Sunday roundup

As I reach the end of  Stone and  Kuznick's Untold History of the United States, I find myself  disillusioned, actually having to change my mind about historical events and what they mean. They have convinced me that their analysis of our leadership and foreign policy over the last hundred years is correct.They bring it right up to the present moment as they discuss the disintegration of the Middle East and the way our meddling in that part of the world has caused us to lose  credibility and moral authority as a country. (Not that we had much in the past, either, but people of my age grew up with pro-U.S. propaganda about how, with all its faults, America was the best country in the world, the hope of the masses, though of course under constant threat due to the envy of inferior nationalities and above all the Communists.) The drumbeat of America as the special, necessary force for good in the world goes on, with the weakened Obama leading the parade.

Obama emerges from this narrative as  100% sold on the idea of America as the country of destiny with a great free enterprise system and a market that creates wonderful innovations thanks to our creative entrepreneurs and all that sauce that most of us believe. The cream rises to the top, says America, in the best of all countries.

The ideology of American exceptionalism makes sense to Obama and other winners in the meritocracy. They are totally admiring of how the system has elevated them and thus shown its special nature, and theirs. They are elite persons whose success proves that what they do is right. Thank god we were spared a Romney presidency because in that regard he was the worst, living in his bubble of privilege.

Obama certainly has a better character than any president since Roosevelt, but is that enough? Obama's social and educational ideas are exactly the jejune ones you would expect of a person who never attended a public school and has totally bought into the idea of the meritocracy. We can solve the social ills of inner city Blacks, he believes,  with charter schools and dads in the home and getting the gangs off the streets.  I fear that his notions on foreign affairs may be equally simplistic, and I hope I'm wrong. Keeping Israel under some control during the last attack on Gaza was good. Maybe we'll be seeing more of this.

And it may be that  Obama can break out now and become the solid leader we need.  I do believe he fired Petraeus, using the General's surely well known sexual escapades against him, and removing him was a good step.  One thing he could do is appoint Kerry as Secretary of State. He is the only person around Obama that seems to have a common sense approach to U.S. foreign policy.  Susan Rice is the same old same old and a protegee of Hillary Clinton, who is very very hawkish and downright scary.

 To me, being an American means citizenship and certain rights and duties. It means attachments to people and places I love. It does not mean that I have to make the claim that there is something transcendentally wonderful about America or being an American as opposed to being: what? Think how insulting such an idea is to the majority of the human race, who are not Americans!

Look at how the Republicans' world fell apart, because they believed that they could not fail. Do we want America to end up as a failed country? Living in our bubble until it bursts?

BTW:  I've been reading critiques of Stone and Kuznick's work, and I have got to say: they have the right enemies! We know that Stalin was a villain, for Christ sake! Were they supposed to write an entire book, say,  about what a villain Stalin was, just to please Jonah Goldberg?  Oh, and by the way, Goldberg and his bunch just lost the election they tried to buy. In case he missed that.

More: Some people refer to Jonah Goldberg as the Pantload, or the Doughy Pantload. I would never do that! Some good input from Race Files about Goldberg here and Goldberg's pathetic notions on what it means to be an American.

 

Comments

[wisewebwoman]

I think your disillusionment would apply to me too, Hattie. We thought Ireland achieving independence in 1922 would be the dawn of a new age of saints and scholars. When the truth is untenable: crooks, thieves, paedophiles, coverups and the banksters who run everything.

Show me a country where purity of purpose and concern for the masses exist.

Dressed up oligarchs is all we have who are ready to murder our young in trumped up wars first thing.

XO
WWW

[Rain Trueax]

Thanks for the review. Since I have only been watching the series on Showtime, I can't comment on the book; but what I have noticed on the book is it lays out some facts but then interprets them. That's where we have, as readers, the ability to evaluate whether that evaluation is valid. Sometimes I have though it was. Other times, I have felt the facts don't necessarily lead to those conclusions. Whatever the case, it's important that we do look at facts and then do our own evaluating. I would not have looked at this after the Stone JFK, but did because of your writing and am glad I did. I will stay with the Showtime series and watch it all as much as I can. We are in tucson which means we don't currently have and may not have Showtime down here but we can still access it because we have it in Oregon. I look forward to the next episodes and the analysis that this show provides. I will keep looking for the book and if I don't find it before we go back to Oregon, I'll probably order it from Amazon. It's one that I want on paper as I think it's easier with this kind of historical nonfiction (maybe) :)

[cloudia]

thoughtful post, friend

Wishing YOU
an Aloha-filled week, from Waikiki
Comfort Spiral

~ >

>

[Joared]

Enjoying your commentary on U.S.History, our foreign policy, etc. Look forward to more of your review.

American exceptionalism is, indeed, a sticky wicket. Perhaps as the world grows smaller, our nation's citizens become less provincial a new national perspective will evolve.

[Rain Trueax]

We saw the fourth episode and it deals a lot with Eisenhower. It's interesting how you know what happened as I lived through that period as a child (was for Stevenson) but I didn't really see how damaging Eisenhower was to setting us on the arms race, the cold war and Vietnam. I tend to think of his last speech, his obviously mea culpa and seeing the clips of actions, propaganda of the time, and what it all meant, it's very worrisome. How do we change it is what I keep thinking. So many have bought into American exceptionalism and whenever I have written something here against it, it gets pretty near zero comments. It makes people uncomfortable. I am very very much enjoying this series and we went to the trouble to get Showtime down here. It's free for three months for those of us with the dish for TV. We also changed our package to get more news and finally I am back to being able to access MSNBC while here.

The main thing I can say about the Stone series is Americans need to see it but the ones who need it the most are unlikely to do so. A shame.