He won points with me when he said he'd talk to "enemies," like Ahmadinejad, and said our refusal to do so made us look arrogant. And he won more when he stood by that comment in the face of Clinton, Dodd and the press hammering him.
I can't, for the life of me, figure why the Brits like Hillary. Is it some kind of desire for a Thatcheresque figure, similar to the (very gay) obsession Republicans have with Reagan? Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
I can't, for the life of me, figure why the Brits like Hillary. Is it some kind of desire for a Thatcheresque figure, similar to the (very gay) obsession Republicans have with Reagan?
However, I think Jérôme over-reaches when using even this to pillory Britain. One could just as well take the second quoted table to show that Italy is the odd one out, ans that Britain is more anti-American than anyone but Spain. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
And here, quite simply, the English have a history, unlike most of the rest of Western Europe. Nil aon leigheas ar an ngra ach posadh
Here are a few less broad outlines:
5, 9-10: come on. BTW, French trains also drive on the wrong side of railways!
6: that's about a minority of the population, which is in good company of say Italian colleagues. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
BTW back at you, it's impossible to say french trains drive on the wrong side of the railway since french trains are the best in the world, which means whichever side we drive them is the best side and the rest of you must be wrong, just look at those supposedly engineering giants in germany who drive them on the "right side" and yet have so many accidents with their slower trains. (And don't even get me started on brit rail...)
And you can't really tell me with a straight face that I am wrong about the food. A country's food tells you a lot about its people. And in england's case it tells me they absolutely had to become an imperial power if but to eventually be able to provide average english with good south asian, chinese and caribean recipes to be able to have prepared for them in restaurant, lod knows they can't make it for themselves since it isn't prepared with some bland white sauce, baked beans or cucumbers. Nil aon leigheas ar an ngra ach posadh
No. There is also such a thing as different election systems. (To boot, I think the elites 50 years ago very rather different from those 25 years ago.)
Are you saying there isn't a deeply atlanticist, anti-european current pervading english society which makes it impossible for any english government to actually commit england to Europe?
I think there is such a current, it may even be stronger than everywhere else (maybe with the exception of Italy and Germany), but I do not think that it makes such a commitment impossible. At least not via the election (or referendum) booth.
so many accidents with their slower trains
Uhm... slower trains, so many accidents, where did you take that? At any rate, the side French trains drive on is the British side, they took railways from them. How much more civilised right-driving trains are is shown by the fact that France has not converted right-driving lines in the Alsace back to left-driving in 80 years :-) *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
They could've just bought TGVs you know.
I wholly agree with you on political systems and the English have the same hidebound first past the post political tradition which hobbles the Americans too. This being said, at what point does a nation need take responsibility for an outdated and undemocratic political system?
Is this true about Alsace? Even the TGV Est line? Nil aon leigheas ar an ngra ach posadh
Yes, you are! You are linking to one single accident on a conventional line. It's not like the TGV would not be prone to accidents in the same low-speed situation :-) Also, Siemens was only one consortia member for that train, but made the trains currently commissioned for the highest speed, Spain's S-103, completely, while the TGV Est sees parallel service of German ICE-3 and French TGV POS (<-acronym in a civilised right-driving language, Paris-Ostfrankreich-Süddeutschland!) at the same top speed :-)
Is this true about Alsace? Even the TGV Est line?
Yes, it is true. The TGV Est line hasn't reached Alsace proper yet, presently the end of the line 'solves' the change-over (I can testify from travelling both via Strasbourg and via Saarbrücken). *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
European Tribune member Redstar was found dead at home yesterday. A post-mortem determined he was killed with a large dose of Marmite-laced beans on toast. In addition, an army NCB weapons team later located a booby-trapped haggis in the bathroom, a large amount of glow-in-the dark custard, and a baking tray full of spring-loaded toads-in-the-hole. According to a police source speaking on condition of anonymity, the latter are "reminiscent of the chestburster creature in Ridley Scott's film, Alien (1979)". The Shadow Home Secretary has accused the government of "a cavalier attitude in the defence of British food and cultural icons". Later during Prime Minister's Questions, Gordon Brown announced that sausages will be banned from the hand luggage of airline passengers.
But to be more precise, it is also not english! Nil aon leigheas ar an ngra ach posadh
Pancakes anyone? You can't be me, I'm taken
I have mine on matters of war and peace, as well as on her anti-democratic behavior in the campaign. I have the fact that her management style -- incompetent, surrounded by Yes Men -- is precisely the style that has been so disastrous under Bush. I have her failed health care attempt in the 1990s -- failed, largely because of her stubborn attitude, trying to steamroll other plans that enjoyed bipartisan support in an effort to ensure her sacred mandates made it into the bill (thus alienating Congress).
Seriously, where do people get this idea that Hillary Clinton is anything close to a liberal? The fact that so many assume she is a liberal is proof to me that Democrats would eat paint if we spent enough money on advertising. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
Then we have a contradiction in terms. You accuse her of not being liberal enough, and then you talk of bipartisan support for non-mandated health care in the early 1990s. Mandates are an absolute must to enact government health insurance. Without them the system collapses. Bipartisan support of people funded by for-profit health companies and the pharmaceutical industry is almost worthless. What we need is a real plan that's going to work, and if it doesn't have mandates, any gov't program is going to collapse of its own weight and forever sully the name of government medicine in the United States.
The position you're taking sounds familiar, circa 2000 when people equated Gore with Bush and ended up voting for Nader.
I think the Hillary yopu speak about was long ago. I think she has been grinded up and shut off from reality by too many PR advisers. I see her as a tragic person trying to find her way, but the personal level doesn't change my negative expectations on policy and governance. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
I've been on this board for a couple years, and on dealings with Eastern Europe, I think I've always railed against Albright and Holbrooke. Would I take them over Condi/Rove/Rumsfeld, etc? Yes.
But I'm not comfortable with Obama's team either. You should read Susan Rice's papers given at her thinktank. She makes Holbrooke seem great. And though I like Samantha Power's book quite a lot, her conclusions in that same book would have led us to a wide war if she were in charge. She is an interventionist, albeit one who believes in humanitarian causes. In Bosnia, she was a vocal critic of the Vance-Owen plan because she saw it as a sop for the Serbs. OK, that's fine with me. But when James Baker scuttled the plan, the result was 100,000 murdered in the ensuing three years. The peace agreement came and Dayton looked like Vance-Owen. So, if you're going to scuttle one plan, you have a responsibility to prevent the death of 100,000. That means killing a peace plan and then intervening with hundreds of thousands of soldiers on the ground to prevent the Serbs from committing genocide. For what? When a peace agreement was in the offing already?
Her approach is maximalist. Not unlike Holbrooke and Albright's.
I don't want to get involved in the primary in any way.
Ah, I haven't bothered looking at the DK front page since November. Clinton or Obama, I don't care but please, dear Muricans, just pick one so we're done with it.
I'm not a fan of either. Either will do an OK president. My preference was Edwards, even if he is rabidly anti-nuclear, but he didn't make it above the media horse-race. MSM is still relevant, it seems.
But I really fear the 'Bush is out, I'm in, and the "real" America is back' syndrome - the temptation to forget as quickly as possible the Bush interval.
Amnesia is the top principle of American politics so this is exactly what is going to happen.
It will be "We're back, we're America, the Shining City on the Sunny Hill with Meadows and Fluffy Things. We're Number Ooooooone!" and they'll look very offended if they don't get their seat back right away. It's gonna be disgusting.
May be a McCain presidency could be a good thing after all ... for Europe.
McCain would be good for Europe in a very narrow way.
McCain will have zero expectation for Europe and vice-and-versa. More of the same shit, no change in direction, no hub-hub, same old spite. Each side its own way. The US careening into militaristic decay and economic irrelevance and Europe muddling around in its usual little dance: one step forward, two steps backward, four on the side.
With Democrats on the other hand, the expectations are going to be very high, at least on the American side. They're gonna turn towards Europe and expect to be back in the game as if nothing happened. Delusions of American Exceptionalism are very strong and in my opinion resurgent among Democrats. I can already picture Obama flying in European capitals, all proud and shining of his brand new "historical" victory, the "New JFK" and the second coming of Holy Ronald Reagan all rolled in one, and explaining in grand rhetorical flourishes how everything is going to get better thanks to American Leadership(TM). They really believe that shit.
Well, I expect European opinions to lap it up - to a point - but with governments, it's not gonna play well at all. Both sides are not talking the same language. Atlanticism is dead because all the Atlantists from the post-war era are dead. And after 8 years of Bush glaciation, a lot of old habits have died and there wasn't a lot to said for the old habits in the first place. May be you forgot but it was already pretty rough with Clinton. Even if the Bush disaster makes that period positively look like heavens, things were not going well at all between the US and Europe. It was actually pretty tense and bitter.
The Clinton I team managed to be both totally inept and perfectly cynical with Europe. Their bully number worked for them in some ways. Well, it's not going to get better. 15 years later, Americans still believe they are calling the shots like in the 90s.
I don't expect anything good from Clinton but no much bad either. Same cast as before. With Obama, well, we have a situation. The potential for a complete misunderstanding is pretty phenomenal. His style and the expectations he's setting in his campaign are going to be a big liability in relations with Europe. And then there is this little business with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee's Subcommittee on European Affairs where he just spent the last year broadcasting that he doesn't give a shit about Europe.
There is plenty of nasty business to sort out: the Euro/Dollar relation, the contagion of the US financial meltdown in Europe, military cooperation in Afghanistan, the mess in Iraq (if the US thinks they are going to be able to just walk away ...), global warming, trade with China, oil supply security, Israel, etc., etc., etc.
Everything has been put on ice with Bush. There's no one to talk to anyway. McCain would continue the trend and Europe would have to grab its own arse and solve its problem on its own, the usual messy, ineffective way but its own way. At least, high-level trans-Atlantic relations won't get worse - they are inexistent - and everybody on each side will still be able to dream of the day everything gets better.
But if a Dem is elected, no more forlorn longings of sweet hope. It's show-time. All the shit is going to come out, with a severe misperception of the respective positions. The US is going to need very active help from Europe to clean up the shit. On the other hand, Europe can perfectly do nothing - out of disorganization or out of sheer passive-aggressive spite - and watch the US take the brunt of the crap while keeping the upper hand by default. No European unity is needed. It doesn't even need to be deliberate. All that Europe needs to do to gain relative power and influence against the US and in the world is to sit on its hands. No one will win. But in the mess, Europe will take its lump and still come up on top of a hugely diminished US. A lot of Europeans would be very content with that.
I'm not sure there is anyone who fully understand that last point in Washington DC. They still don't realize that the world has changed and that they don't have the luxury of taking anything for granted anymore. Yet, from what I see with the Democrats, they still waxing lyricals on American Leadership(TM) and the Natural, God Ordained and Self-Evident Goodness of America. After 8 years of Bush, they still don't have a clue and they are supposed to be to the good guys.
Unless there is a very cool head in the US executive to impose a very, very modest tone within the American side, the landing in Europe is gonna be very rough.
So I'm wondering if no landing at all is not a better solution. It would let four more years for reality to sink in.
I think any of the frontpagers can copy and promote it to diary. Migeru and Colman have done it regularly in the past. (You too can do it, of course.)
Just find a title that fits the scope. Do not include any candidate's name in the title.
Repugs don't care and would not try.
The 20th century truly was the American Century. But eight years into the 21st, initiative has been squandered and has passed out of American hands.
But guess who will be the last to figure this out. The Fates are kind.
It is misplaying that hand with a vengeance, true, and at the moment it's tough to see a way back. But it's not that long ago that we could not easily see how the initiative would get away from USA.
With a truly progressive policy of healthcare, education for all and reductions of inequalities, coupled with a massive national infrastructure program to improve energy self-sufficiency, therefore reduce military spending and probably get massive market shares in the sustainable development market that is bound to appear one day (or else...), they could achieve a lot. Besides, they would have the luxury of being able to decide when the said markets appear. Almost at the press of a button.
They still have massive assets. But all of them, to be used, will require reversing the crazy ideology that has been paraded for 40 years. "Few can believe that suffering, especially by others, is in vain. - Galbraith"
But I don't see the US military "strength" as an asset but rather as a severe liability. It's a parasite on the economy and the government and, by maintaining the illusion of strength, it's a major roadblock obstacle on the USA #1 priority : reconnection with reality.
Theoretically, a reversal of policy could achieve much, until you consider that the reasons the US abandoned sustainable energy policy in 1980 are the same reasons it will not go back to it now. It is crucial to note that there is not enough sustainable energy in any form to power our civilization; sustainable energy implies the RADICAL transformation of that civilization, including not just conservation and reduction of resource use, but the end of capitalism and debt-based money.
Meanwhile, practically speaking, the window is closing: Year 2008 may well be the year when the US is revealed as bankrupt. After that, nothing will be done. The Fates are kind.
I lived in Europe during the Reagan era.
This is the nadir with Bush, but I don't see a huge change. There never was a deep pro-US sentiment in Europe. Not in my time in Europe anyway.
I remember Vietnam, and left it out for reasons of simplicity. But you are right: As early as the 1970s one could see that the American Century would likely be ending, in effect by choice.
There is indeed a progression from there to the atrocities of this century, and disenchantment has been a gradual process with many events along the way. The Fates are kind.
Well, I expect European opinions to lap it up - to a point - but with governments, it's not gonna play well at all. Both sides are not talking the same language. Atlanticism is dead because all the Atlantists from the post-war era are dead.
My expectation is that governments will believe the shit a lot more than the population. Our governments will bend over backwards to try to please the new president, and to try to forget about past contentious issues, while the population will be a lot more doubtful.
Don't forget as well that it will be Sarkozy and Brown in the lead... In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes
And if you are correct about the population, then it's good news we have Sarkozy. With his polls in the crapper, that ADD weathervane will do whatever pleases the electorate.
ET 2.0 feature request: the ability to "detach" or "clone" a comment as an article. One can abstract a diary as just a child of the "home" root-node, like a comment is a child of another comment, or a diary. We have met the enemy, and he is us — Pogo
And you almost got me thinking I'd better vote McCain. After all, I won't be in the US to suffer the consequences! Nil aon leigheas ar an ngra ach posadh
And you almost got me thinking I'd better vote McCain. After all, I won't be in the US to suffer the consequences!
Okay, but only if you take me with you. Conservatives want live babies so they can raise them to be dead soldiers. - George Carlin
Even if I can always go back home, I still live in the US :)
Actually, I do have to get round to getting an absentee ballot so that I will be able to vote. Nil aon leigheas ar an ngra ach posadh
I still disagree with much of it, for instance, I think the concept of relative power is completely alien from our requirements as citizens. For my part, I called Obama "the best, the most challenging and the most dangerous candidate" in this diary and I'm a lot more worried about the scenario where he doesn't get the necessary reality check from Europe (because then we'll likely be fighting another ill-considered war together).
I can't, however, endorse your proposition that a McCain presidency would be good for anybody.
The only arguments I'm really willing to defend is that 1) the US need Europe far more than Europe needs the US and 2) the reconnection between Europe and the US with a Democrat in charge may turn very ugly on fundamental misunderstandings and truly divergent interests.
I'm also really unconvinced by either Obama or Clinton: too soft, too tactical, too pampered, too invested in the status quo when the country is in dire need of heavy duty reforms, particularly against its economic elites. I can really see Clinton or Obama blowing it completely by timidity, paving the road for a Republican resurgence en 2012.
In particular, I have really bad vibes about Obama if his proposals are any indication. Hopefully, I'm wrong. After all Roosevelt ran on a strictly orthodox platform of fiscal conservatism and ended up doing the exact opposite.
Nothing else he has said or done so far encourages me at all.
Since the departure of Edwards from the primaries, I've felt like a political ship without a sail! Six months ago, I would never have guessed that I could come to believe by February 2008 that Hillary Clinton now represents the best realistic option Americans have left.
It's beginning to look very likely that the next US president will be a Democrat (corporate America, having perceived this some time ago, has been buying into the party, big-time), but equally likely that that Democrat (whether Obama or Clinton) will not offer us very much real relief from the global-corporatist policies of the Bush regime.
