All-American Decline in a New World: Wars, Vampires, Burned Children, and Indelicate Imbalances

[marmar]

from TomDispatch:




All-American Decline in a New World
Wars, Vampires, Burned Children, and Indelicate Imbalances

By Tom Engelhardt


This is a global moment unlike any in memory, perhaps in history. Yes, comparisons can be made to the wave of people power that swept Eastern Europe as the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989-91. For those with longer memories, perhaps 1968 might come to mind, that abortive moment when, in the United States, France, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Brazil, and elsewhere, including Eastern Europe, masses of people mysteriously inspired by each other took to the streets of global cities to proclaim that change was on the way.

For those searching the history books, perhaps you’ve focused on the year 1848 when, in a time that also mixed economic gloom with novel means of disseminating the news, the winds of freedom seemed briefly to sweep across Europe. And, of course, if enough regimes fall and the turmoil goes deep enough, there’s always 1776, the American Revolution, or 1789, the French one, to consider. Both shook up the world for decades after.

But here’s the truth of it: you have to strain to fit this Middle Eastern moment into any previous paradigm, even as -- from Wisconsin to China -- it already threatens to break out of the Arab world and spread like a fever across the planet. Never in memory have so many unjust or simply despicable rulers felt quite so nervous -- or possibly quite so helpless (despite being armed to the teeth) -- in the presence of unarmed humanity. And there has to be joy and hope in that alone.

Even now, without understanding what it is we face, watching staggering numbers of people, many young and dissatisfied, take to the streets in Morocco, Mauritania, Djibouti, Oman, Algeria, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Yemen, and Libya, not to mention Bahrain, Tunisia, and Egypt, would be inspirational. Watching them face security forces using batons, tear gas, rubber bullets, and in all too many cases, real bullets (in Libya, even helicopters and planes) and somehow grow stronger is little short of unbelievable. Seeing Arabs demanding something we were convinced was the birthright and property of the West, of the United States in particular, has to send a shiver down anyone’s spine. ..................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175359/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_washington%27s_echo_chamber/ (follows a brief intro)

[Kurmudgeon]

1. Blaming the West for the actions of Middle East dictators, I see.

I remember how well Qaddaffi loved the West. if anything is happening, the people of the Middle East are tired of seeing how well people live in the West, while their dictators call the West their enemy. I think the protesters have figured out who their real enemy is....finally.

[marmar]

2. Umm, the West has propped up many of those dictators......

...... You need to study some real history.

[Hestia]

4. Thank you marmar - just imagine, free information at your fingertips to find out what the

US has done to prop up these dictators. I wonder where we could find this info...

[bhikkhu]

3. They don't even teach this in schools...

but the American Revolution was in a way a demonstration of the "invincibility of an idea who's time has come". Which then manifested in France, and then rapidly through the rest of the Americas:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_American_wars_of_independence

Perhaps the Bolivarian revolutions are not taught here because we'd have to be shown the disturbing map of the Spanish America's with much of the west not red white and blue, and then we'd have to be taught how the US quickly began a war against and grabbed huge swaths of territory from the young Mexico, just free, before it got on its feet. Its truly odd how contempt and calculated ignorance perpetuates.