Is that degree signed by Michael Moore?
What fine institution is letting you pursue this as a thesis?
John-
I understand. My country has its problems, that is for sure. It is still “THE LAND OF THE FREE AND THE HOME OF THE BRAVE.”
You are very well educated in America culture. One thing you aren’t cultured in is how this country was built. A lot of people died in a lot of wars so we can have great freedoms here. We help alot of countries. We are in charge of securing our own nation. In reality do you really care what happenes here?
If that means being pre-emptive I don’t have a problem with it.
JohnGullick: Have you ever read Manufacturing Consent?
Biltritewave- Now to be honest the class system pisses me off quite a lot but my degree is from the University of Northumbria at Newcastle, underscored by the University of Durham, the 4th ranked university in the world (depends who you ask but its basically 3rd in the UK behind Oxford and Cambridge thus 3rd in world). My personal views of Moore are that he wants to improve America but he is also a sensationalist out to entertain. I am not some conspiracy kook, well, if I am then count Chomsky and Johnson in with me. I’m happy to have the greatest linguistic scientist and one of the most noted political philosophers as well as the one of the most accredited experts on Asian culture and history as my comrades on this point. Hell go down to the political science section of your local university bookshop and you’ll find plenty of writers willing to back up my arguments.
Zeppalin- No I haven’t come accross that, I’m currently looking into US intervention in South America as well as how the current Labour Government of Britain has moved towards the political right. I recommend an author called Piero Gleijeses, his works are fairly heavy and depressing reading but he systematically gathers evidence and fact regarding the US interventions in the Southern Hemisphere. He also gives an amazing insight into Cuba’s role in the world which I couldn’t even gather from going there myself.
[quote]JohnGullick wrote:
Biltritewave- Now to be honest the class system pisses me off quite a lot but my degree is from the University of Northumbria at Newcastle, underscored by the University of Durham, the 4th ranked university in the world (depends who you ask but its basically 3rd in the UK behind Oxford and Cambridge thus 3rd in world). My personal views of Moore are that he wants to improve America but he is also a sensationalist out to entertain. I am not some conspiracy kook, well, if I am then count Chomsky and Johnson in with me. I’m happy to have the greatest linguistic scientist and one of the most noted political philosophers as well as the one of the most accredited experts on Asian culture and history as my comrades on this point. Hell go down to the political science section of your local university bookshop and you’ll find plenty of writers willing to back up my arguments.[/quote]
I’d love to hear where that ranking came from. So asian culture and history has alot to do with America huh? as does linguistics. Please, I went undergrad to what is now widely considered the best I.R. school in the country not a single prof there would stand up for the shit you are espousing.
I would love to hear some of the names at this place though. I am pretty familiar, at least on a name basis with most political science people of note, having spent my fair share of my time in the political science wing of the library while writing my thesis.
dvldog- I understand how America was created, and sadly I’ve had to learn of the deaths of both the settlers and the settlees. Millions died to produce my country too. My surname is dutch and came to England during the restoration period when it was decided that Britain should once again be a monarchy. In effect my family was born out of the end of the most bloody and confused period in our history. That is part of the reason I am critical of the state of things here too- because millions didn’t die so that Blair could frolic into and lie to the public. Thousands didn’t die in America so that covert operations which have killed innocents accross the world could be carried out. Your forefathers did not give their lives so that the few rich elite could become that much richer by intervening and deposing the Columbian, Brazilian, Indonesian, Philipine, Iraqi, Serbian, Kuwaity and many other governments. They died to protect truth, justice, equality and other things essential to a productive society. Unfortunately I feel that power has corrupted and ever since Wilsonian political theory have these ends been perverted by countless governments.
Biltritewave- you know what? I’m striking out on a limb, my tutor and course leader is a specialist in restoration Britain, but American foreign policy really intrests me. So why not have a huge argument about who has the best lecturers and who has the biggest car and who can bench the most and who’s degree means more and all that bull. My god, if you’re going to argue please, put up a relevent argument against American Hegemony. Please also site sources, because that is what I did. There is a phrase that exists at univeristies accrooss the world: ‘academic credibility’ and my arguments have it. As I have said before, I would kill to read an opposing argument with academic credibility.
Oh, and one last thing, I’m sorry about my typing and spelling, its 2:45 here and I just came back from from a bar feeling politically inclined! I am not feeling so co-ordinationally inclined!
Oh great, now we got a drunken Englishman posting about American politics, next thing we’ll have a baked Canadian up here or is that canadian bacon…any takers? Vroom???
For a guy that lives or is from England you sure are worried about what the U.S. is doing. Be happy we didn’t invade your country. We whipped its ass over 200 years ago and liberated them over 50 years ago. Did you forget? You could very well be speaking German if it wasn’t for the AMERICAN G.I.
Obviously you are ignorant about history.
Half the army that defeated Cornwallis was French.
The white house had to be painted white after the Engilsh burned it when they captured Washington in the war of 1812.
When did America liberate England? The battle of Britain was fought and won by the Royal Air Force over a year before Hitler declared war on America. After the British decimated the luftwaffe they were safe from invasion. If England had wimped out like the French did where would America have been? As Winston Churchill wrote President Roosevelt, if England fell and Hitler got his hands on the Royal Navy America would be in a very bad position. As the grandson of a Normandy veteran I know it wasn’t just Americans who liberated France!
So why are you dissin?
Now onto John’s post. I am not the least bit surprised you would write something like that. Why don’t you take a look at the huge European corporations that have revenues in excess of several members of the EU? In the US such large businesses would be broken up. They are the real imperialists. Since you followed the hourly death toll of the invasion of Iraq, why don’t you tell us what the hourly, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, death toll in Saddams prisons was? Or maybe you don’t care to think about that because it doesn’t support your radical ideology.
Slimjim- Drunken Englishman? I like that, sounds kinda stereotypical doesn’t it? heh heh. Well the problem is I’m sober most of the time, actually that could be contested recently, but its the summer and I’ve been selling custom mountain bikes left, right and centre so I have a few pounds in my pocket, and hey, what’s life for but living?
Sifu- Radical ideology? What, I don’t like war? My god, I’m some kinda commie freak! Seriously though I don’t think Saddam released the exact death rates in his prisons, the pictures of his guards posing with humiliated prisoners were never released either. You know I’m not saying he was a great guy, but let us not forget who got him into power in the first place. Let’s not forget who armed, trained and funded Al Queda to fight Iran. I have posted several times stating America has a form of empire, from now on I’ll call it a hegemony on here because that seems to sit better with people. It’s not some crack-pot assertation, it comes from observing the near 600 ackowledged US military bases around the world. It comes from reading the long lineage of vaguely covert American operations to install favourable leaders accross the world. It comes from exploring the litrature and accounts of the first settlers as well as the pioneers in order to try and discover whereabouts in the American psyche this conquestorial mindset comes from and whether it exists. Do you know what the one question I kept getting asked when I moved out to the states was?
“Why does everyone hate us?”
My arguements offer an answer which goes so much further than the ‘jealousy’ statement which often comes out. America is percieved as the number 1 threat to world peace. Many Islamic groups feel the US is on a mission to wipe out their way of life. Now tell me in all honesty that Bush went into Iraq on a humanitarian mission. He himself stated he was looking for WMD, then after it was clear there were none it turned into some great humanistic intervention. Oil and Haliburton were never mentioned as motivating factors, in fact oil was ruled out as one, a blatent lie! Now if I’m a radical for pointing out that the world is sick to death of US meddling then so be it! If you can come to me with evidence America is not ‘the worlds policeman’; ‘the sole superpower’ or any of the other euphemisms for ‘the worlds current imperial power’ then I will be greatly relieved. It’ll give me the extra few thousand words to put under counter-arguements in my dissertation.
You are playing fast and loose with definitions. Imperialism and Hegemon are have radically different meanins and conotations. No one doubts that the U.S. is a hegemon, its just a synonym for superpower. What I will debate to the death is that it is imperialistic.
Americans by and large still which to hold true to that famous phrase uttered by John Quincy Adams. "Wherever the standard of freedom and Independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. " Do you honestly think most Americans want to be the worlds police man?? Because if you do you honestly missed out on the american experience while you were over here. Our modern ventures are either caused by necessity (World War 1, World War II, Korea, afghanistan), humanitarian reasons (Somalia, Bosnia, etc) or because of the belief that it is a necessity (vietnam, iraq, 1 and 2, etc).
No one in America wants to be the worlds policeman. No one. And if there is but an inkling of those that do it comes from the left who think that we should be acting in nearly everplace in the world for humanitarian reasons. This mantle of responsibility has been thrust upon us reluctantly as the result of being the lone superpower in the world.
Its not Americas fault, Britian, France, Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union were all decimated after World War II. With all her power, every other country in the world EXPECTS the U.S to act, even if it is unwillingly. Take for example liberia recently or Sudan right now. No sane american would want to sent troops there for any reason, but continue pressure by other government who are reluctant to send there own will result in us being there.
The bottom line though is that this is being a super power/hegemon…this is not imperialistic. No one is colonizing anyone, the majority of American actions throughout here history have been for legitimate reasons of agression/self defence. This is radically different than Britain colonization of Africa, India, or the Dutch colonization of Africa and the dutch east indies which were done largely for the economic betterment of the mother country. Quite simply, America doesnt act like this. Stability in the world is good economically for America. Taken together, your assertions of imperialism do not add up.
I don’t disagree that America has been going around the world trying to tell everyone that they have to live their lives the way America tells them to. Of course it is a source of resentment.
What I think you are missing John is there is more going on here than just American Imperialism. America is just the instrument. There are global power structures that have a lot of capital that I think you are missing. Thanks to lobbyists and mass media the American government is the finest government money can buy.
The CIA installing the Shah of Iran for British Petroleum so he would denationalize the Iranian oil fields is a good example. Or IT&T having the CIA kill the elected socialist leader of Chile and installing Pinochet is another.
On the other hand as the richest most powerful country in the world, America does have a certain responsibilty to the world. The 600 bases around the world aren’t all neccessarily bad. Some of those troops are preventing conflicts.
I think in the case of Iraq it was better to bring closure to the Saddam era and not take the chance that he would get a nuke. I certainly think it was wiser than what people like Rosy O’donnell and Phil Donahue were saying, “MAD is what we used with the Russians we’ll do the same thing with the Iraqi’s”. I don’t think a war of genocide on the Iraqi people because of the decisions of one sick individual would have been right. John you worry about a few thousand people who died getting Saddam taken out but you don’t mention the people who have died because of his ambition. A million people died when he started an aggressive war with Iran. In the gulf war he put his men into a war against America that they had no chance of winning. Over 100,000 Iraqi soldiers died then. When he lit the Kuwaiti oil fields on fire the smoke and soot affected weather patterns in the Indian Ocean. In that years monsoon season over 50,000 people in Sri Lanka died as a result. Some of my best freinds are American born Iraqi’s. I remember one was really upset with America when the 1st gulfwar started. I couldn’t understand it. When I asked him what his father thought, he told me that his dad was at home watching CNN and that every time a bomb went off in Baghdad he cheered and yelled yes they are getting Saddam. I can understand how my freinds Iraqi dad felt.
Just because war is a nasty business it doesn’t mean it is not sometimes called for. I think too many of our revolutionary thinkers are wasting their time and energy wining over the fate of Saddam when they should be looking at what is happening at home. In England the government has inacted laws and policies that are a serious threat to civil liberty. I don’t think putting cameras on every corner and pearing into peoples homes is cool. But people there are more busy bitching about America than they are about their own street. It’s because they are being manipulated. Look how much of the media there is owned by Rupert Murdoch. Too much centralisation of power in too few hands. In some ways things there are worse than they were a hundred years ago.
Here in America as in England I see politicians throwing out emotional issues (like homosexuals marrying, Abortion, religious beliefs, the war) for the masses to argue over and they fall for it every time. We need a new Benjamin Franklin. Or at least we need to go back and read his writings. Franklin was the most brilliant of the founding fathers.
I didn’t know Alqaeda was founded to fight Iran. Are you sure about that or did you just get back from the local.
Now Sifu please don’t make the assumption that I put all my energy into ‘bitching about America’. Please don’t make the assumption the rest of Britain does that either. Tell me where I have stated that the problems America poses to the world are all I spend my life considering. Im politically active over here but you lucky punters get my views and research on America because lets face it you probably wouldn’t give a shit about my views on the British National Party or the problems with the tax system. I also don’t understand where this perception comes that everyone has government CCTV peering into their homes? We do have the most government CCTV per head in the world but then our crime rates have been dropping steadily for years (I know that in the Fox/CNN world that is hard to believe) and next time you walk into any shop, or bank why not wave, because we’re not the only ones being watched. You know as somebody who doesn’t break the law I don’t really give a shit if the police see me walking around. Then I make sure I vote and get involved in politics to ensure nobody gets into office who may abuse something like the CCTV system. Its not rocket science! Right, onto Iraq. Yes Saddam was bad, and I feel terrible for those thousands who died in that Iranian war at Saddams hands, of course if the US hadn’t put Saddam into power maybe that wouldn’t have happened, and if they hadn’t armed and trained Al Queda to fight Iran 9/11 wouldn’t have happened. Iraq was also pre-emptive war, firstly during the cold war the pre-emptive war ‘kooks’ were frowned upon, containment was the policy because people realised the de-stabalising effect pre-emptive war could have. I also object to it on moral grounds, I know just war theory is old but it makes some good points. As for Saddam getting nukes, I just can’t see that it would have happened, hell the guy could barely feed his own citizens because of trade embargos and he invited weapons inspectors back again but Bush and Blair went in anyway, putting a final nail in the coffin of the UN. Now after the war there hasn’t been a sniff of anything that could have even been used to make weapons. In effect both our governments lied to us about Iraq and I object to that on a most fundamental level. The inability of the Bush administration to admit any mistake with regards to Iraq is also an objection- if you do not recognise faults how can you correct and grow from them? I also believe that in a Muslim country attempting to graft a democracy of an American style is simply ignoring the concept of cultural relitavism, now I don’t know what a better system would be, but that is why I wouldn’t invade the place because being the richest country with the most nukes doesn’t mean you know best. On top of that this war has made the west even more demonic in the eyes of many cultures and had a de-stabilising effect on the world- Irans scramble for WMD is a symptom of America’s conquest. So there you go, the above reasons are why I just can’t support this Iraq war.
Biltritewave- I’m going to copy and extract from a book onto here, I would put the gist into my own words but why alter a well argued and eloquent piece of writing?
“The distinction between hegemony and empire would be ligitimate if the term ‘empire’ did simply mean, as so many commentators seem to assume, direct rule over foreign territories without any political representations of their inhabitants. But students of imperial history have a more sophisticated conceptual framework than that. At the time, British colonial administrators like Frederick Lugard clearly unserstood the distinction between ‘direct’ and ‘indirect’ rule; large parts of the British Empire in Asia and Africa were ruled indirectly- that is through the agency of local potentates rather than British governors. A further distinction was was introduced by John Gallagher and Ronald Robinson in their seminal 1953 article on ‘the imperialism of free trade.’ This encapsulated the way Victorians used their naval and financial power to open the markets of countrys outside their colonial ambit. Equally illuminating is the now widely acceptd is the now widely accepted distinction between ‘formal’ empire and ‘informal’ empire. The British did not formally govern Argentina, for example, but the merchant banks of the City of London exerted such a powerful influence on its fiscal and monetary policy that Argentian’s independance was heavily qualified.”- Colossus- Niall Ferguson, Penguin Books 2004.
Basically on the whole America has practised informal governance and informal empirical gains, ie what many call ‘hegemony’, but as Ferguson argues a hegemony pretty much falls into a more academically correct description of ‘Empire.’ I mean the Oxford dictionary definition is “leadership or dominance, especially by one state or social group over others.”- the idea of informal empire and informal rule.