Wednesday, September 23, 2009

All the world's a stage, and you are not the lead role.

So, today, Comrade Obama gave a speech to the United Nations about how the world's fucked up, and why we, as a Global Community, need to collectively "unfuck" it. Continuing in the tradition of virtually every other president since Woodrow Wilson, Mr. Obama lectured the audience on  accountability and responsibility in a semi-apologetic, and highly presumptuous manner. Though I'll give him  a few bonus points for talking about the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict without leaving the latter out in the rain (well, perhaps in a world where words speak louder than actions), I'm not going to be able to give him a winning score.

Why? Because Mr. Obama is falling into the same "Leader of the Free World" trap that all of our other leaders tend to fall into. I realize that America, despite our socio-economic woes, is still quite a powerful and influential country, but a simple glance at the map will reveal that we are not the only "free country" on the planet. In fact, given the utter brutalization of our civil liberties by post 9/11 legislation, we're probably one of the less free countries in the Western World (give or take). 

The problem is that our leaders have the dreadful tendency to address the world as though it was a audience (or even worse, a classroom), prattling on about global responsibilities as they were the only adults in the room. You'd think that at least Mr. Obama would realize the utter irony in such semantics, given how our "diplomacy" has been handled over the last few years, but alas, the madness continues.

Madness? THIS! IS! DIPLOMACAAAAAAAAAA!

But seriously .

One thing that American Leaders, and much of America for that matter, need to realize is that just because we're a major player in the game, does not mean we run it and can abuse the rules. Like it or not, this is, in fact, a Global Community, and the more we treat International Diplomacy like a game of hop-scotch, the less our allies will be willing to take us seriously. In the end, Macho-Americanism is nice for elections, but earns us very little in the global arena.

My suggestion? Let's try not attempting to run the world like a poorly coordinated football team. Before we can presume to know about accountability, let's first show what it means. Maybe we could stop selling arms to countries embroiled in combat? Maybe we could stop sending operatives to counties struggling against dictators? Maybe we could stop invading countries with no provocation?

Then, maybe we can ride a purple whale to the Cloud Kingdom! (lolidealism)

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