A Man of Power
By DOUGLAS LUMMIS
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権力者
権力者とはどんな人のことを言うのだろうか。世界で一番権力があるように振る舞い、実際に各国の人々に影響を与えている米国大統領が果たして本当の権力を持つ人と言えるだろうか。
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"Secret Service where
everywhere. They were standing in the doorways, all
along the street, on the top of
buildings. They all had earphones in one ear, and they
looked tense. And there
was an ambulance at the
end of the street, just in
case, you know. I guess
they always keep an ambulance nearby, since the Kennedy assassination."
My friend was describing a street in a U.S. city
where the President, out on
the campaign trail, was
about to pass. What she
didn't notice was the person
with the black box - so it is
said -may never be farther
away than 17 feet (five meters) from the U.S. Chief
Executive. This is so that in
case he is called upon to
launch a nuclear attack
somewhere in the world, he
can do so immediately.
Think of it: on one side,
an ambulance in case someone shoots bullets into
him: on the other side, a
black box in case he decides
to blow up a couple hundred
thousand people.
According to my friend, when
the president walked into the
street from his hotel, people
were wildly excited, their
eyes shining. "He's shaking
hands!" someone shouted.
People surged forward,
hoping to touch even a fingertip of this man of power.
Power, someone once
said, is an aphrodisiac.
People - some people, anyway - seem to get a sexual
thrill just from touching it or
even standing near it. Others
- a fewer number, I hope -
will give away money, principles, dignity, anything, to have a piece of
it.
When the U.S.
Constitution was first proposed, many democrats
opposed it. They didn't want
any person to have the kind of
power that it gave to the president. We have just fought a
revolution to rid ourselves of monarchy, they
argued, so why should we establish this elective
king?
And in fact, when
George Washington was elected the first U.S. president he
was treated like a king -
"Your Highness" and
such like - until the Congress passed a law that
he should be called only "Mr.
President."
But of
course, the power of the U.S.
presidency then was nothing compared to what it is
now. I suggested above that
he may be the most powerful
person in the world. But is
this so? Certainly recent
U.S. presidents have seemed
to think so.
They have spoken and acted as if
they were president of the
world. They have made policies that affect people all
over the globe, and have
treated the heads of other
governments as if they were
- or ought to be - their
subordinates. If people in
other countries began demanding the right to vote in
U.S. presidential elections,
they'd have a pretty strong
argument, don't you
think?
But whether the
U.S. president is really the
most powerful person depends on what you mean
by power. If power means the
ability to do something new,
to break out of the mold,
to bring into the world something that has not been seen
before, then the U.S. presidency has very little of it.
Look at what two major U.S.
presidential candidates
are talking about this fall -
you'll see what I mean.
Shukan ST: October 20, 2000
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