Garvey's Ghost: Black Talk

the American empire

Now I've not been under a rock and I know that America is an empire. Besides a few books stating that, it is rare to see such language used in "mainstream" press until today. Bob Herbert today wrote in his op ed Bush's Blinkers which I think was supposed to say Bush's Blinders..but anyway:

quote:
In a disturbing article in last Sunday's New York Times Magazine, the writer Ron Suskind told of a meeting he'd had with a senior adviser to the president. The White House at the time was unhappy about an article Mr. Suskind had written.

According to Mr. Suskind, "The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' " The aide told Mr. Suskind, "That's not the way the world really works anymore. We're an empire now, and when we act we create our own reality."

Let's be clear here: I am in total agreement with the idea of a person shaping their own reality but this makes it clear that the issues behind the war are about control of assets and entities and not about "freedom" and 'Liberty." I'm not sure how many people will have read Herbert's op-ed or the Article in which the comment was made given that the American attention span is quite short, but if and when another attack happens here, remember the "empire" comment. All empires fall.

edit: 2:05 PM:
here is a quote from the NY Times Magazine that Herbert quoted:

And for those who don't get it? That was explained to me in late 2002 by Mark McKinnon, a longtime senior media adviser to Bush, who now runs his own consulting firm and helps the president. He started by challenging me. ''You think he's an idiot, don't you?'' I said, no, I didn't. ''No, you do, all of you do, up and down the West Coast, the East Coast, a few blocks in southern Manhattan called Wall Street. Let me clue you in. We don't care. You see, you're outnumbered 2 to 1 by folks in the big, wide middle of America, busy working people who don't read The New York Times or Washington Post or The L.A. Times. And you know what they like? They like the way he walks and the way he points, the way he exudes confidence. They have faith in him. And when you attack him for his malaprops, his jumbled syntax, it's good for us. Because you know what those folks don't like? They don't like you!'' In this instance, the final ''you,'' of course, meant the entire reality-based community.

Folks.. this statement is perhaps the single thing that Black folks do not understand. We are vastly outnumbered by folks who don't live near us, who's main image of us is from TV and could care less about "our issues" and because they outnumber us, "they" can get into office without "us" and if they are democrats, simply ignore "us" until national elections happen.

Links:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/magazine/17BUSH.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/22/opinion/22herbert.html?hp