i have few political smarts, and don't trust
whatever impulses i have in that direction . . .
so while i have many observations about the
comments that have been made here [some
of which seem to me quite tendentiously
self-serving] i believe it's best if i keep
them to myself . . .
but yesterday in class an ordinary student
turned out to be much smarter and more
sensitive than one would have thought and
asked one very simple question:
:: what has the U.S. done to make so many
:: people hate us so much??
i am in no position to answer this question
intelligently, and certainly not at all prepared
to address the follow up question which would
be to determine whether whatever we in fact
did could in some way be justified in despite
any nasty effects it may have led to
i have no brief for ANY specific sort of answer
to this question . . . maybe we've done nothing
but get rich and powerful [though there's a can
of worms right there], maybe we've done little,
or maybe we in fact are the evil empire many
believe us to be . . .
whatever the truth, i only want to suggest that
at this moment, instead of waving flags and
taking comfort in our own moral superiority,
we need [at the very least] to ask ourselves
this question and think painstakingly about
the answers we come up with
and i can't help but remind all of us of sam
johnson's notion that "patriotism is the
last refuge of scoundrels" -- no doubt this
claim is less than entirely valid, but johnson's
insights are rarely without some value and i
think we might do well to take them seriously
mike
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