Power corrupting is a self-fulfilling prophecy in my book, it is not that it corrupts, but rather that it ATTRACTS THE CORRUPTIBLE. Quite a different thing altogether.

Because otherwise powerful positions are so risky, only the very foolish would attempt them otherwise. And the very foolish are no match for the very corruptible.

Useful idiots like Mr. Beinart play a modest but important role in Cheney/Wolfowitz plans.

It is important that our brave men and women in uniform remain motivated and content as they wrap villages in barbed wire, drop bombs on cities, put a bullet into a 4-year-old's brain or do whatever else may benefit the Homeland.

Pure gibberish achieved? You know what this means, don't you? Mr. Beinart is ready to move on to certain more exclusive circles.

http://www.larouchepub.com/

THE RORSCHACH TEST

As the examiner presents each picture, the respondent describes what he sees: "That's someone having sex with himself, that's a man and a woman having sex, that's two women and a dog having sex, ...."

Finally the examiner comments, "You seem to be obsessed with sex."

The respondent replies: "Why do you say that, doc? You're the one with all the dirty pictures."

Gerbil narcolepsy sofa-bed detritus squanders Bigfoot. Crapulent snurf machine? Crapulent snurf machine knob knobbler! Groucho lithe koala traipsing noreaster flange mucus. Mithril acne fluffernutter shamus fling-ding-a-ling-doo!

You doubt that statment? Actually its plagiarised from a paper I wrote while at STUTTS!

Don't know why my advisor wouldn't accept my work. I think he was a pinko, commie, neocon with penis envy, but I might be wrong.

shouldn't the clown have blood dribbling out of the sides of his mouth?

umm, he put the intestines on his head, not his mouth.

"That's right, de noveau. As long as we have generals who talk like this, I can't see anything but overwhelming political victory ahead."

that was snark, right? were you referring to political victory for the neocons in your snark? or was it a hope for Democratic victories? if it's an honest hope for the latter, maybe you should check into the electronic voting machines some.
Bush, Cheney and Wolfowitz could sacrifice live babies on CSPAN on an unholy altar of blood, with Karl Rove standing by in his lingerie, reciting satanic incantations, with a translation of the incantations displayed in a power point presentation, and the Republicans would STILL win in a landslide, because they control the voting machines! shit, man, why do you act surprised at how blatant these assholes are? they don't care anymore because they don't have to! they've got the vote rigged, so they can just "be themselves".
don't believe it? watch and see! or better yet, FOCUS ON FIXING THE VOTE SO IT'S NOT RIGGED!

this most basic of all aspects is the trump card the Rethugs hold, and chumpasses ignore.

cheney does look a lot like Jeltz(from the TV show, not the movie)

Jonathan, you're being overwrought and not giving Beinart enough credit. No that I'm such a huge fan of his, but he's absolutely correct in relating 'jihadism' (terrible term), global warming, pandemics, and global economic instability to globalization. Likewise, the US, being the largest economy in the world, stands to bear the brunt of most of these problems (except global warming; there are more ecologically vulnerable countries which will probably be more greatly affected). Since the US is the home of more transnational corporations than any other country, I don't think it's out of line to suggest that problems with globalization will affect America more than other countries, not to mention our burgeoning trade deficit.

Although Beinart doesn't say it, his analysis is akin to Wallerstein's world-systems theory of international politics. In world-systems talk, Islamist terrorism is one of several 'anti-systemic' movements (probably the first global anti-systemic movement from the right, instead of traditional ones from the left). As globalization continues its inexorable march, it will be plagued by all sorts of blowback, including attacks on infrastructure by terrorists, the heightened spread of communicable diseases, and the end of isolated economic fluctuations. Gloabl warming is more about the spread of industrialization specifcally, but that's still a part of globalization nonetheless.

Sorry, but most of what Beinart said in the quote made sense. If you're going to pillory him, which I think is still a good idea, you got him good over his malaproprism "de nouveau," by which I assume he means "de novo" (not that he used that phrase correctly, either).

Being far to the left of Beinart myself (I'm against the war in Afghanistan, for example, which he apparently thinks is "disturbing"), I disagree with him on many points, including his awkward phrasing, like "sits at the center" and so forth. But he's pretty spot on about globalization.

Waaahahahahahah...ROFLMAO...hahahahahah

brilliant!

D.J.:

...he's absolutely correct in relating 'jihadism' (terrible term), global warming, pandemics, and global economic instability to globalization

Sure. They're all related to globalization. However, they're only in the loosest possible sense related to each other, and "jihadism" does not "sit at the center" of them all. (And that's not awkward phrasing -- it's part of his argument that "jihadism" is THE critical problem everything must be subordinated to.)

Likewise, the US, being the largest economy in the world, stands to bear the brunt of most of these problems (except global warming; there are more ecologically vulnerable countries which will probably be more greatly affected)

I really, really disagree with this. AIDS is a global pandemic. Does the U.S. bear the brunt of it? Who is more likely to bear the brunt of a global flu epidemic: America, or poorer countries with little or no public health infrastruture? Which countries have really taken it on the chin because of financial instability -- Indonesia and Argentina, or the U.S.?

So I think the reality is just the opposite of what you say. We'll probably suffer less, thanks to our wealth and power, from almost any significant problem.

Now, it's true that our wealth and power will make it possible for us to generate an enormous amount of noise about how much we're suffering that everyone will have to listen to. But the amount of noise and amount of actual suffering are very different things.

Finally, I could be wrong, having almost no knowledge of any language but English, but don't "de nouveau" and "de novo" mean the same thing? Also, it's true this was a spoken interview, but I assume Beinart read it before they printed it, and would have gotten it corrected if it wasn't what he meant.

Jonathan, I didn't read Beinart as saying that 'jihadism' is related to the other problems in any more substantive way than all of them being caused by globalization. I agree, that would be nonsensical. Maybe I'm just giving him too much credit.

Now, when I wrote the above comment, it did occur to me that I wasn't being precise about the US bearing the brunt of globalization blowback. The US, being the home to the most TNCs, has the most to gain financially from globalization, but only in the eyes of Wall Street and GDP (as opposed to GNP), and correspondingly, the most to lose; but our losses and gains in this sense will be 'the greatest' strictly in financial terms. So, "bear the brunt" is not the right way to put it. "Has the most to lose" is what I should have said.

Going from number 1 to number 2 entails a greater loss than going from number 10 to number 11, for example.

Now, "de nouveau" isn't in the (English) dictionary, neither Webster's nor the American Heritage. "De novo" is, and it means "anew," or "as if for the first time," which is also what "de nouveau" means en Français. So, when he says, "but because most people don't think of great ideas de nouveau; they adapt ideas in their tradition that already existed," his use of the French phrase means exactly what he's saying in the second clause, contradicting his fancy-pants phraseology in the first clause.

So, he should have said something like, "but because most people don't think of great ideas out of whole cloth; they adapt ideas in their tradition de novo." Ah, to be a proofreader for the New Republic, that is the life. Alas, it seems I needed some proofreading myself.

If he wanted to get all fancy pantsed, he could have said "but most people don't conceive great ideas that erupt like Athena from the head of Zeus. They do what we do at the New Republic -- tear them apart and eat them, you know? Like the Titans did to Dionysius." I don't think Jonathan would have objected to that.