[Peace-discuss] What Carl's highly AWARE average American will be watching at the movie theater this weekend...

[John W.]

On Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 10:41 PM, Morton K. Brussel <brussel at uiuc.edu> wrote:

If Americans are inherently different politically (more apathetic or
> ignorant) from the French, Scandinavians, Italians, Germans, English,
> Russians, etc., how has that come to be? Or is it that all those are equally
> ignorant or apathetic? Is it just that our culture is deficient, or is it
> just that our political system (including education and media) has essential
> defects? Are all masses equally asses?
> --mkb
>

This is a superb question, and it's one that I spend a fair amount of time
thinking about.  A related question is this:  How is it that most of the
European nations have "evolved", in the years since World War II, to the
point where they recognize that issues of fundamental social justice are
important enough to incorporate into their constitutions and into their
social fabric?  It seems to me that post World War II there was a fork in
the road, and the western European nations took the fork while we in the
U.S. remained on the same path of "rugged individualism" and military
dominance that we had been on for two centuries and more.  I don't think
that most Europeans (or the citizens of many other nations, for that matter)
ARE as apathetic or ignorant as Americans; I think they're more engaged in
civic life, or at least in thinking about it and keeping themselves
informed.  That presumes, of course, a certain minimal level of both
literacy and freedom of speech.

I'm often struck by the fact that the BBC, which if I understand it
correctly is OWNED by the British government, manages to be more critical of
its government than are our own privately-owned media.  I'm often struck by
the fact that the British Prime Minister, far from hiding behind the cloak
of "executive privilege",  must often defend his policies vigorously through
debate in the House of Commons before an international television audience.

It appears to me that our culture and political system have essential and
profound defects, as you put it, but that begs the question as to why we
have failed to recognize them and remedy them - why, in fact, we as a people
are so doggedly determined to perpetuate them.  The answer seems to have
something to do with the hubris of empire.  Granting that what I'm about to
say is an oversimplification, it strikes me that World War II taught the
European nations something about the futility of imperialism, at least
through military means, while Americans seem to have derived the opposite
impression, an impression of their own essential infallibility and
inevitable role as "the world's superpower".  So we put our resources into
being the world's superpower, while the European nations put the bulk of
their resources into their citizens.  And ordinary Americans seem to have,
by and large, bought into the myth of the United States as the World's
Superpower, with all that that entails.

I'm open to the correction and/or supplementation of my ideas.  It certainly
seems to be a discussion worth having.  It is, as I say, an excellent
question, Mort.

John




> On Jul 9, 2008, at 10:26 PM, John W. wrote:
>
> On Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 9:54 PM, C. G. Estabrook <galliher at uiuc.edu> wrote:
>
> The American ruling class is as alive to the danger that democracy poses as
>> their ancestors who drafted the anti-democratic constitution of 1787 were.
>> (See, e.g., the famous 1975 Trilateral Commission study, The Crisis of
>> Democracy -- the crisis being that there was too much democracy around,
>> growing out of the '60s.)
>>
>> And it's no accident that the media (including film) are as asinine and
>> stupefying as they are.  (See, e.g., Frances Stonor Saunders' wonderful book
>> about how the CIA spent a great deal of money to dumb down culture -- The
>> Cultural Cold War: The CIA and the World of Arts and Letters.)
>>
>> But if one wanted to disparage democracy, one of the best ways to do it
>> would be to convince people that all around them were fools and poltroons.
>> --CGE
>
>
> It's been convincingly demonstrated in many quarters, Carl, that democracy
> only works if you have an engaged and reasonably educated populace.
> Americans may be educable in the fundamentals of democracy, but they haven't
> yet demonstrated that they're particularly interested in it.
>
> Enjoy Hellboy II.
>
>
>
>
>> n.dahlheim at mchsi.com wrote:
>>
>
>>  John,
>>
>>
>>>   I just cannot help but think that the masses really are asses...
>>> Doesn't the entertainment just become more asanine and stupeifying?  The
>>> culture just continues its inexorable and continued decline....
>>>
>>>     Best,
>>>     Nick
>>>
>>>
>>> ----------------------  Original Message:  ---------------------
>>> From:    "John W." <jbw292002 at gmail.com>
>>> To:      Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at anti-war.net>
>>> Subject: [Peace-discuss] What Carl's highly AWARE average American will
>>> be watching at the movie theater this weekend...
>>> Date:    Thu, 10 Jul 2008 01:01:26 +0000
>>>
>>>  Ooops....it's that damned conspiracy of the media to manufacture consent
>>>> again!!!  :-(
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> *Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008)*
>>>
>>>
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