Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Condoleezza Rice and American Exceptionalism

"The amount of poverty and suffering required for the emergence of a Rockefeller, and the amount of depravity that the accumulation of a fortune of such magnitude entails, are left out of the picture, and it is not always possible to make the people in general see this."



The above quote is from Dr. Ernesto Guevara de la Cerna.  I often am reminded of these quotes whenever i hear Mitt Romney speak.  When he tells college students to ask their parents for a loan to start a small business, when he talks about how "welfare" (he never gives his operational definition of welfare - does he mean the tax code that favors the rich?) prevents people from succeeding, from taking initiative, from pursuing the American dream of business and wealth, that's when i think of how intellectually shallow he is.

it is the American dream, right?  We are all free, can start our own business, get wealthy, hide money in off shore accounts, pay less taxes than most teachers, fire fighters and police officers (not to mention military service men and women).

and now condoleezza Rice chimes in about American Exceptionalism.  what does she mean by exceptionalism?  Its a buzz word, a code word, for American superiority of our economy, our fair capitalist system where everyone has the potential to be successful, and of our military superiority to mold the world in our own image, or at least control it for our own exploitation.

condoleeza Rice forgets that it was American exceptionalism that brought us the Iraq invasion - she advocated it. on the backs of over 3000 dead Americans, they find an excuse to invade Iraq, which George W. said in the 2004 debates had nothing to do with 911.  How did we pay for it?  One billion $ a month of debt.  China gave us the money $1 billion a month.  And the cost in human life, thousands dead American servicemen, contractors, and over 100,000 dead iraqis.  And the hatred of Iraqi men who were detained without reason and tortured.  (despite our denials of torture, i mean, look at the pictures.....)

And the ultimate result?  Iraq is aligned with Iran, and more iraqi;s are killed every day in bombings.  Saudi Arabia is not any safer (the whole Iraq war, both wars, really about the Saudi's hatred, fear of Iraq).

We are NO SAFER after the Iraq invasion.  We are NO SAFER with rebellion in syria, and neither is Israel safer.

So when Rice talks American Exceptionalism, read that as invasion of Syria, invasion of Iran, more war, more debt.  What she is really doing is trying to defend her policies under George W.  She doesn't want to go down in history as a complete moron, a foreign and international security clown.

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