Topic: WE'RE STUFFED!!!

[Michael]

yes, I think one would have to say she was courageous.

She was also a nasty piece of work, who came from a nasty family scene. Ruthless political, landowner family who had no problem murdering their own family members for political reasons. I don't know all the details of her background, but I have heard others speak who's opinion and knowledge I feel confident of enough to have formed the opinion that her path to and through power was a very dirty business.

God, Pak is building into one almighty nightmare for the world. They could do with some good old middle-class democracy, instead of Landowner and Military power bases. Can't see it happening. The Taliban has grown very strong there.

[erik]

yes, I think one would have to say she was courageous.

She was also a nasty piece of work, who came from a nasty family scene. Ruthless political, landowner family who had no problem murdering their own family members for political reasons. I don't know all the details of her background, but I have heard others speak who's opinion and knowledge I feel confident of enough to have formed the opinion that her path to and through power was a very dirty business.

God, Pak is building into one almighty nightmare for the world. They could do with some good old middle-class democracy, instead of Landowner and Military power bases. Can't see it happening. The Taliban has grown very strong there.

Yes, I have heard the same things about Benazir Bhutto - she really was a ruthless power-wielder around whom suspicions of corruption and many more crimes floated constantly.

However, her decision to try to do something in that increasingly Talibanised country makes me admire her courage. It seems that it is enough to be a woman with some social aspirations in Pakistan to have a bunch of murderous lunatics coming after you.

Pakistan is changing quickly. I saw former Pakistani ambassador to UK speaking on BBC channel and pointing that world has largely missed latest developments in Waziristan. He said that increasing numbers of soldiers refuse to fight Taliban and prefer surrender. He said that it might be a sign of things to come...

...Taliban armed with nuclear weapons?
That would be a rupture point in post WWII history then.

[erik]

Pre-emptive nuclear strike a key option, Nato told

http://www.guardian.co.uk/nato/story/0,,2244782,00.html

Ian Traynor in Brussels
Tuesday January 22, 2008
The Guardian

The west must be ready to resort to a pre-emptive nuclear attack to try to halt the "imminent" spread of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, according to a radical manifesto for a new Nato by five of the west's most senior military officers and strategists.

Calling for root-and-branch reform of Nato and a new pact drawing the US, Nato and the European Union together in a "grand strategy" to tackle the challenges of an increasingly brutal world, the former armed forces chiefs from the US, Britain, Germany, France and the Netherlands insist that a "first strike" nuclear option remains an "indispensable instrument" since there is "simply no realistic prospect of a nuclear-free world".

 The manifesto has been written following discussions with active commanders and policymakers, many of whom are unable or unwilling to publicly air their views. It has been presented to the Pentagon in Washington and to Nato's secretary general, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, over the past 10 days. The proposals are likely to be discussed at a Nato summit in Bucharest in April.

"The risk of further [nuclear] proliferation is imminent and, with it, the danger that nuclear war fighting, albeit limited in scope, might become possible," the authors argued in the 150-page blueprint for urgent reform of western military strategy and structures. "The first use of nuclear weapons must remain in the quiver of escalation as the ultimate instrument to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction."

The authors - General John Shalikashvili, the former chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff and Nato's ex-supreme commander in Europe, General Klaus Naumann, Germany's former top soldier and ex-chairman of Nato's military committee, General Henk van den Breemen, a former Dutch chief of staff, Admiral Jacques Lanxade, a former French chief of staff, and Lord Inge, field marshal and ex-chief of the general staff and the defence staff in the UK - paint an alarming picture of the threats and challenges confronting the west in the post-9/11 world and deliver a withering verdict on the ability to cope.

The five commanders argue that the west's values and way of life are under threat, but the west is struggling to summon the will to defend them. The key threats are:

· Political fanaticism and religious fundamentalism.

· The "dark side" of globalisation, meaning international terrorism, organised crime and the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

· Climate change and energy security, entailing a contest for resources and potential "environmental" migration on a mass scale.

· The weakening of the nation state as well as of organisations such as the UN, Nato and the EU.

To prevail, the generals call for an overhaul of Nato decision-taking methods, a new "directorate" of US, European and Nato leaders to respond rapidly to crises, and an end to EU "obstruction" of and rivalry with Nato. Among the most radical changes demanded are:

· A shift from consensus decision-taking in Nato bodies to majority voting, meaning faster action through an end to national vetoes.

· The abolition of national caveats in Nato operations of the kind that plague the Afghan campaign.

· No role in decision-taking on Nato operations for alliance members who are not taking part in the operations.

· The use of force without UN security council authorisation when "immediate action is needed to protect large numbers of human beings".

In the wake of the latest row over military performance in Afghanistan, touched off when the US defence secretary, Robert Gates, said some allies could not conduct counter-insurgency, the five senior figures at the heart of the western military establishment also declare that Nato's future is on the line in Helmand province.

"Nato's credibility is at stake in Afghanistan," said Van den Breemen.

"Nato is at a juncture and runs the risk of failure," according to the blueprint.

Naumann delivered a blistering attack on his own country's performance in Afghanistan. "The time has come for Germany to decide if it wants to be a reliable partner." By insisting on "special rules" for its forces in Afghanistan, the Merkel government in Berlin was contributing to "the dissolution of Nato".

Ron Asmus, head of the German Marshall Fund thinktank in Brussels and a former senior US state department official, described the manifesto as "a wake-up call". "This report means that the core of the Nato establishment is saying we're in trouble, that the west is adrift and not facing up to the challenges."

Naumann conceded that the plan's retention of the nuclear first strike option was "controversial" even among the five authors. Inge argued that "to tie our hands on first use or no first use removes a huge plank of deterrence".

Reserving the right to initiate nuclear attack was a central element of the west's cold war strategy in defeating the Soviet Union. Critics argue that what was a productive instrument to face down a nuclear superpower is no longer appropriate.

Robert Cooper, an influential shaper of European foreign and security policy in Brussels, said he was "puzzled".

"Maybe we are going to use nuclear weapons before anyone else, but I'd be wary of saying it out loud."

Another senior EU official said Nato needed to "rethink its nuclear posture because the nuclear non-proliferation regime is under enormous pressure".

Naumann suggested the threat of nuclear attack was a counsel of desperation. "Proliferation is spreading and we have not too many options to stop it. We don't know how to deal with this."

Nato needed to show "there is a big stick that we might have to use if there is no other option", he said.

The Authors:

John Shalikashvili

The US's top soldier under Bill Clinton and former Nato commander in Europe, Shalikashvili was born in Warsaw of Georgian parents and emigrated to the US at the height of Stalinism in 1952. He became the first immigrant to the US to rise to become a four-star general. He commanded Operation Provide Comfort in northern Iraq at the end of the first Gulf war, then became Saceur, Nato's supreme allied commander in Europe, before Clinton appointed him chairman of the joint chiefs in 1993, a position he held until his retirement in 1997.

Klaus Naumann

Viewed as one of Germany's and Nato's top military strategists in the 90s, Naumann served as his country's armed forces commander from 1991 to 1996 when he became chairman of Nato's military committee. On his watch, Germany overcame its post-WWII taboo about combat operations, with the Luftwaffe taking to the skies for the first time since 1945 in the Nato air campaign against Serbia.

Lord Inge

Field Marshal Peter Inge is one of Britain's top officers, serving as chief of the general staff in 1992-94, then chief of the defence staff in 1994-97. He also served on the Butler inquiry into Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction and British intelligence.

Henk van den Breemen

An accomplished organist who has played at Westminster Abbey, Van den Breemen is the former Dutch chief of staff.

Jacques Lanxade

A French admiral and former navy chief who was also chief of the French defence staff.

The time is bloody running out.

[erik]

They are writing that there was a ruthless and spectacular post office robbery in Göteborg. Robbers had assault rifles and left explosive devices behind (at the police station) to slow down pursuit. Apparently, the robbers also set cars on fire to complicate pursuit. Sounds almost like a war to my ears.

You wouldn't quite expect such a stuff in Nordic countries. Yet they also say that in Finland (where there was that school shooting with eight killed) the number of threats to schools keeps growing dramatically.

[erik]

The five commanders argue that the west's values and way of life are under threat, but the west is struggling to summon the will to defend them.

That sounds like an Ancient Rome under attack of barbarians. Then also many calls were voiced to defend the 'Roman values', defend the 'empire'. Yet Romans never listened to these calls. Their army consisted of the people recruited from various tribes and Romans themselves had lost faith in the 'Roman values'. Besides - these values had been defended for centuries and it all seemed probably so incredibly pointless after having been done so many times. So Roman values were left behind.

I wonder if it is the same situation repeating itself in different time - West/white man has fought endless number of wars for god knows how many values and reasons. Isn't there - deep down - utter weariness of these words; of hollow calls to arms to defend something that has been already so thoroughly experienced that it has lost its value? Although Western culture increasingly propagates total sclerosis, does its utmost to shorten the attention span, and tries to erase any historical memory (just look at what and how they teach in schools!), knowledge of the past lives on inside every person. Though we never learned some things in schools, we know them through a very long experience and thus these things are not unknown, but known. There is no reason to make an effort in defence of things letting us experience the past again. One cannot defend yesterday.


Thus - who cares - over and above the concern for personal security?

[erik]

Amazon's rescue reversed

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2246547,00.html

Space imaging gives the lie to Brazil's recent 'great achievement' of halting rainforest destruction

Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro
Friday January 25, 2008
The Guardian

In a world of climate change and general environmental degradation, it was one ecological disaster that had apparently been averted.

After decades of steady obliteration, the tide appeared to have turned against the illegal deforestation that has disfigured the world's largest tropical rainforest. Brazil's president, Lula da Silva, went on the radio in August to trumpet the breakthrough. His environment minister, Marina Silva, hailed "a great achievement for Brazilian society".

Yesterday, however, the good news came to a halt when ministers admitted that after three years on the wane deforestation had once again risen sharply.

Article continues
Government satellite images show that at least 1,280 sq miles (3,235 sq kilometers) of rainforest were lost between August and December last year, mainly because of soy planting and cattle ranching. Environment ministry officials believe the true figure could be as high as 2,700 sq miles (7,000 sq kilometers).

"Never before have we detected such a high deforestation rate at this time of year," said Gilberto Câmara, the head of the National Institute for Space Research (Inpe), which is responsible for monitoring the Amazon region. "We had never seen this before in Amazonia."

The Brazilian Amazon has been decimated by a combination of loggers, farmers and ranchers over the last 40 years. Environmentalists say as much as 20% of the rainforest has already been destroyed, mostly since the 70s. A further 40% could be lost by 2050 if that trend is not reversed, they estimate.

Yesterday, after Lula called an emergency cabinet meeting, officials announced a crackdown on loggers and farmers. João Paulo Capobianco, the executive secretary of the environment ministry, said the figures were "extremely worrying".

They show that the state with the highest level of deforestation is Mato Grosso, an agricultural frontier that produces the bulk of Brazil's soy exports.

Paulo Adario, the Amazon director of Greenpeace in Brazil, said government measures had brought some success but that "what the government does not control is the economic reality. It is the economy that controls deforestation. Each time the prices of meat and soy rise so does deforestation."

Adario said it was particularly worrying that the rise had taken place towards the end of the year, a period when traditionally less deforestation takes place because rain makes cutting or burning down trees more difficult.

Environmental campaigners first began to voice concern over a possible rise in deforestation in May last year. In September the Guardian flew over the north of Mato Grosso and the south of Para with a group of Greenpeace activists. In both regions signs of increasing deforestation were easy to spot. In Mato Grosso vast tracts of land smouldered, clearing the way for soy plantations. The landscape was littered with fallen, scorched trees scattered like matchsticks. In Para state a web of illegal dirt roads was visible, meandering through the relatively intact rainforest towards newly cleared areas.

In the Amazonian frontier town of Novo Progresso one of the region's leading farmers, Agamenon da Silva Menezes, described government plans to eradicate deforestation as "the biggest load of rubbish I have ever heard.

"It is definitely going to rise," he said.

Marina Silva, the environment minister, yesterday announced a new anti-deforestation drive focusing on 36 areas. One of these is Sao Felix do Xingu, a cattle ranching town in the state of Para, where the mayor recently banned the use of motorcycle helmets because gunmen employed by powerful ranchers had used them to disguise their identities when carrying out killings. Also on the list is Colniza, an agricultural town in Mato Grosso, which has Brazil's highest murder rate.

Silva compared the government's attempts to preserve the rainforest to a doctor trying to save a patient: "Sometimes a doctor does everything he can for the patient but there are variables," she said. "So the doctor adjusts the medication."

"The government needs to act now," said Adario. "Otherwise the measures will have an effect one year, and the next the patient's fever will return and he will end up back in hospital."

Backstory

Generous US subsidies for biofuel crops are a big factor behind the sudden deforestation. Thousands of US farmers have switched from soya to maize to produce ethanol, which has increased the world soya price and encouraged Brazilian farmers to clear forests for soya farms and buy up large expanses of cattle pasture.

This has pushed ranchers further into the Amazon and made cattle food more costly, creating another incentive for forest conversion to pasture.

A report in the journal Nature warned that 40% of the Amazon could be lost by 2050 if the trends continue. Much of the soya is shipped to Europe to feed cattle.
John Vidal

[erik]

Why is the world's biggest landfill in the Pacific Ocean?
by Jacob Silverman

http://science.howstuffworks.com/great-pacific-garbage-patch.htm

­ ­In the broad expanse of the northern Pacific Ocean, there exists the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, a slowly moving, clockwise spiral of currents created by a high-pressure system of air currents. The area is an oceanic desert, filled with tiny phytoplankton but few big fish or mammals. Due to its lack of large fish and gentle breezes, fishermen and sailors rarely travel through the gyre. But the area is filled with something besides plankton: trash, millions of pounds of it, most of it plastic. It's the largest landfill in the world, and it floats in the middle of the ocean.

The gyre has actually given birth to two large masses of ever-accumulating trash, known as the Western and Eastern Pacific Garbage Patches, sometimes collectively called the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The Eastern Garbage Patch floats between Hawaii and California; scientists estimate its size as two times bigger than Texas [source: LA Times]. The Western Garbage Patch forms east of Japan and west of Hawaii. Each swirling mass of refuse is massive and collects trash from all over the world. The patches are connected by a thin 6,000-mile long current called the Subtropical Convergence Zone. Research flights showed that significant amounts of trash also accumulate in the Convergence Zone.

The garbage patches present numerous hazards to marine life, fishing and tourism. But before we discuss those, it's important to look at the role of plastic. Plastic constitutes 90 percent of all trash floating in the world's oceans [source: LA Times]. The United Nations Environment Program estimated in 2006 that every square mile of ocean hosts 46,000 pieces of floating plastic [source: UN Environment Program]. In some areas, the amount of plastic outweighs the amount of plankton by a ratio of six to one. Of the more than 200 billion pounds of plastic the world produces each year, about 10 percent ends up in the ocean [source: Greenpeace]. Seventy percent of that eventually sinks, damaging life on the ocean floor [source: Greenpeace]. The rest floats; much of it ends up in gyres and the massive garbage patches that form there, with some plastic eventually washing up on a distant shore.

The main problem with plastic -- besides there being so much of it -- is that it doesn't biodegrade. No natural process can break it down. (Experts point out that the durability that makes plastic so useful to humans also makes it quite harmful to nature.) Instead, plastic photodegrades. A plastic cigarette lighter cast out to sea will fragment into smaller and smaller pieces of plastic without breaking into simpler compounds, which scientists estimate could take hundreds of years. The small bits of plastic produced by photodegradation are called mermaid tears or nurdles.

These tiny plastic particles can get sucked up by filter feeders and damage their bodies. Other marine animals eat the plastic, which can poison them or lead to deadly blockages. Nurdles also have the insidious property of soaking up toxic chemicals. Over time, even chemicals or poisons that are widely diffused in water can become highly concentrated as they're mopped up by nurdles. These poison-filled masses threaten the entire food chain, especially when eaten by filter feeders that are then consumed by large creatures.

Plastic has acutely affected albatrosses, which roam a wide swath of the northern Pacific Ocean. Albatrosses frequently grab food wherever they can find it, which leads to many of the birds ingesting -- and dying from -- plastic and other trash. On Midway Island, which comes into contact with parts of the Eastern Garbage Patch, albatrosses give birth to 500,000 chicks every year. Two hundred thousand of them die, many of them by consuming plastic fed to them by their parents, who confuse it for food [source: LA Times]. In total, more than a million birds and marine animals die each year from consuming or becoming caught in plastic and other debris.

Besides killing wildlife, plastic and other debris damage boat and submarine equipment, litter beaches, discourage swimming and harm commercial and local fisheries. The problem of plastic and other accumulated trash affects beaches and oceans all over the world, including at both poles. Land masses that end up in the path of the rotating gyres receive particularly large amounts of trash. The 19 islands of the Hawaiian archipelago, including Midway, receive massive quantities of trash shot out from the gyres. Some of the trash is decades old. Some beaches are buried under five to 10 feet of trash, while other beaches are riddled with "plastic sand," millions of grain-like pieces of plastic that are practically impossible to clean up.

Most of this trash doesn't come from seafaring vessels dumping junk -- 80 percent of ocean trash originates on land [source: LA Times]. The rest comes from private and commercial ships, fishing equipment, oil platforms and spilled shipping containers (the contents of which frequently wash up on faraway shores years later).

Some efforts can help to stem the tide of refuse. International treaties prohibiting dumping at sea must be enforced. Untreated sewage shouldn't be allowed to flow into the ocean. Many communities and even some small island nations have eliminated the use of plastic bags. These bags are generally recyclable, but billions of them are thrown away every year. On the Hawaiian Islands, cleanup programs bring volunteers to the beaches to pick up trash, but some beaches, even those subjected to regular cleanings, are still covered in layers of trash several feet thick.

Scientists who have studied the issue say that trawling the ocean for all of its trash is simply impossible and would harm plankton and other marine life. In some areas, big fragments can be collected, but it's simply not possible to thoroughly clean a section of ocean that spans the area of a continent and extends 100 feet below the surface [source: UN Environment Program].

Nearly all experts who speak about the subject raise the same point: It comes down to managing waste on land, where most of the trash originates. They recommend lobbying companies to find alternatives to plastic, especially environmentally safe, reusable packaging. Recycling programs should be expanded to accommodate more types of plastic, and the public must be educated about their value.

In October 2006, the U.S. government established the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands Marine Monument. This long string of islands, located northwest of Hawaii, frequently comes into contact with the Eastern Garbage Patch. After the creation of the monument, Congress passed legislation to increase funding for cleanup efforts and ordered several government agencies to expand their cleanup work. It may be an important step, especially if it leads to more government attention to a problem that, while dire, has only received serious scientific attention since the early 1990s.

[nichi]

An old friend of mine today forwarded me this email going around. On the surface, it looks like some white people whining, but the underbelly of it is so dark I can barely describe it.

Yes, in these "modern" times, laying in wait, pretending to be against the "politically-correct" police, are these pockets of white-power racists in this country. If the "nukes" proliferating all over the world and the disastrous effects associated with global warming don't send us to the stone age, this mentality will. Watch out!

(I'll only keep this up for a less than a day, because it's so disgusting I don't want to taint this place. But I thought it was an eye-opener, to demonstrate the primitive thread of hatred which exists in the US. And this is mild, believe me .. it can get much much worse. This is entry-level white supremacy bullshit.)

...removed as promised

[Jahn]

I am afraid that we have the same problem here too.
And I am afraid that we are not that happy with our African immigrants either or all the people from Iraq. But this is a new problem, there was no problem with immigrants before 1990 or -95. Things has gone very fast and all immigrants does not get job so they get criminal. They, from the middle east and Kurdistan, Turkey, treat their women very bad, even kill their daughters if they find a reason like that she want to adopt western standards, get a boy they do not approve of etc.

So we aborginals keep the distance and integration becomes harder for those that doesn't get a job.

[nichi]

Jahn, a friend of mine back in the 90's married a Turk. He was gloriously handsome, kind, genteel, educated, western-ized, and poetic, but there was one little problem (which broke them up): he maintained, without blinking an eye, without a shred of doubt, that it would be his duty to kill his daughter if she became sexually active before she was married. He meant it!

Now there is a culture clash for sure .. perhaps even a matter for Human Rights in the World.

This thing I posted above, unfortunately, goes back to the roots of the US. It's not new at all. It runs deep, too. My state, Virginia, is full of it.

This friend of mine who sent me this is an ex, actually. He had/has this secret life. It was wise of him to never disclose it to me, because in that sort of intimacy I could never stay quiet.  There are these groupings of vigilante-types... they've always been here, long before we were worried about tefforists and war. Some of them wear pointed masks:





So what's happened here, post-9/11, is that those who were racist all along are couching their "concerns" in the drive to secure our borders. But I guarantee you, those good old boys were "goin' to the meetin" long before 9/11.

[erik]

Isn't there a bit of acknowledgement of reality in the complaints of that 'white boy'? I mean, there are always two sides to the confrontation?

[nichi]

Isn't there a bit of acknowledgement of reality in the complaints of that 'white boy'? I mean, there are always two sides to the confrontation?

Some would agree with you, Juhani. They would call it "reverse discrimination." They don't get very far in their quest, typically, to make that case.

I'm looking at the implicit message in the thing ... it wasn't necessary, for example, to haul out all those epithets. Hatred is easy to sniff out ... and this stuff was entrenched long before the country implemented "affirmative action".

[erik]

Hatred or not, but there is difference in world views and cultures. When you bring people from, say 15th century Afghanistan, to your country, you cannot seriously talk about 'integration'. It is impossible. For example, contemporary Western society simply will not tolerate 'honour killings' mentioned by Jahn.

Integration seems to be failing everywhere in Western societies. I doubt, if the integration ever has actually occurred - maybe immigrant minorities were initially simply to small to elicit sufficient response from host societies.

The political correctness is in this context merely an attempt to plaster over the gap...and monumentally sickening it can be with all its mindlessness and inability to acknowledge the real problems.

The whole point is about world views and ways of changing them.
The path shows at every step how very hard it is even in the case of one person.

[nichi]

Hatred or not, but there is difference in world views and cultures. When you bring people from, say 15th century Afghanistan, to your country, you cannot seriously talk about 'integration'. It is impossible. For example, contemporary Western society simply will not tolerate 'honour killings' mentioned by Jahn.

Integration seems to be failing everywhere in Western societies. I doubt, if the integration ever has actually occurred - maybe immigrant minorities were initially simply to small to elicit sufficient response from host societies.

The difference between Europe and the US on this assimilation of multiple cultures has this paradox about it, one that I don't think can be ignored:
White society in the US is the interloper! It was accomplished through the attempted genocide, conquering and internment of native americans -- it was built on the backs of African slaves in the 18th and 19th century. Strange that we whites could view ourselves as "hosts".

I realize it's "realistic" to see it that way .. that the culture we brought is simply the conquering culture, and "that is that". But what is the conquering culture? My observation is that it is an amorphous thing in the US, this "white" identity -- it could mean anything: very few know the roots of their DNA... 
What is its identity, beyond its deeply puritannical and christian roots? I couldn't even identify for you what is a good puritan, christian culinary dish!

It is the mixture of everything. It really is! Until that mixture is celebrated and embraced as a strength rather than a source of revulsion, there will always be trouble.

Most of my childhood occured in Paterson, New Jersey, 20 minutes from New York City. I would walk home from school and smell dinners cooking along the way. There was a Puerto Rican block, a German block, a Greek block, an Italian block, a Hebrew block: everyone's mother spoke a different language. Our neighbors came from India. I loved that as a kid, and I thought that that was the way-the-world-was, and when I came to the South, I was shocked at the sea of white people, all dressing alike. When my mother brought me to my Junior High School,  I saw all the (white) girls, all wearing the same sort of shoes, skirts, and blouses, and I honestly exclaimed to my mother: "I didn't know this school had uniforms!"  It was so boring and homogenized and soulless.  And the call for conformity to it set me back decades.

Of course, I was a child and didn't know any better.

What is white culture? I'll be darned if I know! It's in charge, I don't doubt it, but what the hell is it?
You can say you're Estonian, Jahn can say he's Swedish, but we interlopers don't really know from whence we came. It's a rare few... I have no "traditional costume" I can bring out of the closet to celebrate. So what are my roots, what is my culture? Indentured servants, starving diasporans? Ancestors who were on the lam? Secrets no one dares mention: that's my culture. I don't think I'm unique there.

The political correctness is in this context merely an attempt to plaster over the gap...and monumentally sickening it can be with all its mindlessness and inability to acknowledge the real problems.

Agreed.

[erik]

What is white culture? I'll be darned if I know! It's in charge, I don't doubt it, but what the hell is it?
You can say you're Estonian, Jahn can say he's Swedish, but we interlopers don't really know from whence we came. It's a rare few... I have no "traditional costume" I can bring out of the closet to celebrate. So what are my roots, what is my culture? Indentured servants, starving diasporans? Ancestors who were on the lam? Secrets no one dares mention: that's my culture. I don't think I'm unique there.

It's simpler - you're American in relation other nationalities. If you said that 'American' is your 'identity', I'd say you have some role-specific expectations of self. You as an 'American' have your specific role to play with regard to 'non-Americans' - e.g. tell them how it is in America (that is quite something - call the US America while there are more countries around)

In international relations 'America' has been a 'bastion of freedom against bloody commies', 'democracy', 'superpower', 'liberal market economy', etc.

When we talk about 'culture', we could proceed from this:

Culture (from the Latin cultura stemming from colere, meaning "to cultivate,") generally refers to patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activities significance and importance. Different definitions of "culture" reflect different theoretical bases for understanding, or criteria for evaluating, human activity.

Culture is manifested in music, literature, painting and sculpture, theater and film and other things.[1] Although some people identify culture in terms of consumption and consumer goods (as in high culture, low culture, folk culture, or popular culture)[2], anthropologists understand "culture" to refer not only to consumption goods, but to the general processes which produce such goods and give them meaning, and to the social relationships and practices in which such objects and processes become embedded. For them, culture thus includes technology, art, science, as well as moral systems.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture

Hollywood, Big M, McWorld, more than half of senators not having passports, Dubya, JFK, political correctness, country that has never had a Ministry of Culture, puritanic land that has turned pornography into a massive industry, NBA champions call themselves world champions, while the 'Dream Teams' have been whipped pretty impressively at real World Championships and Olympics, etc.

There it is - culture.

There must be some more positive aspects about it as well as 300 million people must produce something positive as well, yet about the overall balance of 'good' and 'bad' I wouldn't tell.

The US used to be 'melting pot': http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melting_Pot

But it has apparently ceased to be one.