ON THE ANGLO-AMERICAN UMBILICAL CORD

(Tony Blair is of course no longer in charge, contrary to what this dated entry suggests, but its content makes a point that reaches beyond the life and times of Tony Blair, or Gordon Brown, or anyone who may be next, walking in their footsteps. In fact, this entry raises an interesting general thesis, which is well worth exploring much further. Perhaps, the ‘gene’ pertains to the rationale of any colonial power to justify its colonization of other people by a superior morality and a higher level of civilization (tell it to the Romans colonizing the Greeks!!) which it is contributing to the inferior world? This missionary spirit, however, covers up an essentially selfish motive, a pursuit, above all, of “my own happiness,” as Nietzsche suggests in the cited passage below. How much it contributes to the development of a genuine national self-righteousness is an interesting subject to explore as well. But, on the other hand, England is known as the oldest free society in history, dating back to the Magna Carta of 1215 {not to get myself dragged into a pointless argument with historians, there have been several examples of democratic government on record, dating back earlier than that, but all of those were flurries that would later give way to non-democratic political systems; England though has retained and consistently improved on its democratic institutions, which certainly makes all the difference in the world, at least in our context}, while the United States has, perhaps, justifiably claimed to have taken over the hereditary mantle of enlightened political leadership from her aging, physically well past her best years, mother.)

We have heard so much about the inalienable ties between the Old Country, that is, England, and the New World, as embodied in her most gifted child, the United States (especially these days, when Tony Blair is so desperately trying to woo Uncle Sam’s affection that he might well end up getting his homeland yet another nickname, that of the Poodle Country), that whenever we are able to find traces of evidence pointing to the existence of a genuine umbilical cord between the two, we are well advised to pay attention.

Incidentally, by soap opera logic, the two countries must indeed be closely related as it is apparently normal for a son or daughter to sabotage mother’s business out of revenge for certain iniquities suffered by them in early childhood. Thinking about the crippling blow America delivered on her mother after WWII, when she refused to extend credit to her, and as a result British imperial power promptly collapsed, supplanted by the new global imperial power of the United States, there could well have been a personal family grudge in this ruthless act (besides the legitimate imperial drive of an emerging new superpower), to justify its particular viciousness.

But let bygones be bygones. What also points to the existence of mother-daughter relationship, without having to psychoanalyze personal animosities, is the strong family resemblance. (Let us dismiss right away the silly nonsense of artificial resemblance via plastic surgery, also of soap operatic infamy!) When there is a reliable testimony from a credible witness who knew the mother in her prime, and the same testimony can now be given regarding the daughter in hers, it seems that we can hardly be mistaken in claiming the family connection. And here is our case in point. For the purpose of objectivity, let us approach it with a wide open mind, and without making the very common mistake of claiming our conclusion a priori.

There are occasional passages in the history of human thought, when something observed about something else a long time ago can be easily taken (mind you, I do not say mistaken!) for our own day’s conventional wisdom, but as applied to our current subject matter. What a difference one word makes! In the following passage from Jenseits 228, if we change Nietzsche’s word English into our word American, nobody would ever suspect that this passage has not been written in the new millennium:

“Ultimately, they all want English morality to be proved right¾ because this serves humanity best, or “the general utility,” or “the happiness of the greatest number”¾ no, the happiness of England. With all their powers, they want to prove to themselves that the striving for English happiness¾ I mean, for comfort and fashion (and, at best, a seat in Parliament)¾ is at the same time also the right way to virtue; indeed, that whatever virtue has existed in the world so far must have consisted in such striving.”

There is no doubt that a close family resemblance can be established here right away between Nietzsche’s England and, say, Wilsonian (that is, Woodrow Wilson’s) America. But is there a possibility that such ties still exist between the two nations today, when the United States has been taken over by a manifestly foreign neoconservative ideology? (Which ideology has not originated with George W. Bush, nor gone down with him, as the current Obama Administration’s policies clearly reveal).

That is, if we are to give ourselves the greatest benefit of the doubt possible, as to the actual nobility of our intentions, which, if we consider the intentions of this nation’s handlers, may be light years from being the case. I cannot even imagine that America’s neoconservative ideology has anything in common with English morality, far from it. Yet, this uncanny parallel suggests that there must be some truth to genetics; in other words, that in spite of all irregularities, weird coincidences and such, the umbilical cord must indeed exist.

CELEBRATING DIVERSITY THE RIGHT WAY

Those who have lived both in Europe and in America, have hardly failed to notice that food, like bread, dairy products, etc., tastes differently on the other side of the Atlantic.

This difference is a well-established fact, and there is an authoritative explanation for it: the difference in the soil makes the difference in everything that is growing or feeding on it. And there is only one proper way of looking at it: more power to the gourmet!

By the same token as "saporific" diversity enriches the gourmet world of choice eating, there can be absolutely no substitute for cultural exchanges and interaction, where individuals of different backgrounds rooted in different soils honestly exchange the fruit of their native upbringings. The purpose of such exchanges must not be to convince each other that “the bread is the same,” which of course is not true, but to point out those differences, to make them comprehensible, predictable, thus dramatically reducing the fear of the unknown. Supposed to promote peace among nations, honest cultural exchanges between the nations of the world are a sacred duty of all individuals, representing these different nations, and it is a real crime against humanity to misrepresent your own roots either by trying to please the foreign culture that plays host to you, feigning similarity, or in a prudent effort not to shock your gracious host with a presumably high degree of revealed dissimilarity. Playing the chameleon in such a case would be an immense disservice, just as devastating as deliberately telling them, with an ulterior motive, only what one thinks they would love to hear.

It is true that truth can be hard to swallow. In extreme cases it can even lead to war. But it is the cover-up of truth that advances the bleeding and inhibits the healing. The short-term effect of being ‘pleasant’ promotes the cancerous growth beneath the symptom-free surface, and the inevitable long-term effect of withholding truth is a metastasis of the malignancy.

I wish I’d known the ultimate magic of being both truthful and pleasant. But with the multitude of experts descending on America from the regions, all vying to ingratiate themselves on her by telling what she loves to hear, the truth is bound to be condemned, even if it tries to adapt itself to the rules of the etiquette. There is no hope for the voice in the wilderness, unless the stranger knocking on the locked door turns around and goes elsewhere, to find an open mind... somewhere, somehow…

The core of the problem here is not with the scoundrels who come to America bearing sweet lies. It is in the atmosphere of self-admiration permeating this country and making such scoundrels welcome, and their lies amply worth their while.

…Celebrating diversity the right way. This is something America has yet to learn.

X, AS IN XENOPHOBIA

(This is an old entry, only slightly updated some time ago. Yet, it has by no means lost its currency, as the subject is increasingly turning itself into a runaway train.)

Is American society, which has always been so proud of its ethnic and racial diversity, becoming an actual Generation X, in the sense of developing a severe case of Xenophobia? “Congratulations” to the inciters of interracial hatred: they seem to have succeeded!... There is no more place for bearded Imams on board America’s glorious airliners… An Arab student at the UCLA, falling into the misfortune of walking into the University library without his ID, gets himself tazered… Then, there is a deadly shooting at a Sikh temple in the state of Wisconsin, where the killer may have mistaken her victims for Moslems, or, perhaps, didn’t even care who they were, as long as they did not look American… Et cetera, et cetera…

I am reminded of the scene in Shakespeare’s Richard III, where the hapless Duke of Clarence finds himself being sent to the Tower “because his name is George!” Change his name to Abdullah, place him in today’s America at some public place, outside his “ghetto,” and the obscene similarity between these two situations is no longer ridiculous, but genuinely frightening, as an omen of things to come.

Incidentally, how would the different-looking Hasidic rabbis and their bearded flocks feel when a paranoid American public might fail to recognize and promptly acknowledge the difference between an Ultra-Orthodox Jew and a practicing Moslem and will start sending “the good guys” off the planes in handcuffs? And, which is not altogether too farfetched, what about America’s own version of Kristallnacht, as a result of mistaken identity?

Why don’t all those “arsonists of human firestorms” (quoting Russia’s Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev) think about it? Especially with regard to a situation where the last-mentioned calamity should start targeting victims for their distinctive identity by no mistake at all?

The ongoing “war of civilizations” is already having a huge and morbid effect in two directions. One is domestic, as the level of violence inside America has reached unconscionable proportions, deadly shootings and mayhem becoming a virtually daily occurrence. I attribute this surge of senseless violence to the pervasive climate of permissible violence, as the public has become dangerously desensitized to the concept of war, and particularly of war of choice, as most of the international bloodshed of the last ten years, involving the military might of the United States on a continuous basis, has had little or nothing to do with the tragedy of 9/11 more than a decade ago, or with al Qaeda as such. The fact that the non-stop war has been devoid of all constructive meaning must be terribly demoralizing to the best and the brightest of the American Army, while encouraging the murderous instinct among its worst, which all comes back to American soil on troop rotation, and somehow infects the more susceptible exceptions among the civilian population.

On the other hand, the international situation does not get any better, but much worse, after all this effort, and after the terrible expenses of blood and treasure. With all those paranoidally high levels of xenophobia in American society of today, how can the nation at all develop even a semblance of what is essential to an operational foreign policy: sensitivity and understanding of what the world of those others--- such as a billion-plus Moslems, and yet another five billion of others, who are not “US”--- is all about?

MOTHERLAND, FATHERLAND, HOMELAND

One of the most emotive, endearing, and semantically loaded words in the Russian language is the beautiful word Rodina, normally translated as Motherland (also available in Russian version as Rodina-Mat’). There is another parental word Otechestvo, Fatherland, no less meaningful but in the masculine way, as befits the distinction between the fatherly and motherly love.

Motherland and Fatherland are two very proper English words, but, ironically, there is nothing like them in modern American usage. There is of course another word, Homeland, made very common after it was used in the name of the recently established Department of the Federal Government--- Department of Homeland Security. I confess that in this phrase, which is remarkably reminiscent of the Russian-coined Committee of State Security (the KGB) the word Homeland does not evoke any positive emotions whatsoever, and that is an obvious shame, because in the conspicuous absence of Motherland and Fatherland from the active vocabulary of modern-day America and with the term Homeland reduced to the rather unpleasant connotation (compare this also to the German word Geheime of ill fame), how does an average American express his or her patriotism, love of his country?

This land is your land, this land is my land,

From California to the New York Island,

From the Redwood forests to the Gulf Stream waters--

This land was made for you and me…

Apparently this originally politically-incorrect, but later “cleaned up” golden oldie by Woody Guthrie (look up my earlier entry This Land Is Your Land in this section, published on my blog on July 15, 2011) is about all that my land and your land can yield us, in the absence of the parents: fatherland and motherland.

What does it tell us about America that we do not know? That, being a nation of immigrants, even her most patriotic citizens restrain themselves from using this most patriotic of all linguistic symbols: the land of my fathers, my mother land, perhaps subconsciously reserving it for their old country, which they, or their parents, or ancestors had come from? Doesn’t it mean that a deep-seated sense of patriotic loyalty to that other place: England, Ireland, Germany, Italy, etc. (not to mention the distinctly different Oriental, African, Hispanic cultures, which cannot but perpetuate their allegiance if not to their old country, then certainly to their old culture) has psychologically blocked the acceptance of these particular patriotic expressions in the popular psyche of the “American nation”?

…I wonder…

AMERICA IN THE ROLE OF DOLORES UMBRIDGE

Why would I want to compare America to Dolores Umbridge, perhaps the most reprehensible character in J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series? Senior Undersecretary to the Minister of Magic, and High Inquisitor, she does very unpleasant things with a pleasant smile, and looks at the world around her as an assortment of inferior creatures, whose main function in life is to do what they are told by the supreme authority which she represents.

I wonder what Ms. Rowling had in mind creating this uncannily comparable personage, but I eagerly invite my reader to track each episode of the Harry Potter septology, where she makes an appearance, under the angle which I am presently suggesting, and I promise an abundance of totally unexpected surprises. For this occasion, however, let us look at just one episode in Chapter 33, Book Five: Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix.

In this scene Umbridge is addressing the centaurs, the intellectually superior creatures into whose part of the forest she has just trespassed, in pursuit of Harry and Hermione’s “secret weapon.”---

“I am Dolores Umbridge! So be very careful! By the laws laid down by the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, any attack by half-breeds such as yourselves on a human…

“(What did you call us? shouted a wild-looking centaur. There was a great deal of muttering and tightening of bowstrings around them. But Umbridge continued.)

“…Law Fifteen B states clearly that Any attack by a magical creature who is deemed to have near-human intelligence, and therefore considered responsible for its actions…

“(Near-human intelligence?… We consider that a great insult, human! Our intelligence far outstrips your own… What are you doing in our forest? Why are you here?)

“Your forest? said Umbridge shaking with indignation. I would remind you that you live here only because the Ministry of Magic permits you certain areas of land… (An arrow flew close to her head. She let out an earsplitting scream…) Filthy half-breeds! Beasts! Uncontrolled animals! I am Senior Undersecretary!!!… You cannot…”

There’s an uncanny resemblance here to the way America has been talking to the rest of the world since the days of the erstwhile Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; the torch now having been passed to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and US Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice. Generally speaking, the revolting character of Dolores Umbridge comes across as a dead-on allegory of the currently existing “unipolar” world order, recently with that same “great deal of muttering and tightening of bowstrings around them” as depicted in the enlightening scene above… But I am afraid that if you really want to find out what happens next to the American Dolores Umbridge, you really need to read the rest of Harry Potter…

FREEDOM TALKERS AND FREE THINKERS

Freedom Tower:

The New York City Freedom Tower… Why call it Freedom Tower? Was America previously unfree, but is free now? Nonsense! Does it have something to do with America’s freedom victorious in its war against the perpetrators of 9/11? Hardly! The so-called “war on terror” is admittedly still going on. Meanwhile, on the domestic front, American freedom has suffered a serious setback since 2001, a setback beyond Osama bin Laden’s wildest dreams, and well beyond his al Qaeda’s maximum capacity…

So, whose freedom are we talking about? Certainly not about the freedom of the incessantly terrorized people of the ‘liberated’ Iraq, many of whom, Shiahs prominently included, are today nostalgic for the stability of Saddam Hussein’s brutal regime. Certainly not about the freedom of the Afghanis, or the Libyans under the post-Qaddafi chaos, or the Palestinians under their newly gained quasi-statehood… Generally speaking, the world at large is a terrible place these days, and the word “freedom” sounds like a very cruel joke…

Apparently, this word comes out with a twist, in the new “Freedom Tower.” “Freedom” in the new century means being pro-American. The people of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain are freedom people, just because their rulers are pro-American… Those who do not obey Washington’s guidelines of freedom, are slaves in need of liberation… Easy! That’s “Freedom Tower.”

Freedom Talkers:

Never in my previous life had I imagined that the word “freedom” would one day be making me sick. But so it does today, and I wonder what they are thinking, all these cynical scoundrels and intellectual perverts who say freedom in that most obnoxious sense of the word.

The freedom talkers of America, both the brainwashers and the brainwashed--- what are they thinking when they say this word which they obviously do not understand as they never have traveled to its pristine source themselves, and never have forfeited their eye as the price of knowledge?

Freedom Thinkers:

There is an unbridgeable chasm between the authentic free thinkers and these manipulative freedom talkers, who use the word freedom in order to enslave. And, alas, as I have repeatedly pointed out, it is much easier to enslave the relaxed minds of free-talking citizens of ‘free societies’ than the intensely watchful minds of the free-thinking citizens of the world’s most oppressive tyrannies. Indeed, as the following shocking, but convincing argument made by my family friend and professional colleague General Mikhail Milstein, goes:

“Our Soviet public, in terms of its susceptibility to propaganda, is much better off than in a country such as America. Here (in Russia) everyone knows that our agitprop people are doing their job, and take what they hear always with a large grain of salt. But in America people are so sincerely convinced that they are free, that their minds are really careless and willing to be played with. Yes, they may all be street smart as much as they want to be, but in politics they are pretty gullible to propaganda, as long as they do have their little vanity toy to play with: the “choice,” the two-party system, obligingly allowing them to make up their own mind as to whose mush they will be having for breakfast for the next four years.”

Thus, it follows that for the purposes of genuine freedom, free thought is of far greater importance than free speech. What can be worse than “controlled” free speech, the speech of ignorance and propaganda?

Free Speech:

Incidentally, free speech, the one, which is so much protected in Western democracies and so much abused in other places, should be indeed controlled in all societies, but not by suppressing it, as is usually the case in all controlled societies, but simply by denying it the authority of “ipse dixit.” For, it is customary for the people anywhere, but especially in free societies to bow to the authority of an authority, if I may put it this way. It is the bowing to the authority, which cheapens the value of free speech in free societies, making the citizens easy prey for manipulation and brainwashing.

At the same time, I have sadly witnessed the fact that even in free societies, and America is most certainly one of their foremost, there are many ways, both crude and refined, to control free speech, allowing filth or mere trivium to pass as free speech, as long as it is politically harmless to the power elite, while effectively suppressing the speech, which the elite sees as threatening to their status quo, that is to their hold on power. This suppression of “dangerous” (sometimes known as politically incorrect) speech reaches such levels of forcefulness, that the only difference between the free us and the unfree them, meaning, of course, between free and unfree societies, will be the severity of punishment for the persons who are the actual perpetrators. Meanwhile, the actual punishment for the chief offender herself, free speech, is effectively the same, which is the capital punishment of silence.

Last Word:

And now the last word on this matter. If the harshness of my judgment sounds excessive, I should refer my reader to some other sections of the book, particularly, to Russia and the Lady. Why is it, I used to be asked fairly often, that I’m the only one speaking of such things? In the past I used to think that what I was saying others may not have known. These days I realize that the reason why nobody knows the things which are so elementary in my mind is not some general ignorance about them, but a conspiracy of silence tantamount to the suppression of free speech. While I have not been denied the opportunity of ‘free speech,’ to which this blog, plus a few published articles of mine bear witness, my free speech has been rendered worthless by denying it the authority which comes with a successful career, and we all know that a successful career possesses such an authority that one can easily pass around counterfeit money as the legitimate coin of the realm.

SLAVERY AND THE AMERICAS

The catchphrase of this entry will be Thou shalt not judge…

It is generally, and perhaps correctly, assumed that the American nations located south of the United States border with Mexico are somehow inferior to the North American aristocrats, namely, the USA and Canada. There are indeed several important parameters, such as standard of living, etc., which testify to that effect.

But there are other parameters too, which are no less important from the historical point of view, but which are not as ready to declare a hands-down winner. The question of slavery in the Americas is one of these parameters.

It may be worthwhile, just to put certain things in proper perspective, to remind ourselves of the exact timeline of the abolition of slavery in the Americas. After all, we know that slavery had been a drawback of the past, and national emancipation from slavery had been, in each case, an act of enlightenment and progress. Well, slavery was abolished in Lower Canada in 1803; in Haiti in 1804; throughout most Spanish colonies in America in 1811; in Chile in 1823; in Mexico between 1810 and 1824; in the Federal Republic of Central America in 1824; in Uruguay between 1814 and 1830; in Bolivia in 1831; in Jamaica in 1834; in Colombia (Gran Colombia/new Granada) between 1821 and 1851; in Argentina between 1813 and 1853;  in Peru in 1854;  in Venezuela between 1821 and 1854; and finally, after all of the above, in the United States of America only in 1865!

For fairness’ sake, we must point out that slavery had been abolished much earlier in the Northern states of the United States: in Vermont in 1777, in Massachusetts in 1783, and then in all other Northern states anywhere between 1780 and 1804, that is, long before it was abolished anywhere else in the Americas. Thus the Abolition of 1865, concerned the Southern states, first and foremost, not the Northern states, but, nevertheless, it was the first time that it appeared as a Federal Law in the 13^th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

America the Blessed---Thou shalt not judge…