In this morning's Asia Times, Spengler points out what President Bush got wrong and Martin right:

US President George W Bush fell wide of the mark when he declared in his second Inaugural Address, 'We have confidence because freedom is the permanent hope of mankind, the hunger in dark places, the longing of the soul.' Human beings do not first of all wish to be free, but to be remembered, that is, to have lives that are significant. US democracy depends upon a religious foundation; the individual first must assume the yoke of responsibility (to God, country, family and so forth) in order to exercise freedom. In the vast majority of other instances human beings prefer a collective identity as a source of meaning; that was the message of the most prestigious of 20th-century philosophers, the abominable Martin Heidegger.

Yeti, the abominable seinman! And yet, that's too simplistic an interpretation. He did go through that Germano-romantic phase. All Geist and what have you. But later, even nationalism became just another notion that techno-modernism usurped to have more resources in reserve for future consumption.  ¶ 8:52 PM