--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
>
> I'm looking for something more productive than that:
> some
> acknowledgment by Americans that our history is full
> of crimes,
> instead of the usual ritual invocations of our
> peerless warmth and
> generosity. I know that's not likely to happen, but
> a guy can dream.
No disagreement here, but otoh I do not think that the US is much worse than other nations in their ritual invocations of their national virtues. Europeans do pretty much the same, albeit with less bombast and drama. The Latin Americans are heavy flag wavers, and the Canadians do not leave home without their maple leaf either. AFIK, the Chinese and the Africans are quite good at patting themselves on their backs, and I suspect the Indians are not far behind (Ulhas? Ravi?).
As to acknowledging/aplogizing for past crimes, sure it is in order, but the US is nonetheless somewhat better than most nations in this respect, except perhaps the Germans. I think the US gov't did acknowledge most of its past crimes and apologized for some (e.g. slavery or internment of Japanese Americans). The Japanese, otoh, have never apologized for their treatment of the Koreans and the Chinese. The Turks are still in denial of their genocide of the Armenians. I do not think that the Brits did much aplogizing to the Indians for various massacres, or to the Kenyans for their brutal suppression of the Mau Mau rebellion either. Ditto for the Russians. I also understand that no Arab nation has ever offered any apology for the Arab slave trade in Africa for several centuries.
I am not trying to whitewash anything here, just put things in an international perspective.
Wojtek
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