Jim Turpin on The Myth of American Exceptionalism

“The position of the Americans is therefore quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one” -- Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835) “America is indeed exceptional on many levels. We remain a country envied around the globe for our ability to create, think, and believe we can be a better place for all people. Maybe we only now are beginning to see that war, nationalism, wealth, and power are not the tools to make this happen.” – Jim Turpin, “The Myth of American Exceptionalism,” The Rag Blog, July 6, 2012 Peace activist and writer Jim Turpin is a native Austinite with a Bachelor of Science in Speech Communications from the University of Texas at Austin. He is a member of Code Pink/Austin and an associate member of Veterans for Peace. He also volunteers at Under the Hood Café & Outreach Center, the GI coffeehouse at Ft. Hood, Texas, and is a contributor to The Rag Blog. In his Rag Blog article on "American Exceptionalism," Turpin points out that the United States is number one in the world in military spending with troop presence in over 150 countries; has record levels of hunger, poverty and unemployment; has seen the rise of an Orwellian national security state; and has experienced "obscene accumulation of wealth by a corporate plutocracy" -- with record corporate profits while middle-class American families have "lost a staggering 39% of their net worth." Host and producer: Thorne Dreyer Co-producer and engineer: Tracey Schulz http://koop.org Video Produced/Edited by Jeff Zavala. A ZGraphix Production. http://zgraphix.org