Reading for the Day

Jürgen Habermas on the current American political spectrum. (Logos)

The militarization of life domestically and abroad, the bellicose policies which open themselves up to infection by their opponent’s own methods, and which return the Hobbesian state to the world stage where the globalization of markets had seemed to have driven the political into the wings, all this the politically enlightened American populace would have overwhelmingly rejected, if the administration had not, with force, shameless propaganda, and manipulated insecurity, exploited the shock of September 11. For a European observer and a twice-shy child such as I, the systematic intimidation and indoctrination of the population and the restrictions on the scope of permitted opinion [...] were unnerving. This was not “my” America.

The Scholarly Lecture: How to Stand and Deliver (Chronicle of Higher Education). The same instruction should be given for preachers.