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US Is Not Greatest Country Ever
When foreign car companies started opening factories in the United States, back in the 1980s, it seemed like an act of obeisance. The plants didn't make economic sense - Americans had to be paid so much more - but this was a tactful bit of tribute to Empire Central. America wants auto plants? America gets auto plants.
Last week, BMW announced it was opening a plant in South Carolina. No special explanation was required. People were lined up for jobs paying $15 an hour. Equivalent jobs in Germany pay $30 an hour. We're now a bargain.
The theory that Americans are better than everybody else is endorsed by an overwhelming majority of U.S. voters and approximately 100 percent of all U.S. politicians, although there is less and less evidence to support it. A recent Yahoo poll (and I resist the obvious joke here) found that 75 percent of Americans believe that the United States is "the greatest country in the world." Does any other electorate demand such constant reassurance about how wonderful it is - and how wise? Having spent a month to a couple of years and many millions of dollars trying to snooker voters, politicians awaiting poll results Tuesday will declare that they put their faith in "the fundamental wisdom of the American people."
Not me. Democracy requires me to respect the results of the elections. It doesn't require me to agree with them or to admire the process by which voters made up their minds. In my view, anyone who voted for Barack Obama for president in 2008 and now is supporting some tea party madwoman for senator has a bit of explaining to do. But the general view is that the voters, who may be fools individually, are infallibly wise as a collective - that their "anger," their urgent desire, yet again, for "change," is self-validating.
Everybody will be talking in the next few days about the "message" of the elections. They mean, of course, the message from the voters. This is one of the treasured conventions of political journalism. Yesterday, the story was all about artifice and manipulation, the possible effect of the latest attack ad or absurd lie. Today, all that melts away. The election results are deemed to reflect grand historical trends. But my colleague Joe Scarborough got it right in these pages last week when he argued that the 2010 elections, for all their passion and vitriol, are basically irrelevant. Some people are voting Tuesday for calorie-free chocolate cake, and some are voting for fat-free ice cream. Neither option is actually available. Neither party's candidates seriously addressed the national debt, except with proposals to make it even worse. Scarborough might have added that neither party's candidates had much to say about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (except that they "support our troops," a flabby formulation that leaves Americans killing and dying in faraway wars that politicians won't defend explicitly). Politicians are silent on both these issues for the same reason: There is no solution that American voters will tolerate. Why can't we have calorie-free chocolate cake? We're Americans!
The important message of this election is not from the voters but to the voters. Maybe it can be heard above the din. It is: You're not so special.
The notion that America and Americans are special, among all the peoples of the earth, is sometimes called "American exceptionalism." Because of our long history of democracy and freedom, or because we have a special mission to spread these values (or at least to remain a shining example of them), or because of our wealth, or because of our military strength, our nuclear arsenal, our wide-open spaces, our pragmatism, our idealism, or just because, the rules don't apply to us. There are man-made rules like, "You can't start a war without the permission of the United Nations Security Council." We've gotten away with quite a bit of bending or breaking of that kind of rule. This may have given us the impression that we could ignore the other kind of rules -the ones that are imposed by reality and therefore are self-enforcing. These are rules such as, "You can't have good ice cream without fat" or "You can't borrow increasing amounts of money indefinitely and never pay it back, because people will eventually stop lending it to you." No country is special enough to escape these rules.
Obama was asked during the 2008 presidential campaign whether he believed in American exceptionalism. He said, "I believe in American exceptionalism just as I suspect the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism." Newt Gingrich's gloss: "In other words, everything we cherish about America, our president thinks is not so very special, not so very different from any other country. ... No longer, in the left's view, are we the Americans of the frontier, the sturdy, independent farmers." But the question isn't whether Americans can or should cherish our country, its culture and its values. Gingrich is saying that only Americans can do so. His message to the world is, "Hey, buddy, we'll do the cherishing around here." And the country he cherishes isn't 2010 America - it's some fantasyland populated by frontiersmen and "sturdy, independent farmers." Scarborough is right about him, too. Why do we pay any attention?
This conceit that we're the greatest country ever may be self-immolating. If people believe it's true, they won't do what's necessary to make it true. The Brits, who suffer no such delusion (and who, in fact, cherish the national myth of being people who smile through adversity), have just accepted cuts in government spending that no American politician - even a tea bagger - would dream of proposing. Maybe these cuts are a mistake or badly timed, but when the British voted for "change," they really got it.
Every time I strike this note, which I guess I do a lot, I hear from people calling me elitist or unpatriotic. Here is my answer: If you think a friend is talking nonsense or behaving in a way that damages both of your long-term interests, it is not elitist to say so. To the contrary, it is treating him or her like an adult and an equal. As for patriotism, if you think your country is in danger, how is it unpatriotic to say so?
105 Comments so far
Show AllWhy is this article on Commondreams?
"Democracy requires me to respect the results of elections."
Well, democracy requires me to suspect the results of elections.
The country was never democratic anyway, and the word "democracy" is nowhere in the Constitution.
well the consitution says "government of the people by the people for the people."
so quit being a stupid literalist.
the point is, democracy means tyrany of the stupid when the voters are not enlightened to make the right choice.
and, my friend, there is the right way to make a living and there is the wrong way.
do not let any sophist convince you otherwise.
well the consitution says "government of the people by the people for the people."
no it doesn't. that phrase is in Lincoln's speech at Gettysburg. And it's never been true in reality. The "Founding Fathers" were terrified of the people and wrote a document that guaranteed the control of the government by the rich. They were well aware that if there were a true democracy and there existed a great disparity in the distribution of wealth the people would vote to spread it around equally...you know...democratic socialism. That would end their privilege. Can't have that.
Here's a person who's read the Federalist Papers in some detail and knows well the early history of this country. Thanks generalcommentator.
A brilliant bloodless coup.....without any GORE!
There are any number of sources for this, but the notion that the Constitution was a "democratic" document is folly. Check Fresia's Towards an American Revolution and of course Zinn's Peoples History of the United States--
The Constitution was not favored by the states. They were quite happy with the Confederacy they had already formed. The Confederacy was based upon the Iroquois Nation system, one that the early settlers learned first-hand, and consisted of elected representatives in a single body. No House of Lords, and definitely no King.
The Constitution essentially forced a King and Lords down the gullet of the Confederacy, in the form of the presidency and the Senate. This was precisely to limit populist power inherent in the Confederacy.
The signatures of the various "founders" who signed both documents are instructive. The Articles are signed with great enthusiasm, flourishes and all. The Constitution is signed in hastily scrawled, tiny script. The sole exception is John Hancock, who, according to the curator in D.C., "couldn't help himself."
The Bill of Rights addressed some, but not all of the States' concerns, but we are still stuck with the senate and the president.
That's probably enough for now.
Cheers.
oh really. here come more literalist "fact" lovers, see below? like those "facts" make any difference in the debate in progress.
Steve, do you have a problem with a facts?
Actually, our government was set up as a Constitutional Republic. In actuality, is has morphed into a Corporatist Oligarchy, but that's neither here nor there.....
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross."
Considering the fact that many of our founding fathers owned other people, it wasn't too hard to morph into a Corporatist Oligarchy. The seeds of our present fascist corporate oligarchy were there from the beginning.
Sometimes, people over-parse text and end up making silly points.
So true. They take a single sentence out of this excellent essay: "All I am obligated to do is repect an election result" and completely out of context to irationally attack Mr. Kinsley for being insufficiently lefter than thou.
I have never been called an elitist for obvious reasons but I have been told to "Love it or leave it". I tell them that I have worked too hard to change the things that I think I can:
"Come, my friends,
Tis not too late to seek a newer world"
-Tennyson, Ulysses
"Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago; to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of the world.."
Robert F. Kennedy
Then they shot his brains out.
Down, and to the right.
Down, and to the right.
Down, and to the right.
Down, and to the right.
Fucking brilliant.
Not really.
When I consider the pictures of the hovels that many of the "sturdy farmers" lived in at a time when that no longer occurred in Western Europe I know what Gingrich meant.
The "Brits" have accepted to pay for the sins of their elites? News to me. Lets wait for the first people to be really fired ... and others realizing that about no public infrastructure is left over. Lets wait for their reactions before declaring "cuts accepted", ok?
Besides that - great article.
In addition, would the greatest democracy on the planet have to go to such lengths in attempts to legitimize what should be routine voting practices by its citizenry?
6 hours of wall-to-wall election coverage with new fangled CGI -where's the fucking hologram?!!! - after more than a year of telling us what the results were already going to be - all of this to try and hide the fact that less than 50% of the populous even voted, that the difference between the choices we have are minimal to non-existent and that no matter how we vote our voices are invariably ignored anyways - hello 2006 midterms!
My most telling moment of election 2010 which I overheard at work:
Wolf Blitzer interviewing Bill Maher about Christine O'Donnell asking him whether this woman should be a pundit. Maher stated that to be called a pundit shouldn't one at least know what the 1st amendment says, etc, etc. and Blitzer shot back:
But she did win an election therefore we HAVE to listen to her!!
USA! USA! USA!
"-where's the fucking hologram?!!!"
Polycarp, I'm laughing my ass off right now. I was wondering the same thing.
The very same people who claim America is the greatest country in the world have not lived in any other country.
The very same people who claim America has the best education system in the world , read at a grade 8 level.
The very same people who claim America has the best health care system in the world, have never lived in a country with real Socialized health care system.
The very same people who claim America is the most peaceable and moral country in the world don't know how many violent conflicts and wars Americas has started over the last 100 years, and how many people died total , both sides.
The very same people who claim America is the most Free country in the world have joined or support warrant less surveillance community watch groups, that gang stalk innocent Americans.
I could go on and on, but I will some it up for you, we have become a third world country of labor wages, and are sinking fast. Buckle America, the economy will get worse, we will loose more middle class jobs to low wage jobs, and the next 100 years are going to be brutal for American Family's.
very well said. I applaud your comments and agree 100%.
"The very same people who claim America is the greatest country in the world have not lived in any other country...."
Pssh, don't tell anyone you are wrong! Hank Paulson, Obama, Lloyd Blankfein, Bill Gate, George Soros, Geithner Michael Duke, Timothy Geithner and others have either live, work or travel all over the world. This is truly the greatest county in the world, cuz they can make billions and billions......... The election is over for now and back to more or less the same as the last time.
Agreed. We are well on our way to third-world status. Just look at the new BMW plant opening in North Carolina. That German car company pays its employees in its German plants $30/hour, but they decided to open a plant in America since they can pay Americans only $15/hour, and save a ton of $.
Ahhhhhh, irony. It used to be American corporations closed plants to take advantage of the cheap labor in third world nations. Now other countries are closing plants in their countries to take advantage of the cheap labor in America.
If that isn't a sign of our nation plummeting into the toilet (among many, many others), I don't know what is.
"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag, carrying a cross."
What do you mean " on the way" ?
- the statistics show we are there.
America does not have annual collective bargaining rounds for wages, Germany does.
America does not have strong unions, Germany does.
But I haven't yet seen a Tea-Party-like movement in America to demand collective bargaining for wages, you see...although one wonders why not.
There's a huge army of American turkeys out there who keep voting for early Christmases if only the news media financed by business tell them to do so.
German or French workers wouldn't buy that. To be timid has a price tag.
Exactly.
I was suprised to find that in most of the EU, the legal minimum wage is not determined in the chambers of their federal or local governmetns but by bargaining with the actual workers in nation's unions. It varies by occupation, but even the lowest figure is far higher than the US.
It is as if the federal minimum wage weren't the measily 7.25 per hour set by Congress, but instead was the Davis-Bacon Act scale for federal-funded public works projects - the lowest minimum (laborer) in my area being about $20 plus $9 in fringes, per hour.
Of course, it will be job No. 1 in the upcoming Republican congress to repeal Davis-Bacon - as they already have (using Katrina as an excuse) in LA, AL, MS, and FL.
Perhaps this time they can use the Gulf Oil Crises. or just set the 9/11 team loose to blowup something american, ya know blame it on that Bin Laudin guy nobody can find.
>^^<
It goes back even farther than you think. When the Toyota plant was opened here in Kentucky in the 1980s, there were plenty of MBAs and other professional sorts who applied to take jobs on the line. Even some engineers. And there were/are people who regularly commuted two hours each way from Eastern Kentucky for one of those jobs because a job that started at $18.00 an hour with benefits was rare around here.
My husband worked there for 22 years and his hourly pay was truly impressive by the time he retired. But the rot has set in. In the later years he was working there, they stopped hiring people permanently right off the bat. You took a temp job for $13.00 an hour, no benefits and hoped that your body would hold out for three years. Then you might get the permanent job with benefits. Why was this? Let's see. In the early years, Toyota made a point of matching bennies with the Big Three, the union shops. When they were gutted, Toyota no longer had to do so.
Are you sure the world, not just the U.S., has 100 years?
Hasen't gone anywhere yet, has it?
>^^<
making travel plans? :)
I would agree with you except there is not going to be a next 100 years, at least not for the human species. Listen to the scientists--it's already too late.
I disagree. The world will still be here, humans will still be here and America will damn sure still be here. Not saying its gonna be a pretty sight, as the rich will have totally enslaved the everyone by then. Our technology and weaponry will guarantee that America will remain--just as it is now: as a gatekeeper/policeman for the Rich that control the planet.
If you think the working stiffs and the rest (including very the poor) are dominated and/or enslaved by capitalism now, just wait 50 to 100 years. Baby, its gonna be one dark mthr-f*cking world.
Democrats and republicans (or what ever they're called then) will be the least of your problems.
I think you're being a bit too optimistic.
On the contrary. I believe that there will not even be any US in 30-40 years. There may be some "states" as in the general meaning of the word scattered around the land that one now calls "The United States", but those states will be much different from one another and they will be fighting for whatever is left of that which is required for human survival. This thing called the US is already regressing back into pre-enlightenment cultural entities, and as different parts of the geographic entity regress at different rates, the whole of it will start unraveling like a ball of twine being battered around by a cat.
Disagree or not. As I said, listen to the scientists. When the polar ices have melted and the level of the ocean is up several yards, the world will be fighting for resources, probably in a nuclear exchange. That's WWIII, folks. Not to mention the fact that the oceans are dying and the rain forests are being destroyed. That's our oxygen supply, much of our food source, and most of the medications. All this is in the next several decades. Our ecosystem is going to hell. We've been warned now for over 50 years. It's sad to see thousands of beautiful species going extinct, many of them before they are even discovered. But sad or not, this type of extinction event will not leave a planet the human species can live on.
There IS fat-free ice "cream" Oxymoron or reality? Doesn't taste all that good. If we can truly believe in fat-free ice cream, we can believe in America as being the best...ever. Really. Yum...
My students parrot something like the following: the US form of government is deeply flawed. However, it is the greatest form of government ever devised. In other words, it's untouchable. They also tell me that ours is a Christian nation, and I think that means more than religious chauvinism. That is, the religious drive can be transferred to ideologies that have nothing to do with gods.
The Protestant work ethic combines religion, economics, and politics, and the neocons have been brilliant in evoking it. Through thinktanks, foundations, and educational influence, the neocons have been very instrumental in convincing people that rugged individualism (read grab all you can) is a great good. Neocons are talented in the field of tweaking the populace's sense of morality, mostly because they're sociopaths, and thus can look at the matter objectively, from the outside.
Yet people can be made to believe that community is at least as important as the individual, and that belief is essential. More essential than reason. We need to face the fact that the emotional appeal, one which goes to the core of that need to worship, is necessary to sway public opinion.
Good post. And one might also point out that the right's use of slogans like "No longer, in the left's view, are we the Americans of the frontier, the sturdy, independent farmers," leaves out the fact that there were no "sturdy, independent farmers," at least not in Newt Gingrich's sense. There were settler colonialists who were not independent but required the US army to exterminate or remove the indigenous populations on the land where those "sturdy, independent farmers" were squatting. This notion of independent individualists can be dismanteled in so many ways that I'll just leave it at that.
"No man is an island unto himself." John Donne, Meditation 17 (I think?)
I'd like to see all of these sturdy (well, Newt is that!), libertarian, elitist, Repuke sociopaths survive ONE day on their own in this world!! No golf courses, No scotch distilleries, No tap water, No electricity, No food in the corner market, No police, firemen or emt's to help them in an emergency....are you kidding me?
Human beings Need and are Dependent on one another to survive. I think that if we keep going done the path we are on...Newt and all of his freaky buds will learn this truth.
Hey--Don't confuse being a fat pantload with being sturdy. Newt is no such thing.
I can't belive we talk about old gangrene like he still matters? Thats so 80s we might as well bring back the Reagan revolution or star-wars or such nonsence. Really he should be in a home someplace, for the mentally-frozen.
>^^<
Agreed.
Many on here demonize religion as the problem, when history shows us that it is a tool.
I look forward to the day when the True Christian ministers across the country do a Sunday Sermon on the story of the "Good Muslim" as people today think the word "Samaritan" means "helpful person" thus the parable has lost its meaning to most. The story of overturning the money changers' tables is also exceedingly relevant today as well. Unfortunately, most "Christians" are completely unaware of what the man they claimed to follow actually taught, and those who do realize the difference are too timid to denounce the rest.
This timidity needs to be overcome. Dominionism should be renounced by every Christian Church that actually believes in the teachings of Christ. Anything less on the part of those who actually believe in and love Christ, who said "That which ye do to the least of these, ye do unto me" is complicity in the actions of those who use the name of Christ in order to enrich themselves with mammon.
I by no means want to convert the "no gods no masters" types into believing differently, but it would be nice if they could join with the liberation theology types to work towards common goals (which they would find a whole lot to agree on)
Yes, herdpoisoning, I agree entirely, except I wouldn't call it a tool. I think the religious impulse is part of human nature, a more basic one than reason.
During the Vietnam era the clergy were active in helping kids get to Canada to avoid the war. Somehow, since the fundamentalists stormed the voting booths in support of Reagan, those clergy who would speak against this fake Christianity have been silent. Bringing back liberation theology as a strong voice would go a long way toward bringing the Progressive movement into the fore, and it might even bring some Republican "Christians" to their senses.
"Neither party's candidates seriously addressed the national debt, except with proposals to make it even worse... neither party's candidates had much to say about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan"
When candidates avoid the real issues, people lose interest. They either don't vote, or leave blank the choice between a R nutbag or a do-nothing D.
What holds us together but chauvinism? If we're not number one we would have to humbly ask why and consider that some nations are better governed and resources better managed than ours are. And then what?
Yes indeed - that is why people where I live fly not just one big flag, but many.
Yes, American exceptionalism, which, as i know i have posted several times before, was touted by obama several years prior to his run for president. And he didn't add the disclaimer, when he spoke in 2005 at barnes and noble, nyc.
It is also based in christian evangelical fervor and hubris. The only true religion that must go around the world and force others to claim the same. It has a couple thousand year history.
Spread the patriarchy around, of course!
==Michael Kinsley is a columnist for POLITICO. The founder of Slate, Kinsley has also served as editor of The New Republic, editor-in-chief of Harper’s, editorial and opinion editor of the Los Angeles Times and a columnist for The Atlantic.==
Yeah, but other than that, what's he done?
Michael:
The United States still has a chance to be what it regards as the Greatest Country Ever. But, in order to retain that status, it faces the difficult task of cutting itself in half, and declaring its Western Boundary on a north-south line from Winnipeg to Corpus Cristy.
East of that boundary Americans can shoot abortion doctors and have their health care system known as Ferengi-Care. They can goose step to the beat of the Koch brothers and create credit card contracts 13 pages long written in Sanskrit - - - and all the things that make the USA GREAT and the envy of the entire world.
But West of that international boundary with the USA will be the new country called DECENCY. Decency will have universal health care and its citizens will refrain from shooting abortion doctors. It will be a nation based, as much as possible, upon the Golden Rule and Humanitarian values.
Setting this up will be difficult - but India and Pakistan managed to do exactly this. And - yes- the differences between neighbors in the USA are as deep and profound as between Buddhism and Islam on the Indian subcontinent.
When my neighbor says to me: "YOU are going to have Universal Health Care OVER MY DEAD BODY !" - my eyeballs place the cross hairs of rifle scope upon his/her forehead. MY having universal health care is not negotiable. I don't claim it as =a right=; I simply refuse to be intimidated out of it. If it takes breaking the United States into TWO nations in order to achieve it, IMO that is the price that has to be paid. Calling me a kook or nut case won't bother me one bit. To quote the late comedian Pat Paulsen: "I've upped my standards. Up yours." Watch your six.
Trylon