07 August 2006

some stuff i'd like to hear (any) politician say.

The American government is spending $1 billion a week on protection and creation of infrastructure for the people of Iraq, to the loss and detriment of our roads, our schools, our safety, our health. The White House would rather hand briefcases worth of cash to unaccountable contractors for the construction of a hospital in Kirkuk that will probably be suicide-bombed later anyway, than spend money on medicine for the glut of poor sick children and adults all over the United States. They have projected the hated American welfare state onto Iraq. ...

... We should never, ever, invade or occupy any nation for the purposes of advancing democratic capitalism, ever again. Nor can we continue to carry on the charade of friendly relations with totalitarian states. Every dollar that goes to Saudi emirs for crude oil, or to Chinese communists for plastic trinkets is used, one way or another, to inhibit democratic reform in those countries and turns us into enablers of regimes who ruthlessly oppose the principles of fair trade and individual freedom. ...

Additionally, we befriend dictators at our own direct peril. Let's not fool ourselves: China and Saudi Arabia do not seek a cooperative trading arrangement with the U.S. and Europe. They seek to compete with and then overtake America as global economic powers. Once they achieve this status, we can not expect them to treat us any better than they treat their own citizens.

The transformative power of democratic capitalism is inherent and not to be foisted upon unsuspecting masses, certainly not by means of full-scale invasions of sovereign nations.

Condoleezza Rice is the most wretched and robotic of technocrats.