Superpower Corrupts

This should've gotten a star, but didn't...

Superpower corrupts absolutely

Great stuff, Mr. Greenwald; I heartily agree with everything you wrote, except for this key point...

A superpower -- especially the world's only superpower -- can be either respected and admired or despised and feared....America's strength has been grounded in the legitimacy and moral credibility of its power.

That's the trap that even liberals run into, with regard to American superpower.

I think a superpower can only truly be feared; only Americans have a vested interest in wanting to be respected and admired; the rest of the world finds the shadow of the colossus intimidating. Whether America is smiling or frowning diplomatically, it carries a civilization-busting nuclear arsenal, a monstrously large military, globally deployed, and a network of autocratic countries dependent on our aid. So long as we vastly outspend the world in such things, we'll always be feared and despised.

The way of earning respect and admiration as a society can't come through exporting our values, funding pro-US regimes, being the world's arms dealer, throwing foreign aid around to foster dependency on American hegemony and beneficence.

No, the strongest way of earning respect and admiration we want from the world is in the conduct of our domestic affairs as a country, how we treat our weak, our sick, our poor, our old, our young -- to build a just and generous society that inspires people in other countries to build just and generous societies of their own, to look at how we do things as a country and say "We want that in our country, too." That is the best demonstration of our values in practice.

From the late 20th century onward, the US has become increasingly mesmerized by the staggering growth of the wealth of the top 1%, and of the ever-advancing militarization of our society: the trappings of empire, while, at home, our society becomes ever less just, ever less generous, ever less worthy of respect and admiration, which erodes whatever legitimacy and moral credibility there is to our power.
-- Slackie Onassis