Amerikai Magyar Szó, 1986. július-december (40. évfolyam, 27-49. szám)

1986-07-03 / 27. szám

14.

AMERIKAI MAGYAR SZÓ

Thursday, July 3. 1986.

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THE PRICE OF EMPIRE

BY SENATOR J. W. FULBRIGHT

Senator Fulbright's 1967 critique of the Vietnam War and of the role of the United States of America in the contemporary world is one of the brightest stars in the constellation

of great American political documents.

Had his warning so eloquently presented in this statement been heeded by President Johnson, the

lives of thousands of Americans and

millions of Indochinese could have been saved. Today our

government seems to be heading in the same catastrophic direction in Central- America and elsewhere. Fulbright's statement should be read by all our legislators.

The program established by the senator bearing his name is celebrating its 40th anniversary. On this occasion we send our warmest greetings to Mr. Fulbright.

Zoltán Deák Editor, Hungarian Word (Excerpts) #

Standing in the smoke and rubble of Detroit, a Negro veteran said: "I just got back from Vietnam a few months ago, but you know, 'I think the war is here."

The connection between Vietnam and Detroit is in their conflicting and incompatible demands upon traditional American values. The one demands that they be set aside, the other that they be fulfilled. The one demands the acceptance by America of an imperial role in the world, or of what our policy makers like to call the "responsibilities of power", or of what I have called the "arrogance of power". The other demands freedom and social justice at home, an end to poverty, the fulfillment of our flawed democracy, and an effort to create a role for ourselves in the world which is compatible with our traditional values. The question, it should be emphasized, is not whether it is possible to engage in traditional power politics abroad and at the same time to perfect democracy at home, but whether it is possible for US^ Americans, with our particular history and national character, to combine morally incompatible roles.

Administration officials tell us that we can indeed afford both Vietnam and the Great Society, and they produce impressive statistics of the gross national product to prove it. The statistics show financial capacity but they do not show moral and psychological capacity. They do not show how a President preoccupied with bombing missions over North and South Vietnam can provide strong and consistent leadership for the renewal of our cities. They do not show how a Congress burdened with war costs and war measures, with emergency briefings and an endless series of dramatic appeals, with anxious constituents

and a mounting anxiety of their own, can tend to the workaday business of studying social problems and legislating programs to meet them. Nor do the statistics tell an anxious and puzzled people, bombarded by press and television with the bad news of American deaths in Vietnam, the "good news" of enemy deaths-and with vividly horrifying pictures to illustrate them -can be expected to support neighborhood anti-powerty projects, and national programs for urban renewal, employment and education. Anxiety about war does not breed compassion for one's neighbors; nor do constant reminders of the cheapness of life abroad strenghthen our faith in its sanctity at home. In these ways the war in Vietnam is poisoning and brutalizing our domestic life. Psychological incompatibility has proven to be more controlling than financial feasibility; and the Great Society has become a sick society.

IMPERIAL DESTINY

AND THE AMERICAN DREAM.

When he visited America, a hundred years ago, Thomas Huxley wrote: "I cannot say that I am in the slightest degree impressed by your bigness, or your material resources, as such. Size is not grandeur, and territory does not make a nation. The great issue, about which hangs the terror of overhanging fate, is what are you going to do with all these things?"

The question is still with us and we seem to have come to a time of historical crisis when its answer can no longer be deferred. Before the Second World War our world role was a potential role; we were important in the world for what we could do with our power, for the leadership we might provide, for the example we might set.

Now the choices are almost gone; we are almost the world's self-appointed policeman; we are almost the world defender of the status quo. We are well on our way to becoming a traditional great power-an imperial nation if you will-engaged in the exercise of power for its own sake, exercising it to the limit of our capacity and beyond, filling every vacuum and extending the American "presence" to the farthest reaches of the earth. And, as with the great empires of the past, as the power grows, it is becoming an end in itself, separated except by ritual incantation from its initial motives, governed, it would seem, by its own mystique, power without philosophy or purpose.

That describes what we have almost become, but we have not become a traditional empire yet. The old values remain, the populism and the optimism, the individualism and the rough-hewn equality, the friendliness and the good humor, the inventiveness and the zest for life, the caring about people and the sympathy for the underdog, and the idea, which goes back to the American Revolution that maybejust maybe - we can set an example of democracy and human dignity for the world.

All believe that their country was cut out for something more ennobling than an imperial destiny.

Here, inadvertently, the writer puts his finger on the nub of the current crisis. The students and churchmen and professors who are protesting the Vietnam war do not accept the notion that foreign policy is a matter of expediences to which values are irrelevant. They reject this notion because they understand, as some of our policy makers do not understand, that it is ultimately self-defeating to "fight fire with fire", that you cannot defend your values in a manner that does violence to those values without destroying the very thing you are trying to defend. They understand, as our policy makers do not, that when American soldiers are sent, in the name of freedom, to sustain corrupt dictators in a civil war, that when the CIA subverts student organizations to engage in propaganda activities abroad, or when the Export-Import Bank is used by the pentagon to finance secret arms sales abroad, damage-perhaps irreparable damage-is being done to the very values that are meant to be defended. The critics understand, as our policy makers do not, that, through the undemocratic expediences we have adopted for the defense of American democracy, we are weakening it to a degree that is beyond the resources of our bitterest enemies.

In this era of human history in which man has acquired weapons which threaten his entire species with destruction, safety and prudence and realism require us to change the rules of a dangerous and discredited game, to try as we have never tried before to civilize and humanize international relations, not only for the sake of civilization and humanity but for the sake of survival.

MR. GEORGE CARBONE (1938-1986)

Three Carbone brothers (George, Rudy and Tony) have operated the candy store for the past 22 years in the heart of New York's "Hungarian" district (1605 Second Avenue - between 83rd & 84th Streets). Of them perhaps George was best known to "Magyar Szo" deliverers and readers. He was in the store on Wednesday afternoons when the paper arrived. A tall, heavy- set man with black-rimmed glasses, George was always practical and friendly, quick with a smile and a good word or two. Nothing indicated in his behavior that for the last two years he has been fighting coloncancer. Looking back now we realize that his brother Rudy was helping out more and more.

In shock and sorrow we join the entire Carbone family in mourning George, a fine human being - our mutual loss.

We will remember him always!

The Staff of "Magyar Szo"