The specter of two 'isms' (nationalism and materialism)

[mom cat]

The specter of two 'isms'
By Jim Lobe

http://atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/GG09Aa05.html

WASHINGTON - With US citizens marking their annual celebration of patriotism on July 4, they might do well to also ponder the specter of two other "isms" - nationalism and militarism - that threaten the country's durability and strength.

Both have been addressed by two important books published over the past year. America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism, by Financial Times columnist Anatol Lieven, warns that the US polity is turning its back on the civic patriotism of the "American creed" of liberty, the rule of law and political egalitarianism in favor of an "American antithesis", a radical and vengeful nationalism that recalls the worst tendencies and mistakes of Germany just before World War I.

The New American Militarism: How Americans are Seduced by War, by retired army Colonel Andrew Bacevich, contends that the country's recent love affair with force and exaltation of the soldier threaten both the military institution, as policymakers expect it to solve ever more problems, but also the republican ideals on which the US was founded.

"Of all the enemies of public liberty," Bacevich quotes former president James Madison as writing in 1795, "war is perhaps the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other ... No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."

[Pharaoh]

1. right on mom cat

nominated............

[mom cat]

2. If you liked that one, check out my other posts.