Denk:  I was born sarcastic and can’t help using it when I write.  I think everybody will catch it—but not always, I guess.  “manage to” .. “come to terms with belonging to the human race”  scornful words that make (rather mean) fun of human beings whose money deceives them into actually believing, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, that they are, nevertheless, and in spite of their wealth, still human beings like everyone else.  It’s impossible to explain sarcasm.  It is also impossible to explain how rich people can so easily divorce themselves from other people.  They do it for “protection” not from theft or kidnapping but from their own guilt and responsibility.  Otherwise they would reach down from their high places and “do the right thing” which they are all fully aware of.  I don’t buy this line about “the rich don’t know or care what they are doing.”  They know very well,but must hide it from themselves in order to get richer.  It’s called greed, and there ought to be laws to prevent it beyond a certain democratically-agreed-upon point. That would be at least an attempt at economic justice.

i mean with due respect !!!

**Unless, that is ... unless American heads of our “corporate/state” can manage to come to terms with belonging to the human race and let up on the American “exceptionalism” baloney**

gerard
without due respect, but you dont yet know about uncle sham…
http://tinyurl.com/5oygdv
his mantra…“we brood no competition”

“Historian Andre Gunder Frank once quipped that the only thing to fear about a rising China is
http://tinyurl.com/ygmwwfj
America’s response to it
http://tinyurl.com/yafaavp

china ===> tibet
india ===> democrazy

with stuff like this, who needs the msm ?
the author needs some reality checks….
http://tinyurl.com/yl4jrse

I have a sneaking suspicion that “American hegemony” is going to look pretty silly when China really comes into its own as an “economic engine” as the capitalists like to say.  With a population that large and an influence that deep, cultlurally and financially, they are likely to make America look more and more like a minor player with a pretty small pile of chips.
  Unless, that is ... unless American heads of our “corporate/state” can manage to come to terms with belonging to the human race and let up on the American “exceptionalism” baloney. and unless our people can learn fast enough that facing facts and gracefully admitting the invitable change in status will lead us all in a better direction than the posturings of an outdated imperialism and insistence on maintaining a failed capitalism at everybody else’s expense. I can’t imagine a few corporate big wigs who have manaaged to claw their way to the top of the Western heap telling the Chinese what to do, can you?
  Adapt or die.  Collaborate or fail.  Plan for the future now or pine for the past later.  Something like that.

Postscript:  To call our politicians “statesmen” and “stateswomen” is a bit much, don’t you think?
These guys have not shown any signs of statesman(woman)ship for many years—with a very few exceptions which soon get them slapped down or defunded or worse.
  The very first thing any real statesperson would do after taking a look at what is going on in Washington now would be to resign and tell why.  Second-best:  Refuse all corporate contributions as a matter of principle and explain why. Turn out all lobbyists.  Three: Read their email and work for what the ordinary Janes and Joes in their area say the want Washington to do.

....and what will it matter, when “the global hill” turns out to be a dung-heap so full of industrial toxins it can only sterilize, and never fertilize, those who fight and foolishly CONdemn theirselfs to ‘reign’ over it?  No wonder wiser posters here reject this article’s fatuous endorsement of the dog-eat-dog ‘dominance’ paradigm at the rotten core of the entire “global” CONfidence scheme….not to mention “civilization” itself.

William Pfaff could maybe use a little time-off.  His ‘perspective’ seems to be getting increasingly distorted….perhaps the effects of the rule-of-fear he suffers under, and that has him looking desperately for some miserable company-in.

Thanks….but NO thanks.

HokaHey!

Despite the fact that China has ground forces that could overwhelm, nuclear capability, and huge resources, historically it has been surprisingly tolerant with its neighbors. Perhaps it is the Eastern understanding that holds that alone we are weak, and only together are we strong, that by himself, the individual is nothing.  A compelling philosophy, indeed.  But the author of the above article cannot escape his education and upbringing, or that of his editors, and so can imagine no better world, no higher living standard, no other standards in fact, than of a Hollywood world.  Having worn the green-colored glasses of the imperial world-view that assigns a service role for its subjects, as well as those disposable people in East Asia and the sub-continent (and likely, in his view, Africa, the Carribean, and the rest of the world, as well) along the lines of the Grand Arena decided upon by at WW2’s end by the un-elected boardroom boys, the freightened men of finance and capital, and their thousands of adoring press agents monopolizing and steering the public conversation, cornering the politicians who, schooled in the same selfish self-interest meme, willing forgo the common good for their own personal gain.  One cannot serve two masters, however. 

Can we not think outside the industrial top-down democracy/oligarchy box?  Can we not imagine that the shopping mall may not be a proper measure of development or a “high standard of living”?  It’s easy to pump up GDP, as narrow as the measurements are, but it rarely results in a social good.  It is not in the nature of Capitalism to bring widespread prosperity. Capitalism does not nurture cooperation and consensus.  A culture that desires us all to be good little consumers of products we are encouraged to buy is lacking a great deal.  Do we not have the imagination to understand that maybe there is such a thing as too much, that there are more humane and just ways of living than being set adrift to get the best bargain, instead of the benefit of social wealth, to which we all contribute, doled out to support those “too big to fail”?  Consider for a moment the notion that “capitalism” is the bastard Siamese-twin brother of the atomized citizen of “democracy”.

There was a time when renting out one’s labor was considered disgusting, not the act of a free man.  A good dose of union busting and we’re rid of that civilizing force.  Instead, we are now to clamber all over each other for the chance to prostitute ourselves. We are criminally pitted, one against the other, in more and more dire and desperate competition for a resource cynically controlled by the very few. We are managed.

The poor work very hard, make no mistake.  And most of them in the US are white women, struggling in conditions not terribly unlike those in Bangladesh or Burma.

Capitalism has always been a disaster for the majority.

Well, reducing the absurd number of humans is one way to ease
the pressure but the ‘global king of the hill’ will be the country
with the most and biggest nuclear weapons.PERIOD

Sir , you have been a member of the major media for
a while now….....

Thank you so much for the contibutions….

Mr. Pfaff:  Rather than speculating on who will become “king of the hill” I wish you would address suggestions for avoiding such a dangerous future. We all ought to be looking toward growing up pretty soon, as the world gets both smaller and more complex.

Don’t tell me we are doomed and a vicious competition is inevitable.  Everybody is thinking that, fearing that.  What is needed is not dread but ways to avoid it before it gets any farther along.

Anybody can stir up fear in international relations. What is needed is creative, forward-looking, world-minded thinking, and some indication that a better future is possible.  I know that’s harder to do, but . . . less than that is not helpful.

I don’t see where it will be that long at all
before the U.S. and China citizens have the
same standard of living…..

Most households now are dependent on at least on
government check….What happens when they stop?

We are just a crisis away from Sinclair’s Jungle,