cheap money. They wanted to be allowed to live their own livesrnwithout interference from government. They wanted no partrnof the foreign wars that the moneyed conservative Eastern classrnso much enjoyed and benefited from. The people knew thatrnthey were the ones who would do the dying while the friendsrnof Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, andrnthe last half-dozen Oval Ones (oddities to a man) made thernmone’. The people at large took seriously George Washington’srnwarning against foreign entanglements. Mind our ownrnbusiness which is business was his advice and so remains therncenterjiiece of the true liberal doctrine.rnWith Franklin Roosevelt, the v^’ords were reversed. Because,rnduring the short-term New Deal, he had made some liberalrnreforms (Social Security), he was thought to be liberal, but atrnheart he was a traditional Eastern conservative, with a love ofrnforeign wars inherited from his first employer, Woodrow Wilson,rnand from his cousin Theodore before that. The people, instinctivelyrnliberal in these matters, and their tribunes wanted nornpart of either the first or the second world wars. So the eonservatirne media, generally anglophile, painted the liberal majorityrnof the country as racist dullards who would not take part inrnprofitable foreign adventures for fear of being killed. The wordrn”isolationist” became synonymous with Southern racism andrnrural backwardness. The conservative minority defeated thernliberal majority, as we all know. Two deadly wars were fought.rnFronr the first we got, aside from the dead and wounded, 15rnyears of the Prohibition of alcohol which turned the wholerncountry- lawless as well as an all-out assault on the Bill of Rightsrnthat has continued, with occasional truces (the Warren Court),rnuntil this morning.rnFrom the second war we got a permanently militarized economyrnwhich, to date, has given us four trillion dollars worth ofrndebt and a worn-out infrastructure which can no longer be repairedrnunless the economy is demilitarized, something our conservativernrulers do not want to do and the liberal majorityrndoesn’t know how to do. An essential part of the militarizedrneconomy is the enormously profitable “war” on drugs whichrnmust always be fought but never, ever won. There would be nornproblem, of course, if the Prohibition were repealed, a liberalrnnotion, of course.rnSo we end up with all the key political words turned insidernout, and once that happens, as Confucius wisely noted, no staternis governable since the people cannot understand their rulersrnand the rulers cannot understand themselves, much less thernpeople. Meanwhile, we must preserve the free world (actuallyrnunfree; we have elections but no politics) from—let’s see, KimrnII Sung’s son and his atomic armada; and then there is Haiti,rnwhere we must restore order and justice and freedom as we didrnwhen Franklin Roosevelt invaded the island (he was in the NavyrnDepartment at the time, and one of the bizarre lies that hernliked to tell ever after was how he, personally, had written thernexcellent constitution of Haiti). Perhaps Gulf War II might bernuseful, to justify the military budget and the taxes that now gornalmost entirely for “Defense” (Social Security income and outgornarc separate from the budget, a fact that is kept permanentlyrnsecret from the taxpayers who are supposed to respond in arnPavlovian way to “wasteful people programs”).rnLet us hope that Kauffman’s ideas start to penetrate andrnthat the potential mind-our-own-business liberal majority willrncome to its senses and convert a military to a peacetime economyrnbefore wc end up with a glamorous Brazilian economy andrnpolitical system as well as, to be fair, a Brazilian-class soccerrnteam.rnOld Newportrnby Rudolph SchiimerrnThe sea is where we left itrnAnd I’m glad to sayrnThe maple has not moved,rnNor has the mansion strayed.rnBut something unforeseenrnOf old is now beheld.rnExperienced, applauded—rnA superb suspension.rnRuler over water.rnSpanner of the gap.rnRising, arching, promisingrnHigh transit, safe and sound.rnIf you could count the leaves.rnWould there be less or more?rnNo matter; they expressrnForever, as we did—rnAnd do. No cleavage, nowrnThat memory revealsrnWhat it preserved: the amaranthinernprototypesrnOf timeless you and me.rnReplete and unforsworn,rnReturning to rekindlernParaphrastic sparks.rnRevisiting a banishedrnHabitat to learn:rnAll is as it will bernWhen Now and Then are one.rnJUNE 1995/17rnrnrn