I Dislike Dumb, Flag-Waving "American Patriots," But I Love The United States. And Yes, People Can Hold Both Opinions Simultaneously.

It continues to astound me how many otherwise intelligent people go completely off-their-heads with anger when it is suggested to them that simply picking up an American flag, waving it in the air, and screaming incessantly "U.S.A.!  U.S.Aaaaaaaaa!" is a bit embarrassing and certainly not pragmatic in this current era.  But many people do go off their heads when this is suggested, so what follows is my response to them, or rather to at least one of them, whose name has been changed to "Patriot!" for the purposes of this posting.  (Because these so-called "patriots" tend to hate, say, Europeans for hyperbole-laden and not concrete reasons, I thought I'd start this post by mentioning a favorite target of theirs:  France.)

IF YOU REALLY LOVED YOUR COUNTRY, YOU'D STOP EMBARRASSING YOURSELF

I sometimes like to picture "Patriot!" being dropped in the middle of, say, Paris or Lyon, or just about any city in France, and left to his own devices.

It's my belief that within minutes, his cultural myopia would be on full display, as he attempted to negotiate what he would most likely consider "60 million gay pinko moonbats," or whatever, while trying desperately to find some type of "weaponry, any weaponry" so that he could feel "patriotic, dammit!"

Our pal "Patriot!" is so insular that his bluster is really just a way of displaying his personal neurotic tics and not really indicative of someone who is willing to reply seriously to any points anyone else feels free to suggest. (When his conservative internet overlords point him in a particular, talking-points heavy direction each day, I'm sure he breathes much more easily, and his blood pressure most likely drops back into the human range.)

Doubtless I'll be made fun of by "Patriot!" for being an "elitist moonbat" who "hates America," or whatever, for having written this, but let's remember this: it's not like his attention-span even made it to this paragraph, because he tends to craft his simplistic responses after he's about three words into anyone else's posts. He's got the political version of attention-deficit disorder....

As this is the case, I guess I'm free to switch gears somewhat.  So, regarding President Obama's recent news conference, I'm just glad we've got a leader who thinks and speaks in complete sentences. He'll stumble from time to time, and I don't agree with everything he suggests, but I do like his steady nature, his intellect, and the fact that he takes the long-view into account so consistently while serving in what one might tend to view as a short-view dominated occupation.

Despite what the "Patriots!" of the world will surely continue to suggest, I and others like me do think that the U.S. (and other Western nations) should continue to display strong leadership in this world in a number of ways (some liberal and some conservative). But we need to do so by ratcheting-down the dumb, "U.S.A.!, U.S.Aaaaaaa!"-screaming flag-waving, and replacing that outdated mindset with a ratcheting-up of careful international study and accompanying strategizing.

After all, dumb flag-waving puts on display the suggestion that you agree with just about everything we do, whether you consider it good or bad. Careful strategizing, on the other hand, suggests that you wish to continue what is working, but end what is not working in order to better yourself and your country.

Hence, the former mindset suggests a "carry-on no matter what" approach, whereas the latter suggests studying the reality of this international world carefully before deciding where to carry on as we have up to now, and where to make needed adjustments to better position ourselves for the future.

Since many of us continue to insist on using this particular term, which of the above two options, I ask you, is truly more patriotic?

It Seems As Though We're All Weighing-In On The Twitter Phenomenon, So...

...this is what I wrote regarding Twitter on my friend Marsha's blog-site (http://blogomarsh.blogspot.com), with a few minor adjustments:

What you say about the practicality of Twitter's 140 character limit is interesting, Marsha, because I tend to have the opposite reaction to it--I tend to think that such a limit encourages the production of overly-general, rather arbitrary nonsense. It seems to promote insubstantial thinking.

Take, for example, the president's recent "State of the Union Address." During this event, certain congresspeople were twitting (or whatever it's called) such things as "...I just sent a shout-out to Ruth Bader-Ginsburg." Well, I'm glad she's doing well, too, but we simply don't require a congressperson twitting that to us "in real time," or even at all. It's useless and strikes me as being juvenile and narcissistic. (And, if certain people feel it necessary to share such a general notion with us, why don't they simply wait until after the speech to do so?)

That, I think, is my biggest problem with this Twitter phenomenon: it somehow suggests that people's relatively random thoughts are worthwhile to the rest of society. I disagree. What seems to me to be worthwhile is when people take some of their random thoughts and construct something practical out of them, which means that they build upon them and present what they've built in an impressive and thoughtful manner.

Then again, I've never found "quick conversational marketing" to be interesting; I find it to be dull. What sells me on something is a thoughtful argument as to why I ought to give that thing my attention. If someone twitted me something like "Did you see that hilarious [insert company name here] beer commercial?," I wouldn't care--it would not entice me to see that particular commercial. If, on the other hand, they took the time to let me know why seeing a particular commercial was worthwhile, I might keep my eye out for it. But for me, the "why" needs to be included in the initial sales-pitch, and not just in a "by-the-way" manner; the "why" needs to be the central component to the argument being made. Otherwise, the person sharing her or his thought(s) is doing so in a rather childish and off-handed manner in that it's just like someone saying, "Did you see that car? Do you see that bird? Do you want to hear me talk about other random stuff?"

I realize, however, that a big percentage of society sees things much differently than me; they like the quick sloganeering and tend to roll their eyes at what they probably see as "boring" argument construction. That doesn't make them worse or better than me, just different. For them, Twitter must be like eating a seemingly endless piece of delicious candy, because it lets them sift through what amounts to a lot of very quick commercials, whereas for me it's like eating the air--there's no substance to it, so why bother?

Re-Building Leverage In An Increasingly Multi-Polar World: The West And Russia In A Geo-Political Context

About a month ago, I wrote the following regarding the Obama Administration's relations with Russia, as seen in a geo-political context: "Russia might very well be needed as a potentially leveraging factor [in the emerging multi-power world structure]." I was writing most specifically about China, and I still believe that the Obama Administration is attempting to bring Russia into the Western fold to the extent that Russia can help provide a regional counterbalance to China's emerging power status. (India is another emerging regional rival to China.) But Russia (and Georgia, where recent Russian aggression was a major geo-political worry for the West) is located fairly close to Iran, too, and the Kremlin has long-since kept a worried eye on that politically volatile Middle Eastern country and its nuclear ambitions.

Hence, by attempting to create a new political and working template with Russia, the Obama Administration is seeking a geo-political partnership with the Kremlin insofar as it can help diffuse some of the tensions with multiple countries in Russia's general region (as in the possible case of Iran), or, if rising tensions are in some cases inevitable (as in the possible case of China), insofar as it can provide leverage for the U.S. and much of Europe and against the emerging opposition.

Now, this is not to suggest that tensions between the West and, say, Iran will inevitably ease over the next few years, or that tensions between the West and China will inevitably escalate over that period of time, but the possibilities of those two outcomes exist. If I had to choose the one that is "more likely," I would say that tensions between the West and China will inevitably increase. For its part, tensions between the West and Iran may ease, but right now it looks as though they are just as likely to increase. At any rate, the West would be best served if it had a solid set of plans to deal with the simultaneous increasing of tensions between the West and both China and Iran. In that case, surely working to bring Russia a bit more into the Western fold would be a major part of those plans, for geographical and geo-political reasons. (And, in a best-case scenario, if Russia's geo-political mindset were to become a bit more aligned with the West's, tensions in presently-volatile Eastern Europe might ease, which could help the West to project a stronger, more united front against any of a number of potential challenges.)

Yet with the worldwide financial crisis in full roar at present, economic instability is expanding both inside of Russia and inside of many of its neighboring countries (such as recently-industrializing Eastern European countries and former Soviet states to its west and south, as well as China to its south-east, and so forth). This will surely make what would already be a difficult, volatile process of attempting to create more genuine and coordinated Western-Russian cooperation even more difficult and volatile. The Obama Administration has taken a calm line on this so far, which has helped, but both the West and Russia are going to need a little luck to pull-off such increasingly necessary cooperation over the coming years. Stay tuned, folks, and hold onto your seats--this ride is going to stay bumpy for some time to come.