Joe Lauria writes for Consortium News. In an article in Consortium News that appeared online on July 6, 2024, Lauria quoted the President as saying, "I am running the world." The fact that he is "running the world" - at least in his own opinion - is one reason that the President gave for his unwillingness to step down from his current reelection campaign. You can click right here for a complete transcript of President Biden's conversation with ABC's George Stephanopoulos, which is where Biden made the assertion that Lauria quoted.
It is a particularly "American" weakness to posit "individuals," and individual actions, as the most important thing about who we are, and what we do. Biden's opponent in the current presidential campaign, for instance, Donald J. Trump, consistently says things that indicate that it is his opinion that "he alone can fix it."
This "individualist" weakness is not "exclusive" to the United States, but "individualism" is definitely a familiar feature of what we can recognize as an "American" evaluation of the primary importance of "individualism," and of individual action.
To remind myself that "individualism" is a fundamental misapprehension about my (and our) role in the world - and to remind anyone else who reads these blog postings of the same thing - I often opine as follows:
We are in this together!
One of my favorite commentators on our current politics, former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, says the very same thing every time she publishes one of her daily columns, which are released under the title, Civil Discourse.
The United States does not "run the world." No individal person does either. We know what President Biden "meant." At least I think I know what he "meant."
But let's not let anyone get away with assertions like those I have just quoted, equally implicating both President Biden and former president Trump in a mistaken claim to grandiose self-importance.
What do we really believe? We believe in "self-government," which means a government in which we, ourselves, are (and must be) personally engaged. And no one person "runs the world!" And no one nation does, either!
Biden, who is experiencing geriatric dementia, IS the leader of the most powerful country ever to exist. He -and his handlers - are brazenly funding and weaponizing genocide in Palestine with our tax dollars at this very moment, despite the fact that most of the world is calling for Cease Fire. He is granting more and more permits to drill for oil, build pipelines, and fund the military industrial complex which is destroying life on this planet. And we all carry on as if it's not really happening.
ReplyDeleteNaive oversimplification.
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