The world was watching, but not listening, when Biden met world leaders
By: William Moloney (MSN)
No surprise there........
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Predicting the future is risky business, and even deciphering the present can be problematical, but when explaining the past, consensus often arrives swiftly and cruelly - as has been the case as the world seemingly has rushed in to pass judgment on escalating calamities that have befallen the United States.
© Getty Images The world was watching, but not listening, when Biden met world leaders
The Economist asked four leading thinkers - author Robert Kaplan, political scientist Francis Fukuyama, diplomat Henry Kissinger, and historian Niall Ferguson - to opine generally on America's future, and particularly on whether the U.S. will be able to maintain its influence on global politics in the future. While in broad agreement on the fact of American decline, they brought varying perspectives on causation and what the path to the future might look like. Kissinger's diagnosis was particularly compelling: "The United States has torn itself apart in its counterinsurgent efforts because of its inability to define attainable goals and to link them in a way that is sustainable by the American political process."
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In a recent Wall St. Journal article, "American Global Leadership Is In Retreat," Walter Russell Mead examined the world's dilemmas through an even wider lens and declared that the root cause of American decline - and more generally, the Western world's dysfunction - stems from the fact that "globalists have so far failed to master the challenges of the 21st century."
To understand the meaning of this judgment, we must go back 30 years to the collapse of the Soviet Union, the end of the Cold War, and the appearance of Fukuyama's influential book, "The End of History and the Last Man," in which he posited that the worldwide spread of liberal democracy signaled the "end point" of humanity's sociocultural evolution and that system would become the final form of human government. However imperfectly understood, this doctrine in one form or another became the principal animating force behind political, economic and foreign policy throughout the Western world and beyond. It advanced dramatically with an aura of triumphalism nowhere more toxically than in the United States, which assumed unto itself the role of world leader and arbiter of the fate of other nations.
The governing mechanism of this New World came to be known as the "rules-based international order," which sought to empower supra-national organizations such as the United Nations, the European Union, the World Trade Organization, the World Bank and others as substitutes for nation-states that had been responsible for wars and economic disasters plaguing mankind for centuries. While theoretically attractive, this new regime of globalism was greatly responsible for growing ills such as income inequality, class warfare within and among nations, and latterly, a rising tide of populism, in which the working classes of many nations turned against the elites who controlled the economy and politics and amassed vast wealth while disrespecting poor people's lives and values.
All of this history is the necessary backdrop to understanding President Biden's recent speech at the United Nations, given that the "rules-based international order" has been exposed as dysfunctional and even counterproductive, largely owing to repeated and unpunished violations of said rules by authoritarian states. They use them skillfully to hamstring and manipulate the liberal democracies, which foolishly have continued to obey the rules even after it has been demonstrated repeatedly that totalitarian rogue states - China, Russia, Iran and North Korea - are playing by a very different and dangerous set of rules.
Had Biden with some humility acknowledged past mistakes, both recent and more distant, and proposed a bold change of course credibly aimed at rectifying errors, the applause he heard might have been sincere and even hopeful. Instead, a wondering audience and worried world heard a speech that seemed to come out of a time warp, in which it was still 1991 and not 2021 - lofty rhetoric still celebrating the triumph of liberal democracy, delivered by the strong and purposeful leader of an America with realistic plans for a better world, as well as the strength and will to implement them. Instead of such a clarion call, however, the United Nations heard only the fading notes of an uncertain trumpet echoing a world gone by.
Unsurprisingly, people are disinclined to listen when the words they hear are simply no longer believable.
William Moloney is a Fellow in Conservative Thought at Colorado Christian University's Centennial Institute who studied at Oxford and the University of London and received his Doctorate from Harvard University. He is a former Colorado Commissioner of Education.
Sums it up quite well.............
Good read Jim .. I almost posted it last night!
ABSOLUTELY. When the world hears Biden say that he does not want to start a cold war, yet is providing Australia with nuclear powered subs to roam the Indo-China sea, promotes his poodles in the "Quad" and his "5 Eyes" to pressure and contain China, imposes sanctions, carries on Trump's trade war, bans American corporations from investing in China, interferes in China's domestic affairs, etc etc etc and at the same time says he doesn't want to start a trade war. So, unsurprisingly, people are disinclined to listen when the words they hear are simply no longer believable because the deeds and the words don't match.
Hello Buzz .. I know it must be frustrating to see things unfold the way they are .. but I have to ask, do you condone the action of the Chinese government? on domestic affairs, human rights violations .. foreign affairs, actions towards Taiwan etc etc .. you know what the government is doing, does not seem defensible to me .. just as the US actions must not seem defensible to you...
I thought this article was about Biden. I guess I should be spanked for being on topic.
ALways important to keep the XI personality cult in mind when discussing China.
"The real difficulty is that if things do go wrong, it will be very hard for anybody to say so openly. All personality cults are based on the idea that the great leader is wiser than everyone who surrounds him. He cannot be acknowledged to have made mistakes. Chinese critics of Xi’s handling of the Covid-19 pandemic have been sent to prison. There will be no public inquiries or parliamentary hearings into the pandemic in Xi’s China. The Xi cult is also intrinsically humiliating for China’s educated middle-class and senior officials — who have to study Xi thought daily on a special app. They are expected to express reverence for the leader’s musings and to parrot his favourite phrases, such as “green mountains and clear water are equal to mountains of gold and silver”. Anybody who finds this ritual objectionable or laughable, would be wise to keep their thoughts to themselves. The Xi cult means that insincerity and fear are now baked into the Chinese system."
America has to be blamed. One's freedom depends on it.
Well, as I said above, I thought this article was about Biden, but I know it would be pointless to flag comments about China as being off topic because of existing prejudices.
i.e. Afghanistan? All the blood shed by American men and women in uniform only to hand the country over to the very people removed from power 20 years ago.. most likely legitimizing and eventually sending aid a 'government' made up of terrorists - this money will be for the citizens...? perhaps this is a reason the words of a US president no longer can be believed...
The definition of a globalist / globalism from the free dictionary
After a year + of the COVID pandemic hopefully the eyes of the 'globalists' are opened and they realize that countries need to take better care of themselves .. stop depending so heavily on other countries [China] for their products, medications, manufacturing .. the list goes on. besides the manufacturing of cheap disposable products are a danger to the planet
The US's answer is to sanction ... then sanction some more. The only thing that is accomplished through sanction is to hurt the citizens of said nations 'we' are punishing - .. yet 'we' still do business with these nations 'we' sanction .. umm huh? Cannot sanction the leaders of said nations (Putin is said to possibly be the richest man on earth) because once again 'we' do business with them .. or in the case of Turkey, they are a NATO member with strategic location... thus apparently get a pass..?
China is just a unique case .. nothing like sleeping with a government that takes human rights violations to a whole new level .. the events in Hong Kong still makes me shake my head .. the world just watched ... Syria, the world just watched as a genocide played out, followed by a mass exodus for survival .. just watched while Russia gained a foot hold in the ME, then complained that Putin did not play by the rules ... even in Iraq the world just watched as Daesh advanced across the country, counting on the Kurds to fight them with antique weapons .. well until Erbil was threatened [sign] that is a rant for a different day....
Will not even comment on Afghanistan as the world sat back and watched it happen ...
All in all the US president talks shit.. and just send money to buy friends .... and NO Trump did not cause this!
Peace!
.......................................... I am putting Soapbox back in her stall!