Clash of Civilizations vs Politics by Other Means
So, to start this up Fuck John Edwards that I have ever voted for him for public office, yet alone having done so twice. Fuck him up his stupid ass. He said that the greatest threat to world peace and security was the possibility that Israel would bomb Iran because of Iran's nuclear programme. I guess in some kind of candy-land fantasy world where John Edwards is still a senator or something or vice president, that is, a world where he recieves national security breifings that would qualify him to, well, I think the word is fabricate, a scenario like this. So I mean, he already has no chance, but really I want to reject the anti-semetic, anti-free trade wing of the democratic party. The kooky populists who don't think we should be supporting Israel quite so much, hate corporations, want no U.S. involvement in the world around us, think protectionism will somehow aid the U.S. economy. I don't want to say the radical left, because I think to a certain event, certainly in how I view culture and how it shapes society, I most agree with radical left analyses, but sure lets reject the radical left (or I do anyways, maybe someone will tell me why I'm wrong but I doubt it, people don't come here much so more). Now onto Hamas. The Quartet of Middle East Negotiators, which is the United States, the EU, the UN and Russia (not exactly a 1-sided pro-Israel group as Russia, the EU and the UN all tend to favor the Palestinian side) urged (demanded, but w/e, urged is better) the Hamas government recognize Israel, renounce violence and accept interim peace deals that would reduce violence in order to have economic sanctions removed. You'd think these would be the requirement to autonomously govern the occupied provinces if the deal you're making is with Israel, but Israel seems to think that they have a committment to democratic government in the occupied territories, even though the first government elected was one that wants to wipe out Israel. It's a start I guess. Oh but meanwhile the military wing of hamas has broken the ceasefire because Israeli police foiled a suicide bombing and in so doing, killed the suicide bomber without civilian casualities. However, this offence of killing someone who was going to kill himself up to kill Israelis is an intolerable offence, so Hamas is back on the warpath. I can't believe so many otherwise intelligent people support the Palestinian anti-Zionest cause. I feel like if it was any other people than the jews the moral imperative that they have would be clear. The very clear difference from their actions and their enemies in terms of who is targetted and in terms of long term goals. However some people just love terrorism and hate jews I guess. Thats how its gonna be. I've been reading a lot of conservative political blogs lately for some reason, particularly war on terror blogs. Little Green Footballs and Jihadi Watch/Dhimmi watch in particular are interesting to me. They present real news stories from legitimate news sites with minimal, but scathing commentary, then the members of the site racist it up in the comments section. Which, I guess is fine, I mean, where else are racist people going to go but I think theres a big distinction between radical Islam and secularized Islam. I was going to post a bunch of links to stories, but I doubt anyone else would be that interested in polio tycoons, Pakistani serial killers, or violent struggle. So I've been thinking lately about Clash of Civilizations. It's this article from the 90s about the new global paradigm in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union by Samuel P. Huntington. His argument was against the usual narrative that globalization would lead to a peaceful and prosperous world and that all governments would quickly move towards liberal democratic capitalism. The case against that was obviously easy to make (not so easy in the early 90s, although one look at Africa or the Middle east would have proved it wrong). Huntington's idea was that the future would not be about clash of ideologies as in the 20th century (fasicism, totalitarian socialism, democratic capitalism, etc) but would rather be a clash of civilizations with basically different cultural values, forms of government and ideas about the role of the individual in society. A lot of people thought it was kind of racist and simplistic and I wrote at least 1 and I think 2 papers at various points criticising it and arguing against his thesis. To me the only important actors were States and the only motivation for their actions was power and security. Looking at todays world, it seems that Huntington was right and I was wrong. The situation in the middle east, as well as Vladimir Putins moves back towards an authoritarian state with some state control industries, but still basically capitalist (reminds me of Stalin after the NEP years) seem to bear him out, as does Japans shift further to the right including militirization and nationalism. You used to be able to find the full text online but looks like no these days. I took this quiz dealie I found on digg to determine which Presidential candidates or potential candidates most agreed with my views. The top 3 were Barack Obama, Bill Richardson and Al Gore. I already knew that :hifive:. So what else do I have to talk about? This is actually where I went back and added the clash of civilizations stuff, which was the whole reason I wrote this post. Who knew. Heroes is awesome, 52 is awesome, Marvel Civil war is awesome.
Edit:So apparantly (aparantly) popular liberal blog "Wonkette" has weighed in on the Edwards mess and claims that its a sign that "if you take your lips of Israels ass for one second" you cant win an election and that this is not because of Jews or because of American policy interests align with a strong secure democratic Israel but rather the evangelical right. Ok so I'm pretty sure Edwards wasn't pandering to the evangelical right when he apologized (which is meaningless to me, because he's already voiced his opinion here, apologizing for the wording doesn't revoke the message from his brain) I'm pretty sure that 87% of American Jews vote democratic and that strong support for Israel has long been a platform of the democratic party. Also if you want to get money, the populist position isn't going to go as far as he wants, just look at the 2004 primary. He did ok early and in the south where name recognition was high, but his advertising didn't do it against Kerry's slick crew. And this time Obama and Hilary already have him marginalized and it isn't even summer of 2007. He's already offended catholics, evangelicals, media, bloggers, zionists, and its only been a few weeks. Edwards chances=Bidens chances=0.