Its an excellent entry about the economic realities of "shopping for a better world" as well as the ludicrousness of a $5/lb. heirloom turkey. She makes a lot of points about shopping at Wal-Mart that are absolutely correct - its real easy to put yourself on a soapbox when you can actually afford more expensive groceries. Activists often never consider how their self-righteousness actually affects people they didn't think about to begin with... due to said self-righteousness. I think a larger point is also made, although its unspoken - if you eat gourmet on Thanksgiving, you just might be a douchebag. Thats my take on it though!Pakistan - I'm appalled at what is going on there. I think our government made a critical mistake putting all our GWOT eggs in one Pakistani basket - now we are reaping what we are sowing. However, if you've paid attention to American history at all, you'd know that this isn't the first, the second or even the third time that we have allied ourselves with disturbing individuals. Noam Chomsky will bore you to tears talking about it. During WWII we were allied with Communist Russia; during the Iran-Iraq war, we backed Saddam Hussein. It has always been done in the spirit of living with working with a lesser enemy if it means the destruction of a greater enemy. This is how the US of A, for better or worse, has always done things.
In particular, the US Congress has the power to eliminate funding that Pakistan currently enjoys. Why don't they do it? I have to say, Democrats have been incredibly disappointing. We went through an entire election cycle filled to the brim with anti-Bush bullshit and Democrats ended up riding a Blue Dog wave to a slimmest of majorities in the Senate and an unstable majority in the House. The Kool-Aid drinking non-thinkers actually are blaming President Bush when in fact the one group of people that could affect Musharraf the most at this point (from an American perspective, anyway) is actually a bi-partisan Congress with a backbone. After their exhilarating veto override of the recent $23 billion
So, why is nothing being done? Congress are sitting on their hands because of the same reasons that war funding hasn't been cut off yet - there is absolutely no political will to make a decision that could have a directly negative result. What about the Bush Administration? At first their lack of action and cautioned words puzzled me until the obvious answer struck - there is no interest, despite how shady Musharraf is, to have a nuclear Pakistan with a power vacuum of any sort. Meddling in other countries affairs has left egg on our faces twice (or more, if your heart bleeds for those Communist revolutions Reagan snuffed in the 80's) in the last 50 years. I hesitate to say that the Bush Administration is being wisely cautious, since the two words almost never go together let alone separately in a convo about President Bush. Certain political realities and self-interest are precluding us from doing the right thing - we can leave it at that.
The Administration is unsure about to what degree they can actually affect things in Pakistan at the moment. These aren't the days of the CIA in the 60's where we can go in covertly and place in a figurehead. These days we replace leaders by direct military force. Remember - Pakistan to a degree is radicalized and people there definitely love Osama more than Musharraf. Nobody is interested in having that country fall into Islamicist hands. At the moment it appears that Bhutto would certainly be the leader and essentially is the leader, if not officially at least in spirit. She has twice been removed on allegations of corruption, and it has to be mentioned that under her government she directly funded and gave military support to the Taliban. Now she says she is against them. So, how do you choose between an aspiring dictator and a former Taliban supporter who "allegedly" skimmed off of government contracts and banked nearly $2 billion in Switzerland? If its to be believed, she is no different than Saddam Hussein was in terms of ripping off her own people for personal gain.
In the end, I always say that as long as the people want it, democracy should win every time. The truth is that it doesn't. We cannot force Musharraf to resign any more than we could have prevented the coup that put him in power. Its an obvious problem, however, that the world is looking to us for a strong condemnation and because we are unsure of the outcome we say very little. Then again, never in the course of American history have we held our allies to a higher standard. I love my country - there is no better on earth. Immigrants even break the law to come here for a better life. However, there are two things that I can say make me embarrassed to be American; the first is our legacy of slavery and the second is our seemingly time-tested need to ally with dysfunctional leaders in order to protect or pursue our own interests. Couldn't we have done better than Pakistan and Musharraf? Personally I don't care if Bhutto is corrupt - if the people want her, they should have her. They can sort out their own mess later, but I suspect if she was overthrown twice there is nothing stopping her from being overthrown a third time - perhaps by the Taliban.
allow me to stick up for elitist food.
I am appalled that some wank has a flock of turkeys with fucked up genes and he gets to call them heirloom. The monoculture of the meat industry is a stupid way to raise animals. I am also not in favor of chemical feed and hormones and all that other crap.
But ya know what, raising a natural turkey the way god intended does not mean I have to pay $50 for an underweight carcass. I wish it wasn't so elitist, and I hope the two meet at a happy medium.
oh, and that lesser issue you chose to blog about also is less important ^_~
Right (e:mike), and to that end I don't think Musharraf cares much about pissing off the USA (or the world) as he is mainly interested in his own survival. Under most circumstances it is hard to believe that somebody so wildly unpopular (he makes Bush look like Clinton) could retain power.
You're absolutely right. It's funny how upset people are at Musharraf. To an extreme degree, he is mimicking behavor found in many instances around the world including our own patriot act. He learned at the hands of well, the best and has now gone off on his own. He couldn't fire a bunch of lawyers, there were too many so jail was the only option.
No way it ends good. Either he gets crazy keeping the job or Bhutto runs amuck in his place with the Taliban able to boot either out when the time is right.