Victor Davis Hanson : America's Might is Not Draining Away

Armavirumque ^ | January 25, 2005 | Victor Davis Hanson

[quidnunc]

The most recent doom-and-gloom forecast by Matthew Parris of the London Times would be hilarious if it were not so hackneyed. After all, Americans long ago have learned to grin any time a British intellectual talks about the upstart’s foreordained imperial collapse. And as in the case of our own intelligentsia’s gloominess, it is not hard to distinguish the usual prophets’ pessimistic prognostications from their thinly-disguised hopes for American decline and fall.

But this country is now in its third century and assurances that the United States is about through are getting old. In the early 20th century the rage was first Spengler and then Toynbee who warned us that our crass consumer capitalism would lead to inevitable spiritual decay. Next, the Hitlerians assured the Volk that the mongrel Americans could never set foot on German-occupied soil, so decadent were these Chicago mobsters and uncouth cowboys. Existentialism and pity for the empty man in the grey flannel suit were the rage of the 1950s, as Americans, we were told, had become depressed and given up in the face of racial inequality, rapid suburbanization, and the spread of world-wide national liberationist movements.

In the 1960s and 1970s we heard of the population bomb and all sorts of catastrophes in store for the United States and the world in general that had unwisely followed its profligate paradigm of consumption; yet despite Paul Ehrlich’s strident doomsday scenario, the environment got cleaner and the people of the globe richer. And then came the historian Paul Kennedy, who, citing earlier Spanish and English implosions, "proved" that the United States had played itself out in the Cold War, ruining its economy to match the Soviet Union in a hopeless arms race–publishing his findings shortly before the Russian empire collapsed and the American economy took off (again).

-snip-

[quidnunc]

Ignore the Vanity of the Bushites, America's Might is Draining Away

What time is it for America? If the Boston Tea Party was first light and the Gettysburg Address dawn, where between the sunrise and sunset of empire is the United States now? To judge from his inauguration speech on Thursday, President Bush thinks it is about time for morning coffee: much to be proud of but big tasks — maybe the proudest of all — still ahead. To end tyranny on Earth is no small ambition.

Gerard Baker, the US editor of The Times, (“Don’t believe the doubters: America’s decline and fall is a long way off yet”) strikes a slightly more sanguine note. “A presidential inauguration is a chance for America to remind the world who is boss,” he smiles, “to demonstrate that the United States is the inheritor not only of Greece’s glory, but of Rome’s reach” — but Gerard would not himself go so far: he shares American anxieties about the rise of the Asian superpowers. He is confident, though, there are tremendous reserves of energy and potential still bubbling beneath the surface. “I would not bet on America’s eclipse just yet,” he concludes. For his America, I guess, it is around lunch. An afternoon’s work is still ahead.

I think it’s about half past four. For America-2005-Iraq, think of Britain-1899-Boer War. Ever-heavier burdens are being loaded upon a nation whose economic legs are growing shaky, whose hegemony is being taunted and whose sense of world mission may be faltering. “Overcommitted?” is the whisper.

Not that you would hear it in the din of drums and trumpets. More display is made in the spending of an inheritance than in its quiet accumulation, and the perfumed blossoms of July and August are heaviest after the nights have already begun to draw in. Like economic booms or summer solstices, empires have a habit of appearing at their most florid some time after their zenith has passed. Of the rise and fall of nations, history tends to find that the era of exuberance occurs when the underlying reasons for it are beginning to weaken. There is a time lag between success and swagger.

-snip-

(Matthew Parris in The Times, January 22, 2005)
To Read This Article Click Here

As someone living within sound of the Bow bells would say, Parris is a right iron.

[quidnunc]

FYI

[sinanju]

Matthew Parris could be making a far greater contribution if he switched to writing bodice-rippers. Under the sway of his purple prose I could feel my bosom heaving.

[quidnunc]

sinanju wrote: Matthew Parris could be making a far greater contribution if he switched to writing bodice-rippers. Under the sway of his purple prose I could feel my bosom heaving.

Matthew Parris coulkd not write a readable bodice-ripper.

It's… shall we say …well outside of the realm of his experiences.

[sinanju]

It's… shall we say …well outside of the realm of his experiences.

Er, OK make that "fly-rippers"?

[Tolik]

    Victor Davis Hanson Ping ! 

       Let me know if you want in or out

[Grampa Dave]

Matthew Parris should stick to what he knows best, pushing writing about the gay agenda:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0670894400/202-5840294-2471848

"Amazon.co.uk Review
In Chance Witness: An Outsider's Life in Politics, Matthew Parris gives us a brilliantly diverting autobiography combined with a comprehensive and merciless picture of the politicians he has dealt with, both in his own time as an MP and subsequently as writer for some of our most august newspapers."

"He is not only the most astute of political commentators, he is one of the most completely entertaining. Matthew Parris made little impression in his career as a Tory candidate (for which, as a sardonically witty and iconoclastic gay man,"

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Thanks for the Factoid on this Writer....

[Cicero]

There's only one aspect of America that worries me today, and that's the leftist intelligentsia who control education, the media, the entertainment industry, the mainstream churches, and other levers of cultural power. In spite of their efforts, and in spite of having been under their influence in the public schools, most Americans still resist their message. But the day that these defeatists gain full control is a day to worry about.

We survived Carter, we survived clinton, and hopefully we will survive the whole cultural revolution. But this treasonous fifth column of leftist intellectuals represents the greatest danger.

[bitt]

'But this treasonous fifth column of leftist intellectuals represents the greatest danger.'...

yeah, but we now have a "virtual meeting place", the 'net, to join forces, keep tabs, and blog-block their attempts to manipulate....

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Got a book on the leftists.

***************************************************************

Unholy Alliance
by David Horowitz
Regnery Publishing, Inc.; ISBN: 089526076X
Hardcover - 256 pages (September 2004)

In this tour de force on the most important issue of our time, David Horowitz, confronts the paradox of how so many Americans, including the leadership of the Democratic Party, could turn against the War on Terror. He finds an answer in a political Left that shares a view of America as the “Great Satan” with America’s radical Islamic enemies. This Left, which once made common cause with Communists, has now joined forces with radical Islam in attacking America’s defenses at home and its policies abroad. From their positions of influence in the university and media culture, leftists have defined America as the “root cause” of the attacks against it. In a remarkable exploration of the “Mind of the Left,” Horowitz traces the evolution of American radicalism from its Communist past to its “anti-war” present. He then shows how this Left was able to turn the Democratic Party presidential campaign around and reshape its views on the War on Terror.

Horowitz’s Unholy Alliance, writes John Haynes, the noted historian of American Communism, “is an insightful, brilliant examination of the mental world of the radical left. Horowitz shows how today’s radicals, unwilling to reflect on the internal flaws that destroyed Marxism-Leninism from within, have embraced an all-consuming nihilism in its place. This has led them to a hatred of American institutions and a solidarity with Islamic terrorists that makes the radical left more properly regarded as dangerous than loony.”

Unholy Alliance is an eye-opening book that should unsettle conventional assumptions and reveals why intellectuals and political leaders who applaud Michael Moore are no laughing matter. As Harvey Klehr, author of Venona: Decoding Soviet Espionage in America, writes, “The world Communist movement may be moribund, but its habits of mind and ideological fantasies have not disappeared. This is a fascinating and depressing account.”

Price: $19.01 - Click here to order:

[westmichman]

Mr. Horowitz' on campus efforts are yielding fruit amongst the youth and are quite frankly one of our best hopes at defeating liberalism.