Re: [Osx-nutters] President Bush Vows Attacks “Across the World”

[Stefano Mori]

On 2006-Oct-05, at 15:59, Matt Johnston wrote:

> On 5 Oct 2006, at 13:59, Chuck Bennett wrote:

>> The reality is that no matter how we got to this point, we have to  
>> deal with it.

> c) the fact that your constancy has proven out to show that you  
> made a bad decision

On this point I'm curious. Can y'all agree it was a bad decision?


> your BLUE/RED/ORANGE is at odds with my GREEN but I think the only  
> progress going to be made in the US in the near future will be  
> extremely dystopian.

I'm usually at a loss as to what to do with it next. So USA is mostly  
BLUE/ORANGE, and Europe has much more GREEN. And it's not easy being  
GREEN. We try to respect everybody, even if they don't respect us.  
Except Americans, who are at the top of the heap so we don't respect  
them. That's why Bush is "worse" than that beady-eyed Iranian fellow.  
The usual criticism of GREEN is that GREEN thinking forgets that some  
other people would really really really prefer to see us dead than  
talk to us. You can decide how much GREEN you're using by that  
measure. If everyone could just talk and understand each other...  
let's have a meeting. Meetings solve everything. The meetings turn to  
appeasement and a decade later you've got another Nazi with big  
rockets. By the way, 70% of the world are Nazis. They just haven't  
formed clubs yet. And that's why it's hard being (and doing) GREEN.  
We have high standards, and we practice a lot of patience. The  
trouble is, these are HARD problems. In a way, this type of problem  
didn't exist 100 years ago. Back then, the answer anywhere was always  
just to fight. Got a problem? Sort it out with a war. When the war's  
over the problem--whatever it was, do we even remember?--will be  
thoroughly "solved". In many ways most of the world is still like  
this. Most people still think "turf". They just don't have big enough  
guns, as yet. But you know, you can accomplish a lot with 50,000  
machetes and a free weekend. So in some sense, ahhh, we need USA to  
dominate. The most powerful military which can kick the most ass.  
They've just been having a little trouble with their aim, lately.  
Nazi Germany was a real threat--an industrialised nation with a big  
war machine. And what do the Americans carpet bomb now? Some god  
forsaken raghead village on a mountain? I mean, we need a big  
powerful military to intervene. But BLUE is a bit, y'know, knee jerk.  
A fox rattles the chicken wire and BLUE takes out a kilo of C-4 and  
blows the roof off the house. Chicken feathers everywhere. Well, "we  
don't make mistakes". Hell, we'll blow up the next one too, just to  
be sure. Those pesky foxes are everywhere, y'know. There's a biiiiig  
international network of foxes out to get us. Well, we Brits know how  
to hunt foxes. You should take notes. Just one fox at a time, and we  
do it with style. How many tons of ordinance have you dropped to kill  
Osama? Did ya miss? Well, sunny boyyyy, DROP SOME MORE! Yeehaw! I say  
Europe and USA team up. There's something called the Adizes method,  
which roughly says that power, knowledge, and authority are never  
found together in one individual. So the person in charge makes an  
ill-informed decision that the people lower down refuse to implement.  
What should happen, ideally, is that the people will authority listen  
to the people with knowledge and then the people with power--the  
implementers on the ground--make it happen. Wouldn't it be swell if  
Europe and USA could team up and work together along those lines? The  
world is too big to be solved by unilateral BLUE or multilateral  
GREEN. Most of the world is a long way off from democracy, so you can  
just shelve that goal. And GREEN doesn't come before democracy. It  
comes AFTER. Talk all you want, they'll hate us for a looong time,  
even while they shake your hand and smile. Yes, thank you, we promise  
to hate you less while you sell us another reactor.

OK, so here we are, a microcosm of the planet. How would we work  
together?

Stefano