The logic of the empire Manifest Destiny was the precursor to today’s U.S. foreign policy line, which claims that America’s exceptional role is to spread democracy and freedom throughout the world. Following the annexation of the Philippines and Hawaii in 1898, then-President Theodore Roosevelt declared: “Of course our whole national history has been one of expansion... That the barbarians recede or are conquered... is due solely to the power of the mighty civilized races... which by their expansion are gradually bringing peace into the red wastes where the barbarian people of the world hold sway.” While less racially explicit, the roots of this worldview are echoed in the words of a more recent U.S. president, George W. Bush, speaking on the war in Iraq: “Freedom is the Almighty’s gift to every man and woman in this world. And as the greatest power on earth we have an obligation to help the spread of freedom.” From: Left or Right of the Color Line? Asian Americans and the Racial Justice Movement
Posted on: Fri, 28 Mar 2014 20:44:35 +0000
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