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Well, last week my band took part in a Battle of the Bands
and while we played well and sort of took it up a level, we still didn’t
fare well. You see, we’re a funk band and we were competing against punk
and thrash metal bands. The judges were all drunk club employees that
worked at a thrash metal club. The math is easy.
Why tell
you this? Because that’s where I was last weekend instead of sending in a
column suckas, so here it is now in all its reprinted essay glory.
I
wrote this one as a major paper in my American History class. I felt that
it was currently topical and I also thought it might bring in the French and
Terrorist demographic that I’m so struggling to find a niche for.
This one’s for you Johnny Dep!
The
United States and Imperialism
The
American attitude of the 19th and early 20 Century might best be
described as Imperialistic (Lukacs 97). Many would be very opposed to this
classification, especially given the United States’ stance against
communism, which is the Imperialism of the day. Despite the United States’
seemingly strong convictions focused toward the fall of communism, and
despite the restrictions conveyed, however loosely, in its own Monroe
Doctrine of 1823, the American attitude was one of a strongly Imperialistic
Nature. The Monroe Doctrine itself seemed less devoted towards the
protection of the interests of the Western Hemisphere as a whole from those
of the Europeans, and more to the protection of United States interests in
that Hemisphere. The United States gave strong warnings that Europe would
not colonize the Western Hemisphere, or expand any pre-existing colonies it
already held there. The U.S. did not follow this same limitation on its own
jurisdiction and not only expanded, but expanded by force. Some claim that
what the United States was doing was “expansion” and not imperialism. They
claimed that “expansion” was the “adding of contiguous territory destined
for statehood” not Imperialism which consisted of “annexing distant areas
with large alien populations” (Healy 49). This, of course silenced many
anti-imperialists because it was less patriotic to be anti-expansion than it
was to be anti-imperialist. This logic is quickly flawed when we look to
the years just after the Monroe Doctrine was put into effect during the
years of the relocation of over 13,000 Native Americans on a trip that would
become known as “The Trail of Tears”. While this would fall into the
“expansionist” classification under “contiguous territory” it would also
fall under the imperialistic classification that included “large alien
populations”. To be fair the alien population was actually the U.S.
citizens and not the Native Americans, but it is easy to see that a blind
eye was turned by the U.S. to their own Monroe Doctrine.
In
1898, the United States entered into the Spanish-American War. According to
Teddy Roosevelt this was for three key reasons: to free Cuba and expel
Spain from the hemisphere; because the army and navy needed practice; and
third, because of “the benefit done to our people by giving them something
to think of which isn’t material gain”(Divine, 643). The army and the navy
certainly got practice, and Spain was expelled from Cuba, but the United
States did not avoid the need for material gain. Instead of giving Cuba the
freedom that the United States claimed to be fighting for, the United States
began its own military occupation of Cuba. In the treaty with
Spain the United States was granted
Puerto Rico and Guam as well as the Philippines. The United States
originally planned independence for these countries, but decided that the,
“Filipinos were not ready for independence,”(Divine, 643). Given that this
was a racist ideal, it reflected the
United States feeling of
superiority to other races and people.
The
United States feeling of ordained superiority was one of the biggest
rationalization tools used during the subjugation of many groups of people.
The blacks were made slaves because of the white man’s idea that he was
superior; the Native American Indians were led off their land because they
were not seen as human, but rather as an obstacle. The Filipinos were not
given their independence for the same reason. The white man in the United
States could not fathom that these people were evolved enough to take care
of themselves. In this way the United States, yet again, masked imperialism
with rationalization.
The
Imperialism in the United States was not limited to the subjugation of
people or the seizure of land. Imperialism was also a frame of mind evident
in many of the people in America. As mentioned above there was the use of
African Americans for slave labor and the idea of superiority did not end
there. Later in the twentieth century John F. Kennedy would exhibit a very
imperialistic attitude in his quest to reach the moon before any other
country. There was little reason behind his motives other than a need to
prove American superiority to the other rival countries of the world. The
United States also sent Japanese Americans to concentration camps earlier in
the century, during World War II, because of a fear that there were spies
among them. This automatic persecution without proof was indicative of the
superior attitude of the white culture in America. The rights of the
Japanese Americans were ignored in order to protect the “superior” white
man.
The
idea of imperialism is grounded in the idea that one man’s rights can be
trampled on for the good of a whole. The United States became an empire
near the end of the nineteenth century and began to forget that they were
once the underdog. The majority of United States citizens became all that
mattered early on in United States history, but the idea of superiority blew
up in the late nineteenth/early twentieth century. The United States
persecuted black, oriental, Native American, Irish and many other peoples in
order to secure their own power. Only three-hundred years ago the United
States was formed to remove itself from an empire, yet now the imperialistic
ideas seem to have grown in the United States as well.
Only
when people stop searching for superiority over others will the United
States gain some of the luster of its founding fathers. In 1898 the United
States started down a road that so many others have traveled. Rome
eventually fell, Britain lost much of its power, and the Soviet Union was
split into pieces. Unless the imperialistic ideals are cast away the United
States could meet that very same fate.
I
think giving up freedoms in order to secure our homeland falls into parts of
the definitions of imperialism. Not that I don’t have a bit of imperial
blood in me, but I know it for what it is. As always, questions, comments
or hate mail welcome. |
