By John Ballard
The American Empire is declining and Barack Obama knows it.
He knew it before he got nominated and he is modeling his presidency in accordance with the same theme.
A good motto might be If youcan't lick 'em, join 'em.
Consider this pre-election email hit piece.
Thought you might like to see what Obama likes to read.
CHECK OUT THE PIC -- IT IS NOT A PHOTOSHOP PIC. SEND THIS ON OR PRINT IT AND HAND OUT COPIES TO YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY THAT DO NOT HAVE E-MAIL. LET AMERICIANS KNOW WHAT WE'LL GET IF WE VOTE FOR OBAMA.
Do YOU See what he's reading! Pass this on!
This certainly makes me question the whole candidate and what he says!
This SHOULD open your eyes. What IS IT THAT Obama does read?
And this is how it was explained, sidelining it as an urban legend (check the url).
Analysis: The image is authentic, though it has been specially framed and captioned for viral distribution by person(s) unknown. The original photo by Doug Mills, which shows Barack Obama leaving his plane to attend a campaign event in Bozeman, Montana in May 2008, appeared twice on the New York Times website, first in an election-themed slideshow and again the next day in a blog posting by Dwight Garner discussing Obama's choice of reading material.
Obama is indeed carrying a copy of Fareed Zakaria's The Post-American World, published in May 2008 by W.W. Norton. Born in India in 1964, Zakaria is a naturalized American citizen residing in New York City. A former editor of Newsweek International and Foreign Affairs, he is a world-renowned expert on international relations. And he was born a Muslim, though he describes himself as "not a religious guy."
Contrary to what is stated in the email, The Post-American World is emphatically not a "Muslim/Islamic view to destroy America from within." Its thesis, rather, is that the power and influence of non-western countries are rising and will continue to rise on into the 21st century, presenting new "opportunities and challenges" to the United States. "That does not mean we are entering an anti-American world," Zakaria notes in his introduction. "But we are moving into a post-American world, one defined and directed from many places and by many people."
This is not a development for Americans to fear, Zakaria said in a Washington Post interview just after the book was released, "but rather one to prepare for and compete in."
It's precisely the sort of book, in other words, that a serious contender for the U.S. presidency ought to be reading just now.
This is how Zakaria's book is officially described.
A Prophetic Assessment of America's Changing Place in an Increasingly Global AgeFor Fareed Zakaria, the great story of our times is not the decline of America but rather the rise of everyone else -- the growth of countries such as China, India, Brazil, Russia, South Africa, Kenya, and many, many more. This economic growth is generating a new global landscape where power is shifting and wealth and innovation are bubbling up in unexpected places. It's also producing political confidence and national pride. As these trends continue, the push of globalization will increasingly be joined by the pull of nationalism -- a tension that is likely to define the next decades.With his customary lucidity, insight, and imagination, Zakaria draws on lessons from the two great power shifts of the past five hundred years -- the rise of the Western world and the rise of the United States -- to tell us what we can expect from the third shift, the "rise of the rest." Washington must begin a serious transformation of global strategy and seek to share power, create coalitions, build legitimacy, and define the global agenda. None of this will be easy for the greatest power the world has ever known -- the only power that for so long has really mattered. But all that is changing now. The future we face is the post-American world.
Second-hand copies available at ABE Books.
- Share power - Check
- Create Coalitions - Check
- Build legitimacy - Hmm???
- Define the global agenda - Sorry about that...
Those Arabs are messing things up. They thought we were serious about democracy. They don't understand that the world is now run by trans-national companies, not statesmen.
I report. You decide.
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