roachboy

well, you are starting to see the consequences of this parochial american exceptionalism mythology in the way this current financial implosion is playing out. like it or not--and it really is not at all important what any of us think on this--the us is now in a position of *having to* co-ordinate it's actions with those of other countries. there was a g-8 meeting a couple weeks ago--a g-20 meeting is being convened in the coming weeks to work out some way of getting a handle on the situation that's been generated not only by the particular idiocy of american cowboy capitalism and it's structuring myth of the "invisible hand" and "enlightened self-interest" but also by the transnational circulation of these effects. while folk were pretending that the entire world was subordinate to the united states, shit has changed. the consequences of your own economic ideology applied, conservative-types, has changed the situation. nationalism is no longer functional in general, and american nationalism in particular is no longer functional--american retro-nationalism was a symptom of the the period of empire--the same ideology that reflected the period of empire also made it impossible for the americans to function effectively in that position--because it has *never* been the case that the united states is isolated----and it's parochialism and stupidity that's enabled a (formerly) politically dominant segment of the population to pretend otherwise.

that one or another of us might actually believe in, and see the world in terms shaped by, an ideology that is fundamentally only parochial and stupid really changes nothing--and that folk can't see that there's a problem simply repeats the interior dynamic of exactly the kind of thinking that's landed all of us in the present farce of a situation.

i keep writing this because it's true: nationalism is dead. catch up now or catch up later, it is of no consequence--it's dead no matter what you think.
of course, you're free to exercise your irrelevance in any way that you want, but at the least you should understand that by hanging on to this idea that the united states is separate from the rest of the world, what you're doing is performing your own irrelevance.
you'll have to deal with this sooner or later.
i don't particularly care how that happens, but it will---the writing's already abundantly on the wall---i mean look around folks, just look at what's happening in front of you.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite