Talk:History of the United States (1991–present)/Archive 1

2008 Election
Started a section on the 2008 elections. Needs expanding, but it's a start. Feel free to do your work! -- 132.56.180.4 (talk) 11:20, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

CJK section
CJK,

Your new ticle at the moment. I have created a sandbox where you, along with other editors, can clean up the grammar and spelling; add the lacking historical context and perspective; and NPOV the new section before posting it in the article. Eventually, the text on this page will be ready to post in the article.

172 | Talk 23:13, 21 July 2005 (UTC)


 * I agree the section needs work. It might also be desirable to add the valuable material where more appropriate chronologically through the article rather than one single section on foreign policy-related events.  --TJive 00:19, July 22, 2005 (UTC)
 * I agree with the above; much of the content covered in the new section is dispersed throughout the other sections of the article. 172 | Talk 02:07, 22 July 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm assuming if you are going to delete the talk references then you have no major objections to material I have contributed as it currently stands. --TJive 02:14, July 22, 2005 (UTC)
 * I have none. I'm ready to go through CJK's sandbox. 172 | Talk 04:12, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

Huntington
CKJ, if you want to call Huntington's essay "highly critical of U.S. policy," cite your sources and follow the no original research rule. I disagree with your characterization because Huntington is coming from a perspective that holds that the U.S. must forcefully promote its model of free market liberal democracy for the preservation of a peaceful international system. He is often described as a neoconservative, and not a left critic of American foreign policy by any strech of the imagination. If I am wrong, cite your sources saying that I am wrong; in other words, do some JSTOR, LexisNexis, ProjectMuse, Google Scholar, etc. searches, find an article calling this specific Huntington article critical of U.S. policy, then I will concede my point. Otherwise, the claim that the essay is critical of U.S. policy is unsubstantiated information that has to be removed from the article. 172 | Talk 01:27, 8 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Anybody who says that the U.S. "bludgeons" countries that don't "kow-tow" with their "corporate interests" is coming from a negative and not positive perspective. CJK 02:46, 8 November 2005 (UTC)
 * No, one could be coming from a realist perspective recognizing that the international system is fundamentally anarchic, with a dominant power necessary to maintain the balance of power, peace, and order forcefully. You might see some superficial similarities between Huntington's language and the leftwing polemics against U.S. policy that you have run across online, but their perspectives are totally different. Huntington has little regard for the likes of leftwing antiglobalization activists, and they have little to no regard for him. 172 | Talk 02:58, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

And Huntington, again, is not making that arguement. No one can say that "bludgeon" is going to be the word choice of describing how the U.S. treats other nations if they think of it in a positive way. And if he does think that "bludgeon" is a positive word than he lacks the credibility to be in this article. CJK 20:42, 8 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I disagree. I think that the aforementioned argument does underpin his analysis. Notice that the statement is that the U.S. has attempted or has been perceived as attempting to bludgeon other countries into adopting U.S.-backed economic and political polices. Huntington is not making this assertion in order to vilify U.S. policy but rather because he considers it a statement of reality. In fact, in the American foreign policymaking community, his work has been among the most influential material put out by a social scientist in the drafting of some of those very policies in question. For example, Huntingon argues in his classic Third Wave that Reagan's robust Cold War policies of promoting American-style free markets and opposing socialist rouge states in Latin America were essential in the region's wave of democratization in the 1980s. As for your argument, cherry-picking one example of word choice while disregarding the rest of the content of the article is an insufficient basis for characterizing the perspective of an essay. By the way, I am probably alone around here in not only having read that essay, along with all of his most influential books, but also in having assigned them to students. That being said, I am not still going to impose my summation of Huntington's essay in a Wikipedia article, given WP:NOR. The same applies to you. Without a citation, both of us have no business making our own original characterizations of the essay. Instead, we can quote him, direct readers to the full article, and let them make up their own minds. If I am so obviously wrong while you are so obviously right, then they will agree with you and make the judgment call on their own at the same time. 172 | Talk 08:25, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

The Huntington quote is ALL negative. Point to two sentences (or mass ;;;;;) in the quote which reflecs positively on U.S. foreign policy. The only thing that may be positive was the "ending ethnic conflicts" but apart from that he is OBVIOUSLY being critical just like the book Killing Hope is critical. CJK


 * Killing Hope is a propaganda piece that would have no place in a college-level political science course or business being cited in an encyclopedia. Huntington's article, however, is an academic work that is less concerned about describing how the world ought to be and more concerned about describing how the world really is. It is nearly a slander of Huntington to compare his work to Killing Hope. If you do not stop inserting your opinion about his work in the article, which is not so "obvious" by virtue of the fact that I disagree with it and I was assigning Huntington's works in courses probably long before you were born, I will have no choice but to start an RfC on you for revert warring without regard to No original research, Cite your sources, and Neutral Point of View. While you were able to wear me down through revert warring in previous run-ins, this time I will not give in because your description is a complete distortion, completely inaccurate, and completely misleading, as opposed to being generally fine but a bit biased. 172 | Talk 08:48, 10 November 2005 (UTC)


 * CJK, your basis for saying "highly critical" is the use of terms like "bludgeon". In either version of our article, though, the reader can see the quotation from Huntington in which he uses "bludgeon" and the similar terms you cite.  Given that, what additional information do we give the reader by including the characterization?  A reader who considers "bludgeon" negative can see it right there on the page.  I agree with 172 that a citation to a notable spokesperson, stating that Huntington is critical, would be a proper way to present that opinion, but even if we had that, I don't think the opinion would merit inclusion in the article.  The lengthy quotation can speak for itself. JamesMLane 10:22, 10 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm with several other editors here. Anyone who knows Huntington at all knows that he has been a proponent, and even in some ways an architect, of late 20th century US foreign policy.  He is certainly not "highly critical" as a general characterization.  I don't think I'd quite characterize him as a neo-con (with all that Staussian baggage), but he's definitely a traditional US cold-war conservative.  No doubt, some isolated comments he makes are criticisms of aspects of US foreign policy.  But to take a sentence or two out of context to make it seem like Huntington is a broad opponent of US policy is deceptive. Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 18:49, 10 November 2005 (UTC)


 * In a context like this, it is better to quote and to let the reader draw his/her own conclusion than to characterize. -- Jmabel | Talk 20:39, 10 November 2005 (UTC)

Chill pill
I can't imagine any real conservative making these kinds of assertions (unless they are isolationists), but I understand the arguement of not characterizing him. Perhaps a better way to phrase it would be "Huntington argues that U.S. foreign policy is mainly to further corporate interests". Then again, I am beginning to wonder if we even need such a long opinionated quote in an encyclopedia article, particularly if it is not balanced out by another opinion.

I'm sorry I slandered Huntington, but his arguement is the same arguement of all far left groups: the corporate capitalists cruely exploit the Third World nations under the guise of blah, blah, blah.

About the RFC threat: Please. I can think of three users off the top of my head (and 172 can too) who have caused many more problems than I have. You (172) may have called your buddies in to help you, but I doubt you could sustain an effective RFC. CJK 15:39, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
 * I can think of three users off the top of my head (and 172 can too) who have caused many more problems than I have. I think you mean Comandante and NWOG. If that's the case, yes, they are problems; but they seem to be largely under control now. But if you want to start an RfC on either of those two, I'll sign it. 172 | Talk 18:12, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
 * BTW, CJK, I know that you are an overall good contributor. But I get frustrated at time dealing with you because you have a tendency to assume that everyone who is stating something about U.S. foreign policy that might not immediately start to resonate with you is coming from the perspective of William Blum or Noam Chomsky. This is especially frustrating to be because authors coming from that perspective are largely outside the realm of scholarly discussions of U.S. policy and international politics. There might be some superficial similarity between the terms used in leftwing agitprop and in some scholarly works; but the difference between the perspectives advanced can be the difference between night and day, as is the case with Huntinton and William Blum, the author to whom you compared Huntington. 172 | Talk 18:21, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for the complement, but although I have made only a handful of decent contributions I don't see myself making hundreds of edits each month as you and tons of others do. Huntington may be more respectable than Chomsky or Blum, but the core arguement (U.S. foreign policy is solely based off of economic motivation) is the same, making me want to group these people together. CJK 01:17, 13 November 2005 (UTC)
 * FWIW, I wouldn't say you slandered Huntington, but rather that you falsely praised him. But in either case, it just wasn't an accurate characterization (you're probably right, in any case, that the long quote is more than we need in this article).
 * his arguement is the same arguement of all far left groups: the corporate capitalists cruely exploit the Third World nations under the guise of blah, blah, blah. No, it is not. That is a straw man. Stop stating your opinions without citing your sources. Not only is it against Wikipedia protocol, you are way off base with Huntington. 172 | Talk 16:50, 12 November 2005 (UTC)


 * But try to chill out, overall, I agree that there is no need for an RfC against anyone here at this time. However, while it is true that 172 asked for my input on my talk page, I would not formulate or state any opinion on this page until I looked at the article and edits themselves.  I'm not sure if 172 is my "buddy"&mdash;I suppose so in the sense that I've cooperated with him on some editing issues&mdash;but any insinuation that I am his "lackey" or the like is certainly false (and not goot Wikiquette to make). Lulu of the Lotus-Eaters 19:06, 11 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Indeed Lulu and I have at times disagreed on some points. I simply saw that he was online at the time, making recent edits that appeared on my watchlist. He is one of the editors who is very well informed on contemporary international politics, so I asked for his input on this article. That's the way to do collaborative peer editing, CJK. By the way, to Lulu, thank you for your prompt reply. 172 | Talk 18:08, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

If no one is objecting, I'm removing the Huntington quote. CJK 16:10, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

CJK, I am objecting—very strongly. Until the following relevant topics are covered in the article itself, the Huntington quotation covers too much ground ignored elsewhere in the article: Each and all of the points brought up in the Huntington quotation will be addressed. The choice is to quote Huntington or bring up several concrete factual examples illustrating each of those points. The latter would take up much more space than the former. So for the sake of readability and concision, the Huntington quotation should remain. 172 | Talk 16:46, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Pressure on other countries to adopt American values and practices regarding human rights and democracy
 * Preventing other countries from acquiring military capabilities that could counter American conventional superiority
 * Enforcing American law extraterritorially in other societies
 * Grading countries according to their adherence to American standards on human rights, drugs, terrorism, nuclear proliferation, missile proliferation, and now religious freedom
 * Applying sanctions against countries that do not meet American standards on these issues
 * Etc.


 * The Huntington quote is extremely opinionated, not 100& fact, with regards to "corporate interests" and serves no point other than to influence the reader into thinking the U.S. is an imperialist nation. All of those points are already in there or can easily be inserted in a concise NPOV manner. CJK 17:21, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
 * The article only asserts that Huntington wrote the content in question, which is '100 percent fact'. Readers can make up their own mine, as you are above, concerning Huntington's credibility and perspective. Huntington is one of the most authoritative commentators on international affairs around; your removal of the content based on a complete mischaracterization of his views, IMO, is starting to border on vandalism. 172 | Talk 17:31, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

That is true, but it is absurd to suggest that the average Joe reader is going to not be heavily influenced by such quoting. CJK 01:17, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

Compromise for CJK
I added a quotation by Max Boot contextualizing some of the observations on U.S. power that Huntington brings up. This should make clear the arguments of those who disagree with people like Blum and Chomsky any assert that there is nothing at all wrong with U.S. power internationally. 172 | Talk 18:03, 12 November 2005 (UTC)
 * This is a start, but the quote you provided is much shorter than Huntington, which would have the greater impact on the reader. CJK 01:18, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

My point is that these long opinionated quotes are not encyclopedia-like and are unbalanced anyway. CJK 01:16, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
 * OK, since you're not responding for whatever reason I'm removing the quotes again. CJK 20:30, 15 November 2005 (UTC)
 * The premises for your removal of the quotations are wrong regardless of whether I get a chance to spend much time on Wikipedia from day to day. You wrote above: the core arguement (U.S. foreign policy is solely based off of economic motivation) is the same, making me want to group these people together. This statement is wrong. Two divergent theoretical traditions in the social sciences make assumptions that boil down to economic interest determing politics. Marxism is often infamous for its economic determinism, harking back to Marx's (very wrong) comment that the state is but 'the executive committee of the ruling class'. 'Left-wingers' and 'Marxists' are not alone in stressing economic interest. Economic interest is the principal analytic unit used by many social scientists coming from the perspectives of pluralism, public choice theory, or rational choice theory-- all perspectives strongly related to neoclassical economic theory and largely embracing free market economic policies. Huntington, however, does not fall into either of these diverging traditions, strongly rejecting the notion that economic interest determines politics, whether it is coming from the left or the right, from academia or political rhetoric outside academia. Huntington tends to stress balance of power issues rather than economic interests... I suggest you accept the compromise. The article quotes two people who are generally considered Ronald Reagan conservatives (neither are "isolations" or critics of the war in the Iraq), with the last word explaining the importance of American power to global peace and stability in an otherwise very dangeous and unstable world. 172 02:48, 16 November 2005 (UTC)

All I'm saying is that I put these people in the same category, I'm not doing so in the article. And I don't care how many divergent theories there are, I just said that if they view U.S. corporate interests as the prime factor in their foreign policy they are being critical and are making a left-wing arguement. The idea of Huntington being a "Reagan conservative" while rambling on about corporate interests is laughable at best. As I said above the quotes are unequal in size and substance, and are not good encyclopedia quality. When is the last time you saw an encyclopedia have these sort of long opinionated quotes? CJK 19:40, 16 November 2005 (UTC)
 * If you took a college-level political science course and wrote in an exam that Huntington views U.S. corporate interests as the prime factor in U.S. foreign policy, and is making a critical and 'left-wing' argument, you would marked 'wrong', regardless of the politics of the professor. Hardly any description could be more wrong; Huntington's work is anathema to the radical left. The quotations will remain until the points being made by Huntington and Boot can be incorporated into the article through another format. Until then, they can stay. Plenty of articles around here include quotations, which is quite fine, considering their influence and notability as commentators on international affairs. 172 02:48, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

Based on this quote, Huntington has suggested that the U.S. bullies other nations for corporate interests and not for any other purpose. No right wing person makes that arguement today. And since these quotes are OPINIONS and not objective fact, there is no purpose in incorporating them in the article in any format. CJK 22:13, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
 * That's a straw man. Huntington is listing activities that the United States has attempted or been perceived as attempting. So by the latter he is trying to take into account an international POV. At any rate, readers can make up their own mind regarding his POV, as you have been. Please accept the compromise so that we don't have to have these almost daily run-ins on the U.S. history articles. 172 00:48, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

He has devoted almost all of his coverage to U.S. corporate interests, so some of them he is implying are true. Notice he does not say "promote freedom" or any statement or opinion that casts the U.S. in a good light. Your "compromise" again is unequal in substance and length and is not encyclopedia-like. We should stick to the facts, not a long drawn out "he said she said" mess. CJK 01:26, 18 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm always having a hard time understanding where you are coming from. It almost seems as if you seem to regard it as a 'bad thing' if a country promotes the interests of its businesses abroad. All countries do it. I don't know about you, Chomsky, and Blum, but I see nothing inherently wrong about it. Further, what you call the "he said she said mess" happens to be Cite your sources. 172 03:04, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Huntington has said US forign policy is about promoting corporate interests and "bludgeoning" other nations that do not "kow-tow" it which, as anybody can see, is an anti-American assertion. I don't mind a short "he said she said" I do mind long, drawn out quotes cluttering the article. CJK 20:25, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Again, that's a straw man. Huntington states that the U.S. has been perceived by some other countries as doing the things he lists; he is not making a polemical statement against the U.S. himself.
 * He has stated "attempted or perceive" and his list is entirely negative, so unless he is being selectively quoted, I see no way this can happen. CJK 22:20, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Further, if readers do not want to read the quotation, they can just skip over it, just as they can skip over the plenty of quotations on Wikipedia in other articles that happen to be even longer. If they read it, they can come to their own conclusions. Or they can do a Google search and actually read Huntington's article.
 * But such quotes naturally influence the average Joe reader who will not do a Google search or skip over it. CJK 22:20, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
 * If Joe average reader is not a careful reader, that's his problem. We are not going to suppress information because some people have problems reading or fail to think critically. 172 01:30, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
 * The quote will sway people one way or another, which would violate NPOV. CJK 15:57, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

By the way, I suggest that you stop quibbling with me each day on this page and instead make an attempt to go to the horse's mouth. Send Huntington an email at bbaiter@wcfia.harvard.edu (his address at Harvard). Or write a letter to his office at 1727 Cambridge St. E113. Or call him at 617-495-4432. Or fax him at 617-384-9259. You can demonstrate that you know more about international politics than he does, and explain to him why he's a leftwing nut like William Blum. There's a good chance he might reply. 172 22:05, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
 * This is not a debate about whether or not Huntington is right. This is a debate over whether his opinions should be inserted into the article or not. CJK 22:20, 18 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia's policy is Cite your sources. Huntington is a leading authority on international politics, meaning that he is one of the experts whose work is relevant to topics in covered in this article. Therefore, it is appropriate and advisable to cite his work here. On a broader note, you seem to think that there is a clear difference between 'facts' and 'theory,' between 'facts' and 'opinion'; and you seem to be suggesting that Huntington's work is irrelevant because it is just 'opinion.' However, there are no 'facts' independent of theory. Data are processed by people's minds into facts and information, which in turn are thus grounded in people's preconceived theories. All schema for reporting 'the facts' presume something about the relevant concepts, which are necessarily based explicitly or implicitly on some theory. For example, you probably agree that notion that the U.S. promotes freedom abroad, a view stated explicitly in the Max Boot quotation that I inserted in the article, is an empirically grounded and factual statement demonstrated by the defeat of fascism and the installation of liberal democracies in Western Europe and Japan following the Second World War. Yet, this 'fact' is grounded in a particular theory of what 'freedom' means. One argument might be the most compelling, but nevertheless there different understandings of just what constitutes freedom, and the values that underlay the definitions. So it is necessary to state who is defining freedom and how he or she understands it. For our purposes here, in order to comply with the policies Cite your sources and No original research, it is necessary to cite just which authority on the relevant academic discourse is applying the concept of freedom. In this case it is Max Boot. The Huntington quotation is another example of the sometimes murky boundaries between fact and theory. That the U.S. promotes or is seen as promoting the interests of its corporations abroad is an empirically verifiable factual claim (meaning that you cannot write off the Huntington passage quoted in the article as mere 'opinion'). In order to find ample evidence of that said claim, one just has to pick up a newspaper. For example, there has never shortage of news reports in the past couple of years on U.S. pressure on China to stop allegedly manipulating its exchange rate policies in order to drive American manufacturers out of business and put American manufacturing workers out of work. Similarly, trade rows between France and the United States constantly erupt when the Americans accuse the French of unfair policies trade policies hurting their export trade. What Huntington is saying is just a statement of reality, or how the world really is as opposed to what he feels the world should be. BTW, it is utterly mystifying how you understand the fact that the U.S. promotes the interests of its corporations abroad as reflecting 'negatively' on the country. When you say that it is "anti-American" to state that the U.S. promotes its corporate interests abroad, you are implying that it is somehow a 'bad' thing for a country to country to look out for its businesses and jobs. The market economy is supposedly driven by self-interest? Do you object to market economies and free enterprise? Now, concerning the status of this article, since you have no grounds for removing the properly cited and relevant material from the article, the discussion has reached a dead end, and I expect my response to be final. No one is helped by suppressing properly cited information in this article. 172 01:26, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Theories are opinions that many people agree with but have not been proven. I see no reason why the facts just can't be listed. Every other encyclopedia does that. Huntington is quite clear on what he means. He is not talking about ordinary trade disputes, he is saying that the US imposes its corporate interests on other countries, otherwise they get "bludgeoned". Also "promote American corporate interests under the slogans of free trade and open markets" and "undertake military action against Iraq and later maintain harsh economic sanctions against the regime; and categorize certain countries as 'rogue states,' excluding them from global institutions because they refuse to kowtow to American wishes." (italics added) shows a clear POV, so unless you can prove that "free trade" and "open markets" are a gigantic front to disguise American corporate imperialism, it needs to go. And even if you were right, I would have to wonder why it would be in this article if it is so routine. Would there be mention of corporate interests on the other History articles? No, I don't believe so. In addition, the other quote you have provided is unequal in size and substance, but that's OK because I want both removed to ensure a NPOV article and not a debate article. CJK 15:57, 19 November 2005 (UTC)

CJK, gravity is a theory. Perhaps you may be failing to distinguish what is associated with a theory and what is associated with an unchecked hypothesis.
 * Nope, gravity is a scientific law that is objectively proven. Try again. CJK 21:24, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Read some of the roughly 10,000 entries that come up on Google for "gravity is a theory" . That something is recognized as a scientific law does not mean that it has somehow transcended the realm of theory. Then, take some classes on epistemology and philosophy of science when you get to college. I assume you're in high school and heading for college, right? Your thinking will have matured considerably once you start to recognize that fact and theory are not be so easily sealed off from each other. 172 00:43, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

At any rate, moving on to the crux of your point, you say that you don't understand why the "facts can't just be listed." However, fact and interpretation cannot be sealed off from each other. The very selection and ordering of some "facts" while ignoring others is itself an act of interpretation. Historians constantly adjust their understanding of the past in response to new questions, new methodologies, new information, and new theoretical imperatives. There always exists more than one legitimate way of recounting past events. So, there is no way for you to come along and claim that objective historical truth was reveled to you, but not to one of the most distinguished professors at Harvard University. Now, if you were to publish academic work on the subject, you too could be quoted in this article. For now, however, we can only work with the way people like Huntington frame the facts relevant to this article, given the no original research rule. Readers, however, are more free than the two of us are in writing this article. They can make the judgment that there might have been a better way for Huntington to order and frame the facts. His quotation is cited, will remain cited, and readers can make what they will of it. For you to claim that readers will fail to think critically and will be unduly influenced by scholarly interpretations of how the world works only serves to insult their intelligence.
 * I am not "ignoring" any facts, but I am ignoring an opinion from yes, a Harvard professor whose opinion is just as POV as yours or mine. CJK 21:24, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
 * The difference is that he is one of the world's most well known published authorities on the subject. So Wikipedia's policy "cite your sources" means cite people like Huntington. If he is cited, readers can make what they will of his comments. 172 00:43, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
 * And the reader is easily swayed with 99% who will simply take it as a widely accepted opinion. CJK 03:29, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a supermarket tabloid. An insult to the intelligence of readers is not grounds for the censorship of content here. 172 05:08, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Now, regarding the substance of your counterarguments against Huntington, they are immaterial because of no original research. If you can cite other people's criticisms of Huntington's work in published academic sources, go ahead.
 * Once again, long drawn out "he said she said" debates are not encyclopedia-like. CJK 21:24, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
 * See Cite your sources, alright? 172 00:43, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

But what either of us two have to say is irrelevant to the article. At any rate, I will go ahead and respond to them in that the two of us can be on the same page in discussion as editors. (1) You object to the following point: "promote American corporate interests under the slogans of free trade and open markets." The United States has corporate interests, like all countries, and "free trade" and "open markets" are slogans by definition. The fact that Huntington recognizes that "free trade" and "open markets" are slogans does not mean that he is against the policies associated with them. I have worked on scores of private and public sector jobs, boards, committees, and the like that were promoting something capsized by some sort of slogan. Sometimes I firmly believed in them. Other times when I was working in sales years back, I knew I was selling bullshit. In short, correctly referring to a term as a slogan is by no means a criticisms in itself.
 * Huntington is saying that "free market"=promote US Corporate interests. But it is not just that, of course. Now, you can say that "free market" is really a term to disguise some corporate conspiracy that only benefits the very rich, but you will have to cite your sources.
 * (1) ::Re: Huntington is saying that "free market"=promote US Corporate interests. You say that Huntington is saying that "free trade" and "free market" policies are intended to help promote U.S. corporate interests. Of course they are. What's your point? In an economy where most economic activity is organized by corporations, government policies will have to help American corporations if they are intended to 'help the economy.' CJK, most of the U.S. economy is structured and coordinated by corporations. Most Americans work for corporations. When Bill Clinton was promoting NAFTA, he was not making the argument that trade liberalization would hurt the American economy, was he? The health of U.S. corporations is the health of the U.S. economy. Eisenhower's Defense Secretary Charles Wilson summed this point up well when he stated, "What's good for General Motors is good for the country." If any politician were to dispute that claim, saying that he is not interested in health of GM as a corporation, just imagine how he would be received if he were announcing a campaign for public office at a UAW meeting in Michigan, in front of workers whose livelihoods would be ruined if GM were to go out of business. There may be those on the far-left who consider "corporation" a dirty word; but they are so irrelevant to public discourse that what they associate with a reference to 'promoting corporate interests' is not even worth considering here. In fact, the groups on the left who actually do have some influence on trade policy (blue collar labor-oriented New Deal Democrats from the "Rustbelt" states) object to trade liberalization because they claim that these policies fail to help American corporations, and instead allow the Japanese, Chinese, Indians, and Mexicans overtake the U.S. in industry. (2) Re: Now, you can say that "free market" is really a term to disguise some corporate conspiracy that only benefits the very rich. Where is Huntington saying anything about the "rich?" Where is he even mentioning class distinctions? These are rhetorical questions because he is not saying anything about these matters. Huntington is not saying that the free market 'only benefits the very rich.' He is not stating that only the "very rich" benefit from corporate profits. Perhaps you could point out that he does not refute the notion that only the "very rich" benefit from corporate profits; but, frankly, he does not have to say so because the claim that only the very rich benefit from corporate profits is so idiotic that it would be an insult to the intelligence of his readers (i.e. Foreign Affairs readers, who tend to be as well-educated as any publication's readership) for him to suggest that there's a need for him to say so. By definition, in the United States, a corporation is owned by its shareowners, who can be both very rich and very poor. Legally, no corporation can coerce people into working for it, so it is also safe to assume that its interests are aligned with the people who choose to be employed by it... Look, let me level with you. I think know where you are coming from. I have run into leftwing activists on college campuses since the days of outfits like the Students for a Democratic Society and the Weathermen decades ago; now I run into the nutcases caught up in outfits like International ANSWER. When they speak, I hear "corporate... corporate... corporate... corporate... corporate..." coming out of their mounts so many times that I feel like I am going to start to flinch. They think it's a dirty word-- because they are ignorant. Perhaps they have repeated themselves so many times that other people start to associate the very word "corporation" with their bullshit. I think that that's why you're misunderstanding Huntington. At any rate, you are misunderstanding him. When an informed person like Huntington comes along and refers to "corporations," he is referring to the legal and economic model that happens to be way in which most economic activity in modern society is organized. He is merely referring to the backbone of the American economy. 172 00:43, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

While I concede to you he did not mention the rich, his term "slogan" is still troubling. I quote from Webster's New World Pocket Dictionary: "slogan n motto or phrase, as for advertising purposes". Thus, Huntington has said that "free market" is simply an advertisement disguising corporate interests. He does not think the term "free market" literally exists, it was just invented for US propaganda purposes. You can say that they do help US corporate interests, but you can't deny that that is the only thing "free market" is about. CJK 03:29, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
 * CJK, Huntington is referring to "free trade" as a slogan for policies of trade liberalization, which are promoted on the basis of their economic benefits to the United States, and, yes, the corporate interests that happen to employ the vast majority of the American population. And yes, the term is a slogan, not a literal expression of reality, when referring to policies like NAFTA. The enactment of NAFTA all of a sudden did not mean that all economic activity was then rendered "free," but rather that some trade policies were liberalized. Also, to refer to the adoption of a slogan does not imply where it originated. He does not imply that the banner of "free trade" was "just invented for US propaganda purposes." In fact, he would never imply that, as other stuff that he has published demonstrates full well that he is aware that "free trade" was a popular political banner in Britain two centuries ago, and from there it spread throughout the world. Re: "You can say that they do help US corporate interests, but you can't deny that that is the only thing "free market" is about." Yes, that's a good way of putting it. Note that Huntington is not stating that is the corporate interests are 'not the only thing the free market is about', as you put it. 172 05:08, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

(2) Re: "undertake military action against Iraq and later maintain harsh economic sanctions against the regime." Uh, have you been paying much attention to the news for the past 15 years?
 * Somehow I doubt you would have the same standards if I put into this article "Saddam harshly oppressed his own people...". CJK 21:24, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
 * If you inserted "Saddam harshly oppressed his own people" without citation I would object. If you were citing a Middle East expert or someone who was influential in formulating U.S. policy on Iraq, it would be a different matter. The word "oppression" is a value judgment, so a citation would be in order. At any rate, your example is irrelevant because Huntington is not talking about "oppression." He is referring to harsh economic sanctions against the regime. Until the oil-for-food scheme, the sanctions banned all financial transactions with Iraq, international flights to Iraq, and trade with Iraq in all goods except humanitarian aid in the form of food and medicine. In this sense the sanctions against the regime were indeed as "harsh" as they come, as they largely cut of the export of oil. Under Saddam, the oil industry was owned and run by the regime. The regime heavily depended on oil export revenues. Export earnings from oil were the primary source of revenue in the regime's budget. The export of oil was the regime's principal source of foreign exchange. 172 00:43, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Yes, the sanctions were so harsh against Saddam that he made millions of dollars by colluding and buying off the UN, while his people writhed in massive poverty and deprivation that the Oil for Food program was to alleviate. This of course, was all blamed on the "harsh" American sanctions. (Yes, I know oil for food only started in 1996, but still). I also find it amusing that you called the Guatemalan dictatorship "repressive" but when we are talking about Saddam its a "value-judgement". CJK 03:29, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
 * (1) A huge black market illegally circumvented the sanctions, but the black market did not fully make up for the loss in the levels of foreign exchange reserves that the regime had been able to get its hands on before sanctions. (2) Huntington is not claiming in the quotation that the sanctions caused poverty. I don't make this claim either because I am not yet aware of enough evidence. You seem to be under the impression that describing the sanctions against the regime (notice that he did not say "against Iraq" or "the Iraqi people" so as not to imply that the Saddam regime was a legitimate authority in Iraq) as "harsh" implies that the sanctions caused poverty. For that to be the case, one would have to assume that oil export revenues would have otherwise managed to trickle down to the broad Iraqi population-- an assumption that is quite a leap of faith, considering that the oil industry was owned by the state and effectively controlled by Saddam Hussein. It is clear, however, that following the sanctions, Saddam could no longer import anywhere close to the amount of weapons with the foreign exchange revenues coming from oil exports that he used to be able to import. Hence, harsh sanctions against a regime are not necessarily a cause of poverty. (2) Re: I also find it amusing that you called the Guatemalan dictatorship "repressive" but when we are talking about Saddam its a "value-judgement". Earlier, you proposed stating that Saddam harshly oppressed his own people. You did not use the word "repressive." Indeed, the term "repressive" is not a value judgment. "Repression" refers to the act of putting down by force. It is not a value judgment to refer to countless acts of repression under Saddam's rule, but rather a statement of reality. I would not object to describing Saddam's rule as repressive. In fact, I have used the term "repressive" many times to refer to Saddam's regime in articles related to Iraq. The term "oppressive," however, refers to a condition that is difficult to bear. It is always a value judgment. Hence why I said earlier a citation would be in order if you wanted to describe something as "oppressive" rather than "repressive." Please don't mischaracterize my edits, views, and comments. 172 05:08, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

(3) Re: "categorize certain countries as 'rogue states'" This point is about as controversial as the claim that Bill Clinton was president for a time in the 1990s. The U.S. State Department officially categorized countries like Iran, Iraq, and North Korea as "rogue states" until 2000. Toward the end of Clinton's second term, the term "rogue state" was supplanted by the term "states of concern." Later the term was reintroduced under Bush, along with the new terms "Axis of Evil" and "Outposts of Tyranny" appearing in official executive branch documents.
 * There is no dispute with this. CJK 21:24, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
 * In a statement you made earlier, you cited the above point as an example of "anti-Americanism." Anyhow, it helps to know that this is not an issue with you any longer. 172 00:43, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

(4) Re: "excluding [rogue states] from global institutions because they refuse to kowtow to American wishes." The only contentious aspect about this claim is not the substance but the use of the metaphor "kowtow." Notice, however, that he is listing policies that the U.S. has attempted and been perceived abroad as having attempted. His use of the term "kowtow" is a way to making reference to one of the ways in which U.S. policy has been perceived from the outside, especially by elites in China, Russia, and France. Perceptions are often wrong, of course, but the fact that such perceptions have been articulated abroad is undisputable.
 * Really? You know for certain this is a "perceived" and not an "attempted" allegation? I certainly can't tell from the quote. CJK 21:24, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
 * It is not explicit in this quotations, but, yes, from knowing Huntington's work, I am certain that it is a "perceived." Now, the term has been skipped over with the ellipses. So whether or not he has been unclear and confusing on this point is not an issue now. 172 00:43, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
 * You may be certain. Others are not. But at least its gone. CJK 03:29, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

(5) Re: so unless you can prove that "free trade" and "open markets" are a gigantic front to disguise American corporate imperialism, it needs to go. Drop the rhetoric and the straw men, okay? These straw men arguments accusing Huntington of making claims that he is not making here nor has never made are an example of disrupting Wikipedia to make a point.
 * This is what I infer when Huntington calls free trade and open markets meaningless slogans that benefit US corporate interests. CJK 21:24, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
 * He does not call the slogans "meaningless." A slogan is not necessarily meaningless. And by the way, the protectionist criticism of free trade is that lifting tariffs is not in the interests of American corporations, not the other way around. The anti-free trade argument that has the most currency politically in the United States is that trade liberalization hurts American manufacturers and industries (especially textiles and auto-makers). 172 00:43, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

If you are not going to engage in reasoned discussion on talk pages and citing your sources in articles, an RfC will have to be filed against your behavior. I hardly have time to do anything on Wikipedia because of your territorial revert warring on articles on your watchlist. Your uncompromising stance here has really been trying my patience lately. Now, I am going to go ahead and weed the except from the quotation where he uses the problematic term "kowtow" out of the quotation. I then hope you will respond reasonably, and agree to wrap up this tedious to the extreme discussion and archive this talk page. 172 19:48, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
 * I find your RFC threat utterly hollow, meaningless, and rediculous. "Territorial reverting"? You think that the only articles on my watch list are ones where I have revert wars? I have been restrained with regards to reverting this article. CJK 21:24, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Then work toward compromise so that we can archive this talk page soon with an agreement, as opposed to me just giving up in frustration as I usually do. 172 00:43, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
 * You gave up only once before. I do not see a "usual" thing going on here. CJK 03:29, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
 * See the following. Now, let's archive this talk page. I'm really tired of these unending arguments with you on U.S. history talk pages. 172 20:10, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
 * I too am tired of these endless arguements. But even your trimmed version is too long and is quite unequal to the other quote. I see no reason why one man's opinions should be the only major source in an encyclopedia article and eat up this much space. CJK 21:24, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Readers can skip over a block quotation if they want. Even if they choose not to, they are still getting far less Huntington than college students taking international politics or international relations, where Huntington is often used as a core course text. 172 00:43, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
 * None of the average Readers will not skip over it. Sorry. CJK 03:29, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Doesn't matter. They can make of it what they will. There's no reason to practice censorship here. 172 05:08, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

Compromise 2
I think a compromise is within reach so I am narrrowing my objections to one point: Huntington's use of the word "slogan" with "free market". He is not saying that "free market" is a slogan for economic liberalization. He is not saying that "free market" is a slogan for a capitalist economy. He is saying that "free market" is a slogan for U.S. corporate interests and nothing else. Nowhere does he imply otherwise. CJK 13:47, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
 * I'm glad to hear that you are finally offering a compromise. But if you read the sentence logically, you will not find Huntington make these points. Given the 1990s timeframe, he is talking about specific "free market" and "free trade" programs of NAFTA and GATT. He would not state that the "free market" is just a slogan for a capitalist economy, as he has done a lot of work on and understands full well that many capitalist economies throughout the developing world decided to shift to the "free market" as they were finding that their previous strategies of state intervention and import substitution were faltering. In other words, the terms are not exactly coextensive, both as political banners and in terms of their more formal technical definitions in economics. A more effective compromise for bringing further clarity to the article instead would be placing brackets in the quotations with links to NAFTA and GATT. 172 20:09, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
 * That may be true, but frankly that is not present in his quote, while US corporate interests is. CJK 21:49, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
 * He could provide more political and historical context, but no one statement is going to say everything. As I said earlier, he's not stating anything that is inaccurate. One could take as a corollary from some of his comments that providing corporations more access to markets has something to with "free trade" policy. But he isn't explicitly or implicitly suggesting that what he is briefly mentioning concerning "free trade" is the only thing that there is to say about "free trade." I'll go ahead and insert the brackets and the hyperlinks to free trade and free markets so that readers can be directed toward the broader perspective offered in other articles. 172 23:42, 20 November 2005 (UTC)
 * It is still misleading to put "corporate interests" right next to "free trade". Moreover, you have labeled it an "agenda". CJK 00:42, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
 * "Agenda" has bad connotations? I see the word use to refer to all kinds of policy initiative (such as a "reform agenda"). I hardly follow the day-to-day political buzz on TV and radio talk shows, so I often don't know which words are dirty and which ones sound nice. In the end, a lot of the problems we discussed here boiled down to the connotations of certain words. If you don't mind me going off on a tangent, I just thought of an angle I hadn't yet considered. In politics, the dynamic of differences in the understanding of certain words and in the responses triggered by language itself is quite interesting. In the 1960s and 1970s philosophers led the way in the study of language in politics. Cultural historians soon started noticing their work. Only very recently did political scientists and historians more interested in economics and politics start to notice this work; yet this topic probably relates to what they do on a day-to-day basis. The issues that we discussed bring to our attention instances when words that academics define and use carefully in a value-neutral way often turn out to be dirty words in popular discourse. This discrepancy often goes unnoticed inside the ivory tower, probably contributing to mistrust of adademics among some quarters. For example, I noticed how the term "special interest," which used to be political science jargon used without making any sort of normative commentary on the goals of the groups described as such whatsover, all of a sudden became one of the nastier personal attacks thrown around in politics. Before "special interest" the dirty word was "iron triangle." "Iron triangle" theory became in vogue in American political science in the 1950s, but eventually lost steam some years later. Then I noticed how it got resurrected in the 1980s as a nasty political epitaph describing the Democrats in Congress. Your posts made me think about how the term "corporation" has become a dirty word on the 'anti-capitalist' far-left. Such usage of the word "corporation" as an epitaph by some elements of the left is probably the most ridiculous example I can think of; these very groups trace their roots back to V.I. Lenin, who considered the corporation the greatest organizational model ever, and eventually became obsessed with Taylorism. Still more famously, "liberal" became the worst tag one could get stuck with after the fiasco of Dukakis' presidential bid. "Bureaucracy" seems to be another one of those terms. Understood by political scientists to refer to just about any kind of large-scale modern organization, in the popular imagination the term "bureaucracy" has been associated with inefficiency, slowness, corruption, incompetence, and the like. In short, if you see me use a term that you associate with a negative connotation, the connotation probably isn't even crossing my mind. I get the impression that you think that I have been trying to criticize corporations, free trade, free markets, and the like; but that isn't at all the case. Huntington certainly was not trying to do those things; his politics tend to be relatively right-leaning even for a Harvard professor. (Contrary to Harvard's repuation in the popular imagination as a bunch of pinkos in Boston, it has often led the way in the work of conservative free market economists and hawkish foreign policy experts.) At any rate, back to the specifics of your comment, I don't understand how "agenda" sounds bad. Still, I'll go ahead and replace it with "policy initiative." Does "policy initiative" sound nicer to you? 172 04:25, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

I don't know. I read the sentence over and over again, and it sounds negative every time for reasons that I have previously explained. "Contrary to Harvard's repuation in the popular imagination as a bunch of pinkos in Boston, it has often led the way in the work of conservative free market economists and hawkish foreign policy experts." Hawkish foreign policy experts? I can't think of one war since the War of 1812 (with the exception of WWII, and only then because the US was attacked) that Boston has supported. CJK 20:43, 21 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Try to read it denotatively. The terms that he is using are carefully defined by political scientists. Try to base your reading on those definitions of the words. Regarding Harvard, I wasn't talking about the city of Boston itself. I was talking about Harvard; and my comment was correct. As in any university, it's departments are going to be politically diverse. Richard Pipes, Henry Kissinger, Niall Ferguson, Richard Herrnstein, Martin Feldstein, William Kristol, Jeffrey Sachs (though he has been seen as moving left and becoming critical of certain policies he helped inspire) are just a few among the many Harvard professors who led the way with conservative thinking on policy. 172 22:43, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

Operation Swarmer
This section has no sources, and there certainly is no indication that it was a major part of G. W. Bush's presidency. I am therefore removing it, again. Before reinserting it, please provide sources backing up its assertions and emphasizing its significance. --AaronS 21:29, 22 March 2006 (UTC) Edit: I refer you to this Time article: On Scene: How Operation Swarmer Fizzled. --AaronS 21:30, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Ron Paul
Under the "Democratic Congress" section towards the end we have this passage: "With Democratic candidates such as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and Republican Candidates such as Rudy Giuliani and Ron Paul coming under the spotlight." I mean, despite the fact that he's gained a huge following online the media has generally ignored Ron Paul. Should mention be made of that discrepancy or should the preceding paragraph itself be edited in such a way to seperate television and print media from internet forums, bloggers and alternative media? I would take the initiative myself, but I'm REALLY bad at writing entries especially for poltics & current events topics. Quixoto 20:25, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

There is no way he is significant enough to warrant more than a sentence. Also, saying he "pulled ahead" after Giunliani and Thompson dropped out? Yeah right. Puppet125 (talk) 22:21, 5 March 2008 (UTC)

Election biases
I just finished editing the section on the 2008 election season, and it sure was evident where Ron Paul and Hillary Clinton partisans had each made their opinions known, skewing information left and right. Can we refrain from injecting our personal biases into what should be an encylopedia-format fount of information? Talk about unprofessional...claiming a "large" support base for Ron Paul, who (unfortunately IMO) didn't even break above single digits in practically every Super Tuesday contest? Claiming Hillary Clinton won Texas when Wikipedia actually notes (correctly) elsewhere that Obama won the largest delegate total from the primary and caucus there? Let's try for some intellectual honesty here. Kudzu1 (talk) 08:26, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

change without justification
US history articles are not mechanically divided up by decade; they are based on important dates. The years 1990 and 1999 have no particular significance to US history and this change must be reverted. Hmains (talk) 05:44, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Hurricanes, school shootings, and the 2008 Election
First of all, I think mention needs to be made of the 2004 Hurricane season (Charley, Frances, Ivan, Jeanne) which was worse than 2008 as well as 1992's Hurricane Andrew which had serious implications for the country and was the worst at the time. Also, why just hurricanes? What about the Northridge earthquake, the 1999 Oklahoma City tornado, the 1993 Superstorm, the 1996 Northeast blizzard, and the 2008 Super Tuesday outbreak?

Also, school shootings seem to have been a phenomonea during this time period, particularly Columbine, Virginia Tech, and NIU. Should mention be made?

Also, why is the 2008 election section so big, while little is mentioned of any other election, including the hotly-contested 2000 election? Will this bloated section be whittled away over time as the Obama administration develops? Abog (talk) 04:28, 19 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I've rewritten the "2008 election" section to merge it with "The Obama administration" section, which is more like the other two administration sections (about one paragraph of election, followed by a few paragraphs of administration). It looks like it was just the result of snowballing recentism. We do have a detailed article on the 2008 presidential election so Wikipedia's not losing information here, and most of the details I cut here were unreferenced, pre-nomination events.


 * Your other points I'll add to a todo list at the top of the talk page. —Mrwojo (talk) 01:19, 18 October 2009 (UTC)

Also, it seems weird to have nothing between the Gulf War in 1991 and 9/11 in 2001. It almost seems like the terrorists did nothing until 2001. There were plenty of major international conflicts and terror attacks that preceded 9/11 during the Clinton years that need to be mentioned to give historical context: WTC 1993, Africa Embassy bombings in 1998, USS Cole in 99 2000, and the Israel/Palestine conflicts of the 1990s. Also, I think the U.S. involvement in Albania, Somalia, Kosovo, and so forth needs to be mentioned as well. Abog (talk) 05:01, 20 January 2009 (UTC)

Obama is white
Obama is half-white. so saying he's the first "non-white" president is false —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.39.149.133 (talk) 01:47, 17 November 2009 (UTC)


 * Thanks, I've fixed this. Be bold! You can fix obvious errors like this. —Mrwojo (talk) 02:54, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Oil prices / oil independence
Perhaps there should be more mention of oil price fluctuations as well as the push towards alternative energy? The following paragraph was in History of the United States but didn't really fit in the summary there:


 * By 2006, rising prices saw Americans become increasingly conscious of the nation's dependence on supplies of petroleum for energy, with President Bush admitting a U.S. "addiction" to oil. The possibility of serious economic disruption, should conflict overseas or declining production interrupt the flow, could not be ignored, given the instability in the Middle East and other oil-producing regions of the world. Many proposals and pilot projects for replacement energy sources, from ethanol to wind power and solar power, received more capital funding in the first decade of the 21st century than in previous decades.

—Mrwojo (talk) 16:54, 9 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Good point. I'm working on it now. Rjensen (talk) 18:19, 9 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks! —Mrwojo (talk) 22:55, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Article structure
The structure of this article by event type is confusing or frustrating in certain places. Information is frequently repeated, typically because conflicts, economy, and disasters have been important aspects of politics and vice versa. A few events have disjointed cause and effect, such as the 2006 elections which were affected by conflicts and disasters. The earlier sections sometimes assume the reader already knows about events that are discussed later in the article, especially politics. The disasters section is overwhelming and largely reads like a timeline of headlines.

I suggest the article be rearranged into a slightly more chronological order (but within context). Much of this can be achieved by rearranging paragraphs and altering/condensing headings, however much of the text in the disasters section lacks relevance. —Mrwojo (talk) 19:39, 9 November 2010 (UTC)


 * Yeah, I'm very conflicted on the structure of the article. I agree that things are often repeated in both the conflicts and the politics section, and that is kind of unnecessary.


 * I looked at your sandbox for this article though, and while it looks good from a distance, once you start reading, it really throws me off. Like, at one point, we'll be in the mid 1990s talking about the Republican Revolution, and then in the next section jump back to 1992 to talk about Somalia which started under G.H.W. Bush.  It's very confusing.  And then it goes to a section on violence which includes events all the way up until 2008 and then goes back to talking about the 2000 election.


 * Also, there are some events that just aren't political at all, but still worthy of mention. Like the disasters.  The Space Shuttle Columbia wasn't really all that political, but it was an important event nonetheless.  But does it fall under a heading like "War on Terror"?  And does an event like the Minnesota Bridge Disaster fall under a heading like "Return of the Democrats"?  And while it may have not been as political as Katrina, the flood of 1993 was a devastating blow to America's agricultural economy.  And Hurricane Andrew was the cosliest natural disaster for 13 years until Katrina hit and impacted G.H.W. Bush's image on domestic issues. I think the problem is there are a variety of major events going on in America that all overlap in many ways. Wars are being waged, while domestic calamities are happening, while political changes are happening, while domestic legislation is being passed. And you can't just select one of the themes of that era as a heading and lump all those different things under it, especially when some of the things like wars overlap many eras.


 * Sorry, I'm not trying to pick apart what you're doing. I guess I'm just thinking out loud. Obviously something needs to be done and I'm glad you're at least trying to come up with something better. I'll also try to do some brainstorming and maybe we can put our heads together and come up with something that addresses all concerns. Abog (talk) 05:27, 13 November 2010 (UTC)


 * The work I had done in my sandbox is incomplete--a simple cut & paste of text based loosely on theme and chronology--that I had set aside to work on the main History of the United States article. I don't think all disasters should be removed, just the ones that didn't have some significant, nationwide impact. Andrew, Katrina, Columbia, and others mention such importance; many others do not and seem more appropriate in the timeline or years in U.S. articles.  —Mrwojo (talk) 18:04, 16 November 2010 (UTC)
 * Oops, sorry about that misunderstanding. I guess the big ones to remove are probably the airline disasters, although the TWA and EgyptAir flight may be worthy of mention because of the possibility of foul play in both incidents. I'm having a hard time coming up with natural disasters to remove because they all had significant wide-reaching impacts one way or another. Abog (talk) 21:27, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Culture section?
I know the article is already kind of long and things are repeated in some spots, but I was wondering if maybe we should include a section on the "culture wars" that dominated the political and social landscape of the 1990s and 2000s. The 1964-1980 article has a section on counterculture, so maybe a "culture wars" section would be appropriate for this article. In this section, we could include such issues as LGBT issues, gun politics, abortion, immigration, race relations, political correctness, religion, stem cell research, and other such issues that dominated the scene, describe key figures (Pat Buchanan, Bill O'Reilly), describe key bills (Partial Birth Abortion Act, Brady Bill, Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act), and key cases (Matthew Shepard, Terry Schiavo, possibly move the LA riots and school shootings to this section, etc.) Just a thought...let me know what you think. Abog (talk) 07:07, 17 November 2010 (UTC)


 * That sounds like a good plan and I agree with moving the LA riots/school shootings to that section. —Mrwojo (talk) 19:31, 18 November 2010 (UTC)

Libya
Something should be mentioned about the United State's involvement in Libya. 198.137.20.76 (talk) 17:49, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

New Time Period
Interesting analysis to consider: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-us-withdrawal-from-iraq-marks-the-end-of-american-supremacy/2011/12/12/gIQAStpTyO_story.html

It may be time to end this time period of U.S. history and begin a new section. This time period is getting quite long as it were, and will soon encompass events that probably belong in separate sections. The era was defined both by events during its first ten years (1991-2001) and by those in the second ten years (2001-2011), many of them interconnected. The ending of the Iraq War in 2011 represents a conclusion of an ongoing event that in many ways transcended the whole twenty-year period, as the Gulf War began in 1991. Also, this year's death of Osama bin Laden, the tenth anniversary of 9/11, and the beginning of the end of the Afghanistan War, all lend further credence to the view that the post-9/11 era is coming to a close. Continued economic uncertainty only confirms that the economic growth of the 1990s and 2000s is not returning in its former form anytime soon, if ever. This reality has been embodied further by the stark shift in focus over the last year by many national governments towards enacting austerity measures as well as economic reforms. Lastly, the start of a new cultural generation at the beginning of the decade brings currency to the thought that a new era is now taking shape. It is difficult for present historians to make such a determination, given the fear of being incorrect, but it seems a notable body of evidence suggests that such a change is in order.

-Joachimus (talk) 09:23, 17 December 2011 (UTC)