With Klimt Comes Condemnation
Selling art once stolen by the Nazis sparks controversy.
BY ERIC GIBSON
Christie’s recently announced that, in November, it will sell four paintings by the early-20th-century Austrian modernist Gustav Klimt, works whose combined estimated value is between $93 million and $140 million. The news has caused a sensation, and not only because of the greatness of the art and the size of the price tag.
These Klimts, three landscapes and a portrait, are part of a group of five turned over to Maria Altmann by the Austrian government earlier this year. After a seven-year campaign by Ms. Altmann, 90, Austrian officials finally acknowledged her legal right to ownership. It was, of course, the confiscatory practices of the Third Reich that had disrupted a continuous line of family ownership and had made Ms. Altmann’s claim an emblem of postwar property-rights justice.
Ms. Altmann’s uncle, Ferdinand Bloch-Bauer, had originally owned the five paintings, two of which are portraits of his wife, Adele, who died in 1925. Bloch-Bauer had fled his native Austria in 1938 following the Anschluss, whereupon the Nazis seized his property. Beginning in the early 1940s, the paintings entered Austrian museums, there to remain until this year. Bloch-Bauer spent most of the war in Switzerland, dying in 1945.
Soon after recovering the paintings last winter, Ms. Altmann lent them to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and then to the Neue Galerie, a New York City museum for modern German and Austrian art founded by cosmetics heir Ronald Lauder. (The paintings are still on display there, until Oct. 9.) She also sold the most magnificent work of the five, the shimmering gold portrait “Adele Bloch-Bauer I,” to Mr. Lauder for the eye-popping sum of $135 million.
The reaction to that first sale focused on Mr. Lauder, who had put his five-year-old institution on the map with the acquisition of a major piece of 20th-century art. The reaction to the upcoming Christie’s sale has been, well, different.
New York Times chief art critic Michael Kimmelman inveighed against the sale. Ms. Altmann and her relatives, he declared, were “cashing in,” turning a “story about justice and redemption after the Holocaust” into “yet another tale of the crazy, intoxicating art market.” The family should give the works away, donating “one or more” to a public institution, or negotiate “a private sale to a museum at a price below the auction house estimates.” He even came close to stating that Ms. Altmann’s museum loans weren’t a sign of her generosity but a kind of profiteering, since “the museums provided presale publicity of a sort that no auction house could organize.”
The blogosphere promptly lit up. On his blog Modern Art Notes (www.artsjournal.com/man/), Tyler Green responded by blaming the museums, not Ms. Altmann. “If you want to be angry at someone for not ensuring that the Klimts ended up in private collections,” he wrote, “what about the wealthy trustees at major museums?”
In a post on her site CultureGrrl (www.artsjournal.com/culturegrrl), Lee Rosenbaum (a frequent contributor to the Journal) raised another concern. She observed that “rushing to auction rather than cherishing objects that ere once important to lost loved ones reinforces the pernicious stereotype that we Jews are always up against–that we are enamored of money.”
But what if Ms. Altmann had decided to hold on to her Klimts? Once Nazi-looted art is restored to its rightful owners, the bills start coming in. Lawyers in some restitution cases may work pro bono, but their costs cannot be waived, and these can quickly pile up. Randol Schoenberg, Maria Altmann’s attorney, says that he has been willing to overlook even those on occasion. But “when you get cases that require substantial litigation, then you have to have a more professional kind of arrangement.” The fight for the Klimts was one such case, observes Mr. Schoenberg, who will only say of the total legal bill that it “was quite a lot” and that he and Ms. Altmann “shared the costs.”
Then there is insurance. A premium calculated at below 10 cents per $100 of appraised value is about average, says Christiane Fischer, president and CEO of AXA Art Insurance. But “once you cross the $100 million mark, the entire world of insuring art changes.” In other words, only the superwealthy can afford such protection.
But there is a principle at stake bigger than cash flow, namely: Long-denied heirs like Ms. Altmann should be allowed to do as they please with their property once they have recovered it. Isn’t that, so to speak, the whole point? The “story about justice and redemption after the Holocaust,” to borrow Mr. Kimmelman’s phrase, surely includes the right of the descendants of Nazi-era victims to exercise the freedom their families were denied.
Daniel Johnson reviews Beim Häuten der Zwiebel (Peeling the Onion) by Günter Grass.
It is rare for a book in German to achieve notoriety in our monotonously monoglot Anglosphere, and rarer still for it to do so before it is even published. With his autobiography Beim Häuten der Zwiebel (‘Peeling the Onion’), Günter Grass succeeded on both counts, by the simple device of admitting that, aged 17, he had served in a panzer division of the Waffen-SS.
Grass, who is a genius of self-publicity, knew full well what kind of bombshell he was about to release. Yet his publishers do not seem to have had a clue. Their catalogue printed before the scheisse hit the fan omits any hint of its most sensational revelation, though they were quick to cash in.
advertisementFor those who can’t wait for the translation (due next autumn), I have read the German original. Although nearly 500 pages long, it leaves room for a sequel, for it deals with only the first two or three of the eight decades of the author’s life: the narrative begins with the outbreak of the Second World War.
It has taken Grass a long time to peel his onion and the result is a book that, like the vegetable, induces tears of irritation rather than emotion.
Devotees will relish picking over the picaresque narrative, with its characteristically lugubrious and lubricious tone, besides the retrospective commentary on his previous works, revealing the origins of characters and scenes in his novels.
As a moral reckoning with the Nazi past, however, Peeling the Onion is a failure and not even an honourable one. For a writer who has built his entire reputation on his indictment of an older generation for supposedly evading responsibility, Grass shows little awareness of his own bad faith in concealing the shameful facts about himself.
Though he constantly interrogates his younger self in a rhetorical manner, the older Grass does his best to avoid confronting the awful truth. By using the third person, he distances himself from his Nazi alter ego. An onion has many layers but no heart.
His account of life in an American-run prisoner of war camp is an example. He admits that he was then still in denial about the Holocaust, and contemptuous of young Jewish concentration camp survivors, whose only crime was to do the Germans’ laundry. Grass and his comrades told them to ‘bugger off to Palestine.’
Years later, in 1967, Grass recalled the camp before an Israeli audience, having claimed that he was ‘innocent through no merit of my own’, thanks to his youth. (No mention of the SS!) The young Nazis and the young Jews, he claimed, had had much in common: ‘No matter how each had survived the system, it was the same system that had moulded them both.’ Such moral equivalence between persecutor and victim was bad enough then, but it is worse now, when Israelis have to endure monstrous comparisons with the Nazis.
A key story that he tells several times in this book also took place at the PoW camp. There he met a Bavarian with whom he wrote poetry, played dice and crushed lice. The ‘gentle know-all’ was called Joseph, from nearby Altötting. His Catholicism was ‘as firm as the Atlantic Wall’, he dreamt in Latin and his ambition was to study theology.
When Cardinal Ratzinger became Benedict XVI in 2005, Grass realised that his ‘mate’ Joseph must have been the future German Pope. He recounted it to his sister, a down-to-earth midwife, who dismissed it as ‘another of your typical tall tales with which you fooled our mother already as a boy’.
Whether it is fact or fiction, the anecdote tells us more about Grass than he intends. After his release from captivity, he chanced on a Catholic charity. It was the Church virtually the only institution still functioning after the fall of the Third Reich that gave him a roof over his head, clothed him and helped him to realise his ambition to be an artist. Yet he is just as anti-Catholic as he was in his Nazi days.
Grass’s teenage rebellion against his Catholic parents took the form of volunteering for the SS, which persecuted the Church and propagated paganism. When Grass finally abandoned Nazism, it was the viscerally anti-Catholic and anti-American Social Democrat leader Kurt Schumacher whose demagoguery impressed him.
What has really animated Grass, throughout his literary career, was the aim of depicting the Federal Republic as irredeemably tainted as if its Atlanticism had been merely a cloak for surreptitious Nazism. Even after the Berlin Wall fell, he wanted to protect East Germans from their wicked Western neighbours by opposing German reunification. His claim that the Germans have only faced up to their past since the Left took control in the 1960s has gained widespread acceptance, but it is a pernicious myth. The socialist, atheist, anti-Western Germany of Günter Grass was not morally superior to the conservative, Christian, anti-Communist Germany of Joseph Ratzinger rather the reverse.
Grass likes to see himself as a good European. So did his former commander, Heinrich Himmler, who drew recruits for the Waffen-SS from all over the continent. Having dilated on his own ‘foolish pride’ in this genocidal elite, Grass remarks: ‘Enough excuses.’ But this entire book is one long excuse for a life that, we can now see, was hopelessly compromised by hypocrisy.
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【2006年10月2日狱委讯】2006年9月30日，北京市公安局负责高智晟律师案件的警察口头通知高律师妻子耿和，高智晟已经被批准逮捕。截至现在，受委托为高律师提供法律帮助的莫少平律师那里还没有来自警方的确切的消息。
从8月15日开始，高智晟律师的刑事拘留期限37天早已期满，到今天10月2日是第48天。从莫少平律师介入此案以来，警方首先以未查询到案件经办单位为由，历经超过法定时间的50余个小时后，告知莫律师无法安排会见。我们不认为维护“首善之区”治安、还要负责2008年奥运会安全保卫工作的北京市公安局是徒有虚名，居然两三天查询不到如此重大案件的经办单位。那么我们只能断定经办高智晟律师一案的北京市公安局国保总队和北京市公安局预审处在有意拖延时间。通常争取时间的目的无外乎商议对策或加强准备。果然之后一周北京市公安局又抛出所谓“高智晟案件涉及国家秘密”，以此为由拒绝莫少平律师会见当事人。然而同时北京市公安局预审处和国保总队又违反法律，不提供高智晟律师涉及“国家秘密”的具体罪名，同时也不提供进入了何种司法阶段的确切答复。警方不告知如此基本的信息，如果在依法的正常办案程序中是不可思议的。
随后9月28日北京市公安局正式书面通知，拒绝了莫少平律师提出的为高智晟律师取保候审的申请。在高律师被捕的四十余天中，与高智晟律师案件无关的高律师妻子耿和、女儿耿格（13岁）、远在山东东营的姐姐高艳芳、远在陕北佳县的大哥高智义、在北京打工的三位侄子高欢（21岁）、高显（19岁）、高欢龙（16岁）、亲属黄燕等等都受到波及，重则被非法拘禁、软禁、遣返原籍，轻则受到恐吓、讯问、警告。公安部门全盘配合紧锣密鼓侵犯公民人权的行径，让高智晟律师案件疑云密布，只能说明警方在此案上存在彻头彻尾的违规操作。这并非一个刑事案件，而是一个由政法委及公安部精心策划严密操控的政治案件。旨在整体打击国内民间维权力量的“嚣张气焰”，震慑“不安定分子”，同时也分化瓦解国内维权群体。
高律师被捕的消息我们还有待从莫少平律师处获得警方的正式书面确认。如果高律师的逮捕日期也在9月30日，那么他与远在广州的郭飞雄就是同一天被逮捕。这两个从官方表面看来毫无关联的案件，相近阶段逮捕不是巧合。拖延到这个日子，显然是一来为了能连接上中国大陆的“国庆黄金周”，7-8天长假，政府机关全面休息，可以堂而皇之的延迟给莫少平律师确切答复的时间。二来通常“国庆”期间公众普遍放松精神，在华的各国使馆和海外媒体也有不少入乡随俗的放假，这样可大大减小因为对高智晟、郭飞雄的司法程序升级而引发的海内外关注度。通常元旦、春节、五一黄金周、十一黄金周，乃至一些双休日等等，都是可以借之维护稳定化解反击力量的隐形挡箭牌。这类手段中国大陆政法系统屡试不爽。但用得多了，就会显现此地无银三百两。我们有理由预期，陈光诚的案件二审也拖延到临近“国庆”突然通知“书面审理”，也与此“技法”不无关系。
9月7日在我接受第一次刑事传唤时，警方曾声明我是高智晟律师案件的唯一同案犯罪嫌疑人。但9月8日我接受第二次刑事传唤，我向警察提问凭什么让20名男女国保住进高智晟律师家中，为什么对高律师妻儿采取长期的软禁、监控，为什么对前往高律师家的朋友实施威胁、恐吓，为什么对高律师的三位侄子及黄燕实施非法拘禁，为什么还在高律师家楼下搭建中型活动房以便秋冬长期监控下去……警方给与的回答竟然改口说是高律师妻子耿和也是同案犯罪嫌疑人。如果是这样那么耿和确实无权给丈夫请律师，而且因为她的孩子小，所以有可能对她实施监视居住，并且限制她和外界往来。但是，即便耿和与我一样是高律师案件的同案犯罪嫌疑人，那么为什么在8月25日前北京市公安局国保总队逼迫耿和写保证书，要求她保证不给高智晟律师请提供法律帮助的律师，尤其不能请北京维权界中的律师，以后真到了开庭必须请律师的阶段，那么耿和也要配合政府请北京市公安局指定的律师。不管耿和是不是犯罪嫌疑人，国保的要求都是知法犯法、执法犯法，公安部门又一次明目张胆践踏公民的尊严，以欺骗、要挟、恐吓的方式迫使妇女儿童就范。
回想8月18日陈光诚的律师团受阻挠、骚扰、关押，北京律师不得不提出延期申请，法庭随后违规临时指定了两名当地律师代替光诚自己委托的辩护律师。在陈光诚拒绝接受的情况下沂南县法庭依然强行开庭。两位当地律师仓促上阵形同摆设，加上政法委早已暗定庭审结局，所以光诚被超常重判，以儆国内为反暴力计划生育维权之效尤。此类国产政法丑剧大片的导演都是政法委和公安部，我们等待着，看这一幕何时在北京的高智晟案件上重演。
胡佳
2006年10月2日
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《新民周刊》今年第37期做了一组《南水北调西线之争》的专题报道。新闻由头是规划的西线调水区四川省的4位专家学者主编并资助出版了《南水北调西线工程备忘录》，汇集了一些专家学者以及数位当地官员，从西线调水的目的、经济合理性、技术可行性到地质风险、生态影响、补偿方案和决策程序等角度提出了一系列问题，表达了对现有西线工程规划的质疑。
在我等看来，这么一个空前巨大的世界史上破天荒的工程，其规划理当经过反复论证，接受全中国乃至全世界各方面的质疑，以期尽可能做到科学决策。正如中国工程院副院长潘家铮院士曾说的，对三峡工程贡献最大的是那些反对者。兼听则明嘛！
而受命编制南水北调规划的水利部黄河水利委员会，将东、中、西三条线打包为《南水北调工程总体规划》；国务院于2002年12月23日批复，“根据前期工作的深度，先期实施东线和中线一期工程，西线工程先继续做好前期工作。”现在，3年后，调水区的众专家学者“才第一次看到耳闻已久”、已“通过水利部专家审查”的《南水北调西线工程规划纲要及第一期工程规划》。恰如《备忘录》的主编之一林凌等人所言，这种情况是不正常的。涉及四川地区地质、水文、气候以及民族和宗教问题，四川学者的了解和积累更多；编制西线规划的过程，本应让尽可能多的四川学者参与。我甚至认为，要让全国范围的普通民众也广泛参与讨论。我现在最想说的是，时至今日，再也不应该拿“地方利益”、“地方主义”之类政治标签来封悠悠众口了。
由于多少年来维护“地方利益”、搞“地方主义”都是可怕的政治帽子、打人的政治棍子，在此习惯势力和思维定式的威慑下，没人敢理直气壮地表明自己就是要维护本地的正当利益。“有声音认为，《备忘录》对南水北调西线工程本身和对黄河水利委员会所作规划的质疑，是‘地方利益在其中作祟’。《备忘录》的出版，被指为罔顾黄河上游六省缺水现实去维护和争取地方利益之举。”而“所有接受采访的四川学者都声称，《备忘录》的立场是‘促进决策民主化和科学化’”。他们辩解说“地方利益不是我们考虑的(出发点)”。
为什么不可以堂堂正正地说，我们就是要维护地方利益呢？
全局利益难道不是由地方利益合成的吗？难道不是平衡各个局部利益的结果吗？没有合理的地方利益哪来抽象的全局利益？
从科学决策角度看，如上所述，地方的专家学者有熟悉地方的优势，他们的意见可以深化细化对局部地区的研究。从民主决策的角度讲，共同利益是局部利益(不同利益群体，地方利益是一种)互相博弈达成的妥协。所以，美国不仅有按人口分配代表人数的众议院，还有每州两名议员的参议院。我国的人大代表人数、名牌大学新生入学人数，分配时都考虑了地区因素。
众所周知，“大跃进”年代，所谓“毛主席的好学生”、时任华东局第一书记的柯庆施提出“全国一盘棋”。正是在这种抹杀地方利益、局部利益的极左思想推动下，全国刮起了灾难性的“一平二调”的“共产风”。而在三门峡水利工程建设中，陕西省的专家、官员从“地方利益”出发，冒着政治风险进行抗争，在当时的政治条件下，部分地减轻了拦河筑坝对上游渭河流域的危害。而改革开放以来，正如国内外一些经济学家在寻找中国崛起的原因时所言，分税制等承认地方利益的政策，是一项重要的驱动力、利好因素。
有人提出，借鉴黄河流域“水权置换”的经验，四川应该争取北调水量的经济补偿。而编制西线规划的“黄委会”对此的回答是“水权国有”，西线工程属于全国性的大工程，要从“全局考虑”。这个回答我们似曾相识。在煤矿、石油开采等领域早有类似抹杀地方利益的说法，结果是没有处理好全局和地方的关系，造成了破坏环境等很多后患，现在已调整政策。
具体到西线调水工程，我认同这种说法:“在南水北调问题上，黄委会是利益相关者，编制规划应该将长江水利委员会和地方政府都吸纳进来。”——这也是四川学者鲁家果的报告呈送给温家宝总理后，规划编制方黄委会和水利部等部门受命赴川听取意见的原因吧？
一个多月之前，我与一位基金管理公司总裁共进晚餐，席间不可避免地谈到了政治问题：中期选举，朝鲜导弹危机，伊朗核危机，伊拉克战争，以及更多更棘手的问题。为了避免场面过于尴尬，他谈到了罗纳德。里根，“迄今为止最伟大的共和党人”。我们都非常喜爱里根，熟悉里根的所做所为，并对里根的历史地位抱有极大的尊敬。在美国，即使左翼民主党人也很少批评里根，他在死后享有了比生前还高的荣耀。但是，当我们谈到克林顿的时候，这位总裁表现出了明显的保留意见：“当然，有很多人认为他是一位伟大的政治家，我应该承认这一点，但是我是一个共和党人，所以……我也不认为经济繁荣是他的功劳，这场意料之中的繁荣只能增加罗纳德。里根的光辉。”
里根的绰号是“伟大的沟通者”（The Great Communicator），所以我们的谈话主要围绕着里根的几次经典演讲进行：柏林墙演讲，第一次就职演说，以及两次堪称空前绝后的总统大选电视辩论。这位伟人留下了太多的名言：从“戈尔巴乔夫先生，推倒这堵墙”到“政府不能解决问题，政府就是问题”，只要稍微回忆一下，就能列举许多类似的发人深省的警句。但是，给我留下印象最深刻的却是他在基督教福音派年会上讲的一句话。于是，我把这句话复述给对方听：
“美国是伟大的，因为美国是好的；如果美国不再是好的，美国就将不再伟大。”（America is great， because America is good； and if America cease to be good， America will cease to be great.）
这句话显然给他留下了深刻的印象。在那次晚餐之后，我们只见过两次面，其中一次是我离开纽约，动身回国的当天上午。他走过来和我握手告别，顺便问道：“对了，你能够把上次你引述的罗纳德。里根的话重复一遍吗？”我就重复了一遍。他若有所思地默念了片刻，说：“我很喜欢这句话。我会一直记住的。”
其实这句话并非出自罗纳德。里根的原创；根据里根本人的说法，这是托克维尔在《论美国的民主》中赞扬美国的宗教传统的。在这里，“good”其实不应该翻译成“好的”，而应该翻译为“虔诚的”或者“有宗教信仰的”。基督教当然认为，只有虔诚的人是好人，但非基督教徒肯定有不同的看法。在基督教福音派年会上，里根引用这句话鼓励牧师们为美国的宗教传统而战，同时被引用的还有杰斐逊的名言：“如果我们不是被上帝统治，就一定会被暴政统治。”（If we are not ruled by the God， we must be ruled by tyranny.）
然而，在我引用的场合，把“good”翻译成“好的”倒更加合适，因为我用这句话来形容我对美国的评价，不仅限于宗教的范围。从许多方面看，美国都是“好的”：国家对公民权利的严格保护，有章可循的司法制度，富有活力的自由市场经济，发达的社会福利制度，多样性的文化，以及美国民众在关键时刻爆发出来的英雄主义，都是美国伟大的关键。亨德里克。房龙先生曾经赞扬英国人拥有不动声色的英雄主义，所以能够统治大半个世界；今天，这个评价一样适合于美国，虽然美国人的英雄主义更加外向，更加热情，更加令人动容。
任何东西都是可以学习的——技术的保鲜期只有几个月，学术理论可以随着人才的流动而流动，政治经济制度可以被其他国家复制，甚至宗教文化都可以被抄袭，但是，民众的英雄主义却是不可复制的。美国人的英雄主义并不体现在平时的“爱国主义”叫嚣中，并不体现在领导人的虚张声势中，更不会体现在民众对国家的盲从中。或许，这种英雄主义就是使美国保持伟大的基础，只要有它在，美国就会一直是“好的”。
我们应该怎样描绘这种英雄主义？纽约的历史就是最好的诠释。在波澜壮阔的美国历史上，纽约并不是一座坚定不屈的城市，它有过恐惧，有过动摇，有过悲观失望，甚至有过叛国的企图；但是，每到关键时刻，每到需要做出重大决定的时刻，纽约总是会做出令人尊敬的决定，它一直是联邦矗立的基石。纽约人可以骄傲地告诉每个人：“我们热爱自己的祖国，忠于自己的信仰，而且我们已经用行动证明。”
在独立战争中，纽约是英军最后一个撤离的城市。几年之后，美国通过了新的宪法，纽约州成为最激烈的反对者之一，但纽约市却站在了联邦主义者一边。“如果纽约州不通过宪法，我们纽约市就将和长岛一起成立新州。”这句话可不是说着玩。于是纽约州最终以微弱多数通过了宪法。
几十年之后，南方和北方的隔阂日益加深，面临即将到来的内战，纽约市表现的举棋不定，市长甚至提出独立成为自由市。可是，在南方邦联打响第一枪之后，纽约毫不犹豫地站在了联邦一边：“为了保护我们的联盟，我们愿意流尽最后一滴血。”在整个内战中，纽约是向联邦输送兵力最多的城市。
林肯总统的连任选举在纽约市遭受了惨败，因为纽约人对这位“乡下人”毕竟有点抵触。然而几个月之后，当总统遇刺身亡的时候，他却在纽约得到了英雄般的待遇：十几万人追随着他的灵柩穿越整个曼哈顿，人潮挤满了每一条街道，用眼泪和鲜花证明自己的忠诚。谁能想象这个林肯在纽约市的支持率曾经只有百分之二十？
又过了几十年，两次世界大战先后爆发，纽约照例成为联邦军队的柱石。是的，纽约人曾经坚持孤立主义，反对参战；是的，纽约人离战争很远，没有必要参战。但是，一旦这个国家不可避免地投入战争，纽约人就开始用行动证明自己的英雄主义。1933-1945年之间任职的纽约市长拉瓜迪亚最遗憾的事情，就是“无法代表纽约为战争做出更多的贡献”。当德国潜艇出没在纽约港之外，在长岛和新泽西引起一系列爆炸的时候，纽约是镇定的。它骄傲地矗立在那里，尽管异常危险，尽管一切皆有可能。
最后，我们不得不提到911，尽管每个人都不愿意提到它。911是对纽约人民的英雄主义的最好证明。我们无须重复消防队员的奋不顾身，警察的英勇，以及华尔街专业人员的敬业（他们在一周之内就做好准备，重新工作）；只需要看看圣约翰小教堂的场景就够了。孩子们在救灾队员休息的床上放上了填充玩具，市民们在教堂的栅栏上挂满了各种吉祥物，护身符，以及表达敬意的卡片。《纽约时报》刊登了每一个遇难者的姓名、照片和简介，他们被一视同仁地称为英雄。今天，离恐怖袭击仅仅5年，纽约的经济再次到达了史无前例的高点，这座城市最大的财富不是地理位置或气候条件，而是它的人民无处不在的英雄主义。
纽约只是美国的一个缩影。我知道，很多人认为美国仅仅因为军事和金钱而伟大；但是，如果美国丧失它的英雄主义，不再一如往昔地“好”，它就会迅速走向衰败，甚至是灭亡。看样子，这种事情在几十年之内都不会发生，或许几百年都不会发生。其他任何一个国家，如果想变得像美国一样伟大，首先要学习的不是技术和制度，而是这种几乎无法学习的英雄主义。
一百多年前，伟大的J.P.Morgan曾说：“每一个对美国的未来持悲观态度的人都会破产！”（The man who is a bear on the future of the United States will always go broke！）我赞成他的意见。无数人曾经预言过美国的衰亡，但他们没有意识到，美国的伟大不是因为政府或财团，即使把这些东西连根铲除，只要过十几年，美国仍会不可避免地恢复伟大。而那些居心叵测的阴谋家则会无法挽回地走向破产，过去是如此，现在是如此，将来仍是如此。
