I've come to think our "Gulag" today is more fear than reality. I'm scared the gov't will come take me away for expressing an opinion...will this happen? Of course not. I just think that fear is greater with this administration, because of moves they have made towards limiting rights of the accused and comments made by certain individuals regarding contradictory comments during war-time. But I'm really not scared for today...I'm scared for tomorrow. I also think part of the fear problem is the spineless democrats who haven't said a word in almost two years. If we ever have a gulag I'll blame those weak bastards for not stopping it.
off topic, but her book on the Soviet Gulag is very well researched, including materials from newly opened archives and interviews with survivors, and well worth checking out.
Decent article -- some things that people in other countries say about us are well-founded, and some of them are not. Comparing the US to the Soviet Gulag is asinine. Maybe for some seriously oppressed people (say, Saudi men here on student visas), there's a little tiny shred of similarity, but even that I doubt. The columnist says that the European media are just responding to their citizenry's hatred of Dubya in order to sell more newspapers and get better ratings. This strikes me as a bit funny -- not because it isn't true, but because the same people who most strongly believe that are also most likely the ones who believe that all American media except News Corp. are liberal hacks who are ignoring the will of the increasingly conservative public.
What I haven't seen is anything explaining why we should be wringing our hands over a little scorn from Europe. These are people who easily support the likes of Castro, Arafat and Saddam. If it's in their interest, they'll love us to death, too. Machiavelli wrote with these unreliable types in mind - would you rather be loved by them or feared?
Europeans aren't the only ones with a Macchiavellian bent, you know. The same goes for us, too. Our leaders are perfectly capable of supporting ruthless murderous dictators like Noriega, Suharto, Samoza, and Saddam as long as they do our bidding. As soon as they start getting minds of their own, though... POW! Cue the Marines. The same goes for our relations with Europe. As long as they shut up and do what we tell them, they're our bestest buddies. But let them even hint at saying "Uh, guys, maybe this isn't a good idea..." and suddenly the mouthbreathers here all start shouting "America hating Eurocommies!!!" Go figure.
I had to laugh when the writer described a woman moving to Britain solely to escape George Bush's "abuses." People really can't be that gullible, can they? I don't think the British govt. offers more freedom to its citizens. As a matter of fact, the author suggests that the British govt. and society is far more restrictive. Whatever. She can live in a Beckham-less society if she wants. After all, we ALLOW our citizens to move freely & live where they want. She couldn't do that in Cuba.
It's a jungle out there, huh? That's why an argument against the Iraq war based on it being stupid is a completely valid one. But saying that it makes us bad guys is a lousy one. And worrying that it ruins our reputation in europe, well.....rehabilitation is only another Clinton away.
Yes, because European criticism of US foreign policy was very calm and rational, and not at all based on mindless reactionary anti-American invective. Let's not forget that one French poll found that one-third of respondents actually wanted Saddam Hussein to prevail, with the remaining equally split between "I don't know" and wanting the coalition to win. Here is part of the calm, rational "Guys maybe this isn't such a good idea" crowd at work: PS-Joe, you forgot your obligatory reference to right-wing death squads.
How did we get from a WP columnists' musings about how to respond to pointed questions rooted in the love-hate relationship the world has with us, to whether or not the US resembles a gulag? Oh, I know. The thread starter, in a cute homage to the columnist's book, was the one comparing us us to a gulag -- not the columnist. Nice troll Colin. You should go work for Fox News.
Actually, its the allusion made by the BBC interviewer. Nice try, though. EDIT: It's also the name of the damn column. I think you'll find your troll in the mirror.
Hey, I'm just sayin' it's not always "the other guy" who has problems. The world is not black and white but shades of gray. So the probability is that the USA is both "good guy" in some respects and "bad guy" in others. Is a country that has to lie to start a war to grab or otherwise strongly influence the flow of oil "the good guy"? Are they "the bad guy" if they get rid of a not-nice dictator in the process of fighting for control of and/or influence over said oil? I know the analogy is not perfect, but if, say, Cuba had lied about WMDs and used the US-led coup attempt as a pretext to invade politically chaotic and violent but oil-producing Venezuela in order to "provide the people of Venezuela with political stability and end the violence" would they be "good guys" or "bad guys"? Maybe a better analogy would be if China unilaterally declared that the nasty dictatorship in oil-producing Myanmar had weapons of mass destruction and was behind a terrorist attack on them and then invaded on those untrue pretexts, would they be "good guys" or "bad guys"? What if France lied about terrorism and WMDs to conquer the nasty dictatorship in oil-rich Nigeria. Would they be "good guys" or "bad guys"? I know all three cases are hypothetical "what ifs" but hopefully you get the underlying point that geopolitics is not a John Wayne movie with 100% good guys and 100% evil guys with nothing in between.
Yes, because only those people in your photo were questioning the wisdom of the war and the USA really had no other motive than to help those poor people in Iraq. I love how the fact that Bush's lies are now possibly coming home to roost has your normal "USA = 100% good, everyone else = 100% bad" belief system so insecure that you can't stand any attempt to present a balanced picture. Anyway, thank you for proving my point.
Thanks for completely missing the point, which was to point out the silliness of your caricature that Europe's approach to the Iraq war was something akin to calm and measured while the hysterics were all on the part of the US. U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!
Dear idiot, All I posted was a link to a column, and the thread title was the name of that column. "America, the Gulag" was either the choosing of Anne Applebaum or the Washington Post, not me. You may apologize at your leisure. Colin
Yes that question was a stupid one. But as we can live with a moron US president you can live with a moron european interviewer. If European attitude towards USA is love and hate (Catullus' "odi et amo" like ) the same can be said regarding US attitude towards Europe. Odi et amo. quare id faciam, fortasse requiris? nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior. IMHO this "Eurocommies" vs "US nazis" sci-fi confrontation is a weapon of mass distraction to avoid a more dangerous leftists/liberals/new global/sustainable development etc. vs rightists/neoliberism/wild globalizers etc. confrontation not based upon national ids. p.s. Guantanamo still sucks, still noone seem to care, still it looks like a gulag.
I don't think that after reading multiple times Soljenytsin's "archipelag gulag" I need to read much more to have an idea of gulags.
I apologize for calling you a troll. It's still a loaded thread just chock-full of opportunities to bash anyone who criticizes the US. As for the gulag thing... Gulag no, prison state, yes. US Prison Population Largest in the World And, if you take the $25,000/year average cost per inmate times the 2,018,234 inmates, that's $50.48 billion per year on housing criminals. Just FYI.
> Odi et amo. quare id faciam, fortasse requiris? > nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior. Quid quid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.
Boy, a smart ass little comment about reading is fundamental is tempting, but I've made the same mistake before.....
> True, but Catullus "odi et amo" fit so well... Actually I don't know any latin. I just had that line written on a piece of paper waiting for a moment I could spring it on someone.
Actually I hated studying latin during schooltime. And I've never been good at it. (odi et amo) http://community.middlebury.edu/~harris/Texts/catullus.odi.html http://romanhistorybooksandmore.freeservers.com/l_nsgill3.htm p.s. http://aphrodite.jaze.net/~catullus/text2/e1.htm