This analysis provides a fact-based examination of the doctrine of nationalism and its idol, the national interest, couched within the context of twentieth century wartime presidential speeches and writings. What is significant about this rhetoric is that it provides a clear delineation of the growth of nationalism as America’s underlying political ideology and has fueled reliance on the concept of the national interest in guiding foreign affairs. By building public policies around their own perceptions of what is in the public (...) good—perceptions at times motivated by genuine patriotism, but all too often motivated by private interests—America’s political leaders have routinely resorted to lies and subterfuge as the means to their nationalist ends. Presidents and their advisers have learned that by exerting their power over the people, by controlling the content and context of political discourse, they can manipulate public opinion, winning support for policies and actions that appear to serve public interests, but in actuality are opposed to what people want or need. (shrink)

By technology, Martin Heidegger is referring to modern industrial technology, as opposed to older handicraft technology, or craft. Technology gives a way of viewing the world and everything in it as resources, the purpose of which is to serve further applications of technology. This is how the Borg views the universe, as raw material that they can assimilate into the Collective to feed their quest to continually assimilate more. The Borg also views the assimilation of species as an improvement, not (...) only of the Collective, but also of the species being assimilated. The Borg's assimilation of Picard shows how a shift in the perspective can help to change the relationship to technology, and might offer some hope that technology may not be able to sustain the challenging of all of nature. Society is being ordered on a global level so as to enable faster technological developments. (shrink)

Heaven falls into chaos during God's absence, and Hell becomes fairly democratic. With Lucifer caged up and out of the picture, demons build a relatively civil society through contracts. This is sovereignty by institution as opposed to acquisition. The leviathans are unlike the angels in that the angels lacked a unity of wills. Driven by their nature, people—and angels—cannot live in harmony without a central and absolute authority to keep them in order. Without the presence of God to command the (...) angels there can be no peace, only a natural state of war. The fact that even the heavenly host can fall into a Hobbesian state of nature does not bode well for humanity, but maybe that's why business has been so good for the King of the Crossroads. Each demon, after all, has willingly agreed to enter into the civil society of Hell. (shrink)