A wise old spook friend from the Berlin days has a simple political view;
I am a socialist because the American political and economic system has basically failed Americans --I am a patriot because we the US have nothing to be ashamed of in our values.
If we finally got our own house in order and it truly functioned then that alone is a strong message to other civil societies that decide to emulate the US--meaning they can succeed whatever their views are towards the rule of law, transparency and good governance.
BUT we must be willing to allow them to go their own ways in order to achieve their determined paths without fear that it is directed against us.
Example---how loud have we made statements about Syria--which many forget that it kicked off four years ago with small demos about the rule of law, fair elections, and good governance and then exploded when the ruling minority government cracked down on the majority.
Now 250K killed, 8M IDPs/refugees and over 1M wounded AND the second round of chemical gas attacks (chlorine) on civilians last night killing more men, women and children--just normal civilians---where is that US red line again --where are our so called values?
Our problem is that we shout out to the world our so called values and then in the end fail to support those values--we have a super split personality and then when someone takes up arms against those perceived values then we flip out and get physical about it without realizing that maybe our concept does not fit their civil society but that society might in fact adopt some of them in their own ways.
Example--Ukraine---the Ukrainians in their Maidan movement were actually displaying the best of what we assume democracy to be--demanding transparency, fair elections, rule of law and good governance based on their own civil society and a massive dislike for wide scale corruption and a longing of what they viewed as European "values".
In bitter freezing temperatures when the US and Europe assumed they would fold they did not and young and old, men, women, children, military members, police and just plain citizens stood their ground much as they did at Lexington--- what is our own governmental reaction by this administration in supporting them further along that path--tap dancing, silence, excuses, words --- but training and defensive arms to support themselves after "trusting" the US in 1994--total silence and waffling.
And we wonder why the world questions our intentions?
You cannot shout out values and demand the world accept them and then simply look the other way without having a "third way forward".
Socialist/patriot--kind of makes sense--the world would then actually understand us better.......if we made that clear by our own actions.
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