Friday, May 22, 2009

Deja Vu All Over Again

I'm reading a book right now that has a very interesting passage:

"Its stated purpose was . . . to insist that having been undertaken as a war of liberation, it must not be turned into one for empire. The quest for power, money, and glory abroad, the League maintained, would distract from reform at home and bring in its train a strong central government destructive of traditional states' rights and local liberties. Americans had enough to do to solve the problems of municipal corruption, war between capital and labour [sic], disordered currency, unjust taxation, the use of public office for spoils, the rights of . . . people . . . before taking alien peoples under their rule."

It could have been written today about today's problems; The Proud Tower (Bantam, 1967, p. 176) was written by Barbara W. Tuchman concerning the year 1898 and America's "adventure" in the Philippine Islands.

Like it says in the Bible, "There is nothing new under the sun" (Ecclesiastes 1:9)

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