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Exceptionalism
by Juan Moment
(lifted from a comment)
It is exactly this semi-religious belief in Exceptionalism which
time and time again brings suffering to mankind. From ancient cultures
such as Rome, through the British empire, to Nazi-Germany, the last
thing this world needs is delusional mortals with a conviction that
they are somewhat superior. Largely unnoticed by those narcists, busy
wallowing in self-admiration, the world laughs at people who claim to
be part of the Ueber-race/nation. Coz besides bigger and more guns,
tools of mindless war, they have nothing which sets them apart from the
rest. Certainly not brains.
To watch one administration after another roam the international
circuit like Ming the Merciless, makes the average universal punter
wish for Flash Gordon to rocket by to show Ming where the hammer hangs.
This has lead to a rise in popularity of regimes who stand up against
the machine known as US foreign policy. Large numbers of world citizens
cheer at news that the US has problems of sort, creating an environment
in which the country’s superpower status can not survive.
If the USA wants to regain popularity points it lost over the
decades, it must address foremost and first of all the hypocrisy it has
become to personify. She is certainly not the only nation which says
one thing and does another, but to do so in such blatant a fashion as
the US does, factually asks for worldwide condemnation. There is hardly
one facet of US foreign policy which isn’t a contradiction to another.
Proclaiming that democratic elections in Palestine are a great step
forward, and then refusing to deal with the party that got fair &
square elected, makes for one bad joke.
The rules at the table are mostly straight forward. If you want to
spread democracy, don’t support dictators. If you don’t want other
countries to have nuclear weapons, have none yourself. If you want to
lift Africa out of poverty, give more aid. Should peace on earth be
your desire, start no wars. If the appearance of being god’s nation is
important to you, act as Jesus would have. Don’t want foreign countries
meddle with your affairs, don’t meddle in other countries. Can’t get
much easier than that. Don’t do upon others what you don’t want to have
done to yourself.
To have the courts stacked by daddy, allowing thus sonny to win a
rigged election, is just not democracy. Thinking about it, to have
first the father, and a few years later the son run a country doesn’t
sound like democracy. Or first the husband then his wife, out of a
quarter of a billion people, is democracy the right word? Dynasty more
likely, with many of the past 40 odd presidents having somehow or
another been of the same house. The incestuous relationships within the
parliamentary scene, lead to a congress where one crow won’t pick on
the other. Preaching democracy to other nations becomes then that much
harder, if oneself has a system which allows its president to
unashamedly commit war crimes without ever being held accountable for
it by congress.
To be seen as a nation one should aspire to, it also pays to have
affordable health care for everyone, a social net able to catch the
falling before they hit the ground. The missing funds to do that are
actually not missing at all, just misspend on items needed to project
fabricated power. A rethink in that direction might help the US’s role
on the global stage, allowing for more people across the world to feel
more comfortable when the US under-secretary of state visits the
neighboring country, whilst at the same time reversing the trend of
slipping down the global rankings whenever social & domestic
indicators are measured. What a chance to be the beacon.
And although I believe that large sections in the “elite” are beyond
hope, I have faith in the US electorate. The watermark of American
Exceptionalism on the pages chosen to record US history, and this is
not the last act, many chapters still to come, will be barely visible
once the full story has been written. Humble pie, paid in gold and
blood. There is only so many imperial wars one can wage before the
karmic wheel catches up. Nevermind the stock market. Once the sad truth
of “guilty through indifference” hits home, the realization that what
is going down is largely happening because of one’s own complacency,
that’s when I guess the proverbial pitchforks will come out. It will
not be soon, but come it will. As predictable as a flush in the toilet.
The end of the old SU empire, if one can call it that, was partly
due to its imperial overstretch, hence overspending on military
expenses and underspending on the domestic front. In order to keep the
inevitable critics under control, increasing efforts were needed to
create more and more elaborate means of spying on the own population.
Not that different from what the US is doing today. Eventually the
public will wake up in droves to this impending repetition of history
to put someone in power who’ll pull the lever on the imperialometer
into reverse.
Except that nowhere in the original concept of exceptionalism is the patented need or desire to export it.
So true. Looking at the long list of ideologists who have asserted
their tribe/nation’s right to exceptionalism, to be the one out, with
true claim to be exceptional, would be the one nation who didn’t end up
lecturing the “inferior” nations about how to go about their business.
The invention of a new technology is certainly not exceptional, but for
the first time in history to not consider its use for military purpose
would be.
It’s hard to see how a nation could be exceptional on all fronts,
but to be truly outstanding on the ones that matter, human rights and
environmental concerns being just two, a good dose of self-criticism is
needed. Leading by example rather than the sword should be the motto, a
point so totally lost on many on Capitol Hill. Not dictating changes to
others, invite imitations instead.
me too. (westphalia)
Many supra-state organisms, their financial weight, their ideological grip, buy, coerce, people; create events, standards;
these are just *examples*:
a) ‘corporations’ eg. Halliburton, Nestlé, Schlumberger, Exxon, to mention a mix
b) international banking, finance, is a creepy web off laid over the rest, still it has tremendous influence and control
c) the military, not just those fighting at present, but the potential power of those who hold the guns, nukes, etc.
d) international bodies, military and regulatory – NATO come to mind. IMF. World Bank, UN Security council. International courts.
e) money recycling and laundering – offshore banking, occult finance, etc. see b).
f) ‘criminal’ circuits, the black economy – the usual, drugs, low level arms, human trafficking, slaves, prostitution, ‘terrorists’… Also active in garbage, real estate, agriculture, tourism, international shipping, extraction of resources, money manipulations, see b) again.
g) Lobbies, poorly circumscribed groups who have clout; e.g. Israel lobby, the medical community, bankers, agriculture, etc. etc.
All interact in multiple ways are are supra-national. Either as outgrowths or symptoms, or as more or less independent strands…
Posted by: Tangerine | Feb 5 2008 21:30 utc | 13
I’ve never actually been to the US, so opinions I express on how its population does and will act should please be seen in that light. The picture of Mr & Mrs Smith with their 1.7 children living the American Way of Life is that of a spoiled kid which grew up with too much money around, a bit like Augustus Gloop meets Veruca Salt meets Mike Teavee. Don’t get me wrong, a similar pampered attitude and world of expectations exists also in other western nations, although to various degrees in a milder form. Disproportionate consumerism is not unique to the US, just more accentuated.
The excessive American Way is however heavily reliant on favourable economic times, economic times less and less controlled by the US. One side effect of assumed Exceptionalism is that after initially getting away with ignoring international rules and laws, such thinkers tend to start believe that basic rules of economics don’t apply to them either. But far from it. To be as glutenous in its manner as the AmWay is, requires a lot of cheap imports. The steadfast decline of the US dollar, whilst marginally offsetting the enormous debt burden the Empire built up to finance its imperial wars, is spelling the end of those cheap imports, oil and food to name just two. And as jdp points out, a cheap resource pool was the prime driver on this highway to US riches, and the lack of it will spell its end. This pool, finite by nature, is drying up at a rate determined by the accelerating consumption an increasing number of competing snouts in the trough is causing.
For large numbers of US Americans subscribing to this idea of Exceptionalism it will not be a matter of choice when it comes to adjusting their world view, the rest of the world will do it for them. As the debt bubble will burst (it seems we are about to see the early days of this phase), consumer strength will evaporate and the US’s status as the holy cow of marketplaces right with it. The US has I believe by far the most multi-millionaires per capita, a fact which won’t change quickly, but the vast numbers making up the middle class, the mortgage and maxed out credit card belt, increasingly faced with unemployment, foreclosure, repossession, will not escape the lawn mower.
With the reference to pitchforks I was not trying to suggest a mob of angry citizens storming the halls of power lynching their senators. I was thinking more along the lines of a thoroughly disillusioned electorate across the nation choosing not to return the sitting members, farewelling the archaic two party system, the primary cause of the political misery the US citizenry, and by extension, the world finds itself in. Since self-criticism is really nobody’s favourite past time, the electorate will look for someone to blame, their politicians. It doesn’t take a science degree to see the worms in a can full of them, and independent candidates armed with credibility might get a foot in the door.
To me it seems that 30 years ago it would have been still unthinkable for an African-American to be a serious contender in the US presidential race. Or a woman for that matter. Give it another 30 years and a gay politician might make the cut. Attitudes change over the years (at least in the cities ), sometimes even radically. Once gender and race equality as national milestones have been dealt with, maybe parting from the idea of Exceptionalism will have to be next on the agenda. The cost of maintaining the Empire, let alone expanding it, is not sustainable, not anymore.
The world-wide goodwill needed for operation Global Leader to succeed is gone, replaced with feelings ranging from scepticism to outright hate. The only people who can try to reverse this trend, is the US electorate. Choosing politicians with delusions of grandeur will eventually get out of fashion and the concept of being satisfied with being part of a group of leaders instead of the leader itself will grab hold. It did so in Rome, Istanbul, London or Berlin. And just like it’s European cousins and the brothers & sisters to the north, the US will slip into something more comfortable, probably more akin to the social democratic systems in other anglo-saxon countries.
That this tectonic shift in the political formation won’t happen in the 08 elections is already certain. Won’t be next time either, but every nation’s path has twist and turns, and there sure as hell is one coming up for the US.
And for that very reason, that the USA is no exception to the rest of us, I have faith in the country’s people to eventually rid themselves of the pigs on the animal farm. The American Way of Life is not set in concrete, it’s as adaptable to harsh realities as any nation’s way of life. Might just be a bit more bruising as the national ego is deflated:
WASHINGTON (AP) — The record $3.1 trillion budget proposed by President Bush on Monday would produce eyepopping federal deficits, despite his attempts to impose politically wrenching curbs on Medicare and eliminate scores of popular domestic programs.
The Pentagon would receive a $36 billion, 8 percent boost for the 2009 budget year beginning Oct. 1, even as programs aimed at the poor would be cut back or eliminated. Half of domestic Cabinet departments would see their budgets cut outright…
Just watched a segment on Foreign Corespondent about Hillary Clinton’s election campaign, showing a snippet of her addressing a crowd of supporters. Her goal number 1, she stated, is “to restore the USA again as the leading nation on the globe”. Now if a presidential candidate who is considered to be on the left, is naming renewed world domination as her primary goal, there is no reason to believe the country is gonna wake up any time soon, but it will, as it crashes head on into the sign post saying “Where there are no followers, there is no leader.”
Just as life is a struggle for survival with the certain knowledge of defeat, so does in my eyes Exceptionalism soldier on until its bitter end. There will always be people who think their nation is superior to others, just as there always will be people who could swear that their football team is the greatest on earth. You can’t change that. They can scream as loud as they want tho, what counts is the position on the ladder.
American Exceptionalism is a fantasy, which to entertain costs shit loads of money. Money gone, fantasy gone. Just like Disney World, a man made construct to create an illusion, and just like its counterpart, it closes when it gets dark.
Posted by: Juan Moment | Feb 6 2008 2:45 utc | 15
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