The Aspirations that fueled America's rise.

I assume from his use of political rhetoric and abstractions and his avoidance of any historical or economic references, Professor Koppel was issued rose tinted spectacles by the university. The thought of generations of colonial and revolutionary Americans motivated by all the ideals he describes, is heart warming but might also describe the values of a great number of people in different countries. The American reality is somewhat more pedestrian. It was much more of a hard scrabble. Perhaps Koppel forgot that America was actually settled before whites ever set foot on the continent, that the motives behind the revolutionary war were also to enable the colonists to move into the vast hinterland and seize the land and its resources. Did he forget that America fought over a thousand wars to establish its grip on the territory it now occupies. Slavery, tobacco and cotton, the triangular trade, established its wealth. Copying European industrialization wholesale in the 19th century did the rest. The motives were money and power. The American government has broken more treaties than it has ever kept. American greatness was to seize the opportunities that presented themselves, to not only dream of gold but to take the risks and to sweep aside the native peoples. It introduced industrial farming into vast areas as well as into areas where it was unsuited and still is. If the American experiment was the unique idealistic affair Koppel describes how come the British with their property owning classes established control over a much larger land mass and spread democracy and the rule of law far more widely to countries such as Canada, Australia, India, Singapore, South Africa, etc. To beat the drum of American jingoism and define its greatness in the terms Koppell uses as somehow unique, does us all a disservice. Do the ten qualities listed not also apply to the rest of mankind as well? "Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind," Einstein wrote. The real American greatness rests on its pursuit of and struggle for justice for all people and more importantly the pursuit of the truth. It is this struggle which defines us and which will allow us to move forward. Otherwise we are in danger of falling back into futile, self-destructive and xenophobic patriotism.