Cindy, Bahrain was the almost invisible island dot just above Qatar.
I went back and figured it out later, after I saw posts. That dot looked like it turned yellow after I filled in Qatar, and it tricked me. Tricksey Bahrain.
I got 110 out of 130 on the SE Asian quiz. That was a pleasant surprise. The US state one should have been easy for US-ers, because the right one was always a pretty obvious choice, but I wouldn't expect unAmericans to know that. Nobody should feel badly about that one.
I got 100 out of 150 on the N. Africa quiz. *hangs head* I didn't try the others. I was ashamed enough of that one.
ooh, ohh, can I namedrop descendants of famous people? Thanks to my private high school, I have met: Alvaro de Orleans-Bourbon (no joke), Ben Walton (grandson of Sam). Ivanka Trump was a contemporary of my brother. And a great-grandson of FDR is an excellent classical archaeologist I know, and a really nice guy, too, who is very sensitive about his last name.
I was excellent at geography in the 7th grade. I've forgotten a lot.
*nails flea to thread*
flea - best wishes on your pregnancy. Here's hoping for an easy time for you and a happy and healthy flealette! I keep missing the opportunity or waiting for the topic to reappear in Natter and so far, my timing has sucked. So there. Also? September 4 is my half birthday.
*removes nails*
I can't even figure out all the states on the map.
Not a big map fan, and perfectly happy to have a general idea and look up the specifics when I need them. Borders are mutable, and I only have so much space in my brain pan.
Ow! Stigmata!
For some reason, it's South America that mystifies me most. I am SO old-world-centric.
When the heck did Morocco split into Morocco and Western Sahara?
Oz I just get cross because they're different in Life than in Risk.
Heh. The only places in Russia I can place with some confidence are Irkutsk and Yakutsk.
When the heck did Morocco split into Morocco and Western Sahara?
Long time, man. When I visited Morocco in '91, they were split then.
Kamchatka -- Gateway to North America!
I was a little worried last night that some of the stuff I was posting really was a little deep and scary and decided to wait a little before posting anymore.
But when I got up today you all had already gotten into the next major point without me, so I'll contribute a bit more.
"Do you think that democracy will come to Iraq on a B-52? Or on the back of a tank? Or with the armored division?" he said.
The hot issue today raised in the interviews with the Egyptian President and the Arab League Secretary General centres on democracy, or more particularly, the shift in the conception of democracy, both nationally and internationally.
The form of democracy that prevailed in core Western states in much of the post-war period was a form of compensatory democracy, distinguished, at least in part, by a diachronic understanding of democratic governance. Following Enlightenment beliefs that understanding history enabled humankind to better itself, democracy was seen, within the context of a process stretching back into society’s past, as the result of past improvements. Thus, liberal democracy was viewed as a means of continuing improvements into society’s future, part of the progress of civilisation.
This earlier conception of democracy was prepared to at least attempt to ameliorate the inequalities produced by market-society through mechanisms such as social welfare provisions. Democracy was understood to involve ‘social citizenship’, where citizens could expect to be ‘compensated’ by the state in areas where the market was deficient in providing what was necessary.
Since Thatcher and Reagan the discourse of compensatory democracy has gradually been supplanted by one of ‘protective’ democracy that ignores the idea that democracy might involve compensation for market failure, or that democratic citizenship might involve a social-welfare dimension. Rather, “...it is nothing but a logical requirement for the governance of inherently self-interested conflicting individuals who are assumed to be infinite desirers of their own private benefits. Its advocacy is based on the assumption that man is an infinite consumer, that his overriding motivation is to maximise the flow of satisfactions, or utilities, to himself from society, and that a national society is simply a collection of individuals”. Responsible government, even to the extent of responsibility to a democratic electorate, is needed for the protection of individuals and the promotion of the GNP, and for nothing more. (Which is the way it was in the 19th century but lots less people had the vote)
In contrast to the earlier diachronic understanding of democracy, this ‘protective’ view is an unambiguously synchronic one. In this understanding, democracy is reduced to a process that exists in a single moment in time. Protective democracy is characterised by a strict separation of the economic and political spheres, the former responding only to the logic of the market place, and the latter constrained to allowing that logic to proceed without interference.
The main difference, however, is that the earlier general understanding of the need to redress the deficiencies of the market has been taken over by one based on a limited agenda of ‘deficit reduction’ and ‘tax relief’ to be achieved through the inexorable reduction of the welfare state. The serious fault in this limited agenda, the fact that it does not work, became glaringly apparent as many of its chief proponents began admitting to misapprehension, confusion, and outright concern at the uneven and contradictory effects of their program.
“I came to this job committed to restoring the middle class and I did everything I knew to do...We expanded trade frontiers. We have seven million more jobs. We have a record number of millionaires. We have an all time high stock market. We have more new businesses than ever before...and most people are still working harder for lower pay than they were making the day I was sworn in as President”....President Clinton.
The implications of the shift to a protective understanding and practice of democracy extends beyond national and international politics, to the kind of world system emerging. The framing and circumscribing of democratic thought and discourse in terms of the precepts of protective democracy can be seen as an attempt by the developed world’s business and political elites to shore up the hegemonic system that ensures their positions of power and privilege. The centrality of ‘democracy promotion’ is an increasingly conspicuous feature of advanced nation state foreign policy discourse and practice. From political aid to elements of civil society in dependent states, to the monitoring of elections, to calls for respect for liberal human rights norms, core western states have made the extension of ‘protective democracy’ a fundamental pillar of the new world order push.
IOW we seem to believe now that democracy is a package that can be exported and applied to any region of the world regardless of their history, tradition, culture, evolution.
Which of course is summed up by
Further, if the only way to bring democracy to Iraq is to vitiate the democracy of the Security Council, then we are honor-bound to do that too, because democracy, as we define it, is too important to be stopped by a little thing like democracy as they define it.
Heh. They should sell bumper stickers.
I'm an American. I'm
supposed
to be ignorant of everyplace else! I'm upholding my national traditions!
