[lbo-talk] The New American Century, same as it ever was

[M]

> With the bombing of Pearl Harbor leading to the entrance of
> the US to
> WWII, couldn't we also say that it was also the birth
> of the American
> Century, even if the conception came later?

Actually the conception was at least as old as Henry Luce's essay in LIFE Magazine of February 7 1941 entitled "The American Century" (10 months prior to Pearl Harbor).

   "The other day Herbert Hoover said that America was fast becoming the

    sanctuary of the ideals of civilization. For the moment it may be 

    enough to be the sanctuary of these ideals. But not for long. It now 

    becomes our time to be the powerhouse from which the ideals spread

    throughout the world and do their mysterious work of lifting the life

    of mankind from the level of the beasts to what the Psalmist called a

    little lower than the angels."

Of course that sounds a lot like the othery Henry, Henry Labouchère:

    Pile on the brown man's burden, 

    compel him to be free; 

    Let all your manifestoes 

    Reek with philanthropy. 

    And if with heathen folly 

    He dares your will dispute, 

    Then, in the name of freedom, 

    Don't hesitate to shoot