The times they are a’changing. The contrast is very stark: Authoritarian powers and dupes of leaders are falling like dominoes around the world. Those hanging onto their power through iron-fisted control tremble in the face of something brewing beyond their control. Even in our own supposedly democratic government, there is exposed the most glaring self-centeredness, [...]
“These are the times that try mens’ souls.” These famous words of Thomas Paine from his pamphlet “The Crisis”, written during the American Revolutionary War, stirred the spirit of all Americans of that difficult time. The words might as well have been uttered today. Paine lived and wrote amid two great revolutions: The American Revolution, [...]
The uprisings and revolts taking place throughout the Arab world are astonishing harbingers of a new world order emerging, not only in that part of the globe, but all over the planet. We have not yet seen the true face of this revolution. The old ways are no longer holding. Autocracy is on its way [...]
Walt Whitman, the great bard of America, sang of simple men and women, and of a promise of America that went way beyond the economic dream that is now so associated with the American Dream. In “Democratic Vistas”, he wrote: “I hail with joy the oceanic, variegated, intense practical energy, the demand for facts, even [...]
Great Leaders: The U.S., the Mideast & Elsewhere.
By jimhilgendorf1 on February 24th, 2011
A commentary on leaders appeared on one of the news programs this week. A young lady somewhere in the Mideast, amid all the turmoil unfolding around the world, gave her own assessment: “I don’t really care who our leaders are. I don’t feel it really matters. None of them are working for the people. They [...]