[MD] Forget Party Politics and Listen to This

[Mati Palm-Leis]

Ant and others, 

I think the comments are insightful, but as a whole this pragmatism is
largely based on the established social level of the American psyche. If
there is hope in ending the war, then yes I believe Sachs is right about
American Pragmatism.  My greater concern is that there is another war that
needs to be considered, that of the social level trying to resist the
intellectual domination of it.  My take on it is that in the United States
the intellectual insight of understanding of the war is largely ignored,
which is typical in our mainstream culture.  Also one of the peripheral
issues is to deal with the social reality of Islam which, when you analyze
what Islam is resistant to, it is everything that the intellectual level
tends to support, ie. Democracy, capitalism etc..  Our nations retreat from
the war is inevitable, but the problem of extreme Islamic culture will
continually be at War at the intellectual level, which the United States has
most benefited from.  Then it begs the question, what next.    
Mati 

Ant McWatt comments:

Ian,

I also thought this lecture by Jeffrey Sachs (the Professor of Health Policy

and Management at Columbia University) made considerable sense and, as far 
as the MOQ is concerned, especially his following comment about pragmatism:

"One thing I think we can say about the American people is that they are 
pragmatic. We see that while Americans largely supported the Iraq war, as 
patently misguided as it was, before the war ever commenced, Americans now 
see it doesn't work. And I think that pragmatism is certainly our best 
hope."

Best wishes,
Anthony