It's really difficult and foolish to generalise about a country as vast and increasingly diverse as the United States. Without any sarcasm intended, the generalisations you are "allowed" to make are things like THE home of THE brave, and THE land of THE free; that the values of the USA are the values of humanity (read any of the Republican, or even some Democrat stuff about this), and so many other, similar, claims and statements What this means is that it is perfectly in order to generalise when you say nice things about the US, but not when you say bad things.
Part of this are things like "Americans love freedom" more than any other group of people. A sports personality once remarked that "Americans" were good at detecting bullshit detector. My questions were (again, no sarcasm intended): So, when, exactly, do you acquire the bullshit detector? At birth? Or if you were born elsewhere, do you get it when you get sworn in as a citizen? Can you claim greatness when you get citizenship, or do only the generations that fought against indigenous people, in the civil war, or who fought the second world war have a right to claim greatness. When, generationally, does the claim to greatness become valid?
Recently an actor whom I always thought was British (Zoe Wannamaker) said that (I paraphrase), she was proud to have a US passport because so many people died to make the country great. I THINK she made reference to Abraham Lincoln/Gettysburg or something.... I wanted to ask whether exterminating most of the indigenous people, and building the domestic political economy, at least until the 1930s, on slavery and racism could not be placed in the "cost" column (one can, of course, add Vietnam, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Angola etc etc)
What you have then is a narrow band that determines what may be said, legitimately, in terms of good/bad
From personal experience, some of the most generous, intelligent, kind and decent people I have met are US citizens. Also, some of the cruelest, most bigoted people I have met are US citizens. But I have met similar types in South Africa, France, Italy, Germany, the UK, Canada, Brazil, Guyana, Israel... What sets US citizens apart? Is it militarism? THere have been highly militarist societies in Africa, Europe and Asia over centuries...
A conservative think tank, Cato, once remarked that the US military was the biggest, most powerful killing machine in the world. If you add this to ALbright's observation: What's the use of having a large military if you don't use it? you get a real sense that maybe the US is unique (in the post-war period, arguably the ONLY period when the US enjoyed global dominance)
Anyway, in a conversation with an academic at the Kennedy School in 2003 I once said that I really had a distaste for greed, self-righteousness, the permissibility of violence against "others", inequality, insistence upon burning fossil fuels for our pleasure (I used an example from the upper midwest, where someone complained that he did not have enough space in his garage to park his jet ski AND snow mobile next to his truck and boat), triumphalism etc etc, to which she replied, "Ah, yes, and we do all those things really well in the USA."
So, to me it seems like ... you can say things like "I knew my god was better than his"... "America is cause" not a country... you can universalise particular preferences about the world, but it is really difficult to say bad things.
None of this is reason enough to "hate" the US or to say it is the worst country in the world. Until six months ago, I spent about 15 years between the US and Europe, with six years teaching in the Carolinas. I really, really enjoyed living there. I preferred Europe. I would do it again, but that does not mean I should become conservative, as one person whose father was born in the Philippines said about the conservatism of her family. My father always said if you want to be accepted in the US, you should become "more American than Americans". Whatever that may mean.
Hope that makes sense, I am writing this on my phone.
Karen and I have been up and down and all around the United States for eleven years now. Are things fucked up? Yes, work sucks for most; inequality is grotesque; and environmental degradation is remarkably advanced. But still, we meet plenty of good people, from the women who clean the motel rooms to the interesting people we meet sometimes on hiking trails to those with whom we strike up casual conversations to the students I teach every January. By no means is everyone in the United States uncaring about what they see around them. Plus beauty abounds in the United States, which is why so many visitors come from around the world. And look at all the young folks doing such good things now. Who knows what might happen in years to come? Now the above is about the United States, at least what I see. If we extend our view to the world, there is an incredible amount of misery. Still, though, revolt seems to be in the air. I am not sure what it means to say
that NYC is the only p! lace in the country with real and uniformly decent people. I'm in a good mood today, or I might be inclined to say that that was one of the most ridiculous statements I have ever read! Check out my chapter on Manhattan in Cheap Motels and a Hotplate. The writer who came to dinner at our apartment and some of the folks who invited me to speak at Columbia come to mind as counter examples. real, yes. Decent, no. ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk