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RedditThese days, the price of oil seems ever on the rise. A barrel of crude broke another barrier Wednesday -- $123 -- on international markets, and the talk is now of the sort of "superspike" in pricing (only yesterday unimaginable) that might break the $200 a barrel ceiling "within two years." And that would be without a full-scale American air assault on Iran, after which all bets would be off.
Considering that, in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, oil was still in the $20 a barrel price range, this is no small measure of what the Bush administration years have really accomplished. Today, it's hard even to remember not 9/11, but 11/9--November 9, 1989--the day that the Berlin Wall fell, signaling that, soon enough, after its seventy-odd year life, that Reaganesque Evil Empire, the Soviet Union, was heading for the door. In 1991, it disappeared from the face of the Earth without a whimper. Until almost the last moment, top officials in Washington assumed it would go on forever; and, when it was gone, most of them couldn't, at first, believe it. Soon enough, however, the event was hailed as the greatest of American triumphs--"victory" not just in the Cold War, but at a level never before seen. Finally, for the first time in history, there was but a single superpower on the planet.
At the dawn of a new century, the administration of George Bush the younger, packed with implacable former Cold Warriors, came to power still infused with that sense of global triumphalism and planning to rollback what was left of the old Soviet Union, an impoverished Russia, into an early grave.
Almost seven and a half years later, an observer might be pardoned for wondering whether there hadn't been two super losers in the Cold War. Had the Soviet Union, the weaker of the two great powers of the second half of the last century, simply imploded first, while the U.S., enwreathed in a cloud of self-congratulation, was almost unbeknownst to itself also slowly making its way toward an exit?
In a recent post, Michael Klare -- author of the not-to-be-missed new book Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet -- offers a provocative take on this. He writes:
"Nineteen years ago, the fall of the Berlin Wall effectively eliminated the Soviet Union as the world's other superpower. Yes, the USSR as a political entity stumbled on for another two years, but it was clearly an ex-superpower from the moment it lost control over its satellites in Eastern Europe."Less than a month ago, the United States similarly lost its claim to superpower status when a barrel crude oil roared past $110 on the international market, gasoline prices crossed the $3.50 threshold at American pumps, and diesel fuel topped $4.00. As was true of the USSR following the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, the USA will no doubt continue to stumble on like the superpower it once was; but as the nation's economy continues to be eviscerated to pay for its daily oil fix, it, too, will be seen by increasing numbers of savvy observers as an ex-superpower-in-the-making."
As a final irony, Klare points out, its vast oil and natural gas reserves have refloated Russia, even as oil is sinking us.
oh the soviets definately lost the cold war.
the neocons have been losing the "war on terror" since before it bagan...
Posted by ibbleblibble at 05/08/2008 @ 4:39pm
Also Mask, re: Cohen, as you probably note, he's not a serious figure (no one in the Russian field has looked to him for advice since the mid-1980s. But what he lacks in star power, he more than makes up for in arrogance).
Posted by Euler at 05/8/2008
Euler, Study Russia all you like, but I happen to have a pretty good Russian friend who would beg to differ with you. He believes Russia is turning the tide and on it's way back up.
I agree with you on the clown thing though.
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 05/08/2008 @ 4:51pm
Russia is coming back, not the USSR. A Russia linked more closely to its autocratic pre-WW1 past, with the Orthodox church & now a new aristocracy firmly in control, sucking the vast natural wealth, but creating little else. A power to be reckoned with, but a threat only to its immediate neighbors. Russia can play energy games with western Europe, but only in short spurts, as Russia cannot eat or drink its energy, it has no choice but to sell it.
Posted by sloper at 05/08/2008 @ 5:13pm
russia is an organized crime state and putin is the godfather...
Posted by ibbleblibble at 05/08/2008 @ 5:33pm
hey,
canada could do the same thing.
i'm gonna call up harper.
you guys are gonna need some missle shieldy things and more attack bugs.
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/08/2008 @ 7:44pm
Euler has anyone every told you that you sound like a pompous ass that doesn't know what he's talking about?
The tip off? "Don't question me on this, I'm right!" Not worth arguing about!"
lol too funny around here sometimes.
Posted by madlib at 05/08/2008 @ 7:46pm
do you guys know that the nefarious russians hold 38 billion in u.s. debt?
right between taiwan and mexico.
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/08/2008 @ 7:48pm
right between taiwan and mexico.
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/8/2008
We should bill Taiwan with a defence tab and Mexico for taking in and supporting 12% of her population...we should tell them to "forgive" the debt as we are apparently forgiving them for using our social services as a hammock and breaking our laws with the Mexicos govt help.
Posted by JOMAMMA at 05/08/2008 @ 8:20pm
WHO REALLT LOST THE COLD WAR?
All those on the left in America who thought the USSR was "on to something, but just the "wrong people running it"...
Posted by JOMAMMA at 05/08/2008 @ 8:22pm
There were those at the time of the American Revolution who worried greatly that aristocracy would be replaced with a plutocracy in the new America. Russia has its autocrats, something worse, but quite similar. What saved us was the size of "our" continent. That didn't seem to work in Russia. Czar Peter's Folly?
Posted by Sorelish at 05/08/2008 @ 9:24pm
There were those at the time of the American Revolution who worried greatly that aristocracy would be replaced with a plutocracy in the new America.
guess what, they were right. the American "revolution" was nothing of the kind. it was a secession.
you know what the Brits call the Revolutionary war? the civil war.
Posted by emile duBois at 05/09/2008 @ 08:54am
IRAQ: Conservatives to Blame
Posted by LibsWarnedU at 05/8/2008 | ignore this person BUSH: Conservatives to Blame
Posted by LibsWarnedU
why are liberals always looking for someone to blame?
Posted by abell12ct at 05/09/2008 @ 10:41am
Very, very, very, very, very few people are attracted TO Russia....not even Russians themselves...population has dropped by almost 7 million since WE won the Cold War. The only place where illegal immigration is a `probelm', is in far east Siberia where northeastern Chinese are setting up shop....sort of like Mexcians taking over New Mexico & maybe Texas!
Russia will be as paranoid as it has ever been....and it's not the US it's worried about!
Posted by HAPPY3 at 05/8/2008 | ignore this person
Wrong! Russia is worried primarily about the U.S. at the moment, which is why Russia and China have just completed joint military exercises in Central Asia, and why Russia has legitimately complained bitterly about the U.S. trying to expand NATO to its borders and place a missile defense system (yes, they don't work now, but if they ever do, they would allow us to commit a nuclear first strike) in Central and Eastern Europe.
Oh, and the loss of population was largely due to the economic shock therapy and the resulting collapse in living standards that the Clinton Administration's lapdog Boris Yeltsin presided over.
Posted by cka2nd at 05/09/2008 @ 11:15am
why are liberals always looking for someone to blame?
Posted by abell12ct at 05/9/2008 | ignore this person
why do "conservatives" always avoid responsibility?
abe you have every right to your fossilized opinions. you do not have the right to revise the history of the Iraq war.
Posted by emile duBois at 05/09/2008 @ 11:20am
why are liberals always looking for someone to blame?
Posted by abell12ct
quick, hit "unsubmit"!
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/09/2008 @ 11:21am
Euler, I can't remember which writer in The American Conservative made the argument, but it made sense to me when he said it's silly to say that the Russian people have no real interest in democracy, that a desire for authoritarianism is a part of the Russian "soul." His evidence was South Korea and Taiwan; if half of Korea and a portion of the Chinese people could have vibrant democracies, than that's a pretty good argument for the possibility that other peoples would also respond to democracy if given the chance. Anyone want to give a shout out for the example of West Germany, for that matter?
Russia in the 90's was comparable to Germany in the 20's, so of course people wanted leadership that would restore some level of stability and dignity to the nation. Unfortunately, Putin was the only real option in Russia, while Germany might have turned to Social Democracy instead of Hitler if not for the criminal stupidity of Stalin and the weakness of much of the SD leadership.
Posted by cka2nd at 05/09/2008 @ 11:25am
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/action/ignore.mhtml?who=cka2nd
there hasn't been a West Germany for almost 20 years. South Korea and Taiwan have been the recipients of huge amounts of US aid and investment.
also apropos Germany in the 20s, the comparison is not even close. TWO COMPLETE CURRENCY DEVALUATIONS IN Germany. people starving while blockaded food supply ships were off shore. Russia certainly has not seen conditions such as this in our lifetime.
Posted by emile duBois at 05/09/2008 @ 12:12pm
Again with the "never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity."
This whole oil crisis thing was entirely predictable. In fact, everyone predicted it who knew anything about world oil supplies since the 1970s.
That is why, back in the early 1990s, the new Clinton Admin tried to develop a modest BTU tax on energy to begin to exert some market forces to rein in the US demand for more and more energy in an increasingly scarce fossil fuel supply environment. The fact is, the prices paid by consumers have never reflected the real costs of energy use. The Clinton Admin knew this then and know it now, just as everyone who doesn't drag knuckles when they perambulate have and do know it. (If you wear a Nascar hat or jacket, chances are you don't know it, have never known it, and never will know it, even after your replica Number 3 Chevy is up on blocks in the front yard.)
So why didn't this policy work? I think it had something to do with "pandering." Big Oil put on a media blitz crying about how the BTU tax would price energy out of reach, there would be an economic Armageddon, and Americans could never afford $2 gas.
Gee, I don't know about you, but $2 gas looks pretty good to me now. And it would be even better if the alternative energy strategies begun under the Carter Admin had been continued under the Mondale, Dukakis, Clinton, and Gore Admins as well. We might have the fuel cell auto on the streets right now with the distribution infrastructure to supply them. We'd still be paying $4 per gallon, but we'd be getting 70 mpg, there would be little to know air pollution and tailpipe CO2 would be less than a quarter of what it is now.
But no, Big Oil and Bubba know best. We've let them run policy for the last 30 years. Next to them, Putin and his crowd look like geniuses.
Posted by goyadad at 05/09/2008 @ 12:15pm
So Edmund Burke, like James Fenimore Cooper is claimed by both Liberals & Conservatives. Who do the neo-cons claim? Attila the Hun?
Posted by Sorelish at 05/09/2008 @ 1:54pm
Posted by Euler at 05/9/2008
I think you missed the point.
Posted by Sorelish at 05/09/2008 @ 2:58pm
Posted by Euler at 05/9/2008
So the neo-cons to you are on a spiritual trip?
Posted by Sorelish at 05/09/2008 @ 3:09pm
All those on the left in America who thought the USSR was "on to something, but just the "wrong people running it"...
Posted by JOMAMMA at 05/8/2008 |
JM,
I think the Soviet Union lost the cold war as did the United States. They just hit rock bottom faster and are now on their way up. We are still spending obscene amounts of money against an ex enemy and are still plummeting toward the bottom.
So, my answer to the cold war winner is that there wasn't one. Both nations acted like jackasses seeing who could spend the most on destructive toys and lined the pockets of the industries that produced the toys and we are still doing it. So are they, but now at a greatly reduced price tag.
They learned their lesson, evidently our leaders have their heads rammed too far north to have seen what happened to the Soviet Union to realize that the same damn thing would happen to us if we continue down the same road. It's not the system of government so much as the way the government is spending trillions of dollars and stupid, useless military hardware.
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 05/09/2008 @ 3:43pm
Russia's greatest win in the Cold War has been getting rid of a dysfunctional economic system. We are turning into a 'normal' country. Give us some time to grow rich, to cultivate a middle class, and we'll turn democratic. At this juncture, however, true democracy in Russia would spell an election victory for the Communists. That's why sane people in the government steal elections, the way Yeltsin did in 1996, to the West's applause. Ten years down the road this need not be the case. By the way, an average Russian paycheck has grown about ten-fold on Putin's watch (9.28 times from end-1999 to end-2007, more by now). That's in US dollar terms! No wonder home prices in Moscow have grown ten-fold as well, in US dollar terms.
Posted by Sick Rat at 05/09/2008 @ 4:59pm
Posted by Sick Rat at 05/9/2008 |
Don't tell Euler that, he's an expert on Russia!! LOL
Posted by Wolfgang1 at 05/09/2008 @ 5:02pm
Oil isn't really our biggest problem. Our political insanity is. We tend to elect idiots that are as intelligent or less intelligent than we are. No difference to party here. Most of our elected officials, local and national, are corporate sycophants, because, as the song says "I owe my soul to the company store". What if we weren't spending billions on Chinese junk and a projected 2.1 trillion on a war that we can't win. Could we build a high speed mag lev. train coast to coast. Could we build thousands of low yield tidal electric pools for energy. could we build a commuter mono rail system that would follow the interstate system. Rather than create billionaires out of people that create gadgets, could we electrify highways to run family cars. And thank you for this new dialog box!!!!!!!
Posted by julien38 at 05/09/2008 @ 6:57pm
Damn, I forgot to mention health care and education. Maybe Bill Gates could expand his schools. They are really good.
AND THANK YOU TOM.
Posted by julien38 at 05/09/2008 @ 7:03pm
Think I've come up with EULER'S PROBLEM. His cynicism comes from his failure with the Russian matrimonial agencies. He's been burnt (notice I didn't say screwed) so many times, he can't come to terms with the new Russia. In with the old, out with the new.You just can't have it both ways!
Posted by Sorelish at 05/09/2008 @ 7:22pm
Posted by goyadad at 05/9/2008
Dreaming...
The price of oil is increasing due to INCREASED DEMAND in other developing countrys,(NOT INCREASING DEMAND IN THE US...OUR GASOLINE DEMAND IS DROPPING) including India and China...the biggest refinery in the world is being built in....INDIA...China has 48 refineries being run by a man I know...48!!!!!!!! (do we even have 48?)..they are not building those because oil is short...more and more known reserves are being discoverd every year and every year we, in the US, are not allowed to go after the more oil we are finding here...
The cause of oil increases is also speculators..it is a good place to put your money as are all commoditys...especialy if idiot politicians in election years start clamouring for more places to tax...
India, South America, Asia, are adding hundreds of thousands of cars per year ..HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF CARS EACH YEAR.....where is that IDIOT ALGORE when you really need him?
Someone tell him to fly his G5 down and out to these parts of the world to denounce their growth in energy use instead of at the US, to the UN cheering...
Thinking like goy is part of the reason we will run short while others will be filling their needs...
Posted by JOMAMMA at 05/09/2008 @ 8:29pm
jm
it's the drowning dollar.
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/09/2008 @ 9:38pm
Thinking like goy is part of the reason we will run short while others will be filling their needs...
Posted by JOMAMMA
i didn't know you were jewish.
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/10/2008 @ 12:41am
Thinking like goy is part of the reason we will run short while others will be filling their needs...
Posted by JOMAMMA
That's a totally unacceptable racist remark.
Posted by Sick Rat at 05/10/2008 @ 04:02am
Actually, the USSR lost the cold war, not because of the United States, but because of its own shortcomings dating back to Stalin's collectivization, industrialization, and bloody purges. He created an unworkable system that could only function through black market activities condoned/supported by his own officials. Hence, a long Russian tradition of corruption was reinforced by Soviet corruption. Stalin railed against it, but it was his own fault. He wiped out the "old Bolsheviks" in the purges, who were the heart and soul of the October revolution. He killed them off to advance the revolution but instead he condemned it. In some ways it is miraculous that the Soviet peoples defeated the Nazi armies, but this remarkable achievement is just another example of their extraordinary resilience and fortitude. They gave Stalin and the Soviet Union a chance for redemption, but Stalin reverted back to his old ways instead. Like Humpty Dumpty fallen off the wall, the best efforts of Khrushchev and Gorbachev and their people could not put H.D. back together again.
Posted by mikhailovich at 05/10/2008 @ 08:06am
Euler, you must have been in the Ukraine not Russia. Now for the facts: Russia is booming and its GDP is growing 25-30% in USD each year. All the second tier cities from Rostov on the Don to Novosibirsk are booming. There will be 1.8-2 million births this year. The strategic potential of Russia dwarfs all countries including the United States. Russia is the bridge between Europe and Asia - where the majority of the world's population is located. USA is in the middle of nowhere, separated by 2 oceans from the world's population centers. Think about this for a moment and ponder its implications. Here are a few: 1. Russia does not need to waste money on the military to "project power". It just needs to defend itself. 2. Soon you will be able to send goods cheaply and quickly from Seoul or Shanghai to the heart of Europe via Russian Railways.
Putin by any definition is a true democrat: no leader has done more for his people.
Russia needs to work on the mortality problem and continue modernizing its industry. I am sure they will do both succesfully.
Posted by dparkins3 at 05/10/2008 @ 10:17am
That's a totally unacceptable racist remark.
Posted by Sick Rat at 05/10/2008
i think he meant "gore".
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/10/2008 @ 3:00pm
You will SEE!!!...
Posted by mihnea at 05/10/2008
more predictions.....
what about niburu?
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/10/2008 @ 3:00pm
happy3,453,564,327
``Between the euro and oil, there is a feedback loop, which affects the world economy,'' Yasunari Ueno, chief market economist at Mizuho Securities Co. in Tokyo, wrote in a research note today. Higher oil prices ``raise expectations of the ECB's rate rise, then this leads to a stronger euro and a weaker dollar on widening rate gaps. This further leads to higher oil.''
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
euro 2000 42.41
euro 2008 73.75
increase in oil prices* 74%
u.s. dollar 2000 35.00
u.s. dollar 2008 118.00
increase in oil prices* 237%
*of course rising demand coupled with
diminishing supplies coupled with
intentional (yes, intentional) efforts to raise the price through "sabre rattling" (see iran- u.s. "conflict")
are pushing up the price.
but most of the rise is the weakening dollar.
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/10/2008 @ 3:13pm
RAT, Apprently you didn't read goyadads post that I was refering to in my post...
That's a totally unacceptable racist remark.
Posted by Sick Rat at 05/10/2008
i think he meant "gore".
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/10/2008
Goy in my post = goyadad at 05/9/2008
I am not jewish, I am german protestant with a great great grandmother who we think was jewish...
...all of makes me American.
Posted by JOMAMMA at 05/10/2008 @ 4:15pm
That's a totally unacceptable racist remark.
Posted by Sick Rat at 05/10/2008
Name calling without due diligence is unacceptable and shows a small crial capacity....
Posted by JOMAMMA at 05/10/2008 @ 4:18pm
<Posted by mikhailovich at 05/10/2008>
That's actually pretty good analysis, michaelson. Also a factor is the aging out of the party insiders. Kruschev was the last dynamic leader they had. And he was looking for ways to reach rapproachment with the West. But it was a difficult tango for him to manage, and he was finally pushed out by the hardliners in the military. By the time we get to Brezhnev, we can see the befuddlement of those left in the top ranks and the utter inability to manage state & economic affairs in a dynamically changing environment. It was Gorbachev who really had the sort of imagination and courage to change the calcified and corrupt structures of the old Soviet state. It was he who "lost" the Cold War--it wasn't Reagan who won it. But Gorbachev "lost" it on purpose. He saw that blind sack that was sucking the life out of Soviet society, and that aggressive restructuring was going to be necessary to have any hope of saving Soviet society. He made this clear on many occassions, even telling Reagan he was going to deprive the Pentagon & US defense industry "of your enemy" by essentially opting out of the arms race.
But of course, this could not be allowed by the US or by the Soviet military. What followed was a period during which US intel kept asserting Soviet threats that were being dismantled or never existed in the first place. This gave defense contractors and their cronies in the military the go-ahead to continue with their ruinously expensive boondoggles. What it amounted to was something like those fixed prize fights where the winning fighter holds the opponent up against the ropes until the payoff round, pummeling him when all the palooka wants to do is kiss the canvas.
So it's bandied around like a big GOP/Reagan victory. But everyone forgets the real story: the incredible risks and courage of Gorbachev in ending the Cold War and trying to save Russian socialism from the goons who had hijacked it.
Gee, kinda reminds me of another story: "Alibama [thanks RIO] vs. the 40,000 GOP Thieves Who Run America." Can't wait to see how this one turns out. Gorbachev was taking on a bunch of thugs who had only been running things for 50 years. Obama is taking on crooks who have railroaded American democracy for 150 years. A much taller order.
Posted by goyadad at 05/10/2008 @ 4:59pm
and shows a small crial capacity....
Posted by JOMAMMA
orthographic karma strikes again.....
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/10/2008 @ 5:24pm
nigeria, mexico, dead canadian ducks, etc.,
Posted by HAPPY3 at 05/10/2008.
of course, of course.
but how much has the dollar strengthened?
and for how long?
sure we've passed oil's historic high as adjusted for inflation,
but not by that much.
and that historic high, i believe, was during the dreaded 99.9% interest days of the carter admin.
the quality of monetary policy is comparable
and so are its inflationary effects.
you gotta pay the piper one day.
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/10/2008 @ 5:29pm
No, no, no, frosty. All of these facts are mere coincidence. It just happens that gold spikes to nearly $1000/oz. at the same time oil doubles prices of a year ago. It just happens that the greenback plummets as the Loony & Euro rise. It can't be a result of any policy decisions over the last 8 years to balloon US debt, do nothing to develop energy alternatives, continue to export productivity abroad. None of any of that could affect balance of payments in the least. And even if it did, that wouldn't affect greenback value. The US dollar is held up by the will of Almighty God alone. It needs no other support. So the fall in the greenback means we need to pray more. We have run up a prayer deficit in these here You-Nighted Stayts.
Posted by goyadad at 05/10/2008 @ 5:37pm
BTW, frosty, the details of Carter vs. Bush fiscal policy are quite non-comparable.
Carter inherited a federal budget that was badly out of balance from the Nixon & Ford years. The Fed had been responding to pressures from the GOP business lobby to ease rates & increase money supply. Everytime there was a dip in GDP (what it was called back then), they would howl for a rate cut. George Schultz applied pressure on Arthur Burns to oblige. And that set up the accelerating inflationary cycle wherein you try to pay off old debt with cheaper and cheaper dollars. (Sound familiar?)
Carter inherited this mess. He attacked it two ways. One, he cut federal spending. I remember this well, because I knew many who lost their govt. jobs and hated Carter forever because of it. Two, he appointed Volker as Fed chief. Volker was a notorious fiscal hawk. He relentlessly raised fed rates until the money supply all but dried up. Who is going to take a loan at 22%? Even a mob shark competes with those rates. But it did bring back the dollar and choked inflation out of the system. Too late for Carter, though. His "tough love" along with the Reagan campaign's manager in Tehran (Khomeni) made sure of him.
Bush has made his own mess. He inherited surplusses and made them into deficits. Just like the ignorant party-boy wastrel that he is.
Posted by goyadad at 05/10/2008 @ 5:56pm
"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." George Bernard Shaw
Posted by Sorelish at 05/10/2008 @ 6:24pm
well, bush did inherit the repeal of glass-steagall.
he also inherited 5.4 trillion in debt.
just sayin......
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/10/2008 @ 10:57pm
Posted by dparkins3 at 05/10/2008 | ignore this person
Putin, a democrat!!?? This is someone who spend his terms in office shutting down any democratic opposition. Likewise, his repositioning himself as Prime Minister is an attempt to continue to wield de facto power.
The Russian economy owes its boom mainly to high fossil fuel prices, not to any merit in its economic structure.
Posted by emile duBois at 05/9/2008 | ignore this person
Your statement about the American Revolution overlooks several revolutionary aspects. First, the election (directly or indirectly) of the Executive and both chambers of the legislature. Second, the establishment of a republic over a large geographical area. The contemporaneous political theory had held that republics were only viable when geographically compact. Third, the idea of a constitution as a basic law that couldn't be overridden by standard legislation. Fourth, the act of the politically enfranchised in actually drafting, deliberating and approving the basic structure of their government.
Posted by brunowe at 05/11/2008 @ 05:50am
Bruno, the overriding fact is that the same people were in charge before and after the "revolution". they merely cancelled the "home office". contrast this with the french or russian revolution, and the revolutions in south america.
in the US the franchised stayed in charge, the disenfranchised stayed the underclass. that is my point.
democracy? well that had to wait. the founding fathers were scared to death of democracy. they were all plutocrats.
Posted by emile duBois at 05/11/2008 @ 10:48am
the changes you mentioned seem to me more evolutionary. take a look at the french revolution. both ancien regime and the church completely smashed. the rights of man declaration, far more egalitarian than anything produced in the US.
Posted by emile duBois at 05/11/2008 @ 11:27am
more than freedom fries?!?!?
Posted by frosty zoom at 05/11/2008 @ 11:35am
Except that the French Revolution didn't stay egalitarian, did it?
Second, replacing a constitutional monarchy were the monarch still exercised a measure of real power with a federal republic is hardly evolutionary.
The fact that you didn't have class warfare doesn't make the American revolution less revolutionary, your criteria are too narrow. They ignore the unprecedented idea of a codified bill of rights that was immune to ordinary legislation. They ignore the power vested in a supermajority to amend the Constitution. They ignore that the rationale for the Revolution was that the colonists had an intrinsic right to govern themselves.
Posted by brunowe at 05/11/2008 @ 11:05pm