Banish those nasty guilt twinges over America’s ambitions to empire. Getting a jump on the holidays, Thomas P.M. Barnett is marketing a feel-good guide to conquest and capitalism, a sequel to his bestseller, The Pentagon’s New Map. In Blueprint for Action, the Esquire editor and former Defense Department strategist declares that we’re doing the world a favor by bombing our… return to article
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Reader Comments (13)Page 1 of 1 pages...."Alas, all of Barnett’s Orwellian doublespeak cannot be dismissed as too stupid to do damage. After all, look who’s president....”
It’s the ‘vice’ and ‘rove’ beside the bewildered ‘dubya’ that scares me...but what Barnett spews is no less than what is preceived to be the direction of the USA to date. Bravado from the bully is nothing new for us trying to mind our own business here in Canada. We got roped into Free Trade only to discover billions of dollars in taxation on our softwood lumber that the tradedeal reniging American negoitiators refused to return and dismissed the findings when the panel’s rulings were made against them. Ever the bully, ever the megalomaniac, like the church dictating outmoded assumptions making them laws and forcing them on the terrified public by assertions of evil while they rob them of resources to support their habit of telling the world how to act. Don’t get me started on what I think of Barnett and the present BushCo/Cheneyburton boondoggle heaped on the backs of America. Yep, can smell the vermin all they way to Canukistan. namasté
Posted by neilemac on Nov 4, 2005 at 11:17 AM ....a feel-good guide to conquest and capitalism......
....American power and privilege are intrinsically beneficent....
No kidding, eh?
As a fellow Canuckistanian I also worry about our neighbour to the south. Free Trade disputes are the least of our worries when the USA seems to be on the proverbial warpath.
Posted by David in Canada on Nov 8, 2005 at 7:44 PM .... fellow Canuckistanian .. or is it Canuckistani ? Sounds better.
Posted by David in Canada on Nov 8, 2005 at 7:50 PM It’s embarrassing being an American. What the hell happened to all those “Mom, Apple Pie” values we learned about in school? Our leaders are a bunch of terrorists and too many kool-aid drinking Americans are so abysmally ignorant and downright stupid to cheerfully and vigorously follow and support their criminal leadership.
Posted by Codger on Nov 9, 2005 at 6:03 AM It’s ironic, I now realize, but I didn’t grab the name ‘Canukistan’ from the Pat Robertson babble of a few years ago, I simply made it up when writing a journal at “Free Speech.” Please do not respond with the cliché “great minds think alike, fools seldom differ.” I made myself quite clear about the BushCo/Cheneyburton cabal running the White House and the idiocy of Mr. Robertson August 23/05 in my blog ‘neilemac view’. And check out Mr. R, Dubya, and Jeb under the title “Familiarity breeds contempt...?” So no, I’m not like minded with those monkies.
Posted by neilemac on Nov 9, 2005 at 6:35 AM Eckhaus is right.
Instead of bringing democracy to the world, we should just tell them to all go to hell.
A little anarchy is good for the soul.
Yes, I am dripping with sarcasm.
Posted by Jay Cline on Nov 9, 2005 at 8:40 AM Neil,
Actually it was Pat Buchanan babble of a few years ago. I actually like the name Canuckistan . The irony is not lost on me and if we can’t laugh at ourselves then we are taking it too seriously.
Codger,
I feel for you man. America has been hijacked by it’s own leaders. Mom has been beaten to the ground and the apple pie dumped on the floor. Good to see that you are not drinking the Kool-Aid.
Posted by David in Canada on Nov 9, 2005 at 8:51 AM Don’t subsribe to any of the sugar based bullshit distributed by corporate America. Check out a documentary called “Big Sugar” which was aired on CBC a month or so ago. Anywho, sorry about the Pat Robertson mistake. But the blog of which I spoke is quite amusing. namasté
Posted by neilemac on Nov 9, 2005 at 10:24 AM Jay,
Let me get this strait…
Are you suggesting that the policies of our government are justifiable in any way?
Are you suggesting that bombing sovereign nations into complacency on the whim of an ignorant redneck president is somehow correct behavior?
Are you suggesting that we should give up any concept of the freedoms that this nation claims to have been founded on for the illusion of security provided by a government that could care less about the safety of its citizens (example: the levee’s of New Orleans)?
Hmmmm…
I guess that intellect is truly not a requirement of participation in democracy. Maybe it is the opposite.
For that matter, what democracy are you talking about anyway? Are you talking about a democracy that is dictated by the quality of political manipulation that can be purchased by the chosen few? Or are you thinking about the convenient fiction based on Plato’s Republic that we pass off as democracy when we teach it to our children in our sub-standard public schools?
Posted by raymondfrost on Jan 8, 2006 at 12:34 PM Ray,
You seem to be an intelligent sort of chap, so I won’t insult you by assuming that you seriously believe your interpretation of what I said.
Posted by Jay Cline on Jan 9, 2006 at 10:20 AM Not really…
It seems that the political machine of the Bush administration really capitalized on the apparent stupidity of the electorate. Or was it the fact that fear of gay marriage causes the brains of fundametalists to automatically shut down?
I must admit that Carl Rove was quite masterfull in his strategy and taktics in the last presidential campaign. It’s really too bad that he has the ethics of an imp.
As a result, we have the situation where emotion was used to stampede the country into war, as we have been discussing here. I just hope the electorate has learnd a lesson from all this.
Posted by raymondfrost on Jan 9, 2006 at 4:41 PM And the emotion is ‘fear’ which we now know reverses intelligent processes! When will the duped populace get it, they and their kids dying in wars over what to name the Nameless are mere pawns in the BushCo/Cheneyburton/Rumsfailed war-mongering cabal game. Do yourself a favour and read anything you can find by Gore Vidal, his “Reflections on the United States of Amnesia explains heaps about where, what, when, and how things have evolved to this unprecedented impass of American History and sadly, hence forth the decent to its demise as a free and liberated nation. Can’t believe this thread is alive, again. Hi y’all who drop by. Namasté, neilEmac.
Posted by neilemac on Jan 9, 2006 at 7:01 PM Page 1 of 1 pages -
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