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as they say, the proof's in the pudding.
what obama's been saying and (in the first 2 days) doing seems reasonable--that the united states is not in a position to simply impose itself on situations through force, that it requires co-operation to accomplish it's ends is reasonable--but it's also a wholesale repudiation of neo-con notions of what power is. there are already policy directions that he's taken that i think are short-sighted--on the israel/palestine question in particular--but there we are. it's been what, 72 hours?
i understand nation-states to be problematic, and nationalism a pathology. the notions of isolation or imperial power are nothing more than stupid boy wanking: they accomplish nothing, they have never accomplished anything, they never will accomplish anything.
but if we are going to operate within the idiot framework of nation-states, then there are better and worse ways to proceed. balancing power with good will is a whole lot smarter than attempting to use either term in isolation. the bush people seem to have been too arrogant to understand this very basic fact. in comparison, the return to a relatively banal relation between the two seems an achievement. this says more about the bush people than it does about obama.
on obama, while i'm cool with most of what he's done so far, the proof is in the pudding. we'll have to wait and see what this all translates into.
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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