Exceptionalism to Doing Good

David Swanson’s latest book examines that superior belief of U.S. exceptionalism including arrogance, ignorance, and aggression. The concept of exceptionalism is that the U.S. has a unique place and mission in the world in bringing democracy and freedom to other countries. However, now as the lone "superpower" its implementation has normally been for rogue, self-defined, and self-serving operations. How else could one arrive at our "moral" justification for endless wars where over the last 17 years Americans have sat on their fat fast food asses while other nations have suffered hundreds of times more deaths than the US military in endless engagements. U.S. citizens are now even willing to attack, even a nuclear attack, on a foreign country, such as Iran or North Korea, that kills 200,000 civilians if the alternative is a ground attack where large number of Americans die.

As part of the inhuman calculus, it is rumored he US government assess compensation for an Iraqi life at $15,000, while the value US life at around $5 million. Any consideration where one type of person is more valuable, let alone much more valuable, is bigotry. Impersonal assassinations have become a specatator sport; the killing of non-Americans with US drones. The daily realities for the other 96% of humanity not inside the U.S. border is a topic not truly of interest for the average boob tube American. Furthermore, the US budget devotes less than 1% to foreign aid, which also includes military weapons aid… the lovely thought that is.

The US imagines itself enormously generous to the rest of the world and a beacon, but it grows yearly more akin to a consumptive darkness. Mr. Swanson also details how U.S. exceptionalism jeopardizes the earth as a whole; the environmental toll of constant, unsustainable growth. The U.S. is more rogue than any other country, perpetually exempting itself from international treaties. As the U.S. wallows in its own vainglorious rhetoric, the rest of the world makes big advances in healthcare coverage, gun control, fast trains, green energy, and drug treatments. In turning away from the rest of the world, maybe some day the US will truly collectively ask what it has won us to be so, damn exceptional!!

Stuck in the USA @clumsysilverdad

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/44431-the-hubris-of-american-exceptionalism-devalues-the-rest-of-the-world

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism