tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3077210.post111755648784859295..comments2024-03-17T18:57:54.001+01:00Comments on Limited, Inc.: war for the fansRoger Gathmannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11257400843748041639noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3077210.post-1117938594496250442005-06-05T04:29:00.000+02:002005-06-05T04:29:00.000+02:00Regarding the article about the late Colonel David...Regarding the article about the late Colonel David Hackworth, I must correct an error that was made. Colonel Hackworth won TWO DISTINGUISHED SERVICE CROSSES, NOT two Distinguished Service Medals. The Distinguished Service Cross is the U.S. Army's second highest award for heroism in combat. The DSC is equivalent to the Navy Cross and the Air Force cross.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3077210.post-1117582242507843392005-06-01T01:30:00.000+02:002005-06-01T01:30:00.000+02:00I don't pick on Bush because I think he is morally...I don't pick on Bush because I think he is morally below Hilary, but because this is his war, and these are his disastrous macro policies. I actually think Bush believes his democracy talk. That is because it is the pattern that all presidents end up talking when they take the country to war. The real reasons for the war diverged, in my opinion, in the Bush admin. -- with, on one end, Cheney's straightforward grab the gas idea, to Wolfowitz, on the other end, playing Metternich -- when, of course, his competence was more in adding one footnote to the literature on Metternich's idiot nephew.<BR/><BR/>There is an interesting dialectical irony about the democracy thing. The U.S. is the greatest military power, and thus the greatest imperialist power. But the founding myth, here, is of an anti-colonial uprising. Insurgency, if you will. <BR/><BR/>This produces both a good and a bad thing.<BR/>On the one hand, it acts as an internal brake on imperialist adventures. The U.S. doesn't do traditional colonies -- that is, it doesn't settle Americans in a place for generations, change the laws, put in viceroys, etc. Sure, we did the Philippines, but mostly that kind of thing goes against the myth. And it is frankly very hard to make the case that some peoples had an election and invited us to invade them. So we don't have that horrible English trait -- go into India, say, steal whatever isn't nailed down, then invest in the place and milk the profits, etc., etc. <BR/><BR/>On the other hand, we do invade places, and we created half assed colonies. This is the bad side of the democratic idea -- Americans are the most irresponsible of imperial powers. Whatever we touch -- Guatamala, Haiti, the Philippines, Nicarauga, Panama -- turns to shit. That is because the colonial ventures are halfway, thus creating native governing classes that are halfway dependent on us. It is a golden method for destroying a country's spirit, especially as we laden the American final say so with the assurance that, hey, we just want to liberate the spirit of the peoples of X. <BR/><BR/>Bush is just a parody example of this, a reductio ad Texan of the whole business.Roger Gathmannhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11257400843748041639noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3077210.post-1117581829335772192005-06-01T01:23:00.000+02:002005-06-01T01:23:00.000+02:00Harry, over the course of the history of the two p...Harry, over the course of the history of the two parties, either is liable to cycle into belligerance. The era of the New Deal wars -- from 1941 to 1968 -- was the Dem cycle. War, among other things, is a great way of getting rid of things in a society you don't want. I think the agony of, say Johnson about Vietnam was genuine, but the idea that the dems were forced by anti-communist GOPers into that war is bogus. <BR/><BR/>Now the cycle of belligerance is Republican. Perhas it has been since 68. Naturally, the more pacifistic element migrates into the other party. <BR/><BR/>I think where we disagree is that, just as I don't think one should morally idealize some party in the U.S. -- like the GOP or the Dems -- I don't think one should morally trash em, either. I think the antiwar groups are foolish to misprision a temporary alliance with the Dems as meaning that the Dems are the peace party -- they aren't -- but it would be just as foolish not to try to pressure the Dems to work to end the war. The same is true, especially with this war, with the Republicans.Roger Gathmannhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11257400843748041639noreply@blogger.com