Bush Administration's Postmodern Empire
Date: Mon, 6 Mar 2006 08:38:12 -0600
From: Scott Laderman <laderman@d.umn.edu>
Given the nature of American exceptionalism, I am not surprised that
Mr. Gaffney does not recall anyone in government openly employing the
term "empire" or conceding its existence. The notion that the United
States maintains such a thing is antithetical to many Americans'
conception of their nation. I was thus struck by a 2004 article in
the _New York Times Magazine_ that quoted an adviser to George W.
Bush admitting, "We're an empire now." Mr. Gaffney (as well as those
who have recently written on H-Diplo about history and "reality") may
be interested in the following excerpt.
According to the writer Ron Suskind:
"In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article for _Esquire_
that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications
director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to
Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told
me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which
I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency. The
aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based
community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions
emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' I nodded
and murmured something about enlightenment principles and
empiricism. He cut me off. 'That's not the way the world really
works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act,
we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality --
judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new
realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort
out. We're history's actors ... and you, all of you, will be left to
just study what we do.'" [1]
Scott Laderman
University of Minnesota, Duluth
NOTE:
[1] Ron Suskind, “Without a Doubt,” _New York Times Magazine_
(October 17, 2004): 50-51.