Exceptionally thick some might say. Not me. In fact the the thick redneck to me represents the ‘American genius’.
Just dislike that term ‘American Exceptionalism’. As though America is unique. As though the people are somehow unique. But crucially (to my argument) that it has a unique place in the world with a unique ROLE.
Reagan liked to quote Jefferson I think ‘we can make the world over again’. That is the dangerous idea behind American Exceptionalism. That America’s role is to make the whole world anew. As though by Providence the ‘new world’ is to make the old world anew.
You got that when Rumsfeld talked of ‘old Europe’.
The ‘neo-cons’ were/are all American Exceptionalists.
Going back to the Rednecks. What if the Confederacy had won? I think we would have had a more civilised, self contained America. Still largely rural, small town, free of all this ‘dynamic’ Capitalism. A quiet America. Not the one that swaggers in the ‘World Stage’.
The Quiet American comes to mind. Haldan Pyle the innocent that goes into foreign countries with the best of intentions and fuck things up.
Pause here.
Yes ‘Aunty Nan’ comes to mind. Married to the Mob in New York we now suspect. Fuck me it was like Liz Taylor coming over! Such glamour! In her slacks and fur coat (my mother looking faintly embarrassed in hers), loads and loads of shopping bags, boxes of presents, trips to London, money to burn it seemed. ‘Only in America’, ‘Everything’s big in America’.
But people die of Covid in America, millions on welfare, soup kitchens. Exceptional?
I am disillusioned with America. ‘The American Dream’ is a delusion as well. But that’s for another cunting.
Nominated by: Miles Plastic
