Sorry to see “ardee” still suffering from a bad case of the snits.  Could be what’s blinding her/him to the fact that this Indian doesn’t ever say much about “Native American culture,” except that it’s got nothing to do with us surviving free wild Turtle Island Peoples.

It’s sort of pitiful when somebody caught-up in the virtual world-o’-hurt that is the fever-dream CONstruct of the “civilization” disease, accuses anybody else of “living in a fantasy.”

HokaHey!

“Unless he, and “ardee,” have actually been there, it might be better to stick with Cuba.”

Please refrain from lumping me with that bastion of right wing trickery, Marshall. But I do understand that, living in a fantasy as you do, separating your fictions from this worlds facts becomes increasingly difficult.

Nope, never been to North Korea, have been to Cuba though. If your criteria requires one to actually have visited a place prior to commenting upon it I would note two things. One, conversations would be rather limited, and two, you are a silly little fellow indeed.

But that last has been obvious from the first, as you create a fictitious and romantic view of a Native American culture far to singular to have encompassed the numbers and differences.

“Marshall,” in his “self”-absorption, maybe hasn’t noticed there was no “switch.”  This Old Man always refrains from “first person” address here.  It’s a way we have in our Council Circle to keep things from getting subsumed by the “person”-al, as they’re evidently about to do here….helps us keep our eye on whatever-it-is we’re there to look at together, instead of getting all “self”-obsessed.

So he is reduced now to faintly praising “America” by damning North Korea.  Unless he, and “ardee,” have actually been there, it might be better to stick with Cuba.  At-least you can almost see it, on a clear day, from from atop the flagpole on Key West.  One thing’s for sure, those among theamericanpeople who’re losing their own always-tenuous hold on theallamricandream will certainly “miss” what they never really had either.

“Whatcha gonna do when they come for you….bad boy?”

HokaHey!

I’m sure the North Koreans don’t miss all the basic
conveniences they don’t have… because they never had ‘em to begin with.

Sure, food, clothing,shelter, jobs, security, who would miss those?

By TAO Walker, January 7 at 8:42 am Link to this comment

Love the impersonal switch to third person tao - really drives home your disdain
for my view and adds that soap-box authority to your post.  But i wasn’t aware
that americans were making invidious comparisons in an increasingly desperate
way.  This sounds a bit like another generalization.

You could make your same materialism argument about any relatively
impoverished people - I’m sure the North Koreans don’t miss all the basic
conveniences they don’t have… because they never had ‘em to begin with. 
When you’re born blind, you don’t know what you’re missing do you?  And it’s
in their government’s interest to keep it that way.

You say my argument was based on emotion yet you dispute none of my
concrete examples and supportable points.  And I’m curious why you believe
that although both of us referenced other countries in our comparison, this fact
renders only my opinion suspect?

For “Marshall,” U.S. exceptionalism, “system”-wise at-least, seems pretty obviously an article-of-faith. So his reaction to questions about its basic tenets is more a “rational”-ized emotion than it is any clear-eyed analysis.  He glosses-over, for example, the increasingly desperate way americans try to feel better about their own situation by making invidious comparisons to the circumstances of other peoples. 

This Old Indian has been to Cuba.  The material circumstances of people there, in their fundamentals, are certainly no worse than for most of theamericanpeople.  They’re not swamped with “CONsumer-goods,” of course, which seems to loom large in “marshall”‘s own rating system, but neither are they anxiety-ridden about keeping-up with-the-Joneses, or whether some injury or illness is going to destroy them financially.

All-in-all the Cuban People have nowhere near as far to fall, and so are probably going to suffer a lot less from the impact, as this insane “global” eCONomy comes crashing-down around the heads of the domesticated peoples everywhere.  By “Marshall”‘s own proud claim, his high-flying allamericans are in for the hardest landing of all.

“Marshall” is evidently a card-carrying materialist, and as-such perhaps fairly typical of his red-white-and-blue breedd.  So he either doesn’t even see the toll the “We’re-Number-One” obsession is taking on his fella ‘n’ gal americans, or he chooses to ignore it because it doesn’t square with the idealized image he carries around in his head.

It’s all about keeping the faith….in the privateering pyramid scheme…. the gone “global” CONfidence game.

HokaHey!

By TAO Walker, January 3 at 7:32 am Link to this comment

I find it odd that your first choice is a country like Cuba when it’s obvious to
most people that it’s a rather inconsequential, failed dictatorship that suppresses dissent, rations food, and doesn’t even allow its population to buy
DVD players and cell phones… which they couldn’t afford anyway because the
average wage is $20/week.  Even its government has acknowledged that it’s
system needs a redo.  Sure, it’s trained a lot of doctors and supplies taxpayer
funded healthcare - but that propels it from being an insular, externally
subsidized nanny economy to the top of your “good system” list?  Can you say
you’d be happier living in Cuba than in the US?  Perhaps you’re one of the few
that can.

I’d question whether your broad generalization about the Japanese opinion of
our way of life holds water, but that’s not really relevant; many inhabitants think
their country is the Sh*@ - just ask the North Koreans.  But Japan is a shrinking
state - a dying language, a shriveled economy and world player, a dwindling
population… and it doesn’t even have the financial burden of a military to worry
about.  I like Japan, but i wouldn’t want to stake my future on it.

The very fact that economic problems in the US have so heavily affected other
economies is a testament to an obvious “exceptional” quality of the US; that it’s
economy is the engine of global fortune for better or for worse.  As the US
economy has faltered, it’s exposed many of the flaws of other economies which
were on unsustainable courses of entitlement - much like the state of california
where i live - and are now reckoning with this.

In reality there’s a fair amount of subjectivity in this topic.  But I’ve yet to see an
argument that convinces me that any other system in existence has proven
overall better than what we have in the US.

Sort of in the “exceptional”-ist vein, too, but carried here from another thread, this Old Man is wondering how “menial” “WriterOnTheStorm” might feel the immune function to be if he had to do without some substantial feature of its constant contribution to his health.  He probably knows at-least a few AIDS sufferers who could give him some much-needed first-hand perspective on that.

Meantime, does a toxin have to “moral” to be lethal?

HokaHey!

Exceptionalism: among the masses, a superstition passed down from the
revival tents of the Burned Over Region, a remnant of the tribal narcissism
inherent in the Exodus and Zionist narratives. Among the elites, a justification
for imperialist projects and the capture and exploitation of the world’s
resources.

You’d have to have your cultural blinders wrapped pretty tightly to portray this
as anything other than moral toxin. Those who would conflate this with more
harmless notions like pride or confidence are overlooking the “except” part of
Exceptionalism. The part that says—without an evidentiary shred or
justification—that the world must make an exception for us. And why the
exception? What makes us better than anybody else? Is richer better? Only for
the rich. Is stronger better? Only in the service of just cause.

At a certain point in history, America had an abundance of natural resources,
and swarms of cheap immigrant labor. This gave rise to the robber barons of
the industrial age, and the idea that limitless abundance was there but for the
taking. That abundance turned out to have its limits, but the myth persists,
along with a childish and collective stamping of feet and holding of breath, as if
stubborn willfulness alone could rekindle the good times.

Lately, that stubbornness is starting to take on the putrefaction of a delusional
complex. Few Americans have any inkling of the toll their personal prosperity
takes on the rest of the planet inhabitants, both human and other. And most of
us don’t want to know. It’s easier just to go on believing that god has a plan,
and made you an American for a reason. Oh, and all that resentment coming
from the rest of the world? Gotta be petty jealousy.

Today, exceptionalism is what makes America most vulnerable. It’s what gets us
into unwinnable, unaffordable wars with no exit strategies, or even clear goals.
It’s the driving force behind the housing collapse,  and the criminal banking
shenanigans, the Katrina fiasco. Exceptionalism has morphed into a pernicious
we-can-get-away-with-it-ism. But when you’re operating under the the idea
that god has a special plan for you, why worry? You’re going to get raptured in
the end. Heaven’s going to open up, and make an exception for little old you.

The concept of exceptionalism doesn’t apply to economics anymore than the culture. It is a claim that the nation is somehow empowered to overcome all problems and spread democracy throughout the world. See Manifest Destinty.

If the ‘measure’ of any economic set-up is the general well-being of those living in it, their health, level of education, infant mortality, quality and condition of public infrastructure, as a few examples, then all one need do is go to the ratings to see that the U.S. ranks nowhere near the top in any critical category.  Cuba has higher literacy and better medical services.  The Scandinavian countries have much lower unemployment rates and much healthier working conditions.

The European countries, until being hit with the tsunami of toxic financial instruments produced almost entirely by U.S. based boiler-room operations, consistently see higher rates of political participation, and greater satisfaction with their systems (which actually have differed from that of the U.S. in effectively insignificant ways).  The Japanese, for all their difficulties occasioned by buying-in too heavily to U.S. practices and policies, are hardly in-awe of theamericanwayoflife….in-fact consider it shallow and trivial.

Meantime, of course, the “civilization” disease is already well-into its terminal phase.  The havoc it is presently and will go on wreaking upon theamericanpeople, along with homo domesticus everywhere, will certainly render their “exceptional”-ist delusions a whole lot harder to keep-up. 

So what is it, exactly, about the actuality (as differentiated from the civics text advertising) that “Marshall” believes sets the U.S. not just apart-from but above every other nation-state around today?

Hoka

To TAO Walker and Tobysgirl I would say - rather than point to the obvious
examples of the ills of the US system, why don’t you instead give examples of
countries you believe have better overall systems than the US?  I realize this risks
degenerating into an endless tit-for-tat comparison of the many drawbacks every
system has, but i’m curious about what your 2010 top picks are.  I suspect you’ll
find it much easier to denounce ours than to name better ones… with a straight
face that is.

“ours is the worst system out there except for every other”

This is the sort of stuff said by those who usually know very little about the other. Of course, the U.S. looks like a nice place to live compared to . . . North Korea? Iran? China? What?

We do not have the freest press, we do not have, as others have pointed out, national health care, etc, but by god, we’re the best there is. As long as one thinks this, there is no possibility of making our nation actually livable for large numbers of people. What gets me is not that the white bourgeoisie think like this, but people in shacks going to food pantries think the same way!

How, by-the-way, does he square his rosy view of “the system” with the reality of crushing debt, growing homelessness, and a rapacious “financial” apparatus run completely amok….among many other similarly less-than-optimum manifestations of its evidently actual (as distinguished from its hyped-up theoretical) essential nature?

Well, of course he doesn’t, because it doesn’t enter into his conscious thoughts when discussing politics, nor does the plight of the needy concern him. To Marshall, and most of the supporters of unregulated Capitalism and the status quo, the only thing that matters is their own wealth and comfort. For him the system works and too bad for those for whom it doesn’t.

When arrogantly dismissing nations that provide free education, free health care, and an extensive support system for the needy among them Marshall expresses the typical shortsighted greedy “Ive got mine,screw you” attitude of the wealthy white folks that makes our system, whether business or governance,unsustainable and unworkable, but only to those with an actual conscience.

Maybe “Marshall” hasn’t fallen prey to all the politicians and other talking heads harping on-and-on about what an “exceptional” PEOPLE theamericans are.  That would definitely make him, in this Old Indian’s experience, an exception.

How, by-the-way, does he square his rosy view of “the system” with the reality of crushing debt, growing homelessness, and a rapacious “financial” apparatus run completely amok….among many other similarly less-than-optimum manifestations of its evidently actual (as distinguished from its hyped-up theoretical) essential nature?

HokaHey!

Most of the posts so far mistakenly apply exceptionalism to the populace instead
of the system, as is the intended definition.  I don’t consider Americans better than
others, I consider our system to be better than that of other countries - much the
same way I consider Apple to be a better run company than most other consumer
electronics companies.  This isn’t arrogance and can’t be attacked on the grounds
of jingoism, have/have-nots, or penis size.  It’s a matter of what are the best
examples of human success in governance - and make no mistake, ours is the
worst system out there except for every other.

How about this for exceptionalism?

Overheard at several outdoors cafes in Tel Aviv and Dubai that the Tea Party is
comsidering seriously a Presidentiaal ticket headed by Sara Palin and the VP
nominee under serious consideration is Juan “STDBOPWAM” (scared to death of
being on plane with a Muslim] Williams as numerod 2.

Some die harders are for Bill Kristol as VP.

Exceptionlism is the political analogue of the American narcissitic culture. Boasting about GDP compared to China is like boys comparing penis size - it’s childish,self-centered and therefore dangerous in a country with so much military power. The US has demonstrated how prone it is to carry out atrocities in the name of that grandios narcissism anointed under the title ‘Manifest Destiny’.