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Sunday, July 06, 2003
posted by gbarto at 4:01 PM:
From the mighty Neil Cavuto:So let me see if I have this right: Now the United Nations needs us. Not in Iraq, where it argued, we shouldn't go. But in Liberia (search), where it argues, we should go.There are those in the US who get ornery, even cantankerous, over this. Those who would note this story:
...The administration is indeed sending at least 1,000 G.I.s to Liberia -- maybe double that number down the road.
It’s part of a global peacekeeping force that needs some clout and we just provided it.
We could have bickered and dithered and ignored. We could have said, to hell with your request. But we didn't...
We could have been vindictive and said to the French and Germans, who led this request by the way, "You didn't do diddly for us, we ain't doing diddly for you." But we didn't...
You know, there are a lot of people who criticize this country, but we're always there when they need this country.
Yes, we do a lot of things wrong, but when everything hits the fan, we do one thing right: We calm, protect and save people...
That’s not bad for a country the world loves to hate, until the world is too scared to move.
American Soldier Shot Dead in Iraqand say, "Screw the world, it can damn well look after itself if that's the way it's going to be." But there's a difference between us and the France and Germanies and even UNs of this world: We are better than that. Noblesse oblige, - to use a French phrase the French don't have to worry about anymore.
GI shot in head waiting to buy a soft drink at Baghdad University
However imperfect the US is, at the moment it is top dog among nations. And there is a growing danger it will so remain. The US is a country strong enough to project its power just about anywhere in the world? Great enough to draw immigrants by the millions from around the world. Engaging enough that round the world our movies are watched, our music is listened to, our merchandise is eagerly purchased. Self-confident enough that its press can write anything it damn well pleases, assured that the most scathing attack on a popular leader will only result in letters to the editor. It's the last of these that makes us so damn powerful and keeps us so damn powerful and that the world doesn't understand.
The United States has mighty arms. But it also has mighty brains. When the giant moves in an important way, it is with the voice of the people in its ear: From letters to the editor to newspaper editorials, from television commentaries to the "letters from our viewers" segments on news/commentary programs, from statements of support for our troops in state capitals to the Berkeley city council's denunciation of all things Republican, from congressional debates to chanting protesters pro and con to, yes, weblogs, the many voices are free to speak.
Why didn't world opinion have the same impact upon us that it has upon other nations? We've got enough opinion of our own, thank you. When the president moved on Iraq, it was with the knowledge that all 260 million plus citizens would be watching and judging both him and his party. That in their judgment they could affect him indirectly as popular support increased or decreased the willingness of those he leads to stick out their necks for him and very directly with a one-way ticket back to Crawford in a couple years if he screwed up too badly or even led with insufficient boldness.
Why is the United States the greatest nation in the world at the moment? People have talked in the past about military power and economic strength as the hallmarks of mighty nations. But those rely on the people being ready and willing and able to do the people's business in all spheres of life, within and without the reach of government. Which is why - listen closely, China - the great nations of the future will achieve their greatness by the freedom they afford and their responsiveness to public opinion.
Lots of people think that you could only vote for the Communists in the days of the Soviet Union. In the annual elections, this was true. But there was a daily election held of which the government was only marginally aware. The people had been allotted on minor freedom. They could grow their own vegetables on their own land and they were kept separate from the collective's output. The yield per acre was astoundingly high on the private plots versus that of the collective farms: People worked harder on their own land, planted it more carefully, maintained it more carefully. And when the state wasn't looking, they stole (!) from the collective farms the supplies they needed to improve their own plots. In ways aboveboard and underhanded, even illegal, the people voted regularly for private ownership and for reclaiming from the public sphere some of what it had taken from the private. Defenders of the Soviet experiment will perhaps argue that theft from the collective was pure larceny, not political protest, and that if the people hadn't undermined the collective for their own petty self-interest the discrepancies between the two types of farming wouldn't have been so great. Precisely. The people were not "the people," but millions of individuals. Whether the system was unworthy of them or they were unworthy of the system is immaterial. It did not work. Social evolution declared it a dodo among governmental forms.
When freedom, and particularly the freedom to speak, are constrained, unexpected feedback mechanisms must develop in order to express the hopes, fears, dreams and visions of life that the people hold. These mechanisms are always there and crafty leaders will always try to hear what they have to say. A Soviet economist looking at the charts could have noted the dissatisfaction people seemed to feel with working on a collective far. But just as the farmers could not speak freely and openly, he probably could not. Instead of listening to this subtle protest, Soviet ag managers probably tried to suppress it. I am not sufficiently expert in Soviet agricultural policy to follow the nuances. But there is no doubt that until Gorbachev's perestroika, it was the general trend of Soviet government to try explicitly to destroy all those blips in the system that should have told them the patient was succombing to a slow but progressive disease (he says in a violent clash of metaphors!).
When there is freedom and particularly the freedom to blather, chatter, prattle, criticize, nag, etc., coupled with the right to choose one's leaders, what happened in the Soviet Union... doesn't. Leaders either listen or are replaced. And so government evolves over time to meet the needs of the moment quicker and the needs of the ages more wisely (I can hear Cicero gnashing his teeth at this assertion). In the past few weeks, we've had a few Supreme Court decisions over here that marked movement in new directions in varying degrees. We've also had a few stinkers. But be that as it may, the closest we come to a Supreme Soviet, the Supreme Court - a group of people with guaranteed life employment no matter what they decide for the people - has even been trying to figure out how to respond to and become a factor in public opinion. They are wise enough to know - having read Plessy and Scott at law school - that if they are injudicious, public opinion will freely make fun of them long after they are unable to defend themselves.
And so it is that when the world criticizes us, they fail to understand: The United States is so steeped in self-criticism, in deciding what it is and what it wants to be, that the sharpest words the French can muster cannot compare with the things we say to each other as we hash out our positions large and small. Why is the United States so great and so good? Because when we act, it is with the conscience of millions gradually learning, gradually growing, gradually refining what this American republic stands for. Our imperfections are many and sometimes glaring. Our past with slavery and segregation is shameful. But we are learning, slowly but surely, each generation carrying a little more knowledge of the possibilities and limits of freedom.
For all the cries of O Tempora, O Mores from the Buchanans on the right and the blatherers on the left, George W. Bush is leading a society that is frightfully good in spite of its more bizarre impulses. He leads a society that has buried slavery and segregation, is working on racism. That is fighting Muslim extremism while defending the religious freedom of Muslims - they, too, are citizens, after all. And so we're going to Liberia. As we went to Iraq. In the one case, the UN was against it. In this case, they're all for it. But that is of course, irrelevant. For George W. Bush does not serve the UN, he serves the United States. As in Iraq, he has decided America has something to offer to the situation. And that our consciences will in the long run suffer for it if we don't. May his judgment be wise. For he's sure to catch hell if it isn't. And from something far more dear to him than the world's leaders and foreign press: his own people.
Posted at 8:03 a.m.; tacked on here since dreaded Blogger Archive bug is keeping it off the archive page:
Over 100 Hurt in Turkey Blast
Powerful explosion at gas station shakes capital city of Ankara
Only it wasn't good old gasoline, it was liquified petroleum gas. From the story:
Liquefied petroleum gas cars, which use a combination of gases including propane and butane, are popular in Turkey because the fuel is cheap. Some groups have raised safety concerns, saying that cars powered by the gas catch fire more easily than standard gasoline powered cars.Something to keep in mind as different modified gasolines are offered as the silver bullet that's going to make cars clean and cheap. With all such innovations, check the science, see which politicians are funded by the patent holder and then start tallying the pros and cons before buying in.
Posted at 7:55 a.m.; tacked on here since dreaded Blogger Archive bug is keeping it off the archive page:
Back rather late "tonight" with the French news headlines for Sat. night/Sunday morning:
Le Monde: Israel accepts the liberation of Palestinian detainees. They're releasing 350 detainees, i.e. everyone not connected to murder. Hamas says it's not enough.
Also, Two Days After the Arrest of Yvan Colonna, Corsica Votes in a referendum of that island's status in the French Republic. At noon, participation was 24.8%.
Ouest-France: Yvan Colonna Being Questioned - Presumed Assassin of Prefict Erignac Moved to Paris Where He Is Locked Up.
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