Here we go again: bombing Iran?
Reports in the Asia Times that the Bush administration is getting ready to bomb the Revolutionary Guard HQ back to the
stone age this summer.
Where diplomacy fails, before recurring to bombs, I say give these clowns high-speed internet access, a good English dictionary, 4 season's of the OC TV-show on DVD, and give time 2 generations to wash out. The kids will learn poky english and engage the wider community. Respect grows out of education and communication. The grand kids, will be fluent familiar and respectful of a "one-world-culture" while fully immersed in their local customs.
And most of this current silliness might be gone. Swallowed up in the great unifier and equalizer that is the Internet. One-world, One official 2nd language (english) and then 1000 local dialects as first language (yes, including French, Spanish and Mandarin)
The impact of the internet to the software industry was huge, JBoss a part of it, many industries are impacted today (yes, the DJ one comes to mind), we are about to start an OSS project in the Consumer Electronics space with some friends. The Internet is just getting started, wait for the political implications of If language is unified, culture gets closer, commerce booms, standards of living equalize.
Nation-states are a obsolete concept. Hopefully the Internet will slowly erode at the sovereignty of nation states and they will dissolve into a larger federation. It is feasible, look at how the EU states gave up monetary control, even before the age of the internet, certainly one of the biggest control points of a local govt.
Dreaming on.
stone age this summer.
Where diplomacy fails, before recurring to bombs, I say give these clowns high-speed internet access, a good English dictionary, 4 season's of the OC TV-show on DVD, and give time 2 generations to wash out. The kids will learn poky english and engage the wider community. Respect grows out of education and communication. The grand kids, will be fluent familiar and respectful of a "one-world-culture" while fully immersed in their local customs.
And most of this current silliness might be gone. Swallowed up in the great unifier and equalizer that is the Internet. One-world, One official 2nd language (english) and then 1000 local dialects as first language (yes, including French, Spanish and Mandarin)
The impact of the internet to the software industry was huge, JBoss a part of it, many industries are impacted today (yes, the DJ one comes to mind), we are about to start an OSS project in the Consumer Electronics space with some friends. The Internet is just getting started, wait for the political implications of If language is unified, culture gets closer, commerce booms, standards of living equalize.
Nation-states are a obsolete concept. Hopefully the Internet will slowly erode at the sovereignty of nation states and they will dissolve into a larger federation. It is feasible, look at how the EU states gave up monetary control, even before the age of the internet, certainly one of the biggest control points of a local govt.
Dreaming on.
Comments
You would be surprised how Iranians are cultivated and in demand of the western stuff you refer to.
This said, I agree with you that nurturing democracy by all means, including the webernet, is the only way to go.
Bombing would only give terrorists what they want: entrenching each side and allowing them to freely pursue their dreams of rolling Islamo-fascist regimes from Morocco to Pakistan.
he he, you got me there. Yes "these clowns" could apply to the current administration.
Look, I sit on the board of the "Atlanta International School" and we have a few iranian families that are indeed VERY cultivated.
But I think that is true of every culture. You would be surprised how many americans are actually very cultivated. There is always a cultivated elite in every country.
It is is the ignorance, the extremism that scares me. The easiest way to cure it may be Internet education. I am getting involved in such a project and may blog about that at some point.
On your point about democracy, I don't make a point about democracy as much as much as I make a point about what representation is chosen. Politics does come from the word polis, and means "affairs of the city". Then there is this historical legacy of nation states in the EU, that is being diluted, but until there is a common language, it will only go so far. To me the 'president of france" is really equivalent to the governor of Georgia. Except he has an army to play with. It is pushing it to apply this to the US, but the US as a nation state is increasingly problematic in foreign policy.
Education is the guardian angel of democracy definitely applies, direct representation is good, layers of representation need to go up to a world congress, this is obviously a distant pipe dream at the time.
I sincerely believe and hope that the internet is accelerating this phenomena.
But who knows :)
well at least if advises on how to combat inflation (which he did, and successfully, contrary to popular opinion) we might be in better shape.
The monetary debasing of the dollar is turning inflation up. Some of the fiscal and monetary discipline he showed (as covered by Greenspan in his book) would be good.
But what is relation with Iran? You mean camp David meetings?
Carter: Pressure the Shah for democratic reforms, leading to the Iranian revolution, leading to the US Embassy hostage-taking, leading to the US being seen as a paper-tiger in the region.
US policy in the Middle-East has always sucked, but it seems to be compounded with every administration. The appeasement mentality under Carter and Clinton led to two towers collapsing and the mess we're in. I'm with giving Bush a chance on this move, as it may be the only way to clean it all up.
Then again, Reagan is my idol. ;-)
If youtube comments are any guide, it just shows that the interweb is no good for enlightening people who choose to be ignorant.
Clinton not taking care of OBL after the USS Cole and US Embassy bombings, was the dumb thing to do.
Thank you, I'll be here all night folks!
the point is not peace, the point is the creation of enemies and war profiteering, a la KBR. see above series. was never shown in the US, was made in 2004. hmmm. there are 3 shows, broken into around 6 pieces each
the force of a unified culture of understanding doesn't just have to arise by technical means, it has to arise in spite of the goals to suppress it, history makes this pretty clear, to me
I'm afraid you completely ignore how subtile and educated the population of Iran is. Internet is already there, TV also. I'm afraid you just show how much undocumented western countries are when they talk about mi-east countries.
Yes, there are some "clowns". Some of them currently rule Iran. But they only represent a minority. And the only way to deal with this minority is to be strong and address their threats with bigger threats.
This is called "dissuasion". It was used for more than 50 years to addres threats from other educated countries like Russia. And apparently, it worked just because the people from inside could not stand their own leaders anymore.
Touche. I am hope it is minority. It is possible that the media in the US is eager to give the "clowns" more share of airtime than they deserve what with this being an election year and scare tactics...
What really bothers me is that after 500 years of progress we are back to what seems like religious wars with expressions of fundamentalism and dogmatism (on both sides of the Atlantic). We reach the 21st century and this boggles the mind.
Education, the internet, english as a unifying language, a couple a generations, a couple of qualuds and in the morning, this should all pass.
I don't know what media source you use (The Soros Gazette? ;-), but most media in the US do report on the differences in view of the West between the people and the politicians in Iran.
The people seem to generally be very welcoming of Western culture and ideas.
Tun in to Fox News, Marc, they're fair and balanced. ;-)
http://economicrot.blogspot.com
If you go back to one of his first few posts, he clearly predicted years ago what is exactly happening now. He talks about inflation, dollars, fiat currency, the FED, the housing bubble etc.
He also predicted that gold and oil would skyrocket and how the CPI is cooked. Take a look Marc.