Thursday, March 24, 2005
Once More, for Emphasis
Who wrote this in a "policy planning study" in 1948?
It's all at Policy Planning Study 23
It was Kennan, of course, the "architect of cold war policy." One of his more (in)famous pieces, quoted by Brad DeLong and Noam Chomsky and others as evidence of the imperial plan, pre- PNAC. It was prepared for Harry Truman.
What strikes me, though, is that the only thing that has been added since is the Rove touch: Deal in "immediate national objectives" and "straight power concepts" to preserve American corporate wealth and hegemony (as if it can be maintained forever on a shrinking planet), AND talk about vague objectives like "democracy" and "human rights" while throwing red meat to the talibornagains (gay marriage, Terri Schiavo, etc.) to keep everyone looking the other way.
Oh, and hey--what's the latest word on when the extraction, mining and chemical companies get to go to Mars? Is it in the budget? I mean, we've pretty much panned out Earth.
"We have about 50 percent of the world's wealth, but only 6.3 percent 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 position of disparity. . . . To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. . . . We should cease to 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."
It's all at Policy Planning Study 23
It was Kennan, of course, the "architect of cold war policy." One of his more (in)famous pieces, quoted by Brad DeLong and Noam Chomsky and others as evidence of the imperial plan, pre- PNAC. It was prepared for Harry Truman.
What strikes me, though, is that the only thing that has been added since is the Rove touch: Deal in "immediate national objectives" and "straight power concepts" to preserve American corporate wealth and hegemony (as if it can be maintained forever on a shrinking planet), AND talk about vague objectives like "democracy" and "human rights" while throwing red meat to the talibornagains (gay marriage, Terri Schiavo, etc.) to keep everyone looking the other way.
Oh, and hey--what's the latest word on when the extraction, mining and chemical companies get to go to Mars? Is it in the budget? I mean, we've pretty much panned out Earth.
