Re: [Gnu-arch-users] [OT] facism gaining ground in US

[Pierce T . Wetter III]

On Jul 26, 2004, at 1:16 PM, nadim wrote:

> On Monday 26 July 2004 09:40 pm, Pierce T.Wetter III wrote:
> >   However, our foreign policy in toto has been towards more democracy.
> > No doubt
> > you'll come up with tons of counterexamples, and I'm not going to 
> > argue
> > with
> > you about those, there's no point. There were under 40 democracies 50
> > years
> > ago, there are 140 now. The US deserves some credit for that. I think
> > that
> > is what Mr. Bild is referring to.
> Isn't this very typical of you? you _know_ I have counter example for 
> the
> things you _don't_ write about but you _still_ bring figures like 40 
> vs 140
> (please start listing the 140 democrcies It sounds too much like a 
> certain
> coalition).

 There are only 37? countries in the coalition. I got the number from
a Bush speech. When Reagan made his famous "we will crush communism and
make the world democratic" speech, there were only 40 democracies. When
Bush made a similar speech, there were 140. Of course, the Soviet Union
collapsed in between there...

> And I realy don't think the US deserves much credits for people
> going towards democracy. The US foreign policy has been terrible for 
> many
> countries that wanted "their" democracy not something approved in 
> Washington.

  Yep, especially during the Cold War.

> So here is a question/demand. Please Pierce could you tell us about 
> cases
> where the US had a role in bringing democracy in some (out of 110 
> countries
> you can certainly find more than one) countries. You don't need to 
> give us
> all the details (drawn us in them) and it doesn't even need to be the
> official story. I'd like to hear your opinion.


 Ok, well first off, all nations do a mixture of good and evil in their
foreign policy. In our case, the mixture varies over time.

 I divide US foreign policy into these periods:

  Pre WWI: Isolationist, expansionist, anti-European colonial, pro
       US colonial (Monroe Doctrine)

    In this period, you see phrases like "Manifest Destiny" which
 was our belief that we had the destiny to expand from the East coast
 to the West Coast. We were very much against colonial interference,
 however, having little if any actual power, we relied on England
 to back up our braggadocio. The Monroe Doctrine which stated that
 we thought that Europe should stay out of the Western Hemisphere,
 was actually backed up by _British_ naval power.

   We're pretty much inconsequential on the world stage at this point,
though we have some influence over the Western Hemisphere.

  In this period, we successfully aid a few governments in the
Western Hemisphere from throwing off European influence. Of course
then they fell under our influence, but they still had democratic
governments.

  WWI: Idealist (Woodrow Wilson)

   So the US got dragged kicking and screaming into this, probably
the stupidest of all wars. (Perhaps a European can tell me what,
if anything this war was about?) Woodrow Wilson felt strongly that
if we were going to get involved, it wasn't going to be so that
the Allied powers could divide up how they were going to line their
pockets with the rest of the world.

  Unfortunately, he failed. Ultimately, the US never ratified
the treaty of Versailles. I wonder if that means we're still at
war with the Kaiser? :-) However, since Wilson justified the
war as getting rid of the old, monarchist, regimes, he was more
successful in that, at least in Europe.

  Post WWI: Isolationist, very disillusioned about Europe

  Very disillusioned about Europe an colonialism, the US focuses
more on the Western Hemisphere, though we have some imperial
adventures of our own (Panama, Phillipines). I'm a little fuzzy
on this period as I don't remember any particular foreign policy
picks or pans during this period.

  WWII: The cows of WWI come home to roost...as Wilson predicted,
the peace treaty concluding WWI set the seeds for the next war.

  However, this time, when all was said and done, all of the
monarchies that entered the war were finally done. Europe is completely 
devastated by the War though, and the US commits to help rebuild: The 
Marshall plan, and the Bretton Woods Agreement being two main methods 
of doing that.

 Note that the United states prior to WWII was not that important
a country, and ended WWII being one of the two most important countries.
We also voluntarily limited our power and influence in order to appease
European worries about becoming "colonies" of America.

 However, Roosevelt dies. Truman (his vice president) and Stalin's 
mutual distrust lead to the Cold War.

  So at this point, all of Europe is either democratic or constitutional
monarchist due to a lot of prodding from us.

 Cold War:

  So we have two factors here. From the get-go, Russia threatens to 
spread
communism across the globe. Meanwhile, the various colonial powers in
Europe pretty much abandon their colonial assets to the US. The US
doesn't want them, but doesn't want them to go to Russia either.

 So we sort of muddle through this period. Russia accuses us constantly
of being imperialistic, while being even more so...

   Key thing that happened in this period that has a bearing on today:
Britain had decided in 1919 to support Zionism in an effort
to swing this supposed worldwide conspiracy of Jews to their side in 
WWI.
Wilson was somehow smart enough to avoid Palestine in Versailles, but
after WWII, we get stuck with Israel as part of the general collapse
of the British Empire. When Israel becomes independent,
the US is forced to continue the status quo. Russia cleverly labels this
as an imperialist measure by the evil capitalists (well, yeah, but it
was Britain's stupid idea, not ours). Consequently, most Arab nations
fall into the Russian camp, despite Islam being fundamentally 
incompatible
with Communism.

 So most Arabs have been listening to anti-US propoganda for 50 years,
which seems to color their viewpoint a bit. Its interesting that the
Russians have stopped saying all that nonsense, its only the Arab 
nations
that spout it.

 Anyways, as I've said before, we did some evil things during this 
period
because short term, we wanted to win the "War", that we're detrimental 
to
our long term strategy of worldwide democracy. Hardest hit here were 
all the
ex-colonies of Europe. In other words, the Middle East, and Africa.

 Meanwhile, the US with the aid of its Western European allies succeeded
in resisting the Soviets long enough for them to collapse of their own
according, bringing democracy to Eastern Europe.

 Post Cold War:

 The current period. I don't see this as really starting until Bush came
into office, because I see the Clinton administration as being in a
holding pattern when it comes to foreign policy.

  I see our goal (and evidentially Bush does too, given his speeches, 
but
we'll see how he follows through) to promote democracy throughout the
world during this period.


> >   Here's one though: In my more cynical moments, IMAO, we don't have a
> > choice between Bush and Kerry, ....
> > ...
> >   How you feel about these choices depends on how you feel about those
> > particular cronies.
> I fail to find democracy represented here. Where is the 
> "demos/people"? What
> you described is the URSS. Is that what you mean?

 Democracy is having the choice...It doesn't guarantee good choices. The
main reason, IMAO, that democracy is the best form of government is
that it gives people the ability to kick out the guys who don't
keep the potholes filled. That keeps the corruption down a bit,
and keeps the potholes filled.

 Pierce