Grabby America Needs to Grow Up

[marmar]

via CommonDreams:



Published on Tuesday, July 8, 2008 by The Capital Times (Madison, Wisconsin)
Grabby America Needs to Grow Up
by Margaret Krome



My roommate last week, Sharon, critiques United States political and social history the way you might gossip about a badly mannered child.

“Our country just hasn’t grown up,” she told me. “We have a long history of being grabby. We want something, we think we ought to have it. It’s like a badly parented child who doesn’t see why he or she should have to wait in line, share, or consider the impact of their wishes on others.”

Some of the history Sharon describes was justified by the 19th century doctrine of Manifest Destiny — the belief that the American people were so remarkable, virtuous and thereby blessed by God that it was inevitable and preordained that the nation should extend its borders to spread its goodness, democracy and way of life. Even among the ruling classes of the mid-1800s, the doctrine was challenged by some. But, of course, for people living, protecting and depending on the natural resources of those lands, Manifest Destiny was a public relations campaign that justified invasion and appropriation of others’ property.

When white settlers wanted land, the federal government moved native peoples from the land by force. When they wanted water, they took water. In April, I visited the Gila River tribe in Arizona. The lifeblood for this desert tribe had been the Gila River, which was turned off like a faucet farther north in the mountains 150 years ago when white settlers wanted its water. The tribe was forced to abandon its agricultural tradition and use government rations of highly processed flour, oil and sugar to subsist, leading to today’s astronomical rate of diabetes within the tribe. In a rare example of reparations, three years ago the tribe’s rights to the river’s waters were finally validated after a 150-year court battle and passage of a bill in Congress to affirm a settlement.

Today, of course, the nation’s oil addiction justifies invasion of Iraq and other nations with large oil reserves, always with the Manifest Pretense of spreading democracy. Notwithstanding our repeated failures to establish democracy in nations we overrun, the nation’s comfort with the tradition of adventurism has permitted this history again and again.

The nation’s history of we-want-it-we’ll-take-it doctrine extends beyond wars, invasions, and land-grabbing, of course. The nation was built by one race that enslaved another for its economic and social convenience. This is a particularly personal history for Sharon, because it enslaved her great-grandparents and millions of other Africans brought to this country. ......(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/07/08/10195/

[derby378]

1. How does this make us different from the Romans, the Mongols, etc.?

Most societies do have an "expansion" phase; it's just that we tried to keep our expansion in line with an Enlightenment sensibility that, unfortunately, hadn't evolved to the level of universal human rights at that point.

[iamjoy]

4. That Doesn't Make It Right

Even if this attitude of entitlement we Americans have is nothing new, that doesn't make it right. Justifying it by principles of the Enlightenment doesn't make it okay either. The Romans and Mongols surely convinced themselves of how they were "helping" the people of the lands they conquered.

[derby378]

7. I never said anything about "justifying" our expansion...

I did mention in my previous post that we had yet to evolve a concept of universal human rights, as in the radical notion that someone deserves a certain measure of respect regardless of their skin color, gender, or ethnicity.

[bdamomma]

2. someone will slap us down sooner or later.

we are being slapped around by our own government now.

[Hydra]

3. People are whining now because they don't get a cut of the spoils

It was ok before because they were benefiting.

I have to say, I'm enjoying watching the fake moral ground our nation stood on evaporate as we watch.

How will we cope with living with the world without that illusion, I wonder?

[marmar]

5. "fake moral ground "

Soooo true.

[Hydra]

6. So unfortunately true

"You know what the motto for this country ought to be? 'You give us a color, we'll wipe it out.'"

George Carlin

[Romulox]

8. Americans over-wrought sense of national guilt is a form of racism/ narcissism

Our sense that we should be more morally culpable than other nations and groups of people is nothing much more than a variant of the "white man's burden" spoken of by Kipling so long ago--in other words, feeling that Americans are (or should be) more morally culpable than others is itself a form of American exceptionalism and is frequently racist.

Guess what: other countries have committed genocide in living memory; no one cares. Hell, a genocide among African people continues apace right now--nobody cares. :wow: