A Blow to US Exceptionalism

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One of the big changes in my thinking over the last couple of years has been to begin to see the depths to which US exceptionalism has been embedded in most of our thinking in this country. I owe that awareness to several people who have helped me get a glimpse of my own exceptionalist thinking. But no one more than a dear soul whose blogging name was Ductapefatwa. Most of us who blogged with him think he has moved on from this world as we know it. But thanks to the internet, alot of his writing remains. I wouldn’t advise clicking through that link if you’re faint-hearted about reading someone who is sure to both make you laugh and trip a certain amount of rage.

Ductapefatwa had a way of communicating that got under your skin. It made you uncomfortable. And many people disliked (some even hated) him for that. I know that’s how I felt initially. And then I began to sit back and listen. It changed me. That happened mostly because he had a knack for showing us what we, US citizens, look like from the viewpoint of the people we condemn, invade, torture, etc. And its not a pretty sight. You see, we can blame Bushco all we want…and they do need to be held accountable. But what Ductapefatwa did so well is show us that its not just Bushco – this kind of thing has been going on for a very long time – and if we are ever going to really stop it, we are going to have to grapple with our own understanding of ourselves as a people and as a nation.

I say all of this because today I’d like to quote some of Ductapefatwa’s words here. I’m going to make it rather lengthy because, wherever he is today, I don’t think he would mind. This is from a diary he wrote back in June 2006 titled Understanding America the Exceptional: A Guide for the World’s Perplexed.

America is an Exception.

This is why the disconnect may be unbridgeable: No matter how off the wall, no matter how, well, wacko this may sound to you, to most people in the world, it is something that is very real to Americans, something so true that to them they view it much as they view the idea that water is wet.

Almost from birth they are inculcated with this doctrine, this value. It is so deeply ingrained in the mainstream American psyche, that they are very truly, very sincerely, like someone suffering clinical depression, unable to just “snap out of it.” Where would they snap to? They do not know any other way, they cannot simply abandon this principle. That would be abandoning their national identity! That principle IS their national identity!

It is also important to remember that Americans are not, by any means, stupid people.

While it may seem at times that they are just unable to understand certain concepts, the fact is that they have the same capacity we all do to understand the concepts, however they have been taught that whatever those concepts may be, that you were getting ready to lay out, all nice and neat –

America is an Exception.

Because that forms the core belief, upon which all other beliefs, all other attitudes and opinions, rest, it naturally follows that all thinking processes, all logic and reason and capability for argument, are rendered, for your purposes, essentially mute, because your logic and reason not only do not require the doctrine of American Exceptionalism in order to function, your logic and reason do not even accept it as either reasonable or logical.

To you, it is simply something that is not true. To most mainstream Americans it is very nearly the only thing that is.

So how can meaningful dialogue with Americans be achieved?

What is an effective way to conduct a discussion with someone who believes himself to be of a Exceptional Master Race?

Tragically for the world, there is not one. This is equally tragic for the Americans themselves – all of them, even those miraculously un-indoctrinated minority who believe their country to be the bestest in the traditional way that we all do – The non-weaponized way. The way that includes observance of world etiquette, like not invading and occupying other countries, and not kidnapping people and hauling them off to torture camps, I could go on, but just start with these. There are Americans whose world view is more like the view of well, the world.

They are the Exception.

They are also exceptionally courageous.

Some of them are so courageous that they have suggested that acts of violence against their own countrymen might not even be terrorism!

To appreciate just how courageous this is, consider that it is almost universally accepted among mainstream Americans that regardless of what Americans may do to the Iraqis and the Afghans, any retaliatory action on the part of Iraqi and Afghan survivors is a classic textbook example of terrorism.

To the rest of the world, they may be just people defending their homes from a hostile invading force, as anyone would do when well, invaded by a hostile invading force, but to most Americans, that is simply not the case with the Afghans and Iraqis, since they have been invaded by Americans, and it is for their own good, to effect regime change and impose America’s will, and –

America is an Exception.

It would therefore, constitute terrorism to shoot at or otherwise attempt to harm the people who blew up your house, if they happened to be Americans. Indeed, you should be grateful that Americans have made such a great sacrifice of their own money and put their own youth in harm’s way in order to help you obey America.

It may be commonly understood and appreciated across the globe that in any such situation, the aggressor, the party who commits the invasion, has irrevocably tipped the moral high ground scales in the other fellow’s favor, and while the invadee may, in an attempt to protect his own life and the lives of his loved ones, commit acts that are to say the least “assymetrical,” such as booby-trapping roads that the invaders might use in order to come to his town to kill him and his loved ones, to destroy his home, to haul his sons off to torture camp, and his daughters to who knows where, the moral burden here, acknowledges most of the world, is not on him, but on the guys in the tanks on their way to the town.

Those guys, assert the overwhelming majority of human beings who inhabit earth, have no business being there in the first place. No matter how much revenue may be generated to which corporations, there is right and there is wrong, and invading other countries is wrong. Kidapping people is wrong. Torture, murder, sexual assault, burning the flesh off children, all wrong. No exceptions. And the fellow putting the booby trap in the road is not only not doing wrong, he would be wrong not to do whatever he can to protect his home, his family. That is his duty.

In the typical American mind, however, as well as on the typical American newscast and certainly in the typical American comments on the subject by politicians of both “parties,” it is as if the US had never invaded either country, as if all the guys in tanks, all those hundreds of thousands armed with automatic rifles and bayonets and a substance that is NOT napalm because it is not even called that anymore so stop saying that, armed with pistols, too, with dogs, and dog leashes, and as we see from some of the unauthorized photos, harmful tobacco products, it is as if they all just happened to be innocent tourists vacationing in Iraq, or in Afghanistan, and suddenly for no reason whatsoever, both these countries simply exploded into hotbeds of anti-American sentiment, and now, mourn the Americans, our brave troops are under constant attack.

As everyone knows, well, as least as most mainstream Americans know, the only way to deal with anti-American sentiment is with tough love, a zero tolerance policy. Stamp it out. And the best way to do that is with bombing. That is the only way these people are going to learn to be grateful. And it is also important to make an example, because frankly that whole region is a hotbed of anti-American sentiment, and must be brought to heel.

And so the rest of the world listens. In disbelief, in bewilderment, and yes, fear.

America is without a doubt the most feared nation on earth. Feared certainly for its massive stores of weapons of mass destruction, but just as much if not more, it is feared because of its people, who present a greater danger even than its bombs.

Its people who would rather spend a dollar to kill the neighbor’s child than a dime to take care of their own.

Its people who are willing to sacrifice anything the corporations might ever have permitted them to have for the privilege of being part of imposing America’s will…

Because America is an Exception.

Many people have written very eloquently about why we should support the petition for a Special Prosecutor. And each one has made my commitment to this process a bit more strong.

Today I’d like to add to that list the idea that by facing this one part of what our country has done…torture…we take a blow to this ingrained idea of US exceptionalism. Because this petition is coming from the people, we can say to the rest of the world that what we as a country have done is wrong and we will hold those responsible for it to account. We’ll demonstrate that we want to move in the direction of joining with the rest of humanity on the planet and begin to chip away at our exceptionalism.

You can read more about this petition here or just click on this badge to sign.