God Bless America- Is USA special?

God Bless America!- Is USA special? In the second chapter of Time Life’s 1965 ‘The United States ‘ the Oxford University historian Cunliffe has tossed around competing ideas to show that neither one thing or the other may be correct- and concludes his chapter in much the same way; ‘Dualities or unities? Frontier or seaboard? Redskins of paleface? The range of choices remind us of Turner’s ‘subjective history’. There is not final answer….in the present climate of opinion consensus explanations are more in fashion than the other sort. The Harvard historian Arthur Schlesinger Snr has maintained that there is another pattern of American history- a cyclical movement (This is caught by the Torah cycles of seven and fifty years) in which periods of conservatism alternate regularly with radicalism. If so, the recent conservative phase (up until the early 60s) with its revulsion from ideology may have induced historians to read the same mood into various episodes of the past with greater or less justification. Another recent tendency should be noted. Now that America is an established and even and old nation. Scholars have become concerned with the shortcomings of traditional American thought. They believe that the United States was more lucky than chosen and ought to understand that the luck may be running out. As for the past, they would have America grasp that the country was never as exceptional as its citizens liked to think….’ P36 The United States. Time Life World Library. So is luck running out? My own view of USA is based upon my childhood fascination of the big block Chevy V8 engine millions of examples made which I could hear firing up three blocks away from my house and rushed to examine. Or which powered the home built ‘special’ which easily passing everything on the back straight throwing sand far and wide as it cornered took the title at the summer beach racing car club meeting whose roar could be heard miles away on race day. What later disturbed me as I became a car factory worker myself was the sheer excess and impracticality of American engine and auto design. Big, simple, brash, excessive, loud the vehicles handled badly and were easy to crash or roll and used fantastic amounts of hard to obtain fuel as if the stuff- Oil- would last forever. And yes in 1973 going into 1974 USA’s oil reserves did run out so that there was no longer excess supply to pump and the world oil price took off- with currently oil regularly selling on the crude market at over 100 dollars a barrel. Luck? Faith? Stupidly? Well the expansive joy with which American men took to the utterly insane current sport of Drag Car Racing, or how easily tiny ‘where?’ New Zealand dominated the Can Am big block V8 sports car racing of the 1970s illustrates to me all those three things happening at once. Yes Luck Is Running Out! So then work on the other two- Stupidity- If you are reading this don’t be as stupid as you normally would be in reacting to what I am telling you! And Faith! Yes do what has never been done before- why? So that in the days ahead Your family righteous will survive! God Bless America!