There is a great deal to agree with and a great deal to disagree with in
the Wallerstein article. But, to deal with the question posed in the
very first paragraph -- or is it an editorial summary -- the
conservatives ill resist but the gradual decline will most likely become
a slow and long one. Israel since 1967 is the most likely model, unless
a 1929 changes everything.
Wallerstein disregards the unpredictable: the personality factor. If
Lenin had not died at 54, and his New Economic Policy, a mixed economy,
had not been cancelled by Stalin in 1931; if a Roosevelt had not emerged
to save capitalism against the will of the then Solid Democratic White
South and industry and finance in the North; if the German generals'
assassination attempt against Hitler in 1944 had succeeded; if the
Brezhnev leadership had understood that it was not necessary to have
more than 200 ICBMs and therefore had not taken the American bait of
matching us missile for missile and going broke in the process; if
Gorbachev had known the least little bit about economics; if Yeltsin had
understood that maintaining science and education was the key to his
country's chances of remaining a significant competitor to American
power. Will the American people learn to break with the two-party
system, or will the Democrats continue to be better Republicans than the
Republicans?
Americans will remain patriotic, but the word "war" has been reduced
to an absurdity since Sept. 11, just as the soldiers of World War II
destroyed the impact of the word "fuck" by making it the all-purpose
adjective, and generation X has destroyed that of "awesome."
But, barring a 1929, which seems a likelier possibility today than at
any time since we of the 1929 generation began thinking it was around
the corner at the end of World War II, the chances are the U.S. and its
people will behave like the Israelis, convinced we are invincible as we
get weaker and weaker. And if we do have a 1929, there is no longer an
opposing system capable of pointing to its own absence of unemployment,
as the USSR did during the Great Depression, and no longer inspiring a
vast worldwide movement that, albeit never numbering more than 100,000
members in this country, was able to inspire economic and social reforms
by virtue of the certainty of its members that history was on their
side. I am afraid all we can say today is that the future lies ahead.
Bill (William) Mandel
sixties@lists.village.virginia.edu wrote:
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Wed, 10 Jul 2002 11:41:13 -0700
> From: radtimes <resist@best.com>
> Subject: The Eagle Has Crash Landed
>
> The Eagle Has Crash Landed
>
> <http://www.foreignpolicy.com/issue_julyaug_2002/wallerstein.html>
>
> Pax Americana is over. Challenges from Vietnam and the Balkans to the
> Middle East and September 11 have revealed the limits of American
> supremacy. Will the United States learn to fade quietly, or will U.S.
> conservatives resist and thereby transform a gradual decline into a rapid
> and dangerous fall?
>
> By Immanuel Wallerstein
>
>
========================================================
My autobiography, SAYING NO TO POWER (Creative Arts, Berkeley, 1999),
was written for the general reader. However, if you teach in the social
sciences consider it for student reading. It is a history of how the
American
people fought to defend and expand its rights in my lifetime, employing
the form of the life story of one who was involved in most serious
movements: labor, student, peace with the USSR, civil rights South and
North, civil
liberties (I seriously damaged the Senate Internal Security Committee,
the McCarthy Committee, and the House Un-American Activities Committee
with testimonies that may be heard/seen on my website,
http://www.billmandel.net ), the RADIO OF DISSENT (37 YEARS ON
PACIFICA),
with very extensive information on its history) and the feminist
movement,
although I am male. The book contains some fifty pages on my late wife,
Tanya, appearing appropriately throughout the book. They may be found in
the index under Mandel, Tanya. My activities began in 1927. I am 85. The
book
is available through all normal sources. If you want an autographed
copy,
send me $23 at 4466 View Pl., Apt. 106, Oakland, CA. 94611
========================================================
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