WILLIAM PHILLIPS
399
confuses
progress with backwardness , while the Right has cast itself in
the role of defending dc:mocracy .
Obviously, there rue no simple answers . And though I agree
with much of what you say, I think your argument is too syllogistic
and hence leaves out many factors . Essentially, your point is that
if
America became so weak that it could not resist Soviet , or Commu–
nist, expansion anywhere, then the kind of freedom that we identify
with Western democracy would almost surely disappear- unless com–
munism, itself, in these circumstances would develop into the free
society that Marx envisaged . As things now stand, I believe you are
right. If America could not defend Western Europe, no doubt it
would go communist and
come
under the Russian sphere of influ–
ence-again, unless it was strong enough to defy the Soviet Union .
But what is assumed in this line of reasoning, is that America and
Europe are stable entities with well defined interests , democratic
commitments, and predictable developments .
The,fact is that America cannot be counted on to defend even
limited forms of democracy , as we have seen in Spain, Portugal, and
Greece, for example, and as we can
flOW
see
in the Mid-East. If Amer–
ica is so dedicated to the defense of Western democracy , how can we
explain the games being played with Israel and the Arabs? I need
hardly remind you that in many,
if
not all, situations, the love of
money is stronger than the love of liberty .
Besides, the strength and stability of Europe and America
de–
pend partly on the ability to solve their political and economic prob–
lems . The power of the Communist parties on the continent is not
due
simply to their clever propaganda or the craving of the intel–
lectuals as well as the masses for political illusions.
And all this talk about America being the bulwark of democracy
does
nothing to ameliorate the conditions that deny it that role . On
the home front, the notion of America's global mission, like most pa–
triotic rhetoric , is actually a substitute for enlightened thinking and
action . The truth is that the country has become a jungle of com–
peting interests and pressure groups , corrupt and anarchic, unable to
plan its economy, its ecology, its traffic , its control of crime, its for–
eign policy , its race problems , its urban decay. This state of affairs
used
to be rationalized by the myth that these contradictions were
es–
sential to democracy .
