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

[n.dahlheim at mchsi.com]

I must say that I think the hubris of imperialism and the fact that this country has rarely suffered on the 
scale of, say, France, Germany, Russia and the other Eueropean powers who wrecked the whole continent 
and then had ballistic missiles pointed at their throats for half a century.  After that much carnage, it's 
easy to see why they grew up and why we are still thrashing around like the bully or the juvenile 
delinquent.

Nick


----------------------  Original Message:  ---------------------
From:    "John W." <jbw292002 at gmail.com>
To:      "Morton K. Brussel" <brussel at uiuc.edu>
Cc:      Peace-discuss at anti-war.net, "C. G. Estabrook" <galliher at uiuc.edu>
Subject: Re: [Peace-discuss] What Carl's highly AWARE average American will be watching at the movie theater this weekend...
Date:    Thu, 10 Jul 2008 06:08:42 +0000

> 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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