Has 'War' become a leading brand for United States?

Has 'War' become a leading brand for United States?
How Bush's imperial policies are being linked to economic woes and CEO angst in America
Mark Engler

Sunday, December 4, 2005


We hear a lot about the government largesse flowing toward Halliburton, Bechtel and a handful of other favored firms chosen to rebuild Iraq. Less often do we consider the possibility that the administration's bellicosity has been a major business blunder.

Breaking with the Clinton administration's advocacy for a cooperative, rules-based international economy -- a multilateral order known to critics as corporate globalization -- the Bush administration has fashioned a new model of imperial globalization, aggressive and unilateralist. This agenda, at best, benefits a narrow slice of the American business community and leaves the rest exposed to a world of popular resentment and economic uncertainty.

If Bush is an oil president, he's not a Disney president, nor a Coca-Cola one. If Vice President Dick Cheney is working diligently to help Halliburton rebound, the war he helped lead hasn't worked out nearly so well for Starbucks.

A year ago, Jim Lobe of Inter Press Service reported on a survey of 8,000 international consumers released by Global Market Institute Inc. of Seattle. The survey noted that "one-third of all consumers in Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, Russia and the United Kingdom said that U.S. foreign policy, particularly the war on terror and the occupation of Iraq, constituted their strongest impression of the United States."

"Unfortunately, current American foreign policy is viewed by international consumers as a significant negative, when it used to be a positive," said Mitchell Eggers, Global Market's chief operating officer and chief pollster.


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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/12/04/ING00G0OG61.DTL

I thought to myself, who will Americans direct their hate and loathing toward now?

I thought the country would direct that hate inward. The hate that Americans were taught to hold against the Russians and communism would now be directed to Americans considered "other", blacks, Jews, gays, etc. In some respects that has happened.

However, since 9/11/01, those Americans inclined to hate those they deem other hit the mother load.

I think Americans have always viewed the world through the lens of manifest destiny; it's there to be conquered in the name of Christianity.

Just the thoughts and opinions of a cold St Louisan who misses the long rides on her scooter.