Empire or Humanity?
What the Classroom Didn’t Teach Me About the American Empire
With an occupying army waging war in Iraq and Afghanistan, with military bases and corporate bullying in every part of the world, there is hardly a question any more of the existence of an American Empire. Indeed, the once fervent denials have turned into a boastful, unashamed embrace of the idea.
However, the very idea that the United States was an empire did not occur to me until after I finished my work as a bombardier with the Eighth Air Force in the Second World War, and came home. Even as I began to have second thoughts about the purity of the “Good War,” even after being horrified by Hiroshima and Nagasaki, even after rethinking my own bombing of towns in Europe, I still did not put all that together in the context of an American “Empire.”
I was conscious, like everyone, of the British Empire and the other imperial powers of Europe, but the United States was not seen in the same way. When, after the war, I went to college under the G.I. Bill of Rights and took courses in U.S. history, I usually found a chapter in the history texts called “The Age of Imperialism.” It invariably referred to the Spanish-American War of 1898 and the conquest of the Philippines that followed. It seemed that American imperialism lasted only a relatively few years. There was no overarching view of U.S. expansion that might lead to the idea of a more far-ranging empire — or period of “imperialism.”
I recall the classroom map (labeled “Western Expansion”) which presented the march across the continent as a natural, almost biological phenomenon. That huge acquisition of land called “The Louisiana Purchase” hinted at nothing but vacant land acquired. There was no sense that this territory had been occupied by hundreds of Indian tribes which would have to be annihilated or forced from their homes — what we now call “ethnic cleansing” — so that whites could settle the land, and later railroads could crisscross it, presaging “civilization” and its brutal discontents.
Neither the discussions of “Jacksonian democracy” in history courses, nor the popular book by Arthur Schlesinger Jr., The Age of Jackson, told me about the “Trail of Tears,” the deadly forced march of “the five civilized tribes” westward from Georgia and Alabama across the Mississippi, leaving 4,000 dead in their wake. No treatment of the Civil War mentioned the Sand Creek massacre of hundreds of Indian villagers in Colorado just as “emancipation” was proclaimed for black people by Lincoln’s administration.
That classroom map also had a section to the south and west labeled “Mexican Cession.” This was a handy euphemism for the aggressive war against Mexico in 1846 in which the United States seized half of that country’s land, giving us California and the great Southwest. The term “Manifest Destiny,” used at that time, soon of course became more universal. On the eve of the Spanish-American War in 1898, the Washington Post saw beyond Cuba: “We are face to face with a strange destiny. The taste of Empire is in the mouth of the people even as the taste of blood in the jungle.”
The violent march across the continent, and even the invasion of Cuba, appeared to be within a natural sphere of U.S. interest. After all, hadn’t the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 declared the Western Hemisphere to be under our protection? But with hardly a pause after Cuba came the invasion of the Philippines, halfway around the world. The word “imperialism” now seemed a fitting one for U.S. actions. Indeed, that long, cruel war — treated quickly and superficially in the history books — gave rise to an Anti-Imperialist League, in which William James and Mark Twain were leading figures. But this was not something I learned in university either.
The “Sole Superpower” Comes into View
Reading outside the classroom, however, I began to fit the pieces of history into a larger mosaic. What at first had seemed like a purely passive foreign policy in the decade leading up to the First World War now appeared as a succession of violent interventions: the seizure of the Panama Canal zone from Colombia, a naval bombardment of the Mexican coast, the dispatch of the Marines to almost every country in Central America, occupying armies sent to Haiti and the Dominican Republic. As the much-decorated General Smedley Butler, who participated in many of those interventions, wrote later: “I was an errand boy for Wall Street.”
At the very time I was learning this history — the years after World War II — the United States was becoming not just another imperial power, but the world’s leading superpower. Determined to maintain and expand its monopoly on nuclear weapons, it was taking over remote islands in the Pacific, forcing the inhabitants to leave, and turning the islands into deadly playgrounds for more atomic tests.
In his memoir, No Place to Hide, Dr. David Bradley, who monitored radiation in those tests, described what was left behind as the testing teams went home: “[R]adioactivity, contamination, the wrecked island of Bikini and its sad-eyed patient exiles.” The tests in the Pacific were followed, over the years, by more tests in the deserts of Utah and Nevada, more than a thousand tests in all.
When the war in Korea began in 1950, I was still studying history as a graduate student at Columbia University. Nothing in my classes prepared me to understand American policy in Asia. But I was reading I. F. Stone’s Weekly. Stone was among the very few journalists who questioned the official justification for sending an army to Korea. It seemed clear to me then that it was not the invasion of South Korea by the North that prompted U.S. intervention, but the desire of the United States to have a firm foothold on the continent of Asia, especially now that the Communists were in power in China.
Years later, as the covert intervention in Vietnam grew into a massive and brutal military operation, the imperial designs of the United States became yet clearer to me. In 1967, I wrote a little book called Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawal. By that time I was heavily involved in the movement against the war.
When I read the hundreds of pages of the Pentagon Papers entrusted to me by Daniel Ellsberg, what jumped out at me were the secret memos from the National Security Council. Explaining the U.S. interest in Southeast Asia, they spoke bluntly of the country’s motives as a quest for “tin, rubber, oil.”
Neither the desertions of soldiers in the Mexican War, nor the draft riots of the Civil War, not the anti-imperialist groups at the turn of the century, nor the strong opposition to World War I — indeed no antiwar movement in the history of the nation reached the scale of the opposition to the war in Vietnam. At least part of that opposition rested on an understanding that more than Vietnam was at stake, that the brutal war in that tiny country was part of a grander imperial design.
Various interventions following the U.S. defeat in Vietnam seemed to reflect the desperate need of the still-reigning superpower — even after the fall of its powerful rival, the Soviet Union — to establish its dominance everywhere. Hence the invasion of Grenada in 1982, the bombing assault on Panama in 1989, the first Gulf war of 1991. Was George Bush Sr. heartsick over Saddam Hussein’s seizure of Kuwait, or was he using that event as an opportunity to move U.S. power firmly into the coveted oil region of the Middle East? Given the history of the United States, given its obsession with Middle Eastern oil dating from Franklin Roosevelt’s 1945 deal with King Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia, and the CIA’s overthrow of the democratic Mossadeq government in Iran in 1953, it is not hard to decide that question.
Justifying Empire
The ruthless attacks of September 11th (as the official 9/11 Commission acknowledged) derived from fierce hatred of U.S. expansion in the Middle East and elsewhere. Even before that event, the Defense Department acknowledged, according to Chalmers Johnson’s book The Sorrows of Empire, the existence of more than 700 American military bases outside of the United States.
Since that date, with the initiation of a “war on terrorism,” many more bases have been established or expanded: in Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, the desert of Qatar, the Gulf of Oman, the Horn of Africa, and wherever else a compliant nation could be bribed or coerced.
When I was bombing cities in Germany, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and France in the Second World War, the moral justification was so simple and clear as to be beyond discussion: We were saving the world from the evil of fascism. I was therefore startled to hear from a gunner on another crew — what we had in common was that we both read books — that he considered this “an imperialist war.” Both sides, he said, were motivated by ambitions of control and conquest. We argued without resolving the issue. Ironically, tragically, not long after our discussion, this fellow was shot down and killed on a mission.
In wars, there is always a difference between the motives of the soldiers and the motives of the political leaders who send them into battle. My motive, like that of so many, was innocent of imperial ambition. It was to help defeat fascism and create a more decent world, free of aggression, militarism, and racism.
The motive of the U.S. establishment, understood by the aerial gunner I knew, was of a different nature. It was described early in 1941 by Henry Luce, multi-millionaire owner of Time, Life, and Fortune magazines, as the coming of “The American Century.” The time had arrived, he said, for the United States “to exert upon the world the full impact of our influence, for such purposes as we see fit, and by such means as we see fit.”
We can hardly ask for a more candid, blunter declaration of imperial design. It has been echoed in recent years by the intellectual handmaidens of the Bush administration, but with assurances that the motive of this “influence” is benign, that the “purposes” — whether in Luce’s formulation or more recent ones — are noble, that this is an “imperialism lite.” As George Bush said in his second inaugural address: “Spreading liberty around the world… is the calling of our time.” The New York Times called that speech “striking for its idealism.”
The American Empire has always been a bipartisan project — Democrats and Republicans have taken turns extending it, extolling it, justifying it. President Woodrow Wilson told graduates of the Naval Academy in 1914 (the year he bombarded Mexico) that the U.S. used “her navy and her army… as the instruments of civilization, not as the instruments of aggression.” And Bill Clinton, in 1992, told West Point graduates: “The values you learned here… will be able to spread throughout the country and throughout the world.”
For the people of the United States, and indeed for people all over the world, those claims sooner or later are revealed to be false. The rhetoric, often persuasive on first hearing, soon becomes overwhelmed by horrors that can no longer be concealed: the bloody corpses of Iraq, the torn limbs of American GIs, the millions of families driven from their homes — in the Middle East and in the Mississippi Delta.
Have not the justifications for empire, embedded in our culture, assaulting our good sense — that war is necessary for security, that expansion is fundamental to civilization — begun to lose their hold on our minds? Have we reached a point in history where we are ready to embrace a new way of living in the world, expanding not our military power, but our humanity?
Howard Zinn is the author of A People’s History of the United States and Voices of a People’s History of the United States, now being filmed for a major television documentary. His newest book is A People’s History of American Empire, the story of America in the world, told in comics form, with Mike Konopacki and Paul Buhle in the American Empire Project book series.
An animated video adapted from this essay with visuals from the comic book and voiceover by Viggo Mortensen, as well as a section of the book on Zinn’s early life, can be viewed by clicking here.
Zinn’s website is HowardZinn.org.
Copyright 2008 Howard Zinn
Howard Zinn is the living conscience of America. Never stop, Howard.
Thank you. Your compassion extends to our grandchildren and beyond.
Zinn is such a good man.
We have to do it to protect our wimmin and childrin from the savages! Or the European powers! Or the Russkie commies! Or the dominoes! Or the Chinese! Or the terrists! Or the bogeyman! …
If we don’t end it, it will end us.
Clearly, with John McCain leading in the polls, we are not at that point. With our education system failing and our media brainwashing up, I don’t see a time in the near future where we will be at that point.
One of the things I am so often struck by is just how many outright lies I was told in public school in the 1950s and 1960s …
It’s hard to imagine, but I think my teachers mostly believed them … but things like “never having colonies BECAUSE we were once a colony,” “never lost a war,” “never struck first”… were deeply embedded in elementary school.
Yes, some of our fathers were WWII veterans. Even though they were often silent and refused to talk about “the war,” our teachers and the television were full of our brave, noble nation, spreading goodness with our Peace Corps and The Green Revolution … modern farming methods … oh yeah.
The past still jars me … the present appalls me.
Alas, the only way to end it, is to end us.
Exercise your ’sanity clause’ and call in well until the Anti-Christ has fled.
This election year we now have Clinton, McCain and Obama from which we’ll choose a president who can either lead us further down the road of imperialism or possibly help us start turning the ship.
Clinton is (just within the last few weeks) now almost certainly not electable due to her Bosnia landing story that conservatives would successfully crush her with in the general election. McCain still believes the grade school version of history that Howard Zinn has described and, if anything, wants us empire-building everywhere for “100 years.” Ralph Nader will run again and lose again. Obama is what civilized people have left. We need to make him happen.
” Have not the justifications for empire, embedded in our culture, assaulting our good sense — that war is necessary for security, that expansion is fundamental to civilization — begun to lose their hold on our minds? Have we reached a point in history where we are ready to embrace a new way of living in the world, expanding not our military power, but our humanity ? ”
The empire is over-extended and declining as an economic and material reality. But the collective psychosis of cultural “normalcy” remains intact. Participating in endless war crimes is not only “normal” in America but is a source of patriotic and heroic pride.
And of course God is on our side.
I doubt that morality will reform the American “mind” but the hard times resulting from a bankrupt imperial system might wake up enough people to bring about a degree of change.
susan parker: exactly.
in 1966 when i was “in” grade 12, my older cousin had a job reviewing and recommending history textbooks for the manitoba school curriculum. he gave me four versions of the events the writers and their respective influences and backers chose to detail, interpret,distort,omit, etc. in their presentation of canadian histoy. this insight, together with the vietnam war and vilification of all things not capitolist usa, made me develop an armour of lie detector skills. liars are the root of all calamity. i deeply resent having been subjected to the world view of the socio/pychopathetic elite white men cabal. i deplore the amount of viligance required to navigate this culture. thank you howard zinn.
If you have not read Dr. Zinn’s “People’s History of the United States, 1492-Present” I would highly recommend it. I use it as a text in my history classes at both the lower and upper-division levels.
‘We the people’ were tasked with building a country. And we were given the Constitution to use. We were well on our way when the objective was switched. Now ‘we the people’ are expected to build an empire, that is rapid decline.
Hoa binh
“Both sides, he said, were motivated by ambitions of control and conquest.”
Truer words have never been said. Thanks Howrad Zinn for making this point. Our collective conscience needs to recognize this fact before we moralize (and demonize) the rest of the world.
Daniel David writes (11:52 am) “Clinton is … now almost certainly not electable …McCain still believes the grade school version of history that Howard Zinn has described…. Ralph Nader will run again and lose again. Obama is what civilized people have left.”
Dan misunderstood a fundamental aspect of Zinn’s essay. Zinn wrote, “The American Empire has always been a bipartisan project — Democrats and Republicans have taken turns extending it, extolling it, justifying it.”
Zinn did NOT write (as Dan quite wrongly interpreted it), “Voting is simply a matter of picking the least objectionable mainstream Democrat.” Rather, with his superior insight, Zinn specifically cautions against the childish belief that the least objectionable mainstream Democrat will act as a counter to Empire.
Having just heard of the latest US plot against the Palestinians, I doubt that those among us most representative of the gene pool which struck for genocide against the native American and which seems to be working for genocide in Iraq is ready to forsake violence.
And it’s not only the real history behind the history which is recorded in the text books, it’s the unknown history from “Operation Gladio” to our “baiting” the Russians into Afghanistan “in order to give them a Vietnam-type experience.” Most of all, our real history
is hidden in secret intelligence projects: “Operation Northwoods” and the “Huston Plan,” “Cointelpro” and “MKUltra,” “Mockingbird” and CIA coups all over the globe. It would be difficult to suggest that we ever came anywhere near reaching the ideal of a government of the people.
Looking forward to the documentary and the new book!
Howard Zinn is a hero of truth. America is a corporate empire based on the over-consumption and greed of its people. We (you and I) are doing so much to destroy the planet with our avarice and the blithe disregard of the consequences of our bloated lifestyle. Maybe, if we elect an enlightened leader, we can slowly work toward a more sustainable world—maybe. Or it may be too late.
All we can do is try—vote Obama!
Howard Zinn, you are a national treasure and always enlightening to read and reflect on. Although often causing feelings of shame and guilt at what has been done in our names over the years, the truth is what is most important, however painful to accept. Thank you for your immense contributions to history and humanity.
RichM: 12:43
” Rather, with his superior insight, Zinn specifically cautions against the childish belief that the least objectionable mainstream Democrat will act as a counter to Empire.”
Yeah, but what else can we do?
Empire isn’t really a complete negative, gang. After all, it brought decent food to Britain and taught the game of cricket to millions of Indians.
Now, if someone could point out a similarly positive development with regard to the American empire, my thesis might be stronger.
oh yeah, before i forget: three cheers for vigo as well. every time i hear him speak i am pleasantly surprised and moved.
to susan parker & evelyn bunch:
my partner & i were talking just last night about our respective “conversions” to atheism and when & how they occurred. mine was tied into my “historical awakening” - 6th grade (1963), parochical school, top student in my class. the nun was explaining communism and, also serving as the school’s art teacher, went to the chalkboard and drew a sinister, caped figure with raised dagger and pointed hat, like some kind of nefarious, modern-day merlin, stalking a white-chalk-filled-in (aka caucasian) figure in a garbage can-strewn alley.
it was as if she kicked in the bottom-most playing card in a delicately-built house of cards. my entire world view came toppling down with that one moment of paranoid delusion, so common in america at the time, with its monolithic view of communism, socialism, and nationalist movements of liberation. damn! everything i had been told up to that point, all my assumptions and preconceptions, had been lies.
if not for her and her momentary over-reach, i may have never developed my love of history (and love of history teachers and professors) and may also have missed out on what has been a lifetime of reading, probing, questioning, and activism.
come to think of it, i would have also been spared the despair i’ve had to endure for so many years. oh, well.
kgarry,
I was struck by the similarity of your awakening and my own. I was also a 6th grade student in parochial school and was also inspired by a nun to become an agnostic. However, in my case, the nun was trying to get us to analyze Christianity and to come up with our own understanding of it and our own reasons for believing in it. I did my own analysis and found that I could not believe it any longer. And the realization that I was being told, by those in authority, what I was quite sure was nonsense, convinced me, as a similar realization also convinced you, to challenge everything else I was being taught.
RichM at 04-02-08 at 12:43 pm
Bravo. Very well said. It is simply astonishing how many liberals have been seduced by Obama’s smooth oratory and charisma without bothering to look underneath the surface of what he is saying. If they did, they would discover that this alleged agent of hope and change wishes to keep “some troops” in the region of Iraq even after his phased [not immediate] withdrawal of American troops is finally complete. What Obama is not mentioning is that his description of some troops could very well come to 40,000 to 60,000 troops placed “over the horizon”, which will do little to mollify the fears of the Iraqis that those troops could be sent back into their country at a moment’s notice, where they could once again wreak havoc and destruction upon the Iraqi people. Obama also wishes to add approximately 100,000 more people to the military, a military that is already the largest in the world. Apparently Obama needs to have the U.S. add more troops in order to seek out more countries to invade in the name of American imperialism. As Ralph Nader has observed, the U. S. military and its budget is already bloated but that fact apparently does little to deter Obama from increasing an already gargantuan military, which is more than capable of killing and maiming civilians the world over.
Since both parties and the networks will do their best to make sure that Ralph Nader is once again shut out in the debates, that means that there will be no one to criticize the corporate actions of the Democrats and the Republicans. As Howard Zinn has noted, both parties are quite adept in invading and bombing other countries, all in the name of American imperialism and neoliberalism.
re madcow 1:02PM
“Yeah, but what else can we do?”
voting independent is one way to show the ruling class that you’re hip to their game.
not voting at all shows them you’re alienated and apathetic, which is just fine with them.
voting D or R shows them you’re a sucker begging to be fleeced.
“Yeah, but what else can we do?”
This the frustration that all of Humanity must come to grip with, the pessimism that damns us all from inaction. We must learn to conquer this motive, for humanity’s path to finding the light was never a question of possibility, rather, inevibility.
A good friend of mine once said that all humans have four terms when it comes to ideas. One, two, three, and many. Think of four ideas, three minor things you can do like talking to your friends or not shopping at walmart or something, just think three minor things. After the third idea, the I almost guarentee you that the idea generation will only stop by the bounderies of exhaustion, not possibility.
—How can we live in a better tomorrow if we do not expect it?—
Ever since I first encountered Howard Zinn’s “People’s History”, I’ve had a whole different view of American history than the one presented by my junior high, high school, and undergraduate textbooks, and the popular narrative still presented today in the mainstream media and in the politicians’ stump speeches. Zinn is a true public intellectual, but he is also a very readable one.
Taking the chronology of Zinn’s essay on Empire or Humanity as a point of departure, short of a wholesale re-drafting of the prevailing historical myths, and then somehow effectively disseminating this jarring shift in worldview to the American public at large, are there some smaller, practical steps that might be taken? Here are two I suggest.
First, the traditional textbook narrative description of the American colonial experience and how it led to the Declaration of Independence, posits anti-imperialism (and anti-divine right monarchy) as the true, quintessential All-American Value. To the extent that the Spanish-American War in particular was a stark betrayal of America’s anti-colonial heritage, then let’s call a spade a spade. The Anti-Imperialist League of the early 1900’s (folks like Mark Twain and Andrew Carnegie) certainly didn’t pull their punches. Neither should contemporary Americans. Uncle Sam doesn’t do empire well.
Which leads up to the second point: although both major political parties are complicit in a whole sequence of bipartisan acts of empire construction abroad, it was the Republican Party first that openly embraced such military adventurism on behalf of US business interests (ask Smedley Butler), deriding their Democratic colleagues as timid isolationists. It also remains the right wing of the GOP that consistently turns the pro-war screws tighter and tighter on the domestic front, with testosterone drenched appeals to super patriotism no matter what the cost.
What ever became of FDR’s good neighbor policy, or the ideals of the Peace Corps?
Why do today’s Democrats hide from that history rather than extoll its virtues, especially when contrasted with the preemptive war fantasies of George W. Bush and his heir designate, John McCain?
Perhaps what the current electoral dialogue would benefit from is at least a partial revisiting of American imperial history, Zinn-style. Vietnam was a big mistake, no matter how much the neo-cons would like to re-write that history. Iraq is another big mistake.
Time to go back to the original, traditional American values of the revolutionary era.
Bill from Saginaw
Erroll 1:37,
What chance do you think Obama would have of getting elected if he came out and said he would reduce our bloated military? I’m not seduced by smooth oratory and charisma—I’m just a realist. I’ve seen what happens to candidates who threaten the empire… Look at Kucinich’s two runs for president, or Nader or Ron Paul or Howard Dean. The Corporate Media will shoot down anyone who threatens the status quo and speaks truth to power. They will be tossed to the wayside, and will never get elected. The only hope we have is for someone to get elected who sees this dynamic for what it is, and who works within this broken system to change it. To go on and say that the two parties are the same, and that voting doesn’t matter is just what the corporate masters want—defeatist and demoralizing at best. Why do you think that 50% of Americans don’t even bother voting anymore? So go ahead and waste your vote on Nader—I love Ralph Nader and everything he stands for. But I’m going to vote for Obama, not because he’s the lesser of two evils or because I think all his positions are perfect, but because I think he’s very intelligent, has a good heart, and think he MIGHT work from the inside to make our world a better place.
the american political system is broken on every level, and will not assist us…that hope is misplaced…only worldwide self-directed individual rejection of consumptive life will…
every historical figure, good or bad, you can think of: ruler, general\warrior, philosopher, painter\sculptor\composer, playwright, inventor, explorer, etc….EVERY ONE that lived and died before the late 1800s, did whatever they did FOR THEIR ENTIRE LIVES without electricity or cars or supermarkets or tennis shoes or television or video games or ipods or space weaponry or anything else that came after…why are we unable or unwilling to comprehend such life? land grabs\destruction supply the world’s individuals endless products for their ceaseless purchase and consumption\disposal…ownership and consumption of the earth is wrong…remaking the living earth into never-going-back radioactive\toxic waste is wrong…governments will never improve things the way self-directed wholesale philosophical changes in the way individuals live their daily lives on this planet will…what few things do you REALLY need? stop buying what you really DON’T…will you give up your car\tv to save the world? the earth’s individuals need to do this together…united we stand…we will never get the attention of governments until we stop buying all things we don’t absolutely require…the attention that gets probably won’t be pacific, but it must be done (I’m half-expecting the government to FORCE recanting individuals to consume)…if individuals, themselves, can’t control their own earth-resource consumption (everything here is an earth-resource), we, meaning ALL living things here, are certainly doomed…
Yet another Zinn brief masterpiece: a thing of truth and beauty.
It is especially heartening to note that he and his flyer buddy who was shot down and killed BOTH READ BOOKS! We seem to forget that the act of literacy is one of those things that is at the core of what it means to be human. Reading and writing are HUMAN practices like no other.
They are, in fact, often subversive and anti-imperialist acts. Thank You good professor for the reminder.
Clemsy–
Well said and my sentiments exactly–Howard Zinn (along with Studs Terkel)is our national conscience whether we choose to believe it, like it, listen to it or not.
I am so glad that Howard was spared the fate of his gunner friend so he could give us the benefit of his understanding. Honorable ancient one, say on–we are listening!
“A People’s History of the United States: 1492 to Present” is a groundbreaking work. It’s difficult to imagine another book that presents so many well-established facts that are so contrary to the pop culture and intellectual orthodoxy of our country. It’s a shocking read, one that will stay with you forever. Just read the first paragraph, and you’ll be hooked.
“Yeah, but what else can we do?”
When the government ceases to serve the people, it is the people’s responsibility to overthrow it and replace it with one that serves the people.
The U.S.A. as an empire is already dead, even if they do not acknowledge it. All that is left for them is the decline. From the beginning, the U.S.A. was a consortium of criminals and murderers and that was the specific type of people which they purposely attracted with their immigration policies. They took in everyone from European ancestry who couldn’t be prosperous in their native lands. Their northern neighbor, Canada, has recently followed a similar type of goofy immigration policy whereby they let in immigrants who had a certain amount of cash ($150,000 or enough to create employment for two people) to sustain them and get them started, and so they got all the criminal gangs from Hong Kong who had to evacuate when that island was returned to China by the British. Poor Vancouver!
The new way of living to be embraced is already in evidence and advancing. It is in Latin America. The leftist governments, which is to say the governments in various stages of ascending to Socialism, such as is epitomised by Cuba, are developing rapidly and soon will be a powerful bloc, once they get rid of that U.S. backed drug cartel which rules Columbia.
Another excellent book on the subject of history is “Lies my teacher told me…everything your
american history textbook got wrong “. Written by James W. Loewen. Recommened by Howard Zinn.
ISBN 1-56584-100-x
madcow,
Good job at 4/2 2:08pm above! There are many here at CD who are going to pass away before they ever see their third party solution. And they write A LOT.
You cannot talk about 5 years of military occupation in Iraq and ignore 40 in Palestine.
We the people in the land of the free and home of the brave, have some power for a very brief moment before we elect a president who will maintain the status quo.
Yeah, we can do that, we can elect a politician beholden to the Military Industrial Complex, or we can say, no, not this time.
We the people have it in our power to make a phone call, send a FAX or email to Corporate News Editors of TV, newspapers and radio and demand they ask the candidates about Gaza, Jerusalem, the rights of refugees, The Wall, the continuing settlements, the over 500 checkpoints denying Palestinians the right to move on their land in light of this year; the 60th anniversary of Israel, Nakba and the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights- upon which Israel’s statehood was contingent upon upholding.
e
http://www.wearewideawake.org/
The world conquerer delusions in the chief exploiters of the Vampire Nation have been fueled by the fortunate historical accidents of the resource wealth of the North American continent, and the relative youth and spoilt naivety of its population and national culture, and the large push for ever more wealth concentration at the top of the Vampire heap. As global wealth has occurred elsewhere, the monopoly on the lead Vampire position has fallen away. In a crowded world, the best molestation the lecherous old Vampire can manage now is to threaten or attack relatively unprotected low ranking world power victims in the fragmented middle eastern Arab world. The technology and resources of the US of Z are corrupt,declining or lacking in cohesive purpose and may be outmatched in many other places in the world. Time, globalism, oil and financial shocks take a toll. The vampire is so large it cannot feed itself anymore. While it still has awesome destructive nuclear power, no one should believe it was ever the shining light of liberty and has a right to do anything to anyone.
Speaking as a non-American and on behalf of the rest of the world I say F@#K the American Empire! And many Americans that I have contact with say the same thing. America, currently, is the country I would least like to live in or be influenced by in any way.
Zinn’s article is pertinent especially the observation that both Democrats and Republicans harbor the same imperialist ambition: to control the world. That’s the ambition that Hitler had, remember?
The question for me now is: given that America is an out-of-control basket case, can the other nations of the world save America from itself? A new article on my blog addresses this question.
www.dangerouscreation.com
www.dangerouscreation.com
Well, lets see … we can try to stop this by voting for independent politicians who will work to stop it.
Or, we can vote Democrat, and watch the Democrats continue this project just like they have for most of the last century.
Supposedly, Obama is the agent of change. What’s his platform? Expand the military by adding more troops. Spend billions more on weapons and training.
I hear that, and I’m reminded of the Einstein quote … ‘You can not simultaneously prevent and prepare for war.’
I suppose the corollary for voters is that you can not simultaneously vote for peace and to prepare for war.
You are either for peace and with us. Or you are against us. The Democrats have a long, long history of supporting and promoting war and the American empire. You can not both oppose this and vote Democrat. You are either with us or against us. If you vote Democrat, you are opposing those of us who truly want and are working for peace.
Excellent -so what– look at the new sub, new airplane, new bolts from space etc etc etc- militarism is an addiction. We have large global armies and large global corps. These godly generals and c.e.o’s, are ordinary guys and now gals, born naked, who rise or scheme to command. They are ferried around in personal jets.—IT IS BETTER THAN SEX– Others run the risk and “I” get the perks! Ethical thinking is only applicable to individuals,who confuse I and me with humanity- oh my humanity! GIVE ME A BUCK oops break. The historian, (Mr Zinn is one of the best) tell the story and show the cost. The United States will rot. Historians know that the rulers of the American Empire,like the last sultans of Constantinople,will continue the hoax into exile.The wise leaders of empire, up to the bitter end will mouth platitudes and lies. The privileged class will move on to other great cities and continue to make “whoopee”. The evaporation has started. America now “hires” it’s freedom fighters, the new champs of god. The captains of industry and finance are whining bottom liners anxious to exploit anybody and anything for their personal dream of a “private” palace supported by others.
Yet another excellent history of the US is Ronald Takaki’s “A Different MIrror” which is a multicultural history of America as told by the writings and oral histories of the various peoples who came to the US during its history.
Native American genocides, African American fraternization with white and native American populations, Slave and indentured servant revolts, the mistreratment and demonization of everyone from the Irish, to the Japanese, to the Puerto Ricans and other Latin Americans, it’s all there with plenty of primary source documentation and richly footnoted.
The US is the last in the long line of the imperial/empire/dominator story–this story has been going on for at least 5000 years….we didn’t invent it, it came across from Europe…which got it from the middle east…..
We are all so stuck in in the dominator cultural story, we can’t imagine any other way of living on the planet.
The “dominator” story —- the belief that the only option is to dominate or be dominated pervades every one of our systems–family, church, politics, economics, business etc.around the Globe. Its men over women, white over black…. It is so pervasive that no one even questions it–and it enables the insanity of the housing foreclosure mess, stock market mania, massive world wide poverty, starvation, etc. In the US, 25% of children are going to bed hungry–and we somehow think this is just one of those things that happens….if you’re not the guy on top–then you’re dominated and that’s the way it goes. All of these are part of the dominator story and thus, the starving masses are a natural result of this dominator story.
The fallacy however is that the dominator story is NOT the only option and in fact, as Riane Eisler shows in her book, Real Wealth of Nations…we are hard-wired to care–it is in fact what has enabled humans to survive for over 30,000 years–only the last 5000 has the dominator story taken precedence.
We can change the story–but first the ‘dominator story’ has to be exposed and for all of us to see what a failure this story is. Oh, yes, it appears to be a ’success’ for those at the top–but look at the ‘winners’ right now–Bernanke, Greenspan, Rumsfeld, Rice, Bushs’,etc.,–these are the loneliest people on the planet–Getting to the top might be exciting–but when you get there you realize you are all alone–and everyone is waiting to knock you off (even inside your own group!).
It is time for change–and millions of people are working to bring forth a new story–CARING and Partnership. What story do you want to live in?
And as far as out-of-the-box ideas go:
The political spectrum is not a straight line with two ends–it’s a broken circle with the ends closer to each other than to the middle. The % of voters who would vote for an independent, non-partisan (Kucinich/Paul/Nader) ticket is, I think, well over 50%. No war, empire or trick economic system, but people over profit, with sustainability and ecology.
Sweet. Zinn holds the high ground.
“…I was therefore startled to hear from a gunner on another crew — what we had in common was that we both read books.”
a good read about the hands-off king of imperialism:
King Leopold’s Ghost by Adam Hochschild
available 1 minute ago at fetchbook.info for $2.99.
“Have we reached a point in history where we are ready to embrace a new way of living in the world, expanding not our military power, but our humanity?”
I sure hope so Howard and when it does happen your image will stand for ever in the hearts of good men.
I grew up in Hungary after the IInd WW. We have been taught that the US Imperialism is extremely dangerous and we have to defeat it, otherwise there will be no “world peace” just constant expansionist wars. There will be gulags and military outposts in countries, run by money-mad, sadistic Americans. They will rape and pillage. They will not share their wealth with anyone, we’ll be kept like slaves.
Of course, coming from a regime like that, who believed it? We were not allowed to travel, so who knew? We were fed the Hungarian communist government’s and our master’s in Moscow lies.
Now I live in Australia. Have travelled very extensively, have lived in a few contries on different continents. I have come to the conclusion that imperialism is truly evil. No, not defending communism, that was certainly the worst of the worst regimes! But I have definitely said no to imperialism a long time ago and I have stopped having romantic, delusional views of the USA.
We are an empire? Better check again. I think more like a band of uncivilized pirates.
Christain values? Not hardly -that could be the reason they have lost respect in the world and are losing in Iraq and Afghnistan.
Viggo, my good man and I share the same birthday, October 20. Yay. Howard Zinn, You are my main man. Thanks to you I have something to teach the kids. Loved the illustrated telling of how it was and is. A million thanks! Yay humanity. You guys are the best.
Professor Zinn, you’re the best!
Anyone who hasn’t read Zinn’s books yet ought to do so as soon as possible.
Those interested in the topics in this article might find these books interesting as well:
http://www.amazon.com/Illusion-Victory-America-World-War/dp/046502467X
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/23/books/review/Toibin-t.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=human+smoke&st=nyt&oref=slogin
There are many here at CD who are going to pass away before they ever see their third party solution. And they write A LOT.
Hey DD : Does your wife , sister , mother , girlfriend , mistress…or maybe you ( Daniel David could be a girl ) vote ?
If you have answered yes to any one of these classifications then do me a favour , quit whining and “google” Susan B . Anthony . I don’t know why a red-blooded American like you , male or female would have to “google” that name but I can’t answer for the selective omission or inclusion policies in American , high school or college classes in American History.
Rephrasing your “whine” with ” there are many in the American Suffragette Movement who will pass away before they will ever see a voting woman and they write and speak a lot,” in Susan B. Anthony’s case , that my friend ,is an understatement . This lady lobbied state and federal governments for sixty years and died before American women were given the right to vote.So much for polliana-optimism or just plain grit.
Like you say , many , many people talk ; other people just do .
Her detractors sounded just like you.
We need more visionaries like Howard Zinn . . . and Naomi Klein . . . and David Ray Griffin. No, at the present these most realistic of the current state of affairs, especially as it pertains to the U.S. and its imperial designs, do not agree on all aspects of their analyses of the origins and solutions to the disastrous fix in which we, as a nation find ourselves. What I would hope for, however, would be that these experts would agree to sit down together with some of their closest advisors/consultants and discuss their postulations and views about where we are today and how we can find our way out of the morass and build a vision for the future that minimizes war (and disaster capitalism) as a predominant force of foreign policy and emphasizes peaceful negotiations and actual recognition of the worth of all human beings.
I think many of us have gone through a similar process of learning the real history outside of our spoonfed regurgitative educational system.
A few points to add to the global empire that’s been building for a couple of centuries:
- The creation of the Federal Reserve bank resulting in perpetual debt and control of the economy/country by a small group of the wealthy elitists.
- The unconstitutional federal tax system to pay the debt on the money loaned to the government by the Federal Reserve.
- The attempted fascist coup that was exposed by Smedley Butler, whom was asked by a group including Prescott Bush, to lead the coup.
- 9/11 being an inside job which was the catalyst to solidify the fascist control of government while the grandson of one of the perpetrators of the fascist takeover was occupying the white house at the time.
- The systematic consolidation of corporate control and censorship in journalism enabled by the gov’t as a propaganda tool.
Mr. Zinn’s article would be much enhanced if the reality of the 9/11 inside job were acknowledged as the Amerikan Reichstag.
peace…
Given the current American mindset, it will be humanity for the rich and inhumanity for the rest of us. As a practical matter we do see the empire in decline. Those of us who decouple from it and apply our efforts and humanity to building a new American society may not see the fruits of our labor in our lifetimes although we will see progress. In time, our new lifeways will flower and our children and society will benefit. If you are going to decouple you must not vote for a dim or repug. Vote Green and support the movement to a new and better America. It’s a simple rationale but I believe it’s valid.
I can’t help but notice that the US always attacks countries that are smaller than it. Why don’t they attack countries like China or Russia…and then see how they make out. Cowards! The US ‘empire’ will be the Rubbled Empire…destruction and death all over.
Better late than never, make ‘Peoples History of the US’ mandatory study in our school’s history classes.
You the man Howard!
tbenner–I’ll go you one better–Have “A People’s History” as a companion text to whatever dumbed down tome is mandated by the district and have students review selected portions depending on what chronological period in US history they are studying.
That way they not only learn more about actual history, they also learn the bias of their “approved” history book.
“Better late than never, make ‘Peoples History of the US’ mandatory study in our school’s history classes.”
tbenner, there is a social studies conference scheduled for this month in Buffalo, part of which will discuss the inclusion of People’s History in NY State Ed curriculum.
The time is certainly right for the promotion of this work which values the individual more than as just a market commodity or cannon fodder, which is all we are to both Republicans and Democrats.
Clemsy, it would be good if a contributing writer could attend and publish a CD article. I am in central Pa., the ‘heart of darkness’, I know it wouldn’t fly in any surrounding school districts here.
Well then… Mrs. Clemsy is a social studies teacher, and Prof. Zinn was her advisor at B.U… she may attend.
Your wish could come true.
It seems that us non-native citizens of the US are coming under a similar oppression that the native Americans did at the time of the Louisiana Purchase. Without our permission, the government has allowed corporations to poison us, sell us hormone-laden and genetically modified foods, skirt the laws that protect citizens from harm from the corporations, deny health-care insurance to anybody they choose, steal precious water from municipalities, pollute the air and water, inject our children with serums that many believe cause mental impairment (the mercury-autism link) and more.
We’ve seen what happened to our native American brothers and sisters. They had no idea what was happening to them, but WE DO, and we’re sitting by letting it.
What is it going to take to get off of our asses and fight back?
Actually, this morning it strikes me how very “complicated” teaching American history would be if divergent opinions were permitted to be heard … the nation’s birth was complicated (irrevokably some think) by compromises wrt slavery … and emancipation of the slaves was not the ONLY reason for the civil war … and then there were all those pesky western territories and their slave policies … oh, and the labor movement in the mines and elsewhere … thank god for thee Red Scare (much like today’s War on Terror) to provide a subtefuge for the powerful to hide behind … funny how if you scratch the surface, you can find the roots of red scare dating back to the Pinkertons and the anti-unionist, anti-foreigner policies which hit like a vengeance after the civil war and the beat goes on … let’s not talk about the vast northward migration from the south which created the black ghettos of today … (the KKK and Jim Crow laws are spoken of as racist exceptions, even anachronistic, but economic realities also drove people north, another kind of fire-bomb through the front window, incentive) …
Yes, it’s amazing the things you find if you scratch the surface… it doesn’t quite look like a Norman Rockwell Fourth of July picnic by any means.
Another admirably trenchant and succinct commentary by Zinn!
That discussion with his fellow airman did plant the seeds for Zinn’s awakening and at every opportunity we need to do likewise. I would like to have Zinn include Puerto Rico’s colonial status in essays like the one above. Puerto Rico is in a unique position with the Democratic Primaries that will take place on the Island in June. If Obama and Clinton continue a close race up to then, Puerto Rico will have 63 delegates. Will it matter? Come November then it will be back to electoral business as usual as Puerto Rican will not vote for a President.
It seems that even the most humane and intelligent U.S. soldiers are motivated, perhaps unconsciously, by the goal of creating “Pax Americana” in Afghanistan and Iraq. The idea is so deeply-imbedded in the collective American consciousness that one seldom hears political debate that doesn’t assume it as an absolute good. Of course, monstrous regimes like the reign of the Taliban or the Baathists provide an easily-digestible rationale for extending the empire, and make it more difficult to persuade people to work for an alternative means to extend human rights while securing our own country.
To Ronald White 4/2 10:54pm
I, Daniel David, am using here my real first and middle names, so I’m not a girl as you speculate “might” be the case. I do have a wife who votes, a deceased mother who used to vote, no sisters, no girlfriends and no mistresses. We all can appreciate Susan B. Anthony and what she did to get women voting, but your bringing that up has no relevance whatever to America’s present problems and solutions. In hindsight, it’s pretty obvious that women should have always had voting rights, even though that wasn’t as well seen in prior centuries. But women voting or not is a right we didn’t (and then later did) extend to a whole category of people. Imaginary third parties that will come to our rescue are not a “right” or necessarily even a solution—since they’re undefined. For instance, in our current scenario where none of the three candidates this time are very appealing to social conservatives, we might spawn the “Ten Commandments Righteousness Party” and it might actually win with 34% and the other two getting 33% each. I doubt you’d like that outcome much, but maybe some firebrand preacher could make it happen. If it did, you wouldn’t compare him or her to Susan B. Anthony—you’d more likely compare him or her to Jerry Falwell.
Ralph Nader, a strong voice, has been calling for a third party takeover for a long time. The movement is failing again and has so far only served to tilt elections against ANY of the actual principles he speaks about. CD folks here love to talk about how he and Cindy Sheehan are going to re-order America. But they’re not going to—not now anyway.
Yet we have a real chance this time for Obama to redefine the Democratic Party and make it better. I’m for that this time because it’s actually doable.
‘… in the eyes of the people the grapes of wrath were filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage…’
tbenner April 3rd, 2008 10:04 am
I am also in central PA. I just took my kid out of the “System” in the beginning of the year so he can get a Real education without being treated like another cog being shaped to fit the War/Greed machine.
One of “our” biggest weaknesses is in this “pax americana” concept. It’s difficult .. but self-determination is going to look different in different places, and literally will evolve over time …
There have to be tools other than the military for dealing with / addressing humanitarian atrocities … like sanctions … The taliban is an excellent example of a terrible regieme … where, once again, regieme change really wasn’t the “answer” that “we” anticipated. In fact, for many reasons, the Taliban is resurgent. I also feel that the Palestinan/Israeli (endless) crisis should be dealt with “creatively” … resorting to violence seems to only lay the groundwork for the next revenge …
We are not the policmen of the world, nor are we the world’s “husband” (as in husbandry) … we can, however, support those who do good … and deny support for those who do harm.
We don’t even succeed at standing tall on the side of moderation … We have to learn patience and “other ways” of helping.
Clemsy April 2nd, 2008 11:05 am
“Howard Zinn is the living conscience of America.”
Yes, he is!
“As the much-decorated General Smedley Butler, who participated in many of those interventions, wrote later: “I was an errand boy for Wall Street.””
I wonder if Gen. Butler was aware of whom he was working for at the time?
Interesting, and very good article, but he omits something abot 9-11, 2001; that it’s strongly most likely an ‘inside job’.
Other than for that “little” omission, very good article.
Don’t believe me? Then you’ve been reading from the wrong sources, not truly of the 9-11 TM, or else it’s wholly you’re mistake. Sibel Edmonds is very helpful in this regard, but not specifically. Still, combine; because what she says is fitting. The whole is a … big mess of crap. And crap is what’s going on. We’re in deep trouble and don’t know it.
We’re in … deep.
Solutions2 I question it. I question it every day. As a Therapist I just couldnt get my head around that people continued to live that way with each other. Plus the reality that the dominator had and has myriad levels of experience in doing so, while those dominated were brand new, and inexperienced in standing up for themselves, and usually failed.
I find the Hardt and Negri conception of Empire a much more useful way of viewing our present global situation. While the United States government (and particularly its military) is certainly the locus of global control at the present moment, focusing too much on the concept of a “United States empire” masks the important fact that behind the scenes, national boundaries are eroding and a whole coalition of various governmental, supra-governmental, and multinational corporate structures act in cooperation to structure global empire, even in places where the United States government does not play a very visible role. The U.S. government is a useful tool for domination because it has such a powerful global economic and military infrastructure, and because it has the pretense of democratic governance without any of the pesky problems that come with the real essence of democratic representation or accountability, but the waning power of the United States would not necessarily represent in any way a waning of the power of Empire more broadly conceived. On the contrary, many of the global elite have designs to eventually transfer the responsibility of global surveillance and control from the United States apparatus to a global government apparatus much stronger than the UN, with even less accountability to the public being ruled over.
I agree with solrey who said on April 2,
“Mr. Zinn’s article would be much enhanced if the REALITY of the 9/11 INSIDE JOB were acknowledged as the Amerikan Reichstag.”
“In wars, there is always a difference between the motives of the soldiers and the motives of the political leaders who send them into battle. My motive, like that of so many, was innocent of imperial ambition. It was to help defeat fascism and create a more decent world, free of aggression, militarism, and racism.
The motive of the U.S. establishment… was described early in 1941 by Henry Luce, multi-millionaire owner of Time, Life, and Fortune magazines, as the coming of “The American Century.” The time had arrived, he said, for the United States “to exert upon the world the full impact of our influence, for such purposes as we see fit, and by such means as we see fit.”
This reminds me of a passage I recently read in Ursula K. LeGuin’s “The Dispossessed”, a passage which knocked me flat and one I want to commit to memory:
“Atro had once explained to him how this was managed, how the sergeants could give the privates orders, how the lieutenants could give the privates and the sergeants orders, how the captains… and so on and so on up to the generals, who could give everyone else orders and need take them from none, except the commander in chief. Shevek had listened with incredulous disgust. “You call that organization?” he had inquired. “You even call it discipline? But it is neither. It is a coercive mechanism of extraordinary inefficiency - a kind of seventh-millenium steam engine! With such a rigid and fragile structure what could be done that was worth doing?” This had given Atro a chance to argue the worth of warfare as the breeder of courage and manliness and the weeder-out of the unfit, but the very line of his argument had forced him to concede the effectiveness of guerillas, organized from below, self-disciplined. “But that only works when the people think they’re fighting for something of their own - you know, their homes, or some notion or other,” the old man had said. Shevek had dropped the argument. He now continued it, in the darkening basement among the stacked crates of unlabeled chemicals. He explained to Atro that he now understood why the army was organized as it was. It was indeed quite necessary. No rational form of organization would serve the purpose. He simply had not understood that the purpose was to enable men with machine guns to kill unarmed men and women easily and in great quantities when told to do so. Only he still could not see where courage, or manliness, or fitness entered in.”
I’m really getting a little sick and tired of all these ‘America Haters’. Sure, this country has it’s problems, but I cannot think of any other place I’d want to live. I’m a 50 year old Navy veteran. There still is no fence to keep you loons in. Time to grow up…oh…you’re STILL living here? I’m sure France will take you!! If you can read this, thank a teacher; if you’re reading it in English, thank a veteran!
banjoman
Our founding fathers said, “Dissent is the highest form of patriotism.” Don’t you love the irony? I guess that makes the “America Haters” (with the balls to speak out against our government’s crimes) great patriots. On the other hand you patriotic true believers must be quite a bit lower in rank. Sorry pal, too many true believers makes a real democracy weak and flabby.
If America is free it has little to do with our military. And if the only way to keep it free is by force then it is not at all free.
Considering that every country has plenty of military “heroes” waiting for orders to be sent off to kill or die for country, why isn’t every country equally free?
The military is a bunch of BS. If you love freedom, thank the writers of our constitution who believed in serious criticism of the government, not sucking on the patriotic teet and thanking God for your military! BS!
If freedom isn’t free, well then what hell it is?
Give me habeus corpus or get the hell out of my country!
If the day comes when there are more people like you and Rush Limbaugh in the USA than me, I’ll gladly get the hell out. (oops-time to pack up)
Oh, and I am a teacher and I am fluent in BOTH French AND English. I’d rather go to a French Polynesian island.
Howard Zinn is a true lover of America. A true lover tries to understand the beloved’s history, tries to help the beloved become good and happy. He doesn’t boastfully parade his love around on his arm and keep her quiet.
I do have a feeling that the USA is going the way of the Roman Empire, the Persian Empire, the Mongolian Empire, and most other ancient empires that have since went extinct due to their thirst for conquest and world domination over the centuries. Their extinctions, I believe, is not the work of cruelty. Rather it is a consequence of choices that society has made. I have always thought one significant similarity between the Roman and the USA Empires is the fact that both were considered “melting pots” of diverse cultures. Indeed, both believe that it was through their diversity that made them “good” and morally superior to all other cultures and Empires. Citizens of both Empires generally held the same belief also that if only areas said Empires occupied/invaded would just accept the fact that they came to foreign lands with best intentions and that the strangers knew what was best for them. Therefore occupying or invading the area was for the good of the indigenous people. Both the Roman and USA Empires disrespected the traditions and History of the lands they have occupied and invaded.
The idea that it is not ok for an American to dislike the USA is something that I do not understand. I thought that to be an American meant to have freedom. Should not an individual have the right to decide what to like and what not to like - especially an adult individual? Perhaps I am confused about how much freedom Americann truly have.
I have been to the United States several times. Actually, I have traveled quite extensively there. My favorite of the USA are West USA and Hawaii; although the East had it own look which was pretty too. The USA is a beautiful country with many diverse places to see - much like how the people of the USA themselves are diverse. However, this does not provide for me evidence that the USA is better or worse than any other nation. Nor does this fact convince me that the United States grants the most freedom to its citizens than any other nation on Earth as this statement is false in my opinion.
Someone here compared France with the USA in a way that was negative in my mind. I wonder if he has been to France before or even to a country in Europe. The way the European Union as well as individual countries conduct themselves inside Europe are very different from the USA in its policies, but that does not make one better than the other. Obviously, Europe is much older than the USA and therefore seen more of their fair share of ups and downs. For example, do Americans often wonder why both France and Germany did not want to jump on the USA bandwagon, the “coalition of the willing,” and send troops into Iraq unless via other methods such as mercenary or the UN? Both countries fought each other both directly and indirectly for many many years and did not want to get involved.
I will close with stating that, in general, European countries offers more freedom and liberty to its respective citizens than the USA grants to its citizens. There are many examples to cite but I chose not to as I have typed enough words. One difference between European countries and the USA is that Europeans are taxed, on average, half their incomes depending on the European country - much more than Americans are. So one takes the good with the bad. What is that American saying - “Freedom is not free?” Fair enough…