Learning from History
"The Cold War techniques of secrecy,
snooping, and misinformation, used against foreign governments and foreign populations,
became tools of domestic politics, a means to harass critics, build support for
questionable policies, or cover up blunders. The very ideals that we
[Americans] had promised to export overseas were being betrayed at home. All
these trends came to a head in [the Vietnam War]… Americans began to realize that the best and the brightest in Washington
didn’t always know what they were doing—and didn’t always tell the truth….I
wonder, sometimes, whether men and women in fact are capable of learning from
history—whether we progress from one stage to the next in an upward course or
whether we just ride the cycles of boom and bust, war and peace, ascent and
decline….And perhaps the world’s fate depends not just on the events of its
battlefields; perhaps it depends just as much on the work we do in those quiet
places that require a helping hand." Senator Barak Obama 2006 The
Audacity of Hope (chapter eight, The World Beyond Our Borders, pages
287, 322)
*****
"You know that those
who are recognized as rulers of the Gentiles [nations]lord it over them; and
their great men exercise authority over them. But it is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become
great among you shall be your servant; and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be slave of all.
For even the Son of Man did not come to
be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many." Jesus Christ, Mark
10: 42-45, NASB
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