I had quite the rant written up for today but I've decided to punt on it. Upon reading over it I realized it makes me sound like a complete crackpot. To summarize: I believe in the principles upon which our country was founded. I do not believe in our country as it stands now. More than enough said.

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I want the answers now, must be I'm confused somehow, did you say... what I heard about
m4dd4wg
I second that emotion
I'm embarrassed to be an American. I guess I'm doing something. I participated in an anti-war demonstration on Saturday. This article that outlines Bush' goals for an American empire stretching across the globe is a must-read.
loophole
Well...

Heya, M4dd4wg. I read the article... do you really think the situation is so dire? I know that pundits have been likening modern America to the roman empire for many years now. Do you suppose our leadership does intend to finally truly lead us back over the brink of full scale imperialism?

Personally, I don't know. The arguments certainly seem reasonable enough. And the idea appeals to me with my current feelings about the state of our nation. I'm beginning to feel a little strange about my feelings about the whole situation though. I wonder if I'm not just being paranoid?

Just because you're paranoid, don't men they're not after you, as the song says, I spose.

phil
Hrm
I don't know if I necessarily believe that our government is willfully trying to take over the world. I do think that this "war on terrorism" that Bush is pushing is a big mistake. There was this great article on Slate not too long ago...
Here it is, A Real War on Terrorism, that touched on a few of the problems that I have with the whole thing. It also made a lot of other good points. Its long, but well worth the read.
I think the current administration really is going in the wrong direction with its foreign policy, and I think its just going to make things worse. I'd say more, but I can't articulate my thoughts half as well as Wright (the author of the above commentary), and I'd just come off sounding like I'd ripped off all his ideas. =)
beanie
A little change on the ol' Gulf War song...
I'm not proud to be an American at this point in the game.   In fact, I'm with m4dd4wg on this one-- I'm a little  embarassed to live in this country at the moment.  If the  majority of the global community is against us going to war  with Iraq, the chances are good that it's not the best idea  ever.  What am I talking about?!?  It's Dubbya.  Of COURSE  it's not a good idea...      I was watching *cringe* (guilty pleasure) Oprah today  and it was about Iraq and how terrible the leader is and  why we should bomb 'em.  I understand that horrible things  are happening over there, but why does the US have to be  the big leather belt of corpral punishment around the waist  of the world?  There was a woman who was about my age and  she was saying how she doesn't know how much of what we're  told is propoganda and what is true.  I agree with her.  It  might just be a twenty-something idea, I'm not sure.  She  stole the words out of my mouth when she said something  along the lines of: we had a problem with Iraq when G. Bush  was in office.  With Clinton in office, Iraq wasn't a  concern.  Now Dubbya's in office and we have a problem with  Iraq again.  What's with that?  Of course the audience, who  had been hearing of all the atrocities of Saddam throughout  the hour thought she was just a poor misguided soul, but I  share her thoughts about the whole thing.
phil
Saddam
I don't think any of us here thinks that Saddam is a nice guy, he's done some pretty outrageous things, but I don't think bombing the crap out of Iraq is going to have the intended outcome. I think that instead of scaring folks with the (stealing a term here) big leather belt of america, its going to create *more* dissenent factions that think the U.S. is bullying the rest of the world. And, in my perspective, we are. The terrorists are trying to make a point. I think that if we acknowledged their point, and worked to resolve the problem, that would be a better solution. Rather than touting patriotism and ignoring the terrorists. If someone is pissed enough to turn to violence, ignoring them is not the answer, they're just going to get more pissed and use bigger bombs next time.
loophole
Another idea..

Another idea that I have seen proposed is that the whole Iraq thing is basically a huge smoke-screen to keep the media's (read: the public's) attention of the current economic situation. While I do think there are probably some empirialistic tendencies in our current administration I'm more inclined to believe this theory. As it stands now, no matter what happens the primary focus of the media is going to be on external issues for at least a few more months.

In any case I still find the policies of our current administration deeply disturbing. I spent about 4 hours last night reading through a handful of them. Yuck. The type of rhetoric coming out of the whitehouse right now scares me.

m4dd4wg
Iraq Talk
I don't agree with that piece 100%, but I do agree with the lede - that the Bush administration's reasons for invading Iraq are far from transparent. I do think that this has to do with both party politics and a matter of asserting America's power on the rest of the world. Whether this means full-scale imperialism as the article lays out or just fighting a war to make the nation feel better about itself, I can't tell.
I do know that invading Iraq is pretty crazy. The adminstration is not talking about dropping bombs on Iraq, which we've been doing on a fairly regular basis for over a decade, but a ground invasion deep into the country. I somehow doubt this is even over oil, since the US the #1 importer of Iraqi oil, and, because of the UN resolutions, we can basically dictate prices and contracts. Its not the economy either, since a protracted fight will be very, very expensive and suck our economic resources dry. Finally, I don't believe this is about weapons of mass destruction, since the UN is fairly confident that Iraq doesn't have significant stockpiles of weapons, nor the ability to make them, and, if Iraq did, we would only be giving him a reason to use them. I have a hard time believing Bush is really as stupid as he sounds on TV, so I find this whole situation very, very scary.
I know its been going on since WWII, but I do not like the way that the executive branch props up these undemocratic regimes in place like Nicaragua, Chile, Colombia, as well as our "friends" in the middle east like Jordan and (the worst of all) Saudi Arabia. The September 11 hijackers were predominately Saudi, but we don't hear war drums over that place.
I'm glad to see everyone sharing their opinions here. The article was successful, if nothing else, for getting people to talk about this matter.
m4dd4wg
Organize
BTW, here is the organization that organized the march in Austin, In Our Name. It looks like they had an action in Tulsa, as well.
beanie
Check this out
I am SO PROUD of the professors at my university.  Sandie  Holguin, the prof who wrote this, is one of my favorite  prof's I've ever had.  She's wonderful...   http://www.oudaily.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2002/10/15/3dac96 cca5db8