In
terms of slamming the actions of international diplomacy, I have no qualms
or misgivings. Collectively, the global village exemplifies their needs
and oughts, while negotiating needs and oughts outside the circle. Indeed,
poor diplomacy, or the breakdown thereof, is a catalyst to state pauperism
if not full out war. Unfortunately at this point, diplomatics serves
to represent the demands of the prosperous few and fails to recognize the
vision of the restless many.
We could consider
shifting blame to the kingpins solely. As you know, I relish a decent
Dubya socking, but at the same time we must recognize he is a man representing
a collective of bluechip money mongers, conservatives, and lets not forget
the far religious right. The unfortunacity (I made that word up) of
his position(that by rights being the most recognized machine across terra
firma)is there hasn't been a single leader in scripted history that has actually
"pleased" the populace under him (or her)let alone the demands and vagary
of the international community. Simply speaking...Nobody's perfect and
you can't please everyone.
Where the diplomat
is concerned, of course they're well conditioned to serve the needs of the
state internationally. However, can diplomacy be a paradigm of puppetry?
Of course...these plenipotentiaries can only serve the needs and mandates
of their dominion, inherent aptitude however would be nothing short of lese
majesty.
How do we measure the integrity
of a leader? Standard polling is balderdash, as much as a Venezualan
vote. Personally, I lean towards consistency. The foundations
of that being...have they kept a promise? For example George Sr. said
something like "Read my Lips...no new taxes" and like 8 months later, the
largest tax hike in U.S. history magically appeared...hmmmm A prime example
of Gulf War Profiteering domestically...
Aside
from consistency, we must address hypocrisy. How do we measure a leader
who condemns human rights violations 10 time zones away, but fails to recognize
the flaws in their own mottled system. Canada (my home and native land)is
unique in sense of universal education and healthcare. Provincially speaking,
things get messy...Onterrible (where I hail from) for instance has a work
for welfare program installed with mandatory drug testing for all social service
recipients. Recently Mike Harris (aka The Hammer or Fascistfriendly)
has decided to cull the province in search of illegal immigrants who might
pose a terrorist threat. What that means is anyone who isn't a citizen,
but has a landing card, could be subject to intensive and invasive investigation,
on the pretense they might go to Parliament Hill and take shots from the clocktower
at Stockwell Day or something...
Onterrible
is in a sad state of affairs...I don't know about Sask, and only a little
about Albertie and B.C. but our figurehead is failing it's people. The
saddest example is just before I went planting in Feb/2000, 3 homeless men
froze to death under an overpass in Toronto about 2 miles from Queen's Park(home
of the provincial gummint). Apparently these guys had been turned away
from the Sally Ann...no beds. I remember that particular week, coldest in
Ontario history...-33 with a windchill of -50. Where's the humanity in that.
I think our tax dollars could be better spent than making some welfare mom
piss in a cup every other month.
Lastly,
are the testaments of the masses being met? Here we can touch on how
Marxism, fundamentally a good plan (as was Maoism) but beginning with a housearrest
of the Imperial family in Tsarskoe Selo, then their eventual, and horrifying
murder...to the death of 22 million quasi-Bolshevik proletariats in the Stalinist
gulags. Or the monstrous Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge. The Spanish
Inquisition, the "discovery of America", Pre 1955 Tibet an theocracy, Auschwitz,
any given time in the Middle East,Europe, Asia and Africa. Sadly our
history has been built on the graves of people lost to the cause of powerplay
and stateism. Surely, there is happiness in there somewhere (and dammit,
I hope there is), but I haven't picked up the book yet.
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