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Can America Be Salvaged?
I really don't know what to say anymore, about a country in which proposing a new and better version of corporate-plunder masquerading as national healthcare gets you burned in effigy for being a socialist stooge by gun-toting angry mobs.
I really don't know what to say anymore, about a country in which the same people who hate you for being a socialist simultaneously hate you for being a fascist.
I really don't know what to say anymore, about a country in which angry mobs of supposed anti-socialist demonstrators scream at their congressional representatives to "keep your government hands off my Medicare".
I really don't know what to say anymore, about a country in which claims that the government is going to start killing off seniors are taken seriously by tens of millions of people.
I really don't know what to say anymore, about a country in which people are all worked up about government czars, but sat silently while the Bush administration destroyed the Bill of Rights and used a thousand signing statements to write Congress out of the Constitution.
I really don't know what to say anymore, about a country in which deficits have all of a sudden become the source of enormous anger among people who said nothing about them previously, as the tax cuts for the wealthy, off-budget wars based on lies, and unfunded prescription drug Big Pharma giveaway transmogrified the biggest surplus in American history into the biggest deficit ever.
I really don't know what to say anymore, about a country in which politicians can rant incessantly about other peoples' sexual morality, get caught screwing prostitutes, and then still be reelected to the highest ranks of government by trashing the president.
I could go on and on, but what would be the point? The positions of so many Americans on so many policy questions are truly inane - yes, for sure. I wish that was all that concerned me. But it all goes so much deeper than that.
The entire premise of a self-ruling democracy rests on some reasonable degree of rationality and some reasonable degree of an ability to discriminate between real information and falsehoods. Today's American democracy seems to lack these qualities in increasingly abundant amounts.
And yet it goes deeper than that still. The entire premise of a society - any society, democracy or not - is that it possesses a certain degree of shared community, a ‘we-ness' that transcends narrower tribalisms and self-interest in critical ways and at critical moments. That too has unraveled of late. Think of the nice white men with shotguns blocking the exit from flooded New Orleans during the worst moments of Hurricane Katrina.
Looking at America today, it all feels so very past tense to me.
In some very profound ways, this is not the place nor the time you'd expect the implosion of an established democracy and society. To be an American is to be a member of the richest and most powerful nation on Earth. If they're not whining so much in Botswana these days, who the hell are we to?
On the other hand, though, it makes a lot of sense. The moment correlates precisely with the peaking of the empire several decades ago, now further exacerbated as the deep wells of remedial pillaging - our credit cards, our mortgages, our children, a rising Chinese middle class, brown people everywhere, the environment - have disappeared entirely, with nothing but despair and moral dessication left in their place. Moreover, the folks most aggrieved and most estranged from their senses of late are precisely the people who were bought off of their sanity at every turn with the latest form of bigotry du jour, used to assuage their ever-diminishing sense of relative social status. Over and over again, the people I see on my television screen acting absolutely and incoherently stupid in their senseless rage seem to be little more than fat, white, Southern, sixty-something racist good ol' boys.
Well past their sell-by dates, they've of course gotten tremendous help cranking it up again. That's no surprise. I'm not sure these crackers are smart enough to even be stupid without coaching. As Lyndon Johnson used to say: "Couldn't pour piss out of a boot if the instructions were written on the heel". Lucky for them, those marching orders come from a host of politicians and media whores who, in an even moderately just world, would receive a wee taste of Abu Ghraib in repayment for the reckless destructiveness they've fomented upon the always precarious edifice of liberal democracy. There's special place in Hell reserved for these shouters of "Fire!" in crowded theaters, these bloodsucking bottom-feeders, especially since they are being paid so handsomely for their faithful service as prolocutors for predators.
I doubt anyone has ever reminded us of this ongoing danger more eloquently than did the famous American diplomat, George Kennan, when he wrote: "The counsels of impatience and hatred can always be supported by the crudest and cheapest symbols; for the counsels of moderation, the reasons are often intricate, rather than emotional, and difficult to explain. And so the chauvinists of all times and places go their appointed way: plucking the easy fruits, reaping the little triumphs of the day at the expense of someone else tomorrow, deluging in noise and filth anyone who gets in their way, dancing their reckless dance on the prospects for human progress, drawing the shadow of a great doubt over the validity of democratic institutions. And until peoples learn to spot the fanning of mass emotions and the sowing of bitterness, suspicion, and intolerance as crimes in themselves - as perhaps the greatest disservice that can be done to the cause of popular government - this sort of thing will continue to occur."
Hear, hear. Sorry to say it, George, but you're lucky to have died when you did. It's only gotten so much worse in just the last few years.
And while the O'Reillys and the Reagans of our time have joined forces to turn "the counsels of impatience and hatred" into an entire political party and more, they are, of course, mere conscious tools of the Big Green Greed that ultimately drives the system. They know they are prostitutes, but the money's good. And so is the fame and adulation - no small thing for these sorry critters. Look at the Becks and Limbaughs and Gingriches of this country. Were there ever people in this world with so much self-esteem ground to be made up from the transparent ostracization of their younger days? Were there ever individuals so obviously motivated by retribution against everyone who treated them like the jerks they were in their formative years? Was there ever a walking warning sign more brightly flashing about the costs to society of youthful bullying? I'm sorry Glenn, I'm sorry Rush, I'm sorry Newt. I know when you were younger you were pudgy fast-talking smart-ass petulant pricks who made up in wedgies from bigger guys what you never got in attention from attractive women. But isn't about time you stopped taking it out on America? I'm sorry you got your ass kicked on a weekly basis, but I didn't do it.
Though I'm thinking about it now.
It takes a willful act of ignorance (something we see a lot of these days) not to perceive the United States as the latest in history's falling empires. Like Rome, the true contribution of its sometimes great ideas has ultimately been substantially buried under the rubble of its ill-fated decision to greedily grasp the nettle of empire. Unlike Rome, this puppy is taking decades, rather than centuries, to collapse.
Empires come and go, of course. Rising and falling is what they do. It's their job in life. What is truly frightening to contemplate, however, is what happens when an empire falls in the era when technological capacity absolutely dwarfs political maturity? And what happens if that occurs not just anywhere, but in arguably the most immature, self-serving and self-indulgent of developed societies on the planet?
The only model we have for this so far is the Soviet implosion of two decades ago, though even that is only a partial representation, since the Soviet bear was no match for the American boor in piggishness. Even so, that history does not bode so well, outward appearances notwithstanding. We should all collectively be walking on eggshells thinking about the tens of thousands of strategic and smaller tactical nuclear warheads that may or may not be accounted for. Nor is the renascent and rather irredentist new Russia necessarily a pretty picture either, a fact that may become increasingly relevant in the coming decades. Still, all this noted, the Russian imperial collapse has to be said to have been relatively uneventful, closer to the post-war British and French experiences than to any cataclysmic end of days scenario.
I wish I could be so sanguine about the implosion of the American empire. In one sense, it was probably a good thing for the Russians to go through this experience with only a fake democracy and repressed civil liberties in place, and some serious if undemocratic quasi-dictators running the show. It might have saved the country from the worst elements seizing control. I don't much care for the product of American democracy and political discourse as things now stand. Imagine how it might all turn out under real duress, with the Glenn Becks and Rush Limbaughs further egging on both the angry rabble on the ground and the Sarah Palins in the political sphere.
I'm tired of overused Nazi references these days, but the most salient analogy has to be to 1930s Weimar Germany. The economy is broken, the political system is broken, the public is struggling, angry and full of nationalistic rage at their country's failure to possess all the riches and glory it and they deserve. And so say bombastic demagogues, backed by a small army of street thugs, and offering both a scapegoat and a solution. Given a democratic election in which voters can choose between a dynamic, assured and energetic salvation figure, on the one hand, and an enervated, inept and passionately passionless status quo government, on the other, it's not hard to figure what will happen. And what did.
Above all, what is wrong with this country (and what therefore inevitably becomes the world's problem too - just ask the people of Iraq), is not so much the vicious thugs who would just as soon vacuum it free of any piece of wealth they can get into their hands as take their next breath. Nor is it the existentially petrified Confederate Crackers for Jesus who find that hate and violence is a pretty decent emollient to mitigate for the moment their otherwise completely debilitating fears.
That stuff always happens, though admittedly not often quite like this.
What's really wrong is the near total absence of prominent political figures willing to sacrifice much of anything to protect their country from these depredations.
It's been so long now that I've forgotten for sure, but didn't they used to call that patriotism?
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151 Comments so far
Show AllVery good article! The two party system is effectively done with. The question is how long will it take a progressive movement to organize politically and socially to build a movement on a large scale that will educate the public, fight MSM and Fox, and challenge elections.
Quite the contrary. The "two-party" system is just getting started.
What planet are you on--I'd like a ticket there.
Sadly, you may have a point, Progressive101. Since many Democrats are now financed by the same corporate interests as the GOP, any notion that the Dems are going to stand up against those giving them money is fatuous. We have weak, disorganized, liberal progressives versus the bought-off Blue Dog Democrats, the insidious Republicans, the corporately-owned 'he said, she said' Major Media, and violent nationalistic right-wingers fired to red-faced viciousness by Big Lie propaganda.
The other Dems, except a rare few, and independents like Bernie Sanders, are twiddling their thumbs while the right-wing encourages hatred and anger -- I think the GOP plan is clear by now: Regardless of what Republican pols and their Fox News Bloviators say publicly, they want there to be violence and social discord -- 'divide and conquer' -- and if they can touch off even a low-rate race war -- say with blacks and whites exchanging gunfire on the streets of a few major US cities, or some raping and rioting -- then they can dust off Nixon's old 'Law and Order' playbook from the '60s: Elect Republicans Before The Whole Thing Goes To Hell. (Hitler, BTW, made some similar moves after his brownshirts instigated street violence and scapegoated anarchists and socialists for causing it. And, of course, there was the infamous Reichstag fire, committed by the Nazis and blamed on the Communists, and the notorious Kristallnacht, the pretext for an antisemitic crackdown on Jews.)
As John Avlon notes at The Daily Beast:
"Obama Derangement Syndrome is establishing itself as a potent political force, able to rally tens of thousands of citizens to the Washington Mall after Glenn Beck’s call. Joe Wilson’s outburst isn’t an embarrassment of incivility to these folks; it is a rallying cry for an army of useful idiots. But Republicans will soon find that they cannot contain or moderate this strain —- while Democrats won’t understand what hit them."
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-09-14/becks-beast-unleashed/?cid=hp:mainpromo4
This is the slimy path for a Palin/Wilson ticket to win in 2012, as laughable and ludicrous as that sounds now. After all, Hitler was a joke as well in 1930.
H.L. Mencken had it pegged: "No one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public."
What the GOP doesn't realize is that such stupidity never goes unpunished -- American will be in full collapse in ten years, with the money from Asia that has been keeping us afloat cut off, the dollar worthless, and the American Empire dead in the water.
My advice: Learn Chinese.
As Georges Clémenceau is reported to have said, long before the current, precipitous decline: "The United States of America has gone from barbarism to decadence without the usual intervening period of civilization."
clovis: good quote
clemenceau also stated that "war was too important to be left up to the generals" and when i hear the prez deferring to mccrystal and petreus i often think of him
...and Charles DeGaul stated in 1940, after the French defeat/Nazi invasion: "Les discours ont perdu la France." ("Nice speeches were the downfall of France.") Think about it: empty rhetoric, verbal fiddling while Rome burns, speeches to console the masses -- while the barbarians are INSIDE the gates...
I think about DeGaul's line while listening/observing Obama-the-silver-tongued warrior.
Nice speeches, but utter paralysis against the dark forces. Watching the decline of USA/fall of Rome from my safe little corner of France, I can only wonder (as do my french friends)when (not if) the Orwellian tragi-comedy aka USA will self-destruct. Good riddance. And good luck to individuals/groups such as those voices of the CD community, for YOU will need to rise from the ashes and create a better model. Stay strong, stay vigilant...and stay alive.
I don't really know what to say anymore--except get off your lazy butts and take back our country before those who would do us even more harm do. DC 1st week of next month( that's only a couple of weeks away) BE there or prove you don't care! This will be the last chance we get. Veterans muster first to establish security(123)--Citizens by the (456)Let's do this and get it done now.
When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
2.1 We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
2.2 That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
2.3 Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.
2.4 But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.
2.5
Intereting idea save that if vets 'establish security', given that most military types are to the 'right', we're very likely not to get anything resembling a democracy but a military dictatorship. Those who hold power seldom surrender it.
If what one means by 'can America be saved' one means that we can return to the founding values, I'd say that we never left them. The 'founders' established a purposely crippled system where the more important and wealthy men, being obviously superior, should rule the rest of us and any questioning of that system should lead to execution, or as old Sam Adams put it: "In monarchy the crime of treason may admit of being pardoned or lightly punished, but the man who dares rebel against the laws of a republic ought to suffer death." Shortly after this the Alien and Sedition Act was passed. So much for going back to the original intent. As an aside, if our original values were so superior why is it that not one 'new' nation has adopted them since?
If what one means by 'can America be saved' one means that we can establish new values, then whose values should we establish?
Personally I think the concept of America is dying, and the mindless violence we've seen in the last 50 years are but its death throes. It will probably last a lot longer since it is such a huge edifice, but it will eventually fall into the inconsequence it's practiced values so richly deserves.
"except get off your lazy butts..." Gotcha. DC,1st week of next month. For those of us who are broke, but still want to do what you say, please post your credit card #.
There ya go! Pretty much sums it up!
this is not as funny as some of david's more recent posts, i appreciate his humor, but then the subject is not always funny
to me the hub of it is: "What's really wrong is the near total absence of prominent political figures willing to sacrifice much of anything to protect their country from these depredations"
david also talks about the mood of the people and quite correctly cpmpares the current situation to the fall of rome and more recently the weimar republic
from wiki:
"The Weimar Republic is the name given by historians to the parliamentary republic established in 1919 in Germany to replace the imperial form of government, named after Weimar, the place where the constitutional assembly took place. Its official name was still Deutsches Reich (German Empire)"
the weimar comparison is accurate because it was characterized by friction between the left and the right, not unlike america today. there were regualar gun battles in the streets between factions: workers, socialists, fascists, ww1 veterans
the parliament was deadlocked and the chancelors were appointed and were unable to maintain the parliament. hitler came to power after the government fell twice in the space of a few months, with around 40% of the popular vote. we all know wwhere that one went
like fat boy limbaugh, glen peckerhead and fig newton gingy hitler villainized his opponents - jews, gays, slavs, commmunists etc and used the newly developing field of propaganda and media subversion to achieve his goal of becoming a fascist dictator
like hitler, fat boy limbaugh, glen peckerhead and fig newton gingy are all crazy and ignorant - never stopped him though
especially when they are preahing to other crazies
so david asks if the country can be saved
i ask should it?
Well, on the bright side, this absence of comitted politicians cuts both ways. We may see nothing but compromised, sold-out, corrupt incompetents among what passes for the left and moderates, but fortunately, on the right there is no one with the speaking and organizing abilities of Hitler either.
pj: true enough - if cheney had an ounce of hitler's magnetism and speaking ability we'd all be in the fema prisons right now
I suppose that is the difference between a cultist and a gangster - Hitler lead a death cult, and Cheney is a gangster - "your money or your life!"
That's the question: Should it?
The American Experiment appears to be near its finish and it's not going to be pretty. Why prolong the agony?
If the environment disintegrates as expected, there is no way the American Empire, which is essentially what we have now, will be able to survive without destroying the rest of humanity in order to protect our precious, and expensive, way of life.
And when, or if, the people of the World realize what We have done to Them, what do you think their response should be?
I don't exactly enjoy going down with a sinking ship, but if that's the only to kill this beast, then so be it.
I love DMG's writing. He's right on the mark. I am very grateful to be observing this from the outside as someone who is not American. It seens there is a cultural chaos that keeps American citizens intentionally ignorant. In Canada the history of the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) has been deeply implicated in nation building -- and rightly so. The fight is on to defend it from the corporate predators and free market maniacs. There does not seem to be any sense of educating US citizens as a nation through such quality media.
"There does not seem to be any sense of educating US citizens as a nation through such quality media."
Why would the cowboy want to educate his cattle?
very enjoyable, but this line threw me:
"What's really wrong is the near total absence of prominent political figures willing to sacrifice much of anything to protect their country from these depredations."
I don't believe successful revolution is possible via political processes...too dangerous...
we were handed a vision of life as protected, working consumers...success was what generated the most money, which purchased the most and best things, including properties and residences...
all of this activity was predicated upon the destruction of the natural world, the manufacturing of products, and the disposal of the resultant waste...
this was done, intentionally, with a minimal amount of physical and intellectual exposure to the populace, so as not to confuse the process of purchasing and throwing away with moral or ethical complications...
with a religion preaching delayed gratification after death, monogamous heterosexual relationships and human ownership, sans responsibility, of the living planet, the notion of law, politics and property taking precedent over natural impulse, and the establishment of controlled, enforced educational and informational systems, the stage has been perfectly set by those wishing to generate wealth at the expense of nature and exploited labor without ramification, even as they, lawfully, reserved the use of incarceration and deadly force as their justified response to dissent...
the ultimate irony, of course, is that humans are nature, physically and literally...we are the earth, the earth is us...are we just too stupid to get this? I don't think so...
when the toxicity of our domestic industry was revealed, laws were passed to force improvements that would lessen negative environmental impact...many factories and jobs moved elsewhere on the planet to continue their poisoning, and the economic balances of our human world shifted...
while we debate other issues, the poisoning goes on, day after day, out of sight and mind, while we buy, use and dispose, and the planet is finally showing signs of exhaustion...
the only way forward is a complete reversal of technological and philosophical direction, a reorientation to the vitality of the harmonic interplay of life, and a fervent effort at restoration of natural balances...I don't know if we're too late already, but there is no other alternative that offers hope but a rejection of chemical activity, a removal of industrial infrastructure, and a repairing of damage and encouraging of animal and vegetable diversity...good luck...
the body must regain standing comparable to the mind...
Thank you for a bit of sanity, but I just don't see a way through, unfortunately. DO you?
I agree with everything Mr. Green says and would like to add three experiences that validate his thoughts.
I went to my dentist to have my teeth cleaned. That is a new office carefully and expensively created for maximum beauty, ambiance, and the latest in equipment. The people who work there always have made known their great concern for patient comfort. So on this occasion I walked in only to find a large TV filling the room with noise. And that noise was from Fox. So I walked up to the counter and very politely said, "If you ever take a poll, please put me down as not liking TV in waiting rooms." Up jumped the woman behind the counter to shout and scream at me. I kept my composure through all her hurled rantings and soon was taken in to the dental hygienist, who was pleasant. However, the rest of the office personnel, including the dentist who had heretofore always joked and laughed, wouldn't look at me or talk to me. It was clear I was being given the silent treatment and that I should keep my mouth shut.
After two months I decided I could not and would not return, although I had gone to this dental practice my entire adult life, always paid in full at time of service, and never made any trouble. So I sent a short letter to cancel my next appointment and to mark my file closed. As soon as the letter was received, the same woman called me in her sweetest voice to ask what was the matter. I was so taken aback I didn't know what to say because I refused to make a scene. Nevertheless, she kept at me until she had thoroughly squished me by her remarks, which included total denial of the incident and saying I was one of their favorites.
Second, my very nice pharmacist now also has Fox TV. His chairs have been rearranged into a straight row directly in front of the TV, giving the appearance of children in school learning their lessons. Here, too, I made the same comment. The lady at the counter looked at me like I had rocks in my head and said nothing. The pharmacist said he needs something to pass the time for waiting clients and all the other channels are biased. I told him they all lie, but he was different in that he said, "You'll still talk to me, won't you?"
Not too long after that I was having my car serviced while I waited. They, too, have a TV; but it was turned off. Two others were waiting, and absent background TV noise we talked of various experiences and viewpoints. Had the TV been on, we would not even have looked at the others. In contrast, this was a delightful experience.
Thus I consider the dentist to have destroyed his soothing ambiance, the pharmacist to be grossly misled, and the car agency in its plainness to be the one of the three that is beautiful, because it doesn't intrude upon the privacy of its clients and leaves them free to read, talk, or just sit in peace.
This is a sad commentary. No one got hurt, but it shows how easily intelligent, educated, professional persons can be so thoroughly and easily indoctrinated.
Thanks for an essay that echoes my sentiments and helps me to understand I am not paranoid about what is happening in our country that no longer provides feelings of comfort and safety.
It's so funny that you recounted your experience with Fox News at the dentist. A very similar thing happened to me just last week, on Sept. 11th, in fact. I got to the dentist first thing in the morning and at first the TV in the waiting room was off. But when I came back from using the rest room, there was Fox News, blaring into the waiting room. Some bimbo on Fox was asking a GOP politician, "why haven't you Republicans gone after Obama the way you should?"
Now, I've been in many doctors' offices and Fox News is always the station that's on in their waiting rooms. And I've always just sat there and tried to tune it out. But this time, I just couldn't take it. I jumped up and muttered, "I can't LISTEN to this propaganda!" and asked one of the employees if she could put it on another channel. She asked what channel it was on, and I said Fox News. One of the other employees, an African American woman, smiled and rolled her eyes (I sensed that she shared my pain). I begged the employee to please, put on another station - some mindless talk show, the Today Show, anything but that. She changed the station to the local news, which was showing a 9/11 ceremony at Ground Zero. And I instantly was able to relax.
What occurred to me was that the employee and the woman sitting next to me in the waiting room (whose disapproval of my outburst I sensed) have absolutely no clue that in doctors' waiting rooms all over the country, we are daily being fed right wing propaganda. How sad.
George Orwell called it the telescreen.
Certainly, behind most this incoherent right-wing nuttiness is the corporate electronic media, which in it's efforts to play the US masses like a violin, keeps changing the music sheets in the middle of the performance as it needs for maintenance of profit change.
I asked about this when I encountered early-morning FOX tv in an otherwise tranquil seaside resort lobby...seems there were financial arrangements dictating the tv be on, and that FOX be the programming shown...it is not by accident, or preference, but by contract...
Almost without exception in every enviroment where a TV is in public view I observe either Fox, CNN or one of many sports channels. Many conversations I hear begin with 'Did you see on Fox and Friends'......for 8 years I heard how that to criticise ANYTHING 'our President' said was unpatriotic, to be unsupportive of 'the War' once it had started was 'unAmerican'.....to be unsupportive of ANYTHING the Prez 'decided' was to give support to 'our enemies'. Where is that unquestioning and 'patriotic' support of the President now, just because 'he is President' we MUST support him was the mantra....odd how those same voices raised in 'patriotic support' for Bush are not raised in support for the current occupant (not that I seriously suggest they should)just because we should all rally around him. On the right nothing much changes as 'the left' (such as it is these days!) moves past 'the center' and slithers incrementaly, subtly ever rightwards!
I started experiencing this right after 9/11, which suddenly television screens started popping up in all the banks. I protested, expressed my preference for silence, etc., etc., to no avail. When one turned up in my doctor's office and I protested, I was pointed to a tiny side room where I could wait in silence.
It's interesting to read, in one of the other replies to this post, that she was told the televisions are contracted and require the showing of Fox. My God, 1984, 1984, 1984......
Keep protesting, keep quitting these banks, doctors, dentists' offices. Make it hurt them in the pocket book, it's the only thing that can possibly make a difference.
It seems more then just a little bit likely that FOX paid for that Dentists TV and they pay for the Cable feed into his office.
Thus they feel any viewer is bought and paid for. You are OBLIGATED to be sppon fed that propoganda.
A Clever tactic on their part.
There's a gizmo called TV-B-Gone® that turns off TV sets.
I won't copy the link to their site here, but just Google it.
I've never seen it in use, but AFAIK it works as advertised; it sounds like an answer to your prayer.
Yes, it only affects the symptom, not the cause, but frankly I'd rather watch receptionists running around trying to figure out why the TV turned itself off than engage in a confrontation.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Re TV-B-Gone®
As a surreptitiously happy owner of one of these little peace makers, I can heartily recommend it. Mrs. T no longer dreads her doctor visits---a covert push of the button, and she's free to read, work her crossword puzzle or crochet in blessed silence.
And yes, there's entertainment potential in the resulting confusion, but strangely, almost never does anybody demand that the idiot box be switched back on.
That is a touching and beautiful story.
I must invest in this wonderful product for my next trip to the States.
No, please don't come here. Sweden might be a better choice! France?....anywhere but here.
I feel your pain.....I just want to add that my experience has been that you can use
the faux news blather as a springboard to conversation with those around you, an opportunity to present the other side. You would be amazed at how many people are just as fed up as you. It is actually a lot more fun and interesting than listening to Musak or Today show drivel or mindlessly flipping through a magazine that has been handled by god knows how many viral spreading, mucous spraying patients.
The pitiful thing is how a country composed of basically good people can let a small group of greedy, selfish, fear-mongers wreck things for all of us. With the help of a compliant media, they have perfected a system of buzzwords and slogans that work well on ordinary folks that lack the time or talent to research these wild tales of doom. These same trouble-makers were the ones promoting war stickers on autos and telling us how fair and wonderful the Bush tax cuts were. It is also interesting we never saw much of the war protesters but now have a daily fare of anti-government propaganda which would have been labeled traitorous in the last administration. Go figure.
Part of the problem, as I see it, is that "basically good people" are filled with greed, fear, and selfishness, but instead of owning these faults and working to transmute them, we simple deny and repress our baser instincts. We then project this negativity on to the enemy du jour, which allows us to act out all our most noxious behaviors while believing ourselves to be "basically good people." ("I wouldn't have acted badly if it weren't for you," and all that.)
USAmericans need to recognize that our shit stinks just as much as that of Arabs, Commies, etc., and that the work of transformation (whether personal, cultural, national, or whatever), while much more difficult than denial, is actually the only way to become the people we already think we are.
I find it a bit odd that Mr. Green not once uses the word "corporation" or something like "power elite".
The Kennan quote is interesting, too, as Kennan was a terrible elitist, thinking that the people are incapable of self-government and policy should be decided by a council of experienced "experts". This gets to the crux of the problem.
Those "experts" are as corruptible, self-serving, and capable of fooling themselves as any gun-toting right winger, probably more so. If they are incapable of distinguishing the amoral and suicidal rapaciousness of corporations and if they are comfortable with how the corporatocracy has systematically devastated the minds and souls of citizens and colonized public culture...well, they are nothing more than the "best and brightest" who brought us Vietnam, etc.
I agree that the violent ignorance is appalling and dangerous, but let's talk about the real causes.
"Prominent political figures" feed at the trough of the corporatocracy. We certainly do need leadership, but we need true populist leadership that cuts through all the excuses and diversions to the core of the matter.
Good points. The incoherence of the Mr. Green's "crackers" is just the same incoherence of corporate America - decrying "socialistic big government" when it does anything to assist the worker or the greater society, praising it or more often, just quietly approving, when the similar interventions help their interests.
Can America be salvaged? No. Give it up. Join us defectors that have moved north. The US is lost cause. Sorry.
Working on it at this very moment.
I moved south, instead. Cold doesn't agree with me.
I have to say that the lost cause of the US needs to fold its tent very soon, while there is still something left for us Native folks to salvage of Turtle Island.
"Can America Be Salvaged?"
Of course it can and will be. The system devised under our Constitution almost guarantees it. And real Capitalism pays for it.
I am glad Mr. Green points out three important things. The absurd comparions to Germany that are nothing more than surface similarities which anyone familiar with the history of the time already knows. And how tired they are.
Secondly that its not the people of America that are the problem, but the leadership. And the patriotic leaders he speaks of will come forth, the question is when and who.
Thirdly how important it is to have a "degree of shared community"
I guess if its within the next 4 years those leaders will be Republicans as they are going to regain control of the government in 2010 and 2012.
Furthermore, I would seriously argue with Henry8's all to typically suburban-American failure to see the importance of shared community.
It is the atomistic suburban individuality expressed in that remark that is the heart of our ongoing demise.
"It is the atomistic suburban individuality expressed in that remark that is the heart of our ongoing demise."
Good observation. Our founding revolutionary documents lionize the individual at the expense of the community. Sounds good, but is frankly unworkable. Only hermits live alone. The French revolution's founding revolutionary documents, on the other hand, espouse fraternity, justice, and equality and select the greater community as the primary source of freedom - not the vagueries of individual action. Which is why, for all their flaws, the French have a better handle on community, and a healthier body politic than the US.
I would suggest its the freedom of the individual that it lionized, not the individual himself.
Freedom of the individual is fine, until it damages the community at large, then individual freedom should probably be de-emphacized.
Total agreement.
We can't all be supurbly educated intellectual elites you know. Some of us have to struggle along with being ordinary.
"Furthermore, I would seriously argue with Henry8's all to typically suburban-American failure to see the importance of shared community."
My failure to see the importance of shared community? I'll have to re-read, but I thought I made it quite clear that I felt it was one of the three most important things in his article.
Sorry!
For some reason, I transposed "it is" to "is it" - turning it into a depreciating rhetorical question. Need better glasses.
Not soon after that I posted a brillant reply to you and the site went down takingh my reply with it!
I'm working on another now that its back up, however it will mnot be as brillant as thinking tiores me out easily. But coming!
Jump right in! Don't ever hesitate criticize, correct or otherwise bash me about the head and sholders Rich. You always stimulate my thinking even when we disagree. More so when you are right and agree with me. :-)
I've had the same thing happen to me. What I do when I am going to write a long post is I type it into word pad or some other text editor. Then when I m ready to post it I just cut and paste into the site I am posting to.
RichM
Hopefully I'll get this one posted.
"I respect that attitude, & assure you that when I disagree with you, it's not the least bit personal."
Never ever considered that it was.
"First of all, Green does NOT say the comparisons to Germany are absurd. He says, "I'm tired of overused Nazi references these days, but the most salient analogy has to be to 1930s Weimar Germany. The economy is broken, the political system is broken, the public is struggling, angry and full of nationalistic rage..."
True, I said they were absurd. The only comparison to 1930's Weimar Germany would be that our political system is broken, but not even as bad as theirs was then. Our economy is nowhere near that level of devastation nor do we have the crippling inflation they had. Not to say we won't if this bunch has their way. But Weimar is a bad comparison.
Maybe I went overboard because I am absolutely sick to death of the silly and absurd comparisons to Nazi Germany, Hitler and all the rest. You'd think some folks never cracked a history book. Americans are full of rage all right. My guess would be over 70% are more than pissed at government, especially the present administration and Congress, but not like the German people in the 20's and 30's.
"- The "most salient analogy" part means he DOES actually believe the comparisons have considerable merit. The "overused Nazi references" part indicates that he's emotionally tired of hearing these comparisons, but not that he necessarily thinks they're false."
"Second, you claim "Of course it [America] can and will be [salvaged]. The system devised under our Constitution almost guarantees it. And real Capitalism pays for it."
- What you're engaging in here is just faith-based cheerleading for the American Way. But as Green says, the economy is broken and the political system is broken. It's absurd to believe our Constitution "guarantees salvation," since it's been serially violated with impunity by our government for many decades."
I said almost....and the Constitution is always under attack from the right, left and even the center. From business, social engineers, government and as you say has been violated regularly. But "it takes a licking and keeps on ticking!" Sorry, couldn't help it! Seriously it has always been resilient as has our economy. well over 70% of the jobs in our country are small business's and they are hurt, not destroyed. I stopped believing in guarantees in 67.
Finally, you write, "...It's not the people of America that are the problem, but the leadership..."
"- This is a rather cliché oversimplification. You pretend "the people" can be entirely separated from "the leadership." Actually, though, the problem is in the structures that connect these two groups -- namely, the political & economic systems, and the culture. It's these things that subordinate "the people" to "the leadership," & which permit the whole country to be ruled (as has been the case for decades) by a tiny & immensely wealthy elite. In fact, it's the very capitalism that you so uncritically admire, that ensures that corporate elites can purchase the political system, & use it to further enrich themselves."
Whats wrong with a cliché? Quite often they are a cliché because they are the simple truth. Now to oversimplification, I believe that most things are not anywhere close to as complicated or involved as they are made out to be. Many times it takes two pages of BS and when its unwrapped, all that was said is "I don't think so, but I can't prove it" Also I believe most people are motivated by simple things.
There is no pretense that the American people are separated from their government, it has, and continues to ignore what they are saying.
But we agree the problem is in the structure (I think we agree), the rules and regulations that have been stripped away, the safeguard laws that have been removed year after year. I date it from Ronnie and the S&L debacle....GW suggested you could start with Nixon and Bretton Woods (could). These things have indeed allowed that "tiny & immensely wealthy elite" along with another 5% or so to pretty much gain control with the money and buy politicians.
I don't uncritically admire anything (except my wife)....Capitalism is something we haven't had for years now. This is not Capitalism. If I had to liken it to anything it would be the Robber Baron era, but not as bad....yet.
For Capitalism to work properly you MUST have safeguards like this.
Well I lost the last part again, but I fooled em...I copied it this far! Rest coming.
RichM
Last Part.
Now we come to culture. Our culture has been under attack for years for the benefit of the same goombaughs you mentioned. Our educational system has been devestated to the point that a college degree today guarantees you have the equivelent to a sixties H.S. diploma. Its been dumbed down. Think about this...at last count between 40-45% of school teachers in our country send their kids to private schools.
This is another subject entirely though so I'll stop there.
The real surprise is that these elites don't understand where their problem is coming from. I watched Pelosi today and I swear she doesn't understand why they (and she) are in trouble. She (and they) seemingly still believe their own propaganda, their own press clippings.
Now, where do I go to get my brillant award?
Peace and good cheer my friend. Fire away if need be, but I'm sure you agree with me 100%.