Amen!

The other missing piece is some consistent link between what's happening abroad and what's happening here at home. The neo-cons have been much more willing to embrace ideas they think are relevant for both. Their ideas were catastrophic for the country, but there was some consistency and overlap in what they said needed to be done in America and abroad. We seem to have two teams, one does America, the other does Abroad. Not much intersection. A revived America Abroad needs a more integrated view of how the world works.

Posted at February 26, 2007 10:00 PM in response to And the Winner Is...

Dear Dan K-

Right you are. Josh and Andrew and a few others are figuring out what to do with the site.

Sort of surprising to me that a small band of mostly liberal thinkers, Democrats and fellow travellers couldn't manage to keep a regular blog on foreign affairs lively and alive. Especially one that gets 100,000 plus pairs of eyeballs a day.

Will Rogers (I think it was) once said "I am not a member of an organized political party, I'm a Democrat." I guess that holds true even in cyberspace.

Does raise an interesting question. If such a group can't sustain a blog about foreign policy, makes you wonder if they can sustain a real foreign policy.

Posted at February 25, 2007 5:43 PM in response to And the Winner Is...

Winning 'smart power' in the current debate so dominated by the hyper-exercise of hard power is hard.

Only way it will be won is through that old practice called politics. Just having foreign policy intellectuals calling for better balance between diplomacy and force is necessary but not sufficient.

At some point someone needs to go out on a limb and flog the idea with the people, on political campaigns, on the hustings, even on blogs.

Hey, maybe it's even a matter of life and death.

Posted at February 20, 2007 11:55 AM in response to Winning Smart Power

Good point Alan.

What if, shockingly, 'we' ended up wanting pretty much what 'they' wanted? Yes, all the usual caveats apply, but even polling data by Pew and others suggest there is a fair amount of agreement about what people the world over want in their lives. Some search for such common ground; others search for contested ground so they can do battle and demonstrate to themselves and their narrow constituency that they are pure and untainted.

But two big steps. First, you have to be willing to listen to what 'they' want. Sometimes that's called 'diplomacy'. It's also called plain common sense. Second, as we start to listen to what 'they' want, we have to figure out who 'we' are.

At the present moment 'We the People' are not well represented by 'them' the 'leaders'.

Posted at February 12, 2007 7:19 PM in response to Winning Smart Power

Building a dialogue on these issues needs two components -- one is the media, the other is politics. Clearly they intersect important ways, like the work that FreePress.org does to keep a political focus on the media. Also, in the absence of an anti-imperial, pro-democracy political coalition or movement, there won't be much for the press to report on! Except the dangerous behavior of the Imperials.

I don't pretend to be an expert on the current status of grass roots progressive politics, but it needs to be factored in whatever the underlying reality is.

There is a lot of optimism in the posts on this site for the positive intersections of movement politics and the media, especially the Internet. Seems fewer of the foreign affairs types are convinced by the same arguments.

Posted at February 6, 2007 10:59 PM in response to A Final Thought on Nemesis

Bearly-

Thanks for the post. Good to read on this blog a straightforward account of how the media sometimes helps and how it sometimes hides, and what we can do to get around its blindspots. Also underscores the point about politics AND the press, not one without the other. Most of us try to combine some politics and some reading that seems to meet our needs, and we find a lot these days outside the mainstream stuff, whether environmental politics or alternative media (tho' I admit a passion for the Daily Show..)

Posted at February 1, 2007 10:52 PM in response to Empire vs. Democracy: Who's in Favor of Democracy?

I genuinely like the quotation from Tacitus and the other pithy comments from the ancients. It's useful to remind ourselves that we are not quite as unique as we would like to believe. I've been reading and re-reading Everett's bio of Cicero, and it's great stuff.

Still, I find it curious that when people refer to the ancients it is almost always to insist that resistance is futile. The defenders of the republic failed in Rome, just as we will fail in the time of Bush the Second, and beyond. That's using a particular moment of history to draw pretty defeatest lessons.

Is the modern press too often supine and slavish? Yep. Is the MSM owned by mega-corporations? Yep. Is the fight to protect democracy a tough fight? Right again. But it's always an uphill fight, and the press is often sensationalist and reactionary. Throughout American history the 'free press' has had a checkered history.(Remember 'yellow journalism'?)

Still, it seems a little politically irresponsible, or perhaps just a different reading of history, to suggest that the American people are all brain dead, passive and don't realize they are being ripped off. Look at the political energy around health care, failing schools, outrageous CEO pay, and now the opposition to the war in Iraq.

The disconent is there. It just hasn't been effectively mobilized.

Posted at February 1, 2007 8:14 PM in response to Empire vs. Democracy: Who's in Favor of Democracy?

Thanks, Dan, that's exactly the point.

It doesn't take too much foreign policy insight to know that we should pay more and better attention to the Middle East. Duh!

But America does not just need a foreign policy to fit the Israeli - Palestinian crisis, though that's a huge deal. We need an integrated foreign policy driven by American values and a clear understanding of American interests, able to engage seriously with that region and problems, at the same time as it tries to fix a lot of other problems we face. The next administration has to be smart enough to walk and chew gum at the same time.

Posted at January 29, 2007 10:18 AM in response to Hillary's Foreign Policy

Our party too often ends up with two unmatched platforms - one domestic, the other international. We talk about jobs and equity and the middle class at home; then we talk about foreign policy. We miss opportunities to link our domestic agenda and appeals to the middle class and working people, with our proposals for improving trade policy and national security.

Since national security, loss of jobs and broader middle class security will all be important for '08, how can the party ensure the foreign policy wonks and the domestic policy experts get togther this time to create a progressive and more integrated platform?

Posted at January 29, 2007 9:51 AM in response to Senator Schumer at TPMCafe

Have to agree with Aurico4...there are aboujt 200 countries in the world, and just as many thorny policy issues. The 'I' issue/countryu is important and central to losts of countries and ideas, but it ain't the only one.

Gee, I wonder what the candidates think about, say Europe? Or human rights in China? Or building down our stockpile of nuclear weapons??

Should these issues demand more attention by the candidates than usual, or is foreign policy appropriately put on the back burner until after the general election? I think we hurt ourselves as a nation by not having a broader conversation about our place in the world; and recalcitrant candidates lose the opportunity to educate the nation.

Posted at January 26, 2007 2:25 PM in response to Hillary's Foreign Policy