Pearl Harbor and the American Century
December 7, 2011 at 7:00 pm in News by Steve Davies 7 Comments
By Michael Prell
Seventy years ago today, America was brutally attacked at Pearl Harbor by an enemy that used planes as suicide bombs. A lesser nation would have been devastated. But America was no lesser nation. America was an exceptional nation. And so President Roosevelt vowed on December 8, 1941 that “the American people in their righteous might” would rise up and “win through to absolute victory.”
America’s “Greatest Generation,” in their “righteous might,” turned that day of devastation into the first day of the American Century. A century in which the “righteous power” of America would become the greatest power in world history.
A world led by an exceptional America is the only world, and the only America, that most people reading these words have ever known.
But today, just seventy years after it began, the American Century may be coming to a premature end.
Economies go up and down. Presidents come and go. But two things have endured since the American Century began. 1) since 1945, America has been a leading economic superpower and, since 1989, the world’s only superpower and 2) the majority of Americans have consistently believed in our “righteous might” as an exceptional nation.
In Ronald Reagan’s telling, American exceptionalism meant that America was not just big and powerful, but that America was also special, a “shining City upon a hill,” chosen by divine providence to be an exceptional nation with an exceptional mission in the world; to be a light of hope unto others. But, when Reagan said “you and I have a rendezvous with destiny,” he also warned that “we will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on Earth, or we will sentence them to take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.”
That “thousand years of darkness” may be upon us soon.
IMF projections now show that the economic “‘Age of America’ will end and the U.S. economy will be overtaken by that of China” as early as 2016.
But the greatest challenge to this generation of Americans is not economic. It is philosophical.
This year, for the first time since records have been kept, most Americans surveyed by Pew Research no longer believe that America is exceptional.
I asked Charles Krauthammer why. He said, “if you listen to [President] Obama’s speeches, you’d think we’re exceptional in how many sins and crimes we’ve committed through the ages—that’s what makes us exceptional.” President Obama famously underlined this point by dismissing American exceptionalism as being no different than “the Brits believ[ing] in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believ[ing] in Greek exceptionalism.” He then traveled to Japan and bowed down to their emperor. And, when asked to define ‘victory’ over those who used planes as weapons to attack this generation of Americans, President Obama said “I’m always worried about using the word ‘victory’ because it invokes this notion of Emperor Hirohito coming down and signing a surrender to MacArthur.” Managed decline, relativism, and weakness have replaced exceptionalism in the Oval Office.
Democratic President Roosevelt wasn’t “worried about using the word ‘victory.’” He vowed that “the American people in their righteous might” would rise up and “win through to absolute victory,” and, in doing so, begin the American Century.
Now, at what may be the end of the American Century, we have a choice to make. We can either re-embrace American exceptionalism, or “take the last step into a thousand years of darkness.”
As Ronald Reagan said in 1974, “we cannot escape our destiny nor should we try to do so. The leadership of the free world was thrust upon us two centuries ago in that little hall in Philadelphia…We are indeed, and we are today, the last best hope of man on earth.”
That last best hope is running out. The time for this generation of Americans to embrace our “righteous might”—our American exceptionalism—is now. In the coming weeks, I look forward to exploring the theme of American exceptionalism with you through this column and through your much-valued comments.
Michael Prell is a strategist for Tea Party Patriots, and an award-winning international communications expert.
As an “award winning international communications expert” you should know your history. The Japanese did not employ kamakaze (planes as suicide bombs) until the battle of Leyte Gulf in late October of 1944, years after Pearl Harbor. Maybe this wasn’t communicated to you. Since the very first sentence of your report is incorrect, why should anyone be interested in the rest of your “communication”.
You hit the nail right on the head…. I read the first line and thought….hmmmm must be some of that new history.
Amen was about to say the same thing..
Far worse than Pearl Harbor can happen today, if an enemy launches a nation-ending EMP Attack off our Atlantic or Pacific Coasts, or from the Gulf of Mexico or the Sea of Cortez. It is likely that only 30 million Americans would survive.
Such an attack has been described as “a ‘giant continental time machine’ that would move us back more than a century in technology to the late 1800s”—and effectively destroy our great nation. Yet, Barack Obama seems oblivious to this fact, and is doing nothing to protect us from perhaps the greatest threat faced by the United States.
See http://naegeleblog.wordpress.com/2010/01/19/emp-attack-only-30-million-americans-survive/
Another Part of the story worth noting is the fact that the US made an effort to antagonize and tempt Japan in the first place. An American blockade designed to choke the Japanese ecomomy forced their hand, as the nation imports most of what it needs.
It is that blind allegiance which presents the ugly side of America to the world an invites violence. America is rarely the innocent victim when the violence comes to our shores, but pales in comparison to America’s aggression abroad.
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/McCollum/index.html
Awesome article!
I’d like to add to the chorus and point out the obvious–that the Japanese did not use suicide bombers at Pearl Harbor.
Aside from that, the U.S. and other friendly nations imposed sanctions against Japan because of its aggression in China (and its awful treatment of Chinese as at Nanking) and takeover of Indochina. This was not an attempt to “antagonize and tempt Japan”. This was an effort to persuade Japan to give up on achieving its imperial ambitions by force. Obviously, this failed. Japan made a decision to expand its Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere by attacking the U.S. and the British and Dutch. Japan had considered enlarging its sphere at the expense of the Soviets but their military efforts failed. After that, Japan elected to move south.
Dr. Arthur Pitz, History, Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois