Short Short: The American

“We are not the doctors; we are the disease!”    Alexander Herzen

"Never overestimate the intelligence of the American people."

H.L. Mencken

A hundred years ago, W.E.B. Du Bois, an astute observer of America and Americans, wrote, “Either America will destroy ignorance or ignorance will destroy the United States.” It seems the latter part of his prognosis has come true. America is now a rapidly declining imperial power. The emerging consensus among informed and thinking people, both inside and outside the country, is that it is a socially and morally perverse and intellectually bankrupt society. It is an old and told story.

An American is essentially, nay, “exceptionally” a hustler. While a Muslim (the non-bamboozled type, that is) solemnly declares, “There is no god but God”, an American impulsively inquires, “What’s in it for me!”* Yes. That is his or her real motto, the kalima and tawheed, the first “principle” of the holy American creed that guides the majority of Americans through life and shapes their weltanschauung. It is everywhere: in thoughts, words and acts of the Americans. “The essential American soul is hard, isolate, stoic, and a killer”, said the writer D.H. Lawrence. Ignorance. Fear. Arrogance. Greed. Hatred. Violence. These are the quintessential, the All-American “virtues”---as American as the proverbial pie and Bruce Springsteen--- shamelessly brandished and celebrated by its predatory oligarchy, its ruling elites of all political stripes, as this imperialist empire enters its twilight zone. As they sit down for after-dinner chit chat, these genocidal elites, The One Percent, light up their cigars and casually ask one another, "What country are we bombing this week?"

For the segment of humanity outside this war mongering imperium, those who are often the unwilling recipients of the American gifts of “freedom”, “democracy” and “human rights”---these perennial masks that hide the worst forms of bigotry and hypocrisy, the weapons of mass deception---these “virtues” are now so visibly on display on the world stage under the leadership of The Donald who has promised his insouciant flocks of sheep to “make America white again”. "America is an exceptional country" and its people exceptional beings, the world is lectured frequently by the empire's cheerleaders. It is, indeed. In one of the most racialized and racist societies on this planet, this popular black / African-American axiom captures the nature of this “exceptionalism” so well: “When white people say ‘justice’, they mean ‘just us’ ”.

The real American motto (Idea source: Morris Berman)

*Morris Berman is fond of using this description for his fellow Americans. In addition to his many excellent books on this and other similar subjects, he also blogs here .