Journal Entry #18
LAKE WARAMAUG, CONN., APRIL 18—I recently finished a pair of pieces for The Nation concerning the modestly ambitious topic of the liberal order, as the global system within which we live is known. They were not marked as a two-part…
Journal Entry #17
NORFOLK, Conn., April 9—The evening of March 19, 2003, a Wednesday, was cold, winter-dark, and snowy where I live in the Litchfield Hills. How well I recall it. I was at the home of close friends, Sara and the late…
The Crisis of the Liberal Order and Pankaj Mishra’s ‘Age of Anger’
Fundamental reformation is required, if we are to do better than the world he describes. When we speak or write about “the liberal order,” what do we mean? Most people use this phrase as if its definition and validity are…
Famine Could Kill 20 Million in Africa and Yemen—Why the Deafening Silence?
As with the threat to kick 24 million off health care here, unchecked power is bringing humanity to a grave crisis. Two striking stories, back to back, come our way as spring arrives. I cannot get either out of my…
Are We Drifting Toward War With North Korea?
We have no alternative but to open talks with Pyongyang; the sanctions strategy is not working. Author’s update: South Korea’s Constitutional Court removed Park Geun-hye, the nation’s beleaguered president, on Friday, March 10, as had been anticipated at the time…
Are We Witnessing a Coup Operation Against the Trump White House?
Our intelligence apparatus is doing far more than stoking paranoia about the Russian bogeyman—it’s threatening democracy. A couple of books come to mind amid the relentless leaks emanating from the spooks on either side of the Potomac and, not to…
Trump Takes a Running Whack at the Liberal Interventionists
He’s erratic and he’s no progressive, but at least he’s challenging the high priests of the foreign-policy establishment. Do not say Donald Trump the candidate hid his foreign-policy plans under a bushel, or that President-elect Trump did not hang in…
The Liberal, Postwar ‘Order’ Is Dying—and That’s a Good Thing
Decades of unchallenged pre-eminence have left Americans fearful of change but also greatly in need of it. Very curious to watch Donald Trump’s inauguration last week. These rituals are always heavy on signifiers and light on substance, as they are…
Trump, Russia, and the Return of Scapegoating, a Timeless American Tradition
Our bipartisan tendency to blame others for our own failures will be the cause of American decline. Now that the intelligence chiefs’ report on alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 election is available in expurgated form—and we have no reason…
Journal Entry #16
NORFOLK, Conn., January 9—A new year, a new time—though I won’t say “a new era.” This incessant insistence among the liberals that “this isn’t normal”—meaning all that proceeds from Donald Trump’s victory last November 8th—is sheer nonsense. What does one…
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