Sunday, April 02, 2006

Those Who Forget History...

This morning, while reading about the history of the Phillippines over a cup of coffee, a particular passage struck me. Describing America's drift toward war with Spain, the author wrote, "Republican party imperialists passionately denounced Spain, and the Democrats followed, fearful of forfeiting a potentially popular issue." The emphasis is mine.

How sadly predictable. More than a hundred years later, our political parties and our foreign policy are much the same as they were at the dawn of the twentieth century (a century, by no cooincidence, that was the bloodiest in recorded history). One party (usually the GOP) gets fired up with patriotic zeal and warlust, while the other (usually the Democrats) lacks the moral and political courage to take a stand against it, until the war is well under way and the public is showing signs of unhappiness. How anyone on either side of this political divide can today stand up and defend their position as "bold" or "visionary" or "right" is ridiculous. They merely prove George Santayana's point that "Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it."

So what to do? Probably nothing; if there is any uniquely human quality, it is repeating one's own mistakes. Collectively, humans seem to have very little interest in studying history and profiting from its lessons, much less in examining their own individual faults and correcting them.

But for those of us who need to cling to some sliver of hope, is it too much to ask that supposedly "Christian" Republicans spend a little more time reading the Sermon on the Mount than listening to right-wing radio? Is it too much to ask that Democrats grow some spine and figure out what the hell their foreign policy is? For that matter, is it too much to ask that we break the morally and intellectually bankrupt stranglehold these two decrepit parties have on our nation? More than a century after the Spanish-American War, all they offer us is the same choice they did then: war, or bemoaning a war already well under way.

When Ariel Sharon got sick of the foreign policy deadlock between the two leading parties in Israel, he started a new party. And they won. And we have the temerity to consider ourselves the paragon of democracy? A nation that can only accomodate two parties--two parties with a proven record of unevolving and unimaginative policies--even after two centuries?

2 comments:

The Local Crank said...

Also interesting to note that the Philippines was an issue in the 1904 election since, contrary to promises, we were not "hailed as liberators," a protracted guerilla against US forces was grinding on, and there was even a scandal involving the mistreatment of Filipino prisoners by American troops. From Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris/

Eric said...

Yep, and the experience allegedly dampened Roosevelt's enthusiasm for interventionism. It wasn't long before we turned around and gave the Philippines what the insurgents had fought for in the first place.