Randy McDonald ([info]rfmcdpei) wrote,
@ 2006-11-10 23:55:00
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Entry tags:globalization, imperialism, nationalism

[BRIEF NOTE] Better than ... ?
I've been thinking lately of Régis Debray's "Letter from America" (New Left Review 19, January-February 2003), his thesis that Europe--and, I'd argue on the strength of his analogy, Canada--could best remedy its weakness relative to the United States by joining the American federation. Yes, joining the American nation-state is almost certainly a non-starter barring serious state failure; yes, it's surely better to be Switzerland than Austria. Mightn't the American federation be made to transcend its roots?



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[info]dsgood
2006-11-11 05:03 am UTC (link)
What about a pan-American Union, including most of the Americas but not the US?

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[info]rfmcdpei
2006-11-11 05:05 am UTC (link)
Why?

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[info]dsgood
2006-11-11 05:41 am UTC (link)
Because I think it could more than match the US. And it would reduce the threat of US interference in other countries.

Which would be good for the US, I think -- because US intervention hasn't exactly been a triumph. Keeping Daniel Ortega out of power is a relative success....

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Pan-America
(Anonymous)
2006-11-11 07:01 pm UTC (link)
My fear is that a pan-America sans US would, assuming that it could work effectively as an organization, end up becoming a rose of a different color - fundamentally no different.

Problem is any action or inaction is evil to someone, somewhere. How dare the US to NOT interfere in Darfur, Palestine, or Rwanda. How dare the US interefere in Haiti, Somalia, Iraq and Serbia. To name a few.

My other fear is that by challenging US "supremacy" will fuel the radical right - who is convinced that everyone who is not White, Hetero and Baptist is Satan Itself out to murder our babies and rape our women, the same folks that, in the name of Jesus, go out and pray for Democrats to die.

Let's not create a power bloc that fuels this insanity. Let's not encourage further terrorism by Christian Fundamentalists.

Us liberal Christians are doing what we can from within, please don't encourage the ignorant to rally from without.

-Peter (C22/Andes)

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[info]token_otter
2006-11-11 05:04 am UTC (link)
hehehe very cute, hey there, I did pick up that book you mentioned, Was. Haven't started reading it yet, but will shortly.

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[info]rfmcdpei
2006-11-11 05:05 am UTC (link)
Excellent. Ryman writes well. I've got The Child Garden if you'd like ...

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[info]bear_left
2006-11-11 07:40 pm UTC (link)
Thanks for posting this; I write about Debray's late 1960s theories of revolution, & hadn't realized he was so young then that he'd still be around today.

Given the difficulties of governing the EU, I can only imagine the logistical and political obstacles to creating a USW, from the Bosphorus to the Aleutians to the Tierra del Fuego (& perhaps Australia & New Zealand while we're at it?)

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[info]inuitmonster
2006-11-22 09:44 pm UTC (link)
I'm a great believer in the European Union's manifest destiny. One day our community of flubbly compromise will engulf the globe. Perhaps Canada, rather than Turkey, should be the Union's first non-European member?

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(Anonymous)
2006-11-22 11:47 pm UTC (link)
Simultaneous transatlantic and Black Sea expansions? Asimov had the Southern Cone in his Robot universe's united Europe ...

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[info]rfmcdpei
2006-11-22 11:48 pm UTC (link)
Randy here, sorry.

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