Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2006/06/11

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Subject: [Leica] US Attitutdes to Foreign Lands
From: msmall at infionline.net (Marc James Small)
Date: Sun Jun 11 17:30:25 2006

We should all bear in mind that the US is a remarkably isolationist nation
which would prefer to have as little as possible to do with the rest of the
World.  Most USians have never travelled outside of the US save for a quick
trip to Mexico or Barbados or the like, if that.  This control is
controlled by the middle classes, and most of these are descended from
ancestors who came over here centuries ago, so contact, cultural or family,
with the old country has been lost.  

In my own case, my most recent immigrant was a Rothrock who came over from
the Palatinate in 1846, and this person provides the only link I have with
the Old World, as I am in sporadic contact with a very distant cousin in
Worms.   William Small came here in 1829.  Thomas Riley was born in
Hampshire County, Virginia, in 1794.  And my other ancestors sprinkled into
the colonies from the 1600's onwards.  In otherwards, other than that very
distant cousin in Worms, I have no direct connection with my antecedents.
I do know a bit about my Scottish roots, as William Small lived until 1898,
and my Grandfather, who lived until 1977, knew him well and bought his
schoolback at the estate sale, which he later passed to me.  But that is a
very tenuous connection though I do know that two of my fourth-great-uncles
died at Culloden as kilted campaigners for the Bonnie Prince;  they had
held their younger brother back due to his age, and thank heavens they did
so, as I am descended from him.

The poiint I am making is that most of those who determine policy in this
nation have little feel or regard for the larger world.  Few of them travel
abroad and if they do so, they take the sort of "if this is Tuesday, this
must be Belgium" guided tour which protects them from any real feel for the
lands they are visiting.  This is a huge and varied land and most of us
never even get to see much of the US, much less travel abroad.  Few USians
speak a foreign tongue, few follow foreign events, and only a minute number
read, say, THE ECONOMIST or THE TIMES or, heaven forfend!, a French or
German or Italian journal, even when an English-language edition is
available.  You might condemn the citizens of the US for being smug, but we
are effectively sheltered by geography and an abundance of resources from
having to need much interplay with foreign lands.  (Oil is the one
exception, and we have bolluxed that one royally, but that is the only
thing which we have to import other than kippered herring, Bass Ale, and
Guiness Stout, to make our lives complete.  We even blend our own Latakia
pipe mixtures as good as anything I've ever gotten in the British Isles,
all from US-grown tobaccos.)  We are a wealthy nation confident in our own
abilities and aware of the blessings "Providence" has given us.  Yes, we
are ignorant and uncaring of the larger world, and, yes, we are smug.  So
be it.

Russia is in much the same situation, and so is China.  But these are right
now nations much poorer than the US.  Walt keeps reminding the LUG that the
US is the 900-pound gorilla in the parlor, and so we are but there might
well come a time when these nations -- or, say, Brazil -- might be in our
position.  

Part of the problem in the US is that we have a pretty sophisticated
managing elite making the policy decisions, and these guys, for hte most
part, are world-wise and well-travelled.  The average USian middle-class
type allows them to call the shots, precisely as is the case in, say, the
UK or France or Germany or Italy.  We are allowed to persist in our
smugness precisely because we have no reason to abandon this.  (The US
dominated Europe in 1945, but this would never have happened had not
Germany declared war on the US, as Congress warned the President, after
Pearl Harbor, to limit his request for a Declaration of War to Japan, as
Congress would not have passed a Declaration against Germany and Italy
under the circumstances.  Had Hitler not been so stupid as to declare war
on the US, the US would probably have clobberated Japan by late 1943 or
early 1944, and would then have ended up in an icy cold war with Nazi
Germany.  There was no way the Germans could have defeated the UK, so it
would have been a war of the UK and Germany, with Germany making its
infinite mistakes in fightting the USSR, while the US stood on the
sidelines as a rooter for the British, and the Soveits kept on grinding
down the Nazis.)

I have been impressed that many of the Antipoldeans and Canadians of UK
descent seem to return to the British Isles every decade or so.  Perhaps
the US should pass a law mandating that all US citizens pick a nation of
one of their ancestors and spend a fortnight every decade in that country.
<he grins>

I suspect that Brian is about to toss this topic into the Outer Darkness of
the LUGFORUM, to which I do not belong.

Marc

msmall@aya.yale.edu 
Cha robh b?s fir gun ghr?s fir!




Replies: Reply from pdzwig at summaventures.com (Peter Dzwig) ([Leica] US Attitutdes to Foreign Lands)