Last night I saw part of a Charlie Rose interview with Doris Kearns Goodwin, author of the book
Team of Rivals : The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln. It was an excellent interview, and I plan on reading the book as soon as I get down to the public library. As I learn more and more about politics and history, I am discovering how great Lincoln truly was and how much he meant to the country both then and now. The Civil War was the greatest crisis the United States had ever faced and we can only wonder what the country would be like were it not for an assassin's bullet. I bring this up because at times during the interview Ms. Goodwin and Mr. Rose made the inevitable comparisons between the Civil War and the war in Iraq (and by extension between Lincoln and Bush).
I don't mean to say that they were in any way trying to equate Bush with Lincoln, but I believe they were correct in implying that we are currently facing a great crisis. Mr. Bush may like to pretend, and may even believe, that he is a visionary in the style of Lincoln but it's pretty clear, to me at least, that he is no Lincoln. Mr. Lincoln did not seek civil war: he sought to prevent it, and when he couldn't he understood that it was a war he had to win to save the Union. On the other hand, for Mr. Bush and his administration, Iraq was a war of choice, not necessity. Had Lincoln failed, the Union would have been lost. Should Bush and his people fail in their attempt at empire-building, that loss might turn out to be better for the country (in the long run) than whatever "victory" they can imagine.
The crisis we now face is fueled by a combination of many things: sloth, arrogance, greed, ignorance, and apathy most prominent among them. The struggle, as Lincoln pointed out at Gettysburg, is not so much to save America specifically as a country as it is to save the very idea of self rule: that is, of government of, by and for the people. By neglecting our duties and responsibilities as citizens, by allowing others to manipulate us based upon unwarranted fears , by doubting our ability to control our own destinies, and by failing to understand that the rights we demand for ourselves must also belong to all the peoples of the world, we have brought this crisis upon us.
The current administration and its powerful financial backers are just symptoms of our loss of faith in ourselves and our institutions. Were we to assert ourselves we would be surprised at how much power we really have, only our fear of retribution and preoccupation with our immediate lives prevent us from realizing that. It took several centuries after the fall of democratic Republics in Athens and Rome for a new society based on those ideals to be formed again, if we fail, the very idea that people can govern themselves may fail. This is what is at stake now and what will be at stake again in the future should we survive this. It doesn't matter how many victories we win, all it takes is one defeat for us to fall back into barbarism and tyranny.
The Revolutionary War, the Civil War, the Great Depression, World War II, these were all tests of our character and the strength of the government our Founders created. We have dealt with great adversity and survived. But our current crisis, as in Athens and Rome before us, is showing how we survive great success: the responsibility of great power and how we use it. They both failed their crisis of faith. Will we fail ours?
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