Cliff LyonWorld Gone Crazy
Actually, it us the US that’s gone crazy. I am sickened by the situation in and around Israel. Hezbollah is crazy, but we are responsible for not doing anything to provide a forum for diplomacy. A simple review of our foreign policy efforts in that part of the Middle East will reflect that.
It’s hard not to see the similarities between them and the Bush administration. In both cases dissent is quashed, nothing good is accomplished, and lives are lost. And amidst all the insanity, a little girl in America is shot to death playing funeral with her doll (see previous post).
It’s all too much to grasp. Somebody help me.
July 15th, 2006 at 9:27 am
It is a crazy and troubling world. A very complex world. Your passion and compassion are wonderful. But, I think it denies the complexity of these things to simply lay it off on the Bush administration. The middle east is a mellenia’s old struggle. And the horrible tragedy of random violence in America also pre-dates W. You might think Pres. Bush is not helping things or even that he is making things worse; that’s your right (and, if you believe it, possibly your obligation to work to change things). But just as most people tuned out folks who said Clinton was single-handedly destroying civilization, they also tend to tune out people who say the same thing of Republican administrations.
I don’t think that Bush and his people, nor Clinton and his people, work to do anything but try and make the world a better place. In some things, they each succeed. In others, they each fail. But I don’t believe most Americans believe that either of them is evil or all bad.
July 15th, 2006 at 9:30 am
Oops. “Millenia’s-old struggle.”
July 15th, 2006 at 10:52 am
George Bush has weakened the USA and our diplomatic impotence is a sure sign of it.
Camparison’s to criticisms of Clinton or equivocating their intentions are way of deflecting criticism from the present. Good intentions are not good enough.
One thing seems certain as things continue to spiral downward in the Middle East — US diplomacy is on the sidelines and that is bad for everybody. Sec. of State Rice has not been to the region in months and she seems invisible. You would be hard-pressed to identify any policy or diplomatic efforts in the middle-east during Bush first term. Under a more active administration there would be special envoys and high profile peace missions. People like Jimmy Carter, Colin Powell, Sam Nunn, Brent Skowcroft, George H.W. Bush, Jim Baker and Bill Clinton might be brought in to help. George W. Bush probably has not even talked to his father — at least his earthly father.
Instead George Bush sleepwalks in St. Petersburg and retreats further into the sports pages. US diplomats seem prepared only to discuss plans to get US citizens out. There is no leadership and no pressure on either side for restraint. This is a sad time for the US and especially US diplomacy. All we have left is the military and they are bogged down. This is very dangerous. We are weak and that means nobody is there to tell both sides to ease up.
July 15th, 2006 at 4:43 pm
[...] I am honored to discover that Republican Minority Steve Urquardt reads OneUtah, and I have been ruminating all day about his response to my post “World Gone Crazy.†[...]
July 16th, 2006 at 7:05 pm
[...] Rep Urquardt is right. The World IS a complex place. That fact alone should give us pause before making assumptions or drawing opinions on just about anything much beyond the front of our noses. And yet we do. Just once, I’d like to see a Zogby poll in which 30, 40, or even 80% of the people answer “don’t know†instead of the usual 3-6% on more emotionally charged issues and 7-12% on boring questions like whether labor unions are important. [...]
July 17th, 2006 at 10:38 am
Have you read Samual Huntingtons “Clash of Civilizations”?(senior fellow hudson institute)The idea is that arabs(muslims) must be destroyed and brought to a final conflict, in order to eliminate them, as the main impediment to western style corporate facism, and the “new world order”. The book was co-written by Zbignew Brezinski, Jimmy Carters’ National Security Advisor. From what I can see the groundwork for starting a wider war of totality, with arabs and persians, is all going according to plan. bush is the genius in this, that the American people do not want this crap, belies their inherent stupidity about the people that are ruling their hapless materialistic lives. The effort we now see in the ME that is leading to chaos is a long term planned, bi-partisan event. Really there are no partisans, only counter point players, and of course “true believers” which are for our facist regime, are the “useful idiots”.
Which ones are you?
I personally believe that this may be it. It showtime.
I am reminded of a “coon trap” where a person(hunter) carves a hole in a secured log that a racoon can stick his hand in. The hunter places a shiny quarter in the hole. When the coon grabs the coin he makes a fist, and as such, the clever contraption will not allow him to remove his paw unless he forgoe the coin. The coon does not, and the hunter simply walks up to the stupid creature and clubs him to death. This is the American public. What to say? Stupid is as stupid does.