Excerpt from the best political essay I have read in a very long time...
I just read a great essay by Jonathan Schnell over at TomPaine.com. It was reprinted there, or rather pre-printed there with permission from The Nation magazine and will appear in the August 14/21 issue. I encourage you to make some time to read the entire article (click here). It's pretty long, and I wouldn't cut a word from it.
In the meantime, here's my favorite paragraph...
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What the true greatness -- or true power -- of the United States is or can be for the world in our time is an absorbing question in pressing need of an answer. Our very conceptions of greatness and power -- military, economic, political, moral -- would need searching reconsideration. Those true powers -- especially the economic -- also have an "imperial" aspect, but that is another debate. An advantage of that debate is that it would be about things that are real. Jettisoning the mirage of military domination of the globe that has addled so many American brains for more than half a century and also shunning the panic-stricken fears of impotence that have accompanied the inevitable frustration of these delusions, the debate would take realistic stock of the nation's very considerable yet limited resources and ask what is being done with them, for good or ill, and what should be done. Perhaps it will still be possible to shoehorn the United States into a stretched definition of "empire," but it would look nothing like Britain or Rome. Or perhaps, as I believe, a United States rededicated to its constitutional traditions and embarked on a cooperative course with other nations would find that it possesses untapped reserves of political power, though it will take time for American prestige to recover from Bush's squandering of it.
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That paragraph gives me hope for the future. Most of us who lean left and blog complain and blame. I've written and spoken before about my desire for the next President to apologize to the world and ask for another chance. But what good would an apology do? An apology, no matter how sincere, is just a bunch of words and absolutlely meaningless without action. If the corrective action is sufficient, then the apology itself becomes only a formality.
I've had roommates who, when they drank the rest of my milk, said they were sorry. I've had other roommates who, when he drank all of my milk, bought another jug of milk to replace the half empty jug they drank, saying, "I'm sorry, I finished the rest of your milk and bought bought you a new jug." Which roommates would you rather live with?
What leaves me feeling forlorn is how different our lives would be, how different our children's futures would be, and how different the world would be had we, as a nation, reacted to September 11th with something other than more violence.
Hate never did conquer hate, only love can conquer hate.
In the meantime, here's my favorite paragraph...
______________________________________________
What the true greatness -- or true power -- of the United States is or can be for the world in our time is an absorbing question in pressing need of an answer. Our very conceptions of greatness and power -- military, economic, political, moral -- would need searching reconsideration. Those true powers -- especially the economic -- also have an "imperial" aspect, but that is another debate. An advantage of that debate is that it would be about things that are real. Jettisoning the mirage of military domination of the globe that has addled so many American brains for more than half a century and also shunning the panic-stricken fears of impotence that have accompanied the inevitable frustration of these delusions, the debate would take realistic stock of the nation's very considerable yet limited resources and ask what is being done with them, for good or ill, and what should be done. Perhaps it will still be possible to shoehorn the United States into a stretched definition of "empire," but it would look nothing like Britain or Rome. Or perhaps, as I believe, a United States rededicated to its constitutional traditions and embarked on a cooperative course with other nations would find that it possesses untapped reserves of political power, though it will take time for American prestige to recover from Bush's squandering of it.
____________________________________________________________
That paragraph gives me hope for the future. Most of us who lean left and blog complain and blame. I've written and spoken before about my desire for the next President to apologize to the world and ask for another chance. But what good would an apology do? An apology, no matter how sincere, is just a bunch of words and absolutlely meaningless without action. If the corrective action is sufficient, then the apology itself becomes only a formality.
I've had roommates who, when they drank the rest of my milk, said they were sorry. I've had other roommates who, when he drank all of my milk, bought another jug of milk to replace the half empty jug they drank, saying, "I'm sorry, I finished the rest of your milk and bought bought you a new jug." Which roommates would you rather live with?
What leaves me feeling forlorn is how different our lives would be, how different our children's futures would be, and how different the world would be had we, as a nation, reacted to September 11th with something other than more violence.
Hate never did conquer hate, only love can conquer hate.
posted by Eric Soderstrom at 2:11 AM
3 Comments:
I agree with you, Nephew. I would like to see the United States change its whole manner of dealing with other people in the world. So much of what we have done in the last 60 years has done nothing more than to kill hundreds of thousands of people, destory nations, and turn world opinion against us. Instead of being so pompous and bellicose, we should be reaching out to people all around the world with offers of help and friendship.
I would like to bring Jimmy Carter back as president, but since he is getting on in years, maybe we start a new political party and nominated Eric Soderstrom.
Um. Just out of curiosity . . . Which roomate am I? (is that too shallow a question, given the context?) I don't remember milk, but I remember a fantastic '97 Stemmler Pinot of Travis' that I drank, that I later replaced . . .
Travis was really cool about it, and my Dad helped me to make it right.
-Scott
You were an ideal roommate. I especially like how we always knew who's turn it was to answer the phone. And I think we had a general policy of communal sharing, didn't we? More often than not we went in halves on things.
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