November 1987
American Purpose
Issue 9, Volume 1

Publication Date: November 1, 1987
Posted: Sunday, November 11, 1987

This issue includes 'Sink the U.N.?'; 'Compound Ignorance'; 'Decline and Fall'; 'Senator Bradley on the Chautauqua Circuit'; 'Listening to the Central American Bishops'; and 'In Brief'.


In This Issue :

Sink the U.N.?
Charles Krauthammer, the Pulitzer Prize-winning essayist of The New Republic, would have been a tough prosecutor had his agile mind turned to the practice of law rather than the practice of commentary. Writing in the flagship journal of American liberalism, Krauthammer has brought a powerful indictment against the United Nations that ought to be pondered by anyone concerned with peace, freedom, and security. [More]

Compound Ignorance
In the spring of 1986, a statistically representative sample of 8,000 American 17-year-olds enrolled in U.S. history courses was surveyed by the Department of Education on their knowledge of basic historical facts. The results were, well, striking:  [More]

Decline and Fall
Max Lerner, the syndicated columnist who began his career on the farther reaches of the American Left in the 1930s, but who has moved steadily toward the center in later years, recently wondered about the currently fashionable notion that the United States is, inevitably, a declining power in world politics. Has America really become "another Rome," a calcified empire out of touch with contemporary reality and doomed to failure? [More]

Senator Bradley on the Chautauqua Circuit
At the end of August, Senator Bill Bradley (D-New Jersey) gave a speech to a Chautauqua, New York, conference on U.S./Soviet relations, the conference being part of the President's U.S./Soviet Exchange Initiative. Bradley's remarks, excerpted below, were further reason to regret the senator's apparent decision to absent himself from a direct role in the making of the president, 1988: [More]

Listening to the Central American Bishops
That American activists and policy makers should "listen to the Church in Central America" is a regular antiphon in public debate over U.S. policy toward El Salvador and Nicaragua. This past July, a delegation of bishops representing the U.S. Catholic Conference met in San Jose, Costa Rica, with ten bishops from the Central American episcopal conference. The joint communiqué issued at the end of the meeting emphasized the responsibilities of governments to address the grave problems of Central American refugees; stressed the importance of political solutions to the region's multiple and related conflicts; applauded the rise of democracy throughout Latin America; and urged that U.S. policy toward Central America emphasize economic assistance for development. [More]

In Brief
The London Spectator ran a contest this past summer, inviting its readers to "compose a speech or letter to accompany a peculiar present from one contemporary head of government to another." The winner was one Basil Ransome-Davies, who offered the following gem: [More]