America at a crossroad: How fragile is the superpower?

After the economic and political debates that went to the wire last week in America, the broadcast news reported that President Barack Obama “did not get his way” in the final agreement. Implied in this reporting is the idea that Obama had been somewhat ideologically pig-headed and lost. That would be a very superficial interpretation. Obama must however be a worried man who can see that a growing gap between the haves and the have-nots is unsustainable.

The Tea Party people have no such vision. They seem not to understand that what brings a society undone is polarisation. As this year marks the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the American Civil War, every American should be more aware than usual of the danger of polarisation. What will be the social situation after another 10 years of a widening wealth gap? How fragile is the world’s superpower? Remember how in awe we were of the other superpower - and then suddenly, it fell apart.

Why all the flags?

All societies are patriotic to various degrees, but the Americans seem to be in a class of their own. I would not be surprised if there are more flags flown in the U.S. then there are in the rest of the nations of the world put together. And, calling on God to bless their country is what American politicians routinely do at the end their speeches. If an Australian politician, either already elected or on the campaign trail, was to finish every speech with; “God bless Australia”, the audience would cringe. That says a lot about our relative self-images.

However, behind all this oozing of patriotism might be an uncomfortable feeling in knowing that more Americans have died fighting each other on their own soil than fighting other people in foreign lands. There may be a subconscious fear that the whole grand show will unravel without the masses feeding on a continual diet of patriotism. For all to see is that country’s awesome military hardware and the worldwide influence of America-centric music and cinema. America is simply the best.

But, how patriotic would you be if you cannot afford to see a doctor due to the Republicans’ persistent opposition to universal health care, or if you were a non-white person knowing that 66 per cent of the 2.3 million inmates of US prisons are non-white, or if you were one of the many millions of poor men who have a prison record and who live in fear of even appearing to step off the narrow path, or if you are forced to sell the family farm due to a flood of imported food?

Radical filmmaker Michael Moore has been attempting to inform struggling Americans that they have been hoodwinked by the patriotic message being promoted by those riding the gravy train. America is not simply the best - and to improve your lot you must stop believing that it is.

What was the primary cause of the war of 1861-1865?

The primary cause of the war was money. If the South did not feel a need to protect its income, there would have been no war.

There had been a dramatic increase in the wealth of the South since the invention of the cotton jenny, which led to a mass demand for cotton fabric. The plantation owners believed that the highly labour intensive cotton growing industry would collapse if the workers had to be paid. Their wealth had to be maintained no matter what the moral cost.

To comfortably maintain the status quo, the whites in the almost completely rural southern states had to pretend that there was little moral cost. They convinced themselves that if the blacks are encouraged to be religious, then they will be compensated in an afterlife for their lack of freedom in this one - and whites would not be able to own blacks if it was not God’s will.

This caused a polarisation of the nation, as the North had no need to believe what the South believed. The northerners were intellectually free to see a bigger picture. They had no problem identifying both their causes of emancipation and preserving the union as being noble. This left the southern states to imbue enslavement with a noble quality. Once this was done, each side then called upon God to join their ranks. Typical of most wars, from the firing of the first shot, momentum took charge (a bit like a poker game that one cannot leave).

Today’s Republicans hold the cherished belief that what made America great was unrestricted reward for enterprise. But how much polarisation is being generated by the almost one million foreclosures on home mortgages due to the belief that financiers could be enterprising to their heart’s content? How much polarisation is there when there are 24 million (unofficially) unemployed? How much polarisation is being caused by the Republicans wanting to pay off the national debt, not by taxing the well off, but by reducing the services to the working class?

Adding more gunpowder to the charge is a population of a size that is exceeded only by India and China. There is a decreasing amount of space to put a rapidly increasing population. Millions are crossing the border with Mexico. All of these people are adding to the already great amount of poverty in the US. It is a poverty that shocks Australian tourists.

Times have changed while fundamental aspirations have not

I sometimes hear people say: “That’s a long time ago”. By this they are implying that those passed events are no longer relevant. To me, a century and a half is not that long ago. When I was born, Union and Confederate veterans were still holding their respective annual encampments. A great-grandmother I remember vividly was born a year before the American Civil War ended.

Unfulfilled expectations fuel resentment. In 1861 black Americans had no expectations to be unfilled. They lived in fear of whites that had all the money and all the guns. Today African Americans are more likely to feel anger than fear. They may not have much money, but they have expectations of a better life - and they have guns.

In the war of 1861-1865, armies of uniformed men supported by artillery faced each other in open fields. A major factor in the early ineptitude of the much larger army of the North and the ultimate defeat of the South when its luck ran out was a lack of communication between widely separated senior officers. Today there are mobile phones to network hundreds of revolutionary cells. We are seeing the role such networking is playing in the people movements in the Middle East now.  

A firefight between that part of the population crying for bread and the other saying “let them eat cake” may seem to be impossible - but in 1932, tanks were used against a demonstration of army veterans demanding payment they did not receive - and in 1970, 13 students were gunned down by the Ohio National Guard at Kent State University. Nobody thought that possible, either.