The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age
    Decader's picture

    American Exceptionalism

    By Decader on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 8:06am |

    With the daily violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, an attack that killed 6 people would be rather unremarkable, unless possibly one of the few names we know in the West.

    Wasn't that long ago that the head of Pakistan was offed, as was the head of Lebanon.

    Often it's the opposition leaders, such as in Yemen and Ingushetia a few months back. Or Ethiopia 2 years before. Or the Tajik leader killed 9/10/2000 in Afghanistan. Sometimes it's family of opposition, such as Mirhossein Mousavi in Iran. Sometimes it's journalists, like the one in Rwanda recently shot as they imprisoned the opposition leader.

    Then there are dissidents, protesters, whistle-blowers, and all the other vulnerable fabric of society. Yeah, innocent victims as well.

    The US is the greatest exporter of weapons by far. Though many of these killings are done by brutal means, such as the machetes of Sierra Leone. People don't really need weapons in the end, and often the results are much more gruesome.

    But then again, it's not just US exports that bring carnage - every few years it's a post office, a school, a football game, a dance, and someone goes off crazy.

    And then there are the killings that happen every day - home violence, gang violence, street violence, suicide, police killings, taser-caused deaths...

    For some reason I noticed the flag at half-mast today. Might as well be left that way. We're idiots. We'll have some jack-off "dialogue" for the next 2 weeks, but the mayhem will never stop.

     

    Comments

    Well said. When it's all said and done, we're still a tribal society. Deaths to our tribe our infinitely more important to us than deaths in other tribes.


    by Atheist (not verified) on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 12:50pm

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hG443N7lo4Q

     


    by Richard Day on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 1:20pm

    I see the small circumference you draw around the killings that gain notice compared to those outside the circle. I wouldn't want the circle to get any smaller whereby the shooting of elected officials becomes so ho hum that it is only mentioned in neighborhood papers in the police blotter down the page from the scores of high school games.


    by moat on Fri, 01/14/2011 - 5:53pm

    Why should I care?

    If it's someone the NY Times knows, it's big news, otherwise back page?

    There are about 5 politicians I care about overall - vs. lots of other people in the society I treasure more.

    But we only do half-masts typically for elected people.

    17,000 people are murdered every year. Do they have to have a R- or D- before their name to make news? 40 people a day are killed, but we only consider we should do something when it's a politician?

    Well ain't royalty nice.


    by Decaderfulous (not verified) on Sat, 01/15/2011 - 3:07am

    I wasn't defending the prevailing protocol of what gets considered significant, only observing that the condition could get worse.


    by moat on Sat, 01/15/2011 - 11:39am

    Well certainly the Human Condition leads one to expect the worst.


    by Decadetritis (not verified) on Sat, 01/15/2011 - 1:35pm

    And encouraged, perhaps, by what doesn't go that far.


    by moat on Sat, 01/15/2011 - 2:20pm

    Yet just looking at places like Iran and Ethopia recently, it really isn't American Exceptionalism is it?  I mean, if somehow America just vanished from the face of the earth, and everyone else just had to muddle forward without us, do you think the violence in the world would take any significant dip in occurrence?


    by Elusive Trope on Sat, 01/15/2011 - 2:38pm

    No, American Exceptionalism is the delusion that we're different and that our presence makes a (positive) difference.


    by Desidertball (not verified) on Sat, 01/15/2011 - 3:47pm

    Yes, I am aware of the concept of American Exceptionalism means.  It would seem your blog, by using the term as the title, is making the veiled assertion that not only is our presense not an inherently positive influence on the world, but actually is an inherently negative influence on the world.  In other words, the world would be a better place if the US just disappeared because we make a bad situation worse.  And since this is wrapped up with the notion of Exceptionalism and the latest example of internal acts of tragic violence, that this is somehow wrapped in the very nature of the American pysche or character. 

    You may not be saying this at all.  But that is how I interpreted it.

    The obvious reality in my opinion is that the US has both a positive and negative influence in the world.  One can argue into the wee hours of the morning about whether, in the full scope of things, the scales tip toward the negative or the positive.  But Americans are neither exceptionally virtuous nor exceptionally deviant.  And the same can be said for the government as a whole.


    by Elusive Trope on Sat, 01/15/2011 - 6:14pm

    Could it be that by titling my piece "American Exceptionalism" I was writing about American Exceptionalism, and not about America per se?

    Of course I'm obviously writing about assassinations and murders in this context.

    So you go off on a straw man - should America just go away? As if that were even remotely conceivable anyway, however much people might bash heads against walls or flagellate themselves.

    Back to the mayhem, I have no time to chase random thoughts down dark alleys.


    by Decadetritis (not verified) on Sun, 01/16/2011 - 4:41am