Tom Engelhardt: Welcome to the American Century / Guy Saperstein: Why I’m Leaving America
In February 17, 1941, less than 10 months before the Japanese struck Pearl Harbor and the U.S. found itself in a global war, Henry Luce, in an editorial in Life magazine (which he founded along with Time and Fortune), declared the years to come “the American Century.” He then urged this country’s leaders to “exert upon the world the full impact of our influence, for such purposes as we see fit.”
And he wasn’t wrong,
was he? Eight decades later, who would deny that we’ve lived through
something like an American century? After all, in 1945, the U.S. emerged
triumphant from World War II, a rare nation remarkably unravaged by that war
(despite the 400,000
casualties it had suffered). With Great Britain heading for the
imperial sub-basement, Washington found itself instantly the military and
economic powerhouse on the planet.
As it turned out,
however, to “exert upon the world the full impact of our influence,” one other
thing was necessary and, fortunately, at hand: an enemy. From then on,
America’s global stature and power would, in fact, be eternally based on facing
down enemies. Fortunately, in 1945, there was that other potential, if
war-ravaged, powerhouse, the Soviet Union…
https://scheerpost.com/2021/11/02/welcome-to-the-american-century/
Guy Saperstein: Why I’m Leaving America
My wife and I have
spent sixty years fighting for social justice in America and trying to be good
citizens, me as a civil-rights lawyer who litigated — and won — the largest
race, age, and disability employment discrimination cases in American history,
and my wife as a teacher, social worker, healthcare activist and
philanthropist. I retired at fifty-one, having built an enormously lucrative
practice, never losing a case as I pursued legal restitution on behalf of
clients who had gotten the short end of the stick.
I was the very embodiment of the American Dream. But over the decades, I’ve become convinced that America is in terminal decline and that the battle for justice and equity is hopeless. The reasons are multiple. America once led the world in innovation. No more. We don’t even have one mile of high-speed rail, unless you count Disneyland. China has 30,000, and counting. Which country do you think is prepared to prosper in the next century?
The battle is lost. America is in terminal
decline and nearly 75 million Americans seem to be willing to pull it down
further. How can it be that so many millions voted for a man who failed in
everything he ever tried—a man who started more than a score of businesses and
every one failed, who cheated repeatedly on three wives before each marriage
failed, who is despised by even members of his own family, who went out of his
way nearly every day to show that he is a racist and a sexist, a man who has
been caught, according to the Washington Post, in
more than 30,000 lies in just the four years he was president, who cheated at
nearly everything, including golf, how is it that such a man is held up as a paragon
of virtue by nearly half of the electorate? Something has gone seriously off
the rails.
https://scheerpost.com/2021/10/07/why-im-leaving-america/
Chauncey DeVega: Trump is mentally ill but our real
sickness runs much deeper
Tom
Engelhardt: Biden's indirect admission highlights the steady decline of
American empire
TOM
ENGELHARDT: A World at the Edge
Alfred McCoy: The
crumbling delusion of Washington's endless world dominion
Chris Hedges: The
Collective Suicide Machine
Andrew Bacevich:
High Crimes and Misdemeanors of the Fading American Century
