I'm getting more than a little sick of the way black folks get talked about like we're exotic foreigners in our own country-- like there are all of these strange secret customs we have or something-- oh, and anything one prominent black person does is suddenly a "black thing." You see, I don't know anything about "fist bumps" but, I could could tell it was just some cute little thing Obama and his wife do. Is it just me, or is the over analysis of "the bump" as something exotic and foreign something that we would never see for a similar moment between white people? Oh-- and it's fine to call black women "baby momma" since I think some random black person said that once and so that's how we all like to think of ourselves. Yeah.

Today on CNN.com there is an article about a Canadian training manual for Canadian Diplomats which lists the United States, along with countries such as Saudi Arabia, China, Israel, Iran, and Syria as places where inmates could face torture. The manual specifically mentions the Guantanamo Detention Center, where a Canadian citizen who fought with the Taliban has been held since he was 15 years old.

Here is the link:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/0 1/18/canada.torture.list.ap/index.html

I know that we are all caught up with the horse race right now,and with defending our chosen candidate (and often leveling vicious attacks at others, as well as their supporters,) but I think that it might be relevant that we remind ourselves what is really at stake here. The United States has lost much of its standing in the world as a result of its behavior over the last 7 years and it will be up to our next President to set the tone that turns that around.

I am not writing this diary in advocacy for anyone candidate. Rather I found a piece of news that I thought was both depressing and an important reminder of what we, as Democrats, are fighting for.  

A candidate supporter diary for MyDD

The notion of American exceptionalism is on old and noble one and an awareness of it is essential to understanding our historical role in world affairs.  It's an underlying self-perception of our nation widely shared by the general public as much as it is maligned and, especially recently, questioned and deplored by experts.  It has been with us since the sympathetic French sociologist Alexis de Tocqueville first coined the idea in 1835 and has informed our public policy and national aspirations on the world stage, for better or for worse, throughout our history:

American exceptionalism (cf. "exceptionalism") has been historically referred to as the belief that the United States differs qualitatively from other developed nations, because of its national credo, historical evolution, or distinctive political and religious institutions. The difference is often expressed in American circles as some categorical superiority, to which is usually attached some alleged proof, rationalization or explanation that may vary greatly depending on the historical period and the political context.

Wikipedia - American Exceptionalism

This belief that the United States differs qualitatively from other developed nations is often implied in phrases like restoring America's position or rebuilding our reputation in the world.  If you harbour a belief that America has a special role to play by virtue of it's size, power, egalitarianism or influence you are subscribing to this idea.  The hijacking of our foreign policy by neo-conservatives, whose notion of 'exceptionalism' was founded solely on our unique status as the last superpower standing in the post-Cold era, has so eroded sympathy for and confidence in American exceptionalism outside our borders that it has undermined the idea of America' special position in the world and led to an abandonment of this concept by intellectuals and our allies on the grounds of illegitimacy and shifting geopolitical sands:

All this has led some to conclude that the world would be better off if America slunk home. As Joyce Carol Oates wrote in The Atlantic: "How heartily sick the world has grown, in the first seven years of the 21st century, of the American idea!" It has become a "cruel joke."

Roger Cohen - Obama's American Idea 10 Dec 07

The criticisms of 'Pax Americana' and comparisons to the imperial ambitions, and decline, of ancient Rome have followed.  Many suspect we have quite simply unsheathed the naked blade of military dominance and promptly broken it.  They have a good point.  In this context there have been few champions of exceptionalism in the foreign policy debate, the right continues to promote the corrupted 'divine right of power' version in their neo-conservative agendas but the left, quite typically, has shied from asserting a bold, coherent, ideological vision, contenting themselves with promises of 'good governance' and remedies for the geopolitical excesses of recent years.  Except, apparently, for Senator Obama.

From MakeThemAccountable.com:

Born In The U.S.A.

By Brent Budowsky

In an upcoming 60 Minutes Bruce Springsteen will advance a profound debate about the true nature of Americanism.

It is time for progressives to light up the sky with patriotism, to rewrite the rules of our current debates, to rekindle that timeless spirit that has made America America for more than two hundred years.

From the internet to the arts, from the houses of Congress to the houses of worship, from the movie theaters to the concert halls, from the community organizers to the corporate boardrooms, from the studios of progressive radio to the grassroots of the real America, we should seize the high ground of American patriotism, American values, American ideals, our American history, the American spirit and the American future.

Let freedom ring.

MORE MORE MORE

It's interesting to see see this on many levels.

http://volokh.com/posts/1188938063.shtml

Interestingly enough the Rove appointed lackey USA who took Bud Cummings job in Arkansas isn't exactly a hardcore conservative after all when it comes to gun rights.

A few days ago I posted a diary about how the failed War on Drugs was initially created just to target minorities for persecution. Today's topic reveals even further evidence that the failed War on Drugs has an undeniable racist agenda. In 1948 the National Film Board of Canada with the aid of drug experts from the Royal Mounted Police produced Drug Addict which was a 34 Minute long Documentary intended to help train Canadian law enforcement and medical professionals about drug addiction. This educational film was banned by the US Government in fact that Unconstitutional Censorship of this Canadian Documentary remains in effect even to this day nearly 60 years later.

The B-29 "Enola Gay" climbs away as the mushroom cloud of the first Atomic Bomb bellows above the doomed city of Hiroshima, August 6th, 1945.

August 8, 1945, Russia finally joined the Allies and declared war on Japan. Despite that and the atomic bombing of Hiroshime, the Japanese still did not surrender. By 10:00 that same night, a second atomic bomb was placed in a B-29 Superfortress named Bock's Car which released its atomic bomb on Nagasaki.

Mohammad Mosaddeq

How many Americans know that the CIA, in cahoots with British Petroleum, planned and executed a coup against Mohammad Mosaddeq, a democratically elected and popular Iranian leader, ushering in the dictatorial rule of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi and his brutal secret police, SAVAK?