24 Comments so far

1. PJD February 14th, 2007 4:37 pm

   Ugh!

   What treacle-laden, naiive, pollyanish nonsense!

2. ballerina February 14th, 2007 4:39 pm

   dear jan morris….you have me in tears…i only hope that your paean will somehow reach a wider audience….you are so right..america has wonderful people even when they are somehow mis-directed….i have no idea how america will ever get itself back on the right track but i feel that it will take a great deal of trouble to even take a first step in the right direction

3. blessthebeasts February 14th, 2007 4:54 pm

   Thanks Jan, for your faith in us. Yes, we are
   mostly good people, just way too inward-looking. A lot of Americans just have no clue
   what’s going on in the rest of the world. We
   have a lot of swinging to do!

4. RichM February 14th, 2007 5:58 pm

   PJD has it right — this article is embarrassing. It’s utter drivel, the sort of shallow BS that liberals might tear up for, but dead wrong on all vital points.

   The view that “America” ever used to be so wonderful is rubbish. You can only believe that stuff if you’ve never looked behind the sanitized myths, which daintily whitewash all the horrendous crimes the USA has committed.

   Ms Morris writes that “perhaps, with a future new president already champing at the bit, we are about the witness its rebirth,” ie, the rebirth of the “old loveable America.” Fat chance. The next president has already been narrowed down to one of a small group of reliable militarist-corporatist-imperialists, who differ mainly in how they try to disguise their core similarity.

   Ms Morris’ cheery “analysis” overlooks all the factors — all of them very much alive & kicking — which elevated the murderous tyrant GW Bush to his present position of dictator. The people vote to end an immoral war; Bush gives them the finger & says it makes no difference what they or the Congress says about it. The media meanwhile continues to pretend that this is legitimate “leadership.” This leadership is on the verge of assaulting yet another country that has done us no harm, with McCain cheering them on, & the Dems doing nothing to stop them. How “loveable.” Some “rebirth.”

5. CptPicard February 14th, 2007 8:14 pm

   Uhhh… as a European I do like reading commondreams.org to remind myself that there are Americans around who think differently to their mainstream, but this is the sort of stuff that pops up every now and then that makes me wonder whether they are REALLY fundamentally all that different from their more belligerent compatriots in their ability to perceive the world and the US as a part of it.

   The myth of American exceptionalism is alive and well on both sides of the political spectrum. The liberal version of it can, for a self-respecing foreigner, be perhaps even more annoying than the conservative one… even when some American might admit that there is room for improvement, they do it through this weird misty-eyed masturbative self-flagellation rhetoric about how the US might be in danger of losing some idealized position where it is almost automatically *entitled* to drooling adulation from the oppressed masses from overseas just by the virtue of being the US…

   How is one supposed to actually engage in any kind of meaningful discourse about real world problems in need of real solutions when at the other side of the table you find someone navel-gazing and pretending to be in some position of automatic moral superiority, no matter how sorry they may feel about failing to “communicate” it at the moment…

   Sometimes you guys might consider the idea that perhaps it’s just a country, and that abroad people may actually not have to be divided either into America-hating suicide bombers or alternatively people doing nothing but dreaming about a US passport. Not being passionate either way about the US should be a perfectly viable option, but for some reason you guys insist on attention, in good and bad… that tends to be a sign of insecurity and immaturity, you know?

6. RichM February 14th, 2007 9:30 pm

   Hey there CptPicard -

   You apparently didn’t notice it, but the author of this lousy article is not American. She’s British, & the article is from the Guardian (London).

7. alanh1954 February 15th, 2007 12:56 am

   As an American, I wonder why the U.S. is viewed in this way by other countries. Wasn’t Germany a very beloved country before all the atrocities of World War II? Isn’t any country capable of descending into despicable behavior, and thereby losing its beloved status? True, the U.S. was founded on democracy — but does that make it any different from a country that simply adopted democracy later in its history? And it should be noted that democracy is not working very well for us right now — Thomas Jefferson warned us that if the citizens became uninformed, democracy would cease to function. And that’s exactly what we’re seeing these days. I work with 30 people every day who do not give a damn about what’s happening in the world, which makes it hard to bring up discussions about the decline of our country. So there are people here who do care, but there seem to be a lot more who don’t. I don’t have such high hopes as Jan Morris.

8. TonyVodvarka February 15th, 2007 9:50 am

   Dear Jan, Many thanks for your kind thoughts and hopes for our future but, frankly, I believe we are probably beyond hope. Thirty years of trash TV, propagandistic bleed/lead news broadcasts, cop dramas that reeforce violent solutions to social problems, phony politics and fraudulent elections essentially run on racist themes, and neglect of public education have made us the most violent and ignorant people in the industrialized world. We are NUMBER ONE in prison population, executions, illiteracy, infant mortality, and per capita murder rate. Our working people have the worst quality of life of any industrial nation except Brazil. Job security has become a joke. Forty million of us have no health insurance and most of the rest of us are underinsured against a health care system that has metamorphosed into an industry as aggressively commercial as any other. For thirty years, our quality of public and private life has steadily deteriorated and, in response, we have no more than a sixty per cent participation in most elections. Our national government is cutting loose from taxation our richest people and our biggest industries, sending our armed forces off to aggressive, injust wars, the corruption of our political system by political campaign cash seems almost total, yet our average citizen can talk about nothing much more than sports or trash TV. No, Ms. Morris, don’t hold out too much hope; your perception of the USA as a nation of violent, ignorant bullies may be closer to fact than you think. George W. Bush is not an anomaly. To quote the late Molly Ivins, “If you think he’s bad, you should see his constituents!”
   Tony Vodvarka, Hartly DE

9. Rick February 15th, 2007 10:10 am

   I agree with PDJ also.
   Now I am sure that Ms. Morris believes much of what she as written in this article and is most sincere.
   But, the truth I believe to be much closer to what you are seeing today concerning the actions of the U.S.
   Ask the poor people of Latin America their view of United States or for that matter the American Indian.
   Some of latest estimates is that the genocide that took place in process of clearing out the indigenous population of America, killed about 10 million of them.
   A Suggestion for you Ms. Morris, if you haven’t already read it, which by your
   article I would guess you have not. Take the time to read Howard Zinn’s
   “People’s History of the United States”.
   It will give you somewhat different view of history.
   You see Ms. Morris a lot of us here in the United States have
   Had a painful awaken concerning the real history of our nation.
   Perhaps it is your turn?

10. walkingbear February 15th, 2007 11:46 am

    Dear Jan, please go to your local Barns and Nobels or log onto Amazon, and order a copy of “In the Spirit of Crazy Horse.” by Peter Matthiessen.
    Then speak with wisdom and from a place of knowledge.
    The America that you speak of grew up with Frank Capra,Jimmy Stewart,Walt Disney and Coca Cola. The American Dream has always been sour. Its just that if you sprinkle on enough sugar it appears to be sweet.
    The Virus came over with Columbus, and its roots were in a Europe that was overcrowded, bloodied by wars, greed and avarice. They looked to the West and landed on the shores of Turtle Island to discover and claim it for the Sovereignty. Then came 500 years of lies, stealing and brutalising of a peoples who lived here.
    By modern days standards, the Aboriginal people of this country have every right to throw the “pirates” out for entering the country illegally, not assimilating the customs and traditions, and not learning te language. I’d like to see that arrgued in a court of law.

    As far as the truth of figures and numbers, heres a closer figure than Ricks posting

    For over 10,000 years the native americans lived and died throughout the vast, rich continent of North America. The burgenoning United States balanced brute military force with one economic transaction after another, on one hand slaugthering entire tribes, on the other “buying” enourmous tracts of land for exploitation. With control over nearly all native american land, leaving only small plots for “reservations”, the native american way of life was destroyed and the clear choice became: be assimilated into “modern” life, or rot in “irrelevance” on the reservation.

    371 treaties were made by the US government with Native Americans. The United States government violated 370 of those treaties, to date. Over 250 years, 160 million Native Americans have been killed by the US government.
    Where have we seen this kind of behaviour recently?
    And to end, we are now what Crazy Horse said would be “the seventh generation”..a time when the wasichus will be repayed for their lies, and you cant buck Kharma…what you do comes back to you in the end. I for one can’t wait!
    Ho
    WalkingBear

11. gsemsel February 15th, 2007 12:54 pm

    While I agree with Jan and much of what is stated in response, I remain as frustrated as ever over the state of the U.S. at this time because I do not see a way out of the problem. Certainly the president and the Republican party are not going to do anything to change things. They are the primary causes. The Democratic party, now in control of the Congress, seems incapable or disinterested in acting in a significant meaningful fashion, leading many like myself to abandon it as a viable solution. What’s left? Where do we turn? Can anything be done? Like too many others, I feel disenfranchised in this, my native country. Those I helped put in office just don’t seem to care. Apparently no one is out there listening.

12. PJD February 15th, 2007 12:59 pm

    Thank-you CptPicard. Excellent comment!

    USAn exceptionalism is certainly for real, even down to items as mundane as how we refuse to abbreviate dates like the rest of the world or how we define a “billion”, to not-so mundane thing like our lone-clinging to backward measurement system, and a refusal to join the civilized world in how we deliver health care!

    sorry, but I’ll leave out US imperialist interventions from this list, as European leaders are themselves quite complicit in their cooperation with, or at least silent consent of, US war crimes.

    As a child, I used to go to sleep marvelling at what divine providence caused me to be born an “American”. My shaking-off of this pernicious notion has been my life-defining experience.

    As far as the term “USAn” I coined this after my experiences in Latin America. Few US citizens seem to know that the Spanish and Portugese-speaking majority who share our hemisphere (América) are offended that the arrogant Gringo minority who live in a country wothout a name (The Unites States of …what? certainly not all of América)takes claim to this word.

13. PJD February 15th, 2007 1:09 pm

    …and to the person reminding us that the author was British, this is no argument.

    The disease of USAn exceptionalism can be quite strong among immigrants. I certainly see this attitude in Russian, Balkan and Vietnamese immigrants in my town. But, they traveled very little before coming here, so of course the USA looks like some kind of paradise compared to the strife (ironically often with the US partly or fully at fault) that they left.

    In Jan’s case, her perspective is just so much bourgeois snobbery.

    Paul D.
    Pittsburgh, USA

14. KaneJeeves February 15th, 2007 1:23 pm

    RichM – you’re right that many Liberals and Conservatives still operate under the delusion that USA is something special in the world. But I think you’ll find that it’s mostly Liberals who are open to changing their viewpoint when presented with the real history of our country. So please don’t lump the two together. Just give information time to sink in.

    - Kane

15. ezeflyer February 15th, 2007 1:28 pm

    We are the most hated country because our imperialist oligarchy destroys other nations democracies as well as ours.

    It may help if we consult with the League of Conservation voters, Public Citizen, Union of Concerned Scientists, etc. and decide who progressives will vote for in a block. Instead of voting for Oil soaked, M/I/I complex, DLC Democrats, we can vote for the good ones and fill in with Greens for the bad ones whenever possible. If we can get together on who will get our votes, the liberal majority will be a force to be reckoned with. Meantime let’s work for IRV, publicly financed campaigns and so on.

16. rogersoya February 15th, 2007 1:52 pm

    Sounds very good,but U.S. has had the luck of being at the right place at the right time.The major benefactor of two World Wars,from this a world currency,the petro dollars and great natual resource for the first 75 years of the 20th Century. More or less the take over from Great Britain world kingdom.Add the WASP culture and you get this Ultra Country called the U.S.A. But now,2007,resource depleted,currency failure,minorities culture influence(Jewish& Black) and the rest of the world is pasting the U.S. My father grew up dirt poor in the 1930’s. A government out of control in spending,Great Society,the burden of local,state,federal taxes.The War on U.S. Taxpayers will be our future.

17. buber202 February 15th, 2007 9:46 pm

    Jan Morris is correct. America need not be as it has become. Sadly, George W Bush has made the US the most despised country on the face of the planet. Morris is also correct in feeling that not so long ago the US represented what Langston Hughes termed “the dream the dreamers dreamed.” If you do not believe it was not so long ago I refer you to JFK’s 1961 Inaugural Address which captivated the US and the world with a vision of what America could be. For example these two quotes: “If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich” and “remembering on both sides that civility is not a sign of wekness, and sincereity is always subject to proof.” So much more inspiring than Bush’s Manichean view of a world divided between the “holy good” vs an “Axis of evil.” Why are we surprised that the world, friends and foes alike, now hate us?

18. walkingbear February 16th, 2007 3:06 am

    A society is judged on how it treats the poorest of its people, not by the rich few. For the majority of Americans the idea that “if you work hard, you too can become rich, prosperous and part of the Great Socciety” is outmoded, outdated and actually was never a workable ideal. Its always easier to get a donkey to move if you dangle a big enough carrott in front of it. “Carrotts” and “leaders” may change, but the relationship is always the same.
    Bush and the “forces of good” were brought up on the diet of Jan Morris’ America..thats why they have the notion that they can put on the white cowboy hat and ride off into the East with right on their side.
    Happy Trails Mr Bush “Yipee Tyo Tyeh!

    Ho WalkingBear

19. stopthesuffering87 February 16th, 2007 8:46 pm

    i feel her to some extent. america is still beautiful, tho im sometimes ashamed to b an american today bcuz of what our govt does in our name, and cuz we’ve lost the sense of duty to make our govt behave, like ppl in a true democracy r supposed to do. i still have hope for the people, for our govt (tho maybe not most of the ppl inside it, namely the bush administration) but i believe she’s wrong on the simplicity of the pendelum swing: pendelums dont just swing: ppl MAKE them swing, and without us pushing as hard as we can for as long as it takes and constantly monitoring their actions, the pendelum swing will never happen. WE the PEOPLE must act to bring back dignity and pride to the name of america. (worldcantwait.org, myspace.com/stopthesuffering)

20. rivrat259 February 18th, 2007 5:06 pm

    With all of the negative comments I’ve just read about the U.S., I’m surprised their isn’t a mass exodus of soon to be expatriate’s moving abroad. You would think people were speaking of the ex Soviet Union, or one of the repressive Middle Eastern Theocracies. Obviously there seems to be enough hatred from within the country, that the rest of the world has to get in line to show how much they hate us. Judging from the news around the world, one fact should be glaringly clear but is often overlooked. The U.S. treats its immigrants (even the illegal ones)far better than most of the counties in the world, that are so quick to criticize it. I know what your thinking, but this is something I have personal experience with. I am of Korean decent, and spent a great deal of my childhood in South America (mostly Argentina.) I was completely ostracized by their society, because I looked different and spoke with an accent. They treated me like I was not only uneducated, but downright stupid, and basically subhuman. I hated myself and everyone around me. That all changed when I came to the United States. Here your not required to give up your heritage, but you are expected take on some of the U.S. customs, if you want to fully integrate. You are not treated as if you are uneducated if you have an accent, or judged as harshly if you look different. It is still a place that if you do work hard, you may not get rich, but you can still live a comfortable life. Europe, Africa and the Middle East are still fighting prejudices that date back centuries ago.
    What really upsets me is the some of the people making comments on this board, act as if the U.S.were the only country on the planet with a malevolent past. If you were to dissect and scrutinize any other county in the world, at some point in their history, your going to find the same type of unfairness, exploitation, atrocity, ect… That includes the Native Americans (They were fighting and killing each other long before the pale face got here.) Not one County or society is Immune to this, because power lust, and greed are human character defects, not merely a geographical phenomenon.
    The U.S. has it’s share of problems, but who doesn’t. The pendulum theory is a great analogy of what does go on in every county.
    It hasn’t been that long since I read European news article’s chastising themselves because they couldn’t stop the genocide happening in their own back yard (Bosnia.) They were ashamed that the U.S. had to step in to stop the killing. I agree the U.S. hasn’t been heading in the right direction since the 2000 presidential election was stolen, but I’m holding on to hope that things will turn around in the near future. So I’m going to ride this thing out, because I love this country, and take it from me, there are definitely worse places in the world you could be!

21. Soprrrano May 11th, 2007 10:23 am

    I’m currently writing an opera about America and stumbled upon this website while looking for a poem with the search words, “America is Still Beautiful”.

    Can some of you please explain why it is that people love to complain, but not act to change anything? Like a woman who complains for hours about her boyfriend every time you see her, but she doesn’t leave him. Why someone complains about their job everytime you see them, but they don’t look for a new job they would enjoy. Why someone complains about America, but don’t move, nor do they do anything to try to change it.
    Why is that? Does anyone know the psychology behind that? I’m not bashing anyone’s comments, and I was enlightened by all of the opposing views. I’ve always been curious about this human behavior of spending so much time and effort complaining instead of doing. It reminds me of the Royal Bank of Scotland’s commercials.

22. bntocurakanu December 11th, 2007 9:43 pm

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23. bnkyhuzyhono December 12th, 2007 9:26 am

    tithihuhytoki…

    exzanepirexu…

24. bnwahexupuhe January 1st, 2008 6:22 am

    titwytiporoku…

    expipurazyno…

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