Citizen of the Planet

Welcome to the inaugural post of my blog, Citizen of the Planet. This will be my primary means of creative and analytical pondering, armchair theorizing, and just jotting down thoughts on world affairs, politics (both American and foreign), and related topics. It's mostly to spare my Facebook page and the number of forums I belong to some of my longer and more rambling musings on a myriad of political topics. Just as well, I feel that sometimes the thoughts go to waste there, anyhow.

To be clear, I don't expect anyone to actively read this blog, though I suppose that if I'm going to put it out there, it's better to put it someplace wherein the viewers of it (accidentally or not) are reading it because they are genuinely interested in what I have to say, as opposed to me putting it in the faces of those who didn't care for it to begin with. At the very least, if no one's reading it, it means that it's not an eyesore for anyone else.

To start, I don't generally like these kinds of opening posts, primarily because I don't actually like talking about myself and also because I often don't know how to begin projects like these. Where does one start to explain the evolution of a person's fascination with political and global affairs? How do I explain the urge to seek out historical accounts detailing the nuances lying at the heart of today's foreign relations quagmires? How do I describe to someone the immense interest I have in global economics and the role such global dynamics play in our everyday lives, to the degree where I actively seek this information, outside of any educational construct or mandate, and often find myself reading Thomas Friedman in my spare time? My best guess is that if you're reading this, you probably have similar urges, and thus I don't have to explain it to you. That's the point behind the blog, you see.

I'm also going to refrain from detailing my personal political beliefs in this inaugural post, being that primarily they are still evolving, as I believe the views and beliefs of all genuine thinkers are in a constant state of evolution. Additionally, that would be an awfully long inaugural post. However, to give any theoretical reader a sense of my frame of reference and what to expect from this blog-project, I will say that, in the general sense, I can call myself a believer in globalization, and a defender of the international socio-economic order imposed on the world by the United States after the Second World War, and that it's record is self-evident. I am a follower and admirer primarily of the strategist and political analyst Thomas P.M. Barnett, whom I consider to be among the greatest intellectual and strategic minds of our time. Surely, at some point, I will figure out how to link to his blog here somewhere.

The blog will focus primarily on international affairs, because that's the realm in which my interest mostly lies. However, given that I'm starting this blog at the height of an American election year, American (domestic, to me) politics will surely get plenty of attention for the next year or so. So for the sake of completion, I consider my political views to lie somewhere just a hair right of center, though only a hair. I don't profess allegiance or affiliation with any American political party, including the Libertarians or, God help them, the Green Party. Personally, I see merit in perspectives from across the political spectrum, and reject the "us or them" attitude adopted by the two dominant parties in the American political system. Though I'll refrain from delving into particulars here, and will save it for an upcoming post that will, no doubt, materialize sooner rather than later.

In taking the first step of actually creating the blog, I have, in effect, already accomplished the hardest part. In providing myself with a form of release for all of the monologues that exist in my head, I've already opened the floodgates, and I have a feeling this blog will be one of the most active endeavors of my creative life. I don't expect anyone to be reading it, but to the strays that do find themselves here, welcome, and I hope you enjoy it.