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I just now finished reading it, text book history 101, right out of George Orwell’s 1984.
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<div class="">I doubt she is stupid or even racist, just clueless, and propagandized. This is an example of the robotic education that is being fed to American students throughout our education system and by the news media, memorized facts and dates, analysis
always being “America the Great”, with “yes we make mistakes sometimes, blah, blah, but our intentions were good.” The overly simplistic analysis being, oh we just need to replace Trump with a Democrat and all will be right with the world. </div>
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<div class="">David, I hope you and others I have cc’d will respond with a deeper and more comprehensive analysis, for all those who know not why, some of us are appalled.
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<div class="">If this is what students are learning, we’re doomed. <br class="">
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<div class="">On Feb 19, 2017, at 09:53, David Green via Peace-discuss <<a href="mailto:peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net" class="">peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net</a>> wrote:</div>
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<h1 id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1487521520498_7948" class="">Guest Commentary: Requiem for the American Century</h1>
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<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1487521520498_7954" class=""><span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1487521520498_7955" class="">Sun, 02/19/2017 - 7:00am</span> |
<span id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1487521520498_7956" class=""><a id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1487521520498_7957" href="http://www.news-gazette.com/author/news-gazette" class=""><font id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1487521520498_7958" color="#0066cc" class="">The News-Gazette</font></a></span></div>
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<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1487521520498_7963" class=""><a id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1487521520498_7964" href="https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=http://www.news-gazette.com/opinion/guest-commentary/2017-02-19/guest-commentary-requiem-american-century.html" target="_blank" class=""></a><a id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1487521520498_7966" href="https://twitter.com/share?url=http://www.news-gazette.com/opinion/guest-commentary/2017-02-19/guest-commentary-requiem-american-century.html&text=Guest%20Commentary:%20Requiem%20for%20the%20American%20Century" target="_blank" class=""></a><a id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1487521520498_7968" href="" class=""></a><a id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1487521520498_7970" href="http://www.news-gazette.com/printmail/1512249" class=""></a></div>
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<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1487521520498_7972" class=""><strong id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1487521520498_7973" class="">By KRISTIN HOGANSON</strong></div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1487521520498_7974" class="">There are so many tremors emanating from the White House these days that it can be hard to grasp the magnitude of the tectonic shifts underway, especially in U.S. foreign policy. We are witnessing more
than a change of administration or a rightward pendulum shift, we are witnessing the end of an era. Historians will debate the role of the United States in the century that bears its name, but the label was apt in one respect: the American Century lasted for
100 years.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1487521520498_7975" class="">The publishing magnate Henry R. Luce coined the phrase American Century in 1941, hoping to rally the United States against fascist aggression, but the dawn of the American Century can be traced back to
1917, the year the United States entered World War I. Then-President Woodrow Wilson anticipated Luce's missionary aspirations for remaking the world along more open, cooperative and democratic lines. Although his vision was marred by the conviction that self-determination
was the province of white men, it provided a compelling counterpoint to autocratic rule. Although formulated in opposition to Bolshevik promises to the working class, the Fourteen Points and League of Nations Covenant provided a compelling alternative to rat-filled
trenches and poison gas. Economic openness, collective security and self-government would lead to a better world. Though the war that had brought American doughboys to Europe was shot through with terror of every kind, the next one, warned Wilson, would be
worse.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1487521520498_7976" class="">Wilson lost his struggles over the League of Nations and with them, the prospect of a lasting peace. But the United States, which had emerged from the war as the world's greatest economic power, remained
a pivotal player on the world stage. Its recommitment to global leadership during World War II breathed new life into the Wilsonian vision. Realizing that the Second World War had indeed been worse than the first and that the next to come was unimaginable,
U.S. leaders shaped the postwar world according to Wilson's three core principles.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1487521520498_7977" class="">To advance the free enterprise understood as conducive to peace and prosperity, the United States put its weight behind the mother of all multilateral trade agreements, the General Agreement on Tariffs
and Trade. To advance collective security, it signed on to the United Nations and a series of mutual defense pacts, NATO chief among them.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1487521520498_7978" class="">To advance democracy, it stood fast against authoritarian communist regimes, rolled back its own white supremacist policies, and proclaimed its commitment to decolonization.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1487521520498_7979" class="">The American Century was not always the century that downtrodden people desired. The Cold War burned too hot, especially on Third World battlefields, such as those in Korea and Vietnam. The United States
worked shamelessly with right-wing dictators, from Guatemala to Indonesia and Iran. The pax Americana was a pox Americana for many on the opposing side and for those with an eye on the environmental consequences of unbridled American consumption.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1487521520498_7980" class="">Yet in singing its requiem, we must acknowledge that the American Century saw an astonishing reduction in poverty, especially in Asia, the Pacific and the Western Hemisphere. Its guiding structures prevented
an all-out superpower conflagration, giving rise to the concept of limited war. Many people and corporations in the United States did quite well financially, as seen in the pool of billionaires now available for Cabinet duty. Democracy, in its messy glory,
pressed forward around the world. Iron curtains, concrete walls and razor wire fences came down. The American Century saw the enshrinement of human rights in the laws of liberal nations. Voting rights, women's rights, gay rights, labor rights, the right to
not be tortured: All are monuments of this era.If there was a key word for the American Century, it was freedom: freedom of conscience and of speech, freedom from want and from fear. Freedom of movement. The free world. With the collapse of the Soviet Union,
the United States quickly declared itself the winner of the Cold War — perhaps too quickly from our current perspective — but the real winner at the time was the democratic, capitalist coalition forged by the United States. Continuing on as the leader of that
coalition, the United States stuck to its stated commitments to freedom, but with more emphasis on free enterprise and freedom from taxes than on freedom from want.</div>
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<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1487521520498_8221" class="">In setting forth his vision for U.S. foreign policy, President Donald Trump hearkened back to the sentiment that Luce strove to counter: America first. Trump's version of America first is not the Wilsonian
version that placed the United States at the forefront of a collaborative world. Rejecting the core conviction that U.S. fortunes have been intertwined with those of our allies, Trump has offered a different take on America first: Only America first.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1487521520498_8222" class="">This is not the open, win-win world of collective action that Wilson envisioned. It is a world of wobbly defense pacts and ruptures in good neighbor relations nurtured over decades. The Trans-Pacific Hail
Mary pass, aimed at checking China's ascent, has gone down; NAFTA is also on the block, to the chagrin of Illinois farmers who have benefitted from its terms. After cozying up to Vladimir Putin during the campaign, President Trump spoke of human freedom just
once in his inaugural address, referring to it not as an animating principle, but as an old wisdom, remembered by soldiers. He promised anxious Americans that they would be protected by their military, police and God in this unilateralist new era, but he offered
little reassurance to democratic allies, much less Muslim refugees, among them the military translators who have risked their lives for our troops. With his pledge to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, President Trump seems determined to provoke a firestorm.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1487521520498_8223" class="">No wall, no matter how high, can make us safer than the world order that our president is ripping up. For all its shortcomings, the American Century was a far better deal than the one in the making. Students
of history should remember these dates: 1917-2017. They will be useful in future tests.</div>
<div id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1487521520498_8224" dir="ltr" class=""><i id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1487521520498_8235" class="">Kristin Hoganson is a professor of history at the University of Illinois.</i></div>
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<a id="yui_3_16_0_ym19_1_1487521520498_8392" href="http://www.news-gazette.com/opinion/guest-commentary/2017-02-19/guest-commentary-requiem-american-century.html" class="">http://www.news-gazette.com/opinion/guest-commentary/2017-02-19/guest-commentary-requiem-american-century.html</a></div>
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