American Exceptionalism Part I

I.                    Introduction

This is the first part of what might be a series.  It is about a stupid ideology which I think is the most harmful belief alive in America today.  Enjoy.

The 2014 election was a resounding victory for the Republicans.  They ran on a very simple premise -  President Barrack Obama sucks.  The Democrats attempted to counter this with well, nothing.  The Democrats shouldn't have found this strategy so confusing -  in 2006 and 2008 they ran on a President George W. Bush sucks platform with great success.

I do not have a lot of confidence that much will change now that the Republicans control both houses of Congress.  The reason for this (in my estimation) is that both parties either explicitly or implicitly subscribe to an intellectually bankrupt ideology called “American Exceptionalism” (sometimes hereinafter “AE”).

AE in its modern form is a nationalistic doctrine that essentially means –“The United States due to some sort of divine grant, is the best country to ever exist, and accordingly can do no wrong.”  It is imperative that all politicians believe in it.  President Obama to his credit once tried to qualify AE by stating perhaps the obvious that other nations might believe they are exceptional as well.  This of course was political folly -  this right wing commentator had a field day criticizing his most likely true statement. And Mitt Romney did not agree with this either.  However, President Obama came to his senses and by 2014, he now believed in AE with “with every fiber of my being”. 

II.                  Republicans and Democrats Talk AE

This section is going to show that both parties are all about AE.  For Republicans, AE is so important that they have an entire party plank titled “American Exceptionalism”.   It is hard to read this plank with a straight face.  Here are some choice quotes from it with my translations:

Quote:  “While the twentieth century was undeniably an American century – with strong leadership, adherence to the principles of freedom and democracy our Founders’ enshrined in our nation’s Declaration of Independence and Constitution, and a continued reliance on Divine Providence – the twenty-first century will be one of American greatness as well.”

Translation:  We wisely sat out World War 1 until both sides were exhausted and hopped in at end on the Allies side to get a seat at the table ending the war.  Even more wisely, we sat out World War 2 for a bit, then when the Japanese attacked us, we let the Russians do most of the dirty work against the Germans while we crushed Japan.  We sort of fucked up in Vietnam and really fucked up in creating the Taliban, but since God is on our side, he’ll help us out if things get really bad.

Quote:  “America will be left with the smallest ground force since 1940, the smallest number of ships since 1915, and the smallest Air Force in its history – at a time when our Nation faces a growing range of threats to our national security and a struggling economy that can ill afford to lose 1.5 million defense-related jobs.”

Translation: Only a true idiot (95% of Americans) would attempt to compare a naval vessel from 1915 or a World War 2 era propeller plane to modern ones in terms of firepower.  But, the truth is we don’t really care what weapons we have or whether they actually work as long as the money flows to the job creating defense contractors who might create jobs or not depending on whether they have to pay taxes or not.

Quote: “We support rights of conscience and religious freedom for military chaplains and people of faith. A Republican Commander in Chief will protect religious independence of military chaplains and will not tolerate attempts to ban Bibles or religious symbols from military facilities. We will enforce and defend in court the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in the Armed Forces as well as in the civilian world.”

Translation: God or more specifically, the American version of the Christian God in exchange for his protection of us demands that all of our soldiers follow his Bible as interpreted by Southern Baptists.  And of course, gay soldiers can’t get married. 

Quote: “The effectiveness of our foreign aid has been limited by the cultural agenda of the current Administration, attempting to impose on foreign countries, especially the peoples of Africa, legalized abortion and the homosexual rights agenda. At the same time, faith-based groups – the sector that has had the best track record in promoting lasting development – have been excluded from grants because they will not conform to the administration’s social agenda. We will reverse this tragic course, encourage more involvement by the most effective aid organizations, and trust developing peoples to build their future from the ground up.”

Translation:  African strongmen like Robert Mugabe and his cohorts might have some issues with human rights and the occasional murder of white farmers and other undesirables like gays, but since they hate gays more than we do, we should not attach any strings to their foreign aid because they hate gays.  And while we never are in favor of black people killing white people it is ok if the white people are gay.

That is enough from the Republican side of the aisle.  Let’s see what the Democrats have to offer.  In order to distinguish themselves from the Republicans, the Democrats didn't use the term “American Exceptionalism”, rather “indispensable”.  Like the GOP, it is hard to read with a straight face.  Here are the choice quotes with translation.

Quote:  “We have struck major blows against al-Qaeda, bringing Osama bin Laden and other senior al-Qaeda leaders to justice, and putting the terrorist organization on the path to defeat.”

Translation:  We can go into any country or launch drone strikes into any country because if the President states a person must be killed because he is a terrorist, it is ok because God has told the President who all the terrorists are.

Quote:  “President Obama and the Democratic Party are also committed to strengthening the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty as the bedrock of international efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons to additional countries.”

Translation:  Since the major nuclear powers, the USA and Russia are peaceful nations who never attack or threaten weaker nations there is no need for any other country to have nuclear weapons. 

Quote: “Climate Change. The national security threat from climate change is real, urgent, and severe.”

Translation: This isn't really a national security issue per se, but just like the Republicans have to appease the Jesus freaks, we have to appease our environmental hippy freaks.

Quote:  “For example, the President is moving forward with a "phased adaptive approach" to European ballistic-missile defense that will protect both Europe and the United States from missile threats emanating from Iran and elsewhere.”

Translation:  Despite the fact missile defense won’t work, and Russia will never let it be built, we still want to talk about it because it will grease the pockets of defense contractors who will provide jobs (if their taxes are lowered enough).

Quote: “We will continue to partner with African nations to combat al-Qaeda affiliates in places like Somalia and to bring to justice those who commit mass atrocities, like Joseph Kony.”

Translation:  While there are a lot of very bad and ruthless dictators in Africa (See Mugabe, Robert) 99% of Americans couldn’t name any African bad guy aside from a relatively obscure warlord named Joseph Kony who was famous for a week because of some really cheesy youtube video that went viral and was promptly forgotten.

Quote:  “Maintaining the Strongest Military in the World”

Translation: We just want to let you know that the Republicans do not have a monopoly on the idea the USA must have the strongest military in world however that is measured.

Quote: “That is why the President banned torture without exception in his first week in office. That is why we are reforming military commissions to bring them in line with the rule of law. That is why we are substantially reducing the population at Guantánamo Bay without adding to it.”

Translation:  We just paid lip service to banning torture and closing Guantanamo and figured no one would care.   And we were right, no one cares about who is Guantanamo or why they are there.

III.                Vladimir Putin Says America Isn't Exceptional

I will admit something here -  Vladimir Putin is fucking awesome.  I am not saying I would want to live in a country run by him or actually have to do his bidding.  Nor am I saying he is an upstanding guy of any sort.  He isn’t.  He is actually quite a brutal dictator who does not like dissent and tends to use his military to push around much weaker nations.  But, he is awesome. 

My favorite Putin story involves Robert Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots and Kraft’s Super Bowl Ring.  The story goes that back in 2005, Kraft was in Russia for some sort of business deal or whatnot and ended up meeting Putin.  For whatever reason, Kraft showed Putin his Super Bowl Ring, which Putin put on his own finger and then promptly put it in his pocket.  Kraft was upset that Putin had stolen his ring, but after a bit of pressure from the Bush administration, Kraft stuck to the story that he had given the ring to Putin as a gift.

Some years later, Kraft gave a speech where he told the truth i.e. that Putin had stolen his Super Bowl Ring.  When word got back to Putin, his response was classic – he had no memory of Kraft or his shitty ring and if he did, Kraft isn't getting his ring back.  Basically, Putin said –“You Robert Kraft, are nothing to me” -  Apparently, the ring is in the Kremlin library on display with other “gifts” given to Russian leaders over the years.  Here is the full story.

Back on topic here, for reasons that aren't fully clear, in September 2013, the New York Times published an op-ed drafted by one, Vladimir V. Putin.  The op-ed was about Syria and the on-going civil war there.  Vlad makes some good points about how Russia and the United States were once allies in World War 2 (and it should be noted the Russian Empire strongly backed the Union during the Civil War whereas other European powers did not).  He correctly states that some of the rebels in Syria are Islamic extremists. 

But for the most part, the op-ed isn't that interesting or controversial until the final paragraph where Putin commits the unpardonable sin of criticizing  American Exceptionalism .  Putin essentially states that America isn't exceptional and ends with the comment that God created us all equal.  This one paragraph created a bipartisan freak-out.   It even drove Senator Robert Menendez, D-NJ to in his words “almost want to throw up”. President Obama struck back in sort of a qualified way saying “some may disagree, but I believe America is exceptional.”

Conservatives were much less qualified in their rebuke.  The thought of some Russian guy criticizing America was just a line that couldn't be crossed.  A good summary of the conservative viewpoint is provided by noted conservative intellect, Rush Limbaugh.  No word if Rush was nauseous or not. 

Another good retort was from The Heritage Group’s, president, Jim DeMint who felt the need to send Putin a letter.  DeMint’s letter states succinctly that America is exceptional because it is dedicated to the universal principle of liberty.  He then reminds Putin that he Putin used to be in the KGB.  I always appreciate it when people remind me of jobs that I used to have.  Finally, he encloses a pamphlet written by some guy at the Heritage Group about why America is exceptional.  Strangely, the letter does not appear to be addressed to the Kremlin where presumably, Putin gets his mail.  I have a feeling this letter and pamphlet if they were in fact sent to Putin are probably in the men’s room adjacent to the library where Robert Kraft’s Super Bowl Ring is on display.

Anyway, the point of all this is if America is so obviously exceptional why did all these luminaries freak out almost to the point of vomiting?  If we were divinely created, inspired or whatever, why should anyone give a shit what Putin said.  The answer is obvious -  AE is a complete farce with no basis in historical or modern events and if Putin’s comments caused even a handful of simpletons to examine AE the whole ball of yarn unwinds.  And we can’t have that, otherwise people might actually start thinking for themselves.

The next post will show why AE is a complete farce, but as a sneak preview I will offer this -  DeMint gave a very succinct explanation as to why America is exceptional – dedicated to the principle of liberty.  How would he explain –

                -slavery;

                -segregation;

                -criminalization of consensual homosexual acts until 2003;

                -counting brutal dictatorships in Chile and Argentina as cold war allies;

                -continuing to support and trade with apartheid South Africa up until 1988;

                -drone strikes on American citizens;

                -internment of Japanese Americans during World War 2;

                -Guantanamo Bay;

    -current allies Saudi Arabia and Pakistan which execute people for crimes such as sorcery      and    blasphemy of Islam;

 

I know some of these things are in the past, but some are still on-going.  Stay Tuned.