From: Dwayne (ddraig@pobox.com)
Date: Sun Mar 15 1998 - 22:30:39 MST
Michael Lorrey wrote:
> You should look at the political arena as more of an x/y coordinate system,
I would argue that it has a potentially infinite number of dimensions. Political
decisions are rarely made on the basis of one or two variables.
> Really, funny, the native Americans might have something to say about the idea
> that natural selection doesn't apply to cultural evolution, especially the dead
> ones. So might the Nazis, the Communists, and today, the French, as their
> uncompetetive little culture is getting overrun by Americanization (as most
> other undynamic cultures are today). As tacky as you might think it is, the
> current American Culture seems to presently be the most competetive culture in
> current existence (Or North American culture, as a Canadian would say ;)). Of
> course that could change, and if it does, we could all be eating tofu.....
Well, from the outside, the way I (and i assume most of the rest of the world) see
it, the US did not "win" world war II or the post-war period, it did what it has
done most of this century, which is wait for the combatants to wear each other out
and then to step in.
The US entered world war I in 1917 (!), and would undoubtedly have entered world war
2 later on in the piece if the Japanese hadn't seen the writing on the wall and
tried to get in first. The US is more competitive than the French. Sure. the french
have also fought three major wars on their own territory in 100 years, whereas the
US has merely exported such. This attitude you have is akin to someone stepping in
at the late part of a fight, kicking the victor in the head several times while they
are trying to get off the floor, and then telling everyone how tough they are. No
one believes it. Sure, the US has nukes. The US developed it's nukes with the help
of the rest of the allies, and then used it's undamaged economic base, maintained on
a war footing throughout the 50s to run about and bully the rest of the world.
While I have a lot of friends in the US, and on the whole most of the americans I
have come across are very nice people, this bullshit manifest destiny attitude is
incredibly annoying, and I remind you of what happened to Rome when the empire fell,
and consider the gunboat diplomacy the US has been practising for most of this
century, and the widespread resentment it has engendered. if the US way of life was
so incredibly superior, why is it that no-one else feels this way? I don't see the
american way of doing things taking over the world. Democracy is not an american
invention, neither is capitalism. What purely american systems have been
successfully exported overseas?
Dwayne
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