you just read that...

"The use of nationalism to create a mass constituency for parties based on the landowning, capitalist and professional classes was the classic strategy of endangered elites throughout Europe before 1914." - Anatol Lieven. [and given how magnificently that turned out...what with an entire generation destroyed and all...perhaps we should rethink the Republican party]

"The United States has inherited the mantle and pattern of 19th Century European imperialism: military garrisons, economic control, support for brutal leaders, exploitation of natural resources. After all, we know where all that wound up." - Morris Berman. [they hate "old europe" for the same reason they hate bill clinton...the past folks were better at being them than they are]

"In abstract we celbrate freedom of opinion as part of our patriotic legacy; it is only when some Americans exercise it that other Americans are shocked. Intolerance of dissent is a well-noted feature of the American national character." - Sen. William Fulbright [see...the conservative movement really is American]

"It might indeed seem natural that the radical Left should be excluded from the "mainstream," except for one thing: the radical Right is not so excluded." - A. Lieven. [the neocons are just as dangerous as the stalinists]

"It is precisely in the declining phase of a civilization that it beats the drum of self-congratulation most fiercely." - Morris Berman [not only are we predictably following the economic and religious trends of failing empires...we have fallen in love with the nationalist bullshit as well...welcome to the end of the American era]

"How can an approach supposedly rooted in democratization succeed if it displays a brazen contempt both for international public opinion in general and for the democratic votes of particular nations?" - A. Lieven. [the old Bush-mantra of spreading democracy by ignoring it...but then when you come into "democratic" office by un-democratic means, guess that is to be expected]

"To suppose that there exists some smoothly functioning automatic mechnism of adjustment which preserves equilibrium if we only trust to methods of laissez-faire is a doctrinaire delusion which disregards the lessons of historical experience without having behind it the support of sound theory." - J.M. Keynes. [but don't let the irrefutable fact that unbridled capitalism has failed countless times to discourage you from falling in love with "globalization"]

"We can have a democratic society or we can have the concentration of great wealth in the hands of the few. We cannot have both." - Louis Brandeis [take a wild guess which society we have developed]

"Is it purely coincidental that most of our imperial ventures or wars of conquest, from Mexico in 1846-48 to Iraq in 2003, involved an "enemy" who was non-white?" - M. Berman [and lest we forget...the wars waged against hundreds of indigenous tribes prior to 1846...the lesson of American history - if you aren't cracker, we expect you to bow down...the lesson of modern-American history - the crackers will never learn that they won't bow down]

"History is of course nothing if not ironic, and sometimes tragically so....The events of 1979, rootes as they were in the coup of 1953, led to 3 further developments that then moved inexorably toward September 11: the Iranian funding of terrorism; the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the consequent CIA backing of Islamic militants; and the American choice of Saddam Hussein as our "Golden Boy" during Iraq's war with Iran. The ironies involved in all of this are breathtaking, but, as in the case of the hostage crisis, largely lost on the American Public." - M. Berman [but it is a lot easier to imagine "they" hate "us" for illogical reasons...afterall, we hated them for illogical reasons]

"Power always thinks it has a great soul." - John Adams. [they love to invoke the "founders"...all hail king george]

And now more on the end of the American era...

"The end of the world begins not with the barbarians at the gate, but with the barbarians at the highest levels of state." - Ben Okri [gleefully ordering torture...overseeing the destruction of civilian populations...i'm just saying...]

"The massive destruction of innocents is something that is unlikely to be either forgiven or forgotten." - J. Gordon [just ask the folks in the middle east]

"It takes a particular level of crudity and violence to see to it that a dying civilian population [i.e. Iraq under sanctions] cannot obtain morphine or toilet paper or children's vaccines [all prohibited by OUR sanctions], let alone to add that the resulting deaths were "worth it." If the United States is not intentionally the enemy of Islamic civilization, it is doing a pretty good job of imitating a nation that is." - M. Berman. [no, really..."they" hate "you" for your "freedom"...ignore the man behind the curtain]

"Theatrical military activisim against inconsequential rogue states is a sign of weakness, not of strength. This is classic for a crumbling system. The final glory of militarism." - Emmanuel Todd [Korea, Vietnam, Iran, Iraq...hmmm]

"When a powerful nation can pick fights only with the small and the weak, it is because appearances to the contrary, it is weak itself." - M. Berman [when was the last time our leaders beat the drum to war against a nation that had some real military power? it's like me patting myself on the back for kicking the neighbor's infant son]

"As democracy is perfected, the office of hte president represents, more and more clearly, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron." - H.L. Mencken (July 26, 1920) ['nuff said]

And a few lessons from Nazi Germany...

"I have studied with great interest the laws of several American states concerning prevention of reproduction of people whose progeny would, in all probability, be of no value or injurious to the racial stock." - Adolf Hitler. [moral high ground indeed]

"The army will never give up. It did not give up in the last war either. Only the civilians gave up and betrayed the army." Lt. Rudolf Kohlhoff. (Nazi POW speaking of WWI and WWII) [sound familiar?]

For god's sake people...pick up a history book once in awhile..

"Not to know what happened before one was born is always to be a child." - Cicero.