To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect. To those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict, or blame their society's ills on the West — know that your people will judge you on what you can build, not what you destroy.
-Translation: To our petro-overlords . . . we covet the black gold buried deep under your parched lands, and as such, we will continue to feign respect and tolerance for your backward, troglodytic ways. We now understand that you will not submissively forfeit your natural resources no matter the amount of munitions we expend. As a new, inexperienced president, some may be tempted to test my mettle. I assure you that I am more reasonable and pragmatic than my predecessor, but if you so much as jaywalk in lower Manhattan, I will not hesistate to reveal my inner warmonger and unleash the world's most potent killing machine on your largely innocent people. And remember, your usefulness will be judged on the basis of how much oil you supply to America priced in US dollars.
To the people of poor nations, we pledge to work alongside you to make your farms flourish and let clean waters flow; to nourish starved bodies and feed hungry minds. And to those nations like ours that enjoy relative plenty, we say we can no longer afford indifference to the suffering outside our borders; nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect. For the world has changed, and we must change with it.
-Translation: To the people who have for so long been trampled under the boot of American imperialism, we wish to offer this small, insincere token of our -ahem- gratitude for allowing us to pillage your natural resources and exploit your financial systems to satisfy our neoliberal agendas. The US, working closely with its globalist partners like the IMF, WTO and World Bank, will insist that you privatize your schools so that your children become as feebleminded and docile as their American counterparts. Through economic arm twisting, we will compel you to open your arable lands to the likes of Monsanto, ADM and Cargill so that you may become dependent on their genetically modified terminator seeds. And lastly, you will be asked to privatize your water distribution systems as was attempted in Bolivia, Argentina, India, South Africa and Morocco.
And to rich, first-world countries that have exploited your neighbors' natural resources for financial gain for centuries, we must realize that our jack-booted tactics may have caused these peasants dignified human beings to expel our multinational companies and commit the ultimate injustice of -GASP- nationalizing their resources. This simply cannot be allowed to happen.
We remain the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. Our workers are no less productive than when this crisis began. Our minds are no less inventive, our goods and services no less needed than they were last week or last month or last year. Our capacity remains undiminished. But our time of standing pat, of protecting narrow interests and putting off unpleasant decisions — that time has surely passed. Starting today, we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.
-Translation: Despite a rampant culture of gross incompetence among our leaders, financial criminality on a scale heretofore unheard of and persistent military failures in field afar, the US somehow remains the most prosperous, powerful nation on Earth. That is to say, we have excelled in spite of ourselves!
Our workers are just as fat, lazy, uneducated and self-interested as they were when this crisis began. Perhaps we are more concerned for the future of our overpriced homes and plasm TVs now that jobs are being shed by the millions, but overall, they are the same buffoons they've always been. Our "innovative minds" are still producing clunky cars, cut-rate electronics and mortgage backed securities (but we make one hell of a Caramel Macchiato) and those goods and services, despite causing many of our economic woes are, still in demand. Our capacity to produce cheeseburgers and complicated financial whatchamacallits remains intact. But our time of foolish pigheadedness, of allowing special interests - cough, cough mmmmIsrael - to openly dominate this country's domestic and foreign policies must be better concealed and shielded from public scrutiny.
Starting today, we must spend trillions of borrowed dollars rebuilding this farce of a country. We must attempt to convince the rest of the world that the United States is a country worth investing in, and not a financial black hole where money is lost forever.
I heard about something like that, but not in so many details, where have you taken the material from?
Posted by: Puzzy | 01/24/2009 at 09:02 AM