Here is a sweet note by George Kennan who headed the State Department planning staff until 1950. It is a document he wrote in 1948. I selected this text from a book by Noam Chomsky called How The World Works, and the text starts on page 11...
"We have about 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3% of its population...In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this disparity...To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and daydreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives...We should cease talk about vague and...unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better."
So "the day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts"? It looks like the flexing of those muscles are happening on a real, unreported, yet massive scale in the countries we commit war crimes in, according to the Geneva Conventions, every day. What Kennan is talking about, I think, is what is now manifesting as the Occupy Wall Street protests, and, to a certain extent, many of the Tea Party's grievances.
Thanks for your readership here,
eVan
"We have about 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3% of its population...In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this disparity...To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and daydreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives...We should cease talk about vague and...unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better."
So "the day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts"? It looks like the flexing of those muscles are happening on a real, unreported, yet massive scale in the countries we commit war crimes in, according to the Geneva Conventions, every day. What Kennan is talking about, I think, is what is now manifesting as the Occupy Wall Street protests, and, to a certain extent, many of the Tea Party's grievances.
Thanks for your readership here,
eVan
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