Four reasons to love America on the 4th
Reflection — By Adam Higgitt on July 4, 2010 7:00 am
4 for the 4th
I LOVE America. I have since at least the age of nine when a family fly-drive holiday took us on a whistle-stop tour (now there’s a quality Americanism) from New York to Florida. And I’m in the majority on this one. While US preponderance worldwide inculcates inevitable resentment, most people either want to be in America, or to share in her prosperity, vitality and freedoms.
There’s so much to enjoy about this vast and diverse continental country that trying to pick a handful is like trying to pick your favourite song of all time. So, in no order of importance, here are just four very good reasons to love the USA on the 4th of July.
1. It breaks bread well
The US has some of the highest incidences of obesity in the world, and most visitors comment on the generous portion sizes served in restaurants. But, apart from the quality and volume of food, America knows how to do the dining experience. You don’t have to go there to test this proposition – merely go out to dinner here with an American. When the (generally surly) waiter appears to ask if you’re enjoying your meal the reflex British response to is declare all to be fine. Your dining partner is likely to be rather more exacting. You’ll squirm as s/he details exactly what is wrong and what needs to be done to set it right, but you’ll also wish you could be so assertive.
Go to America. meanwhile, and you understand why. Americans go out for breakfast in a way we seldom do. At lunch and dinner, tip-dependent waiters appear and reel off the specials from memory with enthusiasm and verve. If you want any aspect of your order customised, you don’t need to plead – it’s treated as a right as inalienable as if it were in the Constitution. Sit at a bar by yourself and the barman really will listen to your problems. And there is nothing to compare to an authentic American Diner.
2. It does high popular culture
When a close friend and compatriot of composer Aaron Copland applied to study at the Paris Sorbonne he was witheringly rebuffed on the grounds that “America is the land of locomotives, not music”. It’s a stereotype we Europeans just love to take comfort in: here is urbane sophistication, there is brash, crass populism.
Three letters for you: HBO. Or to be more precise, HBO Original Series. Name me a piece of television drama produced within Europe that comes close to the sublime beauty and sophistication of The Sopranos. Where are our equivalents of historical miniseries’ such as The Pacific or John Adams? Has anyone on this side of the Atlantic penned anything like The Wire, destined to be studied in the future as Dickens is now? Outside of HBO you could look to pieces of recent television history such as The West Wing, a pean to politics that could never be made here, or the allegorical inversion of the war on terror through the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica. Outside of drama , the magnificent Ken Burns documentaries on The Civil War and The Wild West stand as definitive accounts of those periods of American history.
Some caution is, of course, needed. For every series like The Shield or Curb Your Enthusiasm there are ten turgid, non-export soaps. America brought us what is unkindly known as “nuts ‘n’ sluts” television (epitomised here by the likes of The Jeremy Kyle Show). In some specialists areas such as wildlife documentary, the UK remains top dog. But overall, let’s give thanks for American investment in risky, bold, imaginative, sophisticated television that nine times out of 10 shows Europe a pair of clean heels.
3. It’s got the lot
Here’s another stereotypical bolt-hole for you: Only 20% of Americans hold passports. Let’s leave aside the uncertain provenance of claims such as these (there are in fact no official statistics for US adult passport ownership) and focus on why this particular observation resurfaces so often. The answer is that we simply love to look upon Americans as insular and self-interested, imagining that it explains why (we think) the world resents them.
But set down that stone and take a look at the glass around you. How often do you choose a holiday destination on the basis of its climactic or natural habitat offering – the promise of sun, the thrill of snow, some majestic mountains or beautiful countryside? The 50 states of the the US have pretty much every sort of climate and environment available on this planet, from the Mohave Desert to the vast lush Humboldt-Toiyabe forest of Nevada (there’s even a tropical rainforest if you’re prepared to go to Puerto Rico). You can move from the Rocky Mountains to the High Plains, or from tropical Florida to the Alpine north-west, via Mediterranean California and subartic Alaska. You can experience some of the most densely populated parts of the planet and travel for days or weeks without seeing another soul. There’s also a fair amount for human diversity, from the religiosity of Lubbock, Texas to the licensed brothels of Las Vegas. But that’s another story.
4. Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness
The birth of the USA is the most important post-enlightenment foundation myth of Western civilisation. The precepts it established form the cornerstone of modern liberal democracy and, in such speeches as Lincoln’s at Gettysburg, prompted some of the finest political oratory in the English language. No wonder that the new Republic styled its new capital on the golden age of Athenian democracy.
American democracy has fashioned an extraordinary world power, a hegemonic state that – by historical standards at least – is the fairest and most benevolent the world has ever seen. The blather we frequently see about American imperialism and the detrimental effect of American foreign policy must be seen in the context of a power that has borne a disproportionate burden for preserving and promoting stable, liberal democracy throughout the world. American democracy is very far from perfect. It is too enmeshed in lobbyist and business interests. Turnout levels in many elections make National Assembly votes look good. Bi-partisanship is an increasingly endangered species. But it might also be that American democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the rest. And even if it’s not, the 4th of July ought to be a celebration for all democratic peoples and an inspiration for those striving to be similarly free.
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50 Comments
Adam,
Am with you – just to add a fifth which is really an extension of your fourth.
Having studied and lived there, compared to the UK, it is quite striking how its immigrants are proud to be Americans and put their original nationality/culture second. Something more that we have to learn from the USA.
America has contributed much and congratulations on this article.
America has embraced the World. America is a nation of immigrants.
Immigration is a major issue for us. It became an election issue where each party failed to address matters to the satisfaction of the public. It is complex. How immigrants define themselves and how the laws determine who is welcome and who is not have played out in various ways throughout American history.
Yet immigrants are among the most eager to proclaim their love of country. The NY Times asked some writers and historians, how do different generations see the Fourth of July, and how do those views change over time?Alongside your article it is worth reading:
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/03/how-we-adopted-the-fourth-of-july/
Love the article, Great job Adam.
I don’t think Americans are naturally ‘insular’, I just think that within the US there is more “elbow room” as compared to smaller countries. Americans don’t travel outside of the US as much, as there is so much to do in America already, places to visit, see, and do. As far as dining and service, Americans expect a certain level of service because they are “paying for it”, so to speak.
Americans do tend to have a black and white worldview, good verses evil and all that. It is evident in American pop culture from Disney cartoons, Hollywood movies, and even in politics. Often times it is how history is taught, and minimizing the subtitles and complexities of reality.
On a side note, many of those HBO series you noted had many Canadian and English production staff and series developers.
On a side note, I hated the ending of Galactica. Gods, did I hate it. Bought all of the series except for 4.5, as I can’t stand the ending. Lol. Even wrote an ‘alternative ending’ and posted it on the Battlestar wiki forums. Love the article, Great job Adam.
HAPPY FOURTH!
WOOT!
5: money. obscene amounts of cash, flashed with wild abandon.
6. extreme misery, starvation and no health-care unless you have lots of number 5. Thatcher loves it.
To be fair Americans don’t need passports to visit Mexico and Canada (just birth certificates, and most have them).
Also Europe is too expensive to visit for most middle class Americans, most would visit.
I would like to say more, except voter turnout at the last election was slightly higher than the last UK election. with the highest African American vote in recent history.
Al, most Americans don’t have vast amounts of money, or the vast poverty one sees in most third world countries, however it is unacceptable.
“America has embraced the World. America is a nation of immigrants.”
In Arizona you can b picked up for looking “illegal”. Figure that one out.
I have always loved America and all things American. Adam your holiday sounds amazing. I too have spent time in the states and was not disappointed.
Financier it is not at all a question of putting original cultures second America is multi cultural and everyone’s culture become part of the whole. Unlike you they do not see a contradiction in being say Pakistani and American.
Al, it is possible to see negatives in all systems but that should not reflect badly on Americans, try seeing their campaign for better health care as your own. View them with a more internationalist spirit.
My favourite thing about the states is the political ideals. Anywhere that places such importance on Liberty and the pursuit of happiness cannot be bad.
I do however feel it is a shame that a society praised by De Toqueville for being so equal has become so unequal. I am however an optimist and have faith in our American cousins to once again defeat tyranny. This time in the form of greed.
Thanks for the kind comments, all.
Al gets comment of the week for me: caustic and concise as usual. Al, you’re a WH treasure.
Aww, Adam. You had me til your item 4.
It’s really, REALLY hard to defend the proposition that “American democracy has fashioned an extraordinary world power, a hegemonic state that – by historical standards at least – is the fairest and most benevolent the world has ever seen”. It would be really hard to defend that argument in Latin America – the USA’s “back yard” [sic]. Was the US fair and benevolent when it violently overthrew the democratically-elected (but unpalatable to the US) Chilean government of Allende? Or when it supported right-wing, anti-democratic militias in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, etc, etc, etc?
It would be really hard to defend that argument in Africa, where the CIA supported right-wing, anti-democratic regimes or militias in South Africa, Angola, Mozambique, etc, etc, etc.
It would be really hard to defend that argument in the Middle East, where the USA has invaded Iraq twice; and where it’s entirely due to the US’s continued unjustifiable, unqualified support for Israeli Zionism that the people of Palestine remain oppressed and stateless.
And it would be impossible to defend in the case of Vietnam…
I really share Adam’s enthusiasm for US culture. But please let’s not gloss over American imperialism’s pernicious impact on the world over the last 50 years. Adam may claim that the US has borne a “disproportionate burden for preserving and promoting stable, liberal democracy throughout the world”. Millions of people in the countries named above, and many others, may just question the price they and their communities had to pay for the USA’s alien idea of ‘stable liberal democracy’.
Gez hits the nail on the head. The stuff about American imperialism isn’t “blather” and saying it is means you probably don’t understand the argument.
During the Cold War America’s foreign policy was NOT more humane than the Soviet Union’s (the other world superpower at the time). The stuff about people “aspiring to be free” is romantic and unfounded nonsense. Straight out of the Tony Blair handbook. Look at the Honduras coup only this year! They overthrew an elected President quite clearly with the consent of the US security and intelligence agencies! The poor guy was shut in the Brazilian embassy for months as the Honduran junta surrounded it and beat down his supporters killing scores of them according to Western aid agencies.
You need to question whether the Islamist Mujahideen in Afghanistan- directly inubated and organised by the United States of America- were or are fighting for freedom or democracy.
I like American culture as much as the next person, but their government has left a trail of misery, torture, terrorism and injustice around the world.
On elections, well no their system isn’t “the worst except for all others” the continental European system is infinitely better- multi-party, multi-polar, proportional and less corrupt, more regulated. Most European societies have embraced the ideals of the republic and liberal democracy far more than the United States has.
Didn’t Morrissey say something like “America I love you, but please stay in America” ?
It did not surprise me that we would read some of the usual anti-American comment on a post lauding the greatness of America. However it is necessary to bring up America’s “dark side”. I was listening to my favourite MSNBC commentator, Chris Matthews, on TV last week being critical of US action in Iraq for abandoning the “American doctrine of no first strike”, a 200-year-old policy. I almost choked on my coffee when I heard that.
Really? What about the war in Mexico in 1846-48 which was not provoked by Mexico, or the annexation of Hawaii, or even the infamous Spanish-American war? A shameless act of imperialism. I thought that Chris Matthews (who having worked for Jimmy Carter, the ultimate ethical president, should have known better).
No, I am quite aware that the US is not quite the city built on the hill. Not perfect and has a long way to go. But thank God for a country that does have justice, the rule of law (however imperfect it can be) and a free press. I live in a town where Anglos are in the minority. Yet this community of Anglos, Mexicans, Guatemalans, Hondurans, Cubans and now Somalis joined in this celebration to try to fulfill that American dream.
Re: 2 Popular Culture
Agreed the USA does great TV, but surely her greatest cultural gift to the world is the music produced by Black America – Jazz, Blues, Rock & Roll, Soul, R&B, Pop, Rap, Hip-Hop..
“The precepts it established form the cornerstone of modern liberal democracy.”
What, black people not being allowed to vote until 1965? Pretty shameful, really.
If you love America but want a version of history that isn’t wrapped up in white supremacy, genocide of American-Indians and creation myths, this one does the trick-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People's_History_of_the_US
Zinn’s key message is that the founding ideals of the USA remain unfulfilled- but it is a cause worth fighting for.
Also (I belive) until last year, Americans could travel to most Caribbean islands without a passport, in addition to the 50 states, Mexico and Canada.
“A decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall, America is still saving countries and peoples from one danger or another. The scorecard reads as follows: From 1945 to the end of the century, the United States attempted to overthrow more than 40 foreign govemments, and to crush more than 30 populist-nationalist movements struggling against intolerable regimes. In the process, the US caused the end of life for several million people, and condemned many millions more to a life of agony and despair.”
William Blum, Rogue State.
I know Adam is light years ahead of most in the noggin, but some of the historical apologist stuff borders on worrying. The ‘blather’ Adam refers to is actually the deaths of many people all over the world. As someone of Head of Policy in the Welsh Labour party around the same time it took our country to war in Iraq, blathering was not high on the agenda of the families whose loved ones got sent to fight in that war off the back of good ole America.
Sorry to dig at you Adam, I really am, but calling it blather really gets my goat.
I don’t hate the American people, but I fundamentally think the American power structure has and continues to wreak havoc on our world.
Yes that is also true to Jeremy Townsend.
Thanks Iltyd Luke and Howard Zinn for reminding us what a bad bunch of racist misogynists most Americans are.
The only problem with your facts is that African Americans could vote prior to 1965, and even in the south until the 1890s. Jim Crow laws were enacted to prevent African Americans (and poor whites) from voting by literacy tests and poll tax. To discriminate according to race would contravene the 15th admendment.
In fact free blacks could vote in the ante bellum, south.
Mike- dressing up criticism of American foreign policy as “racism” or “anti-Americanism” is pathetic. I don’t care about the semantics – black people generally could not vote, that was the reality. When they tried to organise to overcome their problems they were quite often beaten down, jailed and murdered. This took place within living memory.
I would suggest there definitely ARE more than four reasons to love America, around culture and music in particular. I would argue that I personally enjoy American-style culture more than I enjoy what is considered to be ‘Welsh culture’.
But their democratic record and their treatment of the rest of the world is not one of those reasons.
If you also believe the late (and great) Howard Zinn considered Americans to be “misogynists” you plainly aren’t familiar with his work.
Let’s not be wholly negative either, as President Chavez said at the UN when Obama arrived – the smell of hope has replaced the smell of sulphur.
Zinn seems to equate women’s rights in the 19th Century with the status of the slaves, he considered American culture to be misogynist in nature.
And if you bothered to read my previous comment I am not a fan of much American foreign policy, and recognize “Manifest Destiny” for what it was – a form of (on the whole) nasty imperialism.
However there was a lot of opposition to the American-Mexican war, a healthy abolitionist movement.
The history taught n American schools shows the dark side too.
As for Chavez, I will leave that to history.
I wouldn’t’ be too snippy about my former role if I were you, Marcus. It wasn’t so long ago that you were very keen indeed for a paid position within the Labour Party.
But since you ask, I didn’t see a great deal of blather about American imperialism here at the time of the Iraq conflict, at least certainly not from the families of service personnel. I saw a great deal of questioning about the legitimacy of the military action and the UK’s involvement, and a great deal of concern about the safety of the men and women shipping out. Apart from the usual cranks, conspiracists and US-haters, however, the question of imperialism didn’t come up.
I chose this word – and the word blather – with care in my original article. There have been times when the US has acted reprehensibly in its dealings with other countries (this is especially so, as Gez notes, in its back yard). But there have been many times when it has acted to the very great benefit of the global security and freedom. The defeat of the twin totalitarians evils of communism and Nazism are two fairly major episodes here, as is the Marshall Plan. It’s worth recalling that someone like Ronald Reagan was pillioried as a warmongering imperialist by the likes of Luke when in office. In fact, Reagan was probably the only nuclear abolitionist to have ever occupied any of the White House, Kremlin or Downing Street.
Do I think that the US acts altruistically? Of course not, at least not often. But I think it rightly recognises that its interests are served by the sustenance of stable, liberal democracies. Ironically, where it has gone wrong is where it has tended to settle for less than this, or to forget this longer-term objective in exchange for a short-term gain.
That longer-term strategy is the product of the precepts established by America’s revolution. Luke can point to the racial discrimination of the last century (and no, Luke, Mike’s point isn’t semantics) but this to say this was precept of the American revolution is like saying suicide bombing is a precept of Islam.
“But I think it rightly recognises that its interests are served by the sustenance of stable, liberal democracies.”
I do not believe this is true because the facts do not support it. Just look at the US’ most critical region of interest the Middle-East.
The three largest recipients of United States military support in the Middle-East are Israel, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Only one of those states is a liberal democracy, or indeed any kind of democracy. The other two are Egypt, a dictatorship, and Saudi Arabia a feudal religious monarchy where women live under Taliban-style rule.
A moot point perhaps because outside of Israel and Palestine democracy is hard to come by, but you can’t really argue that the government of Saudi Arabia- one of the greatest servants of American interests in the world- is anything other than medieval.
If the Middle-East example doesn’t work because of the lack of democracy there we could easily look at Latin America where, following the passing away of the military juntas (who by the way were almost exclusively American client regimes) liberal democracy is firmly established. As Partisan indicates above the US played a direct role in the coup in Honduras this year, and after the coup they ensured that the coup-makers were able to remain in power. A couple of years ago in a far more hands-on fashion than in Honduras, they tried the same thing in Venezuela. They wouldn’t have minded if thousands had died like in Chile. They wouldn’t have minded if their proxies started torturing and decapitating people.
As Marcus states, the trail is not one of glory but is one of “the disappeared”, murdered trade unionists, and kids in southern Lebanon with missing limbs. Sorry to be dramatic but that’s the level we’re going to debate at if we start talking about “acting for the benefit of global freedom”. Were the US government agencies acting in the interests of freedom when they were courting the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden? Is their massive financial support helping the cause of freedom in Saudi Arabia, where women are buried up to their arm pits and bombarded with rocks for committing adultery? We know they weren’t backing freedom when they overthrew the secular President Mossadegh of Iran and asked their loyal ally Saddam to invade Iran (where he of course indulged in his favoured pastime of gassing loads of people). Were their vast amounts of chemical weapons support shipped to Saddam designed to secure freedom or security for the Kurds? What happened when the Afghani revolutionaries actually gave freedom to women in Afghanistan in the 1980s? Uncle Sam sent in the CIA-backed Mujahideen to slaughter as many people as possible in the name of Jihad (a cause that has come back to haunt them). They also killed thousands in Panama as a warning to the people of Nicaragua not to elect the ‘wrong’ kind of government in their free and fair elections.
And what about the thousands of poor bastards that had to fight these wars? The generations lost in Vietnam, abandoned by their own government and reduced to the status of beggars in the own democracy they had allegedly been “fighting to promote”. What about Vietnam’s freedom from foreign rule and division? They killed a million Vietnamese!
I would suggest that even very recent post-Cold War evidence shows that they don’t actually care about democracy in any other sense than as a way they can sell a policy or cloak their actions in some kind of greater cause. To convince gullible people.
Maybe we should base our analysis on the proper scientific political theories around imperialism instead of weird “pre-destined” crusading with dodgy religious overtones?
Ah Adam, is that the best you can do?
whatever my past, you still seem unwilling to apologise for Iraq. You should.
Your own blather about American imperialism once again shows your disregard for those of us families affected by it. I never said imperialism was the reason, we just worried that my close family would come back alive, a decision as head of policy you were liable for. My family were constantly annoyed by America’s role in the Iraq war and their insistence on UK involvement.
Attacking me with pithy puns will eventually go away , the Iraq War never will.
So – personal digs against me is fine, but please don’t tell personnel families what they were thinking.
Marcus
You came onto this thread to tell me that “blathering was not high on the agenda of the families whose loved ones got sent to fight in that war off the back of good ole America.”
I completely agree. It wasn’t. So, if I’m telling “personnel families what they were thinking” then so are you.
Crucially Adam my family WAS a personnel family, your version didn’t ring true in my home.
“your version didn’t ring true in my home”
My version was as follows:
“I didn’t see a great deal of blather about American imperialism here at the time of the Iraq conflict, at least certainly not from the families of service personnel. I saw a great deal of questioning about the legitimacy of the military action and the UK’s involvement, and a great deal of concern about the safety of the men and women shipping out.”
So which bit didn’t ring true? That there wasn’t a great deal of questioning about the legitimacy of the military action and the UK’s involvement? That there wasn’t a great deal of concern about the safety of the men and women shipping out? Or that there was blather about American imperialism?
The fact remains that your initial argument called heartfelt feelings, including of families who had loved ones in the firing line under your (partial) watch blathering.
I gave you an example, my own family no less, that was worried about ‘American imperialism’, having to fight a war for American oil interests etc. You chose to ignore it. That is your call.
I can leave it at that, because you will surely have the Iraq war playing on your conscience for ages. Thankfully, my family came back and despite health problems he suffered, we don’t have that guilt hanging over our head.
Let’s move on anyway, it was better watching you get battered for this article.
“The fact remains that your initial argument called heartfelt feelings, including of families who had loved ones in the firing line under your (partial) watch blathering.”
No it didn’t. It said nothing of the sort. You chose to infer that from my words, When you pressed me on it, it becamse abundantly clear that your inference was wrong. You then chose to ignore that for your own somewhat transparently shroud-waving ends.
“I gave you an example, my own family no less, that was worried about ‘American imperialism’, having to fight a war for American oil interests etc. You chose to ignore it. That is your call.”
You actually said: “I never said imperialism was the reason”. You’ve now done a complete about-face. That’s your call.
“I can leave it at that, because you will surely have the Iraq war playing on your conscience for ages.”
When I worked for the Labour Party members of Plaid Cymru couldn’t wait to tell me that all I did was take my orders from London. Now, apparently, I instigated the invasion of Iraq. A remarkable rise to power and influence.
I’m happy to discuss the decision to take military action. But let’s at least try and be grown-up about it, eh? Ordinary Labour party members, supporters and staff members, whatever their views, aren’t “liable” for the decision.
“Let’s move on anyway, it was better watching you get battered for this article.”
I’ve learned that when people start offering a commentary on how they think a debate in which they are involved is going that they are usually clean out of points to make. I’ll take that as being the case here.
As an aside to the Marcus-Adam ripostes, I think the points I raised about US governments (not the same thing as America as a people or culture) consistently supporting non-democratic regimes throw the original claim of this article into disrepute at the very least.
Luke
I wouldn’t unfurl the “mission accomplished” banner yet if I were you. Marcus’s contrived grievances can be dealt with before work or during lunch. Yours takes a little more considering.
I think the problem here is one of moving from the comparative to the superlative, and from the isolated to the contextual. I was careful to suggest that by historical standards the US was the fairest and most benevolent hegemonic power the world has seen. It is, for example, a more pluralist hegemony than was the British Empire (not being an empire has helped here). The problem you are falling into is to contrast the America we have with a new (and presumably ideal) global order. That was not the test I set and not one that the US can ever meet.
The second area where there is a subtle reframing of my statement is in failing to take the US record in the round and on balance. You are quite right to point to America’s sponsorship of Saudi Arabia as being as tick in the “con” column. And we only need look at the ongoing problems in the middle east to see that the US has not made the right decision here. Similarly, the actions of the US in central and southern America are worth scrutinising (though there are also happier episodes which you neglect to highlight ). The pity is that those who reserve their ire for the US’s reprehensible, counter-productive but mercifully infrequent sponsorship of non-democratic regimes all too often look the other way or even offer succour when more dangerous regimes confront the US. And they completely discount where the US has support democracies that are under threat.
America’s foreign policy errors (some of which as you rightly point out have been costly) have to be weighed against the many and very substantial pluses. The fight against Nazism but especially communism rendered some otherwise repugnant choices expedient. The point is that you cannot merely say “they overthrew regime x here” as if it were done out of capriciousness – there was a wider defence of liberal democracy against which these actions must be set. Yes, clearly this sometimes induced miscalculation, especially when paranoia about communist encroachment was at its most intense, but it also brought forth some truly far-sighted actions. I invite you to find me a foreign policy programme quite as enlightened as the post-war reconstruction of Europe. We don’t have to try and imagine what a hegemony that wasn’t committed to plural democracy would have done instead. We saw it in eastern Europe – they built a wall with the machine gun turrets facing inwards.
There are of course others. The creation of NATO, the intervention in Bosnia, the liberation of Kuwait, the defence of Taiwan. And then there are the countless times when diplomacy, economic pressure and non-intervention have paid dividends, such as South Africa, the Clinton-era Palestine initiatives and so on. Discussing America’s record in the round doesn’t mean just looking at its famed CIA instigated coups – it means looking in the round at global security. There’s a reason why it’s called the Pax Americana and not the Bellus Americana.
Adam’s calm and rational responses to the above widely varied criticisms of his argument have been admirable. While there is of course much in all he’s said, I still feel bound to take issue with a couple of his latest points.
Adam insists “The point is that you cannot merely say “they overthrew regime x here” as if it were done out of capriciousness – there was a wider defence of liberal democracy in which these actions must be set”. And he goes onto add “I invite you to find me a foreign policy programme quite as enlightened as the post-war reconstruction of Europe”. Well, up to a point, Adam.
At one level, there may have been a belief (if not a rationale) among US elites that their foreign policy was driven by “defence of liberal democracy” or “enlightened … post-war reconstruction of Europe”. But that doesn’t mean that these and other foreign policy initiatives didn’t equally constitute “enlightened” SELF-interest for the US. Upholding liberal democracy around the world generally; overthrowing fascism and communism; and pump-priming the restoration/preservation of liberal-democratic states in Europe: surely all have helped to preserve and promote international capitalist markets, with which US capital could engage profitably?
I’m sure such a take on US foreign policy may seem terribly old-hat to some. But that doesn’t mean it ain’t so.
It’s striking that in the US that opposition to an expansionist American policy comes generally from conservatives (the paleo variety).
The Whigs opposed the war against Mexico. Republicans opposed entry into both WW1 and WWII.
Indeed so, Mike. This is not a dig at anyone who has taken part in this discussion, but there is a myth around that an interventionist foreign policy is the preserve of the right. That is far from the case (the Times leader writer Oliver Kamm wrote a pamphlet on this topic a few years ago).
Gez
Quite right. I stated earlier that the US did not act altruistically, but that its founding precepts inculcated an idea that self-interest was served through freer, democratic, and yes capitalist, states emerging wherever possible. This is the difference between empire and hegemony – an imperial power sustains possessions from which it can extract resources, usually in raw form, and can often sell back those same resources in finished form. The US, by contrast, has tried to create and sustain smaller versions of itself where it feels it can. Partly this is to expand trade – and I personally see nothing wrong in that – and partly it is to sustain greater stability (footnote to history: the first time in world history that two countries with McDonald’s in them have gone to war was when Russia and Georgia clashed in 2008). The point is that what the US understands to be the most stable type of state is a liberal democracy. I happen to agree.
Some interesting stuff here. I applaud Ad’s arguments, but I also – up to a point – empathise with those that disagree with him.
I think Gez’s comment: “Surely all have helped to preserve and promote international capitalist markets, with which US capital could engage profitably?”, and Adam’s reply to it: “An imperial power sustains possessions from which it can extract resources,” were the clinchers.
In that arc, from the Marshall Plan to the Iraq War, people have perceived the US to have gone backwards in terms of its foreign policy conduct. We know, for example, that the US was fairly insistent that the UK ended the British Empire in return for drawing down American funding (although, remembering Gez’s point, the high prices charged by the US to Britain for war materials surely didn’t help the debt we accrued). This, viewed through a prism of this age’s values, is laudable. America’s recent conduct (certainly pre-Obama) less so.
Did the US set high ideals and assume leadership of Western liberal leadership, only to ultimately fail to live up to those ideals? And in Iraq, in Abu Ghraib prison and those generous Halliburton contracts, did all but the very few become completely disillusioned? How much of this anger, this willingness to always believe the worst (that the US prosecutes wars to secure oil, or suchlike), comes out of a sense of betrayal because of it?
Sorry – should also add that I don’t believe this is a universal belief. I appreciate that people aren’t born Western liberal democrats (small L, small D).
All good, germane questions Dunc. This debate has taken a turn for the better.
I think I’d point out (apropos my “blather” comment) that there is a difference between what the chattering classes (which I’m sorry to report that we are numbered among in this context) think and what the rest of the world thinks. I tend to think that an affluent, secure western middle class reared on pluralistic liberal democratic values has the luxury to ask searching questions of its benefactor. This is an entirely healthy thing for so long as those questions are a in a spirit of sceptical inquiry and not un-reflective American (and self) loathing.
I don’t believe the rest of the world feels betrayed by America, not even after the grisly and botched aftermath of Iraq. I think most people think what America stands for is worth having, and that the America they have gets them closer to it than any other America they can think of.
“I think the problem here is one of moving from the comparative to the superlative, and from the isolated to the contextual.”
I think that’s guff sorry Adam. I know your views are passionately held though and am sure you can easily conjure a defence to any point I make. I suppose I can write about however many Salvador Allendes and however many Vietnams I want but it will be justified by WW2, the Marshall Plan and the existence of the Soviet Union.
“You are quite right to point to America’s sponsorship of Saudi Arabia as being as tick in the “con” column.”
It’s not really a ‘con’, it’s completely understandable and necessary in order to justify the continuation of American hegemony in the Arabian Gulf. They can’t allow democracy in Saudi Arabia as in that country more than any other the Islamists would probably win.
“Similarly, the actions of the US in central and southern America are worth scrutinising (though there are also happier episodes which you neglect to highlight ).”
Really? Honestly I cannot think of a single case in the Americas where the US has intervened to support the progressive side. And if you consider Pinochet, Noriega, or even the elected miltiary class in Colombia as ‘progressive’ then this truly would be a pointless discussion.
“The pity is that those who reserve their ire for the US’s reprehensible, counter-productive but mercifully infrequent sponsorship of non-democratic regimes all too often look the other way or even offer succour when more dangerous regimes confront the US.”
Adam how can you say their sponsorship of non-democratic regimes is “infrequent?! I could fill a Wales Home comments box with even a current list, let alone a 90s list or a Cold War list. I am not aware of more than a handful of episodes in post-WW2 history where ‘dangerous regimes’ have confronted the US. And your inference that dangerous regimes still ‘confront the US’ and that leftists or progressives ‘look the other way’ is unsubstantiated. The only confrontations of the US in recent history have been Iraq and North Korea. I suppose Libya and Iran are or were ‘dangerous’ but both of those states have a history with the US which would make for interesting reading. Cuba and Syria? Once you get beyond a handful of ‘rogue states’ the debate starts to descend into farce.
The debate would be better if you substantiated your allegation that critics of American foreign policy ‘look the other way’ when North Korea does a missile test or whatever.
The idea that US foreign policy elevates ‘fighting for freedom’ as its main or even secondary goal is unfortunately a deception. A large school of intellectual thought led by Chomsky, Pilger et al makes the cause persuasively but it is a case shared by millions of ordinary people around the world.
Questioning American foreign policy does not mean you “loath America” or “loath yourself” and honestly Adam i’m disappointed you’d say such a thing like that, because it is an attempt to isolate and undermine those of us who are anti-imperialists by inferring that we are anti-American or possibly even racist. An extension of that theme would be to suggest those of us that are against the war in Iraq are opposing the troops.
“Liberal democracy”, a philosophy you have elevated to almost sanctified heights in your polemic, means we are allowed to criticise policy to any extent we feel necessary. Yet when critics emerge, they are pilloried and described as “anti-American”. This is a huge paradox- liberal democracy is just as anxious to defend its norms and structures as any other ideology we have seen emerge in recent human history.
It isn’t right that even after the Cold War when the liberal democracy “won” and the game was settled, a country can have its democratically elected government overthrown by an outside power. I am describing Venezuela in what, 2002?
I recognise your conclusions about the global appreciation of American policy which is just as strong as the global resentment. I’d rather live in America than Cuba (though i’d rather Cuba than Haiti) as would the vast majority of humankind. America plays a historically unique role on earth.
I just think there are enough “hang on…” moments to throw the sweeping assumptions about freedom out of the window.
Otto: Don’t call me stupid.
Wendy: Why on earth not?
Otto: Oh, you English are *so* superior, aren’t you? Well, would you like to know what you’d be without us, the good ol’ U.S. of A. to protect you? I’ll tell you. The smallest fucking province in the Russian Empire, that’s what! So don’t call me stupid, lady. Just thank me.
Wendy: Well, *thank* you for popping in and protecting us.
Otto: If it wasn’t for us, you’d all be speaking *German!* Singing “Deutschland, Deutschland über alles…”
Ha-ha. Loved “A Fish Called Wanda”
Sure, American “imperialism” does have a lot to atone for. And it does go further back, indeed if you will, to expelling the Imperial Britons in a bloody hard fought war, to the expropriation of the Cherokee Nation in Appalachia and others, to the Louisiana Purchase, the Conquest of Florida by Jackson, and the Manifest Destiny for America to stretch from Atlantic to Pacific, which brought it into conflict with the Native Americans of the West, and to the equally Imperial Mexico. Least we forget America’s participation in the events which spawned the Boxer Rebellion in China! Who can forget the jingoism of the Spanish American War! And internally too, America has had issues with which it has wrestled over. Slavery. Native Americans Reservations. Civil War. Japanese Internment Camps. Jim Crow. Gay rights today.
We could go on and on.
We could do this with any nation, really. How far back do we really want to go, and with which nation of peoples? Every side has its own interest at heart. At the end of the day, you have to ask yourself, would you have preferred any other outcome other then the American supported free market West surviving the failed communist experiments?
While we go about criticizing American foreign policy and weigh the pros and cons of CIA operations, remember too that MI6, and the KGB, or [insert nation of choice here] where also in it for themselves and would equally have taken any opportunity presented to push their own agenda. That includes regime change and “nation building”.
America’s Virtue is its idealism, for which it daily attempts to live up to. Clearly not always with success. But still.
How apropos that as we #$*@ around about American spy operations abroad, when a Russian spy ring embedded in American surburbia is undergoing deportation proceedings in New York.
Imagine Earth had the benevolent Soviets with the KGB won the Cold War, or better still, had England kept her British Empire following the Second World War, how many MI6 Spies would be embedded across the globe keeping England’s Queen on every national currency as they thwart successionist movements.
Luke
…and so the debate takes a turn for the worse again. You accuse me of “guff” yet you have clearly chosen to ignore the all-important caveat in the original article. If you choose to read only the bits you want to, and ignore the bits that don’t suit, I’m not sure there’s a great deal of point in us discussing this. America’s status as a fair and benevolent hegemony can only be measured in comparison with others. I’m not going to accept your challenge of measuring her actions against a notional ideal because, as I’ve said, it’s a test no state in international affairs can ever meet. David Llewellyn’s closing remark is instructive here.
(In a similar vein, it really is preposterous of you to seize upon my remark about anti-Americanism without noting the preceding statement in which I explicitly commend sceptical inquiry about America’s record. If you want this kind of argument, go and talk past someone else.)
Saudia Arabia: we’re not disagreeing. The point I’m making to you is that the US has chosen to ally to a state that appears to sustain her interests in the region out of pragmatism and necessity (it was you that pointed out that the region has only one real democracy – something the invasion or Iraq was aimed at addressing) where idealism would be a much better guide. As for happier episodes, I’d put the removal of 21-year old military dictatorship and the emergence of a stable democratic government in Panama as one. You say I elevate liberal democracy to sanctified heights? I’d say the problem is that you don’t ascribe it nearly enough importance. That’s a luxury you have, having spent your entire life in one of the most stable of such democracies. It’s not a luxury millions of people around the world share with you.
You muse that Iran might be considered a dangerous state, but hint that because the US intervened in her politics in the past this in some way amounts to comeuppance. It kind of proves my point. I’d say a medieval theocracy intent on developing nuclear weapons and with an avowed aim of wiping the only democracy within striking range from the face of the planet might just be considered by some to be “dangerous”. Bit, oh, let’s not forget that the US supported a coup nearly six decades ago, at the height of the cold war. Well, in that case Iran’s current nuclear weapons programme isn’t dangerous at all.
“The idea that US foreign policy elevates ‘fighting for freedom’ as its main or even secondary goal is unfortunately a deception”
I’ve addressed this point twice already, once in response to Gez and once in response to Duncan.
As for Venezuela, my understanding was that this was an attempted military coup in which Chavez has alleged US collusion.
I suspect the wider problem here is that you interpret “anti-imperialism” as “anti-American foreign policy” because you have concluded that the US is a bad thing in world affairs. I take the view that interventions and influence that seeks to promote democracy and weaken dictatorship around the world, by and large, should be supported – even sometimes to the extent of military action. The US has to work with some very big and powerful non-democratic governments, such as China (an area we have not touched upon, but one where the objective of promoting democratic freedoms could on one reading be said to be going to a peaceful plan) and it choses to work with others out of a mixture of pragmatism and short-termism. The world is a deeply imperfect place, and the US is an imperfect hegemony. But, as David states, its ideals are deeply attractive and its record, if taken in the round (and I note you still refuse to even discuss the cold war in any meaningful way) is far more positive than you suggest. I’m glad you take for granted those freedoms you enjoy – it’s a sign of how embedded they are. But it might be worth asking every once in a while how you’d feel if they didn’t exist. If, for example, you lived in Saddam’s Iraq. Liberal democracy is not some sort of right-wing neocon bread-and-circus diversion in this debate. It’s something we enjoy and millions don’t. You appear relaxed about that state of affairs. I’m not.
I have real problems with this whole idea of half a century of empire building claim. Why? Because George W Bush came from a completely separate support base with different concerns and different aims than JFK, Clinton, Carter, Nixon and even Reagan. It could be argued that even his father (who, it is claimed, wanted one of his brothers – Jeb, I think – to run for president) had different backing.
And backing is so crucial to get into the White House. That’s what made Obama so interesting to us anoraks. He genuinely managed it through popular support, albeit extremely well-organised support, galvanised by innovative electoral techniques such as the advocate system. Consequently, what do we see? The first US president – certainly in a long time, if not ever – that can take a tough line with the Israelis.
Dubya’s presidency was a triumph of the small interest group – in this case, the Texan petrochemical industry – over the popular will. But whatever the reasons for his hegemonic interest in Iraq, his reasons and the circumstance for going to war were different, completely different, from his fellow Texan president Lyndon B Johnson’s escalation of the Vietnam conflict.
The outcome – many, many dead Third World people, in both cases – does not add up to an abiding purpose or intent on the part of the US. It is the most unfortunate consequence of different presidencies, different ages, and different foreign policy priorities.
I will concede that there is legacy in certain foreign policies. IL points out Saudi Arabia. Good example. And we all know the Sauds’ worst excesses and unacceptable conduct (along with the Wahhabist climate that contributes to creating the state’s fierce interior opponents, who ultimately export their discontent) are often overlooked because securing oil supplies is paramount. And possibly the war in Iraq was ultimately all about breaking that relationship. Who knows? We’ll wait for the relevant Neo Cons’ memoirs.
But, as we’ve seen with Israel, nothing is forever. And if that is the case, then the whole idea of an imperialist narrative becomes difficult to prove. And Adam is right. It’s an issue for Islington dinner tables. But it isn’t the issue. The numbers of people dead through what (sometimes with the benefit of hindsight) is foreign folly is more important. And Adam is also correct when he points out that most of the world wants to be like America.
“most of the world wants to be like America.”
Probably because it doesn’t know that Canada’s an option.
I agree with Duncan that ‘nothing is forever’- things can change even in a monolithic system where there are various interests that the President might not be able to exercise influence over. There is something uniquely interesting about Obama in terms of the popular, genuinely democratic movements which got him the nomination and then the Presidency. You can see that reflected in the way that traditional American opponents (particularly the nationalist and leftist heads of state in Latin America) deal with Obama, they tend to refrain from criticising him directly and in person there is a warmth and even respect between Obama and say, Morales or Chavez or whoever.
“And Adam is right. It’s an issue for Islington dinner tables.”
That’s pretty dismissive Dunc I’ve never been to Islington, and working class people are very concerned about Afghanistan, for example. The two million who marched against Iraq weren’t all from Islington. Cast your mind back, it was THE issue in the pub, in the street and in school where I live in urban south Wales.
“And Adam is also correct when he points out that most of the world wants to be like America.”
To fulfil those completely understandable desires would invite the end of our species.
IL,
Sorry – perhaps I didn’t explain myself properly. I meant that rumination on an imperialist narrative is something for the chattering classes. The millions who marched in London, together with many others around the world, were most likely fixated on the potential human toll of the Iraq war. Sadly, their fears were well-founded.
War provides the ultimate question on whether the end justifies the means. We see this today, in modern reappraisals of the Second World War. Yes, of course we were right to fight the Nazis, but did we need to start the Dresden firestorm to defeat them? People are queasy – and judgemental – about this episode these days. They shouldn’t be. Leaving aside often-overlooked evidence that the Nazis clearly targeted civilian populations through air raids (often returning to residential areas to stoke up fires they had previously started) far more than the Allies, it also ignores the fact that that was then, and this is now. No wealth of historical evidence can truly put us back in the minds of people from that time. And it we can’t do that, completely empathise, then we cannot fully sympathise with their decision making. And Adam is right – that is a luxury that we enjoy, so let’s not be ignorant and eager to moralise with it.
Where is this all going? Well, in a Western liberal democracy, an unspoken convenant between a country’s leaders and their soldiers must exist. The soldier is prepared to die, but their political masters must only send them to war as the very last resort, when the security of our islands is at peril, That clearly didn’t happen with Iraq. My personal view is that Blair simply did not have the political nous to refuse Bush in the same way that Wilson had rebuffed Johnson over Vietnam, possibly because of a rumuored clearing-out of Arabists and other experts from the Foreign Office, who might have convincingly counselled against ,some time between 1997 and 2003.
As a consequence, we regard the conflict in Iraq as an oil war, and the UK complicit in it. This is so reprehensible to us because of the death toll it exacted. It simply wasn’t worth it. We were failed. And many people remain angry (not least the families of service personnel) because of the numbers of dead, not because it was another example of decades-long intent on the part of the United States.
“I meant that rumination on an imperialist narrative is something for the chattering classes.”
Thanks for clarifying Duncan, it’s still a bit of a weird thing to say though, you should’ve just said ‘discussing imperialism is something for educated people’. Educated and intelligent people can be of any social class. It would be sad if we assumed the miners of the 1930s- for example- didn’t know about imperialism. I just find it a bit of a weird statement.
I definitely agree with alot of your views. War is war. Organised political violence is necessary to achieve certain goals.
I completely agree with you on Iraq and I even see liberal democracy as the most adequate form of government. Where I differ from Adam’s point of view is that I believe “enlightening” the rest of the world to this received truth through the use of force is not desirable.
You draw a division on Iraq- we the people are not pissed off over Iraq due to decades of imperialism and interference there, we’re pissed off because of the particular detail of that one war. I accept that, but clearly people that are interested in political science (particularly people from the socialist political tradition) would argue that it wasn’t a “one-off” war and as part of their opposition to the war, they would state the wider context of US interventions.
It’s obvious that people in this day and age will be more angry at the death toll and the very human considerations of the war, than the more abstract debate over imperialism. Imperialism is one for the scholars but let’s not confine theoretical debate to the “chattering classes”.
I think it would be a dumbed down debate if we analysed carefully each war and the reasons politicians gave for it, but ignored the wider historical context. To use Iraq as an example as you did, a person wouldn’t have a full appreciation of the reasons for the war in Iraq if they didn’t know about the first Gulf War or the Iran-Iraq war, or the Anfal Campaign or even Britain’s role in founding Iraq.
IL,
No I shouldn’t. When I say chattering classes, I mean chattering classes. Yes, they are educated people, but not all educated people are chattering classes. They are not one and the same, which means that miners from the 1930s (who presumably would have experienced some difficulties in discussing the Vietnam and Iraq wars) are quite safe.
“I accept that, but clearly people that are interested in political science (particularly people from the socialist political tradition) would argue that it wasn’t a “one-off” war and as part of their opposition to the war, they would state the wider context of US interventions.”
No, but this reinforces my argument. Most people aren’t interested in political science, including most of those opposed to the Iraq war. They opposed it for the reasons I suggested – that the end didn’t justify the means, that it wasn’t worth spilling blood in the sand for.
I’m not confining debate to the chattering classes as some sort of elitist suggestion. I’m suggesting it has already come to rest with those who don’t use their noggins to their full potentials while the rest of us focus on the important things – getting out of war zones with the least number of dead on all sides.
We can speak about the history of Iraq, Persia and the Levant. But then we’d be moving off the argument as to whether there is such a thing as purposed, generational US imperialism and would instead begin to focus on the UK’s less-than-distinguished history in the area, particularly in Iran and Northern Arabia. I contend, for the reasons given above, that there is no such thing as a US imperial narrative, and that the spiral downwards, from rebuilding Europe to Guantanamo Bay is coincidence, not intended.
And against the here and now of warfare, I don’t think it’s that important, either.
Oh well then, better tell Chomsky wind up his entire academic career seeing as the topic he has mastered doesn’t exist! ; )
I thought his ideas on US foreign policy (and he is arguably more famous for his work on linguistics) were based around the collusion between various administrations and the US media in “manufactured consent”, not imperial narratives.
What you have inferred is that there is a clear line of purpose, from the CIA’s black operations of the 1950s and 1960s to the Iraq War and beyond, driven by an ulterior imperialist intention. I contend that there is not.
I’m not going to try and get deep into this debate in a short lunch break but a couple of points building on Duncan’s assertion about the changing nature of Republican conceptions of US foreign policy.
What I think links Bush jr with elements of Reaganite thinking (but of course Reagan is also one of the co-authors of the end of the Cold War, to complicate the left’s demonisation of him) is American exceptionalism translating into justified use of force. I’m not totally convinced that Dubya is a complete departure from previous Republican thinking but there is certainly an alternative “small state” isolationist strand in GOP thinking which wouldn’t have had any enthusiasm for Iraq.
The last US President to pay little heed to Israel was Eisenhower who saw the Jewish lobby as irredeemably Democrat and thus of no use to him nor a lobby he needed to fear.
Ah, now this is an interesting area. What I think is fascinating is that we essentially have two groups that claimed victory in the Cold War – the Neo Cons and the fighting Islamists. At the end of the 1980s – during Bush Snr’s presidency – both were marginalised by their respective communities and electorates, often regarded as cranks.
Not 15 years later, they provided the two primary ideologies (or at least elements of them) upon which the world was forced to turn. It was quite a rehabilitation.
I agree that there are continuations in Republican thought, with the Neo Cons providing the most obvious example. But that doesn’t go towards an imperial narrative because we had eight years of Clinton between Republican presidencies. It was the time of the ‘global policeman’, yet it only served to embolden Islamists like bin Laden because Clinton would often take on a job (Somalia, the Balkans) before being overcome with timidity.
Mmmm. The Cold War points are well made (I didn’t respond to the imperial narrative because I agree with you; the “Washington Consensus” is an attempt to formulate an intellectual hegemony of economic thinking and while utterly ruinous is not “imperial” in the normal scheme of things).
Perhaps the question should be were they the two primary ideologies on which the world was forced to turn or should they have been the two primary ideologies the world should have turned upon?
I’m not sure your Balkans and Somalia comparison is fair; surely in the Balkans US intervention forced a negotiated settlement which in itself has proved mostly lasting and led to the unravelling of the ultra nationalist Serbian state? If we had been left with EU intervention alone Bosnia would surely not exist now.
I haven’t got the time to draw the obvious parralels with Somalia…..
I would like to participate more in this, unfortunately time does not allow it.
My personal believe based on my reading is that the Neocons were mostly former liberals (and in some cases Trotskyite). I don’t entirely agree with Duncan’s view of them as being dismissed as cranks. They were certainly influential in getting rid of both Marcos and Pinochet.
One thing about them is sure that they hold that US policy on supporting regimes like Saudi Arabia and Egypt is wrong, and in the long-term.
They are in fact dismissed by the old Right as Wilsonian idealists holding his core policies.
* Advocacy of self-determination by ethnic groups
* Advocacy of the spread of democracy
* Advocacy of the spread of Capitalism
* Anti-isolationism/ Anti-Imperialism, in favor of intervention to help create peace and / or spread freedom
I think that sums it up from me. Nixon was also a Wilsonian who had favored détente, Chile was a very strange aberration from his usual policy, also he favored the end of the Cuban embargo.