The crux of the biscuit

[alvarezadams]

We have terrorism? We're not popular around the world? Somehow our self-deluded fantasies about our altruism are kinda hollow?

US blamed abroad for WTO collapse

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration faced blame from U.S. trading partners on Monday for the collapse of world trade negotiations, but won praise at home for holding firm in the talks.

European Union Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson accused the United States of "stone-walling" by refusing to offer deeper cuts in U.S. trade-distorting domestic farm subsidies, which now total about $20 billion annually.

"Surely the richest and strongest nation in the world, with the highest standards of living, can afford to give as well as take," Mandelson said.

Brazil, India and Japan joined in the criticism after a weekend G6 meeting in Geneva failed to resolve long-standing differences over how far to cut farm subsidies and tariffs. Australia also took part in the weekend talks.

The impasse, after nearly five years of negotiation, prompted a decision to "suspend" the talks, increasing the chance a final deal will never be reached.

The negotiations, officially known as the Doha Development Agenda, were launched in late 2001 with the goal of helping poor countries prosper from trade.

More at link:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060724/pl_nm/trade_talks_reaction_usa_dc

This is just the tip of the iceberg. This is neolib economics as exercized by the GOP and the DLC, without getting into the more sordid details of the Eximbank, the conditions behind "foreign aid", etc. Tgus us just a hint about neocolonialism - the likes of which we are the "metropoli".

American political rhetoric reminds me of Douglas Adams' description of an alien democracy. The aliens voted for some sort of reptilian leadership - knowing that it was wholly bad. "Why do you vote then" asks the protagonist. "So that the wrong lizard isn't elected".

I'm an American living abroad. I am an historian by vocation, a marketer by trade. By virtue of my trade I have participated in governmental CSF crisis task teams in Spain... and by virtue of my vocation I have learned that the world's "1st democracy" has become the world's most voracious consumer of pablum-flavoured and utterly un-"nutritional" political rhetoric designed to keep the electorate hoodwinked.

My parents and grandparents, countryfolk in the Deep South, were far more politically aware than most of today's elecorate. They were far from being Wobblies yet they had a down-to-earth understanding of how the world is run ... based on painful experience.

Today? Democracy based on ignorance and indoctrination is no different than Stalin's Russia or Hitler's Russia (in the political sense).

I'm - THIS - far away from giving up on our "noble experiment". As Vonnegut might have said...

Anyone guess what I would quote???
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EDIT: COPYRIGHT. PLEASE POST ONLY 4 OR 5
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PER DU RULES.

[benburch]

1. Is the Apostrophe. nt

[alvarezadams]

2. Frankie lives again!

Still living in Joe's Garage?

[Master Mahon]

3. Ohhhhhhhhhhhh... The World Just Hates Us

FOR OUR FREEDOMS!!! :+

[Drifter]

4. What is your, conceptual, continuity?

It doesn't, and you can't, I won't, and it don't
it hasn't, it isn't, it even ain't, and it shouldn't
it couldn't

I miss Frank

Cheers
Drifter

[alvarezadams]

5. So do I

When thinking about Gore I remember Frank defending the 1st Amendment.

Then I remember his guitar and... conceptual continuity.

Then I put on a Jean Luc Ponty tape on...

and I consider the GOP.

The result?

"Why does it hurt when I pee."

[jimshoes]

6. Eveyone meet up at

Saint Alphonso's for the you know what.