I recommend David Kaiser's blog, and current topic, to anyone wanting more insights than one can usually find on history and politics.
Especially sharp is his take on both right and left, latter 20 C. abandoning the idea of American society as knowing reality and knowing where it wants to go in the future for its citizens;
leading, I would add, to what can really can only be said to rise to the level of a national, spiritual, not just material, economic, political, strategic, etc., crisis.
A crisis, shall we say, of purpose, in the universe.
Many of the forces playing on the US nation state 'system' have been there for centuries now;
although even they have been transformed, as other players, forces, and events have taken, or left, the stage, or changed added or dropped roles, and/or weight, as well.
As I have alluded, these 'issues', some of them quite old issues, remain unresolved.
He talks about history, and contradictions, at some points.
Mine is not a Marxian contradictions analysis, although I see and appreciate his point.
Certainly there is quite complex 'struggle' or 'struggles', rivalries, positionings say, relative statuses changing and shifting, with many opposed players and elements, to describe somehow.
I see things and forces as moving or acting in more complex ways than contradictions as such; it is perhaps a fine point, but needs mentioning in passing.
For those wanting some complex illustrations of what can go through one's mind re advising US politicians, and others, in this new world of market states (the best spiritual framework Americans can seem to beget) take a look at Bobbitt's The Shield of Achilles. Terror and Consent is maybe narrower, and I haven't gotten through it myself.
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