideologically pro-American. The USA's global political influence is now far smaller than its economic and military strength might otherwise enable.
Mr Obama's eloquence harks back to a time of Martin Luther King, the Kennedys, Bob Dylan and Noam Chomsky, when America was the leader of a world striving to be free. But now we live in a new world, where old empires have been torn down.
Mr Obama could become the truly pre-eminent global leader of our age, but only if he has the strength and vision to recognise that America is not diminished by being of greater service to the world as a whole. America once had that vision and that visionary -- who helped to end a huge economic crisis and a World War. His name was Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
I hope Mr Obama has the ambition to be not just a good president, but a great world leader. The idealism of the American people deserves no less.
solveig and I got back from a couple of days in Dublin yesterday....I was delivering this lecture
Equity Shares
and will do a diary on my experiences fairly soon... "Any economic unit can emit money. The serious problem is to get it accepted" Hyman Minsky
People may not always agree, but you definitely get the debates going - and that's at least half the work!
I hope Mr Obama has the ambition to be not just a good president
He'd better have it in him to be a great American president. He doesn't have to be among the all-time greats, like Roosevelt or Lincoln, but he can't be Bill Clinton. Not that I don't appreciate Bill Clinton's competence, because it'd obviously be a massive improvement over the current administration, but I expect more than simple competence from Obama.
As I've said, I'm 99% convinced he's capable of it. The question that will remain unanswered until he takes office is, "Does he have the drive?" Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
Why? Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.
