Politics aside: This is just plain WRONG.
Posted via email from SophiaZoe
How many ways can one say WRONG?
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Sep 232009
Till Hope Creates
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Sep 232009
I love the closing lines of Shelley’s Prometheus Unbound
Demogorgon:
This is the day, which down the void abysm
Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, and Endurance,
At the Earth-born’s spell yawns for Heaven’s despotism,
And Conquest is dragged captive through the deep:
Love, from its awful throne of patient power
In the wise heart, from the last giddy hour
Of dread endurance, from the slippery, steep,
And narrow verge of crag-like agony, springs
And folds over the world its healing wings.
These are the seals of that most firm assurance
Which bars the pit over Destruction’s strength;
And if, with infirm hand, Eternity,
Mother of many acts and hours, should free
The serpent that would clasp her with his length;
These are the spells by which to reassume
An empire o’er the disentangled doom. To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite;
To forgive wrongs darker than death or night;
To defy Power, which seems omnipotent;
To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates;
Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent;
This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be
Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free;
This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory.
Posted via web from SophiaZoe
Sep 232009
UNITED NATIONS – President Barack Obama challenged world leaders Wednesday to shoulder more of the globe’s critical burdens, promising a newly cooperative partner in America but sternly warning they can no longer castigate the U.S. as a go-it-alone bully while still demanding it cure all ills.
[snip]
U.S. presidents — Bush included — have come to the United Nations year after year with a wish list of action items and preaching the gospel of working together. The U.S. is rich and powerful, but cannot solve problems without help, they say, whether Democrat or Republican.
[snip]
“In the year 2009 — more than at any point in human history — the interests of nations and peoples are shared,” Obama said.
Following a president pilloried for arrogance, Obama talked more modestly about the United States.
[snip]
Even while offering new cooperation from Washington, Obama was blunt that others must step up or face dire consequences: “extremists sowing terror in pockets of the world, protracted conflicts that grind on and on, genocide, mass atrocities, more nations with nuclear weapons, melting ice caps and ravaged populations, persistent poverty and pandemic disease.”
[snip]
“The world must stand together to demonstrate that international law is not an empty promise,” Obama said.
via news.yahoo.com
I’m not a very big fan of the UN. OK, I am not only not a fan, I tend to assign all sorts of of miscellaneous pejorative terms to the United Nations when either speaking or writing about the organization as a whole.
The UN is a classic example of a good idea, backed up with the best of intentions, going horribly wrong.
I wouldn’t bet money that President Obama’s words and points made any impression whatsoever. Countries will continue to blame everything on the US, find fault with the US [and there is fault], and the moment that any action is required… look to the US to perform that action…and bear the cost of that action as well.
I don’t expect any changes, either in perception or demands, but at least they are now officially acknowledged by this new administration.
Posted via web from SophiaZoe
