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P. Gillespie

The New Great Game in Central Asia | Foreign Affairs - 0 views

www.foreignaffairs.com/...new-great-game-in-central-asia

shared by P. Gillespie on 13 Aug 12 - No Cached
    • P. Gillespie
      P. Gillespie on 13 Aug 12
       
      The United Nations is the guarantor or cooperation and stability.
P. Gillespie

The dead end of globalisation looms before our youth | Pankaj Mishra | Comment is free ... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...d-end-globalisation-youth-rage

globatlisation youth expectation

shared by P. Gillespie on 26 Aug 11 - No Cached
  • In postcolonial India and China, where billions are now being coerced into a transition from agrarian to urban industrial economies
  • China's communist leaders frankly describe their nation's apparently booming economy as "unstable, unbalanced, unco-ordinated and ultimately unsustainable"
  • The Chinese philosopher Zhang Junmai once wrote that an agrarian country has few "material demands" and can exist over a long period of time with "poverty but equality, scarcity but peace". However, its embrace of the west's model of consumer capitalism exposes it to endless political and social chaos.
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  • Returning to an austere age of wisely managed expectations is no longer possible – even if it was desirable.
  • P. Gillespie on 26 Aug 11
     
    poignant review of this summer's discontent in England,India and elsewhere within the larger context of globalisation and integration pressures. All of this without regulation or transnational (I started to write, "translational") governance.
P. Gillespie

How America Can Rise Again - The Atlantic (January/February 2010) - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...american-decline

shared by P. Gillespie on 06 Jan 10 - Cached
  • the peculiarly American cycle of crisis and renewal
  • our governing system is old and broken and dysfunctional
  • there is still so much nature, and so much space, available for each person on American soil. Room on the streets and sidewalks, big lawns around the houses, trees to walk under, wildflowers at the edge of town—yes, despite the sprawl and overbuilding
  • ...12 more annotations...
  • if this is “decline,” it is from a level that most of the world still envies
  • ‘America: In Decline?
  • the United States no longer has the money
  • Are the fears of this moment our era’s version of the “missile gap
  • Are they anything more than a combination of the two staple ingredients of doom-and-darkness statements through the whole course of our history?
  • One of those ingredients is exaggerated complaint
  • The other is what historians call the bracing “jeremiad” tradition of harsh warnings that reveal a faith that America can be better than it is
  • the institutions that have made America strong
  • education
  • financially viable press
  • secularism
  • government
  • P. Gillespie on 06 Jan 10
     
    Jmes Fallows appraises America at the opening of the 21st century. Concept of "Jeremiad".
P. Gillespie

Truthdig - Reports - What Future for the Ink-Stained Wretch? - 0 views

www.truthdig.com/...0081216_boyarsky_dec_17_column

The 4th estate defending the public good

shared by P. Gillespie on 17 Dec 08 - Cached
  • What Future for the Ink-Stained Wretch?
  • Why aren’t newspapers and news magazines demanding payment for use of their stories on Google and other search engines?
  • journalism ethics
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  • There was a wall between the advertising and news departments.
  • P. Gillespie on 17 Dec 08
     
    Useful provocation for informed debate on the future of newspapers and public debate.
P. Gillespie

One Man's Military-Industrial-Media Complex - Series - NYTimes.com - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...30general.html

American policy agenda military-industrial complex ethics versus morality

shared by P. Gillespie on 01 Dec 08 - Cached
  • One Man’s Military-Industrial-Media Complex
  • The president of NBC News, Steve Capus, said in an interview that General McCaffrey was a man of honor and achievement who would never let business obligations color his analysis for NBC
    • P. Gillespie
      P. Gillespie on 01 Dec 08
       
      This comment reminds me of how difficult it is to influence America's "policy agenda". So long as people like McCaffrey are held up as exemplars of America's moral self we will never get away from the "colonialising" militarism that characterizes America's current policy agenda. Indeed, one might wonder whether there is any wisdom in opposing such malarky, given that in one way or another we all live in Mother Earth's "living arrangement". Some are stronger, some less strong, and what counts, in the end, is that our lives should be lived in harmony with Mother Earth's living arrangement. See TAO Walker.
  • General McCaffrey did in fact emerge as a tough critic of Mr. Rumsfeld, describing him as reckless and incompetent
    • P. Gillespie
      P. Gillespie on 01 Dec 08
       
      He faulted Rumsfeld the manager without questioning the opportunity for war. War is what he trained for, who he is. Far be it for him to doubt the wisdom of his "commander in chief".
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  • The country knows me as a nonpartisan and objective national security expert with solid integrity
    • P. Gillespie
      P. Gillespie on 01 Dec 08
       
      Withdrawal and disengagement are not options. The moral imperitive is to "remain engaged", to "survive to fight again". As an intelligent public servant McCaffrey spoke out in opposition to a leadership that was ill-informed, naive and unprepared. As a member of the "establishment" his only option is to work for the best possible outcome. He would not necessarily oppose a policy based on pacifist or ethical grounds. Such is human nature.
  • After each trip General McCaffrey embarked on a news media campaign, writing opinion articles, granting interviews, publishing “after action” reports on his firm’s Web site. Each time he extolled Central Command’s generals and called for a renewed national commitment of money and support.
  • Iraqi commandos even staged a live-fire demonstration for him. But General McCaffrey also was given access to officials whose decisions were important to his business interests, including DynCorp, which was planning an I.P.O.
  • P. Gillespie on 01 Dec 08
     
    This article might well be sub-titled "the instrumentalization of an American hero". General Barry McCaffrey a career military officer who built a distinguished career by "playing according to the rules" was coerced by his political hierarchy (aka Donald Rumsfeld and the "Office of Special Operations" set up in the Pentagon to manage information on the build-up to the Iraq war) to become a mouth-piece for the Bush "policy agenda". As such, McCaffrey's experience either points to how weak a good man is when stripped of his group status, or how a weak man General McCaffrey is.
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