JFK's bridge to the 21st Century

Posted on Fallows' blog: a look at some continuities between Obama's SOTU and Kennedy's inaugural address, and some thoughts about how Kennedy's call for a "beachhead of cooperation between rivals" and a drive to "unleash the powers of science" for peaceful purposes has played out:

Since Kennedy stood coatless in the cold,  the world has experienced a half century of rapid technological progress, fitful but dramatic progress in democratization, equally fitful but dramatic gains in prosperity and public health, and diminished incidence of death by violence.  The world is now struggling with the dynamics of equitable and sustainable growth, and Obama is only the most recent in a succession of presidents who have been able to say, with regard to an inevitably emerging rival , "we do not seek to contain China's rise" (as Obama told Chinese students in November 2009. There is doubtless some ambiguity, and some ambivalence, behind that mantra.  But it is at least conditionally true at present, and represents the country's enlightened self interest.

Here's the rest.