And I’m very glad to see that at least someone in the press isn’t falling prey to the usual schmaltz and patriotism for today. Check out Maureen Dowd’s latest column. (Free reg required, blah blah)
And slightly more seriously, Tom Friedman offers a more talmudic interpretation.
This started out as a comment to tyrsalvia‘s post, but it sort of grew into its own post. Just too much to say in a comment. Again, those of you tired of hearing about it, just skip; I’ll put it in a cut.
“The interesting thing about America is that she asks nothing for herself
except what she has a right to ask for humanity itself.”
— Woodrow Wilson
There is an interesting thought in this. The American Empire, for most of
its life, was ultimately based on a notion of spreading certain ideals —
democracy, free markets, an open marketplace of ideals — to the places
under its control. Not to say, of course, that it didn’t employ coercive
means to achieve this, but there was always a stated (and often followed)
intent to use the power of empire to spread the benefits of this way of
life to the world.
Yet in recent years — I’m thinking of the past two years in particular —
there has been a change in attitude, a stronger sense that America is
interested in its own well-being, end of message and off, and that it is
willing to sacrifice that of its peripheries without even a slight thought
to achieve this aim.
And the question I ask myself is, Can an empire which has always
depended for its coherence on the propagation of certain ideals survive
becoming a simple organ of its own survival? At what cost will we have
to hold the peripheries if they see that our goal is ultimately to beat them
down, to force them to obey our every order without concern for their
own situation and status?
The increasing centralization of power and draining of the peripheries
was one of the key transitions that moved Rome from an empire to an
unstable collection of warring states. If we are agreed that the American
Empire, at its height, was beneficial to its members, and that this (their
own ultimate complicity, unwilling only for short times, willing more often
than not when they realized the profits of joining) is what made the
administration of so far-flung a collection of states possible, then what
is this likely to lead to now?
From the New York Times:
WASHINGTON, Aug. 2 — A federal judge ruled today that the government had no right to conceal the names of more than 1,000 people detained following the Sept. 11 attacks and ordered that their names be released within 15 days.
The ruling was a significant setback to the Bush administration’s policy of secret detentions of immigrants in connection with the investigation into the terrorist attacks.
Story here.
This is why a country needs an independent judiciary.
Looks like today has been a good day for slightly-under-the-radar news stories, so I figured I may as well do a roundup.
Yonatan Zunger’s Blog 