[lit-ideas] Re: On the prospect of World Peace

  • From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 5 Sep 2006 09:31:58 -0700

Gad, Irene.  I can't get past your second sentence.  No, no, that is not
true.  That is not Fukuyama's focus and it isn't Barnett's focus.  It isn't
even Huntington's focus.  

It is hard to move from that mistake to your subsequent sentences, but as I
wrote elsewhere, there is a non-proliferation treaty that many nations have
signed.  

 

And you keep making the mistake of saying that the US caused the Iraq
problems.  That isn't true.  Saddam invaded Kuwait.  Did you forget that?
The Gulf War never ended.  Did you forget that?  There was a treaty that
Saddam violated.  Did you know that?  The US and Britain overflew Iraq all
the years until they returned because saddam violated his treaties.
Saddam's Iraq was a Rogue State and he led others to believe that he had
WMDs.  Did you know that?  He refused to comply with UN resolutions.  Did
you know that?  He violated and made a mockery of the UN food for oil
arrangement.  Did you know that?  What in all of that tells you that the US
is the cause of all its problems there?  I wish you would give up this
erroneous and discredited nonsense.  

 

You then follow with a lot of Islamic stuff you got from some web site.
Most of it seems true, but it is not particularly relevant as far as I can
see.  What does this have to do with the Fukuyama/Barnett plan for World
Peace.  I already said that Fukuyama disagreed with the invasion of Iraq; so
you're saying that it isn't going well (whether it is or not) isn't relevant
to the discussion in that Fukuyama already predicted that.  

 

Furthermore, the Fukuyama End of History is not dependent upon the U.S.  I
don't know where you got that.  And it isn't correct to describe Liberal
Democracy as taking over the world.  That's not a correct way of looking at
the matter.  A nation becomes a Liberal Democracy because the people like
its freedom, entrepreneurs like the opportunities to become rich and
governments like the taxes that roll in.  A Liberal Democracy doesn't take
over anything.  

 

"State run" and "capitalism" are contradictions.  The China isn't State Run
Capitalism because if the economy were state run it would be socialism.  The
government is concerned about retaining power but the economy is largely
free.  

 

The Chinese economy is far more fragile than ours.  People are predicting
that because of its size it is a major player despite the poverty, but once
workers start earning more then it will follow the way of all Liberal
Democracies.  Remember, there was once a time not so long ago when it was
imagined that Japan's economy would surpass the U.S. economy.  It didn't
happen.  China's economy is predicted to grow 10% this year compared to the
U.S. 3.6% but don't forget that since the US represents 1/3 of the world's
economy 3.6% of the American economy is much greater than 10% of the Chinese
economy.

 

Lawrence

 

  _____  

From: lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:lit-ideas-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
On Behalf Of Andy Amago
Sent: Tuesday, September 05, 2006 8:48 AM
To: lit-ideas
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: On the prospect of World Peace

 

I started a reply to your other post, but it can apply to this one.  This
[the focus on liberal democracy] assumes that the U.S. is the end all and be
all of everybody's attention.  It doesn't take into account (1) that
countries with nuclear weapons have never used them and tend to be more
responsible after they acquire them; (2) that the U.S. is the cause of many
of its problems (in Iraq the U.S. is the cause of ALL of its problems); and
(3) it doesn't take into account the intricacies of the Islam world.  Right
now in Iraq (reference is Galbraith) the Salafis, a branch of Sunni Muslims,
have essentially excommunicated (declared takfir) the Shiites, meaning that
Shiites can be killed and their property taken at will.  Mainstream Sunni
theologians reject that any Muslim can excommunicate another Muslim; they
say only God can do that.  In the meantime, a Sunni-Shiite civil war (which
according to Galbraith&nb sp;may have started as early as August 29, 2003)
serves the interests of both wings of the insurgency (Ba'ath and al-Qaeda).
These are intricacies that are lost in the furor over whether liberal
democracy will take over the world.  Either we have absolutely, utterly no
clue what's going on in the world (a very distinct probability), or it's so
overwhelmingly complicated that we focus on abstract ideological arguments
as a way of escaping the complexity.  So we turn around and say we're the
center of the world, see, that's why they're all out to get us.  We took the
small group of weirdos that al Qaeda had been and through our obsession with
this ridiculous neocon liberal democracy ideological distraction, made al
Qaeda much more powerful, entrenched them as a movement, and sowed the seeds
for who knows what.  

 

Regarding China, they're a hybrid of state-run and capitalism.  They still
regulate free speech.   They have actual little icons (cars I think) that go
across people's computer screens reminding them that Big Brother is
watching.  They also have over a billion people still living in abject
poverty, and pollution to the point where these may become socially
destabilizing forces, particularly the pollution.  There's no way to put
China into a neat box vis-a-vis liberal democracy.  Economically they are at
this moment a distinct challenge.  They're growing at something like 10% a
year while we're doing something like 3% and looking at a recession again.
Not that we're collapsing any time real soon (I hope), but China is
definitely a contender.  If we get into a war with Iran, things could
change.  Regarding what you say about Germany, that's exactly what we did in
Iraq, forced democracy on them, historic al precedent that went unheeded.
You keep repeating that LB's don't war with LB's except when they do, and
when they do, boy do they war.  

 

That's all I have time for.  See ya.

 

 

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