Writes:写道： BOB HERBERT 鲍勃赫伯特
Race is like pornography in the United States — the dirty stories and dirty pictures that everyone professes to hate but no one can resist.种族一样，是色情的美国-肮脏的故事和肮脏的图片，每个人都自称仇恨，但任何人都阻挡不了。 But I suspect that even porn addicts get their fill sometimes.但我怀疑，即使是色情成瘾者得到他们填写有时。
We’ve allowed the entire political process in what is perhaps the most important election in the US since World War II to become thoroughly warped by the histrionics of a loony preacher from the South Side of Chicago.我们已经使整个政治过程中什么是最重要的也许选举，在美国自第二次世界大战以来，成为彻底扭曲由histrionics一个loony的布道者从南侧芝加哥。
Most of the electorate understands that the US is in sorry shape, which is why more than 80 percent of poll respondents say we’re on the wrong track.大多数的选民的理解是，美国是在很抱歉的形状，这就是为什么百分之八十以上的受访者说，我们正在对错误的轨道。 The Rev. Jeremiah Wright has nothing to do with any of that.牧师耶利米赖特完全没有任何表示。 The idea that his nonsense may shape the outcome of this election is both tragic and absurd… [的想法，他的废话，可能形状这次选举的结果是既悲惨和荒谬的… … [ more ] 更多 ]
REFERENCES: 参考文献：
Editorial Reviews: Dark Ages America: The Final Phase of Empire 编辑评语：黑暗的中世纪美利坚合众国：最后阶段的帝国
From Publishers Weekly: In this provocative, scattershot jeremiad, cultural historian Berman (The Twilight of American Culture) likens America to ancient Rome on the brink.从出版家周刊：在这方面的挑衅， scattershot jeremiad ，文化历史学家伯曼（晚年美国文化） likens美国对古罗马的边缘。 On the geopolitical plane, he contends, the United States is a belligerent, overstretched empire, saddled with huge deficits and a hollowed-out economy, vulnerable to terrorist blowback and, worse, collapse if foreign creditors finally pull the plug.对地缘政治的飞机，他争辩说，美国是一个好战的，过度的帝国，负担庞大赤字，以及掏空出经济，容易受到恐怖blowback ，更糟的是，崩溃，如果外国债权人最后拉堵塞。
The rot is cultural and spiritual, too: Americans are cold, alienated shopaholics immured in suburban anomie, each encased in a private bubble of iTunes and media noise and indifferent to the public good.该腐病是文化和精神，太：美国人的冷战，疏离， shopaholics immured在郊区失范，每个包裹在一个私人泡沫的iTunes和媒体的噪音和漠不关心，向公众良好。 Culprits include globalization, technology and, more fundamentally, the individualism and commercialism that is the bedrock of American identity.匪徒包括：全球化，技术和，更根本的，个人主义和商业，这是基石，美国的身份。 Because American civilization is a “package deal,” the author considers it impervious to piecemeal reform and, given Americans’ ingrained “stupidity” and willful blindness, unsalvageable.因为美国的文明是一个“一揽子交易” ，作者认为，防渗，以零零碎碎的改革，鉴于美国人根深蒂固的“愚蠢”和意志的盲目性， unsalvageable 。
Berman’s attempts to tie every American dysfunction to an all-encompassing sickness of soul overreaches, leading him to lump together serious issues like poverty and the Abu Ghraib outrages with trivialities like annoying cell phone yakkers or the “freedom fries” phenomenon, which he bemoans as “symbolic of an emptiness at the core.” Often stimulating and insightful in its particulars, his indictment, like the jingoism it abhors, is too sweeping and essentialist to fully capture American reality.伯尔曼的企图，以配合每一个美国人功能障碍，以一个包罗万象的疾病的灵魂， overreaches ，导致他一笔过一起严重的问题一样，贫穷和阿布格莱布暴行与trivialities一样，烦人的手机yakkers或“自由薯条”的现象，这是他bemoans作为“象征性的一空虚，处于核心地位。 ”往往刺激和有见地的在其详情，他的起诉书，就像jingoism它憎恶，过于笼统和本质，充分捕捉美国的现实。
From Booklist: A despairing analyst of contemporary America, Berman continues criticism begun in The Twilight of American Culture (2000). 从书目：绝望的分析师当代美国，伯尔曼继续批评开始，在晚年的美国文化（ 2000年） 。 One character crystallizing Berman’s thoughts is President George W. Bush, under whom, according to Berman, the US is incipiently, if not actually, suffering a “presidential dictatorship,” a “de facto Christian theocratic plutocracy.” In that vein, Berman undertakes a wide-ranging condemnation of American economic and foreign policy of the past 50 years, which he believes has propelled America into disastrous decline.一个字符结晶伯尔曼的思想，是布什总统，根据人，根据伯尔曼，美国是incipiently ，如果不是，其实，痛苦的“总统独裁” ， “事实上的基督教神权plutocracy 。 ”在这方面，伯尔曼开展了广泛的谴责，美国的经济和外交政策，过去50年来，他认为已推进到美国的灾难性下降。
That Berman inveighs against free markets and thinks the cold war was partly a dynamic of the Soviet Union acting defensively infuses this work with a solidly leftist viewpoint.伯尔曼说， inveighs反对自由市场和认为，冷战结束，部分是一个动态的，把苏联的代理在防守上，注入这方面的工作与扎实的左派观点。 In Berman’s vigorous arrangement of evidence, current events are propelling us upon an irreversibly downward trajectory toward a societal situation resembling the Dark Ages.在伯尔曼的大力安排的证据，目前发生的事件是我们推进后，一不可逆的下降轨迹，对一个社会的情况相似的黑暗时代。 However, Berman offers no positive ideas to reverse this perceived free fall, making his tome more of an alarm than a solution.– Gilbert Taylor然而，伯尔曼提供任何积极的想法，以扭转这种知觉免费下降，使他圣多美和普林西比更多的报警比解决.- 吉尔伯特泰勒
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