AMERICAN "IMPERIALISM"

The idea of American military or political imperialism has always been a fantasy that flies in the face of all the facts. American troops have gone all over the world in the last 50 years but have only ever been used to install or protect local self-government, not take it away. Americans just don't WANT an empire. Ideally, they just want to be left alone instead of being hated by every crazy loon around the world with nothing constructive to do. And not many imperial powers would sentence one of its soldiers to 30 years in jail for assaulting a local.

But the idea of American cultural imperialism has at least had the basis that American films etc are very popular worldwide and provide an attractive model against which local cultures often look pretty stupid even to the locals concerned. But now even that is changing. Competition with the American output has made filmmakers in India, Europe, Australia and elsewhere sit up and start producing films that people want to watch. So the popularity of American films abroad is steadily declining. Another empire lost! How sad! More here.

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BAGHDAD WATCH

Sometimes the Baghdad Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) does get in touch with reality. As were see here. They ask, if Saddam does not have chemical weapons, why is he preparing his troops with protective measures against such weapons? He must know that the West will not deploy them. So it is clear that the Iraquis need protection for when they deploy such weapons themselves.

Country Store thinks the "human shields" in Baghdad have got a weak grip on reality. Sure have! Do they really think that even one cruise missile is going to be retargeted because of them? I actually have this guess that they will succeed in keeping well out of harm's way and will end up going home and dining out on the story of their "bravery" for years.

Why are 3 large cargo ships going round and round in circles in the middle of the Indian ocean? Is that one of the places where Saddam has stashed the weapons he says he does not have? It seems likely.

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“KEN IL SUNG” IS RIGHT

We live in strange times. Having Leftists defend an alleged Communist dictator like Kim Il Sung is old hat but having them defend an outright Fascist dictator like the brutal Saddam is certainly strange. “Fascism” used to be the constant Leftist swear-word (and, hopefully for some Leftists it still is). But brutality has never bothered the “compassionate” Left. That Saddam’s regime will crumple like a house of cards as soon as the US lays a hand on it is all that bothers the Left. They have no moral anchors to make them look at what sort of regime it is. Power is all they care about. They will oppose any power but their own.

Even stranger, in a way, is what is happening in London. Before he got his present nickname, the Lord Mayor of London was known as “Red Ken” -- for good reason. Yet his just-introduced solution to London’s traffic jams is as thoroughly market-based as you could imagine. He is now CHARGING people to drive into the city. Economists and libertarians have been advocating such things for a long time but it has taken an extreme Leftist to do it! (Though Singapore has been doing much the same for years). To really solve London’s transport probems, you would have to privatize the “Tube” (underground railway) and the main roads but all of that seems to be firmly stuck in the “too hard” basket.

There has been a bit of discussion about the matter on England’s Sword recently. And there have also been some grumpy comments about it on Catallaxy.

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ELSEWHERE

The Moonbat does it again! He thinks that the problem of the USA and the West generally -- and why they want to oust Saddam -- is that we have too much capital that we do not know what to do with. We are just SO rich that we have nothing to spend our money on! You really do have to be batty to believe that! But he does!

There has been a rather worrying development for anyone in Britain with unorthodox opinions. Just expressing disapproved thoughts about race etc could now land you in jail. Freedom of speech has effectively been abolished there. More here. And it is the European contagion that is behind it, of course.

Michael Darby punctures some myths about business.

Chris Brand has some more news about multicultural madness in Britain.

The Wicked one is having a laugh at the French again.

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