Deciphering American Empire: #2

A map of the world in 1886, by Walter Crane. Areas under British control are highlighted in red. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Niall Ferguson, born and raised in Scotland, is a conservative British historian and Harvard University professor, who is leaving this year to join the faculty of Stanford University’s Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace. His writing about war, economics, imperialism, and civilization are provocative, well publicized, and politically engaged.

Ferguson advocates, and wishes to rehabilitate, US imperialism by getting Americans to acknowledge and embrace it. The problem, he argues, is that the US suffers from imperial denial.

Damn Cubans (Cruz)

USS Maine in Havana harbor, shortly before explosion, 1898. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Conversely, Ted Cruz is the kind of Cuban North Americans dislike—once they come to know him. Chris Matthews of MSNBC’s Hardball is fond of comparing Cruz to Joseph McCarthy; the more illuminating comparison is with Fidel Castro, whom Cruz eerily resembles.

Both Castro and Cruz were the children of native mothers and foreign immigrants (Castro’s father was a Spanish immigrant to Cuba). They both grew up in rebellious, secessionist minded provinces of their countries (Castro in Oriente, Cruz in Texas). Like Cruz, Castro attended the best schools (Belén and the University of Havana in Cuba). They both became brilliant young lawyers who displayed zealotry in the pursuit of their ends and a penchant for the use of gangster tactics in their politics.

Damn Cubans (Rubio)

A 1900 Republican campaign poster for the US presidential election. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

For a natural-born Cuban like me, the sight of two Cubans—more precisely, two descendants of Cuban immigrants who came to the US during the Batista (this is significant), not the Castro era—running for the Republican presidential nomination is a spectacle of horrific proportions.

Cubans were ubiquitous in US history during the 20th century. They were leading participants in significant events such as the Spanish-American War, the Bay of Pigs invasion, the October Missile Crisis, the Watergate break-in, the Mariel boatlift and the Bush-Gore election in Florida. They have re-appeared (like birds of evil omen) at critical moments for the US almost as often as the New York Yankees have played in the World Series.

Now, if you please, two US Senators of Cuban heritage are running for president of this great country. Like the Washington Senators baseball fan in the Broadway musical Damn Yankees, I begin to yearn for a Devil who will buy my soul in exchange for the prevention of such a future eventuality.

Deciphering American Empire: #1

“Augustus of Prima Porta” by unknown artist, circa 1st century. (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)

“Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity.”

(Ecclesiastes 1:2 Holy Bible NRSV)

To imagine life after empire is to presume the current condition of imperialism, US imperialism.

American empire. What does it mean? Is it true or false? Is it a mark of pride or a sign of shame?

Let’s start from the assumption that the American citizenry is generally inclined to deny the fact of US imperialism or at least to resist the legitimacy of the label. It just doesn’t fit well with the nation’s self image. It sounds like a false indictment in mythic America.

Whereas the idea of imperialism suggests militarism and warfare as a way of life, mythic America promotes peace, not war. It fights defensive wars, not wars of aggression. It is an exceptional nation, a model of virtue, a country devoted to freedom and democratic ideals, a people with a special calling.

Abraham’s Angels

Abraham Lincoln, 9 Feb. 1864. (Credit: Library of Congress)

After listening (a painful experience) to the Republican primary debate last week, I fled from its display of vanities, Orwellian language and outdated thinking to the words of Abraham Lincoln:

Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

(First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1861)

Who is so small as to claim Ronald Reagan to be their model and exemplar when they have inherited the mantle of Abraham Lincoln? What do you say about people who prefer Reagan’s speeches to the poetry of Lincoln? Reagan was a B-movie Hollywood actor; Lincoln was a student of the King James Bible and a critic of Shakespearean texts. And yet in our unfortunate times, it is Reagan who is called the Great Communicator.