Foreign policy
I present, two people on the US foreign policy, who often would be considered opposite ends of the spectrum by many people. I am not going to comment on them other than to quote a little and ask people to read them and think about what is being said. First, from the intellegent, yet looney right, comes a piece by Patrick Buchanan:
Empathy, a capacity for participating in another’s feelings or ideas, is indispensable to diplomacy. Carried too far, as it was by the Brits in the 1930s, it can lead to appeasement. But an absence of empathy can leave statesmen oblivious as to why their nation is hated, and with equally fateful consequences.
And from the slightly looney, yet very intellegent left, comes everyone’s favorite whipping boy, Noam Chomsky, in an interview on Alternet:
George Bush would be in severe political trouble if there were an opposition political party in the country. Just about every day, they’re shooting themselves in the foot. The striking fact about contemporary American politics is that the Democrats are making almost no gain from this. The only gain that they’re getting is that the Republicans are losing support. Now, again, an opposition party would be making hay, but the Democrats are so close in policy to the Republicans that they can’t do anything about it. When they try to say something about Iraq, George Bush turns back to them, or Karl Rove turns back to them, and says, “How can you criticize it? You all voted for it.” And, yeah, they’re basically correct.
It’s an interesting read on both accounts, and a higher level of discussion than one would find in “mainstream media” of any persuasion.
This entry was posted at 6:53 pm on 15 January 2006 and is filed under Public Policy, Social. You can follow any responses to this entry through the post-specific RSS 2.0 feed.
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