Originally published at http://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/01/13/biden-must-retire-illogical-great-power-competition-paradig
At the moment Common Dreams is flooded with articles like this one. Biden must do this, Biden should do that, Biden ought to do this, that and the other. Biden doesnât care what the people who write these articles think, any more than his corporate Democratic colleagues in his cabinet or Congress think of them. They will continue to serve the people who have paid them for their services in advance.
Want a progressive agenda? Find a better and more effective approach than these polite, well reasoned, righteous homilies that no one with the power to change things will listen to, especially the man to whom they are addressed.
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This rhetorical must has acquired a tinny tone over the years, since pretty nearly none of these pols ever do what they âmustâ do.
No, the âgreat power competition paradigm,â or cold-war thinking, or great chessboard or whatever, along with the poverty and hierarchy to fuel it, have been Bidenâs action throughout his career.These are points he sells to funders. He cannot back out of this, and he gives no sign at all that it would ever occur to him. When Libya becomes a smoking ruin, he is standing with the âWe came, we saw, he diedâ crowd.
Well meaning authors wishing to avoid carnage should start working on other people, working over what we are to do when Biden invades the next country.
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First, I am âwithâ Slugmanâ and âbardamuâ, with their comments. The article is good for a bit of âconsciousness-raisingâ about the rhetoric of âgreat power competitionâ (that means mostly military competition, for the U.S.). However, I am also in a small minority in this country (and world?) who deplores the whole concept of âcompetitionâ between countries, in any way, shape, or form. âInternational competitionâ is the construct and mind-set of anti-social personalities (who have managed to brainwash the rest of us with the âcompetitionâ dogma), and ⌠it is NUTS! We need âcooperationâ in all matters, in order to survive in the next few years (much less âthriveâ).