Hijacking America
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By:Arturo Yarish November, 2010 Translated by (Courtesy of the author)
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“…the question of language in general and of languages in “Selections from the Prison Notebooks” Antonio Gramsci. P. 348
Immediately below this paragraph I list a small sample of typical journalistic uses of the word “American” which I easily found in the On-line Edition of The New York Times. Any one can make the same survey of language use in any mainstream newspaper or news program originating in the United States of America and find almost identical misrepresentations and errors. In each of the examples listed, the expressions were found in a title or in the text of articles referring to the particular Country, The United States of America. The errors are obvious: there is no single president of the Americas and while there are many citizens of many different countries of the Americas, continent-wide citizenship does not yet exist. When one considers the educational levels achieved by most of writers and editors of nationally and internationally distributed periodicals and electronic media one must ask why the errors are consistently presented publicly. The mainstream, national and international press regularly use the following incorrect terms and many more. American Citizens Throughout this essay I attempt to model an alternative use of terms as one example of producing a more precise new-use vocabulary as a contribution to reclaiming the term “America” for all Americans. These typical journalistic errors quickly gain currency as they are picked-up and repeated in conventionally spoken USAmerican English. Thus we find some of the following very typical terms regularly expressed in casual conversations in USAmerican English and its various international forms. American Baseball Any casual reader can easily expand this long list of officially concocted and journalistically promoted errors. Almost any where we look at the mainstream media, in the World today, we can easily notice the consistent use of the word “America” to mean the United States of America and “Americans” to mean Citizens of the same Country. The substitution of the noun “America” for the actual name of the Country is so common that most of us residing throughout the Americas rarely give it much thought. Many people nonchalantly incorporate this substitute name in everyday social conversation. “America” seems to have emerged as a conveniently short way of referring to the United States of America. Through many years of formal and informal use, it has become almost a nick name for the United States of America. At this juncture one should also note that another incomplete name, “The United States”, also serves widely as a recognized alternative to the longer but correct the United States of America. While the longer, complete name for the Country is admittedly a mouthful and many people all over the World have learned to say it with ease, it is not surprising that shorter stand-ins including the abbreviations, USA, US of A and US, which are frequently preceded by the article “the” are commonly used. While the short form “America” has gained almost universal recognition and broad acceptance as an alternate, in the Country and in many parts of the World, it is not only confusing and inaccurate, but quite deceiving. Unlike a popular nickname such as Mike for Michael, the repetitive official and casual use of the term America as a substitute for the USA, projects the unambiguous tone of Nationalism and Imperialism. The problems arise with the way the word “America” is used in formal and informal language within the United States of America and the frequently linked connotations that are projected to the world by the international media. To the thinking listener the word “America” instantly brings to mind, two distinct and conflicting but related meanings: one is the nickname of The USA which has now achieved near official status, and at the same time it is recognized as the collective name of the Two Continents of the Americas. Judging from the examples presented in the list above, journalistic language appears to bond the colloquial use of the term America to the official longer name of the Country thus fusing them as equivalents. Furthermore, the word America, as it pertains to the US of A, carries a powerful additional dual significance that is at once inclusive and exclusive. It includes Citizens of the United States but implicitly excludes all those who are not citizens of the Nation from the qualities of being truly American. This inclusive / exclusive dichotomy implies that the specific political-geographic entity of the USA is the totality of “America”, the genuine National-America, the true cultural America, while all other real existing inhabitants of the two vast American Continents are not bona fide “Americans”. This exclusion from the restrictive, nationally-defined notions of Americanicity, the quality of being certifiably American, echoes the ancient ideas of the cultural divide between civilized and barbarous people, that finds current elitist and chauvinist expression in the privileged place of “Western” read US / European cultural standards. No where is this duality communicated more explicitly to the “other Americans” than at the Frontier between the United States of America and the United States of Mexico where the terms, American Passport, American Green Card and American Citizenship abruptly take on their legal national association and suddenly confront all the other Americans with its Nationalist distinction, the United States of America. It is at the Frontier that the confluence of all of historically contrived prejudices of race, class and culture of extreme national elitism converge to form the explicit dichotomy between the USAmericas, those certified, and All other Americans. Evidently at this geographic, political point of demarcation, the United States of America, in its official and legally restricted form, wraps itself in its overblown cultural notion and presents itself against all other Americans in its legal presence supported by arms and mark by a growing border wall. Stepping out from behind “The Wall”, the hidden truth that sharply presents the clear separation between all Americans from south of the Rio Bravo and those on the North side is abruptly revealed in USA’s immigration official’s demand for our “Passport”. This blunt Nationalist legal distinction between the two types of Americans confronts all the “other” Americans with a precisely delinated separation which summarizes all the glaring contradictions expressed in the media use of the name “America”. At the USA’s national ports of entry the meaning of “American” immediately assumes its l Nationalist colors and thoroughly shows the truth of the propagandistic use of the term “American Citizen” that conflates it with the legal reality of the Citizen of the US of A. At the frontier the “American Citizen” of the journalistic language is indisputably joined directly to the reality of the legal language of the USA’s Passport in which the first lines state, “The Secretary of State of the United States of America hereby requests of all whom it may concern to permit the citizen/national of the United States named herein to pass…” . In the Nationalist sense “American” takes on its full unambiguous meaning of, USAmericans , US Citizens only and concomitantly expresses its National Chauvinism. The legal distinction, reveals visibly the insuperably loaded notion that the “Real Americans” are only those Citizens of the United States of America, the particular Nation, while all other occupants of the Two American Continents are not seen to be part of the certified, cultural-political body where the presumed pure heart of true “Americanism of the USA beats to its exclusive cadence. This deliberately constructed, false notion of “American” identity, conceptually bonded to the legal term, is carefully cultivated and vigilantly reinforced through incessant media use of the term “America”. At almost every point in this complex contradictory space formed between realities and official myth making, the many incongruous dualities shade into deceit and the contrast between them reveal the truth of exclusion and the consistent effort to appropriate the name America as an internationally recognize name. To be fully American by birth on the American Continents and to be denied recognition as an American is a brutal assault on our intelligence and deliberate affront to our reality. The absurd notions of Western European / USAmerican cultural superiority can be and should be challenged in every available forum. Samuel Huntington’s nationalist cultural hallucinations can be easily challenged with references to the racial diversity and cultural complexity that manifests throughout the Americans. We must see this as another “Big Lie and learn to correct the errors by teaching the rich and varied histories of all Americans. The word “America” as popularly used in conventional, social language and in the National, US Media almost magically surrounds the USA’s national borders and its domestic population with the exclusive aura of being the only true Americans, while at the same time projecting an extra territorial notion that embraces a larger political-geographic space that is viewed as somehow part of but not yet included in the National political entity known as the U S of A. This almost miraculously combined restrictive and expansive connotation developed through the skillful use of one word summarizes the entire Imperialist history of The USA’s expansion since the moment of its War for National Independence. Thus the interrelated, inclusive / exclusive, ultra-Nationalist meaning of the word “America” denotes is legal physical limits at any one historical moment while simultaneously projecting its expansive aspirations. This nationalist connotation thus also conveys the twin idea that the noun simultaneously embraces the larger geographical space but excludes most of the people living in that larger space of the Two American Continents, thus separating them and defining them as “others”. The linguistic achievement of this dual connotation also summarizes Imperialist history of the USA and the “empty continent” idea popularized through the long period of the USA’s Imperialist expansion through the Nineteenth Century. Succinctly stated the “empty continent” propaganda presented the notion that the vast territories extending from the Allegheny Mountains to the Pacific Coast were unoccupied or sparsely occupied and completely underutilized by the all the real indigenous people and other long term inhabitants such as the Mexicans who had been living in vast South and West for at least three hundred years before the massive invasion from the recently formed USA. The popularized myth of an empty continent in to which the New US Nation immediately began to expand, factually demonstrates why immense sections of America became the US of A and how simultaneously, through the process of the actual imperialist occupation, real existing Americans were made into the foreign, Non-American ,others, through forced exclusion. The argument of constructing the “Other Americans” is made frighteningly clear by the US conquest and colonization of Native lands. In the case of the indigenous people, they were hunted down and forced to live in “Indian Reservations”, which today would be correctly called Concentration Camps. Rounded-up and corralled like cattle, they were denied any free political space in their traditional American Lands which had been recently conquered by the New US Imperialist threatening to gobble up all of the rest of the Americas and give each region a new name, colonizing it and incorporating it into the expanding National Imperialist State. Through the long history of The USA’s Wars for Continental conquest, the National-Imperialist name is bathed in the blood of its victims. The combined, tortured meaning of the word America in the National sense is fully expressed in the popularized notion of “Manifest Destiny” which propounds the idea that the original Nation of Thirteen States possessed an inherent right to expand its borders throughout the American Continents. The other American inhabitants of the regions all along the expanding frontiers of the New “American” Imperialist-Nation were forcibly shown that they could only realize the fullness of the “true American” life after being conquered. The Independence of the new US of A plainly signaled the beginning of its Imperialist thrust in to the rest of the Americas that separated the conquered and set them apart from the advancing USAmericans. Thus the indigenous groups would continue to be called “savages” until “Americanized”. At this point we might recall the absurd phrase that inside every Vietnamese there was an “American” waiting to come out. This dual inside / outside connotation reflected through the long historic march of the US of A’s Imperialist drive across the Americas can be traced through the giant historic steps of its actual brutal and rapacious expansion from the East coast to the West Coast, from Mexico to Alaska, into the Caribbean, through Panama, across to the Philippines and on to the Hawaiian Islands. Indigenous people along with other, long term inhabitants and animals were pushed aside or swept way. While the conquered territories are called “American” possessions, protectorates, States, never colonies, the people in these conquered regions are referred to by their territorially related names as for example, Cheyenne, Dakota Sioux, Filipinos, Puerto Ricans or Haitians. They are rarely included in Nationalist terms as “Americans”: All those “others” out side of the expanding Imperialist State are called by other names that separate them from the USAmerican Nation. Some times these others are referred to by national names such as Mexicans and frequently by less pleasant names but always as something other than “Americans”. As the “others” out side of the sphere of total US imperialist domination, they are some times referred to in polite language according to the name of their National entity such as Canadians and perhaps Argentines but even the captured Puerto Ricans who had US Citizenship forced on them in 1917 were frequently called “spics”, at best Puerto Ricans but not “Americans”. All are and will remain the excluded “others” outside the expanding United-Imperialist-States. The nominally independent countries may be politically, economically and militarily dominated by the United States of America but the people of these captured or controlled economic appendages of the USA are collectively called foreigners. As migrants or immigrants to the United States of America these new residents may be grudgingly and gradually permitted, after a couple of generations in residence in the USA, allowed to adopt a hyphenated semi-national identification such as Haitian-American or Jamaican-American. It appears that the only legally certifiable near “Americans”, from the Nationalist point of view, are those people that are brought under direct, political-economic control within the borders of US-Nation-State. All other native born Americans from the other American countries are seen as foreigners, aliens and illegal aliens but never “Americans”. A prime example of this dichotomy today is the official USA’s view of Cubans. The Cubans living on their Island Nation are the Cubans, Communists, enemies but not Americans. The Cubans living in the USA are called Cuban-American patriots. Hyphenated, naturalized citizens are not really fully certified “Americans” either because, as recent political USAmerican practice demonstrates, the Naturalized USAmericans can have their citizenship revoked. You may be USAmerican today but may be not tomorrow! The inherent contradictions fully appear and are expressed in National, political / cultural landscape of the Imperialist mindset where ignorance informs arrogance. Any casual review of the US Nationalist and Imperialist language reveals the absurd thinking, grounded in deliberately repeated factual errors that cause one to question the Nationalist-corporate-controlled Media’s intentions in perpetuating the conventional usage that reinforce popular myths. The errors are so blatant and pervasive that they should be embarrassing to those who consistently produce and boldly repeat them. Many, while laughable, also fully reveal the ridiculousness of their propagandist intent. Clearly Cubans are Cuban-Americans in Cuba and in Florida. Obviously “The State” of Hawaii is not a part of the American land mass, therefore Hawaii cannot be an “American” State. As one of the fifty one “States” that comprise the political entity called the United States of America, it may be legally a State of the Nation but no law can make it a part of the American Continents. The United States of America therefore, cannot be the “United” States of America because Hawaii is not a physically “United” part of the Americas. It will take major continental shift through geological time to bring the Hawaiian Islands into contact with the nearest Continental American Coast. Obviously, by the same reasoning, “Americans”, in the national geographic sense, if Hawaiians are included, cannot be all “Americans”. That must also mean therefore, that the Term “All American” is also false because all USAmericans are not “American”. If the errors are glaringly clear and regularly repeated, we must assume they are purposeful. That specific geographic place generally referred to as the contiguous Continental United States of America, reaching North to Alaska, extending South into the Caribbean on to colonized of Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands but excluding Hawaii may constitute an extended Imperialist nation’s territory but it is not the only American nation-state. Further to the point there is no State on any of the American Continents called “America”. This obvious factual error is so evident that one must ask if it may be deliberate and if so, why? The consistent substitution of the exclusive term “America” to mean the USA is so common that we must ask if its use is casual or intentional. Obviously it is both a calculated concoction and a popularly accepted term. It is a political construction, a cultural myth and an inculcated perception that has achieved broad acceptance. “In the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church fought against the use of the vernacular and for the preservation of Latin as the ‘universal’ language, since this was a key element in its own intellectual hegemony.” The constant promotion of “America” as an alternate National name for the USA, conveys a message of political exclusivity and cultural separation that breeds hostility. When the message of exclusion is materially reinforced by military threats and verified by the rising “Wall of Shame”, the USA-Nationalists place themselves apart from and out side of the broader communities of the other American people. By deliberately broadcasting the language of exclusion and projecting images that reinforce it, the USAmerican-Imperialist reawaken long held fears of Continental domination and give substantive meaning to the widely perceived divide between the Imperialist USAmerican State and the other America Nations. Through its long aggressive imperialist history throughout the Americas, the USA has repeatedly demonstrated its aggression and socially positioned itself against the rest of its American neighbors. As it encloses itself in its own National-Fortress-State, marked by its expanding Walls and the increasing militarization, it clearly defines its own exclusion from the international community of all the other American Nation-States. It shows itself as the menacing alien-American within the Americas as the Imperialist-American State separates itself from the expanding opportunities for equal democratic participation in changing the dynamics of a New America. As The USAmerican Imperialist in tone and action it is a alien political voice in the changing American community of Nations. Just as the exported Austrians Maximiliano and Carlota fully represented European Imperialism in the Americas, the attempted political / economic domination of the Americas by the USA, the “Colossus of the North”, is as much a hostile imperialist aggressor. All the rest of us, “Other”, Anti-imperialist, Americans who express an alternative, inclusive vision of economic and social justice built on a basis of peaceful, cooperative modes of mutual beneficial redevelopment have an obligation to clearly distinguish ourselves from the Imperialist, though our language and public and private behavior. One very easy way to clearly differentiate our respectful attitudes toward each other as cooperative internationalists is through a conscious correction of the language we use. We can all make very easy corrections by increasing our awareness of what we say and how we say it. We need not invent a new vocabulary but merely apply existing terms, perhaps with slight modifications to express social openness and political cooperation. Starting with very common nouns and adjectives, we can call objects and places by plain, more accurate names. There is No American Flag! There is a Flag of the USAmerica. There are no American dollars but the US Dollar is traded widely throughout the Americas. There is no American Nation but all of us who live on these two Continents and the Caribbean Islands are, in fact, very much Americans. We Americans, including the 300 million plus Citizens of the USA want to include ourselves in a truly “New, non-imperialist, American Century” for All Americans by All Americans. “How is it possible to consider the present, and quite specific present with a mode of thought elaborated for a past …”? Our efforts to make corrections in our practical use of language may take on two major but relatively simple modes of expression. Apart from making a greater effort to learn at least one of the other languages spoken throughout all the Americas, we all can make a conscious effort to use more precise terms in our own languages when speaking and writing about the United States of America and all the other American Nations. New consciousness of a changing reality, will give rise to a new vocabulary to express the changing relations we wish to effect. Formally in our schools, we should present lessons that incorporate the accurate terminology we propose to develop and diffuse, ground it historically and express it confidently. We should make certain that in our writing and speech we use more precise terms. Basing ourselves on the objective reality that there is no Country in the Americas called “America” we should begin to use the descriptive words that help to end this historical error. We can take our point of departure from the history of constantly changing vocabulary. We are well aware of the many myths that have grown up around the errors made by the first Europeans who arrived in the Western Hemisphere more that Five Hundred Years ago. While we have consciously corrected many errors, others frequently slip out of our mouths during our informal conversations, yet most of us have consciously made many corrections in our formal language. While Cristoforo Colombo (a/ka Cristobal Colon) was certain that he had arrived in the Antillas off the Asian Coast near China and India, we no longer call the Islands of the Greater Antilles Cipango for Japan. Informed people rarely say Columbus “discovered” America . Although the chronicler Bartolmeo de Las Casas was writing about the “devastation of the Indies” we no longer refer to the Islands as simply the Indies. However, when the cartographer Martin Waldseemüller casually wrote Amerigo on a map of the region sailed and charted by Amerigo Vespucci, he unknowingly named a segment of the two continents. Amerigo’s name soon became the accepted name of both Continents and although a small correction was made to the name “Indies” by adding the qualifier West, “Amerigo” became the “America” which soon covered both continents as the dominant name in the European mind. With a little more effort we might just correct that error too. Through the long assault of the European Conquerors of the Americas, the local names were not well learned or soon forgotten. While some names such as Mexico superseded Nueva España and Borinquen is preserved in the popular Puerto Rican National anthem, “America” dominates and is now broadly accepted among the residents and citizens of all the Americas North, South and, Central America. Interestingly we should take special note of the countervailing fact that all the people of the Caribbean Islands, whether independent or colonized under USAmerican or European domination, have secured their distinctive name derived from the native Caribs who emerged out of the Orinoco River Valley and eventually inhabited most of the Islands of the lesser and Greater Antilles. Yes, change is possible. While the term “America” has achieved a level of general popular acceptance by almost all American language / cultural groups, with noted exceptions expressed among many native groups, and the population of the Caribbean Islands, “America” as the alternative name for the United States of America is broadly contested. As the Imperialist intent of the USA becomes more evident among the targeted populations of the rest of the Americas, the term is increasingly resented. The least we anti-imperialist can do must do, is consciously use the terms that reflect the rising social awareness and reinforce it through regular incorporation of more accurate language. Let’s contribute to forming a new vocabulary for changing times, and then let’s help the push forward the corresponding alternatives we envision. “It must however be borne in mind that no new historical situation, however radical the change that has brought it about, completely transforms language, at least in its external formal aspect. But the content of language must be changed, even if it is difficult to have an exact consciousness of the change in immediate terms”. While changing one’s language alone may not soon change the course of US Imperialist aggression in the World or toward the other American Nations, it can have a consciousness raising effect. The people of the USA, the people of that one Nation, its citizens, residents, and new migrants, are not all imperialist. Evidently, as I write, we see widespread and growing opposition to the present US-Imperialist War in the Middle East and a growing acceptance of the other American migrants now residing in the USA. Both the anti-imperialist-war sentiment and the pro-migrant movement are gaining support in the USA. Today as we witnessed about thirty years ago, a very strong anti-imperialist current is developing throughout the national population in the USA. Yet, almost invariably we hear the language of the Imperialist entering our discussions. For example, we frequently hear many references for and against the American foreign policy, which with little effort can be changed to The Foreign Policy of the USA or USAmerican Foreign Policy. It is here and now, at this crucial political moment, that conscious, anti-imperialists throughout should resume infusing our writing and speech with accurate alternative terminology. We can create powerfully expressive opportunities across the full language spectrum to communicate our ideas in new ways. In every topical discussion we can easily substitute precise, standard recognizable terms that produce clear meaning. American helicopters are not strafing with their machine guns in Iraq. The war planes of the United States Air Force are bombing Iraq and Afghanistan. The United States has the largest Nuclear Arsenal in the world. The United States is the only Country in the World that has used Nuclear Weapons in war. We can easily get it right! Not only can we get it right, we will be well received by many thinkers. While popularized conventional terms may feel comfortable and are easier to pronounce in many languages, we should be more alert to the notions they create or reinforce. Names of national currencies serve as excellent comparative examples. Saying “Mexican Peso” does not carry the same connotation as saying “American Dollar”. The adjective Mexican before Peso is necessary to distinguish the Mexican national monetary unit from all other pesos used in the Americas. However, the term American Dollar is not clarifying but confusing. Not only is the term an error, it carries a tone of dominance and universality. Those who call the US Dollar, the American Dollar look foolish at best and publicly express many levels of ignorance. After all, the Canadian Dollar does exist. On the factual level there is no such currency as the American dollar but in the imperialist context it connotes a false notion of superiority. “Language also means culture and philosophy (if only at the level of common sense) and therefore the fact of ‘language’ is in reality a multiplicity of facts more or less organically coherent and co-ordinated.” Many of us on all sides of the many National State Borders of the Americas who lived through long periods of the Twentieth Century have discussed this language issue many times. Its history courses the menacing thrusts of US-Imperialism in the Americas and throughout the World. Despite the widespread subconscious understanding of its imperialist content, the unconscious acceptance of the name America penetrates deeply. We are aware that the term America and Americans takes on many innocent as well as personal and political meanings in the mind the user. It has undeniably emerged in almost every language as the most convenient translation. In the Romance Languages it is the same comfortable convenient and easy to pronounce, America. Across a broad progressive, political continuum many concerned anti-imperialists ask, as in past debates, why trouble ourselves with this issue? It is too large! Out of this general point of view the major positions range from: we cannot easily overcome the widespread acceptance of the name and its related adjectives; to the more thoughtful argument that our limited time and resources should be directed to other more pressing issues where we may realize more immediate results. A more refined variation on the last argument mounted by sincere anti-imperialists of all types through the Twentieth Century and continuing in to the present has developed into three broadly related sub-positions. The first one, which we might call the defeatist position, has two broad expressions: the term in question has gained widespread acceptance thus it would be too large an task for political education groups with few resources, which is usually linked to the other widely held related view that it will be more effective and cost efficient if progressive intellectuals engage their audience in terms that will allow their listeners or readers to recognize themselves as the subjects and objects of the discussion. A subtext of this approach is the suggestion that in order for the educator to penetrate the listeners’ or readers’ consciousness to prepare for the acceptance of necessary change, the discussion must be initiated in recognizable terms. Proponents of this position hold that we must use the familiar imperialist terminology to convert or invert the language in a way that may achieve broad popular acceptance. The last, strongly argued position by equally sincere progressives urges us to recall the damage done across the last fifty years by many who have engaged in divisive and acrimonious contests that were totally unproductive. If we do nothing we lose. If think that we can use the language of the Nationalist-Imperialists we simply reinforce the errors and their popular acceptance, we do not contribute to the development of new ways of thinking. Therefore we cannot contribute to the production of new knowledge. Consider the following opening lines taken from, Jack Rasmus’ article “The Trillion Dollar Income Shift, Part 1” printed in Z Magazine of February 2007. “For three decades from 1942 to the mid-1970’s a ‘great leveling’ of incomes between classes in America occurred as the standard of living rose for tens of millions of American workers and their families. American working class families received a share of record gains in productivity.” While it is very clear from the content of the article and many references Rasmus explicitly makes to the USA, he loses the opportunity to use clear, non-imperialist language that would add credibility to his very valuable information and analysis. In the last lines of his article he makes his errors plain in noting that: “Part two of this article will identify and quantify the leading corporate policies since 1980 that have played a central role in the shift of more than $1 Trillion annually from the incomes of the 90 million working class families in America to the wealthiest households and corporations.” Clearly he must be speaking about “…90 million working class families in …” the United States of America because there are certainly many more millions of working class families throughout the rest of the Americas. While all of us should strive to contribute as much toward increasing economic knowledge as has Jack Rasmus, he could have easily contributed to the adoption a more accurate new-use vocabulary which would better communicate what he means to say. He lost a teachable moment. Not only can we lose many similar teachable moments, through this style we can inadvertently reinforce the dominant connotation of “America” as the Nation-State by linking it in context, as many writers do, to the actual country name or its substitutes. In fact many writers consciously and unconsciously use the terms America and the USA interchangeably in such a wait as to fuse the two names inextricably in the reader or listeners mind. Thus we find in many periodicals in which the dominant use of the term America is supported by the occasional connection to the second term United States or USA. We, more critically aware writers and speakers can make easy correction by consistently using the more precise name and its variations, and contextualizing it coherently. While the problems are admittedly challenging it is completely defeatist to say they are uncorrectable. I argue that we can overcome all the historic warnings and urgings with relative ease, if we look at the debate as a cooperative effort to achieve a more effective use of existing language and clearly connected modifications such as USAmerican. Assuming many of us have learned how to avoid the internecine damage inflicted on ourselves through earlier acrimonious debates, we can more productively open a collective intellectual atmosphere conducive to a more creative discussion. To achieve this cooperative working atmosphere we must accept three important prerequisites: first we must agree that the discussion/debate should be cooperative and relatively costless. The discussions should emerge in small circles of like-minded people who would strive for a similar language effect in speech and in print. The audience should also be clearly defined and temporarily limited to those with similar goals. Finally the results should be published in journals where the wider debate would most likely be respectfully but critically advanced. This initial approach has many advantages. It brings together mutually supportive people who have a common desire to influence the vocabulary and hence the consciousness of people who would work for social/political change. By developing a consensus in widening circles of effective speakers and writers of many strata of society, broadly aligned with the Anti-imperialist, anti-globalization process, we have a potential for these organic intellectuals, to diffuse a new-use vocabulary that will gradually be adopted in popular parlance. Rather than give in to the dominant usage because we suspect that the issue is beyond our reach and because think we will not gain a hearing, I argue that, socially and politically aware educators, writers and speakers can effect a change, with very little effort, through their normal daily intellectual work. While I will admit that we are late, and that we face a huge educational task to change the widely inculcated uses of the many applications of the noun “America”, we also can use its popularity to literally reverse its meaning. The present and expanding use of the term “USAmerica” is fully recognizable and presents many advantages in English and all the Romance Languages. It is almost poetical. In its Latin base form it overcomes all the objections noted in the paragraph above. It is easy to incorporate in our speech and writings; it translates and clarifies the term America by connecting it to the United States as it plainly identifies who and what and then clearly links the answers to the implicit questions to the United States of America without any ambiguity. In one language movement The US part is clearly identified with the Americas in such a way that it can only be construed a single country name and hence the continental name “America” stands alone to be is instantly liberated from its exclusive use as a national name. We cannot in good conscious leave the language space uncontested. In its present erroneous form it is an offense to all thinking people. While the suggestion presented above, USAmerica, will not be the only alternative term introduced in future debates, it does stimulate creative thinking. The other terms that may emerge and those that may be offered by other creative thinkers will gain popularity as they resonate usefully and accurately in the unconscious thought of ordinary people. In and through this and broader discussions of accurate, alternative language development we are directly engaging an authoritarian culture of domination. In the proposed discussion our task is relatively easy because at the present level we are openly challenging clear errors and confronting myth with realty. We are on firm ground. I repeat to clarify and emphasize: There is no country named America, period: it is wrong. Of course someone will revert to the point that it is wrong but accepted. I argue that despite its wide acceptance, language is mutable and we can influence its change through practice. The appropriation of the name America as part the National name of the thirteen original, break-away, British Colonies, whether by chance or a cleverly insightful choice, appears to have held to the exclusion of all other claims. We have Puerto Rico, Cuba or Bolivia but none are recognized as part of the restricted Nationalist “America”. Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Haitians, Mexicans and Hondurans are indisputably Americans but they are denied, through political practice and now perhaps deliberate propaganda, claim to the name. The Spanish still refer to the Americas as Ibero-America, while the name, Hispanic-America, is also widely disputed. While there is certainly open space for conscious anti-imperialists to contest the ludicrous claims to the name America by the USA, we can almost imagine the USA going to the World Court to make an exclusive proprietary claim to the term “America” under some WTO clause on intellectual property rights. Admittedly we are behind in this task and we lack the resources that can be mobilized by the ruling elite of the USA but we also have many simple advantages given to us by the errors of the US-imperialist State. Within the ruling elite of the United States of America we increasingly read and listen to their self adulating claims to cultural superiority which become more shrill as their actions drain them of meaning. As the hollow tone of the vacuous claims of moral and cultural superiority are publicly shattered by the ruthlessness of the economic and military aggression launched by the United States of America against the World since the end of World War Two, we face a more urgent obligation and an opportunity to publicly distinguish ourselves, at minimum, through our language as those who think another world is possible. The challenges of taking on this debate again are as delicate as they are important. Language has power and, as we teach, we must use it effectively. As a preliminary step in our strategy, I suggest we ask ourselves if we can re-appropriate and reorient the use of the term or simply de-legitimize its current exclusivity as used by the US National-Imperialists. We can start by recognizing that the Mexicans have a country they call The United States of Mexico: it is an American country. The Cubans are Americans and The Puerto Ricans, upon winning independence, may call their new country Boriquen of the Caribbean-Americas or simply by the uniquely recognizable Boriquen. Perhaps, if and when the Countries of the Southern Americas form themselves into an integrated political-economic unit, they will re-appropriate the term America or change it. Creatively we can confront fiction and myth with facts and subject absurd errors with unrelenting humor. There is no doubt about one point raised in our present discussion, we must find a way to re-appropriate the term America because we can not allow it to become the property of one State, which through its contrived manipulations of reality in terminology, attempts to cultivate the notion that its policies are the Policies of the all the American Nations as suggested in the term “American Foreign Policy”. We, anti-imperialist, cooperative internationalist must find many ways to dominate the conventional language of exclusion and reconstruct a broad concept of the inclusive notion of who are Americans and what is American . “America the Beautiful” is in fact splendid in its natural elegance, its people rich in cultural and linguistic diversity but its full radiant splendor is not limited to the Borders of The United States of America. The Americas are beautiful. While I restrain myself from offering many more comments for our evaluation of this topic, the following statement made by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz summarizes the visceral pain and frustration felt by too many excluded Americans. Referring to two books she was reviewing in Monthly Review, January 2007 Vol. 58, No. 8 page 53, “Empire’s Workshop: Latin America by Greg Grandin and “Overthrow: America’s Century of Regime Change From Hawaii to Iraq” by Steven Kinzer, she wrote: “A final note: Both Grandin and Kinzer use ‘America’ and ‘Americans’ to indicate the United States and its citizens, something that grinds on me, particularly the contradiction for anyone who is criticizing U.S. Imperialism to appropriate ‘America’ as belonging to the United States, having then to qualify Latin America, Central America and South America.” We too should recognize that our attentive use of language is an integral aspect of an ongoing political struggle to develop and sustain an anti-imperialist consciousness and contribute to a more truthful self-awareness. The points made and examples given on the use of language have revealed the deeply colonized mind of a broad section of the intelligentsia of the USA, who rarely seem to notice the profoundly inculcated, cultural bias in their thought. We should also reexamine similar debates during the 1960′s and 70′s. Because of our past errors we will now be forced revisit our recent history and perhaps make a small contribution to a more realistic assessment of the cultural power of language. As we work to collectively find more precise expressions for the ideas we wish to clearly convey, we must reject, from all sides, accusations of censorship and “political correctness”. Censorship has no legitimate place in our discussion circle. We are not talking about censorship but working cooperatively to re-appropriate language, giving it more specific denotative and connotative meaning and when necessary constructing new useful terms. As to the potential criticism of political correctness, we can respond that we are simply making overdue factual corrections. In our discussion the issue is not one of censorship of a hostile confrontation but one of an open dialectical discussion on the most effective use of language. The debate we propose to each other should be conducted courteously in an atmosphere of mutual respect in which we strive to achieve the most effective range of communication carrying the greatest potential impact. Our discussion should be focused on the best possible approach to re-appropriating the term America/ans in such a way as to contribute joyfully to returning it to all the Americas and Americans from the North Pole to Tierra del Fuego and throughout the Caribbean.
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