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Saturday, May 01, 2004
wholesome american values
"This basic cluelessness explains a great deal, I think. It allows Americans to continue drawing a sharp distinction between their traditional domestic institutions and norms (pluralistic, legalistic and at least nominally democratic) and their behavior abroad (brutal, authoritarian, and, at its worst moments, downright fascistic.) It's a kind of imperial adaptation of what historian Pierre van den Berghe labeled 'herrenvolk democracy' -- in which egalitarian norms within the privileged class or race are combined with paternal and/or repressive treatment of subject peoples."