The most important ‘meeting’ at Davos  was the one between Ernst Cassirer and Martin Heidegger in 1929. See Peter E. Gordon’s book ‘Continental Divide’ for the particulars of this truly momentous meeting/debate, between the two most prominent German philosophers of their time.

That ‘meeting’ is beyond the interest of Mr. Rachman, but he seems very impressed with the whole spectacle of Davos 2017, and the mutterings, overheard conversation, or just off the record comments of the participants, to one of the media’s respected pundits.

Like Mr. Wolf, Mr. Rachman expresses a muted hysteria about the end of ‘the Atlantic alliance’  in his essay. Yet the German economic powerhouse headed by Merkel, and Germany’s economic capo, the European Central Bank, seem to be in a much better position to defend themselves, from the mythical, not to speak of the looming Russian hordes, about to invade Europe, at least as narrated by Samantha  Power, Victoria Nuland, and the rest of the Clinton surrogates and their Neo-Conservative allies. The fact that America does not want to relinquish its foothold in Europe, can be attributed to the simple fact that America is an Empire, and it won’t let go of its claimed protectorate.

You can only marvel at the speech by Huckster Arianna Huffington on Gender Equality, praised in a tweet by @UN_Women, who failed to check Ms. Huffington’s record for exploiting both genders. The fact that her ‘citizen reporters’, at Huffington Post were unpaid isn’t important enough.

And who can forget Tom Friedman interviewing John Kerry? Friedman is that improbable, yet happy combination, of the obsequious, of sanctimonious pretension, the sagacity of Mrs. Malaprop, and the timing of a Borscht Belt comic on the skids:

Mr. Rachman would have written a more believable, more reasoned essay, had he followed and listened to Sec. Kerry, he is a believable  advocate/salesman for the Obama Neo-Liberal agenda, and the shopworn notion of America as the indispensable nation.   Instead Rachman extemporizes on the perpetual theme of The Financial Times: decline and decadence the twin shibboleths of a shopworn Conservatism. The reader of Rachman’s essay would benefit from viewing the Kerry interview to its end.

Political Observer

https://www.ft.com/content/73cc16e8-de36-11e6-86ac-f253db7791c6