Tuesday, July 29, 2003
Randolph Bourne, in 1918, wrote the essay War is the Health of the State
Here's a quote:
War Is the Health of the State by Randolph Bourne: "Now this feeling for country is essentially noncompetitive; we think of our own people merely as living on the earth's surface along with other groups, pleasant or objectionable as they may be, but fundamentally as sharing the earth with them. In our simple conception of country there is no more feeling of rivalry with other peoples than there is in our feeling for our family. Our interest turns within rather than without, is intensive and not belligerent. We grow up and our imaginations gradually stake out the world we live in, they need no greater conscious satisfaction for their gregarious impulses than this sense of a great mass of people to whom we are more or less attuned, and in whose institutions we are functioning. The feeling for country would be an uninflatable maximum were it not for the ideas of State and Government which are associated with it. Country is a concept of peace, of tolerance, of living and letting live. But State is essentially a concept of power, of competition: it signifies a group in its aggressive aspects. And we have the misfortune of being born not only into a country but into a State, and as we grow up we learn to mingle the two feelings into a hopeless confusion."
Here's a quote:
War Is the Health of the State by Randolph Bourne: "Now this feeling for country is essentially noncompetitive; we think of our own people merely as living on the earth's surface along with other groups, pleasant or objectionable as they may be, but fundamentally as sharing the earth with them. In our simple conception of country there is no more feeling of rivalry with other peoples than there is in our feeling for our family. Our interest turns within rather than without, is intensive and not belligerent. We grow up and our imaginations gradually stake out the world we live in, they need no greater conscious satisfaction for their gregarious impulses than this sense of a great mass of people to whom we are more or less attuned, and in whose institutions we are functioning. The feeling for country would be an uninflatable maximum were it not for the ideas of State and Government which are associated with it. Country is a concept of peace, of tolerance, of living and letting live. But State is essentially a concept of power, of competition: it signifies a group in its aggressive aspects. And we have the misfortune of being born not only into a country but into a State, and as we grow up we learn to mingle the two feelings into a hopeless confusion."
Monday, July 28, 2003
The Globalist reviews Jonathan Schell's The Unconquerable World
The Globalist | Global Politics -- Power and Nonviolence — The 2003 Update
For the time being, the United States has chosen the coercive, imperial path — but that decision can be reversed.
Of course, no American decision alone can secure peace in the world. It is the essence of the task that many nations must cooperate in it.
The Globalist | Global Politics -- Power and Nonviolence — The 2003 Update
For the time being, the United States has chosen the coercive, imperial path — but that decision can be reversed.
Of course, no American decision alone can secure peace in the world. It is the essence of the task that many nations must cooperate in it.
LAWRENCE D. GREENE
GUEST COLUMNIST in the Seattle PI compares the rise of the American Empire with that
of the Roman Empire.
Our Place in the World: Military interventions dangerous, costly: "Because of the infatuation of the governing Republican Party with its fanatically held idea of deregulated, laissez-faire capitalism, the United States finds itself in the paradoxical position of having disproportionate power in relation to the rest of the world but with impaired ability to govern because of this ideological peculiarity of its Republican governing class. Obviously, if you hate the very idea of having government do anything, you are not likely to do government well. "
GUEST COLUMNIST in the Seattle PI compares the rise of the American Empire with that
of the Roman Empire.
Our Place in the World: Military interventions dangerous, costly: "Because of the infatuation of the governing Republican Party with its fanatically held idea of deregulated, laissez-faire capitalism, the United States finds itself in the paradoxical position of having disproportionate power in relation to the rest of the world but with impaired ability to govern because of this ideological peculiarity of its Republican governing class. Obviously, if you hate the very idea of having government do anything, you are not likely to do government well. "
Sunday, July 27, 2003
The Toronto Star, in an editorial, remembers what the celebrity sucking American press has already forgotten: The thousands slaughtered by the Bush gang in their lust for oil covered by
a paranoiac fear of their own projected illusions.
Toronto Star puts the American led mass slaughter at 8,500 including civilians and military.
Iraq Body Count puts the number at between
6076 and 7787 for civilian men women and children alone.
Here a quote from the Toronto Star editorial:
TheStar.com - Editorial: The tragic cost of a rash Iraq war: "There is a savage irony in this postwar blame game. Tragic as his death is, Kelly is just one victim of Bush's obsession with 'regime change' in Baghdad, and Blair's eager compliance. Some 275 American and British troops have also died, along with more than 8,500 Iraqi civilians and military. They are the other casualties in Bush's drive to 'save' the world from weapons of mass destruction that Washington has yet to produce."
a paranoiac fear of their own projected illusions.
Toronto Star puts the American led mass slaughter at 8,500 including civilians and military.
Iraq Body Count puts the number at between
6076 and 7787 for civilian men women and children alone.
Here a quote from the Toronto Star editorial:
TheStar.com - Editorial: The tragic cost of a rash Iraq war: "There is a savage irony in this postwar blame game. Tragic as his death is, Kelly is just one victim of Bush's obsession with 'regime change' in Baghdad, and Blair's eager compliance. Some 275 American and British troops have also died, along with more than 8,500 Iraqi civilians and military. They are the other casualties in Bush's drive to 'save' the world from weapons of mass destruction that Washington has yet to produce."
