The Myth of U.S. Cultural, Religious, Political and Social Superiority

[chlamor]

The Myth of U.S. Cultural, Religious, Political, and Social Superiority

Manifest Destiny - 21st Century Style 

By Kristina M. Gronquist

04/25/05 "ICH" - - The concept of Manifest Destiny describes the 19th century conviction that God intended the continent of North America to be under the control of Christian, European Americans. The ideology of Manifest Destiny was the backbone of U.S. government efforts to colonize land inhabited by indigenous people in North America and expand the United States into Mexican territory. 

Believers in Manifest Destiny asserted that U.S. rulers were predestined to spread their proclaimed superior values near and far. Propaganda, armed interventions, occupations, and terror were used in various insidious combinations. Indigenous people whose country we reside in can best attest to the results of Manifest Destiny policy, as they survived centuries of unspeakable injustices and lost millions, but courageously, have survived. 

For most Americans, the myth of U.S. cultural, religious, political, and social superiority has been so strongly reinforced over the years that it is taken a given, it is assumed. In the language of political science, this is called “reification,” when myths become accepted as reality. Public debate is often vacuous, because we are unable to question 1) whether or not the U.S. system of governance is desired by non-Americans, or 2) whether or not the “one size fits all” U.S. model will offer people in other lands true solutions. Without such debate, the reification process becomes frightening: If it is a given that our system and values are superior, it follows that remaking others in our image will always be the worthy “end.” Any means can be used to reach the agreed-upon (but unquestioned) worthy end. 

This is why the U.S. invaded and devastated Iraq, and why our leaders and a majority of Americans can ignore 100,000 Iraqi civilian casualties. If it is a given that a Western-style, capitalist Iraq is the proper end, then the means by which that is achieved can be illegal, ruthless, bloody, inhumane, or whatever. The means are open-ended. We see that glazed, slightly out-of-reality look constantly in this administration’s eyes as they talk about “democracy” in Iraq. Their fixed eyes look up towards the ends, but they are never cast seriously downward to look over and evaluate the terrible means by which they are trying to reach those ends.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8657.htm

[Freedom_from_Chains]

1. Egomania taken to it's extremes. n/t

Confronting the Judicial War on Faith

[Viva_La_Revolution]

2. United States of Empirialism...

snip>
Since the invasion, there have been scores of such changes. The CPA (Coalition Provisional Authority) under L. Paul Bremer, and the interim government that followed, both gutted and reworked Iraqi legislation in many areas. The CPA’s meddling with Iraq law violates the Hague Regulations of 1907 and the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, governing the treatment of the inhabitants of militarily occupied territories. Occupiers are prohibited from making major alterations to the character of the occupied society.
snip>

Good Find!

[chlamor]

3. I'm Looking For the full text of the CPA's

edicts. They took them off the website, in fact changed the whole site during Iraq Selections. Wish I had printed them out. Any ideas on where to get full report of all CPA Orders?

[Lexingtonian]

4. www.archive.org ?

Works for a surprisingly large number of sites. Or Google, set the dates right.