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The Project Gutenberg e-Book of De la Démocratie en Amérique, Vol. 3; Author: Alexis de Tocqueville.
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Il faut reconnaître que, parmi les peuples civilisés de nos jours,
il en est peu chez qui les hautes sciences aient fait moins de
progrès qu'aux États-Unis, et qui aient fourni moins de grands
artistes, de poëtes illustres et de célèbres écrivains. -
Les Américains sont un peuple très-ancien et très-éclairé, qui a
rencontré un pays nouveau et immense dans lequel il peut s'étendre à
volonté, et qu'il féconde sans peine. Cela est sans exemple dans le
monde. En Amérique, chacun trouve donc des facilités, inconnues
ailleurs, pour faire sa fortune ou pour l'accroître. La cupidité y
est toujours en haleine, et l'esprit humain, distrait à tout moment
des plaisirs de l'imagination et des travaux de l'intelligence, n'y
est entraîné qu'à la poursuite de la richesse. Non seulement on voit
aux États-Unis, comme dans tous les autres pays, des classes
industrielles et commerçantes, mais, ce (p. 069) qui ne s'était
jamais rencontré, tous les hommes s'y occupent à la fois d'industrie
et de commerce.Je suis cependant convaincu que si les Américains avaient été seuls
dans l'univers, avec les libertés et les lumières acquises par leurs
pères, et les passions qui leur étaient propres, ils n'eussent point
tardé à découvrir qu'on ne saurait faire longtemps des progrès dans
la pratique des sciences sans cultiver la théorie; que tous les arts
se perfectionnent les uns par les autres, et, quelque absorbés
qu'ils eussent pu être dans la poursuite de l'objet principal de
leurs désirs, ils auraient bientôt reconnu qu'il fallait, de temps
en temps, s'en détourner pour mieux l'atteindre.Le goût des plaisirs de l'esprit est d'ailleurs si naturel au
cœur de l'homme civilisé que, chez les nations polies, qui sont
le moins disposées à s'y livrer, il se trouve toujours un certain
nombre de citoyens qui le conçoivent. Ce besoin intellectuel, une
fois senti, aurait été bientôt satisfait.Mais en même temps que les Américains étaient naturellement portés à
ne demander à la science que ses applications particulières aux
arts, que les moyens de rendre la vie aisée; la docte et littéraire
Europe se chargeait de remonter aux sources générales de la vérité,
et perfectionnait en même temps tout ce qui peut concourir aux
plaisirs (p. 070) comme tout ce qui doit servir aux besoins de
l'homme.En tête des nations éclairées de l'ancien monde, les habitants des
États-Unis en distinguaient particulièrement une à laquelle les
unissaient étroitement une origine commune et des habitudes
analogues. Ils trouvaient chez ce peuple des savants célèbres,
d'habiles artistes, de grands écrivains, et ils pouvaient recueillir
les trésors de l'intelligence, sans avoir besoin de travailler à les
amasser. - 6 more annotations...
The Project Gutenberg e-Book of De la Démocratie en Amérique, Vol. 1; Author: Alexis de Tocqueville.
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Je ne pense pas qu'il y ait de pays dans le monde où, proportion gardée
avec la population, il se trouve aussi peu d'ignorants et moins de
savants qu'en Amérique.L'instruction primaire y est à la portée de chacun; l'instruction
supérieure n'y est presque à la portée de personne.Ceci se comprend sans peine, et est pour ainsi dire le résultat
nécessaire de ce que nous avons avancé plus haut.Presque tous les Américains ont de l'aisance; ils peuvent donc
facilement se procurer les premiers éléments des connaissances
humaines.(p. 082) En Amérique, il y a peu de riches; presque tous les Américains
ont donc besoin d'exercer une profession. Or, toute profession exige un
apprentissage. Les Américains ne peuvent donc donner à la culture
générale de l'intelligence que les premières années de la vie: à quinze
ans, ils entrent dans une carrière; ainsi leur éducation finit le plus
souvent à l'époque où la nôtre commence. Si elle se poursuit au-delà,
elle ne se dirige plus que vers une matière spéciale et lucrative; on
étudie une science comme on prend un métier; et l'on n'en saisit que les
applications dont l'utilité présente est reconnue.En Amérique, la plupart des riches ont commencé par être pauvres;
presque tous les oisifs ont été, dans leur jeunesse, des gens occupés;
d'où il résulte que, quand on pourrait avoir le goût de l'étude, on n'a
pas le temps de s'y livrer; et que, quand on a acquis le temps de s'y
livrer, on n'en a plus le goût.Il n'existe donc point en Amérique de classe dans laquelle le penchant
des plaisirs intellectuels se transmette avec une aisance et des loisirs
héréditaires, et qui tienne en honneur les travaux de l'intelligence.Aussi la volonté de se livrer à ces travaux manque-t-elle aussi bien que
le pouvoir.Il s'est établi en Amérique, dans les connaissances humaines, un certain
niveau mitoyen. Tous les esprits s'en sont rapprochés; les uns en
s'élevant, les autres en s'abaissant.
Obama's Big Silence: The Race Question | Naomi Klein
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Americans began the summer still celebrating the dawn of a "post-racial" era. They are ending it under no such illusion.
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Lost in the circus atmosphere was the enormous importance of the conference to people of African descent, and nowhere more so than among Obama's most loyal base. The US civil rights movement had embraced the first Durban conference, held in summer 2001, with great enthusiasm, viewing it as the start of the final stage of Martin Luther King's dream for full equality. Though most black leaders offered only timid public criticism of the president's Durban II boycott, the decision was discussed privately as his most explicit betrayal of the civil rights struggle since taking office.
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Advice for What the Next U.S. President Should Do About Iran
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The
only way to be sure of preventing Iran's acquiring a nuclear weapon
capability is to reject those calling for military action--and
to negotiate a comprehensive settlement of all outstanding
disputes between Iran and the USA, such that both sides can resume
normal relations on a basis of mutual respect at least, and friendship
if possible. -
after Baghdad fell to the coalition in spring 2003, the
Iranian government sent the US (via the Swiss government) a proposal for
talks toward a 'Grand Bargain' that promised resolution of the nuclear
dispute, and de facto Iranian recognition of Israel. The Bush
administration ignored the proposal, and rebuked the Swiss for passing
it on. - 4 more annotations...
ATA : Public Access Mandate Made Law
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President Bush has signed into law the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2007 (H.R. 2764), which includes a provision directing the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to provide the public with open online access to findings from its funded research. This is the first time the U.S. government has mandated public access to research funded by a major agency.
The provision directs the NIH to change its existing Public Access Policy, implemented as a voluntary measure in 2005, so that participation is required for agency-funded investigators. Researchers will now be required to deposit electronic copies of their peer-reviewed manuscripts into the National Library of Medicine’s online archive, PubMed Central. Full texts of the articles will be publicly available and searchable online in PubMed Central no later than 12 months after publication in a journal.
Hebdo Blogs
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Sarkozy a donc calculé qu’il était tout à fait improductif de poursuivre la politique étrangère de troisième voie qui avait été inaugurée en 1958 par le général de Gaulle.
The Armenian Resolution: Pure Grandstanding
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No one can deny that hundreds of thousands of Armenians were killed: Western sources, and Armenian eyewitness survivors, attest to that fact. But to this day no one has found the Ottoman “smoking gun” that proves, beyond the shadow of a doubt—and don’t we want a rather high bar of proof for something as serious as genocide?—that the authorities in Istanbul ordered the “deliberate and systematic destruction” of the Armenians in the eastern part of the Empire.
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Steny Hoyer tried to reassure the Turks by telling them that this resolution is “not about your government.” The Majority Leader, unlike some in the press,9 seems to realize that it was not the Turkish government that killed Armenians—it was the old Ottoman imperial one. And one might reasonably wonder why the modern Turks are so paranoid about claims of genocide being perpetrated by their predecessor regime. However, that scimitar cuts both ways: one might also ask why the Democrats in Congress are so eager to pass a meaningless, toothless resolution condemning a government that hasn’t existed for 85 years— in the process estranging us even further from one of our few close allies in the Muslim world—when the historical record fails to support their opportunistic legislation?
History News Network
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Turkey has been the strongest ally that the United States has had in the Middle East since the end of WW II. The Marshall Plan started with Northern tier states like Turkey and Greece. Turkey joined NATO and was a key player in the American victory in the Cold War. As a secular government, Turkey stood against the rising tide of Muslim radicalism. To the extent that Turkey is moderating its long-term secular militancy, and moving toward fair elections, it may be providing a model for a moderate, democratic Middle East. Its economy is growing rapidly, foreign investment is in the billions. Turkey is in short, almost everything the US could have asked for in the Middle East.
But the Bush administration has, during the past five years, increasingly thrown away this asset, and now is in danger of losing a close and valued ally altogether.
Americans are Tourists of History
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Milan Kundera once famously wrote that “kitsch is the absolute denial of shit” and the primary aesthetic of totalitarian regimes, in which it facilitates a false sense of community and the idea of a universal “brotherhood of man.” It is no coincidence that we have had an extraordinary embrace of kitsch in this country in the wake of 9/11 and coincident with the rise of broad censorship of political debate, the enactment of the USA Patriot Act and its broad restriction of civil rights, and the selling of a war of aggression to the American public on the false premise of national defense. Thus, an American public can acquiesce to its government’s aggressive political and military policies when that public is constantly reassured by the comfort offered by kitsch patriotic objects, security consumerism, and the narrative that we are innocent and unknowing. In the comforting world of kitsch and in our tourism of history, torture cannot exist.
History News Network
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racism is the reason the United States did not establish a European-style welfare system. He provides as an example of the dynamic what happened to Harry Truman's plan to create a system of national health insurance. Despite overwhelming public approval of the plan whites in the South torpedoed it out of fear that hospitals would be integrated.
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America in the 1950s was a middle-class society, to a far greater extent than it had been in the 1920s--or than it is today. Social injustice remained pervasive: Segregation still ruled in the South, and both overt racism and overt discrimination against women were the norm throughout the country. Yet ordinary workers and their families had good reason to feel that they were sharing in the nation's prosperity as never before. And, on the other side, the rich were a lot less rich than they had been a generation earlier.
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U.S. Airport Screeners Are Watching What You Read
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International travelers concerned about being labeled a terrorist or drug runner by secret Homeland Security algorithms may want to be careful what books they read on the plane. Newly revealed records show the government is storing such information for years.
Privacy advocates obtained database records showing that the government routinely records the race of people pulled aside for extra screening as they enter the country, along with cursory answers given to U.S. border inspectors about their purpose in traveling. In one case, the records note Electronic Frontier Foundation co-founder John Gilmore's choice of reading material, and worry over the number of small flashlights he'd packed for the trip.
It is the death of history - Independent Online Edition > Robert Fisk
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Add Sticky Note2,000-year-old Sumerian cities torn apart and plundered by robbers. The very walls of the mighty Ur of the Chaldees cracking under the strain of massive troop movements, the privatisation of looting as landlords buy up the remaining sites of ancient Mesopotamia to strip them of their artefacts and wealth. The near total destruction of Iraq's historic past – the very cradle of human civilisation – has emerged as one of the most shameful symbols of our disastrous occupation.
- La ville de Sumer a beaucoup plus que 2000 ans. Ce genre d'inexactitude rend méfiant quant au reste des informations.
Voir d'autres critiques des inexactitudes de Fisk dans son article Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Fisk):
>Israeli historian Efraim Karsh, in a Commentary Magazine book review, commented on what he saw as Fisk's carelessness with facts:
“It is difficult to turn a page of The Great War for Civilisation without encountering some basic error. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, not, as Fisk has it, in Jerusalem. The Caliph Ali, the Prophet Mohammed’s cousin and son-in-law, was murdered in the year 661, not in the 8th century. Emir Abdallah became king of Transjordan in 1946, not 1921. The Iraqi monarchy was overthrown in 1958, not 1962; Hajj Amin al-Husseini, the mufti of Jerusalem, was appointed by the British authorities, not elected; Ayatollah Khomeini transferred his exile from Turkey to the holy Shiite city of Najaf not during Saddam Hussein’s rule but fourteen years before Saddam seized power. Security Council resolution 242 was passed in November 1967, not 1968; Anwar Sadat of Egypt signed a peace treaty with Israel in 1979, not 1977, and was assassinated in October 1981, not 1979. Yitzhak Rabin was Minister of Defence, not prime minister, during the first Palestinian intifada, and al-Qaeda was established not in 1998 but a decade earlier. And so on and so forth." - on 2007-09-18
- La ville de Sumer a beaucoup plus que 2000 ans. Ce genre d'inexactitude rend méfiant quant au reste des informations.
MoorishGirl: Letter to America
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We want the world to know that our rulers do not represent the Iranian people and that their religion is not the religion of the entire nation. We ask that in shaping its policies toward the Iranian regime, the United States not overlook the interests of Iranian civil society. In particular, we hope that America listens to those in Iran who fear that policies intended to contain the current crisis might in fact lead to a greater crisis, and to war.
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