Most americans ignore the foundations of their own nation and, as Dark Magus pointed out previously, most Americans follow the Boetie/Hume/Reich principle and beg for their own enslavement. Most Americans are followers of ideologies that are profoundly european and opposed to American thought, trunk and branch. The right wing patriotism and "love america"ism is rooted in a bowed head servility, where European conceptions of power determine the good of a society. The left is all fucked up by Maoist ideas of diversity (the family values of the progressives) and an outdated hatred of business and commerce.
American thought is rooted in Native thought, in First Nations thought. Our federalism is Hodenosaunee (hehehehe, sorry, I’m just showing off, Iroquois - but remember that Iroquois means “those snaked tongue sons of bitches”), our pragmatism is Algonquin and Narrangansett. Had Jefferson and Franklin had their way AND had the fucking British never attacked in 1812, America would look like Mexico (remember, the Scots-Irish and the French will get it on with anybody.) The states of Georgia, Tennessee, hell most of the Northwestern Territories would be filled with mixed white/indian peoples. The whole of the midwest would be populated by metis. The Puritans had to demonize the wilderness to prevent white settlers from running off into the woods first chance they got.
What are the foundations of our nation? We are descended of a transplant from a different land. Instead of synergy or integration those who came before destroyed what was native. Those who came before thought they were already right. They sought no input from those they considered as lesser. When you are right, why listen to anybody else? When you are right, obviously everyone who is different from you is just plainly wrong.
But what happens when you try to bury the past and cover it up with foreign material. The ghosts of the past do not always rest easy. In Europe, native pagan thought got covered over by imported Levantine thought. Yet pagan thought did not rest easily but came to life again in strange new hybrids.
So will the native thought of this land, rise again? Does the land have its own way of directing our thoughts? So that over time our thought will become more and more like the thought of those who lived here before and learned to think as the land directed?
My overall point is that so much of what makes us American is in fact the result of Tribal thought and politics.That, the Europeans did not cover over all that much. In fact the foundation of our land is European and Native American. Were it not for the war of 1812, this nation would be a mestizo land.
I guess my knowledge about American history is even shakier that I suspected. Was there a formal integration of Native American thought? Or are you describing a far less directed process? I would have said that European thought totally submerged or eliminated Native American thought, outside of the Native American’s themselves.
Could you please point me to some material where I can increase my understanding of this?
the iroquois sided with the british and from then on out the federal government (and andrew jackson) were highly suspicious of eastern indians (if not outright hostile to them)
I totally agree with your opinion of America. It annoys me to no end the amount of ignorance that pervades the minds of average Americans. They constantly speak of freedom and democracy while in fact advocating slavery and dictatorship both domesticly, and foreignly.