After
reading the political classic by Gore Vidal, The American Presidency, I have thought about what I consider to be
the American imperial machine. Part of that is the belief in nationalism.
First one must understand what
nationalism means. The Pan-Nationalist Movement gives a fine definition of the
world. They write in
response to a Frequently Asked Question: “Nationalism is the belief
that political groups should be constructed around the idea of
"nation," or population group unified by culture, heritage and
language. As such, Nationalist is "rule by culture" where cultural values come before profit
motive or popularity, which enables forward-thinking leadership instead. With profit motive, every object and idea
and person is for sale, and society leads itself in circles. With leadership,
society determines its goals and moves toward them.” Later, the website
mentions the idea of a nation + a state (country), called a nation-state. This
concept is abstract and it tries to “unify
its populations who have little in common on a cultural or ethnic level, and so
become competing cultures. These [nation-states] usually take
the form of an absolute which will never be demonstrated as being singularly
right or wrong, like "freedom" or "free trade," but in the
absence of cultural unity what brings people together is economics. Economics thus replaces culture, and soon
every object and idea and person is for sale.” Many American politicians today follow the opposite belief of Pan-Nationalism,
the idea that each ethnic/cultural group gets their own nation. These political
figures try to advance America toward a pure nation-state, where profit is the
ultimate motive and where the people are one culture. But that is not possible
in the “melting pot” of the United States.
It all started with President George
Washington. Adding the states of Vermont, Kentucky and Tennessee during his two
terms (1789-1796) led to a push to take over the whole continent. Then, under
Thomas Jefferson (early 1800s), unilaterally, without the consent of Congress,
the 885,000 square miles, the “Louisiana Purchase” was bought for over $27
million. This expanded the United States further westward. Many years later, in
the 1830s, Andrew Jackson continued that tradition. During his presidency, 93
treaties were broken with Indian tribes and under the Indian Removal Act;
Indians were forced across the Mississippi River, all in the name of expansion.
James Polk continued on, adding Texas, California and much of the southwest in
a two-year war with Mexico, called the training ground for the Civil War. That
brings me to Abraham Lincoln, who just wanted to “preserve the union” but
through dictatorial means. Newspapers were shut down, habeas corpus was
suspended, the Supreme Court was defied and martial law was declared in several
states all in the name of “military necessity” and preserving the union. The
word union can be easily swapped with “nation,” so in essence he was the
creator of the idea: America is a nation. While I would go through the rest of
history with invalid presidents like Rutherford B. Hayes, talk about the
planning of the American empire by four figures in politics (Captain Mahan,
geopolitical thinker Brooks Adams, Assistant Secretary of the Navy Teddy
Roosevelt and Senator Henry Cabot Lodge), imperialistic President William
McKinley and so on, I will reserve that for a future discussion.
What must be discussed is the
idea that America is a nation. To do that, I’d like to look at what President
Obama has said about it and go from there. In a recent speech about climate
change, the
President spoke about: “the Nation's
future health and economic prosperity” and how “The Federal Government will
work in partnership with states and local communities to help make our nation more resilient.” So, is he
trying to say that all of those who live in this country are part of one
nation? That doesn’t follow proper logic. Native Americans, who I mentioned earlier,
are on reservations and have their own culture. That makes them not part of the
greater “nation.” Also, foreign national and non-citizens including so-called “illegal
immigrants,” foreigners, green card workers and others have different cultures.
In addition, each ethnic and racial group has its own culture and beliefs. As
one writer on AlterNet described it, there are 11-12 different cultures in the
United States. This conjures up a number of different questions. Then, how is
America a “nation?” Why is the intergovernmental organization, United Nations,
not called the United Association of Countries?
To find out, one must look at the
UN Charter itself. The charter calls these entities “our respective governments”
in the preamble. But, that’s not all. In Article 1, it states a purpose of the
United Nations is to “develop friendly
relations among nations.” However,Article 4 clarifies this, supposedly.
According these sections “membership in the United Nations is open to all other
peace-loving states…[and] the admission of any such state [with]… a decision by
the General Assembly [and a]…recommendation of the Security Council.” In
Article 14, the words “general welfare or friendly
relations among the nations” is mentioned, in Article 32 non-U.N. members
are called states and in Article 55 the “friendly
relations among nations” is mentioned once again. In Article 110 of the
charter it calls on “all signatory states” and “states signatory to the present
Charter” to ratify it. As a result, I conclude that the U.N. is not completely
clear on the issues, so it unsure if the organization was created to promote
nationalism or just the maintaining of states.
Also to determine the degree of
nation worship, one has to investigate our President’s speeches on the matter
using the
White House search engine. In the wake of Gabrielle Gifford’s shooting in
Arizona, Mr. Obama called for the nation to heal its wounds. How can that occur
if an American nation is a figment of imagination? To put it simply, a “nation”
encompassing all of the territory of the United States of America does NOT
exist; it is only divided groups of people. One may ask why this matters. This
matters because it eliminates the assumption that there is one common language,
history and traditions. American Indians don’t drill in the plateau they live
on, trucking water in. Intellectuals on the East Coast get water pumped to them
daily. In the end, one must look beyond the “nation worship” rhetoric and see
the evils of the American empire, not clouded in extreme patriotism.
