Defining Americanism
Since the tragic days of September 2001, people across the planet and North Americans in particular entertained considerations previously limited in a general sense to anthropology and academic study. Enculturation discrimination, ideology and cultural self-definition became topics of conversation and debate throughout America. For many in the United States the horror of the WTC attacks served as confirmation that American’s were living in a hostile world surrounded by enemies.
Fear of the “Red Menace” communism, had been robustly inculcated as pervasive ideological and cultural absolute within the American psyche for decades. On the eve of September 11/2001 acknowledgement of the decline and collapse of the Soviet Union’s form of “manifest destiny”, the conversion of every nation to communism with ultimate control over the individual emanating from the Kremlin faded substantially. Americans since the earliest days of the republic had embraced their own notions of Manifest Destiny however.
John O’Sullivan a journalist first coined the phrase in a 1845 newspaper editorial about the annexation of Texas in which he spoke of “America’s manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our multiplying millions.”
At this early juncture the idea of manifest destiny was in large part limited in scope to the continental United States and served to express the belief among Americans of the time that it was “Gods will” that Americans supplant the pagan practices of natives in the west.
With Gods blessing of course this expansion and acquisition of territories by any means necessary (near eradication of the plains Indians) found acceptance among Americans. The godless communist hordes, not enjoying the seal of approval of the Maker were exercising evil when they made and actualized plans and policies to achieve a similar purpose of course.
This early somewhat dichotomous perspective to significant degree epitomizes the sub-current of identity conflict evident throughout American history and which remains alive and well today.
This identity conflict involves a denunciation of America’s historical roots in Europe, expressed as a rejection of all systems of monarchy while simultaneously adopting many facets of European philosophy and social structure.
Americanism is substantively a modification and iteration of the prevalent ethos of the early Roman Empire.
“Benjamin Franklin exemplified the idea of republican simplicity as American minister to France in the late 1770s. The emphasis was on the duty of the citizen to be virtuous, and to fight for his country as needed. Corruption was associated with aristocracy, which Americans increasingly condemned.”
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
“Republicanism in 1776 meant more than eliminating a king and instituting an elective system of government; it set forth moral and social goals as well. Republics required a particular sort of egalitarian and virtuous people: independent, property-holding citizens who were willing to sacrifice many of their private, selfish interests for the rest publica, the good of the whole community. Equality lay at the heart of republicanism; it meant a society whose distinctions were based only on merit. No longer would one's position rest on whom one knew or married or on who one's parents were.”
“The Founding Fathers ultimately recognized the reality of an American society composed of many conflicting private interests, but they hoped that these would neutralize themselves and allow enlightened leaders who were free of selfish marketplace concerns and local partisan interests to promote the general good.”
Answers.com
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Although rejecting monarchial government the United States has developed an aristocracy predicated not upon “Divine Right” or historical precedence, but emerging from the very fabric of a people who have placed greater importance and emphasis on individual/personal “rights”. America fought its most costly war (in terms of lives lost) the American Civl war over the percieved imbalance between state rights and the rights and authority of the federal government. Slavery while often identified as the precipitating event with respect to the American Civil war, was in the final analysis, simply a symbolic issue with the right to own slaves as expression of state autonomy abrasively confronting the federal authority seeking to wrest control (slave owenership) from the hands of state assemblies.
The Modern Aristocracy
“In 2004, the 20 percent of households with the lowest incomes received an average tax cut of $250; the middle 20 percent received an average tax cut of $1,090; and the top 20 percent were blessed with tax reductions averaging $78,460. A third of the tax breaks—which Bush wants to make permanent—goes to the top 1 percent of households, those with an average annual income of $1.2 million.”
An article in the February 21, 2000 issue of US News and World Report pointed out that the average income of the richest 5 percent of families in 1979 was 10 times of that of the poorest 20 percent of families. In 1999, the income gap had been enlarged to 19 times, ranking first among the developed countries, and setting a record since the Bureau of Census of the United States began studying the situation in 1947.
The income of the executives of the largest US companies in 1992 was 100 times that of ordinary workers, and 475 times higher in 2000.
According to an assessment by the US journal Business Week in August 2000, the income of chief executive officers was 84 times that of employees in 1990, 140 times in 1995, and 416 times in 1999.
A survey shows that the real income of the one-fifth richest of the families in Silicon Valley has increased 29 percent since 1992, while the real income of the one-fifth poorest of the families in the valley decreased during most of the 1990s, and the current income for the poorest has bounced back to the same level in 1992, with the employees at the lowest rank now earning 10 percent less than a decade age.
A great number of Americans suffer from poverty and hunger. According to the statistics of the US government, over 32 million citizens, or 12.7 percent of the total population of the country, live under the poverty line. The incidence of poverty is higher than in the 1970s, and higher than in most other industrialized countries.
An investigation by the US Department of Agriculture in March 2000 showed that 9.7 percent of American families did not have enough food, and at least 10 percent of families in 18 states and Washington D.C. often suffered from hunger and malnutrition.
In 1998, 37 million American families did not have enough food. In the state of New Mexico, 15.1 percent of the families were under threat of hunger.
The number of homeless Americans has continued to increase. A study in the mid-1990s showed that 12 million US citizens were or had been at some time homeless. According to a survey of 26 large cities conducted by the Conference of Mayors, the urgent demand for housing increased in two-thirds of the cities in 1999 over previous years.
http://academic.udayton.edu/race/06hrights/GeoRegions/NorthAmerica/china03.htm
Manifest Destiny on a Global Scale
On average, 2.3 million U.S. troops were on duty per year from 1950–2000. Of this average, 535,000 troops (23 percent of all military personnel) were deployed on foreign soil.
The Heritage Foundation
This (without some necessary expansion and explanation) is the “America” in “Americanism”.
A nation ruled by the wealthy with the acquisition of wealth and exercise of conspicuous consumption, as it’s highest ideal coupled with a preparedness to actualize its “Manifest Destiny” over the face of the entire planet.
