And Now For Something Completely Different

Elvis Perkins is the genuine article. You heard it here first. LISTEN UP!

Sane Commentary by Russell Jacoby

Who has also published an appreciation of Matthew Arnold in his 1999 book, The End of Utopia (Basic Books). Click here to read his remarks on the "liberal" professoriat.

Intelligent Commentary from the WSWS

We must always try to keep a close watch on Cheney, slippery Satanic figure that he is.

Matthew Arnold

I have been re-discovering Arnold of late. The degree to which he is neglected or, worse, perversely misunderstood, seems to me to be an index of the degree to which our intellectual life thins to mere posturing. I intend this remark as a self-criticism. Posturing is all too easy today as the brute fact of one's political powerlessness and cultural marginalization is pressed home. Much of what I post on this blog is analogous to grafitti. If I could, I would have covered the walls of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with screeds and tirades; lacking that outlet, I knock off a few lines of vituperation every so often, to blow off steam. But it is all only an indication of my helplessness. The bridge is out, the school bus blows past, I shout and wave ridiculously to the driver. The kids look out the windows and pull faces or give me the finger. "Who was that crazy guy?" one asks. "That was my Dad," another answers. The driver is heedless, drunk or mad. The bus speeds forward. My heart can barely take the strain. I never intended to put you on that bus, my son...I always intended something better for you...Forgive me. How was I to know?

Arnold knew, which is why, when I was assigned to read him back in 10th grade (if not earlier), I found him such a bitter drink that I savored him only briefly, then spit him out. Of Arnold, Bloom has written:

Arnold is a Romantic poet who did not wish to be one, an impossible conflict which caused him finally to abandon poetry for literary criticism and prose prophecy...But much abides in his work, and he is usefully prophetic also of the anti-Romantic "Modernism" of our time, so much of which, like Arnold, has turned out to be Romantic in spite of itself.

I rarely find it useful to gainsay Harold's judgments. This instance is no exception.

And Speaking of Laughing Through Our Tears...

Bush and his co-conspirator Tony Blair are having dinner at the White House discussing World War III. Laura, always a little slow on the uptake, asks, "Now what are you boys talking about?" George replies, "Heh, heh. Sweetie, we're makin' plans for World War III." "That's my George," gushes Mrs. Bush, "always thinking ahead. So what's the plan?" "Well," says George, "we were thinkin' we'd kill about 12 million Muslims and 1 dentist." "What?" says Laura, confused. "What's with the dentist?" George turns to Tony and says, "See? I told you no one would ask about the Muslims!"

Tom Tomorrow

I swear that some days, if it weren't for this comic, I think I might have gone postal.

Clintonian Hubris

Back in 1998, when the Lewinsky scandal broke, then President Bill Clinton had an opportunity to give to this nation what, in retrospect, could have been the greatest gift to our democracy that any president has given since Ike's farewell address. Had it not been for his infection with the disease of American Exceptionalism--and his application of it to himself--Bill Clinton could have admitted his mistake and then done what at one time was expected of our leaders who disgrace the dignity of their elected office: Bill Clinton could have, indeed should have, resigned.

Had he done so, George W. Bush would have been put in the position of running for office in 2000 against an incumbent President, Al Gore. The theft of Florida's electoral votes would still have occured, but it may not have been enough to overcome a President Gore victory.

Of course, we must not forget that the Al Gore of 2000 and the Al Gore of 2007 are of a different quality. I am of the opinion that the one person in this country who truly benefited from the Republican's electoral fraud was Al Gore himself. (Yes, the Republican's have so far gotten away with armed robbery and mass murder, but I do not count one's ability to elude justice as a "benefit"). Al benefited because he was finally forced to reckon with the harsh reality of American politics in its 21st century incarnation. And Al, despite a life of privilege, will, when forced, reflect.

George W. Bush will never reflect--except perhaps when faced with the exigency of the hangman's noose pursuant to the judgment of an international war crimes tribunal. And even then, I would imagine that he would confidently await the arrival of Poppy with the cavalry to bail him out yet again, rather than contemplate seriously his criminality.

But enough about Bushian hubris, our subject is the Clintonian variety. A friend of mine emailed me just this morning some notes on the Other Clinton: Her Royal Clinton-ness. He writes:

"It makes no sense to me that HRC will not admit to a mistake on her 2002 War Resolution vote. The Press is now fixated on it and the (primary) voters are similarly fixated. I think that her refusal to admit to a mistake will continue to snowball and drag her down and down until she issues a mea culpa. And the longer she waits, the more damage she does to herself, and the bigger the apology she will have to muster."

Bill's hubris hurt all of us; with any luck, Hillary's hubris will serve only to damage beyond repair her chances for the White House.

The Price of Liberty

The most deadly mythology in the world today is the myth of American Exceptionalism. It is a disease that induces the foulest brand of hypocrisy. It enables one to look upon the fact that Saddam Hussein presided over government-sponsored homocidal acts with retributive fury and, at the same time, to countenance the fact that George W. Bush has presided over (and continues to preside over) government-sponsored homocidal acts with equanimity--and even self-righteous jubilation. Bush and his accomplices deserve the same version of legal process afforded Mr. Hussein. Let us recall that Barbara Bush has already uttered the moral equivalent of "Let them eat cake," during the Katrina crisis. We must rid ourselves of the House of Bush, but we must not stop there. The Bushes are but an obvious symptom of the disease of conceit. Take it away, Bob:

There's a whole lot of people suffering tonight
From the disease of conceit.
Whole lot of people struggling tonight
From the disease of conceit.
Comes right down the highway,
Straight down the line,
Rips into your senses
Through your body and your mind.
Nothing about it that's sweet,
The disease of conceit.

There's a whole lot of hearts breaking tonight
From the disease of conceit,
Whole lot of hearts shaking tonight
From the disease of conceit.
Steps into your room,
Eats your soul,
Over your senses
You have no control.
Ain't nothing too discreet
About of disease of conceit.

There's a whole lot of people dying tonight
From the disease of conceit,
Whole lot of people crying tonight
From the disease of conceit,
Comes right out of nowhere
And you're down for the count
From the outside world,
The pressure will mount,
Turn you into a piece of meat,
The disease of conceit.

Conceit is a disease
That the doctors got no cure
They've done a lot of research on it
But what it is, they're still not sure

There's a whole lot of people in trouble tonight
From the disease of conceit,
Whole lot of people seeing double tonight
From the disease of conceit,
Give ya delusions of grandeur
And a evil eye
Give you idea that
You're too good to die,
Then they bury you from your head to your feet
From the disease of conceit.


Copyright © 1989 Special Rider Music

To root out the moral disease that has infected large sections of the American populace is a generational task. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. We got lazy, comfortable after the Second World War. We let our collective guard down. The MIC proved to be every bit as dangerous as Ike predicted. We are in trouble now. But we shall overcome. Hillary is not the answer. Moral--indeed--Prophetic vision alone will save us (and many others around the world) from the deadly consequences of American hubris. Who will step forward to rid us of the cancer that is the myth of American Exceptionalism?

Lying Liars and the Lies They Tell

Pace Demurs on Accusation of Iran
By Karen DeYoung
The Washington Post

Tuesday 13 February 2007

General says he knows nothing tying leaders to arms in Iraq.

Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said yesterday that he has no information indicating Iran's government is directing the supply of lethal weapons to Shiite insurgent groups in Iraq.

"We know that the explosively formed projectiles are manufactured in Iran," Pace told Voice of America during a visit to Australia. "What I would not say is that the Iranian government, per se, knows about this."

"It is clear that Iranians are involved, and it's clear that materials from Iran are involved," he continued, "but I would not say by what I know that the Iranian government clearly knows or is complicit."

Pace's comments came a day after U.S. military officials in Baghdad alleged that the "highest levels" of the Iranian government have directed use of weapons that are killing U.S. troops in Iraq. No information was provided to substantiate the charge. Administration officials yesterday deflected requests for more details, even as they repeatedly implied Tehran's involvement.

In an interview yesterday with ABC's "Good Morning America," Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said the administration is "pointing fingers at others" when its troop presence in Iraq is the source of most of the country's problems.

While not denying that Iranian weapons may have been found in Iraq, Ahmadinejad implied that if they were, it was not his government's doing. "Can Americans close their long borders?" he asked, noting that "millions" of Iranians cross the border into neighboring Iraq each year. "The position of our government ... and the position of the Revolutionary Guard is also the same: We are opposed to any kind of conflict in Iraq."

On Sunday, in a briefing for reporters, U.S. military officials in Baghdad offered a slide show and examples of armor-piercing explosives that they said bore writing and serial numbers from Iran. Briefers, speaking anonymously for what they said were security reasons, said the weapons had caused the deaths of 170 U.S. soldiers in the past two years. No cameras were allowed in the briefing room, and a transcript of the session was not provided.

The officials also showed what they said were false identity cards of Iranians whom U.S. forces had recently detained in Iraq. The men were described as members of the Quds Force, an elite unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard that U.S. officials believe is under the control of Iran's supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

"We have been able to determine that this material," especially sophisticated roadside explosives called explosively formed penetrators, "is coming from the IRGC-Quds Force," said a briefer, identified only as a senior defense analyst. Direction for operations using the weaponry, he said, came from the "highest levels" of Iran's government.

Asked by reporters yesterday to provide more information on the charge, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said, "The Iranians are up to their eyeballs in this activity." He called the Baghdad presentation a "very strong circumstantial case," saying he was "not going to try to embellish that briefing" and "any reasonable person ... would draw the same conclusions."

White House spokesman Tony Snow offered similar responses. "Let me put it this way," he said. "There's not a whole lot of freelancing in the Iranian government, especially when it comes to something like that."

Pressed repeatedly, Snow answered, "Look, the Department of Defense is doing this. What I'm telling you is, you guys want to get those questions answered, you need to go to the Pentagon."

A call to the Defense Intelligence Agency brought a referral to the main Pentagon press office. That office referred a caller to the Washington office of the Multi-National Force-Iraq, which responded with an e-mailed copy of Sunday's briefing slides - containing no mention of the "highest levels" allegation and a request for questions in writing. Written questions brought no response. An official from the Pentagon Joint Staff said last night that Pace had seen the briefing slides but had "no personal knowledge of any senior involvement by senior Iranian officials."

Members of Congress have repeatedly asked whether the administration is planning a repeat in Iran of its 2003 invasion of Iraq. Intelligence findings that Iraq's Saddam Hussein had stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction and had close ties to al-Qaeda turned out to be almost entirely false.

Sunday's briefing on Iran, originally scheduled for last month, had been delayed as officials said they were trying to avoid "overstating" what they could prove.

"There are certainly those who are in favor" of war with Iran, Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.) said Sunday of the Bush administration on CBS's "Face the Nation." "We've seen that in the past that they would like nothing more than to build a case for that."

In recent weeks, the administration has denied any war plans, saying it is committed to a strategy of pressure and diplomacy against Iran's nuclear activities, operations in Iraq and other aggression.

In an interview yesterday with C-SPAN, President Bush described his policy as "comprehensive" and complained that charges he is planning to attack Iran are politically motivated and "typical Washington."

And Then There's Hillary...

ENGAGING HILLARY ON NUKING IRAN
By Anne Miller:

I first heard Hillary Clinton speak some sixteen years ago when I was a student at Wellesley College. At that time, she was stumping for her husband’s first presidential campaign and also speaking passionately about the need to protect and nurture our most valuable resource: children. I liked her then (she was a Wellesley woman, after all), voted for her husband, and can still remember the sense of elation I felt on that Tuesday evening in November 1992 when Bill Clinton won the U.S. Presidency.

On Saturday afternoon, I pressed into the Concord High School gym with hundreds of others to see and hear what Hillary had to say about her own presidential vision. As I found a seat I pondered an idea that could make any feminist giddy: For the first time in U.S. history, there could be a woman president!

During the program, she said some things I really liked. She was adamant about keeping abortion “safe, legal and rare,” and mentioned the need for conservation twice during her speech. (That said, she had a black glossy SUV waiting for her outside that I’d bet gets less than fourteen mpg.) However, she had nothing of substance to say about Iraq. And she did not commit to do the one thing that the Senate can do within its constitutional power to end the Iraq occupation – vote against the $100 billion supplemental budget request when it comes up for a vote later this spring.

Afterwards I joined the throng surrounding her – most were people who wanted books signed and pictures taken, for she really is like a rock star – to ask her about a statement she made last week about Iran in which she said “no options are off the table.” I asked her how she could threaten nuclear genocide on another nation’s children. She told me that we cannot tolerate a nuclear-armed Iran, for it would be an “existential” threat to the U.S., and repeated that all options are on the table. When I tried to ask her about the very real role the U.S. is playing in spurring proliferation with our repeated threats and actual nuclear arsenals, she said she didn’t want to discuss it and turned away stiffly.

Now I’m really glad that I majored in philosophy at Wellesley, so I have at least a cursory grasp of concepts like “existential.” It’s interesting that Hillary used the word, because it’s not a term used much in American political vernacular. It’s much more common in Israel, where the term is used to describe possible, rather than actual, threats. For instance, from Israel’s perspective, the whole Middle East is an existential threat.

Yes, Hillary, we do need moral leadership. We need candidates from both sides of the political aisle who are staunchly committed to solutions for international challenges grounded in diplomacy, international law, and human rights, instead of military power and the threat and use of nuclear weapons. It’s not Hillary’s being a woman that is a problem - it’s her humanity. Never again can the U.S. use nuclear weapons on another nation’s children. And we, the good citizens of New Hampshire, must not support any candidate who believe that the use of nuclear weapons can ever be an option.


{Bold added}

Karl Rove--Remember him?--Is Back and Cranking Up the Propaganda Machine

They are back in business--"they" meaning the Christo-fascists of the White House war party. And the Newspaper of Record is back on board:

February 10, 2007
Editor & Publisher

'NYT' Reporter Who Got Iraqi WMDs Wrong Now Highlights Iran Claims
by Greg Mitchell

Saturdays New York Times features an article, posted at the top of its Web site late Friday, that suggests very strongly that Iran is supplying the deadliest weapon aimed at American troops in Iraq. The author notes, Any assertion of an Iranian contribution to attacks on Americans in Iraq is both politically and diplomatically volatile.

What is the source of this volatile information? Nothing less than civilian and military officials from a broad range of government agencies.

Sound pretty convincing? Well, almost all the sources in the story are unnamed. It also may be worth noting that the author is Michael R. Gordon, the same Times reporter who, on his own, or with Judith Miller, wrote some of the key, and badly misleading or downright inaccurate, articles about Iraqi WMDs in the run-up to the 2003 invasion.

Gordon wrote with Miller the paper's most widely criticized -- even by the Times itself -- WMD story of all, the Sept. 8, 2002, aluminum tubes story that proved so influential, especially since the administration trumpeted it on TV talk shows.

When the Times eventually carried an editors note that admitted some of its Iraq coverage was wrong and/or overblown, it criticized two Miller-Gordon stories, and
noted that the Sept. 8, 2002, article on page one of the newspaper "gave the first detailed account of the aluminum tubes. The article cited unidentified senior administration officials who insisted that the dimensions, specifications and numbers of tubes sought showed that they were intended for a nuclear weapons program."

This, of course, proved bogus.

The Times mea-culpa story dryly observed: "The article gave no hint of a debate over the tubes," adding, "The White House did much to increase the impact of The Times article." This was the famous "mushroom cloud" over America article.

Gordon also wrote, following Secretary of State Colin Powell's crucial, and appallingly wrong, speech to the United Nations in 2003 that helped sell the war, that "it will be difficult for skeptics to argue that Washington's case against Iraq is based on groundless suspicions and not intelligence information."

Now, more than four years later, Gordon reveals: The Bush administration is expected to make public this weekend some of what intelligence agencies regard as an increasing body of evidence pointing to an Iranian link, including information gleaned from Iranians and Iraqis captured in recent American raids on an Iranian office in Erbil and another site in Baghdad. Gordon's unnamed sources throughout the story are variously described as "Administration officials," "intelligence experts" and "American intelligence." . . .

Al Franken

Al Franken is running for the U.S. Senate. My God! Can you imagine what would happen if the halls of Congress were filled with satirists instead of lawyers and lobbyists? This may be the single most significant political event in the history of this country--IF (and that's a big "if")--this is the beginning of a trend. But it has to be the beginning of a trend or it will never rise above the level of novelty (a welcome, healthy novelty, mind you) to the level of a revolution in sanity. Sheeeeit! I'm almost tempted to move to Minnesota so I can say with pride, "Al Franken is my senator." Now if we can convince that other Minnesota satirist Garrison Keillor to run for President, all might be well with our world. Then Garrison appoints yet another Minnesota satirist (Bob Dylan) secretary of state...Things would indeed be rollin', Bob....

A Message To George W. Bush and His Co-Conspirators in All Branches of Government

Keep your stinking, filthy, lying, blood-stained hands off Iran.

We Are Living In the Golden Age of Bumper-Sticker Wisdom

...thanks, in part, to the Bush Conspiracy (I won't dignify this unending series of disasters with the word "Administration"). Libertystickers.com has an enviable selection. My favorite is:

If you still think they hate us because we are free, perhaps you should read instead of watching TV.

Downright poetic. And speaking of poetry, here is a Coleman Barks rendering of Rumi for Valentine's Day:

If you want what visible reality
can give, you are an employee.

if you want the unseen world,
you are not living with your truth.

both wishes are foolish,
but you'll be forgiven for forgetting
that what you really want is
love's confusing joy.

In 1961, Ike Prophesied; In 2007, We Reap the Whirlwind

Public Papers of the Presidents, Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1960, p. 1035- 1040

My fellow Americans:

Three days from now, after half a century in the service of our country, I shall lay down the responsibilities of office as, in traditional and solemn ceremony, the authority of the Presidency is vested in my successor.

This evening I come to you with a message of leave-taking and farewell, and to share a few final thoughts with you, my countrymen.

Like every other citizen, I wish the new President, and all who will labor with him, Godspeed. I pray that the coming years will be blessed with peace and prosperity for all.

Our people expect their President and the Congress to find essential agreement on issues of great moment, the wise resolution of which will better shape the future of the Nation.

My own relations with the Congress, which began on a remote and tenuous basis when, long ago, a member of the Senate appointed me to West Point, have since ranged to the intimate during the war and immediate post-war period, and, finally, to the mutually interdependent during these past eight years.

In this final relationship, the Congress and the Administration have, on most vital issues, cooperated well, to serve the national good rather than mere partisanship, and so have assured that the business of the Nation should go forward. So, my official relationship with the Congress ends in a feeling, on my part, of gratitude that we have been able to do so much together.

II.

We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among great nations. Three of these involved our own country. Despite these holocausts America is today the strongest, the most influential and most productive nation in the world. Understandably proud of this pre-eminence, we yet realize that America's leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment.

III.

Throughout America's adventure in free government, our basic purposes have been to keep the peace; to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among people and among nations. To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people. Any failure traceable to arrogance, or our lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt both at home and abroad.

Progress toward these noble goals is persistently threatened by the conflict now engulfing the world. It commands our whole attention, absorbs our very beings. We face a hostile ideology -- global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method. Unhappily the danger is poses promises to be of indefinite duration. To meet it successfully, there is called for, not so much the emotional and transitory sacrifices of crisis, but rather those which enable us to carry forward steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle -- with liberty the stake. Only thus shall we remain, despite every provocation, on our charted course toward permanent peace and human betterment.

Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution to all current difficulties. A huge increase in newer elements of our defense; development of unrealistic programs to cure every ill in agriculture; a dramatic expansion in basic and applied research -- these and many other possibilities, each possibly promising in itself, may be suggested as the only way to the road we wish to travel.

But each proposal must be weighed in the light of a broader consideration: the need to maintain balance in and among national programs -- balance between the private and the public economy, balance between cost and hoped for advantage -- balance between the clearly necessary and the comfortably desirable; balance between our essential requirements as a nation and the duties imposed by the nation upon the individual; balance between actions of the moment and the national welfare of the future. Good judgment seeks balance and progress; lack of it eventually finds imbalance and frustration.

The record of many decades stands as proof that our people and their government have, in the main, understood these truths and have responded to them well, in the face of stress and threat. But threats, new in kind or degree, constantly arise. I mention two only.

IV.

A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.

Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.

In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present

• and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientifictechnological elite.

It is the task of statesmanship to mold, to balance, and to integrate these and other forces, new and old, within the principles of our democratic system -- ever aiming toward the supreme goals of our free society.

V.

Another factor in maintaining balance involves the element of time. As we peer into society's future, we -- you and I, and our government -- must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering, for our own ease and convenience, the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.

VI.

Down the long lane of the history yet to be written America knows that this world of ours, ever growing smaller, must avoid becoming a community of dreadful fear and hate, and be instead, a proud confederation of mutual trust and respect.

Such a confederation must be one of equals. The weakest must come to the conference table with the same confidence as do we, protected as we are by our moral, economic, and military strength. That table, though scarred by many past frustrations, cannot be abandoned for the certain agony of the battlefield.

Disarmament, with mutual honor and confidence, is a continuing imperative. Together we must learn how to compose differences, not with arms, but with intellect and decent purpose. Because this need is so sharp and apparent I confess that I lay down my official responsibilities in this field with a definite sense of disappointment. As one who has witnessed the horror and the lingering sadness of war -- as one who knows that another war could utterly destroy this civilization which has been so slowly and painfully built over thousands of years -- I wish I could say tonight that a lasting peace is in sight.

Happily, I can say that war has been avoided. Steady progress toward our ultimate goal has been made. But, so much remains to be done. As a private citizen, I shall never cease to do what little I can to help the world advance along that road.

VII.

So -- in this my last good night to you as your President -- I thank you for the many opportunities you have given me for public service in war and peace. I trust that in that service you find some things worthy; as for the rest of it, I know you will find ways to improve performance in the future.

You and I -- my fellow citizens -- need to be strong in our faith that all nations, under God, will reach the goal of peace with justice. May we be ever unswerving in devotion to principle, confident but humble with power, diligent in pursuit of the Nation's great goals.

To all the peoples of the world, I once more give expression to America's prayerful and continuing aspiration:

We pray that peoples of all faiths, all races, all nations, may have their great human needs satisfied; that those now denied opportunity shall come to enjoy it to the full; that all who yearn for freedom may experience its spiritual blessings; that those who have freedom will understand, also, its heavy responsibilities; that all who are insensitive to the needs of others will learn charity; that the scourges of poverty, disease and ignorance will be made to disappear from the earth, and that, in the goodness of time, all peoples will come to live together in a peace guaranteed by the binding force of mutual respect and love.