The New Year Shaping Up Good

Forty Five years ago, amidst the quagmire of Vietnam, Arkansas Sen. J. William Fulbright’s Foreign Relations Committee held televised hearings on how the United States stumbled into a land war in a Southeast Asian nation in which we had no historic or vital interest.

"Dance is like life, it exists as you’re flitting through it, and when it’s over, it’s done."

~Jerome Robbins

Even after a "police action" in Korea where we came out the same door where in we went. After losing thousands of lives and spending billions of dollars. Out of those hearings came, among other things, a book by Fulbright titled The Arrogance of Power.

In it, Fulbright warned of the trap the powerful set for themselves - that they can force other nations and other cultures to accept their will. We learned in Vietnam, just as the French had, that we can’t always do that.

"Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate The Positive" by Johnny Mercer

Or I thought we learned. But in Afghanistan and Iran, we were attempting to do what neither the Russians nor the British could do. Why do we think we can? Because we’re more powerful, more decent - that we are the very glue that holds the world together.
Talk about arrogance.

"Life is -- far too important a thing to talk seriously about."

Oscar Wilde

Pub's Note: History notes that Alexander the Great did it, but I doubt it. The Republicans still believe that we can teach the world even if they don't want us to teach them. We can force them.

Just like we can force people to use the rail in Honolulu. "The Arrogance of Power." There will be ways to avoid it. Some are already thinking about moving to the other side of the island where they may still get a bus to get to town.