Wei,
    In answer to your recent questions concerning Pound and the others
permit me to disgorge some metaphysical effluvia in response. If there are
those who would prefer me to direct my projectile toward you alone let them
say so, but for now "Ubi usus incertum, ibi usus nullum".
    First of all, I maintain that on the basis of the definition of
"polemic" that Spengler was not writing one in the "Decline". I agree that
he  "asserts the existence of a particular cultural pattern", but this is
not a polemic which is an agressive attack or a dispute. He does point out
the reasons he feels that systems bring about their own demise.
    I"ll take your word on his quote that cultures "grow with the same
superb aimlessness as flowers of the field". But how is this polemical? What
is it attacking? With whom is he disputing? it just seems like theorizing to
me.
    Then you ask if Spengler improved his intellectual climate or merely
moaned about it? Not everyone would hold him to this criterion. He was
critical, but he had no master plan for a utopia, and why should he? Maybe,
to comment on you next question, his conclusion wasn't any better than
common relativism. But Einstein who theorized on relativity did come to some
strange conclusions. Here is one from 1945:

    "Since I do not foresee that atomic energy is to be a great boon for a
long time, I have to say that for the present it is a menace. Perhaps it is
well that it should be. It may intimidate the human race into bringing order
into its international affairs, which, without the pressure of fear, it
would not do."

I suggest you reread Spengler to see if you can find any relativism to top
that one, and if you cannot then Bertrand Russell may serve as an antidote:

    "Fear is the main source of superstition and one of the main sources of
cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom."

    On the subject of food and politics of Jose Bove you mention
"malbouffe". Oui, the French - if they could only see that their very clever
Frenchness could be even 80% more effective if they could relinquish being
French for an instant e.g. "Malbouffe" would become "McMalbouffe". But you
are right about the media coverage and the media's power to trivialize or
tainte  a subject. Therefore you should enjoy the following from Spengler's
"Decline":

    "What the Press wills, is true. Its commanders evoke, transform,
inchange truths. Three weeks of press work, and the truth is acknowledged by
everybody."
    To this he adds a note; "The most striking example of this for future
generations will be the 'War-guilt' question, which is the question - who
possesses the power, through contol of press and cable in all parts of the
world, to establish in world-opinion that truth which he needs for his
political ends and to maintain it for so long as he needs it? An altogether
different question (which only in Germany is confused with the first) is the
purely scientific one  - to whose interest was it that an event about which
there was already a whole literature should occur in the summer of 1914 in
particular?"

    The question of "democracy". I do not object to the CONCEPT of
democracy. But the question does put me in mind of a similar question which
was put to Ghandi about what he thought about Christianity. His famous
answer:  "Oh, that would be a very good idea!" But I do like a system where
a man like Thoreau could say, "If I am right, I am a majority of one."  I,
like Thoreau, love freedom and respect the law when it is tempered with
liberty and justice. You stated that, "I can appreciate the fact that
democracy will quite often exalt the mediocre over the exceptional. This is
a drawback of democracy and of the republic." But I would ask you, Isn't
there a difference between a democracy and a republic? My understanding is
that a republic is a government of laws. And in our republic the balance of
powers originates in Constitutional Law. What keeps a democracy from
evolving into plutocracy or ochlocracy but law? Where do laws that people
can stomach come from but from precedence and custom?

    Finally, on Nietzsche ( the "z" comes before the "s") or NeeChee, he
anticipated the confusion there would be over what he meant by his "overman"
and what others would misinterpret him as:

    "I suspect you would call my ubermensch - a devil." But if anything one
is faced with the choice of becoming  a unique individual or a "Jerry
McComic". Which do you think McDonalds is banking on?

CDM