Twice, during the second presidential debate, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton said that the United States is good and that Americans are good people. The problem with that assertion, of course, is the fact that we betray our supposed values so often that you have to ask yourself whether they are our values at all.
Americans Are Good…At
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The Final Countdown" talk show on Radio Sputnik. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
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Clearly… if you hear people say stuff like “we are good/exceptional/indispensable” or “I’m not a racist, (but)” you know they really ain’t, otherwise why mention it?
Even Churchill, may his many victims rest in peace, didn’t have to say “we are the good guys” when they rolled back the Nazi regime. It was kind of implied.
As for saying it twice (via wikipedia):
“The lady doth protest too much, methinks” is a quotation from the c. 1600 play Hamlet by William Shakespeare. It has been used as a figure of speech, in various phrasings, to describe someone’s overly frequent and vehement attempts to convince others of some matter of which the opposite is true, thereby making themselves appear defensive and insincere.
Americans are believers, ask no questions, and reject answers that don’t fit neatly into their worldview.
American Exceptionalism:
The belief that no matter how many foreign governments and their elections the US subverts; no matter how many baseless wars devastate no matter how many millions; no matter how many are tortured and imprisoned without cause for no matter how long; no matter how many American minorities populate the extreme lower economic classes and its prisons: The Government of the USA would NEVER do anything so cruel, underhanded and deceptive to its own exceptional people.
For an all too accurate analysis of how «good» the US government – and, not least, Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton – is, one can profitably take 20 minutes of one’s time to listen to Australian journalist John Pilger’s analysis….
Henri
Forgive me : here the URL inadvertently omitted : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUW5-LlLQ1Q ….
Henri
Good link. With Bush, jr, words and actions were bad. With Obama, the words are good, but the actions …
As the New York Times columnists all write, Bush, jr did the right thing in Iraq the wrong way. Yes, he transformed an impoverished, brutal dictatorship and state sponsor of terror into a peaceful and prosperous democracy, but he squandered the lives of 4,000 brave soldiers and spent more than 1 trillion dollars.
Obama and Secretary Clinton did the right thing the right way, managing the same beneficent transformation of Libya without a single death and at minimal cost.
I belong to a group where I tried to post an article by Gar Alperovitz. Three members said it is well known that he, as well as anyone else who does not write that the US is the Greatest Force for Good Ever, is a proven liar, and I was out of line for posting lies and trying to defend the liars.
Of course, some believe the lying propaganda videos shown by RT, or the articles in the old Guardian before the UK Constabulary corrected its editorial policy, or the article by Theo Padnos about the Free Syrian Army that appeared in the New York Times Sunday Magazine, or the Washington Post article about Camp Bucca and the Daesh, or sott.net or …
Unfortunately, I can’t get that video to play with audio (today). It’s probably my computer, so I’ll try again tomorrow. 🙁
Just finished watching (and listening).
[I don’t know what was wrong before, but it worked this time.]
Unfortunately, most U.S. citizens don’t want to hear how corrupt their government is and how they have used their power to overthrow other governments for corporate profit. Until the majority of Americans realize this, the corruption and murders will continue.
@michaelwme
“With Bush, jr, words and actions were bad. With Obama, the words are good, but the actions …”
This must how Obama came to be awarded the Nobel Speech Prize.
@Glenn, I’m pretty sure that Nobel was actually to the American people for dumping Bush. Little did the Nobel Committee realize what we’d elected in his stead.
@derlehrer – so many Americans thought that 9/11 was an *attack* when actually it was a retaliation.
Likewise the Iranian hostage crisis was a reaction to our past transgressions. The CIA had overthrown their democratic government to restore the Shah while working out of the US embassy. They took steps to ensure it didn’t happen the second time around.
And that’s as good an example of our meddling as you’re going to get. BP decided they’d rather work with the Shah than “the people” who might want a bigger piece of the pie. So twenty-some years later they get to deal with the Ayatollah and radicalized citizens instead. Go team!
«This must how Obama came to be awarded the Nobel Speech Prize.» Glenn, Den norske Nobelkomite has from the very beginning exhibited a striking penchant for awarding the prize to powerful US political figures, with the award to Heinz Alfred Kissinger representing a low point, which even the 2009 award to Barack Hussein Obama couldn’t match. Why ? To satisfactorily answer that question would require an investigation of Norwegian political policies, which, I fear, is beyond the scope of this thread….
Henri
As Sarah Vowell noted in Unfamiliar Fishes, ever since 1898, in some places, and at some times, Americans are exactly what we claim we are not; conquering tyrants who overthrow countries for our own needs.
“we” *are* good people – if you mean “we, the individual humans which make up the populace of the USA.”
BUT: “Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities”. – Voltaire
Many of us believe absurdities – The people at Gitmo are the worst of the worst and they have information which could save millions of lives and torture works and ISIS is planning on invading the US and just this once …
It’s easy once you start down that slippery slope.
I saw a good quote recently, something to the effect that a group of people always adopt the morals of the worst of them. I don’t remember it exactly, but I do remember the way Grandma phrased it. “A boy is a boy, two boys are half a boy, and three boys are no boy at all.”
So, we’ve got a large group of good people who believe absurdities, who are scared to pieces, and who are just waiting for someone to come along and tell them how to be safe and secure. What could possibly go wrong?
Ted, I tried to use your “contact” page but it refused to send this message. I give it to you here.
http://www.calgarysun.com/2016/10/18/hidden-cameras-reveal-clinton-dirty-tricks-campaign
To get in front of this just a bit, why would a black-bagger boast in front of ANYONE about their successful conspiracy conduct to disrupt a massively-attended public event and produce a grand scheme of defamation that even Nixon (in hell) would admire? They are definitely being interviewed and willingly responded. Who did they think was interviewing them?
From his own past conduct against people who weren’t even blag-baggers, I’ve always considered piss-journalist James O’Keefe to be that … a piss-yellow journalist. So I wonder, HOW DID HE SET UP THESE OSTENSIBLE PROS of America’s ongoing political wars? They are (now, were) some of the most effective “limited-riot” instigators I’ve ever observed. It’s almost as if they thought that they were “reporting in” to the DNC’s “dirty-tricks,” quality-control department. I bet that somebody on “the inside” (maybe a disenfranchised Bernie-boy) is involved.
What’s your take?
DanD