Episode 38: The Ugly American

In the Great Recession, we were told of companies that were "too big to fail." We had to bail them out because if they went under, the whole shebang would go under. I wonder if America as a nation hasn't become "too big to fail" in current years? We take for granted "American exceptionalism," the broad use of English, and the status of the dollar as the world's reserve currency. Yet - is this guaranteed for all time? NO. Although The Ugly American was published in 1958, its overall message is still relevant.

Links:

https://www.amazon.com/Ugly-American-Eugene-Burdick/dp/0393318672

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ugly_American

https://www.saturdayeveningpost.com/wp-content/uploads/satevepost/mutiny-of-brando-1963.pdf

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2289560/14443293

https://www.newsweek.com/gavin-newsom-slammed-cleaning-san-francisco-1843412


Need more? You can visit the website at: https://consaracytheories.com/ or my own site at: https://saracausey.com/. Don't forget to check out the blog at: https://consaracytheories.com/blog. 

Transcript

Transcription by Otter.ai.  Please forgive any typos!

Welcome to con-sara-cy theories. Are you ready to ask questions you shouldn't and find information you're not supposed to know? Well, you're in the right place. Here is your host, Sara Causey.

Hello, hello, and thanks for tuning in. In tonight's episode, I will be talking about the novel The Ugly American. I intend to do this a little bit backwards from what I typically would normally I would go into some backstory, some mise on scene for you, and then talk about the plot of a movie, a documentary, a book. But I think tonight I want to do the reverse of that, go into the plot of this novel, and then talk about the backstory, why it was relevant when it was published, why it became a national bestseller, why it's relevant even today. Fair morning I have a mountain of laundry going. I'm going to try to time this so you don't hear the dryer buzz or the washer kick off. My sheep have been wild today. They've been up and down off the porches. They know how to knock, as do my horses. My horses know how to knock on the door like people. A couple of my sheep have learned how to ring doorbells. So that's why, sometimes in these broadcasts, you hear noises that you're not going to hear in a studio. All right, this is a low budget affair, as I have said many times before. Nobody pays me to do this. I don't have any sponsors, and I'm not in some million dollar posh studio. It is what it is. So if that happens, I apologize in advance. In the meantime, pour yourself up a frosty beverage of choice, and we will talk about the ugly American in modern vernacular. The idea of an ugly American is often used to denote someone, a tourist or an expat that gets into a foreign country and they are Gosh, entitled and out of step with the native culture that they've gone to. The funny thing is, in this novel, The Ugly American is actually the hero of the story. It has a different meaning in the novel I'll read to you from the back of the paperback copy that I have from the library. That way you can just get a general sense in the episode that lends the book its title. The Ugly American is Homer Atkins, a plain and plain spoken man who has been sent by the US government to advise the Southeast Asian country of sarkan on engineering projects. When Atkins finds badly misplaced priorities and bluntly challenges the entrenched interests, he lays bare a foreign policy gone dangerously wrong, first published in 1958 The Ugly American became a runaway national bestseller for its slashing expose of American arrogance, incompetence and corruption in Southeast Asia in linked stories and vignettes, the book uses gripping storytelling to draw a devastating picture of how the United States was losing the struggle with communism in Asia. End quote, sarkan is a fictional country. So if you're sitting there going, where the hell sarkan? That's because it's a fictional country for the purposes of the novel. And in fact, there's a note from the authors when you first get into this book, from Bill Lederer and Eugene Burdick. It's dated 1958 from Pearl City, Oahu, Territory of Hawaii. This book is written as fiction, but it is based on fact. The things we write about have, in essence, happened. They have happened, not only in Asia, where the story takes place, but throughout the world, in the 59 countries where over 2 million Americans are stationed. At the end of the book, we have added a documentary Epilog, which we hope will convince the reader that what we have written is not just an angry dream, but rather the rendering of fact into fiction, the names, the places, the events are our inventions. Our aim is not to embarrass individuals, but to stimulate thought, and we hope action. End quote. The book opens up with a vignette about the American Ambassador to Sarkhan, who is named Louis Sears, and he's angry because this newspaper that's local to the area has made a political cartoon, a mocking political cartoon about him. I'll read now. The cartoon showed a short fat American, his face perspiring and His mouth opened like a braying mules leading a thin, gracefully built sarcanese Man by a tether around his neck toward a sign bearing two of the few sarcanese words the ambassador could recognize, Coca Cola. Underneath the short fat man was a single English word, Lucky. End quote. This reminded me of that scene in Dr Strangelove where Lionel Mandrake, played by Peter Sellers, is trying to get some change to use a payphone so he can hopefully get through to the President of the United States, who was also played by Peter Sellers, and the military man bat guano, who's with him. He wants him to shoot the lock off the Coca Cola machine. Because, like, I know, I know there's some coins in there. I can get it and use the pay phone. And he's like, Well, if we survive this thing, when this is over, you're going to have to answer directly to the Coca Cola company. I. I thought immediately of that scene, but there's this incendiary cartoon of this fat American, fat, sweaty American, trying to lead this Asian man towards Coca Cola with a tether around his neck. And it's like, God, that's pretty brutal, but it says it all. And one of the things that they skewer in this book are the people who go overseas, particularly in these high level like an ambassadorship kind of role, they don't bother to learn the culture, they don't bother to learn the language. They just go over there like, well, we're going to spread the American way, and you're going to like it. This also made me think of a character that Bono used to do back in the 90s, and the character was called Mr. Mcphisto, which is a play on Mephistopheles from Faust. But there's this line that he does in one of the concerts people of the former Soviet Union. I've given you capitalism so now you can all dream of being as wealthy and glamorous as me. People of Sarajevo, count your blessings. There are people all over the world who have food, heat and security, but they're not on TV like you are. So it is with these ambassadors and other personnel that get lambasted in this book. We're just going to go to these foreign nations. We don't know the culture, we don't speak the language, and we're not going to try to get to know any of the ordinary citizens. We will only mingle with other Americans or other expats, white people who speak English and have some degree of wealth, but the common folk of the country that we're supposed to be assisting, that we're supposed to be building relationships with no forget them. We don't have anything to do with them. We also learned that this particular Ambassador really doesn't care. It's not just that he hasn't bothered to learn the language, which, again, seems to me that it would be standard operating procedure if you're going to be the ambassador of a foreign country where English is not the lingua franca, you would need to learn whatever language is native there. He's only there because he's waiting for a federal judgeship to open up. There was going to be a gap of time before that happened. So he accepts this ambassadorship, but he's just killing time until this federal judgeship opens up. So it's basically like, why should I care about any of these people? I'm here for a good time, not a long time. In contrast to this American Ambassador to sarkan, we learn about the Russian or the Soviet Ambassador named Louis krupitzen. So where the American ambassador has really made no effort at all, you see the opposite going on, like this. Lewis has attended the Moscow school for Asian areas. He's learned how to read and write sarcanes. He's also molded his body to be more in keeping with Eastern traditions than Western traditions. He's learned about the culture. He also understands that Buddhism is the prevalent religion, and has done a study of that. He also has an appreciation of their ancient classical music. He's learned about their literature and drama. He's learned about their musical practices, etc. I mean, he's he's done way more work on the front end before he ever even gets there than the American ambassador has. They also tell this story basically, like it reminds me, in a way, of Shark Tank. You know, sometimes the entrepreneurs go on there and they're just wanting somebody to give them money. And I've heard the shark say before, you can't just throw money at a problem. There's going to have to be a strategy here, but that's what we see the Americans do in this story. They just throw money at the problems. There's a story of how this Russian Ambassador takes a shipment of rice and stencils over it. This is a rice. This rice is a gift from Russia, and because none of the Americans can read either the Russian or the sarcanese, they don't even know what's been done. So the native peoples think that the rice that's coming to them from the United States has actually come from the Soviet Union. We're also told the story of this priest, Father Finnian, and he doesn't go over there like I'm going to cram Christianity down anybody's throat. We're told the story that he's actually read Lenin's what's to be done, Stalin's history of the Communist Party, Engels anti during and finally, Marx's Das Kapital, along with others before he ever goes. We're also told specifically, there was nothing haphazard about Finnian. Here's another passage I want to highlight. Finnian drove north, bumping and slithering along the narrow cart road through the jungle. He knew he had to do at least three things very quickly. First, he had to at least he had to find at least one native Catholic who was courageous. Second, he had to learn the language. Third, he had. To learn to eat the food, which meant he might have to endure several weeks of agonizing dysentery while his intestinal tract developed an immunity to the bacteria in the native food. End quote. But he does those things. He sets about learning what he can of the language, finding someone who's already compatible with him, not forcing his beliefs down anybody's throat, but finding somebody that's already religiously compatible with him, and then learning to eat the native food in this chapter called Nine friends. That's primarily about the work that Finnian is doing there, he has real conversations with real people. There's no force feeding anything. He's just trying to have honest, open dialog. The last little bit in this chapter, nine friends reads before leaving Burma, Father Finnian added a paragraph to his personal diary. It is reassuring to learn that what is humane and decent and right for people is also attractive to them. He wrote, the evil of communism is that it has masked from native peoples the simple fact that it intends to ruin them when Americans do what is right and necessary, they're also doing what is effective. End quote in the chapter titled employment opportunities, we also learn about this recruiting session where potential employees who might be stationed abroad are told about how exciting and up to American standards that this arrangement will be. I want to read a little bit of this to you now. Joe went on for 20 minutes. He was expert at using the concrete example and answering the practical question. He knew about the price of alligator shoes in Brazil, the cost of Scotch in Japan, the availability of servants in Vietnam, the pension one could expect after 20 years of faithful service, he told about commissaries, which stocked wholesome American food for Americans stationed all over the world. You can buy the same food in Asia that you can in Peoria. Even say in Saigon, they stock American ice cream, bread, cake and well, anything you want. Said, Joe Bing, we look out for our people when you live overseas, it's still on the high American Standard end quote. When it's time to field questions, there's a girl that says, Well, what about learning to speak a foreign language when you have to learn the language of a country before you go there? And so Joe Bing is like, No. Uncle Sam is not crazy. How many people do you think we could round up in this country who can speak Cambodian or Japanese or even German? Well, not very many. I don't parley Vu very well myself, but I've always made out pretty well in foreign countries. Fact is, we don't expect you to know the native language translators are a dime a dozen overseas, and besides, it's better to make the Asians learn English. Helps them too. Most of the foreigners you'll do business with speak perfect English. Somebody else says, Well, I have heard it's expensive overseas. Could we ever save any money? He laughs and says, Well, look, your housing's all paid for. Your only expenses are food, liquor. If you drink clothes and servants, you can buy a whole family of servants for $40 a month. End Quote, we learn that this Ambassador Sears has gotten his judgeship and so he'll be coming home, and in his report to the State Department, he tells them that sarkan is more firmly than ever on the side of America. So it's basically like in order to make himself look good and paper over the real problems that are going on there, he's just going to send in a final report of everything's fine. We're doing great, in contrast to the outgoing ambassador, who didn't give a damn the new ambassador, mcwhite, has prepared for the ambassadorship by learning the sarcanese language. He's read every book that he could find on sarcanese history and political life. He's talked to anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists, diplomats and businessmen, and he's also read the reports of his predecessor, so he's made much, much more effort coming in than the last guy ever even thought about making There's a famous passage from this book that I want to read for you now. This is a conversation that's going on between Ambassador mcwhite and the Minister of Defense for the Philippines, Ramon Magsaysay, the simple fact is, Mr. Ambassador, that average Americans in their natural state, if you will excuse the phrase, are the best ambassadors a country can have. They are not suspicious, they are eager to share their skills. They are generous. But something happens to most Americans when they go abroad. Many of them are not average. They are second raters. Many of them, against their own judgment, feel that they must live up to their commissaries in big cars and cocktail parties. But get an unaffected American sir, and you have an asset. And if you get one treasure him, keep him out of the cocktail circuit, away from bureaucrats, and let him work in his own way. Do you know any around mcwhite asked Riley, I could use a few on my own staff. End quote. So this is a little bit like the modern idea of the ugly American, somebody that gets to a foreign country and they're gauche and spoiled and entitled, instead of eating something from the natural cuisine of that. Country, they just want to eat a McDonald's hamburger, that sort of thing. The story is also told of a group of Legionnaires and a French commander that have been losing against the communists. And it's like, well, have any of you actually ever bothered to read the military tactics of the communists? I mean, have any of you bothered to read like the works of Chairman Mao, no, we don't need to learn anything new. We've done it this way. This way has always worked well, but you're losing like, don't you think it would be beneficial to take a look at what their tactics are? So this is another point of indictment in this book. Is like going off to foreign countries, getting involved in foreign wars, and you don't even know what the hell you're doing. You don't even know what's going on. You haven't bothered to read any source material in chapter 13, which is titled, What would you do if you were president, there's this fictional journalist named ou Mong Sui. And in this discussion, the question is asked, What in general, has caused America's loss of prestige? And he answers, the Americans I knew in the United States were wonderfully friendly, unassuming and interested in the world. No one who has ever visited America and come to know the country could fail to trust and respect her people for some reason. However, the Americans I meet in my country are not the same as the ones I knew in the United States. A mysterious change seems to come over Americans when they go to a foreign land, they isolate themselves socially, they live pretentiously. They're loud and ostentatious. Perhaps they're frightened and defensive, or maybe they've not been properly trained and make mistakes out of ignorance. I've been to Russia too. On the whole, I have small regard for the Russians as a people, but individual Russians, I mean, in Burma, make an excellent impression. One does not notice them on the street too often. They have been taught our local sensitivities and usually manage to avoid abusing them. And they all speak and read our language and have no need for Burmese interpreters, translators and servants, so no Berman sees their feet of clay. End Quote throughout this novel, we're also told about average people doing average things, but the the average things that they're doing are so incredibly impactful. Like, the story is told of this couple that teaches a group of others in Burma like, how to grow a garden, how to better fertilize, how to use better, like canning and preservation, so that the abundance of food that you're getting won't spoil. If you can can it at home in a way that's sanitary and safe to avoid the botulism, then you can take it into town, you can use it for storage. You could give it to somebody else that's in need, and it like completely opens up a whole new world, we also learn about a water pump. That's one of the main things that the titular character, the Ugly American, does, is he has this factory that to start making water pumps, but I'll get there anyway. The the novel is littered with these stories of people doing not the big, grandiose things. We're going to clear out a section of forest and build a huge freeway, we're going to build dams, and the types of things that American programs so often focus on, these huge, multi million dollar projects, just things that the native people can do, can be taught to do, and with their own natural resources on hand, there's A story of this man named Tom Knox, for example, who teaches about the growth and the health of raising chickens, how to get better egg production, for example. And this changes the lives of many people. The title character Homer Atkins, who is the quote, Ugly American. One of the things that he says is, you don't need dams and roads, maybe later, but right now, you need to concentrate on first things, largely things that your own people can manufacture and use. I don't know much about farming or city planning or that kind of thing, but I can tell you that your people need other things besides military roads. You ever hear of a food shortage being solved by someone building a military highway designed to carry tanks and trucks. And the reason why he's called The Ugly American is because he's an engineer with a lot of literally hands on experience like his hands have cuts and calluses and scrapes and dirt and grease on them from years and years of actual work, he gets together with a couple of other people that are of a similar nature there with with some engineering and mechanical skills in Sarkhan, and they start up this factory because there's this dilemma of having to carry water from a long way off, not having adequate water supply for crops, and he's trying to think of ways that he can use whatever is available. Bicycles are readily available. And one of the comments he gets from the sarcanees is you would have to have a separate bicycle. People here use bicycles until they wear out and they're just falling apart to the point of. Unusability, like the family's not going to be able to afford a second bicycle to just use as a water pump. So he goes back to the drawing board and tries to figure out, well, how could they use the bicycle that they already have to also be a water pump? There would have to be a way that it could be on this frame to be used as a water pump, but then also be able to take it off the frame when they needed to ride it to town. And he figures out a way to do that, and it's a smashing success, and it helps a lot of people. His wife also noticed that there are older people in the village that are bent over, and they walk like they have a backache, and she figures out that it's because of the broom handles being short. Wood is in in scarce supply there they don't just have long broom handles. So she figures out some reeds that are in abundant supply and makes longer broom handles. And the people are so happy and excited that now they can sweep standing up instead of hunched over. So it's like the point is these simple things are what really make the biggest difference. We also meet this character named Senator Brown, who goes on a tour of Southeast Asia, but in reality, hardly talks to anybody outside of the diplomatic circles and the upper echelon. So even though he doesn't, he's he's been there, he really hasn't seen reality, and his when he gets back, it's just like, well, I know from firsthand knowledge that things are going well and the Americans are making a good impression, because I was there. It's like, Yeah, you were there, but you only talked in an echo chamber, like you were only around other white people that spoke English. You didn't bother to talk to like the common man on the street because mcwhite, Ambassador, mcwhite, is actually trying to make a difference. He's been in the trenches, literally, and he's learned from the legionnaires, and he's learned from just the common, ordinary person there in Sarkhan. He's making a negative reputation for himself in Washington. He's being seen as a thorn in their flesh. So when he writes back to Washington, like, here's what I think would make the situation better for us. We are not winning this war. America is not being viewed favorably by these people. Here's what I think would make the difference. Number one, he feels like any American Independent sent to sarkhand should be able to both read and write sarkinese language. He feels like no American employee should be allowed to bring his dependents to sarkan Unless he is willing to serve here for at least two years. The commissary should not have anything other than like toiletry items, baby food, canned milk, coffee and tobacco the people generally need to learn the native food, the native food products, and be able to eat those. Americans should not be allowed to bring their private automobiles here. They should use regular transportation that's available in the country, taxi, pedicab, bicycle. All Americans serving in Sarkhan, regardless of their classification should be required to read communist literature. They should know what we're up against from firsthand knowledge. The recruiting program needs to make clear the situation and not come with any illusions. It should not be for people that want a cushy life. It should be for people that are attracted by challenge. So for three weeks after he sends this missive to Washington, he doesn't hear anything back, until he gets a cable from the Secretary of State telling him reply negative to all suggestions on your handwritten note, such actions, even though they have merit, are highly impractical. We would not be able to get Americans to serve overseas under these conditions, please return to the continental US by your first available transportation. Anticipate substantial replacement in your staff. Please explore the sarcanese government their attitude toward receiving Mr. Joseph Bing as new ambassador. We consider his extensive press and recruiting experience excellent qualification for this high position. And then three weeks later, Gilbert mcwhite leaves Joseph being you may remember was the loud, brassy guy at the recruiting meeting. It was like, Oh, you don't have to learn the language. You're going to be living high on the hog when you go to these foreign countries. So it makes sense that they would fire mcwhite and bring this guy in in the final chapter, which is a factual Epilog, they reiterate that even though names and certain locations have been fictionalized, the actual details are not fiction. The stories that they tell are based on real people and real scenarios that have happened. The closing bit of a factual Epilog reads, we have been offering the Asian nations the wrong kind of help. We have so lost sight of our own past that we are trying to sell guns and money alone instead of remembering that it was the quest for the dignity of freedom that was responsible for our own way of life. All over Asia, we have found that the basic American ethic is revered and honored and imitated when possible. We. Must, while helping Asia towards self sufficiently, show by example, that America is still the America of freedom and hope and knowledge and law. If we succeed, we cannot lose the struggle. End, quote, I enjoyed this book a lot. I read it in one sitting on a Saturday afternoon. I wasn't totally sure what to expect. There was a film that was made by the same name in 1963 so this book came out in 1958 and there's a book of the same title based on, or excuse me, there's a film of the same title based on this book that was released in 1963 it stars Marlon Brando as Ambassador mcwhite. As much as it pains me to say this, I am not a big fan of the movie at all. I don't think that it stuck super close to the source material. And frankly, it's just not great. There was a pretty brutal article that appeared in the Saturday Evening Post June 16, 1962 and right above the heading the Saturday Evening Post, it's Marlon Brando, which has been underlined how he wasted $6 million by sulking on the set the article itself, $6 million down the drain. The mutiny of Marlon Brando, a petulant superstar, turns paradise into a movie maker's nightmare, how Brando broke the budget in a marathon remake of Mutiny on the Bounty that was a pretty brutal article. In fact, let me read the first paragraph, since it involves JFK, as does this book. A few months ago, President John F Kennedy invited the noted movie writer director Billy Wilder to have dinner with him. Wilder, who prides himself on his knowledge of world affairs. Was all primed to discuss matters such as Laos Berlin and the wage price spiral. Instead, the president devoted himself to the burning question, when in the world are they going to finish Mutiny on the Bounty this article really, really affected Brando's reputation throughout the 1960s and the films that he was in during that decade, not some of his finest work, to be honest with you, they they don't really go in the same lexicon with A Streetcar Named Desire Julius Caesar on the waterfront, the godfather apocalypse. Now, I mean, you're not going to to watch the ugly American and be like, Wow, that was just an outstanding piece of American filmmaking. That's just my opinion. You can watch it and come to your own conclusion. But Ouch. I know the book is far, far superior at the at the risk of sounding like your typical English major nerd, which I am, slash bookworm, the book, to me, is just so much better than the film. It's worth your time, and it's a surprisingly fast read, and it's an enlightening read, okay, well, Sarah, you're talking about a book that came out in 1958 it's set amidst the Cold War, this battle between the US and the USSR, capitalism versus communism. It also foreshadows the US is disastrous involvement in the Vietnam War. But you know, Sarah, come on, that's all water under the bridge. It's all been and done. Now. Why should I go to the library and check out the ugly American and read it all these years later? Well, I'm glad that you ask. I think that we take American exceptionalism and American dominance of the world sphere for granted. We also take for granted that English is the lingua franca, especially because it is, quote, unquote, the language of the internet. A lot of that has been predicated on the dominance of the US Dollar as the world's reserve currency. I think it's important to understand that that's not necessarily going to last forever. The dollar keeps being devalued and debased basically by the day. If you go and look at the US debt clock, it's this frightening ticker of the trillions of dollars in debt that this country is. We're no longer tied to the gold standard. There's no tangible, holdable thing that the dollar is measured against. I know that may not sound important to some of you, but it's damned important. When you go and you take $1 bill out of your wallet, you're just going to see that it's a Federal Reserve Note. That's why we call it fiat currency. It's not backed by anything real. It has value because the government and the Federal Reserve tell you that it has value. It's just a piece of paper. You may remember back in March, I recorded that crossover episode about the documentary money for nothing. And these are topics that get covered in that documentary about the Federal Reserve, about the various boom and bust cycles that we've had in the US, and how. The dollar has lost so much of its value, you cannot sit and think that American exceptionalism and the US Dollar as the world's reserve currency, those things are just untouchable. It's unfathomable that those things could go away on my daytime podcast and on my blogs, particularly business related blogs, I talk about Lynette Zang, and she, in turn, talks a lot about how you know when a currency is at the end of its life cycle. I'll drop a link to a YouTube video where she talks about that very topic, and you can check it out for yourself. But she's been very outspoken that the dollar is mirroring more and more the end of its currency life cycle. I understand some of you are going to shake your head and say, that's just not possible, but it is possible. And then here we are. We have this attitude that, well, we're always going to be the dominant nation on the globe. Our currency is always going to be the dominant currency. Our language will always be the dominant language. We shouldn't have to put ourselves out to learn anything else, because we're always going to be the top dog. I would not be so sure of that. Let's think back to a moment, to the moment in November 14, 2023 this headline appeared on Newsweek. So this is a major mainstream periodical. This is not something fringe that nobody ever heard of. This was a headline on Newsweek Gavin Newsom slammed for only cleaning up San Francisco for Xi Jinping. California Governor Gavin Newsom has come under fire after admitting that San Francisco was cleaned up ahead of the arrival of fancy leaders for the annual Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Leaders Summit. San Francisco is hosting the summit, which opens Saturday and runs through Friday. The main event is a planned meeting between President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the summit. In the days leading up to the event, homeless encampments in the city's downtown were cleared, sidewalks were polished, graffiti was scrubbed away, and murals and decorative crosswalks were added to busy areas. At a press conference on Thursday, Newsom acknowledged that the cleanup efforts were timed to coincide with the arrival of fancy leaders to San Francisco, which has been struggling to shed its image as a city in decline. I know folks say, Oh, they're just cleaning up this place because all those fancy leaders are coming into town. That's true, because it's true. Newsom said, Okay, well, we're we'll clean up this city. Let's turn into something of a wasteland, because Xi Jinping is coming to town, and we want to look good for him. But yet, America so dominant, so supreme, of course, like we don't have any masters that we're beholden to. Who do you think we're in debt to people? This debt's not just coming from nowhere. I think it's also important to understand this for its historical value. I've talked before about the notion that past is prolog. These things that happened 50, 100 years ago might sound irrelevant to us now, but they're really not. I mean, has American foreign policy greatly improved over the decades? I mean, really, do you think so? We go over to the Wikipedia page for the ugly American. Under the literary Structure tab, we read the novel takes place in a fictional nation called sarkan, an imaginary country in Southeast Asia that somewhat resembles Laos, but which is meant to allude to Vietnam and includes several real people, most of whose names have been changed. The book describes the United States losing struggle against communism because of the ineptitude and the bungling of the US diplomatic corps stemming from an innate arrogance and their failure to understand the local culture. The book implies that the Communists were successful because they practice tactics similar to those of protagonist, Homer Atkins. Homer Atkins was the titular Ugly American of the book, someone who lives with the locals tries to understand what they need and offer actual, real help, not just throwing money at a problem, but actual help. Now I'm going to skim down to the popularity tab. The book was serialized in the Saturday Evening Post in the fall of 1958 and came out as a book of the month club selection in October. The book became an instant bestseller, going through 20 printings from July to November, 1958 remaining on the bestseller list for a year and a half, and ultimately selling 4 million copies. The book caused a sensation in diplomatic circles. I bet it did. John F Kennedy was so impressed with the book that he sent a copy to each of his colleagues in the United States Senate. The book was one of the biggest best sellers in the US. Has been in print continuously since it appeared, and is one of the most politically influential novels in all of American literature. End quote. I'm gonna say this, you know, I admit my bias wherever possible. I do have a soft spot for JFK. You gotta have some good cojones there to be like, I'm gonna buy enough copies of this book and send them to each of my colleagues in the US Senate. Like, y'all need to read this and understand where we're. Missing the mark. I can't even imagine something like that happening today. You would just, I'm sure tell somebody I'm going to have my aide read this. The Congressional aides can read this because I can't be bothered with reading a novel. I'll continue to read a bit more after the book had gained wide readership. The term Ugly American came to be used to refer to the loud and ostentatious type of visitor in another country, rather than the plain looking folks who are not afraid to get their hands dirty, like Homer Atkins, to whom the book itself referred. That's one of the things that I mentioned early on in this episode. We tend to now think of the ugly American stereotype as somebody that's spoiled and entitled, gets to a foreign country and acts like a turd instead of trying to assimilate and be more sensitive to things, but really, the Ugly American in this book, as it's used here, is meant to be a compliment to people like Homer Atkins that are actually willing to get their hands dirty and try to help under the tab, presidential politics, we read lasting impacts in the Kennedy administration. Included President Kennedy's National Physical fitness program, his statement of America's willingness to bear any burden in the third world, the founding of the Peace Corps, the buildup of American special forces and an emphasis on counterinsurgency tactics in fighting communists in South Vietnam. According to the British documentary filmmaker Adam Curtis, Senator and future US President John F Kennedy was gripped by the ugly American in 1960 he and five other opinion leaders bought a large advertisement in the New York Times saying that they had sent copies of the novel to every US Senator because its message was so important. President Lyndon Baines Johnson made reference to the term Ugly American in his great society speech to a 1964 University graduating class, and it was by then, used as a pejorative expression for generally offensive behavior by Americans abroad. Senator Hubert Humphrey first introduced a bill in Congress in 1957 for the formation of a Peace Corps aimed primarily at development in the third world. But it did not meet with much enthusiasm, and the effort failed. The Ugly American was published the following year. Senator Kennedy first mentioned the idea of creating a Peace Corps during his campaign for president in 1960 and in March 1961 two months after his inauguration, Kennedy announced the establishment of the Peace Corps. Kennedy and other members of the administration viewed the Peace Corps as their answer to the problems described in the ugly American now under the criticism tab, presidents, Senators and Congressmen alluded to the book or quoted from it, either as commentary or to further their objectives or to criticize it. Senator J William Fulbright, powerful Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, criticized the book from the Senate floor, declaring that it contained phony claims of incompetence and that it was a follow up to McCarthy Era treason charges. Historian Daniel emmerwall wrote that the book promoted the idea that Americans, if they conducted themselves properly, could solve the problems of the Third World. I would say that's a better criticism. I mean, yes, you're talking about a work of fiction. So things have been simplified. Characters have been reduced down to basic qualities, they're not completely fleshed out. I get that, calling it McCarthy Era treason and that sort of thing, I think is being a bit over the top. But yes, I I can understand this criticism of it's too simplistic and also arrogant in its own way, to suggest that if Americans just conducted themselves properly, they could solve all the problems of the Third World. I feel like that's a valid criticism. Under the tab, long term impact. The title entered the English language for a type of character portrayed in the book. The book is one of a very few works of fiction that had a profound and lasting impact on American political debate, along with such works as Uncle Tom's Cabin and the jungle in 2009 an article appeared in The New York Times Book Review about the book's impact since it was first published. The reviewer wrote that the book's enduring resonance may say less about its literary merits than about its failure to change American attitudes today, as the battle for hearts and minds has shifted to the Middle East, we still can't speak sarcanese, a 2011 book on Arab American relations took its tight title in part from the book, recalled the sense of diplomatic bungling in Southeast Asia portrayed in the book, and pointed out that many Arab commentators likened American mistakes in Iraq to those in Southeast Asia. End Quote, so the more things change, the more they stay the same. I mean, I don't feel like foreign policy has improved by leaps and bounds. To be honest with you, I feel like we live in a time of one war, one conflict after another, after another after another. And even though we're told that the average American is supposed to benefit from those things we don't the poor continue to get poor. You have more and more people getting squeezed out of the middle class. Now, the people in the upper upper echelons continue to engorge themselves, and it's like a tube of toothpaste. If you're trying to get that last little bit out of the tube, you just roll. Tube up and up and up until the last remaining bit of toothpaste comes out at the top. Remember the people at Oxfam went to Davos in 2023 and told the hyper elites who had engorged themselves in the pandemic? Hey, by the way, you guys engorged yourself during the pandemic. Look at all of these people that lost money, and then you guys made the money that they lost. In that regard, it is what Gordon Gekko talks about in Wall Street, a zero sum game, somebody wins and somebody loses. So we're told over and over again that these wars are going to benefit john and jane Q public, but they don't. They engorge the defense contractors and the weapons manufacturers. Oh, and then the stockholders of those companies, who are very often the same war hawks that are trying to convince everybody else that it's us versus them or the America needs to be the world's police officer. We need to get involved in every dust up and send our weapons, weapons, weapons, weapons. It's what it's always about. It's never about. How could we potentially diffuse this situation? Like, would it not be a matter of national security to say maybe we need to keep our nose out of this completely, or maybe it's a matter of national security for us to defuse the situation and take the temperature down. Send in people of peace to help work this out. Look for diplomacy, as opposed to weapons, weapons, weapons, weapons. I feel like this book has held up through the years, because it's still giving us an important message, and I feel like for me, thinking about what it means in truly modern times today, in this era, not only do we not have a major change in foreign policy, but we also still have this arrogant attitude of America will always be the supreme leader. America will always be a superpower. English will always be the most common language, and the dollar will always be the world's reserve currency. We're just too powerful. It's almost like America has become too big to fail in our own minds. If you think back to the Great Recession, that was the line of bullshit that we were given. These companies are too big to fail. If we don't bail them out, then the whole economy is going to go down the toilet and everybody will suffer. So it's better for us to just slap them on the wrists and say, You were naughty and you sinned. Don't do it again. We're going to bail you out, but you need to learn moral hazard from this bailout somehow magically and then go and send no more. It's really like our whole freaking country has become that way. America itself has become too big to fail. But it's like, well, who the hell is going to bail us out when all of this goes south? A point to ponder. If you have access to a good library, please check out the ugly American. It is worth your time and effort. I do believe stay a little bit crazy and I will see you in the next episode. 

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