The New York Times published an editorial today entitled Looking at America that says very clearly what is at stake with the next election and how far we have to go to get back to the America we once knew:
There are too many moments these days when we cannot recognize our country. Sunday was one of them, as we read the account in The Times of how men in some of the most trusted posts in the nation plotted to cover up the torture of prisoners by Central Intelligence Agency interrogators by destroying videotapes of their sickening behavior. It was impossible to see the founding principles of the greatest democracy in the contempt these men and their bosses showed for the Constitution, the rule of law and human decency.
–snip
The country and much of the world was rightly and profoundly frightened by the single-minded hatred and ingenuity displayed by this new enemy. But there is no excuse for how President Bush and his advisers panicked – how they forgot that it is their responsibility to protect American lives and American ideals, that there really is no safety for Americans or their country when those ideals are sacrificed.
The editorial is the question many people in Europe are asking as they consider whether the “American Century” is over because of the mistakes of George W. Bush and company. Whether they will have to look to the EU as the new world leader or whether Putin has positioned Russia to take that role, as concerning as that idea may be.
Whether those in America realise the precarious nature of their world position and their own position at home is yet to be seen and will require much reflection by the American people themselves. But, as the NYT editorial says so well and considering all that’s at stake, it may have become a prerequisite to good citizenship.
More below the jump…
I had a student in September, 2000, who was, though profoundly accomplished at mathematical models, obtuse to the point of irresponsibility when it came to politics. This fellow informed me that he intended to vote for George W. Bush because his parents had always voted Republican. When I raised the concern that the American presidency carried too much power and responsibility to be awarded to just anyone, let alone a C student who dodged his responsibilities and relied upon his father (until he needed his advice, and then he choose to listen to “God” instead, but that came later), my student looked at me as the neophyte.
“What did it matter?” he responded, “it’s not like my vote will make a difference.”
In mid-2004, I ran into the same student at a conference. I asked if he regretted his vote. He did not look me in the eye when he said again that he didn’t think his vote had made a difference.
I’ve been tempted to track down that former student since and ask if he is still under that illusion.
Here’s one more snip from the editorial:
We can only hope that this time, unlike 2004, American voters will have the wisdom to grant the awesome powers of the presidency to someone who has the integrity, principle and decency to use them honorably. Then when we look in the mirror as a nation, we will see, once again, the reflection of the United States of America.
Here’s hoping…
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to all. May the year, 2008, be a time of healing the planet and our nations.
MEDIA
David Rockefeller, speaking to his fellow global socialists at a meeting in Baden-Baden, Germany, June 1991. “We are grateful to the Washington Post, The New York Times, Time Magazine and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promise of discretion for almost forty years. It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subject to the bright lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is now more sophisticated and prepared to march toward a world government. The super-national sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto-determination practiced in past centuries.”
John Swinton, editor of the New York Tribune, called by his peers, “the dean of his profession,” was asked on February 26th, 1936, to give a toast before the New York Press Association. He responded with the following statements: “There is no such thing as an independent press in America, unless it is in the country towns. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print.
“I am paid $150.00 a week for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for doing similar things. If I should permit honest opinions to be printed in one issue of my paper, like Othello, before twenty-four hours, my occupation would be gone.
“The business of the New York journalist is to destroy truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify, to fawn at the feet of Mammon; to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. We are the tools and vessels for rich men behind the scenes. We are intellectual prostitutes.”
Same shit, it is only a convention marking a date.
WTF are they doing complaining, when THEY are part of the problem?
I’ll start listening to them fucking WHINE about the state of America when they apologize for Judith Miller, and preemptively FIRE Bill “I’m a war criminal” Kristol.
FUCK the New York Times.
hijacked long ago..it is just more obvious now…I do think that there will be opinions worthy of reading from time to time, but I wouldn’t pay for their nonsense. I dropped my Newsweek subscription 2 years ago and I finally dropped my Chicago Tribune Subscription. No more Jonah Goldberg or Charles Krauthammer for me…I will not pay to read that slop. As I told the guy who called asking why I dropped and perhaps a Sundays only subscription would be appropriate…No.
The beauty of the internet is that I can read what I prefer and I find the conversation here vastly better than anything Goldberg, Krauthammer, Kristol, or Rove could possibly imagine.
Thanks everyone, you all made interesting points.