Not a global superman

Fintan O'Toole and Tony Kinsella make the case why Americans shouldn't rule the world, and
why a
stronger
European Union
could stop it. Mary
Van Lieshout reviews

Having heard American journalist Harry Browne say on national radio recently that the first time he celebrated Thanksgiving was at my house a few years ago, I come to this book review with my hands up. I celebrate Thanksgiving. Every year. With gusto. Having left it to live abroad 25 years ago, I still miss the US. Moreover, I love it. Worse, I believe in it. So what to make of the new book by Fintan O'Toole and Tony Kinsella, Post Washington: Why America Can't Rule The World, which challenges that deep faith in our exceptional country that most Americans hold?

Engaging and provocative, the authors provide an exhaustively researched treatise which will shatter that comfortable fantasy for anyone who can face the evidence.

O'Toole and Kinsella set out to slay some myths. Myth: America is rich. Fact: with foreign direct investment in the US shrinking and a national debt of $7 trillion the US is "not just broke, it's bankrupt". Myth: Americans are rich. Fact: the typical US household owns eight credit cards and owes $7,500 on each. Myth: the fabric of American life is alive and well in the thousands of rural communities that make up real America. Fact: the rate of serious crime in Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Utah is 50 per cent higher than in New York state. Small towns with populations of 10,000 to 25,000 are the most likely places to experience a bank robbery. Drug-related homicides fell by 50 per cent in urban areas but tripled in rural ones during 1991-2001. And by the way, did you know that the most visited site in the US is not the Empire State Building, Yosemite National Park, Ground Zero or Disneyland, but a 6.5 kilometre shopping mall in Bloomington, Minnesota, named, no less, Mall of America, which receives 40 million visitors a year.

Thoroughly referenced and an excellent romp through the evidence, the authors firmly establish that the US is in no position economically to demand the role of ruler of the world and that any such positioning is based largely on romantic nationalism within the US which has yet to wake up to reality. Further, and in somewhat now familiar material, the authors rehearse the role of the neoconservatives in the two Bush administrations. These "neocons" ignore political, economic and moral realities to secure their aim of consecrating the US the world's only superpower, and their aims of creating a "global nuclear umbrella" to maintain order and authority. The authors expose the hypocrisy of the espoused virtue and Christian integrity of the current Bush administration in a solid review of the deceit and simplistic, vengeful attitude underpinning Bush's "war on terror"and prevalent in his administration's network of prisons that contain a population -- generally black and poor -- larger than that of Slovenia. Perhaps some of the material, particularly in chapter six on levels of obesity and food habits in the US (now common throughout the developed world) is superfluous to this book. However, the exposé of the corrupt and inept US agricultural policy is riveting if not entirely cogent to the central argument.

Perhaps a more honest title for this book would have been "Why America shouldn't rule the world," as having established that the US has no entitlement to act as global superhero, either economically or militarily. The authors do not convince that the ingredients necessary to challenge that current aspiration are available. Until such a challenge is mounted either from within or from outside, I am not convinced that the myths will fully dissolve and the system implode. The deceit of the Bush administration will continue, and the preponderance of fantasy and lies will continue unchecked by a sleeping US public unless, as the authors point out, three critical factors within the country change: the current organisation of the US political system, the narrow and purchased focus of the media and the construction of the US constitution. However there is little in this book to demonstrate that any of those three critical factors is at a point of change that would enable the US public to engage in a more informed manner with their government.

In the absence of a change from within, the challenge to the US claim for global superman lies outside that country. The authors eloquently argue the case for internationalism, based on the principles of international law as articulated by the UN charters, and put in practice by a strengthened, maturing European Union. According to the authors, "no member states choose to leave" the EU, for all its flaws. Indeed, the authors point out the successes of the EU have been won slowly, but peacefully, and members are queuing to join. This is the power that O'Toole and Kinsella believe can and must act to challenge the US claim to global president. They argue for a European Union shaped through support, leadership, development assistance, partnership and the emergence of a global culture of human rights and equitable development. The vision is well articulated and honest -- the authors do not shirk from the catalogue of EU failures, including a lack of response to the genocide in Rwanda and Bosnia. They acknowledge the size of the project ahead if such a role is to be realised. In a wist of fate, however, the book went to print prior to the recent defeat for the EU constitution in France and the Netherlands. The genuine delusion within the EU for strengthened ties and global roles must be addressed if the EU is ever to have a hope of effectively reshaping the world the Bush administration is currently creating. A strong, articulate EU constitution is a necessary ingredient in this new vision. The authors could not have foreseen the blows recently dealt to the constitution and an afterword is urgently needed so that this vastly important and myth-shattering book can respond.

Mary Van Lieshout is a member of Americans in Ireland Against the War