Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Links and such
Please post any links or blogs you know that would be relevant to the site. I think it will let you add them yourselves.
William Appleman Williams
Good job ES, it works,...
Here, a short review of William Appleman William's "Empire as a Way of Life" from JSTOR. Might be helpful.
Monday, February 05, 2007
Non-Binding Resolutions?
The Senate appears to be doing little in the way of exercising responsible policy on Iraq. While the virtual tie between the parties makes headway difficult, it would seem that the increasing unpopularity and disparity of events on the ground would warrant honest debate.
This is not the case. Instead the debate has once again been reduced to grandiose statements about supporting the troops or not wishing to cause defeat on the ground. If only the Senators saying the President needed support could hear themselves. They sound like little cheerleaders not wanting to admit their heroic team is loosing.
However, blame is plenty. The gang of Senatorial Presidential candidates is using the situation and every other event from taxes to the economy as a grandstand for their own campaigns. The group is always willing to issue their own declaratory statements on what they want instead of focusing the issue at hand. That issue is acting as a Senator.
Furthermore, all these Senators on both sides fail to admit their own accomplice to the war itself. The few who did vote against it in 2003 have all the room in the world to speak against it. The others should not be so keen on merely blaming their decisions on bad intelligence. If it was bad intelligence, then it was also emasculated politicians who did not have the wherewithal to execute oversight.
The blame also rests with the populace. Just like the Senators, doing an about face is hard to accept when the majority seemed quite alright back in 2003. I do not wish to argue that people cannot change their minds. Instead, people must change their minds cognizant of their own prior actions in relation to the event itself. By doing so, the debate can become more than just a blame game and instead focus on questioning what can be done to fix a situation that we started.
If non-binding resolutions are the case, than the American system of divided government does not hold much hope.
This is not the case. Instead the debate has once again been reduced to grandiose statements about supporting the troops or not wishing to cause defeat on the ground. If only the Senators saying the President needed support could hear themselves. They sound like little cheerleaders not wanting to admit their heroic team is loosing.
However, blame is plenty. The gang of Senatorial Presidential candidates is using the situation and every other event from taxes to the economy as a grandstand for their own campaigns. The group is always willing to issue their own declaratory statements on what they want instead of focusing the issue at hand. That issue is acting as a Senator.
Furthermore, all these Senators on both sides fail to admit their own accomplice to the war itself. The few who did vote against it in 2003 have all the room in the world to speak against it. The others should not be so keen on merely blaming their decisions on bad intelligence. If it was bad intelligence, then it was also emasculated politicians who did not have the wherewithal to execute oversight.
The blame also rests with the populace. Just like the Senators, doing an about face is hard to accept when the majority seemed quite alright back in 2003. I do not wish to argue that people cannot change their minds. Instead, people must change their minds cognizant of their own prior actions in relation to the event itself. By doing so, the debate can become more than just a blame game and instead focus on questioning what can be done to fix a situation that we started.
If non-binding resolutions are the case, than the American system of divided government does not hold much hope.
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