"manifest destiny" and such ...

What in the world is going on?
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mnaz
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"manifest destiny" and such ...

Post by mnaz » April 17th, 2014, 2:35 pm

amazing how pervasive the mindset is, in effect -- america really does have some sort of 'divinely-ordained' purpose to impose its will on the rest of the world.

i continue to read about this sort of belief/mindset on just about every sort of comment board on the Big Web that you can imagine (not so much here)-- even the first lit-site i ever found (l.k.). recently a series of great posts addressing our pervasive mindset of militarism as a means to ends have appeared on l.k. and still you find a few, even within the lit-savvy crowd that hangs out on l.k., a group that appreciates dadaism, burroughs, kerouac and cutting edge expression right on down the line from the dawn of modernism, who, when it is suggested that american 'manifest destiny' (now global, and even heavenly in scope) is an overreach, will disagree. still you find people who agree with spending a bazillion times more than the next-closest country on militarism, and basing half our economy on it-- to the point where it approaches 'religion' in its own right.

why? what are they feeding us on our war channels? in our churches? yes, you can't separate religious belief from this multi-faceted phenomenon.

one of the first things i remember, on the road right after 9/11/01, was some white-haired preacher on TV insisting that Israel is "forbidden by GOD to negotiate any part of holy land."

cheney and tentacles of the global corporate monster may have been the primary driving forces for america (big oil, big 'reconstruction,' and the new privatized "defense" industry) to go try and take over iraq (by proxy) using force 11 years ago (please don't try to say that 9/11 had anything to do with it), but g.w. bush's religion-- rooted in his 'evangelical end times' reading/teaching of ezekiel, arguably pushed the whole thing over the top and made it all become an ugly reality.

and it's not like it couldn't happen again.

even the sports message boards for godssake. you'll find this sort of mindset and religious/political bickering.

what is it about us?
Last edited by mnaz on April 17th, 2014, 11:56 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: america's 'special purpose'

Post by mnaz » April 17th, 2014, 3:22 pm

church and state. separate 'em. we can appreciate a general sense of 'direction' on the world stage (liberty et al), and acknowledge that statistically at least, many, probably most people in the u.s. call themselves 'christian'. but cut 'god' out of politics. end of story . . . okay, not covering any new ground with that-- been said before.

it's the mindset i'm trying to get at-- the religious or near-religious 'group mind' in its various manifestations. ultimately it seems a mentality that seems to go against some aspects of 'freedom' it may try to lay claim to. is this too judgmental? too negative? too 'myopic' ? (there's a good one) too something? too .... what?

it's a complex world of course, perhaps more than I allow (to be expected after the human population doubling in forty years, and the utter explosion of everything under the sun-- guns, greed, god and you-name-it). and the biggest explosion of all-- tech, of course-- only starting to stretch its legs. just think of its endless multiplying wondrous, fearsome possibilities and threats. all to the point where it's natural (in some traditions) to believe some higher, sky-based denouement is coming...

i wrote a sardonic poem (or two) about jesus, painting him as more in line with the post-post something phase of (religious?) militarism we've entered into instead of his (pacifist-oriented) teachings in the n.t. a stab at 'poetic irony,' if you will. it touched a nerve. it pissed people off.

i wrote another sardonic poem about the disconnect of giving a nobel peace prize to an escalator of war and sender of remote bombs. it was even less well-received. i'm not sure what it was exactly about the poem-- maybe just its perceived 'disrespectful tone'-- but it flared to the point where i had to deal with my first outraged cyber-stalker. on a supposedly open-minded literary site. imagine that! ...

why is this? in the land of the free, what has gotten into us?
Last edited by mnaz on April 18th, 2014, 12:11 am, edited 4 times in total.

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Re: america's 'special purpose'

Post by mnaz » April 17th, 2014, 4:35 pm

i mean, even the classic "end-of-the-wild-west-and-arrival-of-civilization" revisionist westerns of the '50s and '60s acknowledged that violence and "violent men" who knew how to use a gun (some trying to put that violence behind them) were required to 'settle the west,' and 'the west,' once settled, ironically had no place for those violent men who helped settle it. so they went riding off into the desert sun, like the quasi-supernatural figures they were portrayed as .... so, could it be that if horizons to be conquered or subdued were seen to expand, there would a need for more violence necessary to settle even larger frontiers? ....

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Re: "manifest destiny" and such ...

Post by mnaz » April 17th, 2014, 10:22 pm

i changed the title here, since other nations in "the west" have hitched their wagon to this idea, in various ways, to various degrees.

ah, it's a fool's game, this group-think mega-politics thing. no wonder the rise of absurdist expression . . . .

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Re: "manifest destiny" and such ...

Post by mnaz » April 18th, 2014, 5:41 pm

http://theweek.com/article/index/258268 ... ptionalism

"How Putin bolsters the case for American exceptionalism--- The Russian strongman's soulless foreign policy only underscores the freedoms the U.S. has helped secure across the world" (By Bill Scher | March 19, 2014)
Ronald Reagan often implied that America was uniquely blessed by God, citing a World War II-era quote from the Pope that "into the hands of America, God has placed the destinies of afflicted humanity." His vice president, George H. W. Bush, put it less eloquently when he said, "I will never apologize for the United States of America, ever. I don't care what the facts are."

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Re: "manifest destiny" and such ...

Post by stilltrucking » April 18th, 2014, 7:56 pm

"Lives their a man with soul so dead..."

I view the United States of America not so much as a nation but as a loony bin.

Yes we are the good guys, just ask the people of Iran when we subverted their democratic government, ask the happy people of Chile when we undermined their government.

And their are many more examples of our good deeds. Just ask the people of Vietnam who we stabbed in the back after world war two...

We have met the evil empire and Toys R Us

this country has been good to my family

I am grateful but not blind

Yes immigrants have done well in America, we have "carved a new life out of The American Indian"©

sorry for the ramble,

Remember we read only good books, we think only hip thoughts

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Re: "manifest destiny" and such ...

Post by still.trucking » April 18th, 2014, 9:11 pm

Fifty-four forty or fight
I'm a real live nephew of my Uncle Sigmund
born in a shetl in Poland

everything is all right in a merica
if you are all white in america
we got commie bastard good americans
who want to share the wealth
and we got fascist good americans
with the cross of a crucified jew
going as to war

yeah it is an asylum for the huddled masses
and I am an Arizona ranger with a big Iron on my hip

I used to like the rifleman on tv till constantine wrote that poem 8)
but I still watch Gunsmoke in memory of my father, the immigrant russian jew who watched it religously, only later did I find out why :( , but even so he loved america but still shook his head in wonder at our simple ways

I can't get enough of James Arness, a tough job wearing a gun for a living but it was the civilized thing to do.

And god help Fess Parker and his trusty muskett, and beautiful old Kentuck

from sea to shining shore this land the beautiful the gem of the ocean
I have seen it all
yeah so beautiful
you got to love america
it is just American's I don't understand

but I do understand why we seem so stupid to the Europeans, Putin too, they got our number.
Why maybe because we have attracted the most extreme religious wackos from the 17th century on, the most criminal and violent genes from your europe, the trouble makers, the heretics and the crooks. The adventurous the rebels, it is in our gene pool and the greedy a lot of that too.
speaking of greed
Can you imagine what it will be like when the republicans take control of the senate and the house, and it won't matter who is in the white house.

All I know is what I read in the papers, it can't be wrong I heard it in a love song



did I wander all over another one of your threads :oops:
Last edited by still.trucking on April 18th, 2014, 10:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Atehequa
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Re: "manifest destiny" and such ...

Post by Atehequa » April 18th, 2014, 10:00 pm

manifest destiny? Not so good for everyone involved.

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Re: "manifest destiny" and such ...

Post by mnaz » April 18th, 2014, 11:16 pm

Atehequa wrote:manifest destiny? Not so good for everyone involved.
very true, and succinctly-put. the "flip side" is what no one talks about because, well, we were "destined" to save those (choose one or two-- savages, heathens, commies, radicals, etc. etc.)-- and for their own good, you understand.

that's about the only way I can figure it-- the mass-perception that "our ideals" (handed down directly from GOD of course) are so far superior to anyone or anything else, that they "trump everything else." I don't know how else you can explain such a widespread basic attitude/mindset over a vast majority of a nation of hundreds of millions ...

and jack, I always love to hear your thoughts-- on any subject. as for jesus and christianity, i think it was nietzsche who said that jesus was the first and only christian. nietzsche was always a pain in the ass like that to the church ....

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Re: "manifest destiny" and such ...

Post by the mingo » April 19th, 2014, 7:03 am

"Manifest Destiny" - make a great genital tattoo - especially with a judicious use of color -
Lay down Sally o yeah - Nietsche? poor guy - all that testosterone backed up eating away at the bottom of his brain trying to get out to enjoy breathing with a good woman or two or three - got himself locked up to get a victim's view - put the lime in the coconut - he should have wrote the following song for himself in there instead of ejaculating all that smoke screen garbage - 1-2-3 ... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g55XaECGBN0
Doll, you may have found a place of rest but I'm still on the trail.

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Re: "manifest destiny" and such ...

Post by stilltrucking » April 19th, 2014, 9:19 am

If not for Nietzsche's good news that guy that hit me upside the head when my back was turned and called me a nigger and said fuck Jesus, Fuck all that twisted freudian shit too,
that little nigger was right about the Christianity

Manifest destiny as a metaphor for a penis I never would have thought, good loving ain't always fucking.

even a dirty old man like me knows that 8)

I got death instinct from here to chicago you right about that, thirty-four years without fucking does drive one to wishing life was over. but I get so much sanctification from ejaculation of words I got to have a cigarette when I am done, always wondered why a cigarette tasted so good after sex.

tolerance that's what I love about Christianity

I deleted this on mnaz cause I thought it was to personal and irrelevant, but mingo always puts his finger on it. 8)



Trash

Postby stilltrucking » Sat Apr 19, 2014 7:06 am
Re: "manifest destiny" and such ...
by stilltrucking » Fri Apr 18, 2014 10:03 pm
soldiers of the cross
Nietzsche had a better grip on Jesus and his good news than any cracker head preacher on TV and probably most pulpits too.

Reagan's pope I remember him
Pius XI, made a real estate deal with Il Duce

I guess America is a mystery to me,
I grew up dreaming of being a cowboy, a soldier, a gunslinger, a pirate, I was living the american dream and I dreamed my life away

you must be a masochist if you love these random rambles of mine
http://studioeight.tv/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=26964

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Re: "manifest destiny" and such ...

Post by Arcadia » April 19th, 2014, 10:41 am

first time I listen to the frase "manifest destiny": for what I googled is a USA thing. For what I understood is something like a more or less assumed bunch of expectations or something like that, no?. If it´s that, it´s very human and no man or woman or country on the earth is not touched by it sooner or later in a way or another... :lol: So, guys, you are not so special! :wink:

& Mingo: Nietzche was problematic with the truth-thing (maybe because the way his life scrolled, maybe not, who cares?). He was kind enough at least to write about it for us! :mrgreen:

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Re: "manifest destiny" and such ...

Post by mnaz » April 22nd, 2014, 2:12 pm

yes, that's what I meant. nietzsche had a "better grip on jesus" than any crackerhead preacher on tv . . . . or for that matter, most of the various corporate branches of the religion built up in his name over the last 2,000 years.

"manifest destiny" is basically a land grab. and mind-grab. because we can. because we're entitled. because our GOD is superior, etc., etc. and maybe we are. mitt romney sure seems to think so-- "no apology-- the case for american greatness ! " (didn't he write that?) and let's face it, we're pretty damn great. can't argue that. (i'm not joking here.) it's just the blinkered mindset of "divinely-ordained" (now global) entitlement and "moral standing beyond reproach" that I find odd. unnerving.

and so it goes. so it went ...

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Re: "manifest destiny" and such ...

Post by zero_hero » April 22nd, 2014, 3:28 pm

as some one noted above we are not so special
we were just contiguous

Most countries had to cross oceans to reach their manifest destinies.

It is the white man's burden, the east Asia co prosperity sphere
it is lebensraum, it is tribal, it is human,
My favorite is "This is Biblical Land"
Then the preacher will stand at the map and explain the United States role in theology
As Mr. Zimmerman noted, god is on our side.
but are we on God's side anymore
or is it God Inc.
and the bizness of america is bizness
and what is good for general motors is good for the US
and I think
it is the heart of darkness
Romney with his off shore tax havens
it is the american way

I love my country
I don't know what else I can do
except love it better
Free Rice

"the lesson is... if you want it? keep a copy of it." Doreen Peri

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mnaz
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Re: "manifest destiny" and such ...

Post by mnaz » April 22nd, 2014, 9:53 pm

don't get me wrong-- I find romney about as appealing as a moldy shower stall. the guy turns my stomach, and i.m.o. represents much of what is WRONG with this place (predatory, or "vulture" capitalism).

we certainly have created the appearance of a robust, wealthy system and economy, at least at the top end. there are so many shiny new buildings going up in my city that it's hard to believe. yeah, if we look past the perma-poor and homeless we are definitely kicking ass. with the staggering amount of debt it has taken to reach this point, it never has seemed sustainable to me over the last 25-ish years in particular--- but I've been saying that this massive debt-built economy is a "house of cards" for a long time now, and it just keeps rampaging along, so what the hell do I know? the war industry and hedge fund bankster types own the government (along with pharma, oil and other biggies), so what can ya do?

the main reason I started this (wandering) ramble here are a series of comments to levi's site that consistently irritated me, by one poster in particular--- all coming from a basic p.o.v. that America IS in fact "special," with a "special purpose" in the world, which gives it license for all manner of "ends-justify-means" behavior on the world stage, including militarily. ESPECIALLY militarily. this guy writes from a far-right perspective (jeez, isn't there ANYWHERE you can go on the web to be free of that?), and he never misses a chance to trash any and all ideas of "collectivism" as morally bankrupt. his latest remark was something like, "you're too quick to blame militarism for the world's ills, when the real problem is too much collectivism" (paraphrased).

yeah. as if militarism isn't forced collectivism in its own right. corporate welfare ...

stuff like that just pisses me off. I guess it always will ...

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