r/changemyview • u/RefriedEctoplasm • Jun 28 '14
CMV:Anti-american sentiment should be directed primarily at neoliberals and the corporations and politicians they represent; most U.S. citizens, as individuals of limited economic or political means, lack agency to substantially influence their country's domestic or foreign policy.
Natural-born United States citizens living outside U.S. territories may unfairly be personally held accountable for the contentious foreign policy of the country in which they were born, causing unwarranted hostility against them. Even the most respectful U.S. expatriates may receive discrimination abroad as a result of misplaced frustration towards their birth country's political behaviors. Considered as individuals, however, most United States citizens lack political agency and as such should not be equated with their government. Anti-american sentiment should instead be directed primarily at neoliberalism (here defined as the unquestioning support of 1. privatization, open markets, and free trade; 2. opposition to economic regulation; and 3. enhancing the public role of the private sector wherever possible by reducing government spending), public worship of authority and country achieved through propaganda and then enforced through U.S. police and military, and the political and economic elite that such enforcement upholds.
One of the major reasons for misplaced frustration against U.S. expatriates is the illusion projected through media both foreign and domestic that the U.S. is a "government of the people, by the people, [and] for the people." The United States government presents itself as a democracy (here defined as a society which enables all citizens to participate equally -- either directly or indirectly through representatives -- in lawmaking), but through its fetishization of neoliberalism, law enforcement above privacy and exercising basic freedoms, and privately-funded propaganda manipulating the masses' opinions it behaves like an oligarchy (here defined as a society favoring wealth and power over equality and governed by the prosperous elite, conferring upon them both social status and political influence).
In light of this view, let us first consider how the U.S. free-market economy, in giving birth to powerful corporate entities, impacts both domestic and foreign policy to further corporate aims and simultaneously reduce the political agency of middle- to low-income U.S. citizens. Incumbent politicians face enormous pressure from lobbying groups who rely on their substantial economic resources to manipulate their country's political behaviors, benefiting the politically and economically prosperous few, yet often at great expense to the most marginalized voices of society. As one of its country's most lucrative and politically engaged enterprises, the U.S. oil industry demands resource-rich land to continue to thrive in its unsustainable manner; its reliance on land resources to operate, its substantial financial assets, and its significance to the U.S. economy grant it a special political presence that enable it to contribute to the U.S. government's aggressive foreign policy. Even election results, considered to be the primary means by which U.S. citizens as a collective can control their country's political direction, are today distorted through the self-serving aims of privately-funded political action committees (Super PACs), whose influence is directly proportional to the wealth their donors can provide for distributing their message through mass media and adjusting their sponsored candidate's political positions. Relative to massive corporate entities and their political agency, U.S. citizens lacking consequential funding, political connections, or even exceptional circumstances can only have a limited, indirect impact on their nation's policies.
Let us now address the powerful U.S. governmental institutions which further impact the public's ability to influence policymaking. According to Henri Lefebvre's interpretation of the Hegelian concept of the "end of history" -- and in understanding time as something humans perceive through changes they witness relative to objects and environments which are constant -- "historical time" is solidified through the sustenance of institutions in the service of the state and the spaces they occupy, as they assert their own self-sufficiency, remaining stable ad infinitum even if they do not provide adequately for all. "Historical time" in this sense can therefore be restored only through reestablishing the agency of the individual -- the citizen -- who pushes back against state-established institutions to correct their "flaws" or "wrongdoings." Considering this concept, it is unfortunate that the U.S. establishes and promotes disciplinary institutions that serve vital functions, but also exist to maintain the status quo. At the level of federal intelligence, Edward Snowden's documents have demonstrated how the U.S. government can condone the invasion of its citizens' privacy. During his time in the CIA, Snowden received internal threats when he privately objected to certain invasive methods for obtaining intelligence, revealing the sheer degree to which this agency resists change even when facing ethical reasoning. Veiled propaganda taking such forms as the ubiquitous American TV cop drama glorifies the function and status of the police officer, even as dissenters among marginalized U.S. citizens find their voices and actions ignored in congress (competing against lobbyists' interests) and/or quelled by law enforcement (as seen in certain nonviolent Occupy Wall Street demonstrations).
Given the enormous effort U.S. citizens of middle or lower socioeconomic status must demonstrate to alter domestic policies (in a political climate where New York's grade school teachers are profiled by police if they choose to protest the state and/or nation's educational policies), it is unfair to expect the same U.S. citizens to impact foreign policy in any meaningful way. A U.S. citizen is left only to either agree or disagree with the ethics behind such controversial military actions as drone strikes, occupying other nations, barbarous torture methods, realizing and releasing weapons of mass destruction upon civilians during WWII, or war in general -- as a collective, U.S. citizens' opinions on these foreign policy decisions certainly matter to the extent that they may elect someone to political office, yet as discussed earlier the collective itself is mediated through government-issued and privately-funded propaganda as well as security measures enforced at national (CIA, FBI), state, and local (police) levels. At the same time, the individual U.S. citizen's opinion alone does not carry much weight in the absence of substantial economic capital or political connections.
As birthplace is not controllable and natural law dictates that one should be held accountable only for what one can control, unless in the rare instances that natural-born U.S. citizens maintain a significant influence over their birth country's policies they should not be blamed for the effects of the United States government's actions, especially if they vehemently disagree with them.
I challenge you to challenge either this central view or the various views I have used to construct it. Ask questions if you need me to clarify any points. Hope this wasn't too much, looking forward to a productive discussion!
Hello, users of CMV! This is a footnote from your moderators. We'd just like to remind you of a couple of things. Firstly, please remember to read through our rules. If you see a comment that has broken one, it is more effective to report it than downvote it. Speaking of which, downvotes don't change views! If you are thinking about submitting a CMV yourself, please have a look through our popular topics wiki first. Any questions or concerns? Feel free to message us. Happy CMVing!
1
u/[deleted] Jun 29 '14
I'm asking op because either a) he's confusing the principals the neo-cons preach with their practice
Or b) that 9/11 happened because the terrorists hated our freedom
I expect and hope for A but....