Unsustainable Consumption

[socrates]

Not sure I follow you here. You're saying the Soviets were holding the US back from using more energy? Which "equilibrium of the globe" are you talking about?

What I am saying is that I could not see the US in Afghanistan and Iraq(sorry for being premature) if the soviet Empire still existed. I see the demise of the soviet union as the most unsettling single event of the 20th century. Firstly, a new ungovernable area has been created ruled by drug barons and mafia, which is unleashing itself upon a region so corrupt politically that should there be a sniff of uranium up for grabs then it has already been sold.
Next the collapse of the USSR has encouraged a dangerous boldness by the US to adopt itself as the champion of the free world, the crusader of righteousness, and saviour of civilisation. In my opinion, it has pounced on a chance to assert itself in strategic positions to meet it's own ends.

I dont see the US challenging the Chinese with military threats when a US 'spy' plane came down in Chinese territory. However if that same plane had come down in Iraq and S.Hussain was holding the aircrew and plane for 'evaluation' then I wonder if the US administration would have reacted difeently. I use this example because the Chinese have been for years punishing their own people who expressed anti-establishment discourse and at the same time have been terrorising the inhabitants of Taiwan at arms length. This is the very regime that Mr.Bush is gunning after. Smacks of double standards to me.

We dont need a 'Star Wars' type Federation governing the world. What we need is a strong UN which can be left to decide on concencus what should be done about real global threats.

Closer to home, we have the English across the Irish Sea who are dumping millions of barrels of toxic discharge into our seas because it suits them. Who gives a damn about a tiny island of paddy spud pickers. Really I could'nt see it happening if Sellafield was located in Tijuana. For one the English goverment are so far up the US administrations backside that there brains co-exist in complete harmony.
Secondly the US would shut it down. Find some excuse and take them out.

My argument is far from eloquent and I have no doubt could be better voiced by a more learned debater, but the fact remains that their is an imbalance of power in the world and the US are exploiting it. It will reach a point some point in the future, where the next most powerful alliance or state will adopt alternative policy on the basis of economic or resourceful needs, which will in turn precede misery.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by socrates

Next the collapse of the USSR has encouraged a dangerous boldness by the US to adopt itself as the champion of the free world, the crusader of righteousness, and saviour of civilisation. In my opinion, it has pounced on a chance to assert itself in strategic positions to meet it's own ends.

Well, Socrates, I'd say it's time for you to ask more Socratic questions than you've been. Your argument sounds precisely like you've been listening to a crew of glib anti-Americans your whole life and you know no better. Don't be any too damn sure you've got any of it right. Get the hell off your island and travel the world for a time and see with your own eyes what's really out there, and not just what a bunch of invidious leftists try and tell you about the oldest and most powerful capitalist outfit on the globe. Europe had to shed mercantilist economic thinking before it ever got round to capitalism, and the United States, experiencing being on the colonial end of mercantilist thinking, jettisoned the whole model in the eighteenth century by means of the musket and fixed bayonet.

We've ended up with the exact kind of place that people break into to partake of. Even with Eire's stout growth over the last twenty years, can you say that's a problem you have? Not to take anything away from your island's charm, music and poetry, but come on. Are they cutting the wire to get in? Floating up on boats and rafts?

Closer to home, we have the English across the Irish Sea who are dumping millions of barrels of toxic discharge into our seas because it suits them. Who gives a damn about a tiny island of paddy spud pickers. Really I could'nt see it happening if Sellafield was located in Tijuana. For one the English goverment are so far up the US administrations backside that there brains co-exist in complete harmony.
Secondly the US would shut it down. Find some excuse and take them out.

My argument is far from eloquent and I have no doubt could be better voiced by a more learned debater. . .

I'd say in many regards it's also pretty far from accurate -- again because you stand only at the beginning of wisdom, and not in its full blossom. The Left isn't going to get you there, believe me -- I've seen it, and I've seen its failure.

I'd add that I've never met a decent, likeable or worthy anti-American; the bunch of them seem disreputable creeps with neither honor nor shame.