Here's the first half:
Hierarchical Republican Culture-- transcript of an interview with Andrew Schmookler, part 1 Thanks to Don Caldarazzo for doing the transcript.
Rob Kall: How's that going to happen as long as there is
one person or one group that exploits power and weapons?
Andrew Schmookler: The reason that this power was a contaminate was that there was no overarching order to regulate the interactions; so it meant that there was nothing of any power in the way of somebody doing that. You need an immune system; because there is always going to be a pathogen, but a pathogen into the civilization of the last x-thousand years has been a pathogen in an organism that has very little resistance, if any.
But in the course of
the 20th Century, ideas and organizations have been developing in
fits and starts: we work toward global treaties, we have a nuclear
non-proliferation treaty, we try to start making decision together; and it was
moving in that direction, but of course this force on the Right will have none
of it. They are not interested in a Law
of the Sea, they're not interested in treaties banning destabilizing weapons
systems like "Star Wars." It's just that
there are directions the world has to move.
I thought, when I first saw this back in the 1970s, when I first started
seeing things really clearly in this kind of way, I really thought that by now
we would have turned the corner, and we are in worse shape now than back in the
70s.
Rob Kall: Why?
Andrew Schmookler:
Why? (Repeating question back)
Rob Kall: Why are we
in worse shape now?
Andrew Schmookler:
OK. There are different levels to
the answer. The immediate level of
answer is, "Because this force has seized hold of one of America's two major
parties, and because it has been successful in getting enough power to demolish
much of the country (through the Bush presidency and now through an opposition
that is doing everything it can from keeping anything good from being
accomplished), it has damaged us seriously.
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