Friday, November 02, 2007

Shortest-lived empire ever

The Impossibility of American Empire by William Pfaff

The United Statesian historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. has called him “Walter Lippmann’s authentic heir.” He has been a regular columnist for the International Herald Tribune since 1978. He isn't widely read by United Statesians.

This is just one representative example of William Pfaff's writing. Check him out.

"Take the current Republican party candidates for their party’s presidential nomination. The level of intelligence, emotional and intellectual maturity, and simple information about the subjects on which they discourse, would disqualify them from mainstream political rank in any other major democracy.

This is seriously distressing – although in principle a soluble problem, since there are plenty of intelligent people in the United States, as well as great universities and a rich culture. But elected U.S. government has been so debased by the national willingness to submit elections to the values and habits of a medium of entertainment, television, and to the corruptions of money, that it is hard to see that such a nation can indefinitely maintain representative government."

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