Using Technology to Deepen Democracy, Using Democracy to Ensure Technology Benefits Us All

Friday, January 18, 2008

Sinophobia in the Village

[viaThinkProgress]
"[A] recent Zogby poll revealed that a majority of Americans have a positive view of China, only 35% of congressional staffers do. And 86% of those staffers think, wrongly, that Americans have a negative view of China."

No Democratically-minded person is pleased at authoritarianism in China (any more than they are about authoritarianism anywhere else), just as no Green-minded person is pleased at unsustainable industrialization in China (any more than they are about unsustainable industrialization anywhere else), but all that aside, the disconnect highlighted in the quotation here is striking… and terribly dangerous.

America needs to partner with other nations of the world to solve our shared planetary problems. An old-fashioned concern with parochial corporate-military competitiveness -- rather than a progressive concern to facilitate global cooperation -- amounts to an existential threat to the survival of the human species in a world of climate change, bioweapons, and p2p networks.

No comments: