Greg Grandin on “The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America”
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- Опубліковано 12 вер 2024
- As the Senate appears poised to pass a resolution to overturn President Trump’s national emergency declaration to build a wall along the southern border, we speak with historian Greg Grandin about his new book, “The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America.” Grandin writes in his book, “The wall might or might not be built. But even if it remains only in its phantasmagorical, budgetary stage, a perpetual negotiating chip between Congress and the White House, the promise of a two-thousand-mile-long, thirty-foot-high ribbon of concrete and steel running along the United States’ southern border serves its purpose. It’s America’s new myth, a monument to the final closing of frontier. It’s a symbol of a nation that used to believe that it had escaped history, or at least strode atop history, but now finds itself trapped by history, and of a people who used to think they were captains of the future, but now are prisoners of the past.” Greg Grandin is a professor at New York University and a Pulitzer Prize finalist.
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Thanks for this. US Corporate Media fails us.
No it success in keeping you down.
The promise of unlimited growth: the myth underpinning the USA's leading role in disseminating unfettered capitalism under the umbrella that economic growth represents the generic solution to societal challenges. It's way past time to dispense with this juvenile American preoccupation that's ultimately done irreversible harm to the planet.
Grandin is one of the best commentators around. I always seek him out when these issues come up.
This is great stuff. Thanks again, Democracy Now, for doing it right.
In the Twelve Step recovery context, this need to get up and move when things are dissatisfactory is called a geographical cure, or, more commonly, a geographic. Only problem is, wherever you go, there you are. If you are the problem, you are just taking your problem with you. Now, the idea is that the real problem is an outside issue that the wall will fix. Both ideas are faulty. What is needed is a fearlees and searching assessment of the underlying causes and conditions of the real problem, which has to do with hatred, ignorance, and greed, which are caused by self-centered fear.
Refreshing to see a true and naked analysis of US's foreign policy from the US itself.
I can see here the concept of a "youth bulge," as Chuck Palahniuk included in a talk by a professor in the novel, Adjustment Day.
Australia, S Africa, Canada, just some examples that prove America is hardly exceptional. The essential question is whether America remains an Empire of Liberty, a Jeffersonian Republic or a Trumpian Kleptocracy.
This is not the first crisis of American expansion. The Revolution and Civil War were crises of American expansion, too. American Doubts, confusion, and ambition caused by America's expansion into former mexican lands was key in driving the politics of secession and Civil War throughout the country. This time, the crisis is about American expansion into the entire globe. In both cases, an era of rapid expansion creates a social and political instability throughout the country.. Think of it as 'growing pains' in the larger dynamic of western expansion.
Americans are still moving westward in the U.S. today. Look at booming Denver, Austin, Dallas, Seattle, Salt Lake City, etc.
@@EdwardNigma48333934 I haven't read his book. I'm simply observing that Americans continue to move westward.
This guest makes some astute observations I had not considered on the timing of these things and in general.
I have even wondered if we pay such careful attention to mowing our lawns en masse because we think we are protecting ourselves from native Americans wanting to sneak up on us and take their land back. In some insane way, it has united us.
I just noticed that my phytonutrient vitamin c spray is a brand called "my kind," and thought of theories that the fascists rose to power in Germany partly because there had been recent devastating epidemics that caused people to shun outsiders. Tribalism permeates our culture at varying levels of consciousness.
Are they arguing that Maduro is "progressive"?
Of course, future American expansion is possible even if it will skip a generation.
Who's "we"?
His mannerisms remind me of Woody Allen
Nation means to neuter
This is the same lame dude that totally supported the failed Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela . Let me tell you a dose of reality , I lived in a heavily hispanic neighborhood in New York City and I have asked at least 20 people about this wall and to my surprise they all support expanding the wall and that includes folks from El Salvador , Colombia and many more Latin american countries . You see in those countries the rule of law does not mean shit hence the high crime rates, corruption and many other problems that they have , so why would they be ok with letting people from every country try to brake the laws that we have in place here. To simply let anybody just cross over and break the law is exactly what the folks that I talked to are running away from in those countries.
That is your own manufactured reality.
I'm not sure what the author's point is.
@John Dickerson What system? Immigration?
What I got from the interview is that the U.S. is having a harder time selling and carrying out war (invasion, expansion of its territory) as a way to appease its citizens. Instead, it's starting to insulate itself in; wall itself in. In a way the wall is a metaphor for the place the U.S. now finds itself in now.
@@SG-pd2sv Well hell, I'm all for non-expansion and building a wall to eliminate threats to our citizens. I'm even willing to sell off Hawaii. Whenever some catastrophic volcano hits there it's going to kill our economy. Having it is worthless.
@@danielevans5864 The thing is, the myth that dictated expansion is a God given right (an American right) was serving as an outlet for American people's frustration and resentment they have with this socioeconomic system. It served as a good distraction for those frustrated citizens and provided a heavy source of extra resources, I wonder what kind of a story will take its place that does both of those things? That is why the metaphor of a physical barrier is used, because we are so entangled with this myth that the U.S. will have lots of problems holding itself accountable for its past actions while at the same time creating a new useful myth. Even if we insulate ourselves and "close" all borders, a physical wall wont fix the reputation or relationships we have built with other nations in the world. How will we relate to those nations, like Hawaii, whose land and resources we took. Intimidation was so built in to who we are, how will be able to relate when it's no longer a tool to fall back on? Things I wonder myself, have no answers for...
@@Make_Ukraine_Russia_Again This certainly seems like a rather sophomoric way of envisioning growth. As tech allows us to condense matter that we fabricate more space opens up for innovative minds to create new items of use or alleviate travel burdens across our nation. There's growth potential everywhere! If we want literally to have a geographic conquest just invade Canada. They sure are a shit show and would probably just roll over and welcome us in.