Harry Targ
Continued study and research into the origins
of the folk music of various peoples in many parts of the world revealed that
there is a world body-a universal body-of folk music based upon a universal
pentatonic (five tone) scale. Interested as I am in the universality of
(hu)mankind-in the fundamental relationship of all peoples to one another-this
idea of a universal body of music intrigued me, and I pursed it along many
fascinating paths. Paul Robeson, Here I
Stand, 1959.
America’s destiny required the U.S. “…to set
the world its example of right and honor…We cannot retreat from any soil where
providence has unfurled our banner. It is ours to save that soil, for liberty,
and civilization….It is elemental...it is racial. God has not been preparing
the English-speaking and teutonic peoples for a thousand years for nothing but
vain and idle self-contemplation and self-admiration. No! He has made us the master
organizers of the world to establish system where chaos reigns. He has given us
the spirit of progress to overwhelm the forces of reaction throughout the
earth.” Senator Albert
Beveridge, Indiana, Congressional Record, 56 Congress, I Session, pp.704-712,
1898).
In these early August days
we reflect on the decision to drop atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki in
the summer of 1945. The official explanation for the use of these horrific new
weapons was that they were required to end the World War in Asia. But
subsequent historical research has indicated that the United States chose to
drop the bombs to threaten the former Soviet Union and as a result to
facilitate the United States construction of a post-war world order that would
maximize its economic and political vision.
United States foreign
policy over the last 150 years has been a reflection of many forces including
economics, politics, militarism and the desire to control territory. The most
important idea used by each presidential administration to gain support from
the citizenry for the pursuit of empire is the claim that America is
“exceptional”.
Think about the view
of “the city on the hill” articulated by Puritan ancestors who claimed that
they were creating a social experiment that would inspire the world. Over three
hundred years later President Reagan again spoke of “the city on the hill.” Or
one can recall public addresses by turn of the twentieth century luminaries
such as former President Theodore Roosevelt who claimed that the white race
from Europe and North America was civilizing the peoples of what we would now
call the Global South. Or Indiana
Senator Beveridge’s clear statement: “It is elemental….It is racial.” From the
proclamation of the new nation’s special purpose in Puritan America, to Ronald
Reagan’s reiteration of the idea, to similar claims by virtually all
politicians of all political affiliations, Americans hear over and over that we
are different, special, and a shining example of public virtue that all other
peoples should use as their guide for building a better society and polity.
However, the United
States has been involved in wars for 201 years from 1776 to 2011. Ten million
indigenous people had been exterminated as the “new” nation moved westward
between the 17th and the 20th centuries and at least 10
million people were killed, mostly from developing countries, between 1945 and
2010 in wars in which the United States had some role. In addition, world
affairs was transformed by the use of the two atomic bombs; one dropped on
Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 instantly killing 80,000 people and the other on
Nagasaki on August 9, 1945 killing another 70,000.
Comparing the image of
exceptionalism with the domestic reality of American life suggests stark
contrasts as well: continuous and growing gaps between rich and poor,
inadequate nutrition and health care for significant portions of the
population, massive domestic gun violence, and inadequate access to the best
education that the society has the capacity to provide to all. Of course, the
United States was a slave society for over 200 years formally racially
segregated for another 100, and now incarcerates 15 percent of African American
men in their twenties.
Although, the United
States is not the only country that has a history of imperialism, exploitation,
violence, and racism US citizens should understand that its foreign policy and
economic and political system are not exceptional and must be changed.
Finally, a better
future and the survival of humanity require a realization, as Paul Robeson
suggested, that what is precious about all people is not their differences but their
commonalities. Exceptionalist thinking separates people and facilitates decisions
like the dropping of the bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Sharing what we
have in common as human beings, both our troubles and our talents, is the only
basis for creating a peaceful and just world.
