Riddle of America, The - Waldorf Research Institute

chine, were unable to secure even a single city from attacks of an enemy,whose strength was but a quarter of a million soldiers.At a luncheon in Chicago on February 8, 1968, Robert Kennedy spokeout strongly against the Vietnam War. He named some of the political illusionsdominating the country’s involvement in Southeast Asia, illusionssurrounding America’s concept of the war in Vietnam which convinced usthat we could win a war the South Vietnamese could not win themselves,that the unswerving pursuit of military victory whatever its cost was in theinterests of ourselves and the people of Vietnam, that America’s nationalinterests were identical with the interests of an incompetent military regime,and that the war could be won our way and on our own terms. Illusions ofsuch tragic consequences can be read in the words of the ideology of theReagan doctrine:Safety lies in the establishment of unequivocal military dominance bythe United States, including the first-strike capacity. If this means anuclear arms race, that is Moscow’s fault, not Washington’s, becauseAmerica’s heart is pure. In any event nuclear weapons are usableand nuclear wars are winnable. We shall prevail. 10This ideology was answered by historian and writer ArthurSchlesinger, Jr., in his article in Foreign Affairs magazine:I no longer have much confidence in the admonitory effect of thepossession of nuclear weapons. The curse of ideology is that it impoverishesour sense of reality, it impoverishes our imagination,too. It enfeebles our capacity to visualize the Doomsday horror. Itinhibits us from confronting the awful possibility of sentient life onthis planet. 11During the first half of the twentieth century, Whitman’s first stage,the political foundations upon which the rights of Americans rest, was notrealized by all. Although American Negroes were freed by legal equality inthe fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the Constitution; restrictions onvoting, plus illiteracy kept federal rights from becoming a reality for millionsof Americans. Segregation was also legalized in 1896 by the Supreme Courtdecision People v. Ferguson. Blacks were refused entrance to trains, schools,hospitals, restaurants, parks and water fountains. They were harassed andhung by racist members of the Ku Klux Klan. These grave inequalities resultedin a life of hate, poverty, and prejudice for millions.313