Harry Targ
(An
earlier version of this essay appeared in The Rag Blog, September 17, 2013)
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).
Let’s be clear. 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 of 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 claim, 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 to building a better society and polity.
However, looking at data on the United States role in the world,
the United States was at war for 201 years from 1776 to 2011. Ten million
indigenous people were 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 singular use of 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. And now thousands of refugees from violence and poverty in Central America are housed in concentration camps or removed from the United States because they are "illegal."
The United States is not the only country that has a history of
imperialism, exploitation, violence, and racism but we must understand that our
foreign policy and economic and political system are not exceptional and must
be changed.
Finally, a better future and the survival of the human race
require us to realize, as Paul Robeson suggested, what is precious about
humanity is not our differences but our commonalities. Exceptionalist thinking
separates us. 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.
