George W. Bush will, at the end of his current term, have served eight years as the President of the United States of America - which, considerations aside, is the most powerful country on the face of this planet. Whether he's done a good job or not, he has, for better or worse, ensured himself a place in the history books. What he will be described as is the question (and I'm not talking about how much he looks like a chimpanzee).
I'm not going to get into the usual arguments for and against America - frankly, I'm sick of them. I've talked myself hoarse in endless debates over whether, being the most powerful country, America has the right to impose its own morality upon weaker ones, whether its attack on Iraq was justified or not - that's all in hindsight, and moot, besides.
What IS worrying, though, is America’s obsession with having enemies. It seems that they simply HAVE to have someone to hate, someone to be on the verge of war with. During the Cold War, it was the Soviets. Then, not in any particular order, was the First Gulf War, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan (first the CIA backing the insurgency that Osama B. is a product of), then their own invasion of Afghanistan, now this second Iraq War.
Now, there are two possibilities. Either America's just unlucky. They're top dog, everyone's jealous, so everyone hates them, therefore everyone attacks them. Possible, yes, certainly, but there's one or two holes in that theory. Aside from everything else, they're also the most powerful country in existence, and no matter how much you may hate them, you don’t attack them until you have absolutely nothing left to lose. The other possibility is more of a probability - America, until recently, seemed to be following a rather vigorous foreign policy - both via the diplomatic and clandestine channels. Since they got so damn good at it (a relic of the anti-communism era - they saw spies everywhere, so became damn good at being spies themselves), they found that it was possible to divert other countries into choices that, ultimately or immediately, would benefit America herself.
Now, this is nothing new. It’s been happening forever - the British Raj, for example. Only, they didn’t even bother with the diplomatic or clandestine channels. They just turned up, took a look around, figured they liked the country, and took it home. Much more direct, and a lot less red tape involved. But I digress.
America's problem is something like this.
They've had it great forever. While the rest of the world was just about getting to its feet after World War 2, and some others were just gaining their independence (like us), America had a nice, long head start, more natural resources than anyone else (since North America was a relatively virgin continent), no horror of war, since no enemy ever reached their shores, an industrial sector that was booming, what with all the production of war materials to be sent to the Brits and Russians, so on, and so forth. This consolidated into a solid advantage in almost every sector, as besides this head start, they also had virtually no competition. Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, China, India, Africa, South Africa, Egypt - no matter where you looked, revolution/war had been roaming the countryside. The only competition to the USA was the USSR - which imploded a few years later, giving rise to a bunch of new countries even further behind than USSR was before. Lovely. Not to mention, since all the money, technology and opportunities were in America, the best and brightest from the world went there.
Standards of living reached ridiculous new heights, which we in other countries would regard as almost Olympian in their standards, but to the average American, no more than their birthright. Now, here's the problem. In all natural cycles, the end result is a sort of balancing out of everything. That is, perhaps not an equal, equitable distribution of resources, but across the boards, more or less average conditions prevailing. Human society is no less of a natural phenomenon. If one country has it SO great, there must be a lot of countries that go without - since it takes a lot of free labour/ under priced resources/whatever to make life so good for the one country. And for a time, they were. The made in Korea tag exemplifies what I'm talking about - the price for the American dream was borne by other countries, who got bullied into toeing America's line. Sell us your Oil cheap! Work for 50 cents a day! Buy our mass produced garbage at inflated costs! Send your best and brightest to us!
This wanton self worship has reached its peak in Hollywood. Usher wears two diamonds the size of large grapes in his ears. Some arbit rap artist routinely changes his cars (yes, cars - eight of them) every six months, because he's tired of the colour. Paris Hilton and Nicole Riche have launched a reality show which shows them doing whatever the fuck they want to at jobs that people depend on for their livelihoods - and with the American public considering it good enough entertainment to broadcast abroad, rather than cringing in self disgust. P.Diddy routinely throws parties that cost about $15 million, for one night of wild partying. Forget how much that sort of money could help people in genuine need - where famine, or war, or disease has struck. Forget the debate about whether what he does for a living is actually worth so much money. Forget all of that. Just remember that this is a ROUTINE party. Once every year. Dress code, white. All white. Real angels, the lot of you.
It's disgusting. But it's also inevitable.
This isn't really anyone's fault, since what's happening is usually too ethereal to actually reach out and pinpoint. You could just say it's an effect of Capitalism - the generation of enormous amounts of wealth - gone bad, since it was more like monopolistic capitalism on a planetary scale rather than competition. But here's the deal. The rest of the world has grown up. India and China are blazing along at ridiculous growth levels. Russia is once again starting to flex its economic muscle. Potentials for growth, and therefore, for investment, are much higher in the rest of the world than in America. Therefore, following the simple rules of capitalism, a lot of that enormous wealth that has spurred America along should be reaching our shores anytime soon. With everything that it entails.
I don’t believe that we'll be able to become anything like America anytime soon. For one thing, we will always have our battles to fight, since we're not the only ones heading up this mountain. It's a race, and so growth, and investment, and competition will always be at the forefront of any governmental decision. With any luck, this should keep us stable as a country, and as a people, and help us avoid the price for achieving paradise in this world - that we lose our edge.
Perhaps this happens with every civilization on the path of greatness. There must be some point where the armies are strong, the land is secure, and the wealth is enormous, the time for leisure, and the arts, and the sciences, limitless. It happened in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Rome...hell, even to us.
It's sad to see a superpower fall. But it's also the American Dream. The Last Stand.
I'm not going to get into the usual arguments for and against America - frankly, I'm sick of them. I've talked myself hoarse in endless debates over whether, being the most powerful country, America has the right to impose its own morality upon weaker ones, whether its attack on Iraq was justified or not - that's all in hindsight, and moot, besides.
What IS worrying, though, is America’s obsession with having enemies. It seems that they simply HAVE to have someone to hate, someone to be on the verge of war with. During the Cold War, it was the Soviets. Then, not in any particular order, was the First Gulf War, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan (first the CIA backing the insurgency that Osama B. is a product of), then their own invasion of Afghanistan, now this second Iraq War.
Now, there are two possibilities. Either America's just unlucky. They're top dog, everyone's jealous, so everyone hates them, therefore everyone attacks them. Possible, yes, certainly, but there's one or two holes in that theory. Aside from everything else, they're also the most powerful country in existence, and no matter how much you may hate them, you don’t attack them until you have absolutely nothing left to lose. The other possibility is more of a probability - America, until recently, seemed to be following a rather vigorous foreign policy - both via the diplomatic and clandestine channels. Since they got so damn good at it (a relic of the anti-communism era - they saw spies everywhere, so became damn good at being spies themselves), they found that it was possible to divert other countries into choices that, ultimately or immediately, would benefit America herself.
Now, this is nothing new. It’s been happening forever - the British Raj, for example. Only, they didn’t even bother with the diplomatic or clandestine channels. They just turned up, took a look around, figured they liked the country, and took it home. Much more direct, and a lot less red tape involved. But I digress.
America's problem is something like this.
They've had it great forever. While the rest of the world was just about getting to its feet after World War 2, and some others were just gaining their independence (like us), America had a nice, long head start, more natural resources than anyone else (since North America was a relatively virgin continent), no horror of war, since no enemy ever reached their shores, an industrial sector that was booming, what with all the production of war materials to be sent to the Brits and Russians, so on, and so forth. This consolidated into a solid advantage in almost every sector, as besides this head start, they also had virtually no competition. Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, China, India, Africa, South Africa, Egypt - no matter where you looked, revolution/war had been roaming the countryside. The only competition to the USA was the USSR - which imploded a few years later, giving rise to a bunch of new countries even further behind than USSR was before. Lovely. Not to mention, since all the money, technology and opportunities were in America, the best and brightest from the world went there.
Standards of living reached ridiculous new heights, which we in other countries would regard as almost Olympian in their standards, but to the average American, no more than their birthright. Now, here's the problem. In all natural cycles, the end result is a sort of balancing out of everything. That is, perhaps not an equal, equitable distribution of resources, but across the boards, more or less average conditions prevailing. Human society is no less of a natural phenomenon. If one country has it SO great, there must be a lot of countries that go without - since it takes a lot of free labour/ under priced resources/whatever to make life so good for the one country. And for a time, they were. The made in Korea tag exemplifies what I'm talking about - the price for the American dream was borne by other countries, who got bullied into toeing America's line. Sell us your Oil cheap! Work for 50 cents a day! Buy our mass produced garbage at inflated costs! Send your best and brightest to us!
This wanton self worship has reached its peak in Hollywood. Usher wears two diamonds the size of large grapes in his ears. Some arbit rap artist routinely changes his cars (yes, cars - eight of them) every six months, because he's tired of the colour. Paris Hilton and Nicole Riche have launched a reality show which shows them doing whatever the fuck they want to at jobs that people depend on for their livelihoods - and with the American public considering it good enough entertainment to broadcast abroad, rather than cringing in self disgust. P.Diddy routinely throws parties that cost about $15 million, for one night of wild partying. Forget how much that sort of money could help people in genuine need - where famine, or war, or disease has struck. Forget the debate about whether what he does for a living is actually worth so much money. Forget all of that. Just remember that this is a ROUTINE party. Once every year. Dress code, white. All white. Real angels, the lot of you.
It's disgusting. But it's also inevitable.
This isn't really anyone's fault, since what's happening is usually too ethereal to actually reach out and pinpoint. You could just say it's an effect of Capitalism - the generation of enormous amounts of wealth - gone bad, since it was more like monopolistic capitalism on a planetary scale rather than competition. But here's the deal. The rest of the world has grown up. India and China are blazing along at ridiculous growth levels. Russia is once again starting to flex its economic muscle. Potentials for growth, and therefore, for investment, are much higher in the rest of the world than in America. Therefore, following the simple rules of capitalism, a lot of that enormous wealth that has spurred America along should be reaching our shores anytime soon. With everything that it entails.
I don’t believe that we'll be able to become anything like America anytime soon. For one thing, we will always have our battles to fight, since we're not the only ones heading up this mountain. It's a race, and so growth, and investment, and competition will always be at the forefront of any governmental decision. With any luck, this should keep us stable as a country, and as a people, and help us avoid the price for achieving paradise in this world - that we lose our edge.
Perhaps this happens with every civilization on the path of greatness. There must be some point where the armies are strong, the land is secure, and the wealth is enormous, the time for leisure, and the arts, and the sciences, limitless. It happened in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Rome...hell, even to us.
It's sad to see a superpower fall. But it's also the American Dream. The Last Stand.
1 comment:
have you ever watched this comedian called stephen colbert? quite a gutsy chap...
reading your post called him to mind
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