The days when America was a moral and material leader are over.

[KlatooBNikto]

We must now look to Europe and Asia for leadership.

[Hoping4Change]

1. YooHoo. What about looking up not over. Look where?

Look here in Soviet Canuckistan. Not perfect but we've got a few things right.:hi:

[rockymountaindem]

2. I disagree.

America can be a leader whenever it chooses to be.

[KlatooBNikto]

3. I am not sure any more. The emergence of China, India and Brazil

and the easy availability of information from the internet is going to decentralize the availability of talent and capital.That in turn is going to produce changes in business practices.Centers like Shanghai, Bangalore or Sao Paulo are going to emerge as competitors to our dominance.

[tx_dem41]

4. Not to be too much of a contrarian, but when were we ever a moral leader?

n/t

[pretzel4gore]

10. the marshal plan....the space program..the UN...

Americans can be proud of them things even if there was an element of self interest at work, perhaps nations cannot act unselfishly....the GI Bill and Social Security did more to make the US something Siberia isn't and probably never will be (though it has all the material ingredients) because something like morality governed the conduct of American officialdom (thinking of how effortlessly the bush pricks have taken control, one must marvel that the civil rights movement achieved anything!)

[Selatius]

5. No artificial nation-state can claim moral leadership

Individuals can and do. Nations cannot. The US was built on the conquest of the natives and the blood of slaves. I absolutely hate the idea that any nation can claim moral leadership because it's simply garbage. It's like saying the pencil has moral leadership when really it is the person pushing it that can claim it.

I'm begging people who read this that the only people you have to look to for leadership are yourselves, not other nation-states. It is tantamount to putting your faith in others who may or may not have the moral fiber to do what is truly just.

[K-W]

7. Organizations are inherently nihilistic.

A fact far more people should be aware of.

Organizations are not the sum of thier parts. Good people do not neccessarily make a good organization.

[K-W]

6. When exactly were we a moral leader?

Out of curiousity.

[KlatooBNikto]

8. There was a time when this country stood for doing the right thing.

As when, Justice Robert Jackson, the American prosecutor at Nuremberg, declared that Aggressive Wars were illegal and leaders who launched such wars were war criminals.I have also admired people like Eisenhower, John Kennedy and even Lyndon Johnson for standing up to the racist bullies amongst us and support equal rights for blacks in this country.

Those were high points in our nation's moral life. That is what I was referring to.Our decline and decay has been so swift we can no longer remember the days when it was possible for someone to make a case using moral arguments.Sad, isn't it?

[K-W]

9. You are romantisizing history.

America has always been big on moral rhetoric, for sure, but you seem to be ignoring the history of or foriegn policy except for WW2. For instance, after talking up a great game and giving hope to the people of the world after WW2, we proceeded to destroy emerging populist movements wherever they threatned the existing order, which as we all know was very beneficial to the US (only remaining superpower etc).


Yes, we helped stop Hitler, although American business leaders helped him get power in the first place. And our foriegn policy has always done good, but there has also never been a time when our foriegn policy wasnt doing bad.

Any charecterization of the US as either good or evil is wrong. It is a nation state.

[KlatooBNikto]

11. Unfortunately you may be right.Old habits of thinking die hard. That is

probably why my kids call me the fossil, I suppose.

[tx_dem41]

12. Oh, you and I are in trouble K-W....

we are in agreement. The end of the world is nigh upon us.

;-)

[mr blur]

13. No country can be the "moral leader" of the world.

I don't think the US has ever been in that position and neither has any other nation. Here in Britain we certainly have a history of imposing our will on great chunks of the world and so have other historical empires but the only people who might have thought they were spreading something valuable were the ones responsible for the invading.

But it is true, I think, that America used to stand for certain admirable values of which it could rightly be proud. To experience this being replaced by liars and murderers who justify their actions in terms of "freedom", "democracy" and the "Will Of God" must be heartbreaking for all real American patriots.