10/15/2001

The Greatness of America

Much is made of the Greatness of America in these days since 11 September--and the singing of American songs strikes deep chords of community pride and social solidarity in the hearts of Americans...and rightly so. All the news services carried, yesterday, video clips of first graders--all over America--reciting the Pledge of Allegiance...as did we all when we were first graders so long ago.

The question does not arise about just what makes America great...and just why children should be taught to recite a pledge of alliance long before they understand the greatness of America.

There is a deep and parallel need for all Americans, as citizens, to think about, understand and act upon that which makes America great...since much of what goes on in the world today is engineered by the US government and some of that engineering is not what makes America great.

First, there are four parts to this society of ours which helps young people make those distinctions which, in future, will continue to honor the many forms of greatness that make one proud to be an American.  There is a fifth dimension--the role that the USA plays on the world stage which is essential to a full understanding.

The first part is the population base of those who live, work, love and sing in America. These are the people of America. By and large, this is the province of biologists, demographers and psychologists tell us that the population base of Americans is not much different, in terms of abilities, potentialities and yes, greatness than any other population base in any other part of the world. Indeed, since America has been and is being populated by peoples from all parts of the world, the fact of great similarity in needs, instincts, potentials and intelligence should not be surprizing...nor a matter for great pride nor great distress.

All one has to do to be part of the population base is to be born in America--or swear allegiance to the Constitution of the USA.  Not really much in the way of greatness yet.

And, while it is a matter in which to take some pride, the matter of the great diversity of the people in America, still geneticists tell us that there are only minor differences in the clusterings of genes in the human genome of America when compared to peoples in Asia, Africa, Europe or Micronesia. I find this fact comforting even if some Americans are outraged and firmly believe that Americans, especially white Americans; especially white, male Americans are genetically different and superior to, say, Arab-Americans.  It is the culture which Mexicans, Japanese, Arabs and Europeans bring to America which provides the raw ingredients for the Greatness of America...more so than the genetic differences.

The second part is the country itself--that which we call America--with apologies to Canada...it is made up of the population base and the cultural practices that peoples have brought with them from all over the world for the last 40,000 years or more. Especially rich have been the cultural practices brought over since 1492. Ireland, England, Germany, Spain, Italy, Poland, China, Russia as well as north, central and south Africa have sent much in the way of cultural practices which have made America great. The heart and soul of the greatness of America is found in the rich and varied and creative culture of America. These cultural practices are the province of anthropologists, sociologists, socio-linguists, phenomenologists and social psychologists as well as those who teach literature, drama, art history, music theory, ceramics and the history of mathematics.

Part of the culture of America; a many-sided culture, is the social organization of America. While this social organization has its dark side, still there are work organizations, religious organizations, recreational and sports organizations that give life meaning, purpose and joy together with the greatest educational institutions in the world...again, not without a dark side. There are obscenities in America: drug pushers in streets as in shops; child abusers who sell the innocence of America; lobbyists who buy the political process of America and regulators who serve the wealthy corporations of America.

Still with all this, one can find peace and fellowship in the churches of America; one can find kindness and compassion in the hospitals of America; one can learn of the sweep of history or the depth of despair in the bookshops and libraries of America.

The third part of the greatness of America is the country as a nation...as a political entity based upon an uncertain but increasingly democratic form of government. We call this part of America, the United States of America...and the USA is, often, at home and abroad, great.  Indeed, compared to most of the nations and their forms of government, there is much in which to take pride. Shortly before my grandfather was born, black Americans were slaves and could not vote. Still, compared to the elitist governments around the world, America looked good. When my mother was born, many women were still chattle to their husbands and could not vote. Still the nation had a better form of government than all other countries in the world--even Switzerland.

Today, there is much yet to do to make America greater. Too often, wealth shapes both the election and the law making processes in America. Too often, ancient discriminations in gender, race and ethnicity subvert the greatness of America. Too often, bureaucracy cripples the many programs of social justice instituted, not without great opposition, by earlier generations of Americans who had a vision of America as the land of compassion, of sharing and of equality before the law.

If there is any one sentence that made America great--as a nation, it is a line from the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States that reads

The fourth part of America the great is the political administration of the government; in America, this means either Republicans or Democrats with an occasional Independent thrown into Congress. The Constitution of America provides that only age and citizenship shall be a test for public office; not wealth, not gender, not race nor yet not ethnic origin. The Constitution of America protects Americans from the power and purpose of government officials--The Bill of Rights corrected a great many of the wrongs that pushed people from Europe, Asia and Africa to settle and to work in America. The Constitution of the United States is among a dozen world-class literary works that refrresh the hoar leper to the April day again.

When we talk about the greatness of America, we must include reference...and evaluation...of those who live in the White House and those who dwell in the halls of Congress...together with the officials who are appointed to head up and administer the various agencies of the USA. By and large, the Congress of the United States contributes, very unevernly, to the greatness of America; programs which protect the wages and health of workers; programs that sustain and honor the elderly who build America; programs that support and encourage that research which has made America the single best source of patents and prizes in science.  All these and more emerge out of the uncertain political dialogues in the US Senate and in the US House of Representatives...both established by the US Constitution.

Yet there are things done by those who govern the USA which are done in secret and which do not add to the greatness of America. Books by former C.I.A. agents, by F.B.I. critics and by historians on the Left and on the Right tell us there is much about which to be ashamed if one is an American. Ronald Reagan, one of the most popular American Presidents did much to subvert the Constitution of the USA; much to circumvent the Congress of the USA and much to support oppression and exploitation in Central and South America. J. Edgar Hoover ran an F.B.I. that was racist, sexist and subversive of individual freedoms guaranteed in the Bill of Rights of the Constitution of USA. It is the Bill of Rights and the Constitution which make American government great; not Ronald Reagan nor yet J. Edgar Hoover.

It is Harry Connick, Jr. singing, 'It had to be You,' which makes America great; not George Bush, Jr., who sends airplanes to carpet bomb suspected bases of the Taliban or to kill Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. History will not treat George Bush, Jr. well.   Americans will still sing 'It had to be You,' 'As Time Goes By,' 'Hello, Dolly,' and 'America,' while George Bush, Jr., will be an embarrassment to Americans some 30, 50 or 100 years from now.   Garrison Keilor can give you a better feeler for what's great about America than can George Bush Sr. or George Bush, Jr.

In these days, both politicians and media reporters confuse between America as a country and the Bush Administration as a political executive centered in the White House. It is not America which strikes back but rather the Bush Administration which strikes out at those in Afghanistan who make...or may not...support the actions of the bin Laden guerrilla groups. One does not strike back against terrorism by killing the people or by killing government officials in Afghanistan. If one wants to end terrorism, one ends the secret things and the open things done by the government of the USA which angers, outrages and politicizes generation after generation of young people in the Mid-East, in Asia, in Africa and in South America.

To understand this outrage, one must look at a much larger picture than that given by George Bush, Jr., by Colin Powell, or by other spokespersons of the US government. One must look at the fifth dimension of America...the part the US government plays in the globalization of the world economy. That role does not make America great.

Among the many attractive aspects of capitalism are its productivity, its innovation, its rare opportunity for those with ambition, its flexibility and, not least at all, it's innate hostility to ancient forms of power and privilege. For more about the positivities and negativities of American capitalism, go to:

http//www.tryoung.com/lectures/034MarxistTheory-1.htm

But the dark side of global capitalism--and the role played by the US nation-state---not America--is what triggered the events of 11 September. While the media and the Bush Administration gives Americans a child's history and a self-exculpating version of the origins of this attack, there is a larger history and a darker version which is understood by the college students in South America, Africa, Asia and more relevant, the Middle-East.

The USA has engineered the downfall of progressive and nationalist regimes around the world. In Iran, in Vietnam, in Nicaragua, in the Phillipines and in Cuba, repressive regimes are supported by the USA as a nation-state simply because, as F.D.R. put it, 'They may be bastards, but they are our bastards.' We continue to support elitist regimes in the Gulf states because it serves the interests of US industry to keep 'friendly governments' in control of oil supplies in the region. And there is a sense in which one can understand the events of 11 September as a class war as much as a religious war. And the attack on the World Trade Center as an attack on the Global economic system as much as an attack on the USA.

It is not the military power of the USA which will end terrorism; it is good theory and good politics in the global world system. I see bits and pieces of good analysis on PBS, on CNN, on ABC and less often on the other news rooms of America. But we have allies in Europe, Asia and the Middle-East to help us do better than bomb the poorest country in the world. We have scholars in American Universities who have a larger, richer, more realistic understanding than does Mr. Bush or Mr. Powell. We have Islamic Americans who themselves are appalled at the atttacks on the WTC, still know that the USA, as a nation-state, is not without guilt in this world-class warfare engineered by Osama bin Laden. And there is the UN which houses diplomats and scholars who could dis-abuse America of its meagre understanding if ever there comes a day when Americans can transcend their anger and begin to see the world through the eyes of the poor and the oppressed of the world.

It used to be part of the greatness of America that we could do that; that we would take the side of the poor, the hungary, the oppressed yearning for a better life. But, somehow in our wealth and in our own smug nationalism, we have allowed the nation-state to act for us...and we will reap the bitter fruit of this appalling ignorance in the years to come.

Finally, it is part of the greatness of America that simple citizens without office or wealth, such as myself, still have the right and the duty and means to criticize the leaders of the USA. I am glad to be an American even if, sometimes, I am ashamed of the policies of the US government at home and abroad. I have spent some time traveling around the country and around the world looking at the greatness of America and am glad to share that view with you

http//www.tryoung.com/trspage/politicalpoetry/america.html

TR Young, citizen