Real Talk!

Bill Clinton recently said “People the world over have always been more impressed by the power of our example than by the example of our power."

Our power. Hmmm... I had to revisit the history of the U.S. powerbase.

Written about 1917 by William Tyler Page (of Friendship Heights, Maryland) an essay entered into a nation-wide contest became the “American Creed”

”I believe in the United States of America as a Government of the People, by the People, for the People; whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed; A democracy in a republic, a sovereign Nation of many Sovereign States; a perfect Union, one and inseparable; established upon those principles of Freedom, Equality, Justice, and Humanity for which American Patriots sacrificed their Lives and Fortunes.

I therefore believe it is my duty to my country to Love it; to Support its Constitution; to obey its laws; to Respect its Flag; and to defend it against all enemies.”

Not that long ago, Seymour Martin Lipset, one of America’s most distinguished sociologists, has said of the United States: "It is the most religious, optimistic, patriotic, rights-oriented, and individualistic. With respect to crime, it still has the highest rates; with respect to incarceration, it has the most people locked up in jail. . . . It also has close to the lowest percentage of the eligible electorate voting, but the highest rate of participation in voluntary organizations. . . . It is the leader in upward mobility into professional and other high-status and elite occupations, but the least egalitarian among developed nations with respect to income distribution, at the bottom as a provider of welfare benefits, the lowest in savings, the least taxed, close to the top in terms of commitment to work rather than leisure."

And

“Various seemingly contradictory aspects of American society are intimately related. The lack of respect for authority, anti-elitism, and populism contribute to higher crime rates, school indiscipline, and low electoral turnouts. The emphasis on achievement, on meritocracy, is also tied to higher levels of deviant behavior and less support for the underprivileged."

Peter Berkowitz (a senior fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, teacher at George Mason University School of Law, served as an advisor to the Giuliani 2008 campaign) was quoted in a 2007 article, in the New York Post, “The history of Americanism begins in early 17th-century England with the Puritans. In order to practice their faith freely, these devout men and women boarded rickety boats, braved a hazardous 3,000-mile journey on the open seas, landed in a New World and strove to set up model self-governing communities that they hoped would serve as a light to all the nations.”

Interesting side note: Yesterday morning, I reviewed the Declaration of Independence. As a Canadian, I didn’t study it in school. I was surprised at the number of accusations made against King George that were included in the document, in the form of a list.

I dunno... okay, sure- I think that the North American identity is changing. We have flourished in our culture of multi-culture, up ‘til now. Both the United States and Canada have a huge dispersion of people, language and diversity that has been fostered since the 1600’s, when immigrants first set foot on our soil.

& while I think that’s exactly what the founders of our countries sought… things have grown exponentially and something isn’t working right now.

Some might call it “diaspora cultural development”- “diaspora” meaning: the forced or voluntary dispersal of any population sharing common ethnic identity to leave their settled territory, and become residents in areas often far removed from their homeland.

Historically, colonizing migrations were not considered indefinitely as diasporas; over very long periods, migrants would assimilate into the settled area so completely that it became their new homeland.

Maybe it was because they couldn’t maintain the umbilicus. If you consider that the first noted “migration period” was between 500 AD and 900 Ad when slavic tribes resettled in Eastern Europe- it would have been difficult for those people to maintain contact and a connection with their original homelands.

So, for a couple or three centuries now, our scholars and politicians have been influenced by the constant influx of new citizens- some legal and some not. Various groups of these refugees, migrants, exiles etc, play a part in the process that shapes our country. & now we have instant communication with their homeland of origin.

Positively, these people have power-diplomatically. They make contributions to our understanding of other cultures and help enable a unified movement toward peace and reconciliation and provide humanitarian assistance to victims of conflict.

Negatively, they may be able to secure resources that fuel conflicts, providing a network that may facilitate the transfer of money and arms to terrorist groups. American political scientist, Samuel Huntington, warns about a transnationalist threat to American unity. He suggests that persistent kin-country loyalty runs much deeper than assimilationists might admit.

Wikipedia says: “Huntington is credited with coining the phrase Davos Man, referring to global elites who ‘have little need for national loyalty, view national boundaries as obstacles that thankfully are vanishing, and see national governments as residues from the past whose only useful function is to facilitate the elite's global operations’. The phrase refers to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where leaders of the global economy meet.”

Oh boy. You really have to visit the World Economic Forum site: http://www.weforum.org/en/index.htm

I really like the part about 2008 “What is the Programme” the site says “A series of boardroom-style discussions with eminent business leaders and policy-makers will examine “going global” from different regional and industry perspectives. A select group of CEOs from the most respected corporations have also been invited as “Mentors” to engage future global industry leaders and deepen their understanding and commitment to “corporate global citizenship”.

Ah, corporate global citizenship. It’s all starting to make sense now.

& by the way. Huntingdon has also warned that he sees a trend toward the “de-Westernalization of the United States” which he says means “de-Americanization in the democratic sense”. He cites the fact that the U.S. does not compel naturalizing citizens to prove they have renounced their country of origin as leaving space for multiple loyalties…

and furthermore, Huntington believes that if the pillars of the American identity, as formed by its European heritage, are further eroded- the United States might find itself on “the ash heap of history”.

& don’t get me started again, about the politicizing of the Olympics… and moreso, don’t get me going about the people who were grumping because some athletes were competing for their country of origin, even though they grew up someplace else.

The argument is that athletic triumph on the world stage should galvanize the people and build national pride.

OKAY. I thought the Olympics were supposed to honour the althetes rather than their country of origin or their residence... but I forgot it's just the sponsors who are corporate global citizens.