On Obama, patriotism, anti-colonialism, history, and exceptionalism.
An excellent essay.
"You don’t teach future business people how to run a company by only showing them pictures of John D. Rockefeller and Bill Gates. You don’t teach future doctors by only showing them happy cheerful healthy people. You don’t teach military officers how to fight by only showing them past victories."
Originally shared by +George Wiman:
American Exceptionalism
Obama "wasn't raised to love America?" By his grandfather, who was a US soldier in the European theater, and his grandmother, who was pretty much "Rosie The Riveter"?
The link below is to a long, well-informed OpEd by American veteran Jim Wright. He spent a week taking apart Rudy Giuliani's thoughts about Obama, and reading the Oklahoma AP History curriculum guide. Which the OK state legislature wants to ban because it isn't supportive of "American Exceptionalism".
The concept of American Exceptionalism is part of the whole "Christian Nation" thing, but I can't for the life of me figure out how. We can treat the poor like garbage, but somehow we're an Exception to the many calls in the bible to defend the poor. We're an Exception to racism and sexism and prejudice of all kinds. It's right in our ad copy.
We're an Exception to history, which has many examples of empires rising and falling. That won't happen to US. We're an Exception to economics, which has way too many examples of the super-rich drawing most of society's wealth unto themselves, only to end up on the wrong end of violent revolution. That won't happen to us, either.
Hell, we're even an Exception to the laws of physics. That's right! We can keep pumping greenhouse gasses into the atmo, and not suffer the effects of global warming, because we're God's special little snowflake or something.
(Before anyone brings up cold weather in parts of North America, better check on temps around the rest of the globe. I'm just lookin' out for you here.)
Thinking that You Are Exceptional is a pretty reliable path off a cliff. Even for a filthy unbeliever like me, here's a bible proverb that always sounded exactly right: "Pride goeth before a fall, and a haughty spirit before destruction." Prov. 16:18.
Really. When you can't look your own faults squarely in the kisser, they're going to destroy you. That's what AP history is for. That's what Howard Zinn's "People's History of the United States" is for. To save us from self-caused destruction. No joke.
Read Wright's essay. Share it around. You may not be glad you did. But you can lay claim to having faced the music.
http://www.stonekettle.com/2015/02/the-telltale-heart-of-history-beats-for.html
The Telltale Heart Of History Beats For YOU
“History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.” ― Winston Churchill Obama doesn’t love America. Not like you and me. “I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not believe that the pr…
