The following was sent by Jeff Popke from East Carolina University.Ý It is worth quoting Jeffís message in whole, since it gives a good sense of the power of the quotation for allowing students to reflect on the USís geopolitical ñ and economic ñ role in the world.

 

 

Jeff writes:

 

A very meager response to your call for material.Ý This is I think pretty well known and, by itself, not sufficient to understand the complex issues behind this week's events, but my students were quite stunned by the following quote, taken from Policy Planning Study 23, written by George Kennan for the State Department in 1948.

 

"We have about 50% of the world's wealth, but only 6.3% of its population....Ý In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment.

ÝÝÝÝ Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity....Ý To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives.... We should cease to talk about vague and ... unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of the living standards, and democratization.

ÝÝÝÝ The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better"

 

I originally found the quote in Noam Chomsky's excellent on-line text about US Foreign Policy, "What Uncle Sam Really Wants" which can be found at the Z-net web site:

 

http://www.zmag.org/chomsky/sam/sam-contents.html