h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

"The people who hated Clinton because of his propensity to "avoid the truth" must surely be uncomfortable with the continuous falsehoods and simulations of the current administration. Or is it a case of see-no-evil, hear-no-evil?"

From the convresations I've been having recently, it appears that people are starting to wake up to the fact that "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" is a lot less of a lie than "The Iraquis have Weapons of Mass Destruction". The sad fact is, though, that many of the people who are saying this are not registered to vote and have a high degree of political apathy. DNA made a salient point in one of the H2G2 books when Ford Prefect ranted about voting for lizards - some people clearly think that no matter who gets in, it's going to be a lizard and don't feel like they can make a difference.

There is also some feeling that Bush Jr. was the lesser of two evils, which makes me wonder...

I think there was a better point about the ruler of the universe.

Anyone who realy wants that much power probably shouldn't have it.

"I've always thought the U.S. has suffered from an inability to view itself how others view it (although lots of other countries if not most doubtless have the same flaw). Take their anti-colonialist stance towards the old European empires of Britain and France. Was it compatible with their own history (treatment of native Americans, war against Mexico, Pershings Mexican expedition, Puerto Rico, Phillipines etc)? What must Clemenceau and Lloyd George thought when Woodrow Wilson was preaching to them?"

I think its more that we just don't care. A century of being sandwitched between two oceans, a weak nation, and a dominion of a an Empire that has better things to do than invade you makes you isolationist. By WW I, the US just didn't care much about the rest of the world. Americans felt that they were alsmost n a seperate planet. They saw the Great War as a European disease--a continuation of centuries of warfair on the Continent. Thus, they felt that they had a right to tell everyone else what to do to fix it.

Reasonable? No. Surprising? No.

U.S. isolationism lasted well into WWII, even though Americans eventually came to view that as a "righteous" war. And it was the same kind of people who were chanting "America First" in 1944 that are backing the war - can we still call it that at this point - in Iraq now.

For the Canadians reading this, can I just say that your prime minister kicks ass. He recently departed from meetings with Pres. Bush and he not only stuck to his guns about not putting Canadian troops in Iraq, but criticized Bush and the U.S. over our drug and marriage laws. Was Bush happy? Of course not, and Chretien didn't care.
"I did not expect him to send me flowers," he said in a quote to the New York Times.

Go Canada!

I echo that... Go Canada!

Remember this thread?
It resulted in an interesting article

http://www.crunchable.net/04/0301.shtml

In fact I found his other stuff pretty good too
The piece on Nader was very thought-provoking

just moving this to the top of the list

Thanks, Blackberry!

I dont find the US any different to any other nation.

Its actions are rarely suprising. It actions being reasonable are bone of contention. I would say many of them are not butare they that different to the actions of any other nation.

China, France and different peoles who inhabited the UK prior to the act of Union all rebelled against invasion and occupation. Each of them went onto or is still in the process of creating an empire of its own through military action or trade and economic practices. Though I find what the US is doing at present unreasonable it is perfectly expectable given the patterns of behaviour for other nations with the means to do so.

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